robert solomon

INBOUND15

Good afternoon everyone!

Thank you for joining me

today.

(Glad to be back at INBOUND!)

How many of you deal with clients?

Account people have long been the “keepers of the relationship” with

clients.

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?Is account

management dead

Account management usedto do strategy.

Get it right the first time.

Own your mistakes.

Be proactive.

Communicate.

“Know my business.”

For many shops, Planning has largely co-opted that terrain.

Own your mistakes.

Be proactive.

Communicate.



Account management used to oversee execution.

Communicate.



Own your mistakes.

“Project Management” does much of this now.

vWith clients, Planning is viewed as, “the voice of the consumer.”

Project Management is viewed as, “the voice of

authority.”

Account Management

?

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Does account management even have a voice, and…

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If account people lack a voice, or worse, lack a role, what does this mean

for agencies and the clients they serve

This is what we’ll explore today, with a discussion called…

INBOUND15

What Clients WantAnd How to Give it to Them

Robert Solomon

Solomon Strategic

My view is largely shaped by the conversations I’ve had with scores of

agency people about, “what’s not working.”

The staffers I’ve spoken with -- founders, CEOs, account people, along with folks in Creative, Planning, Production -- varied in background, tenure, and experience,

but were remarkably aligned in their views.

Five things emerged from these in-depth conversations:

1. Account people are unclear on their roles.

“‘I won’t; I can’t; that’s not in my purview; that’s not

my job’ seem to be common here. People don’t

know the job they should be doing.”

For example:

For example:

“Everybody defers to everybody else: ‘I don’t do social; I don’t do media.’

Roles and responsibilities aren’t clearly defined.”


2. A failure to communicate – internally and with clients – is a concern.

Own your mistakes.

Be proactive.

Communicate.

“Communication between departments is an issue. We need to have everyone working

towards a common goal.”

For example:

“Communication is a BIG thing; there’s a lot going on and we need to do a better

job to surface issues.”

For example:



3. Clients seek ideas from account people; are frustrated by their absence.

Communicate.

“We need to bring more strategic ideas to the table, beyond what’s expected.”

For example:

“The focus is on the numbers, timeliness, and

status of things, rather than ideas.”

For example:



Own your mistakes.

4. Account people struggle to get budgets, schedules, scopes right.

For example:

“We need to make sure there are no surprises. Clients hate surprises.”

For example:

“You win business based on creative and strategy, in that order.

You lose business based on execution, or

lack of it.”



Own your mistakes.

Be proactive.

5. Account people need to do a better job managing client expectations.

For example:

“We need to set expectations properly. If we don’t set

those expectations, clients lose faith and trust in us. We

also need to manage expectations internally.”

For example:

“We have crazy clients; they have become way

too demanding. We need to manage expectations.”

1. Account people are unclear on their roles.

2. A failure to communicate – internally and with clients – is an issue.

3. Clients look to account people for ideas, and are frustrated by their absence.

4. It’s a struggle to get the “small things” right: budgets, schedules, scopes of work.

5. There’s a need to do a better job of managing client expectations.

Agency people understand what’s wrong,

but don’t seem to know how to fix it.

Clients want agencies held accountable…


Communicate.

for budgets

and schedules...

for strategy...

And, above all, for ideas.

Agencies themselves want

to beaccountable…

for the commitments they make…

for the work they present...

And, when they happen,

the mistakes that occur.

In the agency, the people best positioned to be accountable are…

Account people.

So, is account management dead?

Absolutely not.

But account management must reclaim being the

“voice of accountability” for the agencies they

represent.

Account management is the “voice of accountability.”

To do this, account people need to become expert at both ideas and execution.

Or as a colleague puts it, be the

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?How do we become 2nd

best at ideas

If you were here last year, you heard me speak of two ways to be more creative:

The first is…

Supported by this guy:

“Simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean and make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

And this guy:

“Complexity is your enemy. Any

fool can make something

complicated. It is hard to make

something simple.”

The second is… Asking exactly right questions.

Simply ask, “Why can’t we try X,”

followed by, “What if we pursued Y?”

Embedded in every perfectly framed

question is an answer –an idea – waiting to

reveal itself.

To these principlesI’d like to add three

others…

There’s an agency that worked with a client in the wireless business.

The client believed it’s customers were higher income professionals.

Instead of simply accepting this as fact, the agency wanted to

see for itself…

So it set up shop in the client’s stores, where it

could watch consumers, note the questions they

asked, and how they transacted business.

Two weeks later, they arrived at a simple but

powerful insight:

The client was missing its market(!)

Instead of having higher income professionals as customers,



The client actually was serving working class, lower income, urban dwellers.

This insight –the product of

simple observation –led to a radical

shift in its creative and

media approach, resulting in a huge

increase in performance.

The wireless client was not Verizon or T-Mobile;

it was...

