Working with Specialists: Part I – Why does it make a difference?
- Miguel Antunez Vega
- Reading time: 4 minutes
Why Jack of all trades Agencies are costing your brand real growth
Part one of our series on working with specialists
Many brands reach a point where their marketing needs outgrow their internal capacity. When this happens, the temptation is to find a single all in one agency that promises to support on everything from paid ads and SEO to web design and analytics. It sounds convenient because you have one point of contact and a checklist of services that look complete on paper. However, that convenience often comes at the expense of performance. At the end of the day a generalist agency, if small, does not have the capacity to reach a high standard of delivery across every service and, if large, is inherently slower, as decision making gets stuck between the company’s employee hierarchy. Likewise, for the latter your fee ends up going to the pockets of project managers, rather than the actual specialists running the account.
We recently sat down with Roshni Bhalla, founder of There Agency and a specialist creative partner we frequently collaborate with, to discuss the reality of the agency ecosystem. We asked her about the high impact strategies and nuances that generalist agencies almost always miss, but a specialist catches immediately.
“A generalist agency often treats each channel or asset as a checkbox to tick, focusing primarily on surface-level execution. A specialist, however, catches the micro nuances, adapts and optimises at a granular level, something an all in one shop simply lacks the bandwidth or specialised depth to achieve.”
— Roshni Bhalla, 2026Our discussion with Roshni looks closely at three main pillars:
- Why being specialised makes the difference
- The blueprint for top results
- Overcoming the Onboarding Roadblock
By breaking down these areas, brands can better understand how to structure their external teams for maximum efficiency and market impact.
A common fear for brands is the logistics of managing multiple specialised partners instead of just one all in one agency.
Roshni shared a perfect example of why working with specialists makes a significant difference. She was running a campaign where a client’s paid ads team urgently needed high-converting graphics. While media buying and ad distribution are not her specialty, crafting the strategic creative that fuels those campaigns absolutely is. Instead of working in a silo, she made it a priority to deeply integrate with their paid ads partner.
By analysing their historical data and understanding exactly which hooks, formats, and messaging drove the best performance, her team reverse engineered their creative process. They designed data-backed visual assets tailored specifically to the nuances of that ad account, ensuring they were both aesthetically pleasing and strategically functional. The result was a massive lift in campaign performance, all because they proactively bridged the gap between creative execution and media buying.
“A curated ecosystem of specialists will always outperform a jack of all trades. When you bring together specialised partners who share the same ethos, standard of excellence, and ultimate goal, the synergy is incredibly powerful.”
— Roshni Bhalla, 2026In a true partnership model, partners recognise where their genius zones lie and where another partner’s begins. Behind the scenes, seasoned specialists collaborate seamlessly, sharing insights and aligning strategies so the client never has to play middleman. By embracing this model, you gain access to elite, top-tier expertise in every single category, which is something that an all in one agency simply cannot replicate.
“The absolute best results stem from a foundation of radical honesty and true collaboration.”
— Roshni Bhalla, 2026An ideal client understands that they are integrating a strategic partner into their business. Day to day, this means being completely transparent about what is working, what isn’t, and sharing the deeper context behind business decisions.
It comes down to mutual respect, which means trusting specialised expertise while actively engaging in the strategic dialogue. When a client treats a specialist as a trusted extension of their internal team rather than a transactional service provider, partners are far more empowered to deliver transformative results.
Every partnership hits a critical juncture right at the start. Roshni noted that the single biggest roadblock during onboarding is a lack of comprehensive information and sluggish communication. Momentum is critical in the early stages of a partnership. When there are gaps in the foundational data provided, or when feedback loops stretch out over weeks instead of days, it stalls progress and dilutes the impact of the strategy.
Brands can easily avoid this friction by treating the onboarding phase as a high priority internal initiative.
“By coming to the table with complete transparency and a commitment to rapid, decisive feedback, we can bypass the friction and dramatically accelerate the timeline to tangible success.”
— Roshni Bhalla, 2026We leave you with three tips for integrating specialist agencies with each other:
- 1. Get each new partner to share a brief detailing the best way of working with them, that way there is an understanding of everyone’s best practices.
- 2. Allow them to have strategic communication with each other, even when you are not present. Through this, you optimise your time and ensure all teams are moving forward.
- 3. Create a central hub where all partner reporting is accessible across your partner ecosystem. This breaks down the walls to insight and improves decision making.
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