Selling agency relationships in a virtual world with Tom Martin

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Agency Management Institute community, where you’ll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money, and keep more of what you make. The Build a Better Agency podcast, presented by White Label IQ, is packed with insights on how small to mid-size agencies survive and thrive in today’s market. Bringing his 25 plus years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant, please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

Drew McLellan:

Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here with another episode of Build a Better Agency. I have a returning guest with me today and I’ll tell you a little bit more about him and why I’ve asked him to come back. You’re going to love him. And you’re going to learn a little more about him in just a second. I do want to remind you, I’m sure if you’ve listened to even one episode of the podcast in the last few months, you know that the Build a Better Agency Summit, the conference that we launched in 2021. I wanted to launch it in 2020, but that didn’t work out quite according to plan. But we sold out and launched in 2021 and everybody had a great time. Speakers were amazing.

But actually I’ll tell you who was the most amazing. It was actually the attendees. They just reached out to each other. They made connections. They found new partnerships. They supported each other. They were generous with what they knew. They showed up just the way I love the AMI community to show up. They showed up with an abundance mindset that agency owners can come together and learn together and help each other and that it’s all good and it works out great. And so, it was so much fun, we’re doing it again May 24th and 25th in Chicago. Would love for you to join us. We have, I think, about 50 tickets left or so before we are sold out. So would love for you to come on board and be a part of that fun and learning. I promise you, you will not regret the investment of time or money if you join us.

I mean, we’ve got six keynotes that are amazing speakers who are going to just dominate the stage and fire us up about all kinds of different topics. We have nine breakout speakers throughout the two days. And over the course of two days, we have 25 or 30 round table hosts. So you’re going to be able to pick topics. Everything from cashflow to succession planning to speeding up the hiring process. You name it, we’ve got an expert there who’s going to sit around the table with 10 or 12 of you and you’re just going to have an in-depth conversation for an hour. No presentation, no PowerPoint deck, just a real conversation sharing what you know. And you’re going to share what you know, they’re going to share what they know. And it’s going to be a beautiful, beautiful thing.

So I would love to have you join us before we sell out. So please grab your ticket. As you know, it just gets more expensive as we get closer to the event. And honestly, I would be very excited if we could just sell it out now and I don’t have to keep talking about it anymore. I can just focus on getting ready for it. I’ve got to give a keynote, so I’m working on that. I’m a little nervous. It’s not really my thing to give keynotes, but I did it last year and now I have to do it again. Anyway, I’m excited to spend the time with all of you and would love for you to join us. So head over to the Agency Management Institute website and up in the upper-left corner, it’s B-A-B-A Summit is on the nav bar. If you just click on it, you can register right from there. So please join us in Chicago. I think you’re going to have a great time.

If you’re a member, whether that’s an associate member or a peer group member, remember you can join us on Monday for family day. So you’re going to come in right after lunch. We’re going to do panel discussions around hiring, succession planning, and biz dev. And then we’re all going to go out to dinner together. So if you’re a member, make sure you grab the family day ticket as well.

Okay. Let me tell you a little bit about our guest. My guest today is my good friend, Tom Martin. Tom owns an agency called Converse Digital and has written a great book called The Invisible Sale. If you haven’t read it, well, I’m sure we’ll talk about it. But if you haven’t read it, it’s a great read. And Tom’s an agency guy from way back and he was actually a biz dev guy at a couple agencies. He was the odd biz dev guy. He was actually successful at it. And then went out and launched his own shop. And so, has been for many, many years now running his own shop and obviously being his own biz dev guy because if you’re good at it, why would you hire someone else to do it?

So Tom and I were talking and we were sort of talking about how a lot of you were saying it’s harder to sell because you can’t get on the road, you can’t have FaceTime with prospects, and things like that. And Tom has really nailed … And The Invisible Sale is really all about how to sell when you can’t get in front of somebody. Or whether it’s because of distance or whatever the reason is. And by the way, he wrote the book pre-COVID. It’s not a COVID inspired book. But anyway, we’re going to talk about how sales have changed for agencies and what we can do to create connections, whether we can or can’t get in front of prospects in person. So with that, I just want to jump right to it because Tom has a lot to teach us and I want to give him plenty of room to do that. So let’s get started.

All right, Tom, welcome back to the podcast. It’s great to have you back.

Tom Martin:

Well, it’s even better to be invited back. I guess I didn’t screw it up too badly the last time.

Drew McLellan:

Not only did you not screw it up badly, but you were so good that you’re also going to be at the summit. So excited to have you there in a couple months to share your wisdom with our attendees. So thanks for agreeing to do that as, well.

Tom Martin:

Yeah, no. Thanks, I’m excited too. I mean, you have assembled one heck of an outstanding group of people to speak with. I don’t know if I’m more excited to speak or just to be there to hear everybody else.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. It’s going to be a great couple days. I’m excited for it. For those folks, the handful of folks who aren’t familiar with you, why don’t you give them a little bit about your background and how you’ve come to know so much about sales and agency sales before we dig in?

Tom Martin:

Well, I grew up in the agency business. Like you, I was an account guy. And when I moved here to New Orleans, I was working for a small shop and I made the mistake or blessing, however you want to look at it, one day of writing a memo to the president saying I thought the way we did our biz dev could be improved. We were like a lot of shops. We would pitch when we needed it. We’d pitch if we were invited. But we really didn’t have an ongoing, strategically-driven program.

