May 14, 2025 • 35 mins
Brook Shepard (Founder & CEO, Mason Interactive), who shared proven strategies on how to think creatively and get new customers in B2B. Brook emphasized the importance of focusing on breaking through the noise rather than just relying on technology. He also highlighted the need to understand churn ratios, set specific customer targets, and advocated for a diversified media strategy.
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(00:00):
Regardless of which B2B verticalyou find yourself in, we can all
agree that getting new customersto hit your financial goals is
imperative. That said, we knowthat many traditional methods
and tactics are no longereffective, which means that we
need to get more creative aboutcustomer acquisition. So how can
you go about doing that, andwhat role do B2B marketers have
(00:21):
to play?
Welcome to this episode of theB2B Marketers, the Mission
podcast, and I'm your host,Christian Klepp. Today, I'll be
talking to Brooke Shepard, whowill be answering this question.
He's the founder and CEO ofMason Interactive, where data
design and strategy worktogether. Find out more about
what this B2B marketers missionis.
(00:43):
I'm gonna say. Brooke Shepard,welcome to the show, Sir.
Thank you, sir. Thanks forhaving me.
Really looking forward to thisconversation, Brook, because,
man, this is not just pertinentto B2B marketers. I think this
is just highly relevant tobusinesses everywhere. So if you
don't mind, we'll just, uh, getstarted. Hop right to it right.
Let's do it.
So you, Sir, are on a mission tohelp businesses grow through
(01:08):
paid social, paid search, socialmedia, SEO (Search Engine
Optimization), email and beyond.But for this conversation, I'm
gonna say we need a zero in on atopic that I think has become
part of your professionalmission, and that's how to think
creatively and get new customersin B2B. So you mentioned
something just for context forthe audience. You mentioned
(01:28):
something to me during our preinterview call, and it kind of
stuck. It's less about thetechnology you have and it's
about how you're getting newcustomers to hit your financial
goals. So here comes thequestion, why do you think so
many B2B marketers obsess overthe shiny object instead of
focusing on how they can helpreach new customers?
The short answer is, I thinkit's easy to focus on a new fun
(01:51):
toy. I have another theory aboutthat, which is that if you're
buying a piece of software,you're saying to yourself, this
technology is going to help meand help make me better, whereas
if you're buying a consultant orlike hiring me, I think you're
saying to yourself, wow, thisperson knows something I don't
know. And I think that'sprobably harder. I think it's
(02:13):
probably a harder position formyself and for anyone, I think
to be in it's which to say, justto recast that it's easier to
buy the object than it is tohave to have to acknowledge that
you want to listen to someoneelse's advice, because the
object is a shiny new toy thatmay, that may work very, very
well, and may transform yourbusiness. Certainly, there's
technologies we onboard thatwork really well, but yes,
people definitely get distractedby six months long integrations
(02:36):
of shiny objects.
What do you think a lot of thesecompanies, regardless of whether
it's the B2B marketersthemselves or the companies
they're in, why do they Why doyou think that they resort to I
guess I'm not gonna say triedand tested, because they were
tried at some point now they'rejust like, slowly becoming
irrelevant. But why are theystill defaulting to these old
(02:58):
tactics instead of thinkingcreatively?
That's a great question. I wastalking yesterday to describe
himself as private equity, as afinancier who I was, I was
really jealous of the situationhe was in, because the way he
the way his company works is hetakes positions in businesses
(03:20):
and and he might, he might buy30% of your company, or 20 or
80% but he buys a piece of yourbusiness, and then he owns part
of it, and then he's on theboard, and you sort of have to
listen to him. Because he ownspart of the company. And his
joke was, no, they don't alwayslisten to me at all. And I was,
and I was talking about thedifference between that and and
and working in an agency wherepeople don't always listen to us
(03:43):
and follow our own advice, whichis, I think we're going to get
more into this with some of theother questions we have ready.
But I don't always know whetherI want to focus on what's worked
before and focus on what's triedand true and iterate on it and
make it better.
I get the I mean, there's astory once about once when I was
selling advertising, I walkedinto a guy's office and he had a
poster in the wall, and it was,it was a poster of two armies
(04:06):
from from medieval timesfighting, and a salesman was
trying to sell one of the armiesof machine gun, a Gatlin gun,
and the guy in charge of one ofthe army said, No, this was a
cartoon on his wall. So no, Idon't want to focus on anything.
I can't be distracted by asalesman. I want to focus on the
tried and true, which was asilly it's his pointing. How
silly it was, because if only hehad a Gatlin gun, this cartoon
(04:28):
guy and this cartoon poster onthis wall, this office, he
would, he would have won thebattle. So I you need it. You
need a mix of both things.Honestly.
Yeah, no, absolutely,absolutely. So on this topic of,
you know, thinking of newmethods, creatively
unconventional, finding ways toget new customers. What are some
(04:49):
of these key pitfalls you thinkmarketers should avoid, and what
should they be doing instead?
I think the number one thing,and I said this in other places,
I think the number one thingthat people need to focus on is.
Is how many new customers theywant, and that's that's a little
easier for B2B people tounderstand, but, but it's, it's
like, just so far and away isthe number one thing. If I ask
(05:11):
someone that comes to our agencyfor help growing their business,
and are my sales teams talkingto them, one of the questions
I'd like to ask, because mostpeople have revenue goals, most
people have an idea of they wantto be up 30% or they want to get
to 5 million, or they want toget to 20 million, or they want
to increase. Most people havegoals like that. But if you ask
someone the follow up question,which is say they want to get
(05:32):
from 5 million to $30 million infive years, that's great. How
many of those are going to comefrom new customers is and if
someone could answer that, Iknow that I'm dealing with
someone who's thought with somediligence and perspicacity about
their business. And not everyonecan, not everyone can think
about that. It's easiersometimes to talk about
upselling existing clients,which is important, or reselling
(05:54):
old clients, which is alsoimportant. But I think really
the key thing for when you'rethinking about growing your
business is, how many newcustomers do you need to get to
where you're where you're goingto want to go.
Yeah, yeah, no, that'sabsolutely right. And I'm going
to throw this additional like,follow up question in there for
you, Brook, it is 2025, but howmuch of a role do you think AI
(06:15):
plays in all of this?
A lot, the...
Short answer.
So well for B2B, so, so therewas an article. There was an
article in The Economist, andthe article was something along
the lines of if, if ChatGPT isan efficiency booster, and if
(06:37):
the Gross Domestic Product is afunction of how many people
there are times how much they'reproducing on average. Why
haven't the because we're allusing ChatGPT, why haven't the
adoptions of these technologiesincreased productivity in the
GDP (Gross Domestic Product)?And my answer to that is, I
don't know this. I'm not aneconomist, but my answer to that
(06:58):
is, as follows, part of ourbusiness to business plan, not
all of it. It's a slice of ourpie is to do RFPs (Request For
Proposal). And for people whodon't know if you want to work
with the government or a biginstitution, they usually offer
they usually issue requests forproposals, and they're very
detailed, and you have to fillthem out, and it's time
consuming and it's difficult.
We used to do fewer RFPresponses with more diligence.
(07:20):
Now with chat. So let's say weused to do 10 a year. Now we
might do 40 a year using ChatGPTor Claude or whatever else we're
using. So So you think, Oh,we're being, we're being a lot
more productive. We went from 10to 40. But the issue is,
everyone else went from 10 to 40as well. It's not, it's not as
though we're the only onesleveraging these tools. And so
we have this competitiveadvantage. It's, it's, it's, can
(07:43):
everyone use them, and how canyou use them? We're recording
this the time. We're recordingthis ChatGPT 4.0 came out a
little while ago. It has averbal tech that everyone, I
think, is catching on to with umdash. It's not the journey dash,
it's the destination you get. Soyou have to see those things
floating around. But so it'sheavily integrated into our
process as an agency, in termsof making ourselves more
(08:05):
efficient. We use it. We use itall the time. And certainly it's
using certainly it's helping usproduce more creative more
quickly. Certainly it's helpingus analyze things more quickly.
It's not giving us ideas yet. Sofar, the ideas are still, are
still coming from us. So that'smy my answer about that is its
level. It's it's making us moreproductive, but we're being
product more productive at thesame rate everyone else is. So
(08:28):
it's not like a net increase inour output. I don't think in
terms of our economic output asa business. Does that track?
Does that?
Yep, yep. Absolutely,absolutely. I just want to go
back to something you saidearlier, because you were
talking about, like, how youhave these conversations with
clients, about, like, what arethe revenue goals, and where do
they want to be? Those that havedone their due diligence or have
(08:50):
thought this through? Well, theydemonstrate that in the way they
answer that question. Justdigging a little bit deeper,
where do you see? A lot of thesewe can use your company as an
example. In these conversationsyou're having with clients,
where do you see them making thesame mistake over and over again
in terms of new customeracquisition?
