I recently got in to a debate with someone who said agencies shouldn’t be proactive.
Their reasoning was that when you adopt this approach, client’s basically get a great idea and don’t pay for it.
He also said that when you take into account the time it takes to develop these ideas, the overall cost is huge.
What a fool.
Given most agencies can’t make money on the work they’ve actually been briefed to do – and most of them lose up to 20-30% of their annual income through natural movement and change – the reality is to survive in adland, let alone thrive, means you have to continually find ways to create additional income and one of those ways is creating opportunities rather than sitting back and waiting for the bi–annual brief to come through.
A good place to start is with your existing clients.
Too many people think that because the business is already with the agency, they have all the budget the client has – however apart from the fact that is hardly ever the case, especially as most company departments have significant budgets of their own that you should/could be leveraging – letting clients see how hungry, enthusiastic and focused you are about their business – both in terms of their short and long term issues – helps create stronger relationships, trust and, most importantly, creative opportunities.
I’m not suggesting you go off and spend ridiculous amounts of cash developing ideas – even though in pitches, most agencies are happy to do that despite probably having much worse odds of success than a bit of proactive work – I’m simply saying spending some time on a regular basis pulling together some thoughts and ideas … thoughts and ideas based on issues you know they have or that you’ve found that they have – is not commercial stupidity, it’s commercial sense.
I recently re-read something John Dodds wrote about me on his blog and the last comment I made about ‘keeping existing clients coming back’ is still what I believe is the lifeblood of opportunity and creativity.
I’m no business guru but I do know opportunities very rarely land on your lap without a fuckload of work to create it so if you meet a guy who thinks pro-activeness is ineffectiveness, then I suggest you turn around and walk away because you’re either talking to someone who has never run their own business or made a pigs ear of it.