From $20M to $150M: Gift-Powered Vertical Outreach Rocket-Fueled Growth with Corey Quinn

Freddy D: 00:00:00

Hey there, superfans. Superstar Freddie D.

Here in this episode 115, we're joined by Corey Quinn, the growth strategist who transformed two hard won startup lessons into the blueprint for deep specialization, the framework that rocketed his last agency from 20 million to 150 million in just seven years.

After cutting his teeth in the startup arena, Corey pivoted to agency sales and corporate marketing, mastering the power of vertical markets, customer centric positioning and inventive campaigns. Today he mentors, consults and coaches agency founders, delivering playbooks that drive focused scalable growth.

Get ready for an energetic dive into data driven strategy market focus. His new book, Anyone, Not Everyone and the Art of Building Agencies that Thrive. Welcome, Corey, to the Business Super Fans podcast.

How are you this afternoon?

Corey Quinn: 00:01:03

I'm doing great. Excited to be here.

Freddy D: 00:01:07

Yeah, we were just talking before we started recording. You're next door, you're in California and I'm in Arizona.

Corey Quinn: 00:01:12

Yeah, it's. Last time I was in Arizona it was beautiful and I just love the desert.

Freddy D: 00:01:17

So.

Corey Quinn: 00:01:17

So I'm very fond of where you live over there.

Freddy D: 00:01:20

Yeah, that's why I've been here for a few days.

Corey Quinn: 00:01:24

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:01:24

And it is unique. What's unique about this state is that different parts of the states are completely different.

Corey Quinn: 00:01:29

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:01:30

So you can go to the northeast and it's all forest. Most people don't realize that we call it the high country, but you go to high country, the east side and it's all pine trees.

And you would never think you're in Arizona because there's no desert.

Corey Quinn: 00:01:44

That's not what I think of when I think of Arizona for sure. That's wild.

Freddy D: 00:01:47

Exactly. That's why I bring it up is most people don't realize that. What's your backstory?

I mean, you've got an interesting background and so today, you know, working with agencies with Corey Quinn, which is your own business.

Corey Quinn: 00:02:00

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:02:00

But how did you get to where you are today?

Corey Quinn: 00:02:03

Great question. So I'll give you the 10,000 foot overview. I graduated business school from USC here in Los Angeles.

And it was back when commercial real estate was the thing that all of my classmates were getting into. I, I decided to get sort of back into the web. I had previously been an entrepreneur, raised a bunch of money in the dot com days.

But as I was graduating, I wanted to get back into the Internet. And so I took a job as a business development representative, I. E.

Sales at a digital agency selling PPC and SEO to large retail brands like Lululemon and Remax. And Hyundai and the Men's Warehouse. These were all deals that I closed. And I love sales. I love the sales process.

I was the top salesperson there for 19 consecutive quarters. Eventually made my way into sales management. Of course, that's the typical path.

And then I became the chief marketing officer of a digital marketing agency called Scorpion. And if you're not familiar, Scorpion is they do websites, ppc, SEO for local service businesses.

t the time, when I arrived in: 2015

We grew the company from a hundred employees to a thousand employees. And we grew the sales team from six people to 60.

Freddy D: 00:03:39

That's incredible.

Corey Quinn: 00:03:40

I know, it was very. It was a lot of fun, a lot of highs and a lot not nearly this gray as I am now when I started there. And I learned a lot.

And you know, one of many of the things that I picked up along that journey are in this, this book that I have since written since I have left the company. It's called Anyone, Not Everyone. The proven system to escape Founder led sales. And I wrote it to help agencies primarily.

But any service business certainly would benefit from this. Helping them to functionally get out of the sales role through becoming a, what I call a deep specialist in a vertical market.

And we could talk more about that, but that's the work I do now. I help agencies scale with that methodology.

Freddy D: 00:04:26

Now that's an interesting story. I mean, it reminds me when I got into the computer aided design, computer manufacturing space we created, called it CAD cam.

Yeah, you know, that was a ride too. Transforming drafting people from drafting boards to 3D designs.

Corey Quinn: 00:04:40

Yes.

