Convert ideal opportunities

Now we’re into the deep end of the sales process.

This is the part where we need to go from an opportunity for your agency and the potential client to do great things together, to the point where both of you say “Hell yes! Let’s go!”

There’s a lot of work in between, and all the while we can’t just focus on converting the opportunity — we also have to steer it to being an ideal opportunity.

Refine great opportunities into ideal ones

Most agencies focus only on getting the sale over the line, and the contract signed.

But that generally results in a gradual chipping away at the project as it passes through various stages. Different internal customers of the client stick their oar in and modify it in some way that the agency doesn’t have control of. Certain character types ‘negotiate’ to get their status confirmed. Constraints are added. Requirements are added. Budgets are squeezed.

The agency feels it needs to be seen as helpful and agreeable and agrees to most of this.

And then what emerges at the other end of the sales process ends up being just a good project at best — it pays the bills, is ok to work on, but nobody is fired up about it. But worse, it could become a bad or an ugly project. But the agency is just glad it’s going to be able to bill some money soon.

But even if the project does somehow make it through the procurement process intact as a great project, you miss the opportunity of being able to shape it into an ideal project.

Healthy agencies take a proactive, leadership, stance throughout this part of the process.

They have a clear vision of what ideal opportunities look like and how to shape them. They lead the client through a process to achieve that by improving this particular opportunity. They take a stand against pressure to chip away at this ideal.

Then, what makes it through the sales process is going to be work that performs better for the client, and lifts the agency. Interesting, challenging, rewarding work. A project for talented people to do their best work on. A project you’ll be able to hold up, be proud of, and win more work from.

So, use the sales process to shape the opportunity, not just to win it.

Convert ideal opportunities into sales

While you’re shaping a great opportunity into an ideal opportunity you also need to be working on converting the sale.

Lead the client to “Hell yeah!”

Most agencies are satisfied with a “yes” from the client to close the deal, but healthy agencies want to get to a '“Hell yeah!”

A yes that’s brimming with enthusiasm, excitement, and gung-ho.

Because the kinds of projects great agencies take on are not the easy ones. There are surprises and big problems to face down, difficult decisions to make, and a lot of exploration before the best way is found.

If you don’t start work like this with full on enthusiasm from everyone involved, you’ll quickly get stuck in the mud. Micro-managing, second-guessing, and blame are only a short step back from a weak yes.

The Hell Yeah shouldn’t come from being uninformed about the complexity and risks ahead, it should come from fully understanding them, but believing fully in the power of themselves, you and your team to overcome the obstacles and win through.

So the sales process is about building this belief. Building the anticipation and excitement for bringing together a powerful team to do great things in the face of hard problems.

Support them selling internally

Remember that your client is the person you deal with most closely, rather than the organisation as a whole.

Your client then has a host of internal clients — their teams, stakeholders, managers, procurement, legal, IT, marketing and more.

They need to get these people to buy in to their decision to pursue this project, to work with you on it, to take your advice, and to let you work in the way you know is best.

That needs them to be great at selling too, and they’re likely to need your help on this.

Make it a key part of your sales process to identify these internal audiences, and to help your client sell to them too.

Objective: Convert ideal opportunities

In this section of the Agency Leaders Playbook, we’ll gather together ideas for actions you can take to keep improving how you perform towards this objective.

It’s an infinite game, so you’ll always be able to improve. Don’t try to do it all at once. Keep revisiting this objective and making one more improvement, then another.