We help you:
Clients First Marketing & Communications™ is a Texas-based agency network that accelerates its clients' growth by increasing search visibility, driving leads, strengthening employee pipeline and loyalty and leading through crisis.
Everything we do is done with the end in mind: To accelerate our clients’ growth.
Clients First's north star is to do nothing less than accelerate our clients’ growth. More specifically, the agency believes at its core that marketing and communications – done right – can accelerate business growth, both in the short-term and over time. Everything else is a means to that end.
Jeff Baum and John Clendening have seen this done at the highest of levels. They have collectively led global marketing and communications teams for seven Global 50 and current or former Fortune 500 companies. They've also served as journalists, Washington lobbyists, agency leaders and private equity advisors.
They have also built an international network of experienced practitioners to help them execute on behalf of their clients. They call it the Clients First Network. Members are both trusted from past lives and battle-tested. They have also all passed the beer test.
There are four ways through which we accelerate our clients' growth:
Increase Search Visibility
Build your brand’s story and standing in the marketplace through PR and thought leadership.
Drive Leads
Amplify your message, expand your reach and fill the funnel.
Strengthen Employee Pipeline and Loyalty
Bring in more of the best and the brightest – and engage and retain them once they get there.
Lead Through Crisis
Navigate challenges with confidence and clarity – and emerge stronger for it.
Texas and Beyond
The economic miracle that is Texas is very real. If it were its own country (which some say it essentially is), Texas would be the eighth-largest economy in the world. The Lone Star State is now #1 in Fortune 500 corporate headquarters. If you build it, they will indeed come: Texas led the U.S. in population growth over the past 20 years, and by 2045 it is projected to be the nation’s most populous state.
What does this all mean for Clients First and its clients? If you are already headquartered in or near Dallas, we are right down the street from you – thus making working together that much easier. If you are looking to join the rush and move your headquarters here, we can help you build your local presence because we know the landscape – we have served, and continue to serve, with organizations ranging from local chambers to local schools to local civic groups. Not looking to move here, but just interested in doing more business here? We can help you with that as well – we can build and execute hyper-local campaigns to accelerate your business in any of the state’s massive markets.
We’re in the center of it all. We are equidistant from both coasts – meaning easy travel back and forth as needed. We are also surrounded by Dallas’ and Texas’ young, skilled and diverse labor force that is more than 15 million strong – and both growing and strengthening all the time thanks to the state’s ecosystem of world-class universities.
Don’t get us wrong. We serve clients no matter where they are located. Our network is filled with experts from all over the U.S. and across the world. Chances are we are in your neighborhood.
Let us show you why working with Clients First will not only be a good call – but your best call.
FAQs
We have spent most of our careers on the client side, leading global marketing and communications teams. We have worked across industries, including technology, healthcare, energy, financial services, manufacturing and professional services. There is no major consumer or vertical industry in which Jeff and John or members of their network do not have experience.
After leading marketing and communications for multiple companies, we kept seeing the same problem: Most agencies don't understand what it's really like on the client side. They deliver beautiful creative or clever campaigns, but they don't truly grasp the business pressures, the internal dynamics or the ROI requirements that CMOs and communications leaders face every day. Not only that, but too many agency leaders disappear after the initial business pitch, leaving the day-to-day to junior staffers. We wanted to create an agency where all clients get experienced support and counsel – each and every day.
We built the agency around growth – that is, accelerating our clients’ growth. Simply put, we believe that – effectively executed – marketing and communications accelerate business growth through tangible outcomes: increasing search visibility, driving leads, strengthening employee pipeline and loyalty and leading through crisis. This is not just our experience talking. It also comes directly from client and prospect conversations.
Three things set us apart:
1. Client-Side DNA
We're not former account executives or creative directors. We're former CMOs and communications leaders who ran global teams.
2. The Network Model
We don't carry the overhead of a traditional agency, so you're not paying for fancy offices or layers of account management.
3. The Brand Value Accelerator Series™
We've codified everything we've learned into proprietary playbooks that ensure consistent excellence across all 13 of our service areas.
