Creative Agency Account Manager Podcast

Transcript
Jenny:So I'm really excited to welcome to the show, Alison Coward today who is the founder of Bracket Creative and Bracket Creative help teams work better together. Now the first time I met Alison was when she was speaking at an Agencynomics event. And she's a very well known keynote speaker. And I was just struck by how she captivated the audience. Literally all of these agency leaders were scribbling notes, because she was just so, so articulate for one, but also, her speech contained so much fact based, you know, there was data, there was thought leadership that she was quoting books and statistics, and it was so impressive, and we've become friends. And I'm, for that reason, we're both in the same kind of industries. Alison works with lots of different types of industry and companies, but specifically, we have an overlap in terms of agencies, because she works with agencies. I would love for you, Alison, I know you've got over 15 years experience, I'd love you to just give us a flavour of your experience. Alison:Yeah, well, firstly, thank you for having me, I always love our chat. So I'm really looking forward to this. I think you've given a really good introduction to what I do already. And my company is Bracket, I specialise in team culture and collaboration, I have been working in the creative industries, literally most of my career. And specifically what I do at Bracket is around helping teams to become more creative, more productive together, essentially looking at that high performance, but how can they make the most of the talents of the team and, get them to work together so they can achieve amazing things together and enjoy while they're doing it, as well. So I do a lot of workshop facilitation, which are sessions where we bring teams together, helping them to have productive discussions, and, you know, figure out what they're going to do, how they're going to do it, strategy, sessions, kickoff, sessions, brainstorming, you know, new idea type brainstorming sessions as well. The other thing that I do around that is a lot of my work is influenced by workshop facilitation. And I'll probably get into that a little bit later. We also do kind of training and coaching and consultancy, because I think one of the things that's really important to me is that people within teams become owners of their culture and responsible for their culture. So I'm really kind of quite keen on helping people to develop the skills that I have in particularly in facilitation, and how they can have better conversations about how they work together. Jenny:Fantastic, what I love, you always pop up on LinkedIn. And it's not necessarily that you're posting, it's because your clients tend to post about the experience of working with you. And they're usually just glowing with great feedback. So I know that you do some great work in the world, and why specifically, like turning our attention specifically to agencies, because this is the audience that I'm talking to mainly, why do you think it's important for agencies to pay attention to their team culture? Alison:Yeah. So I mean, I come from the creative industries and create, like a creative background. So my history is in working with creative people, people that have you know, have got creativity as their currency. And there's one thing about like, being creative. But then there's another thing about the conditions that foster more creativity, and foster high performance. And that often comes down to things like the culture like, you know, how easy is it for people to put forward ideas? How supportive do they feel in their environment? How easy, how comfortable do they feel, taking risks, and making mistakes in front of their team members. And that's all cultural. So within an agency environment, focusing on the aspects around the team, which kind of create the environment for people to do their best work is super important. You know, you can be creative without some of those conditions. But if you do put those things in place, then you're going to get much more kind of productivity and creativity from a team. And as I say, they're going to enjoy doing it as well. Oh, and you know, enjoyment is a big part, enjoyment and engagement is a big part of doing great work. It's not kind of you know, if you do the work, and then you have fun, it's, it's completely interlinked. If you can enjoy what you do, then you produce better outputs. It's just as simple as that. Jenny:It's so true. I mean, you mentioned the creative output, which is so key to what we do as an industry and how great team collaboration and culture can foster that. What do you think the impact on the agency's bottom line is as a result of a strong team culture? Alison:Yeah, well, I mean, the thing that comes to mind when you when you talk about that is, and this is what I spoke about at the Agencynomics event, it was one of the things that I mentioned was the idea of psychologi...

