Welcome to Episode 60. The most downloaded podcast episode to date is still my first chat with Kate Whittaker, a marketer of 30 years who shared insight into what it’s like being a client, and what clients want most from their agencies. If you haven’t listened to that one already, I’d recommend you go back and have a listen.
In this episode, Kate talks about what’s changed for her since August 2020, which was when the pandemic forced us all to be locked down. She shares:
- what have been the biggest changes for her, her role and her organisation in the last couple of years
- how her needs have changed in terms of what she’s looking for from agencies
- some suggestions for how you can strengthen your relationships with clients while working remotely.
And we talked about lots more.
Understanding how to develop client relationships and grow accounts is essential for any agency account manager. And yet, too often, there is no real guidance on how to do it. So if you’re in a client-facing role and you want to hone your account management skills, then check out my Account Accelerator programme. Many agency account managers have told me the biggest shift for them after my programme is a newfound confidence when handling client relationships.
Transcript:
Jenny 00:02
Well, I’m delighted to welcome back a special guest of the show, who is Kate Whittaker. And Kate is the Head of Corporate Communications for DUAL group, a global insurance group. She’s got 30 years’ experience working in marketing in different UK and international roles and is very well versed in hiring and working with agencies. She’s also on the judging panel for the IMG, which is the insurance marketers’ group and the young marketer of the Year Award 2021. I had the pleasure of chatting to Kate one year ago, in August 2020 on the podcast, and it’s still the most downloaded episode that I have. She really did share some brilliant tips for agencies and particularly those in account management, about how to manage client relationships. So, if you missed that episode, I would really highly recommend that you go back and have a listen because, hopefully, you’ll pick up lots of tips. Kate, welcome back to the show.
Kate 00:57
Thank you. It’s absolutely lovely to be here, Jenny. It’s amazing how we’ve come on in the last couple of years and where ‘virtual’ is just the thing we do now. So, it’s great to be with you.
Jenny 01:08
And I’m really looking forward to diving into the questions Kate, to get your perspective on how it has changed. So, this is fantastic. Would you mind kicking off by just spending a few minutes talking about you, your background and your role at DUAL?
Kate 01:21
Absolutely. So, I was thinking about this this morning on the way to work. And rather alarmingly, my career started before the internet was invented. And also, I Googled this to check, but mobile phones were only just invented. And I mention that not to just show how old I am, but just how the marketers toolbox has changed over my career and probably will for your younger listeners and viewers, it will be the same for them as well. So, I’ve, as you say, been about 30 years in the industry and I am a career marketer. I’ve been passionate about communication since the very beginning. And I love it, I still love it every day, I’m really lucky. I’m head of corporate communications at DUAL, which means I have a very global role. We’re a business of about 1000 people and we’re in 19 countries. And my role is to support group communications for the Group CEO and the exec, but also one of central support for our global marketing community. There’s about 30 of us. And unlike the old days where there’d be someone in the centre saying you must do this, and you must follow these rules, I see my role as one of support. We have very small marketing teams in many of our countries and I make sure that they get as much support as they can from the centre. And we leverage everything we do. I’m just conscious of your agency audience – I don’t want that to sound negative. We do take projects from country to country and reuse them in different markets. But what that actually means is we find we can invest more in some projects where we know they’re going to add global value, and they’re going to be reused in different markets. So, it’s really nice when you’re looking at something like a global corporate video, you’re doing it for 19 markets.
Jenny 03:13
Amazing. And I remember how inclusive you were as a leader. So that sounds amazing. Actually, when we last spoke, it was August 2020, so it’s been more than a year, more like nearly two years, which is incredible and so much has obviously changed in the world since we last spoke. And for you in your role at DUAL, what have been the biggest changes since then? And obviously for those listening, we spoke just as the pandemic was starting and kicking in. Now we’re getting out of it, and we’re past it, so what’s changed?
