This episode is going to be particularly useful for you if you are managing your agency team remotely and want some tips and ideas for how to keep the team engaged.
Today’s guests Fiona Edwards and Katie Langdon have been running their very successful healthcare communications agency, Skin and Blister, remotely years before it became something we were forced to do in 2020 due to the global pandemic.
They share:
* Why they decided from the beginning to have this remote working model
* The key areas they focus on to make remote working successful
* Some practical advice and tips for you if you’re struggling to manage your team remotely
and lots of ideas you may find useful for developing your leadership skills.
I hope you enjoy my chat with Fiona and Katie and come away with some ideas for managing your team.
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Transcript:
Jenny 00:03
Today, I’m delighted to be speaking to Fiona Edwards and Katie Langdon. They are sisters and founders of healthcare, creative agency Skin and Blister. They’re on a mission to put the care back into healthcare communications. A very warm welcome to you both.
Katie 00:20
It’s lovely to be here.
Jenny 00:22
It’s lovely to see you too. And I know it’s been a long time coming, because I’ve wanted to have you on the show for quite a while. So would you mind starting off by telling us why you started Skin and Blister and how you help your clients?
Fi 00:37
I think Skin and Blister actually started many, many, many years ago before the actual business if you like, because ‘skin and blister’ is London, cockney rhyming slang for sister and Katie is my sister. And actually Katie and I have got a background in healthcare communications. We’ve both been working in that area, individually at other agencies and actually Skin and Blister was born from a point of shared frustration, because we were working at other agencies and feeling like the care wasn’t being put into absolutely every element. And so Skin and Blister basically exists because we want to improve the way that we communicate in health, but for the benefit of everybody. And to do this, we really try to understand who we’re talking to. So it could be a healthcare professional who’s about to make a life changing treatment decision, it could be a patient who’s feeling really lost or scared or frustrated about the current circumstances that they’re in. And we gather a lot of true insight to really understand who we’re talking to, and then take all the complex scientific information and make it meaningful, accessible and useful for all. And so Skin and Blister is a creative agency, and we make remarkable healthcare communications for humans, also for animals and through our clinical trials work for the future of medicine. So that’s a little bit about our business. We started five years ago, officially. And we haven’t looked back really.
Jenny 02:02
It’s just been a massive success story so far hasn’t it and I’m sure it’s set to continue. Would you mind Fi, just to that point about having frustrations, what were a few of your key frustrations?
Fi 02:19
It’s interesting, because Katie and I, although we’re sisters, we can be quite different in terms of the way our brains work. And I actually have a background in account management and account direction and sort of the strategic side of the business client partnerships and Katie is a creative director. So we come at it from an actually quite a different perspective. But our frustrations were really about seeing churn out. Often we would see agencies say, ‘I’ve got this much budget, what should we just propose? What should we do?’ without actually thinking about the end user if you like. Who’s that person at the end? How are they going to benefit from what you’re producing or what you’re communicating? And we just got a bit tired of it really and I think Katie and I were actually freelance for a number of years, and we were quite strategic. We’re a bit naughty, really! We went around loads of different agencies, to be honest, I think we were trying to find the perfect agency to work for, couldn’t quite find it, so we kept having all these conversations saying, Shall we just try this ourselves because we’ve got nothing to lose? So that’s what we did.
Jenny 03:22
I bet you’re so glad that you did as well.
Fi 03:25
I don’t know if Katie is as well?!
Jenny 03:32
So listen, you guys were very ahead of the curve, when you proposed from the outset that you were going to work completely, virtually. Now this was way before COVID, way before everybody else was going into this. So I would love to hear first of all, why did you choose the virtual model?
Katie 03:52
So when we set up, we had just had a baby. So actually, we kind of all went, and then we put the brakes on. And the only thing that we ever clashed about when we talked about the business was location. And for me, I live in London, and I know that there’s a massive creative pool here. I’ve worked in West London agencies and even getting freelancers and creatives from East London is difficult. So I wanted to be connected to a city where there was a creative talent pool and Fi didn’t want to commute with three young children. And I’d done the commute as well. And so we kept kind of clashing and then one day we went to watch Tamara Littleton do a talk and she set up an agency in her shed years and years and years ago. And she actually kind of gave us the permission to just carry on doing it how we were doing it. And everyone told us we needed an office. Everyone said it wouldn’t work if we went virtual. And we actually realised that day, I’ll never forget that day and it is working and we just need to work really hard at it. So that was the decision. I think from that moment onwards, we knew that we had to invest in culture, we had to invest in our team, we had to invest in each other, and our mental health. And we had to look at ways of developing without necessarily having that trailblazer to follow in the industry. And we pulled in people from all over. Different industries, different sectors and got as much advice as possible. And now, we’re 14 of us and we’re based all over the country. And we’re about to launch Skin and Blister 2.0, so this is an exclusive, where we’re taking on quite a few of those team members, freelancers as full time permanent members of the Skin and Blister team. So it’s really exciting for us, and a real indicator that it’s working.
