Positioning Archives

Why do some agencies ‘get away’ with sh*t positioning?

Ben Potter2024-11-14T16:56:09+00:00

Why do some agencies ‘get away’ with sh*t positioning?

“Those guys down the road don’t fit your idea of good positioning and they’re flying. Why’s that Ben?”

It’s a fair question I’ve heard several times when chatting with sceptical agency leaders about niching or specialising.

But before I try to answer it, a gentle reminder…

Positioning is the unique combination of what you do, who you do it for and how you do it, the goal of which is to make your agency distinguishable and identifiable to a prospect.

I often use the words positioning and strategy interchangeably because, in my mind, they are the same. A credible business strategy means you have made explicit choices, not just about what you DO, but also what you DON’T.

A quick look at an agency’s website is enough to judge whether such choices have been made.

Typical symptoms of an ‘uncredible’ strategy include:

Dozens of sector ‘specialism’ pages (optimised to within an inch of their life).
An endless shopping list of services.
And (often) unsubstantiated claims and clichés masquerading as points of difference; ‘results-focused’, ‘transparent’ and dare I say ‘award-winning’ to name just three.

Yet some agencies do appear to ‘get away’ with this.

So, circling back to the opening question…why? What do they have that perhaps others don’t?

A charismatic, ‘out there’ leader

Can you do brilliant marketing without brilliant positioning? It’s not easy but is possible.

For example, sometimes the agency’s people are THE marketing. Think of the charismatic leader constantly out there banging the agency’s drum – a one-person lead machine. Everywhere you go, online and offline, he or she is there.

But before you go and splurge a load of cash on a personal branding consultant, there’s an important angle to this; you need something interesting to say beyond how great (you think) your agency is; a bold – maybe even polarising – point of view about the industry, how you run your agency or deliver your work, is going to help here.

Of course, not all leaders feel comfortable in the spotlight. But when they do, it can trump the need to narrow their agency’s positioning.

An infectious culture

In all likelihood, this is an extension of the above. The confidence of the leader flows through the agency. People (talent and clients) want a bit of it.

This highlights how culture goes way beyond perks and incentives. Ping-pong tables, gym memberships, beer fridges and office dogs might supplement culture. But they don’t create it.

Instead, culture (good or bad) is based on the values and behaviours of its leaders. It is visible in how the business is run and makes people feel as a result.

And if this means an agency can attract (and retain) the best talent, they might also attract the best clients – despite their poor positioning.

The work sells itself

Sometimes the quality of an agency’s work is so good that when marketed well, a steady stream of prospects come knocking who want the same. Think high-profile creative campaigns, ads and film, for example, complemented with excellent PR that sees the work (and agency) regularly featured in trade press and, of course, winning awards.

Whilst positioning an agency as the ‘best’ or ‘most creative’ doesn’t pass as a credible strategy, a few get away with it due to the very public recognition their work receives.

A superstar sales function

Few agencies take sales seriously from day one. Instead, they rely on their black book, referrals and oodles of energy and enthusiasm. New business is typically the responsibility of the agency leader, but, because they are also on the shop floor, it is mainly reactive and lower down the priority list.

On the flip side, I’ve seen other agencies adopt an entirely different approach; new business is the number one priority, from day one. A Midlands-based digital agency comes to mind – even when they were relatively small, they invested heavily in building their sales and marketing team. And it’s paid off. In a few short years, they’ve grown to be one of the largest and most respected digital agencies in the UK (and are now expanding overseas).

Their relentless focus on lead generation and conversion has superseded the need to target a discrete audience or refine their service offering. In fact, they’ve done the complete opposite.

Prepared (and able) to swallow the cost of pitching

In line with the above, for some agencies, especially at the larger end of the scale, pitching is so embedded in the culture that the absurdity of it all is rarely questioned. Chucking a ton of free time and thinking at six all-consuming pitches to win one is just the cost of doing business.

If you’re willing to pitch more to win less (in terms of conversion rate) – and have the resource to give every one of them a decent shot – then to hell with niche or specialist positioning.

A systematic referral machine

69% of agencies cite referrals as the most effective way of generating leads. Yet only 49% of agencies have implemented a systematic strategy to increase the number or quality of referrals (Benchpress 2024). Bonkers, eh?

The 51% of agencies that do have a system in place may find their ‘catch-all’ positioning does little harm. Although they might find it challenging to describe who they’d like to be referred to when their ideal client profile is as broad as ‘ambitious brands’ or ‘growing SMEs’!

Winning one or two game-changing clients

You might call it luck. I prefer serendipity. But every so often, a big opportunity arrives at the door. Some agencies, for good reason, know it’s just too big. Winning it would eat up too much resource and present too high a risk.

Others see it as the opportunity to take the next run up the growth ladder. They know there will be some smoke and mirrors needed to win it. But, by doing so, it’s the catalyst for further big wins and fast growth.

And also a very good excuse to stick two fingers up to specialist or niche positioning.

Highly deliberate account growth

Is this enough to bypass the rules of strategy in itself? Probably not. More likely this is an extension of the aforementioned fixation on sales. Account managers aren’t tasked with ambiguous upselling goals; instead, they have strategic growth plans. And they are coached on how to identify, nurture and close opportunities.

Furthermore, agency leaders are likely to ignore the advice to narrow their service offering. Instead, they add more and more service lines as clients ask for them. So, with more stuff to sell, they increase the value of each account and become ever more entrenched.

There is an important point to consider here: credibility. When your agency website has a drop-down menu listing thirty services delivered by a team of just ten people, it doesn’t stack up. But for some agencies, the size of their service offering and the size of their team are in tandem, so they care little about criticism of their ‘full-service’ claims.

Some agencies do well despite their poor positioning, not because of it

For every agency possessing one or two of the above traits – to the extent it can create a competitive advantage – there are a hundred agencies that don’t.

So, whilst a minority of agencies can largely ignore the positioning advice spouted by the likes of yours truly, the rest of you need a credible, ‘three-pillar’ business strategy that narrowly defines what you do, who you do it for and how.

And this is where I use the term ‘strategy’ very deliberately.

Because I’m starting to think that positioning (ironically) has a positioning problem. There are now so many advisers banging on about the need to niche or specialise, agency owners are zoning out.

I therefore wonder if you’d take this stuff more seriously if sh*t positioning was, well, repositioned. Maybe it’s time to call out poor positioning for what it might highlight about you and your agency: an acute lack of strategic nous.

Which is somewhat embarrassing if you claim to do ‘strategy’ for your clients.

Why do some agencies ‘get away’ with sh*t positioning?Ben Potter2024-11-14T16:56:09+00:00

How your weak positioning shows up in the sales process

Ben Potter2024-11-14T16:59:31+00:00

How your weak positioning shows up in the sales process

Recently, a question came to mind: have agencies conditioned themselves to accept the symptoms of weak positioning as ‘normal’?

And if so, what are these symptoms, particularly where the sales process is concerned?

While you mull that over for a moment, let’s just ensure we’re on the same page with the ‘P’ word. I describe positioning as what you do, why and most importantly, for whom. It brings together your expertise, interests and values to solve a problem (or set of problems) for a discrete audience, thus making your agency distinctive and memorable.