(09:10):
Well, not having one, not havinga new customer goal. So I'm
going to make up some numbers,because I don't want to give my
business plan away. But as anillustration, right? I know what
our client churn ratio is. Iknow historically, how many of
our clients that we have nowwill leave us by the end of the
year. That's a, that's aknowable figure. Some years are
better, some years are worse,but I have 16 years of data that
(09:32):
says that this percentage of ourclients are going to leave us.
So if I know that going in, Iknow that to be flat, I need to
replace that many customers,right? Let's, let's use round
numbers. Let's say I have 100clients, and I know that I'm
going to lose 10 of them in ayear. That means I need 10 more
at my average client value tostay flat. If I want to grow by
30% I need 30 I need 40 more, 10to break even, and 30 to get to
(09:56):
30% higher. So if I need 40customers through the year, I. I
have to figure out where I wantto get them from, and then I
could have a discussion aroundtrade shows, RFPs, referrals,
advertising and email outreach.I can go through the different
pieces of this, but I wouldn'tif I didn't have the first part,
which is I need 40 new customersin this hypothetical scenario to
(10:18):
grow by 30% year over year. Idon't think I could operate the
business. I'd be, I'd be doingthings like, Should we do a
trade show? I don't know. How'sthe pipeline? Weak, yes, strong,
no, right? And having theseconversations that are about,
like, I don't even know what?
So it's not about the revenuefor me. It's about the it's
about the number of newcustomers that you need going
(10:38):
in, and where are you going toget them from? The other thing,
the other flip side of that thatwe see a lot, is this industry,
the digital advertisingindustry, changes so quickly
that skills get outdated veryquickly. And my skills, in some
places, are outdated. I was, atone point, a hot gun hired hand
(11:01):
Google Account Manager. I'm sureI could get back there, but my
skills are out of date. I am nolonger really super great at
that. People that are right, sothe company has a whole
ecosystem built around that, andthey're better at it, and they
spend more time on it, and theythink about it more than I do,
but a lot of people don't wantto hear that, and so you'll get
people that will come into theecosystem with outdated ideas
(11:23):
about how to be marketing theirbusinesses. The big one lately
is they'll be thinking aboutniche audiences in meta.
Because four years ago, youcould target, I don't know, 49
year old dads who live inBrooklyn like me, differently
than you could target 42 yearold dads who live in lower
Manhattan like my friend, andyou could have different
(11:44):
audiences and different creativeand different ideal customer
profiles. Go after these peopledifferently, and you don't
anymore. Now they're all putinto broad targeting, and the
crate is what drives the resultsto a large degree. So that's a
big one. Actually, my biggestthing is you have to know how
many, not your revenue goals,because everyone has everyone
has those, but how many newcustomers you need to get to
(12:06):
your new revenue goals. And thenthe subset answer is, a lot of
people are looking at outdatedmethods of advertising where
they're focusing on things thatjust aren't impactful anymore.
They don't want to listen toanyone else's advice about
stuff.
Yeah, the era of Mad Men,unfortunately has come to pass.
Sorry, Don Draper, he'll beokay. All right, so break it
(12:32):
down for us then. So how canfrom your experience? How can
B2B marketers think creativelyto reach new people and walk us
through those steps they need totake to help sales generate
better, more qualified leads.And you've talked to us about
some of the stuff already.
Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna, I'mgonna repeat some of it, because
I try to keep it simple, and Ithink it's worth, worth just
going into it. It's knowing howmany being honest about your
(12:54):
revenue goals is the first thingmost people have those more is
not a goal, by the way, butgrowing by 30% is a goal.
Growing by 10% is a goal growingby a million dollars. Having a
specific goal is the very firstthing.
Then, being honest with yourselfabout what's going to happen to
your business if you don't getany new customers, if you only
focus on existing customers,you're going to be more
(13:15):
profitable in the short term.You're going to not have to
worry about sales outreach.You're not going to spend your
time doing that, but you're not,you're probably not going to be
growing as much over time ifyou're only focusing on existing
customers. Probably so set arevenue goal that's specific
back into in an honest way, howmany of your existing clients
are going to leave over the nextyear? And your business might be
(13:35):
a business where 100% of thepeople leave, or might be a
business where 90% of the peoplewhere 10% of the people leave,
and you've got a very stickybusiness, but whatever the
number is, know it and then, andthen, and then find out how many
new customers you need to growto hit your targets based on
your churn ratio.
And then I listened to a bunchof your episodes. Listen to most
(13:58):
of the ones I could recently.And you had a guy on a few weeks
ago talking about HubSpot. Youneed some way to track things,
and HubSpot is a great way to doit. You can do it in Salesforce.
If you're smaller. You can do itwith a with a spreadsheet, but
at some point you need some CRMsoftware to track so in my
hypothetical example of I have100 clients, I know I'm going to
lose 10. I want to grow by 30%that means I need 10 to get back
to zero, and I need 30 more togrow to 30% then I need to know
(14:22):
my closing ratio. So let's,let's say, if I want 40
customers, that my closing ratiois 10% I'm using these round
numbers to make it easy. Okay,that means I need 40 customers.
That means I need 400 salesqualified leads to get and just
saying that out loud, and havingconsensus across the
organization, with your salesteam and the marketing team and
(14:42):
the operation team, and howthat's going to work. How are
you going to staff up when youwhen the when you get these new
clients in over the course ofthe year, and just develop a
consensus around that, andeveryone being on the same page,
and so Okay, now I need 400sales qualified leads this year.
Where am I going to get them?And then taking a look at
HubSpot, where you got. Of lastyear, and that's probably a good
starting a good starting point.I don't I think there's some
(15:04):
issues with the attribution andHubSpot and triple whale and
glue and all these things, butso I think there's some buzz in
the way you can get to thosenumbers. But it's set a
financial goal. Find how manynew customers you need. Once
you're honest with yourselfabout your churn ratio, find out
your closing ratio, so you canback into how many leads you
need, and decide where you'regoing to get them from. And it's
not everyone does that. There'sa lot of like I'm going to I'm
(15:27):
hoping for growth this year. Soanyway, that's my, that's my
really, that's sort of didactic,but I, but I believe that I've
been doing this for 17 years,and it's the path we follow.
Yeah, yeah, no, no, absolutely,absolutely. I mean, all of the
things you just said, like,like, really resonated with me.
(15:48):
And it's that it's that wholeand I find this to be true, not
just for smaller companies, evenlarger ones too. They get really
busy, and because they're busy,they're like, Okay, let's just
park the whole new clientacquisition, right? And it's
such a dangerous thing to do,right?
Yeah, and they on the, we'retalking about B2B, but on the,
on the, on the, on the, I do, Ideal with B2B because I'm in
(16:12):
sales for my agency, and I neednew customers. And but then one
of the things that the customerswe get in are doing, and I think
this is a function of interestrates, and it might not be, but
it certainly correlates interestrates going up. Is focusing on
efficiency, and what people meanby efficiency, generally, in
digital advertising is sellingto selling new products to
existing customers, as opposedto getting new customers in. And
(16:34):
if you don't get new customersin, you're you're just gonna
die. You're just gonna efficientyourself right out of business.
Woman named Erica, who we workwith, talks about it being a
death spiral, and I'm not sure Ican talk to a client directly
and tell them they're in a deathspiral. That she can as the
investor, and she's and she'sright about it,
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's forsure. That's for sure, just
(16:55):
because we're talking about thistopic, about, like, okay,
thinking creatively on gettingnew clients. Can you give us an
example, ideally like, maybefrom your own company, how you
didthat?
Well, for our business casestudies work well, because
people want to see that thethings they've done that you've
done things for other peoplethat are that are like them,
that can be a little bit of adouble edged sword, because
sometimes people wantexclusivity, right? And then you
(17:19):
get, look, I only want to dealwith people that sell pens. Do
you have a selling pen casestudy? Case study? Yes. And then
that's great. Or someone couldsay, well, do I only want to be
the only pen company you have? Idon't want anyone's ever sold
them before.
But case studies work, workreally, really well in terms of
business to business. Work, itreally, it really is. The number
one thing that I found thatworks over time is being able to
say to someone who's going tohire you for, you know, for
(17:41):
$10,000 a month, or $100,000 amonth, or a half a million
dollars a month, or $2,000 amonth for the next couple of
years, being able to say tothem, we've done this before.
We've done it several times.Here are the results that we've
generated for some other people.I think it's going to work for
you, too, if we follow the sameplaybook. Let's take some shots
here and see it. See how manygoals we can score together.
That really is the number one.It's the number one thing for
(18:03):
me.
It comes down to creative we runmeta ads for ourselves, right?
