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Focus Your Brand: Focus Your Efforts: Win

January 29, 2013 By NewBusinessHawk

the second largest B2B agency in the United StatesHow 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!

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Change Marketing Is A Powerful Place To Find Prospects

January 21, 2013 By NewBusinessHawk

Smart agencies target recent changes or appointments in the marketing, advertising or management areas with key companies or prospects they want.

Change equals opportunity; if you know where to look.

The old change management rule says the new contact can continue for two months to blame problems on the old ad manager who got replaced. The old agency is good for more than six months of grace. Often, as we all know from the constant agency churn, the new contact needs time and a great place to buy some time is to conduct an agency review. That will typically last for three months. Add to that the six months of grace to blame the old agency while they train the new one and the new contact now has nine months of running room.

Change means change. Understand this and target the newly appointed executives at brands you have an interest in. You’ll find them hungry for new ideas, new approaches and new ways of doing things that allow them to make their mark.

Take advantage of this and reach out. It only takes a two sentence letter: “Congratulations. I look forward to following your continued success.” That letter usually generates a “Thank You” response which in turn leads to more contact and more contact. If you’re good; and understand how to build relationships.

Change marketing is powerful strategy in this most mobile of all markets. Use it to your advantage.

Target the change you see all around you and you will have a continuing stream of new prospects to replace the ones who turn into dry holes along the way.

Need More Ideas For Growth Like This?

Every year, we help more agencies develop their growth plans than any other firm in the world. Build the type of agency you will always be proud of. Grab market share the easy way by finding it when the opportunity is right.

Sanders Consulting Group has a wide range of learning programs for agencies to improve agency growth including DayOne, HighGear, Spark, Torch, Chemistry Wins New Business, Presenting To Win, Accounts in Review, Benefit Testing and many more.

We want to be your strategic counselor and your agency’s trusted advisor. Many agency presidents turn to us when it comes to improving their agency. We work with a wide variety of agencies from around the world. This perspective gives us opportunities that few firms ever enjoy, seeing the world’s best agencies up close and personal. We know what works and what is fantasy. And we help you avoid trial and error and that keeps you at the front of the line.

We start by earning your trust and respect.

We work in the world’s most difficult practice area because we deal directly with owners and operators of the best advertising agencies around. These presidents and CEOs wrote the book on entrepreneurial practices. They have no time for wasted time. They can spare no energy to chase castles in the air or to build empires on sand.

You see Sanders Consulting Group works only for agencies. We are on your side. We do no work for clients. And in today’s volatile market place, few consultants can claim that. We believe agencies need more friends like us.

Photo by `gilad

Filed Under: New Business Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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: , , , , , , , , , , ,

How Many New Business Leads are Out There?

October 10, 2012 By NewBusinessHawk

New Business Math | The Foundation of New Business

New Business Math

Math tells us HOW many clients will change agencies every year? And what, exactly, are you doing about THAT?

One of the big problems marketing firms face when thinking about new business is trying to understand the math.

Have you ever wondered just how many clients are satisfied with their current agency at present? Or just how many clients will look around at other firms during the next 12 months? Who in your market is going to invite another agency to stop by? Or perhaps go and visit another agency? Perhaps start a search? Or even worse, engage a search consultant? Is your perfect “client” writing an RFP right now that you don’t know about?
Just how many clients will actually change agencies during the next 12 months?

The Rate of Change is Accelerating

I was there when Budweiser ended a 79-year relationship with DMB&B. And how many of us remember when Harley Davidson parted ways with Carmichael Lynch after 31 years? Or when Dr Pepper broke up with Y&R after 40 years? How about when MetLife, after 83 years, cut Y&R? The list goes on and on… We all understand the client-agency relationship has changed. But how many of us have thought about that from the new business side: the math of all this change for new business hunters?
AAR now reckons that the average life of a relationship between agency and client lasts between three and four years. A study of US-based CMOs, commissioned by Adweek early in 2008, asked how many of them planned to change one or more of their agencies in the coming year. Forty-five percent of those surveyed said they intended to fire at least one of their agencies.

