From Persuasion to Partnership: Winning High-Value Clients Without Pressure with Travis Pomposello

You treat every call or every meeting more as a diagnostic and not a pitch, right? You're an expert. You're there to diagnose in a sense the problem. If you just go and pitch, you're not really listening, you're not really doing that. Welcome to Sales' Service. The podcast is on to help you change your mind about sales, literally. I'm going to help you change the way you think about selling. I'm Tam Smith, your host, Sales Bestie and Pitch Partner next door. You're tired of bros with biceps, telling you how to crush a million dollars in your sleep, or battling in posture syndrome on your own, you've come to the right place. All you need to do is listen, then take action. No gym membership required. Let's get started. Hey there and welcome back to Sales' Service. If you're new here, I'm your host, Tam Smith, Sales Growth Strategist and Founder of Studio 349, where I help female agency owners and service space founders end the feast or famine cycle with sustainable, scalable sales solutions that actually feel good to use. And I'm especially excited about today's guests. This one's personal. If you've been listening for a while, you know I'm a huge advocate of prospecting and warm outreach. I consistently encourage my clients to stop waiting and start initiating to make connections, build real relationships, and create opportunities for collaboration and growth. Today's conversation is a perfect example of the power of that practice, and it's when I'm very confident would have never happened if I hadn't since that first DM. So let me rewind here for a minute. Before I shifted Studio 349 from traditional marketing services into sales growth strategy and building sustainable sales systems, I honestly thought of LinkedIn as just a glorified resume holder. It was a place for recruiters, a place for HR. Definitely not a platform I was thinking about as a core part of sales strategy. Most of my clients at that time were focused on Instagram and Facebook and I've of course followed suit. LinkedIn barely registered. What I didn't realize at the time was the scale and the opportunity of the platform when it's used well. Let me put it into perspective as of late 2025, LinkedIn had over 1.3 billion registered members worldwide with roughly 310 million monthly active users and about 135 million people logging in daily. And with less than 1% of users consistently posting content, it's still one of the easiest places to build visibility, credibility, and real thought leadership. It's not social media in the traditional sense. It's one massive ongoing networking event, and that's where I first came across today's guest. I was quietly consuming his very thoughtful, grounded content on how to win high value clients, sell with clarity instead of pressure and build trust in a way that lines with how modern buyers actually make decisions. Stud out for me immediately was the integrity behind its message, so I did what I now encourage my clients to. I reached out a Senate EM, no expectation, but to my delight, he responded. And that conversation turned into a connection that connection turned into a relationship. And today I'm proud to say he's not just a guest, but a mentor I'm actively learning from as a student inside his creative agency, accelerator. Today's guest is Travis Pompassello, a former media executive, turned advisor who helps creative founders scale their agencies without losing their integrity. Travis has worked at every level of the system. From early roles at MTV and Nickelodeon, to producing for the light show with Avery Letterman, to leading creative and marketing teams at CBS and Paramount and co-founding ethics, where he awarded over 100 million in agency contracts. He later built and sold his own creative agency, scaling it from zero to over five million with clients including Netflix and Amazon. And today, through his accelerator and one-on-one mentoring, he helps agency owners like me move from selling services to selling outcomes, shifting from vendor thinking to becoming trusted strategic partners in their niche. This conversation is about that shift from persuasion to partnership, from chasing every lead to becoming the safe choice, from transactional deals to long-term relationships built on trust. And it's also a real-time look at what it means to stay curious, stay teachable, and be a student right alongside your audience. Here's our conversation. Travis, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to Sales of Service. Thank you, absolute pleasure to do this with you. And I always start these conversations off with the same question. Tell us, who do you help, and how do you serve? Sure. So, I mentor creative founders and agency owners who want to move from selling services to selling outcomes. What's unique about this for me is that I've been on both sides of this situation, right? I was a C-suite exec, as a co-founder of one of the very first streaming networks. And in that job, I awarded over $100 million dollars of contracts to different agencies, you know, service providers, you name it. And that really gave me a lot of insights when I then when it started my own agency, when I decided I wanted to get a business for myself. I had this sort of mantra of like, you're never really going to truly know about business until you're a business for yourself. And I failed at sales initially because I really thought just my gravitas of being a C-suite exec was going to just sell people out of a gate. And I had to really go back and say to myself, what made you buy from people when you were the one awarding the contracts? And then I built my whole sales philosophy around that, grew that agency to over five million a year, ARR. And you know, that's what I that's what I mentor people with. It's what I learned from being on both those sides and speaking about how clients actually