In this episode, Chip and Gini delve into the challenge of agencies being brought in late on client projects. They discuss the common scenario where clients give last-minute requests and share strategies for becoming part of the planning process earlier.

Key recommendations include integrating into internal communications, attending more meetings, and maintaining a mindset of curiosity to stay updated. They also cover how to handle situations when timely inclusion isn’t possible, such as negotiating new timelines or additional costs for urgent work.

The conversation emphasizes the importance of proactive client communication to prevent unrealistic expectations and to potentially increase scope and revenue.

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

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: And Gini today, you know, I think we need to figure out how I can learn what’s going on on this podcast a little bit sooner. I, I feel like I only learned at the very last second what our topics are gonna be, and I just, I need to get plugged in sooner.

Gini Dietrich: Okay. Nothing. I I got nothing. You got nothing. We went last week from you having nothing to I got nothing.

Chip Griffin: We we’re, it turns out our openings now are just play stump the co-host.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Right.

Chip Griffin: So, well how about, how about instead of that,

Gini Dietrich: learn how we get plugged in sooner to the discussion that we have as soon as we, just five minutes before we decide to record, but Okay.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. Well, I, and in fairness, this, this is a challenge that a lot of agencies have with their clients where they’re asked to do something at the last possible second. Right. And they then need to try to figure out how to make it work. Yes. Surprise. We’re having a product announcement tomorrow. Oh really? I didn’t even know you were working on a new product, let alone that it was launching tomorrow.

These are real world situations. They’re ones I’ve experienced, I’m sure you’ve experienced and just about every listener has experienced Yeah. It is not good. It’s an uncomfortable feeling. No, it’s not good. And you can’t usually just say to the client, yeah, no, sorry, we, we can’t do that on 24 hours notice.

I, I mean, you can’t, you can try, but they’re, they’re not, they’re, it’s not gonna go over well.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s, I would say this is, especially from a pr perspective, this is a really typical thing because for some reason nobody thinks to say, oh gosh, we should have communications in the room.

When we’re planning all of this stuff. Instead they say, Hey, by the way, we’re gonna launch a new round of funding next week. Can you get the media relations piece set up? And you’re like, it’s not, I can’t in a week. Oh, and by the way, every board member has to approve the news release before it goes out. In a week?

And then it never does. You get it, it never goes out in a week because that’s just not enough time. And so I think it’s a really good conversation to have because we do have to figure out how to become part of the conversation at the beginning instead of at the end.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And it’s, it’s something that came up in the Spin Sucks community recently.

And you know, it, it is certainly, I think, It particularly impacts pr. but I, I’ve seen it impact just about every kind of agency. I’ve seen it happen with digital firms. Who are asked to put together a landing page on a moment’s notice for something that they didn’t even know was, was being developed or planned or anything like that.

You know, there are plenty of times where ad firms are asked to spin up a, a digital ad campaign on a moment’s notice. You know, the, these are, these are things that are generally better done when they’ve got some lead time and some, yeah, some planning abilities. Yeah. And so, you know, unfortunately you can complain to the client all you want, you need to bring us in sooner.

But at the end of the day, I think we need to find more proactive ways as agencies to get ourselves into the conversation much sooner.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. So a couple of things that have worked really well for us. One is that, I mean, obvious, this, this might be obvious, but if you’re doing executive or thought leadership communications with the CEO. That’s part of the conversation that you have as you’re developing content to say, what’s new? What’s upcoming? What are you working on? What can we be thinking about? So that’s just part of your ongoing conversation.

If you’re not doing that, we have one client where we’re not doing that kind of work, but he, the CEO has a weekly email that he sends, and I just ask for us all to be put on the email.

And so he, so it go, there’s one that goes to his board. And so we get those emails as well as a blind copy. And then there’s one that goes to the whole team, to the whole office, and we’re included on that too. So I can see, okay, from a board perspective, this is what’s coming, this is what they’re working on, this is what to expect for the next quarter.

