Episode Transcript
Don (00:00)
my favorite question ever, which you're going to hopefully chuckle at is, Hey, Rob, how much does a website cost? Yeah. What do do you what do you say when people ask that?
Rob (00:05)
Yeah, how much does a website cost? I don't know.
Well, we always go, ⁓ I don't know, how much does a car cost?
Don (00:14)
That's exactly what I say. always say, yeah, I always say, hey, all of them have four wheels and a steering wheel, and hopefully it starts and stops. Right. But some cars are free and some cars cost a million dollars.
Rob (00:16)
Right? How much does the car...
Don (00:48)
And we're back, Rob, episode 159.
Rob (00:50)
159 159.
Don (00:52)
159. So
we've done 159 of these things. And I have not had a cold for any of these. But if my voice sounds a little raspy, or if I have to hit the dump, I've never needed a dump button, right? ⁓ Okay, well, I'll take that as a positive then, because I feel absolutely horrible. ⁓ But ⁓ hey, sometimes you just got to soldier on colds are colds, you know what mean? Like you just can't just kind of kind of soldier through it. It's not like ⁓
Rob (01:02)
Wow.
You don't sound that you don't sound that rap like you do.
Don (01:22)
You know, it's not like having the flu, you know, or having to lay in bed, no fever, no nothing, just one of those general, you know what I mean? Like that.
Rob (01:30)
No, I mean the good news
about a cold is you just hide it with medicine. just coach yourself in medicine and just pretend like it's not there.
Don (01:34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It does make you wonder, like we haven't figured this out yet. We haven't figured out the cure. Yeah, the cure for the common cold. mean.
Rob (01:43)
Cure for the common cold?
No, medicine doesn't do anything to cure the cold.
Don (01:50)
No, no, no, no, we don't treat the ⁓ the the illness we treat the symptoms is what we do to your point, right? It's just we mask the the fevers or the whatever you're feeling, right? So
Rob (01:58)
Yeah. Well,
if, if we cure things in the drug companies, they're not in the business of curing things. They're in the business of maintenance is what we, is what we.
Don (02:05)
Hahaha ⁓
Yeah.
How do they make the money? How do they make the money, right? I remember when we were, I
mean, when we were kids, I mean, those commercials on television, you know, for like, you know, what you need to do is feed a cold and all the different, remember all the different methodologies on like, you know, how to sort of take care of your cold and stuff like that. It's pretty funny. So, yeah, I mean, now it's just a blend of like, hey, you gotta take.
Rob (02:25)
yeah.
Yeah, you need these eight different medicines.
Don (02:36)
Ibuprofen here, then you take a little Delsim, then you take a little NyQuil to go to bed, you take a little DayQuil to wake up, you know, it's just a kind of ⁓ a rolling cocktail of over-the-counter mucinex and all sorts of, I mean, are they really all that different? I have no idea, you know, but.
Rob (02:50)
Well, here's
what I can tell in life when I would have a cold, I would just, I don't know, I grabbed a couple of Sudafed and I grabbed, here's a Dayquil or something. With no thought about until I married a pharmacist. Yeah. And so my wife, a pharmacist by trade and boy, how do you.
Don (02:57)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓
There you go. Okay.
I'm gonna need her to send me
the battle plan on what I'm supposed to do.
Rob (03:14)
You should see
our ⁓ you should see our medicine cabinet. It's not a cabinet. It's more of a medicine pantry. I'm going to call it and it's and it's here it is and it's there's a very ⁓ she she gets irritated with me because you know my daughter will have a cold and I'll be like and my wife will be out of town or something. I'll be like yeah, I gave her like you know three. I did this the other day. I was like I gave her like three Advil and a diclofenac you know for her ankle sprain her ankles and my wife's like.
Don (03:17)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing. Yeah.
Rob (03:44)
You did what? I'm like, yeah, I gave her like, is she okay? I'm like, yeah, she's fine. I'm like, think her stomach hurts a little bit. She's like, well, of course it does. You gave her, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, she starts being language I don't understand. I'm like, okay. So there's a lot of like, hey, I got a runny nose and whatever, what should I take? And she kicks into pharmacy, she's like, well, you need to take this and that and this.
