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We all recogonise that COVID-19 represents a humanitarian challenge that is unprecedented in recent times. In the UK we are 6 weeks in lockdown, although it feels like a lifetime but none of us have ever worked through anything quite like this. What we do know is that new business is always a long-term process and so agencies need to work out what seeds they can plant now that will have impact in the future? In this blog post, we are going to cover 6 key areas relating to agency new...

If anything good is to come out of this very strange period, it’s that we are seeing some incredible initiatives emerge where people in our creative industry are offering support and help to others in need. Brands, organisations, and SMEs still need creative or strategic input, they still need work to be done, they still need to run campaigns but most, like our industry are struggling with cash right now. I thought I’d write a round-up blog post highlighting some of the incredible...

My business partner Katie and I were recently invited onto The Fuel Podcast hosted by Keith Smith to discuss whether or not creative agencies should be pausing their new business activity in a crisis and what the new normal of sales looks like.

You can have a listen here.

The upshot is, that new business has always been a long-term process, it's not something that happens overnight so pausing would have a real detrimental effect on your future pipeline. However, any outbound...

According to a recent industry survey on agency new business run by Up to the Light, 78% of clients interviewed stated that they would rather discover an agency than be sold to. Given that this statistic is so high, it’s never been more important as agency marketers, leaders and new business people to really focus on building agency brand and reputation. You need to have a constant, ongoing programme of activity to get yourself known - to help make your agency famous!

Agency...

The biggest challenge for agencies and marketers in 2019 is the uncertainty and unpredictability Brexit presents. PR (& marketing) is often the first budget to be cut when companies are not performing well. Bellweather reported recently that marketing budgets are stagnant after 6 years of growth. The unpredictability of Brexit will mean that it’s even harder to rely on new business pipelines - agencies just won’t know when projects are likely to get signed off and many...

There’s been a big shift in agency new business since GDPR. And if you don’t keep up and make changes to your approach to agency marketing and new business you are going to struggle to build your pipeline.

I wasn’t sure GDPR would make a big difference to agency marketing and new business but I was wrong! I’m seeing prospects being much quicker to unsubscribe from emails. Even before GDPR, trying to get your emails into people’s inboxes and read was tricky, let...

Who doesn’t love podcasts? I almost want to take up running so I can have more time to listen to podcasts! Usually I plug in my headphones on my train journey to London but I always find it hard to decide which one to listen to. Here are some of my favourite ones that the moment which I think Agency owners will find most useful.

1. JFDI - this podcast by Matt Miller from Millsustwo is raw, honest and entertaining. He talks about “just f**king doing something - stop procrastinating,...

There’s so much content out there, it got to a point where I had to start unsubscribing to all the newsletters I had signed up for but there are a few blogs and newsletters I do read on a weekly basis. A few where I know each week, I will get some valuable insight that I can share with agency owners. This is going to be a short blog post where I simply give you some links to the blogs I read on a regular basis. I hope you find them as useful as I do:

1. The Duval Partnership - this is a...

When marketing and brand directors are looking for information on an agency, most of the time they want to see real-life examples of how you have solved businesses challenges, business challenges similar to theirs. It’s best practice to have a bank of case studies for each client project that you can then pick and choose from when you have pitches or need to send information to a prospect.

As soon as a client project is finished you should have a process in place whereby assets are...

I was at The Agency Summit last Friday held at The Ned and run by Ian Harris of Agency Hackers. For anyone who runs an agency, this is definitely the must attend event. It’s the second year running I’ve been to the event and I’m always blown away by the mix of speakers and interesting content.

There was a lot of chat this year about the future of agencies. The industry has become more commoditised, companies are consolidating their agencies, it’s a tough marketplace to...