buy and how do you position your work so that it earns real trust with your buyers, but also preserves your own conviction and integrity around what you do. And to that point, what did get your attention as a buyer? And if you had to summarize your philosophy in one sentence now, what would that be? Yeah, I think, you know, what it really was, the best sales process feels like a decision the client made on their own. And you know, that's kind of like, you know, process over pitch, right? So I think often we come in wanting to pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch. And when I say process, I'm not saying process of like how you do what you do, but the process of how you sell, of how you develop that trust, how you get the client to a place where you're not convincing them in the process or the pitch, they're already, you know, bought in and convinced that they want it and that they want it genuinely to work with you. And they want to find out how we can work together. I've heard it said that it's like rather than being like, you're trying to sell someone, something, it's just we're helping them make the best decision for them. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I said. Yeah. And of course, you mentioned you scaled and of course, sold your own agency. What sales habits from that journey still anchor the work that you're doing now today? Yeah. Echoing off of what I just said, you treat every call or every meeting more as a diagnostic and not a pitch, right? You're an expert. If you just go and pitch, you're not, you're not really listening. You're not really doing that. The other would be talking about outcomes before tactics, right? I believe always talk about the outcomes of what service you provide as opposed to the tactics of how you do it. You can't differentiate yourself by saying, I use this, you know, I use scrum methodology or waterfall or I have this tool or I have these things, that's not how you differentiate yourself. You differentiate yourself by the outcome you can provide. And the last one seems very simple, but it was very effective on me when I was the buyer. I found it to be very effective when I was on the seller side and I think the people I work with can say the same is to follow up with precision and value as opposed to desperation. It made me so uncomfortable when I felt that the follow up was coming from a place of desperation. It conjured up so many emotions in me that it almost made me as the buyer passive aggressive and not knowing how to reply. And there may be an external forces on my, you know, everyone has a boss when you, you know, and that I couldn't really be empathetic to your desperation because it would put it a week, the company in a week position. So when I say follow up with precision and value, it echoes the other two points that I have, right? If you've diagnosed properly, if you've talked about outcomes over tactics, you follow up precisely around that and speak to the value of your service. I think that's, I think that that's gold and that's still, and that would still be the anchor, you know, I think the thing that, the thing that sells people in general or an agency on who's doing their own selling or is, is, is remembering like, there's that sleazy sales person like connotation and memes or whatever that are like about being, that trying to be the smartest or the loudest in the, in the room and that never worked for me. It didn't work for me in my corporate career. It didn't work for me when I owned my head in my agency, but what did work was always being the most useful and that's, I think, the real separation between when people think about sleazy sales person versus someone that don't even think as a sales person is that being useful. In early in my sales career, we're like, we're conditioned to think that that like, what and quote, sleazy sales person like, that's the only way to sell, if you will. And I actually went through a season where I thought I was a bad sales person because that's, I was listening to what I thought I should be doing versus, you know, what is, you know, natural and just inherent to me to want to lead with service and be very relationship focus and how can I, you know, serve and solve versus what can I get and take. But I thought I was, you know, doing it, quote, unquote, wrong because I didn't have that, you know, mentality and I feel like so much of my work now is just either educating or re-educating folks on, you know, what a successful sales conversation can be. It's a win-win for both parties. You really are speaking to something that I've been thinking a lot about is how people, how, how people we're selling to are buying today, especially, especially in corporate, anyone who has corporate clients who is listening to this. But I believe that trickles down even to, if you're selling to coaches and consultants as well or, you know, maybe not, you know, big, huge corporations, but, you know, even local businesses, right? I mean, because of the moment we're in, we're seeing that everybody, but especially buyers, right, more cautious, more deliberate, skeptical, right, there's so much noise out there. It's hard to really figure it out. It takes so much longer for them to make a decision, not so much because they want to take, they just want to take longer. It's because of those other factors, right, that, you know, there's economic uncertainty, you know, which is, which definitely has increased scrutiny from, from buyers, right? There's, there's such easy access to information that earning that trust is like so much harder to earn because I think you could probably bet that the minute you get off the call with them, they're on chat GPT, you know, analyzing the call or maybe, you know, getting transcript feedback from a notetaker, you know, and they're overwhelmed by options, right? There's so many options and they're so wary of all the marketing hype that's out there, you