New Business Intel

» Ad Agency New Business Starts with Confidence

To be successful, a good new business hunter needs to feel their boss' confidence

Faye Hyman died six months ago after losing her battle with cancer.

I met Faye in 1997. When I took my new position, Faye was on probation, facing the loss of her job if her numbers didn't improve.

In this new role I had 40 direct reports in a severely under-performing sales organization. I had to quickly determine who was good, and who wasn't. Anyone on probabtion was on my short list to be fired.

One thing I knew, however, was that the easiest way to determine if a sales person is any good it to listen to them. If they prospect over the phone, record their calls and listen to them; if they network in-person, join them at their meetings, soley to watch and listen. (You'll be amazed at what you learn.)

So, I listened to Faye's sales calls and in-person meetings. I saw that she:

• Established rapport with her prospects
• Asked open-ended questions to determine their needs
• Identified and discussed ways we could help
• Set a next action, or asked for the sale - as appropriate

In a word, she was excellent. Her process was consultative sales by-the-book, flawless. The only thing she was missing was self-confidence. The look on her face and the way she carried herself made you feel that she was beaten down, almost like a dog that's been repeatedly kicked by it's owner. I immediately took her off probation.

Just two years later in 1999, Faye became a President's Club member. I believe she was then ranked #3 out of more than 200 sales colleagues. She continued that run for years, and then became a national sales trainer, teaching hundreds of others how to be truly professional sales people, in the best sense of the word.

I spoke to Faye for the last time a few days after a group of friends, colleagues and former colleagues held a party in her honor. She expressed optimism in her full recovery, and then said,

All that I achieved I owe to the confidence you showed in me.

Everything Faye achieved was the result of her own ability; she just needed to be released from the chain attached to her by her former boss so she could live up to her full potential.

What a lesson for all managers of ad agency new business people!

A good salesperson is always striving for attention; if you beat them down they will almost always underperform. The confidence you show in them, and they feel, may be the boost they need to achieve their potential.

» SAT Question of the Day Can Improve Ad Agency New Business

Measuring and graphing trends over time will show whether your new business process is improving, or not

If you have kids between 7th and 10th grades, you should know about The College Board's The Official SAT Question of the Day. It provides a daily question that is a fun and challenging way to learn about the types of questions asked on the SAT and how to answer them. As a parent, you will also be challenged (and happy that you don't have to go through that process again!).

The question on Saturday, May 30th made me think about how important metrics (measuring your activities) are to a successful new business process.

Here's the question that was asked:

In the figure to the left, "the large rectangle is divided into six identical small squares. If the perimeter of the large rectangle is 30, what is the perimeter of one of the small squares?" And your choices of answers:

• 5
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 12

To create the new business metaphor, think of each small square representing one of the activities of a well-developed new business program. They might be:

1. Direct marketing
2. Prospecting
3. Networking with colleagues, past clients, search consultants, and friends of the firm
4. Responding to RFPs
5. Organic growth
6. Agency public relations

If the perimeter of each small square represents the sum of the activities in the square, the individual activities you might want to measure for "responding to RFPs" might be:

• Number and average number received per month
• Number and average number of man-hours required to complete each
• Average and total number of days from receipt to submission
• Cost and average cost to complete each
• Ratio of "on to next round" divided by the number of submissions
• ROI: Pre-tax profit from wins that involved an RFP divided by total cost of RFP submissions

I'm sure you can add other metrics to the above list. If you break down each of the 6 major new business activities into what needs to be measured for each one, and then measure and graph trends over time, you'll soon know whether your new business process is improving, or not. With that information, you will be able to make the right decisions to improve your process.

So, the answer to the SAT question is 12. Whether you got it right or not, hopefully you now see how weekly (best) or monthly (at the least) measurement of your new business activities will improve your ad agency's new business process.

In any case, good luck with your daily Question!

» Build Ad Agency New Business with a New Business Funnel

Prospecting is a numbers game and knowing your numbers is the key to success

Start at the bottom to end at the top.

When speaking at the 2006-2008 Mirren New Business Conferences, we talked about how agencies should build their new business “funnel” from the bottom up. A new business funnel fills an agency’s pipeline with prospective client leads.

It’s quite easy if you know your numbers. If you don’t, I strongly suggest that you start tracking every part of your agency's sales process.

(This approach assumes you're going after new business proactively, not using search consultants or expecting prospective clients will call you directly.)

Keeping it really simple, here are three numbers you need to build your funnel:

1. How many clients do you need to win in the next 24 months?
2. What percent of your initial client meetings from proactive outreach result in a win?
3. What percent of the prospects you target meet with you?

Let’s assume the following:

• 6 new clients needed;
• 10% of initial meetings result in a win;
• 10% of the prospects we call agree to meet us.

