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Mastering Sales Trips with Jeff Oswalt
144 Plays3 months ago
Join us for a chat with Jeff Oswalt, owner of 14Four, a digital marketing agency known for creating unforgettable campaigns. Jeff shares how in-person client visits and face-to-face interactions have driven his agency’s success for nearly two decades. Discover practical advice on preparing for sales trips, building genuine relationships, and avoiding common pitfalls. Whether you’re an experienced agency owner or just starting out, this episode offers actionable tips to boost your client acquisition strategy.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Crossing the Axis' and Film Production
00:00:06
Speaker
You're listening to Crossing the Axis, the podcast that explores the commercial side of film production with your host, James Kebles.
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome listeners and thank you for tuning in to the
Challenges in Agency Task Assignments
00:00:29
Speaker
show. As many of you know, I believe that too many agency owners aren't achieving their desired results from their salespeople because of their assigning tasks that would be more effectively handled with a marketing lead. That's because I believe the best sales work begins after a potential client calls about your services.
Sales and Marketing Collaboration for Client Goals
00:00:48
Speaker
A good salesperson, for example, closes the deal by deeply understanding the client's goals, eliminates competitive bids from consideration, and facilitates the highest value deal for the agency and the client. I've come to believe that almost everything before that call is best left to marketing.
The Role of In-Person Sales Trips
00:01:03
Speaker
However, there is one major exception to this methodology and that is hiring a salesperson for lead generation through in-person sales trips. In fact, it could be easily argued that in-person sales trips might be the number one method for bringing in new business. It works so well that even overcomes a differentiation because the clients are built on relationships and that is very effective. I know a few agency owners with teams who excel at outbound sales through in-person travel.
00:01:30
Speaker
One of them said to me recently, you can't make friends and memories with marketing. Touche.
Meet Jeff Oswald and His Role at 14-4
00:01:35
Speaker
The person who said that is Jeff Oswald. And he's my guest for today's conversation about the intricacies of effective sales trips. Jeff is the president and partner of an interactive marketing agency called 14-4 that provides UX, design, and development support on digital campaigns, including clients like Nike, AT and&T, the North Face, Google, Toyota, Pepsi, and many others.
14-4's Business Development Success
00:01:56
Speaker
In addition to producing attention grabbing work, 14.4 is almost two decade long existence is a testament to Jeff's belief in building relationships through traveling to meet clients where they are.
00:02:07
Speaker
and creating those face-to-face interactions. Jeff knows what he's talking about when it comes to business development, and he's graciously agreed to share some of his tips and tricks to getting a return on setting aside time and budget for travel. Jeff, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, James. And I feel like this is just a natural extension of conversations you've been having ah for a
Jeff Oswald's Career Journey
00:02:29
Speaker
year or so. So I'm happy to be here and excited to hang out for a bit.
00:02:33
Speaker
I'm so glad you said that's exactly how I feel about it. I was like, oh man, loie we've been talking for about a year now and we just keep having these and these conversations that actually I learned from and I get to, you know, kind of build my own ideas from and all of that. I thought, God, this would be a great episode for others to hear. So that's what this is and I'm glad you're in for it.
00:02:50
Speaker
um Yeah, thanks for the intro. i mean i you know To sort of pick up where we left off a few weeks ago, even, it feels like um you know we we often talk about you know marketing sales, outbound, nurturing, among other things. We don't we talk about music a fair amount too, I feel like. so i don't So I don't want to sell us short on just talking about sales all the time.
00:03:11
Speaker
But yeah, I'm excited to kind of talk through maybe my methodology and you know kind of a disclaimer to some of this too. I was thinking about this this morning that you know a lot of these practices we're going to talk about are things I do and don't do. you know Some of that's changed. You're kind of catching me at a weird spot, you know sort of this post-pandemic um remote workforce dispersed teams, which I'm all for and and certainly we do here at 4 to 4.
Post-Pandemic Business Trips
00:03:38
Speaker
But you know that's ah it's a dynamic and it's a shift in sort of the the days where you could you know fly to a city like New York or San Francisco and go to the Omnicom building and meet with ah BBDO, Shiet, and a bunch of other Omnicom shops kind of in one afternoon. um That looks a little different now. so It's interesting to kind of think through what's worked and what continues to work, but yeah, I think I still stick by. you know It's hard to make friends and memories through a Zoom call.
