Closing On Your Terms[New Business Mastery for Agencies]

Find out how to secure paid, profitable projects from a ‘cold’ prospect in just three meetings… without having to pitch.

Stop pitching, start winning.

The New Business Mastery for Agencies is the culmination of over two decades experience in devising, training, implementing and assessing new business programs across a wide range of agency types and sizes. A new business program is not a pitch process; it’s a sustained, consistent relationship-building program that helps you get close to the companies on your list of ideal clients, and ultimately secure paid, profitable projects from them, without having to pitch.

What’s in these pages:New business: oxygen for agencies

The New Business Mastery program is risk management for agencies

The OUCH! Factor

New Business Mastery in 5 stages

What next?

About the Founder

ForewordOver the last two decades, I have been privileged to work with the leaders of almost every type of agency. These leaders are highly skilled, driven, intelligent people who are also generous, genuine and kind. They are interested and interesting, dedicated and hard working. Yet there is a common trait they all possess – a blockage when it comes to ongoing new business success.

I have spent my career assisting CEOs and Managing Directors to remove the blockage and replace it with a strategic, systematic and consistent program I call New Business Mastery – Closing on your terms and it’s individually tailored to match an agency’s specific circumstances.

Containing five key stages, the New Business Mastery program will competitively reposition your agency’s approach to the pitching process while fostering a culture of proactive prospecting, using a range of strategies, tools and tactics designed to grow a suite of ideal, profitable and strategically aligned clients.

I invite you to discover how you can join the growing list of elite agencies winning new business from a commanding position and learn what closing on your terms truly means.

Wishing you many good things,

Julia VargiuFounder & Principal, New Business Methodology

Most agencies hope to be invited to pitch for a prospect’s business.

‘Hope’ is not a legitimate or sustainable business strategy.

The business of new business has never been harder

New business is the oxygen every agency needs to breathe to stay

alive, to thrive. New business allows your agency to grow, to attract

and retain the brightest talent, and to keep your services and client

relationships fresh and vibrant.

If your agency is not winning new business, it’s dying. Maybe not now,

but soon, and probably sooner than you think.

“More meetings” with prospects is not the key to winning new business.

Gaining a place on more pitch lists is also not the answer. Lunch with

pitch doctors – only to come up against procurement departments – is

not a new business strategy. Ambulance-chasing or targeting a weak

agency’s client list is not a sustainable approach.

New business: oxygen for agencies

The New Business Mastery is a simple step-by-step program to succeed in new business prospecting.

“If nearly every conversation I’ve had with senior executives in agency land for the past three months is even half right, the industry is as close to being on its knees as it has in the 20 years I’ve been writing about it.

One minute the argument is around blue-chip brands and their short-sighted procurement teams relentlessly driving down agency margins. The next, it’s agencies so desperate for new business that they’re offering stupid deals and promises – unsolicited by clients – in order to win an account. Pitch consultants confirm this.

Whatever the case, agencies clearly are in a race to the bottom and it could well signal consolidation and rationalisation is coming faster than we think. The industry needs to work something out.”

Paul McIntyreAdNews Editor-in-Chief, November 2013

Remove yourself from the ‘race to the bottom’

Stop relying on invitations to pitches and spending hundreds of

thousands of dollars on what is, essentially, a gamble. Wipe out

the long nights of overtime and stress on staff, and the toll it

takes on your current clients.

No matter what type of agency you run – from boutique to

multinational, from advertising to media, from digital to design,

from packaging to promotion – we have deep insight into your

pain points and New Business Mastery can offer you a solution.

The New Business Mastery program is risk management for agencies

“In my experience most agencies approach new business development like a game of chance

– ‘maybe they’ll get lucky on the next roll of the dice’. It’s rarely proactive, or planned. It’s also usually random and spasmodic in its dedication. Everyone and no-one drives it. So the end result is: you hope like hell you’re being noticed in the market, and wait for the phone to ring. Hardly a get-rich-quick model. Problem is, most of us are ‘too busy flying the plane, to fix it’.

So just as you buy expertise to do the work, why wouldn’t you buy expertise to ensure the pipeline of work is always full? Julia Vargiu’s New Business Mastery Program is the pipeline – or lifeline – that can make the connections and has the results to prove it. So if you want more ‘hit’ than ‘miss’, I suggest you give them a call.”

Christine Gardner Managing Partner, M&C Saatchi

How many times have you dropped everything – sometimes even work

for your clients – when you’ve been invited to pitch for a large account?

But being part of the pack in a competitive scenario carries huge risks.

