Overcoming Sales Ghosting Using Respectful Persistence with Claudia Stephenson

Mike (00:01.951)
Claudia. Thanks ever so much for joining me on Higgle, the B2B Sales Club podcast. Great to have you.

Claudia Stephenson (00:21.902)
Thanks for having me. Really appreciate the time with you today, Mike, and the conversations we've had and some of the advice you've given to date. So pleased to be here.

Mike (00:31.967)
That's a pleasure. I always enjoy our conversations because they're always really interesting problems and they're really interesting discussions as well. And we met via the drum, didn't we?

Claudia Stephenson (00:42.798)
We did, we met at an event that Invent is proud to sponsor, which is Burns Night and hosted by the drum. And the beneficiary of Burns Night is Brixton Finishing School. It is an organization that I am now a board member of and proudly support, but thank you. And they are founded by Allie.

Mike (00:50.719)
Yes.

Mike (01:03.455)
Congratulations.

Claudia Stephenson (01:11.63)
who is really on a mission to support underrepresented groups and individuals in getting into our space of marketing and brand services. And so they will find and select about 60 to 80 students on an annual basis and put them through an eight week summer course ongoing and supported by agencies such as Invent and others that will provide education.

And then at the end of it, connect them to find jobs and placements. And we were proud to bring on two of the graduates this year within our agency who have started in the agency and continued on. It's fantastic. And really, we love supporting that because it's the right thing to do.

Mike (01:45.951)
Amazing.

Mike (01:54.783)
Yeah, absolutely. They're an amazing organization. And likewise, on a smaller scale, I sponsored the event last year as well for the same reason. They just do amazing work and they're bringing talent that would normally not get access to opportunities and giving them a chance in life. And that's what my charity is about as well. So Claudia, who are you for the listeners? What do you do and something unusual about yourself?

Claudia Stephenson (02:10.83)
That's right.

Claudia Stephenson (02:21.55)
Yeah, well, I am the managing director for Invent in Europe. We are a global brand storytelling agency with offices in 10 locations and seven countries. So my Europe remit includes obviously this region. I've got a counterpart that's also in Dubai. We've got offices in APAC and agency founded and headquartered in New York by a wonderful

husband and wife team, Scott Colither and Christina McCoubry, who started the agency nine years ago on the backs of one client and then grew to what it is today. We work with the most respected brands in the world and describe ourselves as the challenger agency for challenger brands because we love this challenger mindset and thinking differently and believe really that this approach.

Mike (02:59.967)
Bye.

Claudia Stephenson (03:14.926)
to working with clients and brands will ultimately result in better ideas in the world of brand stories and activations and events, conferences, digital content and such.

Mike (03:26.655)
Absolutely. And something about yourself.

Claudia Stephenson (03:29.454)
And yeah, I saved this one for you. So I, back in the day, as I was growing up, I had a little bit of a late start, but I was a competitive figure skater. And yes, so I moved to England now growing on 13 years, but I spent 13 years in Chicago where there are a lot of ice rinks, probably every 20 minutes, you know, within where you live throughout the country. I mean, you can find ice rinks,

Mike (03:40.639)
Wow!

Claudia Stephenson (03:59.502)
So I started when I was 10 years old and just immediately got into it and loved it. And it really, it's why I believe sport is so important in developing young individuals and such, because it teaches you so much and it taught me so much in being competitive, but also persistence and perseverance and winning and losing, training and all of that. So I loved it. And clearly I'm not skating anymore, but really,

Mike (04:00.095)
Didn't know that.

Claudia Stephenson (04:29.006)
fond memories of that in my childhood.

Mike (04:31.551)
Amazing. So I had a guy on about two months ago who was an ex professional rugby player. And he was talking about how important it is, how sport is really important to teach you. Yeah. So.

Claudia Stephenson (04:38.83)
Yeah.

Claudia Stephenson (04:43.758)
I heard it. And I was nodding my head and agreeing with everything that he was saying because it is, it's so true.

Mike (04:48.959)
Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? And it's about how young people learn to be competitive, yet have humility and play in a wider environment in terms of teams and support each other. Yeah. I mean, I've got this thing with Arsene about, I always say, you know, compete with yourself rather than with others necessarily. So what you're doing, trying to do is you're trying to raise your own benchmark constantly and get better and better and better each time.

Claudia Stephenson (05:03.918)
Yeah.

