April 23, 2025 • 57 mins
How do High Growth professional services firms go to market today? Download the 2025 High Growth Study to find out: https://www.hingemarketing.com/highgrowth
In this episode of Spiraling Up, we discuss whether marketing attribution is a myth, inspired by Sherehan Ross’ hot take on LinkedIn which sparked a debate about revenue as a marketing KPI.
Then, we welcome author, speaker, and sales strategy expert Amy Franko to play a game of ‘Would You Rather: Sales Edition.’ In this fun, gameshow style interview, we explore sales team dynamics, the importance of integrating technology, and practical tips for professional services marketing. In this fun-filled segment, you’ll hear whether Amy would rather…
- measure a marketing team’s performance based on revenue or a combination of core funnel KPIs?
- lead a team that excels in traditional sales tactics but is resistant to change, or a team that's adaptable but less experienced?
- focus on selling to established industries or emerging markets?
- have a salesperson who talks excessively and doesn't effectively listen to the client's needs or one who is too passive and fails to proactively guide the client through the sales process?
- enhance your sales team’s expertise in traditional sales methods or in new technologies such as AI and automation?
BONUS: At the end, we do a rapid-fire ‘lightning’ round with Amy to see how many questions she can answer in 5-minutes.
Connect with Amy Franko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyfranko/
Visit Amy Franko’s Website: https://amyfranko.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Austin McNair (00:00):
In today's episode of Spiraling Up is
marketing attribution a myth Ourteam is going to discuss and
then we're playing.
Would You Rather?
With sales and strategy expert,Amy Franco.
Thanks for being here with useveryone.
This is spiraling up with Hinge.
(00:26):
All right.
Welcome to Spiraling Up thepodcast where professional
services, marketing comes tolife.
Our goal here is clear.
We are creating engaging,interactive segments, covering
the latest marketing stories.
I.
And providing honest, actionableinsights for marketers and
business leaders.
(00:46):
my name is Austin and I'm joinedby my co-host, Mary Blanche and
Joe Mary Blanche.
How are you doing today?
Mary Blanche (00:54):
Doing good.
Doing good.
How are you guys doing is thereal question.
Um.
Know you both have new babies inthe house.
Who's getting more sleep?
Joe Pope (01:02):
Yeah.
Austin, how much did you getlast night?
Austin McNair (01:05):
Uh, not as much as I would've wished.
We've actually, our baby hasbeen, I would say, spectacular
sleeper.
Um, which, you know, blessings,knock on wood.
Do every, you know, I don't wantto get in the middle or mess any
of that up.
But, yeah.
Uh, last night might've been alittle bit of a harder night.
Not gonna let that affect ourepisode, though.
How about yourself?
(01:25):
You doing all right?
Joe Pope (01:27):
last night was rough, but I would, I would say we're
pretty much in alignment on,overall pretty good, pretty
solid.
Maddie is, uh, just learning howto babble though, and when you
learn a new skill, I believe theidea is that you'll just
constantly do it at all hours ofthe night, in which case, uh,
she and I had a one-wayconversation, mostly her talking
(01:47):
to me from the bassinet.
Austin McNair (01:49):
That's really funny that you said that because
actually, uh, our girl startedthe babbling thing too, like as
of yesterday.
So, and for, those who don'tknow, Joe and I, our little
girls are like, is it like lessthan a week apart?
About a
Joe Pope (02:04):
or six days I think.
Maddie was the last baby born in2024 at the hospital.
Uh, so we were, we were last ofthe alphas is what we were
calling her.
I think it's generation Alphas,
Austin McNair (02:15):
Wait, so was it It was actually New Year's Eve,
right?
Joe Pope (02:17):
That's right.
Yeah.
we watched college football fromthe, uh, delivery room.
Not my choice.
My wife is a huge Penn Statefan, so she, she wanted it on
the TV and I wasn't gonna denyher anything.
Austin McNair (02:28):
See that's very memorable information.
That's how, you know I'm alittle bit sleep deprived.
'cause I remember that.
And our girl was born on January2nd, so it was, it was like
three days apart.
So I feel like we're, we're liketracking, uh, completely
together here and kind of ourexperiences and be anything
going on in your world, anythingnew.
Mary Blanche (02:46):
Well, I was just, uh, you guys saying the dates.
My niece was born on the third,
Austin McNair (02:52):
wow.
Mary Blanche (02:52):
a girl.
So yeah, I just got that fromSt.
Louis to, to meet her for thefirst time, so
Joe Pope (02:58):
Oh, baby cuddles.
Mary Blanche (03:01):
Yeah, baby guts.
Austin McNair (03:01):
great.
All right, well, I know we'vegot a great episode in store
today.
Why don't we turn to today'spivotal story?
Mary Blanche (03:09):
All right, let's do it.
So today we're gonna be tacklinga recent LinkedIn post gone
viral by Shehan Ross.
Uh, fractional marketing leaderat Digital Bricks Marketing, and
a shout out goes to ourcolleague Keely, who's the one
that actually shared theoriginal post with the three of
us in the first place.
But it's a topic that clearlystruck a nerve with many
(03:31):
marketers.
The hot take being that revenueis not.
A marketing KPI.
The posts go on to say that, youknow, while marketing can be a
driver of revenue, its solefunction is not to drive
revenue, it's to drive demand.
So this kind of more radicaltake on revenue as a marketing
KPI sparked quite a debate inthe comment section around what
(03:51):
should we as marketers befocusing on and what really does
define success.
For marketing teams.
Um, so y'all, I want you to giveit to us straight here between
the two of you.
You know, you both covered thefull spectrum of all things
marketing, MBD, so awesome.
Let's start with you.
Austin McNair (04:08):
Yeah.
Well, I love this.
This is a great find.
Um, and exactly the kind oftopics that we want to cover in
Pivotal stories.
What I can say is that there area lot of marketers out there
that agree with share hands.
Post.
Um, and actually we haveresearch that backs it up.
In our most recent edition ofthe high growth study, we, we
asked, um, I.
(04:29):
Survey participants to ratethemselves on a scale of one to
10 in how proficient they feltlike their organization was.
In both capturing and then usingmarketing and business
development data and going intothis research, I think we kind
of suspected that this was gonnabe a challenge.
That's why we wanted to measureit, but we totally did not like
(04:51):
comprehend the degree to whichthis would be a challenge.
More or less.
Three out of four, marketerstold us that they would rate
themselves as low proficiency.
So under a six, if we wererating on a scale of one to 10
under six, three out of foursaid, yeah, we just don't have
it.
It's not in the bag and wefollowed up with those people
(05:11):
and and we got all the usualanswers like.
We don't have time.
Our technology, is old or itwasn't integrated properly, but
there was a handful of peoplethat were just like, yeah, it's
not important.
we just don't think that it'sgonna be valuable to measure,
marketing attribution, that it'sjust not as as important.
Now, I don't think that Shahanwas.
Saying completely that it wasunimportant.
(05:34):
I think her perspective, likemany marketers is that, hey, as
marketers, our job is not justto drive revenue for the
company, it's to drive otherthings.
Like you mentioned MB demand, toDraw awareness to our brand, to
nurture clients.
and, and there's, you know, abigger conversation there.
but you know, when we haveconversations with leadership,
oftentimes, We wanna know aboutrevenue.
(05:56):
and I think a lot of marketersare, you know, have their backs
put up against the wall.
'cause I think a lot of them saylike, marketing attribution is
so hard.
Maybe it is a myth.
so I, I'm curious, and b, what,what, what are your thoughts,
you know, and takeaways goinginto this is.
Mary Blanche (06:10):
Yeah, I mean, I think attribution is, is key
really.
I mean, it's, it's so importantto really understand the role
each of your channels.
Play in the sales funnel so youcan get a clear picture of not
only what's working, but alsowhat you know, what's not
working and you know, are youinvesting your energy, your
budget into your time, into thestrategies that are gonna
(06:30):
provide the best ROI.
attribution also alone, itdoesn't tell you the full story
either.
And that's where, one KPI wehaven't really talked about yet
is.
looking at client lifetime valueto understand the total revenue
that you can expect from aclient over the entire duration
of your relationship with them.
Because when you can, when youcan shift your mindset, and, and
(06:51):
it really is a mindset shiftfrom, you know, looking at that
immediate.
Revenue that you're generating,client lifetime value encourages
you to think about that fulllife cycle of the customer and
how you can build thosestronger, longer lasting
relationships.
in terms of what shouldmarketing teams be.
Focusing on.
So back to the originalquestion, it's really that
(07:12):
attribution and that clientlifetime value together.
Um, you know, neitherstandalone, they're very
interconnected, right?
Attribution, helping you to, tounderstand where to focus your
marketing efforts, and thenclient lifetime value then helps
you measure the true value ofthose efforts over time.
Joe Pope (07:28):
It is a fun topic for you and IMB especially, right
Uh, being partners in a smallbusiness that sells marketing
services.
So I think we live on both sidesof this issue every single day.
I mean, as a business owner, Iwould, I would love it if
clients didn't really hold usaccountable to things like
direct ROI.
I mean, we help many clients getthese types of things done.
(07:49):
But you know, marketing is atest constantly.
You're always having to adjustand make modifications, changes,
learn lessons, and so forth.
And if the only thing thatsomebody cares about is ROI,
well.
You'll miss out on a lot of theimportant details and insights
that can lead to performance, todrawing demand, to creating
(08:09):
visibility.
Um, you know, I think one of theinteresting things, especially
for the three of us when we talkabout something like this, you
know, Austin, I.
Uh, runs hinges marketing, buthe's a marketing expert who
works with our clients, but healso runs hinges marketing.
Uh, I typically lead most of oursales and business development
efforts, and Mary Blanchestarted as a project manager
(08:30):
back in the day and is nowdrawing and leading our
operational side of the house.
So we really do kind of coverthe entire business spectrum.
Uh, just kind of interesting tokind of hear how you guys have.
Talk this through, but from theBD sales guy perspective, as
somebody who listens constantlyto folks saying, well, what can
I expect?
Right?
What am, what am I going to getfrom my marketing?
(08:53):
What are those differentelements?
The first thing I do is I, Ibring up an illustration that
shows the various ways of whichwe can measure success.
You know, we talk about themarketing funnel, visibility at
the top.
Engagement, drawing andnurturing and developing demand
in the middle and then at thebottom opportunity.
Uh, so when we get that MQL, howmany of them can turn into
(09:15):
something that allows us tohopefully sell into them and so
forth.
But, uh, nope.
I, I gave that kind of marketingpitch.
Now let's continue the businessowner perspective.
If our marketing isn't working,you know, a year or two, those
types of things go down the lineand you're not necessarily
seeing the results of all thiseffort and expense, that's not
(09:36):
acceptable either, right?
So another great way of thinkingof how to measure.
Marketing success across theboard is to pair leading and
lagging indicators or KPIstogether.
So when I say leading indicator,I mean something that's designed
to predict future outcomes.
You know, pipeline, for example.
(09:57):
Uh, and lagging indicators.
That's something along the linesof, Hey, let's look and see what
was our billable numbers thelast 12 months.
So that's a performance metric,but you can actually pair these
two different things together.
Uh, so an example of pairingwould be marketing qualified
leads, elements that have beendriven by direct marketing
efforts, and then revenue fromnew clients.
(10:19):
So we're gonna remove out thelarger revenue picture of
reoccurring revenue and soforth.
Uh, another could be somethingalong the lines of if.
We're trying to look moretowards existing relationships.
We could talk about clients'digital engagement.
So how many of your clients aregoing to your webinars?
How many of your clients arereading your emails?
You know how many clients arecompletely willing to answer a
(10:41):
survey you may potentially putout, compare something like that
to your retention rate, so yourefforts designed to nurture and
maintain your relationships.
So a real good discussion here.
Uh, I think I.
Sharon that, I mean, sheobviously struck a nerve and uh,
that's the best kind of contenton LinkedIn'cause who wants to
read another boring post?
(11:03):
Uh, and I, I think it's just afun one for us to discuss as a
team.
Austin McNair (11:07):
so much for for us to, to unpack here.
Um, great stuff.
MB uh, Joe, I am so excited forour next segment.
We have a great guest.
Her name is Amy Franco.
We're gonna tell you a littlebit about her, in a moment.
But before we get to thatsegment, guys, we bring it up
every episode at this point,because it is in the middle of
(11:29):
our conversations with our greatguests.
It is at the center of ourpivotal stories.
What am I talking about?
I'm talking about hinges highgrowth study research, and we've
mentioned it before.
We'll mention it again.
You can get this free executivesummary.
Right now atwww.hingemarketing.com/
high-growth.
(11:49):
This is the 10th year in a rowthat we have done this research
on professional servicesmarketing to try to understand
what are the fastest growingcompanies doing.
I can tell you one thing, someof the stuff that the fastest
growing companies we're doing 10years ago is not the same, as
what they're doing today.
