The Handbook: The Operations Podcast

Building a systemized, codified, scalable sales engine with Ryan Hall

• Harv Nagra • Season 1 • Episode 20

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In a tight market, sales become a big concern. Relying on repeat business or referrals no longer cuts it, you have to put in more effort. 

Often in agencies, the know-how on how to get this done is missing; few people come from a formal sales background. So a haphazard approach is implemented and we hope for the best. Only that slapdash approach rarely gets the results we want. 

Is it time for the sales engine to be looked at as an ops challenge? We think so. 

In this episode of The Handbook: The Agency Operations Podcast, Harv Nagra speaks with Ryan Hall, founder of Friday Solved and a seasoned expert in building sales systems for agencies. With over 23 years of experience generating revenue and growing agencies—including two successful exits—Ryan shares practical insights on how to operationalize sales for consistent results.

Here’s what Ryan shares in this episode:

  • Why agencies struggle with sales: The pitfalls of relying too much on inbound leads and referrals.
  • How to build a scalable sales engine: Breaking the funnel into actionable stages (top, middle, and bottom) and tailoring strategies for each.
  • The importance of systemization: How the right processes, tools, and technology create predictable results.
  • Sales as a blend of art and science: Why finding the balance between relationship-building and data-driven strategies is key.

Ryan also explains how operational leaders can play a pivotal role in creating a culture of sales excellence and offers practical tips for getting started, including low-cost tools and strategies to build momentum.

If you want to take control of your sales process and future-proof your agency’s pipeline, this episode is a must-listen.

Follow Ryan on LinkedIn.

Follow Harv on LinkedIn.

Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter.

This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system.

Harv Nagra:

Thanks for listening to the handbook, the agency operations podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Scoro. When running our bi weekly management meetings at my agency, we always made a point of going through the sales pipeline to review what was happening with deals. Scoro lets you create as many pipeline stages as you like to align with your agency's sales funnel. The great thing is that since this is an integrated and automated platform, the deals in the pipeline are your quotes. And once contracts are signed, those quotes can be turned into projects with a click of a button. And if your sales process is mature enough to have a CRM platform like HubSpot in place, Scoro can integrate natively so your CRM platform can hand off deals to Scoro when they hit a certain deal stage. The future is not spending all day in spreadsheets. Get automated and empower your team to work smarter. Sign up for a free trial at Scoro. com Or if you arrange a demo call, tell them Harv sent you. Now, let's get to the episode. Hi all, welcome back to the handbook. Okay, if your agency is a machine with sales, then kudos to you. For the rest of us, I'm not convinced we have a good handle on this. Think about it. There's so much reliance on referrals or new projects from existing clients. Then there's the classic hybrid role problem that we've spoken about before. Often the same people responsible for delivering projects in an agency are also expected to generate sales. Next, in my experience, most people in agencies lack formal sales training. So you can see with all of this how we end up with what I'd call a haphazard approach. When those inbound referrals and RFPs from existing clients slow down, or budgets get tighter like they've been in the past year, we get into scary territory. A bit of panic sets in. Maybe we try cold calls or send out some case studies, hoping something will stick. Maybe we even get to the point where we hire a lead generation business to drum up meetings. But the thing is, when the market's tough, that kind of make it up approach doesn't cut it. And to be honest, is that really a way we want to run sales forever? Hope for inbound, and try random things in a panic when business is slow? What we need is a smarter, more systemized approach. A sales engine that's operationalized, codified, and clever. And today, that's exactly what we're going to be diving into. So you might be sitting there thinking, well, I work in ops. Why should I care? Well, there's two reasons. One, because who doesn't want a better, more predictable sales pipeline for their business. If the business is doing well, we get to benefit from the perks, promotions and pay bumps. And number two, as ops people, we have the power to play an instrumental role in making this happen in our agencies. Our guest today is Ryan Hall, and he's going to help ensure that we have no excuse for poor pipelines any longer. Ryan has been in and around the agency space for some 23 years, having founded Nice Agency in 2008 from a blank piece of paper and led the agency through two acquisitions. Friday Solved is Ryan's third go at running an agency, this time focusing on sales, having always been in roles where he was revenue responsible. Ryan realized that his own frameworks were taking shape, which ultimately led him to where he is today, solving sales issues inside businesses. This is going to be a great conversation. Let's get into it. Ryan, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Ryan Hall:

Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

Harv Nagra:

Why don't we start with you telling us a bit about your background in the agency space. I think you've got some interesting stories there.

Ryan Hall:

Well, yeah. I mean, some, some, pre watershed, some post watershed, I'm sure. So, we'll keep it clean, but 23 years agencies, consultancies, you see a lot, I've always been revenue responsible, in every single role that I've had. so always front facing, started off in account manager, client services, moved to business development strategy, and then became a founder. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously you wear every single hat. but again, even in this kind of founding roles have always been responsible fundamentally for the revenue that's coming into the business, whether that's existing or new. I've been through two exits. so we sold my agency, which is called Nice, to a larger creative group called Karmarama, became shareholder and partner in that business. And then we were lucky enough to take that to exit with Accenture in 2016. in

Harv Nagra:

Oh, wow.

Ryan Hall:

spent my time in Accenture, loads of learnings, really, really interesting business. but did exit after the three year earn out. And then since then, did the cliche thing after you do an exit, became an advisor, obviously. but along that journey. Really found my passion again, my focus. And, two years ago launched a business called Friday Solved, which brought together all of the learnings from that kind of advisory style role into, systemizing, sales for businesses. So really kind of embracing that kind of dirty S word. And it took me 21 years to embrace it, if I'm being really honest. Um, but this is where I'm at, where I am today.

Harv Nagra:

Amazing. So, we are talking about your expertise, sales and issues around that in the agency space today. There is still, think there's still a lot of anxiety about the pipeline with agencies. What kinds of things are you seeing and hearing over the past, you know, even few months?

Ryan Hall:

The challenge that honestly, most businesses that I've talked to have is they don't have top of funnel. They, and I say they, I mean, very much agencies and consultancies are notorious for this, lots of businesses and other sectors like that, they haven't nailed down a systemized way to scale, predict and build sustainability up at the top of the funnel.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

So that's kind of number one that we always hear. You know, businesses that we talk to are inherently too reliant on inbound opportunities. And even then, when you look at the middle of the funnel, then has its own challenges because dealing with an inbound opportunity from a process perspective, it's actually a very different sales nuance, sales approach, sales psychology, to dealing with something that's come from cold, some actual like outbound work that you've done. So then actually, you know what we are commonly see our challenges in the middle of funnel because Businesses don't know what they're doing with different kinds of opportunities, especially once they start to solve the top of funnel component.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

Obviously the other big trend that we're seeing right now is massive pressure on client spending and brand spending. I mean it this this year. Like I said, I've been doing agencies for a long time, And set Nice up off the back of the 2008 great financial crisis.

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Ryan Hall:

is the worst year I've seen in 23 years. It's

Harv Nagra:

Ouch. Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

been a real horror show for a lot of businesses. So they're the things that we're seeing, but

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Ryan Hall:

is always hot on people's lips.

Harv Nagra:

Hmm. Which is why I think it's so important for us to have this conversation. And, you know, I, I was going to go into that kind of, well, my generalization is that agencies are bad at sales. Why do you think that is?

