For 42 years (I started in this industry when I was two years old, naturally), I have heard agency leaders rabbit on about wanting to build 'enduring partnerships' with clients. I used to say this myself.
What rubbish! Lala land thinking.
The fact is, I have never, ever had a client see me as a 'partner'. I know this how? Because I always knew if I stuffed up two times in a row, maybe three, I'd get fired. Now, I'm told every day that I have stuffed up five times before I leave my house. But I have not been fired there yet.
Why? Because there are bigger things at stake. That’s a partnership.
Here's the rub. We're a supplier. What we need to become is the client's most valuable, most indispensable supplier. We do this by becoming a trusted adviser.
That’s not what I want to cover today, though. It is rather just one element of trusted advisor status strategy that I want to focus on. It’s also the magic to growing revenues with clients. And that is to become a proactive, relevant problem solver. Do that, and the cash register rings ching ching - loudly and often.
In my last column, I cautioned that before we can work on growing revenues with existing clients, we need to make damned sure we retain these relationships.
Growing existing clients, or Ph-arming (I wish Farming started with a P), is the third of The Savage Company's now Eight (used to be Five, then Seven) Doors to Revenue Growth. I've added another door since last month's column - Push-back (as in handling objections or tough questions) - to the other seven doors: Positioning, Pleasing, Ph-arming, Profile, Pipeline, Pitching (converting), and Pricing.
But today, it’s all about growing existing clients. Remember, you have a one in 12 chance of selling something to a proactively approached prospect, a one in four chance of doing so to a former or dormant client, and a... wait for it... one in two chance of selling to an existing client.
And I have been Naughty Chris, using the word 'sell' in the paragraphs above.
Yes, most agencies say they want to grow their existing clients. Yet too often, the underlying approach is little more than: What else can we sell them?
That is absolutely the wrong question.
The best client growth does not come from pushing more services at clients. It comes from becoming more valuable to them - understanding their business better, identifying important problems before they become obvious, and bringing ideas that genuinely help them win.
For a creative earned first communications agency, this means moving from being a supplier of communications expertise to becoming a trusted commercial adviser.
Here are three ways - or disciplines - to make this happen:
Everyone says clients want proactivity. That’s true. They do.
But 'proactive' has become one of those agency words that can mean almost anything. An agency can be extremely proactive and still be almost completely irrelevant.
Sending a client an article because it is vaguely connected to their sector is not proactivity. Suggesting another campaign because we have capacity is not proactivity. Asking, "Have you thought about using us for X?" is not proactivity either. And always avoid, at all costs, the ‘just checking in' email. Clients hate that. It makes them have to do the work in a reply to you.
Poorly judged proactivity damages a relationship. It creates noise and consumes client time.
Instead, think of ideas to take to your clients. I like to schedule time, every Friday. Three 30-minute 'on crack' brainstorms - one client each. I call them WOW sessions. What powerful ideas can we proactively take to the client next week. Do it monthly per major client.
And then, when assessing the ideas, ask this critical question: Is this genuinely important to the client?
If in doubt, chuck it out. That's trademarked to me, by the way. Repeating: If in doubt, chuck it out.
The most valuable proactive thinking starts with the client's commercial reality.
What problem can we solve? What opportunity can we unlock and accelerate? What is the business trying to achieve? What threatens that ambition? Where is growth coming from?
What is changing in the market? What are the CEO and other senior executives worried about? Where is the organisation vulnerable? Where is there an opportunity that communications could help unlock?
Then we should ask ourselves: Can we do something about it?
The agency that consistently brings relevant ideas - the ones that help solve real business problems - becomes difficult to replace. And that is ultimately what client growth is about.
The second idea or discipline is harder, but potentially even more valuable: really understanding the client's business.
Not just their communications strategy. Their business.
Here's a number to frighten you. 85 per cent. Yes, that's it. Why? Because 85 per cent of the reason clients stop working with us is that they feel we no longer know their business well enough.
Oh sure, we did at the beginning, when all our big kahunas fronted up and were all over it. Then things got busy, the big leaders went elsewhere to other new clients, we had staff turnover, and we ended up with two interns working the account. Kapow and kaboom - out we go!
