We are not order-takers
I eat out a lot.
It’s my reward to myself (and my hips) after a good chunk of my life was spent….being less than comfortable.
And when I first started doing it, eating out that is, I would go to diners, or Village Inn, or even a nice Chili’s. At these restaurants, you go in, select something exactly as you like it, order it, and then…miracle of miracles…they bring it to you!
But as my appetite and disposable income (401k? pshaw!) grew, I started branching out into a less-chain, more-nuanced dining experience. And when you go to these, funny things happen.
The menu changes with the seasons
Substitutions are politely declined
Wine pairings are suggested
Meals are suggested based on your dining preference or appetite
and of course, the bills get bigger…
WHY do we go to these places? After all, we can easily get EXACTLY what we want, whether it’s pictured on the menu and we can point to it, or it’s got a cutesy name (Rooty Tooty Fresh n’ Fruity I’m lookin’ at you!) And it must be said the ‘fast cazsh’ restaurants are a LOT cheaper.
Why go to a place where the menu is decided for us? It’s suggested we do A, B or C and we are told that we can get what we want within a certain set of parameters?
I submit it’s because we get to a place where we admit that we don’t know what we don’t know. At some point in life, we’re willing to go out on a limb and live in blind faith in order to get an experience far better than what we could have come up with ourselves.
And that’s what your marketing clients have come to realize as well, brother.
When you run an agency, it is not your job to take orders.
It is not your job to decipher what you think the client is asking for…but to come up with a solution the client needs. After all, if they were well-versed in marketing (or perhaps they are well-versed but their focus is elsewhere) they would not be in your figurative office. They know they need…something. But it’s YOUR job to figure out what.
Don’t be the fast-casual diner server.
Don’t wow them with stopping by their table 87 times a night in the hopes of a big tip (big deliverables that say a whole lot of nothing.)
Don’t hope they’ll be impressed that you “don’t need to write down their order”.
Don’t offer a gargantuan plate of nothing special, when they’re craving a manageable portion of brilliance.
Don’t hope they’ll see how slammed you are and offer a better tip.
Be the sommelier, make recommendations, offer expertise, provide the very thing they didn’t think they liked or they’d have never tried before.
Wow them with an amazing idea that hits to the very heart of what they’re trying to accomplish or solves the pain point that brought them to their knees.
Suggest a pairing they’d have never considered, or an idea they didn’t think would work together.
Remove the value/cost equation from their minds and create instead a partnership that will bring upon the desired outcome (if we’re sticking with analogies, it’s that they’re sated/satisfied) AND create an experience and memory that will continue to warm them in years to come.
Don’t.
Be.
An.
Order-taker.
