How to Build an Irreplaceable Agency Through Strong Client Relationships with Charlene Coughlin | Ep #773

How to Build an Irreplaceable Agency Through Strong Client Relationships with Charlene Coughlin | Ep #773 Speaker 3: I want you to stop working for free. Unknown Speaker: If you're tired of getting ghosted on proposals, the endless follow-ups and We'll think about it as a response. There's a better way. The top agencies aren't sending proposals. They're getting paid to pitch and close bigger deals way faster. I want you to grab this free resource I just put together at agencymastery360.com slash strategy. That's agencymastery360.com slash strategy and you'll learn how to flip the script if you want to get paid for your expertise instead of giving it away for free. Speaker 3: Hey Charlene, welcome to the show. Speaker 1: Hey, how's it going? Speaker 3: Excited to have you on. Tell us who you are and what you do. Speaker 1: Sure. I'm Charlene Coughlin, president and partner at Twist Creative, a brand agency located in Cleveland, Ohio. Speaker 3: Awesome. And how'd you guys get started? Speaker 1: We were started by a husband and wife duo, Mike and Connie Ozan. Mike is the writer, Connie is the designer, and that's how they came together and realized through their process there was a twist, which is now the name of the agency, of course. And then we've grown since. So started with the two of them. They are still involved in the company today. Mike is our CEO and Connie is our Chief Creative Officer. Speaker 3: Awesome. I've always been jealous of people that were able to work with their spouse running companies and that kind of stuff. Mine, we're not able to work together. And we even go to the extent where you don't even talk about work. I didn't even know she had an agency for a couple of years, which was kind of funny. Speaker 1: That's fantastic. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: Just leave that part off the table, move in with something else instead. Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. We were talking kind of in the pre-show about you guys do a really amazing job at scaling clients that come to you and you really kind of grow their accounts. And I feel a lot of Agencies struggle with this, right? They're really good at marketing, they're really good at sales, and then they move on to the next and they forget about, hey, you can grow this client. When I look at buying agencies or I look at working with people, I'm always looking at like, well, how do you get an account, but how do you grow the account? So what makes you guys unique? What are you guys doing? Speaker 1: I think one of the cores, and I joined the team about 11 years ago and I started our account services department. And I think early on, I started preaching about, it's about the relationship. At the end of the day, like you can have amazing creative, but if it never gets placed or run or used because the relationship went sour, then what's the point? Then you're not going to hit that business objective and goal for the client. So really first and foremost, understanding who they are and what their goal and objective is. And building that relationship, understanding the things that are important to them and really listening. I just had a call today with a client or a potential client and he was telling me the most important thing that he hasn't experienced yet is someone that's listening to him and really understands that he does know the inside of his team and the politics. That he's having to deal with and the people he has to report to. And he was really looking for a true partner, not a vendor. If I immediately see this on a list, like we're looking for a vendor that does this, that's probably not going to be the right fit. Because then you're just looking for how much is this going to cost? What are the deliverables versus a long-term relationship? And I think the more you can really listen, communicate well with one another, meet those expectations or exceed them. Then the next year, all of a sudden, it becomes easier to do that business together and you're building your budget all of a sudden together. You're sitting with the client and talking about what does next year look like? What are the 12 things we want to accomplish? What do we need to put on the back burner? And you almost become irreplaceable to them all of a sudden because they don't want to get rid of you because they also like you a lot. Speaker 3: I always tell everybody, you got to become their trusted partner. And it starts in the first contact and you're training them rather than, or they're training you, right? So if they're constantly going, Hey, I need this, blah, blah, blah. And you need to do it this way and you go do it. Well, they're never going to look at you as an advisor. And they're going to look at you as I can give them orders and they're going to go do it. Speaker 1: Yeah, and then all of a sudden you're being able to take on that role of, oh, this is the person I'm always going to go to when I have a question about a decision I'm going to make. We have one client who she says to me all the time, we don't do anything without checking with you first. Like we're not going to go make a video. We're not going to do a social post just because it sounds fun because we know you're