Agency Client Relationship, with Jamie Shibley

Episode 24: Agency Client Relationship, with Jamie Shibley

Agency client relationship podcast with Jamie Shibley. Learn the practical and tactical steps to building a good agency client relationship.

Agency client relationship? Jamie Shibley is the CEO of The Expressory, a strategic gifting agency that believes the key to accelerating your business growth and profitability in the post-covid era will rely on your ability to effectively nurture the agency client relationship.

After 20 years in the Corporate world full of IT & eCommerce roles, Jamie launched an online brand of her own. Jamie understands the influence of strategic gifts and wants to help business owners thrive in a high-tech world through the creation of long-lasting emotional loyalty. Respected as a market leader, Jamie’s gift designs have been featured on Entertainment Tonight.

What you will learn in this episode is about agency client relationship:

• The concept behind strategic gifting and why Jamie is so passionate about it
• How Jamie and her team have helped PROI stay intentionally connected with Dream Prospects
• Why sending 6-8 high-quality touches annually is so effective in nurturing agency client relationship and building emotional loyalty
• Practical and tactical steps for architecting gifts that leave a meaningful and lasting impression
• Powerful attributes to strategic gifting with Wow-Factor results

Resources:

• Website: https://www.theexpressory.com/
• Watch more agency client relationship videos from Jamie Shibley here
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-shibley-76a3402/
• Read more related content about agency client relationship from Jamie Shibley

 

Agency Client Relationship: Full Episode Transcript

Welcome to the Sell with Authority podcast. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI, and my team and I created this podcast specifically for you. So if you’re an agency owner, a business coach, or a strategic consultant, and you’re looking to grow a thriving, profitable business that can weather the constant change that seems to be our world’s reality, well, you’re in the right place.

If you want proven strategies for attracting a steady stream of well-prepared, right-fit prospects into your sales pipeline. Yeah, we’re going to cover that. If you want to learn how to step away from the sea of competitors so you stand out and own the ground you’re standing on. Yeah, we’re going to cover that, too, if you want to future-proof your business so you can navigate the next challenges that come your way.

Agency client relationship a proven strategy? Yeah, absolutely. We will help you there too. I promise you each episode of this podcast will contain valuable insights and tangible examples of best practices, not theory, from thought leaders, experts, and owners who have done exactly what you’re working hard to do. So I want you to think practical and tactical, never any fluff. Each of our guests has built a position of authority and then monetized that position by claiming their ground, growing their audience, nurturing leads, and converting sales.

But they did it by being helpful. Whenever someone from their audience turned around, they were given a useful answer to an important question. So their prospects never, ever, ever felt like prospects. I also promise that every strategy we discuss and every tool we recommend will be shared in complete transparency in each episode.

Learn more about agency client relationship by reading Jamie Shibley’s blog on “Building Relationships That Get You on Stages: Insights from an Expert Booking Agent.”

Agency Client Relationship: Jamie Shibley’s Introduction

So you can plant your flag, claim your ground, and fill your sales pipeline with a steady stream of clients who are the right fit. Okay, I’m excited for you to meet our very special guest expert today, Jamie Shibley. In case you are meeting Jamie for the first time, she’s the CEO of Expressory, which is a strategic gifting agency that believes the key to accelerating your business growth and profitability in the post-COVID era relies on your ability excuse me, to nurture meaningful relationships with your clients and prospects effectively.

Let’s go 30,000 feet for a minute or two. So, in our book Sales Authority, Drew McClellan and I broke down the nano stage of the sales funnel. This is the stage that is laser-focused. It’s super intentional, and it’s also a proactive approach to business. When you get to this stage, you get clear on who your right fit prospects are, not just company name but clear, like Sarah Jones, CMO at X, Y, Z Company.

So to see that another way, you’ll be putting in lighter fluid on your biz dev efforts. When you get very clear on who your 25 dream prospects are and the companies you would most like to serve in that clarity, it acts like lighter fluid because you can then begin to invite your dream 25 prospects to share their smarts and insights inside your content.

You share content with your audience to help them improve and address their business issues and challenges. You might even turn your content into your Trojan Horse sales strategy. But what happens downstream from your content with Dream 25 is critical. How you nurture relationships over time is so important.

