An account person’s job is to get the work done. But another part of that job is to focus on the client’s goals and what else the client can be doing to achieve those goals. Sometimes, those ideas that we take our clients don’t have anything to do with the agency.
It might be about distribution or pricing or something else. That’s us being a good partner, but a subset of the ideas that we should regularly take to our clients to help them accomplish their goals would also generate additional revenue for the agency. It might be putting more gasoline on a fire or something we already do. It might be trying something different.
It might be beta testing something with AI. Doesn’t really matter what it is. But your account person’s job is to know the client well enough that they can prescribe other marketing activities or other business activities that will help the client accomplish their goals.
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Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute this week coming to you from Syracuse, New York.
You know, one of the things that often comes up in our AE Bootcamps and also in our conversations with agency owners, is sort of the disconnect between your account service people and you when it comes to understanding what their job is. You know, the word sales person or sales is often sort of a dirty word inside an agency. A lot of people are like, I don't want to sell. I want to just help the clients.
Don't disagree with that. But that doesn't mean we can't upsell our current clients. And it doesn't mean that that's not actually part of your AE’s job.
Your account service people should be able to grow their book of business so the entirety of how many of our clients they serve, whether it's 1 or 10, whatever that dollar amount is at the beginning of the year, their job, underline job, their job is to grow that book of business by 10%. So if they're managing a half $1 million of AGI by the end of the year, that half a million should grow to $550,000. That's their job. That's what they're getting paid to do. And the reason why they're getting paid to do that is not just for the sales, but it's also because part of the way we keep clients and we keep them happy, and we remind them of our value, is to keep bringing them new ideas and new ways for them to accomplish their goals.
So an account person's job is – part of that job – is to certainly get the work done. But another part of that job is to focus on the client's goals and what the – what else the client can be doing to achieve those goals. Sometimes those ideas that we take our clients aren't going to have anything to do with the agency. It might be about distribution or pricing or something else. That's us being a good partner, but a subset of the ideas that we should be regularly taking to our clients to help them accomplish their goals would generate additional revenue for the agency as well. It might be putting more gasoline on a fire of something we're already doing. It might be trying something different. It might be beta testing something with AI.
Doesn’t really matter what it is. But your account person's job is to know the client well enough that they can prescribe other marketing activities or other business activities that will help the client accomplish their goals. In doing so, and doing it regularly and consistently – and by the way, one of the reasons why we get fired is clients say, “You know what? In the beginning they were bringing us a bunch of new ideas,
but now it feels like they're kind of phoning it in.” It's the AE’s job to be proactive enough, not reactive, not an order taker, proactive enough to take the client new ideas. And in doing so, grow their book of business by at least 10%. If you and your account people have not had that conversation, if you are not giving them the data – in other words, they know what their book of business is worth, and on a regular basis,
they're being given financial reports that show if they are growing their clients business in terms of the business they do with the agency, then they can't really set that as a goal for themselves, nor can they accomplish that goal on behalf of you and the agency.
So number one, you need to talk to your account people about the fact that it's part of their job to grow their book of business by at least 10%. Number two, you need to give them the financial information so that they can measure and monitor their progress against that goal. Number three, you need to teach them how to think about the client's business in a proactive way that allows them to bring big, good ideas to the client on a consistent basis. And number four, if you don't measure and monitor all of that activity, it is not going to happen. So if you want to grow your agency, remember 60 to 70% of your net new revenue every year should come from existing clients. That does not happen by accident. You got to have a plan. And it starts with your AE understanding that that's part of their job.
