- An agency doesn't lose people for lack of talent; it loses them because of what it costs to keep them.
- Every raise and every counteroffer cost the agency far more than what reached the person's account.
- Proper talent management: real services, clear contracts and documentation in order. Higher net income for the team and significant savings for the agency.
A digital marketing agency in Mexico City, with 41 collaborators, was winning accounts and losing people. Every year it added clients, every year it replaced part of the team, and every year it cost more to keep the people who wanted to stay. It wasn’t a talent problem. It was a problem of what it costs to keep talent.
Why it wasn’t a talent problem
An agency lives off its people, and its people have options: other agencies, in-house brand teams, freelance work. For years, the agency responded the way almost all of them do: with raises, with counteroffers, with quick replacements when someone left. It was a reasonable decision. It kept the operation running. And for a while, it worked.
What it costs to keep someone
The problem was in the arithmetic. Every raise and every counteroffer cost the agency far more than what reached the person’s account. Talent cost grew faster than revenue, and what people saw in their accounts grew much more slowly. The agency spent more and more on keeping people and kept fewer and fewer. Over time, the margin that should have funded growth went into sustaining the team it already had.
If your company lives off its people, this will sound familiar: you aren’t losing people because of what you offer them. You’re losing them because of what it costs you to offer it.
What Umbral did
Umbral took on the agency’s talent management. It started with a diagnostic of how the team was compensated and retained, and continued with what proper talent management involves: real services, clear contracts, verifiable deliverables and the documentation the rules call for. The agency kept its team, its accounts and its way of working. What changed is how much of every peso set aside for its people reaches its people.
For the team, no extra paperwork. Their questions were answered in a live session before launch.
The agency spent more and more on keeping people and kept fewer and fewer.
What changed for the agency and for its team
The team first. Higher net income from the first month. The retention conversation changed subject: it was no longer how much more it cost to keep someone, but how much more it was worth to stay.
Then cost. Significant savings on talent cost, and a margin that went back to funding growth instead of sustaining turnover.
And the operation. In good standing, orderly and documented, as befits a company that wants to grow without surprises.
What your company can do today
Before the next counteroffer, work out two figures: what it costs your company and what reaches the person. If the second one convinces nobody, the first one shouldn’t either.
Keeping people with raises was never the problem. That every raise yields so little for the person receiving it is — that’s why Umbral exists.
The question isn’t whether your company can keep retaining this way. The question is what it costs, every month, to do so.
Frequently asked questions
Did anything change for the team?
No extra paperwork and the same way of working. What changed is their net income, which went up from the first month.
Does this only apply to agencies?
No. It applies to any company that lives off its people and competes for them: professional services, technology, consulting. In agencies, turnover simply makes it visible sooner.
Did the agency have to change how it operates?
No. It kept its team, its accounts and its way of working. Umbral makes sure talent management is efficient and in good standing.
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