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!

Blair Enns, a Canadian business development consultant and author, will be talking at the final Designers Breakfast of 2011 on Thursday November 24th.

Entitled ‘Add value, don’t give away your thinking for free’ it will focus on how to reclaim the high ground in client relationships and abandon free pitching.

The series this year has delivered some hard-hitting truths and insights into business development and client relationships from a design agency perspective – if you missed any of them, they will be available online from January 2012.

In the famous words of Forrest Gump, client briefings are like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get.

The shortest I have been involved in is 30 minutes and the longest 4.5 hours. The latter is nearer the mark, although on average, they take 2-3 hours.

The briefing meeting is crucial. Sometimes it surprises me that agencies are prepared to spend a significant amount of money with Alchemis but don’t take the time to brief us properly. This is rare as most agencies are as excited as we are to be starting the campaign, but these are our top 5 points in order to brief your agency properly.

1) Allocate enough time

Sounds simple, but we need to leave that meeting understanding enough about your business in order to:

a) represent you as you would like us to and

b) sell your agency effectively.

This takes time and half an hour is not enough. You know your business, but we don’t. Remember, your New Business Manager is calling as if they are in your office, so they really need to “get” the agency.

2) Be prepared to have a follow-up meeting

We know that 2-2.5 hours is the optimum for concentration. This should be enough time to give us the key background, facts and case histories.

However, if we feel that it would be useful to have a follow up meeting once all of that has been digested to develop things further or just to meet other key team members, that is what we will do.

3) Prepare in advance

Anything you can get to us in advance helps. We will always send an agenda and a list of guideline questions well in advance; it really is beneficial and helps streamline the meeting if you look at these and prepare answers prior to the briefing.

4) Don’t assume we know everything

You know your business back to front, but we don’t.

Often clients rattle through case studies and propositions as they have heard it/said it a million times in advance. I promise you, we find this interesting, so please take the time to go through things properly and methodically.

We really want to understand why you did what you did for any given project and often this understanding can provide key points of difference or angles to use on the phone.

5) Be enthusiastic

We know you are enthusiastic about your work, but we also know that you probably have a hundred other things on your mind.

However, I guarantee that your New Business Manager will feed off your passion for the work and this will be reflected in the results.