DontJustMakeTheLogoBigger Agency-eBook KarlSakas

Don’t Just Make the Logo Bigger | 2

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Copyright © 2015 by Karl Sakas

Third Edition


Table of Contents4 Why The Client Shouldn’t Always Come First

4 Who Should Read This eBook?4 What’s In This eBook (And How To Make It Work For You and Your Agency)

6 Why Expectations Management is The Secret to Loving Your Job 6 The Hard Truth About Expectations Management

7 The Key to Good Expectations Management

7 The One Thing Expectations Management Can’t Fix

8 Learning to Say “No” Without Burning Bridges

9 How Good Expectations Management Will Improve Your Agency’s Reputation

9 Is Working With You Like Going To The Doctor Or Visiting An Amusement Park?

11 Creating A Client Onboarding Process in 3 Steps

14 How to Set (And Uphold) Priorities15 Delegate Effectively: What Should You Task Out To Your PM?

15 What About Existing Clients?

16 Will This Advice Work For My Agency?

17 Doing a SWOT Analysis

19 Kill your “analysis paralysis”

20 More Help From Here...

20 About Karl Sakas and Sakas & Company


Introduction: Why The Client Shouldn’t Always Come First

Why The Client Shouldn’t Always Come First

An Introduction

Whether creating an online marketing program for a client or staying late to meet a deadline, most marketing agencies know one thing for sure: the client

always comes first.

Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to run a financially successful digital marketing agency based on this credo alone.

In the sections ahead we’ll discuss a better way of looking at agency client service—one that prioritizes the financial health of your agency over your relationship with any one client.

After all, having happy clients is important; but if they’re not also profitable for your agency, your agency won’t stay in business very long. You need to put on your own oxygen mask first.

Who Should Read This eBook?

If you want an instant or easy solution to all your agency’s problems, this eBook probably isn’t for you.

If you’re so far in the red that you’re having trouble paying your bills each month, then this eBook defi-nitely isn’t for you.

But if you are an owner or manager of an agency and want to find more profitable clients who give you fewer headaches—and you’re willing to put in some time and work to get there—this eBook will teach you how.

What’s In This eBook (And How To Make It Work For You and Your Agency)

The first three chapters of this eBook are filled with information on how properly managing client ex-pectations can make both new and existing clients more profitable, while improving relationships and eliminating common headaches.


Introduction: Why The Client Shouldn’t Always Come First

Chapters 1-3 cover:

• Why good client expectations management will help you love your job more. • How you can create a strong client onboarding process to stop problems before they start.

• What kind of policies you can use to better manage your client relationships.

Then, in Chapter 4, I provide you with the tools to lay the groundwork for establishing your own client expectations mangement system, starting with a SWOT analysis of your current policies and practices. I include several questions to help you think in-depth about the way things are now versus where you’d like to have them be.

And finally, I provide you with my goal-setting system for eliminating “analysis paralysis,” helping you to actually implement what you’ve just learned.

This eBook will work best if you read through the first three chapters then move on to the printer-friendly worksheets at the back of the book. Read over the first three chapters, and then set aside some time to fill out the SWOT analysis and create your timeline for implementing a better client expectations manage-ment system.

Then it’s just a matter of enacting your plan—and before long you’ll begin to reap the benefits: you’ll have fewer headaches from clients, each client will be profitable, and your agency will be financially successful.

If you want to find more profitable clients, who give you fewer headaches, this eBook will teach you how.


Chapter 1: Why Expectations Management

Why Expectations Management is The Secret to Loving Your Job

(And Loving Your Agency’s Clients)

Think about your favorite client. They probably pay quickly, respect your time, respond to your requests, and stick to their deadlines.

But if you’re like most marketing agency owners, you’ve got some clients you love—and others you hate working with.

And those bad clients tend to be annoying, unprofitable, or both. Their projects blow budgets and dead-lines; they’re subject to massive scope creep. They call at all hours, but then disappear when you need something or when you send them an invoice.

Now, what if I were to tell you it’s possible to get rid of those bad clients and set up a system to replace them with good clients—and to eventually create a business where ALL of your clients are good clients?

