July 2020 Q&A Seminar with Paul Sullivan of Bias Digital
VIDEO: 1:10:23 mins
AUTHOR: Paul Sullivan and Robert Craven
In July's Q&A seminar, Robert was joined by Paul Sullivan of Bias Digital. They discussed:
How to generate leads?
The concept of trusted advisor
What to do when all agencies look so similar?
How to target customers?
How do you decide if a client is right for you?
What is the the recent experience of Agencies? How are they performing?
Should we recruit now?
Transcription:
Robert Craven 00:18
Well, hello, and welcome to the q&a session. And today we've got Paul Sullivan with us and a select small audience of people listening. But we've got questions here have come in already. So we're going to go straight away. So firstly, Paul, before we get going, quick introduction to who you are what you do tell us about Bias.
Paul Sullivan 00:38
Sure. So we are HubSpot agency, like there are so many of us now, we're a Gold Partner at the moment, we're trying to push on to the new tier focus primarily in financial services, property and technology. We don't really deviate too far from there. We've been around since 2014, in various guises. I've managed to rebrand twice, I believe. So that's a different story. And the funny thing is that one and a world under every one of those business names, so it's quite funny to watch. Than that, spend quite a bit of time working with the web and helping people optimise and personalise. Yeah, no, you know, generally help people out. I think that's the thing that I've been told. I'm quite helpful, and try and help people achieve results, whether that's with me, or by sending them on to other places. Your mute, you muted Robert.
Robert Craven 01:44
Our guest today will interview you for about 10 to 15 minutes. And then if there's any more questions from the questions I've got in front of me, then we'll go with those. So so how big How big is bias? How many people have you got there?
Paul Sullivan 01:57
There's five of us.
Robert Craven 01:58
Five of you, and where are you based?
Paul Sullivan 02:01
Normally, we're based on Liverpool Street. So we work in a shared office. But because of the size and the number of smaller agency businesses within that space, we've decided to stay home, at least until around September, October time and just work remotely.
Robert Craven 02:20
Right, so people can enter in questions on the chat, as and when. Otherwise, I'll give you more follow up questions that I've got in front of me that came in on email. So the first one, which I think is one that you can do, because we've been on this one before is, how do you acquire new clients? Very specifically, you but how to digital agencies acquire new clients?
Paul Sullivan 02:46
Yeah, I think, you know, on the last time I was on here, we spoke about LinkedIn and the power of prospecting. And I think there were quite a number of people listening to that particular interview when they that they were really kind of NT, you know, bought into the whole inbound, we produce content, we educate our leads, we nurture, we paint them past 16 different point touches in our funnel before we reach out. No, sorry, I just believe that is wrong. I think that there's a place for it. But most certainly there were we've uh, we're not saying that if our audience is 60 70%, educated around what they need. Inbound, is needed in terms of the content generation, but surely, we're asking people, are you ready to buy here today? Or you just need some more help? And if you need some help, surely we want to bring back the human to that. Which is why I suppose we've been really trying to work out how we manifest that through platforms like drift or a drip partner. And I definitely believe that the chat functionality enables you to qualify people pretty quickly to where they are. But you know, LinkedIn is a big space. We don't particularly run paid ads. Here as part of our strategy. I just find Google ads over the years as been hit or miss. Facebook, I don't know what any b2b brands are doing on there. I mean, yeah, you may find someone in some business somewhere, might download your ebook, or whichever, but I'll wait to see more results on that before I actually jump on that. But yeah, I like to build relationships. I think that if you target your prospects, you have the right audience, you know, your personas the right way. Be upfront with them when you connect in, you know, let them know who you are, why you connecting. But then, you know, be a bit upfront. I mean, to find out if you've got a problem and if you've got a problem, can I help you solve it and you know, most people now do have problems. I mean, honestly, I'm not sure what your ideas are, Robert, but I definitely believe that any form of digital transformation programmes that, you know, businesses were running have to have been brought forward by about three or five years at least because there is no way that the incumbent gear up for a business continuity was built around people potentially catching colds there was more than a coalition say that because employees sit down, but the catching a flu and stay in home, or not being able to come out. I know, I myself, you know, I don't want to go and sit on a train full of people because, you know, I don't know anyone who's been out who hasn't seen at least one or two people flouting the rules, you know, sitting there coughing on a bus full of people, or a train full of people. And yeah, it's difficult, people need to, just need to be there you need, I think, consultative agency services is where we should be, you know, we want to listen, I'm not here to sell you, or sell to you, if you've got a problem - let's see, if we're at with where you know, there's some symbiosis with that, and then just take it from there.
Robert Craven 06:07
You've covered up a couple of things, which kind of almost like a magician just rolling. So the first thing is quite a mom it approach to say, Hello, if you've got a problem, I can help, I might be able to help you sort it. Let's have a conversation in this very British world where we're going, we need to engage 27 times on 16 different touchpoints before people are willing to come through our idea of how they're meant to be communicating with us. Yeah, the next step in the customer journey should be to ask for this white paper. But no, you've got a problem you want answered now! Well, I'm sorry, you've got to read the white paper. So your view is quite mom, it you're quite salesy, and you're quite in front of people. And then the other thing is about digital transformation. I think that's what's happened. Couple of things have happened. First thing is that digital transformation has been brought forward, everyone has had to go digital, every bar restaurant, a chair, a boarded, a cocktail pass, it's got the whole cocktail bar has gone digital. I mean, we're pretty good eleven bars, stop taking, routers, money, and so on and so forth. But like now that yeah, it's you know, it's ordering, it's pre ordering, it's reserving a place. The whole thing is digital. And that is true, right across, you know, from parcel manufacturers to printers, the right. So digital transformation has been brought forward by three years. But the thing is, what, we can actually work from home, you know, most business owners to deliver. Shock, horror, probe. Without people going and going into the office. So I think that's, that's a really big change in what's going on. But, but, just going back to the question, which is how do you acquire new clients?
Paul Sullivan 07:48
Yeah. Yeah.
Robert Craven 08:11
Most digital agencies, that's the biggest problem, the biggest, you know, if you look at Gaida memberhub, if you look at Gartner initiatives, if you look at the polls, which is, what do you need to help with most of all, it's always sales and marketing. Why is it in your..?
