In a week when love and partnerships are universally celebrated on Valentine’s Day it might seem a bit perverse to look at signs warning you that your relationship with a client or supplier, no matter how durable, is in trouble.

But, painful as it might prove, is it better to make a clean break than limp on in a worsening atmosphere?

A few months ago I spotted an MSN article that focused on 10 telling signs that would suggest your personal relationship is coming to an end. What was interesting is that when you apply these in a slightly different way, they relate to business relationships as well.

Can you think of any telling signs that could mean a business to business relationship is in trouble? We’d love to hear them.

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Ask most clients why they appoint professional or marketing services firms and you can almost guarantee a key factor will be the fact that they are felt to understand the clients business. It’s often this understanding that leads to outstanding work that is effective and right first time.

This is difficult to argue with, yet I’m starting to hear more and more clients complaining that their key partners don’t have enough understanding and empathy in a fast changing world, whilst the Partners and key suppliers often complain they are not kept in the loop enough and lack access to key senior decision makers.

One of my first jobs was to work for an ad agency that had Proctor and Gamble as a key client. My boss said to me “Simon, our job is simple – we (you!) need to understand the brand and their business better than our client.” As challenges go it was one of Olympic proportions but as somebody also once said “if you reach for the stars you don’t get a handful of ****!”

To be honest I don’t think we ever quite totally reached the goal but on many occasions it was a close call, and the key thing was, through this understanding it enabled us to be seen as a trusted advisor who was part of a team that were almost an extension of the clients business.

I recently had the chance to go and meet with the man who runs the massive Coca Cola account for MacDonald’s. What I remember vividly was modern approach to the way we worked with P&G in terms of sharing of data. In this case, the gentleman in question had two laptops on his desk – his own McDonalds one but a second one with real time global sales information to enable quick reaction to issues.

I ask myself, is this knowledge sharing starting to dwindle? I think that apart from the confidentiality issues many clients are less keen to share data because often it’s not used or they don’t see a benefit.

When it is, it can have a big impact as I found out recently when speaking to a client of a data hungry law firm who chase for information and then proactively produce analysis and insight that not only adds value to the relationship but makes their client a star in their company.

Personally, I believe it’s vital to get close to the clients business, both from an external as well as understanding what’s going on inside. The one thing you can guarantee is that all areas are going through constant change.

Furthermore, if you are working for any client you have to have a genuine desire to understand. Not surprisingly most clients can see if you are faking it.

When we discuss what can be done to further understand a client’s business the most common response is “why don’t they just ask?” Indeed, from research we conducted last year indicated that key suppliers / partners don’t regularly ask their clients “how’s business?”

Yet of course, there are some clients who don’t make it easy for you to reach out to them, be it being unavailable, not willing to share data or sometimes basic information.

So I need to ask for your advice – what would you suggest as ideas for getting closer to clients who are unwilling to meet with you or share the information you need?

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A well-known Agency Business principle: Clients are won on creativity and lost on service. Right. But this “poor service” concept has many dimensions and degrees of seriousness. Let me describe the absolute sin, the most effective way to lose a client.

We are 2 days before a major agency presentation on a very important brief received weeks before. After already a few meetings, it is clear that the agency has shown real difficulties to deliver good creative work. 

It is 11:30 pm in your office. The floor is covered with roughs, scripts, scribbled pieces of copy. Everybody is exhausted, but let’s be clear: you are in trouble.

All that you have is rather poor work, boring, or complicated, or déjà vu, or highly creative but strategically quite irrelevant, and more importantly doesn’t solve much of client’s problem.

Therefore you have a choice:

1. You call your client the morning after to postpone the meeting, saying for instance that what you have to show is “interesting”, with “promising routes” but that current work as it is today is not “good enough for him” and that you need one more week to “double check and optimize”. He won’t be happy, but very probably he will accept to give you more time, in his own interest. And miracles can happen in one week in this business.
2. You do not resist any longer the very high pressure put on you by the frustrated creative team to try to sell “route 4” proposal, as it is “good enough”, or may be “good for the agency book”, but it will “allow everybody to move on to something else.” Exhausted, frustrated too, or simply lost, you finally accept to recommend it through a very well prepared presentation that you will deliver with maximum conviction. Finally, this route is not so bad… and you have talent when you sell.

Guess what happens: your client realizes that you, the agency guy he had respect for, his business partner, the one he was TRUSTING, is trying to sell him crappy work, which very strongly demonstrates that not only you lie, but moreover that you take your client for a fool.

