Client-Led Growth Marketing with Chris Jones of Space & Time

Mike Lander (01:20.522)
Chris, thanks ever so much for joining me on the podcast today. How are you?

Chris Jones (01:23.573)
Are you sure? All good?

Chris Jones (01:33.085)
Me too.

Chris Jones (01:37.905)
All good, yeah.

Chris Jones (01:46.225)
I'm very well, Mike. Good to see you, as always.

Mike Lander (01:47.934)
You too? Exactly, yeah, we had a good time last week at that event.

Chris Jones (01:52.457)
Yeah, it was good. It was good. It was always, I mean, I always go into these events and it's you always, you always learn something. I've still got my notes right in front of me from that, from that session. So it was, yeah, it was really, really interesting as usual.

Mike Lander (02:03.327)
Ah, great!

Mike Lander (02:07.278)
It's really good, wasn't it? It's a good mixture of agencies and with Gareth as well, giving some insights on the brand side.

Chris Jones (02:13.057)
Yeah, he's actually sent me through some research because we had a chat at the end of it and there's no doubt, and I'm sure we'll come to it today, but yeah, just trying to kind of overcome that dichotomy between procurement marketing agency and he certainly had a few solutions there which, no doubt.

Mike Lander (02:18.136)
Yes.

Mike Lander (02:36.67)
Exactly. And we'll definitely cover that. So again, anyone that's listening, that's about the kind of what I often call the triangle of doom between procurement, the marketing agency, and the marketing brand director, marketing leader. So we'll come to that hopefully later on, Chris. So first of all, who are you? What do you do? And anything you want to talk about, about something unusual about yourself.

Chris Jones (02:45.993)
Hmm

Chris Jones (03:04.158)
So I'm Chris Jones, I'm chief executive of a media group called Space and Time. I guess the best way to kind of summarise us, because I'm always really keen to ensure that we're not seen as a sort of conventional business, our capability that we've got kind of spans right the way across your sort of media planning, strategy activation and all

engage with customers right the way through the journey. But then also we have an established technology business that sits alongside that, that ensures that we've got all of the right technological and data led products to support the strategy and optimization activation of those campaigns. And then there's a few things in between that allow us our operating model to combine those solutions that sit across.

those two areas of our business to kind of deliver what we call growth marketing outcomes for clients. So I'm always reluctant to kind of group us into a sort of media business or a digital business or fully into a technology business. I think we're in that growth marketing area in the middle where we're kind of laser focused on trying to kind of drive those growth marketing outcomes we call them for clients.

Mike Lander (04:12.289)
Yep.

Mike Lander (04:26.583)
Excellent.

Chris Jones (04:28.229)
Something strange about me, I'm not sure if it's strange, but I guess I'm a serial learner. You know, I, from a personal and a kind of professional background, I think friends and colleagues can be equally enthused and frustrated by that attribute. You know, for example, COVID, I'm not sure there wasn't an instrument I didn't learn over that period of time.

Mike Lander (04:54.478)
Ha ha ha!

Chris Jones (04:57.021)
Thank God for YouTube. So, you know, I learned guitar, I learned drums, I picked up golf at one point. And you could look at it another way. You could say I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none. But I also apply that in a kind of professional space as well. And I really try to encourage the people within our business and clients in fairness to constantly look to.

Mike Lander (05:04.598)
Wow.

Mike Lander (05:11.758)
I'm sorry.

Chris Jones (05:27.285)
learn and apply and test new things and see if you can push your horizon and your business horizon forwards. I think a lot of that comes from taking yourself out of your comfort zone and learning something different. I'm not sure it's overly unusual or different, but I certainly think that's an attribute that I try and extol every day if I can. Yeah?

Mike Lander (05:42.015)
Exactly.

Mike Lander (05:50.57)
Yeah. And I'm the same very much a kind of lifelong learner. So why I love podcasting is actually I get, yeah, I get to talk to really fascinating, interesting, fun people. Uh, I learned something new every single day, uh, whenever I'm doing it. Thank you. That's very kind, Chris. That's very kind.

Chris Jones (05:56.191)
Yeah.

Chris Jones (06:03.273)
Well, you're pretty good at it, Mike, as well. You know. Yeah. Yeah, you've got to be good at it. And to be fair, you've got a bit of a backlog of different podcasts you've done, haven't you? So it's all, you're obviously very good at it. Hmm.

