Get Out of Your Ivory Tower and Into The Stores

If you want your client to consider you part of their inner circle, don’t view their business through a detached, academic lens. Get to know what they do intimately.

The Great Client Partner needs to understand the product and the business they are dealing with in a very detailed way. They need to understand how the product is used and consumed—even where it sits on a shelf. Too often, marketers know about their client’s products only via paper briefs and larger PowerPoint “decks.”

 I fell into this trap while working at The Coca-Cola Company on the amazing Fanta brand. Armed with my MBA and too much ambition and ego, I took on a brief to make the world’s best pole-sign for gas stations and the like. I was too focused on the marketing task, without being focused enough on understanding how things really worked. I did not ask enough questions nor was I curious enough. This is a story of the hard lessons that came with that mistake.

 I started by creating a brief to develop the most amazing, most cutting-edge pole sign ever designed. Surely, I would be the guy to create the one pole sign that got people driving at fifty-five miles per hour past a gas station to pull in and buy a Fanta twenty-ounce because of my superior orange color choice. With optimism, I pushed forward, and we found a vendor that would make a bright orange, glow-in-the-dark, glitter-based OOH (Out of Home) masterpiece that could go on the poles at the gas stations, ensuring Fanta would stick out.

 Flash forward about six months. While still working at the Coca-Cola Company, I was lucky enough to take two weeks in the field working in West Philadelphia, where a ton of Fanta was sold. I was riding along in this huge Coke/ Fanta truck with the driver, a good-natured, straight-shooting guy I’ll call Gus. We drove his route, and I did my part to lift six-packs of Fanta in the blazing Philly summer heat. I was really just trying not to embarrass myself as my small arms got lost in the shadows created by Gus’s huge biceps.

 Since I was doing my best, I got the sense that I was earning a bit of Gus’s respect, even if it was through sympathy. In the second week of my ride-along, we passed a gas station that—sure enough—featured a pole sign of my genius creation.

 Gus said, “You see that, Jared? That’s what I was talking about. Advertising folks never think about the damn logistics or the real-freaking-world. They’re always up in their ivory tower.”

 Gulping, I asked what he meant. Sure enough, he pointed at this pole sign that was now completely weather-beaten: muted orange, dull, the words barely visible.

 “Jared,” Gus said, “do you know what’s outside?”

I said, “Uh, I don’t know what you mean.”

 “What’s outside is weather, Jared, all sorts. Sun, rain, and wind,” Gus laughed in my direction. He went on to explain that pole signs need to take into account that weather, and that any brand guy who had logged the right time in the field would have understood this. The point is I simply did not spend enough time getting dirt under my fingernails to understand how the business runs. I should have gone out to look at gas station pole signs, understand weather effects, and really appreciate the physical world.

The importance of immersing yourself in your client’s business is a lesson that can be learned. But if you go on a factory tour a few times and maybe had to put on safety goggles—don’t kid yourself. That’s not immersion. Immersion is really taking the time to understand everything about your client’s business. Here are a few things to ask yourself and your team in order to figure out if you truly are masters of your client’s business:

1.  How does your client make their product or execute their service?
2. How does your client make money? What is the value stream on both sides of the ledger (costs and revenue)?
3. What does it take for the product/ service to arrive at store/web?
4. At street-level (if applicable), what are the top three challenges they face?
5. How is their competition hurting their business at the street level? What is happening at the shelf-battle level?
6. Have you attended at least three of the four quarterly conference calls this year?
7. What is the biggest threat to your client’s margin?
8. Do you understand (truly) how the entire sales process works from start to finish?

 Don’t feel bad. Most people would fail. However, if you want to be a truly essential partner to your client, you will take the time to understand the details. If you took the time to read this, you are already on your way.

 To learn more about this topic or others from the book, visit:www.thegreatclientpartner.com