So let’s cut a few corners here: let’s imagine you’ve already spoken to loads of new business agencies and have come to the correct decision to employ Sponge NB. Congratulations. You are a winner.

We’re now waiting like a coiled spring. A hunched cheetah. A hungry hippo. A tortoise with its eye on a particularly tall buttercup some distance away. WE ARE READY (is what I’m trying to say).

However, you don’t want to press the big yellow “GO” button (everything here is yellow by the way; it’s all on-brand but incredibly tedious) until you have your own house in order. So rather than waste valuable invoiced time realising you don’t have half the things we need, what could you start sorting out in readiness for the AWESOME new business campaign we’re about to unleash into the cold channel?

1) Case studies. Lots of them (preferably covered in results).

We love case studies and would much rather send a few choice relevant case studies to an interested prospect than a standard creds deck. That said…

2) A standard creds deck.

Yes, I know I just said something different but variety is the spice of life so shut up and make me a nice creds deck. Don’t go overboard on fluff - no one cares what you look like (standing there all black and white with your brick wall) and no one is interested in the ‘rich’ history of your building, so stick to client-winning stuff (specifically a simple list of what you’re great at, followed by examples of you being great at them).

3) Targets.

Know thine enemy. As Sun Tzu famously suggested (or it might have been Ricardo Montalbán) if you don’t know who you’re trying to hit, how are you going to hit them. Don’t wait until we’ve got all of the above in order before knowing where you’re pointing us. Don’t just say “food” or “drink” or “big companies”. At the very least have a ‘dream list’ of the types of companies you’d like. Also, fell free to experiment with us; if you’ve never worked in, for instance, the education sector, why not let us ‘blow’ 10% of the database exploring that on your behalf.

There are many more things you can do to get your new business efforts flying faster, but the above is a good start. See you at the buttercup.