Why Lazy Sales No Longer Works and What to Do Instead with Mike Fantis

[00:00:00] Mike Fantis: Even phone calls to an extent is dead because of the whole working from home part of the week. You know, how have you got my number? Where's that come from? Uh, I feel that's not quite right either, but if I'm gonna send five emails, 10 emails a week, they are gonna be. Laser focused on you and your business.
And yeah, hope that at some point that will resonate with you or you at least save that email for when you get 10 minutes to, to sort of get to, it has to be so focused about them.
[00:00:29] Mike Lander: My name's Mike Lander and you are listening to Hile, the B2B Sales Club podcast, where we bring you actionable insights about sales, RFPs, negotiations, and difficult procurement discussions from sales leaders.
Ground leaders and procurement leaders, please subscribe to get updates when new episodes are released.
Mike, thanks ever so much for joining me on Higg, all the B2B sales for podcast. Great to have you as a guest.
[00:00:59] Mike Fantis: Thanks for inviting me. Excited for the chat.
[00:01:02] Mike Lander: Pleasure. So, um, why don't you just tell people, uh, that are listening, who are you, what do you do, and your favorite song and why?
[00:01:10] Mike Fantis: I am Mike Francis. I'm the one of the VP managing partners of DAC here in the uk.
I have over 20 odd experience within media. A little bit of a unicorn that I've done every job, starting from looking exec to an account manager to actually running campaigns, to then managing relationships with clients, looking after ops and now into sales and marketing roles. So yeah, kind of done everything you have
[00:01:38] Mike Lander: really, haven't you?
Yeah.
[00:01:39] Mike Fantis: Which I think is a good thing, which I'm sure we, we'll come onto. My favorite song, I'm gonna go with never too much.
[00:01:48] Mike Lander: Oh, why is that interesting?
[00:01:49] Mike Fantis: I've got a brother who is quite a bit older than me, so I ended up used to steal his music when I was young and it kind of stuck with me. So I'm a bit of a even.
Excuse the white beard, but I'm actually a bit of an older nerd in terms of the music that I like. Why that song? I just think it, I dunno, it, it makes me happy. It makes me actually wanna dance. It makes me wa it's emotive. I, I just, it has that effect of on me, we laugh about it. Me and my, my wife that, you know, I'm not dancing until Luther comes on when we're brilliant, we're out and then he comes on and gosh, I'm outta my seat and good to go.
[00:02:24] Mike Lander: It's funny, isn't it? Every time I ask people. There's always a human connection. It's always a memory of something that happened like you and your brother and that kind of, you know, Nick and his music when you were a kid. Very common trait there. Uh, yeah. And it always evokes either fun, joy, and, and sometimes sadness, but always a reflection and always connected to human beings.
[00:02:47] Mike Fantis: Yeah, I think the sadness goes to memories, doesn't it? Exactly right.
[00:02:52] Mike Lander: Yeah. So, uh, let's get into the questions. Lazy sales, what do you mean on what's working instead? And be just like brutally honest.
[00:03:01] Mike Fantis: Yeah. So I come from a, a world where it was, my career has been digital first. So as all of these kind of digital media agencies were popping up, I think the lazy cells crept in with it.
Just being thinking it was too easy for me to get you to move budget from print and above the line. It's digital because I can prove to you what works and it everything's measurable and it just become lazy in terms of I can save you on A CPC or a CPM. I can guarantee you this and I can do this for you, rather than it being.
Business focused focus in terms of the, the outreach. So what happens now is that we meet brands and prospects, you know, over, you know, hundreds in the year. And I ask them how many emails you get a week? If they get hundreds, how many do you read? They say none. So, because there's been no value put into that, that outreach, it's just become.
We, I know agencies have a team of, of salespeople that just, that's what they do. Hit phones, hit emails. They know they send a thousand emails, nobody responds. Thousand and one, they get one response and they play the numbers game. I think even worse, Mike,
[00:04:11] Mike Lander: I, I think playing on that theme, personalization at scale, which is what AI's enabled us to do.
