How to Become Indispensable to Your Clients

No matter how much you look after your customers, every now and then a competitor has to get lucky. Having spent over a decade leading agency teams, I know how fragile client relationships can be. Even when you're delivering great work, a competitor only has to get lucky once. The agencies that survive aren't just good at campaigns, they're the ones that make themselves indispensable.

Indispensability isn't about being the cheapest, the flashiest, or even the most creative. It's about embedding yourself so deeply into a client's business that replacing you feels unthinkable. And as David Ogilvy once wrote: "If you can make yourself indispensable to a client, you will never be fired."

Here's how to make that happen with timeless advice from Ogilvy and Sharp, and modern guidance from previous agency expert, now Hike's VP of Marketing, Bryn Foweather.

Act Like You Own Their Business

Ogilvy put it simply: "Recommendations we make for our clients are the recommendations we would make if we owned their companies, without regard to our own interest."

Too many agencies fall into the trap of upselling what's profitable for them, not what's right for the client. A retainer padded with unnecessary deliverables or vanity metrics might look good in the short term, but clients see through it eventually.

Indispensable agencies think like owners. They ask: "If this was my budget, my P&L, my growth target, what would I do?" That mindset changes everything from how you pitch ideas to how you prioritise work.

Bryn Foweather reinforces this with his philosophy on positioning: retention begins before the work even starts. If you position yourself as a specialist solving a defined problem for a defined audience, your recommendations naturally carry more weight. When clients see you as the "obvious choice" for their SMB, they're less likely to shop around.

Indispensability in Practice

Being indispensable isn't about over-servicing or always saying yes. It's about being proactive, consistent, and valuable in ways that competitors can't easily replicate.

Practical ways to get there:

• Anticipate problems before they arise: Spot traffic dips before the client does. Flag an algorithm change before it bites. Recommend relevant content that needs to be created ahead of the pack.
• Deliver consistent performance: Clients forgive the occasional miss if they trust the overall trajectory. Consistency is what builds confidence.
• Go beyond the brief: If a client asks for SEO keyword research, bring them audience insights that could influence their content strategy or media buying.

The sales process starts before you've even won the business. He advises agencies to challenge briefs, ask questions and not just accept the client's stated problem, but dig deeper to uncover any deeper business issues. This shows the client from day one that you're not a supplier; you're a partner. You care about the business. You know about their small business. That's the foundation of indispensability for a small agency owner, or freelancer looking to scale.

Wire In at Every Level

One of Ogilvy's most practical warnings: "The most dangerous thing that can happen to an agency is to depend on a single personal tie with a client company… Only when the agency is wired in at every level can you hope for tenure."

Too many agencies rely on one champion inside the client company. When that person moves on, the account is suddenly vulnerable.

The fix? Build relationships wide and deep. Introduce your SEO specialists to their marketing managers. Let your finance team talk to theirs. Get your strategists in the room with their board. The more people who value your input, the harder it is to sever the tie.

This is mainly the case for bigger agencies, you can rely on multiple people. If you're a one-man or woman band, try and adopt different hats to wear, focus on where the business owner is strong and weak, and try to develop conversations in each topic area accordingly.

Foweather stresses that retention is the key to success. He encourages agencies to share feedback, and if your area of expertise can't match it, involve different specialists in solving briefs, but make them invested in the client's success, not just a transactional change. A culture of collaboration makes the agency-client relationship far more resilient.

Build a Foundation for Referrals

Ogilvy focused heavily on tenure. Foweather adds another layer: use retention as a launchpad for referrals. He recommends setting the expectation early that once you've exceeded expectations, you'll ask for introductions to new SME and small business owners.

Why does this matter for indispensability? Because referrals are proof of loyalty. A client who's willing to put their reputation on the line for you is a client who sees you as more than a supplier. And the act of asking and following up with thanks deepens the relationship even further.

The Power of Truth

Agencies sometimes fall into the habit of spinning. Dress up the numbers. Gloss over weak results. Hide behind jargon. It's understandable because nobody likes delivering bad news.

But Ogilvy's take still holds: "In the end, clients are grateful to advertising agents who tell them the truth."

Transparency builds resilience. If a campaign underperforms and you admit it quickly, explain why, and present a fix, you gain credibility. If you hide it, the client finds out anyway and now you've lost both performance and trust.

Foweather adds a tactical step here: feedback loops. He recommends formal and informal feedback channels, client surveys, satisfaction calls, or simple WhatsApp temperature check-ins and then acting on what you hear. If feedback is strong, ask for a referral. If it's critical, use it to show responsiveness and adaptability. Either way, honesty drives longevity.

Indispensability in a Competitive World

Byron Sharp was right: sometimes a competitor gets lucky. They'll have a pitch that lands perfectly, a personal connection that tips the balance, or timing that plays in their favour. You can't control luck. But you can control how secure your relationships are against it.

If you act like an owner, embed yourself across the client's business, tell the truth even when it hurts, and adopt modern practices of strong positioning, consultative selling, and feedback-driven improvement you become more than an agency. You become a partner they can't imagine replacing.

Conclusion

Competitors can get lucky. But luck doesn't sustain a relationship.

Agencies that become indispensable by acting like small business owners, wiring in at every level, embedding a collaborative culture, and telling the truth build a moat around their clients that's hard to breach.

After 12 years on the agency side, I've seen that indispensability is the best growth strategy. When you act like an owner, wire yourself in at every level, and tell the truth, retention becomes your moat. And when retention is strong, selling new services like SEO isn't a hard sell, it's a natural next step.

If you want to survive this peak season and grow into the next, don't wait until clients start looking elsewhere. Start now. Make yourself indispensable and luck won't matter.

Good luck! Let us know how you go!