The value of getting satisfaction from client work

Agency Leadership Podcast

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of satisfaction from the work you do for clients, both for agency owners and their teams.

They explore how satisfaction can drive motivation, the significance of setting boundaries with clients, and the need for purpose in work. The conversation emphasizes the balance between achieving satisfaction and pursuing business growth, as well as the evolving nature of what satisfaction means over time.

Key takeaways

• Chip Griffin: “Pay attention to red flags, otherwise you will have short term revenue gains, but long term structural problems for your business that you’ll be miserable running.”
• Gini Dietrich: “There’s nothing wrong with saying no. And I think many of us, myself included, build our businesses by saying yes to everything.”
• Chip Griffin: “The flip side is that the more perfect you want your satisfaction to be, the more restrictions you’re putting on your ability to grow and thrive.”
• Gini Dietrich: “The majority of your day should be energetic and productive and you should be happy to be in the work that you’re doing. Because you’ve built a business that brings you great pleasure.”

Resources

• The Rolling Stones – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (Live- Ireland 1965)

Related

• What to do when you feel burned out as an agency owner
• Using paid discovery to get better clients

View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And Gini, I could start singing the Rolling Stones here, but I think that’s probably not the best idea for any of us.

Gini Dietrich: Yes, please. Please, please.

Probably get a copyright strike anyway. And I know how much you care about copyright.

I do care about that. Yeah, you’re right.

Chip Griffin: So, we’re setting a good example, plus, again, nobody really wants to hear me singing, well, anything. But there’s a song, Satisfaction. I think it’s an important theme.

Gini Dietrich: It is.

Chip Griffin: I think as owners, we need to get satisfaction from the business we run. We’ve talked before about the importance of actually getting what we want out of our business.

But I think it’s just as important that we get satisfaction from the clients that we’re working for. And I think a lot of times we worry too much about just chasing after whatever the, the latest and greatest money is. Or saying, you know what, I’m going to put up with this from this client because they pay me a lot of money, or those kinds of things.

And I don’t think we need to love every client. But we’re never, I mean, most agency owners, I, I know that I haven’t loved every client that I’ve had over the years. There have been annoying clients out there. I know that’s a shock to everybody. I mean, I, I know I’m the only agency owner who has ever had a client who was ever annoying at any point in time. But I think we need to feel satisfaction out of the work that we’re doing.

I think our teams need to feel that too, if we’re going to reach our full potential. So that’s what we’re going to talk about.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, for sure. But I really wish you would sing the song.

Chip Griffin: You really do not.

Gini Dietrich: I really do.

Chip Griffin: It’s not going to happen.

Gini Dietrich: Okay. Well, I thought I’d try.

Chip Griffin: I guess you won’t get any satisfaction today.

Gini Dietrich: I get no satisfaction from this podcast episode, I guess. That’s, that’s really disappointing. Okay, well.

Chip Griffin: I’ll just, I’ll just add it to the list.

Gini Dietrich: I agree with you on the satisfaction. I think we do have to be satisfied with the work that we’re doing, with, you know, I, I just said this to somebody the other day. You, you spend the first part of your career, especially in what we do, you know, all gung ho about selling toothpaste. And then the second half of your career, you’re like, is this what I do now?

Am I giving back to the world? Am I making a difference? I’m selling toothpaste. I’m hawking toothpaste. And I think that that comes with understanding what drives satisfaction. And I’ve mentioned this before, but Daniel Pink wrote a book called Drive. And in that book, he talks about what motivates employees.

And I think it, it resonates here too, which he’s, his hypothesis is that is essentially the, at some point you make enough money. If you make enough money to pay your mortgage and your car payment and your bills and you have a little bit left over for a vacation, the job becomes less about the salary and more about the satisfaction.

And the example he uses in the book is, let’s say that you’re asked to sit in the middle of a warehouse, big empty warehouse. Nothing going on there. No windows. Your job is to just sit in a chair in the middle of the warehouse. And if you can do that for eight hours every day, you’re gonna make a million dollars in salary.

How many of you are actually gonna do that? Like, you can’t. You can’t. You don’t have a computer. You don’t have a phone. You don’t have a book. Like, you just have to sit there. People need purpose. People need satisfaction. And so, that goes for you as well. If you’re building something and you’re trying to build something that will create a legacy or even give you a lifestyle, you have to be satisfied from the work that you’re doing. And not just the work that you’re doing, but to your point, the clients, the team, everything.