And we have all thesesuppositions about what's going
to work in our meta ads, and wehave text based ones, and we're
constantly doing doing teststext based, versus image based,
versus hook based, but, but it'sreally always about self
assessing and proving to peoplethat you can do what they want
(18:23):
them to what they want you todo. If you walk in the door with
a case, if you're a makeupcompany and you call mace
interactive, we can send youfive makeup case studies, which
I presume they've read on ourwebsite before, they call us.
That lets them know, hey, theseguys, these guys could do this.
They've been in business for 16or 17 years, and they've got a
lot of track record for this.And it's less about focusing on
(18:44):
the the widgets and theoffering. So we have a tech
stack, right? Like we'veinvested in our tech stack at
Mason, and we talk about itduring the sales process. But I
fundamentally believe thatpeople, and it's part of it,
people like it. We have thingsthat we do hire us, you can get
that would cost you 20 times asmuch if you got them on your
own. You get that for free, orit's built in. It's that's all
true.
But I think what people arebuying is the benefit of growing
(19:07):
their business and theexperience of having worked with
us. I think focusing on thebenefit is always works for us,
as opposed to the I can talkabout our tenure, and I can talk
about that we have a billiondollars managed, and these are
all these are true, and I cantalk about our tech stack, and
it's great. It's great, it'sexpensive, and it works well for
clients. But I think those are,those are not as important as
the overall putting themtogether and saying, This is our
(19:29):
history of driving results. Thebenefit of hiring us is that
you're going to get theseresults, as opposed to, as
opposed to listing the featuresthat we have three offices a
tech stack this much experience.I think people care much more
about the benefit of hiring usthan the individual. Hiring us
in the individual components.Generally, there are certainly
people that are that want tofocus in on the on the on the
products of hiring us or anyoneelse. But generally, it's about
(19:50):
the benefits.
That right there. What you'vedescribed, that's the perfect
example of like you're lookingat it from the customer's lens,
right? Like, if I'm thepotential customer. Them are
looking at you, and are you theright service provider or
company or whatnot, you know,the right fit for us, versus
flipping it the other wayaround? And, like, look how
(20:10):
awesome we are. Look how manyawards we want.
Yeah, yeah. And the corollary tothat is what we talk about is
the brand prison. So, like, sowe'll look, we have a lot of
fashion client but about half ofour clients are schools and
about half of our clients arefashion brands. And people say,
why? And it's probably becausethose are two things. I like
education is a unifying forceand an edifying force in this
(20:31):
country and others. Oureducation systems, our higher
education system, is a thing tobe proud of, and makes us a
source of light for peoplearound the globe. And I like
nice clothes. And both thosethings can happen at the same
time, but so clients come to usfor help with those things, and
sometimes they'll say, I don'twant to try new approaches. I
don't want to try new creativebecause it's not on brand. And I
(20:53):
understand that. I understandwant to be on brand, but if
you're focusing so much on yourbrand that you can't get the
word out, it's no one's seeingyou, and you're in your own
brand prison. We have a clientthat sells, how do I say this?
We have a subscription basedclient that sells a unique
feature. Let's call it mopedsand, and. And they have a great
(21:18):
feature, a great way to buy amoped for cheap. And their ads
don't say, get a good moped forcheap. Their ads say something
about, like, the nature of thecompany and how it was founded.
And I understand their desire todo that. I really do, and I'm
not against it, but I've reallygot to push them to get out of
their own brand prison. Becausethey're they are in, they are in
(21:39):
a brand prison, this client oftheir own making, of focusing on
on the brand of their scooters,and how they and their mopeds,
and how they how they function.And once, I'm convinced that,
once I get them to break out oftheir own brand prison and focus
instead on the benefit of theconsumer, which is great moped
electric for cheap, that they'regoing to the sales are going to
go through the roof. So breakingout of brand prison is, or is a
(22:01):
new way we talk about that withpeople.
There seem to be a lot ofcompanies, at least, also, in my
experience, that are trapped inthat prison. And it's, it's a
steep hill to climb with themthat they just, they just
somehow can't break out of it,even if they wanted to, right?
Yeah, and it's an interestingthing. And again, I'm not, I'm
not complaining about this. I'msure I did this in my own life,
(22:22):
in my own in my own ways, so Idon't want to sound studio about
this. But like when you when youhire an agency, if the agency is
credible, the people probablyfound that it came from a
consultancy or another agency.My senior team, my Vice
President of Operations, ourhead of SEO, our Senior
(22:42):
strategists, our clientdirectors, client facing
directors and down. Those peoplehave all seen more budgets and
more media plans and more ofwhat works across our client
portfolio. About 60 clientsacross our 60 client portfolio
with billions of dollars, theyhave just seen more of these
plans and budgets and strategydocuments than really any one
(23:03):
client has, you know, and maybeour analysts aren't, aren't,
aren't, aren't used to lookingat that the same way a vice
president is. But they've allseen it. We've all talked about
it. And then, and then clientswill come in and they'll they'll
say, here's my plan. What do youthink? And I it's a challenge.
It's a challenge to talk toclients and find a way to convey
to them that you should listento us more. We see more plans
(23:23):
than you. And here's what, thisisn't going to work.
I'll give you an example. Oneclient came in, our client, that
guy went to Wharton, raised,raised money, started a product
was taking off, and he had a hehad a he had a financial model
going through it forward fouryears. And his conversion rate,
the rate at which his model, therate at which people landed on
his website and then bought theproduct with a make up the
(23:45):
number. Let's say it was at 1%it wasn't it says 1% he had a
fixed formula for his conversionrate increasing each quarter.
Let's say it would increase 10%a quarter, which is a great
call. It's a great goal to beoptimizing your website and your
creative and your pricingstructure and all these things
to focus on getting an increasein conversion rate. That's a big
win. He's right to focus on it,but your conversion rate is not
(24:06):
going to compound at 10% bettereach quarter in perpetuities.
It's not going to happen becauseeventually, if you do that math,
you're going to have a400,000,000% conversion rate,
which is not how math works. SoI said to the guy when I was
talking to him, I said, I reallylike your plan. There are parts
of it that are so sophisticatedI've never seen before. Thank
you. I've learned something fromthis is really great. You asked
(24:27):
me what I thought about it all.That's true.
Also, here's one thing as apoint of sort of developmental
criticism that I might that Imight offer for you, sort of
forward looking at lookingideas. Having been through the
Springer a bunch of times, Ithink maybe we should take a
look at the conversion rate thatyou have hard coded as
increasing by 10% a quarter, andlook maybe historically, what
(24:47):
some other benchmarks are acrossthe portfolio. And that
Christian is as delicate way asI can say that. And the guy's
like, no. We're gonna, we'regonna go with our math. Okay,
you know. So like, I find, Ifind it interesting when, like,
like, if you hire an architect,maybe you give them an opinion
(25:08):
on where you want the stairs.But ultimately the architect
tells you you need to improvethe foundation. You could
probably listen to the architectand not decide you're gonna do
it. Probably listen to thedentist when they tell you need
your teeth cleaned, not say,I've got teeth and I don't agree
with you, so such as life.
Yeah, I mean, that formula intheory, that sounds wonderful,
but, but to your point, inapplication, there's just no way
(25:32):
that that is gonna work.
That is correct. That is totallycorrect, but it's fun, and that
guy's very successful, and heand he's doing great. So, yeah,
I mean.
Ok, fantastic, fantastic. Allright, my friend, we get to the
point in the conversation wherewe're talking about actionable
tips, and man, you've given usplenty already, but let's just
assume there's somebody outthere that's listening to this
(25:53):
interview between you and I andyou you want them to A - take
your advice. B - act on it rightnow, not in 12 months like right
now. What are three to fivethings you would tell them to
do?
The first thing is, and Irealize it sounds self serving
coming from an agency guy, thefirst thing I would do is, I
would ask my agency what theywould do if they were my shoes,
(26:14):
and listen to them not dowhatever they say. I wouldn't do
whatever I say. But I reallywould sit down and say, Hey,
I've hired you for a fee. You'veseen a lot of stuff. What would
you do if you were in my chairand you had full control? That's
the that's the first thing Iwould do.
The second thing, and thesearen't the next thing I would do
if, in terms of actionablesteps, is, again, figure out
(26:35):
your churn ratio, right? Figureout your turn ratio. Figure out
how many customers are going tolose this. And it might be. You
might be. You might have a verysticky product. You might have a
not sticky product, but there'ssome number.
Find out what that number is foryour planning and then set new
customer goals. That's the thirdone, right? Is new? Is New
Customer goals.
The fourth one would be to lookat your last three or four deals
(26:59):
that you closed and askyourself, in an honest way why
they closed and what the realtrigger was. I think it's worth,
we, all, most of us, use otteror fireflies in our notes. Now.