Buyers know that now and they're like, well, I, I can't tell what's real. On what's ai and even if I can tell I'm skeptical, so you know what? I'm just gonna ignore all of them. And so what used to cut through email had a a half decent open rate and response rate. Now I think that's falling through the
[00:04:40] Mike Fantis: floor.
Absolutely. I think the media landscapes become more convoluted. It's become more integrated. So now actually getting your USP or your. Why should they open? Why should they read? Why should they care about you or what you've just said? That's become really hard for our prospects to decipher, right? How do you get to that?
This is why you should care moment in three seconds. It's quite hard to explain. I know every, everyone has an elevator pitch, right? And it, you know, getting that down to 30 seconds, 20 seconds is a, is an art in itself. Getting it down to three seconds of attention on email is nearly impossible.
[00:05:18] Mike Lander: So what's working instead?
How do you build? 'cause we all have to do it. We all have to build net new relationships. And for any marketing agency I always have a proxy of, they probably carry forward 80 odd percent of their revenue from last year. So if you're doing 10 million of fee income, you've probably got 2 million of go get in the next year.
If your average order values even two 50 K, which is probably a bit high, that's still eight new clients. Eight new logos. That's one a month ish. That's a lot. So what's working? It's a lot in, it's a lot, isn't it? When you break it down you're like, yeah, it's a lot. Oh, actually that's an awful lot. What?
What's working in terms of. Building new relationships and how long is it taking now?
[00:06:02] Mike Fantis: So our CEO mentioned something to us when he acquired our agency, and we've got a few acquisitions and a few startups as we've grown into Europe. But he believes and believed it takes seven years to build a business as a general theme.
So if we use that kind of thinking, you know, we're, we're meeting brands today or this year for 27. There is nothing that, you know, we we're under no illusions. If I meet, I meet a brand at an event that, you know, there's no brief, that they're never gonna say, oh, I'm ready. Yeah, you could pitch to me tomorrow.
You know that that just doesn't happen. Does it say so? If anyone
[00:06:39] Mike Lander: listening that's like, that's at least 12 months. If you meet someone today, it's at least 12 months before a relevant opportunity that you stand. A greater than 30% chance of winning actually shows up. That's worth it for you and for the brand.
That's 12, probably 18 months. And that's a barrier, Mike. I, I think that's now one of the barriers to growth and the agencies have to invest in longer term relationship building.
[00:07:10] Mike Fantis: Absolutely. I mean, we tell our clients that we need to fill the pipeline. Yeah. Not just worry about the conversion problems.
Exactly. So it's the same, same thing for us, right? We, we've got to, we've gotta do exactly what we preach, so that, that's one thing. We need to fill the pipeline. We need to make sure that our organic growth is as good as it can be. So make, we can't take our eye off the existing clients. We have to make sure that we're, we're trying to grow those relationships as much as possible.
We do see quite a bit of referral. So clients that move around, we make sure we stay in touch with them. If we've done a good job for them, they trust us. So we've got a pitch coming up that has come from a, an existing relationship. I, a, a LinkedIn email, uh, yesterday, I probably pitched to them five years ago, six years ago.
Didn't win, but, and they ended up doing everything in-house. What we pitched at the time. But he is just come around now. So, you know, that's, that's obviously doing a good job in the room and them feeling like they trust us. Alright. They went in a different direction, but,
[00:08:12] Mike Lander: but that's a five year relationship.
I remember a partner of mine, Gary McElrath, years ago at KPMG back in the day when this is like 98 and, um, when CRM sales CRMs weren't really a thing. And he had a little book. No. In fact, he had, you know, remember the old roller card index? The roller index thing? I'm like, Gary, what you doing? He's like, every week I pick five of these people and I call them, I message them.
I go out for a lunch, I do a drink. I keep in touch, I add some value, I bring an insights report. I tell about a case study. I do something that adds value to their life every week without fail. And he said, and I said, okay, I think I know why, but why? He's like, because that's where the business comes from, Mike.
