Jan 22, 2020
Summary:
Bob Hutchins, Brad Ayres, and
Ken Ott discuss the art and struggle of getting client feedback,
giving client feedback, and receiving client feedback in an agency.
As you peel back the layers there is so much under this seemingly
simple task.
Resources
Mentioned:
Top 3 Curtain Pulls in
this episode:
- Establishing mutual respect between yourself
and your clients is so important for getting valuable feedback from
them. Toxic, fear-based relationships DO NOT WORK!
- Let
go of your EGO! In order to truly create value from feedback, you
have to be prepared to take hard truths and turn them into
actionable improvements. Don’t let hurt feelings get in the way of
true communication!
- The
ONE thing every client should know about motivating people-
GRATITUDE. Unsolicited encouragement or positive feedback is the
magic way to get waht you want. It will ultimately drive your team
/ agency to do better and work even harder.
About The
Guys:
Bob Hutchins: Founder of BuzzPlant, a digital agency that he
ran from from 2000 -2017. He is also the author of 3 books. More on
Bob:
Brad Ayres: Founder of Anthem Republic, an award-winning ad
agency. Brad’s knowledge has led some of the biggest brands in the
world. Originally from Detroit, Brad is an OG in the ad agency
world and has the wisdom and scars to prove it. Currently that
knowledge is being applied to his boutique agency. More on
Brad:
Ken Ott: Co-Founder and Chief Growth Rebel of
Metacake, an Ecommerce Growth Team
for some of the world’s most
influential brands with a mission to Grow Brands That Matter. Ken
is also an author, speaker, and was nominated for an Emmy for his
acting on the Metacake Youtube Channel
(not really). More on
Ken:
Show
Notes:
[1:21] Bob Asks: How do we solicit value and use client
feedback reviews?
- “Can
be a real positive thing… learn what is going on in the client’s
head and better improve your creativity and service that you
deliver.”
- “Can
also be a very controversial thing… how far do you let clients be
in control of that type of feedback? And do you have mutual
feedback for client relationships?”
[2:24] Brad Ayres Responds
- “I
look at communication based on subtext more than what they’re
saying… tone of voice, body language. 80% of communication is body
language.”
- What
about when body language isn’t an option? “You talk to a client… on
the phone, they’re bringing a lot of other stresses that have
nothing to do with you, but they can take it out on you… the
feedback loop is a difficult thing.”
[4:30] Ken discusses the importance of trust-building
elements
- between agency and clients/ client and
customers. The traditional relationship is that it would be rude or
disrespectful to ask a client for feedback- what are other
perspectives of this relationship?
[6:00] Brad on asking clients for
feedback: “The first thing
they ask is ‘What would you like us to say about
you?’”
- “I
know this sounds strange, but we actually write the quote…. And
have them look at it and go, ‘Yeah that’s perfect, that’s what I
would say,’ or they can tweak it if they want to… we’ve seen the
best results because I feel like otherwise it’s an assignment that
we’re giving them.”
- “To
get a quote, that’s more of a promotional thing. But to really get
client feedback has been really difficult for us.”
[8:11] Brad: “What I’m trying to do all the time is trying
to understand the temperature and pulse of our clients.”
- As a
very empathetic person, it is easy to have empathy for your
clients, and for your client’s customers. Especially when building
a marketing strategy for them!
[9:20] “...it’s a two way street and you want that
mutual respect. And that’s
really what is hard to build- this mutual trust where they’re
giving back to the agency and giving feedback that is
helpful.”
- At
the same time, you’re giving them something that is very valuable
and transparency means discussing when things are not working well-
like any balanced and healthy relationship, having that open
communication is key to be effective.
[10:08] Ken: “The key thing that you said is relationship…
it’s not easy to build all the time.”
- “...we go to great lengths to produce work that
is quality and successful… we’re super high attention to detail and
have a lot of integrity and we expect those same things from our
clients- not because it’s arbitrary, but because those are things
that are important to get to those results that they
need.”
- You
may run into clients who don’t agree, or don’t think it should be
that way.
- “The
only way to get a great result out of a partnership is to have a
good partnership, which comes from some sort of relationship- there
needs to be mutual respect.”
[11:40] Brad: “I always go back to the Jerry Maguire quote-
‘Help me help you’... sometimes you feel like your client isn’t
helping you. They’re actually not an advocate for you. They’re the
adversary. And sometimes it can feel like…. Even your employees
start feeling like… the client is the bad guy.”
- The
feeling of “they’re not happy, they’re never happy, they’ll never
be happy” can be prevalent.
[12:30] Sometimes clients are difficult and you work
with them for 6 months and reach a breaking
point.
- “All
of a sudden something breaks where you start to make them look like
superstars in their business internally and they start to switch…
they become more trustworthy of you, all of a sudden they become a
different person and they’re like ‘Wow we’re going through a tough
spot and we didn’t even know when we first started working with
you.’”
