Mainstay Agency New Business Tools: Taken as a Given or for Granted?

In our upcoming webinar on June 23, we will go into detail about the results of the Mirren-RSW/US 2016 Agency New Business Tools Survey.

And while upcoming posts will also look more deeply into the results of the survey, it seems important to call out several important tools that respondents did not mention.  They are so ubiquitous, they are probably just taken as a given.

Taken as a given is okay – but they can’t be taken for granted!

At a time when new marketing technology platforms appear at a rate of nearly six a day, it’s important to optimize the use of these agency new business tools too:

Telephone: While it may seem harder to find prospects at their desks answering calls, the phone remains a very important agency new business tool for many reasons.

For one, just as your firm may put together multi-media advertising or communications campaigns for your clients, in new business the phone is one of several media that work together to convey your message.

Even if you get voicemail or someone taking a message, think of it as an opportunity to leave an effective, targeted and relevant message about the benefit(s) to the prospect of a conversation with you and your firm.

Website:  Your company website is a sales associate that “speaks” for your firm 24/7.

With the accessibility to information the internet provides, it’s a new playing field for buyers and sellers, with buyers having far more information about potential products and services they may be considering before their first conversation with a sales person.

It’s important that  your firm’s website communicates your unique positioning, and that content exhibiting your thinking and work is regularly updated.

Blog:  Whether your blog resides on your website or as a separate site, it too is a powerful 24/7 spokesperson for your firm.

It deserves a strategic plan for relevant thought-leading content, published at regular intervals.

Recent interviews with Fuel Lines founder, Michael Gass, and Convince & Convert President, Jay Baer, provide ideas on developing and maintaining an effective blog.

People:  No matter how innovative the tools are that support your new business program, your staff operates them.

Furthermore, the lifeblood of business development – and effective client relationships – depends on people.

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, emphasizes the importance of not just having the “right people on the bus”, but also of having the right people in the right seats.

And once they are seated, be sure to give them the resources they need to support your business development program – everything from being immersed in the business development strategy to training on the continuous parade of new marketing technology platforms.

Agency new business tools occupy a wide spectrum of technology, as well as of history in business application.  It’s okay to take them as a given, but not for granted.