So if you haven't yet.
Go high growth study hingemarketing do com slash high
(12:12):
growth.
Okay.
Well, we'd like to now, welcometo the podcast today's guest,
Amy Franco.
Amy Franco is a leader in modernsales strategies.
She helps mid-marketorganizations to grow sales
results through sales strategy,advisory, and skill development
(12:33):
programs.
Her book, the Modern Seller, isan Amazon bestseller, and she is
recognized by LinkedIn as one ofthe top sales voices.
Welcome to Spiraling Up, Amy.
How are you doing today?
Amy Franko (12:46):
I am Great.
Thank you for having me.
I'm really looking forward toour conversation.
Austin McNair (12:50):
Absolutely we're, we're really looking forward to
it as well.
Now, Amy, we've crossed paths ina few different places.
I think.
Uh, one of those is, uh, theAssociation for Accounting
Marketing.
I know that you've been involvedin that association.
You've spoken at their summit aswell.
we were just wondering like whatother places have, maybe we
crossed paths or what was yourinvolvement with aim?
I, I know you have a lot ofexperience with working with
(13:13):
professional services firms atB2B firms.
Amy Franko (13:16):
Yeah, and it's interesting.
I'm not like, I don't have aprofessional like accounting
background by trade.
I found my way into this space.
You know, later in my career Igot my start in technology and
so for the first 10 years of mycareer I worked for, um, IBM and
Lenovo.
I was a quota carryingsalesperson.
And then I, I took a pivot intoentrepreneurship, oh gosh, like
(13:39):
17 years ago now, and got intothe learning and development
space and spent quite a bit oftime there.
And then over the past decade orso, I brought together like
everything I love about sales,sales, leadership, learning and
development.
And, uh, what that looks liketoday is, um, I found a home in
professional services.
(13:59):
So I actually spend a lot oftime in professional services,
public accounting and advisory,other types of professional
services, working with theirfirm leaders, up and coming firm
leaders on everything from salesand growth strategy to, uh,
business development skills.
Austin McNair (14:16):
Amy, what could you tell us real quick?
Just like how did you land on afocus with, uh, with mid-market
clients?
Because at Hinge that'ssomething that we found as well.
I mean, we work with firms ofall sizes, but definitely
there's a lot of thosemid-market players that I think
where there's a lot ofopportunity and we're wondering
kind of like, you know, how didyou find that as kind of one of
your specialized areas as well?
Amy Franko (14:36):
I, I think I landed on mid-market because I was
fortunate enough to win someclients in that mid-market
space.
And what I found was I reallyresonated with.
direct access to all the leadersin the organization and um,
being able to work more closelywith a lot of the firm leaders
(14:59):
and the people coming through myprograms, that is what really
has helped me to say this is agreat space for me to be in.
And not to say that if largerorganizations don't come
calling, like certainly I wouldalways welcome those
conversations, but I have justfound that that mid-market space
is a great sweet spot.
They're large enough that theyhave what, you know, we all
(15:22):
offer and they need it, but theyaren't so large that they've
built all of that capacity inhouse.
And so we've just fit in thatgreat spot for them.
Joe Pope (15:33):
Enough to be dangerous, but not necessarily
get it all taken care of.
Amy, what are some, uh, what aresome other industries that you
feel, uh, outside of theaccounting one?
I know you referencedprofessional services.
Any other industries that youtypically find yourself
gravitating to in thatmid-market Sweet spot.
Amy Franko (15:48):
Yeah.
Um, so, you know, otherprofessional services might be
like IT consulting, management,consulting, things of that, that
nature.
But also I have clients that arein the manufacturing space.
I have some that are in the, um,I'll call it the FinTech space,
which kind of then gets intokind of towards my roots in
technology.
But those are probably the otherindustries that I spend the most
(16:11):
time in.
But in terms of, you know, wethink about outbound marketing
and outbound relationshipbuilding.
A lot of my time is spent in theprofessional services and
accounting space.
Joe Pope (16:21):
Well That's that must be music to the ears of anyone
listening to this podcastbecause of, and honestly, Amy, a
lot of those are industries thatour content is angled towards,
and I think there's gonna besome nice crossovers here,
especially as we get into thegame we have planned, I.
Austin McNair (16:34):
That's right.
Yeah.
let's turn to our, our segment,Amy.
Um, one thing that we like to dowhen we talk to experts like
yourself is to.
Kind of set up a couple of, uh,dilemmas for you to think about,
right?
Oftentimes marketing leaders,business leaders, like things
aren't just black and white,right?
There's these kind ofsituational dilemmas that have
(16:56):
us choosing one thing oranother.
And, what we'd like to do isinvolve you and bring you into
this, you know, classic form ofthis game.
Would you rather, so, Amy, inour segment, we are gonna give
you some tough either ordecisions that sales leaders and
professionals out there might begrappling with today.
So we'd like to hear which wayyou'd choose, and then maybe
(17:20):
hear some of your experiencesand stories working with
professional services leadersand maybe how this intersects
with some of your perspectiveson, on, on the space.
So you, you down and up for it.
Amy Franko (17:31):
I am up for it and just for anybody watching and
listening, these have not beenplanted, so I actually don't
know what they're going to askme, so this is gonna be very
entertaining.
Let's do it.
Austin McNair (17:41):
That's awesome.
mb our first question is, uh, Ithink related to a little bit of
what our conversation was alittle bit earlier on the
episode.
Do you want to tee us up for ourfirst, would you rather.
Mary Blanche (17:54):
All right, Amy, would you rather measure a
marketing team's performancebased on revenue or a
combination of core funnel KPIs?
Amy Franko (18:07):
Ooh.
Mary Blanche (18:08):
I.
Amy Franko (18:08):
I would personally do core funnel KPIs because if
we are focused on the rightactivities, and we're in
agreement in the organization onwhat those activities are
because they're high value,they're high value metrics, high
value KPIs, high valueactivities.
(18:29):
Should yield the leads thatyield revenue.
And I'm all, I look at thebottom line of profit.
So not just revenue but profit,but I'd go with the second one
so that we're focused on theright activities to lead to the
right opportunities.
Joe Pope (18:44):
You, you said something that really resonated
with me just there, Amy, whichwas that we're in alignment on,
and so your space being in salesand, you know, obvi, we're,
we're in the marketing realmprimarily.
what are, how, how do you comeinto that alignment?
What, what are some of the waysthat you've felt and, and as you
talked to and you providedtraining to leaders, to, we all
know marketing's important,especially professional
(19:06):
services, but how do we come toalignment on what those
performance metrics are?
Amy Franko (19:11):
Yeah.
So maybe if I take it by, let'stake it by like a service line,
perhaps as an example, or anindustry as an example.
'cause that's maybe somethingconcrete that we can all wrap
our minds around My philosophyis that marketing activities and
sales activities, they should beintegrated.
They are different, but they'reboth mission critical to being
(19:34):
able to be successful.
And that's something I'm seeing,um, change in professional
services, public accounting,where, you have to have a
marketing and a sales function.
Take the people out of theequation, but just the roles in
the, in the activities.
So if I am leading an industry,I want to understand what, the
(19:56):
revenue and profit goals of thatindustry segment are.
And then I want to talk tomarketing leaders and sales
leaders on how we can all cometo an agreement on what the
right measurements are.
I'm a big fan of less is more,and then what the right
activities are that will put usin the best position to create
opportunities.
Austin McNair (20:16):
One thing I'm thinking about as, as you're
talking through that is I can'ttell you how many clients that
we work with where there is somesort of misalignment between
what the marketing team saysthey're doing and you know,
leadership still feeling likehaving this big, broad,
disconnect of like understandinglike why, why are we doing this
(20:37):
again?
Why are we spending so much on,on Google ads right now?
Why are we paying for thisconference every year?
Like, I don't know what we'regetting out of it.
and so this is like Amy one, oneof the things we've measured
recently, from our annual highgrowth study is that we've
identified that, Generallyprofessional services firms are
really weak when it comes to,capturing and using business
(20:59):
development and marketingmetrics.
I'm wondering if you have anystories to share about, you
know, a client you've workedwith where you kind of got the
sense that the firm leadershipwas like totally disconnected
from what the marketing team wasdoing, did you think it was kind
of on that topic of attributionand like they just weren't
getting the right data, that themarketing team wasn't making a
(21:20):
compelling case for the workthey were doing?
Or was it actually like Yeah,there just wasn't enough
happening that, at the companyin terms of the marketing.
Amy Franko (21:28):
Yeah, I'm thinking of a couple of examples where,
um, one of the biggest culpritswas language and.
The language of the business andwhat the business wants to
accomplish versus the languageand the activities of marketing.
So many times what I see,especially when people are
(21:48):
really, they're, they'retechnical and they are really
brilliant at their particularcraft in this, in this case,
marketing.
It's being able to take thetechnical aspects of it and be a
translator to why it matters tothe business, and being able to
use language that is businessoriented, results oriented
(22:12):
versus technically oriented.
That's a misalignment that I seereally often.
And then the other misalignmentthat I see is the confusion of
activities to results.
So I think Google ads or just,just social in general is an
arena where.
It's likes and impressions andreactions don't always align to
(22:39):
creating tangible opportunity,and that's another misalignment
that I see happen prettyfrequently.
Joe Pope (22:47):
one of the key takeaways from our earlier
discussion was kind of thecombination of leading and la
lagging indicators and how theycan potentially be meshed
together.
I think that one you justprovided is a, is a great
example, right, where it's, ifyou, sure it's working, we're
getting impressions, but at theend of the day, six months,
seven months down the line, westill haven't seen revenue from
(23:08):
that.
There's clearly a disconnect inhow that can then translate
forward.
Amy Franko (23:13):
Well, I think you just hit on a point, which is
the other disconnect is the timeto measure.
How much time, how much time dowe allow ourselves to measure
something before we, um, pivotoff of it.
I was actually, ju you justreminded me of a client I was
talking to a couple weeks agoand one of the activities I
asked them to bring to ourconversation was, I want you to
(23:36):
do an analysis.
It doesn't have to be heavyhanded of your sales activities.
This could also be done formarketing activities, but what
activities actually produce.
A return IE opportunities,something's closed, whatever,
and which ones are not bringingyou any value.
And I want you to bring a listof those so that we could make
some decisions about which onesare gonna go as we oftentimes
(24:00):
hang on to things.
Because at some point they werebudgeted for and somebody said
this was a great idea.
Right?
I see a lot of head nods here.
And we give ourselves too muchrunway before we, um.
Austin McNair (24:13):
Yeah.
And I, I mean, I knowanecdotally I've, I've met a lot
of marketers where it's like aparticular partner at a company
has like an emotional stake in acertain activity.
And it's like, well, I mean,we're not sure it's quite the
best fit as the marketing team,but hey, you know, this guy has
a lot of influence.
we, you know, we gotta let himgo to his golf tournament or
something.
(24:33):
I don't
Joe Pope (24:33):
There it is.
Austin McNair (24:35):
Joe, I'm not talking about Joe, by the way.
Uh, I'm not talking about Joe,by the way.
I think we could talk about thistopic all day, but I wanna make
sure we get to some of our otherquestions.
We've got some other good oneshere, Amy, uh, and B, what's our
next, would you rather.
Mary Blanche (24:47):
Yep.
All right.
So Amy, for second, would yourather, uh, would you rather.
lead a team that excels intraditional sales tactics but is
resistant to change?
Or a team that's adaptable butthey're less experienced?
Amy Franko (25:04):
Adaptable and less experienced.
All day, every day.
in the first scenario, there'sno guarantee that even when,
even when somebody has skills inlike the traditional selling
and, and foundational selling isimportant, but if there's no
adaptation, you're going to getpassed by.
(25:26):
At a certain point, I'd ratherhave a team that's adaptable and
a little bit less experienced,and maybe they haven't developed
too many bad habits yet.
That can be, um, you know, thatthat can be, that can be
capitalized on.
I'll take enthusiasm andadaptability all day.
Joe Pope (25:42):
You mentioned bad habits.
Let's talk through some ofthose.
Amy Franko (25:45):
Oh, yes.
Uh, where, where shall we start?
Um, Probably one of the mostchallenging.
Bad habit to, um, to reverse iswhen you've accomplished success
and you've enjoyed success, andyou have created a degree of
success, say with your currentclient base, I think this is
(26:08):
very true in all professionalservices.
You've accomplished it with yourclient base, and that has now
become like a run rate in an, inan expected outcome each and
every year.
And then all of a sudden,because you have gotten yourself
kind of lulled into this groove,all of a sudden a competitor
comes in and takes out your runrate business or the client's
(26:33):
business has changedsignificantly and you know, for
things that are beyond outsideof your control, and now all of
a sudden the success that you'vehad is now a liability.
And if you aren't adaptable andyou haven't been thinking about
that all long now your successis, is a liability.
Joe Pope (26:52):
Yeah.
