We’re always extremely excitable when the next Digital Roundtable event rolls around. For the team at MAP, it’s our chance to catch up with the finest creative talent in the North West and to share new ideas and practical tips for the future success of these agencies.
So we were very happy to host our spring Roundtable on 21st April and to be welcomed back to Photolink’s HQ for an evening of conversation, brainstorming and new ideas for the creative community to put into action.
Photolink’s Inspiring Story
We’re big fans of Photolink and we’ve been constantly inspired by how they’ve taken their business from a small start-up in the late 70s to a global content and brand group with six companies, 180 staff and offices in three different countries across the world.
Chris Ducker, Director at Photolink, kindly agreed to kick off proceedings at the April Roundtable, by giving us his take on Photolink’s evolution.
Going back a decade or so, Photolink knew they needed to change as a business, and the way to do this was through a combination of partnerships, internal changes and mergers with other like-minded creative businesses. This started with a move into the Indian marketplace back in 2008, following by the acquisitions of Hungry Tiger in 2013 and Here, There & Everywhere in 2015.
But the key to the success of the group has been down to building a global team that all share the same motivation and direction, as Chris explained:
“Everyone has a part to play. Every individual in the company has a role to play and must understand where their part is in the company’s direction and our overriding culture. And that’s about the driving force behind Photolink always being the customer and their needs.”
Chris also went on to talk about the need for Photolink’s creativity to be product-driven. With any kind of design, you’re not just producing a piece of art – you’re placing the client’s product in a creative environment, but with the product always at the forefront of your brief.
Innovation is at the centre of this creative process, but there’s also the need to build profitability into your agency business model and to have real control over your all-important sales and purchases numbers.
One way to do this, that’s worked for Photolink, is to focus on creating mini-businesses – an innovator who can sell the product and a producer who can create the content and/or design in the most efficient way. This could be by keeping the work to a small in-house team, or by outsourcing each element to a specific freelancer.
The key is to be flexible, innovative in your thinking and to accept that there aren’t really any hard-and-fast rules about how to run an agency.
James Ashford: Practical Tips for Increasing Sales
Our guest speaker on the night was business coach and mentor, James Ashford. James isn’t your average business mentor: he believes in offering practical tools and sales methodologies that make a real difference to your agency’s bottom line.
James come from a creative industry background, but he’s helped businesses from all kinds of different sectors – with a clear aim of helping them to strengthen their relationships with customers and improve the mindset behind their sales strategy.
One key area that creative businesses can struggle in is pitching to a prospective client. As a former magician, James had to sell his act to each table at a wedding in ten minutes – now that’s pressure! But he’s clear that selling (whether it’s a product or a creative service) is down to having the right positive mindset and a real focus on building a relationship with the client, as he explained.
“To sell something to someone, you need a relationship first – whether that’s by proxy through a referral or built from scratch. A relationship is like a bank account – it needs you to invest in it before you can take anything out of it. The problem that people can have when selling is trying to take a withdrawal before you’ve invested.”
So the way to improve your sales pitch (and your conversion rate following a pitch) is to revise your processes and start planning longer-term nurturing campaigns – from 12 month up to two years – that will truly deliver the goods.
Another area to look at is simplifying your processes and making it as easy as possible for people to buy from you. Make your proposals clear, and give a very detailed explanation of what work you’re agreeing to – don’t let one piece of work spiral into three separate projects…all for the one price.
And when it comes to the outbound marketing of your agency, don’t forget the need to invest in your potential client relationships before expecting a return on campaigns. Give your clients something useful, help them resolve a business issue with some practical advice and really make sure you’ve demonstrated the creative value that your agency could deliver for them.
Rounding Off the Night
As usual, we ended the evening with our customary look back over the proceeding months in the creative industries – and any opportunities and new ideas that our leading creatives had spotted in the first few months of 2016.
Software tools are a topic that comes up regularly in these sessions, with some lively chat around Practice Ignition, an extremely competent project management and customer interaction tool that’s aimed squarely at accountants like us.
But, as one of our PR agency attendees already has already discovered, Practice Ignition can be tailored for the PR industry too, creating scope for other creative businesses to get in on the act with this cloud solution – you heard it here first.
Interested in Taking Part in the Next Digital Roundtable?
If you work in the creative industries and would be interested in getting involved in our Digital Roundtable sessions, we’d love to hear from you.
Places are always limited at the table, but we’re always open to hearing new ideas, featuring new guest speakers and helping the creative community to get more from their businesses.
Scroll to the bottom of our Digital Roundtable page and leave us your email. We’ll be in touch to talk about all things creative.