We’ve become somewhat fixated on ‘positioning’ in agency land (me included). But what we really mean is strategy. They are one and the same if you ask me. As such, if you claim to ‘work with businesses of all shapes and sizes’, or you mistake hygiene factors for points of difference (‘transparent’, ‘results-focused’, ‘passionate’, etc), some might say your positioning is a bit crap.

But I’d go further; it actually demonstrates a lack of strategic nous (which is kind of ironic if you also happen to offer ‘strategy’ as a service to your clients).

Anyway, to the main crux of this blurb: small agencies with weak positioning tend to find new business tough. Year after year, it’s cited as your number one challenge. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. I know agencies with laughably poor positioning doing very well for themselves. But for every high-flying generalist, there are fifty others where the process of acquiring new clients – consistently – is a bit of a slog.

Yet, interestingly, agencies don’t always see it that way. ‘Slog? No mate, that’s just how it is, right?’

Back to ‘normal’…are you sure?

The last few years have been quite the rollercoaster – Brexit, global pandemic, great resignation, cost-of-living crisis, sluggish economy and the arrival of AI. It’s been one thing after another. So much so, it’s hard to remember the last time we had a ‘normal’ year.

Each event has, of course, presented its challenges. But they have also resulted in monumental (and, in my view, broadly positive) changes to how and where we work, for example.

But there is one area where not much seems to have changed: the sales process.

Yes, we’ve all learnt to run sales meetings virtually. AI is helping make aspects of selling more efficient (although not necessarily more effective). And we can collaborate on pitch decks with colleagues on the other side of the world, no problem.

But leaving these fairly marginal gains aside, has the sales process really changed that much?

Not from where I’m standing.

Sub-standard briefs are still being fired out to agencies. Consultative sales skills are still in short supply. Proposals are still put together and fired over by email without a second thought. And, of course, ghosting is ever-present.

So, what to do?

Well, we could throw our toys out of the pram and blame those pesky clients for their rubbish briefs, unreasonable demands and disappearing acts. But this doesn’t stand up to scrutiny because, over many years, agencies have inadvertently schooled these behaviours in clients.

Which means we are left with one alternative: to be the grown-up, take responsibility and make change happen ourselves.

But to do this, a large proportion of agencies (83% to be exact) need to start by addressing the root cause of their sales woes: weak positioning.

So, circling back to my original thought, let’s take a look at how weak positioning shows up in the sales process; symptoms you might accept as ‘normal’…but they don’t have to be:

1. You rarely say ‘no’

Without defining a discrete audience you have limited criteria to qualify if a prospect is a good fit for your agency. So, pretty much any prospect is considered a good fit.

This can manifest itself in various ways but perhaps the most telling is your website. The ‘experience’ section has twenty pages, each one dedicated to a different vertical where you claim to be experts (in an agency of ten people…are you sure?).

Ironically, this misguided attempt to make yourself attractive to the widest possible range of prospects has the opposite effect. Educated clients aren’t looking for generalists. They are looking for agencies with deep expertise. Those twenty sector pages dilute your credibility.

2. You frequently bend the narrative

You find yourself changing your proposition to suit what the prospect wants to hear. Yesterday, you were experts in ecommerce. Today, it’s financial services. You scratch around for relevant case studies. Hidden deep on the shared drive is some work you did for a failed start-up in 2013. Use ChatGPT to summarise the latest Fintech trends, stick them in a creds deck and hey presto, you’re an expert.

As David C Baker says in The Business of Expertise, even if you win the business, the client is effectively paying you to learn on the job. Maybe you’re cool with being a ‘fake expert’. I’m not so sure.

3. You take the brief at face value

What a client thinks they want and what they actually need can be quite different.

So embrace a prospect’s brief but accept it’s going to have holes in it. A prospect who truly values your expertise will be open to answering your questions and exploring different ideas or approaches.

But with weak positioning, you lack the deep expertise to challenge the brief. Therefore, you’re more likely to accept their version of events and rush headlong into writing a proposal (bypassing critical conversations in the sales process, as a result).

4. You don’t push back on the prospect’s process

You don’t want to fill in that 15-page RFI document, but you have no leverage.

You’d like to speak to other stakeholders, but you have no leverage.

You want to say ‘no’ when they ask for a proposal by Friday (it’s Thursday), but you have no leverage.

The sales process should be collaborative. But the prospect tends to dictate the term of engagement.

When your expertise is truly valued, the opposite can be true. You are more likely to be able to lead (or at least influence) the process. And that matters. According to Blair Enns, ‘winning firms are almost ten times more likely to have significantly affected the buying process than losing firms.’

5. You offer a solution before the client has paid for it

A few years ago, I had an extension built. The process started by spending a couple of hours with an architect to explore our requirements. We were satisfied to move forward, which meant paying her some money. Not in a million years would I have asked her to do the drawings as part of the sales process. But neither did I need to; she had demonstrated through her related experience and expertise that she was the right fit for the job. She didn’t need to do the actual work to prove it.

With weak positioning, the opposite is true. Lacking enough relevant content, case studies and testimonials, your only option is to demonstrate your ‘expertise’ by coming up with the solution as part of the sales process. With no guarantee the client will buy the strategy, idea or design you’ve laboured over.

And you do all of this for free.

Nuts, right?

6. You share rate cards and granular fee breakdowns

I was once asked by a prospect to share a detailed breakdown of a PPC quote. I duly obliged and won the business. I soon wished I hadn’t.

The spreadsheet I shared detailing tasks, hours and fees became the basis of the relationship. Instead of focusing on the great results we were delivering, the weekly call was an interrogation of how every minute had been spent on the account. It was utterly demoralising for the team.

Agencies have inadvertently trained clients to buy services in this way (based on inputs). And because they want to compare apples to apples, you’re asked to share (what should be) commercially sensitive information about your agency.

Your weak positioning makes it more likely the client is buying on price. And therefore, you’ll have no option but to hand over the apples.

7. You regularly discount

When reviewing a proposal for a new client, I noticed a 10% discount had been applied to the fees. When I asked why, I was taken aback with the reply:

“We know clients are going to ask for it so to make things easier we just apply it upfront”.

Eek.

Weak positioning means it’s more likely you’ll be asked (and to some extent forced) to reduce your fees to win the business. It doesn’t matter how passionate you are about their brand. It doesn’t matter how many awards you’ve won. It doesn’t matter how good you say your people are. A prospect won’t pay a premium for something they can buy from ten, similar-looking agencies just down the road.

And value-based pricing? Good luck with that.

8. Your win rate is around 25%

Agency owners are often surprised when I tell them they should be aiming for a +70% conversion rate (from proposal to win).

Why so high? Because when agencies define a discrete audience where their expertise is best applied (and use this ‘ideal client profile’ to qualify prospects), they are better placed to separate those who fit from those who don’t. And spot the serious prospects amongst the timewasters.

Furthermore, they seek to establish this early, way before putting pen to paper on a proposal.

As such, they pitch less to win more.

With weak positioning, you pitch more to win less. A 25%-win rate is considered good. But just think of all the hours wasted on the 75% that don’t go anywhere.

Making the abnormal, normal

Weak positioning isn’t entirely to blame for all that happens during a typical sales process. Other factors are at play that I won’t go into now. But, over many years, agencies have inadvertently given clients the upper hand. And it’s going to take time to redress the balance.