Amy, the marketing equivalent tothis is when folks come to us
and they, uh, they, they'relooking for marketing strategy.
They're looking for help inidentifying what the right
tactics are.
And then when we talk about theadvantages of bringing research
into this, pers like this largerperspective, of course hinge.
We have research that we canbring to the table, but we don't
(27:13):
know your ideal client like thisclient A, that's gonna provide
you with the best, uh, lifetimevalue.
Things along those lines.
And we bring up the idea ofresearch.
And one of the first things thatsometimes we'll hear is, well, I
know my clients, I'll just tellyou what they said.
I'll tell you, they know I knowmy clients really well and, uh,
you know, I play golf with'em,making fun of golf earlier.
(27:34):
But, uh, the, the ability forthem to then understand that
things change and competitorschange and reality changes,
technology changes.
We saw AI pop up as a bigconcern, uh, across professional
services in our latest highgrowth study.
And, and how it's gonna beincorporated in these things are
(27:56):
what may mean that sure, youmight know your client to a C
level, C plus level, but if youreally want the a, you really
wanna understand what it lookslike.
Sometimes asking questions froma impartial third party can
really provide great benefitsand, and so I just resonated
really closely to, as you weretalking that through.
Amy Franko (28:15):
I think that that last comment about the outside
perspective becomes reallyimportant and it's, um, this is
less a like a sales or marketinghabit, but just more of a
general habit if for anybodywho's in a decision making
capacity in their organization,or maybe you have influence.
If we swing the pendulum one wayor the other too far, it becomes
(28:37):
really a challenge.
Like if, if we send everythingto the outside.
That's a challenge because wedon't maintain our own thought
processes, if you will, our owninternal intellectual capital.
But if we do everythingourselves, which is a lot, that
that's typically the other endof the pendulum, that people,
(28:58):
that organizations are mostprone to where they try to do
everything themselves with nooutside perspective, then all of
a sudden everything's passedthem by and they're wondering
why.
Joe Pope (29:09):
You, you mentioned something earlier as well in
terms of foundational sales,right?
Uh, if you can get that team of,they've got some level, some
foundational experience, butthey're eager and they're ready
to learn and they're ready toadapt and grow, uh, what are
some of the foundations that youtypically really like to see,
uh, that you can build onquickly?
Amy Franko (29:30):
Yeah.
So, um, if I were to point to.
I'd say two or three things froma sales standpoint, but that
also really tie to marketing.
There's probably no shortage ofactivities that we could do for
marketing or sales, but if we'rereally gonna hone in on things
that are foundational, thatcreate opportunity and drive
(29:52):
revenue and drive profit, it's,um, prospecting, which is being
out in the community, out in themarketplace, whatever that looks
like for you, where you aremeeting new people, cultivating
new relationships, andultimately cultivating new
opportunities, which is wheremarketing and can of course, be
a huge help with that, that,that, that strategy.
(30:16):
There's, um, active salesconversations.
So we need to be havingconversations with prospective
clients and current clientsabout what's happening in their
organization and ideallyuncovering opportunities to help
them.
And then it's activelypresenting, um, proposals,
engagements, solutions to thoseclients, something that somebody
with authority makes a decisionover that ideally is a yes, if
(30:41):
it's a right fit, that we couldmove on if we paid attention to
those three things.
And if marketing and sales cametogether to focus on those three
things, we'd get further faster.
And then of course, there'sother things we can focus on,
but those are three of thebasics to put time and attention
to.
Joe Pope (31:01):
And, and so for the less experienced folks, having
just some amount of experiencein those three presents you with
kind of the, the channels tobuild into.
Right.
I'm, I'm, that's how I'm, howI'm hearing this.
Amy Franko (31:13):
Absolutely.
And if you have a team that'syounger and maybe, or just maybe
less experienced, let's say, um,it's that first one, being out
in the community and talking topeople, building relationships.
Maybe you're partnered withsomebody who is more
experienced.
Maybe it's a partner in yourfirm.
Maybe it's somebody who, um, hasa business development role in
(31:35):
your firm.
There's any number of ways to dothat, but just being out and
getting into the habit ofmeeting people, building your
network, having conversations.
If you're gonna start somewherewith a less experienced
individual or team, that's agreat place to start.
Joe Pope (31:51):
Yeah.
That's great.
That's great insight.
I
Mary Blanche (31:53):
I think that's a really good point too,
especially for younger peopleand kinda how we've come out of
Covid.
They don't have they don't havethat prior experience of what it
was like getting out there andhaving that networking and, you
know, building that rapport, um,with different people,
partnerships, they, they don'thave.
That, so like really startingthem out and making that a
priority and, and teaching themearly, getting them out there.
(32:13):
That's, that's good advice.
Amy Franko (32:15):
I have one client and, and marketing plays a role
in this.
I have one client where, um,they do things like, uh,
research calls.
They do, uh, ride-alongs wherethat does give people the
opportunity to spend real time,um, understanding client
challenges or being out withsomebody in the field who has
that business developmentexperience.
(32:36):
And that is actually a functionof, um, marketing and sales
together.
Austin McNair (32:42):
All right, so Embi, what's our next, uh, would
you rather.
Mary Blanche (32:46):
All right, next, would you rather, all right,
would you rather focus onselling to established
industries or emerging markets?
Amy Franko (32:55):
Ooh, okay.
I personally love emergingmarkets like that.
That is like my, I, I enjoybeing out in new places and
building new relationships andfinding new opportunity.
So I'm answering that from myperspective.
If I were to answer that from a,like a client base perspective,
(33:18):
I would go, I would go the, um,the former route, looking at
your existing clients, andhere's why.
70% of an organization's revenuetypically comes from run rate
business and existing clients,and about 30% roughly will come
from net new logos coming intoyour organization.
(33:41):
It is less of an opportunitycost for your firm to maintain
your run rate and find newopportunities in your existing
client base and then augmentthat with new opportunities like
new pipeline, new net, newlogos.
So, um, so if I answer that fromthe client perspective, I'd, I'd
(34:04):
go with the first one.
And first sho, make sure you'reshoring up existing clients and
finding those new opportunitiesin your existing clients.
Protect your downside and growthat.
Grow the existing base whilealso augmenting.
Joe Pope (34:18):
You did say you were an entrepreneur, so I do
understand that the naturaltendency is to go to the
emerging market.
What, what are some of the, whatare some of the other excitement
factors there?
Right.
So when you, when you look atemerging markets, uh, and in
that entrepreneurial mindset,what, what are you typically
kind of wanna see before youjump into it or target it or go
to that event?
Uh, that really will, uh, key toyour interest.
Amy Franko (34:40):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Um, think about it for myself.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna answer thatfrom how I might counsel my
clients on that, because how Imight do it might be a little
bit different than what, thanlike a, than a client might.
I think this is where marketingcan play a really significant
role in an emerging market.
Because there's a lot, to yourearlier point about research,
(35:03):
there's a lot of research thatcan be, gathered, analyzed about
an emerging market, the totaladdressable market, the solution
market for you.
All, all the things that likeyou hear in startup, startup
language, how it might befunded.
Like, are you go, is the firmgonna self-fund it?
Are you going to look for maybeoutside investment, which is
probably a whole other, uh,conversation.
(35:25):
But I would leverage marketingif I were considering an
emerging market for all thatresearch piece.
And then once I've done that andI figure out what my metrics
are, then I'm going to look forwhat are my best opportunities
to experiment in this marketthat are low risk.
But help me to understand whatour position could be in the
(35:48):
market.
Austin McNair (35:49):
If we go back to that, um, established industry
side, right.
Which I think for when you weretalking about how you would kind
of advise your clients directly,that's you, you'd lead'em in
that direction.
Are there any like pitfallsthere that like you just see
over and over again when you,when you start a new engagement
with some of your clients, whatare some of the common things
that you see in terms of likethat run rate and those, those
(36:11):
core central clients that arebeing neglected by, by teams?
Amy Franko (36:15):
I would say there are probably two things I see
the most often.
The first is, and this kind ofgoes into the camp of assuming
that you're, you'll continue toget the same business over and
over, is lack of a of strategicaccount planning.
So if you look at your top, youknow, say 20% of your clients,
(36:35):
the chances are really good.
They account for a significantportion of your business.
It's that, that old 80 20 rule,right?
and one thing that I see lackingoften is no, uh, strategic plan
for maintaining and growing thatclient.
Relationships change.
People move in and out oforganizations and many times
(36:58):
clients, um.
They get stuck because they'velost a key relationship that
maybe they weren't payingattention to.
Maybe that person left theorganization.
So it's that account planning.
And then second, and this isprobably a little bit more on
the tactical side, and probablysomething that marketing and
sales could do together, whichis, um, We get used to selling
(37:19):
the services that we, that we'realready doing, but it does take
that proactive approach to getinto the organization, to find
other problems to solve.
And sometimes we don't do itbecause we don't feel confident
with who to talk to and whatquestions to ask and how to
conduct those conversations.
(37:40):
If we can we correct the code onthat and have a proactive
approach to it.
That puts us in a much betterposition to find the project
that's in it versus in financeor to find the, um, I don't know
the, the marketing opportunitythat we could help with because
we're stuck in some other areaof the business.
(38:02):
So I see that pretty frequently.
Joe Pope (38:05):
This is a reason why we really lean towards a
qualitative type of researchwhen trying to develop the
strategic plan that you werejust talking about, Amy.
Uh, and like you were saying,this is a strategic plan or
research that's typicallyfocused on the top types of
clients.
So your top 10, top 20, but bytaking a qualitative
perspective, interviews versussurvey, for example, you have
(38:29):
the opportunity to ask for more,right?
Like you, you ask a question andthey give you an answer.
But you, you, you can listen inreally closely, having experts
who do these types of things allthe time, uh, do interviews and
research and, and start to pullthose threads a little bit
further.
And the next thing you know,when you stretch it out, over 20
responses, 30 responses, 80% ofthose responses all pointed to
(38:52):
this new technology.
You may or may not have everbeen thinking about, and then
suddenly we have the basis forwhat might make sense for that
next iteration or how we couldpotentially grow our own
practices or you know, some ofthe larger folks, it's who are
we gonna go and buy next interms of bringing in skillsets,
Amy Franko (39:11):
And to play that thread out, you know, let's say
that you do, you, you've, you'vedone that research and you've
uncovered this pattern.
We can't know everything abouteverything.
Right?
But if we, if we can understandthe high level implications of
something like that, and thenhave a couple of good questions
(39:31):
to ask to frame up aconversation.
I've, I've, I'm seeing this inthe research.
Let's talk about how this mightbe impacting you.
Let's talk about what a nextconversation could be.
That's way different thanfeeling like you have to come in
with all the answers.
Austin McNair (39:47):
All right.
We got time for a couple morehere before I got a surprise for
us in a, in a minute, but I'mnot gonna spoil it yet.
Mb what's, what's our next,would you rather.
Mary Blanche (39:55):
All right.
Let's see.
would you rather.
enhance your sales team'sexpertise in traditional sales
methods or in new technologiessuch as AI and automation?
Amy Franko (40:08):
I'm gonna go with the former
Mary Blanche (40:11):
Okay.
Joe Pope (40:11):
Skills, not tech.
Amy Franko (40:14):
because it's, um, a little bit of background on
myself.
It's interesting coming from,from a technology background
myself, how much I've alwayspersonally gravitated toward,
in, leaned on the, what I'llcall the more traditional
aspects of selling, which is therelationship building aspects,
(40:36):
conversational aspects versususing technology.
However, um, I wish that, I wishthat yes and could be an answer
because, um, really smartsellers and marketers don't shy
away from using technology.
You can't not use it.
Sometimes what happens is wefeel overwhelmed by it or we
(40:58):
have too many tools andtherefore we're not effective
with any of it.
So I really like having thefoundational skills that then
tools and technologies the rightones can augment.
So, for example, I myself loveto use AI tools for, helping me
(41:20):
with initial, um, like eitherbackground research or maybe,
giving me some ideas for smartquestions.
But I never just rely on that.
I use it and then I use it kindof as a starting point for the
next work.
So being able to blend tools,whether it's AI tools, it's
(41:41):
things like, um, well in, in thesales world, you might use
something like, um, salesnavigator.
You have your CRM, like what arethe tools that can help you?
But they can't become crutches.
Mary Blanche (41:53):
Yeah, and where you can, you know, over just
having a bunch of siloed toolsthat you're using, like how can
you integrate them with oneanother to create that kind of
ecosystem of tools.
So the data's all speaking toone another.
Amy Franko (42:08):
Right, right.
And um, this data's probably acouple years old at this point,
but at one point I think persales professional, and this is
not professional servicesspecific, but upwards of$5,000
per sales professional on toolsalone.
Technology tools.
So multiply that out by, youknow, the staff that you have
(42:31):
and I would offer that.