It's worth it's worth listeningto those things again, or using
AI to look at those things andparse it through and and say,
like, what do you it might justhave been price. It might have
been the way you smiled thatday, but it might have been the
(27:20):
sophisticated way you packagethe clients responses the
clients needs. But it's worthreally thinking about that and
then.
And then, the last thing is,when you're focusing on
creative, make sure you'refocusing on the customer, on the
benefit of the customer. Get newcustomer goals. Figure your turn
ratio out. Listen to youragency. Don't have to do
(27:41):
anything. They say, but listento them focus on creative that
that focuses on the on the onthe feature of your on the on
the on the benefit of yourproduct. Nothing. Features are
the main ones. I think I forgotone when I recap that, but I
think, I think we got it.
Looking at the last three tofour deals.
Yes, thank you. Yeah, in anhonest way, yeah.
(28:01):
So, why did they close or Yeah.And then what was it? What was
it that helped close that deal?Right? What was the, what was
the, was the no brainer? There?Okay, okay, fantastic,
fantastic, fantastic advice. Nowhere comes the next question,
which I always called the Loveit or hate it question. But at
some point, man, at some point,you're gonna have to show
(28:21):
somebody that this stuff isworking. We are make we are
making progress. So metrics,right? So are there any
particular metrics that youthink beauty we marketers should
be paying attention to?
Yeah, sales, the the I had aconversation with a very
sophisticated woman who workedat Expedia and now is a CMO, one
(28:43):
of our clients, and she and Ilearned something from her. She
This isn't groundbreaking, butthe way she talked about it was
so sophisticated and smart, andshe she packaged it in the way
that made me think about itdifferently, which she talked
about was de averaging yourmetrics. Because a lot of times,
if you're if you're in house,and I think from your from your
listenership. I think maybethere's some people listening
that work in house for in themarketing team, or maybe they're
(29:06):
starting their careers andthey're reporting to a marketing
director. If that's true, andyou're listening to this, I'm
sure that your boss is going toask you a question, like, say
something like, I'll do more ifit works, if the ROI is there,
I'll keep spending what should Ido next? And that that's not
really, it's not really fair foryou or anyone at any point in
(29:28):
their career, because that's alittle bit like saying, if I, if
I, if I, if I look like DanielCraig in James Bond, I'm built
like that. If I go to the gymone day and I look like Daniel
Craig, I'll go back again to thegym the second day. Just not how
it works. You have to, you haveto eat nothing but chicken for
six months and go to the gymevery day to begin to approach
that. It's worth sort ofthinking about that and the way
this person who was the CMOworked with Expedia, and is now
(29:51):
a CMO of our client talked aboutwas de averaging your metrics.
The top of the funnel ads arenot supposed to have the same
ROI as the bottom. The funnelads, you're allowed. Your boss
is allowed. You are allowed, I'mallowed. We're all allowed to
say, I need to operate at acertain row ads or ROI or
efficiency metric. That's great.
But there's things in thatfunnel that in your advertising
(30:12):
stack, that might not be held tothose same metrics, as long as
the aggregate is still there,that should be judgment
different ways. So let's justlook at that. Let's say you have
two campaigns that are live. Oneis about reach for new
customers, and one is aboutremarketing. I'm making these
numbers up. The Reach Customerhas zero ro has has one ROI, and
(30:33):
the remarketing has a five ROI.And your boss says, I want to be
at a four ROI. Anything,anything below four cut. It
might be an easy temptation tosay, well, let's cut the reach
campaign. Is it one roi i bosswanted before doing marketing?
Is it five? If I turn that oneoff, my numbers are better. My
boss would like it. I think it'sthe wrong way to look at it. The
right way to look at is toaverage those two things
(30:53):
together and see together, arethey still averaging to the four
of the boss or the marketingteam or me wants to be at, or
the client wants to be at, andthen judge those top of the
funnel campaigns by differentmetrics. They you shouldn't
judge an introduction campaignby the same last touch. Did they
buy it as a meta remarketing?You should be looking at reach.
You should look at frequency.You're looking at CPM (Cost Per
(31:15):
Mille). You should be looking atthe percentage of new users.
There's all sorts of things thatyou can look at there that are
that are different. To get madat a reach campaign for not
producing return on investmentimmediately is like getting mad
at a squirrel for not swimmingas far as a fish can swim. It
doesn't track. They do differentthings.
Absolutely.
Sorry, I got my high horse alittle bit, but that's.
(31:36):
All good. All good. No, and theyshould be treated differently.
They should be measureddifferently, absolutely. Oh, by
the way, I caught that like youthe way you pronounce. Daniel
Craig, right? Because I think hewas on the Stephen Colbert show,
and he roasted Stephen Colbertfor saying, Daniel Craig.
I remember that, actually, yes,I remember that. Yeah, I'm
(31:57):
sorry. I'm just doing it the waythat's a little outdated as a
reference. But I do, I do use itwith people still. It's like,
it's like, if the ROI is there,I'll do it. Well, that's not how
this works. Like, I mean, like,you think Coca Cola has an
immediate ROI on Super Bowlcommercials. That's not, that's
not looking at us. How manypeople they get, anyway.
Exactly, um, it kind of soundslike you're on your sole box.
(32:18):
But just stay up there a littlea little bit longer. Just, just,
just, just for this nextquestion. All right, a status
quo in your area of expertisethat you passionately disagree
with. And why?
I think the status quo that Idisagree with is the is the over
reliance on too few mediaplatforms. And by that, I mean
(32:40):
most people that come into ourecosystem come in wanting to do
if you're a school client, Imentioned half our clients or
schools have from our fashionbrands. And that's not exactly
correct, but it's about, aboutcorrect. The school clients are
gonna do more Google. 70 centsof every dollar is gonna be in
Google, on average, the directto consumer brands, the fashion
brands that we're selling to onour business to business way
(33:03):
those guys are going to do 8,70,cents of every dollar on matter,
really, on Instagram, and thatis the status quo. And they walk
in and they and people come inmatters and mature industry.
People come in with ideas aboutit, and they have ideas about
campaigns and influencers andcampaign setup. And although
there might be great ideas thestatus quo I have a problem with
there is when you think aboutyour own media consumption, how
(33:24):
much, how much, how much of yourown media consumption is
Instagram in your life? Like ofall the media you consume, what
percentage of it is Instagram?
20% maybe.
Maybe part, maybe, maybe a lotmore of it. For me, is watching
TV. Was watching Hulu with mywife with a glass of wine,
right? That's hours of time. Andmaybe Instagram is in the
elevator between meetings. Maybefrom the power user, it's half
(33:48):
an hour in the morning catchingup, but it's not 80% and yet.
And yet, the status quo in theindustry is, I'm going to spend
somewhere between 70 to 80% ofmy dollars in Instagram and try
to hack that and make it workbetter, which is, I understand
it, but I don't love it. Becauseif you think about your own
media consumptions, you don'tspend 80% of your time on
(34:08):
Instagram. So why would youspend 80% of your budget on
Instagram hoping to go so that'sa status quo that I don't that I
don't love it. Yeah, greatquestion. I had to really, had
to really dig for that one. Iappreciate it.
That's what it's there for. Man,it's, um, it's getting people
to, like, I hate to say, thinkout of the box, but just, just
think differently, right? Um.All right, here comes the bonus
(34:31):
question, and I kind of preppedyou for this already. All right,
warden the street, is thatyou're kind of handy with a
guitar. So the question is, thequestion is, if you were given
the opportunity to either play aset at a club or go on tour with
a guitarist, who would it be?And why?
(34:53):
Today? What would I do?
If this person called you, likeright after this interview and
said, Hey, Brook, I've seen yourvideo of you practicing your
guitar.
What would make me leave my wifeand family and job and either do
as one set or a small tour? Soif the darkness called out of
(35:13):
the UK, if the darkness calledand they needed, I can't play as
well as that guy, but if theyneeded someone to play back up
on some of those songs, or carrythe amps around or or restring
the guitars, but maybe I couldplay back up on a few songs. I
would absolutely do that. Plusthey don't tour for that long.
They tour for a couple of weeksat a time at the most. So I
(35:34):
would, I would, I would, thatwould be awesome.
Fantastic. Awesome. Brook, thishas been an awesome
conversation. Man, thanks foryour time and for sharing all
these insights with thelisteners. So please, quick
intro to yourself and how folksout there can get in touch with
you.
(36:01):
You can find us athttps://masoninteractive.com.
Anything you fill out in thatwebsite, we'll go to a
strategist and also me. You canfind me on LinkedIn. Brook
Llewellyn Shepard, but ourwebsite,
https://masoninteractive.com isthe best way to find us. Thanks
so much.
