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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 -
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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/3y2R8DN
Podcast 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
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 -
Welcome to episode 116. This episode is for you if you are responsible for managing projects in an agency.
This one could be quite controversial, but equally very enlightening because my guest is going to be potentially challenging your belief about the role of project management. Jack's Skeel’s book is called ‘UNMANAGED’ and Jack makes a very compelling case for the fact that teams work more effectively when managed less, not more.
During this chat we cover:
• why agencies should be asking themselves what they need to start unmanaging rather than managing the origin of project management, and why it doesn't work in an uncertain environment like an agency.
• how less management can boost profitability and productivity
• what we can learn from Japanese management culture
• what Jack sees as the future of the way agencies operate
• and the biggest mistake agencies make when scaling.
This is such a good chat and I enjoyed being challenged to think about what we consider really the ‘sacred cow’ agency operating structure.
I love Jack’s work and I'd urge you to get in touch because he's saving agencies tons and tons of money by completely shaking their operations up.
If you are listening to this in Summer 2024, I'm going to be running some 20 minutes mini training sessions in the coming months. If you like the idea of jumping on a Zoom call to watch a 20 minute live training in account management, then please visit my website and sign up for my weekly email and you'll be one of the first to receive an invitation. https://www.accountmanagementskills.com
About Jack Skeels:
Jack Skeels, author of Unmanaged: Master the Magic of Creating Empowered and Happy Organizations, is a two-time Inc. 500 award winning entrepreneur, consultant, and former management sciences researcher at the think-tank, RAND Corporation. A noted author, expert and speaker, he been published and featured over 35 times including: Ad Age, Entrepreneur.com, Business Horizons, Wall Street Journal, Training, and many other publications.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackaskeels/
https://jackskeels.medium.com
https://business.facebook.com/AgencyAgile/
https://twitter.com/AgencyAgile -
Welcome to episode 115. If you're in agency new business or account management and responsible for contract renewals and account expansion, you're in for a huge treat because Tim Riesterer, author of ‘The Expansion Sale’ (Four Must-Win Conversations to Keep and Grow Your Customers), joins me.
Tim is a powerhouse and working with huge enterprises in this area, but he also has a background working in agencies.
We discussed data backed insight into:
• the real reason prospects buy and how to change your approach to new business
• why how you sell to prospects is not the way you should sell to existing clients
• why overcoming the client's status quo bias is the key to unlocking client growth
• why asking your client what problems they have just doesn't work
• and so much more.
I highly recommend following Tim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-riesterer or via the Corporate Visions website: http://www.corporatevisions.com/
and buying the book, ‘The Expansion Sale’: https://win.corporatevisions.com/The-Expansion-Sale.html
We talk about Tim's research and what overcoming a client's status quo bias means for agency account managers in my training. If you’d like to discuss account management training and all the options that we offer, then please go to my website and book a call. https://www.accountmanagementskills.com
Or alternatively, you can send me a direct message on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyplant -
Welcome to Episode 114. If you're an agency owner who wants to stand out in a competitive market, then today's guest has written an entire book about it.
Gareth Healey, author of "STAND OUT OR DIE" joins me to share:
- what he learned from scaling and exiting his business
- his seven step framework for standing out in a crowded marketplace
- and his advice for other agency owners who want to productize their services and Stay competitive in the future.
You can connect with Gareth Healey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garethhealey/
And find his book here: http://mybook.to/STANDOUT
if you're struggling with new business right now, and perhaps finding that your pipeline is drying up or taking longer to convert, maybe it's time to turn your attention to how you can add more value to your existing clients' business and grow your accounts.
If you want to know the quickest and easiest ways that are working right now for other agencies, check out the details of my Account Accelerator programme. It's a year long coaching and training programme for those responsible for account growth in the agency who are managing those client relationships on a day to day basis.
You can find all the details here: https://www.accountmanagementskills. com/account-accelerator -
Welcome to episode 113. This will be particularly inspirational for you if you are currently a small agency owner with aspirations for huge growth. Jared Lopiccolo, CEO & Co-Founder of Noble Studios, built his agency from a single laptop to a multi million dollar agency. He shares some insight into what it took to achieve that growth and also his advice for other agency owners who may want to do the same thing.
