Why B2B Buyers Stop Talking to Sales Before They Are Ready

Jordan Lally:0:00
Welcome back to the High Ticket AI Systems Podcast. Everyone, please welcome Mr. Mike Kaplan. Mike, welcome to the show, man. Yes, sir. now for some quick context on essentially what the company does, who you guys best serve, I'll let you have the floor for the next few minutes.

Mike:0:07
Thanks, good to be here.

Mike:0:18
Yeah, thanks. so I'm one of the co-founders of a design agency called Fiction Tribe. we're a full service shop located in Portland, Oregon. We got about 20, 25 full-time people with probably a collection of three or four people, kind of full-time freelancers woven in there. we're in our 15th year and we started out with our focus really in B2B and technology. So B2B Tech Brands is really where we live and breathe.

We're those dorks that always love the technology side more than the consumer side. So that's kind of where we've been. you know, we work with everyone from, you know, I'll call them mature startups all the way up to enterprise. So, you know, the Cisco Verizons, Intel's, Microsoft's places like that, all the way down to some mid-market companies that maybe you've never heard of, to some of the startups that that are up and coming and some that we've helped from a startup perspective get acquired, Twist Lock and a and a few others back in the day. So it's been it's been a great ride.

And with the things that are happening in technology space right now, and specifically with technology companies, it's a very exciting time for us right now.

Jordan Lally:1:21
No, absolutely. I know in our first call we talked a lot about you being at the forefront or in the forefront with all of the AI adoption, how you guys like to essentially test it, perfect it internally, and then let your clients know, hey, this tool is actually worth looking into, or just kidding, don't use that. It's all hype. Can you use some more context on tools you thought were gonna be successful and turn out to be like bunk versus the ones where everyone should actually take a serious look into this?

Mike:1:48
Yeah, for sure. And you know, it's it's something that's been kind of cooked into our DNA, if you will, from when we got founded. And, you know, we always feel like our clients, while smart and motivated and all the things that go with them, we also know they're spread incredibly thin. So we feel like not only knowing the market and the trends and and things like that, we need to be bringing to them, but also our understanding of what the best technology is that's out there. And you know, when we first started out, it was really in the focus was around the Martech stack.

Which is better? Is it Marketo? Is it this? Is it that? And, you know, while we're not gold certified anything across these, we we all the programs we make, all of them have to sit on top of those technologies. So it's something even back in the day we were always doing in providing that kind of advice. and when AI coming into the forefront, you know. really for the last three or four years, not even technically recently, but you know, over the last three or four years, we've been seeing it coming, if you will, coming right for us. And so a lot of the things that we've been looking to do and where we look to share the that value with our clients is not only being really transparent about what we're using and how we're folding it into our workflows and, you know, being very transparent around that.

It's also looking at a lot of the different tools like you're saying that it that that our that our clients could potentially be using. one great example is you remember the craze around, you know, NFTs and people spending, you know, eight million dollars on the Gorilla NFT or whatever the hell it was, right? and back in the day, that was something that a lot of our clients were really interested in, generally speaking, and would ask our opinion around it. And as we started to see it, that trend kind of burgeoning, frankly, we wanted to really take it for a spin ourselves and say, all right, you know, if we look at this for our through our client lens.

Mike:3:26
you know, different use cases could be, you know, how do we draw people to our event? Can we offer them, you know, this exclusive NFT? if it's employee training and we have NFTs that, you know, would show different skill levels, like are are there definable and usable use cases here or not? And so we grabbed our dev team and a couple other folks, designers and all the rest, and we did a two-day kind of NFT hackathon back in the day. This is probably four or four years ago or so. and what we did is we wanted to see, you know, what is the process really?

Like when if you're going to start to create these and create these NFTs on the fly just to get a good sense of what the effort and the cost and the pricing and all the things would be around it. But also frankly, is the end product even worth it? and ours was set up specifically on, you know, we're going to do something for our clients for our own marketing purposes. So we created basically a program where if you participated or gave us your email address, we'd kick out. you know, one one unique kind of fiction tribe logo. So it was just, you know, to show and the the variation and were people interested, not interested. And long story short, as we worked our way through that process that given given the effort that goes into it, meaning the price and the timing and everything and ultimately what the end product really was, we just didn't feel like it was worth it, frankly. and so when our clients would come, it was something we proactively brought to them that You know, other vendors are out there besides us, right? We're we're one of however many, but we always want to share our point of view. So we did, and we kind of outwardly shared all the details transparently around what we did, how we did it, what the end products were, and that ultimately it's just not something that we recommended. most of our clients really appreciate that, frankly.

