How to be a better account manager

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Verbatim text

Lee:
Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer Podcast. This is your host, Lee. And on today’s show we are talking with Jenny Plant. She takes us back in the time machine to an age where shoulder pads were the way to go. They were the way to run an agency, and she shares with us both her journey and lessons she has learned over the years for effective account management. So folks, sit back, relax, don those shoulder pads and enjoy the ride. This podcast is brought to you by the agency Trailblazer Community. Is agency life stressing you out? Then? It is our mission to help you build an agency that you love. We’ve created a community which includes the Agency Reset Roadmap, that will allow you to get your agency back on the right track. We also have lots of noble, straight to the point, easy to consume workshops. We have a thriving community of other agency owners, and we all wrap up every month with a mastermind call with myself and sometimes a special guest where we unpack your questions.

Lee:
For more details, check out agencytrailblazer.com. Welcome to yet another episode of the Agency Trailblazer Podcast. And on today’s show, we have Jenny Plant. Jenny, how are you doing?

Jenny:
I’m doing really good. Thank you. Lee, thank you so much for inviting me on. I’m so excited.

Lee:
I’m really excited. We’ve. We got introduced by our good mutual friend Andy and me, and you have hit it off straight away. We’ve we’ve you’ve been a part of our Facebook group, which has been awesome as well at WP innovator, and you’ve had dropped some great value in there. But also I think me and you have got an awful lot in common and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you folks. Jenny Plant she is an expert in account management skills, and if you want to find out some more about that, go and check out Account Management Skills comm. Probably the easiest domain name to ever remember. And we’re going to be learning all about Jenny’s story today, which I’m really excited of how she got into agency life and how, you know, over the years has struggled with account management and then learnt so much because I’ve had all of these sorts of problems. I really want to suck as much as I can out of your brain. Jenny. I’m really excited. So before we carry on, that was my awful unplanned intro.

Lee:
I always do those. That’s fine. Could you now set the record straight and just give us a little introduction? Let us know who you are, your name, what you do, your favourite colour, what your favourite drink might be and any other random, unusual fact. And then we’ll jump into that time machine.

Jenny:
Okay. Well, I mean thank you. First of all, thank you so much for inviting me on. I feel this is a real privilege. I’ve really enjoyed being part of your group and it just so active as well, which is so good to see. And just as you’ve said, I mean, I fundamentally help agencies keep and grow existing business, and I love what I do and the way or the way I do that is by training their account management teams. So I’m running workshops in London for on behalf of the Pharmaceutical Marketing Society and the Institute of Promotional Marketers, as well as going in house to agencies all around the country and training their account management teams. So my favourite colour.

Lee:
Oh, good. I was I was going to say I thought you’d forgotten that. I’m going to guess green.

Jenny:
Oh my God, it’s green.

Lee:
It’s all over your website, that’s why.

Jenny:
Yeah, that’s probably why. Yeah. Go on. That was a bit of a no. It’s it’s right.

Speaker 3
It’s green.

Jenny:
Well done.

Speaker 3
Obviously I’m not going to.

Lee:
Get a drink though. I don’t think I.

Speaker 3
Can get.

Jenny:
Favourite drink.

Lee:
Yeah.

Jenny:
Do you know what I’m loving? Ginger beer.

Lee:
Yes.

Jenny:
What do you think?

Lee:
Yes.

Lee:
I’m with you there. I used to I used to love reading the Enid Blyton books. You know, the Famous Five. And they all used to drink ginger beer. So as a kid, I went and bought ginger beer, and I saw the light.

Jenny:
Honestly. Well, I’m so obsessed with ginger that I’ve actually got some ginger powder that I. I don’t know if anyone else does this, actually, and maybe I’m sounding a bit nuts, but I put it in my coffee. Yeah. Just to give it a bit of a kick. And I also put it in porridge. I mean, am I, I don’t know, maybe there’s like a ginger fan club somewhere where people love the taste of ginger, but I need to join it, I think.

Lee:
Well, I think because 70% of our audience is actually all American based, they’ll just think that we’re nuts British people and that it’s totally normal for us to do stuff like that.

Lee:
So they weren’t judges one bit.

Lee:
In fact, they’ll probably think it’s really cute and you’ll probably see a ginger. Sales increase out there with agencies all around the USA. I have to try this as well. This sounds brilliant. I’ve actually got some ginger powder in the kitchen, so I’m going to go ahead and try that.

Jenny:
Lee try it. Honestly, I don’t know what it is, but it just maybe it’s my as I get older I kind of need more more spice and more kick in my food. And this is just yeah, ginger. It has to be my favourite right now. That’s what I’m.

Jenny:
Loving.

Lee:
Well, this definitely isn’t a cooking show, but let’s just quickly talk about Ginger a little bit further. Ginger is one of those spices that’s not too hot or anything like that. It’s just right, isn’t it? It’s very British spice, isn’t it?

Jenny:
Yeah. And I don’t know what else I can put in. I’ve started to put it in the tea and now a lot of people go, oh my God, you’re ruining the tea. But I just, I’m just a bit addicted to it right now. And it isn’t too spicy, is it? It just gives it that little, little bit of flavour.

