The New Business Dingo

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 …

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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 / …

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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 what they want if their …

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I’ve posted plenty of thoughts around the ongoing new business challenges that agencies face, but there is none more frustrating to hear each day than the one that is so simple to identify and ultimately to solve – ‘right fitting’ people for positions.

Agencies spend tens of thousands of dollars with recruiters and placement services to find new creative directors, copy writers and account directors. They spend hours upon hours scrutinizing …

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I just got off my third call of the day where an agency principle stated that they’ve stopped all of their new business prospecting for the year because of the holidays. I beg your pardon?

Catapult’s clients and account teams know firsthand that this is one of the best periods of the year to be prospecting –

“What’s that? Oh you need to spend the remainder of …

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Jim Smith, Chairman/Chief Cook & Bottlewasher of Ground Zero Advertising wrote a great Adweek article about navigating and advertising in this brave new digital age. He brings up some valid points that you can apply to both your clients, and future new business pitches. Enjoy.
 
Landing at JFK this week, I hopped into a spanking clean taxi, courtesy of that nice Mr. …

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It's sometimes hard enough to lead new business directors who work a few feet away, let alone outsourced contractors with a different end game and who are in many cases hundreds, if not thousands of miles away. Such is the experience of a distraught agency owner who contacted me last week.

This agency owner had just terminated a contract with another outsourced new business agency after just six weeks and needed our help.

Why?

 “They …

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I see my fair share of new business teams, both the good and one's that provide an opportunity for improvement… most days. So you can imagine my pleasant surprise when I sat in on a talk titled "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: How PJA Built a Three-Year Winning Streak (in Good Times and Bad)." at the Mirren New Business Conference back in April.

What I loved about their speech was the fact that they knew exactly who they were, …

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I finished a call last night with one of our most successful clients, and during the call the CEO asked a very interesting question,
“Why are we seeing more success with Catapult than your average client? We appear to be exceeding the norm curve.”

Now, of course I’m thrilled to be asked the question, and my initial response was to suggest that the higher levels of success are due to a highly defined offer and positioning to the target audience, ongoing planning, and the …

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Can analyzing the numbers really help with proactive ad agency new business?  You bet.

At the Mirren New Business Conference this year I spoke on the topic “How to get prospects on the phone when no one is answering”, which essentially outlined the seven steps for agencies to build a proactive, metrics based new business strategy, rather than the ad-hoc cold-call based approach many continue to employ.

At the core of this …

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Resistance to change is nothing new. Resistance to an investment in social media by agencies for new business therefore shouldn't be a surprise when we think back to the challenges of simply getting over the hurdle of the introduction of computers, the adoption of the web and even email.

Stephanie Holland, President - Holland + Holland Advertising presented "Getting Ad Agency Buy-In for Social Media Success" at the social media » Read on...

You wouldn’t ask a Jackaroo* to provide legal advice, so why do agencies continue to force fit account managers into new business roles rather than hire trained professionals?

It’s no secret that most people fear that black box on their desk when it comes to using it as a new business tool, especially ad agency account people who’ve been tasked with the role of new business due to their recent decline in …

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Typically the first step for any new business person looking to embark on a new target category begins with the development of a prospect list or group of companies and brands.

The accuracy of this data may be the make or break of your efforts, so do the research and test the data from any supplier or source before incorporating into your new business CRM application.

There are a variety of great information resources, both free and subscriptions based that can help you build-out a …

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Large organizations across the country hire advisors and consultants of all kinds to make better informed decisions on the purchase of products and alignment with partners. Some might speculate, this also offers a certain degree of ‘distance’ should the decision end up being an unfavorable one.

For many years now, larger companies (typically with ad spends greater than $20M) hire agency search consultants to help them select an agency.
Typically these search consultants are provided with a brief by the company, detailing the rationale for …

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I’m often asked by agency CEO’s, CMO’s and New Business Directors, “What benefit will I see by outsourcing our business development to a third party”?

The simple answer, efficacy and accountability.

All too often the focus of a new business director is on items other than the procurement of new business, be it client services on previously won business, RFP responses or any number of things. It’s also a rare occurrence to meet a new business director that is a true hunter, someone that …

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