Straight Up, Now Sell Me

The client success story I hold nearest and dearest to my heart is with our longest standing client, Dr. Koushik Shaw of the Austin Urology Institute.

Around the time I first met Dr. Shaw I had just moved Rock Candy Media out of my poorhouse and into our first real office space — interior-designed and everything. I got an appointment with Dr. Shaw, who had just opened his first (and flagship) location. This was back in the ancient and dark days of Foursquare. I checked in using that app and got tons of replies that said, “Annie we know WAY too much about you now.” But I wanted to get the client listed on it. So I dropped my ego for the client and let the world think I had a UTI (or God knows what else my friends thought was going on).

READ: Why we drop our egos for our clients.

The first thing Dr. Shaw asked me about wasn’t what my marketing firm could do to help his business, web development, or even my background. He asked me how the desk in his personal office looked, because his business was brand new, like mine, and he wanted my opinion on it. I think he wanted me to confirm his excellent taste, but I probably shouldn’t give him too much sh*t during this heartfelt recollection. Might diminish it a little. When we did talk about why he was unhappy with his current agency, that’s when I realized there was an understood starting point and a never-ending growth point. We set out to build the foundation for growth.

This past December, I remember being on the phone with the best urologist ever, and he said “What a ride!” At that moment I realized, the heart of my pride is all about the journey we took side-by-side. Because of our success, we’ve had a million other urologists call us to get on our roster, but they never get far enough to even telling me what their budget was. I don’t care. I care about the trust, the understanding, and mainly the loyalty.

With our advertising agency’s business model, we have to grow our clients’ businesses per their benchmarks, and we have to grow together. My team is not exactly the most scalable crowd around.

READ: Why we care about growing with our clients.

Five years and three offices later, Dr. Shaw is now opening a second location in Cedar Park. Not only is he staffing up for that new location, but he’s also opening a state of the art Men’s Wellness Center. I couldn’t be more proud of the way he has grown his practice, but I’m the most proud that neither of us has ever stopped caring about why we started. For him, he’s the only doctor who calls on a Sunday to ask people how they’re doing. We’re the only agency that will fight a client to see our perspective. We both care too much if anything. Having the privilege to grow my digital marketing agency along with him has, in the eyes of a business owner, allowed me to staff up and grow up.