Death of the bag carrier
In this guest posting, 
Sangeeta and William Leach argue why the agency account management function is deeply flawed.
Over-paid bag carriers. Empty suits. Paper pushers. Today’s account person comes in for some pretty tough criticism. Is it all deserved? Probably not. Is there a problem? Definitely.
In the ‘post commission’ era, agencies have generally failed to convince clients to value what they deliver, resulting in being paid ‘by the yard’. Or, as often as not, by the number of account people on the business.
In one recent discussion we had, an agency told us the only way they had to grow their business with a client was to convince them they needed more account people. That way, they’d get a fee increase and cover more overheads.
Clients tend to further reinforce this issue as they support their man on the inside, despite the fact that, increasingly, that person does little more than basic project management.
This is leading to the role becoming more unattractive to new entrants to the industry and increasing dissatisfaction amongst many of the people already in the job.
It wasn’t always so. The account executive job was once massively desired and extremely rewarding. It attracted the very best people from the very best universities, who developed rewarding client relationships, understood the client’s business, inspired great work and grew the agency’s business.
So what’s gone wrong? Put simply, the role has become increasingly complex and at the same time increasingly unclear.
Firstly, along came account planners. Initially this was a re-badged research department but as the account planning role developed it undermined the strategic value of the suit. No longer was the account person the trusted advisor to the client. Nor, necessarily the person that understood the client’s business the most.
So the account executive’s role became more of a sales person, or ‘account manager’ in the true sense of the words outside advertising, where the account manager is responsible for managing an account relationship and ensuring a sale.
But times moved on. Creative people, once shy, reserved genius’s kept away from the client, crept out of the back rooms to become engaging representatives of the company, selling their own work. You only need to look at legendary names like John Hegarty and, closer to home and more recently, Dave Droga.
Creatives now often have the relationship with the client and sell the work. What’s left? Seeing the work seamlessly through the agency? Contact reports and estimates? Keeping the client ‘happy’?
To compensate for the vagueness of the role and increasingly ill-defined contribution, account people are given extraordinary titles to keep them believing they are progressing in their career.
More than one agency with which we have worked has seven (yes 7!) levels of account person, with titles ranging from junior account executive, through several ‘layers’ until SAD, GAD and even BAD – it’s titles gone mad.
Title proliferation has encouraged the pursuit of ‘status’ rather than the pursuit of brilliance. And it is this, more than anything else, that is undermining the respect account handlers once had.
There is no doubt that there are some inspirational account managers working in agencies today – but far too few. And the few there are, aren’t fussed about their title, just about the outcome of their efforts.
Is account management past its sell by date? In its current form, yes.
Is there a role for account management in the modern agency? Yes.
Can account management be a job with meaning again? Yes.
So, what should the modern agency do about account management?
We advise agencies attempting to future proof themselves, increase margins and motivate better people to even better performance to recognise the importance of the ‘roles’ of account people more than their titles and designations.
It is time agencies accepted that the role of the account person is overly complex and, to some extent, confused. On the one hand, the role requires conscientiousness, organisation and systematic effort. On the other, vision, strategy and entrepreneurship.
These require a balance of left and right brain brilliance rarely found in one individual.
The role needs to be split.
Agencies need to recognise that sales is a key role often not ‘owned’ by anyone. Account management in its simplest, most effective form should be tasked with growing revenue and selling work. Having great client relationships, a strategic mind and the ability to inspire and manage teams are essential to that job description.
Ensure those tasked with delivering the agency’s product ‘on-time, on-budget’ for clients are those who enjoy this task – people motivated by being brilliant organisers. Enter project management for faultless execution and timeliness.
Looked at another way, we encourage agencies to understand who in their agency are responsible for delivering revenue (and revenue growth) versus those responsible for delivering margin (and margin growth). And task them with doing just that.
We have helped some local agencies significantly lift their margin, and their people’s spirit, by helping match peoples’ skills to the appropriate roles.
There are also examples of agencies outside Australia trying things differently. Mother has successfully built one of the best agencies and creative cultures in the world by being one of the first to abolish account handlers.
Mother didn’t abolish the roles account people in other agencies performed, they just abolished the title and re-organised around their ‘four-point’ model with ‘Mothers’ performing the task of shepherding the work profitably through the agency, while planners and creatives engaged the client and sold the work.
As part of Goodby’s re-invention in San Francisco, the account management role is being split between account management (responsible for content development) and account operations (responsible for content delivery). Crispin Porter calls the latter ‘content managers’ – people whose job it is to project manage the agency’s work.
