What Being a Client Taught Me About Being a Better Agency Partner

A few months ago, I was hired as a Director at Ceisler Media. It’s my first agency role, but not entirely new to the agency environment. In my previous roles as Deputy Communications Director in Mayor Kenney’s office and Communications Director for Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, I worked with multiple PR and communications agencies — including Ceisler Media. 

As a client, I was always impressed by an agency’s ability to turn my random thoughts and disjointed information into a comprehensive strategy with clear messaging. Whatever I threw at them became compelling copy and creative content. And, the agency stayed on top of it all with thorough project management, which was especially helpful as I juggled crises, large-scale events and daily communications operations. 

Now, as a director at Ceisler Media, I’m applying the skills I gained from the City — and what I learned as an agency client — to serve organizations across the nonprofit, technology, economic development and real estate sectors. 

Here are five lessons I’ve carried with me.

1. Learn how your client actually operates.

Working in city government taught me that communications doesn’t happen in a vacuum. A seemingly straightforward announcement might involve multiple departments, elected officials, community stakeholders and operational realities. 

The same is true for agency clients. Before recommending a strategy, it’s important to understand how an organization works: Who needs to weigh in? What competing priorities are they managing? What sensitivities aren’t obvious from the outside? What does success look like? 

Understanding the internal environment makes us better counselors while also helping us develop recommendations that clients can realistically put into action.

2. Create order from chaos.

On the client side, I rarely had the luxury of handing an agency a perfectly organized brief. More often, I was sharing meeting notes, background documents, half-formed ideas and institutional knowledge while handling a dozen other priorities. 

That experience shapes how I work with clients now. It’s our job to ask the right questions, identify what matters and turn a flood of information into a clear strategy. Clients shouldn’t have to solve the communications challenge before bringing it to their communications agency. It’s our job to help the client find solutions and support with strategy.

3. Think beyond the deliverable. 

In city government, a press release, social post or talking point was rarely the end goal. The real objective might be recruiting lifeguards, building understanding of a major park project or maintaining trust during a crisis. 

That perspective is just as important in agency work. Before deciding what we should create, pitch or post, I ask: What are we actually trying to accomplish? 

Starting with the objective rather than the deliverable can lead to a very different — and much more effective — communications strategy.

4. Look around corners.

Government communications made me accustomed to anticipating what comes next. If we announced a policy change, what would reporters ask? How would residents feel? What would elected officials need to know? What would frontline staff need when they started receiving questions? 

Agency work requires the same discipline. Our value isn’t limited to responding to what a client asks for today. It’s helping them understand what could happen tomorrow. 

That means watching the news cycle, staying tuned to stakeholder conversations, keeping up with broader trends for opportunities or risks, and surfacing those insights to clients before they even have to ask.

5. Be the agency partner you wanted as a client.

When I worked in-house, the best agency partners felt like an extension of my team. They understood the pressures I was facing, challenged my thinking when necessary, kept projects moving and stepped in when I needed additional capacity or expertise. Most importantly, they didn’t just wait for assignments; they proactively brought ideas. 

That’s the kind of partner I try to be now. 

Moving from in-house communications to Ceisler Media has given me a new perspective on agency work, but it has also reinforced something I already knew: the best communications work starts with understanding what’s happening beyond the communications department. 

Whether you’re inside an organization or advising it from the outside, the job is ultimately the same: understand the problem, bring order to complexity and communicate in a way that moves an organization’s goals forward.