1865 – Build Authentic Relationships With Top-Tier Clients with Tudor Dumitrescu

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2:09With us right now, Tudor Dumitrescu. Tudor, you are the founder of Tanda Digital. Your website is tanda.digital. Thank you so much, Tudor, for joining us. Thank you for having me, Josh. It's a pleasure to be here. Listen, anytime we could talk about B2B growth, I'm all ears. Give me an overview, if you could, about the work that you do with Tanda. So Tanda is basically the second agency that I'm building. And I took the infrastructure that I developed when I was building my first agency, primarily through LinkedIn, but also through cold email to actually help people build more relationships at scale.

2:48That's sort of how we think about what we do, because in B2B, it's very different than B2C, right? and B2B is all about human relationships. The human factor matters a lot there. And every sort of business deal that you end up putting together emerges out of a conversation. So our main goal with what we do is to help basically people get more conversations with their ideal target audience and obviously develop the systems to actually perfect those and transform them into obviously book meetings and then paying clients down the line. So that's sort of a short summary. We've been very prolific in the market when it comes to actually developing the technology.

3:28So we have three proprietary frameworks of our own. We have one, the N-POT methodology, which is all about positioning yourself. And N-POT stands for niche, problem, offer, and transformation. And it's the way we actually take any agency. We generally work with digital agencies. So it's how we take any digital agency and we position them in the market so they stand out and it becomes easier for them to attract their ideal target audience. So that's the first thing. The second thing is our... Before we continue on to the other two, tell me a little bit more about why that is so critical. Why positioning is so critical?

4:06Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's kind of a softball of a question, but I expect you'll knock it out of the park. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, especially in a market that's as competitive as markets are today when it comes to B2B service businesses, agencies, right? Anybody pretty much can say that they run an agency who has a laptop around. So it's extremely competitive. And if you don't stand out to the client instantly, then nothing else is going to work, right? So I always say that the first thing is getting attention. If you can't get attention, then it doesn't matter how good your sales message is.

4:42It doesn't matter what you're trying to do later down the line, because none of it is actually going to stick. and positioning helps you in multiple ways. So first of all, it helps you communicate your value to your ideal target audience much more easily because with our endpoint methodology, at least, it becomes very clear, you know, who your niche is specifically, what sort of problems you solve for them very specifically, how you solve those problems, like what's the offer and what sort of transformation you deliver for them. And especially as we're moving into the future, I'm definitely noticing a trend in terms of more agencies moving over to the transformational model, where it's all about, you know, what sort of transformation do we deliver for this type of customer?

5:28And then we're happy to move our services around for whatever actually is best to deliver this transformation. So that's the first thing, because obviously, let's say that you're a dentist and you're approached by two agencies who want to take over your marketing. And one of them is a general marketing agency. Even if they're bigger, you're still going to prefer that marketing agency that just works with dentists and just works with dentists to increase retention, for example, because they're the subject matter expert. And when you live in a market climate that's basically dominated by skepticism because of many unethical agencies and just very big competition, then being an expert is key.

6:09because it gives you the foundation from where you can do everything else, like build relationships, sell, and so on and so forth. So does that sort of clarify how it helps? Yeah, yeah. No, I absolutely agree. I mean, there's no sense. You know, it is. It's very challenging if you look like you're a fly-by-night service provider, if you're an agency. It's just going to be very difficult. No amount of lead gen is going to be able to resolve that. Like if you look like it, because that's just part of the buying process is that you have to understand that folks are just going to do their due diligence on you.

6:46Like, especially, you know, if you're going to be asking for many thousands of dollars from them, they're going to, you know, they're going to have to do a gut check. Do you look like you do look the part? So whether that's fair or not, it's just the way that it is. Okay, so we talked about reputation and kind of the, you know, branding and being a really key part of that. What was step two in this process? So the other factors I want you to talk about is our N-cubed agency growth model. So when we have a system, you know, how are we now going to apply basically your positioning to actually help you grow?

