Grow Business

Before the workshop even begins, you’ll answer a detailed questionnaire about where the agency has gotten business in the last 18 months, the business development technique it’s used to do so, its success track record, the industries you think will most need what your agency does best, your agency’s strengths, its marketing-PR-engagement plans, and much more.

We come to the workshop armed with your answers to the questionnaire, key observations from your answers, and more questions that we’ll answer together over the next 1.5 days to lay the foundation for your business development plan.

A few days later, you’ll receive a document from me with the summary notes of our work together, as well as any additional questions you may need to answer, to write a practical, actionable business development plan, outlining the prospects you’ll pursue and by whom you’ll be found, to achieve your agency vision.

After you’ve drafted the plan, I provide suggested additions, modifications, and edits, to assure that it includes what you need to reach your business development goals. Once you’ve integrated them, your plan is ready for implementation.

We then follow the workshop with business development  coaching calls or Zoom sessions every other week, preferably for six months, to determine what business development activities are working (and let’s do more of them), what’s not currently working (let’s keep an eye on them and fine-tune or modify) and what’s clearly not working, despite modification, (so let’s kill it.)

Equally important, in those business development coaching calls, I’ll help the agency’s business development team to overcome any hurdles that they’re experiencing as they implement the plan, as well as fine-tuning those actions which might not be working, as mentioned above.

We start with a series of virtual training sessions, where we ask (and answer) the question: “How much money do we wish to make by the end of the year, and from whom will we make it?”

We kick off the training with a highly interactive session around the critical importance of having a written, strategic, plan to grow your business.

This is followed by the 12 questions you must ask yourself to write the plan. We go deep on likely sources of income, including what’s currently in contract, how much we’ll generate by bringing new ideas to existing clients, likely additional income that will result from existing clients bringing us additional assignments, what may come in “over the transom,” and then most important, how much we need to generate from “new,” new clients.

In follow-up sessions, we identify key industry categories in which we’re truly expert, the industries that are most likely to need us in the coming year, the key practice areas in which we excel, and the practices that will be most valued by our prospects, thereby generating the most top and bottom line growth.

We end with the First Seven Steps to write the plan.

At that point, the agency writes the first draft of their plan. I’ll then review it, and respond with a Recommendations Memo outlining my perspective on what’s missing and should be added, what can be eliminated (because we want to keep it tight!), and recommendation on fine-tuning.

This is followed by a phone or Zoom session where I walk you through the Recommendations, and answer any questions the agency may have.

At that point, the agency modifies the plan, and then jumps into implementation.

We then have a phone or Zoom session every other week, preferably for six months, to determine what business development activities are working (and let’s do more of them), what’s not currently working (let’s keep an eye on them and fine-tune or modify) and what’s clearly not working, despite modification, (so let’s kill it.)

Equally important, in those business development coaching calls, I’ll help the agency’s business development team to overcome any hurdles that they’re experiencing as they implement the plan, as well as fine-tuning those actions which might not be working, as mentioned above.

We lead sessions to uncover business opportunities from clients you already have and create realistic plans to approach them for opportunities that achieve results.