The New Business Mastery for Agencies™ is the culmination of over two decades experience in devising, training, implementing and assessing new business programs across a wide range of agency types and sizes. A new business program is not a pitch process; it’s a sustained, consistent relationship-building program that helps you get close to the companies on your list of ideal clients, and ultimately secure paid, profitable projects from them, without having to pitch. Refreshing isn't it?

1. Closing On Your Terms
[New Business Mastery for Agencies]

2. Find out how to secure paid, profitable projects
from a ‘cold’ prospect in just three meetings…
without having to pitch.

3. Stop pitching,
start winning.

4. The New Business Mastery for Agencies is the
culmination of over two decades experience in
devising, training, implementing and assessing
new business programs across a wide range of
agency types and sizes. A new business program
is not a pitch process; it’s a sustained, consistent
relationship-building program that helps you get
close to the companies on your list of ideal clients,
and ultimately secure paid, profitable projects
from them, without having to pitch.

5. What’s in these pages:
New business: oxygen for agencies
The New Business Mastery program
is risk management for agencies
The OUCH! Factor
New Business Mastery in 5 stages
What next?
About the Founder

6. Foreword
Over the last two decades, I have been privileged to work with the leaders of
almost every type of agency. These leaders are highly skilled, driven, intelligent
people who are also generous, genuine and kind. They are interested and
interesting, dedicated and hard working. Yet there is a common trait they all
possess – a blockage when it comes to ongoing new business success.
I have spent my career assisting CEOs and Managing Directors to remove the
blockage and replace it with a strategic, systematic and consistent program I
call New Business Mastery – Closing on your terms and it’s individually tailored
to match an agency’s specific circumstances.
Containing five key stages, the New Business Mastery program will competitively
reposition your agency’s approach to the pitching process while fostering a
culture of proactive prospecting, using a range of strategies, tools and tactics
designed to grow a suite of ideal, profitable and strategically aligned clients.
I invite you to discover how you can join the growing list of elite agencies
winning new business from a commanding position and learn what closing on
your terms truly means.
Wishing you many good things,
Julia Vargiu
Founder & Principal, New Business Methodology

7. Most agencies hope to be invited
to pitch for a prospect’s business.
‘Hope’ is not a legitimate or
sustainable business strategy.

8. The business of new business has never been harder
New business is the oxygen every agency needs to breathe to stay
alive, to thrive. New business allows your agency to grow, to attract
and retain the brightest talent, and to keep your services and client
relationships fresh and vibrant.
If your agency is not winning new business, it’s dying. Maybe not now,
but soon, and probably sooner than you think.
“More meetings” with prospects is not the key to winning new business.
Gaining a place on more pitch lists is also not the answer. Lunch with
pitch doctors – only to come up against procurement departments – is
not a new business strategy. Ambulance-chasing or targeting a weak
agency’s client list is not a sustainable approach.
New business:
oxygen for agencies

9. The New Business Mastery
is a simple step-by-step
program to succeed in new
business prospecting.

10. “If nearly every conversation I’ve had with senior
executives in agency land for the past three months
is even half right, the industry is as close to being
on its knees as it has in the 20 years I’ve been
writing about it.
One minute the argument is around blue-chip
brands and their short-sighted procurement teams
relentlessly driving down agency margins. The next,
it’s agencies so desperate for new business that
they’re offering stupid deals and promises –
unsolicited by clients – in order to win an account.
Pitch consultants confirm this.
Whatever the case, agencies clearly are in a race to
the bottom and it could well signal consolidation
and rationalisation is coming faster than we think.
The industry needs to work something out.”
Paul McIntyre
AdNews Editor-in-Chief, November 2013

11. Remove yourself from the ‘race to the bottom’
Stop relying on invitations to pitches and spending hundreds of
thousands of dollars on what is, essentially, a gamble. Wipe out
the long nights of overtime and stress on staff, and the toll it
takes on your current clients.
No matter what type of agency you run – from boutique to
multinational, from advertising to media, from digital to design,
from packaging to promotion – we have deep insight into your
pain points and New Business Mastery can offer you a solution.
The New Business Mastery
program is risk management
for agencies

12. “In my experience most agencies approach new
business development like a game of chance
– ‘maybe they’ll get lucky on the next roll of the
dice’. It’s rarely proactive, or planned. It’s also
usually random and spasmodic in its dedication.
Everyone and no-one drives it. So the end result
is: you hope like hell you’re being noticed in the
market, and wait for the phone to ring. Hardly a
get-rich-quick model. Problem is, most of us are
‘too busy flying the plane, to fix it’.
So just as you buy expertise to do the work, why
wouldn’t you buy expertise to ensure the pipeline
of work is always full? Julia Vargiu’s New Business
Mastery Program is the pipeline – or lifeline – that
can make the connections and has the results to
prove it. So if you want more ‘hit’ than ‘miss’, I
suggest you give them a call.”
Christine Gardner
Managing Partner, M&C Saatchi