The Hard Truth About Expectations Management

First, I’ve got a hard truth you need to hear. Here it is: If you’ve got a lot of bad clients, there’s a good chance it’s at least partially your fault.

That’s because you teach your clients how to treat you.

New clients may not know how things work or what will happen next. Managing expectations starts with your first contact with a client—it is about making sure new customers know what they’ll experience if they buy from you, before they actually decide to hire you, and about telling new clients during the on-boarding process how things work.

From then on, clients learn what’s acceptable by what you accept. Your existing clients’ current expecta-tions are based on previous experiences they have had with you.



If they email you at 2:00am and you respond right away, they learn that’s okay; they do it a few more times, and you respond—then they come to expect that if they email you at 2:00am you’ll respond right away.

Fortunately, since it’s partially your fault that means it’s something you can fix.

The Key to Good Expectations Management

The solution is to create a strategy for managing customer expectations throughout the marketing and sales process, and then deliver on your promises once they’ve actually become a client.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. You may initially think you’ve been clear on how things will work, but even if you’re as clear as you think it possible to be about what and how you’ll deliver on your promises, your clients’ in-terpretation of your words may not be identical to yours.

So expect working on expectations management to be an ongoing process for at least a little while. Most agencies have to experiment before finding the best onboarding process for their agency—one that en-sures their message is written in a language their target customers understand.

The One Thing Expectations Management Can’t Fix

However, there is one thing that expectations management can’t fix. Even the best expectations manage-ment program won’t work if you don’t understand your target customers; after all, if you don’t understand them, you can’t talk to them in a way that will ensure your message and their interpretation of that mes-sage are the same.

Many agencies with poor expectations management and lots of bad customers are scared to turn a cus-tomer away—but as an agency owner your number one job is not to keep clients happy. Your number one job is to keep your agency in business.



Agency client service is about keeping clients profitable (ideally keeping them happy, too, but profitable first). That means you need to understand which of your clients are profitable, who your ideal client is, and what makes them a good fit for your services.

Then you need to get comfortable turning down clients that aren’t a good fit, as you expand your reputa-tion and attract more clients than you can handle at once.

Learning to Say “No” Without Burning Bridges

I’ve found that can sometimes be a scary idea for agency owners, but the best way to overcome that fear is to have a go-to phrase you can use to turn down a client without burning a bridge.

For example, a prospective client shares their budget, and it is far less than your minimum engagement. This is a pretty common issue—so keep on hand a list of one or two agencies you’re comfortable recom-mending that have lower minimums.

Tell the client, “Based on the budget you have in mind, we wouldn’t be a good match for you. Here are two other agencies that might be a better match to fit within your budget.”

Why: If you know the client’s not a match, don’t waste your time or theirs. Tell them you’re not a match. Don’t waste your time trying to scope things out. Refer them elsewhere to save time (and build goodwill with the other agencies).

If the client’s not a match, trying to scope out work and find a way to meet their needs will only frustrate everyone involved.



Then you can move on to finding clients who are a good fit—letting you spend more time on clients who will be profitable—and begin the process of onboarding them in such a way as to ensure they’ll be a plea-sure to work with.

How Good Expectations Management Will Improve Your Agency’s Reputation

Maybe you’re thinking that good client expectations management sounds great—but that your agency’s clients won’t go for it.

The truth is actually the opposite. Good expectations management will actually improve your clients’ per-ception of your agency.

Don’t believe me? Think about the last time you went to the doctor.

Is Working With You Like Going To The Doctor Or Visiting An Amusement Park?

Your last doctor’s appointment probably looked something like this:

You arrive on time, just to sit in the waiting room for anywhere from five minutes to half an hour. Then a nurse finally calls your name and shows you from the waiting to an exam room. She takes your vitals and then tells you the doctor will “be right with you.”

Then you wait.

Most of the time you wait at least another 10-30 minutes before the doctor actually comes in to see you—sometimes it’s much longer. By then you’re probably feeling a bit impatient and possibly even irritated; but you also feel helpless. After all, that’s how it is throughout the industry. What can you do about it?

No wonder so many people dread going to the doctor! On top of your being sick, the customer service is worse than your lingering cough or in-explicable rash.

Does your agency manage expectations poorly, like

a doctor’s office...



