Okay, so we've talked about some things that scale. We've already touched on a couple of things that don't scale so well, like hiring and cold outreach. You can argue they are scalable if you do them a certain way, but I think the argument here is that you're gonna be sacrificing kind of the high status of the expert. And because everybody can do this, the net effect kind of washes out. Talk about your second point about why you should scale, which is it makes the firm more sellable?

Yeah. So this is actually a question that will always come up in the early days of a transaction. And often you'll actually hear the word scalable. tell us about your new business system. How do you get work in? Here's what they don't wanna hear. They don't wanna hear, oh, we don't have to worry about that. We are so connected in the space and our work is so well known that we have so many clients who have taken us to their new jobs and so on. You can hear the pride in that as somebody would say it. That is not what they wanna hear because that is not a system they can control. They wanna hear something different. They wanna say, oh yeah, let me share my screen here. This is what our new business system looks like. This is how we fill the funnel at the top. This is how we move them down. This is how ABM works. And this is our cost of acquisition for each lead, and this is how long we keep them, this is how we grow them, this is our turnover and all that stuff. I could make up numbers for what they wanna hear, but that's essentially what they wanna hear. They wanna hear a system that's replicable, that's scalable, that's real, that's not just accidental and very complimentary. And the reason is all they care about after the sale, I probably shouldn't say this, but I will, they don't really care about anything else except revenue after the sale. Okay. And the only reason they care about sales is the degree to which it will contribute to revenue. And so we've talked for most of this episode about why you want this to be scalable so that it's efficient and effective. But here there's an element too around just what a buyer might look for. And I would argue that the buyer's interest here aligns with yours. And so even if you have no interest in selling your firm, I think what they want you to have, if they talked with you, is the right thing. So that, for instance, you can scale back over time so that you can take a sabbatical if you need it, right? It's not like every sales thing is scalable or not scalable. It's more like some are more scalable than others. And I just want people to think about a system that they control and that they can turn up and down. Let's say I need work this next week. I can send an email out to tens of thousands of people and I can gently say, hey, any of you interested in such and such, right? Now that's a system, that's a switch, that's like that big red help button that they had at that stationary supply store. And I just want you to have some system, I want you to have something that works, I want you to be able to describe your new business system in a way that makes, and if it's a system, it probably is scalable. There's lots of nuance around that,

but anyway, that's my thought. All right, let's wrap it up. You think agency principles are actually pretty good at new business, is that right? I do, I keep wondering if I'm right about that,

but I do think they're pretty good at it. I think generally they need more at bats, but they're pretty good at sales. They're not as good as they could be at sales or pricing, which is why your world is really valuable for them, but I think they're generally good at sales. Yeah. Okay. So what should they be working on? Well, they ought to be working on their positioning. That's one thing they're not very good at. Obviously, there are some firms. Then they ought to have some marketing to push that positioning into opportunities and then have a system on top of it. You know, it's not rocket science. Neither of us have said anything in here that isn't new information to people. But here's the bottom line. If you can solve the new business problem, you can solve everything. Everything else will get fixed. You'll figure it out. This is what you do. You figure things out. But if you don't have the new business thing solved, then nothing else matters. So not just having it solved, but also like when the water starts to drop in the lake and you start to see the sunken logs and as it is now as it is now, right? Yeah, exactly. You start to see some of the weaknesses in your sales system that you just ignored because everything was fat and happy. Well, pay attention to that, fix it, think about it. That's the message.

Yeah,

there are times

when sales are just humming, things are just happening, and there are times when they require a lot of effort. And there are times when you're trying to get to the next level and you're asking yourself the question, what do I need to get to the next level? And as the answer was put to me a few years ago, the answer is more effort. The answer can't always be more effort. So I think to your point that a lot of our listeners are actually good at the code word that we use for sales, which is new business. They're actually good at it. I think universal would be too powerful a term, but I think it's widespread that the new business or sales success is not systematic enough and is therefore not scalable enough. And to your point about your interests are aligned with the buyer on the subject of the stickiness of revenue, the predictability of revenue. That which makes your firm sellable is the attribute that also allows you to sleep better at night. So I think we can all benefit from making sure that our efforts are scalable. Yep. Good summary. I should have been interviewing you. Would have been a better episode. Well, between stomach flu brain and COVID brain, we pulled it off. Thanks, David. Thanks, Blair. Thank

you for listening to 2Bobs with David C. Baker and Blair Enns. Read episode notes and transcripts at 2Bobs .com. That's the number 2 B -O -B -S

.com.