Ep 137: How to LEAD Client Expectations

Speaker A: In the marketing and advertising world, agencies consistently proclaim that they are perfect experts at what they do. The truth is, everyone struggles with similar questions and conflicts, but they wouldn't dare talk about them. We are pulling back the facade of fancy espresso machines, craft beers on tap, and office dogs to expose the real issues agencies wrestle with on a daily basis.

Speaker B: Welcome to another episode of Marketing Agency Exposed. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, gentlemen.

Speaker A: Good morning. We took a little. Little break here over the last few weeks.

Speaker C: Yeah. How's everyone doing?

Speaker A: I'm doing great.

Speaker C: Good. I like the attitude. Not the attitude.

Speaker A: Are you doing.

Speaker C: It's not an attitude. You know, attitude is such a weird.

Speaker A: No, it's.

Speaker C: It's because it can be very, like, derogatory. Like, you know, your parents. I don't, you know, straight attitude. Don't give me that attitude. Yeah, thank.

Speaker B: No, I got that. Didn't Joan Jet have a song about attitude?

Speaker C: Joan Jet?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: I don't know.

Speaker A: I don't know who that is.

Speaker B: No. She was talking about bad reputation.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, No, I know. I saw Joan Jet in concert one day.

Speaker B: Did you?

Speaker C: They opened for Journey.

Speaker B: Oh, man.

Speaker C: She did.

Speaker A: They opened for Journey.

Speaker C: She opened for Journey in her band. Um, she was actually pretty good. I mean. Yeah, she was. She was good.

Speaker B: It's amazing.

Speaker C: Yeah. Amazing.

Speaker B: So, speaking of attitude, uh, going back to that attitude.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Let's talk about clients attitude.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, there we go.

Speaker B: No, seriously, uh, we're going to talk today about client expectation.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I want to be more specific in. In their expectation of the results that they get from your business and trying to understand how to manage those expectations. Um, I think one of the things for me is that I think we should get into discussion about is how we find that we actually ask in, really document what we're going to do for our clients, what we expect. We try to make some estimates, um, based on best practices, based on history in the industry. Um, but even then, it's. It's not. We can, you know, miss the mark in some ways, or things change or the product. And there's a lot of things out of our control that kind of stop the process of, uh, the sales process, the lifetime values, the people, you know, um, being dedicated to the client, um, and stuff like that. And so it's kind of hard for us to sometimes, um, understand what that looks like. And I think sometimes we find that our clients say one thing a lot of times when we. When we start working with a new client, for instance, but a year later, they. Their expectation, even Though they don't really verbalize it. You can start to see, um, throughout the process that what they really want, they've actually never targeted nor measured. And we haven't measured nor have they vocalized it.

Speaker A: So how far do you guys dig into goals and what they want and what that looks like?

Speaker C: Um, we dig as far as we can. Um, a lot of times we'll have clients that just don't have the ability to track attribution at the level that we would like to.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So the challenge is they don't have the tech, they don't have, um, built up to basically measure a lot of that funnel. Not specifically. Mostly it's the bottom funnel, um, or things go offline and they, and their sales process goes offline and then it's harder to track the attribution.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: For. For our efforts.

Speaker A: But they do have business goals.

Speaker C: They have business goals. Yeah, they have business goals. Um, a lot of times it's interesting, you have to really dig for those business schools. Like, you have to ask a lot of questions and typically you get to the point a lot of times where you stump them and you're like, well, this is probably something you should try to figure out internally first and let us know. But, um. So, yeah, I just wanted to unpack that a little bit and. Because I think that's the biggest frustration. I think one of the things that I tell my team is that we are financial advisors. That's it. We're not marketing people, we're financial advisors. The first question you ask a financial advisor when you give them, you know, all your money to invest. Right. Is what should I expect my return to be? Um, and even if they don't say that, they. That's what they're expecting, even if they don't say it. So if you're not. If you're not proactive as an agency, I believe, of detailing what that will look like and how to measure it so that you can come back and say, this is what we did and here's a financial number that we're going to. That we have done for you. I think that all agencies are going to find out that most clients, even if they want awareness, even if they're like, oh, we just want you to do this and bring some. You bring all this awareness to us. What they really mean is, we want you to make us money and we want you to help sell our product. Or, um, and we want to know how much we've going to. We want to know how much you brought in.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Mm. That's good.