Paul Sullivan 08:25
Yeah, I think the problem is, in, in all honesty, is that a lot of salespeople are trying to sell. And I said that we need to prospect. I'm not saying that I just need to jump into your inbox and say, hey, you know, I'm a great award winning agency, and that I can do this, because who cares? No one cares about your awards, right? No one cares about that. What were your last results? What cases have you got? And how can you prove it that you can help me. But it's about listening, right? And there's a lot of bad salespeople. And I think that there's bad process for start, a lot of people really don't have a well documented process around sales. It's a bit ad hoc, you've got people just winging it a little piece. There's no continual structure. There's a level of where does the salesperson see that their ability fits in, right? So if you've got an agency of 30 - 40 people, right, and you've got good salespeople, middle in sales people, and then you've got people who just kind of maybe would let go, right, and that happens, but I feel that the sales process needs to be well documented. You need to have people that are brave, but they're brave, bold, but they're not self important that it's not about them. It's always about the customer. Because whatever skill you bring to that conversation, ultimately, you know, I touched on it earlier on is you need to be consultative sales. It's about listening and identifying and then trying to just deep dive into those conversations when you start engaging them, and making people reiterate back to you what their problems are not for you to try and keep reinforcing it on them. Because it comes across as a little bit, fight or flight. If you get into the conversation where the salesperson is trying to drive the conversation, they're not listening too much to what's being said, or they're listening to reply. So, you know, they've got this idea, I work for an agency, I sell websites, I sell ads, I sell this and all they're looking for is that opportunity that when that person says, Yeah, you know, we've been doing some Google, right, right, we've got a greatest and then someone straight in on that cell. And it's like, stop trying so hard to sell. Because you know, what, you will get a lot further, when you just listen to people and offer help up front, I literally have had a tech company I've been talking to for probably around six weeks, had three conversations with the guy. During the process, they've kind of done this weird thing where they need to spin a business out from the main business. And so what they've done is built two pages within the company, overall company website targeted for this business, and I want to start running like a marketing campaign. So anyone listening knows, that is not what you do, right? You kind of want to break that out. Even if it's a small three page website, whatever you you do, you break it out, and you kind of treat it as its own beast. But I just said that to him said, Look, this is what you want to do. And this is how I would go about doing it if I was in your shoes. And these are the reasons why. And so when I spoke to him on a second call, what he'd done is he'd actually create the second page. And I kind of just said, you know, Sheldon, I don't see what you've done. I said most certainly, when you were talking to me about the second page, I can't find it. So that's the first thing like I cannot find it from the first page. So So there's a big challenge there. But But secondly, why? Like why don't you just build a second page within the page structure as opposed to kind of spinning this out? And he said, I'm not really sure. So I said, Look what I would do. And I'd actually already sort of this, what is it called? One click Full page I've got it's a Chrome extension. I just took two screenshots of both pages. And then I went into into Photoshop, and I just cut the elements of the two pages out, and then sent it back to him and said, Look, you need one page at the moment, potentially one longer page, and you know, one landing page for sale, and just put all of this information on one page. And yeah, and then just take it back from there. And I just left it, I just left it there, I didn't follow up to try and get into a conversation about building this website. And then he came back to me and he said, Look, I'm really sorry, I haven't been back to you. But I really like what you've done here. However, my new marketing, they're bringing in a CMO, whichever he's he's all over this platform and digital, and it's in line with what you said, so fine. But it's what I really like about it is that you've just listened and you've just offered value, and you've just, you've not tried to sell me across this whole thing. You've just kept providing value. And so you know, I've found some content about why you shouldn't build on WordPress and wonderful what the cons are of doing that if you're going to keep doing it. And um, you know, Drupal and craft and all these other CMS is that he was considering and so yeah, now he's just told me, you just want to work me because he likes the approach. Most people respond really well, when you take the time to really listen to them. And help them come to their own understanding of what you know, because most, most people don't want to feel like you, you're coming across that you know too much than them. They don't want to be sold to, nobody wants to be sold to, it makes you kind of you know, your shoulders hadn't chopped or you just get annoyed and get rid of people. So identify the right kind of prospects. Be upfront about why you want to talk to them, ask them if they've got any problems and show where you can help, you know, if you do have the full service agency, whatever you want to call it these days, you know, show some case studies of where you've helped similar businesses. And if you're going into a talk to a company that you haven't actually worked with, or that particular type of company than just show relevance. I think that's the major thing. Like people want to be reassured, because they've got to make a decision. One of the key questions that I always ask when I'm talking to someone is what do we need to do to make you look good? Do you know how many people just start rattling on when you ask that question? They will tell you, and they will define it. And then it just makes your job easier because you're asking people to speak about themselves and everyone loves that.
Robert Craven 14:44
So you alluded to the second question, which I've got in front of here, which is how... So, so in summary - people like engaging. They want engagement and they don't want, and I agree with that they want engagement, they don't want selling. And I think particularly now, where people are totally zoomed out and and fed up of the intensity of, of the narrowness of zoom conversations, they, they want some kind of engagement, some kind of touch point, you know, and I often tell the story of a female. That's not relevant. So that's therefore have a digital agency owner who I know who said, I know what I need to do for the performance agency, I know what I need to do for these clients. I know what I need to do I know what needs to happen. I've seen their accounts and all that stuff at Google. So why do I need to get in a car and travel for an hour and a half to sit in his bloody office while he shows me photographs of his children on donkeys and talk to me about the autism of his second child and his third marriage, and so on, and so forth, when I can do this stuff without blinking, well, having to travel the journey to do it. And it's kind of like, she had missed the point.
Paul Sullivan 14:56
They do.
