Following my part in the Designers Breakfast meeting last Thursday, here’s a summary of the content.

I kicked off the session with 5 top tips about how to create chemistry and demonstrate creativity and vision in a first meeting with a prospect (most of the tips are relevant to any client meeting, and frankly, I believe you should treat all client meetings as though they were a first one)

1. Develop insights, opinions and observations through market and competition based research – these insights allow you to express your opinions and more importantly, ask the client or prospect theirs

2. Prepare relevant case studies and examples of work based on your research; you can also use this research to prepare a list of questions to ask the prospect/client about their priorities and challenges

3. Walk a mile in the client or prospect’s shoes – think why they might want to work with you and also why they may not want to work with you – this allows you to pre-empt potential objections and therefore deal with them in the meeting

4. Structure the meeting by signposting how long it’s going to take, what it’s going to look like and where it’s heading (ie. let them know at the beginning of the meeting that a desired outcome could be a follow up meeting)

5. Do NOT take a PowerPoint presentation – the key objective of a first meeting is to get a second one where you can present ideas of how you can help them with their current priorities and challenges. The first meeting is about creating empathy and trust, identifying and highlighting those main areas of concern and showing relevant examples of work that have resonance with the two way conversation you have created.

Joe Ferry, SVP Global Guest Experience & Design at InterContinental Hotels Group made some very interesting additional observations to my process driven tips; namely that every client is different and should therefore be treated/dealt with differently and appropriately. Joe’s point was that people buy people who they can trust to deliver the work on time and to budget and that not all designers have fully developed their EQ.

This point was also highlighted by Tom Foulkes, Global Head of Marketing at Buro Happold, who very succinctly pointed out that some clients like smoke blown up their arse and that others don’t!

Other key observations from Joe and Tom included:

• Pay attention to detail – get the company name right for example (basic stuff but you’d be surprised……)
• Talk through your experiences outside the direct market sector that your prospect/client works in (they often like you to have a real breadth of knowledge as well as in-depth knowledge of their market)
• Tell the truth, but don’t go too far off brief
• Make your client look good by listening to the brief but challenging where you genuinely think there could be a better way
• Show them what you can do outside of your day job; in other words, show them some creative work that you’ve just come up with in down time or for a brand you’re not currently working with – show them your passion for design
• Don’t pretend to be bigger than you are, remember that people buy people and most clients don’t care if you’re 3 or 300 staff as long as they trust you to get the job done

There were loads of other interesting insights from Joe and Tom and you will be able to see/hear this session online in the Autumn – I’ll post the link.

Do you have any other do’s and don’ts?

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.

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…