B2B Marketers on a Mission

How to Build a Powerful B2B Content Moat

Success in B2B content marketing (or marketing in general) comes from a deep understanding of customer needs, goals, pain points, and buying triggers rather than trying to emulate larger companies. How can B2B content marketers be more strategic and have success with limited resources? What approach can they use that will work consistently over time?

That’s why we’re talking to conversion content marketing expert and B2B copywriter Jessica Malnik (Founder, JM Content Group) about how marketers can build a content moat that creates lasting results for B2B brands. During our conversation, Jessica talked about the importance of the content moat framework and why she thinks the current B2B content marketing playbook is broken. She also highlighted the pitfalls that B2B content marketers should avoid, what the content moat consists of, and how content marketers can use AI ethically.

https://youtu.be/NBTuqNj8708

Topics discussed in episode

Companies and links mentioned

SPEAKERS

Jessica Malnik, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:01

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on the Mission, and I’m your host Christian Klepp. Today I’m going to be talking to Jessica Malnik. She’s the founder and chief conversion content marketer at the JM content group. She works with B2B SaaS and professional service firms to build a marketing moat that compounds over time via her signature content moat framework. She’s also been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Next Web, Wynter, Social Media Examiner, SEMrush, HubSpot, SX, SW and MSN UK, among others. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. Okay, so here we are. Jessica Malnik, welcome to the show.

Jessica Malnik  00:45

Awesome. Thanks so much for having me, Christian.

Christian Klepp  00:47

Great to have you on. And you know, I really enjoyed the previous conversation that we had, and that really told me, like, Oh, wow. Okay, this is gonna be this conversation is gonna be dynamite. So no pressure, but let’s dive in to today’s topic, because it’s so pertinent for B2B content marketers out there. And let me see if I phrase this the right way, but like you’ve been on your own professional mission all this time, right with B2B SaaS and professional firms, and that mission is around how to build a content moat that creates lasting results for B2B brands. So I’m going to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. Okay. So question number one is, why do you believe that your framework is so important? And number two is, why do you think that the current B2B content marketing playbook is broken?

Jessica Malnik  01:45

Yeah, okay, I’m gonna start with the second question. These are excellent questions right away, Christian, but the first one is, I think a I feel like everyone always says, Hey, there’s a current playbook. I’m like, actually, I don’t actually think there was ever a playbook. And if you were trying to listen to, quote, unquote, a playbook, just by its definition, if you’re just trying to repeat what’s already been done, you’re probably 9.5 out of 10 times going to get worse results, or more mediocre results, than if you’re trying to actually understand, let’s just say, the playbook of your customers. What are your customers care about? What are their goals? What are their pain points? What are kind of the buying triggers? What are the emotions behind it? Create your strategy based on all of that. Don’t create it off of what your competitors doing, or some quote, unquote playbook that you know, HubSpot used and grew, and they’re an amazing company, but like, for my own example, most of my clients are, like, early or mid stage companies. They don’t have the luxury of the size of the marketing team or the size of the marketing budget of HubSpot. If you try to replicate what HubSpot is doing, or monday.com is doing more recently with your budget, you’re just setting yourself up for failure, and instead, there’s just better ways to kind of go about getting the results that you need without having to look towards bigger companies that have just, quite frankly, just a larger brands, larger budgets and larger teams than you’re going to have. Why do you want to try to compete with someone with 100 person marketing team, when you have a team of five,

Christian Klepp  03:23

I love that answer. And I think it reminds me of something that I saw on LinkedIn. It might have been like two years ago now, where people are always talking about, I want to be like Gary Vaynerchuk, or one of those types of people, right? And, and the one thing about that is like, okay, it’s like you said, if you think that you can get to that Gary Vaynerchuk level within such a short time with very limited resources, then you’re setting yourself up for failure. I mean, the one thing that a lot of these guys don’t think about is that, yes, Gary Vaynerchuk is famous and he’s popular and he’s wildly successful. He also happens to have this massive team behind him that’s doing all of this work, right? And I believe that was your point. But let’s go back to the first question. Why do you believe that this content moat framework is so important?

Jessica Malnik  04:15

Yeah, I feel like time and time again, and like, my background, like originally came from the journalism world, very quickly, kind of fell into social media marketing, which is my foray into content marketing, and then copywriting as well. And really, like, started to hone in the fundamentals of marketing and fundamentals of copywriting. But like, the reason why, I think kind of, and then I’ve honed this framework over the last five years working very closely of a bunch of different clients. I think the reason why it works is because A, you’re no longer having to compete on volume, and you’re now just kind of competing much more about you know. Do we know, understand our customers? Do we understand our audience and figuring out ways to, like, you know, do more with less, which is a big theme now across the board. And also being super consistent and just super disciplined about building out evergreen assets that are going to work for you today, tomorrow and even two years from now. Let’s figure out the assets are going to work as hard as you do. And instead of what a lot of teams do, which is you publish it once, and then it just collects digital dust and it’s never really working for you. I kind of say what’s the opposite of that? You don’t necessarily need as much volume at this point. You don’t have to play the game of publishing once a day, or even, you know, two or three times a week. You can publish way less and have a much bigger impact.

Christian Klepp  05:38

That’s a really good point. And I think it also goes back to something that I experienced with a client like years ago. And I’m not sure what your experience is, and I’d love to get your thoughts on it, but I’ve worked with some teams that don’t do this kind of work upfront, that you’re referring to right, this kind of framework, this kind of planning and research and strategy, and what tends to happen, eight times out of 10 is they run out of ideas. They run out of things to write about, right? What’s your experience been?

Jessica Malnik  06:10

That’s an interesting perspective. I always kind of think if you’re running out of ideas of what to write about that generate, or what to produce content about, whether it’s audio, video, text, and I just don’t think there’s a very large margin. White text is still probably the most important asset, and should be the foundation that I could maybe get into. But I think, like, if you’re running out of ideas, it just tells me you’re not talking to enough customers, and you don’t understand your audience well enough. Generally speaking, that’s like, if ever I’m thinking I don’t know what to write about, I’m like, Okay, well, I just need to go interview a couple customers, maybe do a test case study or two, or talk, listen to sales calls, listen to support girls. Every single time I do that, I will come up with a list of 10, 15, 50 new ideas to write about. Whereas, you know, and that’s also a way to just make sure that you’re creating content that’s going to have a much higher chance of resonating versus, you know, just using the same tools that everyone else uses.

Christian Klepp  07:05

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. I’m gonna move us on to the next question. Okay, we’ve highlighted some of these, like common mistakes and what have you. But what are on this topic of building that content moat? What are some of these pitfalls that B2B content marketers need to avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Jessica Malnik  07:23

Yeah, I feel like one of the bigger pitfalls is just focusing too much on output or volume. It’s easy to do because, you know, hey, if you need to measure something, and measuring for content marketing is hard, there’s definitely things you can be doing. And I definitely lean much more heavily towards okay. What are things that are actually going to help build up more qualified leads, either through a system conversions or straight up from that content being kind of that last source. But yeah, so quality of, you know, basically just doing too much quantity is a major pitfall. Another one is basically like spreading and praying and getting to the point where you’re like, hey, like, we don’t really know, so we’re just gonna post a whole bunch of things out there. And I feel like the biggest one in my experience is like content positioning. I think it’s probably the most underrated aspect of content marketing in general. Like we always talk about brand positioning, we talked about messaging, but each individual asset you create, whether it’s a social post, an email, a case study, a long form piece of content, a white paper, or whatever it should be, like you should have positioning there as well, and that’s how you can differentiate your own brand. So like, if you’re writing about this topic, it should feel like it’s from your brand and not be something that could be on your competitor’s website and will feel exact same. And I think a lot of brands, if they’re really honest with themselves, are just creating 10x copycat content. And what really, really, really resonates is like actually thinking, doing the hard work up front of figuring out, what are their content positioning, what is their point of view, and how can we make sure that, like, it’s very clear why we’re talking about this topic.

Christian Klepp  09:00

Yeah, exactly, yeah. In terms of the copycat content, I do agree with that. I mean, you tend to see a lot of like that, for lack of a better description, vanilla content out there. A part of that may be AI, and we’re going to touch that in a second. I think the other part, unless I’m completely off, is they just don’t do enough research so they just see what the competitors are doing, and they try to come up with a slightly different version of it, and then they just pepper it with some little like elements of differentiation. But it’s not really that differentiated, is it? Like…

Jessica Malnik  09:35

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like another really big issue of that is, and this is no fault to the people on the team who are doing this, because I feel like this is very common, and I’ve been guilty of this as well, particularly early on in my content marketing career, is you hire a junior person, a junior content marketing manager who’s in their first role, maybe you have a couple of very green freelance writers who don’t know the industry very well, so they’re relying on having to mostly Google their way around. And that can work out okay, if you have a 101 level content, but if you’re trying to reach out to people who like, really understand their topics like you can’t…. you’re kind of setting up your team to fail. If you’re just trying to Google your way around how to like write about that topic. You really need to lean into interviews, internal, external, you know, to make sure that you’re actually writing things that are going to resonate. Because yeah, and that just does not work as well in my experience, when it comes to thinking besides 101 level content.

Christian Klepp  10:39

Absolutely, absolutely, moving on to the next topic, which is about market research and strategy, which are so important, especially if you want to build up that moat, and you want to build a… you want to come up and develop this plan for content that will hopefully give you enough ideas of what to write about for the for the next couple of months, or perhaps even for the whole year, my question is, because it can get really overwhelming, right? Because, I mean, we’ve all been through that exercise where you just get, you just drown in this incredible amount of research. What are some tips that you can give marketers out there to help filter through all that overwhelm, like, what are some of the things that they should be focusing on in their research? So they go in there with an intention, and from there they can build the right strategy.

Jessica Malnik  11:28

Yeah, I love it. I actually helped, actually produced a small course for thinking around this very idea. So look at that. There are some, there’s some good tips in there. However, some other things I always like to emphasize there is, like, you can drown in research. You can drown in creating the perfect strategy. There’s no such thing as a perfect strategy. The best strategy is the one that you can consistently and I would try to fit for with all my clients. I want to make sure you have a strategy within one to two months. It’s not going to be perfect, but I want to have it be 80 to 90% of the way there, and then, like you know, from there, we are going to learn so much by starting to ship on that. And then, you know, we can execute it. We can change. We can make tweaks every single month. Or I used to recommend every quarter, let’s tweak it. This worked well, let’s double down on this. This maybe didn’t go so well, okay, let’s not do that this quarter. So that’s one of the ways to just make sure that you are constantly don’t get into what I call procraster planning, where you spend all of your time on research and all of your time building out the perfect strategy, and then you never trip anything. And guess what? You’re not going to have results if you don’t trip anything at all. So that’s part of it is just knowing what good enough looks like, and get it that to 80-90% of the way there. That’s how you can actually start to get results. And then this head taking, and I have to think in terms of experiments, and just in general.

Christian Klepp  12:52

It almost sounds to a certain degree like SaaS, where you’re not supposed to wait for the perfect product until you launch it, you build it, you launch it, you collect the feedback, right? Or you start with the beta testing, then you get the feedback, and you iterate, and you put the next version out, and so on and so forth. And I’d imagine, if I understood what you were saying correctly in this content mode, it’s a similar approach to a certain extent.

Jessica Malnik  13:22

Yeah, absolutely. It’s about, you know, building on every green assets that work harder for you. But it’s also about just thinking in terms of experiments. And I feel like one of my own, maybe insecurities, is I don’t necessarily, you know, I can’t be like, Hey, here’s this web, here’s the strategy I built over, you know, you know, three months, and suddenly it led to 100x results. More often than not. It’s like, Hey, these are results that are compounding over time. They start off slow, but hey, fast forward a year or two years or three from now, now you’re starting to look at those 50x returns, but it’s, you know, not immediate. Like, it’s much more about like, you know, thoughtful, methodical, building out something that’s going to be consistent and give you everlasting success, instead of chasing virality, which I feel like a lot of marketing, is like chasing the viral effects. And I’m the first one to say I’m probably not the right person to work with if you just want to create viral content. I’ve certainly created some of it, sometimes directly and sometimes by accident, but like, it’s much more about, I feel like the results that actually last, and when you’re getting the right types of qualified leads, or when you’re really focusing in on consistency, and you’re, you know, looking to get 1x 2x 3x better every single month.

Christian Klepp  14:34

You made me giggle there for a second, because, um, you reminded me of a client I was working with a couple of years ago, and one of the things that they mentioned in their brief was we want to launch a viral video. And I said, with all due respect, you don’t get to decide if the video is viral or not, right? And they kept insisting on it. And I. I think I can say with great confidence that we turned that business down. We told them that we’re afraid we can’t help you with this, and we never looked back, and we don’t regret it, because, sure enough, they gave it to somebody else, and it actually it didn’t work. But I wanted to go back to what you’ve been saying in the past couple of minutes, and I totally agree with this approach, but I’m sure you’ve dealt with this before, right? How do you deal with clients that push back on the whole notion of, okay, why are you spending so much time on all this research and strategy, we don’t need it. Just jump straight into the execution and just produce the content, because we need to show results. We need to justify the ROI. And I’m sure you’ve heard that at some point, right? How do you how do you deal with that kind of pushback?

Jessica Malnik  15:57

Yeah, I mean, that’s such a great question, and definitely something I get all the time. It’s definitely a push and pull. And I’m going to give the classic marketing answer. It depends on how you approach it, I would say, in my experience, how I tend to approach it… And I try to figure out, okay, what is the minimal viable amount of research that I’m going to need to feel confident that I can execute at a reasonably high level, it won’t be perfection. And then I tried at the onset with, Okay, what’s the underlying goal here? Like, what are they looking for? and what do they expect in terms of timeline? And I try to kind of meet somewhere in that middle when it comes to all of this, and the other side of that, as well as it’s I also kind of sussed out if they’re looking for, like, absolutely immediate results, and they need content marketing to be producing results in a week or two. You laugh. But that, you know, occasional I see them and actually, you know, I don’t have content marketing, and especially not SEO, even though SEO and content marketing should 100% be different, you don’t. They’re not one in the same. I will die on that hill. But if you’re looking for results from content marketing within two or three weeks, maybe not the right strategy for you, it does, you know, you can certainly get really good momentum within, you know, a quarter. But if you need something like immediately, and you’re not willing to invest a huge amount of budget and a huge amount of research, there are other strategies, like cold email, cold calling and/or paid ads that will get your results faster. Granted, they all have pretty big pros and cons, but so does content marketing, right? I don’t know, did I answer your question?

Christian Klepp  17:37

You did. You did. You absolutely did. And I just like to add also, on the topic of paid ads, or paid paid anything to be for that matter, the moment you stop paying, what happens? Yeah, right.

Jessica Malnik  17:54

I count my clients all that all the time. When it comes to paid ads in general, it’s like, hey, it’s the minute you stop or the minute you saturate your market, you’re now back to square one, and you have no moat to stand on.

Christian Klepp  18:05

Yup. And I think it goes back to something you said earlier, right? Like, and this is the importance of all this research and planning, because that will also help to determine whether this is the right solution for them or not. Because it’s one thing for the client to tell you, Hey, Jessica, we need a white paper, or we need a video, or we need a new website. And then sometimes this, I call it like the diagnostics or the investigation, right? The diagnostics and the investigation will help you to determine whether that’s actually the right solution for them or not, because it might not be right. Maybe having a new website won’t solve their problem. To your point, there might be an issue with the product, right? And if there’s an issue with the product, no amount of marketing, whether it’s content or anything else, is gonna solve that.

Jessica Malnik  18:56

You bring up such a good point. And one of the biggest reasons I will DQ a prospect from working with me and or I will, is if I don’t think they have product market fit, or any path to getting to product market fit, like if you’re so early stage that you have less than five customers, please do not invest your time on content marketing unless you have a massive, massive, massive amount of capital at your disposal right now. You are wasting so much energy and so much time creating content that is probably going to change and not be relevant even a month from now, let alone a year from now. So like, I feel like, in that perspective, like you should not be doing, I feel like you shouldn’t… There are 99% of the times if you don’t, if you’re pre-revenue or you have fewer than 10 customers, content marketing isn’t the right strategy. SEO isn’t the right strategy at that point. You need sales, and you need to get enough customers to be able to find patterns.

Christian Klepp  19:54

Yep, yep. That’s absolutely right. That’s absolutely right. Break it down for us. Okay? What are these essential components that B2B marketers need to build this content moat that you are referring to? So what should they be doing differently?

Jessica Malnik  20:11

Awesome. I feel like there are three main components to my content marketing framework. I hone this over about five years of working with a lot of different brands. I feel like most brands do intuitively one of those things well, maybe two, but you need all three to be working in lockstep to be able to create a content moat that’s going to compound in every single month, your assets are going to be working just as hard, if not harder, for you than you’re working. So insights is kind of the first key, and think about as messaging and positioning of each at the strategy level and at each individual asset level, you also you also have community, which I am kind of basically calling 10x distribution. How are we making sure that our content is going to the right audience in the right channels at the right time, and then content efficiency, which is, how can we make sure that each asset that we’re producing works harder for us? So that could be, you know, updating it, you know, every couple of… anytime we have a product change, anytime we have a brand change, anytime SEO changes a little bit. It could also be newsletters. It could be repurposing it for individual social channels, repurposing it for webinars, guest posts, making each individual asset you create have multiple layers to it, so you’re not just producing it once, sharing it on social media and saying you’re done with it. So to chime in again, kind of my content moat framework has three components, insights, community and content efficiency.

Christian Klepp  21:34

Absolutely, absolutely. Let’s go to the community piece for a second here. Can you elaborate on that a little bit further, like what, what needs to be… Defined community.

Jessica Malnik  21:45

So, I mean, kind of my background is at the introduction of community and content marketing. Um, in the perfect world, you would have a branded community of your own. But there are 1,000,001 reasons why that’s generally not the recommended strategy for most of the clients I work with. I don’t recommend that. Um, there’s other ways to go about it, the way what, what I’m really thinking about when it comes to community, when it’s not your own, is, who are the super connectors and or the major influencers in our space, in our niche, you know, where do people turn to for information? What social media channels are they on? What are they searching for on Google? You know, what other resources are out there? Are there subreddits on this? That’s probably one of my favorite, favorite, favorite voices to normally get ideas, but to also understand how our customers are actually talking about this particular pain point, figuring out all of those places, and then building out strategies to make sure that our content and our marketing assets are getting into the right people and also the right platforms.

Christian Klepp  22:50

So if they don’t have to, they don’t necessarily have to create their own community. They can, so called like, for lack of a better word, piggyback off somebody else’s community, or perhaps even use a platform like LinkedIn?

Jessica Malnik  23:04

Absolutely, that’s actually what I usually recommend, is figuring out who are the influencers, and how do we start to get on their radar and get them to, you know, be bought into what we’re doing and even organically sharing it or doing partnerships. There’s so many different ways you can go about it, and it’s really going to vary based off of your industry, based off of where you are as a product, how much you want to do in terms of sweat equity versus pay to play. There’s so many different ways to go about it, but it’s really just about, you know, figuring out, how do we make sure that our content is going to the right people at the right time.

Christian Klepp  23:36

Absolutely, absolutely okay. Jessica, here comes the question, because I know we spoke at length about this in the previous conversation, but what are your thoughts on using or leveraging AI in B2B content marketing? So how can B2B content marketers use AI ethically in their work?

Jessica Malnik  23:56

Man, you had thrown the word ethical in there as well… you are using all the buzzwords. I feel like, in general, if you’re… AI is a tool. AI is a tool, just like any other marketing tool you might be using. It’s not a crutch. I think that is probably one of the two ways that people go wrong with AI. They think it’s like some magic apple, and they just tell it one little, quick little round and suddenly you’re going to get everything you need. Yeah, it doesn’t work that way. But notice, there’s no such thing as a magic tool. The other one is people who are just ignoring it and putting their head in the sand, usually out of fear. And in that case, cool, that’s kind of a self-fulfilling prosperity, in my opinion. If you are scared of it, then of course, it actually might replace you. I think on its own, AI is not going to replace a lot of marketers. I think as long as you’re figuring out ways to use it in your tools and in your own workflows, systems and processes. But like, yeah, so my own approach to AI is, okay, how can I use it and things that I’m already doing to either be more efficient? To help me level up my thinking. Help me do a little bit more with less. There’s so many different ways to do that in that scenario. So like, while I think AI writing the perfect blog post is not going to… realistically just doesn’t work, I’m going to quote something that I learned from Andy Crestodina from Orbit Media. He kind of said that AI is average ideas. I freaking love that, because if you’re just doing lazy one shot prompts, yeah, it’s gonna just spit out ideas that everyone else already has. It’s gonna tell you, because it’s trained off of what’s already been out there. So, like, if you’re using it to think for you, that is a massive mistake, in my opinion, and how you use it as a crutch. However, if you’re using in my case where it’s like, I go in, I’ll kind of do the thinking of positioning, point of view, depth, kind of have all those, like, rambling thoughts. I’ll tell that to AI, and I’ll put like, three, four or five paragraphs, and be like, hey, help me organize this rambling and something that feels coherent. Yeah, Claude and ChatGPT are great at that, but I’m also doing the thinking up front. How often that times you’ll be like, Okay, here’s this idea. Where are my logic gaps, and they have made me kind of level up my thinking. That’s one of my favorite ways right now to use AI. Another way that I really like to use it as well is for, like, the all of those really tedious things that, quite frankly, I didn’t ever enjoy in the very hard place, like creating featured images for, like the little tiny thumbnails on, you know, a blog post, or helping me level up. And I have to do like an SEO audit, and I need to write 500 meta descriptions. Guess what? I write two of them now, and I have aI help me spit out an 80% version, and then I just go in and edit it. Yeah. It saves a ton of time. There things like that.

Christian Klepp  26:50

Yeah, no, absolutely no. I agree. I mean, I’ve shared my thoughts with you in the previous conversation, and I truly believe it’s like that typical marketing answer, as you said, right? Like it depends, I do believe that there’s a place in time to use AI and to a certain degree, yes, absolutely use the tools to help make your work more efficient, perhaps to a certain degree, even faster. But I caution. Here’s my word of caution. Make your work fast. Make your work faster. Doesn’t mean cheat the system, if you know what I mean, right? It doesn’t mean, okay, get ChatGPT to write something for you. Because the other big problem that I have with some of these platforms, and I know there’s people out there that disagree with this, but what about the issue of plagiarism and writer integrity, right? And I know some people probably don’t care about that, because they’re pumping out all this content, and then it becomes a volume business rather than a quality business, to a previous point earlier on in this conversation, right? So I’m not saying that we should completely throw AI out the window, and that’s why I say we need to be able to use it ethically, right?

Jessica Malnik  28:09

Yeah, that was such a really great point. I would also just say in general, in terms of another thing that I think AI is great at, is I’m a pretty technical marketer, but I’m not like writing code every day. However, I’ve now been able to troubleshoot things in it with ChatGPT in particular that like, I used to have to, like, bug a developer for, and now I can just kind of ask ChatGPT and be like, walk me through how to fix this weird bug in WordPress or another one that’s good at caveat here, also from an ethical standpoint, it’s really, really good at data analysis. Just make sure you strip out any sensitive information. The amount of times I’ve had it like, be like, Hey, here’s a GA4 report, and I’ll do be like, help me find patterns here. It is so much faster than what I used to do myself, just in, you know, several hours in spreadsheets in Excel. Now I can kind of cut that down to like an hour or two, but again, caveat with any time, especially if you’re using a tool that’s not proprietary, just make sure you’re stripping out any like sensitive customer information. Don’t get yourself into like, hot water with GDPR, or like, yeah, in particular.

Christian Klepp  29:22

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, so we get to the part in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us plenty already, but if somebody was listening to this conversation and you wanted them to walk away with three to five things around the topic of building this content moat that they can implement right away. What would they be?

Jessica Malnik  29:44

Great question. The first one is, content positioning is super underrated. The more you can do, the more work you can do up front to query, communicate, not only your own strategy, but each individual asset and like, why we’re writing about this, you know, what’s our unique point of view? So what is something… It doesn’t you can’t believe it original, because I don’t think there’s ever anything that’s 100% original. But like, what 10% of new things are we adding to this, our new our own experiences are we adding so we’re not just creating 10x copy content that you can do on AI now. Another point is, AI is a tool, not a crutch. If you’re not already using it, please start. Like you don’t have to do much with it. Like you everyone has their own comfort level, but like you’re gonna get left behind if you’re not using the latest tools to at least help you so that at least understand what it can and can’t do. And there’s so many great resources out there now, pretty great, like companies like Paul, the guy who runs mike on and like the AI Marketing Institute, I think, don’t quote me on that, has just some amazing resources to kind of get you started with AI. That’s kind of my second point. And then my third point is, you don’t have to compete on volume. And please, please, please, don’t compete on volume if you’re a team of under five people and your marketing team, which is the vast majority of the companies I work with, you cannot try to out compete HubSpot if you don’t have HubSpot’s budget and team size and also just, quite frankly, their brand awareness, you might be able to get to that point later on, but don’t try to do that when you are a team of five.

Christian Klepp  31:20

Absolutely, absolutely, try not to be the next Uber or next Apple with a with a marketing team of three to five people, right? Absolutely.

Jessica Malnik  31:30

It sounds ridiculous, but I have that conversation in some capacity a lot.

Christian Klepp  31:35

No, I believe you. I certainly believe you. Okay, just a quick recap of the things that marketers need to do. So first of all is focus on its content positioning. Number two is leverage AI the right way, at least start using the tools. And the third one is, don’t compete on volume, right? Okay, fantastic. Okay, last three questions before I let you go. So here comes the first one, a status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why.

Jessica Malnik  32:13

The fastest path to mediocre marketing is editing by committee. I think we may have talked about this a little bit offline, but that is…

Christian Klepp  32:22

Not a little bit like a lot.

Jessica Malnik  32:24

The fastest path to just getting a very mediocre, watered down marketing when you have four more stakeholders all giving their direct opinions in their two cents. I can walk through like super tactically and how to like address who should be giving feedback and who shouldn’t, but that might be a different conversation.

Christian Klepp  32:43

I totally agree with that, because I have had the unfortunate experience of having gone through a couple of projects where there was decision by committee, death by 1000 cuts. I mean, I can throw in every analogy. Too many cooks in the kitchen, and it just gets watered down. Everybody throws in their opinions. Everybody suddenly becomes a copywriter, or a conversion copywriter, and then at the end of it, more often than not, at least in my experience, what I found jokes aside is that if you have so many people getting involved with the editing of the content. What then happens is the content becomes more inside out, rather than outside in. Right?

Jessica Malnik  33:31

You are so incredibly right, like the voice of the customer gets completely lost in my experience as well.

Christian Klepp  33:37

Yeah, because especially if you get the people involved that are more on the technical side. So they may or may not have that, you know, they may or may not be customer facing, but even if they are, they’re very focused on the operational aspect of the business, right? And we’re not blaming them for that. That’s just the nature of the beast, right? That that said, That doesn’t help for the cost for content marketing, right? Okay, and here comes the bonus question, if you had the opportunity to learn a new skill, what would that skill be? And why.

Jessica Malnik  34:10

That is a good question. I would probably say, like, the one that I’ve kind of dabbled in a little bit, and if I had, you know, completely, like, you know, unlimited amounts of time it would be learning how to code, like, fully, oh, I can read a decent amount of like code. I can, like, make some small fixes on, like, a WordPress or a web flow site. But I feel like if I could learn how to code enough to, like, build my own, like, SaaS product, that would be interesting. I feel like there’s definitely some ways around that now, with no code and low code tools out there that are so much better, and even ChatGPT and Claude can help out of town with this as well. But yeah, feeling having the foundational like things like what computer science is and how to code is probably that one skill. Yeah.

Christian Klepp  35:00

Yeah, yeah, fantastic. Um, I correct me if I’m wrong, but I think isn’t that Wix is, like, unique selling proposition that you can build websites without coding. So they have this whole, like, drag and drop spiel. Might be them.

Jessica Malnik  35:14

I don’t know. I maybe, like I in general, I probably wouldn’t recommend using Wix if you want SEO.

Christian Klepp  35:20

True. True.

Jessica Malnik  35:23

But yeah. I mean, I think there’s definitely a lot of ways there’s, I mean, I there’s a lot you can do. You don’t need to know how to code, but I feel like, for myself, like, you know, I if I one day I want to, like, launch my own SaaS product, like, knowing how to code, like, the right way, I feel like would be, yeah, yeah, no. I mean, I can certainly, like, you know, tackle me around it, around it with, like, no code and low code tools that I do know how to use, but yeah.

Christian Klepp  35:48

Yeah, yeah, no, without a doubt, without a doubt. Fantastic. Jessica, this has been such a great conversation as expected. So thanks so much for coming on and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. So please, a quick intro to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Jessica Malnik  36:04

Yeah, thank you again for having me Christian. So a very quick intro about myself. I am Jessica Malnik. I am a conversion content marketer and copywriter who works mostly with kind of B2B SaaS and professional service firms. I like to say I’m kind of a solopreneur with a tiny team. Fancy way of saying you don’t have account managers, you don’t have separate strategies. I am that own thing, but I do have a small team that helps me out with research and administrative processes. And you can find me pretty much on my website, jessicamalnik.com, I also have my own podcast and newsletter over at the remoteworktribe.com and I’m on LinkedIn. I’m still gonna call it Twitter, even though I know it’s X, and threads as well. It’s kind of my three main platforms.

Christian Klepp  36:48

Yes, it’s just one of those rebrands, probably a story for another time, or probably even another podcast interview, but it’s just one of those rebrands that I still can’t wrap my head around, and it’s still so hard for a lot of people to say X, right?

Jessica Malnik  37:04

I know I should be saying X, but it’s still gonna feel like Twitter to me.

Christian Klepp  37:08

Absolutely, absolutely so Jessica, once again, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Jessica Malnik  37:14

Awesome. Thank you again.

How Insights into Your Target Audience Can Lead to Success

A deeper understanding of your target audience – who they are, how they buy, and their challenges, pain points, and aspirations – is instrumental to everything B2B marketers do. It will help them develop better content, have a more user-friendly website, and develop marketing campaigns that generate better results. 

That’s why we’re talking to B2B digital marketing expert James Hipkin (CEO & Founder, Inn8ly) about how avatars of your target audience and buyer’s journey maps are crucial to B2B marketing success. During our conversation, James elaborated on the pitfalls that marketers should avoid and what important aspects of customer research they should focus on. He also provided tips on how to get internal buy-in to conduct the relevant research and explained how the customer avatars and buyer’s journey maps can help with B2B content and marketing campaigns.

https://youtu.be/p8M_ao0DtW0

Topics discussed in episode

Companies and links mentioned

SPEAKERS

James Hipkin, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:01

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’m going to be talking to James Hipkin. He’s the founder and CEO of innately, and helps B2B companies to scale by providing professionally designed, built, hosted, secured and maintained websites that are built with a customer centric strategy. Tune in to find out more about this B2B marketers mission. All right, Mr. Hipkin, I’m gonna say, welcome back to the show. It’s always a pleasure to have you.

James Hipkin  00:37

Christian, it’s always just an absolute blast to chat with you and share our experiences. And I mean, I’m just looking forward to this.

Christian Klepp  00:47

Absolutely. I think it was something that you said, and in response to something I posted on LinkedIn this morning. It’s the quality of the people that you connect with on LinkedIn and the conversations, but it’s also the fact that no matter how many times you connect and engage in conversation, it’s always amazing how, with some people, you just never run out of things to talk about, and you happen to be one of those people. So um, (laugh), and I mean, I mean that in a good way, of course, absolutely delighted to have you back, and let’s dive right into the topic, because it’s not only highly relevant and pertinent to B2B marketers, but it’s also something that they actually should be doing, right? But here we go. So you’re obviously quite the expert in when it comes to B2B digital marketing, because you help companies rise above the increasing noise out there. And I know that you talk a lot about digital noise when you post on LinkedIn, but for this conversation, let’s focus on a topic that I think has become part of your professional mission, how a deep understanding of your target audience will lead to better results. On the surface, that kind of sounds like something that’s table stakes and pedestrian, but you and I both know that there are so many companies and so many B2B marketers out there that don’t do this, right? So I’m going to kick off this conversation with the following question, why are avatars of your target audience and buyers journey maps crucial to B2B marketing success?

James Hipkin  02:29

Well, I’ll tell you, they’re crucial because in this world, the average person is exposed to between 6 and 10000 marketing messages a day, and I have what I like to call the world’s most boring slide that I use when I’m speaking about this. It’s a white field with a big gray blob in it, and what that’s representing is this is the marketing landscape from your customers point of view, they get exposed to so much information that everything’s just becomes digital noise, and if you’re going to break through that noise, you need to have deep insights into two sides of the customer and you mentioned the both, the avatar and the buyer’s journey. The avatar is more common. Lots and lots of marketers will tell me that, oh yes, I have an avatar of my customers. Awesome. Can you show it to me? Much fumbling around while they try to find it because they haven’t looked at it in months. So there’s problem number one. Then I’ll say, Have you mapped the buyer’s journey? And I usually get a blank stare, and that buyer’s journey in conjunction with the avatar as two sides to a coin. That’s what you need in order to craft marketing that supports the the old direct marketing axiom. Everybody’s gonna nod their head when I say this, because they’ve probably all heard it before. Doesn’t make it any less valid. Get the right message to the right person at the right time. The avatar helps you with the right person. The journey map helps you with the right time. Because when they don’t have a need for what you’re doing, it’s just part of the gray blob. But when something happens in their life, suddenly their awareness increases, and suddenly they start seeing the advertising and the marketing for your category. They see yours, and they see your competitors. What was the thing that happened? What stimulated them to go from uninterested and uninvolved to aware. Now, if you craft marketing that resonates with that point in their journey, they’re going to see your marketing and engage with it. But it doesn’t stop there. The journey goes through four distinct phases. There’s sort of the unaware, aware phase, top of the funnel. Then there’s the two phases in the mid funnel. And the mid funnel has two phases. It says consideration, and that tends to be where they’re doing research work, exploring what their alternatives are, investigating what’s going on these days, into prospecting, where they’re actually making decisions about who they’re going to go with. And then the fourth page was, which is the decision phase, if you can understand the kinds of things that are going on in the minds of the consumers, the confusions they have, the questions they’re trying to overcome, the obstacles they’re trying to get around, all those things, then you’ve got a way to craft your marketing messaging so that it’s resonating with those folks where they are, and that’s how you break through the noise, and that from a B2B marketers point of view, my God, you know, which would you rather be some guy standing on the top of a building shouting at the world at large about, My God, how awesome we are. Or would you rather be the confidant, the person who’s there with them, who’s giving them the information they need who’s supporting the journey. The Holy Grail here is that the purchase decision shouldn’t be a sale. It should be the next logical step in their journey. And when that happens, you’re getting the right message to the right person at the right time, and you’re building a relationship through through value and trust that’s going to generate customers who are loyal, customers who are like more likely to buy from you again, customers who are, you know, going to be telling their friends and colleagues about what an amazing experience they had.

Christian Klepp  07:19

Absolutely.

James Hipkin  07:21

Now, you can’t do that if you don’t understand their journey, if you’re just shouting at people randomly from the top of a building. Yeah, some of it might work, but you’re missing so many opportunities.

Christian Klepp  07:35

Absolutely, absolutely. Let’s go back for a second. Run the number past us again. How many marketing messages people are exposed to?

James Hipkin  07:45

6 to 10,000 is the what you hear when you sort of sort of common practice, people talk about 6 to 10,000 marketing messages a day.

Christian Klepp  07:56

Yeah, that’s…

James Hipkin  07:59

And I tell you all, the best marketing in the world is not going to change a customer’s need state. If they don’t need what you’re selling, they’re not gonna see what you’re doing. That’s just accept that. But when they do have a need, you want to be there, and you will be there if your messaging resonates and it’s something that they can relate to.

Christian Klepp  08:27

Absolutely, absolutely. I had another follow up question for you, James, why do you feel, at least in your experience, why do you feel that companies, marketers skip this part, like, why don’t they do it? You talked about the clients that you talk to that don’t have a customer avatar. They say they do, and then they can’t find it. They can’t find it. They’re like, Where was that thing? It was in here somewhere, right?

James Hipkin  08:52

Why they don’t do it? Well, it can get hard. Back in the day when I was managing large budget, multi, seven figure marketing budgets. I mean, we get market researchers to come in and help us with this. And the typical charge for one of these avatar journey map exercises might run 50 grand because you’ve got focus groups involved, and maybe some quantitative research and some confirmation testing, and, you know, just lots of stuff to do it properly. And so a lot of times, people don’t. The other thing that often happens is they may have an avatar or a journey map, but it’s not of the right people. It’s a very common mistake that’s made where marketers just, you know, they use demographics to define their audience, and they go out and do research amongst those people. But the reality is, in virtually every business, 80% of your sales is being generated by 20% of your customers. The specific numbers might change, but the concept is, is sound rock solid. What you need to do is you need to understand who that 20% is, because they’re not going to be the same as the average consumer. They are likely to be heavy category users, and heavy category users are better informed. They’re more knowledgeable, they have more experience. They better  understand your product, and they better understand your competitors products. So you need to speak to them in your marketing like you know this, so doing the avatar work and the buyer’s journey work is important, but you also need to do it with the right people.

Now, the other reality is, in this crazy, crazy world that we live in, Christian people are all over the damn map. You know, it’s not the linear journey that maybe existed 20 years ago. I mean, people pop around. So you need to craft your marketing in a way that anticipates and accommodates that so it can get, it can be hard work, but I’ll tell you the results are spectacular, if you can…  imagine for a second your competitor’s customer base sort of reflects the market in total, 80% of their customers are occasional buyers and 20% of their customers are frequent buyers. But your customer base, because you’ve done this work, 40% of your customer base are frequent buyers, and 60% are occasional buyers. You have the exact same number of customers as your competitors, but you’re generating 2, 3, 4x revenue from the same number of people. That doesn’t happen by accident. That happens when you understand who those best customers are, what they’re like demographically. Demographics help you set your media strategy, what their like, what their characteristics are, what they’re like as people that helps you understand how to talk to them in your marketing. And then, what’s their pain? What are they struggling with? What is the what are the problems they’re trying to overcome? And then what’s the gain that they get from you? And so you need to understand the mindset and the details at each of these phases in order to craft, you know, marketing, one of the other things that I talked about is the hub and spoke strategy.

