How your agency can come back stronger. Part 3: Make things happen.

This is the third in a series of articles to help agencies come out of the Covid-19 crisis stronger, particularly where business development is concerned.

Part 1 looked at positioning, making the case for specialising based on your experience, expertise, interests, beliefs and values.

Part 2 focused on the importance of having (and actually using) a CRM. There really is no excuse not to when options are plentiful (and often free).

Building on this, I intended to explore the importance of carrying out research on prospects before reaching out to them. But as I started writing, I realised I’d made a rather big assumption: that agencies are already bought into the idea that prospecting (or ‘hunting’, if you like) is something they should be doing. But most agencies don’t hunt. They wait, hiding in the bushes, hoping for their prey to wander past, lie down and submit. Or, at best, their attempts at prospecting are reactionary and sporadic, rather than focused and consistent.

So, before I get to the bit about research, let’s take a step back and look at why so many agencies hide rather than hunt. From experience, it typically comes down to any combination of the following:

A failure in positioning

“We work with everyone from start-ups to global organisations. Across any sector”.

If that’s your proposition, where do you start in approaching on-profile prospects when everyone is seen as on-profile? In this instance, prospecting can only ever be a numbers game. More on that in a moment.

Conversely, an agency that is narrower in focus will know exactly who they want to speak to. They’ve worked with similar businesses to solve problems and exploit opportunities. So, they’ll have the confidence to approach prospects with relevant insight and advice.

A reliance on referrals

I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with agency owners who say (sometimes with a sense of great pride) that they are wholly reliant on referrals.

Referrals might convert better than other channels, but the quality and quantity is inconsistent. It’s a channel you have no real control over.

Other agencies know they can’t grow off the back of referrals alone. Instead, it’s seen as just one of the methods used to build their pipeline.

Falling for the ‘inbound spell’

Just because you create a great bit of content and fling it out far and wide, it doesn’t mean your prospects will see it. Or read it. Or let you know what they think of it. Or get in touch when they’re ready to buy. This is the fallacy of inbound marketing. Too much is left to chance for my liking.

An agency taking a more proactive approach doesn’t hope the right people will find their content. They put it in front of them. And not because they are trying to sell but because they are trying to help.

Believing that outbound is dead

How many click-bait headlines have you seen proclaiming the ‘death of FILL IN THE BLANK’? They assume just because something new comes along everything else that came before becomes redundant.

Take the phone, for example. It’s been around for almost 150 years and for some remains the most effective method to open doors. I’m crap at cold calling. And I don’t particularly welcome cold calls. But that doesn’t mean I dismiss the phone outright as a method to build relationships, alongside other activities.

Outbound isn’t dead. Just as inbound isn’t the path to riches. An effective approach to lead generation combines the two, alongside more traditional marketing and PR tactics, such as events and public speaking. Ultimately nothing works in isolation. It’s about finding the right mix and balance.

Only engaging when a prospect is ready to buy

Take a look at this graphic from Ron Karr’s book ‘Lead, Sell or Get Out the Way’.

When do you think is the best time to engage a prospect? When they have ‘no need’, when they are actively ‘looking’ for a solution, or when they are ‘deciding’ which way to go?

If you said, ‘no need’, well done you.

Most people assume the best time to make contact is when a prospect is looking. But this highlights a crucial mistake. Because by this time, they’ve probably decided what they think they want to buy (which, of course, might not be what they actually need). And there is a high chance, they’ve already made up their mind on the agency they want to work with.

The agencies that hunt understand that ‘no need’ is the best time to start a relationship. They educate, inspire and influence a prospect’s requirements way before a brief is written.

Lack of skill / time / inclination

I’ll be honest with you. Prospecting is not rocket science. But neither is it that much fun. It requires diligence, discipline and determination. Some people are made for it. Others not so.

The challenge lies not so much in doing it well (although, facepalm moments remain plentiful — witness the number of tone-deaf sales emails in recent weeks.). The challenge lies in making it happen day in day out, irrespective of other stuff getting in the way. Easier said than done.