Extremely effective strategy. Three months later, the account is under review.

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I’ve seen so many books over the years which offer foolproof ways to win pitches. But in our win/loss audit programme we have repeatedly come across examples of ways in which a supplier has shot themselves in the foot, managing successfully to do a host of things that are really the opposite of best practice.

So we thought it might be instructive to share our top ten (in no particular order) for your interest. When you consider how important every single piece of business is in this climate, it still amazes me how some suppliers seem to go out of their way to mess things up.

Here are ten of the best ways to go about it:

1. Avoid any meetings between the first briefing and the final pitch, working on the basis that everything will hinge on that final meeting.
2. Don’t bother to find out who’s involved in the final decisions.
3. Don’t research the backgrounds and experience of the client team individuals involved in the pitch.
4. Don’t challenge the brief (if you need clarification) until the day of the final pitch meeting.
5. Expose your own ‘better’ brief to the client with his/her teams and preferably boss on the day of the pitch.
6. Ignore the budget constraints and demonstrate this in your choice of solutions.
7. Steadfastly refuse to get up to speed on the client’s business.
8. Bring as many people to the final meeting as you can to outnumber the client—and make sure the team is constructed of people who don’t get on with each other.
9. Promise the prospect that they will have loads of the chief executive/chairman’s time spent on the business.
10. Forget about checking out beforehand the room you are going to be presenting in and, most of all, don’t bring back-ups in case the technology fails.

I’m sure you have more. Let’s hear them!

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For most of us, walking into a room full of strangers can be like attempting a bungee jump – daunting to say the least.

Indeed, I believe that for many of us, the tried and tested techniques of ‘cold’ telephone calls for developing new business are significantly less effective and the ability to network face-to-face is one of the most productive means of developing existing business or opening up new channels.

Very often the opportunities that present themselves are conferences and events where we are thrown into a room of strangers.

So I read with interest a recent interview with a newly-appointed ‘visiting professor of networking’ at a prominent London business school — said to be the first such appointment of its kind anywhere in the world.

It got me thinking – in an age of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – about the value of good old- fashioned networking face-to-face.

As the new professor, Julia Hobsbawn, argues, “Face-to-face contact is much more important in the ‘Facebook Age’ because technology can create isolation despite its many benefits. Trust is the biggest single asset a person can have and face-to-face contact provides this better than any other form of engagement. “

She offers a few valuable tips:

• Choose face-to-face over Facebook
• Eye contact matters
• Ask ‘How are you?’ rather than ‘Who are you?’
• Be curious

From my own perspective, if I’m going to a conference or meeting I’ll always try and find out who is going to be attending and identifying the key people I’d like to meet.

Linkedin profiles are always handy, especially pictures of the people, their career background and looking at the groups they belong to can be useful. The key is finding common points of interest be they professional or personal such as sports teams.

I still remember what one of the best sales people I’ve worked with told me “when meeting a new prospect always have two or three questions to ask them that show know or have researched their market or business.”

I’d be really interested to know your thoughts on face-to-face networking and whether you have any tried and tested ice-breaking phrases to introduce yourself?

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Back at my desk after the break, I chuckled over this spoof list of resolutions:

And then I thought, maybe it’s not so far from the truth.

Each year we start back, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, with the best of intentions to improve our client relationships. We draw up a list of what we want to achieve – but how many items on that list will actually be new? Sadly, many of them will be retreads.

So, here’s a thought: instead of drawing up a long list, why not keep it simple? Maybe the way to go is to determine just a few most effective ways we can make a measurable difference to our business. Then discuss it with the rest of the team, make it a measurable and achievable objective, and go for it. Here are a few for starters:

• Instead of asking ‘if’, ask ‘how’. In terms of building relationships with clients, this could mean finding out what they really want for their business and supporting them in achieving it.
• Commit to collaboration. Involving other people is a great way to build energy and broadens the options for any task or situation.
• Maintain focus. It’s so easy to juggle various balls and find yourself dropping one or two. Don’t take your eyes of that all-important ball: the one marked ‘clients’..

Finally, make this the year you really take on the principles of simple, clear communication. In the words of a client of ours:

• Be bold
• Be brief
• Be gone!

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This is the month when some forward-looking service providers I know are busy putting the final touches to next year’s client retention and development plans.