know, in the market. And, you know, because of all the layoffs, you know, it's a very sad topic, which I don't want to, you know, dive into in this, but there's, it's budget protection mode, right? They're double checking every claim, you know, all this uncertainty, all this risk adversion. They're only going to move forward when they feel confident and secure, right? So that's changed the buying cycles. I mean, I read somewhere, they've lengthened by like 20% on average, you know, multiple layers of approval. I mean, even for someone who has a small business, maybe a coach or a public speaker, or, you know, they have a financial person on their team, that's like, you know, getting more dug in, then there's no more knee jerk sort of things, right? You know, on the corporate side, I know all too well that, you know, at least 65 to 75% now require like, see sweet approval, even for small numbers. So, you know, and then you're talking like there's no more like handshake, right? It's like, it's like, could be five, six people where it used to be like maybe one or two. Right. So, you know, going back, even the smallest deals, just face significant scrutiny, and it really, it really goes to what you're talking about inside your accelerator, which I am like very grateful to have the opportunity to be a student in. You talk a lot about identifying and committing to a high value niche, I know we were talking before we started recording, that's a, can be a somewhat controversial topic, or there's a lot of resistance around that. But what does that look like, especially when, you know, you've been saying yes to everyone and everything for years? Yeah, especially when you're starting out, but even it often, and it can often drift when things start to get a little more challenging if your pipelines looking dry or fairly bleak or, you know, you've lost an anchor client, you know, start chasing every project and we start thinking that the opportunity is a linear. The reality of it is is, you know, you're, you have to become the filter, like, not the net. I mean, I don't, I don't know many companies today that have the marketing budget to cast a net and, you know, having, being able to cast a, you know, or run a filter in a sense is much easier to take, if I'm using the fish metaphor, to catch, you know, the right fish. So that's a bit of a way to speak to that, but it also comes down to where to go really back to, you know, most people start their companies, their agency, their, the service they provide based on their expertise, their skill sets, and, you know, how they, and how they priced themselves, right, the value for that service in the market. Very hard to charge what you're worth, show your expertise and enjoy what you're doing when you're trying to be that for everybody, you're going to dilute something in there. And when you dilute something in there, it makes it very, very hard to one differentiate, but also a real client base that then you could scale into high value clients because you're not, you're not building a reputation or a portfolio, you know, you're becoming a generalist who's good at a lot of things and generalists tend to get paid low money and specialists tend to get paid much more. You can think about it in medicine, right? A gastroenterologist gets paid a specialist fee versus a general practitioner. Not saying you can't make money as a general practitioner, you can, but you're not going to have that high value as a general practitioner. You know, and for myself and my own business, you know, I feel like I'm somewhat, you know, a little bit in that transition from moving from, you know, what I'll describe is like vendor thinking to moving into, you know, like, yes, I've made the declaration that I'm, you know, focused on sales and business development, but even within that, you know, there's so many parts of that cycle and moving from like instead of vendor thinking to getting more focused and specialized on the audience that I'm serving and the services that I'm providing, you know, getting it even more narrow within the niche, like, how do you, do you recommend to folks, you know, when they've been like, what's the first step to kind of transitioning from that broad net to getting more focused and specialized? I think there is two sentences you have to think about. You have to embody, right? Experts don't chase RFPs, right? They define the brief. The second sentence, the second thing to be saying to yourself is vendors say we can do that. Experts say here's what you need to do. Those can unlock so much if you take that mindset going into a sales call and meeting with the prospect, it's, that's the shift. I mean, I don't, I don't, you know, you know, if we think about it, if we want to zoom out and take it a little more tactically, you know, finding that, you know, is about, again, going back to, why did I do this in the first place? Because I'm good at this. I have skill sets that I developed in this over the course of time, very few people start in agency before having been a practitioner, right, would that be a graphic designer, editor, copywriter, whatever, you know, that may be myself included, right? So, you know, getting back to that and then, you know, looking for it, looking for people who do that, who need that service and then taking in, taking in those, those two sentences. I think that translates then into things, you know, what I, what I talk about in, in my mentoring, is around creating things around like a short proposal. If, you know, what I mean by short proposal is you are, there's no more need for that like 30 page pitch deck, right? Because now you're already speaking the same language, you're already talking about, here's what you need. You don't need to go back and show, and we work for this, so we work for that, and we work for this, and here's who works here, and here's the, here's what they, here's what they want to school and all these