He thought it was a great idea. Said, “Spend half your time on that, half managing clients.” And we were so successful that within about six to eight months, he said, “Okay, you’re not going to work on clients anymore. You’re just going to be the pitch guy.” And eventually was VP biz dev. And then was given an opportunity to do a lifelong dream, which was start my own agency. So I left that firm, started an agency. Three years later, Hurricane Katrina wiped it off the base of the earth. I went back to work for agencies in a biz dev account management place. And after about three years, the owner of that agency and I agreed I was unemployable and really needed to be my own boss again. And I started conversing [crosstalk 00:07:18].

Drew McLellan:

So true of so many agency owners.

Tom Martin:

Yeah. Well, I tried. I made it three years.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

But social media happened and I really dove into it very, very early. And began to kind of make a name for myself as one of the few agency guys who was really into the social space, using it for branding and all kinds of other fun stuff. And so, yeah. 2010, I stepped out with no money, no clients, no nothing. Two weeks notice started Converse Digital in 2010 and luckily, 12 years later, we’re still here.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Knock on wood, right?

Tom Martin:

Yeah. Every day.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. But it’s interesting because as you know, most agency biz dev professionals never earn their salary back for the agency. They never are successful enough to pay for themselves. And so, clearly you were doing some things different. Even back then, even though you were unemployable in other way. Which I think most agency owners are. You obviously were delivering great value. So what do you think you were doing that was different?

Tom Martin:

Well, I think the thing I was doing differently is number one, I was being very, very strategic. I was not using a spray and pray process.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

We had a very finely defined group of prospects that we went after. Our A’s, our B’s, and our eh. “We’ll love if you would call us,” C’s. And once you went into the database and you were classified as an A, B, or C, your entire first year of contacts was already pre-programmed. What you were going to get, when you were going to get it, what the follow-up was going to be. And then I just was diligent. Every day. Back then I used ACT. And I would open my ACT. and it would tell me what my day would be hold. And it would be a call, an email, a send this direct mail, send this clutter buster.

We just really worked it and worked that process. Not unlike nowadays. Except nowadays I think the process is different. You’re not sending an email or a clutter buster you’re writing a blog post, or a white paper, or you’re recording a YouTube video that you can put out there so that people can find you and then walk their way down your cobblestone walkway to your agency’s front door.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Right.

Tom Martin:

But I think that was the thing is that we were really strategic about it. We were militantly strategic. And we really did our homework. I remember I would build these binders that were two and three inches thick that would be an entire category overview, primary competitor overview, everything, that I would give to our pitch teams so that they could come up to speed really, really quickly.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Sounds like it.

Tom Martin:

In categories that we might not really know anything about. So that we sound it a little smarter than we probably were when we did get the opportunity to have a conversation.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Well, it sounds like the way you attacked sort of the list and reaching out to those prospects is very much like how Steven and I talked in the book about sort of that nano list of, “Here are 25 companies that you’re going to pursue really vigilantly. But constantly giving them something of value rather than about you.” And the goal is that you keep at them until they hire you or they file a restraining order. But until one of those two things happens, you’re at it. Right?

Tom Martin:

Yep.

Drew McLellan:

And it sounds like you had that sort of same attitude.

Tom Martin:

You know, we really did. In fact, the last pitch I led at Mayor, which was the agency I started doing biz dev at, the very last pitch. I was literally getting ready to move a client from our A list to our B list. And the marketing director called me and said, “Hey, we’ve got this little PR project. Would you all be interested in pitching?” And I just started laughing. And he was like, “What are you laughing at?” I was like, “I’m sorry.” I said, “You don’t understand.” And I tell him the story about what I was about to do. And I said, “I’ve touched you 52 times in the last two years and not so much as a phone call or a go away or restraining order.”

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

And he starts laughing on the phone. He says, “Well, I will tell you what.” He goes, “You’re being called today because I have every one of those things sitting in front of me in a file folder.”

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

“I’ve kept everything you’ve ever sent me. Every email, every direct mail, every … I just never had a need. And now I have a need.” And so, I mean, it was so funny. Because we were so close to moving him to the, “Oh, they’re not interested,” list. And then 52 times before this person finally called us.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. But I think that’s the fallacy, right? I mean, I think as agency owners, even though we intellectually understand this, our hearts can’t wrap our heads around it. Until they absolutely have a need, there is nothing we can do. There’s no coupon, there’s no buy one, get one free. There’s no white sale. There’s nothing we can do to incent them to hire us before they’re ready. And so since we have no frigging idea, when they’re going to be ready, the only thing we can do is just continue to invest for as long as it takes for them to come around. And some people come around in a day and others come around in a decade.

Tom Martin:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan:

And you just have no idea when that’s going to happen. Right?

Tom Martin:

Yeah. You really don’t. And there are times. I remember, there was one barbecue company, they were selling 1800 direct response. Which Mayor, the agency I worked at, we were really, really good at direct response. And so we just did a little simple little research study. We had about 30 people from the agency come all them and their competitors and just kind of see what showed up in the mail. And what we quickly figured out was what showed up from them was a mess. Not everybody got the same brochure. Somebody got this, somebody got an owner’s manual. And all of a sudden we’re like, “Okay. This guy has a problem.”

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

And so we used that in our outreach. We said, “Hey, we think you have a problem and we’re real good at this. We can fix this for you.” And it was so funny is that we finally did get a chance to talk to him. He knew he had the problem. He just didn’t know where to turn to fix it. And he didn’t know-

Drew McLellan:

Right. How to fix it.

