New business, like boxing, is a zero-sum game.
Every agency thinks they have a new business plan until they get punched right in the gut.
There are only winners or losers. If your firm has felt like a new business loser for too long, bring us in for a one-day session and learn how to do new business right.
Let your competition struggle doing the wrong things. Let them swing with everything they’ve got at prospects they have no chance of winning. You know it doesn’t happen that way. New business is a skillful craft that involves strategy and forethought. The sweet science of agency growth.
Growth is the best defense in changing times. Growth in our current dynamic industry is easier because your competition is distracted. And we all know that our industry is getting crazier each year.
To grow your agency you need the right attitude. It’s a choice you make. You can be the punching bag or the one punching. You can choose to be the winner, the one left standing, or you can choose to be the one scurrying out the door.
New business is at an all time high in the marketing communications arena. More clients are changing marketing communication companies than any time in history. Are you getting your fair share? Figure out how to get more than your fair share!
Three Steps To Knockout Your Competition:
1. Set up a system to get good meetings with prospects every week:
- Focus your new business efforts on getting first meetings with qualified prospects
- Turn good leads into invitations for first meetings, the key to growth
- Don’t waste time going to see prospects who aren’t interested in changing agencies, design firms, PR companies or marketing communication suppliers
- Stop wasting time with cold calls on good prospects
2. Win because you know how to control the strategic high ground:
- Use the consultative approach to win more accounts and earn more fees
- Use specific techniques change the way you talk to prospects
- Impress prospects with proprietary branding processes
- Leverage the power of flanking their tactical issues and move into the strategic high ground
3. Win because you make the prospect like you better:
- The biggest obstacle for most agencies is poor chemistry with prospects
- Chemistry is more important than industry-specific capabilities
- Discover what type of firm each prospect wants to deal with
- Emphasize results, process, relationship, or inspiration before you pitch a prospect
Work hard to transform your efforts into a new business machine that provides a steady stream of leads into your agency. Adopt a lead-generation strategy and split your new business efforts into “winning the opportunity” and “winning the account.”
After all, we all know more leads means more growth:
- More leads gets you more chances at bat
- More leads means you can walk away from prospects that aren’t right for your agency
- More leads mean you don’t have to chase after every RFP or RFI that comes in
- More leads mean you control your firm’s destiny by defining who you want to go after rather than reacting to any prospect that drifts in
It’s the most important job in any agency: someone who is focused on generating a steady stream of high-quality leads into your agency. More leads means more prospects, better prospects. New business is much easier that way. We call it the New Business Spark.
Plan a DayOne at your agency now:
The DayOne organizes the agency’s new business program for many years to come. It’s often called “the most important day in an agency’s history” because it outlines how the agency will grow and prosper.
The biggest hurdle for growth is getting the plan right from the start. Once an agency understands how to set-up and run a proper new business program, few or little changes are needed down line.
Many agency leaders confuse new business with advertising, believing that the skills necessary to help a client grow should translate easily into skills to help the agency grow. At the DayOne agency leaders see the differences and why past new business programming has failed.
Boxing photo by Mnogosmyslov Aleksey | Dreamstime