Lee:
I think if I ever have you around for dinner, then I’ll make sure that we put out salt, pepper and ginger.

Jenny:
Exactly. Thank you very much. You know, you know, after a girl’s heart.

Jenny:
Exactly.

Lee:
That’s fantastic. All right, Jenny, well, let’s jump in that time machine, because I’m really excited to go back. Kind of, I guess over 25 years ago, before you even got into agency life. Because I’d love to know. How did you get into agency life? What was that kind of journey to that point? Just tell us your story. I’m intrigued.

Jenny:
The thing is, right, I’m officially a dinosaur in in ad agency world in agency world in general. I mean, if you can just imagine, like 1989, I’m sitting in an open plan office, bright bleached hair in the middle of Hatton Garden, London’s Hatton Garden. I was working for an independent, 90 strong ad agency, and the way I got it was just literally out of college. I didn’t go to university, I went straight from college, I did business, and I got a job in an ad agency. I thought I’d won the jackpot. I was an account coordinator. And as you look around this office, like everyone’s smoking. There’s no I mean, this is going to resonate with some of your listeners, but probably not many. No one had a computer on their desk. It was everything was done by phone. So you had to actually speak to the client if you wanted any kind of communication. There was no email. I spent most of my time by the fax machine.

Jenny:
Waiting. For faxes, and if you wanted to kind of brief the creative team or get some sign off from the artwork or something, you had to go and find them in the pub down the road.

Lee:
Yeah,

Jenny:
because there was just so much money around. I mean, I think the word procurement wasn’t in our vocabulary, you know, like the agent agency that all the clients used to come over and we’d take them out to lunch and we wouldn’t go back. I was 20 years old, and I think I was the first time I’d ever drunk vintage port, you know, because there was this long, boozy lunches. But that was kind of the heady days of ad agencies in that in that time. So, you know, the shoulder pads at that time, the women wore such big shoulder pads that you had to kind of take your life into your hands as you cross the office, just in case they turn around. You know, like the bigger the better. You’d think you’d stumbled onto some kind of American football pitch.

Lee:
Did you?

Lee:
Did you succumb to them? Did you wear shoulder pads?

Jenny:
Totally. Totally. Yeah. I need.

Lee:
To see a picture of This.

Jenny:
Seriously? I mean, I used to. This is embarrassing. And maybe I won’t. Maybe I can’t reveal that.

Jenny:
That’s just.

Lee:
Oh, okay. Maybe we should do a podcast after hours where you reveal that.

Jenny:
Yeah, that was just.

Jenny:
No, look, it’s not that bad. I was just I used to stuff sort of sponges down just to make them bigger. So, you know, it was the. It was just coming out of the 80s and and. Yeah, when I go and talk to agencies now, I, I see these young people fresh faced, all kind of full of enthusiasm. And that was me. I it was fun and I loved, I loved working with creative people. Absolutely loved it.

Lee:
That’s so cool. I don’t know if I’m liking the idea. I like port, but I’m not sure if I like it at lunchtime.

Jenny:
No. Well, this is the thing they you know, I remember my boss saying, you know, Jenny, we’re going to go out for lunch. Come on. Let’s. But, you know, bring your stuff because you won’t be coming back. You know, I it was exciting as the youngest person there with the least responsibility and it wasn’t going to come down on my shoulders. So I was just following along and it was fun. I mean, it was just and I think the one thing that it kind of helped you develop on a serious note was your relationship building skills, because you had to talk to people rather than sending emails. You know, we we default a bit, don’t we, with our because it’s quicker. I mean, especially if you just have a few things to say. Yeah, we do a lot by email.

Lee:
We do. I, I often will force myself to pick up the phone and call somebody about something. Or if I send a proposal, I’ll force myself to pick up the phone and call them, because I now have nowadays have an aversion to using the phone because it’s so freaking easy to send a messenger or a WhatsApp bubble or a, you know, whatever. However we communicate, email, just all of these really easy ways because it means I don’t have to invest any of my extra energy into a conversation and that doesn’t do well for business. Okay, so so we’re back in the 80s. It’s just about to change into the 90s, which means Labour were on their way. Oh dear. No, no we’re all good. Things can only get better was their motto. Because I remember the 90s. I remember the 80s as well. I was running around on my BMX, so I’m only a little bit younger. Yeah. Don’t worry. You know, I’m catching you up, so.

Lee:
All right, so you’ve been doing the long lunches and that. What were your actual responsibilities other than going and drinking port at lunchtime?

Jenny:
Well, basically, the way I used to manage client relationships was just by saying, yes. Yes. Okay, I’ll do that. Yes yes yes yes. You know, there was no thought for any kind of adding strategic value or steering the client relationship or growing the account and stuff like that. There was just no strategy. And I think this is this is probably the same for a lot of people managing client relationships. There was kind of no system. So I think I just tried to please everyone. I was just people pleasing. So I was the account coordinator for several large accounts in the agency. We had like things like British Telecom, Rank, Xerox, read employment. So it was a through the line agency. So a lot of above the line ad advertising. But a lot of, you know, brochures and leaflets and stuff like that. And we had two full time couriers who used to be responsible for taking the artwork boards down to the printers and back. You know, it was just but that was my responsibility to keep everyone happy, to type up status reports, take notes from meetings, write contact reports and things like that.