To do that, one of the most powerful things you can do is to narrow your focus. Specialise in solving a specific problem for a discrete audience. Have a point of view. And ditch the clichés.

By doing so, you’re twice as likely to achieve fast growth (increase in fee income of 26%+) and high profitability (gross profit of 61%+).*

If those numbers sound abnormal to you, address the root cause.

You might just find that winning more business, on your terms, becomes your new normal.

*Benchpress report 2024.

How your weak positioning shows up in the sales processBen Potter2024-11-14T16:59:31+00:00

Do you win new business by accident or design?

Ben Potter2024-11-14T16:18:36+00:00

Do you win new business by accident or design?

OK, ‘by accident’ might be a slight exaggeration; new clients don’t just stumble through the front door like a drunk 40-something after one too many (obviously not referring to myself here).

My point is that whilst most agencies win their fair share of new business, it’s not necessarily the ‘right’ business. ‘Right’ is a subtle, but strategically important, distinction to make, defined as clients matching an agency’s specialist expertise, interests, beliefs and values.

So, why do agencies often end up in bed – nursing a nasty hangover – with clients not fitting these criteria?

Well, in my experience, it’s because new business just isn’t given the same level of focus and attention as, say, operations or account management. Policies, processes and templates are aplenty across these disciplines, but new business – despite its obvious importance – lacks similar intent and rigour.

But what does this look like?

Well, in my humble opinion, winning the ‘right’ clients, by design, is evident when…

1. Positioning (or should I say ‘strategy’) sets the agenda

According to the latest Benchpress report, you’re twice as likely to achieve fast growth (increase in fee income of 26%+) and high profitability (gross profit of 61%+) with a clear specialism or niche.

Yet, despite the benefits of narrow positioning, just 17% of respondents describe their agency as having a specialism or niche.

Crazy, eh?

In agency-land, we’ve become fixated on the word ‘positioning’ (me included). But what we really mean is ‘strategy’. They are one and the same.

As such, agencies winning the right clients (by design) have a sound business strategy, defining what they do, for whom and how (and, just as importantly, what they don’t do). As a result, they find everything else layering up from this strategic foundation a great deal easier.

If, on the other hand, you claim to ‘work with businesses of all shapes and sizes’, it might highlight poor positioning.

But I wonder if you’d take the ‘P’ word more seriously if it was reframed as also demonstrating a systematic failure of strategy.

2. You have a small set of services to sell

In the aforementioned Benchpress report, the average number of services offered by sub-million turnover agencies was eleven. ELEVEN! For me, the ratio of headcount to services just doesn’t stack up; can an agency of say, fifteen people, really excel at so many things?

A well-designed approach to new business is evident when you offer a fairly small, complementary set of services. Better still, you combine services or disciplines to create ‘solutions’ or ‘programs’, aligned to the specific problems you solve and the strategic outcomes you impact.

Compare this to the agency with a long shopping list of commoditised services, some of which were made up on the fly just to satisfy a brief.

3. Your marketing isn’t a stab in the dark

Have you ever tried writing a marketing plan to target ‘businesses of all shapes and sizes? No, me neither. Because it’s impossible. So in the absence of a credible plan, you chuck bucketloads of marketing mud at the wall, hoping some might stick.

Or you become easily distracted by the latest ‘silver bullet’, such as the guy on LinkedIn promising ‘20 qualified meetings a month with his innovative use of AI’. Whatever mate.

Creating the ‘right’ opportunities by design is evident when an agency has absolute clarity in how they should invest their marketing budget. Decisions on what to write about, events to attend, awards to enter and so on are straightforward (due to the strategic decisions highlighted in point 1).

4. You make things happen

Even with great positioning and laser-focused marketing, your dream client is unlikely to just land in your lap (not in the short term anyway).

In my agency days, we received a handful of ‘on the money’ inbound leads each year. Otherwise, it was initiative, resourcefulness and patience that got us in front of the brands we wanted to talk to.

As such, new business by design includes proactive relationship building and lead nurturing, underpinned with a CRM. Most importantly, these activities are always on, irrespective of how busy things get with client work or other distractions. I bore myself saying it, but consistency in execution is the closest you can get to a silver bullet in this game.

Compare this to the agency relying almost solely on referrals. With no control over lead volume or quality, the rollercoaster of feast and famine is ever-present.

5. You say ‘no’ just as often as you say ‘yes’

Agencies approaching new business with intent communicate publicly what their ideal client looks like; a prospect spending two minutes on their website can quickly conclude if they are a good fit, leading to better quality inbound enquiries.

But that doesn’t mean every enquiry is a good enquiry. Their ideal client profile (ICP) acts as a qualifying framework, making the early stages of the sales process more efficient. They say ‘no’ early and often (and enjoy doing so), taking the long view over any short-term, financial benefit.

The opposite is true when a prospect visits your website only to conclude you look and sound the same as everyone else. But they reach out anyway, inviting you to be part of a beauty parade where cost is likely to be their main selection criteria. And despite your reservations, you say ‘yes’.

6. You have the leverage to lead the sales process

When you end up in bed with the wrong client, it’s often because they set the terms of engagement during the sales process. From unrealistic pitch deadlines to fully worked-up design ideas, the prospect says ‘jump’, you say, ‘how high?’. With each concession, you tip the balance of power in their favour.

An agency with a well-designed approach to new business – from positioning to proposals – will show up in the sales process differently. Their specialist expertise provides leverage to lead (or at least influence) the sales process and therefore push back on unreasonable demands or practices that work against their interests.

For example, they’re more likely to gain access to key stakeholders, which is proven to significantly increase the likelihood of winning an opportunity. And they have the deeper know-how, experience, and gravitas to challenge assumptions, ask insightful questions and share unique insights.

All of which leads to a more equal balance of power from the outset.

7. Your proposal is a confirmatory document

Building on the point above, agencies with a well-designed sales process use a proposal to succinctly describe how they will solve the prospect’s problem once they become a paying client, rather than give away the solution (e.g., strategy, creative ideas, etc) for free. Vitally, the proposal acts as confirmation of what has already been verbally agreed, rather than a ‘big reveal’.

Pricing (not ‘costs’, NEVER costs!) is based on outcomes, rather than inputs. And, where appropriate, three options are offered, something Blair Enns talks about here.

On the other hand, an inadequate approach to qualifying and discovery means you agree to write a proposal after a 15-minute intro call. You fire it over by email and hope for the best, only to never hear from the prospect again. I exaggerate for dark, comedic effect. But only a little bit.

Even if you do win the business, your quote broken down into a granular list of tasks and hours becomes the basis of the relationship. Instead of focusing on the impressive results you’re delivering, the client constantly interrogates how every minute is being spent on the account. It’s exhausting and demoralising. Trust me, I’ve been there.

8. You know your numbers

You’ve heard how sales ‘is a numbers game’, right? Well, this is both right and wrong depending on the context. Firing out thousands of generic outbound emails to anyone with a pulse; that’s not a numbers game, it’s a fools’ game. (Even if AI makes outbound more efficient, it doesn’t necessarily make it more effective).

Setting SMART new business objectives (and ensuring adequate resource is in place to meet them) is a numbers game. Tracking leads, first and second meetings, sales qualified opportunities, proposals and conversion rate, is also a numbers game. And using a pipeline weighting methodology to score your win probability, forecast new business revenue and assess the impact on capacity; yep, that’s a numbers game too.