Christian Klepp  12:52

Yes

James Hipkin  12:53

Where the website is the hub, the media channels are the spokes, and the content and messaging strategy is the rim that holds it all together. Well, the avatar and the journey map help you with all of that

Christian Klepp  13:09

Absolutely and we’re going to get into the research aspect of it in a second. But before we do, you already brought some of them up, but let’s dig deeper into some of the common pitfalls that marketers should avoid when they’re thinking about customer avatars and buyers journey maps.

James Hipkin  13:29

Well, a common thing, again, it’s the issue, the issue between best customers and regular customers. If you’re talking to the middle of the bell curve, yeah, there’s lots of people there, but they’re not heavy spenders, and all the marketing in the world is not going to change that. That’s the nature of who they are in their situation. The other common mistake that’s made is in the how I remember being in a meeting in Chicago and we invited our client up from Kansas City. It was a large telecommunications company, and the creative director had placed all of the work we’d done over the last 24 months up on one of the boardroom walls. And she turned to them and she said, Do you see the problem? And of course, they didn’t see the problem. They they’re like, Well, it all looks great. So she took a ribbon with two push pins, and she pushed the ribbon into the wall at a certain point, and she said, Now, do you see the problem? And they said, Well, no, no, we… I don’t understand. What are you doing? She picked a piece up off of one side of the ribbon, and she read it out loud. Then she picked a piece up off the other side of the ribbon, and she read it out loud, and she said, Do you see the problem now? And they’re like, no, they both sounded great. And she said, Exactly, that’s the problem. Everything to the left of the line is acquisition marketing. Everything to the right of the line is customer marketing. We are talking to our customers with exactly the same tone of voice as we’re talking to our prospects. Our customers have a relationship with us. We’re not talking to them like we have a relationship with them. That is a really common problem.

Christian Klepp  15:22

Yeah, and hence the reason why this kind of research is so important, right?

James Hipkin  15:29

Right

Christian Klepp  15:29

Because, and I don’t know who said this, but like, you know, not all customers are created equal, right? They are all different in their varying degrees, different. To your point, they have a different relationship to the company or to the provider, right? There are different stages of that relationship, sure, and as such, they need to be treated accordingly with the respective messaging that that is appropriate.

James Hipkin  15:57

For where they are within their journey.

Christian Klepp  16:00

Correct.

James Hipkin  16:01

Another example. I was helping a woman who was a paid keynote speaker. People pay her $10,000 to come and speak to their event, to their group or their business, and when we got right into it, she had three distinct target audiences. In her 20%, there were event project managers whose primary motivation was, don’t make me look bad, right? There were corporate HR directors who are bringing her in to help so that she could help their senior executives be better communicators. And then there were solo senior executives, mostly women, who’ve been promoted to a position and were finding themselves on stages and they didn’t really know how to, what to do, other than the gender being the same, those three groups are very, very different in terms of their motivations, in terms of their needs, in terms of their pain, etc. If you have avatars and journey maps for each of those sub segments in your audience, then you’re going to be able to craft marketing that’s going to support them, that’s going to build a relationship, that’s going to generate trust. You know, one of the more controversial things that I talk about is, I’ll say to people, I want you to stop saying call to action, which makes everybody go, wait what? Because they’ve been told for their entire career, you’ve got to have a call to action. It’s vital that you have a call to action. It needs to be above the fold, okay, a call to action is a marketer shouting at a customer and telling them what to do. Customers don’t want to be shouted at and they don’t want to be told what to do. If you create people like you, pathways that call out to the sub segments in your audience and visually with headlines, maybe a sentence or two, that communicates the benefit of what’s going to happen if they select that pathway and they click on that “Learn More” button, two very powerful things have happened. They’ve told you exactly who they are, and they’ve given you permission to give them more information. Which would you rather have? People being shouted at and randomly clicking on buttons or people selecting pathways? Effectively, they’re exactly the same thing, but the mindset shift is really important. And the mind set shift is when you start to recognize that your audience and your target audience has personalities. They are… there are distinct subgroups, and they have different needs, and your if you support that, you’re going to get purchases that are the next logical step in their journey, as opposed to being tricked into buying something. As a marketer, which would you rather have?

Christian Klepp  19:12

Of course you want to guide them, yeah, right, down a path, right, help them to make an informed decision, because we all know that most of the time in B2B, people are not ready to buy.

James Hipkin  19:24

No,

Christian Klepp  19:25

Not yet, not yet. They need a lot more proof, a lot more evidence

James Hipkin  19:31

Exactly

Christian Klepp  19:32

That you’re the right fit.

James Hipkin  19:33

But if you, but if you, rather than regurgitating everything you can think about on your homepage, your website, which is what people do, right? How many websites have you seen? It’s like, Oh, my God, where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to look at? Where am I, you know, versus a big call out. That’s, you know, people like you. And then you choose that path, and you get to a landing page that’s full of information that is just completely relevant to who you are and where you are in your journey. That’s… and so that’s where, why I say the avatar and the journey in combination is extremely powerful.

Christian Klepp  20:16

Absolutely, absolutely. I know you brought up some aspects of research earlier in the conversation, but I’m going to move us on to the next question, which is focusing on how, or I would say, the recommendations that you have like walk us through some of those important aspects of customer research that marketers should be focusing on to develop those relevant customer avatars and buyers journey maps, because, as you said earlier on in the conversation, it can get pretty overwhelmed.

James Hipkin  20:47

Yes, it can,

Christian Klepp  20:47

Right? It can be a lot of work, and it can be a lot of data, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to do all this work, and not much is going to come up.

James Hipkin  20:56

Well, sometimes I like to tell the dad joke. Now…

Christian Klepp  21:02

All right, here we go.

James Hipkin  21:03

You know the dad joke about the two guys in the forest who run across a bear, and the one guy says to the second guy, Hey, man, we got to run. And the second guy says to the first guy, we can’t outrun a bear. And this first guy says to the second guy, I don’t need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun you, right?

Christian Klepp  21:26

Okay

James Hipkin  21:27

An awful lot of marketing is the two guys in the forest with the bear. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to be better than what your competitors are doing. And it doesn’t even have to be a lot better, because most people are pretty forgiving. If they think that you’ve got something that they can relate to, and they understand that they’re going to gravitate towards you, it doesn’t take much, because they’re on a journey to solve a problem, and if you even hint at the fact that you’ve got a solution to their problem by just talking to them about things in their language, they’re going to be all over that, because this is hard work for them. They do, you know. So when you’re doing this work, pick up the phone and call your customers. I know it’s a shocking thing, but ask them, you know, tell them, you know, this is… that by itself, even if you just do that, you know what happened to get you thinking about this to your life? What you know? What? What kind of steps did you go through when you were researching a solution? So how did you come to, you know, choosing your sort of final, top two, top three, and then why did you choose us? Get into those conversations, and you will start to gain a tremendous amount of insight into what your market, what your clients are looking for, because most people are nice, right? They’ll answer your questions, and they’re probably be thrilled that you called up, called them up and said, hey, you know, I’d really like to know more about you and about your process and what you went through it. You know, it doesn’t have to be all smarmy. They will value that. So, yeah, you can spend money on research, and a lot of big brands do, and it’s valuable getting focus groups and a professional researcher to help guide the conversation, that sort of thing, but anybody can pick up the phone and call their customers, because if you spend a little bit of time in your data, you can pretty quickly identify who the best customers are. Have we talked about RFM in the past?

Christian Klepp  21:32

Not that I remember.

James Hipkin  23:06

Are you familiar with RFM?

Christian Klepp  23:57

Yes, but I’m pretty sure you’re gonna help remind me a little.

James Hipkin  24:04

Okay. RFM is an old analytics technique out of the direct marketing and catalog industry. It’s an acronym. It stands for Recency, Frequency and Monetary so if you go into your customer base and you find first of all, do a filter for all of the customers who’ve bought from you in the last two months, one month, whatever’s appropriate for your business. Okay. And then do a filter for all of the customers who’ve bought from you two times in the last year, or three times the last year, whatever the frequency is that is appropriate for your business, and then do a filter for who’s spending the most with us. And if you score your customers based on recency, frequency and monetary you will very quickly identify who are the 20% of. That are generating most of your revenue. So that’s step one. Is figure out who it is you should be talking to, and then, you know, pick up the phone and call some of them. It’s, it’s amazing what you can learn from just conversations with people.

Christian Klepp  25:20

Yeah, no, I totally agree. I mean, I do quite a bit of that customer research myself, so I do not only understand, truly appreciate the value of going through that process. I have two follow up questions for you, James on the topic of customer research, or just market research in general, where you also focus on customers. The first one is, what’s your take on the importance of not just talking to current customers, but perhaps even talking to prospects in the past that you would park under perhaps lost deals.

James Hipkin  25:56

For sure, because their life is dynamic. It’s not static, and you don’t know when, when things are can change. This is one of the reasons why email marketing is so valuable and so important, because that sort of lazy river sequence of emails that you just generally send out to folks that have been in touch with you, it’s full of valuable information, etc. You just never know, but you want to have the metrics in place so you can track what they’re doing if they click on a link and go to a landing page on your website. You want to have a plan to do something about that, because they’ve just told you something, right? So, yeah, past prospects are valuable. You want to understand look alike audiences are really valuable. You know where you if you use the RFM technology to identify this particularly important for E-commerce businesses, because then you can use those look alike audiences to help you with your media buy, right? So, yeah, absolutely, talk to your existing customers first and foremost. But definitely talk to your prospects, the folks that didn’t choose you, and find out why. But it’s the same kinds of questions. You know, what got you thinking about the category? You know, what were the steps you went through when you were researching options? What were the factors that you used to to identify your top two or your top three choices? And then, why did you choose the people you chose, the resource you chose, the product you chose, the software you chose, whatever it might be. You know those that… it’s the same phases and sometimes people go through these phases really fast. I mean, in a, you know, consumer packaged goods world, it’s still valid, but it’s, it’s literally gets done in 30 seconds at the end of a grocery aisle. But consumers still go through the same steps. They’ll see the grocery aisle and they go, right, do I have, you know? Do I have cereal for the kids? And you know, then they’ll walk down the aisle and go, You know this. So what are my choices here? What am I looking.. Yeah, well, normally, I’m gonna buy this brand, but this other brand sometimes, so awareness, consideration, prospecting, I think I’m gonna grab this one this time. It can happen really fast, or it can take six months, but the process is the same.

Christian Klepp  28:30

No, that’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. In your professional opinion. How often would you recommend that customers or companies look at these avatars and these buyer journey maps to see if anything’s changed, and if they need to update them

James Hipkin  28:46

That’s probably worth checking in on a yearly basis. These are big picture things, unless something radical has changed in the marketplace, chances are at this kind of high level, principal level that we’re talking stuff doesn’t change that quickly. You know, beware of boardroom boredom, just because you see the stuff all the time. Remember the gray blob on the white screen? Right? You may see this stuff all the time, but for all your best intentions, if they don’t have a need, they’re not seeing it at all. It’s just part of the noise. So you don’t have to change things nearly as often as people think they have to change them. And these, these segments in your audience, don’t change all that quickly either. So once a year, maybe even once every two years, depends on your market, depends on your sector. If you’re in a very volatile sector where there’s a lot of technology changing very quickly, then you might want to do it even… you might want to do it every six months. But so the classic diplomatic answer, it depends.

Christian Klepp  30:00

Fair enough. Fair enough. We talked about this earlier in the conversation, but I wanted to go back to it. Lord knows, you and I have probably come across clients like this. What do you say to people, or how do you deal with that pushback from clients that say, James, we don’t need all this stuff. We don’t need to do the expensive research. We don’t need to do the customer avatars and the buyer’s journey maps. We know who our customers are. What would your response be to somebody like that?

James Hipkin  30:31

Well, sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they really do know who their customers are. But the reality is, this is where you get a lot of what I call inside out marketing. This is where the marketer is shouting at folks and with all the best intentions, because they think they know what they’re looking for. The shift in perspective is really important. And even if all you do is reach out and talk to people, it’s going to change how you think about your messaging. It may not change what you’re saying, because your product is your product, and it does what it does, but it may absolutely change how you say it, because, you know, people don’t want to be shouted at. They don’t want to be told what to do, but if you reach out to them with information that’s germane to where they are, resonates with what they’re searching for, they’ll pay attention.

Christian Klepp  31:36

Absolutely, absolutely okay, my friend, you know the drill. We get to the point in the conversation where we talk about actionable tips, and especially on the topic of customer avatars and buyers journey maps. It does take time. Yes, it does. But if some if somebody were listening to this conversation between you and I. And you wanted them to walk away with three to five things that they can take action upon immediately. What would those be?

James Hipkin  32:05

Well, the first thing I would suggest is start to compartmentalize your marketing into those like major funnel buckets, so that you’re clearly understanding what marketing is doing at each stage. One of the principles, I mean, your digital marketing agency probably talked to you about this. They’ll call it message matching. When you’re doing a Google AdWords campaign, you want the headlines in your Google AdWords to take people to a landing page that echoes what that headline was. You want that those messages to match so that people aren’t struggling with Am I in the right place? They’re instantly comfortable. This is what I clicked on. I got to a page. This is what they’re talking about. So that message matching is vital, and you can’t really do that if you don’t understand what part of the funnel you’re attracting. You know, if you’re doing email marketing to folk prospects who’ve already engaged with you at the top of the funnel, you want them to go those links, to go to a landing page that recognizes that they’re likely in the consideration phase or the prospecting phase. So you know that that message matching is a is an important part, and you can only really do it if you understand who you’re talking to. What is it that they’re looking for? What is it that you’re offering? And then where are they in their process? And then invite them to join you on the journey, or for you to join them on their journey. And that’s where I talk about, stop saying call to action and start saying pathway. Effectively, they’re exactly the same thing, but the mindset shift is really important. A pathway is the marketer supporting their customer on their journey.

Christian Klepp  34:08

Absolutely, absolutely. I’m just going to throw this in here like a shameless plug, but this is for the benefit of the audience. I had the pleasure of hosting James on the show previously, and there was a three part series about the different stages of the marketing funnel with Kylie Lang, if memory serves me well, and I’m gonna just drop that into the show notes and the description of this episode for the benefit of anyone that’s interested in listening to that those conversations. Okay, my friend, I’ve got three more questions before I like, okay, all right, so I know that you have many, but James, I’m only going to ask you for one. All right, a status quo that you passionately disagree with, and why.

James Hipkin  34:58

I sometimes get pushback on the buyer’s journey map, because people say, in the digital world, people are all over the map, and they bounce around, and, you know, it’s no longer a linear journey. I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Yes, people absolutely are bouncing around, and they might be moving very quickly, but if your marketing is crafted to support where they’re at, they will find it and they will appreciate what you’re saying. You just need to recognize that you need to be ready for them however they engage with you and whenever they engage with you. You know that one of the things that we’ve talked about in the past Christian, which is a good example of this, is the quiz funnel, where you do, like, an entertaining, little fun thing at the top of the funnel that that resonates with people, where they are, and they’re just the beginning of their journey, and then you draw them along, and then at the bottom of their funnel, you do a much deeper and more involved assessment survey that may take them 15-20 minutes to complete, but if you’ve done that assessment survey correctly, by the time they’re done the assessment, they’ve talked themselves into buying your product.

Christian Klepp  36:24

And that’s the objective of the exercises.

James Hipkin  36:27

And that’s a great example of, you know, the journey exists, whether, however and whenever they jump in, you need to be ready for them.

Christian Klepp  36:40

Okay, My Friend, here comes the bonus question. All right, I have it, I have it on good authority. All right, I got this information from a guy that knows a guy, right, that you have a passion for cooking.

James Hipkin  36:52

Oh, yes,

Christian Klepp  36:53

Right, yes. So the question is, if you suddenly, if your wife suddenly came in and said somebody famous was coming over for dinner tonight, right? Could be a celebrity. It could be somebody that you follow on social media, the mayor of your town, whatever. If you found out that this person is coming to dinner tonight, what would you cook them? And why?

James Hipkin  37:19

Probably a leg of lamb. Oh, most people don’t know how to cook lamb, but earlier in my career, I had the opportunity to live in Spain for four years, and they know how to cook lamb in Spain, and I got some really good coaching from some folks there that I met, and it’s, it’s a really, it’s an absolutely wonderful meal. I remember when we were in Spain. I’m going to make your mouth water here, Christian.

Christian Klepp  37:53

I’m already…

James Hipkin  37:55

My main client. It was Rover cars. We were building a Pan European database marketing system for Rover cars. And the executives came down from London to Madrid, and we booked them in to a restaurant in Madrid. And this restaurant, you have to book like months and months in advance to get into this restaurant.

Christian Klepp  38:16

Was one of those. Yep.

I’m trying to picture it now, while you were talking. I’m trying to, like, envision what this restaurant looked like and the meal, and you guys sitting on the floor and whatnot, right?

James Hipkin  38:18

They brought a whole lamb spread out on a giant platter. It is a Moroccan style restaurant, and they set the platter down on the table. We were all sitting on the floor. It was set up for Westerners because we had a place to put our feet so we didn’t have to sit cross legged, because most of us probably couldn’t but and then this guy came, and he had two large sharpened spoons. The tops the spoons are razor sharp, and he just hovered over this lamb. And with these two spoons, he deboned the lamb, and when he stepped back, there was a pile of bones sitting on the side, and the lamb had a slit down its back, and it was still basically intact. And I’m telling you, that was the most amazing meal I’ve had in my entire life.

James Hipkin  39:26

Oh yeah. I mean, everybody had, like, little tiny bowls with spices in them. And in the Moroccan culture, they eat with their hands. And so you’re picking up pieces of meat, and you’re dipping the meat into the your bowls the different spices. And it was just amazing,

Christian Klepp  39:44

Yeah, not, not to get too much into the weeds here, but I would imagine there was rosemary in there might have been a bit a touch of cumin.

James Hipkin  39:52

Oh yeah, lots of cumin, lots of oregano. It’s some spicy… You know, the Kashmiri chilis and all sorts of things. It was awesome.

Christian Klepp  40:07

Yeah, no, James. I mean, as usual, right? This, this conversation did not disappoint. And I really appreciate you coming back on the show. It’s always a pleasure to have you. But before I let you go, please, for the benefit of those who have never heard of you, short introduction and how folks can get in touch with you and what you’ve been up to lately.

James Hipkin  40:27

Well, I tell you, I’ve been banging around the marketing and advertising world for over 40 years. I still really enjoy it. I just love helping people. You know, my wife keeps saying, you know, when are you going to retire? And says, I don’t know. I’m still having fun. If anybody wants to chat with me, I love conversation. VIPChatwithjames.com. It’s a great link. You can get some, you know, book 30 minutes on my calendar. We can have a fast chat about marketing, about websites, about food, you know, right? This past weekend, I made some homemade salsa, and I’ve got a whole pile of tomatillos and jalapenos sitting on the counter that need to be turned into hot sauce. So and then on, what am I up to lately? I tell you, we’ve been doing a lot of work in the AI space and harnessing machine learning to help marketers with exactly this kind of problem with the avatar and the journey map. And we’ve developed a product that is in beta testing right now that is going to basically, for, you know, $2,500 you’re going to be able to generate an avatar and a journey map using professionally designed interview guides. You record the conversations with your customers, put the recordings into the system and the AI, which we again, we’re in beta testing right now, it analyzes the conversation, takes the inferences from the conversation, reads between the lines, and outputs an avatar for your customer and a buyer’s journey map for your customers based on 6 to 10 customer interviews that you can do with your existing customers, and that information can help you craft your marketing so that it can be more effective, not with your prospects. Because your best prospects are the people who look like your customers.

Christian Klepp  42:38

Absolutely, absolutely, if you’ve got like a website, or if the platform’s already online, yeah.

James Hipkin  42:44

We have a landing page for it. If you go to Marketing sage advantage. Sage, as in the wisdom interpretation of the word marketing, sage, S, A, G, E, advantage. When I told my VA about this. He’s, she’s like, Is that the kind that you light up and wave around in the room? No. Also sage, but no, we’re not talking about that. So marketingsageadvantage.com is the landing page for this product. We have a beta program up right now, but we’re hoping by sort of later this month, we’ll be launching the product as a minimally viable product. And then, you know, the next logical extension of this is I have an avatar. I have a journey map. I need to have my agency generate a campaign for me. How do I do a campaign brief? And so that’s the next stage of this product development, is to use this data to generate campaign briefs that you know the marketing agency can actually use that. That’s the thing we see most often, is you hire a marketing agency, and they’re lovely people, and they want to do a good job, but you’re not a marketer, and they’re not strategic, and they make your noise pretty.

Christian Klepp  44:10

Nope. It’s expensive, though.

James Hipkin  44:14

It can be very expensive, but strategic marketing that resonates with customers and is pretty. That’s a win.

Christian Klepp  44:26

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. James, once again, it was a pleasure to have you back in the show. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Thank you. Thank you. Take care.

James Hipkin  44:36

My pleasure as always.

Christian Klepp  44:38

All right.

How to Build Organic B2B Content Strategies

There are so many moving parts in B2B content marketing that content creators and marketers need to be aware of. Many of their efforts might fall flat because they don’t diversify their approach beyond paid traffic. What should they focus on instead and how can they build something that will ultimately succeed?

That’s why we’re talking to marketing experts Shreya Banerjee and Paul Counts (Co-Founders of Marketing Counts) about how to build profitable organic B2B content strategies. During our conversation, Shreya and Paul highlighted the pitfalls to avoid and provide tips on the type of research that should be conducted. They also explained why a well-defined customer avatar and a mix of content types are important, and which metrics to pay attention to.

This episode was brought to you by Leadfeeder: Know who’s coming to your website, convert more leads and get a free trial at Leadfeeder.com/try

https://youtu.be/rjVVnS4aar4

Topics discussed in episode

Companies and links mentioned

SPEAKERS

Shreya Banerjee, Paul Counts, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today I’m going to be talking to Shreya Banerjee and Paul Counts. They are innovative marketing and lean leaders with significant experience in digital marketing, sales funnels and SEO. They have proven experience creating winning processes that help increase efficiencies across different industries, and offer expert insights into creating promotional strategies that capture emerging market trends. Tune in to find out more about what these B2B marketers mission is. Okay. Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission. I’m your host, Christian Klepp, and today I am joined by Shreya Banerjee and Paul Counts. Welcome to the show, folks.

Shreya Banerjee  00:45

Thank you so much for having us.

Paul Counts  00:48

Great to be here. We’re excited.

Christian Klepp  00:49

Yeah, so am I. And I, you know, I have to be honest, the last time that we jumped on a call and we had this conversation, after we left that call, I was still laughing, so I’m not sure. I’m not sure what you guys did there, but you had me hooked, and perhaps it’s a sign of things to come. So let’s keep the audience guessing for a while longer, right?

Christian Klepp  01:11

But onto more serious things, because this is a serious topic. I mean, this is something that you guys are not only professionally doing, but it’s also something that you’re extremely passionate about, all right. And somebody out there is going to be like, okay, Christian, The suspense is killing me. Just Spill it out, right? So the topic for today’s conversation is how to build profitable, organic content strategies for B2B. So both of you guys, in your own right, are content marketing experts in B2B, and you have proven experience in creating winning processes that drive results. So I’m gonna kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat. Okay, so question number one is, why is it so important to build organic strategies for content and number two, where do you see most B2B content marketers fall flat?

Paul Counts  01:11

I like it.

Paul Counts  02:01

Yeah, yes that’s a big one. I mean, the reason you want to be focusing so much on organic these days is because the you know, you don’t want to pay for traffic, like, it can be so expensive to pay for traffic. There’s so many variabilities there. And yes, paid traffic is amazing. It’s got its place. But the problem right now is that they’re so, you know, there’s so many ways to spend your money online, and if you’re not getting organic reach, you’re really a one trick pony. We run into a lot of brands of businesses that they’re just strictly Facebook ads and Instagram ads, or they’re just strictly Google ads, and they have no other, you know, strategies where they’ve diversified. And so having our organic content strategy so critical, and especially more than ever. Like organic used to be amazing from the standpoint of there are all sorts of sites you could publish on. Now there’s even more sites. And what’s even crazier about it is like over 60% of Gen Z audience is now using Instagram and TikTok as their search engine of choice. And so that means you can’t just be running ads on those platforms. You have to be showing up organically, because you don’t even know what they’re going to be looking for. They’re using it like we used Google. So if you are not doing an organic strategy, you are missing out on huge volumes of traffic, and you’re also going to be overspending and wasting your money before you know, unnecessarily.

Shreya Banerjee  03:20

And most of the time we see that when businesses come online and they want to do social media and they want to reach out to organic traffic, they don’t have a plan. They just want to be out there. They want the visibility, but they don’t have a plan. Or they’re boring. I call them boring because they’re just talking about their product, and no one just wants to hear about their product, right? They need to have a good plan. They need to follow trends, and sometimes they also miss that trend. For right now, like, for example, the demure trend is going on TikTok, very it’s all over the place, right? I don’t do too much. I’m demure. How do you apply that to your business? You gotta start thinking a little bit outside the box. Any business can apply that. If you’re a real estate agent. You can apply that. If you have, if you’re selling something in a store, you could apply this like that trend is very easy, but then that would give you eyeballs, right? People that are following the demure trend will follow you now to see, oh, I’m interested in the product or service that you’re kind of offering. So we forget the social part. I think a lot of times when businesses get on social media, they think, I’m still a business. I need to be rigid, but social media is social. So you have to be social. You have to have that attractive character in social media, in your presence, and, you know, reach out to your customers that way. You can’t be a very rigid, solid business account.

Paul Counts  04:42

Yeah, it’s such a great point. You know, one of my favorite, one of my favorite accounts to watch is, like Wendy’s. They do it right? You know, they’re a big brand, but they are hilarious on their social media. So if anybody wants to see, how do you add personality to a brand? They have it spot on. They are just hitting. It out of the park. They do a great job of that. Slim Jim’s another one. They chime in, in their own way. They’re always the first to comment on any viral post. And everybody’s like, well, Slim Jim’s here, you know? But it’s like, they’re, they’re doing that. What Shreya said, they’re making social media social, which leads to organic traffic. And also, like, you know, if you want to amplify your organic reach. Like, let’s say you make a post on LinkedIn, for example. Like, this doesn’t just apply to TikTok and Instagram and Facebook, but like, you make a post on LinkedIn, one of the things you should be doing is spending five to 10 minutes of intentional, you know, intentionally going out there and engaging with people. We call it intentional engagement, and that’s where you post content. Then you go out and engage with similar profiles. And it doesn’t just mean, like, it means leave a comment, because one of the best things that happens is when you leave a comment, now your comment is in front of people that are also your target audience, and so then they go check out your profile. Because if your comment means something, it doesn’t mean you go out and, like, spam them with your links. Like, oh, check out my new post on this topic. Like, you go out and add value, like, just be a normal human. The biggest thing I could say is to echo what Shreya said, is the social media is social, it’s not just media. And a lot of times people get in this rut of like, it’s a one, it’s me posting to the world because they want to hear from me. But the reality is, it’s social too. You have to interact, and they go both ways, and the algorithms will reward you for going both ways on that front.

Christian Klepp  06:26

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, these are some fantastic insights here, and I wanted to just go back to a couple of them, okay, first of all, totally agree with regards to paid because correct me if I’m wrong, even if you do know what you’re doing, right? It can be a little bit like a black hole, right? Just takes your money, right? And then the danger there is, if you stop paying, well, guess what? You stop showing up. No traffic, right? It’s all gone. It’s all gone. No traffic.

Paul Counts  06:55

It’s gone. Yeah.

Paul Counts  06:56

And, and, like, let’s say things happen, like, an election year, your ad costs go up, and you can’t control that, you know. So now you were getting a certain ROI, and your ads return on your investment, you know, your ad dollars, and now you have no return, because ad costs went up because election year, some new big campaign, some large brand came in with their billion dollar budgets, and that’s the reality. 99.9% of business owners out there are small businesses. You don’t have a billion dollar marketing budget, you know. So that’s just the reality. And so if you don’t have a billion dollar marketing budget, you can’t afford to make mistakes, right? You have to be strategic. And you know, to me, true marketers are people that can take a $10,000 ad budget and make money with that. Marketing is not take a million dollars and throw it at a campaign, because I like to use the analogy that a blind squirrel finds a nut some of the time, you know. And that’s true. Anybody can throw a million dollars and maybe make a conversion, you know. Yeah, you’re not going to be ROI positive, but you’re going to make a few conversions, you know. But large brands don’t care about that. They’re just, oh, we got our brand reach out there. But small businesses, we can’t afford that luxury, and so you have to think strategic. You have to have multiple traffic streams. You can’t be a one trick pony. I I know the guys have been, we’ve been fortunate to do this for so long. I’ve been doing this since I was 13. 26 years now, in this business, and I have seen so many people come and go in the space that I’ve worked in, and a lot of it’s because they were one trick ponies. They were like, one traffic source. That was it, one solo traffic source. And when that source dried up, their business dried up. So, you know, you gotta diversify.

Christian Klepp  06:56

Absolutely.

Christian Klepp  08:35

Absolutely, absolutely. I have two follow up questions for you guys based on what you’ve been saying in the past couple of minutes, right? So the first one is this whole notion of, like, you know, it’s about also active engagement on social media. It’s not just posting, you know, you have to engage with other people’s posts or comment or people that comment on your post. You should be answering or commenting, commenting on their comments, so to speak. Right? Why do you feel that a lot of people, they either skip that part or they go down what I call lazy avenue? Right? The name of the software escapes me now, but apparently, and you probably guys probably know it, but there is a software where you It analyzes the post and it comes up with a… it generates a comment, right? And the comment is really just a summary of everything you just said, which I find super annoying.

Paul Counts  09:32

And that’s the… Yeah, that would be the approach that is not going to work even, even using software for it. Some people have tried that, yeah, but it becomes so canned and so generic, and it just looks out of place. And when you do this, it’s so easy to do easy street AI has made it so easy for people. And you know, and I’ve got a warning I’m going to tease out here that I’m going to tell people about using AI in just a little while, but it’s a little warning. I’m going to open that loop here. But the the reality is, with AI and all these things, it could be easy to go down easy street. So either you decide, okay, I’m just going to use canned responses. Well, that doesn’t work, because if you want, if you’re doing the intentional engagement right, you make a good comment to somebody, and you want the people that are viewing that person like, I love to go to the post where there’s like, this person has 100,000 followers, and I’ll go make a comment on their stuff, because all of a sudden, 10 other people are going to comment below me. Now, if I just said, Oh, great post, thumbs up, you know, like that doesn’t do anything, but if I say, you know, I really agree with what you’re saying. Because in my experience, I’ve dealt with this, you know, now, all of a sudden, I’m a human now, all those 10 people that commented below it now are interested in what I have to say, you know, because they saw that I gave value. So now they end up on my profile. Now they end up some of them, like me, connect me, get to know me, whatever. And that’s how that, that’s intentional engagement, you know, getting in front of the right people and so it’s quality over quantity, too. So people would say, like, oh, go to 100 of these and do it all day, because you can, you have the tools to do it well, you’re not going to be effective with those hundreds. So do it three times and do it well. That’s kind of what it comes down to.

Shreya Banerjee  11:10

And I would also say that it’s about the value you provide, and not so much just generic content that AI spills out. So I know it sounds like, sounds like a old person giving you advice here, but even in this day and age, it’s value. Whether you’re giving value with your post or providing a reply to somebody else’s post, you’re giving value. That’s what people remember you for.

Christian Klepp  11:32

I’m so glad you brought that up, Shreya, that keyword, that buzzword, value, because I want to dig into that a little bit further, if you’ll permit me. From your perspective and your professional experience, define what it means to give value, because that’s another one of these words that that’s been thrown around so loosely out there and some people, and you’ve probably seen it, that people go in with a pretext that they’re adding value, But it’s actually a veiled sales pitch.

Shreya Banerjee  12:01

Yeah, right, yeah. Actually, one company that does it amazingly is Zapier. Even the ads, it’s a tutorial. It’s a they’re showing you how to connect and get your workflows together, which is going to save you time. And they’re obviously, they’re selling you their service so that you’re zapping things here and there. But the way they do it, it’s just a how to video, and you as a user are so engaged in watching that because you want to learn how to fix your problem, because you obviously have that problem, right? You want to automate things. I think Zapier does an amazing job. They’re providing value, but still selling their stuff. By the way, in order for you to simplify this, you’re going to have to use our program, but this is the way you make your life easier. And everybody’s looking for that.

Paul Counts  12:46

It’s just giving people helpful tips, helpful advice, helpful strategies. You know, I think too many times people are so worried about, you know, thinly veiled value. So they’re like, Oh yeah, I’m giving value. And then they’re going to pitch you right at the end, and it’s like, you’ve just got to speak from the heart. If you deliver true value, true content to people, it also means don’t hold back on your good content. I mean, I’ve learned that the hard way too. In the past. I used to be like. Yeah. We used to do that. Honestly. I used to be like, Well, we know this little secret strategy. I might share it with people, and then some knucklehead down the road, who really I was, literally, was like, I don’t even, this guy is a clown. He barely knows marketing, and he’s sharing this strategy. And I’m like, Oh, okay. And then I learned, like, we just need to share, you know, share the best value, because they’re gonna remember you for sharing that rather than them. So like, you know, now we don’t hold back, you know, it just we share it because the internet’s so big, there’s no new idea out there from a marketing standpoint. You know, there might be new adaptions to things as always, but you’re not going to create the new whiz bang marketing idea that nobody else knows. You know, it’s probably been done 100 other times.

Shreya Banerjee  13:55

Or if you do, it was done 20 years ago, and it’s making the resurface like SEO, right? People are going gaga over SEO and organic traffic right now. That’s been there since the beginning of internet.

Paul Counts  14:07

Nothing drives me crazier than an Instagram guru who I saw recently, yeah, talking about how, yeah, there’s this new thing called SEO that you do in your post and you put keywords in there, and it’s starting to work. And it’s, and I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me, you know? Like, this is like…

Christian Klepp  14:22

Unfortunately, they’re not kidding.

Paul Counts  14:24

They’re not they’re yeah

Christian Klepp  14:26

They’re dead serious.

Paul Counts  14:28

And people are listening to this person who just discovered SEO, and they’re following him like he’s the next guru… he didn’t even know. So it’s… wow.

Christian Klepp  14:36

Yeah. I’m getting a little confused here. Guys, are you like stuff from 20 years ago? Are you talking about B2B content marketing? Are you talking about the music industry and fashion?

Shreya Banerjee  14:47

Yeah, a lot of pants are back.

Paul Counts  14:52

Oh yeah, no. I remember my kids on a side note. They they came back home from school all excited to share this new dance they learned. And it was the Macarena. And where were they…when I danced along to it with them. They were like…

Shreya Banerjee  15:06

For them right then and there.

Christian Klepp  15:07

Yeah. They were like how do you know this…

Paul Counts  15:10

Yep, yeah.

Christian Klepp  15:16

Love it. Love it. I’m gonna move us on to what I call the deadly sins, right? So talk to us about the pitfalls that B2B content marketers should avoid if they’re trying to build profitable, organic content strategies.

Paul Counts  15:32

Yeah, yeah, go ahead Shreya.

Shreya Banerjee  15:34

One of the main ones is not having a proper customer avatar. Thinking that your product applies to everyone is the biggest mistake that we find. It might apply to everybody, but the way you talk to everybody is different. The way you would talk to Paul is different than the way you would talk to me, right? We both might be your customer, but it’s a little bit different. So having that customer avatar completely dialed In is very, very important. And we see every single client that we actually work with ends up that they don’t… either don’t have something at all or it’s not very clearly defined. So that’s always a starting point. And the biggest pitfall, pitfall that we see.

Paul Counts  16:12

Yeah, and for customer avatar, you’re really just looking at what are their interests, what are their likes, what platforms. I just did this with the client, we were trying to reevaluate their social media strategy. So I was like, no, no, let’s go back to the basics. You know, who is it that you want to reach? Who are you hearing? Who comes to your events, who comes to your live workshops and online webinars and master classes and all this, you know? And then we drilled it down and realized, okay, what do they like? What are they seeking? What solution do they want? You know, here originally, we were targeting weight loss, but the reality is they just wanted to get rid of inflammation and not feel pain anymore, you know. So the ads were mismatched for that targeted group of people, right? So now the ads are being reframed to be like, Okay, we’re going to focus on your you know, inflammation issues. You know now, now we can speak to them better, because when you reevaluate and reassess, what are your customers really want to know? That’s what that’s about. And it’s also knowing, like, what websites do they visit? What platforms do they know about, what influencers do they follow? You know, because you can get ideas from those people. And if you don’t know who your customers are and it, nobody wants to do it because it’s not sexy, it’s not attractive, it’s not the newest marketing trend, it’s old school. But the reality is, if you want a business that’s going to last for 20 years, you’ve better put the old school tactics into place. That’s why business owners are around for 20 plus years. If you want a business that’s going to be around for a year or six months, follow the fads, you know. And so everybody wants to follow the fads, because that’s fun and trendy. But if you do that, you’re not going to have a business for long. So you got us have these foundational pieces there.

Christian Klepp  17:51

Yeah, exactly. What about, like, the understanding of the buyer’s journey, and a mapping out those critical touch points? I mean, I would have it, I guess, if that’s critical tool.

