In Agency New Business…Give Them the Dessert First

We recently spent some time internally at RSW/US doing some brainstorming on a few of our client accounts to find ways to beef up their performance.  Early on in the discussion with one of the accounts, we had the New Business Director articulate their client’s point of difference.

While they certainly captured elements of it nicely, it simply took them too long to get to the real meat of what made this agency different and importantly, what the win was for the person on the receiving end of the prospecting call.

The counsel we gave this New Business Director was to “give them the dessert first”, meaning tell the prospect right out of the block (after you speak to some relevant piece of news you’ve found out about them or their company) what the benefit (of using your agency) is for them – in a very non-selling kind of way.  It’s the old “WIFM” as another one of our New Business Directors likes to call it (What’s In It For Me?).

So as an example, the call might go something like this:  “Hello John, this is Sally from Agency XYZ.  How are you?  Good, glad to hear that.  You know, I recently saw an article in the Business Exchange where you were quoted talking about the importance of staying one step ahead of competition at every corner.  I couldn’t agree more.  We at Agency XYZ are almost obsessive about staying on top of trends as well.

Last month we used some of our primary research trend analyses to help client ABC exceed their objectives in a new product launch by x%.  It really was something.  It’s possible that this same approach could help you stay even further ahead in delivering better value to your market and your consumers.  If you’d like, I could send you a link to a white paper we recently wrote that speaks to some of the approaches we use to tap into these trends?”

You’ve established relevancy – offered up your point of difference – delivered the benefit - and created a potential next step – all in a few short sentences.

If appropriate (and needed) at this point, the conversation can then move into the reasons to believe why we claim we can do what we do (e.g. we are constantly conducting primary research to stay on top of trends in the industry, we have academic advisors who study market trends and provide us with independent reporting, we keep our pulse on the digital space by constantly scouring ‘chatter’ about our clients’ brands and the things going on in their categories).

The bottom line is don’t talk about yourself….and especially don’t talk about yourself in “vanilla” terms (e.g. we’re strategic, we have 30 years of experience, we are highly creative and our clients love working with us).

Think about who your prospect is, what’s important to them and what kind of problems they might be facing, and then soon after you show them that you have done your homework on them (or show them you understand the challenges in their space if you can’t find news), spoon feed them a big ole ice cream sundae with steaming hot chocolate sauce, cover with nuts, whipped cream, and topped with a cherry.  They’ll love it!!