Part 2 with Site-seeker and Lead forensics; What's needed to make a new partnership successful.

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[00:03:35] All right, guys. Welcome back to the podcast. So to catch everyone up, if you haven't listened to the first version or the first episode, the first part of this conversation we had with lead forensics and site seeker, go back and listen to that. Maybe pause right now and get caught up because now we're catching up with the guy.

[00:03:54] To learn what has happened. What's been put in place what is co-marketing look like and what are some of the sales processes that are going down between lead forensics and sites are in this unique sort of white label relationship? That site seeker is providing a service on top of lead forensics for their clients.

[00:04:13] So I'll start with Michael and lead forensics. If you want to just update everybody on what exactly is going on. When did the relationship start? And what is the product that enables the service?

[00:04:24] Michael: Yeah, sure. I think the the initial conversations kicked off in, in Q4 and Q1 was probably the first piece of business that we delivered.

[00:04:33] And yeah, just a reminder on lead forensics, it's IP tracking, two business names. So really easy equation everyone can do. If you look at your session. And then you look at your inbound conversions and then you look at your cookie data. You probably get about 96% out or sorry, 4% even visibility, which leaves us with the opportunity of the 96% that we uncover.

[00:04:56] Awesome. 

[00:04:57] Alex: And Tom, why don't you talk real quickly about the service it is that you're selling on top of lead forensics and anything that Michael didn't. Yeah. So 

[00:05:07] Thomas: site seeker, we're a digital marketing agency. We focus heavily on website design development search engine optimization, pay-per-click and digital advertising, email marketing automation, a website analytics, and reporting.

[00:05:19] So this inserts itself really well into our suite of services because we're very focused on driving results. And with the companies that we work with, which is typically B2B and those results are form fields, conversions, and lead 

[00:05:33] Alex: generation. Awesome. Yeah. And one more question, Tom. I mean, it's really interesting for the partner teams or I think very useful for the partner teams out there listening that have a solution and they're trying to launch their partner program or at least get in getting closer with these agencies and they're sort of framing the product itself.

[00:05:50] In light of what the product use case is. Right. And they're not framing it on what the agency can do with the product. So I'm genuinely, genuinely curious, like, did you start the relationship with lead forensics with an internal use case? Like, Hey, we need to track visitors on our website. And then you saw the benefits and the potential for offering services on top of lead forensics, or did a client come to you and ask for the service and then you needed a product for.

[00:06:18] How did that start? And when did the mentality change from, this is a great tool for our website to this as a tool that we can sell a retainer service on top of and win new business around. Yeah, 

[00:06:31] Thomas: we do use it for site seeker, but that wasn't really the, the initial use case. We're, we're always trying to look out for new tools and technology that we can leverage on behalf of our clients.

[00:06:40] So it really just came about from a couple of clients. We're really looking to improve our lead generation efforts and kind of our lead nurturing efforts and what other resources were out there and available to us that could help get more. Contact names and contact information into the pipeline that we can actually work and nurture and do more within our automation programs.

[00:07:04] And this was really the perfect fit. And we did look at a couple of the tools out there. And lead forensics really was the top dog and the one that, that met our needs for the size of our clients and what our clients were. We're looking. 

[00:07:16] Alex: Awesome. Yeah. Michael, anything on that. And then I want to hear about the progression of just the sales system itself and how it's become more streamlined and more effective than it was earlier on.

[00:07:28] Michael: I think, yeah, I think my performance marketing agencies are kind of welfare first and they see the opportunity that the data. Ultimately, and there's probably a S you know, there's still a huge amount of education that we need to do in that space. And, you know, we could probably be doing a better job of that honestly, but no, I think Tom covered it pretty well.

[00:07:47] Awesome. 

[00:07:47] Alex: And I want to get into what's going on with you guys today. Why are we back talking about it? There's obviously some highlights and some positive things that have happened. So I'm starting with the progression of learning about this relationship to formalizing a sales agenda. Let's talk through some of the things, milestones or key initiatives that have taken place and been positive and have worked out that have created this system.

[00:08:13] Anything on that mic? 

[00:08:15] Michael: Yeah, I think number one is initial use case initial customer experience. Everybody, you know, dipping their toe in the water and getting the feelers out there. And ultimately that one turned into a really successful. Customer you know, really successful mutual customer, which phase to resell a package, building something that worked for the site, C2 crew being pretty flexible around how we, we kind of package that so that you know, there's a, there's a strong margin there and there's also.

[00:08:43] Just from a P and L perspective, it kind of all makes sense. It's all really easy to do for the agency. And then, yeah, fast forward, six months now kind of fulfilled that package ready for the next one mutual webinar's happening. And I think we're comfortable right. Where we've got to the point where. And I were best friends.

