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Agencies: Hate Project Work? Act More Like an AOR.

Most agencies hate project work because it’s less predictable and harder to manage and staff. What’s more, agencies believe project work negatively impacts the agency-client dynamic, with agencies treated more like vendors than partners, and their contributions focused on tactics rather than strategy. The relationship can feel transactional and shorter-term.

Will COVID-19 Destroy Your Agency Culture or Reinvent It?

Culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage that agencies have. After all, most agencies produce the same types of work the same way—and often with the same people (we all know it is a small industry). That is why an account, strategy, or creative person can move from one agency to another and immediately contribute. Culture is one of the most important differentiators—it makes one agency succeed and another fail.

Zurprise and Zelight: Surprising and Delighting Clients in a Zoom World

In the old days (about 12 weeks ago), agencies focused on surprising and delighting clients. They understood (the good ones, at least) that delivering work on time and on budget was the price of entry. Client retention and growth required a higher level of thinking, service, creativity, and connection.

Agencies Are Great at Creating Narratives. Now They Must Write Their Own. Carefully.

Agencies sometimes create aspirational ads and press releases as a tool to help clients envision a successful, alternate future. Now we can imagine headlines like, “M&M’s redefines retail in Times Square,” or “CVS takes a stand on health by eliminating cigarette sales.” But before these were realities, they were possibilities—and research suggests that seeing a possibility makes it easier to achieve.

To Have A Big Impact, Agencies Must Sweat the Small Stuff

Self-help experts have long instructed people not to sweat the small stuff. The basic philosophy is that by not focusing on life’s little annoyances, we can reduce stress and improve our lives. This might be true for individuals but not for agencies. For agencies to succeed, they must do the opposite: they must sweat the small stuff. Every client interaction—every phone call, email, invite, estimate, and meeting— must be as error-free and on point as possible. Why? Because the small stuff has a big impact on clients’ perceptions of the agency.

Let's Make Agency Meetings Great Again!

In the last few years, there has been a movement to reduce the number of agency meetings. Many internal meetings are considered a waste of time, energy, and money. The trend has also extended to client meetings, aided by the ability to meet online rather than in person.

I agree with the need to eliminate bad meetings—whether they are live or online, internal, or with the client. However, I think agencies are missing an opportunity—that is, to encourage great meetings.

Client Feedback: When No Response Is a Response

There is a saying that “no news is good news.” When it comes to client feedback, this is not true.

Many agencies send surveys regularly to get client input. Done right, these surveys can generate critical insights about the agency’s work and relationships. Done wrong, it is easy for the agency to misinterpret the data and focus its efforts in the wrong places.

Clients Are from Mars. Agencies Are from Venus

I am often asked to act as an intermediary between clients and agencies. It is the advertising equivalent of the old Ladies Home Journal column, “Can This Marriage be Saved?” I am usually called upon when the relationship is near its breaking point in a last-ditch effort to salvage it. Much like “Can This Marriage,” I start by speaking to the agency and the client separately to try to understand each one’s point of view and then bring them together to find common ground and a way forward.

What Your Email Style Communicates About Your Agency

I work with agencies to help them keep and grow business. My work requires a deep understanding of an agency's culture. I rely on all sorts of data to get to know an agency, including employee and client interviews, satisfaction studies, HR and financial data, and believe it or not, emails. Granted, email practices and patterns can be a bit more subjective, but I find them highly indicative of how an agency works.

Goldilocks and the Secret to Breakthrough Advertising

In psychology, the inverted U theory is used to explain achieving optimal performance. The theory states that there is a relationship between performance and pressure, and the ideal performance occurs when there is just the right amount of pressure—too much or too little can reduce performance. A similar theory is used in economics and sports. The axes are different, but the “just right” Goldilocks’ principle is the same. To create breakthrough work, agencies should consider the inverted U.

"Yes, and" or How to Say No and Make it Sound Like a Yes

An irate client called me from the floor of a convention. He hated the convention panel we had produced and said, “it looks like an impossible-to-read eye chart full of small type.” I promised to investigate and get back to him. I told him we would try to redo the panel, and also identify what went wrong so we would not do it again.