We're doing a lot of experimentation and things on our dime, of course, and we share that expertise with them. And it's a big part of how we build our relationships with our clients too. So with there are other things we're doing now with AI that I know we're going to get into that are really exciting, but it's always something that we try to do, even now with the different AI search engines. There's some things that we're doing with our clients that we've kind of experimented with and are bringing back to them as things that they should be considering doing moving forward and how they can best utilize and harness the power of these tools.

Jordan Lally:5:33
Yeah, I mean on the topic of AI, if you don't mind sharing, do you have like one or two examples or specifics that you can dive into?

Mike:5:39
Yeah, for sure. You know, there's there's a a a bunch of different areas. I guess I'll I'll pick I'll pick two since you asked. I think the first one I guess I'll I'll say is really around conversational AI. whether you you know, and we'll say with avatars. there we there's one thing that we know or we see different gaps out there in the marketplace all the time, right? Our clients suffer from them, all all companies frankly suffer from them. In this case, let's say it's kind of mid-funnel. And we know, you know, all of us know that, you know, prospects are out there, and I use the vernacular intentionally because I I wanted to communicate what it does, which is they're really out there interrogating your brand.

And our clients really need to embrace that. And it's not a casual thing, right? There are people that are looking to make big picture technology decisions that are gonna impact not only their careers, everyone around them, let alone The end users and their customers, the st the company, and there's so many, so many tentacles to that. That these decisions are really important. And brands do everything they can, right? They spend tons of money on their site, content, attending events, hiring the right people. I mean, you name it. and I won't go through that exhaustive list, of course. But ultimately, like everything else in life, all all us marketers face that problem of Are we really giving clients everything that they need? And are we confident that they're actually going to pick up the phone and talk to someone when they're not finding what they need? And I think the the reality is that over the last five, frankly, five to ten years is what we've seen. And clients, I think, are being a little bit more upfront, frankly, about this, where they don't really want to talk to sales. And until they get to that consideration set, they don't. And so we have leaned into the conversational AI area as a way for us to.

Mike:7:21
up level frankly all of the amazing content that our clients have that just might not be at someone's fingertips at any given time. You know, that client might be looking for you know what does it look like on day one if I were to move forward with you or what are the implications if my tech stack is A, B, or C.

Is there are there any implications there? And it's so rare that there's that one piece of content or collateral that someone created that answers all of these nth degree questions. And from a brand perspective, obviously understand why, scale, expense, all the rest of it. But they do typically have all of those information somewhere within their ecosystem. And what our conversational AI approach basically does is it surfaces anything and everything that they've done, right? We train it on all their materials. So if there's that one slide.

From a deck from two years ago that happens to answer that niche question. my God, now it gets pulled, the person gets their answer, and it's amazing. And what we're seeing is the engagement with these with these avatars, frankly. they're on brand, we can.

Tune them to the right language. So the tone is right, certain languages said or not said, they always stay within their get bounds. But what we're seeing is not only are we seeing engagement levels go way up, but we're seeing when sales does get involved, the clients are that much or those prospects are that much more educated, that much more lean forward, and frankly asking questions that show that they're right there in that consideration set, which is amazing.

You know, the the other fold on that and that our clients are really starting to take for a spin is all of the intelligence that they get from that.

Mike:8:55
You know, they're getting all of the different things. Now they know when prospects are interested, what are those questions that they're asking? Where does the interest lie? what what are we not surfacing that they can't find maybe? And then crafting and creating that content pathway, if you will, that makes sure that you're addressing all those things moving forward so they are a little bit more at their fingertips. So I know I'm touching on that a little bit deeply. There's a lot of value tentacles that kind of come from come from that, but the conversational AI is kind of one one area that's been very effective.

Jordan Lally:9:24
No, thank you for all the context. from my experience with internet marketing, one might say, is the way to shorten sales cycles, and you might you might agree with this, people are looking for information. They're not necessarily sold just yet because they hit your website or they fill out a form or schedule a demo with you. They're they're curious about what you guys do. That's why they took said action. So how can we actually shorten sales cycles? We have to build the no like and trust factor. Even besides that.

They want information. So if you can have an avatar, I'm not, there's many different forms of this, videos, re written content, possibly a chat bot, I don't know. But if someone does have these questions that are like buying questions, you should absolutely have that information available to them. And the quicker you can give them that info, the quicker they can become a client and everyone's happy, right? You solve their problem, the business generates revenue, all that fun stuff.

Mike:10:21
Hundred percent.

Jordan Lally:10:22
With that being said, are you the the Avatar? I imagine it's like a a clone. But like a healthy clone, like a good clone, not like a a walking robot. But it's like essentially the founder or like the CEO, maybe. And it's essentially a clone of everything that they know, like a is that gonna make sense?