[00:09:01] Thomas: I'll add to that. So everything starts with the demo. W we need to be getting as many trials in place as possible because no one is going to be wowed by this technology. And no one is going to actually buy the technology and the solution, unless they're seeing their own data. So I could, you know, shout from the rooftops, how great it is.

[00:09:17] But if I'm showing someone else's data, it's, it's really meaningless. So we're always after that trial, we're always after those demos. So, you know, in the beginning it was, it was a little slow moving because we didn't have. The proof we didn't have the case. Studies are going to have the testimonials yet, but as we've gotten the ball rolling and we've secured, you know, 7, 8, 9 deals at this point, we have more of those stories to tell and we're able to get more trials, more demos going, and the ball is rolling.

[00:09:41] Now we have momentum now that we have a number of these clients on board, they're using it, they're liking it. They're happy we're having, you know, we're doing more with the data and it's, it's really good momentum right now. But having those demos. And getting some of those case studies under our belts has been really, really helpful.

[00:10:00] Alex: That's great. Yeah. You guys definitely seem like things are a little bit more, I guess, mature in the relationship the way you're talking about it from last time. So if you go back and listen, I didn't mean it's definitely just night and day. So with partner teams listening to this and I guess agencies too, I mean, not the hard part with all these relationships, getting from the point of learning.

[00:10:18] Figuring out what you're going to do to fully ingrained in the agency and operationalizing the partnership. Right. Instead of just having that one client that got on board and it was good. And then everybody forgot about. To snowballing into a system and snowballing into a sales operation, which it seems like you guys have Mike, I know this was one of the few, right.

[00:10:41] That does the white label relationship on top of lead forensics. So what is the plan now? So you've got something operationalized. Now, is this going to be an endeavor that you're going to take and broadcast and make public? Is it already. What is the strategy now to make sure this can be a repeating?

[00:11:01] Michael: Yeah, I guess, no, not in the broad cross front at this stage. I guess the strategy for us is to acquire more performance focused, a tier one agencies like site seeker. And for me, it all comes back to that first, that first win again. Right. It's. Golfer and the door deliver value on an opportunity. Number one, which doesn't always happen.

[00:11:21] Let's be honest, you know, we're not always going to win that, that account. And ultimately the relationship, you know, still at that stage, not, you know, 1% of the time. So acquisition marketing, a tier one agencies is ultimately where it comes to for me and, and, and provide them and get the value on, on phase one.

[00:11:35] We know we can do that reseller package and. I think the education within the partner manager team, my end is that they're aware of the site seeker relationship. They're aware that these guys are really bought into this program and wrapping their services around the technology. And they've got a healthy margin and commercials and all the rest of it to be achieved.

[00:11:53] So I think it all comes off of appetite off of that initial win. Once you get. 

[00:11:58] Alex: Yeah, I have two questions there. So you mentioned tier one agency's. First question is what attributes of site seeker make them a tier one agency. And then I want to talk about some things that you are doing to make sure Tom and site seeker are able to sell this white label service.

[00:12:14] So yeah, sure. Enablement, but first yeah, help me understand that tier one 

[00:12:18] Michael: definition. So I guess initially criteria is head count and revenue. In my experience, I think any agency we're kind of 30 plus heads is in a, is in a good place. They all have good customers, good revenues coming through the business, get head count.

[00:12:32] And so on beyond that, it's not as easy as. Head count or turnover and it's, it's specialism. There's so many agencies out there there's so many services provided. And I think we touched on this last time round, having a performance focused ROI focused agency, our solution is just so much well suited to that market.

[00:12:54] So that's probably a learning for us as well. It seems almost a bit rudimentary when I say it out loud, but there's no good talking to, you know, a creative tier one agency about how we're going to improve the funnel and the ROI they're going to achieve. It falls on deaf ears. You know, you 

[00:13:07] Alex: want a lot of impact which means a lot of clients that the agency has.

[00:13:12] And you want those clients to be a fit. Of course, I think there's some table stakes there, but I think it sounds like sight seeker is the right type of agency for other reasons. Operational reasons their ability to sell and their ability to strategically advise clients, which is different than your average PPC agency out there, your average just traffic and conversion type agency.

[00:13:34] It seems like they're more strategic. And helping their clients understand full funnel objectives, which that's when I, you know, I hear that tier one, it's like, yes, there are numbers in there, but there's definitely some things about sight seeker that make the material one that another agency have the same revenue and the same size wouldn't be a fit.

[00:13:54] Michael: It's alignment, isn't it? It's, you know, us as a business, we're a very conversion metrics, ROI focused business. Our founder was born out of a telemarketing organization. So I think that kind of says it all when it comes down to pressing the numbers and selling, and it's just a natural, you know, handling.

