From Weak Cold Calls to Authentic Connections with Rich McHardy

Mike (00:00.174)
Rich. Thanks ever so much for joining me on Higgle the B2B sales for podcast.

Rich McHardy (00:19.837)
Hey Mike, good to see you, thanks for having me.

Mike (00:22.382)
Pleasure so we go back a long way now and I would I would honestly say you've become a great friend a great person to bounce ideas off and just generally a good-spirited Fun person to be around in biz dev Thank you, thank you, so I'm really looking forward to this it's always great when you talk to kind of old friends about business development Which can be as you say biz dev can be a bitch at times it really can

Rich McHardy (00:35.131)
Likewise, my man. Likewise.

Rich McHardy (00:48.049)
You're not wrong there. job. Tough gig.

Mike (00:51.286)
It is a tough gig. So Rich, tell us about basically who you are, what you do, and something unusual about yourself.

Rich McHardy (00:58.717)
Cool. Okay. Well, so I'm Rich McCardy. I guess all I've ever done is business development. I get my kicks out of seeing relationships flourish between agencies and clients. I love finding new opportunities where people don't see them. And it's all I've ever done, right? You know, maybe we'll talk about how I got into it in a bit, but that's what I do.

Mike (01:20.493)
Yeah.

We will. Yeah.

Rich McHardy (01:26.875)
I work for various agencies. support them as part of a kind of collective approach to new business. I'm also the co-founder of the BD100, which is a community for business developers across the agency, Monscape. There were 27,000 or so agencies in this country alone. What's unusual about me? Loads of stuff probably, but I think...

Mike (01:39.468)
Yeah, amazing community.

Mike (01:50.606)
Maybe.

Rich McHardy (01:51.891)
Something that people don't know maybe about me because I don't really talk about it that much but I am a Guinness World Record holder. Something that I did with the brilliant Michelle Morgan and Kate Thompson a few years ago now we broke a Guinness World Record for the most people to join an accredited mental health awareness lesson. Online over 3,000 people tuned in.

Yeah, and we did that because, you know, this world, this job, it's tough. And so we brought people together because, you know, it puts people under mental strain in what we're in and there's plenty of burnout in the agency sector. So we did something to help and to shine a light on that.

Mike (02:31.682)
It does.

Mike (02:38.168)
Good. Yeah, and it is. mean, everyone says, you know, work is tough. Yes, work is tough. I think one of the problems with business development, and we've talked about this a lot, is it genuinely can be lonely because often there's one senior lead person who's trying to drum up new business. And who the hell do you talk to? Who do you talk to when it's all gone a bit pear-shaped? So before we get into that, because we'll get into more of that later on, but what's your backstory, Rich? So how did you get into BizDev? What happened?

Rich McHardy (03:08.805)
I and I would say this about most people that are in business development, I think it's naturally in there. It's an innate ability, but then it takes something to sort of light the spark. And I think I wasn't a natural business developer in terms of the mechanics of what you have to do, because back in the day, the phone was absolutely crucial. Even the fax machine was crucial. And we have so many more digital tools now, but...

I wouldn't say I was natural on the phone. was a natural relationship builder, which is crucial. But on the phone, I think I had a bit of a fear, but I got into, I did quite a bit of work working for the BT operator service and had to handle 999 calls and lots of quite difficult calls on the phone. And actually that sort of broke down any fear. That just got rid of it completely.

Mike (03:56.067)
Well.

Mike (04:02.926)
Hmm.

Rich McHardy (04:06.683)
and then I was at a real crossroads in 1997. I'd done some pretty hardcore cold calling jobs, in the mid nineties. And I, and I've seen that in lots of people as well. Lots of business developers who really know their stuff would say they've done door to door. They've done cold calling. They've done all of that kind of sales stuff. and anyway, I, in 97, I walked into an agency called spectrum at the time. It's now called Jack Morton.

