Creative Agency Account Manager Podcast

Transcript:Jenny  00:03So on today's episode, I'm delighted to talk to my good friend Ceylan Boyce. The reason I've invited J onto the show is that a lot of people have been contacting me recently to ask me about 'brief' writing. Now, it's a really fundamental part of an account manager's role is to write a really good brief. And because J has a huge amount of experience in the agency world,  I'm going to pass over to her in a minute to introduce her thoroughly, but she's one of the clearest, most strategic minds that I know and she has run a training on 'brief' writing, with many companies very successfully. So we are getting together to offer this training for the account management community. So I want to talk to J today about first of all her background, what she's doing now, but also to go into a little bit of detail about why we should be writing great briefs, a little bit about J's experience of working with different companies on brief writing, and I'm sure the conversation will go in lots of different directions. So J, would you mind if I hand it over to you? Welcome to the show, would you mind spending a couple of minutes talking about you, your background, who you help, and just give us a flavour of Ceylan. Ceylan  01:21Yes sure Jenny, thank you so much for inviting me on the podcast. So a little bit about me, as you know, my background is pretty eclectic with a couple of backbone areas that led my decisions over the years. So I started my career in the advertising world as an account handler so I know very well the pain points of account handling. I guess from the start, I was lucky enough to be coached and guided by great managers, who spotted my interest in strategy, which also helped me climb the agency ladder quite fast. And within five, six years of the agency life, I actually became CSD to one of the leading pharmaceutical agencies, here in London. Then I opened my own strategic consultancy in 2012, and worked for major healthcare companies, and health or wellbeing related companies. In 2017, I got trained in Cambridge University as an executive coach, and trainer, professional trainer. And since then I have kind of been combining my strategic background, and all these coaching and training qualities to basically train businesses of all size in many areas that are linked to strategy. Currently, I'm also leading a new startup as you know, called Academy for Women Entrepreneurs where I am passionately training women business owners to think strategically about their businesses. So kind of probably, you know, when I said backbone areas, business and strategy are all ways, have always been these backbone areas and I added on top of it, the human development sides, and then I'm kind of combining all this. That's me. Jenny  03:23Honestly, you are a firecracker. And when I introduce you to people, I say she's a firecracker because I've never met anyone with so much energy and focus. I've seen J work on pitch presentations, you know, for several days, do you remember? Like, it was just phenomenal? And a couple of things that you said that I want to pick up on one? It was 2012 did you say that you started J stratejy? And the interesting thing about that is that model, that virtual model that you started up your strategic consultancy, was exactly what has transpired now, for many agencies starting up with the virtual model, but at the time, you had some fantastic clients on your roster. But it was a difficult sell wasn't? Ceylan  04:02Oh, it was such a difficult sell, because they were just seeing us as a bunch of kind of freelance, like, I remember going to speak at the Novartis pitch, and Novartis was choosing their main agencies for three years. So it was either you were in or out. And I remember like, they were saying, 'Well, how are we going to trust her?' And I was like, 'Why it is so different to you, what you're doing with the agencies not changing is just our modality, which actually brings a lot of agility and probably, cost cut as well'. So, but hey! Hey ho! Jenny  04:47It's just amazing, isn't it, how things have transpired? The other thing that you said that was super relevant was, you're now helping businesses of all sizes, including the entrepreneurial community of kind of micro business owners, and one of the most successful projects, or products that you sell, is your strategic planning workshop. And I've just noticed so many testimonials coming up from business owners saying, ''Oh my God, this was incredible, it's really cleared the fog'. So well done you, amazing. So tell me, J, why are you so passionate about strategy? Ceylan  05:22This question, like I keep asking myself as well, why do I always get pulled there? Listen, I think I'm a naturally curious person, which was one of the characteristics that kind of made me interested in strategy. You know, strategy is all about asking more questions.But my passion came when I started to experience and witness the impact of strategic thinking on life, business and career. You know, I guess there are two real main driving forces in success. Well, this is kind of me believing in this. The first one is definitely consistency. So it's like the power of showing up doing things in a disciplined way. Right. And we both experienced the result of a compound effect. And the second one is the ability to take perspective and analyse and shift or continue, which is, to me, is the power of the right questions and to do the right things. So the first one is do the things consistently. The second one is do the right things. And essentially, the second one is basically be able to think strategically for me, and that's probably why I'm so passionate about it. It's like my wish to do the right thing and ask the right questions. Jenny  06:49I think this, particularly for the agency, account manager community is key. I think one of the things that comes up time and time again, is I want to be more of a strategic thinker. I want to add value to the client business in a more strategic way. Or I'm not strategic enough. There's always that word strategy. And sometimes, you know, people use it as a mythical kind of you're not strategic enough but what does that actually mean? And sometimes, the way the agency's structured is that they might have a strategic planning department, which means the account management team don't necessarily get as big a role in the strategy sometimes. So there's that fight as well. So I'd love you to sort of talk me through what your observations have been of the account management community, when it comes to strategic ability and strategic input. Ceylan  07:42Okay, so this is a great question. And I would say, when I started, so this goes back to beginning of 2000s. And when I started in the advertising, especially in the healthcare advertising, there wasn't that much of 'Oh you are strategic or you're this'. Account handling was a thing of strategy, you need it to understand your clients business, to be able to help them grow it. And that is all about strategy. So you needed to know the market dynamics, you needed to know the content of what you're selling basically. It wasn't just a classically viewed sales job or project management job, it was much more than that. And slowly, slowly, what is more applied in the consumer advertising world, which is that most strategic planners are different and then accountants are different and creatives are different, project managers are different, all of that started to filter also med comm and healthcare advertising or any agency world. My take on on this is it takes the power out of the client relationship management, because the person who holds that relationship has to have the intelligence to be able to empower that relationship to grow. And I think it's really very key for the growth, personal growth of the account handling community members as well. So I believe it's a really key skill. And I wish more agencies were actually behind their account handlers to gain that kind of skill, have space and time. Jenny  09:43I'm going to repeat this anecdotally, really, but one of the biggest complaints that I hear from the client community is that account managers don't have enough commercial acumen. Meaning, as to your point, they don't understand my business, they don't understand the market environment, my competitors, my customers, and they're not bringing me proactively, ideas based on that knowledge. So let's talk about specifically, where account managers tend to get involved, which is the brief writing process. So A, they're taking the brief from the client, and potentially challenging the brief, and then having to interpret the brief. So why do you believe that brief writing is so important for agencies? Ceylan  10:29Okay, so there are many reasons. There is a quote, and I'm going to a little bit mess it about, but basically it says behind every masterpiece, whether it's a project creative brief or product brief, there's a great brief. Sogreat briefs ensure excellence. Bad briefs, cost in time, productivity, money, client relationships to agencies, or bad briefs create bad synergy and team problems. So I mean, this is the big thing about the polarity of creatives and account handlers, because all creatives didn't understand the brief or you didn't apply the brief, whatever, it's always this kind of like, touchy thing. And brief writing is probably one of the most strategic activities of account handling. So you got to have that, you got to have that little muscle ticking to be able to write excellent briefs to get to the excellent results, basically. Jenny  11:43I think it's, you're so right, with everything that you've just said, I mean, when time is money, often many agencies are not necessarily value based pricing, they're not basing their pricing on outcomes. It's more about inputs and hours. So if every minute counts, and you write a bad brief, or you don't do the research behind the good brief, or you've got your thinking wrong, then the implications is huge, isn't it? The cost, as you said, to the team morale, the profitability of the agency, the client satisfaction, etc. so it's huge. But like you say, it's that key point to get it right. So, where in your experience, do agencies get it wrong with briefs? Ceylan  12:28Yes, there are two main reasons. So the first one is they do a quick and dirty job. Right, so you are the account handling queen. You tell me how many jobs an account handler juggles in the day? Jenny  12:43Yeah, it varies, doesn't it? I mean, some account managers have multiple clients with multiple projects, and they're just trying to keep their head above water. Ceylan  12:51Exactly. Jenny  12:52Depending on how the agencies, like how their model is, because, as you said before, sometimes the project management function is separate, so the account manager theoretically has more scope to really add the time and effort that's needed. But some, as you say, have that combined role where they're doing project management and account management. Ceylan  13:16So in my experience, what I have seen is, it's always urgent. And the brief writing is squeezed between two calls and three mails and two projects so it's always a squeeze thing. I used to always say to my team, there's always time to do it again and again and again but there is never time to do it right at the first round. So that's kind of the main problem. And the second problem is, I think, to my knowledge, and you correct me, none of the account handlers that I came across, were properly trained on brief writing. So it is a skill, but you want your team to kind of be born with it, or come up with it so they're not trained and it is a skill to be trained up. Jenny  14:13I think if you're very, very lucky, and I think things have changed since I started out, which was like a long, long, long time ago, I mean, if you're really, really lucky, you will have an internal training session where the creative director will kind of talk you through the agency's proprietary strategic tool, and how to write a brief. I mean, we've both worked in both micro agencies, independents and networked agencies, where systems are a lot more established and processes are a lot more established. But yeah, absolutely. I mean, the implication of doing, sorry we're you going to say something there? Ceylan  14:55Yeah, I will just say something because like this is a really good point that you're making. So there are processes and people are trained on processes. Let's talk about these processes on a brief, but probably 99% of the briefs are going to ask one key question, right? It's 'What's the objective?' So the thing is, if you're not trained to think about what's the objective in a right way, here are the types of things that I came across in my career is something like, 'Create a series of newsletter'. Okay, so that can be an objective written on the brief, right? Or, I came across these briefs that are like literally, the objectives that are a paragraph long, 'Become the market leaders, create impact. stay top of mind'. So like you put a list of all the marketing jargon that you know, so that, maybe it will hit one of them? So this is it, it's not about just processes, because processes exist, okay, great. But it's about making people think correctly about those questions and processes and that brief. That the content of that brief, that's the training that we are missing, I guess. Jenny  15:24I love that you've made that point, actually, because I think that's where you're different in that you train people in how to think strategically. And to put that down in a brief, and I think that's the key difference. You're right. I mean, anyone can come up with a template with headings, but it's how you then fill out those sections. So, and I've seen the feedback from your previous sessions, and it's just, it's phenomenal. So the implications of writing a shitty brief, are? Ceylan  16:54Well, I mean, like, at the end of the day, it's a business outcome. It impacts directly the business outcome, which is money, which then transforms into the account handlers life as less bonus, okay. So if everyone needs to take their kind of shitty impact, there's shit impact for everyone. For the client who was managing it, he's not going to hit their target, do you know, that's the shit impact. For the agency in general, probably they're not going to be able to retain that client that long, or they're not going to have more of the projects, they're not going to be able to grow their projects. For the people who are working in the agency, they're going to have a really kind of dodgy relationship within the team, because everybody will kind of give the hot potato to others. So I think it's everyone is impacted when the key strategic activity, often account handler, is badly done. Jenny  18:06I absolutely agree with you, I think you get a lot more respect within your agency, if you know how to write a really good brief. And actually, from my experience, you are going to stand out a mile from the pack if you can, because it's a skill, as you say, it's almost like a muscle that you develop, and then you can repeat and repeat and repeat. But you do no need to know the fundamentals. And on that point, what are the important elements that go into a really good brief? Ceylan  18:33There are many, but just to give it a quick kind of thing, so first of all, is really understanding the end audience, right? The end user of that piece or product or app, whatever that brief will result into, whoever is going to be exposed to that end result, you need to understand that person. You need to clarify the objective, and there is a really simple tool to be able to clarify the objective. And when I train people, I say, 'Becoming the top of mind', is the last time that you're using those words. No more marketing jargon, or if you're going to use it, you got to explain to me, what do you mean again, so really clarifying the objective. Defining the key messages and again, it's not the classical way of defining the key messages, but impactful messages, this is going to actually hit the objective. This message will hit the objective, this information, this data helps this objective to move forward. And then, there are some simple steps to follow, key steps of writing, reading, editing a brief. You don't just write a brief in 10 minutes and then shove it in front of the creative team because they will understand it. So you need head space and time to be able to perfect it. And I'm not a perfectionist, but that brief writing needs to be excellent. So that the result is excellent, basically. Jenny  20:18Okay, love it. And what else goes into that brief? I mean, what other elements do you think should be important in your experience of training this with loads of different people? What points do they need to understand more than others? Ceylan  20:36The three points that I mentioned. So audience, objective and key message and then after that, it's all about also giving the right amount of information. So, for example, you ask, what is the background information? And then they put everything and anything? Yes, but why am I supposed to read all this information, does it really help my brief? So, for example, if the brief is about a brand that has a long presence in the market, and actually you are celebrating their 20th year in the market, and it's a big campaign, right, I'm just like literally making it up right now. Then it makes sense to talk about heritage of this brand, and how it came. But if actually, the brief is about refreshing an old brand and giving them a punchy look, a newer look, then maybe you should not talk about that whole heritage and give that information or keep it only in one sentence. Yes, this is an old brand but actually, you want to renew it. So the information that you're choosing in the background has to be conditioned by your objective, and by the end results that you want to get. This is one thing, avoiding all the jargon and general sentences is another thing because it creates confusion. So really being precise, concise, is the key. And there are tools to be able to actually make it like that. Jenny  22:22I love that you're sharing this because what's becoming clear is this is not just about brief writing is it? This is about a skill in communication. Because to your point about, and sometimes maybe it's a lack of confidence thing, I'm just going to cut and paste all this background info because it looks like you know, to Seth Godin's point, it's got the 'thud factor', there's a lot in there so that means I've done a good job. But actually the reverse is true, isn't it? You know, what are the key points that I really need to communicate? And how much can I cut out? Because I noticed J, with all of your communications, everything is very succinct. And onpoint. Can you speak to a little bit on that? Ceylan  23:00Yeah, sure and I really want to also jump on what you said. It's not just yes, the brief writing, when you get it right, it's not just about brief writing. It's a skill that you can apply into any parts of communication, it's a skill that you can apply in presentation, it's a skill that you can apply in email writing. It's a very transferable life skill basically. It's a skill that you can apply in how to manage a meeting, how to define those key points that are important for your audience it's really a life skill. Right. So in that sense, repeat again your previous question, I just got lost! Jenny  23:48Don't worry, I think I'm lost as well! I'm really enjoying the conversation. Just go with the flow. Just carry on. I've got another question up my sleeve, though. Ceylan  23:58All right. So this is kind of what I was gonna say.It's not just about brief writing, when you get good at brief writing, you get good at communicating, which is probably the most important life skill that you can gain. Jenny  24:13Agreed. Just going back to the confidence thing. I remember you, and I don't know whether you can remember this, but you gave me an example where you challenged the brief, because I think the skill that you're talking about now about writing a good brief, is actually relevant for both clients and agencies. So it could be, and this is why you help companies in general with briefing, it could be a client that gives you a brief that's not on point and the same implications happen, or it could be an agency account manager writing a brief for their internal team, I think the principles are the same. So if in the scenario of when a client comes to you with a brief that maybe is very quickly written, not a lot of thought in it, not a lot of context, maybe no data to support anything, no evidence, etc. And can you talk to us about the importance of sort of challenging the brief and really helping that process to make it to even better output? Ceylan  25:17Sure. And thank you very much for asking this question. Because right now, we're putting everything on the shoulders of account handlers.But actually account handlers receive, most of the time, very bad briefs. Very, very bad briefs, because clients are not trained in brief writing either. And especially a marketing side of the client, so a marketing person from the client side, oh, my God, the things that they need to juggle between. So brief writing is the lowest importance on their to do list, and they just like chuck some information and send it to their agency. And then the account handler finds himself or herself in front of the thing that is called 'brief'. And there's a choice to make. It's either, I'm gonna take ownership and be able to push back or at least, I'm not saying pushing back in a irrespectful way, it's just asking the questions to actually refine that brief. Or you're going to become a post office, and then you're just going to pass the baby to, again, the hot potato, to the creative team, who will struggle, not understand, and then they will just create something. Creative team or a product team or whoever is the production team in your scenario. So in that case, yes, you have to 1, manage the expectation of the clients, in terms of brief writing, and make them understand that this is important to you, this is important to the agency and to them as an end result, and probably manage that expectation upfront within the relationship management, which you would do much better than me, but it's all about saying, look, when we send you a brief template, if you didn't have time to fill it that much, why don't we go through it together? And then you have some questions that you can ask because you know what you're talking about, and you can get the right information and then you write it. It happened to me in my career, like years, years, years ago, a client came said it was about HIV, it was an HIV client and they wanted to do a campaign on women HIV. And they just came in, they said, 'Oh, we want to do a brochure on this'. And I was just like, 'Why a brochure? Why are you even doing a campaign on this?' and actually, their objective was so much bigger than a brochure could meet up. Then the 80k client, so they had 80k budget to do this mini campaign became 400k client within six months. So this is the good impact on the agency, of course, but also the impact on the client, it was that they started to be recognised literally as the leaders in that sector for dealing with woman HIV and how to prevent HIV in women. So that's the, I guess, power of being able to, as you said, trust yourself, trust your guts, and just go, 'Why?' Jenny  28:59That seems to be like a key question. And I'm not sure it's done enough. Partly because maybe the lack of, I don't know, confidence or not wanting to disrespect someone, but actually, what you've just explained is the reason we should be asking why. And in fairness, the clients like you said, they're short of time, they haven't necessarily received the training, it's a tick boxing exercise, where they say, 'Well, this is the brief, let's just go and do something executionly'. But actually, the co-creation of that brief session is key, isn't it? And maybe that should be in every agency's repertoire in terms of service that they provide? Ceylan  29:36100% I mean, I remember like,you make your client sign a brief right, and the client will sign a brief, okay, they will correct some minor stuff and they will sign a brief and then you are there. You're feeling empowered because because you can hold them accountable. That's, I'm sorry the expression, but it's bullshit because whenever that project goes wrong, even if you tell them oh you signed the brief that's it, it actually damaged the relationship. So that's where I actually like owning that relationship and nurturing it from the start by saying, hang on, this is a really key moment, let's spare an hour of your time and my time, let's hop on a call, a zoom call and let's go through all these questions together. And that's it, one hour. Jenny  30:29It shows massive proactivity, massive professionalism, it shows that you're adding value that you're helping, that you're interested in this success. You know, it's the part of your partnership in terms of working with the client that you are committed to the shared success. So I think it's a great example. And just out of interest, that HIV client, the brief originally was a brochure and what did the end kind of programme look like? Ceylan  30:57Oh it was a massive Medcomm MedEd programme. It became something massive, and it was a repeat programme, they created an award, like Research Award with them, so they were able to give awards, etc. So it became, and it still is going on, it's still something that they are continuing now, not as the format that we had created in 2007, or something, but it became a heritage programme for them. So yeah, and that's the moment where you just say no, this is not sounding right. There's something weird in this. Jenny  31:36Yeah, so it's totally the opportunity for the account manager to shine, for the agency to shine. And it really is one of those absolute key moments to get it right, to add the most value, isn't it? Because once that ball is in motion, and people are executing on it, then it just becomes a project that's just not going to get any better is it? You're not going to come back from that. Yeah, I love this. This is this is so important. So let's talk a little bit about this brief writing training that we're going to put on for the agency community because I'm super passionate about this, because I really think it's needed. And I think everyone should have that skill. So can you talk me through a bit about how it works and some of the benefits? Ceylan  32:18Sure. So first of all, let's follow our kind of our own brief writing format, right. So, Who is it for? Who are the people? So I guess the simplest way to say is whoever is exposed to either brief writing or being the gatekeeper of the briefs, or standard bearer of the good briefs, so whoever is exposed to that, so it can be from client side, as I said, I have delivered this training to very, very technical people who had to write briefs and who had no idea about what does an objective, what is a marketing objective? What does this you know? So it really helped them understand certain parameters of good brief. And in an agency context, it's mostly account handlers but also creatives because they have to also fight their corner, right? So they need to say, hang on, this doesn't make sense. You're saying this in the objective now you're coming with this key message? Why? It doesn't even follow. What's this about? So anybody who has to actually work with that brief, can benefit from this training. So what is the objective of the training? The training not only gives the skills but also gives a very clear format of brief, and also as I said, it's not just about 'What's the objective?, it's 'How am I going to think about the objective and all the questions within that question?' So that you actually come up with a very clear idea on each part of the brief. And basically, when when you go through those questions, because there's much more sub questions and sub questions, you know, it's the why, why, why, why? And at the end, there is nothing left but the barebone important information. So you end up by gaining that skill of writing a good brief and you get out of it with the tools. So you are a good brief writer, that's the objective of it. And my key message is 1, I seriously didn't come across any account handler who were able to write good briefs because they were not trained. So I believe account handlers can massively benefit from this. I believe agencies can massively benefit from this because it will actually save them time, money, productivity and it will regenerate the team synergy between their account teams and creative teams. That's it! Jenny  35:11Love it, I have to agree with everything. The only thing I'm thinking is if there is an agency that's not traditional creative agency, but there might be maybe a website development agency or a video production agency an app development agency or video production agency, any type of agency where there's a client, and there's an agency, right? Ceylan  35:33Oh, 100%, there's a client, an agency, or there is two teams where there is a project management team and more technical production team. And when there is those different skill sets that are not actually working on a end product, there is always a communication and there is always lost in translation. So this always helps them to set those bridges between teams. Jenny  36:07Great. And how do you run this session J? Is this virtual? Is this face to face? How long is it? What's the kind of format? Ceylan  36:14Both. Well, in our world right now, it's mostly virtual. So it's three hours with a little break. It's highly interactive, I really do three minutes talk and then it's all about them working on the show, it's really they are working. And it's only three hours, it's pretty easy, pretty simple to gather people, it can be just the morning and then they go off to lunch or afternoon. It can be also delivered in person, when we're allowed to and then I just say half a day, because there's more social networking components in it as well. But yeah, it's really, really interactive. And I don't just lecture, it's not about lecturing, it's all about making people do stuff. Jenny  37:13Yeah. And your latest client, I know that you told me this the other day, and I had to say it, they were so impressed with what you did for them, that they've invited you back to repeat it six times. Ceylan  37:24Yes. exactly. So they had trained I think, at the beginning six, nine people. And then they just came back saying we want to train 45 people in the company, is it possible? I said, well, we need to chop them into groups but definitely, we can do it. So yeah. Jenny  37:49I've just so excited about putting this out. And I know that there's a few agencies that spring to mind that particularly have been asking me about this. So I'm really super excited. I've got the right person, the right person partnering, so I'm going to include all of the details for, if anyone's listening, and they're interested in knowing more about it. The key contact will be me on on LinkedIn or jenny@accountmanagementskills.com and I can give them more information. But any final advice J, for agency account managers who are listening to you and thinking, Oh, my God, I know what she's saying is true. Have you got any final words of wisdom or advice for them? Ceylan  38:32I guess I think, slow down. I know what agency life is like, I have done those hours - 4am, 7am. I have done that and slow down. No one is dying. And it's only communications and when you slow down, answers come to you. So slow down, especially brief writing, it's not a rushed thing. Create space, create time and take your time to really reflect on those questions of your brief template. Jenny  39:12Love that. Love that. And the point that we were talking about before, I think it's important to invest in your career and yourself, don't you? I mean, you and I've spent a fortune on masterclasses, education etc. And I think you've only got, your career is one of the most valuable assets. And the other thing I was going to ask you was because you are such a sharp, creative and strategic thinker, what are your sources of inspiration? Can you recommend any books, podcasts, sources that you go to to get inspired with thinking the way you think? Ceylan  39:49So I'm a little bit of a geek and that's why my sources are quite eclectic. I mean, I can go into big encyclopaedia of neuropsychology or neuroplasticity as much as I can also go into a yoga book that will inspire me. But within the strategic thinking or learning or being curious, probably my number one podcast for everyone is, as you know, I'm passionate about that is The Knowledge Project because the host Shane Parrish has been running Farnam Street so his blog for years and years and Knowledge Project hosted, like the biggest name in every and any sector. So you just like can listen from parenting, to marketing, to investment to whatever the topic that he had in mind. So it's really, it's really inspiring, that's one of the things. Others I would say, kind of sector of reading or knowledge that I am really interested in is mental models. So any book around mental models would help you. Shane Parrish has made two books are on mental models. And there is a book called Super Thinking, which also is all about kind of applying different mental models into your daily life. And finally, another book is Loser Think and that is the book where how some type of thinking can actually lead you into into wrong areas. Jenny  41:37Wow, thank you so much for sharing that. I mean, I listen to The Knowledge Project and the Farnam Street blog, but the other recommendations, wonderful. Thank you so much J. I just want to say a huge thank you. And if anyone's listening and they want to reach out to either me or J, then you can hit us up on LinkedIn. And I would highly recommend following you because you're doing some amazing things. I watch and see so much activity and just, you're always inspiring me. So thank you so much for coming on J. This has been brilliant. Ceylan  42:11Thank you very much for inviting me.

Transcript:Account managers tell me that their day to day contact at the client side is too junior. And they really need to be speaking to more senior people at the client side in order to get any decisions made about expansion of the account. So I want to break it down and talk through some ideas for you. And I've got five ideas for how you can navigate the organisation and reach more senior clients without upsetting your key contact. So before we get into the five different ways, the key thing to do when wanting to speak to more senior clients at the agency side is to really understand their business. Now, it kind of is obvious, but the more senior you are at a client organisation, the more close you are to the business challenges, the business objectives. And therefore before you go and present yourself or try and speak to these more senior people in the client company, you want to really do your research. What is the company doing? What is their strategy for the year? Do we have a copy of their marketing plan? Do we really understand their objectives, and actually, who are the individuals that we want to reach? Now, if you're dealing with an enterprise level client, then if you go on to seekingalpha.com, you can download a transcript of the C suite conversations and the presentations on a quarterly basis to the investors. And this is where you can literally read from the words of the CEO, the CFO, what their plans are, where they're focusing their energy and time in the coming quarter, or the coming year. Are there any new products coming down the pipeline? Are they expanding into new territories, what's happening at a macro level in the organisation, and also go onto their website, download the latest report and accounts, read the chairman's statement. And really find out about who the company are, who their key competitors are, what brands or what products or services drive their business, so that when you try to reach these more senior people, you have that background understanding of the client business. One of the biggest complaints that clients typically have about agency account managers is that they don't have business acumen, they don't understand the client business well enough. So don't fall foul of that and make sure that you do that research to start with.  So let's talk about the different ways that you can get access to more senior people. So the first suggestion I have is to conduct a client listening study. And this is where you would invite as well as your key contact, more senior people within that organisation to give you feedback on your agency performance. Typically, more senior marketers are often at the pitch process initially when they're choosing an agency but then over time, they might disappear, while the more junior staff take over with the more tactical implementation of projects. So first of all, we may have lost contact with those senior people, but they are aware of us, they do know that we are their supplier, or you may see them now and again, at different types of meetings, but they're not really day to day contacts and you want to speak to them, you want to reach them, but you really don't want to upset the person that you're dealing with on a day to day basis. So if you conduct a yearly client listening study, you can invite these people to give you feedback. And  I always recommend using first of all, if you want to carry this out, internally, then maybe it's this senior member of your senior leadership team who could conduct those interviews with these senior client leads, and ask them for feedback, what's going well, what have been some of the challenges? What can we do better? But also use that opportunity of interviewing them to talk about their business. What are your future plans? What do you have coming up in the future? What can we help with? How can we help more? And how can we add value?  Alternatively, if you don't have someone internally that has the capacity to do that, or, or perhaps isn't in a position to do that, then I would always recommend using an external consultancy, like Relationship Audit & Management, they are hugely experienced in carrying out client audits. They have a huge amount of benchmarking data, they have a question set that is very, very well established. And these guys really know their stuff. They sit down with your client, and they listen for what's not being said. They ask the difficult questions, and they will squeeze the information from the client, and they will come back with some gold. And so you're getting a perspective on how the client sees you. And what what success looks like for them, maybe some of the areas that they see are your development areas. And that will give you the information you need to decide what is going to be the right approach. And it sets the ball in motion for you to do a follow up meeting with that senior person to thank them for participating in the study. And in my experience of dealing with Relationship Audits & Management, I invited them in to audit a relationship that I had at while I was at Publicis and that the information that they shared with me after that audit, which was really painful, by the way, because it wasn't particularly glowing. And then the action points that we took as a result of that feedback that we got really allowed us to extend that relationship by at least two years. It was massively valuable exercise and hugely valuable to the company. And that's why when I left Publicis, I went to work for the consultancy, Relationship Audits & Management for about nine months. And I was carrying out these audits myself. And I was quite surprised at how clients really open up to an external third party. And they tell you stuff that they might not be telling you to your face in the agency. So regardless of whether you want to reach more senior people, I just think carrying out yearly audits of your relationships is really good practice. So that's the first one.  The second one is to decide whether you have a good relationship with the procurement department. So some of your clients, particularly the large clients, will have a procurement function. And, you know, it's really procurement are the linchpins, within any organisation, they have access to all of the decision makers, and they're really great to get on board to help you navigate the organisation. Now this might not be relevant for you if your client organisation isn't big enough to have a dedicated procurement team. But certainly, if you are looking at how to reach more senior people, then make sure that you establish a relationship with procurement. And I do have a podcast episode dedicated exclusively to how to navigate procurement,  how to establish relationships with procurement. So I will include that link to that episode in the show notes. But certainly procurement are people who could open doors to more senior clients.  The third way is to conduct a quarterly business review, if you're not already doing it,  and I'm not talking about a weekly status meeting on the status of the project. I'm talking about creating opportunity to sit down with your client and their senior team on a quarterly basis so that not only is can you evaluate how far you've come with the current scope of work, to make sure everything's on track, maybe review metrics, but also for it to be forward focused, you know, what, what projects do they have coming up in the future. And also, it's an opportunity for us to be proactive and bring some insights, market trends, maybe customer insights, competitor information, things that are changing in the external environment that will be valuable to our clients. So it's certainly not a passive meeting. It's very much about future focus, and most quarterly business review meetings and it doesn't have to be called the quarterly business review it could be a, you know, a quarterly strategy session. But essentially, it's where you would have more senior leaders. And also, if you've made changes to the agency, maybe you've acquired another agency yourself or you've hired a new team, and you're now offering a new service, it's an opportunity to update the client on what you're doing. So again, a quarterly business review is typically attended by the senior clients. And therefore, that could be an idea for you to propose to the client, that you conduct one on a quarterly basis. And also going back to the previous point, procurement are often facilitating these types of meetings. So that's idea number three.  Number four, is to create something of value for their senior clients. And it could be a senior executive briefing around future trends that you've spotted, industry changes, legal implications coming up that you want the client to be prepared for, again, external environment focused, future value creation focus. And you could create a webinar, a round table event. And you could say to your client contact, you know, we're offering this senior briefing session and this is typically attended by more senior clients. So, you know, who would that be from your, from your side, I can give you a quick executive briefing now to give you the highlights of what we'll be covering on that. And then you are equipping your key contact to then find out on their side who those most relevant clients would be, and who would be most interested in attending that.  And then finally, number five is to consider who do you have on your team at a more senior level, that could be introduced via your contact to a more senior level client on the client side. So let's suppose you're dealing with a marketing manager, and you want to really understand who the Chief Marketing Officer is, you'd like to create contact with them, then instead of you being that point of contact, perhaps you ask for your CEO or your managing director to be introduced to their Chief Marketing Officer. And then they can have a peer to peer relationship. And then you maintain the peer to peer relationship with the marketing manager. It goes without saying that you want to do your research online beforehand to understand who all the individuals are, you can always ask for an organigram to understand the names of people and contacts. You can also look on LinkedIn, to find out who the individuals are that you need to establish a relationship with, and also consider connecting with them on LinkedIn.  So I hope that's given you a few ideas to consider when thinking about trying to establish relationships with more senior clients. There are a few more ideas, which we cover in the Account Accelerator programme. So if you're interested in finding out more, it's all about creating a plan, a client centric plan, to increase your revenue from your existing clients. And I will be running that in September 2021 again, so if you're interested in more details, please get in contact. It's Jenny Plant on LinkedIn, or jenny@accountmanagementskills.com. Until the next time, see you soon.

