How to Stand Out From Competitors

Episode 107: How to Stand Out From Competitors, with Robin & Steve Boehler

How to stand out from competitors and make yourself an easy yes? Get the answers here on how to stand out from competitors.

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while now — you know we share insights and tactical examples for how to stand out from competitors and make your agency an easy yes for your right-fit clients and prospects.

Two mentors who have been instrumental in our learning around this topic over the last decade are my very special guest experts on this episode of Sell With Authority, Robin and Steve Boehler.

Robin and Steve run Mercer Island Group and are absolutely brilliant in how they help agencies win more business from right-fit clients because of how they help correctly position an agency from the start — how to uncover and find the strategic insight a client or prospect truly cares about — and how to write and deliver a proposal that demonstrates an agency’s smarts clearly and concisely.

Robin and Steve have seen it all — the good and the bad. Today we lean into that wealth of experience to work through areas where agencies continually seem to struggle.

I also invited Hannah Roth, our Mad Scientist and Strategist here at Predictive — because of Hannah’s unique perspective from working in the trenches day in and day out alongside our clients, helping them fill their sales pipelines with a steady stream of right-fit clients so they can sell more of what they do.

If you take and apply the insights, advice, and recommendations Robin and Steve share during this episode — how to stand out from competitors — and — you’ll make yourself an easy yes.

What you will learn in this episode about how to stand out from competitors:

• How to stand out from competitors and the status quo
• Smart questions to ask for connecting with right-fit prospects
• How to identify the business issue creating pain for your right-fit prospects and clients
• What content on an agency’s website helps them stand out and establish authority with a prospect or agency search consultant
• What agencies should include and exclude from case studies

Resources:

• Website: https://migroup.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mercer-island-group/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MercerIslandGroup/
• Mercer Island Group Workshops: https://migroup.com/mig-workshops/
• BaBA Summit 2024: https://agencymanagementinstitute.com/babasummit/
• Check out this PDF from Mercer Island Group and get more insights on how to stand out from competitors

Additional Resources:

• Website: www.predictiveroi.com
• Visit our newly expanded Resource Library
• Join us in our free How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline Facebook Group
• Learn more about how to stand out from competitors from our guest, Jesse Cole

 

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Full Episode Transcript

 

Welcome to the Sell With Authority podcast. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI, and my team and I created this podcast specifically for you. So if you’re an agency owner looking to sell more of what you do so you can grow a thriving, profitable shop that can weather the constant change, this seems to be our world’s reality.

 

But then you’re in the right place. Do you want proven strategies for attracting a steady stream of well prepared, right fit prospects into your sales pipeline? Yep, we’re going to cover that. You want to learn how to step away from the sea of competitors. So you actually stand out and own the ground you’re standing on. Yep. We’re going to cover that too.

 

Do you want to futureproof your business so you can navigate the next challenges that you know are going to come your way? Well, absolutely. We will help you there as well. I promise you, each episode of this podcast will contain valuable insights and tangible examples of best practices. Never theory from thought leaders, experts, and owners who have done exactly what you’re working hard to do.

 

So I want you to think practical and tactical. Never any fluff. Each of our guests, who built a position of authority and then monetized that position by growing their audience, by nurturing leads, and, yes, by converting sales. But all the while, they did it by being helpful. So every time someone from their audience turned around there, they were given a helpful answer to an important question.

 

So the prospects never, ever felt like they were a prospect. I also promise you every strategy that we discuss, every tool we recommend, will be shared in full transparency so you can fill your sales pipeline with a steady stream of right fit clients who, again, were never, ever made to feel like one of your prospects. 

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Robin and Steve’s Introduction

 

Okay. Before I introduce you to our very special guest experts today, I’m going to take a moment just to frame things up.

 

So if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while now, you know that we’ve been sharing insights and tactical examples for how you can make your agency as easy of a yes as possible for your clients and prospects. And I will tell you, Robin and Steve Boehler, who run the Mercer Island group, have been instrumental in our learning around this topic since we met them way back in August of 2015.

 

Robin and Steve are brilliant in how they help agencies win more business because of how they help them correctly position an agency from the start, how they help agencies think differently, so they successfully uncover the strategic insight a client or prospect truly cares about and how best to illustrate how to write and deliver a proposal that demonstrates and agency’s smarts clearly and concisely.

 

Part of the magic that Robin and Steve bring to conversations like this one are their unique experiences and perspectives from behind the curtain. Here’s what I mean. If you’re meeting Robin and Steve for the first time, part of Mercer Island’s business is to run agency searches on behalf of brands that are looking for a new agency partner. Robin and Steve build the list of right fit agencies.

