The Growing-Up Files Issue 2
James read the proposal back.
£20k of work: £5k Facebook, £10k PPC, and the bits in between.
It felt transactional, commodified.
“Honestly”, he thought to himself, "this could have been written by any ad agency in the market right now. Nothing in it feels like us”.
EE are a digital marketing agency, founded on the idea that small, steady improvements compound into epic results. They don’t make huge revenue promises that never materialise. They’ve built their reputation on partnership and precision. They were different. But you’d never be able to tell it from this proposal. Or any of the others they’d sent out recently. He was spending hours giving feedback on proposals, blogs, social content. And it kept coming back wrong.
So James ended up on a call with me. Telling me that he really needed a brand voice guide, so that the way EE sounded was somewhere on paper, rather than in his head.
I listened to him talk about where things were falling down, the gaps in his process, the philosophy behind his business, and I tentatively suggested that maybe what needed fixing was his messaging.
Fix 1 thing instead of 4
Founders I talk to think that fixing messaging means a root-and-branch undoing of everything they’ve so carefully built. And they assume that means a hefty price tag. So they start with the smaller, “easier” stuff - more targeted ads, or a better proposal template. Perhaps even sales training. But really, fixing your messaging is the most cost-effective lever you have in your business. Fix a channel and you’ve fixed a channel. Fix the message and every channel, every department, gets stronger all at once, and keeps paying out for longer.
You’re paying 4 different prices, in 4 different departments, so you opt for 4 different fixes.
The proposal. You’ve listed two options - like a menu. But there’s no supporting evidence - no reasons why you’re the best fit, no story. And so it all comes down to price. And when the client haggles, you’ve not got a clear reason to explain your value. So you discount, and kick yourself.
The sales call. These are supposed to be about sales; not marketing (the clue is in the name). The marketing should have already happened. When it hasn’t, you end up trying to do both things on the call. Which means it takes longer, and it has a lower success rate.
The ad spend. Your targeting is fine; the traffic shows up. And then they land on a website that isn’t designed for them. You’re paying to send good-fit traffic to a website that isn’t optimised to convert. It doesn’t speak to where they are when they land; it doesn’t show them why you’re the best option; and it doesn’t differentiate you from everyone else in your market. Upping the ad spend when you don’t know the most effective way to move your audience from curious to ready to purchase is pointless. And expensive.
The brand voice bottleneck. When things live in your head and aren’t written down - they cause bottlenecks. When you can’t clearly explain how your brand sounds (but you know it when you see it), then you can never fully delegate the content creation process. Whether it’s website pages, social media content, or even customer service emails. You still hold the burden for the voice of the business. And, if you actually do want to scale and grow, this will stop you. James was spending 10 hours a week editing and approving content. That’s 500 hours a year. Just think what else you could spend that kind of time on that would grow your business! (Or that would feed your soul while your business continued to grow).
All these things are costing your business money (and costing you your sanity). But hardly anyone thinks that messaging is the problem. Instead, you try to fix each one individually.
You hire someone to write better proposals.
You train up your sales team in objection handling.
You hire a great ad agency.
You collect examples of approved content and write better briefs.
The real problem
But none of these fix the underlying problem. The messaging. Because, without that messaging, how do you know what would convince people in your proposals? What do people need to hear before and during your sales calls? What angle should your ad funnel lean into? What specific brand voice would most resonate with your audience and your brand identity?
Those problems that you keep bashing up against - the hard-to-convince-leads on sales calls, the price shoppers, the content that still doesn’t sound like you. If you had clear messaging, a clear idea of who you are, who you’re talking to, and how you explain yourself (clear enough that every member of your team can grasp it), would they go away?
For example, when your messaging is dialled in (and rolled out through your funnel), a good chunk of the selling is done before you even get on a call. Your prospect already knows who you are, what you’re for, the kinds of things you do, and they have an idea that you might be a good fit. The call then becomes a vibe check for both of you, and a way of working out the best options for them. Rather than selling them on your whole entire customer journey in 30 minutes.
When I worked with James, we started way upstream, with what Evolution Engineers actually was to the people who valued it most. I talked to James’ clients and asked them what made EE special, what they got with the brand that they couldn’t get elsewhere, why they chose him, and what problems they’d been looking to solve.
And then we wrote all those down, mining for the messages that were hidden within the conversations. Then we combined it with all the elements of the brand that lived in James’ head.
And turned it into a document that every member of the team could use.
The sales team had language on common objections and how to address them in language that their ideal client would use.
The content team had key messages and do’s and don’t’s and ideas for needle-moving pillar posts.
The ad team could make sure that the angles they were hitting and the pages they were sending people to spoke to their specific pains, in their language. So they felt seen and didn’t immediately bounce.
Every proposal was built around positioning Evolution Engineers as the obvious choice, using the differentiators we knew clients valued.
It’s time for some maths!
Ok, so what does this mean for you and your business? What do I mean when I say "it costs you"?
Let's find out. Set aside some time this week to dig around in your metrics (or to have an intern dig around for you!)
Here's what you need to work out:
How much did you discount your last proposal because your prospect “wasn’t sure”?
How much was your ad spend last month (and how much of that traffic bounced straight off your landing page)?
What is your current sales call success rate?
How much are you paying for endless rounds of feedback iterations (with humans or robots!)?
Add that all up.
That’s how much not fixing your messaging is costing you. That’s how much sticking with the messaging you started your brand with is costing you. That’s how much relying on everything being in your head costs you.
And that’s just the start. With clear and compelling messaging in place, your business could grow further.
Does it feel worth it now?! (then perhaps we should have a chat)
The Growing-Up Files goes out once a month, exploring how a brand's messaging evolves as the business behind it grows up.
You can find out more about Peta and Free Range Marketing at freerangemarketing.co.uk