[00:14:11] Come to mind, you've gotta 

[00:14:12] Alex: be able to be compatible just like any relationship you've got to have that compatibility. So in your terms, Tom what, what do you think makes I'd seeker that type of ideal agency for a product? Not just lead feeder, but a product. Can enable that type of strategic, full funnel type service.

[00:14:29] What do you think about your team about the operations, about your sales systems? Anything that you think makes it makes yourselves very attractive for partnerships from these types of platforms? 

[00:14:40] Thomas: Yeah, I think Michael hit the nail on the head is what we value most in terms of marketing is everything surrounding the ROI and everything surrounding a qualified.

[00:14:50] So we, we do little with, with creative work and really nothing on the branding side. It's really all just performance and driving real business, bottom line results. And that's why it bodes so well for the processes and the tools that have already been in our stack or the services that we've been providing for for 19 years, because whether it's SEO or whether it's PPC, you know, pull one of the tactics out of the bag, it's.

[00:15:20] Around that same goal and trying to drive results. Right? So lead forensics has those same metrics that they're looking at. They have those same goals. They're, they're talking the same talk with their end users and. Agency partners. So I think it's made a lot of sense for us to team up and really do this together because we're after the same thing and it makes our conversations internally between us.

[00:15:45] And when we're on joint calls with clients that much more easy to have that much more powerful because we're talking the same language and these tools are, this tool is helping us do exactly what, what we set out to. No 19 years ago, which is drive sales. 

[00:16:01] Alex: You know, you, you want certain numbers and certain metrics and certain attributes to be there from the personas perspective, but then there's also these intangibles that just make the relationship really work.

[00:16:12] And it's hard to sort of, you can't just look at an agency on LinkedIn and, and determine if they are going to be a good partner from face value. But there are some things I think many partner teams just don't look deep enough into that. I don't think they look deep enough into the services they're offering.

[00:16:27] Into some of the articles and case studies that the writing, some of the things they're doing with their clients that make them strategic and operationally night and day. So so I want to talk about assets and enablement and how you get this into a productized partnership. So you have to look at it like I need this relationship to become a staple in our program and I need to replicate.

[00:16:49] And I need to make this something that we can do again. So that means assets. That means processes. So let's talk about just some of the things you're either doing now or have done, or are thinking about doing Michael to make this into an operational engine for your partner program. 

[00:17:05] Michael: Yeah, sure. And then one other quick point on the previous it was a podcast.

[00:17:08] I can't remember if it was one of yours, but basically it was HubSpot talking about a UK based partner who were their number one partner. And when they went through that discovery phase with them, they had a, I think it was a one man, one man shop with no clients. But from that initial conversation, from that this initial discovery you could tell that the kind of commercial appetite and aptitude was there and fast forward a year there, the numbers.

[00:17:31] Partner in the, in the UK. So I guess just in terms of that, that, you know, that fit element, that conversation we're talking the same language, all that side of things. So food is a nice example, assets wise yeah, all the standard stuff. The two page decks, the pitch decks, the case studies, how we align with different marketing channels, all that lovely stuff for me though, probably the core element of it is the kind of Cosell element supporting on.

[00:17:55] Certainly for me, when I, when I have conversations with agencies who have the appetite to be more than just a referral partner, it comes down to collaborative working across the first 2, 3, 4, 5 opportunities come and learn how we do this thing. Now I'll show you how it's done because. I've had, I've had it in the past where agencies, you know, right.

[00:18:15] We can, we can resell X, we can resell, Y we can definitely do this thing. And then fast forward, you know, two weeks, three months, whatever it is, and we don't get the success and the appetite is lost and so forth. So for me, that's like the fundamental element of going in the right direction here is that work collaboratively with us, allow us to show you how.

[00:18:37] Run this process by all means, add your own secret sauce into that. But there's, you know, there's a few kinds of pillars to that model that we have to follow to be 60.

[00:18:50] Alex: Awesome. Awesome. And Tom, what would have been some of the things that you think lead feeder has done differently, better, or just uniquely around partner enablement that making, making sure that you're successful in this whole, the whole 

[00:19:04] Thomas: marketing pieces you know, the video, the. Branded PDFs and things like that.

[00:19:08] It's been good that they provided them to us. Honestly, we haven't really used them much. And I'll tell you why we've worked with them to really establish our, our ICP. We know that it needs to be a B2B company, a certain number of annual visitors a year. They need to have healthy margins. And we're asking questions about their average order value.

[00:19:27] They've coached us in what those questions should be in order to establish that ICP. And we're going after those ideal customers. By the time we're having these conversations, the sell sheets and kind of the printed material. It doesn't really matter if they're point. We have the stories and we're able to really convince and persuade them to get involved in, in the trial period, just armed with that information, armed with those stories.