Jenny:
I mean, I was very, very organised and luckily I was working initially for two, two young girls who were super organised. And that kind of because I think you learn on the job, don’t you? You do and you copy what everybody else is doing and you just think like, you know, whatever they’re doing obviously is right. So I’m just going to try and follow what they’re doing.

Lee:
Which is also unfortunate because sometimes if they’re not doing the right thing, you’re learning a bad habit.

Jenny:
Exactly. Yeah. You can fall into it. Yeah. If you have like a lazy account manager that’s kind of winging it, then you’re going to pick up bad habits.

Lee:
Definitely.

Lee:
So how long were you there and at what point did you start to progress?

Jenny:
So I was there for a couple of years, about two and a half years, I think. And then I actually kind of threw everything in. I had a relationship break up. So it was a big sort of turning point for me in my young 20s. Yeah, I went to Greece and I was a holiday rep for two and a half years. That is.

Lee:
So cool.

Jenny:
It’s a bit. Random, isn’t it? But it was fun.

Lee:
Relationship building?

Jenny:
Absolutely. And you’re dealing with the public, you know, because it’s quite it’s quite tough. If anyone’s not dealt with the public before the general public en masse. It’s quite scary. So it’s character building as well.

Lee:
Yeah. I can just imagine a whole load of angry tourists having a go at you at the airport or something like that. It’s like scary Stuff.

Jenny:
And they would.

Jenny:
Blame you if the weather was bad. So, you know, you’d be sitting in your hotel reception, they’d come back and they come through and say, you know, what have you done to the weather? Kind of kind of jokey, but not. And after, like the 10th time you’d heard it, you just had this kind of frozen smile on your face. But yeah, I ended up staying there for about two and a half years, um, working in different resorts. And then I thought, I’m not quite ready to come back to the UK. I come back. I came back for a little while. I retrained to be a teacher. I think I’ve always been a trainer at heart, a teacher of a foreign language, and I took my certificate out and went to Barcelona, not knowing any Spanish, clutching my teacher diploma, and I knocked on doors. I knocked on doors of its English schools and said in my pidgin Spanish at the time, soy profesora. That’s all I could say.

Jenny:
I didn’t even say that very well. Meaning I am a teacher. And eventually, a couple of weeks later, I got a call for to come and work in a school called Berlitz, and I ended up staying working in this English language school for three years. So when I came back from Barcelona, I was totally fluent in Spanish and ended up working for Iberia Airlines. I had a friend, a very good friend that worked there, and I ended up working in the marketing department for a couple of years, so I was kind of coming back to my marketing roots. When I left Iberia, I started back in advertising again, but in healthcare, and that’s kind of where I stayed for the rest, like 15, 15 years. So I was working for various healthcare related ad agencies, working my way up the ladder and ended up probably I felt like the pinnacle of my career. In 2010, as general manager of a 50 strong ad agency in Kensington, it was called Publicis Life Brands.

Jenny:
Yeah. And we had clients that were pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, GSK, etc..

Lee:
Cool.

Jenny:
Yeah. And that was I, I look back on that time and I appeared on the front cover of PR week and that I thought, I’ve really made it, you know. And around that time something wonderful happened and something awful happened because in 2010, I was on top of the world because I was promoted and a sales coach came into my life, life called Marcus Kowski, who’s a Sandler trainer, and he spent the rest the next three years with me, telling me everything I should have known when I first started out in that Hatton Garden agency about sales and what I should have been doing. But the reason it was such a bittersweet year was because my dad was diagnosed with cancer. So that was like a really, um, I realised that I was at the top of my game, but quite stressed. I was kind of swimming with the sharks a little bit, because when I think, when you think you reach that senior management level in a big network, it’s all about playing the game. Yeah.

Jenny:
And it made me evaluate where I was and I we’d we’d been going through a it was like a reverse takeover. It was a merger with another agency, complete clash of cultures. And I just thought, what am I doing. I want to spend more time with dad.

Lee:
Mhm.

Jenny:
Um, so I decided this is good. I decided to leave and set up on my own. So I set up in 2010, and I was doing a course at the time with a girl called Natalie Sisson, who’s an absolute hero of mine, and she said, you know, I was like, finding like, what? What really can I do now? And she she was the one that said, like, where your passion, your experience and your and what someone will pay you for kind of meet in the middle, that’s your sweet spot. And I decided that was I was going to fall back on my 25 years of managing client relationships to go and help other account managers, because I realised there was a massive gap in the market. People weren’t being shown all of these sales skills that I’d been receiving too late in my career, and I kind of made it a one woman mission to help people starting out, growing client relationships, things that they could do to to make things easier for the client, to add more value to the client business and add revenue to the bottom line of the agency.

