However, fundamentally, clients do not buy you for the things you deliver. They don’t even necessarily need these things! Creative services are out there in abundance, they are everywhere. All the client has to do is reach out and pick the nearest company that comes to mind, top of their google search or whoever gets in touch with them at the right moment. There are many, many agencies all vying for the same business.

So then, how do you compete?

The reasons someone will pick you over the competition are purely down to the value you bring them and the problems you can help them solve. That’s it. All client buying decisions are based on those factors.

When you shift the conversation more towards value and specifically the true value you offer people, there is a huge shift in the power of these conversations.

So, armed with this information how exactly do you communicate that value? How can you position yourselves in the minds of your clients as the right and only solution for them?

This is where a campaign driven approach to business development comes in. When you focus on two or three key areas of expertise that you offer and are able to communicate those clearly at scale – then you will start to get noticed.

This means giving away some of your time and even more of your value. That might sound counterintuitive but it is not. Because when you start to be of use, of value and of genuine interest to people, then suddenly they want more. Crucially they’ll be prepared to pay for it. So, campaign driven business development is one of the most effective things you can do to grow as an agency.

It will help you to stand out and scale up. Rapidly.

Interested in finding out more about campaign driven agency growth? Book one of our ‘Rapid Growth’ workshops by getting in touch, we’d love to hear from you.

The post How campaign driven business development will grow your agency more effectively. appeared first on The Client Key.

We tackled real world agency growth challenges and worked through them to give attendees suggestions to implement in their business. It was great to bring people together into a physical space again, something we have all missed hugely over the last 2 years!

Ending with a glass of wine and an opportunity to network with fellow attendees, the session was a massive success. We plan to keep this momentum going throughout the year with more physical workshops for agencies.

We are currently running an ongoing workshop called ‘Rapid Growth for Creative Agencies’. This is a free to attend digital workshop tailored to your business, providing you with practical tools to implement into your own agency.

Interested in finding out more? Get in contact with us, we’d love to hear from you…

#ANewWayForNewBusiness

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This presents many challenges, and opportunities, for agencies. How can creative companies gain an advantage to succeed in this changing landscape? Is there now a way for your agency to grow more effectively?

A New Way, for New Business is an approach to consistently win you new work, more effectively, at a time when clients seemingly hold much of the power.

Here are some of the key elements for you to consider at the start of 2022.

What is your Brand Value?
What do you want to be famous for and how can you stand out from the crowd in a highly competitive marketplace? Have you asked your audience what they are looking for and what problems they need solving? Then ask yourself, do you address this? What is your true value as an agency?

Have you carried out a Client Audit?
What is the profile of your current client base? It is important to understand your client, or potential clients, so you can focus on the ones that are right for you. Think about their target demographic and the solutions and services they deliver. What are the challenges they are facing right now and how might you help to address them?

How do you Engage with potential clients?
With so many routes to market and options to engage clients it is essential to find out what works best for them and your agency. Think about what marketing and social channels they use so you can understand your client more. Who are your lapsed clients and how might you go about re-engaging with them? Don’t forget to position you and your business as thought leaders and always demonstrate your expertise!

How to approach client Acquisition?
Client acquisition is perhaps the most challenging part so make sure you are prepared, rehearsed and in the right mindset. Understand both the companies and personal buying motives. Set the scene at the set of any meeting and don’t leave without getting a follow up date in the diary. And make sure you listen twice as much as you talk!

Don’t forget to Listen and Learn
Repeating a successful formula is one of the best ways to win business! Understanding where you have been successful and replicating that behaviour is essential. Also remember that sales is a team sport and you need to build, evolve and listen to your clients and your team.

The way that agencies grow their business is changing all of the time. A New Way, for New Business is a proven model for the rapid growth of creative businesses.

Get in touch to find out more and set 2022 off to the best start possible!

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We are currently in the middle of a huge evolution in the way that clients work with their creative partners and agencies. The biggest challenge of all? Engagement. How do you engage people (e.g. your clients, current and new) in this hybrid business environment? In a world where they, seemingly, have much of the power and control?

Agency new business has always been the thing that separates the good from the great. Great agencies understand that new business comes before all else, and that without it, there is no agency or indeed creativity. The merely good agencies, often pay lip service to new business and it usually plays a secondary role. Today, amidst this evolutionary period, things are no different. The great creative agencies are finding smarter, new ways to adapt in the digital, post pandemic realm.

