CLARIFY THE PROCESS THAT YOUR FIRM USES FOR IDENTIFYING AND PURSUING OPPORTUNITIES
Look at your current practices. How do you become aware of potential clients and convince them to consider you for new projects? In most design firms, this involves a great deal of personal networking, ongoing research in business journals, trade publications, and online, as well as maintaining visibility at client industry events. To keep tabs on all this activity, your firm needs a database for contact tracking and customer relationship management. If you don’t already have one, now is the time to put one in place—it’s an essential tool for new business development. In addition, the person hired to manage all these marketing activities will need an appropriate level of administrative support.

As more and more leads are identified and pursued, a clear set of selection criteria is needed for filtering and prioritizing them. The founder usually defines these criteria and they can vary quite a bit from firm to firm. Your criteria might include some or all of the following: Each new project must be a match to your services and technological capabilities, present a creative challenge, and be of interest to your design team; when completed, you may want the project to have a certain amount of visibility; the client organization should be within one of your target industries, be a reputable company, and offer some potential for the development of a long-term relationship; your primary contact there should be someone with sufficient authority; and finally, each project must have a realistic schedule and budget as well as the potential to produce a profit for your company. Some design firms give increased weight to certain items. Your criteria should be written out, preferably in a worksheet format so they can be applied to all opportunities in a consistent way.

SET SPECIFIC AND REALISTIC GOALS FOR NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Think about what you will be asking the new hire to accomplish. If your strategy is to maintain the firm at its current size, what volume of work is required to do that? How much of your current volume is comprised of existing clients or services that you want to replace because they’re not satisfying or profitable? Exactly what amount of new business is needed to take their place?

If your strategy is to grow, then by how much? Set the new target for annual billings, then break it down into client categories and project types. In each area, what amount is already in place and what must come from new business development? When making these decisions, be realistic about how much growth is possible and how quickly your internal systems can expand. In most instances, an annual target for organic growth of 10 or 20 percent will represent a modest stretch, but a target above 50 percent could easily place too much strain on your staff and systems. Set goals that are high enough to motivate, but not so high that they can never be reached. Pressure to hit unattainable targets will quickly demoralize your team.

MAKE SURE YOUR SALES MATERIALS ARE CURRENT AND COMPLETE
When meeting with potential clients, your new business development person will need a supply of great promotional materials. Make sure that you have an initial set of materials in place that will last at least six months. It will take that long for a new hire to come up to speed. Later, he or she will be able to assist in the development of new items.

Most creative firms have a modular system in place that includes a company background, an overview of services and clients, a series of case studies, and reprints of recent press coverage. Any combination of these items can be slipped into a presentation folder or assembled using an in-house binding system.

Many firms also design promotional mailers on a regular basis, often in the form of postcards. When hiring a new business development person, it would be great to have a mailer either in process or recently completed.