Transcript: In this episode, I'm going to share with you three key steps to leading a client meeting. One of the many roles of an account manager is to lead meetings where you may have several clients involved, and also several members of the agency team. So this might be a presentation of your new ideas, or it could be campaign results, or even you might be conducting a post project review: anything where there's meetings of several individuals from both the clients side and the agency side. And actually, as main point of client contact, you're the one that needs to be seen to be facilitating and leading a meeting such as this. So I want to share with you three key steps you can take to make sure that you're covering all bases when you turn up at meetings. And the reason I'm doing this ismany participants on my Account Accelerator programme tell me that sometimes they struggle, leading client meetings where there are several agency colleagues involved. And one of the reasons is, perhaps the agency colleagues that are attending the meeting are more senior, or maybe they're more extroverted, or maybe they just have more to say. But what happens is sometimes the account manager feels, hang on a minute, I should be sort of being seen to lead this, this call or this meeting and actually, what I'm beginning to feel like is, I'm not being the main person here, and I just don't look like I'm in control. So it could be that there's another character in the room that's a stronger character, or they just simply know more about this particular topic, and are kind of an extroverted character where they like to talk a lot, but for whatever reason, really, if you follow these three key steps, I think you're going to set yourself up for success.So the first step is to reconfirm. And they will begin with Rs because I love a model. So to Reconfirm the meeting with the client, so perhaps you've set a date with the client for two weeks time, where you're going to be presenting your ideas back. Now, the smart thing to do is before you turn up at the meeting, is to call in advance to make sure, maybe it's a several days in advance to reconfirm the time, reconfirm how you're going to connect, and also to go through the agenda. Now, this is also an opportunity to ask the client, what their expectations are for that meeting. For example, you could ask something like for this meeting to be successful, what for you needs to have happen by the end, and then you go really quiet, and you wait for the client to tell you. So you might be surprised, you might be surprised that they will say something like, Well, actually, my business unit director is going to be there. And actually, it's really important to me that you shine in front of him, because he doesn't know you, he's never met you and he might have another agency that he'd like to work with. Now, this is great background knowledge for you. So obviously, another important point of this is reconfirming who's going to be at that meeting. And like I just intimated perhaps there are going to be other people from the client side that you've never met before. So it would be really in your interest to understand who they are, how experienced they are, how up to date they are with the project, or what you're going to be presenting, and more importantly, what their expectations of that meeting are. So you know, you can ask your client contact, tell me who's going to be there? And can you spend a few minutes telling me a bit about the background to these people? And perhaps can you introduce me in advance, so perhaps I can introduce myself and just double check what their expectations are of the meeting. So this means that you are going to understand who's going to be there, and what they want. Now, a little tip, if you are given the names of those client individuals that you have met, then you can go over to LinkedIn and see if you can find their profile, look at their background experience. And also, you could download an app called Crystal Knows and Crystal Knows tells you the type of kind of communication style this individual has. It's really fascinating. I was a bit sceptical at the beginning, but I have to say having tested the app with several profiles of people that I know, I can honestly say that it's quite accurate. So this is obviously useful information for you because that will give you context for what kind of character they are, and perhaps what they're looking for. So for example, if you know from looking at their profile and looking at the app, maybe, that they tend to be very analytical, not particularly outgoing, they like the detail, they love spreadsheets, then you can then have that in mind, when you're presenting. You can maybe take a little information pack that they can then take away and have a look at in their own time. Similarly, if you find out that the characters that are going to be there are extroverted or expressive, or drivers, you know, get to the point, I want the outcomes, don't give me waffle, you know, just be sure to make to keep in mind that you need to adapt your style in the meeting to who's in the room. So that's the first thing, call in advance to reconfirm the meeting with the client. And also, sometimes when you do this, the client might say something like, Oh, I'm glad you called, because things have changed a little bit our side, or something actually else has come up that I need to brief you on. So perhaps we can put aside 20 minutes at the end of the call so I can brief you. You never know. So why is this important? Well, you don't want any surprises at the meeting. You want to look professional and buttoned up. You also want to know if the meeting could be any shorter. You know, if you've put aside 90 minutes for a huge presentation, but actually, the client tells you 90 minutes is a long time. How come? Let's talk about that. Could we do it in 15 minutes or something like that. Also, you want to do a bit of research on the company. You know, what's happening at the company level is anything that you should be aware of. Have a look at their client website for the latest company news, perhaps downloads the transcripts from the the investor relations meetings, if it's a big enterprise client, perhaps look on LinkedIn for the CEO and see if there's any latest news he shared. So yeah, reconvene the meeting, do a bit of background reading.And then the next step is to Rehearse. So the other R is rehearse. And that's where you want to pull the agency team members together, to talk them through your pre meeting plan. And that is essentially briefing them on who's going to be there, what their expectations are, go through the agenda, and agree roles and responsibilities. And this will prevent anyone talking over you, for example, if you agree that you're going to be the one leading the meeting, facilitating the meeting, opening up the meeting. It's also an open opportunity to think about and anticipate any questions that you think might come up in the meeting, so that you can agree as a team, how you're going to respond to those questions. You may have some questions yourself that you'd like to ask. Also agreeing,  how you're going to interact with the team? Who's going to go first, who's going to go second? What's going to happen at the end? Maybe you have a Q&A session, and who's going to lead that and maybe direct the questions. So, getting the team together is a real lovely way for the rest of the agency team members who perhaps don't have that regular contact with your client, to feel included, to feel updated, to feel prepared, and part of your team. So rehearse get together and make sure that, you know, by the time you get in front of the client, you are a well oiled machine, and you've anticipated different things that can happen.The third step of leading a meeting is to be Ready to lead. So this is the third R,  ready to lead. And essentially, it's where your job is to at the beginning of the meeting for everyone there, restate the meeting agenda, talk about timings of the meeting, and what's going to happen at the end. So for example, you might might say that, at the end, my job is going to be to take note of the key action points. And what I'll do at the end of this meeting, is go through those key actions to get them agreed. And then I will within 24 hours of the meeting ending I will circulate a contact report with those key actions document documented. So that's always a good thing to do. Also, if there are any breaks in the meeting, just make sure that you've told everyone, look, we're going to be pausing for 10 minutes for a refreshment break, so that everyone knows in advance that they can maybe take a call that they need to or send an email. And then facilitate the discussion.Make sure that you're the one leading the meeting pulling people in and looking for those signals from from the client side, particularly, if they are, you know, maybe losing their concentration, getting distracted looking bored, look for members of your team, maybe that may be waffling a little bit too long, or going off agenda points, make sure you bring everyone back to the key objective of why you're there. And then at the end of the call, you can then wrap up, summarise the key points that have been covered in the meeting, and talk about next steps. So let's just recap. So the three R's so Reconfirm the meeting in advance, Rehearse the meeting internally, and then be Ready to lead the meeting with the client. So I hope you found that useful. I hope there was a couple of reminders there for what you can do. But it's always good to have a process that you follow for every meeting, so that everyone knows the protocol, particularly for big meetings where you only get one chance.There's another episode of the podcast where I talk about how to overcome status quo bias. And this is where you may be presenting new ideas and perhaps the client is potentially resistant to those ideas, and how you can overcome them. So you can certainly have a have a look back at that episode, I'll include the link in the show notes. And this will give you a reminder of the checklist that you can go through to make sure you cover all of those points to overcome the client status quo bias.I hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you have any questions about leading meetings, then please look me up on LinkedIn, Jenny Plant, send me an email jenny@accountmanagementskills.com.And just to let you know, I'm running my next Account Accelerator programme on the 23rd of September. This is going to be a nine week programme with five 90 minute coaching sessions every two weeks. And it's where I talk you through a systematic approach and a client centric approach to client growth. So it's to take you from unpredictable project revenue to more predictable account growth. And it is for you if you've been in an account management role for at least two years managing managing client relationships and you are responsible for account growth. Then come over to my website on the training hub, and you can find out more. It's accountmanagementskills.com/training. 

