Brave enough to give your client what they didn’t ask for?

Picture the situation.

You work at a brand or marketing agency, and your client comes to you with a problem to solve. But they already have the solution in mind: ‘It’s simple – we just need a new strapline / a new campaign / more ad spend!’

And sometimes, they’re right – the obvious solution can indeed be what’s needed in some scenarios. But sometimes, the solution identified is not necessarily the best way to fix the issue.

So what do you do?

Agencies are hardwired to be helpful, and in a fast-paced business environment where you need to deliver results quickly, it can be tempting to just take the brief and sprint your way to delivering what the client has asked for.

But doing this puts your reputation for delivering quality solutions with real impact at stake – and ultimately, you risk sacrificing a potential long-term relationship with the client in order to avoid some short-term awkwardness.

As interested outsiders, it can be easier for agencies to take a step back and look at a problem from a different angle. We owe it to our clients to flag when we feel they’re rushing towards a solution without considering the issue properly. This isn’t always straightforward, especially when an idea has momentum within the business.

A few of the Blue Feathers team have completed the Marketing Week Mini MBA led by Mark Ritson, and one of the case studies he uses is Levi’s Tailored Classics. In summary, a young enthusiastic Levi’s marketer is looking for brand extension opportunities and decides there’s a market for a low-priced, off the peg suit from Levi’s. Having decided that this is the solution he ploughs on, determined to see the project through, despite the warning bells from customer focus groups and others who question whether Levi’s is credible in the formalwear market. The product launch goes ahead and – surprise, surprise – is a catastrophic failure.

Challenging clients – or indeed internal colleagues – constructively can be a delicate task.

Tips for how to challenge clients:

1.       It’s easier to challenge if you’ve already built an honest and constructive working relationship. At Blue Feathers, we try and work as an extension of our client teams – as thinking partners and collaborators, rather than consultants.

2.      Prepare thoroughly – make sure you have the necessary information and evidence to support your perspective, so you can put forward a well-reasoned, coherent case. Using input from neutral third parties, e.g. customer focus groups, can help to depersonalise the argument you’re making.

3.      Focus on solutions, and frame your challenge positively – instead of ‘This won’t work because…’, use language like ‘I think there could be a better way. Have you considered this alternative?’.

4.     Be empathetic – acknowledge the other person’s point of view, and be mindful of the context they’re working in and the pressures they may be facing. This is especially important if what you’re suggesting means additional work or a potential delay to the project.

5.     Offer your support to help sell your alternative suggestion to internal stakeholders – this can sometimes be the most challenging aspect of a project rethink.

 

If you’re willing to be brave – and your client is too – you can deliver far more long-term value to the business than if you focus solely on responding to the short-term task you’ve been given.

 

If you’d like to find out how we can help you be brave in business, or understand a problem more deeply, please reach out to us at Blue Feathers via susie@bluefeathers.co.uk

Author: Jessie Woelke

Jessie is a brand development specialist with extensive experience working internationally within advertising, brand and retail, including Ogilvy & Mather, Unilever, GSK, Weleda and Tesco. She is also an entrepreneur, with her own start-up brand in the mass market in Europe, so she practices what she preaches! Well known for her belief in the power of a great brand, Jessie enjoys nothing more than developing and managing consumer brands, working closely with clients from when there is just a speck of an idea through to getting the finished product or idea out in the world.