44:2 One sales activity a day

Lee:
Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host Lee, and today again, with the one and only, Nicole Osborne.

Nicole:
Hello everyone. I’m so happy to be here again.

Lee:
And I’m so happy that you are back, Nicole, yet again for another wonderful episode. Could you just share with our wonderful listeners what’s the concept of season number 44?

Nicole:
Season number 44. It’s all about the one thing you can do to improve your business and your agency. And Lee and I are very much about reducing overwhelm, making you feel like you’ve got this. So, we put together a list of all our favourite one things and agency owners can do to really make things better. So, I’m really excited to be here for you for this season.

Lee:
Thank you so much. Folks, if you haven’t heard episode one as well, feel free to add that to your playlist. There is some gold in there. So, let me tell you a story. I’m an agency owner now probably 15 plus years, and I know I don’t look old enough, thank you very much for saying that.

Nicole:
I didn’t, I didn’t.

Lee:
You thought it, but we used to have a philosophy and the philosophy was that paid work takes priority. Essentially, if a client was paying us to work, then that would take priority over any other activity, which also means our sales and marketing activities didn’t happen very often because we spent all of our time looking after those paying clients. That meant we were essentially going from feast and famine all the time. Once the work was done, we were freaking out, doing mad panic sales activities to try and win the next lot of business. And then once we got that business in, we were back to that philosophy of paid work takes priority. Don’t waste time on sales. Don’t waste time on marketing. Don’t waste time on that email campaign, whatever it was, we would put that paying client first. However, one day, one thing changed for me.
I was listening to a podcast by John Lee Dumas, he had a guest. I have no idea to this day who that guest was, but I’ve got them to thank for that flick of a switch in my mind. And just as they were wrapping up the podcast, they said, my advice to you is to do one sales activity a day, essentially treating your sales activity as an essential part of your day, making it something small and achievable, but also making sure that your sales activity is as important as paid work. So sure, paid work and making that a priority is always great. You got to look after your customers, but start to look at yourself, I guess, as a client and say, “Hey, I’m also a client in this business and I need to make sure that I do at least one sales activity a day.”
Needless to say, over the years, so much has changed for us because we’ve consistently done some form of a sales activity. So for the rest of this episode, I’d just love to explore with you, Nicole, what we think might constitute a sales activity that somebody could pop on their calendar.

Nicole:
Fantastic. And I think, Lee, the challenge we should set ourselves is to come up with some really easy things. And perhaps also some ideas which might potentially take a little bit longer, because I think one sales activity a day, sometimes it could be something you do for half an hour. Sometimes it might take you an hour or even longer. And all of these things are okay, so perhaps I can come up with one recent thing I’ve done, which really has surprised me. You, I We are both content creators. And I know many agencies are also really active in terms of writing blogs. And often these blogs are how to kind of content light. How do you rank really high on Google? How do you write the perfect homepage? How are you successful in eCommerce? What about actually writing a sales focus blog? And here’s an idea I tried out and actually, I’ve got this from the lovely Jammy digital team, Martin and Lyndsay.
So, I wrote a blog about five reasons why you might not enjoy working with me as your marketing coach and I’m laughing because it really felt alien to me, but I did it. And you know what? It actually works really well for sort of people who are sitting on the fence, whether they want to hire a marketing coach or not. So, is this something our audience here today could do writing a blog, five reasons why you might not get benefits from working with our agency.

Lee:
Folks, it’d be great if you do do that to post a link to that blog post in the Facebook group. There will be a pinned comment during the week of this episode, but you can also find it by using the search functionality as well. If you’re listening a few weeks later and do let us know what you do, if you do jump on that one idea. A quicker one on the idea of a blog post, Nicole. So, what would you rate this? If we were going to have a scale rating of like one being ridiculously easy through to three being quite a lot of work, do you think that would kind of come in the middle there at number two is a bit more commitment than just one call or something similar?

Nicole:
Absolutely. Because probably your writing is going to be easy. It’s just convincing yourself that it’s actually okay to put out this type of content. It’s that mindset shift, isn’t it? So, it’s to try something new. So yeah, that’s a two, that’s actually two.

