You may have seen the Royal Mail advertising campaign informing us that it costs five times more to recruit a new client than to keep an existing one. But how do you hang on to the clients you already have — and how do you keep them coming back for more?

Good account management is one of the keys to ensuring that you're always best placed to develop new projects for existing clients, and therefore to increase your own company's profits from repeat business. Drawing on their experiences with their own clients, a panel of expert practitioners will reveal the tricks of the account manager's trade, and explain the main aspects of the job:

• Understanding your clients and their businesses
• Understanding your clients' needs
• Understanding your own company's abilities, strengths and weaknesses
• Converting all of the above into genuine business opportunites

Topics include:

• The importance of knowing your clients and their business
• Understanding your clients expectations of their spend
• Analysing client briefs to ensure that you are fulfilling all their objectives, both fiscal and creative
• Recruiting and maintaining the right team
• Best practice - systems that ensure you manage your client’s business more effectively
• How to put in place processes that monitor your account management skills
• How to ensure that your company is equipped to grow
• What makes a good agency a good agency?
• Top ten client complaints – and how to avoid them
• What do clients really want?

Following the presentations, panel discussion and questions and-answers there will be a drinks reception and networking session.

Speakers

• Jo Weatherall, (Chair)
• Anne Davis, Director of Interaction, Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper
• Shelley Boden, Director, Enable (UK)

This event is presented in association with Business Link for London (www.bl4london.com )