Spotlight on: business development

A few moments under the spotlight with Anne Miles, Business Development Specialist.
Anne is a business development specialist focusing on your strategies, processes and people, making everything and everyone work better than before.

What are your top five tips for selling in a creative idea?

All my tips have in mind getting the best work through – for both the client and the agency’s sake.

1. The number one thing for me is to remember that clients don’t think the same as creatives. There’s nothing wrong with the client, contrary to what a lot of creative people think (and vice versa).  It’s very likely that they are incompatible personality types and their thinking styles are very different.  A lot of creatives purely present as if they are speaking to themselves and it misses the mark.
2. Demonstrate support for the work presented. Simply relying on saying something like ‘trust me, I’m creative’ no longer cuts it.
3. Get proper feedback from the client to understand their issues.  Determine the good and the bad.
4. Demonstrate the value in the work – compare it to other work creatively, or by cost…whatever it takes. Others can’t see it unless you point it out.
5. Qualify properly before doing anything.

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What’s the biggest mistake people make when selling creativity

In terms of selling in a pitch situation my observation is that the old formula of showing credentials, solutions, and discussing why the agency is the best for the job is outmoded. It’s all about the agency and not about the client.  A new, more effective, method is to show you understand the client’s known problem, you can identify also the problem that they don’t speak about, you have unique solutions for those problems, and then reveal the problem that they didn’t even know they had to really hit home.  Blend in there these four major questions designed to register with all personality types and thinking styles:
Why? What? How? and What If/What Else?.

What’s your textbook example of a great agency/client partnership; what are the mandatory factors that agencies can apply to keep the relationship healthy?

The most successful client/agency relationship I’ve been involved in is actually the TAC account managed by Grey Worldwide.  This relationship is a long-standing partnership with both parties focusing on something larger than each other’s own individual business goals. It was all about a common purpose – in this case saving lives, but I feel this mindset can exist with any account. 

The next biggest contributing factor, in my opinion, was the effective collaboration.  Everyone had a voice that was respected, although authority clearly lay where it rightly should – creative with creative, strategy with strategy, client with client and so on and clearly evaluated against the common purpose.  If we could all replicate this we’d have great work and happy teams.

Having a culture of creativity is critical – what are your thoughts on how to do this, without it feeling forced or contrived.

I’m really a big believer in the right process that supports the best work getting through.  Some say that process kills creativity and I disagree – it just has to be the right one in the right place.  This focus on process meets the client’s need for order and certainty as well which keeps them away from the parts of the job that need freedom and air.  Defining the creative process (yes, there actually is one) and explaining it to those that don’t understand that way of thinking is vital. 

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Pitching. A necessary evil or a golden opportunity? What should clients and agencies expect out of the process?

I believe that pitching is a golden opportunity that is currently being exploited. There are some well run pitches that are fair, and there are others that I don’t approve of personally.  The idea of someone gaining a fee from both sides of the fence is appalling in my view and it limits the clients from having a fair and open pitch. 

Secondly I believe that agencies cannot solve a client’s real business issues with the lack of access in a pitch process making work limited or superficial; in the process undermining the value of the agency’s work. The real purpose of a pitch should be to determine if the client and agency can work together collaboratively to produce effective work together – a full creative pitch isn’t necessary to determine this, nor should a fee be payable to dictate this right.