Common Knowledge | Wondering something?
Tips for Client Services
Be Handy, Solve Problems
Use your problem solving skills to solve problems that are in front of you.
Taylor’s not handy and is nervous about what might happen to his house if he needs someone handy during this time. Currently, because of the angle of the foundation, their bedroom door doesn’t close. This makes it awkward for Taylor and his wife to have hangout time. The other night, Taylor got tired of it, and went and got a new flathead screwdriver and used it to dig out a new lock hole. That, plus a big screw, fixed the problem.
Initially, Taylor had a narrative that he needed someone else to fix the problem, and so it endured for a year. The end of that problem was swift once he got into the right mindset. Right now, we’re all plumbers, electricians, web developers, ADmission coaches, phone salespeople, carpenters, data scientists, whatever we need to be to solve problems.
Help Clients Get Organized
Look into all facets of your client’s strategy and processes to determine what needs organizational help.
Arshi had a client who had an awful asset management process. It made her job incredibly challenging. Claire, Spencer, and Michael sat with Arshi for 30 minutes and walked her through asset management. Arshi passed the information on to the client and together they did a full asset reorganization on that basis. Below are the notes used to help improve the client’s asset management.
Creative Asset Organization Notes
(Claire, Spencer, Mike)
- Organize by year + by season
- Example for MP: product on white, studio, and street
- Photo / Video (could make it quicker on my end to pull assets this way → img vs. vid)
- That way you can tell them → we need more like this year/szn/asset type
- CTC defaults to Box (we could get on it)
- Google Drive vs. Box vs. Dropbox
- Pro would be Dropbox because you can add comments but the 3 are pretty much the same
- Would always recommend a DAM (digital asset management system) because it makes everything easier to sort → systems include Bynder, Canto, Frame.io (more specialized for video)
- Szn/collection/initiative/any other specifics that would separate it from anything else
- Naming:
- Initiative/Spring2021/slideshow/lifestyle/specific angle
- Giant initiative to something more granular (that way if you need to look up for an entire initiative you can do that quickly)
- Example for MP: product on white, studio, and street
Dreaming Clients
Dreaming language enables the client to have a free-flowing conversation about their vision. We want to encourage our clients to dream big and let us take care of the rest.
Use the Vehicle of the Story
When you’re communicating data to clients, opt to tell stories instead of simply presenting numbers. Both analytical data and storytelling will contribute to the clients understanding of the broader picture. Even if your client is very data-focused, use the vehicle of story to help move them to a place of true understanding.
Recently, one of Luke’s clients pulled up YoY CPM increase, which derailed their meeting and conversation because he wasn’t prepared to discuss that topic. Through research over the next week, Jimmy found the answer in their account.
Luke had to decide how to present the data, which he could have given as a simple formula. Instead, he told the story behind their CPMs. In the end, he told the story of improved performance in spite of the CPM numbers, and his clients were compelled.
Keep Communication Simple
Keep communication with clients simple and direct. Get to the point so you can eliminate any possible confusion.
Matthew Picou learned this week to keep it simple. As a Paid Search Buyer, he writes a lot of notes about account performance. We’re looking at these complexities all the time and often assume that everyone else already understands the complexities and that’s why they’re asking questions. What they’re actually asking for is more simplicity so they can understand what you’re trying to communicate.
This general strategy applies to problem-solving too, breaking things down to the simplest question to get the most direct answer.
Connect Diversity to Client Dreams
At CTC we live in an interesting dichotomy between how we pursue dreams, and how we help clients pursue dreams.
Arshiya has been working to connect with clients on this deeper level. She discovered that most clients coming on board were really just interested in fixing their scrappy marketing approach.
She’s come up with a list of questions to drive discussion of mission, values, and diversity and inclusion in her onboarding conversations. This has been powerful for exploring ways businesses can lean into these topics, and create a more trusting human connection:
- What is your brand’s vision statement? (could include vision, tag line, etc.)
- Does your brand have a social mission? If yes, what is it? If no, would you like to?
- Is diversity a part of your brand’s current and/or aspirational messaging and creative?
- Has your brand participated in social issues via either paid or organic media in 2020? (i.e. assets/messaging around Covid, Black Lives Matter, climate change, the election, etc. etc.). Why did you/didn’t you?
- If yes, what worked well/hasn’t worked well? Where did you get stuck, if at all?
- Do you see your brand as part of a broader social conversation, and if so, how can CTC help you navigate that? Tell us anything here!