Mike:10:40
it's a good question. I I see what you're asking. Yeah. so the the the avatars, they this is the wonderful thing with this technology. And of course, you know, whatever I say now will be outdated probably by the time someone sees it, right? But the nice thing is so with avatars, you can we use company called Hey Gen. they they create a lot of of these avatars. we can create them custom too, but they do a really nice job. But the platform that they create, so basically you can create anything that you like. Like you said, you could mirror an executive or a technology person. or a product salesperson, et cetera, for sure. That's something that we would do. For sure you just shoot someone and yes, they they'll have all the right mannerisms and everything. There are others now that are just really nice looking human kind, you know, you can pick any characteristic you can imagine. skin color, hair color, eye color, accent, amazing. And they all are very responsive. you can also pick, you know, I'll say, you know, non, non-human. We call them our guys joke around, like the the the googly eyed creature that maybe he's gonna be your or that mascot or whatever. But you know, another area that we're starting to explore with one of our clients too is that sometimes they don't want it to be you know, a a a a one-to-one manifestation or a one-to-one representative from the company. If it's a CEO or something, yes, they're gonna be there for a long time. Sometimes they just want that round kind of representative and in some cases we have one client that we're going to use our this conversational AI and it's going to be representative of their agentic presence throughout their all of their platforms and all of their solutions. And so we're going through a I'll call it a design kind of design language exploration right now. What does and they've named they've named this agent. Do we want to represent the agent as a person? Do we want to represent them kind of like with Google Gemini where it's a mix of colors and it's something, it's like an almost an entity that you're talking to. So there's a lot of flexibility there, for sure. And the nice thing too, just to draft off of what you said, because I think it was a really good point, is that this is really where we see brands win and lose. And you touched on it perfectly. I wish I had said it more eloquently in my first opening there. But the company, the the brands that give their prospects the knowledge they need to make really good decisions are typically the brands that win.

Mike:12:51
And and this conversational AI is a huge part of that. unlike a chat bot and unlike you know the the clippies that you saw back in the day and all the rest that were kind of dumb, quote unquote.

This avatar is smart. it learns also based on all the engagements that it has. So yes, there's what you've pumped into it. But as customers or prospects start talking about their tech stack, their back end, really specific niche issues, it all starts to feed into that knowledge reservoir. So if someone were to come by and ask a question that it can't answer, ultimately we'll get the answer, we'll feed it in. So the next time someone comes, they will be able to answer it and it starts to bridge those gaps over time as well.

Jordan Lally:13:27
Absolutely. And you also said something about like sales and marketing. I'm just gonna say it when you are gathering information or data from the the marketing aspect or from the sales side, like, okay, these prospects asked these specific questions, these were the answers, and they came through frame this way, if that makes sense. Now we can relay that information to the marketing team and create more content about that if that's a popular subject.

I come from a door-to-door cold calling background. I a mentor told me that I'm great at marketing, not as good as sales, whatever. I took it and ran with it. But I really do think that marketing in sales is one of the same things. Like you can't have one without the other. That being said, marketing can make the sales team job significantly easier, or it can make the sales team job significantly more challenging, right? Depending on how on how good it is. Now when it comes to I guess the the strategies, the implementation, the sure, the high level strategies you incorporate on behalf of your clients, like the big names that you didn't mention, can you give us any idea of like what you guys did for those c for those companies and for those clients to help them scale?

Mike:14:43
Yeah, for sure. And I like within the context of conversational or just generally speaking. Great. Yeah. So a big part of where we live and breathe, and this is the thing, you know, like I w we say we kind of channel our inner dorks in this sense, right? We always love the technology stuff more than, you know,

Jordan Lally:14:48
Generally speaking.

Mike:14:59
Why it Cheetos over something else, right? The around the cheesy factor. So for us, we really we really know the buyers and we really know the tech and we really know the applications of it. and so w a big part of where we kind of live and breathe and our value for our clients is being able to meet with them. because oftentimes what we say is that you know, you our clients don't lose deals because of their products or their technology. They lose deals because of the narrative that they're or or the context that they're presenting in.

The presentation layer matters. It just does. And I don't mean just look and feel and design, right? It's also the spoken word and that narrative, quote unquote, that goes with it. You have to be able to you have to be able to show customers that number one, that this is the right decision. You have to show that you understand where they're coming from, why, answer those questions proactively around the use cases and things that you know, and also be able to tip your hat to why you and not not your competitors.