Long-term relationship building where they start to trust you as an advisor.
[00:09:03] Mike Fantis: Yeah, yeah. I totally buy into that. Don't get me wrong, we still need some of those quicker things to be happening at the same time, but if you don't do that, the pipeline will, will ever pretty quick. So we, we go after the, yeah.
The longer term relationships we look after and stay in touch with. People that we've worked with have met over, over time. We are noticing more and more that the pitch consultants and intermediaries are playing a bigger role of, of decent sized media briefs. So we actually have a program, a process of nurturing the relationship with each each of them, which has been a thing this year, um, which we'll take into next year.
So not only are we staying in touch with clients, prospects. Previous, you know, historical clients. We've got a whole new audience here that we need to say, Hey, don't forget about us. Don't forget about our, our positioning. You ever speaking to clients that match this? We're ready, we're good for you, sort of thing.
So that's another thread, um, that we have to, to look out for. And then, yeah, you're, you're hoping that over time, longer ones, they start to drop in and you keep generating those longer relationships. And we've had a really good year. So we've got a mixture of the sources of those. New contracts has been a mixture.
Events that we've been to previously. Historical relationships.
[00:10:28] Mike Lander: So if we talk about a simple hierarchy, we're basically saying, I think, um, obviously first of all it's your existing clients may retain the relationship and hopefully grow. Secondly, it's getting them to refer you to others. Maybe third is brands you used to work with that you no longer do, that you reactivate.
Next one probably is people that move on and then so. We're four or five levels in now. Then you're into, I'm going to events, I'm running breakfast, I'm speaking at conferences, all that stuff, which is the in-person stuff. Down the list of quite a long way is cold outreach on email.
[00:11:06] Mike Fantis: We still do that even though we, we sort of know.
Like, you just feel like you have to, even though we know it's, you know, not gonna generate, you know, huge responses. But we have turned away from the bulk. We don't do that. It's gone. Dead. Dead. Even phone calls to an extent is dead because of the whole working from home part of the week. You know? How have you got my number?
Where's that come from? Uh, I feel that's not quite right either, but if I'm gonna send five emails, 10 emails a week, they are gonna be. Laser focused on you and your business. And yeah, hope that at some point that will resonate with you or you at least save that email for when you get 10 minutes to, to sort of get to it.
But it will be, has to be so focused about them.
[00:11:51] Mike Lander: And talk to me about what kind of research you're doing. How do you find the insight? How do you find. The Aha moment, the Golden Nugget.
[00:11:58] Mike Fantis: Our agency focuses on omnichannel and what we call brand to local, which means we're our sweet spot are brands that are trying to win an e-commerce or lead gen, but also have physical footfall.
[00:12:10] Mike Lander: So clicks and bricks.
[00:12:11] Mike Fantis: Yeah. Yeah. Really interesting because it falls between cracks because there's digital activity that is driving that footfall, but the retail team doesn't control that.
[00:12:20] Mike Lander: And you gotta join the dots up to see where they came from, if you can,
[00:12:23] Mike Fantis: if we can. But it's also a lot of did you know, because you, you are looking after this, but you are actually an eCom person, but you're managing a digital asset, but the user actually wants to come into store.
So here's a disconnect that we can show you and there's some friction there. We also have some software that really relates to the retail team specifically, which we know falls outside of. Media briefs or media, uh, agreements. So that tends to help because I'm not waiting for a media, uh, review. I'm not waiting to replace someone.
I'm trying to tell them there is something I can help you with today. Yes, we're here for the, the longer term, but did you know this is happening? I've noticed this. This is about, this is what people are saying about your business. This is why people are maybe not buying or this is what the competition are doing better than you.
So it becomes a today, real time. This is what's happening. Live example. Every business, every CEO says the customer is at the heart of everything they do, right? We have to, we have to look at after our businesses. And if you show them, actually, here's what they're saying and it, I'm not saying it's you don't care about them, but because the digital team are looking after it end up, they don't care as much as you do.