Paul Counts  18:01

Yes, oh, yeah. Customer Journey part is so good. It’s like, yeah, understanding  where do you want them to go next? You know, we were just working on a project where it was like, okay, when they visit our website, you know, what is the next step we want them to go? Is it straight to a quote form, or is it to a informational page? You know, especially you know, one of our clients, they’re selling a 30, you know, they’re reaching B2B sales, right? They’re reaching a 30,000 plus dollars a unit sale, you know, for high end equipment, right? And so people aren’t going to go to their website click add to cart. It just doesn’t happen. Not to mention that their customer base has to get a PO from the city, you know, most the time. So it’s not a credit card order, so you have to take them through a journey, right? So that journey is, go to the home page with enough information to wet their beak and get them excited. Then take them to a separate page which sells that specific product, and then take them to the, you know, request a demo page or quote page, you know, because whereas, like, if I was selling just, you know, house plants. Let’s say, you know, they’re gonna come to my our Shopify store, or Shopify website, whatever, and they’re gonna find the house plant that looks good, click on it and, okay, it’s a $25 purchase, bam, I’m gonna click on that and buy it right there. You know, that’s a different customer journey, because, you know, you can use a credit card for it, so it’s, you know, very different experiences.

Shreya Banerjee  19:22

Yeah, but you still can’t do that without customer avatar, right? That is still the first step.

Paul Counts  19:28

Yep, you’re not gonna speak at all to those people.

Christian Klepp  19:31

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So they should focus on the customer avatar and not something like marketing Mary or frustrated Frank. I mean, we’re talking about like some serious avatars here, right? Yeah, with their pain point, the objections and whatnot, right? What’s going on in their lives that trigger that demand, trigger that motivation to look for a certain service or product, right? And then having that that respective customer journey map? How often would you say, B2B marketers should be reviewing these avatars and journey maps, because, you know, these are not set in stone, right? The markets change. You guys talked about an election year. I’m over here in Canada, so I empathize with your predicament. But how often do you would you suggest customers look at that?

Shreya Banerjee  20:22

Yeah, we say at least six months. Yeah, at least every six months, reevaluate it, just because things do change, something that might be working. And then you also, when you’re reevaluating, you might find out a few things, because if you’re spending money, now you’re actually collecting the data too, right? The first thought when you’re doing it, it’s what you thought it was, but now you’re getting inputs from your customers, so things might change a little. They might give you that feedback. So it’s very important to keep that updated all the time.

Paul Counts  20:53

Yeah, it’s a big deal to really just keep it fresh and, you know, keeps you top of mind. And the other thing, if you get your customer avatar, this is going to, hopefully this will trigger and get some people excited to do customer avatar. If you get your customer avatar, right, you can do the trendy things now. You can have the great post on social media. The difference is, instead of you just blindly throwing stuff out there, it’s now going to stick and have a chance at reaching your audience with the message they want.

Shreya Banerjee  21:20

It helps you with your strategy.

Christian Klepp  21:23

Absolutely. I love that you guys brought up research and collecting data, because that’s a great segue into the next question, right? And you guys have probably seen customers do one or the other, and what I mean by that is they either don’t do any research at all or they don’t do it properly, right? So talk to us about the importance of conducting the right research. And so what I mean by that is, what should they be looking out for, and what should what type of approach, rather should they be using so that they’re researching with intention?

Paul Counts  21:57

That’s so good, yeah. So some of the biggest things that you can do there is, you know, look at YouTube. We love to do this kind of research. So there’s a tool that Shreya knows about with YouTube that we use all the time. Do you mind sharing that Shreya that?

Shreya Banerjee  22:11

Vid IQ.

Paul Counts  22:12

Yeah. Vid IQ is the tool. Vid IQ. Vid IQ. It gives you a really good idea. As far as, like, if you look at channels that you are competitive with. It’ll tell you things like, what channel tags are they using, what keywords are they using in their videos? How are their videos ranking? What are they doing, optimization wise, that you could do better. You know, what kind of content are they sharing? It gives you really good ideas around that, and that’s more of a deeper dive, but it’s a really good tool. And if you want to just go like surface level, you can go out to YouTube itself and just start typing in how to lose or how to get rid of or how to whatever your niche is, right? You know, back pain. Just type in the word back pain, and you’re going to see a whole bunch of suggested searches where YouTube is pre filling that data, and YouTube’s literally saying this is what people also searched for related to this niche. You can do the exact same thing over on Google and do the exact thing, and actually scroll down to the bottom, and Google’s gonna say people also search for and they’re gonna give you about 10 other keywords related and Google is literally handing you this data on a silver platter. And so it’s one of the best things you can do. The other thing we love to do is Quora and Reddit are two great sites. Those are forum sites. Those are informational news sites. And you can go out there, B to B, B to C. It does not matter your industry, right? You’re going to find people asking questions on specific topics. Those become ideas. I get a lot of social media content or ideas of what to do based on questions I see people asking on these forums, you know, and Reddit and Quora are forums. And I know I’m saying forums, I’m we’re going back here, you know, we’re going back to the old school. That stuff still works. And I’ll tell you right now, the reason those sites is my own little side note. Those sites are blowing up right now. Reddit and Quora, Google just paid $100 million between the two of them to license their content on the first page of Google. So if you look at almost any search result now, you see Quora and Reddit results show up.

Christian Klepp  24:11

I did notice that, actually, yeah,

Paul Counts  24:12

Yep. Okay, so you’ve been seeing that, yeah, Google paid to license their content. And you want to know why that is my prediction, simply because of the fact that it’s their forum content. It’s not AI generated, it’s human policed. Redditors will kick you out faster than anything if you use AI content. I have watched them literally roast people in non business niches, call people out for using AI to get their karma score up on Reddit. And so Google knows that like so AI has no place there, and Google does not like AI because AI content is ruining the content game. And I’m not saying AI is terrible. It’s got its place, but you can’t use it for the easy button solutions. You can’t use it to go comment on all these Reddit threads. You can’t use it to do that like you have to use AI intelligently. And that’s what I’m saying. That was my you know, when I talked about earlier, if you’re going to go out there and Google’s already slapped websites using AI, and I’m telling you, Instagram and TikTok and Facebook reels and YouTube shorts, they’re next. If you start using your AI for your captions and your descriptions, it’s going to destroy your rankings overall. Google’s already gotten rid of them, Reddit and Quora already, you know, big on that, like you just the easy buttons, not there. Everybody does. We’ve been in this business 20 plus years. Everybody wants to rush to the easy button. The reality is easy button just basically, you end up not having a business in a few years, or a few months.

Christian Klepp  25:34

Exactly.

Paul Counts  25:34

So business takes a little bit of work, you know, you got to get you got to think. You got to think intelligently and outside the box.

Christian Klepp  25:40

Yeah, funny thing that that, it takes a little bit of work, right? I thought, yeah,

Paul Counts  25:44

Right, yeah, yeah.

Christian Klepp  25:45

Thought that was an easy button. Or, what’s that? What’s the alert trending phrase, chasing the next hack, right? Like,

Paul Counts  25:51

Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. Everybody wants the next hack. You know, there is no hack.

Christian Klepp  25:57

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, I’m gonna move us on. And for this question, I want you guys to break it down, if you can, right? So what I mean by that is break down for us, like what type of organic content strategies there are. And here probably comes the more difficult question, how can you ensure that these will ultimately be profitable?

Shreya Banerjee  26:18

Yeah, so actually, you could do multiple things, and it needs to be a mix of things, right? Lots of people say, reels are it. They say videos is only thing. Carousels are the only thing. It needs to be a mixture of everything. It’s when people share their lives on social media, they give a mixture of everything. So that’s you’re pretty much kind of mimicking a human for your business, right? And that’s why it’s so important to have that attractive character set for your business, whether it’s a guy, Go, get, go, or, you know, whatever, even if it’s a gecko, it’s the attractive character for your business. So once you have that, then it’s a good mixture of different things. I think National Park Services, they do an amazing job on their social media where you know, they’re national park, you wouldn’t think that they would have a good social media presence, but go check them out. They do an amazing job. And it’s a mixture of everything. It’s video, this carousels, it’s quotes. Is funny, funny stuff, because people relate to funny things. I think there’s a Tampa airport that has a giant Flamingo.

Paul Counts  26:18

Yeah, the Tampa Airport’s one of the best as far as humor.

Shreya Banerjee  26:23

People relate to it. Right? When you’re flying and you’re thinking of, where should I get my Florida ticket to. Tampa airport sticks in my head because of their funny social media posts, yeah. So it’s a mixture of all of those things. You cannot just say, I’m only going to post five videos a week, or, like, it’s not structured that way. You’re almost mimicking a human. think about that.

Paul Counts  27:51

Yeah, I think some people too, they get into this, this rut and exactly what trace. And you have to have variety. But people also are like, Okay, I gotta make my social post by 10am every day, and I’m like, stop. Like, like, No, you don’t. Like, not everybody’s as rigid as you, you know, like, you gotta post at a different time. Like, it’s okay. Like, yes, I’m all about consistency, and that’s wonderful. But like, you can post at different times. Quite frankly, you don’t know. I used to send emails at the exact same time to my list, come to find out, I was off by about 12 hours as to when they responded the most. So if you’re gonna go out there and post at the same time, you don’t know you might be missing the mark. Your audience might be looking at your post at 2pm so you know, like you’re only gonna know that if you continually post at different times, and the time varies by days too. Some days people are active in the morning. Some they’re more active in the evening. Some are more active middle of the day. So you just be have a variety and I’ll give somebody another really interesting tactic. So we’ve, you know, we’ve been around a lot of people in this marketing world and in this space, and especially the Instagram gurus, the experts on Instagram and goobers. And what we’ve come across, is they don’t know it any more than any of us do, to be honest, they don’t. They really don’t. They think they haven’t figured out. And just when I think, I’ll be the first to tell you, just when I think I haven’t figured out, I don’t, it comes down to being consistent and giving valuable content, like we talked about, on a consistent basis. It doesn’t mean 10am every day. It means, you know, constantly showing up, constantly providing value, interacting with people. That’s when you see the growth. But, you know, Instagram is one of those things. I see this with the gurus too. They’ll have a million followers, some of them, and they’ll have one post do 5 million views. The next post will do 5000 views, you know, like they did nothing different, and they’ll admit that too, like it’s just a game of social media. So you can’t sit there and expect one piece of content to change your life, because it’s not. You’re gonna have to show up every single day. And that’s really what separates the winners from the losers in this business game. Are the ones that keep showing up? Yeah, yeah.

Shreya Banerjee  30:02

So don’t like when people ask, what’s a set strategy for social media? It’s a good mixture of things, and it’s going to be different for you and your business than it is for somebody else’s business.

Paul Counts  30:13

And your avatar too, yeah.

Shreya Banerjee  30:15

Based on your avatar, based on where your customers are looking for so it’s going to be a little different, but that’s something to keep in mind. Now, the one thing that everybody fails at is they don’t monetize their social media. Yeah, make sure you’re capturing your leads. So everything that you’re doing that should be at the back of your strategy is, how is your content, not only just getting likes and follows and you know all that, but how are you capturing their email address? That’s a very important metric to even keep in mind, when marketing teams are, you know, collecting metrics, it’s not just likes and comments and follows. It’s also, are we getting new email addresses? Are we getting new leads?

Paul Counts  30:55

Yep, yeah, that’s that’s the biggest thing.

Christian Klepp  30:58

Exactly, exactly. So, yeah, again. So this begs the question, how do you ensure that your organic content then becomes profitable? And I know that’s a that’s a tricky one, because it’s not like, oh, well, it’s easy. Just download this app and then, poof, right? It’s, yeah, it’s something that happens over time. It requires, as you said, a lot of effort. Um, some people it might even take months, years.

Paul Counts  31:20

Yeah, oh, months, yeah, yeah. No. A friend of mine is a real estate agent, and she just started her Instagram from scratch, or realtor one, and you know now she’s got 800 followers, but when she’s in her videos, when she started, we’re only getting 100 views, or whatever. And fast forward three months, and I kept telling her, be consistent. Be consistent. Just don’t give up. Don’t give up. Now she’s got 800 followers, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but for her niche, it worked really well. Now her views videos get 4000, 5000 views. Now she’s getting leads of people wanting to talk to her about a $2 million home, or a million dollar home or, you know, and she just keeps showing up on social media. She just kept doing it. Kept doing it. She stuck it out, you know. Now she’s seeing the results, but it took a couple months, right? It’s, and I think of the lure that happens, a lot of people get sucked into these ideas that if I’m going to be doing, you know, marketing on my social media, it’s going to be an instant thing, because social media is so big, and it’s not, it’s it takes time and energy.

Paul Counts  32:18

The other thing I’ll say, is repurposing your content. I can’t stress that enough like how valuable that is. Like, it’s so big, and if you’re already going through the effort to make the video for Instagram, why not post that video on LinkedIn, and why not post that same video on YouTube shorts, and that same video on TikTok, and that same video on Instagram? And I know it seems like effort because you’re going through multiple channels, but it is amazing to me how, like one piece of content on my TikTok might get 500 views, and then my Instagram posts will fall flat on its face, and then you reverse it, and you’ll get 5000 views on your YouTube video, and it’s the same piece of content. And I can’t tell you why one platform chosen over the other. Honestly, it just depends. And so, like, I’ve been amazed by that, where I used to just do, okay, just Instagram, you know, and next to, you know, get a few views, then I’d have a great day, you know. And then I finally realized, like, if I diversify this, it’s amazing because one platform is going to jump to the other. And I know it seems difficult, but literally, if you’re making one video. It’s nothing to sit there while you’re watching TV and upload it four other times, or pay somebody to upload it for you. Like, you know, put your social media team to work, you know. Or put the person at your front desk playing solitaire to work, you know. Like, do something you know.

Christian Klepp  33:35

Does anybody ever still play that stuff these days?

Paul Counts  33:38

I don’t know people do play solitaire. Wow, I feel old now. Yeah,

Christian Klepp  33:41

Probably, probably, Pokemon Go.

Paul Counts  33:43

Yeah, Pokemon Go, yeah.  I’ve been tick tock, and I’m like, saying play solitary.

Christian Klepp  33:51

Yeah, no, but I hear you. I totally hear you. I totally hear you. No, fantastic. Um, so we come to the point in the conversation. You guys have given us plenty already, but like, Give us something actionable here. And what I mean by that is, if somebody is listening to this conversation between Christian Shreya and Paul, and you want them to walk away with three to five things that they can take action on immediately on this specific topic, right? What would those things be?

Shreya Banerjee  34:20

Customer avatar. Make sure you have that. I feel like that’s a passion of mine after talking, because I’ve mentioned it so many times here. So make sure that that’s dialed in. Start creating a content strategy based on your target audience and your customer avatar that you just did. And also remember have a mixture of everything in there. Talk give value, lead with value, and make sure you’re somehow capturing their email address. Because it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Best Buy, it doesn’t matter if you’re Walmart, it doesn’t matter if you’re like any of them. They capture emails. Everybody capture email. So whatever you’re selling, whether you’re ecom, your brick and mortar, whatever you’re selling, you need to capture your leads email. So that’s a huge step, if you’re not doing that, and start working on that,

Paul Counts  35:11

Yep, yeah, that’s such a, such a big step. You have to have that and, you know, and I would say, you know, set up a time like to be consistent. You know, there’s that, there’s a book out called Atomic Habits, and it’s all about, you know, doing little, you know, habits every day and it’s amazing how you can do small habits in your life, right? That add up. And one of the habits that you can do it, like, one of the things I’ve gotten into, and it’s really helped my business, like our business lately, is, I’m now been like, Okay, I’m doing one email a day. I’m gonna make sure nothing else happens during the day, at least, get one email out a day, you know. And it’s been steady over a while, and it’s starting to help. And, like, that’s a big thing. And then so, like, same thing goes to social media, if you’re like, you know, do one short video or one short clip, or post something. Or some people do batch things too. I mean, I’ve but come up with what it is that works for you. Like, you know, I know a guy that is a prolific podcaster, 2500 episodes, but he does five episodes on Monday. That’s, you know, and then he’s done for the for the week, but he does all his episodes on one day. And, you know, I know people have done that with social media, where they batch do their social media for the week. They’ll do five or seven posts in one day, and that’s fine, but then go in, and then every day you go in and make those posts then, because the contents already done. So it’s just a matter of, like, coming up with what works for you, but coming up with that consistent flow, and that’s going to be critical. And I would say the third thing to add on there is to the, you know, everything we discussed is, don’t forget about the social part of social media. Like, if you miss that, you’re going to miss the mark big time. In fact, the algorithms we reward you for that, one of LinkedIn SSI scores, you know, the Sales Navigator scores that they give you on LinkedIn, and the higher your SSI score is, the better your stuff ranks in LinkedIn when you post it, especially for B to B side. But if you are interacting with people, it actually improves your score. So if you’re commenting, these platforms are all the same, though, that’s the funny part. They’re all greedy. They want your time and attention. So if you are showing them that you’re willing to produce good content on your own wall, but then also engage with other people to make people stay in the app longer. They’re going to reward you for that. So that value stuff Shreya talked about earlier is real, you know, if you’re giving value longer, people are going to stay longer. So it’s going to you’re going to get rewarded for it. Yes, it takes a little bit of effort, you know, but again, a lot of its mindless effort, because you’re just talking about your niche already that you already talked about, and you can do it from your phone, you know, just, you know, maybe come up for air from your phone during dinner. But, you know, there’s times to do it. You can make it work. So.

Christian Klepp  37:52

Yeah, no, I love it. I love it. Don’t forget about the social part of social media. I think that that’s worth repeating, because, you know what I’m sure you don’t mean by that is, Hey, Christian, bumping this to the top of your inbox. That’s probably one of my most hated phrases ever.

Paul Counts  38:11

I can’t stand that one. Oh, that’s the worst. Yes, that is not social.

Christian Klepp  38:18

No, that’s not social. That’s, that’s, that’s just spamming.

Paul Counts  38:21

Yeah. And I would say some people think that social part of it, they think, Oh, I’m just gonna leave a like, you know, yeah, that doesn’t do anything, you know, like, leave a comment because it didn’t, you know, it’s funny because I run into guys at events that I go to. I’ll go to an event, a person’s like, you know, you always like and comment on my stuff. I’m like, it might have been intentional, but I don’t tell them that, but they realize it, because they see, like, I run into people, oh, I appreciate you, because you’re always in there on my post. Because, like, the comment game is so big, especially on LinkedIn, and like all these platforms, comments are big, and it’s, it’s funny to me, though, if you look at the ratio, like, you’ll see 100 likes on a post, and you’ll see three comments. And I’m like, what you know? Like, just think, if you went and made a comment, those 100 people that liked it actually would see what you wrote and maybe like what you wrote, and it also is going to help the person using it to be like, Wow, that this guy’s, you know, cares about me.

Christian Klepp  39:21

Is that what they call a pod? You guys have heard of that, right? Yeah, a pod.

Paul Counts  39:27

What’s that?

Christian Klepp  39:28

 A pod. So,

Paul Counts  39:30

Yeah, pod, yeah.

Christian Klepp  39:31

So, artificial engagement, right? So, you like, when I was first starting to, like, get active on LinkedIn during covid, um, I post something out there and I get probably, like, seven likes. And I, you know, I crack open a bottle of champagne, right? But then you get all these people that are posting stuff which I love it. A friend of mine here in Toronto, um, coined that phrase, so I can’t claim credit for it, but he wrote, some people post absolute nothing burger, and they get 1000 likes, all right, yep, but then you’ll see it in the comments, right? Like, to your point, Paul, right? Like they say, Oh, amazing post. Thumbs up, right? Yeah, absolutely, I agree. Such a great post, but there’s nothing of substance in any of the engagement. Yeah, right, yeah, that blows my mind.

Paul Counts  40:22

Yeah, it’s mind blowing. And, you know, this goes back to the, we’re going back old school here, right? This reminds me of the old days where you comment on blog posts. That’s that, that no longer really is a thing, so, but this does go takes you back to that, yeah, where, if you added value, your your comment would be seen, you know, and heard. But, but, yeah, it’s, it’s fun how these things, kind of, you know, all fit together.

Shreya Banerjee  40:45

It’s amazing how you stand out by just being yourself and providing value, which is so silly to me, but that’s how you stand out in this day and age,

Paul Counts  40:55

Right. No, that’s people ask us all. We have some incredible partnerships in our business that we’ve been very fortunate to have and people ask us, How did we get those partnerships? And I was like, consistently showing up and adding value. I mean, that’s what it is like, showing up to these people’s events, caring for them, supporting their movement, interacting with them on social media, sharing their posts, commenting, being in their life, sharing it with our following, like, all these things add up, and then, you know, builds this trust and this rapport, and then it’s easy to get into these deals. And people just think, oh, it just, it just happened, or you’re lucky, but reality is, you’re just showing up and, you know, you add value. It’s all the difference,

Christian Klepp  41:39

Absolutely, absolutely, speaking of value, here comes the love it or hate it. question, metrics, because at some point in time, you or your customers are going to have to go to somebody internally and report back and say, hey, look, it’s working. So what are some top level metrics that you would recommend B2B marketers pay attention to when you’re talking about profitable, organic content strategies.

Paul Counts  42:07

Oh, I like this. So the biggest thing I would say is, you know, really, when you’re looking at it, is look at your overall website clicks. That’s number one. I mean, what are your website clicks to? And look at it by channel. You know, one of the things that B to B sales does this, we’ve worked with some B to B organizations. One of the worst things that can happen is, is… The other metric is look at overall sales and overall leads. Those are the three metrics I look at. And this seems so basic, and so like, you know, so basic. But we live in a world. And I just got off a call with a client that their sales are B to B, and we do the organic SEO strategy, and one of the issues we’re running up against is, for example, their ad team is thinking that, you know, basically, they just want to track every lead, and they want to know, okay, did the lead come from organic SEO, or did a lead come from ads? Or did a lead come from here? Now, overall, the company’s leads are up. Company leads are up, sales are up, revenues are up, right? But now they’re trying to silo it down and figure it out. And I had to bring up the point today where I said, You do realize that when SEO captures that, you know, or you know, traffic’s up from SEO by 6000 clicks year over year, you know, for in one month period, which is great for their brand and what they’re doing. And I said, Do you realize that with all this increased traffic, those people now are getting pixelated, so now the ads team now runs ads to people that their first touch point was from an organic content strategy, whether it was a blog post, you know, Instagram post, whatever. And so do you realize like that potentially came from SEO, but it’s not getting credited for an SEO lead, because you can’t really track it that deep. And also, the other thing that happens in a B to B world, and in any online business world, is all these new browsers that have popped up. There’s the brave browser, there’s the all these different browsers that have all these safety measures in place to to block third party cookies and block JavaScript and all these things your phone is loaded with privacy things. Now you know, iPhone, Android privacy protection, there’s only three metrics to look at, or clicks up, or is traffic up, leads up and sales up for a business. And I think too many businesses try to silo these things down. And there’s, I think there’s too many type A personalities in the business world, which I’m not one. And I think there’s too many of them that want to know every little detail. And it’s like, can we just accept that? Yeah, and it happens every time with every brand we work with. And the other one I see in B to B world that drives me bananas, is, was this a marketing win or a sales win? And I’m like, okay.

Shreya Banerjee  44:44

It needs to be cohesive, like, you can’t put one team against another team, right? The company is winning. Let’s celebrate that, and let’s see how we can optimize the flow between the two teams and everybody else, and how can we move them forward? And even the product team. Let’s get feedback from them, so the marketing team can use that as you know, new marketing things, but that doesn’t happen as soon as leads go up. And this is like a warning for any, any of the owners, right? Because you’re going to fall into this trap. And it’s okay, because every single person we have worked with has fallen into this trap. Leads go up. You apply these strategies, you’re going to start thinking, Okay, we need to go in more detail, more detail, more detail. This is a time to make everything come together, every team come together and start working better, not siloing them, not separating them out, not putting them against each other. That’s the worst thing you could do because then things start going down. Because why would anybody and and also this day and age a person needs… it used to be seven touches before they make the buying decision. Now it’s more than that, probably 14 touches. So yes, they might come in as an SEO lead, or yes, they might come in as an ad, but then an email could trigger the sale, a retargeting ad could trigger the sale. So whose win is that? It doesn’t matter. It’s the company’s win, right? It’s the team’s win. It’s overall team’s win. So that’s something that you have to look out for yourself and say, I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to drive that culture, because that drives the wrong culture within the team, and then things go they start going down again, which is very sad.

Christian Klepp  46:25

Yeah, unfortunately, I think it’s the nature of the beast, though, right? A lot of these organizations are structured that way. It’s not necessarily because people want to swim in that direction. It’s just the way that they become wired, I’m gonna say, once they join, right? And I find that to be true in bigger organizations. And I think we’ve all worked for big organizations, and coming out of that experience, I came to this realization that I am not wired for big organizations, right, but because that’s the way they were wired, like exactly what you guys were saying. Oh, was this a marketing lead or a sales lead, and almost all the time, the sales will claim the credit for it because they closed the deal, right?

Paul Counts  47:07

Yep. No, it’s one of those where it’s going to be an ongoing problem, but it’s, you know, I would say from the metrics that people are tracking. I also, the other reason I bring up the metrics is, with all these privacy things. It’s not as easy as it used to be. Like email. Email metrics are near impossible. Now, there’s proton, you know, emails or Gmail, where people don’t want to track opens and all this. And so, like some people have asked me, like, you know, and there’s robots that open emails now, all these things, right? So when people want, if I want to know the health of an email campaign, I look at clicks, how many clicks happened, and how many people visited that page, and how many people purchased or took an action you wanted to on that page. That’s the metric I look at. It’s as bare bones, basic as that. Open rates. Yes, I do like to track those things to get an idea, but it’s not a one to one anymore. There’s just, it’s just not. There’s too many privacy and blockers and ad blockers and all these things that traffic is no you know, and I think businesses, instead of, they focus so much on the minutia, instead of what actually could make a difference, you know, in the organization, and they worry so much about the granular details. And it’s like, look at the big picture, focus on the stuff that works. Yeah, that’s what you should do.

Christian Klepp  48:22

Exactly, exactly. Okay, guys, two more questions, I promise, then I’ll let you go. Okay, so here comes the bonus question, and that’s the only one you know that I I’ve been keeping to myself all this time. If you were stuck on a desert island, what are the three things that you would take with you?

Shreya Banerjee  48:44

Water, food, okay, I don’t know, water and food. Those are the basics for me to survive.

Christian Klepp  48:52

Okay, all right,

Shreya Banerjee  48:54

Yeah,

Paul Counts  48:56

All right, I’m bringing let’s see. Let’s see. Okay, I’m bringing my phone. Okay, I’m gonna, I’m bringing a solar phone and a solar battery back. And I, you know, I’ll bring my backpack. That’s what I’ll say. I bring my backpack, which has my, my entire business fits in the backpack, so I’m bringing that, and that’s one item my backpack with all my items in it.

Christian Klepp  49:26

Okay,

Paul Counts  49:26

Oh, wait, you said three things. Okay,

Shreya Banerjee  49:30

You’re cheating (laughing)

Paul Counts  49:30

Okay, so I’m bringing my… Okay, then I’m gonna bring my phone and a solar charger, a solar portable charger, and then water. 3 things.

Christian Klepp  49:40

Okay, nice,

Paul Counts  49:41

Yeah, because, you know, because then I can still get off the island. I can, you know, write a book, write a business, do all sorts of things on my phone. So

Christian Klepp  49:50

That’s fair enough, I would probably bring a portable desalination plant if that thing exists,

Paul Counts  49:56

Yeah,

Christian Klepp  49:58

Toilet paper. And a book.

Paul Counts  50:04

There you go.

Christian Klepp  50:05

Because if it’s not for entertainment, at least I could use it for kindling, right. There you go, like it. There we go. Shreya and Paul good. This has been a fantastic conversation. And you know, I’d love to talk for 10 more hours about all this stuff, but, you know, I want to thank you once again for coming on the show and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. So please, quick intro to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Paul Counts  50:30

Yeah, definitely. They can find us marketingcounts.com you can just take a look at us there marketingcounts.com and you can also email us at [email protected] if you have any questions about the show, so you can just do that. Those are two easy ways to get in touch with us.

Christian Klepp  50:48

Fantastic, fantastic. Once again, Shreya and Paul, this is such a great conversation. Thanks again for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Paul Counts  50:57

All right. Thank you.

Christian Klepp  50:58

Thank you. Bye for now.

How to Leverage Social Selling Through Brand Ambassadorship

The human element is something that’s often overlooked in B2B demand generation. It’s important to remember that even in B2B, people buy from people. Therefore, personal branding and brand ambassadorship are key components that can help build trust and engagement.

That’s why we’re talking to the “B2B Demand Gen Queen” Dilara Cossette (Founder & Head of Demand Generation, Focus Image Pro) about how marketers can leverage social selling through brand ambassadorship. During our conversation, Dilara explained the importance of personalization and being intentional in content creation. She elaborated on which pitfalls to avoid and how to get buy-in for social selling. Dilara also shared strategies on how to work with subject matter experts (SMEs) and obtain testimonials.

This episode was brought to you by Leadfeeder: Know who’s coming to your website, convert more leads and get a free trial at Leadfeeder.com/try

https://youtu.be/zACCj5Nl8OI

Topics discussed in episode

Companies and links mentioned

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Dilara Cossette

Christian Klepp  00:01

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission, and I’m your host. Christian Klepp. Today I’m going to be talking to Dilara Cossette. She is the founder and head of demand generation at Focus Image Pro. She has extensive experience in helping B2B marketing leaders to navigate growth. Her company does this by creating, capturing and converting demand through demand generation strategies specifically tailored to the unique needs of small and mid-sized businesses with B2B demand generation solutions. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is.

Christian Klepp  00:38

Okay, fantastic. Dilara Cossette. Welcome to the show, and I’m so glad to have you on here. And I also want to give a shout out to Anthony Leung for the introduction.

Dilara Cossette  00:50

Yeah, hi, hi, thank you for having me.

Christian Klepp  00:54

Absolutely, absolutely. So without further ado, let’s dive in, because this is, we’ve had a couple of guests previously on the show that have talked about demand gen, but not this specific aspect. So what specific aspect am I talking about here? It’s how to leverage social selling through brand ambassadorship. So why don’t we kick off the conversation with this question, why do you think the human element is often overlooked in demand gen?

Dilara Cossette  01:18

I think if we look at our news feed on LinkedIn, on any social media, as well as open our inbox, we will see that we’re getting tons of messages. They’re coming from individuals, from companies. But when we ask ourselves, do we know those people? Do we trust them? Where they’re coming from? Where is the background? The answer is no, and we all know that people buy from people. They don’t buy from companies. So this is where personal branding is very important, but it’s so much tied with brand ambassadorship and social selling, because there should be someone behind the brand, behind every single brand, the person who will be brand ambassador or advocate of that brand, who will become a thought leader of the industry and also share the expertise. And it’s not necessarily sales people. People really think that, Oh, if we’re talking about brand ambassadorship or social selling, it has to be sales team, not necessarily. I think even if it’s someone outside of the sales department, it’s even better, because the person will sound very authentic, knowledgeable, and that will actually increase the engagement awareness and potentially lead to some really cool conversations that will eventually lead to closed deals.

Christian Klepp  02:33

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I had a follow up question there for you, if you can. Is there any difference between personal brand and brand ambassadorship?

Dilara Cossette  02:45

It’s very similar I would say. Personal branding is like, more when it’s like, I would say, maybe you’ve heard about the founder-led company, right? I’d say like, it’s there where the personal branding, the person is building their brand through the thought leadership, founder-led content I would say. This is where the person is building their brand to help the person or the company eventually to sell. Brand ambassadorship. It could be like, really, for a bigger organization with 1000s of people, right, but it’s still important to have this brand ambassadorship. It could be one person, like dozens of people, just like doing this brand awareness. And I would say, like, see it as a more brand awareness, right? We think that brand awareness should come only from the company page when it’s a boosted, promoted content, not necessarily. Now on LinkedIn, you can actually boost a personal post as well. That actually it’s a sign for us that, okay, this is how LinkedIn and all our social media channels, they put more emphasis on personal branding rather than company branding. And I’ve done several tests when we took the same content, we promoted it from company page versus the personal page, and it has 10x more engagement than the company page. So it means that people resonate, you know, and they engage more with the personal content, which leads to the personal branding and personal, you know, promotion as well.

Christian Klepp  04:07

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. It’s, um, it’s very interesting that you mentioned that, because, you know, I’ve noticed it as well on platforms like LinkedIn. If you look at the company pages, even if they do post content on a regular basis, you see that either their engagement is quite low, or if there is engagement, it tends to be the employees. So it’s kind of like, let’s pat each other on the back and internal high five. We’ve posted something, right? Whereas, if it’s from somebody’s like, as you said, like personal feed, right? It’s, it’s also, to a certain extent, a reflection of their personality, but it’s also a reflection of their expertise on a specific subject, right?

Dilara Cossette  04:49

100% I would also add to that, brand ambassadorship can be not necessarily from the employees of the company. Actually, it will have like, even maybe 100 more results and engagement if that is some something shared by customers, by, you know, other employees, by the experience. So that’s where the reviews and customer support comes in place. Testimonials is now a really good example when you actually promote thought leadership content. This is where you can actually work and leverage, let’s say marketing team, sales team. They work very closely with the CS team to get those testimonials, and it’s not hard to get, like, a few really happy customers, and they would like really to advocate for your brand, just getting a few sentences, putting a nice, really visual, and just like sharing that content, I had a call with someone earlier today, I asked the person. It was a marketing leader in the very big organization, and I asked, like, what is important to you when someone is reaching out to you, what will make you to hop on a call with someone and explore the marketing or sales opportunities? She told me, testimonials. I will believe someone else about the person, rather than the person, no matter what the person is saying, and that’s so interesting, that’s a real feedback of person who is really working with external vendors.

Christian Klepp  06:07

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. And I had a follow up question for you there on the topic of testimonials, because this is a challenge that I see time and time again, even with some of the customers that we are working with, right? How do you get those testimonials? How do you get buy in from customers, to give those testimonials to your company?

Dilara Cossette  06:28

I think it’s, it’s about the moment, right? How to find the moment? It shouldn’t be at the beginning of the you know, your collaboration, and I’ll give that example. You know, we work with… someone is working with a marketing agency, for sure, it’s required minimum few months to get their results. And honestly, it doesn’t mean that the results will be right away positive, because we do a lot of testing and trials and AB testing, so they might be like not so impressive results, but you know better what you can achieve and the moment when you get some really good results, this is a moment to ask testimonials. Another way, an advice for someone who is just starting and they don’t have a lot of clients, or they don’t feel comfortable, or the results are not there, is to ask, you know, someone to give that in return to something for free. So, you know, I’ve heard something recently, and I agree with that, because when you start and launch your own company, or any in the business. You think, like, all my time is like, you know, gold, but I think, like, you should give your time, you should offer something for free. And, you know, it can be service, it can be free trial, if you’re in the product market, if you have a product or stuff. If it’s a service, you can offer free audit. You can offer like, you know, free Trial or something similar, and asking the person if you’re satisfied, if you like it, would you mind leaving a testimonial? That is the best way to get the first testimonials, even without the strong database. And that will help, actually, to close the first clients, and then you can find the best moment to ask for those testimonials.

Christian Klepp  07:56

Yeah, no, you bring up an interesting point there. It’s like leading by helping, right? Leading by helping. Okay, fantastic. I’m gonna move us on to the next question, and I’m sure you will have no problem answering this. Pitfalls to avoid. Right. When it comes to social selling through brand ambassadorship.

Dilara Cossette  08:15

Number one is being too pushy and too salesy. It’s so interesting, but I’m getting dozens of invites, connection invites every day on LinkedIn. And, you know, in the first original message, person saying, like, Oh, I’m impressed with your background, and I would like to learn more. I would like to be connected. Second message down, they’re selling you something. I’m like, seriously, that’s not authentic, right? And I’m not saying, like, I’m not responding. Sometimes the offer is great, and I’m always open to network, communicate, collaborate with others. I truly believe that we work, you know, we work and grow together, because that’s the only way, you know, to help each other and make sure we achieve our own goals. But I would say, like, yeah, try to be salesy. Try to be pushy. I don’t think, yeah, sales outreach, you know, cold outrage, cold calling, all this stuff really worked very well 5-10 years ago. I don’t think you know, especially if you’re targeting marketing leaders, and maybe depends on the industry, but it doesn’t work, right? We’re just overwhelmed with tons of messages every day. But what works when person is really offending and the person really wants to connect, network, offer something without asking anything in return, and that’s the best way right to refer clients, because it’s not only black and white, right? If you meet with someone, the product is not the right fit or the service is not something you’re looking for right now. But there’s always great to have people in your network where you can refer people, help someone else. Maybe you will see a post if someone is looking for specific solutions and you can help someone. I do believe in karma, so I would say, just be nice to people and treat them the way how you would like to be treated? Would you like to be sold? You know, right away the first message? Probably not. So try not to do that.

Christian Klepp  10:02

Absolutely, absolutely. There are so many examples I could give here, but there’s an individual, also a B2B marketer, that I’ve been following online on LinkedIn for many, many years. His name is Steve Watt. He’s also based in Toronto, and one of the posts he put out there, in fact, I think he put it out countless times, is that people do not wake up in the morning and check their LinkedIn hoping to get pitched right. Nobody wakes up in the morning and drinks their coffee and checks their phone and says, Oh, I am looking forward to getting pitched today, right? In fact, there was another guy and I cannot. I’m not. I cannot claim to have coined this phrase because other people have used it, but nobody likes to get pitch slapped, right? And that’s what that is like, for example. Case in point, you know, we get there every day.

Christian Klepp  10:50

Hi, Dilara. Your name, your name popped up, and I was recommended to connect with you, and I’m looking forward to expand my connection, and then you accept the connection request. And then the moment you do, bam, auto, pitch slap. We do whatever the service is that is actually not really relevant to your business at all. And then, would you like to jump on a quick chat to talk about this? And in my opinion, it’s never a quick chat, right? It’s at least 30 minutes.

