The New New Business: Dave Campbell on Putting Yourself in Clients’ Shoes
Dave Campbell is the founder of LA-based talent management Rogue Rep, and a partner at newly launched global creative studio Imagine This. Dave started his advertising career at Chiat/Day San Francisco, before moving to brand management at Saatchi&Saatchi New York, Wieden+Kennedy, Goldberg Moser O’Neill (Formerly Chiat SF), FCB West and then to Microsoft.
Missing the creative agency and production business, Dave returned to his Los Angeles base to launch Rogue Rep. He has since gone on to represent the industry’s freshest multi-disciplinary creators. In addition to founding Rogue Rep, Dave is a founding partner and EP at multi-disciplinary studio Imagine This, which blends the world of artist representation with creative strategy, production and innovation to support brands globally.
LBB> What was your first sale or new business win?
Dave> I ran a two-person ad agency while at university that I essentially inherited from someone who’d matriculated. I vaguely recall selling a pizza shop on a new print campaign. Needless to say, it was a small job, but I’m sure the free slice we won made that pitch feel exhilarating.
LBB> What was the best piece of advice you got early on?
Dave> It’s a service business we’re in... you have to put yourself in their shoes. You’re not just making ads, you’re helping your client run their business. You have to immerse yourself in the entirety of the business and the challenges they’re facing.
LBB> And the worst?
Dave> I can’t really think of any “worst” advice... I must not have taken it!
LBB> How has the business of ‘selling’ in the creative industry changed since you started? Can anyone be taught to sell or do new business or do you think it suits a certain kind of personality?
Dave> You have to love creativity and the output of creativity to understand how to position and sell something as nuanced as, say storytelling in a :30 spot. It’s a nuanced business – selling “creative solutions”. I suspect creative storytellers who sell anything for a living can sell what we sell. But it helps to be drawn to the output that we make – creative storytelling, ads, brand stories, campaigns – to enjoy and succeed in selling it to our buyers.
LBB> Should businesses be paid to pitch?
Dave> I think we’re getting closer to that. But you can’t stop someone from having a great idea and pitching it... and hoping to monetise it AFTER the pitch and the sale. The entire entertainment industry is built on that love affair of the pitch. People will always be in love with the dream of winning the pitch. The costs to pitch sort themselves out more often than they don’t.
LBB> What are your thoughts about businesses completely refusing to engage in pitching? How can businesses perform well without ‘giving ideas away for free?
Dave> First off, we can’t give ideas away for free. Besides, it’s like Hollywood! Hollywood is full of producers afraid someone’s going to steal their idea, and sure, on occasion, there’s been a little well-documented thievery. But it’s really hard to steal an idea and turn it into a feature film and therefore rip it off. If you don’t have the backing of either a relationship with whom you’re pitching to or the agency to produce your idea, it’ll never get off the ground.
But that being said, we do need our industry leaders to hold executives, companies and brands’ feet to the fire, to “hold the line” and maintain and where necessary create more parameters in this industry so that we don’t give it away for free and create a race to the bottom.
LBB> How do you go about tailoring your selling approach according to the kind of person or business you’re approaching?
Dave> I think that’s somewhat natural to tailor your pitch toward your audience. That’s the nature of selling, so to speak. Buyers, at agencies or brands, or otherwise, are ideally buying solutions and collaborators to help creatively solve communications problems. So they need collaborators who get it, who can think, and execute against a brief or even bigger than a brief.
But also, they’re aiming to link arms with comrades who can get them there together. You’ve got to show your new client partner-to-be that you’re the right “tailored” fit for the mission.
LBB> New business and sales can often mean hearing ‘no’ a lot and quite a bit of rejection - how do you keep motivated?
Dave> Do we ever! But look this is a genuinely “fun” business and not many enterprises get to say that. You don’t have to be an extrovert to thrive in this business, but it’s a very community-driven eco-system we’re in.
Yes, we have some friendly rivalries, but we commune together frequently and by virtue of our ideas for campaigns, or how to execute an idea competing with one another constantly, we get to ideally elevate our work. We’re very participative in our own future growth in this business. So, I’d say it’s very motivating to be in a business that rewards constant creative exploration and constant yearning for creative growth. Sounds great doesn’t it?
LBB> The advertising and marketing industry often blurs the line between personal and professional friendships and relationships… does this make selling easier or more difficult and delicate?
Dave> In a lot of ways, that blur makes selling in this industry probably one of the most fun. In some industries, you have to shut yourself off – turn into an inauthentic automaton, to sell. Working in the creative industry... that’s a fun sales pitch!
LBB> In your view what’s the key to closing a deal?
Dave> Great relationships and access to great talent who can solve the clients problems and present yourself and your team as someone your partner wants to work with, especially given the long hours that are sometimes required to do what we do. Also, just be a great partner, listen actively, and over-prepare and over-deliver. Oh, I’d be remiss if I didn’t add... when it’s available, it never hurts to make that emotional connection (cue the Don Draper Kodak pitch scene).
LBB> How important is cultural understanding when it comes to selling internationally? (And if you have particular experience on this front, what advice do you have?)
Dave> Oh, I think it’s utterly vital. There are so many communications cues to be aware of – always have been, but they’re more amplified now given the social media echo chamber can amplify the good and the bad. Consumers become fans when they notice that you “get them” or “get it.” communicating with that true, authentic brand voice in alignment with the culture makes for a solid foray into reaching your audience the way you’re meant to communicate with them.
LBB> How is technology and new platforms (from platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot to video calls to social media) changing sales and new business?
Dave> It’s certainly made the world incredibly smaller. Between all of our events where we see one another so often, the shoots we attend together, and all the pitches and pre-production meetings we attend via Zoom... we get to know one another or deepen our relationships that much more quickly. Obviously, we’re able to blast content out at such a rate that much of it gets lost, but we’re also able to make new and improved connections whereas before we had to live in New York or London just to get invited to a pitch.
LBB> There’s a lot of training for a lot of parts of the industry, but what’s your thoughts about the training and skills development when it comes to selling and new business?
Dave> Well, this is an extremely creative and entrepreneurial business we’re in. So I don’t know anyone who’s not always learning or aiming to learn something new. You can trust that an advertising or production executive is endeavouring to learn what technologies can bring us closer to solving the business problem, closer to our customer or theirs.
Plus, with all the new technology in CRM, social media, and the production stack – from behind the camera, to Unreal, to volume stages... and generative AI... we’re in a skills development hyperdrive at the moment.
LBB> What’s your advice for anyone who’s not necessarily come up as a salesperson who’s now expected to sell or win new business as part of their role?
Dave> First off, as Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” That applies in life, and in sales. Always be a good listener first. And aim to be a partner, not a seller. A collaborator.
We’re more in the collaboration business than we’ve ever been. So help your buyers solve their problems. You may not have everything a particular buyer needs, but if you are a trusted partner they’ll come back to you again and again.
