Content, consistency, and conversions for agency biz dev (featuring Lee McKnight Jr.)

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Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Chats with Chip. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance. And I am delighted to have with me one of my most regular guests and a very interesting one at that, Lee McKnight Jr. Otherwise known as Lima Nightmare.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Correct. How are you, sir?

It’s been too long.

Chip Griffin: It has been way too long.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: If people are watching. Oh, oh, oh.

Chip Griffin: Yes, if you are watching this on video,

Lee McKnight, Jr.: The best.

Chip Griffin: My condolences, first of all, for having to look at us for, at least at me, for the next 20 minutes or so. But Lee was holding up his Lima Nightmare t shirt because I guess there’s a number of years ago, the automated transcription for one of the shows that he was on with me, came out with his name being Lima Nightmare.

And so my wife and I call him Lima Nightmare from there on out.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: And were kind enough to send me the shirt.

Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, you have to, I mean, when it’s, when it’s a cool name like that, you just, you can’t help, but.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: I will tell you, and this is not why I’m here, but quickly, I, play in a cover band here in town and I wore this shirt.

I should send you pictures. Someone asked me at one of the breaks, like, like in Lima, Ohio, you’re like a nightmare. And I’m like, well, that’s not actually what it is, but I see where you’re okay. It’s fair. I should have gone with it. Yes, I’m a professional wrestler. I’m from Lima and that’s what they call me.

Chip Griffin: I mean, or, or, I mean, just wait if I told you the story of what happened in Lima that one night, you know, in any case, so that we can bring this a little bit back onto the rails, I suppose we should, because as much entertainment as it would be for us to go down this path for the next 20 minutes, it’s probably not what you’ve tuned in for, but we’re going to talk about a number of things from an agency business development front, because obviously that is Lee’s particular area of expertise.

And so, I mean, I, I thought I’d kick it off by just, you know, talking about what are you seeing and what are you hearing as far as the outlook for agencies in the next year?

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yeah. Yeah It’ll be interesting because I know we both had survey reports that we’ve released and this one we had last month was a little bit new for us because we put our new year outlook survey out in January agency new business survey, which we actually just I’m finishing as we speak, which will be out here in about two weeks, but we decided to drop one in the middle and follow up from where agencies were beginning of the year to now.

And generally speaking, there was a certain level of optimism around this back half of ’24, which are obviously already in, you know, but one of the things that we saw last, or I should say the beginning of ’24 coming out of ’23. Certain levels of frustration, I think, from a business development standpoint, the two things for sure, and it’s, it’s, They’ve not gone away, but it is sales cycles.

And I feel like we talked about this the last time, but you have no sales cycles that just were taking longer even signing contracts and well, we got to kick this can down the road. Sorry. And then budgets not being as robust as they have been. What we’re seeing is those two things still in play, unfortunately, but have gotten better.

 You know, in terms of percentage, something for us, I think it was around in terms of just overall optimism for this back half, it’s interesting because we were just talking about these stats. I think ours was close to like 52, 48 percent of agencies in terms of what they’re, what they think is going to be happening in that back half, which feels like we’re leading there, but, pretty higher level than I would have expected.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And in our case, we looked at the next 12 months and this is research that, that concluded in early August. So, so that may account for some of the differences because you’re looking at the back half of the year, but our, our group was extremely optimistic that their revenue would grow over the following 12 months.

About 68 percent of the respondents anticipated that they were predicted that their revenue would grow. A similar number suggested that profits would grow. Unfortunately, only about a third thought that their head count would grow. So, that suggests one of two, either they are way overstaffed today, which I know a lot of agencies are because, agencies are typically very slow to downsize when their revenue goes down and they, they convince themselves that, that there’s hope around the corner.

And so, you know, it often puts them in a difficult situation, but the other possibility is that they’re like, well, I’ve had a tough couple of years. I’m going to make up for this by jacking my profits up by not hiring, which then means you’re probably going to have a morale problem in the next year or two.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yeah, I would. Yes, I would tend to agree with that. And when you gave me that stat, I was, I was surprised. And I think, you know, agencies, the cyclical world we live in, you got to have that optimism to be, to be sure, because otherwise you’re just going to be kicking yourself. But I think that, you know, as far as what we have seen, that’s working.

You know, or just from business development standpoint, is that omnichannel approach. And it just so happens to be self serving. I mean, that’s what we do at RSW, but that’s not why I bring it up. And it is sincerely because, you know, what we’ve seen, especially post COVID, I don’t know how much longer we can say that until we’re, we can just stop talking about it, but I feel like it’s still warranted to talk about a bit because that those impacts are still what we’re dealing with in many ways.