So you need to get control over this.
[00:13:37] Mike Lander: And if you've got a lack of integration between your clicks and mortar team internally. The customer's feeling that as well. 'cause really you want to be able to go into a shop having done your research to buy a pair of trainers or shoes or trousers or whatever, and they kind of know what you've been looking at.
Ideally, they want, they know exactly what you've been looking at and they've got it ready for you and it's in store, which also connects up with the warehousing bit. It's like if they've got a stock out. And the customer's taken the trouble to go to the store, but it's outta stock. That's just irritating.
[00:14:09] Mike Fantis: That's just really annoying. We, we've just done a piece actually, weirdly that you've mentioned that Mike, but I've done a piece about how brands are pushing the customers online. Yes. We kind of through just ease and get a bit lazy. We're moving online, but now you notice when you go into a store.
[00:14:26] Mike Lander: Yeah,
[00:14:27] Mike Fantis: exactly.
Pretty shit. Yeah, there's a reason why I've stopped coming into store. So the pressure and the owners who's obviously back onto that, the brand, to really up their game, that there is gonna be a lot of opportunity in this space for brands to, and you're ahead of the curve, which is good news.
[00:14:42] Mike Lander: Hopefully. By the way, Mike, so before the next question, why have you got football posters in your background?
I'm not a football fan, but you clearly are tuned into football. Yeah. Why is that? What is it?
[00:14:54] Mike Fantis: Uh, it's just kind of one of my hobbies. In terms of memorabilia and they all kind of mean something. The gray one, that was my favorite player growing up. I really resonated with him. John Barnes, I was probably the only brown boy in the, in the school football team.
I was left footed like he, he is and was. So I just, yeah, loved, loved watching him. The ones over there, one of my closest friends went to a work event where Kevin Keegan was gonna be there. The sort speaker on his table type of thing. He was coming up brilliant. He was coming up to my birthday. He bought a retro shirt.
Amazing. Got Kevin Keegan to sign it for me and yeah, amazing. That was my 40th. So we're doing terribly at the minute, but that makes me not wanna blur my background even more because I don't wanna be a fair weather fan where it's only when we can rain, shine.
[00:15:44] Mike Lander: Don't worry. Still there. Still here. Since childhood.
Still there. Still here. Yeah. So question two. Answer today, plan for tomorrow? What do you mean by that and how do you get the balance right?
[00:15:59] Mike Fantis: I think there is always a brief behind a brief is the first thing. So yes, we need to answer the brief, but what? What is it that working on one? At the moment, there were six or seven things that they've asked for, but ultimately when you break it down, it's bookings and revenue.
Really how we get there is how we get there. Everything, all roads lead to revenue and, and bookings for that particular prospect. So really making sure that we don't just say, well, the best thing to do in here, in this channel and best practice, and that's how we do. Is it gonna make them money as it get, you know?
Great. That's a really good, you know, less of the theory and more, what does it really mean for my business? I.
Brands don't know what they want until they see it to a certain extent. So the brief will say, I, this is my media budget and this is what I think I need. And you go, okay. And then we show them this brand's a local. Your brief hasn't mentioned the stores, but we're gonna show you how you save money. Or the user wants to go in store, you are still trying to push 'em online.
There's a disconnect there. Someone's gonna show you how we could maybe do that better. So the brief didn't say that. I answered the brief, but I also told them what does best look like? Best in class? Or what does the future look like? Or what does working with us, what that, what the kind of questions will we be asking and challenging you and your business.
So I think that that's crucial that you are thinking about that, but also that long-term thinking is it makes you think about their business. So it's not me saying the future of media or, you know, it's the, the future of your business. What does that look like? That these silos might be here, but will your business survive if you carry on doing that?