Your entire agency puts in long hours, drawing on internal resources and

additional expenses, to be one of five agencies to be considered. While

you might only have 20% chance of success, just the thought of winning

that major account means you can’t say no.

The New Business Mastery program looks at the true cost of this type

of pitching. We have devised an equation to help you calculate your

own financial reality.

We call it, the OUCH! Factor.

Our exclusive formula takes into account the internal costs such as

head hours, your win rate and profit margins – among other things –

to reveal the total amount of new business you need to earn to cover

your cost of pitching.

The OUCH! Factor can be very confronting, and has spurred even the

most satisfied agency director into reassessing their new business

strategy with fervour.

The New Business Mastery program will coach your agency through

your OUCH! Factor and provide you with the steps you need to turn

your new business strategy around – from working against you to

working for you.

The OUCH! Factor

New Business Mastery in five stagesThe secret to winning new business is a strategic, systematic and consistent program that keeps your pipeline full.

The New Business Mastery program provides a proven system and a step-by-step process that allows you to meet and build authentic relationships with your future clients. It’s customised to your agency, bridging the gap between the unique business needs of each prospective client and the capabilities of your agency.

Our system will help you sleep at night, knowing where your next profitable client is coming from, and that you are providing a stimulating and rewarding environment for your staff.

Health Check

Reveal your

current position

Thought provoking questions

Candid and revealing answers

A true state of your new

business health

The OUCH! Factor

The Action Plan

Imagine

Define your

vision and goals

What does it look like? Feel like?

Sound like?

What is the evidence for your success?

What is your financial ambition?

Is your head in the game?

Build

Create the foundation

to get there

Select your Top 100 prospects

Align your agency assets

Create the HOOK!

Choose your team and hone your

sales skills

Establish an interesting profile

Activate

Set your agency

in motion

The 3 Meeting Strategy

KIT – keep in touch program

To pitch or not to pitch

Organic growth

Close on your terms

Maintain

Keep your agency

in front

Fine tune what works and what wins

Stay inspired

Add to your assets with case studies

1 2 3 4 5

Stage One: Health Check Audit and Action PlanReveal Your Current Position

The New Business Mastery program begins with a

comprehensive audit of your new business acquisition

process. We investigate your company’s new business

generating ability across six key areas:

Corporate and ExecutiveSalesMarketing

FinanceHR IT

The audit is broad and deep. It is conducted via a series of

in-depth interviews across your company’s key stakeholders.

We gather enough intelligence to provide a big picture

view with specific insights that highlight areas of alignment

and sticking points to achieving growth. Each interview

typically takes less than an hour per stakeholder, collecting

qualitative and quantitative data, with the whole process

being conducted over the course of a few days.

A detailed Health Check Report, with observations revealing

the health of your agency’s new business acquisition process,

is then generated and includes specific recommendations for

next steps in an achievable Action Plan.

Take a candid look at your new business process and how it’s been working so far.

“New Business Mastery introduced me and my business to the science of new business. They showed me how to take a business and to shape and polish it into something that businesses can buy. The depth of the deep dive into the business was crucial. Interestingly, the answers were already there. We just didn’t know it.

They helped us uncover the brilliant gems just sitting there for all to enjoy. We started telling our tale and, as business showed interest, we ourselves grew as business people. We learned how to target business. We learned how to talk to business and we learned how to ask for the business. The business has grown exponentially [in the last 18 months]. We have seen gross profit increase by an impressive 246% off a relatively strong base.”

Mark Alexander CEO & Founder Bamboo Marketing

The Health Check Report identifies the financial impact of common

business practices within your agency, highlighting any processes

that waste time and money.

The impartial report shows the financial impact of a weak pipeline,

a long sales cycle, a low win-rate, the cost of pitching, staff morale

and turnover, and recruitment fees.

It helps the company take an honest look at the combined financial

impact of these and other competitive weaknesses that may have

been identified through the audit.

The report also outlines where the agency’s sales and business development

processes are inefficient or even counter-productive, lack systems or

resources, have inadequate staff skills or management commitment.

With new clarity, you can prioritise the time of your team to make

more money. For the first time you will know what’s working, what’s

not, and what it’s costing you.

The true state of your new business health

Stage Two: Imagine Setting the Vision

There are many benefits to running a new business program

besides money; it keeps your agency fresh and vibrant, for

existing clients and new ones. It can help you introduce new

services to grow your business, and in turn attract and keep

the best and brightest talent.

