Serve, don't innovate

If you went to KFC would you be impressed if they gave you some asparagus and said “we’re thinking outside the box”?

If you collected your car after a service only to find they’d replaced the engine with a cauliflower, would you tip your hat to them for their creativity and vision?

No. Stop being silly. Of course you wouldn’t. 12 hot wings please.

Before becoming excellent at new business development (#blatantkeyword) I had a few rows in my career after describing creative teams as a “service department”. They do not like that one little bit I can tell you.

To a marketing/sales manager, design is a means to an end. One (sadly) can’t just drop a blank white box into Sainsbury’s and expect people to pick it up; it has to be covered in colourful shapes or photos of nauseating children pushing sugar balls into their face holes.

I once asked for a simple glowing icon reminiscent of an on/off switch on a PC. Before I knew it a ‘mood board’ had gone up and the department disappeared for a day to ‘conceptualise’. Luckily I found a friend of a friend who knocked up exactly what I wanted in 20 minutes for £100.

Never forget (I’m talking to you now creative folks) that while people will want to hear your thoughts and ideas, they also have something specific they want, so work with them to produce the best version of THAT rather than sell them something that turns you on more than their ‘bland’ requirement does.

They also serve those who wait INSIDE the box.

Embrace expert opinions

My dad needed his flat roof rebuilt to better drain the rain. He had an idea of how that might be done (like all men who know how to makes things out of wood as long as they are essentially boxes) but called in a few local builders for estimates.

The first one suggested a solution that didn’t match dad’s expectation, so he didn’t like it.

The second one suggested the same solution as the first one, so - again - dad wasn’t a fan.

The third and fourth builders unknowingly agreed with the previous builders… and proved just as unpopular with my dad.

The fifth builder, however, offered up the solution my dad had been expecting all along, so he went with him.

It would make my story WAY better if I could now tell you that the roof had caved in, but that would be a lie (at least at the time of writing; I guess there’s still time).

I’ve written many times about the perils of ignoring expert advice. This is somehow worse. It’s asking for expert advice, but then only treating someone as a ‘true’ expert when they agree with your non-expert expectation.

If four doctors told you the blue tablet would kill you (but you like the colour blue) would you then take the blue tablet if a fifth doctor told you that he also likes the colour blue and that you’ll be fine?

To summarise. Don’t have flat roofs or take blue tablets or look for validation from experts (I’m just like the bible aren’t I).

Don't promise; just communicate

As you might imagine, I look at LOTS of agency sites every week. We’re always interested to see the good work done by creative folks, but we’re also (being honest) looking for people doing a dreadful job of representing themselves in case there’s an opportunity to swoop in and save them from themselves.

As a result of said browsing excursions, I encounter LOTS of bullshit, hyperbole, and criminally wasted space (why would someone pass on showing a killer case study to instead tell me what they were like at school, how they met CFO “Dean”, when they were established, why they chose their office building, etc. etc?)

One of the most common BS plops I encounter are statements that were no doubt written while standing proudly atop a mountain, chest out, staring heroically into the sun, but are - under brief examination - utter guff.

“Will will only take on a client if we believe we have the knowledge and expertise to help them.”

Yeah. Right. So when Client X turns up with a bag of gold you’re REALLY going to turn them away because you don’t think you have the expertise to help them?

We’re meant to read such statements and think “Gosh darn it; these guys have integrity” but all we do is snort tea out of our noses and roll out eyes (which isn’t as easy as I make it sound).

I Skyped the statement to my colleague (yeah, we’re total bitches) who replied: “It's such a bullshit line: it's easy to claim, impossible to disprove and unlikely to be true.“

Wise words mate.

So, in summary, stop saying silly things. We all see straight through you, and all those heroic statements are taking up space that could be used to impress us with your work and the outcomes attached to it.

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.

