I would love to start off this blog on a positive note, but the fact is every day I speak with agency execs that are struggling to come up with any form of successful outbound prospecting efforts.  

Typically, I hear “We tried it, it doesn’t work, so we stopped trying”.  It’s painful to hear their frustration knowing that, most likely, there isn’t just one factor holding back their outbound success, there are a host of issues.  

After a decade and a half of outbound prospecting, here’s the most common mix of issues that I’ve seen plaguing agencies today:

1. You’re not doing it enough

One outbound email DOES NOT equate to an outbound campaign.  It was one email, that’s it. When was the last time you replied to the very first inquiry from a possible partner?  Sure, sometimes it happens, but the fact still remains that it typically takes anywhere from 8-11 touch points to take a cold prospect from totally cold to a needs analysis conversation.  If you are going to hit 11 touchpoints, you better have a consistent outreach strategy and understand that some of those emails, voicemails, and social touch points are simply set up pieces for other touch points down the road.  

Real life example:  While working for a digital client previously one of our reps had a cadence of 2 emails, 1 call, 1 email, 1 social intro, 1 email, and then 1 call.  Turns out, that 2nd call caught their attention, why?  Because they’ve been buried with a new product launch for 2 months and while they noticed our outreach, they just weren’t in a place to respond.  Because our rep stayed on it with value-driven touch points, the 7th touch and 2nd call were answered, recognized, and lead to a great conversation and six months later a piece of new business. You can’t stop at just one touch point.

2. You’re not contacting enough people:

Too often when starting with a new client they share with us a spreadsheet of their current targets list.  It’s almost always an excel document and it’s almost always way too short. Like 15 prospects deep with a bunch of info about each one of those prospects, with no real results from them.  The fact is, if you were to build a list based on the factors that make those companies a “Right to Win” target, then you can probably run that list in a platform like Winmo and find hundreds of other prospects just like them. There’s a huge ocean of opportunity out there that even if you stay highly targeted by company type, size, vertical, region, etc, there is most likely more prospects than you think that you can win.  If the average conversion rate of a cold prospect is around 5%, you better have a bigger starting number to go after in order to produce enough meetings that will eventually turn into revenue opportunities.

Real life example:  A regional PR group I recently worked with had decided that Atlanta was the only place that they had a “Right to Win” because prospects would want someone close by.  We began expanding that list beyond the Atlanta area and created a South East regional list that did increase the distance from their prospects, but allowed them to still tell a compelling, identifiable story about their southern roots and how they are best positioned to work with those brands.  

3. You’re only talking about yourself

An absolute conversation killer is an ability to ONLY talk about yourself or your agency.  Too often we see copy coming from new business folks that only talk about their agency and the services they provide. News flash – prospects are selfish. They don’t want to hear about your agency, they want to hear about themselves. New business teams need to work to find the types of problems their prospects are running into that they can solve for them and then talk to them about those problems in every email, voicemail, or social post. There’s plenty of time for your prospects to learn about your agency later, for now, let’s get them in the door by shining a mirror on them and their issues.

Real life example: A digital shop in NY I worked with had recently won two awards for a project.  They (rightfully so) were proud of that work and wanted to show it off. They created a cadence of three visual emails that talked about the award they won and then showed different pieces from the work.  What they didn’t do was explain why the work was needed in the first place. If they had shown that the work solved a particular social media issue then it would have been easier for prospects to identify with themselves that they have that same problem, and the campaign would have been much more successful.

4. You’re only using one communication channel:

Email is not a silver bullet.  Cold calling doesn’t work in a vacuum.  And Social Media is not meant to be used all alone. Every prospect you want to work with is constantly living in different social spaces and each one has very different feelings on those different communication platforms.  We, as new biz people, never know exactly which communication channel is going to hit home with any individual prospect so don’t limit your prospect pool and outreach by only using one channel. Sometimes a prospect just needs to see you in multiple places before they respond. Taking a multiple channel approach shows that you’re a real person, and not a bot mindlessly spamming their inbox.

Real life example:  We recently took over the new business for an experiential firm out west that was only promoting themselves through LinkedIn. The problem is that the higher level contacts that they were aiming for just weren’t responding to their promoted ads. We took those posts and began sending direct messages through email, voicemail, and then a physical direct mail piece.  Within two months, we had received three opportunities to pitch with prospects that they had been targeting for years. Different channels breakthrough to different people.

5. You’re missing the right person to run your program:

I’m not saying your new business person is bad at their job (though maybe they are). What am I saying is that if you don’t have someone whose job is exclusively, 100% concentrate on generating new business opportunities, then it’s never going to be a successful effort in the long term.  You may have wins here and there, but in order to create something repeatable and scalable, you have to have focus.  That means the agency Principal can’t be the only person prospecting. It also means you can’t have every Account Manager only giving it 20% of their time.  You need someone who spends every day hunting for opportunities, promoting the brand with vendors, networking with current clients, and touching their outer networks with valuable content.  If you can’t do this with all your focus, then you are always going to find yourself trying to play catch up whenever you have any client turnover.