I believe, to, it’s interesting, especially digital agencies, God bless them. But, and it’s understandable, but that will kind of fall prey to a lot of these tropes of, you know, in terms of what’s working. On the business development side. We’re like, no one’s picking up the phone anymore. No one’s going to answer emails.

It’s so cluttered and blah, blah, blah. I’m like, yeah, well, you’re just, now we’re having self serving prophecies where, you know, there was self fulfilling I should say, where, yeah, if you’re not trying these things, but I think ultimately. Things like AI, which are nowhere near, you know, and I’m throwing out a bunch of topics we can go back to here, but I think that’s one that everyone was super excited about what we’re seeing now is now, how is it literally helping our business?

So one thing it’s not doing yet. I’m sure you can attest to it. I get the same 30 emails a day that we all do. And so many of those now are AI driven and it is blatantly obvious that they are.

Chip Griffin: It’s awful.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yeah. And they’ve either scraped from LinkedIn and they’re like, hello, Lee, who went to university of Kentucky and is in Cincinnati.

And it’s so that’s not, you know, who knows? And it obviously is moving quickly, and I’m certainly not confessed to be an expert where we’re seeing that just to stick on AI guess for a second because I put us there on the list building side of things. You still cannot pull. You’re not gonna be able to pull a list using AI and have it be ready, set, go, in terms of prospecting lists.

We are seeing, and I’m not getting sponsored, but you know, things like Ocean AI and Seamless AI are two of the ones we’ve been experimenting with and using. And again, not, there’s, there’s a lot of them out there. It seems like every day they’re dropping a new one. It can help in finding companies, you know, that’s definitely where we’re seeing it being a helpful tool, but building a list out, not really. It’s not going to help you do that.

So I think that’s, I feel like it’s a ways away, but maybe it’s not. So that’ll be helpful for agencies. If you can get that piece nailed down, that’ll be huge. But I think for us, otherwise, it’s certainly helped me in forming content thoughts. And organizing, but when I tried to do any writing beyond that, it’s, again, so blatant, you know, and it’s just, it’s not there yet. But I think it’s something that as we’re writing the report, we asked that stuff that’s about to come out here in a couple of weeks.

A sneak peek, but last, last year was 38 % of agencies were using AI, for business development. And then we asked the second question, like, okay, well, how are you using it? Well, then there weren’t a lot of good answers because it was still fairly new. And today. Just from the last month of taking the survey, now it’s up to 57%.

And the answers were basically what I threw out to you. It’s yes, shaping and forming content. It’s even doing some competitive analysis. So I think agencies are finding ways on that end to, to help the effort. If nothing else, save some time and be able to get it out there a lot quicker.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, I think part of the challenge is that agencies, particularly small agencies, are always looking for the silver bullet.

And so when, and it’s, you know, just as you’ll find, there are lots of YouTube videos and articles and books out there that says, here’s your secret formula to build a seven figure agency overnight. You know, no, no sweat. Anybody can do it. And, and I think a lot of agencies look at AI in the same way or have looked at it in the same way, which is, Oh, this is going to make it so that, you know, I don’t have to pay writers or I don’t have to, I don’t have to do any, you know, real manual research for lists.

It’ll just all be served up on a silver platter to me. And the reality is that AI, like many things can be very helpful. But it is still just helpful. It is not a replacement for anything. And I, I still like to compare it to a good intern. Right. And, and you can, a good intern does a lot of stuff for you, but you still got to check it over.

You still have to do more work on it to take it across the goal line. It’s not immediately client ready, prospect, ready mail ready, whatever. And if you think about it that way, then there’s a lot of things that it can do for you and can help you to be much more effective, both in growing your business, but also serving your clients.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yeah, no, no. Agreed. Agreed. And so I think why that’s, wow, that is interesting. I go back, if I may, to that kind of omnichannel approach. And I think agencies, of course, they’re going to default to referrals as they always have. And that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a fantastic thing.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. People who dump on referrals. I don’t get it. Like, you know, I have people because they watch these again, these videos that tell them, you know, you shouldn’t be relying on referrals. Well, why not? If you can actually figure out how to generate more and more of them, that’s the best way to grow. Oh yeah. The problem is eventually you, you probably have to do other things beyond that in order to keep growing, but maybe not, it depends on your business model.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: That’s it. That’s exactly it. And yeah, anyone that says that you shouldn’t do that is well, foolish is what I was going to say. It really is because it’s, it’s quite frankly, it’s not easy. None of this is easy, but it is versus building out a, you know, outsourced or excuse me, a business development strategy that is outbound.