Or at some point things have to change or everyone talks about AI understanding what does AI mean for their business, not just for us. Of course, we're gonna tell them how it makes us better, but what does it mean for our customers to find them? What does it mean for how they can be more efficient in their business?
I think if you understand. And show that level of insight into a prospect's business. That means they're thinking, well, I'm, I don't really wanna be doing this pitch process again in three years.
[00:18:18] Mike Lander: I think we talked before the recording about the report that's out from Verity Ri, the relationship report, and I have no commercial connection with them.
I happen to know their head of growth, but really interesting. Is that what brands want, what brands crave is what you just talked about, strategic advice, what's happening in my industry. Where am I behind? Where am I ahead? Is that competitive moat shrinking or is it getting wider? What can you do to help me grow market share, grow the category, you know, omnichannel approach, that that's what they want.
And I also spoke to someone called Phil Squire recently about, he's actually on the podcast, uh, in January about what buyers want from sellers. And we were talking about before you can challenge their thinking. You've got to earn the right, if you meet someone brand new and you start really challenging them unsurprising, they walk away.
So you've gotta relate first and earn some respect and understand their business, and then talk about the industry and then get into, you know, your model currently that could be improved. There's things that you are missing that we could help with.
[00:19:30] Mike Fantis: No, I, I totally buy into that and I do think it might be a strength of mine given that I work in sales, have done all the jobs before, like we said, but also we start, I started our own, we started our own agency, so I kind of know that pressure of making sure we pay everyone every month, but understand business in general.
That means we're asking those pointed questions. Really good example when we talk about retail and connecting digital, I might say to a brand, give me your bottom performers. So you, you'll have a league table, everyone does, and then maybe we can provide a, a test for you to look at. But then I'll say, when you tell me your bottom performers, what is it that makes them bottom?
Is it the revenues, it, what covers? Is it, is it footfall and it's start revenue? And I was like, okay, what about revenue by square footage of each of the stores? Mm-hmm. And again, that they're just like, well, okay. No one talks to me like that and talks to me about understanding a retail footprint or a different in
[00:20:30] Mike Lander: covers, how many times you turn it over, all that kind of stuff.
[00:20:33] Mike Fantis: Yeah. It's it's basic business stuff, isn't it, really? But yeah, it should be it. It should be. And I think that's something that we'd, I try to bring to, yeah. Every conversation
[00:20:43] Mike Lander: to sit in their shoes, genuinely, to walk in their shoes as much as you can and understand their pressures and what, how their business works.
And what their pressures they're under from their investors, their stakeholders, their other shareholders. And then you start to think, yeah, if it was my money, who would I spend it with and why? Well, the one that's gonna create more value at the lowest risk
[00:21:06] Mike Fantis: also got burnt once on a, on a startup business.
I was quite young in my career, so I dipped out of my marketing career to sort of give this business a bit of a, a push. I didn't feel like I could, and my voice was loud in the room, or I didn't maybe use it as I should. And I wasn't happy with the media plan because of that, because I, I was like, well, it's media plan.
Doesn't reach me. Reach and I'm the audience. It sounds obvious, doesn't it? But same, same with like how we we're trying to sell B2B. We know that when someone adds us on LinkedIn then sends us a sales message straight away that we hate it. So why would, why would we do it? Exactly. So yeah, always, always keep your yourself in the or in their customer's shoes, in their shoes.
Try and understand as much as you can.
[00:21:51] Mike Lander: So the picture process, what's working, what isn't working, and what are your kind of top tips. And do you wanna just explain, when I say to people the pitch process, a lot of people have different perspectives of when that pitch process starts. Some think it's the in the room, some think it think it's in the relationship building.
Some think it's in the chemistry, some think it's in the, I've got the RFP. What's the kind of like. What's the box that you put around the pitch process start to end?
[00:22:21] Mike Fantis: So when, when we say the pitch process, that's through RFP through chemistry, it is, there's a date in the duck calendar. That's the pitch. We get our chance to, to win.