And to do that in a way through again that narrative that is ownable for that particular company. And it's going to be different for them versus their competitors for sure. And what we do is we have a sprint process where we meet with their executive teams or the appropriate stakeholders, let's say, across either a brand or a product unit or a line of business. And we take them through this process and come back to them with an ownable, a quote unquote ownable narrative, along with probably two or three different visual. directions for how we would look to bring that to life. And they sign off on that. So it'd say in about 30 days, we can get, you know, a company that is a little all over the place, a little scatter shot, or just very generic and vanilla really stood up and standing apart where if you walk through that presentation for a half hour, you don't, you can't leave that meeting without understanding what the value is, why it's unique, and why, what the implications are if I don't move forward with you versus with others. And I think that's a really important part of this. You know, the, the, the What you see on on the glass or on the screen, of course, is really important, how you bring it to life. But that's where we feel like we see a lot of companies fall down. I call it the presentation layer. It's kind of the narrative and presentation layer together, but it's it's such a big deal. And unfortunately, we see a lot of companies out there with amazing technology and amazing people and amazing stories to tell, but they're just either buried or not being told, or it's that one sales guy that ha absolutely has it nailed down, but no one else knows the story, right?

Jordan Lally:17:18
What is, if you don't mind me asking, how did you get into what you're doing now? Were you in industry and you said, I see a gap and you solve this gap? And it sounds like when you first started, you only work with technology companies. So you niche down, which I'm a huge fan of. We can talk about why that's like the best business model is to niching down because it's essentially the same avatar, all right, just a different face or a different company, but they have the same problems.

You solve those problems more or less the same way and then you fulfill on those problems more or less the same way. And I feel like that's how you actually create a true scalable company. But yeah, but getting back to to on to like the early days, how did you get to where you are now, if you don't mind?

Mike:18:00
Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I I started my career in Chicago where I was very much in B2C land. and this was I'll date myself here for sure, but it is what it is, right? So I'd say like late late 90s, we had a client come in that was a connectivity client. So, you know, back in the old days, none of the machines connected with each other, APIs were were not in created yet. So it was All this company did was connect this disparate system to this disparate system. And no one wanted to work on it. As you can imagine, we had, you know, Chicago Bulls and you know entertainment companies and things like that. But I was on the account side, of course, and I didn't love the B2C stuff. I don't know the spending strategy time and thinking about, you know, like I said, what makes it, what makes Cheetos better than Cheese It's like, that's a more of a creative guy. If I was a creative guy, I I would get that. I really loved, and I'm and I wasn't, and I'm not a technology guy, and I'm and I'm I'm not a technical guy by any stretch, but I loved diving into that world. And I felt like from an account perspective and a strategy perspective, taking something really, really complex and trying to simplify it down to its base so that everyone really truly understood it, that was a good challenge I could kind of sink my teeth into. And so from that point on, frankly, I I've always just loved that and doubled down on that. And for the rest of my career, as maybe the first two years I was B2C and then all the rest of it B2B. And I met my business partner in Portland about God, about 20 years ago or so. So we with each other for about five years and he has the same passion for technology. He's a little bit more technical, ironically, even though he's on the creative side, which is part of the reason I love him so much, right? He brings that so he has that creative vision and pushes everything, but he it's super grounded in in the tech.

And so it it's been a great niche for us. it's something that we're just really interested about, excited about, passionate about, which I know again, like said, I referenced kind of my inner dork. That's definitely it, right? And it gives us a chance to scratch that. And I feel like from an agency perspective, we get a chance to really make a big impact on that. from fiction tribes perspective, you know, we don't submit our work for awards, although we certainly could. frankly, I don't really care what.

Mike:20:13
Some black turtleneck in Chicago or San Francisco or New York thinks about it. What I care about is did it move the needle for our clients? Are they buying more work? And are we growing in and leading with them? And that's always been kind of our North Star. And so that's, you know, a short, short answer to kind of how we got here, but we love it. and I think with the team, even the art directors, creative directors, the writers, you know, you have to find a collection of dork's that really love this stuff. And they do. And the work is great too, which is amazing. Like I said, I compete against anybody, but we're in this niche area that sometimes it feels like we're maybe a little bit of a breath of fresh air for s for some of our for some of our clients, the new ones that we meet.

Jordan Lally:20:50
No, absolutely. And I love how you take an like a holistic approach because you you call yourself for like you classify yourself in the company as an agency. Yet you articulated yourself helping on the sales side, like the story of it, the presentation skills. When at what point in your career with with launching the company did you realize we can't just help generate new business or new opportunities? We actually have to help them convert these opportunities into paying clients and I I guess how was that journey for you? 'Cause that's what I I realized that early on as well. Like we can give them opportunity, but it's like business isn't just one pillar. It's many exceptional pillars that really unlock great success and great scale. So I'll let you answer that.

