New Business Hawk

Ad Agency Growth: Training vs. Consulting

Our most valuable assets walk out the door at five o’clock

American corporations dole out an estimated 15 billion dollars per year on training and consulting for up-and-coming mangers and leaders. Sadly, most marketing firms spend very little on developing their staff. It’s the one thing most leaders tell me is on their yearly goals, and yet somehow it always fades by the wayside.

However, a few highly successful firms target high performers and potential leaders within their organization and work with them to develop their skills. These are the firms that make up most of our clients.

We have been arguing and writing about the science and practice of new business since the early 1980’s all in an effort to demystify this critical element of agency operations.

Our experience as managers, leaders, and consultants, both nationally and internationally, have helped us to understand the nature of that work, and the science behind it. Over the past several years we’ve seen the growth of many new business consultants. However we do see a unique difference between most of them and Sanders Consulting: few if any offer detailed training programs.

In this latest economic downturn marketing firms are asking their leaders to take new business seriously – a critical success factor to organizational growth. Learning leads to more effective action and, therefore, improved performance – and is no longer an option. More and more of the firms we interact with are recognizing that the roles of new business and agency leadership are different, and the skills required to be a great agency leader do not necessarily transition into the world of new business.

What To Do?

Invest in your staff. Your leaders. Yourself. Your agency.

Photo By woodleywonderworks

How can a small agency compete in new business?

Many smaller firms we’ve worked with over the past few years have won going up against some of the giants in our industry, and even more now consider themselves to be in competition with larger agencies. And sometimes the giants like JWT, Y&R, or just the large regional down the street feel the need to reach down and pick up a smaller account forcing you to compete with them.

So how do you compete against a larger agency? Do you pack your bags and go home, lie about your actual size, or disparage the behemoth?

Fortunately, there are more positive alternatives. You just need to explain why smaller is better. What follows are some points/arguments you can make to convince a prospect not only that size doesn’t matter when it comes to capability, but that large size can actually be a disadvantage in meeting his or her needs.

• The client is always dealing with the principal when he or she is dealing with your firm. You are the relationship manager. There is no junior partner to whom responsibility will be transferred. There is no decreased accountability, no “handoff” to a less-informed colleague. If the prospect’s interests are at stake continually, shouldn’t the client reasonably expect the principal’s continual involvement?
• You provide resources on a “just-in-time” basis. That is, your agency does not have to cover excessive overhead, such as multiple offices, large administrative backup, recruiting, partner perks, and so on. You are organized to efficiently provide everything the prospect needs but nothing more than that.
• There is greater likelihood of observing privacy and confidentiality with fewer people working on the project. In addition, the fewer people working on an account, the fewer “filters” there are to go through. Larger agencies sometimes have a problem dealing with a number of revolving staff’s differing perceptions or interpretations of information, and this can stall results. You (and the few people you might also involve) are constant, removing the need to sift through dozens of differing perceptions.
• You’re faster. You can respond to requests quickly and return all calls within two hours. (If you can’t, then you’re not taking advantage of your smaller size.) Your client needn’t worry about a bureaucracy, delays, and unfamiliar people answering their calls.
• Since you handle fewer concurrent projects than larger agencies, your attention is relatively undiverted. The client doesn’t have to “compete” with another dozen or so of your clients, some of which may be larger or more time-demanding. You structure your work so that every client receives maximum attention.
• Inevitably, you are less expensive. (Note that this is way down here in the list, because you shouldn’t be that much less expensive!). There are economies to using someone who can base their fees on each situation and not on a predetermined rate or their need for reaching a holding company goal.

Add your own reasons to these, and have them handy anytime you know that a prospect is considering other, larger agencies. Don’t be rocked back on your heels, defensively trying to explain why you can do the same things with fewer resources. Defense might win football games, but it doesn’t accomplish a thing in the new business process. Take the offensive, and explain why smaller is better for this client’s particular needs. Don’t disparage the competition; simply point out your superiority.

Don, over at Marketing Thought Leader has added more good ideas with his post Going Head-to-Head With the Big Guys. A good read and I highly suggest you head over all read his take.

Chemistry Wins New Business

Chemistry is that funny stuff in the space between people.

It’s not about you or me but what’s between us. That space is called Chemistry and it’s a driving force in new business. Chemistry is rarely talked about. Firms don’t like to say “we just didn’t like you” when explaining to an agency why they weren’t hired. Strategic direction, better fit, outstanding idea are all better reasons to go with another firm. Perhaps it would help if we called it “Likeability” as in “I like one firm more than another.” But Chemistry is more than that. Good Chemistry has more to do with meeting expectations, as in “I think we could work with these people best.”