It has to give you a reason to get up in the morning and not dread it.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and look, you and your team can get satisfaction in different ways. We’re not all the same, right? Sure, absolutely. So it could be just that you’re working with and for good people. And it may be that the satisfaction isn’t from the actual work you’re doing or from the actual product that’s being sold or whatever, but it’s that the people that you’re getting to engage with. That might be your source of satisfaction.

It might be the end result. It might be the cause that you’re pushing or the product that you’re selling or something. It might be any number of different things, but you need to find the way that you get that satisfaction. And you need to find a way for your team to do it, for that very point that you said, it’s about motivation.

If, if you are, if you are not satisfied, it’s really hard to get up and give your best effort. And if you’re not giving your best effort, the business isn’t going to achieve what it wants. If your team isn’t isn’t getting up and having that motivation, they can’t deliver the clients the results that they want, which is going to lead to retention problems.

So you need to understand what kind of satisfaction you’re looking for, and then figure out how to get it for the business, for the agency, so that you’re not just, again, just chasing whatever the latest trend is or the advice that you hear from some of us. It’s going to be different for everybody. You need to feel satisfied that you’re actually doing something.

Gini Dietrich: And I would say that if you’re not, that you have to find ways to work through that. So I’ll give you a really good example. We have a client who loves to do all of his planning on Sunday afternoons. So on Sunday night, he will send meeting requests for the week. And he doesn’t ask if it works for you. He doesn’t look at your calendar.

He just does it on what works for him and he expects you to be there. And so you get up on Monday morning and I experience this too. My team, it’s not just my team. We all experience it. You get up on Monday morning and your inbox is full and you’re just like, Oh my gosh, like. And for someone like me, I’m highly introverted and I like my routine and I’m going into Monday, I like to know what my week looks like so I can plan out all the stuff I need to get done.

Right. He blows that up. And. So for a while there, I was pretty miserable about it. And so I finally said to myself, okay, you can do something about this. And so I had to kind of work with him and get him to the point where he would stop doing that. And we could talk about like, let’s plan for this and let’s plan for that and figure this out and we’re not quite there.

We started this process in October and we’re not quite there, but he’s significantly better. And so I no longer have the Sunday scaries because of it, but if I had let it continue to go on, we probably would have fired the client because it would, it’s, it was miserable. It was miserable for all of us. So it’s a really great client.

It’s a really great case business. We really like their purpose. So we were satisfied from that perspective, but this one piece of it was making it miserable for all of us. And so I had to figure out, is this worth me fighting the battle to kind of fix it? Or not? And it was. And like I said, we’re not quite there.

He’s, he’s so much better, but we’re, we’ll, we’ll be there soon.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, no, that’s, that’s something I had to learn a number of years ago to just put my foot down to being summoned to meetings.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You can’t, you can’t.

Chip Griffin: Meetings shouldn’t be about being summoned. They should be about being scheduled.

Gini Dietrich: Yes.

Chip Griffin: And, and if you’ve got clients who don’t respect that.

You need to deal with that sooner rather than later, because if, as soon as you allow it one time, it will just get worse.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: And so, you need to be very clear, and, and look, I’m not talking about, you know, they’ve got a 50 person meeting that they’re inviting you to, right? That’s not the same thing. To me, the summons is where it’s, you know, one on one or, or them plus your agency, and they’re just dictating, this is the time.

Those need to be collaborative decisions.

Gini Dietrich: Yes.

Chip Griffin: They need to work for all involved. And I, I mean, you look, you need to be flexible for clients as much as possible. Sure. To try to accommodate their schedule above your own, but not just allowing them to say, we are absolutely meeting at this time, take it or leave it.

And, believe it isn’t even allowed. So, but you know, that is a clear area where you’re going to feel dissatisfied very quickly if you allow that behavior to continue. So, you know, we’ve talked a number of times on this show about the importance of trying to mold your team, to mold your clients so that you can work with them in the right way.

And so that’s an element of the satisfaction side of things. But I think you also need to think about you know, what are the results you’re producing? Do you feel like you’re actually making a difference in the work that you’re doing? Yep. I don’t mean making a difference in, you know, changing the outcome of the world or solving world peace or those kinds of things.

Look, we can do those things and you want to do them, great. But I, but I just mean, you know, do you feel like all you’re doing is just generating random numbers on a spreadsheet, or do you feel like it’s actually moving the needle in some way?

Gini Dietrich: Right.

Chip Griffin: Because it’s, it’s really easy to fall into the trap that, you know, well, client wants to see website visits up.

So we’ve, you know, we’ve done the earned media and the shared and no, and then. It’s helped generate, you know, more numbers on their website. So what? Right? Most people want to see that that’s leading to something. And so it’s helpful to understand that. It’s helpful to ask the questions of the client if you don’t see it directly.