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Agency Client Relationship: Getting To Know Your Client

Okay, so now let’s come down to eye level. I think more tactically about the agency client relationship. I want you to be thinking about how you might architect 6 to 8 high-quality touches per year with each of your prospects. What might you send them? Will it be some form of content? Will it be lumpy mail?

Will it be a gift? Will it be something so unique that when they open the package, they say, Holy bananas? That’s what strategic gifting is all about. That’s also Jamie’s area of expertise, and that’s why I’m excited for her to share her smarts with you. So here’s what Jamie and I want for you. As a result of listening to this episode, that you have a roadmap for building out your strategic gifting process, that you sit down with an architect, the 68 high-quality touches that you’re going to do for a year, and then not just map them out, but that you’ll build them in advance along with a shipping schedule so you and your team don’t get off track and that you will courageously remain committed to the process because you’re doing your dream. 25 prospects. They stay on your list until one. As Drew likes to say, they either hire you or two, file a restraining order against you. So, without further ado, welcome to the Sell with Authority podcast.

Jamie, Yay. Thank you. I feel like we need the applause in the background or so. Just thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here. Well, I’m so excited to have you here because of all the great topics that we’re going to talk about. So obviously, I went high level and then a little bit more tactical just to really kind of set the context, but just in case somebody is meeting you for the first time.

And I know that you are a guest of mine on the Onward Nation podcast, but just in case you’re meeting some new people here in our audience, actually, take us behind the curtain. Just give us a couple of minutes of context here about your path and journey, and then we’ll dive into, I’m sure, what’s going to feel like a deluge of questions coming your way.

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Agency Client Relationship: How To Help Your Client Trust You

Yeah, my path and journey. So my background is in it. Corporate I.T. Managed online websites for 20 years—corporate world. So I left there when it was time for something new. And I can give you the whole, you know, journey into how this wasn’t the first thing. This wasn’t exactly what I left to do. It kind of evolved there.

But I think if I’m being honest, you know how people say, this is who I was meant to be. Like, I’m realizing that. And how I got here goes all the way back to my youth. And I remember very clearly when my parents said it was going to sound sad, but I didn’t go there.

When my parents got divorced, I was six years old. I remember the day it was my mom, my sister, and me, and the thought that it was just us girls. That’s it. I gathered I had to help. I had to be the one to make her happy and look at what I do for a living: I make sure people are happy.

And I can point to a lot of times in my life when it’s my role. I can tell when there’s something going on and I am the person to help through gifting. It’s always been through gifting, through doing right the showing up in that way for somebody to make that shift so they realize they’re cared for and they’re valued and they’re seen.

It’s so funny that this is where we are at in my business today. That’s what I get to do for a living. Yeah, or it’s not funny at all, right? I mean, it’s totally aligned with who you are as a person. I love what you just said there, making sure that people are happy, and you said so.

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Agency Client Relationship: How Jamie And Her Team Works

They feel cared for. So they feel valued. So they feel seen. Right. And being able to take that into now building a business around those tenants, like how awesome is that? Yeah. It’s so. What we say is that what we do for business leaders is really keep them connected at the human level. And that’s what I hear time and time again when I talk with business leaders; when they’re talking about their ideal scenario, what they want to do, and their relationship-building efforts, they continually say, I want to see the human side of them.

Agency client relationship should be something more. I want people to know we see them as humans. And I think that’s what you and I have continued to build when we talk and why this dream 25 in the stuff we’re going to talk about really works. It works. And so if you’re listening to Jamie’s words right now and you happen to have ever received zero books if you ever ordered or sold this audiobook, and we’ve shipped bunches of them,

But if you’ve ever ordered one of those and received the really cool package and the handwritten note in full transparency, that’s Jamie’s team that does that. If you’ve been a guest of ours on a podcast, you received that really cool frame under glass with a framed quote in again, the beautiful package, you open it up, there’s the shroud in the packaging and all of that, and it looks really awesome.

That’s Jamie’s team at the Expressory that does all of that. So Jamie and her team are very strategic partners of ours. Does anyone ever say a very strategic part, a strategic partner of ours to get all this stuff done? Because candidly, we need a thinking partner. We often reach out to Jamie and say, well, there’s this relationship, it’s really special.

