New business agencies are far less rare now than when we started. In 2004, there were probably fewer than 10 of us. There were a few good ones (us, Icebreaker, Teeming, a coupla others maybe) and few okay ones and a few dreadful ones (one was investigated by the OFT!). There were also some really great business development consultants out there doing great work. And some naff ones bashing out bad phone calls. Most of the new business agencies targeted London advertising agencies. A few of the business development agencies were headed up by former agency directors. It was all a bit....close. Then came Sponge NB.
Sponge NB
I'm Steve and I started Sponge in 2004 after deciding that my employer wasn't as good as me. To this day, I'm probably the least sociable of the new biz people. I really don't want to go and have a beer with my competitors (apparently they do that, but it's just not me). Quite quickly, we annoyed a few people (one of our biggest competitors sent a snotty email to an agency boss because they'd hired us over him. Mostly we did good work, though a few dodgy staff members did our reputation no good. Someone who shall remain nameless but will recognise himself if he's reading this was literally the laziest person I've ever encountered. We had some stars - Katie Butterworth who has gone on to be a proper marketing lady at M&S. Kim Peatling, who is now a business development director at a huge agency, reaping deserved success. Of our current team, Jon is a long-serving and effective business developer - and he's surrounded by some of the best we've ever had. But being good at this isn't always a guarantee of success. And sometimes it's not even a guarantee of courtesy.
Bad clients
Look, we've screwed up over the years. It happens. It's never been through lack of effort, endeavour or skill. Sometimes mistakes happen - or the fit is just wrong. And then there's the time I had an agency boss threaten to throw a cup of tea over me for not hitting an imagined target. Or the time the Deputy MD of a PR agency was so rude to a team member that we decided to resign the account with no notice. And then they fired us, giving full notice. So I kept quiet and we toasted their departure with a good beer. And the one who refused to pay because they didn't like one of our emails. I could go on. A recent client swore at me in our briefing day and then tried to bully us into accepting zero payment for months of work.
Good clients
We've had some true gems over the years too. Current and past clients including thehouse, Tannahill Reay, Chase & Co, Tangerine, Patter, Sparekeys, 20:20 London, Vine Insights and a long, long list of others have been supportive, patient, collaborative and helped to develop a mutual respect that made projects fly. We've helped clients win business worth £800k and others win a £300 t-shirt design job.
18 years later...
We're one of the established business development consultancies now. We're still relatively small (we got a lot bigger a few years ago and I hated it) and I like that I'm still involved in our clients' projects every day. We're more consultative than ever and we have a huge asset in Matt Broughton - our former Atari Marketing Director. He's horrible to our clients. That's not true. But he's brutally honest about their cold outreach collateral. It's like having a tamed prospect on your team. and our research capabilities are first class. We don't buy in bulk lists - we create targeted databases of qualified prospects. We're worth our fee, more than ever before. There are far more players in our game than when we started - for good and bad. Some of the dreadful ones are still hovering around. And some of the scarily good ones (Treacle, The Advertist, a few others) are breathing down our neck too.
And we still enjoy getting our teeth into an agency's value proposition, creating seller and buyer personas, writing smart emails and building outreach strategies. We can do those things (and more) for you, if you like. We'd like that.