And I was just sat there in reception. They were looking for a sales exec and part of the recruitment process was to pretend that you'd been at an event over the weekend. You'd met someone who let's say was a high prospect, a CMO of a business. And you had to call them up on Monday and say, it was nice chatting to them. And could we get together for a meeting and that scenario frankly still rolls out today. So in 1997, I played that out with,

the person who was hiring me by calling him from a room next door to the interview room. And that was that. I got the job and I started a career as a business developer working for agencies.

Mike (05:20.056)
So just out of interest, does the phone still work?

Rich McHardy (05:23.631)
my God. Do you know what? People talk about this now and they're like, hardly anyone uses the phone or makes phone calls. And I think people hide behind email now and LinkedIn and you know, email and LinkedIn Christ, I have to use, I use them daily, right? They're on my dashboard, of course, right? But I think, I think using the phone is like a nice thing for people. So I make, I make phone calls all the time.

Yesterday alone I probably made about 50 phone calls, had about 15 chats with senior people. Just what's on your plate? How can I help? What's going on? You've got to put the graft in.

Mike (06:08.084)
How do you... That's remarkable. How do you... You're so unassuming. So you spoke to... Let's just take the 15 senior CMO people, yeah? How do you... I mean, no matter where they are in an organization, who the organization is, but just what do you do to get through to new, new people that basically don't know you, you don't know them? How does that work? It's always been a problem of mine. I've always been...

pretty shit at it to be quite frank.

Rich McHardy (06:39.987)
Okay, what you mean actually sort of how do you get through?

Mike (06:42.722)
Just literally, how do you find the number? How do you get through the gatekeepers? And how do you start a conversation with someone that you're interrupting their day? So how do you get over that?

Rich McHardy (06:56.467)
Yeah, so, okay, so I think you've got to put this in context, right? None of these people that I'm calling up are people that I don't know. So, so these are known people. So people always say, how do you make cold calls? And I always say, well, I don't, I don't make a single cold call because either people know me already or I think they should know me and therefore.

Mike (07:07.958)
Right, okay, so that's number one. These are known people.

Mike (07:19.182)
Right.

Rich McHardy (07:24.942)
Therefore it's not PoE, right?

So, so much of this is about a state of mind, okay? If you really strongly believe that someone should hear you out for a few minutes, then it ain't a cold call, right?

Mike (07:34.723)
Yeah.

Mike (07:41.664)
Right. Okay.

Rich McHardy (07:43.335)
by definition. if people can get into that mindset then great. Anyway, look, I didn't speak to 15 CMOs yesterday. I spoke to 15 people that I wanted to speak to for various reasons. Some of them agents and CEOs, some of them head of client relationships at agencies, some of them in production roles, et cetera. you know, someone pointed out to me that there are...

Mike (07:52.973)
Right.

Mike (07:58.049)
Okay.

Mike (08:03.149)
Yeah.

Rich McHardy (08:09.627)
In fact, it was my business coach that pointed out how few working days and working hours there are till Christmas and said, every hour counts till about December the sixth when no one's going to care anymore. So I just hit the phone and went, right, every minute, every call, everything matters. But to go back to your original, your original question was around how do you, how do you get to know? Well, the process is you get out,

Mike (08:16.258)
Correct.

Mike (08:28.578)
So talk about prep.

Mike (08:34.925)
Yeah.

Rich McHardy (08:38.213)
and meet people at events and you have a chat with people at places like Madfest or Campaign Live or Future of Media. I mean I would have been to about seven different events this month by the time we get to the end of October. So you've got to prepare, you've got to go and meet people, you've got to have a chat with them about something that's relevant, you've got to listen to what they're talking about and pick up on something that's relevant.

Mike (08:50.829)
Wow.

Rich McHardy (09:02.501)
One of the key things is you've got to ask someone right up front, whether it's in person or on the phone, are you okay to chat for a minute? Right? And I think people launch into what they're going to, what they want to say.

Mike (09:16.472)
Cause they're nervous, they've got anxiety inside them.