Mike:21:34
Yeah, it's a great question, you know. And I think a a lot of it, frankly, is born out of the fact that we have such we're very fortunate, right, to have such an amazing collection of clients. And I think because of the way that we roll, we're able to form really good relationships with our clients and build a lot of trust. We say we we we bleed in the trenches with our clients, right? and so there's there's a lot of trust there. And again, we we give away a lot of our expertise. Like I said, you know, we we research things, we share things proactively, we we bring things to our clients' attention for sure. And a lot of that comes down to, like you think you were saying, is that, you know, the the lead gen and events and different things that you do at that kind of typical agency level are, of course, are all things that we do. And as we get into those, where we start to see some of the vulnerabilities specifically, frankly, are around that sales enablement area. That's really the biggest one. And we talked about a little bit earlier and helping them kind of set their overall brand narrative.

What is that kind of universal story that goes to market? And how do we make sure it's valuable? It's also kind of pulling the string on that. And what we what we say with our clients is that a lot of the things that we do that are quote unquote market-facing, they should serve that dual purpose. And if it's not helping that salesperson have that conversation, then we need to really take a step back and add and ask ourselves, what is this even valuable enough to do? Or is it someone's some C-level pet project that we're doing that just is kind of throwaway? And so when we look at the videos we create, the interactive. tools that we create, all the things that would go into, let's say a demand or a brand campaign, if those aren't assets or things that a salesperson could and should use over the course of engaging their prospect, you know, depending on where they're at in the sales funnel, then we've failed a little bit, that we as an agency have kind of let them down. There should be some dual purpose there. And then more specifically when we get into a lot of the things that we create, our own curiosity unlocks a lot of these kinds of opportunities too, because we want to know From salespeople specifically, where do deals fall down?

Mike:23:34
What are clients really asking you? What are you when what are those couple of questions you get asked? You're like, either I don't want to answer that or I'm uncomfortable answering that. And we want to make sure we create things that not only give them the tools they need on that one-to-one basis or one-to-many basis, but typically those things are also great to be folded into those public-facing campaigns. It gives clients or gives prospective customers that that extra kind of window win. And frankly, the more clicks, the more engagement, the more views, the more likes, the more shares, and the more we learn about. them too so that when they do have that conversation they're even that much more intelligent around what to say and how to say it and not waste their time and reduplicate the efforts. So for us, we've talked to our clients, it's a big part of our it's one of our main five or six areas that we that we say, you know, if if if you're looking for support from Fiction Tribe, you know, sales enablement is one of them from you know creating the deck in the story to some of these tools and different things to help them close and i it's stunning to me, frankly, that a lot of I feel like a lot there are a lot of things that we do that our competitors don't, which I'm grateful for, of course, but I'm always very surprised. And this is one area that I feel like they they ignore at their own peril. and frankly, it's it's something that is so valuable to our clients that I I I w even though it would be maybe against my best interest, I I wish they would lean a little bit more into that, frankly.

Jordan Lally:24:52
Yeah, no same here, my friend. I know in our first call, Mike, we talked about you essentially being the age how did you how did you frame it, my friend? It was like being an anti agency because essentially when you think about agencies, a lot of them are not great. And they have been b clients and businesses have been burned, you know, numerous times over and over again. So when you say anti agency, can you just explain to us like what that means and why you wanted to go down that route?

Mike:25:05
Yeah.

Mike:25:20
Yeah, for sure. you know, it's it's something that I I weave into our our agencies kind of or my my pitch, frankly. It's it's it's forefront of it, frankly. And I've worked at enough places, big some that you've heard of, many that you haven't, of course. they're all the same dogs with slightly different fleas, is what I like to say. But from a from a general perspective, anyone watching this that's worked with agencies before, you know, the stereotypes unfortunately are all too real, right? charge too much, nickel and dime for things. every ever every time you talk to someone, the the meter's running. little disputes, they're not they b aren't transparent about issues or or adversity that maybe you're gonna face. all those things that I know everyone has their own when you say, you know, agency experience, someone kind of sits up a little bit more. They're like, I remember when I got burned this way or that way. And we know there's no perfection in life per se. But from a from a and I'm really thankful that from a from an ownership perspective, I was able to do this even with my business partner too, when we were at other agencies, our groups, our divisions, our locations. We always ran this way. It was always fought against at the from the from the parent, right? when example that the best example I can give is they used to want us to when I was working at old places they'd want us to charge let's say a client for for writing a a scope of work. Like just the time it took me to write the scope of work. I was thinking it's insane, right? So little things like that, right? So for us when I say anti-agis, yes it's those little things we don't nickel and dime we don't do this and that and the other.

But at the other is that we are truly, and I you I know it sounds cliche, but we truly act as extensions of their team.

Mike:27:00
So this research we're talking about, the advice we do, we we meet with all of our clients once a quarter, or depending on what's happening out there, at least twice a year and say, look, here's all the things that we're seeing out there. if we think it makes sense for them to consider, we do, but even not just to say, you know, be aware that these things are out there, we're gonna test this, we're gonna test that, or here are just different trends, different techniques, different things we're seeing. Fold them into your team's best practices.

