How To Lose A Lead In 10 Days

Participate in the 2026 High Growth Study Today: https://hingemarketing.com/survey

In this episode of Spiraling Up, the Hinge team dives into classic rom-com territory with 'How to Lose a Lead in 10 Days.' Austin McNair, Mary Blanche Kramer, and Joe Pope discuss seven surefire ways to lose a lead, from neglecting your website to giving prospects only one option. 

The team touches on the importance of social media, the pitfalls of responding to every RFP, and why you should never just talk about your services. Plus, learn how to involve your subject matter experts and tailor your pitches to prospects' actual needs. 

CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome
04:04 Have a Disorganized Business Development Process
13:52 Neglect Your Company's Website
19:10 Hide Your Subject Matter Experts
24:38 Respond To Every RFP That Comes Your Way
29:20 Limit Content To Focus on Your Firm And Services
36:19 Ignore the Prospect's Business Situation 
43:17 One solution at one price
48:49 Pivotal Story: Sprout Social Report
58:13 Conclusion

Transcript

Austin McNair: 0:00

In today's episode of Spiraling Up, a new report from Sprout, social has a lot to say about the state of social media marketing, but first, we're gonna be channeling the energy of another classic romantic comedy movie with a segment we're calling How To Lose a Lead in 10 Days. Welcome everyone. This is Spiraling Up with Hinge. Welcome everyone to spiraling Up the podcast for professional services marketers and business leaders. My name is Austin McNair, and as always, I'm joined by my colleagues and co-hosts, Mary Blanche Kramer

Mary Blanche: 0:42

Hey, Austin.

Austin McNair: 0:43

and Joe Pope.

Joe Pope: 0:47

Greetings, friends.

Austin McNair: 0:48

Greetings. Well, welcome to our listeners. As we get started, I want to say thank you to all of our listeners who are listening on audio platforms. Make sure you leave us a review. Let us know what episode you've loved. And for those of you watching on YouTube, give us a, like, give us a subscribe, all of that. Oh, or leave a comment. Uh, you know, all that stuff, all that

Joe Pope: 1:09

Engagement's. Good. Yeah. All that.

Austin McNair: 1:11

good. So I hear, on these platforms. Um, well, hey guys. good to see you. I'm ready for another episode of Spiraling Up. How are we doing?

Joe Pope: 1:19

I think we're, I think we're doing well. But I, I've noticed that you've made some additions in your backdrop. Uh, and I guess for those that are. Listening. You might need to describe it for us, Austin, but wow, really stepping up your game.

Austin McNair: 1:30

Yeah, what do you think about my, uh, my new upgrade back here? Big plant.

Joe Pope: 1:35

It's a big plant.

Mary Blanche: 1:37

A big.

Austin McNair: 1:39

Shout out to

Joe Pope: 1:40

that plant, Austin? What made you choose

Austin McNair: 1:42

This, this, this plant came to me. We have a friend that is actually moving to another city, and I think she told me she had 45 plants in her house. 45. Yeah. And, uh, she said this one was her favorite. It was, uh, you know, I, I think one of the biggest of the bunch. so yeah, I'm happy it has a new home on the Spiraling Up podcast. And, uh, in my, in my little office here, it's starting to feel a little nice. Um.

Mary Blanche: 2:08

is giving Brazil vibes for sure.

Austin McNair: 2:10

That's what I'm going for. Yeah. Brazil. Brazil vibes, all the way. Well, guys, I'm excited to dive into this episode today. there's no guest, but we've got a great segment. Why don't we get started and jump over to that, Hey guys, before we get into our next segment, I wanna loop you into something that we have going on here on the Hinge side. As you know, we are always conducting research. We do it every year on what the fastest-growing professional services firms are doing as a part of their marketing. So right now we are conducting the 2026 high growth study. And that survey is open and we would love your participation. Mary-Blanche, what are we giving people that participate in this year's survey?

Mary Blanche: 2:53

anyone that participates, they get a free report.

Austin McNair: 2:56

free report. Yeah. Worth$799. That's what we sell it for after the fact. And it's an industry report. It's, it's whatever industry you are in. Uh, you'll select your industry and we'll send that report to you when it comes out in January..

Joe Pope: 3:08

But wait, there's more. In fact, if you complete the survey, we'll also be entering yourself in a raffle for a gift. A gift from your friends at Hinge of up to$500 worth in value. Are you looking for some Bose headphones? A cool podcasting mic? You can't take my job. I'm sorry, but if you wanted it, you could try to do it on your own, and using this gift from Hinge from completing the survey is gonna be a great way to do it. Is there such thing as a But wait, there's more. More because there is! If you complete this survey by the end of October, 2025, we'll give you three entries into that raffle. Get yourself something nice for the holiday season. Austin, take us home. Where can they take this survey?

Austin McNair: 3:48

Yeah, to take the survey, you're gonna want to go to hingemarketing.com/survey. If you're on your computer, if you're watching on YouTube right now, hit the pause button. Come back and finish for the episode. Hit HIT survey. We really appreciate it in advance All right gang. Well, there's no guest today, but we have planned another special episode for you. As some of you may remember. We ha recently did an episode called 10 Things We Hate About Websites, which was inspired by a classic nineties movies, 10 things I Hate About You. Well, the series is Back, with another professional services. Romantic comedy spinoff this time. How to Lose a Lead in 10 days. this, of course is a movie reference, uh, to how to lose a guy in 10 days, right? Where the movie was like a couple that was dating with secret dueling intentions. One is trying to win a bet to make a woman fall in love with him in 10 days, and the other is writing an article. To show how to drive a man away, and they both have a playbook, outrageous, and they're sabotaging behaviors to achieve their goals. Well, we are doing something similar here. similar playbook, but this time it's for business. And so we've compiled today a list of Sure fire common Ways to turn off a perfectly good lead and ensure that your firm never closes a deal. of course guys, I'm, you know, being tongue in cheek here. but Joe, as we dive in, why did we come up with this topic in the first place? You know, I, I love the romantic comedy spinoff here. but clearly, you know, this is a, a big topic for us.

