Some testimonials are too good not to share:
Asking Simple Questions - ASQ
Improving your business development conversations with ASQ.
In a sales situation (which includes more things than you might imagine - networking meetings, being at the bar AFTER networking meetings, pitches, sales calls, chats in the park while pushing kids on the swing, chatting to a stranger at a party, Zoom meetings or plain old chemistry meetings), it's important that you find out as much about the prospect (yes, I know they're more than just a prospect, but let's employ sensible shorthand or we'll be here all day) as you tell them about yourself. Probably more.
Asking questions is crucial. To ask the right questions, you need to have done your research though. Asking Simple Questions (ASQ) is a good idea (and more of that in a moment) but Asking Really Stupid Excess questions (ARSE questions) is irritating and creates a disconnect between you and your prospect.
Here are some things we know:
Your prospect's safest feeling comes from ignoring you and then tomorrow will be like today and that's fine. Low effort + tomorrow being the same as today = EASY DECISION.
When you're pitching, your prospect perceives that they have CHOICE and POWER. They can substitute your offering with something else. Even if you insist they can't. And they want the power to choose. And they want an easy decision.
The only way they'll care about what YOU want (or at least they'll start behaving like they do) is if you convince them that they're getting what THEY want. And you can't lie, so you’ll need to know what it is they want to achieve.
The more information you vomit at them, the more chance you'll say something they can object to. In the early stages of a sale, you're part of a long list. The prospect needs to exclude you if at all possible.
The prospect doesn't work for you. They don't have to answer lots of long, detailed questions.
The questions you ask should be simple to answer and should demonstrate that you've thought about their company and its goals.
You CANNOT work from a script for any of this. When a prospect answers, you need to be ready to go immediately off-piste (and remember that it's not off-piste for them - you're just joining them on their favourite red run).
There will be things that you're desperate to tell a prospect that you MUST be ready to omit. The things that are important to you often aren't important to them.
So, how do you ASQ in a business development context?
Be direct - ask your question and then stop dead. "How would we get to pitch for your next project?" is better than "I was wondering, as we're very keen and I feel there are synergies between our companies, that if there's a project some time in the future, we'd really like to be involved. How would we get to be one of the agencies you choose to hear from when the time is right, assuming you have anything?"
Don't offer subliminal outs. SO many people say "or..." at the end of a question. Like this: "So, could we get the brief when it's done, or....?". It's like a little tic that makes you feel less forward. But it leads the prospect to the next word in the sentence which SIMPLY CANNOT BE A POSITIVE ONE. Seriously, complete the sentence. You've got to stick "...not" on the end (or something like it). Just like my first point in this list, stop dead. "So, can we get the brief?" is fine.
Silence is okay. If you've ASQed, the prospect might leave a gap. You'll be tempted to fill it with something. Don't. They're not going to exclude you for waiting for an answer to a question. And if someone did exclude you, they weren't going to hire you anyway.
If you're information-gathering, stick to one request in your question. "Tell me everything about your current PR endeavours" is a ridiculous ask. But "Do you use your PR agency to look for backlinks?" is a great ASQ. A really good ASQ will lead to more information than it asked for (ASQed for?).
Listen to the answer. It'll often give you your next ASQ.
If you can master this, you'll find yourself in a good spot because not only does it show confidence without arrogance, it leads to the prospect speaking more than you do. By the end of a good call/pitch/chat with great ASQs, you'll barely be speaking as the information will be coming in your direction. And those conversations are the best.
New business campaigns. How many, to whom, when?
Okay, hang in there on this one. It’s loooong.
Let's say you have 1000 companies in a prospecting list.
Let's assume that those prospects review their agency provisions every couple of years (I know something like rebranding, or a whole new website will be less regular, but plenty of other things are more regular, so cool your jets, just change the maths to work for you).
And now let's assume that a review or an agency selection process takes around a month, with a window of a few weeks where approaching them would be likely to get a response (with a decent value proposition linked to their commercial outcome offering).
This means that on any given day, A little under 5% of your 1000 prospect list are reviewing and considering approaches. So your list on any given day has 50 active prospects.
This excludes prospects where your approach provokes a review. It happens, but rarely enough (by comparison to the organic reviews) that we can disregard for this.