And then with the team one, we can see what they’re starting to communicate internally so that we can kind of see far further out. And then it’s my responsibility to give him a call and say, okay. Based on what I’m reading, this is, it looks like you’re working on, can we talk about this? So that’s a, that’s been a really good way for us to get sort of in the, the know before that stuff happens.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I think, I think, you know, getting yourself embedded with those internal communications so that you are getting copies of pretty much, you know, anything that you can get your hands on: weekly reports, internal emails, that kind of stuff. And, and so to the extent that you hear about things like that. Make sure to just ask, Hey, can we get added to that distribution so that we see it?

I think the other key thing is the, this element of curiosity that you suggest. so that if you’re having a thought leadership conversation with a CEO or someone like that. Just ask what’s going on. Yep. Be curious. Do that in your conversations with your regular day-to-day contact.

What else is going on? Yep. What are you working on? Just,

Gini Dietrich: yep.

Chip Griffin: Don’t, don’t try to, and I know a lot of agencies wanna just kind of stay within their lane and, and feel like geez, you know, I, I don’t wanna muck things up by going off into other territory. No. You, you wanna learn as much as possible about what’s going on, even if it doesn’t directly impact you today, because it may impact you tomorrow.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. And, and it’s, I think it’s just a nice way, the curiosity is a great way of putting it. It is just a really nice way to kind of, you know, we talked last week about how we get our employees to think strategically, but also how to get you up to that level too, of, oh, okay, well if you’re working on this, that means this and this, and this might be coming. if you’re working with much larger clients where you don’t have access to the CEO and maybe you have access to the marketing team or the comms team or whatever happens to be, it’s continuing to ask that question. But also as you’re helping with results and reports and things like that, you can start to say, okay, what are we working on for the next quarter?

If there are quarterly assessment meetings, how do you get involved in those kinds of things? So it’s really positioning yourself Where those conversations are being had so that you can be part of that part of it as well. My team is very good at saying, can I be invited to that meeting? Like, yeah, sometimes.

I mean, it’s, sometimes they say yes, and sometimes they say no.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. You, you’ve got to get yourself into as many internal meetings as possible. Yeah. Particularly recurring ones. Yes. Those, those are often, they’re, they are sometimes the most boring, but they are often the most valuable to be in, because that’s where you make sure that you’re not getting blindsided because inevitably things that that will impact you either come up directly or you can read between the lines and see that there’s something there for you.

And it’s, it’s not just so that you don’t get blindsided, it also can help you to spot opportunities, right. That perhaps the client wasn’t thinking of themselves. So, you know, I’m a huge fan and I know people complain about meetings all the time. Geez, I have too many meetings. And so there are plenty of agencies who say, I, you know, we don’t have time for any more meetings. We don’t want to be in their internal conversations ’cause only 2% of it is actually relevant to us. You know what, get past that. I agree. You need, you need to be in those. Yep.

Now you need to price correctly so that you’re accounting for the time that you’ll spend doing it. So, you know, if you’ve only budgeted five hours total a month for a client, don’t go spend an extra 10 hours in client in, meetings that you, you’re gonna have to figure out how to price yourself better so that you have that.

But it’s, it’s so valuable being in these meetings for all of the reasons that we’ve discussed previously, but it’s also, it’s helpful just in strengthening the relationship Yep. And, and making sure that you, you know, you don’t suffer from out of sight, out of mind, which is a huge problem for many agencies, particularly if you’re working in a very focused area.

And, and so put yourself in a place where you get to be seen and you get to hear what is going on.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, it’s absolutely critical. I think, you know, when I worked at Fleischman Hillard, one of the things that was really important to them, and sort of I’ve carried this through my, through my own culture as well, is that you spent a lot, we spent a lot of time with the direct client.

So, you know, from my case at, at this point in my career, my quote unquote direct client was the sales rep who was out in the fields. ’cause I did a lot of ag pr who was out in the fields working with the farmers. Do you know how much I learned being out in the field with farmers? I spent an entire summer doing that.

