New Business Intel

» The New Business Power of a Snail Mail Thank You Note

How does it make you feel?

I received two thank you notes in the last month that were different from all others: neither was sent via email. One was an "old-fashioned", hand-written note from a friend. The other was from a prospective vendor, typed on personalized business stationary, personally signed. Both made a lasting impression. Both have implications for ad agency new business.

The note from a friend came after I made the effort to visit him, his wife and 9-month old daughter in Seattle, on the way to the 4As conference in San Francisco. While it wasn't exactly on the way for me, it was at least on the same coast, as I was flying West from Atlanta.

His hand-written note expressed his appreciation for my visit and what my friendship means to him. But more importantly, and this is the new business implication, here's what it said about him:

• I care enough to take the time to write a really well-written note, by hand (not dashing it off in an email);
• I care enough to say really heartfelt things - on paper - even if (as a typical man) I may not verbalize it.

The note from a vendor came from a potential landlord. We tend to outgrow our office space every four or five years, and I've been through two moves in the last 10 years. Never before has the owner of a building taken the time to write and express his personal interest in our becoming a tenant.

At the time he wrote the note, his building was one of six properties we'd narrowed down into a consideration set. It took this owner just a few minutes to separate himself from dozens of other commercial real estate people we'd been interacting with. Here's what he did:

• He showed that as the owner, he cared enough about his building (i.e. his business) to meet prospective tenants.
• He discovered that we live in the same neighborhood, though had never met, and related that in his note - i.e. he personalized it, revealing a connection that neither one of us previously knew was there.
• He made himself available to answer any questions as we proceeded through our selection process.

I kept his note and commented on it to others. His thoughtfulness made an impression. In fact, we're going to have lunch together in a couple of hours and his building is one of our two finalists. Is that just a coincidence?

You may fall into the "it's far easier to send an email thank you note" trap as easily and often as I do. Note to self: get out of the trap!

Taking the time to think about and craft a well-written thank you note can be an incredibly powerful new business tool. It can quickly separate you and your firm from everyone else who doesn't bother to write, as well as from those who do, but who will resort to email.

If your note strikes the right cord, you have the opportunity to elicit the ideal response: "I'd like to do business with this person. They care. They have good manners. They'll do good work on my account."

» Is Crowdsourcing a Threat to Ad Agencies?

Interview with Victors and Spoils' John Winsor

Brent Hodgins of Mirren recently interviewed John Winsor of Victors and Spoils, which calls itself the "The world's first creative (ad) agency built on crowdsourcing principles." John is a serial entrepreneur: Victor and Spoils is the fourth company he's started and the eighth he's invested in. He most recently worked in a very senior position at Crispin Porter & Bogusky in Denver.

What is Crowdsourcing? John defines it as:

The act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and giving them to a group of people or community, through an "open call” asking for contributions. Hence, provide all of the services that a traditional agency does, from brand strategy to creating TV spots and branded digital tools.

How is it used? Does it work?

John cites two examples of crowdsourcing advertising from this year's Superbowl:

• "Doritos and Career Builder both outsourced their ads from a crowd of consumers", cutting agencies out of the process.
• Google in-sourced their ad from their employees.
• The Doritos and Google ads were rated among the highest.

Victors and Spoils is applying crowdsouring to the way they work:

We feel like an ad agency. But we work like a crowdsourcing platform. At the core of our agency is our creative department. A creative department made of everyone from art directors and copywriters to strategists and producers who come together to solve strategic problems. A global digital community that will not only be rewarded for the solutions they develop (both individually and as a group) but also for participating in the community itself.

Why create an agency like this, and why now? In John's words:

• The business of marketing and advertising is in the midst of a massive cultural shift.
• While crowdsourcing is certainly the buzzword of the moment, there’s actually a much bigger and deeper change going on with the way work gets done that is changing not only marketing but many other industries.