Kate 03:45
I think when we spoke before, we were still really in a world of uncertainty. And I remember we were finally able to go to the pub again. Not that that’d be the first thing that springs to mind! But I think we’ve just all been on a digital learning journey and not just for those of us in marketing, but with our internal and external audiences. And I think the biggest challenge and change for us is helping our internal business teams connect with their audiences in ways they just weren’t used to. So particularly in the London market, specialty insurance is very much face to face. We have a drop in area for brokers who come in and talk to us to get cover, you had a physical stamp and a signature on a piece of paper. So, all these things have changed during lockdown. And digital technology has helped us overcome them. But it’s also been a cultural piece as well. And if you look at our Italian business, they did everything face to face, 100% face to face. They’d have roadshows several times a year. And they went 100% digital and built an in-house media studio, which now everybody in the rest of the group really envies. And I think what’s been interesting is how we’ve taken what’s been a challenge and made an opportunity out of it. And yes of course, I don’t want to sound too Pollyanna, it’s not all being perfect, but there’s been a real positive step change in how people are embracing new ideas.
Jenny 05:14
Incredible. Can you tell us a bit more about that in house media studio and how it’s used?
Kate 05:20
So, you can imagine Italian culture, it’s very face to face, it’s very personal relationships. And our managing director would know everybody individually and was able to go on a roadshow several times a year. And they really missed seeing people and being able to connect. We did a few webinars and then they literally invested in a proper TV studio. So, we have space for panels, we have the ability to run webinars from there. And they’ve really put the time and the investment in to make it something that really works for them and their clients. And now they can also do a number of virtual events with some people present in the room, and panels of people discussing different topics, and then connect with a virtual audience or whatever they need.
Jenny 06:11
So, they’re really investing in connecting on a deeper level with their customers through the power of TV and those virtual events. I was just thinking in terms of the agency role in this, did the Italian team have an agency helping them do that? Do you know? I mean, it’s probably too detailed, because you’re so global.
Kate 06:35
Yes, they worked with a specialist supplier, a technology partner, to make sure they had the right equipment and to get the training in. And obviously, also with creative to get the branding right. And as you say, I wasn’t day to day involved and was just slightly jealous!
Jenny 06:54
But is it something that you’re looking to leverage across the group?
Kate 06:59
Certainly, we’re looking at leveraging those ideas. Not all of our offices have the space and some of our offices are only five or six people. So not all of us have the space to create a media studio but looking at replicating that approach is something that we’re sharing everywhere.
Jenny 07:14
Very interesting. Can you share any other digital transformations that have happened in the last couple of years? Can you think of anything that’s really changed across the group?
Kate 07:26
So, I think another example, maybe not a transformation, but probably like everybody, we picked up Teams and Zoom to talk to our UK colleagues, and then realised we should be doing the same for everyone. So just as an internal example, I worked directly for the CEO, and he has a Breakfast Club, which was a UK London based thing. And now we have that with colleagues joining us from all over Europe and sometimes, if we change the times, from the US and Australia. And through these global marketing calls that I now hold every couple of months, we’re sharing ideas in a way that just didn’t happen before. As an example, our Australia team created a video on cyber insurance – insurance against cybercrime. And it’s been reproduced in Italian and in Finnish. In fact, I had a Finnish man sat in the cupboard with a blanket over his head to do the voiceover, because they weren’t really very many options in lockdown! We work with local agencies to produce those local language versions, but the original idea was shared from our Australia office.
Jenny 08:35
So really, it’s helped the organisation work better internally to share those big ideas and making sure that there’s economies of scale? And everyone’s not investing £10s of £1000s into developing new ideas when you can leverage those from other areas.
Kate 08:52
Yes, absolutely. But again, not necessarily negative for agencies, because if you’ve not got to spend time creating something from scratch, you’ve got time to spend on another project and to create something of your own. So, in the example of the Italian office who used the Australian cyber video, they actually created two or three videos that came out of that initial idea, so they were still investing time with their agency, but just taking the idea further.
Jenny 09:21
From a proactive point of view if, for example, there’s an agency listening that are working perhaps with the UK, Head of Comms or Head of Branding and they do a good initiative that goes down really well in the local market, and knowing that there is an actual global part of the organisation, it’s something that they could proactively suggest, isn’t it? How could we share this across the organisation? Or do you think that would be useful, just opening up that conversation? Obviously, with the DUAL Group you’ve got a forum that you are sharing those ideas, but prior to that, you didn’t have that forum sharing.