Jenny:
So I’m really glad I did it. It was like a horrible time looking back at that, but it was the right move. And now I’m growing my agency, my training agency. I’ve got other trainers working with me who deliver different skills. And as I say, we you know, we’re I’ve now got I’m kind of getting so booked up in my diary that I’m looking at expansion and taking on even more trainers and offering even more courses. So that was a long way of that was a long intro, wasn’t it?

Jenny:
Sorry.

Lee:
You’re a podcasters dream. If I can say as little as possible, then that’s perfect.

Jenny:
Really.

Lee:
I really enjoyed that. I was with you every step of the way. You’ve learned one of the most expensive ways, but probably the best ways to be a trainer. What you’ve done is you’ve had years and years of making all of all of the mistakes, you know, over those 20 years in account management and learning from them, and then also kind of wrapping that up right at the end with the expert who helped you really kind of hone in on on your on your skills and on your understanding of really effective account management. So you’ve done all of that kind of very expensive learning process, and you’ve then made it your mission to help everyone else avoid all of those years of learning, doing it the wrong way. If I’d have met you in 2010 when I was running a design agency, really, really struggling, I would have been throwing money at you, asking for your help desperately to help me work out how to manage these accounts, how to get more money from the existing accounts that we had, how to stop clients from killing us on price because we weren’t great on communications, etc.

Lee:
all sorts of just awful things going on at the time. And maybe it was 2009, I can’t remember. It was around that time.

Jenny:
Wow.

Lee:
I would have definitely have been screaming for some help. And I’m imagining there’s quite a few agency owners listening today who can resonate with struggling to essentially manage accounts, maybe having relationships that are on on dodgy ground or are breaking down, etc.. So you don’t mind if I just kind of try and draw some stuff out of your brain for, for a little while?

Jenny:
Yeah, absolutely.

Lee:
That’s awesome. So and thank you very much for your your story and for your honesty as well. And with regards to the story about your dad as well. You do find, don’t you, that sometimes it takes significant things in your personal life to effect massive change in your mindset, and you do very different things. It’s very strange, isn’t it? How how we do that. We we jump, you know, we jump and we make very scary decisions at a time when things are are also very difficult. And I just think it’s a great it’s a nice way of looking at it, because we can see that you did something amazingly positive in, in a very difficult time, and you’ve got this fantastic business where you’re really giving hope to a lot of agency owners around the world. So I just wanted to commend you for that as well.

Lee:
That’s awesome.

Jenny:
Thank you. Thank you. I think you understand this, Lee, I know that I think you you it kind of things in life happen and it just makes you stop.

Jenny:
Think, am I where I want to be and is, you know, and life’s very short. So I think it was just one of those moments. And I think all of us get them. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a serious disease or a death to kind of do that. It could be just a defining moment in your life. But yeah, I think it’s a good time. I think we should all take time to reflect. and I knew that I was on the wrong path. I think I felt I’d gone as far as I could go, or I wanted to go and wanted to do something different and give something back. And you’re right, I’m teaching a lot of theory, but I’m also able to overlay the practical application of it because of my experiences.

Lee:
Yeah.

Jenny:
And yeah, yeah. That’s right.

Lee:
Well, I would love to ask you probably the first and most simplest and obvious question, and people wonder why I’m asking it, but I think it’ll become apparent when you answer it. What does an account manager do?

Jenny:
Wow. It’s so yeah, the reason why I ask.

Lee:
Is because everybody, I think, has got a very different opinion of what an account manager does, and I think it will be helpful if we can try and spell out in a real world what an account manager probably should be doing.

Jenny:
I mean, an account manager basically is the interface between the client and the agency business. So they are ambassadors for the for the agency, and they are responsible for managing that client relationship. That exactly that in a in a nutshell, is it? And obviously, in order to do that, you’ve got these multiple tasks that it comprises from, you know, taking briefs to presenting proposals to adding value in terms of having an opinion on on what what could work, what couldn’t, looking at the budgets, making sure projects arrive on time, on budget or profitable. And a lot of it is quite transactional. I think when you are starting out in an agency, it’s a lot about making sure the wheels keep turning and you are juggling. I mean, a lot of the time, I mean, in the States it’s slightly different. Sometimes when you get these big agencies with huge budgets, you’ll have an account manager that’s managing, managing or as part of a team working on one account. But in the UK we tend to have smaller accounts.

Jenny:
Not always, but you could be managing several different client relationships. So that’s the other kind of challenge is you’ve got to be really good at prioritising and, you know, working out where you’re going to spend your your time on what thing. Because I know there’s a day in the life of an account manager is a long time, because you might make your to do list the night before and think you’re super organised. You come in in the office in the morning and everything’s changed and there’s some disaster, some fire that you’ve got to put out. And that kind of throws your to do list down the, down the pan. So you’ve got to be quite resilient and adaptable. And I think the people that love it, you know it is something to love. Because what happens is you’re thrown in these teams working with these wonderful creative people, wonderful production people, and you’re part of this team. It’s like, you know, we’re all in this together. And I don’t know about you, Lee, but we used to throw all nighters.

Jenny:
We like working on a pitch proposal.

Speaker 3
I hope you got pizza as well.

Jenny:
Pizza, beer, you know, the score on.

