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by Andrew Lam-Po-Tang
What is the seniority of your clients within their own organisations? Has
it been climbing steadily for as long as you have been working or owning
the studio? Or do you find yourself still stuck with the same group of
assistant marketing managers, all of whom have their own personal career
development agendas?
"Going to the top," is the ideal for most designers, but do you deserve
that time? The managing director of even a medium-sized business or
division has a lot of responsibility and responsibilities. If the company
turns over $20m p.a., that works out to about $2300 in sales per hour. So
if you get an hour's worth of their time, what are you going to say that
is going to be worth $2300 per hour?
But to get back to our starting point, how do you get past the ambitious
juniors in the first place? Start by recognising that they are people
with legitimate agendas - quite a few, in fact. They are relatively new
to the professional workforce and are therefore looking for opportunities
to standout and shine. They have their own corporate guidelines to
follow, not all of which they will necessarily agree with or be able to
do anything about. They have bosses to work out, understand and please.
And finally, like most of us, they want to be able to have a personal
life (at some point!).
There is a lot a designer can do to either make meeting these agenda's
easier or harder. Rest assured that if your actions make things harder,
you're likely to be dumped in the 'too hard' basket and dealt with in a
less than considerate fashion, not because they want to be nasty, but
simply because there will be too much other stuff to deal with that
absolutely requires their full attention (like dealing with a boss who
expects them to be mindreaders).
Lot's of people talk about 'relationship marketing', but don't always
follow through. Treat your clients as colleagues - help them by passing
on as much as you know about past marketing decisions, successes and
failures. If you already have some insight into their boss's foibles,
pass it on. If they are settling into a new city or locality, give them
some personal tips on decent cafes, etc. Don't treat them like a fool if
they make a mistake or don't have all the information. In short, treat
them as people, not the 'enemy.' You can even be explicit about wanting
them to 'look good.'
Pushing the 'relationship marketing' concept even further, include them
in a mailing list that you send interesting design/marketing tidbits to,
such as press clippings on the success of design, or your own studio
newsletter. Create a channel of communication that is not dependent on
having a current project.
However, never forget that you are in a business relationship with these
people, and that the most sincere form of respect in business is payment.
By all means, do the odd favour, but don't expect them to remember
without occasionally being reminded. Try to make the favours
non-financial, otherwise they could easily make the mistake of thinking
you are conceding to them as a clever negotiator rather than a good
colleague. Don't be ashamed of admitting you have a business to run, and
that that tales money.
In time, junior clients become senior clients with trusted advisers. Plan
to be one of those advisers.
Return to Observations
AGDA Members: Discuss this article in AGDA's Business Forum.
The views expressed this article are not necessarily those of AGDA. Please note that the information in this article is the opinion of the author only. I can therefore accept no responsibility for actions taken on the basis of this information. Copyright Andrew Lam-Po-Tang (andrew@lam-po-tang com), 1998-2008. Permission is granted to freely copy this document in electronic form, or to print, for personal use. Reprinting for non-personal use will require the express permission of the author (which I will generally be very happy to give).
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