Kate 10:00
Yes, we went through a rebrand a year before lockdown, so we’ve only really recently come together as a marketing group, and I think it’s cemented through lockdown. But I would definitely recommend, don’t think just because something’s got an English voiceover and more of an English audience or British audience, than don’t think it can’t work somewhere else.
Jenny 10:24
Great idea. Kate, with agency account managers, sometimes they’re trying to get hold of their client and their client is never available. And sometimes account managers get really frustrated, saying how can I possibly reach my client, they just don’t seem to be answering me? And I think sometimes there’s a lack of understanding of how much the client has to do. So, would you mind sharing a day in your life in your role, just to give some context to how much time you actually spend with your agencies and suppliers?
Kate 11:02
Yes, not enough. Not enough and not as much as I’d want to. And one thing I love about the role at DUAL is it’s so varied. And just today, I’ve been working on projects with teams in Mexico, in Spain and Italy, in North America and the UK. And out of the UK, our marketing team supports 20 different teams all with different business models and different product areas. So, we’ve got a lot going on. And unfortunately, when you have that many internal clients, all of them have an equal voice. And so, something you thought was priority when you got up in the morning, no longer is a priority by 11 o’clock. And so sometimes I can imagine it’s quite hard on the agency side because you’re expecting a reply on something and then it doesn’t come and you think, ‘Is it me, it’s obviously personal’. It’s not personal. It’s often just the differing demands on things that fall into our inbox. And I have a really good example of this.
As you know, I’ve got a very strong relationship with my agency. And we had a brief for a corporate video that I wanted to produce. And for the best will in the world, I wanted to put aside three hours to get this brief together. And I never found those three hours, and I spoke to them and said, ‘Oh, it’s not done’. And they said, ‘Just come over, we’ll talk through it and then we can write the brief for you and replay it back to you’. And I’ve talked a lot about agency fit, and how you want to make sure that you’ve got a strong relationship and you work as a team. But actually, knowing that with confidence, I could turn up at the agency, we could just park that time, spend some time discussing and actually we came up with a much better brief than I would ever have produced on my own.
Jenny 13:02
Wow, I think that’s a really good tip for anyone listening. How often has an agency waited and waited for a brief? Why not co-create the brief with the client and proactively suggest doing that?
Kate 13:13
And I know it’s not always that simple. But if you can think of, how might we do that another way? Because if you’re working with a client and they’re working with you, they still want to work with you. So, it definitely won’t be personal. It’ll be, just how do you tackle the time issues or the demands on the person’s time?
Jenny 13:32
Do you think it’s worth the account manager asking questions to really understand how much pressure the client is under or their internal schedule, to be more cognisant of what’s going on in their world, but also perhaps, to come up with different ways to communicate?
Kate 14:03
I think that’s a really great idea. And the challenge for the account handler, the account manager will be to find a time where it feels like it’s a productive use of time for the client, and not try and shoehorn it in between meetings because then it’ll just possibly feel irritating. And so, frame the question, ‘How can we work better? How can we support you better?’ A good idea is to do it perhaps in a more social environment. So, my advice would be to choose breakfast, as long as your client’s a morning person, rather than lunch because you start breakfast, you finish breakfast, then you get on with your day. And lunch can sometimes feel like an interruption when you’re on a very busy schedule.
Jenny 15:25
I love that, ‘How can we support you better?’ You can’t really ask that enough, can you? ‘Is there anything that we could be doing better? How can we support you better? How can we communicate better?’ I love the idea about suggesting a breakfast meeting. Would that necessarily have to be face to face? Or could you do it over Zoom? Or is it only face to face, you’re thinking of?
Kate 15:44
I cannot be the only person that does other things while I’m on Zoom and Teams. We’re all cursed for the notifications that pop up at the bottom of our screen, and phone things happening. I just think there’s no substitute for taking, even if it’s only 40 minutes, face to face and being fully there in the moment. And you talk about agencies not being able to ask that question enough but if you’ve got a strong agency relationship, I’m also thinking, ‘How can I support my agency?’ How can I keep them informed about what we’re doing so they don’t suddenly think there’s something wrong? When we’ve got corporate events going on, I try to keep them updated and make sure they know that they can check in with just a couple of lines of an email. So, I think it’s important it’s both ways. And I said this last time, if you want that relationship to work, it has to be something from the client and from the agency, working towards a common goal.
