I have been selling and providing creative services for over a decade. Now, in my post-agency ownership world, I’m involved with buying, directing, and managing the relationship. Knowing how to sell creative services effectively is key. For those of you selling creative and marketing services, I want to share my take in the hopes of helping out my homies. These notes were generated from a recent agency sales conversation I had.
- No one cares that you have won awards during a sales call. Especially when they are awards for services I’m not interested in, and industries we are not in. Understanding how to sell creative services effectively means focusing on what truly matters to customers.
- If you ask if I have personas, and I tell you no, we have real customer data, and I say personas are typically BS, don’t agree with me. Don’t ask if we have personas in the first place, ask how well we know our customers, and when the last time we talked to them was. This approach is part of learning how to sell creative services effectively.
- Don’t look for opportunities to expand the account before we have even agreed to anything. Listen to what problems I see, and offer your expertise on how you can best solve them. Selling creative services effectively requires understanding customer problems.
- Everyone says how amazing their owners are and how much they care. That’s meaningless to customers. Tell me a story that shows it, or don’t say anything.
- Lastly, once you start creeping into “full service” territory, I’m out the door. They didn’t say those words, but trying to be coy by mentioning all the things you can do for us, makes me feel like a target, not a potential appreciated customer.
I’m far from the most experienced and successful in this space, so what tips would you add?
