The Art of Account Management: Matt Allen on Being a Calming, Empathetic Force

Matt Allen is based in San Francisco and serves as a group account director at Cutwater. He’s a collaborative leader that immerses himself in understanding a brand's unique challenges to ensure bespoke solutions are brought to the table for our client partners.

With over twenty years experience, he has led to successful partnerships and played an instrumental role in developing distinctive, omni-channel brand campaigns with a diverse set of clients including HP, McDonald's, and Pella. At Cutwater, he works closely with clients like MoneyGram and SF Bay Coffee, bringing a hands-on approach that ensures every campaign is tailored to client needs.

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

Matt> I had a close family relative that had an account leadership role at a large agency and I was always intrigued by the work he did. After college, I was managing and opening new restaurants for a restaurant company that was in expansion mode.

I gravitated toward the marketing efforts associated with building success for those new locations. As it turns out, there are a lot of transferable skills for account management in restaurant leadership - from client relations, problem solving and crisis management, building successful teams and beyond - all things I found to be fun and rewarding.

When I got tired of working until three in the morning on a regular basis, I took those skills and made the move out of hospitality and into account, continuing what has now become a family tradition.  

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

Matt> I think it’s especially important for anyone on an account team to be a calming, empathetic force for both internal and client teams. This shouldn’t be confused with passivity but rather a recognition that there’s a lot going on at any given moment. Stress can run high and you’ve got to be the voice of reason in the room or Zoom that is playing a significant role in getting through those moments, which is how I like to approach my work.

Beyond that, I’ve had the good fortune of having terrific mentors, managers, team members and clients over the course of my career that have demonstrated that being inquisitive, solutions-oriented, flexible, open minded, collaborative and passionate about the work you do goes a long way to your success and that of your agency and client partners, something I try to emulate in my own approach.

LBB> What piece of advice would you give to someone just starting their career in account management?

Matt> Great ideas can come from anyone on the team, including you. We are hired, in part, for our perspective, so don’t be shy about sharing yours. I’d advise asking yourself the question, “Will my own lived experiences, immersion into the brands I work on, or my knowledge of my client counterparts be additive to this discussion?”

There may be times where this feels uncomfortable or you are worried about getting shut down. Practice with your peers, collaborate with your team leads, find the right moments and keep moving forward. 

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?

Matt> You can easily run into trouble when expectations for client relationships aren’t clearly defined upfront. And if those expectations are not consistently held up to on both ends of the partnership, problems are likely to develop. This is not to say you need to be rigid – we inherently live in a world of grey and it’s your responsibility to navigate that – but transparency, overcommunication and re-alignment, especially in a new client relationship, is essential. 

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

Matt> This question could be a series in and of itself but let me start here. You must first demonstrate a genuine interest in your clients business at every turn. This goes beyond an understanding of the Four Cs – you need to get underneath what is driving decisions at your client’s business and how you and your team can play an integral part in delivering against those goals, ever-changing as they may be at times.

You’ve got to understand the impact of the work your team is delivering and be transparent in what’s working well and what isn’t (and providing potential solutions wherever needed – rarely does everything go as planned, and in that lies opportunity).  

Building this credibility unlocks the foundation for what could be a long-term partnership and shows your value through changes in the competitive landscape, product or marketing challenges, and even shifts in client leadership.  

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

Matt> I believe there is a place for both disagreement and emotion, as long as neither is dismissive of anyone else's point of view. The only guardrail I ask anyone to consider is that they must be demonstrated in service of making the work better.

I find that beginning conversations with the business problem, objective and brief outlined is a great place to foster healthy discussion. It’s also important that, while all perspectives from the team are expected and invited, at the end of any discussion one person is responsible for making a final call and the team aligns and moves on.  

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? 

Matt> I think there is a shared responsibility on both our internal and client teams to collaborate effectively and not divisively. There will always be times when there’s misalignment and I do believe it’s an account leader’s role to take a step in, look at any challenge holistically and be ready to have what may be difficult conversations.

Most often, I’ve found that referring back to the business challenge itself, ensuring everyone is working off the same understanding of the assignment brief – and comfortable pressure testing the work against it – uncovers whatever the issue may be so it can be solved.

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?

Matt> This is one of the best parts of the job! An account person is typically a generalist, so you’ve got to be willing to learn something new everyday as platforms, technology and audience needs evolve. You have to critically consider how your agency’s capabilities in these areas may apply to your client’s business needs (and if those skillsets aren’t there, raise the opportunity with your agency leadership team and make the case to broaden your offerings). 

You need to be humble and comfortable with not necessarily being the smartest person in the room, but the one that knows what levers and expertise to pull into conversations. 

I think AI is a perfect example – get in there and play with new platforms to see how they may augment your work, have conversations with other subject matter experts and bring thought leadership on it to your clients on how it may apply to their business – you have no idea what doors it may open.

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?

Matt> We recently launched the first-ever brand campaign for San Francisco Bay Coffee, a huge milestone for any brand and one I felt privileged to play a role in as they encouraged coffee enthusiasts to make a difference with ‘one small sip’ by choosing their OneCup commercially compostable coffee pods. 

This was a full-funnel strategic, comms, creative and media campaign with a challenger brand approach that involved multiple stakeholders, and full-scale production with a brand new client. This all inherently comes with challenges in ensuring we didn’t get off track along the way. 

As this was the brand’s first foray into campaign development we put an overemphasis on ensuring our clients knew what was happening at every step along the development path. We didn’t wait for ‘big reveals’ – we held ongoing work sessions with our clients along the way to align, adjust and address any concerns or roadblocks. This was super helpful as it allowed us not only to understand the ‘why’ behind what was working and what wasn’t but also to further foster our relationship and allow our clients to keep their internal stakeholders updated along the way.

Seeing the early positive results of a campaign for a brand like this come through is greatly satisfying – it just leads to more opportunities, not only for the brand itself but for our team to do more great work in the future.