Transcript:Jenny  00:00So I am delighted that Dr. Mark Goulston has decided to join me again, I'm absolutely thrilled to have him on the show. I had such a great response from the last interview. So I'm really excited about diving into this one. So a little bit of background on Mark. Dr. Mark Goulston was a UCLA professor of psychiatry for over 25 years, and a former FBI and police hostage negotiation trainer. He's a popular speaker and the author of several best best selling books, including 'Just Listen', which I have in my hands here, which I'm reading for the second time, which is still blowing me away today. 'Talking to Crazy', which is on my next reading list, 'Real Influence' and 'Get Out of Your Own Way'. And Mark, 'Get Out of Your Own Way', am I right in thinking, it's been in the market for 25 years. And it's now currently in the top 10 bestselling books on the Wall Street Journal?Mark  00:54Right, it made the top 10 this past week for non fiction ebooks. And it was 10. But it squeezed its way in there. Hey, top 10 is top 10.Jenny  01:06Well, that is unbelievable after being out there for so long. And Mark hosts the extremely popular podcast 'My Wakeup Call with Dr. Mark Goulston', where he's interviewed prominent figures like radio and TV host, Larry King, who was also a good friend of Mark's, and leadership guru, Ken Blanchard. He also has a regular LinkedIn live stream called 'No Strings Attached'. He's the inventor of Surgical Empathy, a process for getting through to anyone by going to their psychological core, and unlocking what's holding them back. His unique background has made him an indispensable and sought after expert and change facilitator to Fortune 500 leaders, entrepreneurs and educators. I'm really honoured to dive in today to my questions to Mark. So Mark, welcome to the show.Mark  01:55That is so much to live up to.Jenny  01:59But I haven't even mentioned other things that you're doing. You just sound... And I know that you have a course which I would really love to talk about later if that's okay.Mark  02:07Absolutely.Jenny  02:08Great. So Mark, my audience is principally agency account managers. They're managing client relationships on a day to day basis. And one of the big things that agency account managers tell me is they struggle with difficult clients sometimes. And I know that you've got so many different strategies and advice and stories to share where you can help. So I would love to dive into some questions. Is that okay with you?Mark  02:37Can I give a tip that right out of the gate?Jenny  02:41Sure.Mark  02:42So I've been doing a presentation to some accelerators and accelerators, these have about 15 startup companies. And recently, I've been speaking to them about how do you pitch to an investor? But this could also be the challenge for your agencies when they're talking or pitching something to a difficult person. So, you'll have to adapt this but one of the things I said to these start-ups is I said when you're pitching your company to an investor and they smile, do you think it's a yes? And they say "yes". Well how often does this smile turn into, "what's our next step, where do we begin?" And the start-ups said "never". I said that's because investors do not smile. Now, your difficult client, in all likelihood, don't smile. But if you get a sense that you're having a conversation and it's getting worse, what you say, but you have to say this with some confidence, you say, "Can we press pause right now?" Don't say it, say it assertively, but not... And they're going to go "What?" "Yeah, can we press pause?" And that's going to disarm them. And what I said to the startups in the accelerator, they said when you're talking to an investor, but you might be able to use this with a difficult client, I say, when they pause, you could say "when we started this conversation, we were like this. You're an investor, you have money. I'm a company that needs money or if you're selling to client from agencies. You're a client that needs marketing or advertising or something to get your name out. And I'm one of those companies that can do that for you. And we started like this unless you were just being polite, which I am sure you're too busy for that. And guess what? Our conversation has gone like this". And this is you the investor, this is me the company, this is you the potential client, me, the agency. And "what's happened is we started off like this, and you were listening for something or looking for something and we didn't cover it". And they're gonna go" What?" "Yeah, yeah, I think we started out equal, otherwise, you would have cancelled the appointment. But you were listening for something or looking for something, and we didn't cover it. Now, obviously, when I prepared for this, I tried to sense what your needs and wants are. And you know, what's most important to you? But I didn't get it right, so can you fill me in and tell me what that is?" And you have to practice this. And you get, and what's going to happen is you have confidence. And they're going to go "what?", you could say, "Yeah, what are you looking for and listening for?" Now, if it's a client, you can pause and say, "Can I tell you what other potential clients have said to me when I asked them this question?" And by this, what's happened is you have disarmed them. They're a little bit discombobulated and they go "Yeah". "Like, I don't know if you can relate to this. But what some of my other clients have said, is, when they buy a service, it really needs to exceed expectations. Because when they bring in a service, and it doesn't work out their boss is on them. Why did you buy that? Why did you get us into that? And so I don't know if you've ever been through that, you know, potential client. But can you understand how someone would be thinking that, that what they're listening for? Is this going to be something that if I say yes to, I won't regret it?" Is this and can I tell you something else that the client's say, and by this time, if you practice this, they are hypnotised. They may even lean in  and say "give me a little more".  What they're really listening for, looking for is they're bringing in a service that does so well, that they get a promotion. They're listening for something that at their next performance review, their boss says, you know, that service that you brought in, you got for our company, sales have exploded, and I'm getting a raise, and so are you. So can you understand how they might be listening for that? Can you see how this changes things?Jenny  08:02I love that for so many reasons. I think it interrupts the pattern to start with, doesn't it you, you grab their attention? Because one way or another, you've lost their attention, then you're talking about what other clients are doing. And in my experience, people lean in, say, well, what's everybody else doing? So and it shows assertiveness, I think that's the key thing, Mark. I love that. That's a great pattern interrupt. And it reminds me actually of you, you refer to your in your book, 'Just Listen', you refer to the Stipulation Gambit. And in your book you described a boy that had a stutter, who was going for a job interview, and job interviews weren't going so well. And he wasn't getting the jobs. And I don't know if you remember this story, because I know you wrote the book so long ago. But you suggested that rather than letting people pick up the fact he had a stutter, during the interview, that at the beginning of the interview, he said, Listen, you know, I have this problem. I stutter. And sometimes I don't know when it's gonna happen. And what you're describing there, is this pattern interrupt, isn't it kind of tapping the brakes? Do you mind if we pause things? And do you think, I can imagine someone listening to this Mark and thinking, wow, have I got the confidence to say, Can we just pause for a minute? Do you think that there might be people out there that would? Well I only because I know so many account managers that might be worried about doing that.Mark  09:38Well, you have to practice it because it's not so much the words, it's the tone. There's something that I talk about, I believe, in 'Just Listen', and in 'Talking To Crazy'. It's called the 'wince confrontation'. And what that means is when you're going to confront someone with something that they may not want to hear or may not like to hear, you want to wince as if 'it pains me to have to say this', so the wince confrontation would be instead of being overly confrontational you wince and you go, can we pause for a second? And that's what I call, I have all these terms assertive vulnerability, when you say, "Can we pause for a second?" One of the best examples of assertive vulnerability, and I've coached leaders, many places. And there's a phrase that I say, is the best expression of assertive vulnerability with your people, with your investors, if they're getting a little bit nervous, how, because of stock price, and you say, with this tone, I need your help with something. It's not like waah, waah, I need your help. It's, I need your help with something. And when you, or, I'd like your help with something? And can you see that when you say it that way, it's going to generally cause the other person at least to be curious. At the very least, they're not going to be afraid of you, because you're not assaulting them. You're saying, I'd like your help with something.Jenny  11:23It plays into someone's feeling of helping to lean in, doesn't it? And so you're making yourself slightly vulnerable by inviting them to help you. So again, I think that's a fantastic way of managing the client relationship. Mark, tell me you also just happened to drop in the book, that you were at the OJ Simpson murder trial, as a kind of psychiatrist there, that had been asked to be there. And this story, specifically related to bullying. Can you remember the story? Because I'd love to hear it from you. When you were effectively being bullied by one of the lawyers, I think he was trying to bully you.Mark  12:06Yeah, so I'm not sure how many people in your area followed the trial. But most people seem to follow the trial, at least in America. And I was an advisor to the prosecution. And so that meant that I would come to the court probably 25-30 times during the whole trial. And I would make observations that to me were hidden in plain sight. And they said, We don't want you in our strategy sessions, because you just see things we don't see. So I faxed them probably 220 pages, but it was a double murder. I'm not someone who's going to turn it into a book, what I faxed to the OJ Simpson trial, people say you're crazy. Everybody else wrote one. But, you know, being somewhat empathic, this was a double murder. This is not a circus. In fact, when I leave the courtroom, I would go out the side door, because there were other advisors who would go out the front door and wave off the press. And I said, this is, there's something wrong about this. And so there was one day, September 5 1995, in which 80% of what I know about dealing with difficult people I learned. And on that day, there was a participant in the OJ Simpson trial, a Detective Mark Fuhrman. And during the middle of the trial, he came off like John Wayne, and there was a famous lawyer F Lee Bailey, who had promised the world that he was going to break him. And he didn't break them during the cross examine in the middle of the trial. And they subpoenaed me during the middle of the trial. But the building I worked in conveniently fell down in the earthquake, and there was no building. So I never got the subpoena. I have it on my wall somewhere, but it never came to me. And so the trial moved on, and they couldn't find me. And so it was the end of the trial. And if any of you remembered, I know it's really old. This police officer Detective Mark Fuhrman and was associated with having never saying he'd never said the N word, that awful word, it's still awful when you hear it. And so what happened on that date, he was downstairs in the courtroom, and I was sequestered upstairs. So I didn't know what was going on. The rest of the world was watching him take the Fifth Amendment because he didn't want to incriminate himself. And I didn't know that was going on because if he hadn't incriminated himself,F Lee Bailey was going to question me about, you know, if I'd coached him if I'd done anything, I didn't do anything. I did send faxes to the prosecution, but they never really told me what they use.  And so it's 7pm. And F Lee Bailey and one of Johnnie Cochran associates, Carl Douglas come in. And I am being accompanied by Bill Hodgman. He was one of the prosecutors who started off in the trial with Marcia Clark. And an interesting thing happened about 4pm. You know, I'm there all alone, you know, sequestered. And I got a little paranoid, I thought, they're setting me up, what's going on down there. And so I didn't know what was going to go on. And I don't even know why he came up to interview me because  after Detective Fuhrman took the Fifth Amendment, there was no reason to ask me anything. But he came up anyway. So what happened between four and 5pm. And I think I have a little crazy something in my head, I push myself into situations that scare me. And I never panic, I get smarter. I mean, I must have a screw loose in my head. And one of these days, I'm going to discover the secret to peace on earth. And I'm gonna have a stroke and die with a smile on my face. I mean, it's crazy. But anyway, so I figured out F Lee Bailey, and in that time, I figured out 80%, of what difficult people do. And so F Lee Bailey comes in around 7pm with Carl Douglas. And there's Bill Hodgman. And what I realised is all difficult people. And these are not only the bullies and the venters. These are the whiners, these are the people who are sullen. These are the people that drive you crazy. Which is why I wrote 'Talking to Crazy'. So,  he comes in. And what I did is like sort of fiddled around with my paperwork. And because I wanted to lull him into a false sense of security. So he's seated across the table from me, and he says Dr. Goulston, Dr. Goulston, and I'm kind of fuddling like this. And Bill Hodgman says, "Mark, Mr. Bailey's here to ask you some questions". And then I swear, I looked up at him, and I grabbed on to his eyes, the way I'm looking at your eyes See, when I look and grab onto someone's eyes, I can take them anywhere, like I'm doing with you. And so I held on to his eyes. And I learned that by the way by because I was a suicide prevention specialist. And I would grab on to the eyes of someone who is wanting to kill themselves. And I'd hold on to their eyes with this thing called surgical empathy. And I would say, you're not going anywhere. So it came from a good place that I learned to, to hold on to people's eyes. So picture this, I'm holding on to his eyes. And then he says "Dr. Goulston, we don't exactly know your role. We know you've been here through different times in the trial, and we're here to ask you about things about Detective Mark Fuhrman". And here's something else I learned. When people use innuendo. He wasn't asking me a question. What they do is they say something and they try to get you to go Uh huh. Uh huh, huh. And innuendo is like putting a hook in your neck and reeling you in. And so he says those things, but instead of saying, haha, I had this eye contact, I go. And so instead of going, aha, I blink. He does this for a few minutes. And Bill Hodgman looks at me. And he says, "Mark, you haven't said anything". And I looked at Bill and I said "he hasn't asked me a question". I mean, I really figure this whole thing up. And so F Lee Bailey, at that point kind of flinched a little bit, because, you know, I guess he thought, Oh, this is a different kind of conversation. And I kept holding on to his eyes. And when I looked in his eyes, my thought was, I'm not perfect, but I'm not protecting a double murderer. What's your story? So that's exactly what I was thinking the whole time. And then what happens is all difficult people  they push us from frustration, to anger, to outrage, because if they can push us into outrage, we will do whatever we can to keep from getting enraged, unless you're happy with being enraged, but a lot of people are uncomfortable getting enraged. And so when you're using all this energy to keep down how enraged you feel. And this can be someone who's whining, this could be someone who's sullen. So he's escalating. And there's a point at which he says, as he said in the trial, "so you're here to say", as he said, with Detective Furhman earlier in the trial, he said to him, "so you're here to say that you never said the N word". And those were the famous part of the trial. And during the cross exam that's what Detective Fuhrman said. So F Lee Bailey looks at me and says, "so you're here to say that you never coached, medicated or did anything to affect Detective Furhman's testimony?". So he's pushing me, you know, into my rage, because he picked up speed. So are you tracking with me on this?  And so he reaches that point, where I'm supposed to be provoked. And I look at his eyes. And I pause for seven seconds. And I haven't let go of his eyes for the entire time. And it's seven seconds. I can see the people in the room are all waiting for me to answer. It's like this EF Hutton commercial, what's Mark going to say? And I go 'ahem', and everyone leans in, oh, he's going to talk. And I think to myself, this is going so well. I count to seven again. And then I said, and then I used innuendo. I said, "Mr. Bailey", he goes, "Uh huh?".Jenny  21:38You were reeling him in.Mark  21:42I said "my mind wandered the last five minutes. And it sounded important what you were talking about? Can you repeat everything you said?"Jenny  21:57You knew he was being a bully, and trying to manipulate you. But you knew what his game was?Mark  22:02Yeah, which is to provoke me off balance and go for the jugular, which is what difficult people do. And he goes, "huh?" I said, "Yeah, my mind wandered, my car is parked in a lot. And it's locked. And I don't know if I can get it out. But it sounded important what you were talking about. You want to run it by me the last five, six minutes". So he looks over at Carl Douglas, as if to say what did I say? Because if you're a bully, and we won't mention certain political leaders in the world, when you bully people, and you get them so upset and angry and off balance, you didn't have to have substance because they're so busy trying to protect themselves. And then you just go and push them off balance. So that's that was his M.O. and this is the M.O. of a lot of difficult people. And then after a couple of minutes, he looked at Bill Hodgman and says "I don't think we have any questions to ask. Dr. Goulston, I don't think we need to bring him on the stand". And then as he gets up to leave, I said, "Mr. Bailey, I have a question for you". And Bill Hodgman says "Mark, Mark, it's the end of the trial. It's okay". And,  I said, and he looks at me. And then he looked at Bill Hodgman, like, Who's your little friend? And I said, "You know in the trial, they said, you know, you can't unring a bell that once the N word came out, that's what was on people's minds?" And he goes, "Yeah", I said, "Well, yesterday, you accused me of having a relationship with Detective Mark Fuhrman. You know, that's out in the news". And I didn't have any relationship with him. And he is probably the most despised racist cop in America today. And Bill Hodgman says "Mark, Mark, they didn't spell your name, right. It's okay. Just let it go." And I said, "just like you can't unring a bell, you slurred my name yesterday, do you have any idea how we could unslur a slur?" And he looks at me like, like, what the heck is going on? And so he leaves the room. And I gather my little papers together and he comes back and he looks at me and he says," I will trade you a retraction in tomorrow's newspaper, if you tell me what you figured out about me".Jenny  24:27What did he say?Mark  24:30I shrug my shoulders because, you know, I didn't care. You know, I? I didn't tell them what I figured out about him. But what's the lesson from this and thank you for your rapt attention. I guess it's a decent story. But you know what it teaches is all difficult people get to us. Because if we have trouble really feeling enraged, they can do things that are so appalling, are so exasperating, that they push us into wanting to say cruel things mean things. And we're uncomfortable with that. Plus, we're afraid that if we say that it'll really provoke them further. So here's how you deal with difficult people. And if you're listening, I have an exercise for you. And I don't know if you can do this on your, on your phone. But the exercise is take out a piece of paper,  draw a line down the middle of it. And on the left side, write down all the people that are difficult in your life. And on the right side, write down the list of all the people that are wonderful. First thing you have to do is make a commitment to thank those people who are wonderful in your life. Because a lot of times we just focus on the people that are difficult. But if we shortchange the people that are wonderful by failing to thank them, failing to be grateful to them, it's letting the bad people win. Now, with all those people on the left side, when you interact with them, never expect them not to be difficult. If they are fine, then consider that gravy. But always expect them to do something, say something, push back and hold a little bit of yourself back. And when they say that, let them say it because they're doing it to manipulate you or bully you. And you can say to them. "Could you repeat that again? Or you could say, could you say that over to me? Because the way you said it and got my mind all triggered? I couldn't even listen". Or you can say "it sounded important it,  could you try that with a calmer voice so I could listen to what you said, because it sounded important." And I like using the word important because it flatters people. And almost no one tells people they're important. So you can try those things. Probably the easiest thing to do is when they do that, or say that, especially if they're venting is to go, Huh, just tilt your head and go Huh. But what will happen is they will, they may escalate. And, if they do, you could say "yeah, and that sounded important, too. Can you repeat that again?"Jenny  27:40Wouldn't that enrage them more if you say, because I'm thinking in a client scenario, if the client is coming at me, is bullying me? You know, maybe they're being aggressive? Or, you know, directive? How would I do that in a polite way?Mark  27:56Well, you want to, if someone's bullying you, what you have to do is you need to make a commitment to yourself that you will not be bullied. If you lose the account, you're going to have to say to your boss, you know, I know you want me to close this deal. But the person is a bully. And if you're, if your boss says I don't care, you know, they're a customer, a client. Well, then your boss is being a little bit of a bully. But then you can say to your boss, you can say okay, I get it's a big client, coach me through it. When they say such and such and such and such. So here are some other things you can do that are disarming, that might be easier to do. And when they say whatever they say, you can say to them, again, pause for at least two seconds. Because if you get provoked, they have the better view. And you can look at them and say "what's that about?" And they're gonna say "what?" "Yeah, that to. What do you mean?" And they're going to be disarmed because they didn't succeed. You could say "what, what happened? What happened to you, you know that you're getting it off your chest in this conversation. Something must have happened to you that you're getting it off the chest in this conversation, because we don't even know each other. You know, and can you tell me what that might be?"Jenny  29:43So you're calling it out, you're calling out their behaviour, rather than just sucking it up and trying to respond. You first of all, refuse to be bullied and then second, call out the behaviour straightaway. Because the bully doesn't like to be you know, they'll choose somebody else probably wouldn't they?Mark  30:01That's what they'll do. They'll exactly do that. And it's interesting. Oprah Winfrey has a brand new book out with a Dr. Bruce Perry. And if you go to 60 Minutes Overtime - Oprah Winfrey - trauma informed treatment. So I think she did a book with Dr. Bruce Perry because she did a story on his programme. And in 60 Minutes Overtime, a reporter asked her about it. And she said, it was the most game changing and life changing story I've ever done now apparently was because she just wrote a book with them. And it's in the New York Times bestseller list. And when the person asked Oprah, "what was so game changing about?" She said that," you know, when you do trauma informed therapy, your approach to people is that when they act out or act up as kids do, something happened to them to cause that?"  So unless a person is dyed in the wool, evil, and really angry people are not necessarily evil, something happened to them to trigger it. So Oprah Winfrey's whole approach now is what happened to you? What happened to you to cause that? And apparently, she was owning up to the fact that that was something that when people acted up, she wasn't that pleasant.Jenny  31:34Wow. And this concept of trauma? Can you give me some examples of what might have been a triggering a triggering trauma to for someone to start behaving in a way that they become a bully? Like what could have happened to them?Mark  31:51Well, you know, abused children become abusers. And a lot of times what happens is when they're children they were the target of abuse, or they watch one parent abuse the other. And they felt a combination of fear, terror, fragile, and inside, they said to themselves, when I get older, no one's going to do this to me. Or what they noticed is that the bully in the family if it wasn't bullying them, if one parent bullied the other, they may grow up and say, Well, I guess the way you get your way is to bully people. And so what happened is they probably noticed it going on in their life. And, and again, we make a promise to ourselves unconsciously when I get older, I'm not going to do that. In fact, I want to make a segue, because you did mention, I have a course out if you go to himalaya.com/defeat. And actually, if you put in a promo code 'defeat', you'll be able to see this audio class that recently launched called 'Defeating self defeat'. And in it I give 12 episodes. And so here's an example of what we're talking about childhood and trauma. In the first episode is about procrastinating. And when I talk about two procrastinators, is we procrastinate not because we're disorganised or lazy, we procrastinate because we're lonely. And the reason for that is when we were young children, we often did things that we didn't want to do that was really painful. And we made a promise to ourselves, when I get older, and I get out of the house, I'm not going to do something that's painful. I'm not going to feel powerless to not do it. And here's my proof that we procrastinate when we're lonely. All the AA programmes work because there's a community, you're not lonely in talking about things that have gone wrong. If you live on a college campus, and the fraternity or the dormitory, the sorority is really a pigsty. If you all say, Let's clean it up this Saturday, you'll do it. And here's something I think you'll find interesting. I was being interviewed by a radio host, lovely woman. And I said,"What is something you're procrastinating on?" She said, "Well, everybody says I should write a book. I've had a lot of interesting things in life." I said, "Well, how long have you been putting it off?" "Couple years." I said "Really?" I said, "here's what we're going to do. I said when would be the best time to write for half an hour?" She said "6:30 in the morning". So we're doing this on the air. And I said "here's what we're gonna do. I'm going to call you every morning at 6:30 in the morning, which is 3:30 in the morning, my time. And I'm going to say, No excuses, it's 3:30, I probably won't get back to sleep, I want you to get in front of your computer boot it up and tell me the question I should ask you to get you writing." So we did that for a month, I took the weekends off. And she told her listeners, you know, that crazy psychiatrist, he's doing it. Six months later, she says, "Where can I send the book?" But can you see how so there's different see how our childhood affects us. And,  'Defeating Self Defeat' himalaya.com/defeat. It's all filled with those kinds of, you know, kind of off the wall views of things that you might find helpful.Jenny  36:00I will include that link in the show notes. Thank you, that sounds really, and I would encourage everyone to do it. Because everything I read that you you put out into the world is just so thought provoking, and so practical as well. And in fact, I wanted to ask you another question, based on, you know, again, the account managers role managing the client relationship, you gave another story about your daughter, actually, she was going for a job interview. And you know, typically in a job interview, they ask you loads of questions. And then they say, Have you got a question for us? And you coached her to ask a question that left everybody dumbfounded. And I love the way you describe the story. Because you just you said, you can talk in a transactional way, you know, or you can talk in a transformational way, ask a transformational question. Do you remember the question that you? Could you tell the story?Mark  36:54As long as you're in a transactional conversation, at the very best, you're a commodity, they're going to squeeze you on price. You're never going to get to where you're showing them value. But one of the ways to break a transactional conversation is to focus it into the future. Or actually, you can break it by going into their core, which we talked about, but what I did with my daughter, she said, Oh, I'm going to be having an informal conversation with someone from one of the big banking firms. It's not a formal interview, but we'll be you know, I get to meet him. And I guess we're going to sort of walk along the corridor or something. She said, "you always have these interesting questions". And I said, ask him, when he says, Do you have any questions? You know, in the conversation, she said, "I'd like you to imagine it six months from now, and you're meeting with your boss. And your boss says, Get us more people like you just hired. Because it was one of the best hires we've had in years. And so you, then imagine what the hire would need to look like, so that your boss would say that to you." So maybe what you say to a client, you can say, "Can I ask you a hypothetical question?" And hopefully, you know, even the difficult ones will be intrigued, or can I ask you a question you've never heard before? Okay. "Well, I'd like you to imagine, you know, you're having a performance review, like I have performance reviews. And, your boss says, you know, that agency that you brought in? They've done more for us than any agency we've had in years. Bring in more like that and I'm going to get a promotion, you're going to get a promotion." So you're asking your client, what would you need to accomplish? So that's what your boss tells you what your next performance review, what does the agency do? How do they do it? Is it just numbers? Is it that they the customer service is amazing? I mean, what exactly would that agency that you hire look like? So that your boss would say, That's amazing.Jenny  36:56It's a such a powerful question, Mark. And I think you're right, it's taking them to a future state, and then saying what needs to have happened? So one of my account managers, this is what I I talked to them about is if you're starting with a new client for the first time, you can say something like for you to turn around to me in six months time and say, do you know what, I'm so glad you took over this account, what needs to have happened. And I think the trick here is to go quiet, isn't it and to listen, and allow them to paint a picture of what they see is successful. Because they might draw up all sorts of old problems that they've had with previous agencies, you know, I just want you to get it right, get it accurate. Or I need you to make sure that, you know, you're keeping me informed, whatever is important to them, they will tell you, and then that becomes the benchmark for your relationship success.Mark  40:39I would build on what they say. So one of the things that we talked about in 'Just Listen' about how to open people up, is focus on hyperbole. When they say amazing, awful terrible, or they raise their voice. That's the tip of the iceberg. And if you can get them to open up more, they're going to want more of you. So when they say, well, the last agency did this, and it was really horrible. Say, let them say that you say, say more about the horrible. So in other words, be sensitive to what they're saying that has some emotional juice on it. Because normally, they're expecting you to get defensive, or we won't do that. Or, you must have been frustrated. Now you say, say more about? What what made it horrible. And then when they say that, keep them talking. Here's another thing, but this is you got to take this with a grain of salt, because I'm a psychiatrist. When they say what was horrible? Look at them, you could say, did you, what did you feel more frustrated, angry or disappointed? Because when you get someone to say, an emotional word that's accurate, and they attach it to an event, they calm down. And they're grateful to you for asking.Jenny  42:20Mark, do you think we are losing the art of conversation with everyone corresponding by email? Because in my training courses, I often have scenarios, and I'm literally giving them the words that they could use. And that becomes a lot of what we end up talking about. So what's your view? I mean, you know, having worked with so many people and so many successful people, do you think the younger generation particularly are transacting a lot via the written word rather than these communication skills? I'm really curious to know your view.Mark  42:58I think what's happened, but again, you got to take what I say with a grain of baby boomer. I think what's happened is that algorithms have replaced empathy. And what's happened is, empathy takes too much effort. People don't have the skills to actually communicate empathically everybody seems to be in a rush. And yet, what will happen is, you know, if you read the newspaper, everyone's in a rush, and then you read the newspaper, loneliness is up, depression is up, anxiety is up. And by the way, one of the reasons they're all up and what I'm trying to push out into the world. And this is just the taste of neuroscience when our stress is up and we feel anxious and depressed, or stressed that our cortisol is up. Cortisol is a stress hormone. And, you can lower cortisol by by meditation, mindfulness, but what really lowers it is someone caring about your feelings. Because when you, when someone cares about your feelings, it releases oxytocin and oxytocin counteracts high cortisol. So if you can fit into a conversation, and they're upset about a prior agency could say, just curious, were you more frustrated, angry or disappointed? Whatever they say. And you just hear it. Now you can't go transactionally and then go back to selling them. When they say that, you could say,  that must have been really stressful. Oh, it was. I actually have an article out there just came out in Newsweek. I'm part of the, I'm a founding member of the news week expert forum. And I think you'll especially like this, so I hope you'll put a link to it. It's called 'Teaching transactional people the power of empathy'.Jenny  45:11Wow. That sounds fantastic. I definitely will include that link. And can you give us one tip from that article?Mark  45:22Well, I can, I can. Well, your time is my time or my time is your time. So what I basically said, because I believe people listen to stories, you know, hopefully, the OJ Simpson story was interesting enough that people didn't tune out, Now there'll be some people who are transactional and say, I don't even know who OJ Simpson is. But in that story on Newsweek, what I talk about is imagine that you have a pushy boss in sales, and they're on you. And they basically say, Don't bring me excuses, bring me results. Or I'm depending on you, and everything you've used, doesn't work. Every sales approach doesn't work. You ask people, they don't know what to do. And your boss, probably because someone's pressuring him or her is still on your back. You don't want to yell at work, because you'll get into trouble. You don't want to yell at home, because you know, you'll create a ruckus in the family. And then what I talk about is, but there's one point where you go home, and you lose that in you vent. So imagine your spouse reacting unempathically and saying, "You can't talk to me that way". You know, "how dare you" and then they, and they then they sort of huff off. Now you might calm down after that. But imagine if they said in instead, like, "Oh my god, what happened to you? What happened? This is not who I believe, this is not who you are, what happened to you?" And then you start to vent, and imagine they get you to open up and you vent more? What's going to happen? And again, they don't get into a transactional escalation is you get to vent and your spouse pulls it out of you. "Wow, what was the worst part of that? Oh, my god, did you get scared?" "Well, I don't know. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to make this". But can you see how you calm down with empathy? So that's the story. It's a short article. And then afterwards, I talk about how you can apply that to your customers and clients.Jenny  47:38Sounds spot on, thank you so much for sharing. Mark, I want to be respectful of your time, you've been so generous to give me your time. So thank you so much. I think I was spellbound, particularly about the OJ Simpson case, I literally picked that up in the book and I just thought, are there no ends to what Mark is doing? So we will certainly include a link to the course. And it was himalaya.com/defeat. And I'm going to include a link to that. And is there anything else that you'd like to include in the show notes or anything else you've got coming up that we could plug?Mark  48:14Well, my podcast, 'My Wakeup Call' is actually picking up speed. I interviewed Jordan Peterson.Jenny  48:21I love Jordan Peterson.Mark  48:24It's a great interview, when you listen to it. You know, he's very busy. And he's a little,  kind of polite at first. And then after 40 minutes, I thanked him for his time. And it went so well he said, I have more time asked me another question. So we went another 30 minutes. So we had him on. And I'm going to be interviewing the Chief Marketing Officer of Deloitte. I just interviewed the CEO of the Philadelphia 76ers NBA team. So and I'm posting two a week and I just have too many lined up. But if you go to 'My Wakeup Call', Wakeup is one word. Hopefully you find them interesting. And it would really help you know, if you share them with other people, if you like them. And if you go to Apple podcasts and put up a review that seems to help the algorithm.Jenny  49:25Fantastic, Mark. I certainly will. And particularly for our audience, the CMO of Deloitte. Absolutely, that's another interview to listen to. So thank you for sharing so much value as always, Mark it's been an absolute pleasure. And I feel very honoured that you've spent more time with me, so thank you so much.Mark  49:42Well, you know, there's a movie that's really old and your listeners won't know it but you might not because you're not old, but there was a movie called 'As Good As It Gets' with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. And there's a famous scene in there, where Jack Nicholson says to Helen Hunt, who he so respects, like I respect you, he says, "You make me want to be a better man." And that's what you do.Jenny  50:07Oh Mark that's really heart melting. Thank you. And wow, what a blast from the past as well, I have seen it, I am old enough. So thank you so much, Mark. Absolutely fantastic.