Speaker A: I think. I think one of the challenges with that is you can't. There's so much out of your control.

Speaker C: A hundred percent.

Speaker A: Like, first of all, their business. It's funny how, um, I have conversations with people and they're like, you know, we're not getting. And we don't really manage Facebook ads or anything like that. But, like, I do consult with a lot of businesses across their marketing strategy. And a lot of times they're like, we're not getting the roas that we want. And it's like. And so we're gonna change ad agencies. And I'm like, do you expect that to fix it?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And they're like, yeah. And it's like, well, do you know what roas means? And they're like, yeah, return an ad spend. I'm like, okay, well, um, do you know if the ads are getting the people to the site and they're not buying, it's probably not the problem of the ad agency. Right. And as you. And the point I'm making is, as you dig into this, I think you realize that as a service provider, whether you're doing marketing services or consulting or something like that, um, you really have a lot out of your control. And so I think it's really important to, yes. Pursue a financial number. Of course. Right. But it's almost like you're more of an advisor than you are a driver.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Even if you're doing things because, uh, ultimately, like, that person or that that business, uh, needs to have a product that people want. They have to have a pricing strategy that people want to pay. They have to be willing to, you know, spend in certain places and say certain things. Right. And there's only so much that you can control, which is really only your expertise. And so, um, I think, to me, the results conversation is highly nuanced and probably. I think it's probably damaged by maybe a lot of them. Not you, but a lot of agencies saying that we can get you this certain result when that is an illusion. An agency cannot get you anything.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like, they're advising. So all that you can guarantee is your expertise and your ability and your skill set and your. Your high quality ness of who you are. Right. If you go to anyone, and it's funny because if you go to anyone, like, that's like the top of their game, like, super, super, super high level. And you're like. And you. And you go to hire them to do something, they're gonna be like, look, I'm gonna do this thing I don't know if it's gonna work for you because I don't know anything about your business, but I do know that I'm awesome.

Speaker C: If a company is going to spend 8 to 12% of their revenues, right. Put it back into advertising, that's a big portion, probably the largest portion outside of product development that they're going to spend on their product. So they, they definitely have, um, they want to spend it correctly because they need a return on investment. And I think that's the challenge. And I think a lot of agencies, including ourselves, to be honest with you, at times are optimistic, maybe sometimes overly optimistic. You know, um, or m. You know, you had some experience in certain industries, but there's a nuance to this new client or let's just say this is talk about new clients or something. You know, something you haven't had a lot of history with. Know their product, know their value propositions and really do believe in the product. But just for some reason, there's something in the process that isn't resonating with consumers as well. It could be messaging. It might not just be messaging. It might just be the product itself. It might be the way that people buy the product or maybe it could be competitive, the competitors. There's also a lot, like you said, a lot of variables.

Speaker A: Plus, plus you mentioned the goals thing. Because we did. We dig a lot into the goals and I found that you almost can't talk enough about that because most people haven't really figured that out.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And most people haven't decided what they want. Right. And even worse in corporations. Right. Um, and I'm not bagging on any business here, but I'm just saying in corporations, like someone gets the mandate, go find a company to do this thing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And they go find a company to do that thing. And, and then the company, most companies, uh, which, which is I think a big thing that agencies have to change. Most companies are like a cool, we can do that thing. Problem number one.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. And so, so I think it's rare that, that people put, um, that, that you have a true partner that puts you through the rigor, you being the client, the, the company through the rigor of really establishing clear goals. Like, and we know this from like from coaching. Like if you, if you ever play with any sort of pro, uh, pro sports coach or if you have a high level business coach, it's not, it's not bad to challenge you. It's actually to your benefit to challenge you on getting really clear on goals. And it's really frustrating. Like, I've had that happen to me and it's like the person that's challenging me on it is starting to frustrate me because I'm frustrating me. You know, like, they're like, no, uh, it's not clear enough. Let's get clearer. No, no, that's not clear enough. Let's get clearer. And, and I think that that tends to be a problem in the service provider role because you're, if you don't like to your point, like, you stump them. That's pretty common because probably most of those companies haven't really thought, really thought, what is our goal as a business? How does this thing that we're going to do fit into that goal? What is our goal for this thing? And then all the, and, and that should, uh, that should actually influence a lot of the strategies that they do.

