Sam Bridger is an interim Marketing Director and consultant. She has worked in marketing for over 25 years, 14 of which have been spent as interim marketing director. Throughout her career she's managed many different agencies and so is in a very good position to provide the 'client side' perspective on how agencies manage her business. In this episode, she shares lots of tips and insights into what its like being a client and how you can improve the way you work with your client: * How to engag...
Mar 01, 2021•58 min•Ep. 20
Paul Kirkley has spent his entire career in agency account management. He knew from a young age he wanted to work in advertising and has certainly fulfilled his ambition. He now works for one of the UK's top creative agencies, MadeBrave as Client Services Director and his experience includes 20 years with JWT (now Wunderman Thompson) working as Global Business Director for brands such as Nestle, Jaguar and Kenco (JDE) where he also lead a client services team of 120. In this chat, he shares: * W...
Feb 23, 2021•40 min•Ep. 19
James Aldrich is a major account manager with over twenty years experience in both business development and account management in the software industry. James's sector speciality is telecommunications and I invited him to share his experience to see similarities and differences between the account management role in the creative industry and software industry. Despite starting his career wanting to be a film director or a guitarist in a band, he found himself in account management which has not ...
Feb 17, 2021•49 min•Ep. 18
In this episode I reflect on some recent research on how status quo bias affects a client's decision making process and why that's important for us to know when presenting new ideas. In this episode we dive into why when presenting new ideas to our clients that require them to make a big change, it's useful to understand the psychology of why they might be reluctant to. By knowing this we're then able to present the ideas with this in mind and provide the information that they require to make th...
Feb 12, 2021•15 min•Ep. 17
Andy Young and Laura Cohen are both strategic account managers for Skeleton Productions, a full service agency specialising in video production. In this chat, they share some brilliant tips and ideas for account managers who want to enhance their account management skills. They share: * Why shifting from being a good relationship builder to taking more of a 'challenger' approach with your clients works * How to build trust with your client so they take risks to do bigger and bolder projects * Wh...
Feb 02, 2021•56 min•Ep. 16
This episode is for you if you're an agency leader or you're managing a team. My guest is a good friend of mine Nadine Powrie who is an executive leadership coach and workplace mediator who specialises in helping people have difficult conversations. Nadine has helped hundreds of people enhance their leadership ability through her coaching and training. and is an expert in her field. Her podcast "Leading the Coaching Change" is currently celebrating its 80th episode and she has a weekly LinkedIn ...
Jan 21, 2021•44 min•Ep. 15
This episode is particularly useful for you if you are working as account manager in a creative agency and aspire to be an account director. It's also useful if you're already an agency account director and are looking for some ideas and learnings from other account directors in the creative industry to apply in your role. Sarah Deakin and Ruby Beagan are account directors for Thursday Studio, an insight-led design studio in Winchester. The reason I invited them on to the show is to share their ...
Dec 29, 2020•50 min•Ep. 14
This episode is for you if you're responsible for an agency team and you want the team to be working together more collaboratively. Today's guest is my friend Alison Coward who is the founder of Bracket Creative and an expert in team culture. In this episode Alison explains: * Why it's important for agencies to pay attention to their team culture and impact a positive culture has on productivity * What to look for if you suspect your team culture needs attention * Some examples of where agency l...
Dec 15, 2020•33 min•Ep. 13
In this solo episode I talk through the four steps of the client value ladder and the skills you need to deliver value at every level. It's particularly relevant for you if you are managing the day to day client relationships but are also responsible for account growth and delivering on your agency's forecast. Many of us in agency account management know that acquiring a new client is 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one (1) & increasing client retention rate by 5% inc...
Dec 09, 2020•22 min•Ep. 12
If you have an interest in branding, feel your agency brand needs a makeover or you're looking for help to offer branding workshops to your clients, this episode is for you. Bill Wallsgrove has been helping companies with branding for 30 years. He's worked on some of the most exciting and well known brands such as Heineken, Budweiser and Benetton to name just a few and has held Creative Director roles for some of the most prestigious strategic design agencies such as Coley Porter Bell and Future...