Losing the Chemistry Battle

Here’s why it’s so important: We tend to like people better who best meet our expectations. Who seem like us. We understand them easier. We don’t get surprised. In short, we want to work with them. Hence we hire them.

In many searches, the search consultants or the key client-side decisions makers will realize that “any of these agencies can do the job.” The search process then becomes about which one firm do “we want to work with.” That’s Chemistry.

Overselling Is a Fatal New Business Disease

Stuart Sanders Chairman

I was so proud of myself. I had been following up on a good prospect, a large regional hospital in a small city near the agency where I worked. The Director of Communications agreed to see me because of our agency’s hospital expertise.

The Importance of Personality Profiling

Over the phone I did my usual personality profiling to understand her profile so I could establish good chemistry quickly. She sounded warm, friendly and definitely people oriented. She was low-assertive, meaning she was not pushy, very agreeable, and let me lead our phone calls. Those observations quickly established her as a Logo™ personality. I therefore cooled my sales jets, took a low-aggressive approach and worked over several weeks to warm her up. It’s all out of our Chemistry Wins New Business training manual.

I asked for permission to see her when it felt right. Besides, I explained, “I was passing close by,” so she agreed to see me. As I stood in front of her office located in the bowels of the hospital, I mentally checked over the Do’s and Don’ts for Logos™. I remembered don’t push. Don’t oversell. Do build chemistry by treating her first as a friend. Do establish common ground. That approach means I don’t take in a presentation or even samples because that’s too “salesy” for most Logos™.

The Importance of a Solid First-Visit Strategy

The first visit went like clockwork. It’s a tried and try approach built around Agency Baseball and something that I practiced at the agency, working to get my words down, remembering to talk it over easy, and not pushing. Now in her office it all came together as I spent 20-minutes discussing personal issues with her, including family, friends, industry contacts we both knew, college backgrounds and all type of stuff that drive Headlines™, those hard-charging profiles, crazy. It wasn’t difficult to hit common ground because her office was loaded with discussion tips in typical Logo™ fashion. And the approach works because Logos™ want to establish a personal relationship first before moving into work.

About the time I was going to bring up business, she suggested it. I moved quickly to outline our capabilities using word pictures. It was our hospital competency story, and it takes about three-minutes and includes the five things we do well, all stuff we teach in our Spark Training. It’s light and easy.

The Importance of Discovery

Then I asked moved to Discovery, a process where the agency asks questions, and acts like a medical doctor with good bed-side manners, meaning concerned, probing, checking off needs and looking for symptoms or pain where we can be of help. But not selling, just questioning like good docs do.

She opened up and laid out her marketing problems and opportunities in a very professional and orderly fashioned. I asked the Process questions and found out she was moving to fire her current agency, a shop that was having well-known leadership issues. My heart took a jump but I didn’t try the old “hire us” trial offer. I remembered my bed-side manner and her Logo™ profile.

The Right Way to Exit

The meeting ended abruptly, and too early for me, with a call from her boss that she had to take, but I stood and said my good-byes, told her I would follow up, and departed. I understood that I had accomplished just about all I could on a first visit with a Logo™ profile. Trying to close the account at that time would not have worked. And I knew rushing to ask for the order as so many “experts” suggest would have lost all I had gained.

Winning With a Conference Report

I followed up with a detailed conference report based on what she told me. And true to the process we teach in Torch Training, I stuck to the facts with no selling. And I sent it to her by overnight delivery as we suggest, never on email. She called back very impressed at how well I had listened, and said she didn’t want to go through an agency review and would like to shift her account to us. I asked her how she wanted to proceed, staying in her profile, and she suggested I send up our agency contract so her in-house attorneys could review it. Never had I won a piece of business any easier.

The Agency New Business Meeting

That Tuesday, when we had the agency new business committee meeting, which is usually the most hated meeting in the agency and a big waste of time because the account staff goes around the table and tells lies about stuff that should have been done and calls they should have made, but didn’t. All well and good until my turn, and I opened my mouth and bragged about my new “win.”

The agency president and chief creative officer, Headline™ to the core, demanded to know what this Director of Communications felt about our hospital creative work. I explained that she had not really seen it because I had not taken the agency hospital presentation to her because, in my opinion, it wasn’t needed. He was incensed and announced to everyone that he would go pick up the contract with me, but only after he marched my “new account” through our creative work. He would make very sure she knew what type of agency she was hiring.