Dilara Cossette  11:19

Yeah, there are always different tactics and methods. People are asking to get your feedback on something. People are trying to share something, they’re offering like, Oh, I’m working on a case study. It’s like a free something at the end of day, people don’t believe anymore. They know that it’s all about the sales pitch. You know what is interesting? I was really asking someone recently to get their feedback on, you know, the offer that we came up, and the person was like, and we’re having a chat, we were asking some specific questions and so on. Was probably the person. And it happened three times within a week, because I was trying to get feedback from marketing leaders. Three people asked me, are you trying to sell me something? I’m like, No. I was like, I was waiting for the sales speech. I’m like, No, that was a really genius question. I really wanted to get your feedback. Thank you. Have a great day. I’m like, That’s it. People were really asking me, is that it? I’m like, that is it? I told you. It was a real question. Thank you for getting back to me. Do you think that makes sense? Yes, bye. And people don’t believe anymore. They were like, Where is a sales pitch? And they were really asking me, like, is it something coming up? Are you trying to say… I don’t understand the reason of this conversation. I’m like, it’s just a question to get your feedback. It was so funny. Three people. I’m like, Oh my God, right, we overused LinkedIn and, you know, you know, email and everything.

Christian Klepp  12:37

I mean, it’s probably the same reason where a lot of people don’t have landlines anymore, and also why they don’t pick up if they recognize, like on the call display, they see a number that they don’t recognize, right? Because, chances are at somebody like, you know, you can drop any name you want of any of those big corporations here in Canada that are trying to sell you something right, from telecommunications to insurance to internet and everything in between, right?

Dilara Cossette  13:06

Yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly, yeah.

Christian Klepp  13:09

Okay, I’m gonna move us on to the next question, which where I’d like you to like talk to us about the importance of having the right strategy, but also conducting the right research, right? Because social selling through brand ambassadorship is not something that, you know to use that North American phrase, wing it. It’s not something that you should wing, right? It’s something that needs to be thought out. It needs to be well researched. It needs to be intentional. But over to you, your thoughts.

Dilara Cossette  13:35

I think personalization is a key, and I know like how people are like leveraging AI right now with personalization in order to send one to many messages. I mean, AI and personalization, honestly, I don’t see that matching, because with AI, you don’t need AI to personalize the message. If you’re checking someone’s profile and you refer to the post that you saw or maybe something resonates, maybe you went to the same university, you can use AI. You don’t have to, because that’s your own personalization. That you will take that example and link it, and that will be very personalized. Um, you know, like the emails when they say, like, oh, I noticed, like, someone gave you recommendation, and the person mentioned this, this and this. So the person for sure, like, look into the details, right? And refer to that. There is certain way to do AI, but now I think people are they, they, they relied too much on AI, and now they don’t know how to do personalization, and they call personalization AI, which is still not very personalized, and you can feel it right away. And there’s so many copy paste messages very similar that we’re getting every day. And you can feel right away if it was really written by human or by AI. But I understand also, if you know sales team, they all have quota as well as marketing, and they need to reach hundreds of people every day, because they go after volume. Definitely there’s not enough hours in the day to do all this personalization one by one, and it’s hard, right? Going after volume. I think we’re creating the problem for ourselves first of all, but also for the industry. We’re trying to succeed by sending 1000s of emails. Someone has to send even more. So it’s sometimes like people are overusing and purchasing domains, you know, hundreds of domains in order to send more, the results are getting less. So they have to do more volume in order to get… I mean, it’s hard, right? We’re not making it easier. And if we are where we are now, what’s gonna happen in five years, right? I mean, how will we reach out, how we will talk to people, who will respond, who will believe us?

Christian Klepp  15:46

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, again, I suppose it goes back to the industry, the vertical, and also like what it is that you’re trying to sell to people, or rather, what service you plan to provide. Because, for example, like the services that you and I provide Dilara, I would, you know, I would park that under consultation. It’s a certain level of consultation. I would, I mean, even for myself, it would be very hard for me to close a deal for a consultation project on a cold call and automated, like, you know, something that’s done through automation, like, you know, an email campaign, an email blast, a blast on LinkedIn. Because it’s a, it’s a multi, as you as you well know, it’s a multi stage process, right? And it’s also about a lot… it’s trust building, right? Because what you’re selling is your expertise. It’s not just necessarily your time. It’s your expertise, because you’re helping your customers to transform their business for the better, right? So to a certain level, that’s not really something that AI could solve on its own.

Dilara Cossette  16:54

Yeah, I don’t think so. And this is where demand gen comes in place. And I would say like it’s across all industries. I never saw any brand that the demand generation brand awareness harm that company. And this is what you can do through social selling. We can do for brand ambassadorship and social selling. And again, I don’t want people to think like if there is a selling, it means that it has to be salesy. Social Selling doesn’t necessarily have to be pushy or salesy. Social selling is something. There’s so many methods to do that. You can share the content. You can be a thought leadership you can share case studies. You can do or whatever you want without even sales approach or asking anyone to hop on a call. That’s part of demand gen, and when you do that, people, it will ring a bell, or they will remember you when the need will come. So let’s say they’re looking for the solution, but they are not in the market right now. You create a demand. It’s kind of like a three steps. You create a demand through brand ambassadorship, social selling, thought leadership content. You have someone on the team who is like an advocate, as a true advocate, and feels comfortable to be on the video, to share the content, to share the tips, maybe weekly product newsletters, something that you share, and you leverage that content. That’s where you create the demand. Then it’s like converting the demand. When the demand is there. This is the way to make sure they find you. This is where you know some paid ads comes in place, where you can leverage some review websites and capturing the demands, make sure you actually capture and assign it to the right sales team, and make sure you actually provide the excellent support there as well. Because if they see that, you leverage and just like share so much tips and best practices at the beginning, you also want to leverage and continue the same level of support.

Dilara Cossette  18:39

As an example, I’ve been working with so many vendors. It’s all all great until you sign the contract. Once you sign the contract, it’s not exactly what has been, you know, promised, right? And you feel the huge difference, I think, like it has to be across sales and marketing. This is where I say demand gen sits in between marketing and sales department, because it’s connecting and building bridges between two departments, and one of the reasons is to make sure we provide and help a prospect, eventually potential customers with the same level of support.

Christian Klepp  19:12

Absolutely, absolutely. So moving on to the next question. And I’m sure you get this a lot right, because more often than not, especially in B2B, there’s not many people outside the marketing function that actually understand the concept of social selling. So what’s your advice to marketers out there that are dealing with internal pushback? How do you, how do you, how do you get buy in from those that don’t understand what social selling is?

Dilara Cossette  19:41

So interesting. I would recommend to start maybe with internal sessions, like more educational content, and then I will make it in a very game type of contest, like maybe, like incentivize or maybe like to make some internal contest, let’s say, you know, announcing the months of Social Selling for sure, it has to be supported with some internal sessions and then to provide them with maybe like support. Because the biggest roadblock for people that they don’t want to share, they don’t want to be judged, and they don’t know what to say and how to say, especially when it comes to product or services, they don’t want to share something which doesn’t make sense, and get a feedback. And that’s the biggest concern. If marketing team can support with educative content, by sharing, what is social selling, what are the best tips, but also support them with the content creation and provide with this tools, and then create a contest, or just like, you know, announce the winner, or like, incentivize that, that will be in a game like, you know, type of you know, environment, I would say that will make sure, like everyone, not necessarily sales and marketing, are involved in social selling. It can be customer support. It could be, you know, through different departments and content might slightly change, but will be something interesting to see. Let’s say how many… The winner is, like the person who is getting the highest number of impressions or engagement, or someone who books a call, I don’t know. And you know, this incentivize can help to increase engagement.

Christian Klepp  21:12

Yeah, something a little bit like healthy competition, if I understood you correctly, right?

Dilara Cossette  21:18

Yeah. Well, if you push too much. It won’t be healthy, but, yeah, it depends. It depends how competitive, competitive they are. Yeah.

Christian Klepp  21:27

Fair enough. Fair enough. You mentioned something that I wanted to go back to right because obviously a lot of what you’ve been talking about during this conversation, when it comes to social selling, is also developing the right content. And for a lot of B2B marketers, to develop that right content, they probably have to almost obviously look outside their function and lean on subject matter experts or SMEs, right? So these SMEs, I would say, nine times out of 10, are not in the marketing function. They’re in different business units, and they’re probably very busy people. So what’s your advice to marketers out there? How can they build those relationships and that rapport with those SMEs and get them on board with the content development?

Dilara Cossette  22:15

Yeah, it’s a very good question. I think if marketer, it’s content marketing falls under like if there’s someone internally, the person usually works with different departments, and one of the biggest challenge, I would say, is to come up with the brand positioning, and also, like, you know, the way how the content is presented. I believe there’s someone internally, the person who really knows how to put the content in the way that it will sound actually authentic, and also will make sense if CS team, or IT team is sharing something that are not related to their, you know, expertise, so that’s something like, you know, content marketers should take in consideration while preparing the content to be shared by the different departments of the organization.

Christian Klepp  22:58

That’s fair enough. That’s fair enough. So we get to the point where I wanted to ask you to walk us through the process, right? And you’ve given us plenty already, but walk us through the process of leveraging social selling through brand ambassadorship. So what are the things that B2B marketers need to do differently to achieve this, and what are the key components required for this approach?

Dilara Cossette  23:21

I think their main point is to find the right person I would say. I mentioned that sometimes people say that, Oh, social selling, it has to be salesperson. Has to be founder. I would encourage actually, to find someone who is first comfortable to be on the video because I think video content is the best performing and it’s easy to connect on a personal level  when you share something valuable. For the video conversation, the person has to be very comfortable. The person has to have knowledge in the industry. Usually it could be someone in the product team. Could be sales, it could be customer support. The thing like this is a great example, where they know the brand, they know how the customer, they know the market, and the chances that are comfortable are very high because they talk to people every single day, they are in customer support, and find the person. And it could be again, through the content, you know, create a survey who would like to become an ambassador. It could be changing if the organization is bigger than, let’s say 100 people, or there’s like a more interest. It could be changed every month. For sure, they will require support from the marketing team in terms of the video editing, you know, content creation, posting and scheduling, but that will be the first step to do, to find the person who would like to share the content and work with that person for the social selling. What sales and marketing could do. They could leverage the content and include it in product newsletters, in sales outreach, in LinkedIn outreach. They could, it’s so easy to take that content so like, Hey, I’m just reaching out to you. It could be sales outreach, but still, I would like to share this that you might be interested in or you find insightful. So it’s not a sales outreach. Nothing selling, just sharing, because sharing is caring. And I think that content can be reused in so many different ways. It could be used in product email marketing. Could be used in the marketing newsletters. So it could be actually used in e-blasts. If you know, you know the company is investing in external vendors and supporting that could be interesting idea as well, just to me and make a series of that. Another idea I just thought about that. It’s an interview series, so that person is comfortable to do the 5 Minutes interview, and if the person is actually in the CS team, that will be actually very smooth. Asking clients and customers, also depends on the number of customers the company is having, if they would like to interview them for like a five minutes. And that could be actually the series of thought leadership content.

Christian Klepp  25:58

Wow, you’ve given us plenty already here, but like you know, and there’s also different… mentioned different content formats. So in your experience of all these content formats that you’ve mentioned for social selling, ultimately, also demand gen, are there any one of these that you say would perform better than others? Or Would it depend on the industry, depend on what stage the company is at. What are your thoughts to that?

Dilara Cossette  26:23

The shorter is better.

Christian Klepp  26:25

Okay.

Dilara Cossette  26:25

It doesn’t really matter the industry. I think the shorter is better. I mean, look, people don’t spend hours like, you know, listening hours and hours unless it’s very specific that they really want to deep dive into specific, you know, topic or industry. Other than that, if we’re talking about social selling, it has to be very short. I would say maximum five minutes. To be honest, if you make a series, you can talk a lot about, like, you know, someone very sub, sub topic. If it’s something like, you know, related to one product feature or like, one tactic, I think five minutes will be more than enough, especially if it’s like, not an interview series or just the video, and you’re sharing the best practices or tips, I believe it can be really short, but it will be very valuable. So I would say the shorter is better.

Christian Klepp  27:12

Okay, okay, okay, you’re definitely not the first one that’s mentioned that. So there’s definitely some truth in that. Um, could you give us an example of how social selling, through brand ambassadorship, helped the B2B company to generate positive results, ideally, from your own experience.

Dilara Cossette  27:31

We recently launched a campaign where we collected all the testimonials and put them, excuse me, in the really nice you know, on LinkedIn, you can do a carousel photos, images, not a PDF. It’s like a one long, but they can actually scroll. We combined all that, and we started boosting it, and that was very successful. We actually got a lot of engagement for that specific boosted post, what we also did, we asked the person who is doing the thought leadership content, and we agreed with the person that we’re working. It’s someone working in the sales. Like, the person is overseeing marketing and sales, but he has a lot of experience, so we actually shared that content from his personal page as well, and we boosted both. And people started reaching out to the person because they see instead of the company, sometimes they don’t know who to reach out to when they see that the testimonials or next piece of content is promoted by someone, they click and they can get in touch. We got a really good prospects for one of our clients coming directly from those boosted testimonials of their clients. So like, yeah, it’s step by step, but it’s very successful.

Christian Klepp  28:37

Yeah, and I believe there’s something to be said about leveraging client testimonials that way, because, you know, it’s one thing for a company to talk about, like, oh, you know, this is, you know, we’re so great. Our products and services are so awesome. And there are some thought leadership pieces, but to have the testimonials there, which is basically that company’s customers talking about how this provider, or this company, helped to make them successful. That just adds so much more substance to their claims, right

Dilara Cossette  29:13

Yeah, 100% and, you know, sometimes I don’t know why, but companies are hesitant to ask for testimonials. I mentioned about, like, the best time, and I’m not the only one saying that sometimes I was like, I’ll wait a little bit more, I’ll ask later. I’ll do that. But I mean, it’s never late. Sometimes, like, you know, the contract ends and they don’t, they actually churn, and you never have a chance to ask. So in addition to just like, also trying to find the best time and thing, like, you have to have a lot of courage and just like, let’s do it. This is where the customer support can come in place. I don’t know, maybe like, every third month when you still kind of like, you wrapped up on boarding, but you’re still getting the first results. I would say, Yeah, on the third or fourth month will be the best time to ask for testimonial, but it has to be kind of like documented somewhere. Okay, on 12 week or 42 week, we’re asking for testimonial. At least it will be easier to compare. Are we getting positive responses or negative responses? Because if someone doesn’t want to leave a testimonial, I mean, it doesn’t really matter when you’re asking that person. Another thing that could happen you started working with one person, the person is leaving and you don’t know who to ask, just… So, yeah, the quicker is better. But I would say not to quicken up. Depends on the industry and services or product offerings, you have to, like every company should think about their own timelines of asking testimonials, and then they can create a file, collect them, and, you know, set a minimum, maybe three, then, just like, boost a post with three, then collect two more. Just recreate that. Just have five. But sometimes it was like, Okay, 10 is perfect. I’ll wait for 10. Just start with three. Three is better than nothing.

Christian Klepp  30:57

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, okay. Dilara, this is what I call the soapbox question. Okay, so what is a status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why?

Dilara Cossette  31:14

I think when people say we don’t… When I meet with people, especially like CEOs and founders, they say marketing doesn’t work for us. And I’m like, What do you mean? I was like, well, we invested in paid ads 2000 and it didn’t work. I’m like, Okay, so just put a x on marketing. Yeah, we don’t believe in marketing. And I think even when people work with agencies, right? And there’s so many agencies out there, and they all have unique approach. If it didn’t work with one or two, it doesn’t mean that all agencies are bad or like, for example, you hire someone and the person doesn’t match, you know, or aligned with your values. You let that person go. You don’t just, like, eliminate the title entirely. You still look for another person, right? The same thing with agencies or fractional folks or external vendors, if it didn’t work, you know, with one or two, it doesn’t mean that you should just, like, completely forget about that. I would say, like, yeah, when I hear marketing didn’t work, I’m like, you had a bad experience with marketing. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work, because it works for a lot of companies.

Christian Klepp  32:20

And this is, I’m so glad you brought that up, because this is the reason why it’s so important to yeah, sometimes I hesitate to use this word, but to educate yourself, right? It’s to also educate yourself and understand what’s out there that you have options and so that people can also make informed decisions, right? It’s absolutely right for you to say that you know people… I guess, as humans, we tend to say, Okay, we have had one one bad experience, and as a result of that bad experience, we tend to put labels, or throw people into boxes, as I like to call it, and we have this preconceived notion of certain people, certain industries, certain professions, and there’s always this negative connotation or association, and I totally agree with you that we have to get out of this type of mindset, okay, that, yes, you had a bad experience, but perhaps maybe you can look back at that, and I always say, do an autopsy to see what went wrong, and not to play the blame game. It’s to do investigation. All right, this is what happened. This is what didn’t happen. This is what didn’t work, and this is probably the reason why. So moving forward, what can we do, or what steps or procedures or systems can we put in place to ensure that this doesn’t happen again, right?

Dilara Cossette  33:43

Yeah, 100% I think, like looking back, is very important to analyze. Okay, maybe it was not enough budget. Maybe you didn’t choose the right channels, maybe you didn’t, you know, work with the right agency, right? Or maybe you didn’t hire the right fractional person. There’s so many why? Why? Why? But I agree with you 100% you have to look back and say, okay, it didn’t work. Lessons learned. Let’s move forward. But it doesn’t mean that you have to say, no, never again, right?

Christian Klepp  34:12

That’s right. That’s right. Well, you know you and I both are entrepreneurs and we’re business owners, and we know that that’s how we grow, that’s how we learn, right? It’s through the mistakes that we make.

Dilara Cossette  34:23

Oh, yeah, 100%. Every single day. You know, you make something small by mistake, that’s for sure, right? Well, I always say, if you don’t make mistakes, and I think, like, it’s not my expression, something like, I’ve heard like, a long time, though, if you don’t make mistakes, it means you don’t work, you know? I mean, like, it’s very straightforward, right?

Christian Klepp  34:42

Yep, that’s definitely one way of looking at it. That’s for sure. That’s for sure. Okay, so here comes the bonus question. So with all these conversations that we’ve had in the past, I did come to realize that, like me, you’re also a student of languages. Let’s put that way. You speak a few languages, and you’ve learned a few along the way. So if you were given the opportunity to learn another language, what language would it be? And why?

Dilara Cossette  35:11

I would say it would be Spanish, because my daughter, she’s going to high school, and she will be learning Spanish, and my husband started learning Spanish a few years ago, but I think 6 language would be a little bit too much. So I’m not quite sure about that. So I’m like, I’ll still give it another thought or so, but yeah, it would be Spanish.

Christian Klepp  35:28

Oh, nice, nice. It is a beautiful language, and in this part of the world, very, very useful.

Dilara Cossette  35:37

Oh, yeah, 100% and I also know that it’s if you speak French, it’s also easier to learn Spanish. There’s so many similarities, like, like, you know, simpler version, it’s not other way around.

Christian Klepp  35:49

Absolutely, absolutely. The difference, I would say, is that the speed at which language is spoken.

Dilara Cossette  35:56

Yeah, exactly right.

Christian Klepp  35:59

Fantastic. Dilara, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. A quick introduction to yourself and how people out there can get in touch with you.

Dilara Cossette  36:09

Oh, I’m an open book, you know, my LinkedIn inbox is always open. I really get back to someone who is asking for help advice, you know, or just want to connect. I think, as I mentioned, we grow together. And I’m always happy to, you know, share my expertise and knowledge, because you never know right where our path will cross in future and how we can help each other, because it’s all about networking. So yeah, I mean, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m an open book. Always like sharing my knowledge with people.

Christian Klepp  36:40

Fantastic, fantastic once again. Dilara, thank you so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Dilara Cossette  36:46

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Christian Klepp  36:48

Bye, for now. Bye.

How Marketing Plays a Vital Role in a Crisis

From political landmines to cyberattacks or a pandemic, B2B marketers are constantly confronted with many challenges in their work. All of a sudden, brand building and generating demand no longer seem to be sufficient to do a modern marketer’s job. What does it take for marketers to be better prepared and equipped to deal with the realities of the contemporary landscape?

Join us in this insightful conversation with seasoned B2B marketing and communications expert Ren Agarwal (CEO, StoryAZ Studio) as he talks about the instrumental role that marketers can play in a global crisis. During our conversation, Ren elaborated on the new skills and approaches marketers need to address expected and unexpected volatility. Ren also defined volatility in the context of modern marketing, how it creates opportunities for marketers, and provided advice on how teams can better prepare their organizations internally to respond to external challenges.

This episode was brought to you by Leadfeeder: Know who’s coming to your website, convert more leads and get a free trial at Leadfeeder.com/try  

https://youtu.be/fT-1k7yMYFs

Topics discussed in episode

Companies and links mentioned

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Ren Agarwal

Christian Klepp  00:01

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission. I’m your host. Christian Klepp, today I’m going to be talking to Ren Agarwal. He’s a trusted executive, entrepreneur and strategic advisor who helps companies and clients refine their business value proposition and accelerate growth. He’s created and executed go-to-market and sales enablement programs at multiple firms that led to successful IPOs, acquisitions and double digit growth. He’s also extremely experienced in the world of B2B copywriting and content marketing. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketer’s mission is. Here we are. Mr. Ren Agarwal, welcome back to the show, I should say, so it’s always a pleasure to have previous guests come back. And I’m really looking forward to this conversation.

Ren Agarwal  00:48

And Christian, thank you so much for having me. I guess we’re recording this in August. So you know, it’s summertime and things are feeling good out there. So.

Christian Klepp  00:59

Yeah, absolutely. And the Paris Olympics just wrapped up too. So…

Ren Agarwal  01:03

And I am a big fan.

Christian Klepp  01:05

I know, I know. That in itself is a separate podcast interview. I think.

Ren Agarwal  01:10

We should definitely do it. I mean, the competition was great this year. The venues were fantastic. It was just all around the great competition.

Christian Klepp  01:17

Absolutely, absolutely. So Ren, we’re gonna just dive right into it. Because while this topic is it’s very, I would say, for lack of a better description, very profound, but also very relevant to B2 marketing today. So what am I talking about? Right? So you’ve built up a lot of expertise and experience in the field of content and communications, but I’m gonna say for this conversation, we’re going to focus on how B2B marketing can play an instrumental role during a global crisis. So I want to kick off the conversation with this question, why do you think the marketing function has to step up even before such a crisis occurs?

Ren Agarwal  01:57

I mean, marketing is essentially the interface between the company and the outside world, and marketing owns how the company is perceived, how the company communicates and so on this topic, you know, it really is the one of the key responsibilities of marketing, to be able to handle it, to understand it, and to shepherd the company forward. There’s no other function in a company that can be responsible for helping a company navigate. You know, in either in a new crisis or an ongoing crisis.

Christian Klepp  02:45

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And that brings me to my next question, right about, well, we’re going to talk about volatility a lot in this conversation I have. I kind of get the feeling, right. So how can marketers adapt and respond to a volatile world? I mean, like, you know, we’ve got so much going on. We’ve just, we’ve just gone come out of a pandemic. And there are a lot of things that happened this year that we’ll probably get into.

Ren Agarwal  03:09

You know, it’s interesting, because this topic actually is about strategic, having strategic foresight. And, you know, we can use the word crisis. I prefer actually, to use the word volatility. You know, anybody that’s been around for a couple of decades will tell you that, you know, the volatility is real and it’s increased. So we know we need to do is kind of look around and we’ll use some examples, right, all of the things that are happening, and understand how your products or services play in that volatile environment, and that creates opportunity.

Christian Klepp  03:54

I had a follow up question for you there, like, Why do you think there are so many companies out there that don’t adapt quickly? Is it because they’re their own worst enemy in terms of their just the internal culture, the way the organizations are structured? Or what are your thoughts on that?

Ren Agarwal  04:08

No, I think it really goes out to marketing, not making a convincing case at the leadership level. I think what we need to do is give marketers permission, almost to say, No, get involved. You know, be more active in these conversations. You know, whether you’re the CMO or some other you know position. Understand that this is a part of your portfolio and that you know you need to kind of bring it forward. Now, it doesn’t mean that you know this kind of conversation can’t come from other parts of the company. They certainly can. But if it’s not happening to your question, then it’s because, you know, marketing hasn’t taken the… they haven’t self-authorized themselves to say, you know, we could actually have an important role to play in something that’s happening here. And let’s. So, you know, let’s be proactive.

Christian Klepp  05:02

So it’s almost like they need to take the initiative. I mean, maybe, maybe not, be the gatekeepers, but they need to, they need to get that initiative going, right? Like, if you see, for example, you know, we can use many examples, but like, say there’s a recession on the horizon, right? And do they then take initiative to, like, prepare in case that occurs, and, you know, in terms of the internal and external communicate or something of that effect.

Ren Agarwal  05:33

You know, recession is an interesting example, because you’re really talking about a financial impact, and usually your CFO and your CEO will be kind of thinking about that from a budgetary standpoint, you know, if I could, I want to just present another example. So let’s say, you know, this is actually a very topical example. We know that there’s a lot of waste in clothing manufacturing, incredible amount of waste. Now, if you’re a marketer at a company that manufactures, let’s say, you know, sporting goods and clothing, you know, and you know that this is a criticism out in the market and a legitimate concern that we should all have about the waste stream of clothing manufacturing, or clothing that is no longer used. Well, you could say, well, what could we do about that? You know, so you understand that there’s a strategic opportunity here, because you’re manufacturing clothing and, you know, you’re selling it into a market where people are actually thinking about this question. So as a marketer there, there are steps that you can take to frame this conversation for your company and your brand, and to say, how can we be more thoughtful about this? Is there something that we could do to be relevant to this concern about waste from clothing manufacturing? And there are brands out there that you know are have an active voice to say, send your clothing back to us. We will create a recycled stream where we’ll make it available for sale again, you know. So that’s an example of where you’ve understood very clearly the marketplace, and you’ve understood the environment, and you’ve kind of proactively said, let’s, let’s be a part of the solution. So, you know, it’s created an opportunity, and if you can come up with a solution, it’s going to have significant benefit to your brand.

Christian Klepp  07:40

Absolutely, absolutely. I like the way you said that. You know, it’s a way to frame the conversation, and marketers need to lead that initiative, because I think it was something you mentioned before I hit record. Before waiting for the criticism to come, right? Because, in this sense, the wastage from manufacturing somehow that criticism, one way or another, in some shape or form, it will come. So I guess it’s a question of like, how do you address that? How do you proactively go forth and talk about this issue in a way that you’re showing that you are, in fact, a responsible company, right? You are, you are, do, doing something about it.

Ren Agarwal  08:19

Yes, and it’s, you know, it’s recognizing that you are a manufacturer of clothing. So you’re not changing that fact, but you’re saying, How can we do that in a better way? Can we monitor our supply chain, for example, and can we publish the findings? Can we actively work with our supply chain partners, you know, so marketing can start the conversation, can start to frame this opportunity. And then, of course, there’s multiple departments and functions within a company that will get involved with it. But what we can start to see happen is that marketing, you know, begins to have a positive impact on the operations of the company, even, I would go as far as to say has a positive impact on our world and also, you know, just thinking about the marketing function makes marketing more strategic in terms of The value that it’s actually bringing to the table.

Christian Klepp  09:23

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I’m gonna move us on to the next question. Still on the topic of volatility, I think it, it’s probably fair to like, just start with defining volatility in the context of marketing. So how do you define that, and what are some of the key challenges that you see marketers facing in this environment that has become increasingly volatile.

Ren Agarwal  09:46

Yes, and if I could let me use some examples to try to define what we what we mean here when we talk about volatility. So we’ve already talked about one, which is our environment that we all have responsibility to take care of and the stream of waste in that environment. So, you know, that’s a volatile topic, because we see what’s happening with climate change and we know things that are kind of contributing to the degradation of the environment.

Let’s use another example cyber attacks. You and I know through our work that this is a very real issue. A recent survey found that over 60% of companies have been impacted in some way by cyber attack. So this has become an unfortunate, permanent part of our technology landscape. You know, in the US, all of us are not familiar with getting emails or getting the dreaded letter that says we’re sorry to inform you, but somebody gained unauthorized access to our systems and your information was compromised. I mean, now we’re receiving that like regularly throughout the year. That’s an example of volatility. It’s happening out there. We don’t always know when it’s going to happen, but it’s happening and you know. And later on, I’ll give you an example of how, you know, you can address something like that. Another example I’ll give, and I really like this example. It’s from, you know, my past. Cyber Monday for two decades was a really big issue. And just to kind of remind everyone that’s listening to this, you know, it was basically the idea that the big shopping season at the end of the year, which was known as a Black Friday because it happened after Thanksgiving, obviously, with the internet, people were now shopping when they got to work, because they had a better Internet connection on Monday. And so Monday became this really big shopping day, and we called it Cyber Monday. And for two decades, we weren’t sure how sites would kind of hold up to that increased traffic. And so sites would go down, there would be all kinds of mayhem that would occur. I worked at a company that said, Hey, this is an opportunity. We know this is going to happen. We don’t know the level of that volatility, but we know it’s going to happen. And the company that I was working for had the ability to monitor the performance of websites. So what we did was we got the company ready on Monday to monitor the top e-commerce websites to see how they’re holding up to the additional traffic from Cyber Monday. And we would be available for reporters to call us and ask us how things were going. And we would be able to say, you know, the following e-commerce sites are really crashing under the additional traffic, and these other sites are doing better. And so we were able to take that volatility and that kind of environmental change or impact. That’s something that everybody was following and using our own products and services, we were actually able to create an opportunity out of that, and there was a terrific PR opportunity for our company. We were regularly quoted in the best and most popular media outlets out there, but we had strategic foresight to say, Hey, this is going to be happening on a regular basis. So how can we help? And so the way, the way we were helping is that those companies would then come to us and say, hey, help us understand what happened and how we could do a better job. So we would provide them with monitoring capability, right? So that volatility, that crisis, created an opportunity where, you know, we could build our brand, but we could also help those companies improve the performance of their websites. So, you know, I hope those examples kind of help to define what we mean when we talk about volatility, whether it’s societal volatility or business volatility or economic volatility, and how we can play a role.

Christian Klepp  14:28

No, absolutely, absolutely. And I think it’s a topic that we’re probably going to discuss later on the conversation. But how do you turn this period of adversity or these challenges into an actual advantage? And I think your story really showcased that, right, how you’re able to do that. And I saw this statistic the other day, and it still blows my mind, and the source evades me at the moment, but in the year 2031, it is estimated that a cyber attack is going to happen every two seconds. Wow. Let that statistic sink in for a second, every two seconds. So that means, like, you know, in this, in these couple of minutes, that you and I are having a conversation, a cyber attack is going to happen somewhere in the world, right? And it’s, it’s absolutely shocking, right? Yeah, all right, moving us on to the next question, which I think is also very important, what new skills and based on what you’ve said, right? Like, what new skills or approaches do you believe are essential for marketers to navigate landscapes that are this unpredictable? And how do these differ from your traditional marketing practices?

Ren Agarwal  15:42

You know, I think that there is a higher premium on strategic and multidisciplinary, even multi-dimensional thinking, you know, So marketers could traditionally get away with kind of understanding your products and services and understanding your customers’ needs, and those are still vital skills to know. But I think now the multi-dimensional thinking here, the strategic thinking, is to say that none of us operates in a vacuum, and how can I understand what’s happening so that I can better position my company to participate in the environment in which we’re operating, and that means familiarizing ourselves, educating ourselves on the issues that are relevant. You know, for example, you know, with Cyber Monday, I had to educate myself to understand, you know, as the head of marketing, what is happening on this day? What magnitude of increase in traffic? What does that increase in traffic actually do to those websites? What does that do to the revenue of those e-commerce companies? Why would they be willing to work with us? So, you know, there was a lot of self-education that’s necessary. If you are in clothing manufacturing. It’s incumbent on you to understand what are the environmental challenges, how much of the waste from the manufacturing process is kind of being diverted into landfill. How is that impacting water quality. How is that impacting communities around the world? So that’s what I mean about the multi-dimensionality and the strategic thinking that has to come forward in order for you to be an effective marketer that really understands the moment and understands how to operate and respond in the moment.

Christian Klepp  18:03

That’s great answer. And now I’m going to ask you a follow up question. And that’s not because I want to play the devil’s advocate. I’m just kind of trying to highlight everybody to the reality that a lot of B2B marketers deal with, because it’s, yes, absolutely, it’s important to have multi-dimensional thinking, strategic thinking and whatnot. But how do you how do you address the issue? And it’s a very real one of companies in the B2B space that don’t believe that it’s marketing’s place to step up and deal with these situations. How can marketers address that kind of pushback?

Ren Agarwal  18:42

Yeah. Um, well, I mean, it’s a very broad objection, isn’t it, to say we don’t believe in XYZ. So it’s hard to, you know, it’s hard to address that specifically, but what I would say is that companies that are going to be around for the long term are going to be successful. Know that they have to speak to their customers and speak to their market. I think what we’re saying in this conversation is that it’s not just about the features and the price of your product. You know, it’s it goes beyond that. You have to do those things, and I spend a lot of time working with clients to help them with the core marketing skills. Content marketing, how do you satisfy the needs of a prospective site visitor, for example, to turn them into customer and client. So those things are still important, but clients are also looking broader, and so an effective company has to be able to understand the tone and the tenor of what customers are looking for, how your own brand is going to be seen out there, because if you are just kind of ignoring the conversation that’s happening out there, you know, you’re going to come across as being tone deaf, and your competition that is really up with what’s happening is going to seize market share, because they’re going to be seen as more responsible. They’re going to be seen as more relevant, and we, we know from data that customers want to see engaged companies that don’t have their head in the sand. But I’ll also say that each one of us has a choice to make. You know, some people will say, look, I want to go work at ethical companies, or I want to go work at companies where I can make an impact. I mean, rarely do you hear somebody that says, I want to go work at a company where I don’t really care if I make an impact or not. In fact, if I found that kind of a person and they were applying in my company, I would say, you know, this is probably not the right fit for you, because we want folks that want to make an impact, want to make a positive impact, right? So, but folks have to, you know, make their own choices when it comes to those, those decisions.

Christian Klepp  21:12

Yeah, no, absolutely. So if I’m hearing you correctly, I think what you’re trying to say is that marketing needs to lead within their organization, by A. being the voice of the customer and also leading with market research. I mean, to your point like, uh, using that manufacturing example, getting that research to understand the reality of the market, the situations out there, and how the companies can adequately address those issues in a responsible manner, right?

Ren Agarwal  21:42

Yeah, absolutely, because we know that you know the next generations really care about these topics. You know, you know your dad or your granddad might not necessarily care that your favorite sporting goods manufacturer, whether they recycle their products or not. But I can assure you that the future generations that means something to them, because they have to live in this world for a long time to come.

Christian Klepp  22:13

Absolutely, absolutely, and like a lot of these documentaries, say they are going to inherit the world that we are living in right now. Yes, right, yeah. And I find that that word is, that’s a very strong word, inherit, because it’s not necessarily something of their own doing, right? But this is the world that they’re, that they’re going to come into, essentially.

Ren Agarwal  22:34

I think you’re exactly right. I mean, they, they’ve inherited something that, you know, they have some challenges, and, you know, they want to be good stewards, and they want to know that the brands that they’re working with are good stewards. You know.

Christian Klepp  22:47

That’s right.

Ren Agarwal  22:48

But also, I mean, there’s a, there’s a tremendous, almost undefinable quality to working at a company that is doing no evil, and in fact, is actively working to do right in the world. And it does, you know, we’ve been talking a lot of environment, let’s leave that aside. You know, it could be just the Cyber Monday example that I gave. Hey, I work for a company that helps other companies improve their web performance, you know. And here’s how we do it, you know. So we’re actively involved with improving the internet. I mean, that’s a really powerful sell to your employees, that you’re looking to hire, your talent, your partners, you know? It’s a fantastic story. As opposed to, yeah, we’re selling web monitoring services. That’s not quite as sexy. And if you look at the companies that have outstanding brands, you know, it’s, it’s about more than just peddling product and service. It has to be, it has to be, you know.

Christian Klepp  23:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if you’re just focusing on product and service, well, then you’re just going to drown, you know, it’s an overused term, drowning that sea of sameness. You’re just going to be like everybody else.

Ren Agarwal  24:06

You’re exactly right? Then it’s, then it’s just a price war, you know, right? Is your thing… If all you’re selling is price and features, well then, okay, that’s, that’s an easy conversation. Which one’s cheaper. And whether it’s consumer or B2B marketing, it applies because if you’re just going through down a list of features, and there’s nothing else to set your brand apart, you are not going to be as successful as you can be.

Christian Klepp  24:33

Absolutely, absolutely. I know you already mentioned one example, but like, can you give us some more examples of brands or companies that have successfully adapted to volatility, and if you can, what strategies they employ that set them apart.

Ren Agarwal  24:49

Recently, one of one of our clients had a just an advisory that went out, and it came on the heels of the CrowdStrike global impact. So what happened is that the CrowdStrike Falcon sensor product triggered this outage on Windows machines, and it was a really big deal. It was the biggest outage that we’ve ever experienced. No cyber-attack has ever even come close. So what this client of ours did was… said Hey, we can actually address this, because what we help their customers do is assess third party vendor risk. And so if you’re, think of yourself as a company. I mean, say you’re Delta Airlines, and which is a true story, and they are using CrowdStrike. Delta Airlines had half a billion dollar outage, so it really hit their company financially. So if you’re Delta Airlines, CrowdStrike would be a third party provider, or to you potentially, because you may not have had a direct relationship with that so our client, Prevalent, they sent out this great tool that they have to say, hey, we’ve got this vendor risk assessment tool that we’re making available to you that you can use to kind of assess who, which one of your third parties in your kind of IT supply chain, are they doing all the things that can prevent something like this from happening? So they inserted themselves into this conversation about the CrowdStrike Falcon outage in a really smart way, you know, kind of the way we did it years ago in the Cyber Monday example. They said, we’ve got a product or service that can actually help our customers. Let’s make this available to them. And, you know, and I think that that’s going to return to them, you know, really positive things. Now Marketing was involved with that. Say, this thing is happening. What can we do? And very quickly they were able to, kind of get this tool available, put this email together, and kind of send it out to their customer base, almost immediately. And you know, that’s an example of responding to volatility in a really, really smart way,

Christian Klepp  27:24

Yeah, yeah, no, great example, yeah, I almost had a feeling before you mentioned it, I had a feeling that you were talking about Prevalent, right? I don’t suppose they did it through some of the white papers too, right?

