There are some days when I think anyone can be an account person, but most days I think very few can be a good account person.
Having had the benefit of working on the client side for the first 10 years of my career, and having grown up with a creative director for a father, I have a different and perhaps more critical view of what being a good account person means. Here’s my top 10 list. I would love to have others chime in (especially any clients reading this)!
1. Be a King/Queen Maker: At the end of the day, it’s all about what we can do to make our clients look good. To enable their success. To help them find the answers to the tough questions.
2. Make Their Business Your Business: We need to know the client’s business, industry and competitive landscape. How else can we contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way?
3. Bring the Why: There is no shortage of opinions in this industry; what we can never have too much of is well-rationalized and fact-based commentary. Clients don’t really care how your mom shops online, but a decent statistic can be persuasive.
4. Critical Thinking Is Just Plain Critical: We have to be able to draw conclusions, synthesize information and mine for insights. If account people don’t want to be thought of as short-order cooks, then we need to create a five-star dining experience.
5. If You’re Going To Be in the Room, Be in the Room: It’s too easy to sit in a big, important meeting and rely on others to carry the conversation. A good account person knows when to weigh-in and how to add value. On the flip side, one of my favorite quotes is, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
6. Earn Respect: A former creative director friend of mine once wisely remarked that respect is earned, especially in this business. A really good account person earns the respect of his or her creative team, which will always benefit the client in the end.
7. Know More Than Your Smartest Client: I’m not talking about the expression, “We’ll know more about your business than you do” because I don’t know anyone who actually believes that pronouncement on the client side, or who can deliver it on the agency side. It’s just not practical. I do think we can know a lot about our clients’ businesses, and know a lot more about marketing strategies and tactics that have worked for all of the clients we’ve served. Our clients hire us because we do something they can’t do or know something they don’t know or both. Make sure they get their money’s worth.
8. Fight the Good Fights: Not every assignment is a creative opportunity. A good account person can recognize the opportunities that are worth fighting for and can figure out how to win the ones that count. This goes a long way toward number 6.
9. Open Mouth, Insert Perspective: Most clients appreciate the opportunity to discuss, collaborate and debate with their agency partners. Does anyone really want a high-priced “yes man”? We’ve seen a lot and have experience and insight that can help our clients think about things in a way they hadn’t previously considered.
10. Do What You Say You’re Going to Do: I don’t really need to say anything on this one, do I?
Adryanna Sutherland
President
GyroHSR, Cincinnati
This is a fantastic list. Leigh House over at Advergirl posted a similar list in 2007 that shares a lot of the same sentiments, and I agree with you both.
A good “account person” must be comfortable with (and indeed relish) constant tension in their professional lives. The job demands a balance between hard-driving sales and client empathy, art and logic, personal and professional relationships, design teams and client needs, and often politics within their client’s organization as well as their own.
So it’s true, anyone could do it. Everyone in an agency, to some extent, deals with these tensions every day. But the true maestro of all of these seemingly opposing factors is rare, and easily stands out amongst their peers.
A few qualities that I believe make a good account person are being both proactive and responsive.
It’s not enough for one to sit around by the phone and wait for the client to call. An account person should be proactive in contributing ideas and coming up with solutions. If you learn about something new or interesting going on, ask your client if they would be interested in it.
I agree that the client is the priority for good account people, but I think its critical to not forget about communicating with your co workers. Be responsive; for instance, if your receive an email, don’t let it sit in your inbox for days, let them know you at least received it and are working on the issue if its not something you have an immediate answer to. Nowhere in this post does it mention how they collaborate with their coworkers.
Finally, I think No. 7 makes a valid point. I’m not suggesting that one would know more about a business than the client, but I think there is some advantage to an account person looking from the outside in. Sometimes clients can get caught up in their work, an account person can provide a fresh perspective (just like a customer would) to a problem they may be having, whether it be marketing or not.