Four ways to improve your case studies

For various reasons, we’re massive fans of case studies when deploying any new business efforts . One reason is simply that they can’t be argued with. While every agency blabs about how unique they are and the only ones that “really get under the skin” of their clients, etc etc., the truth is that everyone says this, and the only things unique about you are your staff (unless they work for more than one company!) and the work you’ve produced.

This is why we recommend very ‘front and centre’ use of case studies in all cold communications. Here are four ways to make better use of case studies in your creds and comms:

GO BACKWARDS: Most case studies we see start with The Client, followed by The Brief, followed by The Method, then The Problem, then The Solution, then… etc etc. If you’re lucky, at the VERY end you get The Results - arguably the MOST IMPORTANT part of the entire case study. So start with this (oh, and make sure the results are in a REALLY BIG font).

TRIM THE DETAIL: Remember that you want your cold prospect to see this case study and have questions for you. “How did you achieve these incredible results?”… “What time scale did it take to implement this?”… etc. Don’t give them a page full of text and every detail. Leave them wanting to get in touch to find out more.

SHOW OFF: As well as the results, make use of all the space you’ve just gained by trimming the text to show off your work. If it was creative work, SHOW IT OFF! Don’t leave huge white borders because “it’s your house style”, make use of the space to impress your audience.

USE TESTIMONIALS: If you’re thinking “but we don’t have any “150% increase in sales” results to share” then use testimonials. Your client’s MD saying how much impact you had on business or how creative you were in the face of a tough brief… these are results too.

Here to help

We have a surprising number of conversations with companies that already have their own in-house new business person, but want to know “what their options are”. It feels a little cutthroat to pursue such discussions, but you might be surprised to hear that you don’t have choose between us - you can have an internal cold channel champion AND an external business development agency.

FIGHT!

(Only joking).

If we encounter the objection “we already have someone in-house” we don’t try to oust them, we just want to be sure there’s not something we can do to assist them. Invariably the disadvantage of an in-house person (apart from them being head-hunted VERY quickly if they’re any good) is that 1) you’re now a sales manager (just like you never dreamt of), 2) they live in the very cold and lonely world of being told “no” for 99% of his or her day while the rest of the company have more ‘fun’ jobs, and 3) after a short while burning through their little black book of contacts, they run dry. (There are way more to numbers to list but I didn’t want the post to get too negative).

Bringing in an external agency on top of your staffer can help with plenty of those ‘issues’. Firstly, we’re all over data. If you’re running dry on prospects, we can build new databases for your in-house specialist to chew through. Secondly, we’re like-minded folk who know just how tough a nut new business can be to crack. Having sympathetic colleagues to bitch with on the phone is great for morale. And finally (well, for this post anyway…) we’re pretty smart cookies ourselves and are always happy to share the various methods we’ve developed over the years with our partners.

So, don’t see us as ONLY an alternative to in-house; we also play well with others.

One size does not fit all

It’s very easy (and quite tempting) to spend time putting together a creds deck specifically for use in the cold channel and then pop the kettle on, safe in the knowledge that you’re done with that until your next unnecessary internal rebrand/renaming.

However, it’s worth remembering that in the course of your new business endeavours you’ll probably be approaching a fairly varied selection of targets. You’ll likely hit up some small teams with a big freelance roster… some start-ups… maybe some industry giants. Because of this, you always need to be prepared to review your static creds and ask, “are these as targeted as they could be?”

One area where we see lots of mismatches occurring is with testimonials.

If you’re about to hit a bunch of local companies to cash in on that ‘stay local’ vibe, make sure your testimonials come from sources that these prospects will relate to. If you’re hitting a four-man operation a mere two years into their existence, a quote from IKEA (about work you did six years ago) isn’t going to resonate with them. Yes, it will probably impress them, but it might also make them think “blimey - we don’t have the kind of budget IKEA must have spent” and file you away under “too big for us”.

Make sure all your testimonials are about the same ‘scale’ as the prospects you’re approaching. Show them output similar to the work you’d like to be doing for them, with relevant testimonials and budgets. If at your first point of contact you already seem like a great match, you’re now ahead of your competitor (who was so busy impressing people that they frightened half of them away).