Robert Craven 16:13
Which is people buy from people like themselves. And once I trust you, I'll just leave you to get on with it. If I don't trust you, I'm going to be all over you and saying exactly how long have you spent and what have you done, and why have you done and so on and so forth. So, example, we had a call today with our agency, he's doing some work for us. And it's like, I trust them. So actually, it's like, it's almost like why am I in this meeting, because I know you're doing your best. And I believe you're doing your best and you're kind of getting the results. So yeah, I'll give you some some more information to help you understand what should or shouldn't be going on. But because the trust had been built there, and the trust had been built there, because I've known the the MD for about three years, he's ironically been a client of mine. And, and so none of that has to happen. But, the point for me is that most agency leaders have very pointy heads. And they can fuse what they're really good at, which is selling stuff, you know, I can sell in herbal infusers, calculators, headphones, and a really cute PPC campaign, they really good at selling transactions, but they don't understand it. When you're selling an agency service. It's a professional service, you're selling a relationship is more akin to being an accountant and architect or surveyor, a solicitor bordering on a state agency recruitment agency, you're selling the trust, you're selling hot air, you're not selling product, yet, as a result, reputation and connection and engagement are really, really important. Enough on that. Right. So the next question I have down here, which came in was, how do you and I guess is how do you, Paul, also, how do you, an agency owner leader, how do you decide who to target.
Paul Sullivan 16:14
I think she did. I think... So, you know, I think my own career background was within financial services and technology. So I don't see where I'm going to deviate too much further than that, I've got over 23 years experience in that area. And that overlaps with property for a time. So you know, that's primarily where our client base is. It is quite straightforward. So if you look at our website, as you scrub come off of the hero image, it kind of says what we do is growth results and our growth engineering for whatever. And then it just basically says that we work with marketing leaders, sales leaders, or business owners, CEOs, depending on the size of the business, and how we help them right. And I just feel that websites for agencies are all well and good, but typically point to what they sell. And I'm gonna be completely honest, I went away for a few days, and came back and look on my website, and I was just like, this just isn't, isn't where it should be at all. We get great traffic, we get good conversions. You know, I can show you that it's not a problem. But when I read it, it read like, this is what I don't really like, can you buy this and it and it really feels like that. And I kind of feel like that's not the experience people were looking for. Everyone just wants to know how you solve my problems. I've started to feel like I go after a certain type of person in certain industries. So my content kind of alludes to those people. So we don't need To kind of over stress that, then it's like once you do that, when people were on the website, how do you encourage those people to go on the journey, just saying we've got this platform or that platform, this great technology? So is everyone else! Right? We've got these. What's the word I'm looking for? Values. So what so is everyone else your values don't sell what? They don't sell you, right? I've got some experience, ping, that may be great. I've got some case studies, ping. There's another plus. Right? So let's what we should be doing is identifying who we target through our experience reaching out to those people, right, because I look at it in this way. I primarily use LinkedIn, and I use it quite successfully. I build relationships with people, whether they want to buy from me or not. The reason that I don't mind if they don't want to buy from me is because they, they just tells me not to waste my time. But B, I never take it that they don't want to buy from me. So I'm not gonna come come back and harass them. But once they're in my network, and I'm you know, this content is being produced and being shared into channels like LinkedIn or Twitter, and they are in that network, they get to see it, right. And it comes back to the old adage of someone may not be ready to buy yet, right? So target by persona, which is content by problem or solution. And then make sure that you're building a website as a conduit to your sales team, right. So the website should not be a destination. And I think we had a conversation about this before Robert, where far too many of us are too inclined to look for people sign in forms and download an ebook to and actually, that's not really what it's about. And I know, you know, we've got this new pillar page content from SEO, where basically, you just unfold your ebooks and put them down as long form content and do smaller pieces of content around that. And that does your SEO, and that's great. But ultimately, you're here to provide a consultancy to an agent, an agency is a consultancy business. So show value, understand your customer, and provide that value upfront, because that's what differentiates you. And that's how you sell to the target market.
Robert Craven 22:20
So I know what I know the answer. So why do all webs Why do all agency websites look so boringly identical? I know the answer to that is the answer to that is they all look boring and identical, because there's a kind of a me too thing that if everyone else has got people pulling on ropes and climbing trees and saying, what we really care about is our customers. And we try harder. And yeah, and here, and here are the numbers that we do and blah, blah, blah, and we're award winning. They're all identical. And they're really, really boring and bland and beige. And I kind of understand why they're so boring and dull, and beige, because you just look everyone next to you, and you copy and paste. In fact, the whole of digital agency world in my mind is about copy and paste, everyone's proposals have copied, the place they work before. And everyone's pricing is copied and paste. That's why you know, a conference and things people are leaning in on, on how much people are charging and what their profitability is and stuff. What I kind of don't get, and maybe it's the same answer, I don't know is why so many agencies almost don't get what their role, or the job is. They seem to be stuck in this. I've got a hammer, therefore you're a nail kind of mentality. And they are under this weird illusion that people are looking for hammers. You know, and I'm not I'm if I go back to my, to my conversation with my agency this morning. You know, as I said, this is really simple. My marketing director Jeremy wants to talk about, you know, should we or shouldn't we do TikTok and maybe we could do this and that and more and less than here and there. But my thing is really simple, which is I need more sales, more better sales. And do I do I care how you get them? I don't think I do really? I mean, if I kind of might push the the edges of the brand if you suggested putting fliers under windscreens in car parks. But if you believe that that's how you're going to reach my target customers, then that's cool. And the problem is that digital agencies, yeah, certainly the performance ones think that the ultimate solution to everything is is is PPC or SEO or content or... and I, I just, I just tell you a story really, really quick. I met this woman. I was going past her door, she, you know, I'll drop in and I'll see you and she had been absolutely fleeced she had 100,000 pounds of redundancy payment between her and her husband to set up a web idea. And everyone came in the the web designer, the graphic designer, the brand designer, marketing consultant, sales consultant, everyone came in, and they charge roughly 20,000 pounds for their, for their services. And no one once thought anything of whether it was a good idea whether it was going to float, whether it had any, any, any chance, and you could see, I mean, it was a rubbish idea, you know, and... but they were all happy to take the money, because no one had that helicopter view, to think about, am I? Am I actually helping this client? And I would, you know, virtually bankrupted her. And she left bitter and twisted. And you'd never recommend any of those people ever, ever, ever, ever. It's like, it's not this thing about, oh, my website launched yesterday. And it's only had 11 views, and they're all from my family. But what would you what did you expect? You know, what did you really expect?