Armed with the findings in the Health Check Report, we work

with you to set the vision of your perfect agency, define your

new business objectives and identify the leadership characteristics

required to achieve them. We then assist you to select the right

team members to join you on your new business program, and

train them with the skills and tools they need for success.

We will help you to identify the gap between what you are

selling and what your customers are buying. Most importantly,

we will help you to overcome the biggest hurdles to establishing

a first-rate new business program.

If there is one thing that can transform your business, it’s this: change your thinking from ‘what can I get?’ to ‘what can I give?’

“The New Business Mastery program shifted our whole psychological dynamic of ‘selling’. It inspired a confidence in us, leading us to shift in the way we saw and implemented our marketing strategy – it was a truly inspiring process.”

Christo Everingham Christo Interior Styling

What does your ideal agency look like? Feel like? Sound like? What is the evidence of your success?

Stage Three: BuildCreating the Foundation

Before embarking on calls and meetings to establish new

relationships, it’s essential to build the foundations for new

business success.

During this stage, the New Business Mastery program helps

with the structure of the agency’s new business system and

processes. This includes your hard and soft assets, such as:

- The strength of skillsets and techniques

- The calibre of marketing assets and your public profile

- A credentials presentation that breaks all the rules

- A Top 100 Prospects list

- The Hook that will get you in the room.

The foundations for new business are like building a house. If you rush it or cut corners the house will never endure.

Building the Top 100 ListWe will guide you through the rigour and discipline to create a long

list of prospects – around 100 companies that are ideally suited to

your goals and ambitions, and who will become your profitable new

business clients over the long term.

By ranking and researching these companies you will begin the journey

to making new contacts. We will train your database manager to

maintain and update the information efficiently.

The outcome is a living database of warm prospects that will continue to

grow and evolve as you activate new business campaigns for your agency.

It’s A Numbers GameWith 100 prospective companies on your list, you have the opportunity

to inspire, inform and be on first-name terms with up to 300 individual

executives across several divisions and departments.

We know that approximately 15% of the companies on your prospect

list will make a selection or assignment in the coming year. By keeping

yourself top of mind you’ll have 15 very hot prospects from your Top

100 List who will know your company when they start looking.

NBM used an irresistible hook to swap brand managers for C-suite executives for an agency struggling to survive on the crumbs of marketing budgets. They secured 12 new blue-chip clients in two years.

Training your teamOnce you have selected the best and brightest team with the most

potential for new business success, we start with the basic skills and

techniques they need to master before the prospecting begins in

earnest – list management, company research, developing the right

collateral, securing and preparing for meetings, presentations skills,

meeting etiquette and how to ‘close’.

We offer training modules for how to make calls and set meetings,

at the same time removing the inhibitors and supporting these new

skills with the ‘inner game’ that maintains the right attitude, realistic

expectations, empathy, ‘active patience’ and gratitude needed to

quickly build strong relationships and trust with prospects.

Bespoke training sessions and workshops will invigorate your new

business team.

The hard and soft skills for a confident team

Bait your Hook with intrigue and curiosityThe Hook is what will get you in the room to meet with a prospective

client. They don’t know you and, most likely, are not looking for the

services you offer – so it has to pique their interest.

Credentials presentations are useless here – as they’re all about you.

The Hook must focus solely on what’s in it for them, suggest you know

something they don’t and heighten their curiosity to find out what

they’re missing. The Hook neatly combines your agency’s experience

and expertise with the problems your prospects are facing.

The New Business Mastery program expertly identifies the right bait

for your Hook that will make every prospect bite. We begin by

reviewing the individual tasks you have completed for your clients

in the past 12 to 18 months, we then take a bird’s eye view and ask,

“What is the common business issue each of these clients faced? How

did that issue create the need for your agency in the first place and

how did you satisfy their unmet needs?”

You’ll be surprised at the patterns that emerge from your solutions.

We will help you refine your Hook and develop an enticing title, an

engaging proposition, and a simple 20-minute conversation (not a

presentation) that will mean prospects are eager to meet you.

How to offer your top prospects an irresistible invitation to meet

Stage Four: ActivateClosing On Your Terms

At the heart of the New Business Mastery program is the

3-Meeting Strategy that helps our agency clients secure

paid projects from ‘cold’ prospects in just three meetings.

The 3-Meeting Strategy is about holding the reins of

your agency firmly in your hands. New Business Mastery

dramatically increases your odds of winning by creating a

one-horse race. You are pitching alone, and using your own

smarts and persuasion techniques to open a crack that wins

a new project with a first-time client. You control who you

meet, when you meet them and how you persuade them

to give you their business.