Ren Agarwal  27:33

Yes.

Christian Klepp  27:37

Fantastic, fantastic. On that note. I mean, just building on that topic, right? And you’ve given a few, but maybe if you can give us a few more, how can volatility create opportunities for marketers? Because, you know, it’s very easy to look at this and say, oh my gosh, this is like, you know, panic mode, crisis and whatnot. But what are some ways that companies can turn these challenges into actual advantages, right? Because it’s very easy to, like go down. I call it negativity slope, right

Ren Agarwal  28:05

Yeah, well, I think it comes from a strategic review. So you know, if you’re kind of heading up marketing, or you have people in your team that you’re assigning this to, I think the question to begin to ask is, what’s happening in the markets that we play in. So identifying those, those vertical markets, if you’re in B2B, and if you’re in B2C, identifying your personas and understanding, hey, let’s do an audit and understand what are the hot topics of conversation. Now, going back to your earlier question around kind of skills that marketers need. Well, you need the ability to very quickly pick up signals from the market. You know, what are the markets saying in these verticals that are important to us? And whether you do that through social, whether you do that through survey instruments, whether you do that through other means. You know, it becomes a skill to be able to understand how to pick up those signals. So that’s the first thing you have to do. You have to do an audit. You have to take a look at what the environment looks like, what’s trending, what are the hot topics in the verticals that you play in, or in the personas that that are important to your business. Once you understand that, then you want to review your own operations. It comes down to reviewing your products and services. It comes down to reviewing your own supply chain and seeing whether you yourself are doing things that kind of contribute to that volatility. So that’s A. B. If there are things that you can do to manage that volatility through your products and services. So if you’re doing something to kind of cause it and contribute to it, well, that’s the conversation that you can bring, you know, to the executive conversation and say, hey, you know, this is a really hot issue. Let’s go back to clothing manufacturing. In our space, we need to have a position on this. And I can assure you that every executive roundtable across the world that is involved with you know, clothing manufacturing cares about this topic, you know, and they want to do something about it, you know, if they want to stay relevant and they want to have a future. So now, you know, let’s say that you’re not contributing to it, but you could do your products and services do something to help your customers, maybe manage that volatility. Well, then you need to kind of dive deep and understand, hey, how can we be relevant, just the way that, you know, we did back on Cyber Monday. How can we be relevant in this conversation? You know? Well, we can be relevant by monitoring these websites on Cyber Monday and publicizing so that everybody can share in the insights on what companies can do to improve their website performance. That’s going to help everyone across the board. So, you know, though, that’s A and B. Those are, those are two ways in which you can begin to create, you know, tactical agility, after you’ve had the strategic foresight to understand where the volatility coming from.

Christian Klepp  31:31

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, there’s some great advice. I mean, you know, keeping your finger on the pulse of the market, understanding what you’re doing an audit, I guess, of what your your current assets and resources are, and also like, you know, having that ability to manage that volatility, right? It brings me back to something that was, you know, back in the days when I was still in advertising, and it was during the time that Barack Obama became president, and unfortunately, he inherited what then became the massive financial crisis of 2008 if memory serves me well, yeah. And almost I would say one to two weeks after that announcement right, that the markets were the markets were going haywire, we were officially in a recession, or what have you, this big advertising agency called Ogilvy and Mather, right? So O&M, one of the big four A’s, they came out with these series, the series of eBooks called marketing in a recession, right? Because at the end of the day, yes, there is a recession, yes, budgets are being cut, yes, you’re cutting back on a lot of costs, but if you completely switch the marketing engine off, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble. So these eBooks were basically meant to guide people through. Okay, there are, there are some budget cuts, right? You’re not, you’re you don’t have as much budget you know to use as you did before, but you can still do marketing, and this is how you can do it, right? So basically, yeah, you can say that they were reacting to the situation, but they were also using it as an opportunity to educate people. Okay, so now that you no longer have these resources at your disposal, it’s not all hopeless, right? It’s not all doom and gloom. There are options, there are solutions, there are alternatives.

Ren Agarwal  33:24

And they stepped into maybe a really quiet period where nobody’s reacting, and they say, Hey, let’s react to this, because we have something to say that can help contribute in a positive way.

Christian Klepp  33:40

Absolutely, absolutely. We brought this up in a previous conversation, but I’d like to go back to it like, so all these things that you’ve been talking about, right? And marketers reacting to all this volatility, how is this different as compared to, like, crisis communications and PR.

Ren Agarwal  33:57

Yeah, it’s a great question, and we should clarify it, because people sometimes get confused, right? You know, PR corporate communications is within the marketing function. What you want your PR, your crisis communications people to be really effective at is dealing with the media and dealing with the press. So that’s number one. Number two, they’re responsible for dealing with things that specifically impact the company and the brand, and so they have to be ready and prepared to be able to handle that. Now you can see, we haven’t said anything about customers. We haven’t said anything about being proactive. So and what happens is that marketers sometimes think, well, that PR has got that it’s volatility, it’s crisis. That sounds like PR, but in the conversation you and I have been having, I’m hoping that we’ve shown how there’s actually this incredible area that’s being completely unaddressed today, because PR is not doing it, because they’re saying, Hey, I’m dealing with the media, and I’m responsible for the company’s reputation, and marketing hasn’t picked it up and understood that, oh, there’s tremendous marketing opportunity here for us that we can actually step into. Have some strategic foresight, do that audit and then come back with tactical ways in which we can address it? Does that make sense?

Christian Klepp  35:21

Absolutely, absolutely. It’s that, you know, that ability to draw the line in the sand between, okay, so this is, this is not what this is not what crisis comms and PR should be handling. And, right?

Ren Agarwal  35:35

And they work together. I mean, there has to be partnership, you know, there has to be partnership. But the head of marketing is really the person responsible for taking a look at this topic, this volatility, and saying, You know what, we need to kind of step up and have some positions. We need to have some capability to be able to participate in this conversation. What ends up happening is that when you don’t have an approach and you haven’t thought through these issues, that’s when your brand can get snared. When volatility shows or crisis shows that directly impacts you, because you’re caught flat footed, as opposed to your proactive. You have position statements, you have products and services that can address the issue. You are educating your customers. You are vocal on these points in these conversations, so people clearly understand where you stand, and the absence of that is where you can get caught flat footed. And you know, then you need your crisis communications people to step up.

Christian Klepp  36:42

Yeah, that’s absolutely right. That’s absolutely right. Ren, you’ve given us a lot of like, actionable tips, I’m gonna say during this conversation, but I like to ask you for a little bit more, right? So the question is, what advice would you have for marketers on preparing their organizations internally to respond to external challenges. So how can they ensure their teams are ready to act quickly and effectively?

Ren Agarwal  37:06

Yeah, well, I think it comes from that, you know, that kind of strategic review that we talked about, because you can only be ready when you thought about the topic at hand, right? And so you need to have a part of your marketing plan, your marketing strategy that takes a look at these issues, and we identified that earlier, right looking at the verticals in which you operate, and looking at the personas that you are actively marketing to, and being really familiar with the topics that are hot button issues in those in those situations, it’s only when you’ve gone through that then you can then sit down and say, Okay, here’s how we’re going to prepare for it. And then you can have messaging platforms that say, here’s how we are actively, proactively addressing these specific issues, and that messaging platform can then help you get those key messages into your product pages, into your services pages, into your customer communications, into your employee communications, into your partner communications, right, your website, your newsletters, your collateral, your presentations. That’s the way it happens, because somebody sat down, thought about it, put that messaging platform together, and then over time, actively worked to get it into those other channels.

Christian Klepp  38:37

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, that’s fantastic advice. All right, Ren, I’ve got two more questions before I let you go, right. So here comes the bonus question. So rumor has it, or I should say, let me rephrase that, the word on the street is that you dabble in playwriting, or writing scripts for theatrical performances. So the question is, if you had the opportunity to stage one of your plays anywhere in the world, where would it be? And why?

Ren Agarwal  39:10

Oh, boy, that’s a terrific question. So since I’m based in San Francisco, I’d love for my play to be set to be produced in San Francisco, because then I can invite my family, my friends and my business colleagues, and also, San Francisco is just a wonderful place, you know, for people to visit, if they want to come visit. And there’s great energy here as well. So I’d love for that to see, to see a play produced here.

Christian Klepp  39:41

Fantastic, fantastic. Yeah, somehow I kind of felt that you were going to be more inclined to say something like La Scala in Milan or Covent Garden or something like that.

Ren Agarwal  39:51

Well, you know, maybe the play will be so successful that it’ll travel the globe, and I’ll travel the globe with it,

Christian Klepp  39:57

Maybe, maybe. But you know what, San Francisco’s a great start. Right, yeah, right, if ever. Ren, once again, thank you so much for coming on the show again, and you know, for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. So please quick intro to yourself and how people out there can get in touch with you.

Ren Agarwal  40:12

Sure. So I can be reached at [email protected]. We have a content marketing agency where we help our clients develop all manner of content, which is really core to what marketing does today. People can visit our website. Then, you know, they can. They can reach me directly. We’d love to talk to folks, and if they’re looking for consultation or just some strategy or some thoughts, happy to do that. If they’re looking for help with their content marketing, of course, we can go into that conversation as well.

Christian Klepp  40:54

Fantastic, fantastic once again. Ren, thanks for coming to the show. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon,

Ren Agarwal  41:01

Christian, thank you. Hope you have a great rest of your summer. All right.

Christian Klepp  41:04

Thanks bye for now. Welcome.

How to Market Productized B2B Services

The journey for many B2B companies to transition from selling and marketing customized services to productized offerings can be a complex one. When done the right way, productizing services can help a B2B company to scale faster, more effectively, and serve a greater number of clients.

That’s why we’re talking to B2B marketing expert Eisha Armstrong (Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, Vecteris) about how B2B companies can successfully sell and market productized services. During our conversation, Eisha talked about the “7 deadly sins of productization” and how B2B companies can avoid these pitfalls. She also highlighted the challenges to transitioning from a customized to a productized approach and provided us with tips on how to deal with resistance to the productization of B2B solutions.

This episode was brought to you by Leadfeeder: Know who’s coming to your website, convert more leads and get a free trial at Leadfeeder.com/try  

https://youtu.be/RxP-n3wE_-Y

Topics discussed in episode

Companies and links mentioned

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Eisha Armstrong

Christian Klepp  00:01

Eisha Armstrong is the executive chairman and co-founder of Vecteris and a business leader with expertise in product innovation as well as product portfolio management. She has extensive experience launching new data and information service businesses, building executive education products, advising C-level executives and overseeing data analysis and qualitative research in a recurring revenue model. She is also the author of the Amazon best-selling books Productize: The Ultimate Guide to turning professional services into scalable products, and Fearless: how to transform a services culture and successfully productize. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketer’s mission is. This is a show where we help you to question the conventional, think differently, disrupt your industry and take your marketing to new heights. This is your host, Christian Klepp, and today I’m joined by someone on a mission to provide B to B companies with actionable insights, innovation and growth. Eisha Armstrong, welcome to the show.

Eisha Armstrong  01:03

Thank you, Christian. It’s so great to be here.

Christian Klepp  01:06

I’m really looking forward to this conversation. I mean, we already had a great conversation previously, but, man, this one is really gonna hit the nail on the head, because it’s so relevant to a lot of B2B companies out there, and B2B marketers. So without further ado, let’s just jump right in.

Eisha Armstrong  01:21

Great, great.

Christian Klepp  01:24

So short of staining the obvious, you’re an expert when it comes to productization, and go to market solutions for B to B professional services firms. So for this conversation, let’s focus on a topic that has become part of your professional mission, and that’s how to sell and market productized B to B services. So if memory serves me well, you even wrote a book about it, if I’m not mistaken. So let’s kick off the conversation with this question, why do you think it’s such a complex journey for B to B companies to transition from selling customized services to productized offerings.

Eisha Armstrong  01:46

Oh, good question. Yeah. So they’re really three things going on when you start with a services model, you know where you’re selling time by experts, to selling something that’s more productized, whether it’s more packaged services that are sold based on value, or even a real product, like a data product or a software product or something like that. There are three things going on. So the first one is it’s a business model transformation. So you’re changing the way that you deliver value to your customer base and the way that you make money. And that is hard for any company to do, to transform their business model, even if you’re keeping your services, which a lot of companies do. So they want to introduce more productized services or products alongside their customized services. It’s still a business model transformation.

The second thing is that it’s a digital transformation. So most B to B professional services firms, and they choose to productize, are doing so by tech enabling the delivery of how they create value and deliver value. So maybe they’re creating, you know, software tools that they use internally, or investing in technology to like AI, to standardize the way that they deliver value, or maybe they’re creating a actual tech product, like a, you know, like I said, a software product, or even a data as a service product. And digital transformations are hard again, no matter what type of company you’re talking about.

 And then the third thing that makes it hard is that it’s a cultural transformation. So what we found in our research is that the things that make B to B professional services firms great cultures, like having strong expertise, having a high bar for the quality of deliverables, things like that, can actually torpedo their attempt to productize, because when you’re in a more productized environment, especially a digital productized environment, you have to put your learner’s hat on. You take off your expert hat and put your learner’s hat on. You have to kind of lower the bar for how good things are before you show them to customers to get their feedback, you’re much more focused on collaboration rather than individual heroics. So it’s a cultural transformation, too. And so you put those three things together, a business model transformation, a digital transformation and a cultural transformation. And that is very difficult change for organizations.

Christian Klepp  04:43

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. Thanks for sharing those with us. Um, I had two follow up questions just based on what you’ve said in the past couple of minutes. How do you… and I’m sure you’ve gotten this more times than you care to count. But how do you deal with pushback from companies that say, Eisha, that’s all great, but we cannot productize, right? Because we have to custom tailor our approach. Because each client is different. They have individual needs, individual different requirements, or at different stages of their business cycle. How do you deal with that?

Eisha Armstrong  05:18

The first thing I do, Christian, is I try to educate them on the fact that productization is actually a spectrum. So most of the organizations that I end up working with are actually still providing services. They’re just trying to standardize and tech enable them a little bit more so that they can achieve some benefits, like being able to scale or being able to not be key-person-dependent on how they deliver those services, so that they can assure quality as they grow and more and more people are delivering those services, and when I talk about productizing services, the way the client experiences, it may still be the same, it may still be through people, but the way that it’s delivered is more codified, more standardized, the professionals delivering it or doing it using the same tools and techniques, and perhaps the pricing has changed, so rather than being time and materials, it’s priced based on value. So there’s more packaging and standardization to the pricing, which then also makes it easier to sell using a professional sales force, and you don’t have to have your professionals be sellers as well. So there are a lot of benefits. So you can achieve just by going kind of down that first step of productization, which is what we call productized services. And then you may decide, oh, we could actually sell some products alongside our services, like a maintenance product, for example. And this is where then maybe you’ve got organizations who think about creating software products, or, like I said, data products, or training products, or things like that, where you no longer have professionals delivering them, but it’s delivered primarily through technology, for example. So I think it’s important first to just educate leaders on what I mean when I talk about productization, and then focus on those benefits of scale and quality assurance and no longer being key person dependent on your highly expert hard to find professionals.

Christian Klepp  07:37

Absolutely, absolutely. That’s a good point. Okay, so that was the first follow up question. So the second follow up question is around the digital transformation aspect. So just from your professional experience and from what you’ve seen, do you feel that there’s an over reliance on technology to get things done? Like, no, no, not at all…?

Eisha Armstrong  07:57

Not at all, not at all. Yeah, and I think that’s probably a misnomer right now, especially there’s so much froth around the potential of generative AI to displace professional services, and a lot of hyperbole about how it might be used based on what I have seen Christian I do believe that generative AI creates a great opportunity for professional services. And I do believe that professional services firms who use generative AI will be more competitive than professional services firms who don’t. Do I think technology is going to completely displace professionals and professional services? No, but I tell all of the leaders that I talk to, if you’re not actively experimenting with how to use generative AI in the delivery of your services, you’re already behind, and here’s why. Because I do work with companies who, for example, have automated using generative AI, 85% of code creation. That’s pretty significant. I work with accounting firms who have automated between 40 to 50% of how they do audits using generative AI, law firms who’ve automated 50 to 75% of how they do discovery using generative AI, marketing agencies who’ve automated 30 to 50% of how they do content creation or design work using generative AI, market research firms who’ve automated 75% of how they do market research using generative AI. These are not made up examples and so, and this is still, I would say, relatively early in the nascency of the technology. So if you’re not already experimenting with it, you’re probably behind it’s okay, go ahead, start experimenting with it. But this idea that tech is is being overused, I think, is absolutely false.

Christian Klepp  09:58

And I’m glad you brought that up. Because that’s a big part about, you know, what the show is about, right? Like it’s dispelling, you know, debunking these myths, dispelling this information, and coming back with factual insights, fact based information that people can have a more informed overview, right? Okay, speaking of which, that’s a great segue to the next question, which is about the seven deadly sins of productization. So talk to us about that and the pitfalls that B2B marketers need to avoid.

Eisha Armstrong  10:29

Yeah. Yeah. Great question. So when we did a research study back in 2000-2001, looking at why is it hard for B to B services firms to productize and what we found is that there are seven common mistakes that organizations make when they try to productize services, and they’re very predictable mistakes, and they range from ignoring the cultural change that has to happen to designing products for problem that doesn’t exist, so designing products that don’t solve the customer’s problem, designing products in a vacuum, like not getting early customer feedback on product design, to letting the fear of cannibalization hinder their sales and marketing efforts. So we catalog these seven mistakes, or deadly sins, as we call them, in our first book called Productize, and then proceeded to detail how to avoid making those mistakes. So for example, the mistake I talked about, where you design a product, but there’s not a customer problem that it solves. That’s actually something that happens a lot with B to B services firms, because perhaps you’ve had a client or two clients who have asked for creation of something that could be turned into a product. And we see a lot of firms then assume that that means that there’s a market for it, and they skip that very vital step that your audience knows it’s incredibly important, which is market research. And they don’t go out and validate and… does this solve a real problem? And we say the best products solve urgent and expensive customer problems, and is the market segment for who has that problem… Is it an attractive market segment for us? So is it one that we can easily reach, or is it one that’s big? Is it one that has a lot of budget and willingness to pay? Is it a market segment that’s growing? Kind of those basic, again, market research questions we were seeing a lot of firms not ask until they’d already developed a product, put it out in the market, and then we’re wondering why it wasn’t selling. So what we try to do is, again, outline those seven deadly sins and then talk about easy ways that companies could try to overcome those mistakes. So for example, again, in the case of designing product that doesn’t solve a problem, how can you quickly do market research without taking months and months and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars doing research? How can you kind of iteratively create products and get customer feedback on them? How can you design products where you don’t cannibalize your existing services revenue, things like that?

Christian Klepp  13:34

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. And you brought something up earlier, which is a great segue into the next question about the importance of market research and developing that right strategy to productize these services. And I think we had a discussion about this in our previous conversation, you know, dealing with clients that say, Eisha, listen, let’s just skip the research part. Okay? Because we we know who our clients are, and we know what their problems are and what they need. Yeah? Your thoughts?

Eisha Armstrong  14:00

Yeah, I do hear that a lot, and I try to gently push back by one talking about how you do lean market research. So again, market research, that doesn’t take a lot of time, doesn’t cost a lot of money, to just validate your hypotheses. And I think that helps, because I think there’s this misunderstanding, especially among visionary leaders, who have a very confident, a lot of confidence, in their product idea, that, like you said, they know the market, they don’t need to do the research. And if you could say, well, can we just take a few weeks and just validate your hypotheses that will help us not only make sure that we’re making investments in the right place, because products require upfront investment to build, and digital products can be quite expensive to build, so let’s derisk your investment by doing a little bit of hypothesis validation and at the. Same time, we can, in our market research process, start to identify beta customers and get feedback on pricing and packaging, and ask the question, you know, would you be willing to be a paid beta customer? And if people start saying yes before you’ve even built the product, then you know, you’re on to something so kind of putting that kind of dual purpose around it, which is, yeah, we’re going to do market research, but we’re also going to start to engage in commercial conversations and see if we can get some early customers, is another way to overcome that objection I don’t need to do market research.

Christian Klepp  15:37

Fantastic, fantastic. So if I’m hearing you correctly, it’s, I always like to call it, like repackaging it a little bit, right? Like trying to highlight the commercial opportunities that this type of research presents, rather than look, this is going to be a massive investment that is going to take six months, and what you get at the end of it is this beautiful, 200 page report. (laugh)

Eisha Armstrong  16:00

What we’d like to deliver at the end is strong recommendations on not only that you’re on the right path with the problem you’re trying to solve, but here are the product features you should build, first, second, third. Here’s the pricing, here’s the packaging, and ideally, here’s a short list of people who’ve said they want to be paid beta customers.

Christian Klepp  16:21

Let’s appreciate that we we have about 30 or 40 minutes, right? But like, walk us through the process of effectively marketing and selling productized B to B solutions. So specifically, what are the key things that B2B marketers need to be doing differently, and what are the key components required for this approach?

Eisha Armstrong  16:39

Yeah. Great question. And I will say I have a book coming out in September about this. So yeah, (laugh) so very top of mind for me. So what we found in our in our work with companies who are productizing, is that it was one thing to build a product that solves an urgent and expensive problem is, you know, got a good product features, and it’s quite another thing to successfully commercialize it, because if you’re traditionally selling services, the go-to-market motions for selling products are very different, because you have to take more of a market mindset. So what we outlined in our new research that, again, is coming out in this book in September, kind of the 5 key areas that need to be addressed for successful commercialization of products. The first one is one I already talked about, and that is, who are you selling to? What is the market segment? Who is the buyer, who is the user, and asking those questions like, Is it an attractive market segment? Is it a growing market segment? Is it one that we can easily reach both to generate leads and to sell to, if not, what type of investment is going to be required? So really defining the who is the market segment is very important, and that’s something that is surprisingly hard for a lot of B to B services firms to do, because a lot of them have kind of made their money by being all things to all people. And that’s hard to do when you create a product. You need to be very clear on who your end buyer is, who your end user is, for the product to be successful. So that’s the first of the five.

The second one is the how are we going to monetize this product? And this is where we get into these questions of pricing and packaging. So how do we package features, unlock different features at different package levels, levels of usage, things like that. What’s the best way to package the product in different ways that map to our different types of buyers? And then, how do we price it? So what is the pricing model? What are the price points? And again, when you’re pricing time and materials, that is much easier than when you’re pricing a product, especially if you’re trying to figure out how to grow the product over time. So that’s the second one is the monetization.

The third one is then marketing. So how are we going to generate leads, especially if our product is designed to reach a new market segment that perhaps we haven’t previously marketed to, or where we have less brand recognition than services. If it’s our existing services customers, that’s a little bit easier. But then we have to figure out, how are we telling a product story versus a services story? So what’s the value proposition? What’s the messaging? And then what are the lead generation tactics? All of that falls into kind of that third category of marketing.

The fourth category is your sales channel. So if you’re, you know, let’s say an accounting firm or a law firm, and you’ve been selling, you know, with your partners, right? You have Doer-sellers partners who sell and do business development, and they also deliver the work. They’re probably. Probably not going to be skilled product sellers. So are you going to set up a new sales channel if you already have a separate sales force that’s separate from delivery, but they’ve been selling services, how are you going to teach them to sell products? So making those decisions around sales channel and how you’re going to maybe shift compensation or skill sets around sales channels, very important.

And then the last one is, how are you going to make sure that the product is renewable? So a lot of the organizations that we’re working with, when they decide to productize, they’re doing so because they want to create more recurring streams of revenue so they create, let’s say, like a subscription software product or subscription data product. And the key to making the economics of a subscription product work is the renewability rate and reducing customer churn, and that requires a whole separate set of capabilities in your organization around customer onboarding, customer success that a lot of firms may not have in place. So those five areas, it’s a lot, I know, but those are all things that we found critical to successful commercialization of products.

Christian Klepp  21:22

Fantastic, fantastic. I’m going to date myself here and say these are the Cliff Notes people, right? Like, do you remember those things from high school?

Eisha Armstrong  21:30

Yes, yes, yes.

Christian Klepp  21:31

Um, so these are the Cliff Notes for how to market and sell B to B productized services. So let me just quickly recap, because I’ve been furiously taking notes as you were talking, right? So the first one is defining your target audience and who you’re selling to. Okay, we don’t want any Swiss Army knives of of this category or that category. Correct.

Eisha Armstrong  21:53

Correct.

Christian Klepp  21:54

How are we gonna monetize? I think was the second one.

Eisha Armstrong  21:58

Correct pricing and packaging.

Christian Klepp  22:00

Pricing and packaging. Then comes the marketing bit. The marketing piece, how are we going to generate leads, right? Is it a product versus services story, then the sales channel and the final one is, how do we ensure that the product is renewable?

Eisha Armstrong  22:16

Yes, exactly. Very, good.

Christian Klepp  22:17

Fantastic, fantastic. On that note, I had a follow up question on your third point marketing, because this is a Marketing Show, and there’s a lot of marketers listening to this saying, okay, that’s fantastic, Eisha, but how do I get senior management or the board to buy into marketing, right? If they’ve, especially if they’ve never done it before, right? And these are maybe 8 times out of 10 people that are like, okay, marketing, is it like social media stuff, or we don’t need that because we already have a website. So, I mean, you know, I’m oversimplifying it here, but how do you deal with the pushback on, like, investing in marketing to get all this off the ground?

Eisha Armstrong  22:57

Yeah, so again, I think it depends, at least for the companies that I’m working with on whether or not they are targeting a new market or the same market. If it is the same market, it is going to be hard to convince them to invest significantly more in marketing assuming they’ve been successful. Now that doesn’t mean that they don’t need product marketing expertise, but if their business case for productizing is just around selling products to existing services customers, then it’s going to be hard to make the business case that they need a lot of additional marketing resources. But I see a lot of companies come to me and they say, Hey, we’ve developed this idea for a software product to sell to a more price sensitive market segment, who perhaps, let’s say you’re a agency, and you’ve done bespoke media planning for large companies, and now you have a tool that you’ve created that can automate some of the media planning, and perhaps you could sell it to smaller companies who can’t afford your bespoke media planning services. Okay, interesting idea, but that’s an entirely new market segment for you, a more price sensitive DIY market segment. So how are you going to generate leads in that market segment? How are you going to build brand awareness and know like and trust in that market segment? Well, you’re going to have to invest in marketing. And so what we do is we try to educate those leaders then on what a good marketing investment would look like. And honestly, we just use benchmarks. We’re like, Okay, this is what a software company spends, on average, on marketing, you know, as a percentage of revenue. So this is what you’re going to need to spend on marketing if you want to sell a software product to an entirely new market segment. And we put that in the business case, and then that’s something that they consider before they make a go, no go decision in developing the product, ideally, but we just try to educate them on the investment that’s going to be required in order for them to be successful.

Christian Klepp  25:14

Yep, sometimes I call it like it’s a steep climb up the mountain, right? It’s, and I suppose it’s to your point, right? You have to understand, or marketers have to understand, what these folks in senior management are looking for, right?

Eisha Armstrong  25:31

Yeah. And honestly, at the end of the day, Christian, it’s pretty simple. They’re looking for sales leads, sure. So we do, you know, a lot of educating on, okay, if you’re going to invest in marketing, how do you measure the return? Well, you measure the return looking at leads, MQLs and SQLs, you know, it’s very simple. This is, this is not something we came up with, it’s something that’s been used by 1000s of companies. And if you can, you can point to lead generation of, you know, qualified leads that eventually turn into real sales opportunities. It’s a lot easier to justify the investment.

Christian Klepp  26:07

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, Eisha, we get to the point in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us plenty already, right? But let’s just imagine that there’s somebody listening to this conversation out there that wants to act upon the stuff immediately. So what are like… Maybe 3 to 5 things that you could tell them they can implement immediately based on what you said.

Eisha Armstrong  26:30

Yeah, first one is get very clear if you want to productize why? So is it because you want to reduce key person dependency? Is it because you want to grow at a faster rate than you’re currently growing. Is it because it you know, in 5 to 10 years you want to sell your business, you know you’ll get a higher valuation if you’re more productized. But getting really clear on the why is important, because that will inform the types of productization investments you make and the way that you make that vision come to life. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is that this cannot be an off the side of the desk job. You have to devote dedicated resources to it. And if you’re not willing to do that, you will not be successful, because in a B to B services company, client needs always come first. And so if you don’t have someone who’s dedicated to productization, their time will always be taken up by more urgent client needs. You know, revenue that we can bring in the door this quarter versus revenue that we may not see for a couple years. And then that leads me to my third one, which is that this is a longer investment horizon than you’re probably used to. So if you don’t have the capital to invest in it and not see a return for a couple of years. Don’t go down this path.

Christian Klepp  27:50

Absolutely, there is a little bit, if I’m hearing you correctly, there’s a little bit of risk involved, but it’s also like you have to make that long term investment to see those returns, and they’re not always immediate, right? They takes time.

Eisha Armstrong  28:05

Correct, and there are ways to de risk that investment again, by getting, you know, early clients to co create the product with you, and perhaps, you know, fund part of it, get those early paid beta customers, do a lot of iteration, but you’re not going to see significant returns in year one on your productization efforts.

Christian Klepp  28:29

Okay, a status quo that you passionately disagree with and why? And I’m sure you have plenty, but just pick one.

Eisha Armstrong  28:39

So I’ve been doing a lot of just kind of personal explanation recently around the power of our minds to stretch us beyond our limits. And I think that’s because I’m turning 50 next month, if you can believe it, and I’m wondering kind of what else is possible. So I’ve been doing research around, you know, we just finished watching the Olympics, and kind of how Olympians overcome false beliefs that they may tell themselves, limiting beliefs that they may tell themselves and and I’m really interested in how I apply that in my own kind of, you know, life as it relates to either physical challenges or professional challenges, as well as how I start to impart that on my own children. So I don’t know if that’s so much a status quo, but I think it’s just a an area of interest that we’re probably capable of a lot more than we think we are. And how do we change our mindset to kind of push through those limiting beliefs that we might have… Is something I’m really interested in.

Christian Klepp  29:49

Wow, that was very profound. And if I may say so, you’re a very young 50 year old. (laugh)

Eisha Armstrong  30:00

Yeah, well, I tried to start to put this in practice. So this summer, I did my first technical mountain climbing experience in the Cascades with my brother. And I think this is a key to longevity, and at least feeling younger than perhaps you are is the how can we continue to challenge ourselves and push ourselves beyond what we thought was possible. Someone had told me five years ago, I would have done a technical climb to the top of the mountain. I would have said, No way, but I did it. Yeah, yeah.

Christian Klepp  30:31

Well, good for you. Good for you for doing that and for having the courage to do that, right? I mean, there’s many people out there that would have been like, no thanks. Not for me, and it comes back to what you said about self-limiting beliefs about, you know, feeling like you’re in this. And a lot of people tend to slide back into this. It’s a combination of the comfort zone. It’s the insecurities that you keep telling yourself you can’t do it. And you know, the more you tell yourself that you know, I can’t do it, well, chances are you’re eventually just not going to do it, right? And there are people, and I’m sure you have those in your life, the people that you surround yourself with, that give you that little nudge out the door, to quote the Lord of the Rings, right? Just get out there. Take that risk, you know. And if it didn’t work, at least you tried, right?

Eisha Armstrong  31:18

Yeah, totally.

Christian Klepp  31:20

Absolutely. Okay. Now here comes the bonus question, okay, a place that’s been on your bucket list that you’ve always wanted to visit, and why?

Eisha Armstrong  31:32

Oh, goodness, Ireland. Yeah, so my three out of four grandparents have strong Irish they’ve all passed but strong Irish backgrounds, and I’ve had a lot of friends who’ve gone to Ireland and family and have just said it’s beautiful, and I’ve not been able to visit yet. So that’s a place that’s high on my bucket list. Would love to take my children there and just spend time driving around the country and seeing the scenery and getting to know the people.

Christian Klepp  32:02

Fantastic, fantastic. And then let’s not forget the music. They have beautiful music there.

Eisha Armstrong  32:06

They do, yes, yeah.

Christian Klepp  32:08

It’s a little it’s a little melancholy for some but there is a beauty in it, right? And it’s amazing how some of that has transferred over to the United States. I mean, if you look at like the the Civil War period, there were a lot of like these, these songs and all of that that have Irish influences very strong, right? Like with the violin and so forth, right?

Eisha Armstrong  32:29

That’s right, yeah, absolutely.

Christian Klepp  32:31

Well, Eisha, we could go on and on and on and talk about this, but you know, in the interest of time, I’d like to thank you for coming on the show and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. Please. Quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Eisha Armstrong  32:45

Yeah. So Eisha Armstrong. Have been on this route of how do you productize services my entire professional career. Launched my own firm in 2018 called Vecteris, which is a great way to get exposed to our research that we’ve done that’s Vecteris.com, and as I’ve mentioned, you mentioned, have written a couple of books about this. Have another one coming out in September on how do you commercialize productized services. And best way to reach me personally is through LinkedIn. Eisha Armstrong and love to connect with people. Just let me know that you heard me on the podcast, and we can connect.

Christian Klepp  33:31

Fantastic, fantastic. And congratulations on the launch of the new book. That must be super exciting.

Eisha Armstrong  33:37

It is. I’m very excited about it and very glad that we’re I’m done with the writing phase.

Christian Klepp  33:44

I bet! And just the whole like editing and proofreading and, oh gosh, I found another mistake, you know, like that kind of,…

Eisha Armstrong  33:50

Yeah, yeah.

Christian Klepp  33:52

Fantastic. Fantastic. Once again. Eisha, thank you so much for coming on the show. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Eisha Armstrong  33:57

Thank you, Christian. Bye. Bye.

Christian Klepp  33:59

Goodbye for now, welcome.

How to Fix Marketing That Isn’t Working

Although many B2B companies invest heavily in marketing campaigns, their efforts don’t always translate into actual sales or marketing engagement. Where are these companies falling flat in their marketing efforts? How can B2B marketers fix this and start generating results?

That’s why we’re talking to Marketing Max (Founder, Marty Capital) about how B2B marketers can identify what’s not working and effectively fix their marketing initiatives.  During our conversation, Max talked about the pitfalls that B2B marketers should avoid and what they should be doing instead. He also highlighted how having clear messaging, consistent touchpoints, and an understanding of customer needs enables B2B marketers to implement campaigns that are effective, impactful, and deliver the right outcomes.

https://youtu.be/dD1TWzok5kU

Topics discussed in episode

Companies and links mentioned

SPEAKERS

Marketing Max, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:03

Welcome to B2B Marketers on a Mission, a podcast for change makers, where we question the conventional, debunk marketing myths, provide actionable tips, think differently, disrupt industries and take your marketing to a new level, from improving your campaigns to making you a better marketer. These are the inspirational stories that will help us change the way we think and approach B2B marketing one conversation at a time. This podcast is brought to you by Einblick Consulting, helping you to stand up in the market and drive revenue to your B2B business. And now your host, Christian Klepp. Welcome everyone to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission. This is the show where we help you to question the conventional, think differently, disrupt your industry and take your marketing to new heights. This is your host, Christian Klepp, and today I’m joined by someone on a mission to help B2B companies to fix their marketing and grow sustainably. So Mr. Marketing Max, welcome to the show, sir.

Marketing Max  01:04

Thanks for having me, Christian, good to be here.

Christian Klepp  01:07

Really looking forward to this conversation, Max, so let’s dive in, because we are going to touch on a subject today, which you and I will both agree, a lot of marketers are ashamed to admit. All right, and what is that? It’s the real reason why your marketing isn’t working, and how to fix it, right? So why don’t we kick off the conversation with this question, despite investing heavily in marketing campaigns, a lot of B2B companies find that their efforts are not translating into sales or marketing engagement. Why do you think that is?

Marketing Max  01:38

I think it boils down to really two things. Number one is having a marketing message that people actually want to hear or learn more about. I talk a lot about finding the right marketing message is much like finding like the juiciest carrot that you could possibly dangle in front of your target audience. And I think most companies in general, but especially B2B companies, I find there’s a lot more B2B companies than I work with, than B to C companies. They simply just tell people what their product is and their entire marketing strategy, whether they’re trying to get their message across in an ad or on their website or in a cold email, is simply just telling people what their product does, and they don’t actually dangle what whatever the juiciest carrot would potentially be for their target customer. And normally, nine times out of 10, the juiciest carrot is the outcome of actually working with you or buying your product or signing up for your service. So I think number one is the marketing message that most companies spend lots of money on, or even little bit of money, but it tends to be the big chunk of what they have. You’re spending your precious dollars on marketing, and you’re putting that marketing spend behind messaging that’s just falling short, and that’s not actually compelling or intriguing at all. So that’s the first thing. And I think the second thing is people really don’t understand the rule of fifths. I talk about this a lot too. I think a lot of companies just run a Facebook ad or send a cold email or post on Instagram or send a LinkedIn message or jump on a podcast, and they expect that a bunch of people to see that ad, see that LinkedIn post, see that cold email and immediately book a demo call or immediately sign up for the product or give the SaaS tool a free trial, or whatever it is. And the truth is, there was a study done a number of years ago by Harvard that said someone needs to see or hear your brand at least five times if they are going to even decide if they’re going to purchase your product or not. Now, that number, oftentimes people say, is much higher these days, because that study was done a long time ago. And so, you know, today, given the amount of content we see as humans and the amount of content we digest, scrolling through Instagram, scrolling through Facebook, driving around more billboards, more logos, we just see so many more things, and there’s a lot more competition in the market now. As the barrier to entry to build a business, a product, a service, whatever has gotten much lower that a lot of people say that number is actually closer to 15, but I still like to call it the rule of fifths, and just call that out as you know.

