Our friends at BizBash have declared 2023 the year of boundary-setting. They asked event professionals, “How do you decide which projects to say no to? How do you gracefully bow out without burning the bridge?”

Whether you’re turning down new business that isn’t aligned with your growth strategy or leaving space for your team to thrive in other areas, saying no is an art. 

Kerrie Sheldon, EVP, Business Development at Opus Agency, shared actionable tactics for assessing new business opportunities:

Before deciding to pursue an opportunity, our business development team runs it through our custom “opportunity qualification scorecard.” Our scorecard collects data across six categories and 27 unique questions. The data is then processed through a tuned algorithm, weighing values, and considering our team's capacities. The result is a 0-100 score. The score is not the be-all, end-all for us but rather a quantifiable element that guides our teams as we make the final decision.  

When an opportunity is not right for us, we go through a three-phase process that aims to keep growth within our ecosystem. First, we explore if the opportunity is a fit for another agency within The Opus Group global network. Then we turn to agencies within our vetted partner network. If the opportunity is not a fit for these, we will turn it down. Even then, we look to recommend other potential agencies that may support them. 

These tactics ensure that our teams and resources are focused on the projects that align with our areas of expertise and core values, resulting in more progress, productivity, and positivity for ourselves and our clients. 

Read the full story here.