Jordan Lally:27:00
Absolutely.

Mike:27:24
and I it that's that's just a big part of it. And we always say like everything else in life, you you don't really know the quality of your partnership until you truly face adversity.

That's where, you know, and that's where we've always we've always shined, right, with our clients. And we like I said, I'm fortunate with with the wiring and makeup of our clients for sure. like I said, we bled with them in the trenches. So, you know, we've we've earned we've earned our place too, you know, with actions and not words and all the rest. but we have clients that frankly have been with us for 15 years. from the same brand. They leave, they bring us with them, they recommend us and refer us into other places. And, you know, the the wrapper around all of this is really what our as an agency what our core motivation is. And frankly, it's like I said, we don't care about awards. We don't care what our colleagues think.

We care what our clients think. And if we're moving the needle and we make our clients look good, frankly, everything wonderful comes from that. And when we work with our clients, when they pass us on, they pass us on because they know. And there's sometimes the one bad thing is sometimes they don't want to share us, I would say, because they're like, yeah, no, if you're especially the bigger organizations, I don't want to give I I have this great like thing going on over here, everyone loves the work we're doing. So I don't know if I want to give them to that a lot. So we work with them a little, I'm teasing a little bit, but that but it's but it it's it's a wonderful problem to have.

Like I said, we're it it it's all actions and not words when it comes to that. And it makes a big deal. And frankly, it it's the kind of

Mike:28:49
it's the kind of relationship that we want to have with our clients. We want to be in the seat with them, hearing about things with them, thinking about things, solving things for them without having some, you know, $5,000, X thousand dollar PO set up or something that we can help think of think of great ideas and great solutions for them. We know that if it hits the mark, they're gonna fund it and we'll go after the races. And so it's a it's a really nice kind of partnership there when I say that.

Jordan Lally:29:15
I love how you said we truly act like an extension of the company. Kind of getting back to like marketing and sales are are hand in hand, right? You can't have great marketing, decent sales, horrible fulfillment, and expect to be an amazing company. I I take this the exact same approach with with my clients. So, yes, we have a done for you solution that we can do, but at the same time I Consider myself a consultant where we consult on the other aspects of the business. And that is the only way to run one, a successful company, and two, run a successful agency where you are helping out the the the sales, the sales team, et cetera. Now you guys been in business for a long time. You have clients that have stuck stuck with you for, like you said, 15 years. What do you feel like? I guess when challenges arise.

And there are problems that need to be solved, or maybe you and the client aren't necessarily seen eye to eye, how do you approach that? Because I know communications is is a big, big, big thing. a lot of agencies say, I'm right, they paid us for our expertise, they should listen to us. Other people are like, the client's always right, they're paying me money, I don't wanna make them upset. So with your experience, my friend, where do you like fall in between all of that?

Mike:30:27
Yeah, it's a great question. You know, There's a fine line there. you know, you I I feel like what what has served me well over the years, and I know, you know, and and you probably feel the same way, being more on the kind of the account than the than the creator side too. Whereas you always want to be defending the work, right, on some level or the idea or whatever it is, of course, right? And I know we don't present things like you, right? We don't we'd present things if we didn't think they made salts or think that they held water and all the rest. But there is, you know, my business partner likes to joke, it's like, you know, we're not what do you say? you say no one's commissioning art from us right they're not like here's go 20 grand go make a statue and i can't wait to see what it looks like right we're doing things that are that are pretty one-to-one so yes there's a creative process here of course 100 but it's not artistic right we're not here we're not creating artwork and so the business kind of outcomes the business rules the business overlays have to kind of rule the day And so for us, I feel like the the line that we cross is yes, we want to make sure that we're defending whatever it is that we're presenting or we're pitching, of course, and explain why and everything. We also do want to be really good listeners. And I think a lot of times, you know, we joke that, you know, if we show three concepts, they're like, you know, I like the visual from this, the writing from that, you know, so we call it Frankenstein stuff out or whatever it might be. And, you know, even with our team, and I in and I say with the anti-agency thing, it does translate to all the way down, you know, from our creative directors down to our, you know, junior people, right?