Transcript:Jenny  00:00So I want to move on to the next theme, if that's okay, which particularly stood out for me, is all about the question around 'Are you sharing learnings from other clients?' So can you tell me the background to this question and some of your recommendations? Carey  00:15Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating. Whenever there's uncertainty, people want to know what the best thing to do is. And if you're an agency, you've got loads of clients generally, or at least you've got more than one. And so if you're working with different clients, you may be coming across different ways of dealing with things like the pandemic. Now, this of course, is not just about the pandemic, this is something that's we've noticed over the years, has been around for a long time, where a client will say to an agency, 'I tell you what, what are you doing for others of your clients that I can use and reapply to my business?' And they just go 'Oh, yeah. Okay'. And then if asked, the agency will think about it and go to them. But the real opportunity here is to just turn that round. You know, 25%, sorry, 100% of clients want their agencies to leverage their learning with other clients to their benefit. 25% of agencies do so. 100 versus 25. It's dead easy, right? If you're doing stuff for a certain client that works, and you see an analogous situation with another client that could benefit from a similar sort of situation, then why not share, confidentiality being prime of course, but you can certainly talk broad principles as and when you do it. And of course, the great thing is you can also turn these things into case studies, whereby it becomes an agency library of how to apply, reapply learning from one situation to another one while making adjustments at the margin. Now, all clients want, everybody wants the inside track right? Now, this is such an easy thing for agencies to do. It's true of service providers in every market we've looked at, the clients want them to leverage their learning. Jenny  02:19I absolutely agree and I love that you're making this point. And I just hope everyone takes it on board, because it's such an easy win. But do you know what? One agency account manager told me, I talk about this in my programme, and we talk about using client stories and talking about what other clients are benefiting from and what you're seeing, the trends, the patterns. And you know what she said? I've always been told in client service, you shouldn't be talking about other clients, because the client you're with wants to feel like the only client. So up until that point, she hadn't ever referred to what she's doing with other clients. So that's a little bit inside the mind. Now what she actually did, was she did tell the client a story about what she was doing with other clients. And because this particular client, he was ambitious, he wanted to look good within the company, he started leaning in and saying, 'So tell me, what else are you doing for the other clients? Yes, I want to know that and send me a proposal to this and what else what else?' She came away from that meeting, no word of a lie because I've got it recorded, for a proposal to write for £150,000 worth of new business. So what you're saying, when I read that in your report, I just thought yes, finally, kind of it's official! Carey  03:38Yeah. And, there's a great example, two months ago, I was interviewing a lady client of one of my clients. And she said that when she had gone into this role, they had two B2B agencies and the split was roughly 50/50. Six months in, the split is now 65/35 in favour of the agency that employed us last year, took our advice and started sharing learning. So they've increased their share. And the other thing that agencies kind of get very nervous about and very timid about, is the concept that the clients of the agencies should in fact meet in some way. Club clients together, what they might say?! Clients love it! Clients want to do it because they want an opportunity to network, they want an opportunity to learn and reapply. It's all about learn and reapply. Get the shortcut, get the journey. Simon  04:50I don't know whether we mentioned this last time, but it's probably worth telling the story again. There is an agency we work with in the States who want to bring thought leadership and added value to the client relationships. And what they do every quarter is they invite I think, four or five, let's say other marketing managers or marketing directors to a meeting, where they bring the creative director and the strategic planning director, and generally the managing director of the agency And the client is asked to bring one business challenge or problem that they are facing. Prior to the meeting, everybody has signed an NDA. And so the way it works is, let's say client 'A'  has 10 minutes to talk about the background and the issue that they are facing. And then either 20 minutes or half an hour, the group then discuss different views on how that problem might be addressed. But the idea is that people come with problems and it's basically brainstormed not just with the agency, but with their peers. Now, obviously, their peers don't come from the similar categories or similar markets. But everybody walks out with something. The agency has a better view of the issues that's driving the business. And those clients have actually also met some peers and contacts that they can keep in contact with. And that is a very different mechanism but from everything that we hear with this agency, it works really, really well. Jenny  06:28Wow, that shows a level of confidence that also demonstrates that you are a true trusted advisor, aren't you? Because you're helping them ultimately solve their business problem. Simon  06:38It does, it does. You know, one of the things that staggers me is, Carey and I have been running relationship audits for over 20 years now. And what Carey said is absolutely true that, agencies seem to be fearful of introducing their clients to each other. It beats me why agencies don't do conferences, and actually bring all their clients together, because clients like to meet other clients. And it's one thing in the old sales promotion industry, now the activation industry or whatever, it used to be fantastic at partnering and bringing people together. And you know, it's one of the things that we're seeing particularly in the professional services arena, we work for a number of big law firms, one of the big added value areas, is making pertinent introductions. Introducing one client to another, or other people that they have contact with within an industry. It adds an enormous amount of value. And also, it also shows how confident the agency or the firm is. Something to possibly think about. Jenny  06:43I think it's a great, great tip. Is there any kind of watch outs for doing that though? For example, is the reason that that's so pertinent is because the majority of your clients tend to have the title of Marketing Director? And therefore, of course they're going to be interested in meeting other marketers from other industries to share learnings. Is it necessary that they have the same category background or not category, but title? Simon  08:20Yes, the two big watch outs are nobody in the faintest way could be considered conflicts. Point one. And point two is you have people at the same level. So there wouldn't be any problem of having marketing directors and marketing managers, but you wouldn't invite let's say, a managing director from one company, and a product manager from another. And then thirdly, it's the same when we're doing interviews, be they online, or deep dive interviews, you invite everybody from the same level, you just don't pick one or two. And, you know what, again it's something you can learn from the professional services firms, we're talking about a conference, but in a sense it's kind of training and adding value through some form of thought leadership. It's a fantastic way to not only embed yourself with the clients that you actually currently work with, but also to get attendance from other people that may never have heard of the agency. It's something that the social agencies and the digital agencies, a few have done well, a few haven't really taken the opportunity because it's something that anybody, particularly in marketing management, needs to actually know about. And those agencies that have offered training and thought leadership have become, in many, many cases, the trusted advisors and experts to their client on that subject. Jenny  10:02Brilliant tips. The other thing I'm seeing, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, but to that idea about training, some agencies do it and have been doing it during the sort of COVID era, running sort of educational webinars, but they tend to just do it for prospective clients rather than their existing clients. Are you seeing that trend as well? Simon  10:24No, but that's just utter, utter, utter madness. Carey  10:26I couldn't agree more. Simon  10:30And that really says a lot about agencies like that, that they undervalue their clients hugely. And you know, as what we said last time, their clients are other people's new business prospects. And particularly areas like training are a great way, obviously, to actually get clients, but also to actually add value to existing relationships. I mean, frankly, if you think about it, if you've got moderately happy, or very happy clients, and you're inviting a few new business prospects, you will find that your existing clients will be doing the selling of the agency to your prospective clients. Jenny  11:16Perfect point. Absolutely. So I'm just conscious of time, and I know that I could talk to you two all day, we know that already. I want to cover these themes, because you've got six themes. And so far, we've covered four. Theme five was all about, 'Are you better or worse at technology?' Carey  11:35I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, because I think this is a pretty kind of black and white situation. Technology, as Simon said, people were talking about our use of technology and technology has changed business, more in five weeks than 8 or 10 weeks, and in 10 years. So technology was a big theme last year. And we've got some examples of where people get that right, and where they get it wrong. So, a lot of companies, 70% of companies say technology is important, but it's around about 40%/ 42% of clients who say they really understand the technological competencies of their agencies. And that technology thing is important. We're working with a company, for example, for whom we create reports in fine detail. But we also have a dashboard, and this is for our radar product. We expose the dashboard, a new bunch of people at the client hadn't been exposed to the dashboard previously. We exposed them to the dashboard and they went, 'Wow, this can make our life so much easier. Wow!' And they said, 'Well, why didn't you tell us ' and we said, 'Well, we did tell you, but the people we told have moved on, and the people that are still there haven't bothered to tell you'.  You know, it was one of these things. So you never assume. And then the two examples I wanted to bring, was that we came across one example last year, an agency that had developed a fantastic intranet. And what they were able to do is a global relationship. And they were able to use that intranet to provide access to clients on a local basis, to the library of assets that had been created, and make it really easy for them to download it on a local basis, and so on and so forth. So made the process simpler. And  something that will withstand and go past the whole pandemic thing because it's just a good idea. And now the other side of the technology is when you when you haven't really thought it through. And there's a great example we heard last year of our of an agency that was down to the sort of the final stages of a pitch for a big UK grocery retailer. And when it came to the sort of the technological audit, the process people were wanting to put in place, what they found was that the agency's capabilities and technology could not deliver what the client wanted, because there was so much, more re-engineering would be needed. And so the agency lost, even though they were in the final shortlist, they lost out because they did not have the competence and capabilities to be able to deliver what that particular client wanted. So, the whole thing about technology, I can go on and on about this, but the reality is, you need to understand whether your technological process and systems and capabilities is fit for the purpose of what your clients want, and are there any ways in which you can leverage your technology to actually gain competitive advantage? Jenny  14:51Wow. Simon  14:53And Carey, can I just add to that? In the same way that Diversity and Inclusion it used to be a tick box on a RFP but now it's switched to rather than a nod, unless you can prove it you won't get through to the shortlist or won't get appointed. It is worth checking out the clients expectations in terms of technological capabilities before you decide to pitch. Carey  15:23There's another bit to that too, which is that, if you've got a client and the client works with different agencies in different organisations, one of things you can do quite simply is ask the client, 'Can you give us an example of another supplier with whom you work, that has a fantastic technological solution to a problem that you may have had in the past?' That gives you, 'Aha, we should go and talk to those people'. So that's, again, that's a simple thing you can do. Simon  15:53Jenny could just add one other thing. I think that there will be a lot of account managers, account directors listening to this podcast and the analogy I would give is understanding what a car can do rather than how the engine works. Understand what technology you have within your agency and the benefits it can bring. Because also, we find with a lot of agencies and service providers, the people that are representing the agency aren't communicating the technology that the agency actually has, to the client. And you never know, you may have competitive points of advantage in terms of the technology you use, and how you do it over and above the competitive set. Jenny  16:46Great advice again. I've got so many more questions, but I do want to get through the themes. I'm just jotting them down, so if we have time. The theme number six was 'Do you realise what drives perception of value?' I mean now, do you realise what's changed? Simon  17:06I mean, the simple thing is that value for money appears to becoming less transactional. And what I mean by that is, less transactional in terms of what's paid, versus the deliverables that are given to the client. What we're seeing is soft factors. And by soft factors, what I mean is the quality of staff, people's attitude. As Carey said earlier, flexibility and agility and going the extra mile, are becoming increasingly more valued. And for many clients, this is reflecting the growing desire for true business partnerships in these uncertain times. And that's probably why our data suggests that value for money is highly correlated with a propensity to award more business alongside the quality of the team. So this is really, really important. The more you can be showing and demonstrating value for money with the hard as well as the soft factors, the