Tom Martin:

That we were necessarily a great agency for that. He’s overwhelmed. He’s got 9 million things and all of a sudden we show up and we’re like, “Hey, we know you have this problem. And by the way, we can fix it for you. We’re really good at this.” And long story short, they became a client within about six weeks. There was no RFP, there was no pitch.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

It was just single source. And it was great. Right? But that’s that’s kind of what you have to do. I think you have to spend a lot of time in preparation, a lot of time in process. And then if you do the two of those well, good things come out the back end. You end up invited to pitch or you get single source opportunities like that. Or people nowadays will just show up in your inbox via your web form saying, “I’ve been reading your stuff.” Or, “I’ve this or that. I think you can help us. Can we talk?”

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Well, but you can’t do that with a list of 500 people.

Tom Martin:

No.

Drew McLellan:

I mean, I think, again. That’s, again, one of the fallacies is I’ll say to an agency owner, “What is your biz dev list? What does your prospect list look like?” And they’ll go, “Oh, well, we’ve got 5,000 people.” And I’m like, “That’s not a prospect list. That’s an email subscription list. But that is not a prospect list.”

Tom Martin:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan:

You got to get down to a handful of people because if you’re going to do the research like you’re talking about, and you’re going to touch them on a frequent enough basis in a meaningful way that helps them do their job better every single time as opposed to patting yourself in the back or talking about the award or doing the thing, then you actually have to know who they are. And you can’t know who 500 or 5,000 prospects are.

Tom Martin:

That is so true. And it’s just like anything else. I mean, if you want to be interesting, you have to be interested.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

Because people, A, it shows when you’re interested. It shows when you’ve taken the time to learn a person’s business, or you’ve learned a little factoid that you can do something really creative. I remember when we were trying to get into Whole Foods. And I was deep diving, doing my research. And I find out that even though their CEO, he is a tree hugging hippie from Austin.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

He is super competitive. And in their world, it was them and, at the time, it was, I think, called Wild Oats. Wild Oats, I think, was the other one. And in their world, that was like Coke and Pepsi.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

And so we literally, our idea was to send him a clutter buster. It was a crate and inside with a bag full of wild oats that were there and a hammer with our agency’s name on it. And it just said something like, Crushed Oats, compliments of Peter Mayor Advertising.” And I didn’t put a business card in it or anything. We sent it … The only way you could figure out who sent it was they looked on the FedEx label and they called the traffic department. Because that was the only name that was on the label. And said, “Hey, we’re Whole Foods. And somebody just sent us that. We need to talk to the person who sent us this box.”

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

And it was just because they were like, “You get us.”

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

You understand and that, no, we’re not these hippy Austin people. We’re a business. We’re competitive. And, yeah. We [crosstalk 00:15:57]-

Drew McLellan:

And we do want to crush these people. Right.

Tom Martin:

Yeah. We do want to crush them. Yeah.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

We are that competitive. And obviously nobody’s ever done that. And week later, we’re in their offices. And I walk in their offices. I’m not kidding you, Drew. They had it in the reception, the marketing reception like they were putting their kids trophies up or something. It was hilarious.

Drew McLellan:

That’s awesome.

Tom Martin:

But just goes to show you that if you get to know who it is you’re trying to prospect, you can leap and bound over everybody else because you’re interesting now.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Well and I always say, we go in chasing out after them. So it’s very clear, we’re interested. But we’re not that interesting because we’re not talking about them. And I think you’re right. You have to be both.

Tom Martin:

Yeah. I, mean, let’s face it. Everybody’s favorite topic of discussion is themselves. They just don’t want to admit it.

Drew McLellan:

Absolutely. That’s right. Look at a cocktail party. The most interesting person you met was the one who asked you the most questions about you, right? Yeah.

Tom Martin:

Yep.

Drew McLellan:

Unless they’re a salesperson. Insurance sales guy. Then not so interesting. But, yeah. That’s the exception. So, all of this was pre COVID. And one of the things I’m hearing, a lot of agency owners talking about is how hard it is to sell these days. Air quotes. And I hear the, “Well, we can’t go to trade shows. We can’t go to events. We can’t do all of these things.” What’s your response to that?

Tom Martin:

I get it. You’ve been doing something your whole career and all of a sudden you can’t do it anymore. So by default, it creates stress and anxiety. And no one’s ever really taught you a different way to do it.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

So now you’re really anxious. But as someone who has been doing virtual selling for 12 years, this is how I’ve always sold. It’s just how I did it. It was out a necessity. It was cheaper, frankly. And I feel bad for them because I don’t think what they understand is that it, yes, I get it. It’s difficult. But it’s actually a blessing because when you really embrace the idea of virtual sales and meeting people virtually versus physically, it completely removes a lot of those geographic reins that hold agencies in. Because you can prospect anybody anywhere.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

You can prospect so much more efficiently. I don’t have to hop on a plane and go schedule meetings. I can just schedule Zoom calls, if I get the opportunity. And so I see it as a huge opportunity for all these agencies. That all of a sudden you can really kind of say, “Hey, we can literally serve anybody anywhere within certain reasons. Let’s go. Let’s go meet people virtually. Let’s up our A list from 20 to 50, because we can actually stay abreast and try to reach out to 50 people. Whereas we can only maybe visit 20 face to face through trade shows or whatever. Let’s take all that money we were spending on trade shows and invest it in better technology, better research. Things that are going to help us be interesting to these perspective clients.” And they ought be excited, frankly. Cause it really, it opens a whole lot of doors that I don’t think face to face usually opens.

Drew McLellan:

I think the, “I can’t go to trade shows and the face to face stuff,” is actually an excuse. I think it’s a, “I sold the old way, which was the back slap, ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ chit chat sort of way.” As opposed to, “I’m going to demonstrate my expertise. I’m going to demonstrate that,” to your earlier story with Whole Foods, “That I understand your business and what drives you. And that I’m going to be able to sustain your interest for a long period of time, because I have something meaningful to you to say on a regular basis.” As opposed to, “I’m just going to get you drunk and then we’re going to be buddies. And then you might buy something from me.” Which I think is sort of the old school way of selling.