Speaker C: So we've started to, to kind of see, be able to try to identify red flags early on with clients, um, even when we're not, when we're just pitching them, when we ask them questions about their financials, not their business financials, but their product financials, let's just say, let's just say it's a product and they have a hard time giving us what they believe they want their cost of acquisition to be for a client. Any lifetime value data, um, anything at all that they have already. Um, if they can't give us clear ideas on that, that's a big red flag for us.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Um, because there's no goals, there's no target. We're going to hit 100% of targets we don't actually identify. Right. We can't see a target. We're not going to hit anything. So at that point it's guessing. And a lot of times they come to us and go, will you tell us what it should be? And the uncheck. The challenging thing is, is tell me what I want. Yes. And Brad, I see, I can tell

Speaker A: you you want a 1988 Porsche 911.

Speaker C: Yes. And I can tell you that we're, we're gonna get you, you know, a CPM of between 5 and $10. Like I can probably confidently say things like that and be pretty accurate, but

Speaker A: just let's stay there. Why?

Speaker C: Because I get millions of people to look at an ad doesn't mean you're going to get millions of dollars of revenue from that.

Speaker A: But that's an important point to make. Right? Is that what you can promise is what you know you can control.

Speaker C: Correct.

Speaker A: Uh, which in that Area ads. Is really that right? How many people are going to view this thing and about what click through rate we can get.

Speaker C: Yeah. Now we can start making models once we start campaigns. Just when we start looking at data. As long as we have the data hooked into something that's valuable for us to see. Um, and again that's where the tech kind of comes in with clients. Obviously E Comm is a lot easier and you're being in the E Comm space and even you know, you're.

Speaker A: Wait, was that, was that a diss. No, it's a lot easier.

Speaker C: No, no, no. You're just more um, segmented like I'm

Speaker A: just messing with this morning.

Speaker C: I know, but you're not talking about where the whole funnel is completely, completely digital or online. Um, the process, it's not super easy. It's super easy. You got it made. You don't even have to work.

Speaker A: Most of the time we just press a button.

Speaker C: It's easy.