our partner in this and she knows we want them to succeed at the end of the day. That's how we succeed. Yes, the creative is also wonderful that we produce. The strategy is great, but we're also getting real life business results. Speaker 3: What are the questions that you ask outside of what do they want? And what does your onboarding look like? Because if you've been growing the accounts, you have to be doing it right from the get-go. It's not like when a lot of people go, we're going to be your partner, right? And they have no idea what that means. They don't know how to communicate. And then at the end of the year, they go, hey, do you want to do this? There's just so many bad things that I see out there. So what are you guys doing that allows you guys to grow your accounts by 20, 40% year over year? Speaker 1: One of the biggest things is proactive communication and outreach, not waiting for them to reach out to us, but even just doing casual check-ins along the way. There's one that we're currently up for right now, some work with, and we've been talking for about a year. And nothing major. It was just, hey, how's it going? I know you're putting a marketing team together. How's the hiring process? And then when it came to, oh, I'm ready to move forward, she even said, she's like, I knew what to expect. I knew that you were going to reach out to me. I knew that that trust had already been developed at the very beginning, that, oh, I could ask you these questions and you would follow up. I'm also a big fan of a handwritten touch. So I write a lot of handwritten postcards and note cards and send those out just to remind people they're being thought of in Kind of a chaotic world that we're living in, depending on the day and the week that we're in. And it's just to remember that they're human at the end of the day, and they want to be spoken to and checked in on just the way you would a friend. Sometimes, you know, I call our clients, some of them my friends, because I've gotten to know them over five or six years. And they're people I would really hang out with and have gone to a Guardians game with or gone to dinner with or have met their family now. And it all of a sudden becomes an extension of their team too. You know, they call and check in with us. We're doing weekly calls. We're doing just the ongoing work. And that onboarding started at the very beginning in those first few conversations. Even asking them what's important to you in an agency partner. What are the things you're looking for? What are the things you can't stand? Because, and I say this up front, it's a relationship. There's going to be a struggle at some point. We're going to push back on you. You're going to push back on us. Someone's going to get frustrated, just like any relationship. And then we have to get through it together. We have to be candid. Speaker 3: I think it's too, it seems like you guys are selective. Like, for example, I always looked at it, and especially with Agency Mastery and who we let into the mastermind, and we always did it. Well, we didn't always do it this way. In the very beginning, it's kind of like you put out this offer. And you're like, anybody that's breathing and they say, yes, you'll do it. But then you start thinking about it. And when we actually starting, when we started to do the digital agency experience, which is this live experience, and it started out at my house in Colorado, and we'd go do something epic. But I told my team, I go, we don't want anybody in my house that we wouldn't, that it's kind of creepy, that doesn't believe in what we believe in. And so from that point, we started really figuring out what are your core values and do they match with ours? Like you don't have to be identical to us because that's always a recipe for disaster, but you have to believe in what we believe in. So if you believe in being resourceful or having fun, or if you believe in hustling 24-7, you're not going to get along with us. Speaker 1: Yep, exactly. Speaker 3: Right. We want to go have some fun or you're going to be that, you know, we were talking about creating this agency bingo game. Do you get emails at 11 o'clock and they expect a response like at 1102? Yeah, they're like waiting. Speaker 1: They're like, why haven't you responded yet? Speaker 3: Right. Speaker 1: Probably not a good fit. Speaker 3: Not a good fit. Speaker 1: Yeah. We have a list of what I would call things that are written down, but then also kind of like our non-negotiables. Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: You don't get to treat our team poorly. The minute those sorts of things happen where you're not willing to have a conversation, you're probably not going to be our client much longer and we're okay saying no and goodbye to that relationship because Our health and well-being's not really worth it at the end of the day. And we've turned down some good work. That seems like a great creative opportunity, but we also know the margin's not going to be there. And we're all going to be miserable. We're going to be treated poorly. Maybe the person on the other side is like designing for their portfolio. And so, you know, they're making decisions on personal versus business goals and objectives, which is what we ground our decision-making in. They're doing the let