[00:19:52] So at that point, you know, once the trial has taken place where we're already off and running and we're, we're already 

[00:19:56] Michael: selling it. I think final kind of anecdotal point is I'm working with a tech channel at the moment reseller channel. And I know a lot of people that work in that space and not always, it comes back to that point.

[00:20:08] We were talking about a moment ago. Like not always is everybody focused on the ROI quite often. It's Hey, there's a certain amount of MDF here. Let's, let's spend that MDF, let's get it done. And then, you know, let's see where we are in three months time. Whereas this particular hardware provider. It's all about the ROI.

[00:20:23] So yeah, just we're probably in an age right now as well, where it's becoming, you know, everyone's talking about ROI, everyone's talking about digital, everyone's talking about ABM, so it kind of fits into our wheelhouse pretty well. 

[00:20:35] Alex: Yeah, rev ops is one of those keywords. We talking to a lot of companies that want these rev ops focused agencies.

[00:20:42] That's a good one. Any, any agency that's touching more of the stack than, than the other agencies? I mean, I think for, especially for platform like lead forensics, that's super attractive. So I'll 

[00:20:52] Thomas: defend, this is a differentiator for us because there's, there's a lot of agencies out there, right? It's a crowded space and it's even more crowded.

[00:20:59] If you add freelancers and one man bands into the mix, You know, a lot of them are, it might be doing SEO that might be doing pay-per-click and they might be doing it well, but we enter into a whole different, you know, field we're really separating ourselves when we're able to have very sophisticated conversations around that buyer's journey around that sales process.

[00:21:20] And we're able to. Leverage a tool like lead forensics to enable those conversations that are, are far, far deeper than, than just here's your traffic. Here's your bounce rate. I mean, w that, that was, that was years ago. We're, we're so far beyond that, and this is really helping us be a much better. To our clients rather than just a vendor brings up.

[00:21:39] Alex: 

[00:21:40] One other question for you, Tom. I mean, for the other agencies out there that are considering going deeper into the stack, I mean, do you have some advice around working with partners like lead forensics to get deeper in your client's stack? Is that a progression that you saw site secret? I think it's a 

[00:21:57] Thomas: combination of, of clients what they're looking for in terms of resources and support and what they're demanding, what their expectations are.

[00:22:05] And if you're able to be nimble and agile and kind of grow with them and, and, and grow with their needs and adapt to their needs, that's one thing. And then obviously, always being on the lookout for the best of the best technology and tools that are out there, you pair those two together and you're able, really able to give a much better.

[00:22:24] Performance in a much better service to your clients than just some of those kinds of rudimentary, basic type of marketing efforts. 

[00:22:32] Alex: Awesome. And any of the tools that are relevant for you guys that would be listening to this and wanting to reach out, how do they actually find out about partnering with site 

[00:22:43] Thomas: seeker?

[00:22:43] Yeah. So I could be a point of contact for anyone that's interested in learning more site-secret.com is our domain and, you know, front and center right on that. You'll be able to find me find contact information, but also find more information on a lead forensics because it's a white label program, a fully white label program what we've dubbed it as site insights.

[00:23:02] So if you navigate to the site insights page, that's all of our information on the solution that we've built out. That's being powered by lead forensics, and you could definitely learn more there and contact and contact me if interested in getting to know mean more site Sycamore and lead friends.

[00:23:18] Alex: Awesome. Awesome. And Mike for those interested in partnering, what are you looking for with, in terms of agency partners and are you the agency partner point of contact? Yeah, 

[00:23:31] Michael: so, so I run the channel lead forensics.com. Me or one of the team will be looking after you. And I, I guess the, the summary from today is, you know, if you're a revenue, ROI focused agency looking to make impact and results, then.

[00:23:45] Pretty simple solution to embed into that kind of program. 

[00:23:49] Alex: Awesome. Yeah, this white label relationship. It's always interesting. So for those of you listening that want to enable agencies like Toms, you definitely have to have a solid product. That's first and foremost, your product has to be demanded by potential customers of those agencies.

[00:24:05] I think it's first and foremost, second thing is you've got to be open to flexibility. With the partnership, I think also too many partner managers, not you, Mike, you guys are a shining example, but I think too many partner managers try to define their program into a set of a couple incentives. And just go to the agency with that when you need to go human to human one-to-one the people inside the agency are going to be your partners and have some open conversation and really build a program that.

[00:24:31] They can call their own and feel like they are a partner, a true partner. I think you guys are agreeing on your heads. Good. Take care guys. Have a good, thanks. Thanks so much.