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Is it Just My Agency?

The Three “C’s” to Successful Pipeline Building:  Consistency, Consistency, Consistency

By Mark Sneider
Reardon Smith Whittaker (RSW) US/GP

Too many agencies prospect in fits and spurts.
Too many agencies are terrible at marketing themselves.
Too many agencies don’t take the time to build an organized new business process.

Winning new business starts with building a solid pipeline of potential opportunities. Building a solid pipeline starts with developing and maintaining the three “C’s” of business development. Absent of these three “C’s”, an agency’s efforts will be stunted, challenged and frustrated.

The first and potentially most important “C” is consistency of outreach -- being there as much as you can, as often as you can. After all, the “game” is a bit of an aperture marketing game. Today your prospect is fine, tomorrow they have their boss breathing down their neck, or a new initiative demands a new look and fresh ideas. Being there when they are ready to make a move means always being on the radar, not just when you can make the time.

The second “C” is the consistency of messaging used in reaching out. Just like an advertiser’s brand, your “brand” needs to define itself in as compelling and unique a way as it can. Given that at the end of the day, most agencies deliver the same “stuff”, finding the reasons to believe your agency is able to get the prospect to a better place is central to convincing them that you can help. Show them you understand their situation, bridge their situation back to your work and then make a compelling case for why your way is better than the next agency on the block.

And the third is the consistency of methodology used in your outreach. You can have the smartest salesperson in the world working on your behalf and if he or she isn’t organized in their approach, doesn’t have the right tools to reach out with, doesn’t have the right support to help develop lists, messaging and reporting, the program will eventually fall short. 

Following the three “C’s” is particularly important in today’s economy. With fewer opportunities and more agencies knocking on the same door, selling the way you always have isn’t going to win the big contract.

Is it just my agency?

Doesn’t seem to be so. In a recent survey conducted by Reardon Smith Whittaker, 150 agency principals highlighted the pain many are feeling in today’s market, stressing the need to be better stewards of the three “C’s”.

According to the survey, close to 60 percent of those responding stated that their business is flat to declining versus a year ago.

Fifty-one percent of the agency principals said that winning new business is “harder” or “a lot harder” than it was three years ago, as compared to only 40 percent agreeing with that statement in the previous year’s survey. So it’s clearly getting tougher, not easier to create opportunities.

What could be the root cause?

When asked, 37percent of principals seemed convinced that the top reason for the slowdown is that there are fewer opportunities to be had as a result of company consolidations and lower levels of spending, and that it is increasingly more difficult to break through to prospects (44 percent).

With the economy placing ever-increasing pressure on the prospect’s financial performance, there seems to be ever-increasing pressure on a marketer’s time. Company cut-backs result in less time to talk to agencies, and with less time and fewer dollars to be spent on marketing, prospective clients are more hesitant to give the agency that simply wants to talk about itself any time. Reach out needs to be compelling, relevant, consistent and on-going. Fresh thinking, best practices or anything that can add value to the prospect’s world will only improve your chances of penetrating and getting on the radar screen.

Is it possible we are doing something wrong?

Interestingly, agencies are still relying heavily on referrals and networking as a resource for new business. Anecdotally, we have found that the rate of network and referral opportunities is slowing down-- something that makes sense given the high rate of company consolidations and reductions in spend. 

What agencies aren’t doing a lot of, or maybe not doing effectively, is “prospecting”. According to the survey, only 16 percent of new business came in via prospecting in 2007 and 2008. This could be a function of the fact that fewer new business managers are being brought on board. Thirty-six percent of the agency principals stated they hired a new business manager in the 2008 survey as compared with 48 percent in the 2007 survey.

Additionally, new business managers often aren’t squarely focused on the job of reaching out and prospecting, but are occupied with lots of other activities. While 90 percent of principals stated that their new business manager was/is responsible for “setting meetings” and “cold calling”, 60 to 70 percent of principals stated that they are also responsible for “presenting to prospects”, “managing mailings”, and “creating presentations”.  We have found that the less a new business manager is focused on the core activity of consistently reaching out, the more likely they are to be met with less-than-optimal success.   

So what are we to do?

Only putting an on again/off again effort towards outreach, or letting your new business manager do a lot more than they should be doing to generate opportunities isn’t going to help you get your foot in the doors that are getting harder and harder to open.

The key to success lies in following the three “C’s”.  Consistency of outreach, consistency of messaging and consistency of methodology.  Sitting back and waiting for all this economic nonsense to pass and the referrals and network opportunities to pick up would be a bad course of action.  When the economic chips are down, it is time to ramp it up!

If you manage the process inside your organization, dedicate someone to the process, make them develop a system, force them to create a “brand story,” and keep tabs on how well they are sticking to it. And for God’s sake, let them stay focused!

If you feel that dedicating more time to the effort is simply outside of your capacity at this point in time, consider outsourcing the activity. More firms are turning to outside resources to support their new business efforts because they are less costly, more focused and experts at what they do. The good ones often know how to manage the three “C’s” more effectively than an agency can on its own. At the end of the day, you didn’t get into the advertising, public relations or design business to be an expert in lead generation. You got into the business to be expert communicators and idea people.

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Mark Sneider is majority owner and managing director of Reardon Smith Whittaker US, GP (RSW/US), a lead generation and business development consultancy. RSW/US helps marketing service firms more effectively position themselves in the marketplace and helps identify and open up qualified leads for his agency clients to pursue.  RSW/US was founded in the UK 13 years ago and has operated in the United States since the start of 2005. RSW/US currently represents clients in the advertising, public relations and direct marketing sectors.

Mark is a 20 year veteran of the consumer packaged goods, advertising and marketing service industry. Mark earned his MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Business School at Northwestern where he majored in marketing and economics. Mark obtained his undergraduate degree in marketing from Miami of Ohio.

Sneider started his career serving clients at DDB Needham in Chicago prior to attending Kellogg.  Prior to starting RSW/US, Mark was general manager for AcuPOLL, a global research consultancy. Sneider worked in marketing for S.C. Johnson, Andrew Jergens, and O-Cedar Brands.