Now, let’s build your funnel:

• 6 new clients / 10% = 60 initial meetings needed
• 60 initial meetings / 10% = 600 prospects needed

Assuming you have a good new business (sales) person on staff, a compelling reason for prospects to consider you, and good creative, you now need to identify 600 prospective clients to reach out to. How to go through that process is the subject of another post.

» Slow and Steady Ad Agency New Business

Your new business program will benefit from applying the principals of healthy living

I was struck by the parallels between maintaining good personal health and a successful and healthy agency new business program when scanning the recent Zappos blog, Slow and Steady Wins the Race.

Consider these 5 well-known, but not always well-adhered to principals of healthy living and how you can reinterpret them for new business:

1. Don't do crash diets. Translation: practice new business consistently. Identify and put a 100% dedicated person in charge of new business.
2. Schedule your workouts. Translation: schedule your new business activities on your calendar. Sticking with your commitment to new business is much easier when you have an appointment to do it.
3. Clean up your eating habits. Translation: focus on companies that are a good potential fit for your agency. Pursue clients who fit with your culture, core principals, and will allow you to make a fair profit.
4. Be realistic. Translation: set achievable goals, so that hitting them will help you stick with your plan.
5. Log your time. Translation: track your activities. Knowing your metrics will make you a better new business person and allow you to determine what to change in order to improve.

Successful new business professionals do these 5 things every day. How are many do you do?

» Patience is Essential for Proactive Ad Agency New Business

Don’t plow up your crops before they have time to grow

I recently saw an email from Mark and David Sandler of Sandler Training that caught my eye.

The Sandler's company specializes in sales training. They understand very well that it takes time, hard work, and patience to build a sales funnel and then watch their efforts bear fruit.

Too often agency new business professionals or their management give up too early. Successful new business takes careful planning, diligent work over the long-term, and patience.

Here are a few noteworthy extracts from Mark and David:

How often are you asked, "How long does it take? To be better. To develop new behaviors that will lead to more and better sales. To better handle roadblocks and 'think it over' responses."

"Amazingly few people are willing to be patient. However, putting off gratification until later in order to obtain larger rewards than those immediately available is essential to achieve true success."

"If we put off doing a thing and find ourselves going nowhere, we are sabotaging ourselves. If we put off doing it but find that, with struggle and effort, we are slowly progressing toward the desired goal, we can congratulate ourselves..."

Before you jettison what your agency is currently doing, objectively evaluate whether you've done everything you set out to do to the best of your ability, for a long enough period of time to accurately measure the results.

» Agency CEO’s Managing Their Time for Proactive New Business

If you can find the time to write a blog, you can find the time for proactive new business

A few months ago I committed myself to writing a blog post every day for the professional enrichment it provides, in that you don't really know what you know until you write it down.

The interesting part of the process is that it forces you to focus on the most important things in your day, and eliminate time-wasters. Here's what I've learned to change:

• Email - only look at your messages and respond at certain hours of the day. You may say, "That's impossible, I need to be on email all the time." You'll be amazed at the hours and productivity you lose every time you check your email.
• Meetings - focus the conversation, and start and stop on time.
• Writing - lead with what's important, make it easy to scan, keep it on-subject. Some posts used to take me 1-2 hours to write; I can now write them in 45 minutes or less.

Over the years, numerous ad agency presidents have told me that they don't have time for proactive new business. I've nodded my head in understanding and then pushed them to find it.

I am now experiencing first-hand a similar time challenge, and have discovered that while there are a limited number of hours in every day (for all of us), if there is sufficient time to write a blog, there is sufficient time for proactive new business.

» For Ad Agency New Business Success, Hire a Sales Person with These 4 Traits…

Hire someone with proven success in consultative sales ... then ... let them sell!

Sales is a profession and a critical business function. The sales professional's personality is very different from any other staff member.

These 4 traits are critical - and common - among successful sales people:

1. They are driven to make money
2. They don't take rejection personally
3. They are incredibly persistent
4. They think like a business owner

For sales success the first step is hiring the right person with the right traits and secondly, you must let them sell.

Does this sound familiar?

You win a big account. Your head of business development, (let's call her Sally) nurtured the relationship over 18 months, so your new client naturally asks, "Will Sally work on my business?" You don't know how to say, "No", so you naturally respond, "Absolutely"! Your client walks away happy and confident, while you've just torpedoed your new business development effort.

This is a familiar story for any consultancy, ad agency, and most marketing services companies. Your best new business people land the business and then have to work on the business. This approach works great until you lose the account or the project ends, at which point you have to (madly) scramble to ramp up your sales effort to quickly generate revenue.

