Insight-led new business development sounds mighty impressive; an agency selects a category or issue they are passionate about, invest time, energy and not a little cash on unearthing a new insight and take it to market to impress potential new clients.
Sounds great doesn’t it? But be careful.
WHO ARE YOU TARGETING?
Most enterprise-level or even well funded challenger brands have sizeable research and insight teams in-house or may even have C-Suite level relationships with one or more of the big consulting firms. Do you, with hand on heart, really believe that your insight will be news to them? And even if it is, might it be a little ‘shallow’ in comparison to what they are used to?
So, our advise here is to be wary about leading with an insight if you are targeting six, seven or eight figure accounts but if your target market is sub £100k accounts then insight-led new business development could well be worth exploring.
WHAT ARE YOU GIVING AWAY?
So, let’s say then, that you’re happy that your insight is powerful enough and the client you are approaching is of a size and/or type without an in-house team who will be way ahead of you. What does it say about you to lead with this type of approach? One or more of the following.
- You spend time and energy on creating free stuff to give away.
- Time and energy your clients are ACTUALLY paying for.
- You don’t have a client in this sector or you wouldn’t share the insight with a competitor.
- Or you are being disingenuous with an existing client.
No matter what, one thing is a given; it’s a trope, but only because it is true.
FREE STUFF IS WORTH EXACTLY WHAT YOU PAY FOR IT
Agencies should be selling the value they add not the hours they work. If you are prepared to give away for free to all and sundry that pearl of wisdom that should be informing an existing client’s new creative strategy, what does it say about the value you will add to their account?
FINAL THOUGHTS …
We are not saying that an insight-led business development strategy is necessarily a bad thing, we are just urging caution. If you DO have an insight, maybe keep your powder dry; do NOT lead with it, but keep it back.
- First get a meeting by discovering whether they have a pain point you can satisfy.
- In the meeting, ask question after question to ascertain whether your insight is …
- Already known, or
- Relevant.
- If so, great, reveal it.
- If not then don’t.
The key point here is that by leading with an insight-led new business development strategy, you are not offering the value you think you are offering. You are are not helping them solve a problem they have. And your insight may be way off the mark, naïve or simply irrelevant to them.