Remember: don’t wear a suit if everyone is in flip-flops.

Know thy enemy

Any new client that comes on board with Sponge NB gets a thorough MOT and servicing. Not only do we kick the tires and check the oil, but often we also punch the doors in and then set fire to the sunroof.

Abandoning this immediately prohibiting metaphor, one of the aspects of working with Sponge that seems to fire up all new clients (besides some STUNNING new business development, obv) is having an outsider tell them honestly how they look to the outside world.

If the “About Us” page is a sprawling 20-minute read that we feel should be culled, we’ll be way more honest about this than any friends, colleagues or nans would be.

if you’re not quite ready to bring us on board (you short-sighted fools) then there’s an easy way to hold a mirror up to yourselves, and that’s to take a grumbling look at your competition. Pick the three “other ones” you keep crashing into and take an emotionless tour around their world. Fire up their website. Do they immediately launch into case studies? Do you? Which of you think has the most impact in the first five seconds of contact?

Do any of your competitors’ sites immediately spark up a full-screen showreel that leaves you in no doubt as to the work they’ve produced and the brands they’ve served? Does it impress you? Why don’t you have one of those?

Are their site and creds littered with glowing testimonials while yours is full of self-penned hyperbole? Which do you think has the most impact on a first-time visitor?

It’s very easy to sneer at competitors and ‘know’ that you are better, but the fact is they are also somehow still in business because a potential client of yours did their due diligence and didn’t choose you. It might not be down to how you appear to an unguided visitor, but why not give yourself every chance to do better.

Give your team a task: visit five of your competitors’ sites and make a list ONLY of things you prefer about their site to yours. At worst your team are now more familiar with the landscape you operate in. At best, you might find it uncovers some failings in your self-presentation that you wouldn’t have rectified otherwise.

Good luck out there; it’s a jungle (and some of it is in HTML).

Four good reasons to invest in new business development

The objection we hear most often when approaching companies about helping them do better new business development is: “we’re already busy with work; we don’t need any more”. Ironically, THIS is the perfect scenario to do some effective new biz. If you wait until you NEED new clients, you’ll be operating under stress, rushing a process that needs space to accommodate the inherently long leads times.

This objection also ignores the fact that running a new business campaign brings more benefits than the obvious. Because people like lists, I shall stop writing in paragraphs and instead switch to a four-point list. Enjoy.

WHY IS NEW BUSINESS IMPORTANT?

1) Growth. The obvious point of New Biz is to boost your revenue and client base. Reaching out to new companies and partners moves you away from relying on the phone ringing and email pinging with incoming enquiries. It also means you’ll create new opportunities to increase your referrals from these new contacts.

2) Image. New Biz can be incredibly beneficial to your company’s image. Even in instances where you don’t necessarily succeed in securing work, your ‘Rolodex’ grows as more companies who had never heard of you previously, now know who you are and what you do.

3) Opportunities. This could be where you talk to someone new to find that there is some business to be done… just not the business you were expecting. You may have contacted a prospect about “service X” only to find them asking if you can provide “service Y” instead.

4) Relationships. We’ve had relationships that have grown over years. From a pitch that didn’t close… to a keeping in touch… to a friendly regular ‘checking in’… many of our strongest relationships started simply by being smart, reliable and consistent in outreach. By the time you close that long-lead new business you’re already ahead of the game on a personal level.

There are even more great reasons to be doing better new business development, but we’ll save those for when we talk inperson. Until then, happy hunting.

If you're going to be wrong, at least be consistent

When I was a young man, I worked for Xerox Copy Centre. This was back before most companies had all their own office equipment, so I worked in an industry supplying the services of photocopying, report binding and ruining original works of art by chewing them up in ADHs (automatic document handlers, abbreviation fans).

As a result of my many years working in the industry I was able to tell you the GSM (grams per square meter (wow - you abbreviation fans must be having a field day!)) of any piece of paper simply by giving it a gentle twiddle between my fingers. No restaurant menu, business card or waiting room magazine was safe when I was around. My friends and family LOVED it (I’d say “you can ask them if you don’t believe me” but mostly they don’t talk to me now).

