New business: narcissism and SEO

To my mind there are two reasons to blog: narcissism and SEO.

As I scroll back through the tens of blog posts I’ve authored, I’m not wondering how many people have read it (I know it’s just you, mum) no, all I’m hoping is that all this unique content has bumped us up the SEO ranks. The sad truth is I write for Google. I am Google’s bitch. It is what it is.

The really galling part is that I actually take a bit of trouble over these posts. I make long lists of subjects on which I think I have something to say, and then I’ll write, re-write, edit, abandon, revisit, fine-tune, etc etc, before finally posting. I CARE. No, really. I actually do. It’s heart-breaking.

So make sure that you don’t kid yourself. It doesn’t matter to Google what you’re writing, just that you ARE writing and that it’s unique content. No one is going to use the sentence “Five Danish otters saunter through the blazing heat of Dame Jennifer Gimlet’s tree-themed fountain park” today, so I win. Go on Google. Bump me up why don’t ya - that sentence alone has got to be worth two spots up the table!

If, however, you genuinely think you’re a guru, then fill your boots. Poop your knowledge all over Google. Smear it up the face of LinkedIn. All your peers will no doubt ‘like’ your post regardless of what you say, and if they’ve got one hand free might even comment with incredibly thoughtful replies such as “nice one Dean - you’re not wrong” and “Dean, you are my God” so you will immediately be validated by people just as useless as you are.

Words, words and - dare I venture - more words.

If we’re talking about the opening paragraph on your home page then it matters. A LOT.

If, however, you’re just blogging into the void, safe in the knowledge that only the person who commissioned you to write it is reading it (morning Steve) then just get the job done. Write something you won’t be embarrassed by, but don’t spend too long on it. Google is a fickle mistress; she’ll notice you (as someone might notice a small spider on a coffin) make whatever adjustments are required to acknowledge your meagre effort, and then be done with you, discarding you like an empty Snickers bar wrapper or an exercise bike that’s become a clothes horse for the last nine years (another excellent unique sentence I think you’ll agree).

Cat. Pound coin. John Menzies. Paralegal. Barry Norman. Finger. Regina Phalange.

Do enjoy your garden.

Beyond the horse's mouth

I’m often asked why I left the video games industry - which is a fair question considering I’d spent some 15 years trying to progress my career, hit the dizzying ‘heights’ of European Marketing Director for a company called Midway Games (if you know anyone who likes pulling video character’s spines out with Mortal Kombat, that’s my fault that is) and then walked away to make poker tables in my garage while running down a very generous gardening leave allowance.

Apart from the fact that I felt like I’d run out of new things to learn, I mostly left due to the frustrations of working AS AN EXPERT with people who WANTED AN EXPERT but who then (magically) KNEW BETTER THAN AN EXPERT.

I have a billion related anecdotes, but a general recurring issue was having, say, an American supplier come to me and ask how best to release a title in Italy. My experience was pretty good in the Italian market but luckily, my ITALIAN team had LOADS of experience in ITALY (which is why I kept them around). So we got our heads together and put together a plan for success in Italy. The American MD in question was very grateful for our detailed and sensible plan… and then disregarded it completely, did exactly what he’d do for an American market, and failed in oh so many beautiful ways. The cultural tone was completely wrong, the imagery was way off the mark, and various decisions on timings were completely against our recommendations.

When things crashed and burned he asked why it had gone so horribly wrong. We could have given him a detailed breakdown of why, but this simple answer was: ‘you sought out experts, and then ignored them’.

A similar incident involved being totally ignored (by Americans again - sorry America!) when I recommended against releasing a jet ski game in a country where I knew (but apparently the Americans didn’t) jet skiing was frowned upon and in the process of being regulated due to some horrendous accidents. Telling them this changed nothing, so they released an average game into a market that wouldn’t talk about, advertise or promote an activity. Needless to say, I had the last laugh (I didn’t actually; I was just aware how smug I was sounding). #partridge

The point (finally) is… in any walk of life, if you’re lucky enough to have experts on hand to assist you in a task, TRUST THEM. If I walk into a dentist’s and he tells me I need a filling, I don’t challenge him. I don’t insist he proves it. I TRUST HIM. He is the expert. “Thank god you’re here!” I say. “Thank god you can stop the pain!”. (I also don’t tell him “I was rather hoping for a new hip”, but that’s for another blog about moving goal posts).

I’m stunned when a failing restaurant owner calls in Gordon Ramsay (therefore acknowledging they need some expert help) and then argue the toss over every point. “I think our food’s great” BUT YOU’RE FAILING! “I think our staff are great” BUT YOU’RE FAILING!

Don’t be a kitchen nightmare; if you need an expert’s help then 1) good on you for dispensing with ego and asking for help, and 2) DON’T IGNORE IT.

Happy hunting.