Don (03:45)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not.
Yeah.
Yeah. Nice. Nice.
My problem is I don't treat anything. I just complain. Right? Well, hey, I don't blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and then it's, well, hey, did you take this? Did you do that? Did you do any of the things you're supposed to do? And the answer is no, you know.
Rob (04:13)
⁓ you don't take drugs at all.
No.
Don, you know
who does that? You know what that sounds like? It sounds like my children. I'll be like, here's the medicine. this thing. Hey, did you, my ankle hurts. Well, did you take the medicine I told you to take? No.
Don (04:25)
⁓ Yeah, I'm horrible.
Yeah, I
I'm horrible. Yeah, I wait. I don't treat as I should. I don't stay on it. And then I just immediately crater down at the end. Then I just bitch and moan and complain because I'm a horrible, horrible sick person. know, so yeah, I am far from a perfect. I don't even know how we got onto this or whatever that but like, my alarm just went off as a reminder to take some ibuprofen, you know, so it's on my list. But this too shall pass. know, this too shall pass. I remember I mean,
Rob (04:49)
I don't either.
Okay, there you go. There you go. There you go.
Don (04:59)
Speaking of brands though, in sickness, when I was a little guy, little kid in San Francisco, I remember, I'm gonna stay home from school or whatever the deal, too sick to go to school, whatever the, the magic remedy, I can't believe I even remember this, the magic remedy for having a cold and being sick was to have a sip of Coca-Cola, right? To bring this into branding or whatever. It was like every 10 minutes, my mom would let me have like a little sip of Coca-Cola.
And I think it was literally just the caffeine of like, call it early 1980 Coca-Cola or whatever that just kind of perked you up and like made you feel better if you were like, four years old or five years old or whatever. It's like Coke was the magic elixir to make yourself feel better, like a tonic of some sort.
Rob (05:44)
I don't know.
That was not a thing in these parts.
Don (05:49)
But that makes no sense because these parts is like the birthplace of Coca-Cola. yeah, that was a magic elixir was I got to have a little sip of Coca-Cola. We never had Coke growing up. That was never we never had soda or any of kind of stuff.
Rob (05:53)
Yeah, that was not a thing. ⁓
My
parents would just always just give me a glass of bourbon and send me off to school. know, I do just kill it. Hot toddy, get on to school. No, they did not. They did not do that. All right. We digress.
Don (06:07)
Yeah, a little hot toddy kind of vibe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, all right, we digress. We digress. All
right, episode 159. What were we going to talk about today? We're going to talk about ⁓
Rob (06:21)
Well, we have a we have a lot of I'm interrupting. ⁓ We we we have a so we did a couple of podcasts ago. We talked about ⁓ sometimes when you have to break up with a client, right? We talked about that ⁓ and it seems like sometimes what happens is when that happens, all of sudden new opportunities present themselves, right? ⁓ And so I think most agencies can relate to it. I don't care if you're big or small or whatever, but the ongoing
Don (06:24)
No, go for it.
yeah.
Yeah. For sure.
Rob (06:51)
challenge of new business and business development. And so thought we would talk a little bit about that and the different avenues of business development. I know we've touched on all this before, but ⁓ it seemed timely because all of a sudden it seems like we have a few pretty productive ⁓ irons in the fire and just thought it would be interesting to talk about how those, when one door closes, another one opens.
Don (06:53)
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I, if you weren't going to say that, I was going to. Yeah. my, how am I trapped in this nutshell? ⁓ Yeah, it's always, it's always interesting in, you know, call it 2026, like how do people find people, right? ⁓ And more specifically, how do companies find companies, right? We have talked about
Rob (07:18)
And where do we find these doors? Where are these? How did I get in this nutshell?
Yeah.
