Andy Young and Laura Cohen are both strategic account managers for Skeleton Productions, a full service agency specialising in video production.
In this chat, they share some brilliant tips and ideas for account managers who want to enhance their account management skills.
They share:
* Why shifting from being a good relationship builder to taking more of a ‘challenger’ approach with your clients works
* How to build trust with your client so they take risks to do bigger and bolder projects
* Why keeping your finger on the pulse with future trends in your specialism is key to ensuring your clients see you as an advisor rather than order taker
* What a pre-flight questionnaire is an how to use one
* Why you shouldn’t be scared of the word “strategy”
* Tips for how they’ve kept decision makers engaged throughout projects and how to get things back on track if the project goes awry
I hope you come away with lots of ideas to implement in your role.
Transcript:
Jenny
Welcome to the Creative Agency Account Manager podcast with me, Jenny Plant,from Account Management Skills training. I’m on a mission to help those in agency client service, keep and grow the existing client relationships, so their agency business can thrive. Welcome to Episode 16. This episode is with Andy Young and Laura Cohen. They’re both strategic account managers for Skeleton productions and Skeleton is a full service agency specialising in video production. In this chat, they share some brilliant tips and ideas for you if you’re an account manager, and you want to enhance your account management skills, and be seen as more consultative with your clients. So they’re going to share why shifting from being a good relationship builder to taking more of a challenger approach with your clients works, how to build trust with your clients, so they take risks and do bigger and bolder projects with you, why keeping your finger on the pulse with future trends happening in your specialism is key to ensuring your clients see you as an advisor, rather than an order taker. What a pre flight questionnaire is and how to use one, and why you shouldn’t be scared of the word strategy. They’re going to share tips on how they’ve kept decision makers engaged throughout projects, and how to get things back on track if the project goes awry, and so much more and so many more valuable tips and ideas for you. So I really hope that you come away with some value from this episode, grab a pen, take some notes, because they really don’t stop with all of the brilliant ideas. Enjoy. So Andy and Laura, they are strategic account managers from Skeleton productions. And I’m really thrilled to have them on the show because from my side, I think they’re going to share some really interesting insight into what it’s like to be a strategic account manager. So Andy, do you mind if I start with you? Can you just spend a couple of minutes talking about your role, what you do and how you found yourself in account management?
Andy
Yeah, thanks for having us on, by the way, Jenny. Yeah, so me personally, I’m strategic account manager at skeleton, we work with our clients to offer top level strategic advice for their video content. Sometimes we branch out a little bit further than that. But primarily, it’s helping them achieve remarkable things with video. And I kind of came into Skeleton through another agency that was full service. But one of the things that I really, really enjoyed about working there was video, so I kind of made the move to skeleton purely because of that. But before that slightly different world, I used to work in craft beer. So I used to work for Brewdog. And then I ended up working for a smaller company after that important beers from America and distributing in the UK in Europe. So it was quite a bit of a shift. But the sales and the marketing side that I learned while working in craft beer really, really helped me take that first step into agency account management. And then from there, I’ve just kind of grown really.
Jenny
Really amazing. Thank you very, very interesting and diverse background. And I’m glad you said that the brewdog experience helped you in your current role, I think, and what specifically I’m here just before I move on to Laura, what specifically do you think was the key thing that helps you having worked in another industry and another type of organisation?
Andy
I think sometimes it lends some like transferable skills. I think when I worked at Brooks, I was customer facing as well, it does, I guess, really, really helped you with your confidence with that. And then you also learn how bigger companies work and grow quality work there, it was quite a quite an expansive growth. So I think you’ll learn about what it takes for a company to grow. And that’s essentially what we’re trying to do with our clients. We’re trying to help grow a part of their business, grow their offering, grow their team, we’re trying to grow something. And I think I learned a lot about that by working at Brewdog.
Jenny
That’s a really interesting and key thing, though, that you just said was like the business you understood the business outcomes and from a client’s business perspective, because I think from my side meeting different agency account managers, that’s the shift you need to make, isn’t it to bring the most value. So that’s really interesting. Thank you for sharing. Laura, welcome. Can you spend a couple of minutes talking about your background?
Laura
Yeah, certainly, once again, thanks for inviting us on today. It’s really, really nice to be invited. So I am a strategic accountant manager at Skeleton I look after about 10 of the agency’s accounts, and they range from B2B to B2C clients and all varying sizes from SMEs to global organisations. skeleton is very different to what I’ve done before. It’s very niche. So we’re a full service agency that specialises in just video and editing motion related really. And we offer video strategy right through to delivering the content and distribution. And that’s a mix of 2D, 3D animation, and really using the app storytelling to create compelling stories that engage and delight our customer audiences that ultimately drive results, but they’re also very niche and it’s very focused just on video and motion which is different to my backgrounds previously. So previously, I’ve worked in full service agencies in the 20 years that I’ve been working within marketing, I started off as an account executive from a trafficker, all the way around out to an account director level and also working in marketing as well. So I have worked on the client side too so it’s very different in that we are very focused in terms of the you know, when we should just we do video and we do motion. But it has allowed me to draw on those experiences of where I’ve been in marketing before, for instance, and been a client myself understanding of what’s important to the client, and what’s also important to the agency. And I felt, I feel like that really helps kind of, you know, shape your brief, understand what the client’s business objectives are, and not just say, from the agency points of view. In terms of the other areas that I’ve worked with full service, I think it just helps to have that knowledge, just to know where else you can possibly help the client. So although we specialise in video, it’s not to say that we can’t say actually, you know, you really need to do some work with your SEO, well, you really need to think about this. And then we put them together with some of the connections. So kind of drawing all that experience to helps.
Jenny
I think that’s what I love having worked with both of you, I could see that you both have a strategic mindset, as your title kind of suggests, where you could add different value to the client in lots of different areas. So just what do you think is the key benefit if you’ve got an agency listening that’s deciding to specialise in maybe one specific offering like you have? What do you think are some of the benefits to an agency to really focus in and specialise in one area?