more likely you are to actually win more business from an existing client. So there are a couple of points coming out of this. Again, this is a recurring theme from what I've been saying, which is take the time to ask your clients. And in this case, what they take into account when they judge value for money. Obviously continue to work on the hard factors such as delivering on brief, on budget and on time, but also consider  these soft measures, such as the quality of the business relationships and going the extra mile. Be able to demonstrate the value that you bring against your clients defined criteria. One of the things that we often find is that agencies have a clear view of what they believe value for money is. Well I can tell you, 9 times out of 10 that that won't accurately measure up against what a client's definition of value for money is. So ask. And then thirdly, and probably in passing, even before the pandemic, we heard almost on a weekly basis, our own clients talking about the dearth of quality talent, at junior and middle management level, and clients often airing their frustrations about the churn of staff. The thing to say is that clients put a huge value on the retention of staff, and there is a definite straight line towards the quality of the business relationship and the continuity of the staff. A lot of agencies are going through an awful lot of churn at the moment and one of the ways you can differentiate yourself and your agencies is to have happy, motivated people continuing to work on and know the client's business. Jenny  20:01Where do you see agencies that do particularly well, in retaining their existing staff? Carey  20:09It's an attitude of mind. I think it's an attitude of mind, it's about being inclusive. So for example, we do an annual client evaluation audit for one Pharma agency. And what we did this year was, we came out with a whole bunch of kind of conclusions, recommendations. And then what we did was we got involved with the leadership team, but with the whole agency. And we said, so these are the things that you're doing really well. These are the things that you need to be thinking more deeply about and think about ways of enhancing this. And these are the issues, these are the problems. And  what we did, it was fantastic, everybody in the agency was embroiled in this. They developed different cohorts, with each cohort was given a part of these things to review, come up with potential suggestions, and then kind of report back to the group. So the point about all this was that the problems and the issues and the opportunities were all if you like, fed up from the bottom. So everybody in the business, felt they knew what the issues were the clients had, what the clients thought, what the misperceptions were, where they had concerns. And the point is, the agency involved everybody in being part of the solution. That's a cracking way of doing it. Jenny  21:39It's such a fantastic example of superb leadership isn't it, to get everyone empowered to feel they're part of the solution? Because that's part of it, isn't it, to make people feel they have some control? Carey  21:52I think that the other thing, building on what Simon said too, is that one of the things that comes out when people say, 'Oh, the agency is expensive, are they worth it?' 'Yeah'. 'Well why they worth it?' Well, because, for those people who do, because they leverage their learning? Or because they give a regular once a month or once a quarter, they give us a proactive idea. So the point about it is that what you're doing is, as Simon said, the value for money has got more elements coming into it in terms of expression. But there are some simple things that you can do. If you are being more proactive and regularly coming up with an idea, you don't have to be proactive every single day of the week it's nonsense, but if you can come back, maybe once a quarter, or you can go and say, 'You know what, we just kind of took a look at your competition and what they're saying. And we put it as a presentation for you. Would you like to see that?' That builds a perception of getting more bang for your buck. Simon  22:58But, and I know we're tight for time, but it's making things simple. It's also bringing people on, and particularly the junior people and giving them experience. Carey, why don't you just talk briefly about when you came into advertising with Y&R, what you were set up to do? Carey  23:15I worked in Young and Rubicam and I was the junior oik on a beer account. And somebody said to me, 'What you've got to do Evans, you've got to make yourself somebody that you want to go to for something.' And so I decided I was going to make myself the expert on the beer advertising, on the competitive beer advertising. So I did a whole bunch of work on that. Did analysis of spend and this, that and the other. And did what we used to call copy evaluations and evaluate the strategy, the communication and all that stuff. And it was great because I built a reputation of being 'Hang on, we're talking with a competition, let's get Evans in here'. So you start to build yourself a perceived competence within the agency. So if you are the go to person on something that helps build your business, your own business and your profile within the agency. And of course, with the client as well. Simon  23:28Actually Carey, I haven't told you this story, but at the same time when we were in different agencies, I saw that the marketing director of one of the big breweries was talking at a conference and I got myself a ticket and went one lunchtime and took notes. And I came back, and I wrote up those notes and sent them to the account director, the head of new business. That immediately went to the MD, that immediately went to the chairman and it was then sent as a new business mailer and I'd actually made my name just by doing that. And it's just showing that bit of hunger and  understanding. And the ironic thing was it was Carey's client,  so I was just trying to nick Carey's client at the time. But anyway! Jenny  24:28Oh, that's so funny. Talking of hunger, I've been talking to agencies recently about their approach to gathering feedback from their clients. Many agencies tell me, 'Oh yeah, we're going to do the survey'. And they always assume and default to some kind of survey, whether it be online or, so you made the point Simon, just before we joined the call, that you're being asked to do so many more deep dive conversations with clients? Why do you think businesses and agencies are concluding that that's what they want to invest their time in? Simon  25:52Because if money was no object and time was no object, talking to people on a one to one basis is the most valuable sort of feedback you can get. Business relationships are getting more complicated. And to be able to if you like, to get the colour rather than just the black of white, through deep dives, in depth interviews, is absolutely now more valuable than it ever has been. Just to fill the picture, our business originally started just in doing deep dive, depth interviews. Then, about 10 years ago it shifted hugely in terms of online. One year, I think we did over 30,000 online interviews with individuals. It now seems to be coming back and a lot of our programmes are if you like, a blend between deep dive interviews with the most important or biggest clients or key decision makers, and then covering everybody else off in terms of online. And obviously, there are common questions for both, but I think the main message is that people are now taking it very, very seriously. And to your point, Jenny, when you opened to say that when we worked with you, we were able to bring back intelligence which kept that client with you for another two years, which I think was a seven figure in terms of fees, it's got to be worth the investment. Carey  27:42It's a great thing, it's that moment, and Simon and I both have this, when you're doing an interview, I think that the reason more people wanted interviews last year is again, based on the uncertainty, they wanted a clear picture of what was going on and they felt the best way of doing that was to ask questions. But there's that fabulous moment when you've been doing an interview, you've built a bridge of rapport, the client's telling you all kinds of stuff, some of which you know already, because the agency told you, and then says that immortal line, and kind of looks at you and looks away and, 'Shouldn't tell you this, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.' Yes, that's a 'kerching' moment. That is, you've built the trust and you've pulled and squeezed that little nugget out, which can make all the difference. Jenny  28:38Absolutely. Simon  28:39I'm willing to be very biased, but it's just not tipping up and going, 'Oh, I've got 10 questions to go through with you. So the first question is, for our creative standards like...' It's not like that. There is, believe me a real art to actually doing this. And the art is that you actually see the benefit if you like, with the art and the experience in those 'kerching' moments. Carey  29:08The other important thing is here, we've been doing this a long time, right? I know, we don't look very old, but we've been doing it a long time. And so what we've learned over the over the years is, which questions to ask, which questions work. You won't get the right answers unless you ask the right questions. Jenny  29:28But you're also hugely intuitive about responding and knowing when to stop, hold back, knowing when to push. And you read people. I think this is what your years of experience of just, it's listening for what's not being said. Carey  29:44Yeah, it is. And we have an expression that we've got - 'going off piste'. So if the client wants to go off somewhere and talk about something else, you just kind of go with them when we do the interviews because you never know what's going to come out the other way, which could be valuable and which you hadn't intended to even look for. So the interviews are, it's a way of adding colour. And the other thing that's important is that, I'll never forget, again another one last example for me, I was once had to do an interview for agency, and I said to the agency people beforehand, are there any issues I should be aware of, and they said no we're pretty good. There was a little issue on planning but you know, that's gone away, years ago. So I went to see this guy and the guy actually was a guy who used to be my client, when I worked for an agency. I said, 'Tell me about blah agency. What's the big picture here?' And he said, 'Ah, planning, bloody planning, planning, bloody planning!' Now, I'd been told that the issue was a minor issue that had been resolved six months ago or a year ago. And that's the benefit of the of the deep dive interview where you sit down in front of someone, you look at their body language, and you get the right volume level. It's the volume level that matters. Jenny  30:57Totally. Listen, I want to ask you one more thing, because I would love to ask you both about the trends that you're seeing right now and your advice for agencies to equip them. One of the things you mentioned Simon before was, there's a lot of acquisition going on, like agencies acquiring other agencies. And I know that you're involved in that. So I'd love you to maybe speak to that, a little bit about some of the trends that you're seeing currently. Simon  31:26Well, undoubtedly, the M&A sector is very, very busy. Certainly all the mergers and acquisitions consultants that we know and work with say that they've frankly never known it busier. What is interesting though, is that some of the some of the work we do, we call relationship diligence, which is working for a buyer to check out somebody that wants to sell their agencies quality of their client relationships. What we've seen is a significant growth on behalf of agencies that are looking to sell probably between two and five years time, and putting in place regular independent assessments, so that they will be able to show to their clients that they have a rigorous process. As one of our clients said, 'Well, the reason I'm working with you guys is because I can't mark my own homework.' So that's certainly something that's very, very busy. Secondly pitching, we've talked about, it's interesting that looking at many professional services firms, I wouldn't say automate the pitch process, but certainly in terms of RFIs, they have certain templates ready to go that are actually tweaked on a case by case basis. Thirdly for me, I'm sure Carey's got some more, the better agencies are doing proportionally a lot better than agencies that really haven't got their act together. So if things are very, very quiet for you, for those of you listening at the moment, then you've got to ask yourself, well are we really positioned as well as we possibly can be? Carey, do you want to add anything to that? Carey  33:20Not really, I mean one of the themes that came out and we've talked about this before, in when the whole lockdown thing started, clients were saying, there's the people who work with us through this whole pandemic issue, those are the people if they do it well, that will benefit when the pandemic has moved on. And as we moving out of the pandemic now, I think we'll see the same thing, which is those people who did these things that we've been talking about today, leverage learning, being flexible, being sensitive to communication needs, all that kind of stuff, those people who did that are benefiting. That's important. Simon  33:59And actually, one final thing from me Jenny, we've talked about lots of initiatives such as post project reviews, competitive reviews, etc. I can imagine the people listening to this going, 'Oh, I haven't got the time to do my day job, let alone the extra!' And I absolutely get that. The one thing that clients really appreciate, as we all do, is  brevity and keeping things short. Trying to do whatever you're going to do, on one page. And so to have a good one page document, I'm not undermining how difficult that is and how much thought that actually goes into it, but please rest assured, what you can do to add value and build better client relationships doesn't have to be long. Jenny  34:53Great point to finish on, thank you so much, because I've been hearing exactly the same thing. Listen, both of you thank you so much for joining me again. As usual, you've delivered a huge amount of value, loads of insights. And I'm sure people have been furiously taking notes and have got lots of ideas to go away with. And how can people get hold of you if they want to have a conversation around how you could perhaps help them with their business and auditing relationships? Simon  35:18Well, you can get a hold of us at relationshipaudits.com. And that's probably the easiest way to do that and go on to the contact page. And why don't we also Jenny, when you post this, put our email addresses both Carey, if you think Carey's better looking than me! Carey  35:40Obviously let's not go down to looks, we'll just get down to hair, shall we? Simon  35:44All right, okay. So you've got a choice, you've got either/or so the switch sell. Jenny  35:52Fantastic, I will make sure to include both your email addresses and the link to the website. So thank you so much again, I really appreciate it.carey.evans@relationshipaudits.com simon@relationshipaudits.com Simon  36:02Our pleasure. Carey  36:03Our pleasure. Thanks.

