According to someone I met the other day, Manifest New Business is very different from most other new business agencies.
“Why’s that?” I asked them, “after all, all we do is arrange really good quality new business meetings with the people you want to work with.”
“EXACTLY!” She replied.
“You don’t ‘undertake an agency brand positioning and proposition development workshop to identify your unique voice in the marketplace’ do you.”
“Er, no” I countered “do you need one?”
“NO! of course not! that’s what WE do for our clients!!” she countered “and neither do you ‘produce a content marketing and social media outreach and engagement programme’ on our behalf.”
“Of course not, we think you’re probably better off doing that yourselves, don’t you?”
“Yes, of COURSE we are!!”
… the poor woman almost weeped. “and neither do you play that odd role of both gamekeeper and poacher by being an intermediary or speed dating matchmaker, which I have always felt rather uneasy with”.
“Of course not” I said, almost shocked by the inference. “The leads we find for you are YOURS and yours alone.”
“How much do you charge anyway?” she asked.
“For a programme designed to deliver one new client per calendar quarter we’d charge about the same as a midweight account managers salary” I replied.
“That’s A LOT LESS than the other new business agencies I’ve spoken with” she sounded almost amazed.
“Hardly surprising” I smiled, “we only provide you with what you actually need, which keeps our overheads lower so we can employ BETTER people AND charge a more realistic fee at the same time”.
The agency she manages has now been with us three months, have attended nine meetings have won one new client and have two proposals still extant. That’s why she now knows that Manifest New Business is VERY different.
