ABSTRACT
Account handlers are salespeople. Salespeople main job is to sell the agency's work. Any normal sales conversation can usefully include the following discrete stages: defining the client's needs, itemizing the benefits, linking benefits with his needs, showing product fulfilment, handling objections and closing the sale. Some of the most effective advertising took a great deal of selling. In some cases, it was turned down by the advertiser after the first meeting but resold at another. Good account handlers take responsibility for the success or failure of the agency's work, especially getting it sold to their clients. All-time favourite advertising stories concern selling, and may be found in full in Madison Avenue, USA by Martin Mayer. Some advertising is just plain bad: it doesn't work to achieve the advertiser's objective. So thereafter both client and agency have to agree that the bad work was really quite good.