The only way to break this cycle: hire someone who knows how to sell and then, let them do it. Account service shouldn't be part of their responsibilities.

The answer to the question, "Will Sally work on my business" is simple: "No." And then respond professionally with something like, "As I'm sure you understand, revenue growth is important for us as it is for you. If Sally were to work on your business we would stop growing and jeopardize the health of the company. That would be bad for both of us."

» Procrastination Can Kill Your Ad Agency New Business Program

Any excuse is a good excuse not to make prospect calls

Just last month an agency president told me, "Over 20 years I've made up every possible excuse in order to NOT make the new business calls I needed to make."

Here are 4 common forms of new business procrastination:

• You find a great opportunity to talk to someone down the hall rather than picking up the phone.
• You schedule meetings during time you blocked off for contacting prospects or networking.
• You discover another interesting web site to "research"...
• You take part in a new business committee meeting that doesn't accomplish anything except make everyone feel good about doing something.

I've seen the following tactics break the procrastination habit:

1. Create monthly, weekly and daily new business objectives for yourself.
2. Don't leave work until you meet your daily objective(s).
3. Block time on your calendar. On schedule, close your email, put your phone on DND and focus on what you need to do.
4. If you must attend a meeting during your dedicated new business time, immediately reschedule it for later in the day or another day that week.
5. Set a maximum amount of time to research a company (minutes, not hours).
6. Decline any new business committee meeting and ask for the minutes instead.

The only way to be successful at ad agency new business development is to actually do it.

» Call Sheet to Improve your Ad Agency’s Proactive New Business Program

Tracking what you do is the best way to determine how to improve your prospecting

Here is a very simple call sheet, which you can reproduce on a single sheet of paper and use to track the effectiveness of your outbound prospecting efforts. Using this form let's you see at a glance whether you're hitting your daily goals. I know new business people who track their calls this way, whether or not they have a CRM system.

Use this as follows:

1. Set weekly goals for yourself: number of attempts (dials) and conversations.
2. Record each call with a hash-mark. If you leave a voicemail or have a conversation, check that in addition to your attempt.
3. Daily: don't leave until you hit your daily goals.
4. Weekly & Monthly: calculate the following ratios:
   • Attempts / Goal
   • Conversations / Goal
   • Voicemails / Attempts
   • Conversations / Attempt
   • Total Attempts / Total Goal
   • Total Conversations / Total Goal
   • Meetings / Conversations
5. Interpret your results:
   • Attempts and Conversations / Goal: what % of goal are you achieving? How does this change over time?
   • Voicemails/Attempts: what % of the time do you leave a voicemail? If your rate is greater than 25%, you are leaving too many.
   • Conversations / Attempt: how often do you get your prospect on the phone? If you’re great the phone and leave terrific voicemails your “connect rate” will go up. If you’re in the single digits you need to work on your technique.
   • Total Attempts /Goal: are you achieving what you set out to do during the week/month? If so, great! If not, what are you going to do differently next month to catch up?
   • Total Conversations / Goal: This is all about technique – improve your telephone skills and your number of conversations will go up.
   • Meetings / Conversations: what % of your conversations result in meetings set? The higher your rate, the fewer calls you’re going to need to make.

Your metrics (in this case totals and ratios) are essential to building your sales funnel. You'll find that the more metrics you track, the better able you'll be to forecast your new business pipeline.

» Buy vs. Build your Ad Agency’s New Business Database

Smart business decision to expect new business director to build a prospecting database?

Not long ago, Jeff, a twenty-something new business guy gave me a call. He was a new employee at a well-known regional ad agency. His management team had given him a group of industry categories that they wanted him to pursue, and had charged him with identifying likely companies and people he should talk to.

So, he called my company, The List about purchasing a customized database of corporate marketers that fit their criteria. Jeff determined that he could purchase exactly what his agency needed for less than $3,000 and have it in 24 hours. He said he'd call back with his president's approval.

A few days later, I called Jeff and learned that his president had told him it was his job to build the database. I told him I'd call back in 6 months to hear how he was doing.

Right on schedule, I called Jeff 6 months later. Not surprisingly, he had just been fired for not generating any new business. Why? Because he'd spent the entire time building the database (at the request of his president).

Let's do some simple math: Assume Jeff was paid $50,000 a year. Add in benefits and his total annual cost was probably close to $60,000. So, over 6 months this regional agency spent $30,000 building a new business database they never used.

Think of the losers in this equation: Jeff is out of a job; the agency lost 6 months of potential revenue; and, the management team is disheartened about the "failure" of their new business effort.

This is a common mistake made by ad agencies and other marketing services companies that illustrates the fallacy and drawbacks of building instead of buying. I encourage readers to do the math to avoid making the same mistake.