Mike Lander (06:15.122)
I have exactly. It's a great medium because it's a way of, I was listening to Pat Flynn's podcast today. He's on episode, I think 2000 of his podcast. He's been doing it since I think 2010, but he was talking about, you know, the ability to build a relationship with someone in a meaningful way by having a dialogue. You can't do it through a blog. You can't do it through reading something or just like, or just, you know, watching what someone's done on.

YouTube video or something. You need to have an interaction. You need to have an engagement of some kind.

Chris Jones (06:47.901)
Yeah. It's amazing, isn't it? Podcasts, I find the best ones are, it's as if you're a fly on the wall with two mates in the pub or, you know, chatting over dinner or something. It's, it's, that's the beauty of it, isn't it? You can just have a, have a, have a chat. So.

Mike Lander (06:58.21)
Correct.

Mike Lander (07:03.618)
It is.

And that's my style. That's my entire style. So on that point, because obviously we need a bit of a structure or else people are going to think it's some sort of wandering the weeds. So we've got about three or four questions that we're gonna cover. So let's just like kick off with the first one, which is, so you're noticing a kind of shift with clients towards a kind of value-based pricing model and also the kind of the challenges that bring.

Chris Jones (07:08.903)
Yeah.

Chris Jones (07:17.076)
Hehehe

Mike Lander (07:33.25)
Do you want to just talk about what you mean by value-based pricing models? And also, is it something that you're driving or do you think it's something that clients are driving or a bit of both?

Chris Jones (07:45.421)
I think it's probably best to address the second point there. I definitely think, although it's moving very quickly, I still think the value-based pricing... The tail in this instance is very much the agency, that's the tail whacking the dog in that kind of analogy. But I do think there is a shift in the industry very gradually. I think...

On the first point in a nutshell, and the way we tend to kind of phrase it within our business and to clients is that we focus on output and not input because the input is, it's a bit like if you liken it to a made to measure or tailor-made suit, you know, it's not actually, you know, the thread count and the work that's going into it, you are buying into that perfectly fit.

Mike Lander (08:21.899)
Yes.

Mike Lander (08:43.316)
Exactly.

Chris Jones (08:43.51)
suits at the end of it. And actually, you know, if that output and that outcome is aligned with what you're trying to achieve, then really the main question, it sort of lands on being able to agree how much is that value worth? Can you get to an agreeable landing point on that? And that is in a nutshell how we sit.

Mike Lander (09:02.613)
Correct.

Mike Lander (09:10.53)
So Blair Enns often talks about this kind of, you can buy activities, you can buy outputs, and you can buy outcomes. And historically, not all, but obviously a lot of clients have bought days from agencies. So you have time sheets and rate cards and you're just buying activity. And that's got all sorts of problems with it. And what you're talking about is much more of a move towards as a client, you're buying an output, something, and you're buying an outcome, some kind of improvement in the client's business.

Chris Jones (09:29.939)
Mm.

Mike Lander (09:40.158)
Out of interest, do you have a very broad proxy for the ratio of, I don't need the actual number but broadly, is it like a 5 to 1 ratio between the total cost of working with an agency versus the total outcomes achieved, or is it 10 to 1, or is it 2 to 1? Where do you think it is?

Chris Jones (09:59.989)
We don't have a fixed approach to that, Mike. I guess what you would, the way I would put it is that the whole value-based pricing shift in order to deploy that effectively to clients, it has meant that agencies, and certainly we have had to do this over the last five or so years, is have real rigor in understanding the time.

and the input required to deliver the output. And that's multifaceted. So one, in order to run a profitable business on a value-based or outcome-based model, we have to have a really, really good idea as to the input and the time that's needed from a people cost point of view, from a sort of technology and license fee point of view too. But then also, kind of to your point there, it's

it's a little bit harking back to the kind of working versus non-working ratio, because it's absolutely not in either the agency's interests or the client's or brand's interests to increase the amount of administrative burden that's in there, because that will directly implicate the outcome we're trying to achieve or the price that we're trying to achieve it at. So we're absolutely looking to

Mike Lander (11:01.101)
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Lander (11:19.948)
Exactly.