By now you should've somehow realised what you gotta do

I used to teach kids to play guitar. Before I even taught my first lesson I asked a few music teachers I knew for tips. One trumpet teacher told me: “make sure they can go home and play something to their parents after every lesson.” The logic being that if the parents could see something was being achieved they’d keep sending little Johnny back for more (and nothing impresses a parent more than Wonderwall on the trumpet, apparently).

The problem with this approach was that rather than focusing on the fundamentals and scales (the kinds of things that would actually bring long-term success) it meant you were constantly trying to take short cuts as the lesson drew to a close, worried that if Johnny went home and showed his folks “yet another bloody scale” his dad would knock it on the head and send him to ballet instead.

The problem is, as with anything worthwhile in life, there’s rarely a ‘fast track’ route that’s sustainable or ultimately rewarding. I’d rather be honest and say “it’s going to be five weeks of scales before we even look in Wonderwall’s direction.” That way, at least you know what to expect, and when it takes five weeks to get to something sexy, it’s no surprise.

It’s a weird metaphor I know, but we have a similar stance when telling clients what to expect when they bring us onboard to boost their new business returns. If we fall over ourselves to “play you a tune you’ll like” after one month, we’re probably not actually doing a very good job with the fundamentals (in this case, not so much scales, more database management, research, collateral creation, quality of outreach, etc.).

So if we pitch to you and tell you it’ll possibly take six months to bring in the first win if we do things right, PLEASE don’t agree unless you actually agree. If, once we get started, we remind you it’ll possibly be six months before the first win is in the bank, again, please don’t nod and smile in agreement… ESPECIALLY if after three months you then wet the bed and give up because you haven’t won anything.

If you keep doing that, we’ll just teach you Wonderwall (metaphorically speaking) and you’ll end up with a really naff and unsustainable new business campaign. Oh, and one song (on guitar or trumpet - your choice).

Be prepared to change your trousers (especially if it gets the job done)

An interesting point of resistance we regularly face with clients is the reluctance to let go of an imagined self-identity. This happens even if 1) the agency is the only one apparently aware of (and married to) this identity, 2) clinging onto it isn’t exactly working a treat anyway, and 3) we’re guaranteeing a stone-cold improvement in results if the agency in question relaxes its stance.

Some agencies see themselves as working exclusively with - for instance - luxury brands, or in fashion, or tell everyone they’re specialists in the construction sector. What a shame; imagine all the invoices you could send out if you opened yourself up to sectors ‘beneath’ you.

Don’t be defined by the work you’ve done (or the work you’d rather only be doing); instead look at that unique group of people in your office (and your people really are the ONLY unique thing you can ever boast about) understand what they are just brilliant at delivering, and then think not about where they’ve been successful so you can fight for more of that, but how you could change shape slightly, change your trousers (even if it’s ditching the metaphorical tweed for ripped jeans) and start profiting as a flexible business that changes shape depending upon which configuration will most appeal to the prospect being targeted.

Create creds or sections of your website that make you look the way you want to look to a specific audience. Then invite them in and reap the rewards of being smart enough to know it’s not how you want to look that matters.

You can always change your trousers again tomorrow.

What you can get from Sponge NB

Everything we do is done to find you new clients. We do the obvious things (I’ll list some of them below) and we do some less obvious things (I’ll list some of them below). We cost the same as hiring a full-timer and you get a fully-functioning business development department.

THINGS WE'LL DO

-    Research your prospects properly before contacting them.
-    Research you properly before contacting anyone for you.
-    Make really smart, non-salesy calls. Ask questions on those calls. Listen a lot on those calls. Not make too many of those calls.
-    Write readable, snappy, professional emails. Individual ones. Not some bulk-mailer “look, we’ve discovered Mailchimp” email/newsletter that any prospect deletes immediately. 
-    Consult properly for you. We have a vastly experienced project manager and sales trainer to make things work well. We have an ex-Global Marketing Director and Copywriter here, so your written communications are remarkable. We're not bashing out calls here.
-    Build sensible, well-managed databases. Refresh them often. Update them constantly.
-    Report honestly and usefully. 
-    Never enshroud our efforts in meaningless stats, graphs and numbers designed to provide false reassurance and keep the project running, even if it really needs reviewing/improving/sacking off. If it needs fixing, we’ll say so. Loudly.
-    Make sure you never think “I wonder what Sponge are up to?”. Speak to you regularly, but concisely. You don’t have time for fluff. You do have time to know what’s working and what’s not.
-    Conduct a really enjoyable and informative briefing day. We don’t need to learn “what you do”. If that’s not clear on your web site, we’ll be helping to make sure it becomes clear. We want to know your people, culture, language, highs/lows, hobbies, least favourite client. The stuff we’d know if we worked there.
-    Offer the benefit of our owner Steve’s experience – 15+ years of agency business development.
-    Find opportunities worth having. If it’s a meeting, one with an agenda, where we’ve asked about budgets. We average a couple of those a month for clients (that’s a historic number, so it might not be what you get. Some very large clients have seen fewer, some clients have seen far more).
-    Help you follow up those opportunities. Not pester, just keep up to date with.
-    Offer training if you want it. You might not need it but we can help polish even a decent business developer’s approach.
-    Give you a chunk of code for your web site so we (and you) know which companies have been on your web site. 
-    Think of smart things to make things happen for you. For example, we found a way to increase the number of senior marketers at larger companies with whom we could secure conversations. It takes an hour or two and you can then use it every day forever. 
-    Sell you actual things we’ll really do - however fuzzy - rather than impossible promises. Whatever you think of our web site, our size, our clunky logo, our address or our team photos, give us a call and you’ll only ever be sold the things we do every day. No inflated outcomes, no crazy KPIs . Honesty. 
-    Celebrate the wins we find for you and genuinely beat ourselves up when we don’t win. Our culture is to give a hoot. 

