When your Agency New Business Pitch Becomes a Change-up

As a New Business Director at RSW/US, I help my agency clients from the first call with a new prospect through to the close.

This week, I was on a conference call with a prospect and introducing them to my client.

 

The prospect is the VP of Marketing, seeking an agency to provide full service support. Toward the end of the call, the prospect stated, “I want to help you succeed here.”

Oh, those are words we like to hear! And, they are especially sweet on the first introductory call.

At the same time, they bring to light the work that goes beyond “the pitch” in working to secure a new client.

Not to mention the effort in becoming integrated with the internal team once you win the business.

Hiring an agency is a change event from any perspective.

In the case of the prospect who expressed the desire (and need) to help us, her company has been doing all marketing work internally thus far.

Rapid growth and increasing competition in their industry prompted this bright VP of Marketing to recognize she needs help from outside.

And, she needs to sell her management on this. AND, she knows she needs to help US sell her management.

Likewise, being the “new agency” that entirely replaces the prior firm, or that is bringing additional, supplemental resources to an existing agency line-up creates change.

Is it too obvious to say that managing this change successfully is a major initiative unto itself? And, that this process starts BEFORE the close and extends beyond it.

Ultimately, responsibility for getting your agency team fully integrated into a prospective or new client organization rests heavily with your primary contact.

It’s an opportunity for you to add value as a new business partner, however, to be proactive in facilitating your “on-boarding” process (even before you are officially “on board”!).

In some ways, you may have the most to gain by very effectively managing the development of your relationship with your new client’s internal team — and potentially the most to lose if you neglect to manage this change process effectively with all key players in their organization.

As the VP of Marketing in our recent new business call illuminated, managing what is a change process may very well begin BEFORE the close.

If you need help building your strategy as a collaborative partner in implementing this process, call us, or see the Agency New Business Resources tab on our website.

We always want to hear and celebrate your success stories. Be sure to leave comments, now or later!