How We’d Generate Leads If We Started Our Agency Today

Sei-Wook (00:01.919) All right. On today's episode, we'll take a walk down memory lane and ask ourselves, if we were starting an agency again, little to no connections and a limited network, how would we jumpstart the business? Today we'll talk about where to go to generate leads, why delivering for your clients matters so much at the early stage. Peter (00:16.025) All right, Wook. An easy place to start is just talk about how we got going some 19 years ago. When we started Barrel, we were pretty fresh out of school, undergrads, and we had really no network. We knew very few people, and yet we started a business and decided that we could do this. So if you can recall back to the good old days, what were some of the things that we did to jumpstart the business? Sei-Wook (00:59.07) Early on, the big thing for us was we were really building our portfolio and trying to do as much work as possible for essentially anyone who would pay us at that stage. So everything from student groups to small businesses in New York City to nonprofits that we were introduced to. But it was really just tapping our personal network to find any work that we could take on to build a portfolio of work for us. Peter (01:41.165) Yeah, some of the challenges with anybody starting a business is you are constrained to your network, and it's even more challenging when you're earlier in your career, because you just haven't had time to compound and build those relationships. I remember one of the things we did was it wasn't just people who would pay us, but actually people who just needed work done. And we did a lot of pro bono work. I remember some of the earlier work that we did were for some nonprofits in the city. And that was a deliberate strategy on our part. Sei-Wook (02:20.467) Yeah, the nonprofits was actually a great way for us to, one, build that portfolio, but also be introduced to the network of people that were involved in those nonprofits. Usually it's people more seasoned in their careers that are a little further along and have other jobs outside of the nonprofit. And from that, by association, we were meeting these individuals that we essentially wouldn't have met otherwise. Peter (02:54.176) Yeah, and even today we're still connected to folks that we met back then. Many of them were actually volunteers, also young professionals earlier in their careers, but wanting to get involved with something in the community. Those people, some of them have gone on to be founders, marketing leaders, and executives at other companies. So it's interesting how just us going out of our way to connect with these folks has turned into multi-decade relationships. Sei-Wook (03:25.811) Yeah, we'll talk more about that — it all comes down to the people and how your clients, you may work with them on one project, but that person may go to other companies and may know other people. It's a snowball effect of introductions that could stem from one relationship a long time ago. Peter (03:51.628) Right. And one of the things that you and I always talk about, especially with our agencies at Barrel Holdings, is in the early days especially, how important it is to make sure that every opportunity needs to basically be a home run in the sense that these are connections that we need to really deliver for, no matter how small the project may be. And just by doing that, it's actually the best form of marketing — a happy customer. So maybe we can speak more on that point. Sei-Wook (04:27.026) Yeah, especially when you have a mix of clients — you might have some paying clients and then there might be some lower budget clients or pro bono clients. Just because somebody is paying you nothing or little doesn't mean you should give them a less than premium experience. The reason why you took on that project is to develop that reputation, to develop the relationship, and put out a product both from the end result of what you're delivering, but the product of that person's full experience from end to end working with you. It's almost like you think of it as a marketing expense for the business. Peter (05:12.518) Yeah, and it has this effect — it could be a gift that keeps on giving. You make an advocate out of a client, a super fan. They could have a multiplier effect. That one point of contact could become a few more leads that become clients, and then you do a good job for those folks, and then maybe a couple of those become referrers of new leads. Once you daisy chain these referrals on top of each other, all of a sudden these things multiply really quickly. Sei-Wook (05:57.926) Yeah, for sure. We've been talking about a few different areas that we've been tapping. Pete, do you remember what are some other networks that we tapped in our early days to get going? Peter (06:10.41) Yeah, we played up a few different angles. You and I being Korean Americans, we volunteered with various organizations, and through that we became the go-to guys to do websites for a lot of these Korean American nonprofits, especially in New York City. And that led to a lot of great connections over the years — folks introducing us to others in the Korean American community, but also outside of it as a result of our involvement there. So that was one. Another one was obviously our Columbia connections helped a lot, just folks that were in our respective classes or people that we knew from Columbia. And Columbia itself became a client, with different departments referring work to us. So that was a big one. And we started getting involved in the startup community as well. These were the 2010s when Silicon Alley became a thing and there was a lot of startup activity. Knowing a bunch of folks in that ecosystem, we ended up partnering with a lot of different folks, whether it was a consulting company or another agency to do work — maybe the development side or the design side of a project — and that led to a lot of new relationships. So there were a number of these subgroups or communities that we tapped, and none of this came fast. It took years, honestly. That's the thing we should get across to folks: it's not like we hung out our shingle for Barrel and then all of a sudden we were able to tap these groups and get new business. Some of these things took many, many years. Some of them might have given us leads initially and then went dormant for a while, only to be reactivated later. There was no clear single thing that led to a lot of business, but it was the accumulation of