Ryan Hall:

It, it's relatively easy to build an agency or a consultancy on the founders or the founding team's black book And when I say build it, it's actually relatively straightforward to get to A million, two million, three million, maybe four million without really having to do much from an outbound perspective. When you see inbound working and obviously, you know, yeah, it's like we've had in 2024 are the things that are making founders, leaders go, Oh God, actually, you know what? We need some different strategies here. We can't be reliant on inbound, but you know, in, in easier years when you're starting to see inbound just working and referrals working, you know, and you don't really have to systemize that too much. You don't need to worry too much about the rigorous process because there's just a natural inflow.

Harv Nagra:

hmm.

Ryan Hall:

That becomes a really kind of tricky place when you have a year like 2024, because it really exposes the weaknesses. And again, I'm not kind of calling anyone out cause again, I've been amid all these mistakes myself. Right. But it is very, very easy to become reliant on these easy channels. Like you don't have to put a lot of effort into them because it just kind of naturally happens.

Harv Nagra:

yeah,

Ryan Hall:

Sales in itself is really hard. And you know, the idea and the, even cause kind of like eating the elephant of trying to try to solve sales Becomes such a monumental challenge for most businesses It just puts them off trying.

Harv Nagra:

Mm,

Ryan Hall:

Which is why you find lots of businesses who are moderately or relatively successful with zero top of funnel again, you know as I said then it becomes like a real kind of different lens on the world when you have a year like 2024 and A little bit, you know a little bit of pandemic a little bit of 2023 like it's making businesses go actually, you know What, we're not robust enough We're not balanced enough. We're not taking it seriously enough and we haven't systemized our approach to try to do this. And I think systemization in sales is interesting because everyone's like, it's a dark art. It's very much an art at certain parts of it, but other parts of it are very much science, like process and systems and scale and data and predictability, like, and it's getting that beautiful balance of art and science, which I think scares people as well.

Harv Nagra:

Mm. you said in the pre interview Agencies think inbound on existing accounts is sales. It's not. It's account development. And referrals are also not sales. Those are things you can control.

Ryan Hall:

Yes, so I think there's always such an interesting view of, you know, what is sales

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

versus outbound. So a lot of the things that we talk about are naturally outbound activities. Now we use, you know, a variety of marketing tactics, techniques, or inbound techniques in the engines we build for people. But ultimately we're trying to help educate people to take control of the channels that they can control

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

It's an amazing channel,

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

control it.

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Ryan Hall:

might have a referral strategy, a channel strategy, but. You can't make the people in your referral network turn up with an amazing deal because you've got, you know, one client's just canceled a project and you've got a hole in four weeks time.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah. Mm. Mm hmm. Mm

Ryan Hall:

even with, I mean, there's gonna be some PPC agencies are going to really disagree with us, but personally speaking, I don't think you can control PPC from a lead gen kind of sales perspective.

Harv Nagra:

hmm.

Ryan Hall:

out there with like really sensible targeting. You can't make someone click on that button or even get the right people click on the button at the end of the day. when it comes to kind of control and sales, the things that you can control are like directly impacting and influencing the people that you can see in either your funnel or your cold prospecting. you know, with demand generation, with email, with LinkedIn, like you can control exactly who you want to go and talk to.

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

you want to go and talk to them again Like you can't make them click a button or apply

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

you've got much more control and visibility To what's happening in that prospect base than you might have with a specific inbound or uncontrollable potential sales channel

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm. And a lot of the time with these kind of account manager roles, they do focus a lot on their existing client base as well. And I think to your point, that's not necessarily sales either. That is nurturing and account development. Would you agree?

Ryan Hall:

that i completely agree that that you know farming existing accounts Is not hunting for net new sales

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

Again, if a business has got a revenue problem or a pipeline hole or whatever it is You Account development existing clients that is immediately the first place that you should start

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

always going to be the easiest place to get new revenue

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

So holistically from a growth perspective It's a really important part of it, but don't just focus on that because there's a enormous untapped opportunity if you can then break that reliance on that model and go out cold

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

doing all of this stuff as well. So again, when it comes to sales, it's not either or unfortunately, you just got to actually be doing it all. So you've got to be doing account development, although it's a little bit more current development than I would actually say sales

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

but it's not quite sales for me, you know, referrals and inbound and PR and content marketing and all this kind of stuff, as well as the demand generation and all these other bits on, kind of the, the, the net new sales side of things. some point you have to be doing it all.

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. Really good advice. That leads to my next question, I had a previous episode about the role of account managers in an agency. And often that role is kind of a hybrid. So it gets even more diluted, you know, you're, you're an account manager, but you also have to manage projects. So the focus is very broad. And I think often that role doesn't come from a sales background. what, what's your view on that?

Ryan Hall:

Hiring business development managers, sales people, whatever it may be, is almost like the worst job for any agency to hire for. And you see time and time again, you know, You see people cvs and they've got like 12 18 months in a role and it's like repeat repeat repeat, right? That basically is saying that person i'm not blaming the individual But that engagement between business and business development manager has failed they come in And i'll explain a little bit more my theory behind this but they're coming in the first six months is like well We didn't get what we needed from them But it's only six months in sales takes a little bit of time. Let's give him another six months. So then it's like 12 months. It's like oh god still doesn't feel like it's working here. We haven't got the traction Where's the deals? But we've come this far. Let's take another six months and then you get to the 18 month amount It's like no, we're going to swap that person out. My hypothesis behind down to the individual but Actually businesses are setting that individual business development manager actually to fail. Because they're asking them to do too much. They're asking them to be the full funnel person and be doing top of funnel, fat end, cold prospecting at scale, you know, with the kind of right consistency, also nurturing the middle and making sure the moving middle of funnel opportunities through and also potentially closing as well. And I actually think that sets them out to fail. So coming back to your original question, the safe bet is, well, we've got these amazing account management people; We know them, we've seen them be able to close work. So let's apportion part of their time and get them doing some business development activities. The challenge is unless you've got the right system and processes, tools and technology at the top of funnel and the right training, that account manager is never going to be able to do top of funnel nor should they actually, it's probably a poor use of that. Time and experience put them into the middle of funnel and I actually haven't got a problem with that I actually think that's a really kind of smart use of some great resources because they're naturally not going to sell They're actually just trying to be like great relationship people and I think that's a brilliant brilliant opportunity to put into your sales engine and They can close because you know, they're farming and closing and all that kind of stuff, but it's all built on relationship So I think that's The mechanics of it I think are really great and interesting. And actually we do recommend looking at repurposing commercially savvy account management people into the sales engine. The only tricky bit is sales can be a little bit like quicksand. Like you can sink quite deep, quite quick because it's quite a time consuming thing. And you know, if maybe they don't have the right brief or spec or set of responsibilities laid out for this.

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Ryan Hall:

They're going to be like on a knife's edge of going, trying to manage their existing clients, getting sucked into this very busy time consuming world of sales. And that can become a problem point. It's like, you know, if you've got just a simple math, 70 percent on existing clients and 30 percent on, net new, honestly, like it's a difficult balance. Like you've got to be very strict with your time because if a client really starts to like take off,

Harv Nagra:

Mm

Ryan Hall:

that person's naturally going to get pulled away from the net, the net new sales side of things. so it's. a difficult one to do this kind of hybrid split responsibility.

