The Blueprint for Effective Business Development with Anna Stone

00:00 - Anna (Guest)
Three things that we wanted to achieve. We wanted to win a can line, we wanted to do an industry-changing piece of research and we wanted to get our client retention rate over 80%. So three really simple things that you know they have different time scales, there are different ways of getting there, but everything you do as an agency across not just BD across client services, across everything you can look at that and go is what everyone's doing today, contributing to one of those three things.

00:27 - Mike (Host)
My name's Mike Lander and you're listening to Higgle the B2B sales club podcast, where we bring you actionable insights about sales, RFPs, negotiations and difficult procurement discussions from sales leaders, brand leaders and procurement leaders. Please subscribe to get updates when new episodes are released. Anna, thanks ever so much for joining me on Higgle the B2B sales club podcast. Great to have you.

00:55 - Anna (Guest)
Great to be here.

00:55 - Mike (Host)
Thanks very much. Bye, so without further ado. Anna, who are you, what do you do and your favorite song, and why?

01:03 - Anna (Guest)
No problem. So I'm Anna Stain. I am a business development professional for agencies. It's what I've always done. Quite unusually for Agency BD, I didn't fall into it. I actually started here. So I started at a cold calling agency back when that was a key way to get through. I did that for about five years, so I think I deserve a medal for that.

01:24
You definitely do. Then I moved into agencies. Since then I've worked with network agencies like Obervie. I've worked with independents like 22, red and True, where I am now Worked with sales promotion and search marketing and customer engagement and advertising and PR you name it. I've probably won't't go working in it at some point wow favourite song.

01:47
I'm going to slightly cheat. I'm going to have a whole album, okay, but I would say Dire Straits Local Hero is my go to album. Why I just love it. It's incredibly relaxing the best guitar playing in the world. The few songs on it are really wonderful and if you ever see the film, old-fashioned though it is, it's a really lovely coming together of community whilst being very funny as well.

02:09 - Mike (Host)
Ah, okay, I'll watch out for that. Thank you. We're not going to ask the questions that we scripted, because that would be really dull. I'm going to ask something different from the beginning, which is so. You were in Cold Calling five years, so out of interest. Why has the world changed? So cold calling now, bluntly, there's lots of outbound activity that goes on, of all sorts, lots of it automated. Why is cold calling not what it used to be? Why do you think it's changed?

02:40 - Anna (Guest)
I think it's the way people do business has changed. You know, if you think about the way you work, how much time do you actually spend on the phone? We spend a lot more time on video calls Hardly ever Exactly. Well, I think you've just moved on and the way people want to be contacted has changed. I don't think that cold approaches are dead by any stretch. I think relationship building is as important as it's ever been, and that was what you started on the phone. I just think the methods and the outreach, but also people have personal preference. You know, I was talking to somebody the other day about how they've had great success sending video recordings to people instead of emails and I went do you know what? I hate that because I check on all my emails on the train and stuff and I don't want some videos blaring out selling me something.

03:20 - Mike (Host)
Neither do I. But let's go back for a second too, and it's probably because of your experience in selling. You talk about cold calling as relationship building and I see any cold outreach as exactly that. Cold outreach to me isn't about selling, because that would be daft, because if I met you in a coffee shop and I said, oh hi, my name's Mike Now I think you're in the market for a new pen. You should see, my pens are amazing. They've got all these benefits You'd think I was mad. You'd call for the police and get me escorted out of the room. Why would we think that would work on email or a cold call or an AI automation? Talk to me about how were you trained? What were you trained to do in those cold calling days, in that first call?

04:05 - Anna (Guest)
if someone picked up, it was always to have an opening and something to talk to. So, using your analogy, if you'd bought me a pen because I had something that I needed to sign, then I'd probably be quite interested with your pen. That was the opener. It was always to find out information about the other person, but to have something that you'd spotted about them, something that you wanted to talk about, something that was relevant to them, preferably on their side rather than your side as an opener.