Dec 01, 2020•53 min•Ep. 11
Today's guest is the lovely Lucy Snell the co-founder of Cherry Consulting. Cherry helps creative and digital agencies to generate new business and Lucy started the company in 2004. She's been featured three times in the BD100 list as one of the UK's most influential business developers and during this interviews shares many tips for agencies who are looking to generate more leads. In this episode, she shares: * Some of the biggest challenges she's seeing agencies have for approaching prospects ...
Nov 24, 2020•37 min•Ep. 10
Today's guests are Iris Gatzweiler and Jess Bowler who have been working in marketing procurement for many years in the pharmaceutical industry. I asked them to share more about their day to day roles in procurement and shed some light on how agency account managers can develop stronger relationships with them. In this episode we discuss: * What they look for in long term agency supplier relationships * Where they see the value in agency account management and some tips on how to keep the relati...
Nov 13, 2020•48 min•Ep. 9
Louisa has a powerful message for you if you are working in an agency. She successfully built and sold her healthcare communications agency Woolley Pau in 2012 but her health suffered as a result and she ended up hospitalised. In this episode she shares her journey and provides advice and guidance for others who may be inadvertently heading in the same direction. In this episode she shares with us: * The 10 signs you may be heading for burnout without realising it * Why trying to be the 'hero' a...
Oct 23, 2020•42 min•Ep. 8
In this episode I'm delighted to have as my guest Spencer Gallagher who took time out of working on the second edition of his best selling book, Agencynomics, which he co-wrote with his partner Peter Hoole, to share his thoughts on agency leadership and client management. Having built and sold his own agency in 2008, he now runs the UK's leading growth consultancy for agency owners, Cact.us and is co-founder of the Cact.us Academy, a training portal for agency owners. He also heads up the not fo...
Oct 14, 2020•47 min•Ep. 7
Today's episode is with the founders of Relationship Audits and Management, Carey Evans and Simon Rhind-Tutt. They are invited in by creative agency leaders and client services directors to assess the strength of their client relationships and provide recommendations and guidance for how to retain and grow the accounts. In this episode they share tip after tip from years of experience talking to agency clients about what they want most from their agencies. They remind us of many of the fundament...
Oct 06, 2020•48 min•Ep. 6
Do you often feel overwhelmed by how much you have to do? This is a short quick fire episode where I answer a question I hear most frequently from creative agency account managers. The subject of productivity, time management and general overwhelm with number of tasks needed to be completed comes up a lot. Often being stuck managing the day to day firefighting distracts us from doing the things that are more valuable like thinking about ways of adding more value to the client’s business, looking...
Sep 17, 2020•16 min•Ep. 5
Phil Lancaster has worked his entire career in agency account management. He's worked for some of the most successful agency holding companies such as The Lowe Group and WPP where he lead global account management teams and held the role of Global Business Director for brands such as Jaguar Land Rover, Reckitt Benckiser, Bayer and Bank of America. He has a wealth of experience working with clients at the board level and believes strongly that agency account managers need to have a relationship w...
Sep 10, 2020•52 min•Ep. 4
Marcus Cauchi is probably one of the most well known salesman and sales trainers in the UK. I was fortunate enough to be trained by Marcus in the Sandler selling methodology and meeting him changed the course of my career as I suddenly realised selling skills could have been hugely beneficial when I started out in advertising in the 1990s. In this episode, Marcus shares with us: * What agencies need to do to win new business * The metrics he uses to evaluate a new business team's effectiveness *...
Sep 01, 2020•55 min•Ep. 3
In this episode, Tina Fegent, marketing procurement consultant with almost 30 years experience shares tips for what procurement want from agencies and specifically agency account management. Tina has worked both client side for companies such as Orange and agency side in the role of Commercial Director so really understands what works and doesn't work when it comes to creating and developing relationships with the procurement team. In this episode Tina shares; - The most common complaint she hea...
Aug 24, 2020•47 min•Ep. 2
In my first episode I'm delighted to be chatting to Kate Whittaker, Head of Corporate Communications at DUAL International. As a marketing client, Kate Whittaker has 30 years experience managing agency relationships so is very well placed to give her perspective on what agency account managers could be doing to win their clients over. In this episode we cover: 1. How Kate selects her agencies and what she suggests you do if you're considering cold calling prospective clients 2. The qualities she...
Aug 12, 2020•36 min•Ep. 1