When new business is designed, the accuracy of data and regular reporting ensure you can easily identify what is working / not working and focus your efforts accordingly.

9. New business is everyone’s business

Agencies approaching new business with purpose do so collaboratively. The responsibility for winning new clients doesn’t rest solely on the shoulders of one person. As such, internal communication and accountability rule, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities (playing to people’s strengths), along with documented guidelines and processes.

This means investing in training and coaching to help break down barriers and cast aside misconceptions. People only shy away from new business because they misunderstand it. But when you look at the breadth of skills required to promote the agency, build relationships and convert opportunities, everyone in the agency can (and should) play a role, This means successes are celebrated for what they are – a team effort – and losses commiserated likewise.

Compare this to a culture where business development and sales skills are misunderstood or underappreciated. It is more likely the agency lurches from one ‘quick fix’ to the next. A business developer is hired, expected to work miracles but find themselves out on their ear three months later – the agency owner failing to recognise they are just part of the solution. Not THE solution.

10. You don’t rest on your laurels

I speak to a lot of agency owners and business developers who mistake a winning streak for a winning approach to new business; they’ve won a few clients in a short space of time, they’re busy and all is good in the world.

But a couple of months later, the big project comes to an end, the pipeline is looking thin and they’re back to square one.

When new business is designed, the ‘machine’ never stops. Marketing, business development and sales are never nailed. Instead, there is a continuous cycle of ‘plan, do, review’, whilst also staying on top of business development and marketing trends by digesting content, upskilling and networking with peers.

Let’s wrap things up

You might be reading this thinking ‘we don’t tick a lot of these boxes, but we still win our share of new clients, you’re talking rubbish Ben’ (it wouldn’t be the first time).

I accept there are, of course, exceptions to the rule. I know agencies with laughably poor positioning, for example, who are absolutely smashing it.

But for many, this isn’t the case with 40% of agencies stating new business as their number one challenge in 2023, up from 27% in 2022.

So, if there’s ever a time to give marketing, business development and sales the attention it deserves, it’s now.

And what better place to start than by asking yourself…

Do you win the right clients by design?

Or the wrong ones by accident?

Do you win new business by accident or design?Ben Potter2024-11-14T16:18:36+00:00

14 indisputable benefits of niching

Ben Potter2024-04-12T15:12:09+00:00

14 indisputable benefits of niching

January. Time for a bit of navel-gazing, a phrase I can’t recall using in my writing. A check of the dictionary reveals its meaning to be ‘self-indulgent or excessive contemplation of oneself or a single issue, at the expense of a wider view’.

Inappropriate for this article, I thought initially. But then realised it’s pretty spot on. Because sometimes in moments of reflection, we’re not particularly good at seeing the bigger picture.

For instance, your lead numbers are well down on where they need to be. If your navel-gazing focuses only on this single issue – at the expense of a wider view – you might end up with a sticky plaster solution. So you hire a lead gen agency, hoping (or preying) they’ll fill your pipeline with a load of ready-to-buy prospects.

Maybe, in time, this moves the dial a bit.

But it won’t address the root cause of your new business problem…

…positioning. Yes, I’m on about the ‘P’ word. Again.

But hey, you already know this is the real issue. After all, there are enough agency advisers to fill a cruise ship banging on about specialising and niching.

So, you don’t need to be told your agency looks and sounds like every other.

You are already well aware those forty sector pages on your website (optimised to within an inch of their life) are masking a fundamental strategic failing.

And your transparency, focus on results and, of course, passion – whilst admirable – just don’t cut it.

You know all this.

But it doesn’t mean you’ve done anything about it. Because whilst the status quo might not be to your satisfaction, the thought of specialising or niching still brings you out in a cold sweat.

And that might be because…

‘Niching’ gets a bad rap

People often assume ‘niching’ means focusing on a single sector.

Not true.

Niching by age-old sector categories (banking, automotive, retail, etc) is one way of doing it. And like any strategy, there are pros and cons to this approach, which I won’t get into now.

But besides sector (vertical positioning), there are numerous other means of niching, for example: service offering, methodology, technology / platform, problem (horizontal), point of view and so on.

It might even be a combination of these, for example, TikTok strategy for medical practitioners (I’m not suggesting this is a good idea, it’s merely to illustrate a point).

So moving forward, a small request, please. When idiots like me keep banging on about niching or specialising, don’t assume we are only referring to sector.

We’re not. Well, not me anyway.

Right oh, so why should you niche?

Now that’s out the way, let’s get to the point of this ramble. If you suspect it might be time to narrow your focus, but still need convincing, here are fourteen compelling reasons why you should take the leap. Most of these are viewed through a new business lens. Because I firmly believe – in fact, I know – niching makes every aspect of the new business process easier.

It’s worth noting, these benefits are not necessarily exclusive to specialists. Generalists might well experience some of these. But they tend to be the exception, not the norm.

Here goes…

1) You have greater clarity on where and how to invest your marketing budget. There’s far less, ‘let’s throw some money at this and see if it works’.

2) One of the outputs of the positioning process is an ‘ideal client profile’, clearly distinguishing between the prospects who fit and those who don’t. This acts as your qualifying framework, making the early stages of the sales process more efficient.

3) In line with the above, stakeholders, including your team, strategic partners and advisers, know exactly who the agency is targeting, driving better quality referrals and introductions.

4) You don’t have to ‘bend the narrative’ to suit what the prospect wants to hear. Yesterday, you were experts in eCommerce. Today, it’s financial services. A narrower focus allows you to avoid the mental exhaustion (and, let’s face it, blagging) that comes with trying to be everything to everyone.

5) Specialisation provides leverage, making it more likely you’ll be able to lead (or at least influence) the sales process and therefore push back on unreasonable demands. ‘I want a proposal on my desk by tomorrow afternoon’ says the prospect. ‘That won’t be happening, and this is why’, you reply, as you talk them through the steps in YOUR process.

6) More specifically where the sales process is concerned, you have the deeper know-how, experience, and therefore gravitas, to challenge a brief, rather than take it at face value. When you push back and suggest a different path, the prospect listens, trusting your advice and counsel.

7) Leverage makes it more likely to be able to gain access to key stakeholders during the sales process, which is proven to significantly increase the likelihood of winning a new business opportunity.

8) When it comes to the proposal, you can focus on describing how you will solve their problem once they become a paying client, rather than giving away the solution (e.g., strategy, creative ideas, etc) for free during the sales process.

9) You can deliver more value during the sales process, for example by sharing your unique insights and perspective, thus giving you a distinguishable advantage in competitive situations.

10) You can justifiably charge more for your specialist expertise and experiment with differing pricing models (positively impacting margin). On the other hand, when there are thousands of other agencies offering pretty much the same as you – only cheaper – it’s inevitable you’ll have to drop your price to win the business (negatively impacting margin).

11) You pitch less to win more, thus reducing the time, headspace and money wasted on ill-fitting prospects. In my experience, conversion from proposal to win is circa 60-70% for the specialist agencies I’ve worked with, compared to a significantly lower industry average of around 30% (which, we’ve conditioned ourselves to accept as normal).