Of that 50 prospects, 80% will select an agency referred to them by a peer. There are numerous studies that come to this conclusion, including a huge one by the American Association od Advertising Agencies. The remainder will either have a review process with no referred potential supplier – or the referred supplier will make a mess of their opportunity.
That leaves 10.
BUT…
You don’t know which 10.
So you have to swing for the fence on all 50.
The problem there is that it brings your conversion rate down and massively exposes the inefficiency of cold outreach.
So what do you do?
Well, if you contact each prospect every 20 days, you’ll never miss a “window”. But you’ll irritate a proportion of your database.
So you can make your interval short at first (maybe 10 days, then 20 days, then longer). And while you’re at it, make your secondary outcome perhaps using a PS. in email 2 or 3 to find out when they tend to review. Not many will tell you, but those who do can be taken out of the interval-based contact and moved to a more qualified list. So now your list is more efficient, because each time you discover when a review is happening, your average contact-time-accuracy goes up.
Eventually, your 1000-prospect list will yield a win, because the ~5% reviewing ratio is true throughout the 720 days, and your intervals mean you’ll get your timing right at least once for 80%+ of the prospects (accounting for shorter reviews, no reviews and people who opt out) within the window. And with a 6% meeting->conversion ratio (which is possible), you ought to win once if you only arrange 20 meetings in two years (this is with a +/- 100% margin for error in the conversion, and assuming that only 2% of your 1000 prospect list agree to give you permission to sell. These aren’t crazy numbers.
And that win is where your next referral might come from. How many of your clients give you referrals? How much is one more client generating referrals worth? Because the answers to those questions change everything. If you’re not asking for referrals, you should be. Today.
Waiting until you NEED new clients to commence outreach is the wrong thing to do, because of the inherent inefficiencies in the outcomes possible from cold outreach. Running solid cold outreach while you’re in a good place financially, with growth in mind, is the right approach. Because the simple fact that cold wins come from a mix of timing, value proposition and luck (along with your own tenacity and organisation skills!) means that you can’t make it go faster. You can increase volume (but this usually means less research and personalisation in your approach, reducing response rates) and enjoy larger numbers, but with that comes cost (both financially and the quality of the outreach).
But don’t forget: 160+ of your 1000 prospects won’t hire a referral. They’ll hire someone that contacted at the right time, addressing the right commercial concern.
What’s stopping that from being you?
The Art of Humble
Let's face it, everyone tends to exaggerate a little (and as an award-winning, 6'5" muscular gold medallist with perfect teeth, I understand). Moreover, it seems like nobody ever misses an opportunity to take credit for something that may not entirely be their doing. In my previous role as a renowned PR professional in the video games industry, I was no stranger to this phenomenon. I held records for gracing numerous magazine covers for the games I represented. However, it's important to acknowledge that these games (Unreal, Duke Nukem, Driver, and the like) were already highly-anticipated and well-received. So while I like to believe I did an awesome job, it was somewhat difficult to fail when working with such an extraordinary line-up of games.
Personally, I take greater pride in the times I managed to generate PR traction for less remarkable games. Those were the moments when I truly demonstrated my expertise. But if I were to sell myself to you as a PR expert, which do you think I would highlight? Yes - the flashy accomplishments, of course.
However, when showcasing your "sexy stuff," it's crucial not to overstate your impact. I can certainly believe that your Twitter campaign played a significant role in deepening brand recognition among consumers. But when you claim that the company experienced a miraculous 400% surge in sales solely due to your Twitter campaign... well, you've swiftly transitioned from being a credible part of the narrative to sounding like a dubious storyteller. Once trust erodes, even your honest achievements will fall on deaf ears.
Keep in mind that your audience will have reasonable expectations regarding your contribution to a campaign. Whether you're designing a logo, managing social media, or handling media buying, you undoubtedly play a positive role in the outcomes. However, it's essential to remain humble and authentic, acknowledging that success is a collective effort.
By embracing humility and credibility, you'll not only receive due recognition for your work but also be commended for presenting yourself reasonably and honestly.
Defining success with a New Business Agency: Understanding the dynamics of cold outreach.
Are you frustrated with your business development efforts? Do you feel like your cold outreach isn't yielding the desired results? Many agencies share this sentiment after trying various strategies like new business agencies, lead gen companies, or in-house salespeople. However, it's important to understand the dynamics of cold outreach and how it compares to the effectiveness of referrals. In this article, we'll delve into why you might feel like your efforts aren't working and how to approach cold outreach strategically to build a successful growth strategy for your business.
