Choosing a New Business Agency

New business has become convoluted, multi-channel and more competitive for agencies over the years. As a result I think us business developers may not turn out to have been the bad guys after all.

I accept that there are some pretty dodgy offerings out there, but here at Retriever we are proud to stand alongside a bunch of new business agencies that really are very good at what they do.

Healthy competition is very good news as it’s good for our industry.

They say that most businesses will fail within the first couple of years but it doesn’t seem to have happened to us or our competitors

So when is the time right to get involved with a new business agency?

When you want to grow your business

• You recognise that you don’t have the skills in house
• Referrals and inbound leads are slowing up
• When you just don’t have the time internally

So how do you go about picking one?

Well, other than results, probably the most important thing is chemistry. By the very nature of the relationship it’s pretty high pressure and a lot is based upon performance that leads to happiness.

So for a start make sure you get on with them.

Then really it’s a question of how they work.

Obviously however we work we all need to produce relationships that can lead to business. As I’ve said before for us it’s about wise use of channels, properly engineered propositions and the quality of the contact.

Promises promises.

Promising the earth doesn’t help anyone because anyone that understands new business knows that the process takes time to gather speed. You can’t build a pipeline overnight and expecting lots of opportunities in the very early days is effectively relying upon lady luck.

Don’t get me wrong, I think luck has a place in sales and new business but you have to make your own and that brings me to pipeline building.

If your new business agency tells you that you will win a big new client within six months they are probably pretty sensible as that is the right kind of time frame.

If they tell you that it’ll be three months, then I admire their confidence but would recommend you don’t hold your breath. If they say it will be in the first 12 weeks, then bar luck or picking something up from an existing warm list they’re probably misguided.

Meetings

Meetings – the great inaccurate currency of success.

This industry used to be ‘You pay me money, I’ll get you meetings’ and that was fine for a while but things have changed so much. Just ramming the diary full of meetings is dangerous because unless they’re well qualified there is really no point in going.

But people still ask all the time about how many meetings they will get.

‘Five a year’ I say, ‘but they will all become clients’. Ok, I’m just making a point but the fact is that if you’re chasing opportunity and not just meetings it’s a total game changer. It’s harder but much more commercial and leads to much longer engagements with clients.

Nurturing

Not every first meeting will lead to immediate business, nor will every call with a decision maker so the process of nurturing is as important as any other element of new business.

It takes time, good ideas and great content to keep a prospect interested on a journey that can last from months to years. The key is to never give up and make sure that any contact you have is interesting, informative and relationship building. A good new business agency will have a distinct plan for this activity.

Ideally you’ll choose an agency that is consultative and able to advise you on many different elements of new business, proposition, strategy and your brand.

I hope all of the above is helpful and forgive me if I’ve erred into self promotion at any point in this post but, hey, I’m a salesman.

Good luck.

 (Before speaking at the B2B Expo in May 2016)