What Are The Real Assets In Your Marketing Firm?

April 9, 2013 By NewBusinessHawk

Outward vs. Inward Leadership

Constantly changing client demands, new marketing technologies and shifting options are all circling overhead, claiming the attention of agency leaders. These red herrings have shifted the focus outward, away from the IMPORTANT day-to-day operation of the agency. As agency leaders focus on the external forces, the tendency is to start creating a mental wish list. Most leaders are always looking over the fence, thinking “gee… the grass sure is greener over there! If only we had award-winning talent. If only we had more money in the budget for xyz. If only we could establish a presence in a more competitive market.” This type of thinking leads to a very reactive way of doing business.

These are the murmurings we hear at agencies of all shapes and sizes. The feeling is that the “environment of opportunity” is a feast fit only for other agencies – the bigger ones, the richer ones, the ones with cool space – whatever excuse one can dream up. No one would argue that some agencies have distinct built-in competitive advantages – better city, recognizable name, big account, etc. But how do you explain occasions where the “best-of-the-best” gets decimated in a drought and the weed-filled lawn suddenly turns a lush green? Clearly, there is more to the equation than meets the eye.

Back To Basics

For every big plan, there is a simple reality to consider: the day-to-day details surrounding the operations of your agency that can make or break your performance in today’s environment of opportunity. And make no mistake, tough economic times create new opportunities. Most agency leaders are focused on maintaining their current position – without first looking at the greater opportunity. What it boils down to is your agency’s ability to manage, develop, and leverage its assets in meeting new challenges and achieving your goals. An agency, even one with deep pockets, that pays no attention to its assets will eventually have nothing to show for themselves but empty pockets.

Agency ASSETs are the Accounts, Specialties, Skills, Experience and Time that define the very who and what of your agency.

Read on and see if you can make the grass greener on your side of the fence…

“Walking Dead” Account Service

February 25, 2013 By NewBusinessHawk

The Walking Dead, an American television drama on AMC, has struck a chord in popular culture. Set in a post-apocalyptic fictionalized present where zombies, or as they call them “walkers” roam the Earth, like many I was interested in seeing how things would work out. The other night I watched as a “walker” in a suit shuffled past. And it hit me… That’s just like one of the old suits in the agency world – brainless and just trying to feed.

Saving Account Management

For many years we’ve all watched the decline of Account Management. Watching that other great AMC show “Mad Men” reminds us that the three-martini days of Account Management has been reduced to the “bag carriers.” The bag carriers are the “walking dead” who lug creative from the agency to clients and back again today. In terms of agency effectiveness, Account Management is brain dead. In the TV show, “walkers” are slow, constantly getting shot in the face, and want to eat the living. However, the problems Account Management has today are far more severe than what’s portrayed on The Waking Dead. The reasons are many, and it all starts with the fact that client top executives don’t look upon advertising agencies as critical to helping them meet their marketing and sales goals. They view other communication activities and tools as much more important. And what business are you in?

Reality Check

Today, account management teams, Zombie Suits if you will, have to cope with the demands coming from a new breed of client: younger, smarter, more aggressive, and more anxious than ever for results. And these new clients aren’t tied to the traditions of the past. What’s more, these clients don’t want high-paid account management teams that just manage projects. Clients quickly see the inefficiency of this and resent paying high-priced fees for low-level work. Clients are willing, and even anxious, to pay for smart people who can have an immediate and strategic impact on their business. And age, or seniority, doesn’t matter. The stress on Account Management is not a passing phase but represents a long-time trend in the making that marketing firms must overcome.

How to Survive an Attack of the Zombie Suits: Prepare Now for the Change!

The more prepared you are now for the coming Zombie Suit Apocalypse, the better your chances of not only surviving and becoming a new breed of marketer, but you may escape the chance of being a zombie agency. The continuing loss of Zombie Suit prestige impacts the way you should think about your business. Clients are thinking about marketing differently, and you have to think differently as well. To them marketing is tactical. And tactical is measured on achieving results, fast delivery and staying on budget. So anything that keeps you from delivering on their tactical-oriented measurements needs to go. Your Zombie Suit Apocalypse Check List should include examining inefficient operating structure, department thinking and department silos, slow response and low productivity. All these things need to go. The zombie horde is coming so leave behind anything that’s not necessary for survival.

Take the High Ground!

It will happen – zombies will surprise you, catch you off guard. The roaming undead are everywhere, and there’s only one of you. It’s time to move up, into the larger and faster growing market of consulting. You do this by launching a flanker brand, aimed at the client top executives, offering a variety of strategic services: serious CEO type work that’s more than just communication, and more than just the branding work that agencies do just to win an account. Every decision you make in advance of the Zombie Suit Apocalypse is an important one. Developing consulting skills now will help you become more agile and adaptive to the changes in the market down the road.

