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…
For about 20% of my clients, 2020 was their best year; for another 20%, 2020 was a disaster! For the rest, we worked harder than ever to manage mediocre results. When I look at my own business, I learned more and worked harder in the last year than I did in the previous year. But…
You know that feeling when you look at your calendar for the day; you see a client and can’t wait to meet with them? Every time you meet with them, you’ve made progress together. They are invested in the work and open to collaborating with you. They appreciate what you create and implement it right…
We’ve been talking all week about what we can do to get the love back, and today, I wanted to tell you a couple of stories about clients who have done just that! One needed a new focus, another a new role, and a third a new system. As you read these, notice which story…
The sales funnel is a useful concept for helping us visualize the journey that a prospect makes toward becoming a customer. But the idea of the “funnel” makes the process seem more predictable than most of us find in practice! Just because someone is in your funnel doesn’t mean that they will buy, or even…
When I talk to growing agencies and creative services firms, their top concern is lead generation. They are confident that they can deliver value, but everyone struggles to get in front of the right potential buyers. Because their pipeline is skinny, and they’re anxious about that, I see folks relaxing their qualification. Instead of focusing…
I got quite a response from my last email about being more choosy in your business development approach. Folks felt like choosing clients, and especially projects from existing clients came across as “snobby.” “There’s nothing wrong with being efficient in your sales process,” replied one agency principal, “some of us don’t want to become full-time…
French cooking techniques and recipes have influenced cuisines all around the world. Chefs from every modern cuisine, from cultures worldwide, come to France to learn from the masters there. One of the defining features of French cooking is the ingredients. You cannot make an excellent, top-shelf French meal without choosing the freshest, most flavorful ingredients….
There are no bad clients… ~Jason Swenk I heard Jason say this on a podcast recently, and I stopped in my tracks and rewound to listen to it again. There are no bad clients… “Of course there are bad clients, Jason! You ran an agency; you should know that!” Just listening to him say that…