Professional services probablyhas some similar types of
numbers with all the tools thatare available and professional
services these days.
And.
You talk about like making aninvestment and coming all the
way back around to ROI.
It's not just events, ROI, butlike the technology tools, ROI,
how much are we putting out infinancial investments every year
(42:54):
versus like the meaningful usageof those tools?
Joe Pope (42:59):
Uh, hinge is not a pure, what you might call
technology implementationpartner, but we naturally have
to get involved in discussingthem with our clients based off
of tracking of performance.
And, uh, it is just how they areso ingrained, as you just said,
Amy, and, and basicallyeverything that professional
services organizations aredoing.
But I will tell you the amountthat have made these investments
(43:22):
but aren't using them properlyor just aren't using them at
all, is astounding, right?
Like it's gone from people thatdon't even have them to, they
have them, but they just don'tuse them.
Amy Franko (43:33):
Mind boggling how much money is invested in these
tools.
I'm thinking about an example offor, for myself with a client
where we were looking at using,um, a tool for a client
organization.
And a lot of times with, withthat type of scenario, I will,
um, tested out myself beforeusing it or think about my own
(43:56):
use cases.
And we had started to go downthe path of looking at a tool
and then after someconversations and just
understanding all the othertools in the organization, we
decided not to do it because itwas going to be a tool for the
sake of having a tool.
And they had other technologiesalready in the firm that
would've gotten them a largepercentage of the way.
(44:19):
And if instead we invested in,if I worked with them on how to
adapt what I was doing to usingtheir tool, that was gonna be a
much better solution for them.
Joe Pope (44:29):
we have a rule here at Hinge that we remain platform
agnostic for that reason.
Amy Franko (44:34):
Mm-hmm.
Mary Blanche (44:35):
All right, we ready for our next?
Uh, would you rather, this iskind of, this next one's kind of
like a worse or or worse, but,um,
Joe Pope (44:44):
Would you not rather.
Mary Blanche (44:45):
yeah,
Amy Franko (44:46):
Two bad choices.
Let's bring it
Mary Blanche (44:48):
Love it.
Okay.
So would you rather have a salesperson who talks excessively and
doesn't effectively listen tothe client's needs, or one who
is too passive and fails toproactively guide the client
through the sales process?
Amy Franko (45:05):
I would take the former, the reason why I would
take the first situation is ifthere's some really good, like
raw skill to work with.
And the challenge is just being,if the challenge is slowing down
and listening and pausing, I canwork with that.
A leader can work with that andcoach to that ideally, and then
(45:30):
you can kind of dial it back alittle bit versus the second
scenario where you may havesomebody that simply isn't,
doesn't have the, like, thewiring for that.
Like they're, so there might besome other, like if they're too
timid, they're too passive, ifthey, there might be, there just
(45:54):
might be a lot of hurdles toovercome
Mary Blanche (45:56):
I, I agree with you.
Just hearing you talk throughthat.
rationale.
The first one is much more of acoachable
Amy Franko (46:04):
Yeah.
And, and it really does comedown to how coachable the person
is.
Um, there was some interestingresearch that was done, um, by,
uh, Adam Grant in Wharton Schoolof Business.
And, um, this research is a fewyears old at this point, but I,
I still think that the conceptsare very relevant.
He wanted to, um, explore whowould be a more successful sales
(46:26):
professional, someone who wasmore extroverted, which is your
first example, or someone who ismore introverted.
And, you know, the, the wor theworking theory was that somebody
who was highly extroverted wouldbe more successful as a seller.
So, so after, after performingthe research on, I think it was
maybe 300, 300 plus salesprofessionals, the, the
(46:50):
revelation that he came to,which was really interesting,
was that most of us.
Two thirds of us are neitherextroverted nor introverted.
We tend to fall somewhere on ascale, um, that he called being
an ambivert.
And I'm more on the extrovertedside, but I still consider
myself to be an ambivert.
(47:10):
Um, but I'm, I lean toward beingmore extroverted.
But if you are an ambivert, youtend to be a better listener.
You tend to be more flexible.
You tend to be able to read a,read a room because you're not
so focused on what it is thatyou're going to say next, or
talking or owning theconversation.
So that, that's the danger ofsomebody who leans toward
(47:33):
talking too much.
But if they are a coachableindividual, I would take that
and I'd work with them and coachthem and help them to build
those skills in.
Joe Pope (47:42):
Uh, Amy, I, every, I completely just found myself
nodding along to everything youkind of, that you were just
saying.
For somebody who is moreintroverted, and maybe we'll
just say they're kind of in.
a position where they have tosell, maybe it's a smaller
client, for example, and, and ifthey're, if they're not gonna do
it, then no one's gonna do it,then they're in a big, they're
in a big challenge.
What are some ways that youhelp.
(48:04):
Train or see if you can helpbring people out of their
shells, for example, and, and,uh, bring it forward so they can
just get to that level enoughwhere they can, they can make
the connections.
Amy Franko (48:15):
yeah, and that's probably a very real situation
in a lot of firms where, um,yeah.
Where you do, you do need tobring people along.
And I've, and I've seen this insome of the firms that I've
worked with, and sometimes ittakes some time and, and
patience and encouragement forsomebody to kind of come out of
their shell.
I can think of at least one ortwo scenarios where, um, a lot
(48:36):
of times when I'm working withmy clients, we'll work together
for a couple of years onbusiness development, um,
skills.
And I remember after year one inone organization, we'll take a
look and we'll evaluate who'scome through the program and,
and who would they like tocontinue investing in for a
second year because it is aninvestment.
And there were, there was atleast one individual I can think
(48:57):
of that it's like, man, it justreally isn't, this doesn't
really seem to be working.
For this person because of allthe things that you just
mentioned, like really shy,really introverted, really
struggled to speak in front of agroup.
But when, um, it came backaround to coming through for a
second year, this person raisedtheir hand and said, I really
want to do this.
Like, I know that these arethings that I need to work on,
(49:21):
but I know I can work on themand I know I can get better and
I'm committed to doing it, whichis why I take somebody who's
committed, you know, all day andthat person came back through a
second, a second year, and justwatching this individual grow
over that second year's time wasamazing.
Still, you know, still on thelike quiet or shy side, but much
(49:43):
more willing to take risk andmuch more willing to stand up in
front of a group.
Um, so I would encourage, youknow, some patients, but with
people who are raising theirhands to say, I know I need to
work on this.
Let's figure out how, how to dothat, and then work with them.
I'd maybe work with them on whatare some things that we can,
(50:03):
what are some ways that youthink you would like to step
outta your comfort zone, and howcan I help you to do that?
Austin McNair (50:09):
All right.
Well Amy, this has been such agreat conversation so far.
Um, we've got about five minutesleft, so what about a lightning
round?
Are you up for a, a lightninground with us, where we give you
kind of the rest of our, wouldyou rathers and we can see, uh,
how many we can get through inthe next five minutes?
Amy Franko (50:26):
All right, let's do it.
I love it.
Austin McNair (50:29):
Well, we'll, we'll cue the timer and we'll
maybe, you know, maybe we'll getsome thunder and lightning
music.
I
Joe Pope (50:35):
We need some music in the background.
Austin McNair (50:37):
Yeah, we'll get.
Some, bring some energy into it.
Um, but you've, you'vementioned, you, you've been
doing so great with, you know,this, this has been super
insightful.
I'm gonna go ahead and queue upthe timer.
Why don't we get going with thismb you got the prompts.
Let's go.
I.
Mary Blanche (50:53):
All right, let's do it.
Okay.
So first up, Exceptional writtencommunication skills.
or vocal communicationabilities.
Amy Franko (51:02):
Exceptional written communication skills.
Mary Blanche (51:05):
Love it.
Okay.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep going.
We're gonna keep going here.
It's a lightning round.
Uh, existing clients or newprospects.
Amy Franko (51:14):
I love new prospects, but I would counsel
my clients to pursue and growexisting clients right now.
Mary Blanche (51:21):
Love it.
All right.
Short term or long term salestargets.
Amy Franko (51:26):
Ooh, long-term sales targets, because short-term
sales targets may not lead tolong-term success.
Mary Blanche (51:36):
Yep.
Yep.
One high value deal with apotentially difficult client or
staggered smaller phase dealswith an established
relationship.
Amy Franko (51:51):
The second, because no matter how much of a big deal
that you land, if that client isreally difficult, that could
become an unprofitable,difficult client really quickly,
and you could end up with a lotof morale and cultural problems
in your organization.
Mary Blanche (52:09):
Oh, solid point.
Yep.
Yep.
Um, okay.
Uh, prioritize building deeprelationships with existing
clients or aggressively prospectfor new leads.
Amy Franko (52:23):
Oh, I have to say both on this one.
And here's why.
Because I believe you cansimultaneously build deep
relationships and you have toprospect in your existing
clients and you have to buildacross your clients.
If you only have two or threerelationships and an existing
client, and this depends onclient size, you could be, you
(52:47):
could be at risk, um, of losingthat client.
So I would aggressively prospectin my existing clients, but you
also have to, you have to keepthat, that pipeline fresh.
So I'm gonna have to say, I'mgonna have to say both on that
one.
Joe Pope (53:02):
You can get one.
Mary Blanche (53:03):
yeah, yeah.
Joe Pope (53:05):
Yeah.
Mary Blanche (53:06):
No, I love the way you frame that too.
All right.
Um, focus on short-term salestargets or long-term client
loyalty and advocacy.
Amy Franko (53:18):
Oh long-term client loyalty and advocacy because
that will lead to moreopportunity and they will
introduce you into newprospective clients,
Mary Blanche (53:28):
you go.
There you go.
Okay.
Compete primarily on price orfocus on value added solutions
and differentiation
Amy Franko (53:37):
value added solutions and differentiation
because every price conversationis actually a value
conversation.
We just haven't figured out whatthat value is yet.
Mary Blanche (53:48):
Yep.
Yep.
All right.
We got three more.
Amy Franko (53:50):
Alright.
Mary Blanche (53:51):
Prioritize individual sales performance or
promote collaborative metricstracking.
Joe Pope (53:58):
Oh.
I can't say both.
Now that we gave you
Amy Franko (54:02):
I know, right?
I already used my Mulligan.
Um.
In professional services, I'mgonna go with collaboration
because most professionalservices firms do have a
collaborative approach to sales.
In traditional sellingorganizations where you have
quoted sales professionals,that's, they're automatically
gonna be comped on individualperformance.
Mary Blanche (54:24):
Yep.
Joe Pope (54:25):
an entire guide on that topic.
Uh, so you, you took the hingepoint of view on that as well.
Mary Blanche (54:30):
All right.
Build an extensive network withsofter ties or a smaller network
of strong influencers.
Amy Franko (54:39):
Hmm.
I'm gonna go stronger.
Network with smaller networkwith strong influencers,
especially as it relates tobusiness development, because
you can, um, I think you getmore leverage out of that, but
you can also add more value.
Mary Blanche (54:56):
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
All right, last one.
Outreach over phone or email.
Amy Franko (55:03):
I'll tell you my tendency is outreach over email,
which is probably what mostpeople's tendency is.
Um, I would offer to not letyour tendency become a trap.
If I can't pick two, that's whatI'll offer.
Joe Pope (55:20):
I, I think everyone's gotten very reliant on email
sometimes.
Uh, but I mean, but it's alsochallenging.
Sometimes we get people on thephone, right?
We got busy days and so forth,but boy does it make things
easier if you can get somebodyon the phone.
Amy Franko (55:34):
yeah.
Well, and back up to your firstquestion where I didn't
elaborate too much on writtenversus vocal communication,
depending on where yourstrengths are.
A very well written, like,well-crafted anything.
can really open the door andthen give you the follow up.
So where your tendencies arebuilding your strengths becomes
(55:55):
really important,
Austin McNair (55:57):
That was right on time for five minutes, so
Joe Pope (56:01):
I tried to, I tried to drag it over.
Austin McNair (56:03):
Yeah.
Joe kind of dragged us over the.
Amy Franko (56:07):
five minutes or less.
Austin McNair (56:08):
That was, that was awesome, Amy.
Well, Amy, thank you so much forjoining us on, uh, spiraling Up.
We've had such a great timetalking with you, learning from
you, where can people learn moreabout you and, and get in touch
with you?
Amy Franko (56:23):
Um, the first place is please feel free to reach out
on LinkedIn, please, and pleaselet me know that you heard me on
this podcast.
And then secondly, uh, AmyFranco com.
Austin McNair (56:33):
Excellent.
Well, yeah, thank you so much.
If, you know, if you're outthere and you've just heard all
that great stuff from Amy,absolutely do that.
Go and connect with her.
Uh, you can also find MB Joe,myself, we are also quite active
on LinkedIn.
and if you have anyrecommendations or suggestions
for future episodes of SpiralingUp, then please send us a
(56:53):
message.
You can always email us atpodcast@hingemarketing.com.
