The Magic of Winning New Business

Recent headlines in the advertising trade magazines screamed about Saatchi Advertising winning the J.C. Penny account. It’s worth an estimated $430 million. How did they do it? Did they use stunning creative during a 10 agency “shoot-out”? Maybe they rented buses and traveled cross-country to Penny World Headquarters. Upon arrival, they donned t-shirts emblazoned with the letter P and joined hands, encircling the building while singing, “We are the world”. It was none of these typical antics. Advertising Age had the inside story. Instead, Saatchi’s Creative Chief wrote a book and gave a speech about it. Book? Speech? I’m not kidding. J.C. Penny’s CEO was in the crowd listening to the speech. It struck a chord with him. As they say the rest is history.

What about the rest of us? What can the worker bees, who toil in the bowels of our companies do? Aren’t we too low on the totem pole to help our companies win new business? After all, how often do we get asked to give speeches at national conferences in front of corporate CEO’s and Chief Marketing Officers? And I, personally, have a snowball’s chance of ever getting published. A seemingly unrelated story from gitomer.com provides some answers.

“I work for State Auto Insurance in Columbus,Ohio. Our corporate mantra is "Everybody Sells State Auto" because we recognize all employees have an opportunity to promote our company, no matter where, no matter when. While on vacation in , Arizona years ago, I was at the hotel swimming pool with my daughter when I struck up a conversation with a gentleman sitting poolside. During the conversation, I discovered he was in Arizona on business — an incentive trip with another insurance company! As we continued to talk, I learned he was the owner of an agency just outside Clevelan<,Ohio. This was a perfect lead in to talk about my State Auto. The next morning, while wearing my State Auto t-shirt at breakfast, I came across this gentleman again and, upon seeing my t-shirt, he commented, "Looks like you’re working hard!" With this exchange, I made sure to get his business card, which I passed along to one of our territory managers upon my return to Ohio. To make a long story short, we signed up the agency to represent our company, and the agency is well on its way to almost a million dollars in business with us! You never know when and you never know where, but you should always be ready to sell your company.”

One final thought. Our local papers are filled daily with the demise and travails of the auto industry. Ford Motor Company in particular, has taken a pretty heavy hit lately. What would happen if every Ford employee, assembly worker, white collar person, executive, and all the dealership employees lived and breathed the State Auto mantra of “EVERYBODY SELLS…”? Imagine the power and the sales effect if they each convinced just one friend, neighbor or relative to buy a Ford product. Where would Ford be now?

It doesn’t matter if you’re the head honcho or a member of the cleaning crew. It is everybody’s job to win new business. You never know when, and you never know where, but we should always be ready to sell our company.

Mike Morawski

Worker Bee