Your Biggest Agency Pain Point In 2020-3 Takeaways Ep37

In this “3 Takeaways”, we talk your biggest agency pain point in 2020: pursuing new business. Watch this episode to see if your agency fits the description of one of our takeaways, and what it means for your firm.

This is a good episode to jump on board if you haven’t seen us before, and even if you have (thank you for watching by the way), because we hit at the basic core of one of the biggest agency pain points-the struggle for new business.

In our twenty-twenty New Year Outlook Report, we asked this question:

Looking ahead to 2020, how do you expect the importance of each of the following to change compared to 2019?

And one of the top categories of importance was, actively pursuing new business for your agency, at 78%.

Before you stop watching, wondering why I’m telling you something you already know, it’s worth sticking around.

Why?

If you see your firm in one of these takeaways, it’s time to do some thinking about your business plan, and new business plan.

So why is it so hard for agencies to actively pursue new business?

Here’s you first takeaway:

You don’t have a new business process to find new clients.

Agencies often start out with the best of intentions, planning out the initial few weeks with some email blasts, buy into a CRM, purchase a list and write a blog post or two.

And then that’s about it.

Rarely is there a value-based, repeatable process aimed at multiple touches through a variety of channels.

That leads to the second takeaway, why agencies find it so hard to pursue new business:

You don’t give the process a chance.

You do have some agencies who actually follow a process, but who give up far too quickly when prospects aren’t breaking down the door.

Here’s a newsflash-they won’t.

It will take anywhere from 7 to 12 touches to break through on average, which leads to our third takeaway:

You don’t have solid positioning.

It may seem very obvious to point out, but the majority of agencies have ineffective positioning.

So even when they are targeting the right prospects, those prospects don’t see the value in what they’re offering, or even worse, don’t understand the agency is even a fit.

Agencies say it’s hard to find new clients, and they are absolutely correct, it is hard.

There is no magic bullet to find them, although agencies often think there is.

Unless you truly have an inside track to a prospect, no software or methodology will know the exact moment a prospect is looking for a new agency.

Which is why agencies need to be on a prospect’s radar consistently, effectively, and with value.