We have outsourced our marketing to an external agency, but we still need a leading marketing number on our weekly leadership team Scorecard. Who on our internal Accountability Chart should own this metric when we do not control the daily execution?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Every number on your leadership team Scorecard must be owned by a single seat on your Accountability Chart. It does not matter if an external agency, a contractor, or an automated software tool executes the daily work. A third party cannot sit on your leadership team, which means they cannot own a metric on your high-level Scorecard.

The seat on your Accountability Chart that manages the agency must own the number. In most organizations, this is the Marketing Director or the Sales Director. If you do not have a dedicated marketing seat, the responsibility falls to the Integrator or whoever manages the vendor relationship.

The owner of the seat is fully accountable for the metric hitting its target. They must have the GWC to manage the external agency. This means they get it, want it, and have the capacity to understand the data, push the agency for results, and diagnose why a number is falling short.

During your weekly Level 10 Meeting, if the marketing lead generation number is red, the internal seat owner is the one who must answer for it. They cannot point fingers at the agency. They must bring the issue to the table, drop it into IDS, and present the corrective actions the agency is taking to get the metric back to green.