CMO friends consistently tell me that new business people give up too early
by Todd Knutson | published on February 23, 2009
Here are the unofficial statistics they cite about agencies' proactive business development people:
- 50% never follow up on the email or material they send
- 25% follow up only once or twice by phone
- 10% call 3-5 times
- 5% call more than 5 times
This does not mean that CMOs want you to call more. However, they do understand the sales process, and recognize "good sales" when they experience it.
If you see yourself in the above statistics, you might think about it this way – you're giving up before you've really begun the sales process. As one CMO said to me, "I won't ever take someone's call unless they've called me at least 5 times." When I asked why, she responded by saying. "I want to know that they really want to work with my company, and that they're not just looking for low-hanging fruit...I am NOT low hanging fruit!"
I recommend you consider doing the following 3 things to quickly improve your persistence:
- Follow up at least seven times: remember the marketing adage that it takes 5-7 impressions to make a first impression.
- Do what you say you're going to do; or, Set and fulfill expectations: if you say you're going to call on the 23rd, call on the 23rd.
- Use a CRM system (for example Act! or Salesforce) to record your notes and set next actions.
Make your plan, and then work your plan
by Todd Knutson | published on February 12, 2009
A former senior colleague of mine on the client side used to preach the old adage, "Make your plan, and then work your plan." It works. Applied to new business, it works really well.
I remember asking the president of a west coast ad agency to describe his new business plan. He hesitated, and then answered that he had hired a woman right out of college and given her a list to call. I waited. He started visibly squirming in his seat.
I gently pushed him over the edge with another question, "...and your plan is...?" He looked at me, grimaced, and shrugged, palms directed towards the ceiling.
Creating your new business plan doesn't have to be an arduous process - particularly if you don't have one now. It's far better to do something than nothing. And, to make it a living document, I highly recommend that it fit on a single piece of paper. Some of the details may need to be on a subsequent page (e.g. the details behind the goals, metrics, marketing plan), but all the top-line elements should fit.
Here's a 10-step process that may help:
- Pick the new business system that best matches your agency's size, culture, personnel, and objective.
- Identify the person who will drive the process (who is responsible and accountable).
- Evaluate your new business performance over the last 2 years: # meetings, # proposals and RFPs completed, # wins. Determine your ratios (e.g. meetings/proposals; RFP/win).
- Set realistic new business goals based on past performance, and then set stretch goals.
- Identify the top two things you want to improve about your past performance. Create an action plan for each item, with specific dates, metrics, and person(s) responsible to achieve them.
- Identify the top 3 categories you're going to pursue.
- Clearly define why your agency is relevant to each category - in one sentence for each. To help, answer this question: Why should the VP marketing at one of your target companies care that you exist? In other words, what problem can you solve for them?
- Create your marketing and sales plan, complete with specific dates, metrics (e.g. email open rates, calls made, conversations, meetings, proposals, etc.) and person(s) responsible to implement each aspect.
- Implement your plan. This means work it - do what you said you were going to do.
- Measure the results. Determine ways to improve. Implement those changes. Measure. Repeat.
As you can see, none of this is hard. It just takes commitment to your plan.
Pay for single-use contacts or subscribe to a new business resource? Each has its purpose, pros and cons
by Todd Knutson | published on January 23, 2009
I had a conversation the other day about renting email lists. The focus of the conversation was how to get the lowest possible cost per contact. What the new business person hadn't thought-through was what they wanted to accomplish, and didn't understand their choices.
As with most things, you get what you pay for. So, think about what you want, and then this short post may help you better understand what each option provides.
List Rental
Quality: mass email lists are gathered from a variety of disparate sources and are designed to be rented over and over again; they are generally known for being of relatively low quality. Smaller lists may be more targeted and higher quality.
Quantity: large lists necessitate your renting many thousands of names to overcome quality issues in the hope of getting enough responses to justify the purchase; smaller lists are intended for smaller mailings and may yield a higher response rate.
Purpose: Single use – for email (or direct mail).
Response rate: If you can get a 1% response rate on email you're really doing well; .04% is common. At the latter rate, if you want 100 leads, you're going to need to rent a list with at least 25,000 names.
Cost: $400-$500 per thousand names, or $11,250 at $450 per 1000.
List License
You can subscribe annually to some services.
Quality: Really large list databases are gathered from a variety of disparate sources; smaller lists may be more targeted and higher quality.
Quantity: Due to the number of companies and people in a really large database (when you start talking about more than a hundred thousand or millions of companies) quality control is very difficult. Smaller lists should be of higher quality and targeted for a particular industry vertical, geographic region, or discipline/function (e.g. IT).
Purpose: Ongoing use as a new business resource, one-to-one prospecting through telephone, email, direct mail.
Response rate: Should be much better than lists rentals.
Cost: $3,500 and up, depending on quality and the number of users who will have access.
Once you identify which type of services suit your new business needs, then decide on your service provider.
