Personality, Empathy and Organisation: The Key Skills of an Account Manager

As managing director at Saatchi & Saatchi, Tracy Webster is tasked with leading the Optimum team. She is a dynamic modern marketer with a proven ability to grow and transform brands through strategic and creative leadership.

With over 20 years of experience working with Fortune 500 brands like DIRECTV, Facebook gaming, Comcast, American Express, and Showtime, Tracy has a proven track record of building strong relationships and driving results.

She is an agile, flexible and creative leader with broad and deep skills across multiple marketing communications capabilities. Tracy is passionate about identifying and helping to develop diverse talent and working with clients to further women’s equality. Prior to Saatchi, Tracy has held leadership roles at Dentsu, Springbox, Ogilvy, and KBS.

LBB> How did you first get involved in account management and what appealed to you about it?

Tracy> When I was a kid, my dad worked in sales at Better Homes and Gardens in NYC so I learned about the industry from him.

By seventh grade I was making ads in art class (bad ones, but still) and planning my future life in NYC at an advertising agency. I thought I wanted to be an art director, but having gone to a small liberal arts college with no advertising degree, I ended up starting in account management and I discovered I loved it because I could be involved in EVERYTHING.

LBB> What is it about your personality, skills and experience that has made account management such a great fit?

Tracy> My dad was very outgoing and friendly, and my mom was a very organised package supervisor at General Foods. I like to think I inherited the personality from dad and management skills from mom. I get energy from meeting new people, figuring out what makes them tick, and making friends. There is nothing more rewarding to me than connection. If you think about it, those are the key skills you need in account management.

LBB> Thinking back to some of your most challenging experiences you’ve had in your career, what do you think tends to lie at the heart of the more tense or difficult client-agency relationships?

Tracy> You can’t have too much empathy when it comes to managing clients. As an account person, you have to be able to walk in your client’s shoes. Seek to understand not only the company and the business, which is a classic industry principle, as well as the human side. Understand what moves them, what provokes a reaction, and how you can help with their goals. But most important, if the passion for their business is not there, your client will know it and can doom the relationship. So again I say, you need to have empathy for them and their business.

LBB> And what are the keys to building a productive and healthy relationship?

Tracy> Like any relationship:

Do what you say you are going to do and keep your promises.

Admit when you or the agency are wrong and fix it.

Bring ideas and products to them that address their needs.

Offer advice on products and services your client can benefit from – that’s how you become a trusted advisor.

LBB> What’s your view on disagreement and emotion - is there a place for it and if not, what? If so, why - and what does productive disagreement look like?

Tracy> I think getting heated is never something you want to do with a client. That doesn’t mean it never happens. The question is really how do you defuse it before it takes over.

Usually things get heated when people don’t feel heard, so showing that you hear them is key. Or they may have pressures you can’t even see coming at them.

Many times the disagreements have to do with surface level differences, so you really have to ask questions to get at what is the core issue. That’s how you uncover common ground and get to a solution or path forward that works for everyone.

LBB> Historically, account management has been characterised as the mediator in an adversarial client and creative relationship - what do you make of that characterisation, is there any nugget of truth in that or is it wildly inaccurate?

Tracy> Account management is so much more than this. As an integrated client lead, I am orchestrating every aspect of what the agency has to offer the client’s business. From media strategy and execution, to advancing the client’s martech, connecting them with partnerships, and brand stewardship (to name a few).

That said, creative differences can crop up. The best account people will work with creatives and seek to understand their perspective, then filter that through a lens that the client will understand and be receptive to.

LBB> These days, agencies do so much beyond traditional campaigns and as account management you’re pulling together creative, experience, data, e-commerce, social and more - and that complexity can often be mirrored on the client stakeholder side too? What’s the key to navigating (and helping the client navigate) that complexity?

Tracy> This is literally my favourite thing about my job as an account leader. The main thing is to deeply understand your client’s business.

Dissect their financials. Understand their structure. Where does the power lie? Who are the buyers, the influencers? Identify where they have the opportunity to optimise and grow and demonstrate to them why and how they can go about doing it. Take it one opportunity at a time starting with the most critical, and bring the experts along with you. And remember, you don’t need to know everything but you need to know enough to identify the right help.

LBB> What recent projects are you proudest of and why? What was challenging about these projects from an account management perspective and how did you address those challenges? What was so satisfying about working on these projects?

Tracy> Over the past year I have been working with a client that is going through a major digital and marketing transformation. The exciting part is there is so much upside.

As the client team has evolved, it has created the opportunity for us to pivot as an agency across media and creative, from a brand and full funnel-oriented agency team to an end-to-end performance marketing system.

I am most proud of my team and how we have completely reimagined the strategy, the operations, product solutions and the talent to match the client vision, all in record time, winning over new clients and proving our value.