From Traditional to Tailored: Rethinking How We Build Marketing Teams
How bespoke team selection creates smarter, more senior, and more human marketing partnerships.
For years, my agency operated like most others do, with a dedicated in-house team of employees who balanced multiple client accounts. It’s the traditional model: consistent, familiar, and, for a long time, considered the only way to run an agency.
It worked…until it didn’t.
What I came to realize over time is that this structure often serves the agency more than it serves the client. Teams are assigned based on availability, not necessarily on thespecific expertise or chemistry a particular project deserves. It’s efficient from an operations standpoint, but not always from a results standpoint.
Today, our model looks very different — and the results are different, too.
At Isabelli Partners, we build custom teams per client, intentionally curating the right combination of senior-level specialists for each partnership. These are best-in-class professionals — people with decades of experience in branding, communications, digital strategy, design, and hospitality operations. They are leaders, united for the precise reason that their perspective and craftsmanship are what the client truly needs.
The difference is immediate. Instead of fitting a client into a preexisting team structure, we build the team around the client — their goals, their brand personality, their growth stage, and their internal culture. A heritage resort reimagining its identity requires a different type of creative energy than a new restaurant group launching its first flagship. That level of nuance demands a tailored approach.
This model isn’t about rejecting the traditional agency world, because that model is still successful at agencies of all sizes. It’s about evolving beyond it. The truth is, the industry has changed. Clients today expect not just service, but insight. They want senior counsel, strategic depth, and creative partners who can see the full picture. By assembling curated teams, we can deliver that level of thinking without the layers and limitations of a fixed structure.
It’s also, in many ways, more human. When you bring together people who are both talented and aligned — in values, in curiosity, in the way they approach their craft — the work feels more connected. Clients feel it. There’s an energy that comes from working with people who are there not because they had space on their roster, but because they were chosen for their expertise.
Hospitality is, at its core, about people. So it only makes sense that the teams telling those stories should be built the same way, with intention, discernment, and care.
This is the model we believe in now: one that’s nimble, senior, and thoughtfully bespoke. And, ultimately, one that delivers smarter, more meaningful results for the brands we have the privilege to represent.
Key Takeaways
The traditional agency model has strengths — but evolving it creates new efficiencies for clients.
Custom-curated teams allow for deeper expertise, senior-level insight, and stronger outcomes.
Aligning team chemistry with brand culture and goals produces more inspired, connected work.
Bespoke team selection is both more strategic and more human — especially in hospitality.
The future of agency partnerships lies in intention: building each team with purpose, not by default.