Joe Pope: 5:29

Yeah, and I, I was planning on mostly just talking about the importance of romantic comedies in today's society. Frankly, it's a forgotten art. Netflix has really picked up their game recently, though, but no, seriously, I mean, one of the biggest challenges that we'll come across in any initial conversation when somebody comes to talk to Hinge about, you name it, right, marketing, branding, business development, and so forth, is that they feel like they are losing. Perfectly good prospects as a part of their, their cycle, right? It's maybe they're showing up on their website and they're getting views and so forth, but they're not converting or, you know, they get an RFP in the door and their process is leading them to have a win percentage significantly less than what their larger business development when percentages and so. Being at Hinge and having as much research and focus as we've been putting into solving these types of challenges, we felt like this was a perfect way to run it back when it comes to using the rom-com spinoff, theming. And I'm really excited, I think today to work through this with you guys that we've got a really solid list.

Austin McNair: 6:31

Yeah, we got things that we're gonna go through today. Joe, you're gonna actually kick us off here. Tell us what's our, what's our first way to lose a lead in 10 days?

Joe Pope: 6:41

way to lose a lead is to have a disorganized business development process. So what do we mean by that? I mean, professional services, it's, it's always been this idea of you've got the, uh, seller doers, you've got the folks who are taking them through this journey and so forth. But in the modern professional services space, frankly, it's a diverse process and you could have many hands. Supposedly making light work of what a business development system is supposed to be. But if you don't have a strategy in place, if you've got too many people working in one area, for example, we've got plenty of people ready to sell, but nobody really ready to do a proposal. Or we have a process that's completely centered around one person, a single point of failure, and that person's sick for a week. I mean, what are you gonna do? Then? You're gonna just hope that these folks are just sitting around waiting for you. It's not the best way to go about building out a system. And so that system itself needs to be something that you've put some thought and effort into, that it reflects directly the process that you are. Prospects, your clients, they want to go through. I mean, hinge uses research to help answer some of those questions, but it can be done as simply as just asking for feedback. You've got a client in the door and you've gone through that process with'em recently. They can give you some feedback on if they felt like they had a good experience in coming on board and being a part of what is, uh, a new program or a new partnership that you've got with your organization going those efficiencies. Those are key. I mean, Austin, Mary Blanche, anything to add here in terms of the disorganized process?

Mary Blanche: 8:08

no, I was just curious what your thought if you do, if you have a rule of thumb on, um. Um, response times, right? I mean, I know like that's a big thread that we see throughout, like figuring out what your organizational process is gonna be for sales.

Joe Pope: 8:21

absolutely. I mean, we've got a few rules of thumb, but 48 hours is at most what you want to do, of course, like over a weekend. It's totally understandable. Nobody loves the, uh, everybody loves. I guess no one and everyone love the 5:00 PM lead that rolls in your contact us form on a Friday afternoon. So somebody like that may not get a response till Monday morning, and I think everybody in the business world kind of accepts that. But I can't tell you how many times where we'll get a, somebody reaches out to us and, you know, within a few hours we'll call or send a follow up email or both, or things along those lines and we'll get a, just a real simplistic message back. It happened this week for me. Wow, you guys got back to me so fast. And if you're talking about the relationship building that needs to happen, we had a great expert on a previous episode, Dr. Ryan O. Sullivan, and he was talking about relationship building and how important it is to completing sales and getting engagements going. And if you're waiting. Somebody who's already shown some buying interest. I mean, you're just shooting all of those investments you've made in marketing in the foot that preceded it. So yeah, 48 hours is by far the most, I mean, hinge tries to do its same business day, and ideally within 24 business hours.

Austin McNair: 9:33

Joe, the, the word that you used was, to me was disorganized. you know, it's, not that you don't have a business development process. Everybody at this point has some sort of business development process, but it's really about all the organization of it and, and how that can, you know, really be. Built in different ways. I'm curious what your kind of preferred model is right now For a lot of the companies we work with, I'm thinking for example, of a lot of clients that we have right now, we're advising them to like lead with more of their visible experts to get them out there more, to feature them on the website more. And, and one of the kind of natural outcomes of that is that it creates. Opportunities for direct contact, not to go through maybe like a centralized hub, like a contact us form, but instead it's going straight to the seller doer. Right. I'm just curious about like what your thoughts there on that model.'cause on one hand there's the benefits of leading with your visible experts. There's also though I think some concern people have with exactly what you're saying. Like, does that make the business development process a slightly more disorganized?

Joe Pope: 10:38

Yeah, and I, we're gonna talk about websites in in, in one or more of the following ways to lose a lead, but this is where technology and user journey and all these types of things can be your friend. I mean, if you structure a website in a manner that certainly can feature experts, but also make it really easy for somebody to convert. Depending on where they are in their journey and process, and that doesn't mean slapping forms all over your website, but giving them options to go to a landing page or a link or something along those lines, which can take away the, I'm just gonna call this person right now, and they're feeling, and oh, now suddenly I'm on a landing page. That ideally, if I've been downloading content from these sites, it's already pre-populated, it's ready to go. You've got insight and information and Oh, I can talk to this expert. Today according to the guide of, or the, form itself, maybe not today, but soon, and I, I think this is really just putting some thought into how you structure this journey for folks and the investment in technology too. I mean, you don't need an enterprise Salesforce system, sorry, Salesforce, you just don't, but having a thoughtful way in how you're structuring your marketing. So how we're capturing leads and then our CRM, our business opportunity generation, how we are trying to win work, and having it kind of map that, those flip overs, those stages so we can accurately keep track of insights and information you can have people supporting in the background. So when that expert, you know. God forbid, get sick like we talked about with the single form of failure. We're not waiting a week to try to continue to move these people down the line. We've got technologies that we're leaning on even sometimes as simplistic as like, um, an Excel sheet, right? I mean, don't do that, but if we're not keeping track of these things, you're, you're in trouble. And I think that's, that's really the big piece, Austin.

Austin McNair: 12:26

So one more question for you, Joe.'cause I, I thought MB asked a really good question about like the response time. and assuming, let's say that the responsiveness is good, like, um, in your experience, what's the most important first contact? Like, what's the most important element of that first contact? Is it to get a meeting scheduled? Is it to get more information? Like generally like what, what is that like first stage look like once a lead comes in?

Joe Pope: 12:51

Another topic that came up in our conversation with Ryan O'Sullivan, but. If you are going into a conversation with someone and you don't know anything about them, you are going to upset the apple cart, if you will. You're gonna disenfranchise your prospects. So whether it's collecting insight and information from forms, good old fashioned research, using an AI tool. You know, just as simplistic as going to their LinkedIn page, for example, that da, that collection process is important. So you don't want to be ever getting on a sales call and immediately saying, tell me about your problem. And I can't tell you how many times I've gotten on calls like that. And if, unless I'm really interested in hearing what this person has to say, my mood has soured from the jump. It is not hard to figure out what the business development partner at a marketing agency might be interested in if your service has some sort of tangential connection to that. So just that extra due diligence step absolutely needs to be built into your process.