Tom Martin:

Oh, yeah. We wrote about it on our blog, I don’t know. Some point in the last couple of months of, you cannot buy a prospect’s attention any longer.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

You really have to earn it. And that’s kind of one of … There’s a couple of big differences between face to face and virtual prospecting. But that’s one of the biggest ones is you just, you can’t do that. You can’t, “Hey, let me buy you a drink. Let me take you to a ball game.” That’s gone. You have to earn the right for their attention. And it’s never been easier for them to withhold their attention, frankly. And make it so that you can’t.

Drew McLellan:

I do think once you’ve earned their attention and once you’ve begun a relationship, then it’s awesome to bump into them at a trade show or take them to a ball game or … I mean, because now you have a relationship. So I think the difference is, strangers are less likely to be bought. And I think people you have relationships with, now you can have experiences together, conversations together, that have some depth and meaning to them.

Tom Martin:

Oh, absolutely. Now you go to a trade show, you know they’re going to be there.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

And you’re planning, “Hey, let’s make sure we get a drink together. Hey, let’s make sure we grab coffee.” Or, “Let’s make sure we spend 15 minutes saying hello to one another.” Or, “Hey, what sessions are you sitting in? I’m going to sit in this one, too.” Now you’re literally planning little micro sales meetings and it just makes your trade show expenditure that much more valuable to you.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

Cause you’re going to have a much higher productivity level than if you were just doing it all off the cuff.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. So I think what I hear from a lot of owners is that they don’t really know how to begin the relationship. They don’t know how to start a conversation. They don’t know how to, in essence breaks the ice with a perfect stranger. But you’ve been doing that for a long time. So how do you do it?

Tom Martin:

I think the first thing is, even before you get to how to do it, is you just have to understand a little bit of how the dynamic is different. Because I think that’s the biggest mistake. So when you think about, when you meet someone for the first time face to face, you’re in a shared context, a shared environment. And that gives you permission for that conversation. And when you reach out to somebody blind on LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever, there’s no shared environment.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

And so it’s kind of like, “Whoa, where’s this guy coming from.” And so that’s the first thing. And the second thing is that when you meet somebody in a shared environment, they don’t have any choice but to start the conversation. Now, they might be processing whether or not they want to continue the conversation, but they have no choice but to start it.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

And when you do it in virtual, first thing they do is stop and make the choice whether or not they’re going to have the conversation with you. And then, more importantly, they might make the choice whether or not they ever to have the conversation.

Drew McLellan:

That’s right. Yeah.

Tom Martin:

And so I think that is a lot of, what I find when we’re working with sales teams and agencies, I’m trying to say that I hear that similar thing is I think that’s really the underlying fear. Is that they don’t really understand how to get through that. Again, I go back to preparation. One of the things we talk a lot about is conversation catalyst and social reconnaissance. Go do social reconnaissance. The best part about social media is your ability. And the internet is your ability to build incredible dossiers on prospects. So detailed NSA would want to hire you. You just got to find all that unstructured, put it together.

And then that gives you conversation catalyst so that you’re not just starting off with, “Hey, our agency would love to do business with you.” Like everybody else. You can lean in on a subject or a passion point that you share that’s interesting. You can watch how they’re posting on social media. And if they start talking about something that you know is one of their passions, you can jump in on that. And now you’re having a conversation about something that has nothing to do with you being an agency and them a client. You’re just talking about something you’re both passionate about.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

And from there, you can start to have a broader conversation. And then eventually you flip it to business. But build a relationship first and go in looking to build a relationship. To your earlier point, you don’t know when they’re going to be ready to buy. They may never be ready to buy. But at the end of the day, if that’s all you care about is the ends and the means, that’s going to come through.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

But if you just go and say, “Hey, look. I think you’re really interesting. We share a lot of the same interests in life,” or whatever. “Would love to just kind of get to know you a little bit, talk with you about that.” And really go in for the goal of the relationship. I think it just changes how you interface with people. And I think there’s a lot of other little techniques in terms of showing up in their feed before you ever reach out. Things as simple as liking content they share. Or I have an email that I used that just says, “Thought you’d find this interesting.”

And if I find a really good piece on tourism marketing, I’ll pull up all my tourism contacts. And whether I’ve met them or not, if they’re in our database, I’ll throw the email out and just say, “Hey, thought you’d find this interesting. Here’s why. If you don’t ever want to get this kind of an email from me again, just let me know. I’ll make a note in my address book. Otherwise, when I see stuff around tourism and marketing or whatever, I’ll shoot at your direction. Enjoy. Bye.” Just real simple stuff that is not about you and them having a transaction. But it’s just about you being helpful to them. Or you just saying, “Hey, we share a common passion that we can build a relationship around.”

Drew McLellan:

And I’m assuming you, for these prospects, you have in that database or in the dossier about them, you probably have more than one catalyst or conversation catalyst. Right? So you’re cultivating those by keeping track of what they’re doing on social media, by the help of the Google. And then how are you cataloging those? How do you keep track of all of that?

Tom Martin:

Well, we use SharpSpring, which is a CRM.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

Working automation platform. Prior to that, we were using a product called Nimble. And we have a custom field for every person that just is called SocialRecon. And every new piece of information that we find goes into that field so that it’s easy for me to get. And then we’re really militant about how we tag people inside.

