Ad Agencies Are Bad At New Business: 3 Ways To Fix It – 3 Takeaways Ep.73

Welcome to “3 Takeaways”, your agency new business video series where we focus on one new business category and give you three takeaways to help improve your new business program.

Okay, so we work with small and mid-sized agencies at RSW to help them drive new business.

What I’ve always found fascinating, still, in my 13th year of working here, is how good ad agencies are at the client work they do, and how terrible they typically are at doing it for themselves. At bringing in new business.

The reasons are many, we’ve talked about them: lack of time, hire that didn’t work out, just not being good at it.

Let’s talk about this last one. I

I’ve had conversations where an agency principal will say-we don’t get it, there’s no reason why we aren’t getting more new business-when we start working with a client, they love us.

And I’ll say, that’s great, that’s how it should be-but what are you saying to your prospects up front, what are your competitive differences?

We’re really smart, we’re an extension of your team, we’re really fast, we have a ton of experience, we make our clients look like heroes-TIME OUT.

All those things are great, and when you work with a client, all those things are important.

BEFORE you start working with them, and they’re not a client, they’re a prospect, all those things make you sound like everyone else.

And especially when you hire a new business director internally, and you equip them with that kind of messaging, it’s no wonder new business directors only last 18 months on average.

If you, or your new business director can’t speak with confidence and passion in a meaningful way to prospects about how you can help, then you’re selling from a position of weakness.

So how can you arm yourself, or your new business director with tangible selling points, that will help them pick up the phone, or write an email that doesn’t suck?

Here we go-Your first takeaway:

Build a strong prospecting brand for your agency.

We’ve said in previous episodes, how strategic you are, how smart you are, even how awesome your culture is-none of that should be in your elevator pitch.

Your prospecting brand is how you present your agency ongoing to your prospects and is really a mindset that should inform your entire new business process.

To have an effective prospecting brand, you need to answer YES to these three questions-

-Are your new business efforts memorable,

-Are you providing value, in some way, with every touchpoint, and

-Are you building prospecting trust?

OK, your second takeaway:

Write down your prospects’ challenges, by vertical.

Speaking to challenges within those verticals is one great way to show your expertise and authority.

I’ve asked agencies, what challenges do you help your clients solve?

And so often, the answers are not great, not at first.

Once you dig a bit, you can get specific-you’re helping your clients with those challenges right now.

And I say write them down, because you need to make them as succinct as possible.

You don’t have time to tell a story at the top of the funnel.

When I started at RSW as a new business director, with every agency client, I had a cheat sheet with a list of succinct challenges that client helped solve.

Not a script, but a reminder.

It was a huge help.

And your final takeaway:

Don’t sell all the time.

Take a breath and instead, send over an interesting piece of content, and tie into the work you’re doing for clients, if possible, your prospects will appreciate it.

And remember, 73% of marketers say they read agency blogs/content.

It works. Thanks for watching 3 Takeaways-lots of new business content on our resources page at the URL below-we’re here to help you drive new business if you need it at rswus.com.