Real life example: A client of ours in Boston had a New Business Director that also moonlighted as an Account Manager.  This person was outstanding at generating new business when they had the opportunity to speak with prospects, but they spent all of their time between two-time consuming tasks – filling out RFPs or handling client fires. We came on board, put a person in place to spend their full time prospecting for this individual and convinced the agency President to hire another Account Manager to take this person’s work over. We immediately saw an increase in referrals as they were able to concentrate on proactively growing their network, while we proactively prospected new clients. Focus changes everything.

These five problems are painful to hear, I know, but that’s probably because the truth hurts. If any of these issues resonate with you, it’s time to do something different. If you are ready to grow your new business and have more qualified meetings starting this month, give Catapult a call today.

This year was my 5th consecutive year attending the Ad Age Small Agency Awards. Since my first experience in 2014 in Austin, it’s consistently been one of my favorite conferences of the year. Part of the draw is the intimacy, like when I joined the Small Agency of the Year Silver Winner, Proof, at their private bar in downtown Austin. (Isn’t that part of every founder’s dream in starting an agency?!)

Each year, I genuinely enjoy celebrating those that take a risk, build a team, and create phenomenal work. Additionally, the curated perspective and insights with which I walk away make the conference an even more valuable investment.

The Three Most Important Takeaways From the 2018 Ad Age Small Agency Conference and Awards:

1. Making it to that stage requires years of hard work:

This year’s conference award recipients were refreshingly honest about the work involved in building a small agency. Not a single speaker, panelist, or awarded principal made their journey sound easy. It’s a big risk venturing out, being “small”, and remaining independent. Brands likely aren’t beating down your door, there are challenges in retaining top talent, and, ultimately, you’re responsible for closing the clients that will move you forward. But the Small Agency Awards is a reminder of the incredible success stories! When strategic planning, passion, and perseverance collide, great things happen.

2. Get off your island and begin to congregate:

The Small Agency Awards especially showcased the importance of congregating. It’s not about commiserating together, but instead, getting off your “island” and finding inspiration and leadership insights. It’s invaluable to spend time connecting with other agency principals that are wearing the same shoes as you. Additionally, the Ad Age team develops relevant content and programming to facilitate growth, learning conversations, and insight that will bring a new dynamic to your agency.

3. Winning the right client is everything:  

What I recognized during the award ceremony is that agencies don’t win awards on their own; it takes the right kind of client to “win.” That doesn’t mean you have to be awarded, but winning is a successful engagement with the client. You can’t innovate with a conservative client. It’s hard to go viral with a client that wants to do it the way it’s always been done. Ambitious agencies require ambitious clients – in order to facilitate effective work, to challenge your team, and to maintain a healthy client/agency relationship.

What It Really Takes to Win The Right Clients: An Ad Age Small Agency Conference Case Study

This year, Erica Fite and Katie Keating of Fancy NYC not only talked about sex from the stage, they also shared their tenacious journey of pursuing (including a ride-along to sex shops in the midwest) and ultimately winning their dream client. I had the opportunity to sit down with them the next day and pick their brains regarding how they want to grow the agency. They conveyed that managing new client growth themselves is not sustainable. In order to grow, the way they want to grow, with the clients they know they need to take them there, it requires dedicated strategy and resources committed to finding, courting, and winning new clients.

If you’re a small agency owner or executive, cheers to you. When it’s hard, remember why you started your shop and what you chose to leave. Build your network. Even if you can’t attend conferences, find a network of agency principals with whom you can grow. And make the investment in your agency’s success. Don’t hope that the client that will put you on the podium will walk into your office. Proactively commit to the strategy and resources that will expose your talent to the brands you set out to work with.

Be your best, invest where it matters, and the work will follow.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Content marketing and thought leadership continue to be hot buzzwords. But, the market is flooded with blogs, white papers and infographics. Is any of this leading to new business for agencies?

It’s impossible to keep up with all of the webinar invitations, trend reports and industry news. With so much content out there today, yours needs to do more than simply demonstrate that you’re “smart.”

Consider this maxim: Your thought leadership should be so valuable to your dream client, that they’d pay for it. If it’s not, it shouldn’t be out there.

The only difference between $1 and $100 is the message on the paper.

To capture and hold the attention of your dream clients, your content needs to share new insights from your agency’s unique point of view. Agencies with this content strategy are dramatically more likely to breakthrough, get meetings and win more new business.

Standing Out in a Content Crowd

The overuse of thought leadership as a marketing tool has created a real challenge for driving agency new business. Today, everyone is publishing and distributing content.

With such a strong belief in the need for content, agencies are falling into a trap. They’re regurgitating material that was already done … and often done well … by a competitor. What’s needed to stand out among thousands of agencies is to be a true thought leader, not a thought follower.