“Relationships are fraying and turnover is accelerating. Agency tenure has been declining steadily…”

This means that if you have 100 prospects in your target-list, around 30 of them will be hiring a new agency this year. And what if you have 200 prospects in your pool? How about 500?

The Famous No-System New Business System

Yet even with all this turnover, we are always amazed at how many agencies have no new business system in place. All of their leads are generated from infrequent activity and casual referrals. There is NO system in place to generate leads or referrals. Most firms don’t even have a centralized prospect list!
I recommend that you have between 500-600 strong prospects that you’ve targeted as a good match for your firm, and that you have an active program to reach out and touch base with them every other month or so.
That means around 180 prospects could offer you a chance to win their business in the next 12 months. That is if you have any type of system to reach out, build awareness, foster relationships, and just connect with those prospects.

New Business Is Too Important Not To Be Your Agency’s Top Priority!

  1. There are many, many lead opportunities out there.
  2. There are so many good lead opportunities out there that agencies should not pioneer by trying to win clients who have never had agencies.
  3. Agencies shouldn’t waste time trying to convince firms with in-house agencies to go outside.
  4. Waiting for leads to come in is a luxury few agencies can afford.
  5. Waiting for leads to come in also means letting the market define who you are. And that definition might be wrong, out of date, and not reflective of the “new you” or the “new you” you want to be.
If you’re serious about growing your firm, then hire an account executive for new business called the New Business Spark. The Spark is responsible for building agency awareness and creating large numbers of relationships with key prospects.
The Spark System is a European way of doing business. European agencies work to establish relationships so they will be invited in when there is a good opportunity.
Most agencies need a new business system that generates a steady stream of leads into the agency. If you don’t have a steady stream of leads, you need a Spark. New business is too complicated, too important and too competitive.

Twist Image President, Mitch Joel, brings a very stark point of view on these numbers here. And as they say, read the whole thing.

Photo by ~ssutanto
Filed Under: New Business Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Win More New Business More Often

June 4, 2012 By NewBusinessHawk

Bring in the experts! Learn how to fix new business forever and celebrate new business wins all the time.

There are always winners and losers… which one will you be?

Growing your firm these days is more important than ever. You need to learn how the new business rules have changed without wasting time. Bringing us in is a low one-time cost but the ROI is very high. You get a new business manual to keep the learning fresh for years. And just one good new business idea that you use to win an important client in the next month makes it all worthwhile.

Competition is getting harder and clients are getting tougher so you need every advantage. Your firm’s new business program is probably out of date and badly needs this tune up. Below are 6 issues we know you must master to win more new business more often.

Learn How To Grow Your Firm Faster

Issue #1: Master Your Strategic Issues

Where is the business going? What’s working across the country? Learn how to follow what the smart money is doing. Understand how to get ready for your new future. Map out key changes you’ve got to make.

Issue #2: Generate More Leads

See why your new business program must generate leads from high-value prospects. Understand how to target 80-120 good leads per year. Review the seven ways marketing communication companies organize their new business activities. Determine which new business method is best for your firm. Understand why creating relationships with good prospects are so important. Learn why having the right new business system in place means you avoid RFPs, cattle calls, and worthless capabilities presentations.

Issue #3: Close Accounts Quicker

Learn why so many firms don’t know how to build trust and therefore can’t close the business. See why without trust in place you can’t have vital discussions that lead to finding needs and fevers. Learn the right way to make first visits so you can close prospects quickly, often within 48-hours. See how to set prospects up for a 7-day close. Avoid formal searches, creative shoot outs, and Howdy-Doody call backs that don’t accomplish anything. See why with a strong fast-close program in place you never need to do another proposal. Understand “First Visit Math” that shows why you need two people on first visits.