Don (07:41)
in the past, our business is, to a certain extent, at the end of the line, is to trust-based business. Hey, ⁓ I know Don and Rob are gonna do a great job. I trust them. They're going to execute such and such, and the team, I shouldn't say just Don and Rob, but the agency as a whole. ⁓ But I could always make the argument, and I know I've said this before in the past, hey, our designs are better than others because of XYZ, and I can break down terminology and methodology and whatever, but at the end of the day, it's like, hey,
fun to work with, they trust we're going to get it done and this and that. But that creates an interesting fork in the road of like, well, that's all well and good if you already know these people. So one of our new opportunities came from an opportunity from multiple opportunities ago. Hey, not a brand new company, but ⁓ people that we don't know whatsoever, but they know people that we know.
Right? So they're asking, hey, who do you trust? Who should we go to? Who do we need? ⁓ absolutely call, you know, mock the agency, da da da da da. Right? So it's interesting. It's like, hey, ⁓ it's like getting set up for a date with, you know, from a trusted friend, right? It's okay. Well, we've already broken down certain barriers, right? Even though we don't know each other whatsoever on a new business call, right? But there is that common thread of trust from somebody else that introduced each, you know, us together, right?
in the relationship game. So I think that's, you know, and that's always a great testament to how we work with all of our clients, whether they stay with us for a long time or whether they stay with us for a short time, Is, you know, the referral, the referral based business game is pretty strong, I guess, you know?
Rob (09:26)
Yeah, I mean, and I think for all agencies, they would say the same thing, meaning the referrals obviously are the lowest hanging fruit in terms of new business, right? Because it comes and finds you, ⁓ which is great. And then to your point, there's a built in, okay, they're already qualified to some degree. ⁓ So the conversation is much easier to start and have. It's just like any other referral in any other kind of business. So those are always ones that I would
Don (09:49)
Yeah.
Rob (09:56)
assume every agency, no matter what, is trying to nurture ⁓ all the time. Because hey, if you can get stuff coming to you and you don't have to go to that, you know, that's just great, that's easier. So that's one avenue. The other thing too is, and we were talking about this a little bit earlier,
Don (10:05)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rob (10:12)
You know, as a thinking of practice, what you preach, we do a fair amount of SEO work, right? For, for a bunch of different companies. And we have, you know, a few years back, we started doing that for ourselves. thought, well, goodness, this makes sense. We should, we should do this for ourselves. ⁓ And so we've been doing that for a while. And, ⁓ and now that that is, that is really proven effective, I would say. ⁓ But.
Don (10:25)
Yeah.
Rob (10:39)
The challenge with that is it's ongoing and you don't just set it and forget it. And I think a lot of times we get so busy that working on our clients, know, that we're like, shoot, wait a minute, we have to do, we gotta remember to, we can't remember to take care of ourselves, right?
Don (10:42)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, this is like updating your own portfolio, right? But on a massive scale, right? It's like we're too busy doing all the great work for everybody else that like, we always push ourselves to the end of the line, right? Like most like most agencies do, to be honest.
Rob (11:06)
That's That's
right. But and those come in. It's interesting. It's kind of it's kind of it's fun in the sense that, you know, you get these emails and you're like, ⁓ it's like fishing, right? It's like, is there one on the line here? Like, what do we have? This is interesting. You know, and a lot of them come in and they end up being nothing burgers, of course. ⁓ But we've we've been fortunate enough to do pretty good in our own SEO efforts and land some pretty good clients that that way.
Don (11:19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rob (11:35)
You know, but that's always interesting because it's and maybe this is universal across all new business when you start to work with somebody is trying to figure out pricing and where they are and budgets and all of that. You know what, what level that because we like to work with a, I would say a variety of clients, right? Both big and small and big clients have way different budgets than startups, but the startups can be really fun to work on. So that's how, and that's a whole different podcast in and of itself. I guess is pricing your
Don (11:47)
Yeah.
for sure. Yeah.
Absolutely. For sure.
Rob (12:04)
but trying to do that new business because you're setting the precedent, right? You're setting the bar on job number one. So that's always an interesting exercise to go through.
