Avi Dan, founder of founder of Avidan Strategies,  recently wrote an interesting article on Forbes.com, “The 7 Biggest Mistakes Clients Make When Choosing An Agency.”

Of the seven, I agree with four of them:

• Forgetting that the most important reason for choosing an agency is its ability.
• Not aligning client and agency interests and priorities is another mistake.
• Leaving the compensation discussion to the end of the process can cause contentious misunderstandings.
• Giving equal weight to all opinions at the company ignores the fact that different managers have different levels of experience, and sometimes, different expectations.

Dan suggests that conducing a search without using a search consultant is a mistake, but I disagree.  We’re seeing fewer companies engage a search consultant, and yet we continue to nurture long-term relationships with our clients — even through the roughest economic period in memory.

That said, I think a search consultant could be useful when companies decide to select an agency based on a Request For Proposal (RFP) process.

In part II, I’ll write about aspects of RFPs.