By comparison, think about your last visit to an amuse-ment park. You probably did an awful lot of waiting—probably even more than at the doctor—but still man-aged to have a really good time. The reason?

Amusement parks are a lot better at managing expecta-tions than doctors are. (Plus they have roller coasters.)

Rather than put the real wait time on the signs that you pass in line, they add time so you’ll be pleasantly sur-prised when you make it to the front of the line sooner than anticipated. When the sign says “20 minutes from here,” they know it’s really just 15 minutes from there.

Your goal as an agency is to be like the amusement park—creating an excellent client experience, one that clients remember positively, by properly managing ex-pectations… expectations that create an opportunity for you to exceed them. When you aren’t dreading tox-ic clients, you’ll be much happier at work, too.

... Or do you manage them well, like an amusement park?


Chapter 2: Creating A Client Onboarding Process

Creating A Client Onboarding Process: 3 Steps To Get Off On The Right Foot

As an agency, your job is to identify your clients’ needs, explain how you can solve those needs, and then profitably deliver that solution in the way your client expects.

But it’s that last bit that really matters—“in the way your client expects.” When you deliver what a client expects (or when you exceed their expectations) your agency looks like it’s full of rock stars.

Yet managing expectations doesn’t have to be complex. It starts by having a Client Onboarding Process. Onboarding has three basic pieces:

1. Send your client copies of what they need. 2. Hold an effective kickoff meeting to manage initial expectations.3. Check back to monitor your agency’s progress.

1. Send Your Client Copies of What They Need

If you want your client to behave in a certain way, you need to make sure they have all the materials they need to behave in that way.

For example, they can’t send back a contract they haven’t received and they can’t log all communications in your project management (PM) system if they don’t have access.

A few things you should make sure to send your clients during the onboarding process: • Executed copies of contracts• Logins to the PM system and anything else they’ll need to access• Recap of policies* (e.g., your response-time guarantees, etc.)• Thank-you note (either with your logo, or something nice from a stationery store)

*More on how to set (and uphold) policies in Chapter 3.



2. Hold An Effective Kickoff Meeting

IMPORTANT: Do NOT schedule the kickoff until after you’ve received the contract (and deposit, if applicable). I’ve done that before as an agency PM and gotten burned. Never again.

If the client is pressing the issue, try responding with some-thing like this:

“I know you want to move forward with this as quickly as pos-sible, but our policy is to not schedule the kickoff meeting until we’ve received an executed contract and deposit.

If you’d like to send those back to us, I’ll get you on the schedule as quickly as possible—or, if you need a bit of time, that’s okay too; we’ll put things on hold ‘til then.”

Once you’ve accomplished all of the pre-kickoff requirements, it’s time to focus on holding an effective first meeting. The goal of the meeting is for everyone to be on the same page now, so they’re less likely to be surprised later.

That means you should set an agenda in advance, so everyone knows what to expect (and so you don’t miss any topics); then make sure to include all the right attendees. This likely is you (as the senior per-son at the agency), the sales person (if you have a business development person), your PM, the client contact, and (if applicable) their PM.

The kickoff agenda doesn’t need to be complex; it might be as simple as a list like the one above.

3. Check In To Monitor Your Team’s Progress

After the kickoff meeting, it’s important for you to check in again with the client a couple weeks or a month later, to see how it’s going.

Even with a great kickoff meeting, clients will still have questions or concerns later. Ideally, they’re sharing these with their day-to-day contact (the PM you’ve assigned to the project), but sometimes they’re reluc-tant to share their concerns with that person.

Simple KicKoff meeting agenda

1. Introduce people and their roles

2. Review the project plan (including milestones and timeline)

3. Review best ways to communicate

4. Discuss how to avoid likely problems

5. Answer client questions.



That’s where you come in, as the agency owner. Note that if you have a separate sales person, they can be the person to do it, too, since they aren’t the client’s day-to-day contact. The goal is to head off problems before they get worse. That way, you can solve issues before they become headaches.

Don’t have someone to delegate this to because you’re the client’s day-to-day contact? First, you should work to extract yourself from that role. In the meantime, a trusted outside party like your business coach or accountant could do that outreach, framing it as helping you to improve client service.

