3 Sales Strategies to Win More Agency Business with Luke Cope | Ep #780

3 Sales Strategies to Win More Agency Business with Luke Cope | Ep #780 Speaker 2: I want you to stop working for free. If you're tired of getting ghosted on proposals, the endless follow-ups and We'll think about it as a response. There's a better way. The top agencies aren't sending proposals. They're getting paid to pitch and close bigger deals way faster. I want you to grab this free resource I just put together at agencymastery360.com slash strategy. That's agencymastery360.com slash strategy and you'll learn how to flip the script if you want to get paid for your expertise instead of giving it away for free. Hey Luke, welcome to the show. Speaker 1: Thanks for having me on. Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. Tell us what you do. Speaker 1: So I'm Luke Cope. I'm one of the co-founders of a digital PR agency called Bottled Imagination. We're based in Manchester in the UK and we're just over two years old now. So we're fairly early on in our agency journey, but we've grown fairly fast. We're sort of up to like 15 people now. We did just over a million in our second year in terms of revenue. And yeah, I've been working in the agency world for about 12 years now, 13 years. I started off as an SEO executive and then I got to grow content marketing departments and agencies. And then yeah, I've recklessly quit my job to set up an agency twice now. So this is my second go. Speaker 2: Well, what made you decide to start your agency? Speaker 1: I think this time around we were working at another agency, myself and my two co-founders, and we The agency grew pretty fast. It grew to 7 million revenue in like three years. And we were in the first sort of 10, 15 employees there. So we took it, we helped sort of grow it between when we're all sat around the table together to serve in multiple offices in different locations. And I think we treated that like it was our own agency, but actually it wasn't. We didn't own shares. There's also a shelf life on how you can work like that probably for someone else. And that's probably about two years. So we're pretty sort of We really liked it then. We've never had a bad word to say about the place, but I think it felt like it was our time to start our own thing. So we just went for it. We didn't have a name. We had a basic offering in mind. But yeah, we just went for it. And that was kind of the catalyst of it's probably time to do our own thing now and not We wanted to create something of our own, not really inherit something of someone else's because we had options to join the competitors and things like that, but that didn't really appeal to us. So I think we all had a similar mindset that we wanted to create something of our own. Speaker 2: So why didn't you go to the owner or owners and go, Hey, we want to be more a part of this. And we would like to be partners in this agency that we helped build. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a fair point. I think it kind of felt like our own without having that. And I think the realization that it probably wasn't and yeah, we could launch our own thing came to us. And that seemed like the most relevant thing to do. I think I was a director there. So I think I did have some say, I didn't have shares or anything like that. And I think When we did bring up the option of potentially leaving a set of our own agency, we wanted to do that straight away and not have any conversations of planning or anything like that, which was not the brightest thing to do from our point of view, but it seemed like a respectful thing to do of like, this is what we're going to do. We're going to tell you before that. And I was at the time, I think it was very black and white. Like as soon as I made that decision, that didn't seem like a conversation to be had in the middle. Although we probably did suggest a couple of things, you know, potential sister agency was one of them. We were quite close with the founders. So I think it could have got a lot more sour than what it did, but in the end it was fairly amicable. Speaker 2: I just always am curious. And I think a lot of people listening are curious as you build an amazing agency and you build a team where you're working on the things that You as the owner, the founder. You know, you love doing and you built this amazing team around you. You want to keep that team. I would want to know if my team was thinking about leaving and starting to do something very similar, I'd be like, well, come to me. Let's have the conversation and think about like, what can we do to challenge you? What can we do to get you ownership or whatever it is? I would just always like, especially when you guys were the three key people that help, Like I look at it as if I was the founder, I'd be like, man, I was like, that was a hard hit. Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that probably would have been the case. Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: I think it would have been, that would have been the case and I can totally see it from the founder's point of view as well. Sometimes you, when you're growing fast, then you might forget things. You might forget how people are wired sometimes. I'm pushy and ambitious and never really content. And I think there was always a fair exchange there in terms of my personal growth and the agency growth and what I was giving to the agency and what they were giving to me. And then when there wasn't, there wasn't. And I think it was probably the problems that I might have had could only really be solved if I was running the business or a co-owner of the business. And therefore, it's probably the right time for me to go to set up my own. And I think Timing-wise, it worked out like that was probably the best thing to do, actually. Speaker 2: You got to always trust your gut. I always tell everybody, whether it be getting rid of that employee that you've always wanted to, but you've never done it, or you hire that one employee that you know within the first couple of weeks that