Mike (05:19.391)
as opposed to thinking, well, am I better than the next door neighbor at doing this?

Claudia Stephenson (05:19.406)
Yeah.

Claudia Stephenson (05:24.782)
It is also, I think it's something that's innate within an individual. And I know when I'm looking for new talent to bring to the agency, think less about skills, but about attributes and attributes of an individual because skills can be taught, things can be learned. But if someone has that go -getter personality and these attributes that align with the agency, fantastic. Not to say that everyone is the same. I also, you know, we want diversity within the team and it's important to have that, to have success.

Mike (05:35.967)
Absolutely.

Claudia Stephenson (05:54.766)
as a business and within a team, but attributes are really, you know, those positive attributes with individuals that really create that winning formula within the group.

Mike (06:03.377)
So we haven't talked about this in the pre -record at all. Let's talk about this for a second. It's really important. I've got this big thing about we, one of the other companies I work with, we talk about hiring, we hire for attitude and train for skill. Because over many, many, many years, I think they've been going 18 years, what we've learned is exactly that, is if you get the right fit, yeah, exactly.

Claudia Stephenson (06:09.134)
Mmm.

Claudia Stephenson (06:27.726)
You can actually become a Tune.

Mike (06:31.711)
Because you bring your attitude with you and they're deeply buried inside you. It's really hard to change someone's attitude and behavior. Whereas we can always upskill people, but you cannot, I'm not saying you can't, but it's really hard to change someone's core beliefs and their behaviors. So how did you find out about, what was your kind of voyage to kind of come to that conclusion?

Claudia Stephenson (06:38.414)
Yes.

Claudia Stephenson (06:42.574)
Right.

Claudia Stephenson (06:57.102)
Well, it was really, it was a wise mentor of mine had shared this with me along with another saying that I use or refer to regularly, which is hire slow and fire fast. And, you know, in thinking and knowing that and trusting your gut. But I would say really through experience, right? So my role as managing director is managing a lot of different personalities and a lot of different roles within the agency from creative,

to strategy, to production. A lot of this is people and team management and having teams work together. And when I started in the role, we were smaller and I knew that as we were building out the agency, people working together was critical. And if you bring in one person that is going to upset the apple cart and it just ruins everything, it makes it very difficult. And so it's important for me to ensure that the team are working together and that people are.

Again, it goes back to those attributes and team players, you know, putting in extra time as and when needed, but also rewarded, you know, and recognized within that space and really creating that culture that people want to be a part of because people will put in more if they are, you know, recognized and rewarded and, you know, elevated and continuous growth within the agency.

Mike (08:10.239)
Exactly.

Mike (08:19.135)
Yeah, and it's a harmonious place to work and people enjoy sitting with their colleagues either virtually or in person and working and then afterwards, you're going out for a coffee or a drink or whatever. It's, it, that's exactly what we found in other agencies is exactly that is that that's what makes it successful.

Claudia Stephenson (08:31.918)
That's right.

Claudia Stephenson (08:35.79)
Yeah, we have, for example, our our business development individual, you know, what he does best is have conversations. His alter title is head of conversation and he does best and what he should be doing is being on the phone or out in meetings, you know. And so I say, I'm like, I don't want you in the office more than a day a week because you need to be. But it is important for him to be here in this day to.

Mike (09:00.383)
Yes.

Claudia Stephenson (09:01.166)
the team and you know he admits he's like I don't get much done I do more you know admin and coordination but the rest of the time he's out doing what he needs to be doing to keep keep the business coming so it's fantastic.

Mike (09:12.863)
So, and that does kind of like play into the, I mean, this whole podcast is basically about kind of business development broadly within the agency world. How do you kind of qualify better, win better and negotiate better? I was talking to a guy called Marcus Kalki, Kalki, the other day on a panel. And we were talking about the importance of relationship building. And, you know, the very idea that a buyer is going to buy from someone and spend 200 ,000 pounds.

of the business's money on someone and a business that they barely know. Yeah, it happens, but it's quite rare. You need to get to know that person who's leading that business. You need to see them as a trusted advisor because it's material spend. You need to know it's not going to go wrong. You need to know that, you know, if I was working with you, Claudio, and I was a procurement person, I'd be talking about, so how are we going to de -risk this?

Where are the problem areas and how do we de -risk that so that both of us are going to succeed and not face a difficult conversation about, we've just lost 200 grand, what happened? That's really important.

