Differentiation in agency-land.

Disruptive. Insightful. Client-led. Strategic.

"We really take the time to understand your brand". "Our team is more like a family". "We always challenge the brief". "Our unrivalled expertise".

I just found at least a dozen of each of those in the last 5 minutes.

They might all be true. It barely matters. Your prospects (unless they're a hot referral) don't believe you. True differentiation is hard. Uniqueness is near impossible. And so it goes that your claims are weakened. So, how can you stand out in a crowded market?

Simple. Act exactly as you claim, consistently. From the first interaction, your prospects are judging you.

Respond to emails immediately, even if it's just a brief acknowledgement. Don't keep potential leads waiting while you craft the perfect response. Promptness and attentiveness always surpass ornate but delayed replies.

Avoid jargon. Nobody is impressed by it. Your complex, trademarked processes with fancy names have no place when engaging with unfamiliar audiences.

Use plain English to describe what you do and how your work achieves commercial objectives. Avoid flowery paragraphs and analogies that make visitors close your website.

Ask straightforward questions. During early discussions, don't assume prospects will guide you. It's your responsibility, not theirs.

In the initial stages, don't give prospects reasons to exclude you. Swearing isn't edgy; it's off-putting. Boasting about being picky with clients makes you sound foolish to new contacts. Funny videos and personal anecdotes have no place in these early, exclusory phases. Focus on value.

Be the agency that understands the prospect's desired commercial outcomes. Emphasize your ability to contribute to those goals. Describe your methods concisely. Ask intelligent, simple questions, and show genuine interest in the answers. Respond swiftly to emails and messages. When possible, answer the phone promptly. By doing these things, you'll belong to a small but distinguished group. Not entirely unique, but far more differentiated than those who merely claim to be disruptive, strategic, client-led, and unrivalled. Ugh.

#agencygrowth #agencylife #businessdevelopment #newbusinessdevelopment #valuepropositions

The Lead Generation promise pandemic

Sponge NB has existed for nearly twenty years. That’s twenty years of talking to prospects on the phone, shifting our know-how to emails as they became the preferred way to communicate (and hide!) and - in more recent times - learning to master SEO, refining the manipulation of Google, and understanding the algorithms of LinkedIn.

You can therefore probably imagine how frustrating it is to see SO many lead generation companies pop up (especially in the UK) promising to “replenish your lead funnel” at the touch of a drop-down menu. If only it were that simple!

Being honest, we’ve looked into automating our offering. The dream of sitting back and letting some macro do our job for us is a tantalising one, but though it can appear to deliver fast and instant results, they are often results that crumble under closer examination.

In research for this article, I encountered phrases (time and time again) such as: “generate a list of leads for customer acquisition and pass them on to you for closing” which seems to go against everything we put value on. What thought process is backing up the generation of these leads, how are they being sense-checked and validated, and whose experienced eyes are looking over all of this data that appears to effortlessly spew into the world without effort?

“AI-based platforms”… “Bionics”… “holistic strategies”… “social prospecting—generated by AI-enabled research” are just some of the ‘techniques’ being sold that - apparently - result in huge volumes of leads, seemingly generated in moments.

At this point I am aware I am like some old codger telling you how modern music has no beat and you can’t hear the lyrics properly, but the difference between companies with experience of new business and those tempted by these magnificent promises and sci-fi methods is massive.

If it was genuinely that easy, EVERYONE would do ONLY this.

I’ve met people with infallible systems for roulette, but none of them are millionaires. Funny that eh?

It’s the same here; if you could actually triple your incoming business with one subscription, wouldn’t it be unaffordable?

Match the promise to the fee and you realise it can’t possibly deliver what it promises. If I said I could make you £20,000 a week by downloading my “How to” brochure for £5 would that seem likely? Surely I’d be too busy making £20,000 a week from my yacht to sell you the know-how for a fiver.

If it were that easy, we’d already be doing it.

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.