Jenny 05:49
Wow, huge congratulations on the expansion of the team. Honestly, if anyone deserves it, it’s you two, because I know that you’ve really set the tone for the agency. And I think it’s a bit difficult for people that weren’t around five years ago maybe, to understand the fixed mindset that there was about – you need an office. I mean, we forget that this situation has really disrupted things. And I love the fact that Katie you said Fi was pregnant, because personally in my career, and there’s many years, I’ve seen so many of my friends have kids and had to leave the agency completely, the agency world because there was no place for them. They couldn’t come back part time, they couldn’t be flexible, couldn’t work from home, etc, etc, etc. And to think that all of that wasted talent. So I feel quite passionate about the fact that you’ve managed to make it work before everybody else kind of jumped on the bandwagon. So Katie, you said obviously, initially, there was a lot of learnings and you had to spend a lot of time thinking about culture, etc. What were the initial challenges that you faced when you went to this virtual model?
Katie 06:57
I’ve been trying to think about useful kind of takeaways for other people, because we get asked about this a lot as well. The number one thing I would say is take a pen and paper and go start from scratch, go back to the start, like don’t think, how do I build a physical office into a virtual world? Actually, we’re in a virtual world so how do we start again? How can the agency model build from that perspective? What do we need to do to connect each other and make sure that we’re a really strong team?
For us, definitely a big part of that has been to get to really know each other deeper. And so we do things like every week, we have a Tuesday morning meeting, and we encourage team members to share photos of their weekend, photos of last week, so that people put up photos of their world, their family, their situation, what’s outside their window and talk about different things. And they could be inspirational, or they could be this is my kid’s birthday party. But actually, it brings us closer together as a team. And then also, for mental health, we do ‘How are you feeling?’ check in every week. And what this does is it encourages us to listen to each other, and hear how we’re all feeling and then pick up if anybody’s struggling, or if anyone’s having a really good week, we can congratulate them and celebrate. But we’ve reached a point now with the team of becoming very open and kind of turning up and say ‘I’m having a bad day’, ‘I’m having a bad week’, and then you’ll watch the rest of the team rally around them. And that’s very, very strong. So I think, deep listening, lots of questions, mixing it up, trying to get to know each other in different ways. And then obviously having 3D days as well, that’s what we call them. So seeing people in the flesh, not just on the screen is lovely as well. It’s a real treat, I really value those times with each team member.
Jenny 09:00
Do you know it’s the first time I’ve heard anyone that’s in charge of an agency talk at such a level, about feelings. And I think this is so overlooked, I really do. Getting to know people as people and I suppose your proposition about putting the care back into health care, that equally is how you operate internally isn’t it? Genuinely caring about your team, and that’s why you’ve gone to 14 people in such a short period of time. So well done. I hope that doesn’t sound patronising. I really genuinely believe it’s the first time I’ve heard that. And that’s very, very powerful. So congratulations. So in terms of challenges, you’ve shared a few tips there which were fantastic, deep listening, encouraging people to share photos of their weekend so you get to know each other personally as well. How are you feeling? Mixing it up as well. These are all brilliant tips for people to start thinking about maybe how they could enhance what they’re doing. What about barriers? I know things have changed now with clients, but did you get any barriers from clients initially?
