Brand Central Station

One of the things clients seem to hate is budgeting.  I get it.  Nobody likes to feel they’re the equivalent of somebody else’s Sunday dinner.

Last week, I had a client say to me: “I’m reluctant to give out a number for that project because I don’t want the vendor to keep loading it up with bells and whistles to meet my budget.”  It was a refreshingly candid (and honest) statement.

So in a world of creative smoke and mirrors – where every job seems to be a custom job requiring (at best) “educated” guesses at costs and production timelines; how does an in-house marketing manager get things under control and make sure he or she doesn’t get taken for a ride by an unscrupulous ad agency or design boutique?

Believe it or not, the best process to use for controlling production costs on the client side is very much the same kind of process agencies should be using on their side as well … but more on that later.

The secret to controlling production costs is to take the guesswork out of it. 

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I’m not sure why clients never understood this … but when it comes to getting the best out of their ad agency or PR firm for the least amount of money, clients turn from being “marketing partners” into “general contractors from hell.”

I an’t tell you how many times I’ve received RFP’s from clients that read more like a purchase order for gravel than a request for our best thinking on a tough marketing assignment.  I’ve always wanted to respond: “Thanks for the bid request – we have a sale on four-color ads this week but we’re a little short on brochure ideas, can we arrange for a two-for-one swap?”

Now comes a study commissioned by Jones & Bonevac that reports at least 30% of marketing agency staff time is ineffective or wasted due to poor communications from their clients.

See, it was just as we suspected … it’s all the clients’ fault.

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My business partner and I have a meeting with a client today.  We’re going over marketing and media plans for 2009 and talking about a whole host of issues related to what we accomplished this past year and where we’re going in the next.

But when I talk to some of my friends who are either freelancers or own their own small agencies, they’re too busy scrambling to get work done for this year to even think about sitting down with clients and talking about the year to come.  And that’s a major problem.

As I mentioned in my post on Marketing in a Recession, you have to make sure your happy customers are exactly that: happy.  And that’s because the 80/20 rule quickly turns into a 90/5 situation.  The economy will force more of your eggs into a smaller basket – to not take the time now to make sure that basket belongs to you is foolish.

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