Lee:
That’s a two. I literally made up that rating scheme literally right now. Another sales activity that we would do is pick up the phone and call one existing client. So, if I’m looking at my day and I’m thinking I’ve got no time to do anything else, but just pick up the phone and call one of my existing clients to see how they’re doing, that is an amazing sales activity you can engage with because you’re going to continue to build up the relationship with that client. You’re going to find out more about their needs, what they’re working on and all of that good stuff. And you will have potential opportunities that will come from that. Not necessarily on the first or second or third or the eighth call, but at some point, you’re going to catch them at the right time. So, we love to engage in random calls with our clients, just to see how they’re doing, where they’re going on holiday, chilled out conversations. And it’s a small part of our day, maybe it’s a 10-minute call. It’s definitely something that’s easy to achieve.

Nicole:
I love that one. It’s so effective, isn’t it? Because if you find not something they’re working on, you can be part of that solution. That’s a brilliant one, Lee. How do you rate this one? Would you say?

Lee:
I would say it’s a one.

Nicole:
Yeah. Also because if you’ve right clients, you’ve got to have fun on that call as well, right?

Lee:
Hope so. Unless it’s the client from hell and then yeah, that’s probably a three.

Nicole:
I would say then another one. Let’s do another one. So, I suggest something here where I feel we all have more potential to really join in networking events. This could be virtual events or physical events, but my caveat here, and I think this is really, really, really important, make sure the events you attend are the right events. From my own experience, when I first set up my business, I felt so strongly, oh, Nicole, you love this networking thing. You’ve got to find a local networking event. So, I chose this networking event and no disrespect, but it was for local moms, but none of them would’ve ever been able to pay for my services. So that’s why I’m saying it’s so important pick the right events, not just for events where people could potentially pay for your services, but also where your potential clients hang out.
And I say this because I feel think we all at ease, hanging out with each other. But if this is a sales focused activity, it’s ought to be a right kind of event for what kind of people you work with. So if you are working with architects, join an event, which is for architects and it could be anywhere, right? You don’t have to just go to physical events any longer. You can do virtual events. So be really specific. And when you’re at the events, don’t just be a person who talks about themselves all the time, but actually ask really interesting questions, really show an interest. So, here we go that’s my idea, really using networking events, well, what do we give that?

Lee:
Well, I would say that’s a one or a two, depending on how people feel when they go outdoors. Now, I would add that there is a link in the resources on Trailblazer FM on this podcast episode to a full deep dive I’ve done on networking. And some best practises that you can apply. And networking, I say is a one or a two because it’s something that you can build in at the beginning of your day. You can go to a networking breakfast. I prefer those ones because I love my full English breakfast. And you get to hang out with a whole other people and chat. And that’s your sales activity, I guess, done for the entire day.
And you can focus then on running the business and working on the paid work. So, definitely something that’s worth doing. Another quick win, I guess, is to do what we all do best, which is jump on social media and just go and have a few conversations, maybe set aside 10 or 20 minutes where you go to the platform of choice, say it’s LinkedIn, where your clients show up, et cetera, and go and comment on some of their stuff, go and share some of their stuff, have some interactions because that is still classed at least in our business as a sales activity, because we’re continuing to build relationships with people and we’re continuing to see what’s going on out there. For me though, I have to make sure that I do put a timer on that because I can go down the rabbit hole and then I’ll be on social media for two hours. So for me, I’d score that one, unless you are addicted to social media.

Nicole:
I’m just visualising Lee with this timer. I love that one. If I may just at LinkedIn comment, I know I’m a little bit excited about LinkedIn.

Lee:
You are.

