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.

Why Marketing Directors are always angry.

THE UNFAIR TRUTH:

If a product does well, it’s because of the Sales Director. If a product doesn’t do well, it’s because of the Marketing Director. The packaging was all wrong. The demographic was way off. We should have spent less on outdoor and more online. We should have spent less online and more outdoor. We should have gone with that bold font and not italicised. Etcetera.

THAT is why Marketing Directors are always angry.

That’s also why Marketing Directors get furious when marketing agencies pretend to operate in 'The Same Space’.

If you look at a senior Marketing Director’s LinkedIn page you’ll probably see a few ‘likes’ per week or month, the odd “well done team” post, and lots of recruitment stuff.

If you look at any marketing agency boss’ LinkedIn page you’ll see them variously sharing photos of the latest word they’ve been paid thousands to change the font of, or - if you’re really lucky - find some click-desperate imbecile doing push-ups, singing or recreating his favourite movie scenes in a galling attempt to get as many ‘likes’ and ‘love’ from similarly spare-time-rich agency owners.

To quote a colleague: LinkedIn has become an agency circle-jerk.

I was once told by a junior colleague that she never sent emails to marketing directors after 4:15pm on a Friday because “they’ve probably gone home”. I slapped her (I didn’t). If you think that the more senior you are, the more you can skive off and get away with doing nothing, you’re wrong.

The more senior you are, the longer the hours you work, the more conference calls with Australia or America you’re on (neither of which give a shit whether it’s 6am or 6pm for you) and the more pressure and responsibility falls on your shoulders as your knees buckle and the bags form under your eyes.

These days it’s way easier to take conference calls remotely, but back in the day you were trapped in your office, huddled around some primitive speaker phone, watching as the office emptied while you calculated just how late you’d be home for that revered lamb bhuna and two bottles of red.

When some 42-year old man-child with a backward baseball cap turns up at your office, flamboyantly parks his electric scooter and then moon-walks into your office to tell you why “Monttocks Script Font is going to be huge this year”, all you can think about is repeatedly punching his corpse while you take beasting from the Americans because THEY know how you SHOULD have launched that product in Italy last month (but, strangely, didn’t mention anything until it failed).

So, apart from the personal therapeutic value in venting my spleen, what’s the point of this?

The point - you ass clowns - is that if you want to appeal to the Marketing Directors you want to hire you, act like they do, not how your peers do. If creative agency #317 are doing ‘hilarious’ videos on LinkedIn and racking up tens of comments, take a look at how many ‘buyers’ are in that list of likes. Any Heads of Marketing in there? Any Marketing Directors looking for a new agency (and making the decision based on some middle-aged prat in an overly-patterned shirt juggling cabbages)? No. Don’t be fucking stupid. Professionals want to work with professionals. Otherwise they’d be teachers.

When you’re a proper Marketing Director your life mostly sucks. They try to compensate by paying you lots of money and letting you fly Premium Economy, but ultimately that’s not enough. Pity the Marketing Director, empathise with the Marketing Director and - for god’s sake - don’t breakdance during a pitch to a Marketing Director; we WILL kill you.

One final thought: “Monttocks”.

Built by robots

There’s a PC game I play (to an almost obsessive level) called Factorio. You could argue that it’s not really a “game” in that anyone watching me play it would struggle to ascertain how much “fun” I’m having, but I genuinely love it. I could spend hours describing the game, but the key to success within the game is automation.

You start off with nothing, punching trees to gather wood to fashion into wooden tools… to then bash against rocks to make stone furnaces (fuelled by “punch wood”) to then forge stone tools, etc. etc.

After a while (about 400 hours to be exact) you’ve levelled your way up to having solar, nuclear and steam power, all feeding itself - and the rest of your production line - via beautifully-complicated systems of robot arms and conveyor belts. It’s like Sim City meets Minecraft (which I’ve just realised I could have said initially and saved us all several paragraphs).