Jenny 16:44
I think that’s a fabulous idea I really do. Making sure that it suits both sides. It actually reminds me of when I was working at one of my agencies, I used to have a conversation as I was walking into work with the client, because it suited both of us. So equally, if you prefer breakfast, there may be clients that prefer to get their work done during the day and then just have a chat at the end of the day. So lovely, lovely ideas. Kate, what have you seen has changed or evolved over the past couple of years, in terms of how you’ve needed your agency to support you?
Kate 17:21
To be honest, it’s been more of the same but more intense. And I think I said this when we spoke before, but
one of the great things I get from my agency is that external perspective, because I love DUAL, I sit in the company, I’m 24/7 with the company. And I don’t always see what our competitors are doing well, or even other sectors are doing well. And you might be a consumer experiencing something but actually, it’s really helpful now and again, for your agency to pop up and go, ‘Oh did you see this company’s done that and that seemed to work quite well?’ And just being on your side but with an external perspective is incredibly useful. And because the last two years have seen people innovate, test, fail, test, succeed – there’s been lots of things people have tried. And the world’s receptiveness to messages has changed, I think as well. We all get Zoomed out but actually, when someone cuts through that, it’s actually quite exciting and someone realises who I am, as a consumer. So, I think an agency can really help the client get a better understanding of what’s going on around them and things that they can test and try and maybe fail, but probably succeed.
Jenny 18:41
And getting quite granular now, I think it’s a fabulous idea, brilliant that the agency should start thinking about the external environment and what they can bring to their clients. What is the best way to deliver that information? And the reason I’m asking Kate specifically is some agency account managers for example, they have Google alerts set up, and they think by just sending a link to a client, ‘Hey, look at this!’ that’s adding value. But can you be more specific about how you personally like to receive information about competitors and customers?
Kate 19:14
I talk to my team about this a lot. And it’s the value add that we bring by being the interface. Because if it was just a Google alert, I could do that myself. But actually, what I value is the insight or perspective of the person that’s sharing that with me, which is, ‘I saw this, and I really liked it’, or ‘I saw this, and I didn’t like it because…’ or ‘This could work for you for this product area’. So, they’re thinking of us not just feeling you’re part of the mailing list, but actually it’s part of a conversation. And I think that’s what makes the difference.
Jenny 19:46
And I suppose it comes back to the account manager having a point of view and being able to have a point of view because they understand the sector?
Kate 19:55
Yes, but also my responsibility is to make them understand our business as well or to help them understand our business. So, if I don’t share our new product areas then how can they possibly be proactive on ideas on how to promote those new products?
Jenny 20:12
This is a random question; do you involve your agency in your yearly planning?
Kate 20:20
We haven’t really done any yearly planning for the last two years. We start off with a plan and then two months in it just goes out the window! So, what I do with all of our suppliers, not just our main agency, but as I mentioned earlier, we work with a lot of teams. And someone might come up and say, ‘Oh, we’d like to do this.’ And I think that’s an interesting germ of an idea, how might we execute that? And what I’ve done more and more in the last two years, is I share that with the agency, right at that point, saying, ‘Someone just came up with this idea. What do you think? Should we have a quick chat about it?’ Because you can go down a route and then it goes nowhere but actually, if you do that co-creation right at the start, then you’ll either work out it’s not an agency thing and it’s internal or it absolutely is an agency thing, or there’s a different way to make that happen. And I think that that’s been a big change.
Jenny 21:28
With your yearly planning, obviously, because there has been so much change in the last two years, would you have said that up until two years ago, you did have like a yearly plan on what you were going to be doing?
Kate 21:40
I’ve been in this role three years. So, we did have a plan and to be fair we do have a plan now, but it is quite loose, because we know how much things are going to change. As an example, last year, we made four acquisitions and we’d only made three in the previous 20 years of our business. So, things popped up that none of us were expecting. So yes, we have a plan. We have objectives, all the teams have objectives, our agencies understand where we’re trying to get to, and any key milestones like events we’re attending and new markets we’re entering. But it’s quite hard to do anything much more than strategic tactical, if you know what I mean? So, we know where we’re trying to get to, sometimes it’s quite day to day on the execution.