they're not going to work out, but you hold on to them for a year. We've all done it. I totally respect what you guys did is like, Hey, we want to go do this. We're going to go do it. Like why even waste any time and like, and, and do even without. You know, with a plan, it's like, yeah, burn the fucking boat behind you. Go do it. You know, most people would say, I'm going to ride out my salary as long as I possibly can while I build this other agency, which I always hate when people... Speaker 1: Exactly. And I think there's, like I said, the decision was made. We made that decision. And you say you've got time to do things. I think the timing was like even down to the day. We got a lead as soon as it was announced we had left. And even down to that day, that was a massive client. That was like 15,000 pounds a month. That was like set up our agency. We got another one the week after. It all fell like literally perfectly for us to be able to launch an agency. And we weren't sure how that was going to go. But even down to literally the day that we left, if we did change that by a week, by a few days, it might not have turned out like it has done. Speaker 2: Well, everything's aligned when you do stuff well. I believe in karma. And I keep telling people, I'm like, karma is making a list and you're on it. All right. So now you got a couple of clients. I guess this was from your personal network, I presume. Right. When did you guys realize that you guys needed to hire more people? You needed to hire people on your team so you could start getting out of the day to day operations. Speaker 1: So, we had a really strange period where we could start trading, but we couldn't publicly launch for three months as part of the legal arrangement we have with our previous agency. So, it was like, okay, you can start trading as an agency, but you can't legally launch for three months. So, that period on paper was going to be like, okay, how do we pay ourselves? How do we even get clients? But you're right. So, it was from a couple of referrals, our first couple of clients. One was a fairly big brand, so a big name fashion retailer in the UK called Fennec. They signed a contract that said insert company name on because we legally couldn't launch our company name. So we sent them a contract saying, look, you need to trust us, guys. We are a legit thing, but we can't register the company yet. So, there was some really interesting stories at the start like, how the hell did we actually get clients? Because we didn't have a website or anything like that. But we did and we managed. I think we turned over like £30,000 in the first month. So, all the anxieties of like, how are we going to pay ourselves? Are we going to get clients? It kind of gone temporarily. And then it was like, okay, how do we hire people without a company name? And get people to join us. Speaker 2: So you guys hired people within the first three months then too. Speaker 1: So just after the month three, I think we hired our first employee, Lucy, who joined us. But yeah, the interview took place probably when. We were trading, but we weren't publicly launched, so she didn't fully know anything about us. But yeah, she's been a great hire. Speaker 2: I would have called the name Insert Company Name. That would have been the Insert Company Name agency. Speaker 1: We nearly had to. If anyone had signed any more contracts, we'd have had to change the name to Insert Company Name. So yeah, it was a crazy... How are we going to do this in this first three months type of thing? But we just did it and gone with it and picked up clients and picked up that important revenue at the start. Then we hired a couple of people. So we had a mixture of, I think that one of the benefits of having two co-founders is that we could service the work immediately from launching. We had a creative, who's my co-founder, James, PR director, my co-founder, Katie, and myself, who's a strategist, and we could service accounts immediately. So that was a big Okay, we can do this. We had a couple of contractors in the short term, and then we hired, yeah, we probably had two or three people by sort of six months in who enticed, well, not enticing, but trying to get people to join your company when you're so small. It looks, it's the same as winning a new business. You look like a risk. And that was a similar thing in trying to get people to join us. But I think it was exciting as well. Speaker 2: The first person I tried to recruit, I didn't, they didn't join with me. And I was doing websites at the time. And I remember I wanted to hire this designer. And we met at this Slosky's Deli because I was working out of my apartment, just this deli. And I was trying to sell them, like you said, the company's trying to sell them. Versus ask questions and that kind of stuff. And I think I was trying to sell them because I didn't know where the fuck we were going. I didn't know what we wanted to do. I didn't know what the vision was. I didn't know who we wanted to help. I was just like, hey, I can design a website. Can you design a website? Who needs a website? We'll just go through the yellow pages. And then it quickly turns out to be of going, Hey, I know where we're going. I know my values and I know our, you know, kind of the values for the other people, like other co-founders. This is what we're looking for. And it quickly changes where like you go into that interview and you're, you're asking questions, not like. You know, tell us about whatever. You know, it's asking, like, getting to know that person. Do I want to hang out with this person? Can they actually, you know, first and then figure out, can they actually do the job? Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we had that. And because it's a certain type of environment when you first set up, it's different. So when you're 50 or 100 people, you need a certain type of person at the start. And I think we, yeah, you're right. We went from, okay, please join us. We're a legitimate agency. We promise to, we've got two values, use your imagination, do good work. And we want to be one of the best agencies. Like, are you that sort of type of person really? And we went from there and that meant we could attract some pretty talented people, some of which we've worked with before as well, fairly early on in our journey. Speaker 2: And a lot of people too, as you're starting out or as people are small and you're hiring, they want to be a part of something that they can feel That sense of accomplishment that you guys had at the previous agency. We were one of the keys to building this to a $7 million agency, right? Speaker 1: That's it. I think my interview for that previous agency, I was head of digital, I think at the time at another agency. I met them and they were like, we want to be one of the best search agencies in the world or the biggest search agency in the UK. And I just quit my job the next day. I handed my notice in. I was like, I'll join you. Don't worry about salaries. Don't worry about titles. We'll figure that out. I think I took a pay cut, which I regret. I took a pay cut to join them because they were based in like a... So I think that for me was like a big gamble, but that's the kind of person we're looking to kind of attract in the early days and what they want to be part of something and not just sort of join something that's already going sort of thing. Speaker 2: Hi there, agency owners. Let me ask you, are you ready to scale your agency without increasing your overhead costs? If yes, then you need to know about E2M Solutions. Now, E2M is the number one most reliable white label partner for agencies. They specialize in web design, WordPress development, e-commerce, SEO, and content writing. They basically do all the heavy lifting, which frees you up to focus on growing your agency. Now, here's the best part. E2M is just not another vendor. With over 10 years of experience, their team of over 300 experts has a track record of delivering for more than 300 agencies. They're your strategic partner. They deliver on time every time, so you can focus on what you do best. Now, E2M's mission is simple, to help 500 agencies increase their revenue and profit margins with white-label services that actually work. And to help you get started, they're offering a special deal, 10% off for the first three months. But act fast because it's only a limited time offer. So head over to e2msolutions.com slash Smart Agency to check out their transparent and their flexible pricing. Trust me, if you're ready to grow without burning out, e2m is the partner you've been looking for. That's e2msolutions.com slash Smart Agency. Go check them out and tell them Jason Swenk sent you. I almost would like to do an interview like playing someone in poker, like to see if they're, if you're like this startup company, if I ever do another startup. I think my interview process would be like, let's play a planned up poker and see how competitive they are, like play some kind of game, see how much they like to gamble or how much the, how competitive they are. Right. Just to test them and be like, man, this is kind of the weirdest interview. I mean, I used, I told people I used to show up in interviews and like full race gear with like the racing helmet. You know, my racing suit, everything, or I'd show up in a tutu. They would never know what I would show up in because I wanted to see how people would react to it. Speaker 1: We've not tried that one yet. I've not had to put on a tutu yet, but I never say never. Speaker 2: Yeah, you never know. I mean, I had jeans on and I just put the rainbow tutu outside of it. But the person I did hire, which was Gus, at the end of the interview, he was like, Jason, I got to get a picture of this and I got to post it on social media because I've never had anybody interview me in a tutu. And we were hiring for a social media manager. And I said, you're hired right then when he did that, because that's what I was looking for versus everyone else. They kind of ignored the tutu. How can you ignore this 6'3 huge dude in a tutu? Really? What else are you going to ignore when I hire you? What else has contributed to your guys' growth in such a short time to get over the seven-figure mark? Speaker 1: We did a few things. I think we changed our new business or approached a new business after about six months. I think the very first before that, probably the very first part is we launched and we're a creative digital PR agency. So we create stories that get our clients into press, help improve their organic search rankings. And you kind of launch and you can say you're a creative digital PR agency, but you need to prove it pretty quick. So in the first sort of three months, we needed an example of what that meant. So the very first part of this was We need an example of what we mean here. We obviously had examples from past work we've done, but we needed our own example. And so we, one of our clients, we created a footballer that didn't exist. So a soccer player that did not exist called Jordan Reese. And we paid influencers to say he was 10 to 1 to make the England World Cup squad in Qatar. 5,000 people clicked through on the offer to place a bet on Jordan Rees-Macon, the England squad. Speaker 2: This fake person? Speaker 1: Fake person. We hired a model. We put him in a kit. We did a photo shoot. And everyone who clicked through, 5,000 of them, were then taken to a gambling awareness page about researching your bets properly. I think 63% of people have bet on a player or team they know nothing about. So straight away, we had that example. And then we went out to press and said, 5,000 people have tried to bet on a soccer player that didn't exist. So we have that one example straight away quite early on. And then what we did, we've got a bit of a flywheel for our marketing, which is do good work, generate hype, generate trust. So it all comes down to doing a campaign like that and then picking the most fun part of that campaign, promoting it on social and then generating trust through things like award wins and case studies and things like that. That was the first part, but I'd say early