12) The onboarding process is smoother. The team already understand the problems to be addressed because they have seen them many times before. They aren’t learning on the job, which inevitably happens when you take on a client operating in a sector where you have limited, or no, experience.

13) Your retention rate is higher. As you and the client work together, you continuously demonstrate that it isn’t easy to find the same depth of expertise elsewhere (making you increasingly irreplaceable).

14) In line with the above, your new business objective is to win a few, on-profile (and highly profitable) clients a year, rather than having to acquire many more due to a leaky bucket.

Sounds good, eh?

Hold on. Caveat time.

These benefits don’t necessarily come easy. That’s because, in some ways, choosing how to narrow your focus, specialise or niche is the fairly straightforward bit.

The harder part is following through on the decision.

How come?

Well, repositioning – a change of strategy, in other words – is a journey.

In the beginning, your new positioning is likely to be half reality, half ambition. Half reality because you have some relevant experience, expertise and a genuine interest in your chosen field. Otherwise, why would you have chosen to specialise in it?

But it’s also half ambition because you do not yet consider yourself a fully-fledged specialist. And, in all likelihood, neither do your clients, prospects or team.

Getting to that point – and realising the benefits above – demands tangible change and action across the entire agency, from lead generation to recruitment (if it doesn’t, then your new ‘positioning’ is nothing more than superficial).

It’s this period of transition that requires time and perseverance. It might be a year or two before you walk into that room to meet your dream client, quietly confident that you properly know your stuff. And that you’ve got the content, case studies, recognition and team to back it up.

I don’t say this to put you off but to manage your expectations.

Wrapping things up

For many agencies, last year was tough. But the start of a new year means all of that is forgotten. We start afresh. Positivity and enthusiasm are abound.

But, without wishing to be a killjoy, I suspect 2024 will present its challenges.

Events well outside of our control – here in the UK and globally – will continue to make our lives (and sales pipelines) unpredictable this year.

Maybe a sticky plaster solution, attempting to fix a ‘single issue’, will get you through.

Or it might be time to take the ‘wider view’ and address the real problem.

14 indisputable benefits of nichingBen Potter2024-04-12T15:12:09+00:00

When the positioning is right. But the proposition sucks.

Ben Potter2024-04-12T14:16:06+00:00

When the positioning is right. But the proposition sucks.

You’ve done the hard bit. After years of trying to be all things to all people, you’ve made a strategic decision to narrow your focus.
With your positioning sorted, it’s time to turn your attention to the proposition.

Before we go on, just to clarify the difference between the two…

In agency land, we use the word ‘positioning’ but what we really mean is ‘strategy’; a conscious decision to do a specific thing, for a specific type of client. The proposition is how you articulate this in a relevant and compelling way, so it resonates with your newly defined ‘ideal client’.

I like to use the analogy of marriage; positioning is deciding who you are (hopefully) going to spend the rest of your life with. The proposition is how you pose the big question, in the hope your partner says ‘yes’.

But rather like a nervous, future groom dropping to one knee and then tripping up on his words, a sound positioning decision doesn’t always translate into a great agency proposition.

In my experience, this is typically down to…

1) A fear of alienating existing clients or scaring away prospects who are no longer the right fit (forgetting this is the whole point). Messaging is caught halfway between the old and new proposition.

2) A tendency to put services front and centre of the proposition at the expense of the agency’s problem-solving abilities.

3) The use of inward-looking (‘we’, ‘our’, ‘us’) and cliché-ridden language (‘results-focused, ‘transparent’ and ‘passionate’, to name just three examples).

For the purposes of this article, let’s explore how you can address the second point.

What do clients really care about?

Whether you do creative, design websites or run digital marketing campaigns, most clients don’t give a hoot about your services. Clients work with agencies because they want to get from A to B. But something is standing in their way.

Therefore, in my humble opinion, your proposition should lead with client aspirations and / or problems. It should succinctly talk about your expertise and solutions in this context. It should also be outcome-orientated, highlighting how you positively impact the people, companies and markets you serve.

With this in mind, a simple framework for crafting a snappy proposition might look something like this:

We work with…(audience)

…helping them to…(aspirations / problems)

…by delivering…(solutions)

…that provide...(outcomes)

Where that all-important second line is concerned, after working with a number of similar clients for some time, you will have seen the same problems crop up again and again. Indeed, these observations have shaped your positioning decision.

But what if you want to validate your thinking? Or, better still, deepen your understanding of the problems faced by your target audience, feeding that insight into your proposition?

The simple, but often overlooked, solution is to talk to your clients. When working with an agency on their proposition, client interviews are an integral part of my process. The conversations provide a platform for the agency’s client to do some naval gazing, often bringing to the fore underlying or unresolved issues – and even specific language – to incorporate into the agency’s proposition.

Leading questions I ask include…

When you first approached AGENCY, what was the specific problem you were seeking to fix?
In your opinion, what sets AGENCY apart? What are their strengths?
What are your goals and how does AGENCY support you in meeting them?
In trying to meet those goals, what has typically stood in your way (or is standing in your way right now)?
What worries you about the future? Are you looking for anything new or different from your agency partners to address these challenges?

At a guess, I’ve conducted around 100 client interviews on behalf of agencies over the years. They never fail to reveal a new or unexpected piece of insight – aspirations, goals, challenges or underlying problems you don’t normally find in a brief or RFP. From experience, you only need to speak to four or five clients, although you’ll probably find these conversations more fruitful when you use a third party to conduct the interviews (uh um!).

So, having validated your assumptions or gathered new insight into the key problems faced by your clients, how can you use this to create a richer proposition?

Solutions before services

Clients need solutions to problems. Yet, as highlighted earlier, most agency propositions lead with services, most of which – in isolation – can’t address a thorny business problem. Furthermore, most services have become highly commoditised and are therefore subject to downward price pressure.

An alternative approach to leading with your services is to highlight the three or four key problems your clients face. You can then design a solution or ‘program’ that addresses each of these problems. A program differs from a service in that it combines your strategic thinking, problem-solving skills and several disciplines to address a client challenge, an approach that Tim Williams talks more about here.

With respect to your website, you can then extend the ‘problem’ element of your proposition, as in this example:

Notice how the three content areas across the middle aren’t promoting services as you’d find on a typical agency website. Instead, each box relates to an aspiration or problem: poor productivity, for example.

Details of the solution or ‘program’ – sold at a premium price point, by the way – are found by clicking through to dedicated pages describing the agency’s approach to solving each problem, supported by relevant case studies, testimonials and articles.

This is a very different approach to a shopping list of commoditised services. And reflective of how more discerning clients are looking to engage with agencies.

Rounding things up

Ultimately, clients need solutions to problems they are unable to fix themselves.

But few agencies I come across have defined what those problems are, let alone thought about how they can reimagine their service offering as a set of programs to address those problems.

Inspired by the likes of David C. Baker and Tim Williams, this is something I’ve been working on for my own business, so if you fancy chewing the fat on this, just shout.

P.S. The insight gathered from client interviews can also be used to create a number of simple buyer profiles, outlining the specific goals, problems and desired outcomes for each of the stakeholders involved in purchasing your services (or should I say ‘solutions). These allow salespeople to adjust their approach (questions, language, proposition, etc.) to the sales process accordingly.