me call you and yell at you at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. at night game. And it's just not going to end well for anyone. And along the way, we're going to lose really good team members. Not to mention, we're probably not going to make much money on that project because it's just going to take more time and effort than what we originally estimated. And we see that kind of in that upfront onboarding phase where we're having those initial conversations to be like, okay, like you just get the weird vibe of like, this is going to become the standard moving forward that you're going to expect these things. And is that contract worth it? Speaker 3: There was a switch I remember in the agency and there was a switch in this agency where we go, ah, right. And it's, it's amazing how you forget it sometimes. Right. Especially when you forget it, when you look at your pipeline sometimes and you're like, it just doesn't look good. Speaker 1: And then you're like, you're willing to like take anything at that point. Speaker 3: And you're almost willing to sell yourself, yourself to the devil almost. And you just got to remind yourself, no. It's a pretty big damn ocean and this will actually take you even further down the depressing hole. Speaker 1: And then you're missing the opportunity to work with really good clients. That want to grow with you over time because you're too busy over here, hand-holding and babysitting and getting yelled at and treated poorly. And so, yeah, that's a discipline that we used to not have. I think we used to take on more clients because again, it was like attractive when the pipeline wasn't as full as we wanted it to be. And then there was a shift for us, I would say post-pandemic, like around 21, 22-ish, where we really started to talk about, is this worth it? And today, we're going to be talking about the risk that we're taking. And if it's not, then we need to figure something else out. Like, let's go after different types of clients. Let's change up our strategy a little bit for how we're going to get the accounts, who we're going to talk to and go after, use more word of mouth, use some of our current clients. And then things started falling into place when we started saying no to the other stuff. Speaker 3: We have a member, Dan. He's amazing. And he's so down to earth. He's like the coolest guy. And he says, they have to be OKG, our kind of gals or guys. Speaker 1: I like that. Speaker 3: Right. And I was like, yes. Like, I really like that type of framing it. And our team is talking to someone that wants to join our community. We're like, would we have him in our house? If you go to dinner together, you know, that's slimy or, or if they come into it bragging, Oh, I've done this and this and this award. And, and you're just like, no, you need to go here. You're not the OKG. Speaker 1: Well, or if they say this is my favorite, well, marketing doesn't work. Speaker 3: Oh gosh. Speaker 1: Well, then why would you even hire us? Like you're setting us up for failure and you're setting the relationship off on the wrong foot. Speaker 3: What did they say to that when they go, marketing doesn't work and we want you to do marketing for us. That is like the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard it before. And I've said, so what are you looking for us to do? And they're like, well, we know we need marketing, but we don't know that it's going to help us get to our goals. Speaker 3: You seem like a really nice person. I would have literally said that's probably the dumbest thing anybody ever said to me. What do you really want? Speaker 1: Well, what I want to say is that then why are you calling me and wasting my time and your time at the end of the day? But I think what I said is I don't think we're the right fit for you. And maybe you should consider some other options instead, because it's not going to probably be a good long-term fit for either of us at the end of the day. Speaker 3: I almost think of the saying, it's a funny movie. It's with Chevy Chase, the Vegas vacation movie. Have you seen this? Have you seen the Christmas Vacation movie? Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 3: Okay. So there's one where he goes to Vegas with his family. And in the movie, he loses all his money. And so cousin Eddie, who lives out in Vegas, they dig up all this money in the yard, like coins and whatever. They go to like this cheap casino. And so Clark just keeps losing. And he said something like, I don't know why I'm gambling because it doesn't work. And reminds me of like the marketing part. And the dealer goes to me, he's like, here's an idea. Speaker 2: Why don't you give me half the money you were going to bet? Then we'll go out there. I'll kick you in the nuts and we'll call it a day. Speaker 3: I was like, that's kind of what I would say to that person. That says, I need marketing, but I don't think marketing works. Speaker 1: Yeah. It's never worked before. It's not going to work now. And again, they're going to be non-believers the whole time. You're not going to be able to change their mind if that's what they're coming in with. So you're just, everyone's set up for failure at that point. Speaker 3: Hey, agency owners, if you're sticking with one platform for every project, you're probably stuck in