Start a Serious Training Program!

The coming zombie attack means you’d better be in peak shape. Shed any excess weight and dead wood, and be prepared to book it out of there when you see the first Zombie Suit. Always be faster than at least one person in your group. Everywhere you look, Account Management suffers from poor fitness, or what many call “under-delegation.” This is a systemic problem at most agencies. Under-delegation is when you have A people doing B work and your B people doing C work. That’s a killer. Top performing account management teams do the exercise needed to outrun the Zombie Suit Apocalypse.

Top performing agencies train their Account Management teams in three ways:

Always bring Business-Building Ideas (BBI) to clients. It’s what they want and value most. And they want one at least every month. Most agencies aren’t set up to create these for their clients.
Offer Value-Based Initiatives (VBIs). Does your firm work to do just what it’s assigned? Is your Account Management developing marketing communications, or do they have the skills to offer VBIs on those things that trouble clients the most? Like daily organizational problems and conditions that drive clients crazy.
Always do Client Retention Planning. Are your largest clients handled with a written 18-month client retention plan in place that shows the steps necessary to bond them to your agency for a long time? Developing these skills, doing the drills, practicing NOW will help keep the Zombie Suits at bay. You are now moving faster than the competition.

Don’t Hesitate!

The future for agencies will belong to those agencies that prepare themselves best, enter into new service areas such as branding and consulting at the right time, don’t compete where there are few home-field advantages, and avoid getting outrun by quicker, cheaper competitors on the tactical side and by consultants on the strategic side. In the future, agencies will discover that there will be no “Walking Dead” survivors left standing in the middle. Agencies will be forced to move one way or the other.

Filed Under: Client Retention Tagged With: Account Executive Skills, Account Management, Ad Agency, Client Bonding, client retention, Client Service, Keep Clients Forever, leadership, Negotiation, operations, Structure is the Enemy, Training, Walking Dead, Zombie Suits

Is Your Agency Winning or Losing New Business?

February 15, 2013 By NewBusinessHawk

This is a repost of what I wrote for Norman Sherman over at the The Troyanos Group – a leading marketing industry recruiting and consulting firm. Outstanding company.

The New Business Pipeline

New business is the art and science of growing an agency and is often referred to as the “life blood” of an agency. If you’re like most marketing firms these days, you’re losing more than winning. What most agencies need is to build a pipeline to tap into the new business reservoir that all this change, upheaval, client churn, and agency closings are creating.

Unlike the traditional sales funnel that you run prospects through, the New Business Pipeline is made up of seven sections: #1 – Positioning, #2 – Preparation, #3 – Pursuit, #4 – Pounce, #5 – Profile, #6 – Present and lastly #7 – Patience. Get a good handle on these seven and you’re going be winning a lot more new business.

Pipe #1 – Positioning

Positioning is all about your brand. We all understand that every agency needs to be positioned. Each positioning descriptor carries with it certain messages to clients, prospects, and employees. What most agencies fail to recognize is that most of their competition is operating against a gray background without any strong positioning other than a hazy label (“we’re a full service marketing firm with great creative”). There is little concentrated branding going on among agencies; meaning few agencies have a clearly defined brand. If you create a strong brand that stands out against the gray marketplace, then you will create separation from most of the competition. This comes at cost, as a clearly defined brand means that you have to stand for something – something most marketing firms hate to do.

Pipe #2 – Preparation

The most difficult part of new business: creating an actual new business system. You must outline resources, positioning, targets, support materials, personnel to operate, and then find that special someone who will lead the whole thing. Most marketing firms feel all they need is that special someone to lead (or blame) for new business. Many firms feel they have a new business system; responding to all the RFPs, pitches, and more. But is that system proactive, focused on the right goal – generating leads? Or is it reactive, only responding to referrals? Only a strong new business system can generate enough leads – meaning at least one good lead a week! Of course, the alternative is to find that rare breed of individual who can charm a prospect into the agency. Those “rainmakers” are difficult to find, hard to keep, and can never teach anyone how they do it.

Pipe #3 – Pursuit

Nothing good happens in new business until someone from your agency is across the desk from a good prospect. This usually means someone in your agency is focused on outreach full-time and following up on all those leads to create first visits. We call that winning the first opportunity. A good first visit is when your team avoids presenting a catalog of your firm’s capabilities and instead focuses on building trust so prospects will discuss their business needs openly and honestly. It’s a learned skill—one that is undervalued and can always be improved. Without a good first visit, clients are forced to move into a formal search where competition is high. With good first visits in hand, you can start to walk away from RFPs, cattle calls, and agency clusters where competition is strong and your marketing ROI is low. The most dangerous thing an agency can do is put someone not trained in first visits across the desk from a great prospect.