13. How many times have you dropped everything – sometimes even work
for your clients – when you’ve been invited to pitch for a large account?
But being part of the pack in a competitive scenario carries huge risks.
Your entire agency puts in long hours, drawing on internal resources and
additional expenses, to be one of five agencies to be considered. While
you might only have 20% chance of success, just the thought of winning
that major account means you can’t say no.
The New Business Mastery program looks at the true cost of this type
of pitching. We have devised an equation to help you calculate your
own financial reality.
We call it, the OUCH! Factor.
Our exclusive formula takes into account the internal costs such as
head hours, your win rate and profit margins – among other things –
to reveal the total amount of new business you need to earn to cover
your cost of pitching.
The OUCH! Factor can be very confronting, and has spurred even the
most satisfied agency director into reassessing their new business
strategy with fervour.
The New Business Mastery program will coach your agency through
your OUCH! Factor and provide you with the steps you need to turn
your new business strategy around – from working against you to
working for you.
The OUCH! Factor

14. New Business Mastery
in five stages
The secret to winning new business is a strategic,
systematic and consistent program that keeps your
pipeline full.
The New Business Mastery program provides a proven
system and a step-by-step process that allows you to
meet and build authentic relationships with your
future clients. It’s customised to your agency, bridging
the gap between the unique business needs of each
prospective client and the capabilities of your agency.
Our system will help you sleep at night, knowing
where your next profitable client is coming from,
and that you are providing a stimulating and
rewarding environment for your staff.

15. Health Check
Reveal your
current position
Thought
provoking
questions
Candid and
revealing answers
A true state
of your new
business health
The OUCH! Factor
The Action Plan
Imagine
Define your
vision and goals
What does it
look like? Feel like?
Sound like?
What is the evidence
for your success?
What is your
financial ambition?
Is your head
in the game?
Build
Create the foundation
to get there
Select your
Top 100 prospects
Align your
agency assets
Create the HOOK!
Choose your team
and hone your
sales skills
Establish an
interesting profile
Activate
Set your agency
in motion
The 3 Meeting
Strategy
KIT – keep in
touch program
To pitch or
not to pitch
Organic growth
Close on your terms
Maintain
Keep your agency
in front
Fine tune what
works and what wins
Stay inspired
Add to your assets
with case studies
1 2 3 4 5

16. Stage One: Health Check
Audit and Action Plan
Reveal Your Current Position
The New Business Mastery program begins with a
comprehensive audit of your new business acquisition
process. We investigate your company’s new business
generating ability across six key areas:
Corporate and Executive
Sales
Marketing
Finance
HR
IT
The audit is broad and deep. It is conducted via a series of
in-depth interviews across your company’s key stakeholders.
We gather enough intelligence to provide a big picture
view with specific insights that highlight areas of alignment
and sticking points to achieving growth. Each interview
typically takes less than an hour per stakeholder, collecting
qualitative and quantitative data, with the whole process
being conducted over the course of a few days.
A detailed Health Check Report, with observations revealing
the health of your agency’s new business acquisition process,
is then generated and includes specific recommendations for
next steps in an achievable Action Plan.

17. Take a candid look at your
new business process and
how it’s been working so far.

18. “New Business Mastery introduced me and my business
to the science of new business. They showed me how
to take a business and to shape and polish it into
something that businesses can buy. The depth of the
deep dive into the business was crucial. Interestingly,
the answers were already there. We just didn’t know it.
They helped us uncover the brilliant gems just sitting
there for all to enjoy. We started telling our tale and,
as business showed interest, we ourselves grew as
business people. We learned how to target business.
We learned how to talk to business and we learned
how to ask for the business. The business has grown
exponentially [in the last 18 months]. We have seen
gross profit increase by an impressive 246% off a
relatively strong base.”
Mark Alexander
CEO & Founder Bamboo Marketing

19. The Health Check Report identifies the financial impact of common
business practices within your agency, highlighting any processes
that waste time and money.
The impartial report shows the financial impact of a weak pipeline,
a long sales cycle, a low win-rate, the cost of pitching, staff morale
and turnover, and recruitment fees.
It helps the company take an honest look at the combined financial
impact of these and other competitive weaknesses that may have
been identified through the audit.
The report also outlines where the agency’s sales and business development
processes are inefficient or even counter-productive, lack systems or
resources, have inadequate staff skills or management commitment.
With new clarity, you can prioritise the time of your team to make
more money. For the first time you will know what’s working, what’s
not, and what it’s costing you.
The true state of your
new business health

20. Stage Two: Imagine
Setting the Vision
There are many benefits to running a new business program
besides money; it keeps your agency fresh and vibrant, for
existing clients and new ones. It can help you introduce new
services to grow your business, and in turn attract and keep
the best and brightest talent.
Armed with the findings in the Health Check Report, we work
with you to set the vision of your perfect agency, define your
new business objectives and identify the leadership characteristics
required to achieve them. We then assist you to select the right
team members to join you on your new business program, and
train them with the skills and tools they need for success.
We will help you to identify the gap between what you are
selling and what your customers are buying. Most importantly,
we will help you to overcome the biggest hurdles to establishing
a first-rate new business program.