There we can review yourfeedback as well.
And don't forget, if you'restill watching this, you're on
YouTube, hit that like buttonsubscribe.
We're working hard to bring yougreat guests like Amy, great
conversations on professionalservices, marketing and the
like.
And so, do us a favor, leave usa review.
(57:13):
Like subscribe, all of that goodstuff.
And yeah, you're not allowed tosay that.
You're not allowed to tellpeople Fivestar.
Yeah, we're gonna have to cutthat.
Just kidding.
Well, everybody, on behalf of,uh, our team here at Hinge and,
and our new friend Amy, such agreat conversation.
thank you for another greatepisode of Spiraling Up.
(57:33):
Take care everyone.
In today's episode of Spiraling Up is
marketing attribution a myth Ourteam is going to discuss and
then we're playing.
Would You Rather?
With sales and strategy expert,Amy Franco.
Thanks for being here with useveryone.
This is spiraling up with Hinge.
(00:26):
All right.
Welcome to Spiraling Up thepodcast where professional
services, marketing comes tolife.
Our goal here is clear.
We are creating engaging,interactive segments, covering
the latest marketing stories.
I.
And providing honest, actionableinsights for marketers and
business leaders.
(00:46):
my name is Austin and I'm joinedby my co-host, Mary Blanche and
Joe Mary Blanche.
How are you doing today?
Mary Blanche (00:54):
Doing good.
Doing good.
How are you guys doing is thereal question.
Um.
Know you both have new babies inthe house.
Who's getting more sleep?
Joe Pope (01:02):
Yeah.
Austin, how much did you getlast night?
Austin McNair (01:05):
Uh, not as much as I would've wished.
We've actually, our baby hasbeen, I would say, spectacular
sleeper.
Um, which, you know, blessings,knock on wood.
Do every, you know, I don't wantto get in the middle or mess any
of that up.
But, yeah.
Uh, last night might've been alittle bit of a harder night.
Not gonna let that affect ourepisode, though.
How about yourself?
(01:25):
You doing all right?
Joe Pope (01:27):
last night was rough, but I would, I would say we're
pretty much in alignment on,overall pretty good, pretty
solid.
Maddie is, uh, just learning howto babble though, and when you
learn a new skill, I believe theidea is that you'll just
constantly do it at all hours ofthe night, in which case, uh,
she and I had a one-wayconversation, mostly her talking
(01:47):
to me from the bassinet.
Austin McNair (01:49):
That's really funny that you said that because
actually, uh, our girl startedthe babbling thing too, like as
of yesterday.
So, and for, those who don'tknow, Joe and I, our little
girls are like, is it like lessthan a week apart?
About a
Joe Pope (02:04):
or six days I think.
Maddie was the last baby born in2024 at the hospital.
Uh, so we were, we were last ofthe alphas is what we were
calling her.
I think it's generation Alphas,
Austin McNair (02:15):
Wait, so was it It was actually New Year's Eve,
right?
Joe Pope (02:17):
That's right.
Yeah.
we watched college football fromthe, uh, delivery room.
Not my choice.
My wife is a huge Penn Statefan, so she, she wanted it on
the TV and I wasn't gonna denyher anything.
Austin McNair (02:28):
See that's very memorable information.
That's how, you know I'm alittle bit sleep deprived.
'cause I remember that.
And our girl was born on January2nd, so it was, it was like
three days apart.
So I feel like we're, we're liketracking, uh, completely
together here and kind of ourexperiences and be anything
going on in your world, anythingnew.
Mary Blanche (02:46):
Well, I was just, uh, you guys saying the dates.
My niece was born on the third,
Austin McNair (02:52):
wow.
Mary Blanche (02:52):
a girl.
So yeah, I just got that fromSt.
Louis to, to meet her for thefirst time, so
Joe Pope (02:58):
Oh, baby cuddles.
Mary Blanche (03:01):
Yeah, baby guts.
Austin McNair (03:01):
great.
All right, well, I know we'vegot a great episode in store
today.
Why don't we turn to today'spivotal story?
Mary Blanche (03:09):
All right, let's do it.
So today we're gonna be tacklinga recent LinkedIn post gone
viral by Shehan Ross.
Uh, fractional marketing leaderat Digital Bricks Marketing, and
a shout out goes to ourcolleague Keely, who's the one
that actually shared theoriginal post with the three of
us in the first place.
But it's a topic that clearlystruck a nerve with many
(03:31):
marketers.
The hot take being that revenueis not.
A marketing KPI.
The posts go on to say that, youknow, while marketing can be a
driver of revenue, its solefunction is not to drive
revenue, it's to drive demand.
So this kind of more radicaltake on revenue as a marketing
KPI sparked quite a debate inthe comment section around what
(03:51):
should we as marketers befocusing on and what really does
define success.
For marketing teams.
Um, so y'all, I want you to giveit to us straight here between
the two of you.
You know, you both covered thefull spectrum of all things
marketing, MBD, so awesome.
Let's start with you.
Austin McNair (04:08):
Yeah.
Well, I love this.
This is a great find.
Um, and exactly the kind oftopics that we want to cover in
Pivotal stories.
What I can say is that there area lot of marketers out there
that agree with share hands.
Post.
Um, and actually we haveresearch that backs it up.
In our most recent edition ofthe high growth study, we, we
asked, um, I.
(04:29):
Survey participants to ratethemselves on a scale of one to
10 in how proficient they feltlike their organization was.
In both capturing and then usingmarketing and business
development data and going intothis research, I think we kind
of suspected that this was gonnabe a challenge.
That's why we wanted to measureit, but we totally did not like
(04:51):
comprehend the degree to whichthis would be a challenge.
More or less.
Three out of four, marketerstold us that they would rate
themselves as low proficiency.
So under a six, if we wererating on a scale of one to 10
under six, three out of foursaid, yeah, we just don't have
it.
It's not in the bag and wefollowed up with those people
(05:11):
and and we got all the usualanswers like.
We don't have time.
Our technology, is old or itwasn't integrated properly, but
there was a handful of peoplethat were just like, yeah, it's
not important.
we just don't think that it'sgonna be valuable to measure,
marketing attribution, that it'sjust not as as important.
Now, I don't think that Shahanwas.
Saying completely that it wasunimportant.
(05:34):
I think her perspective, likemany marketers is that, hey, as
marketers, our job is not justto drive revenue for the
company, it's to drive otherthings.
Like you mentioned MB demand, toDraw awareness to our brand, to
nurture clients.
and, and there's, you know, abigger conversation there.
but you know, when we haveconversations with leadership,
oftentimes, We wanna know aboutrevenue.
(05:56):
and I think a lot of marketersare, you know, have their backs
put up against the wall.
'cause I think a lot of them saylike, marketing attribution is
so hard.
Maybe it is a myth.
so I, I'm curious, and b, what,what, what are your thoughts,
you know, and takeaways goinginto this is.
Mary Blanche (06:10):
Yeah, I mean, I think attribution is, is key
really.
I mean, it's, it's so importantto really understand the role
each of your channels.
Play in the sales funnel so youcan get a clear picture of not
only what's working, but alsowhat you know, what's not
working and you know, are youinvesting your energy, your
budget into your time, into thestrategies that are gonna
(06:30):
provide the best ROI.
attribution also alone, itdoesn't tell you the full story
either.
And that's where, one KPI wehaven't really talked about yet
is.
looking at client lifetime valueto understand the total revenue
that you can expect from aclient over the entire duration
of your relationship with them.
Because when you can, when youcan shift your mindset, and, and
(06:51):
it really is a mindset shiftfrom, you know, looking at that
immediate.
Revenue that you're generating,client lifetime value encourages
you to think about that fulllife cycle of the customer and
how you can build thosestronger, longer lasting
relationships.
in terms of what shouldmarketing teams be.
Focusing on.
So back to the originalquestion, it's really that
(07:12):
attribution and that clientlifetime value together.
Um, you know, neitherstandalone, they're very
interconnected, right?
Attribution, helping you to, tounderstand where to focus your
marketing efforts, and thenclient lifetime value then helps
you measure the true value ofthose efforts over time.
Joe Pope (07:28):
It is a fun topic for you and IMB especially, right
Uh, being partners in a smallbusiness that sells marketing
services.
So I think we live on both sidesof this issue every single day.
I mean, as a business owner, Iwould, I would love it if
clients didn't really hold usaccountable to things like
direct ROI.
I mean, we help many clients getthese types of things done.
(07:49):
But you know, marketing is atest constantly.
You're always having to adjustand make modifications, changes,
learn lessons, and so forth.
And if the only thing thatsomebody cares about is ROI,
well.
You'll miss out on a lot of theimportant details and insights
that can lead to performance, todrawing demand, to creating
(08:09):
visibility.
Um, you know, I think one of theinteresting things, especially
for the three of us when we talkabout something like this, you
know, Austin, I.
Uh, runs hinges marketing, buthe's a marketing expert who
works with our clients, but healso runs hinges marketing.
Uh, I typically lead most of oursales and business development
efforts, and Mary Blanchestarted as a project manager
(08:30):
back in the day and is nowdrawing and leading our
operational side of the house.
So we really do kind of coverthe entire business spectrum.
Uh, just kind of interesting tokind of hear how you guys have.
Talk this through, but from theBD sales guy perspective, as
somebody who listens constantlyto folks saying, well, what can
I expect?
Right?
What am, what am I going to getfrom my marketing?
(08:53):
What are those differentelements?
The first thing I do is I, Ibring up an illustration that
shows the various ways of whichwe can measure success.
You know, we talk about themarketing funnel, visibility at
the top.
Engagement, drawing andnurturing and developing demand
in the middle and then at thebottom opportunity.
Uh, so when we get that MQL, howmany of them can turn into
(09:15):
something that allows us tohopefully sell into them and so
forth.
But, uh, nope.
I, I gave that kind of marketingpitch.
Now let's continue the businessowner perspective.
If our marketing isn't working,you know, a year or two, those
types of things go down the lineand you're not necessarily
seeing the results of all thiseffort and expense, that's not
(09:36):
acceptable either, right?
So another great way of thinkingof how to measure.
Marketing success across theboard is to pair leading and
lagging indicators or KPIstogether.
So when I say leading indicator,I mean something that's designed
to predict future outcomes.
You know, pipeline, for example.
(09:57):
Uh, and lagging indicators.
That's something along the linesof, Hey, let's look and see what
was our billable numbers thelast 12 months.
So that's a performance metric,but you can actually pair these
two different things together.
Uh, so an example of pairingwould be marketing qualified
leads, elements that have beendriven by direct marketing
efforts, and then revenue fromnew clients.
(10:19):
So we're gonna remove out thelarger revenue picture of
reoccurring revenue and soforth.
Uh, another could be somethingalong the lines of if.
We're trying to look moretowards existing relationships.
We could talk about clients'digital engagement.
So how many of your clients aregoing to your webinars?
How many of your clients arereading your emails?
You know how many clients arecompletely willing to answer a
(10:41):
survey you may potentially putout, compare something like that
to your retention rate, so yourefforts designed to nurture and
maintain your relationships.
So a real good discussion here.
Uh, I think I.
Sharon that, I mean, sheobviously struck a nerve and uh,
that's the best kind of contenton LinkedIn'cause who wants to
read another boring post?
(11:03):
Uh, and I, I think it's just afun one for us to discuss as a
team.
Austin McNair (11:07):
so much for for us to, to unpack here.
Um, great stuff.
MB uh, Joe, I am so excited forour next segment.
We have a great guest.
Her name is Amy Franco.
We're gonna tell you a littlebit about her, in a moment.
But before we get to thatsegment, guys, we bring it up
every episode at this point,because it is in the middle of
(11:29):
our conversations with our greatguests.
It is at the center of ourpivotal stories.
What am I talking about?
I'm talking about hinges highgrowth study research, and we've
mentioned it before.
We'll mention it again.
You can get this free executivesummary.
Right now atwww.hingemarketing.com/
high-growth.
(11:49):
This is the 10th year in a rowthat we have done this research
on professional servicesmarketing to try to understand
what are the fastest growingcompanies doing.
I can tell you one thing, someof the stuff that the fastest
growing companies we're doing 10years ago is not the same, as
what they're doing today.
So if you haven't yet.
Go high growth study hingemarketing do com slash high
(12:12):
growth.
Okay.
Well, we'd like to now, welcometo the podcast today's guest,
Amy Franco.
Amy Franco is a leader in modernsales strategies.
She helps mid-marketorganizations to grow sales
results through sales strategy,advisory, and skill development
(12:33):
programs.
Her book, the Modern Seller, isan Amazon bestseller, and she is
recognized by LinkedIn as one ofthe top sales voices.
Welcome to Spiraling Up, Amy.
How are you doing today?
Amy Franko (12:46):
I am Great.
Thank you for having me.
I'm really looking forward toour conversation.