Basically all the hoops we've jumped through before is, is all well and good and you need to get through those hoops to get to that, to that pitch process. But that, that is the process. So we start with. The brief, we start with who it should be in the room. We start with, have we done this before?
Expertise, case studies, all of that sort of stuff. Then we obviously put the layout, and that's kind of our, our job at a senior level to manage structure and then say, right, this is the flow, the story. I think that underutilized, maybe not always possible, but normally there's a friendly face. In the room.
Now, it doesn't necessarily mean a friend, but it means somebody that's been involved throughout the process that you may be spoken to five times, 10 times, whatever it may be, to have got to this stage. So to have done that, there's been some chemistry, we've been through the chemistry session. There's been some bond, or they like some likability factor there.
I don't think enough businesses. That relationship in terms of, look, this is, we're not gonna take you through the whole thing, but this is the flow story. This is what we're planning. Any pointers, are we on the right? We're not gonna show them everything, but just 'cause if they say yes, they can't say post pitch, oh you, you missed a mark there.
Did you? You know? So you're kind of ticking both boxes. You're giving them a chance to guide you, but you're also getting their buy-in. Before you even started the pitch,
[00:24:04] Mike Lander: and this is particularly in, in a non RFP situation, whereby it's not being run by procurement. 'cause you might have problems talking to stakeholders then if it's not run by procurement, but it's still a big piece of work.
That's what I was always taught to do. You know, in consulting, that's precisely how we do it. I, we used to call it pres syndication in the sales process. My partner used to say to me, continues to say, by the time we get in the room, Mike, everyone knows where we are. Everyone knows what's coming. We're now into what haven't we covered what's on your mind?
But people are either aligned or we know where they're not aligned and we can address their concerns. I always call it walking. It continues to say like, you walk into a room without any syndication, pres syndication. It's a DAR board exercise. They're just gonna throw darts at you. Yeah, exactly. 'cause they can not, 'cause they're being mean, but just because it's like, you know, so we call it, I dunno who you are, I, I have no relationship with you.
Dunno who you are. You made a lot of assumptions. Quite a few of 'em are wrong. I'm gonna tell you they're wrong and that's what you're trying to avoid.
[00:25:05] Mike Fantis: So we call it. We call it a pre-read, but we do it if they want a pre-read, they can have a full pre-read. But we are calling it a kind of a light pre-read.
Are we, are we good on kind of direction and, and stuff like that. I think what you mentioned procurement, which is an interesting one. We spoke previously, didn't we, about trying to get in front of more procurement people. 'cause ultimately that that is also another relationship and they're in the room. So that doesn't hurt having a relationship, uh, with them as well.
So even with those guys now, part of the process, I, I still, I still wanna do that. So I think that that's huge. The obvious one is the rehearsal, the, like your chemistry in the room, especially if it's not in the room and you're doing it online. Like is that slick how you move between presenters and slides and all of that sort of good stuff?
My dev director, I've known him. 20 odd years. Only recently this year got him to, to come over to our place. He's really big on this. Tell them what you're gonna tell them. Tell them and then tell them what you've told them. Exactly. And it sounds obvious and basic, good old fashioned basics, but it's true As a, as a anchor for you.
What are you gonna tell them? Have you told them what everything you wanted to and have you then summarize and said, I wanted you to take away these points. I. We do it now, we're still in rehearsal and we we're saying, right, every slide, what is it we want them to take away from this? And then at the end of that sort of section did, these are the things we want to make sure they remember about that.
And then just making sure.
[00:26:39] Mike Lander: So a couple of things. Exec summaries. I still see now 90 odd percent of presentations, proposal documents from agencies going to clients with no exact summary. Instead, the opening part is we were founded in 1974 in a shed in my garden with Fritz, the dog, and it was very lonely.
It was only me. And then I won a client, and then I, I'm like, we're, we're bored. We've lost interest. No interest, a really high quality exec summary upfront. And the second thing I was taught many years ago by McKinsey, I was very fortunate to be taught by McKinsey as a consultant when I was working at Barclays on the client side.
