prospecting Archives - Agency Management Institute

4 Questions You MUST Ask To Uncover Your Prospect’s Needs
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4 Questions You MUST Ask To Uncover Your Prospect’s Needs

Agency Management, Agency Smarts, Client Relationships, New Business

4 Questions You MUST Ask To Uncover Your Prospect’s Needs

The tone and outcome of the sales conversation are set into motion by how well you uncovered your prospect's needs early on. It’s impossible to adequately sell if you don’t even have a clear understanding of what your prospect needed in the first place! While that sounds like a no-brainer, many sales pros rattle off their list of differentiators and wait for the prospect to be impressed instead of asking clear, concise questions and listening to their responses actively. There are two types of need you can uncover during these interactions: aspirational needs and frustration needs. Aspirational needs include things that the prospect wants and does not yet have. Frustration needs are born out of the pain points the prospect is experiencing with their current solution that they’re looking to solve. Uncovering your prospect's needs is simpler than you think Believe it or not, the four key questions that drive the uncovering the prospect's needs portion of the sale are pretty simple. The first three should be answered by the prospect and the last one, which may be the most overlooked, should be answered by none other than you! So, let’s dive into the four questions you must ask to uncover your prospect's needs. 1. What do they need? Straightforward, right? So many sales pros tell leads what they need instead of asking the lead what they think their needs are. If you believe in your product or service and if you know it like the back of your hand; it’s easy to assume that your prospect knows they need it. But you need to ask thoughtful questions to see where they are at. You don’t need to bury the question here; you can simply [...]

By Stephanie Chung|

How Do Digital Marketing Agencies Find Clients
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How Do Digital Marketing Agencies Find Clients

Agency Smarts

How Do Digital Marketing Agencies Find Clients

Vetting new clients is a lot like choosing who you’re going to marry. No one gets married after a handful of dates, and no company makes a strong client connection after one meeting. Just like jumping into a marriage can lead to disaster, moving too fast with a prospect can also spell trouble for a business. So, how do digital marketing agencies find clients? Unfortunately, because many business people are Type A personalities, the patience needed to grow relationships with prospects is lacking. We’re aggressive and competitive, always pushing for the win. Sometimes, that’s a great thing. But too often, we can jump the gun. To prospect smarter, agencies should focus on the four Ts: teach, trust, told apart and timing. Agencies that follow these strategies should have no issues securing new clients who are a perfect fit. The Four Ts of How Digital Marketing Agencies Find Clients 1. Teach: Use provocation-based selling as a learning experience. Too many agencies continue selling long after they’ve secured a new client. Selling is necessary at the beginning, but it becomes overkill after a certain point. Once you’ve started working together and you’re investing in the relationship, it’s time to switch gears. No one enjoys being constantly sold to, but everyone loves learning. Teaching clients something new builds relationships. It shows you’re passionate about their brand and want them to grow. You don’t need a doctorate degree to educate, but you do need to do your homework. When you go to trade shows or conferences, soak up insights, trends and case studies clients might be interested in. Even better, use that information to provoke problems they didn’t even know they had. Shining a light on things your agency [...]

By Drew McLellan|

How to Get Clients as an Agency
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How to Get Clients as an Agency

New Business

How to Get Clients as an Agency

Agencies may think they know how to get clients as an agency, but do they know how organizations think during their search for an agency? When a company decides it needs help, what does that process look like? And what can agencies do to earn new business? Agency owners don’t like to hear it, but business leaders don’t pay much attention to which agency is doing what, nor do they search for agency blogs to find the right fit. Instead, the people running those businesses think about the problems they face and wonder how an agency could help alleviate their burdens. Unfortunately, business leaders rarely have time to conduct a thorough search for a solution on their own. Higher-ups usually delegate the task to a mid-level manager who searches for an hour or two. Agencies have a limited window of time to get noticed and appeal to a prospect who’s typically a junior employee reporting to the ultimate decision maker. It’s not easy, but it’s achievable. Delegated searchers look for content, list placement, and prospect-friendly websites. People should be able to find your agency easily and decide for themselves whether you offer what they need. There are thousands of articles about how to attract that web traffic—but this isn’t one of them. Instead, let’s discuss what comes next: the first meeting. Keep reading to learn how to get clients as an agency. The First Meeting: Differentiation Whether you go with a formal presentation or an informal coffee meet-up, the truth is that all the business development process presentations look the same. Steve Boehler, a founding partner at Mercer Island Group, recently joined my podcast to talk about what businesses experience during the search for an [...]

By Drew McLellan|

How to End the ‘Feast or Famine’ New Business Cycle
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How to End the ‘Feast or Famine’ New Business Cycle

New Business

How to End the ‘Feast or Famine’ New Business Cycle

Making mistakes is completely normal and expected. However, the issue becomes more serious when the source of those mistakes is the agency's overarching strategy. If this is flawed, then the business is at risk. One of these common issues is what I call the “feast or famine” mentality. It happens when you hunt down as much new business as you can find, then get so busy servicing clients that you stop seeking new business. All resources go to urgent matters like hitting deadlines, and meanwhile, blog posts don't get written and your monthly newsletter becomes a quarterly one. As new business activity peters out, you start to realize that some clients aren’t happy or have left you completely. So you get the blog back on track, produce webinars, prioritize conferences, and go back the other way -- to the extreme. This back and forth between extremes simply isn’t stable for three reasons: Desperation leads to bad choices. When you’re in famine mode, you have to take whatever business you can get. You need money, so you take any client willing to work with you. Working with someone when it’s a bad fit never ends well. Bad experiences hurt your long game. When you try to make it work with clients who don’t naturally fit, they leave with a bad taste in their mouths. Too many bad encounters with your agency will scare clients away who may have been good fits. It makes your team miserable. Dramatic ebbs and flows in business are stressful on your staff. Not only does working with bad clients drag down morale, but the frequent famine times also make your company a risky place to work. If people think their jobs will be more secure elsewhere, [...]

By Drew McLellan|