If you’re a marketing-agency client, you’ve likely heard the axiom “Clients get the advertising they deserve.” If you haven’t heard this, either you don’t get out much, or creative people mind their tongues when you’re around — although only someone who doesn’t get out much would even entertain the latter possibility.

The axiom about clients has endured since “Anonymous” first iterated it. But does it hold water? I was a client myself the first time I heard it, and I didn’t much care for the sound of it. It seemed as if agencies were trying to blame their failures on … well, me. Now, after 30 years of working on both the client and agency sides, I believe Anonymous was onto something.

There is no need to assume that, by “the advertising you deserve,” Anonymous meant only bad advertising. If your agency delivers work that you like and that nails objectives, good for you. You deserve it.

But you also deserve it if your agency persistently misses the mark. Even if you have an incompetent agency (they’re out there), you’re not off the hook. When advertisers complain of “always having to redo the agency’s work,” I answer, “That either means you have a lousy agency, you’re a lousy client or both.” It only sounds untactful. In reality, it is generous. I could say, “Either you won’t fire a bad agency, you can’t resist tinkering with good work, you give poor direction, you’re just plain mean, or a combination of the above. In any of these cases, you’re a lousy client and you get the advertising you deserve.”

Let’s take these criticisms in reverse order.

You’re just plain mean — Put bluntly, you like to bully and no agency will please you. Sadly, you may have little motivation to change, since your agency and your employees earn their living acting as if they like you.

You can’t resist tinkering —It is appropriate for you to point out bona fide errors for the agency to correct. Tinkering is another matter. I once sat for 30 minutes while a client mulled changing “happy,” which was buried in body copy, to “pleased.” Another client stopped a press to remove a period after a headline. Another, who wanted justified type but couldn’t abide hyphens, tied up an art director with endless kerning. Another delayed a direct mail launch in order to personally select the standard rate stamp we were to use.

Obsessive-compulsive tinkering has little or no effect on sales, but works wonders for sapping morale and driving up costs. Here are two recommendations before questioning whether the agency is up to snuff:

1. Know what matters. You will not increase sales by changing “like” to “such as,” enlarging the logo or avoiding the use of a preposition to end a sentence with. (Yes, I meant to do that. And it didn’t kill you.)

2. When you evaluate creative work, ask yourself, “Though I might have nuanced it differently, does the approach work?” If it does, get out of the way and approve it.

Learn to let go, or your advertising will never rise above what you would have done on your own—which rather negates the point of hiring an agency, and results in naught but the advertising you deserve.

You give your agency poor direction—The cure is a solid strategy. With your agency’s participation, define your target market, objectives, incentive offer, key claim, copy points and overall tone. This provides a stationary target for your agency. Hold to it when it’s time to evaluate work.

You will also help the agency immensely by being upfront as to the inner workings of your organization and the personal agendas of decision influencers.

You won’t fire a bad agency — Bringing on a new agency is a big project. Moreover, dismissing the old one can cost good people their jobs. So first, please be sure the problem isn’t you. Review the above-referenced points with all the self-honesty you can muster. Otherwise, you may only trade hampering one agency for hampering another.

If the evidence points to the agency, level with the shop’s principals. Explain your frustrations. Lay out expectations. The agency may share concerns as well. Together, decide if it’s worth another try. Beyond that, if the need for a change becomes abundantly clear, face up to it. Any client that does nothing to improve its agency’s performance, yet refuses to replace it, gets the advertising it deserves.

If you’re getting great work out of your agency, pat yourself on the back: It is the work you deserve. But if you’d like the work to improve, it’s going to be up to you to deserve it.

Steve Cuno heads the RESPONSE Agency in Salt Lake City. He is a popular speaker and is the author of the book Prove It Before You Promote It: How to Take the Guesswork Out of Marketing (John Wiley & Sons). E-mail him at Steve@ResponseAgency.com. Read his blog at http://www.responseagency.com