Posts

Buying Signals new business development

You’ve waited for this day: the anticipated big meeting with the oh-so-desirable prospective client. Being excited, enthusiastic and energetic is understandable, and overall a great thing: your enthusiasm, your passion for, and your understanding of the prospect’s business assure them your firm can be a good potential marketing partner. And still there are times when […]

The theory of the summer slump is a myth.  A fairy tale. We called this out in a post a few weeks ago, New Business Development “Summer Slump” … Feeling lonely as a Mars Rover?. That post argues that the summer slump is something we create by buying into the notion it has basis in […]

With the release of the new RSW/US infographic, Ups and Downs of Agency New Business, last week’s post told the story of a down: a “horror story” about a new business development prospect opportunity that went from hot to cold, seemingly at the click of the “Send” icon. Thinking they were being efficient, the agency sent […]

As we were developing the Ups and Downs of Agency New Business infographic, a colleague here at RSW/US who is a New Business Director, shared a “down” that relates closely to “Level 4” of the infographic: Manage the Meeting. This experience happened about five years ago, but was so painful, the memory still haunts. The […]

Two weeks ago we presented Part I of a two-part series about why a good new business proposal may be rejected. The post was based on the Harvard Business Review article, 5 Reasons Good Deals Get Rejected. In Part I, we addressed the first three possible reasons why even a terrific new business proposal maybe declined: You […]

Agencies tend to push an active new business strategy to the side until something wakes them up.  That “something” generally tends not to be good. Then there are those agencies who get it, and they find a way to keep new business active, and while that’s to be commended, even these agencies tend to overlook […]

  First, the technicality: it was a bridge keeper that Sir Lancelot faced in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yet, this is a scene that has come to mind more than once over my career as I’ve worked on getting past gatekeepers. Granted I never met any who required me to provide the correct answer […]

The Advertising Age article, The Ad Agency of the Future Is Coming. Are You Ready?, is one that you may have seen.  If you haven’t, set aside some time to read it. As industry leaders from Procter & Gamble, Wunderman, PepsiCo, Omincom and others describe their views of the “Ad Agency of the Future”… how […]

Harvard Business Review recently published this article: Don’t End a Meeting Without Doing These Three Things. These “three things” at the bullet-point level are: Confirm key decisions and next steps Develop communication points Gather session feedback Considering this article through the lens of agency new business, each recommendation is relevant.  Still the context needs to […]

Peter Caputa IV, Vice President of Sales at HubSpot, offers a truth that may hurt: “Most agencies aren’t doing a good job at Inbound; they only have their toes in the water,” comments Peter, as he considers the use of Inbound for agency new business.   Ideally you’ve had the chance to see the 2016 […]