We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christian Banach a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Christian , thanks for joining us today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

I was working full-time for a digital marketing agency, and a previous client from a different marketing agency approached me and asked if I was interested in working for them in business development on a freelance basis. I was intrigued by this opportunity because this agency is one of the most prominent in the world. However, the gig was offering less than my salary as a full-time employee, and financially, I couldn’t afford to leave my full-time job.

Since I closed my first business a decade earlier, I wanted to start my own company again. However, I knew I needed at least one more freelance gig to justify leaving my full-time job. But where would this opportunity come from? I pondered this question for a while and came up with an idea.

If I changed my arrangement with the current digital agency and became a contractor instead of an employee, I could take on both as freelance clients and make ends meet. However, this was a significant risk. What if I asked, and the digital agency said no? What if they were upset that I was considering starting my own business and let me go?

Despite the risks, during the pandemic I saw an opportunity. Many agencies were struggling, and I knew they needed services like mine more than ever. So I gathered the courage and made my proposal to my boss. They agreed to the new arrangement, and to my surprise, their sister agency also wanted to work with me.

Suddenly, I had not one, but three clients, giving me the confidence to pursue my dream of starting the business. I made the leap and never looked back.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Christian Banach is a business development and growth consultancy who helps marketing agencies and martech companies predictably land 6- and 7-figure opportunities.

In today’s competitive market, relying solely on word-of-mouth, work, and awards is insufficient to drive growth. Companies are pulling back on budgets, resulting in fewer agency-of-record opportunities and more project-based work. Additionally, the way buyers make purchasing decisions has fundamentally changed.

That’s where Christian Banach comes in. We help firms develop a process that proactively and consistently creates and captures demand to drive predictable growth. We can either help our clients create the process, implement the tech, and hire the right team for an outbound business development program, or become an extension of their team and develop and implement the strategy with them.

My journey to becoming the owner of a business development and growth consultancy has been an interesting one. I started a concert promotion business in high school, and it grew rapidly, working with Grammy Award winners like Lady Gaga and Pitbull. After the 2008 Great Recession hit, I pivoted to a career in agency business development, working at independent and holding company agencies across marketing disciplines.

Having been involved in millions of dollars of wins with companies like Kohl’s and Constellation Brands, I discovered my superpower was hunting and generating top-of-the-funnel opportunities. When the pandemic hit and agencies were struggling, I left my high-paying agency job and launched Christian Banach to help other agencies grow.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Although specific tactics have proven more successful than others, our overall strategic approach has led to client growth.

At our consultancy, we advise our clients to implement both a demand creation and demand capture process, the same philosophy we apply ourselves.

Demand creation involves proactively creating awareness and interest, while demand capture is the process of converting that interest into sales opportunities. It’s the yin and yang of the sales process.

Demand creation is essential to breaking through the noise in a crowded market. We proactively create awareness and demand through a targeted weekly email newsletter, organic LinkedIn posting, paid LinkedIn advertising, and speaking engagements on podcasts and at events.

Once demand is created, we capture it and turn it into sales. This involves targeted outbound prospecting, where our business development team engages with prospects through personalized emails to set appointments with our leadership team. We convert prospects into meetings at a high rate due to the awareness and demand our marketing has generated.

Demand creation and demand capture are two sides of the same coin, and both are critical for driving revenue and growth in today’s business landscape. By proactively generating interest and converting it into sales, we stay ahead of the competition, attract new clients, and build long-term success.

Our growth is built on the foundation of the yin and yang of demand creation and demand capture. It is a proven formula that has helped us double in size year over year while enabling our clients to land 6- and 7-figure opportunities predictably.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

In sales, many of us have been in situations where we have to sell a product or service we know nothing about. It can be intimidating, but it’s not impossible to overcome.

Years ago, I worked at a multicultural agency, selling sponsorships to Latin music tours. The problem was that I had never heard of Latin music artists like Mark Anthony, Marco Antonio Solis, Juan Gabriel, and Romeo Santos, and I didn’t speak Spanish. So how was I supposed to convince companies to sponsor these tours when I didn’t even understand what the artists were singing about?

I realized that if I knew the categories and brands popular among the artists’ fans, I could use that data to show why the tour is a platform for a brand to connect with these consumers. Unfortunately, nothing like that existed, and I was told we had no budget for such data. So I took matters into my own hands.

To get this data, I needed to conduct my own research. First, I designed a survey myself. Then I got a hold of the email addresses of ticket buyers from our past tours, convinced my boss to give VIP artist meet & greet passes as an incentive, and sent emails requesting fans complete the survey. Hundreds responded, and insights started to emerge.

One of the key insights was that Marc Anthony’s fans over-indexed in wine consumption. With this data, I reached out to major wine companies and caught the attention of Constellation Brands. They were launching a new wine called Rosatello and saw Marc Anthony’s tour as a platform for the launch. Convinced by the data, they signed on as a sponsor, bringing in $500,000 in fees.

This experience taught me that it’s not about the resources you have but the resourcefulness you possess. It’s about thinking outside the box, finding creative solutions, and taking the initiative to make things happen. In a world with so much competition, being resourceful is a valuable skill that can make all the difference in closing deals and achieving success.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://christianbanach.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianbanach/

Image Credits
Grow through opportunities but interconnected forces. Via [Christian Banach]