A similarly absorbed ‘skill’ came after many years as a writer/editor, specifically that of being able to read any document and spot inconsistencies without even looking for them. Obvious issues include people simply not understanding how to use the basics such as commas, apostrophes and semi-colons, but a more tricky issue to spot (and one I’d urge you to check for when creating any copy to accompany your new business efforts - see, there WAS a point to this!) is simple inconsistencies in ‘rules’ that exist in your writing.

One simple example is referring to a company as a “they”. Companies are an “it” so you have to structure sentences saying thing like “Sponge was key to our success” rather than “Sponge were key to our success”.

You could say “THE TEAM at Sponge were key to our success” but by rights a company is always a singular entity.

HOWEVER… people don’t like this rule as they think it makes their company feel ‘spikey’ and ‘cold’ as an “it”. If you want to refer to your company as if it’s a team rather than an entity, fill your boots, but please make sure you then ALWAYS refer to it this way.

Back in my Marketing Director days (yes, I’m aware I’ve had lots of jobs) I would sometimes weed out agencies based on the thinnest of criteria. Not sticking to your own rules when writing was one of them.

Chemistry vs coffee

There was a time we would be VERY fussy about what meetings we would accept for our clients. If a company hired us to run their new business development, we wouldn’t want to then burn the first month of their engagement sending them round the country to drink coffee and deliver presentations to indifferent prospects before heading back to the office wondering why they wasted a day out of the office.

…And then someone had the smart idea of taking the phrase “coffee and creds” and turning it into “chemistry meeting”. It was like changing “Coke Lite” to “Coke Zero” - exactly the same hollow experience, just with a slightly better name.

So now we have to tell our clients that someone who has no project and no budget wants to meet them so that - if they ever do have a project and a budget - they already ‘know’ some people. But… but… but that’s exactly what we promised we wouldn’t do!

However… despite my sceptical sarcasm (available 24/7, 365 BTW) there does appear to be some merit in this pursuit. We’ve had some apparently thin ‘chemistry meetings’ actually turn into serious projects. It turns out that smart companies do like meetings smart agencies.

The truth is, if you’re smart and engaging you can turn a handshake and a 30 second chat into business. If you’re poor in person, no amount of minutes and pages of Powerpoint will turn things around.

No doubt you’re expecting a point, so let me conclude: ANY opportunity to meet a prospect is worthwhile but 1) you need to have a business development partner you trust setting them up for you, and 2) if you’re finding you convert none of these fleeting encounters into a full blown affair, there’s probably something wrong with your pitch rather than the meetings you’re attending.

Words are results too

We’re constantly asked for advice from both clients and business acquaintances regarding the best way to present case studies. Our reply probably seems a little simplistic but - in a nutshell - it’s “results results results”.

People don’t buy processes and they don’t buy services; these are just the mechanics necessary to get what they really want - i.e. the aforementioned results (results, results).

Business Development (especially PURE cold channel new business) is all about maximum impact in a minimum of time. When people say you have three seconds to grab a cold prospect’s attention, they really aren’t exaggerating.

With that in mind, don’t drag your heels when presenting case studies. People aren’t ‘fascinated’ to hear all about “The Brief”… “The Problem”… “The Solution”… etc. They want to know… “DID YOU WIN?”

Don’t show me your copywriting ‘skillz’ with a text-heavy case study… SHOW ME THE MONEY! (or at least show me the outcome, which is more accurate but not as much fun to shout).

And if you don’t have a great big “400% INCREASE IN SALES” or “15,000 IMPRESSIONS” to shout about, make use of a testimonial. If the ONLY thing a prospect sees about your case study is the CEO of Aldi saying “OUR SALES INCREASED” then your three seconds have been well spent (and you’ve probably got a 1.5 seconds left to play with).

If you can’t say it with numbers, say it with words.

Er... what is new business development?

Ok. Sounds kinda silly to ask doesn’t it, but it’s easy for these terms to become faceless generic phrases that people use in sentences but don’t entirely grasp. Like “hedge funds” or “bitcoins” or “monogamy”.