Pipe #4 – Pounce

Pounce is the speed needed to win new business. Most firms walk away from a first visit with no idea where to go from there. They may send a thank you note, and just wait for the prospect to do something, anything. Learn how to close fast. If you’re doing pursuit correctly, you should have many opportunities for first visits or what we call the New Business Interview – where you go in with the attitude of interviewing the prospect to see if they’re a good fit for your firm. After an interview you have a range of options from waiting (slow and weak) to going for a 48-hour close (fast and strong). The 48-hour close is a process where the agency leaves the prospects wanting more and returns in 48 hours for a working session and a solution. Some of the largest account swings in the world have been won using the 48-hour close. Speed wins.

Pipe #5 – Profile

Profile is the chemistry of new business. Creating good chemistry with people is not as hit-or-miss as you may think. People’s personalities and how they interact with the world can be categorized into patterns and profiles. Learn to achieve “good chemistry” by profiling and putting prospects into one of the four major prospect quadrants called Headline™, BodyCopy™, Logo™, and Illustration™. Profiling helps you avoid a lot of tactical obstacles, like how to handle the critical question all prospects will ask on the first visit: “Can I get you anything… cup of coffee?” Your answer to this question will often determine if you win or lose the account.

Pipe #6 – Present

Present is how you pitch or ask for the business. Sometimes the present phase is long and complicated (formal reviews). And sometimes it’s short (48-hour close). If your pitch skills are weak, it really harms the new business program. Your best presentation strategy is to one up on the competition: one up on style (skill in presenting), one up on format (staging and meeting strategy), and one up on content (what is presented). When you beat the competition on style, format, and content, you usually have a new account. A quick question: Which of these three is least important? And where does your agency put most of its time and effort in preparing for a presentation: the answer is, of course, content.

Pipe #7 – Patience

Patience is the closing phase in new business. A new account requires you to know how best to price your services, how to win with incentives, and how to ask for all the money. This is where the key skill of negotiating must be developed. Clients are better informed now by taking courses on negotiating with agencies and attend meetings armed to the teeth. Most agencies come in under-armed and wonder what happened and why aren’t they making the money they want to make. Agencies are operating under an assumption they need to keep their prices very low. That’s a real money-losing assumption.

Get Your Pipeline Flowing

Please understand that new business is the ultimate revenue maker for your firm, and you need to be doing it right. Go back to each of the pipes and evaluate your firm with a grade. Be honest. If you’re not averaging a least a B+ then you’re losing new business. If even one pipe is failing then the whole system gets clogged. You know one good win can dramatically increase revenue. Now, what are you doing about that? Consider this: what are prospects hearing about your firm today? If no prospect is hearing about you, today, then you aren’t doing new business the right way.

Top water tank photo by *Witch-Dr-Tim

Filed Under: New Business Tagged With: Ad Agency, Advertising, branding, Business Chemistry, Closing, Creative, Design, Full Service, Growth, leadership, Marketing Firm, New Business, Outreach, Pipeline, PR, Profiling, Sales Training, Winning

Focus Your Brand: Focus Your Efforts: Win

January 29, 2013 By NewBusinessHawk

How did an agency in the middle of nowhere Amish country grow 50 percent at the height of this recession? At a time when agencies around the world are cutting back, down-sizing, reducing staff or just flat out closing, how did this agency seize this opportunity to grow? I recently met a fellow new business person, Lance Baird, whose B2B agency, Godfrey, has been recognized by Advertising Age as one of the fastest-growing advertising agencies in the country. The secret to their success: focus your brand so you stand out in the market.

Lance said this about Godfrey: “Regarding a specialty, initially, to be honest, people were extremely uncomfortable with this position as they felt it confined us. Today, this positioning is not only internally accepted, it’s promoted. We help highly technical manufacturers market themselves better. Period. I think this concept is really, really important for agencies: define who you are or someone else will do it for you.”

Don’t Label Me Bro!

Most marketing firms I’ve worked with are afraid of developing a focus that stands out. They never go beyond the generic “full service marketing firm, great creative, outstanding service” shtick. They never shout from the rooftops “we’re the world’s best at … something, anything!” Without focus you run the risk of trying to be everything to everybody and fail to be remembered – your brand effectively fades into the haze gray of marketing speak. In other words, you become one more marketing firm that is “integrated-marketing, brand-building, highly-strategic, results-oriented, media-natural, crowd-sourced, social-media, idea-driven.” The more precisely you can describe your ideal client, address their marketing needs, and deepen your knowledge, the more new business you’ll get.

Growth With Focus Is Easy!