Paul Sullivan 26:10
I think that to add to that, though, Robert, if we were to do a poll within the group, and we said, how do you? How do you target a customer and work out, if they're right for you? I bet if if, if that bid was added. Yeah, we make sure that the business is a viable business, it will probably get like 6 or 7 percent in terms of importance, right? Because everyone's gonna go right. Right persona. Right company size. Right? They've got the money. And everyone's in on those prints those values for themselves. And no one's sitting there saying, Should I talk to this person. So I actually don't think this is because most people have got this mindset of, well, if they're not going to spend that money with me, they'll spend it with someone else, I might as well take it. And that's wrong. I think that at the core of your business, if that's how you let your salespeople or you, as an agency owner, actually, like you know, do your business, then you got to look at yourself and ask some questions in the mirror, because fundamentally, your moral compass is skewed. And that will cause you more problems, because you're selling a dream that you can't deliver. And then you might say it's their fault. Oh, you know, well, we didn't do this, we didn't do and you can sneak your way out of it, if you so please, but ultimately, you've got to be kinda qualifying people out as much as possible when not in and if, if the business is too new, you know, they could have 60k. And it might be easy for you to do a 20 grand website and 40k worth of marketing, but is the business idea any good? You can say, look, we've tried and we did this, we did the personas right and got the messaging right, and did to do and everyone excuses to justify that you stole this person's money. Is that what you're trying to say this Yeah.
Robert Craven 27:49
It is all good Perry Marshall stuff, because this is like, you know, Perry Marshall stuff it's about, it's about convincing people of what the ROI is. And we have in our score sheet with new clients, we have, depending on what the work is, we kind of aim for typically a four or five times ROI, which is, you know, if you give me 100 pounds, I'm going to give you 400 pounds back, if we don't think we can do that. We shouldn't be working with them, you know, we just shouldn't be working with them. Because one, we're not going to keep our promise and what's in the proposal. And secondly, we should find, you know, either we weren't able to deliver that ROI, either because the client wasn't ready or we weren't the right client. Or alternatively, you know, the benefit wasn't there. But but we walk away from it and say we we don't think we can do this and I think is a much. I guess my point is going back to the lady in wherever she was she was in Golders Green or Hendon, with her website, she would have been much more grateful of the people who said, You know what, we don't think you're ready. I don't think you should do this until you've done this, or the other or actually radical candour, which I think is an awesome book. I would like to challenge some of your assumptions, because I think you're actually wrong. And I'm gonna give you an hour of my time explaining why there are things you need to do. Come back to me in three months time, but right now, I cannot take your money. So... And that's why the industry gets a bad name. You know?
Paul Sullivan 29:25
Wouldn't it be funny if someone started to say if agency started to say, I'll guarantee this? Because agencies don't want to they say, Oh, well, I can't I can't guarantee those results. You know, we can do this. We could do that. But we can't guarantee that someone's going to buy it always comes out and actually, you know what, if you could guarantee three and a half times X ROI or whichever, then guarantee it.
Robert Craven 29:51
Funny you say that because I did this in front of some of the UK best agencies. PPC agency specific commissions, which is even funnier. And I said, you know, I can tell you how much it costs to require a customer for me to let's just let's just use a number 500 quid, okay, cost me 500 pounds to get a client to sign a contract? Yeah to get on a contract worth 10,000 pounds. So currently, currently, I'm paying 600 pounds. Yeah, with the system I'm doing, I think it should be 500 pounds. Anyone, anyone in the room who wants to come up to me afterwards that can deliver on a plate clients at less than 500 quid per client? Bear in mind, I've got a system which has got a 75% hit rate. And so I recognise that I will give you as much money as you want, you know? Because I'll take as many leads as I can. Because why wouldn't I? Because my cost of customer acquisition is less than it is now. And they all want more. Yeah, if you have really... Yeah. And none of them actually came back to me.
Paul Sullivan 31:05
No. But I do have a guy who does PPC, who actually ties himself into the success. It says I will charge you a consultancy fee for the first two months, which helps me get set up comes my costs, blah, blah, blah, do your assessment is there but from then on in, I'm tied into the success of how many appointments we bought. But he, you know, he actually gets into looking at the process of the agency or the business, you know, what's your onboarding process, let me look at this. Let me make sure you're set up to succeed, because then I'm titling my success to you. But you've got to have the right things in place as well. I want to meet your sales team, I want to understand what they like. And I think that if we want to do more, we can achieve more as agency owners. And I think that there's going to be a lot of people go bust. When people have to cut the purse strings. And I'm talking about industries cutting postings, like we'll see. And bad agencies will come on staff because things that were tolerable, and now no longer being paid for, you know, no one's gonna pay for mediocre middling results, they're gonna find people that will say, Look, we're guaranteed to do this, or, you know, we can prove to do this. And we will actually stand by that and do something about it. If if we're not there. That's what people want to hear. Right. But before you get onto there, people want you to sit and listen to them, and let them tell you what, what they've got and what their problems are. And when you start doing that, first, that consultative selling, that's how you get good customers. But that also helps you qualify out the people that aren't going to be the right fit, because you should spend longer on that. Upfront. Four calls, maybe five calls, maybe have a five call process. But make sure you've done enough. I've gone you've gone on to...
Robert Craven 32:51
Isn't the problem that because people's, ironically, because people's lead generation process isn't good enough. They're not getting enough leads. So when when when one comes in through the door, they start ringing the bell, Hey, someone wants to talk to us. What do they want? Oh, they want someone to clean their car. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, it's like, it's like they're in they're in there... They're just they're just, they're not saying, you know, so I've learned, you know, in my time, I've had two clients from hell, two, what I described as poisoned wolves. I mean, they were just literally horrible, horrible people to work with. And on both occasions, it was our fault. Okay. These are over 10 years ago, those occasions, we said, ooh, if we really wince and we really stretch our imagination, I think we could do that work, you know, and, and it wasn't mainstream, and it wasn't what we were expert at. And it was right on the edge of our expertise. And, more importantly, we didn't understand the type of client that wanted the type of work. And in both instances, we handed the contracts back and said, Look, we've been with you for three or four days, we're not going to charge you anything. Here's someone who can take over and use the work we've done. In both instances, the client said, no, no, no, we want to keep working with you. And it's like, no, no, no, you don't seem to understand, you know, like, we really don't want to be working with you. And so you give out the radical candour book, let's explain why we'd want to work with you. Yep. And, and it was just foul, because we'd said yes to work that really we should have said no to. And actually, Jonathan elder asked the question, which as it comes on, to the next question I've got here. So I, the question I had written written down from someone here was - how are clients different post COVID? So that's alluding to, as we go into Christmas, how will agency clients be behaving differently? And Jonathan's question was what's changed regarding demand for agency services over the last four months? So it's a similar thing. How do you see the demand for agency services changing?
