Articles

Don't Shoot Yourself in the Foot
Doing the New Business Dance.

Industry Op-Ed, March 2005

It seems there are many experts when it comes to agency new business. Google-up and you'll find plenty of consultants who work with public relations firms and advertising agencies to help them pursue, pitch and land new clients. They focus on what to say, how it should be said and when to say it.

In our experience, we've seen more than a few agencies follow this advice to the point of annoying prospective clients they're trying to woo. What are they doing wrong? From our point of view, most spend too much time talking about themselves and not what's really of interest to the prospect.

Winning agency new business directors will tell you one of the most important things they do is get clients to talk about the problems they face, the internal issues that have to be addressed, the obstacles to their success, etc. Clearly, to these new biz whizzes, getting the client to talk about themselves is paramount to building the winning pitch.

But as important as this lesson is, the issue it raises without saying it directly warrants further discussion - in the profession and the professional media. Agencies often talk about themselves in ways that are too generic and indistinguishable from others. So, the issue is this: "Why don't clients believe claims made by marketing agencies when they come to call?"

In general, PR firms don't seem to suffer from the "credibility gap" quite as much as advertising agencies - but don't dismiss this out of hand. (In fact, that's another part of the problem, but not one to discuss in this piece.) A vast majority of clients tell us that all marketing service providers are suspect by the client when they meet for the first time.

Why is this? After reviewing thousands of agency records, submitted and in our database - records seen by clients that describe the capabilities and credentials of agencies without yet revealing agency names - we've come to a conclusion that most agencies make at least one of two errors that hurt their credibility: