Good news: you've won the pitch. Bad news: you have no idea how you're going to staff it.
They came to you because of your people, your taste, your point of view. But if you take this on, your best people are going to be stretched so thin that they burn out or leave.
This is the agency talent death loop. And most agencies have been through it more than once.
What a bench is not
It's not a list of people you've worked with before who may or may not be available. It's not a roster of people between jobs available is not the same as excellent. And it's not something you can build in a month.
The best freelance practitioners are usually very busy, quite selective, and not primarily motivated by money. They want to work on things worth working on, with people worth working with. Getting onto their radar before you need them is everything.
What a good bench looks like
At minimum: five people per discipline, each bringing something slightly different.
For creative, you want range. Different flavours of execution. Different cultural references. People who won't produce the same work as each other, but who share a baseline of quality.
For strategy, you want commercial practitioners. People as comfortable in front of a client as they are in a workshop. T-shaped, if you want to use the jargon.
And crucially, at least a handful of people who are hard to book. The ones everyone wants. The ones who are very happy where they are, but who have a quiet relationship with you that means when the right thing comes along, you hear about it first.
How to maintain it
Stay in contact without an agenda. That's the whole thing.
The best bench relationships are built on conversations that never ask for anything. Updates. Introductions. A heads up on something interesting. The occasional coffee. When the moment comes, and it always comes faster than expected, those are the relationships that deliver.
The cost of not having one
Turning away work because you can't staff it is the most expensive thing an agency can do. Not just financially. Reputationally.
The clients who needed you that week will remember.
UNKNOWN's Bench product builds and maintains curated freelance talent communities for creative, digital, product, branding agencies and brands. We work across creative, design, strategy, production and leadership. If you're thinking about your bench, talk to us.
.jpg)
