Advice for Ad Agencies to Generate New Business

An article in AdAge.com caught my eye: “Marketers Exhibit Cad-Like Behavior at the RFP Ball.”

The author, Jennifer Modarelli, opined about the lack of courtesy and respect companies give to advertising agencies. I agree with her.

And there were excellent comments – such behavior is symptomatic of the times. Such sales opportunity costs are too high.

Many ad agency ideas are worth millions. Therefore, it’s important for ad agencies to earn a place at the senior executive decision-making table in the conference meeting rooms.

If you’ve encountered such behavior as an agency, as a business-performance consultant, here are some options you might wish to consider:

• Unless, you have the staffing to absorb such high sales opportunity costs, stop reacting to RFPs.
• In your pitches, stop giving details without an agreement and compensation. Instead, share your approaches to prospects’ marketing dilemmas.  Otherwise, a cost-benefit analysis will show the resulting legal hassles aren’t worth it.
• Refrain from giving proposals – try letters of agreement after using the appropriate steps to sell your brand to prospects (a trick I learned from fellow members of www.consultantswest.com).
• Offer benchmarks for your performance and show empathy for marketplace conditions. But monitor the client. That’s an approach I used early in my career as a young account exec at KIIS-FM in Los Angeles when a Beverly Hills client doubted my approach (but he had unkempt aisles in his upscale store).  Later, as an agency VP, I once saved an account after a client whose niche was women complained about my mediocre results.  I reviewed our approach and I was perplexed, so I visited one of his mall locations where I noticed several problems (i.e. the first 6 customers weren’t greeted, dirty store windows, and blaring male oriented hard-rock music). So it had to be the client’s poor performance.  I asked to meet with the client outside one of his locations. He saw for himself the company’s self-destruction. So, when I bought my own shop, this is how and why I expanded my services/revenue streams to provide other business services.
• Develop ground rules for client service (my firm has 60). Occasionally, I’ve encountered some friction with a client, so I pull out my service policies and I discover I failed to adhere to them.
• Solicit compliments. When you get them, ask for two referrals to their peers at other companies who might need your great marketing.
• Pre-sell your shop. Bypass the advertisers’ “screening out consultants” by getting close to the advertiser in advance. Join the largest business organization in your locale and volunteer for appropriate committees.
• Continue your SSP, shameless self-promotion. Try new approaches. During the last recession, I convinced a TV station to allow me to do on-air testimonials explaining five benefits the station provided my clients. In turn, my clients were impressed with the frequent testimonials and took pride in my “doing favors for the station”. After a year, I had to repeatedly ask the station to stop the testimonials because I developed an optimum number of clients (the station’s sales management enjoyed the new business the testimonial attracted).

Good luck!

From the Coach’s Corner, OOPS, I just realized I need to be more diligent about following my own advice, so I’ll skip writing this Coach’s Corner giving more tips and will reflect on more business-development ideas.