00:00
Bryan Schielke: You've built and scaled agencies in highly competitive corporate markets. What mindset shift separates agencies that win enterprise clients from those that stay stuck chasing smaller projects?

Susan & Peter (00:10):
That's a great question, Brian. I guess the key differential that we find is a mindset shift. So many agencies are fearful of going after corporate clients because they don't really understand them.

So I think one of the reasons I guess that I was quite comfortable in going after corporate clients is because I started on the corporate side. So I worked as a marketing product manager actually in large corporates for a few years before then obviously starting my own marketing agency in the niche in that as we've seen best relations corporate communications niche. So I think small agencies don't realize they actually are very powerful because you're nimble, you're smart, you have a lot of talent

Larger agencies, if you're competing against them, sometimes don't have. So I think having the mindset of being confident enough to go after enterprise clients gives you the ability to attract them and find the right clients they will want to work with you, even if you are a smaller agency.

Bryan Schielke (01:06):
That's fantastic. Jump in and go get him.

Susan & Peter (01:08):
can

I also add, a lot of agencies suffer from imposter syndrome and that's why they feel they're not good enough to go for corporate clients which is absolutely incorrect as Susan just mentioned.

Bryan Schielke (01:20):
Fantastic. Now we've got to keep that in mind. Great answer. I appreciate that. All right. Next question for Peter. You often talk about inconsistent business development being the silent killer of agencies. What practical system can leaders implement immediately to create a predictable pipeline?

Susan & Peter (01:36):
Well, I think it's very important to have that predictable ongoing business development program. But practically speaking, and Susan and I are agency, long-term agency owners ourselves, when you get busy, when you get a new client, the revenue's coming in, you're looking after the clients, you're looking after the team, business development drops off. So it's very important to have that system that keeps going irrespective of whether you're making phone calls or sending emails or putting posts up on LinkedIn on a regular basis. And that's what has been our focus, because we saw that

has been a gap with service businesses and marketing agencies around the world. No matter how big or small they are, business development suffers when the big projects come in. And I think it's a crying shame because that leads to the revenue roller coaster as we call it. It goes up and it goes down and it's like you find that you don't have a pipeline three to six months after you get the big project and it's like what do do now?

Bryan Schielke (02:29):
That makes sense. I appreciate that. Next question for Susan. You've been ahead of major trends from digital investor relations to sustainable reporting. How do you personally evaluate which market shifts are worth betting on as a leader?

Susan & Peter (02:41):
Great question.

I think Brian that the I think it's very important to be in touch with the zeitgeist of the culture in and what's happening. So many years ago, obviously, when I started Interactive Investor in Green Reports, it was at the cutting edge. I guess I was an early adopter of the fact that I saw sustainability was going to be very important in our culture and around the world. I saw that a lot of these large organizations were printing huge

two, three hundred page annual reports where less than five percent of shareholders would actually read an annual report. So I saw the convergence of both the amount of paper printing and money that was being wasted by these large corporate organizations and the trend towards having less paper and trying to be more sustainable. So the interaction of those two was something that I recognized and that's when I started my Inter Investor business well before companies, corporates even realized that they were wasting their money on large

paper documents and could do a digital interactive version online. So I guess the key is to keep your eye out. If you're an entrepreneur, I think that's what makes us entrepreneurs is we are always looking at, we love the new, you we love the shiny and the new objects. Let's face it as entrepreneurs. So going out there and seeing what's happening, reading, I think reading widely is really important. Looking at your consumers, looking at what trends are in society, and then looking what boards are doing. you know, boards are motivated by obviously increasing revenue, decreasing risk.

So anything you can see that is going to be affecting the board is going to help you to find a niche that's profitable that you should go after.

Bryan Schielke (04:16):
Love that. Fantastic.

jump into the next one for Peter. Your concept of customer romance is memorable and relationship focused. In a world driven by automation and AI, how do you keep growth human and still scalable?

Susan & Peter (04:20):
Sure.

