New business agency blog

Linking back to my blog posted on 30th September about the most frequent questions I get asked whilst speaking to agency owners about business development, let’s have a look at number 4:

Can I pass over lead and contacts for you to follow up on my behalf?

 The simple answer is yes, and the slightly longer one expands like so….

The most effective new business campaigns consist of a well researched and considered targeting strategy plus several tactical strands. These strands include Alchemis checking out all the trade press (both paper based and online) including NMA, Campaign, PR Week, The Drum, Event, Design Week and Marketing Week as well as the nationals (the FT, for example), the relevant vertical press (eg. The Grocer, Retail Week and Pharma Times) looking for current leads that are right for your service offer.

Our experience shows that once a lead is in the trade press, then it’s often too late; so our best sources for leads tend to be the financial and vertical press. As these leads are not necessarily part of the overall targeting strategy, we will then check with our clients to make sure that they’re not already talking to that lead and that they are happy for us to do so.

 Equally, if our clients see a lead and don’t have the time to follow it up, then we are more than happy to do so on their behalf. Similarly, if they’ve attended an event and come back with a load of business cards, send them our way – it’s why we’re there and it’s our day job!

Here’s the response to question number 3 in my blog posted in September about the five most commonly asked business development questions:

How can you guarantee me results?

 A good question and one which any new business professional in any market will get asked frequently.

The short, but insufficient, reply is that there are no guarantees in new business.

There are, however a significant number of critical success factors that influence the effectiveness of business development campaigns, namely (in no particular order):

 * clear business objectives

* a well thought through and researched targeting strategy

* a robust proposition that reflects current market needs

* case studies that demonstrate success

* meaningful and relevant collateral

* the ability to listen and therefore identify opportunities that aren’t always obvious

* the skills and confidence to convert those opportunities to briefs and wins

With all of the above in place, we will have a greater chance of being able to set quality meetings for our clients, thereby helping them to secure new business.

I read Steve Henry’s blog on ‘What does a start-up need?’ with interest.

He raises the question about whether a start up agency needs creatives as well as planners on board; I can see the need for both myself but from my perspective of running a business development agency, I would add that one of the most critical elements in setting up a new agency is ensuring you have a well thought through new business strategy and plan.

Yes, most start ups bring a number of clients based on long standing relationships and yes, you’ll be able to work that network of old client relationships for a few months to help secure those initial accounts, but our experience shows that the little black book and the incoming calls will dry up sooner rather than later and you need to instigate a decent business development program in order to build your business successfully. New business wins from a standing start can take up to 12 months plus to convert and you need to start building the pipeline a long time in advance.