04:29 - Mike (Host)
And I think it's as simple as that. I mean, I meet a lot of people through the podcast. I do a pre-record. 25% of guests are people that I don't know. They've come via PR people or LinkedIn outreach that they've contacted me and the first thing I do on the pre-record is hi, let's just just find out a bit about each other. You know what do you do. I've looked at your profile. Yeah, interesting, anna. I know you're interested in cars. You talk about cars a bit. You know what kind of cars have you got? Why have you got cars? What makes you pick that? Yeah, exactly, and if I'm not mistaken, that's a Ferrari is it.

05:02 - Anna (Guest)
That's the McLaren. F1 is the dream car. Oh, it's the F1.

05:05 - Mike (Host)
It's the McLaren F1. Oh yes, of course it was a beautiful show. And you do that, don't you? You go, oh that's interesting, blah, blah, blah, and you start a conversation and you start to build a relationship. Indeed, indeed, let's move on to the questions, or else the audience is going to think this is completely unprepared, which it's not. It's very well prepared. So everyone talks about the need for strong differentiation when selling, but I was thinking a while ago, and I was listening to a podcast, and they talked about being distinctive. So being distinctive is often a better starting point. Do you want to talk about standing for something as an agency and how it makes you more distinctive? First of all, do you agree standing for something as an agency and how it makes you more distinctive.

05:46 - Anna (Guest)
First of all, do you agree? I totally agree, yeah, because I think you know, being distinctive is not just about doing great work, which is a great start, but it's about really having a point of view in the industry, something that you stand for. As you say, I think, if you've got to be honest in my world, when we're selling agencies, lots of agencies on a piece of paper sell the same services. We do the same things, right. So what makes somebody want to work with a BBH or an Overby or Lucky Generals? Yes, it's the great work, but it's their attitude, it's what they stand for, it's having kind of values that align so that they seem like the sort of business that you want to work with.

06:22
We actually did some research at True into B2B buying, and this is very much true for agencies too. If you think about the first thing that someone does when they need to buy something B2B, right, They'll think of some brands that they've heard of. You'll go I've got this problem. Here are some people I've heard of that I think could help. That's usually about three people. Then you'll go off to do a bit of research. You'll validate the people that you've already thought of, but then you'll probably add a few more to the list that you don't know as much about. Then you'll go in a bit more, a bit more in depth, whittle that list back down. Eventually you'll make a decision. We found that in 90% of cases, you will choose one of those first brands that you thought of.

07:00 - Mike (Host)
You will, and in fact Forrester just released research saying exactly the same thing.

07:10 - Anna (Guest)
Exactly that, yeah, and there's more research. You know there's research being done to B2B buying all the time, which is wonderful, right and a new thing for our world. And there's another one that said that 85% of the time, it'll be an agency or brands that the whole buying committee has heard of. So all those other people who are involved in the decision, those 11 people, those 11 people, that's right, only 11. Gosh, that sounds good. If only, if only, if only, because that's the safe choice and that's the decision that B2B buyers make, right. So if you're distinctive, you're one of those brands that comes to mind, then you are already at the front of the pile, standing for something, standing out, being somebody that people have heard of.

07:48 - Mike (Host)
So eight minutes into the podcast, anyone that's listening. I recommend you talk to your mates and get them to listen as well, because ultimately, actually in B2B selling, that to me is probably one of the most, the most important things you can possibly do. It's 12 to 24 months ahead of the buying decision. You have to get to know that brand. You have to get to know all the stakeholders. You have to be relevant to them, tune into their needs, understand what they're doing, how you can add real value, how you're distinctive.

08:19
If you haven't done that and I know as a buyer I can speak with quite a lot of authority and say the evidence base that we have, that you've researched, that Forrester have researched, that numerous companies have researched, empirically stands up. That's exactly what happened to me is that you pick two or three that you absolutely know You've either worked with them before or, if it's some new problem, one of your business friends has worked with them and highly recommended them and they've got to know all our stakeholders. And then eventually the project comes up and, unsurprisingly, they win.

