Post by RSW/US Owner & President Mark Sneider
For those of you following these posts, this is the Chapter 10 summary from our soon to be released, 17 chapter Agency New Business Handbook titled:
Put on that $%*! Sales Hat! The Hardest Part of Agency New Business.
The 17 Chapters talk about why you need to wear your sales hat at every step of the process, from pre-prospecting preparation to working opportunities to close.
The majority of the book focuses on elements that Agencies either often overlook, are too busy to consider, or are simply too lazy to pursue.
Chapter 10: Think of them as pre-adolescents!
You think YOU have no time.
How about your Marketing counterparts?
Ranks are thinning, demands on Marketers are greater than ever before, and they are being bombarded by folks like you.
I had one of our New Business Directors at RSW/US the other day say that one of her prospects said “I get 300 calls a week from agencies”.
Holy Cow! How the heck do you battle through that wall? How are you going to get Marketers to pay attention at every step of the selling process?
Do you think it’s best to make your messaging, your mailings, your emails, your presentations, RFIs, RFPs, proposals, and pitches remakes of War & Peace??
NO!
Unfortunately we see it all the time in content produced by agencies. Agencies write like they talk. They forget that nobody has time to spend a lot of time with their content.
What they need to do is think about their messaging the same way they think about creating campaigns for their clients: short, sweet, compelling, and consistent.
Here’s a hypothetical:
You’ve been asked to submit an RFP response.
There are some very specific requirements in terms of what they want to see and how they want to see it.
So the question is: How do we make it easy to read yet fulfill their requirements?
THINK 1/2 THE WORDS
Use bullets.
Use visuals.
Use lots of white space.
Limit page to one theme, one idea, one response.
ALWAYS relate it to the client.
Tell them why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Nothing worse than reading an RFI or RFP when I’m managing an agency search for RSW/AgencySearch and trying to figure out why the agency used the case study they used, or why they presented work without some explanation about why they presented it.
Regardless of what you’re putting together for a prospective client, I suggest you give the content to someone who isn’t part of your agency and have them read it.
Are they still awake at the end?
Do they find it compelling?
Do they understand why you used the examples you used?
If they don’t, you need to get back to the drawing board.