Freddy D: 00:04:41

So we had a blast back in those days and scaled companies.

I started as an applications guy and then I moved into sales and became district manager, regional manager, Western regional manager in charge of global sales. Not as big numbers as you were doing because this was a more of a niche market space, especially when I focus in manufacturing. But yeah, great story.

Corey Quinn: 00:05:04

interesting. When I joined in: 2015

The company was basically all the local kids that lived around the founder. It was pretty much all the local high school kids. All worked together, all knew each other, all grew up together. I was an outsider.

I came in because they realized that they were successful by many definitions. The founder really wanted to get to the next level. They really wanted to impact more businesses.

It was coming from a genuine place of wanting to help other companies and they were struggling to figure this out.

And so what I inherited was a six person sales team that was very well paid, that drove nice cars and got off at 2:30 or 3:00 clock every afternoon because we had this beautiful flow of inbound leads. Qualified inbound leads were just coming in, the phone would ring and then they would make money. It was a beautiful deal.

The challenge was that the founder wanted to accelerate this growth like we were good, but he wanted more.

And so the challenge I had in charge of helping to grow the revenue for the company was how do we accelerate growth beyond just the inbounds and the referrals we were getting?

And so what we did is, did what most companies do when they want to grow faster than the inbounds are supporting them, which is, want to guess, Freddie, what do we do?

Freddy D: 00:06:27

Back to existing customers.

Corey Quinn: 00:06:29

Existing customers. We did that a little bit. Not as good as we could have. We probably should have read your book.

But what we did was we started going outbound and we paid companies like Dun and Bradstreet and others a lot of money to get their lists. Back in the day, there was no Apollo or anything like that. It was. And you'd get an Excel spreadsheet with a couple thousand bill businesses.

These were attorneys we were targeting. And of course we started going through that list and old fashioned prospecting, old fashioned baby prospecting.

And what you find is about half the leads in that list are dead or gone, you know, out of business. And you just don't know which half that is. So it was very, very laborious.

And we did, as we were going through, of course we would cold call, we'd try to get an appointment with the attorney. And if you're familiar with attorneys and other professional service firms, they have a.

Freddy D: 00:07:19

Gatekeeper, we call them gatekeepers.

Corey Quinn: 00:07:21

And we couldn't get past the gatekeepers because their job was to stop us at the gate, not to let us through type of thing. And so we struggled a long time.

And you can imagine the sales floor that was once this amazing place to work where you had all this opportunity and money and all these things. And we had to go into that room and say, hey guys, we need to start picking up the phone and start making dials, start doing outbound dials.

And they were not happy with that. A lot of resistance went into that. And when they would do it, we weren't that successful.

Like if, I don't know if you've ever done much Cold calling or anyone listening to this has done a lot of cold calling. It is a high activity, low yield tactic and it's psychologically very tough over the long run. Getting told no over and over again, frankly, it sucks.

And so we struggled for a while until we decided to send gourmet cookies ahead of the cold call. So what we did is this was. The founder came up with this. It was brilliant.

We sent gourmet cookies before we ever picked up the phone and sent them cold to the prospect. And because they were amazing and it was very thoughtful. And out of the blue, what happened.

Freddy D: 00:08:29

Was take the call.

Corey Quinn: 00:08:31

The gift, the cookies would arrive and everyone in the office is standing around the receptionist desk saying, who brought the amazing cookies? Right. And all of a sudden, the name Scorpion, the agency I worked for, was bouncing off all the walls.

By the time we would call to follow up, it went from the traditional, like, no, you know, please leave a message to oh, yeah, you guys, you're the ones that said the cookies. Hold on, let me put you through. Right, right.

Freddy D: 00:08:55

Game changer.

Corey Quinn: 00:08:56

Yeah, it changed. Go ahead.

Freddy D: 00:08:57

Well, you reminded me a couple things. One was cold calling prospecting years ago. We went and this regional manager, no, it wasn't reach him, his vp. And we got.

He flew everybody in until we were in. I was in Chicago at the time and we went into Ohio and we were all in the room and we were all dialing.

