5 Strategies for Making Your New Business Goals a Reality
I spent some time last month with a group of agency leaders during my New Business Blueprint annual planning masterclass teaching a framework for an annual new business plan that is
Simple
Built on a strong strategic foundation
Designed to get done, not just languish in a file on your laptop
What about you? Were you able to take the time to develop a plan for new business growth this year?
If you didn’t, it’s not too late to start, but start soon.
And if you did, now comes the moment of truth making those goals a reality. Don’t get trapped into a feeling of complacency that there’s plenty of time ahead of you. And don’t allow yourself to get sucked back into a usual busy routine that leaves little time for proactive new business.
Let’s get this done, people! Here are five strategies to help you turn that plan into a reality.
1. Do what’s right for you and don’t do too much
I talk a lot about building a new business operation based on your strengths. What that means is you don’t force yourself to do things that you hate to do.
For some of you, that may be having to network with a room filled with strangers; for others it’s the idea of churning out witty and insightful social media posts on demand; and for still others, it’s getting up on a stage to deliver a keynote address.
My theory is that even if you intellectually understand how these activities can generate new business opportunities, you’ll always find a reason not to do them. I believe that there’s a new business-generating strategy for everyone. It’s just that yours may look different from someone else’s. (If you’re curious to know which new business strength you might personify, take this assessment.)
This year, along with being clear on your goals, understand what you’re most likely to follow through with and do more of that.
And don’t try to do too much. Again, you may intellectually understand how a robust and varied program of marketing and sales activities leads to new business growth, but if you’re paralyzed by feelings of overwhelm, none of it is going to do you any good.
Instead, choose one thing based on your strengths. Take action and as you gain momentum, layer in additional tactics that complement each other and that can be delegated to your team based on their strengths.
2. Use your team!
I’ve built my business on the belief that the owner of a small agency is the best business development resource that agency has. There are lots of reasons why:
They’re the most invested (financially and emotionally) in the success of the agency.
They’re the hungriest—they’re the ones who will go without a paycheck first if business dries up.
They’re the agency’s most passionate boosters. “Passion” is ill-used and over-used by agencies in describing their culture or approach and it comes off sounding empty and disingenuous—except when describing the owner.
They tend to have an entrepreneurial mindset. They hustle. They do what they need to do to grow the business.
If this describes you, I don’t have to tell you that you’re only one person! What about the gazillion other responsibilities that fall on your shoulders?
There’s a difference between taking the lead and taking it all on by yourself. While the latter is a straight and swift route to overwhelm, the former is about setting the strategy, being clear about the goals, delegating thoughtfully, and staying present and supportive for your team. Much better!
Here are two ways to delegate new business tasks to your team so that you can take action more consistently:
Assign important but supporting tasks to those who are already in supporting roles.
Updating and maintaining your CRM database; following up on leads with initial qualifying conversations; ghostwriting your articles or other expert content; posting on and managing social media streams. These are all activities that must be done and done well if you’re to run a successful new business operation.
Appoint new business responsibilities to those who are better suited to them than you based on their strengths. Note I say “appoint”, not “offload” because it’s still important that the overall strategy emanates from you.
For example, I know an experiential design agency whose CEO doesn’t love networking with a room full of strangers. Yet he’s extremely personable, knowledgeable, and he loves to talk about his industry, so he started a podcast. It suits his strengths and he’s found it’s been effective in raising the profile of his agency.
However, his design director is quite happy to throw himself into a cocktail reception and schmooze away. It made a lot more sense for that agency CEO to send his design director to networking events while he builds productive relationships through his podcasts.
3. “Always on” versus “ramped up”
This simple but effective idea came from one of my clients some months after we defined the core new business approach for their agency.
The CEO and her leadership team were mentally and emotionally committed to following through on the plan, but they also felt it necessary to acknowledge that some days/weeks/months were going to be busier than others and competing priorities would get in the way of business development.
To offset this, they categorized new business activities as either “always on” or “ramped up”.
Always on activities were the bare essentials required to keep the new business operation healthy and supporting growth. The leadership team made a commitment to always complete these activities, no matter how busy they were with client work, employee issues, or administrative obligations. For this agency, always on activities included:
SEO (the agency has a defined niche so good SEO results in leads)
Social media (it’s a PR agency so this also allows them to demonstrate a core capability)
The CEO connecting and networking on LinkedIn on a weekly basis
Ramped up activities describe the optimal execution of the new business plan when, for instance, the agency is at full team capacity (i.e., no one is on a special leave) or when they haven’t hit their sales targets. Their ramped up activities include:
Emailing an insights newsletter to their subscriber list
Inbound content marketing mostly in the form of free guides and toolkits they make available for download
Outbound prospecting to a targeted list
4. Block out the time to do it
A while back I wrote about one of the biggest challenges to executing the plan: lack of time. It seems that even when your team could be busier, it’s still impossible to devote enough man power to the task.
I’ve always found the time excuse a little bit suspect. If your ideal prospect contacted you tomorrow and asked you to pitch for an opportunity of a lifetime, my guess is that somehow you’d find the time to do what you needed to do. But I also acknowledge that lack of time feels very real. So how do you force-fit more hours into your day? Time blocking is one answer.
There are numerous time blocking techniques developed by experts way more knowledgeable than I am on the subject, but the basic gist is to religiously allocate time on your calendar, blocking it off as you would any other appointment so that you are unavailable for other activities.
The trick of course is keeping your own commitment. (I can lead you to water, but I can’t make you drink.)
However, if you’ve embraced the first three strategies above—doing what you’re good at, delegating to others what you’re not, and having a plan for when time is truly scarce—you’ll be in a better position to make the most of time blocking.
Just try it. And if this means replacing a bad habit with a better new one, keep at it until it becomes natural. Consider finding an accountability partner or a coach like me to keep you on track.
5. Turn abstract goals into real steps
In the final session of the annual planning masterclass, I introduced the idea of executing a plan through 12-week working sprints.
There are a few reasons why I like working in 12-week sprints so much.
One is that twelve weeks is a long enough period of time to get things done yet short enough to create a sense of urgency and spur you to action. I also think they’re great if you’re trying to form new productive habits, like consistently making connections on LinkedIn or reconnecting with your best prospects.
They’re also useful to tackle a large initiative, like writing a book or redesigning your website. Working in a 12-week sprint forces you to break down your big project (like writing a book) into manageable tasks (week 1, define objectives for the book; week 2, sketch out an outline; week 3, write a treatment; week 4, seek out an editor, etc.)
I don’t know about you, but I am less likely to delay when I have a set of manageable tasks in front of me.
Of course, 12-week sprints aren’t exclusive to new business—you can use them to accomplish any objective—but I find they’re particularly suited to addressing the paradox of “not enough work, but also not enough time to do anything about it”.
When in doubt, take action!
I think most of us will admit that action begets more action. Taking the first step starts an almost alchemical reaction that turns goals into reality. Don’t delay—2024 is waiting.