We lost a client this week…and I was happy. We were hired by the International headquarters of a major company and market leader, but the local Headquarters here openly did not want us hired. To say that the International and local offices were not on the same page would be a very kind understatement.
We would get a call from headquarters to embark on a certain strategy, and then the US office would tell us a different story – no, we absolutely do not want this done. And then we would throw up our hands and say, repeatedly and regularly: “Who is the client – International headquarters or New York?” Both would say: “I Am.”
Needless to say, they wouldn’t say this to each other. Our staff was regularly frustrated, and I couldn’t give them a clear answer. Headquarters was fair and good to us, so we essentially did as they told us and they forced the US office to follow along. It was never friendly interaction and, amazingly, the US Director of Marketing for months on end refused to meet with us and essentially grunted through the conference calls we had.
Meanwhile, both offices told us that the campaigns we had thought up and implemented had raised their business significantly; that ROI from PR & marketing was up significantly; and that all metrics we set at the start of the campaign were exceeded. Every time someone tried to trip us up, we exceeded expectations.
That said, it has been a few days since we spoke to headquarters, and I admittedly did not really focus when a staff member forwarded me a Google alert: the pre 8 AM notice said the International CMO was rumored to have accepted a new position. Sure enough, before the end of the day we received the termination notice from the grunting Director of Marketing.
Here’s to better clients…but I wasn’t unhappy at losing this client.
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