Help me become psychic so I can truly understand what the heck my client wants!!

February 12, 2009 8:36 PM

How can I make this client relationship work?

Me again. Same client as this question before. I work in a small agency that specializes in marketing with more of a yuppie spin. My client, a brand manager is in her first role after leaving an agency. I'm new to agency world after being a client. The relationship seems to be going well, she likes me, invites me to drinks after work. Seems fine right? Well when we present our ideas to her, she seems fine in the meeting, will ask questions and we all leave the meeting feeling pretty good. Until the next day. She'll usually follow up or her assistant will fire off an email poking holes in whatever we've presented. And while I expect and can handle feedback, this is beyond normal, it feels extreme.

I've worked to try and anticipate her questions before presenting anything to her but it's getting to be exhausting. I've tried asking her for examples or for her to tell us exactly what she wants and she'll demand that we come back with multiple options, force us to choose one direction and then justify to her exactly why we chose it. Then she'll proceed to rip apart our rationale in anyway she can.

An example: We will suggest a list of musicians we've worked with before for a launch party she'll want thrown and she'll come back and question us on what our 'strategy' is for the launch party (um... to launch your product to get awareness?) how having music at a launch party fits into that strategy, how much the musicians should be paid why we chose these specific musicians vs. other and why this genre, and why are the staff wearing these clothes since she would never wear them...etc, etc when her product has nothing to do with music products and doesn't hinge on the music played in anyway shape or form.

I understand that this is likely because she doesn't trust us - we had a previous team do a project for her last year and they definitely missed a ton of details but nothing that was major in the grand scheme of things. Her boss was very pleased with the work we did on the project and has said so to us in front of her and others. While it may have been rough getting there, it was a good program. So we have to earn her trust back, but this seems to be a bit of overkill.

I also think she may be unclear as to her role as the client and not as an agency person. She worries incessantly about details without letting us get the big picture sorted first. Another example would be worrying about where we will plug in the laptops before understanding how we would drive consumers to the event. We've built timelines and checklists to show her that we have all of these little details on our radar and will deal with them in due course but she insists on putting the cart before the horse.

I'm at my wits end. My team is in full revolt - they are completely demotivated and feel like she doesn't appreciate their work so when I give them more feedback after another presentation that seemed to go well you can see them just shut down. (We sent her a gift at the holidays and she didn't even acknowledge that she received it).

This is a nightmare and while I would love to simply end the relationship; times are tough and she is one of our biggest clients so we need her for the time being.

MeFites - what can I do to make her happy? Can I reach out to her as a former experienced BM and give her some advice? Is that offside. AAAARGH!

posted by urbanette to work & money (11 comments total)

"This is a nightmare" --- those words suggest that your best course of action would be to fire this client. I know you need her, but no healthy business should need one client so much that it puts up with a "nightmare" to keep that client happy.

It is amazing how liberating it can be to make the affirmative decision not to deal with a client who makes you unhappy. One of the best early decisions I made in my practice (law, not marketing) was to quickly ditch a client who made me crazy. I have enjoyed hearing updates on the misery this client has inflicted on successive attorneys because it affirms for me the wisdom of my decision to fire that client.

Here's why I suspect there's no way to make her change: She sounds like a certain kind of person I have encountered, who, in order to feel "active" and "engaged" and "in control," will nit-pick and second-guess everything you do. It's amazing how educated, seemingly well-adjusted people can become complete fucking control freaks when dealing with professional service firms. And with a lot of these people, there is NOTHING you can do to stop their incessant, demoralizing onslaught of criticisms.
posted by jayder at 9:06 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

If you're committed to trying to keep this client, I think you need to have a frank and candid meeting with her where you say:

-- This is how we work. Love it or lump it.
-- We do big picture first, then we handle the details. You want to focus on details before we've resolved the big picture, and that's making us crazy.
-- Your criticisms are demoralizing to my team, they feel that you careen from effusive praising our ideas one day, to incessantly nitpicking those very same ideas the next day, and this is causing us problems.
-- We value you as a client but this has got to change. If we cannot restore our relationship to a productive and pleasant one, we will have to terminate our working relaitonship.

Lay it out there, as bluntly as that. Approach the issues as "a problem to be solved," and enlist her in the effort to solve them. If she is a client worth keeping, you should be able to work this out with her. If you can't work this out with her, I would suggest that she is doing your firm more harm than good.
posted by jayder at 9:16 PM on February 12 [4 favorites]

I've never been in advertising. But, as a freelance engineer... she's paying you by the hour, right? If she keeps dicking around, you get more cash.

If that's not the case, I don't know how to help you save this relationship. If she's such a bitch that you and your team no longer produce quality work, then this is doomed.

The one thing you might do is give her a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. "You're one of our most valued clients, but with the number of revisions you're demanding, this account is just no longer cost effective or profitable. We're doing our best to work with you, but this is our final design. We've done everything we can to include your comments and feedback, and believe it accurately represents what you want. But, you seem continually unhappy with our work. If you're displeased with this revision as you have been with all the previous ones, it might be best for you to look for another firm to handle this matter."

I don't think that you can give her advice. She won't take it, and will just get pissed at having been offered it. In fact, it could easily backfire, "You don't tell me what to do! I was in this industry since before you were in diapers!".
posted by Netzapper at 9:18 PM on February 12

Micro-agenda the meetings and process flow:

Meeting 1: Big Picture: Event theme and consumer buy-in.

Meeting 2: Entertainment and staging.

Meeting 3: Catering and costuming.

Meeting 4: Technical and creative.

...or whatever. When she asks about laptops at Meeting 1, you say "Excellent question. Sam, can you add that to the plan for the tech and creative session? Thanks." and move on to the next thing.