Laura
I think one of the benefits of the agency is that we are absolutely experts in that field. So we will know all of the latest trends, we will know everything there is to do from strategy, right for delivery, right through to what the latest things are happening and creative. This is what we do day in, day out. And it becomes second nature. And second nature so much so that, you know, we forget this, sometimes when we tell this to our own clients, you know, we have to sort of spell that process out because we do do it every day. Whereas other agencies video is an add on, it’s a bolt on, it’s just another surface. But we do is this is what we do every single day. And we and we do it because we love it.
Jenny
That’s brilliant. Andy, I remember a few months ago working with you, you were looking at trends that were happening in the market for some of your clients weren’t you in terms of what was happening, future focus, and I’ve seen a lot of your posts on LinkedIn, which, again, is a very sort of impressive action, for me to see through from the account management community, actually positioning yourself as sort of leading in that field.
Andy
Yeah, and the people that you’re working with, you’ve got to think, as I said, like video is very, very niche. And so it’s a very, very small part. But it is a rabbit hole when you start learning about it. And you’re starting to try and be forward thinking and I think it’s a great position that you can be in to do that to then lead your client, they’re not coming to you saying can you do XYZ, you’re saying to them, Look, I’ve spotted that this is happening, your competitors haven’t done that yet, I think you should be doing it. Because that feeds into your objectives as a business, you want to be thought leaders, you want to be the best person in this industry. So we want to help position you like that we’ve got several clients that are like that they have got very, very strong competition, there’s very, very little differentiation. And so by us, like focusing on those little wins that we can kind of help them with. And as Laura said, it’s stuff we do day in day out. And it’s almost very, very normal for us. But it’s not for a lot of people I could say video is a very, very small part of their marketing mix. But it’s very powerful as well.
Jenny
Laura, what do you think, above and beyond, you know, looking at future trends? What other things, and bringing them to your clients, what other things do you think are valuable about the account management role?
Laura
I think it’s being really the account management role in terms of adding value to account management, is that what you mean, in terms of how we add that value? I think one of the values that strategic account manager brings to the client is that we really get to know our clients, both in a professional sense, but also in a personal sense. And having that greater understanding and in depth understanding of your clients objectives, their challenges, it allows you to understand the brief and to interpretate, the brief for the greater team, like the devil is always in the detail and as a strategic account manager and account manager, if you don’t have the answers for the creative team, you know that we’re never going to deliver a brief that is that is the creator that is on brief. And we almost have to act as if we are almost kind of creative directors in some sense as well, we have to have the answers. So you have to know your client inside and out, you have to make sure that the brief is right. And you have to make sure you’re adding that value in you’re asking those questions get to know your client well enough so that the outcome of that brief is exactly what they’re expecting. And it gets the results really, I think there’s nothing worse than not having the answers for a creative team as a strategic account manager.
Jenny
Yeah, it almost puts the personal pressure on you internally in the agency, doesn’t it to kind of come up with the goods, but also forces you to ask the right questions in the briefing session with the client. Yeah, and what’s your experience been with him?briefs in general. I mean, I suppose we’ve all been guilty of doing a bad brief. And we’re at some point in our career, I don’t know about you, but I’m recalling a really bad moment in my career, when I walked into the creative department gave the brief, she read it, and then she just threw it across the room. I had to go out of the room with the tail between the legs.
Laura
Yeah, I had that in mind. One of my is the second agency I worked in when I moved to Nottingham, and my creative director there, he was ruthless. And he would literally throw them back at me when I mean, one after the other. But that was great learning. It was great learning to know, you know, what goes in is what comes out. And you have to ask all those questions. And you have to challenge the brief, because actually, sometimes the client, that isn’t actually what they need, it doesn’t meet the objective. So actually, so I and I have that quite a lot with my clients in that I have to challenge the brief. And they appreciate that because it shows that we’re listening, it shows that we’re listening, and it shows that we’re using our expertise, and they trust us. And that often then leads to more work, because actually, we now need to do another video that answers another brief because we’ve been trying to put too much into one video, which ultimately dilutes the message completely.
Jenny
I love that you brought that point up, Laura, because you’re right, you’re demonstrating your understanding by being critical, like critical thinking, I think with the client shows how senior you are. Because that’s the only way that then they they trust you if you are giving them your genuine advice. I mean, the subject recently of consultancy, and us becoming consultants, is so rife at the moment everyone’s talking about, and a lot of account managers is changing their title to consultant. So I think that’s a really key point. Similarly, there’s a study by Gartner, actually, that was done at the end of 2019, all about why account managers aren’t growing their existing accounts. And one of the things that it concluded was that there was this absence of having future focused business conversations with their clients, which means that we are painting a picture of our vision for the future business. But also we’ve got a critical perspective. So I think creating almost that tension in the relationship is part and parcel of becoming more senior as an account manager. What what are your thoughts on this Andy?
Andy
Well, I was used to be a when you think of account managers on time you think of a relationship builder. That’s what you are, you’re there to build relationships. But I’ve seen myself shifting definitely recently to a more challenger mentality. And I think that kind of shift does elevate you in your in your client eyes, it adds additional value to them. And as Laura says, it allows you to get there, get the briefs and get on to the nitty gritty so that when we go back internally, we can produce the best work possible because we’ve fully understood their business, we’ve fully understood their aims. And again, to reiterate what Laura said, sometimes the client says, I want an explainer video for this, I don’t want it done like this. And it’s like, hang on, let’s look at what you’re trying to achieve. What are you talking to, and let’s see if that is the right way. You’re saying you want live action, maybe animation is better. By having that you really get people to think and it just builds, it just builds momentum and and you start to become a trusted adviser. And then they kind of reach out to you saying, right, we’re trying to do this in 2021, we’d love to have your input on the content plan. And things like that opened up a whole new avenue conversation, a whole new added value to that relationship
Jenny
It’s so true. That’s so spot on, to kind of build on that point. What other skills do you think you need to be a great account manager, or strategic account manager? Because this is what we’re talking about here? We’re talking about providing a level of service and a level of kind of consultancy, to fulfil their business needs. So for both of you really, I’d love to know what what are the skills you think are important?