For agency new business, the challenge is figuring out how to stand out from among thousands of agencies.

Here is a scenario playing out among agency principals today:

We’re great at what we do, but we’re struggling to get that message in front of our dream clients.

Our emails and calls are going unanswered. Our website traffic hasn’t moved. We need more meetings, and we need them fast.

We’re producing thought leadership, but it’s not resulting in meetings or new business. We thought content marketing would lead to more inbound leads, but it’s merely been a few nibbles from unqualified prospects.

Why are we spending all this time and money on the creation and distribution of thought leadership if we’re not getting any results? It’s frustrating. It isn’t worth it unless we start getting a better return.

If we don’t start winning business, we might not make payroll, may need to downsize the staff or, even worse, close the agency. At a minimum, the outcome could be embarrassing. At worse, it could be a disaster.

Thought Leadership or Thought Follower?

Playing it safe does nothing to differentiate or create a meaningful competitive advantage.

The data backs it up. According to Forrester Research, 82 percent of buyers have viewed at least five pieces of content from a winning vendor. Among buyers, 74 percent select the sales rep that demonstrated insight and brought value.

Look at it from the buyer’s perspective. There’s lots of content written by experienced, smart and insightful experts. There’s a lot less time to consume it and react to it. Reading content that’s not truly insightful is underwhelming and feels like time wasted.

It’s no longer good enough to just have content. The successful agency’s thought leadership must provide new insight from a unique point of view.

That POV needs to be through a brand-driven lens through which all communications – particularly content – is delivered. The POV must reinforce the agency’s story in the marketplace and through its thought leadership. An agency’s content strategy has to align with its brand strategy. It needs to provide a roadmap for creating thought leadership that others are not providing.

Sharing new insights from your agency’s point of view is what differentiates between thought leadership and thought followship.

Avoiding the ‘Me Too’

New business is essential for economic viability of agencies. For professional services firms, thought leadership is one of the most powerful approaches to new business.

Yet content often fails to deliver. Why?

• A lack of understanding about the intended audience
• Failure to distribute content to the desired audience
• Content lacks value via new insight from a unique POV.

Content that reproduces from another thought leader means the agency is saying “me too” instead of “me first.” It hinders an agency’s ability to differentiate or be seen as an authority.

That said, there is a place for calculated re-purposing, but only if it offers new interpretations, better insights and stronger solutions.

A Case Study

While working at Catapult, a client believed it was doing everything right. Experts within the agency were writing industry-specific content regularly. The website was robust. There was a targeted list of prospects, a CRM, marketing automation and people, including me, picking up the phone and sending emails.

But the thought leadership was not moving the needle. The few responses often were, “Thanks for sharing, no questions,” “Not interested” or “Appreciate you sending, but we’re already doing much of this.”

It became clear the content wasn’t adding enough value to their dream clients. The thought leadership was not sharing new insights from the agency’s POV.

While the agency had experts and a unique POV, in the haste to produce quantity, the content lost quality and value.

After some soul searching the agency started producing less content, but going deeper and sharing new insights from a point of differentiation.

Almost immediately, the dynamics changed. Dream clients were eager to meet and new business was soon thereafter won.

Are You Really a Thought Leader?

Evaluate your content to decide whether it’s thought leadership. Does it meet the following?

Trait #1: It provides true insight.

Your content should add to what’s in the public domain. It needs to enrich an understanding and influence behavior. Does your content help people see things differently, provide new solutions, or find new opportunities?

Trait #2: It reframes.

Thought leadership gives the audience something to think about. It helps readers learn, seek information, and challenge accepted presumptions. It embraces new approaches. It shows your agency’s unique point of view.

Trait #3: It’s credible.

Thought leadership content needs validation. There needs to be evidence about how it was discovered, who discovered it and whether it’s been independently verified. Insights today can have short lifespans, so you need to confirm that the insights remain relevant.

Trait #4: It’s forward-looking.

Thought leadership must look forward. Good thought leadership does more than inform. It frames an idea, provides foresight and is bold. That notion can be risky because it means taking a stand and pronouncing that stand. But that’s the difference between leading and following.

What Happens Next

If your agency takes a bold approach to thought leadership, you’ll see results. You’ll feel back in control. Confident. It will lead to more meetings. And the dynamics of your meetings will change. Instead of selling, you’ll be teaching. You’ll be viewed as the expert that you are. You’ll close more business with your dream clients.

Does your marketing content pass the test? Before you publish your next thought leadership, honestly ask yourself, if you didn’t already have this information, would you have paid for it?

5 Key Points to Warm Up your Cold Emails

Most people shy away from sending cold emails to strangers because it feels a little spammy, and it can feel awkward at first. This is a crucial component in an outbound program though, and if you learn how to take a cold stranger and turn that relationship into a client, then there really isn’t anything you can’t take on. One challenge we consistently see is getting started with outbound. Whether you’re new to this process or a veteran, we have some key points that will give your cold emails a personal feel.