Harv Nagra:

Right,

Ryan Hall:

saying it doesn't work. All I'm saying is like, just go in with like the right expectations that if all of a sudden, you know, you're one of those AMs, Harv, and their account or your account actually book starts blowing up. What you need is rather than just like letting this stuff drop, you need the process and protocols to go, I'm going to lose all of my time on this client.

Harv Nagra:

right.

Ryan Hall:

are we going to backfill and do like a really sophisticated handover?

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

catching it really early again comes out of process right and control how can I Relinquish the responsibility that was taking up that other 30 percent and do a natural handover some way somehow

Harv Nagra:

Mm. And I think this just lends itself to like, the more mature you get with this, the more likely I think it is that you're going to start having dedicated people responsible for this stuff. And the hybrid starts to get more and more separated, which is probably a sign of maturity as well.

Ryan Hall:

Yeah, and as it all starts to work And the business grows, then there's, as you say, there's less of a requirement for the hybrids because ultimately, you know, someone might be, you know, the example we just gave was like somebody who's got 70 30, right? So there's an existing count to get sucked this way. There might also be a person in that team who is fractional that goes. You know what? These accounts are cooling off. Why don't I hand my accounts off and why don't I take a hundred percent responsibility in the middle of the funnel as an example, so

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Ryan Hall:

both ways.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

I think as long as we're being mindful and conscious of pressures and kind of different factors that are pulling us in different directions, just been nimble about it.

Harv Nagra:

Does this mean that a BDR role is essential? Is that somebody you definitely need to have in your team or is there going to be ways around that?

Ryan Hall:

There's always ways around it because, you know, there is no perfect storm when it comes to size, shape, you know, ability to buy resources in for any agency at any size.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm Mm,

Ryan Hall:

the one thing I'm quite against is the end to end business development manager, right? That analogy, like I said, going from, To have them do a top of funnel, middle of funnel nurture, all the way to close. Like that, that to me is a fundamental no, no, because I think you're

Harv Nagra:

mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

in the business. You set the wrong expectations, the individual, and it's just too much. Like you're trying to hire a unicorn. but I think when you think about like putting the right people in the right place and the concept of a business development manager or a sales development representative or whatever it may be for me. Anyone who's got, you know, two, three plus years experience, be going, you know, the best place for them in your engine is in the middle of the funnel.

Harv Nagra:

Mm. Mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

running top of the funnel engine, know, as long as you have the right strategy, process, technology, tools, and kind of culture and people around it, can actually get some really interesting resources that are inexpensive, they might not have a lot of experience and they do need some kind of management leadership handholding But you can get them turning the handle at the top of the funnel So it becomes a really cost effective hire, you know You've got some of the bit more experience in the middle and like just don't make them sell anything Just get them to be like really good

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

then the people who should be closing, that's senior leadership plus, you know,

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Ryan Hall:

to founder. And again, depending on the size of the business, the agency, you can configure these things or scale the number of people in each of these kind of buckets. That for me, that's when we talk about the right people in the right place, that becomes really interesting. Really scalable.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

really resilient, know, so if someone drops out, actually, that's really quite easy to replace that individual

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

doing the full shooting match. They're just doing component parts of it.

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Ryan Hall:

that

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

very, very kind of resilient of doing it. Now you can scale that all the way back. And have like, think about a very small agency. The founder

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

You might, as you were saying earlier, have like have an account manager who can repurpose some of their time to sit in the middle, as well as a little bit of dual responsibility on AM, PM, DM,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

is, I've seen businesses use virtual EAs to manage the, the tooling and the engine at the top of funnel before, again, the founder kind of stretches their arm around that a little bit to make sure it's the right leadership.

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Ryan Hall:

is

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

super lean setup And you will I guarantee you'll get better results off that than trying to do the end to end bdm thing

Harv Nagra:

Mm,

Ryan Hall:

you know

Harv Nagra:

mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

this systemization processes frameworks right tools to make sure this is robust That becomes really interesting If you model that into like a hundred person agency You know, you might have a few more people at the bottom of the funnel. You might have Three or four people maybe in the middle You You might have two three five people at the top of the funnel And again, like loads of cool subject matter experts who actually the brands want to talk to you But that's maybe a separate question separate conversation Like it scales beautifully

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

You know

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Ryan Hall:

that's exciting right because that can grow while you grow

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm. One thing I kind of, well, I think we've all been approached and sometimes people consider, especially when times are tough, these lead generation kind of services, and I've never used one myself. What is your point of view? Do those work or not? Okay. Mm hmm. Mm

Ryan Hall:

there's a sliding scale of expense and sophistication at one end and what might look like, even like pay per lead stuff at the bottom end of that spectrum. Look, it can work,

Harv Nagra:

hmm.

Ryan Hall:

I think that the likelihood, the percentage likelihood of it succeeding is often lower than it actually working. Reason being. if you're at the pay per lead end, I mean,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

spray and pray,

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

All they're trying to do is put enough stuff out there. So something sticks and it's like those chance encounters where it's like, Oh my God, Ryan, can't believe you just sent me that email or LinkedIn message. Cause. I've literally just finished writing a brief about that. I mean, what are the chances?

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

the chances are there if you're sending enough messages out, but the reality is it's a very difficult process And they don't really understand like that those businesses like their pricing model like it's not geared around Understanding the nuances of what the end business is trying to do And it becomes very unsophisticated and you end up getting one of those emails, which everyone hates getting it's like Hey, we're a wordpress agency. Do you want to buy any wordpress website? I'm

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

mate You know like you're so far from like any level of sophistication. Is anyone really sending that stuff?

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

Then you can step up into some of the more sophisticated offers. But again The reality is they're still trying to find the brief. sales is not about hunting for briefs. Sales is about hunting for problems. And even in the more sophisticated, more expensive end of this kind of outsourced meeting gen, lead gen thing, the individuals, nothing against them, but they just aren't equipped well enough versus someone who if they were inside your business and knew the nuances

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

of like You know people say words

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

a sophisticated salesperson at any level of experience kind of matrix style pulling the words apart and they're going well They're actually saying this despite the words that they're using and can you understand the actual? hidden intent and meaning in these conversations.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

just spot those little micro opportunities where you can go and drop something in like a really contextual relevant a bit of advice, a bit of content, an example of work, a solution, whatever it may be. Or just even just show that you understand that specific sector that the end client prospect works in.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

So, again, even the sophisticated ones, they can't do that.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

why, and I've spent lots of money on these kinds of services over the years, and it just didn't work because you just don't care enough about the business. You don't know enough about the business. So again, everyone up to fail.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah. Yeah. The knowledge is too shallow, so I can see how that could backfire. You know, if you're getting into a conversation and you just can't answer it, it just kind of doesn't work. So Ryan, what is the problem if you had to summarize it?

Ryan Hall:

The problem is, despite sales being One of the top, components for stability, growth, whatever it may be.

Harv Nagra:

yeah.

Ryan Hall:

most businesses are scared of it because from the outside, looking in, it's like a bit of a wild, unmanageable, unfathomable beast to try and get your arms around. So then, you know, fundamentally businesses then rely on the things that they've seen work in the past and they're relatively passive. You can't control them as well.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

But it's the easier path, especially, you know, when maybe a smaller business agency, to spin so many plates, like delivering the work, keep the clients happy, all that kind of stuff. Like when it comes to like, well, the inbound stuff's working, let's just keep doing this, let's try and do more of that. So

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

it's just a scary old place. second problem wrapped within that when a business starts doing sales. It doesn't work like nearly every time, right?