And this is what we know about that person and so forth. And then their team helps us brainstorm ideas and schedule and process and get it all done, whether we’re talking about a mailing for one or a gift for one or we’re talking about 25. Jamie and her team are the ones who help us knit that all together.

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Agency Client Relationship: Creating a Decision for the Client

So, just to get her full transparency and context for everyone. So why do you think that I know our reason for 25? Why do we distill it down to 25? But I don’t know that I’ve ever asked you, like from your point of view, like the number of 25 and why 25 feels about right.

Well, when you think about it, in business, we can carry out it, or we can think of how many people write that our list could go on and on. 25 feels good. It’s funny because I think it forces you to go higher than where you would normally stop, and so when we first start working with people, it’s very common for people to find batches of, you know, five or six dream or ideal candidates because that just feels comfortable.

Yep, I did some work there. I’m good, let’s go with these. But as a challenge, we were stepping out of our comfort zone. Go a little further, get to 25, and then realistically, 25 is about the number that you can maintain that personal connection with over time. If you do any more than that, what are you really getting 100%?

Because you get this question all the time, I’m sure, just like we do. And it’s like, well, we have a thousand people, you know, you can’t have a thousand dream prospects. Yeah. And really be able to do it at excellence like what you’re talking about, right? Yeah. And again, right, this is, we have a list we don’t have the relationships.

You’re not going to get into relationships with that kind of number. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So, let’s think about it. I’m sort of jumping ahead in the foundation from what I gave in the introduction. And maybe I should kind of go back through and maybe I will hear in just a few minutes. Let’s be a jumping-off point.

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Agency Client Relationship: How to Get the Client Onboard

Let’s just make an assumption that 6 to 8 is the right number, the right number of high touches that we should be having with our dream 25 prospects. I should also set the expectations with respect to the budget because this is oftentimes everyone when Erik and I are in conversations, and we’re talking with a prospective client or a client about the downstream, let’s say, the downstream in that agency client relationship, like you interview somebody, and then there’s the downstream, you interview somebody for a blog or they have some other guest appearance of your content.

And then there’s the downstream. Like if we’re thinking Trojan horse and we’ve been asked, like, well, how much should we invest in that relationship? And so then Eric said this once during a meeting, and I was like, That’s really good. That’s a great baseline. And there is this, and it’s a really cool litmus test. Going back to your point, Jamie, is to who should be on the list if you’re not willing to invest at least $1,000 per person on something like that relationship? Then they’re probably not, or they probably shouldn’t be part of the dream.

So, Jamie, what do you think about that? First, before we get to the 68, what do you think about that as a litmus test? I don’t know if you and I have ever talked about that, but do you think that’s a realistic litmus test? Well, I’m going to tell you from my experience right now, that is a very hard pill for people to swallow,that’s a lot of people back. It does. 

So you start asking them to think about it because I think people think like, well, I’m spending $1,000 on somebody for what? You know, stuff they’re going to throw away. You’re like, Why? And then we think of a gift or, you know, $1,000 on somebody that’s not even a client. But the reality is we think in you know, in a blink of an eye, how much on ads to attract leads, how much do we pay people to write our newsletter, our marketing?

You know, this is the same level and probably more important of an investment, right? Because it’s one on one and it’s personal. And the question you need to ask yourself is what is the value? If you actually landed that client image chances are right it is far greater than that thousand dollars you’re going to invest to create that emotional loyalty.

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Agency Client Relationship: Building Your Client’s Trust

You’re building trust with them faster than any of your digital marketing to them. Right? Right. So, of course, we agree with you. Biased, right? Yeah. Well, of course, we agree with you. But let’s think on a high level here. There’s 25. Let’s see, there’s 25. So here’s how I want everyone to use this litmus test that Jamie and I are talking about right now.

So, yes, 25 times $1,000. We’re talking about a $25,000 program on an annual basis. That is 6 to 8 touches, you know, over the course of a year. That’s what we’re going to be architecting, and we’ll give you some things to think about during this conversation. So the litmus test is this: If the thought of investing $1,000 into the relationship with Tom or Sara makes you feel uncomfortable, then perhaps it’s, well, are they actually members of the Dream 25?