 

Then they invite those agencies to compete. And then they help the brands evaluate and decide which agency is the ideal fit. And candidly, Robin and Steve have seen it all. They’ve seen the good and they’ve seen the bad. So we’re going to lean into some of their behind the curtain experiences today. And more specifically, we’re going to work through three areas that can be struggle points for some agencies.

 

First, how do I identify the business issue that is truly creating pain for your client or prospect? Second, what content on your website helps you stand out and establish authority with a prospect or search console? And third, what should you include? Or maybe exclude from your case studies to make them as helpful as possible? I also invited Hannah Roth or Mad Scientists and Strategists here, predictive because of her unique perspectives from working alongside our clients in the trenches to help them fill their sales pipelines with that steady stream of right fit clients so they can sell more of what they do.

 

I promise you, if you take and apply the insights and recommendations that Robin and Steve share with you during this episode, you and your agency will stand out from competitors and you’ll make yourself an easy yes. So without further ado, welcome to the Sell With Authority podcast, Robin and Steve. 

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Robin and Steve’s Path and Journey

 

Thank you Steve, and we’re delighted to be here.

 

We are delighted to have you here. So I know that many in our audience are going to be very familiar with you already. And there may be some that might be meeting you for the first time. So for those in our audience who are indeed meeting you for the first time, take us behind the curtain and share a little bit of context around path and journey.

 

And then we’ll dive in with the question. Sure. Thank you for that. We have a pretty simple approach to business. Our job is to help clients and agencies succeed. We work directly with clients. We work directly with agencies, and a huge amount of our work involves working with clients and agencies at the same time.

 

And the client side. As you mentioned, we lead a lot of reviews where in the top five and managing agency reviews in the US and we manage and work with, manage reviews for and work with clients of all shapes and sizes from enormous firms like Discover Financial Services and Amazon. And stop and shop down to much smaller, more localized businesses.

 

We just finished up a review for a nice partner in any location. Fast food chain in the northeast. And the agency side. We help agencies position themselves better. We help them with strategy training. We help them to pitch better, both in training and occasionally working, as if you will, at its doctor, where we’re embedded in a pitch that we’re not managing to help the agency show better and to succeed.

 

The magic we bring to the equation is that we sit with the CMO every day in the meeting. After the meeting, but we also sit with agency agencies every day, and perhaps the meeting before the meeting or the meeting after the meeting. And so we’ve got a pretty good sense of what works and what’s important for both. Both of the partners.

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Competing Against The Status Quo

 

Awesome. Steve, thank you for the introduction. And I remember the first time that I encountered you guys was actually at your Getting It Right workshop about two years ago. And that workshop was really transformative for me. I don’t often get starstruck. I grew up around Atlanta. I’ve seen a lot of, like, famous people. But when I went to your workshop, I was really honored and starstruck by the insights that you guys shared.

 

And this kind of holistic view of the entire process, because you mentioned, you know, you’re on kind of both sides of the aisle bridging those gaps. So, I just love the insights that you shared during that workshop. And so, Robin, one of the quotes that you said, and I have this written down in my notes, I refer to it often.

 

You said whether you have direct competition or not, you’re always competing with the status quo. They will decide to do it themselves or decide not to do it. There are always multiple choices on the table, even if you’re the only agency. And I thought that was so powerful because I think sometimes with the agencies that we work with, they think of their competition as only other agencies, but they are competing against the status quo.

 

And when they don’t realize that, I think sometimes I don’t know if Lacey’s too strong of a term, but sometimes they get lazy in their approach. So how do you guys advise? You know, your agency clients? How do you help them stand out from the status quo so they truly have a chance to land the job? Yeah, that’s a really great question.

 

And thank you for the kind words at the beginning. Hannah. That was very lovely. I think for small agencies in particular, the status quo really is the big thing because often a small agency owner is talking to a marketer or a business owner who’s never used agency services in any way, shape or form. And that’s a common way for small agencies.

 

And it helps them, in many ways, establish the base of their business, especially if they’re regional. They’re talking to people that they know, maybe a restaurant or, maybe a marketer they know at a hospital who they’ve never used agency services. It could be a whole host of different things. And so how do you sell yourself in if you’re not selling yourself against a competitor?

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Great Marketing Could Lead Your Business to Success

 

So the status quo, I always say that marketers have three choices and only three choices. They can hire you and they can hire someone outside. They can do it themselves or they cannot do it. The third one is also a thing, which is we’re not going to do any marketing. We’re not going to buy any media. We’re just going to do what we’ve always done, which is bust.

 

Or maybe we’ll just send out our emails, whatever they currently do. So for agencies to break in when there is no agency before them, they’re selling in against those. The competition is doing it themselves, and doing nothing. The agency has to show that they understand what the metrics are. And a marketer would use it to determine whether or not it’s worth the spend.