He continues...To me, there are three disruptive forces [at work]:

1. The expectation of transparency;
2. The further digitization of the workforce; and,
3. The rise of the curator class.

John believes that:

Companies need an alternative to both current ad agencies as well as current crowdsourcing platforms. One that offers the strategic direction, engagement and relationship management that agencies deliver today, but one that also delivers the engagement, cultural relevance, results, and return on investment that crowdsourcing (if managed and directed well) can deliver.

John will be providing his insights on Crowdsourcing at the Mirren New Business Conference 2010. I've attended the conference since its inception and recommend it. If you plan to go and haven't registered yet, you'll receive a discount if you use this code: LIST2010. [Neither I nor The List have any financial interest in the conference.]

» Is Procurement the Ad Agency New Business Enemy?

Interview with Mattel's ex-procurement chief

When you mention to a new business person that "procurement" is getting involved, the typical reaction is dread. You've built rapport with your prospect, established their need, demonstrated how your agency can meet it, and now someone who doesn't know you is is going to weigh in, with their ability to say, "no", hanging over your head. Your fear is that all procurement people care about is getting the lowest price, so the months you've spent getting where you are today may have been a total waste.

Dave Wilson, Ex-Procurement chief at Mattel begs to differ:

The biggest myth is that procurement people are the devil incarnate; most of us are decent, honorable people!

Brent Hodgins of Mirren interviewed Dave last month. Here are some highlights:

On lowest cost vs. quality:

• Cost is certainly one factor, but, for agency services, it should be less important.
• A good procurement process should weight quality and service above cost.
• Lack of top-line revenue growth during the recession put an emphasis on reducing cost; revenue growth should reduce that emphasis.

On the biggest mistakes that agencies make when dealing with procurement:

• Viewing them as "the enemy".
• Not building relationships with individuals in the procurement department.
• Not recognizing that procurement's job is to protect the client's interests.

On who should negotiate with procurement, and what they should be prepared for:

• Have people separate from account service do the negotiating.
• Be prepared.
• Be objective.
• Procurement may try to intimidate: you can't fall into the trap and become emotional.
• Having a lawyer present to deal with contract language may be helpful.

David will be providing many more insights at the Mirren New Business Conference 2010. I've attended the conference since its inception and recommend it. If you plan to go and haven't registered yet, you'll receive a discount if you use this code: LIST2010. [Neither I nor The List have any financial interest in the conference.]

» How One Agency’s New Business Approach Distinguished Them From Their Competition

As easy as...Above and Beyond Client Service

True story from a week ago: Midwest branding and packaging agency seeks Midwest healthcare account. Agency gets to the top of the list of prospective partners - before even meeting with the marketing director. How did they do it?

Before I tell you the secret to their success, let's refresh our memories about first impressions. If you go to Dictionary.com, you'll see it defined as "first consideration or judgement". Recall, also, the statistic from a now-forgotten study: "You have seven seconds to make a first impression". One thing we know for sure, humans tend to quickly make judgements about other people. Oftentimes, that first judgement lasts a long time and takes a lot of contrary evidence to overcome it after it's fixed in our memories.

Twenty-five years ago, I met a guy in college who I thought was incredibly arrogant; I didn't want to have anything to do with him. However, in the last six months, I've had multiple interactions with him and have had to completely re-evaluate my opinion of him. Somewhere along the line either a) I judged him wrong, or b) He changed. I don't know which it is, but I now realize that my 25-year-old first impression was incorrect. The problem with first impressions, however, is that if he was the agency and I the prospective client, he was out of consideration, and didn't even know it.

Back to our Midwest branding agency.