Chris Jones (11:25.257)
be as efficient as possible and ensure that kind of level of what would typically used to be called your non-working capital, reduce the administrative input, maximize the amount of strategic and creative input to ensure that output is as successful as possible. And we keep a real eye on that piece. When we're creating...

solutions and what we're often referring to as products rather than services within our within our organization We're laser focused on making sure that in order to achieve the value that we think that's worth we need to ensure as much Creative and strategic input is going in to deliver it. So that's the bit that we really We really focus on

Mike Lander (12:09.354)
Exactly.

Mike Lander (12:13.662)
And are you seeing clients, because there is a huge difference across clients. I've seen different clients in different sectors. And some like value-based pricing, some welcome it, and some are much more skeptical. What's your kind of view? Does it change by sector or is it just like each client's different?

Chris Jones (12:26.463)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Jones (12:36.657)
I think that's...

The key thing here is, not to go off on a tangent, but at the end of the day, this is a podcast, isn't it? I think that when you get into a conversation with a brand and a lot of the time with procurements, you can get into a conversation that means that actually they're really liking the sound of value-based pricing. You're really trying to work through and understand what actually is motivating them, what are they trying to achieve?

And then to the point of like, well, let's really understand what value that outcome delivers to your business. And then if we can agree on that, then we can agree on a fair price. And I think what's absent a lot of the time is that conversation, that two-way dialogue, too often.

Mike Lander (13:29.87)
Do you start with that, interestingly, do you start with the, I'm a big advocate of, if you can't work out what the value is that you're trying to create, how on earth can you talk about price? Because it's meaningless.

Chris Jones (13:35.198)
Mm.

Chris Jones (13:45.841)
Yeah, well, this is it. And we touched on it on Thursday, didn't we? Where I know there are examples where you're completing an RFI or an IRFP, which is asking you to put crosses and boxes. And a lot of the time that kind of directly conflicts with the way that we want to operate. But we often genuinely believe we can drive that business forwards and deliver growth to them. We are a genuinely different proposition. And...

The thing that we often talk about, Mike, is that I don't think we're yet really good at the putting crosses in boxes point. What we are really good at is once we're at a point of having a conversation and developing that chemistry with clients and or procurements, we are very good at getting down to what ultimately is that objective and then being able to kind of translate that into the way in which we work and sort of demystify the whole value pricing piece.

So I think that the process at the moment, although there are nuances in there, I think it's fundamentally a bit broken. I don't mean to put a bold statement out there, but I do think that genuinely there are a lot of instances where brand is trying to achieve something, agencies out there that will genuinely deliver that

and more and they either stay where they are or they end up with someone that ultimately is really good at putting the crosses in the boxes. And that's just not right for us. So I often really think, and the data supports it, is that if we can get to a conversation, if we can get to even something like, can we have 15 minutes of chemistry before we put this information in there?

I'm really happy to be challenged. If you can demonstrably show me that time is the right commodity in this conversation, then one of the beauties of our business, I think, is that we're very modular with our pricing. You know, if there's an approach that works or a blend of different pricing models, then we'll apply that. But try and explain that in 150 words on a word document.

Mike Lander (16:10.975)
Exactly.

Chris Jones (16:14.145)
So I think, and I know I've mentioned this to you before, but there is a quote from an author that talks a lot and writes a lot in our industry called Chris Lima. And he talks about the fact that, you know, you never put a price in front of a client unless you really understand what's motivating them. And I just don't see when you're asked to put an hourly rate in or a day rate in or.

To be honest, the real, the worst is trying to say, how many hours do you think this is worth? How many hours do you think you'll need from that performance manager or that account manager? It's like, I just don't have enough information. We haven't had a conversation. Do you know what I mean? I think that's, so yeah.

Mike Lander (16:46.899)
Yes.

Mike Lander (16:59.15)
Absolutely. And also Chris, so let's definitely dig into the motivations piece. So this is a really, it's easy to say. It's easy to say when you're talking to a human being.

Chris Jones (17:04.899)
Mm.

Mike Lander (17:12.51)
If you can't understand what's motivating them, then you can't negotiate with them because all you'll hear is their demands. But putting it into practice, finding out someone's underlying interests, finding out what's really motivating them. There are some textbook techniques we can talk about, but how do you find it works best when you're with a client and you can tell they're talking at a surface level?

