We all work hard to deliver the various marketing projects we work on, both client and agency alike. And here at The Walk we love nothing more than getting great results for all this effort. In this piece, we take a look at what we can all do to get the most out of our relationship.

Anyone who is serious about marketing talks about great results as being paramount. But what’s equally important is striking the right balance with your relationships. One of life’s great challenges is being mindful and purposeful when choosing your relationships. In the agency context, this applies on many levels, including hiring key staff, selecting suppliers, all the way through to maintaining good relationships with clients. Of course, managing relationships is not always easy, there are endless complexities and this will never change. We recently flew 20,000 miles to stand side-by-side with our biggest clients.

It’s one of those facets of business that is more art than science, but in our experience, we’ve found there are four basic qualities that everyone must bring to the table to lay the foundation for something great.

1. Transparency
By being open and transparent with each other, trust can be built and maintained. To truly collaborate, you must be able to talk and act freely, being open about successes and failures alike.


2. Integrity
This is important because integrity is what underpins transparency. Having integrity implies that you’re doing what you’re doing because you genuinely feel it’s the best thing to do, and you’re able to be honest about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Integrity is critical for any good relationship.


3. Smarts
This may speak for itself. Clients come to agencies for intelligent thinking and state-of-the-art skills. A good agency should live to deliver that for clients, but it’s not a one-way street. A good agency/client relationship should be a meeting of minds. If both sides aren’t pulling together, that’s when things can go off track. But working in close collaboration allows the collective intelligence of the client and agency to thrive.


4. Commitment
The final, and possibly most important piece of the puzzle, is simply being committed to the relationship and committed to making the project great. When both parties commit to the project, the process and invest in each other, then amazing things are possible.

Are you on-board?

If you’re looking for a great integrated marketing agency, and find yourself yearning for these qualities, come and say “hi”. We’re always up for a chat with like-minded people and after we’ve met, if you’d like us to work on one of your problems, we’ll be only too happy to discuss partnering with you to deliver great results.

The coffee’s on us.