Refreshing, isn’t it?

Realise that ‘no’ means ‘not now’ and render rejection powerless.

“In a nutshell, the New Business Mastery program gets you the meeting you want. Not only that, it gets you the right meeting. With the right people.

And it makes sure that when you get to the right meeting in front of the right people, you are prepared. Prepared to talk informatively and insightfully about their business. Not just waffling on about yours.

It makes sure you ‘close’. And that’s the meeting you really want.”

Jeff Sanders Managing Director, RAPP CEO, Global Red

NBM helped a creative agency change their stodgy credentials presentation into what we call an ‘insight-sell with a project offer’. It resonated so strongly they secured a major alcohol brand after just one meeting.

Stage Five: MaintainKeeping The Momentum Alive

Protect your new business program from the inevitable

changes that occur in your business, the industry and your

clients. Your new business program should outlast those who

built it, and have a life of its own.

Our maintenance program will ensure your new business

efforts are always running at peak efficiency. We will keep

you on track and closing on your own terms, steadily increasing

your win rate. With minimal cost, the program helps maintain

your New Business Mastery with monthly clinics.

Safeguard your new business program so it doesn’t get put on the backburner where a gentle simmer can quickly turn cold.

Our successful agency clients are quickly energised by the clarity of our methods. New Business Mastery will remove the two pain points of your daily life – the anxiety of wondering where your next profitable client will come from and the stress of letting staff go.

Our New Business Mastery program has refreshed the way CEOs understand their whole business. We helped a 16-year-old creative agency grow their gross profits by 258% in 18 months and, along the way, they became more sophisticated, transforming their understanding of their own business, their clients’ business, their work and their worth.

So how much does it cost to enjoy the benefits that the New Business Mastery program can bring to your agency? As each company has a different personality, varying degrees of experience and requirements, the cost can only be established in consultation with you.

After signing a very detailed and very specific Confidentiality Agreement in accordance with your policies, we welcome the opportunity to get to know your circumstances better and offer a tailored solution to fulfil your specific needs.

Elements of the New Business Mastery program can be purchased in separate packages or as a complete program, with a pricing structure that rewards the total number of phases to which you commit.

What Next?

About the FounderJulia VargiuFounder & Principal, New Business Methodology

New business is a science for Julia Vargiu. With more than

20 years’ experience in devising, building and implementing

successful new business programs, Julia’s methodology has

consistently turned hundreds of agencies in the US, Australia

and Asia into successful new business winners.

Julia founded New Business Methodology in 1998, three years

after relocating to Sydney with a background in marketing

communications and advertising in New York, where she had

spent eight years specialising in new business development.

Working for the USA’s first and largest agency new business

consultancy (Lemont Consulting Group), New York’s premier

public relations services company (Bacon’s Information) and

the national leader in executive search for the marketing

communications industries (Howard Sloan Koller), she was

also a guest speaker at the Graduate Schools of Journalism

in Columbia and New York Universities.

In Australia, she was the first Marketing Manager for four of

Sydney’s top agencies (TMP Worldwide, Ammirati Puris Lintas,

Foote Cone & Belding and OMD) creating these roles after

having identified the unmet need in the market. This depth

of knowledge, coupled with over twenty years of data, enables

her to identify, score and improve an agency’s systems and

effectiveness for generating profitable new clients.

As a sought-after speaker on new business best practice

and how to keep your pipeline full, Julia has recently spoken

at The Source New Business Series, and the PRIA RCG

National Conference.

Julia is a native of San Francisco, alumni of Aiglon Collége,

Switzerland, danced regularly with RuPaul in Atlanta and,

prior to moving to New York, ran away with the gypsies to

become an actress. She toured nationally for three years,

specialising in improvisational street theatre for themed

renaissance festivals around North America.

She’s been married for 20 years to a handsome Australian

chef, has been told she has a rather endearing son with

whom she travels the world, and has developed a taste for

fois gras, excellent coffee and high heels.

©2014 New Business Methodology. All rights reserved. “Closing On Your Terms” is a trademark of New Business Methodology.

We have worked with hundreds of agencies introducing thousands of prospects generating millions of dollars in new business.

Take the next step towards New Business Mastery with Julia Vargiu

New Business Methodology +61 408 860 471win@newbusiness.com.aunewbusiness.com.au

Imagine investing in a company that did not have a sales department, did not advertise, promote, or use PR consistently, did not have a consumer positioning, and did not have a long term marketing plan. You might be investing 10 to 12 hours a day in one right now – your company.