- As an
agency, you have gone through that tough spot with them and helped
them through it and the trust begins to build. In this case, the
question is “How far are you willing to go?”
- How
long do you keep working before you say enough is enough we can’t
keep doing this, this client is a really bad fit for us- and when
do you say okay let’s keep showing them love and working hard for
this.
[14:00] Bob: “In my past… I’ll tell you what I did wrong…
the degree to which you will put up with a difficult client is many
times in direct proportion to the amount of money that client was
paying us.”
- “So
if they’re a small to medium sized client, it’s easy to be like
‘I’m going to fire you,’ because it’s not worth the headache. If
they’re 15, 20, 30% of your revenue for the year, you’re going to
hesitate more.”
- When
you “stick it out” with a client for too long and allow them to
enter into almost abusive relationships with your employees- that’s
letting them stay for too long.
- “What
you’ve done is you’ve destroyed the relationship and trust of your
employees- and that’s irreparable.”
[16:43] Ken discusses Metacake’s philosophy on difficult
clients:
- “We
have a strict no bullying policy- we don’t allow that to go on,
because there are people on the other side of this thing. We work
to operate with utmost respect and we expect the same in return.
And so… sometimes the way of serving everybody is by, in love, not
allowing consistently rude and disrespectful behavior that is
hurting your team to go on.”
[18:02] “One
tip- I’m extremely big in working towards not making decisions
based on fear. Fear-based decision making is the worst kind of
decision making.”
[19:23] Brad: “I do find myself making decisions based on
fear and fear of losing a client, fear of losing the ability to
support our payroll, fear to support my personal
income.”
- “I
think there’s a certain amount of fear that is healthy, but a lot
of times I’ve lived in the unhealthy part… and I try to combat
that.”
[20:15] Ken discusses conditioning yourself to not make
decisions based on fear.
- It’s
a choice, it doesn’t just happen.
[21:15] Brad discusses the natural anxiety associated with
determining how happy your client is- you are acutely aware of
their expectations in regards to ROI.
- #1-
are we making the clients money? Are we a value? Then #2, is the
direct customer being taken care of? Are their needs being taken
care of. Human vs human means true feedback without emotions
getting in the way is nearly impossible.
- “And
so for me, it always brings a sense of anxiety when I don’t know-
when I have no clarity and I feel I don’t have a strong feeling, I
start getting anxious.”
[23:55] Bob speaks on creating false narratives for your
client- “You’re trying to
project your own thoughts into their head and say, ‘They must be
feeling this’ and you begin to create narratives.”
- “The
other side of the coin is to be willing to say ‘how are we doing?
Rate us, give us feedback, what are we doing wrong? What are we
doing right? That can create a lot of anxiety depending on your
personality type, because that can potentially hit your ego really
hard, right? So the trick is… am I going to live out of our ego or
are we going to live out of our soul?”
- “A
bad day for your ego is a really good day for your soul. So, I’m
going to train myself to say ‘I’m going to ask them to be honest
and transparent, even if it hurts,’”
[25:00] “One
questions I always ask is how would you- if you were to hire us-
what would you consider success a year from now? How would you
define success. And 9 times out of 10, they will stop for a second
and say that’s a really good question.”
- This
allows you to get honest feedback on hard expectations from your
client, and also gives you the opportunity to address any
unrealistic expectations.
- Record this interaction, write it down- this
helps to eliminate some of the unknown.
[29:00] Brad asks “What if you’re working with a marketing
director and a CEO as well, but their visions are not aligned.
Maybe you’ve worked with one for longer than the other… if you
satisfy one, you’ll actually not be satisfying the other… who do
you serve? Your bosses boss, when you have a rapport? Or do you
serve your direct contact?”
[30:15] Ken: “As an agency owner, you don’t realize the
level of responsibility that you might actually have…”
[31:06] Brad discusses “showing them the beach”
meaning, show them the results that
they’re both seeking so as to contrast their visions for them. Show
them that they aren’t aligned and let them say ‘Yes this is my
vision’ or ‘No this isn’t what I want’, let them connect those dots
on their own.
[32:20] Bob asks “Do either of you guys have a process for
getting client feedback? And if you do, how do you implement that
feedback int productive ways within your
organization?
[32:36] Ken: “We use a few different methods- a survey
midway through that we try to get someone to fill out and then
discuss in-person.”
- Long-term engagements are relationships that
are trying to get to a unified goal.
- Discussing with clients that they have a
responsibility to follow through, “We aren’t you and we can’t be
you- we can only do our best to help you get there.”
- By
nature of a long-term engagement you don’t want feedback at the
end, but throughout so that you can adjust for their
success.
- “You
want that feedback, and then also you need to have your metrics for
success that are mutually agreed upon.”