Fantastic. Fantastic once again.Brook, thanks for your time.
Take care, stay safe and talk toyou soon.
Thank you.
All right. Bye, for now.
Regardless of which B2B verticalyou find yourself in, we can all
agree that getting new customersto hit your financial goals is
imperative. That said, we knowthat many traditional methods
and tactics are no longereffective, which means that we
need to get more creative aboutcustomer acquisition. So how can
you go about doing that, andwhat role do B2B marketers have
(00:21):
to play?
Welcome to this episode of theB2B Marketers, the Mission
podcast, and I'm your host,Christian Klepp. Today, I'll be
talking to Brooke Shepard, whowill be answering this question.
He's the founder and CEO ofMason Interactive, where data
design and strategy worktogether. Find out more about
what this B2B marketers missionis.
(00:43):
I'm gonna say. Brooke Shepard,welcome to the show, Sir.
Thank you, sir. Thanks forhaving me.
Really looking forward to thisconversation, Brook, because,
man, this is not just pertinentto B2B marketers. I think this
is just highly relevant tobusinesses everywhere. So if you
don't mind, we'll just, uh, getstarted. Hop right to it right.
Let's do it.
So you, Sir, are on a mission tohelp businesses grow through
(01:08):
paid social, paid search, socialmedia, SEO (Search Engine
Optimization), email and beyond.But for this conversation, I'm
gonna say we need a zero in on atopic that I think has become
part of your professionalmission, and that's how to think
creatively and get new customersin B2B. So you mentioned
something just for context forthe audience. You mentioned
(01:28):
something to me during our preinterview call, and it kind of
stuck. It's less about thetechnology you have and it's
about how you're getting newcustomers to hit your financial
goals. So here comes thequestion, why do you think so
many B2B marketers obsess overthe shiny object instead of
focusing on how they can helpreach new customers?
The short answer is, I thinkit's easy to focus on a new fun
(01:51):
toy. I have another theory aboutthat, which is that if you're
buying a piece of software,you're saying to yourself, this
technology is going to help meand help make me better, whereas
if you're buying a consultant orlike hiring me, I think you're
saying to yourself, wow, thisperson knows something I don't
know. And I think that'sprobably harder. I think it's
(02:13):
probably a harder position formyself and for anyone, I think
to be in it's which to say, justto recast that it's easier to
buy the object than it is tohave to have to acknowledge that
you want to listen to someoneelse's advice, because the
object is a shiny new toy thatmay, that may work very, very
well, and may transform yourbusiness. Certainly, there's
technologies we onboard thatwork really well, but yes,
people definitely get distractedby six months long integrations
(02:36):
of shiny objects.
What do you think a lot of thesecompanies, regardless of whether
it's the B2B marketersthemselves or the companies
they're in, why do they Why doyou think that they resort to I
guess I'm not gonna say triedand tested, because they were
tried at some point now they'rejust like, slowly becoming
irrelevant. But why are theystill defaulting to these old
(02:58):
tactics instead of thinkingcreatively?
That's a great question. I wastalking yesterday to describe
himself as private equity, as afinancier who I was, I was
really jealous of the situationhe was in, because the way he
the way his company works is hetakes positions in businesses
(03:20):
and and he might, he might buy30% of your company, or 20 or
80% but he buys a piece of yourbusiness, and then he owns part
of it, and then he's on theboard, and you sort of have to
listen to him. Because he ownspart of the company. And his
joke was, no, they don't alwayslisten to me at all. And I was,
and I was talking about thedifference between that and and
and working in an agency wherepeople don't always listen to us
(03:43):
and follow our own advice, whichis, I think we're going to get
more into this with some of theother questions we have ready.
But I don't always know whetherI want to focus on what's worked
before and focus on what's triedand true and iterate on it and
make it better.
I get the I mean, there's astory once about once when I was
selling advertising, I walkedinto a guy's office and he had a
poster in the wall, and it was,it was a poster of two armies
(04:06):
from from medieval timesfighting, and a salesman was
trying to sell one of the armiesof machine gun, a Gatlin gun,
and the guy in charge of one ofthe army said, No, this was a
cartoon on his wall. So no, Idon't want to focus on anything.
I can't be distracted by asalesman. I want to focus on the
tried and true, which was asilly it's his pointing. How
silly it was, because if only hehad a Gatlin gun, this cartoon
(04:28):
guy and this cartoon poster onthis wall, this office, he
would, he would have won thebattle. So I you need it. You
need a mix of both things.Honestly.
Yeah, no, absolutely,absolutely. So on this topic of,
you know, thinking of newmethods, creatively
unconventional, finding ways toget new customers. What are some
(04:49):
of these key pitfalls you thinkmarketers should avoid, and what
should they be doing instead?
I think the number one thing,and I said this in other places,
I think the number one thingthat people need to focus on is.
Is how many new customers theywant, and that's that's a little
easier for B2B people tounderstand, but, but it's, it's
like, just so far and away isthe number one thing. If I ask
(05:11):
someone that comes to our agencyfor help growing their business,
and are my sales teams talkingto them, one of the questions
I'd like to ask, because mostpeople have revenue goals, most
people have an idea of they wantto be up 30% or they want to get
to 5 million, or they want toget to 20 million, or they want
to increase. Most people havegoals like that. But if you ask
someone the follow up question,which is say they want to get
(05:32):
from 5 million to $30 million infive years, that's great. How
many of those are going to comefrom new customers is and if
someone could answer that, Iknow that I'm dealing with
someone who's thought with somediligence and perspicacity about
their business. And not everyonecan, not everyone can think
about that. It's easiersometimes to talk about
upselling existing clients,which is important, or reselling
(05:54):
old clients, which is alsoimportant. But I think really
the key thing for when you'rethinking about growing your
business is, how many newcustomers do you need to get to
where you're where you're goingto want to go.
Yeah, yeah, no, that'sabsolutely right. And I'm going
to throw this additional like,follow up question in there for
you, Brook, it is 2025, but howmuch of a role do you think AI
(06:15):
plays in all of this?
A lot, the...
Short answer.
So well for B2B, so, so therewas an article. There was an
article in The Economist, andthe article was something along
the lines of if, if ChatGPT isan efficiency booster, and if
(06:37):
the Gross Domestic Product is afunction of how many people
there are times how much they'reproducing on average. Why
haven't the because we're allusing ChatGPT, why haven't the
adoptions of these technologiesincreased productivity in the
GDP (Gross Domestic Product)?And my answer to that is, I
don't know this. I'm not aneconomist, but my answer to that
(06:58):
is, as follows, part of ourbusiness to business plan, not
all of it. It's a slice of ourpie is to do RFPs (Request For
Proposal). And for people whodon't know if you want to work
with the government or a biginstitution, they usually offer
they usually issue requests forproposals, and they're very
detailed, and you have to fillthem out, and it's time
consuming and it's difficult.
We used to do fewer RFPresponses with more diligence.
(07:20):
Now with chat. So let's say weused to do 10 a year. Now we
might do 40 a year using ChatGPTor Claude or whatever else we're
using. So So you think, Oh,we're being, we're being a lot
more productive. We went from 10to 40. But the issue is,
everyone else went from 10 to 40as well. It's not, it's not as
though we're the only onesleveraging these tools. And so
we have this competitiveadvantage. It's, it's, it's, can
(07:43):
everyone use them, and how canyou use them? We're recording
this the time. We're recordingthis ChatGPT 4.0 came out a
little while ago. It has averbal tech that everyone, I
think, is catching on to with umdash. It's not the journey dash,
it's the destination you get. Soyou have to see those things
floating around. But so it'sheavily integrated into our
process as an agency, in termsof making ourselves more
(08:05):
efficient. We use it. We use itall the time. And certainly it's
using certainly it's helping usproduce more creative more
quickly. Certainly it's helpingus analyze things more quickly.
It's not giving us ideas yet. Sofar, the ideas are still, are
still coming from us. So that'smy my answer about that is its
level. It's it's making us moreproductive, but we're being
product more productive at thesame rate everyone else is. So
(08:28):
it's not like a net increase inour output. I don't think in
terms of our economic output asa business. Does that track?
Does that?
Yep, yep. Absolutely,absolutely. I just want to go
back to something you saidearlier, because you were
talking about, like, how youhave these conversations with
clients, about, like, what arethe revenue goals, and where do
they want to be? Those that havedone their due diligence or have
(08:50):
thought this through? Well, theydemonstrate that in the way they
answer that question. Justdigging a little bit deeper,
where do you see? A lot of thesewe can use your company as an
example. In these conversationsyou're having with clients,
where do you see them making thesame mistake over and over again
in terms of new customeracquisition?