I learned about weeds, I learned about pests. I learned about how, you know things, weather, all the things that they had to think about and how the products that I was helping to support affected all of that. And it just gives you a different level of understanding and gives you a different access because then the client says, oh shoot. Gini needs to know about this. And you know, they call or text immediately. If you’re not part of the culture and part of the ongoing conversations, they’re not even gonna think about it. And I think that it’s really up to us to be able to sort of just insert ourselves into those conversations.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, absolutely.

I think the other thing is, and I know you’re a huge of, you know, doing quarterly planning. Yep. I, if you are doing more proactive planning, whether it’s quarterly or some other basis with your clients, that will help too, because you’re then forcing the conversation over what is coming.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: And so they may have not thought to, to proactively let you know, but because you’re driving the process, they’ll say, oh, right, you know, we, we’ve been talking about this new product launch that we’ve got, or we’ve got this event that we’re gonna be participating in, in the coming quarter. Those are the kinds of things that you wanna make sure that, that you are doing as well, so that you are, you know, not just part of the conversation, but you’re creating the conversation.

Gini Dietrich: That’s exactly right. I love that. And that’s, that’s part of the reason I love the quarterly meetings. We have many clients, even at the enterprise level who do quarterly assessments and they force their teams to think, to review the, the quarter in the past and then think about what’s coming. And when you’re part of that conversation, you can start to see it through your lens and say, okay.

If we’re, if you’re gonna be doing this, this, and this, then we need to be included to do, to be able to help you do these things. But I think you’re exactly right. You have to price for that. You have to make sure that it’s part of your process. And yeah, nobody wants to be in more meetings, but it actually helps.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, it’s, I mean, it, it, it really helps on a lot of different levels. But now let’s take a moment to, to look at what happens when you don’t get brought in in time. You know, we, we can talk all we want about how to get yourself into the process earlier, but sometimes it doesn’t happen. And so I think it’s, it’s as important to think about how do you handle those circumstances because it, I don’t think most of the time it can be, sorry, we can’t do that. Right. Sometimes it might have to be that.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. But, but that has to be the absolute last resort.

Gini Dietrich: Well, I think it depends on what it is. Like.

Chip Griffin: Sure,

Gini Dietrich: there have been things for sure that you, that we’ve been like, we just, that it’s impossible for us to do it in that, in that amount of time.

Like there’s just, it’s just not humanly possible. It’s not possible because of external factors. Whatever happens to be. So we will negotiate, I would say like the timing of it. Right? Well, if you want it next week, here’s what’s really feasible. We would’ve liked to have six months, but can we do it in three?

Probably. So, you know, negotiating that. One of the things that we also started thinking about just a couple of years ago is, I don’t, we don’t call it this in the contract, but in the contract there’s sort of emergency finance funding essentially. So if you, if you are not bringing us in and you want something turned around that quickly is gonna cost you more.

And some people, some of our clients exercise that option to pay more for it if to get it done in time. So I think you do have a lot of options. Obviously it’s not good for anybody’s stress or burnout or anything like that, especially if it happens all the time. But you can negotiate some of it to say, listen, we’re happy to help you with this, but we just can’t do it in five days.

We can do it in 10. Right? And here’s why.

Chip Griffin: Well, I think a, key is to let the client know what is possible, right? Right. So rather, rather than leading what you with what you can’t do, lead with what you can do. And that may not be the, you know, the, the full expectation that they have. It may not be everything they want, but, but you’re at least, you know, you’re starting with a positive.

About what can be done, and say, okay, this is what we could do in five days, but if, if we were able to push it, and some things can’t be pushed, right? I mean, if it’s a, an event that’s taking place, sure there’s no ability to push it. But if it’s an announcement and you can say, Hey, if we had another week, here are the extra things that we could do with that additional week’s time.

And so I think, you know, you always want to, to approach these kinds of circumstances with a client with that, that helpfulness mindset with an idea towards thinking about what’s possible rather than what’s not.

Gini Dietrich: And I also think it’s important to have that conversation because I think too often we’ll say, yeah, sure, no problem.