Austin McNair: 13:52

All right, I've got number two here. How to lose a lead? Go ahead and neglect your company's website. All right, what do we mean by this? I mean, I think we could just direct people straight to our last, uh, episode that I mentioned, our 10 things we hate about professional services websites here. Um, but really guys, this is a, broad, big topic, but it has just outstanding consequences for business development. Both for people that you are talking to, maybe that is existing prospects or people that you are directly engaging with and maybe some sort of RFP or a lead that has come in and you act have a conversation. Those people regularly we expect are going back to your website. Looking at what you've published there, checking out your expertise, seeing how active and up to date everything is. But there's also the people you don't hear from, right? there's all these terms out there for this, but it's like dark social and, and, and dark. SEO like these terms of the people you don't hear about, but they are out there checking you out. They are looking at your website, they're making an assessment for you and you, you never will hear about, you will never see. What they're saying about you and what they're socializing to peers and colleagues and their network of people just based off of, you know, what they've gone and seen from your company. and your website plays just an incredible role in that. it needs to clearly communicate your positioning. I mean, I'm just going down the list of all the things that we talked about. it needs to have a smooth user experience. It needs to have, like a content architecture strategy where. you know, the most important things that your business does, the way that you guys really attract new clients and sell business, that that stuff is made very clear, um, and that you're not leading with vague messaging or kind of tertiary services. I can't tell you how many times where it's like big professional services companies, right? I go and I check out their website and it's like the homepage is like a news announcement from five months ago about like a new hire. Is that a relevant topic? Yes.

Joe Pope: 15:57

Depends on who the hire is.

Austin McNair: 15:59

should it be the first thing on the website? don't think so. and, and then, you know, I can cycle this into conversations about SEO and just general visibility, but. If you wanna lose a lead, just neglect your website. Pretend like your website doesn't matter. you know, find some excuse for, you know, how your industry is different and how a website doesn't really matter. I know that we have, you know, I've had these conversations so many times, but the website just plays a critical role and I think it's a great way to lose leads if you wanna, continue to neglect it.

Joe Pope: 16:27

But Austin, I thought my$50 million government contracting company website, where all we do is respond to RFPs. I, I don't think a website's important. Like why would I need to do SEO Austin?

Austin McNair: 16:37

Yeah, I, I'm not gonna answer that. You know what I'm gonna say, Joe, you're the GovCon guy. You give us an answer here.

Mary Blanche: 16:47

cause you do, so like you said earlier, you do so many of these website audits and these website strategies, you know, you went through, you know, a bunch of different things that you see. What are the top like one or two things that are kind of common themes? Uh, when someone comes to us with, um, you know, a website.

Austin McNair: 17:04

there's two categories I would use here in terms of like the context of what we're discussing in terms of being an appealing, uh, service provider for people to make that first contact. number one is. That you have some sort of unique brand design, right? That you wanna look and feel different, right? um, maybe a referral comes in, right? A dark referral, someone you didn't know about was out there making referrals for you. And somebody who's a very qualified lead for you is checking out your website and they come to your website and lo and behold, it looks and sounds just like everybody else that they're checking out. You're not gonna stand out. And so, like, while look and feel is not the most important thing. it is important and like neglecting the, the way that you're, you know, leading with imagery and connecting with people through a unique style. in my opinion, that matters greatly nowadays. It's, it's harder than ever to stand out and doing so with your design is, is an important step. but number two, mb I, I would say it would be some combination. I mean it, to summarize it in one point, it would be relevant content, right? That. People can quickly associate, oh yes, these people, they, they're solving the kind of problem that I'm looking for. And there's a lot ways that that can come about. I would say, like I said, that homepage experience and what kind of information you share on there. Maybe it's you featuring certain industries, maybe it's, it's. You know, straight to the point in like the headline that you feature, or it could be like in thought leadership. Right? And one of the, one of the big changes I'm seeing now is companies are shifting towards more of like an editorial style of layout in their insight sections where it's like, not really like, hey, you know, we do webinars and we have a blog. It's more of like, Hey, we write about cybersecurity, right? So if you come and check out what our insights are on cybersecurity, that's what you're interested in learning about. Come and here's all the content pre-filtered for you. So I, I think that that is like what I would summarize, kind of like leading with a strong brand design and then also, you know, that that relevant content.

Joe Pope: 19:06

You gotta provide the opportunity for your meet. Cute, if you will.

Mary Blanche: 19:10

Well, I ask Austin'cause I think it is a good segue into my number three. Um, so I'm gonna be coming in hot with Hiding your subject matter experts is one of the fastest ways to lose credibility with a potential client. And I'm talking about visibility on your website. So if there are no leadership profiles, no expert bios to show who's behind the work and no connection to any kind of thought leadership, it can be a real deal killer. Um, so let's put ourselves in the buyer's shoes for a second. You know, you're. You're looking to make a big investment and you wanna know who you're gonna be working with, uh, rightfully so. If all you see is a faceless firm with. Generic about US language. You know, you immediately start to wonder do they, do they actually even have, you know, the depth that, that we need. And expert profiles, especially the leadership bios, they do more than just list the credentials. They help humanize the firm and create an instant connection with. With prospects. Um, and what I, I really think when you can weave in that thought leadership piece to those, whether it's articles or research or speaking engagements, it really does convey confidence and authority. And if you hide those voices, it's, it's. Almost like you're essentially saying, Hey, you know, trust us, we're, we're smart, but we're not gonna, we're not gonna show you why. And that right there is a one-way ticket to pushing a lead towards a competitor who is frankly, more transparent and accessible. I don't know, what do you guys think?