things, you're just getting straight into ROI value and, and cost, right? I can break that down even further, but I think that's, I think that's one that I think. I, I want to also add to that that there's this fear of losing opportunity, and to me it's really the opposite, because if you stay focused on not only an ICP, but the person is inside of that, I, I see, and you think about what were the projects I enjoyed working on the most, what, what projects are those were the most profitable? What are the, you know, which ones close the fastest, right? Which ones paid on, you start, you start lining those up, the reality starts, I guess it starts to become the opposite. You're not really losing the opportunity, you're, the, you know, the reality is you're gaining a lot of opportunity, and when that's clear, I, for me, and I know for others that I work with the referrals, double, because people actually know what to, who to refer you to, right? If I, it's like saying this, if I were to, if I would have a call with you and say, you know, hey, hey, Tim, I'm looking, if you could refer me to any other agency owners, that would be wonderful. And you'd think to yourself, like, okay, well, I know, like, I'm not really, like, I know a lot of those. I'm not really sure. But if I said to you, Tim, could you refer me to an agency owner that works primarily in, in PR, and you're like, oh, sure, I have a friend who works in PR, who is an agency, boom. And then I have, and then I have everything to back it up. So if it's, so if you look at it that way, the referrals will double because the whole marketplace knows who you're for, as opposed to you having to ask this broad question. So knowing those personas inside of your ICP are also very important when it comes to niching down. I've said this to you before in some of our conversations. I have not had, and I have not had a moment in time where somebody hasn't said to me, I know you don't usually work with people like me, but would you consider it, because they see the work, right? And they see that it's transferable, you know, we talk about transferable skill sets. If you're doing it right, you don't have to, you don't have to pitch them on transferable skill sets. You'll see it, right? If I use my example, you know, PR, somebody in an adjacent, you know, agency space, we'll say, well, if he could do it with PR agencies, I'm sure he could do it with a design agency or a branding agency, you know, we partner with those type of agencies all the time. And it's not quite as tangible, but the confidence that comes from being able to show up in conversations with that kind of clarity and purpose, you can, like I said, it's an intangible, but you can feel it like the, I, again, relate just my own experience of, you know, discovery calls I've had when I'm trying to adapt to be whatever I think that prospect needs me to be on the other end of the call versus showing up, like knowing who I'm for and, you know, and the problems I solve, it's just that there's a difference in the way I, you know, show up. And I think you show up when you have that, again, clarity and purpose around, you know, the audience you're serving. Well said. I mean, I don't know how they're better said and, and the, I will say this, the more that you experience that, the more that you live that, the, like anything, right? Repetition, who needs the confidence, leads to mastery, leads to repeatability and always then results to, you know, more and more positive outcomes. You talk about, you know, we've said, trust isn't built in the pitch. It's built in the process. Talk, just talk a little bit more about, you know, practically speaking what you mean by that and what that looks like. Yeah. Like an example. Maybe that, you know, play it. Yeah. Sure. I, so when I was in my television career, when I was young in that career, I really, I really thought that trust was built on charisma, especially in that industry. And even in that industry where we had very traditional salespeople who were selling, selling ad sales, right, selling ad space, commercial time, they appeared to be very charismatic individuals. They're often more of very typical archetype, like tall, good looking, well dressed, you know, the whole of everything smooth talkers. When I grew in my career and I started being at the table in some of those conversations, I realized that their clients, their buyers, didn't love them because of their charisma. They loved the predictability, they loved the predictability of how they sold to them, how they showed, you know, like what the value was in what they were selling. They really knew, they really knew their buyers, but they showed up consistently, right? And they communicated them like they were equal, they were the ones who would close the loop on the details, they didn't get asked about the details, right? They closed the loop on those details. They may have in the meeting, not talked about like the fine details, like in this case, like this amount of time and that media buy, but they definitely followed up and closed the loop on those details, post, you know, verbal communication. And that's how you become the safe choice, right? And that's what always is going to win. The safe choice always wins, especially in the business climate we're in right now. Correct. Yeah. 100% need a better system for getting clients consistently, grab my VIP power hour, a free daily rhythm designed to help you stay visible, nurture your network and spark new conversations in just 60 minutes a day. It's not about cold pitching or chasing algorithms. It's about showing up with intention, do it for 30 days and I promise we'll start to see more confidence, more conversations and yes, more revenue. Download it free at studio 349.com, backslash freebies, now back to the episode. In the age of, you know, AI and automation, I mean, I think we both like that human connection and relationship is going to remain