Jenny:
It. And it’s just fun. And you feel like you’re really bonded together. And. And those relationships. I still have friends. I’ve got loads of friends from my agency life, and you’ll never forget them because it’s so kind of quite emotional. And the great thing about working in the centre of London, I’ve worked in various agencies in London is, you know, you can get the train home so you’re not driving. So we could go to the agency bar. I mean, Kensington Village is a Mecca for all creative agencies. There’s production TV production companies, there’s consumer healthcare, there’s media companies, and you’ve got two bars, two restaurants. And it’s just everyone’s walking around in jeans and it’s fun. I would I would say that you learn a lot on the job, but it’s fun. Did I answer the question?

Lee:
You did. And then you then you went straight back to going out to the pub all the time.

Lee:
Which I don’t think.

Lee:
Is part of an official. Can you edit that bit out? No, because it was fun.

Lee:
Oh dear. And yeah. No. Anyway. No, that is good. What I’m trying to work out though is there are project managers and there are account managers within an agency. Is there a difference?

Jenny:
Well, that’s a really good point actually. Depending on the type of agency you are, you either tend to have, you can either have both project managers and account managers, or you just have account managers, or you could just have project managers. I would say that the difference really is a project manager works more sort of, I would say internally in the agency, making sure all of the elements of the job are trafficked through the agency really quickly. Everything happens on time and everyone within the internal team knows what they’re doing and when. I think the account manager’s role is more externally focussed and they’re more responsible for managing that client relationship, making sure the client is happy, looking for new account opportunities, you know, growth opportunities and kind of being the ambassador for the for the agency. I think that’s how I would define it or clarify what would you say? Would you say that’s more or less the same?

Lee:
I think I would, I would agree it’s a difficult one, isn’t it? Because they merge. Very. They do merge. But I like the I. You are right with regards to the project manager will very often be a bit more behind the scenes bothering people in the in the back office, as it were.

Speaker 3
Saying, hey, you.

Lee:
Know, you do realise that we’ve got a, you know, a presentation in two weeks time and how are you doing on that? You know, what’s going on here, etc.. I would like to go around to your ambassador word as well that you used which, which piqued my interest that you said the account manager is like an ambassador. And I guess that’s maybe a bit of the difference between a project manager and again, the account manager. The an ambassador will be someone who goes into a foreign country and they will represent that country to that other country, and there will be some authority as well given to that ambassador, so that ambassador can speak on behalf of the country. ET cetera. ET cetera. And I guess the account manager can therefore speak on behalf of the company. And that account manager should be someone who is trusted, who has authority, etc., and who can, like you said, give opinion as well because again, with a project manager, it is more of a functional role, isn’t it?

Lee:
You’ve got the like you said the internal there’s the project manager might connect with the client and say, please can you provide us the content by this date. Otherwise the project will be late. So, you know, that’s more of a kind of a functional. Whereas you’ve got the the ambassador, the account manager who is more representative, who is giving opinion, who is having those bigger and wider conversations.

Jenny:
Absolutely. And the account manager should be, you know, really looking at the client business and understanding as much as they can about the putting themselves in the client’s shoes, really. The more you can understand about the client’s world and industry, the more the better you can, the more trust can build within that relationship.

Speaker 3
And again.

Lee:
That just marries, doesn’t it, with the word ambassadors. The ambassador is there in a foreign country to help improve the relationships between those two countries. You know, to continue the communication, to develop the relationship, to strengthen the relationship, etc.. And I think you definitely hit the nail on the head there. So what are some things that an ambassador or an account manager? Same thing in my opinion, can do to to help improve relationships. I mean, just a few things. Yeah, I’ll let you answer that.

Jenny:
Well, I think one of the first things is one of probably the obvious things. It’s about your emotional intelligence. I think a lot of time you’re developing relationships and like any relationship, it goes through its ups and downs and you, it’s your job to make sure that you are as much as possible building rapport with your client. And, you know, there’s there’s things like social styles which help you kind of identify your client’s preferred social style or way of behaving. And what you need to do is kind of adapt to the client’s way of working or way of speaking or way of transacting. So I’ll give you a quick example. Um, we had a client who had. Initially we thought they were just rude, you know, very direct, very kind of curt and wanted to get down to business straight away. There was kind of no niceties. How was your weekend? Blah, blah blah. Now, years ago, I would have put them down as rude. I would have thought, yeah, you know, gosh, I can’t believe it.

Jenny:
It’s just not interested, you know?

Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah. But your client.

Jenny:
Yeah. For that client. Not interested in having more of them. But what you realise is people generally have a preferred communication style. And he was typically a driver, what they call a driver in social styles. I’m sure I’m sure a lot of your listeners have heard of this. There’s similar things like disc profiles, but they’re the ones that are more kind of task focussed. They’re more they want to get the job done. They want they’re very conscious of quite business like and formal and are not interested in niceties. And then you’ll have another kind of client who’s more what they call an amiable character, who’s very people focussed. And so you’re better off trying to adapt your style to build rapport with that client by by asking about their weekend, you know, and they’re probably doing like a little bit of chit chat before you get down to business. So it’s the simple things, and listening to your client and adapting your social style to theirs is one of the one of the key things. It’s not kind of rocket science, but I think it goes a long, long way.