Rich McHardy (09:19.121)
Yeah. So the first thing I think everyone should always say is, how are you? Have you got a minute? It's disarming. And if they haven't got a minute, you say, well, when have you got a minute then? So it's just, it's just conversational. I think it's as simple as that. And, you know, you're building relationships that sometimes trigger something really quickly, sometimes trigger things long-term, sometimes never trigger anything. And that's the point. You've got to be in it to just,

genuinely want to build relationships with people that could go absolutely nowhere other than being a friend.

Mike (09:52.312)
Correct.

Exactly right or if not a friend a contact someone that you know so I mean rich I think we there's no surprise that we've become friends in many ways that we share quite a few kind of principles in common I think and I mean like okay, so two months ago my pipeline had one thing in it And I'm like, shit

Rich McHardy (10:08.594)
Yeah.

Rich McHardy (10:13.874)
He.

Mike (10:21.048)
Correct, I thought, you never mind. The phone will ring one day, it'll be fine. No, clearly, as we both do, Rich. Now, it's got, I don't know, 12 things in it. Now that's not an accident. That's like, like you, I've been to events, I've spoken at events, I've sat on panels, I've kind of hustled my way into getting to meet people. I've done all the stuff that you, and I think the really important thing that you,

Rich McHardy (10:32.392)
Good map.

Mike (10:48.374)
said here, Rich, is that you don't know where it's going to go. If you approach it with genuine integrity, I just want to get to know people who are interesting people. And if they're the right kinds of interesting people, good things will happen eventually. Then that tends to work.

Rich McHardy (11:03.473)
Absolutely right. Absolutely right. you know, again, it might sound a bit fluffy, but you know, there is some karma, there is some serendipity, right? You can, there are some mechanics around it. You go to the right events that are your kind of thing where you're going to meet the right kind of people to do business with and get along with.

Mike (11:12.418)
There is.

Mike (11:24.567)
Exactly.

Rich McHardy (11:25.383)
then the rest is actually bloody hard work. And, you know, I think I wrote a whole list of things that I've learned in my career on some sort of celebratory post on LinkedIn to mark 10 years or I don't know. But one of them was activity gets results. And if you're sat there with one thing in your pipeline, it ain't just going to magic itself up. So get your finger out and get calling, emailing, hustling, meeting, talking, because

Mike (11:45.312)
Correct!

Mike (11:52.568)
Yeah. I mean, going to events, Rich, I think everyone would agree, events are back, in-person's back.

Rich McHardy (12:00.229)
Absolutely right. They're, I mean, crikey. I'm exhausted this month. Like I'm leaving after this. I'm going to one event, then an evening event, then another, then sport leaders at Twickenham tomorrow. Then I'm cutting sport leaders to do another thing tomorrow evening. And then I'm at an agency hackers event on Thursday. And that's on the back of campaign live two weeks ago and the future of media before that.

Mike (12:19.148)
Wow.

Mike (12:25.73)
Yep, and Madfest you were out for what, three days?

Rich McHardy (12:28.229)
Madfest for three days and you've got Mad Up North coming next February which I'm speaking at. And then I mean you know I would have I go to some of the Oyster Catchers events which are superb there's a singular event that's being run by Digitas next two weeks time yeah.

Mike (12:47.894)
And so for anyone listening that's in business development, I think tune into what Rich is saying about going to events where the right people are there. Don't go to the events whereby, you for example, in agency world, a lot of people go to Brighton SEO, which is a brilliant, brilliant event. know Resignal Go, and it's got amazing, amazing speakers. And it's great if you want to meet other SEO people, if you're an SEO. Nothing wrong with that, that's fine. But you won't meet clients there.

or prospects. So you've got to go somewhere where your potential prospects might be. I went to an amazing event last week called CRO Connected. The organizer, Josh, very kindly invited me. And I sat on a panel with David Meikle. And we talked about basically dealing with procurement and the triangle of doom. And it was great to be invited. And those people were CROs, Chief Revenue Officers, some of which run multi-billion dollar organizations, and some of which run early stage growth companies.

but they're the right kind of people to talk to. And it's not so much even that they might be my clients and I'm desperate to get in front of them. They're nice people to get to know. They've got interesting things to say. But they'll also talk to other people who might have a problem that maybe I can solve. the go, spoke to this bloke, I saw this bloke Mike the other week, interesting conversation with my ex-wife and said, maybe you ought to give him a call. And in our world, Rich, that's what happens, isn't it? You do get some random things turning up.

where someone spoke to someone spoke to someone and then you get a call or an email.

