Armed with an understanding of who you are and how you’re seen in the marketplace you can begin to list those businesses that can realistically be new business prospects for your agency.  The survey will tell you if you are a credible candidate for the Coke, Honda or P&G business.  If not, focus on companies that are a size you reasonably can handle today.  As your business grows so can the size of your prospects.

Your survey can also tell you if you’re seen as creative, integrated, business to business, consumer, digital, promotional, young, established, smart, local, international, etc.  All good information to know as you prepare your target list.  Obviously, you will want to go with your strengths as the markets see them first...even if you don’t agree.  Put on your list the companies in your market for whom your strengths could be important.  

Look at your current client list.  Are there any names there that indicate a certain understanding of an audience segment, distribution system or product category.  An example, if you have a car account maybe you could use that experience to approach a gasoline or oil company, a tire company, a windshield wiper blade company, etc.  If you have a client that markets to teenagers maybe you could use that audience knowledge to approach fast food, soft drink, snack, sneaker, electronics or clothing companies.  You get the idea.

Do you know what your staff knows?  What companies did they work for or clients did they serve before they came to work for you?  Do they have interests, hobbies and activities related to particular companies? You may have some category experience in-house we didn’t now about that should be reflected on your New Business Target List.

Writing down the names of companies you can reasonably approach is actually the easy part.  The hard part is getting the names and contact information of the individuals in key executive positions in those companies; the CEO, the chief marketing officer, the marketing communications manager and perhaps the sales manager.  Use the internet, your network or just call up the prospect company switchboard and ask.

Once you get the names, Google them.  You want to find out as much as you can about them; where are they from, where they went to school, where they worked before, interests, hobbies and family.  You’re looking for possible connections that will help open the door for you.

This is where the List Sheriff comes in.  He or she must be diligent in keeping this list up to date so it can be used to maximum effect on the day it is needed.  Sending something to the wrong person or misspelling a name is not a good way to start.

With this in mind, it is better to keep your list realistic, short, focused and up to date.  And then work it. That’s what we’ll work on next month.

Good luck.