08:55 - Anna (Guest)
That's it, and you've uncovered there, beautifully as well, the question of reach. You know, not only do I need to be talking to you before you get to making that buying decision, but also I need to talk to your mates and your peers, who might be the people that end up recommending us Exactly right. This comes back to all the other stats about the 95.5 of who is in market at the time. I'm just targeting the 5% that are. You know, you're like me. You like a good stat, don't you? I do?

09:21 - Mike (Host)
I like a story and a good stat and then an insight to go with it.

09:32 - Anna (Guest)
That's it, that's it. So, yeah, that, and the 70% of the way through the buying process before you ever pick up the phone and talk to us.

09:36 - Mike (Host)
So 75% of buyers don't want to talk to anyone in sales during their buying journey. Absolutely, and it's increasing. And with the likes of I mean obviously with ChatGPT, the other LLMs, I do it all the time I'm looking for a supplier for a certain service, for a client and I ask it who do you recommend? And then I take those recommendations and I talk to some friends and see if they've heard of them, and so it goes on. But I think it is the most important thing Responding to an RFP for a big piece of work with a brand that basically you've never worked with, you don't know any stakeholders, but you've been invited because someone's met you at a conference or you've been to a dinner.

10:15
Your chances of winning I think Blair said this to me years ago. He worked out it's about 5% and I concur. I think it's in those kind of regions yeah, absolutely. So you bid for 20 in the hope of getting one, and then the one that you win convinces you as a board that it was worth the effort. And then you do 20 more and the average proposal is about 30 to 40 person hours to 40 person hours. That's 800 person hours of bid writing to get one piece of work.

10:51 - Anna (Guest)
The economics are nuts and they don't work. Yeah, and I think in the agency world that's even even worse. I reckon every agency person who just heard you say it only takes 30 hours of just falling off their chair and going gosh, we wish we wrote pictures in 30 hours.

11:05 - Mike (Host)
So it's worse, absolutely, absolutely. So it's 50 to 60 to 70 hours, depending on the pitch.

11:13 - Anna (Guest)
Yeah, I should say so. I mean, sometimes they run over months and months and months. You know, you might do that in a week Exactly.

11:20 - Mike (Host)
And therein lies the problem it does, and therein lies the problem.

11:24
Yeah, so having articulated that we're not going to go home, we're going to carry on to section two now. So the next question was how do you start qualifying a prospective opportunity? So, at the start of the sales cycle, how do you uncover hidden needs to really understand if there's a significant problem the client must solve with a defined kind of benefit stroke value, because those hidden needs it's too easy for us in sales I've been selling for 20, 25 years it's easy to take the explicit need and not ever uncover the real kind of underlying hidden needs.

12:02 - Anna (Guest)
Yeah, you're completely right and I have long said that the most important skill any salesperson has is the ability to listen. It's a very underrated skill the ability to ask questions and really, really listen to the answers. You know, whenever I do an introductory call, my goal is to speak as little as possible, find out as much information as possible so that I can respond with the information that's useful and interesting. I heard somebody call it the other day. You've probably come across this, but anyone that's got kids toddler five Y's technique Five.

12:33 - Mike (Host)
Y's is brilliant.

12:34 - Anna (Guest)
Why, why, why, why, why why?

12:37 - Mike (Host)
And you get to level three and you tend to find out what's really going on.

12:42 - Anna (Guest)
That's exactly it. So whenever we're pitching, you know you get the brief, you read the brief. Great, good start. So that on paper is part of the question. But then I'll always go back and say, well, why are you pitching, and why are you pitching it now, and what's driving the timing, and what does success look like in six months time? And that's a personal question. And that's a personal question and that's a business question, because I think what you want to get to is uncovering what is it?

