As Managing Director of Alchemis, I get to meet hundreds of owner-drivers of marketing and creative communications agencies every year and one of the questions I get asked most often is ‘What type of collateral do I need to develop to support a proactive new business campaign?’

My response is ‘Case studies, more case studies and even more case studies!’

Case studies are king in new business as they are the one piece of real evidence that you can deliver what you say you can in your positioning statement. Your philosophy, your approach and why you set the agency up in the first place might be quite interesting, but it’s not going to help you win new business. Your understanding of a prospect’s challenges and priorities and/or their target demographic and your proven ability to deliver cost effective solutions will resonate with them far more than your values.

So, your case studies should reflect all of the above elements: who your client is and what market they operate in, the problem/issue/challenge they faced, your activity and any outcomes. You may not have statistical outcomes or ROI figures so you could for example, include a testimonial from your client.

We offer advice to all our clients about developing supporting collateral and are happy to talk this through in greater detail.

There’s been a lot being written about the recession and its impact on marketing, and whether or not to invest in new business development if you’re a marketing or creative communications agency.

I can only write about what we’re experiencing here at Alchemis, a business development consultancy with over 23 years experience in this marketplace.

Yes, the market’s tougher than it’s been for years; yes, it’s more difficult to get through to decision makers and yes, it’s more difficult to convert these decision maker conversations into good quality appointments. However, when we do set up a meeting for our clients, there is a reason for the meeting and the prospect is genuinely interested in what our clients have to offer.

Our experience at the moment is that prospects are looking for quicker, more cost effective and more creative and innovative routes to market and are therefore prepared to meet with small-medium sized agencies in particular, and with any agency who can demonstrate a flexible and pragmatic approach to problem solving.

This agency profile is ideally suited to the current climate as evidenced by the success we’re having setting good quality meetings with prospects looking to maximise their threatened marketing budgets (most of our clients are small-medium sized agencies).

You need to be flexible enough to probe to identify their real pain and then offer what they need to help solve their issues. Going in with a pre-conceived solution is not always going to cut it in this market – challenge their current strategy or their creative by all means but be prepared to offer alternative solutions.

As Managing Director of Alchemis, a business development agency specialising in helping creative, marketing and strategic agencies win business, I am often asked how to maximise the new business appointments we set up for our clients.

Here are my top 10 business generation tips for ensuring that you make the most of any current or future opportunities.

1. The purpose of a first meeting is to get a second meeting.
2. Ensure your pre-meeting research enables you to develop an observation or an opinion on the prospect’s marketplace and/or the challenges they are facing.
3. Put yourself in the prospect’s shoes and consider why they should buy from you.
4. Equally, consider why they might not buy from you.
5. Develop your pitch and your collateral to reflect points 3 and 4.
6. Set the scene at the beginning of the meeting through effective signposting.
7. Always state your desired destination at the beginning of the meeting; in other words, close at the start of the meeting.
8. Develop a checklist of information you need from the prospect and then develop a series of open and progressive questions to help elicit this information.
9. Pre-empt any likely objections to your offer.
10. Do NOT make your prospects suffer from death by PowerPoint!

We offer sales coaching to all our clients to help them maximise the meetings that we set up for them and would be happy to talk to you in more detail about this element of our service offer.

Has anyone else got any tips for first meetings? Does anyone disagree with any of my pointers?