Okay, maybe that’s not a surprise to you but it’s a surprise to me. Thirty-five years in this business and this is news to me–surprising, I’m sure! Well, truth be told, I have always felt that the best new business plan is being well-connected and part of the community.

Don’t get me wrong, that does work, but only for so long. I’ve noticed that the older I get (No comments please; I’m now eligible for Social Security.) most of my contacts have retired or gone on to their reward. I’ve always been part of the community but as with anything else there are only so many boards you can join.

This past year our office decided on a new plan, one that focused on creating a good, solid list with appropriate contact names, followed by a serious commitment to contacting that list on a regular basis. Without giving away all the details, I will tell you that we have a list to date of about 50 companies in a variety of fields. We have garnered some new business because of our new approach and our commitment to stick with it.

I strongly suggest that you make new business a regular function of your shop. That is what we had to do; we started with regular meetings including different department heads, and while it was tedious, we began treating new business acquisition like a client–and it’s paying dividends.

Here are a couple of good articles I thought I’d share relative to chasing new business.

http://www.agencyfinder.com/advertising-agencies-important-facts-newbusiness-p1.shtml

http://ezinearticles.com/?New-Business-Resolutions-For-Advertising-Agencies&id=924903

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 10:55 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.