Don (12:07)
Absolut
Yeah, and do you even talk, you know, money, or budgets, or any of that kind of stuff right out of the chute right on on an introductory call, you know what mean? That's always a delicate dance right there, you know, like, do we talk about how it works or whatever, you know, we've talked about ⁓ the concept of charging hourly, like lawyers and things like that versus charging by scope or project definition, right? And things like that, right? ⁓
Rob (12:22)
Right, right, right. Yeah.
Don (12:39)
So I think a lot of times we'll bring that up on some new business calls in terms of how the function of the process works. Just talk to me about how interfacing with each other works, that type of thing. But, ooh, dangerous to Utah. You don't want to start talking about numbers on a get to know you call because you don't really know what anybody needs yet. You're saying, hey, tell me a little bit about you and what you do and what you need. Why we're even having this conversation? Where are your pitfalls? And then, hey, let's talk about us.
Rob (12:54)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Don (13:09)
what we do, who we do it for, and then how we do it, right? And then figure out from there, okay, how do we get the puzzle pieces to work? Or how do we onboard? How do we try something? You know what mean? How do we, ⁓ you know, let's go out to a cup of coffee here before we get married type thing, you know, so.
Rob (13:25)
Yeah, yeah,
the only time that the only the only ⁓ time to talk money on the first date is when you're trying to ferret out pretty quickly. Is this a legit thing or or not? Because there's no faster way to and to figure out if we're going to party or if we're not going to party as we like.
Don (13:39)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean,
my favorite question ever, which you're going to hopefully chuckle at is, Hey, Rob, how much does a website cost? Yeah. What do do you what do you say when people ask that?
Rob (13:49)
Yeah, how much does a website cost? I don't know.
Well, we always go, ⁓ I don't know, how much does a car cost?
Don (14:03)
That's exactly what I say. always say, yeah, I always say, hey, all of them have four, you know, four wheels and a steering wheel, and hopefully it starts and stops. Right. But some cars are free and some cars cost a million dollars. Right. What's the difference between all those cars? You know, like it's and that does tie back into, you know, definition of scope and what the actual needs what the needs are. You know, not every website is is the same. You know, are we building Bank of America dot com?
Rob (14:04)
Right? How much does the car...
That's right.
Right. Right.
Don (14:32)
Right? Or are we just building a brochure online? You know, it's a vastly difference, you know.
Rob (14:38)
And I will say on our behalf, I consider this kudos to us. ⁓ and we've, we've, we've mentioned it before, but the idea of, of RFPs, right? And RFPs come in many different forms. And I'm not knocking the RFP as a, ⁓ you know, a holistic thing, right? It comes in different forms, but we have always been pretty, stood
Don (14:43)
Okay. Ooh, that's gonna be good.
Sure, sure.
Rob (15:06)
pretty firm by, there've been a few exceptions, but pretty firm with, we don't do any spec work. Like, spec work is not a thing. And I think it's a, you know, I think it's more a dirty word now than it used to be. It used to be, yeah, I think so. I think agencies used to do spec work all the time.
Don (15:12)
Yeah. Yeah.
Do you think?
Well, would yeah, I would totally agree with that. Actually, now I think like 20 years ago, that was kind of the thing. It was like you would always jam out spec work and then yeah, and one out of every 10 things maybe hits, you know, I mean, there was even that show on AMC, the pitch, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Rob (15:32)
Yeah, you go pitch. You're pitching and you're pitching the campaign and you're pitching the thing.
Yeah. The pitch.
which was a great show, but it was only for advertising people.
Don (15:47)
Was it? I know. Well, that's what I was gonna
say. Like it was a great show for us because it was really fun. Yeah, well, they were trying to they were trying to, you know, ride the coattails of Mad Men and that whole deal, you know, so. ⁓
Rob (15:53)
Great show for us. The rest of the world didn't care. No one cared.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, there's not so so I think, you know, I think the and I'm sure I'm sure old school school pitches still happen every day. ⁓ But we've always just been stood pretty firm by like, hey, that's our that's our bread and butter ideas are our currency. We don't we're not going to we're not going to do those for free in hopes that, you know, and I always think about if we go with analogies, you wouldn't have
Don (16:12)
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah.