And I can't remember the sales guy's name, but every one of us was the same guy. We were cold calling for him. So I'll just say his name was John. So I would be saying, it's John setting up appointments.

You know, you'd be calling up and saying you're John. You know, that other guy would be calling up and saying, they're John.

And everybody had a list and we all pretended to be John and we got some appointments for John. We crushed it all day long. We had party, lunch, fun blast. It was a fun day.

Corey Quinn: 00:09:50

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:09:50

And that's why we made it fun. So it didn't get grinding.

Corey Quinn: 00:09:53

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:09:54

Because, yeah, prospecting can get grinding.

Corey Quinn: 00:09:57

Yeah, absolutely.

Freddy D: 00:09:58

And the other thing that you bring up, I did something different and I want to just share the story, please. Of course, I was selling into manufacturing space.

And so what I would do is, you guys sent cookies, I would send a letter, but I had an ace up my sleeve and it was inviting them to a lunch and learn to understand how the technology was transforming manufacturing. So it wasn't positioned as, hey, look how wonderful our software is. It's no, hey, look, the market's changing.

You need to become aware of what's happening.

Corey Quinn: 00:10:28

And.

Freddy D: 00:10:29

And we were in executive suites, and I would hire the gals and then have them contact the guys right into the manufacturing space and invite them to lunch. They would take the phone call.

Corey Quinn: 00:10:41

Yeah, perfect. I love it.

And so it was positioned so that they felt like, hey, I get to go have some free food, learn about something's going on, and maybe I get to hang out with the lady who called me to. Yeah, from. Right.

Freddy D: 00:10:55

Different approach, but similar tactics.

Corey Quinn: 00:10:58

Exactly. And so we learned that this worked not just on a kind of experimental basis, but we figured out how to scale this over the long run.

And so what we ended up doing at the end, that was the beginning state.

The end state was we had these 60 salespeople, and every quarter we worked with them to develop a target list for this, what I call gift based outbound. And every quarter, 250 their leads would get a gift. And guess what? They would do the rest of the quarter, follow up on the gifts.

Freddy D: 00:11:27

Right.

Corey Quinn: 00:11:28

And then. Yeah, exactly. It's a much better follow up. Salespeople are much easier, much more willing to follow up on a gift versus a cold call. Trust me.

Freddy D: 00:11:38

Well, remember the movie Wall street where Charlie Sheen is sitting outside the office and finally she gets him to see Gekko?

Corey Quinn: 00:11:46

Yeah, exactly.

Freddy D: 00:11:48

Same approach.

Corey Quinn: 00:11:50

Same approach. The output of this is that we would sell 600 deals a quarter. Half of those were from outbound.

Freddy D: 00:11:59

Wow.

Corey Quinn: 00:11:59

This methodology. So 300 deals a quarter came from cookies and other gifts that we'd send. We'd have to send other things besides cookies.

Although we were known in the space as the agency that send the cookies. We would get calls from prospects that we didn't have on the list, and they'd say, you're sending everybody cookies but us. What's wrong with us?

Why haven't you sent us any cookies?

Freddy D: 00:12:16

That's funny.

Corey Quinn: 00:12:19

Yeah. We figure out how to scale the outbound and kind of operationalize that.

Another thing that really helped us with our growth was taking a vertical market approach. And what that means is it's a specialization.

So in a service based business, you know, you could, whether it's accounting or marketing services or whatever, you can specialize in what you do, or you could specialize in who you do it for. So we only do accounting for the restoration industry, or we only do digital marketing for dentists. Alternatively, you could specialize in both.

We only do TikTok videos for dentists. Right. That's very Very specific. But what I found was at Scorpion, when I arrived, they were focused on attorneys.

And that specialization, being an expert in that space, having a lot of credibility and client success stories, that's what drove all the inbounds that existed.

When I got there, we decided to not only go outbound, but we also decided to repeat that success in another vertical market, which is home services, you know, plumbers, roofers, electricians.

And so what we did, which I think was interesting, is that instead of just having the current sales team selling to attorneys, also sell to plumbers, we actually hired a separate division in the company. Different salespeople, different people on my team, on the marketing team, different account managers who only focused on, let's say, plumbers.