At meeting 4, when she asks if the napkins should really be blue, you say "Those were locked in Meeting 3, right? Great. Now, we're going to need a couple of projectors and a disco ball..."

In other words, don't cater to every whim. Be cheerful and positive and steamroll ahead.

Also, frankly, there should be a strategy for these events that you can articulate. "Thow a party and launch your product" is something I can do with a pack of balloons and a case of 3 Buck Chuck. If you can get her to sign off very early on a locked concept strategy - to launch a new range of iPod colourswith a colour themed event aimed at 20 - 30 urbanites and the music they listen to - then you can revert a lot of her questions to the "agreed strategy."

Finally, consequences are your friend. "Scissor Sisters are already locked in the plan. We can go back and reconsider that, but it's going to mean less time for Foo and we may need to drop Bar. Are you happy to proceed with Scissor Sisters?"
posted by DarlingBri at 1:41 AM on February 13 [4 favorites]

Watch a season of Mad Men and start channeling Don Draper?

I have no expertise here whatsoever, but it sounds like she's anxious and is comforting herself by micromanaging. Maybe she's concerned that, economic situation being what it is, her job might be at risk if things don't make sense and go smoothly, if she can't justify every penny spent, etc. I'm wondering whether you're providing her with too much detail too early. If she needs to focus on big-picture stuff then big-picture stuff is what you should be showing her. I also agree with Bri -- there should be a strategy here. If your only answer to my concerns about marketing strategy were along the lines of "um... to launch your product to get awareness," I would be nervous too.
posted by jon1270 at 2:18 AM on February 13

Good stuff so far. DarlingBri's suggestions are great; we've actually tried some of that meetings and it seems to have worked. Especially agreeing not to get into tactics brainstorms with her.

Sadly we don't get to charge hourly. There is a project budget which is finite and we are already eating probably 8 hours for every 1 we bill with her. So the suggestions that she isn't profitable are entirely true.

I was being flippant about the launch example. Of course we have provided a more detailed strategy for her which doesn't seem prudent to detail on the intrawebs! Her understanding of a strategy vs. a tactic is part of the problem.
posted by urbanette at 7:18 AM on February 13

...we are already eating probably 8 hours for every 1 we bill with her.

Could that be your problem? She's not getting her act together because there are no consequences to screwing around. If you're not valuing your time, why should she?
posted by jon1270 at 9:05 AM on February 13

Don't assume her boss gave you a glowing recommendation. Considering you mentioned that the previous team botched some details, assume that her boss gave her this guidance. "The Urbanette Company has good creative, but they are disorganized on the details. You are responsible for managing their flakiness." If she's detail oriented, then she certainly interviewed the last brand manager to use your company. The former brand manager may not have given a glowing review either.

Don't assume she doesn't understand the difference between tactics and strategy. Assume she doesn't trust you to get it right.

Can I reach out to her as a former experienced BM and give her some advice?
Are you willing to take her advice as former experienced agency person? She's done your job, too. Honestly, it sounds as though she's as frustrated with you as you are with her. The only difference is that she's paying.

(We sent her a gift at the holidays and she didn't even acknowledge that she received it). In all your problems with this client you pick this? Of course, she should have said thank you. Lets be honest here. You sent her a gift because she's a client and she pays you. You didn't lovingly select a gift because you wanted to be BFF.

Here's a tactic that works with people who are very detail oriented. (I'm not, but I'm surrounded by people who are.) Address that need, first. Detail people can have a very hard time moving their thinking to higher strategy until they feel the details are well in hand. If she's worried about a detail, you won't be able to get her to focus where you need her. Assign your most detail oriented staffer to manage the clients thirst for minutia.
posted by 26.2 at 9:34 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

26.2 - we actually hired a new account supervisor who is extremely detailed for this specific reason. She has years of agency experience and it's still not enough.

I would gladly take her advice and have asked her for feedback as such.

I understand that we may be on shaky ground, but I do believe there are limits to what we can do. It's getting to the point where she wants to know what people are eating for dinner onsite etc. And funnily, for someone who is concerned about the details, she often seems overwhelmed when we go through them. She'll ask questions we've already gone over or presented or she won't be paying attention when we do.

And while I realize we aren't friends, our firm does have a rep for being chummy with clients. You can see a previous question I asked about this because I thought it was odd when I joined. The non-thank you hurt my staff more than I and they are already hard to keep motivated to work on this account as it is.
posted by urbanette at 10:39 AM on February 13

There is a project budget which is finite and we are already eating probably 8 hours for every 1 we bill with her.

If you're not already, I'd start talking about this with her (rather regularly). Following on DarlingBri's point that "consequences are your friend," you ought to have a contract that allows you to say "we agreed that we would present you with two options, make one round of changes to the preferred option and then lock that in. If we need to revisit this, that entails a round of edits that's not in the budget, and that will entail an extra charge of $25 milion. If that's okay with you, we'll go ahead with that."

We will suggest a list of musicians we've worked with before for a launch party she'll want thrown and she'll come back and question us on what our 'strategy' is for the launch party (um... to launch your product to get awareness?) how having music at a launch party fits into that strategy...

Those sound like big-picture, not detail-oriented, valid questions to me. Maybe you're saying that these questions are coming at the wrong stage of the discussion? I'm not a brand management consultant, but communications work here involves setting up a clear strategy at the outset (target and secondary audiences, main messages, how the medium can convey those messages) and then tiering decisions off of that.
posted by salvia at 11:53 AM on February 13

DarlingBri's suggestions are great...

Cool. Glad you found something useful there. I swear some days that at least 1/3rd of job is coming up with new and creative ways to tell clients "Yeah. No."
posted by DarlingBri at 10:51 AM on February 14