The promise(s) of New Business

A recent Semrush study (“How Companies Look for Marketing Agencies”) spat out some great facts and figures for me to base blog entries on.

One of my favourite parts of this report was a “Top Ten” of the biggest red flags that turn businesses off and affect an agency’s chance of success. There are some obvious candidates in the mix (poor communication, lack of expertise, etc.) but in at number three is “overpromising results”.

This is an incredibly hard one to get right and we’ve fallen foul of it ourselves many many times - not so much in the delivery stage, but in the pitch stage.

It’s a moral dilemma as much as anything: do I lie to you now to win the business (but have to face you when the exaggerated results never appear) or do I tell the truth from the start, setting things up realistically but risking not being hired to begin with?

We’ve always chosen to be honest from the very start but (I won’t lie) I’ve often wondered if we’d win more business if we just promised the moon to trick new clients onboard (I’m pretty sure others out there are doing that as standard).

The report isn’t necessarily geared towards a new business agency such as Sponge, but the dilemma remains none the less: how do you balance promising the kinds of results the client wants to hear versus the kind of results you believe are achievable?

The answer is… “I don’t know” (oh sorry - you thought I knew? Apologies!)

I would however suggest promising the kinds of results that are going to challenge your team. That way, even if you miss certain KPIs along the way, your client will - one would hope - certainly be able to see and appreciate the effort being put in.

Good luck. Oh and watch out for the minefield on your right.

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”.

In it for the likes

“Please like and subscribe” has become the modern day deal with the devil. “If you want to look at this THING, you have to become one of the stats that helps me monetise the THING”.

With something like YouTube, there’s a very simple and obvious monetising mechanic. However, don’t think for a minute that your heartfelt post on LinkedIn about returning hostages, invaded countries (or whatever’s the topic du jour) is just you sharing your inner thoughts because you’re a profoundly deep person and simply “have” to tell your audience how affected you are.

If you were really affected by something, you’d be off work talking to your mum or best friend about it, not broadcasting to a bunch of agency people you met at a conference in 2019 (who then joined your network in case you had some work for them and/or they had some work for you).

The fact that you’ve chosen to talk about non-business matters on a business platform can come over as a tad opportunist. If you’re thinking that’s a harsh appraisal, ask yourself how many times you checked to see the number of ‘likes’ you’d racked up on your latest earnest post. Why would you care about likes unless you’d hoped to boost your profile? People don’t talk to therapists to be told they’re great story-tellers…

Anyway, I’m being overly-mean because I’m trying to make a point, but why not impress and inspire people on LinkedIn with your business prowess, not by looking deep into the lens and tearfully sharing your thoughts on a plight that barely impacts on your life.

Point made (now LIKE and SUBSCRIBE for more tips on HOW TO DO NEW BUSINESS).

Avoid fun; stay focused

No one seems to mention ‘time and motion’ studies anymore, but in “the old days” they were all the rage. Many of the processes I was forced to go through to establish just how effective I was being have (fortunately) stayed with me throughout my (depressingly long) career.

Though time and motion studies were all about the search for “the most efficient method of doing a task” they’re still worth bearing in mind now, especially if you consider keeping your business alive as “a task”.

Ask yourself this: What is the single activity that keeps your business alive?

Is it maintaining a client base that’s been unchanged in 10 years? Is it bringing in new clients because you only ever do project work so have no retainers? Is it reading blogs because they’re so darn interesting?

Chances are, a lot of the things you do every day aren’t things that really have an impact on your success; they’re just things you like to do (and you’ve become very good at making seem reasonable and legitimate so that you can keep doing them).

“Networking” is a CLASSIC way of doing something fun by making it sound legitimate, but anything that takes you away from activities that genuinely matter to your business will - of course - slow your progress.

You could argue that doing ‘fun things’ benefits your company because it’s good for your mental health - and that’s a BRILLIANT card to play - but at least be honest with yourself. Have some fun, don’t pretend it achieves anything, but then get stuck back in. At the very worst you can see the ‘real work’ as earning the brownie points required to allow yourself the next fun thing.

