Creative Agency Account Manager Podcast

Welcome to episode 126. In this episode, I chat to Brian Jacobs (Founder, BJ&A) and Crispin Reed (Founder, Skyscraper Consulting) about what’s wrong with the advertising industry. 
 
And what specifically prompted the launch of their ‘Who Cares?’ initiative, aimed at tackling the pressing issues affecting the advertising industry today.

We cover:

·         what's actually wrong with the industry itself·         the need for greater creativity and transparency in advertising·         how Brian developed the ‘Who Cares?’ idea·         how a one-off event has turned into a well-supported movement
·         how industry stakeholders can get involved to collaborate on initiatives
 
I do hope you’ll listen to this important discussion and visit https://www.advertisingwhocares.org to find out more and get involved. 

If you’re an agency owner and would like to discuss account retention and growth training and coaching options – or would like to reserve a spot for the next Account Accelerator (January 2025) - you can schedule a no obligation call with me to discuss your needs, via my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/account-accelerator

Welcome to episode 125. Have you ever considered contacting your old clients to see if they’d like to work with you again? If not this episode may change your mind. 
Dan Pfister is the master of running client winback campaigns and here’s what he shares with me:
·       The compelling reasons why WinBack campaigns could be the most successful and profitable thing you ever do to grow your business (the ROI is staggering)
·       A step by step guide to how to approach running a client winback campaign – and what to avoid
·       Results and examples of campaigns from many companies who have been successful

Dan is very passionate about this topic and he had me gripped with this episode, I hope you’ll end up putting some serious thought into running a client win back campaign after listening to this compelling chat. 

If you haven’t already you can find his book “Million Dollar Winback” on Amazon now. You can also connect with Dan here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danmpfister
http://winbacklabs.com/

If you want to receive weekly tips on agency account management, learn strategies for client growth, get notified for any trainings I’m running and stay in the loop about our upcoming podcast episodes, be sure to sign up for my newsletter at https://www.accountmanagementskills.com

Welcome to episode 124. This will be particularly interesting for you if you want to know how much the head of client services role can impact the agency's business.  Listen in if you don’t currently have a client services team and you're perhaps thinking about having one, or your client services function isn't performing as you'd like it to and you're exploring options for perhaps bringing in a head of department. Or maybe you are the client services director in your agency and are curious to understand how someone else in this role operates. Emily Brown and Matt Loughlin joined me today from digital marketing agency, Receptional. 
 I met Emily when she was just a few months into joining the agency and I've been very lucky to have the opportunity of working with her in my Account Accelerator programme, and that means I've been working with her for almost a year. This conversation reflects on what she's achieved as the new head of client service.  Here are the key themes that we cover during our chat: ·         why the agency decided in the first place to hire a head of client service ·         Emily's first 90 days in the role, and how she pinpointed and tackled the key priorities and established herself with the team·         the impact this CSD role has had on the agency's operations team and clients just 16 months later·         and the learnings from both Matt and Emily's perspective of establishing this new role in the agency that hopefully you can benefit from in your agency.  They share lots of detailed tips and examples that I'm sure you're going to find useful. 

You can connect with Emily and Matt here:
https://www.receptional.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-brown-5073993a/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattloughlin/ If you'd like to discuss training and coaching for your client-facing account management team, then you can book a no obligation call with me via my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com. You’ll be able to see the different training options I have available, from self-study to long term coaching, and also sign up for my regular newsletter. 