Harv Nagra:

Mm

Ryan Hall:

again, there's a, there's a concept and lots of heads that, you know, like a light switch. You can turn sales on, you can turn sales off

Harv Nagra:

mm

Ryan Hall:

again. That's not how it works. And again, the other bit just to be, you know, really kind of transparent. There's also no silver bullet to solving sales, right? So everyone goes, Oh shit. We're sorry. I'm allowed to swear on this

Harv Nagra:

That's fine. Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

So I should have, I should have warned him in a

Harv Nagra:

Mm

Ryan Hall:

potty mouth. So everyone goes off shit. We need more sales. Like we can, we're seeing our pipeline drop. We can see the visibility in our revenue starting to drop X months out. We'd better start, start doing sales.

Harv Nagra:

mm

Ryan Hall:

Light switch on and then all of a sudden they do some things and they do it for like a couple of weeks Maybe a couple of months and it doesn't work because it's just not that quick.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

this is rubbish like Cold demand generation doesn't work or this doesn't work or that doesn't work. It's not fit for purpose for our business Turn it off again,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

cycle repeats cuz oh god Maybe we should try the thing again, but you know like six months time But the problem is like you're just flicking a light switch on and off, right? And that's just fundamentally not how sales works. Sales is about being consistent,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

most importantly, you need to think about it like a process of conversion rate optimization. every time you do something in sales, And when I say sales, I'm not saying like taking a brief and closing it. Cause that's closing a deal. That's not sales. That's this much of it. I'm talking about this much of it. Hypothesis, test learn, hypothesis, test, learn, hypothesis, test, learn. So when you're doing like cold email, for example, you know, everyone runs the first campaign and goes, well, I didn't get any replies. I'm like, you're probably not going to get any replies because you haven't like tried to understand. Well. You know what look on reflection. Maybe the subject line was wrong or this was wrong Or we need to tweak this or bring this up And it's like repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat to the point where you're optimizing

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

level of

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

over time But everyone gives up so quickly. You know, it's like going to the gym or training for the olympics Like you don't go i'm going to go and run 100 meters in 10 seconds tomorrow; Like you got to work towards it and getting a really powerful, scalable, predictable, sustainable sales engine is about putting the work in, putting the effort in and training

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Ryan Hall:

it.

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. You know, when we were catching up previously about this conversation, you were saying that one of the solutions to this is also about having to split up the funnel and, there's different problems with different parts. Can you, can you talk us through what that means?

Ryan Hall:

Sure. So if you take a very basic funnel model,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel. So top of funnel is cold outbound prospecting.

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

Middle of funnel is a combination of dealing with inbound because there's already a level of Serious intent if someone's coming to you with a problem assuming they qualify also then having the right processes and procedures to nurture Also the right patience and i'll come back to Problem statement shortly and then if you look at the bottom of the funnel, that's just the close. So yeah some bottom of funnel nurture Moving them through to a point of like conversion and actually trying to close that deal. So You You know, most businesses can close. No, not every business is amazing at it, but any business that's still alive today, certainly after year, like 2024, they can close,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

Because you wouldn't have a business.

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

again, like it gets harder, the bigger you get, and there's different problems and challenges. And Kind of pulling the founder out of being a founder. Led close to the different things. There's, there's loads of problems in that, but most businesses, like we don't really need to worry too much about bottom of funnel because it kind of looks after itself

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

Ryan Hall:

that. But fundamentally, that's not really where the problem is. So most businesses, the problem usually is in the middle because. You know, no one's patient enough on the top because no one's mostly, no one's really leveraging top of funnel, cold outreach, cold sales well enough. But if we pick them apart and look at the real problems. So when it comes to nurture, There's a significant amount of impatience when it comes to opportunities.

Harv Nagra:

hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

Ryan Hall:

It's like, well, they came to us. Like, talking about an inbound opportunity. Well, they came to us. you know, now they've gone cold on us. They mustn't want to do it anymore. Well, no. Maybe just be a little bit more patient. And know that you aren't the center of the prospects universe And they are also running a business and with other problems and this sort of this kind of stuff

Harv Nagra:

hmm.

Ryan Hall:

they're not replying to you that doesn't mean that they're not interested anymore. So the patience game is kind of a real stumbling block when it comes to middle of funnel nurture.

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

I think I may have mentioned when we did the kind of the prep call Harv, I think, it took me about five years to win one of the UK retail high street banks, give or take whatever it

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Ryan Hall:

most agencies would just give up on that. And I'm

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

do that for every single opportunity. But hung in there

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Ryan Hall:

three marketing director changes And we eventually did get a gateway product away and then turned it like a million pound a year account So actually it was worth it, right?

Harv Nagra:

Mm

Ryan Hall:

like the patience bit is so important in the middle of the funnel

Harv Nagra:

hmm.

Ryan Hall:

other some of the other challenges in the middle of funnel comes out like systemization processes and use of technology. Because actually you can and the problem is like you just don't have enough of it. It's not well enough to find So that first problem You Without the second component becomes a massive problem because actually if you just solve the fact that your business isn't systemized enough, doesn't have the right process, actually you could even take away the sting from there's the consistency bit because you could very intelligently use technology to do a lot of that work for you

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Ryan Hall:

when the prospect that is actually ready. So again, that's kind of problem statement number two. And then problem statement number three in the middle is very often, I think I mentioned this earlier, The different requirements of dealing with an inbound opportunity versus a cold opportunity, they are very different natural flows.

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

So again, when businesses who may have just got top of funnel working and are starting to see those drops drop into the middle of funnel, treating them like inbound opportunities, which are already much warmer.

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Ryan Hall:

they need to be treated very differently to the point where that opportunity becomes warm. So again, that's some really easy, kind of things to think about where the, the middle of funnel falls down. Again, you know, come back to the people bit,

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Ryan Hall:

not

Harv Nagra:

Mm

Ryan Hall:

right people in there with a clear responsibility and the right process will help it fall over as well. Well,

Harv Nagra:

Super, super interesting. sorry, were you, were you going to say something or shall I, shall I,

Ryan Hall:

I was just

Harv Nagra:

yep.

Ryan Hall:

top of funnel because top of funnel again has its own challenges.

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Ryan Hall:

so. When it comes to Top of Funnel, the first problem is it doesn't exist,

Harv Nagra:

Yep. Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

the second problem is the consistency, you know, the dedication, the optimization, like just try and try and try and optimizing. and then the third thing really is just the appreciation of what it actually means to do something cold.

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Ryan Hall:

the sophistication and the approach, we've got a philosophy in the business called don't sell,

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

sounds counterintuitive from a sales strategy perspective, but very often businesses go way too hard,

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

on going, well, if I'm talking to the right person, then surely they want to buy something. When actually, you think about a channel like LinkedIn, You shouldn't, and really, really shouldn't go for the hard sell at all.

Harv Nagra:

Mm. Mm.

Ryan Hall:

to build that relationship. And that's what it really comes down to. And even on email where you might go a little bit harder, lots of businesses have the wrong approach and they're going way too hard with no level of sophistication. So it doesn't cut through. So again, that's some of the challenges you would naturally see at Top of Funnel as well.

