Agency New Business: Put On That Damn Sales Hat (Chapter 17: The Aftermath and Recovery!)
This is Part 17 of a 17 chapter eBook, “Agency New Business: Put On That Damn Sales Hat,” which you can download at no cost here.
The eBook covers everything from pre-prospecting preparation to working opportunities to close.
The majority of the eBook focuses on elements that agencies either often overlook, are too busy to consider, or are simply too lazy to pursue.
The agency landscape is changing rapidly and daily, not only for agencies, but for clients: doing things the same way won’t cut it.
We released “Put On That Damn Sales Hat” as an overall agency new business primer for marketing services firms, so they can put on their sales hat with purpose and confidence.
Chapter 17: The Aftermath…and Recovery!
So now you just got the call (or the email) and you aren’t one of the lucky ones to have won the business…or after what you thought was a great meeting, you don’t get any returned calls…
You deserve to know why!
After all, you’ve put a tremendous amount of work into your meeting or your pitch presentation.
You need to learn why they didn’t select you or aren’t interested in future conversations with you (if it was an intro meeting).
This is something we push our RSW/US clients to do.
If they can’t or don’t want to, we’ll offer to do it for them.
We think it’s vitally important to help improving the future success of an agency.
Our clients (and you) need to know.
On the RSW/AgencySearch side of our business, I seek it out in painstaking detail from the marketer who didn’t select the other two agencies in the search.
I know first hand how much effort went into the presentations, because I was there through the entire process and the final pitch.
In the end, not only does it help the agency, but it helps me better understand what marketers are looking for.
So here’s a hypothetical: You made your pitch and a week later you receive the email thanking you but indicating that you haven’t been selected to represent this marketer’s firm.
You decide you’re going to call to get some feedback and all you get from the prospect is “we decided to go with a local firm.”
At that point you should ask, “had I been a local firm, would your decision have been different?”
Sales Hat
If no, find out why!
Let them know that your feelings aren’t going to be hurt and that you want to learn so you can improve the next time around.
And ask them, “if for some reason this firm didn’t work out, would you ever consider hiring our firm?”
If they hem and haw, find out why!
You can’t hide from your problems and keep doing it the same way over and over again.
The bottom line is, you need to know, you need to learn, you need to improve.
Mark Sneider
Mark is a 30-year veteran of the consumer packaged goods, advertising, and marketing service industry. Mark started his career at DDB Needham in Chicago prior to earning his MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Business School at Northwestern where he majored in Marketing and Economics. Prior to starting RSW/US in 2005, Mark was General Manager for AcuPOLL, a global research consultancy. Sneider worked in Marketing for S.C. Johnson and KAO Brands. Sneider has been invited to speak at numerous Agency events and network conferences domestically and internationally including the 4A’s, Magnet, NAMA, TAAN, and MCAN. Sneider has been featured in prominent industry publications including Adweek, Media Post, e-Marketer, and Forbes. When not working (which often seems like not often), Mark likes to run miles, go to church, and just chill with a hard copy issue of Fast Company.