Marketing an expertise is easy! If you commit to an area of focus, you then have a very specific client in which to market. Social media makes this more of an opportunity for you than ever. Focus your efforts, build targeted content and get found. New business efforts start to make sense.
Referring prospects to an expert is easy! If your agency is known as “the expert in …” then it becomes simple for clients, friends, family, and staff, anyone in your network to refer prospects to you. Focus means more leads through referrals – it’s that simple.
Familiarity makes relationship-building easy! Prospects don’t mind having a conversation with someone who has deep knowledge in their field. They need to know that you understand their specific industry and have something of value to offer. We’re in a relationship business, and relationships drive growth. If you are positioned as an expert, then more people will be interested in developing a relationship with you.
Winning a pitch is easy! There will be less competition, as you provide specific services for specific clients, in a specific way. Walking into a pitch as a recognized thought leader in a field gives you more freedom. Free to make a solid case for your recommendations. Free to stretch your strategies, ideas, and creative into real award-winning work.
Growing existing clients is easy! Experts understand how to get more organic growth. As you provide increasingly better service based on your client’s needs, the chance is that you will get more organic growth. Clients will come back for more and often will start spending more with you as the relationship grows.
Accepting projects outside your focus is easy! Becoming an expert doesn’t mean that you won’t get work outside your niche. In fact, I’ve found that the more an agency clearly defines their expertise, the more their brand stands out. And the more the brand stands out, the more prospects notice. And prospects are busy people, so they really don’t care what your expertise is IF they’ve noticed your brand. Counterintuitive I know, but it works.

If you are unsure of how to develop your unique area of focus, get help. Don’t keep doing the same ol’ same ol’ expecting different results. Don’t go in for half-measures. To focus your brand and become an expert, you must go in 100 percent. Seek out help from thought leaders in marketing, existing clients, new staff, and anyone who can assist you in finding that special niche.

Define Who You Are Or Someone Else Will Do It For You

Having a strong agency focus will open new roads to growth.

I thought it would be interesting to see how Godfrey marketed themselves over the last 10 years or so. Going back in time, you may notice a steady narrowing of focus over the years:

1999: Specializing in integrated marketing communications programs, we define, shape, and nurture your corporate positioning through marketing communications. We have the experience, skills, and in-house staff to develop and implement effective marketing communications across a wide range of industries.

2004: A full-service integrated business communications company specializing in strategically driven business-to-business marketing for both national and international clients.

2007: Specializes in developing strategic marketing solutions that drive growth, competitive advantage, and value for business-to-business companies.

2011: Specializes in helping highly technical manufacturers market themselves better.

So Godfrey, throughout the years, has clearly defined and narrowed the focus of their brand. By doing so, they are now one of the fastest-growing agencies in America. The future belongs to those agencies that brand themselves best, don’t compete where the competition is high, and avoid getting marginalized by quicker, cheaper competitors. Agencies are discovering that there are no winners standing in the middle – soon enough they will be forced to move one way or the other.

Update:

According to this recent survey by RSW/US over 77% of prospects state that having a focus, or specialization, is important to them. In the notes section of that survey this is what marketers had to say about specalization:

Reasons why Marketers DO want specialization include:

Agencies can be more focused and strategic when they’re specialized

I don’t have time to train “beginners” in my space

We don’t have the time or money to waste.

We need experts in our industry who know it intimately

Implications: At the end of the day, I personally believe that if Agencies can make the Marketer feel like they know their category (no matter your level of experience in their space), the Marketer will be more likely to feel good about the Agency. I recently wrote a post based on my past two Agency Searches we ran. In both cases, the marketing clients told us that they selected the winning Agency because they “felt like they were already ramping up”. The winning Agencies tailored their presentations to the Marketer, they showcased their knowledge of the space, and they shared smart, strategic thinking applied from the Marketer’s and other industries. In both cases, there wasn’t any marked advantage that the winning Agency had over the other Agencies in terms of category experience. They just came to the table with a smarter, more creative, more strategic, and more energetic approach.

Bottom photo by ~wojtaaa

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: Ad Agency, ad agency branding, Advertising, advertising agency consultant, advertising agency consultants, agency brand, agency branding, agency focus, Agency New Business, Agency Positioning, leadership, leading ad agencies, Marketing, marketing for a new business, Winning New Business

The Most Important Client At Your Agency

November 13, 2012 By NewBusinessHawk

This management team is working on the agency’s most important client.

They’re at a leadership retreat planning the agency’s future. And the management team understands that the agency is the most important client in the agency.

Unfortunately most agencies spend too much time doing client business and forget to do the agency business. And that attitude can get an agency into serious trouble in this fast-changing marketing-communications environment.

The best advice might be to get out of town, away from the phones and the pressures of everyday client concerns and focus on the agency’s concerns. Where is the agency going? How to get there?

