The New Business Dingo

Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, authors of REWORK, write: "The original pitch idea is such a small part of business that it's almost negligible. The real question is how you execute."

How you execute your business is critical to new business.

Think about it: How successful will your new business machine be if you have an account management team that continually fails to meet client expectations? If they're missing deadlines, promising one thing and delivering another, dealing with

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Many new business programs start getting sluggish during the hight of the holidays. Prospecting for new business can feel pretty unappealing, and as the allure of celebrations start and the clock moves towards 5:00 pm. It's pretty easy to start thinking about office parties, and sipping a cocktail (perhaps one with an umbrella).

Unfortunately, working less on ad agency new business will not yield more new clients. Nor will it get help you become a more effective new business person.

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Some ad agency CEOs would rather not spend money on a new business prospecting database. So it's not surprising that the decision to do so (or not) often comes down to a choice: spend money on an external resource or use an internally-developed and maintained database.

Before making this decision, though, it's important to consider the health of your internal database. Why? Two reasons:

1. You might be spending more money building and maintaining it than it would cost you to subscribe to

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Does your ad agency's new business team learn something every time an RFP submission doesn't get you to the next round? Is every RFP better than the one before? Some rejection letters provide insightful feedback that an agency can use to improve future RFP responses and make it to the finals more often.

Here's the second sentence of a rejection letter that I recently read: "Reading through the submitted RFPs compelled our team to hold significant internal conversations surrounding the

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Members of the Marketing Mine community were awarded more than $75M in new business last month that didn't hit the trades, and in most cases you didn't know about.

A few important things you should know. In the past month, more than 570 new corporate marketers and procurement professionals joined the Marketing Mine community.

More importantly for a new business executive or agency owner, in the past 30 days the $75M+ of new business that ran through the site was from:

•    a major

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Brent Hodgins of Mirren recently spoke with David Wilson, Ex-Procurement Head of Mattel, about his upcoming talk at the New Business Conference in NY April 12-14, and based on several conversations that I've had over the past month with clients and staff alike, I thought I'd share this post of Brent's with you for a deeper insight into the mysterious world of procurement.

MIRREN: What are the biggest myths about procurement? In other words, what are the preconceived notions about

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At Catapult New Busness we're always interested perspectives from agencies. The following post is by Robyn Freye of Geary Interactive and provides some solid insight above and beyond Sales 101 to consider when formulating your new business outreach program.

As marketing strategies and tactics have evolved and budgets have diminished, chief marketing officers have grown increasingly accountable for their digital budgets. There aren't any valid reasons for not keeping tabs on campaign

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The following pledge (Stop The Adness) from Carton Donofrio Partners raises some interesting points about the current state of advertising - take a look at www.stoptheadness.org

"AN OPEN PLEDGE FROM PEOPLE WHO ADVERTISE STUFF TO PEOPLE WHO BUY STUFF", Carton Donofrio Partners

Doctors have the Hippocratic Oath, REALTORS® take the REALTORS Pledge and heck, even lawyers have a pledge called the Attorney's Oath. As an agency dedicated to stopping the adness, we think the ad industry needs a

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Reading New Business Intel this week, Todd Knutson raised an interesting point about the role of direct mail in this digital age for new business. I'm sharing his post below, and I'd have to agree that given the right circumstances, a highly targeted and relevant message, traditional direct mail can be highly effective as a part of a larger communications / messaging sequence to engage your ad agency new busines prospects.

For example, at Catapult we often incorporate small batches of

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Just in time for the holidays, and as you craft out your witty, insightful, results driven prospecting emails for 2010 comes the De-Jargonator.

We're all guilty of it in new business... using jargon to fit the conditioned mould around our peers and prospects alike. I found this in my inbox this morning and thought that the creators at Methodologie were onto something. 
 
Corporate communicators want engagement. Marketing communicators want to stand out from the competition. Neither will get

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