a growth bottleneck. More clients means more hires, which adds noise and cuts into profits. To break the loop, you need a more flexible tool that doesn't stretch your resources. Now, Wix Studio is a smart addition to your agency's toolkit. Intuitive by design, your team can quickly master the platform and focus on the work that matters the most. Now, with robust native business solutions, Like booking, e-com, and events, you can take on any project at any scale without adding cost to third-party plugins. Plus, Wix Studio is a low-maintenance platform, meaning you can redirect client budget toward real growth initiatives. Think more value for your clients, steady income stream, and stronger relationships. Scale your agency at wixstudio.com. Tell me about RFPs. Did you used to do them and do you do them now? Speaker 1: I hate RFPs. We did used to do them a lot. And, you know, we would spend hundreds of hours writing them, pulling the right content, putting it in the right format. And then you would never hear back. Like not even a, here's why we didn't pick you, just you didn't get picked. Sorry, we moved on to the next round. And so we've stopped doing RFPs because it's just saving us money and time in the long run by not doing them and instead finding actual qualified clients that we want to work with. Because what we found too with RFPs, A, it's never an apples to apples comparison because every agency does things a little bit differently and what they offer may be different. What we do in brand strategy might not be what someone else does. It tended to just be based on budget, which again, going back to the relationship, we're not the right fit. If you're doing it based on budget, we want the relationship. Even if that means in year one, it's not as much money as we think, but year two and three and four, all of a sudden we're able to grow at that 20% year over year to something even bigger. I wish RFPs didn't exist. We also refuse to do RFPs that or any requests that include free spec creative. We were up for a piece of work in 2018. It was one that we actually really wanted. We liked the people on the other side. They were required by their board to do an RFP. We ended up getting them to pay for it. No one else did. We were the only ones that asked. So they paid for the spec work and then we ended up getting hired and it became a long-term relationship throughout the pandemic. But otherwise, we won't do it because it's just not worth it in the long run. And going back to the relationship again, we're probably taking time away from the current clients that really love us and need our support. Speaker 3: Yeah, I always tell everybody RFPs stand for request for punishment, real effing problem. I was joking with you on the pre-show. It was like there's two winners to every RFP. The one that wins it, the first one out. And I like that what you said is you made them pay for spec work. And so one of the things that I learned a long time ago at Dainsey was you got to kind of change your offering rather than pitching the big thing, which RFPs kind of suggest is, how can I just get my foot in the door a little bit? And this is what I call kind of the foot in the door offer of, And doing the spec work, that's more of a project. And so our goal was always, what can I offer to them that I could help build with them in an hour to two hours, where I can position myself as the trusted advisor. We can build a plan together. I make it look like they're building it, but I'm really building it. Speaker 1: Which makes them feel good, by the way. Speaker 3: Exactly. And they're going to agree with the plan. And then the whole idea of the foot in the door is to lead to the next logical step. So that foot in the door identifies a huge opportunity or a problem that they need to fix, which then we pitch that project or that paid spec work going, well, let's do this small little project in order to fix this. So then when they start seeing value in that, that's when we spring the big thing. And then, you know, we're on to the races. We close way more at a higher percentage. We close a lot faster. We don't waste any time. Our team loves it, right? Like there's no downfalls on this. Speaker 1: And that's exactly why we stopped you with the RFPs because at least If we're having a conversation in the upfront, we can even see like, is this going to be a good fit long-term? Do you have the right team members internally to help this project move forward? Because there may be some issues internally they haven't even figured out yet. And that gives us the opportunity to have that conversation and guide them along the path a little bit to say, you're not ready yet. Here's where we would like you to be in a few years or in a few months even. And with getting paid to do that spec work, we were able to show them how we thought. Which again, led to the bigger work of, oh, okay, you think strategically like this, you provide this type of client service and relationship. You're also thinking ahead about my budget and how we can work budget backwards. There are all those opportunities to have those conversations versus just sending a PDF that says, here's our capabilities and the budget. Speaker 3: Yeah, it starts making them compare everyone else to you. I want them to go, why is everyone else giving stuff