Laura
I think listening is one of the biggest skills you need to have, as a strategic account manager, I think you must have listened to your client’s needs, let them talk, you know, let them hit what are the difficulties they’re facing? What are the objectives? What have they done before? What worked? What didn’t work? Where are they at now? How is it affecting them? Listen, because out of that listening will come solutions that you can present to your clients. And that’s not solutions just because you’re getting a sale, it’s genuine solutions that’s going to help them achieve a goal. Interpersonal Communication skills, I think goes hand in hand you have to have those to do the job with people don’t only just buy the work they’d people do buy our advice, and they buy us individually isn’t, you know, they buy us if we care. And I’d say integrity is really important. You should always act with integrity. The services that we offer should always be right for the clients and the clients objective. We shouldn’t be thinking about what products and services we offer that we can shoehorn into our client. It should be the other way around. So I think for me, those kind of three skills are key to being a strategic account manager.
Jenny
I love that last point that you made about sort of our values really, you know, and our integrity. I spoke to an account manager early yesterday. I’m going to interview him on the podcast, he’s from a completely different industry. He’s from the tech industry. And the projects he’s working on are hundreds of millions of pounds. And he started off by saying, values that are the key thing for me. Because if my company, if I’m not aligned with my company values, it’s my reputation in the market. Because at that level, it’s about your contacts and who you’ve created relationships with. So you’ve got to make sure that every role you have, you’re aligned with your own personal values and integrity. So I love that point, Laura really well made. Andy, what about you anything that you would add to what Laura said? I think there’s some great things there.
Andy
Yeah, I think listening is vitally important. I think sometimes if you just sit and listen, a client does generally want to kind of share more with you as well, because people like, like to share about the business, the things that they’re proud of the things that they want to improve, and they have genuine excitement about where they want to take their business. And I think would add to that the inquisitive nature, as well, if you’ve got an inquisitive nature, and you’re probing, and you say, That’s interesting, that’s interesting, I think I want to know more about that, I want to know more about that. And if it is genuine, that really comes across as well. And that goes really, really far in the relationship. A couple of things I would say would be adaptability, this market is ever changing. Tech’s always changing, that we use research tools are always changing, you’ve really got to be on it and willing to go with it if you want to be that forward thinking account manager. I would say, probably now more than ever as well. Resilience is absolutely key. A hell of a lot of work goes into working with clients, a lot of it behind the scenes as well, I think sometimes clients don’t understand the work that goes into what you present to them, what your idea is that you’re sharing. And sometimes it just doesn’t come off. And that’s the way it goes. And last year, we had several projects pulled because of COVID. For a resilient nature gets you through those and you get to reap the benefits as it comes back around when those compensations start up again. I think resilience is as a strong one that will will put you in good stead to be a decent account manager. And the only other thing I would add as well is just be a good human being. I think that’s really really important as well, in these times, just being a decent human being to each other because it is even though it’s business to business, it’s still person to person. So be a good person.
Jenny
Oh, no, that’s such a lovely point. It’s so nice. And, you know, we started off the call, didn’t we, Laura shared that she’s homeschooling at the moment, which I don’t know about you. But a lot of my clients are homeschooling and it puts a pressure on you doesn’t it puts a personal pressure on your life, and that’s obviously going to spill over into the work life as well. So love that point, you know, be empathetic, and be human. Lovely point. I’m keen to have a few examples, maybe from both of you as to perhaps how you were able to add value to a client and what the impact on their business was.
Laura
Yeah, I can kick off with a couple of examples that might see what they said quite right. So we were commissioned to do a video strategy for Thomas Sanderson, Thomas Sanderson are very high end window furnishings company. And the video strategy runs right from sort of initially running out of business insights workshop sessions with the key stakeholders to gain insights into their marketing objectives, their goals, SWOTs etc, and understanding of their entire business right through to the final end of the video strategy. And one of the things I added to it, it sounds very basic. But this is just kind of a way in which I think a strategic account managers should be thinking is before we even went into this session, so I created what we call put together a pre flight questionnaire. And in this pre flight questionnaire, are all different information that we would need to know for this project. So it’s Who are the people who are responsible? What are your marketing plans? What have you done? Who are your agencies? What trends do you use? What trends Bibles do you use kind of all of that kind of core information that we needed to get. And by gathering all that kind of basic information in like a big spreadsheet, which I could submit way prior to these workshops, it just allowed us and the purpose of me doing that was just get the detail, which allowed us to have so much detail we needed to know. But by knowing that, by thinking ahead, and knowing that we were able to allow us to have the time with those key stakeholders in that meeting, to just purely focus on planning, and getting their inputs into that process, which was, you know, one of the most valuable, they are time precious, we only had four hours, maybe per session. So actually not getting bogged down in some of that detail. It really helps just add value. And I think that’s just one of the things that you can be thinking of as a tool, as strategic account managers. What can I do to make this process as streamlined as possible? And to get the most out of both of those sessions?
Jenny
That’s really useful because that’s repeatable, isn’t it? Once you’ve put the effort into establishing your pre flight questionnaire, and maybe someone listening is thinking, Oh, we don’t actually systemize the questions we ask or we don’t sort of dig deep enough. And all of that experience of learning because when I’m hearing you both, actually you rattle off the types of questions that you typically ask your clients and it shows how ingrained that kind of behaviour is for you both so for many people maybe it doesn’t come as second nature, but for you, I can see how sort of proficient you are with it. So I think that’s a lovely idea and a great little tip for those listening craps to do that, you know, because it also allows you to systemize your onboarding process, doesn’t it?
Laura
Like it says that yeah, exactly that it really helped with the onboarding, it helped me with a client that had never done a video strategy before. It helped them gather the information all in one sheet. So they knew exactly what they needed. It gave them time to do it. And as I said, it really allowed us to really focus on the core objectives of what their business workshop was with the right people.
Jenny
And what’s the downside of not asking the right questions.
Laura
If you don’t ask the right questions, you want to do that you’re not going to get the right brief. The brief the brief won’t be right. If you don’t ask the right questions at that stage or the right information, your strategy, your recommendations could be completely wrong.
Jenny
And time is money, isn’t it? Right? Yeah, absolutely. That’s right. Love it. Andy, what about for you any examples where you’ve been able to impact the client’s business?