Rich McHardy (14:19.579)
Yeah, and do you know that's what we're always trying to make happen. As soon as anyone says the words or any combination of procurement negotiation, rate card or pricing, I just go, you need Mike Lander.

Mike (14:30.99)
You

Thank you, Rich, that's very kind. But that's an important point is you've got to, people have to know when it's time to call Rich. So you have to be really clear about what you focus on. I'm with you with that, absolutely, absolutely.

Rich McHardy (14:44.53)
Yeah, yeah.

Rich McHardy (14:49.203)
Yeah. And I think, you know, everyone has in their head certain words. Well, maybe it's just the way my head's put on, but if someone says certain words to me, it will trigger people, it will trigger a place where I've met someone and I'll go, you need to talk to such and such. You know, I think those very giving networkers, I think a few people have put on the recommendation thing that you can do on LinkedIn where they just say they're a generous networker.

Mike (15:05.517)
Exactly.

Rich McHardy (15:19.121)
And that means everything to me because it means that you're not just in it for your own business or whoever you're representing. You're in it just generally to help and to point people in the right direction.

Mike (15:30.36)
Exactly. And if you give more than you get, then you've probably had a good day.

Rich McHardy (15:33.594)
Absolutely give to get back.

Mike (15:35.586)
Yep, definitely. So talk to me, Rich, about your kind of immediate and best source of new business in terms of clients, dormant clients, referrals. Just talk about that.

Rich McHardy (15:48.771)
I think whenever I start working with a, agency founder or CEO who, who needs a consultant business developer, which is kind of what I do, you know, that they're always calling me when they're typically they'll say, not w we're not ready to hire anyone yet. We've probably exhausted our existing referrals from our current client base. We need someone to start expanding out.

so that we can get some more conversations going, more meetings, more briefs, more clients. That's when people call me. And the first thing I start examining with them, when I'm getting to know them and it's like, who are your current clients and who do you wanna work with? Who do you think are your, who's on your wish list? Because then you're always matching up what, mean, loads of agencies will throw in.

Mike (16:36.418)
Yeah, exactly.

Rich McHardy (16:44.017)
the sort of brands that they've always wanted to work with. And that's great, but it has to sort of marry up with the persona of people that they're right to work with. And where those subsets cross over, that's the pure magic. Because if I'm trying to open up a conversation with someone at a brand that is on the wish list of the agency, but I truly believe there is a reason for the two to come together, that's heaven for me.

Mike (17:13.601)
Exactly.

Rich McHardy (17:14.583)
And then you've got to make the connections between what they are currently in terms of their purpose, their mission values, et cetera, what they've got in their armory of case studies, who they want to work with. Does someone in that brand actually sit within my existing contacts? If they do, fantastic. I can make that intro. If they don't, then I'm looking for the nearest connection to that person. Hence back to our original conversation. It's never a cold intro.

because I might ask someone, can you make that intro to that person because I want to introduce them to this agency. And I'm doing that all the time.

Mike (17:44.354)
Exactly.

Mike (17:50.104)
Yeah. Yep.

Exactly. So I spoke to a brilliant guy this week called Andy Bounds. Andy Bounds is another guest like you on the podcast. His comes out think at middle end November. And there were two things that occurred to me. One was a bit random to this, but it really resonated with me. And the other was about referrals. So the first thing is he said exactly what you're saying, which is basically he doesn't do cold calls either. He asked for referrals.