After the kickoff meeting, it’s important for you, as the agency owner, to check in again with the client a couple

weeks or a month later, to see how it’s going.


Chapter 3: How to Set (And Uphold) Priorities

How to Set (And Uphold) PrioritiesBringing It All Together & Making It Work For Your Agency

Once you’ve created a list of agency policies, those policies can help you manage client expectations from Day One. So, what kind of policies can you create?

In short, almost anything. Here are some areas where you might want to have an official agency policy:

Set up written policies in each of the areas that are important to you (or in any others you can think of) and provide your client with a copy of these policies at kickoff.

Having these policies written out is also an important part of helping your team properly manage client expectations. It provides them with guidelines for how you want them to act when clients have unreason-able expectations.

Further, having written guidelines—guidelines that the client already has a copy of—will allow them to point to specific rules when clients make unreasonable requests by providing them with reasons why they can’t service those requests.

In other words, it will empower your team to say no, without ruining the agency’s relationship with the client. Or, when you choose to make a strategic exception, the client knows they’re getting some-thing special.

• Payment turnaround

• Deposits

• Number of revisions (or a budget for revisions)

• Preferred communication methods

• Project timeline

• Milestones

• Fixed-Bid vs. Time & Materials

• Priority (rush-rate) surcharges

• Post-launch support

• What’s billable (e.g., Project management,

Meetings, Estimates vs. Quotes, Phone calls,

Mileage, Stock art, Copywriting)

• Almost anything else the market will bear.



Delegate Effectively: What Should You Task Out To Your PM?

When I say “you” here, I don’t actually mean you need to be the one to handle each of these tasks as the head of the agency. If you’re not a details person, that’s fine—your project manager (PM) definitely is a details person (or at least, they better be!). You can let your PM tackle anything I’ve mentioned here that you don’t want to do yourself (other than the post-kickoff “how’s it going” calls as the project goes along).

Your PM can run the client onboarding process—including figur-ing out the process in the first place.

What About Existing Clients?

Once you have established a written list of agency policies, you have three options for dealing with existing clients:

1. Let them keep doing what they’re doing2. Roll out the new policies for everyone 3. Refer them to another vendor (a.k.a., fire them)

Which one of these options you choose will depend on your relationship with each individual client. You may be tempted to let difficult clients “get away with it” by choosing option #1. I understand the temptation of taking the easy way out, but you’re only making it worse for yourself over the long-term. Tear off the Band-Aid and choose option #2 or option #3.

The second option may require a bit of finesse, so as not to ruffle any feathers. The important thing here is to remember that while these policies benefit your agency, they also benefit the client.

Set up a mid-project onboarding meeting, with the premise that you’re doing something new to help them out. Consider calling

taSKS You might delegate to a pm

1. Draft policies you want to implement that don’t exist yet, such as policies around client service re-sponse time.

2. Put the list of policies into Google Docs or an-other shared place, so your agency can maintain it as a master document.

3. Get his/her feedback on any additions/changes (your client service pro-cesses will continue evolve over time).

4. Contact existing clients to update them on the new policies.

5. Schedule kickoff meet-ings and oversee delivery of all necessary paperwork (including your full list of policies.



your new policies a “Client Bill of Rights” or phrasing their introduction as your promises to your client. When you can position these policies as something beneficial to them, you’ll be a lot less likely to encoun-ter resistance.

Even if you don’t bill the “client reset” onboarding time to their project or retainer, it’s going to be well worth the investment. And you can use that as a test run to customize the process for your agency.

Will This Advice Work For My Agency?

This “best practices” advice will work for most marketing agencies, regardless of whether you’re doing project-based work (like web design, digital branding, or video production) or ongoing retainer-based work (like marketing automation, whitehat SEO, PPC campaigns, or other online marketing).

However, you’ll likely want to customize the specifics according to your needs and your agency’s culture. If you have an existing client onboarding process, use the worksheets on the next few pages to review your current process—then make sure to review it every 3-4 months.

If you haven’t created a Client Onboarding Process yet, it’s time to get started! Add creating one to your to-do list for next week. You can start with the goal-setting worksheet on page 18.

