Here is A Field Guide To The Wonderful World Of Clients from Ciplex. I suggest that you send this to your clients and hope that the ones that need some “help” being more professional in their client-agency relationship get the picture. Subtly, that is. [Read more…] about Ah, The Client – Agency Relationship
Insights
How Google Manages Meetings
Meetings that drag on and on with no apparent ending drive me nuts. Here is a timer that some at Google use to help manage meetings. The Time Timer helps to keep meeting creep to a minimum and drives awareness that there could be something better to be doing than spending all afternoon sitting in that conference room.
Pitching New Business With Diagrams (Visual Works)
I just came across this SlideShare presentation from Kevin Duncan which is based on his new book The Diagrams Book.
Its a great guide for agency new business (and even existing) client pitches. Clients like things like triangles.
[slideshare id=15986606&doc=diagramsbookforslideshare-130114072259-phpapp02]Advertising Agency Pitch Book Update
A Quick Update On My Advertising Pitch Book
People are banging down my door to get their copies of my book on pitching. LOL-Not. Well, they might be when it gets published (later this summer) and the word gets out. Again, a bit of LOL.
The book will be about 60,000 words, has a few deep interviews with experts (search consultants, the 4A’s, the ANA, an IP lawyer and more) and has a list of pitch mistakes garnered from a range of USA and beyond agency search consultants and… Because I really like to point out mistakes, the book has a series of 12 cartoons that highlight what I think are the most egregious mistakes agencies make when pitching. These are mistakes that all agencies make at some point. I try to make these errors go away by telling you that if you want to loose your pitch, then go ahead and make them.
Don’t Be Distinctive
Here is a sneak preview. One of my favorite cartoons is above. This one is about the advertising agency’s fear of sounding too different. Too distinctive. Too bold. You know, “What if we sound too assertive, have ideas that scare the client, take a too strong position, are wrong…” This thinking leads to sameness. The sameness that My friend Steve Klinetobe and his The Cartoon Agency (check them out) illustrates in his 12 cartoon series.
These cartoons will be in the book and will be animated for the web to increase their virality (is this a word?)
Pass Along Help Please
One of the things that I talk about with my agency clients is that they should ask their clients, ex-clients, suppliers, partners, family and friends to refer the agency when appropriate. You know, just ask politely.
So in the interest of asking: Please pass this post on to your friends and ask them to sign up for my weekly newsletter below so that they hear about the book before it is sold out. Uh, yeah, another LOL. But one that I want to happen.
Do More Advertising Agency New Business in 2014!
It’s time to get your advertising agency new business program in gear.
That means: deliver a bold brand position / write a strategic plan / do inbound and outbound marketing. And, do this with consistency. The good news is that you will jump ahead of your competition and next July you will be spending two weeks in an Airbnb house in the south of France.
2014 = $
Oh, the other very good reason to go for it is that budgets will go up. And, if you are smart about your messaging, you will take advantage of the nascent mobile marketing opportunity. Here is everything you need to make sure that you make it happen… read this smart infographic from Chicago’s digital agency Brickfish. Oh, and watch how they are gaining awareness for their agency by delivering this information to the universe. Are you out there?
