Every agency has had them. The client who seems to exist solely to make life miserable for everyone assigned to the account. The one whose feedback is never constructive, whose ...

There has been a lot of talk about the sweeping changes moving through the advertising and marketing space. It is all true. Few industries have been reshaped as fundamentally or ...

Advertising is still big business in America. Total U.S. advertising revenues have surpassed $300 billion annually in recent years, placing the industry alongside transportation and health care, and ahead ...

We speak constantly of the need for agencies to become strategic marketing partners with their clients and not just suppliers of projects. Fine, you say, couldn't agree with you ...

Agencies today continue to face competition from other agencies and related firms. Agency owners and managers also continue to find themselves in the uncomfortable position of competing with their own ...

To be fully successful in the agency business, you must have an attuned ear. It sounds simple. It isn't. There are several distinct modes of listening that agency people ...

Every agency has felt it. The prospect who stops listening mid-presentation. The energy draining out of the room. The polite but unmistakable signal that the meeting is over before it ...

The opening months of a new account are a dangerous time. All sorts of things can happen that end the honeymoon period most agencies and clients enter into after the ...

Upselling is probably the most logical, easy way to grow agency profits. Account people know it is quicker and simpler to develop more business within existing accounts than to win ...

The in-house agency is no longer a cost-cutting measure of last resort. It has become a permanent fixture of how mid-size and large companies manage their marketing. Over the past ...

Before the new business conversation starts, the most important question an agency can ask is not whether the prospect has budget or fits the agency's sweet spot. It is ...

The business world is stressful, and clients are not immune to the impact of market changes, internal politics, and competitive pressure. Agency client service teams are not immune either. Things ...

As agency workload levels rise and fall, making sure every account executive is handling an appropriate share of AGI is one of the most underused levers in agency management. Making ...

The traditional notion of an account executive was that of someone ordered around by the client and disdained by the agency creative. Or, they were the ones living large on ...

Too many companies think better customer service is all about adding tiers of features and service options, but new research questions that approach.

More Isn’t Better

Researchers working at ...

An agency principal lamented to me about her clients, saying, “It seems as if we’ve been in a great client drought for the past few years. Each of our ...

Agencies Can Lead Client Growth by Focusing on the End User

Agencies have long touted their abilities to help clients “get to know their customers,” to “get inside the customers ...

We often write about the nitty-gritty lead qualification process, but curation is a different approach than merely running down the checklist. It implies deeper consideration of the benefits that you ...

It happens. People leave, sometimes for personal reasons, often due to a new opportunity, and occasionally because you (or the employee) feel they no longer are a “fit.” In the ...

One thing we see all too often in small to midsize agencies is the solo account executive. This means that the agency assigns an account executive to service an account ...