The Art of Account Management: Staying Open Minded under Pressure with Will Sherlock

Will is an account director at Quantum, a brand experience agency specialising in challenger FMCG brands.

With extensive omnichannel experience across BWS in his eight years at Quantum, his focus and priority is overseeing exceptional campaign delivery and building relationships in a truly client centric manner.

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

Will> After finishing my degree in marketing, I had no idea what discipline of marketing I wanted to go into. The first time I’d seen or heard of roles like account executive, manager, director etc. was when I did some research ahead of my application and interview. Knowing what I know now, stepping into the world of client services was absolutely the right choice for me.

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

Will> I hope others would agree, but I consider myself pretty unflappable when it comes to most things. I feel this ability to remain calm, level headed and open minded under pressure has always been a great match for the challenges of account management. I’ve always had a great attention to detail, annoyingly so (even pedantic some would say), but it’s such an important skill to have to ensure quality of output from yourself, your team, studio, developers etc. 

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

Will> Learn to push up and down. No matter the role you’re in, whether it’s AE through to AD, it’s probably the most valuable skill I’ve learnt. There’s a huge amount involved in delivering outstanding work, and as much as you may feel solely accountable, reality is that’s never the case. Delegate tasks efficiently and clearly to get the output you need and expect, and ask for help/advice from your internal support network to gain confidence and conviction in what you’re doing. You quickly realise it’s a team game, and whilst you may be responsible for the final overall output, that doesn’t mean you’re responsible for everything that goes into it along the way.

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? 

Will> The obvious one is budget vs expectation. Everyone is human, everyone has pre-conceptions on ‘value’ which are of course, entirely subjective. Clients, as the budget holders, have a duty to query and challenge costs and output, however we have the same duty to challenge and interrogate exactly what they’re asking, bringing them along the journey to manage their expectations on the impact of the decisions made together.

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

Will> Trust. It doesn’t come easily, and like in life, you need to earn it. But there’s so much value to be had in forging honest, trusted partner relationships with your client. It cuts through the bullsh*t, and generates meaningful conversations which betters the end output. It also makes those trickier conversations (which are needed in most relationships at some point) that bit easier to have. 

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? 

Will> Disagreement is absolutely fine in my eyes, if it’s productive and rational. We’re not always privy to the internal views, politics and barriers our clients face. Whilst we will always have conviction in what we are doing/presenting is the right path to take, sometimes there needs to be a mutual understanding to see it from both sides. In most cases, our clients value us and our opinion, but ultimately they have the final say and we need to leave our egos at the door. Emotion has a place, we’re all human and I often say to my team that if a client voices concerns or discontent in an emotional way, it’s not personal. But not everyone has the best poker face, especially when they’re stressed or under pressure… if the relationship grows from a disagreement (emotionally fueled or otherwise), I think it’s actually a positive in the long run as you’ve likely grown closer to your client.

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? 

Will> No smoke without fire as the old saying goes… but, there’s also a reason why agencies tend to over index and overservice in this vital cog of their business. It’s so important to agency client landscape and perhaps yes, at its core, account management, (or project management if you really simplify it), involves a level of mediation. However, I would say exceptional account management is so much more complex and involved than this. One of my favourite industry quotes is ‘I left my old agency because they never gave me anything I didn’t ask for’. I love it for so many reasons. It’s a great lighthouse to guide yourself, your team and your outputs, sense checking against what has been asked to avoid complacency. The art of exceptional account management is by truly caring, adding value with proactive, knowledge based provocation and turning average into the outstanding. That is what sets you apart from simply a ‘mediator’ and is the most important key to unlocking growth with clients.

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? 

Will> You can probably tell by now, but I’m a sucker for a quote/cliche… There’s a stat that says as an agency partner, we’re less than 5% of our client’s world. Using that driving insight, it’s always worth doing a 180, think about what you can do to make every contact with your client as rich and efficient for them as possible. Asking for approval on a budget? Reattach it, don’t leave them searching for 15 mins in their cluttered inbox. Your client has queries from their own boss on what we’ve planned? Offer to speak directly to them to take something off their plate. It sounds simple, but the amount of time I’ve seen ex-colleagues, other agency equivalents or 3rd parties overcomplicate and make things harder, shows it’s perhaps not.

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? 

Will> It’s not finished yet, but there is one project I’m currently working on that has the potential to be the highlight of my 8+ year career in marketing so far. It’s certainly had its challenges, with our brief forming a key part of executing the launch of a huge cross-category global partnership. With multiple stakeholders, speedy deadlines and a steep learning curve for an entirely new category, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, and look forward to shouting about it from the rooftops once it’s complete – but for now, I’m afraid I’ll need to be a tad vague.