Marketing With Purpose Kit: Customer Connection in a Data-Driven World
Anna Phillips, Account Executive at Zero Company, joins Michele Brasfield on setting client expectations early. Ten years in agency work taught her that onboarding decides the relationship, that most reporting goes unread, and that recovery matters more than a perfect record.
Setting client expectations early is the least glamorous part of the job and, in Anna Phillips’ experience, the part that decides everything after it. Anna is an Account Executive at Zero Company who has spent about a decade in agency work, across a wide range of industries, translating digital marketing out of jargon and into decisions clients can actually make. She joined host Michele Brasfield on the Marketing With Purpose series.
In this episode we explore:
• Why onboarding is where the relationship is really set
• Under promising and over delivering, in practice
• Choosing the one or two metrics a client actually reads
• Sorting urgent from semi urgent without living in reaction mode
• What holds a partnership together when results miss
• Making room for fun without calling it a distraction
Anna is candid about why she picked this topic. Plenty of people on her team have deeper analytics acumen, and she points listeners to Josh Prizer’s episode for the ROI mathematics. Her ground is the relationship the numbers land in.
Expectations get set at onboarding or they get set by accident. What are we providing, what are the next steps, how are we gauging success, and what do we do if the metrics come in short. Then the discipline of being reasonable about it, because nobody is tripling anyone’s sales, and a smaller client does not need a weekly meeting promised to them.
Reporting gets the same treatment. Clients have told her outright that they do not read the reports, or that only the email summary matters. So she asks which metrics matter, teaches when the answer is a vanity number, and reports the one or two that inform a decision instead of the hundreds she could send.
Two harder lessons close it out. Urgency has to be sorted rather than absorbed, because treating everything as urgent burns you out and quietly steals the strategic work the client is paying for. And trust is not built by a clean record. It is built by how you handle the month that misses, which usually means proactively recommending a pause or a budget cut before the client has to ask. That is the honest version of an agency relationship, and it is the standard Zero Company holds itself to.
Key Takeaways
• (3:10) Where expectations get set: “even during the onboarding process” you cover what you will provide, the next steps, “how are we gauging success? And then what are we doing if we don’t reach those metrics.” Then keep them reasonable, because nobody is promising to “triple their sales.”
• (4:31) The reporting reality most agencies will not say out loud: “I’ve literally had clients tell me, like, hey, Anna, I don’t read your reports,” or that only the email summary counts. Her answer is to ask which metrics matter and report those.
• (4:31) Part of that is education. When a client fixates on a top line number like clicks or impressions, she moves the conversation to leads and lead quality, out of the “dozens or hundreds of metrics that we could possibly report on.”
• (6:09) On urgency, learned the hard way over ten years: “not everything can be urgent. And you’re going to like burn out if you treat everything as urgent.” It is also bad for the client, who is paying for strategic thinking rather than reflexes.
• (8:46) Her practical move when a request lands hot: tell the client the three main priorities for the week and ask where this one fits, or whether it sits lower. The question goes back to them, and the priority gets set together.
• (10:17) The line that reframes account management: “it’s not about being perfect and hitting expectations and doing well all the time. It’s about how do you recover and communicate through that.”
FAQ
When should a marketing agency set client expectations?
At onboarding, before any campaign runs. Anna Phillips of Zero Company covers deliverables, next steps, how success is measured, and what happens if the numbers come in short, then keeps every promise deliberately reasonable.
How many metrics should a client report actually include?
Often one or two. Anna Phillips asks each client which numbers drive their decisions, then reports those instead of the dozens available, because a report nobody reads is not communication.
How do you keep a client relationship after a campaign underperforms?
By recovering well rather than never missing. Anna Phillips recommends proactive moves, like suggesting a pause or a lower budget before the client asks, so they can see their interests are being protected.
Expectations are not paperwork, they are the shape of the relationship. Hear the full conversation with Anna Phillips, watch it on the video page, hear Josh Prizer on proving marketing ROI, the episode Anna points listeners to, and find more on the Marketing with Purpose Kit series.
Account Executive
As an experienced Account Executive, Anna serves as a trusted resource for her clients, seeking to demystify the complexities and jargon of online marketing. She loves seeing the results of her work in terms of increasing brand awareness, sales and customers for her clients. Anna has been working in the digital marketing agency world since 2015, and over the years she has worked with dozens of clients across a wide range of industries. Outside of marketing, she enjoys horseback riding, weightlifting and playing the classical guitar, as well as exploring our local parks and beaches.