Jenny 22:30
Okay, fair enough. And what about the corporate objectives, from the CEO and C-suite perspective, at the beginning of your financial year, do they say this is what we are aiming for in terms of growth, numbers, sales?
Kate 22:51
Last year, we had 44% organic growth. It was our best year, in 24 years, as an organisation. And so, yes, we have a plan of growth, and we know the regions in which we want to achieve growth and we know the product areas where we expect to achieve growth. And then life happens. And I think lots of companies talk about having a very entrepreneurial culture, but DUAL is exceptional. We are employee owned, private equity owned, with no shareholders, no external shareholders. So, if something seems like a good idea, sometimes we change direction and follow that good idea. So, we have top level growth plans, we have an overall vision to be the best underwriting business we can be. And that deliberately applies to everybody. So, we’ve all got this vision to do things, do it once, do it well, and deliver the best client solutions. And that genuinely comes out in research that we do achieve that. And sometimes the how, changes from month to month.
Jenny 24:00
Yes, fair enough. Where you see an agency as particularly strategic and understanding your market, would you consider a situation where, as well as them doing campaigns for you on an ad hoc basis, that they would have quarterly meetings with you? From a more strategic point of view thinking, ‘Are we on track to reach your corporate objectives? What is the big picture stuff happening Kate? Are you having any acquisitions this month? What other areas of the business can we support you with? Or maybe this is what we’re seeing in the marketplace right now. This is where we are. We think that we predict the future being…’ Would that be a useful forum for you to have that more strategic platform?
Kate 24:44
100% And to be fair, we do do that. I actually make sure I carve out the time to have those regular conversations. And we might put it at the end of a project related meeting, and just say, ‘Okay, let’s have a sandwich and sit back a bit and just talk more generally about where we’re going’. But, for example, we have a global marketing forum where everybody’s coming together in London this September, the first time for three years, which we’re super excited about. And the agency would be part of the planning for that, the support for the teams while they’re in London and helping us deliver the agenda as well. And so, we see them very much as part of our team and helping us deliver the strategic plan. And helping us take steps back from those day-to-day projects. Sometimes reminding us that we need to take a step back and think about what’s happening in six months, two years, three years,
Jenny 25:52
Would you say that they challenge you?
Kate 25:55
Absolutely. But I would say also, I challenge them. So, there’s no point paying for expertise. And it isn’t just a transactional relationship, of course it’s not. But there’s no point paying for expertise unless you actually allow them to be experts. And you’re the expert in your business. And you come to a much better result, if you have an environment where each person can challenge the other because it’s done constructively for the same objectives. It’s not combative. And we have great debates. And usually, we’ll come out with a much better solution.
Jenny 26:36
I think there must be agencies listening, thinking, ‘Wow, that sounds like the ideal position for us to be in with our clients’. Clearly there’s a lot of trust you have built up with your agency. You see them as a strategic partner. You’ve involved them in your global marketing forum, with the agenda and the involvement in the content, etc. What advice would you give for an agency listening that aspires to be there, but the client sees them like an order taker?
Kate 27:05
I think it’s like any relationship, it’s quite easy to get imbalances. One person thinking they’re going to get married, and the other person is just dating. Whatever the right analogy is! But I think there are always going to be relationships you have that are quite executional because the nature of whatever service they’re providing is more in that way. But because I’ve worked at lots of different companies and as you know, I’ve worked on a lot of rebrand projects, and agency recruitment projects, the best way to cut through the fluff is to be really upfront about what sort of relationship you want. And I think that lead has to come from the client, but the agency can say, ‘What sort of service do you want from us? How involved do you want us to be? And how can we make that happen?’ And I think, like any relationship counselling, now and again, you might need to create an opportunity to revisit that. And maybe that’s saying, let’s take a day out or take an afternoon out, let’s go rowing or I don’t know, walk around the park or do something that’s not work related, but really understand at the end of it, there’s an agenda to say, right, how do we work together? And I think any agency has got to accept they’ll have some clients that will treat them as order takers and executional and will be very happy with that and others will want a deeper relationship because like me, I’ve got a very small marketing team and I really value their strategic input.