Katie 10:15
A lot of our clients came to us at the start pandemic said, Can you teach us how to work? My personal opinion is that clients don’t really care, the value that we offer. So one of our teams is in New Zealand and often that means we’re delivering work in the morning to clients. They kind of love to just have the work delivered and they don’t really care how it happens. But that’s my opinion. But the value of the team setup like this means that people work at all different times, it’s very flexible and very agile. And actually, I think the clients really see the benefits of that. I guess in terms of barriers for me, we were terrified of things like training online and developing people. We have big ambitions to bring in more graduates, more juniors, especially for me personally, the copywriting areas were really struggling but there is a massive talent pool as well. But Fi’s genuinely a brilliant trainer as well. So I’ve seen Fi bring team members in and they shadow her. We invite them to meetings to observe and listen. We’ll screenshare a lot, we’ll encourage video face to face and just kind of help people build their confidence as well. I don’t know if you want to add anything on that Fi?
Fi 11:36
I think when we did one of our very first pitches, one of the questions was, as an agency of your size and your setup, is there anything you can’t offer us that a big network can? And I think my cheeky response to that was we don’t have a big fancy boardroom. But apart from that, you’re not going to get much of a difference. And I think there are certainly some clients who love face to face meetings, obviously pre pandemic, we’re in a slightly more challenging time. But you know, there is that aspect that some clients love that, they like that buzz of going to an agency, but we try to give them that experience virtually as much as we possibly can. What Katie was saying about being open and modelling that for our team, we also do that with our clients. So we’ve got these amazing relationships now established. And if we need to meet up we’ll book a really lovely room somewhere, or we’ll get together and do some crazy golf, as well as having a bit of a meeting. You can make it actually so much more fun. And the client is still getting that same experience of agency life, but you’re not necessarily paying for it every single day to have it in an office if you don’t need it. That is so true. So it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to do any face to face, quite the opposite. It’s just being face to face. And let’s face it, even when I was working all those years ago, how many times do the clients come into the office? It’s kind of, they try to organise that Friday afternoon meeting don’t they, so they can all go down the pub after! You talked about the benefits. I mean, obviously your agility, you can work in different time zones, you’ve obviously got experienced people, managing client relationships which is always a huge bonus, cost savings overall. Any other benefits, that you think that running a completely, because there is a difference, like some agencies are saying, I don’t want to go completely virtual, we’re going to go hybrid. What do you think? What else? I’d love your thoughts on this hybrid model. Because I think, and I don’t know what you think I’d love to run it past you, some leaders are still stuck in the mentality that it’s not possible to do this all virtually, or maybe it’s too much of a transition too quickly. So they’ve chosen the hybrid as a kind of halfway house. And there’s probably various reasons for doing that. But what’s your view on that? I really think it’s so easy for people to kind of go, oh all juniors need to be in an office every day to learn and develop and all mums want to be at home so that they can do the school run. That’s not the case at all. And actually, what we try to do at Skin and Blister is really look at the needs of each individual person and look at their strengths. And then think about what they need. I mean, I had a discussion with one of the team recently and she’s missing some of that face to face. She would like to kind of get together and we’re going to make that happen, that maybe once or twice a week we do get together, we don’t live that far away, let’s work together as well as remotely. And I think it’s just trying to think about what everybody needs to thrive rather than trying to say, let’s all do it this way, or let’s all not do it that way. In my experience anyway, it doesn’t work because everybody’s so different. You’ve got so many different personalities. You’ve got introverts, extroverts, all these other things going on that you need to consider. But I think
what we have really found works is deadline driven working, that’s what we call it at Skin and Blister. So I think a lot of agency life is long working hours, it’s very hard work. And we’ve all experienced it haven’t we, where we’ve been in working on a pitch or something till 11pm and then your bosses have expected you to come in for 9am, bright and breezy the next day. And actually, you might be sat there, waiting for the pitch to start at two or something. And that’s just a waste of everybody’s time and energy. So if you can find a way to really allow people to work where, when and how they work best, that’s the dream in our opinion. It certainly works for us in our team. And actually, I think you get the best, most remarkable work as an output.
Jenny 15:47
Again, I think this is a great tip actually, because what you’ve just described is start with the team, rather than starting with a policy and getting everyone to fit in with your policy. Start with understanding who you’ve got, because particularly now, I don’t know if you’re aware, but I spoke to Phil Cookson from the creative resource, who’s been a recruiter for 15 years or more, actually. And he said, he’s never seen such a shortage of particularly account managers at the moment. And I think account managers have the option now at looking at different cultures of agencies, they don’t want to be in the sweatshop, they don’t want to be in the top down approach. They’re interested in understanding how the leaders think about work life balance, about mental health, etc. So I think this is a really good message I think, for other agency leaders, just to give some ideas on how you have approached this, because it seems to me like the perfect way of doing it. Katie, did you want to add something?
