Interview with Dan Englander

In this week's episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast, we are talking all about new business and lead generation. We'll explore how the current environment has changed the way companies are doing lead generation and business development and how clients are buying agencies services. And there are some good pointers and advice in the episode that I'm sure you will find useful. So let's get on with today's show.

Accelerate your agency's profitable growth with tools, tips and value added interviews with your host agency owner and coach, Rob DaCosta.

So welcome to today's episode of the Agency Accelerator Podcast. I'm really excited to have Dan Inglino with me today and he is the CEO and founder of Sales Skill Schema, a new business team for marketing agencies. And he is also a fellow podcast host of the Digital Agency Growth podcast. And Dan is multi talented and he is also the author of Mastering Account management and the B2B sales blueprint. So Dan, how did I do introducing you and welcome to the Agency Accelerator Podcast.

Oh, that was perfect and succinct. So thank you so much Rob. Appreciate, appreciate it.

Is there any other background that you wanted to share with the listeners before, before we jump in?

Sure. Yeah. So, so my, my background, just for context, is originally on the account side for boutique social media agency in New York and kind of that got me into the space and worked on some consumer accounts like Monster Cable and Big Ten Network and mostly, you know, answered like, like customer response questions on the Facebook walls and pitched many an overlooked idea and then then kind of fell in the new business, got on thousands of sales calls over the course of a number of years and helped build a creative services slash animation studio up and helped win a bunch of big fancy accounts eventually after lots of learning and then started Sales Schema, which is, which is where I'm at now as far as more context there.

Fantastic. So tell, tell me a little bit about Sales Schema and what you do and typically who you help.

Yeah. So in a nutshell, you know, we are a lead generation firm for boutique ad agencies. And you know, I think a lot of the times the word lead generation or that that sort of cottage industry gets put into a ghetto. I think there's lots of people that are unscrupulous that are claiming that, you know, you put in a token and out comes the business sort of thing. And essentially, you know what, what we're doing is, is doing targeted outreach in a tasteful way for our clients to kind of get them meetings at scale and, and usually the reason for that and where we're filling in is we're working with an agency that has often done incredible work, but has essentially built themselves up on referrals and personal networks and gets to a point where that's not sustainable anymore. And once that point happens, there's lots of floundering because there's just lots of different options. There's a buffets of marketing and internal systems, sales ideas that you can implement. And the, the hardest thing is, is picking one that's going to work and being consistent about it. So in our experience, you know, our philosophy, there's lots of things that can work well, but I think the one that's a really good starting place and one that should probably be a part of, you know, the arsenal is, is outreach is basically knocking on doors and building relationships. And that is. Is easier to do than I think a lot of agencies think, based on the experience that most agencies have. You know, most of the clients we work with have incredible case studies and portfolios and so on. And it's just about getting in touch with their clients in the right way. And of course, that's where the challenge comes in. That's what we're really good at. And what we put a lot of thought into is, is doing that in a way that's tasteful and that's actually going to keep the pipeline full long term. So that's kind of what we're doing and who we're serving, basically.

Yeah. And it's a really interesting point that you made because I had this very conversation this morning with a potential client who is a branding agency. And I always, you know, if I'm on a fact find call with a potential new client, I will always ask them, how do you get your business? And invariably they will tell me that they've built their business based on referrals. And they probably got to a point where those referrals have started drying up or they recognize that they have no control over the number of referrals they get or the quality of those referrals. And so they're kind of at that point where they, you know, can't brag anymore to say, I've built all my business on referrals, but they actually now need to think about having a strategy in place for business development that they haven't had to have before.