Speaker B: I'd like to jump in here and say that a, uh, few episodes back at some point. We've talked about it a couple of times. Um, if we were to zoom out and say, okay, how do, how do we solve or address these issues and these concerns with clients? Um, is one way that we've talked about in the past is most agencies don't do this, but more and more are. And I think it's really valuable is before you even engage and sign a contract with a client is have, have an emergent immersion meeting or an immersion session with them and get them to pay for it and say I'm not going to quote you, uh, a price or we're not even going to give you a plan until you, we spend a day and an immersion. You're going to come with all, all that data. We're going to learn and then we're going to, out of that, we're going to give you a strategy document and we're going to charge you a small fee for that. I think that eliminates a lot, but I think I. Let me just finish. Is that. That's really helpful. But I think a deeper problem then that will help to eliminate. What I'm going to talk about now, um, is I think communication and clarity with clients is something that we don't give enough attention to. There's a, there's a phenomenon in communication in psychology. It's called switch tracking. And you do this with your spouse or your significant other all the time. It's. You're talking to them and you're having this Conversation and it might heat up and then all of a sudden you realize you're both talking about two different things. Like your mind has gone off on this and she's still talking about this. Or he start whatever it is and it happens all the time. And then you just look at each other and go, that's not even what I'm talking about. Or she's continuing the thought process and didn't tell you that she's moved on to another scenario. That's called switch tracking. Right. And what happens is there's miscommunication and disagreements. And I think we do that many times is we're so immersed in the details of marketing and strategy and digital and a client comes to us and I'm, um, in. It's, it's ramping up even more now with the new technologies that are coming out is if you're immersed in a subject, it's almost like you're, you're, you're just focused and you just, then you get around people that are like minded. The three of us are focused on it. We talk about it and then we go and talk to our business partner or our, our client. I mean, and they're not immersed in this stuff.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: They're immersed in something else. And so then what happens is that switch tracking phenomenon, they're saying the words and you're saying the words, but you both are meaning different things.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I think that's what that happens a lot. Because you said before we push record, the client says, I just want to get awareness out there and I want impressions. And you're going, oh, I can do that. Here's a plan for getting your brand awareness out there. And then one day, two months in, they're like, hey, we're gonna have to reevaluate our contract here because we're not getting any sales. And you're saying you didn't say anything about sales. You talked about brand awareness and impressions and your share of voice and whatever. And they're like in their head they're like, well, isn't that the same as like selling products online? So I think getting really clear on the language and the understanding. And you touched on that earlier. Yeah, I think it's really, really important. I don't think we give enough attention to that because we're so like focused on our baby and isn't our baby beautiful? And everybody else wants to understand and see how beautiful our baby is. And meanwhile they're like, no, uh, I don't really care. Or I'm focused on My own kid.

Speaker C: I used, uh, to go to this. We had a, we had a client, um, and good, ah, client, really cool, fun, fun project to work on. Um, and the, the owner used to say, the guy who started the company used to say, I just, you know, I just want to, I want, I want you to help us make us famous. And every time I went in that meeting, I walked out and go, no, he doesn't, he doesn't care. He doesn't care about us, him, his brand being famous. That's just. If he's famous, then he must be having, making money, uh, and having a ton of customers. What he's really looking for is people to buy his product, not famous. That's two different things, right? Yeah, famous is maybe for the long haul brand equity. That's, that's hopefully something we can do too. But making money is what he wants to do, not just be famous.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And uh, and I, uh, always walked out of there going, no, you don't, no you don't. In my head.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: But I knew what he meant. What he meant and what he said are two different things like clarity and agreement. Because I think sometimes customers, to be honest with you, if you're on a call and all you're doing with your team is talking about making money, it almost feels like it's not, there's not a lot of, lot of purpose to that. Does that make sense? Like, let's say you're working with a startup and the owner of the startup, it's a small startup, got great ideas, got a really cool product, but the owners funded this whole thing because they're multimillionaire. And all along they're saying, we just need to make money. We just need to make money. That doesn't really inspire the rest of the team. Even though that is what they're doing. That's what they're. Let's just call a spade a spade. Like that's what their objectives are in the end. And there's a lot of other objectives with those things. But I, I think what. So a lot of times the language that is spoken is all about like, awareness and all these marketing terms that they, they can even speak and talk to you about, but they mean different things.

Speaker B: That's right. That's right. Clarity. Getting to that.

Speaker C: Clarity is key. And I think, you know, you mentioned something. I, I think there's some red flags that an agency has to look at and you have to address those with some type of training your customer and, you know, whether it's a day where you sit down with them and you really go through and you, and allow them to understand that you're not magical. Right? You're not a magician who can just make magic happen and connect all these dots and show attribution to all your spending that they don't even have technology to do that yet somehow you're going to pull that out of the hat down the road and do that because that's what you do. They need to kind of be taught that this is a process and it's as much as your involvement as it is ours. In fact, we can only pass the ball, we can only get it to the certain yard line. After that you're gonna have to put the thing in the, in the end zone, right? Because it's like that's all we can do and the, and the ball's maybe going to stop someplace and that's uh, as far as we can push it.