Crafting an engaging outbound email always starts with understanding who you’re emailing and what value you can bring to them. We’ve drafted thousands of emails for our clients, our sales directors, and for our internal teams, and you’ll never feel like you’re spamming someone if you take the time to understand them first, making the first step in our list of best practices for cold emailing:

1. Understanding your prospect

Matt Chollet talks about the importance of expanding and segmenting your target audience, and the key takeaway from his article is to realize the size of your prospect list and where you have direct experience (either by vertical/industry or capability). If you’re doing targeted, personalized outreach, a smaller list size (under 500 prospects) makes sense, and you’ll want to employ a niche audience that targets the key decision makers in a personalized way. However, if you’re needing something more efficient yet effective, you’ll want to start with a list size at about 1,000 prospects, including both decision makers and influencers. So when identifying your prospect’s needs it will have to be broad and relevant to multiple people within a company.

These prospects should include companies you have a Right to Win. What business problem do you help your client’s solve? What will happen if they don’t solve this problem? How do I show that I’ve solved this problem for other companies? These questions are crucial to ask before doing any kind of cold prospecting, but once you’ve answered them, you’re ready to craft your first mass email.

The subject line is the first thing prospects will see, but don’t overthink it. What we’ve found is that less sales-y, more “boring” subject lines typically receive higher engagement and responses, and really, people just want to know what you want from them and why they should care to listen. A few high performing examples from Catapult’s vault:

• Interested in an agency partnership? (30% opens)
• {firstName} – Quick Call? (36% opens)
• Re: [name of well known brand and campaign] video (71% opens)

Each subject line above told the recipient what they could expect from opening the email. Bringing us to the next step, writing your email copy.

2. Begin with the trigger

A majority of high performing emails we’ve drafted have a solid trigger that answered the question what problem or challenge keeps our prospects from hitting their desired results? And then tied this answer back into how their agency can solve this problem, using it as a value proposition statement in an email.

Here is an example of how we did this for a northeastern agency who wanted to find an opportunity to partner with another agency.

• Audience: Agencies
• Trigger: Bandwidth to complete a client’s project on time and within budget
• Subject Line: Interested in an agency partnership? (30% opens)
• Value Statement: We collaborate with agencies like yours to supplement their team, offer new capabilities for their clients or to just help on one-off projects with a tight turnaround.

Sometimes our clients just have stellar work that can do most of the heavy lifting, so in these cases, we’ll tee up the trigger and back up our value with results rather than a statement. This is an example of an agency that had a compelling case study with a very well known brand that shows results instead of using a value statement.

• Audience: Consumer Packaged Goods
• Trigger: The need for engagement from advertising campaigns, not just impressions
• Subject Line: Re: [name of well known brand and campaign] video (71% opens)
• Value Statement: I’m with [Agency], and we’ve worked with brands like [brand names] to help bridge the gap between a brand’s story and engagement. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t come down to how many impressions you received, it’s about how many people paid attention. We have some exceptional work we can share with you, including [brand name]. Highlights from this campaign: [show results]

3. Give them proof to believe in what you’re selling

There are several tactics we can take in an email as long as we know our prospect’s trigger, the value you bring, and lastly, we have proof. This “proof” should demonstrate value, and can take the form of a blog, a whitepaper, case study, or webinar. Basically, it’s content and it should not only provide value at each stage of your prospect’s decision making journey, but show your prospect’s they have a reason to believe in what you’re selling.

Using content in an outbound program is a little different than how we’d use it in an inbound program. This is because we’re using content as a tool to validate what we’re selling. So how do you tee up this content in your email? Something as simple as “You can check out our work here, and when you have a moment, I’d like to find a time to connect” can get you a 5% click through rate.

We see a lot of our clients trip up over these simple phrases because as a marketer we’re used to seeing a CTA button, driving a prospect back to your website and (fingers crossed) completing a form to tell us that they want our solution. In outbound, we want a conversation with you to be the first step in finding their solution, and cut out all the extra steps. You’re the resource, not your website.

4. Make them want more

Ultimately, these emails are just one touch point along your prospect’s buying journey, and you always need to plan for what happens after you get a response. We’ve used a couple of different tactics in our emails to help lead to that next conversation.

Using a line like this can help position you as a resource vs a salesperson: “I’ve outlined [topic of content], which touches on what we’ve seen companies face over and over, [the trigger]. When you’re ready [to do some of the things I mentioned in my content], I would like the opportunity to share some of our best practices and processes.”

This puts you in a position to talk about how you can help them achieve their results by doing the solution you’ve prescribed, and takes the value from that content one step further, putting you as a resource. Once you’ve offered something of value, then you’re ready for the ask.

