Creative Agency Account Manager Podcast

Welcome to Episode 72. This chat is packed full of tips for how to be successful in the agency account management role as you transition through the levels,  to become a Client Services team leader.Vicky Janaway joins me from The Gate agency and she shares with me:what her role entails as client relationship leadwhat it takes to be an excellent account manager and account team leadsome tips for making the transition from account manager to account directorwhy she follows the philosophy of Radical Candour when giving feedback to her teamand she also shares some great book recommendations for those who are keen to develop their own leadership skills.Finally, I’m really excited to let you know that my Account Accelerator training programme is now a year long. So not only do you get nine weeks of training and coaching with me, but you'll also get to connect with your peers who have also been through the training. And you'll continue to receive ongoing support and training from me throughout the year. The next programme starts on 18th October 2022 and you can see all the details on my website at https://www.acccountmanagementskills.com/training. You can book in a no-obligation 20 minute call with me, to see if the training is the right fit for you or your team. 

Welcome to Episode 71. I invited Ryan Lisk, Founder of Hybrid Legal, to talk about why it's important to cover yourself legally when growing an agency.We chatted about:some of the risks agencies take by not having the right contracts in placethe different legal areas agencies need to pay attention to at every stage of their growthand he also shared examples of how easily you can leave your agency business exposed when you don't cover all of the most relevant legal areas.If you have any questions or doubts that you might not have all of your legal bases covered in your agency, then please do contact Ryan via LinkedIn or his website.And as we've been talking about risk, if you want to reduce your client relationship risk, and would like to talk to me about account management training, then you can find out more on my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com

Welcome to Episode 70. Have you ever experienced feelings of anxiety, overwhelm, or even burnout in your agency job?  We all know that working in an agency can be fun and rewarding. But it's also really fast paced.Many account managers are juggling lots of different client relationships, multiple projects, and reacting to the inevitable unexpected fires that also need to be put out. And, let's be honest, some days, weeks, or even months can be constantly busy and feel pretty relentless.Account managers need a high level of personal resilience, and also a certain degree of resourcefulness, and being able to keep your cool when dealing with problems. I recently had some training myself to help me with my own resilience, called Quality of Mind and it was unlike any other training I'd experienced before, because it was talking about how the mind actually works. It hasn't only helped me with my resilience, it's also impacted very positively in all sorts of areas of my life. #The foundations of this training that I did were based on what's known as non-duality, the direct path. And since the training three months ago, I've been pretty riveted by this topic and I've managed to read four books and I’ve watched a couple of documentaries on YouTube. I felt like I was discovering a big secret with this training, but I've been surprised to see that it was actually just this world that I knew nothing about, and that these principles that I learned, I have already been adopted by 1000s of individuals, business leaders and organisations.I've been so impacted about what I've learned that I wanted Piers Thurston to come on and share these principles of this Quality of Mind training with you.If my chat with Piers piques your interest and you're curious to go a bit deeper, or maybe you want to ask questions to see if it might help you or your agency team, then please join us for the free Quality of Mind for Agencies mini training at 1pm on Wednesday 14th of September 2022. Follow this link to register: www.bit.ly/qualityofmind

Welcome to episode 69, with agency profitability expert, Marcel Petitpas in which we talk about the agency account manager's role in making sure projects are delivered profitably in a creative agency.https://ca.linkedin.com/in/marcelpetitpasHe shared:- the most common reasons agencies are unprofitable- some examples of where agencies can tighten up- what he's seeing the most profitable agencies doing differently- the importance of the account managers role in agency profitability- and what he thinks of value based pricing.There are lots of wonderful, useful nuggets of wisdom in this conversation and I found this discussion with him so valuable. Once you’ve listened to the podcast, don't forget to go over and see the resources that he's provided. He talks about his toolkit and also the agency pricing quadrant.Find the transcript at: https://accountmanagementskills.com/how-to-make-your-agency-more-profitable-with-marcel-petitpas/A reminder that my next Account Accelerator training programme starts on 15th September and helps anyone in a creative agency account management position, and who is responsible for the agency's forecast, to grow their existing accounts. If you'd like to learn more about the programme, go to my Training page: www.accountmanagementskills.com/training. You can book a 20 minute call with me and we can see if it might be a good fit for you or someone else in your team. At the end of the podcast recording or transcript, you’ll find out what other participants have said about going on the Accelerator programme.

