Want a better client relationship? Be more demanding on cultural fit

My 18 years’ experience in ad agencies, both in networks and in independents, has led me to realise that an equally important element of the pitch process is ensuring a proper cultural fit.

Which is why I fired that client. One with huge potential but with a total lack of cultural fit with our agency. Let me be very honest. As a growing agency it’s not easy to walk away from a paying client but also, being a young agency, we need to be brave and we need to be selective.

Cultural fit is so important in fact that in the agency I co-founded last year, a lack of cultural fit means we’re turning down an average of three clients every month. I try not to think what that extra fee income would be doing to bottom line. Instead I remember the real value to the agency of not taking those clients on.

Most agencies in a pitch will stress how culturally aligned they are with the client.

Sadly, for them and for the industry as whole, most are lying.

They don’t really question or care about cultural fit. They’re instead fixated on the lure of additional revenue. Unfortunately, short term gain can lead to long term pain.

Their pitch is therefore underlaid by a lie which means that the relationship is probably set for failure. And that’s no way to run a business

From my experience, the bigger the agency the bigger the revenue targets and thus the bigger the problem.

A broken relationship is certainly never going to lead to better business results. What it will lead to is an often-acrimonious parting of the ways, bad feeling between those involved and certainly the chance that other clients might hear how things broke down or agencies hear horror stories about working with that particular client. It’s a lose – lose situation for everybody.

So how as an industry can we ensure we are building relationships that actually are based around aligned values?

We believe there are four essential rules to follow.

The first thing is that you need to do a really good job of understanding and articulating your culture. If you can't how can you assess cultural fit with potential clients? Our values are clear, underpin everything we do and are fully bought into by the entire agency.

Second, be honest with clients on exactly what they’re going to get from you.

We know, for instance, that our decision to remove the client service layer won’t suit everyone, so I make sure it’s clear they’ll be receiving an unsterilised view of campaign performance directly from our analysts.

Third, use data to inform your approach to cultural fit. Our agency values appear on a sales scorecard (with a weighting). The sales team complete the card after speaking to any new prospect. For instance, clients must be prepared to open up their performance data to us as we do to them. You can tell a lot about a potential client from their reaction to this stipulation.

Fourth, and often the hardest to follow is that you must be prepared to fire a client when it's not working out, as you can often only really know if the fit is right once you're working together. It’s a painful moment when you realise it wont work out but believe me, your team will thank you for doing so in the long run.

But you don’t want to fire anyone. Nobody does. Letting people go is as hard in a business relationship as it is in any human relationship.

This is why it’s got to be a last resort rule and why it’s so important to invest so much time and effort in the first three.

As agencies we should want to pride ourselves on the strength of relationships.

So cultural fit should never just be used as just a slide on a pitch deck.

True, long-term business success is only guaranteed in a client/agency relationship when true cultural fit is its underlying guiding principle.

Your clients will thank you for taking it seriously.

Matt Kwiecinski was managing director at Agency Republic for 13 years, then spent two years as managing director of Critical Mass, merging the two agencies before leaving to co-found media agency Journey Further in January 2017.