Do you want to know the real reasons why brands choose to meet marketing agencies?
Getting the first meeting for your credentials presentation or a ‘chemistry’ session is often stated as being the hardest part of the business development sales pipeline. Many agencies have told me that if only I could get them in front of a prospect then they’d perform a miracle and get picked for their newest campaign.
Phwaw. Piffle. Self-delusional nonsense.
I have little patience with agencies who cannot market themselves; who find their own business development hard; who cannot use the medium in which they sell advice to clients to find customers for themselves.
And so it was a breath of fresh air to read Amanda Francis in the Alchemis blog detailing research findings of the top 7 reasons why brands choose to actually meet an agency.
Number 1 is no surprise to me. you have to be personable, likeable and able to ‘make friends’ superficially easily in order to quickly benefit from one face to face meeting and be remembered. When hiring your own biz dev team – don’t take on anyone who doesn’t instantly put you at your ease and give off a warm and friendly vibe even in a tense interview situation. It’s no different from a pitch.
Number 6 is the one that I have personally used with the most success when I was client side.
Want to learn more about something new / different / interesting? Get an agency in to tell you about it. This works very well for any re-interpretation of marketing methodology and social media for business is the latest lever of this method.
Share your knowledge before the meeting and you stand an even bigger chance of getting onto the pitch list.
How do you do that? Join our newsletter subscriber list and receive these blog posts into your in-box. http://creativeagencysecrets.com/feed