00:04:09
Speaker
I love that line. I loved it so much because it does show the strength of the other of these visits and why they're useful and good.
Importance of Face-to-Face Interactions
00:04:17
Speaker
And I want to get into the changes that you've talked about, too, because I think I'm kind of curious. I can imagine a scenario where it's gotten harder to build those kinds of clients or maybe it's gotten easier because now it's more special. And that's the thing that's different versus a Zoom call and stuff like that. But before we get into all of that, I want to know a little bit about you have to establish your credibility, Jeff.
00:04:38
Speaker
yeah We have to let people know what the words that have they come from you have value. I want to hear, in fact, I don't know if I know totally your background. How did you get into this business? I started well i started with a game company way back in the day. so I'm doing PR and marketing for a video game company, a studio actually. Those of you that are listening and are old enough to remember the titles, Myst and Riven. I worked for those guys. It was called Cyan at the time.
00:05:04
Speaker
i think they're cyan worlds now and learned a lot about just i mean the the scenes in the art that they created were just beautiful and won several awards so learn a lot about taking your time and doing things right from there i moved into kind of this is where i pass parallel a little bit but moved into more of a production background so doing a lot of Film, um worked for a couple of different companies. The last sort of production company I worked for was called North by Northwest. Learned a lot there too. they were At the time, I was there doing a lot of film, kind of like direct to DVD, I guess, back in the day, work. And then a lot of commercials with different agencies, mostly regional agencies in um Oregon, Washington, some in Idaho. but So a lot of that kind of work.
00:05:50
Speaker
um And then my two business partners approached me and said, hey, we want to start something else. And the timing was just kind of right for me to take a lot of what I'd learned working with agencies at North by Northwest and and putting that into 14.4 and kind of servicing that market. But from a digital production standpoint and design and animation and less on the, well, back in the day, we were shooting 16 35 millimeter beta. Um, so away from that to, uh, yeah, more digital. So y'all thought, okay, we know what, we're smarter. We could do this better if we had our own company and we're going to go do it. And you thought you had some kind of, some kind of expertise that you would play into. How did not tell us a little bit about 14, four and your role there.
00:06:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's for 14.4. It was very similar to we would come into ad agencies at the time we're in our focus out of the gate was um certainly Seattle was kind of our home market where we're located in Spokane, Washington, which is a short for ish hour drive to the east. But so we spent a lot of time again, kind of what we're talking about here on the road or being over in Seattle and and working with agencies over there. so You had gosh some awesome agencies back of it when we were starting in 2007 with like Wexley School for Girls and Creature. you know Seattle really had a ah really cool creative community at the time. DDB had a great team there. that we and so They were selling in you know digital campaign components to their clients.
00:07:22
Speaker
um Microsoft, McDonald's, North Face, we did some stuff for Red Hook, Brewing. Those were the sort of the early jobs. So it was kind of it was an easy one-to-one in the sense that we were coming in and still working with creatives and account people at agencies. um The focus was just more on you know websites or ah at that point, ah flash animations and very engaging in motion oriented websites and dynamic sort of digital campaigns versus, you know, the hiring the director and the talent um that you would do on the film side. Is that because you saw a need in that ah area or you had someone around you who had a particular skill? You come from this production background. You didn't do a production company, per se. You went, you know, a different, slight you know, different direction. So why why did you do that, though? What did you see?
00:08:11
Speaker
Um, I think it wasn't so much, it was more we heard, um, especially my partners too were hearing, you know, they were getting calls from their contacts in Seattle saying, Hey, we just sold in a website, you know, is that one word or two and how do we build this? And so, um, you know, almost agencies sort of selling in a component to a campaign and then going, Oh, the client bought that now we have to do it. So we were getting, I wouldn't say panicked calls, but more, Hey, can you help us out? Um, and so we thought there's, there's a real market here to kind of focus. And again, this was 2007, eight, nine focus really on helping service agencies specifically. So at that point we weren't doing a much direct work, direct to brand work. Well, your work is beautiful. It's got a stunning pop field to it. I encourage listeners to go to your website and check it out. What's your role at the company?