Here's a direct quote from the marketer they're proactively reaching out to. I'm not going to attribute the quote as I don't have permission to do so, plus, it was a confidential communication between the two parties that was shared with me for purposes of helping other ad agency new business people and their principals to (hopefully) improve:

Got the package. Thank you. And yeah, you weren't kidding when you said you guys were all about client service. Most impressed that you tracked the package. Just as impressed with your follow-up voicemail. Having spend 20 plus years in the agency business, I am all about above and beyond client service. Unfortunately, too many of our suppliers/partners do not subscribe to that same way of thinking. After a week of having to make simple demands of such folk - your attention and "Johnny on the spot" like attitude was a refreshing change.

What they did was nothing more than go slightly above and beyond the expectation of the client:

• They sent information about the agency at the request of the marketer
• They followed up by email to say that it was on its way
• They followed up by phone (voicemail) to check that it arrived
• They tracked the package to be doubly-sure that it got to the correct office
• They communicated all this in a professional and courteous way to the prospect

Pretty simple stuff, but as stated in the quote, unfortunately uncommon.

If doing these little things can be so effective, think about the opportunities that abound to help your agency stand out!

» Become The Voice of the Customer

The glue in the marketing organization

The marketing organization inside many of your larger prospects or clients is becoming increasingly fractured and siloed, creating a big opportunity for agencies to exercise leadership and vocally represent the voice of the customer. So argued Larry Light, President and CEO of Arcature yesterday at the 4As Transformations 2010 conference in San Francisco.

Larry is a management consultant credited with helping to turn around McDonalds and Nissan.

He made the case that in a big client's marketing organization, you might find a CMO and various chiefs of insight, analytics, merchandising, strategy, branding, and maybe more. Each has turf they're trying to protect and grow, and each is firmly entrenched in their own silo. From his experience, Larry has found that silos only serve to decrease accountability and increase the ability to blame others when there's a problem.

What's the opportunity for ad agencies, and new business people in particular? Become the voice of the customer. In many of the companies he's worked with, Larry said that no one truly represents the customer. That's a leadership role agencies are perfectly suited to assume.

Agencies shouldn't just be coordinators of marketing communication - not when the real prize is to be the glue that holds the client's marketing organization together.

Assuming the mantle of "the voice of the customer" would put your agency in the role of saying to your client,

"What kind of exciting future can we create for your business?"

Here are two important ways that Larry says you can do this:

1. Come up with a real insight. Before you state that it's an insight, though, you'd better be surprised by what you learned. If your insight is that "people like food that tastes great", keep digging.
2. As a result of your insight, how will behaviors change? If the insight doesn't cause you and your client to change the way you do things, then you only created an "interesting insight". You need a business-changing insight.

There are clear opportunities here for new business pros to use insights to crack open prospects' doors. Likewise, for agency management to think about the roles you play in your clients' organizations, and how you can better represent the voice of the customer to assume a greater leadership role.

Thought-provoking stuff; hope it generates an idea or two.

» Hot Categories for Ad Agency New Business - Today

Where and how to successfully prospect

There are only a few people in the U.S. who have a broad-based and in-depth view of the proactive new business market, and who can speak to all geographic regions, industry categories, and types of services being purchased by large and small clients alike. One of them is Dave Currie, President of Catapult New Business. I interviewed him yesterday to get an insider's view of where and how to successfully prospect - today.

What categories are currently hot?

• Consumer Package Goods (CPG).
• Food.
• Retail - both big-box and super markets.
• Consumer banking - particularly regional banks who want to acquire customers from their larger rivals.
• Travel and tourism.
• Education - colleges and universities (all types), and MBA programs.

What outreach techniques are most effective?

• Email marketing with trackable links to landing pages.
• Rifle vs. shotgun: carefully identify your hard targets, but be sure you have a lot of them.
• Small email batches (less than 20 per group).
• 60-second, HD, production-quality video case studies.
• Webcasts with niche content.

What messaging is most effective?

• Show something they may not know, that's a result of research.
• What's your solution that will help your prospect - NOT why your agency is best.
• Specify your value: why should they talk to you?

What follow up techniques are most effective?