Right. Everyone is has that kind of wiring. And so if client isn't grokking on something or they have an opinion or they they want to pick something that we're not necessarily on board with, we also understand that, you know, there are there are only certain hills that you really want to die on, is the best way for me to say it. Right. And a lot of times these hills are that I've seen other places, they're not worth dying on. It's insane. You're gonna go, you're gonna die in a hill because they like a slightly different shade of blue. Like, what are we really talking about here? Or

Jordan Lally:32:09
Link

Mike:32:20
They much prefer concept A, even though you're pushing concept C. It's like, you know, and and I think that's part of the reason why we have that good relationship with our clients. Now we can say, you know, we'll move forward in this if we feel like there's an implication or a negative repercussion. We want to be transparent about that. But ultimately, our clients are paying the bills. And so all we can do is give the advice and consent that we think we're gonna give. We want to set them up to be as successful as we can make them. We want them to get the most value out of every dollar they spend with us. But they ultimately make the decision. And we just our goal, I feel like if If we can give them the, like we talked about before, we give them the knowledge to make them to make the best decision they can. It's not always gonna be the decision that we think it should be. And that's okay. We can still get passionate and you know, kind of shake it off and move forward on that. And I think our clients do really appreciate that. and frankly, I I'm overly appreciative of that with the people on our teams, especially on the on the creative side.

Jordan Lally:33:00
Okay.

Mike:33:16
They always want to see that we're at least defending the work, of course, and there's a point of view. But I think that our ability and our willingness to kind of roll with things too and ultimately, you know, turn whatever we might think is a bad decision into something that ultimately, you know, it's still gonna move the needle and we still have our KPIs and we're still looking at things that we're looking at. So that's kind of the of the healthy balance that that we try to strike.

Jordan Lally:33:38
F pick your battles, right? Like you said, the the shade of blue is not gonna move the needle to the goalposts, right? So just let them have that win. For me it it's it was a bit of a challenge because of maybe it's ego, but like I think this is gonna work better than your idea, Mr. Mr. Client. I think we should do this. But like you said, it's their business. I cannot control the decisions that they make, and that's the part that I wanna like emphasize here is like Giving up control was a bit of a challenge for me. I'm a lot better. A lot better. But at the same time, like it's still like, all right, I'll let you have that one. Anyways, you did mention some pretty big name clients. I have to ask, just out of curiosity, what was the process of of landing those guys? what like system or like strategy did you guys have in place? Cause working with like Microsoft and other big name clients that you listed off is really badass, simply put. Like, how did how did all that transpire?

Mike:34:08
Yes.

Mike:34:34
Yeah.

No, it's a great question. You know, we when we were at like we said, we we our clients have kind of followed us. And so when we started Fiction Tribe, we actually had a probably a a great opportunity to do so about four or five years earlier. And for all different kinds of reasons, kind of kicked that, kicked that can unfortunately down the road. But we actually had one of our clients wanted to leave. we were at a Jane, my partner and I were at a place and we we left and one of our clients followed us. And so that's kind of how we got our that's kind of.

How we got our start, frankly. so forever love and be indebted to that client because I joke that my worst day at fiction tribe is better than my best day at working for anybody else and every day and twice on Sunday, right? But so yeah, in terms of getting in, it was it was relationships that we had. It wasn't like we started fiction tribe and said, All right, how do we get into the Fortune 100 or something? We had relationships. And so we were able to the vendor processes and everything else. We were able to kind of get through our first, you know, I'll call it eight, eight to ten months or so. And then we had clients, God bless them, that were willing to, you know, put their credibility in the line for work that we've been doing with them for a long time to get us on that fiction tribe on their vendor lists and get the MSAs in place and do all those things. So frankly, the way that we were able to do it was because we had clients that were willing to put their skin in the game with us because of the kind of the the respect and results that we had driven for them in the past. And we'll ever be forever appreciative of that for sure. and that's really how we got into all those those bigger places. And it just kind of naturally happened through clients that we had been working with in the past, their willingness to again get us on those lists and put their credibility on the line. And as they moved from place to place, they would kind of take us with us. And that

Mike:36:15
point now we at least we had a couple years of business like a that process gets a little easier as I know you know and around and around we go. So frankly it's it's it's be it's through that referral and clients kind of just bringing us with us or or referring or recommending us over to others.

Jordan Lally:36:31
But these referrals are well deserved, right? Like if you're not good at your job, there's no way your clients could refer you business. So referrals is the the biggest compliment I think any any company could could appreciate or at least notice. You you brought up something really important. You said essentially the relationships was our gateway or like our foot in door with some of these big name companies. I come from again a a door knocking, cold calling background where I'm like, forget the relationship. I'm here to like solve a problem, sell something, whatever. and I quickly learned like the higher you go up on the enterprise level, I'm obviously not selling Fortune 100, like maybe one day, but definitely not now. but the higher you go up on the spectrum of successful companies, it really is about like the no like and trust factor, the relationship, past work, case studies. And I recently learned that over the past two, two and a half years, and it has worked wonders. Like, actually worked wonders. Being a human being first. actually building a relationship first and not like pushing your product down their face because no no one no one wants that guy dude no one no no one has time for that guy and it took a lot of maturing but I'm so grateful that I'm here now. so that that's just my insights on the matter. Let's see. No f you want to expand or

Mike:37:42
Yeah, makes a big difference.