DOA

You know the rest. We never got the account. The follow-up meeting began with our contract from her attorneys sitting there on her desk, breathing “pick me up.” Our president rushed to deliver his heavy-selling “we do it our way” creative review despite my suggestions on how to do it that I had given to him before we left the agency. His pushy overselling killed the win.

The sad thing is he felt he did a good job. I didn’t have the strength on the ride back to the agency, while listening to him tell me how well we had done, to speak the truth. We had just lost the easiest account we had ever won.

Five Important Take-Aways

1. Personality profiling really improves your batting averages.
2. Having a solid first visit approach always works.
3. A conference report follow-up is often your best closing device because among other things it proves you listened to the prospect.
4. Over-selling hurts your chances despite all the “ask for the order” junk floating around.
5. Never brag at agency new business meetings.

Free Offer

If your agency wants to learn more details on some of these techniques discussed here, call Sanders Consulting Group (800/899-1538) for a free, no-obligation discussion on new business, tips on your process, and perhaps some advice.

I'll Win That New Business Pitch! Missing the Forest

We’ve found that most presidents of firms in the marketing communications industry don’t really understand new business. And they don’t like it. They solve this problem by spending their time working in the firm as some type of technical expert. And they delegate the new business function to others who may not understand it either.

For the most part, all marketing firms love the chase, the thrill of being in the hunt, late nights and cold pizza, and then having the opportunity to stand up in front of a prospect and deliver the winning pitch. If I had a nickel for every agency president who told me “just get me in front of em, I’ll do the rest.”

But that’s missing the forest for all the trees. The key to getting “in front of em” and winning is building a relationship with them. Long term nurturing of prospects is NOT something most agency leaders think about. As a result most agencies end up pitching to prospects that are already deep into the review, with little time to build a relationship, much less better understand all the nuances of the brand. And they are now involved in a heavily contested review where up to 20 other marketing firms are all scrambling to make the cut.

What most agency presidents fail to understand is that prospects end up holding reviews because nobody was in there early in the process showing the prospect another way. By the time the prospect is ready to buy, there is no relationship-based agency friend from which he would like to buy.

I mean lets face it; the formal review process needs to change. If more marketing firms took the lead in developing their relationship building skills we would not be subjected to the pain and suffering of giving away ideas for free. All on the whim of a prospect you may have a 1 in 20 chance of winning. In addition, formal reviews can be too expensive for clients. It takes time, management commitment, and in the US, heavy fees for search consultants.

While one of the goals of relationship building is to improve your chances of winning formal reviews, there are additional benefits to nurturing prospects you are interesting in working with. The longer you work to build a relationship, the greater chance you have of closing the business with a fast close. You just need the skills and training needed to recognize where the prospects are in the review, and an understanding of how to move quickly and aggressively to preempt the process. Use that insight you’ve gained from understanding the prospect and building the relationship over time to win quickly, saving the prospect from the long drawn out formal review process.

Agencies are full of winners. The type bred for the hunt, the closers, the hawks. But who on your staff holds the responsibility for being the relationship builder? Who has training on how to cultivate and build relationships with a large number of prospects over time? The farmer of leads? This sacred role is the secret to many new business wins over time. Some of the largest account swings in history have been the result of an agency well versed in relationship building and understanding how to close. 

Most agencies ignore prospects that are not ready to buy now. Those that don’t ignore relationship building as a critical element of new business have to attempt to swoop in and  convince the prospect on the beauty of their idea, the desire they have to work with their brand, how much they looove them! This is a losing proposition if some other agency has put the time and effort into relationship building.

A New Business Must Call: Winning The Big Pitch

Over the years we’ve worked with thousands of ad agencies, design firms, creative marketing companies of shape and sizes, and they all share one thing in common – the need to win new business in a competitive review.

Winning the big pitch is something we love. And it just so happens we’re damn good. We usually get called in when it’s what we call a defining moment – a win here will re-define who your firm is because of the type of account and its importance to your firm’s future. Some people call it the pitch you have to win. We want to help you win that pitch.

