The Value of the Perfect Fit

- Hey everybody! Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute. This week, I am coming to you again from my home, and I'm sitting in a very special spot. So I am sitting in seat number 20, and as you can see right next to me, seat number 21, these seats came out of Dodger Stadium. And if you know me at all, you know that I am a huge baseball fan, but beyond that, I am a lifelong, diehard Dodgers fan. And so a group of my friends, who happen to also be clients, saw these seats were up for sale. They were taken out of Dodger Stadium when they renovated the stadium, and they decided that I needed to have these seats. So unbeknownst to me, a six-foot crate shows up at my house. I got a phone call with a little bit of warning, and voila! These seats were in that crate, and now they're down in my basement. You can't see it but behind me is a big wall of baseball memorabilia. A lot of it Dodgers-related, so this is the perfect seat for this spot in my basement. so this is the perfect seat for this spot in my basement. Now, I will tell you that I'm sure there are a lot of people who don't want old stadium seats that thousands of people have sat on, that still have stadium dust on it, that are kind of a little rusty in some spots. They would probably think, "That is not an awesome gift." I think it is and probably the top five of all gifts I have ever received in my entire life. Why am I telling you about these amazing seats? It's because these seats are perfect for me, and that's what I want to talk to you about this week, is finding perfection. Every one of us, whether we've worked at our agency for a day or a decade, knows that there are great clients for our agency, and there are clients who are not a great fit for our agency. Every client is a great client, but they are not all a great client for us. But many agencies don't have any way to grade, for lack of a better term, prospects, as they're going through the courting dance to decide whether or not this is a client that is actually a good fit for their shop. And I think every agency should be able to identify who their sweet spot clients are, so that A, you can actively go after the right ones, but B, you can politely say, "No, thank you," to the ones who knock on your door that are not a good fit. So we've put together a tool called AMI Sweet Spot Client Filter, and I want you to go download that tool. And I want you to walk through that exercise that will help you articulate the clients that are best for your agency. So I'm going to tell you where to get the tool, and then I'm going to tell you how the tool works. So you can go to AgencyManagementInstitute.com /client-filter. AgencyManagementInstitute.com /client-filter. So again, AgencyManagementInstitute.com /client-filter. AgencyManagementInstitute.com /client-filter. And you'll be able to download the PDF. And when you go through the exercise, what I want you to do is at the end of the exercise, you're going to have this list of criteria that are the things that make up the best clients, the clients that you would love to replicate over and over and over again for your shop. And now what I want you to do is I want you to create a report card. And every time you are considering whether or not you should chase after a prospect, or you should answer an RFP, or you get a phone call or a referral, and you're not sure if these people are a good fit for you, I want you to run them through the report card. And any prospect that gets less than, let's say a 7 or an 8 out of 10, you now have to justify to the rest of the leadership team why in the world you would pursue a client who scored that low on your own criteria or report card. who scored that low on your own criteria or report card. I know that it's daunting, especially right now, to think about saying no to any prospect, to anybody with a bag of money that wants to hire your agency, but we also all know what happens when we work for a client who is not a great fit. We don't make money. We lose money because we're chasing our tail trying to make them happy and trying to keep them for one more month. We also wear our staff thin because they are being bombarded by an unhappy client or a disrespectful client, so the costs of not filtering out your prospects to find your sweet spot clients is pretty expensive. And in today's world, we can't afford to make mistakes, so I want you to pursue your right fit clients, and I want you to grade those prospects who are coming in the door and make sure that you're only saying yes to the ones that are going to be good for your agency, both short term and long term. Give yourself that gift, give yourself that perfect gift of great clients who really align with your values and the kind of work you do and the kind of people you like to work with. There is nothing better than getting the perfect gift, I can tell you that from personal experience, and I want you to have that for your agency as well. All right? I'll see you next week.