13:07
Firstly, who is running this, which you'll get to quite quickly from that. Who is going to be the ultimate decision maker? What is it they need to prove to who and by when? It really changes the way you approach things. I think, if you, once you know what the burning platform is, the real reason for that pitch because the reason for the pitch is not that they fancy doing a pitch or often, that they wanted a new agency in our world, it's probably there's a lack of sales in that bit of the business or there's a new competitor on the block that's quite an interesting one. Whatever the real reason is and I think this is really bad in agency world it's very often not recent in the brief, because the brief will often be the answer. So the brief will be I want a campaign. Where was this thing?

13:49 - Mike (Host)
Why do you want that campaign? Why?

13:51 - Anna (Guest)
is it important to you.

13:53 - Mike (Host)
What happens if you don't do it, if you don't run it? What happens? Who gets fired? That's exactly it. But in that moment you have to be able to ask the question, so you have to have the confidence to go. What's the worst that happens? I said I do some fractional sales work, so I'm a fractional sales director for a company. And I said to one of the salespeople we were talking about a sales call and about uncovering hidden needs, and I talked about that basically find out what's going on and why. And what happens if you don't do it. And she says I can't do that. I'm like why not? And don't do it. And she says I can't do that. I'm like why not? And she said well, they might not want to answer and then I might lose the deal. I said if they don't answer you, there was never a deal in the first place, there was no deal to be had. Yeah, you've lost nothing.

14:36
I said just experiment, just experiment, find out, see what works.

14:41 - Anna (Guest)
Yeah, and I've said the same thing. I've said you know, if we get to asking lots and lots of questions, if we can't find the burning platform, if we can't find the thing that is really driving this, then is this pitch going to be one of those 60% that never gets to a conclusion Because nobody eats something for any particular reason. Conversely, you know, we uh, we got a briefing recently. Timing was extremely tight on it. Our instinct was to go back and say, look, if you want a really good answer, we need a bit more time. But we said, what timing? The timing on this? And they said, oh, the marketing director is going on maternity leave and wants to be part of his process. And we went well, there's not a point in asking for extra time. Then really is there.

15:23 - Mike (Host)
Exactly.

15:24 - Anna (Guest)
Precisely so. This is what you're going to get in that amount of time. So you've got to know these things, You've got to have the information, and I think you know the key to that for me is spending lots of time together Anywhere. If we get a pitch in and you're not allowed to speak to them outside of the tissue meeting and the pitch meeting, then that instinctively puts up red flags to me, because either Do you qualify it out.

15:48 - Mike (Host)
Oh so this is a great topic. So imagine it's. Let's say it's just pick a company Walmart.

15:56 - Anna (Guest)
Imagine it's Walmart.

15:57 - Mike (Host)
And let's say it's a million dollar program of third party spend and your fees and you get this and you've got some relationships with them. They're not deep, but you've got some relationships and they send you a brief and they say, as I always used to sadly, was yeah, so we can have a chemistry meeting, and then there's a group call with all the suppliers. Then you can't talk to any human until you get to the final pitch. What would you do with that?

16:26 - Anna (Guest)
It's very artificial, but Well, it's not that artificial. But I think you go back to the why's. Why is it that you don't want us to spend any more time with us than that?

16:36 - Mike (Host)
Yes, and I'd say because of governance. It's really important for strong governance that I have independence of choice.

16:42 - Anna (Guest)
Great, absolutely, and so what's important to you in appointing an agency Is it important that the people that are involved in this are people that you're going to want to work with, that you're going to want to spend time with, who really get to know you. You know that's the thing you throw back. Do you want an agency?

16:59 - Mike (Host)
And then if I say which I often use to as an ex-buyer I'd go, that's not really my choice, anna. So what I'm really interested in is that everyone gets a fair playing field, independent, and then eventually I will talk to my stakeholders when we've down selected to three. So it'd be great if you could put your best foot forward. That to me is like you must be joking. Yeah, foot forward. That to me is like you must be joking.

17:23 - Anna (Guest)
It's like why would you want to bid for that kind of work? Exactly Because often it also tells me that maybe you've invited too many people to the pitch, if you haven't got time, or there's not a real piece of work there in the first place.