 But I agree with the second part of what you said, and that is, and we’ll say the same thing when we get new clients on board, it’s like, if you have referrals, you have a strategy in place and that’s working, do not stop that because that’s fantastic. And why would you? Same with organic growth. I mean, you’ve got to have a plan for that, but, but again, to your point, it’s those referrals typically aren’t sustainable, or I guess a better word is dependable in terms of when they’re coming in. And so to have some kind of outbound and inbound components, and it doesn’t have to be us, where the small to midsize firms, which is who we work with predominantly and obviously you as well, feel like we can’t sustain this something like RSW does. Like, well, you might not need to, quite frankly, because if you have these referrals in place and that’s making up a certain percentage of what you’re doing, it’s working to have a manageable process and outbound where you not going after a thousand companies because you’re not going to be able to sustain that and you’re going to give up and it’s going to get frustrating.

I’m going to pick my initial 20 or 30. I’m going to go after those of the course of the next X amount of weeks. And know that one hour a day or whatever it is, it might sound very simple, but that’s the way to do it. And that way you’ve got some of that backup where you’re not solely relying on any one of those channels, if you will.

And we’ve seen agencies that can do it and it pays dividends. I think where it gets problematic. Self serving on my part, but it’s that new business director when they try to get in and hire one of those in the small midsize firm side, it is hard because if they’re really good, they’re going to be expensive. And they’re really good they tend to jump around a lot. I mean, it’s seeing some resumes lately. It’s been crazy. Some of these people jump around as often as they do, especially when they’re getting into the big, as you well know, up into the larger agencies. It’s about 18 months, right? It’s what it’s that still hasn’t changed.

18 months is the average tenure of a new business director in an agency. It’s not ha ha ha funny, but it’s just like, it just hasn’t changed in years. That’s that.

Chip Griffin: Right. And I mean, that’s why the vast majority of small agencies need to think about how they can leverage some of these resources, but you can’t be dependent upon them.

It, again, it’s not the silver bullet. You know, I talked to plenty of owners who are like, well, you know, I just, I’ll just hire a new business person then I, I won’t have to worry about it anymore. That is. No, because to your point, even, well, one of two things will happen. They’ll either do a good job and they’ll move on because they did a good job or they’ll suck and they’ll move on because they sucked. So either way,what is the outcome? They move on. And so then you back to square one, you get to start over again. So, you know, the reality is a small agency owner’s got to be involved in business development, no matter whether you have a business development person on board, whether you’re working with someone like RSW/US, whether you’re, you know, just playing lottery, whatever, the owner’s got to have some involvement.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yeah, for sure.

Chip Griffin: And I think the other thing, to me, and one of the things that I saw in some of the research that we did recently as well is some of the tactics that are more, serving of the prospect base tend to work better. So for example, two of the top five tactics were hosting a podcast and creating videos.

Okay. And, and both of those, and, and they’re not used by a significant number of agencies. No. But for those, those who are, they are ranked among the top five most effective things. Only slightly behind referrals. And those are because they are of a service mindset in my view. And so instead of coming in and saying, me, me, me.

You’re, you’ve got something that you can provide as a resource for your prospects. And even things like podcasts, I love podcasts as an outreach tool, which is not how most people think of it. But if you have a podcast and you do it interview style, you can reach out to prospective clients and invite them on the show.

That’s a much better way to start the relationship with them than say. Hey, I looked at your website. It sucks. Let me tell you how to fix it, which is the vast majority of the, the direct email that I see. It says, it says something to the effect of your video sucks. Your website sucks. Your PR sucks. We’ll solve it.

Yeah. Who starts a relationship that way? I mean, that’s like going to the bar and saying, you know, you’re ugly, but I could tell you how to dress better. And then maybe you’d be a worthy date. Like what?

Lee McKnight, Jr.: That’s interesting. I mean, that’s, yeah, I agree. That’s at least better than this rash of I’ll give you a hundred dollar Amazon gift card that I get every other email.

At least they’re trying to show that they have some level of expertise, but I 100 percent agree if that’s the initial outreach, it’s like, Oh yeah, you offended someone now. That’s awesome.

Chip Griffin: Right.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: But yeah, instead I, you know, it’s so funny. It, it, not many are doing, but the ones who are doing it, especially, and you’re right.