5. The Ask

In an outbound email, the ask is an important line that is relatively simple yet so many emails fall short. You should still find a way in this last line to demonstrate that you’re here to provide value. Sometimes, this can be as simple as asking, “would you find value in having a conversation about [agency capabilities]?”.

At the end of the day, who would want to take time out of their day unless it benefits themselves somehow? A few key takeaways for your ask:

• Never assume your prospect has time for you “next week,” “on a specific date,” or “tomorrow”. The initial ask for their availability should be a little more open ended. Once you’ve received a response indicating some interest on their end, you can give them a specific time.
• Always try to let your prospect know what they can expect from talking with you. What will you provide in this meeting that the prospect will find valuable?
• Don’t be too pushy. This first conversation is an introduction, and not just for your prospect, but for you too. You have no idea who this person is and how their team operates. They might actually turn out to be a bad fit for your agency.
• But don’t be too shy either. You can absolutely ask pointed questions about their pain points, and offer to have a quick conversation about your solution. Don’t leave your prospect questioning what happens next?

Based on the stats we’ve seen, outbound emails can vastly outperform a marketing, opted-in email any day. According to Mail Chimp the average open rate for opted-in email marketing campaigns are between 20-22%, and click through rates are around 2%.

At Catapult New Business, our team uses a method to break through a crowded inbox and generate conversations with cold prospects. Christian Banach, Catapult’s Group Account Director, discusses how to craft a personalized, cold email in an earlier post. But if you’re like many of our clients, you wear multiple hats, and you don’t have the same amount of time as a dedicated new business director to craft personalized emails for each individual on your prospect list.

There are still effective approaches to sending mass, cold emails that receive engagement and responses from your prospects, saving you time and getting you one step closer to winning new business. We send thousands of emails through multiple marketing and sales automation platforms from SalesLoft to Act-On and HubSpot. If you’d like to add outbound as part of your new business mix, having a partner who understands the nuances of running this program can help you succeed.

One overlooked business development skill is: leaving a voicemail. Without effective voicemails, you’re going to get fewer callbacks, fewer email responses, and fewer meetings.

Without a steady stream of meetings, your agency’s new business program will suffer. When the pipeline dries, it leads to less-predictable revenue and an increasing reliance on the unpredictable referral.

As an agency principal, this lack of predictability can cause other problems, as you find yourself on defense diagnosing problems rather than on offense winning new business from dream clients.

Exercise in Futility

At one point in my career, I was leaving hundreds of voicemails each week for CMOs, VPs, brand managers and marketing directors. The results? Zero callbacks.

I was discouraged. I even thought I would stop leaving voicemails altogether.

Then I got one. A terrible voicemail from a sales rep.

It was long. It felt impersonal and random. I had no idea who they were or why they wanted to talk to me. I thought to myself, “Why would I even think about calling this person back?”

I realized the voicemail I received was just like the babble I had been leaving my prospects.

A New Approach to Voicemail Leads to Better Results

What do you want your agency’s voicemails to do? There are three key takeaways—these are related to your positioning—prospects must walk away with after listening to your voicemail:

• Who you are
• Why you’re contacting them
• What value you bring

Research shows that the most effective voicemails are 30 seconds or less. How do you get all of this across in 30-seconds? By focusing only on critical information that’s delivered in a specific order and prompts your dream client to action.

That bad voicemail I received? I took it apart and reverse-engineered it.

Doing so led me to develop 5 essential elements you need in your voicemails to get callbacks and meetings.

1. Greeting
2. Event Trigger
3. WIIFM
4. Action
5. Valediction

Here’s a closer look at the five essential elements and how to use them to craft a great voicemail.

1. Greeting

State the prospect’s first name, your name, your agency’s name and, critically, the type of agency you are. Be clear about this last point. Like it or not, the prospect will be putting you in a “box,” so you might as well make sure they put you in the right one.

2. Event Trigger

The Trigger lets a prospect know why you’re contacting them, and why now. It gives the prospect context and relevant reason for your call.

Relevance is key here and is framed by the pre-call research you’ve done about the industry, company and prospect. Here is where you let the prospect know that you did your homework, by sharing relevant information that is salient to the prospect.

Timeliness is important. Consider tying in recent events, news or insights, such as their CEO’s statement during an earnings call, a quote by the prospect in a trade journal or a report by an industry analyst.

3. WIIFM

WIIFM answers the “what value you bring” question. It introduces the value and why that value might be of interest to the prospect.

How do you accomplish this? By stating how you can help a prospect by offering immediate and clear value.

For the prospect, it also answers the question, “What’s in it for me?”

Demonstrating this value can take several forms, including:

• Sharing proprietary insights that are relevant to the prospect
• Showing results your agency achieved with a similar client
• Offering a case study that shows how you’ve solved a challenge the prospect is facing

Let’s look a little closer at value. Remember, at this point, you are not selling agency services. You’re offering to provide value.

