Business Development Strategies (part 3)- why you can't rely on referrals

Hey everyone, Hope you're having a good week. In today's episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast, I want to wrap up this mini series on business development and the angle I want to explore today is specifically why referrals and word of mouth is no longer a really reliable source for you to get business from, especially in the crazy world that we're living in right now. So another action packed episode and let's get on with the show. Accelerate your agency's profitable growth with tools, tips and value added interviews with your host agency owner and coach, Rob DaCosta. I've been having lots of conversation with various agencies over the last few weeks, both with my clients and my inner circle in the self running agency Implementation group, but also some potential future clients through strategy calls as well. Now, one of the themes that I'm hearing over and over again at the moment is that where agencies have relied on word of mouth and referrals as their major form of business development, they're suddenly finding that these sources are drying up and they are having to think about new ways of filling their sales pipeline. So that's what I wanted to really talk to you about today. Now, there's some obvious reasons for why this is happening and I suspect you can probably relate to it and agree as well. And the obvious reason is that, well, when we can meet people face to face, there's much more natural networking that goes on and you suddenly become front of mind with somebody, whereas when we're not able to meet them face to face, that kind of referral and oh by the way, you should go talk to this person tends to dry up. So those people, as I say, who've relied on word of mouth and referrals are suddenly finding themselves staring at an empty order book and need to start thinking about something else. Because if we find our new business inquiries are starting to dry up, there is a danger that if we don't have a really robust, repeatable strategy in place, then we start to make poor decisions such as take on any kind of client, discount our work, or take on the wrong kind of client that doesn't fit in our core sweet spot and they become super hard to keep happy. We end up over servicing them and of course we then make a loss, we create stress in the agency, we fill up our time with unprofitable work, we don't have any time to take on the ideal profitable work, and we don't have any time for business development and so on and so on. So you can see how if you start to take on the wrong kind of client, it can quickly snowball into a very stressed agency and unprofitable work. And we go down this sort of spiral. So before we ever get to that point of going, oh my God, I need business, I've got these bills to pay, I don't have the income coming in, we want to make sure that we've got a strategy in place. Now the truth of it is that, that most business development strategies are going to be medium to long term in terms of returning anything. And I always say to my clients, look, that being the case, you need to make sure you're starting your strategy today so that you're going to reap the rewards in three to six months time. And if you don't start the strategy because you think you're really busy, then you're going to go into this feast and famine that we've talked about before. And none of us, especially at the moment, want to be in that famine space. So you might be thinking, well, are there actually any short term strategies that I could implement if I find myself there? And the one thing I would say that we should all do is look inwards rather than outwards. And that means reaching out to past clients to see if we can re engage with them. Looking at how we can upsell additional services to existing clients, I feel like they're the only real strategies that could give you some quick win results. Otherwise you need to start thinking and implementing some long term, repeatable strategies that you can be consistent and persistent at. And that is the key to this. It's about consistency. What I see so many people doing, and I know I've been guilty of this myself, is you hear people telling you something that they've done and they're bragging about how well it's worked. So you decide you're going to try it. You try it for a month or so, you don't get the same results, you decide that that strategy may well work for them, but it's not going to work for me. And then you give up and then you get seduced by the next shiny new object. And of course the issue about that it will twofold really. One is that you haven't been consistent enough with it. Second of all that you need to make sure you're implementing the right strategy. And of course thirdly, that person that's bragging about how well it worked for them could well be just telling you porcupines. So it's all about finding a few strategies and implementing them in a really, really consistent manner. And being persistent even when you feel like you are talking to nobody. Kind of a bit like this podcast, if I'm honest, because podcasts are very difficult to measure, how many listeners you have. There aren't really any great tools out there at the moment. And of course, podcasts are distributed through a number of chann, such as itunes and Spotify and so on. So it's quite difficult to measure. So when I started the podcast and I knew that the average number of people that start podcasts before they give up is seven, I thought to myself, I have to be really consistent and persistent with the podcast. Even though I couldn't really tell how many people were actually listening. I wasn't getting a ton of feedback or reviews at the time. But here we are, nearly 50 episodes in, and I'm just starting to get more traction and starting to get more feedback from people. And that's a good example of doing something in a consistent and persistent manner and not giving up when you hit that first hurdle. So, of course, the question then becomes, well, what should I be doing? And I think there's a number of things that you need to think about here that seem a bit tangential to this but are really relevant. First of all, you need to make sure you've got a really clear niche that you're serving. Because, as you know, if you have a clear niche, then you can show up as an expert, you can differentiate yourself from the competition. And the key reason I'm telling