the differentiator and client acquisition. How do you kind of teach people to prioritize that in their sales process? Yeah. With the topic of AI, because of a lot of fears and some of them are, you know, I'm not going to make a commentary about that, about, you know, AI taking our jobs and the need, the humanization of, it's, it's a, be like me commenting on my political views or religious views or these things. It really is a polarizing topic around AI. I believe for where we are today, the day of recording this, anything could change. AI can simulate knowledge, but not conviction and what wins isn't what you know, right? That's what you care about enough to protect and that's, again, your skills, what you do, those things, right? And that's about, that's, in a sense, that's, that's integrity. That's integrity around what you're selling. The piece that, when we think about AI taking our jobs and all the commentary around that, I am feeling less scared about that than I am about, I'll use this example. So I come from a writing background, until I start at my television career. I would like to be a purist and just write for my own mind, for all eternity. But what I fear is, is the writer who's equally a skilled or more skilled than me, who's using AI as a, as a writing partner. That's going to be very, very challenging. So I think that that's in this, you know, and I have my own little anecdote about this, is when I first started as a writer, I had the benefit of Spellcheck, where the people who are over me, who had been in the business for a couple of decades, you know, sat there, you know, with, with, with a dictionary in it the Soros, right, next to them, right? And then I had Spellcheck, and they were telling me how spoiled I was, because I had Spellcheck, right? And, but it's kind of similar and I don't want to, I don't want to make light of the situation especially around the creative community, but that's what I fear, right, is if whatever you, whatever you are a specialist in, as we talk about it, how to compete with this, others that they, the specialist who is using, the automation is using the AI, is using the tools, but then it goes back to integrity, right? So again, it, it, it, it, there's a lot of knowledge out there, but nothing can replace your conviction and your conviction in, in, in what you do, going back to selling value, going back to selling ROI, those are unique, those are unique propositions. So what's one action? You want every creative agency owner or service-based founder listening to take this week to start owning their expertise in the sales process. Sure. And, you know, throughout our conversation, we spoke a lot of things on the emotional level, because it is, when you're on your own business and you're a seller, it is a very emotional thing. But I, you know, to answer this, I want to give some tactical advice. And my tactical advice would be either, either your next proposal, or if you want to practice on a past proposal, rewrite it to lead with outcomes, not services, and go through and replace every version of we do with you get and just read that through and look at the tower transforms it. And when you do bring that to, and, to your, the next sales call, really listen for how the tone of a call changes. That classic vendor pitch deck was the state of play, right? That's what worked in our, in our current, you know, economic climate. That's changed, right? And that's a bit of why I have taken a step back and, and created what I'm calling these four pillars around that by our mindset. And not all of these are things I did even, you know, two, three, five years ago, right? There's a, there's a difference between pre-pandemic buying, and remember we had a pandemic. And then there was, you know, then there's post-pandemic buying, and then that's even iterated itself more into, you know, what we're seeing at the end of 2025. And I think going into 2026, I'm hopeful for, you know, some economic turnaround, but I don't think it's going to change buyer, buyer behavior. And the same way we speak about how for decades, you know, that vendor proposal was the state of play. I think we're going to, I believe we're going to see this, you know, more as, as the state of play. You know, I don't think it's like fashion. I don't think like, you know, the version of skinny jeans is coming back, you know, in, in, in, in that. So in these four pillars, the, the first one is empathy. And you as the seller need to sort of reframe things. We have been conditioned to sort of us versus them mentality. We had a bad experience and corporate that colors that, you know, we get those, you know, as sellers, we get ghosted a lot, we get all these, you know, things happening that creates the order that us versus them mentality, and we stop paving empathy for our buyer. And I believe that's a mistake. I think we really have to understand the clients or prospects situation, their concerns, but also their goals and their goals could really just be, I want to keep my job like, you know, or I want to get this promotion, and this project could be the thing. So I think we really have to keep that in mind, right? And if you have that empathy, and I'm not saying have empathy where it's like, okay, I'll do it for a dollar, okay, I'll, you know, I'll get it done in over the weekend. I have that kind of empathy, you know, I'm talking about, right? It's about there, it's about, you know, what's going on in their day to day, and it can be as tumultuous as ours, right, on the, on the other side. So we need to be empathetic to that. That's going to build human connection and trust. We've talked about this. This is something that's so important today. Definitely reduces resistance to change, right? There's so much change every day. We're just speaking about AI, you know, in this conversation. It shows it demonstrates your emotional intelligence and care, as opposed to just trying to drive to a