Austin McNair (12:50):
Absolutely we're, we're really looking forward to
it as well.
Now, Amy, we've crossed paths ina few different places.
I think.
Uh, one of those is, uh, theAssociation for Accounting
Marketing.
I know that you've been involvedin that association.
You've spoken at their summit aswell.
we were just wondering like whatother places have, maybe we
crossed paths or what was yourinvolvement with aim?
I, I know you have a lot ofexperience with working with
(13:13):
professional services firms atB2B firms.
Amy Franko (13:16):
Yeah, and it's interesting.
I'm not like, I don't have aprofessional like accounting
background by trade.
I found my way into this space.
You know, later in my career Igot my start in technology and
so for the first 10 years of mycareer I worked for, um, IBM and
Lenovo.
I was a quota carryingsalesperson.
And then I, I took a pivot intoentrepreneurship, oh gosh, like
(13:39):
17 years ago now, and got intothe learning and development
space and spent quite a bit oftime there.
And then over the past decade orso, I brought together like
everything I love about sales,sales, leadership, learning and
development.
And, uh, what that looks liketoday is, um, I found a home in
professional services.
(13:59):
So I actually spend a lot oftime in professional services,
public accounting and advisory,other types of professional
services, working with theirfirm leaders, up and coming firm
leaders on everything from salesand growth strategy to, uh,
business development skills.
Austin McNair (14:16):
Amy, what could you tell us real quick?
Just like how did you land on afocus with, uh, with mid-market
clients?
Because at Hinge that'ssomething that we found as well.
I mean, we work with firms ofall sizes, but definitely
there's a lot of thosemid-market players that I think
where there's a lot ofopportunity and we're wondering
kind of like, you know, how didyou find that as kind of one of
your specialized areas as well?
Amy Franko (14:36):
I, I think I landed on mid-market because I was
fortunate enough to win someclients in that mid-market
space.
And what I found was I reallyresonated with.
direct access to all the leadersin the organization and um,
being able to work more closelywith a lot of the firm leaders
(14:59):
and the people coming through myprograms, that is what really
has helped me to say this is agreat space for me to be in.
And not to say that if largerorganizations don't come
calling, like certainly I wouldalways welcome those
conversations, but I have justfound that that mid-market space
is a great sweet spot.
They're large enough that theyhave what, you know, we all
(15:22):
offer and they need it, but theyaren't so large that they've
built all of that capacity inhouse.
And so we've just fit in thatgreat spot for them.
Joe Pope (15:33):
Enough to be dangerous, but not necessarily
get it all taken care of.
Amy, what are some, uh, what aresome other industries that you
feel, uh, outside of theaccounting one?
I know you referencedprofessional services.
Any other industries that youtypically find yourself
gravitating to in thatmid-market Sweet spot.
Amy Franko (15:48):
Yeah.
Um, so, you know, otherprofessional services might be
like IT consulting, management,consulting, things of that, that
nature.
But also I have clients that arein the manufacturing space.
I have some that are in the, um,I'll call it the FinTech space,
which kind of then gets intokind of towards my roots in
technology.
But those are probably the otherindustries that I spend the most
(16:11):
time in.
But in terms of, you know, wethink about outbound marketing
and outbound relationshipbuilding.
A lot of my time is spent in theprofessional services and
accounting space.
Joe Pope (16:21):
Well That's that must be music to the ears of anyone
listening to this podcastbecause of, and honestly, Amy, a
lot of those are industries thatour content is angled towards,
and I think there's gonna besome nice crossovers here,
especially as we get into thegame we have planned, I.
Austin McNair (16:34):
That's right.
Yeah.
let's turn to our, our segment,Amy.
Um, one thing that we like to dowhen we talk to experts like
yourself is to.
Kind of set up a couple of, uh,dilemmas for you to think about,
right?
Oftentimes marketing leaders,business leaders, like things
aren't just black and white,right?
There's these kind ofsituational dilemmas that have
(16:56):
us choosing one thing oranother.
And, what we'd like to do isinvolve you and bring you into
this, you know, classic form ofthis game.
Would you rather, so, Amy, inour segment, we are gonna give
you some tough either ordecisions that sales leaders and
professionals out there might begrappling with today.
So we'd like to hear which wayyou'd choose, and then maybe
(17:20):
hear some of your experiencesand stories working with
professional services leadersand maybe how this intersects
with some of your perspectiveson, on, on the space.
So you, you down and up for it.
Amy Franko (17:31):
I am up for it and just for anybody watching and
listening, these have not beenplanted, so I actually don't
know what they're going to askme, so this is gonna be very
entertaining.
Let's do it.
Austin McNair (17:41):
That's awesome.
mb our first question is, uh, Ithink related to a little bit of
what our conversation was alittle bit earlier on the
episode.
Do you want to tee us up for ourfirst, would you rather.
Mary Blanche (17:54):
All right, Amy, would you rather measure a
marketing team's performancebased on revenue or a
combination of core funnel KPIs?
Amy Franko (18:07):
Ooh.
Mary Blanche (18:08):
I.
Amy Franko (18:08):
I would personally do core funnel KPIs because if
we are focused on the rightactivities, and we're in
agreement in the organization onwhat those activities are
because they're high value,they're high value metrics, high
value KPIs, high valueactivities.
(18:29):
Should yield the leads thatyield revenue.
And I'm all, I look at thebottom line of profit.
So not just revenue but profit,but I'd go with the second one
so that we're focused on theright activities to lead to the
right opportunities.
Joe Pope (18:44):
You, you said something that really resonated
with me just there, Amy, whichwas that we're in alignment on,
and so your space being in salesand, you know, obvi, we're,
we're in the marketing realmprimarily.
what are, how, how do you comeinto that alignment?
What, what are some of the waysthat you've felt and, and as you
talked to and you providedtraining to leaders, to, we all
know marketing's important,especially professional
(19:06):
services, but how do we come toalignment on what those
performance metrics are?
Amy Franko (19:11):
Yeah.
So maybe if I take it by, let'stake it by like a service line,
perhaps as an example, or anindustry as an example.
'cause that's maybe somethingconcrete that we can all wrap
our minds around My philosophyis that marketing activities and
sales activities, they should beintegrated.
They are different, but they'reboth mission critical to being
(19:34):
able to be successful.
And that's something I'm seeing,um, change in professional
services, public accounting,where, you have to have a
marketing and a sales function.
Take the people out of theequation, but just the roles in
the, in the activities.
So if I am leading an industry,I want to understand what, the
(19:56):
revenue and profit goals of thatindustry segment are.
And then I want to talk tomarketing leaders and sales
leaders on how we can all cometo an agreement on what the
right measurements are.
I'm a big fan of less is more,and then what the right
activities are that will put usin the best position to create
opportunities.
Austin McNair (20:16):
One thing I'm thinking about as, as you're
talking through that is I can'ttell you how many clients that
we work with where there is somesort of misalignment between
what the marketing team saysthey're doing and you know,
leadership still feeling likehaving this big, broad,
disconnect of like understandinglike why, why are we doing this
(20:37):
again?
Why are we spending so much on,on Google ads right now?
Why are we paying for thisconference every year?
Like, I don't know what we'regetting out of it.
and so this is like Amy one, oneof the things we've measured
recently, from our annual highgrowth study is that we've
identified that, Generallyprofessional services firms are
really weak when it comes to,capturing and using business
(20:59):
development and marketingmetrics.
I'm wondering if you have anystories to share about, you
know, a client you've workedwith where you kind of got the
sense that the firm leadershipwas like totally disconnected
from what the marketing team wasdoing, did you think it was kind
of on that topic of attributionand like they just weren't
getting the right data, that themarketing team wasn't making a
(21:20):
compelling case for the workthey were doing?
Or was it actually like Yeah,there just wasn't enough
happening that, at the companyin terms of the marketing.
Amy Franko (21:28):
Yeah, I'm thinking of a couple of examples where,
um, one of the biggest culpritswas language and.
The language of the business andwhat the business wants to
accomplish versus the languageand the activities of marketing.
So many times what I see,especially when people are
(21:48):
really, they're, they'retechnical and they are really
brilliant at their particularcraft in this, in this case,
marketing.
It's being able to take thetechnical aspects of it and be a
translator to why it matters tothe business, and being able to
use language that is businessoriented, results oriented
(22:12):
versus technically oriented.
That's a misalignment that I seereally often.
And then the other misalignmentthat I see is the confusion of
activities to results.
So I think Google ads or just,just social in general is an
arena where.
It's likes and impressions andreactions don't always align to
(22:39):
creating tangible opportunity,and that's another misalignment
that I see happen prettyfrequently.
Joe Pope (22:47):
one of the key takeaways from our earlier
discussion was kind of thecombination of leading and la
lagging indicators and how theycan potentially be meshed
together.
I think that one you justprovided is a, is a great
example, right, where it's, ifyou, sure it's working, we're
getting impressions, but at theend of the day, six months,
seven months down the line, westill haven't seen revenue from
(23:08):
that.
There's clearly a disconnect inhow that can then translate
forward.
Amy Franko (23:13):
Well, I think you just hit on a point, which is
the other disconnect is the timeto measure.
How much time, how much time dowe allow ourselves to measure
something before we, um, pivotoff of it.
I was actually, ju you justreminded me of a client I was
talking to a couple weeks agoand one of the activities I
asked them to bring to ourconversation was, I want you to
(23:36):
do an analysis.
It doesn't have to be heavyhanded of your sales activities.
This could also be done formarketing activities, but what
activities actually produce.
A return IE opportunities,something's closed, whatever,
and which ones are not bringingyou any value.
And I want you to bring a listof those so that we could make
some decisions about which onesare gonna go as we oftentimes
(24:00):
hang on to things.
Because at some point they werebudgeted for and somebody said
this was a great idea.
Right?
I see a lot of head nods here.
And we give ourselves too muchrunway before we, um.
Austin McNair (24:13):
Yeah.
And I, I mean, I knowanecdotally I've, I've met a lot
of marketers where it's like aparticular partner at a company
has like an emotional stake in acertain activity.
And it's like, well, I mean,we're not sure it's quite the
best fit as the marketing team,but hey, you know, this guy has
a lot of influence.
we, you know, we gotta let himgo to his golf tournament or
something.
(24:33):
I don't
Joe Pope (24:33):
There it is.
Austin McNair (24:35):
Joe, I'm not talking about Joe, by the way.
Uh, I'm not talking about Joe,by the way.
I think we could talk about thistopic all day, but I wanna make
sure we get to some of our otherquestions.
We've got some other good oneshere, Amy, uh, and B, what's our
next, would you rather.
Mary Blanche (24:47):
Yep.
All right.
So Amy, for second, would yourather, uh, would you rather.
lead a team that excels intraditional sales tactics but is
resistant to change?
Or a team that's adaptable butthey're less experienced?
Amy Franko (25:04):
Adaptable and less experienced.
All day, every day.
in the first scenario, there'sno guarantee that even when,
even when somebody has skills inlike the traditional selling
and, and foundational selling isimportant, but if there's no
adaptation, you're going to getpassed by.
(25:26):
At a certain point, I'd ratherhave a team that's adaptable and
a little bit less experienced,and maybe they haven't developed
too many bad habits yet.
That can be, um, you know, thatthat can be, that can be
capitalized on.
I'll take enthusiasm andadaptability all day.
Joe Pope (25:42):
You mentioned bad habits.
Let's talk through some ofthose.
Amy Franko (25:45):
Oh, yes.
Uh, where, where shall we start?
Um, Probably one of the mostchallenging.
Bad habit to, um, to reverse iswhen you've accomplished success
and you've enjoyed success, andyou have created a degree of
success, say with your currentclient base, I think this is
(26:08):
very true in all professionalservices.
You've accomplished it with yourclient base, and that has now
become like a run rate in an, inan expected outcome each and
every year.
And then all of a sudden,because you have gotten yourself
kind of lulled into this groove,all of a sudden a competitor
comes in and takes out your runrate business or the client's
(26:33):
business has changedsignificantly and you know, for
things that are beyond outsideof your control, and now all of
a sudden the success that you'vehad is now a liability.
And if you aren't adaptable andyou haven't been thinking about
that all long now your successis, is a liability.
Joe Pope (26:52):
Yeah.
Amy, the marketing equivalent tothis is when folks come to us
and they, uh, they, they'relooking for marketing strategy.
They're looking for help inidentifying what the right
tactics are.
And then when we talk about theadvantages of bringing research
into this, pers like this largerperspective, of course hinge.
We have research that we canbring to the table, but we don't
(27:13):
know your ideal client like thisclient A, that's gonna provide
you with the best, uh, lifetimevalue.
Things along those lines.
And we bring up the idea ofresearch.
And one of the first things thatsometimes we'll hear is, well, I
know my clients, I'll just tellyou what they said.
I'll tell you, they know I knowmy clients really well and, uh,
you know, I play golf with'em,making fun of golf earlier.