Issue #4: Win With Strategic Consulting

Learn why having a strong consulting process is vital to your firm’s long-term success. See why you should suggest to all your new business prospects there might be a strategic problem in play, rather than some simple communication needs to resolve. Understand why you must have a “Branding Black Box” that positions your firm more strategically. See how to earn more consulting revenue, perhaps $500,000 per year, by working at a higher level. Learn how to move up your client base with your Black Box and leave small jobs and smaller prospects for freelancers. Learn how to work with better clients because you can show them how to strategically reposition themselves with a Brand Triangle. Learn what’s required to import a Black Box process into your firm to add show and impact.

Issue #5: Win More With Chemistry

Learn why chemistry is the major secret weapon in new business. See why chemistry is more important than your creative capabilities and how to get it on your side. Understand how to get hired because prospects like you better. See why prospects you thought you won, went somewhere else. Understand what you and your firm project to prospects and why that might be the wrong message.

Issue # 6: What To Do Now?

Call us, bring in the experts and see how the new business rules have changed. After we’re done, put all you learned into a cohesive plan that you can use to reshape your new business program forever. Revise immediately what you are saying to prospects. Reshape how you describe your firm and determine if you must re-brand. Fix new business forever with the changes you learned.

Sanders Consulting Group teaches more ad agencies, design firms, and Internet agencies around the world more about new business than any other firm. The largest and best managed marketing communication companies use Sanders Consulting Group as a trusted advisor to help them grow their organizations. In addition to its growth practice area, Sanders Consulting also specializes in client retention, account service training, agency operations, productivity improvement, mergers and acquisitions, and all types of management concerns including exit planning, strategic alliances, partner formation and partnership dissolutions.

 

Photo by *Alexandru1988

 

Filed Under: New Business Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Using Good-To-Great to Brand Your Agency

May 1, 2012 By NewBusinessHawk

“We’re a locally-owned, full-service, fully-integrated, media-neutral, discipline -agnostic advertising agency, and our creative is world-class.”

For those of you who have worked with us in the past you know we like to hammer the idea that you need a strong agency brand to compete in today’s market.

A Clear Agency Brand Provides Focus for New Business

It answers how to describe your firm and tells you what services to offer. If you know what you stand for you can match up your prospects and target them. Perhaps more importantly a strong brand can help answer which prospects to pass on.
Many marketing firms are afraid to stand for anything. Mostly out of fear of losing a potential prospect. However if you are clear in what you stand for it shows your view of what’s important. This lets a prospect know quickly whether or not you are in step with their view of the way things work – you stand out to THAT prospect. The one you are really looking for. Other agencies, who try to stand for anything and everything, really project “gray” don’t match up well with a firm clearly branded.
The runaway bestseller Good To Great/Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t provides insight into how to brand your firm.

The Characteristics That Cause the Jump From Good to Great

1. Level 5 Leadership

  • Think Lincoln, not Patton
  • Quiet, reflective, curious, compassionate, tough management style (Headline Logo)

2. Right People on the Bus

  • People are not your agency’s most important asset. The right people are the most important asset in the agency
  • Job #1: get the right people

3. Confront the Brutal Facts About Your Business/Industry

  • Advertising is now viewed as a commodity
  • Too many agencies still around, even after the biggest shakeout in history
  • Most agencies now treated as vendors
  • Clients see few differences in agencies
  • Client confidence in advertising is declining
  • Clients view marketing as tactical and that means advertising is viewed as very tactical
  • Marketing communications often delegated down to lower-level staffers
  • Strategic high ground is now owned by consultants who have the ear of the corporate CEO
  • Consulting is a bigger business than all marketing communications
  • Consulting is growing much faster than marketing communications
  • These trends wouldn’t change or improve for our industry in foreseeable future

4. Adopt a Culture of Discipline

  • Manage to standards
  • Drive out complexity with better management
  • Understand that discipline brings efficiency
  • Know that agency structure has biggest impact on agency efficiency
  • Focus on productivity and seek a 25% improvement in productivity which doubles margins

5. Use Carefully Selected Technology to Accelerate Performance

6. Adopt the Fly Wheel as Your Model for Growth

  • Series of small steps gets the fly wheel turning
  • Use each win to increase performance
  • Increased performance speeds up wins

Stand Out!