Rob (16:31)
a carpenter come in and build you cabinets and then decide if you want to buy them or not. ⁓ It doesn't work that way. we've been, and we have at times, we'll fill out RFPs and we'll do, did I would say in terms of actually doing spec work?
Don (16:34)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Yeah.
Rob (16:55)
very, very few times. I mean, I would say less than one hand, less than one hand.
Don (16:57)
Less than one hand, right? Less than one hand?
I would agree with that. From 2007 till now, less than one hand is how many times we've done spec work. I would much rather let's do a small teeny little project. You know what I mean? Just like just get a little little, you know, because not only is it the work, but it is the relationship, right? And it's the interface of how we work with each other, right? It's not about, you know,
Rob (17:08)
Yeah, I think less than.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Don (17:26)
how much money do we make off this project? It's the interface of, hey, do they get it? Do we get it? Is it a good fit? That type of thing.
Rob (17:33)
Yeah,
if the relationship's no good, the work is not going to be any good. That's just the way that it goes. again, RFPs, know that's a lot of folks traditionally do new business that way. We've been fortunate that we haven't had to do a lot.
Don (17:38)
Totally. Totally.
Yeah, we've been,
good things are happening. Yeah, mean, hey, one of our clients left, or is out the door for various reasons, but we've got a lot of good opportunities coming in the door, which is very exciting. So it's a crazy business that we're in, man. We picked a industry. Do know what I mean? Like, ⁓ it's, I don't know, it's like,
There are a lot of us out there. There are a lot of small, large, medium firms. You you're talking about pricing your work and all the different levels and the different, you know what mean? It is an interesting dance that we do based on value and based on intellectual capital, right? That you mentioned, like ideas are our currency, right? So ⁓ there, for something that's kind of on one hand so straightforward, it's also unbelievably nuanced, you know, on the other hand, right? Which is, know,
Rob (18:39)
Yeah. Would you agree
that?
that generally speaking, if the client is legitimate, let's start there, right? If the client is qualified and on a first call, can, I'd say with pretty good accuracy whether or not it's gonna, you're gonna get the business or not. I mean, regardless of pricing, regardless of, I think you can tell pretty much on the first date, like,
Don (18:59)
You can tell.
100%.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rob (19:13)
Like, is this gonna work or is this not gonna work?
Don (19:15)
Well, I definitely feel that way. I assume since you're asking the question, you feel that way as well, right? Yeah, I think the tipping point for me in that exercise actually came from something you said after a meeting we had what many, many, years ago with our old pal Rick, right? Where we walked out of a meeting with potential clients. We didn't have the business yet, right? And they were leaving a large agency that they were paying ungodly amounts of money to, right? ⁓
Rob (19:20)
Yeah, I think absolutely.
yeah, Rick.
Right. Right.
Don (19:44)
And I remember walking out of the parking lot and maybe it's the prism of time or the filter of time whatever but I remember you saying something along the lines of We are either going to party like rock stars with these guys or we are going to crash and burn in a fiery inferno But we will know immediately if that's what you know, I mean like there's no like, you know, and you know
Rob (20:07)
There's
no, yeah, no, I...
Don (20:09)
There's no in between,
you know, and I felt pretty good about about coming out of that. And that guy was a sharp, he's a sharp guy. I mean, he knew what what he was. Yeah. And we parted like rock stars. It was amazing. You so but but since then, yeah, there is definitely a vibe check, you know, ⁓ almost immediately the nuance of being able to read the room, you know what mean? Even if the room is on online nowadays, you know what I mean? Like you can you can just tell like, hey, if we can make the puzzle pieces work.
Rob (20:15)
It was great.
Yeah, it was great.
That's right.