Now stop reading blogs and go do some real work!

Bring me your unicorns

There are some situations where the lowering of standards is a good thing. Let me immediately say that I can’t think of very many, but the one that led me to the opening statement was how (since COVID) people have stopped worrying about the quality of what’s behind them when making Zoom calls.

Previous to COVID, the world of video conferencing revolved around some VERY showy boardrooms (and those omni-directional microphones that look like a manta ray having a lie down in the middle of the table).

But then we got trapped in our homes and realised that the priority should be with continuing to communicate face-to-(screen-to-)face rather than never seeing another human again. Sure you get some hilarious (and famous) instances (pants-less children wandering into view while top politicians speak to the BBC come to mind) but on the whole, pitching via video to a CEO backed by pink wallpaper covered in unicorns has become commonplace.

Beware, however, the dangers of taking this relaxation of standards too far. Having a “take me as I am” attitude is great for maintaining a “Keep calm and carry on” resolve, but please don’t think that having the odd background unicorn means you can let other standards slip too.

In the same way I’d never turn up to a real-world meeting in a t-shirt, I’d similarly never turn up to a video meeting in a t-shirt that I’d won in a pub quiz (see, it’s all relative).

We’ve recently attended video calls where the attendees had not only not worried about their background, but had also not worried about remembering why we were meeting or who we were. I know none of us look as professional as we did in 2019 (when we all still shaved and used nearly all the buttons on our ironed shirts) but you can still be professional from the corner of your kids’ play room.

Just because we’re relaxed about how things look in video meetings doesn’t mean that you should be any less professional in your preparation and commitment to the meetings themselves.

Impress me with your professionalism, not your unicorns*.

*Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d be saying back in 2019.

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.

Just say no

Training any new member of staff is challenging (especially when remote) but training new staff for new business development is particularly tough, simply because cold channel is a very unforgiving sector to specialise in. Unless you’ve previously worked in door-to-door charity sales collecting for slightly injured badgers, you probably won’t have been told “no” as much in your life as your first day in biz dev.

The temptation for any newbie is to take too soft a “win”. Someone absent-mindedly says: “sure, send me some literature” and ol’ newbie puts that down as an interested party. It’s the kind of well-meaning positivity that can only come back to bite you in the rear when a client asks for more information about this ‘promising new contact’ only to find it was really nothing worth reporting.

The simple trick is to be honest with yourself. If you have a chat and someone says, “call me in June” is that because something is happening/changing in June, or is it just a smart way for them to ensure they don’t have to deal with you for another six months?

When someone says, “send me info” feel free to say no. Say something like “I’d much rather know when is a better time to have this conversation so that our details don’t simply get lost in all the noise”. You might score a few points for being brave/honest and you might have a slightly longer conversation than if you just agreed to send over a PDF and let them hang up.

Running a dishonest new business agency would easy. You can make the most uninterested prospect sound like they’re on the cusp of buying (keep them dangling there for months). Being honest in your assessment of interest levels is a tougher line to take, but it’ll serve your business development endeavours much better.

A quiet place Pt III

The end of December is always a tough time to stay effective (even if you’re one of the 5% of people still actually trying to get some work done). I prefer to bring Kerplunk and Hungry Hippos into the office around December 12th and make it Christmas EVERY day (just like Wizzard wished) but I’m aware there is still work to be done.

The key to end-year achievement is finding anything to do that doesn’t involve other humans - they are unreliable, already checked-out, drunk or at home in their PJs roasting chestnuts on an open fire, so just remove them from the equation.

The obvious task to address is planning for next year, so here are a few things you can be doing to set yourself up for a rolling-start come 2022:

Segment your data

You no doubt have a nice big wish list of prospects. Now is the time to organise it into something a bit better than the digital equivalent of a beer mat. Segment it by temperature, industry, size… whatever will help you attack this list in a meaningful way once everyone is back at their desks.

