How Better Conversations Lead to Sturdy Business Relationships [Case Study]

In a competitive industry like marketing, proving your company can get the job done is only half the battle. You’ve got to get to the right people and grab their attention from the outset. And once you’ve got it, you have to know how to keep it.

It’s no small feat, but as commercial director of Click2View, an agency that creates factually led strategic content, Mack Hampson has excelled in the field of social selling. So much so that he’s turned his company’s whole sales approach around.

Having worked with Mack as his Account Manager at LinkedIn, I was curious to find out how he transforms a casual InMail into a lasting and successful business relationship. He sat down with me to discuss the building blocks of his approach.

Sean: I understand your company is working on some exciting projects at the moment.

Mack: Absolutely. Right now we’re currently working with senior level marketers in a variety financial, technology and consumer brands, which is definitely very exciting.

That’s excellent—and some of these are accounts you’ve acquired since using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, right?

That’s correct.

So what was your go-to market strategy like before, and how does it differ now?

Our business is all about selling content that drives people towards a specific action, so it’s difficult for us to engage with our customers using the old methods like cold calling. We have to stand by our belief in the power of great content and use it to power our own strategy.

Previously, we were always heavily reliant on inbound inquiries, but we know that in order to grow the business further, outbound activity is very important.

Everything is different now that we’re using the tool. We’ve been able to introduce some outbound KPIs, and the sales team is much more focused on outreach in constructive and appropriate ways.

Give me an example of how you use Sales Navigator in your new approach.

I personally have the Sales Navigator app on my mobile which is a fantastic tool when on the move and meeting a lot of different clients. I get a notification 10 minutes before any meeting automatically, which is a really beneficial feature that enables me to understand and be up-to-date with all of my clients and their recent activities. Building strong relationships is key to our agency’s success. Showing care and knowledge of the individual by knowing what they have been up to, really helps us to do this easily and quite naturally.

Do you think your clients appreciate the more personalized approach?

Yes, very much so. I think we’ve reached a stage where people are sick of being bombarded with cold calls. For me, that’s great, because I’ve never been a huge fan of making, or receiving them. It’s called cold calling for a reason. It is cold.

These days, it’s about building genuinely good relationships, which starts with personalisation, rather than creating blanket emails which i still see so much of. At Click2View our sales team research what kind of content our potential clients share and like on LinkedIn and use this as a starting point for communication.

Time is an extremely precious commodity for my team and my clients and I don’t really like the idea of wasting anyone’s. Having a quick conversation about content in the feed, rather than making it all about the sale from the outset, ensures you are top of mind without constantly pressing for a sale.

How does Click2View try to understand the type of client you should be reaching?

We actually have quite a specific audience type at Click2View. We like entrepreneurially minded marketers. The ones who have genuine business problems they want to solve with content and are looking for new and unique ways to do that. We prefer not to work with marketers who just need boxes ticking. Instead of trying to go after an entire brand, Sales Navigator allows us to seek out and understand individuals in advance of meetings so we don’t waste too much of anyone’s time. Our team is able to gain a greater understanding of our clients from what they post online, for example. That ultimately gives us a better idea of the type of person we’re dealing with and gives us a stronger agenda when we enter meetings.

Have you seen a greater ROI since incorporating Sales Navigator into your approach?

Oh, absolutely. I initially used Sales Navigator to go through some old relationships and opportunities that Click2View had. Within a week of using it, we were introduced to a new contact at a brand we had considered lapsed and secured a healthy sized project as a result. Most importantly, we have now salvaged an important relationship with a regional marketing manager we could have all but lost.

Do you think your job is being made easier through social selling, or does it take time to develop these relationships?

I’m a massive believer in quickly developing relationships, and that’s what LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows us to do. Before using it, my team didn’t have too many options when it came to reaching out to new potential clients. We were spending a lot of time at events as well as prodding our regulars for more contacts internally, which isn’t always the most effective approach.

Our industry is ultra-competitive. We’re competing with huge agencies, and one of the biggest challenges is just getting some airtime with people—getting them to sit in a room so that we can introduce ourselves and our business. We hire great people because we know marketers aren’t just looking for great work, but they are looking for great chemistry with their agencies too. Social selling allows us to leverage and utilize the personalities we’ve hired in a natural way, and differentiate ourselves by being the agency that cares not only about the content that we create, but also the individual relationships that we make.