Michael Farmer, a management consultant who has studied creative agencies for 30 years, said this during our recent interview: “Account managers need to be more like Bain consultants”

I read as many reports I can about the state of agency account management and it makes for grim reading.

Why do account managers miss new account growth opportunities in client meetings? Often it’s because they haven’t asked the right questions. Or they’ve asked some of the right questions but didn’t have the confidence to probe deeper in their questioning.

Results of a study have come out called "Building trust and revenue with existing clients". The Jan 2023 study was US-based so if you have US clients, you’ll find this compelling. But even if you don’t, hopefully it’ll make you think about your client’s budget.

Many agencies are using generative AI tools but some are concerned about:Client confidentiality i.e. anything you feed into a an AI tool relating to your clientCopyright and ownership (of inputs or outputs)Contractual agreements and AI policies

Agencies use generative AI tools to make internal workflow more efficient and teams more productive. In the latest episode of the Creative Agency Account Manager podcast, Konrad Sanders CEO of The Creative Copywriter shares 3 use cases

There are a few 'red flag' moments every agency account manager needs to look out for. These are points in the client relationship when your account is at risk. Not only are red flag moments important to try to anticipate, when they happen it's the account manager's job to act swiftly.

In a recent discussion in the Linked-in Account Manager Group I asked Account Managers "Can you recommend some of the best questions you ask your clients"

The role and skills required of an Account Manager vary from industry to industry and job to job, but cross section of professionals I surveyed were fairly unanimous on what they believed the most important Account Management skills were.