Score new business without really trying – An interview with Zara Deegan, Founder of EXT MKTG

This week, we recount the insights gained from an AC Community event hosted by Zara Deegan, Founder & Director of EXT MKTG, an agile modern B2B marketing agency built to service time-poor business owners of creative agencies.

Zara is an expert Business Developer who now specialises in marketing for commercial gain. At the interactive event, Zara answered all of our new business questions. She covered everything from getting the most out of LinkedIn all the way to targeting core sectors for solid leads.

Zara Deegan started External Marketing in 2020 after working in London and Toronto with globally acclaimed creative design firms, top PR agencies and in financial services. She longed to build her own company, using her degree, experience and expertise. Zara’s career has seen her work with a range of businesses from Vivienne Westwood, Nike, TopShop, Santander, Arsenal Football Club, Hilton, Momofuku and St Regis Hotels to medium-sized companies and start-ups and she really is a master at finding new and innovative ways to extend a business’ reach.

“There’s loads of different ways of doing your business, without doing your business’, explains Deegan.

“Conference organisers and event organisers, they’re always asking people to submit to be a judge on awards. Some people target themselves with doing at least one thing a month. So one drinks, one networking event, be a judge on some awards, talk at a conference, talk on a podcast, that sort of thing.”

Indeed, many of our AC-ers have experimented with a huge range of ways to engage with new prospects – both intentionally and as a happy side effect of more philanthropic pursuits, and of course, utilising the great resource that is – our current clients.

‘Definitely have a sales strategy for your existing clients. And then in terms of referrals, again, I wouldn’t be afraid of putting it on an email
marketing campaign, or just mentioning it.”

Other topics discussed included social networking, podcasting and lead generation software and the various benefits that the latest automation based tech has to offer. Of course, sometimes the old ways are the best:

Zara: “I’ve used HubSpot, Salesforce and Excel in my career so far. And I guess in terms of the automation and in terms of the software, I think you’ve just got to make sure that you do invest that time in getting it right. Or you’ll just hate it and never use it.

So I think with the tech, it’s all it takes a lot of investment, obviously money and also time. But I’m kind of old school. I really don’t mind Excel.

For my personal business, I have my new business list and opportunities and I track meetings and I track calls and I try and track everything. But again, just using old school excel -I don’t mind it at all!”