Drew McLellan:

I was going to say, I’m assuming you’re using tags or something, right?

Tom Martin:

Yeah. SharpSpring laughs at us all the time, how many tags we have. But it makes it really helpful for that quick little, “Hey, I thought you’d find this interesting.”

Drew McLellan:

Right. Right.

Tom Martin:

Because it might be a direct response article that is in the tourism space. So I’ll pull my direct response people as well as my tourism people. Right?

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Right.

Tom Martin:

Because my one key fact is why this is really … And so we do a lot of that. But you’ve got to have a tool. I mean, you can’t possibly remember it all. You’ve got to have some sort of a CRM tool, preferably tied to marketing automation that’s going to help you understand who that person is, even though you don’t really know them.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. So I want to dig into that a little bit more, but first let’s take a quick break. Then we’ll come back and talk a little bit more even about how you decide what things are relevant to tag and what things aren’t. And how you sort of narrow the scope of either industries or people. So we’re going to come back to all of that. But first, let’s take a quick break.

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Number one, we know emphatically that your clients will tell us things that they just won’t tell you. The reality is they’re going to speak more freely if they’re not talking to you directly. They don’t want to hurt your feelings and they don’t want to get into a big conversation about it. So a third party is a safe place for them to share their real feedback.

The second is that at AMI, we don’t have a bias about any particular client. We don’t know if you like them, don’t like them. If they’re a pain, if they’re your favorite. And so, because we understand the agency business but we don’t come into those conversations with any preconceived notions, we can absolutely give you unbiased and unfiltered information based on what your clients tell us. And, you know what? We know agency clients. We can hear what they’re saying and we know which threads to pull on as we’re talking to them to get more information for you and more insight. Your clients will be comfortable talking to us because we speak their language.

If you’re interested in having AMI, do your customer satisfaction survey, head over to agencymanagementinstitute.com and look under the, “How We Help,” section of the website to learn more. All right, let’s get back to the show.

All right. I am back with Tom Martin and we are talking biz dev. And we’re talking about sort of how to use technology and the internet and social to really build a helpful dossier. I will tell you this. I think most agencies, this is a step that they skip. They all know they should do more home work. They all know they should know more about the prospect. But whatever the excuse is, too busy, cobbler’s children, drink during the day. Whatever it is. Whatever excuse they have, they don’t really get to it. So talk a little more about sort of how you identify, A, who goes on the list and, B, what tags matter. And how do you begin to curate all of this data that you’re picking up or these insights about these people?

Tom Martin:

Well, as to who goes on the list, we probably spend less time than most agencies worrying about who’s on the list. And that really goes back to my Hurricane Katrina days when I had this great database of prospects. And then, unfortunately, when the hurricane wiped us out, everybody in my database looked just like all the clients who had effectively just fired me.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

And I kind of woke up and said, “Oof, it’s really more about the people I don’t know then the people I do and making sure that I’m known to those people within the database itself.” So most of our folks, if they get on our list, they get on because they visit our website and they download something. And then that automatically tags them as to who they are. Whatever. In some cases, we will pick. And it’s usually just, we know we can do a good job. We’ve got clients. We’ve done a good job in that space. Or we just see something that says, “We can help you. We know we can help you.”

So once they’re in it, in terms of getting the conversational catalyst, the social reconnaissance, honestly, it’s usually a one time deal. Because what we’re looking to do is just paint a very detailed portrait. And if you can find someone’s social media platform, and hopefully it’s open and not closed, and you can do a good Google search and so forth. You can build a pretty robust of if they’re married, if they’re single. They have children. How many kids? What do they do? Do they drink? Do they don’t drink? What do they eat? Where do they like to vacation? You can build a really nice tight dossier on people.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

And it doesn’t really change. Now, before we go reach out to somebody, we’ll always go check those social feeds.

Drew McLellan:

Sure.

Tom Martin:

Just to make sure there’s nothing crazy going on in their life. And we had one time, we were about to reach out to somebody and come to find out, there’s a post on Facebook. “Hey, I’m in Fort Worth. My dad passed away this week. I’m really sad, but he was a great man.” I’m like, “Thank God I didn’t make that phone call.”

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

And honestly, the recon stuff. I get it. I’m a small boutique agency. But once you know how to do it, I mean, that’s a perfect thing to assign to an intern. All you’re doing is stalking. Legally stalking. But they can do it if you show them how to do it, show them what kind of information you’re looking for, how you want them to structure it. Develop your tagging nomenclature for your CRM, teach them how to apply it. It’s a pretty simple, repeatable process.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

So that’s what I would do is put those folks against it.

Drew McLellan:

And then are you looking for connections to those people? So I know in your book and when you’ve talked to AMI peer groups, you talk about sort of the … I know you don’t use the word proximity, you use a different word. But the idea that there’s some word I can never remember, but it starts with a P.

Tom Martin:

Propinquity.

Drew McLellan:

That’s the word.

Tom Martin:

Propinquity.

Drew McLellan:

Right. So define that word for us.

Tom Martin:

Well, propinquity is just a fancy scientific term for proximity. But it’s actually, it’s proximity with purpose. It’s not enough just to keep bumping into people, which is why advertising doesn’t usually create propinquity. Propinquity is, every time your prospects come into contact with you or your content, they’re given an opportunity to learn something new about you or your agency or your thinking process.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

The idea is you keep running into your perspective clients through your content, through your people, your advertising, whatever it might be. And each time they learn something new, hopefully they like a few things that they’ve learned. And eventually, they reach a critical mass of things they like of about you and your agency. And that is what propels them to a place where when they’re ready or need to buy, you are on the preferred list because they really have come to like you. It’s really how human relationships form, period. And so the whole idea is to figure out … And again, that’s why we worry less about specifically who’s in our database and more about being interesting to people like the people in our database. Because it’s birds of a feather, right?