Transcript:Jenny  00:03So I'm absolutely thrilled to have Simon and Carey back from Relationship Audits. As many of the listeners are probably aware, as are the participants on my programmes, I'm a huge fan of relationship audits and what they've done. What they did for me when I was working at publicists, which was to come in, audit a relationship that wasn't going particularly well for the agency, and managed to extend that relationship by two years by finding out what was really going on with the client. So relationship audits and management, essentially, listen for what's not being said, with your clients. And I recommend them to every agency that I work with, because they are phenomenal. And not only that, but they have a huge amount of benchmarking data across many different industries, particularly in the creative space. So I'm delighted to have them back. So Carey, can I come over to you just to give a short intro to who you are and what you do? Carey  00:56Thank you Jenny, your cheque's in the post! Jenny  00:59Great! Carey  01:02So for those who don't know us, and I'm sure there's quite a few people who don't know who we are, the clue to what we do is in the name. So Relationship Audits, we audit relationships amongst commercial organisations who either provide a service or buy a service. So if you're a client, you might evaluate your agency or if you're an agency, you might evaluate your relationships with your clients. And we do that in the UK, we do it globally, we've got partners in different countries of the world. And we gather our intelligence by either talking to people with in depth interviews, or by using our award winning online assessment tools, prime of which is Relationship Radar. So that's what we do. Jenny  01:50Brilliant. Thank you so much for that lovely, succinct intro. So one of the big reasons I've invited Simon and Carey on is that they've developed recently a really insightful report about their findings, having worked with clients over the last couple of years. And this obviously spans COVID. So in 2020 and 2021. And actually, the insight that they've gathered from clients talking about their relationship with service providers, can provide us with some actions, some activities and recommendations for what we should be doing differently now. So Simon, would you mind spending a couple of minutes just talking about the context behind this report that you've put together? Simon  02:36Yes Jenny, thank you very much indeed and hello, everybody. One of the things that we often say to our clients, or indeed their clients often say to us, is that agencies are pretty poor leveraging their collective learning. So we, in a sense, decided to take our own advice and actually look at the themes that clients have been saying to us about their agency relationships over the last 12 months. And what we've done is we've put this together in a series about half a dozen themes of the key and regular things that people are actually talking to us about. Jenny  03:16Fantastic. Okay, fantastic. So I'm going to start us off by talking about theme one, which is, I love the way you've titled these, because it's a question, and actually people listening might be thinking, hmm, good question. So the first question is, 'Is your agency fit for purpose?' So can you talk me through a little bit about what you discovered? Simon  03:35Yeah, sure. It's amazing to think that it's now over a year since COVID hit and many countries all around the world went into lockdown. And, you know, especially for the business services sectors, such as marketing services, most clients, not all but most, cut their spending and agencies had to rapidly adapt be it furloughing staff or putting other staff on to reduced days per week. And undoubtedly, there was a real shakeout. And what our research consistently shows, is those that had the best service, the best client relationships are undoubtedly the ones that have performed better. It's interesting that some of our clients say to us, what's happening out there? It's all a bit quiet. And I don't think it's any coincidence that those are the agencies that tend to have the poorest client relationship scores. The best ones, certainly, that we've seen over the last few months have been, if they've been complaining about anything, it's the amount of pitch opportunities. So there's undoubtedly been a real shakeout. And what we've also seen is that time poor and insecure clients have really reverted to placing their work with those that they really considered to be what you call trusted advisors. In fact, probably about two thirds told us that supply and performance during lockdown was likely to impact their intentions to work with them in the future. And that we're certainly seeing is the case. Now, clearly, there have been a number of challenges there. The agencies that put their staff onto shorter working weeks, many of them face frustrations from clients, they couldn't get hold of their team when they needed them. And that from hundreds of client companies we spoken to, there hasn't been one that hasn't gone through some form of management restructure. And indeed, many of the larger clients, many of the larger corporates, seem to be on a continual journey of reorganisation. For many, the change of structure and operations has led to them re examining, if their agencies are now fit for purpose. So have a think, are you really fit for your clients purpose? So consequently, is perhaps no surprise that we're seeing in many service categories, a pitch frenzy with, as I said earlier, many agencies struggling to actually keep up with how many opportunities they have to pitch. So with this point, and the other points we're gonna make, there are two key things we'd urge you to actually think about. Simply ask yourself, 'How have your clients changed?' And if so, take a hard look at if you need to restructure the way you work with them. And secondly, confirm on a regular basis, what your clients expectations of you are, and, importantly, how you're performing against those expectations. The greatest mistake you can make is to assume your clients expectations of you have changed the same. Sorry. Let me say that, again, the biggest mistake you can make is assuming that your clients expectations of you have stayed the same. Carey. Carey  07:04I couldn't agree more. In fact, just finishing on that point about what Simon said, you know, assuming your expectations are the same as one thing, but what clients tell us,between 61 and 63%, depending on what year you're in, of our clients we speak to say that their agency has never asked them what their expectations of them are. So I'll speak to them and say, if you're asking what your client, what they want from you, you're ahead of the pack. And it's in this whole era of expectations that again, we got a interesting development over the last 12 months, when we sit down and talk to our clients, when we do deep, in depth interviews, a deep dive into this, first thing we do is we ask the client company about their expectations of their service provider, specifically, their agency. And one of the things we noticed last year was that the proportion of those people, the client, individuals with whom we spoke, who said that agility, flexibility, being able to flex was one of their expectations of the agency, had grown enormously. So if you look back to 2019, for example, then that's been there, but it was probably, it at was at a level of around 30%. And by third quarter in 2020, that number had risen to 76%. So 76% of clients were saying to us that what they were looking for was an agency that was nimble, agile, and able to flex given the levels of uncertainty that were existing in the marketplace. In fact, one grocery retailer told us that their agency had suffered because the holding company had put in place a rule about homeworking and the the agency themselves took about three weeks to get their act together. But what that bred there was a spirit of innovation to the point where eventually the agency got itself sorted. And in fact just didn't just recover but because of the effort it went to, to innovate, actually strengthened it's relationships with this particular client, because if your grocery client and your agency can't get the answer quick enough, boy, you're going to suffer, right? But the agency got around it. They look for innovative ways of doing it, and they sorted it. So the point about this, I think is to say, if you're working with a client, when was the last time you asked them about their changing priorities, speak to them about their changing priorities? Think about how well you're structured to help them deal with those priorities and those changes, and go to the client with your suggestions before they come to you with the questions. Jenny  10:23Okay, I just want to pick up on a couple of points you've said so far, particularly for the role of account manager that's listening to this. Because I think this provides a bit of a checklist, doesn't it, of things to do? Like, are we asking our clients for their expectations? You know, asking the question like, 'For you to come back to me in six months time and tell me this has been the best experience ever', or, 'I'm so glad we chose you as a partner what needs to have happened?' and then being quiet and letting them fill the gap? That's the first thing. The second thing to your point Simon, I think about the changing corporate structure, why is that key now, because for example, I've come across agencies where there has been a CEO change, or there has been a reorganisation at the top level. And that filters down to the supplier relationships. And it could be that you're, however good you've been, you might get given an RFI to fill in again. So you have to re pitch the business, which is fine and dandy if that particular client is less than, say, 20% of your overall revenue. But if it's anything greater then that presents a massive risk to the business. So I think this is great tip so far. The thing about nimbleness Carey, I just wanted to pick up, can you give me any examples of perhaps agencies that haven't been able to respond? Well, I mean, we talked about the working from home policy that maybe was put out there too quickly. Any other examples of agencies where they're not being nimble enough? Simon  11:56Can I jump in, because literally,I was speaking to a client a couple of days ago about this and one particular agency has its workload meeting on a Wednesday. And apparently, the account manager from the agency said, 'Well, I'm going to have to wait until we have the workload meeting in a couple of days time until I can get back to you, and tell you when you can have the piece of work'. Now, this caused major, major problems with that client because the client needed the work really within 48 hours not to have to wait 48 hours until he he could be told when he actually got it. But also, I think this also raises something that occasionally comes up but Carey and I know, it's very, very true. The quality of an account manager, the quality of an accounts director, is partly judged by clients in that their ability to actually short circuit agency internal processes, that when something is urgent or needed very, very quickly, to be able to bend the rules and to actually get that work done. And what clients don't want to do, rather like this particular agency I've just talked about, is feel that they are in a set process that they have to abide by when things are really, really urgent. I would also add that a great account manager, a great account director, actually knows how their clients work, how they think, how they plan. And so lots of examples of non agility are also related in many cases to the agency, not thinking one step ahead. What is likely to be coming down the line from the client? And can we be preparing for that? Carey  13:57I absolutely agree entirely with that. And I want to build on that one. Flexibility is not just about what you do, it's about the process right. And so, we recently sent interviews for an agency whose clients, at the bottom of this agency is that they've got a financial system of one size fits all. I work with them in my particular country and I don't benefit from working, I don't benefit from local rates when I want to adapt a piece of internationally developed work. So what that does is I have to pay huge amounts of money for this creative work, which upsets the relative percentage that I'm allowed to spend media versus production. So my business is completely compromised by the fact that they won't be more flexible in terms of the pricing. And to build on Simon's point, another interview that I did, the guy said essentially terrific at operationally. But the other agency with whom they work, was far better at anticipating problems. And if you anticipate problems and go to the client with a solution, before the problem actually develops and manifest itself, and boy, you're on the front foot and the client's on the front foot. So anticipate and be flexible with your financial structures where you need to be. Jenny  15:34I love that. Simon  15:35And can I just add one build on this? Is that with the intensity of work,with the intensity of deliverables and the problems associated with remote working, one of the casualties of this are regular post project reviews. What we're seeing is they're being sacrificed, just in the charge to get everything done. If you are holding regular post project reviews, to look at what's worked and why it's worked, particularly in terms of process, but also to look at where problems have occurred, and what the agency can be doing to prevent those problems occurring again, one of which may be forward planning, you will have a much, much, much better client relationship. Jenny  16:24And it's also another excuse to get in front of the client to build that relationship, isn't it? A post product project review, you could argue that it's less for the client and more for the agency. But it's so valuable. We're getting the feedback from the client so we're being able to anticipate anything that goes wrong, like Carey's point and also, it's our chance to build upon that relationship, and also anticipate future problems, because inevitably, that post project review will lead on to a future focus conversation about what's next. The other thing that you said, Carey