17:31 - Mike (Host)
Is that what's actually happening? Is they're market testing? I've said to clients before I've said go back to them and say are you market testing? Just be honest, if you are, we can give you market data. I don't need to write your proposal. I can give you some market insights on a 30-minute call. Very happy to do that. I don't need to write a 50-person-hour document to do that. And the very idea I'm ranting but I'll stop in a minute, anna the very idea that you as an agency can interpret what's written down and produce an outstanding proposal for a big piece of work is, frankly, absolutely ludicrous, because I've interpreted it from loads of stakeholders. Sorry, carry on. It's. You're the guest, not me.

18:17 - Anna (Guest)
No, but I totally agree. You're absolutely right and I think again it. It does qualify you out sometimes, because if you're the sort of agency that wants to spend lots of time with people and co-create things, then that's great. There are brands that don't want that, and if they come back and say that our relationship is purely going to be we're going to brief you once every three months and what you want you to do and off you go and do it then fine, that you know. You know what you're getting into. But I think it works the other way. We've done it before where we've gone in and gone. Okay, if you weren't spending more time with us, that's totally fine.

18:47
Here is a list of questions that we're going to need, the answer to which inevitably go into quite a lot of depth, and often we've. You know, we've had it quite recently where we ended up on a call and we jointly agreed that actually we weren't going to pitch because actually they weren't pitching the right thing. There was a pre sort of discovery stage that needed to happen before they even went into the pitch process. I've done it both ways where actually we've ended up going off and doing that discovery piece of work and then going into the pitch with a much better relationship, or sometimes we've pulled out completely and then come back further along the line because people respect you when you're honest and you say this isn't the right kind of work or the right kind of relationship for us. People will remember that. I heard somebody say recently that for everything they turned down they got 70% more business. I'm not sure I've quite achieved that. That sounds brilliant.

19:37 - Mike (Host)
That sounds amazing, but the premise is true. It was brilliant. Sounds amazing, but the premise is true is that I had a client three months ago and they went back to the. It was a huge brand piece of work. I'd worked with them before around how do you qualify and how do you say no, and there's a tactic about how you say no which I talked to them about and they went back and said it's not for us, but if you'd like a conversation for us to explain why your brief has got some big tank traps and some big holes in it on our experience, we'd love to talk to you. And they won that piece of work without having to go through the pitch process Because the client realized they'd miswritten the brief. Basically, they'd asked the wrong problem.

20:16 - Anna (Guest)
That's it which happens, you know it happens. They'd ask the wrong problem. That's it which happens, you know it happens. We all get sort of tied up in what we're trying to do and hitting the next set of numbers and reporting the right sort of set of things. But I think you know if you're an agency that really wants to be long-term and go on the journey, then it's on you to go back and have sometimes those difficult questions and risk being in that process?

20:37 - Mike (Host)
I think so. It's not business. You wanted to win in the first place anyway. Indeed, indeed. So third question you've got a great four-step framework, or at least I hope it's great, because we're going to find out. So talk me through your four-step framework for sustainable growth. Give a couple of examples as well.

20:55 - Anna (Guest)
Yeah, no problem. So this is something I've sort of formed, having worked at a lot of different agencies. Right, I think that the one thing that we can generally all agree is that most agencies spend too much time talking about ourselves and not enough time talking about what our points might actually be. I would say that's probably fairly true. I thought you would massively dispute me there and say no, agencies ever spend lots of time talking about themselves. No, no, no, no.

21:18 - Mike (Host)
It's the bit where it goes, and we were formed 18 years ago. Fritz the dog, jane and John were in a garden shed and I'm like right okay.

