Why being ignored by a client wasn’t a bad thing
“I’ve been ignoring you on purpose.”
In our most recent regular monthly meeting, one of our clients explained he had been ignoring us, which turned out to be the greatest compliment.
After apologising for not responding to emails or calls, he explained the multitude of current issues that he was facing across the business. They were real and urgent and covered HR, Sales, Compliance and Account Management.
We were already aware of some from our previous discussions, and some were new to the Ebony & Salt team.
The reason, he explained, that he’d been ignoring us was not that what we were working on didn’t matter, it was because he knew we had the marketing in hand and that even if we didn’t hear back from him, he knew we would keep progressing our projects in line with our agreed strategic plan.
He could trust in the decisions that our Director would make in his “absence” as he knew that Amber would apply a decision-making framework that captured and considered the business's challenges and aligned with the organisation’s strategic vision.
As an SME business owner herself, Amber is very aware of not only his business challenges but those, in general, facing SMEs in the current business climate - Recruiting and retaining appropriately skilled staff, rising costs and reduced revenues, interest rates and inflation, and reduced consumer spending.
Why is this awareness important?
It means that as we plan and execute marketing strategies, we rely on programs that won’t burden a client’s already overloaded team or create unnecessary expense increases. We find solutions that are resource efficient and manageable for their teams. Ie, marketing strategies and plans that work for SMEs in the real world.
We understand SME business drivers
Understanding business drivers due to Amber’s experience at the Executive and General Manager level means that we intimately understand SME business owners' pressures and strategically manage marketing accordingly.
We flexibly work with our clients to constantly adapt the marketing approach to integrate into their changing everyday operations. Some day-to-day examples of how this looks in action include:
Understanding a busy GM finds it hard to find the time to put down some key points we need for a case study being built in an email. Instead, we keep him company via phone whilst he’s frequently on the road. Via conversation, he shares with us the knowledge and expertise that’s in his head, and that we need, in a way that’s most time-efficient for him.
We appreciate that nine months into the financial year, budgets might be tightening and overspending is not an option. We adapt marketing campaigns planned for the last quarter and switch to activities that are within the reduced resources, but still aligned with the marketing strategy.
Delivering on our client promises
In this case, being ignored meant we’ve delivered exactly what Ebony & Salt sets out to do, making marketing easier for SMEs. Our client could rely upon the marketing being in hand and he didn’t have to worry about it as he dealt with the other business issues demanding his attention.
If you could use a reliable, expert marketing partner who understands that being ignored sometimes is not because you don’t love us, but because you do, contact us for a chat today. We promise not to ignore your call.