Understanding the Perception Gap:
When agencies embark on cold outreach initiatives, they often struggle with the feeling that their efforts aren't yielding the desired outcomes. However, it's crucial to recognise that this perception may be misleading. Comparing cold outreach to the high conversion rates of referrals can create an unrealistic expectation of immediate success. Let's explore this further.
Referrals: The Power of Pre-existing Trust:
Referrals offer an impressive conversion rate of 80% or higher. When a prospect is referred to your agency, trust and credibility are already established through a personal connection. Consequently, closing the deal becomes relatively easier. However, it's important to acknowledge that the initial hard work of building trust was done by someone else.
The Challenge of Cold Prospects:
Cold prospects, on the other hand, require you to build trust and credibility from scratch. While you enter the equation to validate the referral, you are competing against 2-3 other potential winners. The chances of winning from a cold meeting or opportunity are inversely proportional to the conversion rates of referrals. It's vital to set realistic expectations based on this dynamic.
Realising the Potential of Cold Outreach:
While cold outreach may be perceived as relatively inefficient, it doesn't mean you should abandon it altogether. Instead, approach it strategically, recognising its role in your overall growth strategy. By understanding the lower conversion rates and the competitive landscape of cold prospects, you can adjust your expectations accordingly. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that "getting in the room guarantees a win." Building trust and providing value throughout the cold outreach process is essential for success.
Conclusion:
It's time to reframe your perception of cold outreach and embrace its potential. While referrals offer high conversion rates, cold outreach plays a vital role in expanding your client base. By recognising the dynamics at play and approaching cold outreach strategically, you can develop a comprehensive growth strategy for your business. Combine the power of referrals and effective cold outreach to maximise your success and propel your agency's growth.
Valuable Connections
In the ever-evolving world of industries, it's common for good professionals to seek new opportunities. Thankfully, we have LinkedIn - a platform that not only alerts us when our connections switch jobs but also insists we congratulate them with a sincere click of a button.
However, what truly matters is how you respond to these job changes and utilise them to your advantage. When a new Marketing Director joins a company, they often strive to bring positive changes and address key challenges. This presents a unique opportunity for you to showcase your intelligence and become part of the solution.
While offering your heart-felt congratulations, it’s crucial to conduct some research and identify the specific obstacles the new hire might face. For instance, if the company has recently undergone a merger, how can you contribute during this transformative period? Alternatively, if they have recently acquired new clients, how can you help meet the unique needs of those clients? In essence, your goal should be to empower the new hire by becoming their "secret sauce."
Instead of merely listing your services and saying "well done," demonstrate that you have invested time in understanding their situation. Show them that you are familiar with the Post-it notes on their screen.
If you choose to delve deeper into their professional endeavors, do so with purpose and finesse. Your efforts should be geared towards building meaningful connections and offering genuine assistance.
Differentiation in agency-land.
Disruptive. Insightful. Client-led. Strategic.
"We really take the time to understand your brand". "Our team is more like a family". "We always challenge the brief". "Our unrivalled expertise".
I just found at least a dozen of each of those in the last 5 minutes.
They might all be true. It barely matters. Your prospects (unless they're a hot referral) don't believe you. True differentiation is hard. Uniqueness is near impossible. And so it goes that your claims are weakened. So, how can you stand out in a crowded market?
Simple. Act exactly as you claim, consistently. From the first interaction, your prospects are judging you.
Respond to emails immediately, even if it's just a brief acknowledgement. Don't keep potential leads waiting while you craft the perfect response. Promptness and attentiveness always surpass ornate but delayed replies.
Avoid jargon. Nobody is impressed by it. Your complex, trademarked processes with fancy names have no place when engaging with unfamiliar audiences.
Use plain English to describe what you do and how your work achieves commercial objectives. Avoid flowery paragraphs and analogies that make visitors close your website.
Ask straightforward questions. During early discussions, don't assume prospects will guide you. It's your responsibility, not theirs.
In the initial stages, don't give prospects reasons to exclude you. Swearing isn't edgy; it's off-putting. Boasting about being picky with clients makes you sound foolish to new contacts. Funny videos and personal anecdotes have no place in these early, exclusory phases. Focus on value.