Welcome to the Creative Agency Account Manager Podcast with me, Jenny Plant, from Account Management Skills Training. I'm on a mission to help those in agency client service keep and grow their existing relationships, so their agency business can thrive.Welcome to Episode three of the Creative Agency Account Manager podcast. I'm honoured to have a very, very well known salesman and sales trainer in the UK joining me today. My friend Marcus. I was lucky enough to be trained by Marcus when I was at Publicis, and he was actually the one that inspired me to set up Account Management Skills training to provide agency account managers with selling skills. Now, in this episode, Marcus shares some absolute gold for both agency account managers expanding the business but also for those in agency new business. I really enjoyed this discussion. Marcus does not hold back when it comes to how he feels. Agencies need to up their game when it comes to professional selling and no one's ever going to accuse Marcus of being a shrinking violet when it comes to speaking his mind. He's going to share with us the key to being successful in sales and the essential things you have to do when looking to expand the business. What not to do at the point of contract renewal, if you want to avoid a bid situation, what you should be tracking and measuring in your new business activities and the cure for a weak and empty pipeline where the area of really organic growth comes from, and why very few agencies recognise it. And what the transition looks like when your new business person hands over to the account management team. He's going to share loads more tips, loads, more advice and words of wisdom. He's even going to share with us the top 10 books he recommends every agency account manager should be reading. So I hope you enjoy this episode.Jenny: So today I'm delighted to speak to probably the most well known salesman and sales trainer in the UK, Marcus Cauchi, who I also had the pleasure of being coached by in 2010, which you probably don't do anymore, Marcus, do you?Marcus: I do. But there's a twist.Jenny: Okay, because you're far too important to do one on ones, I'm sure.Marcus: Love doing one on ones.Jenny: But you fundamentally changed my career. And you were the most inspiring person I've ever met in my career. So I'm delighted this morning. And he's also happens to be the author of the book Making Channel Sales Work, who I'm holding a picture of now, and also the host of two fantastic podcasts, the Inquisitor podcast, which if you are in sales, or in the business of sales, or you're a business leader, then I highly recommend you read because it's like a master class in selling, frankly. And also a newer podcast called Scale Ups and Hypergrowth, where he interviews leaders of disruptive tech companies about how they reach massive scale and hyper growth.Marcus: Without losing control, is the important bit in that. Most companies that scale fast so you know, hit the edge of a cliff and then fall off it. They don't go over. And the important thing about scale is that you can sustain it so that you end up creating a long lived business with customers for life.Jenny: Well, I've been following your journey and I listened to the podcast and you've had some really, really high level people on there. It's been really impressive. How do you manage that?Marcus: Well, just by asking, they’re incredibly generous. But I've learned so much from those podcasts, you could not even begin to imagine. Jenny: I honestly every time you ask a question, I think I was nervous about asking you on this podcast because I thought I'm not going to be able to reach that level of questioning. But listen, tell me, give us a bit of a short intro anything that I missed out on just for the audience. Marcus: I've been selling for 35 years, been with a company called Sandler for the last 17 years, and just about to embark on a new journey. So I've got some really exciting plans ahead. And the podcasts are really an opportunity for me to learn from the best in the world. And that's working out really nicely. And got married, three kids, worked in probably about 450 - 500 different segments of the market. And that range has been really useful, because what I've discovered is that in a specialist field, people who come with a broad range of experience and they have exercise creativity tend to be far more successful. So what I've found is that with minimal knowledge about what the product is, but an understanding of their customer, the kind of problems they have, the kind of better future they're looking for, I'm able to help people. So my typical client will grow three, four or 500% in a year, if they apply what I teach. And what I've seen is people who were on their last leg in ...

Welcome to episode 131. If you are a healthcare communications agency owner, or an account manager working in healthcare communications, and you're looking to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of pharmaceutical marketing, then this episode is for you.
I'm joined in the studio by Jonathan Gwillim and Kate Eversole from PharmaBrands. They are the organisers of the upcoming Age of AI Europe event, which, if you're listening or watching this at the beginning of 2025, is happening on March 4th in London.
This is Europe's leading conference in GenAI in healthcare marketing and it features expert speakers from companies like Google, AstraZeneca, Novartis, ITV, Novo, Nordisk, Boehringer, Ingelheim and many more. In this episode, Jonathan and Kate share of insights about how healthcare agencies and their clients are using GenAI right now.
They also share how creative directors feel about Gen AI's impact on the industry, and Kate also shares practical steps you can take as an account manager to confidently embrace AI in your role and some tips for having conversations with your clients.
You can connect with Kate and Jonathan via LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateeversole/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jongwillim/
There were several resources and links mentioned in our recording:
The Age of AI event, March 4, London: https://www.pharmabrands.ca/age-of-ai-europe
PharmaBrands report on AI literacy: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65b7dd23f5d4facb3c95fdf7/678e3106eb089ba6a175a282_AI%20Literacy%20Report_2025%20(3).pdf
Free webinar on Gen AI 101 : https://www.pharmabrands.ca/webinar
Klick and Guardrail reference: https://www.klick.com/news/ai-compliance-breakthrough-wins-klick-prize-results-signal-industry-trends
Recommended newsletter from Klick on all things health marketing: https://www.klick.com/klickwire
Syneos Health reference: https://pmsociety.org.uk/results/pm-society-digital-awards-2024-results/pm-society-digital-awards-2024-digital-agency-of-the-year/
& their trends report: https://www.syneoshealth.com/insights-hub/2025-health-trends
Pfizer and Publicis reference: https://digiday.com/marketing/with-charlie-pfizer-is-building-a-new-generative-ai-platform-for-pharma-marketing/
Sanofi reference: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexzhavoronkov/2023/06/21/sanofi-goes-all-in-on-ai/
Novo Nordisk reference: https://www.novonordisk.com/content/dam/nncorp/global/en/investors/irmaterial/cmd/2024/P10-Data-Science-and-AI.pdf
AI driven Video - Cires 21: https://www.cires21.com/
Text to speech leader - Eleven labs: https://elevenlabs.io/
Great content on marketing AI - Marketing AI institute: https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/
Tool to reduce meetings - Loom: https://www.loom.com/