When the positioning is right. But the proposition sucks.Ben Potter2024-04-12T14:16:06+00:00

In defence of lead gen agencies

Ben Potter2023-03-14T18:14:40+00:00

In defence of lead gen agencies

Barely a day goes by without an agency owner or business developer telling me about their less-than-pleasing experience outsourcing lead generation. I’d say for every person I speak to with good things to say about lead gen agencies, another ten say the complete opposite.

So, what’s going on?

Firstly, people tend to share negative experiences more than they do positive ones.

Secondly, even if a lead gen agency is doing a great job, I could imagine a scenario where their client is reluctant to tell the world about it. Who wants to give away their secret sauce to the competition, right?

And finally, there is my own confirmation bias to consider. If I keep hearing people say lead gen agencies suck, I’ll subconsciously listen out for and recall conversations that support this view.

But let’s put all that aside to make one thing clear. I don’t think all lead gen agencies suck.

Far from it.

Of course, there are some sharks and charlatans about. I’ve had the (mis)pleasure of seeing under the bonnet of campaigns run by such lead gen agencies and, let me tell you, they weren’t pretty. Thousands upon thousands of generic emails fired out to anyone with a pulse. It would have been less damaging to both the client’s wallet and reputation to have done nothing at all.

But I’ve also heard disparaging comments about lead gen agencies I really rate.

So, what’s REALLY going on?

Any lead gen agencies reading this will be best placed to confirm (or challenge) my hypothesis, but I think there are a couple of key factors that determine success:

1) The client’s readiness to do outbound.

2) How the client approaches the meetings booked by their lead gen partner.

On the first point, Mark Duval wrote a great article last year exploring what makes a client (marketing agencies in this context) outbound-ready. They include narrow positioning, proven results in the sectors being targeted and the capacity to follow up opportunities effectively.

When a lead gen agency sends thousands of generic emails, it might be because they don’t know any better. But it could also be because their client just wasn’t ready to do outbound in a more targeted and refined manner.

(As an aside, I’d argue a lead gen agency ‘doing the right thing’ wouldn’t even consider drafting an outbound email until the issues Mark raises have been fixed. But, of course, that doesn’t always happen. Either because the lead gen doesn’t have the expertise to fix these issues or because they decide to take on the client regardless.)

‘They weren’t qualified’

But even those lead gen agencies approaching outbound with more sophistication – resulting in a steady stream of meetings – can still find their client unhappy.

The client might tell me:

‘Yeah, they got us meetings with some decent brands, but they weren’t qualified.’

This leads us on to the second of my success factors; how the client manages the meetings set up by the lead gen partner.

In my view, a lead gen agency is simply there to open the door on behalf of their client. I say ‘simply’ but actually that task is extremely challenging; client-side marketers might receive 20 or 30 approaches a day (A DAY!) so getting a response to an outbound email is a minor miracle in itself.

But here’s the real crux.

Just because a prospect says they are happy to talk, it doesn’t mean they are in the market RIGHT NOW.

Yes, their interest has been piqued, otherwise, why would they have responded? But the likelihood that your lead gen agency has hit them up just as they were thinking about a change of approach, strategy or agency is very low.

You might immediately think this is a bad thing. Not necessarily. In fact, a prospect who is not in the market right now can actually be a more fruitful opportunity in the long run. But it requires an entirely different mindset and approach to the meeting your lovely lead gen partner has just booked for you.

From salesperson to changemaker

If you first accept that, in all likelihood, prospects targeted by your lead gen agency aren’t ready to buy right now, you will also accept the need to tackle the meeting differently.

Rather than whipping out the creds and talking about your agency for an hour – an approach that creates no value whatsoever for the prospect – you instead focus on building a case for change (remembering that change can be hard, scary and uncomfortable. It is much easier to do nothing, hence in sales your biggest competitor is the status quo).

That’s why a creds-style conversation so often ends with things going no further. Think about it. Why would a prospect consider changing based on a one-way conversation where you attempt to persuade them that your agency is ‘better’? Trust me, they’ve heard it all before.

This is where a lot of agencies need to up their sales game. People like to consider themselves ‘consultative’ salespeople but, in reality, I’m not so sure they are.
Consultative selling involves playing the role of trusted adviser; challenging assumptions, sharing insight, offering advice, and, ultimately, helping the prospect navigate change.

It relies on you already having a good idea of the problems faced by your prospect – and more importantly, the root causes of those problems – because you have seen them many times before (in The Challenger Sale, they call this hypothesis-based selling).

Consultative selling means you know as much – if not more – about your prospect’s world as they do. This means they learn something new about themselves, their business or their market during the sales process, thus beginning to build the case for change.

If they’re not learning, then they have no reason to continue talking to you. So they go dark. You chase them up for months on end. Then after a few attempts, you give up.

And who gets the blame for this? The lead gen agency of course. Because the prospect ‘wasn’t qualified’.

All paths lead back to positioning

If you haven’t guessed by now, consultative selling is most effective with narrow positioning; where working with similar clients, facing similar problems, leads to deep expertise.

Not only does this make the sales process easier – especially your ability to act as a trusted adviser in meetings – but your lead gen agency will also stand a far better chance of getting those meetings in the first place.

With generalist positioning, the opposite is often true. Your lead gen agency is forced to ‘bend the narrative’ to get you in front of prospects. Today, you are experts in banking, tomorrow e-commerce. It can be done. But it’s a tough gig for the lead gen agency.

And even if they get you a meeting, you probably lack the deep expertise to drive change.

Making the whole exercise a waste of everyone’s time.

All of which leads to my parting thought.

If the results you’re getting from your lead gen agency aren’t meeting expectations, it’s easy to pass the blame and push them to up their game.

But maybe they need you to up yours first.

In defence of lead gen agenciesBen Potter2023-03-14T18:14:40+00:00

Launching the Agency Business Development Scorecard

Ben Potter2022-05-11T16:11:24+00:00

Launching the Agency Business Development Scorecard

Are you looking for a quick and easy way to assess your agency’s business development capabilities?

Look no further, my friend.

I’m delighted to finally launch the ‘Agency Business Development Scorecard’ (I say ‘finally’ because it’s only been five years in the making!).

Anyway, what’s it all about?

Well, business development is consistently cited as one of the most pressing challenges for agency owners. Day to day, this reveals itself in a number of ways; inconsistency in lead quality / quantity, lack of control over the sales process, and revenue up and down like a yoyo (to name just three).

So whilst agency owners are only too aware of the symptoms, experience has taught me they don’t always understand WHY their business development function isn’t quite working.

That’s where the scorecard comes in. It’s a simple diagnostic tool to…

> Highlight what a high performing business development function looks like

> Uncover if (and why) your new business function is falling short

> Shine a light on gaps in your approach

It takes around 10 minutes to mark yourself against 45 statements, divided into three sections: positioning, opportunity creation, and your sales process.

At the end, you’ll receive a personalised report with a score for each section and a total score to indicate the ‘maturity’ of your business development function (along with an explanation of each score).

You can take the scorecard as often as you like. Have different stakeholders complete it to get a range of views on what’s working, what’s not, and where attention is needed. Or do it every six months or so to see how you are progressing.

A lot of work has gone into this (did I mention it’s been five years in the making?). But I didn’t do it alone. A number of agency owners and business developers were kind enough to review the scorecard as I was building it so I’d like to thank them all (too many to list) for their help.

