As a Business Development Manager, my role is to get marketing agencies in front of the people who will potentially do business with them.　

There are lots of reasons why a Marketing Director will dedicate an hour of his time to finding out what an agency that he’s never heard of before can do for him.

One of the key differentiating factors between the many “sales calls” that will be rejected as a “waste of time”, and the rare “interesting call with an agency worth meeting with”, is the ability of the person who is calling to have an intelligent conversation – i.e. a conversation that focuses on something that is relevant, that makes good business sense, and that is with someone you enjoy talking to.

There’s no big secret:　

• be clear about why you are calling and what you want to get out of the conversation
• be curious
• ask relevant questions (get the prospect to open-up and focus on relevant issues)
• have a genuine interest in the person you are talking to
• listen
• listen
• listen
• resist the urge to tell the prospect everything about what you do and why you are the best thing since sliced bread
• listen
• listen
• listen
• make sure you understand what the prospect is telling you
• let him know you can help
• ask for the meeting!

Although you don’t need to be an “expert” in everything you are talking about (other people are there to sort out any technical details after all), it’s important to know what’s happening in the market/sector that you are targeting, understand the issues that prospects are faced with and be able to demonstrate how your client can help with their priorities.

Which is why it takes a special breed of people to make the kind of calls that will stand out.

Nobody wants to receive a call which is scripted and goes over a list of services offered; that’s just “another bloody cold call”!

Any agency that wants to seriously stand out and win new business needs sales people who can think on their feet and can engage prospects in an intelligent fashion and on a personal level.

Winning new business is not rocket science; it’s hard work, but it can often be fun and interesting if you have the right attitude!

I recently read an amusing article entitled 5 things I hate about new business

Although it’s written by an American ex military guy, it got me thinking about the reasons why creative marketing agencies dislike the thought of using a new business agency.

Here’s the number one reason to start off the debate – I’ll follow up with more reasons and my response to them in future blogs…..

“I went all the way to Hull to meet a 22 year old who didn’t really understand marketing, who didn’t have a decent budget and who wasn’t sure why I was there”! Ring any bells?

Poor meeting quality is probably the most commonly cited reason for not wanting to use a business development agency and is either based on personal experience or anecdotal evidence from friends or colleagues in other agencies.

We’ve all experienced meetings that are a waste of time and it’s why Alchemis focuses so heavily on ensuring that all our meetings adhere to some very strict quality criteria, agreed up front and in conjunction with our clients.

These quality criteria include the market sector, size, location and profile of any prospects we agree to target on our client’s behalf and the potential spend and need for our client’s service offer.

Our New Business Managers’ incentive scheme supports this approach by rewarding our team on quality meetings attended and not on the meetings they set.

This ensures that the focus on the phone is on engaging with decision makers and having a serious 2 way conversation about their current marketing/design/digital/research/communications challenges and priorities rather than haranguing them with ‘sales lines’ just to secure a meeting.

Some of you who have read my previous blogs will know that I like to have a bit of a rant sometimes. I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily a grumpy person, but with a fair amount of research experience over the years (ultimately earning me the nickname “Robbie Research”) I do like all business matters to be conducted with an acceptable level of care and attention.

A lack of professionalism when trying to win new business is one of the cardinal sins in my book. My previous blogs on customers for life and the difference between new business and business development will give you an insight to my way of thinking.

So picture the following scenario.

Before Christmas, I get an email from a “new business agency” – and I use the term in the loosest possible sense – offering me business development services for Alchemis.

Perhaps they sent it by mistake. I’ll just ignore it and we’ll say no more about it.

But a few weeks later a follow up email arrives – they’ve tried to get in touch with me but to no avail, surely I would be interested in their business development services for my company. This time, I couldn’t let it lie. I sent a polite reply to the sender which simply said “Gemma, please have a look at our website to see what we do as a company and then decide if we are likely to need a new business agency to help us.”

Surely this would do the trick – a two second check of our website would have shown the sender that we are, in fact, a new business agency ourselves. They could put me on their do not approach list and we will all be happy. But alas, my words fell on deaf ears as a while later I received another email from the same person – albeit this time into my junk email filter as I had marked the previous one as such.

Then last week I received yet another communication. Here is an excerpt:

We aren’t about sending over a high volume of poor quality appointments, we will create highly qualified meetings to make sure you are only meeting prospects that have a genuine need for your services.

Robert we would love to come and meet with you to discus in more detail how we can help you get in front of prospects and get you on track to fulfil new business targets. If you would like to arrange a date for a brief meeting then please do not hesitate to reply to this email or call me.

A few terms jump out of me from this. “Poor quality”; “highly qualified” (not) and “genuine need for your services.”

They also claim to provide a recording of every call they make – which is great except it is illegal unless the prospect is made aware that they are being recorded (and how would you react if you received a cold call from a company you didn’t know and were told they were going to record it)?

I am the only person at Alchemis who is not actively involved in a “sales” role of some description. But even I know that the key thing to any new business approach is to know a bit about the company you’re approaching (like, for example, what they actually do), listen to what the prospect is actually saying and only then are you in a position to know whether your services will be of use.

I’m not going to name and shame the person or company who keep sending me these unqualified approaches (despite my reply advising them to check what we do first) but as Mr T would say “I pity the fool” that would take them on to help with business development if this is an example of their attention to detail.

Companies like this give the more respectable agencies a bad name. And if the company in question happens to be reading this blog, please – for the love of god – practice what you preach.