HOWEVER (are you still here?) once you finally reach automated self-sufficiency, you find yourself missing the simplicity of how things were 400 hours ago when you were getting your hands dirty and had a solid ‘feel’ for how things were actually going. If you can zoom out far enough from your world to 1) still have it larger than your screen and 2) be so far out that you can’t see anything anymore, you might have gone a tad too far. The same can happen in business.

In New Business Development (see - I did remember why I’m here) there are SO MANY tools on offer to ‘help’ you automate your outreach campaigns it’s staggering. Automated news alerts kick-start segmented CRM systems which are linked to macros automating your auto-personalised emails, which are linked back to your CRM, which then updates your calendar… and so on, and so forth.

It’s tempting to spend 400 (ish) hours setting up such an automated masterpiece, but be aware of the perils of ‘zooming out’ so far that in any given moment you don’t actually know where you are in your campaign(s).

Many’s the time I’ve walked away from my game only to return to some snarl-up in my automated mega city. For me that involves some panicky robot building; for your company this could mean some very embarrassing and costly errors by the very macros you delighted in creating.

Remember: It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever.*

*Unless you press the STOP button.

The Data Doughnut (TM)

Yeah yeah… go ahead and snigger. So I’ve got a ‘thing’.

I accidentally said it one day… and then liked it enough to use again in conversation (multiple times). But you mind my words (sonny boy) once I take you through The Data Doughnut (TM) you’ll be eating your words. Your delicious doughnuty words.

I should also quickly point out that though I’m aware there’s a way to get a proper trademark symbol to appear, I like to simply put the letters T and M into brackets to show that I’m not precious about it (use it, however, without prior permission and I will hunt you down and kill you).

Anyway… The Data Doughnut (TM) is a FANTASTIC visual representation of your database. A mistake I see often is people building a database, starting to work on the database, and then, when not even halfway round ‘the ring’ (as we call it) adding a bunch of new prospects. So, just as you were approaching 6 o’clock (yes, I know I’m mixing metaphors - don’t tell me how to live my life) you’ve sudden expanded the ring and sent yourself back to 4 o’clock.

And then off you go, continuing round this slightly larger doughnut, and then… BAM! - you add even more data! You’re taking what was a manageable, well-thought-out and reasonably-sized database, and warped it into an unmanageable monster. And while you think you’re doing a dandy job of ‘augmenting’ your database, the data sitting at 11 o’clock is getting older and mouldier (and further away). You’re sabotaging your own doughnut you lunatic!

I am of course assuming you did a good job of building your database in the first place, so now just focus on working it. As data is removed (taking ‘a bite’ if you will) don’t replace it, just continue round the ring. Give all this freshly-baked data a chance to bear fruit (again, don’t worry about the metaphor - it’ll be fine).

Some of the doughnut will require a second pass (maybe even three) but that’s the nature of a new business prospect database - it takes time and tenacity. Only once you feel you’re chewing on the same bits over and over should you think about building it back up with fresh entries.

Anyway… data, rings, doughnuts, trademarks. I’m sure you get the idea.

Good luck and goodbye.

You're not alone. Ish.

Steve and I were recently asked to guest present on an Agency Hackers’ video training session (check them out - there are some incredible agencies in their community), talking to agency owners about smart ways to improve their own business development. As lovely as it is to be asked to do such things, the part I actually enjoy the most is the Q&A session at the end.

Apart from it being a nice opportunity to interact with the many many faces floating on the screen, it’s also always interesting for us to hear which part of ‘new biz’ trips them up the most.

The kinds of questions we got asked on this occasion included:

How big should my database be?

How should I approach our ‘dream clients’?

What email platform should I use?

As you might imagine, we had a lovely time addressing all of these questions (no, I’m not giving you the answers ‘for free’ here – you’ll have to give us a buzz for those gems) but more important/interesting is that you get to see how – with just a simple prod in the right direction – the weight lifts from some seriously-intelligent people who just happen to not know where to begin when it comes to business development.

So… you’re not alone! If you know you should be doing some/more/better business development but don’t even know how to get beyond a napkin with a few prospects scribbled down, fear not; lots of other smart people are in exactly the same boat.

