In the battle to win and keep loyal clients, agencies need the best trained soldiers and a united front. Wanamaker Associates is now offering counsel to agencies in the skills of stellar account management. Candidates for this training are primarily account managers, but also include creative and other key personnel with client contact.
Helping agency staff achieve top performance in the areas most important to clients helps ensure the relationship “stays strong and lasts long”. Our programs are designed to achieve this ultimate goal within the framework of the agency’s mission and core values.
We believe the most productive training programs address specific gaps in the skills of your staff. While we provide general topics or areas for training, we think it’s best to collaborate and refine these to your particular needs. Determining these specific needs can be done via in-person interviews with staff members or through a thorough briefing with management prior to developing the programs.
Wanamaker offers the following agency-side training services:
- Managing Relationships at the Agency to Get Better Work and Create Satisfied Clients
- Improving Account Management Performance
- Building Bullet-proof Client/Agency Relationships
- Special Emphasis Training
MANAGING RELATIONSHIPS AT THE AGENCY TO GET BETTER WORK AND CREATE SATISFIED CLIENTS
Making the Most of the Creative Relationship
(All levels of Account Management)
- Understanding the creative persona and the creative process to become an invaluable partner to Creative
- How to nurture the creative relationship and get the best creative work — collaboration, staying engaged, providing the right support and encouragement and managing conflict
- How to evaluate creative and provide feedback that makes it better
Making the Most of the Account Management Relationship
(All levels of Creative)
- Understanding the role of Account Management — how they can help you
- How to work with Account Management to make the work better — asking the right questions, making the right requests and collaborating effectively
- How to make your relationship with Account Management more productive — helping them understand, embrace and sell the work
IMPROVING ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT PERFORMANCE
Achieving A+ Account Management Performance
(Junior level and Mid-level Account staff)
- The role and responsibilities of Account Management
- Sharpening skills to become top performers
- Becoming leaders, how to manage a staff
BUILDING BULLET-PROOF CLIENT/AGENCY RELATIONSHIPS
Avoiding the Deal Breakers: Delivering on Key Client Expectations
(All levels of Account Management)
- Over 15 years of client-agency performance evaluations conducted by Wanamaker Associates, reveal what clients consider “the Deal Breakers” — the 5 criteria for relationship success or failure
Applying the Principles of Extraordinary Customer Service to Account Management
(All levels of Account Management)
- Analysis of the top performing companies in customer service
- What are the customer service principles they embrace and adhere to?
- What can we learn from them that we can apply to the agency and our jobs as Account Managers?
Hiring and Developing the Best Account Managers
(Mid-level to Senior Account Management and Human Resources)
- Determining the right criteria for cream-of-the-crop Account people
- How to interview to recognize the appropriate skills, personality, perspective, the right fit and the right instincts
SPECIAL EMPHASIS TRAINING
Selling Skills
- How to pre-sell the idea
- How to persuade clients to buy
- How to isolate and overcome obstacles
- How to merchandise agency personnel to facilitate selling
- How to help clients sell-in to their organization
How to Write and Present Well
- Writing compelling recommendations
- Getting to the point upfront
- How to be powerful and persuasive
- Adding personality
How to do a Brand Review
- Why is a brand review a necessity?
- When should it be done?
- What should it include?
- Who does what?
- How should it be presented?
How to do a Competitive Analysis
- Analyzing your client’s competition
- How should it be done?
- What should it include?
- Who does what?
- How should it be reported?
Strategy 101
- What is strategy and how is it developed?
- How to recognize a good/bad strategy
- How to gauge creative work against the strategy
- How to work with Account Planners
Financial Aspects of the Agency Business
- Contracts and compensation
- How does the agency make/lose money?
- How does the P&L for an account work?
- How can the Account Manager manage for profitability?