We’ve recently found ourselves pitching to prospects who seem to go to great lengths to ask ‘what exactly are your methods?” or “…and how exactly will you be doing our new business?”

Initially, I thought they were just testing us, but I’ve come to realise that while some folks will honestly tell you "I don’t even know where to start” when it comes to biz dev, many others simply don’t know what it is.

So, without wishing to patronise those in the know, I thought it’d be worth defining what WE mean when we talk about new business development. Put very simply, biz dev means increasing your client base (and revenue) by doing anything other than sitting waiting for the phone to ring or email to ping.

Networking at a show and sharing business cards? That’s new business development (as long as you bother to contact the new folks you meet once you’ve got back to the office).

Calling a couple of companies you’ve never spoken to before to introduce yourself? New biz. TICK!

Putting together a small batch of outreach emails to initiate some creds-sharing. Yep - that counts (although we wouldn’t recommend that particular one without some specific ‘tips’ in effect).

Many companies are successfully ticking over having come into being when someone went solo and brought old clients with them from a previous career. As a result, they’ve never needed to (or wanted to) do any cold channel prospecting; it doesn’t feel like fun and might involve people saying “go away”. We get it. That’s why we do it for you.

There’s much more to new business development than listed here, but it’s an interesting discipline that warrants investigation if you are one of the many uninitiated. Don’t feel embarrassed - come and say hello and we can tell you more.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Three ways to improve database management

A wise man once said, “you’re only as good as the trousers you wear” and boy was he right.

Now, the above has nothing to do with what I’m about to post and - in truth - I just made it up, but it’s a compelling thought isn’t it?

Now that you’re totally onboard, let’s talk about doing a better job of managing your database, for ‘tis the very foundation upon which your outreach lives and dies.

1) I love a list.

2) Here is one, featuring three items.

---

1) Don’t make your database too big. If you start off with 400 populated prospects on a list you’re going to struggle to ‘get round’ it all before the prospects you so diligently populated in spots #300 onward start to go stale.

2) Be realistic. Don’t just go for vanity clients; think about the clients you’ve done well for, then build a profile from those and go fishing with the same bait for the same kinds of companies that ‘bit’ last time.

3) Cull with wild abandon. Once you’ve hit the same prospect fruitlessly with five emails and called 15 times, it might be best to admit it just isn’t happening for you and instead move on to fresh targets. The fact that your database is shrinking is a good thing; it means you’re working through it in an intelligent way, and now have capacity for fresh, better-targeted prospects thanks to what you’ve learnt from your efforts thus far.

I hope that helps. If you’d like more of our wisdom, please get in touch.

And don’t forget your trousers.

Five simple ways to improve your cold emails

Most people only do a little bit of genuinely cold new business. As a result, they’re sending out email campaigns in such small numbers (and so infrequently) that it’s almost impossible to draw any conclusions as to whether one campaign (and therefore one ‘style’) does any better than the other.

The advantage of being in our position is that ALL WE DO is genuinely cold channel prospecting. As a result we get to test the hell out of any and all variables you might consider in an email outreach campaign. How many paragraphs should it be? Do we say “hello” or “hi”? etc. - you get the point: WE KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING. So here are five tips to help you do better with your cold emails.

1) Don’t try to tell the recipient EVERYTHING about your company. This email should be the teaser trailer, not the whole movie.

2) Tell them WHY you are getting in touch. Show that you’ve done some research. Don’t just list your services; talk about the things you know will benefit them.

3) Feel free to name-drop relevant current/previous clients. People like to know they’re in good company, so flaunt your connections.

4) Don’t ‘jazz up’ your email. If you were sending a genuine email by your own hand it would be simple text. As soon as someone receives an animating HTML email they know they are being sold to. Be authentic, not flashy.

5) Don’t waste a PS. You’ve sent a nice casual non-HTML email, but a simple “here’s the work we did for…” hyperlink snuck into a PS. is a nice way to give them a little breadcrumb trail to follow.

If you want to know more about doing better new business development, you know how to get in touch with us.

Happy hunting.

Get on with it and win.

