The owner of our marketing seat claims they cannot own our weekly inbound lead metric because our external marketing agency is the one that actually generates the leads. How do we handle scorecard metric ownership when the execution is outsourced to a third party?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

You cannot delegate accountability to an outside vendor. If your marketing is outsourced to an agency, your internal marketing seat owner is still fully accountable for the results. The agency is simply a resource used to achieve the target. If the agency misses the goal, your marketing leader is the one who must stand in front of the leadership team and own the red metric.

To make this work, your marketing seat owner must establish clear, weekly expectations with the external agency. The agency must provide the weekly data in time for your marketing leader to enter it into your scorecard before your Level 10 Meeting™.

If the agency cannot provide weekly data, you have a partner problem, not a scorecard problem. Your marketing leader must hold them to a strict service-level agreement.

On your scorecard, the owner column next to the inbound lead metric must list your internal marketing leader's name, not the name of the agency. This forces your internal leader to manage the vendor actively. If the numbers are consistently red, your leader must IDS® the issue and decide whether to coach the agency, renegotiate the contract, or fire them and find a better partner. Accountability stops at your Accountability Chart, never outside of it.