Don (20:37)
how it's going to work, you And then it's about the people that aren't on the call that are our decision makers, right? Finance or whatever the case might be, so.
Rob (20:46)
What I think it's also, I think it's also, you know, once we have that initial call and if the vibe check is good and we feel good about it from our end, then when we move to the pricing exercise, we will be a little bit more flexible on pricing because it seems like a great project and a good person to work with or you know what I mean? Those calls, those first calls often define pricing in a way, right? some degree.
Don (21:04)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Agreed.
Rob (21:14)
Because
we've absolutely let's let's be honest here. We've absolutely been like this one sounds really really difficult. We're going price this one a little higher because if we're going to work.
Don (21:24)
Rob, we're putting
this on the internet. Do you want this out there? I mean, yeah.
Rob (21:27)
I'm totally fine with that, yeah.
You'd be foolish to think otherwise.
Don (21:30)
Yeah, yeah, the
⁓ is that the pain in the ass factor? Is that what's happening? Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I don't know. Well, have we ever have we ever had the like, ⁓ man, I don't want to I don't want to do this. Let's price ourselves out of it. And then gotten the project that has I feel like that hasn't happened in a while.
Rob (21:33)
That's the pain in the a- this one's gonna be a real pain in the butt. We better make it- we better make it worth it.
I don't know
that that's not it's never really happened like that. No.
Don (21:52)
Yeah, you know,
I don't know that I've ever been like, ⁓ God, we have to do the work now. You know, you know what mean? Like, I don't. So. Kind of funny to think about that.
Rob (22:01)
I think if anything, if
it's that visceral of a negative reaction, I think we're like, you know what, I don't think we're the right fit. I don't think we're the right fit. Wish you the best of luck.
Don (22:08)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and we've done that before
the past two, but you know where it's like, hey, let's let's just this is not gonna Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, I mean, hey, this is the you know, how the sausage is made, right? You know, this or how you even get to making the sausage, right? I mean, this isn't even how the sausage is made. This is like, you got to just get get the raw materials through the door, right?
Rob (22:16)
Yeah, this is not, yeah, we're going to swipe left. Swipe left on this one.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah,
and this is us small guys who don't have the luxury of a full time business development. But it's fun. It's like fishing. love I love I love that part of it and it feels really good when you connect with a new client. Yeah.
Don (22:43)
Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. We're too busy doing the work.
Yeah, well, I think that's
part of our methodology of still interacting with the creatives that are working on your business, right? That's what we both enjoy the most is meeting and learning about this crazy little part of the world and then trying to figure out how to help those people solve their communication or strategic needs, right? That's what's so much fun about the whole thing is like, wow.
Like what in the world this crazy little device or this crazy service that people do and things like that, right? And then learning about that business and learning the people that invented that or whatever, know, it's just fun stuff. So it's.
Rob (23:24)
See ya.
Well, like we said, we've got a couple of interesting opportunities in the, the hopper and, hopefully on the next podcast or two, we'll be able to positively disclose some of ⁓ those new opportunities or we'll never talk about it ever again. That's right.
Don (23:41)
Yeah. Sure, sure. Or we'll just never mention it again and it'll just go into the evening. Yeah, exactly. So.
Alright, well, let's wrap it up for today. I think speaking of ⁓ we're up against it and we've got calls we've got to do right? Yeah. Business continues so. Alright. People can find us online at mocktheagency.com right? ⁓ I'm OK with that. ⁓
Rob (23:55)
We've got client calls. We've got valued client calls. Business continues. Where can the people find us done? Now I just beat you to it. I just beat you to the question. Okay.
Don (24:10)
and fill out that contact form and tell us that you love us. And we will write you back and it's going to be amazing. And then maybe you will have the enjoyment of a discovery call and all of the fun involved in those calls. So, yeah. All right. We'll see you next time. All right. Peace out.
Rob (24:15)
That's right. How can we help you?
It'll be awesome.
That's right.
That's right. All right, very good. Well, we will see next time for 160. It's going to be amazing.