Right, right, exactly. And I think that it's a little bit like jumping into cold water. And I think that there's like, understandably a lot of hubris on it because on one hand the agency's had A lot of experience, you know, they've done a lot. And, and sometimes there's this, this fault. There's not, not, not a false sense of accomplishment, but there is, there's cognitive dissonance because there is actual real accomplishment on one hand. But on the other hand, the agency sometimes over the course of decades has never really had to sell themselves to people that don't know them or are problem aware, but not yet solution aware. So that's really what our whole value prop is all about is it's not a magical machine that's going to make you money in five days, but it's going to help you swim in the col, actually having to sell yourself in a way that's, that's better, faster, cheaper than the alternatives, basically.

Sure. So no, I completely agree. And if, if, if you were running an agency or you were advising an agency that had reached that kind of crossroads where they realized that referrals aren't going to be enough to grow their agency or because of the current economic environment, they've dried up. What's your advice to those people who are like I say, at that crossroads?

Yeah, it's a good question. So I think the best starting foundation, I know this is something that, that you cover a lot, Rob, with, with, with all the, the consulting you're doing and something that a lot of people in our space talk about, but it's true. And that's, that's specialization or, or some, you know, some version of specialization, even if it's not necessarily niching to an industry figuring out, you know, specifically who you serve and who you don't. And from there that makes, you know, doing outreach and that makes not just outreach, all the other marketing and sales tactics a whole lot easier. You know, so that's really the first starting place is really, you know, having the courage to specialize. And from there, once we're getting tactical, you know, once we're getting into the things that we do, I think, you know, even if somebody never hires us, I want this interview to be valuable, obviously. And I think the best place is just getting, you know, getting your data house in order. Like chances are that the lowest hanging fruit are the people that you might have talked to last month or 90 days ago. So oftentimes we're starting with, you know, re engagement campaigns, getting back and just simply contacting people and asking them what decision they made. You know, we talked a few months ago, haven't heard from you since then. I was just curious, which way did you go? And nine times out of Ten. The answer is going to be, we haven't done anything at all. You know, it's like, well, maybe we should talk then. So. So I think that's often a good starting place. From there, it's just really getting specific on the who first before you do anything else, before you think about channels or copy or fancy machines, it's just figuring out who it is that you can help.

Yeah. And you know, you're singing off exactly the same hymn sheet as me because I'm always banging the drum about the importance of niching. And of course, if you don't have a clear niche, then it becomes much harder to identify the who. Whereas if you're really clear about who your, your target niche is, you can become much clearer about your ideal target customer and therefore clearer about who you help. And you know why they would come to you.

Right, right, exactly. And that's, you know, there's a lot of unpredictability in our campaigns, but there's. The one thing that has been consistent is we just do better when an agency specialized and when you go to their site and it's super clear who they serve and there's case studies as opposed to what you often see, which is a Noah's ark of different projects on the portfolio page. And what I find to be just continuously surprising is that I'll have probably four to five conversations a week at least with agencies, and I'll talk to agencies where they'll tell me 80% of our business is in CPG. And then I'm like, well, then why is your site only have like 10% of it accounting for CPG? Like, why not double down on that? And then they'll say, well, we have, you know, one client that doesn't fit the mix and we don't want to piss them off. Or it's like, I get that, but at the same time, you know, I think there's going to be more risk and more, more money left on the table by, by not having the courage to niche.

Why, why is it that so many agencies are really scared to commit to that? Because I find exactly the same thing. People tell you one thing, but they're, they're not quite, they're not quite brave enough. I think you, you used the word courage earlier. They're not, they don't have the courage to completely nail their colors to the mask and say, this is who we are and this is where we show up. They almost feel like if they do that, they're missing out on something else. But then the truth of it is, of course they're not winning the something else either.

