The New Cold Call

Key Takeaways

[Music] now that you've branched off to start your own agency yeah how do individuals and very small startup agencies compete with the big guys I don't think there's ever been a better time to compete with the big guys um I think you know the media landscape is so sort of fragmented right now and it's changing so quickly I think you have such an advantage if you're a if you're small and then B if you really like are flexible and are staying current and can adapt and change as the landscape changes because you know big companies and big agencies you know they work on annual you know they sort of at the beginning of the year they figure out a plan for the next calendar year and guess what by halfway through that calendar you're the media landscape has completely changed and they have to figure out how to do things differently so there's sort of this built-in rigidity to you know the big agency so as a small company and small agency you have the ability to change on the dime and so I think you can you can you know it's it's it's an incredible time to be in that space because clients really need that and I think brands are looking for partners that can do things that they're big agencies can't I think they'll always be big agencies and I think big companies need a big agency to kind of feel comfortable working with they can always rely on a bunch of small companies they don't really have the resources to to manage all those vendors but I think for the right projects I think there's there's gonna be more and more opportunity I think for smaller independent creatives to just work directly with brands whether it's social media or not how do you even get into this space so you obviously you have come from the industry and then once you you're still in it but you're leaving to start your own thing how do you build up a client list and start to actually get get paid to make sure it's creature has happened I mean a lot a lot of it is just you know I mean for me personally you know I've been working in the industry in Los Angeles specifically for like the last 15 or so years and so you know I just a lot of relationships that I built over the years clients that I've worked with colleagues that I work with that are not about companies but honestly I feel like Instagram is an amazing business development tool I I have been having amazing block just like DMing brands directly on Instagram which sounds crazy but like especially if you have a following and you know yeah it's an incredible way to to connect with someone because what you're doing is you're connecting to the person at the company who actually manages their social you're not you're gonna be going right to the person who sort of doing their day to day and yeah from your experience these aren't just interns that aren't posting this stuff these are the people that are actually working with the brand to develop this sure sure I mean whether or not it's like an intern or you know maybe not necessarily like the CMO who's posting there's you know generally they have a process now and a way to like have that communication get to the right person so I would I would think like you know if you're trying to sort of create you know company or just sort of create content for brands and you you use Instagram and Instagram is sort of your you know your primary platform for yourself I think there's there's no better way like forget about emails forget about going to conferences like DM them it's incredible the response you can get wow I never even thought of that that's such great advice because not only like think about if you compare the two of them in an email first of all you send this cold email out yeah you probably have a little bit more space to write what you want to write but then you also have to include links to your work that they have to click through to and you know it's just a very sticky situation and also you're filled up with all these other people who are messaging them to the same thing in an Instagram DM I guarantee it's it's that doesn't sound like a very common approach like I guarantee most of the people are like hey I love this thing or whatever but it's not people that are trying to you know make a connection there attentively do you work for that right but then it's so much easier to click through to your work then like your especially when you have a beautifully curated page like yours it's it's your work stands for itself yep and then if you have a following on top of that even better like adds clout it gives you an element of legitimacy yeah it's got to be so much so much better than just it is it is and I mean for context to like this the company I founded kissed I founded it back in June I originally founded it though back in 2006 and back then I did it originally for about three years and it was all focused on digital back then we did all sorts of websites and digital campaigns digital content and just the difference like back then this is sort of the pre social media or the the process of finding the clients now is I find so much easier and so much sort of like it's such a more fluid experience right now and I think a lot of that just has to do with with Instagram and sort of integrating social not introduced like the work we're making but also into like how we actually go about finding new clients and finding our work