What will the prospect find valuable in a sea of generic cold-call voicemails? A partner who can have a thoughtful, helpful and solutions-focused conversation about a challenge.

Focus on the value you add to the prospect’s business. You want to express your expertise, insights and solutions for the prospect’s pain point. Show how you will make his or her life easier.

4. Action

What you ask for in the call is important. This voicemail is not trying to close a deal; it’s trying to start one.

Here are tips for two types of calls to action you can seek in your voicemail. Keep in mind, your message should have only one intended action.

1. A Callback. Don’t ask for a meeting, yet. Ask for a callback to discuss the value you have offered to provide.
2. Drive to Email. Let the voicemail act as a humanizing touch point to an email you are sending. In a cluttered inbox, this voicemail will help your email stand out. The email can provide more details and ask for the call or a meeting.

5. Valediction

Since birth, our names have been tied to our existences. We are our names. When people say our name, we feel recognized and noticed.

Throughout the voicemail, use the prospect’s name often, including at the beginning, the middle and here at the end. People pay attention when their name is mentioned. Remember, you want your voicemail to be personalized, and that means the prospect’s name, too.

Make sure to give your name and your agency’s name again. And if your action is a callback, leave your phone number – twice.

Getting Started

With a good voicemail that follows these five essentials, you’ll see better results. This is the format I follow on every voicemail I leave and it’s led to millions of dollars of new business wins over my sales career.

Be sure you do not include “salesy” language or agency buzzwords. Build in strategic silent pauses and vary the tempo of your delivery.

Make sure you have the right equipment and preparation. Be hydrated and have a clear throat before calling. Invest in a good headset. Be careful with your accent and phrasing.

Practice and speak with authority, knowing you have made a quick and powerful impact with valuable insights, structured in the right way, to land more business from dream clients.

Better voicemails will lead to more meetings and more closed new business. Your time will be spent in the right place—on offense—and revenue will be more predictable … and grow.

Do you know the difference in good and bad content for new business? More importantly, can your team create useful content for new business? In this month’s webinar, Matt Chollet from Catapult New Business and John Heenan from #LetsGrow! will be walking you through the common mistakes and best practices of agency new business content.

It’s OK to be different.  When it comes to your agency’s new business program, differentiated positioning is the foundation.

Given the near-demise of the Agency of Record concept, differentiation has never been more critical. Today, clients work with a network of agencies they can draw on, assigning work on a project-by-project basis that plays to strengths. Singular relationships (and the retainers agencies long enjoyed) are practically extinct.

One of the first things I’m usually asked when I first speak with prospects is, “What makes you different from my current agencies?”

If you can’t articulate concisely and clearly what you do, for whom you do it and how, your agency new business program is dead in the water.

 

Standing Out in the Crowd

Today, you really need to stand out. According to Ibis World, there are more than 66,000 advertising agencies in the United States. Most of these agencies look and sound the same. Their pitches also look and sound the same:

• Full service
• Collaborative
• Wide range of experience
• Committed to our clients
• Customize our services
• Results driven
• Our clients are our partners

If you see phrases like “wide range” or “full service” in a brand statement, it’s usually a sign the agency has been unable or unwilling to name what it stands for.

Economists would call the market for agencies “perfectly competitive,” with low barriers to entry and products and services that are all too easy to copy.

Too many agencies are fearful that a narrow focus feels small. Consequently, they are unwilling to plant a stake in the ground that says: “This is what we stand for” because they fear missing out on business.

Firms compensate by saying their work is better than that at other firms, and that that’s what makes them different.But simply being better isn’t different. Only different is different.

 

Positioning Creates Value for Potential Clients

Your firm exists to create value for clients. Positioning is how you articulate that value to clients. Brands sell themselves based on the perceived value, not the costs. But the ever-popular refrain, “We’re creative” is not a credible statement for value-creation.

Positioning is the way to approach prospecting strategy. That means focusing your firm not on a wide approach but on specific markets where you can create uncontested value. Think of this space as the “blue ocean” where no one else is sailing. With today’s multi-agency model, clients want best-of-breed agencies. Think of it this way. If your child was experiencing an irregular heartbeat, would you feel better taking them to a general practitioner or would you seek out a cardiac specialist?

Today’s most interesting and powerful brands are at the edges because they’re doing different things and doing them differently. It may feel like common sense to play in the middle, but it’s actually the least desirable place to be. Safe doesn’t cut it.

 

Placing the Value Proposition

Your value proposition for agency new business should sit at the crossroads of relevance and differentiation.

Your work needs to be highly relevant to your dream client to meet a need, whether it’s a certain audience, a platform, a style, a technology, or an approach. You can then establish your position within that nuanced space and show how your agency is different than all the others.

For your agency to be profitable, you need to position yourself not just for where the profits are, but for where the profits will be. Your value proposition will produce the most profit when you select a place on the value chain where the offerings are still scarce and underdeveloped.

