It’s rare for a class act like Disney to get a project like this so badly wrong.  We spoke to low budget movie blogger and Client of Creative Agency Secrets, Julian Darley about why he thought this happened.

1. Be honest in your product budgeting. In the movie business, budgets are kept secret.  This conceals reality.  People forget that the marketing money is not usually included in a film budget. If it is included its obfuscated and so the headlines are probably wrong either over- or under-estimated by pundits and critics.
2. Disney kept changing the marketing pitch they knew it was going wrong so they were thrashing about with different versions of trailers which only served to confuse audiences.  Do  your market research and don’t keep changing your pitch.
3. Unless your product is a world-beater, don’t keep spending until you have to have a winner in order to make it pay.  Changing your approach may be OK when your product budget is small but when it’s this big that’s dangerous
4. Choose a title that helps the audience guess what the movie is about.  John Carter is neither a famous person nor a clear explanation of the genre of film.

Julian goes on to explain,

Look at the trailers, Disney kept changing their minds and releasing different trailers.  Was it sci fi or a straight hero/rescue or a historic romance (it starts in period costume) and there are lots of battles in it so is it an action/adventure battle. or an interplanetary sci fi film?

These many angles are different – they reveal a different part of the story and the way we’re telling it.  In my opinion you’d better test it on the public first.

The main lesson for brand marketers

It is amazing how clear people’s opinions are and how unchangable they are, once they are formed.  Disney found that no amount of huge budgetary spend on promotion and influence can retrieve a bad opinion after those initial impressions have taken root.

Take a read of this Problogger article – 10 famous things David Ogilvie said and how they influence blog writing.  The answer that Disney ignored is there in the list at number 9 ”

“Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.”

Julian Darley said that as a film maker and script writer he’d add to this “and do your market research early“.  Audiences are the key to great money in movies – and few can afford to ignore their views, as Disney shareholders may soon learn.

Related articles

• ’7 Business Lessons I Learned From The Artist’ (openforum.com)
• It’s a Shame About John: How the Failure of John Carter Only Ensures More Hollywood Unoriginality (thebrowntweedsociety.com)
• Great Geek Debates: Disney Princesses vs. Hayao Miyazaki (wired.com)

Facebook IPO - pix 02 (Photo credit: k-ideas)

paragraph of the Economist’s appraisal of the Facebook IPO.

Mr Zuckerberg’s social-ist manifesto also made clear that Facebook would stick to what he calls “the Hacker Way” – a nod to the “HP Way” which encapsulated the ethos of the founders of Hewlett-Packard.  Facebook has hitherto been able to focus on fostering an innovative culture that encourages employees to move fast and take risks.  new programmers are encouraged to push out code onto its platform in their first week on the job and the company regularly holds all-night “hackathons”. 

This was echoed in a campaign we ran for a client this week for “Waitangi Day“.  This is the New Zealand national holiday remembering the signing of the treaty between the white settlers and the Maori natives.  Our campaign, like the Waitangi Treaty, was a rush job – we scoped the campaign quickly but getting 5 collaborative partners from other businesses on board in 4 days was a challenge – but the team pulled it off and delivered outstanding metrics.

The focussed work ethic and time urgency meant we all over-performed and the results were very pleasing.  We noticed an enhanced teamwork feeling of collaboration and mutual support as well.

Challenges for my business and for yours

• Why not set up a focused time-pressure deadline for some of your work once in a while?
• Can you create something akin to a ‘hackathon’ to drive value and deliver rapidly?
• What meaningful goals can you set for new employees?

Related articles

• For Facebook ‘Hacker Way’ is way of life (goerie.com)
• Mark Zuckerberg, the Hacker Way and the Art of the Founder’s Letter (wired.com)
• Waitangi Day ‘a time for reflection’ (nzherald.co.nz)

Image by antitezo via Flickr

Is it possible that a creative agency can build a pipeline of new business without having to respond to RFPs as a means of finding new leads?

Two articles in my RSS feed today struck me today as being relevant to this topic
The first is a slide deck from the excellent Courtney Pemberton and Tom Ross

Where the presenters contrast Schipul - a 37 person web development firm who do low-budget websites and lots of them; with Four Kitchens a 12 man operation whose average web development budget is $250,000.  Which firm would you rather do new business development for?  I know my response!