Be the agency that understands the prospect's desired commercial outcomes. Emphasize your ability to contribute to those goals. Describe your methods concisely. Ask intelligent, simple questions, and show genuine interest in the answers. Respond swiftly to emails and messages. When possible, answer the phone promptly. By doing these things, you'll belong to a small but distinguished group. Not entirely unique, but far more differentiated than those who merely claim to be disruptive, strategic, client-led, and unrivalled. Ugh.
#agencygrowth #agencylife #businessdevelopment #newbusinessdevelopment #valuepropositions
Obligatory blog post about agency new business, written by ChatGPT.
Robots wrote this:
As a marketing agency in the UK, generating leads is key to growing your business. However, with so many companies offering lead generation services, it can be hard to know where to start. In this blog post, we'll explore some of the top strategies for generating leads for marketing agencies in the UK.
First and foremost, it's important to understand your target audience. Who are the businesses or individuals that you want to reach? What are their pain points and challenges? By understanding your target audience, you can create content and campaigns that are tailored to their specific needs.
One effective strategy for generating leads is to offer valuable content that addresses the challenges and pain points of your target audience. This could take the form of blog posts, whitepapers, eBooks, or webinars. By offering valuable content, you can attract potential clients and position your agency as a thought leader in your industry.
Another strategy for generating leads is to optimize your website for search engines. This involves using keywords that your target audience is searching for in order to rank higher in search engine results pages. By optimizing your website for search engines, you can attract more organic traffic and generate more leads.
In addition to offering valuable content and optimizing your website for search engines, you can also leverage social media to generate leads. This involves creating and sharing content on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. By engaging with potential clients on social media, you can build relationships and generate leads for your agency.
Finally, it's important to track your results and make data-driven decisions. This involves setting clear goals for your lead generation efforts and tracking your progress towards those goals. By analyzing your data, you can make informed decisions about which strategies are working and which ones need to be adjusted.
In conclusion, generating leads for marketing agencies in the UK is all about understanding your target audience, offering valuable content, optimizing your website for search engines, leveraging social media, and tracking your results. While there are many companies offering lead generation services, by focusing on these key strategies, you can generate more leads and grow your agency's business.
A New Business Call To Action
I am about to tell you to do something that (if you look back at my previous posts) I have failed to do. Let’s both learn from this and never not do it again. I am, of course, talking about having a solid call to action (a CTA if you will) on everything you do.
Luring someone into reading a blog post is tricky enough; the last thing you want to do once you’ve managed to capture an audience is waste it by letting it look you over and then shuffle off without paying the price.
Mostly at Sponge post blogs to prove that we’re super-smart people who will win you new business and make new customers knock on your door. We don’t, however, tell you what to do once you’ve read a post. In our situation (and my lame excuse for not using a CTA) I like to think it’s pretty obvious to any smart cookies that the next action we’re hoping for from you is to get in touch and say “sign me up; I’d like some of THAT action big boy.”
However, I should probably make it easier with some kind of hyperlink or email address or TicTok video of me twerking (or whatever it is the kids do these days on MySpace).
The point is, don’t do the hard bits (specifically, writing a blog and getting someone to read it) and then forget to have a commercial trail of breadcrumbs for your visitor to follow. It might be a simple “Contact us” button, or a contact form, or just an email link to open up dialogue… just do something.
That said, please email me NOW on matt@spongenb.com or call on 07768 905464 or follow me on Twitter or connect to me on LinkedIn or like me on facebook or rate my dinner on Instagram. And if you want to see me twerking, here’s my OnlyFans link: www.[REMOVED FOR LEGAL REASONS].
New business agencies. What's it all about?
New business agencies are far less rare now than when we started. In 2004, there were probably fewer than 10 of us. There were a few good ones (us, Icebreaker, Teeming, a coupla others maybe) and few okay ones and a few dreadful ones (one was investigated by the OFT!). There were also some really great business development consultants out there doing great work. And some naff ones bashing out bad phone calls. Most of the new business agencies targeted London advertising agencies. A few of the business development agencies were headed up by former agency directors. It was all a bit....close. Then came Sponge NB.