And anyone from McKinsey listening, I may not get this perfectly right, but the principle was on a slide one key graphic on the slide, a header that told you what the slide's about and a footer that gave you the insight. And they reckon you could, you could read a pack through the headers and footers. I know what's going on and understand the insights and get to the real point.
And I, I rarely, rarely see that.
[00:27:45] Mike Fantis: Yeah. I think it's a, and we've done presentation training before for the team, but it's always a good exercise when they say, right, you are pres, this is the theme. Go and work on a presentation. You can use five slides. And you're like, okay, so there's no text. I mean, you're gonna make sure that you can talk it through and yeah, you're supported by the odd image here and there.
Yeah, I think that's definitely something we anchor to. Making sure it's clear in terms of that summary. And I think the, the other thing I would say, the obvious thing, you kind of touched on it, but not about you. It's about them really. You want, you want them to ask you about you at the end. 'cause that's a buy-in.
So you know when they get to, so people be working exactly how big are you? How great you wanna know more about us, then we've done a good job. So I think that's. It's an old, again, an old thing, but definitely still absolutely right. Still rings true.
[00:28:37] Mike Lander: So I, I spoke to someone called Michelle Cleary the other week marketing procurement expert, has bought marketing services at scale for many, many years.
And I said to Michelle, I said, what percentage of when it's in the room? So the short list, three agencies in the room, we're gonna select one of the three, all three of them could do the job or else you wouldn't be in the room. Number one. So then it's like, okay, so how do you differentiate? How do you distinguish?
And she said, you know what's interesting is that relationship bit, the chemistry bit, the way you interact, the way that you behave, the way that you behave as a team, that can be 20% to 40% of the score on the day. That's the bit that can really, really make you stand out. When we say as procurement people, remember when Mike said this thing, he was from that agency, remember?
And he said this thing and we talked about it and we dug into it. There wasn't really an exact answer, but it was really interesting where we ended up in that conversation. That's what you want. Because everyone can technically do the job.
[00:29:46] Mike Fantis: Yeah. You, you stole my last point, Mike.
[00:29:49] Mike Lander: Ah,
[00:29:49] Mike Fantis: my, my luck. Yeah. Yeah. My, the Synchron, my last point, I suppose I can maybe expand on it, because again, these, these are not new things, but salespeople tend to not say no to many opportunities, do they?
Because it's the, the, the pressure's there, there, you don't
[00:30:05] Mike Lander: Exactly. If it's an, if it's an opportunity, I'll take it.
[00:30:08] Mike Fantis: Yeah. I think what we're getting better at all the time is we're not trying to be everything for everyone, but what that means is when we do reach the pitch, we can easily carve out a positioning for, for ourselves and for them to remember that we were the different agency.
Even more important, you know, talking back to the, you know, back to the pitch consultants, making them understand, look, you don't want five agencies, three agencies, they're all gonna sound the same. We are gonna sound different and the brief might not ask for us, but we will bring a different view of the world.
So they want, they want something different, unique. They don't wanna be just churning out the same media stories all the time. So I think making sure you go through the right briefs and then making sure that your point of difference is clear. Is fundamental. That can come in, you know, various, you know, various ways.
It could be your offerings very different. It could be your experience, your vertical understanding is what sets you apart, whatever it is. But that has to land. It doesn't land. You're just, like you say, just another agency.
[00:31:12] Mike Lander: You are just another forgettable agency that came a close second. And when you asked me, you know, what happens?
Like, well, it's really close. You came second. These are the key points. This is where you could have like improved things, but it was close. But unfortunately, you know, not today,
[00:31:27] Mike Fantis: I've got a bit of a funny relationship with the feedback loop because you crave it, right? You need it and you put a lot of effort into, into pitch.
I sometimes feel like when you ask, you are prompting them to say something, and sometimes I don't. A lot of the time your feedback's good, but sometimes I'm listening. I'm like, you're giving it, you're saying these things just because I've asked you to say something and you feel like you are, but actually it was, let's break it down.