And the benefit of that was that, in fact, I'm actually remembering the first sales guy we had used to have a plumbing business. And so when he would call the plumbers, saying, you know, introduce. He could talk. He could talk to talk without even thinking about it.

It was just natural language for him.

And so all of a sudden, the barriers or the resistance went down, and these sales calls, plumbers that he was talking to realized, hey, this guy knows exactly what I'm struggling with. He was right there. And I could talk without any filter with this person.

And so as a result of that, we learned really quickly that specialization, be able to talk shop and understand their world at a deep level, really helped us to remove friction from the sales process, accelerate sales, and grow that business.

Freddy D: 00:14:34

Your whole message becomes specific. So I have a saying.

Corey Quinn: 00:14:38

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:14:38

To be terrific, you need to be specific. And if you're specific, you'll be terrific.

Corey Quinn: 00:14:46

We speak the same language.

Freddy D: 00:14:48

Exactly.

Corey Quinn: 00:14:50

Effectively. What I do now is I help founders of agencies who want to scale, who are stuck in what I call the generalist trap, to become specific effectively.

Right. That's the name of the book. Is anyone not everyone. Right.

Comes from a David Allen quote from his book Getting Things Done, which is, you could do anything, but you can't do everything. Right.

Freddy D: 00:15:12

You have to be specific to be terrific. You need to be specific. And if you're specific, you will be terrific.

Corey Quinn: 00:15:18

Yeah, exactly.

Freddy D: 00:15:19

I came up with that, going to, like, the BNI groups.

Corey Quinn: 00:15:22

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:15:22

And I see people that says, oh, I looking for somebody has skin. And you go, I can't think of everybody too ambiguous if they would have said, hey, got a solution that works with people that got rosacea.

Oh, and Lucille could utilize that.

Corey Quinn: 00:15:36

Exactly. I have a Rolodex moment.

Freddy D: 00:15:38

Yeah, exactly.

Corey Quinn: 00:15:40

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:15:40

How is it that you work with agencies and Share a story of how you've transformed somebody to where they became your super fan.

Corey Quinn: 00:15:47

Sure.

Freddy D: 00:15:47

And now they're your sales force. They're promoting you to people that they know. And there's no better marketing than having a sales team of all stakeholders promoting your business.

Corey Quinn: 00:16:03

So the person that comes to mind is a couple examples. But the person who comes to mind, his name is Peter and he is an agency founder.

Had been dabbling in this vertical specialization thing for a bit when we met was he was specializing in radon, which is a very specific industry. It is home services, I guess this weird kind of gas that is prevalent in some parts of the country.

And his focus for his agency was radon home service providers or businesses as well as a couple others. And he was doing okay.

But what I mean by okay was that his marketing was inconsistent, his messaging was inconsistent, was very bland and broad, not specific and not terrific. And was frustrated because he felt like he was kind of doing what he should. But he wasn't really getting a lot of traction.

What he really wanted was a predictable pipeline of growth. We worked together and analyzed who he's selling to.

Instead of selling to radon companies as well as a couple others, he decided to go all in on radon.

And we actually went through a process to understand what is the psychology or the how and why behind why radon companies hire an agency or maybe leave their old agency. We really codified that buying journey, if you will. We understood what the attributes are that cause someone to buy what they're looking for.

And we built a messaging framework that redid his whole website, redid his whole pitch decks, everything to clarify exactly the problems he solves, who he solves it for, so on and so forth.

And then from there, very simply, we ran this gift based outbound strategy that I just talked about where he wasn't just waiting for his phone to ring or depend depending on Facebook ads, but he actually built a list of high value prospects that were in the radon industry that had problems that he knew he could solve and he went out and sent cookies to them. Guess what happened? Grew his business. Yep, he grew his business, doubled his business pretty significant.

And also gave him a roadmap that he could deploy against a secondary vertical market which is pools and pool creation and servicing. But he implemented gift based outbound and also something very important which is events.