Sponge NB
I'm Steve and I started Sponge in 2004 after deciding that my employer wasn't as good as me. To this day, I'm probably the least sociable of the new biz people. I really don't want to go and have a beer with my competitors (apparently they do that, but it's just not me). Quite quickly, we annoyed a few people (one of our biggest competitors sent a snotty email to an agency boss because they'd hired us over him. Mostly we did good work, though a few dodgy staff members did our reputation no good. Someone who shall remain nameless but will recognise himself if he's reading this was literally the laziest person I've ever encountered. We had some stars - Katie Butterworth who has gone on to be a proper marketing lady at M&S. Kim Peatling, who is now a business development director at a huge agency, reaping deserved success. Of our current team, Jon is a long-serving and effective business developer - and he's surrounded by some of the best we've ever had. But being good at this isn't always a guarantee of success. And sometimes it's not even a guarantee of courtesy.
Bad clients
Look, we've screwed up over the years. It happens. It's never been through lack of effort, endeavour or skill. Sometimes mistakes happen - or the fit is just wrong. And then there's the time I had an agency boss threaten to throw a cup of tea over me for not hitting an imagined target. Or the time the Deputy MD of a PR agency was so rude to a team member that we decided to resign the account with no notice. And then they fired us, giving full notice. So I kept quiet and we toasted their departure with a good beer. And the one who refused to pay because they didn't like one of our emails. I could go on. A recent client swore at me in our briefing day and then tried to bully us into accepting zero payment for months of work.
Good clients
We've had some true gems over the years too. Current and past clients including thehouse, Tannahill Reay, Chase & Co, Tangerine, Patter, Sparekeys, 20:20 London, Vine Insights and a long, long list of others have been supportive, patient, collaborative and helped to develop a mutual respect that made projects fly. We've helped clients win business worth £800k and others win a £300 t-shirt design job.
18 years later...
We're one of the established business development consultancies now. We're still relatively small (we got a lot bigger a few years ago and I hated it) and I like that I'm still involved in our clients' projects every day. We're more consultative than ever and we have a huge asset in Matt Broughton - our former Atari Marketing Director. He's horrible to our clients. That's not true. But he's brutally honest about their cold outreach collateral. It's like having a tamed prospect on your team. and our research capabilities are first class. We don't buy in bulk lists - we create targeted databases of qualified prospects. We're worth our fee, more than ever before. There are far more players in our game than when we started - for good and bad. Some of the dreadful ones are still hovering around. And some of the scarily good ones (Treacle, The Advertist, a few others) are breathing down our neck too.
And we still enjoy getting our teeth into an agency's value proposition, creating seller and buyer personas, writing smart emails and building outreach strategies. We can do those things (and more) for you, if you like. We'd like that.
Agency new business emails
You’re using email to approach potential new clients (aren’t you?), but knowing what to put in them is hard. So here are some simple strategies and tips to help you.
Research
If you’re going to hit someone up using email, research them and their company. Use the info you find to truly personalise the outreach. If you’re automating, make the entire first paragraph a content field and tailor it if you want to make an impact.
Use your research to guide your subject line. Everyone hates cheesy subject lines and they can spot a “Hey [firstname]!” a mile off.
Use simple tools to find the golden nuggets of inspiration. Google News is great, newsnow.co.uk is great - there are hundreds of resources to make your emails pop.
Design
You’re gonna hate this, but ditch the flashy templates. If you want to seem like you’ve just tapped out an email to someone individually, it needs to look like that. So design it by not designing it.
Opening lines
Make it about them, using that research you’ve now done. If you can’t figure out how to phrase it without sounding false, try something like “I was supposed to be doing detailed research into [COMPANYNAME] but I ended up nerding out over your new range of [NERDYPRODUCT]”. Human tone beats polished copy every time.
What to sell
Nothing. Don’t just describe services at them, as if they’re someone who really needs a creative agency but has forgotten how to use their search engine. Focus on outcomes - these are not always numerical - and you can work backwards to the process proposition. A paragraph that basically says “You know how keeping your best team members is tough but worthwhile? well we make it a lot less tough - look, here’s us doing it for [IMPRESSIVECASESTUDY]” will beat a load of patented processes any day.
Calls to action
Ask for what you want, simply and directly. “Can we have a conversation next Monday afternoon - I think it’ll be more than worth 15 minutes of your day and I’m not going to turn salesy?” will do it, as will many other simple and direct CTAs. As long as you have one and it clearly asks for a thing to happen. Never send cold outreach without telling someone what happens next.