many of these relationships over time that compounded and then start to deliver more and more opportunities for us. Sei-Wook (08:32.88) Yeah, I remember the early days. There was a lot of a ground game of just being visible and out there in the community. You mentioned the startup community in New York City — there were events all the time, daily events, events on weekends, people throwing happy hours, events at their offices. And we were just everywhere trying to meet people. Same for all these nonprofit events. It was through these in-person interactions where we would see the same person at these events over a long period of time. That's where you develop these personal relationships that could ultimately — and ultimately did — lead into work. And some of these people we've met decades ago at this point that we're still connected with. I think even today, a lot of these may have been replaced with Slack groups and other more virtual means of bringing together these communities. But the in-person aspect is still really important. Peter (09:43.572) Yeah, and I can't emphasize that enough. Showing up and being there in person definitely has a different feel, especially today. You can have a good introduction and a good conversation with somebody on Zoom or a video call, but the relationship really materializes into something more once you meet that person in real life. That has held true for us over the last couple of decades. Any of these folks that we might have met multiple times — one of the things I remember we used to do whenever we would visit a city to see clients, we'd also just make the effort to reach out to other folks. A lot of times it was other agency owners in different cities, whether it was LA, SF, just all over the place. And those relationships would keep over the years and could materialize into us sharing leads with each other or just talking shop and sharing ideas. So when we look back, it's the going out of our way to meet with people in person, getting them to know us and getting to know them, that made all these things work over time. Sei-Wook (11:10.275) Yeah, it's interesting. You talk about other agencies, and not consciously we were building a referral network. In hindsight, we put some language around it. But what would you say are some other areas that really helped us build that network of people in the ecosystem that ultimately helped drive some lead generation? Peter (11:33.554) Yeah, the agency angle is really important. We first got a taste of it when we worked with agencies with complementary services. It might have begun with us needing help on branding or some kind of print design and bringing a partner in to help us do that while we focused on the website. But then, because we brought them an opportunity, when that firm was working on a project with another client later, they would bring us in to do the digital part. So that started building upon itself where we look out for each other and really have a select group of firms that we could send work to. And then there were what I call big sibling, little sibling relationships where we befriended folks who became our mentors and ran bigger agencies, were further along and working with bigger clients. Anytime they had opportunities that were smaller and a poor fit for them but a great fit for us, that was a really great source of opportunities as well. Those types of partnerships really accelerated our growth. And then beyond that, we also met some key folks in the investment community, whether in private equity or venture capital. That gave us a peek into, hey, if you have an intermediary who has a portfolio of companies that they have access to, just having the relationship with that connector is very important because they can introduce us to multiple companies at the same time. Versus a lot of times when you have a client working in one business, you get the benefit of them moving to another company before another opportunity pops up. But some of these investment folks are very well connected and are continually seeing deal flow. So that was another unlock in terms of a referral channel. And then of course, friends and family — that's an underrated one where we've gotten opportunities through the closer relationships we have, folks we might have grown up with or relatives giving us opportunities as well. Sei-Wook (14:04.009) There are so many different channels, so many people that we've met. Underlying it all, it's honestly all about understanding that relationships are a compounding thing — it's not just one project you're working on with a person. It's that over time it can lead to many other relationships and many more opportunities. Some of our best opportunities have come from our past clients, either through people they've referred us to or them themselves moving to other companies. And it's really making sure that everyone — we talked about this earlier with the pro bono concept — no matter what the engagement is, making sure that everyone has a really premium experience. Ultimately it's your reputation that carries you through. Peter (15:00.408) Yeah, and this is an important point. Maybe you can speak to this — there's obviously having worked with somebody, or just having had that connection and some in-person meetings. Over the years we've invested in various ways of staying top of mind. Maybe you could speak to what we've done over the years that's helped us make sure those relationships don't go dormant or just die out over time and how we kept them alive. Sei-Wook (15:34.88) Yeah, one of the things that we've done is just create a consistent cadence of reaching out to people from the past. I started with the partners at Barrel, where we would each go out and start with two people, and that number increased over time. Every week, just consistently, whatever you can — reach out, make a connection with somebody. Could be an ex-colleague, ex-client, someone you went to school with decades ago. But if you haven't spoken with them in a while, just use it as an opportunity to catch up. And not make it a hard sell of "hey, here's our services, you should buy from us," but more just as an opportunity to rekindle that relationship. Peter (16:15.64) Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that. I remember a moment, this was a period some years ago when our pipeline was especially dry. We weren't closing as much business as we wanted and were looking at a big shortfall in terms of revenue. But we had kept this habit of weekly outreach. And