And remember, if you’re not a details person, delegate this to your project manager. Your PM can outline the process, you can review it, and they can move forward executing (and tracking) it.

Managing client expectations management is an ongoing process, not a one-and-done activity. But trust me—you’ll be putting out fewer client-related fires if you do a good job onboarding clients up front!


Worksheet: Expectations Management SWOT Analysis

Doing a SWOT Analysis For Expectations Management

A SWOT Analysis is a planning tool that helps you consider how well an aspect of your business (or your business as a whole) is performing. It rhymes with “swat.”

The worksheet on the next page is designed to help you consider the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportu-nities, and Threats for your agency when it comes to client expectations management.

Feel free to use the SWOT analysis table in other planning situations, too.

10 Questions to consider when filling out your SWOT analysis table:

Half the benefit of doing a SWOT analysis is the table… and the other half is the process of thinking about important business questions in a structured way.

Here are 10 questions for you to consider:

1. What are you or your employees doing well when it comes to expectations management? 2. What existing policies should you keep? 3. What current practices should you formally adopt as official policies?4. How well does your sales team set expectations during the sales process, to avoid either overselling

or underselling? 5. Is there any work you’re not currently billing for that you should be?6. Think about the worst clients you have—what makes them so bad? What policies could you have in

place to prevent those behaviors?7. Think about the best clients you have—what makes them so great? What policies could you have in

place to encourage others to behave in the same way?8. What current practices (or lack thereof), if continued, could or will cause serious issues with clients? 9. What do your clients say you do well? Why do they choose to work with you?10. What can you delegate and to whom? Which SWOT category does delegating these tasks fall under?


Worksheet: Expectations Management SWOT Analysis

Directions:

Either print out this page and fill it out, or type your answers in a separate document.

In each of the SWOT quadrants below list 3-5 current practices at your agency that fit within that quadrant’s criteria—that is, 3-5 strengths, 3-5 weaknesses, 3-5 opportunities, and 3-5 threats.

POSITIVE NEGATIVE

INTE

RN

AL

EXTE

RN

AL

STRENGTHS

1.

2.

3.

WEAKNESSES

1.

2.

3.

OPPORTUNITIES

1.

2.

3.

THREATS

1.

2.

3.


Worksheet: Kill Your “Analysis Paralysis”

Kill your “analysis paralysis” By committing to 3 next steps on your business today

Knowledge is only the first step in running your marketing agency—results come from taking action. Action is easier when you commit to your next steps. Use this worksheet

to make three (3) concrete commitments about what you’ll do next.

Example #1: “By Wednesday, I will delegate creating an Onboarding Process for our agency, so that Sally can outline the process for my review within two weeks. I’m doing this because having an onboarding process will help reduce client friction; as the PM, Sally is the best person to take the lead on this.”

Example #2: “By the end of the month, I will make a list of our current clients and mark each one as ‘Keep Them,’ ‘Fire Them,’ or ‘TBD,’ so we can review at the next management meeting. I’m doing this because this will help us focus on current and future clients who value our work.”

My 1st Commitment: “By , I will

I’m doing this because

.”

My 2nd Commitment: “By , I will


.”

My 3rd Commitment: “By , I will


.”


Conclusion: About Sakas & Company

About Karl Sakas and Sakas & CompanyKarl Sakas (@KarlSakas) helps digital marketing agencies grow without the usual growing pains. As president of global consulting firm Sakas & Company, he advises agencies worldwide about strat-egy, operations, and leadership.

Karl founded and runs an online community with 600+ agencies in 40+ countries. He is the author of The In-Demand Marketing Agency and has written 100+ articles on agency management. He combines 18+ years of consulting with his experience as a project manager and

head of business operations at two digital marketing agencies.

When he’s not helping clients, Karl serves as President-Elect for Triangle AMA and volunteers as a bartender on a 1930s railroad car. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I’M HERE TO HELP.

Whether you need help with the worksheets, assistance implementing the tips you’ve just read, or want to discuss solutions to other issues in your agency, I can help.

Reaching out is free, confidential, and no obligation.

Phone: +1 (919) 410-6224

Email: [email protected]

To receive additional tips and advice, sign up for my free newsletter at: http://SakasAndCompany.com/newsletter

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