The Art of Account Management: Why Trust Is Your Strongest Tool with Shannon Cash

Shannon has varied and in-depth agency experience in account management. She started out running paid media and social campaigns for a suite of entertainment clients and forayed into social strategy and creative work across multiple verticals, from major entertainment brands like NBCUniversal, HBO, and NEON to product and brand projects for clients like Bumble, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter & Peloton. She’s been at GLOW for two years managing a portfolio of clients including The Roku Channel, Paramount+, Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO | MAX and MGM+. 

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

Shannon> I stepped into an account role as I started my career after an internship at a small entertainment marketing agency. The account management role allowed me the opportunity to oversee all aspects of a project while establishing a relationship with the client, which I really enjoyed. It's a great role for people that are interested in all aspects of the business and don't want to focus on just one element like creative, strategy, media, project management, or finance. I like to think of it as a little bit of everything. 

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

Shannon> I believe my affinity for organisation is one of my most important skills as I’ve developed my career in account management. Colleagues and clients trust that I’m organised enough to keep us all accountable, ensure everything is done according to plan, that clients expectations are set and managed, and that nothing gets missed. If you prove that you’re organised, it instils a trust in others for your capabilities, and trust is your strongest tool with a client. 

I’ve also always enjoyed working on a team versus doing individual work, which I think is a helpful trait to have as an account manager. Most campaigns for our clients are basically a real-world version of a school group project, and in the account role, you’re the group leader. 

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

Shannon> Work as closely with other departments outside of account management as much as you can. I took opportunities to shadow and ask questions from my colleagues about their work and tasks on creative, strategy, media, data analytics, ad operations, finance, and project management whenever I could. I even still do it now. Learning as much as you can about every element of what is going into your client’s campaign will only make you stronger in your role as an account manager and propel you forward in your career with a deeper understanding of the business, what it takes to achieve your campaign or project goals, and how it all comes together. 

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?

Shannon> It’s gotta be timelines. Tight timelines are often a major distresser and area of contention with client-agency relationships. When timing is tight and things are expected at an unrealistic pace, it can lead to miscommunications and sloppy work. As an agency partner, it’s super important that we know what’s driving the deadlines that clients set for us, as it really helps us to prioritise and make strategic recommendations on how we can hit our goals within a given time constraint. It’s then our job to ensure the timeline is achievable and that both parties are aware of what is expected of them to hit those milestones before we even kick off and set expectations for delivering quality work. In my experience (especially in the entertainment world), if there’s one thing most agency people would give a limb for, it’s more time. 

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

Shannon> Trust is so crucial when developing a relationship with your client. You want them to recognise and appreciate that you truly have their best interest at heart and are doing everything you can to help them achieve their business goals as well as their own personal career goals. Building that trust comes with really understanding them and working to be their eyes and ears when guiding your team on a campaign or project. I always try to anticipate what they want to see and voice it internally before clients even see the work. There will always be feedback, but you strengthen their trust in you if you proactively minimise that feedback before they’ve even seen the work.  

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?

Shannon> We are in client services, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have opinions and our own point-of-view. Especially here at GLOW, we strive to not just be 'yes people' agreeing with everything a client wants to do without asking any questions or voicing our perspective. Clients are coming to us because we’re experts in our space, and we should be making strategic recommendations throughout the process. We can disagree and have a discourse about a certain decision, but we always need to make sure we have a clear 'why' to back it up. Even if we end up going with what a client originally asks for, I often see their appreciation for us playing that devil’s advocate role and forcing us all to poke holes and ensure an idea or campaign is worthy before moving forward. Emotion often comes hand-in-hand with discourse and opinions about a creative process, but as account managers we have to do our best to keep the conversations positive and productive. 

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?

Shannon> Personally, I think this is a bit of a dramatisation. As I said, emotion can definitely play a role in a creative’s process, but I have rarely seen it become adversarial. This is probably because we really encourage creative team members to establish their own relationships with the clients as well. As account managers, we’re there to foster that relationship, hold the teams accountable to delivering results, and proactively grow the business, but the agency / client relationship still falls on all departments at GLOW. I think it’s what keeps our clients so happy with our work, they have access to our teams and have collaborative relationships with all departments that often brings about organic and productive conversations between a client and creative. 

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?

Shannon> From my experience, the key to navigating the complexity of today’s modern marketing landscape for your team and your client is transparency and an openness about not having all the answers. With the speed that the industry changes, it’s impossible to have all of the information and expertise readily available at any given moment. At GLOW, we’re constantly doing research and learning about the latest algorithm updates, influencer trends, data limitations, AI capabilities, and more. We work to stay as far ahead of the curve as possible with deep dive research shared at an agency level regularly and services offered for clients like 'GLOW Labs' where we dig deep into a territory for innovation in partnership with the client. We’re always transparent with our clients regarding what we have experience in and what we’re learning more about. By being transparent, we can figure out how to be the best partner for them with the tasks at hand. 

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?

Shannon> As one of the account leads on the East Coast, I’ve forayed into managing a lot of new business efforts for GLOW and I recently led our teams on some really exciting pitches in the second half of 2023 that are coming to fruition in 2024. Really excited to kick off those accounts and start working with new clients while taking on some fresh challenges. Those are still confidential, so I can’t name drop here, but you’ll see some announcements soon enough on the GLOW feeds ;) Pitches are a different type of challenge for an account management role, as you’re so quickly learning about a potential client and essentially taking a crash course in their business while selling yourself and your team to them as the partner to trust. The fast-paced nature of them can be challenging, but also even more rewarding when they end in your favour.