Katie 16:45
Just to say that,
I think as well the power of our model comes from the understanding that Fi and I have that outside, Fi is a Mum and we do employ a lot of parents and that’s because our model works well with that. But alongside that, I have an understanding of what it’s like to be a working parent in our industry. Equally, Fi has an understanding of what it’s like to be a single person who doesn’t have children in our industry and lives in London and wants to tap into networks there. And I think there are leaders in our industry that find it hard to see kind of past what’s come before and also past their own circumstances. I think like Fi was saying, if you can run things virtually it opens up such a pool of talent, but also for people who are less abled, or who struggle to commute every day, or have other responsibilities like unwell parents, or even someone was running a marathon on our team, so doing training in daylight and winter if you’re a woman is quite hard. When you’re working in an office, you have to commute. So I think in our opinion, we want people to live that life of almost like normality, and not be stopped by work. If you want to do your work in the evening or early morning what difference does that actually make, as long as you meet the deadline? It gets really powerful.
Jenny 18:11
It’s a really great tip. So I really think it’s a mindset shift. So really understand the whole person, and having that empathetic approach. While we’re on this, can you think of any other learnings that you’ve had, or any tips that you can share for others who might be struggling with it because it’s newer to them?
Katie 18:32
Lead by example, at whatever level you are at the business. I will go on Slack and say, I’m going for a walk now. Or, I’m changing my hours today. I think the other big tip is communication, which some agencies aren’t great at. But the way this works really well is that we are very, very transparent with each other, kind of where we are, when we’re online when we’re not online. And actually, you can use that to your advantage, because a creative, says, ‘I’m around until two and then I’ll be back online at six’. And that gives you four hours to go right, well I can review that work then, but I can take an hour off in the morning. So it’s kind of looking at each other’s needs as well and supporting each other. And that comes from strong teamwork and appreciation and understanding of each other as well.
Jenny 19:23
I love that just, doing the behaviours yourself so that it sets the benchmark for everybody else to think that it’s okay. I know you’re both aware of it, but that wasn’t it the Google study that said, it talked about psychological safety, which is essentially not feeling like they’re going to come down on you if you say like I made a mistake or something like that. So you are definitely creating that kind of environment.
Fi 19:49
We all learn through our mistakes at the end of the day and we’re all human beings. And actually, the pandemic has taught us we’ve all had good days and bad days and actually supporting each other through those days but actually saying, ‘Hands up, I’m having a really tough day today. My kids won’t listen to me, I can’t homeschool them’. You know, it’s horrible. And actually the life work balance, it’s kind of blurred during the pandemic, hasn’t it? But actually there is acceptance, just embrace the chaos. And then let’s all get through this together. I would also say some of the learnings that we have had have been around processes. Account managers love a good process, but equally, look at it as a team, what’s working really well, what’s not working so well? How can we improve things? I mean at Skin and Blister, there was one day where we, we used to call things by traditional job numbers. And then there was one day we had this detalay??? that kept coming back. And Joe on our team affectionately started calling this Arnie and we had another detalay??? that was happening at same time. And Cassie on the team was saying, Gosh that’s helped me so much, because I know which job we’re talking about. And so we started calling this job Arnie, our client loved it. And ever since then we’ve given all of our projects, characters or symbols as names so that we understand what we’re talking about, we can be talking about it confidentially when we’re out and about as well. And from a farmer perspective, that’s really important. But the team came up with that, that was just a genius way of working. And yeah, it’s okay to fail. But it’s also it’s brilliant to celebrate their successes, and how can we will improve things together? I think that would be a top learning. As a leader, as a founder you don’t know everything, you can’t possibly. Surround yourself with people that want to just do brilliant work, and they’re all enthusiastic and passionate too. And then you will make it work together. And that’s the very best way.
Jenny 21:39
How wonderful that you’re empowering the team to come back with ideas, and then embracing them. Because that shows no ideas about ideas, just let’s co create this whole thing together. Which is interestingly, what I was talking to about yesterday with Web3, and I don’t know, I’d love to talk to you maybe on another thing, but it’s going to be about community, creating organisations which is fascinating. So I don’t want to squeeze you dry for tips but the few people that I’ve spoken to specifically and I think you mentioned it Fi, that they’re still still struggling with this, this idea that junior members of the team are obviously working from home and a) Their home circumstances aren’t ideal, maybe they’re sharing with mates or whatever. And b) They don’t feel that they’re benefiting from watching more senior people manage the client conversation. Any tips or any advice for how to kind of tackle that scenario?