(27:34):
But, uh, the, the ability forthem to then understand that
things change and competitorschange and reality changes,
technology changes.
We saw AI pop up as a bigconcern, uh, across professional
services in our latest highgrowth study.
And, and how it's gonna beincorporated in these things are
(27:56):
what may mean that sure, youmight know your client to a C
level, C plus level, but if youreally want the a, you really
wanna understand what it lookslike.
Sometimes asking questions froma impartial third party can
really provide great benefitsand, and so I just resonated
really closely to, as you weretalking that through.
Amy Franko (28:15):
I think that that last comment about the outside
perspective becomes reallyimportant and it's, um, this is
less a like a sales or marketinghabit, but just more of a
general habit if for anybodywho's in a decision making
capacity in their organization,or maybe you have influence.
If we swing the pendulum one wayor the other too far, it becomes
(28:37):
really a challenge.
Like if, if we send everythingto the outside.
That's a challenge because wedon't maintain our own thought
processes, if you will, our owninternal intellectual capital.
But if we do everythingourselves, which is a lot, that
that's typically the other endof the pendulum, that people,
(28:58):
that organizations are mostprone to where they try to do
everything themselves with nooutside perspective, then all of
a sudden everything's passedthem by and they're wondering
why.
Joe Pope (29:09):
You, you mentioned something earlier as well in
terms of foundational sales,right?
Uh, if you can get that team of,they've got some level, some
foundational experience, butthey're eager and they're ready
to learn and they're ready toadapt and grow, uh, what are
some of the foundations that youtypically really like to see,
uh, that you can build onquickly?
Amy Franko (29:30):
Yeah.
So, um, if I were to point to.
I'd say two or three things froma sales standpoint, but that
also really tie to marketing.
There's probably no shortage ofactivities that we could do for
marketing or sales, but if we'rereally gonna hone in on things
that are foundational, thatcreate opportunity and drive
(29:52):
revenue and drive profit, it's,um, prospecting, which is being
out in the community, out in themarketplace, whatever that looks
like for you, where you aremeeting new people, cultivating
new relationships, andultimately cultivating new
opportunities, which is wheremarketing and can of course, be
a huge help with that, that,that, that strategy.
(30:16):
There's, um, active salesconversations.
So we need to be havingconversations with prospective
clients and current clientsabout what's happening in their
organization and ideallyuncovering opportunities to help
them.
And then it's activelypresenting, um, proposals,
engagements, solutions to thoseclients, something that somebody
with authority makes a decisionover that ideally is a yes, if
(30:41):
it's a right fit, that we couldmove on if we paid attention to
those three things.
And if marketing and sales cametogether to focus on those three
things, we'd get further faster.
And then of course, there'sother things we can focus on,
but those are three of thebasics to put time and attention
to.
Joe Pope (31:01):
And, and so for the less experienced folks, having
just some amount of experiencein those three presents you with
kind of the, the channels tobuild into.
Right.
I'm, I'm, that's how I'm, howI'm hearing this.
Amy Franko (31:13):
Absolutely.
And if you have a team that'syounger and maybe, or just maybe
less experienced, let's say, um,it's that first one, being out
in the community and talking topeople, building relationships.
Maybe you're partnered withsomebody who is more
experienced.
Maybe it's a partner in yourfirm.
Maybe it's somebody who, um, hasa business development role in
(31:35):
your firm.
There's any number of ways to dothat, but just being out and
getting into the habit ofmeeting people, building your
network, having conversations.
If you're gonna start somewherewith a less experienced
individual or team, that's agreat place to start.
Joe Pope (31:51):
Yeah.
That's great.
That's great insight.
I
Mary Blanche (31:53):
I think that's a really good point too,
especially for younger peopleand kinda how we've come out of
Covid.
They don't have they don't havethat prior experience of what it
was like getting out there andhaving that networking and, you
know, building that rapport, um,with different people,
partnerships, they, they don'thave.
That, so like really startingthem out and making that a
priority and, and teaching themearly, getting them out there.
(32:13):
That's, that's good advice.
Amy Franko (32:15):
I have one client and, and marketing plays a role
in this.
I have one client where, um,they do things like, uh,
research calls.
They do, uh, ride-alongs wherethat does give people the
opportunity to spend real time,um, understanding client
challenges or being out withsomebody in the field who has
that business developmentexperience.
(32:36):
And that is actually a functionof, um, marketing and sales
together.
Austin McNair (32:42):
All right, so Embi, what's our next, uh, would
you rather.
Mary Blanche (32:46):
All right, next, would you rather, all right,
would you rather focus onselling to established
industries or emerging markets?
Amy Franko (32:55):
Ooh, okay.
I personally love emergingmarkets like that.
That is like my, I, I enjoybeing out in new places and
building new relationships andfinding new opportunity.
So I'm answering that from myperspective.
If I were to answer that from a,like a client base perspective,
(33:18):
I would go, I would go the, um,the former route, looking at
your existing clients, andhere's why.
70% of an organization's revenuetypically comes from run rate
business and existing clients,and about 30% roughly will come
from net new logos coming intoyour organization.
(33:41):
It is less of an opportunitycost for your firm to maintain
your run rate and find newopportunities in your existing
client base and then augmentthat with new opportunities like
new pipeline, new net, newlogos.
So, um, so if I answer that fromthe client perspective, I'd, I'd
(34:04):
go with the first one.
And first sho, make sure you'reshoring up existing clients and
finding those new opportunitiesin your existing clients.
Protect your downside and growthat.
Grow the existing base whilealso augmenting.
Joe Pope (34:18):
You did say you were an entrepreneur, so I do
understand that the naturaltendency is to go to the
emerging market.
What, what are some of the, whatare some of the other excitement
factors there?
Right.
So when you, when you look atemerging markets, uh, and in
that entrepreneurial mindset,what, what are you typically
kind of wanna see before youjump into it or target it or go
to that event?
Uh, that really will, uh, key toyour interest.
Amy Franko (34:40):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Um, think about it for myself.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna answer thatfrom how I might counsel my
clients on that, because how Imight do it might be a little
bit different than what, thanlike a, than a client might.
I think this is where marketingcan play a really significant
role in an emerging market.
Because there's a lot, to yourearlier point about research,
(35:03):
there's a lot of research thatcan be, gathered, analyzed about
an emerging market, the totaladdressable market, the solution
market for you.
All, all the things that likeyou hear in startup, startup
language, how it might befunded.
Like, are you go, is the firmgonna self-fund it?
Are you going to look for maybeoutside investment, which is
probably a whole other, uh,conversation.
(35:25):
But I would leverage marketingif I were considering an
emerging market for all thatresearch piece.
And then once I've done that andI figure out what my metrics
are, then I'm going to look forwhat are my best opportunities
to experiment in this marketthat are low risk.
But help me to understand whatour position could be in the
(35:48):
market.
Austin McNair (35:49):
If we go back to that, um, established industry
side, right.
Which I think for when you weretalking about how you would kind
of advise your clients directly,that's you, you'd lead'em in
that direction.
Are there any like pitfallsthere that like you just see
over and over again when you,when you start a new engagement
with some of your clients, whatare some of the common things
that you see in terms of likethat run rate and those, those
(36:11):
core central clients that arebeing neglected by, by teams?
Amy Franko (36:15):
I would say there are probably two things I see
the most often.
The first is, and this kind ofgoes into the camp of assuming
that you're, you'll continue toget the same business over and
over, is lack of a of strategicaccount planning.
So if you look at your top, youknow, say 20% of your clients,
(36:35):
the chances are really good.
They account for a significantportion of your business.
It's that, that old 80 20 rule,right?
and one thing that I see lackingoften is no, uh, strategic plan
for maintaining and growing thatclient.
Relationships change.
People move in and out oforganizations and many times
(36:58):
clients, um.
They get stuck because they'velost a key relationship that
maybe they weren't payingattention to.
Maybe that person left theorganization.
So it's that account planning.
And then second, and this isprobably a little bit more on
the tactical side, and probablysomething that marketing and
sales could do together, whichis, um, We get used to selling
(37:19):
the services that we, that we'realready doing, but it does take
that proactive approach to getinto the organization, to find
other problems to solve.
And sometimes we don't do itbecause we don't feel confident
with who to talk to and whatquestions to ask and how to
conduct those conversations.
(37:40):
If we can we correct the code onthat and have a proactive
approach to it.
That puts us in a much betterposition to find the project
that's in it versus in financeor to find the, um, I don't know
the, the marketing opportunitythat we could help with because
we're stuck in some other areaof the business.
(38:02):
So I see that pretty frequently.
Joe Pope (38:05):
This is a reason why we really lean towards a
qualitative type of researchwhen trying to develop the
strategic plan that you werejust talking about, Amy.
Uh, and like you were saying,this is a strategic plan or
research that's typicallyfocused on the top types of
clients.
So your top 10, top 20, but bytaking a qualitative
perspective, interviews versussurvey, for example, you have
(38:29):
the opportunity to ask for more,right?
Like you, you ask a question andthey give you an answer.
But you, you, you can listen inreally closely, having experts
who do these types of things allthe time, uh, do interviews and
research and, and start to pullthose threads a little bit
further.
And the next thing you know,when you stretch it out, over 20
responses, 30 responses, 80% ofthose responses all pointed to
(38:52):
this new technology.
You may or may not have everbeen thinking about, and then
suddenly we have the basis forwhat might make sense for that
next iteration or how we couldpotentially grow our own
practices or you know, some ofthe larger folks, it's who are
we gonna go and buy next interms of bringing in skillsets,
Amy Franko (39:11):
And to play that thread out, you know, let's say
that you do, you, you've, you'vedone that research and you've
uncovered this pattern.
We can't know everything abouteverything.
Right?
But if we, if we can understandthe high level implications of
something like that, and thenhave a couple of good questions
(39:31):
to ask to frame up aconversation.
I've, I've, I'm seeing this inthe research.
Let's talk about how this mightbe impacting you.
Let's talk about what a nextconversation could be.
That's way different thanfeeling like you have to come in
with all the answers.
Austin McNair (39:47):
All right.
We got time for a couple morehere before I got a surprise for
us in a, in a minute, but I'mnot gonna spoil it yet.
Mb what's, what's our next,would you rather.
Mary Blanche (39:55):
All right.
Let's see.
would you rather.
enhance your sales team'sexpertise in traditional sales
methods or in new technologiessuch as AI and automation?
Amy Franko (40:08):
I'm gonna go with the former
Mary Blanche (40:11):
Okay.
Joe Pope (40:11):
Skills, not tech.
Amy Franko (40:14):
because it's, um, a little bit of background on
myself.
It's interesting coming from,from a technology background
myself, how much I've alwayspersonally gravitated toward,
in, leaned on the, what I'llcall the more traditional
aspects of selling, which is therelationship building aspects,
(40:36):
conversational aspects versususing technology.
However, um, I wish that, I wishthat yes and could be an answer
because, um, really smartsellers and marketers don't shy
away from using technology.
You can't not use it.
Sometimes what happens is wefeel overwhelmed by it or we
(40:58):
have too many tools andtherefore we're not effective
with any of it.
So I really like having thefoundational skills that then
tools and technologies the rightones can augment.
So, for example, I myself loveto use AI tools for, helping me
(41:20):
with initial, um, like eitherbackground research or maybe,
giving me some ideas for smartquestions.
But I never just rely on that.
I use it and then I use it kindof as a starting point for the
next work.
So being able to blend tools,whether it's AI tools, it's
(41:41):
things like, um, well in, in thesales world, you might use
something like, um, salesnavigator.
You have your CRM, like what arethe tools that can help you?
But they can't become crutches.
Mary Blanche (41:53):
Yeah, and where you can, you know, over just
having a bunch of siloed toolsthat you're using, like how can
you integrate them with oneanother to create that kind of
ecosystem of tools.
So the data's all speaking toone another.
Amy Franko (42:08):
Right, right.
And um, this data's probably acouple years old at this point,
but at one point I think persales professional, and this is
not professional servicesspecific, but upwards of$5,000
per sales professional on toolsalone.
Technology tools.
So multiply that out by, youknow, the staff that you have
(42:31):
and I would offer that.
Professional services probablyhas some similar types of
numbers with all the tools thatare available and professional
services these days.
And.
You talk about like making aninvestment and coming all the
way back around to ROI.
It's not just events, ROI, butlike the technology tools, ROI,
how much are we putting out infinancial investments every year
(42:54):
versus like the meaningful usageof those tools?
Joe Pope (42:59):
Uh, hinge is not a pure, what you might call
technology implementationpartner, but we naturally have
to get involved in discussingthem with our clients based off
of tracking of performance.
And, uh, it is just how they areso ingrained, as you just said,
Amy, and, and basicallyeverything that professional
services organizations aredoing.
But I will tell you the amountthat have made these investments
(43:22):
but aren't using them properlyor just aren't using them at
all, is astounding, right?
