Responding well to difficult client feedback is an epic challenge for design agencies. The situation is usually characterized as a side effect of “problem clients,” whose whims and idiosyncracies we must learn to delicately navigate. Unfortunately, this way of framing the issue masks a deeper, and more important problem: the fact that many clients aren’t sure whether the agency they’ve hired is a “vendor” or a “partner.”

Here, I’ll talk about the differences between the partners and vendors, and offer a few solutions to figuring out which category best describes your business.

The Difference Between Partner and Vendor

The difference between partners and vendors revolves around one central question: Does your agency simply fulfill job order specs handed to it via an RFP or per the client’s request, or does it actually help craft the strategy that drives the RFP or client’s requests? In other words, is your agency involved in critically thinking through the marketing and business objectives that determine what work should be done, or not?

If clients come to you for advice and look to you to help them work through strategy-related questions, you’re probably in the partner category. If clients come to you primarily for your technical expertise—your excellent command of photoshop, ability to pump out pixel-perfect XHTML, or unbelievable turnaround times—you might be in the vendor category.

Another way of putting it: Vendors carry out tasks (often beautifully, I should add). Partners help create the tasks, and then carry them out.

When Vendor Is Right

Although the way I’ve framed this conversation makes it seem like being in the vendor category might be bad, this is not necessarily true. Some businesses are built on a vendor framework: they usually know the scope of their projects, have a very crisp, predictable biz dev process, and pump out consistent work. Because their services are roughly the same from project to project, vendors are often nimble, expert craftsmen who are able to turn on a dime and accommodate last-minute changes and feature requests with ease. The same is not always true of partners.

When Vendor Is Wrong

Problems arise when agencies who’ve been hired for their web or communications strategy skills are treated like vendors. A common scenario for those in the partner category goes like this:

You’ve gone through a thorough strategy phase and helped your client discover the main problems with his website—the tone is off, the design doesn’t fit the branding strategy, and the user experience is poor. You’ve helped him create a strategy for his content, worked with him to generate high-level messages, made wireframes that display page-level requirements, and agreed on a look and feel for the design after submitting a round of moodboards. You’ve long-since signed the creative brief.

You’re halfway through template development, when suddenly your client (after talking with his boss or wife, let’s say) decides he wants to move everything on the home page around, change his concept for the blog, re-write the about page, and switch the colors on the whole site from orange to green. What happens next?

The difference between a vendor and a partner is, in some respects, the difference in how each gets treated in this situation. If you are treated as a vendor, your client will usually expect that you simply make the changes he requests—you can often (but not always) ask for a change order and add more to the budget if the changes are out of scope, but you probably won’t be invited to submit your opinion about the logic behind his decisions.

If you’re treated as a partner, it’s feasible that you can raise issues (beyond just budget and scope) with the changes. Do they make sense? Do they fit with your strategy? What business conditions caused your client’s boss/wife to suggest them? Are they really a good idea?

When Partner Is Right

Where you fit along the partner-vendor spectrum depends on what kind of ship you’re running, where your talents lie, and how well you tolerate and resolve uncertainty; when you start a strategy project or partner with a client, it’s not always clear where you’ll end up.

For our agency, partnering with clients is the definitive answer. We like high-level problem-solving about business goals and marketing strategy. We like the difficult conversations and back and forth it takes to come up with the right solution. We like helping our clients find new ways of communicating with their audience. Most of all, we like the long-term relationships that come from a partnering situation: clients come back to us for our opinions and advice, or to just think through a rough idea.

The same is not true for every agency. You may be more comfortable with a more clear cut, product-like rendering of your services, for example: you deliver the same wonderful thing every time, like a hot cup of coffee.

These days, it seems like every agency wants to be known as a strategy-oriented, problem-solving, critical thinking group of creatives. But I’m not sure this is actually true—there are just as many great reasons for being a “vendor” (as I’ve defined it here) as there are for being a “partner.” It all depends on your business model.

In my opinion, the trick is to spend a good deal of time discovering out where you fit along this spectrum. Then, you must communicate your decision clearly to clients, so they hire you for services you actually offer, have reasonable expectations about what you will and will not do, and respect your way of working.