• Where: In person, virtual also offered depending on location
• Frequency: Series
• Duration: Sessions 1-2 90 minutes, sessions 3-6 2 hours
• Type of participants:  Single agency, single agency plus clients or multiple agencies together
• Experience level of participants: All experience levels welcome
• N0. of participants: 6-15
• Price: GBP £8,370 per course of 6

what will you learn

Agencies come to us to help upskill their people and their leadership teams, and to systematise their client management processes. This enables them to create stronger and happier client relationships, improve their own levels of talent satisfaction and consequently improve creative and financial outputs.

Having completed the course, attendees will have a greater understanding of what their client is looking for, more confidence in engaging senior clients about their business challenges and a toolkit for more empathetic and effective financial conversations for growing organic revenue. The multiple practical tips, behaviour change toolkit plus additional client monitoring platforms helps embed the ‘Magic Sauce’ learnings into day-to-day client management post course completion.

INTRODUCING THE MAGIC SAUCE COURSE

In today’s environment building strong working relationships can be seen as a ‘nice to have’ whilst busy teams focus on urgent delivery in a hybrid working world.

Yet dig a little deeper, and reflections from senior marketeers and agency leaders tell a very different story as to their importance.

It’s a story of how the best communications developed by them in their own careers only came about because of a strong agency/client partnership. It was the firm relationship foundations of mutual trust, psychological safety and fun creatively challenging environments which enabled great work to flourish. Great relationships create great work, they are not a by-product of it.

At the Magic Sauce we believe the strength of the agency/client relationship is in fact the most important variable influencing marketing success. The relationship is the ‘magic sauce’ for creativity and marketing effectiveness. Great relationships generate more: they are more efficient, effective, enjoyable and profitable.

The Magic Sauce course is a client relationship and management programme written and researched with the input of over 125 client-side and agency leaders and delivered by James Hayhurst, an ex-agency leader turned Unilever marketeer with 20+ years total agency and client-side experience.

It has been developed to transform agency/client relationships and to create much happier, profitable and productive agency and client teams working in partnership together.

It does this looking at marketing through a human and relationship lens; by improving the levels of understanding and empathy across the wider team and highlighting the critical importance of relationship dynamics, communication and wider team chemistry. The Magic Sauce programme helps clients and agencies to understand each other better and to work better together towards their shared goals. Crucially, it also offers a behaviour change and measurement framework to monitor progress, embed learnings and improve relationship quality over time.

course content and module structure

The Magic Sauce course is a holistic agency relationship and management programme. It’s packed with tips from real life clients, allowing attendees to understand how clients really think and what they want from their agencies. In addition to helping attendees build stronger and more authentic relationships with their client partners, the programme outlines how to use these relationships as a springboard from which to write better creative briefs, present creative work more successfully and to help deliver increased organic growth for the agency.

The course is structured in six modules and draws from a wide range of sources ranging from the lived experience of some of the best in the field and classic marketing texts to the contemporary psychology and popular culture.

The “Magic Sauce” Modular Course for Agency partners:

1. Why relationships are so important. Becoming a trusted advisor.
2. Closing the empathy gap. Why your role is the most important one of all.
3. Making connection. Understanding your client’s world.
4. Relationship dynamics, communication and the creative brief
5. ‘One team thinking’ and working with ideas
6. Selling more sauce and embedding behaviour change.

who should attend

James Hayhurst

James started his career agency-side BMP DDB (now Adam&Eve DDB) as a grad trainee. During his time there he worked on award-winning campaigns for Volkswagen, Channel 4 and the Teacher Training Agency amongst many other UK and international clients. In 2012 James joined Leagas Delaney as Managing Director running the London office, and managing brands including Glenfiddich, Patek Philippe and Timberland.

James decided to try his hand at client-side marketing by joining Unilever in October 2014 as the Global Brand Equity director for OMO/Persil, Unilever’s third biggest brand and sold in 80 countries globally. James was attracted by the brand positioning of Dirt is Good and Unilever’s commitment to sustainable living. During his four years James helped position the brand as one of Unilever’s fastest growing purposeful brands.

