Do you struggle to think ahead about your clients?
I speak to multiple account managers (AMs) every day.
‘Hybrid’ AMs (project managing as well as responsible for account growth) particularly struggle.
They struggle to find time to think about how else they could be bringing value and coming to their clients with new ideas or relevant intel gathered from research.
And it frustrates them.
Account managers generally want to be more informed. For example, to have time to:
- Think about their client’s business commercially e.g. download the client’s annual report or download their quarterly investor relations meeting transcript to hear the CEO talk about company performance and pipeline.
- Read about the client’s competitors and what they’re doing
- Get closer to what the client’s customers are doing e.g. social listening and spotting insights to share.
Ultimately the lack of account management proactivity has a negative impact on client growth because project delivery always takes priority over ‘less urgent’ (but important) tasks.
As Gartner says:
“If the account manager is either unwilling or unable to spot growth opportunities, the whole company’s growth engine stalls.”
I’ve been reflecting on this and I have found are typically a combination of contributing factors including:
- Restrictive pricing model
The agency’s pricing model typically means charging time by the hour (if you want to hear the story behind why agencies initially ‘temporarily’ switched to pricing like this years ago and why the client insisted they didn’t switch back again, listen to the brilliant interview with Tim Williams on Blair Enns’s podcast “The 20%”).
Why is this stopping AMs thinking ahead?
Often ‘target billability’ is around 75% which means the AM has 25% non-billable time to work on anything outside of ‘live’ billable work i.e. new ideas. This is rarely enough. Agencies who price on ‘outcomes’ (deliverables) and ‘value’ rather than hourly ‘inputs’ fair better because this gives the account manager more time flexibility.
- Lack of commercial context and priorities
Remarkably many account managers don’t have visibility over the forecast so they’re unaware of the agency’s growth targets. They also don’t categorise their client base so they understand which clients have the greatest ‘growth potential’.
Why is this stopping AMs thinking ahead?
I’ve found even junior level AMs benefit hugely from understanding the bigger commercial context. They feel more empowered and motivated when they have the whole picture in mind. I’ve always encouraged agency leaders to provide this context because in my experience it helps AMs feel a greater sense of ownership to reach growth targets. Some agencies repel the idea of fostering a ‘sales culture’ but there are ways to ensure this doesn’t happen if it’s not desired.
- Poor agency positioning
Account managers in ‘full service’ agencies with no vertical (industry) specialism find it hard to reach expert status with clients.
Why is this stopping AMs thinking ahead?
AMs have to understand multiple services and multiple client industries so they never build up relevant valuable knowledge of either their sector or the client’s industry. Conversely if the agency is more specialised, the account managers can build some expertise in this area. A couple of examples include an Account Director in an app development agency (horizontal expertise) puts a lot of thought leadership on LinkedIn about apps. Another example includes a copywriting agency I know who specialise in the tech and fintech space – not only does that mean they can get all their clients together to network with each other (shared interests), the agency leader can speak at industry-specific events to attract prospects and the account management team can build their industry knowledge in one field and share their insights among clients.
- Absence of senior management or team support
The account manager’s job is to ‘spot’ the growth opportunity e.g. they identify a client need during a conversation and suggest a solution. But often they need help brainstorming that solution with team members e.g. designers/developers/strategists etc. Similarly, if the agency’s senior management team has no visibility over their workload or isn’t checking in with them, the knowledge that there’s potential for more business stays with them.
Why is this stopping AMs thinking ahead?
If they know their colleagues are jammed with work commitments already, they are reluctant to suggest new ideas and solutions to the client because they know the internal delays they’ll experience if the client says yes! Similarly if the account manager’s senior management team isn’t checking in with them and doesn’t take an interest in growth opportunities, they may conclude there’s no real importance placed on account growth and therefore don’t see it as a priority.
- Lack of account growth culture or process
Account growth is a process like any other agency process. It’s important to ensure everyone keeps account growth top of mind (it’s much cheaper and easier to grow an existing client than it is to find new ones) e.g. offering to help clients with their yearly plan, having quarterly business reviews, establishing client growth KPIs, having client development plans, regular monthly client development team meetings to strategise, having a dedicated internal knowledge sharing hub e.g. case studies, putting an internal communication channel in place dedicated to sharing account growth opportunities etc.
Why is this stopping AMs thinking ahead?
Every account manager has their own approach to account growth. When they join a new agency it will take them a long time to get up to speed unless there’s an agency policy and guidance in place to set the expectations and support the account manager in the implementation.
- Too many clients allocated or over-servicing culture
This is a more obvious one but worth a mention anyway. Too many client accounts to manage makes it impossible to grow accounts.
Why is this stopping AMs thinking ahead?
Even if the account manager doesn’t have project management duties too, if they have too many clients to manage they will find it nearly impossible to carve out additional time to think ahead. Couple with that the fact some agencies have a culture of overservicing (particularly prevalent where there is no separate project management function paying close attention to budget monitoring) they’ll find themselves in a perpetual state of overservicing clients and juggling tasks.
- Hiring policy or not hiring fast enough
I’ve seen agencies hire experienced account managers/directors who don’t come from a commercial background i.e. they weren’t responsible for their previous agency’s forecast and didn’t have account growth KPIs so don’t have the skills or proficiency to grow accounts. Also agencies don’t always check to see if the account manager’s background was bias towards project management or account growth. For example an Account Director in one agency may have always been a ‘hybrid’ and might be very proficient in project delivery but doesn’t want to sell or doesn’t find it easy to sell. This often requires specific account growth training (shameless plug of my Account Accelerator programme).
Why is this stopping the AMs thinking ahead?
One of the biggest costs to any business is hiring the wrong person. According to one survey it can cost a business up to £132,000 for someone at a salary of £42k when you take into account; recruitment and re-hiring fees, wasted training costs, loss of productivity…not to mention the opportunity cost of lost sales from account growth as well as any negative impact on the rest of the team’s moral and agency reputation.
Why do you think account managers struggle to think ahead?