Claudia Stephenson (10:13.518)
Right.

Claudia Stephenson (10:22.19)
Right?

I think, and a lot of that is covered off probably in some of the pre -qualifying that I've seen in working with procurement. You know, there are initial conversations with procurement. Do you even meet the base requirements as a business to qualify where we would do business with you? And I like that that step is already then, you know, you get through that first piece and then, and then you start holding the conversations. But what's important during that time as well is to, you know, have...

tentacles out in multiple aspects within the business and not just be unilateral in the conversations you're having, right? So advising the team, it's not just one person we need to get to know, you know, it is so many different individuals from the procurement to might be partner channel, you know, relationship, CMO, marketing activation, because they all have different perspectives. But then you can start to navigate the waters and understand who's driving the decisions, who has influence on the decisions.

Mike (10:58.399)
Yes.

Mike (11:03.071)
Correct.

Mike (11:21.503)
Exactly.

Claudia Stephenson (11:21.614)
Who do I need to really understand their point of view and value it and emphasize what they're saying within a room?

Mike (11:28.991)
Yeah. And I was taught enterprise selling back in the late nineties. And that's what we were taught is that you've got multiple stakeholders, complex environments. You've got to map out where they are, what their views are, whether they're for you, whether they're against you. Are we trying to neutralize this person? Are we trying to get them to be an advocate? It's like playing chess effectively.

Claudia Stephenson (11:51.118)
Yeah, yeah. And it reminds me of, you know, it was probably now 20 some years ago, but when I was in a sales capacity, I was part of a lunch and learn with other business development individuals and account people. And we had a little lunch and learn where we're reading the book, Strategic Selling by, I have to think the name of the author. Yes, yes, yes. Still bring out that book. I mean, you have the, it's a technical approach to selling.

Mike (12:08.543)
Oh yes! Miller Hyman. Was it Miller Hyman? Yeah.

Mike (12:15.487)
Same here.

Mike (12:19.007)
That's right.

Claudia Stephenson (12:19.31)
And identifying then who's the technical buyer, who's the influencer, who are these other individuals? And I still think about those things in the back of my head when we're talking about opportunities. Right, you need to check all of these different boxes in order to be able to advance and complete a sale successfully.

Mike (12:26.879)
I do.

Mike (12:36.927)
Exactly. So when we talk about, by the way, is it Claudia or Claudia?

Claudia Stephenson (12:43.502)
It can be whichever you like. It can be Claudia if I'm speaking with Spanish and Italians. It's Claudia with the British. So whatever you're comfortable with.

Mike (12:53.951)
That's excellent. You're flexible. I like that. So when people say they're, yeah, someone's ghosting them in one of their opportunities, and it's a big brand that the agency is trying to pitch for, and it's got multiple stakeholders, when we get into a conversation about it and I say, well, you know, what's been going on? What's the context? There was a brilliant book written recently by a guy called Matt Dixon and Ted McKenna called Jolt. And Jolt talks about...

Claudia Stephenson (12:56.302)
Yes.

Mike (13:23.199)
why we get this kind of perceived ghosting problem. So why do buyers just kind of fade away? And one of the things they found out was the fear of messing up. So what often happens is you'll be going down a sales cycle and you'll be having conversations with multiple stakeholders. Sometimes buyers would rather do nothing and have things go wrong a bit than do something big and have it go wrong badly.

Because they're likely to get fired if it goes wrong badly. They're likely just not to get a bonus if it goes wrong a bit.

Claudia Stephenson (13:57.07)
At all. Yeah.

which is important to understand who you're working with within the organization. Are they someone that has been within the business for 20 years that wants to just hold safe? Or do you have someone that has just started within the organization is going to shake things up, is a risk taker, and wants to do things differently, right? And have an appetite for change. I think all of these things are important. I also remind.

Mike (14:09.535)
Hmm.

Claudia Stephenson (14:28.686)
our team, you know, it's not just getting the brief. It is understanding everything, you know, that goes along with that and landing that. So yes, our creative teams need to deliver incredible creative. It's probably, you know, it's a lot of why and when we're winning is because of that creative and strategy. But again, that relationship is so crucial to understand that. And that is part of when you're looking at these briefs, understanding.

You see what's on paper, but what's not in the brief that we know that is going into the emotional side of the selling that, you know, people are remote. We're emotional buyers and we can have those connections. You might have everything on paper, but if it's not there, it's not.

