There’s always the temptation when managing your client’s or company’s money or budget—such as an ad budget, or really any other budget they set aside—to think, “They have lots of money—they can afford this.”
But this is a temptation to be resisted. Instead, try treating your clients’ money as though it’s your own.
Doing so has a few advantages. Let’s list them:
- It earns you the constant gratitude of your client or boss
- It allows you to follow the golden rule
- You’ll end up making wiser decisions on how to spend the money since ownership leads to wiser decision making in general (at least that’s the premise behind capitalism)
A better version of doing this is to explicitly tell them that you’re treating their money like they’re own. That will make them appreciate it.
But there is one important downside worth detailing: the client or boss often has a wildly different budget and priorities than yours. What happens when you’re managing a $50,000 monthly ad budget and if it were your money, would you be spending it on taking vacations?
Well, a few things.
First, I don’t mean “treat it like your own” in that particularly literal way. “Don’t recommend using business money for a vacation” is probably wise advice more often than not. I mean it to say: put yourself in the other person’s shoes, and take on his objectives and priorities. What do you think would be the best use of the money to achieve those objectives with those priorities? That’s the metric to use.
Secondly, if you think money will not help achieve given objectives, speak up! Sometimes, in fact, money will be such a huge waste, everyone knows it would be better spent on a team vacation. But if you do reveal such criticisms, make sure you follow the other advice articulated in this series and voice them carefully and positively.
Third, think about your client’s much bigger budget as though you yourself had such money, not how much money you currently have, with the assumption that your personality won’t change. That’s probably a good rule of thumb to get you close to how your client thinks. You wouldn’t spend it flagrantly, but you would still be careful. But you would be willing to still spend your money in smart, growth-oriented, ways. In other words, do some creative modeling of your client’s mind.