Fi 22:42
Yes, again, be really open and honest about what you can do virtually together and jump on calls, whether it be on the telephone, over Zoom or whatever, just to kind of ask all those questions.
There’s no silly questions. But I think as an account manager, certainly when you are in the more junior role, you only learn by asking those questions and hearing that insight from your leaders in your team. And we’re quite upfront with our clients, we’ll say we’ve got a new team member, we’d love them to join the meetings, we won’t be charging you for those meetings. Some of them are observational, it’s just learning the skills. Sometimes they come on and they don’t say anything because it’s about confidence as well. But of course we’ll introduce them. But their expectation is you don’t have to say anything, but I want you to kind of just listen and learn and absorb it all. So yes, it is a challenge. There’s no ways around it. It is a challenge when you’re not all in the office together. But I think it’s about putting that investment in your day to really support your juniors but also kind of let them do some things on their own as well. And be really open about, Okay, I really feel like we need to get together, can we just get together for a coffee and talk about this project together? Or let’s sit down and do the timelines together or whatever. It’s very much sort of give and take. But also try not to kind of overcrowd people as well, don’t stifle the ability and just help their confidence to grow really.
Jenny 24:08
Wow, that’s a really good answer. So you’re empowering them on the one hand, you go ahead, get it done. But on the other hand, if there was a need, if there was a situation where you could get them to watch how you operated, then telling the client in advance, we want someone to be observing, you’re not going to be charged, how lovely and how simple and how kind of easy to do. So thank you for sharing that. That’s amazing. Another one that came up this morning was a manager was feeling concerned that they were not checking in enough with people. He had the feeling that they were being left and he was worried, am I checking in enough? Any kind of thoughts or tips on that one?
Katie 24:57
That’s a difficult one. Someone on our team was off sick last week, and I didn’t know, beyond the kind of how you doing in the morning texts, I was like well do we know if they’re all right? But then I was like, I don’t want to be that person. So I think it’s still something that we struggle with. I think you need to create a culture whereby people are proactive, we ask everyone in the team to actually over communicate about certain things. Because, one, it kind of helps them and two, it helps us know where everybody is. Because obviously, as you can imagine, everyone’s in and out all the time. And so I think there is an element of that. I guess, as a manager, I would empower that manager to ask how much trust is there between him and the people that work for him? And can he look at building that trust any further? Because there might be an underlying kind of trust issue or visibility or maybe a hangover from the past? Or when they were in the office? Or even moving online with the pandemic? I think it is a fine line. But again, like you said also, you could ask the team member what they prefer. Like would they like their manager to check in with them every day? Or is the once weekly meeting enough until that next meeting we have in the diary? I think it’s very individual.
Jenny 26:19
Right. And a theme that’s coming through for me is kind of not assuming, actually asking first, which again I know it sounds so simple when we talk about it, but actually, it’s overlooked. So thank you for that. Final question, only because these are actual people that have been asking me. The last scenario was, before, everyone seemed to spend a lot more time as a team going out for lunch, going out for drinks. And there was this real kind of unit. Since everyone going kind of virtual, some people prefer the home scenario and want to stay there. Some people can’t wait to get back. And the concern of the the agency leader was that I want to keep the team together. And I think she was feeling that loss of Oh, is this okay because it’s just a bit disjointed now? So any kind of observations from what I’ve just said, that might be going on?
Katie 27:16
I’m giggling as I’m thinking about, so we used to go Out Out and then in the pandemic we went In In, and we just did a crazy night of like games and quizzing. And even that was around the team as well. At Christmas everyone submits their Christmas tree picture and then everyone has to guess. So we do who’s pine is that anyway? It’s all a bit mad actually.
Jenny 27:48
That’s great.
Katie 27:51
And on people’s birthdays, everyone brings an object from their house. We set a theme, and then everyone brings a gift and we gift it to the person and tell them why. But in my head that sounds a bit, but it encourages the whole team to like think about each other. And it’s not going down the pub and yelling at each other on a Friday night when the music’s loud, you’ve had four pints and you haven’t had dinner. It’s like, what’s the quality time there? But going to weekly meeting and going here you go, see I bought your unicorn for your birthday. And I’ve thought about why, is actually to me that’s a lot more quality. And I think that’s quite powerful.