Going and spending time at industry events and getting belly to belly with these folks.

How this is how business gets done is that you want to shake your hand, look in your eyes, especially for those agency founders who are listening, who. Many people that you're trying to serve have been burned, like it or not, at some level. And it's very hard for them to trust.

So the best way to build trust is go meet that person and go spend some time with them, have an experience, get some cocktails even.

Freddy D: 00:18:51

That's a way, you know, used to build trust. Yeah, yeah, I used to do that.

In the CAD cam industry, we would have trade shows and people would come in to visit the trade shows and you talk with a couple of potential customers that'd be in Germany, for example. It's a 10 day long manufacturing trade show worldwide. But you got a chance to build some relationships.

You got to know some other people from the industry. Same thing.

When I was selling home builder construction management software, I would go to the Home Builders association here in Arizona and I'd meet the home builders themselves. Sometimes they'd be on panels and stuff like that.

And you built up a discussion and you became not necessarily a friend, friend, but, but more than acquaintance. Then you say, hey, let's get together and let's look at what you got going on.

Corey Quinn: 00:19:36

Exactly.

Freddy D: 00:19:37

Boom, you're in the conversation. Yeah, I got a question for you here, please. Corey.

Before is when you sent the gifts, was it just a gift by itself with no message or nothing like that, or was there a little bit of a message?

Corey Quinn: 00:19:50

We learned the hard way you had to include a message.

Freddy D: 00:19:52

That's what I was thinking.

Corey Quinn: 00:19:53

And I give the gift arrived. They were like, oh, that was you. We didn't really know who these cookies were from. We just kind of. They arrived and they looked amazing.

And even better is creating some context or some story around why you're sending the cookies.

For example, Peter, who I'm talking about, wrote this really wonderful story about how his grandmother used to bake these amazing cookies and how it had a big impact on his life about being the best at doing something. And so that's what he has dedicated his life to. So he wanted to share what it was like to get some amazing cookies. Right.

So it would put a smile on someone's face. It wasn't just a quid pro quo. I was sending you these, you know, are you available to me on Tuesday? Type of thing.

It was much more of a relationship builder than anything else.

Freddy D: 00:20:36

It's very clever because you're really connecting emotionally. That's where it really was going at. I was thinking couple places in a couple ways.

But really at the end of the day, you're making an emotional Connection, That's. And people buy emotionally and they justify logically.

Corey Quinn: 00:20:50

That's right.

Freddy D: 00:20:51

You open up the door emotionally for those people because of the fact one, they got a surprise. So that puts a smile on their face and they taste a high quality cookie. So they're even more excited now.

They're really going to take the time to read. Need the information.

Corey Quinn: 00:21:07

Yes.

Freddy D: 00:21:07

And you know, you probably got some inbound calls as well out of that.

Corey Quinn: 00:21:11

Yeah. The way I teach it is you don't rely on the inbound. You have to do the follow up.

Because chances are the minute they're eating that cookie and they're in that beautiful moment where you want to talk to them, but then their phone rings or they get a text message from their wife or whatever that is.

Freddy D: 00:21:27

Right.

Corey Quinn: 00:21:27

And then they intend to follow up, but they never do. So you have to do the follow up. It's critical.

Freddy D: 00:21:33

Follow up is everything. It really is the magic that transforms the opportunities.

Because I have a saying that you've got a 15 minute window from an inbound lead that comes into your website to respond. If you don't respond within 15 minutes, it's most likely gone.

Corey Quinn: 00:21:53

Yeah, Yeah. I have a fun story of the power of gifts. This was a little bit different. We didn't send cookies. But it was a Scorpion salesperson.

He was focusing on enterprise level companies, larger multi location franchise businesses, and he had a target list of a hundred franchise businesses that he was expected to prospect and close over a year. And there was one CEO who he was really dead set on trying to build a relationship with and try and get a meeting with.

And despite whatever he did, calling, yelling, couldn't get any traction, didn't anyone, couldn't get an introduction. And so he's researching the CEO of this franchise brand and it turns out that the CEO was interviewed in a magazine.