Paul Sullivan 35:19
Okay, so the very first thing was everyone put a stop on doing anything. I'm sure everyone felt that as soon as it started, you know, even when we were doing our outreach, which was quite successful, I was getting told, can you come back at the end of June, July, when we might know a little bit more about what's going on? And so you know, we've been doing that. But what come back to the question is, agency services shouldn't be front and centre. Right? If I'm not sure how many things you're doing there, John. But looking at the background, now, I think you're doing digital marketing and web design. If you give me a nod that kind of... Yep, brilliant. Yeah, and kind of from that, I just feel that now's the time to really listen, and I'll keep beating that bush and kind of shaking that tree. But honestly, if you think about what's going on, there's a lot of people that are really scared. There's a lot of people that have lost their jobs, there's a lot of people trying to save money and streamline, I actually have seen some really good research where people saying that, you know, mass marketing sales people that their budgets have been cut, they're trying to, you know, operate on 60% and still generate revenue. So what it is, is an agency has to be tight on what it can deliver. And it has to understand where its purpose is. Now, it could be something quite simple that you know, you've got a text deck that you work with, and you can save some money and streamline that could literally be how you service a client, right. Do you use any particular software John or HubSpot, anything like that..? Yeah, cool, I thought so. So yeah, so like, I think one of the winners that for us as well, HubSpot agency is definitely going to be the CMS. I think that the Smart Content, Smart Hub, personalization, ABM, that is going to be like, where people are going to want to spend their money it's going to be how can I stop phishing? I think, if you think of where we've got two from, you know, the early sort of digital marketing to then have inbound. Inbound kind of now, early digital marketing, in terms of how new we are, and ABM is like kind of the new Inbound. And it's like, you know, let's land some whales, let's target people to do the right thing. So being helpful at helping those businesses that you talk to understand what they need to do will then help you understand what you can offer them. And I think that I always operate on this notion, it doesn't matter what service I offer, I'm a digital agency. If someone speaking to me, they're looking for something that they believe that I can offer, potentially, they've looked at my LinkedIn profile, or they've looked at my company website. So they'll, they'll have an idea what they're looking for you it comes back to you, they're looking for you to listen, and understand what their are, what their problems are, if they've got 10 items in their tech stack, and they're suffering from sales, then just just have the sales conversation, understand that and, you know, if they've got, you know, web problems, then do that. I think prospecting plays a fundamental part in the new business generation. For agencies, I'm looking at tools like vid yard, you know, as I mentioned, we've got drift. And I think that the easiest way to transition into doing prospecting, when you ask, you know, one of one of the guys at the agency, or yourself to look at a business, you're gonna go online, you do all this research, you kind of look at their social, you look at their website, you're trying to find landing pages, you might run SEM, Rush reports, or h ref reports on the domain and try and do all that stuff, right? All you've got to do is record it in a videos upfront, because you're going to do it anyway. Reach out to that person on LinkedIn upfront and go Hi, John Smith, this company, we typically work like you, I've gone through your thing. We can see whether some areas I'm sure you're already addressing some of these, but we think we can help you do that. That is how agencies should behave. You should give it upfront and let them come to you because you're doing something different. I know full well. Everyone's on the automation, LinkedIn. Now everyone's like, it's much of a muchness, and it's the draw was, I'm still getting told, I'll get 20 of these of April was different about your agency. So now I've got I've got kind of get back ahead of the curve. And now I've got to be doing more. Agencies are going to have to do more, even if you're a big agency. You know, I've got friends that have got some really, you know, Platinum diamond tiered HubSpot agencies and they're having problems. They're having problems because people were full, it was always going to come and they get their inbound leads and actually, looking at an inbound leads that are not always right. And that happens, right? We can't stop people talking to us. But in answer to your question
Robert Craven 40:10
I spoke with... Will go back into the question in a minute because I don't do my bottomed out what's different now from before. I spoke with Gary Sullivan, as is now has to happen, from Equator, it's about 200 person agency up in Glasgow. And he said pre COVID it was costing them... lead gen was costing them 1000s. And other words, they'd have to hire a hotel, handwritten invites, goodie bags, run a webinar. So say the webinar cost them 5000 quid to run, they'd end up with five good leads coming out of it, that's 1000 quid upon. Post COVID, as I call it, it's costing about 10 quid. So it's kind of like, it's like, wow, so so so now you're getting, you're getting the same quality of leads, by running a really well targeted webinar by picking up the phone and talking to people, by by making stuff happen. It's kind of like, wow, we went up some rabbit holes, didn't we to think that the way you had to reach someone and engage with them was to give them a goodie bag with 200 quids worth of kit inside it and give them smoked salmon sandwiches, blah, blah, blah. When all you needed to do was find their phone number and pick them on the right date. Now I know I'm exaggerating. But the world has, the world have changed our last four, or last four clients here who have come from just following through the process on LinkedIn. Hi, we ought to connect. Loom video. This is what we do. Oh, oh, yeah. You can join up if you want to. Don't have to. Oh, you'd like to? Do you'd like to have the link or the link to his there? Oh, fine. Yeah. Oh, they like the cutter Najeeb. How can we buy stuff from you? There's how you buy it. I'll send you a proposal. Job jobbed. Yeah. Why pay the marketing director fitting away. And I know, I'm being facetious. But, but the world has changed.
