4 Questions To Ask If Prospect Meetings Are Going Nowhere

When agencies are considering our services, one of the first questions I typically ask is how they’ve handled new business and acquiring prospect meetings in the past, and are currently handling it.

One response I often get when an agency is considering a change, in regards to past performance: “we had someone internally but the prospect meetings didn’t go anywhere.”

If this describes your current new business program, you need to think about what that really means, because there are several, brief stages of analysis you should subject your current meetings to.

Obviously if you feel the meetings from your new business program, whoever is handling it-you, a new business director, a team, etc, “aren’t going anywhere”, a change needs to be made.

But that change can take a few different paths, and could be a simple tweak, or a sizeable change.

The first place to start, perhaps unsurprisingly, is asking,

Why you think prospect meetings are going nowhere

While new business, as in life, is rarely black and white, sometimes it is, and in certain scenarios, you need to make a clean break.

That clean break may be:

–Changing your new business director: they’re too junior, don’t know how to sell marketing services, aren’t the right fit or aren’t representing you the way he/she should be

–Dissolving the internal new business team: In our experience, rarely does a new business team work.  There are exceptions of course, and ideally the whole agency contributes to new business in some way, but there’s a reason for the expression, “too many cooks in the kitchen.”

–Taking the responsibility off the agency principal in charge of new business: This scenario, again, can work, but it’s extremely difficult with everything else she/he has to do.

There’s the black and white, but in most situations, there will be grayer shades, and before you discount the meetings coming in, you have to ask these questions:

 1) Are your prospects the right fit?

I mean in terms of geography, size (revenue), sector and title.

If not, you need to reevaluate who you’re going after.

 2) Who’s taking that first prospect meeting?

Whoever it is-you, a new business director, team member-are they the right person?

For example, are they asking questions relative to the prospect’s business?

3) What are your expectations and are they realistic?

Presupposing your prospects are the right fit, what are you expecting out of a first meeting?

Here’s a baseline I’d suggest, unless something else has specifically been put on the agenda: they have a high level of interest in who you are and how you can help them and they want to talk.

Anything more from a first meeting and you need to recalibrate expectations.

Neither you or anyone else can manufacture an opportunity, timing truly is everything.

Which goes hand-in-hand with. . .

4) Are you following up?

This is the new business “classic,” if you will.

I’ve heard it many times-a meeting actually goes pretty well, but according to the agency “it went nowhere” because the prospect never got back to them.

I leave you with three words:

That’s your job.

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Your Prospects Are Surrounded By More Competitive Noise Than Ever

RSW/US is an outsourced ad agency business development firm that works specifically with ad agencies, marketing services firms, and PR firms to find better-qualified new business opportunities and get you closer to close

Your Prospects Are Surrounded By More Competitive Noise Than Ever

Our 3 Takeaways episode, 3 Ways To Break Through To Your Oversaturated Prospects, focuses on how digitally saturated your prospects are today-how much more competitive noise surrounds them than ever before.

Agency new business, and sales generally, has always been about getting your prospect’s attention in a meaningful way.

COVID has isolated many of your prospects, and while there are, in theory, less interruptions during the workday at home, it’s caused all of us to, arguably, work harder and longer.

And for those prospects with children, it adds another layer.

So-point being, your prospects are constantly surrounded by distractions, by noise (literally and figuratively).  And it doesn’t go away after the first meeting or conversation – agencies often forget this.

A stat from one of our reports:

69% Of Agencies Say It’s Tougher To Break Through To Prospects.

There are many reasons for this, besides all the noise – agency positioning that doesn’t resonate, a lack of specialization, lack of consistency in the effort, and there’s more to the list.

But back to the noise: it’s not just your competition – it’s other companies and vendors vying for their business, their daily workload, their personal lives-most agencies don’t really think about the scope of all this noise and how much of it surrounds their prospects.

And don’t think just because it’s a referral that the noise goes away.

And so from this, another stat is apropos:

Your Prospects Are Surrounded By More Competitive Noise Than Ever

53% of marketers say agencies are not sufficiently aggressive following up after a meeting.

I’m curious, does that stat surprise you? It surprised me. I understand the trepidation, I deal it with it myself, you don’t want to pester your prospects to the point they shut you down.

A real-life example of this in action – a comment an agency principal made to our owner Mark.

This principal said he got exasperated with salespeople who didn’t stay with him after a good initial interaction, going on to say “We had a good meeting and then, as always, I get slammed. The salesperson left a voicemail or two, maybe an email and then he gave up.”

Agencies absolutely do the same thing, or don’t follow up at all.

So how to combat all the noise? 

Certainly, it’s with some level of thought leadership content, an SEO strategy, and/or referrals, to name a few.

But prospecting has to play a part, and you have to remember this:

Use every channel in concert with each other.

It’s one of our mantras here at RSW, working with our agency clients.

And more specifically, use those channels in uncluttered spaces.

Sure, you’re going to use email and LinkedIn-but I’ve talked previously about the efficacy of snail mail. (And yes, it’s a more strategic process as many still work from home right now.)

Another uncluttered channel is the phone.

Sure it’s still used, but agencies don’t typically have the time, the talent or the inclination to do it.

Old school-sure, but it’s being used less and less, think about how often you get actual calls, or maybe I should say, effective calls – that’s an opportunity for your agency.

So keep in mind that this competitive noise exists: stay consistent, stay patient, and follow up appropriately.

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