Austin McNair: 20:51

I, I can tell you from just my experience in kind of studying the user behavior of many of our clients' websites, that those websites that do have more expert profiles or leadership team pages, leadership profiles, users are. Heavily likely to go visit those pages. I mean, for those clients of ours that have that section really built out, I mean, it is almost always in the top three options of pages where people navigate to, so we, like we, we, we map kind of the, the user journey. When they land on the homepage, where do they go? And even if like our team or our people is not in the main navigation, let's say it's a sub nav option, people still are going there. And clicking on that more than they're like going and looking at services more than they're going and looking at industry pages. They're going and looking at the people that work there and studying those profiles. And, it just reinforces to me so, so much like what you're saying, Mary Blanche is that like those companies that do lead with their experts and that do have these robust expert profiles, they are the ones that are probably winning and getting more engagement in their online, uh, experience, but.

Joe Pope: 22:03

All guys, guys, guys, what about the fact that our best talent could get poached if we just put them out there like that? If, if we're showing these folks off, somebody's gonna go and take'em.

Austin McNair: 22:14

I mean this is, that's the question, right? That we, we hear all the time. Um. Is the concern valid? Yeah, of course it is. I, I, I think that every company right now recognizes that, you know, attracting top talent but also keeping your best people is necessary. And we have some clients that work in some very niche competitive industries. And so like, yeah, you want to hang on to those people. The only problem with that is that if there is a headhunter out there that is looking to, poach one of your people. They're not necessarily using your website to do that. They're going to LinkedIn, right? They've identified you as a competitor. They're gonna go to LinkedIn, they're gonna sort by people, they're gonna see the person, the role, what that person's posting, and on down the line there. And that's how they're gonna make an assessment of who to find. So. What you do on your website. I, I don't think it actually amplifies the risk of people getting poached as much as, um, they think it does. And actually I think on the contrary, there's a lot of benefits as we've been discussing to that, that far outweigh the risk there. Is that where you're going with that, Joe?

Joe Pope: 23:14

I was, and I was even gonna tie in the fact that. You can learn more about visible expertise and hings recent publishing, uh, available on Amazon Bestseller, the Visible Expert Revolution. Uh, so yeah, go ahead and check that out and learn more about why we think this is so important to have as part of your business development and process to not losing leads.

Austin McNair: 23:36

Blanc, I know that you, you know, you're, um, kind of our operations lead here. Does that, do you buy that explanation there in terms of, you know, putting people on your website and you know, it, you know, that con, that main concern about like people and talent getting poached.

Mary Blanche: 23:51

Oh, absolute. Mean, you know, we're sitting here and talking about how to lose a lead in 10 days. But I mean, that goes for the recruitment process as well. And you know, when you guys know, I do a lot of, uh, interviewing, uh, for, uh, our own staff. But, you know, when I'm talking to these people, they've looked at our social media, they've looked at our website. Uh, they already, they already know a lot about us. They, they'll often even sometimes be referencing the names of, you know, your creative director or your art. Or, you know, I saw this about one of your, um, you know, your research manager and, I, I, I just think that speaks for itself and the due diligence that people are doing and what's bringing them into, um, our funnel from the recruitment side as well.

Austin McNair: 24:32

All right, Joe, I think you're next up on the list again. Uh, what's our next way to lose a lead in 10 days?

Joe Pope: 24:38

Well, it's a, it's another one that's near and dear to my heart, and, uh, it's because it's where I pretty much started my business career. But how to lose a lead is to respond to every RFP that comes your way. Every single one, you know, that just rolled into the inbox. And it just means there's another opportunity to chase that, uh, that white whale, if you will. And, and we all know how RFPs are a necessary evil, right? And it's a piece that's always gonna happen. You should sometimes feel very honored to be invited to the table, but. We also know the amount of time and effort that these types of things can take, and especially if it's in this place where you have not been able to establish any amount of relationship, the blind chasing of RFPs, resulting in multiple team members focus effort, uh, in a, into a way that is just gonna. You know, take their efforts away from something else. talking about responsive time, right? Well, I couldn't respond because I was, I was just head down in this RFP or, oh, I couldn't go to my kids' birthday party because this RFP is due at 6:00 PM on a Friday and it's Thursday afternoon. So, so, I mean, it's like these types of things. There's the personal side of it as well. I'm not advocating for not responding to RFPs. We respond to RFPs if you have an RFP for marketing, branding, and research in the professional services space. Please send it to me. I'd love to read it. But if you're not having a connection directly to an ICP or things along those lines, it's not a part of a strategic focus. You should be pressing pause for a second on, wow, I need to chase every single piece. There's always gotta be a go. No go process involved in any sort of decision where you are gonna. Step outside of somebody who's maybe not a lead or in your funnel already on, is this really worth our time? I mean, Mary Blanche, you've, you've had to jump in and help me sometimes as well with RFPs when we're doing pricing and things along those lines. And I know you've got things going on too, right? But I ask you, Hey, I need you to come in and help me with this. And if it's something that isn't planned ahead of time. challenge, right? Not everybody's sitting around waiting to do these things. So, uh, we are big proponents for smart business development practices when it comes to things like an RFP. Um, think about it this way. It's like if you're receiving something like this out of the blue, it's like trying to catch a moving train, right? Like if you weren't a part of the process in the lead up to this RFP. there's a good chance that somebody who's in your seat was right, because these folks had to get that insight and information as a part of that solicitation request. And so we need to be thinking more strategically before we just blindly spend time sending responses to RFP requests.

Austin McNair: 27:16

Joe, one of the things that I, I heard you talk about the other day was this idea that like, just the nature of an RFP itself sort of sets the tone that you're an order taker and as service providers like I, I think a lot of us. Don't like that framing, right? Like, yeah, of course we wanna follow through, but we also want to, you know, we want to be providing value and when we get into a business relationship, we want it to be built on trust. And I think that one of the things I heard you saying the other day was, um, just how an an an RFP, you know, could set the tone that it sort of undermines that trust at the beginning. I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that.

Joe Pope: 27:55

Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes just think about the word trust. It's a, it's a two way street, right? I mean, certainly they can trust that you can fill out the requirements of their RFP, but. How deep does that go? Uh, if, if I can't trust that you're actually the expert they say you are. And unfortunately, even the best written RFPs aren't always gonna be able to close that gap that quickly. The need of the professional services buyer to trust trumps anything that is gonna come in that type of format. So, a big thought process here is, hey, look, it's a necessary evil. How do we continue to build on that relationship? in this submission or response. Maybe it's a strategic target of ours, right? So submitting an RFP makes sense because, hey, this is an opportunity for us to get in front of them, hopefully in the form of a pitch or a Q and a or from hinges perspective. If you send us an RFP, we're gonna ask for a phone call, like regardless, and, uh, we may no bid your project depending on how you'll respond. To that request. So I think it's kind of looking at it from the activities that you utilize to surround your RFP process, and making decisions from there on, Hey, is this worth our time? All right, Austin, we've just made some deep, deep decisions on if we're gonna respond to every RFP in an effort to not lose a lead. Tell us what the next way that you think you can lose a lead would be.

