[Top Agency Series] Mastering Client Management Strategies With Taylor McMaster

Taylor McMaster is the Founder of DOT & Company, a firm that offers full-service client account management services to digital marketing agencies. With a background in marketing and a knack for relationship building, she has grown her company to a robust team of 50 dedicated account managers. Taylor is an “accidental agency owner” who transformed her love for client interaction into a thriving business. She hosts The Happy Clients Podcast, engaging with top industry experts to explore what brings client satisfaction. Through DOT & Company, Taylor has helped countless agency owners free up precious time to focus on scaling their businesses effectively.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [03:55] How DOT & Company helps agencies manage client relationships
• [05:35] How Taylor McMaster became an “accidental agency owner”
• [09:37] The unique blend of skills essential for a top-notch account manager
• [13:11] Mistakes agencies make when hiring account managers
• [20:30] The four pillars of successful account management
• [22:34] Strategies for reducing client churn and enhancing long-term satisfaction
• [26:51] De-escalation techniques to save client relationships
• [37:02] The importance of personalized client gifting
• [41:00] How Taylor successfully manages DOT & Company alongside her spouse

In this episode…

Have you ever wondered what it really takes to keep your clients happy and retain them long-term? What’s the secret sauce behind delivering exceptional account management that ensures satisfaction at every step?

Account management expert Taylor McMaster shares the intricacies of how her team supports digital marketing agencies and keeps clients happy. She recalls her journey from feeling disconnected with agency life to becoming a champion of client happiness. She delves into the art of hiring and training account managers, emphasizing the importance of personalization and setting proper expectations. Taylor also shares valuable insights on reducing churn, maintaining solid communication, and implementing feedback mechanisms to continually elevate client experiences.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz hosts Taylor McMaster, Founder of DOT & Company, to discuss the subject of account management. Taylor shares professional tips and best practices pivotal in maintaining and fostering happy client relationships. From proactive communication strategies to the thoughtful art of client gifting, Taylor discusses various approaches that enhance the client experience. She also touches on working alongside her spouse and achieving a balance between professional and personal life.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Taylor McMaster on LinkedIn
• DOT & Company
• Client Onboarding Checklist 
• Hiring Checklist
• The Happy Clients Podcast
• How to Make Your Clients REALLY Happy with Taylor McMaster, CEO and Founder of DOT & Company on the Perpetual Traffic Podcast
• Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire By Dan Martell

Special mentions

• Tom Breeze on LinkedIn
• Viewability

Related episodes:

• Building a Great Team and More Helpful Insights with Jason Swenk Host of The Smart Agency Master Class Podcast on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• [Top Agency Series] Growth Through Acquisitions – What is Your KPI and Northstar? With Jason Swenkon the Inspired Insider Podcast
• [Top Giver Series] The Power of Video Storytelling to Transform Your Business with Ian Garlic of StoryCrews on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• [Top Agency Series] Navigating a Merger and Becoming an End-to-End Digital Partner With Kevin Hourigan of Spinutech on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• [Top Agency Series] Creating Effective YouTube Ads To Achieve Marketing Goals With Tom Breeze on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable moments:

• “I don’t know what you think, Jeremy, but as days go on where you’re not communicating with your clients, they think you’re doing nothing for them.”
• “My thought process is, if agency owners are working in their zone of genius, their agency could look a lot different in 6 to 12 months.”
• “Client churn is a huge topic because if you have a leaky bucket, you can’t scale your agency.”
• “Gifting should be a strategy in my opinion. I don’t think it should be something that’s just random.”
• “You have to stay laser-focused on what you’re working toward. There are so many shiny objects in our industry.”

Action Steps:

1. Prioritize hiring experienced account managers with a proven track record: Selecting candidates with the right background is a time- and resource-saving strategy.
2. Integrate personalization into your client onboarding: Personal touches in client interactions can lead to more meaningful and lasting relationships.
3. Establish a regular communication cadence with clients: Check-ins and quarterly calls help clients feel valued and seen, reducing churn.
4. Utilize a client feedback mechanism to quickly assess and improve service areas: Identify potential issues before they escalate.
5. Utilize specialists or outsourced talent to fill niche roles: Leveraging external expertise allows agencies to focus on growth.

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:00

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz  0:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, founder of InspiredInsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Today is no different. I have Taylor McMaster of DOT & Company, and you can find it at dotandcompany.co.

Taylor, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out. And since this is part of the top agency series, I had Jason Swenk. We both know Jason Swenk. I had him on twice, actually. Once he talked about how he built up his agency to eight figures and sold it. Second time was how one of the companies he was working with has been buying up agencies. And so talking about the valuation and the agency space in general. That was an interesting one. We also have a mutual friend, Ian Garlic of VideoCaseStory.com. Ian, that was a really interesting episode. And he talked about, he really comes from an entrepreneurial family. His dad was an entrepreneur. I don’t know if he told you this story, Taylor, but his dad owned a lot of different types of businesses. One was a restaurant and it had dolphins in it, okay? And that would be weird or interesting. I mean, weird if it was in Orlando, but at the time. That restaurant was in Wisconsin and had live dolphins in the restaurant. So just interesting stories and got the creative juices flowing. Another one was Kevin Hourigan. Kevin Hourigan runs Spinutech. He’s been an agency since 1995, so we talked about the landscape and evolution of the business, of the internet and of agency life at that time too. So those are really interesting.