A strong brand stands out, and in this complex hypermarket we operate in that’s vital for survival.

Using Good To Great to Brand Your Marketing Firm

  • Determine what are your Good To Great circles
  • Find your Sweet Spot.
  • Shape that into a Hedgehog Concept that’ll work in your market
  • Dream big and express your Hedgehog Concept in a BHAG
  • Find your best growth opportunities and stick to those only
  • Build your brand so you maximize those opportunities
  • Set up your new business program to support the brand
  • Integrate your brand into everything you do and live the brand
  • Get set to move from good to great
  • Take the credit. You did it.
We’ve helped many marketing firms with their brand by understanding our industry, the market, and having experience with thousands of similar firms. Mostly we know what works, and what doesn’t. Often times a one-day session with us provides you with the creative fodder to remove any logjams in deciding which way to go. Free of the “unknown” most marketing firms are then successful in launching a new brand.
If you are thinking about your agency brand, give us a call – it could save you from making a costly mistake.
Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

How To Lose A Pitch When You Thought You Were Winning

April 25, 2012 By NewBusinessHawk
Stephen Greensted: Marketing Consultant

Stephen Greensted is a consultant in the UK with a long history of client service and new business under his belt. On his website he states that if you need help with your marketing, advertising, winning pitches, customer satisfaction surveys plus failed pitch research, and, specifically, digital marketing, you should talk to him. I can’t speak to all of his expertise, but when it comes to understanding pitches, or failed pitches, based on this post I would agree! In fact, I would encourage you to head over and read his entire blog.

Over the years I’ve seen many failed pitches, and heard about many more, but I had never seen a list like this one. Stephen lists some of the best, funniest and painful pitch events out there. I wish I could sit down over a few drinks and hear the background on some of them. So in all it’s wonderful glory, his list of how to lose a pitch.

How To Lose A Pitch:

  • Didn’t read the brief
  • Read only the first page of the brief
  • Read the brief, thought it was rubbish, so ignored it
  • Didn’t rehearse
  • Went absurdly over time
  • Had people presenting who were not going to be working on the business if appointed
  • Had people chewing gum
  • Had not kept in touch with the potential client during the pitch process
  • Knew nothing about the potential client’s business, and had made no attempt to learn
  • Made comments about the client’s business concerning things about which they neither knew nor had een asked to give an opinion
  • Rubbished the brief in the pitch
  • Had mysterious people in the pitch with no defined role and took no part in proceedings, and whom the client was meeting for the first time
  • Rubbished the opposition, the other pitching agencies
  • Offered a veiled bribe
  • Introduced their Chairman who then fell asleep during the pitch, woke up, and then referred for the rest of the pitch to the potential client as Findus. It was Ross.
  • Punted up a board director who, I think, spoke in English, but whose Indian accent was so strong that the managing director had to translate for him
  • Used a girl, chewing gum, in a mini-skirt, fishnets and high heels to present to six clients, all of whom were 40+ women
  • Threatened the client during the pitch concerning possible abuse of copyright and intellectual property
  • Went to the right office but was thirty minutes late
  • Arrived on time, but went to the wrong office
  • Arrived on time but had a managing director who had an enormous black eye owing to a punch-up in a pub the previous night
  • Had an agency MD who “fell out of a tree” the previous weekend, and didn’t turn up
  • All the concept boards were thrown away after the pitch, the account manager (me) forgetting it was a two stage process (Eastern Electricity Board)
  • In the days of 35mm slides and Kodak Carousel projectors, dropped the slides – all 120 of them. They were un-numbered and impossible to put back in their correct order in the time available. It was like Dunkirk without the boats
  • Wrote rude things about the clients on a notepad, and then left the notepad behind, which one of the clients picked up and read with interest. “Dickhead” was the key word (Old Saatchi and Saatchi)
  • Won the business but then had to resign it almost immediately when P&G complained to our head office in New York (IPG)
  • The agency team argued amongst themselves
  • The agency failed to tell the client that half the team didn’t actually work for the agency
  • The agency was too big and too intimidating. (The bastards. Why were we on the pitch if that was the problem?)
  • Another agency in the network (Italy) pitched before us and made a complete mess. They had neither told us what they were doing, neither had they asked for help. The clients didn’t turn up for our presentation