Austin McNair: 29:20

Yeah, let me in my, uh, usual fashion here. Bring us back over to the marketing side of the table. how to lose a lead, just talk about your firm and your services. You don't really need to go much further than that, right? Man. why would this lose a lead, I guess is maybe where we should start. You know, as we've talked about a couple times, I kind of alluded to it with the, the website section, but your buyers are looking for expertise. and our research on buyer behavior data has said this for years, that at essentially every stage of the buyer journey, what buyers are interested in, what they're trying to see, what tips the scale for them. We wanna find and work with the experts. we also want to know like past performance, like have you done it? now may there's something to be said there for past performance, like your case stories or your project portfolio that, yeah, that's kind of in line with what I said about like, that's talking about your firm and services. Hopefully, you know, that's at least the bare minimum that you have, right? It's not just like a bullet list of here's our services, but you have taken the step to say like, oh, and here's an example of how we've done that. Or here's some companies we have done that for the, that proof of work that, you know, that proof of past experiences super essential. But beyond that, like, are your people like actually thought leaders in the space? Um, I, that is something that your buyers are thinking about, and so just over and over again. Um, you know, content creation, we also know is the number one marketing priority of the high growth firms. So it's like, if you're not creating content, if you're not speaking to the issues and topics going on in your, in your industry that are relevant today, right?'cause many of us are working in industries that are changing. Very rapidly. And some of us, I mean, it's daily, weekly, right? So what your experts are saying, how your company is leading in terms of your voice, your share of voice on certain issues, it really matters. And again, I would think about it from the perspective of like, who else are, these potential buyers of yours checking out? You know, are some of your competitors more active in terms of leading with thought leadership content? If they are, they probably have an edge there, and so you have to think about how do we lead into the space with more original thought. leadership about the kinds of things that we do and sell every day. Uh, so for me, I think that a great way to lose a lead is just to ignore that side of things and to just kind of go off of reputation or go off referral quality. While those things are really important, you know, you're missing that edge that you can get from the, the digital marketing and specifically the thought leadership content.

Joe Pope: 32:06

One thing that always stands out to me is where businesses, especially in specific industries, and I, I can say it like that, knowing that people will immediately picture it depending on what their industry is, but they'll kind of hop on the bandwagon for how a particular service type or solution is being phrased. And the next thing you know, everybody has adapted a acronym, for example, that talks about a specific thing and. Talk about a way to just disenfranchise. We talked about that a little bit earlier in terms of business development processes, but now if you just think about it in terms of messaging, it's like, okay, yeah, so everybody needs to use something like trusted advisor or somebody. Everybody needs to utilize this new buzzword on packaging a certain amount of services, and that is, well certainly might make you feel like you've done something great. Is that really what your audience is thinking? is that how they're. Thinking their issues or challenging solutions are best described. So the, the copycat syndrome that sometimes happens here is another place where we see there be a pretty large disconnect and you know, it's like, well we did it the same way Deloitte did it. Well, okay, that's great. Their Deloitte and their marketing budget is probably more than your annual revenue. So like that kind of thing needs to be thought about too in terms of, hey, let's just make sure that we're connecting with what our ideal customer. Wants to learn about, and sometimes that just means asking them in the form of research or just paying attention to where your traffic is going on, on your website. You were talking about that earlier. Austin, people are navigating to certain sections of your website. Lo and behold, they're probably telling you something about what they're thinking of when they come to you and where your potential opportunities to continue to grow and create visibility. So rely on data that's, that's always a great way to make sure you're not losing a lead.

Mary Blanche: 33:50

Think that the data, um, is, is a good point. And, and piece of that. Joe Austin, I was wondering, you know, like on the point of relevancy, you know, that's one thing I hear a lot, um, you know, with our clients, um, you know, that we're, you know, coaching to be visible experts in their space through writing content. Can you talk a little bit about, um, how we are advising, uh, clients to, to stay relevant, um, when it comes to content creation? Um, and particularly, uh, like with the issues and topics process when, when we're kind of guiding them. Getting them through that part of the engagement.

Austin McNair: 34:21

Yeah, great question. I mean, I, I think it means engaging directly with the people who are on the front lines. Some of those people will be kind of in those sales conversations, but others might not be. They're, maybe they're just full-time delivery, right? They're the ones kind of, that are expected to be more innovators. They're the ones kind of solving those really complicated client issues and, uncovering new solutions. Like those are the people that really, it's like we need to capture. What their experience is, what they're providing, the value they're delivering for their clients, and then bring that back into the business development process, bring that back into the marketing space and sort of reverse engineer their experiences, their work into kind of like our marketing collateral. So because they're on the front lines. And so if you want to talk about like. That relevancy? Well, nothing's more relevant than what's like happening now, right? Like the sticky issues that people are running into. And, sometimes that's, you know, a lot of the, the people who are kind of in the sales conversations, they're gonna have some hints there, you know, in terms of what people are talking about, but. Those frontline folks as well. And so really it's like how do we organize our marketing team or our content development team to be interfacing with the delivery side and understanding and hearing those stories, like there needs to be mechanisms within your organization. Are built for getting that feedback and understanding precisely what's happening in your organization. I can tell you this is not an easy thing to do. the visible expert process and everything we talk to that is, uh, is a solution to that. But I'd say, you know, it even goes further, right? Like, not everybody wants to be a visible expert, but you still have some people in your organization that they are, you know, some of the brightest minds, uh, at your firm, and you should have some interface with them. Your marketing team should be spending time on the front lines, understanding what you're selling and what you're delivering every day. so that would be, that would be my advice.

