How agencies should handle procurement and legal

Most agencies approach the arrival of procurement and legal teams with a sense of dread. And it isn’t without good reason.

Those two departments can cause real problems — but all hope is not lost.

In this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini discuss how to navigate these two departments to close more business and facilitate a more successful long-term relationship with your client.

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Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich

Chip Griffin: Gini, the finance department has a few questions for you. Um, they’re not real happy, so you’re going to have to deal with those. Okay. Right after this.

Gini Dietrich: Great.

Chip Griffin: So, you know, I was talking with my finance team and they’ve got a few questions and, you know, they think we’re paying a little bit too much and maybe you’re not being quite accountable enough in what you’re doing for this show. So, you know, I’m going to put you in touch with them and they’re going to, you know, grill you.

Gini Dietrich: That sounds amazing. Great. Thank you. Can’t wait. And I

Chip Griffin: said, no one ever I’m happy. I’m thrilled with the way things are going. Fantastic. And I, you know, I they’re finding,

Gini Dietrich: yeah, that sounds that this is why I, this is also advice. I give, find somebody hire somebody on your team either it’s internally or outsource that handles those conversations and are good at those conversations so that you can remove yourself from it because. All that would do for me is ended not having a client.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. See, this is, so this is, uh, something that, that came about from a Reddit conversation that has since been deleted. So we can’t actually refer back to it, but that’s okay. Um, it is, it is something that comes up, particularly as agencies start working with larger clients that have. Finance teams, procurement teams, those sorts of things, and they can often make a Royal mess of, of the relationship.

Uh, and so what we’re gonna talk about today is how you handle that, how you approach those kinds of issues to make sure that you’re not in a situation where you suddenly have, uh, work, that, that you’re not being paid fairly for, that you don’t really want to do anymore.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I have a, I have a really good friend who works with a gigantic corporation and they sent an email earlier this week and said, we’d like to know what your hourly rates are.

And we’d like to lock you in for three years. And we’d also like a credit back on some of the work that you do. And she sent it to me at all. No, but this is how they negotiate with the procurement team is this is what they do. And if you say that your managing supervisor is $200 an hour right now got by golly, it’s gotta be $200 an hour, three years from now, and you’re not getting a raise and they’re not getting a raise.

And there’s no like there’s no way to work around that. So I think trying to figure out the best way to handle those kinds of things. Certainly you can’t say, well, our rates are $550 to accommodate for inflation and all that right later. But if you want to be working with larger companies,