Yeah, I think it's variable, but I think the most common thing is that they have relationships with some client that doesn't fit the mix. And then there's lots of catastrophizing. I think there's lots of stories that are being told to oneself about what's going to happen if that client goes onto the website and sees something that doesn't fit the bill or something like that. I think that's a fair concern and I can sympathize and I'm sure I've been there and saw at some point. At the same time, I think that that's over exaggerated a little bit. I think that if you're doing well for a client that doesn't fit the mix and you set the expectation with them, like, hey, we're moving in this direction. We still have dedicated resources for you. It's still the same team. Nothing's changing. You're still, you know, our, our first girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever. Like you're still front of mind for us. Then you know, if assuming things are already going well or better for that client, I don't think you're, you're going to stand to lose them. And as you know, somebody we both might know, Jerry McClelland talks about there's always going to be a junk drawer of people that don't quite fit the mix. But beyond that, you know, the, the risk you're taking by not doing it, by not niching or specializing is just so much more than actually having the courage to try something and see if it works, basically. So I think that's what we see anyway.

Yeah, and I think I concur with that. I say to people, look, you need to show up in the world in the niche that you specialize in and show up as a real subject matter expert. But that doesn't stop you taking on work outside of that niche. You just have to make a very informed decision if you want to take on a piece of work that isn't in your core wheelhouse because it might be harder to service, but there might be a reason for it because you really like the people or because you believe you can do a great job for them. So I think, you know, now kind of marshall up in that niche. But remember, that doesn't stop you taking on the work. It just means you're going to tell the world this is who you are.

Yeah, exactly. And then I think, you know, if the pandemic has done anything, it's created a lot of agencies that are trying to day trade, essentially is what I call it, which is, you know, we've gotten lots of questions to the effect of like, what's hot right now? You know, where, where's their growth? Where should I focus my, my services? And it's like, if you're asking that question now, it's, it's, it's sort of the wrong question to ask. And it's, it's also kind of late because whatever agency doubled down on that area five years ago is the one that's going to be winning right now, you know, and that's because marketing buyers are savvy. They can tell if an agency really understands their space and if they haven't. And if there's one thing that I've learned is that you can never underestimate how long it takes to understand a particular market. And that's not to say there aren't transferable skills and that some things are completely agnostic just based on the human wiring, you know, but, but there's certainly a lot that goes into that. So, you know, I think the better question to ask, and this is something that, you know, Peter Drucker and other greats have pontificated about a lot, is asking the question, where can I be useful? But instead, what we hear a lot of is like, well, we want to focus on this niche because that's what sounds like it's fun, will be fun, and we want to do new stuff all the time, and we want our, our employees to, you know, work, do compelling work. And it's just like, I think that's the, the wrong way to think about it. I think if you're useful, then the, you're going to make your clients happy and then that's going to be compelling and then you're going to find ways to innovate based on your understanding of a particular area. And that's going to be fun for everyone, you know, but it takes, it takes a certain order, and that's, that's kind of our thinking on it anyway. Am I thinking on it?

Yeah, I completely agree. I think if someone is kind of running away from what they're currently doing because it's not working, then they probably need to stop and look at what they're doing rather than running towards something that seems sexy and sort of the shiny new object, but probably isn't going to solve, you know, solve any of the challenges that they have. I mean, talking. It was one of the questions I was going to ask you later. But since you mentioned it, it's worth asking. Now talking of the coronavirus, what impact have you seen that have on your business and the way your clients are trying to get new business at the moment, or has it had any impact?