The second reason why a lot of people don’t maximize their investment into marketing, whatever that may be, in whatever marketing channel that is, is you need to be everywhere in front of your target customers every time they hop on LinkedIn. You should be pumping out enough content so that you know, one of every three times they hop on LinkedIn, they’re seeing your face, you should be running so many retargeting ads that you just feel like or that the customer just feels like you are everywhere. And if you can do that with a really good message to kind of go back to the first point, with a really good carrot, as I like to call it, then you’re going to start to really see success with your marketing. And you know, you’re going to get on demo calls, people say, oh my god, I’m. You everywhere, or wow, like, I really love this message, or Wow, you you have exactly what I’m looking for. And oftentimes, what people are looking for is not your product or service. They’re looking for the outcome. It’s very, very, very different. People aren’t looking for Facebook ads as a service, right? What people are looking for is a 2x return on ad spend these days, or a 4x return on ad spend, you know, a long time ago. So a lot of marketing agencies, just to use an example, a lot of marketing agencies will say, you know, we help you grow with Facebook ads. It’s like, okay, great, I’m not looking just for a Facebook ads agency. What I’m really looking for is someone that is going to generate a 2x ROI or help me lower my CAC 30% and so by leading with that messaging, you know, we lower ecommerce brands cost to acquire customer by 30% and plastering that everywhere, you’re going to start to see a lot more success, especially if you have… then the third thing. And forgive me if I’m rambling, but I guess, like the honorable mention, the third thing is social proof. So if you have testimonials, case studies, social proof to back up that carrot, whatever that outcome is, you know you’re hitting the trifecta of marketing, and you’re going to start to see a lot more bang for your buck with your time, energy and money investment into marketing.

Christian Klepp  06:18

Absolutely, absolutely. And yes, I have seen that Harvard study, and it’s interesting how many companies are missing out on that, but I have two follow up questions based on what you’ve talked to us about in past couple of minutes. So the first one is regarding messaging, and I agree it’s so important to get that right. But from your experience, why do you feel that so many B to B companies… I feel that like they’re always the repeat offenders, right? Why do they always default to the features instead of actually thinking about the outcome or the benefits to the target audience, the customers?

Marketing Max  06:53

Because, and I don’t mean this in a negative way towards anyone listening or towards anyone that does this, but it’s the easiest, it’s the easiest, most lazy way to do marketing. It’s, you know, we spend tons of time and energy and money building out features. Right? If you’re a SaaS business, you’re spending all your time building out features. You’re building, you’re spending a ton of time on sales calls with people who are saying, Hey, can you add this feature? Hey, does your tool do this? And your conversations oftentimes are about, especially in the early days, they’re about features. And again, you’re just spending a lot of your internal time in meetings and everything, saying, When is this feature going to launch? When is this feature going to launch? When in reality, people don’t care about the feature. They care about the outcome of the feature, right? So if in Canva, let’s just use Canvas as an example. If in Canva, you know, people are saying, hey, I really want to be able to remove the background right? They want a background remover, which they have, but let’s just say, right, people are requesting that, and everyone requested the background remover. Well, you could certainly run an ad the moment you drop the background remover. You can send an email to all of you, the people who have ever signed up for a free trial but maybe didn’t convert. You can send an email that says, hey, we now have a background remover, but it’s so much more powerful to say you can now remove these specific backgrounds for your podcast interview clips, right? Like talking about, like the outcome of it, right? So figure out who the core ICP is and what are they using the feature to accomplish. That is what you want to put in your messaging, because at the end of the day, people don’t care about the feature, even though the conversations are about it, what they really care is the outcome of using the feature. And I think people just spend too much time, energy and money on the feature itself. And so it’s one dimensional thinking. Maybe lazy isn’t the best, most PC word for it, but it’s one dimensional thinking. It’s what you’re spending most of your time, energy and money doing is building out the features and selling the features, when, in reality, no one cares about the features. You know, people don’t care that the Lamborghini’s seat, you know, was made with a particular kind of leather. What they care about is, you know, feeling comfortable when they drive. What they feel about it. What they want to know is, you know, is it going to help me look cool in front of my friends when they get into the seat, right? They want the outcome of the product of the feature, not the product of the feature itself.

Christian Klepp  09:12

Absolutely, absolutely fantastic. So that was follow up question number one. Follow up question number two is, you said you were talking about the need to be everywhere. And what do you say… And I’m sure there’s a camp out there that says, well, we feel that it’s better to just focus on a couple of channels and be great at them, rather than be in multiple channels and be mediocre at all of them. So what are your thoughts on that?

Marketing Max  09:35

I think it’s a fine line. My response would be twofold. One, if you’re going to be on two platforms or two channels, be everywhere on those two channels, right? If you’re going to really focus on LinkedIn, don’t post once a day. Post two to three times a day, you know, like, comment on 100 comments a day. Just like, if you’re especially if you’re going to niche down to just two. Man, like, go hard. So, like, you could always be doing more. And I just see so many companies, they’re like, Oh, we get all of our clients from LinkedIn. Okay, well, how from LinkedIn? Well, we post our CEO posts once a day, and we send out 50 cold messages from their account a day. Well, why isn’t the rest of the team posting? Why isn’t the CEO posting twice a day? Has the CEO done an audit, or hired someone to do an audit of what kind of their content drives the most amount of inbound leads, or the most amount of book calls from their profile? Like, let’s figure out how to quadruple down. Not just double down, but quadruple down on it if you’re going to focus on one or two channels.

The other comment is, there are ways to, quote, unquote, be everywhere without actually needing to spend a whole lot of time, energy and money on other platforms. So what I recommend clients do is they spend $5 a day on a retargeting campaign on Facebook ads. And I can’t tell you how many clients I have recommended this to, where I say, put a pixel on your website, a Facebook pixels on your website if you don’t have one already, and create a simple $5 a day retargeting ad that says, anytime someone visits the website, show them one of these three ads. And in a perfect world, those three things are social proof, right? They’re testimonials, because once someone’s already visited the website, ideally, the landing page that they visited makes that outcome claim, right? Decrease, you know, your time spent managing projects by 30% or whatever. And then the next time they open up Instagram, the next time they open up Facebook, in some cases now, the next time they open up WhatsApp, they they will see an ad proving that you can do what you said you’re going to do. And so you don’t need a whole lot of discipline. You don’t need to hire a $5,000 a month agency. You can hire a person literally on Fiverr, or on freelancer.com or Upwork for 500 bucks to set up the campaign if you’re really nervous about it. If you’re not, you can go on YouTube and learn how to set up a $5 a day retargeting campaign with social proof. And I can’t tell you how many people, like I do a lot of speaking at conferences, and everyone raises their hands when I say this, and says, Max, how do we track ROI? How do we track you know that this is gonna work. And my simple answer to everyone is, you don’t, you simply don’t track ROI, because not everything in marketing is meant to be tracked, right? There’s this huge article that went viral this week on LinkedIn about how Nike is royally, royally messing up because their new CEO shifted their entire marketing strategy from brand awareness to performance, and they are getting eaten alive by competitors for the first time In Nike’s history. Right? Why is that? Well, number one, they’re a consumer brand, and brand is super, super, super important. But number two, no company should be 100% performance or 100% brand. You need to find the equilibrium point for you. And so, you know, spending $5 a day, which is what $150 a month on the concept that you are going to get in front of people who already know you exist, who, in some way, shape or form, are interested in what you have to sell them. You’re going to get in front of them multiple times with a message that is very compelling, because it’s someone else vouching for you. If you use testimonials, videos or quotes or whatever. Like you’d be an idiot not to spend $150 on that every single month. Like, no offense to anyone. I don’t mean to keep offending your audience, but you’d be an idiot not to do that because people need to see or hear your brand at least five times before they decide if they’re going to purchase or not. So I get on the phone with a lot of clients. I’m like, What are your five touch and everyone says, Yeah, we do that. I’m like, What are your five touch points? Well, they’re emails. Okay, let’s take a look at your emails. And every single email is asking for a call or offering a free trial or giving a, you know, 20% off coupon. It’s your sales, sales, sales, sales, sales, right? By having a simple brand awareness $5 a day retargeting campaign, yes, you are quote, unquote, selling them. But by not having a button there, or by making the button something very informal, you are significantly increasing your conversion rate because you’re getting Top of Mind with people all the time. It’s why GEICO spends billions of dollars a year to be in every single commercial break, in every single TV commercial because they know that someone needs to see or hear GEICO a bunch of times before they decide when they recognize they need insurance. I’m going to go with Geico, right? You might have a worse product, you might be more expensive, you might have a bunch of headwinds, but if you are top of mind when it comes time for someone to say, You know what? I’m finally ready to buy this thing. We’re finally ready to hire a podcasting agency. We’re finally ready to, you know, get a project management tool. The person is going to choose the one that’s super top of mind and that is more educated on more than just based on one feature, or more than based on just one price.

Christian Klepp  15:04

Absolutely, I’m going to move us on to the next question, which is about the importance of having the following to fix marketing efforts, and top level, I’m happy to repeat, clear messaging, consistent touch points, and understanding customer needs.

Marketing Max  15:19

All three of those things that you just mentioned are table stakes. You know, if you’re an entrepreneur and you have never learned marketing, you won’t know what those three things are, or you haven’t given much thought to them, that’s totally fine, but spending 30 minutes or an hour with a old fashioned pen and paper notepad and writing down really clearly who your target customer is, what podcast they listen to, what influencers they follow on any platform, even if it’s B2B influencer on LinkedIn or whatever, right? What’s their age, what’s their name, What city do they live in? What car do they drive? Getting really clear on who your ideal customer profile is helps you with all three of those things, and then it’ll start to unlock opportunities for you, because you’ll be, oh, maybe we should sponsor this podcast, or, Oh, maybe we should reach out to this influencer for our partnership, or, Oh, maybe if we can’t afford that, we should at least look at what kind of content is in that podcast, or what kind of content that influencer creates, that we can create that content for our social channels. So that’s the first thing is, it’s table stakes, and doing a simple exercise like that will unlock so many doors for you. The second thing is, you are not going to hit the nail on the head the first go around, like if you did that exercise and you said, Okay, our target customer is, you know, Zoe, 32 year old, head of social media, lives in New York City, doesn’t drive a car because she lives in New York City, you know, makes $250,000 a year, works for a company that does over $100 million a year. She follows these influencers on Instagram, these influencers on LinkedIn. She listens to this podcast, right? If that’s who you think it is, and you don’t, and you haven’t been in business for a long time, you don’t have a ton of data, that person might change. Maybe it’s actually the person below them, like, not the social media manager that’s in charge of social media for that huge company. But maybe it’s, you know, the the smaller person underneath them, maybe it’s the CEO, right? That person is going to change. And so I think just having the awareness to know that you need to stick with one of those for three months or six months, but then having the awareness to know that that might change in three months or six months, and then eventually, as you grow, you might have multiple ICPs, right, depending on your features, as we talked about earlier, all of those things are really, really, really important. And I think a lot of people just realize, okay, we can talk about our features, slap it together on a LinkedIn post or on a Facebook ad, or on a LinkedIn ad or whatever, we’ll try to update our G2 bio, right? If you’re a SaaS business and you want to get listed on G2 we try to, you know, update G2 and, you know, we’ll go from there. But no one actually takes the time. Very few people actually take the time to really think through who is our ICP, what is the message that we can put in front of them that gets them to say, what is the message we can put in front of them that get gets them to say, I need to book a call with these guys right now, or I need to start a free trial right now. And it’s not going to be a feature. You don’t win on features. You win on outcomes, no matter what you sell, no matter what you sell, right? It’s why, like a weight loss pill. I don’t want to say like weight loss pill, but like, it’s why it’s called a weight loss pill. Their ads don’t say we have a really good flavor, people like our the taste of our weight loss pill, or a weight loss like smoothie, more than other people, they say, we’ll help you lose weight. The same thing applies in B2B, the same thing. What are you going to help these people do? What is your software going to help these people do? What is your team, if you’re a service, going to help these people do? What is the outcome? We’ll help you grow. That’s but it’s you’re going to help me grow. Great. So is every other agency. So is every other SaaS platform. But like, what do I want to grow with? What kind of growth do I want? Do I want affordable growth? Do I want fast growth? Like, does your ICP typically take five years to accomplish their goals, and you’re going to help them do it in a year. Amazing is that what they really want? They’re really concerned about speed. Are they really concerned about budget? We’ll help you grow faster on a smaller budget. Okay, that’s interesting. What do these people really want? They don’t just want growth. They don’t just want to save 20 minutes a day answering emails like superhuman or whatever that tool is, you know, they don’t want to take back their time. That’s cute, but you know, come up with three or four. Run them as Facebook ads, or run them a social posts and see which one does best. AB test the living crap out of it.

Christian Klepp  20:09

Yeah, no, absolutely. So we’ve talked about messaging and having that right and relevant messaging. We’ve talked about thinking through your ICP. From your professional experience, what would you say… How often should companies go back and review this messaging, this ICP, to see if it’s, you know, to your point, still relevant or not, or has that changed? Has it expanded? Etc.

Marketing Max  20:34

Yeah, that’s a really good question. I don’t think people think about this. I think first and foremost, you need to come up with like, four and A|B test them over the course of a month. If you don’t have budget for Facebook ads, you know, install this tool called Crazyegg.com. it’s like 30 or 40 bucks a month, and you can AB test it on your website. And you could literally change the headline on your homepage or on any page, to three or four different things, and then see, you can track a button click, and you can see, depending on the headline shown to the people who visit that page, which headline gets the most amount of people to click book a call or book a demo or sign up for a free trial, or whatever it is, right, whatever your main CTA call to action button is. You should do that over the course of, you know, 30 days, depending on how many people visit your website, or depending on how big your Facebook ad budget is to test. Once you have that message, I would say every three to six months, I would even calendar block or set an email like on snooze for three to six months, because the last thing you want to do is not reintroduce some new variations of that to test before it starts to not work anymore. Either that audience is going to get tapped out, or the language, like the lingo of the space, is going to change, or people’s needs change, right? Your target ICPs needs, what they really, really, really want, will change, depending on the economy, depending on the time of year, even sometimes, right, like slower months. Like, what do you really want in the summertime, if you run kind of a seasonal business, or if things are way slower for you, if your target ICP is way slower in the summer, like, you know, changing the tagline to, we can help you do accomplish this ideal outcome in the slow months is really compelling, right? So you want to proactively do it. You don’t just want to do this when things stop working like anything else in business.

Christian Klepp  22:30

Absolutely, absolutely. Max. I’m going to throw this wild card out there, because you brought it up a couple of times now, so I’m seeing a bit of a pattern, right? And it’s on the question of technology, right? You’ve mentioned a couple of platforms or software that people can use. And I think where I’m going with this question is, do you feel sometimes that there are B2B marketers and B2B companies out there that get so either inundated or seduced by that technology that they let the technology take over instead of actually doing good marketing, right. So what are your thoughts on that? Like, what’s the fine line between good marketing and actually using the technology to support that marketing?

Marketing Max  23:09

I don’t think people, you know, to use the word lazy again. I don’t think people get lazy because they rely on technology too much. I don’t think that’s it at all. I think people think marketing is easier than it is regardless of the technology they use, regardless of their industry, their product, their service. There’s this very famous quote, and I forget who said it, and I don’t even remember the exact words of it, but it was basically like first time entrepreneurs spend 80% of their budget on product and 20% of their budget on marketing. Second time, entrepreneurs spend 80% of their budget on marketing and 20% of their budget on product. Marketing is just way more difficult than people think. Whether you’re a marketer or you’re an entrepreneur who came up with the idea and is running the company, you think that everyone wants what you have to sell, because either A. you wanted it, so you went out and created it, or they sold you, that people want this product in the job interview, and the 50,000 people that use it, or the 500 people that use it, or the five clients, or whatever it is, indicates to you that people want this. So you just think, Oh, we just have to go tell more people that it exists. And they’ll, they’ll show up. That’s not how it works. That’s not how it works at all. If you build it, and they will come the famous line from Field of Dreams, that great movie, really, really, really great movie is the epitome of the trap that entrepreneurs and marketers fall into. They think just by introducing the product or service to people, they’re gonna go, Oh my God, I need this. I want this. Because either, again, either A they had it, they had that need and they found it, or the proof that other people are buying this, more people want it. But once you escape that first cohort, that first kind of early adopter group of customers who truly do want it just because it exists, which is very small and very rare, marketing is a huge uphill battle. It’s a huge challenge. And how do you make it easier? You go back to those three things that I said. You figure out the carrot, aka the outcome that they want most, and you never stop jamming that carrot down people’s throats. I know it sounds a little aggressive, but that’s just what it is. Every, every, every huge company, every successful company does this. You might not see it, but Salesforces at every single important conference, they’re running ads on LinkedIn all the time. They’re spending jillions of dollars on Google. They might not show up in your world, but they show up multiple times to the people that they know will make the decision to purchase Salesforce’s software. Geico on the consumer side, right? I use that example all the time, just because it’s the easiest, because everyone who has ever watched TV knows GEICO is all over TV, right? But it works in B2B too. It 100% works in B2B too I mean, I had a Facebook and Google Ads agency that I sold two years ago, built it up to, you know, seven figures in revenue, 15 full time people. And very small to a lot of people, big to some, but very, very small to a lot of people. But you know, the difference between the agencies that make a million dollars a year or millions of dollars a year versus the ones that don’t, are the ones that spend money on marketing. They’re the ones that spend on ads and that go to conferences, versus the agencies that got up to 50k a month in revenue, or 100k a month in revenue, and get it all in the back of referrals and say, well, I’ll just keep growing in the back of referrals, I’m too afraid to spend money on marketing, right? The ones that grow the most are everywhere to their target customers. They sponsor events, they run ads, they’re on podcasts. They host podcasts, they do cold email, not just once, but they follow up on LinkedIn, and then over text, and then, I mean, it’s, it’s just non stop on purpose, because that’s how it works. That’s how it works.

Christian Klepp  24:08

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. On that point, I had a follow up question for you, and you probably get this all the time, but I would imagine in SaaS and even in B2B Tech, Why do you think that there’s still this hesitation for people to invest in marketing like you probably still talk to people that are like, yeah, yeah, I know, but what if we don’t generate the right results, or the results that we’re expecting? So what do you say to those people that have those doubts?

Marketing Max  27:43

What’s your other choice? That’s my answer.

Christian Klepp  27:55

Right, right, growing on the back of referrals, to your earlier point, which is not sustainable in the long run.

Christian Klepp  28:02

Fair enough. Fair enough.

Marketing Max  28:02

Yeah, you have to take risks, but I can’t afford to, but I can’t afford to, then don’t, then get out of the game. You have to take risks. The analogy I’m using a lot these days is, you know, I’m a big sports guy. Love the NBA, the NFL I’m a golfer, so obviously I love golf, but in team sports, if you’re the owner of a basketball team, right, in order to get the best talent on your team, you need to not only pay them a ton of money, but you need to guarantee them that they will get that money even if they get injured. That’s a risk. That’s a huge risk. LeBron is making $55 million a year. If LeBron gets injured, you still have to pay him, but that’s just being in the league. That’s just being in the game. Marketing is the same way. Maybe you can’t spend $55 million okay, but let’s take smaller risks. Take smaller risks.

Marketing Max  28:12

You have to take risks to be in the game, or you’re never going to make the playoffs. People aren’t going to come to watch your team. You’re going to lose money. My grandfather was an entrepreneur. He’s the single reason why I’m an entrepreneur. He came to this country with a few dollars in his pocket and was a serial entrepreneur. Some successes, some major failures, some successes. And he had a hat in his office that I have now in my office. He passed away. He has a hat in his office that says, You got to spend money to make money.

Christian Klepp  29:49

Absolutely.

Marketing Max  29:50

I had to blow $30,000 of my own money on Facebook ads before I found the right ad, showing to the right audience, dropping off on the right landing page with the right offer for my ad agency before I was able to acquire clients for like two grand, all in. Two to three grand, all in. $2600 or whatever, fluctuate around there, but let’s say two to three grand. But once I cracked it, I was able to acquire a client, let’s say for $2500 bucks. And the value of that client for me was upwards of $50,000 so I spent $30,000. I got to a point where I can spend $25,000 and make $50,000. So all I needed was, like, literally, one or two clients to repay back the 30k that I had to spend. What I have kept going at 100k and just burning before I found the right ad and the right everything? No, of course not. There’s thresholds. But you got to spend money to make money. You got to waste money, truly. And my wife, super positive, will always say, it’s not a waste. You’re learning, but you got to light some money on fire to start the fire. You know, you know you need some. You need some, whether they call it Kim Tim, not timber, kindling, kindling. You need some kindling. No, yeah, you need, you need, you need it. And it’s got to be money. And if you don’t have any money, if you’re listening to this, you’re like, Max, I have $0, then it’s your time. Then you need to study how to create viral LinkedIn posts. You need to study, excuse me, how to write the best cold email on planet earth. Because you’re either buying people’s attention with money or with your time. And the only way to grow your business and to market your business is getting in front of people, getting people’s attention. You’re either doing that with money or time. Money, aka ads, influencer partnerships, whatever. Time meaning, creating content, networking, events, relationship building, writing the best Twitter post you can possibly Imagine, and then networking with people so that they retweet you. You buy people’s attention with time and money. Yeah, that’s marketing.

Christian Klepp  31:35

There’s many ways to do it. There’s many ways to do it. So marketing Max, you’ve been, I think you’ve been on your soapbox all this time, but I’d like to politely ask you to stay up there a while longer.

Marketing Max  32:22

I don’t like being on the soapbox, but okay,

Christian Klepp  32:25

A status quo that you passionately disagree with and why?

Marketing Max  32:29

I think we kind of touched on it. I think it’s like, if you build it, they will come. I think you really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really need to buy people’s attention with time or with money. You know, you can’t just get in front of people and hope that they purchase your product. You have to get in front of them and give them something compelling that makes them intrigued enough to double click, to zoom in, to get in contact. So many people, so many people, so many people I meet. It’s like, man, you know, word of mouth, we’re growing like wildfire. It’s like, that’s going to stop at some point unless you have a viral product, there’s, you know, viral nature in it, yeah, yeah. The other thing, totally unrelated, is less of like a marketing not true. What was the term, again? Status quo? Yeah. Status quo, another thing I talk about a lot, and that I believe very aggressively, and I don’t even think people like believe this, but I think it’s just the status quo. Your website is a living, breathing thing. The status quo, to use that term, is you spend 2 to 20 grand on someone to build your website, and then you never touch it or you update it with some features, you need to be constantly analyzing the data of where traffic is coming from, where people are clicking, what pages people are clicking to. When you really start to analyze the data of how people are interacting with your website, you’ll start to see some insane patterns. Sometimes I’ve found with clients like all of the people that convert check out one particular like breakdown of the features pages, or of the about us page, or of the like case studies page, before they actually convert. So it’s like, man, people are dying for this content, and once we show them this content, they convert. So how can we bring this content on the homepage? How can we take this content and put it in our retargeting ads? Like there’s a treasure trove of data inside of the data for your website’s user behavior. Your website’s a living, breathing thing. You need to be constantly updating it, analyzing it, checking it, testing call to actions, testing button, colors, testing headlines, testing pictures, text, testing backgrounds. It’s the easiest and best way by far to move the needle for your company. It’s to AB test your landing page or AB test your homepage, understand the data, see what’s converting, and then iterate from there. That is, by far and away, the number one thing that will have the biggest impact on revenue that you could do today. It’s not running Facebook ads. It’s not the $5 day retargeting ad. It’s thinking about your website as a living, breathing thing. If more brands spent as much time energy and money on AB testing their website as they do AB testing their their ad creative like on Facebook ads, we’d all be a lot richer.

Christian Klepp  32:34

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, two more questions for you and I will you go. Here comes the bonus question, if you had a superpower, what would you choose and why?

Marketing Max  35:54

I’ve always really wanted to fly. That’s always been my my superpower. I think also, like, under the business context, if I really had to choose, and I got time to think about it, I’d probably choose reading people’s minds. I would love to get on a service call and just know that this person is just, like, not paying attention to me at all. Yeah. But my favorite superhero is Iron Man, just because he’s…, because Robert Downey Jr is awesome, and because he’s rich and super cool and fights off bad guys with technology and not like bats, right? And spiders.

Christian Klepp  36:34

Spiders, yeah, fair enough.

Marketing Max  36:37

I choose Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow over Toby McGuire and spiders any day.

Christian Klepp  36:50

Hey, fair enough, man, fair enough.

Marketing Max  36:51

I don’t love spiders or bats. Honestly, I’ve seen them up close, and they’re very weird.

Christian Klepp  36:55

Yeah, yeah. I hear you. I hear you. Wow. Marketing Max. This has been an awesome conversation. So thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. Please, quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Marketing Max  37:13

Yeah, intro for me. My name is Marketing Max. I spend most of my time on Twitter. So if you have any questions or anything that I spoke about today, or want help with your marketing, feel free to DM me on Twitter @marketingmax, or check out marketingmax.io. You can get in touch with me there. Yeah, I run a portfolio of marketing businesses. I run a couple different agencies, a couple different software businesses, media company. So I’m just a full stack marketer trying to help companies grow and scale with less stress and less headache and less budget. So thanks for having me on the show.

Christian Klepp  37:47

Fantastic. Fantastic. A marketing renaissance man of sorts, if you will.

Marketing Max  37:54

I like that better than the soapbox thing you said I was on earlier. But yeah, I guess I always think of renaissance man like sitting in a dark room smoking cigars, like, oh, hanging out being mysterious. I’ll take that. I’ll take all right.

Christian Klepp  38:13

Marketing Max, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Marketing Max  38:17

Thanks for having me see you guys on Twitter.

Christian Klepp  38:19

Bye for now.

How to Fix Marketing That Isn’t Working

Although many B2B companies invest heavily in marketing campaigns, their efforts don’t always translate into actual sales or marketing engagement. Where are these companies falling flat in their marketing efforts? How can B2B marketers fix this and start generating results?

That’s why we’re talking to Marketing Max (Founder, Marty Capital) about how B2B marketers can identify what’s not working and effectively fix their marketing initiatives.  During our conversation, Max talked about the pitfalls that B2B marketers should avoid and what they should be doing instead. He also highlighted how having clear messaging, consistent touchpoints, and an understanding of customer needs enables B2B marketers to implement campaigns that are effective, impactful, and deliver the right outcomes.

https://youtu.be/dD1TWzok5kU

Topics discussed in episode

Companies and links mentioned

SPEAKERS

Marketing Max, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:03

Welcome to B2B Marketers on a Mission, a podcast for change makers, where we question the conventional, debunk marketing myths, provide actionable tips, think differently, disrupt industries and take your marketing to a new level, from improving your campaigns to making you a better marketer. These are the inspirational stories that will help us change the way we think and approach B2B marketing one conversation at a time. This podcast is brought to you by Einblick Consulting, helping you to stand up in the market and drive revenue to your B2B business. And now your host, Christian Klepp. Welcome everyone to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission. This is the show where we help you to question the conventional, think differently, disrupt your industry and take your marketing to new heights. This is your host, Christian Klepp, and today I’m joined by someone on a mission to help B2B companies to fix their marketing and grow sustainably. So Mr. Marketing Max, welcome to the show, sir.

Marketing Max  01:04

Thanks for having me, Christian, good to be here.

Christian Klepp  01:07

Really looking forward to this conversation, Max, so let’s dive in, because we are going to touch on a subject today, which you and I will both agree, a lot of marketers are ashamed to admit. All right, and what is that? It’s the real reason why your marketing isn’t working, and how to fix it, right? So why don’t we kick off the conversation with this question, despite investing heavily in marketing campaigns, a lot of B2B companies find that their efforts are not translating into sales or marketing engagement. Why do you think that is?

Marketing Max  01:38

I think it boils down to really two things. Number one is having a marketing message that people actually want to hear or learn more about. I talk a lot about finding the right marketing message is much like finding like the juiciest carrot that you could possibly dangle in front of your target audience. And I think most companies in general, but especially B2B companies, I find there’s a lot more B2B companies than I work with, than B to C companies. They simply just tell people what their product is and their entire marketing strategy, whether they’re trying to get their message across in an ad or on their website or in a cold email, is simply just telling people what their product does, and they don’t actually dangle what whatever the juiciest carrot would potentially be for their target customer. And normally, nine times out of 10, the juiciest carrot is the outcome of actually working with you or buying your product or signing up for your service. So I think number one is the marketing message that most companies spend lots of money on, or even little bit of money, but it tends to be the big chunk of what they have. You’re spending your precious dollars on marketing, and you’re putting that marketing spend behind messaging that’s just falling short, and that’s not actually compelling or intriguing at all. So that’s the first thing. And I think the second thing is people really don’t understand the rule of fifths. I talk about this a lot too. I think a lot of companies just run a Facebook ad or send a cold email or post on Instagram or send a LinkedIn message or jump on a podcast, and they expect that a bunch of people to see that ad, see that LinkedIn post, see that cold email and immediately book a demo call or immediately sign up for the product or give the SaaS tool a free trial, or whatever it is. And the truth is, there was a study done a number of years ago by Harvard that said someone needs to see or hear your brand at least five times if they are going to even decide if they’re going to purchase your product or not. Now, that number, oftentimes people say, is much higher these days, because that study was done a long time ago. And so, you know, today, given the amount of content we see as humans and the amount of content we digest, scrolling through Instagram, scrolling through Facebook, driving around more billboards, more logos, we just see so many more things, and there’s a lot more competition in the market now. As the barrier to entry to build a business, a product, a service, whatever has gotten much lower that a lot of people say that number is actually closer to 15, but I still like to call it the rule of fifths, and just call that out as you know.

The second reason why a lot of people don’t maximize their investment into marketing, whatever that may be, in whatever marketing channel that is, is you need to be everywhere in front of your target customers every time they hop on LinkedIn. You should be pumping out enough content so that you know, one of every three times they hop on LinkedIn, they’re seeing your face, you should be running so many retargeting ads that you just feel like or that the customer just feels like you are everywhere. And if you can do that with a really good message to kind of go back to the first point, with a really good carrot, as I like to call it, then you’re going to start to really see success with your marketing. And you know, you’re going to get on demo calls, people say, oh my god, I’m. You everywhere, or wow, like, I really love this message, or Wow, you you have exactly what I’m looking for. And oftentimes, what people are looking for is not your product or service. They’re looking for the outcome. It’s very, very, very different. People aren’t looking for Facebook ads as a service, right? What people are looking for is a 2x return on ad spend these days, or a 4x return on ad spend, you know, a long time ago. So a lot of marketing agencies, just to use an example, a lot of marketing agencies will say, you know, we help you grow with Facebook ads. It’s like, okay, great, I’m not looking just for a Facebook ads agency. What I’m really looking for is someone that is going to generate a 2x ROI or help me lower my CAC 30% and so by leading with that messaging, you know, we lower ecommerce brands cost to acquire customer by 30% and plastering that everywhere, you’re going to start to see a lot more success, especially if you have… then the third thing. And forgive me if I’m rambling, but I guess, like the honorable mention, the third thing is social proof. So if you have testimonials, case studies, social proof to back up that carrot, whatever that outcome is, you know you’re hitting the trifecta of marketing, and you’re going to start to see a lot more bang for your buck with your time, energy and money investment into marketing.

Christian Klepp  06:18

Absolutely, absolutely. And yes, I have seen that Harvard study, and it’s interesting how many companies are missing out on that, but I have two follow up questions based on what you’ve talked to us about in past couple of minutes. So the first one is regarding messaging, and I agree it’s so important to get that right. But from your experience, why do you feel that so many B to B companies… I feel that like they’re always the repeat offenders, right? Why do they always default to the features instead of actually thinking about the outcome or the benefits to the target audience, the customers?

Marketing Max  06:53

Because, and I don’t mean this in a negative way towards anyone listening or towards anyone that does this, but it’s the easiest, it’s the easiest, most lazy way to do marketing. It’s, you know, we spend tons of time and energy and money building out features. Right? If you’re a SaaS business, you’re spending all your time building out features. You’re building, you’re spending a ton of time on sales calls with people who are saying, Hey, can you add this feature? Hey, does your tool do this? And your conversations oftentimes are about, especially in the early days, they’re about features. And again, you’re just spending a lot of your internal time in meetings and everything, saying, When is this feature going to launch? When is this feature going to launch? When in reality, people don’t care about the feature. They care about the outcome of the feature, right? So if in Canva, let’s just use Canvas as an example. If in Canva, you know, people are saying, hey, I really want to be able to remove the background right? They want a background remover, which they have, but let’s just say, right, people are requesting that, and everyone requested the background remover. Well, you could certainly run an ad the moment you drop the background remover. You can send an email to all of you, the people who have ever signed up for a free trial but maybe didn’t convert. You can send an email that says, hey, we now have a background remover, but it’s so much more powerful to say you can now remove these specific backgrounds for your podcast interview clips, right? Like talking about, like the outcome of it, right? So figure out who the core ICP is and what are they using the feature to accomplish. That is what you want to put in your messaging, because at the end of the day, people don’t care about the feature, even though the conversations are about it, what they really care is the outcome of using the feature. And I think people just spend too much time, energy and money on the feature itself. And so it’s one dimensional thinking. Maybe lazy isn’t the best, most PC word for it, but it’s one dimensional thinking. It’s what you’re spending most of your time, energy and money doing is building out the features and selling the features, when, in reality, no one cares about the features. You know, people don’t care that the Lamborghini’s seat, you know, was made with a particular kind of leather. What they care about is, you know, feeling comfortable when they drive. What they feel about it. What they want to know is, you know, is it going to help me look cool in front of my friends when they get into the seat, right? They want the outcome of the product of the feature, not the product of the feature itself.

Christian Klepp  09:12

Absolutely, absolutely fantastic. So that was follow up question number one. Follow up question number two is, you said you were talking about the need to be everywhere. And what do you say… And I’m sure there’s a camp out there that says, well, we feel that it’s better to just focus on a couple of channels and be great at them, rather than be in multiple channels and be mediocre at all of them. So what are your thoughts on that?

Marketing Max  09:35

I think it’s a fine line. My response would be twofold. One, if you’re going to be on two platforms or two channels, be everywhere on those two channels, right? If you’re going to really focus on LinkedIn, don’t post once a day. Post two to three times a day, you know, like, comment on 100 comments a day. Just like, if you’re especially if you’re going to niche down to just two. Man, like, go hard. So, like, you could always be doing more. And I just see so many companies, they’re like, Oh, we get all of our clients from LinkedIn. Okay, well, how from LinkedIn? Well, we post our CEO posts once a day, and we send out 50 cold messages from their account a day. Well, why isn’t the rest of the team posting? Why isn’t the CEO posting twice a day? Has the CEO done an audit, or hired someone to do an audit of what kind of their content drives the most amount of inbound leads, or the most amount of book calls from their profile? Like, let’s figure out how to quadruple down. Not just double down, but quadruple down on it if you’re going to focus on one or two channels.

The other comment is, there are ways to, quote, unquote, be everywhere without actually needing to spend a whole lot of time, energy and money on other platforms. So what I recommend clients do is they spend $5 a day on a retargeting campaign on Facebook ads. And I can’t tell you how many clients I have recommended this to, where I say, put a pixel on your website, a Facebook pixels on your website if you don’t have one already, and create a simple $5 a day retargeting ad that says, anytime someone visits the website, show them one of these three ads. And in a perfect world, those three things are social proof, right? They’re testimonials, because once someone’s already visited the website, ideally, the landing page that they visited makes that outcome claim, right? Decrease, you know, your time spent managing projects by 30% or whatever. And then the next time they open up Instagram, the next time they open up Facebook, in some cases now, the next time they open up WhatsApp, they they will see an ad proving that you can do what you said you’re going to do. And so you don’t need a whole lot of discipline. You don’t need to hire a $5,000 a month agency. You can hire a person literally on Fiverr, or on freelancer.com or Upwork for 500 bucks to set up the campaign if you’re really nervous about it. If you’re not, you can go on YouTube and learn how to set up a $5 a day retargeting campaign with social proof. And I can’t tell you how many people, like I do a lot of speaking at conferences, and everyone raises their hands when I say this, and says, Max, how do we track ROI? How do we track you know that this is gonna work. And my simple answer to everyone is, you don’t, you simply don’t track ROI, because not everything in marketing is meant to be tracked, right? There’s this huge article that went viral this week on LinkedIn about how Nike is royally, royally messing up because their new CEO shifted their entire marketing strategy from brand awareness to performance, and they are getting eaten alive by competitors for the first time In Nike’s history. Right? Why is that? Well, number one, they’re a consumer brand, and brand is super, super, super important. But number two, no company should be 100% performance or 100% brand. You need to find the equilibrium point for you. And so, you know, spending $5 a day, which is what $150 a month on the concept that you are going to get in front of people who already know you exist, who, in some way, shape or form, are interested in what you have to sell them. You’re going to get in front of them multiple times with a message that is very compelling, because it’s someone else vouching for you. If you use testimonials, videos or quotes or whatever. Like you’d be an idiot not to spend $150 on that every single month. Like, no offense to anyone. I don’t mean to keep offending your audience, but you’d be an idiot not to do that because people need to see or hear your brand at least five times before they decide if they’re going to purchase or not. So I get on the phone with a lot of clients. I’m like, What are your five touch and everyone says, Yeah, we do that. I’m like, What are your five touch points? Well, they’re emails. Okay, let’s take a look at your emails. And every single email is asking for a call or offering a free trial or giving a, you know, 20% off coupon. It’s your sales, sales, sales, sales, sales, right? By having a simple brand awareness $5 a day retargeting campaign, yes, you are quote, unquote, selling them. But by not having a button there, or by making the button something very informal, you are significantly increasing your conversion rate because you’re getting Top of Mind with people all the time. It’s why GEICO spends billions of dollars a year to be in every single commercial break, in every single TV commercial because they know that someone needs to see or hear GEICO a bunch of times before they decide when they recognize they need insurance. I’m going to go with Geico, right? You might have a worse product, you might be more expensive, you might have a bunch of headwinds, but if you are top of mind when it comes time for someone to say, You know what? I’m finally ready to buy this thing. We’re finally ready to hire a podcasting agency. We’re finally ready to, you know, get a project management tool. The person is going to choose the one that’s super top of mind and that is more educated on more than just based on one feature, or more than based on just one price.