Stages
Create follow-up emails but maintain the human tone. With any email copy, if you can read it in the style of a DFS advert or it’d slip easily into your creds PDF then it’s wrong.
There’s more. There’s always more. But the above will keep you in the right zone. Imagine the sort of email you’d respond to. Bet it’d be simple, direct, personable and I very much doubt it’d be in a gorgeous HTML template. And I bet you’d be more likely to respond if the person had done you the courtesy of doing a little research before crashing into your inbox.
Steve Fair can be found writing all sorts of business development content on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/spongenb/
MailChump™
I’m telling you something you already know when I say that bulk emails are crap.
Every once in a while (if you’re lucky) you might get an email that HAS to be a bulk email but is written so well that you’re not 100% sure you’re “1 of 2,000” on this campaign.
In New Business there are two truths:
1) Email outreach is completely necessary
2) Personalisation makes a MASSIVE difference to response rates
So… how do we keep the emails flowing while still retaining personalisation but without it smelling like an obvious bulk campaign?
One simple approach is to do a little email outreach very often. So, this afternoon, open up that wish list of potential clients and pick the top ten you think are realistic targets. Now write the first prospect a genuine and honest bespoke email. Tell them why you think you can make a difference to their business. Tell them about the work you know they’ve been involved in that’s led you to them. Tell them about results you’ve achieved in their industry….
Lovely.
Now take that email and copy and paste it into the 2nd email of your daily ‘campaign’. If you’ve written the first one honestly and intelligently, you should now be able to go in and replace a few details but still come out with a personable, non-bulk-smelling email. Do this ten times and boom - you’ve got the basis of a decent email outreach that won’t jump out as lazy automated new business spew.
Do that a few times a week and you’ll find those hundreds in your database all soon get attended to.
Now you just have to convert them. Happy hunting.
I don't want to be your friend
I used to be in an originals band, rehearsing, writing and recording week-in, week-out. I never imagined that one day my various masterpieces would end their lives on C90 cassettes in landfill (I had much grander dreams back then). Such was the effort we’d put into each and every song, constantly asking ourselves: “what would people like to hear in our songs?”
The answer is - of course - an impossible one to answer. We’d debut new material to friends and family. My dad would say “I hate that one about the flip top bins, but that’s probably a good thing” while the rest of the audience would be 50/50 split between which was their favourite and least favourite. It was a maddening process of non-discovery.
Truthfully, you can drive yourself mad trying to get any ‘please-all’ formula right, but ultimately the realisation is that all you can do is produce something YOU like and hope that the majority agrees with your choices.
Which brings me smoothly (see, you can tell I was once a creative sort) to the new business-related question: “how friendly should you be on the phone?”
Sponge has been in existence for nearly twenty years now. As you might imagine, in that time we’ve had various staff through the doors, each bringing their own personalities (or lack thereof) and styles to the gig. One chap would shout “GOOD MORNING!” down the line to each prospect, hoping that his 200% enthusiastic delivery would make people instantly like him. And then there’s the ‘building a rapport’ stuff [shudder].
The use of “how are you?” has changed in recent years. If anyone asked me that question before 2010 I’d have always answered honestly and politely, now I mostly hang up. It’s gone from a simple question to a shrieking warning that one of your ten-a-day sales calls has arrived.
I’m a big fan of one rule: RESPECT PEOPLE’S TIME. If Dean McProspect picks up the phone, you’re already winning in my book. Feel free to thank him for taking your call, but immediately respect his time by explaining why you’re calling rather than trying to become his new friend. Asking how someone is today, or how the weather is in [insert cleverly researched office location here] just forces someone to be false back at you.
Don’t do it; get to the point instead. I promise they’ll like you MUCH more if you respect their time rather than try to engage them in pleasantries.
But that might just be me; I’m still VERY bitter about the landfill.
USPs are mostly nonsense.
This is an excerpt from our article: Is your USP useless? Download the full article at https://www.spongenb.com/download1
Most of the people seeing this will be from a marketing agency of some sort (whether or not you like being labelled that…). I’m going to explain why selling any part of your service as unique is a mistake. I don’t mean you shouldn’t offer it. I mean you should understand why it might (or might not) be compelling.
USPs fall into a few categories:
1) The “not actually unique”
We hear these a lot. They include:
- We really get under the skin of your brand.
- Our team take the time to understand your brand before we do ANY work.