Like it's gone from people thatdon't even have them to, they
have them, but they just don'tuse them.
Amy Franko (43:33):
Mind boggling how much money is invested in these
tools.
I'm thinking about an example offor, for myself with a client
where we were looking at using,um, a tool for a client
organization.
And a lot of times with, withthat type of scenario, I will,
um, tested out myself beforeusing it or think about my own
(43:56):
use cases.
And we had started to go downthe path of looking at a tool
and then after someconversations and just
understanding all the othertools in the organization, we
decided not to do it because itwas going to be a tool for the
sake of having a tool.
And they had other technologiesalready in the firm that
would've gotten them a largepercentage of the way.
(44:19):
And if instead we invested in,if I worked with them on how to
adapt what I was doing to usingtheir tool, that was gonna be a
much better solution for them.
Joe Pope (44:29):
we have a rule here at Hinge that we remain platform
agnostic for that reason.
Amy Franko (44:34):
Mm-hmm.
Mary Blanche (44:35):
All right, we ready for our next?
Uh, would you rather, this iskind of, this next one's kind of
like a worse or or worse, but,um,
Joe Pope (44:44):
Would you not rather.
Mary Blanche (44:45):
yeah,
Amy Franko (44:46):
Two bad choices.
Let's bring it
Mary Blanche (44:48):
Love it.
Okay.
So would you rather have a salesperson who talks excessively and
doesn't effectively listen tothe client's needs, or one who
is too passive and fails toproactively guide the client
through the sales process?
Amy Franko (45:05):
I would take the former, the reason why I would
take the first situation is ifthere's some really good, like
raw skill to work with.
And the challenge is just being,if the challenge is slowing down
and listening and pausing, I canwork with that.
A leader can work with that andcoach to that ideally, and then
(45:30):
you can kind of dial it back alittle bit versus the second
scenario where you may havesomebody that simply isn't,
doesn't have the, like, thewiring for that.
Like they're, so there might besome other, like if they're too
timid, they're too passive, ifthey, there might be, there just
(45:54):
might be a lot of hurdles toovercome
Mary Blanche (45:56):
I, I agree with you.
Just hearing you talk throughthat.
rationale.
The first one is much more of acoachable
Amy Franko (46:04):
Yeah.
And, and it really does comedown to how coachable the person
is.
Um, there was some interestingresearch that was done, um, by,
uh, Adam Grant in Wharton Schoolof Business.
And, um, this research is a fewyears old at this point, but I,
I still think that the conceptsare very relevant.
He wanted to, um, explore whowould be a more successful sales
(46:26):
professional, someone who wasmore extroverted, which is your
first example, or someone who ismore introverted.
And, you know, the, the wor theworking theory was that somebody
who was highly extroverted wouldbe more successful as a seller.
So, so after, after performingthe research on, I think it was
maybe 300, 300 plus salesprofessionals, the, the
(46:50):
revelation that he came to,which was really interesting,
was that most of us.
Two thirds of us are neitherextroverted nor introverted.
We tend to fall somewhere on ascale, um, that he called being
an ambivert.
And I'm more on the extrovertedside, but I still consider
myself to be an ambivert.
(47:10):
Um, but I'm, I lean toward beingmore extroverted.
But if you are an ambivert, youtend to be a better listener.
You tend to be more flexible.
You tend to be able to read a,read a room because you're not
so focused on what it is thatyou're going to say next, or
talking or owning theconversation.
So that, that's the danger ofsomebody who leans toward
(47:33):
talking too much.
But if they are a coachableindividual, I would take that
and I'd work with them and coachthem and help them to build
those skills in.
Joe Pope (47:42):
Uh, Amy, I, every, I completely just found myself
nodding along to everything youkind of, that you were just
saying.
For somebody who is moreintroverted, and maybe we'll
just say they're kind of in.
a position where they have tosell, maybe it's a smaller
client, for example, and, and ifthey're, if they're not gonna do
it, then no one's gonna do it,then they're in a big, they're
in a big challenge.
What are some ways that youhelp.
(48:04):
Train or see if you can helpbring people out of their
shells, for example, and, and,uh, bring it forward so they can
just get to that level enoughwhere they can, they can make
the connections.
Amy Franko (48:15):
yeah, and that's probably a very real situation
in a lot of firms where, um,yeah.
Where you do, you do need tobring people along.
And I've, and I've seen this insome of the firms that I've
worked with, and sometimes ittakes some time and, and
patience and encouragement forsomebody to kind of come out of
their shell.
I can think of at least one ortwo scenarios where, um, a lot
(48:36):
of times when I'm working withmy clients, we'll work together
for a couple of years onbusiness development, um,
skills.
And I remember after year one inone organization, we'll take a
look and we'll evaluate who'scome through the program and,
and who would they like tocontinue investing in for a
second year because it is aninvestment.
And there were, there was atleast one individual I can think
(48:57):
of that it's like, man, it justreally isn't, this doesn't
really seem to be working.
For this person because of allthe things that you just
mentioned, like really shy,really introverted, really
struggled to speak in front of agroup.
But when, um, it came backaround to coming through for a
second year, this person raisedtheir hand and said, I really
want to do this.
Like, I know that these arethings that I need to work on,
(49:21):
but I know I can work on themand I know I can get better and
I'm committed to doing it, whichis why I take somebody who's
committed, you know, all day andthat person came back through a
second, a second year, and justwatching this individual grow
over that second year's time wasamazing.
Still, you know, still on thelike quiet or shy side, but much
(49:43):
more willing to take risk andmuch more willing to stand up in
front of a group.
Um, so I would encourage, youknow, some patients, but with
people who are raising theirhands to say, I know I need to
work on this.
Let's figure out how, how to dothat, and then work with them.
I'd maybe work with them on whatare some things that we can,
(50:03):
what are some ways that youthink you would like to step
outta your comfort zone, and howcan I help you to do that?
Austin McNair (50:09):
All right.
Well Amy, this has been such agreat conversation so far.
Um, we've got about five minutesleft, so what about a lightning
round?
Are you up for a, a lightninground with us, where we give you
kind of the rest of our, wouldyou rathers and we can see, uh,
how many we can get through inthe next five minutes?
Amy Franko (50:26):
All right, let's do it.
I love it.
Austin McNair (50:29):
Well, we'll, we'll cue the timer and we'll
maybe, you know, maybe we'll getsome thunder and lightning
music.
I
Joe Pope (50:35):
We need some music in the background.
Austin McNair (50:37):
Yeah, we'll get.
Some, bring some energy into it.
Um, but you've, you'vementioned, you, you've been
doing so great with, you know,this, this has been super
insightful.
I'm gonna go ahead and queue upthe timer.
Why don't we get going with thismb you got the prompts.
Let's go.
I.
Mary Blanche (50:53):
All right, let's do it.
Okay.
So first up, Exceptional writtencommunication skills.
or vocal communicationabilities.
Amy Franko (51:02):
Exceptional written communication skills.
Mary Blanche (51:05):
Love it.
Okay.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep going.
We're gonna keep going here.
It's a lightning round.
Uh, existing clients or newprospects.
Amy Franko (51:14):
I love new prospects, but I would counsel
my clients to pursue and growexisting clients right now.
Mary Blanche (51:21):
Love it.
All right.
Short term or long term salestargets.
Amy Franko (51:26):
Ooh, long-term sales targets, because short-term
sales targets may not lead tolong-term success.
Mary Blanche (51:36):
Yep.
Yep.
One high value deal with apotentially difficult client or
staggered smaller phase dealswith an established
relationship.
Amy Franko (51:51):
The second, because no matter how much of a big deal
that you land, if that client isreally difficult, that could
become an unprofitable,difficult client really quickly,
and you could end up with a lotof morale and cultural problems
in your organization.
Mary Blanche (52:09):
Oh, solid point.
Yep.
Yep.
Um, okay.
Uh, prioritize building deeprelationships with existing
clients or aggressively prospectfor new leads.
Amy Franko (52:23):
Oh, I have to say both on this one.
And here's why.
Because I believe you cansimultaneously build deep
relationships and you have toprospect in your existing
clients and you have to buildacross your clients.
If you only have two or threerelationships and an existing
client, and this depends onclient size, you could be, you
(52:47):
could be at risk, um, of losingthat client.
So I would aggressively prospectin my existing clients, but you
also have to, you have to keepthat, that pipeline fresh.
So I'm gonna have to say, I'mgonna have to say both on that
one.
Joe Pope (53:02):
You can get one.
Mary Blanche (53:03):
yeah, yeah.
Joe Pope (53:05):
Yeah.
Mary Blanche (53:06):
No, I love the way you frame that too.
All right.
Um, focus on short-term salestargets or long-term client
loyalty and advocacy.
Amy Franko (53:18):
Oh long-term client loyalty and advocacy because
that will lead to moreopportunity and they will
introduce you into newprospective clients,
Mary Blanche (53:28):
you go.
There you go.
Okay.
Compete primarily on price orfocus on value added solutions
and differentiation
Amy Franko (53:37):
value added solutions and differentiation
because every price conversationis actually a value
conversation.
We just haven't figured out whatthat value is yet.
Mary Blanche (53:48):
Yep.
Yep.
All right.
We got three more.
Amy Franko (53:50):
Alright.
Mary Blanche (53:51):
Prioritize individual sales performance or
promote collaborative metricstracking.
Joe Pope (53:58):
Oh.
I can't say both.
Now that we gave you
Amy Franko (54:02):
I know, right?
I already used my Mulligan.
Um.
In professional services, I'mgonna go with collaboration
because most professionalservices firms do have a
collaborative approach to sales.
In traditional sellingorganizations where you have
quoted sales professionals,that's, they're automatically
gonna be comped on individualperformance.
Mary Blanche (54:24):
Yep.
Joe Pope (54:25):
an entire guide on that topic.
Uh, so you, you took the hingepoint of view on that as well.
Mary Blanche (54:30):
All right.
Build an extensive network withsofter ties or a smaller network
of strong influencers.
Amy Franko (54:39):
Hmm.
I'm gonna go stronger.
Network with smaller networkwith strong influencers,
especially as it relates tobusiness development, because
you can, um, I think you getmore leverage out of that, but
you can also add more value.
Mary Blanche (54:56):
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
All right, last one.
Outreach over phone or email.
Amy Franko (55:03):
I'll tell you my tendency is outreach over email,
which is probably what mostpeople's tendency is.
Um, I would offer to not letyour tendency become a trap.
If I can't pick two, that's whatI'll offer.
Joe Pope (55:20):
I, I think everyone's gotten very reliant on email
sometimes.
Uh, but I mean, but it's alsochallenging.
Sometimes we get people on thephone, right?
We got busy days and so forth,but boy does it make things
easier if you can get somebodyon the phone.
Amy Franko (55:34):
yeah.
Well, and back up to your firstquestion where I didn't
elaborate too much on writtenversus vocal communication,
depending on where yourstrengths are.
A very well written, like,well-crafted anything.
can really open the door andthen give you the follow up.
So where your tendencies arebuilding your strengths becomes
(55:55):
really important,
Austin McNair (55:57):
That was right on time for five minutes, so
Joe Pope (56:01):
I tried to, I tried to drag it over.
Austin McNair (56:03):
Yeah.
Joe kind of dragged us over the.
Amy Franko (56:07):
five minutes or less.
Austin McNair (56:08):
That was, that was awesome, Amy.
Well, Amy, thank you so much forjoining us on, uh, spiraling Up.
We've had such a great timetalking with you, learning from
you, where can people learn moreabout you and, and get in touch
with you?
Amy Franko (56:23):
Um, the first place is please feel free to reach out
on LinkedIn, please, and pleaselet me know that you heard me on
this podcast.
And then secondly, uh, AmyFranco com.
Austin McNair (56:33):
Excellent.
Well, yeah, thank you so much.
If, you know, if you're outthere and you've just heard all
that great stuff from Amy,absolutely do that.
Go and connect with her.
Uh, you can also find MB Joe,myself, we are also quite active
on LinkedIn.
and if you have anyrecommendations or suggestions
for future episodes of SpiralingUp, then please send us a
(56:53):
message.
You can always email us atpodcast@hingemarketing.com.
There we can review yourfeedback as well.
And don't forget, if you'restill watching this, you're on
YouTube, hit that like buttonsubscribe.
We're working hard to bring yougreat guests like Amy, great
conversations on professionalservices, marketing and the
like.
And so, do us a favor, leave usa review.
(57:13):
Like subscribe, all of that goodstuff.
And yeah, you're not allowed tosay that.
You're not allowed to tellpeople Fivestar.
Yeah, we're gonna have to cutthat.
Just kidding.
Well, everybody, on behalf of,uh, our team here at Hinge and,
and our new friend Amy, such agreat conversation.
thank you for another greatepisode of Spiraling Up.
(57:33):
Take care everyone.
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