Amanda Francis, MD of Alchemis, a new business agency for the marketing, communications and creative industries, spoke at dinner about getting new clients and increasing revenues. Here’s her top tips for a new business:

1. Have a business plan. 12 months, 3 months, 5 years… How can you grow your business without a plan?
2. Critical pathway – start where you want to be and work backwards. Identify points by looking backwards. Imagine you’re in the future, looking behind you, and look at the obstacles that are in your way.
3. What does a really good client look like? What is their profile? It’s crucial to profile your clients.  It’s about identifying the types of clients you don’t want to work with and avoiding them.
4. Identify how your business is being built today. Is it through social media, events, networking, content, word-of-mouth, advertising? Work out the proportion for each channel and where the gaps are.
5. Although social media is important, there is nothing better than human contact; that includes phone calls.
6. The first meeting is not about a PowerPoint presentation. Your job is to get a second meeting. And you only do that by identifying what keeps them awake at night, and present some solutions.
7. Letters! Hand-written envelopes! We live in an over-digitalised society, and people like to feel something in their hands.

Bonus tip! 
There’s a massive turnaround for presenting things on boards, rather than PowerPoint (and the like). Physicality encourages engagement.

Check out other speakers’ top tips here.