Managing Your Agency Better Can Deliver You Real Value

A recent study by McKinsey found that three noncash motivators - praise from immediate managers, attention from leaders, and a chance to direct projects - are at least as effective as the three most highly rated monetary ones. These nonfinancial incentives make employees feel that their companies value them, want to foster their professional development, and take their well-being seriously. Most studies on motivating employees emphasize these three principles.

Sound familiar? It should, because apart from being good, basic management practice these principles are also the plus-alpha factors that make some advertisers get disproportionate attention, hence value, from their agency.

These findings were revealed from analysis of our 1,400 agency-client relationships and several million individual questions answered through the APRAIS client-agency evaluation system back in 2008.

We found that advertisers who are considered "client of choice" by their agencies stand to gain an increase in the agencies' commitment to their account by up to 28%!

How to become a ‘Client of choice'? Here are the three major contributing factors with their relative importance levels:

1. Providing feedback and recognition = 33%
2. Competent staff who know how to use the agency's resources effectively = 33%
3. Openness to risk and innovation  = 27%

So while we look at the hour, fees, commissions and other remuneration aspects, it's worth keeping in mind that through better management of the agency relationship to become a "client of choice", advertisers can extract vastly more value than the bean counters ever will.

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