This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. And how do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast, and we do the strategy, the accountability and the full execution. So kind of what Taylor does for account management, we’re like, kind of like the magic elves that run in the background to make it look easy for the host and the company, so they can create amazing content and amazing relationships, but most importantly, run their business. You know, for me, the number one thing in my life is relationships, and I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I found no better way, over the past decade, to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you thought about podcasting, you should. Taylor has a podcast, you should check it out. If you have questions, you go to Rise25.com or email us at [email protected].

I’m excited to introduce Taylor McMaster. She’s the founder of DOT & Company, where she and her team help digital marketing agencies keep their clients happy. How do they help keep their clients happy? They have full service client account management services. So really, Taylor leads a team of client account managers at DOT & Company. They train them to work with different agencies. To date, they’ve helped dozens and dozens of digital marketing agencies free up their time to prioritize the money makers in their business. Well, DOT & Co. team actually ensures the client experience is smooth, very smooth. She’s also the host of The Happy Clients Podcast, where she interviews top names in the industry, diving deep into what makes clients happy. Taylor, thanks for joining me.

Taylor McMaster  3:35

Yay. Thank you so much for having me. I know we’ve been internet friends for a while, but finally got to meet in real life this year. So very excited and honored to be on your podcast.

Jeremy Weisz  03:48

I’m excited too, and just start people off and tell people a little bit about DOT & Co. and what you do.

Taylor McMaster  3:55

Yeah, so like you alluded to, we are all about happy clients, and how we got started was this was kind of my zone of genius, you could call it. I had always worked in marketing, so I was a marketer at heart, so I understood the industry, but the pieces of running an agency that I really enjoyed, and that was talking to clients and building relationships, similar to you, Jeremy, I just love building relationships with people and talking and really helping agency owners. And so I’m kind of an accidental agency owner, because it was something that I was super passionate about, which was account management, and it kind of just grew into a team of 50. Now we’re a big agency, and we’re working with tons of other agencies, so it kind of, I’m kind of an accidental agency owner, which we can get into.

But in short, yeah, we work with agencies really helping them free up their time. We come in, we actually manage their client relationships for them, build processes, project management, essentially own that entire experience. And our goal is for the agency owner to step away from that client-facing seat, because you and I both know that if agency owners are working in their zone of genius and working on those money makers, their agency could look a lot different in six to twelve months. So we come in, take all that over, hopefully improve the experience, reduce churn and allow agency owners to buy back some of their time.

Jeremy Weisz  05:24

Talk about, in the beginning, the first kind of pivotal client that you had that launched you into this type of business.

Taylor McMaster  3:34

Yeah, it’s so funny, right? Because, like I said, it was accidental, and I just kind of went into this being like, this is what I’m doing now. And started talking to agency owners and saying, hey, yeah, I do account management. Like, if you need help, let me know.

And so I was at this event in Fiji, random, but I was at this agency accelerator event, and I had signed up maybe, like nine months before, and by the time the event came around, I was thinking like, I don’t really want to go to this. I don’t want to run an agency anymore. I don’t want to do this. I really don’t know why I’m going to this event, but I already paid for it, so I was like, You know what? Whatever. I’m going to go. So I show up halfway across the world at this agency accelerator event, and there was probably about 30 agency owners, and I kind of decided one day, I was chatting with my mentor at this event, and I was telling her essentially the same story as I told you, Jeremy, you know, I was like, I don’t want to run an agency anymore. I really just want to do account management. Like, that’s just what lights me up, like gives me energy. And she was like, why don’t you just do that? Like, just do account management. Like, see how you like it. It could turn into something big. And so I just kind of said, You know what, yeah, I’m doing this. So I started telling everyone at this event. I was like, Yeah, I do account management for agencies. If you need help, let me know. And there was this agency owner named Tom Breeze, who is an absolute gem. He runs an agency called Viewability.

Jeremy Weisz  07:04

He’s been on the podcast.

Taylor McMaster  07:06

Has he?

Jeremy Weisz  07:07

Yup.