00:08:59
Speaker
um When we started, it was everything. I was processing payroll, stocking the kitchen, doing sales, doing some account work. Now, it's it's still a lot of biz dev. we have a biz We have a sales team, three other people, so I help work with them and provide support as they need it. And then I work pretty closely with our creative team as well and our account team. so um We have some really smart tech leads. I don't write a line of code, so um I really rely on them to help with that. so My day-to-day now is more focused on sort of that outbound client service, biz dev, and then creative pieces. and How many mouths are you having to feed? How many FTEs do you have?
00:09:44
Speaker
We're at 22 right now. So yeah, it's a nice size. i I enjoy it. We've been as big. I think our biggest was 36 or seven. I can't remember the exact head count, but so we've kind of, you know, and we've been as as small as one. Um, so yeah, we've, we've done it all. I like the, the size is pretty nice. It's, you can get a lot of really good work done and it's a good culture for us.
00:10:09
Speaker
I had an observation when you were talking. I didn't put together until just now that since you're in Spokane, Washington, which is remote by most standards, it's maybe created a force function just to do any business. Even to Seattle's four hours, it's just far enough away where you do have to make those sales trips and then it builds a discipline and then it becomes ah you know a skill that you're really good at and maybe becomes the lead generation. What's the difference between Seattle and New York? you know let's Might as well just go since we're we're so remote. That's the nature of our business anyway.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, did you just you just shorten this podcast to five minutes because you just summed it up? No, I mean, I'm glad you came to that. I was going to sort of weave that narrative, but absolutely. When we started the company, we knew, again, because of the contacts we had in Seattle, we knew that the work we wanted to do was going to be nationally focused eventually, and you know we needed to sort of be in the markets where that type of work was being bought and done and produced. And so yeah, absolutely. A lot of trips to Seattle right out of the gate. And then it became, well, you know, what's another half hour to San Francisco? What's another half hour to LA? So that was kind of our trajectory was definitely Seattle, Portland. um And then I don't know, not many months in, um started going right to San Francisco and and l LA. And so interestingly, we found probably better traction in San Francisco and l LA, Seattle, you know, the Seattle Spokane thing, like any, anybody listening with kind of, you know, first city, second city in any state, you know, there was a little like, but wait, you're in Spokane. Can you really handle our, you know, Microsoft projects? Don't you guys park your cars in the front yard? And, you know,
00:11:54
Speaker
It's the chance for Seattle people to act to Spokane the way New York or l LA people act to Seattle. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it was fun. I mean, a lot of good jokes. I think, you know, again, to your point that the work speaks for itself and the team we had was talented. So it was it was more just suggest than I think ever really hurt us. But Yeah, going back to your point, we we were traveling to Seattle a lot. ah The client base was there for the first six months to a year. And so a lot, we were there probably every other week. So again, it it was a good habit forming for that sort of trip sort of idea and and spending FaceTime.
00:12:31
Speaker
Well, and i have to you have to actually build that in though. I mean, I don't think it's easily taken for granted because you have to go, okay, I'm going to be gone a bit. How does this place run when I'm not here? ah Having the money, you know, really thinking about spend and return on those types of things with a little bit more intentionality than if you were just doing dialing for dollars and doing remote and LinkedIn or something like that.
00:12:51
Speaker
Yeah, and I think you know now too you could compare those all those metrics um are easy to capture. You know how much you spend on travel. You can look at how much if you're doing a marketing campaign that's maybe social media focused or email. You know what the cost and the return on that is. So yeah, you can look at that. I mean i think travel is an expensive capital investment upfront. Plain tickets aren't always cheap. Hotels aren't cheap.
00:13:18
Speaker
and you look at what it takes to run an email campaign for a month it's a fraction of what it would take to take two trips to la in a month so yeah it's a bit of a big swing i think and and one that's a little bit of a slow burn and you know.
00:13:34
Speaker
you can feel it pay off, but there's definitely times where it feels like a trip is not as fruitful as maybe you had hoped it would have been. But then, you know, the week after the trip, you get a bunch of, you get a couple of phone calls or follow ups or, you know, that sort of thing that, that helped sort of turn it into something that's, Oh, that was worth it. Okay. So let's get into it. How many business trips have you made this summer, 2024 and it's entering August?