What resources are needed for the agency to prosper and not just survive? Do high investments in creative talent pay off or should the agency take some new initiatives into consulting, planning and brand building? What’s the right balance between new business and client retention? What are the best agency practices around the world? And what is the right management structure?

These are critical decisions for all agencies but most agencies leave them to chance. You wouldn’t expect a smart client to let the future just happen. Why let the future happen to your agency?

It All Starts With Vision

Look at it this way. Having a vision marks you as a visionary. Then if you have the ability to get others to buy into that vision, you’re called a leader. The reason is simple. You know it will take others within your organization to help you achieve your vision. And you have seen what happens when businesses, both large and small, try to operate without a clear vision.

Trying to managing a firm that doesn’t have a strong vision is like trying to get a group of friends to run through the woods at night. You might cover a lot of ground but you and your friends get banged up a lot. There is a better way.

Why: Vision seems so simple but it’s so important. With a strong vision, you know where you are going and how you hope to get there. That’s the start. Then you need to let others in on that vision so they can help you achieve it.

We work with firms of all sizes around the world helping their owners and operators set a vision for what they can become. And then we work together to make that vision a reality. If the vision word troubles you, then just consider the whole vision thing as a way to create the future.

We Can Help

Sanders Consulting Group has been a leader in the marketing communication industry for over 20 years. Our track record for helping agencies grow through client retention and new business wins is unparalleled. In any given year, Sanders Consulting works with most of the top ten advertising agencies and hundreds of local and specialized firms. Our extensive roster of programs and services is unique in the industry.

Beyond agency growth, Sanders Consulting has developed practice areas dedicated to agency re-branding, operations management, productivity improvement and information technology, as well as a wide variety of management concerns and ownership issues.

As you evaluate opportunities and challenges at your agency, never hesitate to give us a call.

Phone: 1.800.899.1538

Mail: info@sandersconsulting.com

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: Ad Agency, ad agency branding, Advertising, advertising agency consultant, Agency New Business, Agency Positioning, leadership, Leadership Training, leading ad agencies, Marketing, new business agency, standing out

Take Care of Your Own: Leadership!

May 23, 2012 By NewBusinessHawk

In this tough economy, employee training and development is the last thing on your mind.

In fact, how many times have you thought or said to someone, “You should feel lucky to have a job.” Is this the attitude you want to project at your agency? Fearful of the future, you may feel reluctant to add more staff even if new projects, client work, and prospects are on the horizon. Your employees, also fearful, are hanging onto their jobs with every ounce of strength even if they are unhappy. You may have even resorted to more cost-saving strategies by cutting your own pay, eliminating perks, and slashing operating costs trying to squeeze every nickel out of your budget.

During this fallow period, however, you must never lose sight of the critical role employee development plays for an agency—especially YOUR agency.

Eventually, and we’re starting to see some signs now, the economy will rebound. And then many, many people will leave their jobs in the hopes of greener pastures, to improve their reel, to find better benefits or better pay. Or they may leave just to help them forget the unhappy past at your agency and move on…

But, with the right planning and foresight, this does not need to happen to your marketing firm.

There are some practical strategies for building continued morale, engagement, and growth for times good and bad. How?

5 Leadership Strategies To Transform Your Firm

1. Stress open and frequent communication:

Be sure to hold effective agency meetings, briefings and update sessions
Schedule regular Q&A’s with groups and departments
Simple and consistent works better than complex and infrequent (KISS)
Recognize positive movement
Identify quick wins and implement them NOW!
Look for opportunities to help solve issues
Share good news with everyone

2. Take strong action that directly impacts agency morale:

Celebrate the work and the people behind the work
Select great plans, creative ideas, strategies and showcase them
Look outside the agency for trends and hold round-robin learning sessions
Provide training to introduce new competency requirements
Recognize extra effort spent
Provide support and offer rewards (simple non-monetary works well)

3. Enlist your up-and-coming leaders. Possible roles and responsibilities include:

Facilitating the day-to-day direction of agency projects
Meeting the goals for the client, agency, and individuals
Coordinating training and development programs for staff
Monitoring overall budget/profit & loss for the client
Facilitating communication between departments and leaders
Calling and facilitating meetings
Forecasting material, human, and technical resource requirements relative to projected workloads

4. Deploy cross-functional teams to work on achieving agency goals and specific, longer term issues:

Streamline your processes and workflow
Implement new technology/social media to promote your agency
Discover new ways, new tools, new resources to train employees
Revisit your performance criteria and incentives ensuring they are inline with your brand and operational strategy
Redesign your space and facilities – think about workflow, logistics, and never forget the importance of setting up a powerful tour

5. And finally, treat everyone with respect and honesty. They won’t forget that.

Strong Leadership Transforms Your Staff

If agencies want to move from client conference rooms to client boardrooms, then major shifts are needed. Essentially agencies must shift from worrying about ads to worrying about the client’s business. Give us a call to see how focusing on skill development and leadership can transform your firm from talking about advertising to talking about strategies that drive business. This shift transforms the agency from a marketing communication vendor to trusted advisor with an honored place in the boardroom. But it all starts with leadership. This isn’t about looking at old problems from the same angle. We offer a fresh perspective and new ways to improve your agency’s performance with clients.