Mike (14:59.871)
Yeah, yeah. Correct.

Mike (15:08.191)
Exactly right.

Mike (15:14.687)
So let's talk about the kind of win themes. So when you win an opportunity and you look back over time, what are the kind of big themes that come out that you can kind of track back to before you receive the opportunity? So basically what I'm saying is that kind of what were the things that you saw that said, this is absolutely in our sweet spot and we should have a very high chance of winning.

Claudia Stephenson (15:40.718)
Yeah, if I think even just of wonderful wins that we've had within the last year were one where, for example, our business development director had been persistent, politely persistent with the client in reaching out, in having conversations, and the client even acknowledged it to say, I so appreciate you checking in with me, and I really love.

the conversation that we've had, I now have something that I think you would be relevant for. And so, you know, that ongoing checking in, but not nagging and not, you know, when you talk about the ghosting, there's a difference in, you know, the annoying and relentless outreach versus having a, you know, just a friendly conversation, being able to understand how things are going within the business. And when the time is right, then you make that connection.

Mike (16:20.255)
Yeah, yeah.

Claudia Stephenson (16:37.134)
So when that particular opportunity came, we were already set up for success because there was trust and belief and an understanding of what we could do and how we could support them. And he already was saying, I think this is something good for you. And it needed to go through still procurement and all of those elements. But the buyer was teeing this up and said, really, this is who I want to work with. So that's.

Mike (16:55.071)
Of course.

Mike (17:04.639)
So number one is relationship, long -term relationship building, building trust, being the trusted advisor, okay?

Claudia Stephenson (17:07.566)
Yep.

Claudia Stephenson (17:11.182)
Yes, yes. And during COVID, that was hard to do, right? I mean, you couldn't get out and meet these individuals. But I think the new day of being able to get on a Zoom and meet people, it's entirely possible to develop rapport and relationship with someone that you have never met IRL. I love that.

Mike (17:31.135)
Correct.

Claudia Stephenson (17:34.542)
coming out of COVID and that advancement that we've had in that, because previously it would be really, it would be, you'd have to go get a coffee or go have a lunch or go to their office and give a credit. So you can do this now quite easily. It's easier for the receiver and for the giver of the information to be able to have that communication. Another one.

Mike (17:54.207)
And on that point, one of my best clients from last year and into this year that I love working with, I've never met them in person. And they're amazing. Yeah, they're amazing. They're the head of business development for a big agency in the US. Really smart, great agency. She's a great individual. The MD is brilliant. And yet I've never met them in real life.

Claudia Stephenson (18:02.894)
Isn't that amazing?

Claudia Stephenson (18:20.046)
Well, that means that you are really packing in all of the content and meaningful conversations in the time that you're having, right? It is then, I will say, there's nothing better than having that time IRL. And the reason for that is that everything that happens after that Zoom call, right, when you hang up and when you go and grab a cup of coffee or have hallway conversations or just further things that are happening outside of that.

Mike (18:26.687)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike (18:35.199)
Yeah, yeah.

Claudia Stephenson (18:49.294)
in getting to know the individual and not just talking business all the time. So it is entirely feasible and is happening in this day and age, but I do still love getting to know individuals over the course of the year and the time and establishing that trust.

Mike (19:07.967)
Yeah, definitely. So any other like kind of big win themes?

Claudia Stephenson (19:10.03)
Mmm.

Yeah, I mean, another example that is proof in the pudding, we had a sizable win recently where there wasn't really any connection or relationship with a client. But the team really took some time to analyze the brief, to also understand why the business was going out to pitch, because initially it was, okay, you know.

they're never going to make a change because they have been staying with the same agency for three, four, five years. But there was something in the production of the event that was changing that had them then open for change, right? And that opportunity then was deemed credible. And the team came up with just really smart strategic insights that drove a fantastic idea, central idea that was well,

through the creative and you know, I will say our team are incredible at being able to develop a story and a narrative in documents that are easy to read. Like, you know, there's not necessarily a lot of words, but these ideas that you can click through and continue on through that. And then you get to, by the time you get to how you're going to deliver it, I mean, that's, that's what we do, right? There's no question we can't deliver it. Of course we can deliver it, but here's the idea.

and you want it. And they came back and they said, Deanna, the reason that we want to pursue this is we loved your ideas and concepts and want to work with you and believe that you can take us to the next level of where we know we want our event and conference in this case to go.