(09:10):
Well, not having one, not havinga new customer goal. So I'm
going to make up some numbers,because I don't want to give my
business plan away. But as anillustration, right? I know what
our client churn ratio is. Iknow historically, how many of
our clients that we have nowwill leave us by the end of the
year. That's a, that's aknowable figure. Some years are
better, some years are worse,but I have 16 years of data that
(09:32):
says that this percentage of ourclients are going to leave us.
So if I know that going in, Iknow that to be flat, I need to
replace that many customers,right? Let's, let's use round
numbers. Let's say I have 100clients, and I know that I'm
going to lose 10 of them in ayear. That means I need 10 more
at my average client value tostay flat. If I want to grow by
30% I need 30 I need 40 more, 10to break even, and 30 to get to
(09:56):
30% higher. So if I need 40customers through the year, I. I
have to figure out where I wantto get them from, and then I
could have a discussion aroundtrade shows, RFPs, referrals,
advertising and email outreach.I can go through the different
pieces of this, but I wouldn'tif I didn't have the first part,
which is I need 40 new customersin this hypothetical scenario to
(10:18):
grow by 30% year over year. Idon't think I could operate the
business. I'd be, I'd be doingthings like, Should we do a
trade show? I don't know. How'sthe pipeline? Weak, yes, strong,
no, right? And having theseconversations that are about,
like, I don't even know what?
So it's not about the revenuefor me. It's about the it's
about the number of newcustomers that you need going
(10:38):
in, and where are you going toget them from? The other thing,
the other flip side of that thatwe see a lot, is this industry,
the digital advertisingindustry, changes so quickly
that skills get outdated veryquickly. And my skills, in some
places, are outdated. I was, atone point, a hot gun hired hand
(11:01):
Google Account Manager. I'm sureI could get back there, but my
skills are out of date. I am nolonger really super great at
that. People that are right, sothe company has a whole
ecosystem built around that, andthey're better at it, and they
spend more time on it, and theythink about it more than I do,
but a lot of people don't wantto hear that, and so you'll get
people that will come into theecosystem with outdated ideas
(11:23):
about how to be marketing theirbusinesses. The big one lately
is they'll be thinking aboutniche audiences in meta.
Because four years ago, youcould target, I don't know, 49
year old dads who live inBrooklyn like me, differently
than you could target 42 yearold dads who live in lower
Manhattan like my friend, andyou could have different
(11:44):
audiences and different creativeand different ideal customer
profiles. Go after these peopledifferently, and you don't
anymore. Now they're all putinto broad targeting, and the
crate is what drives the resultsto a large degree. So that's a
big one. Actually, my biggestthing is you have to know how
many, not your revenue goals,because everyone has everyone
has those, but how many newcustomers you need to get to
(12:06):
your new revenue goals. And thenthe subset answer is, a lot of
people are looking at outdatedmethods of advertising where
they're focusing on things thatjust aren't impactful anymore.
They don't want to listen toanyone else's advice about
stuff.
Yeah, the era of Mad Men,unfortunately has come to pass.
Sorry, Don Draper, he'll beokay. All right, so break it
(12:32):
down for us then. So how canfrom your experience? How can
B2B marketers think creativelyto reach new people and walk us
through those steps they need totake to help sales generate
better, more qualified leads.And you've talked to us about
some of the stuff already.
Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna, I'mgonna repeat some of it, because
I try to keep it simple, and Ithink it's worth, worth just
going into it. It's knowing howmany being honest about your
(12:54):
revenue goals is the first thingmost people have those more is
not a goal, by the way, butgrowing by 30% is a goal.
Growing by 10% is a goal growingby a million dollars. Having a
specific goal is the very firstthing.
Then, being honest with yourselfabout what's going to happen to
your business if you don't getany new customers, if you only
focus on existing customers,you're going to be more
(13:15):
profitable in the short term.You're going to not have to
worry about sales outreach.You're not going to spend your
time doing that, but you're not,you're probably not going to be
growing as much over time ifyou're only focusing on existing
customers. Probably so set arevenue goal that's specific
back into in an honest way, howmany of your existing clients
are going to leave over the nextyear? And your business might be
(13:35):
a business where 100% of thepeople leave, or might be a
business where 90% of the peoplewhere 10% of the people leave,
and you've got a very stickybusiness, but whatever the
number is, know it and then, andthen, and then find out how many
new customers you need to growto hit your targets based on
your churn ratio.
And then I listened to a bunchof your episodes. Listen to most
(13:58):
of the ones I could recently.And you had a guy on a few weeks
ago talking about HubSpot. Youneed some way to track things,
and HubSpot is a great way to doit. You can do it in Salesforce.
If you're smaller. You can do itwith a with a spreadsheet, but
at some point you need some CRMsoftware to track so in my
hypothetical example of I have100 clients, I know I'm going to
lose 10. I want to grow by 30%that means I need 10 to get back
to zero, and I need 30 more togrow to 30% then I need to know
(14:22):
my closing ratio. So let's,let's say, if I want 40
customers, that my closing ratiois 10% I'm using these round
numbers to make it easy. Okay,that means I need 40 customers.
That means I need 400 salesqualified leads to get and just
saying that out loud, and havingconsensus across the
organization, with your salesteam and the marketing team and
(14:42):
the operation team, and howthat's going to work. How are
you going to staff up when youwhen the when you get these new
clients in over the course ofthe year, and just develop a
consensus around that, andeveryone being on the same page,
and so Okay, now I need 400sales qualified leads this year.
Where am I going to get them?And then taking a look at
HubSpot, where you got. Of lastyear, and that's probably a good
starting a good starting point.I don't I think there's some
(15:04):
issues with the attribution andHubSpot and triple whale and
glue and all these things, butso I think there's some buzz in
the way you can get to thosenumbers. But it's set a
financial goal. Find how manynew customers you need. Once
you're honest with yourselfabout your churn ratio, find out
your closing ratio, so you canback into how many leads you
need, and decide where you'regoing to get them from. And it's
not everyone does that. There'sa lot of like I'm going to I'm
(15:27):
hoping for growth this year. Soanyway, that's my, that's my
really, that's sort of didactic,but I, but I believe that I've
been doing this for 17 years,and it's the path we follow.
Yeah, yeah, no, no, absolutely,absolutely. I mean, all of the
things you just said, like,like, really resonated with me.
(15:48):
And it's that it's that wholeand I find this to be true, not
just for smaller companies, evenlarger ones too. They get really
busy, and because they're busy,they're like, Okay, let's just
park the whole new clientacquisition, right? And it's
such a dangerous thing to do,right?
Yeah, and they on the, we'retalking about B2B, but on the,
on the, on the, on the, I do, Ideal with B2B because I'm in
(16:12):
sales for my agency, and I neednew customers. And but then one
of the things that the customerswe get in are doing, and I think
this is a function of interestrates, and it might not be, but
it certainly correlates interestrates going up. Is focusing on
efficiency, and what people meanby efficiency, generally, in
digital advertising is sellingto selling new products to
existing customers, as opposedto getting new customers in. And
(16:34):
if you don't get new customersin, you're you're just gonna
die. You're just gonna efficientyourself right out of business.
Woman named Erica, who we workwith, talks about it being a
death spiral, and I'm not sure Ican talk to a client directly
and tell them they're in a deathspiral. That she can as the
investor, and she's and she'sright about it,
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's forsure. That's for sure, just
(16:55):
because we're talking about thistopic, about, like, okay,
thinking creatively on gettingnew clients. Can you give us an
example, ideally like, maybefrom your own company, how you
didthat?
Well, for our business casestudies work well, because
people want to see that thethings they've done that you've
done things for other peoplethat are that are like them,
that can be a little bit of adouble edged sword, because
sometimes people wantexclusivity, right? And then you
(17:19):
get, look, I only want to dealwith people that sell pens. Do
you have a selling pen casestudy? Case study? Yes. And then
that's great. Or someone couldsay, well, do I only want to be
the only pen company you have? Idon't want anyone's ever sold
them before.
But case studies work, workreally, really well in terms of
business to business. Work, itreally, it really is. The number
one thing that I found thatworks over time is being able to
say to someone who's going tohire you for, you know, for
(17:41):
$10,000 a month, or $100,000 amonth, or a half a million
dollars a month, or $2,000 amonth for the next couple of
years, being able to say tothem, we've done this before.
We've done it several times.Here are the results that we've
generated for some other people.I think it's going to work for
you, too, if we follow the sameplaybook. Let's take some shots
here and see it. See how manygoals we can score together.
That really is the number one.It's the number one thing for
(18:03):
me.
It comes down to creative we runmeta ads for ourselves, right?
