Lessons learnt from switching from agency to client-side
Every person who has ever worked in a creative Agency, has always had thoughts about making the transition to become a client and “going over to the other side”. After all, who doesn’t want to work less hours, have a better work-life balance and make the final decision? Well that was what I thought, and boy were my eyes opened when I made that jump. I wanted to share with you some of the realities that I experienced.
As soon as I left University, some twenty or so years ago, I was an Agency account-person, through and through. I started in direct marketing (when people actually read their mail), moved into Advertising, Digital, Media and all other disciplines and loved it but the hours were taking a toll on my personal life and I needed to make a shift. Over the years, I had either seen my previous colleagues either rise to lead their own Agencies or disappear completely off the system. Some became plumbers, some started families and others, I assumed made the jump client-side. And that was going to be my next logical path.
But it wasn’t as easy a move, as I first thought. I moved to Toronto and started interviewing and questions came up that I never thought would be asked. Name examples where you have worked with sales teams? How much budget have you personally managed? How much revenue have you generated from your activities? Although I had worked with some of the best brands in the world, and created amazing campaigns in the UK, Australia and Canada I realised that there were some gaps between what I had been focussing on, agency-side with what would be expected in my new role, client-side.
Eventually, after a lot of meetings, I got my chance and took up my position of VP, Marketing at a large educational company in Toronto. It has been five years since I walked into my first client-side position and I have learnt some lessons over that time that I want to share with you.
1. Accountability is a big topic of conversation
On the Agency-side, you spend a lot of time justifying hours. Hours for creatives to do that work, hours for strategic planning and hours for implementation and roll-out. From an agency perspective, this is what keeps the lights on and people in their jobs. From a client-perspective, this is just a line item on their budget. What clients spend their time on is how their marketing efforts help grow the business and how to justify any spend, not matter how large or small.
2. Internal relationship building is crucial
Internal conflict and disagreements were a daily occurrence in my Agency-life. And I thought that was the norm and made us stronger. Once I remember having a board rubber thrown at my head by a creative who accused me of not selling his work with enough passion (true story – he missed by the way). Your strength client-side comes from building relationships with your colleagues – IT, Sales, Management, Finance, HR, Reception. EVERYONE has an opinion on marketing and the political game you play is crucial for keeping marketing front of mind when
3. You do jobs that you never thought you would have
When I made the move, I perceived that I would be doing a similar role as I was in the Agency but just with a bit more power and control. Not the case, campaigns ended up being just a small part of my day to day and I found myself more involved in business than in marketing. I cared about everything to do with the brand no matter how small it was… from our website back end to our logo, from the signage to our Glassdoor reviews. Everything seemed to have a marketing element on it. I have to say that I have learnt more about building a brand when I made the move, than I did in the years Agency-side
4. There are A LOT of meetings
As I alluded to earlier, marketing is involved in everything. And a net result of that is a lot of meetings, and I mean a lot. Microsoft came out with a great tool that showed how much of your week was in meetings, and mine was topping 85%., and those were just the scheduled ones, not the ones that weren’t in my calendar. Ontop of that, there was always action points so that allusion of less hours that I had in Agencies became one of fiction.
5. Learning curves are steep but very rewarding
When I made the move client-side, I almost felt that I had to learn marketing all over again. There are loads of transferable skills that you take over and I will never regret starting my career agency-side. I learnt project management, how to judge creativity, strategy, team leadership, work ethics, how to deliver to a deadline and killer PowerPoint skills. But, at the age of 40, when I went client-side there was so much more I had to discover and it was great. I have always loved my career and who would want to ever do the same thing day-in day-out.
In the course of writing this article, I realise that I have just skimmed the surface of my learnings, but hopefully, this will stir some thoughts. There are so many people that have made this jump. What are your learnings? What are your experiences? Please share. I am sure that in another 5 years, there will be so many more lessons that I have but, whichever side you are on, client or agency, buckle up and enjoy the ride.