21:29 - Anna (Guest)
It's like right, so yeah, so what I do? I have this sort of four-step process that challenges people a little bit, right. So the first question I ask it's all about defining your great ambition for your business. So why does your business actually exist? I'm sure that it'll be about money, it might be about fame, but maybe you want to be the first agency to launch some new tech or service, or maybe you want to be known for something specific. It doesn't matter what the answer is. It matters that you know what the answer is, so that you can all get behind. What the thing is that you are trying to achieve as a business, and I think then the next job to do is to quantify that. So what does that look like? How will you know when you achieved that goal? So you know that might be getting a piece written in the FT, it might be winning your first half million dollar client, it might be hitting a certain revenue figure. Again, it doesn't matter, but I challenge everybody to sort of pick a few of those kind of measures of success and use those as your growth ambitions. So you said about examples.

22:33
There was an agency I worked for a while ago. Three things that we wanted to achieve. We wanted to win a can line, we wanted to do an industry changing piece of research and we wanted to get our client retention rate over 80%. So three really simple things that you know they have different time scales, there are different ways of getting there, but everything you do as an agency across not just BD, across client services, across everything you can look at that and go is what everyone's doing today, contributing to one of those three things. So that's the first part. Second bit is who do you do your best work with? So who are those clients that you always talk about in creds? There's always some favorites. Always come back. Who are your favorite people to work with? And then working out what they have in common. As well as liking stats, I also love a bit of data. So looking across, picking that list of your favorite clients and then working out what is it that is similar about all of these? So again, an example I had from somewhere I used to work.

23:30
We had four parts to what made a perfect client and we used these as sort of qualification criteria and targeting criteria. To a certain extent, the first part was about fame. We were quite a small agency, so we wanted clients that were going to help build our reputation, either because they were already big and famous or because they were going to do something really amazing that was going to get us there. Second part was about fun Clients that we liked working with, and particularly ones that were really open and transparent, because that was how we did our best work and building proper relationships, as we were just talking about. Building proper relationships, as we were just talking about. So that was there.

24:01
Fortune some places I've worked. That's about a specific, you know, figure. For us, that was does the budget match the ambition? If it does, can you make money? That's good. Yeah, exactly.

24:12
And the last one was about wanting to do the type of work that we wanted to do. So this is a B2B brand building agency. We wanted to work with B2B companies who wanted to do brand building work, so they aligned with what we were trying to achieve. So, yeah, that was part two. Make sense so far? Yep, it is Perfect, brilliant.

24:30
So step three this is where we stop talking about ourselves and start talking about the customer. This is why should clients buy from you? So what are the client challenges that you're really good at solving? Why are you better at solving them than anybody else? What have you got that no one else has? It's going to be a combination of people, capabilities, experience, like all sorts of different things that are going to get that, and they'll put together a bit of a structure for how you kind of define that, so a statement for why a particular type of client with a particular sort of challenge should buy from you.

25:03
So here's my example for this one. I worked at a PR agency who were very well known in the B2B tech world but also had some great B2C experience and people. But we weren't winning or we weren't getting invited to the big B2C pitches against the big B2C consumer PR agencies. But what we realized is that what we had that those big consumer agencies didn't have was a much deeper knowledge of the tech landscape from all our complicated B2B tech clients that we worked with. So actually we had that plus. The consumer PR experience allowed us to be really good at clients who were maybe fairly new in the market with their consumer tech, that were just looking to make that move from the B2B tech press into the consumer lifestyle press, and that move was something that we could be really, really good at and really help them.

25:58
So that's that combination of things. Who are we talking to? What can we offer them that no one else can, and why are we the best people to do that? So that was the third bit. And the fourth bit, everybody's favorite going to market simple, simple. Can we do simple? No, we can't do simple. So we've all heard that phrase. Right, I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have time.

26:21 - Mike (Host)
Exactly.

26:22 - Anna (Guest)
So you know my first question your elevator pitch one line, conversational, the way you describe it to your mates down the pub, to your mum, to your kids, no jargon, no buzzwords, nothing too complicated. And if you can't do it in one line, then it's already too complicated. So that's right, Not the approved one that has all the right words and everybody's happy with the way you actually describe yourself. You're Craig's to your point, you know. Don't forget the office dog, very important.