Speaker B: Biggest lesson. Biggest lesson. If you're listening to this and you're a young startup or you're just starting your agency, biggest lesson you can learn, in my opinion, is develop the awareness and strength to walk away from, from clients when they're not a good fit and not get caught up in, yeah, but they're paying me money and I need this client, um, that will come back and bite you because the short term, um, win of a contract is going to be a long term deficit, uh, on your books for sure. And that's part of this too, that we haven't even talked about is what some of the things we're talking about is. Sometimes it's just not a good fit and you got to walk away because it's not worth the frustration and the misunderstanding of knowing that, oh, there's yellow flags early on, there's red flags in the initial conversations. You need to trust that. You need to trust that and go, there's a good chance this is not a good client for us because if they do and don't want to address those issues and give you, okay, what is their lifetime value of their customers? Do you understand really what we're saying? Do you have expectations that are way too high? Um, listen to those yellow flags because that's the biggest lesson, lesson you can learn, I think, moving forward.

Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to say just related to, you know, um, the idea of client expectations and managing that. I think it might start with. Or not it might, I think it starts with the relational dynamic that is created.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: And so if you come into. And that, that starts way before you meet is It.

Speaker C: Is that the outro music I'm hearing? Are we on our. Is it.

Speaker A: Oh, you know what?

Speaker C: Are we getting signals?

Speaker A: Alexa started playing. Oh, yeah, that's all right. We'll just. We'll just shut her off. Shut her off. She doesn't obey as. As much as I've been told that she's supposed to.

Speaker C: We. We are living in the. In the age of AI so it's okay. Alexa can come in and tell us.

Speaker A: It just messes with us. It's okay. Um, what I was saying is, so before it really starts, before you ever meet. And I think that's one thing that, as I talk to agencies, agencies don't necessarily always do, which is create, um, a brand and a personality and a presence that shows that you are truly an expert, that is desirable at something. Because when people come in, it is. This is going to sound so counterintuitive, like most of. Probably what I say, but I mean, but when people come in, if they think that they're in charge, it's worse for them. If they think that they know more than you or you work for them, it's worse for them because you would not be the best at, uh, what You. You would not be the best in the world if. If that was the case. Right. And so I think there's got to be a dynamic of. Wait, wait. Rather than me selling you, why don't you sell me on. On how I can help you? Right? Because. Because I. There's. There's so much to. If this is going to work, you need to trust me.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So you must sell yourself on me.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And if you don't sell yourself on me, then this is not going to work. Right. And part of selling yourself on me is making sure that that actually puts the pressure back on me. Right. Making sure that I know what I'm doing and you believe that.

Speaker C: And let me, Let me tell you, let me just kind of share with you one experience of that. And this is just real, real life here. Real stuff. Okay. Um, had had a client. They wanted to understand the marketplace. So we did some focus groups. We did, um, some data that would help us. We were. It was a product in the United States. We went around the country. We, um, did focus groups. Each focus group said the same thing about the cost of the product, what the value was, what they would be willing to do. So this was a kind of a loss leader product for, um, a bigger product that was entering into the marketplace. So the loss leader we suggested, you got to give this away for Free online. You've got to use this as a tool to gather your list, to make up to pre. Pre order this next product to really use this to kind of build the momentum. They decided to price it at a different price that they thought their gut said. And though it wasn't bad, it wasn't a bad price. It just wasn't what people told us that they would do. And sure enough, we were able to get people, uh, somewhat interested in and drive them to websites. Nobody did anything with it. They just sit there and looked at it. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna pay that. I'm not gonna pay that. Right, right. And so it didn't succeed. Um, and you go back and then they're like, well, it must be your fault. And I'm like, no. We did focus groups. We even talked about it together that this is what they're saying, this is what our suggestion was. And you decided against that?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: What do you do at that point? Like, you know, when somebody doesn't listen? And. And it wasn't even us saying it was. It was, you know, hundreds of people around the country saying it right. In your demographic. So it's like. And you'd listen to these people firsthand on audio calls. Like, you were part of these focus groups, like, at that point, what do you do? And then they come back and they kind of blame you for the failure. Uh, and it's just like the expectation there just wasn't met. You know, like, what expectation did you have? Um, and at that point, I think, you know, that's the challenge that. I think that, like you said, you have to define these things early on. Who do I get in bed with and who do I not? Because this was a customer that I knew that didn't have a lot of marketing experience in their leadership. Um, they just had. They're just driven by their product, and they're very passionate about their product, which is great. I love that. But in the end, it's not solving. They just had bigger ideas of what marketing would do for them or what they thought the public would respond to their product. Sometimes, you know, they say, you know, it's the same adage, right? You people believe their. Their babies are not ugly and they spend all the time and. And they work like crazy, and they're so passionate about it. And I. And I get that. I appreciate that. I love that side of our business.