Yeah, it's a good question. And you know, there's lots of tea leaf reading. It's kind of hard to figure out what's going on everywhere. The one thing that I will say is we certainly haven't gotten fewer meetings for clients than we normally do. And in some cases we've gotten a lot more. Whether people are spending money or not. That's very context dependent. I think that predictably there's some areas that have gotten hit hard. Events, you know, we've had some clients get hit pretty hard there. Others, you know, digital services, ROI centric marketing services have done better. I think that, you know, if, if anything, the, the agencies that we work with that have a real sales mindset and that are, have good processes in order and that are staying ahead of, you know, the conversations they might have had weeks or months ago or the ones that are doing a lot better and the ones that are, I would say that the clients that have hired us after the pandemic hit, after that wave crash overall have fit that bill a lot more because they have the mindset of we need to be doing this rain or shine. So, you know, there's, there's a lot going on there that's, but that's kind of, kind of what we've seen. And beyond that, you know, back to the first point of more meetings happening or at least not fewer. I think that, and I've talked about this a lot, in a lot of ways, everybody is an outsider now because everybody's remote. So there were a lot of sort of, there's a lot of conventional thinking or sacred cows going on where it's like XYZ marketing task. We can never outsource that. That has to be handled in house. And this is from the brand standpoint. And I do think that's being rethought now because now it's sort of like, well, we're all remote, we're all outsiders. So perhaps there is a group of specialists somewhere that can do this better than we can. So I do think that that's going to be, you know, a big opportunity for, for agencies that are positioned the right way.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think in a way, you know, when this is going on, I was just speaking to a client earlier today and they've just recently lost a couple of Big clients of theirs and they are going to be in the, in the red for the first time ever in the history of running their agency. And they're a bit panicked about that. But I'm like, guys, you know what you've got to do is not panic. You've got to create a plan. You've got to double down on business development. You've got to identify the things that work for you and do more of them and not get distracted by all of the shiny objects of things you could do. And you know, it's interesting, you said something earlier and I just made a note to say that, you know, at the end of the day, the old approaches, in quotes of sort of the old sales and marketing approaches are still the ones that work the best. Right. You can have all these new things come along. Like, I mean, I say new things like an old fuddy duddy like social media, but at the end of the day, you know, setting up meetings, email marketing, reaching out and staying in contact with people are all those business development things that will always keep working. They may not be the sexy things or the thing at the moment, but they're the things that really still work.

Yeah, that's, that's exactly our experience as well. And I think that, you know, to an extent, to talk about channels a little bit, email is anti fragile. You know, we've had all these social media platforms and they've, you know, I guess recently there hasn't been one to fade, but they've definitely changed a lot. And I think that there's lots of people that have built up, you know, followings on different social media platforms and then taken on lots of platform risks because then these platforms change and you don't exactly own that audience anymore. But nobody owns email. It's, it's attempted. People try to control it, you know, Google, Microsoft, etc. Try to control the inbox. But ultimately the reason that email works is that you can send a message to somebody that you don't know and vice versa. And it's where business is done, it's where we schedule our time, it's where we do our work. So it's something that, you know, we've really doubled down on. And I think that it's changed for the better. I think that it's harder to spam people. So that means a lot of our campaigns are much more targeted. We might be contacting, you know, a short list of 50 people a week. But, but, you know, like you said, Rob, I think that ultimately because of all the noise and because of how much competition there is for attention, there is, you know, a real premium on personalization and. Which is a fancy way of saying, you know, making people feel like they're actually being talked to, making people feel like they. They're special in a way, and that. That you care enough to do your homework. And that's. That's a lot of where our outreach is sort of. That's a lot. That's. That's, you know, where we've sort of moved our strategies over time, I'd say so. Like you said, I think that whenever I'm like, rereading, you know, sales and marketing books, I'm looking at Breakthrough Copywriting by Gene Schwartz. I'm looking at the old stuff, because the new stuff, you know, it's nine times out of 10 and perhaps I'm part of this, is somebody. Somebody selling something, somebody selling their software, somebody selling their unique method. And I really like to look back on what stood the test of time at this point, so. Totally agree.

I'm always banging the drum to my clients about the importance of building their email lists. And even if they're starting from zero, which no one is really, because everybody can easily come up with 100 contacts that they know, but they need to be nurturing those lists and adding to them and providing value and showing up so that when those people on their list are ready to buy, they are remembering that agency. But it's amazing how people don't do that. I think a lot of people don't really know. It's like you said at the beginning, they relied on referrals, they stopped working, and then they don't really know what to do.

