In his book, The Golden Football: Replacing Account Service with Account Leadership, Mark Schofield has done a fantastic job of providing insight and perspective into nearly every facet of agency life from that of an account management professional. He does a great job of breaking things down into very short and digestible topics that are easily consumed and understood. Not only is this a book you can easily put down and pick-up (granted I had a hard time putting it down) it’s structured in such a way that you could easily continue to refer to it down the road after your initial read.
What I also appreciated about this book is that Schofield has been both a client and an agency guy. Therefore he’s able to provide true and personal insight into what life is like onther side of the fence. For those working in an agency, this is invaluable insight.
My only beef with this book, and the only reason I did not give a 5-star rating on Amazon, was that it did not speak much to the importance of analytics and measurement. This is an extremely important skillset for all account management/leadership professionals to possess into today’s marketing environment…particularly when it comes to digital media. Then again, I do see that the book was published in 2007, so that may have something to do with the nature of its focus.
Another interesting fact about this book is that Schofield is veteran of the agency McKinney, an agency featured on one of the initial episodes of the AMC show The Pitch. I must admit that I was not familiar with McKinney prior to The Pitch, but this factor made reading this book that much more interesting.
With this being said, I would still strongly recommend this book to anyone working in account management. Whether you’re just starting out in the business of have been at it for a while (I’ve got 18 years under my belt) there is something for everyone and you will learn something here. In fact, if you manage a Account staff or run an Account department don’t just buy a copy for yourself…get one for each of your reports (or at least recommend they read it). It’s worth the investment and I bet providing them with access to this book will pay big dividends in return.
So, if you want to take me up on my advice and purchase a copy for yourself, just click here.
