How Do I Sign Bigger & Better Quality Clients For My Agency?

Household Name Clients

Around 2 years ago, Ash, Sam – my WP leadership colleagues – and I had a very serious conversation.

We had an opportunity with a world famous client. The type of client that you dream about working with, but you accept it may never happen. A household name.

Our conversation was open and honest… Were we ready to really service this client? We felt we were, but we couldn’t be sure – this would represent a huge jump for us. The one thing we were certain of is signing this client would fast-track our growth. Not simply financially, but in every possible way.

We knew that taking them on, we would progress 5 years in the next 6 months. That thought was enough for us – we went for it.

Your Big Opportunity

Signing bigger clients is always wise. Right now, it’s also time sensitive.

We’re heading to a recession, and there are a number of household name brands that are looking to execute the same amount of marketing activity, at the same quality, but for more affordable fees. Many brands are tired of spending tens of thousands on a marketing retainer, when there’s great quality out there in the agency world – this is your opportunity.

In short, if there has ever been a time to step up and go for household name clients, it’s now.

But how do you do it?

Let’s dive in.

#1 – Believe

The key driver behind Ash, Sam and my decision to go after our ‘whale client’ was belief. We were confident in ourselves, our team and our process and we knew we could evolve fast and deliver results.

This is everything.

Don’t even consider going after larger clients until you have bullet-proof confidence in yourself, your process, your team and your ability to achieve the results your clients want.

Why?

Without this, you won’t show up in the right manner – in your marketing and your sales.

So what do you do if you’re lacking the confidence you need?

Become more objective and less emotional.

If your client results aren’t quite there, don’t react emotionally. This means don’t assume that’s because you and your team aren’t good enough. All this means is you haven’t found exactly the right process you need to get results every time … Yet.

Objectively look at your process. What can you add or remove to increase your chances of success every single time. Keep doing this until you’re confident in your ability to get results… Imagine you’re in a discovery meeting with your own dream ‘whale client’… Could you look them in the eye and guarantee them results?

If yes, move onto step 2.

#2 - Aim Higher

Once you’ve found your confidence, the next step couldn’t be easier…

Aim higher up the food chain.

Literally, start looking for bigger clients.

This could mean anything… It could mean changing your LinkedIn Sales Nav filter from 51-200 head count companies to 201-500 head count companies.

It could mean curating a bespoke list of dream clients and reaching out to them.

It could mean looking at the larger groups and associations where your dream clients are members and talking to them about membership, or running some events for them.

Whatever it is, it needs to be active and purposeful. Don’t think just because you’re now ready to work with bigger clients that they’ll come knocking – they won’t.

Go after them.

#3 – Upgrade your messaging

Alongside targeting and approaching your dream clients, you want to set yourself up for attracting them too.

This means, working on your positioning, messaging and content to show that you’re ready to serve household name clients…

And this is where a lot of agencies stumble.

When we target national or international brands, our messaging and content needs to be specific and sophisticated. We can’t enter that market with the same, bland and generalist content that most agencies go to market with.

For example, if we’re targeting bottom of the chain clients who may be start-ups or smaller businesses, simple service led content will suffice.

However, when we want to target top of chain clients – household name brands – our content needs to transform. We need to talk less about services and more about industry news and strategy.

I learned this a few years ago when I was fortunate to win a pitch to work with Porsche in Japan. When we started the project, I spent a day in their Tokyo offices talking about their major challenges. Their main challenge was simple, they needed to know how they could win a portion of the electrical vehicle market with their launch of their new all-electric Taycan.

Their marketing department was interested in consumer psychology around premium electric vehicles, how Tesla was perceived in the market and whether their consumer base would see the Taycan as a first or second vehicle. If we wanted to attract more clients at that level, that’s where our content needed to be… But we weren’t hitting the mark. Instead, our content was basic marketing advice…

Here's the headline – top of the chain CMOs don’t need marketing advice, they need industry insight.

If you want to attract the best, you need to write content that catches their attention.

Coming of age

?Is it time for your agency to finally step up and challenge for those international brands?

Maybe you’ve been there and it’s time to get back?

Or maybe you’ve got one international brand, but they make up over 50% of your revenue. You therefore need a couple more to supplement that revenue.

Wherever you are, now is the time – it’s time to use the recession opportunity to come of age.

For Ash, Sam and I, our decision was nerve racking but absolutely the best one we could’ve made. We won the contract, and that was the first of a number of international clients we now work with… Of course, we’re very lucky to have the opportunities, but we’re also very proud of the way we’ve taken them.

The strategy is the easy part… The hard part is the belief.

Start there.

Becoming An Authority Agency

For those of you that don't know me, I'm Oliver Duffy-Lee and I run a company called Authority Agency.

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To your success,

OD-L