Conversation cards

Sad truth #1: Just because you’ve been told you need to blog more doesn’t mean you have anything to say. Luckily for me, I’m a total word Womble, so as soon as I start typing, gunk just comes out of my fingers (as if I have a nail infection).

Sad truth #2: “Finger gunk” is the kind of gibberish that sometimes comes out when I let my fingers do more of the writing than my brain.

Anyway, now that I’ve appalled you with the concept of “finger gunk” (WHY do I keep saying it!) I’d like to win you back by offering up some advice. ALWAYS be on the look out for something that inspires a valid thought from you. Make a note of it, and then make a blog of it.

You are - without knowing you personally - definitely going to be looked upon by others as an expert in something. It may be by your peers, prior customers, or (even better) future customers, so don’t disappoint them by saying nothing about anything. Whether your discipline is creative, commercial, managerial (or anything else you care to put in your LinkedIn ‘expertise’ section) you should have something to say of worth at least once or twice a week (enough to maintain a healthy blog cycle anyway).

Seen an advert that annoys you? Tell us why and what you’d do differently.

Witnessed a business decision you think is ill-advised? Tell us why and how to do better.

This route to content also means that it’ll be topical rather than clichéd, and you might even be able to link out to some stuff (and get some links back - which never hurts).

Don’t use the excuse of “having nothing to say” as a reason to not blog when you know you should be.

Oh, and one more time, FINGER GUNK.

(You’re welcome).

A policy for success

I recently heard an industry colleague referring to New Business Development as ‘insurance’.

I like this; it not only sets the tone but also gets your head in the right space.

Insurance is (in most of our lives) an investment we hope never comes to bear fruit. I insure my car but I’d much rather keep it than find myself saying “thank god I insured it!” (because that would probably mean it’s wrapped around a monster truck SUV somewhere along the school run).

If it’s holiday or home insurance, you’re hoping that all you ever do is pay into it, but when it comes to new business it’s more an insurance against the phone suddenly losing its ring or emails no longer blessing your inbox with enquiries.

Healthy business is about growth and survival. New Business ‘insurance’ is an investment that promises nothing as an absolute guarantee, but will always (yes, always!) bring something to a business beyond expectations. You’ll talk to companies you’d never otherwise encounter… pick up project work that leads to retainers… ping into existence on radars you’d never appear on otherwise.

Sign up today! (Or at least give Steve a call).

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.

Dress for success

When you go to dinner with your in-laws, do you dress the way you would to wash the car on a hungover Sunday morning?

When you send a “Happy New Year” WhatsApp to your aunt, do you include a photo of your personal body parts?

When you get an email from the hospital about your appointment, is it an animating HTML showcase with various fonts, colours and a funky auto-signature?

I’m sure some people might answer the first question with a “sometimes” but I’m hoping “never” is the universal answer to question two.

I also feel very confident that question three comes with a solid “no” across the board.

The point of this jovial Q&A is to drive home the fact that genuine communications tend to be quite simple. If I receive an email that looks like it’s been written just for me, comes in a standard font, and is in and out of my brain in two or three paragraphs, I approach it as genuine and worth looking at.

The moment I open an email to see some ‘impressive’ HTML monstrosity, I know I’m being sold to or on a newsletter mail group (or its my aunt using her Etsy account to get back at me for that WhatsApp message).

Don’t be tempted to ‘impress’ cold prospects with how great you are at HTML. Give your email a chance to succeed by writing it well and having something worthwhile to say (plenty of our other blogs have advice on this).

If you REALLY want to make some progress with your emails, you’ll just have to talk to us (or write to us… just not in HTML. Please).

Stalking with confidence

Good people tend to move about in an industry. Luckily for us we have LinkedIn, which not only lets us know when a ‘connection’ changes jobs but then demands we congratulate them with the idle click of a button. How sincere.

The more important thing to consider is how you should react to any new appointments you’re privy to.

