The Growth Truth
by Eric Vissers
When "No" Means Growing Together
My 9th grade math teacher had this habit of ending every class with the same phrase: “Remember, honesty is the best policy.” Back then, with my mind on anything but quadratic equations, I dismissed it as another adult platitude. Three decades later, running a media agency where millions in budgets cross our desks, those words have become our north star.
Here’s the thing about working in media and growth marketing: it’s remarkably easy to say yes. Yes to that ambitious campaign. Yes to that aggressive forecast. Yes to spending that budget on channels that look good on paper but won’t deliver in reality. The industry practically incentivizes it—more spend means more revenue, right?
Wrong. At least, not if you’re playing the long game.
The Pact We Made
Early in our agency’s life, we made a pact. Not the kind you frame on a wall or recite at company meetings, but a genuine commitment etched into how we operate: We stay true, no matter what’s at stake.
This means something very specific in practice. When a client comes to us with a seven-figure budget earmarked for performance TV, and our research shows their product-market fit isn’t ready for national scale, we tell them. Not after contracts are signed. Not after the first invoice. Right there in the pitch meeting.
“Your product resonates beautifully with your current customer base,” we might say. “But the gap to national scale is too wide right now. Performance TV would be shouting into the void. Let’s talk about what will actually drive growth instead.”
The Uncomfortable Mathematics of Truth
You know what happens when you tell a potential client not to spend money with you? Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they thank you and walk away. But here’s what we’ve discovered through years of practicing this uncomfortable honesty: the ones who stay become partners at eye-level, not just clients.
They stay because they recognize something rare in our industry—an agency that puts their growth above our own immediate gain. They stay because when we do recommend a strategy, they know it’s been pressure-tested against reality, not wishful thinking.
We do our homework obsessively. Multiple customer research providers. Deep competitive analysis. Conservative forecasts alongside optimistic ones. We present the full spectrum of possibilities, not just the rosiest scenario. Because growth—real, sustainable growth—is built on truth, not hope.
Why Brutal Honesty Is Our Competitive Advantage
The marketing world moves at the speed of IG (Instagram for the boomers). A bad campaign, a misaligned strategy, or worse—a pattern of overpromising and underdelivering—spreads like wildfire through professional networks. One failed campaign based on inflated projections doesn’t just lose you a client; it creates a ripple effect that blocks future opportunities.
But the inverse is equally powerful. When you consistently deliver truth, even when it’s uncomfortable, word spreads differently. “They told us not to spend EUR 500k on TV” becomes a story clients tell at conferences. “They walked away from a huge retainer because the strategy wasn’t right” becomes your reputation.
This brutal honesty has brought us to where we are today. Not in spite of it, but because of it. Every client who works with us knows they’re getting unfiltered strategic truth. Every campaign we run has been vetted against reality, not fantasy. Every forecast we present acknowledges both opportunity and risk.
The Same Boat Philosophy
There’s a phrase we use internally: “same boat thinking.” It means we only succeed when our clients succeed. Their growth is our growth. Their challenges are our challenges. This isn’t just consultant-speak—it’s the logical conclusion of radical honesty.
When you’re truly honest with clients, you can’t help but become invested in their actual outcomes. You’ve told them the truth about what will work and what won’t. You’ve potentially sacrificed short-term revenue for their long-term success. At that point, you’re not vendor and client—you’re partners rowing in the same direction.
The Risk and Reward of Truth
Will this approach bite us in the ass someday? Maybe. There will always be agencies willing to promise the moon, sign the contract, and figure it out later. There will always be clients who prefer comfortable lies to uncomfortable truths.
But we’re not building an agency for everyone. We’re building one for the brave—the clients who understand that real growth comes from facing reality head-on, not wishcoding your way through quarterly targets.
My math teacher was right, though perhaps not in the way she intended. Honesty isn’t just the best policy—in the business of growth, it’s the only policy that compounds over time. Every truth told, every inflated expectation deflated, every “no” that leads to a better “yes”—these build into something more valuable than any single campaign or contract.
Moving Forward, Truthfully
We don’t plan on backing away from this approach. It’s brought us this far, introducing us to clients who value truth over comfort, partnership over transaction, sustainable growth over quick wins. We believe—no, we know, for now—it will continue opening doors to more exciting opportunities.
Because at the end of the day, every client wants the same thing when they talk to us: growth. Real, measurable, sustainable growth. And despite what the industry sometimes suggests, you can’t build that on anything but truth.
So yes, we’ll keep being brutally honest. We’ll keep doing the homework. We’ll keep saying “no” when “yes” would be easier but wrong. We’ll keep treating client budgets like our own money and their growth like our own business.
My 9th grade math teacher would be proud. Though she’d probably remind me that honesty, like most mathematical principles, is elegant in its simplicity: it always adds up in the end.
At our agency, we believe growth starts with truth. If you’re ready for honest conversations about real growth opportunities, we should talk. Not because we’ll tell you what you want to hear, but precisely because we won’t.