Right. Jamie? That’s a great way to look at it. The first thing people say to me is, Well, can I do half of that? Okay. What if you just did half the list? Then, keep the value that you’re investing the same. But that is a fantastic way to know what? Because I think some of us are still stuck in our small thinking.

You’re right. Because if I asked you that then maybe time is not the right dream. 25 prospects. Because envision a place where the person you’re going after would spend 30 grand with you in a heartbeat. And now you’ve just paid for your entire program 100%. So when you just said that, that actually made me think of a workshop from many, many years ago that I listened to actually on CD from, from Dan Kennedy.

Yeah. CD Anyway, from Dan Kennedy. And he was talking about pricing strategy, and he said, yes, okay, let’s go through the steps and talk about pricing strategy. And I’m going to give you several steps on how to raise prices. Step number one is to raise prices. And I’m like, that’s funny. And so the reason why I bring that up is that, like, again, if you think about Tom and Sarah and the thousand dollars, then you might be thinking, well, maybe my, let’s say that Sarah says yes at some point through the 6 to 8 whatever.

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Agency Client Relationship: Offering Value at an Affordable Price

Agency client relationship is not profitable enough to afford it, then maybe taking a page out of Dan Kennedy’s rules of economics that you don’t try to skinny down the investment in Sarah; you try to increase the value that you can deliver to the right fit prospect, right run toward the economics as opposed to running away from in skinny in a down right?

Yeah. Yes. I mean, that’s a huge eye-opener for people. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, if, if everyone listening to you now starts thinking, okay, I need to have a litmus test of $1,000 per person in the dream 25. And to your point, if the $25,000 number feels like something that they can’t take a swing at, I totally get it.

Skinny it down to maybe ten or 12 people as opposed to skinny down the quality of contact. So right, Right. Or if it makes somebody uncomfortable from an economics perspective, then that might be an indicator of, okay, I need to rethink my value ladder maybe, I need to build something out. This is a 90 day hero. This is priced at a premium price that is strategically linked to whatever the down sell is and strategically linked to whatever the upsell is.

We certainly have some training around that. We’ve done some Q&A. So, if you’re not in our Facebook group, jump into our Facebook group because we’ve got some free Q&A recordings where we walk through all of that. So let’s now think, okay, we’ve got 25 people in. We’re going to invest about $1,000 per person. So, what would you recommend as the first step to architecting?

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Agency Client Relationship: Taking Necessary Steps to Build Your Client’s Trust

I know there’s multiple steps here and we’ll get to all of those, but what would you recommend is the first step to starting to build out the 6 to 8 touches? Yeah. So when we were going through this, you’ve got to consider, okay, you’re going to know who you are, at least your list, right? The first thing you need to understand is how are they coming into this funnel?

Well, say, how did you meet them? Because maybe to answer that question is the first contact you should have with them should be thanking them for what? I’m thanking them for being on a podcast with you, thanking them for being part of an event with you reaching out, now, requesting your book. How did you meet these people in the first place?

Ideally, you should have some kind of first contact, right? Yeah, because that’s your soft. And how are you thinking about them? Okay, so that’s your first step to keep going because I can keep going. No, no, no. Okay. So, let’s take a breath there for a second. So, in fact, here’s what we’ll do because this would be a really great place to actually take a break.

So we’re going to take an actual formal break. And then when we come back, we’re going to pick it up with step one and then go through some of the other touches and so forth. So, everyone, we will be right back. Hang with us, and we’ll be right back. Okay. We’re back with Jamie Shibley. And let’s just do a quick recap.

Right before our break, we were talking about a real fundamental step. If we’re thinking about the 6 to 8 high-quality touches of our architecting that right now as part of dream 25, this nano stage inside the sales funnel, Jamie’s advice was, hey, step one, let’s intentionally think of them with something because they stepped into a relationship in the context around that.

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Agency Client Relationship: Making The Initial Impact

So when at the break, sort of in the green room back in the green room, Jamie and I were talking about like, you know, oftentimes we do that with a book and maybe a special package that we don’t necessarily send to everybody else, or it might be a framed quote or it might be like a really amazing gift, a gift of chocolates, like ridiculous from Wagner’s chocolates in general.