Harv Nagra:

Right. What I love about what you're saying is that given our operations audience is that's really what some of this is about, or a lot of it, it's about operationalizing sales, having processes and systems and continuing to optimize. So. That is definitely something the ops people in an agency can support in getting the structure set up. So what I wanted to do, Ryan, if it's cool with you, is to go through each of these stages, or parts of the funnel and just see if you can share some advice on if somebody was trying to optimize this or set it up and, you know, that they're super stressed about their sales engine, what they can do. So if, if that's okay with you, let's start at the top. You know, how do you get that in place and get it working?

Ryan Hall:

Absolutely. You know, to your point about, ops people helping support the sales engine within a business, salespeople who are really good at sales, no matter what part of it. are often not the best people in terms of organization and process.

Harv Nagra:

hmm,

Ryan Hall:

skills.

Harv Nagra:

mm hmm,

Ryan Hall:

I've had with the people who, I'm not that organized, right? people who are organized, who are like process orientated, detail orientated, you know, can make things move from one step to the other. I think that is a beautiful blend.

Harv Nagra:

mm hmm, mm hmm,

Ryan Hall:

codified, well documented process that you go from gate to gate to gate to gate, you know, but, you know, to your question about how you solve Top of Funnel, the first thing is, you know, Top of Funnel needs a specific sales strategy that's dedicated to that cold outreach. The two primary channels that you're going to have to focus on are going to be email and LinkedIn. Lots of people ask the question, well, where does cold calling sit in the funnel? Should we be doing cold calling? Personally speaking, I don't think anyone should really be doing cold calling at the top of the funnel.

Harv Nagra:

mm

Ryan Hall:

so, you know, leveraging platforms that can also scale and actually can also be very nicely automated. If you have the right sales strategy is the way forward.

Harv Nagra:

Hmm, mm

Ryan Hall:

mean, I don't know how mature you are. I'm very immature So when I get a call come through on my mobile and I don't recognize the number I do the mature thing and obviously let it ring out then google the number and see who it was Right

Harv Nagra:

hmm,

Ryan Hall:

like that that's what's happening. Like I mean, honestly who wants to take a cold call these days? No one mm hmm, come back to the middle of the funnel, so, things you need to focus on, two channels are email and LinkedIn, they're the main areas of focus. Find the right tools and technology, which are all really inexpensive these days as well. Like, you know, gone are the days where you're having to spend like 5, 000 pound on a spreadsheets with the data. Like there are simple subscription services that can give you all of the data that you need in a very simple way, it's about then making sure that you've got the right process. and strategies combined. So, like I said, LinkedIn has to be a much softer burn, slower burn. Email can be a bit of a faster, hotter burn, but again, you know, thinking about the process of we're going to run a hypothesis this month on email and know that it probably won't work. And we're just gonna look for incremental gains every month, every month, every month, as we start to release new email campaigns off the back of that as well. The one thing I think, just barring the tools, the technology, and the strategy, and again thinking about Ops people in agencies that can make this work is Rhythm. Okay, rhythm and some transparency around what's coming through the engine is really important because all of those things build sales culture at the top of the funnel and a supportive environment where we can all share transparently and learn, but built around a drumbeat. So we know exactly what's supposed to be happening and when. Even that like micro detail of if someone's managing the inboxes of all of these LinkedIn campaigns and email campaigns, like scheduling certain times of the day where that person jumps in and does the, the mailboxes, like in, in chunks, thinking about like, we, we call it a daily pulse or a sales pulse, you know, something in a Slack channel, for example, where there's this constant like chatter and I might sound really like noisy and potentially distracting, but actually trying to build sales culture, it works incredibly well. Then going a little bit higher in terms of altitude, thinking about the weekly rhythm, the monthly rhythm, the quarterly rhythm, to where the, the business kind of finds this larger drumbeat. That's the momentum that helps make any sales engine holistically, but certainly the top of funnel work. again, like, like I said, with the comms bit, trying to kind of instill that transparency of what's going on. So it's everyone's, I was going to say, problem, but actually everyone's opportunity, but everyone can see what's going on. Everyone can contribute to that. There's some of the things that really, really do make a difference at

Harv Nagra:

mm hmm,

Ryan Hall:

cherry on the top of it. Don't sell honestly,

Harv Nagra:

hmm Thank you. I

Ryan Hall:

it work. If you can manage to do it consistently as well.

Harv Nagra:

That's really interesting what you're saying. So, you know, something you were alluding to earlier is that you need the right people in place, and perhaps at the top of the funnel is an opportunity to have somebody that's quite junior in that role, which ends up being quite cost effective. And you were also talking about, Tools that are relatively affordable these days. So can you just help us visualize a little bit of what that looks like? You've got somebody that you've kind of hired that, that seems savvy. do they need a certain profile or are you hiring straight out of uni? Sorry for asking you really basic questions, but like, what's the, what's the right profile for this person? And then you've got them in the seat. What are you getting them to do? Is it like a LinkedIn sales navigator account or Apollo account? What is it? And what are they doing?

Ryan Hall:

we recently supported one of our clients in a hiring process to put, we call them drivers or purple t shirts to sit at the top of the funnel.

Harv Nagra:

Okay,

Ryan Hall:

their in house recruiter went away with the brief and a spec that we wrote, came back with, And 10 initial jobs, a candidate, sorry. And they were pleased as punch. Cause they were like, this one's got a masters. This one's got like a year's worth of experience here, but like, you know, degree in this, da, da, da, da, da. And I looked at them, I'm like, I'm not really getting the vibe from them. I don't see where like, particularly human orientated or people orientated

Harv Nagra:

Right,

Ryan Hall:

well, we've got these other CVs and I was like, let me have a look at them. One person had been cabin crew for an airline, and there was a guy who had been working for Enterprise Car Rental for three

Harv Nagra:

Okay, Yeah,

Ryan Hall:

And plus some other bits on the CV, as I said, a guarantee of all these candidates and any of the ones that you get, you'll hire one of these two. in the end, they hired the guy from Enterprise Car Rental. No agency background, not

Harv Nagra:

Mm

Ryan Hall:

like true sales experience either,

Harv Nagra:

hmm,

Ryan Hall:

we, I can tell from the CV and their background that they knew people, so they knew how to handle these little weird little nuanced kind of situations rather than someone who's just been, and I'm generalizing, obviously

Harv Nagra:

Yeah,

Ryan Hall:

for

Harv Nagra:

Mm,

Ryan Hall:

five years, like degree plus masters, whatever it may be.

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm,

Ryan Hall:

They're just not like tuned in enough to like what people like are doing and saying so, you know, that's one simple example they're the things that we would always be looking for to be doing that kind of top of funnel and actually in honesty like any sales role if i'm being really honest, but You know specifically the top of funnel. We want people who can like tune in a little bit and Understand how to handle people and kind of be nimble on their feet. Um getting detailed on like what the tech stack looks like so linkedin There's only one place where you can get your data from and

Harv Nagra:

Yeah,

Ryan Hall:

navigator

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm,

Ryan Hall:

it's not a very good tool if i'm being really honest like the filtering tool is not very good The data is obviously decent but it it trips itself up based on the way that people put information in their profiles

Harv Nagra:

Okay,

Ryan Hall:

You That's where you get your date from. You're either building saved searches or lead lists, but you're basically building lists of people that you want to then communicate with at some point. And then you need to plug a tool on top of that. Lots of them available, like things like Dripify and Sendly and all this instantly and all this kind of stuff. But I'll recommend a tool Meet Alfred. now I've been using Meet Alfred for five years as a business. We do a tech comparison every quarter