Lean into the Community
What’s the best way to get to know your clients? Get to know their community. Understand their language, background, and how they interact with their employees and consumers. Immersing yourself into your client’s community will give you the view from their perspective.
Lynn: It’s not enough to just know your client’s product and business, it’s important to also learn about their customer’s community and lean into how to talk to (in their language) that customer. A brand isn’t a brand without a community.
Ask Questions Relentlessly
It’s better to be safe than sorry. Ask questions relentlessly so that you have a complete understanding of the entirety of the project. Never put yourself in a position where you don’t have all the information, or you wish that you were more upfront about all the questions you had. Once you start asking these questions, you’ll pretty quickly get to the heart of any issues that may arise.
Keep an eye out for where even successful brands might make mistakes, especially on new projects, and don’t be afraid to turn those things around. Don’t assume that your clients know everything you know, otherwise they wouldn’t be coming to us for our expertise.
Share the Good Sheet
A lot of work goes into the development of our shared sheets for housing and analyzing data. We have to fight the urge to have an individual experience among the collective group. We build shared tools so that they can be accessed by all of our colleagues, so stick with them.
Give Back to the Community
Use your creativity and think of ways to give back to the community. Sharing knowledge and ideas within the community can have a positive impact.
Adrianne A reached out to a client regarding some excellent performance to ask how they supported this new product launch holistically. They sent over a high level recap of what they do across all channels when launching a new product! She then shared those learnings with all of the GS’s in slack!
- This further strengthened the client relationship and emphasized the collaboration of CTC as a holistic partner. We noticed a win, called it out to them publicly, and asked to learn more – clients love feeling like they have something of value to add to us as well. It positions them as experts and we get to futher emphasize our expertise as well!
- She supported composability through company wide knowledge share! Other GS’s were able to take that note and share it with their clients to provide additional value add and communication!
- This led to an idea that will literally touch every client in the company through an awesome client-only marketing endeavor that will help clients prep and support new product launches!!
Be Clear and Kind with Clients
Sometimes we can be over friendly in an effort to establish a friendly connection with a client or vice versa. A better approach is to be assertive, clear, kind and act in a way that characterizes our work ethic.
A client called Taylor after one of our weekly meetings and had feedback for Taylor around creative and the interaction. He felt that the call was too friendly, just felt like people chatting, and that not much was accomplished.
The key learning is that your client’s perspective may always be significantly different than your own. They thought we were nice, but they also apparently felt like they couldn’t give us feedback (because they went around to Taylor).
Taylor’s challenge to us with everything like managing up moments and client feedback are there for a reason. We set up channels for feedback intentionally because it’s difficult to get good and substantive feedback.
Always be clear on what your plans and expectations are. Also, be kind when it comes to explaining any positive or negative outcomes or anything that didn’t meet expectations.
Naveen was reminded this week how important Clear is Kind is to client relationships. It’s shown up in manager training and ADmission.
Naveen has been making a practice of talking about what he will be executing each week and setting clear expectations. Then he revisits those things the next week and candidly talks about what did or didn’t happen and why. Clients have responded really well to that format.
Know thy Client
Take time to understand your client, this way you will know what to expect from them in all types of situations.
Chase S and Kayla M have done a phenomenal job re-building trust with a transferred client that, I think, may result in a client who is literally in opt out negotiations to revoke that request and stay on!!
- Chase proactively offered a 1×1 meeting with the client to get to know her on a human level, get to know her concerns on a deeper level, and establish a connection early on. The client LOVED this and messaged me afterwards to make sure I knew how grateful she was and how much she likes him.
- He has done an excellent job communicating daily with the client and touching on the specific pain points that she has faced every day and provided some great solutions.
- He has made an effort to point out wins not only on CTC owned channels but client owned channels which has leveled up the positivity in the relationship and emphasized collaboration (the client’s main request).
- Kayla went above and beyond today by creating a custom presentation to highlight top creative performers AND walk the client through a giant backlog of ideas for new angles that could work for paid, email, and organic social!! Her energy is literally infectious and I haven’t seen the client this hyped in a really long time!
- Chase has also sent a fun surprise and delight to the client to her hotel in Austin where she is vacationing this week!
- All of this may potentially result in $12-$15k/month saved!!