Fi 28:31
Yes let’s look for what can you continue even if you’ve got some of you in the office and some you haven’t. Slack to us is an essential agency tool. We communicate in gifs and emojis half the time, which incidentally, some of our team create their own emojis or gifs to represent how they’re feeling. But you know, if you’ve got some people at home, and some of you are in the office, can you still all use Slack to still communicate as if you’re all still in there and all together anyway. What can you do that can ensure that underlying thread of communication, but it doesn’t really matter where you are, at that moment in time, I would look for look for opportunities like that. There’s no question and it is hard. You know, it’s like when we’ve run meetings with clients, where you’ve got some in the room and some remotely, it’s really hard to make sure that everyome feels included but it’s really worth that time and investment to do it. Because it’s really important everybody feels like they’re all experiencing things in as similar way as you possibly can.
Katie 29:33
I don’t know if it’s obvious, but also having a video on. So we went and watched Tamara. The first thing we did after we went home from that was, we went right, every Tuesday we’re going to ask everyone to put their video on and that was a big change for us, like a big change. And some people took weeks to put their video on and now there isn’t a call without a video on. So we’ve done develop that over time, but I don’t know if all the agencies do it? And I don’t know if that’s an obvious one. But for me, think about the mental health, think about seeing people’s reactions and their faces and learn from them. And the tool is there. It’s not the same as being next to somebody. But it’s COVID safe. And it’s sort of quite good for now. So I think that’s a very obvious one that can be encouraged.
Jenny 30:28
I think that’s great tip as well. As part of my research for this talk I’ve got coming up, I was looking at the evolution of the Zooms, and the Teams and what’s coming next. And I found some interesting, new kind of more 3D platforms, which I thought were quite interesting. I don’t know if you’ve come across it, but it’s called spatial.io. Have you heard of it?
Fi 30:52
No.
Jenny 30:53
It creates different workspaces that are very creative, and you’ve got a video of you, but you’ve also got a little avatar, and you move round. And it kind of simulates different environments, and you can create your own environments, your own worlds. I thought it was super clever. And I’ll share the link with you afterwards. But yes thank you, again, for sharing so many insights and tips. This has been brilliant. I want to talk about account management, because account management is obviously part of your background Fi and mine as well. And the podcast is principally about account management. So for you what makes an exceptional account manager?
Fi 31:30
Well, I think going back to the days where I was an account director working for you Jenny, I mean, I learned so much from you.
Jenny 31:39
I’m not paying her to say this!
Fi 31:42
Jenny is my Yoda she taught me everything I know. I think there’s so many facets to an amazing account manager, I think, firstly, it’s being a really great and fantastic listener. So to be able to really listen to what’s going on and evaluate what actually the challenges are, either kind of within your team or also with clients as well. Asking fantastic questions. I love it when somebody says, Sorry, I’ve got so many questions. It’s like, yes, ask away, ask away, you know, let’s really get under the skin of what’s going on. And tailoring the way that you communicate with people. I think one of the key things for a great account manager is to really think about your clients. And you’ve got so many different types. I mean, actually, a lot of our clients are real drivers. So they are people, they don’t want to have the chat, that you pick up the phone to them, they’re like, right, okay, tell me what I need to do, when do you need it for? They just want to get on with that. And we completely tailor our communications with them, so differently to the clients that love to talk about their weekend, what’s going on in their lives, what concert they’re going to that night, or whatever. And actually, some of the best things you can do as an account manager is focus your time and investment into really understanding the person you’re talking to. Then think about the way that you communicate with them to get your message across or how you’re going to sell in some of your ideas. And also, just to ask those fantastic questions, what does success look like? What do you really need? It’s all about that understanding, but it’s ultimately about being quite a perceptive person I think. Are they born or made? Oh, that’s a good question. You know, I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot recently. Because we’re trying to recruit an account manager at the moment and it’s trying to find that perfect person. I think your strengths are inherent in you, but you don’t necessarily know you’re an account manager. You have people that come to you, and they’re like, Oh, I don’t really know where I fit. But actually, when you see it straightaway, if somebody is really comfortable sat with their camera on talking to a client, asking them what’s going on in their lives, they’ve got the potential to be a great account manager. Not being scared by the word strategy. I remember as an account exec and account manager being so daunted by that word, feeling like it had to be this big, giant thing. Strategy can be so delicate, and so clever. It’s really the thinking about emotional and rational reasons that people may change, isn’t it and either buy something or don’t buy something, it’s to make a real positive change on somebody. So I think I would say maybe there’s there’s an element of being born, but I think great account manager, if you’ve got that potential and you really want to work hard at it, focus on the people side of it, and then the rest of it can can be learned. Strategy can be learned for sure.