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm,

Ryan Hall:

make sure that we're making the right recommendations of the best tool in the market

Harv Nagra:

Okay,

Ryan Hall:

still waiting out. I mean, it might not necessarily be the sexiest, glossiest thing, but it's really robust, very simple to use, but that's the send agent. So that's when you've written your flow, like your multi step flow.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah,

Ryan Hall:

And you're then plugging it in going, right, alfred, look at this particular list in sales navigator. And now I'm going to like input, copy, paste all the different stages.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah,

Ryan Hall:

that over. It's like a three stage of five stage process, like a connect message, a thank you message, a view profile, a like post and the message, like whatever it may be,

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm,

Ryan Hall:

that's where that's happening. And then you press yeah. Alfred, I'm cool. Launch campaign. And Alfred goes and does a job for you. Obviously one nuance input in there is like what we as a catch all like if someone accepts your connection request make sure there's a delay Between thank you message and the the individual prospect pressing accept because Nothing stinks of like automation. Like you've literally gone. Yeah, go on. I'll accept right? It's like god Thank you Harv for letting me into your network. So I just think about the delays the kind of human aspect of like those stages Email also is not very difficult as from a tech stack perspective so Where you have sales navigator for your data in the linkedin stack And again, lots of tools are available, but we use a tool called list kit.

Harv Nagra:

hmm.

Ryan Hall:

Apollo. Apollo does the same thing. It's a subscription service. You get so many credits a month and you can make it this big or this big or whatever it may be, but fundamentally very cost effective. Apollo we used to use, we swapped it out through one of these kind of tech reviews. And we think we're using a better quality product with better quality data and it's more accurate and obviously that impacts deliverability like sales navigate you're doing filtering and creating a list and it's got this many people in you need a send agent. So again loads of tools available, but we use a tool called smart lead

Harv Nagra:

Okay. Mm. Mm

Ryan Hall:

double handling which is always but also like who really wants to be wrangling spreadsheets with the data So in smart lead, like I want to create a new campaign. You do a drop down list. You've integrated list kit. I want near the list. Number four, pulls it straight in for you without any drama.

Harv Nagra:

hmm.

Ryan Hall:

much like Alfred, you've written your flow elsewhere. And then you're going message one, paste, message two, paste, message three, paste, changing the delay points between each of these messages.

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Ryan Hall:

when you're ready, you press go. And then smart lead does all the sending for you. Now, obviously you need to mail boxes associated to all this, this and burner domains. Cause you don't want to like. potentially pollute your primary domain. But architecturally that's kind of it. And it's, it's not complicated. The hard bit is the flows.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

So that's when that's what makes it or doesn't make it. But so you can ask a question there.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah, another basic question for, for an agency, what is like the ideal content? Is it kind of case studies or what do you think If you can talk about that. Right.

Ryan Hall:

to me, a case study is a bit of sales material. So if I was prospecting you on LinkedIn Harv, like the last thing I'm going to send you first is a case study I'm literally only there for one reason. Whereas, you know, if you're asking for people's opinions on something or just trying to be part of their network, because you work in a similar space, like on LinkedIn, much softer, initial approaches. And over time you can slowly dial it up, but let's also bear in mind that the fundamentals of sales, no, one's going to buy anything off linkedin this is not going to happen What you need to do is think about the channel switch and starting to move move them through the different kind of relationship gates So on linkedin, can you get them in your network? Yeah Can you nurture them to a point where they go? Yes, go on then i'll take 20 minutes for a call I'm not you're not going to sell to them You might be asking their opinion or getting their feedback on something or whatever it may be But by that point you've then channel switched them from linkedin and you got their work email Really important nuance, right? Cause now you can email them rather than being stuck in a busy inbox on LinkedIn. And you've also then met them. again, once you've done that, you know, the more likely you're going to reply to your email, can you get them on WhatsApp even at some point in that journey. I mean, you start moving the relationship along, before you then start to do things like little gear switches, where you go,"actually that thing you said a few weeks ago, I couldn't get that out of my head, Harv. You know we solved a prob like that for this other brand, and can I just run this past you? Can I just run this past you because it might be useful, no pressure. Like that’s a much better approach. approach. It’s slower, but you’ll get a much better conversion rate. Email, case studies, like not packs of case studies, but because you have to be naturally more direct, be pulling stats, facts, useful information, interesting nuggets out of case studies into the flows because that's going to be a hook going. Oh, does this Ryan guy really know what he's talking about? Does he know financial services? Oh, well, actually there's a statistic there that he actually did this thing with HSBC. Hmm. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Then maybe he does know what he's talking about. Maybe I will reply to him at this message. I'm not sending seven page PDFs. No one's going to read that. Think of it, you know, when everyone's like building websites and you've got like, you know, know what the current status, two seconds to make an impression and they're either going to click off or scroll down. It's worse from an email. Like if they don't like the subject line, you get deleted without even opening it. the subject line clicks, they'll open it and they'll probably read like this much. then you go, you know, they're never going to read a seven page PDF, right? You got to like land your message really quickly to win them over in that split second. Otherwise on email, it's just a straight delete. So, you know, think about that. I mean, I'm not saying case studies wouldn't come in later, but to get them interested in potentially having a conversation, you got to put a lot of work in to be like, no, I'm going to do the hard work and I'm going to say these very specific things rather than going. a 15 page case study doc. We're amazing. You should talk to us because that's not going to work either.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah, it's very, very impersonal. that is really, really helpful. So let's move on to the middle of the funnel.

Ryan Hall:

So, you've sorted the top of funnel, you're basically moving the problem from the top to the middle of the funnel.

Harv Nagra:

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Ryan Hall:

in the middle of the funnel. Because, as I said earlier, never done top cold funnel before, and all of a sudden you've got these opportunities starting to drip in, and it'll be more and more and more and more scaling over time, it's If you've never had to deal with those opportunities, then you're working only one way. you only know how to deal with people who have come to you with a potential brief, rather than the people who we've just explained who, you know, you just say, okay, yeah, I like your subject line like this, and I'll have a call with you Ryan. Now they're starting to move towards the middle of the funnel. That person needs dealt with completely differently than the inbound person. But again, like thinking about how we go about solving that, Firstly, it's sales stages. So it's back to process. It's back to like the sales ops, the operational side of things, thinking about it, like a customer journey, most pipelines are just, haven't got enough sales stages in them. like, you know, market qualified, sales qualified, brief proposal. I mean, I'm exaggerating, obviously reality is like, we've got like 22 sales stages in one of our funnels.

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Ryan Hall:

That's just on, that's like MQL down close.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

That might sound totally obscene. But I can then look at the data and go without like having these, you know, Kanban board style columns with like 50, 70 deals in that you just can't see the wood for the tree. So when you're doing followups, that becomes really difficult.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

you spread them out and thinking about the intricacies of the customer journey,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

micro nudges that you're doing every time to like endear them more and more and more and more closely to you, then the followup process becomes much easier.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

you've got more columns, but you can segment your working rhythm by slot on my diary, I'm going to do that, that, that column. The next slot on my diary, the next day I'm going to do the next three, and the next three, and the

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

And you're looking at like maybe 10 bits of data rather than 50 bits of data, and naturally it's an easier way to do it.