Sometimes though we do need to bring in all the troops. Luke had a surprise moment with Native where he learned they would have zero access to existing ads in the accounts. Right away they made a plan, brought all hands-on deck including Iain, Alex, Matt, Jon, Gian, Jarrett and others. They went through all of the ads in the Native account since 2019 and mapped out 65 new ads they would need to create, as well as a plan and timeline. They presented it to the client.
Leverage Expertise
If you’re an expert, why not show it? Leveraging our expertise will win over our client’s and show what we are truly capable of.
Naveen is working on an asset manipulation project for Jetson, who has a fully built-out creative team (many members and roles). He learned this week that he really is the expert and stepped into that role. He got some feedback from their art designers, but he pushed back with an expert hypothesis based on experience, and they were happy to have him go ahead and test it.
Regarding his dream – we’re able to do much more as a community than when we try to do things ourselves. Brendyn and Reo are helping him with illustration, and leveraging that expertise is going to allow him to do much more than he anticipated.
Communicate vision- Communicating in terms of what is versus what could be is the best way to get people stoked on an idea or an opportunity. Luke had an opportunity to practice this in a presentation for Growth Guide training, and the client was deeply impressed.
Recommend our Tools
Sometimes we’re hesitant to recommend tools that seem basic to us, but even what seems basic to us may be world-changing for people who don’t have the level of experience and expertise we do.
We have a 50% conversion rate for free trials for ADmission.
3 times this week, ADrianne has heard how “mind blowing” the profit analysis sheet is. Not getting that tool into free trialers hands in the first seven days is probably costing us.
Be calm, Collected, and Competent
At CTC we encourage you to always expect the unexpected. We encourage you to be calm and ready when problems arise and offer the best and most reliable support to ensure a positive outcome.
Is there a conflict between being calm and having a sense of urgency? Kyle recently worked through this question when responding to client urgency with anxiety instead of calm.
A paramedic shows up on the scene of a heart-attack, and they have the obligation to be both calm and urgent. They must respond rapidly, but they must know where to go and what to do with great clarity.
This is how we want to respond to challenges clients face. We understand the seriousness and urgency, but we’ve been here before and know what to do.
Kailyn L Has put in an exorbonant amount of extra work to help our new client Lifeforce’s onboarding experience run smoothly. We’ve run into a few issues with statlas integration and supermetrics barriers but she has overcome them all and kept the client looped in the entire time!
- She identified a potential roadblock (statlas integration and supermetric integration barrier) early on and immediately brought management and Kwa in to problem solve! This is resulting in a new API integration which may benefit other future clients as well!
- She immediately notified the client that they will have a unique onboarding experience and split their map meeting in two to keep the creative deliverable timeline on track while providing additional space for us to problem solve for forecasting and strategy
- She has offered additional meetings weekly with the client to keep them in the loop and make sure we are all synced regarding shared success goals
- This has resulted in not only a smooth onboarding experience but some of the highest level of trust between a new client and growth team right out the gate! Smooth BD to GT transitions is a huge focus for all of us and she has exemplified how to do that well!
Don’t fall for the Casual Heuristic
Our brain takes shortcuts when it tries to attribute a cause to whatever we’re seeing happen. Much of the time that snap analysis is wrong.
Luke used to think that when he brought clients performance data, he had to identify the single cause, or the client wouldn’t get value from the conversation.
Lately, he’s been experimenting with not assigning a singular cause to events to see if clients will accept it. Recently, when clients asked him to explain a specific performance drop-off, he decided to get outside of one issue and instead present an array of potential solutions. They love it. They don’t need a false sense of security of a single cause to trust us as guides.
Don’t Underestimate our Unique Expertise
At CTC we believe our expertise is of great value and that our advice can be beneficial for all types of companies.
Recently Taylor and Matthew had a chance to talk to Kellogg’s about navigating the DTC space. It’s always remarkable when we realize that our expertise is unique and valuable, and that even huge established brands might need our help to move into eCommerce.
Toss the Template
Sometimes it’s within your best interest to toss the generic template and offer a more customized approach for the client.
In Garrett’s scouting report with West and Willow, he went against the template pretty aggressively and focused on the client’s dream as the central theme of the report.
This is why W&W hired us in the first place, so focusing on it makes sense. In these reports, often everyone wants to know what other people’s numbers are, so being prepared with that data to answer those questions is super important as well.
Respond Rapidly to World Events
Today, consumers don’t only invest in a product, but they invest in a company identity as well. Companies need to stay on top of current events and respond to significant issues going on in the world to stay relevant. Using world events in your marketing strategy will help you capitalize on a significant moment, that can help you attract further attention and keep customers loyal.
