Agency Account Handling: Avoiding Blood, Sweat and Tears

PREFACE xi

1 CHOOSING AN AGENCY 3

Preparing for the Search as a Candidate 4

Why Do You Want to Leave? 4

What Do You Enjoy/Dislike about Your Job? 5

What Sort of Person Are You at Work? 5

What Sort of People Do/Don’t You Get on With? 6

What Do You Think of Your Current Agency Culture and Style? 7

Where Do You Want to Be in Five Years’ Time? 7

What Position Are You Looking For? 7

How Have You Made a Difference in Your Current Job? 8

What Type of Agency Environment Are You Looking For? 8

How to Work with a Recruitment Consultant 9

As an Employer 9

As a Candidate 11

How to Prepare Yourself Mentally and Physically for the Interview 12

Before the Interview 12

During the Interview 13

After the Interview 15

How Agencies Could Improve Their Interview Process 15

Before the Interview 16

The Interview 17

Unacceptable Questions 19

Selecting a Candidate 20

Making an Offer 20

Selecting an Agency 20

2 STARTING TO WORK WITH A NEW CLIENT TEAM 25

How the Agency Can Ease the Induction Process 26

Not so Unusual First-Day Howlers 29

Starting off on the Right Foot 29

Doing Homework on Your New Client(s) 29

Your First Few Weeks 30

Getting Organized 32

How You Can Help Your Team and Clients to Work with You Better 37

3 THE DAY-TO-DAY RELATIONSHIP 43

What Clients Want 44

Managing the Client Relationship during Campaigns 49

Producing an Effective Creative Briefing 51

Creative Presentations to Clients 54

Managing Problems with a Creative Concept 58

Moving Concepts Effectively to Campaign Execution 60

Effective Campaign Communication with Internal Departments and Clients 62

Working with the Creative Product 63

4 CLIENT SATISFACTION 69

The Value of Focusing on Client Satisfaction 70

Customer Orientation 71

Instituting a Satisfaction Review Process 75

Improving Satisfaction through Performance 79

5 MASTERING THE MOMENT 83

Managing Difficult Situations 84

Exploiting Excellent Situations 94

Extending the Honeymoon Period 94

Extending the Success of a Campaign 95

Improving Your Presentations 95

Getting Involved in Pitches 98

6 LOOKING AFTER YOURSELF 105

Being the Master of Your Own Destiny 106

Setting Your Own Goals 109

Enhancing Your Performance Appraisal Process 110

How an Agency Can Maximize Personal Career Development 112

7 TAKING CARE OF THE FINANCES 129

The Principles of Running Campaigns Cost-Effectively 129

Campaign Budgeting 131

Securing Costs from Third Parties 134

Preparing an Estimate 134

Monitoring Costs 137

Invoicing the Client 138

Understanding a Campaign Financial Report 140

Reconciling Campaign Financials 144

Understanding an Account’s Financial Metrics 144

Agency Profit and Loss 144

Time Utilization/Billability 146

Work-in-Progress Analysis 147

Debtor Analysis 148

Budgeting and Forecasting 148

8 STEPPING UP AND OUT 153

Spotting Your Next Destination 154

Removing the Obstacles of Hard Work and Stress 158

Five Myths about Hard Work 158

Managing Stress 161

Equipping Yourself Well 164

Moving from Managing to Leading 167

EPILOGUE 175

REFERENCES 177

USEFUL INFORMATION SOURCES 179

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 181

INDEX 183