In the magazine interview, the interviewer asked the CEO, what's your favorite all time favorite quote? And she said, well, my favorite all time best quote is something my dad would tell me. And it really made a big impact in my life.

And the quote is, tell stories and be remarkable. Okay. What Justin did, the Scorpion salesperson, is the minute he read that, it's like, okay, I have an idea.

He went to Etsy, found an amazing artist who had them embroider the quote from her father onto a pillow and then sent that to her. Of course it landed under desk.

She opened it up, that led to a phone call, which led to a relationship which led to a $1.7 million deal for Scorpion There you go.

Freddy D: 00:23:20

It's a little old school. I mean, it's all old school, really, because you don't need a computer, emails.

Corey Quinn: 00:23:28

And all that stuff. You just gotta have a little bit of curiosity and intention to make that happen. Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:23:34

I remember when I'd be selling, I go into somebody's office and start looking. Oh, okay, that. And you can start talking about that thing.

I used to drive a Mercedes and everybody used to tell me that I'm never going to make any sales because people are going to say, oh, he's charging too much, too expensive and all that stuff. I go, you guys don't get it. They're driving one.

Corey Quinn: 00:23:53

So you understand them, right? Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:23:57

So I go in there.

We'd be talking about cars and the tech guys would be out there doing the tech stuff and yeah, we'd be BSing about cars and, you know, the BMW, Mercedes, this would you have. Oh, I had that. And. And stuff. It was fun. Those were good days.

Corey Quinn: 00:24:12

Yeah. So they're not gone. You still do that stuff. I am a big. Going back to the events. I'm a big believer in two things at events.

Number one, getting on stages is still very important, especially if you're at an industry conference where your buyer is.

So in the case of Peter, he went to the Radon industry conferences, got on their stages, would educate and train people, and of course, people come to his booth after and want to ask more questions. And that's how it was really helpful for him. The other piece, which is great at events is. Is to create your own event.

I don't care if it's going to the hotel bar and throwing down a credit card and inviting people to come hang out or hosting a separate private event. But it is an event where you create a memory.

There's a great book called the Experience Economy by Joseph Pine, and it was all about the marketing and the commercial impact of creating experiences with your prospects. And the quote that I love that he said was, if you didn't create a memory, it was not an economically viable experience.

And so when you're thinking about going to a conference and getting away from the computers and getting in front of your icp, your buyer in the real world, it's important not to just shake their hand, but also to invite them to some kind of amazing experience that would leave a memory. I'll give you an example.

In Vegas, of course, there's all these conferences, and we would go to this one conference called the International Franchise Association Conference, and it was always a. The one conference where all of our big buyers would be.

And so what we did is we rented out the whole front row of the Britney Spears concert in Vegas, and we invited our best clients, our best prospects.

That was something that I probably would have never done, but if someone gave me a ticket to that and said, let's go out to go get a steak dinner and go watch Britney Spears in the front row, I'd be like, I'm in. Let's go. Right, sure.

Freddy D: 00:26:04

And that.

Corey Quinn: 00:26:05

That was the experience. That was the memory that we created. Of course, when we came back from the conference, we didn't talk about business or whatever.

We talked about how Britney Spears was staring at Steve the whole time. Right. And just, like, having a great memory. So that's another thing to keep in mind. As you're doing these type of events.

Freddy D: 00:26:21

You know, what you're doing there is you're creating those memories, are transforming into super fans. Yes, Those super fans talk about it.

And that's the thing we want to tie that in, is the fact that all the things you're talking about are things that, in turn, creates super fans. When you're sending the cookies, you're creating super fans from those.

Even though they're not customers yet, they're already super fans of you because of the approach that you utilized.

So now the door is somewhat opened because of the fact that either they contacted you or when you make the phone call, they'll take the phone call because you've already got them to be a fan of your agency and you as an individual, because your name is tied to what was sent.

Corey Quinn: 00:27:05

Exactly. Now, talk about superfans. Peter has referred me a lot of business, and I literally last week sent him a gift as a thank you.

Freddy D: 00:27:13

Yep. One of the things I did years ago and I still do today, but there was no Internet. And any of that stuff is.