Lee:
It helps to hear you say that, though, because I can think of clients that do rub me up the wrong way, but that is only because they just want to get straight down to business. And I do prefer to have the clients who like that little chit chat before we get started, or want to go and do the meeting in a coffee shop, and we spend the first ten minutes nattering.

Jenny:
Yes, exactly, exactly. Well, and you know, you know, when when clients want to do that, don’t you? Yeah. You can kind of feel it. And I think the other thing is to ask really, really good questions. And I think this is again, it’s kind of quite simplistic but so powerful. And when I was taught the kind of the good way to ask really good questions, I would watch as my clients would just open up and blossom. And a magical thing happens when you’re asking really good questions about them, their business, their world, their challenges, their objectives. What barriers to challenge, what barriers to achieving their objectives could they have? And I’m watching them just tell you more and more something magical happens, which is they see you differently versus one of your competitors. They kind of feel that you get it and the better you can listen. And actually you should be listening 70% of the time and asking good questions 30% of the time. Make it all about them.

Jenny:
Because I think sometimes in agency world, we feel we have to be there with all the answers, you know? Well, I’m the expert here. I need to be telling them what to do. But actually, the more you can uncover their business challenges and what kind of business outcomes they have come to you to solve, because I think that’s the other thing. When you ask an agency, what are you selling? We can say, oh, we sell my, our creative, our, our team, our way of working. But actually, no, you are selling a business outcome, and that business outcome could be in the fact that you’re either saving money for the for the client, or you’re adding revenue to their bottom line or you’re increasing leads. You know, you’ve got to think in outcome terms. And in order to get to those outcomes, you need to ask really, really good questions.

Lee:
That’s so good. What I love about those questions as well, and those conversations that you’re having is that’s actually one of the most essential sales forces, isn’t it? With the existing clients that you have, we’re very often in agency life, have this feast and famine, um, where we we win the business. We have a relatively good relationship with the client, but we don’t really focus on the account management. We actually just focus straight in on whatever the job is. We become more of the project managers getting stuck in, getting the work done and forgetting about the ongoing pipeline, and then you’re stuck in a position where you’re servicing these clients, you’re not sure how to win new business, and you’re also neglecting the relationship that you’re actually having there. And then with that business, by not having those conversations, by not nurturing that relationship and finding all of the other opportunities that you can help them, because by helping that client further achieve whatever else it is that you’re talking about with them, you know, obviously you are going to make more sales as a business as well.

Jenny:
Absolutely. I mean, you know, it’s so much cheaper to grow an existing piece of business than it is to go out and get new business. I think that’s the fundamental fact. Now, whether you want more business from that client is another story. I mean, every agency is slightly different. You might be just offering one thing, but if you have a range of services or you want to contract other services to offer to that client, the key thing is to get so close to that client’s business that you understand what they need. So, for example, maybe if you are a web development agency, yeah, maybe you do offer social media monitoring or social media management or something. Or if you don’t, if the client needs it, then that could be a potential referral for you. You could refer it to another agency if you don’t have it in house and you can earn some revenue from that, so you become like an affiliate for, you can form some partnerships with other agencies that offer services that you don’t or think about, you know, are all of our clients are wanting this service so much.

Jenny:
Maybe I could grow this internally in my in my agency. So you might decide to contract someone initially, try it out a little bit, and then and then take someone on staff. And there’s lots of ways of doing it. But basically you want to go where the business is. If you want more business from from that client. I think the other thing is making sure that that business is actually profitable. Yeah, that’s another thing that, you know, you can look at your clients and think, where is the work that I want to do? Because let’s face it, if you do have the choice, you might not want to work with some clients, but also where where is the where’s the money coming from? Where’s what is a good product or service that I’m using or that I’m offering that actually is profitable. So I want more of this. So yeah, I was just going to go off on an absolute tangent.

Lee:
I love your tangent. So I just sit back and relax and I enjoy.

Jenny:
The other tip I was going to share was, you know, when when you’ve asked questions and this is the funny thing, right? I go around training this this listening skills and things. I was in a course the other day. It was quite a massive group of account managers, and I was talking about listening and how clients blossom and open up. And you know, before you know it, they see you differently. And there’s this little hand at the back of the room waving, and I said, oh, would you like to say something? And she said, I. And it was a beautiful little girl. She was only in her early 20s, blonde hair. And she said, I volunteer in my evenings for the Samaritans. And I just want to say that this is really true. I was on a call the other day with a gentleman, and I was speaking to him for about an hour and a half, but I actually hardly said two words during that time. All I did was listen.

Jenny:
At the end of it he said, thank you so much. You’ve helped me so much. And she said, I almost felt fraudulent because actually, I’d said nothing to this guy, but I’d allowed him. What I had done is allowed him to speak, and as a result, he saw me differently. So it was it was brilliant validation at that point in the workshop, because you’ve got this person who’s obviously been through the training with the Samaritans, and it was, you know, this is the power of listening. And the other thing about agencies is we spend a lot of time developing proposals, don’t we? I think I’ve heard you talk about this on the podcast before.