There are typically 10 ways to know when you should call for help on a pitch:

1. It’s a defining moment, a chance to redefine who the agency is by winning a piece of business. It’s an opportunity to win you can’t miss. A win will redefine you for years to come.
2. Call us when you lost the last pitch. Let’s wipe the slate clean together, get the stench of the last loss out of the agency and replace it with a new win. We can help you do that.
3. Call us when you need to get into a pitch. You’re on the outside looking in. We can often help you get into a new business presentation if you call us.
4. Call us if you are a new agency or new to the category and need help in winning a pitch in a market or category you are weak in.
5. Call us when the deck is stacked against you. You are David going up against several goliaths. Most of our wins are in this category. Davids call us and we love to help them beat the bigger foes they are going up against. We really believe that the bigger they are the harder they fall. And we like knocking the big boys down.
6. You have to win. It’s a matter of survival. That’s not a nice time to have to pitch but in today’s economy if’s often winning or closing the doors. Call us if you are here.
7. You are still using the same approaches you used last time. You sense they are outdated, old, full of Powerpoint slides that are deadly. No drama. No visual impact. Call us if this is you.
8. Competition is especially strong. You are going up against a firm that wins most of the time. Call us if you have lost to a major competitor once or twice before. We need to change things to win.
9. You know you need to do something different. You can feel it in your bones. Listen to that quiet voice and call us for new techniques, new strategies, new ways to pitch and win.
10. You need to learn how to win. You know you need to get better at pitching so pitching for new business becomes a core skill set of your firm. If you don’t have that core skill set, call us.

Here’s a quick reminder. Call us early so we can impact your RFP, or enhance your chances of winning because the prospect likes your firm better, what we call chemistry. If we come in early, helping you win gets a lot easier.

Below you'll find a couple of videos that outline our process for winning.  The presentation is divided into five chapters to make it easy.

Chapter 1: A quick review of the advantages of winning and the advantages of make a superior effort to win.

Chapter 2: 10 ways to know you might need help on winning this pitch. Tips when you should call for help - I covered some of those above.

Chapter 3: Our approach, how we help our clients win the pitch, and here you’ll see we do much more than presentation coaching or pitch training. Winning a new business pitch is much bigger than that.

Chapter 4: Our compensation model which is very reasonable and puts our skin in the game.

Chapter 5: A quick review of the risk vs. the rewards of bringing in us or someone else in to help you win.

And Part 2:

Agency Baseball: The Secret to Winning New Business

Most agencies focus on the pitch, the show, the capabilities presentation. This is putting the spotlight on the wrong place. By then, most of the really important decisions have probably been made. The really good agencies win early: the pitch merely confirms a decision.

There are only four obstacles to getting the business. If you do not get an account, it is because your agency failed to overcome one of these four obstacles.

The four obstacles are arranged like bases on a baseball diamond.

 

First Base is the most important base to reach. The obstacle here is “No Trust.” No trust means I do not know you, therefore I do not trust you. “No Trust” means I have not heard of you, therefore I do not trust you. “No Trust” means I do not understand your experience so I am reluctant to discuss my business with you. No trust is a serious obstacle and must be overcome before any type of agency/client relationship can be built. ”No Trust” blocks you from Second Base.

Second Base is another obstacle called “No Need.” No need means I may trust you but I do not have a need for your specific service. “No Need” means you may be a fine agency but I do not happen to need an agency now. “No Need” means I am sure you are successful but I am happy with my current relationship.

Third Base is made up of “No Help” which means “While I trust you and know you, and have a need for an agency such as yours, your specific recommendations are not going to help my situation.” “No Help” is a failure in recommending the proper solution to the prospect. “No Help” means “It is not worth the effort for me to accept your specific recommendation. I will lose more than I will gain.”

Reaching Home plate means overcoming the last obstacle which is “No Hurry.” No Hurry means “I know you and trust you, I do have a need for an agency such as yours, and your specific recommendation would be a help to me, but I am not in a hurry to appoint you.” “No Hurry” means the cost of putting your recommendations into effect could be higher than the prospect is willing pay. “No Hurry” is usually perceived by the prospect as low benefit compared to high risk.

For an agency to play Agency Baseball, it must first understand how the field is set up and how important it is to establish Trust firmly before trying to do Discovery (going for Second).

A few agencies understand that Agency Baseball is different then regular baseball in that you can steal Home from Second Base. This is called a Fast Close. It is a powerful tool that wins the account BEFORE going into a formal review.

Eighty percent of an agency’s problem in getting new business revolves around First Base trust problems. This is the most important base and where most agencies stumble.

