Keeping it real: Three questions every agency person should ask their new clients

I've been on both sides of the agency relationship table over the past 25 years, ranging from my in-house days at Bayer to leading client practices at Edelman, among other firms. More recently, I've been enjoying consulting on my own as a senior adviser to communications and human resources leaders. When I think about my client relationships that endured and succeeded over this long period of working, three themes quickly come into focus.

1. Understand what performance metrics your clients and their bosses are being measured against. This is one of the most important questions you can ask, and better asked sooner rather than later. Most corporate people in this world like to succeed and get some extra money in their pockets in the form of bonuses tied to performance. If you can help your clients meet goals and also get them thinking about how their work can advance the goals of their bosses, you'll set yourself apart from many other consultants right away. In some cases, I've even asked clients to share their yearly objectives with me so I can think about ways to help address them through our work together.
2. Uncover your clients' dreams. While yes, there is always day-to-day work to get done, pretty much everyone has a big idea or hope tucked away in their brains. It can be incredibly insightful and rewarding to ask your clients "Is there something you've always wanted to do at your company but have never gotten around to?" or "If we could make one great thing happen this year, what would it be?" or (my favorite) "What idea could get us all fired?" This last question is of course asked in jest, but it can be an interesting one to set you down a path of unexpected ideas. With any of these questions, your clients will appreciate being asked, and the answers may lead you to something previously unforeseen.
3. Set expectations and ground rules from the start. Just as you would with a relationship in your personal life, it's important to discuss basic questions about the mechanics of how you'll work with new clients. Explore questions of how they prefer to be communicated with -- email, calls, texts (and if so, using which messaging platforms?) -- and if they're morning or evening people. Agree if there are hours or days during which they'd prefer to not be bothered, and agree on how quickly they expect responses to their emails (and then be sure to let the account teams know). I've unfortunately seen many client relationships get off to a poor start because no one thought to ask these basic questions about communications preferences.

There are probably many more tips and I'm curious to hear what others have to say about how to get new client relationships off to a good start and then keeping them healthy.

Christopher Hannegan is a senior adviser to companies on employee engagement, culture, communications, and inclusion and diversity