It was chemistry. Or you've actually gone with an agency you've already worked with or you've worked with before, or. There was something probably a bit more top level or basic, rather than some of the nitty gritty that you get into you. You can't not ask for it. You need it, but I do. Sometimes it's like, what's the analogy I can give?
It's, you know, a waiter will ask you or a waitress will ask you, would you like still ask sparkling mortar. It'll make you choose one rather than saying, I don't want water. It's like when I ask you for feedback, oh yeah, I've got, I've gotta tell you something now, and I, I've gotta do something. I was a rubbish analogy, but something where it's kind of, we do it and we ask for it.
But yeah, ask the difficult
[00:32:33] Mike Lander: question. I would absolutely advise, ask the difficult question about Thanks for any detailed feedback you get, we've got, that's really helpful to us. We'll feed that back into the process. Just ask me, answer me kind of one thing, honestly. What was the big reason? What was the major reason that you picked someone else?
You didn't have to name them, but what was it that they did that we all failed to do? Just gimme the headline and then most people will go, yeah, actually they had a really, really deep point of view on the automotive industry that none of the rest of you really got. You kind of played to it, but not really.
Because to your point, otherwise I have to make, not make stuff up. But I have to like dig deep and go, oh, slide 47 wasn't quite right. And the, you know, Jane and John didn't quite gel when they spoke in the Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all true. It's not the reason. It's not the major. Yeah,
[00:33:31] Mike Fantis: I think there is probably, yeah, I'd say that you are really, you know, very on the button I would say there in terms of there is normally a fundamental reason.
Yeah. Something big. Yeah. There's a fundamental reason and we're not, we're very open to that feedback and we wanna know, and otherwise you don't, you don't get better again. Yeah.
[00:33:50] Mike Lander: You don't learn. So Mike, if you were listening to the show and you were the head of growth in an agency that's like maybe 50, a hundred people looking into 2026, you know, we're in December now going, okay, what are the big themes I could take from this?
You know, what's the kind of couple of things I could take away and do next year? What are the couple of things that you think. How a growth should be thinking about as they go into next year about net new business.
[00:34:17] Mike Fantis: I would start with looking at themselves, what, what are they good at? Who are they made for?
What's their story? And then really, really nail that and repeat it and repeat it. People know exactly kind of who you are now. We haven't cracked that yet. We're in the process of doing that. It's hard 'cause of that we need more business. Can't just cherry pick. But ultimately, if you are gonna get cut through, that's, you know how you're gonna start, start that journey.
Look at your prospects. We call it, we call it when we speak to clients, micro moments. Where are they? Who are they? What do they do? Where do they go? You know, like, which events are right for you? Where are they gonna, you know, where are you gonna get that highest? Sort penetration of your target brands that you need to hit and find, and then think about their business as the third thing.
Think about the consultative style. It's not gonna be a briefs not gonna turn up on your doorstep tomorrow. So have the patience in your story is right for those. Those brands don't lose confidence because sales is hard and you end up reverting to type or. Cutting corners or looking for anything to, to sell.
Stay in your lane and then, yeah, nurture it. Just how you wanna be sold to. Selling that same way.
[00:35:41] Mike Lander: Brilliant. Mike, it's been amazing. Thanks ever so much. Where can people find out more about you
[00:35:45] Mike Fantis: on
[00:35:46] Mike Lander: LinkedIn?
[00:35:46] Mike Fantis: Definitely. I do a lot of posting. I share as much as I can from Doc's own LinkedIn page as well. So between myself and and Doc's own LinkedIn profile, you'll, you'll get everything that you need to.
To find on a, on a brand to local strategy. There you
[00:36:01] Mike Lander: go. Excellent. There we go. Mike Fanti, it's been amazing. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to haggle the B2B Sales Club podcast series with your host Mike Lander. Please subscribe so that you'll catch all the next episodes.