Procrastination Can Kill Your Ad Agency New Business Program

Just last month an agency president told me, “Over 20 years I’ve made up every possible excuse in order to NOT make the new business calls I needed to make.”

Here are 4 common forms of new business procrastination:

  • You find a great opportunity to talk to someone down the hall rather than picking up the phone.
  • You schedule meetings during time you blocked off for contacting prospects or networking.
  • You discover another interesting web site to “research”…
  • You take part in a new business committee meeting that doesn’t accomplish anything except make everyone feel good about doing something.

I’ve seen the following tactics break the procrastination habit:

  1. Create monthly, weekly and daily new business objectives for yourself.
  2. Don’t leave work until you meet your daily objective(s).
  3. Block time on your calendar. On schedule, close your email, put your phone on DND and focus on what you need to do.
  4. If you must attend a meeting during your dedicated new business time, immediately reschedule it for later in the day or another day that week.
  5. Set a maximum amount of time to research a company (minutes, not hours).
  6. Decline any new business committee meeting and ask for the minutes instead.

The only way to be successful at ad agency new business development is to actually do it.

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