 

They have to understand what role marketing would play in the success of their company. Right. So what a question I always like to ask when we’re doing a review and when a client’s decided to go ahead and hire an agency. And any agency can ask this to a business owner if you find the right marketing partners, you find the right agency.

 

What will be different for your business in a year? You have the answer to that question. You have gold because that then becomes the pivot point against which you can sell your services. Because if you believe this, of course, if you believe that you can actually help them get to that thing, that is what’s going to be different in a year, then that’s what you talk about over and over again.

 

It’s not your capabilities unless it’s your capabilities in service of that thing, right? That’s everything. That’s a great question to ask. I think it works very well for us. And trying to understand how a marketer is thinking about agencies. But I think it would be a great question for agencies to use. So now I’m, I think this is an absolutely brilliant question.

 

This might be a little bit TMI, but when you said that question, I literally got goosebumps. No joke. And here’s why. One, because it’s a super smart question. So, Steve, what I’m curious about with respect to Robin’s question, how often do the two of you hear agencies be bold enough, courageous enough to actually ask that question? Right?

 

Like, what would change if you find the right partner? Super smart question, but how often is it used or asked? Well, that also is a great question, Stephen. And unfortunately we don’t see agencies in general ask enough questions anyway, regardless of whether it’s the brilliant question or not. We’ll often be running a review and, and maybe we will send out ten requests for information to the right, ten agencies and get a phone call from maybe 3 or 4 of those agencies asking questions about it.

 

Maybe 1 or 2 others might send an email with a simple question. A couple of them won’t ask any questions at all, and they’ll just send a response when it’s due. Now that makes my head explode. It looks like I can see your face now, so I can tell that it makes your head explode. This head’s exploding all over.

 

But that’s really it. That’s really how the business works. There aren’t enough people that are in business, in agencies, especially that take the time to do the basics. And that is certainly one of the basics: connecting with a prospect that has interest in you and asking them smart questions about why they have an interest, what the business issues are, what’s going on, what success is going to look like, etc. it is basically job one in the process.

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Changes In the Agency Relationship That Are Needed to Succeed

 

Wow. I love that, Steve. And that kind of leads into my next question, because one of the things that you guys also said, Steve, I think it was you that said this, during the workshop, you said you are 100% more likely to get something you ask for versus something that you don’t. And so when we think about agencies not asking questions, not asking the right questions, what do you wish more agencies would ask for that?

 

They just don’t. Well, I’m happy to take credit for that question. I think that’s Robin-ism. You know, I will definitely take credit for it since where are my friends? You know what I would like them to ask about is what would need to change in their agency relationship for them to succeed and make sure and how they’re asking that question that it relates back to the business issues they already would have heard about, to and answering Robin’s question.

 

So that first question of Robin’s, which is what has to be better in a year if you had the right agency? That’s a great question. But then the follow up is, okay, so what are you not getting right now from your agency support? Or what would you love from this very first agency that you’re hiring that would help you get there?

 

What do you do more and then what are you most concerned about? So that you’re the answer to each one of those questions helps you frame how the rest of your pitch process unfolds. This is so staggering to hear you say that because, I mean, we’ve been in workshops with the two of you, you know, since 2015, like I mentioned.

 

And we’ve been soaking up all the smarts that you guys are sharing with all the agencies that are in that room in those packed rooms. And one of the things that comes up, the ties into the question piece is inevitably someone in the room raises their hand and says, like, basically how much effort, like, do we have to be all in, right?

 

And Robin’s like, if you’re going to compete, you’re all in. But, so what I’m confused about is or I guess maybe, I don’t know if that’s really the right word. Maybe it is confusion, but like if you’re going to be all in, you’re going to compete and you’re going to put forward this effort, but then not asking questions seems so odd.

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Asking The Right Questions

 

So why does that happen? I think sometimes agencies don’t think they’re allowed to ask questions. So there’s a couple of things. One, if it’s a formal review which many small agencies won’t ever do, maybe or we’ll do for the first time sometime soon. They are looking at this document that got sent over, and nowhere does it say, here’s the period in which you can ask questions.

 

So therefore they believe they read that as no questions allowed. And unless my view of the world is unless it says no questions allowed, I’m going to ask questions. Right. And they can stay in. They cannot answer them or they can say, we’re not answering that. And that’s fine. But you still got a chance to ask.

 

The other thing is, I don’t know that agencies know what questions to ask. I believe that one. Right. And so there are some agencies that ask the wrong questions. Now, I know there’s a school of thought. There are no wrong questions. Well, there are wrong questions. Wrong questions that are asked at a particular point in time. Right.

 

So if you’re getting your first chance to ask questions of a client and you ask questions like what format would you like to present to us to send the response in PowerPoint or Word? How many words would you like it to be? Do you have a limit on the number of words on a page? What’s the due date?

