6 steps to become an indispensable asset to clients

1. Typically most agencies tend to over-price themselves. It's critical to keep one's feet on the ground and take a good hard look at the mirror and figure out what we are really worth, and how good we really look.
   
   
2. I believe if we make our clients indispensable to us in terms of understanding the job, brief, creative, turnaround time, passion and energies, everything else falls in place. Believe me, a client knows when they have a good thing going. It's a lot like a good relationship or a marriage.
   
   
3. Try and accommodate clients as far as possible and empathise with their job predicaments, deadlines etc., so they see us as an ally and not as an outsider.
   
   
4. Don't try to psyche them out. The moment we start asking for written briefs, question strategy and written communication, and we bounce it under some pretext or the other, it screws up the relationship. The more we treat them as equals, the friendlier the outcome of the relationship. The idea is to ask the right questions without trying to get into one upmanship game. I am smarter than you ......kind of thinking.
   
   
5. Treat client's money as our own. If we feel a supplier or a filmmaker or photographer is overcharging, let's negotiate further irrespective of whether client feels it's OK or not. In a lot of circumstances, we have brought costs down on agency's will and not because of clien't pressure. When you start doing this and the client acknowledges it, then start looking at the agency differently. They stop thinking that we are out to make a quick buck out of them.
   
   
6. Lastly, if we make our clients our friends, they stick with us longer. Bond with them outside work - over drinks and food. That helps too since most clients would love to hang out with their agency.
   
   Posted by Kaushik