Wise leadership

I started managing the Pickford’s Removals client because the account director was leaving. He and his team had done an outstanding job, but it was clear from day one that the client just didn’t take to me.

And within a month we were involved in re-pitching the business. Over lunch, I told the agency chairman, Dick Desborough, the situation.

“Have you ever been fired by a client?” he asked me.

“Well, no. Not yet, anyway,” I responded. I was young!

“I think we’ll leave you on the business – it’ll be good experience for you.”

On the day of the re-pitches, each agency was allotted an hour. But when it came to our turn, everything was running very late. It looked as though we’d only have five minutes or so on stage.

In fact this was a blessing in disguise ‒ as we had a five minute presentation. Two minutes to show the existing campaign. Two minutes to show how strongly it had built both sales and share for Pickford’s. And one minute to propose to the client that they continue with it. And with us.

We won, of course. The client’s boss, the managing director, was there and couldn’t really understand why this was all happening.

I came off the business the following week. What a wise man, my chairman.