Ok, so that headline is heavily loaded in my favour because I work at a new business agency and want you to employ us rather than take things in-house. However (he said, legitimising his ulterior motive) though there’s little disputing that having your own kick-ass in-house new biz person is a wonderful way to be, there are a few things you might want to consider if choosing between going in-house or out-house.
1) Did you want to be a sales manager? If you work in one of the creative agencies, you’re probably successful primarily because you’re incredibly creative (duh). You see things people don’t see… you have ideas others would never have… you know the difference between grey and teal (is that how it’s spelt?) Anyway, you get the idea. But now you’ve got an in-house biz dev person… a SALESPERSON. So that makes you a… gulp… sales manager! Time to get salesy: set some targets… implement some KPIs… and then somehow tell the difference between someone doing their best and getting nowhere (it happens A LOT in the cold channel) and someone doing nothing and getting away with murder.
2) Little black books run dry. You might have an initial wish list of companies you want to prospect to keep your new biz body busy but do you have the internal resources to generate (and accurately populate) the up-to-date lists necessary to keep a new biz database relevant.
3) They are brilliant… and now they’ve gone. Finding people skilled, tenacious, creative and resilient enough to be consistently good at new business is tricky (believe me – it took a LONG TIME to build the fabulous team we have right now!) And then they get cocky, get poached or use their successes to negotiate a move to a competitor.
Yes, I’m scare-mongering, and yes, I’m blowing things up a tad to prove a point… but not that much. If you’ve never had to manage an in-house new business function you won’t have experienced these things. And that’s exactly why you should hire us instead (oh go on). We’ll take care of all these things. We are the New Business Landlords. We recruit, we train, we worry, we manage. And you can just sit back and grow. Win win. Win.