Clients that suck the life out of you

Most agency folks can share a horror story or two or three about clients who just drain you emotionally, spiritually, creatively.

I can’t believe how they can chip away at you, piece by piece. How?

• By blowing off scheduled meetings.
• Not responding to urgent messages.
• Ignoring timelines.
• Nitpicking outrageous stuff.
• Doing other things during your conference calls.
• Taking phone calls during your meetings.
• Missing deadlines.
• Changing scope repeatedly and haphazardly.

Agency folk strive to act on the best interest of their clients. Yet we get stepped on continuously. For some reason they envision our side of the fence as creative free spirit fancy free-for-all that gouges the client whenever possible. Yet, many times over the years, I’ve watched clients switch from client to agency-side and fail because they couldn’t envision how challenging it really is.

I have no advice to give to my agency-side brethren. Just smile, be respectful, do your job, and look for new opportunities to replace the poor ones.

It’s the client who will lose in the long run, when he/she can’t inspire, motivate or rally agency folk to help in times of desperation.

-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at Chaos365.com and AdMadMan.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.