The New Business Dingo

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.

As Malcom Gladwell discusses …

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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 importance and priority of agency …

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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 …

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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 …

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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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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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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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We’ve all heard of the “4 Ps of Marketing:” Product, Price, Placement and Promotion (and I would also add Positioning to this mix). Barry Lawence of BrandCottage would like to suggest that there are “7 Ps of Social Media Relations.” I think that these can be applied to ad agency new business, so I’ve edited them to be a little more relevant.

7 P’s of Social …

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