What do clients expect from you?

I recently attended a two-day “AE Bootcamp 2.0” workshop in Las Vegas, organized by the Agency Management Roundtable, which was designed to teach account executives strategy development and client problem solving.  I’ve outlined a few take-away’s below:

  • What do your clients expect of you?  During the workshop, there was a lot of discussion on what the client expects from the account executive versus the firm.  After much debate, the workshop coordinators showcased the results of a national survey answering this very question:
    • Industry/market knowledge
    • Making the client’s job easier
    • Organized and dependable
    • Empowerment to make decisions
    • Passion for solving problems
    • Willingness to be treated as a consultant and vendor
    • Don’t learn on the job
  • How to be a consultant and not a vendor. Business is built on relationships and there are significant differences between being a consultant for your client and being a vendor.  Consultants take the time to understand a client’s goals and strategically help them accomplish them.  Conversely, a vendor typically provides tactical services that help move that vision forward, but doesn’t act as a strategist.  Below are ways to become a consultant:

Below are approaches you can implement to be a consultant to your clients:

  • Trust: Perceived as caring intensely about the well-being of clients and their business.
  • Manage expectations: Under promise, over deliver.
  • Constantly look beyond today: Don’t get stuck in tactical mode, you always need to carve out time to be strategic.
  • Empathize with the CEO: What keeps your client up at night?  How can you create solutions to help solve these problems?

Attending workshops like these serves as a great reminder about what clients expect from you as an account executive, and what they expect from their marketing/PR firm.

What do you think clients expect from you and your firm?


– By Berbay Senior Account Manager Megan Braverman

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