Andy
Yeah, I think we worked on a big project last year ahead of Brexit it was for a road haulage company. And they’ve, it’s almost like a once in a lifetime opportunity for them to launch this product that they’ve been developing to steal them ready for Brexit it was unlike anything else in the market. There was no way it was like a true USP in a very, very competitive, price driven commodity market. So we helped them market a product, which we know is a service, but it’s called a product in the industry. And so what we did, we put together a multi channel campaign for them. And they never done marketing like this before. They relied heavily on tele sales and very little on inbound. So we created a multi channel strategy with video at the focus. And so this was during during COVID, it was one of the toughest times to film. And it really kind of stretched us as an agency in terms of reaching this high quality production content. We had like 35 people on set, we had stunt coordinators, we had COVID officers we had everything kind of all put into this piece of high value content that would be the centrepiece of the campaign that was all about utilising that and chopping that up in different ways that we could hit certain target markets who could remarket to them via YouTube, it could reach out to them on LinkedIn. And then that all kind of led to that was a lot of generating awareness. And then we moved people further down the funnel, round the flywheel should I say, into the engagement side of things. So we help them do a webinar, they usually do person to person event face to face events in person. But we help them do a webinar where they had over 1000 signups over 800 new people engaging with them. And then that kind of filtered into really, really high quality leads that they then had the telesales and the team to then convert. So we generated a hell of a lot of leads ahead of what is going to be an intense time for a lot of people. So that’s where we added some serious value, because they wouldn’t have been able to get to that point in such a tight timeframe, we’re talking about five month timeframe, doing zero, all the way up to boom, let’s do our biggest ever marketing campaign that we can do. So it was a lot of steep learning curves. And as a client, say they have a graph of pain that kind of goes up like that, and then the bubbles like that, and then another bit of growth comes out. So we’ve been in the graph of pain portion of that. But we really, really knocked out some incredible content, some incredible results, so that for them to trust us with their most important opportunity in the industry that they’ve ever come across. And all of them have been in it for a long time, it was quite something significant about the pressure. But it was really, really great to have the opportunity to grab it and run with it, which we did as a team. It took a hell of a lot of us to to deliver those results.
Jenny
A few things you’ve said, I love what you said one of the things is a bit of a reminder about repurposing content and assets you’ve already got. I know that’s something you particularly do really, really well, particularly in the you know, the COVID situation, because a lot of our clients have either been tightening their belt suddenly. But also like working with them with the whole strategy in mind. And then getting them results in such a short period of time. I mean, that shows a huge amount of agility on your part to have pulled that out of the bag and get that all done and get the results within that timeframe.
Andy
I would you say yeah, it were quite nimble, like throughout the process. One thing that I do want to say is that Skeleton had worked with that client for seven years prior to that. So there was a lot of trust that had been built up. And it was an intense collaboration with the client as well, the client was fully dedicated to this opportunity, as well. So there was a lot of back and forth a lot of continued communication. So when I talked about it being a team effort it was about with the client as well. And I think that’s something that helps drive results is by setting those common goals at the beginning what you’re trying to achieve, and then working to it and all committing to making it a success and that that’s what both was and the client did.
Jenny
I love that you brought that up as well actually because you’re getting buy in, aren’t you you need to get all the stakeholders involved that are going to make that decision. Bring them on that journey with you. And obviously you had built up the trust over seven years. So they were more likely to say okay, we trust you because you’ve done good work for us in the past. But I still think that’s that’s really good work. Extending that a little bit, why do you think clients stay with you for the long term? I mean, seven years is a long time for a client to stay with you. What do you think is the secret?
Andy
I think in terms of the way we work with people goes back to what we’ve seen before. We’ve got that challenger mentality, we’re not just there just to execute what they say, what we do is right at the beginning, we try and learn as much about the business as possible so that we can kind of help them grow, help them develop. And yeah, I think it’s content that works, and then show them the results and the return on investment of that as well. And it almost just becomes, like natural, it’s like why wouldn’t we do that, because we know we’ve got previous track record of delivering XYZ. So let’s do that for this and see how that works. And I think I think that’s just just just a big part of it just so happens a lot with agencies like we have done a great bit of work, here you go, whatever it is, that’s it, and then we’ll kind of sit down and think, oh, that’s really, really great. But that’s, to me as an account manager that’s almost like, that’s the end of the beginning. The next part is seeing how that works, how we can improve what you’ve worked on, but also how you can build on the future. And that’s continual, it’s not linear. And I think if you’ve got that kind of mentality, it does keep clients on board, because why wouldn’t they? Because you’re helping them grow their business. So I think that’s probably the reason why people would stick with us and do stay with us.
Jenny
Great. And I would agree, I mean, one of the things you both do really, really well is to talk about your case studies in the context of always including business outcomes that you’ve achieved. And that’s a really good point, Andy about, you know, the more outcomes you achieve for the client, the more results you’ve achieve, it’s perpetuating, isn’t it, you can reflect on how much they’ve done with you. And then, you know, build on that with further ideas using your trends analysis and your insight. So that’s really the secret to momentum in terms of growing the account, isn’t it? Laura, you were just going to say something.
Laura
Just building on what Andy said, Really, I just think that the reason, one of the reasons they stay with us is because, you know, we listen. And when we’re not scared to challenge that brief, we really care. And we deliver, we always deliver and we don’t just sell, we are trusted if not strategic advisors to our clients, it is this kind of perpetual cycle is not linear. We’re not just order takers. That isn’t how we like to work with our clients. And we like creating beautiful work that takes their audience on a journey, and ultimately drives those results. And we keep thinking of ideas and new ideas how we can build on that, as you’ve mentioned, in the sort of current climate and how we can maximise their budgets by repurposing existing footage so that they still got some content that they can still be communicating with their audience for but within the new budget that they’re now working with. So it’s always kind of being agile, and always listening to what they’re doing.
Jenny
Lovely, Andy, what were you going to say?
Andy
I’d say the word you used then, momentum, I think that is absolutely vital when working with clients to keep that wheel spinning, keep feeding them ideas, keep working with them, they’re not gonna say yes to every single one. But you still have given them ideas, you still adding value in some other way, getting them thinking, I think, maintaining that it should be absolutely priority, once you’ve work that hard to get it up to speed, maintaining that momentum. And another big word to set alongside that would be consistency. So be consistent with your clients keep that momentum going. And that will drive results.
