Managing Client Expectations

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Managing Client Expectations

• meet their needs, manage their wants
• Jim McQuaid / Turnip Video
• MCA-I RDC June 21, 2004

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Speaker Background

• Education
• stuffy prep school with lots of writing
• liberal arts degree
• MFA in still photography
• lots of evening courses seminars in technology
  marketing
• Work much?
• Once worked in a halfway house for ex-convicts
• taught photography the history of photography
• Ran Oral History Project at George Eastman House
  for two years
• tech writer marketing communications for
  software companies
• marketing communications, product management for
  electronics / network companies
• Currently Product Manager, NetIQ, a
  California-based software company
• Night job / Indie filmmaker d/b/a Turnip Video

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Whats the Problem?

• Its human nature to confuse needs wants we
  all do it
• the grocery store is the easiest place for me to
  do this!
• In business, this confusion can be more serious
• People, including our clients, stay in business
  by accomplishing what they need to (must) do to
  make a profit
• Media projects tend to bring out this confusion.
  Why?
• Everyone is an expert
• Videos are fun, not work, right?
• My cousin could do it for 50

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What is managing client expectations?

• It has these components
• Knowing your business
• Managing yourself
• Knowing your clients business
• Managing your client

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Knowing Your Business

• This ought to be the easy part
• You know what it will cost you to accomplish
  something
• You know from experience which things are easy
  and which things are hard
• and which things are next to impossible . . . .

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Managing Yourself

• (well come back to this one)

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Knowing Your Clients Business

• This is the hard part
• Your job is to accomplish a business goal for
  your client
• How can you accomplish this goal if you dont
  know what it is?
• For that matter, how can the client accomplish
  the goal if they dont know what it is?
• Truth there is a lot of half-baked marketing out
  there
• Corollary the companies that execute the basics
  well are better positioned to thrive than those
  that dont

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How can you know your clients business?

• There are 3 ways to do this
• ONE you used to be in that business
• works great when its true doesnt exactly grow
  the business very easily
• TWO the client tells you
• This is the goal, but its not very common
• THREE you work with the client to figure it out
• This is what you normally will have to do to
  succeed

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The Clients Business ONE

• Is this a business goal?
• We need a video of our sales meeting.
• How about this?
• Sales management is rolling out a new product
  support structure and we need to make sure
  everybody hears about it and learns it.
• Your first job is to recognize the difference
  between a business goal and a pre-digested
  media thought.

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Story Nerds and Poets

• While running Marketing Communications for a
  network test equipment company we had a burning
  need to raise market awareness with advertising
• All of the Product people were Electrical
  Engineers (or worse)
• All of the ad agency folks were creative types
• Engineers like complete control, dislike
  ambiguity, lack certain kinds of imagination
  (fill in the blanks)
• Creative people have a high tolerance for
  ambiguity, are used to imagining the final
  product from a sketch
• Can you see a problem here?

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What was presented

• Concept of multi-purpose equipment replacing five
  kinds of competing equipment . . . .

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What Engineering Types Imagined the Final Ad to
Look like

• Half baked

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What The Creative Types Imagined the Final Ad to
look like
One or Many?
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Lost In Translation

• Not just an interesting film - its what happens
  to your clients business goals when they start
  thinking about video film
• Your defense is to be the marketing
  communications director (for this project)
• Establish the business goals in writing
• audience
• core message
• how this helps the business succeed
• key points of information or reference

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Make the Business Goals Explicit

• audience people who buy network test equipment
• core message our product does the job of several
  different competitors
• how this helps the business succeed
• we have to communicate the versatility or we lose
  because we are more expensive than any one
  competitor!
• key points of information or reference
• only those running Local Area and Wide Area
  networks need this
• We achieve versatility with a set of plug-in
  boards in the back of the equipment

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Managing Yourself

• Managing the client is difficult for many reasons
• They appear to hold all the cards
• (you are the expert on what you do)
• You need the business
• (there really are some jobs you dont want)
• It is most difficult because you have to manage
  yourself
• Temper your natural enthusiasm for shooting /
  billing / brainstorming with a goal-driven
  approach to defining the project
• Do not accept the clients definition at face
  value

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Managing Your Client

• At the end of the day, it means doing the best
  job for your client
• Best, however, means best way to meet the
  clients needs, not just their wants
• Best means that you took the time to figure out
  the difference between the clients needs and
  wants
• Best means that the clients media project is
  more likely to achieve its business goal,
  resulting in a desire for the client to do more
  of this fun stuff!

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Question One

• Actor what can you suggest about marketing
  yourself as an actor?
• Others have a lot more experience insight on
  this, but the basics of marketing still apply
• You have to describe the product effectively
  (dont cling to a headshot because it cost a lot
  use whatever works)
• You have to define your target audience / market.
  The best definition is a list of phone
  numbers, of course, but knowing the profile of
  the folks you want to reach will enable you to
  track them down
• (And, these days, having at least a simple
  one-page web site is extremely useful)

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Question Two

• Exec VP at client loves the project but his staff
  tell me its useless. I get paid, but Id be
  happier if I thought the project really was
  helpful. . . .
• Suggestion ultimately, you cant manage a
  completely dysfunctional client, however, sitting
  together and putting the project goals on paper
  can be remarkably powerful.
• People will verbalize their feelings, but the
  goals in black and white typically look a bit
  more business centric.

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Question Three

• The clients project, as described, is a 20k
  project but his project is only 10k . . . .
• Managing this client primarily involves setting
  priorities with the client.
• Ask them, what one thing / image do you want the
  audience to take away with them?
• Assign real priority numbers, 1 thru 3 or 5,
  often the high cost items are not essential to
  getting the core message in the can if they are,
  you are set up to brainstorm alternatives with
  the client

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Recommended Reading

• Making Videos for Money Planning and Producing
  Information Videos, Commercials, and Infomercials
  / Barry Hampe

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Thanks!

• jim_at_turnipvideo.com
• www.turnipvideo.com