on the most important part or the thing that helped changed it In terms of our growth was we changed our new business and pitch process a little bit. We were winning sort of like 50%, which is not bad really for a new agency at all. But we were lacking a bit of trust there. So we changed it. We made it more fun. So we pitched some bespoke ideas in the pitches. And also, we would do things like we'd ask them what they didn't want to hear. So what ideas they didn't want to hear in a pitch. And then we'd go through our whole pitch process of how we come up with ideas, how it's different to every other agency. And then the first idea we pitched them would be an idea they didn't want to hear. So we'd pick with Victorian Plumbing, one of our plumbing clients. They said, look, we don't want to hear a rubber duck idea. We've heard every single rubber duck idea. We don't want to hear it. So we went through our process, like this is how we're different, this is how we're creative. It was like, here's the first idea. We're going to float a giant rubber duck down the Thames. And their faces were just like, Oh my God, these guys have not got this at all. And then we're like, we're just joking. Don't worry. It made it more fun. And then it made the rest of our ideas seem better as well. So, and I did do this at a previous agency to be fair, and it didn't go as well because they liked the idea that was a joke. So you've got to be careful with what you do with that. So that was one of the first things we changed on our new business process was that, and then we also added in on a couple of pitches, like select pitches, like questions we'd have if we were the client, because there was quite a lot of like politeness in Britain around not asking things like, you're only six months old, are you going to be here next year? We just put that at the end and said, this is what we'd be asking of you. So we went ahead and answered that question ahead of time for them, removed all the kind of awkwardness and barriers that they might have with working with a startup agency. Those two things, I think that took our win rate to like 83% by 85% near the end of our first year. And that's how we picked up like a big ton of new clients and sort of grew from there really. Speaker 2: I like the idea of saying, what are the things you don't want us to mention like in the pitch? And then I also do like overcoming the objections that you know that they have, but get them out in the open and kind of like, the only idea I don't like is the pitch. Honestly, I never liked to give away the, like, I always find that agency owners, they give away the best part, the strategy, but then they get paid on the execution. You know, that's why I've always liked of going, Hey, we're going to build this idea together, but you charge for it. I always go to people like when they jump on it, if they want to do an agency blueprint with us, right? Like we charge. Like 697 for it. We don't make money on it, but we go, look, we're going to meet with you for 90 minutes. We're going to build an agency blueprint for you for whatever you want to get. Here's the three possible outcomes. You'll love the plan. You go execute it yourself. That's the case. Wish you luck. Congratulations. I'm glad we can help. Number two, which is the most common, you'll love the plan. You want to work with us and we'll, we'll talk about how that can work. Number three, you don't like the plan. We'll give your money back. So there's nothing for you to lose. And then it just qualifies them so much quicker. And then all these other agencies are doing pitching the rubber duck ideas, right? Because think about how much time and money goes into a pitch. Now, I love your winning percentage, 83%. Like, don't get me wrong, but there was someone I interviewed on the show. Maybe we'll link it up. I think it was Alpha Delta Zulu is the agency. And they came up with this great video about how they don't pitch. And so they had it where you would go to the person that would help you with fitness. The trainer, personal trainer, a personal trainer. I don't know. I can't think of that, but yeah, they go to the personal trainer, right? And they go, let's say Luke, you were the personal trainer. I would go, Luke, I want you to tell me all the workouts I need to do. And then at the end of all the workouts that you show me, I have the right to use them and I can resell them if I want. And they'd be like, hell no. They'd be like, that's what you're asking with the agency. I was like, oh, it's perfect. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very good analogy. I think pitching, pitching is a strange one because it's particularly when you're talking about creative work as well, because yeah, I don't love how competitive some of the SEO, digital PR And we're going to talk a little bit about what the pitch process is. We have become more selective on that front in terms of what we go and pitch for first and foremost, but then also we did win a large contract last week without pitching. So I need to figure out what I did there to come up with a foot in the door. Speaker 2: It's something that you can, they pay for where you're working with them one-on-one, but you get to build it with them. And then they see your creativity and action, and you get rid of all the people that are a waste. Well, this has been a lot of fun as I'm choking, Luke. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you think would benefit the audience listening in? Speaker 1: Luke Cope You were clearly allergic to the pitch process. That's what's... Speaker 2: That's how creative you are. Yes, I'm getting choked up. Luke Cope Yeah. Speaker 1: I guess the thing you haven't, Swen, you haven't asked me. I think it'd be interesting to discuss this with you. I set up a LinkedIn newsletter called Born Or Made because I felt, I guess a little bit, I've got co-founders, but in terms of the type of person I am, I'm not your stereotypical entrepreneur. So all the stories of entrepreneurs and agency owners are, I used to sell things at the playground. At school, I'd make money and I'd have side hustles and all my parents were entrepreneurs and therefore I was always going to be an entrepreneur or agency owner. And this kind of like stereotypical business owner, agency owner, entrepreneur, ideal person was kind of laid out. And I was never really like that. So I was very average at school. I was kind of made into an entrepreneur out of kind of I guess personal circumstances and things like that, but I guess what I'm asking is why would we do this to ourselves? And is there any kind of like consistent tropes within the agency and as you've spoken to in particular with that backgrounds or in terms of what type of person they are that makes them kind of do this? Speaker 2: They're all kinds of the people that say, I've heard those stories too. We've been always hustling on the side. And I was like, those are the fake ones trying to sell you a course. Like I can stand those people. If I see another, I'm almost off Instagram completely just because I keep getting those bullshit ads of, you know, do you want to make 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 a month? I'm just like, you're, you're 12 years old, go away. But no, there's no common thing. Most agency owners, the most successful ones, they know how to do something really amazing and then they start finding the right people to help them do that more at scale. But they have an idea and they just ran with it and they're willing to take the risk themselves. The difference between someone that works for an entrepreneur Like, I think everybody has, can be an entrepreneur, but it's about the risk that you're willing to take. Like everyone has that capability, but some people are more risk tolerant than others. With me, I'll bet the farm each time. Some people aren't that way, but I'm willing to bet on myself more than anybody else. And I think when you look at some of the most successful agencies in the mastermind or that I've worked with. They're betting on themselves. They'll bet on other people that believe in their vision. And they figure it all out along the way. My vision when I started this 10 years ago has changed so much. The North Star is still there, but the way we can get there is very different. And we're willing to change on a dime. Like if you look back at the past two years of growing your business, you guys have had somewhat of a North Star, I presume. And the path that you thought in the very beginning to get there probably changed very quickly. And you're like, well, we'll just adapt. We'll change, right? It's kind of, I'm going to pivot really quick. Does it make sense? Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that's a really good answer. There's obviously something in agency owners to take that initial risk, but then they do treat every kind of week as a calculated risk. They're making, they're placing bets every week. Yeah. And it's just an interesting mindset to have. Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, and the whole thing, you know, goes to like the song I wrote a couple of weeks ago. It's like, you got to kind of pivot to thrive. And like, sometimes you'll hit it out of the park, sometimes your losses will be your lessons. And that's like my mentality of going like, winnings or blessings, lessons, or losses or lessons. And, you know, everything's an experiment. I'm either going to win or I'm going to learn. That's how I look at it. And then we'll just adapt because to own a business, you have to, especially a service-based business, and then especially an agency business, you have to love solving problems. That's all you do all day long. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think that's what is that for me is what it changed into, but you start off being good at something. So you might be good at campaign ideas or something and you get recognition and feedback from being good at that sort of thing. But then as it advances and you are running an agency, Your recognition of feedback becomes slightly less tangible. It might be bigger goals. It might be a revenue goal or something like that. And then your feedback, you don't have a boss anymore. So your feedback comes from internally or sometimes from clients or something like that. But there's a whole different sort of like experience for feedback and growth. And it comes a lot internally. As opposed to externally. Speaker 2: Yeah. As the older I get, it's easier to make faster decisions because I try to take the emotion out of it. When I was younger, I used to think I have to hit it out of the park every single time. And it was very emotional decisions. And I only learned it after I got like in my own mastermind and we would start giving advice to other people because you can listen to the challenge and then you could give advice because you're not emotionally tied to it. And then you'd be like, Oh, well, I need to go do that. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes. Like Wayne would like, I think what we, what we did at the start was we created like what bold imagination was as a third party entity. And are we adhering to what bold imagination we want it to be? And that took the personal like touch out of it a little bit and made it less sort of Oh, I'm doing a bad job. It's actually, we're just slightly off where we said we wanted to be versus what we wanted Bottled Imagination to be. Speaker 2: This has been a lot of fun, Luke. And what's the website people can go and check you guys out? Speaker 1: We're bottledimagination.com. Speaker 2: Awesome. And if you guys enjoyed this episode, listening to it today, and you want to be around other agency owners where we can listen to the challenges and help you make emotionless decisions so you can grow your agency faster. Why don't you set up a call with us and we'll have a 30 minute quick clarity call and see if we're right for you to help you out. Go to agencymastery360.com and click on, yes, I want to scale. We'll have a quick conversation and if we can help you out, we'll help you out. If not, We wish you luck. Until next time, have a swanky day.