If you’re doing well in your business development endeavours, call us. Don’t’ wait until things are going badly. We can’t wave a magic wand, nor will we be likely to find really quick wins. If things are going badly, we can help you plan the right next steps. When things are comfortably plateauing, or growing nicely, we’re in a great position to help grow your company using a sensible, sustained approach.
 

How did Business Development get such a horrible reputation?

Whether it's the band of Business Development Agencies (of which we're one), the endless Business Development freelancers or the super-keen in-house new business person, the choices an agency's MD has when choosing the right business development route are fraught with danger (in terms of more than just the money it costs - when it doesn't work out, it costs time and nudges an agency's plans back further and further).  There are many reasons a new business effort can fail, but there's one that is easy to solve and makes a big difference. It's a big part of the reasons than business development has the reputation it currently "enjoys". 

What is it?

Targets. Well, inappropriate targets. Too many Sales Managers, company bosses and Business Developers believe that the numbers game is how results are achieved. There are rooms full of talented, intelligent people being bellowed at, instant-messaged or emailed the same sentiment: MAKE MORE CALLS! I worked for a large membership organisation where 150 calls a day were demanded. That’s at the lower end of things. One of the Sponge NB (my Business Development Agency) team worked in a role where 300 calls a day was the task that greeted them  as they approached their desk. Hardly the sort of thing that’s going to result in motivated, enthusiastic workers. Numerical targets are of course the simplest way to measure a salesperson’s success. If they’re generating direct sales, selling memberships (or any other transaction) there and then on the phone, then counting the numbers at the end will of course tell you whether they sold a lot or a little. The problem is that they are unlikely to have achieved anything because of an arbitrary "higher is better" target. Intelligent, motivated business development people strive for more whether a target is there or not. They don't look to meet targets, they look for outcomes and then find the route to that outcome. 

The owner of a new business uses enthusiasm, relevant questioning, malleability of proposition, confidence, speed of speech, tone of voice and willingness to close. That's on every call, email or contact with a prospect. It barely matters how many times a day that happens, but what's certain is that "as many times as possible" isn't necessarily the right approach. Entrepreneurs finding their first few clients do things like "clear their head". They make time to research and understand each prospect. They build relationships with prospects until they don't really like calling them prospects (I've never thought of the little band of people I stay in touch with and show a genuine interest in as "prospects"). The progression from lead, through to client can often go via "friend" in some cases. Retrospectively that'll look just like "sales", but the term seems to sully the relationship that's there. Nonetheless, "sales" is what happened.

There's a problem - that can't happen 150-300 times a day. And so "prospects" don't hear the sort of approach that comes from someone actually giving a monkeys about them or their company. That awful approach will be the 10th one of the day. What chance do you think you've got?

But Business Development Agencies, freelancers and in-house Business Developers want to show the Agency boss that they're busy, so they smash out 150+ calls, filling reports with things like "Left a voicemail, calling back on Tuesday", as if that's any sort of outcome.

Targets need to be longer term and focused on outcomes. There's no point worrying about call stats beyond a fairly conservative number. We once resigned a client who called our Account Manager three times to find out how many calls they'd made since the last time they'd called her. It sounds extreme, but it can be seen in a great many agency owners. Targets are there to guide and then measure, not to destroy enthusiasm and morale, or to decide in isolation whether something/someone is working out. If the very targets you've put in place lead to irritated prospects and business developers, then what chance do your calls and emails have? 

Many people talk about "winning without pitching". It's essential to have an outbound sales effort, but it doesn't have to look like "pitching" often does. Sales shouldn't be adversarial - it should be conversational. Your outbound endeavours are tougher to convert than referrals, incoming leads or "little black book" wins, so make each approach count. If everyone's approach was well researched, properly qualified and as interested in what a prospect wants as it often is in blowing its own metaphorical trumpet, sales wouldn't have the horrible reputation it has.