And we get it done, but it’s at the, at our expense, right? It’s at the expense of us or our team, or our time, or whatever happens to be. And because we do that, that’s the expectation for the next time. Correct. So it’s really important to have that conversation and set the expectation up front so that the next time this doesn’t happen and you start to train them, that they need to bring you in sooner.

Chip Griffin: Right. Well, and, and I think the, the next time is a key part of this as well, right? You get through that moment, but then you need to have a, a conversation with the client about how could we, how could we have avoided this? Yep. You know, this, this fire drill that we had to go through, how could we make sure that next time there is the appropriate time and, and that might be, you know, the time where they say, oh, well, you know, if you were in this meeting with us, you would’ve seen it coming.

And so they might surface things that would be helpful to you, whether those are those internal communications things or meetings that we talked about previously. But you want to have that conversation. Don’t, don’t do that, you know, in the heat of the moment.

Gini Dietrich: Right, right, right. Yep.

Chip Griffin: Do that, you know, once you’ve gotten past the obstacle, you know, now you can have a much more reasonable conversation with somebody without them feeling like you’re accusing them or, you know, trying to, you know, CYA about the, the outcome or something like that. You want to just have that conversation once you’ve already done as best you can with the circumstances at hand, but figure out how to do better next time.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s, you know, I mean this goes, I said this last week, but this goes down to just a few, couple of things, right? It’s, it’s running your business more effectively from a financial perspective, understanding what things cost and how long they take to, to get things done. Making sure that you’re protected from a contract perspective. And have your one-to-ones.

Yep. And that means client one-to-ones too, not just employees.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, so much of this goes down to the client communication side of things, and it’s, it’s because agencies have a, a tendency to hunker down and, and not talk about things that, that they don’t already know about because they’re afraid that, that, that scope creep is gonna happen because we’re having these conversations.

Gini Dietrich: Right,

Chip Griffin: right. So, geez, if I, if I try to talk to them about more things or I try to show up in more meetings, it’s just gonna mean more work for me without extra money. Well, that only happens if you allow it to. That’s right. And, and you need, I would rather be aware of all those things that are out there. I would rather the client is asking me to do more, and then we can figure out how to handle it.

Don’t just do it and, and eat the cost, but, but don’t be afraid of those conversations because it could easily allow you to strengthen the relationship or even expand the relationship, so that you can make more money and more profit from that client.

Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. And that’s, that’s another reason I love the quarterly meeting, because that allows you to say, here’s what, here’s what worked last quarter.

Here’s what we’ve been working on. Here are the results. Here’s what we’d like to do for next quarter. And then you have this conversation with the client who says, oh, well, well, we’re gonna do this. And you go, great. We can either replace this with that or we need a, a scope increase, and, and nine times outta 10 they say, oh, let’s throw some more money at it and get it done.

Like, it gives you a really good opportunity not to just stay ahead of what they’re working on so that you can get your job done, but also increase your scope as well.

Chip Griffin: Right. And, and, and, and finally, I would just say I, I think we all need to understand that our clients aren’t thinking about us every day in all likelihood.

Gini Dietrich: Unfortunately not.

Chip Griffin: And, and so, you know, we need to avoid that immediate knee-jerk reaction we have when these things happen to say, I can’t believe they left me out of this. They, oh, you know, they set us up for failure. No, they didn’t. They just, it just didn’t even occur to them.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: Would it be nice if it did?

Of course, of course. But we can’t, we can’t allow that to impact our thought process or how we go about things. We need to, we need to do what we can to be part of the conversation, but still accept that these things will happen because you’re not sitting next to them at the desk or on their, you know, internal Slack talking to them all day, every day, like their coworkers are.

So

Gini Dietrich: That’s exactly right.

Chip Griffin: It’s a balancing act.

Gini Dietrich: Yep. Absolutely. Get yourself into the internal conversations where you can, if they have Slack or Teams, get in there, make sure that you’re having the right kinds of meetings so that you are part of the conversation. And of course, budget for it so that you’re not over servicing, but those are the ways that you can get, get the information you need ahead of time.

Chip Griffin: Excellent. I think that is a great place to end this episode. So with that, I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich

Chip Griffin: and it depends.