Good client. Bad client.

Get a group of agency people in a room for a while and at some point the conversation will drift towards the topic: Clients from hell. They will proceed to try to outdo each other with tales of work that should have run; unreasonable requests (normally resulting working through the night); and behaviour worthy of committal to an institution.

Of course, just round the corner, a group of clients will be having their own conversation about the agency from hell. They will list the prima donna creatives, exorbitant costs and the excessive hand-holding they had to do.

I have been remarkably lucky during my career. For the most part, my clients have been decent people who have been willing to listen, give honest feedback and who want a creative answer to their marketing problems. The few that have got close to the ‘client from hell’ moniker have for one reason or another been relatively short-lived.

Of course, if you are a client, you might be forgiven for asking why it matters to you whether your agency thinks you are good or not. Let me answer this with a short story.

A non-horror story

Some years back, I began working with a professional services client who would send teams into large companies to help them get their employees engaged with where the business was heading. To live the vision, mission and values of the organisation.

The first thing to stand out about this client was their passion for their own business. They loved what they did. They were evangelists for the cause. Their enthusiasm was infectious, pretty soon we were all excited about what they were doing too.

They also understood how to collaborate. They gave honest constructive feedback but also understood that they were paying for our expertise. This meant that they listened to our advice and worked with us to get the best result for their brand.

But no one is perfect. They could be quite demanding and weren’t always great at leaving enough time for planning and execution. This meant that quite often we’d end up pulling some late nights to get stuff done on their jobs . On one such occasion, as we settled in for a long night, a courier turned up with a parcel. Inside was a range of snacks, some beer and a thank you note. I can honestly say that after that, we would do anything for them.

Getting the best from your agency

So why should you worry about being a good client? Well there are a number of compelling benefits:

• Your agency will care about your success as much as you do
• You will get the best people clamouring to be on your account
• You will get the best work they are capable of
• They will think about your business even when the clock isn’t running
• The day-to-day experience will be more collaborative and more enjoyable
• And they will dig you out of the crap when you really, really need them to

Swissmiss has just posted an excellent video of Michael Bierut of design giant Pentagram discussing clients, good and bad. It’s about an hour long (35mins presentation followed by a Q&A). Well worth the time to watch whichever side of the fence you sit on. Embedded below.

2010/01 Michael Bierut from CreativeMornings on Vimeo.