We outsource our marketing to an agency, and our internal marketing seat says they cannot own the weekly lead generation number because they do not control the vendor. How do we assign ownership of externalized outcomes on our Scorecard?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

You must establish one unbending rule on your Accountability Chart: you can outsource the labor, but you cannot outsource the accountability. The internal seat on your leadership team must own the outcome. If your marketing leader does not control the agency, they must manage the agency to get the required results. If they cannot do that, they do not GWC the seat.

To resolve this friction, separate the accountability for the number from the execution of the work. The internal marketing leader owns the weekly lead generation metric on the Scorecard. They must define the targets, hold the agency accountable to those targets, and report the numbers every week in your Level 10 Meeting.

If the agency misses their targets, your internal leader does not get to point fingers. They must identify the issue and present the solution, whether that means restructuring the agency contract, renegotiating deliverables, or firing the agency and finding a new vendor.

The Scorecard measures the health of your business, not the excuses of your vendors. By forcing the internal seat to own the metric, you ensure that external partners are managed with the same rigor as internal staff. This alignment is critical to build a highly predictable, scalable company that can run without the constant intervention of the owner.