Jenny
It’s so true, because what’s the worst that can happen? They say, Well, no, that idea particularly under you know, it’s not the right time for us, or, you know, that doesn’t particularly align with what we’ve had planned for this year, you know, but they’re left with the perception of, wow, these guys are consistently bringing me new thoughts, new ideas based on their understanding of what’s changing in the market. Because let’s face it, our clients are very kind of, they go very deep in their products, don’t they and their business. But we go wide and deep in our industry, and what’s changing. So I think that’s really valuable. Do you have any kind of forums or situations meetings, that you have those kind of more strategic discussions on a more regular basis? Or do you find that these are ad hoc ideas that you bring to them on a regular basis?
Laura
They can be for me a combination of both. So we have regular catch up meetings with them, I would say about sort of top clients. And then those catch up sessions, they are more kind of strategic in terms of where they are in terms of business sharing quarterly plans. And we can get out of these sessions, we then sort of come up with different ideas and suggestions. Or it’s just ad hoc, because we’re looking at latest trends for different customer bases. So I’ve got a customer that’s in beauty, I’ve got a customer that’s in interiors. So it’s looking at their different trends and spotting different things I literally before just before this call, I’ve just spotted something I’ve just sent to a client that I thought was amazing but is on brief, you know, really, really interesting for the business. I think it’s, for me, I think it’s a combination of both dependent clients really.
Jenny
That’s a great tip as well, Laura, sort of keeping abreast of what’s changing so that the news is coming to you on a regular basis. And then you’re sharing it with your client and providing your point of view. You know, because I understand your business because I understand where we are in the relationship. This is why I believe that this is particularly relevant for you. And perhaps this is the action we need to take. So I know that you both do that on a regular basis. So again, it’s adding huge amount of value. Andy was there anything else that you were going to add there?
Andy
No, I very much the same as Laura sometimes you have structured meetings, and especially when you’re doing like onboarding a client, you’ll have every kind of structured meeting to them break down ideas and then future kind of pathways that you can take with them. But I really, really love the organic approach, one thing that I do like to do is make sure I’ve got connected with people on LinkedIn everyone you work with anytime you’ve emailed someone that is potential work with them, add them on LinkedIn, because I think it’s a really, really easy way to share ideas. As you’re scrolling through LinkedIn, sometimes you see something that information about their industry think, oh, I don’t know whether you’ve seen this. But I think this is actually quite cool and quite relevant to what we’re working on or, or there’s this new bit of software that can measure this I don’t know if that might be useful for you. And so by having that, so there’s a lot of stuff that happens organically doesn’t have to be some gigantic presentation that you’re working on to show your ideas. I’ll give an example actually I worked with a project management company IT project management company, and their biggest competitor did this amazing Christmas video, they spent mega mega bucks on it, and it was great. I said, Oh, this is really, really great. Maybe we can do it next Christmas type of thing like joking around. But then after I’d watched that I was getting hit with remarketing videos on YouTube. And I was like, taking screenshots of it and just say, they’re chunking this video to hit me with because I think I’m interested in because I’ve been researching. That’s what we should be doing. Once we get to the end of the video project we’re working on, we should be doing that. And it can just be those things, you don’t have to come with a massive deck to pitch my ideas and just overwhelm them I think, the organic, it shows that you’re you’re thinking about them. And I think I think that’s a key thing that consistency links back to that consistency that I was on about.
Jenny
You’ve both shared so much value and tips you know, for people listening, I think you’re just like, bam, bam, do this do that. It’s really useful. Thank you. I was gonna ask you like, you’re obviously, you know, advanced in your career that you’ve both done an awful lot. Lots of exposure to different types of businesses, different types of role, you’re very senior, what do you wish you’d learnt earlier in your career that you think would have been kind of really useful?
Laura
What do I wish I’d learned earlier, I wish that I had learned not to be afraid of the word strategy. I think early on in your career, the word strategy, particularly if you come from a full service or agency background, you always associate with an actual strategist, actually being strategic is just a different way of thinking. And I think that’s something could certainly have recently I have I’ve really learned that, actually not to be scared of that word strategy. It’s just a different mindset. It’s just a way of breaking down information. And early on in the career, don’t be afraid to ask questions. They’re your clients who are just there to get the right information out of them. Be yourself. And the brief for me is key. The devil is always in the detail. If you don’t challenge that brief, if you don’t answer those questions as we’ve already said, you know, the output will never be on brief, which is going to cost more money and more time and frustration for both parties.
Jenny
Do you know what I bet there are loads of people listening to this thinking, whew, about that strategy, because I think a lot of people do get bogged down with that to say, Oh, it’s like, this is someone strategic? And I’m not. And actually we all are, it’s just a different way of thinking exactly, as you said. So don’t be afraid of it. So I love that really good. And asking great questions. Again, you know, you don’t have to have all the answers in front of your client. In fact, don’t let that hold you back. Just simply turning the conversation back to the clients, say tell me a bit more about that. Give me a bit more detail, or can you share a bit of background that allows them to then give you more context? And then you can sort of, you know, don’t feel like you’ve got to have all the answers. I think you both kind of this has come through in this chat. You know, listen and ask questions, I think is fundamentally, what an account manager really should be doing all the time. Andy, what about you? What would you have said that you wish you’d known a lot earlier?
Andy
So I would say the same as Laura, to be honest, a lot of it, there’s no stupid questions, there’s a lot of jargon and acronyms out there, just don’t be afraid to ask what they are. Because if you think it means one thing, it could potentially mean another. So I’d always get those clarifications from people because it is very, very broad, when looking at those types of things. And as Laura said, Be yourself, I think people do love it. It’s a people, person to personal business. So on that. And then also, I would say, obviously, no one’s perfect. And we do make mistakes, I think it’s very important to own your mistakes as well. Don’t ever try and cover them up or anything like that, whether it’s internal or external, own your mistakes, because there are people, if you’re just starting out, there will be people more seeing you can help you. And I think clients do appreciate it. If you have made a mistake to put your hand up and say, Look, I made this mistake, this is what we’re gonna do about it and go to them with a solution. It adds value through mistake. Strangely, you don’t go out making them intentionally. But I think owning the mistakes is a big important one.