Jenny 28:46
It’s a tricky one, isn’t it? You’re absolutely right, some clients just need the order taker and that’s all we want you for and we don’t want anything else. But where there is an opportunity, sometimes agencies want to be more proactive and come up with relevant ideas to present to the client to say, ‘Look, this is what we’re thinking, this is what we’re seeing, some of the competitors in this space are doing this.’ And that’s where the client might start leaning in. However, if they don’t understand the client’s strategy or goal, then the danger is that they come up with those ideas proactively, but they’re off point, and they look as if they’re being a bit salesy and chucking ideas forward.
Kate 29:25
And that is a tough one. I think as an agency, I think you’ve got to be upfront and say, ‘We would like to know more about your business so that we can do what we do, as well as we can’, and not necessarily be pushing the sales side of, ‘And we can do more for you’, but just will better understand you and therefore we can better deliver the projects that we’re working with you on and then naturally that will develop, I think.
Jenny 29:52
Yes, great idea. We actually invited a couple of our favourite clients to our agency for an afternoon on a Friday, and they gave us an hour’s chat about their business. And the whole agency came in and listened. And it was not only a great bonding experience, but we learned a lot about their world. So that’s a great suggestion, thank you for sharing.
Kate 30:14
I think that’s a brilliant idea. And actually, in our September forum, we’ve got two people coming from two of the businesses we acquired last year, and they are going to give a presentation on their business. Obviously, it’s to a very interested audience, but it’s the best way to find out. And people like talking about themselves, we are on a podcast!
Jenny 30:37
Kate, obviously, everything’s gone online. We’ve been talking about the digital transformation and all these initiatives – virtual events, virtual meetings, many account managers have struggled a little bit and are asking me the question, ‘How do I bond? How do I create a relationship when it’s all virtual?’ And some clients have not gone back to the office, and they don’t intend to. A lot of agencies have gone fully remote, so this is set to continue. So, any insight or tips into how to develop a relationship virtually?
Kate 31:11
That is such a tough one, because you and I have met in person, and that helps our relationship when we’re talking virtually. And there is no substitute for a face to face. I would think even if it means a travel, and it’s lunch in a local pub and it’s not going to happen very often because it’s quite a journey, try and get a regular, even if it’s once a year, face to face meeting in. And try to make it less worky and more social. And then you can build on that in the next call. And I think a lot of us love not having to commute. I’m in the office today, but I’m not in the office every day. And a lot of us love the productivity we get sometimes when we’re working at home, because you can get through quite a lot when you don’t get interrupted by your colleagues. We also value face to face. So, I think maybe find something that your client likes doing. Or find a time that’s going to work for them, not in the afternoon if they’ve got a school run, middle of the day if that’s something for them, and just suggest something a bit more social, but maybe I just have to travel a bit further to make it happen. But I genuinely, maybe this is my 30 years in the industry, but I genuinely don’t see a substitute for face to face really building on a relationship. And really, wherever you are in the world working, there’s no excuse not to make the effort. Once a year, like you said, even just to meet face to face in some suitable form. And I think it was a great point about listening to the client and what they like and how it would fit in with them and their preferences. Brilliant. Another completely different question. Do you have a procurement department? Yes and no. We’re a business of about 1000 people globally but we’re part of a wider group of 10,500 people. We do have a team that can support us with contracts, but not with, for example, a shortlist of agencies or a shortlist of printers. We will normally do that agency supplier research ourselves. It’s our decision really, and again, because I’ve got quite a lot of experience in working with agencies and hiring agencies, I will always have selection criteria on why you would choose one agency over another, but inevitably it’s going to be a chemistry as part of that. But our procurement team just supports you with contracts.
Jenny 33:52
Wow. So, you’ve got quite a lot of the decision-making power in this instance to select as you say. Have you worked with procurement departments in the past?
Kate 34:02
Oh, yes.
Jenny 34:04
Can you share any insight into how that has worked?