Mary Blanche: 36:19

All right guys. Well, I think I'm gonna take the baton next, uh, for number six. Another surefire way to lose a lead is to ignore the prospect's actual business. I know we've all seen this happen, so, you know, you have that sales person that whips out the slide deck. They, they talk for 29, 30 minutes, and they never really pause to ask. What's going on in the prospect's world. And the reality is prospects, they do not care about a polished pitch. If it feels like you're just reading from a script. What they want is to feel understood, and that means doing things like. Practicing asking open-ended questions and digging into the context behind their pain points. And it also means tailoring the conversation instead of showing them the same case study to, you know, to every single prospect that you talk to. Highlight the example that mirrors, you know, their industry, their challenges, their goals. Uh, you know, it's really personalization that shows, shows that you've done your homework and that. Really that you value their time. if you wanna keep them engaged, I would just say put down the generic pitch deck altogether and, and meet them where they are. I just, I think ignoring the business situation isn't just a missed opportunity. It's, it's really the fastest way to signal that you're not the partner that they're looking for.

Joe Pope: 37:37

Yeah. Amen.

Austin McNair: 37:39

I can tell a story of, I think it was my first year at Hinge and I started getting the emails right, the partnership emails. Right. Hey, and a lot of these for us as a marketing agency, they come from, you know, tech platforms or some sort of, Some sort of software that helps, you know, deliver, you know, some marketing services or data visualization, or maybe it's a CRM platform. And I remember I got, uh, one of these invitations to, you know, learn about an exciting partnership opportunity. And I'm in my first year at Hinge and Partnerships was basically a big, you know. Line item on my responsibilities to handle. And I was like, oh, part partnership opportunity. Let's see what this is. Like, I showed it to, to my supervisor at the time, he kind of knew what it was. He was like, yeah, go for it. See what happens. Um, and you know, the partnerships I was looking for were, you know, sort of maybe like content marketing partnerships

Joe Pope: 38:29

Yeah.

Austin McNair: 38:30

Event, event partnerships. Like, let's, let's collaborate, let's, you know, do an email swap or, you know, there's a lot of ways a, a marketing partnership can look. And I'll never forget, I sat down in this conference room and I, and I opened up the call and Mary Blanche, the guy, did that exact thing, same thing for 29 minutes. He just told me about whatever product he had. And there was a couple of times where like I tried to, to jump in and explain my business situation. I was like, my business situation here is that I'm. Looking for marketing partnerships, like actual marketing partnerships. Not you selling me your product. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, let me just, let me just get through this part again and then we can talk about that part. Like he was basically. Dangling the idea of a marketing partnership in front of me. But he just so he could keep going through his sales deck. and I just remember being so defeated and like on his behalf too, I was like, dude, we are wasting so much time right now. Like, why, why? Why would you even come to this call if I already told you my business situation and you know, you're just gonna ignore that. But some people, I guess that's just how it is. I don't know.

Joe Pope: 39:37

Yeah, I mean, I, I liked, I like this one a lot. I mean, it brings, it brings to mind a lot of, honestly, pretty well spread sales insights and, and uh, and tropes and things along those lines, which have started, thank God, really started to, uh. Spread across a variety of B2B spaces. there's that 80 20 rule, for example, like a salesperson should spend 80% of the time listening and 20% of the time talking. And that listening provides you with a unique opportunity to adjust and ask things like open-ended questions or some, all those types of tactics that can be come to that can come to the table. It allows them to understand the situation and reflect. And so if you have. A service or a product that actually will help these folks. Shouldn't be too hard to start to find connection points where it really is the solution to their problem and not, this is slide 72 of 94, and I think you can make it to the end, guys. I'm really trying to get there quickly, but it's, uh, uh, gosh, uh, you know, oh, I'm spending too much time on this slide. Next slide. Uh, it's, it's that type of challenge that we're really trying to suggest others need to avoid. And last thought here. the deck piece just sticks with me. Most professional services sales decks aren't great. Honestly, they're not, and it's where a group like Hinge can certainly help you. But also it's the idea that organizations that are growing fast than their peers, they've embraced the development. Of sales materials that really, truly reflect their ideal customer's needs, issues, challenges. So it's not just the generic piece, it's the, oh, this looks really customized and really focused, but in reality it's just, we're just not boring. Somebody with something, we have a reason behind it. And that type of process is gonna lead you to success.

Austin McNair: 41:24

Joe, you mentioned the 80 20 rule. You know, in terms of the listening piece, I'm wondering, you know, a lot of. these sort of sales tactics have been popularized recently, like this concepts of like mirroring, uh, labeling emotions. Like I'm curious, like how much, uh, do you, how much stock do you put into those techniques, um, when you're doing that active listening?

Joe Pope: 41:46

Yeah, it's, it's interesting, my, uh, my favorite book on this topic is not actually a, well, I guess it is a sales book in a sense, but it wasn't written that way. a book called Never Split the Difference by a gentleman named Chris Voss, who spent decades working for the FBI in terms of hostage negotiation and the two tactics that you just talked about. The idea of mirroring and labeling. These are psychological elements with significant amount of research and testing by groups like the FBI in some of like the hardest situations that you could ever imagine. And they use these tactics because it. Brings people along to get to the next stage of where they need to go in their journey. so yeah, remember Mary Blanche, you suggested, I checked that book out about a year ago, and, uh, it was, it was a great one. I mean, I think it's the type of insight and information that if you're thinking about it and you're connecting with your people that you're supposed to talk to, that these tactics. They're available and you can learn from them and you can incorporate them. So you are hearing these folks and their issues, their challenges, things that keep'em up at night and, and getting them to the place where you can be the solution to those things.

Austin McNair: 42:53

So I guess the point is to, use these techniques, to create a great, you know, sales environment where you're actively listening, not necessarily to create your own hostage situation, which is what I felt like I was in.

Joe Pope: 43:05

That's right.

Austin McNair: 43:07

um, Joe, I think we're, uh, we're onto our last one, number seven here, uh, on, in terms of how to lose a lead in 10 days. Bring us home. What's our, what's our last way?

