66% Of Agencies Don’t Have A New Business Plan

That’s a stat from the recent deck of new business playing cards we released.

It’s not a surprising stat from my perspective, it’s the world I live in (agency new business, that is) but on its face, it really is crazy that almost 70% of agencies have no plan for new business, having said that, it is understandable.

Two reasons why 66% of agencies don’t have a new business plan:

1) No Patience For The Process

In a perfect world, agencies will have a blend of outbound, inbound and referral activity. That can sound very daunting, but you have to start somewhere and build-it’s a marathon (to use the cliché).

And as you build, understand, no matter how much you want it to happen quickly, it typically won’t. For example, we see 20% of clients close business before month 6.

2) Mistake persistence for value

Polite persistence and consistency are critical to a new business process, that’s a given.

But persistence taken too far and with robotic repetition spells doom.

I’ve seen agency new business personnel tout all kinds of numbers on reach-outs and number of calls, but ultimately they mean very little if your subject line is “Following up” over and over again, to use an example.

You’re not afraid to pick up the phone or put yourself out there-that is an admirable trait (and you’d better have it if you’re in a new business position) but that’s only part of the equation.

Every touch has to have some kind of value-showing your prospect why she or he should work with your firm and not the other 10 waiting behind you.

Moral of the story: Time to make a (reasonable) plan.