Early in my career, I thought the job of a media sales professional was to close deals.
I was partly right. But what I didn't understand then — and what took me years and multiple roles across both agency and publisher sides to fully appreciate — is that closing a deal is just the beginning. The real work is what happens after.
The commercial relationships that have driven the most value throughout my career haven't been the ones where I sold the biggest package or hit the flashiest revenue number in a single quarter. They've been the ones where I showed up consistently, understood my client's business deeply, and became genuinely useful to them over time.
Here's what that actually looks like in practice.
Understand their business, not just their brief
Most advertisers brief against immediate campaign objectives: reach this audience, drive these conversions, stay within this CPM. That's where most conversations start.
The best account managers I've worked with — and the approach I try to embody — go a level deeper. They want to understand:
- What does success look like for this client at a board level?
- What pressures are they under internally?
- Where are they in their marketing maturity?
- What does their competitive set look like?
When you operate with that level of context, you can provide advice that goes beyond the brief. You can flag opportunities they haven't thought of. You can push back constructively when something they're asking for isn't in their best interest. That's when the relationship shifts from vendor to partner.
Earn trust slowly, then protect it fiercely
Trust is built in small increments and destroyed in large ones. In practice, this means:
Do what you say you'll do. If you commit to getting a proposal to someone by Thursday, get it there Thursday. Every time you follow through on a small promise, you're making a deposit into the relationship account.
Be honest when things go wrong. Media campaigns don't always go to plan. Impressions fall short. CPAs blow out. Delivery issues happen. The clients who end up trusting me most are the ones I've had to call with bad news — and who saw that I was the first person on the phone, with a clear explanation and a plan to fix it.
Don't oversell. This is a hard one, especially when you're under revenue pressure. But recommending a product that isn't right for a client might win you the quarter and cost you the relationship. Long-term thinking is a competitive advantage in this industry.
Stay curious about their world
The best account managers I know are voracious consumers of their clients' industries. If you work with automotive clients, you should be reading about EV adoption curves and OEM market share shifts. If you work with financial services, you should have a view on how interest rate movements affect their marketing appetite.
This kind of industry literacy does two things. First, it helps you build more relevant and credible recommendations. Second — and more importantly — it signals to the client that you care about their world, not just your quota.
Build relationships at multiple levels
It's tempting to focus all your energy on the day-to-day contact. But the most resilient relationships span multiple levels of the organisation. If your primary contact moves on (and in this industry, they always do), a relationship that exists only at one level disappears with them.
Invest in understanding who the decision-makers are above and below your main contact. Find genuine ways to add value at each level. This takes time, but it pays off significantly when there's leadership change on the client side.
The compounding effect
The reason I think so much about relationship quality is that good ones compound.
A client who trusts you renews without going to market. A client who trusts you gives you early visibility into their planning cycle. A client who trusts you refers you to their network. A client who trusts you takes a phone call when you move to a new role.
None of this happens overnight. But if you do the work consistently — if you show up prepared, follow through on your commitments, speak honestly, and stay genuinely curious about their business — the compounding starts to show.
That's the job. It's a long game, and it's worth playing.