It took the SpongeNB collective many years to feel confident enough to host such a video session, so there’s no way you’re going to get everything right in your first few attempts to reach out into the (never-forgiving) cold channel.

And before you ask, no, I don’t have a copy of the video to share (but I do have a VHS of Robocop if that’s any use).

Trick yourself (and get some work done)

As someone who gave up office life more than 15 years ago, it was interesting to watch the entire nation deal with something that I had to address back then: working from home.

If you have a dog, a ukulele, a biscuit barrel, a PlayStation, a garden, Candy Crush, Netflix or perhaps a keen interest in adult entertainment, working from home can initially prove challenging when it comes to staying focused. Without a boss calling you into their office or staff wandering by your screen to keep you honest, it can be hard to self-discipline and stay on-task with so many distractions around you (and no one to stop you from doing whatever you fancy).

Ironically, if you can stop your eyes twitching to something more interesting, you’ll be stunned at how much work you can get done (though there’s no one hassling to keep you working, there’s also no one hassling to STOP you working). Tea and coffee intake will initially go through the roof (you don’t have to make ANYONE else a cup!) but once you get control of that obsession you should find a more productive WFH balance is entirely achievable.

I enjoyed a blog by Rachel Degginger at Heinz Marketing, offering “4 Tips to Improving Your WFH Experience”. In the blog Rachel talks about improving her WFH situation by mimicking her old work setup (down to an office-replicating raised laptop, external keyboard, second monitor, etc.) to ‘trick’ herself into entering her own personal ‘office space’ with the right mindset.

Though workers are already returning to offices, many are still working from home, and who knows if we’ll all be sent home again in the coming months and years. It’s for this reason that it’s so important to get your WFH workspace arranged in a way that allows you to enjoy the benefits of working from home (no commuting!) without compromising your productivity.

Now close that Incognito window.

Are we prospecting? Always.

During a casual chat with a competitor, I was asked when we like to prospect? I thought he meant specific hours of the day, but actually he meant months of the year. I then realised that we might be the only new business agency that prospects ALL YEAR ROUND!

Yes, August is a weird month, but that’s just a great opportunity to revisit data, stop sending emails (unless you LOVE out-of-office replies) and get everything in order before the rest of the year starts hurtling towards Christmas with the brakes off.

B2B Sales Connections recently ran a “3 Best B2B Sales Prospecting Tips” article, with one of the titular “3” looking at exactly this: “When should you prospect?” One tip I liked was to make sure you understand where every prospect is in their own buying cycle. If they’re one month into a new contract, there’s very little point setting a reminder to talk to them again in one month’s time to “see how they’re getting on”. You’re better off finding out when a review will take place and then popping up down the line as if it’s lucky timing. Such a review might take place at the halfway point or in five years’ time, but if you gather that information while you’re connected, you at least stand a chance of a more meaningful outcome when you next talk (and you’ll look smart for being switched-on enough to ask in the first place).

We challenge our own business development managers to never just accept a “try me again in six months” fob off. We’d rather say “no” as long as we then say something like: “I’d rather call back when we can have a proper conversation that moves things forward; when would that be?” Often this prompts the prospect to reveal “when the contract ends in 24 months” but at least now we know to stop wasting everyone’s time, set a realistic reminder, and to move on to the next target.

We also try to avoid arbitrarily writing off Summer… writing off Christmas… writing off the bit after Christmas… etc. Gather information and react to that rather than what the calendar says. And while you’re at it, why not research when your prospect’s next big anniversary is. Is it coming up to their first anniversary? Their 10th birthday? Their centenary even? They are BOUND to be doing something big around these events, so say hello eight months before that date, make them aware that you’ve done your homework, and ask how you can help make this momentous occasion go off with a bang.

‘Lucky timing’ is way more under your control than you realise.

I don't care about you

A harsh headline I know, but ask yourself this: when you were hungry and bought that Twix (without telling anyone, obv) did you stop to think about the history of the company, the story behind the iconic factory it was made in, or the individual humans who so kindly mixed the biscuit and poured the caramel?

