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Small Spark Theory: a marginal gains approach to new business and marketing

New business is one of those subjects guaranteed to get a reaction from agency owners everywhere. Many will have a nagging feeling they should be doing a bit more, wonder how other agencies manage to land the accounts they covet, have moments of wild inspiration and energy then falter because the day job just, well gets in the way.
Gunpowder’s Lucy Mann has worked in agency new business for over 25 years and has witnessed these scenarios, and many more like them, as an outsourced new business telemarketer, a new business recruitment consultant, in house new business developer, in house head of marketing, and new business mentor across multiple disciplines and agency shapes and sizes.
Regardless of size and discipline, many agencies encounter the same new business challenges, and more and more, the solution is not necessarily an ambitious marketing plan, or expensive sales resource, but instead a forensic application of process and a marginal gains approach to performance improvement.
Gunpowder’s podcast, Small Spark Theory® explores the small changes we can make to our sales and marketing process to achieve better new business results. With contributions from a range of experts, each episode will examine a single element of the process in detail, providing manageable tips for improvement.

Find our more about Gunpowder Consulting, please visit gunpowderconsulting.com
Follow us on Twitter @gunpowdertweets and join the conversation #smallsparktheory
Music from Jukedeck - create your own at http://jukedeck.com.
Host - Lucy Mann
Producer - Isabelle Jarvis

Apr 8, 2024

Over the recent months, I have observed how agencies have been experiencing the impact of economic uncertainty - including the stalling of client decision-making, frozen budgets, disappearing pipelines, and everything in between.

In their recent BenchPress report, The Wow Company described last year as 'brutal'...


Mar 3, 2024

Over recent episodes we’ve referenced many of the macro issues facing brands which have in turn slowed down or stalled new business opportunities for agencies. 

But there’s an elephant in the room that we’ve yet to address; the growing trend of clients deciding to bring creative resource in-house. 

In this episode...


Feb 5, 2024

EP85:  Changing perception | Steve Garside | TMW           

Have you ever felt that your agency is pigeonholed by clients and prospects as being a specialist in just one thing, where in reality you have so much more to offer?

Of course being seen as a specialist of any kind is a generally a good thing – we have many...


Jan 8, 2024

Here we are at the beginning of 2024 and it feels fitting for our first episode of the year to celebrate change.

Last Summer, 40 year old agency Thompson Brand Partners rebranded as ThreeTenSeven - the final iteration of the agency’s repositioning following a management buy-out in 2019.

At a time when we have seen so...


Dec 1, 2023

December 2023 marks seven years of Small Spark Theory. Mindblowing then that’s it’s taken this long for a dedicated episode on the topic of proposals - such a crucial element of the new business process but a perennial pain point all the same. 

Joe Ardeeser was so determined to find a better solution for turning...