What are the best ways you can thrive and develop meaningful relationships with new clients, that quickly convert and lead to direct business, for your agency?

Relevance: Before you even think about approaching clients (new or current) have you considered whether you are truly relevant to them? Everything you write, or deliver in any meeting, should be aligned with their needs. That takes time to consider, craft and prepare. Client meetings are immensely difficult to secure and yet many agencies always under prepare for them. Spend time thinking about your clients businesses and their needs. When you genuinely align them in the right way you will soon be pushing on an open door.

Cut through: Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of all right now. Many clients are not in the office, e.g. no phones, and therefore contacting them, getting access or any kind of ‘facetime’ (these days, digital facetime) is harder than ever. That tips the balance massively in their favour, not the agency. The Client Key are using new technology to get you access to clients and land those highly relevant messages that start the all-important first conversations. Find a way to cut through the noise and get in front of clients. If this is a challenge, ask us to help you!

A structured process: Don’t get stressed, get a plan! New business & sales really doesn’t need to be hugely difficult or challenging. Most agencies are standing on a mountain of value – they just need someone to help them unlock it. In order to do this effectively devise a clear strategy and campaign plan for growth. We can help unlock your assets and value so that clients are quickly ready to buy from you.

Client Clarity: Ask any agency who they want to work with and the answer will usually be one of the ‘FAANG’ companies. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix or Google. Sound familiar? Clearly we’d all like to be working with these companies, perhaps you already are? But how about going after the ones under the radar? The global behemoths that most people have never heard of. These are the kinds of clients that we love – and there are lots of them out there! Know who you want to work with and, more importantly, why. If you start with a direct relevance to the client from the outset your first engagements will be far more effective.

Rainmakers – To bring all of this together you need people who intuitively know how to do all of this! The points we’ve shared are second nature to them and this is how they operate all day long. If you don’t have natural born rainmakers in your team, find some externally!

The old agency model for growth has changed. Previously, companies looked to the Sales Director or Client Services Director and largely, left them to it. That is a risky and ineffective plan for agencies not to grow. Why try to deliver such a critical function in-house when you don’t have the skills or team to do it?

There is a new way, for new business. A service that brings in expert specialist knowledge with the proven skills to grow your agency. The game has changed and it’s now time to embrace new and innovative ways of growing your creative business.

If you have any questions or want to discuss any of the points covered, get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.

Rob King, Founder

The Client Key – A new way, for new business.

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A lot has changed in the last decade and agencies are struggling to find the leads they need. GDPR has complicated data leads. While in-bound marketing has become a behemoth task now including social, emails, podcasts, youtube and influencer content strategies.

There are many options for those who haven’t got time, or contacts, to run email campaigns nor the budget to hire a full time marketing lead. To help you out, here are some (but not all!) of the ways we carry out lead gen for our clients.

Traditional formats still work – well!

At The Client Key we undertake lead gen holistically. Creating pipelines for your business which are managed in our CRM, tailoring activity to leads. Before that, you have to feed the pipeline. You need to find and harvest the data of your dream clients and do this in the thousands, not the hundreds.

You then have to call and email every single one. This is often outsourced (we can do it for you) because it’s so labour intensive and the hit rate is low, but trust us, it works. A recent client had 1,500 emails sent to new leads which resulted in 80 responses, 10 enquiries and 6 jobs. Calculate that by an average project value of £10k and it starts to make sense. We are fee earners for you!

Utilise software and tools

We utilise the best marketing and lead gen tools. There are plenty out there, it’s just the case of choosing the right one for you. Our tools find the data, create campaigns, personalise contact and feed our CRM. If you’re starting from scratch think about mail merge, CRM software or monitoring software like lead forensics.

Get your shop window looking its best

If you’re driving outbound traffic to your platform without a great website, clear messaging and fantastic case studies then you’re wasting your time. Your leads will always look to validate your credentials. At the very least update your website, but look at the big players in the market, they have curated IG feeds, live streams, email campaigns and passion projects. It’s all about content – content validates credentials!

Pay for ads

Simple. Get yourself to the top of google by paying for it. Rightly or wrongly, these days… you are, what google says you are.