Paul Sullivan 42:28
Yeah. And I don't know what to say. I was like, I was gonna come back to the fact that it's about outreach, I think that everyone now knows they have problems and those problems that they potentially we used to carry, no one's got the money to carry anymore. Everyone is tighten up their belts, budgets have been restricted. And so now is the time to fish. And I mean fish properly, not use your content and sit behind that and sit behind, you know, sit in your castle waiting for the minions to come, you really have to get out there and do make some calls. You know, I think that we're not talking about buying cold lists, you're not talking about doing like proper, old school accompanying, but warm outreach and, you know. You probably work in a couple of sectors, potentially three, maybe. And, you know, reach out to people and talk to them, because everyone has got problems. And it's the people that have been brave, which is why I kind of went a little bit aggressive at the beginning of COVID that are going to do that. Because people often we'd come programme not to outreach, even if there's a phone number on a website, we potentially don't call it we potentially want to refer or an introduction, and they're all great when they happen. But what happens when you can literally pick up a call, pick up the phone, you know, use Lasha, or whatever these other chrome plugins are and, and just, just find someone and say, Look, you know, this is what we do. I've been through your website through your channels, we can see that there's some opportunities to do things maybe a little bit better. Or use a... What's this plugin I use... Built With. So I use Built With to look at the technology stack behind a website. And so I'm pretty well educated when I go in. But I'm just giving it up front for nothing, because I kind of have to equate TIME to TIME to TIME to revenue, right? And I'd say, Well, if I would do all of this stuff, and then potentially send someone an email to tell them that I've done it all. Why don't I just do it and then give it to them and be that one agency that they've got got through the door because actually, they can see what they've got. And there's no surprise.
Robert Craven 44:39
So, so how, just going back to the question, how do you think things have changed? How do you think the agency world changed?
Paul Sullivan 44:47
You have to become consultants, you're not digital service providers anymore. You are business consultants that have digital solutions. That is what people are looking for.
Robert Craven 44:59
And of course we then that there's my wonderful sort of, you know, if you're a supplier, they just phoned you up and said, We want 1000 quid a month of PPC on Google AdWords. If you're an advisor, and they say we've got 1000 quid a month, just split it between whatever you think it should be split. And then if you're the trusted advisor, then they say, we're talking about what products we're going to sell this year, and how can you come in and talk to us about what you think we should be doing. And it's getting into that trusted advisor thing where you get away from the hourly rate, it's that trusted advisor where you can add, add, kind of unquantifiable, but serious value, because the reality is that if they want someone to push ads around, and so on, and so forth, they can get it done in Bangalore for five or $10 an hour, they don't be doing it with you. So the real value add, and the thing which differentiates you is, is if just that value add, which is bringing your 10, or your 15 years of experience, and peace of mind, to actually enable them to do stuff differently. And if they want cheap, as cheap, as cheap as cheap - you're never going to win because it can, it's going to end up in Bangalore. So not that there's anything wrong with Bangalore, you know, I've got several advisors on a border business where we got 25 People in Bangalore, but that's where they, that's where they're gonna head and...
Paul Sullivan 46:31
So the values not in the contract the values in the relationship, and it comes back, everything we've been talking about today comes back to relationship and you know, even trust, trust comes because of the relationship. So the trust has to come, the relationship has to come because the value is not in contract is the ability to kind of be upfront and say, you know, not that we've got 20% management fee in this retainer, and, you know, that comes your consulting, because it feels transactional, it doesn't feel like a relationship, you kind of want to build that that upfront and get that ability to say, Look, this is where we see innovation in your business. Like those are conversations that really add value.
Robert Craven 47:12
I'm really glad I'm really glad this conversation because on my laptop, I've got this little poster which you can see here, which says two things which is which is our values which are radical candour and give a shit, and that's kind of how we run the business. So if we're not giving a shit or we're not being candid with how we're talking to people. We're we're not doing it and you go back to Oh, yeah, give a shit. That actually means that we actually care that as you means we spend the extra time that actually means we don't have, we're not timekeeping endlessly, that actually means that people, Matt, so you kind of get stuck. So,
Speaker 47:50
Robert, can I jump in? At the beginning of the the COVID, I was on a few of your hosted calls, where there was, I don't know, at least half the people were well down in terms of what they were doing immediately. And I haven't really got a very strong picture of how the thing is picked up. And because all right from that beginning, yourself, David and a few of the others. Were saying, look, it's going to be at least September, let's talk about what things are going to be at the Christmas. Have you run any further sort of state of the digital agencies, type of polls or anything? And can you differentiate between those that should be in real trouble, because they're in completely the wrong businesses as industries. Because obviously, if you're into the way things are on the high street, as opposed to e commerce, you're in a bit of a sticky place. And if you're in to things where you're in events, or the stuff to do with mass transport, you're in a sticky place. But if we're talking about b2b agencies, and we're a b2b agency, and you're talking about not being in those directly affected sectors, and what's happened, yeah,
Robert Craven 49:16
I can answer that. So the answer is it depends. But let me just let me just expand on that a little bit. I reckon that 75% of agencies have seen year on year. revenues fall by 25 to 50%. So in other words, the majority of agencies have seen their agencies that their revenues reduced by a quarter to a half. And I reckon there's about 5% who are doing swimmingly well, because they're in online gambling because they're in groceries because they're in bicycles, by nearly always, by an absolute fluke, I think there's four levels, I kind of vary when I say this, but I think there's four, there's four agent, four types of agency: dying agencies, of which I saw five die in the first week of COVID. I'm now seeing them starting to die again, when they've run out, their credit cards run out of cash. And they've realised they haven't got the energy and enthusiasm or the, or the sales funnel to actually support it. So they're dying agencies, struggling agencies who just haven't got the systems processes in place, or they've had some really bad luck, their pockets aren't deep enough, they're doing too little too late, they've cut too hard. And then we've got surviving agencies and thriving agencies, surviving agencies tend to be larger. So I hardly know of any, hardly know of any agencies, independent agencies, right? I hardly know of an independent agencies with more than 50 people that are really, really suffering, because they had a wide portfolio, because they've got deep pockets