In this episode of Marketplace Masters, Paul Sonneveld is joined by Scott Ohsman, VP of Digital Commerce at Quickfire, for a candid look at the first 90 days of an agency-client relationship. Scott has 30+ years in the game and over 200 Amazon brand launches behind him, and his premise is uncomfortable: by the time a client tells you they're leaving, they decided months ago, usually in the first couple of weeks.

Scott walks through where those weeks go wrong. The handoff gap between sales and account management, and why the kickoff call is where it surfaces badly, in front of senior people on both sides. The "amnesia" problem, where documented caveats vanish from the client's memory. The seniority mismatch when a client sold by a strategist meets a junior AM, and how to have the conversation when you've assigned the wrong person. Why account load isn't just about volume but complexity, and why the overloaded Ad manager juggling twenty accounts is the industry's quiet failure point.

Then reporting, and Scott's test for every report you send: what does it mean, and why should I care? Plus the client who goes dark after signing, and the extreme escalation Scott used that turned into a long, happy relationship.

If you own account management or sales at an agency, this is the systematisation conversation most owners have never had.

For more sessions like this, the full on-demand library is at merchantspring.io.