Transcript:Jenny  00:00So today I'm delighted to have Matt Bonser and Emma Blaken from Purpose Media. Matt is a senior account manager there, and Emma is an account manager. And I've asked them to come on today to just share a day in the life, their experience and sort of share some of the processes they use at their agency. So Matt maybe I could pass over to you, first of all and ask the first question, can you tell me a bit about your role at Purpose Media?Matt  00:29Yeah, certainly. So I suppose I head up the account management client services team, I suppose. Between myself and the rest of the team, we look after a selection of retainer clients that are probably split the team digital for service and it's my job between looking after the retainer and project clients that we deliver everything to the client brief, client expectation, and essentially be the client voice internally if you like, so it's my job to I guess, orchestrate all of that, work closely with the production team and actual specialists that are in house and make sure everything's up on brief and to standards as such. So that's it in a nutshell.Jenny  01:11And Emma, would you mind sharing, what does Purpose Media do?Emma  01:17So we are a full service marketing agency. So we do creative, digital, web, and video. And we've been full service now for the past five years. So prior to that we specialised in websites specifically, with a specialism in e-commerce. So a lot of our background is sort of centred around sort of the technical elements. And yeah, so certainly in the last year and a half, we've had a really heavy focus on digital and digital transformation. Given the kind of the current circumstances that are unfortunately still ongoing and you know, digital marketing has been a real big boom. And so that has been a great area of growth for us recently. And it's been great.Jenny  02:06Great. And Emma, you've got quite an interesting background, because you've not actually come up through the account management route in an agency, have you? So could you just share with us what your background is?Emma  02:16Yeah, absolutely. So, quite a colourful background. So I actually started, I have a broadcast journalism degree. And I then went into an agency for my first six months at a university as an internal marketing exec. I then actually took an in house marketing role at a manufacturing firm. So that was a three and a half year position. And during that time, I also had a year of product management as maternity leave cover. And then kind of my experience and knowledge of the solutions that this particular company offered, I then transitioned into an account manager. So I became the manager for certain key accounts that were my specialties. And then I also did my marketing qualification as I went through that time, as well. And that's when I made the decision to jump ship and take a role at a creative agency, because it was a combination of the skills that I'd acquired from my previous position, combining that with my general interests in my recent education in marketing and my communications and creative degree.Jenny  03:29And would you say that insight into the world of the client side, working has helped you in your current role?Emma  03:35Absolutely. Because I think that it's really helped from my kind of empathetic point of view. So I can understand how internal triggers and internal deadlines can create a strain, and putting that out to an external resource. So now that I'm sat on the other side of that, I can understand and take note of those requirements and see how it's visualised and how we can sit comfortably within that as an extension of their marketing team.Jenny  04:07Amazing. So, Matt from your perspective, how did you find yourself in the account management role?Matt  04:15I suppose, I studied at university, marketing and advertising, base degree. So I went straight into I guess, a client side marketing role. Quite diverse, B2B, lots of internal comms, lots of exposure to lots of really cool stuff that straight out of uni you want to get your teeth into. And I moved on to a couple of different roles, retail, e-commerce, sort of background, and between then in the time of going, well, it's now like, I need to specialise in something or what's next for yourself, really. So what appealed to me about I suppose account management was the sort of level of, I don't necessarily want to go down a specialist route. So I found myself in a position where I wanted to just know a little bit about everything. That's my way of doing it. So that was the route that I decided to take. And that's why account management sort of fit the mould for me. I really liked the relationship side of the marketing and advertising, I had been on the receiving end of that, and obviously, previous roles. So, for me in my career, it's sort of a natural best fit. And I love marketing. And this was sort of felt right. And yeah, so I jumped at it.Jenny  05:28Great. I think this is really interesting for people who might be listening, that are thinking about getting into the account management role, because it's always interesting to see how other people actually find themselves in the position. So Matt, let me ask you, what do you think makes a really great account manager?Matt  05:41Sure, yeah. I think there's a probably a selection of like, traits, I suppose that's come to light more recently, where I think that you need to be almost a hybrid in person of, you're in quite a unique position. But I think really to make a great sort of account manager having the foundations and the ability to understand and sympathise with all this, have that level of, I suppose emotional intelligence that others may not already have, say put you in quite a unique perspective, because you're the link between all your clients and prospective clients and the agency. So I think having traits such as that are really, really important. And I think, actually, when you're delivering in the role, I think, giving clients something that they've not necessarily asked for or asked about, so adding that little bit of benefit and value to why they should work with an agency, whether it's a creative idea, or or something else. And I think, being in the position in the role, I think it's really important trait to be able to sort of lead and nurture from the position you're in as well, that's internally as well as externally, you're not in a position where you need to be telling people what they should be doing. But you can certainly back that up with knowledge and experience, but you certainly need to lead the client to say, this is what's worked and this is what we believe works, what do you think? And sort of nurture the client along that journey with you.Jenny  07:17I'm glad you mentioned the bit about giving the client something they weren't expecting. Because I think that sort of speaks to the fact that we need to be proactive in our roles, don't we, there's that constant, how are we going to surprise the client? How are we going to bring new value? Is there anything that you would add to that, Emma?Emma  07:37I think from that point, in particular, I think that what makes the difference between, a creative person in a marketing agency, is that you want to make that transition from a transactional relationship to a consultative based relationship. We're not here for you to tell us what to do, we're here to advise you on what you can do to better benefit your business and reach those business objectives. And so it's really important as an account manager to be able to take that lead and take that initiative. Because you have a range of clients that have different ideas, you have some that come to you completely want to be handheld and taken through the process. And you have some accounts, some clients that may have more knowledge, and may have their own agenda of what they feel may work for their business. And so it's navigating that and understanding the best method of approach for those. And always taking that empathetic kind of strategic approach with them so that you're working in the best way that you can for them, and always ensuring that what you do for them offers them that value. Because I think what can be missed when you do have a more transactional relationship is that value added, you know, results. And you can take a step back and think, okay, well we've done X amount of activities, but what has that actually achieved? Whereas if we can take much more of a strategic approach, which is the responsibility of the account managers to facilitate and to manage, we can then be more accountable of what happens, we can track things much more clearly. And it also helps us with that nurturing process to get them on board with kind of how things work, and really build that relationship with the wider team as well.Jenny  09:37Great points. And what other value do you think the account manager brings to the client Matt? We've talked about helping them achieve their business outcomes. What other value do you think that the agency account manager brings?Matt  09:52Yes, it's an interesting one that isn't it? I think a lot of it's asking the right questions as well. I think to really, from somebody using an agency such as ourselves, I think to really get to the nitty gritty and get the value out of it, we need to be able to diagnose and resolve the client problem. And that's the reason why they come to us in the first place because they've got some problem that they need sorting out. So I think being able to help them diagnose and understand what the limitations are, that I think really plays into the value that an account manager can bring, and being able to understand, empathise, offer solutions. I think another interesting point, to add value, from an account manager's point of view is certainly helping clients grow so they can actually directly see the returns that they're getting for their investment with the agency. And that allows the client to grow against their business goals, as well as letting the agency flourish as well. And so almost like grow in tandem, there's a benefit to doing these approaches.Jenny  11:04I'm so glad you said that. Because actually, in order to help, we're only going to grow our business as an agency if we help the client succeed and grow themselves. So really well put. Emma, just explain kind of what are the typical types of projects that you get involved in?Emma  11:21Sure. So we are a full service agency. So as mentioned, we have a plethora of different kinds of projects that come through. But particular projects that we get asked for regularly and I will consider to be our strengths, are websites. So that's both sort of brochure and e-com, brand identity realisation with the design team and digital transformation projects as well. And so with the project side, so with kind of the websites and the brand identity realisation, these tend to be sort of one off larger projects for businesses that we would then work with them to perhaps look at what they want to do with the next steps, which is where the digital transformation from a retainer point of view often comes in. So we as account managers will be on board with project work quite early on, we will take the time to assess the client, understand what their requirements are, take them through that process and understand opportunities to talk to them about future work from a digital point of view as well. So that's one of our, I guess, core sort of strategy drivers as a business is to look at opportunities to have, that added value. And that's really where the digital side of the business comes in and where that growth is.Jenny  12:46Okay, so fantastic. So a client might come to you with a one off website projects, but you like to see the bigger picture and how that fits into the wider kind of digital strategy of the company.Emma  12:57Absolutely. I think, and I will probably talk about this a little bit more later on, but I think one of the core questions that we need to ask at the beginning is, what actually is the reason that you're coming and asking for this project? Give us a bit of an understanding of what your overarching business objectives are. And actually, we might be able to take a step back and say, that might not be the best route for you. Let's have an audit, let's have a wider view at what we think. And we could actually provide something that's much more concrete that could give you the long term solutions that you're looking for. I mean, for example, we had a client that came to us from a video inquiry, so he was interested in having some video testimonials created. And we actually took the time it, took a step back and said, Okay, well, what do you want this for? And his answer was, well, I've seen a competitor have them, so I think we should have them. And I'm like, Okay, well, let's actually have a think about what other things we could do to benefit the brand without just jumping straight into the tactics, because that can be quite easily done, certainly in project. And, and so we then did a full audit, and came to realise that actually, he would benefit from a digital transformation project. So that was the creation of a new website, new brand identity and we've now moved on to a retainer style where we're now doing SEO work and content work with them. And that's the kind of structure and the kind of approach that we like to take. It's not necessarily to say that you need to move on to a retainer. And it's not to say that you need that longevity. But it's to say that we want to take a step back and look at the full picture and not do the work because you're willing to pay for it. We want to make sure that you're getting the best benefit out of what we can offer. And we're doing the best that we can wholeheartedly to fit your business objectives.Jenny  14:55Great and I suppose working with someone on a retainer basis means that you can kind of see how what you're doing is impact impacting their business making the adjustments as you go, presumably?Emma  15:07Absolutely, absolutely. It's almost like live time reactions. It's fantastic. There's obviously  certain KPIs that are quite tricky to monitor on a month to month basis. But certainly with our e-com clients, being able to see that from a quantitative, growth and development is really great. And it gives us initiatives to continue with the retainers and to continue to develop work, because we've taken that time at the beginning to fully understand the requirements, it's meant that we have a full understanding of what the next step should be. And we have almost an equal investment as our clients do in those results as well. And I think that in particular is a really, a strength of an account manager - is that you want to be seen as an extension of their team, you want to be seen as somebody that is equally as invested in achieving results for them as they are. And it's not about agency impact, it's about impact for your client, and always putting them first. I think that's where having an account manager involved at such a level, so early on, creates that advantage and creates that long term relationship with that project work.Jenny  16:25Great. Matt, just talk us through from a logistics point of view, so you have these fantastic upfront meetings with the client, to really get under the skin of their business to work out why they want to do something, so that you can see the bigger picture from a business perspective before you then start providing solutions. So logistically, is it the account manager that leads that meeting? If so, who else is in the meeting? And typically, what level of client do you like to have in those meetings? And maybe the length as well?Matt  16:56Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I think the most important thing for us when we're onboarding or beginning to work with anybody, even on a longer term, partnership basis, or even a project basis, as we just talked about, is really opening up their business to deliver a successful project. So typically, when we run what we call a discovery workshop, which essentially allows us to ask all the right questions, it fits into our methodology and way of approaching things working, and then as I say, really lets us then open the client up to our way of thinking. So typically, in these meetings, we can have everything from managing directors, to marketing managers, to the wider marketing team, we tend to invite those in for that session. Anybody that's going to touch this or be involved in this is really important to having there, even if it's the sales guys as well for instance, anybody that's using this as a tool to better their own lives in the workplace, really. And so we'll run, say these discovery workshops, typically couple of hours, and you really just get into the nitty gritty of the business. And you know, who buys from you? What are the personas? What's the sales journey? What's the outreach? How are you going to get these people onto this website or watching this video or whatever it might be? So yeah, what are the routes to market? We'll talk about competitors as well, it's really important to diagnose and look at the wider marketplace, including the competitors, we'll often look at some of the sort of top level things as well. So we'll go on a bit of a workshop where we'll look at, like do a SWOT analysis for example, or really sort of dive deeply into, what's the strengths or weaknesses of the organisation? What is your opportunities to improve? Things like that, so it's a real nitty gritty sort of workshop really and you get down deep to the where the issues are, and what the organisation is good at.Jenny  18:50And do you find that the clients are very generally sort of open to having those deep dive discussions with you up front?Matt  19:00You know what, very much so,  often you'll find yourself in a situation where you think, I haven't got time for that guys, come on. But as you know, if we stop and take five minutes and actually do this exercise, you'd probably be quite surprised by the outcome of it. And often, it's always the case where you'll do that session and go, I know it's a couple of hours, but honestly, you always sit down after then go, right, did you actually find that useful? Yeah, we've never really thought of it like that especially some of the tools and videos and all the things like that we use in these sessions. It really sort of, takes them back to what this is all about, rather than just making making money. So yeah, definitely some surprises at the end of those sessions.Jenny  19:42Brilliant. And what are those tools and videos? Emma?Emma  19:46So we've got a range of different cues that we use to help assist the conversation. So for example, we use for example, I don't know if you've ever seen it before, but the Dollar Shave Club advertisement.Jenny  20:00Yeah, yeah.Emma  20:01We use that as an example of a business that's really taken the time to understand their audience, understand the messaging. So they're talking to a particular audience. The channels in which they tend to, where their route to market is, so they did it fully online, because they were aiming, you know, for 17 to 30 year old men that didn't want to spend the time or the money, sourcing their grooming equipment, they just, you know, one pack, one pound razor sorted. And so to really kind of emphasise that they really nailed the kind of the why, how, what, and who they were looking to target, most importantly, in such a natural way. And actually, when you diagnose that, and actually break it down, it's really interesting to talk about. And another thing that we tend to use as a tool, and it's really thought provoking actually, and we often find that clients go away to want to think about it a little bit further, is that Why, How, What? So you know, why do you do what you do as part of your business? How do you do it? And what is it? I think, certainly the Why is the his most thought provoking thing, it's quite difficult to put that together. And so what we do to try and support that further is we use a TED talk called the Golden Circle. And where I can't remember his name now, but he basically goes through the relevancy of... Simon Sinek. Yes. So he runs through the theory of Why, How, What, so understanding the micro environments, the macro environments that impact that and actually, taking that time to step back with a client and putting them in that firing line position almost to ask answer that question, is really what starts to open up the conversation and really helps us to understand the business much more clearly. Because I think certainly, when we have an initial project brief, it's very tactic focused, it's very simple, straightforward. But actually, by putting these guys in this position to open up a little bit further, by using these cues, asking them questions about their audiences, asking them about their routes to market, and asking them about their overarching business objectives and where they see themselves, even from a personal job point of view, where they see their position progressing and what benefits they want to achieve out of working with us, you really start to get that opened up and for us to ask those questions, really demonstrates to them that we are vested, invested in what they are looking to achieve, and we want to take the time to understand them, and puts that trust in us, which is the most important thing.Jenny  23:03Yeah, and I can really imagine that you're going to be positioned more as a trusted adviser from the outset, particularly when you're talking quite, this emotive language, I suppose a lot of the time. And I can imagine, they probably say, Oh, no one's ever asked me that, or we've never even thought about it as a team, things like that. Just out of interest, what are some of the most surprising revelations during that process?Emma  23:27I think I can give a really good example, actually. I had a discovery just a couple of weeks ago, and this client in particular, had come with a very, I guess, sort of blunt brief of, this is what we want to do, do it. And I was a bit hmmm, I mean we can, we can, but you're not really giving us a lot of information to go off here. So I broached the conversation regarding a Discovery and they were a bit like, Oh, well, we haven't really got time to sit down for two hours and do this. And I said, well, the benefit that you'll get off of the back of this is my team will be able to run with this project much more smoothly if we just take the time to sit down and the main guy was like, Okay, I've got 20 minutes. We ended up on that call for two and a half hours. And he had the time and  as soon as you broke that barrier it made all the difference. And I think what's so important and is so important in account management and in agencies, is to keep that conversation client focused. A client loves nothing more than to be able to talk about themselves and talk about their business because they're proud of it, as they should be. And so by allowing them the time to speak, and demonstrating that we can listen and absorb and understand, it really made all the difference. And it was quite interesting because as they were talking about the businesses as a concept,  as this is a start-up, so they actually started talking to each other and thinking, well actually, maybe we should do this a little bit differently, maybe we should take a different approach. And even they were sort of organising themselves, in this conversation. So it was almost like we were helping them sort their side of the of the deal out as well as organising ours. So it made everything much more fluid and controlled. And it was all done in an afternoon.Jenny  25:30Wow, that's a brilliant story. Thank you for sharing. I love the fact that you were adding value in a different way. You were facilitating an internal discussion that they probably should have had at some point. But you know, you were helping them in that way as well. That's fantastic. Matt, generally, with this timing thing, are you finding that clients don't have any time for you? Are you getting pushback generally on, I've only got 20 minutes or because actually, the world's changed in the last year and I suppose the reason I'm asking you is because there's been a shift, hasn't there, people are working from home and I don't know about you, and I'd love to get both of your perspectives on this, but initially, when we started the pandemic and everyone went into lockdown, clients were a little bit more available, because they were working at home finding their feet. Where time has gone on, people seem to be working harder at home, and working really efficiently and having less time. But what's your view? Have you found this?Matt  26:23Yeah, I think, in all honesty, Jenny, I think it's just become part of the new normal, hasn't it at the moment. Unfortunately it's just one of those things, I think that we, I suppose the approach that we take, we're exactly the same, you know, there's all these other organisations and everybody that is working from home, or that's sort of half back in the office or whatever, is saying, you can't cut corners with your marketing it's important to, if you're going to spend the time to invest in it, and not be a casualty of COVID, of which this unfortunately has been a lot of that, over the past year, year and a half of the casualties of COVID that have unfortunately knocked up, maybe more serious approach to marketing, I think that's fair to say. It's not something that you should be cutting back or, considering losing, you need to be top of minds, you need to be out there and not fall by the wayside, so to speak. But yeah, certainly, the way we approached it is very much from that, let's push on, let's get more from what you're doing, let's get more results. And let's capitalise on what we can that's out there, let's change tact, and people are being, still very susceptible to giving us their time and availability, because I think the way that we approach things here, and the way that we are very results and ROI driven, is the fact that they're right, I need to spend some time thinking about that, because actually, it's important and affects the bottom line nd ultimately, what the business is going to achieve this year and next. So yeah, it's been a bit of a weird one for everybody hasn't it, how it's been, even conducting all these things over Teams, or Zoom or whichever you use.Jenny  28:15And navigating between all of the different platforms yourself, that's been a big learning curve hasn't it?Emma  28:19Absolutely, it's a really interesting note, actually. I've been working with a client recently, and we've been looking at the concept of hybrid working and the impacts that it has on efficiency of business and how we communicate to each other. And there's obviously been such a forced boost in hybrid working in recent times and it's looking to be, I think it was a statistic that I saw the other day, it's around 77% of people embrace the idea of hybrid working now. So at least sort of one to two days, sort of working from home a week just to try and achieve that balance. Because I do think with the pandemic and working from home, it's quite sad really, that accessibility to the laptop, and that means that people are working longer hours, because you're not taking that natural break of travelling to work, travelling home from work, having to have that switch off. And I've certainly seen that with clients where I've had emails at like seven or eight o'clock in the evening where they're still, plugging away. And Matt and I've been praying to that as well so I can't be judgmental.Jenny  29:36I think we all have!Emma  29:39But I definitely think that there's been a shift in, certainly the productivity of our clients. So they're finding that, whereas before they were perhaps going through things more with us, they are now relying on us to sort of, get on with it if you like. Still more than happy to give us their time, but they are, I'm finding that things are being sat on less, if that makes sense. So we're having to trust the process and trust that things will get completed, and that things will move forward. And that's, as Matt said, that's where the benefit of our kind of strategic trusted adviser approach comes into play and is an advantage. Because we can manage that for them, and kind of take that responsibility away almost and retain that communication regularly to give them the transparency that things are moving forward.Jenny  30:36Love it. So I think you guys really do a great job in setting up from the outset, this kind of strategic advisor position, where you're really, helping your clients with their strategy and reaching their outcomes. What other things for you, Matt, make a successful client agency relationship?Matt  30:55Sure, yeah. I mean, there's probably quite a few things that come to mind. I mean, I think that definitely the long term future focus and partnership approach is so, so important. I think we're really good at being upfront about that in the way that we onboard clients here, and even the new business team approaches and questions clients. We're all about, and even the work that myself and Emma do here, it's all about future focus. And that's where we really think the client, agency relationship is best served. I think having, all the stuff that we've already mentioned today on this, has all been about assessing things as they are, let's do things better,  let's take a step back. And having that longer term view and partnership is all like, what's next, what's the ultimate goal here? And so I think that's super important to the long term longevity of working with a client agency. And I think, again, it's about setting those expectations up front, the accountability on both parts, and that's how these things work well. We can both work with a marketing manager, a managing director, and we know, straight off the bat, who's accountable for what and what we're here to do. And it always takes a  bit of give and take on both parts, it always takes two to tango in that regard. But I think the way, in probably in our opinion anway with that client agency's relationship works really well, is to give things a future focus and approach things as a partner.Jenny  32:35Spot on amazing. Emma, from your perspective, if an account manager's listening to this, and thinking about getting into a full service agency, what do you think is really important for the account manager to know about the role, because it'll be great to get a flavour of the kinds of things that you get involved in on a day to day basis because I'm sure every day is not the same?Emma  32:59No, absolutely. And, Matt, and I were just talking before this, about how working in a full service agency works, potentially compared to others that are more single service, be prepared for it to be very fast moving, it's a very dynamic job, because there are so many moving parts. We have retainers that are multi service within themselves. So I can give an example of some clients that have five or six different practices as part of one single retainer. And so what I would recommend, as something to consider is if you do go into a full service, is take the time to talk to the individual departments, understand how each of them operate, and take any advice away, any support that they can offer, that will assist when you're talking to your clients. Get as many tools as you can as an opportunity to talk to your clients about them as well. But what I think's important to remember, and I think this is maybe something that we've said before is, don't set a high expectation that you need to understand absolutely everything that each of these departments do. A basic level of understanding is really important, so that you can talk to a client about it, but you have specialists within the business and within those teams for a reason, so rely on these guys as support, lean on them, get them involved. And,  plus that way as well, you've got the transparency with the client that these are the people, this is your core team, this is a project team that's going to be working with you. And let those guys, do the talking for you. I think from a project management point of view, it's just something to bear in mind, I would recommend that you have a structure in place as to how you would deal with the different departments, so ensure that you have good communication channels where you can talk to the relevant people that you need to, a good countdown system so that you can look at, progress on particular projects and yeah, just regular communication. And it's really fun, because there's so many different departments and so many different outputs that we can offer, it really means that you get to see the full shebang, if you like in one go. You know, for example, I think myself and Matt always do a little jump when we realise that we've got a video project or some video work as part of a retainer, because it is something so refreshing in something so different. And you know the benefit is, you have all of these different departments in your artillery. And they all know the client, because they were involved in those early stages, which means we have all of those touch points and all of those opportunities to further develop those departments and those relationships with the client as well.Jenny  36:14Brilliant, this is really good tips. Can you share some of your tools that you use or the names of the systems that you tend to prefer?Emma  36:23Yeah, sure. So for our kind of countdown project management system, we use a platform called Trello. And so that's kind of got, it's cards within lists approach. So you can create individual boards for your clients, or you can have your own personal board, where you put individual tasks on cards. And the great thing about that is that you can invite people to be on those boards, you can tag people responsible within those individual cards as well. You can put deadlines, checklists, and you can also invite clients to those as well. Which means they have full transparency of the project process as it's going through, which is really beneficial, and certainly helps those conversations at the end of the month. From a scheduling point of view, so from an internal kind of project management, we use a system called Accelo which is essentially a scheduling and time sheeting system where we can also monitor the progress, the profitability of accounts as well. It proves really useful when we have conversations with clients to say, this is what we've done for you this month. And it helps us take more of a service based approach as opposed to a task by task approach because we can look at it as a kind of an overall retainer, as opposed to looking at it piecemeal, which is really good. And then in terms of day to day communication, we have Teams channels, so Microsoft Teams. So we have Teams channels that are specific to clients. So we'll have individual channel streams within those for say, retainer work, website work, general and then we also have Teams channels that are specific to the departments. And then of course, we can talk to people individually, sort of as and when we need to. And we also, just in the interest of keeping momentum and keeping an eye on everything, we also have a daily catch up. So we'll have a half an hour call with the project managers, with the heads of department and with the account managers, just to check in on everything, make them aware of any red flags, anything that needs to be sorted today or this week as a matter of urgency, just so that everybody's up to speed with everything.Jenny  38:48Amazing. Gosh, thank you for sharing all of that. That's really, really useful. Matt, from your perspective, you know, what other elements? Because it sounds maybe from someone who's thinking about getting into account management, sounds like a lot. You know, you're juggling a lot, you're doing a lot you have to know a lot. And what other kind of things would you say, what other pieces of advice would you have for someone who's considering either joining a full service agency or getting into the account management role in a creative agency?Matt  39:17I think, firstly, do it. If you're thinking about it, you're probably already half suited to the role itself. I think, as I mentioned before, it's really sort of unique role in a way. But I think if you are considering it, certainly just take that leap, do a little bit of research online, what does it actually involve? Watch a little bit of Madmen if you can't see it, I think we've all dabbled in that. But I think, as you've already said, it's, if you want something that's certainly different every day and you'll get a real eclectic mix of things to deal with week on week, month on month and a way to develop yourself and learn lots more about marketing and advertising and the account management role is really suitable for that. Not only do you get to work with a huge array of different clients, you don't necessarily have to box yourself industry to working with one that you would say if you were client side. And as we said before, it's not a case of you need to know, everything up front, it's a very experienced base role as an account manager, and I feel it's a very much, you're always learning on the job. So if that's the environment you probably prefer or are attracted to, the account management function, and Client Services as a whole is really well suited to that. If you're the kind of person that likes to plan, shedule, think ahead, you'd be really suited to the position itself if, agencies that have all these different ways of working, for example, I mean, ourselves, we're sort of transitioning out of the hybrid account manager, where we were lucky enough to the project management as well as the client services, but it's very much those those sorts of roles where in you'll be considered to do a little bit of both of those elements, which is, again, it's really important to understand the processes of how things work, people other moving parts, 'Time, People and Places' to quote somebody else atour agency. And so, again, I think it's personally, I think it's a super exciting, attractive career to get into.Jenny  41:44And by separating the project management function to the account management function, for you Matt, what do you think that's going to enable you to do differently?Matt  41:52Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think personally as well, separating out the client services function to the project management function will allow our team of account managers to then further add more value to all the longer term retainer clients that we're working with. In addition to that, all the projects, all the video work we do, it allows that extra time to invest our time into getting more for those clients that we're working with, which is so, so important, not just for the client, but also for other people to work with, there's a reason we're working together, and have been able to invest that time further, and be that sort of angel on the shoulder for the clients and making, people look good at different organisations and things like that. That's why we're here and that's what makes it work.Jenny  42:47Great point. Emma, anything that you would add to that, any kind of final words of advice?Emma  42:53Yeah, I think all I would add, I guess, to what Matt has said there, is, if this is an environment that you are considering, I think it's a great opportunity if you want to move away from just working in one particular sector, if you're wanting to look at all of these different facets of marketing and the applications in which, they can fall into, I think it's absolutely, brilliant. I also think it gives you an opportunity, if you are sort of at the beginning of your career, and you're maybe thinking, exactly like what Matt was saying before, you're not sure whether you want to specialise in anything, account management is a fantastic way to dabble in all of those areas, be a touch point in each of those areas, and offer your insight and your opinion. And I think that's something that, certainly I really appreciate, because I can appreciate all of the different areas of the business that we do, but you won't catch me designing any logos anytime soon! I can put in my input without having to actually do it. But yeah, I think in terms of honest advice, it is a very fast moving environment. And I think that something that you would need to consider is whether you are suited to an environment that is so fast paced, and is, so I guess not pressurised, but because you have the expectation of both the client and the agency to consider, think it's more a case of feeling comfortable with managing that on either side, I think it's really important. And, finding a methodology in your own psyche of how to manage that. And I think again, this was something that myself and Matt were saying before we came on the call, it's so important to find your own way of almost effectively project managing yourself because there are so many moving parts, much like with the business itself, it's so important to do that for your own work as well. And I think in account management that makes such a positive difference, if you allow yourself to have a structure because that means that you can compartmentalise and you can manage the different departments in a way that you feel comfortable with. Because otherwise, I think it can be quite tricky to not have your head in the sand or be  focused in one area at any one given time if you have problems. And so having that structure allows you to take yourself above the situation, have more of a level headed approach to it. And you know, take things in in bite sized pieces because it gets very busy.Jenny  45:57Great advice. Great advice. And Matt, just finally, and thank you both so much for sharing so much of your life and what you're doing in your roles, it's been really, really valuable. Matt, if someone is interested in finding out more about Purpose Media, what's the best way to to reach you?Matt  46:15Yeah, if you want to find out a little bit more about Purpose Media, just head on to our website, find out and submit your inquiry through there, whether it's digital, creative or video.Jenny  46:25Fantastic. Well, thank you both so much for coming on. I really, really appreciate it.Matt  46:29Thank you. Thanks for having us, Jenny.