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Ryan Hall:

real secret sauce is like thinking about it as a UX, CX style customer journey. So again, ops people are brilliant at this stuff. And if you're having a house of UX people get them involved

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

Because they're going to really enrich the way That your customer experience is delivered. Like the prospect isn't receiving the customer experience when they buy you They're receiving the customer experience from the first time you try and touch them

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

the customer experience and I know anyone who's listening in a Digital agency is going to go. Well, obviously that's how it works. But You Honestly, like not many sales engines are organized with CX UX style thinking

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

It's just like did you send the proposal? I'd have got the proposal. All right, you're waiting for the brief Yeah, i'm waiting for the brief. There's probably six stages in between there

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

So that's a major major pitfall and again, you can use smart technology I mean, simply as smart as like HubSpot

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

like that to alternate some of these columns. So, you know, you don't even need to do the hand crafted follow ups at some point,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

they're going to go into like some kind of, you know, the point about, sticking with opportunities and playing the long game. And if someone goes cold on you after like four or five, like manual nurtures, The next stage in that process should just be like an automated, you know, cooler nurture like they've cooled off They're not dead to me because they haven't told me no yet I haven't run over the cat or anything. I've done

Harv Nagra:

Heh heh. Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

they really didn't want to do it like at least tell me and otherwise i'm going to keep following up with you But stick them in an automated bucket where it's just like drip drip drip with some really useful stuff content Maybe a case study or two, but keep it as useful as possible You That is gold. And then when they reply, go, Oh, cool, bro. They're back moving straight to the next one. Take them off the automation, pick it up from a human perspective,

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

where they go and start moving through stage by stage.

Harv Nagra:

Yep. And you know, you were saying this is where like the accounts team can, can get to work and support and they already have all this kind of great skill and relationships. But I can see from what you're saying there, there's actually a lot to that process as well. So there's really a lot of kind of, systemization required and thinking required to, Get all of that right. Let's talk about bottom of the funnel. Earlier you were saying that this is probably not an issue, but any advice for, for that?

Ryan Hall:

Less of an issue, because if you can't close, you haven't got a business.

Harv Nagra:

yeah, no

Ryan Hall:

last about. it's also the thing that most businesses want to talk to us last about as well. But, again, you know, some of the pitfalls, not enough nuance to sale stages at the bottom of the funnel. it doesn't go from proposal, negotiation, subject to contract, close. at the bottom of the funnel, I think we've got maybe nine or 10 steps.

Harv Nagra:

way. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm.

Ryan Hall:

the money. I'm not ready. I need to hire that person, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. I'm like. Cool. Like they're still in the game. I can cool off a little bit. They've been really transparent timing, I might jump from proposal to bottom of funnel nurture because they're like, Oh God, this is amazing da da, so then I'm like, right, well, I actually just need to lean in. Right. Keep giving them some stuff thinking about the other tactics that are on my toolbox. Like maybe now's the time where I should roll out my like killer reference who is always happy to get on a 20 minute call with someone to tell them how great, but also, you know, what, but what's not like things to watch out for, like being transparent. Maybe that's what I should do. That's like the nurture phase. Then again, there's loads of other little micro stages. To get them even to go. Yes. And even when they said yes, it's still like, you know what that's like from a contracting process perspective. It's like, yeah. Have they issued the contract? we negotiated the contract? Do I need a procurement loop depending on what sectors you work in?

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

then finally, You know, fall off the line, potentially on close, or hopefully not lost. But, again, like, so it's a process thing really, really, really is importantly process, but then also it's a casting challenge. So, you know, going back to that pitfall of end to end business development person,

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Ryan Hall:

bottom of funnel, depending on size of businesses, founder, founding team, or even like down to leadership, Maybe even like, depending on what it is, he might even have the scale where you're doing like senior account directors who are doing closing at that stage.

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm. Mm

Ryan Hall:

assigned, do they have clear responsibilities? Is the process there? Is that the thing that they're actually focused on? Do they have the time to do it? Like, have we made sure that they're trying to balance other responsibilities elsewhere? Especially if it's a founder. Yeah.

Harv Nagra:

hmm.

Ryan Hall:

do they have the time to do it? Like, are we carving time out in their diary? Are we talking about this from like that rhythmic perspective

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Ryan Hall:

Like this is where it turns from a ticket on a Kanban board to like cash in bank.

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Founder, this one's hot to trot.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

fast. We need you to weigh in now, prioritize this because we can close this in the next two weeks. Like it's those levels of conversation, but that actually comes from the process up the process and the operation, the procedures are the bits that expose these conversations. So then the people who have the art bit rather than the science bit can just do what they do

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

so it's a controlled situation

Harv Nagra:

I love that. I have a question. to ensure somebody in these roles excels, what can management do in terms of like setting expectations or, KPIs or tracking, is it, is it just fundamentally, they need to make sure all parts of this are in place. So having the systems, having the processes mapped out and then setting the objectives, or is there anything that you can, you can advise there?

Ryan Hall:

The simple answer is yeah, you need all of those things you can't boil the ocean. Okay It's about being really sensible about the way that you phase Out all of this stuff and even when it comes to reporting KPI's, KPI's expectations and like phase it, right? So you're going You know Maybe one element of phasing is we're going to solve top of funnel first or maybe we're going to crack middle funnel Whatever it may be but tackle that bit rather than the whole bit You know phase the way that you start to bring roles responsibilities to life So there's an expectation, almost like a roadmap of, okay, Harv, I'll come in at the middle of the funnel. But what we want you to do today is like, just pick up these first five opportunities because you're balancing the AM, DM, PM, whatever

Harv Nagra:

Right. Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

And then, you know, in month two, we're going to try and get you to 10 in month three, we're going to get you to 20, but we're going to start with a very simple process. Now we're going to evolve the process of this later. And again, this is like a super, super like ops like playground of what we're talking about, but that's going to think that's going to really help this succeed and land

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

more complicated and potentially more politically charged organization, the more phasing that you really need,

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Ryan Hall:

a very, very basic level for a smaller agency,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

like do top first,

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

second,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

bottom third, like even as a basic format, do that.

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. I think when you try to do anything very quickly, you get overwhelmed and then it becomes really difficult. We've already talked tech, but you kind of just very briefly touched on CRM and you mentioned HubSpot. Is that an essential part of the toolkit?

Ryan Hall:

CRM is,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

HubSpot is a great tool.

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Ryan Hall:

I've kind of got a slightly love hate relationship with it because it is a really good tool

Harv Nagra:

Mm,

Ryan Hall:

But it

Harv Nagra:

mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

expensive really quickly, you know as soon as like, oh, we've doubled the amount of data We've got cool that costs more we need to add more seats that costs more We want to do something more sophisticated the sales stack or the market stack Well, all of that stuff more and you know, it gets really expensive really quickly So whilst it's an amazing tool I think you've got to be really conscious about what it might end up costing you

Harv Nagra:

Sure.

Ryan Hall:

about that return on

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

however

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm

Ryan Hall:

aside, CRM, really important, even if you just go back to like the simplicity of those sales stages, you could, I mean you could, but it just doesn't work so well in a spreadsheet.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

even if you bought like a

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

CRM,

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm. Mm

Ryan Hall:

and just used it for content management, tagging, and sales stage, and multi pipeline, so you'd have a pipeline for we have one called main pipeline, which is mql to close

Harv Nagra:

hmm.

Ryan Hall:

Top of funnel linkedin top of funnel email top of funnel inbound so on so forth

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

can like get really clear views in there Even if you just did that with a crm tool a low cost one that will make a massive difference to your business

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Ryan Hall:

really quickly

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Ryan Hall:

i'm not against spreadsheets

Harv Nagra:

mean, I am.