Kate 34:12
Good procurement teams are fabulous, because they’ll really work with you and understand the criteria, understand it’s not just the financials. It should be so much more than that, because it’s about value for money and the quality of thinking you’re getting and the experience in your sector. And then of course, the worst ones, it’s about how much does that cost? And to do any kind of pitch purely based on just the money is really hard when you’re working in a creative environment. And I think it’s also about, you were talking about relationships, building relationships, can you work with them? The cheapest agency might be one you really love working with or not. And I think working with an agency is investing the same amount as recruiting new people to your team. You should be with somebody you look forward to seeing, you look forward to spending time with and adds value both ways. And procurement sometimes, in some places, can get in the way of that, I think,
Jenny 35:19
Interesting. I’ve had a few chats with procurement specialists on this podcast. And I think I agree, when you have a strong rookie on the team that are really being supportive with the marketing team and helping them select the right partner for value rather than cost, I think it can work extremely well. But I can tell that you’ve had different types of experiences in the past, and it depends on the culture of the organisation, I suppose.
Kate 35:46
It’s also easier to talk about the things that went wrong than the things that went right. I remember on one particular project I was working on, which was appointing a new website agency, the procurement team were amazing, because they came up with all the paperwork and the spreadsheets and the scoring. And they did all the background checks on financials. So, we were able to work really effectively and come up with a very good solution. And I remember it but actually, the ones you remember really, are the ones that didn’t work as well.
Jenny 36:18
And do you have any advice for anyone listening from an agency perspective that perhaps has been working with their client, and they don’t know whether there’s a procurement department involved? Or they are trying to maybe create more relationships within the organisation? Would you say that procurement is one to certainly develop the relationship with?
Kate 36:38
Absolutely. And because I’ve worked at a number of companies on projects, (I worked as a consultant before I was here and a permanent role), I always took the time to sit down with the procurement team and really explain what I was doing. And I think so often people don’t do that. So, if they don’t understand the rationale of what you’re looking at, why you’re looking, why you’ve chosen that criteria, they’ll treat it as transactional. I think it’s like anything, if you invest the time, you probably get something back more than you invested.
Jenny 37:11
Just out of interest, you’re obviously working with an agency that you’re really happy with and you’re probably not looking at the moment, but how often does that come round? How often do you typically, or does it very much depend on what’s happening with the existing agency relationship?
Kate 37:29
I’m going to go back to the dating/marriage analogy. We’ve got a happy marriage at the moment. I’m not going to rock that boat. We both enjoy it; we both get a lot of value out of it. I guess things that could prompt that is if they were approached by a competitor and that changed the dynamics, but at the moment, not looking for anybody else and we’re very happy where we are. But I think it’s good for neither side to get complacent. Because if you become a less interesting or less involved client, and your agency gets approached by another competitor, then they’re going to be more interested, whereas I’m hand on heart sure that my agency would not talk to anybody that they would see as a competitor of mine at the moment.
Jenny 38:18
Well, it just goes to show that the situation can change and actually leads me to my next question about constantly adding value to your client relationship from the agency’s perspective. If your agency was to surprise you with some relevant future focused ideas, and jaw dropping insights to help you in your business, what areas would they fall into?
Kate 38:45
I think we touched on this a little bit earlier because I have such a busy role. And possibly this is my fault, I don’t often enough, put my head above the parapet and check what the rest of the world is doing. And I think that’s become harder and harder, also in lockdown, because naturally where I may have gone to an industry social event or, even the insurance marketers group have networking events very often and so you naturally chat to competitors, and you have a very open discussion about what’s happening in their world, it’s been harder to do that. And so, the extra insight that my agency gives us is prompted or unprompted views on what’s happening in the sector, what’s happening outside the sector. But that is really dependent on me giving them enough, so they know the direction we’re going in. Because as you say otherwise, sometimes you can fall on your face by providing information that doesn’t feel relevant and that jars a little so that’s got to work both ways. And I would really say to any clients listening to this, or watching this, that you get out what you put in. You really do.
Jenny 40:02
That’s so true. So, any external perspective on competitors, the sector, any other sector that’s doing something particularly well that you can learn from? Many agencies at the moment are following what’s happening with the evolution of the metaverse, for example. And virtual, we’re doing virtual events already but that’s going to become even more sophisticated in the future when we have these immersive technologies that are going to enable us to communicate more person to person. Has that touched you in any way yet, such as using VR?