Mike (20:49.951)
And I always say brands never buy because of an agency's methodology. That would be ludicrous. But if you don't have a methodology, then you're not at the races. Methodology is an order, yeah, it's an order qualifier. If you haven't got one, you're not in the race. But having one absolutely doesn't mean you'll win. It's the insights and the insights, the strategy, the creativity that you bring to the party.

Claudia Stephenson (21:03.438)
You have to have it.

Claudia Stephenson (21:08.942)
Yeah.

Claudia Stephenson (21:12.718)
Yeah.

Mike (21:18.495)
and your ability to something else. I'd like to get your view on this. When you're in that kind of ones that you've won, when you've got to the kind of the last three and you're in a meeting with the client in real life and you're pitching, for want of a better word, but when they ask a difficult question, what's your experience of, it's a bit of a loaded question, Claudia. What I'm saying is, as a buyer, what's exciting me the most is,

when I ask a difficult question and the person doesn't give me the answer but says, now that's really interesting. Let's explore that in a bit more detail. And they really dig into it in a way which tells me they've got very deep insights and knowledge in this area. Does that kind of resonate at all?

Claudia Stephenson (22:02.606)
Yes, absolutely. And we have an example of a recent brief where it was close to being the longest pitch ever, went on for about six months or so. And the initial creative was fantastic. And then it went into then, you know, continuous changes to the brief and required the production team to come in heavy and spend a lot of time with these clients of how would you do this and this? And I will say our producer on this, she knocked it out of the park.

She knew that brief inside and out. She knew more than the clients knew, right? She could answer every question and when she didn't, it was exactly that to say, I need to check into that, you know, fantastic question. Let me come back to, you know, being able to do that responsiveness. All of that is then giving the client confidence to say, I know they can, you know, deliver this. And these are the people that we're going to be working with. I know that, you know, she's going to be able to get that done. It was amazing.

Mike (22:58.303)
Exactly. Brilliant. So those are the win themes. So what about when you lose? What are the signs that you can if you track back and go, yeah, I can see why we lost that one.

Claudia Stephenson (23:10.35)
Yeah, I'm going to think back to one that we had about two years ago, which the red flag should have been even when we found out that, you know, pretty much every agency in the UK was responding to this.

Mike (23:26.943)
Okay.

Claudia Stephenson (23:27.502)
It was like, oh, you're responding, you're responding. It was for a sizable global event, not the Olympics, but something similar. And we, again, we had given our credentials. We were honored that we received the brief, right? And so of course, we are going to do this because we've got an office in the Middle East. We have fantastic creatives, and this brief is perfect for us.

Mike (23:45.247)
Yeah, yeah.

Claudia Stephenson (23:54.062)
So first red flag might have been, okay, 25 agencies or something responding to this, but we went ahead. We then were shortlisted and invited to an IRL meeting, which was then at our expense and involved travel for many of the team and significant travel, which we invested further. And then in retrospect, we weren't aware of the business and the debrief,

you know, was, well, you know, you were quite expensive. You were a lot more expensive than some of the others, but maybe there's some future opportunities. And I actually admire our CEO at the time that said, actually, you know us. I think you know the type of work that we can do. So if there's something that you'd like us to work on, you know, we'd love to work on this, but we're not going to be pitching further. And, you know, you...

Mike (24:45.311)
Correct. Good.

Claudia Stephenson (24:50.382)
I'm not sure I would have been able to say that, you know, and I was glad that he did. Actually, you know, we spent significant, significant amount of time and money on this. You know what we're capable of. And, you know, if there's something else that comes up where you'd like us to work on this, where it's not going to be, where we're deemed expensive, give us...

Mike (25:10.495)
Yep, exactly right. Because also, we're not discounting. Because discounting's a bad idea. Yeah.

Claudia Stephenson (25:13.678)
Yeah.

Right, right. And the clients should value what it is and what it is that we're offering. So that's one. And that probably goes back to also then relationship, right? And really knowing the players, there were some contacts that we knew, but at the end of the day, then being able to make the leap for something that was as significant as it was.

Was there enough time to build that trust and exposure? I think we had a fantastic team and I had no doubt they could get it done. But did the client, did we, you know, did we convey that effectively through just these, you know, two or three meetings with client for them to be able to take that leap of faith?

Mike (25:55.967)
Yeah, exactly.