As Stephen states, we all have horror stories. Please share yours with us! Think of them as lessons learned. I could add to his list with stories like showing up without the presentation file, no backup file, and no hope; or perhaps the time the pitch team ignored my advice to fly into the city the night before thinking they could all catch the early morning flight and show up with plenty of time, only they didn’t. But I will leave you with one very painful lesson…

New Business Lesson: Stick to the Strategy

One Tough Teacher

New business is one tough teacher – you get the test first, the lessons afterward.

I was helping an agency overseas where the competition was really tough. The agency was invited into a highly-competitive shoot out with the best agencies in the country. We decided to win on strategy, not creative. We then tantalized the prospect with our strategic development process using Benefit Testing™, a key resource we move into agencies that don’t have a strong strategic process. We did this on the pre-presentation tour where we demonstrated how Benefit Testing™ worked. He was hooked. But at the last minute the creative director came up with a flash of inspiration built around a new line that was so perfect. There was only one problem, however: The new line was off strategy. The creative director convinced the agency owner to change everything at the last minute to the new line. The prospect, Body Copy™ to the core, spotted the mismatch, and in the midst of the presentation, stopped everything and demanded an answer. The agency had none. Later we found out our agency had won the account with the Benefit Testing™ process and all it needed to do was show up at the presentation and not make a mistake. That didn’t happen and the largest account in the country went to another agency. That one hurt.

 

Filed Under: New Business Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Not Getting New Business Calls? Focus!

April 10, 2012 By NewBusinessHawk
Stop waiting!

Be proactive! The alternative is to sit and wait passively by the phone. And wait. And wait…

Recently I was working with a great agency, around 15 people and some outstanding work. They were well known in their market, but had been defined in that market as a “certain type” of marketing firm. While there were many pitch opportunities in the area it seemed they were almost never called.

Why?

Over the past few years by not defining their brand they had allowed the market to brand them. And as their capabilities had grown, improved, they failed to communicate that with prospects. Even worst, the market perception was out-of-date and just plain wrong.

So here are 5 easy steps to help your brand stand out in the market:

1. Agency Focus: In this cluttered market place only an expert has any chance of standing out. Business leaders don’t have time to educate someone on their unique situation. An expert understands their product, their service, and knows how it can benefit customers. OR an expert knows their customer better then anyone. OR an expert has a unique view of the marketing landscape. Find something to be your area of expertise. Just being a “full service highly creative marketing firm that offers outstanding service” isn’t enough any more!

2. Make New Friends: We all now that people do business with people whom they like and trust. Choose to make a new friend over just creating a new business transaction. This will pay off in the long run.

3. Effectively Communicate: Establish yourself with your target market by creating a dialog on things that you have in common. You must be able to establish a relationship. With lots of people.

4. Find Opportunities To Speak: Become a speaker to your target market, and educate people on both the changes hitting their market as well as the challenges they face. Provide Solutions.

5. Use a Spark: Hire an Account Executive who is responsible for building agency awareness and creating large numbers of relationships with key prospects. This is the fastest way to build agency your agency brand with prospects. And that means more calls asking you to swing by for a visit. More new business.

There you go… 5 easy-to-forget strategies that can help you establish and maintain your brand in the mind of your ideal prospect. And just think, once they’ve heard of you, perhaps know you, and think you have some smart solutions then they will call you.

Next Steps

Agency leadership needs to build a long-term vision for success and gain commitment from staff to that vision. Any planning needs to ensure that agency teamwork, which is essential to making the vision successful, comes forth. Sanders Consulting Group, the recognized experts in agency growth, has proven techniques and strategies to transform your agency. Give us a call and let us show you how.

Photo by ~xEmDeex

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