there, which I think is again was super key, is defining value for your client from the outset. You know, what does value mean to you? Because it will mean something different. So this is all fantastic. So, we've talked about 'Is your agency fit for purpose?' we've talked about 'Is the agency nimble enough?' The third theme coming out of this report was, 'Are you communicating in the best way? Simon  17:30I think everybody listening to this will have seen, and let's say suffered from the explosion in Zoom, Teams, Bluejeans, whatever, video meetings and I suppose in the absence of being able to meet in person, it was inevitable that people switched to wanting to have virtual face time. However, the consequences have been that many managers, both on the agency and the client side, are spending huge amounts of their time on calls, and really suffering real fatigue. Many enterprise clients and their service providers are saying to us, that they believe that this has resulted in just frankly, too many meetings. And there's almost a paralysis about attending meetings versus getting work done. And it's interesting that we've seen a growing number of companies such as Citigroup, I think is one, HSBC certainly another, starting to come to trial the concept of Zoom free Fridays. I don't know whether it's going to work or not, but I think it's probably a step in the right direction. And you know, furthermore, at the start of this year, we ran a number of our relationship radar online surveys where we asked about clients intentions of going back to their offices, and also visiting their agencies. What was fascinating was by the end of February, the results were showing that 69%, nearly 70% of clients envisage going to their office this year, only three days a week or less. And 9% saying that they were going to work permanently from home. Furthermore, when asked about their anticipated intentions of visiting their agencies, approximately a third said it was too early to say. Fair enough. A third though, said it was unlikely they'd want to travel. And the other third said that they would travel, but certainly a lot less. Now interestingly, those people that said that they would travel but maybe a lot less, said they'd also like the ability to work and to meet their other colleagues in their agencies offices. Now, I think to be fair, that was the research we did in February. We sense since February, there might be a little more optimism about travelling to meetings. Nonetheless though, we're seeing agencies downsizing their office space, and reconfiguring their offices to make them more collaborative spaces. And we're also seeing a number of agencies who are hedging their bets. We know of a number who have given up long term leases and move to rented shorter term, flexible office spaces. And they're encouraging longer term working from their staff. So it's a mixture. This is a huge degree of volatility we're seeing. So, in terms of action, what would we recommend out of this? Well,firstly, don't assume that everybody wants a Zoom call. Secondly, we'd suggest it's worth resetting with your clients, asking them what communication methods they prefer. And indeed, if you're going to have those Teams and video type calls, reevaluating just how many people do you really need on that call. And thirdly, recognise that in person meetings, certainly for the immediate future, are now a precious commodity. Particularly within marketing services. Face to face meetings have been absolutely crucial to establish and maintaining enduring business relationships. And clearly there will be opportunities, sorry, clearly that there will be less opportunities to meet your clients in person, certainly over the next year. So therefore, you need to think carefully about how your agency and you can get to meet your client in person, be it creating those collaborative working spaces that clients will want to safely visit, workspaces for them to actually hot desk from and also importantly, if you're going to do all of that, have a think about when those clients are going to be in the office and make sure that you're in the office on the same day with them. Even if you haven't got a meeting. Key message is face to face meetings are precious. Jenny  22:06Such great advice there. Just a couple of points I wanted to kind of pick up on. I think a lot of this for an agency account manager that might be listening to this thinking how do I incorporate all these questions and make sure I cover all of this? What we're talking about is having a really thorough onboarding checklist, isn't it? Have I asked what the value the client wants to see from me? Have I asked, what's the best way for you and me to communicate? I had an example of an account manager the other day that said, I can't get hold on my client. I actually wrote a post on LinkedIn about it. And I said, 'So what have you done so far?' And he said, 'I've sent three emails'. And I said, 'Have you have you called?' 'No, no, they don't pick up the phone anyway'. 'Okay, fair enough. What else have you tried? Have you tried WhatsApp? Have you tried a video message? Have you tried calling someone else in the client organisation?' But I think a lot of account managers sometimes are a bit stuck in the email, just going to keep emailing. So in that instance, Simon, for example, during the onboarding process, you could ask in an emergency, let's discuss, which is the best communication vehicle for you? What would suit you? What times of the day? How is it best? And the other thing I wanted to ask you actually was, which came up in a conversation today about this face to face with clients. It's at a premium you suggested, a collaborative office space, which I think brilliant clients are showing an interest in that. What's your view on corporate entertainment? You know, is it too early to say? Are you seeing any trends? What are agencies kind of doing? Simon  23:47Okay, can I just pick up on probably three points from what you just said. I'll just answer the last one first. We are seeing only very limited amount of corporate entertainment. And those tend to be outside the marketing services sector. I think one needs, certainly until let's say the end of September, to be very, very, very careful about this. There will be clients that would like, and I would include corporate entertainment, as much as going down the pub for a drink or going out for a meal. I think one needs to be very, very careful about this in the near, certainly in the near future. In terms of meeting clients face to face, it's going to be well over a year since most of the people listening to this will have had face to face meetings with their clients. I'm a great, and I know Carey is as well, a great believer in first impressions. It's almost a chance for a new first impression. And what I mean by that is that meetings run like clockwork, there are agendas, all the points have been properly prepped. Don't just treat it as 'Hello, it's nice to actually see you again and let's carry on'. There is an opportunity to actually reset. And to that point, Jenny, you talked about the onboarding process. And we've got a number of clients that have good relationships with new clients that they've won during the pandemic. But even they recognise they're not as close as they actually should be. And that has been a challenge for those agencies. But also, when you were talking about onboarding Jenny, it actually made me think of actually, what we're talking about here is reboarding. Asking clients what their expectations are. Asking about flexibility. Actually resetting a whole number of things with your clients, as you get back into pseudo normal working. Jenny  25:54I can see a Simon Rhind-Tutt blog post coming up! Simon  25:59Yeah, maybe. And the final thing was, maybe Jenny, Carey you and I could collaborate, and maybe the listeners could also add to it, but actually, I think it would be interesting if we put our heads together, and actually drew up a list of the things you can do if you can't get hold of your client. Because I just wonder how many ideas we would actually have. Jenny  26:23A great idea. I love it. And Carey, did you want to add anything to the theme of communication? Before we move on? Carey  26:31I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? You know that if you talk about face to face communication right,now what happened last week in Carbis Bay, G7 alll met face to face. And I think, I may be wrong, but I think Trudeau said it was one of the most productive G7 conferences he's ever been to. The power of meeting people when you can do it in the right way. Simon  26:54Well, I don't want to date this cast, but was speaking and recording this the day after Joe Biden met President Putin. And one of the things that Biden said last night, which we would absolutely agree with. 'There is no substitute for actually meeting somebody in person'. Jenny  27:18Without a doubt, without a doubt. 

Transcript:Jenny 00:03So today, I'm really thrilled to have had the opportunity of speaking to both Steve Richards and Ryan O'Keeffe. Their agency is called Jago. And it's all about personal branding, they're B Corp as well, which I would love to ask them about as well. But today, the reason I've invited them on is, A. I don't know a lot about personal branding, from a professional point of view, so I'm really keen to pick their brains, but also most importantly, how this relates to both agency leaders and account managers. So before I carry on, can I hand over to either one of you, just to give me a bit of background on who you are, why you started Jago and what actually Jago is and how you help?Ryan 00:48You take the show, Steve.Steve 00:51So I'm an anthropologist with a passion for storytelling, and my heart is really around helping people to realise that they've got an important story to tell. And by putting themselves stepping up and stepping out that they will create more opportunities to develop more meaningful relationships and commercial opportunities. So for us,we like to ask people to imagine determining their own reputation, and building trust at scale. And that's what we're here to do really is to help people to find out who their real true self is. Gain a sense of direction, and purpose and confidence and clarity in who they are, and what value that they bring. And it's amazing how many people we work with don't know how to clearly articulate their strengths. And it's actually your strengths is where your value is and that's what you trade off. So if you don't know your strengths, and you're not really clear on what commercial value you bring, what value you bring. And so we do a lot of work, helping people come to that realisation and then supporting them to put themselves out there.Jenny 02:24It's really inspiring Steve, to hear you describe it in that way. I love it. Because I mean, what I didn't mention at the begining is I've been following you guys for a long time. First of all, your content is phenomenal. So it's clear that you're dedicated to this area. But also, it's how people talk about you. Like I'm working with a couple of agencies that you also are working with, and they just sing your praises. And they use the word transformational. So I'm really keen to sort of dive into that. And actually, on that point, when I visited your website, Ryan, I looked at your values. That was one of the really things that stood out to me. Can you explain what your company values are and why you chose that to be so?Ryan 03:06Absolutely. We were at a crossroads of the business, when was it three or four years ago, and we were trying to do everything, as a full service agency. And through some personal issues, and quite significant health issues with family and everything else, we kind of drew a line in the sand and said, what are we doing here? You know, what's our purpose? And what do we want to align to? And so for us, one of the major game changes was building our values. Building our values to say, how do we expect ourselves to behave? And what do we expect our people to behave like? Because that underpinned all of our conversations, all of our reviews, all of our interactions with others. And, even Steve and I have had a conversation at times and said, does that align to our values, actually are we behaving in the right way? So, even Steve and I, as the leaders and co founders, we hold each other accountable. So yeah, our number one value is people first. And interesting enough, we had that value even before we started to work with the personal branding. So it's like, we got drawn into that every time we were working with our clients, even though we were working with their brands per se, rather than the personal branding. It was always the people that that had our hearts we're always people promoter and so for us, that's been our focus, our number one value when it comes to service, what we offer, how we act, how we behave.Jenny 04:39There's a golden nugget right there actually, in what you've said, because anyone listening to this, who perhaps haven't formed their values, or maybe they're thinking, you know, we've got values, but they're kind of written on a wall somewhere that we don't even look at anymore. The questions you just asked, how do we expect ourselves to behave? I think that's fantastic. And as you said, it kind of creates this benchmark for future actions and activities from the company doesn't it?Ryan 05:03Absolutely. Like, even when I worked in the big corporate before I set up my own business. One of the things even before developing my awareness on how I behave, and enhancing the consciousness around behaviour and how it plays out and how it affects our interactions with others, just a simple thought around how I want people to feel when they speak to me, I never wanted people to feel negative after speaking to me. I've never joined the fag breaks where everyone was slating the management and everything else, because that just wasn't me. And I knew that I was almost seen as the outsider at times, because I wouldn't get involved with those negative conversations. And that's not to say I didn't have negative thoughts and wouldn't want to do things differently. But actually, the difference between me wasting energy on those thoughts and bringing people down potentially with my negative conversations wasn't going to serve me. And so I just wanted to go