Win Great New Agency Clients With This Simple Strategy

Do you have an agency or consulting business and want to win some great new clients?

Then I have a strategy for you that might work like cake.

How about offering your services to startups that just got funding?

Here you will learn what this means, why it could help your business, and how you can do it.

This strategy centers around targeting an audience at a certain stage of their journey.

The state in this case is a funding money-shower.

You can deliberately find such startups and address them with a tailor made offer.

If you find the right ones and position your offer well, you might be in for some great business.

What makes this strategy so great?

First, we are talking about potential clients who HAVE money.

They must because getting money is what happens in a funding round.

And having money is a primary condition to make a good client.

Because even with a 10/10 client in all other criteria, little money would still mean little business.

And, between you and me, tons of businesses out fall into the little-money category.

Which is not a great place to be, if you want to earn some solid money with your agency.

As a second benefit, these clients not only have money, they also have a duty to SPEND it.

Yes, I said duty, not tendency.

Because these startups got the money to spend it and grow.

Which separates them from many other businesses.

Because these have money, but have no duty to spend it.

I know from personal experience.

My businesses always had money, but I looked for ways to keep it, not spend it.

Which is not ideal from an agency perspective.

That's the spell with bootstrapped businesses - they tend to be very money-conscious.

But not so our newly funded startup.

It has received all that money to scale, and therefore MUST spend it!

Here's a real-life example of how that can look like:

When I was running my boutique SEO agency, one day in 2002 I got a phone call from a boisterous lady who ran an insurance startup.

She said, "We just got $1 Million in funding and now need to spend it."

They became our clients and spending money they did.

(And of course, they got valuable SEO traffic, leads, and sales from our services in return).

On to our third benefit: these clients move FAST.

That's because they have some investors sitting on their backs that want to see fast results.

(And that's again because the venture capital firms have investors, who once more want to see fast results. But I'm drifting off, here...).

Based on that need for speed, they often buy in expertise instead of slowly building it up in-house. - Good for you as an agency or consultant.

As an additional benefit, needing fast results mostly leads to fast decision-making.

So with a newly funded startup, you're up for a fast go (or no-go) decision.

If you ever tried to sell to a corporate client with weeks and months of decision time, you know how valuable a fast decision is.

And here comes your final benefit:

With a startup, you have lots of room to add value.

Because being STARTUPS, these clients are often not so well established.

That again allows for significant improvements with reasonable effort.

If, in contrast, you start working for a well established client who's in business for 10 years, you might have a much harder time to shave off any improvements.

Now, all that beauty comes with some drawbacks:

First, by serving a fast-paced client, you put yourself into the same waters.

That can come with additional demands, like time-pressure.

Secondly, funded startups can run out of money.

And once the funding has run out, you might have no client, no more.

Which is something that happens to about 7 of 10 startups (if I'm not entirely wrong with my over-the-thumb-estimation.)

This is precisely what happened with my $1 Million insurance startup.

After 2.5 years, they ran out of money, even though they already produced solid revenues on top.

But their business model just didn't work out.

That's it for my rundown on the pros and cons of this approach.

Overall, it doesn't look too bad to me.

Especially when I look at the business I've made from it in real life.

Now imagine, addressing startup clients not by chance, but with a deliberate strategy.

Think about positioning yourself with a pinpoint, highly attractive offer that fits like a glove for the demands of newly funded startups.

Wouldn't that sound like a splendid way to get great new clients?

If you agree, this would naturally bring us to the next question:

HOW exactly can you get business from newly funded startups?

Here's the overall strategy:

Step 1: Scan for newly funded startups

Step 2: Filter for matching criteria

Step 3: Find the proper contact person

Step 4: Address contact with your unique offer

Step 5: Follow-up dispassionately

Step 6: Have a new client

Now, let's look at each of these steps.

Step1: Scan for newly funded startups

To address funded startups, you first have to find them.

Just use one of the following approaches for that:

One, employ a database like Crunchbase, or AngelList.

Two, read startup blogs like TechCrunch, or a local version in your country.

Three, search Google for "startup funding" and limit the date of results to the last 3 months.