Drew McLellan:

For sure.

Tom Martin:

If you’re a tourism marketing person or tourism sales director, you’re probably going to be reading certain websites, certain blogs. You’re going to be attending certain conferences where we can speak. Same with agencies. If we’re trying to sell agency biz dev training, you can be on a podcast with Drew, you can speak at his conference. You can go over here to this. You kind know where those folks are going for information to do their job better. You just want to make sure you’re consistently showing up there. And that is how they then find you. It’s how you can be interesting. And just kind of how you begin to build that lead gen amongst people you don’t know. Cause that’s what you want them to do. Eventually come to the website, identify themselves. So now you can do your recon. You can decide, “Do they make a good fit for your A list?” And then you can proactively market to them.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. So at some point in time, though, you want to sell them something. So you begin to cultivate a relationship. You’ve sent them some articles. For you, how do you sense … And maybe it’s not. Maybe you wait till they knock on your door. How do you sense when you can shift the conversation into something that looks more akin to getting them to buy something?

Tom Martin:

Well, I think if it’s someone you’ve actually built a relationship with, whether you’ve met them face to face in the real world, or maybe it’s always just been a virtual relationship. For me, at least, usually one of two things happens. Either they move the conversation into a cell conversation because they reach out and say, “Hey, we need help with something. We think you can help us.”

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

Ideal. Right? Because you’re going to close that at a way higher rate.

Drew McLellan:

Absolutely.

Tom Martin:

Or, and I’ve actually done this before. You get to a point where, I’ve actually just picked up the phone or sent an email and said, “Hey, we’ve known each other a long time. You seem to think I’m smart or that my agency’s good or whatever. That or you’re just being overly nice. I see you’re working with all these other folks. I hear you talking sometimes about where they’re falling short. Why aren’t we working together? Is there a reason we don’t work together? Because I think we can help you.” And that conversation very quickly then, they’re either going to tell you, “Well, no, we can’t work together.” And they’re going to tell you why.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

Right? They’re going to get real honest with you real fast. And sometimes the reason they can’t work is because the CEO’s best friend neighbor owns an ad agency. And so, “I don’t care how good you are. I can’t hire you. The guy lives next door to the guy who owns our ad agency.” Great. There can still be a role for that person in your life. But it also might be something, just a blind spot you’re unaware of. It could be a true weakness that you didn’t know is a weakness.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

You know it’s your weakness, but you didn’t know it would apply to them. Or they’ll be like, “You’re right. We should work together. How could you help me?” And if they say that, you better have an answer.

Drew McLellan:

Right. Right. Do not pick up the phone and ask this question without being prepared.

Tom Martin:

Right. It’s sort of like when you get married. You kind of want to know the answer to the question. You kind of want to have a plan for after you get the answer.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

You better have a ring if she says yes. And so same thing. You kind of like … Cause I actually did it with a big conference that we worked with for number of years-

Drew McLellan:

I thought you were going to say your wife. I was like, “No, no. Don’t tell me …”

Tom Martin:

No, no, no. My wife actually did have a ring.

Drew McLellan:

Okay, good.

Tom Martin:

I was good. I had a plan.

Drew McLellan:

All right, good.

Tom Martin:

I botched it after that. But, no. I had a plan. But, no. I actually did it. I had known this person at this conference for years. And I’d spoken at their conference and I had been on all this stuff. And I’m like, “Why aren’t we working together?” She’s like, “Wow. You’re right. Why aren’t we? How could you help us?” I was like, “Well, I told you this and you guys have recognized you don’t get enough ad agencies at your conference. And that’s a big miss. You guys should be getting more ad agencies at your conference. I can help you do that because I’ve done X, Y, and Z. And the learnings and the contact we’ve made here, we can apply to this project for you.”

And next thing you know, she’s like, “You know what? You’re right. Write me up for a proposal on that. Because it’s a big issue this year. We are trying to actively get into the agency space.” Perfect. So, yeah. I think it’s one of those two things. But like I said, when you ask that question, be prepared. You might get an answer you don’t want to hear. You’ve got a weakness or something wrong. And if you get the opening, you got to be able to lead with a viable project that they’re instantly going to know. “Oh, wow. You really are paying attention to us. You know what we need. And, yeah. That is actually interesting. Let’s talk about that.” They may or may not have a budget to do it that year, that moment. But, again. You’re just trying to get the conversation started.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. You’re planting the seed if nothing else. And one of the things I was thinking as you were saying, the CEO lives next to the guy who own an ad agency. By now, you’ve also developed enough relationship that, A, even if they can’t hire you, they can be a great referral source. And these people move around a lot. So they can’t hire you today at their current job. But that doesn’t mean that there’s not opportunity down the road. And if it really is relationship based and you’re able to stay in touch with them-

Tom Martin:

Yeah. We have used to have a name for them.

Drew McLellan:

Sooner or later. Right?

Tom Martin:

We call them social agents.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

Yeah. We call them social agents. And they can often be the most valuable client that never hires you. Because they can’t hire you, but they will tell everyone else to hire you. And because you’ve maintained and you’ve built a relationship with them-

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

And even once you realize they can’t hire you, you maintain that relationship, they actually develop a little bit of an emotional connection to you.

Drew McLellan:

No doubt.

Tom Martin:

And almost take pride in their ability to help you get hired. And I mean, their referrals are worth gold.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and again-

Tom Martin:

Because they’ll campaign on your behalf.