And we have all thesesuppositions about what's going
to work in our meta ads, and wehave text based ones, and we're
constantly doing doing teststext based, versus image based,
versus hook based, but, but it'sreally always about self
assessing and proving to peoplethat you can do what they want
(18:23):
them to what they want you todo. If you walk in the door with
a case, if you're a makeupcompany and you call mace
interactive, we can send youfive makeup case studies, which
I presume they've read on ourwebsite before, they call us.
That lets them know, hey, theseguys, these guys could do this.
They've been in business for 16or 17 years, and they've got a
lot of track record for this.And it's less about focusing on
(18:44):
the the widgets and theoffering. So we have a tech
stack, right? Like we'veinvested in our tech stack at
Mason, and we talk about itduring the sales process. But I
fundamentally believe thatpeople, and it's part of it,
people like it. We have thingsthat we do hire us, you can get
that would cost you 20 times asmuch if you got them on your
own. You get that for free, orit's built in. It's that's all
true.
But I think what people arebuying is the benefit of growing
(19:07):
their business and theexperience of having worked with
us. I think focusing on thebenefit is always works for us,
as opposed to the I can talkabout our tenure, and I can talk
about that we have a billiondollars managed, and these are
all these are true, and I cantalk about our tech stack, and
it's great. It's great, it'sexpensive, and it works well for
clients. But I think those are,those are not as important as
the overall putting themtogether and saying, This is our
(19:29):
history of driving results. Thebenefit of hiring us is that
you're going to get theseresults, as opposed to, as
opposed to listing the featuresthat we have three offices a
tech stack this much experience.I think people care much more
about the benefit of hiring usthan the individual. Hiring us
in the individual components.Generally, there are certainly
people that are that want tofocus in on the on the on the
products of hiring us or anyoneelse. But generally, it's about
(19:50):
the benefits.
That right there. What you'vedescribed, that's the perfect
example of like you're lookingat it from the customer's lens,
right? Like, if I'm thepotential customer. Them are
looking at you, and are you theright service provider or
company or whatnot, you know,the right fit for us, versus
flipping it the other wayaround? And, like, look how
(20:10):
awesome we are. Look how manyawards we want.
Yeah, yeah. And the corollary tothat is what we talk about is
the brand prison. So, like, sowe'll look, we have a lot of
fashion client but about half ofour clients are schools and
about half of our clients arefashion brands. And people say,
why? And it's probably becausethose are two things. I like
education is a unifying forceand an edifying force in this
(20:31):
country and others. Oureducation systems, our higher
education system, is a thing tobe proud of, and makes us a
source of light for peoplearound the globe. And I like
nice clothes. And both thosethings can happen at the same
time, but so clients come to usfor help with those things, and
sometimes they'll say, I don'twant to try new approaches. I
don't want to try new creativebecause it's not on brand. And I
(20:53):
understand that. I understandwant to be on brand, but if
you're focusing so much on yourbrand that you can't get the
word out, it's no one's seeingyou, and you're in your own
brand prison. We have a clientthat sells, how do I say this?
We have a subscription basedclient that sells a unique
feature. Let's call it mopedsand, and. And they have a great
(21:18):
feature, a great way to buy amoped for cheap. And their ads
don't say, get a good moped forcheap. Their ads say something
about, like, the nature of thecompany and how it was founded.
And I understand their desire todo that. I really do, and I'm
not against it, but I've reallygot to push them to get out of
their own brand prison. Becausethey're they are in, they are in
(21:39):
a brand prison, this client oftheir own making, of focusing on
on the brand of their scooters,and how they and their mopeds,
and how they how they function.And once, I'm convinced that,
once I get them to break out oftheir own brand prison and focus
instead on the benefit of theconsumer, which is great moped
electric for cheap, that they'regoing to the sales are going to
go through the roof. So breakingout of brand prison is, or is a
(22:01):
new way we talk about that withpeople.
There seem to be a lot ofcompanies, at least, also, in my
experience, that are trapped inthat prison. And it's, it's a
steep hill to climb with themthat they just, they just
somehow can't break out of it,even if they wanted to, right?
Yeah, and it's an interestingthing. And again, I'm not, I'm
not complaining about this. I'msure I did this in my own life,
(22:22):
in my own in my own ways, so Idon't want to sound studio about
this. But like when you when youhire an agency, if the agency is
credible, the people probablyfound that it came from a
consultancy or another agency.My senior team, my Vice
President of Operations, ourhead of SEO, our Senior
(22:42):
strategists, our clientdirectors, client facing
directors and down. Those peoplehave all seen more budgets and
more media plans and more ofwhat works across our client
portfolio. About 60 clientsacross our 60 client portfolio
with billions of dollars, theyhave just seen more of these
plans and budgets and strategydocuments than really any one
(23:03):
client has, you know, and maybeour analysts aren't, aren't,
aren't, aren't used to lookingat that the same way a vice
president is. But they've allseen it. We've all talked about
it. And then, and then clientswill come in and they'll they'll
say, here's my plan. What do youthink? And I it's a challenge.
It's a challenge to talk toclients and find a way to convey
to them that you should listento us more. We see more plans
(23:23):
than you. And here's what, thisisn't going to work.
I'll give you an example. Oneclient came in, our client, that
guy went to Wharton, raised,raised money, started a product
was taking off, and he had a hehad a he had a financial model
going through it forward fouryears. And his conversion rate,
the rate at which his model, therate at which people landed on
his website and then bought theproduct with a make up the
(23:45):
number. Let's say it was at 1%it wasn't it says 1% he had a
fixed formula for his conversionrate increasing each quarter.
Let's say it would increase 10%a quarter, which is a great
call. It's a great goal to beoptimizing your website and your
creative and your pricingstructure and all these things
to focus on getting an increasein conversion rate. That's a big
win. He's right to focus on it,but your conversion rate is not
(24:06):
going to compound at 10% bettereach quarter in perpetuities.
It's not going to happen becauseeventually, if you do that math,
you're going to have a400,000,000% conversion rate,
which is not how math works. SoI said to the guy when I was
talking to him, I said, I reallylike your plan. There are parts
of it that are so sophisticatedI've never seen before. Thank
you. I've learned something fromthis is really great. You asked
(24:27):
me what I thought about it all.That's true.
Also, here's one thing as apoint of sort of developmental
criticism that I might that Imight offer for you, sort of
forward looking at lookingideas. Having been through the
Springer a bunch of times, Ithink maybe we should take a
look at the conversion rate thatyou have hard coded as
increasing by 10% a quarter, andlook maybe historically, what
(24:47):
some other benchmarks are acrossthe portfolio. And that
Christian is as delicate way asI can say that. And the guy's
like, no. We're gonna, we'regonna go with our math. Okay,
you know. So like, I find, Ifind it interesting when, like,
like, if you hire an architect,maybe you give them an opinion
(25:08):
on where you want the stairs.But ultimately the architect
tells you you need to improvethe foundation. You could
probably listen to the architectand not decide you're gonna do
it. Probably listen to thedentist when they tell you need
your teeth cleaned, not say,I've got teeth and I don't agree
with you, so such as life.
Yeah, I mean, that formula intheory, that sounds wonderful,
but, but to your point, inapplication, there's just no way
(25:32):
that that is gonna work.
That is correct. That is totallycorrect, but it's fun, and that
guy's very successful, and heand he's doing great. So, yeah,
I mean.
Ok, fantastic, fantastic. Allright, my friend, we get to the
point in the conversation wherewe're talking about actionable
tips, and man, you've given usplenty already, but let's just
assume there's somebody outthere that's listening to this
(25:53):
interview between you and I andyou you want them to A - take
your advice. B - act on it rightnow, not in 12 months like right
now. What are three to fivethings you would tell them to
do?
The first thing is, and Irealize it sounds self serving
coming from an agency guy, thefirst thing I would do is, I
would ask my agency what theywould do if they were my shoes,
(26:14):
and listen to them not dowhatever they say. I wouldn't do
whatever I say. But I reallywould sit down and say, Hey,
I've hired you for a fee. You'veseen a lot of stuff. What would
you do if you were in my chairand you had full control? That's
the that's the first thing Iwould do.
The second thing, and thesearen't the next thing I would do
if, in terms of actionablesteps, is, again, figure out
(26:35):
your churn ratio, right? Figureout your turn ratio. Figure out
how many customers are going tolose this. And it might be. You
might be. You might have a verysticky product. You might have a
not sticky product, but there'ssome number.
Find out what that number is foryour planning and then set new
customer goals. That's the thirdone, right? Is new? Is New
Customer goals.
The fourth one would be to lookat your last three or four deals
(26:59):
that you closed and askyourself, in an honest way why
they closed and what the realtrigger was. I think it's worth,
we, all, most of us, use otteror fireflies in our notes. Now.
