We advise clients on how they present themselves in the marketplace. Every call, email, and voicemail we send does the same job for us — whether we manage it or not.
Most of our client contact now happens on camera and over the phone rather than across a desk. That screen is the whole impression — how you look, how you sound, and what's behind you is the entire basis a client has for judging whether we're the agency they should trust with their brand.
What follows are the standards for every client-facing and internal interaction. Work through each one, run the self-audit, then take the scenario check.
Open each standard. The rail at the top tracks how far through you are.
Camera-ready by default, not on request. The standard does not move based on where you happen to be working that day.
Before you start the day, ask one question: is what I'm wearing appropriate if a client call lands in the next ten minutes? Because it will.
Video is how rapport gets built with clients and prospects. It is the most effective form of communication we have short of being in the room.
Decide what you want clients and peers to see, then set the room up to deliver it. Framing, lighting, eye level.
Tidy space, nothing distracting in frame. Look at your own preview before you join, not after.
Blur is the quick fix. For a cleaner virtual background, a solid backdrop — greenscreen, plain blanket — removes the halo effect. Greenscreens are inexpensive now.
Barking dogs, deliveries, household traffic. Where you can eliminate it, eliminate it.
When noise is unavoidable, mute fast. One second of reaction time is the difference between a non-event and a distraction the client remembers.
Speakers working, headset functional, mic picking up. Five minutes early, every time.
New equipment, new platform, or a screen share you haven't run before — do a dry run with someone on the team first. Never debug in front of a client.
Typos in a marketing agency's email are not a small thing. Read it once more.
Confirm who is on the To and Cc before you hit send. Autocomplete has ended relationships.
"We" and "our," not "I" and "my." Clients bought a team, and the language should reflect that.
Clients come from varied backgrounds and beliefs, and the line is easy to misread from the outside. When in doubt, leave it out.
Tap each line to see the version we use with clients.
A bad day should never travel down the line. Clients read your mood in the first ten seconds and attach it to the news you're delivering — check your energy before you dial, not after they've noticed.
Slow enough to be understood, quick enough to respect their time. Rushing loses them; dragging makes them feel their time is being wasted and they disengage.
This one has no exceptions and no situational read. If the client is cursing, we still don't. Matching their language is not rapport — it's a liability.
"Um," "uh," "like," "you know." Filler reads as uncertainty, and uncertainty is the last thing a client should hear when we're recommending where to put their budget. A brief pause always beats a filler word.
Work phone and cell. A default carrier greeting on a number a client is calling reads as an abandoned line.
Any day you're away from your desk, the line follows you. A ringing phone nobody answers is the same as a disconnected one.
A full mailbox is a lost lead. Clear it on a schedule.
Run this against your own setup right now. Check only what's true today — the score is for you, not for a manager.
Seven situations you will actually hit this month. Pick the response that holds the standard.
These are the baseline standards, not the ceiling. Anywhere a client can see, hear, or read us, the same judgment applies: does this look like the agency we're asking them to trust with their brand?