Jenny
And actually, that’s really brilliant point as well. Like if there is a mistake, or if there is a problem. The way you handle that problem really can bond you with the client. It can make the client see you even more valuable can’t it, how you conduct yourself, how you tackle it, how you speak to the client, how you hold yourself, and actually honesty. Absolutely 100% agree, Andy because you just tell a little fib about anything at any point and your credibility is just gone through the floor. Continuing this thing for both of you to share with me your biggest challenges and how you’ve overcome them because I think. Again, anyone listening to this maybe on their account management career journey? Either they’re gonna come up against the challenge, or they might have experienced the challenge before. So, from your perspective, what are some of the challenges you’ve had?
Laura
So some of the challenges that I get with clients are, the clients don’t like to be challenged on their brief. And that is part of our job to challenge on the brief. Or we have a situation where we’ve gone past the briefing stage and we’re sort of putting together creative options, and the almost one, a hybrid option, kind of mixing too many messages together so that the end result is just mixing, confused, confusing, and doesn’t really have a clear creative thread or an idea running through it. For me overcoming those challenges, really, it’s to stop and pause, stop, pause and call a meeting, get all the key stakeholders in the meeting, the creative team, if necessary, to clearly explain, from our eyes, our expertise, the rationale for why we’re making these decisions. So why we’re making these recommendations. And what options are there to move forward. We are experts in the field. They’re experts in their business. And it’s about the two parties coming together and acting as a team, ultimately, to get the best outcome. And often in that situation, you’ll use anecdotes or examples of where this happened for other clients, and you can easily show the other work and show how that the different impacts of the results. That’s hard just to bring it to life. And then from that you get there, you can often sometimes have a bit of resistance between an agency and the client. And we’re doing it for the good of the job. And we are experts. And that’s why you’re using us. So just calling that meeting, having a really open forum to talk like that, I find often just comes out with a really good result. I’ve had it on a project recently. And it you know, it was great. There was no problem. There was absolutely no problem after that meeting. We were all aligned.
Jenny
I love that. I mean, a realignment meeting is brilliant. And presumably the client was open to having a realignment meeting. I think some people call it mid project review meetings. You know, typically, we always do this just to make sure we’re all on track all on the same page. But that would make total sense to me to do that. Yeah. So if they don’t like being challenged on the brief, are there any other ways that you can shift that perception? Because maybe some clients, you know, see us in that order, take a bucket? And say no, just do it, just get on with it? How can you deal with that situation?
Laura
Those clients can be difficult. So we do have clients that I would say they don’t want to work closely with us this is as a commodity. And they want to do some more on a transactional basis. And kind of no matter what advice we kind of want to offer them. It’s very frustrating when they just want to see us as order takers. And ultimately that’s not how we want to work for clients. And it really is on that stage by challenging the brief, it really is about talking to him about the best outcome. And these are the options that we have for you. We could do it this way. Or we could do it this way. And this is the reason why we don’t have this information, or we don’t have this information. This isn’t right, this is what we’re going to end up with. So what we get quite often, when you challenge on a brief is many account managers will find this is that the clients will want to say far too much in one piece of communication. And that’s not just a video that goes across absolutely everything. And that’s one of the things that we always challenging is actually what are we saying? And who are we talking to. And we really need to dilute this message right down. And sometimes when you spell that out, in a brief and you can turn it flip into something completely different. And you give them an example. They then usually say, oh, okay, I see what you mean. Now, this message is confusing. I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. Or you can but you can bring up a TV advert you can bring up anything, you can bring up in a really bad example, as a reference to say, this is why we’re challenging you. Because ultimately, what we’re going to end up with is something that’s very confusing that’s not a brief that doesn’t talk to your audience.
Jenny
Great. So it’s kind of giving them an example of, you know, if we carry on down this road, we’re gonna end up here, but actually, we need to end up here. And here’s why. And this is how it’s usually done typically. And I mean, advertising. I mean, I come from an advertising background, it was always drummed into me, it’s a one message medium, you know, and you’ve got to be really clear with that one message. And some people just want to put all of their bullet points and then the other one make the logo bigger, isn’t it? Andy, what about you, in terms of challenges?
Andy
I kind of definitely echo what Laura said, Sometimes there’s like the realignment meeting just to make sure you’re on the you’re on the right track. Because the amount of times something could get misconstrued in an email like tone obviously doesn’t come through. And sometimes you like be sat there thinking, did they mean it like this to the meaning like that, just pick up the phone and call someone or arrange a meeting, just just do it, it’s much easier to kind of really understand what someone’s saying. So just make time for those conversations when you need to. I think one of the things that’s always ever present is the pace of marketing that we mentioned earlier, why adaptability is so important to kind of constantly try and stay ahead of the game. I think that’s always going to be a case not something that you just have to live with. And if you don’t enjoy that, it’d be quite tough to be that kind of leader. So you generally have to have some desire to be able to do that. But even then it’s still very, very kind of challenging. But we internally have forums where we can share great work we’ve seen we can share great ideas, we can share what other people have been doing. And so I would recommend that if you’re part of a team to share that knowledge, and you kind of share the burden of all staying abreast of that. And I think that’s something that’s been quite powerful for us. And I also think one of the tougher challenges is not having access to the final decision maker, whether you’re working with a partner agency, you’ve not got access to the client, or you’re working with one of the mid tier and they’re reporting into C suite, that is always a challenge to be able to get what you’re trying to say, to the final decision maker through an intermediary. And basically, you’ve got to equip that person as best as possible to do that, if you can’t secure that direct dialogue. And that’s all it is always fall back on, I always push to get that meeting to the final person, because you’re the experts, you know, it all you can feel the questions that might be coming out of it. So always, always push for that. But then failing that, just make sure that the person that you deal with is fully equipped, got everything that they need, they feel confident in what you’ve gone through with them to make sure they’ve got all the necessary tools, but that one is never gonna go away. And that is just sometimes the way it is, especially if you’re fielding pitches from multiple agencies as it can happen. So yeah, that’s one that always kind of, you’ve just got to do your best given the situation.
Laura
Totally agree on that. And it just to build on it, I’d say like, when you have your projects that you’re working on, it’s kind of if you haven’t got access to that stakeholder, and you can’t and you fully equip your client, but just ensuring that you have all the key stakeholders involved at the key sign of processes. So each milestone at the point of no return, you know that there’s key stakeholder in the business has at least signed that project off, or signed that milestone off.
