Kicking off a New Client Relationship
A great engagement starts before the kickoff. So should your preparation.
When talking about keeping clients happy, my old business partner David Townsend had a great saying: “You are only as happy as your least happy child.”
Making sure your clients are happy is essential to building a great and lasting practice. I learned early in my career that providing exceptional and authentic service for clients leads to long-term relationships. Integrating with a team requires real investment and understanding, but ultimately pays off for years to come.
An important way our team integrates new clients and maintains their business starts with a robust and thoughtful kickoff process. After winning new business, what comes next sets the stage for the success of the engagement and turns a firm into a trusted partner. A successful start requires more than enthusiasm requires listening, immense preparation, and a shared understanding of what success looks like.
Breaking it Down
Our Catalyst Model lays the groundwork for starting a project, campaign, or new client relationship in the most effective way possible. Here are some highlights that can make or break any new launch:
The Initial Prep: This critical first step requires both client and consultant effort. After the contracts are signed, the intake and preparation process must quickly begin. This includes reviewing key documents, research and data supplied by the client, and doing an audit of past/current communications, media, and other relevant pieces. A meaningful data dump—and the time to sift through and internalize the content—should happen well before the first meeting is scheduled. It is also important to understand what the client feels are the most important aspects of success so a firm can develop a clear strategy on how to deliver on that goal.
Back to the Library: Getting familiar with what the client shares provides a solid foundational baseline, but it is only the first step in the research process. Your team needs to conduct their own external research to understand the broader political, business, and reputational landscape related to the client and key issues. Everything from news clips to polling and data should all come into play here.
Get to Talking: Talk to various people within your new client’s organization as well as key external stakeholders important to the business or campaign. This will help you get different perspectives that will ultimately shape your strategy and align your shared goals, messaging, and more. Additionally, internal conversations with colleagues who bring different perspectives can also raise questions or risks that might otherwise be missed.
The Kickoff: The kickoff meeting is one of the most important steps. Organization, defined objectives, and desired takeaways, in addition to a clear process, are your best friends walking into this meeting. Coming in well prepared isn’t a “nice to have”—it’s a must. The best kickoffs clarify objectives, roles, decision-making processes, audiences, timelines, and challenges and have a clear agenda that will prompt action.
Alignment: If there is one thing that you take away from this, it is to leave the kickoff meeting with a shared, aligned understanding of what success looks like. It will save you time, resources, and headaches down the road. Don’t leave the meeting without definitively finishing this part of the conversation.
The Follow Up: A clear, immediate follow-up outlining your next steps, additional needs, and a very clear timeline will leave everyone feeling organized and excited for the work ahead.
And once you have a successful kickoff, you’re officially off to the races. In a future post, I will dive into the next step post-kickoff: creating the best possible strategy and plan.