How to Take a Summer Vacation from Agency New Business

CONTENTS:

1. How to Take a Summer Vacation from Agency New Business
2. Your Confidential Client List – It Can Get You Invited or Get You Tossed
3. The New Business Provocateurs – Your Head Must be Spinning
4.  Are You Being Deluged with E-mails from Uninvited Senders?

HOW TO TAKE A SUMMER VACATION FROM AGENCY NEW BUSINESS

Is it enough to say you’re earned it? The constant, continuing pressure to connect, to tell the agency story, to request an initial meeting and then-some. It’s a never-relenting series of organizations, prospect lists, calling, talking, cajoling, fake and real smiling and being sincere that sometimes leads to a face-to-face meeting. Some of you (making the calls) may be following the original “Spark/Torch” procedure where the Spark (caller) and Torch (Sr. AE) were meant to go together on that first meeting. Too often, the agency bastardized that model and only the Torch made the meeting. So the client’s first question was – “Where’s Sharon (Spark)? Torch says – She’s back at the agency – Prospect says – what is this, bait & switch? The lesson here – don’t play tricky games.

So how about enough already … Stop the grind and let me get off! If you’re a commission-only employee (I hope not) then vacation pay isn’t part of the deal. If you get it, thank God. But regardless, the grind will get the best of you down. It’s summer and clients too are looking for a break. Since there is no really good time, check with your family and plan a vacation. Try 2 weeks but one week at a time. That way you won’t likely miss anything. If you bring your cellphone, emergencies only and don’t check e-mail. Your office should be instructed to call if something is critical.

Have fun and write me – when you get back!

YOUR CONFIDENTIAL CLIENT LIST – IT CAN GET YOU INVITED OR GET YOU TOSSED

Have you given any thought to how we or clients use your confidential client list? For starters, clients never see it; it’s strictly for our use. Stay with me and you’ll learn why it’s not optional that you keep that list complete and up-to-date.

Clients make the first pass on a Search. After they register and select their desired agency attributes, we see their results and call to interview them by phone. We’ll make adjustments to what they did based on what they tell us. That generally surfaces additional candidates with some better matches. We take control of their search and continue to fine-tune until we narrow to a manageable collection of 30 or so. In most cases, that still is too many. To cut that group to something we can invite, we now check to confirm you and the other agencies have worked with clients in the vertical markets you’ve claimed in the upper section (Fields Served). By exaggerated example, let’s say you checked Industrial Equipment – light. Now we spend time on your website. We’ll check your client list there and may find nothing but fashion accounts. But before that turns the tide, we look to your confidential client list with us. If that too is nothing but fashion, we drop your firm from consideration and contention. End of story!

Moral of the story – keep your client list current, complete and up-to-date.

THE NEW BUSINESS PROVOCATEURS – YOUR HEAD MUST BE SPINNING

In the good old days (not sure when that was) there weren’t many “new business services” agencies could use to help them at new business prospecting or business development. Just now I Googled “tools for agency business development” and found more than a few:

11 Must Have Ad Agency Business Development Tools 
Top 5 Free Marketing Tools for Growing Agency New Business
2016 trends for advertising agency business development
The Guide to New Business Tools for Agencies
New Research Reveals the Top New Business Development Tools
Study: 12 Tools That Most Ad Agencies Use for New Business 
Top 50 Tools to Run and Scale Your Ad Agency
5 Prospecting Tools Your Ad Agency Needs Now
Business Development Best Practice 
Agency New Business Tools Archives
Agency Business Development Websites

In many respects, it could take months to decipher the offerings, then to examine, test, try, install and debug your choice. I’m forever grateful we’re now on the end of delivering high-quality, pre-qualified prospects to some of our perfect-fit agencies. Be sure to get your share.

ARE YOU BEING DELUGED WITH E-MAILS FROM UNINVITED SENDERS?

Are you experiencing what we are?  An onslaught of new uninvited e-mail “senders” – businesses who apparently think we would be interested in new services and new products far from our realm of interest. I particularly hate the chatty first-person intros – “Hi Chuck, since you are doing this and we are selling that, let’s get together!” I’ve taken to devoting Friday afternoon to conducting a “remove” campaign on all those – hoping that at least some will never return.

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