The interview, avenue is the way to go on the podcast. And I, I have, I can name five or six agencies. Right now that and I’ve had two of them in my interview series where they’ve kept it up and that expertise man. It is It’s to your point. It’s such a value and it you know, they’ve got it mastered now to where they’ll do something like the software using right now this platform that we’re on we use the same one You can nail that down and it’s not, it’s work, but it’s manageable and the dividends that can pay off.

I can’t stress it enough how right you are. And, and some folks, I do understand some of them don’t feel comfortable. They feel like they’re not good interviewers. You know, we have two series. I feel like my interview series is maybe not as good as when it’s just me. Giving my three takeaways, , but I’ve had folks say no, the interviews are good.

You’re pulling good information out. So, it’s not to make that about me, but it’s just, I think a lot of these folks in these agency principals who don’t probably think that they’re very good, give it a shot or bring someone in. There’s might be another partner or someone there who can drive that train. And it is such a valuable tool because you know, having and establishing that expertise, whether it’s one vertical or whatever it might be, you know, agencies are still getting frustrated today when they hear like from from me or from others, like you have to niche down, you have to specialize.

We’ve talked about this before, but I can’t say it enough, you know, that it doesn’t mean you only have to play in one vertical at all. Can mean that. But they, they, prospects want to see that there is some authority, expertise, leadership to do a podcast like that. And it could be other forms of content, but man, that’s one great way to do it.

And, and you get it down to, to a science.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I certainly agree that guests on podcasts are a real drag, but you know,

Lee McKnight, Jr.: geez, I walked into that one.

Chip Griffin: You did, you did. But look, and it doesn’t have to be a podcast, right? I mean, I understand that it is not a fit for everybody. I happen to be passionate about them because I’ve been creating podcasts since the 1990s before an iPod even came out before you even thought to call it this.

So it is a format that I really like and I think is really valuable. I think to me, the key takeaway was that, it’s providing things that benefit your audience and allow you to share your expertise as well. So you’re, it’s a, it’s a multi pronged win because you are building relationships and you are helping people to know more about you and what you know about.

I mean, I know for myself and in the work that I do today, almost every client that I get is someone who has listened to my podcast, watch my videos, and so they feel like they already know me. And they certainly understand what my perspective is. So they’re, they’re not coming in and then surprised when I rant and rave about something in their business because they’ve heard me do it before.

And, and so they know what to, and if you don’t like those things, if you don’t like me saying that you need to have a focus and you need to focus on project profitability and all the things that I go on about, you’re just not going to call me up. And so that’s great. I’m getting better fit clients.

Agencies can do the same thing. Good point. Again, it doesn’t have to be a podcast, but it’s got to be something that allows your expertise to shine. It could be webinars, it could be articles, it could be e books, it could be videos. I mean, there’s all sorts of different things that you can do, and you just need to find the one that you’re most comfortable with, and to your point, you need to stick with it.

Yeah, because too often I see agencies try these new business development tactics and they, they do it for a month or two and then, you know, they’re on to something else. I mean, I’ve worked with plenty of, of agency owners over the years who are like, well, you know, I did this great webinar on this topic, you know, what, what industry should I focus on next?

The same one, right? Right. Yeah. I mean, until you’re tired of it, you haven’t even begun to make an impression. Same thing with direct mail back when direct mail was a thing. And I think actually direct mail is something people should still consider today because there’s, there’s a lot less mail being received.

I’m not saying it’s a fit for everybody, but think about it, right? Sometimes, sometimes You know, going against the, the tide can be an interesting place to be.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: It’s another tool, right?

Chip Griffin: Yeah. Another tool, but, but it’s not the kind of thing where you, you do one email or even email or direct mail or whatever, and you’re done and you say, okay, well, I didn’t get any results.

So I’m done. No, you’ve got to keep doing it. You got to keep at it. Yeah. And so you need to find whatever it is that you can do well, that you will keep with, and that will help you to build your business much more quickly.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: And they’re gonna see part of the passion, if you will. But two other pieces that add to what you just said, which I 100 percent agree with, but one is build it and they will not come, you know, just because you’ve done it.

Now you got to get it into your prospect’s lap or get it out there or both. And the other thing is, cause too many agencies don’t do that. Like, okay, we did it. Okay. Well then I, okay, that’s good. But now how, now how are you getting that in front of people? And to follow up on that, you know, I would get when we first did our video series, 3 Takeaways, and now we’re about to today film episode 107, which to some podcasters would be like, wow, it’s a lot.