If you’re having fun doing New Business development you’re probably not doing it right. Take a tough cookie, soak it in vinegar and then bake it at 220 degrees for a further 17 hours. THAT’s how tough a cookie cold channel biz dev is.

Probably the biggest ‘killer’ of effective New Business is inactivity. I know that’s like saying “the fastest way to not make bread is to not make bread” but you’d be amazed how many people do ALL the prep but put off actually doing any of the work (primarily because they know it’s a lot of “NO”s just waiting to happen).

Though I’m not generally a massive user of mnemonics and acronyms, I heard something recently that I quite liked called the “Triple A” rule. Assessment, Assembly, Action.

Whatever the task (in our case, some business development) start by assessing what you already have and what you’ll face (otherwise known as “the problem”). For us, we might already have a small list of prospects, and what we’ll face are the companies on that list who likely don’t want to be sold anything today.

Next we plan with those variables in mind, augmenting what we already have by adding what we need. Assemble the ‘things’ we need - the assets, the data, the people, the objection-handling responses, etc.

And finally (and MOST importantly) you then take ACTION.

It sounds like common sense, but I can assure you there are fleets of people as we speak NOT doing anything despite having assessed the situation and assembled what they need.

The sooner you get on with it, the sooner things will happen. And the sooner things happen, the better you’ll do.

Happy hunting.

EPILOGUE:

1) Meatloaf was wrong (two out of three IS bad)

2) Funny how you can’t think of the word ASSEMBLE without picturing Captain America, isn’t it?

3) I got the “Triple A” rule from a PlayStation game. I knew they wouldn’t rot my brain (mum).

Getting better at being remote.

As I write, industry events are starting back up again and people are gradually becoming confident returning to their more mobile ways of doing business (I wonder if my Oyster Card still works?)

When we all got locked down, the likes of Zoom and Teams were a god-send, allowing us to still meet, pitch and converse with team members, clients and prospects. As time passed they became very much the norm, ultimately transforming into a bit of a “meh” way of working (I even had some prospects ask if we could just ‘have a phone call’ to break up the Zoom schedule monotony).

The question is, what do we do now? Are we all just abandoning Zoom and going back to sitting on trains for hours to take a 30 minute meeting before heading back home, or should we look to do a better job of making virtual meetings still work for us?

A smart blog on www.alliancebernstein.com - “Mastering the Virtual Practice: Virtual vs. Face-to-Face Meetings“ suggests that “Face-to-face meetings activate thousands of years of social instincts“ postulating that face-to-face meetings present a greater opportunity for a salesperson to affect another person’s decision-making. It also said “… a person feels an instinctive social obligation to pay full attention“ in a face-to-face meeting, which I find particularly interesting as I’ve actually found that people often seem more tuned in when they know I’m staring down the barrel of their webcam rather than swinging their feet in capacious “Meeting Room C” of their very familiar office surroundings.

Though body language cues and practices aren’t so available in a virtual meeting, we can do something to improve our interactions. Think about a real meeting… you greet, you swap cards, you make a little small talk and discuss the weather. We can’t discuss the journey anymore, so let’s discuss favourite green screen backgrounds and audio set ups problems. Maybe even tilt the camera down to reveal the needy dog with its head on your leg wondering why you’re talking to ‘the telly’. These shared experiences can still be used to build rapport and bring the human element to a virtual meeting.

It’s been a tough time for sure, but I’ve personally seen a huge increase in efficiency, simply because I just have to put on a shirt and sit upright to make a pitch. No District line, no Kings Cross, and - more importantly - no 12 hour days ‘out of office’ to complete what can do done with two 45-minute Zoom calls.

Don’t give up on the virtual just yet; it might still be our saviour.

Agency New Business: THE meritocracy

My first full-time job was at a well-known high street chemist. I was in one of the larger stores selling records and stereos (if you’re under 25, please ask an adult what ‘records’ and ‘stereos’ are or you’ll have no context).

I was told that a management role was definitely a possibility, as long as I was prepared to work there for the next 55 years and wait while everyone above me retired or died. It was at that point I thought it might be better to find a more meritocratic company to work for.