Why do I call them forward-looking? Well, the fact that they are drawing up these plans says that they are not taking the relationship for granted. They realise that it’s never static, but needs care, management and thought.

A proper development plan helps focus attention in a number of ways:

• It helps determine which activities earn money – and which don’t.
• It highlights the bigger issues which might get lost in the pressures of day-to-day business.  
• It flags up potential business opportunities that might otherwise drift by unnoticed   (accepted wisdom says it’s 14 times easier to win more business from existing satisfied clients than to chase new clients). 
• It provides a road map for the coming year, so you can see if you are heading in the right direction and make adjustments if you aren’t.

I think there are a number of key elements that go into a good plan:

• Information about the client company and its market.
• A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats).
• Key people (and don’t forget the procurement manager if there is one).
• The competitive environment you are working in.
• The client development strategy for the coming year, including milestones and review dates.

I know there will probably be a number of suppliers who have either never considered drawing up such a plan or see it as a waste of time. But to me anything that makes the foundations of your client relationships as solid as possible is worth doing. 

After all, we don’t own our clients. We just rent them.

I’d be really interested to hear who’s doing a client development plan for next year and what it includes. 

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When I started my career, my first job was in a fashionable London advertising agency. I was amazed that from the end of November up until a couple of days before Christmas there seemed to be parties for clients and indeed departments almost every night of the week.

Especially over the last few years with; the global financial crisis, time pressures, the “procurement microscope” and indeed in some countries even legislation over what can be considered bribery, things have changed dramatically.

I’m seeing that many of the service providers that we work with have decided not to hold a Christmas party for their staff or clients and not take clients for what for some had become, their traditional lunch to celebrate the festive season.

Indeed, a lot now don’t send Christmas cards (for many the only time of the year they update their database) and instead send Christmas viral’s or e mails telling their clients and key suppliers that they have donated money to charity.

Whilst I’d be the first to agree that each business and client relationship has its own culture and idiosyncrasies it did make me think – in 2011 and in the years ahead, what is considered appropriate entertainment for clients and indeed staff at this time of year?

Do such events still have a part to play in securing and building client relationships?

Should you hold a staff party?

Do clients and staff expect it?

How lavish should you be and do you run the risk of sending the wrong signals?

Are Christmas cards a thing of the past or is there still merit in receiving a nice handwritten card?

I’d be really interested in your views.

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1993. New York City. I was supporting Midas Muffler’s 60-plus markets in the Southeastern United States. Correction, I was supporting its 60-plus franchisees in the Southeastern United States. There is a difference.

Midas is a household name in the US, an under-car-care chain which fixes brakes, exhaust and suspension systems. It was not the most glamorous account, and I’ve since had the pleasure of working with P&G, Gillette, American Express and many other blue-chip marketing organisations. Yet Midas Muffler, and my association with the company, has remained one of the most rewarding positions in my 20-plus years in the communications industry.

One of my smaller franchisees was based in Knoxville, Tennessee. No real claim to fame can Knoxville boast; simply a quaint and sleepy little place in the Appalachian Mountain region. The franchisee in question operated two Midas Muffler shops there. He wasn’t a happy fellow when he rang one morning.

“The advertising isn’t working! The media plan is idiotic. You guys in New York know nothing about Tennessee. My sales are down, my competitor’s sales are up! What the hell are you going to do about it?”

I was well within my rights to listen to his grievances and politely refer him to Midas Muffler’s corporate office in Chicago. After all, that’s where the decisions were made on all franchisee creative support. And importantly, my boss preferred I spent more time fighting fires in larger franchisee markets such as Miami.

But, I reasoned, “It’s freezing in Manhattan right now, it’s warmer in Knoxville, and I can probably finagle a side-trip to the Jack Daniel’s distillery in nearby Lynchburg when I’m finished. A bottle of bourbon might put a smile back on my boss’s face. Simple.”

My flight landed in Knoxville a few days later. No pick-up waiting as I was the stooge coming to deliver the usual assortment of unwanted messages from the agency and Midas’ corporate office. I rented a car and drove to my franchisee’s first shop. We know the expression about ‘first impressions.’

First. The promotion advertised on the forecourt sign had three letters missing, and the sign was only partially illuminated due to a few, exhausted, one-dollar light bulbs. Two, the forecourt itself was essentially a weed garden, with the odd section of pavement appearing in random intervals. Third, his waiting room coffee machine had a little sign lying next to it, requesting that customers pay 50 cents for a cup while waiting for their cars to be serviced. Fourth. There were left-over pizza boxes and empty Cola bottles strewn all over the garage-servicing area. Fifth, the mechanics were swearing and filthy, even by grease-monkey standards. It went on.