through the the corporate world knowing that actually, I could leave a positive impact through the conversations that I would have. And so that's where the sort of the first reflections really around behaviour and how actually this thing that I was doing was helping me progress within this larger business.Jenny 06:22It's so super important what you've just described, isn't it? That's real leadership quality, how you affect other people, how people feel when they've had that interaction with you. And to that point, Steve, if there's someone listening, thinking, okay, so I can see it's about values, perhaps leadership? How would you define personal branding for someone that maybe hasn't paid any attention to personal branding before?Steve 06:44So in one sentence is like the intersection of perception and reality? So, for example, tell Jenny about the story of one of our clients, that was questioning my suitability for for the company.Ryan 07:07Steve's background is in the third sector, he's worked in the charity world for most of his life. And he's made the unusual move from that sector to the corporate world. Usually, its corporate, had enough of that and will go back into the third sector. So Steve came and joined Jago full time, and one of our clients at the time saw a video that Steve had done in the early days. And he kind of said to me, oh, I'm not sure that guy's right for your brand, not sure he quite looks the part or not sure he fits your brand. I was like, Whoa, okay, cheeky, take a pause. And obviously, me being me, I protect Steve, don't judge a book by its cover. And if you've got those own judgments, that's because of you not because of him, and I intentionally sent Steve over to work with him in Amsterdam.Jenny 08:02Brilliant.Ryan 08:03And Steve went over there. And what happened, as I thought, he would see Steve's value, he would get past what he thought wasn't the right look and feel for our business. And really felt the quality that Steve could add in terms of his thinking, and execution, and they became very connected. And I think his opinion changed with that, because that's what we do, we change people's perception. And Steve done that. So kudos to him.Jenny 08:32No doubt about that. Steve, how did you feel when you were going into that interaction, you got to meet that guy for the first time?Steve 08:37It's a challenge, right, that come across by having dreadlocks and living with that style for many, many a year, that you're going to get different perceptions. And people are going to make judgments. It's a very natural thing to do. Judge not and be not the judge. I mean, it's like you, I don't hold it against people, it's a challenge to rise up to but actually having a personal brand activated out there in the public domain, it means I can determine my own reputation. I've got a personal branded website. I'm putting out content every day. That means that people can think what they want, but actually when they start to look deeper, and they go into my LinkedIn profile, they see my recommendations and the high calibre people that are backing me, all of those preconceptions where it's like, who's this long haired hippie in the commercial space, or you know, this kind of flip flop wearing humanitarian worker or, smokes weed all day or whatever that is, I can't leave it up for other people to make their opinion or thinking about me and that's what I mean is, actually you can determine your own reputation. And I was able to build trust and switch the narrative. I personally love that because it's disrupting how people are thinking. It's challenging, it's saying it's actually changing how people think and how people behave. And that's what we mean in terms of transformation, whether it's with our clients, or whether it's with our audience of people that we're not working with yet. We all play a role, I suppose we all have value to bring. And it's very easy to box people off or dismiss people. And one of the things that like frustrates us most is seeing amazing people go under the radar. And so many people are like, there's various things that we've discovered hold people back, but recently, I put a poll out. And it was well responded to. Andthe number one thing people said were holding them back from putting themselves out there was fear of judgement. And a lot of the time, this battlefield is in the mind, and it's perceived and not necessarily real. And so we meet amazing leaders that are hidden within their company brands that are almost like paralysed by fear. Or it could be like, self doubt, or low self regard. And that's why we do emotional intelligence a lot. Because, actually, and we start off with doing development, because sometimes we need to get to the point where we're ready to put ourselves out there. And there's a gap to close for a lot of people. And a lot of the time, it's the story they tell themselves, it's not necessarily the reality. And so when we can then get people on the radar, showing their gifts and talent, creating value for their audiences, and it generating new business for them, that's where we get our big excitement.Jenny 12:16And particularly, I suppose, if people are resistant at the beginning, and they say, I've got this fear of people judging me. So you say that, because I was thinking about that fear. And I think I don't know whether I'm just saying, speaking for myself here but I've got that as well. And I think a lot of people must have that. So you've mentioned emotion that you work on the emotional intelligence, do you feel that that exploration helps them to overcome that particular fear?Ryan 12:41I think it's a combination of things. I think that's one part of it. I think I can bring balance to certain emotions and give you the impetus to give something a go. Just going back to what Steve was saying around, going under the radar, I think it's circumstantial as well because we can all change in different roles. So take an account manager, they could be in one business, and they could be thriving. And they could join a new business and feel like they're the newbie and not recognised and suddenly the fear and the self doubt creeps in. And suddenly, they might not be performing as they used to. I'll give you a real example of that, Jenny. I worked in the corporate world for 12 years as an account manager at Yellow Pages. Yes. Don't ask me any tips or hints because it was a long time ago, but I'll try. But I was very successful, went from selling ads at £79 when I first started to looking after the largest portfolio, and at the time, it was one of the largest marketing companies in the UK pre Google. But when I left the business and set up my own company overnight, I felt different. Imposter syndrome kicked in, negative self talk kicked in, I wasn't known by anyone, I had no network, had no recognition. And the big corporate had all these people recognise me as the top player. And that felt good because there was a sense of value that I was bringing to them. And then when I've set up my businesses, like, I'm nobody, no one knows me. So I had to work hard again, to build up that reputation that I once had. And suddenly you question your value, your skills, your strengths. And so you really have to draw upon your resilience to be mindful that actually I can get back to that place. I can get to the place where I feel like I can arrive and add value to the people that I work with and serve. So yeah, going back to eradicating or helping with the confidence and imposter syndrome, I think most people suffer it to a certain degree, right? If you're an entrepreneur or you're a successful person, you want to deliver excellence and an element of perfectionism creeps in to that and so for me, it was about that always trying to be the best and at the top of my game, and so therefore anything less than that is going to feel like unsettling. So even now on this call, slightly nervous if I'm honest if the audience are looking, and that's cool. Other people might be looking at it and going, those guys are never gonna get nervous. So I want people to know, however much you do it, there can always be some element of nerves and thinking towards what you're about to do, whether it's public speaking, a podcast, or going into a client meeting. Understanding your value, your strengths, knowing what they really are, because you've assessed them, you've developed them, the truth of your makeup and your identity and your character in your gifts and talents, through the assessments we do with strengths and introspection about going back and looking at your life and what makes you tick and bringing out some of those key points that give you that strength and essence that people know you for and remember you for, as well as the emotional intelligence to bring balance to that and consistency, can really help the fog start to disappear when it comes to those nerves and barriers to stepping up and putting yourself out there.Jenny 16:13Lovely Ryan, lovely. I love how you both go so deep and so insightful on things because I think a lot of people listening, maybe if they're making a transition themselves out of a job, and they're going to set up on their own for example. I agree with you and I love publicists, you're very much defined by what's on your business card, aren't you? Because you have this reputation, and you have people talking to you because of what you're doing rather than who you are. So I think a lot of people listening, if they've ever done that, can identify with exactly what you're saying. I think that's so spot on. So, obviously one of the things holding us back, as we've said, is this fear of being judged by others. What other resistances do you encounter from people, when you start talking to them about personal branding?Steve 17:00So for some people, it's feeling like they've not got anything of value to say or not being clear on what to say. Some people don't fully understand what personal branding really is, and what sort of commercial opportunities it can bring. So they're not really getting what the motivation is for doing it. Sometimes people are drawing comparisons feeling like inadequate or not being able to live up to the standards of like commercial successful brands, or they compare themselves like apples and pears against people like, I don't know, thinking that personal branding is around being an influencer or something like this. I would say personal branding is about having influence, but it's not a drive to become a celebrity and sell their posts for like loads of dollars or anything like that. And what are the other reasons? Not having a budget line. Ryan, maybe you can talk about that because that's a big one because it's fairly new, right to a lot of businesses?Ryan 18:19Sure. Look, putting the word personal in front of everything kind of takes that budget and focus away from the corporate brand. So if you've got a couple of founders and one wants to put investment into the personal brand, there's some conflict often in terms of, where are you going to find that budget from? Hang about why are you doing it not me and so we try to reset that and reframe it to say,the term we call it is personal brand, but actually, it's going to help support your branding, your company, your marketing, it should be part of your marketing budget now. You should be putting a percentage of your marketing budget towards your own activity and activation and development to put yourself out there because we know that people buy from people.We know when we ask the question, what brings in the most business to this agency? The founders, nine times out of 10. So would it be a good investment to scale that and to generate more conversations, okay, how we're going to do it? We're going to do it by promoting you, and adding value, get you to promote yourself in a way that feels authentic, truthful, honest, and attract those people that want to work with you. And so that's the justification around budget. It shouldn't be seen now as a brand new budget line. Although if that's the case, that's fine. But actually the resistance around budget should be answered with, it needs to come out your marketing budget, to factor in a percentage of that.Jenny 19:55Didn't even think about that. So that's a really good point. So fear of things that I'm going to say because I don't have anything to say, fear of being judged, not having the budget. What other reasons do people think that personal branding isn't perhaps a priority for them?Ryan 20:12Look, some people just don't want the feeling of trying to be a celebrity, or feeling like their mates are gonna think they're stupid for stepping up and putting content out there. We've got clients that actually said, Oh, I'm scared of what my mates are gonna say, you know, what are they gonna say when I put out a piece of content or put out a video? I'm like, well, that's why 99% of people don't do it. But the ones who step up and step over the line, they're the ones that usually receive the rewards, which is a commercial gain, and an opportunity to influence people. And so for us, we can overcome that with understanding the link between that and what they do, what their responsibilities are, as a leader for their business. And we believe it is a responsibility for every leader to be out there, spreading the vision of their company.Jenny 21:06And like you said Ryan, not just to attract potential clients, but also employees, because they'll get a flavour for what the culture is of stuff. And so we talked about leaders, and it kind of makes total sense for leaders. What about the staff? Particularly because I've got a lot of account managers that are listening. You're an employee, should they be paying attention to personal branding?Steve 21:29100%, 100%. If you look at the youth of today, the under 25s, most of them have got a personal brand. They are way ahead, because they're going to blow people sort of our age, 40 plus out of the water soon, you know. So there is an argument to say that if you don't shape up and wise up quickly to this, you're going to be blown away, because the whole recruitment is changing right.Recruitment's becoming more like marketing. And one of the things that will attract talent into your businesses, if you have like an employee branding programme, and actually, the fastest growing businesses, a large percentage of them, have like employee branding as