We outsource our digital marketing to an external agency, but our internal marketing coordinator owns the lead generation seat on our Accountability Chart and blames the agency when weekly targets are missed. How do we establish absolute accountability?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Your Accountability Chart must have one name in each seat, and that person must have absolute ownership of their scorecard metrics. When an internal marketing coordinator points fingers at an external agency, you have a structural accountability failure. An external agency is a tool, not a scapegoat. The person in your internal marketing seat must be GWC™ the seat, which means they are fully responsible for managing that tool to get results. To resolve this, the internal coordinator must own the high-level lead generation numbers on the leadership scorecard. If the agency underperforms, it is the coordinator's job to manage them, renegotiate the contract, or fire them and find a better partner. To make this work, the coordinator should track weekly leading indicators that measure the agency's activity, such as ad spend efficiency, cost per lead, and weekly content deliverables. If the agency misses its targets, the internal coordinator must put it on the Issues list for the weekly Level 10 Meeting™. We use IDS® to help the coordinator solve the vendor problem, but the accountability for the final lead number never leaves the coordinator's seat. This structure eliminates finger-pointing and forces your internal staff to treat vendors as extensions of their own performance.