Jenny
I think this is really good. It’s a really good topic. And so when you say equip them, do you mean provide your contact with a business case, so that they can then present that easily to the C suite?
Andy
Exactly that and depending on what what you want to do whether you want to create a video for them, it can come in different formats, as well as depending on how you want to get that across to them. It could it could be in a PDF, it could be in PowerPoint, Whatever it is, as long as there’s something on there that also sells the idea that you’re trying to pitch them, but also sells your agency or you as well, I think that’s sometimes important, because you’re not able to build that rapport with the end decision maker. So making sure that you’ve got a little bit of something in there, that is personal, either about you or about the company does help a little bit and give you a bit of credibility, but kind of add that in towards the end. But build them the best business case you can. and then you’ve just got to hope that that’s delivered in the way that you would want to deliver it or as close as possible.
Jenny
And Laura, you said, you know, make sure that you have like key meetings, where all the decision makers around the table and all the key stakeholders so that someone doesn’t come in the last minute and say, ooh I’ve got a change. You know, last night, I spoke to my neighbor’s daughter, and she said, you know, we might want to do this with the video that happened to you?
Laura
Yeah, now we’d like it blue and green, please.
Jenny
And make the logo bigger! What other ways can we make sure that we are reaching the key decision makers, maybe our day to day contact is not a key decision maker. Any other thoughts on that?
Laura
Making sure that we kind of introduction at the beginning of the project really, and making the whoever our client is aware of what the key milestones are. So what the key milestones are, what are the points of No Return, and what implications they will have to the business if that stakeholder isn’t included, for instance, cost implications. So if we are going to put together a storyboard and we sign storyboard off, or if we film something, which can be extremely costly, and we’re travelling around the world to film it, and someone hasn’t got the buy in from the initial concept that’s got massive financial implications. And they were the client who will have to sign that off. So it’s in their interests, to share it with the key stakeholders, or to at least get the key stakeholders involved in an initial briefing session or an initial meeting, or at least make sure that they are presenting it to them on our behalf. So it’s kind of trying to flip it back really, to the client, always. it’s in their interest. It’s not just in our interest, it’s in their interest to make sure that this briefing is going to be right.
Jenny
Great tips here about sort of managing expectations from the beginning. You know, making sure that you have all of these conversations upfront as part of your onboarding process. So lovely tips. Thank you so much. A few sort of tactical questions, what tools do you tend to use in your job, any sort of apps or tools that you think that help your account management process?
Laura
We use HubSpot for our CRM tool, which is our main CRM tool that we use. We use Trello boards to manage our products, actions, kind of daily management tools, Jam boards really good, you know, especially at the minute, we’re working remotely, just because we can’t get into a situation where we’re in a boardroom with sticky notes, it’s a virtual sticky note board, which is quite cool to use.
Jenny
Is that jam board? How do you spell that?
Laura
Jam board and then it’s part it’s part of Google suite, G Suite and it’s really cool. It’s really easy. We’ve used it for a few like brainstorming sessions and stuff, which is it has worked quite well actually. And use it for clients stuff as well. And we use as a business we use Toggl and stuff as a time management tool, but project management tools really Trello, HubSpot, Jam board. I’m sure Andy’s got loads more.
Andy
I do though, I do love a good day. I do love a good tool, to be honest, to make our life a little bit easier. I would say HubSpot again, is my absolute favourite that we work with it can track email. So if you’re working across an account with all the people, they can see clear communication that you’ve had, which allows you to burrow further if sharing an account are the things that I do like it has a trackable document you can send to me if your clients are engaging with the content that you’re sending them, whether it be PDF or something similar. And it’s got tasks in it as well, which I think is really, really vital sometimes to you’ve got an email, you can set a task to follow up or you can set a task to do this by a certain date. And then you can just go to your task list and just work through them. Because I think one of the hardest things you can do probably I mentioned this earlier, is create structure, as an account manager to give yourself some structure of where you should be spending your time. And HubSpot helps me do that. I think other things that really help you we’re starting using Frame.io for feedback. So it’s not just about doing great work for our clients is about making ourselves as easy as possible and stress free to work with as possible. Frame IO is one of the tools that we’ve recently invested in that really helped us do that.
Jenny
And what does that specifically?
Andy
So it’s such a, it seems such a little thing. But so what essentially is it’s a tool for reviewing video. So you can easily just kind of like click on the video where you want to comment on the timestamp. And then it’s also got revision history as well. So you can see what feedback was given on stage one, to then reflect back on that or look at stage to see, see where those changes have been implemented, and then then be able to work that way. And it just gives a very kind of clear idea to the client. So if they’re reporting internally, what’s happening with the project, you can say, right, we’re at stage one, this is where at stage one, these are the changes that was supposed to make and more than ever it is powerful, because it allows that collaboration from wherever you are, it’s very rare, someone’s going to sit and watch a video in an office and you’ve got all stakeholders around. So anyone from anywhere, and you can do in different time zones, you can even enough conversations on it. So someone says I want this being read, or they want it read because of XYZ and say, Yeah, okay, we’ll make it green. So it’s got things like that. And that seems such a small snippet, but it’s all part of owning the client, and owning the experiment. So keeping that momentum going. Because I think sometimes it’s not just about great quality of work. It’s about how easy you are to work with, as well once things get going. So there’s that. And then a biggie that I’ve used a lot, especially with the campaign that I mentioned earlier was Wistia. So Wistia is a video hosting platform. But it’s got great analytical tools on it. So you can see where people are dropping off, you can see rewatcher, you can see where people are engaging on call to actions. And it really really does help them to see how well the content’s performing. You think people are rewatching this part, do we break that down further create some content around that people will be watching it because they want to know more about it, or they don’t fully understand it in that video. So let’s expand upon that and create some content for it. And then you measure that. So Wistia and I know other video hosting platforms that do that, but I don’t think any quite does it as well as Wistia. So that’s a really kind of big tool for me to show that added value that we bring.
