There exists a certain scope of perspective each and every client will have with a business and their account rep. This perspective is amplified, altered, and engineered by the professional managing the account. The account rep has profound power, being that he or she controls the lense in which the client will give more money, maintain their existing account size, or cancel and seek out an alternative professional to do the work they need done.
In scenarios concerning wishy-washing clients who say one thing last week, but hey, it’s a new week so I’m going to communicate something entirely different from the previous weeks game plan. These types of clients are difficult to work with because of their inconsistency in communication.
So how do you make it work?
A couple effective tactics I’ve learned through my experience as a marketing executive:
1) Be direct on timelines and expectations. Communicating in the passive voice will never get you very far, especially when you are literally waiting for the client to respond to your requests. Be direct in your communication, especially concerning wishy-washing clients
2) Seek out more experienced people for help. Look, you don’t know everything nor will you ever know everything, and that’s ok. This is why team’s work better than individuals. A person cannot be everything to everyone. You will fail following this practice and nobody with want to do business with you. Pick something you are good at, master it, then serve your client’s well through your expertise.
To win in business, one must compete in the marketplace as effectively as they can. The professional must provide as much value as possible to his or her industry.
If you work in marketing, you need to try new things or you’ll be forgotten. You won’t find a successful person alive who is forgetful. They don’t exist or nobody knows they exist, which is redundant. Sure, we all will die and be forgotten, but while your living, people need to know who the hell you are.
3) If an account is going quiet after an intense period of conflict, something is up. You need to contact them. Ping the client with any means of communication – call, text message, email – get some sort of pulse read on the account’s health. That account is your paycheck, your commission – you need to be ontop of every account in your book.
4) Frequency of contact. After on-boarding any new account, you need to communicate with them early and often. At least once a day in the early weeks, then taper the communication off to a level the client appreciates.
Overcommunicating can’t hard you because the client will just tell you, “thanks, just stop talking to me so much. If your service is working, you won’t hear from me!” Enter the adage ‘no news is good news.’ This mantra is slightly dangerous, but still a good rule of thumb for well performing accounts.