Drew McLellan:

You’ve been helpful over and over and over again.

Tom Martin:

Right.

Drew McLellan:

And they feel like they are sort of beholden to you, but they can’t thank you in the way they think they should, which is to hire you. So then I think they go out of their way to help you another way is by talking you up or making connections or all of that sort of thing.

Tom Martin:

No, absolutely. I’ve seen it happen. It’s happened to us. I’ve seen it happen with clients. Helpful gets bought.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

It just does. And people like helpful people and they like people who aren’t just being selfish, who aren’t all about the transaction, who aren’t all about me. And who are just good old fashioned, great people.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

And that, man, it’s funny how your phone will ring. And, “Sp and so gave me your name. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And you’re like, “Oh, great. How can I help you today?” But again, I’ve always been that way. I think it’s really … Especially in the agency business, cause it’s so incestuous. You have to be relationship first. And you’ve got to give before you get. And if you can just practice those two things, whether you’re face to face or virtual, people will pay attention to you. They’ll find you interesting. And a number of them will want to, then, ultimately do business with you.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. I think the give first is something that sometimes we miss. That somebody’s got to be generous first. And I think it is us. I think we are beholden to be the ones that help first. And the trick, I think, is to help for as long as it takes. And that may be, like I said, it could be a day or a decade. But it is not a predetermined amount of time. It’s not a predetermined amount of touches, to your point about the 52 touches. Was about to move you to the, “Don’t call me again,” list. And boom. Finally had a need. It’s sort of like investing in dollar cost averaging, right? You just haven’t know idea when the market’s going to go up or down. So you put a buck in every day and sooner or later you’re going to win more than you lose. And I think that’s the trick with biz dev, too.

Tom Martin:

You think about it. I mean, most of us don’t need to win 10 or 15 new clients-

Drew McLellan:

No, no.

Tom Martin:

A year.

Drew McLellan:

In fact, that would suck.

Tom Martin:

You get two or three.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

You’re good. Right? And so, if you’re just out there always helping, always connecting, always putting good into the world, it’s just funny how it comes back to you. And your biz dev picks up. What I always find so interesting is it’s usually not even from the people that you’ve been proactively reaching out to. Or you’re trying to get to. It’s somebody that comes out of left field, you didn’t even know was in the market.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

But it’s just something about the karma of doing that and out there. And I think the other thing you said that was interesting about investing, investing, investing, I think that’s the other big thing that agencies have maybe or maybe not figured is that, in a virtual first or at least a virtual equal world, which we find ourselves in now, it’s imperative that you really prepare yourself to be met. Meaning go look at how you present yourself and your agency on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram, on your website. Make sure that when somebody stumbles across you and checks you out or looks you up on LinkedIn or something, make sure it’s impressive.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

Have a good, clean headshot. Have a good story. Be interesting. Cause that’s usually the first [crosstalk 00:42:25].

Drew McLellan:

Get some recommendations, right?

Tom Martin:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

Cause you’re going to get met before you know you’ve been met. And hopefully you’ve made a good first in impression. Because the value of a first impression is just profound. And I think the only other big thing I see people missing is that you’ll go check them out on LinkedIn and it’s like, “Seriously? That’s your profile?”

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Right.

Tom Martin:

“Okay. That’s not impressive. Next, please.”

Drew McLellan:

Right. And again, getting somebody else to critique and give you some feedback so that you’ve got some outside perspective on that is not a bad plan.

Tom Martin:

No. I think even getting people to write it for you. I know I’m horrible at writing my own stuff. Whether it’s a session description or a bio or something for a LinkedIn description, I oftentimes will turn to a copywriter that we do a lot of work with who has known me for years and asked him to write it.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

Because I think the other thing is, a lot of agency folks sort of deplore self promotion. It makes them feel uneasy.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

I, being part of that. I feel like I’m being cheesy. Tooting my own horn. And you cannot write these descriptions and stuff in that mindset. There needs to be a little bit of salesmanship to it. So let someone else write it for you. Get one of your copywriters to write it.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

Don’t go overboard. You don’t need to sound like a used car salesman. But there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of, “Hey, I really know what I’m doing. I’ve done some good things in my life. My agency’s done some good things. And you might ought to want to know about it.” I think that’s a big, helpful step and a lot of people could take.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, agreed. That’s a good first step. Absolutely.

Tom Martin:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan:

Be ready to be found. Or to be ready to be met. That’s a great reminder that … I mean, the reality is, a lot of biz dev is a little out of our control. We can create the, as you say, the karma around ourselves and our agency. We can create and build a reputation and become an authority. But we’re not the ultimate deciders. And we don’t even get to dictate the timing of it. So, yeah. Always have to be ready.

Tom Martin:

I totally agree. And, yeah. You just never know when someone’s going to need it or what’s going to happen. I mean, I could have never predicted two years ago that we would have a global pandemic that all of a sudden, virtual sales training would become huge.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

I don’t want to say I was happy that it happened. I was happy for the business it generated.

Drew McLellan:

Sure. I was going to say. It was a good opportunity. Sure. Yeah.

Tom Martin:

Yeah. We were already doing it. We already had it. People knew us for it. And all of a sudden, it was great. But I mean, if that doesn’t happen, my year looks very different.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

My client list looks very different. My projects look very different. And there’s nothing I could have done to create that growth and that revenue stream. There’s no way I could have done that. It’s just, hey. There was a pandemic.

Drew McLellan:

And you were ready.