Joe Pope: 43:17

The last way that we're talking through today on how to lose lead is to give prospects only one option. For a solution at one price. So you have only one way. It's the way though, like we've spent all this time and effort branding it and popularizing it. We're saying this is the way. Well, the problem with that is that you are leaving it open immediately where somebody can assess what they believe that value is from the jump. it's whatever they think it is. It's, it's at this price is what it is. So if that price is outside of their range, if that price doesn't necessarily connect with how you've talked about it, if this solution isn't tailored to what I need, then you're immediately running that risk that you're not gonna be able to. make the connection, move them forward. they're already in a sense, assigning what you are to them in their mind. So this is another place where tactics, things like price anchoring and so forth have been decided and discussed and, and implemented. And, and by allowing, your prospects to hear what you have to say at various levels and show. Hey, you know, at a more valuable level and be able to explain it to them. It may have a little more time it takes to do something, for example, or it may have a little bit more cost, but you're giving them the option to go on a journey that you've still mapped out for them. In a way that allows them to assess the place where it's gonna make them feel more comfortable. Another big thing that'll do it defends you against the sharpening your pencil thing, which is just so common in professional services, and we've all heard it before, right? You've sent the proposal. Everybody loves everybody. We're about to move forward, but oh gosh, I just heard from. Insert C-Suite title, and they are telling me we can get this deal across the table. If you can just, you know, if you can just come down a little bit. Right? We just need you to sharpen the pencil. Hate that phrase by the way. just, just, just say you just wanted it for cheaper. Just with, just be honest guys. and like, if you already have set the expectation that, oh yeah, we can bring that price down. You're gonna lose this, this, this, and this, then you are making it so there's a feeling of value that is also gonna come away, right? We've already seen and made these connections about why, you know, so and so company is the solution to your challenge. And we could still be better than the competition because of differentiator A, B, C, but you know, you're gonna lose out on something if you come down. So that's another place where you are establishing what the value is from the jump and, and protecting yourself.

Mary Blanche: 45:50

I'm curious, just be, just having seen you do a lot of these calls over the years. Are there any, um, kind of identifiers in a conversation that you might be approaching? A uh, pencil sharpening conversation?

Joe Pope: 46:04

Yeah, they, they like to butter you up right beforehand. Gosh, I really have enjoyed this conversation.

Mary Blanche: 46:10

This has been so great, Joe.

Joe Pope: 46:11

Yeah, I mean, I think this is. You, you know, I've never really experienced the way that you've talked about these collateral pieces. thank you. I really appreciate it. yeah, no, I, it's a great question, Mary Blanche, honestly. A lot of times you can kind of tell from the jump if you ask the right questions in the initial conversations. So one of the big things that we've instituted in our, our, um, buying process, we talked about this as like the, the sales process or business development process in the first list, the first item that we mentioned in this list on how to lose the lead. And so we ask questions about things like budgets and timelines. There's no reason to beat around the bush here, and while nine times outta 10 you'll get something like, yeah, we have a budget. Or, yeah, we're still thinking about that, or whatever it is, and not actually get any reasonable answers. You at least get more insight on how they're thinking about these types of challenges. Another thing that we'll do in our follow-up in initial conversations a lot of times is, and this goes to this whole multiple solutions in multiple ways. We will give them an idea of what ballparks look like. So, you know, we wanna get to that next conversation in the process. We wanna continue to take them on their journey. But, you know, if, they're not gonna be able to afford it from the jump and they've seen kind of a ranges of costs, let's save everybody time and let's maybe even help them find the right type of solution that they can get within their right timeline or their right budget. So I, I'd say those are probably the biggest ways, But yeah, I mean one of the, other ways I think that really stands out to Mary Blanche, uh, when you can kind of see this type of thing coming is frankly when, and it does happen, you get away from your sales process and you start to allow the other person to potentially dictate the conversation. You start talking too much, maybe like I'm doing in this answer, for example, and you're struggling, for example, to, to make a good connection and, and people will then start to. Fall away from what you want them to be in, in making their decisions. And this is where, you know, that negotiating book I was just talking about, they talk about that as well. It's like losing the initiative is a great way to end up with a sharpen the pencil moment.

Austin McNair: 48:15

Makes sense. Well, there you go guys. 10 ways. No, actually it was, it was seven

Joe Pope: 48:21

It was seven, not 10. You wanna try it

Austin McNair: 48:23

weeks to lose a lead in 10 days. That's where there, there we are. perhaps we will keep this, uh, romantic comedy marketing business development operations theme going here, uh, for future episodes. If you like it, leave us a comment. Let us know. What movie should we do

Joe Pope: 48:38

Send us another movie.

Austin McNair: 48:40

Send us another movie. well we have, uh, a pivotal story to get to next. Why don't we go and hear what that's all about.

Mary Blanche: 48:49

The traditional marketing playbook isn't breaking through like it used to. A new report from Sprout Social has shown 80% of marketing leaders are planning to reallocate funds from other channels to social media marketing economic uncertainty. The rise of zero click search and an endless stream of content have intensified the pressure on marketing leaders to deliver results. Amid this noise. Social media is emerging as a central force in how people discover, evaluate, and buy. So Joe and Austin, I'm curious to hear your take here. Does this move towards investing more in social media track with what we're seeing today?

Austin McNair: 49:28

Yeah, I mean, Joe, buy or sell, you think, uh, social media marketing is mattering, mattering more today.

Joe Pope: 49:33

Hard buy, big time buy. And we've seen it in our research, uh, the high growth study in terms of how organizations. Who are utilizing social media as part of a strategic play. Uh, you're seeing more and more of it in terms of these different platforms starting to come back up. Like LinkedIn has always been king, but some of these other platforms are starting to make more and more appearances as, the results of this Sprout social. Uh, read that Mary Blanc just took us through. Come to pass.

Austin McNair: 50:01

Yeah. I, I agree. And Joe, you made a good point. Like our, our research validates this, uh, as well. uh, I think last year when we were asking, what were the top marketing priorities of professional services firms, social media marketing was number three. I mean, this is on a list of like 20 different options and number it it, it came up as number three. so I know that a lot of leaders out there and especially marketing leaders are thinking about, okay, how do we evolve beyond just like keeping the accounts alive, right? Like, how do we actually start to, do things that are a little bit more interesting and make bigger investments in the the social media space? I have to say I really like this report from Sprout Social. we can link to it in the show notes. Um, but they, they talked about a number of different things. One of the main themes of the report was about ROI, essentially that, even though they anticipate that their companies are gonna be making bigger investments in social media marketing in the coming years. they still say that proving ROI is is is quite difficult. and you know, there's just this, it could be a generational divide, but it could just be an experience divide, right? Not everybody uses social media equally. Um, and it, it's just, I think that there are some. Like old ideas that just kind of stick around. Like for example, their report showed that when all of the leaders were, they were interviewed about, um, you know, what do you believe your social media team should do? Um, the most common answer was that they should post more often. Like, oh, just post more. Right? Whereas, you know, savvy social media marketers and, and, and marketing leaders know that like, actually. It's not necessarily about just posting more, but it's actually posting better. and I think Sprout Social's own data came into, came in handy here as that their own benchmarks showed that publishing volume actually decreased, but engagement went up. So it's not necessarily just about posting more often, but it's about posting better, more highly relevant content. Now as for like kind of the move here in terms of like moving investments. Again, I totally buy this, like their point about how search engines have changed, and how, it's just been harder and harder to generate visibility in online spaces nowadays. social media is a logical choice. I mean, Joe, we know this from a lot of conversations with clients, but also in our own kind of marketing business development, right? You wanna be in front of somebody, you want someone to see your message, like sometimes sending them a LinkedIn message or commenting on a LinkedIn post. That's like a guaranteed way to be in front of somebody versus sending an email. Lord knows what somebody's email inbox looks like, right? They could be an email zero person, or they could be a email 24,000 person. You just dunno who you're talking to and what that could be like. And social media platforms offer experts, seller doers, marketing teams, an additional channel to create and maintain visibility. Uh, what are your thoughts?

