Matt Rogers emailed me a about great article on best practices for companies using agencies by Sam Decker. The article is called 6 Best Practices for Agencies. The article summarizes some of Sam’s experiences using 10 or more agencies and technology service providers. This (combined with Matt’s suggestion) got me to thinking about what makes a good client for an agency or consultant.

Alignment with Vision

A good agency will spend some time up front learning about the client’s vision for their work before they even pitch. A good client will afford them some of their time. Agencies that go in and try to roll out their entire tool belt without a sense for what the client wants are destined to either fail because they came in too expensive, or scare the client because they thought they were only looking for a customer segmentation exercise and not a full re-branding of the organization with a new TV campaign, a CRM database and a media optimization tool that tells you how to exactly spend your ad bucks. Giving the client a sense for what you are going to propose before you propose anything will allow them to give you feedfront before you spend valuable time putting your pitch together. In other words, be careful not to be that eager puppy with the sock in your mouth who is just happy to be playing tug-of-war with anyone.

They Seek Partnership

Trust is not something that happens overnight, but you want to increase responsibility and data sensitivity as your time passes and the relationship evolves. If your agency is a strategic think-tank, then you want to find a client that shares information like

• Key Performance Indicators
• Past performance
• Campaign results
• Customer data
• Product information
• Profitability data

That data thing is really important! If you are a tactical execution or delivery shop, then make sure that your client is sharing their brand, mission and vision with your team so they can make decisions as if they were spending their own money. Having a client who does not share the big picture indicates a lack of trust and an unwillingness to partner. Tread carefully.

Involvement

The client sponsor should be a part of the agency team and vice versa. Be very leery of situations where the person who ran the pitch process and brought your team on board is going to be “too busy” to participate in the actual projects. Make sure that they assign people with appropriate decision making responsibility.

They need your help

Projects are great, but in order to form an ongoing relationship where an agency can make a difference, you want to seek a client with a recurring budget for consulting. It takes time to iron out the kinks in working together. A client should be willing to give you at least 6 months to figure out how you best work together and to provide them results that make a real difference in their bottom line. That said, your agency’s goal should be to start adding value on day one and continue until the end of the relationship. Your client is paying top dollar for your services. Earn them.

Trust

The client trusts that the agency will deliver and allows the agency leeway to execute their best ideas. What good are your ideas if they end up being diluted of tossed out?

Notice I didn’t say: Knows exactly what they want. Agency folk often converse about the varying degrees of client vision. Most clients are paying for fresh, new ideas, not someone who only does exactly what they tell them to do. If that was the case, what would they need agencies for?

What else makes a good client?