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That Potential Client Is Judging You So Focus on Making a Good First Impression

No, thin-slicing isn't a phrase to describe the way you cut a loaf of bread; it's a term that denotes what we do upon first meeting people. According to Oregon State University professor Frank Bernieri, people make immediate judgments about others from observing only mere seconds -- aka a "thin slice of" -- their behavior. "From the evidence gleaned in not much more than a few glances, we decide whether we like another person, whether they're trying to flirt with us, whether they're friend or foe," Bernieri suggests in a Guardian article. Regardless of environment or circumstance, this very thin-slicing -- otherwise known as making a first impression -- can make or break your chances of coming across in a positive light, and it’s especially crucial when vetting new business. Case in point: Guard for the Golden State Warriors, Stephen Curry, opted against doing business with Nike in 2017 because during an in-person pitch, a Nike rep butchered Curry’s name. To make matters worse, the rep left a placeholder name -- Kevin Durant, Curry’s teammate -- in the published write-up. Because of this, the NBA player decided instead to partner with Under Armour. Say it with me: It’s all about first impressions. Screw it up once, and you’ve likely lost business for good. The scene is no different in the marketing industry. An owner prepares to nab a prospective client, but when it comes to awareness of his behavior and presence during the pitch, the owner can’t see the forest for the trees. Even if that’s not the case, the owner hesitates to identify areas of specialty for fear of leaving money on the table. The result? He comes across as he never intended: like a dime-a-dozen marketing sheep. While [...]

Managing Business Growth to Create a Sustainable Business with Trent Dyrsmid

There’s no topic that is not more top of mind for an agency owner than growing your agency so it is stronger, more profitable and more sustainable.  In a recent podcast with Trent Dyrsmid, we talked scaling your agency and managing business growth. Trent built, scaled and sold an agency and I wanted him to tell us how. In this podcast, Trent discusses innovative techniques to managing and growing your agency:  Among other things, he covers: picking a niche for your agency giving you power in pricing and increased traction becoming aware of your capacity as an agency - being busy doesn’t mean higher profits why you need social media for lead generation, no matter your agency’s niche finding the right balance in workload for your team how to implement new systems into the agency. Before Trent Dyrsmid started a digital agency called Groove, he founded Dyrand Systems, a managed IT service provider that was recognized twice as one of Canada’s PROFIT Magazine’s 100 fastest growing companies. In addition to overseeing Groove, Trent is also the host of the Bright Ideas podcast, where he regularly publishes interviews with some of today’s brightest entrepreneurs from around the globe. To listen – you can visit the Build A Better Agency site (https://agencymanagementinstitute.com/trent-dyrsmid/) and grab either the itunes or Stitcher files or just listen to it from the web.   If you’d rather just read the conversation, the transcript is below. If you're going to take the risk of running an agency, shouldn't you get the benefits too? Welcome to Build a Better Agency where we show you how to build an agency that can scale and grow with better clients, invested employees, and best of all, more [...]

Agency owners: Isn’t it time to get a real agency new business program?

Most agencies believe they don’t have an agency new business program. They say that they their business development strategy just relies on referrals and growing their current clients. And it’s working great. But they’re wrong. They do have one. Here’s how it works. Big client either fires them or notifies them that the account is going up for review. Agency owner wets himself and goes into either a full-blown panic attack or into a catatonic stupor. There’s usually a drink or three consumed. The next day the owner pulls together the leadership team and there’s a flurry of activity to drum up some money. The owner sits in her dark office, putting together “the list” of who will be laid off if the revenue can’t be replaced. The creatives come up with a direct mail campaign and the account service team is tasked with creating or updating the cobweb covered prospect list of about 300 companies. The agency does the new business mad scramble until they either have to lay off some people or score a new account. All of a sudden, they get so busy servicing the clients they have that they don’t have time to keep up whatever new business activity they’d been pursuing. And so the cycle begins again. Want to finally break the chain reaction? Want a business development strategy that you can actually deploy and implement no matter how busy your agency is? You need to create a macro – micro – nano agency new business program. Macro: The macro portion of your agency new business program is aimed at people who have never heard of you or your agency before. There are multiple research studies done with decision makers that hire [...]

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