Yup, big surprise! You just got out of college with a marketing degree and some company gave you a job and told you to “interface” with the advertising agency. Great idea, huh? Well, maybe you could look at this as an opportunity to learn something since the agency most likely has years of experience (experience you don’t have) and the agency just might be able to help you do the job you have been hired for (in other words, make you look like the hero).Okay that’s the ad agency’s dream…the reality is you will be overcome with the feeling that you need to pee in the corner to mark your territory. You start with the premise that your little piece of parchment from some fancy college makes you way smart. When there you are with nothing but great theory training and no real experience. In this industry, this creates a situation that can go no place but wrong.

Clients need to learn that we (the ad agency) have done this before and they are not the first client we have ever dealt with. We all make mistakes in this field. But the worst one is when the client does not, at the very least, give us the respect our experience has earned. Our answer? Go ahead; do it your way (Hell, we will argue for a while and then roll over like dogs wanting our stomachs scratched) and in the end we will both look stupid and point fingers at each other.

Here’s a novel idea, at least give your agency a fair chance to tell you what they recommend and why they propose what they want to do. Trust us occasionally. If it doesn’t always work we know what happens…we get fired. I would much rather be fired because I tried it our way then be fired for trying it your way when I was pretty sure it was the wrong way in the first place.

And to play devil’s advocate, we as agencies also need to keep an open mind…we must admit, clients do have good ideas and it’s just as okay for them to be right as it is for us to be right. This relationship is a two-way street.