Trust Trumps Technical Excellence: Hard Truths About Enterprise Sales from 15 Years in Agency Business

As an agency owner of 15 years, I’ve lost prospects to:

– lower costs
– the agency across the street
– predetermined RFPs
– deceptive pricing
– fake deadlines
– being overqualified
– speaking to an assistant vetting 20 firms
– certificate creds (ISO etc)
– changing stakeholders midway

…and many other reasons.

Skills, experience, and know-how were never a deciding factor.

Especially in the WordPress realm, where my team has a number of core contributors who have launched platforms for banks, telecoms, automotive manufacturers, over a dozen sites rendering 100,000,000+ monthly views, and many more.

The highest success rate in closing deals is:

– word of mouth
– key partnerships (known names)
– super niche technologies or channels

The due diligence cycle of our transactions is 7 months on average (some close in 2, others in over a year.)

So ultimately, it’s the trust game in play.

There’s an overarching perception that “being the best in X” is the most important thing in business.

It’s rarely the leading factor in most service businesses – just like Coke isn’t the healthiest drink or McDonald’s doesn’t cook the best burgers out there.

Word of mouth, relationships, networking, branding, low key collaborations are disruptive factors that go a VERY long way.

This is the main reason I produce free content, author a weekly newsletter, have 2 books, our team has 20+ plugins out there, and I hang out at networking events with no agenda.

People do business with other people.

And the more impressive your brand appears – with higher-ticket items – the less likely for newcomers to find you online and buy from you right away.