Lead with lapsed clients

This is something we are always repeating. It’s easier to go back to old leads than to create new ones. Have you had someone you’ve been courting for 12/24/36 months? Are there clients who worked with you but have gone off the radar? These are your low hanging fruit. Get back in touch, send them some of your new content and keep pushing.

There are many other ways we develop and nurture leads. If you’d like to hear more about how we can manage your new business pipeline, then please do get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.

Rob & Amy – The Client Key

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Are you now too busy working ‘in the business’, instead of ‘on the business’ to fix it?

Would your agency benefit from our new business development audit and bespoke action plan? We’re looking for three creative businesses to trial this new programme at a one-off-cost of £950+ VAT.

Our audit and action plan will help you if your agency has slow and sluggish growth. If the pandemic has affected your sales pipeline or you feel you have an unclear vision of what you want to build or focussed strategy for new business, then this programme is for you.

How it works

We conduct a workshop with up to three of you organisation’s leaders. We will analyse your current performance, your goals, pain points and different ways of engaging your client base. Lead by Rob King, our founder and director with 20+ years new business experience and Amy, our project director with 10 years in marketing and agencies.

After the workshop, we’ll deliver you a customised easy to action plan and strategy, with a follow-up session for discussion to help ensure the programme is successful.

The sessions will be conducted in May and June and will be awarded on a first come, first served basis. We will be running a waiting list beyond the initial three agencies who successfully apply.

If you’re interested in finding out more or would like to sign up to a session, please send us your details here

The post Could you use a pair of fresh eyes? appeared first on The Client Key.

The Client Key has decades of experience in successfully growing agencies, production companies and creative organisations. So, in this article, we’re going to share some of our core ‘truths’ in agency new business.

We hope that you’ll find them useful and relevant to your agency!

1) Strategy is paramount

Do you have a new business plan? Where is your next client coming from? How does your sales team operate? Not having a clearly defined road map for growth will slow you down hugely. Most agencies try to do things organically without a clear process and rigorous implementation of the new business function.

2) You need rainmakers

Rainmakers are the people who consistently win you business. They genuinely know how to engage clients and do whatever it takes to get them over the line. They operate instinctively and it’s in their DNA. Sales and new business comes naturally to them, and often without any formal training – they just know how to do it. Who are the real rainmakers in your business and have you got enough of them? Do you celebrate and reward them? Does everything fall squarely on their shoulders, or do you help them share the load?

3) Your brand proposition alone will not win you business

There are many people who believe in ‘win without pitching’ via a well-defined brand proposition. Namely, that if you communicate your agency value well enough, clients will automatically choose you without a pitch. Very, very rarely is this ever true. This single thing will not win you business. Yes, it’s important to have a clear and well defined brand proposition, that clients engage with. But forget the idea that on its own this will win you work – it won’t! Very rarely do clients ever single source major pieces of business without entertaining some kind of pitch. So…

4) Get good at pitching

Pitching is not a dirty word and ‘win without pitching’ is dead. Clients are duty bound to carry out their due diligence and entertain multiple conversations before placing a significant piece of business. They might know who they want to work with but 95% of the time they still have to run a pitch. Successful pitching is an art form in itself. So, get good at it! Learn what their major success factors are before you say yes. Learning how to pitch more effectively is the one of the single most important things you can do to grow your agency.

How to pitch!

5) New Business is the only building block for success

This is what separates the great from the good. The ability to put new business and sales at the heart of your organisation. It’s not great creative work (although yes, of course, that’s vital) it’s your ability to go out and sell that creative work. When you can embed this idea, across everything you do, your agency will grow, very rapidly.

6) Your clients might be further away than you think

Creativity is in demand all over the globe. The UK creative sector is among the best in the world. Through technology it is now easier than ever before to work with international clients. Are you doing this in your agency? How can you open up new clients in different markets more effectively?

Finding new international clients

7) There is ‘A New way, for New business’

You are operating in a very crowded marketplace so your ability to stand out and differentiate is vital. The Client Key helps businesses operate a new, more effective, way for sales and new business. Gone are the days of ineffectively trying to do this solely in-house. Our model is the ‘uberfication’ of the biz dev function. Proven and effective that generates results.

Let us know what you think about our agency growth truths! We’d love to hear from you.

Rob King – The Client Key

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