I’m part of a Slack community filled with agency owners, and last week one of the participants asked, “How’s everyone’s pipeline right now? Have changes in the economy impacted your sales results?” What followed was a deluge of reports; There are certain sectors where the story is different, and I have clients who are closing…
If the economy slows over the next 18 months winning new business will get more challenging. To keep your business strong in any economic condition, you need to upgrade your business development process. There are three critical decisions you have to make to ensure you’re able to win business in unfavorable economic conditions: Focus on…
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…
Creative service businesses tend to have a small number of clients (8 – 12) that make up the bulk of their revenue each year. So keeping those clients happy is crucial to your success. What does it mean to “delight” clients of a creative services firm? What will separate you from the other agencies competing…
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…
“Here’s the thing about creatives services, Brad. If you work really, really hard, learn everything you can and advance in your career, you get to be a sales person!” ~ Jim Farris (my dad) I’ve talked to many agency owners, and with one exception, none of them wanted to be salespeople. But when you own…
In our last email, we talked about the benefit of having someone outside the sales team, who can provide objective feedback to improve your new business team’s efficiency and effectiveness. But how does that work when I am the management team and the salesperson? In most of the firms I work with, the principal is still…