The agency was not Ideoor R/GA; it was a firm

called...

And the location was not New York or LA;

it was Bozeman.

Yes, that Bozeman.

The point: observation leads to insight;

insight leads to ideas.

You don’t have to be an Ideoor an R/GA to master the

underlying principle.

In an interview with Charlie Rose,

the actor Jake Gyllenhaal said,

“…freedom is on the other side

of discipline.”

Also in an interview with Charlie Rose,

the actor Helen Mirren said,

“…accident is very important in art, but you can only achieve accident in a full way after

you’ve fully mastered technique.”

For those of us not actors, but still striving for

that next great idea, there are two take-aways

from Gyllenhaal and Mirren:

The liberating necessity of discipline and technique to the

creative process; and…

The role “accident” plays in idea formation.

The more you are in control of your craft –

meaning discipline and technique -- the more

likely that next idea will emanate from you.

Equally important, you likely won’tcreate that next great idea sitting in

your office, “at work.”

You might well create that idea in a time and place

where you least expect it, and need to be open

and available to it.

Anybody see the finale of Mad Men?

Don Draper is notin the office

when he comes up with…

Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop” commercial.

Okay, that’s fiction; what happened in real life

?????

There was a story in

the May 19 New York Times:

Serendipityat work

The point:

Ideas can come from anywhere, at any time,

to anyone, including you.

1. Follow William of Occam’s rule of simple.

2. Frame the issue with “Why” and “What if” questions.

3. Use observation to lead to insights that drive strategy, creative, and media.

4. Understand “Freedom is the other side of discipline;” gain mastery of your craft.

5. Give license to the power of serendipity.

Five ways to create more ideas:

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?How do we

become 2nd best at execution

You would think client dissatisfaction comes from

a failure in strategy, or not having enough

good ideas.

That can be true, but client frustration often derives from far more

modest things:

A budget that’s wrong.

A schedule that’s off.

Communication that’s unclear.

Clients expect agencies to be

accountable for these things.

Agencies not only need to be accountable to

clients for these things, they need to be accountable to

each other.

Being truly accountable to clients and colleagues begins and ends with

a well-crafted Scope of Work.

Screw up a Scope of Work, and everything that follows will devolve into a

dog’s breakfast of derailed deadlines, broken budgets,

and cantankerous clients.



Let’s talk about what it means to do a proper Scope of Work.

Communicate.

There are 5 rules to

follow:

(Hey, is that Moses, or Charlton Heston pretending to be Moses?)

1.Always begin an

engagement with a scope of work.

As surprising as this might sound, it is amazing how many

assignments lack a well-defined scope of work, or any scope at all.

2.Make certain each scope

fully and precisely describes the tasks you are to handle; this is especially critical in

“fixed fee” assignments.

If you can’t say what’s included, be sure to say what’s

excluded.

Remember this quote?

“We need to make sure there are no surprises. Clients hate surprises.”

Your goal: no surprises!

3.If you are unable to clearly define the work to be done, build “contingency dollars”

into your fee estimate, to deal with the unexpected.

Assignment uncertainty

Contingency amount

Low High

Low

High

The greater the uncertainty, the more contingency fee you build in.

Client desirability

Competition

Low

StrongWeak

High

But be certain to calibrate your fee contingency to the opportunity.

HIGH CONTINGENCY

LOW CONTINGENCY

MODERATE CONTINGENCY

MODERATE CONTINGENCY

4.I strongly recommend

avoiding “Party-of-the-first-part” legal language; this might make your lawyer

happy, but it won’t ensure you get paid in a fair

or timely fashion.

The moment your scope even hints at the word “Contract” –even though that’s what it is –

the lawyers get called in.

Once attorneys get involved, you are more likely to finish the engagement

before you finish the agreement.

5.I suggest you write your scopes in informal, first-person letter language, which can enhance the

client relationship, not erode it.

1. Always begin an assignment with a Scope of Work.

2. Each scope should fully describe tasks to be addressed.

3. To deal with the unexpected, build in contingency dollars to your fee estimates.

4. Don’t write in “Party of the first part” legalese, which only makes your lawyer happy.

5. Instead, write your Scopes in informal, 1st-person language.

If you practice these five things, scope creep will decline, if not disappear.

A recap, in case you need it:

??????????????????

???????????

?Is account

management dead

To return to a question asked and answered:

Not if account people reclaim the “voice of accountability.”

Clients want agencies to be accountable.

Colleagues want agencies to be accountable.

Now we need account people to hold themselves accountable.

If they do, they ensure their substance and significance,

and their agency’s survival and success.

And with that, I conclude my prepared remarks.

INBOUND15

Thank you everyone!

INBOUND15

What Clients WantAnd How to Give it to Them

Robert Solomon

Solomon Strategic

robert solomon

Marketing