Whilst there James was struck by what he ‘didn’t know he didn’t know’ when he’d been an agency MD about client culture and decision making. He also began to appreciate how alien agency culture appeared to many clients, and that they hadn’t been given the instruction manual of how to ‘operate’ their agencies. There was an empathy gap on both sides that needed bridging; the idea for the Magic Sauce Course was born.

testimonials

“This course has been the missing piece of the puzzle to my role – it really shifted my mindset and has given me the perspective and tools on how to work with my client in creating the best possible environment for both of our businesses to thrive. I would recommend to all agency account people, and my clients too” – Business Director

“The levels of organic growth delivered by the department took an upturn after taking the programme – I don’t think it was a coincidence” – Agency MD

“I thoroughly enjoyed Magic Sauce. I learned a lot from James, he offers a unique and clear perspective of what is usually an over complicated and conflicting area of business. Our clients have commented on the step-change in how we now run our accounts”. – Business Director

‘Take this course! An invaluable course in re-energising your mindset towards client/agency relationships.. The course provided real, actionable steps we could take to become better client partners, and James is a great sounding board throughout the process. 5/5 Would recommend!’ – Account Manager

other programmes offered by this provider

please note

For any programs delivered in person, the provider’s travel and other ‘out of pocket’ costs will be additional to the program fee and will be advised by the program provider in advance, depending on time and distances involved. This will not apply to online programs.

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• Where: In person or online
• Frequency: Series
• Duration: 1 day workshop in person or half day (either in person or online)
• Type of participants:  Single agency or multiple agencies together
• Experience level of participants: Mid-level, Senior and CEO/Owner
• No. of participants: Max. 20
• Price: USD$ 5,000

what will you learn

There are two programs. The first (and most popular) is the One Day Workshop. The second is the Half Day Workshop. The One day workshop consists of the following content:

1) An introduction by the program leader
2) Why build relationships at C Suite? (economic, reputational & cultural rationale for any agency)
3) What are the key challenges that the C Suite face?
4) Who are the new C Suite?
5) How to create a Contact Strategy & Plan
6) How to differentiate your service offer and raise your appeal within the C Suite
7) What to say to C Suite when you meet them (and why not to sell!)
8) Learning from the competition
9) Some very practical action points to help you reach the C Suite
10) A Contact Program

You will learn:

1) Who is in today’s client C Suite, where its changed radically since the pandemic and what new roles are featured.
2) Insight into their professional and personal needs / expectations and how the agency can match these expectations
3) How to forensically audit and understand the key components of how a client business works, where the focus of growth and budget will fall – and why – how it makes money, where the pinch points are and why the agency can support all of these inflection points
4) How to reach the C Suite when they may not wish to be reached by the agency
5) Exactly what to say to them when you do reach them; how to interest them and how to avoid selling to them.
6) How to nurture these relationships over months and years, using them as a platform for continuous incremental growth

who should attend

Philip Lancaster

“I have spent my career (30+ years) working for the major global agency networks including Grey, Lowe, Bates and WPP/JWT. As a Global Client Lead within JWT / WPP I was responsible for all group agency network relationships with Jaguar / Mazda, Kellogg’s, ReckittBenckiser and Bayer.

I developed longstanding, business nurturing and strategically important relationships at Board and Leadership (C Suite) level across these clients and their key geographies and functions (SBU, R&D, Corp Affairs, Marketing Excellence, Legal, Procurement & Finance). Whilst leading these accounts I have been personally responsible for winning incremental new business, retained challenging client relationships, joined client M&A task forces, built strong relationships with client Procurement teams, advised client Board members on their personal brand, advised on key client organisational structure changes and introduced innovation critical to the agency / client prospects eg digital transformation, Gen AI.

I currently sit on two agency boards, am an active NED, mentor many WPP & JWT alumni, advise various agency leadership teams on how to develop their businesses, coach on an ongoing basis agency leaders and their teams on how to reach the client C Suite and methods to bring incremental value to the relationship.”

testimonials

“Phil is one of the most effective and impactful consultants that we have brought into the agency at any time. It helps that he has worked at the highest level of our industry and speaks from very personal experience and achievement. He shared very practical and immediate knowledge of how our senior management group could create far stronger and enduring relationships with the client C Suite. Specifically, he has very successfully shown us how to reach them, interest them, impress them, and provide a more valuable service offer. Our management group considers Phil to be highly credible and with the practical gravitas that comes from having done the job himself for many years. He is a class act and we continue to work with him.” Paul Kirkley. MD MadeBrave

other programmes offered by this provider

please note

For any programs delivered in person, the provider’s travel and other ‘out of pocket’ costs will be additional to the program fee and will be advised by the program provider in advance, depending on time and distances involved. This will not apply to online programs.

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