For an agency used to being a generalist, this isn’t always easy. Positioning means deciding not only what business you’re in, but what business you’re not in.

If you’re still skeptical about the value of positioning, consider the impact it makes in three critical areas:

• Sales Advantage. By choosing when and where to compete, you gain a real advantage in those sectors. You’ll win more often.
• Price Premium. Positioned as a true expert in certain spaces means you can charge more for the privilege of working with you.
• Control. Positioning gives the agency more ability to guide the engagement. Clients are buying the expertise as much as if not more than the service.

Finding the Position

What differentiates an agency from the competition?

Not personality. Not process. Not price.

Expertise.

It is expertise and expertise alone that will set an agency apart in a meaningful way. Expertise allows the agency to interact with clients and prospects from a position of power and knowledge.

How do you determine that expertise? Begin by asking yourself these questions. The answers to these questions will help create a position statement that should concisely articulate the following:

What do we do?

• What are we selling?
• Where are we excellent?
• What are our outcomes?
• Where are we best in class?

Who do we it for?

• Audience types
• Clients
• Industries
• Who is our ideal client?

How do we do it?

• Attitudes
• Philosophies or point of view

Why do we it?

• Purpose (Ask if your purpose transcends money.)
• What motivates us

It’s important at this stage to focus on substance first and style later. Don’t fall into the trap of worrying about “how to say it.”

 

Showing Results

Services that can command the absolute highest prices are those that the client could never duplicate, no matter how much time and money is thrown at the issue. That’s where differentiation is powerful.

With a clear strategy that makes it obvious that you stand for something, not everything, you’ll stop chasing business and start having business chase you.

You’ll find staff more energized with a more resonant articulation of what makes the agency unique. Their pitches and presentations will be more compelling, delivered with more confidence and conviction.

By playing to these strengths, you’ll see a stronger win ratio. This differentiation will also help align your sales and marketing in a unified approach to themes, messaging and consistency.

 

Where to Start

Before you begin taking the steps outlined here, it is wise to take step back … way back … and take a good hard look at your current positioning. Ask yourself the following:

• Does your value proposition feel authentic?
• Does it make your agency innately and intensely appealing?
• Does it have strong barriers to entry?
• Is it hard to find an exact substitute?
• Does it result in fewer competitors?
• Can you charge higher prices?
• Does it make your sales cycle shorter and less expensive?
• Have you created a new category?

If you answer yes to all those questions, congratulations. My bet is the answer to most is no. That’s the litmus test that a new approach to positioning that emphasizes differentiation is the right path to take. That differentiation will make all the difference. And it’s okay.

You don’t have to be a geneticist from Harvard to know if Business Development is in your agency’s DNA. You can just feel it. It either comes from the top down and is embedded in your agency on every level, or it isn’t. It’s that simple.

Things get complicated when you find yourself working for an agency that doesn’t have this in their DNA, but you’re in charge of creating new business opportunities. How do you go about creating a proactive business development environment in a place that has none? Here are a few tips we’ve seen work at any size company.

1. Get buy-in first and foremost from the very top. Founders, Partners, CEOs all have to be invested in the idea of proactive business development. You can certainly create a groundswell of support from the bottom up, but it’s much more difficult if you don’t have buy-in from the top and the most vocal people within an agency. People want to follow a respected leader and if that leader isn’t ringing the new business bell every day, then people don’t know who to follow or where to go. Also, how do you go about getting the resources you need to build a new business tech stack without founder buy-in? Leadership and resources are necessary for any business development effort, so make sure they are on board.

2. Start reporting on new business. Too often nobody outside of the New Business Director or the CEO know what prospects they are chasing or speaking with. This leaves teams in the dark and de-prioritizes business development. Reporting weekly both verbally and in writing somewhere not only holds the new business team accountable but gets everyone in the firm involved in thinking about business development opportunities that they may run across throughout a regular day.

3. Celebrate the victories and acknowledge the failures. Once a piece of new business is won, we see pitch team’s celebrating and then immediately handing down workloads. A lot of energy goes into winning a client and recognition needs to be made across the agency in order to help people feel appreciated for their past work, excited for the future, and accountable for their immediate tasks to get things kicked off. On the other end of the spectrum, if you lose a pitch, a lot of time it gets pushed off that we lost because of price or “the client just didn’t get it”. The pitch team, plus other impartial members of the agency, should take time after a loss to analyze everything and try to understand why the client didn’t see value in what we produced. Fact is, you never lose because of price, you lose because they didn’t see enough value in the price you put out there, so how do we better present that value?

In summary, change your agency’s DNA by getting buy-in from those with the most influence in the agency, start creating accountability for the new business team, and recognize the accomplishments and failures of that team to better learn how to create more successes.

 

If new business is a race, would you say it’s better to spend your time looking forward or backward? Do you run with your head turned backward watching mile markers get further away? Or do you watch those mile markers in front of you get closer? I would highly suggest not looking backward whenever you are running, and the same goes for your new business planning.