Photo Credit: The Wisconsin Historical Museum

Top 10 Mistakes That KILL New Business Presentations

What are the main reasons people fail in New Business presentations? It’s because they make the same common mistakes over and over. In order for you to avoid completely flailing around in New Business and achieve success, it’s important for you to understand the most common presentation mistakes. And avoid them.

Here are the top 10 new business presentation mistakes:

1. Not Knowing the Difference between Advertising and New Business: The number one reason for presentation loss by most agencies is treating prospects like clients. They try to solve the client problem, or be too safe, or win with just creative. In any given presentation one of these can work, but over time you’ll lose more then you win. You have to treat prospects the opposite of clients and understand why if you’re going to win.
2. Waiting till the Last Minute: Many agencies get invited into a pitch, and due to workload or time or just through procrastination they don’t start thinking about the pitch until the last minute. If you are truly interested in winning start demonstrating this early in the process. Even before the prospect invites you in, until after the presentation, you have to be the most interested, excited, driven and informed agency in the pitch.  
3. Forgetting the Chemistry Rules: The most important part of new business is chemistry. All the agency search consultants agree. In the end, it’s not the creative or the smart planning or the cool interactive tactics that wins. It’s chemistry that wins in the end. That’s why it’s so important for your agency to learn how to use chemistry to win.
4. No Idea on How the Selection Will Be Made: If you’re not sure how the final selection will be made, do some research. Will it be a strong leader making the final selection, or a marketing board? Will some other group have a say? Many prospects use score cards: they’re simple, easy to create, and create an atmosphere of fairness. However, the second best agency often wins on points. Understand why and use this to your advantage.
5. Focus Too Much on Content: Agencies almost always focus exclusively on the content of their presentation – not thinking about the “how” and “who.” But prospects will remember long after the presentation how you looked, what you wore, how charming your presenters were with one another, how well prepared the entire show was, and whether or not you entertained them. Your perfect line, your break-through strategy recommendation, or the neat way you executed an interactive plan is usually forgotten within an hour. Never forget that the show (format and style) is just as important as content.
6. No Hero: In understanding new business presentations, most agencies forget that the work is only there to showcase the people. In other words, who among your staff is going to be the Hero? Sadly, many agency presidents view themselves as the hero. It’s difficult for an agency president to be the Hero when there is an agency to run. And the agency president may not be the best presenter. A Hero is believable, has the right chemistry, the right title, and the right look. Most importantly, the Hero has to have the agency’s respect (perceived) and lots of enthusiasm for the prospect. This can cover almost any weakness.
7. Not Investing Enough Time to Win: How many times have we seen an agency go into a presentation half-hearted? Too many other distractions get in the way and reflect in the presentation. Ask yourself: do you really want the account? Do you have the time to go after it? The desire and energy to overcome the obstacles? Most importantly do you have the discipline and staff to do it right?
8. No Outline or Presentation Flow: Most agencies start out by doing research and spending time on attempting to solve the problem. While this is important, it’s missing the bigger picture – winning the account. Overall time limit is set by prospect – you must treat the entire presentation as a series of acts in one play that fits within the established timing. Introduce each act with interest. Build to key points. And end each act strongly. Eliminate dull sections and put the information in the leave behind. This makes the leave behind more important, which is helpful.
9. Bad Presentation Skills: Watching an agency presentation is often like watching the Keystone Cops with people running around, props being misplaced, talking over one another, etc. It’s vital you understand the perception you are trying to create – quiet confidence, strength, and leadership. Someone the prospect can trust. Understand the rules and guidelines for great presentations and follow them.
10. Not Rehearsing Enough: A major presentation is worth 8 hours of rehearsal. If you don’t have time to do rehearsals, then don’t do the presentation. Go to the presentation city a day ahead to rehearse. Lay out a meeting room at a hotel in the shape of the presentation room with masking tape and go at it. You’ll be glad you made the effort. Rehearsing pays big dividends in winning presentations.

A winning agency understands these mistakes and works hard to avoid them. A small group of people, with practice, can become outstanding presenters. It’s a smart agency who uses the same people time and again to win key pieces of business. The teamwork shows through and this means a lot to prospects.

Make sure you avoid these common mistakes and understand the rules of giving outstanding presentations. Don’t give a prospect any reason to not award you the account.

When faced with a key presentation, or a Defining Moment, or if you want to learn more details on some of these techniques discussed here, call Sanders Consulting Group (800/899-1538) for a free, no-obligation conversation.