Yeah, I mean I think that well I th I think you said it. I mean the it's for lack of a better word, I guess it's it's it's around kind of the authenticity around it, right? And you know, I joke with my business, I don't really j I guess I say I joke with my business partner where we hire creatives, right? And I have an eye for it, right? But I'm I'm not a designer, I'm not a video guy, I'm not an animator, but like I I know good when I see it.

But when I interview people, what I interview, frankly, is is is the wiring, like we talked about earlier. What kind of person is this? And I think the the one of the best things that I can say about our clients, and like you said, I think in terms of like being that harder core sales guy that's just about like sign, sign, sign, or get on, you know, always be closing and all that good fun stuff. when you have that, when you have that relationship in place, it it frankly makes your sales easier. I I know it it it sounds counterintuitive that you have to spend, you know, more time up front, but as you start to develop and build that trust, I mean I have clients that you know, will will give us g give us a have a lot of trust, let's just say, in in things that they allow us to do or things that they turn to us to do. so it's it's it's something that it it takes a little bit more it takes a little bit more effort, but like I said, I think the best thing lost my train of thought there. Sorry, the best thing I think I could say with my clients is that they're smart, of course, they're passionate, they love what they do, but they're truly, genuinely really good people. And I feel really blessed about that. you know, we we

Mike:39:16
I th I'd like to think we're we're the same way. So it's, you know, like like like bring like, right, together. but like I said, when you you see this when you face adversity. You know, clients have a bunch of money and then they end up not having it. Did they just tell me and say why as opposed to like, or like stringing it? No, they'll just say, Yeah, I I thought I had this funding, now I don't or Vice versa. my God, we were gonna hit this date, but now that I see what's going on, actually, even though it's not six weeks out from now, it might be seven weeks. And here's why, and here's what we're gonna do to try to bring it in. And and I think it's actions and not words and and surrounding yourself with with like wired people.

Jordan Lally:39:52
Absolutely. Mike, I do wish we had more time, but I do want to propose this question. You know, thinking back over your career, personal or business, what do you feel like has been the most memorable or best piece of advice you've received?

Mike:40:07
that's a great question. here's the I guess I'll I'll give you one. the best piece of advice is I'll say if you're not learning and you're not growing and expanding, you're dying. And I'll say mostly on the learning part, right? And I feel like we've had increments, right? Every I would say like every two or three years, let's say over the last 15 years, you hit that, you hit that point.

But every two or three years, my God, I better learn a lot now now about this, or something about web something has shifted so much that you really it it's like a it's like a brave new world. I feel like in the last two or three years, it's like every quarter. Like it's it's a it's a never-ending fire hose, which

Jordan Lally:40:45
Yes.

Mike:40:50
being now however old I am, I I I actually freaking love it. You know, I've had more fun in the last two, three years. You know, I could say more than the than the previous, but when it comes to learning for sure. And I feel like from an agency perspective, and and as an agency owner, you know, I my hands are in the business. I'm not in some, you know, bean counting office like looking at utilization numbers or whatever. Like I manage clients, I work, push projects through, same with my business partner.

And that the the knowledge and learning and being in front of this stuff, which I think was natively part of our DNA. So it does kind of fit naturally for us. But that to me is the biggest thing. And I see like I said, our competitors choosing not to evolve almost or or recalcitrantly being stubborn about evolving. And for us, I feel like we have to kind of, especially now, we have to almost reinvent ourselves to a certain extent every six to twelve months. What are new things that we're doing? We still have the old traditionals. You have to keep layering and stacking and shifting. I know we we've we're out of time, but even the the AA offerings we have, we probably have like six or seven things now that are kind of productized and it's just the beginning. So I would say learning.

Jordan Lally:41:57
I completely agree, my friend. Nothing on this planet rests. Everything vibrates. So you're either growing or you're or you're down. Love that mindset. Mike, if they wanted to explore more, shoot the shoot the business with you. I'll I'll keep it PG. but just talk more about you know the company, hit you up personally, where can they find?

Mike:42:01
Right.

Mike:42:15
Yeah, you can find us at fiction tribe dot com. if you want to check out our A AI offerings, you can check us out at fast dot fictiontribe dot com, which is always easy. and if you want to reach me, you can it's also very easy, just Mike at fiction tribe dot com.

Jordan Lally:42:32
Perfect. Mike's thanks for joining us, man. Absolutely. Audience, talk to you soon.

Mike:42:34
Yeah, thanks for having me. Great talking to you. Thanks.