7:21That's basically the second thing. And here we have three core pillars that we rely on. and there's three Ns. We call it the N cubed because each one doesn't just increase the other one momentarily, but it's like exponential increase when you have one on top of each other. The first one is network. Like the bigger your network is and the more you expand your network, the bigger your area of influence, the more customers you're going to be able to attract over the long term. If people don't know you, right, nothing can actually happen. So that's the first N, expanding your network. And obviously, it helps in two ways.

8:00That's how you develop basically predictable lead flow that's consistent and also top tier. Top tier because you actually get to select who is actually an ideal customer for me. And it's not an easy question because when I first introduced people to the endpoint methodology, they think, for example, I want to target, let's say, digital agencies. And that's a very superficial way to define a niche. because you have to think where the service can actually add the most value, right? That's the big thing. And for example, if your service to actually do it well, you know, that's just the amount of resources that it's going to take.

8:40Let's say that it costs$4 ,000 per month. It doesn't really make sense to, let's say, target digital agencies that are making 200K per year, because most likely they will not be able to afford it. You know, we can set some targets. we can say that a company invests, let's say, 10 % of its revenue in marketing. And we can look at exactly more specifically what that niche would look like. So that's a big thing, defining this prospect and then being able to go after them. So that's what we help clients do in that first part of expanding their network. The second one is actually starting conversations.

9:14So how do we start conversations that are actually friendly, that are not salesy, That's not me trying to spam you, but it's me trying to open up a relationship with you to actually probe to see if you have any sort of the problems that we can help on. And before we actually do any of the selling, because what's happening at the moment, especially on LinkedIn, where it's where our main focus is, is that so many people are spamming. So many people are sending thousands of messages. And it's like they fall on deaf ears, first of all, because they don't have a clear target. They don't know who their message is actually reaching out to.

9:49In our case, we've developed an AI system where we quality score prospecting lists. So let's say, Josh, that you wanted to target startups in the UK, tech startups, seed funded tech startups in the UK. We can assign factors. Let's say we can take a criteria like location. And to location, we can assign a coefficient of two if the startup is based in London and the coefficient of one if it's outside of London. Just because we know that startups in London are more likely to have better investors, to have bigger financial backing and so on and so forth. So that's just one of the criteria. In our case, it's like we develop a series of them and then automatically from different lists that are assembled together, the prospects are quality scored.

10:38And the third step is that they're manually verified before we actually reach out to them to make sure that they fit your ideal client profile. And that's really important because, I mean, the old boys used to say this. I mean, Gary Halbert, if you go back to him, he used to say that it's all about the quality of your list, right? That's the biggest thing. It's even more important than your offer, right? And we truly believe in that because we've seen that make a huge difference. The biggest difference is actually getting your message in front of the right people. to begin with. That's the big thing that people are doing wrong at the moment.

11:14And then obviously, it's how you start the conversation, which is the next thing that we help people on. So that's sort of the first factor. I want to give you an opportunity if you have any follow-up questions on that before I move to the next end. No, go ahead. Just for the sake of time, let's continue on. Yeah, perfect. So the second one is the most important one. It's what we call nurture, right? People are not ready to buy right away, right? At least most of your market is not ready to buy right away. So you have to nurture them over time. And it's this nurturing that establishes you as a thought leader and as an authority.

11:49And while content, for example, on LinkedIn may not be getting you leads itself, what content does really well is that it predisposes people to think well of you and of what you do and to respond positively when you do reach out to them. So all of that is by actually building relationships with them, by posting authority content, by interacting with them, by engaging, by providing value, by doing all of that. And that's basically the second pillar. The third one is how do you actually negotiate a win-win deal? And that's the third one, negotiate. And the aim with the third one is to actually install a sales system that doesn't actually feel like selling for your agency.

12:29So we started by actually qualifying prospects. You know, and the first call is generally 15 minutes, very short, and we just get to know them and we see what sort of problems they have and if we can actually help them. Because it makes no sense to try to sell to people who are not in a position where they can benefit from what you have. And a lot of agency owners from what I've noticed just try to sell to everybody and it's just a waste of time for themselves and for the people that they're actually interacting with. And then the second thing of negotiating, we believe in closing with value, right?