Especially when I was doing the manufacturing software, we would come into a company and we would do a whole presentation of the technology. They'd have everybody in.

The owner, the VP of the IT guy, and then it would bring in the shop floor guys, the guys that would be actually utilizing the software. Okay. I made sure I got everybody's name. And then when I got back, I had a Mac at the time, and I had written some templates and template letters.

Corey Quinn: 00:27:50

Okay.

Freddy D: 00:27:50

Yeah. And I would print them out. I'd say, corey, thank you for your time. Jim, thank you for that.

Everybody got a personalized letter mailed to them at this job site.

So the guys in the shop floor that never get anything all Of a sudden they get a letter saying, hey, Corey, thank you so much for your time in the meeting last week. Your insight was valuable. We appreciate it. We look forward to working with you.

My approach was also, the sale was done and I was already talking in that letter of our next steps and how we're going to implement it.

Corey Quinn: 00:28:22

I love it.

Freddy D: 00:28:23

And what would happen is they would have a meeting and they decide on the vendor because there'd be two, three of us that were bidding for the projects and I would always win. Most of the time, I'd say probably about 90% of the time. And when I ask is, why did you pick us?

He says, well, we felt after the sale you would provide the best support.

Corey Quinn: 00:28:42

Yeah, isn't that interesting?

Freddy D: 00:28:44

Had set that tone by the follow up. And whether it's a gift, a letter, an email, text message, follow up is really the goal.

Corey Quinn: 00:28:56

Yeah, that's absolutely true.

And you're in many ways, especially in the world that I live in and spend time in, which is the agency space, the buying experience for prospects is not great. Those agencies that have a really beautifully designed crafting sales experience, they have a great follow ups, thoughtful, intentional.

That's a great way to stand out. That's a great way to communicate what you care about, which is ultimately the customer. Right.

Freddy D: 00:29:21

But it goes beyond that because that's just a deal.

Corey Quinn: 00:29:25

Right.

Freddy D: 00:29:26

The real sale in my mind, is everything that happens after the deal, because you can get the deal.

But if the whole customer journey is not pleasant, one, yeah, you could have been the world's greatest sales guy and the best tactics and everything else, but it still falls apart because the back end, to me is actually sometimes more crucial than the front end because that's the whole experience and that aligns with.

Corey Quinn: 00:29:54

My feelings as well. Freddie. The most important metric in an agency type of business, which is monthly reoccurring, is lifetime value.

And the reason why that played in our favor at Scorpion was our clients would stay with us for 36 months, 24 to 36 months, and pay us every month all the way through. Our competitors, their clients would stay with them six to 12 months.

What that meant was that every client that stayed with us would stay with us twice, three times as long. And therefore every client was worth more to us. So therefore, guess what we could do? Spend more to acquire them, to make the money.

So we would send better cookies, we would go and do bigger events at the conferences because the economics would work out in the end.

Freddy D: 00:30:41

Oh, absolutely. I still have people when I was doing some digital Marketing stuff for a little while. I still have some customers that are.

Well, see, one of them is going on 15 years. I still do it part time because it's easy work.

Corey Quinn: 00:30:56

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:30:57

But we still do business and we're talking 15 years later. So what you're talking about, I just bring that up to really emphasize that it's the whole aspect of that whole experience afterwards.

Corey Quinn: 00:31:10

Yes.

Freddy D: 00:31:11

Is really the magic.

Corey Quinn: 00:31:12

Yes. It's the business. Yeah. That's how you actually make a viable business.

Freddy D: 00:31:17

Yeah. Right. And those people, you know, they've referred me business over the years.

Corey Quinn: 00:31:23

Yeah. It's great.

Freddy D: 00:31:26

So it's important, that whole aspect. So I really like what you're doing with the deep specialization because that's really. It goes back to be. To be terrific, you need to be specific.

And if you're specific, you'll be terrific.

Corey Quinn: 00:31:38

That's right.

Freddy D: 00:31:39

And that's what you're doing. You're helping people be specific.

Corey Quinn: 00:31:41

Exactly.

