Creative Secrets: Taking a Productive Client Meeting

by Dave Dumanis

Clients pay your bills. That’s the hope, anyway—I’ve had more than one stiff me. But beyond whether or not they ante up after 30 days, there’s a range of client behavior. They can be your best friend or your worst nightmare. Most are somewhere in between.

The key to successfully working with marketing and advertising clients on the creative side of the business is that most of them secretly want to be creatives themselves. The good part of that is that they respect and even envy you. The bad part is that they sometimes try to do your job for you, or tell you how to do your job which in practice is the same thing. So let’s talk about how to grow the good part—and nip the bad part in the bud.

For more, buy your copy of this tiny but mighty ebook now. It's part of the Creative Secrets series, written with a lifetime of ad world experience—and zero AI.

12 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 17, 2025

About the author

Dave Dumanis is the author of 51, AMERICAN BEEHIVE, ALPHABETICAL DISORDER, SHAGGY DOG STORIES AND NURSERY RHYMES, A PLAGUE OF BOILS, CREAM, THE SOFT PINK AND WHITE BUNNYRABBIT STORY, MONA LIEBOWITZ, and NINE LIVES BY PAUL VARJAK. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and daughter.