Transcript: Jenny 00:03So today I'm delighted to welcome Nathan Anibaba to the show. He is founder, managing director and host of the very popular Agency Dealmasters, which is probably one of the most popular B2B podcasts for both agencies and brands. And I was super impressed when I found the podcast, because he's had guests, including people like Blair Enns the author of 'Win Without Pitching' and 'Pricing Creativity', and also the New York Times best selling author Greg McKeown, and his book was 'Essentialism', and many, many more guests. So super impressive Nathan. I know you're usually more kind of comfortable this side of the mic, but today, it's my turn. So Nathan, welcome to the show.Nathan 00:49Thank you very much, Jenny. Very scary, being on this side of the mic. I'm going to do my best to answer your questions. I'm usually the one asking the questions. So let's see how this goes.Jenny 01:01Okay, so listen, let's start off by, could you spend a couple of minutes just talking about you, your background and actually what you do now? Who are you helping and how?Nathan 01:12Great questions. So we help agency owners create and run podcasts to generate new leads, win new business and build their brands. B2B, podcasting is massively underutilised as a way of starting new conversations with prospects that you want to speak to, as a way of building relationships with existing customers.People think that podcasting is saturated because there are 2 million podcasts out there. But I'm here to say that there is still a lot of opportunity in podcasting, especially in the niches, which is where the opportunities lie. And if you're selling a high ticket, high value item, creating a podcast, creating a show, and using that as your entry point into a brand is massively underutilised and that's what we help brands and agencies to do. As far as my background is concerned, sales is my background really so coming out of university selling water coolers at Nestle water powwow over the phone to people who didn't really want to speak to me to be honest. And then I've sold recruitment, I say sold, I've never really done a very good job doing these things, I was very good at getting the job, sales jobs, I was never good at really keeping them! And I've sold all sorts of things from graduate recruitment, advertising to graduate recruitment, to you know, magazine advertising in financial sort of magazines. But I only really started getting good at sales, I would say, when I moved into the agency world, in around 2012, where I worked, I was I became sort of a sales executive for inbound marketing agency called Tomorrow People. And I worked there on the phones, following up with inbound leads, and converting people who have downloaded content and got very used to talking to people about the value, the reason why they had engaged in a piece of content. And I was very fortunate to sort of learn under an amazing Sales Director, Alison Norman, who was the managing director there at the time, who had come from a sales background, a software SaaS background, and I just learned how to sell high value consultatively through his tutelage over the next five years, the agency grew pretty quickly from about four or five people when I joined upwards to about 50 people. So I sort of went through that journey and sort of saw what that growth of an agency was like. And then I started having conversation with other agencies, who I didn't know, struggled when it came to sales, I thought, all agencies were like us, who were able to convert two out of three deals online, nine out of 10, our conversion rate was really, really good because we had this amazing sales process that he'd taken from SaaS, the SaaS B2B world and brought that into the agency land. I just thought that was table stakes for agencies until I started meeting other agency owners who were like, Hmm, we don't convert that high at all or We don't get that sort of success in new business pitches. In fact, we don't do any sort of direct outbound. We were very active and we would react to inbound calls and RFPs and all the rest of it, which is good when it comes but it's not very good if you don't have any inbound calls coming. So you have to have a combination of kind of being proactive and being reactive at the same time. And that's when I sort of started reaching out to agencies offering consultancy sales services, did that for a couple of years, and then decided, Hmm, maybe I could get introduced to larger agencies if I started a podcast. If I start a podcast, I can invite them on the show. We can talk about sales and that might lead to work, as a very loose plan a very, very loose plan. Very hard to find the first guests everyone said no. Until by accident Kingpin Communications a really big B2B tech agency in London said yes, completely accidentally, he thought he was saying yes to something else. That's another story completely, recorded the interview and then we had then something to go out to other people with and had a very clear idea about what kind of podcast it would be about - it would be about sales and sales only and new business. But then agency owners came on the show and they wanted to talk about culture, and hiring and profitability and all the things I had no clue about Jenny, I had no clue about any of these things, but very quickly had to learn. And, 140 episodes later we've interviewed as you said, not only marketing authors, agency owners, but b2b brand marketeers and kind of everyone else in between. Anyone that sort of is responsible or touches the how agencies grow, mature, how they professionalise, how they win new business, how they build culture, that is able to attract talent, how they, how they run successful, profitable agencies in a nutshell, and we learn from the best and the brightest, all over the world. And I've been just been fortunate to have free consultancy over the last two and a half years to give me the opportunity and build great relationships off the back of it and it's created, it's generated a business off the back of it, which I had no idea would materialise. And that process is the same process that I'm in now, using it with my clients. I'm saying right guys use this podcast as a vehicle to open new opportunities with huge brands that you would never really get the opportunity to be able to speak to and interact with. We've got an opportunity on the table right now with a huge bank. And that's come directly off the back of having a guest on the show. And yeah, so podcasting is massively underutilised. And I'm banging the podcast drum, Jenny!Jenny 07:40I'm glad you are. This is fascinating, though, then is the first time I've heard this. So throughout that 140 episode journey, your whole kind of, it was an education in itself. So you were learning from the best. And this in your mind was changing the way you thought about what business you were going to ultimately offer. So you started out offering sort of sales consultancy. And then now, so it's morphed through your journey. And now are you dedicated to helping agencies and brands with podcasting is that is that your niche now or you're still...?Nathan 08:16That's the niche. The niche is helping agencies and brands win business, using podcasting as the vehicle as the entry point. I'm fortunate because my background is B2B sales. And my background is content marketing and thought leadership. So I'm using the skills that I've developed, working in agencies that have done that, to be able to create podcasts that are able to appeal to senior decision makers. So it's a podcast that is,the secret to podcasting is, it needs to be educational, so people need to come away from it learning something, it needs to be entertaining and it needs to be fun. If you can do those three things, that's the magic trisector. But the most important one, especially for senior decision makers is that they have to know that when they spend their time listening to your show, they're going to come out of it better off, they're going to learn something, they're going to improve, they're going to be better, they're going to be able to implement something in their business as a result of it. So number one is the product has to be credible, and it needs to be worthy of their time. And that comes from getting amazing guests, (God knows why you got me on the show Jenny), but that comes from getting really good guests, the best guests that you can find, asking good questions and then getting out of the way and then letting the guests do the work. And we've been fortunate to build a brand accidentally using that process, but because I've got a background in B2B sales and content marketing and thought leadership, we kind of understand how to create the sort of content that will be appealing to senior decision makers.Jenny 10:10So this is brilliant. So can you share some examples of creative agencies who have done this successfully? Because I'm sure there are agency owners listening or even agency account managers, anyone working in an agency space thinking, maybe this is a strategy for us? Maybe this is something that we could invest time in, if they haven't already. So who have you seen doing this really, really well?Nathan 10:36So there's an agency called Red-Fern Media, who specialise in manufacturing. So they made the shift to focusing on manufacturing, the manufacturing niche, probably relatively recently, about 18 months ago. Before then they were sort of one of a generalist agency, they had a couple of manufacturing clients, but they've worked with an external consultant, Robert Leaf, I think his name is, who said, 'Look, you need to specialise' and we know this, right. If you listen to anything Blair Enns says, or any of the agency consultants out there, specialising is the thing to do. And so they've gone super deep into manufacturing into the manufacturing niche. And they've said, right, we want to have a podcast that's all about manufacturing, it's all about the people who have come up with an idea to create something new in the worlds who are able to create the processes, the Lean, the Six Sigma who are the people behind some of the best manufacturing processes and businesses in the country. And they've been able to, they've only recently sort of started on their journey, but already, they've had maybe seven or eight episodes out there already, but already, they've started a handful of conversations with really big manufacturers. It would have been so difficult to get on their radar in any other way. How else are you going to do it? Are you going to use email, LinkedIn, you're getting a million different messages on that platform? Events are off the table now, because we're all in this pandemic, how else are you going to get an audience with the CEO or the managing director of a large manufacturing organisation? If not, for inviting them onto a show, developing a relationship with them, asking them good questions, building rapport, demonstrating expertise. And I'm not saying that that should be, you don't want to do it in a way that is sort of crass or overly salesy because no one wants to be sold to in that way. You want to build a relationship, you want to start a relationship. And Red-Fern Media have done that, even though it's really early days, have done that really, really well.Jenny 13:11Okay, so this is fantastic. So is it important to really be a specialist agency for the podcast to be successful? Or would it equally work well if you are narrow in a certain kind of specialism? Say that I'm, an app development agency? You know, we go deep in apps, would it have worked equally as well? Do you think? So that's the first question.Nathan 13:37Yeah. I think that when it comes to podcasting, the nicher you are the better. So I don't think it matters whether or not you're an agency that specialises in a niche. I think you can be a generalist agency, but your podcast needs to be niche in order for your podcast to stand out. Because how are you going to attract new listeners and an audience to the show, are going to create a marketing podcast? There are million different marketing podcasts, generalist marketing podcasts, but you want to create a marketing podcast that is about app development, and the trends that are happening in Asia in 2021. You know what I mean? You need something that really is going to stand out. And for those people that app development in Asia this year is crucial, you are going to stand out. Why would they listen to anything else, but that?Jenny 14:35There's a real strong strategic part, first of all, to get your angle right on the podcast, on the theme. And also, do you think that, you said that, inviting the type of customer that you want to work with ultimately, is a brilliant way to develop that relationship, to understand their specialist area of expertise and I suppose what happens after that typically? Like you invite the guest and generally the door is open because the CEO is flattered that he's been asked? How does that work?Nathan 15:13So, you mean, how does it then convert into an opportunity or business? So this is where you want to be a little bit careful, because nobody wants to be invited on to a show, or given an opportunity only to realise that actually, it's a secret way of selling to me or trying to get some new business. But ultimately, that's what we're all trying to do. It's the way that you go about then doing that. So the clients that I've been working with so far, we haven't proactively gone back to any of the guests on the show to say, Hey, how about a new website? We haven't done that. Those conversations have happened organically, they've come back to us and actually, so you guys, so you do, so, in Fox's case, for instance, 'Oh, so you helped put on virtual events in COVID? So we're putting on a virtual event at the moment. But we've had a couple of problems. Is that the kind of thing that you guys can do?' I think it comes back to, again, one of the reasons why the podcast is so good is because in sales, it's all about demonstrating your credibility and demonstrating your expertise by the questions that you ask, how consultative you are, how thoughtful you are about the client's business and their challenges and off the back of that the client responds. The client says, actually, this is someone that understands my business, understands where I am, knows my context, actually knows a little bit more about it than me, actually about one or two things. Maybe I should ask him a couple of questions about how to do this right. So there's a part of the podcasting process, which is about understanding, sales and how to sell because I guess that's one of the reasons why I've been able to take to podcasting quite easily. I say easily, it's been really hard journey. But one of the reasons why podcasting has kind of played to my skill set is because I'm good at asking questions. As a salesperson, that's what you do, that is your that's your main skill set. So how you ask consultative, thoughtful questions that probe, that elicit a response that gets the client thinking, 'Hmm, I actually don't know the answer to that question. Maybe this person does'. Do you know what I mean?Asking questions is so fundamental in sales, you know this. But when you ask a question, and someone doesn't know the answer to the question, they assume that you do, even if you don't know the answer to the question, but they assume that you do, number one. Number two, it demonstrates, no one likes to be told anything, regardless of how knowledgeable someone is, but by asking a question, demonstrates your expertise. It tells someone that you know what you're talking about, without telling them that you know what you're talking about. So question asking does so many things and the art of a great podcast is asking great questions.Jenny 18:33This is making so much sense now, because when I listen to your episodes, I can see you are demonstrating your knowledge of sales. You throw in examples, that kind of build on the story that your guest is telling. So it makes total sense. And I was wondering why you were so proficient in the B2B selling space? And, obviously now I know Anthony Iannarino's been on a couple of times, as well and he's like a sales guru, so yeah, this is making total sense now. And so this is brilliant. So if an agency is listening to this thinking, wow, okay, this is something definitely that we could explore, because we have quite a niche, we understand who our customer is. If they came to you and said, Nathan, we're in your hands, help us go through this process, because we can see that the investment would be something, investing, our time in this area will be well spent. Where do you start? How do you start working with a company from the start of the thought about having a podcast?Nathan 19:41Well, the first thing is about being, as you said, really clear on who your customer is, and what purpose the podcast would serve in their lives. Why would they listen to this? What value are they going to get from this show? Based on that, once you've understood, okay, I want to work with large manufacturers in the northeast, let's say. And the reason why they will listen to the show is because we'll have other large manufacturers in the northeast talking about, you know, because we know that these people like to learn from from each other, they'd like to learn from their peers. They're quite well networked anyway but because of COVID, they're not been able to maybe get to as many events as they would like to, let's find out who are the really interesting people that have great stories to tell, that have built successful enterprises themselves, that other large manufacturers in the northeast would like to hear from. So it's being really clear on, like any other sort of marketing strategy right, it's who is the target audience, what is the value proposition, what is the reason why they would listen to your show? How do we actually get this podcast in front of them? And then how do we make it predictable? You know, the, the other reason I think that people shy away from podcasts is because they know that it's a commitment, and it is a commitment, it's not something you can just turn on and go, 'Okay, I'm done with that now', and turn it off. Once you start it, you need to stick with it. And the vast majority of those 2 million podcasts that I talked about earlier, they only had about 10 episodes. So people get to about 10 episodes and realise, actually, this is harder than I thought it was. Let me stop this. So the vast majority of podcasts that are out there, and they're gaining audiences and they're able to grow is because they've got some regularity. And you know, the regularity thing is a is a huge thing, whether it's once a week or twice a month, or once a month, which I disagree that you should do that I think it's a bit too far away, but the regularity is important, because it shows people that you show up, you turn up and there's a huge amount of trust and credibility that is communicated through being regular and showing up on time, every time. Anthony Iannarino is great with that with his Sunday newsletter, which you and I geeked out over a couple of weeks ago, he has had this Sunday newsletter for years, come rain or shine. You know Sunday morning in your inbox Anthony Iannarino has a new newsletter for you. And it's great content. It's fantastic content. And so through that process you're like, Oh my God, Anthony Iannarino, he's trustworthy, he's credible, he shows up, there are so many things that you infer from being predictable in that way. And so that's a huge thing when it comes to podcasting that I've been really trying to stick to as much as possible. Once a week, every Tuesday, a new episode comes out, and it's hard. But it's something that I think has helped build the audience. And I forget the question now.Jenny 23:27It's about the process. This is fantastic. And I can see why you're well placed to offer that advice. Because your background is sales, agency sales, you understand, get the audience right, understand why they would listen, speak, be committed. And then what's later, what are the other things to consider? You know, you said before, a month is a little bit too infrequent. What do you think the optimum kind of frequency is? And also length? And does it have to be, is it better to have guests or can you do some solo episodes? What's your views on that?Nathan 24:05Good, good point. So the first question was regularity. Yeah, I would say once a month is too infrequent. I think there's so much content out there that if you allow a month between episodes, people forget you really quickly, and then replace it with something else. And you want to kind of become that go to, you know, you want to always have episodes in there that people fit you into their routine in some way. In some way, they're like, okay, on Tuesdays, I go for a walk between this time and this time, I'm gonna listen to agency account skill, you know what I mean? Like you're fitted into their day, or their week in some way, shape, or form. And I think every month, it's harder to do that. So I would say a minimum twice a month. So every two weeks release an episode at a minimum. If you can do once a week even better. Length wise, it comes down to your audience and who you're targeting and the level of seniority. You know, senior people don't have a lot of time, I've been criticised a couple of times, for having a podcast that's over an hour long, every week. But you know, we have Joe Rogan, who has three hour episodes. And I think the people that want to stay around and listen to the entire show can, and others that want to get 20 minutes half an hour out of it can also get what they want to get from it as well. For us, a shorter 20 minute show wouldn't work, just because of the format of what we're going for. They're long form deep interviews with thought leaders, it's very hard to get under the under the skin of someone like that in 20 minutes. However, I do know that shorter form episodes for the podcast do tend to work quite well, because it fits into a decision makers schedule. So again, it comes back down to who is the persona that you're going after? And what are their problems and pains? And how do you help solve them with this format, this new format, this new content that you're creating?Jenny 26:18And would you say that putting in some solo episodes where you're sharing something might be still relevant? Or is it? I'm probably getting a bit granular here, but I'm just...Nathan 26:30This is this is good. I think that again, it comes back down to the persona targeting. But having a show, so our show for instance, it's one on one guests, one on one interviews, long form with a single guest. There are episodes, there are podcasts I listen to whereby you never really know what you're going to get, it's like it's roulette. And I think that's fun and interesting, because you're like, actually, I'm going to be surprised by the content this week. It may be one person that they interview, it may be a couple it may be, but I think, and this is just I don't have any evidence or data to support this, but I think that the favourite episode, the podcast that people like to listen to, are the ones that have a predictable structure that people are used to, or get used to. So if you are going to have an episode where it's just you, or you and somebody else, bake that into the predictability of it, don't do it just as you know, as a random thing, because people could get turned off by the fact that they're looking forward to a particular format and then suddenly, you're presenting something else. But if they know that it's what you do, it's what the show does, it's how the show is structured, then I think you have a better chance of, you know, making it stick. I don't have any data to support that. That's just my anecdotal, from listening to podcasts myself over the years. But I don't know, what do you what do you think on that Jenny?Jenny 28:21I feel the same. I mean, everything that you've shared so far I agree with and I was just curious if there's any other kind of things that you've seen where people get it wrong with podcasting. You've mentioned quite a few like talking over someone, not kind of taking the time to choose the right guests. Maybe not being narrow enough, not being informative enough, because I'm the same, I want to listen to a podcast and come away with some tips. You know, just little nuggets of wisdom. I learn at least one thing from every podcast I listen to, or even if it just brings something top of mind that you hadn't thought about for a while. So what other kind of things do you think happen where people get it wrong?Nathan 29:05Sometimes they try and be the star of the show, the host. That's a big No, No. You know, you're excellent at this Jenny. Your show, it's so, you do such a great job introducing the guests, setting the scene, letting us know why we should be listening to this person what they're all about. And then you let them do their thing. And then you jump in every now and again with a question to prod and let them allow them to open up. And then you you allow them to do their thing. And that's such, it's very hard to do when you are as knowledgeable as you are Jenny and know as much as you, because it's very easy, becauseI've listened to a lot of podcasts and I'm sure you have as well where the host is extremely knowledgeable and they've got amazing experience and they can't wait to tell you all about their experience. And it's like, Okay, well, great, but I'm here to listen to the guests, so can we hear the guest. And I think the best interviewers, the best hosts are the ones that are able to ask the question, to be able to still demonstrate their expertise, but do it in a way that allows the guest to shine. Because at the end of the day, if the guest shines, they make the interview better. They make the podcast, the episode better. They are more likely to share it off the back of it, because they're like, I love this episode, I want to tell the world about it. So there's so much value in being a good facilitator of a conversation without, you know, dominating it. It's hard to do. It's not easy.Jenny 30:54It's not and actually, I feel quite uncomfortable sometimes listening to interviewers who keep butting in all the time, it's just like oh let the poor guy finish. So I agree with you, I think, my God, I've learnt a lot from you, Nathan, because, I listened to quite a few episodes before I came on the show, and I just thought, wow, this guy's so good. Like, I haven't listened to someone that's quite so good. And now, you're telling me your story I can see why. Where do you see this going in the future Nathan, is this saturated because I know that's what maybe some people are thinking? So where do you see podcasting going?Nathan 31:33Hmm. I mean, look, podcasting's been around for a very long time. It's only in the last couple of years that it seems to have gone mainstream. But back to like 2004/ 2005 people were, Kara Swisher and people like that were podcasting. And I think there's always going to be space for creating great thought leadership content that people are into, whatever form that takes, whether that is video, or audio, or texts, or what have you there's always going to be a need for people to you know, we're all lifelong learners now, now that we're all kind of these knowledge workers these days There's this ongoing need for personal and professional development. We all have to educate ourselves all the time. So whether that is audiobooks and my audible subscription is, they're now saying there are tiers, I'm one of the tiers! So I listened to a hell of a lot of Audible, I listened to a hell of a lot of podcasts. I subscribed to far too many, haven't got the hours in the day. And for me, there's a need for me to constantly be learning and growing and improving my skills. And whether that form takes the shape of an audio podcast, which is what we have today, or whether it is some combination of maybe one of these club houses or Twitter's got a new sort of format now, there's this insatiable need for people to upskill. And I think as long as you are able to put on, create content that is interesting and different and differentiated and gets really good speakers with great stories, it doesn't even have to be sort of big names, as long as they've got a great story to tell, people will always be interested in consuming that sort of content.Jenny 33:45Can you share a few of your favourite podcasts for the listeners?Nathan 33:49Oh, now that you've reminded me of Greg McKeown and Blair Enns I mean, those are some of my favourite. Greg McKeown was great, because it's Greg McKeown, you know, the author of Essentialism. And just one of the books that had such a profound fundamental effect on my life. And you read the book, and it's like, of course, of course. But it takes someone like that to really kind of just show it to you. So when I spoke to him, I was just, I mean butterflies and just like nervousness, had to have a sip of brandy! But he was just so nice and down to earth and accommodating. And we had this great chat about books. We had totally off script, because I had a whole thing planned of look, I'm talking to Greg McKeown, I need to be scripted, I need to know what I'm saying, when I'm saying but as soon as the conversation started, it went in a completely opposite direction and we just started riffing and talking, yeah, our influences and favourite books and stuff like that. So that was a great podcast. Rory Sutherland was great for a different reason. We only said that we would record for half an hour, I think he said initially, it went on into a two and a half hour podcast.Jenny 35:14Wow!Nathan 35:15I was like, okay, I'm sure you have other things to do Rory! So we had to break it up into three different episodes. It was just a monster of a conversation. And Rory is brilliant for every second of that two and a half hours. He was brilliant. He talks a million miles a minute. But everything that he says is just so true. And he's just a fountain of knowledge. That was a great conversation. I really loved that one. And there have been so many, so many Jenny.Jenny 35:49Well, you've had some fantastic guests. And thank you for pointing out those two, because I haven't listened to either one yet.Nathan 35:55All right. Okay.Jenny 35:56I've listened to quite a few, but I haven't. And what are the ones that you're actually listening to yourself? Like, any go to, particularly in the, obviously the sales space that you like?Nathan 36:09In sales? And I'm thinking of a really good one called, I can't remember the name of it now, but if you search Anthony Iannarino podcast, it'll come up. He's just great. Anyway, so whatever he does, a book or magazine or tweets, right, Anthony Iannarino, I'm just consuming all of it. But I tend not to, I don't listen to that many sales podcasts actually. I listen to general business podcasts. I listen to, there's a great one that I listen to called After Hours, which is HBR so three Harvard Business Review professors talking about the economy and business and politics, but just from the perspective of educators, and Harvard Business School educators. So it's Youngme Moon, Felix and Mihir, they've all written books. Youngme Moon has written a great book called 'Difference' a few years ago. I've never really read a book like it. It's all about the power of differentiation. And that was just, I was like, I'm consuming everything that this woman does. She's amazing. So Youngme Moon, she's one of the main hosts on the show. The Pivot Podcasts is great, but obviously a lot of people know that. What else am I listening to? I really like Market Place, it's like a kind of a economics podcast. It's kind of a 30 minute daily, I have no idea how these people do it, but it's packed, it's economics, but for every man. So it's looking at trends, macro and micro trends and what it means to everyday people. But it's done, you know what I said earlier about if you can make a podcast educational, fun, and entertaining at the same time, like that does that, every day for 30 minutes. It's brilliant Marketplace podcast is fantastic. What else am I listening to? Creative Agency Account Manager podcast!Jenny 38:26I've heard that's really good.Nathan 38:30Of course, that is essential listening!Jenny 38:34These are great tips go on, did you have another one there?Nathan 38:38So I'll give you one more. That's the Naval podcast, the happiness podcast. It's a fantastic one if you get a chance.Jenny 38:45Obviously, these are new to me so thank you so much. And they sound exactly the ones that I kind of like to listen to generally so thank you. Nathan, this has been absolutely fantastic. If there's an agency listening and thinking, I love what Nathan said, I would love to have a chat with him about what we could do as an agency or a brand for that matter. What's the best way that people can get hold of you, how can people reach you?Nathan 39:11So nathan@agencydealmasters.com is the email. Listen to the podcast, let us know what you think, I always like getting listener feedback on LinkedIn and email. So it's just nathananibaba on LinkedIn. Yeah, the entry point is the podcast. Listen to one that you like the look of and let me know what you think. They're not all great by the way! Some of them are better than others. I'm my harshest critic.Jenny 39:41Nathan honest, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for sharing so much value. So many tips. Very, very enlightening. I've learnt loads. So thank you so much. And I'll put all the notes and the links in the show notes. So thank you once again for coming on.Nathan 39:56You're very welcome. Thank you for having me, Jenny.

Transcript:Jenny 00:02So I'm delighted today that I've managed to get some time in the diary with Mark Probert. Mark is managing partner of Cact.us, the leading UK agency growth consultancy, and also managing partner of Agencynomics, a social enterprise and the largest free of charge community in the UK for agency founders. Welcome, Mark.Mark 00:23Hi Jenny. Thanks for having me on. I feel honoured with the guests you've had on this.Jenny 00:28No, honestly I've wanted to have you on for ages. So I'm really excited about diving into this topic. Would you mind spending a couple of minutes first of all, Mark, just talking about you, your background, a bit of your experience and how you help agencies?Mark 00:42Okay, do you want the short story or the long story?Jenny 00:44However it comes.Mark 00:46Okay, well, maybe it's helpful to go back a few years. So whilst I was at school in Hampshire, I had a variety of different jobs. And as somebody that never really wanted to go to university I had this thing in me where I wanted to go and work and I had various things going on, a car wash business, run a cigarette kiosk of all things, stuff like that, and went into went into college, kind of enjoyed my business studies, thought actually Maths might be the thing for me, I was quite good with numbers at the time, maybe not so much now that this technology to do these things for you. So I went into accountancy practice. And I went in at the age of 18, had a couple of other jobs on the side of the weekends and so on. And I probably then spent about the next 18 years trying to get out of accountancy practice, so 18 to 18 even I can add that 36. So basically I went into different accountancy, doing audits, tax, a bit of M&A work, business advisory. And what I always loved doing was working with SMEs. Absolutely loved it. I love seeing somebody come up with an idea, run with that idea and either make it or not make and we can try and help them a little bit along the way with what we we could advise on. But when I said about trying to escape, I got to the point where I moved up to Scotland probably 19, 20 years ago, with my wife, now wife, Kirsty and joined a variety of firms up here, tried a different couple of different ones, went to Grant Thornton, which is my last one, obviously big, big multinational. And I'd got to the point then really where I was trying to get out of doing accounts and audit and tax and so I wanted to do something a bit different. But perhaps naively, what I ended up doing there was working on some big global brand, you know, audits, accounts, and so on. But I also learned quite a lot at that time in that environment in Scotland in Grant Thornton, about marketing and the value of marketing. So for once, the first time ever in my life, I kind of took a step back and thought hang on a minute. I dabbled into industry once upon a time before, didn't like it, went into a company that was too big came back out into practice. I thought it's probably time to be a bit selfish and go, well forget this party route that everybody kind of steps into in accountancy where you're a trainee, and you progress up the rungs and so on. And I thought it's probably time to try something a bit different. I took time to think about what that was. And that ended up being Cact.us. So I knew Pete, a really good friend of mine that I've known since I was four or five. So there's a whole backstory there which is a different podcast, there's a few stories in there! And he was up in Edinburgh one weekend, we were sat in my living room for a glass of wine catching up, and he said are you okay? And I was, uh, you know what, I just need to do something different. I'm fed up doing what I'm doing, doesn't mean anything, I don't feel like I'm helping anybody, I've kind of lost the sort of buzz. So anyway, he went away, give me a call the next night when he got home and said, you should come and join us. Totally out of the blue, you know, what does that mean? And what Cact.us was at that time, and that was probably seven or eight years ago, nearly now, Cact.us was eight people, Spencer Gallagher, my colleagues, ex agency owners who have grown and sold their agency, their designer build agency. And they'd set up Cact.us and Cact.us was consulting to independent agencies in the kind of 6/ 700,000 turnover up to about four or 5 million space. And they were helping them holistically around, you know, all the areas of the business finance ops - marketing, sales culture, and trying to help people get to what their vision, you know, wherever their vision was, they're trying to help them on that journey. Pete very much helping on the finance and ops, Spencer, very much the tech sales marketing. So, again, long story short, I joined six and a half years, sort of probably about that time now ago and over the time, I've partnered with other ex agency owners. I do very similar to what Pete does, helping very much on the financial and operational side of businesses. That can be getting my hands dirty on some of the stuff up to helping people hire in their finance teams or their operation teams up to M&A work, which last year Cact.us I think we did 12 deals with different varieties. So that's what I now do. And I don't ever call it a job now. I think I ended up when I looked for that role seven years ago, who I had various other opportunities but this one sort of stood out because it was helping SMEs, entrepreneurial people with an idea. And yeah, I love what I do now, it's is not really a job.Jenny 05:19It shows!Mark 05:21There's a long story, Jenny?Jenny 05:23I didn't really know half of that. So it is really valuable already for me. So I know how many agencies you work with and it's very difficult to actually get a time with you to work with you. But when an agency comes to you and says, right, an agency owner says I want to grow. What are the very first things that you do with that business? What do you look at first?Mark 05:44Well the very first thing I do is spend some time getting to know them. Because you know, everyone knows about The Four Fs, as they call them - Fun, Fame, Fortune, Future kind of thing. And what I always want to do is feel like I get to know the person. For me, I did a poll on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, I think I know which way you answered this one, actually similar to me, where is what is the one sort of area of the business you'd really want to, you want to monitor a KPI on? And for me, people thought I'd have said finance, and I said clients. Clients are key to me, like, absolutely, fundamentally, it's about client care to me, always has been. And that for me is, you've got to enjoy working with somebody. And I suppose my motto is, it's got to be bloody hard work for me, but it's got to be enjoyable. And that, for me is get to know the person first and foremost. And then there's all the usual stuff isn't there, funnels of how you get them to work with you, and so on. And suddenly, we implemented a while ago was we put in a health check for the business, where what's really useful for that is, I have a lot of kind of new business, if you want to call them that, calls with people that have completed their health check on our website at Cact.us. And it identifies areas of business where they don't see themselves scoring very highly. So it might be, I don't know, they might not have a cash flow projection, or it might be they have no marketing strategy, bizarrely, even though they're a marketing agency. And these things often root out quite quickly for us what their problems are. And so for me, it's get to know the person first and foremost on, at the moment obviously, a lot of calls, get to really feel like you know them and starting to get a bit friendlier with them. Over time building up a friendship more than a working relationship, I think is really important. And then there's the work side, identifying quickly what their problems are, so that you can help them quickly. Because a lot of people think they need help, like yesterday. But it's trying to identify what the real issues are. Because they might think it's one thing and it might not be that thing.Jenny 07:41Okay, perfect. So I'll include a link to the health check on this podcast as that sounds really, really valuable. And absolutely, you would imagine that it would be some kind of audit. So that sounds like it's super.Mark 07:52It is like an audit, yeah.Jenny 07:54So I know that your specialism is the financial and operation side. So can you talk us through some of the kind of standard financial benchmarks and