Chris Jones (17:31.646)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Lander (17:42.494)
and they're making certain demands and they're being quite closed, how do you find out what's really motivating them?

Chris Jones (17:51.893)
I think first of all, a huge piece that I really believe in is that when you're communicating, 80% of what, of that effective communication is that you believe what you're saying in the first instance, right? So if you just don't believe what you're saying is true, then actually you're not going to break a deadlock there at all. And I think that's mirrored in the other direction. I think that authenticity...

that a brand, a client or procurement will feel and will allow them to open up and share more. I think the other point is empathy, right? So you've got, you know, a lot of the time, an individual that you're talking to on the end of the phone, on a Zoom call, in person.

They have macro challenges within their role, within their organisation. They've got KPIs, but they've also got personal objectives and goals that they're trying to hit. And actually trying to understand how you can help them. Because if you take procurements in many instances, and it goes back to that triangle of doom, doesn't it? Is that, you know, they have...

you could argue that their motivations and their objectives are different to what a marketing director or a CMO or a...

Mike Lander (19:24.126)
Yeah. And in fact, they are. I mean, having been a procurement director, I often had a, I worked in private equity backed companies, so savings were all important, but so was the size of the preferred suppliers list, how many agencies we had, you know, so was the quality and reliability that those suppliers were bringing to bear on our business, which is different than the brand director who might be looking for share of voice or to...

Chris Jones (19:32.157)
Yeah. Yep.

Mike Lander (19:54.122)
raise awareness for a new product launch or whatever it might be. So yes, I think that misalignment of interest is really important.

Chris Jones (20:00.989)
Yeah, and I think, you know, if you were trying to kind of simplify it a little bit, if you were to, if we were to try and kind of, if you take that triangle of doom client procurement agency and put it into a kind of straight line, on one side, the motivation is to have better than what they already have in some way, shape or form, whether it's better.

price, better value, better brand activation, better idea, whatever it is. And then the agency just wants to be paid what they're worth. It's not about they just want to be paid more or they just want more hours. They want to be paid what they're worth. So then if you've then got it in that straight line, to me, it all comes down to being able to get connect on a level that means...

let's pull out what the outcome or outcomes is or are that you're trying to achieve, and let's agree what that value is worth. So if that outcome is going to deliver 100 million of value to your business, is it unreasonable that I'd like to be paid a million for that? For example, and I know we're talking high-level numbers here, but if we can tangibly

Mike Lander (21:18.494)
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Chris Jones (21:27.305)
the value that we're going to deliver here. And everything, in our pitch and everything that we talk about and our organization, the way we set up and our values and all those sorts of things, we can show that we'll deliver that. Is it unreasonable that relative to that value, we would look to be paid that because that is what I believe it's worth. So there are your two, and I think you can include procurement in there, in that, in that, in that.

Mike Lander (21:46.571)
Exactly.

Chris Jones (21:57.001)
But the key thing, and it goes back to Mike, and I know we're believers in this, is that you've got to have a conversation. You know.

Mike Lander (22:03.358)
Yeah, exactly. An honest, frank, open conversation.

Chris Jones (22:09.233)
Yeah, I do. And I think that in the agency landscape, we're talking a lot more about this shift away from commoditized services. And if you put an RFP out essentially seeking commoditized services, you're not really going to be moving your business forward. Do you want something that's genuinely different and trying to do things different? Because in a sort of

weird sort of way, it goes back to that wanting to always learn and push the boundaries and test because if you've got an agency that don't think they want to put crosses in boxes like everyone else, then let's have a conversation and let's talk about why there might be a new way and a different way of doing it. And that's what it comes down to.

Mike Lander (22:56.91)
And that comes also to, we've talked before about RFP qualification. I don't need to know again your exact numbers, but broadly, do you apply quite a lot of rigor when an RFP comes in about, is this in our sweet spot? Can we have access to someone to have an open conversation before we start writing the 100 page document?

Chris Jones (23:02.815)
Hmm.