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah, I've, it's picked up for me a little bit this year, more so than probably since 2020. Um, I would say I've traveled more so far. So I'm, I don't know how many trips, let's say probably 10 year to date. If I had to guess eight to 10 and those have been ah feud a to LA few to San Francisco, a few to Seattle, one in New York, one to Denver.
00:14:25
Speaker
I think that's it off the top of my head. I might be leaving something out, but that's the big ones. um As a company, though, we've gone to Dallas probably three times a year. Chicago wants New York as a company, probably seven times.
00:14:41
Speaker
that we've been there in person so yeah the it's having a team that help can help do that and our team is our sales team we have one full-time person in seattle one full-time person in austin texas and one in new york so it it helps to have people within striking distance of big bigger markets and that that's helped yeah They kind of serve as like satellite functions, right? Yeah, I mean a trip from Austin to Chicago is the same time and cost as it would be from you know Spokane to say San Francisco. It's you know a couple hours on a plane and you're there. and When you've taken all these sales trips, what percentage would you guess is made of current clients versus new clients? like
00:15:23
Speaker
how much of it is account management, you know talking to clients you currently have, making sure you're close, maybe trying to build greater projects with them, or, hey, I would like to introduce 14.4 and see what you guys have going on and if there's a fit. Yeah, great question. When I'm planning it for a trip for me, and I think my sales team does does this similarly to You sort of have your, I want to have these new meetings. I've been emailing this person or we just connected on LinkedIn, had a quick back and forth. I want to go see this person. They're high on my list. So you may have, let's say you're going to be gone for three days. You may have 10 of those that you're really hoping kind of your tier like these are new contacts. I know if I can get in front of them and spend a lunch or a coffee or a happy hour or something like that do an activity even doesn't always have to be food or coffee. I know that's going to help us build that relationship. And then you kind of have your your other meetings that are people that have become friends over the years um that you know, you can text the day of and say, Hey, by the way, I'm in town and you know, I don't have anything going on in a couple hours. You want to connect for a quick hello over a coffee or something. So I try to break those out and really focus on the new, but you know, the reality is you might of those 10 get three or four, so 30 or 40% that actually turn in of those new. And then you would hope with the people you already have a relationship with, that's more like 60 to 70%.
00:16:50
Speaker
We do have a term we call them AGMs, which is another great meeting and it drips with sarcasm. And so we always try to avoid ah sales trips that are full of AGMs just because that's, you know, that's like no offense, James, but you know, hanging out with you on it for breakfast is, is an AGM. I get value from that. We get to compare notes, but we're I'm not leaving that meeting right in a scope of work or anything like that. So good. I love it. So I love the AGMs.
00:17:17
Speaker
how do you reach out to the potential clients that you wanna meet? um When I'm reaching out to somebody that maybe I haven't met with in person, I try to keep it short. I try to keep it specific. So things like, what are you doing Wednesday at 10 a.m.? I know, you know, they're, hey, can we go grab a cup of coffee? Hey, it was thanks for the connection on LinkedIn, you know, but I'd love to get a coffee. I'm in town for some meetings, some other meetings, and I would love to connect with you. So I try to keep it short and very specific to a time and a day.
00:17:49
Speaker
you know more often than not the person i respond with oh i can't meet at ten o'clock on wednesday but i'm available from three to four if you wanna swing by my neighborhood coffee shop great on it and then can i have some redundancy because again with travel you never know so sometimes i'll double book myself knowing that one might fall through or if they both confirm i can push one a half hour on either side so there is a bit of um you have to be sort of very fluid in your schedule and know that at some point you know that's why it's not bad to double book if you have an agm is one meeting but a new client is the other you can always bump the gm a half hour hopefully.
