Above, No Single Individual’s Abigail Olivas and Sydney B, strategise on a team brief
“What does ‘talent’ look like moving forward?”, is a big question for anyone in the industry to answer. For Christine Olivas, founder of No Single Individual, who earlier this year told LBB of a mantra that “great talent comes from anywhere”, it means embracing a fluid model that understands the importance that freelancers operating as part of a bespoke ‘teamlance’ unit, can play in bolstering an agency’s capabilities and solving unique business problems.
The strategy discipline in particular has seen a notable increase in the amount of talent turning away from full-time contracted roles and stepping into freelancing. There’s a multitude of reasons for this, such as a strategist not feeling valued in their position, or being expected to work across functions that don’t necessarily correlate to their own expertise and experience.
On the other hand, there are many reasons for agencies to adopt a more flexible approach to talent. For example, an increase in project-based work with varying requirements means that agencies have to quickly and efficiently staff according to the scope of a project, or bring in talent with subject-based expertise in response to a brief.
‘Teamlancing’ therefore, comes into play for the benefit of strategists and agencies alike. It builds specialised teams of talent in response to a specific agency need or requirement, helping to solve a business problem, whilst ensuring that strategists are positioned to work to their strengths.
To find out more about the ‘teamlance’ model and how it works in practice, LBB’s Abi Lightfoot caught up with Christine, alongside independent strategy consultant and founder of Salmon Labs, Rob Estreitinho, and Jess Vahsholtz, executive director, account management at PPK.
LBB> The question of “What does talent look like moving forward?” speaks to No Single Individual’s place within the industry, as you look to change the way that people think about and utilise freelance talent. So, in your opinion, what does ‘talent’ look like in 2025 and beyond, in relation to the world of freelancing?
Christine> At No Single Individual, we are no longer using the term ‘freelancing’ as we believe that connotes an individual contractor who is looking to work gigs or projects. As independent work has evolved, particularly post-pandemic, there are so many other ways for agencies to leverage outside talent, including what we pioneered for strategy and account services: teamlancing, which means that agency needs and asks are addressed by a curated team of contractors vs. a solo resource.
The reason why this is important is that solo freelancing, while a great fit for many projects, is not the answer for all agency needs. It doesn’t have scale, and often, it faces the same limitations of a W2 employee in the same position: that is one person can only do so many things well.
LBB> There’s been a huge increase in demand for freelance strategy positions. Why do you think this has risen so considerably and there’s such a distinct need for freelancing talent in this area?
Christine> The first thing is that strategy has often been optional at agencies. It’s a discipline that is critical to the creative and innovation processes but has also at the same time been dispensable, often due to the agency’s inability to defend it or charge enough for it.
We’ve also seen the opposite: overly staffed strategy teams for an account that add bulk and restrict the creative process. In this environment, it’s not a surprise that strategists don’t feel valued. But perhaps most importantly, we’re often asking strategists to do five functions: social strategy, trend mining, storytelling, brand positioning, and quant research. This, along with a general sense of being undervalued, is absolutely a driver for the flight to freelancing. Creatives have never been expected to operate as individuals, so why should they?
Agencies, including many of our clients, who value strategy enough to think smartly about how to staff it are the ones who will win.
LBB> Jess, as an agency leader, have you encountered any challenges in staffing for strategy within today’s rapidly changing market, and if so, how have you counteracted this?
Jess> We pride ourselves in having a solid strategic discipline across all of our agency departments, but especially from our account management team, which has driven most of the brand, project, and retail strategy from PPK for years. As we have earned growth in clientele, our scopes, and staff headcount we have realised that finding ‘the right strategist(s)’ who can fit in all of the strategic disciplines that our teams have to serve to be very difficult. It has felt like trying to find a unicorn. We live in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment. Our marquee, and legacy clients always have new challenges and needs come up throughout the year, and we have found that our recipe for success is through team augmentation with experienced, strategic experts. By adding subject matter experts into our existing team structure, it benefits us with fresh perspective and inspiration to help solve client challenges quickly and nimbly. And it gives our business the benefit of operationally flexing around this approach when we need it, or want it most – without the overhead of staffed personnel.
LBB> No Single Individual operates on a ‘use-case’ basis, asking “what problem are you trying to solve” instead of “what kind of strategy you want” – how does this approach best serve your clients and strengthen the teams that you create for them?
Christine> For far too long, strategy has been treated like a one-to-one thing. A full time employee strategist leaves, so you bring in a 1099 strategist to ‘fill the gap’. But we don’t like when end clients treat agencies this way. Imagine: you fired your agency, so you give the same brief to the next agency.
Talent is not plug-and-play as many of the marketplaces and freelance networks would have you believe. So it is our belief that every time you ‘need’ strategy, it’s our job to ask why and why now. Is your team so overburdened they can’t move to the next career level? Are creative teams uninspired? Do you want to impress a new account who’s not ready to commit beyond project work? When we start asking these kinds of probing questions, we can recommend a team and scope for our agency clients that actually moves their business forward, instead of just putting a butt in a seat.
