To win new business, stop looking for the ‘silver bullet’

In life, us humans love the idea that somewhere out there lies the ONE thing that will solve our problems, cure our woes or make things better — the classic ‘silver bullet’.

I find this can also be true of business development. Perhaps because it is often misunderstood or under-valued as a discipline, agency owners believe the answer lies in a single variable; a shiny tool, a piece of technology, a lead generation agency or recruiting a business development manager (BDM), for example.

They’re guilty of ‘silver bullet syndrome’, mistakenly chasing the one thing that will change the game and lead to a flood of new business.

If business development was easy, every agency would be nailing it. They’re not. And that’s because there are no short cuts, no hidden tricks, no rabbits out of hats. It very rarely comes down to one thing, no matter how big the change or how large the investment.

So, what is the answer?

For me, it lies in the principle of marginal gains; a theory perhaps best explained with an example from the world of sport.

Now, if we ignore for a moment some of the bad press around Team Sky (but certainly not condone it!) and instead talk about Dave Brailsford’s philosophy to winning.

He was appointed manager of the cycling team in 2010. His strategy was based on the idea that every area related to the team’s performance could be improved by 1%.

He started by optimising the things that even us cycling novices could have a guess at: nutrition, training regimes, the bike seat, helmet and the weight of the tires, for example.

However, he then searched for 1% improvements in areas overlooked by the competition, such as the pillows the cyclists used (ensuring the optimum night’s sleep as they moved from hotel to hotel), massage gels and how they washed their hands (to avoid infection).

By employing this approach, Dave targeted a Tour de France victory within five years. They won it in three. Dave went on to coach the British cycling team at the 2012 Olympic Games, winning around 70% of the gold medals available.

Dave knew that creating a winning team wouldn’t come down to one or two major changes. Instead, it was about the detail. It was the ‘aggregation of marginal gains’ that delivered a remarkable improvement in performance.

I’m a big fan of marginal gains, believing the principle perfectly lends itself to business development. In isolation, a change in behaviour, a new skill, a better process, a piece of technology or even bringing an experienced BDM into the fold, will not make a huge amount of difference.

In other words, performance isn’t driven by a single factor. Instead, it’s the culmination of hundreds of small, continual improvements in people (attitude, behaviours and skills), processes and tools that can give one agency the edge over another.

Agencies rarely look at business development as a source of advantage over the competition. Instead, the emphasis (and investment) is in delivering their services bigger and better than anybody else (better people, better techniques, better tools, better reporting and so on).

Whilst there is a big difference between the very best and the very worst agencies when it comes to service delivery, there is a huge middle ground where the difference is small. Therefore, the advantage many agencies believe they have (and put front and centre of their proposition) is not really an advantage at all.

Conversely, how an agency view and approach all aspects of business development, from positioning through to pitching, really can make the difference when, on the face of it, so many agencies look the same.

In other words, business development can be your agency’s competitive advantage if you focus on the detail, rather than chasing a single solution to address a multitude of issues, gaps and opportunities.