parameters that you believe would help an agency grow?Mark 08:09Okay. For me, there's huge worries around staff costs, obviously, at the current time as well, that can be a bit difficult for some people to monitor, we've still got all the furlough stuff and that going on, but for me, this is one of the, what's the word for this, this is a confusion in the market. There are other advisors that look at staff costs in a different way that we do at Cact.us. So the biggest thing for us really is staff cost, the gross profits. So that for me is the biggest metric to watch, or one of the big five, as I call them I suppose. So what I mean by us different to others is, a lot of the big networks would treat their gross profit differently to how an independent would. So they will do sales, but lots of terminology now when people call them different things generally, but sales, less cost of sales, equals gross profit. A lot of people will put advisors will put staff costs into the cost of sale. So if somebody, if a web developers working specifically on a on a web project for a client, they might attribute some of their time to cost of sale, to the cost of making that sale. We wouldn't do that. So what we do is very much try and keep a lot of what we do at Cact.us, believe it or not, is try and keep it very simple. So we're quite aware that in the independent space, people don't often have resource, okay, so they don't want to buy in the non fee earners like the finance people, maybe the marketeers or whatever. Project managers, you'll know this, this is what you do in your account management, project management stuff. So for me, the staff cost, the gross profit ratio is we keep sales, the sales, we put pretty much nothing in cost of sales. So it might be a bit of a hosting of a website, might be a licence, you know if you're reselling it to a client, but all people costs are in overheads. So in our view, all people are overheads. As soon as you hire them there are fixed costs. Yep. But a lot of other people completely change that, do it differently, split the employee costs and so on. Some of the big networks do it that way. When I did a deal last year with an agency in Bristol and we sold them to McCann's, McCann's did it that way, you know, but that's because they've got a whole team of finance people doing their numbers and analysis. So what we say is, an agency of a million pound might not even have a full time finance person, more often than not, they don't. So what they should do is another question, but you know what, why make it complicated? You know, why make it complicated?Jenny 10:38Okay. So it simplifies it, from an accountancy perspective or more from an understanding?Mark 10:45I think, by the way, there's no right or wrong way in accountancy. I mean, I can say that I suppose with my accountancy degree hat on or whatever, that you can do it either way, it's up to you. But for us, it's about that day to day, month to month internal reporting. Why make it really complex and take my salary and put some up there, some down the bottom? And then go, Oh hang on, what are my staff costs to my revenue? I'm going to do this funny calculation to work it all out? Or why waste all that time? What we would say is, if you're operating in between 55, it used to be 55 to 65% of your, let's say, gross profit figure, which is nearly a sales figure in the capitalist world. Yeah. Then you are about right, you're running an agency that's about the right kind of staffing level. Although I would say at the moment, a lot of people are edging towards say 70% regularly because they're investing a little bit ahead of sales a little bit. A number of agencies, probably the ones that are faster growing.Jenny 11:43Oh right. Why are they doing that? Just so that they've got people ready to kind of hit the ground?Mark 11:48People ready to hit the ground, they've got the buffer of the government money. So a lot of agencies, believe it or not, are quite buoyant, in terms of cash reserves at the moment, still are, even though it's what, it's 5th May sort of time, they've still got a buffer of reserves. So they're thinking, well actually, we're quite confident at the moment, it's hard to get people, so let's go on hiring, let's try and hire some people in, it's hard to get them. There's still a lot of people, some people moving, some aren't and so on. Why not invest some of that money in people? Because that's ultimately what we're going to be trying to get our value in going forward.Jenny 12:25That makes total sense. Have you got any other benchmarks that you can share with us?Mark 12:30Yeah, yeah. So we tend to say, well I tend to say, that three times somebody's salary is what they should be earning an agency, you might have heard that before? So somebody on 40 grand, they should be doing 120 grand billable work. Lots of the bigger agencies have that number down to a fine, you know, 3.2, or whatever. We would say, the Cact.us fag packet here, it's three. Times 3, is the revenue kind of target for everybody. Liquidity is always one, some people ask me often how much money should we have in the bank, and then they pull out their mobile phone, and then it all goes wrong! You go, it's not about what you've got today. It's about what you've got covering your costs. And so some people work to six times their overheads. So if their overheads 100 grand a month, they can actually have 600 grand in the bank. I think I'm quite a cautious finance person in some respects. I think that's, that's an awful lot of headroom to give yourself if you're trying to scale something quite quickly. And all this I suppose, depends on vision and so on as to what you're doing. But, you know, a couple of months is enough. A couple of months in the bank is enough. So there's a ratio, I do Pete hates this one, I call it, he always calls me Horatio Probert as in Horatio Nelson! This is the current ratio where you do your assets on your balance sheet, bank and cash and your debtors, who owes you money, divided by your liabilities. You know, you owe the VAT man, you are HMRC your payroll, you owe your suppliers if you've got any. That VAT, if that's more than three to one- three pounds to one pound, you're in quite healthy position for a lot of even project based agencies. You know, if it's two to one, you're fine. If it's less than one, you've got problems.Jenny 14:12Some poor agency leader listening to this somewhere thinking, Oh, no!Mark 14:16Well, maybe, maybe!Jenny 14:18And this is fascinating, and what about billable percentages? Do you have any benchmarks around that?Mark 14:26Yeah, yeah. I suppose the minimum for us is 64%. So what I mean by that is, so if somebody has capacity, if they're 80% available to work, they've got holidays, and so on and then nobody is super efficient nobody's a machine or though sometimes I think you might be with all these podcasts Jenny, you're amazing! Nobody's a machine. So that's 80% against 80% of 80% is 64. So what I mean by that is the minimum number, somebody should be able to do that's a billable resource is 64% of their time, and you'll you'll find that you know, in a dev agency, maybe web developers 80 or 90% kind of thing in creative, maybe not as high, then different job roles, not as much obviously account management very different and so on. So we would tend to work on, somebody should be doing about 64% if they're mostly a billable resource, and you tend to find, I think, in some of the industry reports that have been done in the last couple of years that you know, some people ,you will know this well, it works out, I think the average is about 63/65, something like that. So our starting figure is about right usually.Jenny 15:31Perfect. What about your views on account management? Should account management be billable or non billable?Mark 15:43Should it be sorry, billable or non billable did you say? And should it be split up in terms of job roles?Jenny 15:48No. Well, just in terms of the account management role, should it be billable or not? What's your view? Or does it vary? Or is it just, from your perspective?Mark 15:58I think most people tend to say it's not billable. But I still think there is elements of it that could be billable. And it just depends how you're packaging up your offering to your client, isn't it? Really, at the end of the day. If your value based pricing, then you can wrap all that up, and there's no issue is there? This is your price and that's what we create and you know somebody that you and I work with that does kind of thing and so on. So maybe it's chargeable, maybe it has been billed, but that has not been identified to the client as such.Jenny 16:27I have to ask you, because you've mentioned it, how many agencies do you come across that do actually manage to do value based pricing?Mark 16:33Oh limited. I know, it's the utopia, isn't it, people want to try it and, and so on. One that you and I work with, another one that I work with, I work in a pair, I probably should have said this earlier on actually, I work in a partnership with a guy called Danny Turnbull who you'll know, most of the time now. But I also have a number of clients of my own that I've had for years in different guises of support to them and I would say there's probably two of those that do it. One very, very well. But that's mainly because they've got a couple of big clients, and they've had them for quite a few years and I think they've always sold on that basis. And, and one that's been trying it recently, and it's been working. I think that the other thing is, people worry too much about pricing about changing their prices, how do they find out what the competition is doing? And I know that's not that's a hot topic for you and other people. But why don't you just try things? I mean, it's I just don't get it sometimes. I think people overanalyse it all and they overanalyse finance too much, numbers, and it's just like, just try it. What have you got to lose kind of thing?Jenny 17:40That's really good advice, actually. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been so valuable already. Mark, thank you for sharing so many benchmarks. I'm sure that's been a few lightbulb moments going off. I'm interested to know about your thoughts on the most conducive agency business model that you've found has worked the best if someone wants fast growth?Mark 18:02Interesting. You'll probably imagine I'll say Pods here?. And I will say Pods, but what I won't say who but, I helped somebody last year, I've worked for them for quite a few years, and helped them sell their agency. And they've gone into a much bigger thing now, I think it's 160 people, a company bought them from overseas. And I asked the owner of that, while I was there working with them and still supporting them and so on, so I asked the owner, I think it was a couple of weeks ago on the on the board call, 'How did you scale your agency?' and I'm thinking, well he's got to have done this by the Pod style, I'll come onto the Pods in a minute, but got it done this via some kind of Pod. And he's just basically, and he's a development agency making the main, and he's just he was just like, so we just made sure we got the best people we could get. And I said yeah, but you must have had a structure. And he said not really. People that are doing the development also sell to the client. And I'm going, how does this happen that you know, struggling with this concept, like quite a bit. And he just said it's just all about getting the best people and training them. And eventually if they go off to say, I want to just be a developer and I don't want to do any kind of account management or sales, whatever it is, then that's fine. We're fine with that. But we give them a lot of training around different areas. And I know you said to me before you had sales training many years ago, you found that like game changing almost. And this guy had done that with people that you wouldn't anticipate would have had sales training. You'd necessarily be giving sales training to the development team and so on. But he said let them try it, let them see how they get on and they might not be able to do it and they probably can't do it all but let's just see. And his point was very much about getting the superstar people in the first place, spending a lot of time on the recruitment side of things. So that's the one I've heard that's a bit different. The Pod stuff, I mean, that for me usually works if you do it right.Jenny 20:02For those listening, who perhaps haven't come across the concept of a Pod structure, what what actually is a Pod structure?Mark 20:09Okay, so you kind of got three bits to the agency, I did it the other way around, you've got the kind of management almost, I mean, that may be the CEO, and maybe the finance director, whatever, as you scale up, obviously a million pounds, you probably, the owners kind of over here. In the middle you've got the core team servicing the client and what I mean by that is a project, we all call it different terminology obviously, but a project, different types of agency, a project manager, an account manager, and then the specialists, it might be a real data specialist specialist or strategists maybe in that role. And then it might be, a mobile and web agency I work with, they just hired a scrum master to go into that sort of PM role. So that they can do the all the efficiency and operational stuff and the management of the work scheduling and so on. The account manager hopefully then is more freed up to service the client properly, the stuff you advice on, obviously expertly, and sells a little bit in the right way to the client, have the right meetings, the quarterly meetings or whatever, talk about the strategy with the client, not be worried about, bogged down with how the team going to service it all. It's the PMs role, and then you've got the specialists to come into the meetings, obviously with the accounts person and hopefully get better ideas out of the client, which the agency can then deliver on. That's the kind of the core bit and that Pods in so many variables to that. That Pod, we tend to say might do 650 revenue up to about a million. But that could be a couple of big clients, can be multiple, multiple small ones, or a mixture of both. Obviously, there is no definitive numbers on these because, as you know, you could have had one client that had the Pods that had 1.8 million going through, it only had two clients, because one of them was a huge client for the agency, the account management team couldn't have coped with five or six other clients, it just wouldn't have been feasible. So that's that, and then you've almost got, and this is no derogatory term, the bench, the bench is the people doing the work. So it might be the development team, it might be, sometimes search agencies I think, don't maybe adopt this model and they see they don't see how it works for them, when they might have an SCO head, a PPC heads, whatever, a social media head and they think, how can this work? But actually it can work, and we've put it into some search agencies before and it does work, but it takes time, the Pod thing probably takes six to eight months to properly put in. Because you're trying to map out what you are now, where you want to go and show people their career opportunities. So you've got to get all that out clear first and understand it before you can go anywhere near doing it.Jenny 22:50And if you get above million pound revenue per pod, how does that pod grow? Or doesn't it? Do you just set up another pod?Mark 22:58Yeah. That's a good question. So I suppose the logical, I say the logical thing, in reality, what happens is you might have, you might have, people bring in a lot of account people don't they, you always want to be hiring the account manager and account exec or whatever and they're not really thinking about the role. So if you've got it clarified, you go well, okay, I've got one Pod, I might start another one and start putting some clients into there, I might have this PM role kind of floating between the two. Then as it gets bigger, you hire in another, or you bring on another account exec into a more CSD, however big the agency is they manage the other Pod, and eventually, I say CSD they're probably the person overseeing. It's a little bit like our friends that we work with, where they've got a CSD character haven't they, overseeing various Pod leads.Jenny 23:49Gotcha, that makes sense. And you found that actually, that's the most conducive, because obviously, different agencies that you start working with, have probably got all different structures. But do you tend to kind of try to formulate that structure? Or give them the benefits of doing that? And do you find that they say, Oh, yes, that's fine, or do you get any resistance?Mark 24:09There's always, there is a lot, obviously, it's pretty, I mean, this is the person's, people's company, you're sort of. And they've got a history of trying to grow the company to a certain stage, and then they're looking for somebody to help and, nobody has, we have no magic wands. We just have, I suppose between us a lot of experience. Yeah. And people do resist it. Absolutely they do. And sometimes it doesn't work. And I've worked with somebody before where they almost took it by the words of the book and tried to implement it really quickly. And they didn't really I think, from stepping back and looking at third party sort of in, they didn't really do what we just said- say What are we now? What do we want to be, in might be this posture and how are we going to evolve to? That can't just change overnight. This is people's lives, careers and so on. You're sort of messing with. They didn't take the time. So you do get a lot of resistance, but actually, they go back to their health check question, I think most agencies we end up working with, the biggest issue is the structure isn't right. So they think it's lots of other things, that actually, when you sit back and answer, go through it all and think of like, it's often the structure is not right. And I don't think there is, I don't think there is another model we've put in somewhere that's really worked better than this pod system. When it's worked well, it's worked really well.Jenny 25:29So Mark that's really fascinating. So what's a symptom that they come with? And then you unpick it and realise it's a structure?Mark 25:37Sometimes, the debate we've had once upon a time actually, often it's that AM/PM sort of split and I know that's obvious to say, but one of the exercises we often do is say, let's say financial budgeting? Yeah. So we're doing I don't know, let's just say we're doing 100 grand a month revenue this year at the moment, it's okay. Well, let's have a high level stab at next year's budget. Okay, where are we going to start? And some people go, well, the sales gonna go up in line like this, or the cost of this, we need to make this much at the top, and then you go, okay, well, let's take it another way. What clients have you got, what you're going to get from those clients? You know, it's just, it sounds obvious to some, but it's not obvious. I know, to lots of people. What are you going to get from those clients, what do you think you could get, all that usual stuff? And then you go, okay, and then they go, but we can't get that and you go, why can't you get it? And I guess our account management team aren't good enough. And you go, okay, well, what do the account managers do then? And then you start to, oh right, so that person's a project manager, then? No, they're an account, you know, and then you start getting into that debate. And that's why I say often, it's the structure. It really is. And always, I think most of the time you find agencies have too many people for the revenue they're doing. Because they're because the structure isn't right. So they're throwing people at it, not fixing processes and systems. And I could go on about this all day, and I probably am.Jenny 27:00You've treated me with this discussion. Because yeah, being an account manager, myself, most of my life, I was a marketing manager for a few years, but most of my life, I've been in account management, and most of that tenure has been in hybrid roles. So I am the project manager, and I am the account manager. And I've only, it's one of those things that I've realised later in my career now, I'm consulting with agencies, how nuts that really is.Mark 27:28It's interesting.Jenny 27:29It just really fights. I mean, I'm sure there are people out there that just can, convinced that it works, and it has worked. But I just see really, really talented, commercially minded account managers coming on my course, this is I suppose this is my day to day experience, and yet they're kind of really bogged down by admin resourcing, scopes of work, of financial reconciliations. And you think, my God, they should be out there selling, growing, adding value to the business, you know, talking to clients and helping.Mark 28:01Yeah, yeah, exactly.Jenny 28:03And just carry on really...Mark 28:08Some people, I hope a few have people listen to this eventually, and some people won't know me or whatever, and they'll think, how does this guy profess to know about this stuff, when he's never worked in an agency, he's only been here six years. And actually, people don't often, but if they asked me what my previous experiences were, then accountancy practices bizarrely, are not that different to an agency. They're not as creative. I'll give you I'll give you that. I'll give you that. But they have account management roles. They have project management roles, they have delivery roles, they have graduate trainees that take up a lot of time for the senior people and that comes resent, you know, all these things very similar. And an often and I think, what did I have in many roles? I had far too many things going on, I was trying to manage 35 clients, a team of 40 people, win new business, up-sell to a client and work with a marketing team, and be head of client satisfaction. So you're like, well, how can you do all those things? Many years ago, I saw somebody I know actually up here in Scotland and went into a role as a new business director in an accountancy. Everyone was like, oh, my goodness, how can you have that completely non fee earning, just just just like going out like schmoozing all the time? Absolutely you could because they got their structure right. They had the right people doing the jobs, the work, doing the technical bits, you know, project managing it for one of the better words. So, it's a very similar industry in a lot of ways that people often overlook.Jenny 29:41And how would you if someone's listening to this, and it's really resonating with them and thinking, actually, we could look at separating these two roles. Where would you advise an agency owner start with that process?Mark 29:52I think the thing for me would be to not necessarily write down what that person's doing, although sometimes that's a good place to start, because then you might identify, is to write down what you think account managers should be doing, and what you think project managers should be doing. And then sitting and looking at the team you've got and going well, okay, well, if the if these are the right people, right seat, if these are the right people, then do they fit into these roles? If they don't fit into these roles, you've got a slight issue, obviously, they need to deal with overtime. But, you know, there might be other roles that they go into. I think you've got to clearly identify what you think the roles are. And then if it's not quite right, you've got to be honest and transparent with your team about that. And so I've got a client at the moment where one of the team doesn't really know what they want to do in their career, but is pivotal at the moment to the agency given the size of it. And really, the agency needs both. It needs AM and it needs a PM. And it really does need these roles separated out, it scores in too many inefficiencies. So what we've done is we've basically job specked out those two roles, and said absolutely, you're the right person to grow with this agency. Absolutely you are. And it's up to you, you go whichever way you want. But we support you, it might be Jenny Plants training on account management, it might be getting somebody else for your project management, training, specialists support around you might be sales training, but you can have all the training you want. But in this agencies opinion, this person needs to choose which role they go. And I think that can sound a bit harsh, but actually, I've worked with many people over the years before I did this, and some people do need that bit of a steer on their career path, they need a bit of help, because they are a bit kind of lost often.Jenny 31:51I agree, Mark. And I also think there's a bit of what do you have a natural tendency for, like, what's your natural default, because having worked with so many different kind of hybrid account managers, and also, project managers, project managers are really good at process, getting things done, being transactional, and kind of their very good with clients. But account managers are, pure account managers tend to be different, they're very, they're kind of, they're looking at account growth, they're looking at business strategy, they're looking at adding value, and you can kind of put them in the middle of a room and by the end of the night, they'll know everyone. The more and more I see these different types of, I think people have a natural tendency towards one or the other. And I think if you ask anyone, I think they'd probably, if they're really honest, it's probably quite obvious from the outside. But asking someone as well, I think would be a good way of...Mark 32:49Do you personality test people then?Jenny 32:51I don't, but, I'm thinking about starting to do it.Mark 32:53Yeah, I know a few people that do that. And it's quite interesting. But then I sometimes think that it's about, it's like you just said actually, if you've got the right people on board, and that in itself is a huge thing, take your time to get the right people and so on. And you want them to grow with you. So why not offer them opportunity? You know, why not go this is us today, and it's almost that visionary piece, and this is a lot of what we would do, is work with, What are you today? Where do you want to go? And now you need to be articulating that clearly to the team. Because if you don't, people will leave, that's proven without a doubt. I mean, there's a lot of surveys out at the moment around this, its lack of communication, lack of clarity of company, which is understandable given the year we've just been on. But what we try and what I'm certainly trying to get our clients to do at the moment is spend time working on what the agency is, where it's going and speaking to the team about it regularly keeping everybody informed.Jenny 33:11Great idea because then everyone feels like they're coming with you rather than fighting against you.Mark 33:52Yeah, hopefully, yeah.Jenny 33:55I think that bit like, just from personal experience, looking back on my career, I was bogged down with spreadsheets. And you know, I was much better at being with people, my communication skills are much better than actually sitting there poring over financial reconciliations, etc. So I just think that this topic is huge, as you say, get the right people. And if they're in the right seats, then the business has a fighting chance of of growing really well. I'm just curious, what types of questions should agency owners be asking you that they don't?Mark 34:31What should they be asking? Oh, goodness. Okay, I've done a lot of pitches over my time before this, before Cact.us and I don't ever get asked about that. I think people think oh he was the accountant and like, you couldn't be creative and so on. And a lot of qualifying out opportunities and working out whether it was right for our firm and for all the rest of it, but people never ask us about if we came up with many innovative ways of pitching or, or even innovative, I suppose upsell sort of opportunities. And what I mean by that is, we came up with this thing, at Grant Thornton actually, I think it was, where we called it the CEO room, because we're not good at branding obviously, you know as accountants, but the CEO room was basically a concept where if you think we were working with mostly some big organisations in Scotland, but also global organisations that happen to have a presence in Scotland, so one for example, had offices I think in Dubai, New York and so on. And so what we came up with, this concept where we get the senior leaders in that company into a room with us, and we would get the top people from audit, tax, whatever it is, M&A, you know, advisory work, and we would just sit and listen and brainstorm, not always sit, but brainstorm around where that company was going. So the company they would tell us like, well, we're in, I don't know, Africa at the moment, and we're thinking of going to Brazil, and so on and blah, blah, blah. And the idea was that, was that we could then sit and listen about all the opportunities that would be for tax planning, or overseas branches. And you know, duty was in most countries in the world. So that in itself bought quite a lot of fee income back to the company, I think that concept.Jenny 36:20Absolutely great idea. And anything else?Mark 36:24Anything else? That they should be asking me that they don't? I can't think of anything else. I can't Jenny.Jenny 36:33No, that's okay. This is so good. And you're delivering some knowledge bombs. And how much visibility of the agency numbers do you think the whole team should have versus just the agency owner?Mark 36:48Okay, so I work with a couple of people. One particular, and I've done some sort of strategy work with the other one is, and they let their team see everything. So like, salaries for everybody, self regulate a little bit. Like, have you read Maverick, the book by Ricardo?Jenny 37:11No.Mark 37:11Oh, you must, that book is a, I'll get it right now. I think it was a family business in Brazil. And the business wasn't doing too well, I think it was a manufacturing business. Anyway, so the son took it on. And he came in with a complete unique way of looking at things. So for example, everybody knew what everybody was getting paid. And this was a big, big company, by the way, they would do a little thing on the door where they would, this is going back quite a few years where they would, you would go in and you would colour tag against your name. So it told everybody going in when they went to clock in, what mood you're in. which I thought was genius. We did a similar thing, once at GT where we did personality profiling, and we had everybody's colours up on their name tag around the office. So when you go round, you could see, all right well, I know Mark's a headcase so I'm not going to speak to him, then. So that was one of the first times I've ever read about this self regulating the pay and so on. And I know two agencies that do that and it seems to work for them. One of them's got, constantly wins, like best culture in the sort of small business section of different things. Very, very open agency. The other one and they're in the UK, the other one is a dispersed agency, a development house where they, they've got people in, I can't remember how many countries around the world, it's not that big, it's probably 15 to 20 people. But again, imagine that one where somebody in the UK could be paid 50 grand versus somebody somewhere else in a different society that's maybe pay 20 for the same job. But it works for them, because they understand that UK living, the cost of living is so much more different, so vice versa, whatever. So it works. Would I do it? I don't know, if I would!Jenny 39:00You've got some good case studies though where it's worked so would you say that you would recommend it?Mark 39:06I don't think I would possibly go to the extremes with the cash flow. Because the cash flow sometimes, although as I said early on, a lot are pretty okay at the moment, that can be a complete stress. And I think that unless you were 100% transparent about everything and everybody understood the commercials and the impact of those and actually, in one of those agencies, they train people on financial the financials as well. So that's probably why it helps, you know, then I don't think I would go personally to that extreme, because I think there are a couple of things you perhaps don't need to share and that pressure almost maybe doesn't, although some people would say that pressure is a good thing, but you can't drive the sales if that's not, you know, is it a good thing? But what I would say is other than maybe the cash flow and probably wouldn't do the salaries, although I've worked, and I've got this sort of gone with a couple of clients at the moment, we're looking at salary bandings, and so and I've worked in places where that's where that's worked and hasn't really caused too many issues at all really. Would I go salaries? Probably not. Would I share everything else? Probably. Because I think the more you hide, the less the team feel they're part of something don't they?Jenny 40:17I agree, yeah, absolutely. Okay, that's good advice. Look, I'm conscious of time. But I do have another couple of questions. In terms of the changes we've seen happening, Mark, I know you were really active on LinkedIn, sharing some fantastic information that you're interpreting really quickly from what the government was talking about in terms of furlough schemes, etc, and grants and aid for agencies. So I know that you've done a lot of work in this area, but what do you see sort of happening now and in the agency landscape in the near future?Mark 40:49Okay. I think there's a few things actually. M&As, obviously, on a lot of people's lips, you're probably hearing that in some of them, if you follow other podcasts, or talks or whatever. But it goes back to what I said earlier on in quite a few agencies and I've got some of these at the moment, I'm doing two deals at the moment where we're probably selling the agencies actually, and another one might be doing a kind of management buyout, which I'm helping on, but people have got money. Some agencies have got a pile of money they've had a CBIL (Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan). They might have just topped that up as well, with a recovery loan that they've been able to get, to get whether it's right on or not, I'm not going to say on this, because it's up to the people individually. But people have got money to spend. And although what I would say on the flip side is, a lot of agencies are doing quite well. So their prices are not going down and a couple we sold towards the end of last year were good good prices, so it's not like you're gonna get necessarily a cheap deal. And if you were I'd probably be thinking, well, why are we buying that? You know, is it the right thing? That's one thing. I think a lot of pipelines at the moment that I see, because we have our own pipeline tool that we've tried to put into agencies and so on, that usually really helps and quite quickly, a lot of opportunities at the specialist agencies, that seems to be coming to the fore a lot more. So if you're a PPC only agency, you know, there's a lot of opportunities to become a dedicated to that. I think the more full service, it's probably a bit trickier sometimes at the moment than the specialists. So that's definitely something I think is changing. And then team, I think this goes back to the vision bit again, there's a lot of turnover of people at the moment. And that's not just people hiring, because there are lots hiring, but actually quite a lot of people leaving. And I think that's, I was doing some reading for a research report meeting last week and it was a Deloitte survey, I think it was last year, saying two out of three people in the marketing space, two out of three people feel that they don't get clear communication on where the agency's going. So for me, it goes back to that, What are we now? Where are we going in the roadmap? Articulate it, you know, quarterly stand ups, monthly emails, or or a quick check in everybody, this is how we're going. And this is your career path. Because there has been quite a lot of churn this year to SaaS businesses that are well funded. Other agencies, people going, well I've had enough of the last year, it's made me think about my career, I'm coming out of the agency game. So as much as this recruitment it's also quite a lot of people leaving, I think that's a challenge at the moment.Jenny 43:19Wow. So that's really useful, what you've just shared actually, the reason for the churn or one of the contributing factors, is the fact that they don't feel communicated with. And it absolutely goes back to what you were saying before about being transparent.Mark 43:32I think it's been, you know, obviously, last year was hard, because I think most owners were like, you know, I got asked on this M&A stuff I'm doing at the moment, can we give them the budgets we did for last year? And the actual results we did. Well to be honest, we were budgeting every three weeks, you know, it was a pain, what's the point, we're changing it every week, because the new scheme is coming in, whatever other clients search, some of the search clients have one of their users working with were coming off a cliff causing all their projects, you know, retainers, so all of that is, it's just created uncertainty. So it was hard, it is hard, isn't it for people to articulate but I think just quickly, the other thing that we've been doing, we've run this mastermind thing recently, we've had 16 agencies as a cohort, we've got five groups go in, we're just about sold out the next one. And what we tried to do for the pre work for that is get everybody to do a Pecha Kucha, if you know what a Pecha Kucha is Jenny?Jenny 44:27Well explain for everybody listening.Mark 44:29So 20 slides, 20 seconds a slide, what is that, I'm the maths person! That's six and a half minutes or whatever. And they're supposed to articulate who they are, what they're trying to do themselves personally, but also their business, where they want the business to go. And we always think that's a critical thing for anybody on this mastermind and we've actually started to do with the clients now because they're weaving it into their creds decks and so on, as quite a quick visual, snappy thing. So a Pecha Kucha for me is if you haven't done one, look it up it's a whole, Japanese for chit chat I think isn't it? Look it up, probably do one because it makes you think about where you'll go in your business. And it's great for the creds. It's great for the creds deck.Jenny 45:08Amazing. Any other final words of advice for an agency leader that we haven't talked about that you think, you know, it's critical to understand if you want to grow your agencies?Mark 45:17Yeah, yeah, actually. So there's two things, I would say. It's one, most people don't have clarity on their pipeline. And I don't mean they don't know what leads a company. They don't have a tool or a process. They have some in the owners email inbox, they have some with the account managers inbox, they have some on the spreadsheet, then they have a SAAS tool that doesn't really tell them it just asks for them to tell you about the stages of how each opportunity is. Doesn't really tell you what's coming in the next couple of months with clarity. So I think a pipe line tool is fundamental. And we've built one over many years, we've evolved over agencies, anybody we work with, we show them now on like day one, or on the strategy day with them straight away or on the mastermind, because it's, to me, it's like the most fundamental tool that they should have in place first. And I think the other bit is, is the vision bit is, is again, we work quite a bit on that with, you asked me earlier on about what we do at the beginning, that to me is a lot of people don't really ever, they don't need to have a three or five year plan, but they need at least a year plan otherwise, what are you trying to go towards? So having that kind of step back and get away from the screens or the office when we're in offices and thinking about where they actually want to go, to a bit around the vision and putting a couple of numbers around that? What's the revenue going to be, what are the number of people? You can guarantee most people will have too many people on it, but then it's a starting point isn't it, is something to aim for.Jenny 46:53You've been talking to me actually, Mark, I'm thinking I need to do that. So that was a real moment of Wow. So I'm really glad you shared that because I'm sure people listening will be thinking the same thing. So Mark, thank you, first of all, for sharing so much value. This has been really sort of eye opening for me. How can people reach you? And who would you like to be contacted by? And what's the best way because I know you've got, it's difficult because you've got so many clients on the go. So I know that your time is limited.Mark 47:27That is fine. So I love speaking to people and hearing their stories like this. So you can email me at mark@cact.us. Funny ending, and, or you can hit me up on LinkedIn. I tend not to accept connections on LinkedIn, I just if people message me, that's just my way of doing LinkedIn, I'm a bit weird. So whether that works or not, Jenny, I have no idea. But I just try to keep it to people I kind of know or have met, but you can send me a message and that's fine, a cover call or whatever. But I'm happy to have a call with anybody and and really, yep, agency owners are often, I've supported quite a lot of finance people in agencies over the years. I probably don't say that enough, actually. So if there's any finance people that think actually I'd be quite interested ito chew the fat over x, y and z if they're whatever, FM or FD or finance controller, whatever, then I'm happy to have a call as well to see if we can help in any way.Jenny 48:22Amazing. Thank you so much, Mark. We'll include those links in the show notes so people can find you straightaway. So thank you so much, Mark. Really appreciate your time.Mark 48:31All right, cheers, Jenny. Take care. 