 

Is there any room on that schedule? So at all those logistical questions that are essentially the things you do at the very end before you send something in, if that’s where your focus is, it shows that you’re focused way in the weeds and not ever. And the whole forest, let alone the trees that are below the trees.

 

So I think when you get the chance to ask questions, you should always start with the questions that help you understand what’s going on with the client and why. Indeed, they might be looking for an agency partner and save all of the detailed questions for another time, or shoot them over in an email. Just to make sure.

 

But I do think that a lot of agencies don’t know what questions to ask. And sometimes you have to do a little research of your own before you can ask smart questions. They’re not always the first questions you think of, but we encourage agencies to just brainstorm your questions on a big Google Sheet that everyone can share, and then go back and edit and take away a lot of the questions that are just the details that don’t really matter.

 

I think that’s so true because, you know, especially in the beginning of a relationship, you only have so much time or FaceTime with the person. So you want to make sure that you’re asking those important strategic questions that help you stand out. 

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Don’t Be Afraid to Ask a Question

 

So there is one other thing I want to add, Hannah. And that is that there are times when agencies are afraid to ask a question because they’re afraid that the client will say, no, I’m not going to share it, or they’re afraid the client will think it’s a bad question.

 

If you’re asking questions around the business, it’s not. There are no bad questions. It is something you can easily find on your own. I would suggest not asking that. Like how many locations do you have? Do your homework, find that out. But questions around how the business works and what’s important, and what role advertising will play or media will play or PR will play in the success of business.

 

Those are all good questions. The other thing is, there are agencies that sometimes a client will get a bunch of agencies on a call together and say, okay, open Q&A. It’s not my favorite thing. We don’t do it when we run reviews, but it is out there as a thing. And then agencies will say to us, well, but if we ask a question in all the agencies, you’re going to get the answer, so we shouldn’t ask it.

 

Well, now let’s think about that. You don’t get the answer, the question you want because you’re afraid other people will get the answer too. Now, in what world is that helpful? I don’t see how that’s also true. If you want the answer to a question, ask it and assume that if others get it, it’s a level playing field and that’s good.

 

And many of them won’t get why you ask questions anyway, take it as a win and ask the questions you need answers to and move on. And do not hold back because you’re afraid of letting other agencies find out the secrets that you need to know. 

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Deconstructing The Business Issue

 

Anyway, Love that. Robin. So one of the things that you guys have talked about a lot throughout this conversation and I know in your workshop is finding the actual business issue that they’re trying to solve or showing up in a way that’s actually helpful and not so much based on the deliverables.

 

And so asking the right question helps you kind of mine that information from them. And one of the things that I thought was so brilliant in your workshop, you talked about, deconstructing the issue. You talked about reverse engineering requests. And I think that hit me so hard in your workshop because it actually forces the agency to not only listen but comprehend.

 

And I think there’s such a difference between comprehension and listening. So, can you share some of the ways that you guys see this play out in real life and how agencies show up once they’ve actually comprehended what the person is asking for versus just listening and kind of repeating it back or regurgitating something that, like you said, you can find out kind of anywhere.

 

Well, I think that’s a good question. I think what we encourage people to do is when they get a written request to go through it, and with a highlighter or a pen circle the stuff that seems really important about the business, start there. The first pass through. Focus your read on their business and there’s going to be in most of these requests, there’s going to be something relating to their business that has given you some kind of an indication about what’s going on.

 

If there isn’t that of course tees up really specific questions when you have a chance to engage. But there’s a second step. You can use it when you’re going through the requests. If they don’t tee up overtly, business issues, like they’re not talking about the need to increase traffic or to get to increase revenue or sales or profit or something pretty darn specific.

 

The next layer in reviewing their request is to zero in on the tactics they have that they claim they’re looking for. And given your knowledge of the category, elevate those tactics to what the possible strategic challenges may be. Now, you may not have them all, but that again, that little exercise helps you to have a follow up conversation.

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Having The Right Information Will Prepare You for Conversations

 

It’s much more productive. Along with that step, build the business profile that you’ve probably heard us talk about. So a business profile is if you’ve got a prospect in front of you, they’ve reached out to you or you’re reaching out to them, we believe it’s worth a couple of hours of effort to create a business profile.

 

A business profile includes all kinds of information about their business. It’s it’s. How long have they been in business? What categories are they and what kind of customers do they have? How many locations do they have? How do they make money? What what what’s the management structure look like? How new are the marketers, etc. and by building that out that you’ll uncover undoubtedly some ideas about what the business issues may be.

