Your agency just won an important new business pitch, and everyone's fired up! But then you run into what seems to have become the norm after 18-24 months. The client calls and informs you they decided to conduct a review. You feel totally blind-sided. What might have happened? How did you lose touch? And most importantly what "undermined the trust factor" that won the business? After all, chemistry and trust are most often cited as the key factors in victories.

Let's see what could have caused this:

Did you on-board the client properly?
Was there an open, honest offsite meeting that you arranged and paid for? Did you continue these offsite meetings?
Did you both share in the CEO's mandate for success over the first two years?
Did you revisit the quality of service over this period? Honestly and openly.
And, did you build a continuity team that proactively provided business building ideas in marketing, digital and analytics? Every month, every quarter.

That said, proof of performance is your greatest ally today. Here are some keys to keep it trending upward:

Outstanding Creativity: Across key connection points, with all members of your team owning them.
Relationship Building: All members charged with building relationships with their counterparts.
Budgeting & ROI: Pay closer attention to your compensation agreement and revisit it with an open mind. You don't want your profitability to be marginalized, but you do want your client openly engaged with budget concerns.

All of this points towards the major issues that are an impediment these days: Client/Agency trust, and most recently transparency, have eroded. Your focus should be to work everyday to make these non-issues. Breathe some life into the relationship every chance you get. And last, but certainly not least, "Love your clients, or someone else will".

The end.