because they wouldn't be there, there hadn't been otherwise. And because they're there, their systems are really quite slick. So the cost of customer acquisition is more effective than than yours, because they're percentage of spend on marketing is very low, because it's effective, because they've got a decent pipeline, because they've got people working on stuff. So because of their scale, they seem to be okay. And then this surviving, the surviving lot can go one of, can go one of several ways, it's really difficult to know what's going to happen with them. So that's that. And then the it depends is I know, two agencies that are in tourism, leisure, both, one of whom has lost 95% of revenue, and another one who had quite the reverse where an airline has come to them and said, Can you do a full digital transformation for our airline from marketing all the way backwards to ticketing? Because we need one person to do it. And it's like, are you? Are you sure? So yes, we are. So that's why I said it depends. But the larger agencies, 50 person, 150, they all seem to be there or there abouts. And also partly because they're able to cut fat, and they've actually become more profitable. So even if their revenues go down, they become more profitable because they get rid of 25% of staff on furlough. Okay. They get a bit, they lose 20% of revenue. Yeah. So you kind of do the sums, what's your biggest cost is your staff. So those are the, that's what I am seeing. And the other reason I say it depends is because the sorts of people who talk to me and the sorts of people who engage with me, tend to be independent, tend to be often performance related. Many of them have come from being Google premiere partners. So I've, I've got a... You have, that's why it's, that's my piece of cake that I'm seeing if that makes sense. But 50 to 25% drop in revenue year on year on year, but that's picking up now nearly everyone is talking about green shoots. However, I think those green shoots is why Paul Paul was saying so relevant. And Paul alluded to it, right at the top, people are coming back, but they're saying, you know, last year we had 150k We'd like to do the same or a bit more with 47. It's kind of like so... So everyone's cut the fat, they just want to go straight to the muscle. And I think that's, that's true for nearly everyone they just want to know want to know what the short cuts are, which is because the FDA is on their back to make deliverables. And then And finally, I'll be quite the final thing is about being brave. I think a lot of people have made a mistake and all the research supports it. So Ernst and Young Harvard Business Review, INSEAD, Warwick, they all say the same thing that up post recession, the ones that do best of all are the ones who didn't totally close down. So actually, that is therefore I think too many agencies have of coward underneath their ironing boards in their bedrooms waiting for it to get better, when in fact, they should have been bolder and braver. They should have been out there helping their clients, back to Paul's point, helping their clients to understand how to navigate what was going on instead of worrying about themselves. It should have been, I understand why they did that, but I think they should have been in a marketing bizdev format, they should have been seen to be saying, Okay, this is what's going on, these are the choices you need to do. And I think too many agencies because they've been a bit bashed around themselves, like they've come off, come off sort of 15 rumours of Tyson... gonna say Muhammad Ali... time around to Tyson. They, kind of assume that their clients feel a bit battered as well. But actually, I think what the clients actually want is, for someone to come in and say, this is the defining moment in your business. What you decide to do in the next two or three months, will historically define the success of your business. And we want to go with you on that journey. And I think too many agencies have said, it's a bit tough out there, isn't it? So if you're thinking about doing some stuff, we might be able to help with you. I think we haven't been brave enough or loud enough. And the only reason I say that, even at a simple level is because you share a voice, ultimately will equal share of market. And that's kind of where I'm at.
Paul Sullivan 56:31
I'm excited. Just to add to that, I mean, just to give you some background into what we did, I mean, we stopped producing the content, we did. And we went into that whole perspective prospecting mode. But you know, what we also did, we had a good look at our business. And we looked at process, internal structure, a couple of people got laid off, the people that weren't performing. And it wasn't just to do with saving money, it was actually a good time to be realistic with the business. And you have to do that at times. But most certainly what we've done is we've reorganised, We've restructured, I think we've we've done the ers, Robert, so you know, we took that on board, and we've got right into it. And now I'm superly I'm like, I've just set my three year goal. Off the back of this in the middle of this situation. I'm like, right, this is where we want to get back to in terms of turnover, staff count. And you know, this is where we're really confident, I don't feel... I didn't think it as bad as maybe some agencies did, you know, maybe those mid small agencies in the middle, that those may be 15 to 30 people agencies, you know, they, they probably feel a little bit bigger than, as Robert said, the 50 people agencies, but most certainly, it's been a rigorous and realistictear down of what the business looks like, and also ourselves what our approach was, what were we doing wrong? You know, what could we have been doing better? Where, how, how are we going to come out of this ourselves, instead of focusing on what the client is going to do? We internalise that and said, Look, businesses always going to need to generate revenue. marketing budgets are typically the first to get slashed, sales budgets aren't. So there's a tip, go for the sounds and not to mathematically run the marketing. But most certainly people will come back to the table to start doing it. So you know, if you can streamline your own process, which means that you can re engineer the way that you're operating in that could probably save you some money, and then use that money in a net time to go out stronger, and hunt, hunt stronger and come back in a more positive manner.
Robert Craven 58:36
It's interesting to see an economist today that the Metropolitan Police used to use the lockdown to complete their to do list because shoplifting collapsed, which is the biggest, biggest thing they have to deal with. Crime on the streets claps because now that all the criminals were at home, so they knew where they were. This is why they had the biggest drug bust of arresting 570 people claiming 50 million quitting cash, because they could actually get to their to do list and do the stuff that we've been meaning to do. And I think ironically, agencies should have been doing the same thing, which is, if there's ever a time to have explainer videos on everything to redesign your onboarding process to re redesign your reporting process. That was the time that we've had that that time is pretty much gone, because now we're back to back to business, but the agencies that actually got their act together are the ones who are in really good shape for the field. That's interesting thing.
Speaker 59:42
Robert, John, sorry. Can I just add the assumption is that the Business has been bad. I'm just nervous about our expansion in light of when I speak, because we're taking on stuff we've had too much work. So we've had it very good. And the thing I'm nervous about is expanding too much at this time when I speak to my community around here, and it's almost like a sin to be recruiting at the moment, because of the, you know, what's happening to everybody and the nervousness about recession?