00:18:29
Speaker
I love how specific you are in your request for these types of things. It's positioning in some ways, you right? You're saying, Hey, do you want to get together? I'm in town that week. That's hard for anyone to get their head around. They have to think they have to do stuff. But if you say, i'm Hey, I'm going to be in your neighborhood on Wednesday around noon, you want to get together. It's saying very specifically what's going on and easier for people to react if they're free or not. And therefore more likely to get a response. I think you could extend that same theory all the way up to how you marketing your business. I think, you know, be specific and clear. yeah The goal of the trip or any sort of travel is to spend FaceTime with someone. And so me sending a link with our latest deck of work is great, but it's a loss for what I'm trying to to achieve and they're in a trip. So I think to your point, what I'm hoping to do is be very specific and not sort of friend zone myself into like, Oh, just send me your latest. And you know, I'll make sure the creative see it or I'll make sure the producer see it or I'll make sure the people that need to see it, see it, we get those kind of emails all day. So if you're sending out that trip, that pre trip email saying,
00:19:35
Speaker
Hey, check out our latest. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to be in town. but By the way, I'm going to be in town is almost excusing the whole reason to get together. So the whole reason to get together is to spend time and then follow up with the recent work after that. When you're thinking about who you want to meet with, certainly proximity there in that town is one variable. But I would imagine a more important variable is that you've seen something from them that you believe fits with what you like. You have an idea like either They do really great work that's similar to yours and you think since you do great work and they do great work, you should know each other or they do bad work. How tightly focused are you on these people as potential clients and what you know about them and how you believe 14-4 can help them?
00:20:21
Speaker
I would say in the early days, it's a lot of going on websites and seeing the kind of work either the brand is doing or the agency is doing. Is that a fit for our current skill set of the team? I mean, we've been in business for almost 18 years. So certainly our our sweet spot has always been digital. But within that, we depending on the makeup of the team, we have certain strengths and and things that maybe aren't as strong at certain times. So it's sort of knowing the team, knowing how to position that, and remembering that, obviously, while I'm out there as the face of the team, who I'm really selling is the developers and the people at 424, that culture, that team. You can work with a lot of different people. I believe we're the best because you get our whole team. Like you know our creative director, Harry, we have we have the only Harry.
00:21:05
Speaker
so but to Yeah, talent-wise and culture-wise. And if that's somebody you want on your team to help you get this project done, then we're the only people that offer that. If I were starting out, again, day one today, it would be focused on people who fit the profile of work we want to do or are capable of doing. So yes, that does look a lot like what types of work our agency is doing or brand is doing.
00:21:30
Speaker
in the digital space and can we come along and offer value to that i think now it looks more like going to a market meeting with somebody and they're like you need to meet my good friend that works at this place they don't really do everything you do but they can really use you and that's you know i'm not gonna really get that over an email back and forth. I'm not really going to get that maybe in a Zoom or ah a Google Hangout, but you know those calls are different. then That's more like a phone call. It's sort of question and answer. you know It's a little more binary than it is free flow like a coffee can be, or a dinner, or going to a baseball game, or something like that, where you have that time to sort of unpack things more than just
00:22:12
Speaker
Do you do this? Yes, I do. What do you do with this kind of work? We do this. you know and that That to me is more of a Zoom interaction or and an email is almost just a more stripped down version of that versus having somebody sort of undivided attention. The thing that I sense from you and I am getting in this conversation and I've gotten it in previous conversations is just the commitment you have developing the relationship with the person. like That's what you're doing, right? Even your quote back to me about you can't have that with marketing reinforces that. That's your approach on that.
00:22:41
Speaker
If I'm to put on my sales hat and only you know I would think, what do i at the end of the day, if I'm a salesperson and I'm doing sales for 14.4 or a paper company, um when I retire, what what do I have from that? because i've Certainly, you know all the financial things you want to say. but At the end of the day, if I haven't made relationship and friendship and people and been around people that have made me help me grow both and professionally and personally, that to me from a sales standpoint is the real takeaway at the end of the day. like I want to be around people, so I do lean into the relationship really hard because I believe that you know that connection can make me better at my job even if they're not going to give me a project.
00:23:23
Speaker
And so I think it's that holistic approach that, you know, as a salesperson, what are you left with when you sort of retire or maybe make a career pivot? Hopefully it's a group of friends that would still want to go on a walk with you when you show up in New York on a Wednesday morning.
