Rather than share a piece of industry news with my own brilliant spin to it, I thought I’d solicit a little feedback from you guys on your own client experiences. I’m currently working with a relatively new client (who shall remain nameless), and so far things have been…fine. Being the program manager on the account, I’m the day-to-day guy and, therefore, have the luxury of handling the bulk of the client interaction. Which is great—it’s good experience, a big account, nice for the resume and the client leads are open and receptive and we get along really well.
Now the conundrum I face: The client contacts who we deal directly with are 
a bit green and a little too junior, meaning all big decisions and approvals have a long ladder to climb, which can result in delays, changes to plans or disapprovals altogether. But beyond that, the strategy and counsel we offer seems to fall on deaf ears at times. There are some major components we recommend making priority and implementing immediately, but these discussions tend to stop short of where they really need to be happening.
I continually insert our thoughts into all plans, memos, conference calls and meetings, but to no avail. And we’re getting to a critical point in the campaign that we really need to take action and make some decisions to get this thing on the right track to ensure the client’s efforts (and, in turn, my agency’s) are successful.
So how do we get beyond this road block without going over our leads’ heads, making them look ignorant and disrupting the relationship, but at the same, being effective and successful as the strategic counselor we were hired to be? Has anyone had a similar experience? Any wisdom to impart?