Mike Lander (23:22.958)
How does that kind of work? Because I think that's a critical agency to me all the time. Oh, you know, my RFP conversion rate has gone down. And I'm like, okay, well, how do you qualify them? Well, the pipelines are a bit thin, so we're bidding for everything. I'm like, well, then you conversion rate will go down because you're bidding for too much. Only bid for the stuff that you can really win. So how does it work?

Chris Jones (23:29.67)
Bye.

Chris Jones (23:45.713)
100%, so I think there are, that again is multifaceted because there was a, I did a talk with the drum recently, I'm not sure, three or four months ago. And I was asked about, how are we winning new business? How are we growing that pipeline? How are we converting that pipeline? It was a really,

Mike Lander (23:59.936)
Oh yeah.

Chris Jones (24:15.605)
broad question. And the thing is, and not to bring the tone down, but I think there is a responsibility from agency leaders and agency owners to manage their workforce effectively. Because for too long now, I think agencies have thrown resource at tenuous RFPs and things that they kind of know they're probably not going to get. And people's

Mike Lander (24:41.857)
Exactly.

Chris Jones (24:44.957)
we have to look after our staff's mental health. We have to look after people's capacity to do that. And I think the model of just saying, well, it's new business, so we'll stick around until 11 o'clock at night, every night, which I've been there, I've done it. And it was, you know, like we won lots of new business, I guess, but we lost some as well. And I think that the correlation was that when you're burning the candle at both ends, you don't...

Mike Lander (25:01.902)
Snap.

Chris Jones (25:14.173)
tend to win very much because it's a direct result of burnout, isn't it? And I think that agencies have a responsibility to manage that effectively. And if you can tangibly stand up and say, we are at capacity making sure that the clients we currently look after are delighted to be working with us, then we have no capacity to work on it anyway.

Mike Lander (25:16.127)
Exactly.

Chris Jones (25:43.121)
So therefore, the mindset of, and I know this is true of our new business director and our new business team, is that, you know, although they are motivated to be winning new business, they are absolutely at the forefront thinking, is this right for us? And is it a responsible use of our time? Can we actually do the job here? Because, and I think that's a huge part of our rigour.

Now, Mike, I think in the past, you'd look at a pipeline and you'd say success is having a pipeline that's just full of RFPs. And you know, it's great, right? You sat there in a board meeting and you've got 100 RFPs sat in there and you go, that's awesome. You know, we're not gonna have any issue with the second half of our year or the next quarter because we've got all those RFPs in there. And you think...

Mike Lander (26:25.418)
Right.

Chris Jones (26:43.013)
Yeah, but the amount of time it needs to go in to converting those RFPs, potentially at the detriment to your existing clients, are you gonna end up at square one? And I think that is often overlooked. So in short, I think that generally speaking, I think, you know,

Mike Lander (26:56.577)
Exactly.

Chris Jones (27:10.821)
We're at about a sort of, around a sort of 50% conversion rate on the RFPs that we work on, that we bid for. And I think that's a pretty good conversion rate. And what I would say is that that's significantly higher if we get into a presentation, a face-to-face or a Zoom call, somewhere where we can build rapport. It's significantly higher than that. So, yeah.

Mike Lander (27:16.578)
that you bid for. Exactly.

Very good.

Mike Lander (27:34.506)
Exactly. And in fact, I'd say to anyone listening, any agency or anyone that's not in marketing agencies, anyone that's supplying services into large corporates, if you get an RFP and it says you can't talk to anyone until you've written your full response, sent it in, and then we might shortlist you, but it's gonna take you, you know, I don't know, five people for four weeks, I'd just say, well, we're not bidding.

Chris Jones (28:02.301)
Mm.

Mike Lander (28:05.302)
Because how on earth can you get inside the mind of the client, understand the intricacies of their problems, the outcomes they're trying to achieve, and the complexity of the stakeholder group, if you can't talk to anyone? It's bonkers.

Chris Jones (28:16.657)
Yeah, 100%. And I think there's an interesting one here as well. And again, I've worked at other agencies in the past. And I think there's also, going back to the authenticity point, we try as much as possible, if we can understand what the motivations are, if we're going to work with a brand or a client for three, four, five,

plus years, then actually having a load of your senior people, your new business team in a meeting pitching this idea, and then winning the business, and then a completely new team with a new set of ideas working on it, is that really getting you value? Because I think that what we really try and do is we try and go for a

Mike Lander (29:08.755)
Exactly.