Speaker B: I think it's. I think it would be helpful, um, for any agency to put together and really document for themselves. Who is the perfect customer and how far out of those lines are your standards and really stick with them and go, you know, any new customer that comes in, do they meet these five requirements, 10 requirements, what is it? And make sure you check them off with each one. And then uh, and then say we're going to commit to everybody here on our team and specifically you as the owner and your partners to say, hey, no matter how much money it is, if they don't match at least X amount of these, we are not going to engage and really set that standard moving forward. And I know that at, you know, there's so many unknowns and sometimes there's opportunities that come along. Um, but that is a hard lesson that each one of us on this table have learned the hard way that um, you know, the short term gain of, of revenue for the long term gain of a long term customer, you just can't even compare them, um, to the headache and the time and the resources that could go into not firing ah, ah, a customer early on.

Speaker A: Well, not only that, um, again, all this may sound, you could hear this and it sound like, um, we're not serving customers at the highest level.

Speaker C: Correct.

Speaker A: And that is completely backward. And that is the issue with a lot of how the industry's been structured. Because service is serving you at the highest level. Being honest with you. Right. And being honest with what I can do it is not saying yes to everything.

Speaker B: Right. It's a mutual respect for.

Speaker A: But it's not even just respect, it's just honesty. Right. And let's just be honest like when, when we're okay when people are saying yes, I can do that, no problem. You come to, oh, sure you want me? And it's yes, it's yes. Customer's always right. That is not honest. That's dishonest.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Okay. That's why things fail. And so service at the highest level would be, um, being honest with whoever's coming in. Right. Creating a dynamic where they understand, look, if, if I'm going to do this role, which I've done many times and I'm really good at, this is my superpower. And I'm not promising you anything, by the way. I, I think it's really, it's, it's very there. There might look like a, like, sorry, it might look like a fine line between um, confidence, uh, in what you can do versus promising results. But, but it's very different. And I don't ever promise results. I've kind of gotten away from ever saying anything results related.

Speaker C: Do you message though, to your customer that specifically, like, hey, we are not here. We can't guarantee results. Do you message that early and often?

Speaker B: Very much.

Speaker A: Very much.

Speaker C: And I think that's the problem.

Speaker A: I mean, it has to be accepted to the point where. And honestly, this is where. And this is not even a tactic, but what happens is the right customers start selling you on why. I get it, but we're good and it's going to work. And. And I really want you because you've done this and this and this and you've been part of this and we're really honest about, hey, we've done X, Y and Z. We've done like, all of. We've had all amazing results.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: We work with these strategies that we've developed over 20 years and they work. I can't guarantee that those successes will translate to you, but I can guarantee that I'm like, in this area, I'm the best at this thing. And so I could probably say, like, if anyone could do it, I could do it in this particular area. M. But I still can't guarantee results. You have to accept the risk on that side because you're responsible for your business. Right?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, but I can tell you that I am the guide. If you want this guide that does this thing, that's me. Right. With absolute confidence. Um, and. But what I won't do is I cannot be successful if you're telling me, well, I need you to do this this way and this, this, this way and change it to this thing and that. No, it's my way because I know my way, for me, has worked the best. And if you want the results that these guys have, if you want to, uh, be able to target and achieve those results, I can't guarantee that you will. But if that's, if that's the goal, then it's gotta be this way. You know, it can't. We can't. It can't be your. Your way over here and, and, uh, and all that kind of stuff. It just doesn't work.