official programmes. Employee branding is basically personal branding for the employees where they are pushing out the company's marketing and brand through their own social channels, because they get 560% more engagement than the company channels. So actually, if you're an account manager, it makes sense for you to be invested in your personal brand for your career opportunities going forward, but also for maintaining those relationships. Because if you're on LinkedIn, or wherever, putting out content and your clients are following you on LinkedIn, you're front of their mind, and it helps to scale trust faster and quicker, and build stronger relationships, deeper and more meaningful relationships with your clients, because they're not just having account management calls, they're seeing you in between the calls, and totally buying into you and the value that you bring.Jenny 23:22I feel like clapping right now, just so you know, because I've been banging on about this for so long. And I want to know from you because you talk about the younger generation, I totally get that, like they're so much more proficient online, they're taking selfies left, right and centre, which was never part of our background when I was growing up. So there's less of a barrier I feel. So why do I still see that the account managers don't pay a lot of attention to their online personal branding? Are you seeing something different that I'm perhaps not seeing?Steve 23:59Let me think about that question. So are you saying some of the account managers are not stepping up to build their personal brands?Jenny 24:08Yeah, not really paying attention. I mean, I suppose in fairness, I say to account managers, if your clients for example, if your existing clients, if you're responsible for growing existing business and your clients are online, and they're pretty active, it makes total sense for you to be online, update your profile as a minimum, just so they know who they're dealing with, and also follow what they're doing and interact with them. It's an opportunity to kind of continue that relationship in between projects. But I still see, I don't know whether it's resistance so much as not just not paying attention to it or not putting the energy there, so I was just interested from the work that you've done with other companies, where there perhaps is an employee programme in place, do you encounter any resistance from the employees, from the staff or what kinds of conversations do you have with them about stepping up a little bit?Ryan 24:59Let me let me take the first bit if I may, and connect it with the real world that I know from account management. First of all, everyone has a brand, whether they like it or not. You've seen in big companies there'll be a group of people or management team will think a certain way about an account manager - she's brilliant. Look at the clients, they absolutely love her, any new leads that come into the business, please give it to this person, because we can guarantee they are going to love the experience. Or they'll be someone else where, oh, they're constant letting someone down, they're not stepping up, or whatever it might be. Or they're slightly quieter, but they're brilliant at the detail the clients love the detail. So we'll have an essence of people's behaviour and what we feel about them already. They might not be activating it as in the terms that we think about, but actually within that business, the account manager, they'll have a brand and their clients will feel a certain way about them. And even in the early days of my account management career, when social media wasn't that big, and Facebook was just coming out, I would create a Facebook and I would connect with my clients and Facebook. Why? Because I wanted them to see that I was pretty consistent when they met me in my personal life. That's me. And I felt that that gave me the upper hand because they could see that I wasn't this raving lunatic at the weekends, versus who I was. And that was okay. I wanted them to see some of my fun side. But actually that built more trust, that they got an insight into my personal life, my personality, not just the transactions through what I was there to do, which was to to offer them the services that we were there to sell them at the time. So everyone has a brand. I think at the moment, there's a a big question around employee branding, and the risks involved with that. I think some employees are nervous about that, because they can control what they say but if they're leaders who like control, and they're managers who want to control everything, then there's a big question around risk and risk to the corporate brand if they let their employees loose on social media. I would reverse that, I would say if you empower your team, if you educate them, train them, give them the skills, develop their emotional intelligence, make sure that they understand what they say, and the impact that it's gonna have on both them and the business that they serve, then there's a huge opportunity to draw more people into that organisation, awareness of the business and therefore empower that individual and give them the autonomy to create that personal relationship, even though they might work for a bigger brand.Jenny 27:46That's just so genius, really, isn't it? Because they are mini ambassadors, which is going to spread the word even further. Fantastic. I'm so glad you're saying this, because it really supports what I've been saying for a while, but I haven't been able to articulate it in the same way. So Steve, tell me, what are some of the steps that you start to follow when you work with people from the outset on their personal brand? You've mentioned a few, the emotional intelligence testing, how do you start?Steve 28:17We start with an assessment. So we've got a personal brand health check that we've put on our, we've both got personal websites. And interestingly, when we post our content, we often put it in our comments. And we drive people to our personal sites more than our company site, actually, which is quite interesting that they link off into our company sites. But on all of our sites, we have a health check. And the reason why we put that there is we want to have a clear understanding about where people are currently strong and where there needs to be improvement. And it's remarkable, because a lot of people they rate themselves at less than 40% on on our health check. And so that's really useful, because then we can start to understand what needs to happen to close the gap. But we don't encourage people to be in a rush to nowhere. And so we're big on having strategic intent. And so we do, if you like, it's more like really akin to leadership development. So coming back to that point around budgets, like we see leveraging people's budgets around development in order to do the development work with us, which helps them in their communication skills, but also within their own understanding of what value that they have to bring. So once they do the assessment, we have a programme called Deeply Human and it's DPLY like it's missing the Es. So the concept behind that sub brand is to search for what's missing. And so we dig deep with people in the beginning through development. And we have three modules, which is basically around creating an identity platform. And that's in a confidential, very personal, what we go through, but the amazing thing about creating an identity platform is you use it as a resource pool, to do storytelling fun, because you get loads of idea starters for content. So it generates, like, a lot of stories. And some of that just helps people to work through some personal stuff for themselves, which they don't use for, if you like, activate in their personal brand, and then other elements, it starts to become clear on positioning. So going through that identity platform. Because coming back to another objection, some people don't want to do personal branding, because they feel it's about manufacturing something, where is what we believe is being is revealing true self and those elements around your beliefs, your outlook, your values, your competence, all the things that the people that love you Jenny, that know you and like you for, and love you for, it's about packaging that up and putting it out there so people can feel the same way. And so we get to the heart of that through doing this development stage. And then we we have something called a Pathfinder, which is really about nailing your positioning, and then coming up with with a critical pathway of recommendations to say, here are your gaps. If you do X, Y, Z then this is going to help get you into a place where you're going to start scaling, being known, liked and trusted. And that's where the ROA starts coming in. Because, you know, you start doing more speaking gigs, you might start doing a podcast, write a book, whatever it is, there's many different things that you can do. And then it comes to subscriptions, which is the storytelling part, the activation, what are we going to do now going forward? You've done your development, you're really clear on who you are and what you have to offer, you've got your strategy, so you know where you're going, now is about activating that. And that's an ongoing process. And it's a mixture of formats of supporting people with their writing, and supporting people with their video content. And that might be as doing professional filming of people, or it might be as training people how to take amazing video themselves. And then we do post production for them. So it's a real end to end, very methodical, research based, very thorough process. And people have different start points, some people have already written books and already have an established podcast. So it depends where people are in their journey, but they will go through development, they will go through strategy, and they will go through storytelling.Jenny 33:37It's just sounds so brilliant, it's so exciting, and so comprehensive. I'm sure anyone listening to this is thinking, wow, you know I would defy anyone not to want to go through that kind of process. Because you're not forcing anyone to do anything are you? I mean whatever the execution is, in the end, it's down to how they feel. But I love that you go so deep, and understanding, you know, the real person inside and their history is just very, very inspiring. So, to that point, can you share some stories, maybe of some of the biggest transformations you've seen? Perhaps, I don't know, examples of people that are pretty resistant at the beginning or, you know, or very small. And then yeah, just give us a flavour of some people that you've worked with.Ryan 34:22I'll take one. Not sure if I can give names. Maybe I can, maybe I won't. We've got one client and they run a big digital marketing agency. And we met them at the start of lockdown last year. And he said to us boys, I'm going to go with the development but I'm never going to do video. So let's let's not go there. After we finished the development, probably three months later started to work with him on his storytelling. He started to give the video work a go. Start to say okay, let's give the video a go and we were like really encouraging him and he was going for it. And then he was producing more and more videos, more and more videos. Brilliant. And they start publishing them and getting engagement and getting traction. And a couple of weeks ago, he sent us a message. And he said, guys, I just want to thank you for all of the inspiration, training, development, encouragement, because I've just been asked to do a full proposal for my dream client. And I've submitted the proposal. But over and above that, I've sent them a video of why I think our agency is the best agency and the best fit for your company. And I thought, wow, how courageous is that? And tenacious, and guess what? He won the business. So for us, that was like, we've jumped out of our seats, and we were throwing our arms up in the air, because for us, not only did he win his dream client, but to see the transformational journey that they that guy went on, and he said to himself, I'll never do it. But then through process, through understanding, through practice, reflection and through the confidence that he built, it just shows you what can be done with the power of the mind and some encouragement with others. So we are super pleased with that outcome. And he done all the work, he had the choice whether he wanted to step up or not, we just done the part that we were there to play, which is to support him in developing and encouraging. So super happy with that one.Jenny 36:32That is absolutely amazing. And a huge ROI from his perspective.Ryan 36:36Massive.Jenny 36:37I mean, there's no better example than that. That's fantastic. And Steve, can you share another one, anyone that comes to mind? I know that you've got so many it's probably difficult to choose?Steve 36:50One that I could relate to, because I was bullied quite badly when I was in primary school, and one of our clients they suffered a lot of bullying in their childhood, and their self esteem and self regard was really low. And they've just got so much confidence and increased self belief, and they understand their value. And so on a personal level for them, it's been transformative, because they're starting to appreciate themselves and loving themselves and recognising what they have to bring. So that for me is amazing. And then I've got to slip in a cultural one, because I love culture. And I think one of the most exciting things about working with leaders is that, and we're talking about values as well, often a business's values are an extension of the founders values. And likewise, the culture and so through working with leaders and then going through a personal transformation, it can at times have a cultural transformation as well. And so if you're getting leaders to think and act differently, change their behaviour in a positive way, then they start treating and acting differently with their people. And so, we had one client that they sent me a video saying, on a Sunday after doing their run, when they're all like sweaty, not looking at their best. And I was like, this is amazing. This is how vulnerable people are willing to get with us! And he said, look, and there was something from our coaching session and it's basically changed