30 Common New Business Mistakes

Would you be happy if you won a huge account?

Truth is, most marketing firms wait for new business to happen to them, and end up squandering most of their opportunities. Most firms don’t believe that they have the ability to change from just reacting to new business to being proactive. The kicker is, it isn’t that difficult to become a new business pro…

The real challenge is having the faith to try.

The Top 30 Most Common New Business Mistakes We See:

1. Sporadic or no follow-up after each prospect contact
2. Little understanding on key elements in winning presentations
3. Not selecting the proper new business strategy to follow
4. Difficulty in developing new business outreach tools quickly
5. Not discussing contracts and incentives with prospects
6. Failing to develop a prospect pipeline
7. Missing opportunities to turn cool prospects into hot leads
8. Not presenting each case history in under 90 seconds
9. Failing to structure agency tours designed specifically for each prospect profile
10. Not creating a strong agency brand that stands out in the market
11. Missing opportunities to demonstrate a strong creative process which impresses prospects
12. Never profiling prospects by personality
13. Never profiling existing clients by personality
14. Setting low expectations by not having a plan to grow 30% each year
15. Not getting invited to present very often
16. No plan to go to at least four new business interviews weekly
17. Randomly making the final selection set
18. Never seizing control of the first call
19. Not uncovering the prospect’s real budget
20. Never discovering a prospect’s true needs
21. Avoiding presenting solutions prematurely
22. Not sorting your prospect list by 7 different variables
23. Failing to manage the entire new business process
24. No understanding on how to build a steady flow of leads
25. Not adapting your positioning with each prospect
26. Only presenting off slides (Keynote or PowerPoint)
27. No concept on how many people should present
28. No process to determine which creative solution to present
29. No understanding on how to show media and execution strategy
30. Not calling Sanders Consulting Group for new business help

We believe that being good at new business is totally different from being good in marketing. An entirely new set of skills is involved. And an agency which hasn’t learned that fact, no matter how good they are at advertising, is doomed to failure, making the same mistakes over and over. Spend a short time with us see just how good at new business your marketing firm can be.