Working with clients in slumping sectors

This question came up in a coaching call. The current economic situation isn’t helping agencies…but it’s affecting some sectors even more profoundly. What do we do when we’re contracted to deliver for a client who sells something the public doesn't want to spend on right now? Or a client who can’t get the inventory?

Of course there’s nuance…but there are 3 essential steps I’d recommend you take:

1. Understand the client’s situation

Why is the client’s sector suffering more acutely? What’s causing the issues they’re having…and what’s causing those issues? Are the causes of those issues likely to change and, therefore, is this slump a permanent thing, or is it likely to be reversed?

For example, if the client’s issues are significantly impacted by the government’s fiscal policy, how likely is it that the next budget will change things for them?

If the client’s issues are seasonal, how likely is it that things will change quickly when demand increases?

In both of these examples, we can predict the milestones in the client’s mind (or the minds of their board): if the client is relying on the Autumn Statement for things to get better, we can assume that we’ll see a reaction from their team within a day or two…this could be all systems go, or it could be a parting of the ways. Either way, we must be poised and ready.

2. Show the short-term plan

What are we doing right now to make sure we’re making the most of the money they’re giving to us and providing as much value in the short term as possible? We might need to pivot from the contractually agreed services (we might not) and so we should discuss the options.

We should also understand what action the client is taking elsewhere, whether or not that affects us directly. If they’ve turned off some channels to save money, why did they do that and keep us around? It might seem obvious to us…but it usually isn’t. This will also affect what we do in the future, which leads us to…

3. Show the long-term plan

At every opportunity, we should be pointing to the big red folder we keep on our desks that says “open in case of sector revival”. How (quickly) will we adjust our resourcing to help them when it’s open season? How little effort will we be to manage when it hits the fan? Our long term plan might be somewhat unusual in this case because it’s not always what we’re working towards but, rather, plan B we’ll pivot towards. We want the client’s organisation to unanimously agree that they want us in their corner on the day when their world goes back to normal.

Summary

The most obvious parallel here is the COVID-19 pandemic. My agency was working with travel brands during a time when travel was largely impossible. We followed these steps, firstly understanding what would have to change for the clients to start making money again (the rate of infection decreasing, resulting in a change in policy) and when it was likely to happen (before the clients went bust); secondly making sure it was understood what we proposed to do in the short term to make sure they were still benefitting and, at the same time, showing them what we expected would happen when the world opened up.

None of these three brands paused our contract or reduced spend - and one of them actually increased it.