As any agency approaches this process of planning, it’s important to note there are two different types of measurements that can change not only how you evaluate the race that is your new business program, but also predict your future success. Those two are Lag Measures and Lead Measures. Let’s break them down.

1. Lag Measures – These are backward looking measurements of a result that has already happened.
2. Lead Measures – These are forward-looking measurements that are predicting a result that will happen.

In 2018 your agency needs to be looking at Lead Measures and how they can help you forecast revenue, new clients, and staffing needs. Too often, I see agencies looking at only lag measures to determine how they are doing with new business. They look back at measures like number of leads created or revenue generated and then try to determine what will happen in the future based off of those results. Closing a new client in August has no bearing on September’s chances of closing a piece of new business, so why do we forecast this way?

The best example I have seen of an agency using lead measures was based on two factors. First, my agency measured the number of “engaged conversations” that they have each month. An engaged conversation was defined as one where they determine money, authority, and need from a prospect. They knew that if they had five of those calls a month, that would lead to enough pitches to hit their new business goals. The second measurement was based on lead score. Any great new business program will have a marketing automation built into it and that will include lead scoring capabilities. This lead scoring mechanism gave my agency the ability to judge just how effective their sales and nurture campaigns were and allowed them to prioritize prospects to go after. They set a score level of 25 points as the definition of a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). The goal was to create 15 MQLs a month, because if they got 15 MQLS, then they could have at least 5 Engaged Conversations. See how each of these begin to predict one another?

As your agency begins to set your new business goals for the year, take a look at all of the different ways that you measure the success of your program. Take those measurements and put them either in a Lag or a Lead bucket. The majority of those will probably fall into that Lag bucket, and it’s fine to track those, but we want to start prioritizing the tracking of those Lead measurements. If you can find two dependable Lead measures, then you have not only simplified what you need to report, but you can also begin to set realistic goals for 2018 that will actually drive you to more new business wins!

If you were a baseball manager, would you send your best hitter to the plate without a bat? Everyday I see more and more agency principal doing just that thing. They hire a Business Development Director and then send them to bat without any of the tools or strategies needed to actually win and develop new business.

If you’re an agency principal and hiring a new Business Development Director is in your near future, make sure you commit to support them in the following ways before you bring them on board:

1. Commit to financial investments beyond their salary. If you’re going to invest in new business than do it, for real. Hiring a person and then giving them zero dollars to invest in technology, data, process, or content is setting them up with failure at the very beginning. Yes, they should be able to use the phone and email, but expecting them to be able to do it at scale without a CRM, Marketing Automation, complete website, etc, is essentially tying their hands behind their back at the very beginning. This means that when you are committing to new business, you are committing to the financial cost of not only the human capital, but also the technology the profession demands.
2. Commit to have a clear and differentiated agency promise. If you as the principle of an agency can’t describe your agency, what you do, and what makes you different in 1 sentence, then how can you expect your new hire to? Take the time to go through a positioning exercise with a professional and sculpt a unique position in your niche in order to help your new hire not only communicate to new prospects, but also find them easier. The clearer your position is the easier it is to drill down to exactly the types of prospects we should be chasing and ensure that we can better communicate with them.
3. Commit to Always Be Creating. ABC. If you want them to Always Be Closing, you better Always Be Creating. This means they need thought leadership in the form of blog posts, white papers, or webinars. If you do amazing work for a client, actually track and get results so that the team can build a case study to share. There is nothing worse than having a great conversation with a prospect, the prospect is intrigued and asks the new business person for an example to see, and they have nothing tangible to put in front of them.
4. Commit to set realistic timelines and goals. History comes into play here. If your agency has literally never won a piece of business from cold outreach, don’t give your new Business Development hire a three month runway to get a deal in. Set realistic KPIs based off of activity, engagement, proposals, and revenue. We all know that Business Development in our world takes time, so setting meaningful KPIs on each of those four areas allows them the comfort to know what is expected, shows your commitment to them for the long term, while also holding them accountable to performing the proper activities in order to build momentum. Transparency breeds positive interactions between sales and management.
5. Commit to having an open mind. As an agency principal sometimes it is very difficult to defer to a new hire. A new hire often comes in with all sorts of ideas on positioning or process that may very greatly from how you initially set up the shop. My advice is that you don’t have to change anything just because they say you should, but you should be open to them being critical of how we have been positioned in the past and open to at least a discussion of how a prospect may view you. Their outside insight may be just the thing that helps you break into the minds of new prospects.

If you set out at the very beginning of the hiring process with these commitments in mind, you should have two very positive outcomes. First, the hiring process should be easier, because your position will be more attractive to any experienced new business pro. Second, that new hire will actually have every tool, process, and strategy needed in order to succeed. At this point, you have done your part, now they just need to hit the home run.