You can’t just expect clients to treat account managers as ‘trusted advisors’ because trust has to be earned.
Agency leaders also need to have the right processes/resources/support in place to help account managers position themselves as trusted advisors (particularly to those tier 1 clients who have been identified as having growth potential).
What I mean by this is having:
- Clearly defined internal processes to follow for client retention and growth
- A job description with clear KPIs that are tied to the agency’s commercial objectives
- A career path laid out (with training and support to move up the levels) – I’ve seen account directors with brilliant project management skills who want to get a similar role in another agency but aren’t equipped with sufficient commercial/strategic/sales skills to cope with a role with the equivalent title in another agency
- On-going check-ins with management for support, coaching and questions
When account managers know what’s expected of them and have the right support, there’s literally no limit to what they can achieve for the agency – and their own self-development.
In fact some of the biggest reasons account managers leave agencies (apart from the prevalence of having to report into a shitty line manager with narcissistic tendencies) is because of the absence of one or more of those three things above.
And high account manager turnover is expensive for the agency – both in terms of hiring costs – but also disruption to clients.
Let’s look at the first point above.
“Clearly defined internal processes to follow for client retention and growth” this include things like:
- Having an account management and account growth process in the agency you can follow to retain and growth the portfolio of accounts you look after
- Understanding how to grow an account – so you don’t end up being a glorified project manager who is a ‘safe pair of hands’ for delivering projects on time on budget, understands how to traffic a job through the agency and trouble-shoot – but frankly lacks the entrepreneurial skills it takes to drive an account forward
- Proactive client retention strategy – which means spreading the relationship risk by forming multiple points of client contact, feeling comfortable asking for referrals to help expand the agency’s footprint within the current client organisation/network and asking for feedback and testimonials.
I’ve recorded a 5-part mini podcast series called “Entrepreneurial account management” and the second short episode is called “From ‘order taker’ to trusted advisor: raising the value of account management with agency leadership support – you can access it here.