Who do you know that might need someone like me? And then he said, so I said to him, Andy at the end, maybe I'll write to you and ask you if you've got anyone that has a problem like the kind of things that I solve and maybe they could talk to me. He said, Mike, absolutely. He said, do one thing for me. He said, when you write to me, talk about the afters. I went, the what? And he went, the afters. After you've worked with Mike, you will.

grow your sales, not be fearful of procurement, and have more profitable deals. And I'm like, that's clever. Simple, clever. It's the afters.

Rich McHardy (18:58.227)
That's nice.

Rich McHardy (19:04.293)
Yeah. Well, I'd like to think that the afters of working with me are that they've got more clients, they've got a bigger pipeline, and if we've done it really well, they would have a full-time business developer because they've grown so much that I can't support it anymore. And therefore, it's beautiful process whereby I'm with them for a certain point in the journey.

Mike (19:05.858)
And

Mike (19:21.826)
Yeah. Brilliant. But isn't it simple thing?

Mike (19:32.972)
Yeah.

Rich McHardy (19:34.468)
Andy Bounds sounds like a good person. You're going to intro me? Is he, is he, and he's Andy Out Bounds, is he?

Mike (19:38.104)
I will definitely. Andy Bounds is the top guy. No, but maybe you should be. Andy Bounds, brilliant guy, brilliant. So next part, Rich. Talk to us about, I think we've both faced this. Certain agency leaders think that they're gonna get, right, I've got 30 people in my agency, I'm gonna get all of them to generate at least one lead. And that way I'll have 30 leads and out of 30, I'm bound to get.

Rich McHardy (19:46.897)
Yeah.

Mike (20:07.374)
three or four real clients and it will all be good. Why is that often a problem?

Rich McHardy (20:13.203)
Alright, if that agency was a film content business with 30 business developers, would you ask those 30 business developers to go out and make a film?

Mike (20:24.494)
You might be a bit crazy if you did.

Rich McHardy (20:28.027)
Yeah, so I think

think a lot of agency leaders think that you can get the business development process working throughout the business. And it's just not that simple because we've all, we're all born with different talents. Event producers are producers, strategists do their thing, amazing minds. You know, filmmakers, designers, graphic designers, we've all got our place and role within the agency life and business developers have their gift too. So

Mike (20:44.768)
Exactly.

Mike (20:56.65)
Exactly.

Rich McHardy (21:02.363)
It's kind of nurture your business developers, don't expect them to, don't expect everyone in the agency to be a business developer. Don't, it's, it's a real, you're putting people in a really, you're putting them in a place of discomfort. If you're saying, look, next time you're out, ask someone, if we can get an intro or see if you can generate some leads, just isn't what you're better off doing is asking the people in their role.

Mike (21:11.342)
You're right.

Rich McHardy (21:31.185)
So if you are a brand experience agency, ask the producers what events have you seen out there that are really fantastic and creative. To ask a copywriter, what's the best bit of copy that you've seen in a campaign? And that way you're getting people to respond to you with things that they love, things that they've seen that are in their area of expertise. And then the business developer can take that on and sort of add it into the wish list.

Mike (21:55.031)
Exactly.

Mike (22:00.599)
Exactly.

Rich McHardy (22:01.819)
And I think that's a much smarter and nicer way of doing business development and trying to get an essence of business development spread across the agency.

Mike (22:13.358)
Yeah, absolutely. And also I think you can take that stuff, like it might be a brilliant creative campaign or a piece of copy, and you can take it to people that you're networking with, potential prospects, and talk to them about it. It gives you something to talk about that's really different.

Because I always think whenever I talk to someone that might one day eventually be a client, maybe, well, what do they want from me? They want something that's insightful. They want something that they don't know. If you can teach, and again, this Andy Bounds guy said, if you can teach them something they don't know, they're going to walk away from that conversation richer than when they started.

Rich McHardy (22:53.309)
Yeah, absolutely.

Mike (22:54.114)
they will.

Get richer with Rich McHardy. There you are.

Rich McHardy (23:01.405)
Well, as long as it's the emotional enrichment.

Mike (23:05.642)
Emotional enrichment, correct. Not money. Emotional enrichment, correct.

Rich McHardy (23:09.095)
I mean, you know, there should be some revenue in there too, but yeah, I like the emotional enrichment.

