Shrinking client budgets make the need for on-going business development more critical than ever. If you're wondering if there are alternatives to responding to RFPs and reviews, the answer is yes
-- take a more aggressive ownership of the new business process. By taking a
proactive approach to cultivating prospect relationships, you can simplify the new business process and spend your
time and resources focusing on high-value opportunities that showcase your agency's strengths.
Here are six steps designed to help identify and reach the right prospects:
1.
Analysis: The first step is to define your agency's unique value proposition. What are the agency's key values, attributes and competencies, and what work best supports it. The key is
not to rely on broad characteristics like "full-service", "really creative and strategic" or "our clients love us" -- but to distill a value proposition that is clearly
differentiated and speaks to your sweet spot.
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2. Targeting: The second step is to develop prospect evaluation criteria and prioritize target prospects. What
types of clients will be most receptive to your agency's unique value proposition, relevant experience, capabilities and culture? It may help to create prospect segments by category to maximize
your efforts -- so if you think a specific brand would be a good potential client, you may want to consider other brands in the same category.
3. Positioning: The third
step is to customize positioning language for each target prospect segment. What are the key communication components that will demonstrate credibility, relevance and support in introductory
communications? The goal is to clearly and simply state why your agency has unique value to add to a prospect's business.
4. Communication: The fourth step is to
make introductory communications with your target prospects. What's the best way to cut through the clutter and create dialogue? Sometimes a simple formality like sending an introductory letter
will increase receptivity to follow up calls and facilitate referrals compared to a cold call. When you connect with your target prospect try to reinforce your agency's unique value proposition,
articulate potential value-add opportunities and begin higher-level strategic discussion.
5. Qualification: The fifth step is to trigger interest in discussing how
your agency can deliver value to the prospect's business. What industry or marketing challenges may resonate with target prospect segments to solidify your value proposition? Your unique value
proposition should be able to serve as a platform to say, "If we can show you how we could do X would you seriously consider a proposal to work together?" This will establish the basis for a
senior-level meeting to learn about the prospect's objectives, challenges and metrics.
6. Engagement: Finally, the sixth step is to engage with the prospect in a
meeting or call to begin to dimensionalize the agency experience. What are the prospect's objectives and challenges, gaps to close or levels of impact to achieve? Leverage the information garnered
to develop insights into overcoming challenges and present your proposal/pitch to add value to their business.
Applying this basic approach will give you more control over your new business
destiny. Since you will always have a pipeline of new business prospects being cultivated you will have greater ability to identify which prospects offer the best potential and terms for a successful
engagement -- your leverage to acquire senior-level contacts and avoid the "beauty contests" is directly rooted in the strength of your prospect pipeline.
By being more proactive
than responsive you can focus on the right prospects for strategic reasons. Ultimately, this focused approach will lower pitch costs and reduce wasted resources. In challenging economic times like
these, an investment in strategic business development is a wise one. The return on your efforts will pleasantly surprise you.
Editor's note: If you'd like to contribute to this
newsletter, contact Nina Lentini.