No, of course you didn’t, because you don’t care, and that’s fine. You paid the asking price and therefore bought the privilege of not caring. And Twix should be grateful; you wanted their product so you bought their product.

Imagine if every time you wanted a Twix the company insisted you take a guided tour of the factory, read a ten-page history on the company and met all the key staff (who insisted on telling you all about their individual hobbies and interests). You wouldn’t bother because - to revisit our theme - YOU DON’T CARE.

So let’s turn that on ourselves: we’re agencies (biscuit makers), we have services (biscuits) and we’re hoping new clients want to buy our services (possibly biscuits - I’ve slightly lost track of my metaphor but I’m sure it’ll come back round in a minute). So WHY are we not simply showing them biscuits on page one of our creds and web sites, instead demanding that they first chew their way through our family-sized ABOUT US pages?

If someone wants PR, show them the PR you do. If someone wants branding, show them the branding you do. If someone wants biscuits, show them biscuits (Jesus, I’m hungry now).

No one came to your site to learn all about Dean and his penchant for recreating Hollyoaks episodes in Lego. They came to see the things you do, not who you are. Show them your work, and once they’re dazzled by that they MIGHT be kind enough to show interest in the history of your building or when you were founded.

Just because you think you’re important, you’re not. Always remember that.

Nice to see you, to see you… sometimes

I spoke before about the need to get comfortable staring into a camera regardless of how much you loath the way you look and sound recorded. However, there’s also danger to be had on the other side of the coin; if you’re too comfortable in front of a web cam’s lens you can quickly become a performing monkey, losing as much credibility as you might have gained from publishing worthwhile content.

It’ll sound nothing short of bitchy to say this, but in the past 12 months I’ve cringed alongside colleagues as we’ve watched relatively senior personnel appear on LinkedIn doing press-ups, singing and dancing, or just talking utter drivel into their device of choice as they chased single figure likes and shares (mostly from pedantic colleagues and established ‘chummy’ connections). “Oh Barry! LEGEND!” etc.

The deluded also appear to have found a new home on the small screen. Young ‘business experts’ (sometimes with as much as seven months’ experience, no less!) appear in 20-minute recordings, sharing their often-laughable idealistic thoughts on how business should be done (while their little brother no doubt whoops them on from the bunk bed off-screen).

Yes, there is an expectation to create content, but it’s no longer hard to do so don’t feel you have to say something just because you’ve got 4GB of memory left on your iPhone. We’ve worked hard of late to understand what content has an impact (and how long you get to convey that before the audience moves on to the next dancing CEO). Soon it’ll be a level playing field – everyone will have the same HD capabilities with chromakey and animations at the touch of a button. I can’t wait because – as is always the way – we’ll be back to “content is king” (and we’ve got LOADS of that!). Now, shut up and dance monkey boy Head of Sales.

Through gritted teeth

It’s a million miles from sitting on the phone making cold calls, but it seems the ability to quickly get your face and thoughts onto someone else’s screen is becoming increasingly key in new business outreach. I happen to have a background in TV from previous careers so nattering like a loon into a camera doesn’t faze me, but for many ‘normal’ people, the difference between the need to project themselves via video and their instinctive hatred of how they look and sound in a clip can be a real obstacle.

The simple message is… get over it. Harsh I know, but it’s 2021; a generation is on its way that has never known anything but selfies (nor will they know the terror of handing complete strangers your camera to get a holiday snap).

In a world of TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn (and *sigh* selfie-sticks) we all need to find a way to utilise - and capitalise on - this instant output. We’re all expected to be able to point a camera at our faces and do what needs to be done. And for good reason…

Research has shown that LinkedIn users are TWENTY times more likely to re-share a video post than any other type of content. If you want other LinkedIn members to help spread your message for you, video is the way to go.

We (of course!) have a way to help you with this, so do get in touch if you’d like to know more. Until then, you’re on your own, so you’ll just have to grin and bear it (while pressing record).

How agencies can improve their creds deck's "About us" section.