00:23:38
Speaker
You know, that's important. ah So I try to take that and and weigh that as much as the value of obviously being out there and and trying to get people to hire 14 for. Do you ever do things like events? Yeah, we do. Yes. 100%. We've thrown parties. We've use those for talent recruitment, biz dev, everything you name it. I think for me personally, I would prefer to take six to eight potential clients out to, you know, a concert at the Hollywood Bowl or an LA FC soccer match or, you know, abode excursion on the sound in Seattle or something. I think I get a lot more business and value out of those interactions. Parties can be awesome, but parties mean we need to staff it with all our sales team and now suddenly everybody's traveling to one location. We're kind of putting all we're starting to put all our bags and our eggs into that basket. They still can work. The the problem is like if you're going to throw a big party, let's say, in for South by
00:24:38
Speaker
You can have up to 200 people at this venue. There's no way you can talk to 200 people, even if you have your whole team of 20 there. and And what I've noticed when we do that is, again, if you're breaking out the tier of like guest lists, the people that you really want at the party of 200, there's 10 to 20 that you really want to interact with and show a good time.
00:25:00
Speaker
And then there's kind of the next people that are the AGMs and then there's kind of just like friends because you want it to be packed, you know, and suddenly you start start to take those those price points, right? I mean, now this is the business owner side, you start putting a price per head um on the guest list. And it's like, man, I just paid for a bunch of my friends to come and hang out.
00:25:20
Speaker
when really all I wanted to do was pay for these 20 people I wanted to talk to. So again, I find for a South by Southwest example, your time is better spent trying to do smaller, more meaningful um events or or interactions, or just take those 10 people to a really nice dinner and then go crash a competitor's party with them.
00:25:42
Speaker
but Let them pay for the open bar. um I'll pay for the nice wine and the steaks. So you you build your your sales trips around the competitors big party. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and lie to you that I haven't done that.
00:25:58
Speaker
Oh, I love it. When it comes to something like South by Southwest or, you know, a big industry sort of where everybody's going to be together. Yeah. We'll all go to the the party where that artist is going to be performing that night. But before that, why don't we all go get a nice dinner on 14 four, you know, and then we'll show up there together. You know, there's the competitive side of you. There is something about walking in with the 10 clients that you just take at a dinner that that competitor also wanted to have time with. But now you're hanging out with them at their party.
00:26:25
Speaker
yeah You just keep reinforcing why I like you so much. I love it. yeah Well, that's that's my other, you know, that's the running competitive skiing running side of me. So that trickles in.
00:26:36
Speaker
Why don't you give us a little bit of ah a journey, give us a story of how long it takes, you know, what's the lead time for identifying a potential client, meeting with them in-person travel, developing the relationship afterwards, and then getting to a deal. Is there kind of a case study that comes to mind and kind of how maybe two, one where it went really better than quicker than expected and one where it took forever?
00:27:00
Speaker
That's a great question i mean i have the lens of being able to look back over several years of doing this so. Currently i have a great strong network so you know it's easier for me now that i was to go into a city and get a bunch of meetings so.
00:27:17
Speaker
I want to caveat everything we're saying with you know that that does get easier the more you know relationships you make, obviously, the network grows and it becomes more solid and less cold and more nurture. so i This still happens. I was in LA, when was that? Two weeks ago and I was setting up the trip kind of as I talked through, you know here's sort of my tier ones, I want to make sure I get in front of these people.
00:27:42
Speaker
Here's a tier two, you know, people that I've met with a few times, maybe yeah they haven't reached out to about any work recently. And I reached out to one of those folks kind of a tier two and said, Hey, I'm going to be in town. Did you want to catch up for slice of pizza? And I know this person, I've met with him a bunch of times and he says, sorry, I can't, I'm busy, but do you guys do animation?
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, we do animation. Okay, great. I'm going to put you in contact with my producer that's on this other animation project. They're going to reach out. It puts me in contact. Two hours later, that producer reaches out. Four hours later, we're bidding on a project. so ah that likeke That took zero in-person, but had I not had the in-persons, I don't know that it would have gone that way.
00:28:25
Speaker
And so that's an example of where A, in person is helped B, I didn't even take this person out to a pizza or anything. But a job came out of it. And I never met with I didn't meet with that client when I was in LA. So But having had that already and having had those shared experiences allows me to send that three to five sentence email. Hey, I'm going to be in town. Haven't seen you for a while. Let's connect. There's no sales pitch in that other than just like, let's spend a half hour together. And so that led to work.
