The Bad Eggs in Corporations

Having worked with dozens of agencies and suppliers, I have always prided myself for having the tenacity to build strong, lasting relationships, whom many became good friends including friends from Ogilvy, Burson Marstella, Senses Communications, PictureComm, Waggener Edstorm etc. I am cordial and respectful in every human sense until the trust is violated and I will not hesitate to set things right. In fact I took one to court not too long ago. This one has definitely been blacklisted - eternally!

The reason why I share this with you is not to forewarn or scare the wits out of anyone. No, this is not my style (In fact, I prefer to tell it like it is to your face:)). I endeavour to point out that every smart Communications Director should know how to get the most out of an agency. Work ethics tells us to treat them right and they will go the extra mile. I think most clients understand this. However I also saw for myself that many don't.

As the client, you always have the upper hands to almost everything. You have the power to throw out proposals, deny pitches to small unknown agencies, bargain prices in a cut-throat manner.. you can demand the sky, really... So what is acceptable and what's not?

Personally I did all of the above which I deemed as reasonable. As long as you know what you want, you raise the bar with each challenge to get the best deal from your agency. So that's my motto. However I detest despicable ways to demean people.

This story I heard just last week is by far the most outrageous!
This client from hell, let's call her "Miss Idiot" called up her PR agency on Friday late evening 7-ish and demanded for a proposal to be delivered to her house the next morning by 10 am. She said she has a very important meeting with her boss on Saturday.

The agency abided by her instruction, worked through the night (until 4 am) to deliver the proposal on time. The parcel was dropped off at Miss Idiot's condomnium's security checkpoint as per her instruction. The weekend came and gone. However the parcel was not picked up until the security officer alerted the agency that the house owner (ie Miss Idiot) had gone off for holiday during the weekend !

The horrible fact they discovered was Miss Idiot's boss cancelled the meeting on late Friday night and she decided to go to Batam for the weekend ! Not even a courtesty call to stop production?!!

Apparently Miss Idiot thought that her outrageous act stays within her and the agency. Well, she is so short-sighted on a few things. First, she better keep her job FOREVER because of her well-known records of abusing agencies. Second, she forgot that Singapore is just a tiny dot where words travel at a lighting speed. True enough, a headhunting firm who was bouncing off names within the industry found her horrible records through this very agency's Managing Director.

So the morale of the story? if you are a bad egg, it's time to quit. It's not too late !

Lili Koh
7Skies Communication