Transcript:  Jenny  00:01So I'm delighted to welcome Tim Moore to the show. Tim works for a company called Sonin, and he's gonna talk to you in a minute about what Sonin does. But the reason I invited him onto the show today was, I want to do a series of interviews with account managers and directors who have specific expertise and specific areas of specialism within the creative field. So today, I've chosen to speak to Tim because he has a lot of digital understanding. He's been in the area for a long time, and I've asked him specifically to focus on app development. So Tim, welcome. Tim  00:36Thanks. Thank you. Jenny  00:37So would you mind spending a few minutes just talking about you, Tim, your experience? How long you've been at Sonin and what you do at Sonin and also what Sonin actually does? Tim  00:46Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So my experience was actually sales. I kind of, I left University went into sales roles, various different things, started my own company. I ran a company in something completely different, in clothing, actually, yes, in ski and snowboard wear. And I sold that about 11 years ago, 10 years ago. And I came on board because I knew with Simon, because I knew the founder and he knew my background in sales. And so about nine years, I've been with Sonin for nine years now. And I came on board initially for a short period of time to do a bit of sales. I thought six months and set a few things up, for a startup. And then nine years later, I'm still here. Apparantly I'm not allowed to leave now! Jenny  01:39I can imagine, I didn't even know that about your background, that's really fascinating. So in terms of the evolution of what you've seen over the years with Sonin, in those nine years, what did the company start doing? And what does it look like now? Tim  01:52Yeah, it's interesting, actually, because we started, we were born out of a web consultancy, so websites. My MD, Paul, he saw an opportunity in apps. This was pre iPhone, though so the first apps we built were in a Nokia phone, and it was a, first app we built was a Nokia dating app that required Bluetooth, which is a bloody awful idea. You have to be within about a yard of someone and then you got a notification on your Nokia phone. So someone within a yard lights, you know, because they'd be standing next to you. So the iPhone came along and saved us as a business really, and an app development was a good path. But in the early days, we were in all honesty, we were unsure what we were, there was an argument say we were a digital marketing company and a website developer. And over the years, we've just focused and focused, niche, niche, niched. And now we can categorically say for the last few years, we are an app development agency. That's what we do. Jenny  02:47Love it, very clear, very, very specific. And have you helped, before I dive into the rest of questions, have you found that that niche positioning has actually accelerated the business? Has it helped? And if so, how has it helped? Tim  03:00Yeah, yeah, dramatically helped. And it was something that I was completely wrong about. Because we do also build big web based systems, we do quite often the back end of an app. An apps very thin client, doesn't do a lot. And there's some really powerful stuff going on, on some servers somewhere. And we also get really heavily involved in ITand AR and VR and machine learning, all these exciting things. But in terms of how we present ourselves, we're an app development agency and that's a starting point for our clients. And I say I was wrong, I say to them we can't be that focused with our messaging, people won't contact us, that was absolutely wrong. The more we refined our message and who we were, the easier it became to to market us. Jenny  03:50Amazing. Well done. Okay, so I'm gonna probably pick up on the conversation around app development, beacause I'm eager to pick your brains on that. But first of all, let me ask you the question, what do you think makes a great account manager particularly in an in an agency like yours? Tim  04:05Yeah. For us, I know, you obviously wanted to talk to me specifically about app development? I can't help thinking it's kind of universal. It's understanding business. It's understanding the client, their business, what they're trying to do. All we're trying to do is find value in what we do. Gone are the days, early days, people could call us because they needed an app. I remember a big pharma company, you'll know well probably, called and said, 'We need an app'. We said, 'Great, what do you want it to do?' And they'd say, 'It doesn't matter! We need an app!'  Jenny  04:34Classic.  Tim  04:35But those days are long gone, and everyone wants a return and we want to provide it. So that's what keeps our clients coming back. And so the key for account management is understanding the business, their roadmap, their objectives, what they want, what they want to see by the end of the year, what we're gonna see by the end of a project, understanding the business, understanding value. Those things are integral. I can't imagine that's much different from many other industries as well. Jenny  04:57I agree totally with what you said there Tim. I absolutely agree. It's all about having that business acumen, that commercial understanding. And quite frankly, it doesn't matter what you're actually delivering at the end, as long as the problem that you're solving is the right problem. So in order to do that, you have to have an understanding of the business, so you're talking my language completely. So like, to your point about, you know, they used to come to us and say, 'I want an app, I don't quite know why, just do it'. What kinds of problems to clients come to you with now? Like, how do you, what did they see in your offer? What's the conversation that's had at that stage? Tim  05:35Yeah, I'd say why people come to us is quite varied. But the problems they have, they're trying to solve, are universal. I read something a while ago, there's only nine unique business problems, and I can't list them but it was interesting to me. Yeah, I can't remember who it was, but I remember thinking at the time, that's true, you know, we get a lot of people come in. The type of products we build fall into two categories are either enterprise, back end, staff focused apps. So for big, big company, and you've got some logistics problems, or operational problems, or whatever it may be, and you're looking for technology, you're looking to technology solve that. Or they are customer facing ones, they're marketing exercise to a point, they're trying to increase sales or increase revenue. So we internally we say, make money or save money, there's the two categories that people are looking to do. And so they'll come to us because, we work with every type of industry, and they come to us, because they can't communicate well enough. Most recently, a good example, everybody needs a way to communicate that isn't in person. So they need to build in video chat functions into products or live chat, text chat things. Jenny  06:56Okay, amazing. And I love the way you've described that actually, this internal focused- saving you money, for external customer focus -making you money. I love that. That's just so clear. So going back to the account manager role. So the key thing that an account manager has to have is an understanding of the client's business, the commercial acumen. And then what value do you think the account management role can have within the agency? Tim  07:21Within the agency, well I see it very much is a bridge between the two. I did a talk a while ago on what I called the Bow Tie method, essentially, historically, account manager is sat with account manager. So you've got an agency behind you one side, all these people working away, and you've got a client all and you just communicate  through one point. And I said, I like to flip it on its head and open lines of communication across the board and we do. Project managers talk to project managers. In our case, developers talking to client side development teams as well. More communication, the better. The value I see the account management bringing is an understanding, is essentially a representative on both sides with the client it's a representative of the agency and with the agency, it's representative of the client. So if I'm doing my job well, I understand the business objectives, what the client wants to achieve, where the return is going to be. And I also understand the technology to a point. I'm not technical, haven't been, you know, a bit of a crash course nine years ago when I joined, but I understand what technology can do and how you can leverage it. And so somewhere in the middle of those two things, and being the conduit for both. Jenny  08:33You know, that's a great point and I'd love to kind of pick your brain on this one. Because some agencies try to make a decision of whether they should have account management or not. And I know that depending on who you talk to, some people say, well, the account manager, they don't have the technical understanding so how could they possibly hold a conversation with the clients? So I'd love to get your view on that. Because you said, I've got enough technical understanding, I did a crash course. So that's obviously clearly important to an account manager in your industry, particularly. But talk to me about that kind of scenario. What are your thoughts on that? Tim  09:08Yeah, I mean, my clients aren't technical generally. And they want real world solutions they want it described in a real world way, I've got this problem, how are we going to solve it? And I can, I just had a call just now with a new client and they were saying, here's the problem we want to solve, we want to up communication and this is a problem. And the fact that I understand the technology say, 'Okay, well, we could build a function that does this', because I understand the capability and what we can achieve, I couldn't go and build it for them. And I couldn't advise our developers, and we've got blooming great devs that I can put in contact with their development team. That's why I say I like to open the lines of communication. So everyone's talking, they're not trying to, I'm not passing on information and then passing it back and things get lost in the process. Their lead Dev, our lead Dev will have a long chat, and will cover any security questions, any technology, stack questions, any of that that I don't fully understand that will happen anyway. But because I understand what we can do and understand the client, then that's for us. Jenny  10:17That's a great understanding, you've just explained it so well. I mean, so your skills are in the communication skills. And for someone perhaps thinking about getting into an app development company, in the account management role, it's actually quite reassuring to think, well yeah, ofcourse, the people that you initially talk to, at the client side, don't have that deep level of expertise, or experience in technical understanding. But as the project progresses, you can then open up the lines of communication, as you say, introducing your Dev to their kind of technical person, etc. Tim  10:52Yeah, one of the big things I think I learned early on, because I came into the role and a big worry was I don't know enough about technology and I said I went on a crash course, I just read for weeks and weeks before I started the role. I actually found an old notebook, which was reasonably embarrassing, because the type of things I was writing down with, were a little bit up in the air. Jenny  11:11Could you share something? Tim  11:14It was just wrong. In all honesty, it was just stuff I'd read and got backwards. We've got a great team here. That helped me early on. And in fact, I haven't had to use a lot of it. And I think, now that you asked about values, I think a real good value in an account manager, is understanding people and understanding how to pitch things. I've got clients that will actively avoid technology discussions. It upsets them, in all honesty, and they don't want to know, they just want to know solution based real world results. And I've got some, we just had a new client, join a startup who has got a background in development. And he's fascinated in it and really wants to know, and we're doing some clever stuff with the new serverless technology and he's really interested in. Great, but I'm not the man, so I set up a call with our lead Dev and him, and they're happy that we've got it covered. You know, I don't need to know it. I'm sure you say people coming in... I don't see it as a barrier. It certainly hasn't been for me. Jenny  12:22So it's in your people understanding as well, that your ability to communicate well, I mean, you're a fantastic communicator, but also to diagnose what's needed. You know, let me do an assessment, let me gauge what kind of person we're dealing with. And then you make it happen. So, again, fantastic skills for an account manager. Tim  12:41Yeah, I hope so. That's what I aim to do yeah, facilitate. That's largely it. Jenny  12:46So when you do start, talk us through. What happens at the beginning, like, where do you even start when you are going into an app project? Tim  13:00Yeah, it's a huge amount of questions in all honesty, learning. So our process that we have developed over years, and things have changed quite dramatically, you know, in the way you build technology now, when we started 9, 10 years ago, we were still running projects, from a project management point of view, in a Waterfall method, a lot of research upfront, a lot of documentation, six, nine month builds where the client wouldn't see anything until the end, all this stuff. And now, of course, we're fully agile and it's all about collaborative process and understanding. And so we start all of our our projects with a workshop that although is run from our head of project management, our head of design, and it's about, but it's focused on two things. It's understanding business, understanding users, there are two parts to it. And for me, as an account manager it is fantastically useful, because I sit in a room, we invite stakeholders, anyone that wants a say in the product, and that normally is the group of directors, and they sit for a day and they tell us what the business is trying to achieve, how they're trying to get there. And then we do some research, we do some focus groups so we understand the users whether that's internal or external, because you face the same challenges. If it's staff and you deliver a product they don't want to use, they'll find a way around it, they go back to WhatsApp or whatever it is, the process has to be the same. So when we start a project, it's all about, the more understanding we can get the better. A little while ago, we've done a lot of work over the years in understanding where our value is, what our what our company values are, and we came to the conclusion that we want to build the right product. That's our focus. And that sounds a little bit obvious maybe but there are a lot of agencies that will aim to build the most amazing thing you can imagine or the quickest thing or the cheapest thing, we want to do the right thing. So the right thing for the business and the right thing for the users. And the only way you're going to start that process is questions and understanding. The more we understand the better, we can pitch your idea. And the better it is because the next part is then pitching a solution. And if we understand the user completely, that solution is going to end up at the right product, or certainly we hope. Jenny  15:26Great, so you start with the workshop, then you do some, user kind of investigation. And then you pitch the kind of, the idea, the initial idea, and presumably to your point about it's an agile process, what does that first step, that first stage look like? Tim  15:44So the workshop results in the prioritisation of features into a product, into an app. Here are the features that are going to get you the most value and we look to a release point as early as possible. So the business can start getting value back in all honesty. There might be a nine month development road plan but within the first four sprint's there is a deliverable that you could put out and they could start getting value from it and why not? So after the workshop, and we deliver that prioritise sprint plan, commission it, the project managers start work with their project managers, some wireframing, some design bits and pieces before then into sprints. And we don't even anymore design the whole product from start to end, we design the things that are going to affect the first few sprints because businesses change, that's why the agile and working that way is so good, is that if in three months time the business has different requirements, something  changes in the market, we've seen a few changes over the last couple of years, something changes, we can react immediately. The next sprint, which is in 10 days time, can now be this feature that's more important. And the first part of that sprint is a wireframing session and some design work. So yeah. Jenny  17:04Love it, love it. This is really educational for me actually just to understand what your thinking is. Can you give me an example of what might change for the client in terms of, you know, hang on a sec, we've made a change or the business needs something else? What's an example of something that would change? Tim  17:22Yeah, a good example is, a client that I'm working with at the moment, was working for a number of years, and they do repossession of cars, which doesn't sound very romantic. But it's an interesting business they have. And over the last year, the FCA, for example, came out said we can't repossess cars this year. It's COVID, people aren't earning, you can't now repossess cars. So the roadmap that we had, was very much  there, they have a lot of process and protocol, it has to be quite, they don't want to come to somebody house and steal their car away, it's a very soft approach that they take. And they want their staff who repossess those cars to do it in a certain way. So the app that we're building for them was about walking them through that process and a kind of smooth transition. Most of them are not contentious anyway. You've come to an end of an agreement with the bank, they're employed by the bank, and someone's coming to pick up the car that you don't want anymore. So it's fine. But there's a really good example of it. Well, this is happening. But we know, we're up for a tender for a couple of new banks that want to use us. So could we add these features in and spend the next few months building these features that will help us win those tenders you see. Now if we'd been on a six, nine month plan and it had all been planned, we said, well, we can't really we were in build, we've designed the whole thing we know what we're doing and where we are going. Tough. They came to us, we can't repossess cars, can you pivot? Yeah. Within five days, we're now working on the thing that they need. Jenny  19:02Amazing What a great example as well. Well done for bringing that out. That was  fantastic. Do the clients ask you for measurement? Like, is it clear from the beginning of developing an app typically, that you have measures of success or measurable outcomes? Can you predict that far or is it really difficult? Tim  19:23It's absolutely our aim, as I say about delivering value and delivering the right product is what we aim to do. So we build in what we call as a packaged product success. So from those early days, those workshops, we're identifying a user journey. And we're saying here are the pain points in your current user journey and here how we're going to improve them. And we kind of come up with a hypothesis. This is what we think is going to improve, more people are going to be able to move from point A to point B, that's going to reduce this cost. And that could be for a company recently that do industrial floor paints, for example, which doesn't sound exciting, but it was really interesting product, it was about end customers getting quotes that they wanted and getting the support, they wanted to get to those quotes. Currently, it's a manual, pick up the phone, and they wanted to do it through an app. So that's, you know, we can really identify, currently you produce this many quotes, this many sign offs, this many things. With the app, we can monitor the same thing, how many can we get through. And we get so much more analytics, because in an app, your whole journey can be reviewed. How many times you've logged in, how many times you come back, how many times you press a certain button, all of those metrics are there to be gathered. So we do and then we produce a report monthly after the after the products go live to try and prove our hypothesis, we thought we're gonna save you X amount. A good example is a student housing company. They came to us for something slightly different. If you thought about adding rent payments into the app and I said, I'm not sure people are going to use an app to pay their rent. We did some user research and students said, 'Yeah, be happy to, it'd be be easier'. And I think that the first weekend that it went out there was over six figures went through the app in the first weekend of rent payments being available on an app, because there's was an easy solution for them. So we aim to measurable. Jenny  21:15Amazing, can I ask a really silly question, and it's just totally my lack of understanding, so if a company has already got a website, say that student housing, they're already taking the payments on the website? Is it just the natural evolution that they would, you know, want the app as well? I mean, are there companies that just say that they want it web based? Or is it most companies nowadays, always have an app? If they've got any kind of processing? Tim  21:41It's not silly, it's a good question actually because sometimes the solution is web based. And we are open to that solution. And our aim to build the right product might mean no product at all. And we're kind of okay with that because if we, in all honesty, our focus has always been about long term relationships. We've still got some clients we had from when I started nine years ago. That's our focus. And if I build you something that isn't going to give you a return, you're not going to turn into a long term relationship, you're going to go. So apps are really good at task orientated things, get in, get out, do a thing, check your bank balance, book a ticket - really good, because they focus, and they can also hold a lot of data about you. So they know where you are in the world, they know who you are, because you're probably still logged in, all of those things are really handy. What they're not so good at is things like browsing. So if you sell shoes, for example, you're unlikely to go back to an app to browse to buy new shoes, you'll probably go to Google and you'll start a bit of a search, and you'll go on to someone's website. So it very much depends on what you're trying to achieve, again, bit of a broken record, where the value is. And yes, sometimes it's not. Jenny  22:55Interesting. Okay, so it wasn't such a silly question, after all. So that's, that's really interesting. So again, it comes back to what you said at the beginning about understanding the client's business, wanting to make sure that the solution is spot on for them. So that all makes sense. I had another question. It's just gone out of my mind. Are you finding, I mean, you must have seen such an explosion in the number of apps we've seen in the last nine years? Are you finding it that more and more, it becomes more difficult for a client to actually get their users to use an app? Because I'm just thinking about my own experience of my iPhone? And how many apps I've got and I often find myself deleting the ones I haven't used for ages. So I have my kind of go tos, like, I don't know, the banking app or Amazon app, but it gets to a point depending on what the size of your phone's like, that you're trying to just, you know, filter them out? Have you found that you have to work harder nowadays to get an app to be actually used? Tim  23:59Not harder to be used, harder to be seen. When we started, you could put an app in the app store and it would get downloaded, guaranteed, now it gets lost. So harder for that. We have more data now to know that abandonment rates are quite high. And if you do get deleted, you're very unlikely to get re installed. People won't download again and try again. So you know something we preach a fair bit when we're talking to clients that the initial experience has to be a good one. If it's not the right thing people will delete and they won't come back so that's true. And and again, that's why half of our workshop's dedicated to that user, is there value for them? If there isn't, you probably shouldn't spend your money on building it because they'll delete it and it will never come back Jenny  24:43A point about the users actually because you said that you do some user testing. And then once you have like, not the prototype but the the kind of phase one version with the minimal features, do you always have some kind of beta testing stage where you'll choose a group to try it out or not? Tim  25:02Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely the aim, it largely depends on our clients and what they want to do. The focus is always to try and test it. And we will take, ideally, and often the case, if we've done a focus group on the initial features and what we're trying to build, once it's built, we take it back to the focus group and check off that it is what they want, and they are going to use it. Some projects, we've been lucky enough to do some really quite large scale beta testing. We built an app for a insurance company, for a big car insurance company that was around, when you've had an accident, you open the app, and it walks you through the process of what you now need to do. And so it kind of hold's your hand at what is the most stressful time, a really interesting discovery session for us because, we spoke to people, it is one of the most stressful times, you've just crashed your car. How do you want to be presented with information? And that was fantastic, because we actually got to set up some fake car crashes with the insurance company. So there's a scene and you put someone in the car essentially, and said, right, you've just had this accident, here's your phone, the app to the insurance company on the phone, go, what do you do next? And we got to run a full scale test for a couple of days and get the results out of that and see how they used it. That was a particularly good one. Jenny  26:24That must be quite exciting. So you get involved in all different types of industries and scenarios.  Tim  26:30Yeah.  Jenny  26:30Amazing. And in your role as account director, how much of it do you get involved in? You know, you said at the beginning, you're very much there at the front end, you're there at the workshop with the project manager and the head of design I think you said, but how does the role work? Tim  26:51I mean, I'm there throughout. I don't know whether I'm slightly different because when I came on board with Sonin there was only a few of us, and so I've kind of moved through different roles within the company, always with the sales and looking after our accounts as the main part of it but putting in a project management function, and then employing people that could actually do project management, which is not me. So I'm potentially involved more than another account manager would be in certain things but because we work in an agile way, because we're delivering, we aim to deliver something every 10 days, whether it's some screenshots or a video walkthrough, whatever it may be, so our clients consistently see that we're building what they want. And so I, as an account manager, I get to see that every 10 days, so from the workshop, post live with all of that success stuff I talked about, about how we monitor performance, it's kind of the whole thing, really. Jenny  27:53Amazing. Okay, and to that point about continuing to catch up with clients, do you have any kind of quarterly business reviews or ongoing strategy sessions? Like, how does that work? Tim  28:05Yeah, absolutely. Contact is key. The more contact I have with clients the more I understand them. People are, in general, quite polite. And if they're not sure about something, they've seen something they don't quite like they probably won't say anything. And if they see it again, again they probably won't. And then by the third time, they're really angry, and they're going to, you know, burn the house down. So if I've spoken to them within that period of time, then they'll probably say 'Oh that thing' and we get to solve the solution together and it doesn't escalate. So I do two things, I try and stay in contact as much as possible, and then put in some, essentially quarterly business review. Some clients, it's more like a monthly and then it's an update on more high level things. Again, back to business objectives. In the meantime, I try to take away their business objectives, look at the market, look at competitors, see what they're doing, and provide some some value back to them. So that on those reviews, we're kind of pointing to where they should go. That's the aim. Jenny  29:19Some great value bombs there that you've just shared for other account managers in terms of Yeah, because you're right, I mean, the more frequent you have those touch points, the more opportunity the client has to share any grievances or feed back to you. And then again, those ongoing forums that you have with those clients enable you to continue shining in their eyes, you know, because you are at the cutting edge of what's changing, and all of that insight that you can provide not only about your industry, but also the client's industry and other competitors, etc. So fantastic tips for account managers that might be listening thinking how do I you know, keep giving ongoing value, and what for you Tim, makes a really successful client, agency relationship? Tim  30:05I might repeat myself again really here, it's the understanding piece. I think it was the marketing director of Kellogg's and it was, he was speaking at an event, and you may have seen it actually, but it was about new business. And someone said, as a salesperson, 'How do I get to you, you're the marketing director of Kellogg's, I want to sell to you. How do I get to you?' and he said, 'Know more about my industry than I do. Know about my business as much as I do and have a fresh idea, have an add'. And that really stuck. And I kind of think the same for our clients is, know about their industry, know about their business and come with new ideas they haven't thought of that will help them. And if I keep doing that, they'll probably keep working with us. Jenny  30:55Love that and that guy that asked that question in the audience, he probably felt crushed at that moment, didn't he? Because actually, the question was wrong. You know, how can I sell to you? How can I get to you? But actually, it's more about what value can I bring to you? Tim  31:09Yeah, it was a really good lesson for me, because I think occasionally you get lazy and you think I could, you know, we've just done some interesting work in AR, I could go and pitch an AR app design. So I could call them up they'd want to do something in AR. Do I understand, have I spent the time, have I put the work in? Do I know their business? Do I know what they're trying to do this year? Because you can burn relationships an awful lot quicker than you can make them. Jenny  31:33Absolutely 100% agree, because people buy for their reasons, not yours. You know, if you're going in with your story, your your creds deck your ideas, but actually you haven't diagnosed first, then you absolutely run that risk I think, I totally agree with you. So what advice would you give Tim, if someone's listening to this and thinking, I love the sound of what Tim's working on? How would I, what advice would you give to someone trying to get into the app development space, from an account management point of view? Tim  32:05For a company like ours that doesn't specialise in an industry, some do, most I don't think, I would say read as much as you can, understand business, how businesses work, what their objectives are. A CEO will release a statement at the beginning of the year, and tell everyone what they're trying to do quite often, you can find the information out and the more you can understand business problems and how people are solving them, the better place you are to help solve them in a business like ours. Definitely read about technology, you have to love technology, I do. I love it. I love new technology, I love reading about new technology. Like I said, I'm not technical, I can't do the work but I can see an opportunity in something. You know, over the years, a lot of things have been released, the Apple Watch came out and instantly you can see 10 things you could deliver for a client to help them, because you sit there and watch the cheesy Apple developer conference, reading and learning, reading about businesses, learning about technology, that's the place I'd start. Jenny  33:06Brilliant. So do you typically attract the people that are kind of those early adopters to new technology? Can you say that most people that work there are of that kind of mindset? Tim  33:17Yeah, we employ for it. We employ, we want to see some people, some passion, you know, from our development team. If they've built their own thing somewhere, and they've got passion for it. Love it. And we have days throughout the year where we close the agency every day and do a Sonin Create where we give them a brief and they can go and build what they like. And the whole team's involved, not just the Devs. So where if you thought, I'd be really interesting if you could do something with Bluetooth that, well we have, where when you get in the lift the coffee machine starts because they know who you are, because the app on your phone and the Bluetooth device, so a passion for technologies is quite key. Jenny  34:04Amazing. Do you have anything else like that? That sounds quite space age to me right now. But what other things do you have typically in your agency that kind of highlights how much you love the technology? Tim  34:17Well, the guys are always building their own products and bringing them in. So you know when when machine learning, artificial intelligence kind of started cropping up in a more achievable manner so you didn't have to write your own AI. You could use IBM released Watson, which was their kind of off the shelf option. We've got a client that has the print design, so they're a company that sell websites essentially to print designers so everything you buy is probably done by a design company that they then sell to the company that print it on that bit of fabric, another strange client. And they list 10s of 1000s of images weekly and people sit there and they press buttons. So you know, that is a floral print and it's a this type of print. And the guy said, you know, we could do something with AI and we gave them a few days leeway. And they used IBM Watson and you sent it a bunch of images, and it sent you back those images tagged to say that is a floral print, because the machine learnt what it what we fed it, all the data we had, and it learned. And then we get to go back to clients who've haven't done a thing, potentially save you hours and hours and hours.  Jenny  35:30Wow, wow, wow, this is very compelling stuff, isn't it? I mean, would you say that for most businesses, if they said to you, you know, Tim, help us kind of save money or make money, there would be some technological solution that would enable them to do that. Tim  35:46Yeah, yeah. I believe so. Yeah. I mean, sometimes, you know, we're prepared that it might not be an app, which is largely what we do, like I said, and potentially something they could do in house you know, and we're not averse to that either if they could develop whatever they have further. But, I said, there's some core business problems, I think, if you have them, then I think, I believe you can fix them with technology. Jenny  36:14Great point. And what other trends have you seen in the app space? Tim  36:19Trends in the app space? Well, I say most recently has been all about reducing human  contact. So face to face interactions phasing out, with a video call now not in person and that's been everything. That's staff, people not in offices. So just in the last year, there's been, everything we do has had a tinge of that, somewhere where people aren't meeting, so now we have to, so that's big. The other areas that we work in, that've come up over the last nine years that I've been doing it, is things like FinTech. So open banking has become a thing, you can now get access to your account data. So you can do some really cool things with that. We're working in prop tech space as well. A lot of  historical kind of industry is now looking to technology, looking to apps to help them because you got a whole host of residents in a property and you want to manage that, then an app where you open lines of communication, where you get to send images and text and communicate better is massively advantageous nesting that. So it's in the digitalization of those historical kind of businesses, we're seeing a lot of the moment Everyone thinks that every client I speak to says, 'We're so far behind'. But every industry is really, there's a couple that are leading the way and the rest aren't. Jenny  37:50Amazing. Yeah, I can imagine because they probably think, oh, we should have done this years ago or something. But you know, and actually, right, the pandemic has just accelerated everything, isn't it? I mean, it would you say that you haven't slowed down during this time, because out of most agencies, your services, particularly are... Tim  38:10Last year, in all honesty, when everyone kind of left their offices we did, and things slowed down. And then towards the end of last year, and certainly since vaccination things, and this year, it's gone bananas, it really has. Everybody coming back realising that maybe they've lost the best part of the year. And as a business, they still need to achieve the same targets as they ever had. So yeah, all of our clients have been wanting to do more and our new clients coming in at a faster rate than we've seen before. And to try and use technology to solve some of the problems. Jenny  38:43I can believe that actually, in what you do. So this has been amazing, Tim, you've shared so many tips and values. So have you got any final words of wisdom for someone who's in the account management role? And they are, thinking about working in the area of app development, any kind of thing that we haven't covered that you think might be useful for them to know? Tim  39:04I don't think anything I haven't covered. I think, learning technology and learning the business. I think reading people is important. And I think observing people and understanding the different types of people is equally important. And I find technology is an odd one. It's not something, you said that, it might be a silly question and you were kind of nervous to ask, and that is absolutely what I see all day. People are a bit scared and they don't want to seem silly, and they think they should probably know it although they shouldn't. So understanding people and trying to second guess the questions they want to ask that they're not asking, seems quite important. People work with us on commission things if they trust us, of course and if they understand what we're trying to achieve and if you can understand this objective, understand the technology, pitch the best thing in the world if people don't quite understand it, and don't really trust it, and they're probably not going to sign off on it. So identifying what type of person you're talking to, where your commonalities are, and how to present something to them is, I think it's probably the third part of what I try and do. I'm certainly not an expert at it but I try and teach things at the level of someone I'm talking to. Jenny  40:26Do you know what, I'm so glad you finished off on that point because you're so right. And I'm sure like me, you know, there's that nervousness for looking silly and not being up to date enough. And what you just said was so funny. I see this all the time. So we're not different. So for you to be in that position of first of all, spotting something and then tailoring your approach and making people feel really comfortable because I think that's what you're talking about really isn't it, making people feel safe and understood. And absolutely, yeah, love it. Thank you so much, Tim. This has been brilliant. How people get hold of you if they're interested in learning more about Sonin and what you do? Tim  41:05Yeah. Our website is sonin.agency. That's us. Jump on there. And everything's on there, all our contact details are there. And you can see some of the work we've done as well. Jenny  41:16Fantastic. All right. Thanks so much again, this has been absolutely brilliant. So maybe we can do a part two at some point.  Tim  41:23I'd love to. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. 

Transcript:Jenny  00:04So today, I'm delighted to have my brother Matt, to talk about managing others for the first time. And the reason I've invited him on to talk to me about this subject is twofold really. One, because agency account managers have been asking me about this for a long time. So I'm teaching them how to grow an account. But there's this other skill that they need, which is, as as they get more senior in the agency, they need to be able to manage people well. And they often question whether they're doing the right things. So it's a skill that I think's missing. I'm not the expert in this area. But my brother Matt is and he's been training people for 20 years. And the second reason is, that I'm going to feel more relaxed asking him questions because I, whilst I've been managing people for years, I've never actually had formal training. So I think during this session, it might turn into a bit of a therapy session of the things that I should have done better, being a people manager. So Matt, can we start off just talking a bit about you briefly, your experience and how you help new managers?Matt  01:12Yeah, thank you. Nice to be here. Hopefully, it doesn't get into a therapy session, people are going to switch off. But yeah, so I've been in manager or leadership trainer for around about 20 years now. So what I do is offer a lot of different courses, mainly around management and leadership. But some of them kind of drift into interpersonal skills as well. And so what I do is I coach some new managers in their kind of transition to being a manager. And also, when we had face to face training, I did a lot of face-to-face training with new managers and new leaders and some senior leaders as well. Now it's more online so I'm in online virtual world now. So I've worked in a lot of different companies as well.Jenny  02:03Okay, brilliant. So let's start off because I really would love this episode, to be lots of takeaways for people who are listening to this thinking they're either in managing position, or they're thinking about transitioning. So what are some of the biggest changes that people have to make when they transition into a position where they have to manage other people?Matt  02:24Yeah, I think sometimes, people think they have to have a personality change. I have to change my personality, because now I've got this role. But I think it's the opposite is true. It's being yourself, because if other people see that you've changed, you've got that kind of phrase where people 'You've changed', and you get that kind of stigma attached to you. So you don't need to change. But I think one of the things that I found with a lot of questions I have in courses, is now that they are now managing their friends, how does that work? And I always think it's good to have some kind of informal chat with people. And just to say, how have you found this change now, and try to address the elephant in the room really, because sometimes, we don't. And when it comes to giving feedback later on down the line, it can be awkward. So if you've already addressed it and said, 'Look, there's going to be times when I'm going to give you feedback, and you've got to give me feedback, I don't want it to be awkward. So let's, when it comes to it, hopefully that helps'. But I think changing your personality or feeling that you should, is the wrong way to go with it.Jenny  03:47That's really good advice, because I'm just thinking of the experiences I've had in the past where you're in a team, and then one of you gets promoted above the team. And there might be resentment, mightn’t there, from the team members thinking, 'Well, I wanted to get promoted'. So how do you even begin to tackle that one?Matt  04:10Yeah, exactly. I do think if you're open and you're supportive to those people, maybe they went for the job as well. So if you're supportive of them, and you're open to talking with them, not having a pen and paper in front of you recording what they're saying, it's just an off the cuff, maybe in a coffee shop, just to have a catch up, one to one and see how they're getting on. And hopefully, that will help build rebuild the relationship.Jenny  04:39Do you know what, that is such good advice. And I remember kind of giving other people similar advice, just go and have a coffee, sit down and just have an informal chat about it. And then that kind of relaxes everybody doesn't it? You know, just having that one on one, 'How are you feeling about this' and 'How are we going to manage this moving forward?' maybe, I don't know. But that's great advice.Matt  05:00Yeah, just make sure that the channels of communications are open. I think that's the first thing. I was just gonna mention, it can be quite tricky for people who, you've just been working on your own, and you're very task focused or project focused. But now you have this responsibility of dealing with a team and dealing with all the different, maybe issues and problems with each person, can be quite overwhelming. So it's just to be aware that there's going to be some time when you're going to have to be spending more time with people, it's getting that balance of, okay, where do I spend my time? Is it on task? Or is it on people? And this should be a balance there. And I think when you first become a manager, that's difficult.Jenny  05:48That's such a good point. Did you have people asking you the question like, what is the right balance are people that specific, they want to know what percentage of their day should be task? And what...?Matt  05:58Yeah, I do. And that's a tricky one to answer. Someone on my last course, said, how much time do I need to spend all this management stuff? And that's really difficult to answer because it depends on how many people you have in the team. And it also depends what industry you're working in as well. Yeah, that's a tricky one to answer.Jenny  06:22What do you see are the biggest mistakes that people make when they're transitioning to managing other people for the first time?Matt  06:31I think one thing is, a new manager wants to do a good job, and they want to hit the targets, they want to get to the objectives. And what I see from people is that they take on too much. And they become overwhelmed. And one of the reasons I feel that's behind that is that they want to be able to answer questions, they want to be able to deal with situations and problems. And what that can lead to is a habit that the team come to them for the answers to everything. So if you're getting that as a habit, if you're getting people coming to you all the time, you will be overwhelmed. And people expect that from you. So you almost become the guru. Unbeknown to you.Jenny  07:20I am going to confess something here. Because I think I fell into that trap myself, right. And it wasn't until I was being coached by someone else that they pointed that out. Because I had this open door policy when I was like leading publicists and quite frankly, I loved helping. And I still love helping people. But what I didn't realise was that having this open-door policy meant that I was always receiving questions and being dragged into situations where I didn't need to be. So I was kind of involving myself involuntarily. And it wasn't until my coach pointed out, because, like you said, I got overwhelmed, I was frazzled and ended up staying there really late to catch up on my work in the evenings. And that was a downward spiral. And my coach said to me, 'Well, you're getting your needs met'. And I was kind of slightly horrified at that thinking, 'Oh, my God', it was like a bit of a shot in the stomach, but he was right. You know, I love helping, so I'm putting myself in a position where I'm being able to help people. But as a result, I'm not doing my job. And he was harsh, but true.Matt  08:29You can fall into that rescuer position, where you want to rescue everybody. And you see other people as the victim almost, 'Oh you've got too much work, give it to me'. And sometimes that satisfies our needs, our needs of the knight in shining armour - I can rescue you. And also it's love. Love as well comes into it. You know, because you feel loved. Because people need you. It's like that needing.Jenny  08:57I'm feeling more bad about myself the more we talk about it. And what other mistakes do you see people making when they're managing other people?Matt  09:06I was just gonna say also you know you said about an open-door policy and when you say that to the team, 'I've got an open-door policy', how many people actually come through the door or get in contact with you? Do you go out and approach them? That's what I'm getting at. So it's not like, oh, guys come to me, it's open door. But then waiting for them to come to you can be tricky, because they might not come to you.Jenny  09:36Or the same people come to you, like the same people.Matt  09:40Just in general, the whole team really. You know, sometimes people say I've got an open- door policy, come and see me whenever you need me. And then a lot of managers leave it at that. But then why not get out and see them?Jenny  09:56I was thinking where you going with this? So basically what you're saying is, it's wrong to say that. I mean, nowadays most often, no one has an office nowadays it's all open plan. But what you're saying is, and this is something I read in a book about management, was where the leader would always come in and talk to everybody in the room, you know, acknowledge them and know their name or ask out and it was just that personal touch. And I just think that's really important, when you're managing other people, just to be that kind of, I'm not saying all day, every day chatting to people in the office, but certainly to be approachable and have that personal touch.Matt  10:37Yeah, definitely. And I think it does feed into making people feel comfortable with you and the environment they're working in. You know, one thing that we were talking about was, if you have people that are different from you, they might be more perhaps introverted, and you're perhaps more extroverted. And it's appreciating that they bring different things to the party. The other way around as well, if you're more the extroverted person, and you're in the team, then the manager should allow for that, because you have different qualities that you can bring to the team as well. You know, it shouldn't be that if I'm introverted, and everyone else should be introverted, you know, don't don't make a noise, that kind of thing, you know, if we work in an office environment that is, but I think the whole essence of what we're talking about is being appreciative of other people's strengths and what they bring.Jenny  11:29That's so true. And are you saying that it's better to adapt your own style to suit? Because, you've got to be a bit of a chameleon, haven't you when you're managing different types of characters, different kinds of personalities? And I am just conjuring up ideas of being managed in the past when, you can think about a manager that only respected people that were like them, that had their style. And didn't spend time with the ones that were, I don't know, less, extroverted, for example.Matt  12:04Yeah, it's like, having an appreciation of maybe adapting slightly. I'm not saying you have to change completely, because that's unreasonable. And also, you're going to spend a lot of energy doing that. And it's not, that's not sustainable. So it's having an appreciation about how other people work as well. So some people, if you look at communication styles, perhaps everyone's heard of communication styles, some people need more detail, some people need less detail. Some people need to just run with something. Some people need a bit more direction maybe. Just moving on from communication styles, you could think about leadership styles as well. If you have somebody that's new in your team, what do they need from you? And certainly, if you leave them alone, and don't really give them any direction, they're going to perhaps fail. So you know, this is like a guy called Ken Blanchard, he came up with situational leadership. And this is basically what we're talking about, if you have somebody else who's got a lot of experience, maybe as good competency levels, I may perhaps approach them differently, may give them a bit more autonomy or hands off approach to them. So it's having an appreciation of who you have in your team as well.Jenny  13:22So how do you make that assessment as to which style you choose to manage someone else?Matt  13:28Yeah, there's different styles. Obviously, without some kind of visuals, it's difficult for people to take in. But he talks about motivation levels and competency levels. And you can perhaps have an indication about where people are, and also, how do I approach them? So it talks about direction, coaching, supportive style and delegation style, which is a bit more hands off.Jenny  13:56Okay, so you've got to assess kind of how competent are they in this particular task? And therefore, what's required here of me? Do I have to be a little bit more direction? You know, give him a bit more direction? Or can I just coach? So that's a really interesting, and I think a great takeaway is to think about how competent that person is in that particular task.Matt  14:17Yeah. And the other thing is ask them as well, where do they think they are? You know, because you could, if we are just guessing, that's not gonna be great. If you can ask them as well, you might be able to get some kind of 'What you need from me?' You know, some kind of assessment of where they are, and then you'll know, so ask them as well don't just observe.Jenny  14:37And I suppose again, from my own experience, if you then start giving too much direct direction to someone who's actually quite competent in that task, then you're micromanaging, aren't you?Matt  14:49Yeah, they're gonna feel like they're being micromanaged. And we all know what that feels like.Jenny  14:55And similarly on the other