Referring back to my blog posted on 30th September 2010 here is my response to question number 2 on that list:

How do you manage conflict and confidentiality?

Inevitably, with a client base of over 50 clients, all of whom offer creative, strategic or digital marketing based solutions, we work with clients who have similar offers or who wish to target the same prospects.

This is a crowded, competitive marketplace, so there is no way we can prevent this happening, but what we do NOT do at Alchemis is share new business leads amongst our competing clients.

We have two ways of preventing this happening, a technical solution and an incentive based approach.

Firstly, the technical solution; we invested in developing our own bespoke software about 20 years ago (and this development has been ongoing ever since), which enables us to build discrete password protected databases for each of our clients, only allowing access to each client’s campaign by the New Business Manager who represents that client.

We hold updated decision maker information to benefit all of our clients in a central database which holds over 150,000 marketing decision makers, but every specific conversation, brief, pitch, opportunity or meeting on behalf of each clients is ringfenced.

Our incentive scheme is based on client retention and the quality of meetings that our clients attend, which no New Business Manager would wish to dilute by passing that lead to one of his/her colleagues.

We always encourage prospective clients of Alchemis to sit on the sales floor and see for themselves how the software works – we are justifiably very proud of how it can help us search for and develop new business on behalf of our clients.

If you’re a regular reader of my blogs, you will know that I meet hundreds of agency owners every year as I am responsible for winning new clients for Alchemis (along with a multitude of other responsibilities that are attached to running a business, albeit with 3 business partners)

In my experience, the five most commonly asked questions are (in no particular order):

1. What’s the best time to start a new business campaign? (see my blog on business development seasonality)

2. How do you manage conflict and confidentiality?

3. How can you guarantee me results?

4. Can I pass over leads and contacts for you to follow up on my behalf?

5. How will you get to understand not only my agency’s offer but the personality of my agency?

I’ll be writing blogs about questions 2-5 over the forthcoming weeks; in the meantime, do read my response to question number 1.

Do you have any other questions you’d like to ask me……?

I’m always being asked these questions by the hundreds of agency owners I meet every year -

Is there a best time of year for doing new business activity?

Is there a best time of year to start a business development campaign?

My answers tend to be the ‘slightly frustrating to hear but nonetheless true’ yes and no and are based on our 23 years experience in this market and our ability to analyse the enormous amount of data we are constantly capturing when calling on behalf of our clients.

Yes, there are definite times during the year when more pitches and agency reviews are up for grabs; these tend to be during Spring and Autumn.

And no, there are no ‘best’ times to start a new business campaign; the most effective campaigns are those that run all year and indeed, for years, ensuring we are following up warm prospects that we’ve been cultivating either pre or post meeting.

To further confuse, there are some real anomalies in the equation; for example, although July/August and November/December are generally viewed to be ‘dead’ months, they are anything but for us. These are the months that we set a lot of meetings for our clients to attend in September and January, which are both excellent months for potentially starting relationships with the right prospect in the right company with the right budgets.

We will, however, continue to track and monitor our clients’ successes and look for patterns in business development so we can benefit all of you, but in the meantime, if you have discovered any trends in seasonality, do respond to this blog…….