Photo by *xOxChrystalxOx

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: Account Executive Training, Account Management Training, Account Manager, Ad Agency, ad agency leadership, Ad Agency Training, Advertising, Client Bonding, client retention, Client Retention Strategy, Client Service Training, Improve Client Service, Keep Clients, Keep Clients Forever, leadership, Marketing, Marketing Decline, Negotiation, operations, Teamwork, Training

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

February 16, 2012 By NewBusinessHawk

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.

Sometimes we are so engrossed in the new business problem we can't see the easy solution!

Missing the Forest for the Trees?

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” I would have at least $5!

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 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! All in the weeks and months leading up to the pitch. This is a losing proposition if some other agency has put the time and effort into relationship building.

Every year Sanders Consulting Group travels to some of the best agencies in the world, and every year we help them address challenges with growing their agency. While each agency is unique its amazing to us how many fail to invest in long-term relationhip building. A small investment here can help solve many new business problems. If you have any questions please contact us at info@sandersconsulting.com or 800.899.1538.

Photo by ~Nightfrost21

Filed Under: New Business Tagged With: Ad Agency, ad agency leadership, Advertising, Agency New Business, Agency Positioning, agency tours, chemistry wins new business, Fast Close Accounts, How To Win Clients, Marketing Decline, New Business, New Business Mistakes, Profile Prospects, Winning, Winning New Business, Winning Presentations, Winning RFP, winning the pitch, winning without pitching

Advertising Agency New Business Resolutions

January 12, 2012 By NewBusinessHawk

Things Agencies Should Stop Doing Today

Need to stop doing what you're doing now!

Ad agencies really need to stop doing bad things or...

It’s a new year– time for renewal, reflection and looking forward to a better 2012! As part of that process it’s helpful to review this past year and think about what worked and what didn’t. Time for some New Year’s resolutions! After all, a New Year’s resolution is a challenge to achieve one or more goals. Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self-assessment and repentance that demands honesty.

But sometimes it’s not about what you need to start doing; it’s really about what you need to stop doing that’s important.

So here’s our list of 6 things agencies should stop doing right now:

STOP thinking you can control or slow the pace of change. Any attempt to control it flies in the face of reality. It can’t be done. Stop reacting and stop trying to manage what can’t be managed. Instead, focus on what you can control. Agencies can dictate the pace of change only by getting out ahead of it. Clients spend big money making sure their firms operate the fastest, quickest, smartest way they can. Take a page from their book and focus energy on building a better marketing firm that is faster, more effective, and more responsive.
STOP trying to be everything to everybody. Too many marketing firms are focused on the past where a great ad agency was defined by being “a full-service agency that offers outstanding creative!” Those days are long gone. Your agency needs a brand that is current and memorable, and you have to offer strong proof that shows what you stand for– what is important to prospects. Do you know? Reinforce your efforts by getting all your resources, including the agency website, in congruence behind the agency’s brand. Make sure your agency location is identified, has strong curb appeal, and your space is propped for a tour that supports the agency’s brand. And more importantly, make sure your agency’s personality is clear and projected in all of its new business materials.
STOP waiting for the phone to ring. Client churn is at an all time high, but your phone isn’t ringing off the hook… Why? You must be active and reach out. Constantly. Many ad agencies have no formal new business system in place, and any new business activity is sporadic. The result is agency growth is slow, staff interest is mixed, and management frustration with new business is high. All leads are from “over the transom” and you have no system in place to generate leads. The phone never rings because prospects haven’t heard of you, you have’nt reach out to them, contacted them, built a relationship with them. Prospects don’t know you’re interested in them. Or prospects think your firm is not a good fit based on an old brand long out of date. Resolve to have regular outreach to your prospects. Move to have all of your prospects in a strong CRM program so you can track and maintain contact with them. Hold an annual reception and make sure you have a strong publicity program in place. Consider holding a supplier open-house to get your brand message out in the market. The best advice we can offer is make sure you have a full-time person to build relationships with prospects full-time.
STOP treating prospects the same way. Each prospect is different: different values, different world views and different ways they make decisions. If you often find yourself not making the final presentation set, if what seems like strong a relationship doesn’t turn into a solid prospect, or if you come in second on key pitches, you have a chemistry problem. Other symptoms include poor client retention, and your superior creativity, strong marketing and solid experience are not winning accounts. Start profiling all clients and prospects. Winning agencies change their presentation strategy to fit the profile of the prospect. Control the chemistry from the first meeting through to the final presentation. Build a comfort zone for prospects early in the relationship. After all, we all know the “birds-of-a-feather” rule. So if you treat all prospects the same way, then the only birds that will flock to you are the ones exactly like you.
STOP sending proposals and presenting. The ability of your agency to successfully respond to a prospect’s show of interest is critical in understanding how best to win the account. Too many agencies have no idea how to handle prospect interest. Do you send proposals on a regular basis without positive action resulting? Or end up doing a “capabilities presentation” with little or no follow-up? If your “First Visits” with a great prospect generates no action and the prospects show little interest in proceeding, then you need to change. Your ability to handle the first interview with a prospect is the key to winning. It’s better to focus on building trust when you see a prospect. Limit your presentations of samples or case-studies and focus on sharing your competency story in a trust-building way. Keep the time talking about yourself short and powerful. Remember, less is more at this stage. The most successful agencies have a solid first visit strategy and know how to return with solutions to win the account. The simplest path is often the right one – as long as you stay focused on winning.
STOP being tactical. The line between strategic and tactical was once open and fluid, where ideas, staff, and agencies could freely roam up from one to another. Today, much of the strategic work done by a traditional agency is for new business, or for “free” just to win or keep the account. Very little advertising revenue these days would be considered strategic. Management, branding, marketing consultants and research firms have all moved to fill what was once the purview of traditional agencies. As a result revenue on the strategic side continues to grow faster than tactical – but agencies are being blocked as they are “creative” or tactical. Take a page from the consulting firms and understand how to be more strategic. Challenge the management consultants with better processes, procedures, methodologies and tools. Build a consultancy around packaging “Business Building Ideas” with outstanding deliverables. Better reports. Better communication skills. Better results.

