You’ve been cultivating this lead for a while, truthfully, for years. They finally have a project that would be perfect for you, and as luck would have it, you reached out just as they were thinking about how to get it done. You’re in the door – and there’s an actual project on the table….
It’s hard for a creative agency to serve more than 10 – 20 clients at a time. It splits your brain in too many ways. For most creative agencies, growth is getting bigger clients, not more clients. Successful new business efforts might mean closing 5 – 10 new clients every year. That would be a…
7 Simple Strategies to Motivate Exceptional Feedback Getting feedback from customers is arguably one of the most important aspects of being an owner of a creative agency. Feedback from clients can help you to understand your business’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s the best way to know what your clients prefer and dislike about a service…
You can accomplish your goals in a very relaxed, slow, and fun way. ~ Steve Chandler Our last conversation talked about how amping up the pressure and intensity might not be the best way to find opportunities. I suggested that there might be a way to try to slow down, listen and take time. For…
When you put together a proposal for a piece of work you’d be perfect for, how long is the document you are creating? Do you wax poetic about your “proprietary process? Do you include bios of your key people? Have you added case studies of similar projects? Or do you create a one-page summary that…
Last week I talked about spending more time thinking so that we can make better decisions. One of the categories of decisions that I see the least thinking about is new business decisions. When someone wants to talk to us about starting a new project, there is no pause – just a pavlovian response, “When…
As our economy starts to emerge from its pandemic slumber, I’ve been encouraging my clients to get more systematic and take more action to build their business development pipeline. I worked with a cohort to get started with outreach, and they saw success; that’s why I built the Online Lead Generation and Engagement course. But…
Now I know I’m not usually in your inbox on a Wednesday! But yesterday, I talked about the importance of daily action and I had to come back today, so you knew that I was practicing what I preach! You see, it’s a huge mistake to make business development this “thing” that you do. Like…
On Saturday, I told you the story about going to 27 new business meetings in a row without closing a single client. That was a painful process, it was a lot of rejection, and the reason those appointments didn’t close was primarily that I wasn’t executing well. It sucked. But during that same time, other…
“You can have anything you want if you are willing to ask 1,000 people for it.” ~ Byron Katie When I first started my business, I worked with a sales trainer. He told me, “Get 30 appointments in your first 90 days, and you’ll have a thriving consulting business.” I didn’t know any better, so…