end of the spectrum, leaving someone to just kind of fail, not setting them up for success, saying, okay, so it's the first time you've worked on a pitch, for example, do this, this and this, go and do it. And then they come back and haven't been able to do it because they've never done it before. And then you get sort of irritated with them or something that, again, setting, not choosing the right style is it?Matt  15:20Yes, exactly. And also people can regress as well. So they may lose a bit of competence. And the problem there is that the manager is treating them exactly the same as they treated them before. But they, the person has changed. And we need to have that in the back of our mind as well.Jenny  15:35So it's like, a new face?Matt  15:37Yeah, exactly. It's a lot of adapting.Jenny  15:39So when people come to your course, they want to be managing other people for the first time, what kinds of questions do they have for you typically?Matt  15:58A lot of people come to the course, one of the most common questions is that they've started as a manager, they're doing the managerial things. And also, they're trying to cover some of the work they were doing before, which is obviously tricky, and they're going to become overwhelmed by that. And I guess one of the things is to have a conversation with a senior, whoever that is, to understand priorities, and put it on their radar. But I do think that a lot of people miss out on using some coaching skills, the basic coaching skills. In coaching, we talk about push and pull. So push is giving information. And then pull is asking good questions for that person to think about the answers, and if they've thought about the answer, they're more than likely to perhaps do it. So as we spoke about earlier, the person who becomes overwhelmed because they are now the guru, this is another good way of, of perhaps just asking a few questions, and letting that person go with it. If they've been trained, and they kind of know the answer, you're teasing it out of them, rather than them coming to you all the time. So it kind of feeds into the to the other question as well.Jenny  17:13So can you give us an example of a push question and a pull question?Matt  17:19Okay, so what I mean by push is you're giving information.Jenny  17:26Oh, sorry.Matt  17:26So, if someone comes to you and says, 'When does that report have to be in by?' then you're just giving the answer. Right? You give me the deadline, that's it. Or 'What's the kind of structure that you would want for this report?' And I give them the answer. But if it's something that's coming up all the time, I may ask them, 'What what do you think?' So what I mean, so our natural impulse, maybe that's not a great example, but our natural impulse is to give answers to people. And we've got to try and counteract that a little bit by asking questions, to draw it out of others, because that people grow, and they learn for themselves if we can do that. And I know probably what you're thinking there's, maybe, there's no time for it. See what I mean, so because people say I haven't got time for that, I haven't got time for a quick conversation. It doesn't have to be quick. It doesn't really doesn't have to be quick. And there are times where you can you just give an answer. Because it's time critical or something. But we have to try and think about well, how can I start asking questions and getting other people to feel empowered to come up with his answers.Jenny  18:44So it doesn't have to take a long time you mean, it doesn't have to be a huge conversation. And one of the things, I don't know if this is helpful, but often when I speak to account managers who maybe have a problem in the agency, and maybe it just means that they have to have a conversation with their boss, for example, I say, think of it in three columns. Just think about like, 'What's the problem?' in one column, like 'What's the challenge you've got? what's the what's the issue you have?' And the next column I say, 'How's that impacting? What's the impact on the business maybe or impact on others or impact on you? Like, what's the impact?' And then 'What are your suggestions?' next column. So what's your ideas to resolve it? Because that way, you're going in more of an empowered way to your boss, so that they don't have to think about this from scratch. And in a way if, and I suppose I got this years ago when a boss said to all of us, said you know, we're already busy when you come with a problem. Think of a couple of solutions for me, so we can quickly discuss the solutions that you see, that could work, rather than me having to think about the problem for the first time. Then try to come up with a solution. So I think that's good practice. What do you think?Matt  20:04You know, it's absolutely, they have that in hospitals. And nurses use it. When the nurse has to report something, they have a structure. And this is, I mean, I can't remember off the top of my head now, but they do have a structure. And I think it's really good to have that. And so that person knows, you know, if I do come to you, I've got something here ready. Ready, prepared. Yeah. And maybe I can put that in a link or something?Jenny  20:33That would be great. Yeah, that'd be really useful. So what do you think like the top three things that you should consider, when you want to be managing other people? Like the essential skills that you should have?Matt  20:49I think, first of all, it's the impact you are making through your behaviour. So the perception of you, you have start to become self aware, like, what am I putting across to people, because some behaviours are almost a green light for others to have the same behaviour. Yeah, so I've got to be aware of what I'm doing basically and become more self aware. I was coaching somebody a few months ago and they were telling me a story about, they used to have this feedback of when they looked up, or they were on a zoom call, or, or trying to talk to other people, their facial expression was really quite harsh. And the perception was that they were angry. And it wasn't that, it was like they were concentrating. So when when you think about what you give out, it's really important. And there was a really interesting study that was done by a guy called SG Basade, I believe, I have to be careful how to say that. But he did a study around mood and how mood translates to other people, and particularly managers. And through his research, he found that if the manager had a really kind of a good mood, I don't want to say you know, they're positive...Jenny  22:31That they're juggling..Matt  22:35Comes in on stilts, juggling at the same time! Yeah, but no, he found that that boosted productivity, basically, the team felt a bit more comfortable. And the opposite was true, if they come in with a low mood, maybe a little bit negative. And they found that that there was a link to productivity came down. I mean, it sounds very obvious. I know.Jenny  22:59But it doesn't in a way, because when you're managing other people, you don't even think about these things. It's almost like getting yourself into a different state. And being aware that like, put your woes and worries to one side, because your mood is just gonna infiltrate someone else's day, frankly, isn't it? And, two things, I think another confession time, I think I was guilty of that, again, because I was so stressed out and busy myself. And I was managing other people. So for example, I was typing on my computer, someone would come up to my desk, and I'd look up and go, 'Yes!' you know, like not angry, angry, but I would kind of look up with not a happy face. And people would sort of go 'Whoa!' you know, and you don't want to inflict that on people. And the second thing I say is a bit of a tip that you've just shared, is because we are in the virtual world, there is a there is an opportunity to record yourself on Zoom. And I said this to a group the other day, and because I do it almost all the time because most of my sessions are recorded, I played it back and I did not crack a smile for the first 45 minutes. And I looked like I was not angry, but I just looked a bit serious. And I wasn't feeling serious. But that mood, you know, God knows how it kind of infiltrated the group. But I think that's a really good tip. Really good tip.Matt  24:24Now I'm really paranoid that I haven't smiled.Jenny  24:26Yeah, exactly. Miserable git!Matt  24:32Yeah, the other thing I wanted to say is, making sure that you create an environment where people can come to you, and that feeds into your mood as well, but that's, you know, that's another thing. But there's a lot of talk around psychological safety now. And this originates from a study that Google did on their most successful teams. It's all out there. If you Google this, it's out in the internet. But they found that people who had psychological safety in a team were more likely to give ideas, they're more likely to bring up things which perhaps are a little bit uncomfortable, and maybe, say what was on their mind or how they felt about something. And in a positive way that can help the company and the manager because you know what's actually happening in the undercurrent of the team, rather than everything going underground. You know, everybody after work, bitching about what's going on at work,Jenny  25:39Which happens, right, let's be honest, which happens all too often doesn't it, frequently? I mean, I even get it myself, like the confidentiality is, really important to me. But I end up working with account managers, who will share with me how they're really feeling about the leadership team, for example, and the leadership team have no idea that this is the impact that they're having. And you're right, it's like these two kind of worlds going on in one company. There's the reality of how everybody's sort of, 'Oh God, here he goes again', and what the perception is from the leadership team like, how do you stop that happening? How do you make sure that the whole company has psychological safety and they feel encouraged to speak their minds and maybe fail? I mean, I think one of those findings wasn't it from that study, that you could  admit you made a mistake and not feel you were going to be you know, ridiculed?Matt  26:37Yeah, I think it's the fear of the repercussion of something happening. And it's a really difficult one. I mean, I think it starts with the manager, really. I mean it does, let's face it, it does start from above, the likelihood of that, starting from above, I'm not too sure about but for definitely, the new managers, they can really think about, well how do I set this out? How do I make sure people feel comfortable. And a lot of people think it's quite soft, but it's not soft, it's actually dealing with maybe more sensitive things as well, you know, things that need to be said, so giving feedback to other people. But making that to be quite comfortable, and quite normal to give feedback and receive feedback as well. But for the manager, you have to be quite vulnerable really, you have to show a bit of vulnerability. And that's not to mean that you come in and you say, 'Guys, I'm completely rubbish all the time', because that's going to have a real effect on you. But you know, if you've made a mistake, then you admit, 'I've made a mistake, I've been in the same position as you'. See what I mean? So you're showing a bit of vulnerability.Jenny  27:53Right, which gives people more of a feeling that they can feel comfortable doing the same thing. So setting the lead, setting the tone and do the behaviours that you want to see in your team.Matt  28:05Yeah, and the other thing is, like having shared values as well, within the team. You know, what do you expect from your team members? What can you expect from me? So you've got some kind of working behaviours that people can adhere to. You know, that's a little exercise you can do.Jenny  28:24That's a great idea. Would you suggest that that's done in a kind of workshop environment?Matt  28:28I mean, ideally, yeah. But, you know, in this virtual...Jenny  28:34...virtual workshop...Matt  28:35Yeah, absolutely. And it doesn't need to be hours and hours. It's just, what do you expect from each other, what you expect from me? What are things that are blockers that we can perhaps, identify, and work on?Jenny  28:48I'm almost thinking about doing the session, because I did a very similar session once, years ago, in an office, and we had loads of post it notes. And there were three or four columns and there were questions. And it was such a brilliant exercise, everyone was really engaged, and I think it was, I think you helped me with that one. And it was like, 'What are the behaviours that we want to see in our team?' And oh, my goodness, there was so many ideas and you can use Miro, couldn't you now, in a virtual environment to do the same thing? So that's a brilliant tip.Matt  29:23The other one I was going to say is like being comfortable giving feedback, because that can be really awkward.Jenny  29:30How do you even go about giving feedback? Because I'm sure everyone's leaning in thinking, I need to give someone some feedback. How do I even start?Matt  29:38Well there are structures out there that you can get prepared to give the feedback. I mean, this is a big session in one of the courses that we do, it's really thinking about, think about the person. So, some people are quite sensitive to feedback and some people are, bring it on, that's their kind of attitude, doesn't really matter what it is. But I think a little bit of preparation needs to happen. And there's a few structures, obviously, as I mentioned. But I do think it's got to be done in like a way, which is a care way, a supportive way. But also take into consideration that you're taking responsibility for it as well. So a guy called Marcus Buckingham, he talks about this, he says, a lot of feedback is quite subjective. So you've got to show or say that it's coming from you. Things like, 'Here's how I see it, here's how I see it'. You're not saying, 'Here's how we see it'. So there's a difference. And making it factual. If it's pinned to a process, or something that the company has as a policy, then that's easier to give, because it's there, it's written down. But being, other things are more subjective. I do think we obviously have to give a balance, you know, we have to make sure that get people get praise. But the constructive stuff, you can't dodge it. Because, a lot of people will actually save up constructive feedback for the kind of one off performance review once a year. Which is pretty horrendous. You know, when you get into that review and all of a sudden, you've got somebody saying that last March, you did this. When was that? You can't remember yesterday! And so it kind of depletes the impact of the feedback.Jenny  31:48So can I just pause for a bit because I just want to summarise, this is really useful. So when you're giving feedback use 'I' rather than 'We'. And absolutely, when you really think about it, otherwise, the person's going to think 'Who is this We?' Like, who are all these people that have kind of been talking about me and corners and whispering? And they might get some feelings of paranoia, wouldn't they? So that's a really good tip,  just that tip alone And then sort of, carry on.Matt  32:15Yeah, the obvious ones are, not in front of other people. Every time I say that, I just feel it's so obvious. But I do hear other people say that that actually happens to me!  It's not obvious. Okay. Let me, another confession. Well, it's my boss. Like we had an internal meeting, I remember it to this day. And he asked a question to the room, and I thought I might have an answer. And  I was quite Junior, I'd never spoken up in my life in a meeting, internal meeting. I was totally intimidated. Even thinking about what I wanted to say my face, glow hot red, but I thought Nope, go on Jen. Do it. Do it. Put your suggestion forward. Anyway, so I gave my suggestion. He turned to me and said, 'That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard'. On my life. He said that, right? Honestly, my face was burning. My heart rate was right up. I felt awful. Like talk about someone pulling the rug from underneath your feet. I mean, in hindsight, obviously, that was awful, shitty thing for him to do. But what did it encourage? It encouraged my future behaviour, never to speak up in a meeting, never to put forward an idea, because you're going to feel awful and it was humiliating, quite frankly, in front of everybody. Exactly. And then what he's doing really, is conveying the message that that is okay to do that as well. You know, to other people. So then you're kind of building a culture of well never say anything, because you're going to get the same treatment as Jenny got. So yeah, you're building that culture, which is quite negative thing. Okay, where do we get to? Oh, yeah. The other thing I wanted to mention is being aware of the feedback sandwich. I mean, this can be, I'm not gonna say to completely dismiss it because in some situations, like, if you've got a specialist who's working and been experienced, they just say, 'Okay, well give me the feedback. What is it good or bad? What is it?' But that's okay for some people, but the feedback sandwich most people know about. So if your boss says to you, I need to talk to you a minute and all of a sudden they launch into 'Look, you're doing really, really well. You're doing excellent'. You know, we're not stupid. We're waiting for the next bit to come in. And we all know that when you hear that word, 'But', you know that the negative bit's coming in, and what do we all kind of focus on? We all focus on the negatives, normally, we don't really hear the praise So, you know, the feedback sandwiches, the praise, the negatives and the praise. What we end up doing is we don't hear about the praise; we just are left with those negatives. And that's what we dwell on for the whole of the weekend, perhaps, if it's done on a Friday. So yeah, just to make sure we're aware that people know that. And I do think, yes, we need a balance. Yes, people need to know, perhaps what their what they're doing right. But be aware of that one, be aware of it and just to be balanced in it.Jenny  35:38Okay, so you said something earlier on that I wanted to just bring back in, that you said, don't save up all of the praise or the negativity for the annual meeting. You know, this is what you did last March. So what you're saying is give feedback on a regular basis, but you're saying don't use that typical structure of, you know, praise, shit in the middle, and praise at the end, because...Matt  36:05I wouldn't take it!Jenny  36:05I would, because it's my podcast!  So what's the alternative? Can you just share something that like, what's the alternative?Matt  36:12Yeah, okay. So there's a structure, which is like, okay, what's the action or behaviour? What actually happened and be specific with that? And then give the impact of it. Or ask for the impact of that. So this happened, or I've noticed this, the impact for me was this. Or, you could say in a non patronising way, what do you think is the impact of that? And a simple one is to then get into is, well what can we do about it? What's next? Almost.Jenny  36:47Nice.Matt  36:48So it's like the action, the impact and then what do we do next about it? I mean, there are a lot out there. And without launching into the course right now, there's a lot more around it that we could talk about, but it's just to get a flavour.Jenny  37:01That's really helpful as well. I think, honestly, I think, as I said before, I never had any training into to how to do it properly. So a lot of people are finding their way with managing others and hoping that they're doing a good job.Matt  37:13Yeah, of course. And I think, you know, especially on a course, if you give too much information, people become like 'What, what, where are we with this?' And if you can just make it very simplified with a few principles around it, that's what people take away.Jenny  37:32Can you give us an example, maybe of someone that you've met in your life that you think of as one of the most successful people managers that you've seen?Matt  37:42I've had a lot of really good people, managers, myself, and I've also in the past had a lot of really, really bad ones. And this is why I love this subject so much  because I can see the effects that managers have on people and their development. And I was a manager years ago, made all the mistakes and realised that it's not an easy job. But there are some things that we can do to make it a little bit easier, and to help other people because that's what you're doing. You're affecting other people and their lives. The person that I think you're talking about is I used to work for Richard Branson.Jenny  38:35Virgin Atlantic.Matt  38:35Yeah, but Richard Branson. So I mean, I think, obviously, I don't know the guy personally, but what he for people was usually he had a people first kind of attitude, I thought. And I think it's just about being human. And, you know, treating people equally and inclusively as well.Jenny  38:57Let me tell the story, because I know you're too, you feel like it's, you know, you shouldn't say it, but you've spent time with it because you how many years did you work at Virgin Atlantic in the training?Matt  39:09Seven or eight years.Jenny  39:10Yes. And he was very accessible wasn't he, I mean you spent like, I don't know, half a day once, you had to spend with him. So you were observing? And also you did end up staying at his house. Come on!Matt  39:25You were gonna say that!Jenny  39:28I was amazed, like, I couldn't believe you. And you said, you didn't even say this recently, but I remember you told me years ago that he got everyone sitting around his kitchen table and was having a chat. Do you remember you told me that?Matt  39:42Yeah. Yeah.Jenny  39:43And he asked you for feedback, didn't he?Matt  39:47Yeah. I won't go into the details. But he was what he was doing was trying to get opinions and ideas of a certain situation that they were having in the airline at that time. And that just tells you that he was open to other people's ideas, and I wasn't anybody special at all, you know, I was a trainer. And that's what I liked about him. He was, he didn't have that hierarchical kind of feel, you know, 'I'm the chairman of this company'. It's kind of just human to human.Jenny  40:21And I think that's the takeaway from that story really isn't it? He was asking for feedback, which I think is a really good thing in itself. You know, what do you all think? Because then people that are in your team feel more empowered to make the answer, rather than you imposing your views or imposing how you think it should be.Matt  40:42So yeah, exactly.Jenny  40:44He's always struck me, I mean I've never even met him, but he's always struck me as a personality in the public eye that just looks like a great person to work for.Matt  40:53Yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm sure other people have had bad experiences. But I think in general, for mine, it was good. But and also he kind of empowered people to make decisions as well, and also to not always be the one that's kind of making a decision, but asking first, before you make a decision as a manager, or, you know, leader of the company, let's say. But yeah, inclusivity, I think was the major thing.Jenny  41:24Are any questions that people should be asking you about managing other people that they that they don't ask?Matt  41:33I think, understanding differences in others is one thing. And, making sure that, we all have differences in terms of how we're motivated, we're all motivated by different things. And some of the mistakes that I think managers can make is, they try and manage, sorry, try and motivate in the same way that they're motivated. And it just doesn't work. So it's trying to get underneath what drives the person and knowing a little bit more about them. I mean, there's been loads of books written about it, a guy called Patrick Lencioni, one of my favourites, and he talks about three signs of a miserable job. He had a book that was called that, and he was saying that anonymity is being, is quite a miserable thing, right? If people don't know you, within your business, or the manager doesn't know you, how miserable is that going to be? But it's not, it's not kind of being poking, you know, how many times you've been divorced and stuff like that, it's about knowing a little bit about the person. So if they've got kids, maybe they have difficulties, they might need a bit of time to pick up the kids, you know, it's the nuances. That's what I'm getting at.Jenny  42:50Do you know what, this is such a good insight, it's to understand what's important to other people. And because of this remote way of working, for example, I know that some agencies, for example, recognise that everyone's Zoomed out. And they're really, really busy. So they've made a policy that they don't have any internal meetings scheduled for Friday's, for example. Because, unfortunately, you're working a million miles an hour often in agency. And if suddenly you look at your diary, and it's just meeting and meeting and meeting, you don't get anything done. And I don't know what you've been hearing from different businesses you're working with, but everyone seems to be working harder and more intensely in this remote environment from home because you don't have that wind downtime from driving the car going home and things. So that understanding of everyone's individual scenario, like  homeschooling, all the parents that I feel so sorry for, well, you included, that had to homeschool, whilst you're trying to have a full time job that's really busy.Matt  43:53Yeah, exactly. And one thing that's come up a few times on courses is, having clear channels of how do I communicate when I need to? And what kind of software are we using for what, and someone suddenly said this, like, a couple of weeks ago, they said, 'Look, we don't we don't know, when we're doing a piece of work, where do I add that? Is it in Microsoft? Is it in a meeting on Zoom?' So I think those kind of norms need to be clear. You know, when you're communicating if you need to get hold of me for an emergency, Whatsapp is the best one, you know, whatever it is for you. And so make sure that your team know how to communicate to you, and what kind of contribution they have to make and where they make that. Does that make sense? So, you know, is it on Microsoft Teams?Jenny  44:50Is it on Slack?Matt  44:53Is it on email? What's the best thing and this is a couple of questions I had, but that's quite a common question. So, for a manager to be able to get that across, I think it's really important.Jenny  45:03You see, this comes back to the point about time management. Time management, everyone's struggling with time to get anything done. And what I've noticed on Zoom, when people are talking to me that there's these pop up sounds 'Bing, bing, bing!' I don't know what's going on, but it probably an email that's come through, and their attention is distracted. And there's this fascinating study that it says, if you're concentrating on a task, and you're distracted, it takes up to 25 minutes to get back to the task that you were focusing on. Now, can you imagine how unproductive your day is if you've got pop ups, and you need that deep time to work on things that lend themselves to more concentration, like proposal writing or generating ideas? But everyone seems to be in this pop up world- WhatsApp, email, and you don't, it's almost like we don't help ourselves do we?Matt  45:56No, exactly. There's a book about it. And the guy's name is Cal Newport, I think his name is, and he talks about deep work. And, he's saying that it's just making the point that we don't really have time to do some really concentrated quality work at times, because we've got so many other things going on. There's so many people talking about the distraction kind of world that we're living in. And, you know, even on courses, you know, sometimes on courses, you get somebody who's like this side, that they're, they're not facing the camera, but they're obviously doing some work, at the same time. It's just impossible. You can't concentrate on more than one thing at a time really.Jenny  46:41I agree, and probably a completely separate podcast about it. But to your point about if you are then in a leadership position, or managing others, it's almost like telling your team, look for these hours or these blocks of time, I'm not going to be available on email. But if you need me in an emergency, like call my phone, so to have one agreed way that they can interrupt you if really, really necessary.Matt  47:06Yeah, yeah.Jenny  47:08Okay.Matt  47:10I was always impressed with one manager I used to work with, he used to record a message every single day to say what he was doing. So, he would say that I'm in meetings from two to four, if you need me, you can get hold of me at this point. So it was for clients as well. But I just thought it was a really nice touch, he would record it every single day.Jenny  47:30That's really good, that's a good tip.  It was Ian by the way.  Oh, was it? Okay, what books or sources of inspiration would you recommend people read if they're interested in learning more about managing others?Matt  47:42I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to management books, I always kind of think, what's new and shiny?Jenny  47:48Don't read them, just put them on the shelves so it looks like you very well read.Matt  47:52Yeah, look how many things I read. But sometimes you dip in and out of them because there's certain things about them that you say, I'm interested in that bit. But there's a few, I mean, Five Dysfunctions Of a Team is really good - Patrick Lencioni. He makes the point in that, that conflict is quite good. Not particularly between people, disliking people, but it's about ideas, it's about ways forward. Rather than thinking, oh, gosh, you know, Jenny hasn't got the same kind of view as me and that being a problem, it should be a positive, it should be a good thing that we are discussing ways forwards and tasks. So I do think Patrick Lencioni is really good and he's got about five or six management books. And they're great, I really like them. Adam Grant is really good. He covers a lot to do with management, but also things outside of management as well that make you think. If I had the titles with me now, I would give them to you.Jenny  49:04I think the author's name is fine. as good.Matt  49:07Okay. And I would also look at emotional intelligence as well. You know, Travis Bradberry, and Daniel Goleman. It's about, a big part of it is self awareness. You know, and how your emotions, you can think about when you are what they call emotionally hijacked. And there's another phrase for it, which, which is the Amygdala Hijack, where certain things will make you respond in a way perhaps, which you didn't want to respond. So there are triggers and I think, as a manager, to have a view on what your triggers are, and how you deal and manage those triggers is really important. So that's another area I would definitely get you to look at as well.Jenny  49:58That's really useful.Matt  49:59There's a new one, which is called The Evolved Leader as well. I'd look at that and a few coaching books, which I was...Jenny  50:06I'm going to be spending a lot of time on Amazon!Matt  50:12I know I could go on and on here. I could give some recommendations in the notes if you'd like?Jenny  50:17Fantastic. We'll do that, Matt. That's great. So just finally, can you tell us a bit more about your course? And if people are interested in coming on this, 'Managing others for new managers', how can people book?Matt  50:31Yeah, I've got various different ways. If you want to contact me, contact me on matt@bottledlearning.com, and then I can give you the dates of what's coming up next. So probably the easiest way.Jenny  50:42All right, fantastic. Well, thank you so much. That was I think, hopefully, that was really going to give a lot of food for thought for people who are maybe in the position that they're going to be managing someone or they're already managing someone and hoping to get it right. So thank you so much for sharing so much. It's been brilliant.Matt  50:59Thanks. I’ve enjoyed it. Thank you.

Transcript: 00:01Welcome to Episode 27. This is the top 10 tips to be successful in agency account management. And the reason that I'm giving you top 10 tips is because we've now passed 26 episodes on this podcast, and we've had some fantastic guests sharing really, really brilliant advice for agency account managers to up their game, to be more proficient in what they do, and to be much more successful in their role. So I thought what I'd do is reflect back on some of those interviews, and pull out some of the best tips that I think have been shared on the podcast. So this episode is highlighting all of the top tips that are going to help you in your role. 00:48The first piece of advice that I'd like to pull out is from episode number one. This was with Kate Whittaker, Kate has 30 years as a marketing client. She's dealt with hundreds of agencies through her time. And she said, good account management makes everything run smoothly. But great account management is what transforms the relationship from a client supplier to one of a real partnership. And she said, we're quite specialist in what we do. And industry knowledge is really important to me. So the account director I work with in our current agency will often just drop me an email with information, snippets of news, industry news, and competitor activity that she thinks I might have missed. So I think that was a great tip. Always make sure that your client knows that you're thinking about them, and keeping them top of mind. So if you're not doing this on a regular basis, then make sure you set up Google Alerts and send a piece of information that you think is relevant, but not only send it, also tell them why you're sending it and why you think it's relevant to them. And perhaps any action that you believe needs to be taken as a result. So, great piece of advice from Kate. 02:05Quite a similar piece of advice taken from Episode Two of the podcast with Tina Fegent. Tina has 25 years working in marketing procurement. Again, she's really competent dealing with agencies. She's actually worked agency side as a commercial director many years ago. But she spent a lot of time dealing with agencies from a marketing procurement perspective. And she says that the, when asked about the most important skills of an account manager is for her all about being proactive. And she said, 'I think being able to hold senior level discussions are really important, and being financially aware.' And she said, I think that it's an area that could be really improved in terms of having those 'why are we all here?' conversations. And what she's referring to, is why is the client actually investing their money in that PR campaign, that digital asset, that event, ultimately is because they need to drive sales. So having a business acumen, being commercially aware, is really, really important. Because she says at the end of the day, the key one is being focused on the client's business. That's what is top of their mind. And that's what we've got to keep top of ours. Fantastic advice from Tina. 03:25The next top tip is taken from episode number three. And this was with Marcus Cauchi, it was called 'How to sell to existing and prospective clients'. It was probably one of the most popular podcasts. And during this interview, Marcus shared some really straight talking advice. And I've just picked out a couple of things that he said on the podcast, which I'd love to share again. He said your job is to always make sure your customer is the hero of the story. Stop talking about you, your agency, your past glories, no one cares. That's like showing photos of your ugly children to strangers. Focus on the how you helped a client achieve their strategic objective, how they benefited from it, what they learned, what journey they went through the ups and the downs. Because I think that's what makes a real story. So I think, some fantastic advice from Marcus about making sure that when you have a conversation with a client, it's about how you can help them but not focusing on what you do. So tell a story, be really proficient in understanding your past case studies and how you've helped other clients that are similar to your client achieve their strategic imperative. So that was a fantastic piece of advice. He also went on to share another piece of advice that I wanted to share with you because again, I thought it was spot on. He says establish right from the outset, what their vision is for the next 6, 12, 18, 24 months. And looking at that direction, they're trying to take their business, so that you can stay ahead of where they are making sure that you're co-developing a plan. So if resource is required, identify what those resources will be, when they will be required, what the trigger points are, and identify what budget is going to be required in order to be able to recruit them, and make sure that you understand the client's competitive landscape. So I think, again, what all three of these podcasts really keep reminding us about, is to stand in the shoes of the client, and to really understand their world, their business, their challenges, their opportunities, where they're investing their money next year. And a little tip for you, if you go to seekingalpha.com and you have a huge enterprise client, then you may be able to download the transcripts from the investor relations discussions. And these typically are where CEO, CFOs and generally the C suite present their plans to the company's investors. So it's a great source of information to understand where their focus for their business is going to be for the coming years. So, brilliant advice from Marcus, if you want to, if you haven't yet listened to that podcast, then I would urge you to go back and have a listen. 06:32Tip number four is from episode number four. And it was an interview I did with Phil Lancaster. Phil spent 20 years working in a very senior role at JWT. And he worked on some amazing global brands. And he shared some fantastic advice on this podcast. And I want to pull out a couple of things he said, because now he is actually helping agencies develop relationships with the C suite. He says, I think the brilliant skills required of account management is that you have got to have an understanding and an innate interest and curiosity around two things, one of which is the broad business world. How do clients make money, for example? How can I help them make more money? And how can I grow their business? But equally, you've got to have the qualitative skills, the EQ, the genuine intuition and desire to be interested in anything creative. So I thought that was a fantastic summary of, again, what is so important  in the role of account management. And he also sort of warned us he said, I'm working with a lot of agencies right now to whom a relationship with the C suite at their clients organisation does not exist. And he believes they're really, really vulnerable. Because decisions can be made, no matter how good the agency's work has been, or is at the moment, decisions can be made, which have no bearing whatsoever on the current relationship, and output and now suddenly mean that the business is gone. So again, I hope this is a reminder for you to establish relationships with the most senior level clients in the client organisations you're dealing with, because Phil's absolutely on the money here. If anything happens at a change of senior leadership at your client side, then this will inevitably one way or another trickle down the organisation and you will be affected. So make sure that you're keeping an eye on who the C suite are, and also have a plan to connect with them and develop relationships. 08:55Tip number five is taken from episode number five called the fundamentals of successful client management with Carey Evans, and Simon Rhind-Tutt. They have a company called Relationship Audis and Management. And they go in and audit relationships. And the reason I'm so supportive of the company is because when I was working at Publicis, I invited them in to audit a relationship that we had with one of our biggest customers that was worth £700,000 a year. We were struggling a little bit with this relationship, to be honest. And they, as they do, they organised face to face evaluations, interviews with key members of the client organisation, both very senior and quite junior, and what we discovered about that relationship and the feedback that they were able to garner for us, enabled us to put an action plan in place to address all of the concerns and complaints. And I think as a result of what they did for us, we extended that relationship by two years. So that account ended up, we kept it. So it was worth £1.4 million and quite frankly, it, we could have lost it. So I was so impressed with what Simon and Carey's business did, I actually when I left Publicis, I went to work for them for a little while, about nine months. And I conducted interviews on their behalf with client organisations on behalf of different agencies. And it was just fascinating what clients will share with you, when you really are able to ask the questions in a way that helps them to open up. So if you're listening to this, and perhaps you have a big, important client relationship that isn't maybe going so well, and you really want to understand, you know, from the client's perspective, what's going well, where the areas of development and improvement need to happen, but also to have that opportunity to talk about their future needs in the business, then Simon and Carey are the people to contact. And on my interview with them, again, it was just tip after tip after tip about how agency account managers can get better. And they shared with us a couple of statistics that I want to share with you that may be food for thought. So they said, because they carry out lots of surveys, they have lots of benchmarking data, that 63% of clients claim that their agency has never asked them about their expectations of the agency, which, as I say, is not setting off on the right foot really. And if you don't know what your clients expectations are, it's a damn sight easier to deliver them and beat them. Sorry, if you do know what they are, as opposed to simply assuming you know what they are. And this is emphasised, they said even further, when you've got an existing relationship and your client leaves, and a new client joins, and you maybe are assuming that they're gonna want everything in the same way, the same size, the same job, the same package. And of course, they're not. So making sure that from the outset of a really key relationship, that you're asking really great questions, you know, things like for you to turn around to me in six months time and say, 'do you know what, this was the best decision I ever met made, was bringing you in, or continuing our relationship'. And for you to say that to me , what needs to have happened between now and then. And then just going quiet, and letting the client tell you what success looks like for them. 12:45So great piece of advice there. Another tip that they shared is, you know, they asked the question, what proportion of time does a marketing manager on average, in their working week spend working with all of their agencies. And most agencies believe that typically, a marketing manager, their client, spends between 30 and 70%, working with their agencies. But the reality is, it's 7%. So just let that sink in a moment, if you think that your client, they've got an inordinate amount of things to do in their role, lots of different things, demands on their time. Actually, what you do with it with your client is just a tiny, tiny fraction of their day. Because if they have 7% of their working week spending with all of their suppliers, all of their relationships, then you just form a very, very small part. And I think the takeaway here is to really make sure that every interaction with your client matters, so that you're prepared, but you also have that understanding of where the clients at. And Carey and Simon went on to give a piece of advice, saying, you know, ask your client to put in a diary session, just half an hour over a coffee, so that you can ask them questions about their working week. How do they spend their time, what other challenges are they facing, and that really is going to give you some insight into the world of your clients, so that you can understand them better. 14:21Tip number six is taken from an absolutely stunning podcast interview I had with David C. Baker, called 'Agency Leaders Guide to Account Management'. This is Episode 24. And David just quite frankly, shared tip, after tip, after tip, and I just was so blown away by all of the value he shared. But I've picked out one tip that David gave in his interview, which I think was very, very insightful. And I would really encourage you to look into this because he said this is going to strike people as pretty strange and that already made me kind of lean in further to what he was about to say. But, and this was in response to him being asked what makes a great account manager, he said, go to Google and look up 'theory of change', or 'model of change'. And then flip to the image tab and see the 1000s of theories of change. And peruse those someday and come up with a model that's unique to your agency, about how your agency interact with your clients,  how you bring them along, what's your theory of change? And he said, it's an area that not a lot of people have experienced. And we just innately know, at least we think we know how to present a new idea to someone and convince them of it. But if you spend a little bit more time, more like a scientist, and think about what is your perspective on theory, or models of change, it would really help you as an account manager too. So I thought that was a really, really, very unique piece of advice, which I've never heard anyone say, but he's absolutely right here. Because often, we are in a position to present new ideas to clients, which represent a huge change for that client. And there's something called status quo bias, where clients often just want to follow the status quo, they don't want to make big changes. So only by understanding those changes, are we able to address that in our presentation. So I would really urge you to take David's advice up and have a look for yourself, and see if you can come up with a model for your agency. 16:51Tip number seven, this was taken from Episode 20, called 'How to improve the way you work with a marketing director'. We had Sam Bridger on, and Sam again shared some fantastic advice for agencies and agency account managers in how to work better with your clients. And again, a bit like Kate Whitaker, Sam has been in the industry for over 25 years, working with various agencies. And now she works as interim marketing director. And for her, she has to go into a new company, as probably head of marketing, and really hit the ground running. And the first thing she likes to do is to understand how many different agencies the marketing department are dealing with, because she likes to quickly understand who they are, and then bring them all together so that she can benefit from their collective thinking. And again, I thought that was a fantastic piece of advice, that it's beneficial often for your marketing directors, or the people that you're dealing with, to get all of the agencies together. And who thinks about doing that? And her piece of advice was try and find ways yourself to bring the agencies together. And that would be really beneficial and helpful to your clients. So she suggested perhaps run an afternoon workshop, where you all where you invite all the agencies together and talk about an issue that the clients facing maybe in the sector, for example, or with a particular customer, or a particular brand, or whatever it might be. And then she said, do it in the afternoon, have a couple of hours workshopping, and then a couple of hours of going out for a drink maybe and getting to know each other. And she said it really sets the ball rolling, and it demonstrates a way to add value. And that's a great way that the client can see that you're being proactive. So, again, she said, don't be afraid of the competition, because often other agencies you bring together, may be offering something similar to you. She said just embrace it, and use it as an opportunity to come together collectively to give the client the best value. So again, a fantastic tip that you might want to take on board from Sam. 19:08Tip number eight I've chosen from Episode 23. And that was with Simon Barbato, who is the CEO of Mr. B & Friends, and it's called 'How to move from agency employee to agency owner'. Simon started his career in the early 90s. He was actually in client service to start with and quickly moved into a planning role. So his agency now that he went on to form is a very successful, fast growing agency. And he sees the value in the strategic planning role and has a planning department in his agency which is a really key differentiator. And his advice for agency account managers was curiosity is one of the key drivers of great account managers, the ability to show interest, to ask questions, dig deep to unearth the background to a client's business or business problem, for example. And I think all of these things provide a really great canvas in which they can then build creative briefs or build project briefs. So if you don't have that innate ability to drive into the client's business, I think that you'll operate on a very surface level, and therefore probably have a transactional type relationship with your client, rather than a deep relational engagement. So drive into the clients business, dive further into their sector, understand their customer, their market, and where they're going, so that you can be much more informed and provide a lot more value to help them grow their business. So brilliant advice there from Simon. 20:51Tip number nine is taken from Episode 26. With Dr. Laura Janusik, called 'What account managers can learn from the science of listening'. And Laura is a specialist in listening, she has been studying it for years, she has a PhD in communication with a specialisation in listening. And I learned a ton from her chat. And one of the things that she said was listening is a brain based activity. So you can't actually tell if someone is actually listening to you through the what she calls the 'non verbals'. So even if, for example, someone is leaning forward, nodding, smiling, making eye contact, actually, that doesn't mean they're listening to you. And the only way you can tell if someone is listening, is by how they speak, how they respond. Now, why that's important for account managers is the following. She said account managers particularly need to do a lot more listening than they do speaking. So being able to bite their tongue and allow the client to talk. And then doing those things like confirming, which is paraphrasing, and then asking if you're right. So she gave an example, if your client says something, rather than just going on to the next topic, you can say something like so if I heard you correctly, you said this, this and this. Did I get that right? So you're playing back what your client just said to you, or what you think your client just said to you. Because then it gives the client the opportunity to say, well, you almost have it right, but I forgot to say this, for example. And that really does happen quite a lot. Or they can just simply say yes, spot on. You've got it absolutely right. Which is always the ideal, obviously. But if you've paraphrased it wrong, and you've clarified it incorrectly, then that gives them the immediate opportunity to say, Oh, no, no, no, that's not what I meant. What I meant was this. So this is all really good tips for us, as account managers, to make sure that you are playing back to the client, what you believe you've heard that they've just said, because that's the only way we're going to be crystal clear about what the client said, because time is money. If we get that brief wrong, and we go away too quickly, and start working on a proposal that takes two weeks, then that's wasted effort, wasted time, because you don't want to go back to the client with your proposal and they say, well, that's not really what I wanted. So make sure you get super clear from the outset and play back to the client what you think you heard. Brilliant advice from Laura. 23:36Tip number 10. And the final piece of advice was taken from Episode 25, 'How to use the power of surgical empathy with your clients', with Dr. Mark Goulston. This was a fascinating episode for me from someone that I've been following for years. He is just a fantastic fountain of knowledge. And he wrote one of his most popular books called 'Just Listen'. And he said that he uses acronyms in his book to make something easier to remember. And he says you want to be a PAL in conversations. And pal means purposeful, agendaless listening, purposeful, agendaless listening. He says one of the reasons people don't listen is because people have an agenda. So if you've got an agenda in your head, and you go into a meeting, you struggle to really listen, to be really present. And he believes that people are afraid to empathise, particularly in the business world. Because he says if I really find out where the other person's coming from, what's really important to them, what they care about what they really need, and it doesn't match what I'm selling, then I can't sell them what I have. And you know, it's an amazing way of looking at it because if we go in there thinking about what I want them to buy from me, then it clouds our conversation. We're not really listening authentically, and empathising, really openly. So, fantastic piece of advice, go into meetings, and really be present. Listen to what the client is actually telling you. Because like Relationship Audits and Management that go into client situations, they're listening for what's not being said. And often they say that the things that, you're reading between the lines of what the client is actually saying, and in order to do that, you have to stop thinking about your agenda, and be purposeful, agendaless, and listening. So using that acronym to really help you improve your listening skills. So I hope those 10 top tips were useful for you and served as a bit of a reminder for perhaps what you could be doing in your role as an account manager. 26:02A quick reminder if you are interested in knowing who's coming up on the next podcast, and also listening and hearing new tips and advice for agency account managers, then come over to my website, accountmanagementskills.com and sign up for my newsletter. The newsletter goes out every week, or two weeks and I try to include as many tips as I can, new tips that I've learned through listening to someone on the podcast myself, or things that I'm reading and sharing. And also I can let you know forthcoming trainings. So until the next time, have a great week.