I said, my gosh. So there’s like a variety of different ways that you can make that initial impact and say to Jamie’s point, thank you. So anything else that you want to add around this kind of first step or introduction? No, the most important thing is identifying how you’re going to get them in the flow and kind of that first teeing it up.

Okay, So then if we’re thinking 6 to 8 times a year, then essentially we’re talking about basically every 6 to 8 ish or so weeks in between the things. So then what? What do you think would be a good sort of number two touchpoint? Generally, the number two touchpoint works best if it’s some sort of content-related thing.

So a book, if you’re an author, your own book, and you’re pointing to something specific in that writing that you feel would be valuable, again, this could be templated, right? So you could point everybody to chapter nine and say, Hey, you know, still thinking about our conversation, I think you would find chapter nine very valuable. Let me know your thoughts afterward.

And that’s the key at the end, which is to kind of bring it back. Ask them a specific question so that you’re setting up the re-engagement. Okay, If you’re not an author, this can be just as effective with someone else’s book that is related to the work you do. So it’s got to be something of value to the recipient, and I think we really need to save research for a little bit later.

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Agency Client Relationship: Creating a Convincing Argument to Get Your Client Onboard

But again, this could be a nice in-depth article that you’ve found, and you can use your e-book to be anything like that. Okay. And let’s say that somebody because there are certainly going to be listeners in our audience that might have all of those things. And so what I mean by that is maybe they’ve written a book or multiple books, or they’ve written multiple articles, or they’ve written ebooks, or maybe they have done thought leadership research, maybe they’ve worked alongside our mutual friends.

Susan Buyer and audience audit. Maybe they’ve done all of those things or maybe none, but maybe they have done all of those things. So I think if I’m tracking you, it could be great. Take those things, and you might already have your 6 to 8 with them. It could very well be. But right now, when it comes to the books, now again, keep in mind when we set that thousand dollar price point, whatever you decide to do in these touchpoints, you want to go above and beyond.

You want to have a presentation. And that just sets up the wow factor. Okay? So when it’s books, maybe it’s, you know, here’s a couple of books that our clients always rave about and have found helpful. But you know, you’re showing up with a library for them. I find it valuable, right? Like as the recipient. Holy cow. Look at what they just sent me.

Right? And stop asking all the questions. Well, what if they’ve read it before? What if they just stop? Just send it to them? Because they can always find value in giving it to someone else to use. I think you’ve enabled that, right? Yeah. Okay, Love that—so, another tangible example. So back in May, many of our listeners were in attendance at the Build a Better Agency summit in May that Drew McLellan, CEO of Agency Management Institute, and he and his team at AMI.

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Agency Client Relationship: Providing an Amazing Presentation To Your Client 

I posted, which was just off the charts in Chicago. And you know, 300 amazing, awesome, incredibly generous, super smart agency owners there. An incredible list of speakers and sponsors. I mean, it was just awesome. So Susan and I, Susan Buyer from Audience Audio, were teaching breakout sessions, so we had an opportunity to teach how thought leadership can go into or, excuse me, how thought leadership can turn into a sales pipeline.

Yay for that. And that just happened to be referenced on page 51 of the book that you and I wrote as Dorie. So Jamie and I started creatively conspiring, thinking, Hey, I wonder how we could. And so she came down from Milwaukee with God bless her, with a box of our books. Then, her team hand-wrote out over 100 handwritten notes because Susan and I not only wanted to get a copy of the book in everyone’s hands, but we also wanted to refer specifically to page 51. 

So it’s a handwritten note that said, Hey, thanks for coming to the breakout. On page 51, we talk about slicing and dicing research into Cornerstone or, excuse me, cobblestone content. And then we took that handwritten note in a beautiful envelope and tucked it into page 51 on all 100 copies of the book and everybody’s place settings or whatever, right in. 

And that was just awesome how you orchestrated that entire thing because that was sort of a wow factor for the people who were there in attendance. Yeah, you could see everybody opening it up like there’s a card in here. I mean, who gets that, right? Yeah. So it was an experience. Okay. Such a cool word. So it sounds like from your point of view that it’s not just 6 to 8 touches, that it’s 6 to 8 experiences with you and your team that we should really be trying to accomplish.

