It is no secret that there is an inequality that can exist between agencies and their clients. Clients definitely have the upper hand sometimes as they pay our bills. The same inequality can exist in any relationship – from an employer/employee relationship to a marriage. One can always have more love for the other than is returned. We agencies invest so much of our lives into our clients, their brands and their people, that when a client decides to go in a different direction, it’s very hard not to take it very personally.
That being said, we all have purpose and we all have a shelf life. Our jobs as Marketers is to put everything we have into our creativity for our clients for the entire lifespan of each client relationship. Doing anything less would be leaving too much on the field. Our clients have the responsibility to their superiors of driving results. As long as we can do that for our clients, they rarely seem to care how it’s getting done, who is doing the work, or where our ideas are coming from. Of course we are all people, and therefore the interpersonal relationships have to be there and stay strong so that effective and loving communication can happen between our clients and us.
Our morale and happiness as an agency is defined by the quality of our work, our ability to feel good about what we accomplished when we leave the office on Friday, and knowing we have given it everything we’ve got. We can’t make everyone happy no matter how hard we try – to do so would be inauthentic. But we should never have any regrets about how we handled a situation, how we executed on a promise, or how we delivered results. If we do, we have failed.
Clients do have a tendency to look around, but if they trust us, we have no choice but to trust them in return and hope they do the right thing. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, but we have to keep our side of the street clean. The same can be said for us as employers. While we will, from time to time, have people on our teams looking around at other companies for better opportunities, as long as we treat our people well and give them everything we have, few will ever want to leave.
We will give you, client, everything we have got. We know you will fight for us in return.
Cheers to our clients!