But now, more than ever, you’ve got to make things happen

For a lot of agencies, pipelines have been decimated in recent weeks. Waiting (and hoping) that they’ll replenish themselves is the road to ruin.

Proactively opening doors, building new relationships and nurturing existing ones, has never been more important. Your prospects also need ideas and inspiration on how to navigate the next few months. And they are looking for insight on what the other side might look like and how this affects their business.

But this comes with a BIG caveat: that you can genuinely help those you are reaching out to. If not, you are wasting your time and theirs. But this is no different to ‘normal’ times. In recent weeks, people have spoken of showing more empathy, compassion and understanding in approaching prospects. But that’s what you should be doing anyway. So, whilst the context has obviously changed, the principles of prospecting have not.

Prospecting is not about selling. It’s about positioning yourself as a useful and trusted resource. It’s about preparing a prospect for a conversation. When the time is right.

It starts with research

Now to the original purpose of this article: why you should research prospects before getting in touch. And what to look for.

Let’s say you’ve nailed your positioning. You know exactly whom you want to talk to and you’ve got a CRM brimming with contact details. Given the choice, would you send 1000 templated emails or 100 highly tailored? Quantity over quality or vice versa?

Not long ago, one of my clients showed me what their (so-called) lead generation agency had been up to. Now, I’ve seen some garbage in my time, but this took the biscuit. Copy and paste emails sent to literally thousands of contacts, many of them completely off-profile. What do you think the response rate was? Yup, it sucked. It might have been efficient, but it certainly wasn’t effective.

So, I’d take the tailored approach every time. Maybe you can’t do this for every prospect but, at the very least, you should employ it for your top tier; those that are bang on the money. And that you REALLY want to work with. Surely, they are worth the effort, no?

But tailoring your communications means putting the hard yards in and doing some research. It needs to be three-fold:

• Industry / sector e.g. market conditions, consumer trends, mergers and acquisitions.
• Companies e.g. investments, product launches, personnel changes.
• Individuals e.g. responsibilities, interests, shared connections.

I’m yet to find a single tool or service that covers all of this or that isn’t geared towards those with deep pockets. So, you’ll probably need to stitch a few tools together. And do some manual research.

For example, the flow diagram below combines the functionality of a CRM (Pipedrive’s ‘Smart Data’ tool, for example), The Advertist (contact data and company insights), Google searches and LinkedIn.

The process also includes actions aimed at keeping an eye on prospects, such as following on social and signing up to newsletters. The idea is that if you spot a change (a ‘trigger event’) it might mean the company needs to do something new or different. And this might provide you with a relevant and timely reason to make contact. For more on this, Jill Konrath has an excellent eBook on using trigger events to initiate opportunities.

With this in mind, research is not a one-off event. There are things you will need to do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to keep a track.

For example, on a daily basis, you should check your social media feeds, particularly Twitter and LinkedIn for any news and insights, being sure to ‘like’, comment or share something where relevant.

On a weekly basis, scan through brand newsletters, trade and national press (the Times Business section can be a gold mine).

A monthly action might be to sense check you have shared any relevant agency content or third-party articles you’ve bookmarked in recent weeks with your prospects.

Which leads us back to the importance of your CRM. Accurate data, background information and tracking interactions are all essential to build a picture of how engaged, or otherwise, a prospect is with your agency. The more intelligence you have, the more focused you can be with your relationship-building efforts.

The bottom line

Your dream client is unlikely to just land in your lap. When prospecting is done well, backed by solid positioning and thought leadership, it significantly increases your chances of working with the right clients. But, in my experience, agencies just don’t do nearly enough to proactively open doors, build relationships and influence thinking.

There is, of course, a lot more to prospecting than I’ve covered in this article. Take it step by step. Define what the right client looks like for your agency. Use your CRM religiously. Do your research.

Get these things right and you’ll more likely find a reason to engage with prospects beyond generic introductions. And the inevitable (and always ignored) ‘did you get my first email?’ follow up.

P.S. If you’d like a copy of the graphics above, just shout.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.