away? But yeah, your agency is actually charging for it. And then they value what they pay. And so it really kind of flips it on its head. And, you know, I know there's lots of people listening that you still struggle with the foot in the door and I totally get that. It's challenging to figure it out all by yourself. You know, reach out to me and we'll help you with that. I mean, a lot of times you just need an outside perspective in order to be like, oh, that makes sense. And then you can go execute it. Speaker 1: Right. And sometimes that foot in the door is as simple as a quick email that says, I'd just like to chat with you and see if in the future there could be anything we could help you with. I'm impressed by X, Y, and Z. And then just staying in touch. And then when you run into each other at a cocktail hour or networking event, that conversation just starts to flow naturally over time. Speaker 3: Yeah. And a lot of times too, I see when people start charging for something they used to give away for free. They really try to over and they almost confuse the client too much. If you think about what's been happening. The client's getting all this free strategy, but they're paying you for execution. You want to position yourself as a trusted advisor, which doesn't work. But then when they actually start paying you for strategy, that's kind of your first go around at it. Then you're like, oh man, they're paying me for something I used to do for free. So now I need to really do a shitload, but then you overwhelm them. So then they're so confused. They have so many different options. They can't make a decision. Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Almost becomes decision paralysis where they're like, well, what do I do to move forward? Yeah, it's really walking. It's walking side by side with them through to through the process. And like you said, not overwhelming them. Being that advisor, stepping in at the right time, also letting them give you some feedback too, because again, they know what's best internally. You know, we only know what we know from the outside looking in. You don't know what's happening with their budget or with internal team members or politics of hierarchy and all those fun things that happen and what they're getting yelled at. And that's why the relationship again matters because I know if one of my clients calls and they're yelling about something, they probably have had a pretty rough day themselves. And it's probably not something we did. It's just easy to call and vent and complain to us because we've become that advisor, but we can also problem solve with them and say, okay, let's do X, Y, and Z to fix this issue you're having. Speaker 3: I heard something many years ago about how to defuse the angry client calling, even if it's not your fault. And so it goes something like this. So let's say Charlene, you call me up and you're pissed off. You're arrayed, right? Like your voice is like, you're ready to beat me up. Like you have to get madder at yourself than them. And then they'll be like, well, maybe it's not that bad. Speaker 1: Exactly. They're like, well, I don't want you to go that far. Don't go crazy. Speaker 3: Holy cow. I cannot believe Stacy did that. Exactly. Speaker 1: Yeah. I've had a couple of clients. I actually had a client a couple of weeks ago. This just goes back to the relationship. He never has called me to complain about anything. He never calls without scheduling a call. He's one of those types. And my phone rang and immediately my heart started pounding. I'm like, oh, we really screwed something up badly. Because he would never call me. And he was calling, like, just to chat and to find out about a mutual friend of ours and what was going on with that person because he was going to be seeing her at a golf outing. And like that for me though was like, okay, this is validating that this is a relationship. And had there really been an issue too, we would have worked through it because that's how much we trust each other that he can call on a Friday night and ask me a question at 630. And of course I was the one panicking, like, is our marketing director in the hospital? Do I need to go fill in next week? Like what is happening that he is calling me? Speaker 3: You leave the glass half empty, I see. Speaker 1: I just went into full panic and I told our day-to-day client that and she could not stop laughing. She's like, you know, he probably would call you guys though if we had an issue. So, you know, in the future, be prepared. Speaker 3: Well, that's good, right? Like customer service is I feel like it's a lost art. Like for example, there was a strategic partner that for many years we referred a lot of work to. And then we started to hear back from some of our members on certain things. And then, because as soon as we hear something, we're like, we immediately go to the partner. Hey, here's what's happening. Keep us posted. And they would be like, they barely ever get back to us. And we don't recommend that partner anymore because customer service is very important to us. We live and die by it. We always do what we want someone to treat us. And I'm glad that you guys are that way too, because there's not many people anymore. Speaker 1: We have some pretty set standards when it comes to our client