Claudia Stephenson (25:58.446)
So another that I can think of is more recent, we've had this discussion about it, is then, you know, probably changing briefs, evolution of these. So there are, you know, some sizable multinational automotive companies that are needing to issue briefs in the way that they do, right, and fully respect that. We have one where we have responded to and...

Mike (26:09.215)
Yeah.

Claudia Stephenson (26:27.886)
You know, and RBD then just received a note through the automated system to say this has been canceled. Thank you for your participation. You know, you weren't aware of the brief. This, you know, RFP 105652 has been canceled. And he was like, excuse me? What? It's just canceled.

Mike (26:33.599)
Wow. Wow.

Mike (26:45.439)
that you've been working on for like three months. Yeah.

Claudia Stephenson (26:48.398)
And so, you know, and the client then said, oh, you know, well, we've decided to consolidate this single brief and put it, you know, and give it to above the line agency to work on a collective portfolio. And Peter was like, we could have done that. You know, you didn't even want to us. In the meantime, you know, where we were responding to multiple briefs, brief changed, continually changed, changed from an external, you know, media event in addition to a digital.

Mike (27:02.879)
Yep. Exactly.

Claudia Stephenson (27:18.126)
solution and an internal event to then just being one event. And emotionally, we held on because the idea was so good. And we knew the client wanted it as well. But I think what was difficult for probably that buyer within the organization as well to say, invest this amount of money on something that is an internal event. Right.

Mike (27:25.887)
Yeah

Mike (27:38.943)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's really so interesting. So yeah. So when you look back, like all of us, when we reflect, you can see why you won and you can see why you lose. And I guess that now feeds into your qualifying criteria. When you get an opportunity, you qualify things hard.

Claudia Stephenson (27:43.566)
So that was a tough one to follow.

Claudia Stephenson (27:57.39)
Yes.

We do, and we use a scoring system that allows us to make decisions rather quickly. It goes to then a team that are well -versed and have historical data and information on how we're scoring and as and when that's successful. And there's always conversations in conjunction with that. But I think the other piece is then.

staying connected to and advancing as conversations advance and knowing that these briefs are coming to ensure that we're covering all of the bases so that when these briefs land, we already know the strategy and the approach to winning, right? You know, we're not having to navigate all of that stuff. We're well prepared and versatile.

Mike (28:46.175)
Exactly. So we've talked about procurement, just like the kind of final thing. We've mentioned it quite a few times on this podcast, but anything else that springs to mind about how you, how do you successfully work with and deal with procurement as a very different stakeholder?

Claudia Stephenson (29:04.462)
Yeah, it is probably, it is a little bit on the business development side, but I think procurement is perhaps closely tied to our production team and less with creative because creative, our creative teams always come, they need this idea. It doesn't matter what it costs, this is what it is. These are commercial buyers who are...

measured, their success within the business is measured by how much they can drive down cost and cost savings within the business and organization. So I suppose what we try to understand is really even if procurement can give a budget. There is always a budget and it is so frustrating when they say we don't have a budget. And we will go back and I try to ask.

different types of questions so that we can get to engage of what the budget might be. For example, you know, when is it, at what threshold do you need to put a pitch out, you know, to issue a pitch? When can someone make a decision without going to that? Because, you know, here we were asking a client, is it 50 ,000? Is it 100 ,000? Is it 200 ,000? And she said, well, you know, at 50 ,000, we need to issue it to, you know, two agencies.

Mike (30:03.519)
Exactly.

Claudia Stephenson (30:27.662)
And anything over 100 has to be a full on page. I said, okay, well, thank you. Now I know that the budget is at least 100 ,000. Could you have just said that?

Mike (30:32.479)
Exactly. A hundred thousand. Correct. Exactly. Smart ways of finding out what the budget range is. Absolutely. Definitely.

Claudia Stephenson (30:41.23)
Yes. And, you know, the other is if you're working at a C -suite level, budget related, is there the ability to find additional budget? I mean, sometimes, you know, you're at that level, they will find and shuffle around monies. But, you know, if someone is issuing a brief and RFP in a cost savings initiative, you know, budget is going to be very important and critical.

Mike (31:08.255)
Exactly.

Claudia Stephenson (31:10.094)
and lesser about creative, but actually focusing on commercials and how to be smarter in the delivery and efficient with a solution. So creative is going to be a little bit different for something like that versus we need pie in the sky thinking, and that is what we'll do it. So purchasing can give some of those decisions. Ultimately, they're...