Psst! There Are No Client Secrets

Unhappily married couples often try to hide their marital issues from their children. They believe that if they spend lots of time together, or don’t argue in front of the kids, they will never know the marriage is troubled. If you talk to their children, most will say the secret was out. Some heard their parents fighting behind closed doors. Others noticed their parents only spoke to and through the kids and not each other.

Client Satisfaction Surveys: 5 Ways to Blow Them. And How to Ace Them

Client satisfaction surveys have become SOP for many businesses. Every call to my bank or stop at my Starbucks is followed up by an automated survey. (By the way - if a visit to Starbucks is the “best part of my day,” I consider it a pretty bad day).

Dear Client: I Am Not Your Partner

I have been in advertising for a long time. Somewhere along the way, clients and agencies started referring to each other as partners. I don’t remember the month or year, but I feel like the use of the phrase increased as the business became more transactional. I assume this was supposed to make the agency feel better about our changing relationship with clients—the equivalent of renaming second mortgages home equity loans to reduce the stigma of borrowing.

What the Bachelor Can Teach Us About Client-Agency Relationships

I admit it. I watch a lot of Reality TV. I cry at Say Yes to the Dress and restage half my house after each episode of The Property Brothers. However, I draw the line at The Bachelor. I am clearly in the minority, as the show has run for 23 top-rated seasons.

Psst! There Are No Client Secrets

Agencies believe this, too. They think if they try to maintain appearances, that clients will not detect any issues, with people or processes that everyone at the agency knows are a problem. Talk to clients and the secret is out. They know whatever we know.

The A-hole: I worked with a strategist who was very smart but lacked people skills. Everyone at the agency avoided working with him. Somehow, we thought clients would feel differently, or that he would be on better behavior. He was not. He was short with clients and argumentative. He was insulting if the client did not agree with or understand his point of view. He didn’t have the emotional intelligence to acknowledge the client’s thinking and effectively present his point of view or make an effort to incorporate the clients’ perspective. Before long, the client indicated this person was no longer welcome on the business.

Warring Agencies: Agencies are often asked to collaborate with other agencies who manage various aspects of the clients’ business. These partnerships can create tension as the agencies compete for resources and attention. Everybody acts like they’re playing nice in the sandbox, but the stress or animosity is often communicated with clients in other ways. We roll our eyes when members of the other agency speak or give knowing looks to our colleagues. We say things like, “Our team prepared our recommendation last week. We are waiting on input from the other team, before sharing with you.” Despite our efforts, we end up short-handing to the client that we can’t work with others on their behalf.

Inefficient processes: Some agencies have processes and procedures that seem to create friction or delay at every turn. Getting a budget to a client for a routine project takes days. Making a small type change can cost thousands. Ask anyone at the agency, and they will say it is impossible to get things done. It’s no surprise that their clients say the same thing—it feels difficult to work with the agency.

Disappearing Staff: Agencies sometimes pull senior staff for new business or to help with peak activity on other accounts, often “juniorizing” with less experienced staff. We include the original team members in the occasional client call or meeting to reinforce their involvement on the business. If the client calls to speak with them, we remind them that there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes and that the person they are asking about is busy taking care of their business. I had an account person who was fully dedicated to a client ask me if he could work on a pitch to give him some variety. The pitch was in one week. I thought the change would be positive, and given the timing, go unnoticed. By the end of that week, the client was calling me and asking about the account person’s whereabouts. They questioned if he was full-time on their business and why he was not attending meetings or calls. They noticed, and fast.

There are no secrets. The client always knows. Clients know when agency people or processes are problematic. They know when staff are not involved in their business or when we are not working well with others.

The truth is that whatever happens inside the agency communicates itself beyond the agency. We can’t avoid it. But what we can do is make sure that we are honest with ourselves about issues and address them quickly so that what is happening inside the agency transmits positive signals to the client.

Stacey Singer is a Client Retention and Growth Specialist. Stacey is available to speak on Behaviors that Fray Client Relationships and How to Avoid Them. You can reach her at (908) 313-6539 or stacey@staceysinger.com.

Stacey SingerJuly 12, 2019