📣 Please note, these events are for Agency Hackers’ members only.

If your agency isn’t a member yet, get in touch with Anne.

KPIs were met, the marketing contact is happy – by all accounts the campaign was a success.

Until someone from the client’s sales team joins the debrief and says…

“This wasn’t what we needed.” 

For Darcie Thompson-Fields, client services director at B2B events agency Chief Nation, this kind of scenario kept cropping up – she knew something had to change.

But what?

Her team were following briefs to the letter, and the problem wasn’t in the delivery.

Darcie realised that while the briefs weren’t broken, they also weren’t going deep enough.

The client-side contacts who filled in the briefs were usually marketers, and they weren’t always aware of what their own colleagues in sales or product teams actually needed. While the written brief was a solid starting point, it wasn’t telling the full story.

“Often, the misalignment isn’t with us – it’s within their own team,” says Darcie.

“The marketing person is just as surprised as we are when sales says it missed the mark. The silos inside organisations are real. So anything we can do to reduce that friction and get them aligned early – it’s worth it.”

To solve the problem, Darcie overhauled the briefing process:

• She introduced a tiered system – from simple written briefs to full multi-stakeholder workshops.
• She trained her campaign team to dig deeper, ask smarter questions, and challenge unclear input.
• And when clients didn’t have the time or relationships to coordinate internally, Darcie took the lead herself, reaching out to other stakeholders directly.

“We now have a process where we assess appetite – if we know we can get the time, we’ll run a proper stakeholder workshop. If not, we adapt.”

The results?

• Fewer surprises at the debrief.
• Better quality attendees.
• More repeat business.
• Darcie’s team now spends far less time fixing campaigns midway through.

If you’re tired of briefs that don’t quite hit the mark, post-campaign surprises, or constantly realigning mid-project, this session is for you.

Darcie will share the practical, step-by-step structure she uses to get clients aligned from day one – even when they’re siloed, vague, or too busy to talk.