Counterpart — Relationship Performance Advisory

The Problem

Strong partnerships don't maintain themselves. The ones that last are actively managed.

Agencies are good at making the work. Clients are good at running their businesses. The relationship between them, the briefs, the reviews, the trust, the feedback loops, tends to get managed informally at best. That's where value quietly leaks out.

For Agencies

Client loss can represent 10 to 30 percent of revenue. It is almost always preceded by months of gradual drift, signals that were present but never formally surfaced.

By the time a relationship goes to formal review, the decision has usually been forming for a while. The earlier the conversation, the more options exist.

The people closest to the relationship are also the most exposed within it. A neutral outside perspective changes what gets said, and when.

For Marketers

Most mid-market brands don't have a dedicated internal resource whose job is the agency relationship. It becomes one of many priorities for an already stretched marketing lead.

Agency reporting is often structured around what looks good rather than what is useful. It's difficult to manage a relationship you can't clearly see.

When agencies change, the underlying dynamic often doesn't. The operating model on the client side tends to follow the same patterns regardless of who the agency is.

What We Do

A standing cadence, not an occasional intervention.

We sit inside the operating rhythm of the relationship on a fixed schedule.

Monthly

Checkpoints

Working-level health check with day-to-day leads on both sides
Brief quality review: what was pushed back, and why
Spend pacing and deviation from plan
Emerging tensions surfaced before they harden into positions

Quarterly

Reviews

Senior leadership from both sides in the room
Performance against committed KPIs and softer goals
Relationship temperature read from each side, independently
Forward look at next quarter and any scope changes

Annual

Assessment

Full 360-degree performance scorecard
Confidential feedback from both sides, synthesized independently
Strategic assessment of fit going forward
Formal recommendation: continue, restructure, or transition

Training

Capability Building

Structured programs for agency teams at every level
Foundation skills for junior planners and coordinators
Practitioner and strategic levels for managers and senior leaders
Building the relationship management capability that makes every account more durable

Events

Relationship Days

Structured, agency-sanctioned access events for media vendors
Eliminates the incentive for vendors to bypass the agency and go directly to clients
Agency controls the agenda and attendee list
Available as a standalone product or embedded in a full advisory engagement

Between the Cadence

Relationships do not raise issues on a schedule. Every engagement includes direct access between scheduled meetings, for the moments that matter most: a difficult client conversation coming up tomorrow, a brief that has just landed badly, a sudden change in leadership on the other side. The cadence is the scaffolding. Counterpart is on call within it.

How It Starts

Start with one account that matters.

Most engagements begin with a pilot on one to three accounts. Typically these are relationships that carry meaningful revenue and are already showing early warning signs.

A pilot has defined scope, a defined timeline, and a defined output. You will know exactly what you are getting and exactly when. Most full engagements begin here, once the value is on the table rather than in a proposal.

Counterpart works across the full relationship ecosystem, agency and client, multi-agency rosters, and agency and media vendor relationships. The entry point depends on where the pressure is.

When to make the call

New client leadership has just arrived

Feedback is being given but not landing

The account is under visible performance pressure

Something has shifted and no one has named it yet

About

Brian Wylie

Founder

Counterpart was founded by Brian Wylie, a 30-year veteran of the Canadian media industry with senior leadership experience on every side of the agency-client-vendor relationship.

Brian spent the first half of his career across a variety of media agencies in Toronto, including Initiative Media, OMD, Genesis, and MBS, culminating as a VP at PHD Canada, where he reported directly to the CEO and oversaw more than $200M in annual client investment across Scotiabank and Loblaw, to name a few. Over that time, he has sat across the table from senior execs on the client side, supported agencies and media partners, run strategic reviews, managed contract conversations, and seen firsthand how relationships are won, drift into trouble, and are lost.

His career has since spanned Business Development, Client Services, AdTech operations, commercial product build, and the launch of new offerings from zero. As Managing Director and COO of Connected Interactive, he built datadesk.io and structured first-of-their-kind data partnerships with Mastercard, Moneris, and Environics. At Blue Carbon Consulting, he onboarded more than 30 new clients in a single year. At Measured Reporting, he built the company's commercial framework from the ground up: positioning, pricing, governance, and partner referral structures.

That mix, holding-company agency leadership, cofounding of a leading media sales organization, combined with the discipline of building commercial frameworks from scratch, is the foundation of Counterpart. It is also why the practice is positioned the way it is. Most relationship problems are structural, not personal. They are fixable, but only by someone who has seen the structure from all sides.

Contact

If an account is on your mind, it is already worth a conversation.

Tell us which relationship is keeping you up at night. We will tell you whether it is something we can help with, plainly, before anyone signs anything.

Anything you share here stays between us. We do not share names, companies, or the fact of an inquiry, with anyone.

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