Chris Jones (29:15.881)
what we call a business first versus people first approach to resourcing an account. And if we're talking to that brand or client about what they're trying to achieve, before we get right into that pitch process, we can actually really consider who the right person within our organisation is to really lead that. And that's how you create... And I know, again, lots happened last Thursday, didn't it? But we talked about partnerships. And...

Mike Lander (29:36.223)
Exactly.

Chris Jones (29:45.609)
partnerships is, and Gareth talked about this, was that it hinges so much on the individuals that are involved because we all work in quite sort of idiosyncratic and unique ways, and you have to build that kind of direct rapport. So we feel building that partnership is ultimately gonna be about really understanding, yes, what we think the right idea is gonna be and how we.

price that and how we resource that, but the individual that's going to be in that presentation and then and actually standing there saying, I'm going to be your lead, I'm going to drive the growth here for you and I'm going to understand your business as well as you do so I can provide the solutions that are right to deliver that. I think that's a really key differentiator and we're not...

Mike Lander (30:37.995)
Absolutely.

Chris Jones (30:43.481)
I think too often it's sort of put your A team in a presentation format or something and it all sounds great, but then.

Mike Lander (30:51.714)
We used to at KPMG, this is going back a long time, actually I'm quite old. We used to call it, and it was the thing that you were never allowed to do as consultants. Partners would say to us, never, ever, ever send the A team to pitch and the B team to deliver. Because that's the sure way to really, really irritate a client from day one.

Chris Jones (30:57.398)
Hmm. Yeah.

Chris Jones (31:02.673)
Mm.

Chris Jones (31:08.539)
Mm.

Chris Jones (31:18.58)
100%. Yeah.

Mike Lander (31:18.59)
it's just completely pointless. So you're right, you find the right, once you're at the early stages of qualification, finding the right person to lead it inside your business. And when they stand in front of the client on several meetings, it's like, I am the person that will be leading this piece of work.

Chris Jones (31:31.303)
Mm.

Chris Jones (31:35.925)
Absolutely, yeah. And I think that's gonna start right from chemistry. You know?

Mike Lander (31:40.618)
It is exactly right. So Chris, I'm very conscious of your time. Um, so we're slightly over. So, um, thanks ever so much for joining us, uh, on the Higgle B2B sales podcast. Um, just like give us a quick bit about, um, where can people find out more about you, uh, and anything else you want to say about your business before we part.

Chris Jones (31:49.097)
Not at all.

Chris Jones (32:01.865)
Sure, well like any business nowadays, we're online. So usually the best place we got, so spaceandtime.co.uk, A&D time that is. And so we've got a really active blog on there, but we tend to, although we have the sort of setup of our business as I was talking about earlier, kind of straddles both that media and tech.

Mike Lander (32:06.398)
Yep, absolutely. Be pretty awful if you weren't. Yes, exactly.

Chris Jones (32:31.465)
piece and we're talking about solutions that we're delivering within that we also really tailor them to specific sectors so we have cut our teeth over a long period of time across a number of sectors with kind of real pedigree I think across the health care space property space e-commerce retail commerce of late and so we tend we often tend to publish articles and

solutions and ideas and opportunities specifically within verticals, which I think often is the way in which a brand side marketer would see it. We're also obviously very active on LinkedIn as you would have thought, but we also run quarterly workshops with different sectors and kind of different areas of our business and what's going on in the sector. And we have one

coming up in a few months actually, but specifically around Omnichannel. But there's a long pipeline coming up around responsible use of AI, effective use of AI. We've got some hyperlocal activation, thought leadership coming up. And more often than not, I tend to turn up to the opening of an envelope. So you'll usually see me at different events.

Mike Lander (33:33.579)
Alright.

Chris Jones (33:57.465)
industry gigs, that kind of stuff. And so come up and say, hi, I'd love to chat.

Mike Lander (34:03.118)
Chris, it's been amazing. Thank you very much indeed for being an amazing guest on our podcast series. Thank you.

Chris Jones (34:10.065)
No trouble at all, mate. Good to see you. See you soon. Bye bye.

Mike Lander (34:11.666)
You too. See you soon Chris. Thanks. Right, I'll just stop recording.