Katie 34:43
I just would like to add as well. I think it often gets forgotten but our product is creative. We sell creative, remarkable healthcare communications. So for me, a great account manager also has a creative side to them. They go to inspirational spaces, they like to be inspired. And they can sit in front of the client eventually when they get to kind of higher levels, account director, senior account manager and help you sell in that creative vision to a client. And I think sometimes we forget and it becomes very process driven. But actually our main product is creative. So that side needs to be there as well.
Jenny 35:24
Inspiring the client and communication skills, I mean, it’s all come up. Thank you so much. That was a really good kind of overview. What do you personally, what are some of the greatest lessons that you’ve both had when it comes to client management and being in that position?
Fi 35:44
Don’t panic! You can handle anything and ultimately yes, your client, you want to please them, you want them to be so thrilled. I think the account managers worst word in the world is ‘disappointed’. I think anybody that sees that come through on an email, your heart sinks, you want to go home and just stick your head in a bucket of gin, don’t you? So don’t panic, everything can be solved, everything you can work out. And I just that would be I think my biggest one. What would you say Katie?
Katie 36:23
I would say ‘disappointed’ was the worst word for a creative as well! I’m sorry, I forgot the question.
Jenny 36:33
Well, the greatest lessons, when you’re managing relationships, either for you Katie observing how account managers operate, or yourself dealing with clients.
Katie 36:43
I find it really tough. I have such admiration and respect for anyone that works in account management because, I think we’re quite lucky Fi and I because we can do a lot of different roles. So sometimes we swap and sometimes, when Fi got COVID for example, I was speaking to clients and client facing and driving that bit of the business. But I was so, so happy when she came back. I am kind of in awe of anybody that works in account management for keeping their cool, for being so calm under pressure, like Fi says, don’t panic. And I think the organisation skills, a lot of the kind of project management side of it, just blow my tiny mind. Us creators are not known for being the most organised. And I think as well, adapting yourself to your team as well as your clients because creatives are very varied, we work with developers who are another kind of personality and studio and all the different directors. I think a great account manager can look at the person in front of them and think, How can I help this person? How can I get the work done in a way that’s going to be positive for both of us, and also manage the work through in a way that there’ll be comfortable with?
Jenny 38:11
Brilliant, brilliant tips. I love that you’ve both brought up this adapting your own style to maximise your ability to influence, your ability to communicate, because it is about thinking about yourself first and thinking right, what’s going to work well in this scenario? And I think you mentioned it Fi, the emotional quotient. There’s two tests that I like to suggest people do. One is a listening test and one is an EQ test. If you are interested in pursuing this as a career, I think getting an evaluation of where your strengths lie in both areas will help you enhance and kind of accelerate what you’re already good at. And I would agree that inherently, I think a lot of account managers are kind of super communicators, and they enjoy the interaction, you know.
Fi 39:07
And don’t be afraid to ask for feedback. That’s the other thing I would say. You can learn so much from your line manager. If you go to a meeting, ask them afterwards, how did I handle that conversation? What could I have done better? Because you can learn so much through that. And sometimes you have to have quite honest conversations. And somebody rephrased it for me the other day, and rather than a difficult conversation, it’s a courageous conversation. And I think that’s a lovely way of putting it. Be brave, ask, because that’s the best way to improve. And then enjoy it. When you’ve done something really well, enjoy it and learn from it. And it should be fun at the end of the day, it should be a great fun job. And it really is, it’s really a fantastic, it’s quite a privilege isn’t it to be working with some amazing clients and you are a bit of a diplomat. You have to be in the middle and try to smooth things over and make sure everybody’s happy. But what it works, wow, it’s fantastic.