It is important that this change isn’t just a title change. There are agencies in Australia who have simply re-badged account management (for example, as content management) but haven’t really changed the role. This won’t work.
The easiest way to abolish the ambiguity of the modern account man is to abolish account management in its current form; to reorganise and to focus people on their passions – passion for great work, passion for organisation, passion for business, strategy, customers and consumers.
There’s unlikely to be an over-paid bag carrier in such an organisation.
Sangeeta Leach and William Leach, The Leach Partnership
topics
William Leach
I love how account managers are on the same money as a graphic designer but they get to move onwards and upwards to account directors etc etc.
But graphic designers get stuck doing the same thing all day every day plus so so much overtime…with no extra pay or time off.
So if any career in an agency needs to be looked at it’s graphic designer because there are no challenges no incentives to work harder because promotions just don’t happen. Getting treated like a robot is pretty common these days.
As a graphic design freelancer I have worked in over 40 places in Sydney and I rarely meet a happy designer – so in my opinion restructure of what a graphic designer is and does also needs to be looked at.
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Interesting. Thanks guys. So many agencies who want to raise their creative standard bring in new creatives, only to find those creatives -who did great work elsewhere – produce the same dross. I’m convinced that most agencies are producing some great creative ideas. They’re just not being supported by account service. They have senior suits running around saying ” Give them what they want or we’ll lose the account” I believe the fastest way to raise your creative profile isn’t to change your creative, it’s to change your account service. Good luck with it.
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As an agency new business specialist consultant I see the account handler problem from a different angle. Where you see biz dev winning new clients I see the role failing when incorporated with project management.
If your agency doesn’t have a separate biz dev person then consider re-assigning redundant account managers. The caveat is they MUST be able to sell.
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It’s a great shame but unfortunately the role of client service has been dumbed down to project management. I heard one marketer describe his agency’s client service team as “hamsters on treadmills producing invoices”….
They provide little in the way of added value to clients let alone any insights into the clients business.They have no interest in getting under the skin of the client’s business and are flat out knowing how their client’s business actually operates. They would rather not know the things that keep their client awake at night.
Its all a matter of tell me what you want or need, we’ll give you a proposal and quote, a timeline sign it off and we’ll get going….and these invoices are unpaid.
And agencies wonder why their clients are continually reviewing their relationships? And why there is a continual stream of pitches where agencies are once again asked to drop their pants?
Is it that fact that agencies have created a mode of behavior towards clients and offer so little that they have created a ongoing cycle that needs to be broken.
When are agencies going to get back to the basics of really becoming an integral part of a clients business and actually have “skin in the game”. When are they going to move beyond the “hamster on treadmill” approach to servicing clients and actually earn some respect and credibility?
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On another opinion piece (about Clems’ performance in the mumbrella coffee table book) a piece was written which was a gem. And probably more relevant to this article than that one. Here, I’ll copy and paste it for you:
A freelancer’s observation for Clems and others.
Freelancing around Sydney I’ve discovered something quite remarkable. Almost all agencies in Sydney have creatives who can come up with award winning ideas. But only the awarded agencies have account service people with the persistence and fearlessness to sell the concepts – and then keep them sold.
It’s the suits people!
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My agency talked about changing the structure of account management into “relationship managers”and “project managers”many years ago.
The stumbling blocks were:
1) Need to match the over layered client’s organisation structure
2) Difficulty in finding people who just want to be career project managers
3) The remuneration structure that needs account manager time covered by retainers because clients are used to being undisciplined and having the agency at their beck and call.
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Collaboration is the name of the game whether great ideas get sold and long term relationships survive. Dismissing suits as bag carriers and overpaid project managers is just silly. A Suit can have a great relationship with a client where the Client does share what keeps them up at night and the Suit briefs in proactive work to address it. But when the production falls down on a major project because of x, y or z, it damages that relationship. Planners and Suits can together develop a perfect strategy with the Client. But if the Creative Director insists on selling in an idea that’s off brief, ignoring the pleas of the suits to include a concept which is, then what?
It’s all well and good to blame certain positions for the failures of agencies and lost clients. But the reality is that everyone in the agency needs to take responsibility and be accountable for their role in the success and loss of a business.
The biggest issue I see in agencies is the passing of blame when things go amiss. and the Suit usually gets it.
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from my experience the suit is another layer of agency fat that I as a client do not want to pay for. Yes, they help bridge between client and creative and conduct a workflow and project mgt role, but this is not worth paying thousands more for. I expect creatives to understand the basics of our business and i expect strategists et al to be able to take notes in meetings and delegate invoicing to accounts receivable clerks.