00:28:57
Speaker
Now there's other times we go to a market or I go to a market and I meet someone and they're so fun to hang out with and they're always up to go out. After maybe three trips and it hasn't turned into a bid, they might slide from lunch to a late morning coffee in k Croissant. um And that's not because I'm there to obviously win work. you know So I do value them as a friend or I do value that relationship as somebody I want to stay in touch with because obviously there's a connection there and you never know where they're going to be in four or five years. So that's worth it. That's not a loss. It's just not you know it's not that tier one um sort of thing. And so maybe they turn into more of that another great meeting or AGM.
00:29:42
Speaker
And how long would you say a typical example is of how long a lead time it takes from that call to a job lands? Not counting the first example of four hours. that That's just tricky. I am always surprised how fast it can happen and how slow. you know I certainly think for us working with agencies, the lead time is a lot quicker.
00:30:05
Speaker
Typically, the agencies have already done the work of selling in the campaign to the client and they're ready to make something. So when they reach out to us, it's very, hey, we're ready to go. We need to be in market in a month or three months.
00:30:17
Speaker
When we're working with our direct-to-brand clients, that's a little bit longer of a lead time. They're running programs throughout the year. Those things change. um Direct-to-brand teams, you know sometimes they have the luxury of making changes up to the last minute. Typically, when we work with direct-to-brand, we're working with internal sort of agencies almost, and you know they're their own client in a way. So, oh, we decided we're just going to push that out by a month. So while those lead times, maybe the work we bid on gets in faster. So as a sales rep, I'm mix excited because hey, we got a bid out the door, the scope, like we're just waiting on them to say go now, but it's our job that can look a little bit longer than say an agency on average. That's really hard to answer James. I wish I could sit here and tell you, you know, Hey, Jeff, find a new agency job in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. How long would that take you? I don't know. That might take me a week. It might take me a year. The likelihood is I probably know somebody at an agency in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that I could in a day or two get in front of and talk about 4-2-4, but they might not have that kind of that right work or they might not be doing a bunch of digital work. Do you do any other, do you do any marketing? Do you do a monthly newsletter? are you do Are you active in social media? Are you doing thought leadership and insights or anything like that in addition to the sales trip?
00:31:38
Speaker
No, that's the short answer. And I hate, I say that was so much like, I hate that I'm being that transparent. I wish I could tell you, yes, I have, and it's ironic, I'm doing this with you, but I do have an aversion to sort of thought leadership. I mean, I don't, I, it's probably just being in the ad industry for so long. Anybody that's a, ah you know, a thought leader or a, a coach is, it gets a bit of an eye roll from me. And I, I don't, those people do provide value. They can really help. So I recognize my own errancy in proclaiming that. So yes, I wish I was more comfortable as probably just more my own self doubt. I wish I was more comfortable in posting on LinkedIn more. I do think there is probably value in that from a sales standpoint. Actually, I don't think I know there is.
00:32:28
Speaker
I wish we were better at newsletters. you know we We did make a run at it, but yeah at the end of the day, we we take our the ah the money we invest in travel and relationship is probably what most shops would invest in that newsletter team in a couple of designers or a junior designer and copywriter to make sure that you know every other week there's a newsletter going out or there's some new design update to the website. we just We've sort of taken that resource both of time and talent and shifted that more to the relationship piece of things. So you know i don't I don't know that one's necessarily better than the other. I think doing more thought leadership and newsletters will lead to a quicker sales cycle. So if you were to start out now you know in the climate we're in, I would say probably newsletters and some sort of like social media.
00:33:17
Speaker
um outreach is going to be a way stronger tool than just jumping on a plane and showing up at LAX and saying, all right, let's Uber to this office. I think it works for you. I think it works for you because it's a strength that's been embedded into the DNA of your company for whatever reason. We've discussed a few things that have just kind of created what it is and it works for you. So I don't, there is no right, it's not right or wrong. It's if you, and hope that the one of the takeaways is from conversation is if something's working from you, great. Maybe here's some things to put fuel in the fire and make it even better. And if things aren't working for you, rethink that and maybe try one of these other approaches or tweak the system a little bit.
00:33:57
Speaker
Yeah, and I would say much like we'll lean into email um outreach kind of cold outreach campaigns. And I would encourage somebody that's maybe doing more newsletters and thought leadership sort of things to maybe jump on a plane and and show up at the city. And you know, there's been times James, I booked trips without any meetings, just knowing that if I show up, and I still can't book a meeting, being there will get me a meeting and it works. Hey, I'm here now. Oh, you're here? Yeah.