Being rewarded and progressing based entirely upon your merit has always worked out well for me, but anyone moving into business development might have a tough time initially. The interesting thing about new biz is that the only way to go about it and expect results is full steam. Being ‘part-time’ or ‘when I have time’ about cold channel prospecting will most certainly fail.

The challenging part of new business (both to companies and individuals) is that you can be doing an absolutely top job on paper and yet see nothing in the bank for your efforts. It’s demoralising and forces you to constantly wonder ‘am I doing this right?’. Until you start converting cold channel outreach into wins you’ll ALWAYS doubt yourself (and even once you trust your methods, it only takes one dry patch to send you spiralling back down into self-doubt again).

So, if you plan to attack new business, then do exactly that - ATTACK. Don’t ‘have a go’ or ‘spend a little time on it’. All you’ll do is have a bad experience and give yourself a thin reason to believe that cold new business doesn’t work. It does work - it just takes a lot of sustained effort.

Good luck.

The Data Doughnut (TM)

Yeah yeah… go ahead and snigger. So I’ve got a ‘thing’.

I accidentally said it one day… and then liked it enough to use again in conversation (multiple times). But you mind my words (sonny boy) once I take you through The Data Doughnut (TM) you’ll be eating your words. Your delicious doughnuty words.

I should also quickly point out that though I’m aware there’s a way to get a proper trademark symbol to appear, I like to simply put the letters T and M into brackets to show that I’m not precious about it (use it, however, without prior permission and I will hunt you down and kill you).

Anyway… The Data Doughnut (TM) is a FANTASTIC visual representation of your database. A mistake I see often is people building a database, starting to work on the database, and then, when not even halfway round ‘the ring’ (as we call it) adding a bunch of new prospects. So, just as you were approaching 6 o’clock (yes, I know I’m mixing metaphors - don’t tell me how to live my life) you’ve sudden expanded the ring and sent yourself back to 4 o’clock.

And then off you go, continuing round this slightly larger doughnut, and then… BAM! - you add even more data! You’re taking what was a manageable, well-thought-out and reasonably-sized database, and warped it into an unmanageable monster. And while you think you’re doing a dandy job of ‘augmenting’ your database, the data sitting at 11 o’clock is getting older and mouldier (and further away). You’re sabotaging your own doughnut you lunatic!

I am of course assuming you did a good job of building your database in the first place, so now just focus on working it. As data is removed (taking ‘a bite’ if you will) don’t replace it, just continue round the ring. Give all this freshly-baked data a chance to bear fruit (again, don’t worry about the metaphor - it’ll be fine).

Some of the doughnut will require a second pass (maybe even three) but that’s the nature of a new business prospect database - it takes time and tenacity. Only once you feel you’re chewing on the same bits over and over should you think about building it back up with fresh entries.

Anyway… data, rings, doughnuts, trademarks. I’m sure you get the idea.

Good luck and goodbye.

You're not alone. Ish.

Steve and I were recently asked to guest present on an Agency Hackers’ video training session (check them out - there are some incredible agencies in their community), talking to agency owners about smart ways to improve their own business development. As lovely as it is to be asked to do such things, the part I actually enjoy the most is the Q&A session at the end.

Apart from it being a nice opportunity to interact with the many many faces floating on the screen, it’s also always interesting for us to hear which part of ‘new biz’ trips them up the most.

The kinds of questions we got asked on this occasion included:

How big should my database be?

How should I approach our ‘dream clients’?

What email platform should I use?

As you might imagine, we had a lovely time addressing all of these questions (no, I’m not giving you the answers ‘for free’ here – you’ll have to give us a buzz for those gems) but more important/interesting is that you get to see how – with just a simple prod in the right direction – the weight lifts from some seriously-intelligent people who just happen to not know where to begin when it comes to business development.

So… you’re not alone! If you know you should be doing some/more/better business development but don’t even know how to get beyond a napkin with a few prospects scribbled down, fear not; lots of other smart people are in exactly the same boat.

It took the SpongeNB collective many years to feel confident enough to host such a video session, so there’s no way you’re going to get everything right in your first few attempts to reach out into the (never-forgiving) cold channel.

And before you ask, no, I don’t have a copy of the video to share (but I do have a VHS of Robocop if that’s any use).