sale. You know, that's like, those are big things, right? So, you know, if you take actions of acknowledging the client concerns, right, their budget, their risk, their timing, ask those meaningful questions, listen actively, right, validate those concerns, right? We speak about language. If you may not agree with it, but you have to understand why that's a priority for them, right, has nothing to do with you. And showing that you generally can care about their success, right, and I'm not just saying we generally care about success because we want to maintain them as a client. But if they have success, then you have a good case study, a good referral partner, an evangelist, an advocate, all these things, right? Because you've done the same, you've done the same for them. The second pillar is evidence of value. And this ties into a bit of the short proposal method that, you know, we've talked about, you know, prove that your solution or whatever it is you're selling can deliver measurable results. Those don't always have to be monetary. They could be many, many different things, right? And when I speak about ROI, you know, it's not always monetary, ROI, right? I think we tend to forget that, you know, you have to remember that the client is focused on the outcomes, right? What will I get back for working with you? That's for any industry, right? That's the gym membership, right? I mean, that's like everything. And to that end, if we think about that is numbers, right, my bad gym metaphor, numbers on a scale, right? Like, you know, that builds more trust than any promise is ever going, is ever going to. And if you want that person to be your internal champion, they need proof that to justify the choice that they made for working with you. So, right, so like, you know, share clear metrics, share case studies, right? It could be, you know, reduced, you know, we reduce costs by 30%. Right? It could be, you know, your personal trainer like my clients tend to lose five to ten pounds in, you know, X amount of days, right? I'm really reducing this. But, you know, if you provide RO summaries and benefit statements, right, that's going to really, you know, really help develop that, right? We used to, we used to do these things with like all kinds of line items, right? But so justify every line item, if you will, with a tangible outcome, that's, that's going to keep you the questions of like, well, why is this this? Right? If you have, it's already tied to an outcome, you're not having to justify those line items and going back, demonstrate value early in every conversation, like right out, like right out of the gate and keep it simple, create simple, shareable materials to support the internal decision making, right? We forget. This was something that would happen when I was, got final sign off on things is my, is my team essentially would then sell me on working with that vendor that sold to them. And they didn't always do the best job. So if you supply that person with easily shareable materials that an executive can look at or another decision maker doesn't really understand the service, but is maybe looking at the economics of it or looking at the ROI, that's going to make that, that decision making much easier. And then you're not going to be waiting around for what feels like ghosting, like waiting and waiting and waiting and, you know, the classic, like, well, someone says out this week, right? You know, like, you know, it's going to do a lot to avoid that. The third one is risk reduction. You want to make it safe for them to say, yes, they're fearing poor results, they're fearing wasting their budgets. Your job is to reduce those perceived risks. It also helps speed up the decisions, right? Today's market, those decision makers who are in the corporate environment, but also the ones who are sole panors or entrepreneurs, they're actually carrying the personal risk of things going wrong. And the personal risk is they could bankrupt their business potentially or waste time when they're trying to grow or, you know, get fired. I mean, let's be, you know, I hate to be harsh, but let's be, you know, real about it. So, you know, when I think about actions that people can take right away with that is, you know, you could offer a pilot, you could offer a trial, you know, you could, you could create opt-out options, right? Hopefully they never are executed against, but it will help create that safety, right? Maybe you need to highlight some kind of support services, right? You know, there's something you do in your business with the, you know, training or customer care or, you know, some type of relatability that makes them, you know, you offer that as part of what you provide, right? Again, any social proof you can use testimonials, especially testimonials from, and I think people tend to not do this, is use testimonials from clients who are skeptical at first, but then they became successful. Those are brilliant pieces of social proof that you can use, right? And if there's a problem, right? You know, verbalize that you'll fix problems fast that no additional cost. Because, you know, fear of surprise billing is going to cause, you know, a lot of, it's going to help minimize risk, right? And that's really what I want to say. And if you need to start with smaller commitments to build confidence, it's okay. We all want the well, right? But you don't always get the well sometimes, you know, you have to build it gradually. So smaller commitment is your opportunity to build confidence and then potentially turn that into a well client. The last one is expert guidance and, you know, expert guidance. I always say it's how I built my career. On the other side is for the companies, so the agencies that I wanted to work with over and over again are the vendors. I treated them like trusted advisors, not vendors. And they taught me so much, right? I was drowning in data, but I was really starving for like, how