- Our unique experience in your sector…
- Our senior team actually work on your business
- Our team hail from <insert huge agency name here> but you don’t pay big agency fees with us!
2) The indecipherable
“Our multi-track, media-ambivalent, high-trust methodology engenders a client/supplier authority equivalence not found in other ideation studios”. Nobody’s buying it (literally or figuratively).
3) The process-obsessed
So many agency web sites are mired in process, without a hint of an outcome. Without the outcome, or the suggestion of a type of result, nobody cares what your processes are.
People buy outcomes (and only then do “people buy people” – and here’s why)
We’ve all said it – “People buy people”. It’s not true, it just seems like it. Correlation and causality are as different as we all know they are but we all see patterns where they don’t really exist. People do buy people sometimes, but only once some other needs are fulfilled. “People buy people” would be better summed up as “Being an arse to someone makes them less likely to buy from you”. Nobody chooses a supplier whose outcomes aren’t clear and whose selling proposition is indecipherable but who is just a really nice person.
Remember, the full article can be found at https://www.spongenb.com/download1
Agency new business. What works?
There are so many ways to build a sales campaign for an agency. Many agency bosses don’t want to be seen as needing to sell, but once you’re past the honeymoon phase and it’s time to scale-up beyond what falls in your lap, you’re going to need to have some outreach strategy.
Cold-channel business development is, when considered in isolation, inefficient. But there are ways to make it work better. It takes discipline and you have to throw out any ideas you have about high-volume telesales campaigns or mass-email outreach. Forget transactional selling (for at least 95% of the process) and sell something that has huge relevancy to your prospect. A recent Dun & Bradstreet report showed that 67% of b2b buyers see “relevant communication” as a top influence for choosing one vendor over another.
But it’s more complicated than that. A Gartner report found that the number of people in a company buying decision has increased from 1-2, to 7-8 in a small business (up to 500 staff). Each level of decision-maker will have a different idea of what is relevant.
Luckily, it’s not just the direct outreach that can create that relevancy. Your content marketing is part of what makes you relevant. A Forrester report from a while back (2014) found that even back then, half of b2b prospects will view at least 8 content pieces during the buying process. 80% of them looked at a minimum of 5 content pieces. This is all part of the selling process and your direct outreach should dovetail nicely with the content you produce. Sadly agencies’ content is all too often the sort of thing that impresses other agencies rather than prospects.
The reason agency new business endeavours are so frustrating at times is the need to maintain relevant contact with a large number of prospects, who have rarely been profiled and segmented properly. And if you get busy, you drop new business. And if it doesn’t bring in new clients quickly, you drop new business. And that’s why it becomes cyclical. You blame everything in turn. Your proposition. Your creds. Your Business Development Manager. A new business agency. The prospects. Your website. You. Another new business agency. You might be right (about one or two of them), but the chances are that nobody has ever really explained how cold-channel outreach works. It’s literally the opposite of winning through referral. It’s very, very hard. But it can work.
I’ll finish with some insights from Hubspot – their survey of buyers said that the top things that lead to a positive sales outcome are:
- Listening to the prospect’s needs (69%)
- Not being pushy (61%)
- Providing relevant information (See!) (61%)
- Responding in a timely fashion (seriously, it’s such an easy win – and so many agencies screw this up) (51%)
We can help with all of these things. We can consult with you on your agency’s many value propositions, selling personas, positioning statements, outreach strategies, and content strategies. We can do the outreach for you. You’ll feel it move under your feet and you’ll finally be able to tick “get the new business sorted” off your to-do list. Let’s have a chat.
7 ways to stop making dreadful sales calls
First, let’s get something clear: we do a lot more than make phone calls for our clients. Today we’re just addressing the fact that most new business calls are remarkably bad. We don’t claim to have a magic wand, nor do we promise ridiculous results from our work. We do however make sure we avoid wasted opportunities. The phone call is a prime example of where waste can occur over and over in a single day. In a single hour. At a new business agency like Sponge NB, we see this affect outcomes directly - so we’re strict.
1 - Research it
The first compliment you can pay your prospect is having taken the time to research them. Even a little bit. It’ll make all the difference to your confidence. It’ll make all the difference to how receptive they will be. You don’t need to know their dog’s name (though if you do, please find a way to mention it without sounding like a stalker (on second thoughts, you will sound like a stalker. Probably keep it to yourself)), but knowing where they have worked before (Linkedin will help with that) or which agencies they’ve hired before (trade press can yield that information) will show that they’re not just a name on a list. You’d be stunned at how many BDMs don’t do the simplest research.