I remember in a span of a couple of weeks, you were able to reactivate some old contacts and sign over seven figures worth of business that really turned things around for that quarter. We got lucky and obviously we don't want to see our companies in that situation regularly. But the interesting thing is that when you have a consistent habit, you open yourself up to good fortune like that. It's not pure luck, it's generated luck. Sei-Wook (17:25.088) Yeah, and the funny thing is a lot of those opportunities that came up were from contacts maybe three, six months ago where you have a conversation with someone and it's not like they immediately have an opportunity for you. But over time, if you're top of mind, opportunities may or may not come about. It's more the consistency, making sure that you continue doing it. Because if you start doing it when you need it, then it's probably too late at that point. Peter (17:54.82) Yeah. A couple other things I'll add to the outreach. We encourage all of our agencies to send out a monthly mailing, and some of them send actually two. One might be just updates on recent work they've launched for clients, showcasing the work side of things. And then another one — a lot of them call it a friends and advisors or partners email — where they're targeting specifically folks that have given them referrals in the past or are likely to give referrals in the future, giving them an update and also shout outs to folks who have given referrals in the past month. Those mailings have been really great for staying top of mind and have actually generated more leads, because when people see that, they think, yeah, I forgot that I can refer opportunities to these guys. It just creates this natural opening for them to think about our firms. So that's a good one. And then there are also the basics — just showing up on places like LinkedIn, making sure the website's up to date, and investing in things like SEO or maybe even PPC ads that could work for certain types of keywords. Sei-Wook (19:12.799) Marketing is an interesting one because you could do the work and you obviously have the relationship with the client that directly worked on it with you. Sharing your work — investing time into building case studies and documenting what you did and then distributing that through your website, LinkedIn, email, all these channels — is an underrated marketing activity where you just need to put the time into letting people know what you did for your clients. Peter (19:48.675) Exactly. And before we wrap up, just a couple other channels and referral opportunities. One thing I wanted to touch on is tech platforms, because that is something we've benefited greatly from. Maybe we can speak to how that's been a source of opportunities, whether it was later or early going for some of our agencies. Sei-Wook (20:20.805) Yeah, the one example is Barrel did a lot of work on Shopify as a technology platform, since the early days before they were what they are now. It was really aligning ourselves with — typically there's a partnerships team within the tech partner — being visible and everything from working on deals together to close a client that may not be on the platform, to speaking at conferences where you can share insights from your experience, doing webinars and other co-marketing activities. Ultimately you want to help the platform, so the more leads you can generate organically through your own ecosystem to the platform, in their eyes, they could share leads as well. As a platform grows you can grow with it — the idea was kind of pushing you with the growth of the tech platform. And as a platform like Shopify grows, there are other auxiliary tech platforms like email platforms or loyalty platforms and so on that are also growing and could be a source of really strong leads for a business too. Peter (22:01.397) Yeah, the solutions partners and these apps are really key and the ecosystem could be very rich. We started more deliberately with Webflow for agency BX Studio, and we've seen the benefits of good timing — where you have a platform that's growing really quickly, not many players planting a flag for that platform just yet, but then getting in, getting to understand their go-to-market and tying our efforts along with that has been a really good learning. And one more — I think we could close on this — is the role of intermediaries that do charge for opportunities. We might call them marketing brokers, or these are commission-based referral networks. Maybe you could speak to our relationship with these types of intermediaries. Sei-Wook (22:44.637) Yeah, there are a lot out there. Typically the way it works is they have an ecosystem of agencies that are part of their network, and then they have opportunities that come to them either directly to the partner, or agencies who can't take on projects for a variety of reasons may share it with the broker who can then share it with the network of agencies. Typically it's a commission structure that you're paying on the introduction, and if you win the work, a percentage of your revenue for the first year. But it's one of many things in the toolbox of ways to generate leads. Peter (23:29.353) Yeah. And the big takeaway — we started this with how would you jumpstart lead gen, how would you jumpstart opportunities for an agency from the get-go — the truth is it's important to focus in a few areas because you can't tackle everything at once, but it's also important not to put all your eggs in one basket. Even if you have a great tech partner relationship or platform, that can have its own pitfalls over time. Same with marketing brokers — if you're totally relying on their leads, you're really not building... and it's an expensive place to get leads if you think about commissions that reach from 10 to 30% on the work that you're doing. And more importantly, going back to the basics: you can never take your eye off of delivering for your clients, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many leads and opportunities you get if you don't deliver and don't build these kinds of super fans who are going to give you more referrals. It's going to be a leaky bucket that never compounds over time. Sei-Wook (24:46.875) Yeah, we shared a lot about our experience. There's no silver bullet in any of this, but hopefully this is helpful in sharing how we went about building our network and our client base. Peter (25:00.126) Yeah, awesome. All right, well, that's it for this episode. Thanks for tuning in.