A shared standard for how agencies define and capture their value
The Value Model Institute works with agency associations and networks around the world to give their member agencies a standard and tools for changing their commercial models.
Agencies need a shared standard for designing a new commercial model and replacing the billable hour
Every agency is creating more value than it captures. Much of it, such as the strategic advice clients rely on and the ideas agencies give away to win execution work, is billed by the hour or not billed at all. And when AI reduces the hours it takes to deliver the work, revenue drops. An agency needs a revenue model aligned with the value it creates, one that can scale without hiring more people or billing more hours.
Clients are moving toward paying for outputs they can compare and benchmark. If agencies want to be paid for the value they create, they have to define that value themselves. Most agencies already have everything they need to make this change. They need a clear picture of where their model stands today, and a shared standard to follow.
The Value Model Institute provides both. Its five-minute diagnostic shows where an agency's model stands. Its standard, drawn from guiding hundreds of agencies through the change, shows what to change next.
How the Institute helps agencies change their model
Research
Know where your model stands as the industry changes
The Agency Model Map diagnostic shows where an agency's model stands today. Agencies that retake it can track how their model moves. Each year, the Institute publishes the combined results, so leaders can compare their agency with others like it.
Take the diagnosticImplementation
Get paid for more of the value you already create
The Institute teaches its standard across the four levers of the value model and twelve commercial touchpoints. A video library and live workshops walk teams through building each one, starting where their diagnostic shows the most need.
View the workshop catalogProof
Hear how agencies are changing their model
On the Institute's podcast, The Agency Value Model, agency leaders share how they redesigned their firm's value model, including what worked and what didn't. Each episode closes with one thing you can take back to your own agency.
Listen to the podcastResearch partners
These are some of the associations and networks bringing the Agency Model Map diagnostic to their members, helping to build the first global benchmark of agency value models.
Where to start
For agency leaders
Start with the diagnostic
It takes five minutes. See how your commercial model is helping or limiting your pricing power, and get a roadmap for what to change first. Your association or network is how you can access the Institute’s workshops and video library. Ask yours about joining.
Take the diagnosticFor association and network leaders
Bring the program to your members
Start with the introductory program, with no fee or commitment: a report on where your members' models stand, and a strategy call with your board. Then add the full program for your members.
For associations and networksWho is behind the standard
Brian Kessman
Founder and Executive Director
Brian is the author of Redesigning the Agency Value Model, published by VoxComm. He is a contributor to the IPA's Pricing Playbook, an inaugural member of the 4A's Expert Network, and presents regularly for industry associations around the world. He brings more than 25 years of experience in the agency industry, helping firms redesign their value models. Through his firm, Lodestar Agency Consulting, he also works one-to-one with agencies.
Tim Williams
Advisor
Tim has guided hundreds of firms on positioning and pricing, from mid-size independents to multinational networks. His thinking on professional service firms has been quoted by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. He is a Senior Fellow of the VeraSage Institute, the think tank devoted to the business models and pricing strategies of professional service firms. He founded Ignition Consulting Group.
The Institute combines Brian's and Tim's two bodies of work into one standard. Brian created the Agency Value Model and its frameworks for diagnosing, productizing, and pricing agency value. Tim brings positioning and pricing frameworks developed over more than two decades of work with professional service firms.
The first global report on agency value models
Agency leaders who take the diagnostic by December 1 are included in the first report and receive it when it publishes.
Take the diagnostic