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:
- Create monthly, weekly and daily new business objectives for yourself.
- Don’t leave work until you meet your daily objective(s).
- Block time on your calendar. On schedule, close your email, put your phone on DND and focus on what you need to do.
- 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.
- Set a maximum amount of time to research a company (minutes, not hours).
- 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.
