As a service provider, your business model is stepping in to cover for someone else's (current) shortcomings. But the most important thing to remember is that from the very start the client-vendor relationship is founded in client's frustration.
They don't like spending money on the process of finding and onboarding you. They don't like that they need to admit that they need help. They don't like the fact that they can’t manage something, or that they have to deal with it right now.
You might think that you are coming to them as a savior, but more often than not they hate that they had to call, and they can't wait for you to just go away so business as usual can continue.
You are a thorn in their side. You are expensive. You are new. You are a third party. You need to be managed. You are overhead.
They will suffer you, but they want to get rid of you.
If what the agency does is really important to the customer, the customer will want it in-house, full stop. This is now more apparent than ever because AI is here with its carrot on a stick, promising competent—or even expert-level—replacements for employees [1].
Ultimately, businesses want to deal with less people. The hand that they are playing says they want as few employees as possible, and as few human touchpoints in their business processes as possible.
So, how do service providers position themselves in this environment?
It's very simple, unfortunately. The mediocre die off, and the exquisite ones get to survive. There is no other way out of this situation, you need to become an expert in something in order to get the chance to work. There is an aggressive push to eliminate the requirement for low skilled labor.
Taking all this into consideration, there are very few reasons for third party service providers to stay on as long-term partners [2]:
My opinion is that we are approaching the end of the road for the strategy of competing on price, as the technology will most certainly be cheaper than human labor. This leaves us with expertise.
So, what are you getting the best in the world at?
1: At the moment it looks like they are approaching this through the model of "AI agents" which perform very specific functions people now do.
2: Be aware that relationships built on top of these dynamics scale in very different ways, so your growth strategy as an independent contractor, or and agency needs to basically be built on top of that.
Paradoxically, I believe what sets apart good agencies is the going away part. Good agencies optimize for the eventual hand-off because they are very well aware that their tenure is finite with the client. If they deliver delight at this point in the relationship, they are making themselves more probable to get re-hired.