The New Business Budget Game: Up to Six Million

To avoid discounting your work, we believe agencies should discuss money whenever a new job or project is brought up, right when the assignment is first mentioned by the client.  It’s a way to open up negotiations over both job specs and job budget.

Our approach is to start by asking, “In round numbers how much are you planning on spending to get this done?”  Now wait until the client responds.  The client has two options. 

Option #1 is to ask you back how much it will cost, and the agency person needs to move towards suggesting a budget range by discussion first the job specs and then by picking a high number to test the waters.  If the client responds, “That sounds about right,” then you know you have guessed too low. 

Option #2A.  If the client faints or grabs for his or her heart, then you have guessed too high, and you need to move down in a series of bracket jumps.  It’s fun to do.  The key point is to remember that you are not estimating the job at this stage, you are just trying to understand the importance of the job.    

Option #2B.  If the client gives you a number, your account staff should be trained to immediately say, “And as much as….?” You are assuming the client has given you the bottom number from a budget range, a normal assumption.  And now you are asking how high to probe for the upper range. If you get a new number at this middle stage, immediately ask, “And up too?”  Here you are assuming there is a very top number in the range, and you need to know what it is. 

This is simple negotiation in a process we call the Budget Game.  And your agency staff needs to be trained on how to play it well.  It takes less than a day to learn and it will make your firm a lot of money over the years.    

Running back to a client with a production estimate when you don’t have any idea what the client expects to pay, as so many agencies do, is very very foolish.  It’s not a smart way to do business because you lock yourself into your own expectations about how important the project is to the client.  And you lock your agency into living off production budgets.

Case Histories  

Our files are filled with actual stories of how well this simple negotiation technique from the Budget Game has worked for agencies around the world. 

Here are some favorites.  A mid-sized agency asked their client, a medium-sized manufacturer in Ohio, a client for ten years, in round numbers how much money were they thinking of spending to launch a new home improvement kitchen product?  The client responded, “Up to $6 million.” 

The account handler was so shocked at the size of the budget that he forgot to ask the follow-on question of “And up to?” as he had been trained to do.  That afternoon the agency president told me by phone, “Guys, do you know what we would be doing this afternoon if we had not asked that simple question?  We would be working on a campaign launch of about $450,000.  That’s the usual budget range we suggest when work with them.  We have had the account for years, and we never knew they could pull the trigger on that big of a new product launch.  Thank you so much for showing us the way.” 

Another $300,000 Found

The president of a direct mail company called to report his junior account executive had just returned from a client office so excited that the Budget Game had worked for her the very first time she had tried it.  She had asked a client the “round numbers” question and the client had said $200,000.  She moved the client up to $300,000 for the next number and been told that the client couldn’t go over $600,000 on the project.  The junior account executive was excited that the Budget Game had worked so well her the very first time. 

The agency president wasn’t excited at that.  He was excited at the new monies that would have been left on the table without his most junior AE asking a simple question, “In round numbers”, and then knowing what to do with the answers. 

Big Black Eye

Before I knew about the Budget Game I got a big black eye on a large regional brokerage company.  I had been part of the team that had won the account and now I had been assigned to work on the client.  I was new to the agency, a junior AE.  The ad manager asked for a media recommendation on using the Wall Street Journal to launch their new brand look we had recommended.  I was young and so charged up.

I bounded back with a media budget recommendation that was six times larger than anything the ad manager wanted to see.  And he ripped me up and down and almost fired us.  We had flashed to him that we really didn’t know his business.  We kept the account for years, but after that I never again went back to a client with any recommendation without knowing what the client expected to pay first.  It was a life-lesson that I never forget.  And the best place to find that number is to ask for it when the client first mentions the job.  Your staff might need to learn all that now.

Who Is The Most Important Client At Your Agency?

Most agencies are spending way too much time on their accounts and not enough time on the agency’s business. Look in the mirror, the most important client at any agency is the agency. The most important account that gets the least attention at most agencies is the agency. Our DayOne planning and strategy session helps agency management reset its focus back on growing the agency’s business.

We just finished a DayOne with a great agency. They were a bit scared as the general feeling was they were too small – a staff of 3. However, by the time the day was up everyone was energized, excited, and several new business opportunities were discovered. In addition the agency brand was revamped and better positioned for growth.

In a few short hours this small agency was infused with new life. The agency president just sent me this note:

"Thank you for a dynamic session. Everyone is pleased by the process and feels we have achieved a great sense of focus and mission."

I expect to hear of a new business win any day now!