Nicole:
How about this? If you look up 10 people on LinkedIn where you believe they would be your kind of companies or clients to work with, follow them, and then, this is such a cool feature, if you follow them and you can then click a notification bell which means every time they post, you get a notification. So, you can be really lazy, just check out your notifications. And once you receive that notification, try and make a really thoughtful comment, because this is really how they notice you. And if you think, oh gosh, they continue to be interesting companies for our agency to work with, do this a couple of times and then try and connect with them. So, really warming up that relationship. So, I think perhaps that’s more like a two to three, but once you’re into LinkedIn, it might even be a one because it doesn’t have to take you so long, just have a timer in place as Lee suggests.

Lee:
Exactly. And folks, I hope you are getting the impression here that these are all pretty easy and simple things that you can easily schedule into your day. Another example would be send an email sales campaign or just a general update email to your list, keeping that list warm. We’re not suggesting that your sales and marketing activities need to be intensive every single day, but as long as you are just taking that tiny micro step forward, that helps build those relationships, that helps you drive the marketing forward. And doesn’t do what I did in agencies past where we would just focus primarily on paid work and sales and marketing was that afterthought.

Nicole:
Really, really good point, Lee. Another easy one in my mindset. And it’s actually just looking at some of the leads you didn’t close over the last six months, look at their website. Are they doing something new? Is there a reason you could still reach out to them? Because sometimes companies or business owners don’t make a decision because perhaps it wasn’t the right time. And six months later, they could be ready. So, you surprise yourself, spend half an hour just sending out another email to those contacts and see if you can open up a dialogue again.

Lee:
Absolutely. Or pick up the phone, you can merge the two ideas.

Nicole:
Oh my God, actually speak to people, yeah, I know.

Lee:
It’s more effective I find, but that’s a whole other podcast.

Nicole:
Yes. That’s an another whole one thing. Hey, how about our good friend, Michael Killen. Now you and I, we are so excited, right? That he’s coming to Agency Transformation Live and we are both reading his book at the moment. So, should we add to this list that people who want to be inspired for sales activities and want to feel more confident, they should really read his book, Sell Futures, Not Features because it is truly inspiration. Literally line by line, you will find things which are relatable to your situation, will make you feel more confident. Like you have got something great to sell because you have great value to offer. So, let’s add this to a list, read a chapter of Mike Killen’s book, Sell Futures, Not Features.

Lee:
And folks remember that is a sales activity because you are educating yourself. Educating ourselves is essential to the sales process. We are not born marketers. We do not know how to sell. When we start a business, it’s not an instant thing. So keeping ourselves sharp and learning from the likes of Mike Killen, who knows how to scale businesses quickly and effectively and knows how to help people get high ticket clients. It’s definitely a book that you should go ahead and check out. So, we’ll put a link to that on trailblazer.fm, that’s trailblazer.fm. Go to this episode, you will see a link to that book. A chapter maybe once a week is totally achievable. And by the end of those few weeks and also you did mention the event, Agency Transformation Live on November the 10th, 2022, let’s meet up in person. So again, folks, I hope you have been inspired by these simple activities.
We’re saying create a list of activities that you feel you can easily start off with. That might be making one phone call a week, sending one email a week, connecting with a past client a week and reading a chapter of the book a week. I don’t know if that was five, but you get the idea. It’s as simple as that and then put them on your calendar at a time where you think you are going to be the most energised, the most likely to do it. So for me, I will put all of mine on at about 8:00 AM. If it doesn’t involve me calling people. And if it involves me calling people, then it’ll be mid-morning where I’ve had a little bit of time to get into the day. I’ve got a bit of energy and I’m ready to connect.

Nicole:
Lee, you are the best at summarising. We also want people to do is to really share their ideas in the Facebook group, because we’ve want the community to encourage each other and to actually see this could be really small actions, which make a massive difference. So, please listen to this episode and share what you’re going to do in the Facebook group. And also check out all the resources we got in these show notes because we got Mike’s book, we got Lee’s episode, we got a couple of blogs by myself, one of them is also how you can really reenergize your referral system. So, there’s lots and lots additional things for you to learn and come and see us at the event. We are so excited about Agency Transformation Live on the 10th of November. Thank you so much for tuning in again today. We really, really appreciate it. Have an amazing week. See you soon. Bye guys.

Lee:
Bye.