did you do that, you know? So I had, you gave me all this data, but I was a certain like, yeah, but teach me how that matters, right? I wanted the insights. I just didn't want the information. And by setting the stage for that and providing that guidance before the sale is even made, that adds a ton of value. That almost feels like ROI, right? Like, well, I've been tasked with hiring, I don't know, a UX UI agency. I know nothing about UX UI, but this person's going to teach me all about it. And I'm going to become an expert in this. That's huge, right? You're more likely to pay for that. So some key actions around that is you can help your clients see what they're missing, whether that be trends or risks or inefficiencies, right, provide them fresh perspectives. When I say, I want to say like on cover blind spots for them, and that's not saying like you're doing it bad. It's like saying, you know, I've seen you could, this could be even more efficient or this could be even better if you do it, you know, this way, here's how I've seen that happen, right? That's like sharing your best practices from your experience, not saying like your thing is wrong or you're doing it wrong, but sharing that from your perspective, also positioning yourself as a long-term guide and partner, like beyond the engagement is I still have, I have vendors who became mentors, who were, you know, later in their careers and experts in their field, and that's not in an area I wanted to pursue, but an area I wanted to have some, you know, domain expertise in, those were, those were great, that helped me simplify my choice and made the decisions a lot easier. So those are, those are essentially the four tillers that I think are important to take or appreciate when you're going into a selling mindset. And what I'm kind of, the through line through all of that for me is that, you know, it's a, the relationship starts before you get the yes, you know, and treating it like relationship building from, you know, that, I mean, well, it started before they ever had the first conversation with you. I mean, that's probably another topic, but from that first conversation all the way through, it's not a transaction, you know, it's building relationship and, you know, kind of just like practically speaking, you know, even you talking about the, like, you know, so often, you know, I have peer service providers, well, I gave them the information, you know, and they think they're done versus, you know, like you said, you know, as, as the buyer, you know, I, well, great, I have all this information. What do I do with it? And really becoming the, the expert advisor to, you know, as you're building that relationship, it goes back to that being that helping people make the decision, you know, being that trusted advisor to guide them through the sales process and, and add value at every point. So much power and that, and so much power and what you just said, and there's a ton to unpack there. We could do a whole other episode on, on, on, on that talk to you forever. But it's like was, but it, but it's just so true. And there's a lot of power in doing all those steps and not getting the project. If you did it right, the no could be because of internal stakeholders, pressure from another relationship, a make good with another eight, like there's so many factors. But if you've done that right, you've got a referral partner, right? Then they say, you know, wow, this person was taught me so much, I weren't so much. You should talk to them, you know, you should speak to them too. You know more about the project than anybody else except for the other people who didn't get the pitch and the person who got the, got the project. Right. So you have a great opportunity to continue conversation where, you know, you're developing a relationship and somewhere on the line, you have the opportunity to sex, so, you know, how did the project go? And you're going to get a lot of information from, from, from that. So it is, if you do that right, the relationship can last beyond the sale or no sale. And can really turn it into something, you know, one way or the other. I think we lose a sale and then we just like run, like don't talk to the person anymore. I went to highlight something you said there. I feel like we undermine our measure of success that we undervalue, you know, yes, we're always going for that close, like we want to deal, we want, we want the business, of course. Of course. Of course. But we undervalue that, you know, there are other KPIs in the course of that sales process between, you know, a win could be like you said, that referral partner or, you know, collaboration partner or, you know, just, you know, a really smart insight you had in the course of that experience that leads you to the next right thing, you know, they're, that's success. That's success. So it's not, you know, a encourage listeners to look beyond the closed deal. Like, yes, we know that's the goal. But there is so much value, you know, to be had beyond that, you know, if you really invest in the process and, and, and, and remain open to the opportunity that can come out of that beyond just, you know, a sign deal. I agree. And I'll echo it quickly with this because of course, I'm still selling, right? I have, I have my own business, I sell. And I've reframed my outcome, desired outcomes from sales calls. And I reframed my desired outcomes again to echo what you were saying is into three things. Of course, number one, a sale, right? That's, that's, that's the big win. And if we look at it, you know, as a gold medal, that's it. If, to me, a silver medal is a referral partner. And maybe they're not my buyer for a multitude of reasons. But if I've done the call right, they could easily be a referral partner. And to me, the bronze medal is that maybe they're not a referral partner. Maybe they're not the sale, but they are somebody who potentially becomes, and I think