Right. And I think. I think, you know, it's a lot. It's a lot of peeling back onion layers. Like, I think what's. What's sort of ironic is that the agencies, you know, is the classic cobbler's children thing. We know we talk about that a lot, but they're creating such incredible ideas and projects and work for their clients. But then when it comes to selling themselves, a lot of people get stuck in this sort of template model, right? Where it's like there's some guru or there's some software company that says, here's how you do this thing. And I think what's. What's sort of underappreciated about sales and about B2B sales and marketing is it can be creative, it can be fun. You don't have to write the same email everybody else is writing. And that's that's really what works is, is injecting is, is, you know, like sort of injecting some creativity and fun into, into the process. You know, you can, you can do things differently and they'll probably work better. There are some technical considerations and so forth, and there's always best practices, but I think that's underappreciated a lot of the time.

Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, one thing I always tell my clients, look, if you're writing an email or a blog or something, use voice to text because you want to capture the tone of voice of your style of speaking and get it into your writing. Because your clients or your audience want to have a consistent experience, experience with you. So they don't want you to show up in a very corporate way in your writing, and then they meet you and you're a jeans T shirt kind of wearing type person. So that kind of authentic approach across all of your communications, I think is super important. And that, of course, gives you the opportunity to be a bit more playful in how you write as well.

Yeah, I think you touched on sort of like an interesting sidebar of what is the role of casualness? You know, because it used to be that. Maybe not used to be, but there's a point in which, like, you know, the agency, there are a lot of agencies trying to be cool, right? Like, like we're gonna get hired because we're the cool kids and we're gonna offer like a fresh, whatever, Gen X, millennial, whatever the, the particular area era is approach to your brand. And then that's why they got hired. But, but now, like, that's, that's been so done and so tired out that I, I, I, I wonder, like, is, is everyone just casual now? Because now we're all remote. What, like, what is the role of formality? Like, what's the role of the collared shirt at this point? You know, Like, I'd love to, I don't want to flip the interview on you too much, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Like, where you think that's going?

Yeah, that actually, you know what, it's really funny because I actually put a polo shirt on today because I'm doing, you know, and I thought, I thought about this, like, if I was going to visit my clients, I would always be kind of, you know, wearing a pair of chinos and a shirt or a polo shirt or something. And then since we've been in lockdown, I've been pair of shorts and T shirt and a lot of the time I'm showing up to my clients like that as well, and they are as well. So I think, yeah, I think I always thought that we should be trying to match our clients. So, you know, there's no point showing up wearing a certain tie if my clients a T shirt, jeans type company because they're going to think, well, you don't get me. So I've always thought that we should match our clients and of course we should attract the clients that match us as well, I guess. I think it's changed quite a lot in lockdown. I don't know whether it's because I become lazy or complacent or everybody else has or maybe we're judging people less on that at the moment.

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what I've seen too. And I definitely agree in terms of, in terms of the importance of matching. You know, I think that's, there's definitely, you know, something, there's definitely dissonance that happens when you're, you're way underdressed compared to a client in a suit or something like that. And then there's, reminds me of, there's a great quote by Eric Weinstein which is if you have, if you have radical ideas, dress conservatively. So I think that's another thing.

Yeah. So now let's just moving the conversation on a bit. I'm just interested to know when you start working with a client, how do you get under the skin of where they're at, what their assets are, what they need, who their target client is and so on?

