The Pursuit of Excellence

By Katy Galasinski, Chief Growth Officer

As our CEO, Alastair, said, at Aspectus, branding, marketing and communications is all about creating client success. And when we recently launched our new brand, we shared our formula for success, our X factor, our special sauce.

A key part of this is Excellent Execution. I want to let you all in on what that looks like at Aspectus. And what better way to do so than crowdsourcing intel from my talented Aspectus colleagues, whose endless energy, talent, and precision deliver success after success for the businesses and brands we call our clients.

“Clients don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” – Charlie Bonner-Davies, Junior Designer

Excellent execution for clients begins with striving to be an extension of their team. We count financial services, tech, energy, industrials, and capital market companies as clients. But in practice, our clients are not companies at all. They are people: the one, two, or three executives, heads of communications or marketing, or CEOs that trust us with protecting their businesses’ reputations and brands. This trust is something every team member at every level works hard to create.

“Excellence for me means showing up every day as a safe pair of hands for my clients – making sure they trust us to get things done when we say we will, to a high standard.” – Nuala O’Sullivan, Account Executive, Energy

“In my eyes, excellence consists of many moving parts – stellar communication, insightful recommendations, valuable results and always putting your best foot forward, so we can build a strong and trusting relationship with clients.” – Ivy Gitarts, Senior Account Manager

It also means knowing what clients need before they know they need it. To do that we have to put ourselves in their position and adopt their POV. It takes time to develop this informed intuition with a client. We must immerse ourselves in the company’s marketing, sales, and business objectives. We have to fully comprehend the nature of their business, the marketplace in which they compete, and their offerings. And we must truly understand them, what their ambitions are, what keeps them up at night and how they like to work.

“Get a solid handle on your client’s objectives and your client’s boss’ objectives right from kickoff. Understand their obstacles and challenges and identify the gaps that you and your account team can fill.” – Christina Hong, Account Director

Once a client is confident that we have their backs, are in their corner, and consistently watch out for their best interests, they really do think of us as indispensable extensions of their team – integral partners in their business. Partners that support them from strategy to success in a way that creates meaningful business outcomes.

“No matter how good your strategy, in the end success always hinges on the execution. Ideas have to be distinct, relevant and challenging enough to change people’s hearts, minds and behaviors – or all your great thinking up front will go to waste. The reverse is also true. Execution is only excellent if it serves a brand’s big picture and takes it a step or two further towards success.” – Dan George, Associate Director

Different agencies undoubtedly treat their clients in different ways. For us, the term “client” doesn’t do justice to how we think about those companies who keep our lights on. And since each client point-of-contact has a unique personality and different workflows, and objectives specific to their businesses, we must be agile and adaptable.

“When I worked in-house, the agencies that stood out the most that we worked with were the ones who were able to proactively anticipate our needs, as well as reactively gauge when our needs or usual way of doing things had changed and switched pace accordingly.” – Christina Hong, Account Director

So that’s what Excellent Execution means to us. As you can see there is nothing formulaic about it. It’s an attitude that runs deep here at Aspectus. An attitude that empowers our people to do their very best work for our clients, for Aspectus, and ultimately for themselves.