• Plan for 15 touch points.
• Variable media: email, phone, webcast, direct mail, video case studies.
• Concise voicemail messages, each with a value message.
• Relevance: get to the point very quickly, with specifics.
• Consistency: success only comes if you regularly follow up.

How fast is work being won?

We've seen first meetings progress to projects in a week, as well as 6 months. The key is consistent follow-up, at least weekly, by phone as well as other touch-points. Be proactive and suggest days and times to connect with your prospect by phone.

Most importantly: "Ask for the meeting. Marketers are taking meetings today that they wouldn't or couldn't take last year."

» The Failsafe New Business Committee

7 ways to make your committee more effective

Many smart ad agency Presidents create new business committees with the best of intentions: bring together the best and brightest in the agency who touch new business, give them a mission and deadlines, and then watch them work together as a unified team and land new accounts.

Too often, the committee never realizes its potential.

Jason Zweig of The Wall Street Journal recently wrote a column titled, "How Group Decisions End Up Wrong-Footed". Extrapolating from his article, which addresses how committees lost billions of dollars during the recent financial crisis, we can learn a lot about how to make our new business committees work more effectively. Here are his suggestions:

1. A committee must be made up of people with different perspectives.
2. Each member must be unafraid to speak their mind.
3. Each member must be able to select and process information effectively.
4. Each member must demonstrate their ability to learn from their mistakes.
5. At the outset, the agency President must objectively determine and specify what success looks like for the committee. Each success factor must be measurable.
6. As the committee considers various options, they should split themselves into two groups: the "pro" group and the "con" group. Each side should generate the best arguments they can for each position, being sure to consider what success and failure looks like for each.
7. As recommendations are being considered, the committee needs to ask "the five whys". For example, why is one idea superior to another? Why does the proposer of that idea know that their proposal is right? (For a new business example of this, see this post.) Zweig argues that,

If you ask five such "why" questions in a row, you are likely to expose any weak points in the advice.

While I have a bias against new business committees, as I look back on my experience on various committees I can see how implementing Zweig's recommendations would have improved the membership, and more importantly, the healthy functioning of each group. I'll be curious to hear how these ideas work for you.

» Guest Post: Taking New Business Dating to the Next Level

Know your type

This is a guest post from Craig Kavicky, Vice President at Big Red Rooster, an independent research, strategy, and design company in Columbus, Ohio.

In recent posts, Todd has referenced the business development axiom relationship-building and compared it to dating. Nothing is more true than the dating reference, and like identifying good prospective dates, identifying good prospective clients requires that you know your type.

All too often, collaborations are doomed by the same difficulties that have felled many a date: bad chemistry, poor communication, and misaligned expectations. We've all gotten into these situations (particularly in lean times) while seeking any work, rather than the right work.

Your first, best goal is to find the best dates in the least amount of time. It all starts with your contact in the prospective client organization.

Asking some simple questions at the start can make all the difference:

• Is your contact a change-agent?
• Do they invest in the value you bring per hour or discounts? 
• Do they share full disclosure and provide time for informed responses? 
• Are they a details person or do they look for comprehensive help to champion their cause?
• How is your contact’s role integrated into the organization for budgets and what's their criteria for decision-making?
• Is your contact chasing trends or making them?
• What other programs is your contact working on and how does this fit in with their annual goals?
• What's their past experience with firms or agencies? Preferences?
• How does your contact view his/her competition and the moves they're making?
• What's their vision for the success of the program and its impact on their role within the organization?
• Do they believe in committing to one firm or do they intentionally spread work out?

Keep in mind that the compatibility of organizations plays a significant factor in the harmony between them. For example, if an agency represents Hustler, it may have difficulty meshing with Wal-Mart. Recognizing this, you can easily translate the answers to these questions into all the criteria you need to evaluate good dates from bad ones. The questions take a little time to ask and answer, but it's time invested at the front end that will save much more later. And, as we all know, time is at the core of what business development leaders try to save every day.