And the second is a USA Today expert opinion from Steve Strauss. He details the hideously comic-if-it-wasn’t-so-awful conference call with a web development team who fail to deliver even a basic understanding of their prospective client’s business.  I am sure it happened just as he recounts

•They internally scheduled the wrong time for the call (we are on the west coast, they were on the east coast).

•Once the call started, 15 minutes late, two of the folks on their end couldn’t find the website we had asked them to review with us on the call.

•The boss was not on the call at the start and they scrambled to find him.

Finally, 10 minutes into a call that was already starting 15 minutes late, the boss jumped on the line. He didn’t really know the purpose of the call, or who I was, or what we were doing, and so asked “So just what is it you do again?”

Are you disorganised in your new business process?

Making new business happen is one of the 7 steps in our new biz dev process.  Internal team management in advance of and during briefing calls is a ‘hygiene’ factor.  It is necessary as the underpinning to a solid new business pipeline.

The companies and people who seek our services are woefully unprepared for the relationship building, which starts at the first conversation.

Think back to your most recent meeting with a new prospect.  What do you ‘normally’ do at that event to start building a relationship?

John’s advice is “Listen to your partner.”

Back in the day, every marketing manager loved using an RFP or a competitive pitch as a way of gathering free ideas that they could implement themselves – sometimes without hiring the agency.  But it’s different now.
If you’re serious about winning new business through RFPs you, as the agency, must also learn to listen for the real briefing.

Hearing what the client is saying

John continues in the blog, writing

“They should be telling you roughly what it will take in manpower, time and resources to achieve your objective. They should be able to tell you a range of monthly expenses you will need to get there and what the process will look like”

What this means is you, the agency, knowing exactly what it will take to get the client to the marketing successes he craves – be honest.  Tell them the real cost – and do it before you ask about budgets.

Do you?

My check list for first meetings

1. I need to know how experienced a buyer the new prospect is – I want to know whether s/he really knows what marketing communications can do and can deliver or if it’s just a ‘catch-phrase’ with little real understanding behind.
2. How well does the client know what s’/he wants?  Can they articulate real business goals and what do they know about the different inbound marketing techniques that will achieve the goals?
3. Do they have a realistic idea about the time, effort and costs it will take to achieve those goals?

So, next time you go off for a first meeting – take a little check-list with you and evaluate your own performance!

Good luck

You may be finding a new marketing agency to work with or briefing in new campaigns for your existing agency.

Both require communication of the utmost clarity.

And so whether you are a brand who uses agencies; a brand who has an internal marketing department or an agency wanting to use best practice with your brand clients, here are two slide decks and a blog post which will help you to write the best possible creative brief.

Thanks to Dare who created this slide deck as a training event for their internal staff.

A quick look at how to find the name of the right person at the business you want to pitch.  Using both free and paid-for resources, we illustrate good websites to use and the tools they offer new business development professionals who are trying to start conversations with prospects.

Enjoy and download your own copy here.

Situation: Met a prospect – verified; decision maker with a budget.

The conversation got stalled “we’re busy” and I wanted to push for a second meeting with a hope of getting a pilot project identified.

How to overcome the stale mate: We already had an invitation to get in touch ‘in 4 weeks’ to continue the conversation and had sent a friendly reminder email to the gate keeper.  Nothing came back.

And so we decided to turn tables and approach them as if we were the customer not the vendor.

How does that work?

Remember how keen you are to sell to a new prospect – how excited it makes you listening to their business issue and thinking out solutions / campaigns?

Well using the table turning Vendor into Customer trick, you transfer that energy onto your prospect.

Get them to feel energised to sell you their service or product and engage you as a client of their organisation.  And once that business is transacted – be ready to put forward your own pitch to them.

What happened in practice?

The second chasing email got sent and within it we added a document and a brief explanation of the issue we were facing.

Quick as a flash the gatekeeper came back with a date for us to meet the prospect – 2 days later.

Meeting complete.  Deal done.

Now I’d better get on with writing that proposal…..

One came from an introduction – thanks Chris – and the other is a longstanding client who just ‘jumped’ big time into the online world for their marketing and chose us to implement.  All very flattering.

But, cognisant of the cockiness that can follow a big win, I decided to be ultra-cautious with an other client to whom we’ve proposed a new website and content marketing programme.

