Would Closing One More Deal Be A Good Gift?
Folks, it’s been a hell of a year, and you can take that in whichever way is most accurate for you. As we look forward it’s important to keep those leads coming, but year end is a notoriously challenging time to maintain stability for digital agencies. This week let’s talk about how to make sure clients and prospects don’t leave you hanging.
New Deals for the New Year
As we look forward to 2024, one item on the to-do list that is easy to bump is formalizing client deals for the new year. Whether you have a deal that hasn’t quite gone through or the future is unknown beyond December 31, you can’t make effective plans unless you know whether that agreement is in place.
If you’re struggling in the zone of uncertainty, there are a few things you can do that might help nudge them into making a decision in time. Give these a try!
Communicate
Obviously you need to let the client/potential client know that you’re there, ready to work with them and hoping to make it official, or to continue your positive relationship. Make sure you’re using the most effective communication methods for each client, whether that’s emails, phone calls, texts, telegrams, lip sync battles -- whatever. At the very least they see how dedicated you are even with the holidays calling.
Incentivize
While I am not a fan of discounting services, you can always offer a deal in exchange for a commitment. For existing clients maybe you can throw in something extra for an early renewal?
Tax Shelter
A lot of clients may be looking to unload cash before the end of the tax year. Offer them an option to prepay for next year's services. You'd be surprised how many will take you up on it.
Play good cop/bad cop
Rate increases are a fact of business life, and if discounts are the carrot this is the stick. You can gently let them know that rates are going to increase for the new year, but you can grandfather them in with current rates if they make the commitment now.
Keep the band together
When your team working with a client is the reason they love to work with you, you might need to let the client know that you need a firm commitment by the end of the year to keep them working on their account or you’ll have to use them elsewhere.
The best way to get consistent work is investing in strong relationships, but because those take time we have to depend on other methods to fill our funnels. We need to employ a variety of tactics to keep the lights on, and as Bureau Member Laura Boyer summed up best: “Biz Dev is a low, slow grind but it works. Folks need to have many pillars, not just one tactic. There should be a pantheon of pillars.”
This year has continued the theme of the 2020s as far as being a general tire fire, or an out-of-control rollercoaster ride. Some of the words for the year I heard suggested were “slog” and “purgatory.” It was difficult to generate leads and even harder to convert them into actual contracts. But for all the challenges, we did see some signs recently that things might be getting better. Here's to keeping our heads up as we head into the new year.