Agency client relationship can go a long way when you’ve provided the best presentation, right? You know, we’ve often said that it doesn’t matter what you’re giving if the presentation is amazing. It is one of the seven attributes of a gift that makes it strategic and creates a deeper bond. Okay, so if nothing else, that’s why all those videos online of unboxing and the layering and the Ooh, you know, I’m going to open this tissue paper.

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Agency Client Relationship: How To Help Your Client Feel Valued

That’s why those work: They create anticipation and excitement and leave an emotional connection. The notebook and card inside were creating that connection for you. You’re so awesome. I am. I had no idea. Okay, so you’re saying, let me just give it back to you out of my notes and make sure I have this right?

So I think you said presentations. I got a presentation, and quotes are one of the seven attributes that make the gift strategic guess, So, yeah, Yeah. So when you and I talk about the wow factor, that’s always what we’re trying to achieve. When somebody opens that, they go holy bananas. Wow. Right. So would you put that into the presentation, or would you put it in a different attribute presented smoothly?

Yes. And your card being made by hand DIY is another one. When something is made by hand, again, another of the attributes, when you put multiple attributes together, is even more powerful. Okay, so what are some of the other attributes? We don’t have to go through all seven, but what are some of the other attributes that you think are really important?

Then, we’ll continue our work on the 6 to 8 touches. So your third touchpoint in your dream 25 hits on another very important attribute and that is the attribute of a goal. Okay, when a gift touches on a goal, be it the future or something that I just achieved, but it is lasting, it is powerful and it creates a connection.

So, how does your gift give you this? Are we able to say it because people don’t know it yet? They have it. Know you can share anything you want. Okay. So together we designed, and we wanted to get your content. So over time, you guys have developed a series of ebooks that are free—your fast eight content.

Yes. And so we put these ebooks into a nice printed material. It has tabs for all eight, and we put them in a beautiful leather binder that has a very small predictive logo. And the intention is here are some guides to set up your goal of achieving thought leadership. How would you describe that of achieving the million dollar mark?

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Agency Client Relationship: How To Give a Lasting Impression To Your Client

Right? You are giving them the gift that helps inspire and motivate them to achieve that future self-goal, right? That thing sticks around. It’s motivating. They use it, and they share it. Yes. And to add to that, because, you know, my point of view around this is that it can never, ever, ever feel schmaltzy, like there’s some sort of ulterior motive, correct?

Right. That there’s not a hey, you, we help here’s an eight pack gift of guides. So we think we can be helpful to help you accomplish your goal. And how’s about giving us some money? Because I feel shaky, right? Right. I feel ashamed about it. No, it’s just that. And, you know, when your very first touch point went out that amazing chocolate, what did people say to you?

Why did I get that right? Because there were no strings. Literally, somebody who I’ve known for years. Right. Who’s on her dream, 25. And she came up to me. And unfortunately, we never had the opportunity to close the loop on this conversation. But it’s okay. We will at some point. But I saw her in Chicago. She came up to me, and she saw me from the other side of the room.

You know how, like, you have those moments sometimes your eyes lock. She comes up to me and gives me a huge hug. Yeah. And she says, I don’t know what I did to get on your list, but holy bananas, right? And all I could. I was almost, like, struck like. Like I didn’t. I was so happy about it. 

And she goes, I ate seven pieces of that chocolate yesterday. It’s so good. Yeah. Let’s see. She remembered it. Yeah. 100%. And I’m like, you know, we can chat about that at some point, you know, whatever. And, then, it was fine that it wasn’t intended to sell. It’s intended to develop an agency client relationship over time. And if you can be helpful at some point, then it’s not.

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Agency Client Relationship: Going Above and Beyond in Building the Relationship

Again, the whole goal in the introduction of this conversation was so that your prospect never, ever, ever feels like a prospect. Because when they do that, it feels yucky. So let’s stop that, right? So, yes, now some of your listeners may be thinking, well, why did you send her chocolate? Like, how does that have to do? Right? Okay.