Robert Craven 1:00:32
Well, it depends on what Mark on what space you're in. So if you recall, early on in the COVID thing, we had Daniel Bartlett on who was an HR, employment, barrister, you know, so he's pretty busy at the moment. So depending on where you are, and he's going to be pretty busy for the next couple of years, you know, because of all everything that's gone on. So you just got to make sure that everything, everything kind of works, and he sticks to his, his values, and so on and so forth. So it kind of depends on where you are and what you're doing and how you making it happen. There are going to be casualties in the agency world. There are every third agency owner I speak to we've got bounced back or siebels money, they're looking for some idiotic reason they're looking to buy other agencies. That's for another day. The big agencies are not just furloughing, but now they are making redundancies I mean, the big 500,000 person, sort of factories. Likewise, there are small agencies going pop quietly, so there are freelancers and the market place of labour has never been so good. And it will, it will be for wonderful, better word, it's going to end up being a survival of the fittest thing. You know, the agencies that have got the best systems, the best processes, the best proposition are going to do well. And the ones that are pretty mediocre are not going to do well. So yeah, everyone tries really, really hard. But but some people are smarter and brighter and cuter than others. And it's kind of like, so how can we do what? Are we part of the bright and cute bit? Or are we just part of the ones where Robert makes up funny voice. And that's, that's the issue about about, I think about being brave is about sticking your neck out. To stand for something, sticking your neck out and deciding where you think the market is going to do really well. And, and what's the worst that's going to happen if you recruit four new people? You know, after three months, you tell them, you can't have them anymore. And it's cost us three months salary of each person. I think sometimes when we recruit people, we think, Oh, it's a 30,000 pound recruit. It's nice, two and a quarter 1000 pounds a month, you know, three months. So after three months, you let them go. That 7000 quid. I mean, I know it's not nice. But I think if you think we're going to recruit four people at 3000 quid, so 120,000 quid, then you've got on costs 150,000 quid, that means we've got to find an extra million pounds of turnover just to wash their faces. You know, that's not what's going on what's going on is they've got three months to make their mark. And if they don't you close them down. And it's a 7000 pound investment. That's gone a bit off. So I think it's about how we see stuff. And I think, you know, I've been reading a book called, was down here, somebody, called Worry, which talks about why are we obsessed with the downside, and that conditioning that only makes us see the downside, but not the upside of stuff. And quite right, because if something might kill you, it deserves more merit than something might make you happy. So, so we do worry a lot, but I think we kind of need to do the worry bit and rationalise and then make the decision.
Paul Sullivan 1:04:20
Now just ask the question, please, John. Yeah. Not not to interrupt this, but you said that you're over subscribed, but yet you've been coping so why can't you just continue coping until the like the landscape could be clearer?
Speaker 1:04:33
And I'm saying we have it because we've been we've been full. So yes. Well, that's the I think that's the dilemma, isn't it? Do I carry on being full oversubscribed and coping? And or do I recruit more? So that's, so I've come to conclusion I've got to recruit and I'm just wanting to not be silly. In if I'm the only one recruiting round there, have I not understood it correctly? So this type of forum is extremely valuable in understanding the patchiness, or the degrees or the risks associated with that, because it's one thing to be brave and stupid and then want to be brave in a very controlled manner.
Robert Craven 1:05:30
Yeah. But I think you then need to, you then need to map, if you just go back to what I say, why did the dying? Why did the dying ones die that start off with them, they died because they didn't have they hadn't been profitable, because they weren't good in the first place. They didn't have, therefore they didn't have deep pockets. Therefore, they didn't have anything at the top of their pipeline or their hopper. Therefore, when everything closed down, the businesses could only run for about three or four months, the first agency I was involved with with this guy, Tim, Tim's objective was a six month burn rate. In other words, if nobody paid us, yeah. How long can we last? How long can we keep running the agency if everyone who owed us money refused to pay us. And his target was six months to get six months in the bank, which actually is exactly spot on, as it turns out. Now we March the 16th. April, May, June, July, and it will tell you to September the 16th. If you look at the ones who was most successful, they happen to be in really good niches. And then if you look at the ones who are surviving, which I think is, which is that kind of were steady state or growing a bit, then that tends to be around running a really good agency really efficiently really well, and so on and so forth. And I go back to my friend, Alex in the States, you know, who fundamentally believes that he can put everyone at the 200 person agency, they, he believes that they can acquire other businesses, and because of the quality of their systems and processes, recruitments and so on, and so forth, wherever they can go, they can take a mediocre 5% EBIT da business and turn it into 15 20% Within a couple of months, turn it to 25%. And it's only having that, and again, Gary Sullivan from equator saying the same thing, which is, it's only when you're large enough to have designed really awesome processes and systems that the cost of delivery, absolutely crashes. You know, because now you've got a system that just just runs like clockwork. And but I think that applies at every level. So today, we were looking at the mastermind group, and we were updating everything about it. And in the old world, the onboarding process, I described as like word five, which went down really well with everyone. But it was like word five. I mean, it was like, clunky and old fashioned and PDFs. And every, you know, and the new version, which has explainer videos in Google Forms and automate. I mean, it's very simply automated. The main thing about it is the clients love it, you know, and it's light on the eye, and it's light and easy to do. Content is probably 95% the same. But it's not bloody PDFs and bloody Times New Roman 10 single spaced, it's all right. So I think we all have the opportunity to do that, we all have the opportunity to create leaner, fitter, tighter businesses, I think what's happened has taught us to become much leaner and question everything and be more more demanding. I think you just need to follow that through. Follow that through to how you're looking at the future. And then just go back to basics, which is make mistakes on paper, map it out, see what it looks like, figure out what the breakeven point is with the new people. Figure out how quickly you can get there. Figure out what the upside what the downside is...
Paul Sullivan 1:05:30
Yeah, measured.
Robert Craven 1:05:40
A photograph paper my favourite notepad, just map it out. See what it looks like. You know, good old paper I love the incredibly high tech. In fact, I've got my meeting notes, which is just a piece of paper and the customer journey and everyone's going. I started a customer journey started with that. That's what we're asking. And it's on a beautiful 85 envelope. Right ladies... men and ladies and thank you very much, Paul, I think we'll wrap up now...
Paul Sullivan 1:10:03
No problem.
Robert Craven 1:10:05
...when they're listening back. I'm gonna stay on for the five minutes after we've said goodbye. We'll say a formal goodbye. And we'll, we'll, we'll take it from there. So I'll say goodbye. Thanks very much for everything and I'm still staying on cheerio.