Truth & Consequences
is a creative agency. We're a collective of partners—each personally involved in our clients’ work. Likewise, each of us owns a stake in the agency.
Nearly half of our staff have ownership in T&C. In a business where employee happiness is plummeting and the only certainty is uncertainty, we want our teams and our clients to feel stability. When you own part of something, it matters. You care more, and the turnover is lower. You’re a lot more enthusiastic about the agency and the work you’re making.
We’ve set a Maximum Wage for ourselves. Forty years ago, the average CEO’s pay was 30x the typical worker’s salary. Today, that number has skyrocketed to 271x.
At Truth & Consequences, nobody can make more than 5x anyone else. This isn’t some innovative idea—we stole it from good ol' Ben & Jerry, who put it in place as an antidote to rampant escalation of executive compensation. When we have a great year, everyone benefits. We’re all rowing the oars together.
You need time away? Take time away. Other companies call that “vacation,” and they track how much you take because they want to make sure you’re not taking advantage.
Our agency pays 100% of your health care premium. It’s very expensive.
But it’s the least we can do, because we don’t want you to worry about your family’s well-being. That’s also why all new parents get 16 weeks paid parental leave. Dozens of studies prove this has significant, decades-long effects on your health and the well-being of your child. You are encouraged to leave work behind during this time. We’ll pick up anything vital that needs to get done.
So you might be thinking, “Wow, that sounds great for your partners, but why should I hire you for branding or marketing?
What makes you so different or special?”
Agencies use a lot of jargon and fill their offices with stuff to seem creative, data-driven, process-minded, or whatever the catchphrase du jour might be. But all agencies are pretty much the same.
The way we see it, the surest path to success is paved with two things:
Experience has taught us how to work smarter, or how to get to great ideas faster. What may have taken us weeks back in our salad days now might only take us a few days. Failure can be a great teacher early in your career, but we haven’t met a client yet who wants it to happen on their dime. We think we’ve gotten our greatest failures out of our systems.
Now talent, that’s harder to come by. It’s especially scarce. You have to have an eye for it, to spot it in the wild, and create a culture of mentorship where it grows and thrives. Most important, you can’t compromise on talent. This is where many large non-independent agencies fall flat. When you grow too big, too fast, you might be forced to hire in bulk just to get the work done. And fire in bulk when you lose a client. It shows. Shell-shocked employees and clients come and go. Billable hours become more vital than beautiful work.
So that’s why we lead not with our process, but with our culture. Our goal is to be the most desirable agency in the world, so we attract and retain people who are quite experienced and very talented. Because when we have great people personally involved in making the work, our clients enjoy the consequences.