No, but that’s very much like we did, that you can do these things that may seem like it doesn’t have to do with your business. But the thing is it’s attention getting and it had the theme of, you know, hoping, looking forward to hearing your sweet success or, you know, I mean, we set this up in a way that it’s just I’m thinking of you, right?

And again, someone is feeling seen. She clearly felt whole. She felt like a million bucks. And that is part of the goal here. And indeed. And so, in all seriousness, let’s go back to what you just mentioned, seeing cared for, valued, seen, and then you said at the top of all three of those, you said making sure that people are happy.

Yeah. There’s no doubt when I go back and think of the thank you notes that I received or the emails or whatever from when we call the Chocolate Tower, when somebody received the chocolate tower, I was convinced that they are happy. Yeah. That they felt cared for, that they felt valued, they felt seen. There’s never a sales pitch because it would be completely inappropriate.

And I know that if it’s a day or a decade, at some point, we’ll probably have an opportunity in. And if we do, that will be awesome. And if we don’t, that’s fine, too. This might sound weird to people, but my goal is to make people fall in love with you. Not in that we’re going to be married, but like, they’re just going to love everything about what you guys do.

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Agency Client Relationship: Be Transparent With Your Client

And because when they do, that’s when they become ambassadors for your business. Maybe they don’t end up being the client, but maybe they love you guys so much. They just told your next best client. Yeah. And when you, I have no idea if we’re going to get a reaction like this because of the eight guides that Jamie was just talking about.

So again, in full transparency, that’s our fast guide. They’re going out with this really, really cool binder that Jamie and the team designed, and they look amazing. I have absolutely no idea if anybody’s going to reach out to us afterward and say, my gosh, can you do that for us? That is not our expectation. That’s not why we’re sending it right.

But I do believe over time that our dream is 25, we’re going to say, my gosh, this is what you guys do. Like you guys do all of this, right? Yeah. Yeah. And we do that with excellence. And then and then somebody will say at some point, which will, which will make the entire program great or why somebody will say, you know, you guys do that with excellence.

We don’t have the time, space, and capacity to be able to do that ourselves. Yeah. Can you help us be better at that? Yeah. Yeah, we sure can. So, let’s go back to Okay, so you gave us a great recommendation on thinking them for stepping into whatever that sort of initial relationship was, thinking them there. And then number two was content-related, and you mentioned a book, maybe the senator’s book or maybe an e-book or an article or something like that.

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Agency Client Relationship: Showing Appreciation To Your Client From Time-to-Time

And then research if they happen to have that. So maybe that takes care of like two, three, and four, or you could probably elongate it. But let’s say it takes care of two, three and four. Like what are some of the other things that you’ve seen your clients do really well that great that holy bananas moment?

So a couple of things are working. And again, this is going to sound like a deviation, but when you’ve got to have six or seven times that you’re showing up in front of people in a year, you’re bound to run across a holiday time frame. And so, why not make an opportunity to create an experience to help spread a little happiness around whatever holiday that may be?

And this might be your year-end appreciation, right? And so, why not include these prospects in that mailing? Maybe you do something a little bit more unique, and around summer time you’re doing some sort of mailing and you theme it that way, you know, But, but what you’re doing is you’re creating a kid’s part of helping them celebrate or do something, take some time for themselves around that time frame again, showing up for them.

I love that just because I love it. One of the things that Drew does, again, for context, Drew McLellan at Agency Management Institute as to who also owns his own agency, you know, so when they would send things like, you know, stuff around Christmas, that kind of stuff or whatever, you know because everybody gets a lot of stuff around Christmas and whatnot.

But then they started calling, Darn it, I’m going to butcher it. And anyway, they picked out a way where they found a way to celebrate Valentine’s Day and such. I want to say it’s called Love Your Baby Day or something like that. Okay, I may be 100% wrong, but when you say you made them fall in love with you like this, one part of their point of view and McClellan marketing group is to help their clients.

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Agency Client Relationship: Make Your Clients Feel Special During Holidays

They help their clients. Customers have love affairs with their clients, like developing that relationship so strongly. Yeah, right. That there’s just a bond, and retention is super important, right? And it’s a real strength of IMG to help their clients create that type of bond with their clients. Okay. So, IMG does the same thing with their clients.