Speaker 3
I was right.

Lee:
With that Adam MP. We had a good chat about that.

Jenny:
That’s it. But I think what happens is we can go down rabbit holes developing, spending loads of time developing these proposals, but we want to cut down our time as much as we can. So I teach a methodology to my all the attendees on the workshop about pre-selling and Pre-selling is just a way that during that conversation, when you’re trying to uncover the client’s challenges and really understand their business and what they’re struggling with to say, let’s suppose. And those words are magical, because what it allows you to then do is pre-sell a solution so you can listen to all of all these challenges and say, okay, let’s suppose we were able to come back and develop a really good website that did X, Y, and Z would be would that be something that you would want? If so okay. So how much budget would you have for this kind of activity? How quickly would you want us to start? Does anyone else need to be involved in the decision to go ahead? So what what you’re able to do is during that initial conversation, actually close them on the deal and also get them to commit to a budget.

Lee:
Which is the holy grail. Let’s face it, for a lot of people is working out what that budget is as well, because it’s a pre-qualifier, isn’t it? To know whether or not you guys are going to be able to work together?

Jenny:
It is absolutely. And you don’t want to waste your time on business that, quite frankly, you know, you could spend your time with other clients that are a lot more profitable and and healthy. So I think Pre-selling and those magic words, words, let’s suppose just practise it. It’s it’s absolutely magical. The other the other little tip I’ve got is when you again when you’re listening to your client and, and this is supposing that you can get in front of your clients. Sometimes we work with clients that are remote or blah, blah, blah. But the more that you can, I think, develop that relationship face to face, the better. The other thing is when you’re talking to your clients and they’re absolutely the better. Honestly, the better you get at listening and asking great questions, the more you will find yourself. They will just download all of their issues and you keep saying, what else? What else? And that’s a bit of a coaching tip as well. The more you say what else?

Jenny:
Anything else, they will just keep going and sometimes you get a bit lost and you think, well, where the hell do I start? I’ve thought of various solutions in my mind that I can help here, but you’ve been allowing them to talk. You could just say, right, okay, so you’ve told me about your objectives. Your objective is to maybe, you know, launch this particular product in the next three months. You want to drive traffic here and you want to get X amount of leads. If I could wave a magic wand and help you the most right now, how could I do it? You know, what would you want me to do? How quickly would you want me to start? So it’s another kind of tip to if you think, well, there’s various things that I could do for this client, but you want to understand what their priorities are, then that’s another thing that you can say during that conversation.

Lee:
I think I’m going to ask you another good question. Then as soon as you said it’s important to ask good questions.

Jenny:
Oh bless you. Yeah. Absolutely no pressure now.

Lee:
So and what this will probably be because you’ve already dropped amazing value. This will be kind of our closing question. But obviously then people will give people the opportunity to connect with you and be able to learn more from you. I guess this question is quite important for people listening. It’s who makes the best account manager in an agency. If we imagine we’ve I know we’ve got agencies of different sizes, etc., but very often you’ll have smaller agencies of maybe 5 to 20 people who within the agency would normally make the best account manager, because a lot of the times it defaults to the owner. And I don’t even know if that’s a good thing or not.

Jenny:
It’s a really good question, Lee. I you know, you have to I’ve, I’ve realised that some people feel more comfortable behind the screen rather than in front of people. You know, let’s face it, it’s very open to say that there’s very, very strong, but in the quite introverted people naturally. So I think if your natural propensity is to be more introverted, then maybe that person is better off and stronger within the agency making things happen rather than putting them in front of clients. Yeah, I’ve, I’ve realised that there’s it’s and it’s not a matter of introvert or extrovert necessarily. It’s more feeling comfortable that you’ll find I think if you look at your staff or the people around you in your agency and think, who is really good with people who make people comfortable and who actually loves helping and solving problems? Because I think this is this is one of the things I realised looking back on my career is I loved helping people. I love coaching, I love training, and ultimately I want someone to succeed.

Jenny:
And I think if you’ve got that natural, natural tendency, that is a good start. I understand that a lot of your agencies are smaller and it does land on the owner’s shoulder, but if you do have a few people in the agency, then I that would be a starting point for me, because you can teach them some techniques and skills and to have those conversations, but do they want to do it? Is there a is there a desire.

Lee:
That’s really good? And I think as well as as an agency owner, we might have the this inner feeling that we have to be the person to do it and that we might even feel a bit worried about giving the extra power or whatever it might be perceived to be to an account manager, but you definitely hit the nail on the head with regards to the personality. What are you best at? If you are the agency owner and you are best at making things happen and keeping the team pepped up and excited and etc., then it might be worthwhile. You know, looking around you and thinking who is the best person who who already is growing a good relationship naturally with our clients, etc. because there’s always going to be someone inside the company who is already having, you know, already making good connexions, already having good conversations. And it might be worth investing in that person as well. Now you are flipping brilliant. I’m loving everything that you’re saying. Jenny and and I have spent quite a bit of time watching videos, including one video I found of you in front of a fire, I think with a nice country house, which really made me chuckle.