There's a fourth approach, using paid databases who share all info on these startups. But why not start with one of the free approaches one to three, and save that for later.

Step 2: Filter for matching criteria

But not all startups from Step 1 will be a great match for you.

For example, I just saw a Gold Investment Startup getting $30 million. Yet ALL the money was for buying a gold mine in South America.

So if you don't have a South American Gold mine to sell, this one would not be a good fit.

In other words: filter for startups that plan to spend the money on something you offer.

Other filtering criteria could be industry, business-model, geography, or any other criteria you see as a good fit.

Luckily, often you can find info about that in the funding press release.

At the end, it's important to filter out the ones that match your capabilities and offer.

Because the more they do, the easier you will be able to sell your services, AND the easier it will be to differentiate yourself from other vendors (more on this crucial point in Step 4.)

Step 3: Find the proper contact person

Now you need to find the best contact person.

That is by definition the buying decision maker.

In startups, that's usually the founder or co-founder who's in charge of your area of work (e.g. Sales and Marketing).

In a bigger startup, this could be a "Director" or "Head Of" for your niche.

If in doubt, address the founders and the Director level.

To find their email address, use LinkedIn, RocketReach or any other digital sniffing-device.

Step 4: Address contact with your unique offer

A strong positioning and offer is KEY to making this strategy work.

Your positioning as a vendor must be a direct match to the needs of a startup with the criteria you've mapped out in Step 3.

Examples would be: "We are experts in startup Conversion Optimization", or "We deliver PPC growth for ecommerce startups".

Your service offer must directly reflect the state and needs of your audience.

This could be a "Startup Conversion-Optimization Service", or "PPC Internationalization Service for Scaling Startups"

Do you get the idea?

In Step 2 you carve out a clear audience with certain criteria.

Now in Step 4 you precisely match that with your positioning and offer.

Which again, you can only do, if you've done your homework in Step 2.

Together, this can work like magic for the following simple reason:

Chances are that most of your competitors will address these startups with a run-off-the mill offer.

If you go the extra mile and step through the door with a greatly fitting positioning and offer, you put yourself far ahead of the startup-contacting crowd.

Step 5: Follow up dispassionately

Now here comes an ugly truth.

Even IF you have built a great positioning and offer, your contact person might not jump from her chair just when receiving your first message.

(Still, with Steps 2 and 4 you've maximized your chances, that she does.)

But still, if she doesn't, you tackle this hurdle by crafting a tight follow-up sequence IN ADVANCE.

You can learn the many benefits of doing this in my article about following up.

Which takes us to Step 6: Have a new client

If you have taken steps 1 to 5 deliberately and thoroughly, I dare to promise that you have dramatically improved your chances of truly winning one of the desired startup clients from your dream list of step 2.

OF COURSE, other agencies or consultants have already come to the idea of addressing newly funded startups.

So your contact person will be flooded with offers!

But, don't worry!

‍IF you follow Steps 1 to 5 thoroughly, you have put yourself into a great position.

Because chances are that 90% of the agencies or consultants who address your dream contact (and have not read this blog post AND acted upon it), have not done their homework so well.

Which will result in them NOT having such a great fitting positioning AND NOT having an offer that fits like a glove to the special situation and demand of your money loaded startup client.

So the "secret" is to DO your homework in these stages and come out winning at the end.

The real difficulty lies in doing it.

I know the situation. Possibly, you're in-between serving your clients, doing all the overhead work, trying to manage fulfillment, and now you should additionally take your time to craft a tight positioning and new offer.

So one very realistic scenario could be that you say to yourself right now, "Hey, sounds like a great idea, I SHOULD do this." - To then just get caught up in your daily business and never finish doing it.

One solution to this ubiquitous problem lies in joining a coaching program that takes you by the hand, makes you accountable, and leads you through the five steps of the startup-client acquisition campaign, one-by-one, in simple, easy digestible steps. The whole show would not take longer than 30 days.

If you're interested in setting yourself up in such a program, please let me know.

Better YOU tell me, what you think about the approach, and IF SO, what holds you back from doing it.

Love to hear from you.

Please just use the form below and go with it.

Thank you so much and have a great day!

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