Jenny
Very valuable, very valuable. Thank you so much. I’ll add a couple more just on from my side Streak is something that I use that integrates with Gmail. So it’s like HubSpot, but it does what I want it to do in terms of CRM, Mural, and Miro, you’ve probably come across them, but for collaboration and you know, everyone doing post it notes, a brainstorming session, some kind of strategy session is often useful. But thank you for sharing. Those are really, really useful. Just two more questions, because I’m conscious of your time, how do you see the account management role evolving in the future?
Laura
I think the role would become more strategic for an account manager. We are strategic account managers. And I think within the agency businesses, account managers will be given more remit, more remit more trust and more confidence to get to know their clients better. I think there’ll be less of a hierarchy like there has historically been in agencies, and more ownership for the account managers to really get to burrow into those clients and get to know them, get to know them better, and work with them more strategically.
Jenny
Amazing. What about you, Andy?
Andy
Yeah, this same kind of thing, I think, expected to be more integrated into your clients, clients company, the clients team, I think that’ll be an expectation. And it’s something that we do do now. But now it’s slightly out out of the norm. But it will become the expectation, I think that’s where it’s going to go and it’s, it’s just going to be all about getting to know absolutely anything and everything you can about that client and about the business and the way the business works not just about their market, but the way the business works, because that makes it so much easier when you’re dealing with the more process side of things like sign off, to get everyone on board those types of things. And not only are they producing great content, but you’re making yourself as easy as possible to work with. I think that’ll be a big part of it. But I think the thing at the moment is no one’s to show what that looks like. And I think that’s probably a really exciting, exciting prospect because we really don’t know what that is. And we’re able to kind of help shape that.
Jenny
I agree with you and the point you made, Laura was really key, I think the idea of consultancy being more like a management consultant understanding their business problems, I think it’s a huge trend. And, in fact, I was in very, thankfully invited to a roundtable discussion the other day with a group of Client Services directors for BIMA. And that was the one topic that we’re talking about this idea of consultancy, because many account managers are having their names changed to consultant. That’s the trend that’s happening, and being more consultative. So I think you’re right, not, you know, goes without saying that you’ve got the likes of Accenture, Deloitte, PwC, buying creative agencies left, right and centre. So that kind of trend is that that the two are kind of merging? So I absolutely agree, I think that’s spot on. Just Finally, any kind of final bits, and you’ve shared so much value. By the way, I just thank you so much, both of you. Any final advice or tips for someone who perhaps is listening to this and thinking, I love the idea of being more of a strategic account manager, any advice for them?
Laura
I would say that advice for them first of all, don’t be afraid of that word strategy again. Because it really is about just getting to know your clients a bit a bit more. Ask the questions. Listen, don’t be afraid to challenge the brief as we said, immerse yourself in their world. Sign up for top tips you know trick tips and trends and things that are happening, you know, if you’ve got a client that’s in fashion, or you’ve got a client, this interiors or whatever their business might be SaasTech, immerse yourself in that world, get to know it, so that you can really add some value and share the thoughts have been put into it as well. And enjoy it.
Jenny
Lovely, lovely advice. Thanks, Laura. What about you, Andy? any parting tips?
Andy
Oh, obviously, it’s taking your course Jenny? That’s the big one.
Jenny
I did not pay you to say that did I?!
Andy
No, no. In all seriousness, obviously, working with you is really, really helped both of us. And it’s given us confidence. It’s given us structure. And it’s given us some great tools that we can build on, because we already had a lot of good skills. So it was good, knowing A we’ve got those skills, and we’re good at it. That’s a confidence part. And it’s like, right, where do you take this next. And I think if you’re looking at the bigger picture, I think like learn from the leaders in the industry, I guess, we’ll learn from that, adapt your approach, be prepared to fail, because not everything you try is going to work. But then you make sure you’re okay with thatm reflecting you go again. And I think, again, just constantly just wanting to learn consume as much information and don’t be afraid to try something that might be a little bit different, a little bit alien. But once you’ve done it a few times, it very much becomes a part of who you are. So I think looking at people who are out there doing it right and who have been doing it right for a number of years, I think is a great way to kind of look up to those people and and try and emulate some of the stuff that they do that really works.
Jenny
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Andy. And I really appreciate the feedback. I think you two are an absolute pleasure to work with, like, absolutely. You know, you had it all. But working together. I think I just saw that kind of enhanced kind of level of consultancy. But if someone is really kind of enjoyed this chat and want to get hold of you, who particularly do you work with client wise, who might be listening and thinking, I really love the sound of utilising video in such a strategic way for my business.
Laura
In terms of clients that we like to work with, we like to work with all clients, so from startup companies, to SMEs to global organisations, who have got, who’ve got a story to tell what we do, we make videos, it’s the art of storytelling. And it’s the art of storytelling mixed with whatever there’s going to be live action animation, what that looks like, we are telling a story that is ultimately going to make somebody an audience do something. And from that doing that something there’s going to be a result. And whether you’re in any of those organisations that I’ve just mentioned in you’re in B2B or B2C? You know, really, we’d love to work with you, we’d love to show you what we can do.
Jenny
Brilliant, and how can people reach you? What’s the best way?
Laura
The best way to reach us is a fire our Well, our website, really and our details on the website, or directly via email addresses and mine is laura.cohen?skeletonproductions.com.
Jenny
And is the website skeletonproductions.com?
Laura
The website is skeleton productions.com. And all our contact details are on there as are our faces.
Jenny
You’re right, your lovely faces. Well, thank you both so much, honestly, that was really, really brilliant. And I think so many people would have got so much value. So many ideas coming through. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.
Laura
No problem. Thank you very much for having us. And thank you very much your course you really have added so much, so much to us. And yeah, I think both Andy and I have really benefited benefited from the course so thank you.
Jenny
It’s a pleasure. I hope you came away with lots of tools and ideas and tips that you can take away from this episode and apply right now in your role. Just a reminder that on the 15th of April, I’m going to be running my next Account Accelerator programme. This is a three month training and coaching programme. There are weekly calls, and I take you through a step by step programme to take your agency from unpredictable project revenue to more predictable account growth. So by the end of 90 days, you come away with a client centric plan to increase your revenue from your existing accounts. So if you’d like to join me, please get hold of me on LinkedIn, Jenny Plant, or drop me an email. It’s Jenny@accountmanagement skills.com. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