It's worth it's worth listeningto those things again, or using
AI to look at those things andparse it through and and say,
like, what do you it might justhave been price. It might have
been the way you smiled thatday, but it might have been the
(27:20):
sophisticated way you packagethe clients responses the
clients needs. But it's worthreally thinking about that and
then.
And then, the last thing is,when you're focusing on
creative, make sure you'refocusing on the customer, on the
benefit of the customer. Get newcustomer goals. Figure your turn
ratio out. Listen to youragency. Don't have to do
(27:41):
anything. They say, but listento them focus on creative that
that focuses on the on the onthe feature of your on the on
the on the benefit of yourproduct. Nothing. Features are
the main ones. I think I forgotone when I recap that, but I
think, I think we got it.
Looking at the last three tofour deals.
Yes, thank you. Yeah, in anhonest way, yeah.
(28:01):
So, why did they close or Yeah.And then what was it? What was
it that helped close that deal?Right? What was the, what was
the, was the no brainer? There?Okay, okay, fantastic,
fantastic, fantastic advice. Nowhere comes the next question,
which I always called the Loveit or hate it question. But at
some point, man, at some point,you're gonna have to show
(28:21):
somebody that this stuff isworking. We are make we are
making progress. So metrics,right? So are there any
particular metrics that youthink beauty we marketers should
be paying attention to?
Yeah, sales, the the I had aconversation with a very
sophisticated woman who workedat Expedia and now is a CMO, one
(28:43):
of our clients, and she and Ilearned something from her. She
This isn't groundbreaking, butthe way she talked about it was
so sophisticated and smart, andshe she packaged it in the way
that made me think about itdifferently, which she talked
about was de averaging yourmetrics. Because a lot of times,
if you're if you're in house,and I think from your from your
listenership. I think maybethere's some people listening
that work in house for in themarketing team, or maybe they're
(29:06):
starting their careers andthey're reporting to a marketing
director. If that's true, andyou're listening to this, I'm
sure that your boss is going toask you a question, like, say
something like, I'll do more ifit works, if the ROI is there,
I'll keep spending what should Ido next? And that that's not
really, it's not really fair foryou or anyone at any point in
(29:28):
their career, because that's alittle bit like saying, if I, if
I, if I, if I look like DanielCraig in James Bond, I'm built
like that. If I go to the gymone day and I look like Daniel
Craig, I'll go back again to thegym the second day. Just not how
it works. You have to, you haveto eat nothing but chicken for
six months and go to the gymevery day to begin to approach
that. It's worth sort ofthinking about that and the way
this person who was the CMOworked with Expedia, and is now
(29:51):
a CMO of our client talked aboutwas de averaging your metrics.
The top of the funnel ads arenot supposed to have the same
ROI as the bottom. The funnelads, you're allowed. Your boss
is allowed. You are allowed, I'mallowed. We're all allowed to
say, I need to operate at acertain row ads or ROI or
efficiency metric. That's great.
But there's things in thatfunnel that in your advertising
(30:12):
stack, that might not be held tothose same metrics, as long as
the aggregate is still there,that should be judgment
different ways. So let's justlook at that. Let's say you have
two campaigns that are live. Oneis about reach for new
customers, and one is aboutremarketing. I'm making these
numbers up. The Reach Customerhas zero ro has has one ROI, and
(30:33):
the remarketing has a five ROI.And your boss says, I want to be
at a four ROI. Anything,anything below four cut. It
might be an easy temptation tosay, well, let's cut the reach
campaign. Is it one roi i bosswanted before doing marketing?
Is it five? If I turn that oneoff, my numbers are better. My
boss would like it. I think it'sthe wrong way to look at it. The
right way to look at is toaverage those two things
(30:53):
together and see together, arethey still averaging to the four
of the boss or the marketingteam or me wants to be at, or
the client wants to be at, andthen judge those top of the
funnel campaigns by differentmetrics. They you shouldn't
judge an introduction campaignby the same last touch. Did they
buy it as a meta remarketing?You should be looking at reach.
You should look at frequency.You're looking at CPM (Cost Per
(31:15):
Mille). You should be looking atthe percentage of new users.
There's all sorts of things thatyou can look at there that are
that are different. To get madat a reach campaign for not
producing return on investmentimmediately is like getting mad
at a squirrel for not swimmingas far as a fish can swim. It
doesn't track. They do differentthings.
Absolutely.
Sorry, I got my high horse alittle bit, but that's.
(31:36):
All good. All good. No, and theyshould be treated differently.
They should be measureddifferently, absolutely. Oh, by
the way, I caught that like youthe way you pronounce. Daniel
Craig, right? Because I think hewas on the Stephen Colbert show,
and he roasted Stephen Colbertfor saying, Daniel Craig.
I remember that, actually, yes,I remember that. Yeah, I'm
(31:57):
sorry. I'm just doing it the waythat's a little outdated as a
reference. But I do, I do use itwith people still. It's like,
it's like, if the ROI is there,I'll do it. Well, that's not how
this works. Like, I mean, like,you think Coca Cola has an
immediate ROI on Super Bowlcommercials. That's not, that's
not looking at us. How manypeople they get, anyway.
Exactly, um, it kind of soundslike you're on your sole box.
(32:18):
But just stay up there a littlea little bit longer. Just, just,
just, just for this nextquestion. All right, a status
quo in your area of expertisethat you passionately disagree
with. And why?
I think the status quo that Idisagree with is the is the over
reliance on too few mediaplatforms. And by that, I mean
(32:40):
most people that come into ourecosystem come in wanting to do
if you're a school client, Imentioned half our clients or
schools have from our fashionbrands. And that's not exactly
correct, but it's about, aboutcorrect. The school clients are
gonna do more Google. 70 centsof every dollar is gonna be in
Google, on average, the directto consumer brands, the fashion
brands that we're selling to onour business to business way
(33:03):
those guys are going to do 8,70,cents of every dollar on matter,
really, on Instagram, and thatis the status quo. And they walk
in and they and people come inmatters and mature industry.
People come in with ideas aboutit, and they have ideas about
campaigns and influencers andcampaign setup. And although
there might be great ideas thestatus quo I have a problem with
there is when you think aboutyour own media consumption, how
(33:24):
much, how much, how much of yourown media consumption is
Instagram in your life? Like ofall the media you consume, what
percentage of it is Instagram?
20% maybe.
Maybe part, maybe, maybe a lotmore of it. For me, is watching
TV. Was watching Hulu with mywife with a glass of wine,
right? That's hours of time. Andmaybe Instagram is in the
elevator between meetings. Maybefrom the power user, it's half
(33:48):
an hour in the morning catchingup, but it's not 80% and yet.
And yet, the status quo in theindustry is, I'm going to spend
somewhere between 70 to 80% ofmy dollars in Instagram and try
to hack that and make it workbetter, which is, I understand
it, but I don't love it. Becauseif you think about your own
media consumptions, you don'tspend 80% of your time on
(34:08):
Instagram. So why would youspend 80% of your budget on
Instagram hoping to go so that'sa status quo that I don't that I
don't love it. Yeah, greatquestion. I had to really, had
to really dig for that one. Iappreciate it.
That's what it's there for. Man,it's, um, it's getting people
to, like, I hate to say, thinkout of the box, but just, just
think differently, right? Um.All right, here comes the bonus
(34:31):
question, and I kind of preppedyou for this already. All right,
warden the street, is thatyou're kind of handy with a
guitar. So the question is, thequestion is, if you were given
the opportunity to either play aset at a club or go on tour with
a guitarist, who would it be?And why?
(34:53):
Today? What would I do?
If this person called you, likeright after this interview and
said, Hey, Brook, I've seen yourvideo of you practicing your
guitar.
What would make me leave my wifeand family and job and either do
as one set or a small tour? Soif the darkness called out of
(35:13):
the UK, if the darkness calledand they needed, I can't play as
well as that guy, but if theyneeded someone to play back up
on some of those songs, or carrythe amps around or or restring
the guitars, but maybe I couldplay back up on a few songs. I
would absolutely do that. Plusthey don't tour for that long.
They tour for a couple of weeksat a time at the most. So I
(35:34):
would, I would, I would, thatwould be awesome.
Fantastic. Awesome. Brook, thishas been an awesome
conversation. Man, thanks foryour time and for sharing all
these insights with thelisteners. So please, quick
intro to yourself and how folksout there can get in touch with
you.
(36:01):
You can find us athttps://masoninteractive.com.
Anything you fill out in thatwebsite, we'll go to a
strategist and also me. You canfind me on LinkedIn. Brook
Llewellyn Shepard, but ourwebsite,
https://masoninteractive.com isthe best way to find us. Thanks
so much.
Fantastic. Fantastic once again.Brook, thanks for your time.
Take care, stay safe and talk toyou soon.
Thank you.
All right. Bye, for now.
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