Have a go and let me know what you think.

Launching the Agency Business Development ScorecardBen Potter2022-05-11T16:11:24+00:00

The untapped opportunity of the ‘talent crisis’ on new business

Ben Potter2022-05-11T15:36:21+00:00

The untapped opportunity of the ‘talent crisis’ on new business

There are around 30K agencies in the UK. They all seem to be recruiting right now. And they all seem to be struggling. This is not an article exploring the causes and solutions to this so-called ‘talent-crisis’ (for some of that, go here, here, and here).

Instead, I want to look at the potential impact on your business development efforts. And why your difficulties in recruiting ‘delivery’ people might actually present an opportunity.

This was born out of a recent conversation with an agency owner experiencing their own mini-talent crisis. Their delivery team is already stretched, barely able to manage the workload from current clients. So adding to this with a shiny new client or two is almost unthinkable at the moment.

‘So, we’re going to put business development activity on hold for a while’, he said.

‘You’re going to do what?’ I replied.

By the tone of my voice, he knew immediately that I thought this was a terrible idea.

You might well be in the same boat. You’re busy with existing client work and unable to service new clients. So, why would you continue building your pipeline? Surely pausing business development activity for a few months, and then picking it back up when your resourcing issues are fixed, is the obvious solution, right?

Wrong.

Here are some reasons why…

1) You’ve built momentum with your business development and marketing plan. This wasn’t easy. It took time to put the plan together. It took even longer to build the necessary processes and habits to execute it consistently. It was a hard-won battle. Putting a pause on activity and then starting back up again later in the year sounds easy. But it’s not; once the momentum of a project is lost, it’s really difficult to regain it. And what’s your marketing executive going to do during that period. Find another job, I imagine.

2) If you put a hold on business development and marketing activity now, you might not experience any negative effects immediately. BUT it will absolutely come back to bite you in the behind 6 – 12 months from now. The activity you invest in today creates opportunities for the future. Think ahead six months from now and visualise an empty-looking pipeline – that should be the only motivation you need to keep the business development tap on.

3) The typical sales cycle – from initial interest to starting work – is about three months (longer for some). So even if you get lucky and contact a prospect tomorrow who is ‘in the market’, you may well find your resourcing issues are fixed, at least in part, by the time they are a paying client.

4) You never know when a current client will decide to leave you. A strong pipeline – plentiful with qualified, on-profile opportunities – is an insurance policy against the unexpected.

5) A strong pipeline provides you with the luxury of choice; the choice to discard prospects that don’t fit and progress the opportunities that do. When your pipeline is sparse, that choice is removed. So, you end up taking on a project that isn’t quite aligned with your core expertise. Or you say ‘yes’ to the client you know is going to be a pain in the &*@#.

To repeat, a strong pipeline = choice.

6) If you need to, you can put prospective clients in a holding pattern. In talking this through with a client recently, he used the analogy of airplanes stacked up ready for landing. If somebody really wants to work with you – because they value your expertise and experience over that of others – they’ll be happy to wait in a holding pattern for a month or two. But with one caveat – you must be upfront about this by managing their expectations early in the sales process and by keeping them regularly informed whilst they are in the ‘stack’.

Could you lose opportunities adopting this approach? Probably. But that’s better than rushing to onboard a new client where your limited capacity means you deliver a poor client experience and sub-standard work, not to mention the damage to your team’s morale and wellbeing.

Your current resourcing issues are a problem, no doubt about it. But, from a new business perspective, can they be reframed as an opportunity?

An opportunity to be laser-focused on the work you should be going for.

An opportunity to finesse your skills (and confidence) in saying ‘no’.

And an opportunity to replace bad-fitting clients with better ones (however you choose to define ‘better’).

But you can only take advantage of these opportunities if you reject – what might look like – the obvious answer to a squeeze on resource: turning the tap off for a while.

Because when you do that, you start placing limits on your ability to choose who you work with. Maybe not today but almost certainly in the future.

And that’s the crux. When evaluating how things are going on the new business front, the question is not ‘how are things looking now?‘ but ‘how are things likely to look in 6 – 12 months?‘

With this in mind, I can’t think of many scenarios where you would make the conscious decision to put business development activity on hold, your current talent shortage / crisis included.

Sometimes of course it is forced upon you. Your marketing manager leaves abruptly, for example. Inevitably, that will result in a slowdown in activity. But, ideally, not a complete stop.

This is where a ‘new business is everyone’s business’ approach pays dividends. With responsibility for business development and marketing shared across the agency, you reduce the risk that activity will ever come to a standstill.

Because where new business is concerned, it should always be business as usual.

The untapped opportunity of the ‘talent crisis’ on new businessBen Potter2022-05-11T15:36:21+00:00

25 anecdotes from 5 years of advising agencies

Ben Potter2022-01-07T12:42:12+00:00

25 anecdotes from 5 years of advising agencies on business development

2016. What a year eh? The UK voted to leave the EU. England crashed out of the Euros to Iceland. And Trump became president. And in news that seemed to escape media attention – not so much as a mention in the Brighton Argus – I also moved on from the agency where I’d spent thirteen years as a Business Development Manager, Commercial Director and Board Member.

During that time, I learned a thing or two about business development. I enjoyed memorable successes. I made some monumental mistakes. And I faced many challenges. But ironically, I’ve learnt as much (maybe more) about the craft of business development during the last five years. I guess working across multiple agencies, reading (a lot) and avoiding the 101 other things you have to deal with as an agency Director, have played a part in that.

So, to the point of this article…a round-up of those learnings; themes and patterns observed during my work with around fifty agencies and in the conversations I’ve had with many more.

1. Business development is more difficult for most than I anticipated

Back in 2016, I suspected others faced similar challenges to those I’d wrestled with during my agency days. However, I wasn’t expecting so many to cite business development as their number one challenge.

2. All paths lead back to positioning

There are a number of reasons why business development is hard. But the most significant root cause is positioning.

Agencies with weak positioning – inward-facing (‘look at us, we’re brilliant), broad-brush (‘hey, we work with anyone’) and cliché-ridden (‘we’re a passionate, award-winning, full-service agency. Honest’) – tend to find business development more difficult.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course. I know agencies with laughably weak positioning doing very well for themselves. But for every high-flying generalist, there are fifty others finding business development a slog.

3. The symptoms of weak positioning have become normalised

Arms-length RFP processes. Prospects demanding a proposal by Friday (on Thursday afternoon!). Agencies giving away their ideas for free. Fees slashed to get the business over the line.

So much of this stuff is considered normal. It needn’t be. And fortunately, more agencies are seeing the light, challenging processes and behaviours that too often work against their interests.

4. The number one reason agency owners don’t narrow their focus…

…a fear of missing out; there is a natural tendency to think only about what they might lose, as opposed to what they will gain by specialising or niching.

5. The importance of purpose is over-inflated…I think (I’m still wrestling with it)

For most agencies, trouble winning new clients on a consistent basis is not because they lack a compelling ‘why’ (Simon Sinek style). It’s because they’ve failed to 1) define what the right client looks like; 2) build a proposition around this audience, and; 3) consistently execute a lead generation plan.