Jenny 40:03
It really is awesome when you see someone good at account management, and you just watch how they kind of work the room and get everybody in alignment. And it’s just quite magical. And it happens so subtly sometimes. And I love that tip about asking for feedback. And one of the tips I also share with people is, because we’re in a virtual world, record yourself, record a session, play it back and just watch yourself. I know it’s agonising sometimes, but I know I did it, I still do it myself. I record a lot of my training sessions. And one session, oh my God, I didn’t crack a smile in the first 20 minutes, I actually looked like resting bitchface. And that’s not how I felt. That’s certainly not how I wanted to come across. So it’s a good kind of wake up call sometimes just watch how you what you emanate? What energy, do you look welcoming? Is a client going to want to interact with you? Or do you look a little bit sort of scary and standoffish? Anyway, brilliant tips.
Fi 41:01
I would say, we got a top tip actually, from a friend of Katie’s, who said before you go to a meeting, have three words in your head about how you want to turn up that day. And it could be fun, inspiring, energetic, it could be like that. It could be like, scientific, serious or whatever. Think about that before you go to that meeting, before you have those conversations, make sure you turn up that way. And I think we’ve always thought that’s such a brilliant tip.
Jenny 41:28
That’s amazing. That’s a fantastic tip. I haven’t heard that one before. So thank you love that. And now I’ve got you both on the court, I’d love to know, just in turning our attention to healthcare comms, because that’s your speciality, what do you see as the most significant trends happening over the next maybe 5 to 10 years in the healthcare communication space?
Fi 41:52
Well, I think we’ve learned during the pandemic that healthcare communications have amazing power and actually bad healthcare communications, essentially, they cause lost lives. Misinformation can cause lost lives, lost education, it’s so important. Health care communications is vital to every single body on this planet. And that’s what gets us out of bed every day. And that’s what really excites us. I was in a supermarket recently, and overheard two ladies and they were sort of saying, Oh, did you get the AstraZeneca vaccine or the Pfizer vaccine? And there’s never been a time like this, where pharmaceutical companies are so in everybody’s minds, we’re all talking about it, we’re using brand names. And that’s actually a huge responsibility. And we’ve got to get this right. We have to for the human race, for us all to kind of survive and do really, really well. I think it’s a very exciting future from a communications point of view, but also from a technology point of view. And also clinical trials as well. We’ve seen what happens when the world when scientists come together and work together as a team, how quickly you can develop amazing medicines that can save lives. That’s fantastic. So I think there’s a real energy around clinical trials, which I’m really happy to see, it’s an area we work in. And actually, there’s a real problem with getting patients to go into clinical trials and stay on them. And this is a massive opportunity to do things properly and to do things right. And there’s also the technology side of things. And with smartwatches, and all these things out there that can monitor our health and Alexa who can remind us about our tablets that we need to take. And I think it’s fascinating to see where technology and science could kind of meet and come together to improve the lives for everyone.
Jenny 43:42
Amazing. And you’re right. I mean, the fact that the vaccine was brought to market so quickly, whereas it’s taken, I don’t know how many years usually does it take to come to market?
Fi 43:53
It’s astounding.
Jenny 43:53
Yes, it is astounding. Okay, thank you so much for sharing that. So, listen, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much. I’ve squeezed you dry haven’t I? I’ve absolutely squeezed you dry for tips. But who would you like to be contacted by and how can people reach you if they’d like to further the conversation?
Fi 44:21
Like we mentioned, we are recruiting for account managers at the moment, we’re expanding our team. So we would love to hear from anybody who is passionate about healthcare communications. If you want to get up every day and work on brands that change people’s lives, we would love to hear from you. We are on LinkedIn. But you can also look us up @skinandblister.agency our website and we’d love to hear from you. Equally, anybody who is finding that dilemma of going from office to virtual, back in a hybrid, whatever if you need any tips, Katie and I we have learned over the last few years, some of those as we’ve kind of mentioned today, but there’s tonnes of ideas. So we’re always really happy to jump on a quick call with anybody and help and support because it’s for the benefit of everybody.
Jenny 45:09
Thank you so much. And I would like to vouch for you. If I was starting my account management career again, I would certainly want to work with you two, because from everything you’ve said, if that’s not an advert for working in your agency, I don’t know what it is, because it was phenomenal. Thank you both so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.
Katie 45:29
Thank you for having us Jenny.