Welcome to episode 123. This episode will be particularly interesting for you if you're responsible for your agency's internal operations. You might be the operations director, head of project management, or even a client services director, but if you think your internal agency operations could be more efficient and streamlined, then this episode is for you.  Harv Nagra is an agency ops consultant, a former in-house agency ops director, and Head of Brand Comms at agency work management platform Scoro. He's recently launched The Handbook: The Agency Operations Podcast. Here’s just a flavour of what Harv shared in our chat:·         how to assess how developed your operations are using a five-stage business maturity model·         what you should typically have in place at each of the five stages and what actions you need to take to move to the next stage. ·         and some of the key trends Harv is seeing for agencies when it comes to operations. 
 Please do follow Harv on LinkedIn because he shares really good insights and tips about agency operations and project management.  http://linkedin.com/in/harvnagra
 
The Handbook: The Agency Operations Podcast:Podcast on Apple: https://apple.co/3y2R8DNPodcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Lrg9f0 If you'd like to hear about my upcoming podcast episodes, account growth training sessions, tips about account management and news about the agency industry, you can sign up to receive my regular newsletter by going to my website, https://www.accountmanagementskills.com, or connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyplant 

Welcome to episode 122. This episode will be particularly relevant for you if you're an ambitious agency owner looking to accelerate the growth of your agency.

- Maybe you think you're not standing out enough from your competitors.
- Perhaps you feel your positioning needs dialling in because maybe you've lost some pitches or you've had to drop your prices.
- Or maybe you just want to be seen as more specialized and expert.

Agency consultant and CEO of Co:definery, Robin Bonn, joins me to bust the myth that the agency market is oversupplied, and he explains how helps agencies create a future proofed, high margin agency business by creating their market of one.

Robin explains exactly what a ‘market of one’ is, and how he's helped many agencies accelerate their growth with this approach.

We also discussed some of the challenges agency owners are facing right now, and Robin offers some tips for how to remain positive and navigate the current climate.

You can get in touch with Robin here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinbonn/
https://www.codefinery.com/

Finally, if you are in an agency account management role and you'd like to be kept up to date with the next episodes that I'm going to be sharing on the podcast, and you also want tips about the account management role and any trainings that I'm doing in the future, then you can sign up for my newsletter via my website, https://www.accountmanagementskills.com

Welcome to episode 121. This is part two of a two-part interview with Simon Rhind-Tutt and Carey Evans, who are Co-Founders of Relationship Audits.  If you missed part one, I would really recommend you go back and have a listen (it’s episode 120). Simon and Carey just packed it full of insights and tips for agencies when it comes to strengthening their client relationships.  This episode is no exception and we talk about:
- what every client wants but rarely gets from an agency- what a brain trust is and why you might want one for your agency- and why leveraging your learnings from other client relationships is often a huge missed opportunity. 
 If you'd like notifications about future guests coming on the podcast, or notes from the episodes that I have with guests, as well as tips on agency account management and potential trainings, then you can sign up for my weekly newsletter at https://www.accountmanagementskills.com

Welcome to Episode 120, which is the first of two episodes covering my in-depth chat with Carey Evans and Simon Rhind-Tutt, Co-Founders of Relationship Audits®. 
I met Simon and Carey many years ago when I was working as client services director for Publicis life Brands. We were struggling with a client relationship, it was a very important client but it wasn't going well. Whilst we knew some of the reasons why the relationship was faltering, we didn’t know the whole story, so we invited in Simon and Carey to evaluate our relationship. Essentially, they went into the client’s offices and interviewed all of key client stakeholders to find out what was going on and their perception of the agency. 
 Not only did they uncover what was going well and what wasn't going well, they also uncovered growth opportunities for us as an agency to go back into the client and crystallize what they needed in the future and provide extra value. If we hadn't have done that and they hadn't have provided that action list, report and their recommendations, we wouldn't have retained that client for another two years, worth £700,000 to the agency per year. Immediately, the return on investment for employing the services of Relationship Audits changed the game for us. 
That’s why I am delighted that they've joined us back on the show for this two part interview, talking about what your clients don't tell you.  Whilst you might be evaluating the strength of your relationships with your clients and asking them questions, what Relationship Audits do, and they've been doing it successfully for years, is listen for what's not being said. They have a very established question set and they're able to spot things that you will miss.  If you would like to talk to either Carey or Simon, please visit their website, https://www.relationshipaudits.com, or send them an email at [email protected] Finally, if you are in an agency account management role and you'd like to be kept up to date with the next episodes that I'm going to be sharing on the podcast, and you also want tips about the account management role and any trainings that I'm doing in the future, then you can sign up for my newsletter via my website, https://www.accountmanagementskills.com