21. If there is one thing that can
transform your business, it’s this:
change your thinking from ‘what
can I get?’ to ‘what can I give?’

22. “The New Business Mastery program shifted
our whole psychological dynamic of ‘selling’. It
inspired a confidence in us, leading us to shift in
the way we saw and implemented our marketing
strategy – it was a truly inspiring process.”
Christo Everingham
Christo Interior Styling

23. What does your ideal
agency look like? Feel like?
Sound like? What is the
evidence of your success?

24. Stage Three: Build
Creating the Foundation
Before embarking on calls and meetings to establish new
relationships, it’s essential to build the foundations for new
business success.
During this stage, the New Business Mastery program helps
with the structure of the agency’s new business system and
processes. This includes your hard and soft assets, such as:
- The strength of skillsets and techniques
- The calibre of marketing assets and your public profile
- A credentials presentation that breaks all the rules
- A Top 100 Prospects list
- The Hook that will get you in the room.

25. The foundations for new business
are like building a house. If you
rush it or cut corners the house
will never endure.

26. Building the Top 100 List
We will guide you through the rigour and discipline to create a long
list of prospects – around 100 companies that are ideally suited to
your goals and ambitions, and who will become your profitable new
business clients over the long term.
By ranking and researching these companies you will begin the journey
to making new contacts. We will train your database manager to
maintain and update the information efficiently.
The outcome is a living database of warm prospects that will continue to
grow and evolve as you activate new business campaigns for your agency.
It’s A Numbers Game
With 100 prospective companies on your list, you have the opportunity
to inspire, inform and be on first-name terms with up to 300 individual
executives across several divisions and departments.
We know that approximately 15% of the companies on your prospect
list will make a selection or assignment in the coming year. By keeping
yourself top of mind you’ll have 15 very hot prospects from your Top
100 List who will know your company when they start looking.

27. NBM used an irresistible hook to swap
brand managers for C-suite executives
for an agency struggling to survive on
the crumbs of marketing budgets.
They secured 12 new blue-chip clients
in two years.

28. Training your team
Once you have selected the best and brightest team with the most
potential for new business success, we start with the basic skills and
techniques they need to master before the prospecting begins in
earnest – list management, company research, developing the right
collateral, securing and preparing for meetings, presentations skills,
meeting etiquette and how to ‘close’.
We offer training modules for how to make calls and set meetings,
at the same time removing the inhibitors and supporting these new
skills with the ‘inner game’ that maintains the right attitude, realistic
expectations, empathy, ‘active patience’ and gratitude needed to
quickly build strong relationships and trust with prospects.
Bespoke training sessions and workshops will invigorate your new
business team.
The hard and soft skills
for a confident team

29. Bait your Hook with intrigue and curiosity
The Hook is what will get you in the room to meet with a prospective
client. They don’t know you and, most likely, are not looking for the
services you offer – so it has to pique their interest.
Credentials presentations are useless here – as they’re all about you.
The Hook must focus solely on what’s in it for them, suggest you know
something they don’t and heighten their curiosity to find out what
they’re missing. The Hook neatly combines your agency’s experience
and expertise with the problems your prospects are facing.
The New Business Mastery program expertly identifies the right bait
for your Hook that will make every prospect bite. We begin by
reviewing the individual tasks you have completed for your clients
in the past 12 to 18 months, we then take a bird’s eye view and ask,
“What is the common business issue each of these clients faced? How
did that issue create the need for your agency in the first place and
how did you satisfy their unmet needs?”
You’ll be surprised at the patterns that emerge from your solutions.
We will help you refine your Hook and develop an enticing title, an
engaging proposition, and a simple 20-minute conversation (not a
presentation) that will mean prospects are eager to meet you.
How to offer your top
prospects an irresistible
invitation to meet

30. Stage Four: Activate
Closing On Your Terms
At the heart of the New Business Mastery program is the
3-Meeting Strategy that helps our agency clients secure
paid projects from ‘cold’ prospects in just three meetings.
The 3-Meeting Strategy is about holding the reins of
your agency firmly in your hands. New Business Mastery
dramatically increases your odds of winning by creating a
one-horse race. You are pitching alone, and using your own
smarts and persuasion techniques to open a crack that wins
a new project with a first-time client. You control who you
meet, when you meet them and how you persuade them
to give you their business.
Refreshing, isn’t it?