But it all helps with everybody feeling like there’s a reason why I’m putting in my eight hours a day on this. There’s a reason why I’m going through these eight rounds of revisions on a blog post or a press release or whatever. And, and you need to, not just for yourself, but also for your team, help them to see that so that they’re getting the satisfaction out of the effort that they’re putting in.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, it’s important for everybody. And like I said, you know, different things motivate different people and different things are satisfactory to different people. So figuring out what those things are is important as well. So really understanding your team and where they derive that satisfaction. Like I have one team member who loves the fire.

We’re like, okay, absolutely throw meetings at me at the last minute. Doesn’t bother me at all. And that won’t work for me. So, you know, really understanding that it has been instrumental in us figuring out what, how we can manage this client and everybody be happy. And it without understanding that I would have made just a blanket request and the client would have probably been pretty unhappy, but instead we were able to give him some other options.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and that’s a great point that you need to understand the satisfaction, how everybody gets their satisfaction. Because it is different. I mean, I, I’m very much of a similar mindset. I, I love fires. Right? You know, you give me a disaster and I, I’m looking forward to jumping in on it. You know, the, the more chaotic it is, the better.

You know, the, the higher the pressure, the better. I mean, I, in various organizations, I loved it when there was a major catastrophe that required working around the clock to solve the problem, whether that was a tech problem or a messaging problem or whatever. To me, I, that was something I thrive on, I enjoy, even though in the moment it may be brutal, I still got satisfaction out of, out of doing that work.

There are a lot of people would be absolutely miserable.

Gini Dietrich: Yep. Sure.

Chip Griffin: You know, and, and I, I can’t say that I loved getting that call that, that told me I was going to have to stay up all night working on this, but I, I got a certain level of fun out of it.

Gini Dietrich: There is something to, to be said for the adrenaline push.

I, I will give you that.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, you don’t want to do that. Now, it would be very different if that happened every week. Right, right. Then my satisfaction would go down.

Gini Dietrich: Yes.

Chip Griffin: And so things that are good in small quantities aren’t necessarily good in large quantities. And that, that’s an element of the satisfaction.

But I, I think, you know, to me, the key is to try to, to understand what that is for you, for your team, and then go after that rather than following the cookie cutter advice. Or rather than… I mean, I think the biggest problem is agency owners who are just chasing revenues. And at any time they see dollar signs, they chase it.

And I think too often they get themselves into a jam because they’re going after a client that they don’t really believe in. Or that they’ve got some concerns about or whatever. Or they, they accept a client that they, they’ve blown through all the red flags that were there during the prospecting phase.

Unrealistic expectations, poor treatment, summoning you to, to meetings during the pitch process without giving you the ability to weigh in on scheduling or advanced notice or whatever. And, and all of those things lead to dissatisfaction. So you need to pay attention to those, otherwise you will have short term revenue gains.

But long term structural problems for your business that you’ll be miserable running.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I think that’s the big takeaway here is that you have to, and we’ve talked about this from the perspective of paying yourself and ensuring that you’re making a profit and ensuring you have the right clients on board, but you also have to think about it from the perspective of being satisfied with the work that you’re doing, the clients that you’re working with, the team that you’re working with.

Because you don’t want to have the Sunday scaries and you, you do want to, I mean, certainly you’re going to have some days where you’re just like, Oh, I can’t do this today. But the majority of your day should be, should be energetic and productive and you should be happy to be in the work that you’re doing.

Because you’ve built a business that brings you great pleasure. And I think that’s, once you kind of figure out all the other pieces, that’s the last piece of ensuring that you’ve got the agency, the business, really, that you want to be running.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. Now, all that said, I do think you have to understand the flip side.

Which is that the more perfect you want your satisfaction to be,

Gini Dietrich: Fair.

Chip Griffin: The more restrictions you’re putting on your ability to grow and thrive. And that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do that, but you do have to understand that the tighter, the more narrow your definition of satisfaction is, the harder it’s going to be to achieve it while also achieving all of your other goals. Can you do it? Yes. But if, if your definition of satisfaction is that you have to absolutely love and adore every client. That you have to think that, you know, every employee you have is going to be the one that’s going to be with you forever and you never want to lose them.

That, you know, you’re, you’re going to be changing the world every single day, right? The, the more lofty we define our satisfaction, the harder it’s going to be to ever get there. And the more we may constrain ourselves in our ability to win clients, service business, that sort of thing. So it is a balancing act.