Others it’s like, yeah, I passed that years ago, right? I’m sure you did. But, it was a thing where we’re seeing the views and still today, if you go and look on our YouTube channel. Anywhere from like two to 300 for the first like six months and that grew over time and I would be like, I got, as my daughter would point out that that’s not good dad.

But it’s like, well actually those are all, I mean, for the most part, agencies. Individuals that care and good amount. So if you have, you know, don’t get discouraged if you have numbers like that or even in the beginning like, not much at all because it takes time to build. I can point to literally at least 8 different clients, specifically that told me I am talking to you because I watched that episode that came on board.

And so what, what that translates to in terms of profit is, is fantastic in terms of like what we’re spending on those videos. Yeah. The equipment up front, which you can get nuts with it, of course.

Chip Griffin: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: But, beyond that, I was going to say Craig, who does our stuff still wants to talk to you about your entire setup.

Chip Griffin: I’ve only spent like 10 bucks on the whole thing.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Exactly, 10 dollars people. That’s it. But, and that’s something that, you know, that pays off as well. But you can, you know, it’s something that, again, just don’t get discouraged. It’s certainly that takeaway to your point, keep it going because it will pay off. But again, you have to get it in front of folks.

Chip Griffin: I’d say in most cases, just don’t look at the numbers. They, the vast majority of time. It really, honestly, it doesn’t matter because what you really are looking for is are people talking to you about what you’re providing. And, and so to me, if, you know, I, back when I did digital consulting and digital marketing for folks, you know, one of the questions I was asked in the early days of blogging was, you know, how many people need to read my blog in order for it to matter?

And I’m like, you know, I mean, it could be 3000. It could be three. I mean, if those three are, you know, Barack Obama, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, and they all love what you have to say. Who the heck cares about anything else? This was, of course, you know, back in 2009. Yeah, and you know, it’s all about are you reaching the right people?

Are you having the impact? And the vast majority of agencies who are listening to us today don’t need more than 10 to 15 good clients at any one time.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yeah, true.

Chip Griffin: The vast majority of agencies do not need tens or hundreds of clients.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Couldn’t do it.

Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, most couldn’t, right? I mean, it’s, you know, so

Lee McKnight, Jr.: wouldn’t want to do it.

Yeah.

Chip Griffin: So that means realistically, unless you have a huge retention problem, in which case solve that before you worry about bringing on new clients. You only need a handful of new clients every year. Yeah. So if you’ve got 25 people who are loyal listeners and they’re they’re part of your ICP there’s a good chance that that’s enough and you don’t need more than 25 people listening or reading or talking to you or whatever.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yeah agreed. Agreed I think that brings us full circle to in the beginning talking about just business development general and kind of some trends. I will say another one as i’m writing our new report and seeing, you know, the average time it takes to close a piece of business, has, once again, you know, it’s, it’s one to six months has always kind of been the, the yard stick, if you will.

But, that percentage is increasing even more, to really, it’s turning into like 6, 7, 8 months. And man, I’ve seen too many agencies who just, I don’t refuse to accept it as too strong a word, but just like, you know, build it and they won’t come, you, you, you have to keep doing it. You have to have that consistency.

It’s the same with business development. And that’s something that we, anyone would know that’s ever been a part of business development is that you have to keep at it, but we can say that all we want and any agency can say they get it. But when the rubber hits the road and they’re in like month three or month four, and you haven’t closed something yet, that’s most agencies. Like for us, we have 30 percent of clients that close in the first six months.

Can and does happen, but it’s especially now, hopefully that will change with these sales cycles. But it’s something that you got to dig your heels in and you got to keep it up. Whether it’s content, whether it’s your business development program, it’s one of the biggest things I see. And I get it. I’m an impatient person myself.

You want to see these results, and you will, but you’ve got to keep it consistent.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I’m sure you get asked as I do all the time, you know, how can I hurry those people along? How can I get them to close faster? And look, the reality is that once they’re in your pipeline, there’s not a whole lot that you can do to speed it up.

Because, because the problem is even if you are successful in, in, in hastening their decision, it may not be a good decision. And so, so you do need to give them the room to make the decision that, that actually works for them. Cause there’s, it’s no good to get them to close in two months versus six months.

And then they disappear after three because they, they rushed into a decision that they weren’t really ready for or that they didn’t really embrace. But to me, the way that you shorten those sales cycles is some of those things we talked about. Provide the resources in advance. Yes. So, so they’re coming to you primed.

