How-To Business Development for 2013
1. How-To Business Development for 2013
2. AgencyFinder is a “Club” for New Business Professionals – Now On Sale!
3. You’ve Got a Powerful New Business Tool – Be Sure to Use It!
HOW-TO BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FOR 2013
If you’ve been sitting in your new business chair for more than a few years, you know agency business development is cyclic. There’s a sine wave to it; gigantic peaks coupled with bottomless valleys. This year and particularly the last few months, after elections and heading to the fiscal cliff, it’s been hard to find much optimism and the valleys are back. Avoid letting your agency drop into one.
First, eliminate simple inefficiencies. In good times, maybe you can afford to let an errant agency telephone-answerer blow off a call from a prospect, but not now. So test your system. Ask a trusted friend to make a shill call as a prospect. Have them call your agency and introduce themselves with this line: Were looking to hire an agency; who can I speak with at your firm about that? See how polite, efficient, accommodating and helpful your gate keepers really are. Have your friend get names and take notes. If all goes well, they can reveal their assignment to the ultimate recipient, and that they scored well. If it didn’t go well, let your agency management address the transgressors but get things fixed.
Second, prospects that telephone don’t generally know who to ask for. Adjust your voice-mail system to answer like this: Thanks for calling AgencyWinner.com; we appreciate your call. If you’re looking for a new or replacement agency, dial 911. Only after that announcement, continue with the conventional -If you know the name or extension of the party you’re trying to reach, you can dial that now. Have 911 programmed to reach out to a series of prepared and rehearsed sales people. (if the word sales offends you, sorry)
Third, pay close attention and handle any inbound inquiry with kid gloves. Pay ten-times more attention to an AgencyFinder introduction. In both cases, you’ve probably done very little in a pro-active sense to generate that call, so do not overlook this “bluebird” – someone you did not have to mail to, telephone or even stalk to get them to reach out to you.
Fourth, install as many affordable and manageable outreach systems as you can to reach out to qualified prospects. Run them regularly and religiously. Use legitimate lead sources like Hoover’s; avoid like the plague the spurious e-mail list brokers (love to hear of any legitimate vendors). There’s much to be said for the USPS.
Fifth, subscribe to and install select inbound lead generation and introduction services that work. There aren’t many to begin with, and AgencyFinder was the industry’s first.
Finally, review these suggestions and above all, avoid falling into any valleys. You don’t want to have to turn on, crank up, dust-off your long-abandoned, seldom-used outreach system and find yourself battling head-to-head with agencies that never dropped their guard!
AGENCYFINDER IS A “CLUB” FOR NEW BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS – NOW ON SALE!
We’ve always been a service for new business pros. With that assigned job responsibility, you’ll appreciate the power and precision of our process and how we go about conducting a proper agency search. Viewed from the agency perspective but from that of the client as well, we’re often called the e-Harmony or Match.com of the advertising industry.
You’ll appreciate our affordable $500 registration fee that activates your profile; gets you unlimited invitations and client introductions so you can hold your “due-diligence” phone interview to evaluate the opportunity. All that for just $500. NOW ON SALE! Register or renew before February 28, 2013 and get 2-years (24-months) at that level for the price of one. If you like that option, you might also favor our Budget Option. Saves you $1,000!
Study your options here: https://www.agencyfinder.com/agencies/north-american-subscription-plan/
YOU’VE GOT A POWERFUL NEW BUSINESS TOOL – BE SURE TO USE IT!
When offered, would you rather meet the prospect for the first time at their business or your agency? Anyone who has tried both will tell you the agency visit coupled with an agency tour is the killer. For that reason, each and every client using our service is repeatedly encouraged to embrace the virtues of conducting agency site visits and tours as part of the process to identify their finalists. Don’t be bashful about making the pitch yourself. On a recent food service win, the winning agency fought hard to convince the client to visit their shop. To hear it told, apparently the client was expecting a more traditional agency layout, only to be pleasantly surprised and a bit overwhelmed to discover this agency had audio, video and print production facilities above and beyond the norm. Although not needed for initial steps in the relationship, the presence of those facilities bode well going forward and influencing the award decision.
Here are some tour tips. Your tour is best orchestrated to move from station to station as much as possible like a job moves through your agency. Many of our agency students have built a tour outline that suggests a route that follows the production of a magazine ad. Begin your tour where the ideas begin; then move forward to whatever constitutes the next step. Its only natural to introduce the players at each station and a perfect nvironment in which to discuss that technology or agency strength. If you’re actually using a mock ad and having it unfold as you progress, you have a perfect opportunity to seek input from your visitors. What they say and how they answer will reveal decision-makers among the visitors and preferences you can use to your advantage later when you really start pitching!
Save your conference room for last let that serve to field last-minute questions, re-affirmations, and your chance to ask closing questions. Make sure to learn what the client sees as next steps. And be certain YOUR AGENCY is involved in those next steps!
