Client Chaos: Design by Committee Fails

Maybe you’ve seen this already. Imagine if Microsoft had designed the iPod and was attempting to market it. It’s a hilarious example of how design by committee fails.

Sure this video is a bit exaggerated, but doesn’t it remind you of some project you’ve worked on? Some client who was afraid to push back on all the irrational requests of upper management?

Think about how many participants are involved in a typical project:

• Project Sponsor
• Project Manager
• Stakeholders
• Subject Matter Experts
• Research
• Strategist
• Information Architect
• Creative
• Copywriter
• Developers

They all have an opinion. They all want to be heard. They all think they are right.

As the Project Manager, what do you do?

Be a leader. Listen to the request of stakeholders, but don’t be afraid to push back. It doesn’t have to be defensive or in a way to embarrass someone. But if you can clearly articulate and backup with facts why a request is not good, you succeed.

Manage scope creep. If it is not part of the original assignment, it should not be accommodated without a reassessment of the whole project, objectives, budget, timing, etc.

It is always a bad idea to piggy-back multiple marketing messages and brands onto the core product. Sure it is tempting, but quick reads are what a consumer is looking for. Globs of text will just be a blur to the consumer. Remind the overzealous stakeholder that additional messaging might be appropriate via another medium. Better yet, develop custom vehicles for different messages and manage each one independently. It’s more work, but it gives each a chance to stand up under their own merit.

Remember, if a project fails, you know the blame storming will begin and the Project Manager’s name will be high on the list.

What do you think? Please submit your thoughts.
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional who has watched great ideas get mucked up. His observations can be found at Chaos365.com and AdMadMan.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

Client Chaos: Warning signs of a nightmare client

An interesting post I found via the Search Engine Watch newsletter:

Three Warning Signs of a Nightmare Client and why we sometimes don’t heed them

The warning signs are basically distilled to:

“I need to do this as cheap as possible”
…an indication that you’ll spend more time than the effort is worth.”I need it yesterday”
…an indication of lack of planning and foresight.

“My current web designer won’t call me back”
…an indication that the client is difficult to work with.

SearchEngineGuide.com blogged about it from an SEO perspective

Come to think of it, these are pretty dead on. It illustrates how important it is not to take every scrap of work possible. Of course, your economic situation may desperately need it, but at what cost? Don’t take some urgent assignment at the risk of not fulfilling other valued client deliverables.

Plus, don’t trick yourself into thinking that doing the client a favor now will guarantee you the reward of future work.

Finally, don’t be afraid to charge a premium or rush fee. There has to be a penalty for unscheduled work that will cause a strain on your scheduled work.

So, assess the risks and stay in control of the situation.

What do you think? Please post your comments below. Thanks.
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional who has been abused by many clients during his career. His observations can be found at Chaos365.com and AdMadMan.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

Clients and the Waterfall Effect

I am constantly amazed how big clients with multimillion dollar budgets can create some great work (with the help of their agencies). In the same respect, I’ve witnessed too many instances of big brands that are so disorganized and chaotic that they end up pushing their internal chaos down to all branches of supporting partners.

As much as agency partners try to help their clients, the clients are at times clueless as to how disruptive they themselves can be. It is frustrating and demoralizing. After all, how do you incent your internal team to continue to brainstorm and be on the look out for great ideas when they just get swallowed up into the client’s quagmire?

Help your clients to understand that their delays in brand decisions, releasing budgets, approving business plans, legal reviews, internal production, etc., etc., etc. — all have a negative impact down stream. They throw off the agency forecasts for budgets, staffing, resources, program implementation, co-branding opportunities, event planning, etc., etc., etc. Plus, they throw off schedule the vendors we contract with for media buys, printing, etc.

As a good agency partner, you must keep the faith. But gently remind your client at every opportunity about the impact their decisions or lack of decisions may have. It will cost them — in money, achieving goals and credibility.

So… Go out back and kick a trash can. Scream and let it all out. Then breath deep. Relax. Refocus. Roll up your sleeves. Dive back into the pool.

What do you think? Please post your comments. Thanks.
-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.

