How matching works

The five dimensions

1. 1. Scale and team

   Team size and the extended network, how the team works and where its people are, who a client works with day to day, typical engagement value, how the partner is usually engaged, its largest client's share of revenue, and capacity open next quarter.

2. 2. Industry and culture

   Share of work in outdoor, sport and lifestyle, the categories the partner knows, what its people do and not just work on, how the team shows up in the culture, and the brands in the category it has worked with.

3. 3. Strategic and creative stance

   Three sliders: set the direction or execute one; push hard or say it once; the proudest work was safe and effective or a real risk that paid off.

4. 4. Values and chemistry

   Work the partner turns down, what a client does that brings out its best, what makes the work worse, and its best client relationship in two sentences.

5. 5. Capability and experience

   Services, split by share of last year's work; up to six pieces of work with the people who led them; two references Shortlist may call.

Capability and experience comes last because it is the easiest to verify and the least likely reason for failure. A partner must clear it; after that, the first four decide. Industry and culture comes second because a partner that lives in outdoor, sport and lifestyle is what Shortlist offers that a general agency search cannot.

What partners answer

A partner lists itself in the Brand Report Network first, then applieswith twenty-eight questions, about twenty minutes. Most answers are fixed choices, bands or sliders, so they compare. No question has “it depends” as its honest answer: each asks what is true of the partner, not how it behaves on a given project. The partner chooses which answers show on its public profile; its largest client’s share, its capacity and its references never do. Every Vetted Partner also keeps a page in its own words, How to work with us, which Shortlist shares with the brands it recommends the partner to.

What brands answer

A brand starts a project with a short form: who they are, what they need in a sentence or two, rough timing, a contact. The rest is a thirty-minute call with Dan, in two parts: the brand, which carries over between projects, and the project. Dan writes it up as the Project Brief, and the brand confirms it before any partner sees it. The budget is required, and the brand decides whether partners see it as given, as a band, or not at all.

How a match is made

For each confirmed brief, Vetted Partners are screened in four passes.

1. 1. Clear the bar

   The service is a meaningful share of the partner's work, and the partner has capacity next quarter.

2. 2. Check scale and team

   The budget sits within the partner's typical bands. The engagement would be neither trivial to the partner nor more than about a third of its revenue. The team, with its network, can staff the work, and its locations meet the brand's need on time zone or being on site.

3. 3. Weigh industry and culture

   Share of work in the category, the categories the partner knows, how many of its people do the activities the brief has to speak to, and how it shows up in the culture. The more it matters to the brand, the more this pass weighs.

4. 4. Compare stance

   The distance between the brand's sliders and the partner's. Differences are not always disqualifying, and each one is named in the reason the brand reads.

The product drafts suggestions and reasons from these passes. Dan decides. Each partner on a short list of 2 or 3 goes to the brand in the Recommendations edition of the deck with two or three reasons it fits and one sentence on where the two differ. Every fit has a gap, and naming it is part of the job.

Afterwards

Both sides answer a two-minute check-in 30 and 90 days after the hire is confirmed and at completion. The questions come from this framework, so it learns from every match: whether the deck was accurate about how the partner works, and whether chemistry scores land where the answers said they would. Answers go to Dan and no further, except what a respondent chooses to make public.

What is left out, and why

Working-style trade-offs, because they depend on the client and the project and come out in the conversations instead. Whether the team that pitches does the work, because every partner would say always; it is a rule in the Code instead. Rates, because day rates stay between the parties. Numeric fit scores shown to anyone, because a score implies precision the data cannot yet support; the written reason does the job.