13:04So your fulfillment process, what you actually do for clients has a series of steps. We generally look at the first steps and identify one of those steps that we can do as part of the closing process. So for example, for us, we are happy to review your LinkedIn profile and give you a personalized report with recommendations, how you can improve it as the first step, even before you become a customer. And that's specific to you. And we do that so that you can obviously be in pole position to benefit from what we do. Because obviously if your profile is not ready, then the content, the outreach, and none of the other things that we actually do for you would even help.

13:43So that's what I mean by closing with value. So that's a summary of the second thing that we have going on. You know, being empathic and not being that guy or gal that's just, you know, trying to sell right out of the gate. You know, again, that desperation is just very uncomfortable as a customer to be around, right? Instead, you know, it's a subtle shift, but just, you know, it's almost like aiming to be to the expression I like is my goal for that first call is to evoke in the other person, And oh, good. Now I have a friend who does what you do. Like for me, like that's my highest good that I hope to get out of that first call.

14:30And then we'll see. Right. It's like, you know, again, more of an energy of two leaders coming together to figure out if they should be doing work together. Absolutely. Yeah. So again, you know, to our friend that's listening, you know, if your sales team is, has that energy, we've launched over 200 consultants on the sales side of things. And what I can tell you is that when your energy is there, it's just going to be a lot easier than the traditional method of just trying to be like a Glen Gary, Glen Ross sales floor where you're giving away steak knives. Those days are kind of, it just doesn't work.

15:11I mean, they're not gone in B2C, but in B2B, they were never really there, right? Or they were there as long as the other person didn't have information, but now information is available anywhere, right? It's more like people are looking for somebody who can diagnose their issues and point them in the right direction to save them time, obviously. That's the biggest thing. And I think that if you place your focus on understanding rather than closing, your actual closing percentages are going to go way up. At least that's been the case for myself and the people that we've worked with, simply because you actually get to explore the problems of the other person from their point of view.

15:51And you actually get to pinpoint and know exactly where you can help them and obviously demonstrate your expertise and your knowledge. And I sort of call it, you know, sell like a technician or sell like a doctor versus sell like a traditional salesman. Yeah, yeah. Your website, Tanda.digital, you know, for someone that wants to see this process, what would you recommend they do? Yeah, so obviously they can go to Tanda.digital and there's a video there on our homepage that sort of illustrates the process. If you want the exact strategy that we apply to LinkedIn, we have a LinkedIn playbook that you can download from that page or you just go to tanda.digital slash playbook and you can get that.

16:37It's our full strategy going from the beginning, you know, how to actually identify the right people. How do you connect with them? How do you start conversation? How do you nurture those conversations? What type of content to post? How to post it? How often? How to actually book the meetings? How to actually do the meetings? all of the strategies shared in there and it's a massive basically notion document that's that we keep updated all the time um and so if people want to get a sense of the strategy that's the best resource for them to get if they want to apply it themselves that's the best resource for them to get um and then in terms of working with us so we have two ways we have one way where we We actually do stuff for you, do part of the process or the full process for you.

17:24And we have the other way where we give you all our tools that we use internally and you do everything yourself. So one we call the N-Cubed Agency Growth Service and the other one, the Agency Ascendancy Group. And that one is like a 12-month program where you get all the tools, you get coaching, you get everything you need to apply yourself versus actually having us to do it. So that's quite simple. I mean, if you go on our homepage under services, you will find both of them, the growth service and the agency ascendancy group. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is terrific. And you do, by the way, this is very accessible.

18:04Your pricing is just looking at your page right now. And then again, even if that those services are out of reach, you have a group and that's even more accessible. So where you teach this in great detail. So, well, great. Again, your website, Tanda.digital, and you'll see everything that we're talking about. Tudor Dumitrescu. Again, this is your company, Tanda.digital. Tudor, great conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me, Josh.

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