Three reasons to be cautions

1. He’s never been online independently before
2. Times are tough and spend is carefully managed – we need to prove value fast
3. He stuck his neck out to get us in after we made a successful cold call and we need to ensure what we propose is capable of being bought and will back up his career progression.

Many times after a big win, I’ve seen clients get too confident and think they have acquired the midas touch only to quickly move onto a ‘losing streak’ when pitch after pitch is lost or ‘come second’ – which is lost but worse.

So things to look to when you think you might be in the same place.

Exercise high caution

First, secure the new clients you have won.  Bed them in, ensure you’re on brief and delivering what they expect and when they expect it.  Make sure that income stream is confirmed and on the books.

With other proposals that you have in the pipeline, be very cautious

• Check your wording is not arrogant, over-confident or cocky.  I think a quiet degree of suppliance to the client’s will and a slightly servile approch to ensure that your words are correctly conveying the offer works quite well.
• Before delivering the final pitch document – phone and meet the prospective client and all the influencers in order to double-check your understanding of their needs.  I usually try to talk pricing as well as deliverables at this time so when they get the document / presentation there are few financial surprises
• Follow up in a very timely manner and ensure the trail doesn’t go cold.  Check they received the document; ask when they’ll have had a chance to review it and you can speak to them about what they think; find out decision dates and key decision triggers.

Go for it – winning streaks are fantastic when you get onto them.  Stick to your guns and ensure you are the agency of choice for that brand who wants you to do their marketing.

Related articles

• There’s More to Pitching Than Doing Killer Work (thedenveregotist.com)
• How To Fix A Broken Pitch Process (adpulp.com)

Well you’ll be glad to hear that there is an effective way to quickly become skilled at handling “any” objection whether you’ve heard it before or not.

So how’s it done?

Simple, all you need to do is “reframe” the objection in your mind into a question from the prospect using this simple phrase “show me why…”

For example a prospect says “It’s too expensive”. Simply rephrase the objection in your mind so you hear it as a request i.e.

“show me why I should spend that much”, or

“show me why it’s worth me spending that much”.

Now, instead of an objection you have “reframed” it into a request for you to prove your case, which you can do by listing the benefits that justify the price.

Another example: “We already have a supplier”. Reframed in your mind into

“show me why I should switch over to you?”

And now prove your case by listing all the benefits of you over their current supplier.

What are your worst objections?

So what about the ones that seem to stop you in your tracks?

For instance you take two weeks to deliver and the prospect says they want it by Monday. Reframe this to “show me why I would be better off waiting for two weeks for your product rather then getting one from somewhere else now”. At least now, if this is a “want it by Monday” and not a “need it by Monday” you have a shot at stacking the benefits of waiting in your favour.

Play around with this, it works for any objection and once mastered makes your objection handling smooth and flowing and so much more effective.

Paul Foley runs Noodle Coaching.

Related Articles by Paul Foley

Handling objections – part 1

Biz Dev expert – Cold Calling what not to do

There are numerous books full of clever techniques for handling these objections some of which are very good.

However I have found a simple way of handling those “initial” opening objections that has proved very effective.

So what do I do? Quite simply – I ignore them.

This may seem counter intuitive to many people and appear likely to upset your prospect.

Let me explain why this is so often not the case.

When you make a call and the person your calling realises it’s a sales call, an automatic pattern tends to trigger and they’re instantly on the defensive.  In this defensive mode the first objection(s) that they come out with are rarely the “real” objection(s).  It’s just the first thing that’s popped into their mind and an automatic reflex to a salesperson entering their world.

Make the reflex your friend

If we engage with this reflex we often find ourselves struggling to deal with something that doesn’t really exist.

By completely ignoring it with a simple phrase like

“I understand but don’t worry about that for the moment”

you regain control of the conversation and are able to move things forward.

What actually happens

Now here’s the thing, very often the initial objection(s) will just disappear never to be bought up again. If it is raised again then we can assume that it’s important and we can deal with it in the most effective way.

This may not work every time, but it will get you into more calls so learn not take the “initial” objection(s) seriously and hang in there long enough for this automatic pattern to play itself out.

You’ll know when it has as peoples’ tone and manner tend to change, and they become much more reasonable and easier to talk to, so hang in there.

Part Two of this article will publish on Monday 20th December

Paul Foley, Noodle Coaching

Related Articles by Paul Foley

Biz Dev expert – Cold Calling what not to do