26:52 - Mike (Host)
Absolutely. And the green shed at the bottom of the garden. It's really cute?

26:56 - Anna (Guest)
Absolutely yeah, craig's to me. You're not allowed any more than five slides before you get into the proper case studies and the processes and the stuff that do need time, right, because all you need is the hats. You know who are you, what do you do, what do you believe in or what do you stand for? Back to the distinctiveness what's your distinctive thing and what kind? Just yourself, and that's it. That's all you need. And then my last one for, for keeping it simple, which I've unashamedly stolen from david overby, which seems a pretty good place to to steal things right I would say it's a pretty good place to start.

27:26
I would say yeah pick from the best, absolutely have an ideal client list, the top five that you can pin on the wall, that everybody knows who they are, so who are big five that you would really really love to work with, with. And again, it's not about only targeting those people, but it's about having that as your kind of gold standard and having a reason why which, if you've done steps one, two and three, you've got. So for him, when he first started OB, he picked the biggest five brands in America because he knew that if we won them then it would give the agency credibility and that would attract other big brands. I think it took him about three years to get all five of them, but if you can do it in three years, you know that's pretty good going right.

28:10 - Mike (Host)
I'd say it's pretty good going, definitely so yeah that's the framework. I followed Perfect and it works and I think the evidence of it works. I don't, and we shouldn't, talk about the numbers in the pipeline etc. But you were saying before the recording your pipeline's consistently pretty healthy.

28:26 - Anna (Guest)
Yeah, there's lots of stuff in it. I mean, as we were saying, we're all suffering a bit from the lack of decision making, which you know can be a challenge. But, yeah, and I think that's why I talk about sustainable growth as well, I think that's what's so important and that's what this process gives you know. It's about really understanding. Back to qualifying what are the things you should be doing? Who are the people you should be talking to? How is that going to build your agency to the agency that you want it to be, so that you're working with people you want to work with, you're getting to the side you want to be. You know everyone's happy and you're achieving the ultimate goal, basically, exactly.

29:01 - Mike (Host)
So the other thing that I'd add at the end, anna, just to get your thought, really was something that I've done a lot, something I talk to clients a lot about. When you're writing whatever you call it a proposal document, a discussion document, a response document, whatever it is the thing that contains the stuff you're going to do I always say to clients look from a buyer's eye. You need an exec summary. It's got to be really punchy, it's got to speak to the C-suite. Then you need to talk about the client's pain problem, the pain points, what the real pain points, why they need solving, what their target is, etc. Then there's some stuff about the solution, etc. Etc. Your creds, all the bits about your agency and your case studies I said put at the back. Yeah, they have to be there, but they shouldn't be the opening thing that you talk about. What are your thoughts?

29:51 - Anna (Guest)
I totally agree. I do it in a slightly different way, but I do free in Maine, so what I would do, I always call that exec summary a love letter. Write to them what it is you love about this pitch, why you're really excited about this bit of work, what it is that you've got to offer. All the things you would put in but make it more, you know, human in that way, More human and emotional.

30:13 - Mike (Host)
Exactly yeah.

30:14 - Anna (Guest)
So it's always. It's always, dear Mike, from Anna. And then what I say up the front is is there anything we need to do and this is where I swap creds from credentials to credibility Is there anything we need to do to prove our credibility? So I would quite often start by saying what's the one thing that makes us distinctive, so you get an idea of what we're like as an agency. Then I'll probably go here are three clients that we've worked with and here are similar jobs that we've done, but I'll just give you a line on each and then I'll go into everything else you said and the actual creds about you know how many people we've got, where we've got offices and all of that stuff, if it's even relevant, goes at the bottom. But I think sometimes you and Fritz the dog and the dog, don't forget.

30:58 - Mike (Host)
Fritz the dog. Yeah, fritz the dog absolutely.