I will never forget a ‘digital strategist’ telling me straight-faced that he couldn’t take notes in a WIP meeting because that was an account manager’s role. I asked how he remembered what he had to deliver. And then i realised why we were having a problem getting anything delivered. Highly unprofessional but not uncommon.
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@ Dog Bone….having a Project Manager model to account service flows onto a series of other issues.
There are no real career paths for these Project Managers as there are few senior roles to progress onto. It is becoming less and less attractive to guys looking for career paths (who are a rare in Account Service), hence the predominance of women in account service teams who seem to be willing to settle for less.
At the same time. women are screaming from the rafters about how few of them are in senior management roles. The current model where a large number of women are in dumbed down Project Manager roles does not exactly solve this issue!
Unfortunately there are plenty more where they came from looking for an opportunity to project manage without a future and so the cycle continues.
Is it any wonder that graduates aren’t attracted to the industry!
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When I first moved over to Australia from the UK, I was surprised how the role of the suit didn’t offer graduates much in the way of strategic development. In my experience, working at agencies such as Lowe in the UK, often the suits or Account Managers played a key role in the strategic response to a brief, as well as project management and building client relationships. It is a well known fact that the best Creatives are strategic, as are the best suits, who often move across to Plannnig/Strategic roles where their talents are best utilised. Where agency cultures encourage and include the strategic input of the suit, organisations thrive and retention of strong account people is greater.
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What an astonishing conversation to be having. Nearly 30 years in the industry and I remain amazed at how we, as businesses that pride ourselves on our strategic and creative brilliance, respond so slowly and so poorly to the way the world changes. We stick to outmoded structrues and approaches and bolt on elements until our silos are wonky and innefective and then we blame everyone but ourselves.
Suits who are bag carriers are useless as are strategists who can’t manage projects and creatives who value ideas for their own sake and not the purpose of the brief.
Work together, add value from start to finish and deliver outcomes and it doesn’t matter what your title is. Clients pay to be well looked after, by teams that get them and work hard to deliver results.
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Amen to that, Mac
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I feel like I’ve heard this one a million times.
Talk to your clients – they value three things from their agencies (always have):
1. Great strategic advice (and yes, they do pay for it)
2. Great creative ideas (the bit they just can’t do themselves, but they rely on to make sure their customers notice, remember and care about them)
3. Getting stuff done (in an increasingly fragmented, compressed and risky market – there’s tremendous value in managing all the moving parts to ensure it all works)
Great account managers do the third thing flawlessly and enable the first two (the best ones also contribute in both these areas). What’s more, they are outstanding at making it all seem less difficult than it is for everyone involved. A gift.
You risk trying to solve a quality issue with a structural solution. Tried it too. Doesn’t work.
Mac is also right.
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Sangeeta, William,
Can you please be explicit as to why you are raising this point? Do you sell better agency structures? Or do you sell better client-agency relationship management? Your website headlines strategy plus M&A consultancy. Yet your article shows you think most agencies need your help.
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In one recent discussion we had, an agency told us the only way they had to grow their business with a client was to convince them they needed more account people. That way, they’d get a fee increase and cover more overheads.
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Ouch. You make agencies sound like idiots. Or do agencies really think like that?
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…we encourage agencies to understand who in their agency are responsible for delivering revenue (and revenue growth) versus those responsible for delivering margin (and margin growth). And task them with doing just that.
We have helped some local agencies significantly lift their margin, and their people’s spirit, by helping match peoples’ skills to the appropriate roles.
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So you think agencies don’t get fundamental business skills. Is that right?
Would it be fair tp ask you to declare where your interest really lies & also which agencies to date recommend your skills?
And yes, we might all be in the market for your skills. Hell, who doesn’t want their agency to perform better. Clients and agencies alike.
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Thank you for the provative and challenging article. Can we have more of this Tim? I enjoyed reading the article and for once, the commentary.
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Poor @Beth…. I hear ya sister…. but no one else does… maybe you are going to have to start ‘selling’ yourself internally – but not too well or you’ll find yourself promoted to Project Manager!
On a general note… I have always expected strategic thinking from my creatives and creativity from my suits. That way, everybody is thinking about the work with the Client’s goals and business objectives in mind.
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Andy hit the nail on the head. Nice one.
I’d consider adding great relationships as point 4, but that will be the result of the first 3 anyway.
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