Tom Martin:

Yeah. And we were ready. Right? And I think that’s sort of our business in a nutshell.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

We can’t control all of the outside forces that, quite frankly, are what create the necessity in perspective clients to need to change agencies. And they’re usually working with somebody else already. So.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Tom Martin:

There needs to be something pretty big happening to move them off point. And very, very few times are you going to be the creator of that movement, I think. There’s an outside force. You just have to be ready.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. So true. This has been great. I think we’ve given people lots of things to think about. And what I like about the conversation is, nothing we’re talking about is daunting or so overwhelming that people can’t go, “Okay, I could get started on this.” And so I think you’ve given them a lot of things to do that are manageable. And I think that’s what people need is if it’s not manageable, you can’t sustain it.

Tom Martin:

Yeah.

Drew McLellan:

You might be able to do it for a month, but it’s not sustainable. And as we’ve talked about several times in the last hour, a day or a decade. So it’s got to be sustainable.

Tom Martin:

Yeah. I totally agree.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. This has been a great conversation. Hey, I know people are going to want to track you down, learn more about you, make sure that they connect with you before the summit so that they can walk up to you and have a conversation. So what’s the best way for folks to do that?

Tom Martin:

Well, I’m always on Twitter. I mean, at least lurking at Tom Martin. Or you can visit our website at Converse Digital. You can drop me a line there. You can even check out our agency’s biz dev training courses. I think we’ve got another one dialing up in June. Or come and find me at the summit. And I am a complete introvert. So please walk up and say hello. I would prefer it that way. It makes my life a lot easier. So, yeah. But, yeah. Usually Twitter or the website’s the absolute easiest. Or if you really want to dive deeper, I’ve got a book called The Invisible sale, which-

Drew McLellan:

Which is great.

Tom Martin:

Is basically our biz dev process codified into a book.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

For folks who either couldn’t or didn’t want to hire us to do it, that they could at least kind of learn the basics of how to put one together for their agency.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and I know we’ve had you out to several of the peer groups talking about that. And everybody digs it. So it would be a good read for everybody who’s listening. It’s a great book. And it’s got the P word in it. Say it again.

Tom Martin:

Propinquity. Propinquity.

Drew McLellan:

I cannot remember that.

Tom Martin:

And now, that’s exactly why they would not let me title the book propinquity.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Tom Martin:

I definitely wanted to. And they would not let me do it.

Drew McLellan:

Hey, I understand that.

Tom Martin:

I fought and fought and fought. And I lost.

Drew McLellan:

I mean, I’ve read it several times. I’ve talked to you about it a million times. I just can’t remember the word. So I believe in the word. I do believe in the word. I just …

Tom Martin:

I’m going to buy you a T-shirt.

Drew McLellan:

Thank you so much.

Tom Martin:

I’m going to bring you a T-shirt to Chicago.

Drew McLellan:

I will proudly wear it. Absolutely. Proudly wear it. Hey, this has been great, Tom. Thank you so much for doing this again. It’s great to have you back on the show and I’ll see you in a little bit in Chicago.

Tom Martin:

Looking forward to it. Thanks again for having me, Drew.

Drew McLellan:

You bet. Me too. All right, guys, this wraps up another episode. Tom gave you a ton of really manageable action steps. And maybe you start with what we talked about last, which is make sure you’re ready to be met. Make sure that the website looks good. Make sure your LinkedIn profile looks good. Be thinking about how you are presenting herself in social media. All of those things. Because you just have no idea when a prospect who’s been watching you for months or years, and they may not even be anybody on your list. As Tom said, it may be somebody who’s even further out than sort of your purview, is ready to knock on your door. And you certainly don’t want them to do that one last check before they reach out and go, “Oh, no. This is not what I thought it was going to be.”So that would be a great place to start, but don’t stop there. Lots of great actionable items in this episode. Go back. Listen to it again if you weren’t taking notes or if you were on the treadmill. But put some of this stuff into play.

All right, couple things before I let you go. First, many thanks to our friends at White Label IQ. As you know, they are the presenting sponsor of the podcast. And they do white label, PPC, dev, and design. They help many, many AMI agencies and podcast listeners. And you can learn more about them at whitelabeliq.com/AMI. And as I have told you before, they’ve got a deal there where you’re going to get some free hours on your first project. So you can’t really beat free. Good people. I’ve known them for 20 years. Just quality folks doing quality work. So check them out.

Also just want to remind you that., As Tom and I have been talking, the summits coming up May 24th and 25th. We have, I think, about 50 tick gets left to sell. We are capping at 300 attendees because we want to keep it intimate. It’s going to be awesome. Amazing speakers on a wide variety of topics. But I would say that overall, the theme of the conference is really reinvention. How do I think differently post COVID about my business? Where my taking it in the next few years? And I think you’re going to find the content really engaging. The people, generous and warm and friendly. You’re going to feel very welcomed into the community and I would love to meet you if we haven’t met before.

So go over to agencymanagementinstitute.com and up in the upper left corner in the nav bar, you’re going to see B-A-B-A summit. That’s where you can grab your ticket. Prices go up, I think, April 8th. So depending on when this airs, either you can scoot in under it or you just missed the price increase. So I’m hoping this airs before that, because otherwise I’m just going to feel a little bad. Anyway, I am grateful for all of you. You know that. I know how busy you are and the fact that you hang out with me every week makes me super proud that the content is valuable to you.

So thank you for being with me. Please don’t think I ever take it for granted and I’ll be back next week. All right, I’ll talk to you then. Thanks for listening. That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Build a Better Agency. Visit agencymanagementinstitute.com to check out our workshops, coaching packages, and all the other ways we serve agencies just like yours. Thanks for listening.