Jarrod also shares:
• the pivotal moments that were the growth accelerator points in his business
• how you need to change and adapt as a leader
• how to build a strong culture of very engaged employees
• some of the trends he's seeing in the agency landscape
• how he thinks agencies need to adapt to what's coming.
He shares so many more tips and insights into running the business.
You can find Jarrod on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jarrodlopiccolo
and via the Noble Studios website: https://noblestudios.com/
Many agency owners come to me to talk about account management training, but the three big outcomes that they really want from the training are to answer the following three questions:
• how can I have more predictable client retention and revenue from existing clients?
• how can I hardwire these commercial skills into the business and ensure I have a repeatable process that everyone can follow in the agency so that if that person leaves, everybody else knows what to do when it comes to account retention and growth?
• How can I foster a more commercial mindset which will give me a competitive advantage in the marketplace?
If any of those three outcomes resonate with you, please check out my Account Accelerator programme, which is on my website at https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/account-accelerator. It is a one year coaching and training programme and it's designed for those who are working in an agency managing the client relationship, and responsible ultimately for the growth of that account. -
Welcome to episode 112. I’m joined by Shannyn Lee, Managing Director of Win Without Pitching ®, which is widely recognised by the creative industry as one of the best quality sales training programs because it's specifically tailored to agencies.
This episode will be particularly valuable for you if your job at the agency is winning new business and you'd like to know how to do that without having to go through a costly pitch process.
During our chat, Shannyn shares:
- the Win Without Pitching ® principles
- what it takes to circumnavigate a client's pitch process
- the common sales challenges faced by agencies today
- her advice for agency owners who want to stand out in the market, and lots more.
Please visit the Win Without Pitching ® website (https://www.winwithoutpitching.com) to find out more about everything the company does, find which workshops are coming up. and to buy Blair Enns’ book, ‘The Win Without Pitching Manifesto’, which is practically the industry bible.
You can connect with Shannyn Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannyn-lee-2a32846/
If you're listening to this episode in April 2024 we are opening enrolments for our May Account Accelerator™ training for those in the agency who are responsible for existing client growth. If your job is to manage client relationships and grow your accounts, check out the details on my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/account-accelerator -
Welcome to episode 111. This episode will be particularly relevant for you if you're heading up the agency or you're in charge of an agency team.
Alison Coward is the founder of Bracket, a consultancy that partners with ambitious, forward-thinking companies to help them build high-performing and collaborative team cultures. She is a culture strategist, workshop facilitator, coach, trainer, keynote speaker and author of “A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops” and “Workshop Culture: a guide to building teams that thrive”.
Alison shares some data backed insights, some brilliant tips and actionable strategies for high performing teams, including:
- why agency teams typically end up not working well together and how to address the issues
- why creating a workshop culture is a solution to better collaboration and teamwork
- how to make all the meetings you have more efficient and effective
- her five pillar framework for implementing a workshop culture in your agency
Connect with Alison:
https://linkedin.com/in/alisoncoward
https://www.bracketcreative.co.uk
https://www.workshopculture.co.uk
https://amzn.eu/d/h4VDgST
Many agency owners ask me to help their client facing team with account management. Some don't have dedicated account managers, but they still want predictable client retention and growth, a repeatable, client centric client management process as well as ultimately a competitive advantage. According to Gartner, 80% of your future profits are going to come from 20% of your existing clients. Currently, many of my programme participants are just three months in and already getting very impressive account growth results, and this is down to them being coachable and also taking action on what we're covering, with me supporting them with the implementation.
So if you're in charge of a client facing team, or maybe someone in your team is responsible for account growth and could potentially benefit from upskilling and having a strategy, then check out the details of my one year Account Accelerator training and coaching programme. You can find all the details at https://www.accountmanagementskills.com -
Welcome to episode 110. This episode is for you if you're an agency owner either interested in buying agencies to grow, or selling your agency at some point.
It's also enlightening if you work in an agency and you want to understand the process of mergers and acquisitions. Jonathan Baker, Practice Lead in M&A at Punctuation joins me and shares a lot of tips and insights about the buying and selling process, including:
- the current state of M&A and why right now might be a really good time to sell
- the impact of AI on the changing agency landscape and his advice for content marketing agencies
- why cultural alignment is key to a successful transaction
- the criteria buyers typically use to assess an agency they might want to purchase
- how concerned sellers should be about the terms of the transaction
- how far you get through the transaction before bringing in a lawyer
- how and when to tell your staff about the sale
- why you should ask about buyer funding if you're being bought, and so much more.