how I'm doing recruitment, and I was recruiting someone and I used the phrase that you used with me. And now I'm taking a completely different change. They started writing new policies. And they've gone on a massive, like growth spurt and hiring spurt and it's transformed how they look after their people and how they go about how they communicate. They've adopted a more empowering style, and leading from behind to actually give their staff an opportunity to be more autonomous, to contribute and step up to be leaders rather than that leader was dominating and not creating space for people to contribute. And now the business is flourishing and over a very short amount of time. So there's, and that person was one of the toughest nuts to crack, because all the time, like in a reassuringly disruptive way, we're trying to break people down to then build them back up again. And changing behaviour is a really difficult thing to do. And it starts off with the mindset. So we have to do a lot of work around mindsets. And that's why we don't just jump into activation and we go through this research based process to take people through. So those two examples, and actually quite a lot of the people we've worked with have been bullied and have suffered. And I think that has, that feeds fear. And it feeds that sense of being judged, because a lot of the time people are being bullied through people judging them and forming an opinion on them. And so it gives us great satisfaction to help people overcome and flourish.Jenny 40:54You see it's testament to how, obviously, you work with people, because you're such good listeners, that you go deep into their backgrounds to uncover what is driving their behaviours. And this could be like you say, something that's happened years ago, and it often is, isn't it? They call it trauma. You know, some people have experienced all sorts of nasty things in their backgrounds, and they carry it with them today. And it's only a matter of triggering it out again. So I love that, and obviously it's testament to your work. And actually, I spoke to someone the other day that had just started working with you. And he's very introverted, is quite an introverted character. And he just shook his head like this really quietly and went, they're phenomenal. And I really didn't expect him to say that. So he was obviously feeling the benefits already of going deep and sort of, I don't know, maybe for many people, it's like putting a mirror up to yourself and actually getting you to think about you and your values and your history and your past and everything.Ryan 41:53We like to take people on face value, right? We don't make assumptions. And I think that's the key thing. When you make assumptions, you don't get the insights, and you don't get the understanding. And so for us, I speak for Steve here, we ask questions, we want to get to know people for who they really are and what they think not what we think so that's important to us.Steve 42:15I think catalysing introspection. It's amazing how little time people dedicate to the introspection of self. And it's linked to self awareness as well. I think we're so often caught up in being run by our personal lives and our professional lives. And especially for a lot of leaders, leadership can be a very, very lonely place. And a lot of people don't have the opportunity to have open and honest conversations where they can make themselves vulnerable. And we believe that vulnerability is our strength. It's not a weakness, we believe asking questions is a strength, it's not a weakness. And so creating those safe spaces for people to be able to have honest conversations is where you get breakthroughs. Because you can really face up to some difficult truths. And I think, from that you can build on that and then come up with mechanisms or solutions or approaches to move on from that.Jenny 43:29Do you think we're at the tipping, like at the start of this sort of movement in terms of personal branding? I know it's been around for a while, but I can't help but think everything that you've said is so true. And look in the last year, everything's kind of, we've advanced in technology, 10 years haven't we? Everyone's online, and you kind of have to put some thought into your online persona and what you want it to say so where do you think we are in this evolution? What do you think the future of personal branding holds?Ryan 44:03I don't think it's changed. I think the vehicle has changed. I don't think the principles have changed or people doing business with people. I think it becomes more important when everything becomes digitalized. And AI comes in one thing, that we have an advantage over all of that tech, emerging tech is emotion. So picking up on emotions and kind of connecting with people on the human level, I think is really key. AndI think bigger brands now are trying to humanise their storytelling through people. And I think it's linked with the trust leap. Trust is changing. You know, we used to trust big institutions, the big banks, we all bank or most of us bank with a challenger bank. We're trying new things. We're trusting new people, getting into taxis that aren't run by taxis they're just people off the street that have a car and I think it just goes full circle. But big businesses have always done business through, usually two human beings transacting at some point, there's a look in the eye to say, I'm going to trust you, shake hands and let's sign the contract, whether it's a multi million pound business, or whether it's a very small business, I think that still happens. And even if you look at some of the larger brands that are doing very, very well, and we buy their brands, but usually they've got key people. Whether it's a Musk for Tesla, or Jobs for Apple back in the day, they have these people spearheading it. So I don't know what the tech side looks like and Steve can talk a bit more about the metaverse. I've not gone as deep as Steve has on that and he can talk about that in a second. But for me,the vehicle is at the moment social, it might be something else going forward. But I still think finding your point of difference through your truth will always give you the edge.Jenny 45:55So true. So true. Steve, the metaverse?Steve 46:04I do like to look into the future. And I have been sort of wondering what personal branding looks like within the metaverse, which is the combination of new technology or old technologies that do new things when they're combined with other technologies. And so you get, with the rise of NFTs and digital art and gaming just being absolutely huge. There are swathes of people that are spending a fortune on digital sneakers for their avatars. So like limited edition NFT sneakers for their avatars, which is their personal brand. So it's really interesting to think around identity image, how people are connecting in that gaming world, and there's a huge commercial opportunity in that that space as well. I think, really what we're talking about is reputation management. And you know, we've seen recently, this cricketer that got, people that are getting held accountable for their 17 year old self. I'm thinking, gosh, I'm so glad the internet wasn't around like in my youth, because I was an idiot on so many levels and if that was recorded on the internet, then you know, it's Woah!Jenny 47:42That's so true we used to have to take out a Polaroid camera if we wanted to take any photos on a night out. Someone had to carry it in their handbag. So sorry, carry on.Ryan 47:51I love that. Yeah, we lost a few in Ibiza. Thank God.Jenny 47:57So right, Steve, carry on.Steve 47:59Yeah, so it is interesting. Like I said before, what we want to be able to do is determine our own reputation. And you've got to be really careful with personal branding, because a lot of people, there are different people out there that have got their take on it that are coming from PR. So you've got to look and make sure you get the right match of the people that are going to back you. We come from a transformation background like me, personally, I've been working in community and personal transformation for 20 years as a humanitarian worker around the world. So that obviously influences what our approach is because we're qualified coaches we've been, whereas if you're a personal branding agency that's come from a PR background, or a marketing background where you're used to hacking the system and gaming the system is you know, those people tend to be like, don't overthink it, just start putting yourself out there activate, activate! And from what we know of going deep with people, if we did that with some of our clients, they would fall on their face and get a very nasty accident by or it could damage their reputation. So you've got to, if you're thinking about it, pick the right people to guide you through it. And then the other thing to watch out for as well is a lot of people, if you want to be good at something, it requires time and effort. And the problem, one of the major problems of contemporary society, most parts of the world, is desire for immediate gratification. And so with our method, we can see positive results within six months. And if you really go at it and make a big investment up front, you can see it within three months. The people want it like that, but they're not willing to build an audience and say, well, you're not going to get results without building an audience. So you need to, you do need to commit, you need to have a level of commitment, and put some effort in. And then you'll get results from it. But the trend that we see with some people is they don't want to put the time and effort. And so they hire people to create the content for them. And if the people creating the content on their behalf, are not getting, if they don't really know that person deeply, and they don't get the positioning properly, and they don't understand the tone of voice, it can actually undermine you when you meet them offline. So if somebody's writing my content for me, this is why I think video is so important, by the way, because there's no hiding, it's like, that's you if this is a podcast it's so good because that's you like, particularly a podcast, because we make mistakes, we're thinking on our feet. It's not, it's like a dance we're dancing. Now, we don't know if I'm going to step on your feet by mistake when I try a fancy move that I've never tried before. So, and I like that, I like that sense of discomfort at times. But what am I trying to say here, I'm trying to say that if you get other people to write posts and they don't get it right, when they meet you in real life, and it doesn't match, you erode the trust rapidly. And the thing about trust is, it's one of the hardest things to gain and it's one of the easiest things to lose, it can be gone like that, and take ages to build up. So just be aware. And don't be like chasing, don't be too greedy for the results too quickly and expect other people to do it. Because that's not personal branding is? It's not personal.Jenny 51:59It's such a good point. It really is, like, be consistent, but really think about what you're going to do first. I mean, it goes back to the point about strategy, doesn't it? And going deep and I just think, people are obsessed by automation nowadays aren't they - quicker, faster, cheaper. But actually, when it comes to your personal brand, that's not the way to go. So listen, I want to be respectful of your time, we're coming up to the hour, this has been absolutely amazing. Oh, you've just got me spell struck all the way through, spell bound, spell struck. Any kind of final words of advice for anyone listening to this thinking, you know what, they've got a massive point, I really need to do something. And also, if they do want to get in touch, how can they get hold of you?Ryan 52:47Advice, wow, there's so much I could give. Believe in yourself. Compete with yourself, not anyone else. And don't take anything personally.Steve 53:02I would say, to add to that, for a start point, comment on other people's posts and make sure you add value on it. Don't just put 'That's a great post Jenny!' Actually engage with it and read it thoroughly and think of an engaging question to ask or think about building on it. And I think that will help build your confidence if you're at that stage where you're not posting yourself. And it will help you to build your audience. And then yeah, build your audience. So when it comes to the point of activating and putting your stories out there, then you've got an audience to to engage with your content. And then the other point is, you have an important story to tell. And everyone has got a reason why they're here on this planet, and they've got some gifts and talent to give to the world. Believe in what you have to bring, and there are audiences out there waiting for that value that you can bring to them.Ryan 54:12Yeah, we say don't conform. It's easy to conform to what other people are doing and to copy and think it's going to help you win. Be yourself. You be you. And before we close can I just say thank you. Thank you for your content because actually from being a previous account manager to being a little bit unpracticed in that, it's been really helpful to follow your content. It's top class, it's on the money and really appreciate your insights and your value add.Jenny 54:45Thank you so much Ryan. Coming from you guys that means a massive load. And thank you so much. And thank you so much for coming on the podcast this has been absolutely delightful. And just finally, who is the best person that you want to hear from and how can they get hold of you?Ryan 55:02We're working with leaders and entrepreneurs at the moment. We are at the moment serving majority of agency owners. So that's where we work. So if you're an agency owner, and you're thinking about scaling up, and you're not sure quite how to do that and you want some support, then then we're happy to hear from you. Drop us a line, send us a DM on LinkedIn, Steve or me, and we can have a chat and see how we might be able to help you.Jenny 55:30Brilliant. I'll put the links to your LinkedIn profiles and the website on the show notes. Thank you so much. This has been amazing. Thank you.Steve 55:38Absolute pleasure. Thank you for having us.Ryan 55:40Thanks, Jenny. Thank you. 

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.