I mean, I, I can tell you that in all the businesses where I’ve had podcasts, articles, eBooks, et cetera, the sales cycle for people who consume that is always shorter, always a hundred percent of the time shorter. It may not be as short as I’d like it to be shorter because they already know a lot about you and they’ve already crossed that threshold of accepting you as an expert and now they just need to figure out how it fits into their own plans and internal processes and all that kind of stuff. So once they’re in there, don’t worry about speeding them up. Instead, prime the pump and get them ready to buy before they even come in.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yeah, I think that’s very well put. The only thing I’d add to that though is that while speeding up is not something that maybe is going to happen. The beauty of priming the pump is when you, they are in that pipeline and let’s say it is X amount of weeks out or, or whatever that timeline might be. You can take all that content, whatever it is, They haven’t seen it all.

Most likely, even if they have, you can drop that into their world again. And I’ll, I just did it today. I just did around with some of my hotter prospects. I was not selling. I said, you know what? I haven’t, you know, I could see, you know, when we send out our newsletter and everything else, what they’d opened and what they hadn’t, they did, they never opened this.

So I dropped that into their world and say, Hey, really enjoyed talking with you. Look forward to catching up here in the next couple of weeks. Thought this might help you right now, though. This is something we created, whether it’s our report, whether it’s a video I did. What we’re doing right now, I will send out to people, right?

And say, Hey, this thing with Chip that, you know, I think you might find value in. And again, it kind of shows them this is the way that we think. And most agencies never do that, right? So you’re going to set yourself apart just by doing that. So you’re both priming the pump, then at the same time, able to use that content ongoing.

You’re not going to hit it too hard, to your point, because that won’t speed it up. It’ll just get annoying. But just dropping that in. can be a difference maker.

Chip Griffin: Right. Yeah. I mean, all those follow up emails you get from someone you talk to it like, you know, Oh, you know, are you ready to make this decision yet?

You know, how can we move this along faster? Who do I need to talk to? No, I mean, you do want to stay top of mind. You don’t want to just ignore them, right? Provide them with valuable resources that you’ve already accumulated. And that gives you the, the reason to stay in front of them. And so they see your name and they’re like, right, that’s right.

I owe Chip an answer on this. Yes. Or, you know, let me give them an update or whatever. And people are so much more comfortable with that than with that constant prodding of, well, you know, when, when are you going to, what do we need to do next? Can we schedule our next meeting or phone call or whatever?

That’s just, it’s so damn annoying. And agencies need to get past that and figure out that. Look, if a client isn’t saying yes, it’s because they’re not ready.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: It’s an answer in itself.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: It is. Right. I mean, I literally just had a prospect today and this is not just me making this up. I mean, I really did where he said, look, I’ve been following you for years and, and, and the content and you know what timing is now right.

And I want you to talk to our two partners. And that’s, that’s how it went down. So, you know, they have a proposal, but it’s not there yet, but I’ve had that happen many times. And it’s just part of that is the patience, but, but you’re exactly right. I mean, they, and a lot of them are reviewing where you don’t even know to your point.

It’s like, it’s hard not to worry about the numbers sometimes. Like I want to see those views. It’s like the human nature or what it’s become. But, but you are right, you can’t get hung up on it.

Chip Griffin: As long as you can contain your urge to change something dramatic because of what you see, right? Either saying, hey, I’m going to change the format entirely because I’m not getting listeners or I’m just going to stop.

You know, so if you want to, if you want to accumulate the data, that’s fine. But don’t overreact to it. That’s the problem I see looking at a lot of this data that’s so readily available to us today. It more often than not causes people to either give up too quickly or dramatically shift strategy too early.

And neither one of those is particularly helpful. But I agree. Unfortunately, we are at the end of our available time here today. So.

Lee McKnight, Jr.: I thought this is a six hour thing we were doing.

Chip Griffin: I mean, we could certainly, I know that we could go on for six hours. I think, I think we would have a precipitous drop in listenership.

Probably starting about now. So that’s if we haven’t lost you already. Thank you for continuing to listen. If you are still listening and you would like to learn more about Lee or RSW/US Lee, where should they go to find out more information?

Lee McKnight, Jr.: Sure. Rswus.com is where everything is and that resources tab is where all our content is.

Chip Griffin: Excellent. And you do have lots of excellent resources. You are a video maven yourself. And so there’s lots of good content to be consumed there. So I would encourage you to do that. And I would encourage you to come back here because I’m sure Lee will be a guest again. Absolutely. I love having Lee on. So with that, that will draw this episode of Chats with Chip.

I appreciate you listening and I will have you all back here on a future show.