Welcome to Episode 68. This is a shorter, solo episode in which I talk about growing your existing accounts. There's been a lot of talk about the coming recession. If so, how do we prepare for it? Mark Ritson has written about this in Marketing Week, and The Drum have been talking about how agencies can prepare for it. For agencies, it will be even more important than ever to look after their current clients. Not only look after them but also seek ways of growing them as well. So, I've to share with you four reminders, and some questions you could ask yourself, about how you can grow existing business, and why it helps you in your account management role.If this episode resonates with you, and you would like to go further into the other ways that you can grow your business, work with me for nine weeks so that we can work together to help you grow your accounts, and talk about all other aspects of growing your existing accounts, then my next Account Accelerator training programme starts on 15th of September. If this sounds like something that you're interested in, or maybe you think it's suitable for one of your team members, then please book a call with me, you can go to my website, www.accountmanagementskills.com/training and book a short call with me. And let's have a discussion and see if it's the right fit for you. Similarly, you can contact me on LinkedIn at Jenny Plant.

Welcome to episode 67.  You're in for a treat as I chatted to a very experienced marketer, Gareth Turner, who's been an agency client for much of his career.He shares his own experience of being on the client side. He has also carried out a study of the best and worst client-agency relationships, and how to improve them, and he's published the results in a white paper. During our chat, we talked through the findings of this report. Whether you're in marketing on the client side or managing the relationship on the agency side, you're going to benefit from the insights he shares.If you're working in agency account management, and you'd like to get some formal training in how to offer the highest level of value to your clients, so you not only retain your client relationships, but grow your accounts, then visit my website at https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/training, and check out my Account Accelerator programme. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyplant

Welcome to Episode 66. We’re talking about diversity and inclusion in creative agencies with DE&I expert, Tutu Popoola, Lead HR Consultant and Managing Director at Sleek HR. She shares so many tips and advice and insight into how agency leaders are navigating their way through the topic in their agencies. If you're an agency leader, she shares:·         the areas of your recruitment systems and processes that you need to pay attention to ·         how you can inadvertently exclude a team members when it comes to agency social events·         the importance of consulting with your team, particularly before you talk about these topics on social media·         how to help your team talk about mental health issues by setting the example·         and lots more.  I would encourage you to get in touch with Tutu if this is a topic where you think some external counsel might be helpful. There's been a lot of talk about the changing financial climate that's coming and talk of recession. So, it's going to be even more important to make sure we're looking after those existing client relationships. If you'd like to talk to me about client retention and growth training for your account management team, or maybe for yourself, then please do get in touch. You can go to my website www.accountmanagementskills.com/training and find out more about my training programme Account Accelerator, or you can contact me on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/jennyplant) and let's have a chat about whether it's right for you. 

Welcome to Episode 65. This episode will appeal to two types of people. 1) If you're already working in agency account management, but you're super ambitious, and you just want to see where your account management skills can take you in your career, or 2) you're an agency owner, and you want to scale your businessToday's guest is Danny Turnbull. Danny helps independent agencies grow their business, but he started his career in account management. He moved through the ranks of account management to various agency leadership roles and has ended up consulting with agency business owners. Dan talks to us about his career path and what helped him on his career path, and some revelations about what accelerated his career. But he also shares:-  some of the challenges agencies are facing right now- his view on whether working from home works for agencies-  and also why he encourages agencies to consider a pod structure business model. If you're an agency owner, and you haven't joined the free agency owner community, Agencynomics, or read the book, then go over to agencynomics.com, and you can find out a lot more about that. And if you'd like to chat to me about agency account management training, please go over to my website, www.accountmanagementskills.com where you can find details of my next Account Accelerator training programme, starting in September. 

Welcome to episode 64. Nicky Parker, founder of Bang Consulting, helps companies make sure their marketing is fit for purpose so she's very familiar with the realities of what our marketing clients do on a day to day basis and the challenges they face.In this podcast, Nicky shares:- Why agencies shouldn't be putting technical people in charge of a client relationship- How account managers can get more credibility and deepen the relationship with their client- Why account managers shouldn't be chasing invoice payments- Why you need to keep the client informed about team changesAnd lots, lots more. Nicky really provides some valuable golden nuggets having worked with many companies on their marketing strategy and operations over the years.I'm now taking bookings for my September training programme for those in creative agency account management. So if you want to learn how to retain and grow your client relationships, position yourself more as an adviser than order taker,  you can visit my Training page at https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/training  and book a 20-minute call with me to see if this might be a good fit for you.

Welcome to Episode 63.  A few months ago, I was invited to chat to Kap Chatfield from Rveal media about my podcast. During that interview, he grilled me not only about why I have the podcast, but he also asked me to share some tips for how to retain and grow client business. I thought it might be valuable to share the interview with you, if you haven't listened to it already, because we talked about:- the number one problem agencies have with account growth- ideas for how to address account growth problems- what holds agencies back from growing accounts- why quarterly strategy sessions are useful tips for understanding your client's business- how to be more valuable to your clients as an account manager- and how to be seen more like an advisor than an order taker.