Getting the most from your vendors | Getting the most from your client |
by Aaron Rosenstein | by Wendy Quesinberry |
How do you get the most from your vendors? Build them a better sandbox… | How do you get the most from your clients? Think outside the box… |
You’ve hired your vendor because they are experts in their field—let them be experts. Give them clear direction and support on what you hired them to do and then get out of the way. Create a big enough sandbox for them to play in so they can develop truly great creative, or media buys or press strategies or tradeshow experiences or whatever you hired them for but don’t draw the sandbox so big that they careen off into another universe. To set your vendors and yourself up for success, consider these six factors: | When a client hires your firm, they are looking for help to solve a problem and accomplish their goal(s). Think of yourself as a conduit for expressing their vision. Through the work you produce, the client expects to: elicit a desired action, increase sales, build their brand, reach their audience, etc. You can help by not only executing the agreed upon deliverables but by thinking out ahead of your client; peek around corners; push the parameters of the sandbox they’ve laid out. To set your client and yourself up for success, consider these six factors: |
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Hire the best fit for what you need. Think about the old adage that there’s good, cheap, and fast—and you can only pick two. So, if you want the project to be good and cheap you will need to be flexible with your timelines. Or, if you want it good and fast, be prepared to pay more. If you are expecting good, cheap, and fast, get ready for disappointment.Know what your vendors are good at and help them to guide your project to success. Engage them early, set clear expectations, communicate effectively and follow-up judiciously. | Help guide your client. Throughout your career you’ll work with clients who have varying degrees of experience working with vendors. More seasoned clients understand the creative process, how their requests fit into a bigger objective, and are able to articulate vision, set goals, create budgets, as well as establish timelines. They will need your help to do so, but experience helps things move forward. If a client is new to managing outside vendors, they may need your guidance to keep a project running smoothly. Be prepared for more questions. And if during the project process you receive any requests from them that affect time or budget, raise the red flag immediately. Someone early in their career may not realize that endless rounds of feedback or “new ideas” could have unintended time and budget consequences. |
Set clear expectations. Your job as the client is to help your vendors help you. They can’t meet your expectations unless they clearly understand what you are looking to accomplish. Vague directions and unclear expectations lead to frustration, overruns, change orders and a muddled finished product. Avoid verbal-only instructions. These often lead to misinterpretation and disappointment. Instead provide written details of what you are looking to accomplish and your expectations. A well-crafted creative brief or project scope document is well worth the time and effort. Clear written feedback provided throughout the project will help to keep things on track and streamline communications. | Ask for goals/vision. As you gather initial input on a project, ask for the end goal. Some clients are able to articulate their needs beyond “sell more stuff” or “get butts in seats.” But for some, defining the end goal is a daunting task. Developing a creative brief or project scope document is very helpful and should include a well-defined project goal. If your client hasn’t provided one of these documents, then develop your own from the kickoff meeting and present for approval. This will help set structure for the job, assure you have an understanding of your client’s objectives, and determine what success looks like. Be sure to explore vague input that could be misinterpreted such as “I need to make an impact” or “it really needs to pop.” What exactly does that mean to your client? |
Risk reduction. Things often don’t go as planned but, with a little foresight, you can mitigate some of the risks. Alwaysa) Regular Check-ins. Perform regular reviews to assess vendor performance and identify areas for improvement. b) Timelines and deadlines. A rule of thumb: always add 30% more time to any timeline or workback schedule you receive. Vendors want to win your business and will often present timelines that are aggressive or “perfect” state. This never really happens so, consider padding your timelines. If the project comes in early all the better. c) Cost overruns. Projects always go over budget (well, most of the time). Set budgets that are realistic and have a little buffer in them (10% is good) just in case. If you make changes to the scope or timelines, don’t expect your vendor to eat the added time or work. d) Scope creep. Inevitably, once a project starts to take shape there’s always more that can be done. Choose wisely what can and should be accomplished given time, money, and potential impact. Sometimes things are better done than perfect. | Risk reduction. Before beginning any project, help keep things on track by setting clear timelines and budget parameters. Determining a timeline is often the easiest question because the client most likely has an event, product launch, or media deadline they need to meet. The schedule can have a big impact on the budget. If a quick delivery is needed, you may not have the time to produce more complicated solutions, or you may have to consider rush fees from any third-party vendors who will partner with you to fulfill the scope.Budget can be more difficult to extract from a client. There’s an idea that if an amount is declared, you might have delivered the same project for less. But as we know, creative services is not a widget factory. Each engagement is a unique scenario with its own special set of circumstances and considerations—all of which take a different amount of time and resources. When given a budget, you can explore ideas that can be produced and delivered within that cost. Without a budget, we may shoot for the stars, when we need to be closer to earth. Or we may make an assumption that there’s a lower budget to be met and will stunt creativity to meet an arbitrary low number. If a client isn’t willing to offer a budget, ask in broad terms to gauge their comfort. For example, you could ask, “Do you have $5,000, $25,000, or $50,000 for this project?” This will help ensure you are in the same ballpark as your client. |
Insights are key. Can you imagine trying to create a truly impactful ad without understanding the customer or event or product? Vendors are not mind readers, they need to understand your objectives, customer, product, competitive landscape, and KPIs nearly as well as you do in order to come up with impactful marketing deliverables. Provide vendors with the information they need to succeed. Give your vendor partners all appropriate and sharable customer research insights, strategy documents, channel insights, revenue goals, etc. Providing your partner vendors with context helps them create exceptional designs, copy, blogs, press releases, or whatever you are asking of them. | Don’t work in a vacuum. The more you know about a client, their customers and the project the better. A deliverable does not exist in a vacuum. Approach a project as if you’re beginning a long-term partnership with the client. Getting even a brief history of the organization, overview of their customers, insight on what they’ve tried in the past, what has and hasn’t worked, and where they want to be in the next 2–5 years can help set the tone and manner of your project. The more information you have, the better you’re able to help them with their project. |
Continuous communication. Communications and work product sharing has never been easier and yet so hard. Setup regular touch-bases, mutually agree upon milestones and decide before hand collaboration tools will be used. Are you a Google suites company or does your team use Canva and Slack? Or maybe it is better to engage via email and Sharepoint? Getting on the same “page” so to speak, early in the engagement will help when the project and relationship really heats up. | Continuous communication. If the client is new to managing a project, they may need additional check-ins between meetings and presentations. Be transparent and let them know if any roadblocks have surfaced. This is important especially if anything jeopardizes the schedule or budget. |
Be a good client. Treat your vendors like a partner and they will deliver like a partner. Vendors are not employees; they don’t live and breathe your company culture and product every day like you do. They are running their own business and have other clients besides you (which, if they are good, you will never hear about). Give them the respect, trust and partnership they deserve. Establish a culture of open and honest communication with your vendors. Regular check-ins and feedback sessions can help build trust and ensure alignment. | Be a true partner. Your ideal outcome is to meet the project goals, deliver what you agreed upon, and to make your client shine. Never lose sight that your client not only needs the deliverables they’ve requested, but they need to fulfill bigger objectives within their organization—and you’re a part of that. Anything you can do to help them with their greater pursuits will be valued and will create a true partnership. |