Yeah, it's a good question. And that's definitely the, the hardest part of the process and the, the part that we do not rush. You know, we want to get it right. But the, the short answer is figuring out what they're really good at. And often, sometimes they know, usually they don't. Usually what they think people hire them for is actually the, the thing that people only get to experience after they've work, not before they've worked with them. A lot of the times agencies do not know why people hire them. So what that means is getting, is getting tangible, getting to something that will jump out in the email and, and you know, make people at least want to have a conversation. Because ultimately we're never going to convince somebody to buy from an email or LinkedIn message or quick phone call, you know, whatever channel we're using. So, so that's, that's really the first thing. And again, back to specialization. It's super tangible stuff. You know, we we do this sort of thing for this sort of person. We have this interesting project. I want to talk to you about something that people can really wrap their heads around. Mixed with that, you know, I think secondary to that is building up the authority of the person who is doing that, that conversation, you know, so it's different. This is where I think the, the agency world is a little idiosyncratic and different than the rest of the sales world. So if you're in the classic enterprise sales world like software etc, there's this sort of BDR model, right, where you have, you have hoops that different prospects have to jump through in order to make it work. And that's because the software itself is, is the interesting thing. Like that's the, that's the draw. That's why people are coming to the show. I want to try out this piece of software and I want to buy so you can have this sort of division of duties model where somebody has to jump through the BDR to get to the account executive to get to a close. Now we do a similar thing because division of duties is still important and we do want to have different people doing different things at the same time. The draw, the hook in a prospect talking to an agency is them getting to talk to somebody who has some authority, who's interesting, who has experience, who's essentially the wizard of Oz. So that means that when we do campaigns, we're either, you know, doing it as the person who's going to be on the conversation or selling that person's time. So if that's you, you know, building campaigns in house, you, you know, you want to position yourself as an expert again on, back to specialization on a particular area. So I think a lot of the times, to answer your question, it's us figuring out the best way to do that. And even if that's getting fancy or crazy and giving them a different title, you know, or a tagline on LinkedIn or whatever it might be, that stuff definitely matters.

Do you ever find that a client tells you they want A, but when you start digging beneath the surface when you're doing this initial onboarding that you find out it's not A, it's B that they need?

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that's, that's why when we, when we hear like, what makes you a client for you? And they say, you know, growth stage fintech startups, between this and that amount, we're like, why? And it's like, well, it just looks like, it looks like there's lots of growth there and you'd like to bounce to that area or whatever it might be, then we have to say, you know, okay, you know, we can do an expeditionary mission, but that's got to be 10% of our, that's got to be an experiment. You know, we, we, we're not going to focus our energy on a new area for you because you don't, you don't know. We don't know if you can close deals there yet. And if you don't close deals, you're not going to be very happy with us in the long term and this isn't going to work. So, so, you know, the first thing is us figuring out like, where, where have you actually had the most success? Like where do you actually know something that most agencies don't? Because the fact of the matter is there's, there's just so many agencies, there's no shortage of agencies out there. So we've got to really figure out where, you know, where our clients are strong. So, so yeah, I mean, we often are finding out that the thing that's been the flavor of the last month at the agency is not where we're likely to have the most success. And to be honest, a lot of the times we get it wrong. A lot of the times we have to do different experiments to figure out what the market actually wants. And that might mean bouncing between, you know, a couple similar verticals or whatever over the, over the first few months of a campaign to figure out where it actually is going to hit.

Yeah, and I guess that's part of the process. And it sounds to me like that that's probably something that sets you apart from other kind of just core lead gen agencies because you're doing more than just, you know, picking up the phone and setting up meetings for them. You're actually understanding what they're trying to achieve and working out the best route to achieving that for the client.

Yeah, that's what we're going for. And I think that this is a, this is a bigger problem than just the sort of B2B legion space. I think you see this everywhere and it's, there's a lot of, you know, bad incentives that make it, you know, so that if you're selling consulting software, whatever it might be, that you want to have this sort of machine. Right. That's a one size fits all model where again, you put in the token and out comes the business. And the fact is we all kind of know intuitively that we're solving a hard problem here and our whole value Prop is trying to make it easier, trying to make it less hard and, you know, better, faster, cheaper than the alternatives. And I think that that's whether it's, it's, that happens to be what we're doing, but I think that that can apply to all of our clients and what they're selling as well. And that again, that becomes a lot easier when you focus on a particular area. And the fact is, you know, when, when there are these sort of like fancy software solutions or there's, you know, the hot new social media channel that's generating a lot of business. Even if that's true, even if there are easy wins, there's, there's going to be lots of people flocking to that green grass and it's not going to be green for very long. You know, there's a great article and it's the law of crappy click through rates. It's the, the S word by, I think somebody was writing for Paul Graham's blog, I want to say Silicon Valley blog. And so it's a really great article. It's from like 10 or 15 years ago, but it really goes into that and it actually ties it to empirical data for like, you know, why these green pastures tend to fade. So again, you know, like a lot of our clients are, we're, we're playing the long game. We're, we're going for, you know, making hard problems less hard basically. And I think that agencies that are, that are genuine about doing the same thing are going to win over the long run.