 

If you do a quick Google search and what the news items are for either the brand and if not the brand, the category. Most businesses within a category have the same business issues, so if you do, you may not be able to find out anything about this specific prospect. But if you find that the category is off versus a year ago, or the category is closing stores there, a retailer, for instance, there’s too many retail locations in almost every category.

 

You’ll be able to arm yourself better to be ready for those conversations. This is such a big topic. The business issue topic is such a big topic. So Robin, anything else that you like to add to that? And then I have a follow up. So do you want to add anything to that? See what you’re sharing.

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: The Greatest Science in The World Starts with A Hypothesis

 

No, I think he’s good. We’re good okay. So because of the the workshops that you guys teach, one of the exercises that I’ve done several different times and Steve I think was was touching on this and that is taking, either a brief or finding a press release or press releases, annual reports and so forth, and going through that and try to into it what we think are the business issues.

 

Like we’ve worked through that exercise several different times. And then what’s fascinating through that role play or exercise is that I’ve done it. I’ve seen scads of agencies do it. We highlight what we think are the business issues because we think it might relate to us, and it’s not that issue at all. So how often do you see agencies actually hit the mark in truly understanding what the business issue is?

 

That leads them to the strategic insight that they can build around their presentation. You know, it’s at different stages of the process. The different agencies do better than others. So, the first thing is, I do think that your comment about Stephen’s saying that you lean into what you think the business issues are is really important versus we know what the business issues are.

 

As long as you continue to know that you don’t know until you have it validate it, or unless they gave it to you flat out in writing or, you know, but it’s not right from the horse’s mouth. You are just guessing. Now it’s educated guessing, but it’s still guessing. And you know, the greatest science in the world begins with a hypothesis.

 

So guessing is not bad, but it’s only bad when you assume that your guess is now the truth, without having the data to back that up, that’s when you can get into trouble. 

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Running A Review for A Retailer

 

So I’ve seen agencies go into a pitch. Sure, they know what the issue is, and they either haven’t read it carefully because when I read it, I think something else might be going on or they haven’t had any background to find out anything else that might be going on.

 

And they’re so sure they know that that’s when they can make a mistake. I don’t see it happen all that often in our reviews, because we write a pretty darn good brief for the agencies. And most agencies read it pretty well and ask decent questions enough to know what’s going on. But at the end of the day, I will say we’re just completing a pitch for a retailer.

 

I don’t want to say too much and share this right away. And this is an ongoing review, so I’m going to mask it a bit, but we’re running a review for a retailer. And, like most retailers, this retailer is very interested in growing their brand and growing immediate sales, immediate basket increases and immediate, more shoppers through the door.

 

In bigger, bigger revenue numbers, more sales. Right. But also growing the brand and, you know, in most retail right now, getting to a message that brings shoppers in during a very, very tough inflationary period is going to be something to do with price perception. Right? So it’s been interesting to watch the agencies and the clients being very clear that we’ve got to deal with price perception.

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: Run A Little Bit Towards the Gun

 

We’re in a very volatile, inflationary market right now in the country. What’s going on in the world? Right. And so, we’ve got a fair way to do it that stands out, supports our brand and still stands out from all of the other people screaming, low price, low price, low price. And it’s really interesting to watch the agencies get very, very uncomfortable with this notion of price because they want to brand and price is so functional.

 

Everyone wants to do emotional work, which at the end of the day, you still have to do so. They’re not listening hard enough to what the client needs. It’s got to be, it’s not price only or brand only. It’s brand and price. Right? The only way to get brand love is to improve the price perception. But it’s really hard.

 

And we actually did a review, about a year ago now with a different retailer. We’re one of the agencies, in a Q&A with just us today. So, you know, we’re working really hard to try to figure out what the differentiator is for this retailer. And we can’t find it. Can we ask them what they think it is?

 

I said, sure, you can, but that’s why they’re hiring you. So if you can’t, this is the job, right? The agency is to help take all those disparate pieces of information and figure out how to bring it all together. And this is a case where I think agencies sometimes are literal listeners only, and they miss the mark on the nuance that’s involved in everything that’s going on for the client team.

 

I think that’s so interesting, Robin, how you talk about, you know, you’ve seen agencies kind of squirm once they get uncomfortable. Yeah. And one of the things that, you know, we tell our clients all the time is you got to run towards the guns a little bit. Like, if there’s something that, you know, your client or your prospect is wanting for, like wanting, you have to show up in a way that’s meaningful.

 

And you can’t just say, oh, well, you know, we’re really good at this thing. So please shift your focus over here and away from this other thing that you really want. So, how do you guys help agencies kind of go towards the discomfort or move towards the discomfort to tackle those, you know, those metrics or that reporting or things like that?