Christian Klepp  15:04

Absolutely, I’m going to move us on to the next question, which is about the importance of having the following to fix marketing efforts, and top level, I’m happy to repeat, clear messaging, consistent touch points, and understanding customer needs.

Marketing Max  15:19

All three of those things that you just mentioned are table stakes. You know, if you’re an entrepreneur and you have never learned marketing, you won’t know what those three things are, or you haven’t given much thought to them, that’s totally fine, but spending 30 minutes or an hour with a old fashioned pen and paper notepad and writing down really clearly who your target customer is, what podcast they listen to, what influencers they follow on any platform, even if it’s B2B influencer on LinkedIn or whatever, right? What’s their age, what’s their name, What city do they live in? What car do they drive? Getting really clear on who your ideal customer profile is helps you with all three of those things, and then it’ll start to unlock opportunities for you, because you’ll be, oh, maybe we should sponsor this podcast, or, Oh, maybe we should reach out to this influencer for our partnership, or, Oh, maybe if we can’t afford that, we should at least look at what kind of content is in that podcast, or what kind of content that influencer creates, that we can create that content for our social channels. So that’s the first thing is, it’s table stakes, and doing a simple exercise like that will unlock so many doors for you. The second thing is, you are not going to hit the nail on the head the first go around, like if you did that exercise and you said, Okay, our target customer is, you know, Zoe, 32 year old, head of social media, lives in New York City, doesn’t drive a car because she lives in New York City, you know, makes $250,000 a year, works for a company that does over $100 million a year. She follows these influencers on Instagram, these influencers on LinkedIn. She listens to this podcast, right? If that’s who you think it is, and you don’t, and you haven’t been in business for a long time, you don’t have a ton of data, that person might change. Maybe it’s actually the person below them, like, not the social media manager that’s in charge of social media for that huge company. But maybe it’s, you know, the the smaller person underneath them, maybe it’s the CEO, right? That person is going to change. And so I think just having the awareness to know that you need to stick with one of those for three months or six months, but then having the awareness to know that that might change in three months or six months, and then eventually, as you grow, you might have multiple ICPs, right, depending on your features, as we talked about earlier, all of those things are really, really, really important. And I think a lot of people just realize, okay, we can talk about our features, slap it together on a LinkedIn post or on a Facebook ad, or on a LinkedIn ad or whatever, we’ll try to update our G2 bio, right? If you’re a SaaS business and you want to get listed on G2 we try to, you know, update G2 and, you know, we’ll go from there. But no one actually takes the time. Very few people actually take the time to really think through who is our ICP, what is the message that we can put in front of them that gets them to say, what is the message we can put in front of them that get gets them to say, I need to book a call with these guys right now, or I need to start a free trial right now. And it’s not going to be a feature. You don’t win on features. You win on outcomes, no matter what you sell, no matter what you sell, right? It’s why, like a weight loss pill. I don’t want to say like weight loss pill, but like, it’s why it’s called a weight loss pill. Their ads don’t say we have a really good flavor, people like our the taste of our weight loss pill, or a weight loss like smoothie, more than other people, they say, we’ll help you lose weight. The same thing applies in B2B, the same thing. What are you going to help these people do? What is your software going to help these people do? What is your team, if you’re a service, going to help these people do? What is the outcome? We’ll help you grow. That’s but it’s you’re going to help me grow. Great. So is every other agency. So is every other SaaS platform. But like, what do I want to grow with? What kind of growth do I want? Do I want affordable growth? Do I want fast growth? Like, does your ICP typically take five years to accomplish their goals, and you’re going to help them do it in a year. Amazing is that what they really want? They’re really concerned about speed. Are they really concerned about budget? We’ll help you grow faster on a smaller budget. Okay, that’s interesting. What do these people really want? They don’t just want growth. They don’t just want to save 20 minutes a day answering emails like superhuman or whatever that tool is, you know, they don’t want to take back their time. That’s cute, but you know, come up with three or four. Run them as Facebook ads, or run them a social posts and see which one does best. AB test the living crap out of it.

Christian Klepp  20:09

Yeah, no, absolutely. So we’ve talked about messaging and having that right and relevant messaging. We’ve talked about thinking through your ICP. From your professional experience, what would you say… How often should companies go back and review this messaging, this ICP, to see if it’s, you know, to your point, still relevant or not, or has that changed? Has it expanded? Etc.

Marketing Max  20:34

Yeah, that’s a really good question. I don’t think people think about this. I think first and foremost, you need to come up with like, four and A|B test them over the course of a month. If you don’t have budget for Facebook ads, you know, install this tool called Crazyegg.com. it’s like 30 or 40 bucks a month, and you can AB test it on your website. And you could literally change the headline on your homepage or on any page, to three or four different things, and then see, you can track a button click, and you can see, depending on the headline shown to the people who visit that page, which headline gets the most amount of people to click book a call or book a demo or sign up for a free trial, or whatever it is, right, whatever your main CTA call to action button is. You should do that over the course of, you know, 30 days, depending on how many people visit your website, or depending on how big your Facebook ad budget is to test. Once you have that message, I would say every three to six months, I would even calendar block or set an email like on snooze for three to six months, because the last thing you want to do is not reintroduce some new variations of that to test before it starts to not work anymore. Either that audience is going to get tapped out, or the language, like the lingo of the space, is going to change, or people’s needs change, right? Your target ICPs needs, what they really, really, really want, will change, depending on the economy, depending on the time of year, even sometimes, right, like slower months. Like, what do you really want in the summertime, if you run kind of a seasonal business, or if things are way slower for you, if your target ICP is way slower in the summer, like, you know, changing the tagline to, we can help you do accomplish this ideal outcome in the slow months is really compelling, right? So you want to proactively do it. You don’t just want to do this when things stop working like anything else in business.

Christian Klepp  22:30

Absolutely, absolutely. Max. I’m going to throw this wild card out there, because you brought it up a couple of times now, so I’m seeing a bit of a pattern, right? And it’s on the question of technology, right? You’ve mentioned a couple of platforms or software that people can use. And I think where I’m going with this question is, do you feel sometimes that there are B2B marketers and B2B companies out there that get so either inundated or seduced by that technology that they let the technology take over instead of actually doing good marketing, right. So what are your thoughts on that? Like, what’s the fine line between good marketing and actually using the technology to support that marketing?

Marketing Max  23:09

I don’t think people, you know, to use the word lazy again. I don’t think people get lazy because they rely on technology too much. I don’t think that’s it at all. I think people think marketing is easier than it is regardless of the technology they use, regardless of their industry, their product, their service. There’s this very famous quote, and I forget who said it, and I don’t even remember the exact words of it, but it was basically like first time entrepreneurs spend 80% of their budget on product and 20% of their budget on marketing. Second time, entrepreneurs spend 80% of their budget on marketing and 20% of their budget on product. Marketing is just way more difficult than people think. Whether you’re a marketer or you’re an entrepreneur who came up with the idea and is running the company, you think that everyone wants what you have to sell, because either A. you wanted it, so you went out and created it, or they sold you, that people want this product in the job interview, and the 50,000 people that use it, or the 500 people that use it, or the five clients, or whatever it is, indicates to you that people want this. So you just think, Oh, we just have to go tell more people that it exists. And they’ll, they’ll show up. That’s not how it works. That’s not how it works at all. If you build it, and they will come the famous line from Field of Dreams, that great movie, really, really, really great movie is the epitome of the trap that entrepreneurs and marketers fall into. They think just by introducing the product or service to people, they’re gonna go, Oh my God, I need this. I want this. Because either, again, either A they had it, they had that need and they found it, or the proof that other people are buying this, more people want it. But once you escape that first cohort, that first kind of early adopter group of customers who truly do want it just because it exists, which is very small and very rare, marketing is a huge uphill battle. It’s a huge challenge. And how do you make it easier? You go back to those three things that I said. You figure out the carrot, aka the outcome that they want most, and you never stop jamming that carrot down people’s throats. I know it sounds a little aggressive, but that’s just what it is. Every, every, every huge company, every successful company does this. You might not see it, but Salesforces at every single important conference, they’re running ads on LinkedIn all the time. They’re spending jillions of dollars on Google. They might not show up in your world, but they show up multiple times to the people that they know will make the decision to purchase Salesforce’s software. Geico on the consumer side, right? I use that example all the time, just because it’s the easiest, because everyone who has ever watched TV knows GEICO is all over TV, right? But it works in B2B too. It 100% works in B2B too I mean, I had a Facebook and Google Ads agency that I sold two years ago, built it up to, you know, seven figures in revenue, 15 full time people. And very small to a lot of people, big to some, but very, very small to a lot of people. But you know, the difference between the agencies that make a million dollars a year or millions of dollars a year versus the ones that don’t, are the ones that spend money on marketing. They’re the ones that spend on ads and that go to conferences, versus the agencies that got up to 50k a month in revenue, or 100k a month in revenue, and get it all in the back of referrals and say, well, I’ll just keep growing in the back of referrals, I’m too afraid to spend money on marketing, right? The ones that grow the most are everywhere to their target customers. They sponsor events, they run ads, they’re on podcasts. They host podcasts, they do cold email, not just once, but they follow up on LinkedIn, and then over text, and then, I mean, it’s, it’s just non stop on purpose, because that’s how it works. That’s how it works.

Christian Klepp  24:08

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. On that point, I had a follow up question for you, and you probably get this all the time, but I would imagine in SaaS and even in B2B Tech, Why do you think that there’s still this hesitation for people to invest in marketing like you probably still talk to people that are like, yeah, yeah, I know, but what if we don’t generate the right results, or the results that we’re expecting? So what do you say to those people that have those doubts?

Marketing Max  27:43

What’s your other choice? That’s my answer.

Christian Klepp  27:55

Right, right, growing on the back of referrals, to your earlier point, which is not sustainable in the long run.

Christian Klepp  28:02

Fair enough. Fair enough.

Marketing Max  28:02

Yeah, you have to take risks, but I can’t afford to, but I can’t afford to, then don’t, then get out of the game. You have to take risks. The analogy I’m using a lot these days is, you know, I’m a big sports guy. Love the NBA, the NFL I’m a golfer, so obviously I love golf, but in team sports, if you’re the owner of a basketball team, right, in order to get the best talent on your team, you need to not only pay them a ton of money, but you need to guarantee them that they will get that money even if they get injured. That’s a risk. That’s a huge risk. LeBron is making $55 million a year. If LeBron gets injured, you still have to pay him, but that’s just being in the league. That’s just being in the game. Marketing is the same way. Maybe you can’t spend $55 million okay, but let’s take smaller risks. Take smaller risks.

Marketing Max  28:12

You have to take risks to be in the game, or you’re never going to make the playoffs. People aren’t going to come to watch your team. You’re going to lose money. My grandfather was an entrepreneur. He’s the single reason why I’m an entrepreneur. He came to this country with a few dollars in his pocket and was a serial entrepreneur. Some successes, some major failures, some successes. And he had a hat in his office that I have now in my office. He passed away. He has a hat in his office that says, You got to spend money to make money.

Christian Klepp  29:49

Absolutely.

Marketing Max  29:50

I had to blow $30,000 of my own money on Facebook ads before I found the right ad, showing to the right audience, dropping off on the right landing page with the right offer for my ad agency before I was able to acquire clients for like two grand, all in. Two to three grand, all in. $2600 or whatever, fluctuate around there, but let’s say two to three grand. But once I cracked it, I was able to acquire a client, let’s say for $2500 bucks. And the value of that client for me was upwards of $50,000 so I spent $30,000. I got to a point where I can spend $25,000 and make $50,000. So all I needed was, like, literally, one or two clients to repay back the 30k that I had to spend. What I have kept going at 100k and just burning before I found the right ad and the right everything? No, of course not. There’s thresholds. But you got to spend money to make money. You got to waste money, truly. And my wife, super positive, will always say, it’s not a waste. You’re learning, but you got to light some money on fire to start the fire. You know, you know you need some. You need some, whether they call it Kim Tim, not timber, kindling, kindling. You need some kindling. No, yeah, you need, you need, you need it. And it’s got to be money. And if you don’t have any money, if you’re listening to this, you’re like, Max, I have $0, then it’s your time. Then you need to study how to create viral LinkedIn posts. You need to study, excuse me, how to write the best cold email on planet earth. Because you’re either buying people’s attention with money or with your time. And the only way to grow your business and to market your business is getting in front of people, getting people’s attention. You’re either doing that with money or time. Money, aka ads, influencer partnerships, whatever. Time meaning, creating content, networking, events, relationship building, writing the best Twitter post you can possibly Imagine, and then networking with people so that they retweet you. You buy people’s attention with time and money. Yeah, that’s marketing.

Christian Klepp  31:35

There’s many ways to do it. There’s many ways to do it. So marketing Max, you’ve been, I think you’ve been on your soapbox all this time, but I’d like to politely ask you to stay up there a while longer.

Marketing Max  32:22

I don’t like being on the soapbox, but okay,

Christian Klepp  32:25

A status quo that you passionately disagree with and why?

Marketing Max  32:29

I think we kind of touched on it. I think it’s like, if you build it, they will come. I think you really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really need to buy people’s attention with time or with money. You know, you can’t just get in front of people and hope that they purchase your product. You have to get in front of them and give them something compelling that makes them intrigued enough to double click, to zoom in, to get in contact. So many people, so many people, so many people I meet. It’s like, man, you know, word of mouth, we’re growing like wildfire. It’s like, that’s going to stop at some point unless you have a viral product, there’s, you know, viral nature in it, yeah, yeah. The other thing, totally unrelated, is less of like a marketing not true. What was the term, again? Status quo? Yeah. Status quo, another thing I talk about a lot, and that I believe very aggressively, and I don’t even think people like believe this, but I think it’s just the status quo. Your website is a living, breathing thing. The status quo, to use that term, is you spend 2 to 20 grand on someone to build your website, and then you never touch it or you update it with some features, you need to be constantly analyzing the data of where traffic is coming from, where people are clicking, what pages people are clicking to. When you really start to analyze the data of how people are interacting with your website, you’ll start to see some insane patterns. Sometimes I’ve found with clients like all of the people that convert check out one particular like breakdown of the features pages, or of the about us page, or of the like case studies page, before they actually convert. So it’s like, man, people are dying for this content, and once we show them this content, they convert. So how can we bring this content on the homepage? How can we take this content and put it in our retargeting ads? Like there’s a treasure trove of data inside of the data for your website’s user behavior. Your website’s a living, breathing thing. You need to be constantly updating it, analyzing it, checking it, testing call to actions, testing button, colors, testing headlines, testing pictures, text, testing backgrounds. It’s the easiest and best way by far to move the needle for your company. It’s to AB test your landing page or AB test your homepage, understand the data, see what’s converting, and then iterate from there. That is, by far and away, the number one thing that will have the biggest impact on revenue that you could do today. It’s not running Facebook ads. It’s not the $5 day retargeting ad. It’s thinking about your website as a living, breathing thing. If more brands spent as much time energy and money on AB testing their website as they do AB testing their their ad creative like on Facebook ads, we’d all be a lot richer.

Christian Klepp  32:34

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, two more questions for you and I will you go. Here comes the bonus question, if you had a superpower, what would you choose and why?

Marketing Max  35:54

I’ve always really wanted to fly. That’s always been my my superpower. I think also, like, under the business context, if I really had to choose, and I got time to think about it, I’d probably choose reading people’s minds. I would love to get on a service call and just know that this person is just, like, not paying attention to me at all. Yeah. But my favorite superhero is Iron Man, just because he’s…, because Robert Downey Jr is awesome, and because he’s rich and super cool and fights off bad guys with technology and not like bats, right? And spiders.

Christian Klepp  36:34

Spiders, yeah, fair enough.

Marketing Max  36:37

I choose Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow over Toby McGuire and spiders any day.

Christian Klepp  36:50

Hey, fair enough, man, fair enough.

Marketing Max  36:51

I don’t love spiders or bats. Honestly, I’ve seen them up close, and they’re very weird.

Christian Klepp  36:55

Yeah, yeah. I hear you. I hear you. Wow. Marketing Max. This has been an awesome conversation. So thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. Please, quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Marketing Max  37:13

Yeah, intro for me. My name is Marketing Max. I spend most of my time on Twitter. So if you have any questions or anything that I spoke about today, or want help with your marketing, feel free to DM me on Twitter @marketingmax, or check out marketingmax.io. You can get in touch with me there. Yeah, I run a portfolio of marketing businesses. I run a couple different agencies, a couple different software businesses, media company. So I’m just a full stack marketer trying to help companies grow and scale with less stress and less headache and less budget. So thanks for having me on the show.

Christian Klepp  37:47

Fantastic. Fantastic. A marketing renaissance man of sorts, if you will.

Marketing Max  37:54

I like that better than the soapbox thing you said I was on earlier. But yeah, I guess I always think of renaissance man like sitting in a dark room smoking cigars, like, oh, hanging out being mysterious. I’ll take that. I’ll take all right.

Christian Klepp  38:13

Marketing Max, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Marketing Max  38:17

Thanks for having me see you guys on Twitter.

Christian Klepp  38:19

Bye for now.

How B2B Marketers Can Leverage Networking for Success

There are several misconceptions about networking out there, but it truly is a missed opportunity for many in the B2B space. When done right, empowered B2B marketers and professionals can build influential networks and businesses based on genuine connections and community support.

That’s why we’re talking to master B2B networker Donnie Boivin (CEO, Success Champion Networking) about how B2B marketers and other professionals can harness the power of networking for growth. During our conversation, Donnie highlighted why most networking falls flat, what pitfalls to avoid, and the importance of having a networking and follow-up strategy.

https://youtu.be/NQxdNBLm3vU

Topics discussed in episode

Companies and links mentioned

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Donnie Boivin

Christian Klepp  00:03

Welcome to B2B Marketers on a Mission, a podcast for changemakers, where we question the conventional, debunk marketing myths, provide actionable tips, think differently, disrupt the industries, and take your marketing to a new level, from improving your campaigns to making you a better marketer. These are the inspirational stories that will help us change the way we think and approach B2B marketing, one conversation at a time. This podcast is brought to you by EINBLICK Consulting, helping you to stand out in the market and drive revenue to your B2B business. And now your host, Christian Klepp. Welcome, everyone to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission. This is the show where we help you to question the conventional, think differently, disrupt your industry and take your marketing to new heights. This is your host Christian Klepp. And today, I’m joined by someone on a mission to create B2B networking experiences that connect you with your ideal clients. So Mr. Donnie Boivin. Welcome to the show, sir.

Donnie Boivin  01:03

Hey, Christian, thanks for having me on. A couple of conversations we’ve had in the past… I am looking forward to this one, it would be a fun conversation.

Christian Klepp  01:10

Absolutely, absolutely. And like I said before we hit record, I think this is such a pertinent topic, not just to B2B marketers, but to people in general that are attempting to put themselves out there, build their network, build their businesses, and, you know, leverage, something that’s existing or even new. So, you know, why don’t we just jump right into it and get this party started? What do you think?

Donnie Boivin  01:32

Yeah, for sure, man, just, you know, from my perspective, networking is such a key fundamental skill that people have got to have. And I think a lot of people don’t understand what networking is, how to use it, what to use it for. So, you know, we can chase down all those rabbit holes and have some fun with it.

Christian Klepp  01:51

Let’s do that. So why don’t we kick off with this one. You’ve been on a mission to deliver, I love this one, networking experiences that don’t suck, for B2B. So if we’re gonna try to narrow down that topic, and this is going to be a handful, so bear with me here. But the topic is how to empower B2B professionals to build influential networks and businesses based on genuine connections and community support. So if we’re going to start off this conversation, let’s start off with two questions. And I’m happy to repeat. One is why should B2B marketers care about this? And number two, where do you think most networking falls flat?

Donnie Boivin  02:33

Great stuff. So I’m gonna answer both of those. But first, I wanted to define networking, because I think people just don’t understand what networking really, really is. And just so your listeners know, I look at networking completely different. And I tend to try and flip networking on its head for people. So for me networking, by definition, in a business development role, we’ll come at it from that perspective, is building other people’s companies. Most times, if you’re selling B2B, your clients are bigger companies, right? Like, you may not be doing a million dollar business, but your clients are likely to do, you know, a million $20 million plus in revenue. And if you’re selling to companies at that level, guess what, they’re not out networking. They are not at your after hours, they’re not at your breakfast meetings, you know, they are doing all kinds of things that are not traditionally networking in nature. So if we understand that networking is about building other people’s businesses, then we have to come at networking from a completely different perspective. What people tend to think networking is, is that happy hour, going to a conference, a trade show, right? All these things going maybe to a weekly meeting type thing, all this stuff. And they come at it from a perspective of I do networking to find clients. Well, it’s a surefire way to lose, because as I said, your clients, they’re not out there, right. They’re not sitting in those places. So if they’re not sitting in those places, what a heck should you go to those places, and it’s really, really simple. Because everybody who is networking, they’re usually in the same size business you are, selling to those same type of clientele that you’re trying to get to, right. But you’re not going to meet somebody at an after hours or at a breakfast or lunch, whatever else. And they’re not going to instantly say Oh, my God, I’ve been looking for a marketing company my entire life, where have you been, let me give you all my clients. Like it just doesn’t happen. So we have to understand that we’ve got to learn to leverage our network to actually get into their network. And to do that I’ve got to grow their business in a way I grow their business is through introductions and referrals.

I think we have to define what an introduction and referral is. An introduction is let’s just introduce two good people and put them together. You don’t know what’s going to come out of it. Maybe it’s a good collaboration, maybe It’s a good conversation. You know, maybe they do workshops or conference together, who knows. But a referral is the introduction with a sales call expected. So what I mean by that is, somebody’s come to you says they’re looking for XYZ services. And you say, I got a guy. I know who I can introduce you to, and you introduce them to them. So the basis for everything that I teach and the philosophy is understanding that you’re not networking to find clients, you’re networking to get introduced to people that have your client base, open doors for them, build their business, so then you can grab opportunities to have doors open for you. I don’t know if I fully answered both of your questions. But that’s a good foundation from start to sail off.

Christian Klepp  05:48

Yes, you have answered my question. And I’m gonna follow that up with two questions. Right. So number one, I’ll start with the devil’s advocate question first. What do you say to those doubters that push back on that and say, well, we get all that Donnie, but man, that takes a lot of time. That takes a lot of time and effort, and we need to hit those numbers, we need that quota right now. What do you say to those people?

Donnie Boivin  06:12

Everything takes time. There is no overnight plan, there is no shortcut to anything. And I’ll tell you, every time you try and find the shortcut, every time you’re trying to find a hack, every time you try and find the workaround, you’re just costing yourself the opportunity to learn what’s actually going to move your business forward. What people don’t understand, is we’re naturally wired to find the shortcut. And it’s just almost in our DNA. If we go play games, we look for the cheat codes, if we, you know, I don’t know, play Madden, we want to find that one trick play that always works. So we’re always trying to do these quick workarounds. And every time we do that, we literally cost ourselves. So instead of being like playing Madden, and looking for that one trick play, put Madden on the hardest damn setting and play it over and over again until you figure out how to play it. Right? It’s the same thing. It’s just like marketing. Like if somebody comes in buys marketing services with you, and they’re like, man, I’ve got to get deals right now. I’ve got to get numbers coming in right now. I want those marketers to tell me, what marketing can I do that instantly puts clients saying yes, to me, and I’m printing cash. Right? And they don’t have that answer. It’s the same thing here. Right. So to understand that this is all a long game. And the faster you wrap your head around this, the faster this will work for you. Now, I can 100% say that if you got into your head that I can leverage the network to get introduced the people I need to get introduced to. So like for marketers, potentially a good referral partner for them, could be you know, fractional CMOs, it could be PR firms, right? It could be other extremely, really large ad agencies that don’t want to pick up a little bit work, right? It could be a plethora of people. If you understand this, anybody you get introduced to, you can ask to be introduced to somebody that has all your client base. And if you can do that, then you’re going to find miraculously that you get enough of the right introduction. So enough of the right conversations, and people are going to open up the right doors for you. So for instance, I had a young lady mid… sometime around June last year come to me and said, you know, she was very, very frustrated because nobody would give her referrals. And we talked through what a referral actually was. And she said that’s what she was looking for. And interestingly enough, I said, Okay, walk me through, what’s your business? And she said, I do tuition assistance for people trying to put their kids through college. And I laughed, and I said, Well, you understand why you’re not getting referrals, don’t you? And she said, No. And I said, it’s because nobody wants to admit that they don’t have enough money set aside to send your kids college. Right. Nobody wants to have that conversation. I said, but somebody is intimately having that conversation with those families on a regular basis. I said, so if you were to look at all your industries, who sent you the most referrals, what industry specifically? And she didn’t skip a beat, she said bookkeepers? I said, Well, that makes sense. Right? bookkeepers are constantly in there talking about money. I said, so here’s what I want you to do. I said, I want you to go out and network and I say, Hey, I do tuition assistance for families trying to put their kids in college. And I’d love to meet your bookkeeper. And she goes, Well, that’s really simple. I said, Yeah, what happens if you met 100 bookkeepers before the end of the year? She goes, oh my god, it would change my business, when in fact it did because three weeks before the end of the year she called me up and said Donnie, you’re not going to believe this. I tripled my business and actually had to tell people to stop introduce me to bookkeepers, because about every second or third bookkeeper, had already made client for me. And it works the same way in marketing is you just got to understand who’s got my clientele, and how can I leverage these people I’m talking to, to get connected to them. So now we can go talk about what collaboration between the two of us looks like, you know, how can we partner up? Right? How can we open doors? And if you understand this philosophy, it’s transformational for your business, and how he’s going to push it forward. So, yeah, instant success. Not a thing.

Christian Klepp  10:16

Absolutely, absolutely. It almost sounds like marketing 101, understand your target audience, understand where they’re at. But yeah, you’re absolutely right like that. A lot of people go down a really long path or the wrong path, I should say, and we can get into that in a second. But here comes the second follow up question. And you probably know this better than most, how is the networking landscape evolved? And why should people be paying attention to that?

Donnie Boivin  10:41

Yeah, a couple of things. You know, there’s an organization, just from the business landscape like BNI, you know, everybody’s run across them, great company, they’ve put the name, you know, networking on the map. Monsters, as far as number of members, and they, you know, kind of set the tone and pace for what networking was going to look like in the marketplace. What they went for was market share, right, and they didn’t care about who particularly came into their network. So it’s not a bad thing. It was a great business move, if you’re B2C, BNI is a phenomenal place to be. But if we look at where networking and how it was created and started. Networking, the way we know it, was created by even Ivan Misner, founder of BNI. And all your networking, all of it was created on the back of I don’t want to cold call. I don’t want to kick in doors. So there’s got to be an alternative to get clients and insert networking. Like Ivan Misner’s story is he lost his biggest client, created networking groups, right? You know, in almost every networking organization on the planet, it’s founded this way. But if we go further down, we think about, okay, cool. Who is, you know, literally, you know, teaching networking. Historically, everybody who’s taught networking over the years has been transactional in nature. They were a financial advisor, they were an insurance agent. They were a realtor, and I’m not knocking on those industries. But transactional networking is the idea where, and I’ll tell you this is not true, but it always is the case. But transactional networking is where everybody can say yes to you, like whatever you sell, everybody come by. So this is very much a B2C type world, because in B2C, if I sell a house, I can sell a house to anybody. If I sell financial advisory services, I can sell that to anybody. If I sell whatever MLM craps out there, I can sell that to anybody. So if we understand that networking was taught in a very transactional nature, even though they said, you know, you’re not supposed to sell your network and everything else, everybody does. And so traditional networking sees everybody go into a room, and everybody’s looking at everybody else going, please God, can you say yes to me, because I need the business, right, to really enact a desperation. Where networking really started to evolve, of course, when COVID hit, and everything went online, where the scale really tipped was, now you go, and you take traditional formats of networking, into an online space, and they don’t work. Because nobody wants to sit around and watch 45 minutes of people talking about what they do. I mean, you’ll watch cameras get turned off, you watch people not interacting, right. And it’s also not an environment where you’re going into a happy hour. And there’s, you know, different people, you can just walk up to and say hi. It’s a very capsuled way to do things. So we took that, that idea, and we created virtual groups around multiple meeting types and everything else to really shake it up. The interesting play that’s going to happen in the future, is with the continued advancement of AI and how it’s coming to come into place. One of the things that we’re absolutely watching is the World of Warcraft kind of style of business going to be a real thing, like am I gonna go to be able to create my own avatar, right, go to a virtual conference of some sort, and this is already out there. It’s already built. You know, I’m just watching to see if it really takes hold. Because it’s very much early adopter stage. You know, but most people that are networking are actually introverts, because a lot of your extroverted, you know, type salespeople in a business development role. They’re not networking, they’re the ones cold calling, kicking in doors, yada, yada, yada. So you got more introverts. Now you put introverts in a space where they can be a freakin purple dragon, and, you know, go to an event, you remove a lot of the traditional barriers that kick their butt when they’re trying to do any sort of networking. So it’s gonna be fascinating to see how it continued plays out over the years, but there’s a lot more to it, but that’ll give you at least a good you know, journey of it.

Christian Klepp  14:59

Yeah. absolutely. That’s incredibly interesting. I would be curious to see where, where they take it to next in terms of AI and whatnot with that kind of technology. But some of the things that you’ve brought up in the past couple of minutes. It’s such a great segue into the next question about common pitfalls, specifically with networking that B2B marketers should avoid.

Donnie Boivin  15:22

Yeah, I got two huge ones that drive me nuts. One is why the hell do you have business cards? So business cards, they’re just unwarranted in this day and age. And I don’t know a good solution. I mean I don’t know, a good reason, not solution, why anybody carries a business card. We’re all using LinkedIn, especially if you’re in the B2B game, right? So if somebody wants to connect, open up your phone, hit the search bar, hit that little doodads, your QR code pops up, connect on LinkedIn. And look, let’s be honest, you collect a bunch of business cards anywhere you go, what are you gonna do with them, you’re not going to put them in your CRM, you’re not going to scan the damn things in, they’re just gonna become a cluster pile on your desk. So what I’ll tell everybody is not carrying a business card is one of the most brilliant ways to quickly filter who you want to talk to and follow up with. So like Christian, like if you and I are out networking, and I’m like, Man, Christian’s the guy I really want to follow up and talk to with, and Christian goes, Hey, I want your business card, I’m gonna look and say, you know what, do this, give me your cell phone number, I’ll text you my information. And then you know, we’ll have each other stuff, right. Because a cell phone, there’s nothing greater than having somebody’s cell phone. Right. It is like the strongest thing in the world that you could have. So after I had sent you a text with my information, get your information, your phone, I’m gonna say, you know what, Christian, if we keep talking like this, we’re going to end up into some sort of business type conversation. Let’s go schedule a zoom. And then I’ll text him a link straight to my calendar. Right? So we can go grab a time, and then I’m gonna get out of the conversation, right? Because if you stay in that conversation much longer than that, somebody’s getting pitched. It’s unintentional. It’s a nervous tic, right? So we’re gonna get out of that conversation.

Donnie Boivin  17:07

The second thing that people need to get away with, and it’s my other biggest phob…, just hate it… is get rid of the stupid elevator pitch. Nobody gives a damn what you do, especially in the B2B game. I want you to listen and to really think about this. Have they ever gone to a B2B networking event in general, walked up to somebody and said, Hey, what do you do? And whatever their answer was, they’re like, Oh, my God, I’ve been looking for your services forever, right? It may happen, but very, very, very rarely, if it ever does. All you got to do is tell people in simple black and light language, what you do. After you tell them what they do, tell them specifically who you’re looking to meet at that event at that night, you know, where you’re out. So it’s, Hey, I do marketing for XYZ type companies. I’d love to meet anybody, you know, connected to marketing, PR, copywriting websites, anybody that touches that side of realm of things. And what’s fascinating, is what you do doesn’t matter. Because the people that are out there networking, they’re networking, they’re not, you know, they’re hoping you’ll say yes to whatever the hell they’re selling, right? That’s just the way they’re looking at it. So if we get rid of the pitch, and understand I’m here to grow their business, I’m going to tell them quickly who I’m trying to meet. And then I’m gonna flip the script as fast as I possibly can. Right? Because it’s networking, we’re gonna run into each other again, right? It’s not like we’re going to be a one time see and never see you again. So I’m going to say, Hey, I’m Donnie. I run B2B networking groups all throughout the world. I’m looking to meet people, people that have business communities and podcasts. And then I’m gonna immediately say, Tell me about your role. How did you get into what you do? And I’m gonna kick it off me as fast as possible. And how did you get into what you do is one of the greatest questions you can start off with to get people really connecting with you. But yeah, those my two biggest thing, get rid of the pitch, get rid of the business cards. And you’ll get a lot further in your conversations.

Christian Klepp  19:08

Absolutely, absolutely. No, those two points really resonated with me, because it was one of the things that frustrated me in the beginning. And now I realized, like, yeah, you know what, I actually don’t want people’s business cards anymore. Just connect on LinkedIn. And that’s it. Right? And to your second point, I’ve hated elevator pitches from the get go. So I’m kind of glad that they’re eventually like fading into the ether.

Donnie Boivin  19:32

There’s some organizations going to keep them forever. Like, I’ll go to LinkedIn, and say, you know, guys, stop the elevator pitches, and there’s elevator pitch coaches out there. And they come at me every time. It’s the funniest thing in the world. But if you need a jingle in the backend of what you do is because what you sell sucks.

Christian Klepp  19:49

Yup absolutely. And let’s be honest, how much can you really pitch to these people or tell these people within those 30 to 60 seconds? Yeah, I mean… correct me if I’m wrong, but then the elevator pitch like… wasn’t it  developed because of cold calling like because you know, you only have…

Donnie Boivin  20:06

It was actually developed because of the elevator ride. So people were in these big cities, and they would find themselves on an elevator with somebody, and you got, you got like 10 floors or whatever to, you know, somebody asked what you do, then the frickin sales guys got a hold of it. That’s what it really evolved from the cold calls and whatnot. That’s where it got… Is bastardized bad word? I don’t know. But it got destroyed at that point. Because of, once salespeople get it, we’re gonna screw it all up and destroy it, and try and make it some sort of tactic or skill to convince you that, oh, my god, you need us.

Christian Klepp  20:06

You kind of alluded to it earlier. But why do you think it’s important for folks that have a networking strategy, and not just wing it.

Donnie Boivin  20:57

Because if you don’t calculate an ROI on every bit of activity you do, and marketers, you guys shouldn’t know this. Like, if you can’t put an ROI to it, you can’t look at the metrics, how to hell do you even know if it’s actually working? Right. So… and ROI has got to be defined as well. ROI does not always mean return on money, right? It can be money, time, opportunity, you know, information, like I’ve gone to events, just to figure out where a certain individual is going to be, right, or I’ve gone to events to figure out other events I needed to go to, you know, and different things. So you have to define what ROI is for all of this. And when you look at networking most times, most people because they don’t look at it as a business development tool. They don’t know how to effectively track everything that works. So that would be like sending out an email campaign, and not looking at the open rate. And you know, the accepted rates and all that like. It’s like sending out a postcard and not having any sort of QR code or some trackable mechanism on there to know if it’s working. Networking is going to be done the same exact way. So when you think about networking, like if you got a group of business development folks, or you’re going yourself, and I think, okay, I’m going to this after hours, what am I going to accomplish here, and it needs to go through your head, I need to set two appointments, not with clients. If the clients happen to be there, cool. But I need to set two appointments with strategic referral partners, people that can open doors for me, if I’m going to a trade show is… okay, if it’s a one day trade show, how do I set two appointments here? If it’s a trade show, that would be with the prospects. You know, if I’m going to a conference, can I set up a referral, you know, conversation while I’m there can you know everything’s got to have a trackable ROI. And all the way down to where we we look at networking as a whole, based on two solid parameters. How many introductions do I have to give before I get an introduction? And how many referrals do I have to give before I get a referral? Based off of that activity, I can tell a lot about how or what the things I have to maintain and do on a regular basis to keep my business coming in and get me into enough of the right conversations. So you can’t wing it networking. This. Just like marketing. It’s the same principle, same philosophy.

Christian Klepp  23:36

Absolutely. You brought up something and I’d like to go back to it. Following up. They do say that the fortunes in the follow up or whatever it is, um, what would you suggest to folks out there that are listening to the conversation like what’s the right way to follow up? Because certainly spamming the living crap out of people you met at a conference is not the way to go.