Freddy D: 00:31:42

So they can become terrific in the market that they want to be in.

Corey Quinn: 00:31:45

That's right. Buyers care about whether or not, you know, their problem and how to solve it specifically.

Freddy D: 00:31:51

Yep. What is one of the things. When I was on construction management software, it would be, where do they see themselves in a couple years?

That would be the conversation, how can I help them get there? This is just a tool. There's other construction management software. They do the job. Otherwise they wouldn't be in business.

So I differentiated myself, which is what you're doing and you're helping your clients do is, okay, let's get out of the widget conversation. Let's get out of talking to strategy. And how can we help you get to where you want to get to? And now it's a whole different conversation.

And money really doesn't become part of the conversation until the very end. And it's not even part of the issue anymore.

Corey Quinn: 00:32:30

Right.

Freddy D: 00:32:30

Because they're down the road.

Corey Quinn: 00:32:33

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:32:33

You're already down the road, right.

Corey Quinn: 00:32:35

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:32:35

Yep. Yep. Corey is. We're kind of wrapping up towards the end here. How can people find you?

Corey Quinn: 00:32:42

Well, Freddie, I'd love to offer your audience a free audiobook version of my book. They can download.

Freddy D: 00:32:49

It's very generous.

Corey Quinn: 00:32:50

Yeah. I think download it from any. Anyone Not Everyone Dot Com. It's Anyone Not Everyone Dot com. It includes the full audiobook. It's me narrating.

So it's kind of like you get little strategist in your pocket. And then it also comes with bonuses like videos, worksheets, templates, and so on and so forth.

It's a very sort of how to practical book and so give you all of the all the things you need to be successful to follow the five steps in the book.

Freddy D: 00:33:18

Oh, that's terrific. We'll make sure that that's into the show notes.

Corey Quinn: 00:33:21

Thank you.

Freddy D: 00:33:22

That's very generous of you.

Corey Quinn: 00:33:23

Thank you.

Freddy D: 00:33:24

And that's going to help a lot of people because you've got a track record of really helping transform businesses. And I wouldn't use the word transform because going to a 150 million dollar company, it's different. It's a different ball game.

Corey Quinn: 00:33:41

Yeah. Person company to a thousand. Like we didn't have an HR department at 100. You have an HR department at a thousand for sure.

Freddy D: 00:33:49

Yeah. It's a completely different model. And now what you're doing is you're really helping that smaller agency scale.

Corey Quinn: 00:33:57

That's it. From experience.

Freddy D: 00:34:00

So Corey, it's been a pleasure having you on the Business Superfan podcast. Great conversation, great insights for our listeners. I think you and I could probably speak on this stuff for I know that's for sure.

I appreciate your time and we look forward to continuing the conversation and having you on the show another day.

Corey Quinn: 00:34:19

Wonderful. Thanks Freddie.

Freddy D: 00:34:24

Before we wrap, here's a quick debrief. Every conversation focuses on a single pillar of the Superfans framework.

Nine road tested steps that turn a spark of possibility into unstoppable scalable prosperity. The nine pillars S Start strategic positioning and purpose.

You unite stakeholder synergy P Propel magnetic messaging E Elevate every stakeholder experience R Rally referrals and reputation S Foster financial fitness. A automate for exponential leverage N Nurture lifetime loyalty s Scale and sustain prosperity.

Each episode concludes with a superfan's success spark, a practical guest driven action distilled from today's conversation that you can implement within 24 hours. Follow the nine episode cycle. Apply every spark and you'll build a proven playbook for turning stakeholders into loyal superfans.

Accelerating referrals, reputation and revenue.

So here's this episode's Superfans success Unify Stakeholders Synergy Insight Every quarter we built one target list, sent a gift to each contact and the whole sales team spent the rest of the quarter simply following up. Corey Quinn Action 24 Hours Pull sales, marketing and ops into a 15 minute huddle to pick your top 10 dream prospects. Decide one small surprise.

As an example, a cookie box with a personal note and assign who will follow up. Then schedule the send off. One action, one stakeholder, one superfan closer.