31:00 - Anna (Guest)
And then he goes on the front page, he, you know I've done stranger things before. But yeah, and I think going into any sort of meeting where you're meeting people for the first time, you know I stick with. Like we said earlier, I'd rather that 80% of the talking was you, not me. But if we've never met, if you don't know anything about us, I have to up front, like I did in my instructionalist podcast, go. This is the reason. If you don't know anything about us, I have to upfront, like I did in my Instructors podcast, go. This is the reason that you should listen to anything I have to say about business development. You know I've got a little bit of something that might be of interest. Otherwise, you know I might be the postman and you know, maybe I've got some interesting opinions on business development.

31:43 - Mike (Host)
Absolutely, you know, maybe not, but unlikely. You're going to trust the postman rather than Anna.

31:49 - Anna (Guest)
Exactly. So yeah, a bit of establishing credibility as opposed to giving your standard creds up front. I totally agree.

31:57 - Mike (Host)
And be brave. Yeah, there's nothing to lose. Andy Bounds, really talented guy on LinkedIn I had him on the podcast said to me he starts his with the afters. He says after you work with me, sales grow by typically 15%. Average order value increases by 30% and I tend to work with big blue chip clients like you.

32:17 - Anna (Guest)
Yeah, I agree, that's really good. You know, I particularly use that. When I worked in PR, my first few slides were these are the headlines that you might get in, the sort of places you might get them. Because I think that? Because, again, ultimately people are buying the results, not the process.

32:34 - Mike (Host)
That's all they're buying.

32:35 - Anna (Guest)
That's all they're buying, you need to know there's a process Great, everyone's got a process and all that sort of thing but it is the results that are important. So yeah, again, I totally agree. Whatever, wherever you can sell the dream upfront, go for it and then explain how you're going to achieve it.

32:49 - Mike (Host)
And in fact, on that point, just kind of drawing it together, we've gone on slightly longer than usual but, because it's really important, you've got some really great insights. Ultimately, clients do they buy the result, they buy the outcome. The enabler for that is the people. Yes, your methodology, the risk profile that you bring. If you can prove to me that you've solved this problem before, many times, before you've delivered a range of results which are within our targets, you're helping me make a lower risk commercial decision then yeah, those are really critical things about why we buy Definitely Anna, it's been amazing. Critical things about why we buy Definitely Anna, it's been amazing. So, sum up, if I was an agency leader and we were at like 5 million of fee income and I was trying to get to the next level, our business development function had been a bit hit and miss, very founder-led, and I was now professionalizing it. What would be your kind of top three takeaways, the things that I should think about most?

33:46 - Anna (Guest)
So I think the first one is that piece about viability. So sit down, go through your questions. Be really clear what you're trying to achieve as an agency, what you want to sell, how you're going to price it. Don't price it on time anymore. That's a dead agent model. Think about the roles that you're going to price on. Do that piece whenever you're pitching about selling the dream in the future, but don't forget to actually answer the question as well. That would be where I would start. I think the second part is absolutely everything we talked about listening. Make sure everything you go for you really understand what the other person needs, what will help them to get sign off, what the internal processes have got to go through, what the they personally need to progress. That's my second one. My third one never reduce price, always add value.

34:32 - Mike (Host)
Good Brilliant. We're going to stop there. Anna, that was fantastic. Thanks ever so much for joining me. Really thoroughly enjoyed it. Amazing experience that you've brought to the table. So thank you for sharing that Really helped.

34:43 - Anna (Guest)
Lovely to talk to you. Thanks very much for inviting me.

34:46 - Mike (Host)
Where can people find out more about you?

34:48 - Anna (Guest)
You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm all over that, making comments about all sorts of things, so do join in, do buy, do get in touch with me.

34:55 - Mike (Host)
And that's Anna Stone on LinkedIn. Anna, thanks very much indeed, thanks, goodbye. Thanks for listening to Higgle the B2B Sales Club podcast series with your host, mike Lander. With your host, mike Lander, please subscribe so that you'll catch all the next episodes.