New business agency blog

Following on from Amanda Francis’ comment on the importance of soundbites to engage a prospect on the phone, I have been thinking about how we put these together for our creative communications clients based on their offer. I cannot stress how important the first 20 seconds on the phone are to a New Business Manager at Alchemis. We have just a few sentences to convey to a prospect what sets you apart from every other digital/design/research/communications agency out there. So how do we do this?

David Newman our Sales Director likes to encourage the ‘so what?’ factor when we develop our pitch. The rule of thumb is this – if you can remark on any one-liner with the response of ‘so what?’ then the pitch has fallen flat and you will lose the prospect’s interest at a horrifying speed. Another thing we periodically look at is ‘sexing it up’, which focuses on making an introduction sound interesting enough for the prospect to want to know more and be open to telling you more about their business. Putting these two key elements into practice I personally look to position my clients in the following three ways, below are examples of the good and the plain ugly:

1/ What is my client’s speciality?

- ‘We develop brand vision’ – this is sharp and interesting and explains that we are creative and work with brands from a conceptual and development standpoint.

- ‘We design brochures’ is not interesting, this may be exactly what you do but it’s all in the phrasing and this screams ‘so what?’

2/ How does my client go about doing what you have just stated?

- ‘We create sensory customer experiences through branded environments and communications’. This is the crucial part of introducing a client to a prospect, so here we indicate our core skills and subtly show we are interested in adding value to their business by placing emphasis on the word customer i.e sales/money

- ‘We design things which look good’ a prospect doesn’t want to necessarily know about the design being great, pretty pictures are not solely responsible for attracting customers, communicating a message or encouraging sales.

3/ Who do they work with of relevance? In this instance it’s all about tailoring; if I’m speaking to Tesco and my client specialises in high-end design for the luxury sector I’m potentially barking up the wrong tree if I tell Mr Tesco we work with Burberry and Dior. Again, it comes back to relating to the prospect in those first few moments and tailoring every introduction to each individual company.

Of course then comes the questioning part of the conversation where we gain understanding of things like budget, scope of projects/retainers, who they currently work with, why, do they review, why not, when, how- you get the gist, but that is another blog for another time.

All in all, when you have a New Business Manager from Alchemis working on your campaign, you can rest assured that they bring an insight into specific linguistics to ensure they speak to as many people as possible about your company and leave a lasting impression.

I always read any article by Bob Willott with interest as he brings a financial understanding to the commercial dealings within the marketing services sector. He also has a somewhat cynically amusing style of writing, which in my opinion is often bang on the money.

One such article that caught my eye recently was on the Brand Republic site where he writes about recent acquisitions, how they are reported and how considered press statements are far more effective than the hyperbole used by some.

I won’t directly comment on his article but I will add my own take on this with reference to how we sell our clients over the phone.

 Although passion is an important element in selling effectively (particularly when you have a limited time to make an impact on the phone), hyperbole can have the opposite effect of putting prospects off, particularly if these outlandish statements cannot be backed up by results driven case studies.

 A considered phrase which has resonance with the prospect will be far more compelling and we spend a lot of time at Alchemis developing these soundbites which we know from our 23 years experience will have a maximum impact within minimum timescales.

My next blog will have a few examples of these, so keep reading…

I refer you back to my last blog about the top 7 reasons why prospects will agree to see an agency from a cold call and you will recall that the number one reason is the ability of the caller to build rapport on the phone with the marketing decision maker.

There are other determining factors (like relevant case studies, ROI, unique methodologies etc) but the simple truth is that building rapport and demonstrating empathy with their current challenges are often the most important reason why marketing prospects will agree to meet a new agency – particularly when there aren’t any discernible points of difference.

This makes it doubly important for us to recruit and retain a highly skilled and motivated team of New Business Managers and I’m often asked where we get them from.

The simple answer is, from wherever we can, provided they can demonstrate the unique blend of skills, passion for marketing and intrinsic values that we are looking for.

They will often have experience of setting meetings in other markets, such as technology or management consultancy, sometimes they come from recruitment or publishing and often they are referred by our existing team.

On a practical basis we use a combination of handpicked recruitment consultants who know and understand our business very well and online jobsites. It’s then down to the time consuming process of first and second interviews where the candidates are put through a series of exercises which will help us identify the mix of skills and attitude that are so important in a small, tight knit company.

I’ll write another blog shortly on how we retain our staff…