Mike (23:15.022)
Definitely. So we're at kind of 23 minutes. So Rich, why don't we kind of wrap this up with if you were if you were like having a if we were having a coffee in a coffee shop having this conversation and there happened to be an agency leader next to us and she leant over and went What your top three tips then we're about 25 people we got so far. We need to get further What should we do in terms of new business acquisition?

What would your kind of top three things be?

Rich McHardy (23:45.607)
Well, think, all right, top three tips. It's hard to get to top three tips, but I think, you know, because I can see myself in that situation. I just start asking them questions and then the tips would probably come, but I'd be asking them, have you got anyone in house that's doing it? You know, what tools are you using? What's your process? Because then whatever isn't there, I'd start filling it in because my tips are...

You know, you have to get out and go to events. We've talked about that. You have to have a decent digital dashboard. You've got to have your eye on the market. You have to have Intel. So I always have Alf Insight open. You know, that is what gives me my daily feed and leads. And it comes in from the publishers as well, like the Drum and Campaign.

Mike (24:15.96)
Definitely.

Rich McHardy (24:36.647)
You've got to have your eye on what's happening. What agency has been appointed? What CMOs just moved from one brand to the other? So yeah, I guess it's, and it's constant activity, but with a process. You you've got to plan your time. You've got to consider when is the right time to be speaking to people, when to email them, when to post on LinkedIn, when to go to events and be very patient. You know, it's a patient.

role being the business developer. But also I think just a quick mention of the BD100. If you've got a business developer in your team, I would say to those agency leaders, just make sure you get those business developers to tune into the BD100 because it's a community. It's a community that supports one another and it's growing fast. And as we said right at the beginning, it's a tough job.

Mike (25:10.616)
Definitely.

Mike (25:15.598)
No, please do, definitely.

Rich McHardy (25:34.609)
You're only as good as the last bit of new business that you've won. and often, you know, not all CEOs, thankfully not that many anymore, but there are some leaders and agencies that, know, they kind of forget very quickly that the business developer generated that relationship maybe years ago. And then it comes through to fruition and it's a new client. And yet the pressures back on the business developer to go and get the next one. And that it shouldn't be forgotten that

Mike (25:49.954)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Mike (25:59.543)
It is.

Absolutely.

Rich McHardy (26:02.971)
It all begins with something and it could be just a chat at an event, but they have to start somewhere.

Mike (26:08.684)
Yeah. And I think that the only thing I'd add in would be around having a point of view. You need to be a thought leader. You've got to have a point of view on what it is that your business does. Otherwise, why would people talk to you? Don't be a commodity. Be something that's unique and high value add where you've got a real point of view on something. And that'll open a conversation.

Rich McHardy (26:20.134)
Mm-hmm.

Rich McHardy (26:29.617)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think that, you know, the India, India agencies versus networks, you know, the point of difference of the networks is that they are a network and a lot of brands, big senior leaders in brands want that. But if you're, if you, if you've made your life to be an indie, and niche agency, then totally lean into the niche, be the niche and shout it from the rooftops.

Mike (26:53.719)
Exactly.

Rich, it's been amazing. I knew it would. It's bound to be. Because it's you, mate.

Rich McHardy (27:01.208)
it's been, I've loved it. It's gone really fast.

Mike (27:04.886)
It's gone really fast, 27 minutes. So Rich, where can people find out more about you?

Rich McHardy (27:10.419)
Well, mostly on LinkedIn actually, because my sort of website is like a classic anyone who's in agency lands website, they'll always moan about and saying they're not that good. But it's got some good testimonials on there, but mostly just go on LinkedIn. I live on LinkedIn. It's got everything about what I do. I love working with agency leaders that are hungry to grow. And yeah, give me a shout.

Mike (27:34.69)
Brilliant, Rich. It's been amazing. Thank you.

Rich McHardy (27:37.981)
Thanks a lot.

Mike (27:39.904)
Right, let me, Amr out. Let me just stop the recording.