Agencies can win more business by understanding the differences between prospecting in the cold channel and prospecting to referrals. Here we discuss the "about us" or "who we are" section, which is often seen as a place to inject lots of processes, founded dates and info on what the team gets up to in their spare time.

Summary (in case you can’t view the video):

The “about us” section of a creds deck or agency website can often present lots of subjective things that in fact give a prospect a reason to eliminate an agency rather than choose them. “About us” should be written with the underlying context of outcomes and results. If the processes you talk about on an agency “about us” page aren’t linked in some useful way to the commercial outcomes you cause for clients, then the prospect can’t be expected to do the work of joining those dots for you. If you’re an agency that creates brands that drive long-term commercial growth, then say that first. Once the prospect is interested in how you do that, then you can tell them.

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.

HAPPY NEW (Business) YEAR!

Let me guess:

1)      You’ve still got some of the yellow Quality Street left, but the Ferrero Rocher have mostly gone.

2)      You’ve put on 10kg but have already filled out the direct debit forms for the gym.

3)      You’re determined to properly address new business this year but have only got as far as writing “GOALS FOR 2020” on a white board.

4)      You still dislike a large percentage of your family.

How did I do?

I’m about the same on #1 and #2 (and pretty much there on #4) but CAN help re #3.

It’s a bit of cliché to come wanging through the office door on Jan 6th full of “Let’s do this!”-ness, but if you’re thinking it, a bunch of companies you’d love to work with are also thinking about all the tossers they accidentally signed up with in 2019 and can’t wait to ditch when their contracts run out.

People say: “oh I bet December and January are tough months for you” but they’re wrong. In December people are happy to have a long holiday ahead of them and start setting down plans to make their return easier. In January they actually start actioning those plans. If you’ve ever thought about engaging with a new business agency, don’t wait until March - do it NOW.

Talk to us today, give us two weeks to set everything up, and then let’s make sure the rest of Q1 sets up the rest of 2020.

Don’t just think about it, do about it.

(And don’t copy that phrase; I’m thinking about copyrighting it).

The Honey Trap (or “How to not not get picked”)

I do - and have done - lots of different things. I won’t list them all here, but the two that you’ll need to know about for the next two minutes are: 1) I was a Marketing Director who hired/fired lots of agencies, 2) I’m a beekeeper.

Being a beekeeper means you end up with honey. Having honey means folks want you to enter honey competitions. Being me, I thought I’d make friends with a honey judge to get the low-down on how best to succeed. I wasn’t expecting what he told me to be reminiscent of hiring an agency, but one key part of his approach was familiar territory…

So, you’re now a honey judge. In front of you are 20 jars of honey (40 actually – competitors need to provide two identical samples). As a judge are you going to taste all 40? No, of course you’re not; honey is lovely, but not that lovely (like attending a beer festival – after 10 pints your taste buds stop working, hate you, and want to go home for a nice cup of tea and a lie down).

What a honey judge does is find small (really small) excuses to not bother tasting your honey at all. Before doing anything, he is looking to eliminate non-contenders without even touching a jar. Do your two samples not have exactly the same amount of honey? YOU’RE OUT! When you open the jar is there any honey on the inside of the lid? YOU’RE OUT! Do the two samples appear even slightly different when viewed through the honey grading glasses (I’m not making this stuff up by the way)? YOU’RE OUT!

I could go on, but you get my point: when choosing from lots of apparently similar options, the first act is to make life easier by quickly getting rid of options you know don’t stand a chance to begin with. SO DON’T BE THAT OPTION!

I’ve had days where many agencies were invited in to pitch for our business one after the other. Those with inflexible methodologies… those with ‘quirky’ MDs who impose their will on everything… those who chose to do their presentations on hand-chalked easels… those who CAN’T USE APOSTROPHES… you’re all just making it too easy for me to cut my options down to a more manageable size.

Show your talent, show your work, show your ability to listen… make it really tough for me to choose between you and the next agency. As long as you can avoid the ‘easy filter’ you stand a chance. Now all you have to be is really really good.