00:34:25
Speaker
I told you I was coming. Oh, yeah, well, okay, great. Yeah, I can go get a coffee. I mean, it's just there is sort of just being there and taking that a little bit of a leap of faith. I'm not saying travel across country to do that. But you know, most people live within an hour flight from some big city or somewhere where they could benefit from doing a little on the ground sales work or memory making. Making friends. I mean, that's just what we, you know, that's what it boils down to. Like I said, making friends and making memories. And I think most people want to work with people they like, you know, that is a differentiator at the end of the day, certainly skillset and ability to perform the job. But also you want to know that during the process of doing that work, this person and you share some sort of bond. So what tips and tricks have you developed that we haven't talked about? What do's and don'ts do you have any kind of lasting thoughts on the sales trip approach?
00:35:17
Speaker
Oh, that's a great one. What's worked well for me is a lot of those, Hey, do you want to meet for a run tomorrow morning? Hey, do you want to go, you know, something that's just more than, Hey, do you want to meet up at the Starbucks or Hey, I'll take you to dinner at the sushi place? Yeah, that's fun too. But I found over the years, it's just, Hey, do you want to meet at this park and go for a walk or Hey, do you want to meet up tomorrow morning, um, down by the Santa Monica pier and we'll do a jog and then get a smoothie or something after.
00:35:43
Speaker
Another thing I love doing is like doing super touristy things with people in their own cities. That's great. you know That's like it's such a weird thing, but like, hey James, you want to go take a duck boat ride? I've never done that in Seattle. And you're like, nobody does that. Only tourists do is like, I know, let's go do it. And you know there's something fun about that because you as the potential client who is going to be like, yeah, if you're going to pay for me to go on a duck boat, sure, I guess. Right. I've always been kind of curious about it anyway. Now you're giving me a reason to. And I didn't have to be the one that said I wanted to do it. Yeah. So I think, you know, those, those sort of events or, or field trips, whatever you want to call them play pretty well, force people to be a tourist in their city would be one thing I would say is a, is a definite do. So follow one up after that. I would say the other do is if you you email, let's say 30 people to try to line up meetings, and you end up with a nice schedule of, let's say four to six meetings a day on a two day trip, you still have, let's say that six meetings, you still have 24 follow ups after the trip. So the week I get back from a trip is a really busy week for me.
00:36:50
Speaker
because I'm following up, hey, sorry, I missed you last week. Had a great time, went to this game. Hopefully we can catch a baseball game next time or take that duck boat trip. But um you know here's our latest work or hey, I'd love to jump on a video chat with you. So i you know I look at those interactions as still valuable. And those are other tools in the toolbox, like I said. Or maybe you come back from a trip and you have a thought leadership post you're going to put on LinkedIn or some posts on your social media channels that sort of reim reinforce that.
00:37:20
Speaker
Oh man, I didn't meet with Jeff this time, but next time he comes down, I want to make sure we get some time together. Jeff Boswell, you've been informative and transparent and, uh, very helpful. Thank you so much. I know you're going to hate hearing this, but you're becoming a thought leader now. youre I'll add that to LinkedIn. You just did it just now. so and Thank you for doing it on this show. ah Your wisdom is great. and I've really enjoyed getting to know you over the past year. This conversation has been such a great continuation of the previous conversations. Your company kicks ass.
00:37:53
Speaker
I have great respect for it. Everyone should be checking it out. And congratulations on the great success and how well you build relationships. Oh, I appreciate that, James. if yeah I'm smiling ear to ear. I know this is a podcast. But it's been fun to hang out with you and get to know you. And I appreciate what you're doing here in this space. um I think it's a great outlet. And you've had some really smart ah folks on this show. So I'm happy to be included in that. But by no means, I pale in comparison to some of the other folks you've had. So it's fun to watch and listen um as you grow this podcast. Right on.
00:38:31
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Crossing the Axis with James Keblis. If you're interested in joining the conversation or have a topic you'd like covered, please drop a note at keblis.com. That's K-E-B-L-A-S dot.com.