You’ve enjoyed a long and, we hope, relaxing holiday break. Now it’s time to focus on your agency plans for the New Year. It’s time to make the changes needed to support your vision. One last reminder: the sign of a highly successful marketing firm is its willingness to move beyond methods that are currently working well, with the expectation of discovering something even better. So stop doing the “same-ol’-same-ol’” and focus on making some resolutions for 2012! Cheers to another chance for us to get it right!

Sanders Consulting Group has for over 25 years helped over 2,500 agencies as the leading new business consulting firm. Working with some of the best managed agencies on the globe and selected as the new business training provider to the largest agencies in the world. We show you how to win, not just play the game.

Photo by ~Luria-XXII

Filed Under: New Business Tagged With: Account In Review, Ad Agency, ad agency branding, Ad Agency Winning New Business, Advertising, Agency New Business, Agency Positioning, Agency Search, Agency Shoot Out, Formal Presentation, Marketing, Marketing Decline, pitch consulting, Pitch Training, Presentation Strategy, Presentation Tactics, Presentation Training, Presenting Techniques, Winning Formal Presentations, Winning New Business, winning the pitch

Ad Agency? The Times, They Are A-Changin’

November 16, 2011 By NewBusinessHawk

Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the world we live in.

Change. It happens every day, every moment, everywhere. Marketing firms, at the intersection of consumers and brands, must learn to embrace change.

Your Client Is Changing: Change How You Manage The Client

Clients today are looking for business-building ideas, speed, and firms that understand how to stay within budget.

Now is the time to think more strategically to determine exactly what your clients want – and deliver it better than anyone else! It’s time to rethink your account service team, move faster than ever, while boosting profits and lowering costs.

But first, you need to change.

The Consumer Is Changing: Change How You Sell To The Consumer

The consumer today is exposed to more messages than ever before from all types of media. Great creative can make a brand standout and generate that all important conversation. Now is the time to rethink the business and generate new ideas targeted to this new consumer – to make your agency more successful. Win awards. Attract new clients. Boost staff morale.

Time for more creativity from all members of your team… and to have a creative process that is faster, better, and more profitable… clients will be more satisfied and loyal.

But first, you need to change.

Marketing Is Changing: Change How You Market

Social media, conversations, listening to the consumer and more are changing the way agencies do business. Clients are demanding more. Consumers are becoming smarter. Now is the time to change how you view marketing – to improve your agency’s social skills and get an unfair advantage over your competition.

It’s a time when technology can bring you inside information, to make your creative more focused and insightful…. speed up your operations, to make you more efficient and cost-effective, to make your agency more profitable and even grow your business.

But first, you need to change…

You Need To Change: Change Your Agency… To Do It Better!

