The Interplay Between Your Expertise and the Client's
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The mandate for working together, agency and client, is effectiveness. How do you work together and separately for that to happen? What does each side bring to the table? How can you be an expert but still require the client in order to create this magic?
How you handle this interplay determines your impact, your compensation, and how much they appreciate you. Here is how the best agencies do it:
- Your client must be an expert in what they offer the marketplace, like knowing the competitive environment, the product/service mix, and the micro factors inside and outside the company. Don't ever promise to know more about that than they do. It's a silly promise and it needlessly minimizes their role. It's insulting.
- You must be an expert in marketing as applied to their vertical industry or horizontal demographic. Rather than being a pair of implementing hands, you must know some things that they crave to understand. Here's where it gets tricky, though.
- You have seen everything and nothing before. If you claim to have seen their exact situation before, they'll think you're arrogant or lazy or not very observant. But if this is all new to you, how in the world could you be an expert? Expertise comes from pattern matching. So here's how to think about it, illustrated with a bit of humor: "We aren't likely to see anything that we haven't seen before, but what keeps us on our toes is that every company combines some of these elements to create their very own special form of dysfunction! So we'll be reaching for some trusted tools, but your situation will always require very specific solutions that we have used in different combinations before."
- Your best clients demand objective insight and they depend on you to provide it. This type of value comes from your subject matter expertise, your quick assessment of their situation, and your kind courage in helping them view the truth as their friend. Never underestimate how important this element is in the relationship. In their world, very full of political nuance, you can be a light in the darkness, often telling them what they already know, but validating their instinct in the process.
The best relationships combine that client/agency dynamic seamlessly, where both parties rely on and respect each other. This would be a great discussion for your next staff meeting.
