In the complex world of client and agency relationships, brand side marketers often look externally when challenges arise, or performance takes a nosedive. But there’s something to be said to holding up a mirror and looking inwards too, especially if you want to become a trusted client. Andy Bargery, Client Director, explores a fool proof formula to becoming a credible client.
What do I mean by trusted client?
Let’s start with a simple definition: a trusted client is a marketer that every agency wants to work with and for whom they do their best work.
If that’s your ambition Marketer, please read on…
So how do you become a trusted client?
This was the focus of my recent session at the Festival of Marketing, ‘How to be the Best Client for your Agencies.’
I explored what it takes to be trusted by your agencies using David Maister’s excellent Trust Equation. Those familiar with Maister’s equation will know it’s all about being a trusted advisor to your clients. But, with some simple adjustments, it works equally well to being a trusted client. After all, the equation is designed to help you understand your levels of trustworthiness.
For the uninitiated, the Trust Equation is:
Let’s look at each in turn:
Credibility: what can you do to be seen as credible in the eyes of your agency partners?
The table stakes here are you need to know your organisation, your brand and the dynamics of its category inside and out. This isn’t too challenging for most marketers, after all, it’s a core pillar of doing the job.
Next, you need to know how to build a marketing plan including the core components of:
- a proper brand diagnosis,
- clear strategy formulation (including what a strategy is),
- the components of an effective tactical plan and then be able to execute it.
Let’s not forget also those key gripes we always hear from agencies… clients can’t write a good brief or provide effective feedback.
Beyond these obvious factors, there’s a glaring opportunity to build your credibility by completing some quality training. You may have noticed our sister brand Marketing Week runs the excellent Mini-MBA programmes in marketing, brand and management. Highly recommended for building your skills beyond the table stakes.
Reliability: how can you be the best client for your agencies every time?
This is all about your actions. Do you deliver on your promises and do what you say you will do? Are you consistent?
A good example here is providing feedback on the work agencies present to you. Are there always multiple rounds of feedback above and beyond what is agreed in the scope of work and later than planned? Does the timetable keep slipping because you can’t effectively engage internal stakeholders? Are you able to manage those same stakeholders and protect the agency from scope creep?
Another good example, beyond providing feedback, is on the humble PO. Have you ever said the words “can we get started before the PO arrives?”
Most, if not all agencies, unsurprisingly will want to wait until this key document has been provided to satisfy their own governance procedures. You can bet the account handler will be keen to plough on with the project, but you will put them in a tight spot if the PO then never arrives.
I have certainly been on the end of a client who signed off on a project, but the contract and PO never arrived. Talk about egg on my face after we’d started the work only to find we were never going to get paid. Now that’s a marketer I would not rely on again.
Intimacy: how do you create a safe space for your agencies?
It’s no secret that great creativity is important for business building marketing communications. Great creativity thrives when we can take risks, to be bold and brave in our approach and unafraid to innovate.
Intimacy in client agency relationships is how you create the right environment for your agencies to pitch creative ideas that are brave, highly creative and or risky? Are you open to new ideas, do you enable and empower your agency partners to work well together to bring their best, integrated ideas forward?
Can your agency partners share how their teams feel about their relationship with your brand? Look at how our friends at McDonald’s invest in their relationships with Leo Burnett and their other agencies for some inspiration.
Self-orientation: is it all about you, or does everyone succeed together?
So far, we have considered the numerators in our equation – the numbers above the line – where the higher the score the better. However, for self-orientation we are in the world of the denominator, or below the line, where we want a nice low score.
(Eeek, above the line and below the line… not to be confused with paid and earned marketing communications).
For self-orientation, it’s not a big leap to understand the best relationships are built on a platform of mutual understanding and respect. You’ll know if you have this when your agencies feel like partners rather than service providers.
Think about whether you work together collaboratively, using a clear contract that recognises the value you each bring to the party (see Avis DDB, We Try Harder 6 point contract) and you’ll have some idea of the nature of your relationship.
Ask yourself if you are focused primarily on you and your brand, or whether you care also about the success of your agency partners?
We are often involved in media audits and reviewing commercial fee agreements between clients and agencies. Our approach is always that client-side marketers must leave enough room in their budget for the agency to make a fair profit. The exercise is never about squeezing every ounce of time out of an agency for the minimum fee.
Not unless your objective is mediocre advertising and a short-term partnership.
So, there you have it, the key ingredients of becoming a trusted client, which, if you recall, is a marketer for whom all agencies want to do their best work. What else would you want to be.
At Oystercatchers, we work closely with brand and agency side marketers to help them develop long-term relationships through our Optimise Programme. Get in touch to find out more.