31. Realise that ‘no’ means
‘not now’ and render
rejection powerless.

32. “In a nutshell, the New Business Mastery program
gets you the meeting you want. Not only that, it
gets you the right meeting. With the right people.
And it makes sure that when you get to the right
meeting in front of the right people, you are prepared.
Prepared to talk informatively and insightfully about
their business. Not just waffling on about yours.
It makes sure you ‘close’. And that’s the meeting
you really want.”
Jeff Sanders
Managing Director, RAPP
CEO, Global Red

33. NBM helped a creative agency change their
stodgy credentials presentation into what
we call an ‘insight-sell with a project offer’.
It resonated so strongly they secured a major
alcohol brand after just one meeting.

34. Stage Five: Maintain
Keeping The Momentum Alive
Protect your new business program from the inevitable
changes that occur in your business, the industry and your
clients. Your new business program should outlast those who
built it, and have a life of its own.
Our maintenance program will ensure your new business
efforts are always running at peak efficiency. We will keep
you on track and closing on your own terms, steadily increasing
your win rate. With minimal cost, the program helps maintain
your New Business Mastery with monthly clinics.

35. Safeguard your new business
program so it doesn’t get put on
the backburner where a gentle
simmer can quickly turn cold.

36. Our successful agency clients are quickly
energised by the clarity of our methods.
New Business Mastery will remove the
two pain points of your daily life – the
anxiety of wondering where your next
profitable client will come from and the
stress of letting staff go.

37. Our New Business Mastery program has refreshed the way CEOs
understand their whole business. We helped a 16-year-old creative
agency grow their gross profits by 258% in 18 months and, along
the way, they became more sophisticated, transforming their
understanding of their own business, their clients’ business, their
work and their worth.
So how much does it cost to enjoy the benefits that the New Business
Mastery program can bring to your agency? As each company has a
different personality, varying degrees of experience and requirements,
the cost can only be established in consultation with you.
After signing a very detailed and very specific Confidentiality
Agreement in accordance with your policies, we welcome the
opportunity to get to know your circumstances better and offer
a tailored solution to fulfil your specific needs.
Elements of the New Business Mastery program can be purchased in
separate packages or as a complete program, with a pricing structure
that rewards the total number of phases to which you commit.
What Next?

38. About the Founder
Julia Vargiu
Founder & Principal, New Business Methodology
New business is a science for Julia Vargiu. With more than
20 years’ experience in devising, building and implementing
successful new business programs, Julia’s methodology has
consistently turned hundreds of agencies in the US, Australia
and Asia into successful new business winners.
Julia founded New Business Methodology in 1998, three years
after relocating to Sydney with a background in marketing
communications and advertising in New York, where she had
spent eight years specialising in new business development.
Working for the USA’s first and largest agency new business
consultancy (Lemont Consulting Group), New York’s premier
public relations services company (Bacon’s Information) and
the national leader in executive search for the marketing
communications industries (Howard Sloan Koller), she was
also a guest speaker at the Graduate Schools of Journalism
in Columbia and New York Universities.
In Australia, she was the first Marketing Manager for four of
Sydney’s top agencies (TMP Worldwide, Ammirati Puris Lintas,
Foote Cone & Belding and OMD) creating these roles after
having identified the unmet need in the market. This depth
of knowledge, coupled with over twenty years of data, enables
her to identify, score and improve an agency’s systems and
effectiveness for generating profitable new clients.
As a sought-after speaker on new business best practice
and how to keep your pipeline full, Julia has recently spoken
at The Source New Business Series, and the PRIA RCG
National Conference.
Julia is a native of San Francisco, alumni of Aiglon Collége,
Switzerland, danced regularly with RuPaul in Atlanta and,
prior to moving to New York, ran away with the gypsies to
become an actress. She toured nationally for three years,
specialising in improvisational street theatre for themed
renaissance festivals around North America.
She’s been married for 20 years to a handsome Australian
chef, has been told she has a rather endearing son with
whom she travels the world, and has developed a taste for
fois gras, excellent coffee and high heels.

39. ©2014 New Business Methodology. All rights reserved. “Closing
On Your Terms” is a trademark of New Business Methodology.
We have worked with hundreds
of agencies introducing thousands
of prospects generating millions
of dollars in new business.
Take the next step towards
New Business Mastery
with Julia Vargiu
New Business Methodology
+61 408 860 471
win@newbusiness.com.au
newbusiness.com.au

40. Imagine investing in a company that did
not have a sales department, did not advertise,
promote, or use PR consistently, did not have a
consumer positioning, and did not have a long
term marketing plan. You might be investing
10 to 12 hours a day in one right now –
your company.