The Winning Approach To New Business: To Pitch or Not to Pitch? The Agency Process Steven Michaelson Founder/CEO Wishbone/ITP Inc. It is a common industry tenet that new business is the life blood of an agency. Unfortunately, it can also be the death of an agency. Developing a strong, consistent, and manageable new business stream is one of the most difficult challenges that an agency can face. How, then, can this be achieved successfully? There is no easy answer. It involves a combination of multiple, and sometimes competing, dynamics. Taking the First Step The first step is identifying which new business opportunity is the right match for both the client and the agency. It is very important for both sides to make sure that they have conducted the appropriate due diligence and that their expectations are synchronized. Both agencies and clients spend a tremendous amount of time and energy on a new business pitch — it’s better to say no upfront if you don’t feel you have what the other is looking for. Assigning a Team Leader Once the decision has been made to move forward, a quarterback must be assigned to lead the team. This person must understand the core personality, culture, and philosophy of the agency to lead an effective representation to potential clients. It’s important to resist the temptation to assign a “doer.” The quarterback must be a “thinker.” There are strong and important roles in new business development for doers, but the team must be led by someone who knows how to think through complicated strategic problems quickly and arrive at actionable solutions. The Process The next step is all about the process. Agencies can get lost just trying to figure out how to approach an RFP and ultimately lose valuable time that is needed for strategy and creative. Therefore, it is important to have a clear process for approaching market analysis, strategy, positioning, creative, and tactics. Then it becomes an exercise of dissecting the brief against the processes and starting the work. The work is hard enough as it is — if the process changes with each pitch then it makes new business more haphazard, which in turn makes predicting the success of the agency much more difficult. As the team works through developing the new business plan, make sure that the work is a reflection of the agency. This sounds simple but all too often senior agency managers get busy and either delegate the thinking or freelance it out. That is why it is so critically important to evaluate every pitch opportunity and ask the following questions. Do we have time to do this well? Is the timing right? Does it interfere with existing work in the agency? Being honest will ultimately help develop the best new business plan while at the same time ensuring the agency remains fair to existing clients. Successfully developing a new business plan and winning the pitch can be one of the most rewarding aspects of the business. The temptation is always there to pursue every opportunity that presents itself. This approach may work if you are lucky, but by engaging the same strategic skills that apply to a client’s business to your own business the result is the strongest, most consistent and manageable new business stream. Developing a strong, consistent, and manageable new business stream is one of the most difficult challenges that an agency can face. Wishbone/ITP Inc., New York, is an independent, full-service healthcare advertising agency. For more information, visit wishbone-itp.com. March 2006 VIEW on Advertising

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