Fantastic question and look, no matter what the technology and customer romance is a concept that has been around for thousands of years. And it's like a relationship. The whole concept behind customer romance is that it's like the same steps we take in our human and personal relationships can exactly be the same steps we take in our customer relationships. AI makes that process so much quicker and easier. Now the key point here is that where, and I'm actually working on a new version of customer romance, which is customer romance in the age of

AI, because AI can help you to automate the process as long as you humanize the conversation. Susan and I, our basic principle in what we do at the Agency Accelerators, it's all about create relationships at scale. Nothing does that more effectively and more time effectively than AI. It's just about how you use it, of course. It doesn't replace us, it helps to complement what we're doing. So basically, if I might just jump in, we like to say it automates the system, but it humanizes

the conversation.

Bryan Schielke (05:29):
love that. Very good. Okay. All right. Let's jump to the next one here for Susan. As a CEO and growth strategist, how do you balance long-term brand positioning with the short-term pressure of hitting revenue targets?

Susan & Peter (05:42):
That is always a conundrum for every company and I think brand positioning is really important. mean that's something we help our clients. That's why Peter and I six years ago started the agency Accelerators and worked with many US agencies and service businesses as well as here in Australia because positioning your brand is so important. What makes you different and better? Sometimes it's hard to be unique but at least you can capture something that's different and better that actually resonates with the prospects you want to go after those larger clients. So I think having

a strategy is the most important to have that in place and then have that ongoing business development process will take care of the short-term revenue you need to keep your strategy and positioning in line in the next 12 months, five years, how you want to grow your business. I'm going to actually jump in here. I remember having a PR person working with me and she was saying, we've got to build your brand, got to build your brand. And I said to her, that's great, but I want revenue. And it's like this constant battle as a small business owner to make sure we've got the revenue.

for the next month to pay rent and payroll alongside having to build a brand. Well now with digital media and also AI, it's easier than ever before. But a lot of people don't have the strategies to do so. That's one of the reasons, that's what we've been doing with the agency Accelerators and launching this opening doors AI platform that helps to create that system to build the brand while also ensuring you have that constant presence in the market.

Bryan Schielke (07:05):
Sounds like there's definitely a need for it, though that's great to

Susan & Peter (07:07):
and perennial need, Brian. That's the exciting part. In fact, less than Moz did research a few years ago, less than 10 % of service businesses, SMEs, small medium enterprise businesses, have an ongoing business development process. So if you think about it, 90 % of your competitors, if you have implemented an ongoing business development process, sales and marketing process, you are ahead of 90 % of your competitors. That's a very compelling statistic for anyone that's running their own business.

Bryan Schielke (07:35):
Yeah, that's a huge advantage, absolutely. Great stuff. Okay, well, let's hit the last one here, Peter. You've helped agencies land major corporate contracts. What's one mistake founders consistently make when pitching larger organizations, and how can they fix it?

Susan & Peter (07:50):
The biggest mistake is of course not trying.

feeling as we said before about they're not good enough. They are good enough but they've got to have that mindset of saying, that's what we say to all of our agency clients. It's like you have to look at the fact that you're helping them to solve their problems because what we do is naturally is from a human being point of view. I always say we know all about ourselves but we don't know much about you. So focus and it's marketing 101 but it's so often forgotten in the world of business development when it comes to looking at corporate clients.

100 % on the needs, fears, needs, and desires of the client. Sounds obvious, but so often it's not done. So when you do that and when you focus on what they need, it puts you in a much better position to be able to service those needs and focus on basically solving problems and ensuring that

their pain. What is their pain? What is the gap? Service that. Look, it doesn't give you 100 % guarantee that you're going to get that client, but it puts you in a much stronger and better position to be able to get

corporate clients moving forward.

So importantly, I guess we've put a lot of that wonderful IP that I guess we've shared with you into our book that's just been launched on Amazon.

called Landing Whales. So if anyone is interested in looking through the book and actually seeing what they need to do to keep that business development process going, or if they need help, they can obviously reach out to us. But it really gives you an insight into how to ensure that your business continues to grow at scale without stressing you out and with regular revenue coming in. And to reinforce, one of the biggest opportunities for all business people watching this is that invariably your competitors are not doing what we're talking about.

actually start having a systemised approach to sales and marketing, puts you far ahead of the vast majority of your competitors and other organisations out there.

Bryan Schielke (09:37):
Again, huge advantage. Well, congratulations on the book and yes, I appreciate you guys bringing that up. That is fantastic.