 

Because I think that sometimes that is the difference between them landing the deal or not. They have to be willing to step into an area of discomfort or be better. So how do you guys help agencies do that? Well, I think it comes down to in many ways getting comfortable with making sure you understand what the real business issue is.

 

If you’re focused on, if that’s where your conversation is heading, and that those are the kinds of questions you’re asking. So you’re absolutely certain that you get them to tell you and to confirm what the key business issue is that they’re focused on, then the solutions will naturally follow. And you either are or aren’t the right agency.

 

But if you presumably if you can help them with whatever that business issue is, and you do that by making sure you you’re clear with them about what that is and that’s how you build your conversation and your follow up around that business issue, then it’s hard to then sort of veer off in the wrong direction.

 

Learn more about how to stand out from competitors by checking out this PDF

 

How to Stand Out From Competitors: A Business’ Website Is Everything

 

Now, if you aren’t the right agency, you should know when they’re telling you, right? Right. I mean, having the conversation, then if you’re an advertising agency and you’re having the conversation, and the real issue is that they need more press support, they need more publicity. In many cases, you’re probably not staffed to deliver that, so you may find that out.

 

Right. And then obviously a great next step is to help them find the right agency. This is going to feel a little bit like shifting gears. Yeah. But let’s take this piece and move it into a website. So when the two of you and your team are organizing a search and looking for the right agencies that you wanted to, that you want to invite and to participate and compete in that process first, how important this is probably gonna sound obvious, but I’m curious as to what level you see agencies raising the bar to what you’re looking for and criteria so how important is their website before you’ve contacted them to even get them onto the list? 

 

And then what are some of the key pieces that you really want to be able to see the agency’s putting forward to help them get the invitation? Yeah. So the website is everything. So you get a call because clients are looking for, you know, they’re looking and so they’re going to go to your storefront, which is your website, and they’re going to check you out for a variety of reasons.

 

So when I go to a website, it’s different stages in the process. Right? So by the time I’m going to the website, we probably got a list already that we pull together based on, let’s say we’re doing a PR search. We’ll look at our most recent PR searches. We’ll start with those agencies because we’re probably most up to date on those.

 

We’ll also do a little bit of research, seeing who’s recently won awards in the PR space, who’s doing great work. Let’s say it’s PR for health care, PR for it depends what it is, right? PR for tourism. We’ll try to see who’s doing great work there. And then I’ll go to the website to check them out.

 

Right. If I see it I don’t know if I should go to that website or what I am looking for. So first of all, if it takes forever to load, that’s the problem because I’m probably not sticking around very long. If I can’t find the stuff that I need, I’m definitely leaving. So what’s the stuff that I need? I need to know who their current clients are because I need to know if they’re conflicted.

 

I need to know who their past clients are so I know where their XP and their experience is. Because if a client wants experience in X, Y, and Z and they don’t have it today, but they had it yesterday, that’s good to find. I want to know how big they are okay. Because that’s it. I want to know if they’re too big for this review or if they’re too small.

 

Right. I want to know if they’re a good size. And I want to know about the leadership. I want to know who runs this agency and what their background is. And then I’d like a little bit of a few case studies so I can see what they’ve done for other clients that are similar.

 

Those are the basics, right? If I can’t find that stuff, I’m gone. I am not going to stick around because it’s just there’s so many agencies that I don’t need to stick around. So those are the basics that I need to have now. Interestingly, that’s what we look for for the most part. And we follow up with emails to agencies, sometimes phone calls to say, okay, agency acts.

 

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How to Stand Out From Competitors: Choosing From a List of Agencies

 

We may have a review that you might be right for. We’re interested to know your experience. The following categories, just in case the website doesn’t have everything, we will check. But if we didn’t find anything on the website at all, you would never get that email from us. Probably. So we’ll do that due diligence now.

 

Then we’ll make our recommendations to the client as the 1012 agencies we think can really do this 15 and then the client gets a deck from us, a full deck that shows all these agencies. And we just had one of these calls today with the client where they were choosing this, their final agencies to actually send an RFI to.

 

And here’s what happens on the call. This is a particularly well-heeled senior team that went ahead and they actually looked at the websites of all the agencies we’re recommending. We’ll sometimes get on the phone. And the first time they’re seeing our deck not to disparage them, they’re just too busy. They hadn’t looked at it before we got on the call.

 

These two marketers looked at the websites before and so now you’ve got a double look at your website and what they’re looking for are the capabilities. And the case studies will look at capabilities to, when we’re on there, usually we know the capabilities of many agencies. But if it’s a new agency, we’ll of course, look at hopefully you’ve got a list of the capabilities you have.

 

But the client looks like a nice website. Is it easy to use? They’re looking for more of the eye candy stuff, because they don’t want to hire someone who can’t speak well of themselves. Like, I can read past some of the bad websites that I’ve seen, but when a client gets there, I know they’re going to think this agency is not for us. So yeah, that website is critically important. 

