Last week I attended Ad Age’s Business of Brands Conference, hosted in Chicago and featuring top marketers from legacy brands such as United Airlines, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola and exciting newer brands including Studs, Cotopaxi and Vuori.

As one of the very few creative leaders attending, it made me reflect upon a lost art in our industry—the art of brand stewardship and business partnership from creative leaders.

The creative industry events I often speak at are chock full of creatives lining up to hear about what other creatives think. And these events are helpful, inspiring, regrounding and provocative. But in these spaces, creatives tend to focus on the things that get themselves jazzed (awards and innovation) or keep them up at night (dwindling production budgets, AI, talent troubles).

In fact, I think in all my years, I’ve never seen a single talk about how to be a more badass client partner. (Note to self: You’re speaking at a big event in November, this is your topic.)

When we focus on our needs, we’re missing a whole other side to the story. The side that really, in the end, has the most effect on our business AND creative outcomes—the point of view of our client partners.

So it’s really incumbent upon me—and other top creative leaders—to learn from marketers what their boogeymen are, what winning looks like and what makes them feel like a million bucks. Some of the things I heard were even just refreshers of things I knew—and yet it was so powerful to hear it from the marketers making waves across all categories, life stages and business sizes.

Let me give you five things that I took away from the Business of Brands, and what creative partners can do.

1. Marketers are ahead of most agencies

They are deep, deep in social. They don’t see it as “less than” or just as supporting a big old TV campaign. For many marketers, it’s the most exciting thing happening. They value creators, so they’re building things for them. Islam ElDessouky, global VP of creative at Coca-Cola Co., talked about shifting its influencer approach from exposure to experiences. Lisa Bubbers, co-founder of piercing innovator Studs, shared how her stores are designed with an eye to being a backdrop for selfies and content.

They’re even thinking in innovative ways about who is a creator. United Airlines Chief Advertising Officer Maggie Schmerin has tapped 250 of its employees as internal UGC creators and influencers. Think of how powerful that is for both content generation and employee morale.

What creative partners can do: Don’t turn your nose up at creator-made assets, don’t phone in social and don’t over-produce social. See influencers as creative collaborators, understand their reach and their limitations. Live in the mediums, love them, play with them, experiment.

2. They need to win, like, now

Building a brand is vital to avoid long-term disruption. But in today’s competitive environment, marketers can’t wait years to see the growth. This is something we realized a few years ago at Joan as we were developing our Modern Legends practice, which is all about helping marketers with limited budget balance long-term brand building and short-term sales pressures. Marketers have a potential menu of things to do that rivals the Cheesecake Factory menu in scope and only one (often shrinking) budget. It doesn’t matter if people love what you stand for if there are no sales to keep the business afloat. And it doesn’t matter if you sell product now, if you can get disrupted next month. We heard this story quite a few times during the conference.

My favorite example of this was when Michael Smith, the VP of flavored CSD marketing at PepsiCo who helped launch Starry, talked about the challenges of having a challenger brand with instant distribution in 90% of outlets. Imagine having that, and having to quickly liquidate product off the shelf! To quote him, “We have an easy button for distribution, there’s no easy button for marketing and branding.” He employed a multi-pronged strategy that involved masses of content (knowing some would hit and others wouldn’t) with a restaurant strategy designed to get people to try Starry and fall in love with it.

What creative partners can do: Get curious about how your clients sell—and their opportunities and timelines. Get smart about your clients’ business problems, listen to earnings reports, dig for sparks in audience behavior, listen to your strategists. Then use what you know to do what you do best—create magic while solving problems.

3. They’re fearless about experimentation

If someone made a word cloud from these two days, I think one of the biggest words would be “experiment.” I think at least 50% of the marketers we saw talked about trying things out of their comfort zone or taking leaps with creative in new spaces and for new audiences.

The trick is to do this without gobbling up all the budget—to keep experimentation low stakes, so you can hunt for things that will get big results. Kellanova Chief Marketing Officer Julie Bowerman said, “It’s hard to know what’s gonna break through. When you do get a seed of an idea or something that pops, build off of it.”

Read more on Kellanova’s Cannes-winning Pop-Tarts campaign

What creative partners can do: How many times have we heard the old trope, “Clients are scared”? What if they’re not scared? What if the way you’re thinking about risk is a way that just doesn’t work for their business today? Build lower-stakes ways to experiment so you can find what breaks through together.

4. Outcomes over ego

One thing that really impressed me was the down-to-earth vibe of this collection of top-tier marketers. The amount of times these marketers admitted to making mistakes was pretty admirable. And they seemed eager to learn from them—and share their knowledge.

They also understand that better outcomes happen when you seek to make others’ positions better. For example, Karen Riley-Grant, CMO at the buzzy Vuori brand, starts every brand ambassador and partner relationship with “How can we serve you?”—which felt refreshing and exciting.

Read more about Vuori’s brand-building strategy

What creative partners can do: Drop the ego. Share your expertise freely and generously. But also admit when you’re wrong, so everybody can learn from it. Seek what you can do for others, first.

5. They REALLY love the work

Sure we heard about ROI, distribution and channel mixes, but I saw these marketers light up when they talked about the work. The old tropes about clients caring only about numbers are, frankly, BS.

United’s Schmerin told us the story about how she and her team marketed sustainable fuel using an unlikely spokesperson, Oscar the Grouch. Alyson Griffin, head of marketing at State Farm, was completely glowing showing us the insurer’s Ad Meter-winning Super Bowl spot featuring Ah-nold Schwarzenegger (“Like a good Neigh-bah”).

What creative partners can do: Despite the realities of today’s landscape, know that you have creative-loving client partners out there who need solutions that work for their business and give them life. Give your marketing partners something worth being proud of. Include them in your celebrations. Put them forward first.