This is a fantastic time to be in advertising, full of incredible opportunity for growth and success – if you’re open to change. To change successfully, you must question everything you do. And discover new ways to do it better! It means asking tough questions, like:

What do we do better than anyone else?
What is our vision for the future?
How can we serve clients better?
How will we handle the impact of this digital world?

When you answer these questions, you’ve found your vision. But putting that vision into action can be challenging.

You Need to Change

To turn your vision into action, you’ll need to change the way you work and develop effective solutions to the barriers that stand in your way. You need to build on the unique capabilities of your agency – to take advantage of today’s market and become the agency of the future!

How long has it been since you took a long hard look at your firm? Your brand? Your new business efforts? Maybe you have been operating under the same brand for years without giving it much consideration. Or using the same processes and structure without reviewing all the changes in technology.

The bottom-line is the world is changing, and we all need to change with it.

Photo by ~gffrycole

Filed Under: Operations Tagged With: Ad Agency, ad agency branding, Advertising, Agency Compensation, Agency New Business, Agency Positioning, Agency Search, Marketing, Marketing Decline

The Future of Advertising Agencies: Learnings From Forrester

October 5, 2011 By NewBusinessHawk

Over at Edward Boches blog Creativity Unbound is some interesting research on the future of advertising from Forrester – from a while back that I just found and read. I encourage everyone to read the whole thing. Pay close attention to his addtional thoughts… Go read, now!

I’ll wait.

The key findings topline is:

It is a new world defined by technology and consumer control
Consumers hate most advertising
Adaptive marketing is the new model
Media needs to combine paid, owned and earned
Successful agencies will move well beyond campaigns
Clients will look for three things
- Ideas: note this does not mean messages or ads
- Interaction: engagement, connection, community, media
- Intelligence, as in you need to collect, report, analyze and predict: if you don’t have robust analytics, you’re in big trouble

Edward goes on and cuts to the chase with this additional thought:

Chief Innovation Officer, Mullen; Marketer; Blogger

If I were to sum up even more.

content lives everywhere, there are no walls

experiences more than messages

consumers aren’t audience but participants

agility is essential

measure, predict, act

Changing Technology Study

Back on November 11, 1996 I was part of a team that published a research paper for one of the largest marketing firms out there. The purpose was to examine how trends and new capabilities in information technology would impact the world of marketing. Back then ”information technology” is what we called everything from the new “world wide web” to networks just being developing in-house.

Just to give you an idea on just how much the world has changed think about this - In 1996 the DVD was launched, in Japan, not in the US. Windows NT 4.0 was released by Microsoft and Apple was losing money. Internet Explorer 3 was just launched to fight Netscape. The New York Times just started its own website. It was a big deal that time as very few newspapers bothered to bear the expense of having a website and publishing their own materials in it.

The Findings

What were the results of our study? From the findings we found 1996 to be a year of change:

As the number of messages in the marketplace rises exponentially, the perceived value of each message has diminished over time. New technologies have not only reduced the value of each message, but also provided each consumer with greater control over the messages they receive. This newly created consumer power will continue to drive the marketing communications industry. Consumers can now dictate when, how and where they will listen to marketing messages. The net effect of this empowerment on the industry is substantial:

The proliferation of mass media is giving way to alternative media outlets and vehicles, absorbing greater proportions of client marketing budgets

Agencies who focus on traditional mass media are threatened with extinction because they will be able to add little value to the planning, buying and execution process

Agencies need to take a much stronger leadership role in integrating with clients and their end customers

Agency professionals need far greater access to information on their target audience and must know how to use it effectively

Traditional compensation and commission schemes will continue to evaporate in favor of project, performance or consultative-based value creation

We summed it all up by stating “The advertising industry is at a critical juncture in relation to the effective utilization of technology. It must find new ways to harness the power of information to influence the consumer, integrate its existing client base and attract new business. The alternative is to let the industry’s core business continue to erode by adding little or no value to the advertising process.”

The more things change…

The more change there is. There was a time where ad agencies and clients were tied at the hip – structures aligned – CEO’s/ad agencies communicating almost daily. Back then the ad agency was a titan in the corporate world – could create markets, brands, and shape public perception with strong impactful marketing ideas. Of course it was much easier back then when almost everyone would tune into a show like Ed Sullivan.

In this hyper-marketed world the power of any one marketing effort is severely diminished. CEO’s have recognized this and now spend more time with business strategist, management consultants and such… The board room used to be a regular meeting place for the agency, now it’s not. This is not to say there’s not a few powerful brands that still rely on marketing, and use it in a strategic way… only that is increasingly the exception.

The rules HAVE changed, and unless marketing firms understand the basic fundamentals of the change many will be just changing deck chairs.

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: Ad Agency, ad agency branding, Advertising, Agency New Business, Agency Positioning, future of advertising, Marketing, Marketing Decline