 

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How to Stand Out From Competitors: Know What Makes a Good Case Study

 

So Robin, I love that you mentioned the case studies. That’s something that we encourage our clients to have visible, but also relevant because we’ve seen really great examples of case studies. And then we’ve seen some not so great examples of case studies. And typically the ones I see that are maybe not so great is that they focus on all the deliverables that they created or all the tactical stuff, and they kind of miss the mark when it comes to the strategy behind the stuff.

 

And I think when they do that, they really kind of set the bar low, because if you’re just focusing on stuff, I mean, people can go out to a contractor to make stuff, right? So, when you guys think about case studies and what makes a good case study versus a bad case study, what are some things that agencies should include or should not include in their case studies?

 

Yeah, I think the most important thing is that you choose case studies that really speak to the challenge at hand, like the prospect is looking for an agency because of really specific reasons. You want the case studies to scream, hey, we got you covered. We can take care of that will help you be successful.

 

And so, for instance, if it’s a revenue challenge, you want the case studies to reflect that. You help people succeed at growing their revenue. If it’s a traffic challenge, it’s got to be all about traffic, etc. Ideally, it’s in a similar category, if not the same category, and therefore and also from the start, the way you frame up the case study is really, really important.

 

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How to Stand Out From Competitors: Make Your Case Study Really Visual for The Prospect

 

So you now know what you know, you know who the prospect is. You’ve got a pretty good sense of what they’re looking for, what their challenges are. They may even tell you what they’d like to see in a case study. But even if they don’t, you know the business challenges. You know who the client is.

 

You’re going to want to share in the very front of the case study, a little blurb that explains why you chose that case study. Make it so obvious. We chose this case study for you, Mister Prospect, because it showcases how we can help solve your traffic challenge and add to your bottom line, or add to your sales.

 

Then you’ve got the case and the case. Make sure in the case that you’ve got ample amount of wayfinding involved. So make it really visual, make it really clear where each section begins and ends. So you’ve got an introduction to it and an overview. You may have a place that talks about the business challenge.

 

Make it overt that that’s what the paragraph is. Share. The research doesn’t have to be in-depth, but has a little section. Make sure you’re calling out that you’re sharing the research and the analysis and highlighting the insight. Showcase the solutions. It makes it really visual. And then show the results in like 100 point font. I mean, we’re talking about, you know, if it’s 80% volume growth, we want it to be as big as the page, because a lot of the people that are going to be reading this proposal are going to be skimming it, glancing at it.

 

We want there to be no way they can miss that. You did a similar thing to what their challenge was, and you did it so well, so smart, those huge results. 

 

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How to Stand Out From Competitors: Ways To Showcase How Good You Are as An Agency

 

So I know we need to come in for a landing, here in just a minute, but let me ask a follow up to that, Steve.

 

And that is so, I think if I’m tracking with you and Robin correctly, that there might actually be maybe two sets of case studies. So for example, there might be case studies on your website that are there just every day that lean into your capabilities. And then also the muscle that the agency has in solving these business issues over and over and over and over again speaks to those. So that when Robin is in, whoever on the Mercer team is going through and looking at agencies like, okay, those are smart, these might tangentially align or directly align with the issues that our particular client and the search is, really wanting some help with. 

 

And then I think what I’m hearing you say, Steve, is that then you might need to create some custom case studies that really lean in directly to the issue that’s highlighted in the RFI. Am I tracking with you? Well, yes, I think that’s right. And I would suggest there’s also different kinds of cases.

 

So there’s what we would think of as a long form case study that may be really appropriate for really longer meetings and presentations with the client, where it’s really important that you are able to show your credentials in a category, possibly for the website. There’s shorter forms that cover all the bases, but they’re sort of shrunk down because you’re not trying to use up as much real estate in a written proposal or in a presentation.

 

There’s what we would call case splits, which are basically we comp, you know, it tells you what the result was for the client and has a visual and it’s a little box. So you can put it into a really specific part of the written proposal or the presentation. Ideally often next to capability. So it brings the capability to life and is a little bit of a cheat because again, they don’t want to read too much.

 

And then there’s the droplet. And the droplet is like one sentence. And it’s either like name dropping and a presentation. But what you’re saying is we miss the prospect, we address this similar challenge for another client, this specific client. And for instance in SEO we increased SEO hits by 20%. That’s it.

 

We handle the same challenge for this other client and we grow it by some amount. And you can also build that single sentence, that easy sentence in the written proposals around various capabilities. Talk about specific clients. And it’s a really quick hit. This gives you added you know another way to showcase just how good you are as an agency.

