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The Art of the List: Win More and Better Clients
The Art of the List: Win More and Better Clients For many ad agencies, new business often feels like an endless hustle. Pitches, proposals, referrals, and the occasional inbound lead that leads nowhere. But here’s…
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Is AI Coming For You
Is AI Coming For You As an ad agency owner, you face tremendous competition. Google the term “Ad Agency” and you get 4,570,000 results. Google will likely show you only 40 pages of results. I…
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10 BD Problems and How to Bury Them
10 BD Problems and How to Bury Them If you’re running an agency in 2025 and your new business pipeline feels thin, inconsistent, frustratingly quiet, or deceased, you’re not alone. I talk to agency owners every…
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Some Agencies Are Winning Now: How About You
Some Agencies Are Winning Now: How About You Let’s not sugarcoat it. 2025 tested every agency leader’s grit. Margins are under pressure. Marketers are in triage mode. Headcounts are leaner. Budgets are delayed. And the…
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Your Ad Agency Prospecting Platform
Your Ad Agency Prospecting Platform Reach more prospects. Guide the journey. Make decisions with data. Track your progress. Convert more clients. Affordable. Easy to use. Powerful. Backed by 20 years of new business experience. All…
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Winmo. The best tool for agency new business
Winmo. Best tool for agency new business Full transparency, I’m a big Winmo fan and daily user going way back to when they were the List. I blog about it, speak about it, use it…
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AI-powered New Business Strategy for Ad Agencies
AI-powered New Business Strategy for Ad Agencies Ad agency new business strategy development is always exciting when we reimagine what our agency can do to attract and win more and better clients. This year, that…
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The Secret to Agency Growth–Differentiation
The Secret to Agency Growth–Differentiation While I may seem like a broken record, the importance of agency differentiation and positioning for growth cannot be overstated in supporting successful business development. Agency differentiation and positioning is…
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10 Agency Growth Tactics
10 Agency Growth Tactics Let’s say you completed my CORE Identity Exploration process and have your manifesto, brand narrative, anthem, positioning, messaging, and sales copy in hand. Now, what do you do? Most agency consultants…
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Winning the battle for new clients
Winning the battle for new clients As the pace of change continues, agencies must adapt to the ever-evolving landscape to win the battle for new clients. Reports indicate increased difficulty obtaining new business opportunities, necessitating…
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Ad agency business development is hard–It doesn’t have to be
It’s been my world for more than 20 years. Not as a consultant but in the trenches perfecting my craft at small, mid-size, and large agencies selling marketing services, AOR engagements, and everything in between.…
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Perfect is the Enemy of Good
Perfect is the Enemy of Good No truer words for ad agencies this time of year. “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.” Gen. George Patton. The clock…
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The Allure of a Silver Bullet
The Allure of a Silver Bullet In the fast-paced, ever-evolving advertising world, staying ahead of the curve is crucial for survival. New trends and techniques emerge daily, promising to revolutionize how we reach potential audiences.…
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The ad agency sales cycle
The ad agency sales cycle Agency business development is a long game, unfortunately. The average client-agency relationship is about two and a half years. The average CMO tenure is between three and four years. Marketing…
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5 Reasons You Need a Consultant NOW
5 Reasons You Need a Consultant NOW The first half was slow. Declining agency tenure, increasing client turnover, in-housing continues, project relationships, and tighter margins put even greater pressure on the need to add, replace,…
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From referrals to outreach
From referrals to outreach It is a common experience. For years, an agency startup thrived on a steady stream of referrals, never having to do proactive business development. The founders had stellar reputations for delivering…
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Can Anyone Really Predict the First Bite
Can Anyone Really Predict the First Bite When you embark on a new business planning process and look at all the time and effort required to develop an effective program, one question is top of…
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The AI revolution is on fire
The AI Revolution is On Fire I prompted ChatGPT to write this post in May, 2023. More on that later. See what you think of the quality of AI over a year ago and image…
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A new era in prospect targeting
When you define a target audience for your business development program, you will probably use criteria like CPG, Hospital system, Fintech, or startups with a minimum of $50M in total funding, $100M+ annual sales, 100+…
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No more Whac-A-Mole
The ad agency sales cycle can be long. The average tenure of an agency-client relationship is about three years. The average CMO tenure is about 3.3 years. What’s worse (or better if you have one),…