Six simple trust techniques for clients and creatives
Guest Contributor:
KC Rudolph, Art Director
Trust between a client and agency is the single most important factor to achieve truly great creative work. Without trust, no one pushes the creative envelope, the best ideas end up mediocre, and the disruption that advertising and marketing efforts strive for goes unrealized.
That’s why building trust should be a priority for both the client and the agency. To stand out you need to take chances, do things differently and occasionally go out on a ledge. In business, that can be a daunting proposition and we often take the easier, safer, less challenging direction.
When trust doesn’t exist, the safer and often less rewarding path is usually chosen; when trust does exist, the path can seem less daunting and the rewards within reach.
Trust works both ways. Clients should strive to trust their agency’s creative team to deliver ideas and finished work that stands out—even if the ideas make you slightly uncomfortable. The best ones usually do.
On the other hand, B2B creative teams should trust their clients will be open to wildly creative ideas. Granted, we need to trust our clients when they throw legitimate red flags, but too often the best ideas get left behind. The defeatist mindset of, “they’ll never go for it,” can be the death of brilliant ideas. When trust exists, “they’ll never go for it” can become “let’s go for it!”
B2B Clients and creatives want the same thing—great creative work that stands out from the competition, and leaves a unique and lasting impression on the audience. They say trust takes a lifetime to build and only a moment to lose. But, if we wait a lifetime to trust our partners, then the moment to do great, gutsy things will pass us by.
Just like clients are experts in their roles, agency creatives are experts in theirs. Trust them to be just that, and the final product will be better for it. Ideas will be bigger, designs more eye-catching, copy more clever, and results more rewarding.
Remember these six simple trust techniques:
- TRUST the client to be an expert in their product or service
- TRUST the client to be open minded
- TRUST the creative team to be experts at what they do
- TRUST the creative team to deliver ideas that are unconventional
- TRUST gut feelings and push the envelope in order to break through
- TRUST that this will result in better creative
Now… what boundaries do you want to push? We’re ready.