Speaker C: To put myself into the customer's shoes, I can clearly see and feel empathetic to them. Um, because I feel like, you know, that's why we live in the RFP world. Not we as an air agency, but all of us deal at times where, you know, we have to. We want. We have RFPs that are given to. Why the companies do RFPs, is what I'm trying to say anyways, um, is because they are going to commit to some. An agency for a period of time. And yes, an agency can actually directly affect if they make the wrong choice. That can have a huge impact on their business. Let's just say that it can, it can. Um, and why a lot of times, you know, a company will get a new marketing director or somebody, um, at that level, and they'll bring in their own agency that they've had history with because they trust them and they know exactly what they're going to get with them. And I think that's the key is that it is a risk, high risk for customers. And so if you know that going in, if you know that that's already high risk, the for them to work with you is on their end, very, very risky. And it's not even risky for the company, it's risky for the person who's hiring you. The marketing director's job's at risk. So you're basically, can basically get your client hired, fired.

Speaker A: But let me just, let me just

Speaker C: say if you don't.

Speaker A: No, no, totally, totally. But business is risky.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like being in business is risky. Like, you know, there's, there are. Everyone's got risk. It'd be risky for me to take on a client. I mean, you know that there's risk across the board. What surprises me is that, um, well, not surprising me. What I think may, um, be a better way to think about when you hire an outside vendor. This is how I think about it because we have outside agencies that work for us and do things for us and some of our businesses. Um, I think you have to think about it similar to when you hire an employee. Mhm. Right. And when you hire an employee, you're judging on a few criteria. Right. You're judging on experience and the uniqueness of this person. And sometimes that person has a reputation that if I bring them in, they've done enough things to where if I bring them in, I know they have a certain philosophy on how to do things that aligns with what I want. And that's how I would suggest agencies become, is they have a certain reputation for a certain philosophy that has certain results attached to it, that people want that philosophy that only they can give. Right. And there are certain kind of employees that are like that as well. But the point is, when you're looking at hiring an employee, there's a different frame of mind. I think it's actually more, uh, it's a more successful one. Right. Because people hire employees and do amazing things with them. They also hire agencies and do amazing things too. But I think it's more likely to hire an agency and not think about, does this. Do they align with what I'm doing? You know, do they, do they understand the business? Do they believe in what we're going after? Do they have the same characteristics and traits and character and values and all these different things that may be important? Um, and, uh, and. And some of that filtering, I think, is how you get success when you're, when you're bringing someone in. And I think that's done on the employee level. I don't think it's always done on the, on the contractor level. I think that's almost seen as siloed. I think sometimes that can create. The issue is because you bring in the wrong people and then you have maybe unrealistic expectations of what they can do on their own. Where if you looked at an employee, you would never think that. Right? You never say, like, well, well, this guy is going to be able to just 10x my business without me giving him any more resources and just by himself and no management, no results, and not even vetting who he is and what he can do and all that kind of stuff. Like, you would never do that. Right. Um, and so I kind of think. And then there's certain risks attached to obviously hiring employees, which, you know, and I think the same risks are attached to just truthfully hiring contractors or agencies.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker A: They're just people and they need to align with what you, what you do. They need to be part of your team, they need to be part of your process. They need to understand at your level, they, um, some of the, like, all those things that make an employee a good team member that can kind of get you somewhere. I think those things are the same for contractors because they're just human beings as well. Um, and sometimes it's even more important because more pressure is on potentially that contractor because it's a whole team of people, right? So now you got a whole nother team that you need to kind of make sure is aligned in general with what you're trying to do. And I just wonder if there isn't always, uh, enough of that awareness there. And if there was, there might be more successful relationships, um, between those sides. Um, as I think back to some of our most successful client relationships where we've had really great monetary success and really great relational success. I'm friends with all of them. Um, and by the way, we've done this analysis, uh, about a year ago, Maybe actually about 18 months ago, we did this analysis and we've started only taking in, targeting people that fit those characteristics. And it's been a tremendous um, an amazing upside. Like it's been such a great change. Not that it was bad before, but now almost every single situation is starting to feel like this thing could be as successful as we thought it could be Anyway, when as I look back at the most successful ones they all have, we all align like in many ways, like how we think about business, how we think about the world, the product, what we want, what the goal is and um, how we measure success and mutual respect and all these different things. Um, and so I think that that's important.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: And that might be a factor here.