Lee:
Um.

Jenny:
Yeah, that was on my Instagram. Oh, you have been stalking.

Lee:
Yeah, no.

Lee:
That’s wrong. I’ve not been stalking. I’ve been doing research on it.

Lee:
Well, I need to know what questions to ask you if I’m going to get you on the show. I need to invest some time in making sure I do the best for you and for the listeners.

Jenny:
So I love you. Um..

Lee:
But yeah, I would love people to go and check out your content. Um, folks, remember, it’s account management skills.com. I think we could all learn something from. Well, I think we all have learned something from Jenny today, but Jenny does provide a whole load more of free value, which is phenomenal. So if you go to her account management skills.com and scroll down, there are three boxes of some content that you can grab. Jenny, can you just talk us through those three items that you have available for us and who should be downloading what?

Jenny:
Absolutely. So there’s three sections. Basically either transform yourself, develop your team, or grow your business. Transform yourself is if you’re an account manager managing that client relationship and you want to know what it takes to what are the fundamental skills you need for the job? Develop your team is all about you. If you’re growing a team of people and that’s my free five step client growth model. So it sort of takes you through step by step, how to have a conversation with a client that’s going to lead to more business. And then finally, the grow your business is if you’re an agency leader and you’re looking at evaluating whether you should be going for this piece of business or not, whether you should be pitching. And it’s a free pitch audit questionnaire. So it’s questions to ask yourself about, you know, whether this is the type of business that I want, is it going to be profitable and should I be going for it then it’s also questions to ask the client, which really helps you qualify that opportunity before you then decide to put all your time and resources behind a pitch.

Jenny:
So yeah, hopefully they’re they’re valuable.

Lee:
Pitching as well. That’s an entire episode or a whole series of episodes in its own right, isn’t it? Because pitching is a huge topic and can be great for an agency and can also be the end of an agency? So if you are involved in the pitching process, definitely go and check out Grow Your Business. That’s the third one to the right. Or if you’re on a mobile, probably stacks and it’ll be the last one in. I can’t tell what that colour is because I’ve suddenly gone colour-blind under pressure.

Jenny:
Anyway, it’s kind of a movie. Movie? Yeah, it was red or what? So I.

Lee:
Just like, oh my gosh, what.

Lee:
Is that?

Lee:
Also, I believe you have a group which people can access. That’s creative agency account management on LinkedIn. So folks, if you either check out the show notes, we’ll put a link in there because LinkedIn do ugly URLs for groups, which is no fun. Um, so go to the show notes you can check out and join the group there on LinkedIn. Or you can just pop into the LinkedIn search, creative agency, account management. And that will get you access to the awesome journey plan. And she also does rock around as well in our Facebook group agency trailblazer.com/group. Jenny, thank you so much for your time. You are a star.

Jenny:
Oh Lee thank you. It’s been fun. Thank you so much and I’m loving the podcast, I really am. I love all the guests. I learn so much and the group is just fantastic. So thank you so much for involving me.

Lee:
Awesome and I’m looking forward to a shoulder padded picture.

Lee:
Shall I post one? You certainly should. That would be so cool!

Jenny:
Thank you so much, Lee. This has been fun.

Lee:
No worries. Thanks.

Lee:
Bye.

Jenny:
Take care. Bye.

Lee:
And that wraps up today’s show. Now then, if you’ve been listening to the Hashtag Agency Life series, or you’ve been watching it on YouTube, then can I encourage you to come and sign up to be on the show? Go to agency. trailblazer.com/agency life. That’s agency trailblazer.com/agency life. There you’ll be redirected to a document. There is a booking link to get on the show. It will arrange a time that’s suitable for your time zone and for my calendar. But also you will see the format of questions that I will be asking for you so you can mentally prepare and psych yourself out for it. Remember, we are all agencies. We are all different and yet we are all the same. It is so good to learn from each other, learn how each other handles different things. So if you feel like you’d be up for it, then make sure you comb your hair. I do that all the time and be ready to be on video and to be broadcasted to the world. Now on that YouTube Subscribership is looking a little bit weak.

Lee:
We’ve only got a few hundred. I would really, really appreciate if you do listen to the show, either audio or do watch it on YouTube. Can you go ahead and show me some subscription love and subscribe to the YouTube channel? Because it would be awesome to be able to connect with people on there and see who is listening. It’s a great encouragement to us, and it also helps improve and boost our credibility to other people who maybe are not consuming or are not enjoying our content as yet. And when they come along and they see that people are subscribing, people are liking, people are engaging with our content. That’s going to encourage them to do the same. And we can build this community bigger, wider, larger and more awesome than it already is. And finally, don’t forget there is the free Facebook group. We are now over 1800 members in there. That’s WordPress enthusiasts. That’s agency owners. That’s not my mum because she’s not allowed in there. And I’ll never let that happen.

Lee:
But go ahead and check that one out on agencytrailblazer.com/group. And whilst I’ve got breath left in this sentence have a wonderful day and we will see you in the next episode.