 

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How to Stand Out From Competitors: Recap of the 5 Key Insights

 

And this has been so amazing. Thank you both so much for your time. I’m going to recap really quickly. Because throughout this interview, obviously I’ve been taking notes furiously. And there are five key points that have stood out to me. So I’m going to recap those back to you guys and give you guys the opportunity to add any kind of last minute thoughts.

 

But basically number one is hypothesize and validate. So you need to understand the business issue and you need to ask the right questions at the right time. Number two, do your research. Go deep. Don’t just stop at the surface level. Really dig in and do research. And if you can’t find research on the business, research the category.

 

So there’s always more than one way to get to the end result. And so be creative when you’re thinking about that. Number three, be honest. If you’re the right fit, are you the right agency to solve the issue? And be really honest. If you’re not, take yourself out and help them get to the right agency.

 

Number four, your website needs to have the information that people need to know and they need to be easily accessible. So if you’re creating, there’s already enough roadblocks. Don’t create more by having a crappy website. I’m paraphrasing there a little bit or and then, number five, have relevant case studies, both in the time it takes to go through the case study, but also relevance to the business issue and challenge.

 

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How to Stand Out From Competitors: Using AI Tools To Help with Your Research

 

So those are kind of the five, kind of topics or key insights that I’ve kept on, Robin, Steve, anything else you’d like to add before we have to say goodbye today? I do want to add one little teaser thing, which is, AI has a role to play here. Oh. So, we’re just experimenting with it ourselves.

 

I think we’re further than just experimenting. We’ve actually invested in some AI tools, for that understanding and getting to know clients and their businesses and their target audiences. And so, I want to be 100% clear that I cannot write insights for you because I can only bring you data and then compile that data in, and analyze it.

 

But it can’t do the emotion and feeling part, which is where the insights come from. So if you say, what’s the insight for anything into AI, you’re going to get an analysis and evaluation, not an insight. But there are some AI tools that can help you do the research. There’s one in particular that we recommend, which is Waldo.

 

Waldo. It’s fairly new. And it’s a really outstanding platform that is, that was created for agencies to be able to learn about, category competition, company or the brand and the customer, the target audience, which is for those who know us, that that’s the beginnings of a strategic approach to finding the insights that you need to do great work.

 

I like Waldo, which is the one that we’re invested in for Mercer Island Group can help you get to the data that you might need around the customer, around the competition. Much faster than just googling everything on your own. And it’s more specific than things like ChatGPT, which are more general. This really is honed in for agencies to learn more about prospective clients or even their own clients.

 

So we’ve invested in it and highly recommended it. And by the way, the listeners, if you go to Waldo and you take a look and you mentioned Mercer Island Group, when you sign up, you’ll get some free stuff. Yeah, yeah. I feel like I just watched a whole TV show, and then you guys left me with this amazing cliffhanger burn on out.

 

I thought about adding it earlier, but I thought it would take us off track too fast, so I like a little teaser. More to come. We’re incorporating it now into all of our workshops. We tested it for quite a while on our team, and before we made that investment. And then we tested it once we made the investment, before we started recommending it.

 

So, we vetted it quite carefully. And we’re pretty excited about what we can offer agencies what we’re so looking forward to being with you in just a few short weeks at the bigger, better agency Summit in Denver. And then, of course, you’re teaching, workshop for AMI in October. So what is the best way for our audience to reach out and connect with you?

 

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How to Stand Out From Competitors: Connecting with Robin and Steve

 

Obviously build a better agency summit. And then the workshops are two great ways to learn from you directly. But how can they reach out and connect with you? Well, you can certainly find us at our website migroup.com. You can email Robin or Steve. It’s [email protected] or [email protected] and we’ll follow up with anybody we need dearly love agencies and we love to talk about their challenges.

 

I think that that’s one of the things that I mean, it’s been almost a decade now that we’ve had this opportunity to learn from you and in in Drew and I, Drew McLellan, who obviously, you know very, very well, but went when we we’re talking about, you guys, which is often, we both share this same thing and, the same sort of love of you about your generosity that not only that, you’re smart, but that you’re so generous.

 

And we heard that for the last hour. And how you just consistently share your insights that you’ve gathered from behind the curtain, leading pitches, working alongside agencies. So thanks for sharing so generously as you did here. We knew that you would, and we’re just so very grateful for it. So everyone, no matter how many notes you took, and Hannah and I took a ton, the key is that you have to take what you just learned, take what Steve and Robin so generously shared with you, take it and apply it.

 

Because when you do, you will accelerate your results. And Robin and Steve, we all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day. And Hannah and I are grateful that you said yes to come on to the show, to be our mentor and guide, to help agencies raise the bar and move onward to that next level. Thank you so much, our friends. Thanks for having us.

 

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