For some, purpose can be galvanising. For others, the relentless search for their ‘why’ can be an exhausting distraction.

6. Business development touches every other part of the agency

A conversation that starts with a lead generation issue quickly turns to one about positioning, culture, people and finance. Business development impacts, and is impacted by, all other functions of the agency, something that isn’t always understood or acknowledged.

As such, agencies under-invest in business development. It’s quite rare to find an agency that approaches it with the same level of intent as service delivery or account management, for example.

7. Peaks and troughs are born out of inconsistency

Many agencies are on a perpetual cycle of feast and famine. Busy one minute, panicking about how they’re going to fill the beer fridge the next.

Ups and downs are inevitable. But their size will hinge on an agency’s ability to execute the right lead generation tactics, consistently well. Always.

Sounds simple I know. But the reality is few agencies master this. The ones that do spend more time feasting and less time worrying about where the next meal is going to come from.

8. It all boils down to action

Sales, business development, new business, partnership marketing? Whatever you call it, the aim is the same: to continuously grow and nurture a network of on-profile prospects. That’s it.

In doing this, the only thing you can truly control is the actions you take – day in, day out, week in, week out. So, break tasks down into actions. Review and plan your actions weekly. Measure the % of actions you complete. Don’t drop below 85%. Do this on repeat and the big (sometimes scary) sales target will look after itself.

9. Impatience kills the right tactics before they have a chance to yield results

“What do you mean that webinar didn’t bring us any leads? Right, we’re not doing that again, what a waste of money.”

Sound familiar?

You run an event, for example, not because it will provide you with a bunch of ‘hot’ leads right now but because it puts you on the radar of people who might have a need in the future. Yet too many tactics like this are binned because of misplaced expectations and the wrong metrics.

I’ll leave it James Clear to sum up 8 and 9: ‘Be impatient with your actions. Be patient with your results.’

10. Referrals: more by accident than design

Referrals are the number one source of leads for most agencies. No news there. But it’s crazy how few agencies are proactively increasing the quantity and quality of referrals.

More worryingly, referrals are cited as justification not to invest in other activities. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. Worse, when you are, in effect, outsourcing lead generation – by hoping people will refer you – the basket isn’t even yours.

11. Outbound: simple in principle but rarely done well

I’ve spoken to hundreds of agencies. I can count on one hand the number that are proactively building relationships with prospects by phone, email and using LinkedIn, for example. And doing it well.

When it does happen, it tends to be a panicked reaction to an empty-looking pipeline. And therefore done badly.

12. For every agency that has good things to say about outsourcing lead gen…

…another ten say they got nothing from it.

But this is not to tarnish all lead generation agencies with the same brush. There are great ones out there. But there are also some who are happy to take the money and run.

If a lead generation agency doesn’t challenge you on your positioning, target audience, point of view, and content assets (amongst other things), you should be doing the running.

13. A career in business development is rarely planned

Not one person I’ve mentored set out to work as a business developer. But none of them regrets where they accidentally ended up, me included.

Thankfully, understanding and appreciation of business development is growing, helped by the likes of the BD100. But it still feels like we’ve got a way to go before it’s considered a career option by sixth formers and graduates…

14. …which is a problem because good business developers are in short supply

If you’ve got a good one, do your absolute utmost to keep them. Finding another won’t be easy.

15. Agencies (and clients) remain addicted to proposals and presentations

But they can’t do the selling for you.

So apply the following rule: a proposal or presentation should be confirmation of what you have already agreed verbally.

I haven’t pulled any stats together (note to self) but I know the agencies employing this approach – spending more time talking with prospects as part of a collaborative, exploratory process – have significantly increased their conversion rate.

16. When qualifying, most look for reasons why they SHOULD move forward…

But it’s better to identify all the reasons why you SHOULDN’T. It is a subtle but powerful shift in mindset. And it might just mean you waste less time on opportunities you stand little chance of winning.

17. People don’t like talking about money…

…especially early in the qualifying process. But this is exactly when you should be uncovering how much a prospect is willing and able to invest. If you don’t ask the awkward questions early, you’re setting yourself up to face objections later.

18. Average conversion rates hover around 30 – 40%…

…from proposal / pitch meeting to win.

Agency owners are often surprised when I tell them they should be aiming for a +70%. ‘Why so high?’ they ask? Because when an agency has a clear view of what the right client looks like (and therefore a framework to qualify against), they more easily separate those who fit from those who don’t. And spot the serious prospects amongst the timewasters.

And they work this out early, way before putting pen to paper on a proposal. As such, they pitch less to win more.

19. An agency owner cannot own business development AND be an effective leader

I’m yet to come across an agency that has broken a million with only the MD on business development and marketing. I’m sure they exist but suspect they are the exception, not the rule.

20. New business as everyone’s business? Easier said than done

The skills required to deliver a successful business development and marketing strategy are wide-ranging. So much so, one person cannot excel at them all. I’ve always believed business development should be a team effort; everyone in the agency can (and should) bring something to the party.

But creating this new business culture – where new business REALLY is everyone’s business – well, that’s tough. A misunderstanding (and therefore, fear) of ‘sales’, poor communication and the pressure of client work, are just three of the things holding agencies back in this respect.

21. Culture is created through shared values. Values are visible in behaviours

Sticking ‘innovate’ on the office wall won’t make a person more innovative.

For values to be effective, they need to be communicated as verbs (actions and behaviours). Whatever you say about Simon Sinek, I have him to thank for this one. It works.

22. The best time to work on the strategic stuff is…

…when things are going well (or at least OK). That might sound counterintuitive but when the opposite is true – when the pipeline is looking sparse, for example – agency leaders lack the clarity to make the best, long-term decisions. The focus is inevitably on the next couple of months and making sure there’s enough cash to cover payroll.

This is exactly the wrong time to bring in advisers like me.

23. Change takes time despite the ambition to move fast

Take repositioning, for example. When an agency chooses to transition from generalist to specialist, it takes at least a couple of years before they build a network, reputation and client base that justifies the decision.

Repositioning is a journey. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

24. Business development is messy

Much of my work with agencies is about systems, processes and frameworks. But for all the effort to make business development organised and consistent, it is, by its very nature, a bit chaotic.

If you’re a highly organised individual, you’ll bring a lot to the table. But you’ll also need to accept the untidiness of it all.

25. Agencies are brilliantly resilient

There were inevitably agencies that didn’t survive the pandemic. But the vast majority did. Some even thrived. And, if there is one good thing to come out of it, the feeling of camaraderie amongst agencies feels stronger than ever. I’ll drink to that.

I could go on but it’s going to mess with the double-5 in the title so let’s leave it there.

Before I go, a caveat to all this; I speak to and work with agencies who have an issue with business development. I, therefore, tend to see only the stuff that needs fixing.

But, of course, a lot of agencies are smashing it. And if you are, well done. Seriously, if most of what you’ve just read doesn’t apply, I take my hat off to you. Because, if I were to summarise in a few words what the last five years have taught me, you are the exception, not the rule, my friend.

Finally, I’d like to say a massive thank you to all those that have been a part of the journey so far: clients, partners, peers, friends, and family.

Here’s to the next five years of striving to make business development just a little bit easier.

25 anecdotes from 5 years of advising agenciesBen Potter2022-01-07T12:42:12+00:00