“Great work entails risk. Most clients do not want to take risks; they prefer a safe retreat into the world of the merely good, or worse, the dismissively average. Still, if they are going to take that risk, they are much more likely to do so with agency people they trust. And trust is the very foundation of a great relationship. And that’s why I say a great relationship leads to great work … Some of what follows (in this book) is about working with agencies, but most of it is about building client trust.

“And this, in the end, is why client service matters. It matters because the work matters. And creating great work is what drives and inspires all of us every day.”

- Robert Solomon, The Art of Client Service

Well, perhaps this isn’t the short version, but the only version:

“It’s become apparent that you are excellent at making the clients feel their needs are being met, but Mr. Cosgrove has the rare gift of making them feel as if they haven’t any needs.” - Lane Pryce, to Pete Campbell.

Where’s this from? You guessed it, Mad Men.

We know our industry pretty well. We also know that we learn every day. So we write about what we do. We’ve found lots of clarity in writing about our business. It’s had a lot of subtle effects that are becoming more apparent as time goes on.

Writing helps you crystalize your ideas.

It helps you take a stand on topics. Forcing yourself to put your thoughts into words makes you decide how you want to be seen by your clients, and by your employees. It’s a cathartic process. Coming up with the perfect word to describe what you’re writing about can be salubrious. You’re defining your business and pinning down the adjectives that make it what it is. You can think all day long, but when it comes to actually formulating those thoughts, it can be tough sometimes. Writing helps.

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What’s the story of Coca-cola, or Hewlett Packard? What’s the story of BMW? We’re not asking about the history of the company, or the founders. What we mean is, what story have you told yourself about those brands and what they mean? Is the management at BMW rigorous about quality? Cutting edge design? Are they a bunch of obsessive Bavarians that get a buzz out of driving fast on the Autobahn, making their engines growl?

What on earth gave you that idea? It was advertising actually…

We don’t know of anyone who doesn’t like to be told a good story. One that’s engaging, and interesting. One that’s believable. It’s entertaining, and because of this, most people will repeat it or at least act on it. That’s where marketing comes in.

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Giving out pricing

We’ve toyed for a very long time with opening up our pricing system. To be quite honest, we can nail down the exact cost of many jobs through a fairly formulaic process. It would take a day or two to apply programming to this http://entermotion.com/estimates to make it give you exact numbers. We could even assign a percentage multiplier to account for how busy we are at any given time adjusting rates accordingly.

We haven’t done it for one reason. To assign direct pricing to our services commoditizes them. We sell our creativity by the hour; nothing less, nothing more. We empathize quite directly with our potential clients who desire a starting place in regards to pricing, but it just can’t be done while staying true to the original intent of our business.

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