First, a story about why I bit the dog. Then a story about Geoff's Grandma. Both relate to why profile helps drive revenue growth.
Question: did you look twice at the 'Chris Bites Dog' headline? Did it startle a little? Intrigue you for a moment? Come on now, own up... most of you know it did.
That’s because it has 'tension'. Conflict.
'Dog bites man?' Who cares! 'Man bites dog?' What the heck! 'Chris Savage bites dog?' He's gone mad! Must read more.
In my last column, I outlined how Ph-arming (yes, yes: I wish Farming started with a P) is the fastest way to grow revenues. We have a one in two chance to sell something new... oops... to add new value and be paid for it... to an existing client. But only if we find real, urgent problems to help solve.
Profile is the fourth of The Savage Company’s now Nine (used to be Five, then Seven, then Eight) Doors to Revenue Growth. I've added another door since last month's column - Patter (as in sharp, compelling narrative about who we are and how we are different, special, and a genuine value-adder) - to the other eight doors: Positioning, Pleasing, Ph-arming, Profile, Pipeline / Prospecting , Pitching (converting), Push-Back, and Pricing.
But today, it’s all about growing Profile.
Weird talking to a PR audience about profile. But it's a genuine case of 'plumber’s pipes.'
PR agencies are terrible at driving their own profile. The ones that do it best hire a PR specialist person to drive it for them. I don't care how you get it done. Just get it done. Or as Australian fitness trainer personality Michelle Bridges suggests: JFDI. I’ll leave it to your imagination to spell that out. If you can't work it out, look at the last paras of this column.
Why? Because it's like Geoff's Grandma's chicken soup.
"Grandma," asked Geoff. “Why do you keep making us eat this chicken soup? Will it do us any good?”
"Young Geoff,” said Grandma. “It might not do you any good, but it won't do you any harm."
We simply have to be on the client and prospect 'radar' at all times. We have to be top-of-mind. We must build reputation and positioning before a prospect contacts us. And we have to stand out from the crowd and get noticed.
Man bites dog. Always.
Now, this is going to be simplistic to many of you PR types. But how many agencies do this brilliantly? I’m going to outline here the proven recipe to ensure Profile is at the right level, always.
We don’t need a Ferrari to take us on the profile journey. Flashy, temperamental, expensive. We just need a F.O.R.D. Put the key in the ignition. Start. And vroom vroom. It takes us from A to B and beyond.
Identify the key features in relevant media where your agency needs to have a profile in the next 12 months. Schedule your contribution to these. Make sure you are front and centre within them.
If it's a feature in a trade magazine / online newsletter about - for example and if relevant - driving sales in B2B consulting services (think legal, accounting, or corporate advisory clients), schedule the dates you need to submit a contribution. And JFDI.
We news jack for our clients. Do it for ourselves. Trawl the issues of the day and insert an agency point of view into the narrative. Once a month is fine. Get your agency POV into the current affairs of the day. JFDI.
There are only five key trade journalists you need to develop close relationships with to ensure you become the 'go to' source for comment on industry developments or critical reputation and marketing issues that matter to your clients.
Build those relationships. Build goodwill equity. Be the go-to person. JFDI.
Pump out those releases. Two a month. New hires. Client wins. Awards. Our trade press will publish them. Then LinkedIn the heck out of them. JFDI.
We do it for clients. Do it for ourselves. Three times a year. It starts with our point of view about something relevant to client profile, reputation management, brand building, stakeholder relationships - whatever.
Then drive a profile blast over two weeks.
Speaking engagement: Give a speech. At a formal event, or create your own. Twenty clients in a room is still a 'speech'.
Media: “Executive X said today.” You've created news. Push out the media campaign highlighting the key elements of your speech, whether it was delivered to five people or 500. Target immediate, overnight media, as well as longer lead opportunities: weekly trades and supplements, in flight radio, and magazines.
Social media: Go hard. LinkedIn mainly. Push out video highlights of the speech and tiles of key points around your POV theme.
Direct ‘mail’: Send an EDM or email to your database (Databases are key: is yours up to date and regularly updated? Yes? What rubbish! Get to it and update that database every month). “Thought you might be interested in key comments I made today at a speech to...”
Boardroom lunches: Hold a couple. Six clients. Three prospects. A university professor. Use your POV as the topic of conversation.
Here’s the key.
Your target prospect might have been at the speech, read the newspaper online, seen the magazine article a month later, seen the LinkedIn post, received the EDM, or been at the networking event. Point is, you've touched them with your point of view message three, four, five times over a short period of the time.
Do that three times a year, and if you did a survey at year end about who is the expert in that POV, chances are high that it will be you!
And it’s highly time efficient too.
I love them. Enter them.
Awards for great work or agency of the year are the best. Being short-listed is as good as winning. Seriously. “Twice Academy Award nominated actress...” is just as powerful as 'winner'. It stays with you forever.
Judge them too. It's amazing how much you learn by being a judge, and it also gives you the opportunity to meet the other judges. Remember, the most important thing I have learnt in business: if you can develop relationships, anything is possible.
If you get short-listed, or win, it gives you powerful bait to get meetings with prospects. They want to see and learn about the best work or the best agencies. Don't underestimate the power of awards.
Don't forget to lock in some big platform speeches, be on panels, or even (stay calm) sponsor the right events. Remember, 80 per cent of the secret to success is just turning up. Turn up.
My next column will be all about driving a proactive pipeline of new business opportunity.
It's one of the hardest things for busy, under-pressure agency leaders to do. But it is vital to agency success.
You get busy delivering a heavy workload - the late nights and cold pizzas. Then the projects end. You look around. Tumbleweeds blowing through the agency. The new revenue pipeline is sparse. Disaster! Driving pipeline involves another breed of outreach. Wait till next month for the magic.
Making sure though, that your agency profile is constant, crisp, differentiated, and 'future-fit' is a vital ingredient to creating an environment to sell within.
It's not magic. It's not rocket science. It's simply JFDI!
Just F**king Do It!
Oh, and remember: Man bites dog. Make sure it has tension and a bit of spice if you really want to cut through.
There you have it. Profile is front and centre to agency revenue growth. Is your agency profile robust enough? Are you JFDI-ing enough?
Next column we move on to our next of the Nine Doors to Revenue Growth. That's all about Prospecting!
Chris Savage is one of Asia Pacific’s pre-eminent creative communications industry leaders. Following a highly successful 25-year career in public relations, Chris launched The Savage Company in 2015, focused on helping business leaders energise growth. He has built and led some of the region’s biggest PR companies and groups, including as Australia CEO and Vice Chairman Asia Pacific of Burson-Marsteller, CEO of Ogilvy PR Australia, and COO of marketing content and communications group, STW Group (now WPP ANZ). Chris is also a shareholder and chairman of eight communications agencies.
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