Place staff inside the client's building before the event has a shape.

technique — attributed to Ben Erwin

Encore's acquisition of the agency FIRST puts more than eight hundred people inside client offices rather than at venues, present while an event is still an idea and before the city, venue, or format has been chosen. For a company that had spent eighty-nine years arriving only after the consequential decisions were made, this buys a seat at the moment those decisions actually happen. The technique generalizes beyond this one deal: influence over an outcome is largest before the outcome has a name, and the way to capture that influence is physical positioning inside the room where the naming happens, not better service after the fact.

For any vendor relationship structured to begin after the client's key decisions are already locked.

positioning, access, timing, embedded-staff