What if you owned your client’s business?

I can still remember the heat on my cheeks.

I was red, filled with embarrassment and some anger.

I was 29, and Ampush was in crazy growth mode when I got a call from my friend/client.

After only 2 months, Zynga, one of the biggest gaming companies in the world, was churning from Ampush.

I felt confused and angry. I told my friend (who wasn't in the day-to-day but had helped us win the business),

"Dude, your team was a mess. They never got us the data we needed. They promised to install our tracking software and didn't. We've been doing this with one arm tied behind our back. It’s not fair."

After a few minutes, he calmly replied,  "Jesse, we were hoping you could clean up our mess and not fall victim to it."

A surge of energy ripped through my body; I immediately texted that exact sentence to my co-founder, Nick. 

Memories flashed through my mind from 7 years prior when I first joined McKinsey.

They were SO anal about everything: slide formatting, joining meetings 3 minutes early, how they communicated with clients.

I had a huge epiphany: B2B companies, especially service ones, have to drive results and impact regardless of client dynamics.

It's not just a "part" of their business — it IS their business.

It's why companies buy software or hire an agency. If they could do it themselves, they would.

Now, via the Bootstrapped Giants’ Accelerator, I've interacted with hundreds of services entrepreneurs, and almost all of them miss this point:

For a B2B business to work, it has to drive impact and results for the client (the business of the client) no matter what. The bar has to be that high.

Before I give you a few ways to accomplish that, here are some ground rules:

If you sit in on an Aux call, you'll hear me ask this question all the time. It’s important to be empathetic to your client and to build a strong relationship.

But at the end of the day, even the client works for the business you serve, so ensuring that your recommendations and choices are in service of the business (as if you owned it) is critical. 

If you're solving for individual politics, or worse, your own business… you won't go far.

If you can't prove you drove results, assume you didn't. Early on, be clear about what success looks like (if you can't get an answer, suggest one) and set up a system to monitor it and report back on the results. 

Recently, a member of 833 lost two big clients (that made up half his business) due to tariff nerves from his clients.

He had driven them MILLIONS in revenue. 

When I asked if he'd ever shared quantitative results, he got angry, "They should know! I shouldn't need to prove it."

That is wrong. Have the numbers and prove it all the time.

Said another way, your clients’ results are your responsibility. Pretend you own the business and have a quantitative way to measure success, then obsess over client results. And know how much they are worth to the business.

A simple measure is 10x your value. If you charge $10K per month, are you delivering $100K per month in value? Can you prove it? I want my teams to care more about value creation for the client-business than the employees of the client-business do.

With those mental ground rules, here are a few important ways to win with clients every time:

There are a few REALLY important things to get right about a kickoff — it’s not just about introducing yourselves and talking vaguely about getting work done.

Instead…

A) Align expectations

Sales processes can ebb and flow. Once the client is signed on, it’s important to make clear agreements on what they can expect, by when and how.

Be clear about what you do and what you don't do. Ensure each person understands the scope.

At Ampush, we had a practice of regularly telling the client the timeline to results in the first 100 days. 

We'd consistently tell them they'd see a dip in performance followed by an improvement. No one flinched. We learned this the hard way after several clients fired us for seeing a dip 2-3 weeks into our partnership.

B) Be clear on roles and responsibilities

Who will do what on both sides of the project.

C) Create milestones/accountability

Have a project plan with dates and check-ins. Be clear about who owes what by when, and hold the employees of the client just as accountable as your own team.

D) Build the relationship

At Ampush, after our kickoff, we'd often plan a dinner or lunch, which would be relaxed and fun. We had a few ice-breaker questions.

A-C shows the folks you mean business. D shows your heart.

One of my proudest moments at Ampush was when the CMO of Uber walked into a meeting and after 90 minutes said,

"This is amazing. I can't tell who works at Ampush and who works at Uber — and that's how it should be."

I see this time and time again. An agency or consultant wants to do something they think is right for the business. An individual from the client either drags their feet or says why they can't do it, and then the agency/consultant shrugs and gives up.

Results aren't achieved, and the agency loses the business.

A simple example is that oftentimes, when we sell GrowthAssistant to big companies, we will close the deal and then the growth assistant won't get access to the tech and data they need because they are an outside contractor living abroad.

Well, what do you think happens if we wait for the client to resolve that? It never happens, and we lose the business.

So all our focus goes into getting access, including, maybe, an escalation from me to the CEO of the company. 

If that's what it takes, we do it. It’s for the benefit of our client, but for the benefit of ourselves, of course, too.

This is another mental "raising the bar" I like to say: What will last about what we're doing 2+ years after we no longer work with the client?

This is especially important at a business like Aux, where we are there for a short time and are hired to transform. 

It happened at Ampush all the time, so much so that, with one client, I was asked to join the board because of the impact Ampush’s culture had on the client. 

Our rigor around numbers and bias toward action rubbed off on the client.

Here's how you do this:

• Run great meetings "your way.” Yes, it’s important to be sensitive and adapt to clients, but if you run strong meetings with accountability, dashboards and speed, keep doing that and show your client how to do it, as well.

• Be great at project management. Break everything down into specific actions, steps and use tools like Notion, Google Docs, Figma, etc.

• Lead with recommendations. Be prescriptive, give guidance and be proactive. Don't wait or hope for something to take place during the engagement.

Companies generally hire services businesses because they seek expertise. The best advisors have an opinion and a recommendation, AND are willing to talk through pushback.

Here’s a metaphor that usually clicks for this: Imagine you went to a car mechanic.

One extreme is they take the car and ask, "What do you need done? I’ll do whatever you want." 

And you say, "Uhhh, you're the mechanic. You tell me?!"

The other extreme is the mechanic looks at the car and says, "You need X, Y, and Z, and if you're not willing to do those, go somewhere else."

The best advisors have an opinion: "I recommend you change the transmission and get new spark plugs," but they leave room for discussion and options: “You could also change your belts."

And they back it up with data: "But I think you have another 10K miles left, based on what I see."

Bottom line: They call them "service" businesses for a reason. But often entrepreneurs forget: Their business must serve the other business. And that means, more than anything, driving results and taking responsibility for them.

Have a great week!

jesse

PS Andrew (my partner in BG) set a goal of getting 500 email responses to our newsletter this month. He’s at 250. If you got this far, hit reply and say “hi.” Let’s help him reach his goal.