this is different than a referral partner, just an advocate or an evangelist. That could, that could look like forwarding your newsletter to somebody, to liking a social post, to making a comment on a social post, right? To thinking of you when they see something or they hear something inside of their organization. If you can have those three outcomes, one of those three outcomes, I consider that a win where I feel we used to gauge wins only on closed deals. I don't think that's the path forward in the market that we're in today. I know a lot of people speak about, you know, wanting to have enough SQLs and not wanting to go to calls that waste their time. Again, I think that's a very close mindset going into 2026. Absolutely. With that, let's jump into our fast five. Yeah. Your eye can't live without its software or app. For sure. In decades, it's been voice notes. For me, that's where every one of my ideas starts. If I will say that I have become someone enthralled with using whisper flow, it's place of voice notes. But yeah. So that would be it. Voice memo, you know, if you want to look at an AI version, it's now whisper flow. But I was used, I was used now to like on the micro cassettes, like at a time, right? So I've grown with the technology, but my reason for doing it is still the same. It's just, for me, it's where every idea starts and it's a way for me to get it out of my head before I forget it. Best advice you've ever received about sales and business development. Yeah. Don't sell to everyone. Talk to the ones already looking for you. That's good. Your morning routine must have. Yeah. So it's a tribe. It's a trifecta. It's coffee, gym, meditation. No noise before any of that, no checking emails, slack, texts, those three things first. Only listening to the things that are inside my mind and my body, those are, that's my morning must have. Those are my anchors. Everything, everything goes off course, if I don't start those three things, that anchors my entire day. Your walk on song, the one song that always pumps you up. Yeah. It would be, can't stop by the red hutchly peppers. You know, for me, it's just about forward progress, originality, refusing to live life on autopilot and it was produced by Rick Rubin. So, you know, to me, it works on all levels. And if you only had one hour each day for business growth, how would you spend it? Yeah. And I do this. So this is real. But if I would put it, if I had one hour to answer your question exactly, if I had one hour for growth, I would review five client conversations and identify what would move trust forward and really have an understanding of that and then leverage that on every call going forward and constantly do that. We have that ability now, right? We have that ability with, with all the technology. And look at that and apply it to the next conversation. Yeah. That will get my one hour thing. Nice. And where can folks spawn and connect with you online? LinkedIn is my big platform. I, I use one platform for business and that's, that's LinkedIn and that's, Travis, Papa is very, very plainly and any one wants to learn about my mentoring program. It's called the Creative Agency Accelerator and that's Creative Agency Accelerator.com. Thank you so much for being here. You have been such a powerful, you know, mentor and influencer in my own business and I'm just so grateful for the conversation. It's been so rich and I'm excited to introduce it or share it with our listeners. So thanks again. Thank you for saying. It's been great working with you and I love to see how your, how your business is growing and also how you're able to help your clients. So it's really, really, really wonderful. That's, that's, that's the full circle. Well, circle. Yeah. Thanks again. Thank you. Oh, thank you again, Travis, for your leadership and mentorship and for sharing your experience so generously with sales and service listeners. I am so grateful for our connection and sin in that first DM. Before we wrap, I want to leave you with this episode's sales and service challenge. This week I want you to pay close attention to how you're showing up in your own sales process. It's so easy to get overly focused on results and miss the experience you're actually creating for the personal, the other side of the conversation. So this week, practice leading with empathy, then reinforcing trust with evidence, not pressure. Here's what that looks like in practice. On your next discovery call, networking conversation or DM exchange, slow yourself down long enough to listen longer than you pitch, lead with questions that help the other person feel seen and understood before you ever talk about your solution. Then instead of creating urgency, focus on de-risking the decision. Ask yourself, where can I replace persuasion with proof? What example, case study, or part of my process shows the client they'll actually be supported and protected. And how can I make the path forward feel clear, not faster? The best closures don't rush people into decisions. They take leadership in the sales process to remove uncertainty and help clients feel confident and safe moving forward. And finally, if you want to learn more about Travis's work in the Creative Agency Accelerator, you'll find all the relevant links and the show notes, including where to connect with him on LinkedIn and access his free seven day course per agency owners, the seven positioning shifts that make you irresistible to premium clients. And until next time, remember, sales is an active service. It's about what you give, not what you get. And when you serve well, the ROI always follows. See you right back here next episode. We've just listened to the sales' service podcast, the podcast to help you shift your mindset around selling. If you liked what you heard, be sure to hit subscribe and share it with a friend, because we're all about more sales awesome and less sales awkward. See you next episode.