Clients that make you SCREAM

It happened again. The Friday POW-POW, WAM-BAM, One-Two, Hit-n-run. We were wrapping up a long, hard week then the phones start ringing. Various clients at the same company started calling us. It’s budget cut time.

It actually ticked me off, so I decided not to immediately write about it. Instead I pushed it out of my head for the weekend and waited until Monday to think about it again. We started 2006 planning in 3Q last year. By November, all the budgets should’ve been approved. Then one nutty thing after another happened and most of the budget wasn’t approved until late March. Now we’ve been waiting for the past two months for some remaining portions of the budget to get approved, but they are on hold again.

The clients had very specific goals for this year, but they’ve caused so many problems that I don’t expect they will achieve their targets.

In my experience, budget cuts with annual clients usually start in Q3, around July/August. To get a call suspending Q3 in mid May is unusual. But this particular company is so screwed up right now in it’s marketing execution I’m not surprised. Just frustrated.

I recognize that sometimes a company needs to stop, step back and re-align, but it is frustrating when all the active work has to crawl to a halt. Deadlines are tight and in some cases are past due.

I have several clients that excel in creating chaos. We’ll always try to give them the best advice and counsel, but inevitably, these people just cause one frustrating situation after another.

Tell me about your worst clients. Please post a comment.
-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.

Spring cleaning: Drop your bad clients

Spring cleaning: Drop bad clients

A difficult decision for any company is whether to intentionally part ways with a difficult client. That could be for any number of reasons:
- The client routinely abuses the agency.
- Too much labor invested on low cost projects.
- The ideas you pitch are executed internally or given to other agencies.
- Client refusal to compensate fairly on per-projects or retainer models.
- Low overall return on investment.

Generally, senior management will be less likely to agree on cutting a client loose. So it’s the managers and day-to-day personal that suffer. What do you do?

Create a business case to present to your management.
Document every instance of why this client relationship is bad.
Find a new client opportunity to replace the client.

You can’t just complain, but you can’t just take unprofessional behavior either. Take control of your destiny. Hate something, change something.

Once you have another client lined up or senior management agreement, part ways with the bad client. But don’t be nasty about it. Just respectfully decline the next time he/she comes to you with a new assignment. Above all, be respectful. Professionally speaking, it is a small world. You never know if you might run into him/her again some day.

I hope that helps. Please add your comments below. Thanks and good luck!
-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.

Client expectations: Information overload

Client expectations: Information overload

Have you ever received client criticism like the following:

• Your emails are too brief.
• Your emails are too long.
• Your reports don’t have enough details.
• Your reports are too complicated.

How do you manage your client’s expectations?

Start by listening to what he has to say. Is your client a micro manager, or does she just prefer an executive summary and trusts in you to fret about the details? Every client is a different and you just have to fine tune the mix of information you provide.

Examples:
He likes to repurpose your information to distribute to his internal team. Therefore, you should tailor the content to the ultimate audience he will talk to.

She just wants an executive summary, but always has lots of questions. Therefore, you should give her one or two pages up front of summary bullets. But include an appendix of the details you feel are important to back up the high level observations. Hopefully that will allow her to deep dive at her discretion.

When I write a deck, I write, rewrite and rewrite again. My first draft is usually a loose collection of thoughts. In my second pass, I flush out the details as best as possible. In my third pass I try to make sure thoughts flow/segue in a way that tells a story and makes some sort of sense.

Be sure to highlight the important information through tactics such as:

• Charts that make sense
• Text callouts
• Percentages (easier to remember than raw numbers)

Don’t forget:

• Remember to cite your sources, especially when making industry claims.
• Use spell checker.
• Update the document properties. It is embarrassing to distribute documents that have wrong titles and other names in it.
• Make sure your deck is branded with your company’s information on every slide, so you can take credit for your hard work.
• Include a next steps page and a page of contact information.
• Also, ask a co-worker to do a final review before you send it to the client. An objective eye might uncover something you missed.

Taking data and presenting it in a format that is useful and clear is extremely difficult. Few do it well. Check out Edward Tufte. He is an advocate of presenting complex information in useful and informative ways.

It is not easy, and can take many hours. But with practice and a critical eye for self improvement, you too should be able to meet client expectations.

Hope that helps. Please add your comments and suggestions. Thanks.
-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.

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.

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