Yeah, I think so. To summarize that if we live in a world of information overload, where all these tech and different social media channels are fighting for our attention, and I certainly have been through this where you're signed up to all sorts of things, all sorts of alerts and newsletters and email lists and you're getting bombarded by the new sexy, shiny thing. But the truth of it is, if it sounds too good to be true, then it almost always is. And at the end of the day, the old approaches to business development, to marketing, to lead gen are the ones that still work. The outreach, the email marketing appointment setting, building awareness, building empathy, building trust. Before people will, you know, buy from us.

Exactly, exactly. And I think that the, the biggest ingredient there is consistency. I mean, I think the, I was just joking with our team the other day. It's like the magical ingredient to all of our campaigns is just time. Sometimes we get a whole bunch of meetings for clients or opportunities and proposals, you know, proposal stage stuff. And we can't figure out why something hit. And then we look at it and it's like, well, for whatever reason, things just kind of tend to hit around month four or five, you know, and that's just. It's just because we've. We've been added enough. And I think that if you're doing this in house or whatever, that's. That's the biggest thing, is staying consistent. Because a lot of the times, as you know, Rob, in the agency world, people are in split roles. There aren't. There is. There often aren't dedicated sales roles. And if they are, those salespeople are usually juggling a bunch of stuff that's not, you know, really mission critical or it's. They're juggling client accounts. And I think the main thing is just staying on it. And with. If we've. If we. If we've accepted that as something that's got to happen, then it's sort of about, well, how do you stay motivated? And I think that what's demotivating a lot for agencies is kind of thinking about sales as having to put somebody into a process or having to, like, make somebody do something, having to, like, fight this uphill battle of convincing somebody to buy, when really it's more about just engaging in these conversations and building enough new relationships. And with that, you know, either selling, teaching, or learning. Right? If you can't sell, then you're teaching. If you can't teach, then you're at least learning so that you can teach yourself. And I think that's a much more motivating mindset for this sort of thing than a lot of the alternatives.

Yeah, absolutely. We have to be in this for the long game. I just. I've been working with a coach myself recently, and one of the things he got me to do was to do some analysis of my email list and my analytics and so on to work out what the typical sales cycle is for me from someone kind of coming into my world to the point where they buy. And I almost fell off my chair when I finished doing this research and realized that it's. The average sales cycle for me is 13 months. So that means it's 13 months from someone coming into my world learning with me to buying from me. And therefore, that's such a powerful reminder that we need to be really consistent of what we do in our marketing or our business development if we want to nurture people. I mean, obviously everyone's sales cycle is different, but if mine's 13 months, I've got to nurture someone for 13 months until the point when they're ready to buy and they jump out and say, hey Rob, I want to buy from you. Be.

Yeah, exactly. And, and, and I'm guessing our offerings, you know, aren't the same investment as many of our clients that are probably into the six and seven, seven figure realm. And of course those sales cycles are even longer typically. So you know, that. And I think that a lot of the times there's sort of a warped view of sales cycles where it's like, well, we get an RFP and then we close it and that's like two weeks where it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. There was, there was probably a genesis of a year of planning and work that went in to, you know, a brand making a decision to hire an agency. It's just, it's just in the ether and you don't see it. So.

Yeah. And of course if you want to be on that RFP list, you've got to have been nurturing that prospect for a while before because if you're not on their radar already, they're not going to even pick you to send out the RFP to.