Taylor McMaster  07:07

Oh, okay, he’s amazing. And he runs one of the top YouTube agencies in the world. And so he and I got chatting. He was like, You know what? I actually need an account manager. Here’s my situation. I’m totally strapped. I have small children. I just don’t want to be, you know, doing this anymore, but I don’t know anybody I could hire. I haven’t had success hiring for this role before. And so I was like, Well, hey, let me do it. And we kind of went back and forth. And he was like, You know what? I think this could work. And so I started working with him. I started to do kind of a fractional account management model. And then I started working with another agency owner. His name is Jason Portnoy. He is a superstar. He does a lot of e-commerce clients, and he was one of my other first clients. And so I started working in multiple agencies at the same time on a fractional basis, and it just kind of took off, like all these people started talking, and when they needed an account manager, they were reaching out. And at that point, when you’re talking about the pivot, this is what I had to really think, okay, I can just do this myself. I’m very fulfilled. I love working in these agencies. I’m having a lot of fun, or do I grow this into a team? Right? Like, do I take this and replicate myself? Do I build this into what I think is an agency? And so we decided to go the team road, and I think it was two months later, hired my first account manager, and just kind of started to build the frameworks, started to build the best practices, and started to sell this as a service. And over the last five years, we’ve kind of just, we’re still doing the same thing. We’re still doing outsourced account management. Obviously, we’ve gotten a lot better and better and better at our processes and how we work in agencies, but to this day, we’re still offering the same premium service, and we’ve been able to cultivate a team of people who are very similar and love doing what we do.

Jeremy Weisz  09:16

You know, at the event we were at Taylor, you talked about the hiring process a bit, and you’ve honed in on that all throughout the years. Can you talk about some of the mistakes that people make in the hiring process when hiring account managers specifically?

Taylor McMaster  09:37

Yeah, I think account managers are a really unique breed, and I’ll say that because I am one. But if you think of your agency, you know you have all these different roles. Maybe it’s a media buyer, maybe it’s admin HR accounting, but the account management function is the only piece of your agency that’s like the touchy feely side of business. It’s the relationships, it’s the feelings, it’s the soft side. And so when you’re hiring for this role, you have to take a unique approach. So you’re not just looking for somebody who can do the job on paper, or who is qualified. You need to make sure that this person hits every box, or else it doesn’t work out and I can confidently tell you that. You know, they have to have the years of experience in digital marketing, or else it’s going to take you years to actually train that person, because industry experience is so important.

They have to have really strong written communication skills, and that’s not something that I’m confident in teaching somebody from the ground up, like if you don’t come fully loaded and ready to roll in that area, it’s really tricky to train. They have to have really great verbal communication skills and on camera communication skills, that professionalism they have to really exude. And then they have to have this personality. They have to be equal parts friendly and bubbly, but serious and forward. Because our role is not just, we’re not order takers. We have to have an element of strict strategic representation for both the client and the agency. We have to de-escalate situations that sometimes are really tricky. We have to deal with happy clients and we have to deal with angry clients, and so this person has to be a really unique person, and I think it should be a really slow hiring process.

So personally, you know, we hire exclusively account managers, so we’ve gotten really good at figuring out who’s a good fit and not, and we use something called the dot vibes, which you could use within your agency. But essentially, it’s this feeling that you get when chatting with someone, and it’s really hard to articulate, but it’s not just all the qualifications that they have, but it’s a feeling, and so that can be kind of tricky to train somebody how to hire for. But I would say the one piece of advice I would give if you’re hiring for an account manager is to really take your time, have multiple people within your agency interview this person and trust your gut if you don’t feel like it’s right, like if your gut says no, it’s a no, and be very confident in that.

Jeremy Weisz  12:27

That’s really helpful. Taylor, actually, for this, I was watching, you did a great interview with Kasim Aslam and Ralph Burns on the Perpetual Traffic Podcast. And after hearing all of that, Kasim said, how do you hire unicorns, right? Yeah, and that’s basically what you’re doing. Because this is, it’s not easy to find this. Do you remember a time, because you said, if one of these is not checked off, you’re going to pay essentially, where maybe everything was checked except for one thing, and you went with it anyways before you knew better?

Taylor McMaster  13:11

Yeah, a lot of times, unfortunately, in the early days, there was, the one that comes to mind, this individual on paper, checked all the boxes, had the experience, you know, had the personality, communication skills, verbal communication skills, but when push came to shove, they didn’t actually have the digital marketing knowledge to speak to clients. And I put them in front of an agency, and it went really bad, and it was such an expensive learning opportunity for me. But what I learned was that you can’t just take something at face value. You really need to put people through tests and allow them to prove themselves, and honestly, that is really frustrating for the candidate to have to go through that process. However, I have allowed people to kind of slip through over the years, in the early years, when they didn’t fully have the digital marketing knowledge and the industry experience, and that is just something that takes so long to learn, and it’s not something I can just put them through a digital marketing course. It’s years in the industry. And so now I’ve realized, like, if they don’t have that base knowledge and competence, it’s not something that I’m able to train, unfortunately. Like I really wish I could train someone from the ground up, but at the level that we’re operating, we just simply can’t. And I think that was a hard lesson to learn, because I really wanted to be able to teach somebody from the ground up, but it’s just, it’s not, it’s not easy, and it’s really expensive.

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