you about that in this episode and is because when you have a clear niche, you can then start to identify who your ideal target customer is. And when we know who our ideal target customer is, we know how they tick and what their pains and gains are. First of all, we can create really compelling content. And second of all, we can meet them where they're at, which means if we understand our audience, we understand ways they like to digest information, and therefore we can create marketing campaigns that can reach them at that place. So it might be that they really enjoy listening to podcasts, or they like reading or watching videos, or they're part of a particular community or a particular group that we can go and meet them at. So I think that's super important to first of all, understand your niche and your who your ideal target customer is. And then what you want to do is map the things that you're good at doing to the things that your audience likes digesting. And I would say the key thing is to do two or three things really well. What I do is I write an Email every week. I do a podcast every week. I, I post three times on social media and I write one in depth blog every month. And that certainly occupies my time. And those are the things that I can do consistently. Well, I've tried other things in the past, like creating a Facebook group, but I haven't quite got it right. So I'm just focusing on the things that I'm good at, that I enjoy doing and that I know my audience will digest, such as this podcast. Now, the next thing you want to do so that you're not just blindly doing these activities is you want to measure your data and you want to see what's working, working and what's not working so that you can do more of what works and obviously less of what doesn't work. Don't just keep blindly doing stuff without any feedback from that. So use your data to help inform the decisions that you make and also to try and see the trends so that, for example, if you're sending out emails, you can really see the ones that resonate. Remember that when we're producing content, we want to be really addressing our ideal target customer and the pains that they have and the gains that they're looking for and providing advice on how they can make that transformation. Now, a lot of what I'm talking about here is getting people into the top of your sales funnel. In other words, getting people to come into your world and want to start learning about you. And then of course, once they've come into your world, you need to make sure that you have nurturing content that will encourage them to move down the sales funnel till the point where they put up their hand and say, hey, I need to talk to you, because you have some products or services that might be able to help me. So think about the nurturing content. This is value added content that you add, you give to your audience once they're in your world. Remember, when someone comes into your world, there's three stages that they're going to be at. The first stage is, hey, I'm just getting to know you. You sound interesting, I'd like to know more. Then stage two is, you're providing me with some really great value. I know I'm going to buy from you one day. And then stage three is, hey, I'm ready to buy from you. Can we talk? And you need to make sure that you have your sales and marketing content to nurture people along that journey and encourage them to shift down the sales pipeline. Now, as I've said throughout this podcast and in other episodes as well. These types of strategies are medium to long term. They're not going to get you results really quickly, but if you start implementing them today, then you're going to start to see people shifting down that sales journey with you and getting to the point where they're reaching out to put your hands up. And the only way you're going to make this work successfully is if you do whatever you choose to do in a really consistent manner. And even when you're feeling demotivated, you stick at it and you're persistent and you use the data to help refine the messaging and refine your process. Sadly, I don't have any other shiny new objects, trendy sales and marketing tools and tips to give you today. Because the reality is that these processes, these approaches work and there isn't a magic way of doing it. A lot of people I speak to have tried to outsource the problem of business development. So they take on a business development agency or a telesales agency or a LinkedIn outreach agency and it doesn't really work for them. They speak a great game at the beginning, but then they don't always deliver. Now, of course, there will be some agencies that are absolutely fantastic, but my experience says that the best people to do your sales and marketing and your business development is you, the agency owner. And you can't really outsource that problem. Sure, you can delegate aspects of this to your team and you can definitely get the process part of this delegated down to somebody who can set it all up for you. But in terms of producing the content and coming up with the ideas and understanding who your audience is, that really is going to be best to come from you. And of course, when you get to the point of talking to your prospective customers again, you are absolutely the best person to do that. So I hope this gives you a bit of food for thought. If you're in the same boat as many of my agency clients and audience that I talk to and are finding that referrals and word of mouth is drying up, then you definitely need to start thinking today about some strategies to supplement that. Of course, we want to make sure that we are nurturing referrals and word of mouth that will always play an important part. But just remember that you can't rely on that. You don't know when they're going to come in, and you also don't know whether they're going to be the right quality or fit your ideal target customer. So taking a more proactive approach in addition to word of mouth and referrals is absolutely the way to go. Okay, so short episode. Hopefully some really value added bite sized thoughts for you to go away and start thinking about. And I'll see you next Thursday for the next episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast where we'll be having our next guest on. Meantime, have a brilliant weekend. Please subscribe to the podcast share and please leave a review. As I always say and I'll see you next week. Sam.