I think you have to largely be satisfied, but you have to accept that, look, being an entrepreneur, being a business owner, being an executive, it’s not, it’s not all glorious satisfaction every day. There are going to be bumps in the road. And so you just have to figure out where the balance is for you so that on the whole you feel satisfied. And on the whole your team feels satisfied.

And, and that requires some tough decisions as you’re putting together your positioning, as you’re targeting your ideal clients, as you’re putting in policies for client service and avoiding scope creep and managing team morale and all these things. It all goes into the bucket and you just need to figure out how to balance all those things.

Not easy. I’m not saying this is the easiest thing in the world. But it is something you need to have squarely on your radar because otherwise you won’t get everything that you can out of the business.

Gini Dietrich: And I think going into that is, are things like having, having a list of things that you won’t do with clients. Or clients that you won’t work with and looking for those red flags.

And we’ve talked about from a business development perspective in the past, how to say no, if the client isn’t, if the prospect isn’t right for you. And that, that goes into it. It’s not being enamored with the, the retainer amount, but ensuring that the retainer amount is coupled with the fact that they are going to be good clients.

Like there are lots of opportunities for you probably that the retainer is great, but the client would be terrible. And so you have to be really good at figuring that out and then understanding where those boundaries are and when to say no. Because there’s nothing wrong with saying no. And I think many of us build our, myself included.

Build our businesses by saying yes to everything. And that’s where the, the lack of motivation and the Sunday scaries comes from.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And look, I mean, you know, what satisfies you is going to change over time, right? And when you’re first growing your business, you say yes, because two reasons. One is you don’t really know what’s going to give you satisfaction and what is, maybe you’ve got some general ideas, but.

Until you’ve actually had the clients and done the business, had the employee, you don’t really know for certain. You’ve got your preconceived notions, but part of it is that learning process that takes place. But part of it is because if you, if you don’t accept that early on, you may never get to the point where you can actually pick and choose.

And there are always, look, there’s always times where you’re going to have to make compromises. You’re going to go through a, a slow spell as an agency and you just need some revenue to cover it. And so, you know, I, I wouldn’t encourage you to take on business that dissatisfies you, but maybe it doesn’t satisfy you as much as another piece of business would. You know, and you’ve got to figure out, you know, where that balancing point is. And, and it may change over time.

And you know, depending on what motivates you, you may be willing to, to bend your level of satisfaction for different reasons, right? There may be a price point where this work wouldn’t satisfy me at this number, but if you triple that number, eh, I’m satisfied enough.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Right?

Chip Griffin: And that’s if you’re financially driven.

If you’re not financially driven, that doesn’t help you any. If you’re mission driven, well, you know, maybe you’re not satisfied because it’s, you know, the, the client isn’t the easiest to work with, the work isn’t the easiest to do, but you’re really, you really support their mission and that’s enough for you to get satisfaction.

So, and again, that, that balance, that ratio is going to be different for all of us. Because I mean, I know that I’ve bent many times because of the dollar signs. Well, that’s big enough. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I’ll suck it up. Okay, you know, you want to call me three o’clock in the morning? That’s fine.

You’re paying me enough for that. That’s cool

Gini Dietrich: I think you raise a really good point though. And that is that your definition will change. It will change as your career grows. It will change as your personal life changes. It’ll change, you know, when you have kids and when they leave the house. And like all of these things, when you have aging parents, like all of this stuff contributes to it.

And I think being self aware enough to be able to say, okay, that was okay with me in the past, but it’s no longer okay with me is, is really important to do. And do that assessment. Do that assessment every few months to understand why is this bothering me and how can I fix it?

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and remember the same is true of your team.

So when you’re having your weekly one on ones with them, when you’re doing your annual career reviews with them, make sure that you’re zeroing in on that because you need to understand how their own satisfaction drivers are changing.

Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. That’s a great point.

Chip Griffin: Because that impacts how you work with them and the decisions that you make.

And if you ignore that, you will have high staff turnover, you will have low performance from your existing team, and that does nobody any favor.

Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Everybody’s unhappy. Clients are unhappy. You’re unhappy. They’re unhappy. That’s not good.

Chip Griffin: Well, hopefully our listeners are not unhappy with the last 20 minutes or so that we’ve been sharing advice.

I know you were dissatisfied because I wouldn’t sing, but

Gini Dietrich: Well, maybe Jen will include the link. I will say that

Chip Griffin: I’m certain that Jen will include the link, as she always does.

Gini Dietrich: But she sent us the outtakes of the Pivot Friends episode that we mentioned last time. And it was so funny. I sat here and laughed so hard.

Very funny. So thank you, Jen. That was great.

Chip Griffin: And on that note, we will wrap up this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And it depends.