Speaker B: I'll jump back as we start to wind this down to the um, to the communication. And early on, um, there's a tool that I use that might be helpful to you or to anyone listening that it, that could help to maybe address this a little bit better as well. Um, it's called Humantic H U M M A N T I C A I and it is a tool, it's a plugin, it's a software, it's built by psychologists and business owners and it's, and it, what it does is it, it's a language model that analyzes specifically someone's LinkedIn profile. So if you have a client you're talking to or you're selling to, um, you plug in this, it's a monthly fee. And what it does is it, it does an almost perfect job of analyzing their psychological profile based on disc and some other things, um, from their content. So how they wrote their bio, the posts they've done, the comments they've made. And so what it does is so you know, going into it, what is this? Like what type of person is this, what's their risk aversion, um, what kind of words and things they respond to, what to stay away from, how to address them, what are their main pain points, all from a communication, uh, and a psychological profile. And I found it really, really helpful and especially with teams that I work with, I say, you know, here's, here's the people that are going to be on this phone call. Here are their psychological profiles. Um, and that really helps to um, really direct and manage expectations and say, you know, this guy is risk averse. So when you're talking about all these risks, that's probably not a good thing. Or this person doesn't want to have small talk, they just want the bullet points. Um, um, and crafting that and getting on the same page early on so that you're not going in and you're leaving that call thinking, man, that was a great call. And meanwhile, the client's like, I'll never work with those guys. Or they heard something totally different. And you get in the agreement, you know, two months down the road and you just, you know, you're misaligned. So I would say that's one humanic AI. I would really encourage anybody to check that out. It's really helpful because I think what we're all talking about is relationship, uh, clarity.

Speaker C: Yep.

Speaker B: Communication, expectations, uh, any way that you can, Any way that you can dive deeper into that side of it. And it's really cool that you guys did an analysis of your personal relationships with all your past customers. I think that's, that's really helpful.

Speaker C: Yeah. What they all have in common, understanding for your agency, your business. Identifying what could be a red flag that you've seen before to try to create some guardrails initially so that when you first have discussions with a, uh, potential new client, for instance, there's enough there that you guys can kind of read to go, okay, is this a client that says one thing and then, and then we're going to get into a relationship with them and they're, we're not on the same page. And how do you get on that page? Not that they're not going to be a good client or a bad client, or even a client you'd want to stay away from, but just understand how to navigate that and how to properly communicate. Maybe it's a day workshop where you communicate everything and you feel like you're more on a, on a good starting page. So I think it's, it's just understanding having those things early on. You're in your business to be able to identify those things as a. Where everyone can kind of measure that and guide that. And if that starts off with understanding your clients better, doing the psychological profiles just to really understand. Because I think the biggest issue is it's just, there's, there's an understanding that was never communicated. It's just like any relationship. Right. That's why relationships struggle is because we don't communicate well and there's, we have expectations that are never communicated.

Speaker B: So just make them famous.

Speaker C: Yeah. Just. And make, make your clients famous.

Speaker B: This has been good. This is the first episode, by the way, of the three camera shoot. So, um, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but we all have our cameras now, so go check it out on YouTube. Yeah. And like us, follow us and all that good stuff. Any. Any closing comments, guys?

Speaker A: The man.

Speaker C: Yeah, just keep your feet on the ground. Keep reaching for the stars.

Speaker A: Just listen to this episode again. I'll be listening. Relistening to it.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: All right, guys.

Speaker A: All right.

Speaker B: Talk to you next time.

Speaker A: Bye. Sat.