service kind of philosophy around we respond in timely manners. We try not to say no, but we try to have a backup plan instead of, well, we can't do that, but here's what we can do instead. We try and problem-solve. We also just are very empathetic, I think, with what they have going on on their other side because life happens as we all live through in 2020. Nothing was the usual and the same. And I think we're just thoughtful in our approach to our clients and knowing every client's a little different and the way they want to be communicated with is different. We have one client who prefers text. So, we're just prepared for that if we're on deadlines that she's probably going to text us. We have another one who will call every single time, no matter what. So, we just need to know about that too and answer in a timely fashion. And so, I think our account services team does a really good job of getting to know our clients up front too, again, onboarding and learning those little things they get. We send out status reports every single Friday. Our clients know they are coming. And then we do status calls every single week, even if it's a five minute, hey, nothing's going on, but just wanted to say, hi, we'll see you next week. We send super detailed timelines. We don't miss deadlines. Like we'd like to exceed expectations because that makes everyone feel good. And we've been on the other side where we haven't gotten good client service. And that is the worst feeling. Like I'm not knowing, did they read my email? Did they feel the urgency I felt? Do they understand why I'm so concerned? You want someone else to understand that on the other side. Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, you got to kind of have that as your value and then come up with systems in order to make it better over time. I tell people when we have new members join the community and we do our onboarding, I always go to them. I go, look, I may say something like I always say whatever's on the top of my head. I may say something that offends you. If it does, call me out on it right away and educate me on that because I never do anything that I ever want to hurt anybody's feelings or anything like that. And if I do, call me out on it and I will apologize and then we'll move forward in that. Or I go, here's what I expect from you. You know, I always tell everybody, we'll solve your biggest challenge, but that solution will create more problems and you're going to have problems and you have to be open and honest with us and the rest of the members. Because when you have the hardest time in your business, that's why you joined. And you need to speak up. And if you don't speak up, and then you come to me when it's a dire need later on when you had a couple months ahead of time, like that's my biggest pet peeve. I'm like, you're joining And getting all this amazing support of like this board of directors for you. But if you don't ask, I can't help. And that's my biggest aggravation. So I ingrain that into them so that if they ever do have a, you know, or when they do have a problem, like come to it right away. Let's figure this out. Speaker 1: And because we're not mind readers, we only know so much. We even a couple of years ago, we redid our master services agreement. And we put some of that in the master services agreement. Here's how we're going to communicate your expectations for both sides. Here's how we're going to negotiate. Here's our non-negotiables. Just so that even in the very upfront, we get that out of the way so we can move forward with set expectations for both sides because it does have to be again, back and forth. It's a relationship. Speaker 3: And sometimes you have to remind them like, Hey, you remember the agency creed that you signed? Like, did you forget about that? Speaker 1: I remember that conversation we had at the very beginning about what we look for in a partner too. It's both. Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So this has been a lot of fun, Charlene, for coming on the show. Thanks for sharing and talking about the customer service and your guys' point of view. I mean, that's really what I think people listen to the show is just get all these different perspectives because there's a thousand ways to do them. And if you're listening and you like this conversation and you really want to Take your agency to the next level where you're generating more leads, getting better clients so you can be selective. For the first time ever, we're really giving you access to the first half of our agency playbook, which are really the most important three systems from gaining clarity of where you need to go, how do you position your agency to really Not look like everyone else. And then most importantly, kind of what we were talking about, that offering ladder that we talked about in the show, it walks you through how you can create that offer ladder for your agency and come up with that foot in the door so you don't have to waste time with the wrong prospect and turn them into a nightmare client. You can avoid that. If you guys go to swenk.com, it will take you right there. Just put in your email address and you'll get access to the first three systems that will really help I'll guide you going from there. So make sure you go to swenk.com and until next time.