Joe Pope: 53:09

Yeah, I think relevancy is a theme that we've talked about quite a bit on this show, and certainly quite a bit in terms of anything that we've put out in terms of content from the hinge point of view and relevancy in the professional services space is key. Now, there's an added factor here though, because each of these social media platforms have their own. We'll call it cultures, right? People go to these different platforms depending on what they're, what they're feeling in a given moment. LinkedIn, of course, you're going on LinkedIn and expecting to, um, you know, to see more professional type insights and news. Or you could also just be going on that platform to see how somebody can attribute, um, Taylor Swift to B2B sales. And it, it's, it's, it's all just kind of part of what you would expect, part and parcel when you go onto LinkedIn. You know nowadays, right? Your, your detox at night, maybe after that long workday is to flip open Instagram and just start scrolling through stories. Or just seeing what's on the feed and things along those lines. But if you think about where somebody's mind is when they're on these platforms and work to connect relevant content to something that wouldn't upset the Apple card, if you will, of that scroll, then you're more likely to retain their view. and therefore get more engagement. These platforms love it when people just watch and engage. Please watch an Engage Hinges podcast. It's very helpful for us. But like the more you stay in that space and uh, and focus on that relevancy, the better off your experience is gonna be in the social platforms.

Mary Blanche: 54:36

Yeah, for sure. I think, um, you know. It reminds me about, you know, we, we manage the, the social media, or part of the social media for one of the associations, uh, that we, that we partner with. And I think it really just goes to speaking to, you know, where is your, where's your target audience? I mean, we're talking about it in like a prospect client, uh, relationship, but in an association setting, you know, you want people to come to your events. And so, yeah, it's great to put that out on, you know, LinkedIn because that's a, you know, more of like one of the professional, uh, social media platforms. But to Joe's point on doom scrolling in the evening, you know, at the end of a long day. A, you know, that marketing coordinator or that proposal manager that you want to come to your event, you know, is, is scrolling through through Instagram too. So I think it's just about where your people are.

Joe Pope: 55:16

I'll take even the engagement point of view, another step further. I mean, we have been tracking the engagement of this podcast and the various ways of which we put insights and information out. And we leverage social media in an effort to continue to broaden the horizons and get more folks like yourself who the person listening of course, is who I'm referring to in terms of yourself, get you guys into our show. And one of the interesting insights we've seen is that when we pair. Our podcast launch dates with announcements of the podcast launch over a variety of social platforms, put up stories, create links, things along those lines. Not only do we get the traffic and the clicks from those different pieces, but the rest of our videos we'll see a bump because we've got people coming to our. Profile or YouTube profile, for example. And in that type of circumstance, they're more likely to try to click around and see what something else might attribute to them. So by providing these avenues and leaning into these platforms as part of a larger strategy, we've been able to kind of take advantage of. Those key factors. Now, the big piece there, relevancy, because if somebody's clicking and going to something and then they drop, immediately you're gonna get killed in terms of what those algorithms are telling you. So making sure that there's still that connection, even when somebody gets to that platform, speaking to the types of things they need to hear, talking about the types of issues that challenge them, those are the ways to just make sure that you're maximizing these platforms.

Austin McNair: 56:38

Yeah. To your point, Joe, about engagement, um, in this, in this study that Sprout Social did, marketing leaders, that was the number one thing they said. In terms of how they define ROI engagement, so above conversions, above revenue, above discoverability, it was engagement. Like how much engagement can we get on these platforms? which I think is, I, I, I think it's really interesting.

Joe Pope: 57:01

it makes sense.

Austin McNair: 57:02

yeah, it does. 1 thing I'll leave people with is just that, you know, see this kind of in the nature of some of the engagements we're doing here at Hinge. More than ever, we are engaging with clients and helping them. Develop and kind of push their social media strategy forward. I think if I go back to like, when I started at Hinge, this was not something that was a huge part of what we did. Right? you know, we, we might help, you know, tune up the LinkedIn profile. We might help experts kind of define like a little bit of an engagement strategy. But more and more now we're being asked to actually take on, um, and support our clients with more social media management. and I'd say the same as two, like, you know, outside of Sprout social, outside of social media marketing. I would say the same uptick we're seeing is in PR as well. an actionable, PR strategy that is setting the narrative that is, uh, controlling the narrative about what is said about your company out there, so that when all of these AI robots are out there scraping the internet for information on your company, they are finding your articles, your press releases that have been put out about your company, your accomplishments, your milestones. more and more. This is kind of the strategy that we have to, to, to think about in terms of building more relevant, uh, visibility for our companies. All right. Well guys, this has been another great episode of Spiraling Up. Thanks again to everybody listening on all audio platforms and for those of you watching on YouTube, thanks again for watching. Hit the Like button, subscribe. Leave us a comment, let us know what you'd like to see in in future episodes, and if you have any questions about the podcast, anything that you wanna let us know, you can always email us too. podcast@hingemarketing.com. I'll get that email. I'll be sure to respond to you quickly as we talked about, today's episode. good response rates, right, Joe? We're not gonna

Joe Pope: 58:45

That's

Austin McNair: 58:46

We're not, we're, we're not gonna be, uh, delayed.

Joe Pope: 58:49

I'm tracking you.

Austin McNair: 58:50

yep. Tracking is, is, is important here. behalf of Mary Blanche, Joe, myself, and everybody at the Hinge team. Thanks for watching and engaging with the Spiraling Up Podcast. We'll see you on the next one.