Igloo, in the last two or three weeks, we’ve been trying to close their new contract. There’s been a ton of cost cutting on their end. As the global situation has deteriorated, BD got in touch with Andy about doing some kind of offer around giving back to the people helping fight COVID 19. The original offer was the $10 from every playmate cooler would go to the CDC relief fund. Instead, Igloo decided to take all proceeds from Playmate purchases and donate them to the CDC relief fund.
They pretty much gave us a set of ads, and we’ve spent around $1000 at a 3, with prospecting at a 2.3.
The thing Andy is most proud of is our team’s response and excitement around getting this offer, messaging, copy, and creative spun out within 6 hours of Igloo getting in touch with us.
Differentiate CTC by Providing Unique and Useful Knowledge
Our unique knowledge can make us stand out in a crowd. Always apply our expertise to any given situation and see what kind of positive outcome it can have.
The report that Cherene and Aaron O pulled together about the impact of coronavirus was really just intended to provide some comfort to our clients. Very quickly, we became the public authority on the topic. Every challenge is an opportunity to differentiate ourselves from the competition, and this one generated our largest website traffic day of all time.
Document Everything
It’s always best to have something to look back on. Have documentation and notes for everything, that way there is no confusion between parties.
While working with Ovira, the client ended up reaching out to lots of different people for different things, and everyone on the receiving end was, for good reason, agreeing to those client demands. We weren’t centrally recording those requests and commitments, and we got to a place where deadlines were being missed because there wasn’t clarity on commitments and expectations. The key to avoiding this kind of situation in the future is to send extremely clear follow-up emails with people and due dates attached to action items.
A very similar situation happened with our client Max Bone. We set an initial ROAS at 1.6, and later Max Bone decided that they wanted to scale as rapidly as possible at a break-even target, but that agreement was only made over the phone. The client later came back with the original contract, and a game of he-said she-said ensued. This unfortunate and frustrating situation could have been avoided with careful documentation.
30/60/90 Setup Goals
Setting up 30/60/90 goals is important prior to starting your project. Taking this longer-term holistic view of the path to success allows you to build foundations, take early losses, and really be methodical.
Matthew P was trying to find instant wins for Dog ID, a new product from one of our clients. Like the new kid on the block, you have to prove yourself before you can play with the big boys.
So, look at this from a 30/60/90 perspective: what is this account going to do at 30, 60, or 90 days? The victory is in progress, not in the immediate outcome. People get a lot of external messaging about the pace at which they’re supposed to win, we can help them get perspective.
Make an Impression
Make an impression on every person you meet and establish a relationship. Iain has received some remarkable emails from candidates he’s been interviewing for the creative department. Folks we’ve let down, have written back to say thank you for the respect, feedback, and time.
On the other side: there’s a partner from a SASS company that CTC has worked with in the past who now wants to come work with us. He was impressed by the questions, assessment, EQ, and clients he heard about and witnessed in the interview process.
Take care with those relationships, you never know!
Chase your Values
It’s important to determine your values within a project and go for them. Josh: In the midst of choosing my dream for TMYD I was going through my values with Tom. One of my values is creativity and I was going through what that means and why it’s important to me. Despite the fact that I have a dream now, what I’m going right now for my job is right in line with my values.
When things get really intense during the holiday season, remember that you’re here for a reason and chase your values.
Embrace Alternative Work Rhythms
Working from home can present many different challenges. Ash Thorpe’s talk a few weeks back really helped Nana think about when she is the most productive and creative. In the WFH setting it’s tempting to sit at your computer all day long and wait for creativity, or to be distracted.
Nana has found that she’s creative in the morning, and sometimes creative at night. She’s really trying to stay true to taking a significant midday break to reset her mind. She also takes a break when her husband gets home to have dinner and go on a walk. If she needs to get back to work later, it feels ok because of those breaks.
Know the Why Behind Choices
Concept is king. If you don’t have a why behind your creative choices, it doesn’t matter how good the implementation is, the quality will still miss the mark for the intended purpose.
We’ve heard it said many times, but quality really is much more important than rushing product out the door. In a recent project for ClimbOn, we spent all week iterating before getting the product out to the client, and let them know it would take a little longer than anticipated. In the end, they were so enthusiastic about the end product that it overcame the delay. Taking the time and really thinking about what you’re doing will always take you further.