What is a new business audit and does your agency need one?

The team is busy and the client work is going well, yet new business arrives in fits and starts and nobody can say why. If that sounds familiar, a new business audit may be the right place to start.

A new business audit is a structured review of how your agency wins clients. It looks at positioning, target market, lead generation, pipeline, pitching, people, process and tools to identify what is holding growth back.

It works a bit like an MOT for your new business engine. With over 40 years’ experience of helping agencies grow, we’ve found that the problem is rarely a lack of effort. More often it comes down to focus, ownership or data that nobody has looked at honestly. Below we explain what an audit involves and whether your agency needs one.

What is a new business audit?

A new business audit is an in-depth review of how an agency wins clients, from its positioning through to how well it converts pitches. It differs from other types of review. A marketing audit looks at how your own marketing activity is performing, a financial audit checks your accounts and a general agency health check covers operations and culture, with new business rarely getting the scrutiny it deserves.

An audit looks at the whole new business engine rather than lead generation alone. More meetings won’t help if your proposition is unclear, proposals go out late or nobody owns the follow up.

What does a new business audit cover?

Every agency is different, but a thorough audit should look at the following seven areas.

Positioning and proposition

With so many agencies competing for the same clients, why should a prospect choose you? An audit tests whether your agency positioning is distinctive and relevant to the clients you want, or whether it could just as easily belong to any other agency.

Target market and ideal client profile

“Anyone with a budget” is not a target market. An audit defines the sectors, company sizes and job titles that make up your ideal client, then checks that your outreach is genuinely reaching them.

Lead generation and outreach activity

This covers referrals, inbound enquiries, email and the phone. The question is whether outreach happens consistently every week or only when someone has a spare afternoon.

Pipeline data and conversion rates

How many conversations turn into meetings, and how many meetings turn into clients? Mapping each stage of your sales funnel shows where opportunities are leaking out.

Pitching, proposals and win rates

Are you pitching for the right work, and do you know why you win or lose? Reviewing recent pitches tends to reveal patterns, including whether you need to get better at handling price objections.

People, process and tools

Who is responsible for new business, and do they have the time to do it properly? Is your CRM kept up to date, or is it quietly gathering dust? Our article on who should take responsibility for new business looks at this in more detail.

Marketing assets that support sales

Prospects will look you up before they agree to a meeting, so your website, thought leadership and case studies all need to support what you say.

What happens during a new business audit?

The exact process varies, but a typical audit follows six stages:

• A discovery session to understand your ambitions and frustrations.
• A data and pipeline review covering your CRM, win and loss records and revenue mix.
• Stakeholder interviews with everyone involved in new business.
• Feedback from clients and lost prospects on why they chose you, or didn’t.
• Benchmarking against similar agencies.
• A final report with a prioritised roadmap, so you know where to start.

DIY audit or independent audit?

A self-assessment is a good start, but it’s hard to be objective about your own agency and some issues are awkward to raise internally. An independent audit brings objectivity, benchmarks against similar agencies and the uncomfortable truths that prospects will often only tell an outsider. It’s one reason many agencies weigh up in-house against outsourced new business in the first place.

How often should an agency review its new business?

We’d recommend a full review at least once a year, ideally before annual planning. It’s also worth reviewing at trigger points such as losing a major client, a leadership change or a new growth target. New business is rarely instant, which is why it pays to spot problems early.

New business audits with Alchemis

As the first lead generation agency specifically for the marketing industry, we speak to hundreds of marketing decision makers every day and see first hand what is working in agency new business and what isn’t. If you’d like an independent view of how your agency wins clients and where to focus first, get in touch with the Alchemis team.