Here's another way: keep up to date and always know their business.
We should know what drives revenue and profit, understand their strategy, competitive position, customers, products, markets, and major investments. We should know what the leadership team is trying to achieve and how they are measured.
We should know what is happening around them, too. Competitors. Regulation. M&A. Leadership changes. Market disruption. New technology. Investor expectations. Customer behaviour. Political developments. Industry trends.
Buckle up for this one. The agency that only responds to the client's brief will always be one step behind, whereas the agency that understands their business really well can start to look around corners.
This does not require armies of analysts or hours of research every week. It requires a habit.
The value comes when we can say: "We've noticed this. We think it could matter because of X. Here's what we think you should consider."
That is when an agency stops being a pair of hands and starts becoming a partner. Damn - not 'partner', I meant 'indispensable supplier.'
The third discipline is turning this intelligence and proactivity into a deliberate growth strategy.
There is a tendency in agencies to overcomplicate account planning, but client growth planning should be simple.
My Client Turbo Growth Plan is deliberately built around focus, action, and accountability.
The agencies I have advised in the past decades - the special ones which have grown substantially and, in all cases, then sold for millions of dollars - did so with relentless, consistent, nowhere-to-hide-or-wiggle-out-of-it client growth planning at the beating heart of their strategy, using my system.
Keep it simple, focussed, and practical. No long documents, analysis, or action plans.
Select your clients which, with focus and hard work, can be built fast into bigger, better, more profitable commercial relationships.
Get the team together per client. Hold an ideas session around how to grow the client. Use the following question flow to guide the discussion.
Capture all growth ideas. Debate and agree the five priority ideas to grow this relationship.
Set goals, a timetable, and responsibilities.
Review bi-monthly at a minimum, evolve, adapt, and recalibrate.
What work is underway? How is it going? Client feedback?
Are we delivering value / exceeding expectations?
Relationships? Where are priority areas to strengthen?
What do we need to do to safe-guard what we have?
Where are the biggest opportunities to grow our work with those we already work with on this account? (New problems to solve?)
Who are the key people involved?
What should we do next?
Where else is there opportunity for us to solve problems in this company?
Who currently 'owns' that issue / opportunity (client executives)?
Current agency relationships?
What do we do next to get a start?
What are the key issues facing this client (opportunities / threats)?
What are the biggest KPIs / drivers / fears of the client executives?
What ideas / solutions / thinking can we take to proactively attack a business problem?
Who is the Client Growth Leader?
Prepare the full 'action list' of notes.
Highlight the top five actions.
Set a deadline, goals, actions, and responsibilities for those top five.
Check in regularly.
Evolve, adapt, and recalibrate monthly.
There is an important principle linking all three growth ideas or disciplines. Clients give more work to agencies that they trust with more important problems.
The existing client growth equation is actually quite straightforward:
Understand the business + anticipate what matters + bring relevant ideas + solve important problems = earn the right to do more.
Instead of asking, "What can we sell this client?" ask, "What does this client need that we could help solve?"
The key is to judge ourselves not simply just on revenue growth, but be obsessed with whether we are becoming more important to the client's business. That is how existing client relationships grow. Not through more selling. Rather, through more relevance, insight, anticipation, and value.
There you have it. To grow existing client revenues, we have to first plug that leaky bucket. Then it's all about Ph-arming - relevance, insight, anticipation, and value. We can then move on to our next of the Eight Doors of Revenue Growth, which will be covered in my next Telum column: all about Profile!
Chris Savage is one of Asia Pacific’s pre-eminent creative communications industry leaders. Following a highly successful 25-year career in public relations, Chris launched The Savage Company in 2015, focused on helping business leaders energise growth. He has built and led some of the region’s biggest PR companies and groups, including as Australia CEO and Vice Chairman Asia Pacific of Burson-Marsteller, CEO of Ogilvy PR Australia, and COO of marketing content and communications group, STW Group (now WPP ANZ). Chris is also a shareholder and chairman of eight communications agencies.
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