LBB> Rob, how have you seen a strategist’s role change over recent years?
Rob> One of my greatest fears learning to become a strategist was thinking I didn’t have the personality type to go away for a couple of weeks, then magically show up and say, “I’ve cracked it.” I always thought that was such a huge amount of pressure. Thankfully, due to a combination of life experience and the fast paced nature of some projects, I actually find this is an easier thing to handle these days.
The strategist’s role becomes less of that of a mastermind, and more that of an emcee. We facilitate the thinking among teams, and then funnel it into a story that makes sense. I find this is how I stay sane in agency environments, and it’s increasingly how clients like to work too. More than technical skills or domain specific knowledge, this change in mindset feels to be a more fundamental aspect we should tap into.
LBB> Following on from this, how have you seen teams excel at solving big creative challenges, and why do you think this is?
Rob> This really varies by team. I am increasingly interested in the idea that we keep telling clients about being customer-oriented in their work, and yet we’re quite terrible at doing this internally. Meaning, rather than try and impose a process on a creative team, we need to adapt the process to get good things out of them. Some teams work best by being given a simple articulation of the problem, and then going away for a while to work it out. Others prefer to discuss things with you, and get a hint at what solutions might look like, so effectively you’re not just the person defining a problem, you’re the person that’s helping develop the solution.
The trick is knowing which personality types you’re dealing with, there’s just too many variables. That said, if there’s one thing I have learned after 15 years in this game is that I’ve never seen a big creative challenge being solved by a single moment of brilliance. Sure, a solid concept is indispensable, but the amount of craft that comes after—in design, copywriting, the sell-in, the implementation— is what really makes a difference. The director of ‘Toy Story’ has this great line: “Toy Story isn’t a great idea, it’s the combination of a thousand great ideas over time.” Every decision helped move the craft forward, and without this, it might have been a great concept poorly delivered. We have plenty of those.
LBB> ‘Teamlance’ units could be introduced, therefore, as a way to refresh or reinspire an existing department, can you tell us more about this use-case and how it has been successful?
Christine> Despite some positive progress away from hustle culture, our industry is still obsessed with working a LOT to prove yourself. And the move towards project work is making agencies hesitant to staff up quickly and robustly, only to have to shrink months later. This all means that those strategy folks that remain full-time are working their asses off but may be shouldering a lot. We have seen great success with our outside team coming in to lift the load, to let these folks breathe and actually have the mental space and energy and time to be, well, strategic.
Because we can curate the perfect team for the scenario – from three strategists with different specialties to a hybrid strategy-account pod that can also manage and grow the client relationship – we can not only relieve and refresh the existing team, we can also help them focus on the things they love most: improving retention. We have one main agency contact who was a senior strategist when we started supporting her at the agency; she is now a director, partially because our team helped her focus on the things that would grow her as a strategist.
LBB> Jess, can you share an example of how PPK has utilised a teamlance approach for strategy?
Jess> It’s always about the project and the unique challenges we’re facing—this helps us identify and prioritise where augmented expertise is needed.
A few recent examples have been:
- Bringing in strategists with retail and shopper marketing experience to help PPK evolve and streamline the consumer point-of-sale retail journey across 2,200 tire and auto care retail stores
- Augmenting our teams with senior-level brand planners to help navigate qualitative and quantitative market forces in order to craft new positioning platforms
- Supplementing our pitch teams with strategists and planners to help quickly translate insights and trends into creative briefs to help us anchor and build our pitch content
LBB> Finally, what do you feel are the main benefits for both talent and agencies, of re-thinking strategy as a team based discipline as opposed to individual, and why?
Christine> I’ve said this before, but creative folks in our industry have always had the benefit of working in teams. Creative directors need art directors, writers and producers, and we all just take this as fact. Strategy is just as, if not more of, a varied, nuanced area, and strategists should have the same right to pair or team up to combine our strengths, whether that’s a branding expert and comms planner, or three people with different seniority levels. That lets us bounce ideas off each other–and feel that we can play to our best areas, versus trying to do it all. And, of course, agencies benefit by getting a richer, fuller perspective on a brief, challenge or problem.
Jess> At our agency, we expect strategy to come from everyone, in every department. And the unfortunate reality is that oftentimes the exchange of insight and work across department lines can come across as transactional, leaving a certain individual or team accountable for gluing it all together. By augmenting our team, we are shifting how we apply strategy in our narrative and client delivery. It creates a new dialogue and a new dynamic in the conversation and process. At times, it even brings healthy disagreement and challenges, but all of this makes our work stronger. Because when you fight about the work as a team, you’re best prepared to fight for the work when it’s presented to the client.
Rob> Divergent thinking. Getting to more options faster. And doing so while reducing our overall sense of overwhelm. The reason this last point matters is because we know a relaxed brain tends to think more creatively, so anything we can do to help strategy teams relax as they tackle problems with incomplete information (there is never complete information, sorry), the better.
Source: Supporting Strategists: How Agencies Can Handle the Movement to Freelance | LBBOnline