Jonathan has created a special webpage just for this podcast's listeners at https://www.punctuation.com/creative and through this link you can also chat to him about anything you've heard on this episode. You can also connect with on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com//in/jonathandavidbaker
Many agency owners come to me for account management skills training and to help their account managers develop an entrepreneurial mindset. And ultimately, what they are looking for are three things. They want more predictable client retention and growth, which is less expensive than pitching for new business. They want to hardwire account growth into the agency's internal processes so that account growth becomes repeatable. And they're also looking for ways to future proof their agency's business and gain a competitive advantage by offering the best client value and experience. If any of this sounds of interest, we are opening enrolments later this month for my Account Accelerator programme. It's a 12 month coaching and training programme and you can find all the details on my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/account-accelerator -
Welcome to episode 109. My guest is Michael Farmer, a management consultant who has been looking at the agency business model for over 30 years.
He's identified three burning issues for creative agencies.
1. Work is increasing in volume and yet agencies fees are declining. But because agencies aren't measuring scopes of work, they don't often realize the extent to which this is happening.
2. Agencies aren't helping clients achieve their business outcomes. Clients are paying them less and typically fire them every three years and generally treat them as order takers.
3. AI is now putting fuel on this fire and is threatening to reduce the amount of creative adaptation work that agencies do.
It’s not all doom and gloom. I found this an enlightening conversation and I particularly enjoyed listening to the history of how it was before agencies priced their services by the hour. Michael talks about the problems, but he also offers solutions. I suggest you read his latest book ‘Madison Avenue Makeover’, which maps out the transformation of Huge’s business model step by step.
http://linkedin.com/in/michaelfarmer
If you are in an account management role or you're in charge of an agency account management team and you want to raise the value of this position, then please connect with me on LinkedIn at Jenny Plant or check out my Account Accelerator programme by visiting my website, https://www.accountmanagementskills.com. -
Welcome to episode 108. Are you struggling to manage a remote agency team? If so, you're going to get a lot of value from my conversation with Gustavo Razzetti, CEO of Fearless Culture and author of ‘Remote, Not Distant’.
He shared some very thought-provoking insights for agency leaders and agency teams, including
• how remote working is only amplifying the positive and the negative aspects of your agency culture that were already present
• how to fix the issues
• how to make your remote brainstorming meetings more effective
• why agencies need to strike a balance between being overly protective and having respectful friction
• and how agencies celebrate individualism
I'd highly recommend that you follow Gustavo on LinkedIn, go to his website where you can download some of his free resources, as well as investing in his book, ‘Remote, Not Distant’.
Book Remote Not Distant: https://www.amazon.com/Remote-Not-Distant-Company-Workplace-ebook/dp/B09VXX4FN3
Blog: https://gustavorazzetti.substack.com
Agency Website: https://www.fearlessculture.design
Personal Website: https://gustavorazzetti.com/ -
Welcome to episode 107. If you’ve ever wondered if you’re pricing your services in the right way, this one is for you.
Alfie Wenegieme, Managing Partner at Cactus, joins me and he shares:
1. Why agencies don’t lose pitches on price alone
2. How agencies price to ensure a healthy profit margin
3. Typical mistakes agencies make when pricing
4. And some useful tips for account managers and project managers when scoping projects
If you’re listening to this episode in February 2024, I’m opening enrolments again for my Account Accelerator programme that begins on March 5th. It’s a 12 month training and coaching programme that’s specifically designed to build an entrepreneurial mindset in account management which means:
• Having an effective account management and account growth process - that is understood and followed consistently by all your account managers
• Having an end-to-end client growth framework (from onboarding to delivery) - so everyone knows what to do when, and you have all the templates and resources to help you implement
• Having a Proactive Client Retention Strategy - so you increase the lifetime value of your ideal clients (and don’t have to keep feeding your sales pipeline)
If you’d like to have a quick call with me to see if this might be a good fit for you or a member of your team, you can find all the details on my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/account-accelerator - Se mer