When a new Marketing Director (for example) arrives at a company, they are generally expected to sprinkle glitter over existing problems and solve a few key issues. Here’s your chance to be smart and become a part of the solution.

Congratulate them, certainly, but more importantly do some research and try to ascertain what problems that new hire might be confronted with. If you know that the company in question has recently merged, how might you help in this tumultuous time? If they’ve recently won new business, how might you help nail that new client’s needs. In a nutshell, how do you make the new hire look awesome by being his or her ‘secret sauce’.

Don’t just list your services when you say “well done”; let them know you’ve done your homework and already know what the Post-it notes on their screen say.

If you’re going to stalk, you might as well do it with purpose and style.

MailChump™

I’m telling you something you already know when I say that bulk emails are crap.

Every once in a while (if you’re lucky) you might get an email that HAS to be a bulk email but is written so well that you’re not 100% sure you’re “1 of 2,000” on this campaign.

In New Business there are two truths:

1) Email outreach is completely necessary

2) Personalisation makes a MASSIVE difference to response rates

So… how do we keep the emails flowing while still retaining personalisation but without it smelling like an obvious bulk campaign?

One simple approach is to do a little email outreach very often. So, this afternoon, open up that wish list of potential clients and pick the top ten you think are realistic targets. Now write the first prospect a genuine and honest bespoke email. Tell them why you think you can make a difference to their business. Tell them about the work you know they’ve been involved in that’s led you to them. Tell them about results you’ve achieved in their industry….

Lovely.

Now take that email and copy and paste it into the 2nd email of your daily ‘campaign’. If you’ve written the first one honestly and intelligently, you should now be able to go in and replace a few details but still come out with a personable, non-bulk-smelling email. Do this ten times and boom - you’ve got the basis of a decent email outreach that won’t jump out as lazy automated new business spew.

Do that a few times a week and you’ll find those hundreds in your database all soon get attended to.

Now you just have to convert them. Happy hunting.

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.

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.

I don't want to be your friend

I used to be in an originals band, rehearsing, writing and recording week-in, week-out. I never imagined that one day my various masterpieces would end their lives on C90 cassettes in landfill (I had much grander dreams back then). Such was the effort we’d put into each and every song, constantly asking ourselves: “what would people like to hear in our songs?”

The answer is - of course - an impossible one to answer. We’d debut new material to friends and family. My dad would say “I hate that one about the flip top bins, but that’s probably a good thing” while the rest of the audience would be 50/50 split between which was their favourite and least favourite. It was a maddening process of non-discovery.

Truthfully, you can drive yourself mad trying to get any ‘please-all’ formula right, but ultimately the realisation is that all you can do is produce something YOU like and hope that the majority agrees with your choices.

Which brings me smoothly (see, you can tell I was once a creative sort) to the new business-related question: “how friendly should you be on the phone?”

Sponge has been in existence for nearly twenty years now. As you might imagine, in that time we’ve had various staff through the doors, each bringing their own personalities (or lack thereof) and styles to the gig. One chap would shout “GOOD MORNING!” down the line to each prospect, hoping that his 200% enthusiastic delivery would make people instantly like him. And then there’s the ‘building a rapport’ stuff [shudder].

The use of “how are you?” has changed in recent years. If anyone asked me that question before 2010 I’d have always answered honestly and politely, now I mostly hang up. It’s gone from a simple question to a shrieking warning that one of your ten-a-day sales calls has arrived.

I’m a big fan of one rule: RESPECT PEOPLE’S TIME. If Dean McProspect picks up the phone, you’re already winning in my book. Feel free to thank him for taking your call, but immediately respect his time by explaining why you’re calling rather than trying to become his new friend. Asking how someone is today, or how the weather is in [insert cleverly researched office location here] just forces someone to be false back at you.

Don’t do it; get to the point instead. I promise they’ll like you MUCH more if you respect their time rather than try to engage them in pleasantries.

But that might just be me; I’m still VERY bitter about the landfill.

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.