Personalise

Now is a great time to do some proper research on your prospects. Try to find one piece of work you could mention/talk about if/when you’re lucky enough to make direct contact. Note it down as a “nugget” of information about them; it’s a great ice-breaker and they’ll probably appreciate the effort on your part compared to the last phone-jockey that pestered them.

Set some goals

Kind of obvious, but actually write down and commit to a target. How many people do you want to try to talk to in January and how are you planning to do that? If you want to talk to 100 people by phone, think about how that breaks down into weekly/daily targets. If some are going to be emailed and some are going to be via LinkedIn, decide which is which now and add this to your beautifully-segmentation data (and don’t forget to use those nuggets!)

Happy hunting, and happy new year.

Do what you say you do, not do what you do do. Do.

By its very definition, hyperbole is never honest. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s interesting (or worth mentioning).

If you genuinely think that the most remarkable thing about your agency is that you’re responsive, then fair doos - go ahead and remark upon it. It’s not exactly exciting (and one would like to hope that any agency worth its salt would be responsive) but if that’s the first thing you want to say about yourselves to a new prospect, then fill your boots.

You will, however, then have to ensure that you are faultless in that attribute. If you EVER aren’t the most responsive agency in the world, well… now you just look silly (we’ve even had clients who didn’t bother to turn up to a meeting we’d slaved to win them, and shrugged it off as if it were of no importance). Responsive you say? Hmm…

Would it not be MUCH better to actually be the guys that are super-responsive rather than the ones that tell people about it? Now anyone in contact with you can experience how responsive you are rather than read all about it and then hope you are. Now you can replace that sentence on your site with something more meaningful (perhaps a great testimonial or a key result achieved).

Successful new business is about making lots of small improvements to the way cold prospects see you. When you stop listing things as remarkable (that any prospect would simply expect) then you suddenly free up lots of space to say things that might move the needle.

Oh and don’t even get me started on “on budget, on time”…

Flash no longer supported

I took my first pay check as a salesman back in the late 80s. White fluffy socks were still acceptable in social situations, fax machines were new and exciting, and the use of electric guitars in chart music was frowned upon. It was a fun time to be alive.

I was never a flashy salesman. I hated some (i.e. “many”, aka “pretty much all”) of my colleagues - predictable twatty sales ‘blokes’ in waistcoats and tie pins, hair slicked back like Gordon Gekko, jamming up Balls Bros of a lunchtime and drinking with their teeth wrapped round the glass.

My own sales technique was more slinky. I’m just here to tell you something without pressuring you. I’ll trap you with some cunning open questions and then leave you to close the sale on yourself while I pop down the coffee shop for another round of toast.

I was SO un-salesy that compared to all the Gekkos sliding up and down the halls on their own hair, prospects seemed relieved to have a human to deal with. Even though they still didn’t want to be sold to, I was the lesser of various waist-coated evils.

It’s a style that’s served us VERY well over the last 17 months while face-to-face meetings have been off the menu. If your success at selling involves crashing into the meeting room through the ceiling like Lord Flashheart and dazzling everyone with your piercing man-eyes, a 720p web cam and £7.99 amazon desk mic probably aren’t quite doing the job.

Rather than bemoan the shape of remote sales, instead use this opportunity to refine your sales techniques. If you’re one of the “I can sell anything to anyone… in person” types, it’s time to rebuild. Assess your service or product, stop selling it, and just start talking to people about it. Be it in person, by Zoom, or down a crackly land line, good sales is still good sales.

Now go and put some trousers on.

Know thy enemy

Any new client that comes on board with Sponge NB gets a thorough MOT and servicing. Not only do we kick the tires and check the oil, but often we also punch the doors in and then set fire to the sunroof.

Abandoning this immediately prohibiting metaphor, one of the aspects of working with Sponge that seems to fire up all new clients (besides some STUNNING new business development, obv) is having an outsider tell them honestly how they look to the outside world.

