Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

To all those who have been working like dogs these last few months, to those who have picking up well-deserved awards recently and to all readers and contributors, I wish you a relaxing time over the holidays. And here's to a new decade...

No Name And Shame

Just finished reading the updated edition of The Art of Client Service by Robert Solomon who was CEO of Rapp Collins, New York as well being at Ammirati Puris Lintas, FCB and Bronner. Its subtitle is “58 things every advertising and marketing professional should know”. Obviously, I was interested because it deals with client services in agencies.

The 58 things are definitely principles an agency account handler needs to know and therefore I would recommend it on that basis. However I recognised the dilemma which I struggle with here in the blog and also struggled with in Agency Account Handling – namely the anonymising (if that is a word) of examples to allow discretion. Solomon comes up with some very good ideas but he has depersonalised all the names of clients and situations to avoid any insensitivity towards former clients. Consequently it is less of an engaging read.

Similarly my questioners want their and their clients’ anonymity so I am not sure how to overcome this. My hope is that by using the Q&A format in the blog which picks up real-life situations and couches thoughts in a realtime, contemporary context, that this may counterbalance the obvious downside of not naming names. Pity though, sometimes naming names can be very cathartic – but to do so I think comes under that category of “career limiting moves”.

Start As You Mean To Go On

We seem to be bucking the trend by winning a lot of new business and I am one of the account directors on the new accounts. We need to deliver a number of things before Christmas and yet we are still getting to grips with the new client. What should I be focussing my team on in addition to the work?

I totally understand your situation as we are in a similar position currently. You feel relieved and elated that you have won the pitch and grateful to a higher being that you are not like some of your contemporaries who are experiencing headcount freezes and 9 day weeks. So you are conscious of this when the clients ask you to shave off weeks from the delivery schedule. Nevertheless this should be the honeymoon period. As my wise old mum maintains, you should start as you mean to go on. So what are the key things from any new client induction programme – formal or informal ?

1) Get the money and terms sorted out. This is the one thing that could make or break a new relationship as it is the guiding light for the existence of the account. So despite having to deliver that microsite by the 14th December, make sure confirming the money and terms happens sooner than later. Get your commercial director or head of client services to sort this out with the client. If it is for Purchasing/Procurement, you need to spend some quality time putting your terms and spreadsheets together. If you try to do this on the hop, you could be delaying the essential (so the team is not aware how they should deal financially with the deliverables) or ending up agreeing to the client’s terms (eg billing at end of projects, no travel costs etc) which you normally would want to push back on.


2) Understand that the client is in a different buying mode. When the client is in a pitch they have different evaluative criteria than when they work with you on the day to day. Also some of your day to day client will not have been in the pitch presentations – in fact may not even have wanted a different agency. Therefore do not forget to sell your agency, the team and your preferred working style back into the client now they are in a different mode. This can be done in a working session where you get the client team in, give them a quick run through as to who you are, who their team is, introduce them to some of the key day to day players and discuss how they want to work (eg communication preferences, what worked/did not work with previous agencies, how they want you to collaborate with other agencies etc).

3) Identify the big cheese. Whether you are under time pressure or not, the thing which will affect receipt and approval of your work is the decision-making process at your client’s company. Ask you main client what the approval process is and who she/he will need to consult with/get approval from. If you know this in advance, you can understand the stakeholder management and legislate for the time required, style presentations accordingly and provide the right level of support and information. Such insight can save you so much time and wasted money.

Hope this helps.

You do know there are only are only 14 working days to Christmas? Good luck to us all!