Ryan Hall:

really quickly

Harv Nagra:

You might not be, but I am.

Ryan Hall:

rather be using a crm

Harv Nagra:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and what you were saying earlier about data just flowing between systems, it's just, when you get buried in copying stuff, it just gets so outdated and so difficult to manage. So I think that's really, really good advice. I think one of the challenges also though, is that if you don't have that sales culture or it's your, account managers trying to use the CRM. If they haven't used those tools before, then it comes with a learning curve and you do need to invest the time to make sure your team knows how to get the best out of those tools. Otherwise, it's not going to work. If they're just used to using Outlook to send emails, like it's just going to kind of fall flat.

Ryan Hall:

Training is so important,

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely.

Ryan Hall:

A clear brief a clear set responsibilities And not one and done style training

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

But ongoing, even if you call it coaching rather

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

it's really important to make it work.

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely.

Ryan Hall:

I love this fact. You said sales culture, cause it's a such an important part of it.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah

Ryan Hall:

you've got to be, you've got to, we've got to get people excited about sales.

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm

Ryan Hall:

Like it's not the horrible icky thing. Like it's actually, it should be really exciting for the people working on

Harv Nagra:

Yep So you've given some really good suggestions there on what agencies can go and do to kind of get the structure in place But you know if somebody has that funnel sorted is there things they could be doing to take it further Um,

Ryan Hall:

have the right strategy process, people, technology, culture, nailed down for top, middle, bottom, the funnel,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah,

Ryan Hall:

absolute credit to you.

Harv Nagra:

Mm,

Ryan Hall:

But the number one bit of advice at that point is the job is not done,

Harv Nagra:

Mm,

Ryan Hall:

Go back and think about how you can constantly be optimized, optimized, optimized, optimized, optimized. So even from a customer experience, customer journey perspective, it's getting really slick and impressive.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah,

Ryan Hall:

The second thing I'd be saying is how do you scale it?

Harv Nagra:

Mm,

Ryan Hall:

the more scale at the top of the funnel,

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm,

Ryan Hall:

through all of those sales stages. They're like my number two things, you know, and the scale bit and the optimization bit, like those two things are really, really important to keep pushing. you know, just don't become, don't become bedded into like to what you think is good today because there's, there's always more to be done.

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm. Really, really good advice. so you know, somebody might be listening to this thinking this sounds really good and yeah, I can tackle top of the funnel first and try to take away some of your advice, but there could be a sense of overwhelm and not knowing where to start. And then also being like, okay, well, Ryan mentioned these tools. I don't know how to use these. Is that the kind of stuff that Friday Solved supports and your team does? Can you go in and audit and help create these structures? Can you, can you talk us through how that works?

Ryan Hall:

Yeah, I mean, if you don't have something, we

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

implement it for you.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

but again, we're a, we're a done with you service, right? And because we're all about empowerment, we want to get in, do the thing to you,

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

you, train you, put all the kind of modern, process, strategy, technology in place, and then leave you.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm

Ryan Hall:

like the next retainer that someone's going to get hooked on. You know, we're very much a consultancy in out, do the work and empower and leave you. But whether it's a build, whether it's, a review, whether it was an optimization, whether it's just general coaching and advice or support. We can work with businesses in all different shapes and sizes, but also different ways as well. very often we're coming in with like a blank bit of paper on the top of the funnel

Harv Nagra:

hmm.

Ryan Hall:

everything we do touches strategy, process, technology, people, culture.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Ryan Hall:

Different shapes and sizes. but you know, we can we can get we can get businesses Empowered really quickly if that's what they want.

Harv Nagra:

Excellent. Excellent. And you have a book coming out soon, I think, as well. tell us about that.

Ryan Hall:

Yeah, it is. it's probably one of the worst things I've ever done in my life

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Ryan Hall:

I'm really pleased that i've finished it. I think

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

product but I think I started writing it in, on my honeymoon in, oh god, when was my honeymoon? It's like 2016

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Ryan Hall:

and it's been, it's come through like four or five different incarnations, but basically the incarnation which we've just wrapped I'm making some minor tweaks. It's called Don't Sell

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm.

Ryan Hall:

it is basically our entire playbook So it touches the positioning side of things, the strategy and process side of things, the demand engine, the nurture component, the culture component, the, you know, build, how to build it, how to establish

Harv Nagra:

Oh, amazing.

Ryan Hall:

run it yourself.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Ryan Hall:

it, I think, I don't know, I mean, some people have read it already and they said, it's good.

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Ryan Hall:

to get some complete strangers to read it and give me some real, really harsh feedback on it, but I think it's a good quality product. I think people will find it useful.

Harv Nagra:

Amazing. So, don't sell, and it's coming soon. So, look for that. Excellent. Excellent.

Ryan Hall:

order it. we do have some copies printed already, but If you do want to pre order i'd be happy to ship it out to you But i'll get you a copy as well how you

Harv Nagra:

Amazing.

Ryan Hall:

give me the give me the harsh

Harv Nagra:

I'd love that, I'd love that. so where can people go to learn more about yourself and connect with you and about Friday Solved?

Ryan Hall:

definitely come and find my linkedin

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Ryan Hall:

you'll see lots of pink on my profile so you can't really miss me

Harv Nagra:

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm.

Ryan Hall:

an article every week, you know, with really kind of useful insight. So come and check us out there. Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter as well. obviously we have a website, so fridaysolved. co. uk come and check us out there, but, honestly, our main storefront is LinkedIn. I think that gives you the really, the cleanest and best view of what our opinion is and how you go about solving sales.

Harv Nagra:

Excellent. Ryan, it's been amazing speaking to you and really, really good advice there that people can take away and implement and, look you up, of course, on your website and LinkedIn and also look for your book. So I really appreciate your time, and sharing all your knowledge with us today.

Ryan Hall:

Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it Harv and, really, really enjoyed the podcast. So thanks for having me on.

Harv Nagra:

You're very welcome. Thank you so much. Hey all, welcome back. This has been the longest episode of the podcast we've had to date, and I think you can see why. Sales is a big challenge, and there was so much great advice coming from Ryan. There was literally nothing I could cut, to slim this down. And like I said in the intro, if your sales engine works exceptionally well, then that's a huge congratulations to you. I'm not sure I've seen any agency running their sales as slickly as Ryan talked to us about today. But imagine having that in place instead of the panic about your pipeline, knowing that you've got a machine in place that will bring in results. I'd encourage everyone listening to ensure they've signed up for the handbook newsletter so that you get a cheat sheet from the episode today with Ryan's advice when it goes out next week. You can sign up at scoro.com/podcast and scroll down to find the sign up form. And then, stop stressing about your sales pipeline and start actioning some of Ryan's advice. Now, if you enjoyed the conversation we had today, then please share this episode with a friend and tell them to subscribe. And lastly, if you're listening to this episode when it goes live in the end of December, this is our last episode of the year. So I'm wishing you all the best over the holidays with your loved ones. Eat all the food, have the Baileys, have a nap every day, and turn off your Slack and emails. That's what I'll be doing. Thank you so much for your support this year and for being a listener of The Handbook, and once again, have a wonderful holiday from myself and from everyone at Scoro. I'll be back with the next episode soon.

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Harv Nagra

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