Agency client relationship for these people also take place during the holidays. And so they create this thing around every February. They celebrate Valentine’s Day. And it’s amazing. So to your point about a holiday, they figured out the right holiday that aligns with their point of view. Love Yes. And the way that they celebrate it, their clients are like, my gosh, So their clients feel cared for. They feel valued, they feel seen, And of course, they feel happy.

He gets it right. This is the core of who he is as well, right? Yeah, no doubt. Okay, so we’ve got a holiday and then the other things. Is there one other that you would suggest that gets put into this process? And I know that we need to come in for a landing here pretty quickly.

Yeah. What is there one other listening to us when we work with teams so I would say the other touchpoints it is so dependent on what you do, okay, because it’s when we design our experiences, we want to show up with something that is related to the work you do, how they’re going to feel, what they’re going to achieve.

And so when you can do that in a physical sense that’s lasting and you, like you said, you do it with excellence. So I will give you my recent example from our dream 25. You know, I had my team going through it as well. And, you know, they come up with a little getting to know you better icebreaker conversations and stuff like that.

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Agency Client Relationship: Gratitude and Appreciation Goes A Long Way

And it’s like, okay, well, we can’t just mail a pack of that deck, right? We need to do something about it. So it’s like an entire experience. And so, in the last mailing we did, I found a book that speaks to human gratitude, right? I fell in love with this book because it is about who we are, but it’s an adult illustrated book.

It looks almost like a children’s book, but it’s beautiful. And I put that thing with little note cards of gratitude, and in the package, it says, there is no better way that I can teach you about relationship building than what this book already expresses. Once you have that feeling and you understand who you know, you should be building better relationships for yourself.

The enclosed note cards will help you pay that forward. So what we’re doing is we’re helping them execute and go out and do these things on their own. And that is an experience. So how can you do that for your brand? What do you stand for? What are you about and how are you setting it up so that they know the culture they’re into? If they choose to work with you? 

I would tell you that one of our recipients emailed me and said, I’m about to head out on a plane, but I want you to know my mom was in the office when I received your package, and even she was willing and I, in the entire time we were opening it and I sent it to the team and I said, This is what we deliver.

It was an icebreaker. But it just makes my entire being so happy. Those are the experiences that you need to look for that, you know, to set up in your own brand, and so, you know, it’s hard for me to say what other type except to look for something that represents your culture and what you’re trying to do.

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Agency Client Relationship: Make The Experience Unique For Every Client

If that makes sense, it does. It’s going to be unique and different for each person who’s listening for their business, right? Yeah, but I love this framework that you started us off with. Makes them happy. Shows that they’re cared for, shows that they’re valued, shows that they’re seen. And I think if we keep those front and center, yeah, it’s going to be really difficult to have a miss like Blake to do something that is wrong or a misstep.

If we keep those four things front and center, then everything that we do, if it meets those criteria that you shared with us early on, then everything in that 6 to 8 is going to be really, really well architected. Right? You can’t go wrong now. So I know we need to come in for a landing, and we’re quickly running out of time.

So. But before we go, before we close out and say goodbye, please share with our audience the best way to connect with you. Jamie, I think the best way to really understand what we do and, you know, enable you to come up with some ideas to execute this in your own space. We have a free guide to creating emotional loyalty by design.

Awesome. And so if you go to our website, theexpressory.com, and so it’s theexpressory.com/loyalty, you will find that download, and that’ll give you the step-by-step, very similar to what we were talking through. How do you think up this stuff and design your own experiences? And I love that. Okay, everyone, no matter how many times you go back and relisten to Jamie’s words of wisdom, which I sure hope that you do, the key is to take these tenants, this process, the steps, the guide that she just gave you, take it and apply it, take it and apply it and continue to do that.

And developing that implementation with excellence over and over and over again in. Jamie, I just want to say thank you. I want to say thank you for taking the time to come on to the show. Again, thank you for generously sharing your smarts, as you always do. Thank you for being our mentor and guide through this process and helping us get better and move our businesses onward to that next level.

Thank you so much, my friend. Thank you for all of that. Thank you.

Learn more about agency client relationship by reading Jamie Shibley’s blog on “Building Relationships That Get You on Stages: Insights from an Expert Booking Agent.”