My franchisee decided to keep me waiting. When he finally made an appearance, I surprised myself entirely as we hastened into our discussion. I scolded him for running such a ramshackle outfit, for charging his customers for refreshments while they spent a few hundred dollars having brakes replaced and for permitting his unpresentable and uncouth staff not to behave properly in his shop. In other words, “Quit whining about the advertising, and clean this (Expletive) place up.”

A few (from many) lessons learned.

• Really. No, really. Understand your client’s business. It would have been easy to immerse myself in the usual litany of client materials, background information, and so on. And I did. Yet none of it was as valuable as spending a day with an actual franchisee and his operation. There was nothing a slick commercial or a price-promotional offer was going to do to change his business’s performance.
• Understand the difference between what your client communicates and what your client  delivers. Reject (or at least, insist on discussing) tasks where a disconnect may lie. In my Midas case, our commercials featured friendly counter-staff, clean and well lit forecourts and garage bays. Completely at odds with what this guy was providing.
• Challenge client myopia. Midas believed at the time that the value proposition was entirely driven by quick and low-cost service. While this was indeed what emerged from countless focus groups, it didn’t take into account several critical realities. While in Knoxville, my franchisee pointed out just one: that a competitor was offering to pick up cars and return them to the owner’s home, free of charge, at any hour. It didn’t take long for us agree that it would be worth him offering a similar or better service.
• Say what needs to be said. I had one simple question for the franchisee: “How would you feel if you drove into this dump to have your car repaired?” Not being afraid to point this out earned me an important measure of respect. The franchisee cleaned up his shop and operation, and I followed up promises I made to make adjustments to his creative and media rotation.

I relayed what I’d discovered to my boss and wider group of colleagues covering differing regions. It wasn’t particularly news that many markets ‘lacked’ model franchisees. I requested to lead a working group with the aim of encouraging innovation in on-the-ground customer servicing. It was approved. I was encouraged to travel, and I met a diverse group of both friendly and hostile franchisees.

For lack of a more suitable, methodological explanation, we basically ‘tried stuff.’ We implemented pilot-test programmes, and rolled out those that were considered successful. I loved seeing the transformations and the results that accompanied a bit of common sense trial and error. It may sound hokey, but in time, I came to love these guys. And I loved my job.

I was 25 years old when I visited Knoxville. What I believed might be no more than a passing stop on a journey as a maturing Client Services practitioner turned out to be a seminal professional experience.

In case you’re wondering, my franchisee’s name is Evan. He’s retired now, likely fishing in the rivers, near the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

Brian Lee is the former managing director of Grey Interactive in London and managing director of OgilvyOne, OgilvyInteractive in Moscow.

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What makes a perfect agency? Everyone has a different opinion about the answer. In our view the most important opinion is the client’s. We evaluate dozens of agencies worldwide every year and we hear many differing opinions.

Recently, we interviewed the clients of an agency where the nature of the relationship was bordering on religious zeal. Clients were not just satisfied, not just committed but truly devoted.  Who is the agency?

Sadly, we can’t tell you, as the work we do is confidential. What I can tell you is that they are a specialist firm in a high science category. They are fairly small but they have an outsized reputation.

As we interviewed their clients, what emerged were five competencies that the agency exudes.

1. Deep Expertise: The market that their client’s operate requires a high degree of scientific knowledge and the agency people are extremely well-qualified.
2. Forensic Knowledge of the Client’s Business: People on the agency team know the industry, the client’s business and organization inside and out. Often better than the clients themselves. One client said that “they fill in gaps in [their] organization”
3. Outstanding Talent; The agency’s people are recognized as being as good or better than the clients’ own people.  Specifically they were singled out for being extremely smart and strategic.
4. Enormous Longevity: People at the agency don’t leave. In many cases, the senior people work with the same client for 10-15 years. This is a point of pride to the people at the agency. This is especially striking as, these days, it’s hard to get someone to want to stay on the same client for a year.
5. High Quality Control: The agency is acknowledged as having extremely high standards in all that they do.

The thing the stood out was what clients didn’t say. The work that the agency does is very good but this was not a key theme. How the agency delivered the work was more important than the work itself.

This agency has built client devotion by the way it serves them not by the work it does.

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