Winning new business course for agencies - starting 30 October - preparation

Well I landed back in South Africa on Monday morning after the week in New York on the Ad Forum summit, managed to float about at work for two days still running on adrenalin from the previous week. However - the last two days of this week have been quieter in terms of meetings with more time to prepare for the last months of 2013.  And a key moment in this last quarter is the start of our Winning New Business course  which starts on 30 October.

Our colleagues in London, the AAR Group, have run a new business course for a couple of years now and while I don't know the content of their course in detail I do know that it is based on the pitch process that we follow. 

So it is quite exciting to put this all together and think about the 16 delegates who will be attending the course and what they will want to get out of the content.  There are a couple of sources of information I have also used - the most interesting being the book by Cleve Langton who I met five years ago and who is a familiar figure at most Ad Forums. His book - New Business Lessons from Madison Avenue - is just the best book I have read on this subject.

A second book -  Perfect Pitch - by Jon Steel has also been highly recommended by another of my consultant colleagues, Will Hamilton, and that will also be part of the required reading.

When I write the content for this course, I realise that packaging 30 years of experience into six one and a half hour sessions is going to be a tall order but the guiding light will be our pitch process coupled with what I have learned as a new business director in a number of different agencies and different disciplines.

The areas we are looking at include:

* credentials preparation and being competitive
* managing the chemistry process and what clients look for
* preparation for the pitch and access to clients
* the pitch itself
* why the on boarding process can make or break a new relationship

And then to wrap the course up we will have a session - on what I think is the most important aspect - cultivating your leads,  and attracting new clients to even ask for a pitch or proposal.  And being patient.

The holy grail of all of this is the understanding what motivates clients during a pitch process and I guess much of our sessions will be around the anecdotes of pitching and pitches that I have seen.  But I have no doubt that our delegates will have a lot to share and discuss.

It will be FUN!!

Until next time.