If the “About Us” page is a sprawling 20-minute read that we feel should be culled, we’ll be way more honest about this than any friends, colleagues or nans would be.

if you’re not quite ready to bring us on board (you short-sighted fools) then there’s an easy way to hold a mirror up to yourselves, and that’s to take a grumbling look at your competition. Pick the three “other ones” you keep crashing into and take an emotionless tour around their world. Fire up their website. Do they immediately launch into case studies? Do you? Which of you think has the most impact in the first five seconds of contact?

Do any of your competitors’ sites immediately spark up a full-screen showreel that leaves you in no doubt as to the work they’ve produced and the brands they’ve served? Does it impress you? Why don’t you have one of those?

Are their site and creds littered with glowing testimonials while yours is full of self-penned hyperbole? Which do you think has the most impact on a first-time visitor?

It’s very easy to sneer at competitors and ‘know’ that you are better, but the fact is they are also somehow still in business because a potential client of yours did their due diligence and didn’t choose you. It might not be down to how you appear to an unguided visitor, but why not give yourself every chance to do better.

Give your team a task: visit five of your competitors’ sites and make a list ONLY of things you prefer about their site to yours. At worst your team are now more familiar with the landscape you operate in. At best, you might find it uncovers some failings in your self-presentation that you wouldn’t have rectified otherwise.

Good luck out there; it’s a jungle (and some of it is in HTML).

Chemistry vs coffee

There was a time we would be VERY fussy about what meetings we would accept for our clients. If a company hired us to run their new business development, we wouldn’t want to then burn the first month of their engagement sending them round the country to drink coffee and deliver presentations to indifferent prospects before heading back to the office wondering why they wasted a day out of the office.

…And then someone had the smart idea of taking the phrase “coffee and creds” and turning it into “chemistry meeting”. It was like changing “Coke Lite” to “Coke Zero” - exactly the same hollow experience, just with a slightly better name.

So now we have to tell our clients that someone who has no project and no budget wants to meet them so that - if they ever do have a project and a budget - they already ‘know’ some people. But… but… but that’s exactly what we promised we wouldn’t do!

However… despite my sceptical sarcasm (available 24/7, 365 BTW) there does appear to be some merit in this pursuit. We’ve had some apparently thin ‘chemistry meetings’ actually turn into serious projects. It turns out that smart companies do like meetings smart agencies.

The truth is, if you’re smart and engaging you can turn a handshake and a 30 second chat into business. If you’re poor in person, no amount of minutes and pages of Powerpoint will turn things around.

No doubt you’re expecting a point, so let me conclude: ANY opportunity to meet a prospect is worthwhile but 1) you need to have a business development partner you trust setting them up for you, and 2) if you’re finding you convert none of these fleeting encounters into a full blown affair, there’s probably something wrong with your pitch rather than the meetings you’re attending.

Look at me (don't look at me)

I chatted to a potential client recently who spoke about the need to “talk about ourselves more”. They have a healthy flow of incoming leads and referrals, seem to have a good network in general, and are now thinking of adding us to do some cold channel new business (smart people!).

We spoke at length about the need to “be seen out there” and I wondered if he had any idea of the bottomless pit of ‘showing off’ he is about to tumble down if not careful.

I’m a big fan of connecting to people, but do somewhat groan when I see an agency doing really well that is about to divert lots of time and effort away from winning and completing work to telling everyone about the work they’ve just won and completed.

Yes, I’m talking about you, LinkedIn and Instagram (you narcissist-guzzling devils).

By all means show the outside world the work you’re doing, but make sure you know why you’re doing it (beyond the fact that you think you're behind your contemporaries on this front). Are you sharing your posts with potential customers, luring them in with your wares, or are you just giving your competitors an easy way to keep track of what you’re up to?

If you’re a millionaire no one know about, does that make being a millionaire any less awesome?

if you feel ‘being out there’ is gong to have a considerable positive effect on your business then hurrah - pull up your socks and get ready to be posting something every day. If, however, you’re doing fine without it, keep your heads down and enjoy being busy. Busy pays really well.