Mike (31:22.111)
Exactly.

Claudia Stephenson (31:37.166)
Some organizations, they may be driven by procurement making these decisions. Most often not though. I welcome your thoughts on that. I mean, it isn't purchasing. Exactly. Yeah, like they don't have a PNL application.

Mike (31:44.639)
Exactly.

Mike (31:48.319)
It's not procurement's money. It's not their money. The money is, no, it's the budget holder's money. No, it's the budget holder's money, but procurement are there to ensure strong governance, best commercial deal, and that doesn't just mean the lowest price, best commercial deal that they can get at the lowest risk. So yeah, they are one of the stakeholders that you have to work with, but they've got a very different agenda, as we've talked about before, and they're not the devil. And...

You need to work with them. Um, and they're just doing their job that they've been tasked by normal, the CFO or the CEO or the CEO to drive commercial benefit for the organization.

Claudia Stephenson (32:29.454)
Yeah. There was an event that I went to that was, they had a panel which had been the client and a marketing lead as well as purchasing. And you could tell they had a really great relationship and gave an example of, you know, one time where purchasing was, they were driving costs down too far where actually there were some service failures because they were putting, you know, lesser skilled people on this in order to maintain the margins that they were.

Mike (32:52.671)
Exactly.

Claudia Stephenson (32:59.182)
they were pushing. And so there was some reprieve given to that in the next contract negotiation, knowing that they didn't want to put that pressure to put the risk of, you know, for the brand and the business.

Mike (33:06.911)
Exactly.

Mike (33:11.839)
So that's the ideal is that it's a partnership. Mine have always been partnerships with my stakeholders internally. And that's when it works really well. So we've come to the end of the time. What are your kind of like couple of takeaways? So if you were an agency leader listening to this, what are a couple of the takeaways that you'd have from this session?

Claudia Stephenson (33:17.006)
Yeah. Yeah.

Claudia Stephenson (33:32.398)
Well, probably to always never let your guard down and always be alert to each of these opportunities. I think it's easy to kind of fall back into, right? You know, we've got this down pat. We have something that we, a deck that we have that has some wonderful thoughts and reminders. It's called Life's a Pitch and it's got like, you know, 10 to 15 different nuggets of just gems of information that we put actually into the start of all of our.

all of our RFPs as a quick little reminder, right? All we need is that reminder, right? Oh yes, yes, yes. And it's so important, and we all acknowledge that to say we need to have that, you know, it was one of our learnings that we had coming out of last year. So never let you guard down, always be alert, you know, and don't get lackadaisical with things. The other is probably, you know, from a business development perspective, be strategic and smart in the business development, right?

Mike (34:19.039)
complacent.

Claudia Stephenson (34:31.118)
be conscientious of not just going out and looking for the brief, but understand the lay of the land and the organization and as many stakeholders within the business so that you are serving up the best opportunity for a win to the business as and when that brief lands. And then the other is probably just a people and skills piece is then hiring for those attributes and individuals. We are all...

People, you know, I love meeting new individuals and learning things about others. And that is then these attributes of people that we meet throughout our journey only helps us be smarter and, you know, in this giving and taking relationships. So as you build out your team, consider those attributes of your team to build, you know, brilliance and award -winning ideas and agencies.

Mike (35:25.791)
Higher for attitude and trained for skill. Couldn't agree more. Claudia, it's been amazing. Really enjoyed it. Really thoroughly enjoyed this discussion. Where can people find out more about you?

Claudia Stephenson (35:33.134)
Thank you. Me too. You as well. Thank you for the time and hope I've provided a couple of nuggets of wisdom for this audience. And thank you for this really wonderful podcast. I love listening to it on the trade in and out. Actually, it always reminds me of great, fantastic information. So great calls.

Mike (35:42.015)
You definitely have.

Mike (35:50.431)
Thank you.

Mike (35:54.943)
Thank you. So Claudia, when can, where can people find out more about you?

Claudia Stephenson (35:59.95)
Well, they can go to invent .com is our website. And it is then geolocated. So it will take you then to our European website. And you could also then send an email to me at cstevenson at invent .com. And that's Stevenson with a pH.

Mike (36:18.079)
Brilliant. Excellent. Chloe's been amazing. Thanks ever so much for joining me.

Claudia Stephenson (36:22.062)
Thank you. Thanks, Mike.

Mike (36:23.871)
Right, let's just start recording.