[36:00] Brad asks “What if you feel like your client doesn’t even
value filling that out for you? Do you press hard into them and say
‘You need to fill this out, or do you finally just say, you know
what, you’re just not going to be able to give us any feedback and
therefore we can’t help you if there’s an issue.”
- Ken:
“...if you can frame it in a way that allows them to know that the
feedback allows us to be better, to adjust and serve you
better…”
[37:52] Bob
stresses the importance of HOW you ask for feedback. “The Google
review is a powerful way for you to let the world know what you
think of our team and our company. This helps promote our unique
business model, therefore, is priceless to us.”
- This
is putting the power back in their hands- it’s all in “the
ask.”
[39:40] Ken talks about another strategy:
“If you serve a higher purpose,
you’re in a much greater position of strength. When you say, Okay
this thing is not just here to generate some money, it’s here for a
purpose and it’s fulfilling that purpose and we’re pursuing that
purpose and that purpose is valuable and beneficial to the world…
that helps on the fear-based side of things a lot and the strength
side of things.”
- Client video testimonials- are a weird concept
that aren’t often very passionate and energetic.
- “We
talk about Growing Brands that Matter- what if we do a
podcast-style video towards the end of the project when the
relationship has been established. So you tell them ‘Your brand is
a brand that matters, and it’s important. Let’s sit down and
discuss that the purpose of it would be to help other people on the
journey that you’re on.’”
- Those
mindset changes that allow them to open up and talk about their
challenges and victories are invaluable.
[44:00] Brad: Having clients on your Podcast, in a video with
you, they become a true cheerleader for your
agency.
- It
builds a relationship that allows them to see past “I’m spending X
amount of dollars on one X amount of return”, and instead see you
as real people that really care about them and their
brand.
[45:22] Bob on the psychology of internal/external
reactions.
- “If
you have a client that you’re not happy with, they’re always
complaining and giving you negative reviews or being a problem
client- You’ve got to step back and instead of taking it
personally, you have to realize… Nine times out of Ten they’re
simply mirroring what’s going on in their own psyche. So whatever
fear you have, remember… there’s a good chance that they’re just
mirroring what’s going on inside of them and to be able to be
present in the moment and… try to decipher what’s really going
on.”
- Getting to a point where you can look at a
review and say “Am I mature enough and wise enough to say there’s
something else going on here and I can’t take it
personally.”
- Being
able to come before your team and say “Okay we got some really
negative feedback, but here’s what I think it going on. We have to
own this. But then there’s some other stuff that maybe is not
really what’s going on with us.”
[47:45] Ken: “We can only control ourselves- what are we
doing and going to do at an excellent level?”
- Obviously we want to align our happiness AND
the happiness of our clients- but that isn’t always the case. And
in those situations, it isn’t our job as an agency to bring that
person happiness. That’s not part of our job description. No one
can make someone else happy. Ultimately you can only control what
you can control and that is how you act and the work you produce.
On those fronts, we run HARD for our clients.
- “It
takes the pressure off of you, it takes the anxiety and kind of
egocentric side of it away when you realize that they are people,
they have good days and they have bad days.” And it’s not always
your job to make their day good!
[49:33] Bob asks: “Do you guys have a process to regularly sit
down with your team or your staff and go through these reviews-
positive or negative- do you sit down and process it? What’s the
value for your whole team?”
- Brad:
“If it’s constructive feedback, that’s definitely something we want
to do. Or if it’s feedback because you were all on a conference
call with a client and she wasn’t very nice.”
- We
want to create an atmosphere that isn’t just a time for my team to
bellyache and complain, or develop a negative sentiment around the
client. We want to be intentionally constructive with helping our
business AND their business.
[52:45] Brad gives clients a “bat phone” number, for use
in emergencies when they
feel like nobody on your team is hearing them. Allow them the
opportunity to reach out so you can meet them halfway and get the
communication going. Use your experience and people-reading skills
to your advantage.
[55:23] Brad: “give people props- even if they’re doing what
you expect, still give them props. Because what it does is it
empowers them to do an even better job.”
[56:32] Ken: The ONE thing that magically can motivate
people:
- GRATITUDE. “When people give you unsolicited
positive feedback, it can go so much farther than all the negative
feedback.”
- “As a
leader, the way you motivate someone is not by only beating them
down. That doesn’t help you get to where you want to be… Don’t hold
back your frustrations and negative feedback, but balance it in a
way that gets you to your goal… you need to give them positive
feedback and tell them when they’re doing really, really great. Do
more of this, do less of this, this was okay, but it can be done
better.”
[59:00] Ken: “Think about when your clients give you
gratefulness, how much more are you willing to go above and
beyond.”
[1:00:05] Bob discusses being genuine:
“The key I think is being genuine…
look for opportunities to be genuine, to really be human and
engaged and empathetic with your team member or your
client.”
- Model
the way that you’d like for them to treat you and you will
hopefully see that in return.