Kate 40:39
We’ve had several projects looking at things internally, but we’ve not done anything external yet and that’s within the wider group. It’s interesting, because we’ve got a big insurance event in May and it’s the first time it’s been held, obviously, for a few years. And everyone’s really excited about the face to face. But what I’m really interested in is going along and seeing what people are doing differently. Will it feel the same as, just rewind to pre lockdown. Is it just event stands and handing out pens, or are people going to be treating this differently, looking at a hybrid of virtual and how do you continue the conversation afterwards?
Jenny 41:21
Lovely. You’ve really provided some great tips Kate, for agencies about what to do. And I would just be interested to hear if there’s anything that you can think of, off the top of your head, about what not to do with your client?
Kate 41:40
Probably, to go back to a point I made earlier, is agencies and clients try and have an early conversation about how you move through that relationship working. How proactive do you want your agency to be because I can imagine it’d be frustrating to put time and effort into researching something for a client and they just go, ‘Sorry, no, not interested’. But say, ‘Oh, we could do this, should we give it a go?’ Try and get some agreement, so that things don’t come out of left field and think, ‘Why have you done that?’ So, it’s surprising, not in a good way. And also, you’re very conscious that if your agency delivers you something you’ve not asked for, that’s cost time and money. So, who’s paying for it? And I’m deeply suspicious of things like that. So, I think just try and be as open and transparent and maybe flag things maybe before you do them. You know, ‘We’re thinking of doing this, would it be helpful?’ And even if there’s a cost or no cost to be explicit about that. Yes, no surprises.
Jenny 42:47
No surprises. And actually, you’ve opened up a little doubt, because it’s worth clarifying isn’t it, to say from the outset, ‘Look, typically for other clients, for example, we do tend to share proactive ideas that we come across that are relevant to your sector, your competing environment. This is just proactive ideas that we don’t charge you for, but we think, add a value, would that be useful?’ Now that from the outset of a relationship would be the perfect segue, wouldn’t it? And if the client says, ‘Well, that’s actually fine.’ That’s allayed any fears that you had that you were being charged for that and paved the way for them to come up with those ideas?
Kate 43:33
Absolutely, and it doesn’t have to be right at the beginning because, you could even have an opportunity to say, ‘Well, we’ve got someone new, that’s coming to the agency, and they’ve had a couple of ideas we’d like to share with you.’ It doesn’t have to be, we didn’t talk about at the beginning so we can’t do it now. All relationships evolve, and good ones evolve in a good way.
Jenny 43:56
Absolutely, perfect point. I’m so glad you made it because agencies are evolving. And actually, they’re really recruiting hard now at the moment and opening up different services within their businesses. We never used to have SEO, but now we’ve just got an SEO specialist, wanted to let you know that. So, thank you for drawing the attention. Any final advice for agencies or agency account managers listening who want to add more value to their clients? We’ve talked a lot, so is there anything that we haven’t covered that you think could make them more indispensable?
Kate 44:27
I think you’ve got to know your client and find a way to do that without feeling intrusive, because the better you know your client, the easier it is to spend 10 minutes one morning sending them something that makes them smile. It could be just a silly video that’s quite interesting. And remember that you’re adding value, not just postbox. So, if you’re going to send a link or you’re going to send information, give a view. The client might not agree with you or might say, ‘Well that’s interesting’, but it starts a debate, a conversation. And that’s what you want to continue.
Jenny 45:02
Lovely. What a great note to finish on. Kate, that has been amazing as usual. Thank you so much for joining me again, I really appreciate it. And this has been amazing. So, if there’s anyone that’s listening that wants to talk further with you, or is there any one in particular that you would welcome contacting you, and if so, how?
Kate 45:24
I’m very happy for anyone to contact me on LinkedIn. But we’re not looking for a new agency, just to let people know. But I’m always happy to create connections- it’s a small world.
Jenny 45:34
Great. We’ll put that in caps at the bottom. ‘NO NEW AGENCY AT THE MOMENT’ Thank you very much.
Kate 45:41
Jenny, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you.