2 - Make it different
Most agencies’ new business calls open with something like “We’re Crunchy Frame Creative and we’re a creative agency and we’ve worked for Channel 6, Harbinsons’s Jam and Nevaslip Prophylactics. Can I have a minute to talk about your marketing?”. Other than the fact that you’ve already started talking to them without establishing that they are okay with having an agency badly described at them, it’s just dull. You’re an agency? With clients? Wow! When can we brief you? If you’ve done your research and you’re smart enough, you’ll be able to open with a question that prompts some conversation. Some of our team are sometimes guilty of not using their research to spark natural conversation – it makes the call far harder to get anything from. Nobody in any marketing department wants to know who you’ve worked for or what type of agency you are until you’ve created a compelling reason for them to desire that information. You might create that compulsion through your clever questions, your knowledge of their company or simply your genuine, carefully directed enthusiasm.
3 - Stick to what you say you’ll do
If you tell someone you’ll send them information straight away. That means moments after the call. If you’re not going to send it immediately, then tell them when they’ll get it. If you tell them 3pm, make it arrive at 3pm.
4 - Follow it up properly
Your prospects get a lot of calls. If you’re going to build any relationship with them then you will need to stay in touch. If you don’t then despite how amazing your agency’s work is, they won’t remember you. There’s a fine, nay (nay?) invisible line between “staying in touch” and “pestering the heck out of someone”. Stay on the right side, but don’t convince yourself that they’ll call when they need you. Too often they won’t. If polite contact from time to time is enough to annoy them then they weren’t going to hire you anyway.
5 - Don’t offer outs
“Can we respond to your next advertising brief, or……..”. This “or”, hanging off the end of the sentence is like a comfort blanket to new business people. In fact I’ve heard it from salespeople of all types over the years. Listen to your new business calls. If you hear that, then stop doing it the way you’re doing it and hire us (quoting SNB_OURPREVIOUSNEWBUSINESSCALLSWEREAWFULSOPLEASEHELPUS for a 7% discount). Don’t offer exits along the way. If the prospect doesn’t like your approach, or if your questioning uncovers the fact that they don’t want you, then they’ll find their own exit. You ought to be looking for the next best thing, all the time. When are they reviewing? How long is the current agency contract? Are there ever projects that fall outside of their current agency’s remit? But don’t roll out the red carpet to the exit door, or why did you call in the first place?
6 - Don’t immediately mention something you sent
You sent information and now you’re calling. You mention it, right? Let’s look at the possibilities:
1) You call, saying that you sent the information about your amazing work on Harbinson’s Jam. The prospect remembers this information. But the prospect also remembers seeing it and not calling or emailing you. Otherwise you wouldn’t be calling them, eh?
2) You call, saying that stuff about the PDF about the jam guys. The prospect doesn’t remember seeing it, or didn’t have time. Now you’re back at square one, but the prospect now views you as the guys who sent the information that he instantly forgot, or couldn’t be bothered to read.
3) You call, use your research and intelligence to ask questions, building on the previous information that led you to send information. If the prospect doesn’t mention it, then you can send it as if they’ve never seen it. If they now remember it of their own volition, then their image of you is rather stronger – they remembered your jam work unprompted.
In case it’s not clear, number 3 is best. So if you sent info, don’t mention it. Sounds counter-intuitive, but it isn’t about your ego, it’s about creating a compelling reason for a prospect to hire you.
7 - Close, boldly, openly and honestly.
There are loads of different types of closes – the assumptive close, the Ben Franklin, the negative close. Bin them – they’re too prescriptive. How about something like:
“I hope I haven’t interrupted your day too horribly, but if I did then here’s the short version: we’re a cracking new business agency and you’re an agency that could do with a long-term, coherent, effective new business campaign. How can we do some work for you?”. Too prescriptive? Of course it is. The conversation should guide the words you use to close. Do close though. It’s the bit that’ll start your stomach churning but when it works (and if you follow all of the above, it’ll work more often), it results in those lovely highs that make the new business slog worth it.
We’re Sponge NB and you can hire us to do ALL of this for you. Call 01708 451311 or email Steve on steve@spongenb.com