We assume that skilled business developers already know their best fit within verticals or in targeted specialty roles, so the goal of talking to the right people becomes one of disqualifying the wrong ones. However, in my experience, most business developers will try to over-develop a poor fit until the end of time.

The right thing to do is to use these questions to identify prospects who aren't a good match. It's not always easy to do in one conversation, but then again, that's the nature of courtship.

If you don't know your type, you may not be their type.

» How Not To Be The Talk Of The Prospect’s Office

"Jarring" is not the reaction you want

A few weeks ago I wrote about how not to self-destruct during your first meeting. Unfortunately, in this true story the agency became the talk of the prospect's office. Here's the back-story.

Recall that this was a "good agency located in the Southwest" that was asked to submit a proposal for an initial research project estimated at $50,000. They took three and a half weeks to respond and then submitted a proposal with a price tag of $191,000.

At the time I wrote, "odds are, the project - any project - is in jeopardy". And that's what happened, though the prospect's "No Thank You" response was polite:

We were looking for something more in the moment that could present us with company growth.

Understandably, as the prospect explained on the phone, the agency became "the talk of the office for a day" when it became known that their proposal was three times the budget - a budget that was communicated during the initial meeting. She said that the word to describe her reaction to the proposal was "jarring".

After a conversation with the prospect, we can summarize exactly what went wrong.

The agency:

• Didn't listen: They failed to listen to what was said, as well as what was implied.
• Didn't view the prospect's business situation: They failed to look at the prospect's competitive situation, their culture, as well as the type of project appropriate for a company their size.
• Had no sense of urgency: They took 3.5 weeks to submit the proposal, which said a lot of negative things about them.
• Failed to meet the prospect's expectations: Proposing an initial project that will cost three times the budget is a bad idea, plus its scope was far beyond what was needed or desired. 

It's one thing to lose a project after a hard-fought, competitive dual. It's another to beat yourself.

The silver lining of this story, however, is that all this is fixable. You just need to focus on your sales fundamentals:

1. Ask questions.
2. Listen carefully to what's said and not said.
3. Summarize what you've heard.
4. Agree on next steps, including scope and due dates.
5. Deliver as promised and expected.

This agency likely fell down on #2, #3, #4, and #5. Let's all learn from their mistakes.

» A Tablet to Cure Magazine Ad Sales Blues?

Wonderfactory prototype is an exciting development

The Wonderfactory, in collaboration with Time, Inc., helped design the prototype of what Sports Illustrated magazine might look like on a tablet computer.

Revealed on December 2nd, this innovation could allow magazines and other periodicals to charge for content on tablet computers, and give advertisers data on who’s seeing their ads.

Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times broke the story. A few highlights:

• Apple, HP and other computer manufacturers are expected to offer tablet computers sometime next year.
• "The general guess is they’ll be like big iPhones, with interactive touch-screens. The larger size makes it feasible to put a magazine page on a tablet."
• The functionality is anticipated to let readers interact with the magazine stories, ads, and content, watch videos, see additional photos, get live updates, and particpate with what's going on in the story.
• Readers will also be able to email, print, save, and share stories and content with friends via social media channels.

From an ad sales perspective, this should create opportunities for media departments across the country. It's anticipated that readers will be able to use the touch screen to interact with ads, view video clips, product comparisons, prices, and purchase directly from a story. In turn, this should open up a whole to way of thinking about ads that will lead to increased innovation.

From a new business perspective, you have to think that this type of take-it-with-you technology - a tablet that's bigger than your i-phone but much more portable than a Kindle - will open up a another vehicle for innovative apps and offerings. Ad agencies and other marketing services firms should be able to leverage innovative offerings to generate both organic growth and new business.

While I'm generally not an early-adopter, the thought of being able to do most of my "required reading" on a highly portable tablet computer that provides online interactivity, is really exciting.