Welcome to episode 119. Today's episode is for you if you're curious to understand how another agency works, particularly when it comes to how they manage their client relationships and how they sell their services.  I’m joined by David Huckerby, the owner, and Natasha Jones, the Account Director of creative communications agency, Conteur. Conteur is an award-winning full service creative communications agency. They help organisations in the health and social care, housing and hospitality sectors to stand out and grow through market leading PR , video and digital services.
 
 David and Natasha share so much insight into how they run their business, including:
 
 -          why they follow the principle of providing a personalized seven star service to their clients-          how they realized some of their clients weren't aligned with their own board and what they learned from that-          how that then informed how they worked with their clients moving forward-          why they introduced service packages as a result of filling a client demand and how that impacted the time spent on proposals -          and why moving from a yearly client strategy focus to a quarterly focus helped the team's proactivity.   You can connect with David and Natasha via their LinkedIn profiles:
 https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-huckerby-05094330/https://www.linkedin.com/in/natashajones24/ If you'd like to receive my weekly email where I share insights from the podcast, chats, tips and strategies to enhance your account management role, alerts for any training webinars I'm running, as well as all the training courses I run for the account management community,  please visit  my website, https://www.accountmanagementskills.com and sign up for my newsletter.  

Welcome to episode 118. On the last episode, I interviewed the brilliant Tim Williams from Ignition Consulting group about pricing strategies and why agencies need to sell outputs and value and not hours, particularly given the rise of generative AI. If you haven't listened to that, I'd recommend you go back and listen to episode 117 because Tim shares so many different aspects of why we need to do this as agencies. Today's guest, founder of Lodestar Agency Consulting Brian Kessman, continues this theme and shares how to make that shift to a value led revenue model. 

In this chat, we talk about:
-  what it means to productize your agency's value
- the benefits it can have on your agency's financial and operational performance
- how the agency is set up to work in this model by department
- and the skills you'll need in your account management role to be successful with this new way of working. 

Please check out Brian’s website because there's a detailed 15 minutes presentation called ‘Shift Your Agency's Model from Commoditized Services to High Value Solutions’, and it's well worth a watch if you're interested, particularly in diving deeper into value led revenue models. 
https://www.lodestaragencyconsulting.com/productize-your-agencys-value

If you're responsible for managing client relationships and for delivering the commercial value to your clients and growing your accounts, I'm going to be running a mini training webinar in the summer of 2024, so if you'd like to be notified about when these go live, you can do that by going to my website, https://www.accountmanagementskills.com and signing up to receive my weekly emails. I typically share tips and strategies for commercially minded account managers. 

Welcome to episode 117.  This episode is going to be very relevant for you if you're responsible for pricing your agency's services.  I first saw Tim Williams, Founding Partner of Ignition Consulting Group, speak at an IPA conference in London in 2016. He was talking to agency owners about why they needed to ditch the billable hour if they wanted a profitable business.  I've been following Tim's work in agency pricing and positioning ever since, and for me, he's been the consistent voice of sanity throughout the years. 
 Here are just a few of the topics we cover in our chat: ·       why the time based billing system doesn't work for agencies. ·       how generative AI is only accelerating the need for agencies to rethink their pricing strategies. ·       and Tim shares key steps you can take right now to start the transition to premium pricing. 
 Ignition helps agencies and other professional service firms develop focused business strategies and transformative revenue models. You can follow Tim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwilliamsicg/or via the website: https://www.ignitiongroup.com. 
 If you’re listening to this during the summer of 2024,  I'm going to be running some free 20 minutes mini training webinars for agency account management soon. If you’d like to be notified about these first, please sign up to my email newsletter via https://www.accountmanagementskills.com