Jenny  Okay, today I'm delighted to speak to Dr. Laura Janusik. She is regarded as one of the world's top researchers and educators in the field of listening. She has a PhD in communication with a specialisation in listening and an MBA. Her company Listening to Change offers training, coaching and consultancy services for both individuals and teams and organisations to really help them transform by using listening as a strategy. So a very warm welcome Laura. Laura  Thank you, Jenny. I'm very excited to be here. Jenny  Not as much as I am! Laura  I don't know on a scale of one to 10, how excited are you? Jenny  Before I ask you to fill in a few of the gaps, listening is the most important skill for any account manager and I've been wanting to get an expert in the field of listening. So I am absolutely thrilled and delighted to dive into these questions, because I know you're going to deliver so much value. So on that note, would you mind spending a couple of minutes just filling in some of the gaps about you, your background and also why you decided to spend so long studying listening? Laura  That's a great question. Where I am currently right now is I'm leveraging my over 20 years in academia, to bring listening to a more general audience. Specifically, through coaching and training. The way that I got into listening was purely by accident. To be honest with you, I had a career that I call, I was a millennial before millennials were born, which is a way of saying that I've had a number of different careers in my past. I was in human resources for a number of years. And I did all the different areas of human resources for about 12 to 15 years. And I sold some things and just did many, many different things. But when I was in my early 30s, I decided to go to graduate school to get my master's degree because I wasn't feeling that I was as smart as my friends. And I wanted to feel smarter. I decided to major in communication. And what I had wanted to do at that point Jenny, was just develop interpersonal curriculum for companies. They paired me with a world leading expert in listening, Andrew Wolvin, as my advisor, and I told him within the first two to three weeks of meeting him that I was not going to become a listening person. I didn't know what a listening person was, but it didn't sound like something I would want to be. And he was very gracious, he said, Laurie, you can be whatever you want to be. So fast forward, I'm entering my final semester of my master's programme. And I thought, you know what, he's going to be writing my letters of recommendation, I should show a little bit of interest in his passion. So I signed up for his listening course. And within two weeks, it totally changed my life. I thought this is what listening is, why don't people understand what listening is, it is so important. And there's so much more research out there that needs to be done, that I totally changed my career trajectory and decided to stay on to get my PhD so I could really focus in listening and help build the research in that area. So I didn't choose listening as much as the universe chose listening for me. Jenny  Can you remember back during those two weeks? What was the crux thing that you leart that really shifted you from interpersonal curriculum to, I'm going to specialise in listening? Laura  I do totally remember that Jenny. He had us read an article that was about listening processes, and listening models and it included, probably about eight different listening models. And I did not understand that listening was a process or listening could be modelled until I read that article. And I thought, you mean there's more to listening than just sitting there looking like you were listening! You know, there are actually these steps that go on in our brain. And prior to that I had never really thought about listening as being a brain based activity. It was just something we did kind of like breathing. You didn't have to understand the intricacies of it because your body just did it anyway. But in listening our body doesn't always just do it anyway, of course. And that's one of the things I think that we begin to stumble upon and go, wow, I'm not such a great listener after all. Jenny  To that last point, why do you think we all think that we don't need any listening training? Because we're great listeners? Laura  I think there are a couple of reasons. Number one, because we're born with the ability to listen. And number two, I think that, well I know that, most elementary schools and Junior High's and High Schools do not cover listening as an area to be learned. So if we don't have to learn about something in K through 12, we generally don't think it's important because if it were important enough, it would be in the curriculum somewhere. And until we start unpacking what something really is, we just don't think that it's important because we're doing it already. And we're doing it at a certain level. But we could do it so much better, if we understood it. Jenny  How can you tell if someone's listening to you or not? Laura  Well, the crux is you can't really. You can't tell by looking at them. This is always the piece of information that really blows people's minds. There is absolutely no non verbal that we associate with listening, like eye contact, head nodding, body leaning. None of those things correlate in any way, shape, or form with what's going on in our brain. Listening is really about understanding or making meaning. That's the goal, or crux of listening. And that all takes place in our brain. And even though I can look in your eyes, I can't see past them to your brain, to really see the words that are going on in there to know if you're listening to me or not. So what we often do in communication is we perceive listening behaviorally. So we do look for the eye contact, we do look for the head nods. And when we get those symbols from people, those nonverbal behaviours, then we make the assumption that they were listening to us. However, it's a very dangerous assumption, because as you well know, we've all learned how to 'fake listen'. We learned that in school too, on our own. We wanted to look really interested and we looked like we were taking notes, but we were actually writing a letter to a friend. Or we established eye contact, because we knew that the teacher or professor would expect that, but we were actually thinking about the party that we would be attending on Saturday. And to complicate this even more Jenny, is cultures have different acceptable listening behaviours. So every listening behaviour that we can think of is actually a cultural norm. And those norms vary from culture to culture. So to give you an example, there are two cultures where when you nod your head up and down, that actually means No. And when you shake it side to side, that means Yes. Can you imagine going to that culture, because I'm in the opposite culture, that the head nod is Yes and the shake is No. So I would go to that culture and I would be reading those nonverbals absolutely, incorrectly. And I would be thinking, when they were shaking their head, oh they don't like this at all, but maybe they were trying to show me that they liked it. So we have to be so careful with those things.  Jenny  That is so fascinating. Can I ask you, because in my past, in my youth, I spent years working in Greece, and I don't know if that's actually one of the countries but actually, when they say no, they kind of lean their head back, you know. Laura  So you totally get this right. You it's because you've actually seen it. And what was your perception of that when you were there? Jenny  I thought he was quite rude because they tut at the same time. This is not everybody, but there is this, you know, like that. It means no. So cultural differences, isn't it? It's just getting used to it. Laura  It is and we oftentimes think that people who do things different than us, in those nonverbal ways, are rude and they're not being rude. They're being very appropriate to their culture, and we're the ones being rude because we didn't learn their culture well enough to communicate with people appropriately within it. Jenny  I'm just thinking of my audience now, account managers, you know, maybe many of them are working on global accounts, and therefore are dealing with different cultures. So this is a good topic to kind of understand. But thinking more about, so you can't tell if someone's really listening? Laura  You can't tell through the nonverbals. You have to listen to how they're responding. Are they responding on topic to you? Are they asking you questions on topic? Are they doing those strategies like confirming, to show that they actually understand or not? So that's the only way you can really tell if somebody has listened to you. And if you've created shared meaning with them. Jenny  So that's really important for account managers to realise isn't it, that if I want my clients to know that I'm actually listening, then repeat back what they've just said or clarify or ask continuous questions on the topic? Laura  Yes, exactly. And account managers particularly need to do a lot more listening than they do speaking. So being able to bite their tongue and allow the client to talk, and then doing those things like confirming, which is paraphrasing, and then somehow asking if you're right. So Jenny, if I heard you correctly, you said this, this, this and that, did I get that right? Because then it gives the client the opportunity to go, 'Oh, well, you almost have it right but I forgot to say this'. And oftentimes that happens. Or, 'Yes, you have it, right'. Which is always the ideal or, 'No, no, that's not what I meant when I said that, this is what I actually meant'. And all of those are equally valuable. Jenny  Very valuable. You just mentioned biting your tongue. I remember you mentioned that to me when we were planning this podcast. Tell me a bit about that because I think that's a fantastic tip. Laura  Yeah. In the UK, and in the United States, it seems like the average time between speakers is about a half a seconds, so point five seconds. What I recommend that we do as listeners is after the other person finishes speaking, so the client finishes speaking, I recommend that an account manager bite their tongue for a minimum of three seconds. When you bite your tongue, there's that physical sensation so you know you can't speak. It's a little bit awkward in the beginning, but it does keep you from speaking. And what I know about both of those cultures is people become a little bit more uncomfortable with silence. And so they like to fill the silence. And that is a strategy then to get the client to speak more. Because as an account manager, I know what I know. But I don't know if what my company can provide is really exactly what this client needs or wants. And I need to get as much information from that client as I can to make sure that we are match. So the more information I can get through them talking, the better off we're both going to be. Jenny  A slight side note, but to that point, is there some kind of science behind how someone feels when they are speaking? Laura  Ask that in a different way so I understand that better.  Jenny  Okay. So the rule of thumb, and I agree that we want to get the client speaking 70% of the time because they have the insight really, it's our job to uncover it. And so listening and asking really great questions. And I think in general, people like to talk about themselves, don't they? They enjoy sharing, many, or would you disagree with that? Laura  I agree with your qualifier, many people enjoy talking about themselves. There are different types of people in terms of how much they feel sharing, in terms of personal lives, or particularly when they're in a sales type information they don't want to give too much, it's almost like going to a fortune teller. You don't want to give too much because you don't trust that this person is really a fortune teller. And so you don't want to give the account manager too much information because then they will just tell you what you want to hear. So I think that we do sometimes have people like that. But the brain research in terms of the neuroscience does talk about our brain synchronising together And when we can speak and listen in a way that, so it's called dialogic listening, so you speak in a way that the other can listen to you and you listen in a way so the other can speak to you. Then our brains synchronise more so and when we have more synchrony, there's more understanding, and there's more likeability. And the really interesting thing to me is, there's also an element of agreement. So, we can listen to people that we disagree with, but still synchronise with them. So what I often say is, it's our job to listen to understand, not to respond. And understanding doesn't mean agreement. I can understand somebody who's at the opposite political end of the spectrum than I'm at. I can understand and not agree with them, but I can understand them. Jenny  Fascinating. What else did you learn through your research that really stood out for you? What other surprises did you find? Laura  I think one of the big ones, I was one of those women who went into it thinking that women were much better listeners than men were. And you're shaking your head thinking? Well, there's a caveat here. So, from a brain perspective, the comprehension, the amount of understanding, there is no significant difference between men and women. However, there is a significant difference in those nonverbal behaviours that we like to attribute to listening, like the head nodding and the body orientation. So women significantly show more of those behaviours than men do, which is why women get the perception of being better listeners. Jenny  Fascinating. That is fascinating, that's another one that I'm going to be re-quoting.  Now something that you said, that has really stuck with me, is that you call listening a strategy, not a skill. I think that's a genius thing to say. What made you say that? Why is that true? Laura  The more I got into the listening research, the more I understood that we had different goals and could have different goals with how we listened. And many of us understand this implicitly, because we have learned to shift the way we listen in different contexts. So for example, how I listen at work might be very different than how I listen at home or how I listen with my friends. And so I'm listening for different things, and to different things, depending upon the context. I'm sorry, I started talking there, and I forgot the question! Jenny  No, it's fine. The strategy, the fact that... Laura  The strategy. So it goes back to what do I want to get out of this interaction, because if I can identify what I'm listening to and for, then there's a goal involved, and I have a much better chance of meeting that goal, if I've identified that goal. But if I haven't identified that goal, then I listen habitually for what I always listen for. And I might not get what I needed out of that conversation. Or I might think that it was a useless conversation, when in actuality it was because I was not listening appropriately. Jenny  Now, this also speaks to helping account managers go into client interactions. Because what happens in our world Laura, sometimes it's quite difficult to get airtime with the client, because they're busy doing a million other things. And actually, the one thing that we're working on for them is a small part of their day. So we want to make sure that small part of their day actually, is significant. So it's kind of a little bit of a performance. So when we turn up, it's good practice to, prepare, have a pre-meeting plan. And actually, what you've just suggested is a good strategy for account managing in general, to kind of pre think about what are the questions that I want to ask? Or what are the answers that I need to gather from this client interaction that are going to be most helpful? And does that form part of your training as well? Laura  Yes, it does. And Jenny, what you're also speaking to, well, two things actually. Number one, an account manager is actually, I guess I would view an account manager more as a liaison. So this is the person who is the point central between the client and between the creatives. And it's quite likely that the way that both of those groups of people process information in their brains is very different. Creatives process information, and habitually are thinking creatively...? Jenny  Creatively. Laura  That's the word, I could not find that one, yes creatively! Where as, as you said, with a potential client, their meeting with the account manager is a very small part of their day, and they're doing all of these other things as well. So they're not necessarily in the habit of meeting with account managers on a routine basis. And so being this liaison between the two, and understanding that they may be approaching you with a way of listening that works more effectively for them within their organisation, but doesn't necessarily work for this conversation. Because it gets into the four listening habits, which have been identified in the research that was published early last year, in March of last year actually, that identified not only listening as a habit, and that is really important, because a habit is something we do routinely, but we can change. And how can we change it? They have found that there are four different, I like to use the analogy of a strainer, ways that we strain information or filter information. And how we filter information really talks about what we're listening to and what we're listening for. So we can listen connectively for people, and how information is going to affect people. We can listen and strain through reflective, which is our past experience, asking questions like, 'Have I ever been in a situation like this before? Have I ever seen an ad like this before? How did it turn out? You know, what didn't work about that?' We can listen analytically and analytically is all about the details of today. So I'm going to be thinking and asking questions like, 'Well, my deadline is this, can you meet this deadline? And here's my budget, are you going to stay within my budget?' So those types of questions. Or we can think and filter through conceptual, which is the possibilities of tomorrow and beyond? So the what ifs, so I just have the big idea or the big picture. And I don't really want to nail it down now because I want to explore all of the other possibilities before I nail anything down. Jenny  So these are the four listening habits?  Laura  Correct. Jenny  And do we all fall into one of these default habits that we do mostly? Laura  Yes. And I say that with a little bit of hesitance because people can have more than one dominant habit. And since listening is a habit, we can choose different habits in different context. And that's where I think the whole listening is a strategy and not a skill. Understanding how to adjust what we're listening to and what we're listening for, based on the context, is really important because then it increases the chance of us getting what we need or want. And identifying how the client is listening. There's evidence that how we think, how we listen and how we speak are all connected. I can't see your brain so I can't see how you think, I can't see how you're listening. But I can listen to how you speak. And if I can really understand how you're speaking, then I can understand how you're thinking and listening, which means as an account manager, I can better align my communication to yours to give you what you want and need more quickly. So we can then cover other things as well. Jenny  Wow. So is the ideal scenario to go into a client interaction as an account manager, identify the client's listening habits and adjust our approach accordingly? Or is it to anticipate what this interaction requires from us and go in with our listening habit that's most conducive to the context? I don't know if I've overcomplicated it! Laura  Yeah, no, no, you've asked a great question. The more we get educated in this, the more I would say we could do both. So for example, if I am going in, because I know that I'm going to be presenting a proposal, and I'm going to ideally get a signature on the bottom line there, then I know what my goal is. And I know that that goal is going to require some analytical thinking and listening and speaking, because we've got bottom line numbers here. However, there are some listeners who might be listening conceptually, who don't focus as much on the bottom line. But the possibilities, what's this going to make me look like in the future? Is this going to be a slam dunk for me? Is this going to help me climb the corporate ladder if I can land this account? So those are the conceptual what ifs of the future. And so both and there is, I need to go in and get this signed, because it's potentially a big contract for me. However, I need to be able to assess what the client needs to hear as well before the client will sign because I need to speak into what the client needs to hear before the client will sign. Jenny  You gave me an assessment to do before we spoke. Is that assessment assessing what habit you kind of tend to have when it comes to listening? Laura  The Echo Profile which you took, asked you to think of a particular context. And so within that context, that's primarily how you think then. Jenny  Okay. Because I'm thinking for account managers now, how valuable it would be if we were to give that test to our clients and take the test ourselves! Laura  Yeah. You may or may not get your client to be able to take it. But if you take it yourself, and you get just a little bit of training and listening, then you're better able to identify what the client's thinking and listening style might be, based on listening to how they speak. Jenny  Amazing. Go on Laura. Laura  I was going to say, so your results, Jenny.... Jenny  I don't know whether I want to listen!  Laura  Go ahead. Do you have your results handy? Jenny  No, I didn't find the results. Laura  Oh, you don't have them? Oh, I apologise to you. Actually, do you want to take a break for a second? Because I can go grab them? Jenny  Okay, so I've taken your your test Laura, and you're sharing with me the results. And I see that you have Connective, Reflective, Analytical, and Conceptual. And you've gone straight to this slide to show the dominance. So can you talk us through what you can see. Just generally when you approach this. Laura  Yes, and you are a fascinating profile.There are 41 different profiles that exist. You are an Experimenter, it's called, which means that you have a triple dominance Jenny! You are triple dominant in Connective, which is the people and how things affect people. Analytical - the details, and Conceptual the big picture and possibilities of the future. Where you were relatively low would be Reflective. So that's learning from your past experience or bringing your past experience into things. So what this suggests is when you listen as a triple dominant, you actually do a really nice job. The only thing that you might want to do to improve if you want all of these four cylinders firing at the same time so to speak, is take a little note card in with you that says, 'What about my past experiences'. So just bringing in your past experiences to something. But as a triple dominant, that is minimal work compared to somebody who might be single dominant. So for example, I've seen people who are single dominant in Analytical, and they didn't understand, they hated to go in and small talk, because they just did not understand the value of small talk with a client. But if you're speaking with a potential client who is highly Connective, they are totally into that small talk. So small talking is an avenue of respect that you have to approach further. If the client is highly connected, and you're highly analytical, if you go in there and give deadlines and budgets and details like that, that's not what they're interested in at all. They're interested in how this solution is going to feel to the people who are using it. How are they going to like it? How is it making their lives better? So they're looking for those types of things. How does it solve the problems that they're currently having, as opposed to how much it cost or when it could be built by. So you're not aligning your communication well, but once you get a little bit of education in these four different habits, then you can assess by listening to the client or the potential client, you can assess what their style might be, and then begin speaking into that style. So for example, I was saying that I did coach an individual who is just highly Analytical. And what I had to help this client do, was really learn how to small talk, first of all, potentially, when he was with Connective possibilities, but also how to assess what the other person is. And then I have a little cheat sheet of different questions and statements that align with each of these four, and really worked with this client to be able to remember to ask questions like this, as opposed to the questions that he just felt most comfortable with being Analytical. Jenny  This is so fundamental, because the the account managers job really, is to build that rapport. And what you're talking about here is adapting your communication style to be more conducive to the client style, so that you build that rapport. Because ultimately, people like to do business with people like themselves. And and you're absolutely right, if you have someone with Analytical dominance and that the client wants to small talk, then that's going to be a struggle. And even more so, if they're lacking awareness, I mean, at least the individual that you were coaching, has gone through this test to understand that. Laura  Yes, and did some some private coaching with me, and just felt so different afterwards. He understood his wife much better because his wife's dominance was not Analytical! So yeah, there are just so many transformations that occur with just a couple hours of education in this. Jenny  I mean, it's a natural question about, this is an Echo Listening test, is this something that you have developed? Or you're an ambassador for this programme? How? And also, how can people do it? Because I'm sure a lot of account managers are kind of leaning in right now thinking, wow, I want to know what I have here. Laura  This is magic. It really is magic. And I align this with listening intelligence, because the more we recognise about listening, the better off we can be with it, and use it. I did not have a hand in developing the Echo Listening profile, though some of my research does support it. So research builds upon research. So some of my research is reflected in the development of it, of which I'm very proud. But one needs to be a certified listening ambassador guide to the Echo, and I am a certified practitioner in this. So any of your individuals, if they're interested could reach out to me through my website Listening to Change, and I could order them a profile and then do a reading with them. Another thing that I have coming out that might be of interest to account managers, particularly at an entry level point, is I'm doing an online course for the 10 listening tips for leaders. And that will include this Echo Listening profile as well. And that will be a link from my website within the next month. Jenny  Amazing. That sounds fantastic. We'll include the links in the notes Laura for sure. Cheeky question? Can you share one tip or any more tips that you think account managers could benefit from?  Laura  Sure, sure, actually, I will give you three of my favourite. So two of them, I think I've already given you. The first one is biting your tongue for at least three seconds. And then to add on to that after that three seconds, if the client has not broken the silence, then you want to ask a question such as, 'What else?' or, 'Can you tell me more about that?' So a question that would continue the client speaking and continue you gaining that helpful information? The second skill is that skill of confirming, (and confirming again, is paraphrasing plus somehow asking if you're right), if I understood you correctly, you said this, this this and that. Did I get that right? And the third potential skill. I think actually the third potential skill that would be most powerful, most useful for account managers, because they're the liaisons between people is really learning these four listening dominances, learning how to speak into each of the dominances and learning how to assess others dominances by how they speak. Jenny  I think this will be hugely powerful. And given that it's always quoted as the most important skill for an account manager, I think it's worth the time investing in understanding because, speak to me about some of the results that you've had Laura, from working with organisations, individuals, like, it's certainly going to transform, but could you maybe give a couple of examples of how you've seen the impact of doing this training? Laura  Yes, absolutely. One of my favourite ideal clients is actually working with small companies. And I just had the pleasure of working with a small company in Kansas of the United States that had 24 employees. And they're a relatively new company and they're very proud of their company culture. And it sounds like I'm going away but I'm really going to bring this all back. When you think about culture Jenny, culture occurs because of repeated patterns of something. That's how we create culture. So whether we talk about culture from a larger, 'We're going to celebrate this holiday. And this is what we do with these holidays', to family cultures, to company cultures. And they wanted to become a culture that was known for listening. And so I took them through approximately 10 hours of training together. And not only did we get into a lot of what I call listening solutions, the verbal listening skills that you can do, but we actually identified different places within their company, where they could implement these solutions on a routine basis. So that any new employee entering the culture, entered recognising that they're supposed to do these skills, because everybody around them were doing these skills. So it was a way to enculturate the new people into the skills. So in terms of transforming a company, they're in the process of very much transforming because they're implementing listening in so many of the different routine areas of their company. So I have a very specific example on this. At the end of every meeting, when they're making decisions, they go through that cheat sheet that I had mentioned before that asks the 12 different questions, three in each of these areas, to make sure that they haven't left out any of these areas, because there's no guarantee that the people in that meeting are going to represent all four areas. So it's really important to continually ask yourself if you're representing all of those areas. I also worked with a female who was, she was promoted to be a communication manager at a company. And she was now at the leadership level and definitely not quite as confident as the other leaders who were there, she was the only female leader. And so not only did we work on some of the gender differences, but we worked on the listening differences, and were able to identify the different dominances of the other leaders in the company, and develop the different types of questions and statements she could use with them individually and in group. And the perception of her then, in the other's eyes, just grew exponentially, which of course, gave her much more confidence in what she was doing as well. Jenny  Wow. Sorry, go on. Laura  And then there are other times there are just, there are the 'Ah ha's' that individuals have, when they find that they have been the square peg in the round hole, so to speak. So I love working with groups. And when I do a group profile, we can see what everybody's dominance is. And sometimes you see there's only one Analytical person and the rest are Connective conceptual, which could happen a lot, particularly in the very creative fields like marketing and sales, particularly marketing there. And so that person who is Analytical who has always felt like the odd person, and everybody else has treated that person as the odd person, because said person is the one always saying, 'But what's the budget? We're not going to get this done in that deadline'. And everybody else is just, you know, having fun brainstorming, they recognise the value that this analytical person is really bringing to them, because he or she is bringing information that they hadn't considered. And that analytical person can then value more the Connective conceptual. And it also gives them a way to talk about what's happening in the room, and what should be happening in the room. So let's all put our conceptual hats on right now, we're not going to worry about anything analytical, no details here. But let's brainstorm for the next five minutes, you know, or now we need to get really analytical because we have to talk about whether we have the funds to be able to build this better mousetrap. And we have to talk about whether we're going to be able to get it done by the clients deadline here. So it gives us a different way to talk about what we're doing. And that talking about it then changes the way that we do it in our brains. And it takes us back to that synchrony, which is part of collective intelligence for the group. Jenny  Absolutely fascinating. For so many different benefits, you know, because up until this point we've been discussing how it affected the client and the account manager and the confidence levels and the rapport building. But actually, there's a huge piece here about internal efficiencies, culture, people working and gelling together, understanding one another, feeling part of it, being perceived as more effective or feeling more, you know, efficient and effective. So, there's just no end to the benefits really, is there? I just think this is so, it's should be part of everybody's training actually. Laura  I definitely would agree with you. I would love to take this back to primary education, really start listening there. But since we haven't, yes, this is a way for people to have a superpower. Jenny  And you're absolutely right, that it isn't taught in schools. And perhaps that's the mission, isn't it? That's where we should be starting all of this and this awareness. Wow. This has been absolutely fascinating. Laura. There was one other thing that you shared with me that I would love to just mention before we finish, which is the different cultures again. You mentioned in the States, there's a general kind of half a second pause between conversations, but you also gave examples of other areas of the world where it was up to six or seven. Laura  Yeah.  Jenny  Can you talk to us about that? Laura  Sure. So the three examples that I like to use, The States - which is approximately a half a second between speakers, and then we've got some of the Asian cultures where there's up to seven to eight seconds between speakers. And then we have the Italian culture and the New York Jewish culture, where there is no time between speakers because the speakers are actually overlapping each other, interrupting each other. And the interesting element to all of this, is the reason that all of the cultures do it differently, is that's how they show respect in their culture. So in the Asian culture, I am going to pause for seven to eight seconds to show you that i'm really considering and honouring the information that you've shared with me and think about it before I respond to it but in the Italian culture where they're actually interrupting each other, which you know would be extremely rude to other cultures, the reason that it's respectful there is because it shows that you want to co-create the conversation with them. You want to create the story together. So with account managers who are working with clients from around the world, definitely understanding how respect is shown in the culture through simple things like pauses or non pauses is really important. Jenny  I wish I'd taken your training before I went to live in Spain for three years because I used to have to excuse myself from dinner parties and go and sit in the other room because my head was exploding! And you know in hindsight, it was the difference in how they communicate, everyone talks at once and you know! So this is absolutely fascinating. Laura thank you so much for coming on. I think this has opened up so much possibility for account managers. I think it's lovely to know that there is a tool that they can capitalise on to help them get better at listening. So can you just tell us the best way of reaching you and ideally, who would you like to be contacted by? Laura  The best way to reach me is either through my website Listening to Change, and there's a place where you can actually then link to me on there and send me a question. So you can do it that way, or you can link with me on LinkedIn, so it's laurajanusik. And then my ideal client? Individuals who are interested in improving their individual listening. Teams - so whether it's the team leader or somebody on the team. I love to help teams better align their communication and understand this, not only to work more productively internally but work more efficiently with external stakeholders as well. And then I love working with small companies to help build their culture to be a listening culture. Jenny  Amazing. Okay, fantastic. We'll include all of those links Laura and once again I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much for your time. Laura  Thanks Jenny, it was my pleasure, very much.