Right. And, and you're probably seeing this too, but it seems like every agency we talk to does not want to deal with RFPs, understandably. And I think that the RFP process is kind of antiquated. I think it's kind of based on an old model where an agency or a brand would be with an agency for decades, like on Mad Men, and obviously that's over. So, you know, there's lots of, I think comparable industries where the RFP process isn't as big, where, you know, agencies are paid for their work, paid for their ideas. So I think that more and more that process is fading. It's not gone, I don't think it'll ever go away. But the agencies that we're seeing winning are the ones that are pitching tangible projects and finding ways to get started on something to get people in the door in some, some low risk way. And I think that that trend is just going to continue.

I think that trend together with the trend of moving away from the retainer based model and a bit more towards project based especially I think the virus has done that because I think a lot of people are committing to work still, but smaller time periods rather than, you know, year long retainers.

Right, right. And you know, reminds me of a conversation I had with, with your fellow countryman Roy Sutherland, you might know, know, on our show a while back and you know what made me think of him was just so much of this stuff is about packaging and he, he made a great point that like we sort of, we somehow tend to function with this under this sort of like understanding that B2B is like rational and behaves according to like rules that the consumer market doesn't and the consumer market's crazy, but we're all sane when that couldn't be further from the truth. And I think, you know, even in B2B a lot of this stuff is about packaging and the idea of just sort of open ended retainer based models I think are going to be scarier and scarier to brands especially you know, in the context of a down economy and so on. But you can essentially kind of create the same thing. Like if your average client tenure is X, maybe you're just creating a project model that happens to have a similar investment or run over a similar time frame or whatever it might be, but yet your close rate might go up. And I'm just sort of riffing here, I'm not saying that's going to be everyone, but something I can.

Sorry to interrupt you. I completely agree with that. I think the word retainer puts a lot of people off and actually you can create exactly the same thing and you can sometimes create greater value by you know, doing the same thing, but via projects that last longer or grow and evolve over time. So I completely agree with you. Right, let me ask you my sort of final question that I ask all of my guests on here, which is if you could go back in time and give your younger self, your younger, who's just starting out in business, some advice, what would that advice be?

Yeah, it's a great question and I, I, I've got to worry because mine's pretty cliche, but I think I would just say be patient. You know, it's marathon, not SP sprints sort of thing and try to enjoy yourself a little bit more. Try to be less stressed all the time about trying to, to make some super successful business within a week or whatever. I think that's, that's probably the main advice I give myself.

Oh, the sort of joys of naive youth. But you know, it's good advice. I mean it's, it might be cliche but hey, that's the stuff that really is truthful. And I've had some good feedback on from people about that question I'm asking. And at some point I need to go back through all of my interviews and gather them all into one place and look for whatever the common themes are. So, Dan, if people want to find out more about you and sales schema, where should they go?

Yeah. Salesschema.com Sales and Sales and schemas and schematic. We just did a big webinar and we have the recording up if anybody's interested in interested in that and that. It's basically saleschema.com crisis prospecting, one word. And basically what that is is kind of how we've shifted up strategies in terms of tone, in terms of copy, in terms of the channels we're using and gotten into real tangible case studies and stuff. So if you're interested in perhaps diying some of what we're doing, I think that'll be super useful. So again, saleschema.com crisis prospecting, one word.

Fantastic. Okay, so I'll put that, that link in the show notes and I just want to say thank you so much for your time today. It's been really useful and I'm sure that the listeners will have found some great tidbits of advice from this.

Likewise, Robbie. I had a lot of fun and I really appreciate it.

So there you have it.

I'm sure you'll agree with me that Dan was a great guest and there was some really useful information in there. As ever, please feel free to share this episode with your colleagues and please consider leaving a review since it helps with the search engine rankings. Have a fantastic last couple of days of the week and a great weekend, and I'll see you again next Thursday for the next episode of the Agency Accelerator podcast.