Three Simple Questions - And Some Straightforward Conclusions

We ask decision-makers at a group of 100 leading brands the same questions each year. We enjoy asking them because it means our advice to clients is objective - and when we’re planning with a client, if someone says “well you would say that wouldn’t you”, it’s helpful to be able to point out “we don’t say that, your decision-makers say that!”

The point is - effective new business planning is not about forcing your model onto someone else, it’s about doing what the decision-makers actually want you to do. And so each year we ask them: -

1. “What causes you to search for or be receptive to a new agency?” 

2. “When being approached by an agency what manner of engagement works best?”

3. “At pitch, what are the specific reasons for choosing one agency over another?”

This is our précis and commentary on what they tell us.

The larger budget decision-makers especially are fairly besieged with poorly thought-through approaches by robotic cold-callers. These approaches tend to either bore them or irritate them depending on the caller’s manner - either half-asleep, or what the caller mistakenly thinks is being passionate, which is in fact being way too pushy.

In general, the design and thinking that goes into printed collateral has improved considerably for the sector as a whole, but tenets remain: less is more and keep it simple, clear, intelligent and relevant. They always view expensive, coffee-table collateral as suggesting poor cost controls. They don’t want to end up chucking money at the problem.

The days have long gone where a new business prospector could bang through a list setting up appointments with big brand decision-makers. We remember creating 9 new business appointments in one day 13 years ago and with major brand owners – they were all ‘speculative’ as that was the brief then, and didn’t amount to much – but those days are gone. The environment has utterly changed.

Yes, it’s still possible for a new business prospector, in-house or external, to set up lots of meetings, especially if they’re flaky, blow out eventually, or where you end up getting 20 minutes with the intern in the Starbucks next door. But the decision-makers confirm for us what we know from experience, that unless you have something to say that’s several levels more tailored and relevant than the efforts of most of the people waiting to get put through on the phone, you are very likely to fail. Unfortunately the sheer number of hungry new entrants to the new business support sector is adding more heat rather than light, as many of them are breakaways from established, telephone and email marketing-based new business consultancies/agencies.

We also continue to learn that you need regular ‘silence breakers’ as excuses to get in touch again with decision-makers. The dialogue should be progressive, intelligent and feed some value too if possible, rather than a “Hello, how’s it going? Are you ready yet to let us be your agency or shall I call back next month?” We exaggerate for effect, but that’s not actually far off the basic technique sometimes employed. Effective silence breakers need continual thought and application. There are hundreds of possibilities, including a relevant viewpoint piece that you can follow-up, a reflection on recent legislation perhaps or a germane insight from a piece of recent research. It could be an observation about the company being reported in the news.

But when it comes to the news as a source of intelligence for you to lever as a silence (or ice) breaker, be cautious. Much of what is reported in the trades is inaccurate, misleading, way out of date or extremely common knowledge. Editors need to fill column-inches and they’re not always as fussy as they could be about how they do it. Decision-makers want to be approached and engaged by agencies that have “smart, well thought through, sector-savvy understanding of their particular organisation and their own role”. So, reading other peoples’ guesswork about brands isn’t very helpful and you need to either use a product you can really trust like Pearlfinders, which independently interviews the decision-makers for brands reported about in the press - or you need to confirm the picture from your own sources before potentially putting your foot in it.

The people you want to work with do have time for you if they know you’re not a waste of time. There’s so much noise now that an agency principal with the courage to pick up the phone and speak directly to his or her prospects stands out head and shoulders above the crowd. Decision-makers appreciate a director expressing an interest in their business, as, especially with the larger agencies, it’s generally juniors that approach them. We would always urge you (especially if yours is a small- to medium-sized agency) to take advantage of this fact, get over your own fear of the phone, and just get on and do it. Keep trying though - it may take several attempts over a few days to get through to someone, but if you can’t reach them, it’s not because they don’t like you, they’re just busy like you and no doubt a bit fatigued by the new business telephone jockeys endlessly lining up to speak to them too.

When we asked the decision-makers - “at pitch, what are the specific reasons for choosing one agency over another?” they responded with the following criteria and are ranked by number of times mentioned, as follows. We suggest you use this as a checklist and though few agencies can deliver 100% of these all the time, it is a sound way of prioritizing where to pay special attention to detail. Chemistry is the critical common denominator once face-to-face and pitching. Agencies should ensure that the team fielded to pitch has good relationship building and interpersonal skills or no matter how logical the service match, the pitch will fail. So with good chemistry at number 1 in our chart, the rest are: -

1.       Good chemistry with us

2.       Has strong creative

3.       An understanding of us

4.       Being on brief

5.       Having sound strategy

6.       Being innovative

7.       Has a business case for return on investment

8.       Challenging the brief

9.       Having evaluation processes

10.   Possesses rich insights from research

11.   Strong commitment

12.   An empathy with my brand

13.   Ability to implement

14.   Can stick to deadlines

15.   Will ‘collaborate’ with us

16.   A high quality of work

17.   Relevance to us

18.   Can ad-lib creative thinking

19.   Made good prep for the pitch

20.   Has clear thinking

21.   Is forward thinking

22.   Offers us ‘big client’ status

23.   Will be proactive

24.   Will collaborate with my other agencies

 

Apart from waiting for a relationship between an incumbent and a client to breakdown, agencies can provide their own trigger for change and it’s best to do this via direct marketing. If this is done on a continuous basis, it will enable you to be in the right place at the right time for when things do break down (eventually they all do).

Direct marketing is also the most positively regarded manner of approach by prospective clients, but it must be relevant and specifically tailored to the individual target each time. The messaging should be simple and clear. For other aspects of the mix, your website should be consistent with the channels you use and not relied on in itself as a means of proactively engaging with clients. The decision-makers only rarely indicate that agency advertising or PR influences the likeliness of winning their business. Rather, above-the-line activity promoting agencies is thought to serve internal, corporate and investor-relations purposes in the main. Having said that, good reputation is important to decision-makers, so if PR can nurture this then fine, but beware that it’s all too easy to destroy it too.

If there’s any danger that you’re using 'salesy’ or ‘pushy’ telephone prospectors – decision-makers hate this. Or if you’re mailing people using inaccurate contact information – likewise there’s nothing worse for your reputation as a communications expert to get somebody’s name wrong or send it to the wrong address. You should always have your staff clean your contact data to 100% accuracy or make sure you only use data that is. It’s not worth the risk of doing otherwise.

Finally, a senior decision-maker told us this about agencies that approach her – “If they can’t promote themselves, how could I expect them to promote me? And if they promote themselves poorly – then that’s even worse.”

We think that sums it up!