Donnie Boivin  23:58

Here’s what I’ll tell you. Everybody sucks at follow up. And you know, people have asked me all the time, well, how long do you wait to follow up with somebody after a conference or something. And my answer is very simple. Set the appointments at the event, so you don’t have to worry about the follow up. So, I’m just… let’s get the action done now. And this is what I tell you. Most times your clients aren’t networking. The difference being like maybe if you’re going to trade shows and stuff, they might be there. But either way, nobody wants to be the greaseball sales guy, right? So and that’s what following up usually feels like is that really greaseball sales maneuver. So if that’s the case, we have to start looking at it from okay, if I’m not gonna follow up, then I have to take action right now to get into a conversation. So I’m having a dynamic conversation with somebody and it makes sense that have a second conversation. They’ve got their calendars sitting right there in their hands. I’m gonna take them right then and there and go, Hey, you know, let’s do this. I’d love to continue this conversation, can we grab the zoom? Or maybe lunch, coffee, cocktail, whatever, and continue this conversation? And most times, people will go, yeah, for sure. Let’s do that. And I’ve done this with Mom and Pop companies all the way up to heavy decision makers and fortune 5s. If the conversation and the mood is right, they will almost always say yes. Right? If they say no, it’s because you are seeing a different part of the conversation than they are. But if you have to follow up, I’m of the firm belief that you need to be the first person to follow up because you know why? Because nobody else is going to, because everybody else sucks at the game. So it’s as soon as you get back to your hotel room. As soon as you get back to your office. As soon as you get home from that conference tradeshow. First thing you do is you shoot them a message. And the message needs to first remind them who you are. Remind them what you talked about, ask for some sort of next step. Right? Of where do we go from here. And then if you have a drip campaign, you have someplace, you know, you can put them off to the side and go, cool. Put them in a sequence, a series of emails, that takes them on a journey and path, right. But if you come hit them every email with Well, we do XYZ, the best of everybody, you know, you buy my crap now and all that stuff, you’re just gonna get lost in the sauce. Right? Remember, desperation smells, and everybody knows it. Right? So you know, keep it simple, but think through it like a marketer should. And what is my follow up campaign for these individuals. And you can’t send just the same generic crap to everybody, either, right? You’ve got to personalize and think about this way, if every one of these people you’re talking to can either introduce you to your ideal client, or they are your ideal client, right? There’s a lot of zeros on the back end of that conversation that that potential person is worth to you. You need to treat them like so. And if you don’t want to treat them like so, then why are you in the game in the first place? Right. So it’s, I suck at follow up. So I get it done right out of the gate.

Christian Klepp  27:23

Absolutely, absolutely. No, I love that. Well, desperation smells. And boy, is that true. But like, it’s to your point that you brought up earlier, it’s really a balance of timing, finesse. And there’s a bit of an art and science to it, right? Because of course you want to get them to a yes. Or you want to get them to a “sure, let’s jump on a call” or what have you. But there’s got to be a lot of these factors in between that help massage the… I always say massage the message a little bit instead of like, you know, Hey, Donnie, we’re gonna get on call. And you know, we work with companies from A to Z. And I’ve worked with dropping all these names of people you’ve never heard of, right? I mean, we get them all the time. And I just don’t understand why people don’t evolve because that stuff didn’t work before. And it sure as heck doesn’t work now.

Donnie Boivin  28:09

It does work, if you have a massive volume, right? If you’re going for volume, that stuff works. If you have a million contacts, you’re gonna capture a percentage of those contacts. But most of us don’t have a million contacts, right? We’re sitting on a list of a couple thousand people, we can’t blow that list, you know, and destroy the people we have in there, we got to nurture the hell out of them.

Christian Klepp  28:33

Absolutely. You brought this up a couple of minutes ago, but like how do B2B marketers get buy in from somebody up high for something like networking? Because you know, they get things thrown at them, like ROI questions and what have you. So what do they need to do?

Donnie Boivin  28:48

So they need to go into the conversation. One with a predetermined, this is how we’re going to track the success of this. So these are my key performance indicators. These are my metrics, my KPIs that I’m going to measure for this. So what happens to most people is they hear about networking, and they’re like, You know what, I’m gonna go to a couple of happy hours, I’m gonna go to this association and this thing, and they go into it. And because you can’t get immediate returns on it, you know, they’ll just tell your boss, hey, I’m going. Boss goes, Hey, what you get from that? And they’re like, nothing. They’re like, Okay, you’re not doing that anymore. Well, of course you didn’t getting nothing. Nobody does business, especially in a B2B game in the first conversation, right? It’s gonna take a couple of conversations, you know, and oftentimes, you got to see somebody multiple times at multiple events, before you’ll even be willing to have that second conversation with them, right? Because in B2B, things take time. This is not B to C, where anybody can immediately say yes to you. This is B2B and you can’t look at it as I go to event. I find a client. I go home right. It doesn’t work that way. So determine what your metrics are, of what makes it successful for you. So you can look at going to after hours and say, okay, my goal, higher up boss, whatever is I’m going to go this after hours, I’m going to attempt to set two events, you know, two meetings out there, I’m gonna try and find a couple of strategic referral partners, from those strategic referral partners, I’m going to try and get them introduced to a couple of people. And hopefully, I get introduced to a couple of really good people, right? And then you track the metrics of those things. But if you just go to a boss and say, Hey, I’m going to network, they’re gonna look at you like, you got two damn heads, right? Most times, because they don’t understand networking. They are introverted. So the idea of going around a bunch of other people is scary as hell, right? So you have to come at them. And it’s almost like doing… I’ve always said, there’s two sales in every sale, sale number one is gonna go get client. Sale number two, is you got to sell your company on taking care of that client, it’s the same thing for networking, you got to sell, you know, let me find the networks and number two, you gotta sell your company on letting you go to the network. And then it’s your job to buy you time, because networking does take time. So and if you’re a higher up trying to get your people that work for you, you know, network, then you need to buy them time. Like if you’re gonna join an association, if 6 months to a year, 18 months before you’re gonna see an ROI on that. Right. And you need to go into that expecting. You also need to tell your higher ups. I’m gonna go join Association. We’re playing for year two, we’re not playing for year one.

Christian Klepp  31:35

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And you brought it up earlier, but it’s also… there’s a heck of a lot of nurturing going on here too.

Donnie Boivin  31:54

Yes. Right. Yes. Yeah. You know, it’s B2B networking. If people are networking, then they network, they’re not cold calling. So networking is likely their top strategy to do business development, you’re gonna see them again. And think about it, you go to an event the first time, you walk in, you don’t know anybody. Yeah, it’s awkward. It’s even for an extroverted guy like me, you know, I’m more situationally extroverted. But, you know, it’s just weird that first time you walk in, there’s a lot of figuring people out, there’s men sizing each other up, there’s all the stupid things that are happening, right, you know, pissing contest, if you will, all that stuff that happens. So, you know, you go back to the second time, and you might bump into somebody you met the first time but by the third, fourth time, people start seeing you, they start recognizing you, it becomes a lot easier, and you’ll come more and more out of your shell. And over time, people will be more interested in what you do. And you know, everything we do, tells a story. This is personal branding 101. So how we show up, how we talk to others, what we do for other people all tell people, are we somebody that they can trust? Are we somebody they can approach? And the more you do the right things over time, the more your personal brand develops, and that’s when the real opportunities come to the table. You know, it’s over time doing the right things on a regular basis.

Christian Klepp  33:28

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, so we get to the part in the show where we’re talking about actionable tips, and Donnie, you’ve given us plenty. But if we’re gonna summarize it, or recap it, like and list 3 to 5 tips or things that B2B marketers can do right now, to leverage networking, what would those things be?

Donnie Boivin  33:50

So the first one is, there’s four places you got to be networking, very, very tactical. You need to have an association that is filled full of people who also sell to your ideal client. So if we go back to the gal who did tuition assistance, her finding a bookkeeper association would be like the greatest thing ever. Okay. The second place you need to be networking is you should be sitting on a nonprofit board. And the reason you sit on nonprofit boards is because if you look at nonprofits, especially the bigger that is, they’re filled with decision makers of bigger companies. So you find a nonprofit that you’re truly passionate about their mission, and then you go work with them to get on their board. Third place you need networking group like Success Champions Networking, not trying to a shameless plug here, but B2B networking groups, you need to be meeting with a group of people that are proactively invested in growing your company. The fourth place you need to be networking is a private club. So this is anywhere where somebody’s paying a private membership. And business conversations can happen so this can be a business club, Country Club, cigar iounge, wine club, I don’t care, you know, but anywhere, and if you are part of a country club, cigar lounge or something, and there’s not a business club inside of that club, create it. But if you do those four places, you’re gonna find yourself freaking just blown away at the level of people you need to meet. Two, you need to understand, people buy you then get what you sell, you need to be building a personal brand of where I mean, because let’s be honest, people are talking about you. Right, we might as well help them tell the right story. So that means you need to be doing the right things, the right activity at the right time. And opening doors for other people. Think about everybody else is at these events and things they’re looking for business, they’re trying to get things going. Be the person that knows everybody in the room and can open up all those right doors. And watch what happens. Three, understand that your clientele are not networking, right, you’re leveraging your network to get introduced to people who have your clientele. And the more you do this, the better off you’re going to be. We call it a synergy triangle, we put you at the top, we put your favorite client in the center. And then at the bottom of that triangle, I want two industries that sell to that favorite clients industries, right, and find as many people in those industries as you possibly can. Think the bookkeeper and the tuition assistance, right? The huge combination. And then the last thing I want you to think about is if networking is the only activity you’re doing, you’re going to lose, networking alone will not build a business, you still need to be selling, you still need to be marketing, you still need to be connecting, you still need to be doing cold outreach, you still need to be doing a combination of all the regular stuff that you do to grow a business. My scariest thing that somebody tells me is their business is 100% referral based business. That means you have no control over what business comes in. And you’re literally living on the work and efforts of other people. Right, you’ve got to create an overall networking referral system, I got a whole bunch more but that’s good enough to get him started.

Christian Klepp  37:08

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Well that will get them jump started on the road to success, hopefully. Right? Just to recap, so those four places that you mentioned, that’s a good place to start building the personal brand. Clearly. The next one is, and you brought this up, I think I lost count now but at least four times during this conversation: Your ideal clients are not networking. Yeah. Right. So keeping that in mind, and I do have a follow up question for you on that one. And number four, is doing something else besides networking. Right. So it’s none of this like, Okay, we only work off of referrals, or we get all our business from, you know, through word of mouth and what have you, right. You brought it up earlier in the conversation, but I think it’s worth repeating. Just define for us, you know, from your professional perspective, what a referral actually is.

Donnie Boivin  38:04

So, a referral is an introduction with a sales call attached. So it would say I specialize in building websites. A referral for me would be Hey, Bob, I hear you’ve been looking for a website. Let me introduce you to Donnie who does websites. I’ve told him all about your company, the things I know, he’s really looking forward to meeting you. Both parties know that there’s a sales call expected. So it’d be like for me Christian, if I ran into somebody who was looking for marketing services. I’m like, have you meet my buddy Christian? Regan, I would say Christian meet so and so they do XYZ. This is our business. As we were talking, they told me some of their marketing struggles, some of the things that they were frustrated at. I told them, they should talk to you. They’re really looking forward to the conversation, right? There’s an expected sales call and that’s a referral. Everything else is an introduction. And you have to separate the two out, because it allows you to define what you’re doing for somebody. Because what most people think they’re doing as a referral is actually an introduction. And for me, I want more introductions than referrals. Because if you know, a referral oftentimes is a one and done, you know, type deal. But if I can get you introduced to the right person, it can be 1000 referrals over a lifetime. That’s where I want to be.

Christian Klepp  39:33

Fantastic. Fantastic. All right. I’m Donnie. I get the sense that you’ve been on your soapbox all this time, but please stay up there a little bit longer for this next question. A status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why.

Donnie Boivin  39:51

Yeah, so for me, there’s a couple. One, networking’s for broke people. Two, everybody thinks that networking is just a social club. And the third one is people only network because they don’t know how to sell. Right. And so, I want to go after all these, I mean, I’m a 25 years sales guy, almost 20 years spent working for other people, you can Google me doing live cold calls. And to hear both sides of the conversation, I can do all the traditional sales stuff. I look like a traditional sales guy, right, but I hate it. I don’t want to do that cold prospecting stuff. So if I’m going to network, then I’ve got to get damn good at networking, it cannot be a social club. Right? I run a multi six figure company, and it continues to grow. And I’ll tell you that when you’re out networking, most of the people sitting on the walls in networking events are decision makers in companies. They’re out there networking, because they know they need to get into conversations, they just don’t know how to pull themselves off that wall. So go rescue them off the wall. And, you know, overall, networking is a full contact sport. Like you literally have to be all in and do this right. So if you’re gonna do networking, you better study it, you better become a craft, it better becomes something that actually does business development for you, and grows your business. Otherwise, what’s the point of doing it? So if you’re not gonna get good at networking, you better get good at cold calling, you better get good at email marketing and all the other things, right? Or social media, something. You’re gonna have to get good at something, or you’re gonna constantly find yourself struggling to grow your business.

Christian Klepp  41:43

Absolutely, absolutely. I love the sports analogy, by the way. I mean, it’s almost like, it’s almost like working out, right? Like you want to, you want to get fit. And you want to have a nicely toned body. And you know, you don’t give up after three weeks if you don’t see results. So you gotta keep at it. Right?

Donnie Boivin  42:00

Yeah, 100%.

Christian Klepp  42:02

Month after month.

Donnie Boivin  42:03

I’m a firm believer though, too. And I wouldn’t be this way until this year, that if you’re not trying to work out and physically take care of your body, and I’m not the biggest dude on the planet. Like I got a long way to go to get where I want to go. But if you’re not working your body, literally you will not find success. Right, right. Even Elon Musk works out even though he doesn’t always look like it. But, you know, all the most successful people in the world have a huge fitness regimen. I think it’s a huge portion of figuring this all out.

Christian Klepp  42:39

Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Two more questions before I let you go, Donnie.

Donnie Boivin  42:44

Cool.

Christian Klepp  42:45

Here comes the bonus question. If you had a superpower, what would it be? And why?

Donnie Boivin  42:52

If I had a superpower… I probably want to fly. Man. There are just so many cool places to go and see and do and that would save me a crap ton of money on flights and everything.

Christian Klepp  43:06

Security check.

Donnie Boivin  43:07

Right. Right. I just think that would be fun. I don’t know if I can put my wife on a backpack or something and take her with me. But you know, I think that’d be cool.

Christian Klepp  43:16

Or you could hold her like this. Right?

Donnie Boivin  43:18

Right. (laugh)

Christian Klepp  43:22

Yeah, see how long that will last. But um, man, Donnie, thank you so much for coming on the show and you know, for sharing your expertise and experience of the audience. Please quick introduce yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Donnie Boivin  43:35

Well, before we do that, guys, if you’re still hanging out with us, and you got any value out of this, do me and Christian a favor and take a screenshot wherever you’re listening or watching this, go post it to social media. Tag us in there. If I see it, I promise I’ll come comment on it and engage with it. But you know, building a show takes a lot of work and trying to create that following. It’s a lot of things to do. So do Christian a favor. Take a screenshot, tag us in there. If we see it, we will come say hi. But it let him know that this is the kind of content you guys want more of and you’re more interested. As far as me, LinkedIn is the best platform to come find me so Donnie Boivin on LinkedIn. If you want to go check out our B2B networking group, successchampionnetworking.com. And if you want to come check out our summit, earmuffs really quick if you’re sensitive. It’s badassbusinesssummit.com. I didn’t cuss through this whole thing. Christian.

Christian Klepp  44:27

I’m so proud of you. Fantastic. Fantastic. Thanks so much for that shout out. That means a lot.

Donnie Boivin  44:35

Absolutely, brother.

Christian Klepp  44:37

So thanks again for coming on the show and take care, stay safe, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Donnie Boivin  44:41

Same.

Christian Klepp  44:42

Alright, bye for now.

How B2B SaaS Companies Can Position Themselves More Strategically

The B2B SaaS landscape is fraught with competitors who are essentially providing similar services and features that are difficult to distinguish from one another. Many SaaS firms are stuck in this cycle of stagnation not because their products aren’t good enough, but because they haven’t amplified their uniqueness to create exponential leverage.

That’s why we’re talking to B2B SaaS expert Ton Dobbe (Founder/Chief Inspiration Officer at Value Inspiration) about how B2B SaaS companies can become more remarkable and discover their hidden values. During our conversation, Ton talked about the pitfalls that B2B SaaS companies should avoid, how they can uncover “invisible things”, and provided some actionable tips on how they could become unique and ignite further growth.

https://youtu.be/xm_09fTflvA

Topics discussed in episode

Companies and links mentioned

SPEAKERS

Ton Dobbe, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:03

Welcome to B2B Marketers on a Mission, a podcast for changemakers where we question the conventional, debunk marketing myths, provide actionable tips, think differently, disrupt the industries, and take your marketing to a new level, from improving your campaigns to making you a better marketer. These are the inspirational stories that will help us change the way we think and approach B2B marketing, one conversation at a time. This podcast is brought to you by EINBLICK Consulting, helping you to stand out in the market and drive revenue to your B2B business. And now your host, Christian Klepp. All right. Welcome, everyone, to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission. This is the show where we help you to question the conventional, think differently, disrupt your industry and take your marketing to new heights. This is your host Christian Klepp. And today I’m joined by someone on a mission to help SaaS founders fix stagnating revenue. So coming to us from Jávea, Spain, Mr. Ton Dobbe, welcome to the show.

Ton Dobbe  01:06

Thank you. Perfect introduction.

Christian Klepp  01:12

Pleasure to have you on the show, Ton. And, you know, this is a… we’ve been planning this for quite a while now, I believe. And I think congratulations are in order. Because at the time of the recording, I think Spain won the UEFA Cup. So there’s probably a bit of partying going on, on your side of the world.

Ton Dobbe  01:28

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I was sad that the Dutch got kicked out by the UK. Yeah. And that I was actually quite happy that Spain won against the UK. Yes. You know, you never win when you’re in a country where you’re Dutch and actually Spanish on the same in the same way.

Christian Klepp  01:45

Absolutely. Absolutely. So for one bad thing that happened. There’s also a good thing that happened as a result of it, you can look at it that way. But look, I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because we are going to dive into some really interesting topics today. So let’s start off like this, okay, because I understand that, according to your LinkedIn profile, you don’t have the magic formula, big surprise, to help B2B businesses, especially SaaS to grow. But what I do know is that you’ve made it your mission, to help them stand out and create exponential leverage. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the following topic. And it’s something that you’re very passionate about how B2B SaaS can become more remarkable and discover their hidden values. So I’m going to kick off this conversation with two questions. And I’m happy to repeat them. Question one is define what you mean by more remarkable. And number two is Why do you believe many B2B SaaS companies fall flat when it comes to well, being more remarkable?

Ton Dobbe  02:46

Yeah, these are deep questions to my heart. First of all, the definition of remarkable, it’s actually quite simple. It’s worth making a remark about. And, I mean, I’ve been in the software industry for a couple of decades now, as you can see from my gray hair. And initially, I was always sort of intimidated by all our large competitors, that had budgets that were 10x the size that we had, you know, millions, sometimes, you know, hundreds of millions of budgets. And I think, when it comes to being remarkable, it doesn’t allow that, you know, or doesn’t, it doesn’t need that. Everybody can be remarkable, because it’s about the small daily things that you do. So if a software company becomes worth making a remark about, then you’re doing something right. And that can be incorporated into everything you do. And as a consequence of that, you’ll be noticed in the marketplace, people start talking about you, and then you start to run a completely different type of business.

And then your second question, right, I would say the first thing, and actually, I’m already connected, connecting it to a number of the threads that I wrote about in my book, but it’s one thing to please too many people, this notion that okay, we have to, you have to have a very large market, a very large TAM (total addressable market). And it needs to grow big numbers and so on. And everybody is going after that because in a number of cases, people say we want to be… we want to have a valuation that is millions, actually billions in a short number of time, we want to be the next unicorn. When I forget that in order to become a unicorn, you first have to sell your first customer and then your second and then your third. And these are… Yeah, in the smaller markets, the niches whereby especially in the beginning, you feel far better off with the scope that you have to start impressing those type of customers and then grow from there. Then instantly going after a market that is way too big for you. So the first one are wanting to please too many. The other thing is, this already may be connected to what I just said, obsessing over competition, not following your own path. And you cannot outcompete the world, you cannot outcompete your direct competitors, or any alternative that your customer is looking for. So that’s, I was gonna say a waste of time. Not that you should be not following what your competitors are doing. But you should be learning from it and draw your own path, and being okay, that certain parts of the market are theirs. Because then others, other parts of the markets that can be yours. And then the last one. Yeah, that is kind of the thing that gets me so passionate about being remarkable is the alternative of that, the contrast of that is “good is good enough”. And that results in too many mediocre products. I mean, it’s I think it’s already starts with this notion of what people call an MVP (minimum viable product), where people are… okay, what is the minimum, the bare minimum, we can put the market for people to start to say something about it? I’d rather say okay, if you start like that, of course, you need to start with something but make it at least minimum remarkable, minimum sellable people sometimes say, something that people are actually willing to pay something for. Yeah. And in the heat of the competition, in the issues that are in the marketplace, the short-termism that sometimes arises a very, very many companies are opting for Okay, that’s good. It’s good enough. Let’s go for it. And I think that’s where they go wrong.

Christian Klepp  06:35

Absolutely, absolutely. No, those are some really great points. And I wanted to go back to something you said earlier and it reminds me of that expression, that the riches are in the niches or in the niches, depending on where you are. But um, my follow up question to that is, why do you think a lot of companies and I don’t think this is unique to SaaS, but a lot of companies don’t niche down? They wanted to try to, like, everybody is our customer, everybody that is a potential subscriber, right?

Ton Dobbe  07:05

It’s fear of missing out. I mean, I do a lot of repositioning projects, and at some point, you get to the discussion that go, who you’re really for, and who you’re not for anymore. And people always think, Okay, well, we’re not for companies that are in manufacturing, or in financial services, because we don’t have any companies there. And that’s not… It’s really all about, you know, you focus on a certain market, where your ideal customers are, and you try to make it as specific as possible. And that’s where people don’t dare to… like you said to niche down. Because I think, okay we might be missing out on something, whereby it’s actually the opposite. You know, if you’re fishing in this wide market, I wrote a long blog about it, an essay, when people are doing the segmentation, the niching, as I call it, and to decide where they’re going to focus, what I typically do is define the firmagraphics and the demographics of the audience, and both of the company and at the persona level, it’s typically how big they are, what industry they’re in, what region they’re in, all the things that you can almost Google or find on LinkedIn. What they don’t do, is what I call upcycled graphics. And that’s where the magic happens. So I wrote this long form blog where I compared it to, okay, a lot of companies, their segmentation looks like a glass of water, you know, it has something in it. And even you, when you drink it, it’s tasteless. Whereby the ideal segmentation is what I would call your favorite cocktail, because then you start to pinch in a snippet, or you say, a sniff of the dynamics that make your customers unique, and the risks that they tolerate or not tolerate, and then a little bit of sniff of what they value, and another sniff of what they aspire to achieve. And once you start doing that, it starts to get flavor, it starts to become something that both these customers recognize, because hey, that’s us. And we talk the same language. And once you can achieve it at that level, when a customer when they go to your website, he described exactly those type of specifics. When you then meet them, organic conversations go like “yes, and” rather than “yes, but” and I think that is where the magic happens.

Christian Klepp  09:32

Absolutely, absolutely. I love that analogy. By the way, your favorite cocktail. I would just caution that maybe you shouldn’t have too many cocktails (laugh).

Ton Dobbe  09:41

You only need one, right?

Christian Klepp  09:42

Yeah, only one, only one.

Ton Dobbe  09:44

Not too many. Not too many dishes.

Christian Klepp  09:46

That’s right. That’s right. Not too many cocktails right? Fantastic. So you spoke a bit about mistakes and why some of these SaaS companies fall flat when it comes to being remarkable, but what are some other, say pitfalls that some of these companies should be avoiding.

Ton Dobbe  10:05

If I turn it around and go to do what makes companies remarkable. So what’s what to strive for? Then the opposite, of course is what are the pitfalls. So the first one in my book is remarkable software companies acknowledge they cannot please everyone. So the opposite of that is they try to please everyone, and they go wide, and they target everybody. And the pitfall there is that messaging blurs, gets too generic, and at the end, you don’t stand out. Second thing is, the second trade is remarkable software companies offer something valuable and desirable. And this is a combination of those two, that is super important, because the only variable is only so good. The desirability is where you create urgency, there’s criticality to it, there is desire… like the word says, it’s something that they want. Too many companies out there, offer something and think that the customer will get what they’re offering and have to do the translation themselves. So they stay at a level of by actually promising the same as 20 or 30 other companies, even in different type of categories, and industries. I mean, I’ve seen CRM vendors, promising the same as ERP vendors, promising the same as procurement vendors, promising the same as… you know and the list can go on. Because they all go for this big bold thing, we help you grow your revenue, for example. Well, sure.

Christian Klepp  11:35

Oh really? (laugh)

Ton Dobbe  11:38

Oh really, exactly. Then the third thing is about remarkable software companies aim to be different, not just better. And that’s also one of these pitfalls that, and it connects again to being obsessed with your competitors. But it also exists in isolation. But companies just say, Okay, I don’t like what they’re doing, we’ve got to build the same, and we’re going to make this better, and this better and this better, which can initially, of course, be something that could be tempting to a potential customer. But depending a little bit where you are, in my expertise in the sales-led SaaS business, where investments are 20,000 a year, 50,000 a year, 100,000 a year, a million a year. But you have to realize that if a customer is going to move from one solution to the other solution, it needs to be significantly better. So your 5 or 10%, incremental better is not going to cut it. So that’s where it needs to be fundamentally better, or that’s what I would call get different. So that’s, that’s a pitfull. I can go through all 10 If you want.

Christian Klepp  12:52

I mean, those are, those are really good. And I think those would suffice for the time being. We’ll save the good stuff for later on in the conversation.

Ton Dobbe  12:59

Okay,

Christian Klepp  13:00

Those are absolutely like great points. And I would even say, this whole notion of offering something of value. And I want to know your take on it. Because more often than not, I’ve seen companies that are doing more of an inside out rather than outside in approach. And what I mean by that is like they’re trying to send something out into the world that they say, Oh, definitely, this is going to be of value to the target audience. But what they don’t realize is that maybe the target audience doesn’t actually need this at all. Right. So how often have you seen okay, download the old the ultimate checklist? Right.

Ton Dobbe  13:39

Oh, yeah, yeah, plenty. Maybe actually, I might have one on my website that I still need to… from 2018.

Christian Klepp  13:48

Exactly, or the 37 tips or the 5 steps to go to market and so on and so forth. Right. And keep going.

Ton Dobbe  13:58

Yeah, true.

Christian Klepp  13:59

Yeah. Fantastic.

Ton Dobbe  14:01

Now, there is no, like I said, there is no sort of golden nugget. And you phrase it in the magic formula. But there’s definitely a number of things that you can challenge yourself on. And that’s why I created these traits, because that’s something that you can, if you answer the questions around that, the right questions, you can say, okay, we’re actually now scoring a six maybe. And that’s where we are in order for us to get to a 10 to the full score that requires us to do X. And you can constantly keep raising the bar. And I think that’s important because a framework is just a framework and a template is just a template and it gets you maybe something quickly done, but it’s always average. It doesn’t stand out. To the point that of the three traits that I just discussed. It’s actually there is wrapped in what I call the foundation is like it’s your “Value Foundation”. A lot of companies, and that’s also a pitfall that I haven’t even mentioned. They keep fighting the symptoms of the problems. And they don’t realize that they might not have an operational problem where the symptoms typically are being dealt with. But they have a fundamental problem. So I recently came across a story, just to illustrate this, that a pretty large software company, I think we all know them. But it’s complaining to one of my peers. And they hired her for doing some pipeline advice, and helping to get well to fix a pipeline problem, which is typically a symptom of that they were feeling the pipeline wasn’t good enough. They actually felt also that the number of their best sales, were getting so desperate or frustrated that they left. And then they said, Oh, we got it all under control, because we hired a headhunter and these headhunters enter the race, is finding new people for us, better salespeople to replace them. Of course, also, meaning that they are paying 20, 30, 40k for headhunter fees, not realizing that it’s yeah, it’s throwing one fire out, and then yeah, putting the other on, whereby if they would make two steps back and realize, wait a minute, what we have here is not a problem that is in our sales operation. It is something that is more fundamental. It’s around who we are, who we are for, who we’re not for. It’s around what a value proposition is really about, uniquely for them something that customers really want, but they cannot easily get somewhere else. And the positioning of that, of course. And that’s like it to your point also about inside out versus outside in. Very hard to see from the inside, because you’re just living the day to day. And yeah, you’re in the rat race. And people are calling you and pushing you and your manager is on top of you. And so the only thing you can do is actually yes. Make sure that the metrics that you see, got improved.

Christian Klepp  17:08

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There are occasions where I like to refer to that sometimes as the internal high five, right. You run it pass everybody internally, and they think it’s great. And high five and fantastic. And then you launch it, doesn’t generate the results that you were expecting. And then everybody does the… I call it the Spanish Inquisition. Yeah. Why did it happen? Yes. Maybe? Right. Yeah.

Ton Dobbe  17:42

Yeah, no, it has to do with a number of things. Of course, that’s what I see with virtually all the customers that come to me. And you cannot blame companies for it, you know, the larger you grow, the bigger the invisibilities actually become. And these invisibilities, I categorize them into three, it’s either complacency, we start to tell ourselves stories that we actually start believing, we are so great. And that dip that we had last quarter, that wasn’t because of an issue we have in sales, it was just a couple of customers that postponed. There was a hiccup with a product and so on. So it’s never the fault of us. The other thing is what I called blind spots. And the last one is bias. And the larger you grow, the bigger these become. And yeah, the only way to get around that is to acknowledge it and to find ways for people to read to unblindfold you.

Christian Klepp  18:18

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So we coined a new phrase today, unblindfold. Right.

Ton Dobbe  18:25

Exactly.

Christian Klepp  18:44

Speaking of invisible and that was such a great segue to the next question, because I believe you, you mentioned this in the previous conversation, you talked about how many companies don’t grow because of things that are invisible to them. Alright. So can you elaborate a little bit more?

Ton Dobbe  19:00

Well, I mean, to give you an anecdote, I recently had a customer coming to me, it’s a research planning tool. It’s been around for over 50 years, I guess, in the Netherlands, selling internationally to pretty large organizations. And the reason why these people come to me is not because the product is mediocre, actually is pretty good products. It’s not because the people are stupid, you know, the CEO is an ex-McKinsey… to be working for the big five. And, you know, he’s been capable of running the company profitably for a good number of years. It’s also not because the processes are not in place, because they have pretty sophisticated processes. It’s not about that at all. It’s just simply because they don’t see any more what makes them unique. And when he came to me, he said, we actually started doubting our own products. Like is it still as good as we think it is because they were growing. And they were stagnating and at some point they even started to almost decline, they had customers churning. And that’s what he’s struggling internally, you know, people start pointing at each other. People have to do overwork. I mean, there’s just not the right atmosphere. So he realized, Okay, pretty hands-on guy, normally he does all the things himself because that’s, or at least with the team because they have capable people and decided okay, maybe for this one we shouldn’t. So then we did a pressure cooker projects and in four weeks we resolved the whole thing. And out of them came that nothing was wrong with the products, their fans were raving about the product as it is today. It was just about clarifying where they have to ask these days. And I call this “who you for”, “who you’re not for”, but actually being very clear “who you’re not for”. Being honest, and open to yourself about a number of customers that you might have in your customer portfolio, that maybe would have been better off going to the competition. You know, it’s not that they are not good customers, because they pay the bills, and all of that. But you could almost feel from the starting point that they will never become fans. And I think too many companies out there, take customers knowing it will likely never become a fan, still do it. And what that does to organizations, it just drags everything down. To kind of elaborate a little bit on that, if a customer is coming to you, and you have to sort of bribe them already with a discount. So they buy, they don’t see the difference between you the competition. But if you drop the price enough, they buy from you, because at least they have something that’s the cheapest. These customers first of all, you’ve already dropped your margin on that level. Because they don’t see the value real value is, they’re going to use your functionality to just fix a couple of their products or problems in a way that they think you can. So they’re going to use your product in a way it was not designed. So the implementation is going to be stressful, it’s going to go out of budgets, overall, these types of things, then customers Customer Success comes, they cannot get the customer happy in the normal time, then they’re going to make R&D life miserable by asking for features that no one else is asking for. But they need them. And it seems to be that this is normal. Every other solution has them. So what you end up is that you need far more people to support this type of customers, you are going to be thrown off track. So you’re going to release products that might fix some of the problems, but no one is going to ever thank you for it because it should have been there in the first place. And it’s just a vicious cycle down. And the only way to break it is to get as far as okay, hey, we need to be honest with ourselves. These are the customers that always become a fans. And these are the qualities that these guys have. That’s what we got to focus on. And then things turn around.

Christian Klepp  23:15

Fantastic. Fantastic. So what I’m hearing you say, and this is all great stuff. What I’m hearing you say in the past couple of minutes is that the company has to really do, well, for lack of a better description, like a deep dive or some soul searching into what is the reason for being not necessarily just that the company, but what are we producing this product for? Alright, yep. Who is this serving? Does this really address the genuine challenges and pain points that this customer has? And will this help them to succeed? Will this be transformational for them or not? Right?

Ton Dobbe  23:54

Yeah, I would like to actually go a little bit further. In my book, I’m writing about a triangle and someone called that at some point, the broken triangle because it’s often broken. If you look at a triangle, it is strongest when of all three legs, I will say four legs, all three legs are equally in size. That’s where it’s the strongest. So what does that mean? It’s three fundamental questions. What I’m always going through with my customers to get to, to do that soul searching, particularly on the pain point side is to create a long list of 50, 60, 70 pain points that keep their customers up at night. That keeps your ideal customers up at night, because that’s a very, very important nuance to it, because some of these problems they might bother, other people might have but they don’t bother about them. Once you’ve done that list of problem definition, and that define them in a way that when you hear them and you own them, it gets itchy. That’s where they’re at the right level because a lot of times problem definition is done very ill in a very generic way. And it doesn’t help either. Then you answer three questions on a scale of 1 to 10, how valuable is this to solve? On a scale of 1 to 10, how critical is it to solve? And then a very important question in terms of why you? On a scale of one to 10, what is your ability to exceed expectations? So the first two valuable and critical, they are really important, because if it’s valuable, but not critical, it’s nice to have. And that is a disaster, you don’t want that. If it’s critical, not valuable, then they might deal with it. They don’t do anything either. So you want to have both, because that is high on their agenda. And ideally, this problem should also be high on the agenda of the CEO, because often we talk about projects. So it’s very important, very valuable and critical for the projects, or the domain, for example, around HR. But it might not be as important to the company as well, like it’s not keeping the CEO up at night. So that’s an important thing as well. So that’s two legs of the triangle, both high. And then what you’re looking for in your soul searching is okay, let’s be honest now, where can we… which are the problems can we exceed expectations? If you can solve it, and that’s where a lot of companies make the mistake. If you solve it, you score of 5, because there’s many others that can solve it. But where do you score 8, or 9 or 10? And that’s what I want to have the argumentation behind it. Because in that list, it suddenly then drops from 70, to about 10. That’s where your magic happens. I call it the magic concepts. That’s where you can find your, your what’s the deep differentiated advantage that you have, that you can then start, because you know, the problem to translate into unique value. But that requires a lot of soul searching. And often, what I see is that we do a first round of validating, and then I start… first of all, you see across the company that different people rate it in a different way where you see, hey, they’re not aligned here. So I’m always looking for the the outsiders. But what you also typically see is that the lower part of the organization actually got it pretty well, right. Because they are dealing with the day to day hassle. And top management thinks way too positive about where their strength and that is an aha moment. It’s always refreshing.

Christian Klepp  27:20

Yes, I suppose it depends on who you’re talking to right, in terms of like being refreshing. But yeah, I can totally see that unfolding. I know you’ve given us a lot of tips here. And one of the big highlights of the show is leaving something that’s actionable for the listeners. So if somebody is listening to us, you know, having this conversation here about making SaaS companies remarkable. And they want to take away something from the show, like 3 to 5 things that they can act upon, what would those things be in your opinion?

Ton Dobbe  27:59

Well, I mean, I would always start on the foundational side, because that’s the most valuable part to start with, you know, I can say, I mean, you can start with trait number 10, which is about you know, how do you think about things and how you can hit the right nerve. But it will always be easier if you get the foundation right. So on the foundational level, start having discussions internally, about who you’re for, and who you’re not for. And actually be prepared to put it on your website. Describe on your websites, these products, create most value if you like this, and if you… if it’s it doesn’t create that level of value. If you’re like that. What it does is two things. First of all, it will make your ideal customers see and recognize themselves. But once you start describing the customers that are not such a good fit. They also go on to kind of take notice of that and say wait a minute, that’s also how I feel about it. Or yeah, it’s good that you’re against that. So you stand for something. And this is really a tough one because like I said, people fear of missing out. But like in my illustration, the moment you get super clear on that, it works like a magnet for the right customers. And you credibly detract customers that are not going to be a good fit. That’s fine. To give you an example to make that practical. Very often you got… imagine you got two organizations. They are in the professional service industry. They are both 1000 people in number of employees. They’re both in the UK, and they sell to the government so on the outside of the building and on the demographics or firmographics. They are actually identical. So that could be something that you’re going after. I found almost every time I’m looking at my customers at that picture, that’s where we end up okay this is what it is. And then we find that they are on the inside, they’re radically different. Because one is, for example, going after speed, where another one goes after and cares more about quality, radically different things. One goes for compliance, and they want everything to be compliant. But the other one is more about competitive advantage. So in describing those types of things, you don’t dismiss the other that they’re stupid, but you just acknowledged that, okay, if you’re only here for checking a compliance box, you shouldn’t be with us. There’s plenty of solutions out there that does the compliance. We do as well. But you’re not gonna get heavy from us. And I think that’s where the honesty needs to start playing. Yeah. And then from there, once you got that, then go work on trait number two, which is really start defining what value that you create that is actually extremely desirable for your customers. And then last, the last trait that you can start to think about, okay, how can you actually be fundamentally different versus incrementally better from competition? And what is required from your organization? What needs to be true? I think that’s a good question that a lot of that opens a lot of ideas. Because a lot of people always say that it’s impossible, but it’s not. And I think it’s the combination of the three, that you’ll find the answers. At least, that’s where I always find the answer in.

Christian Klepp  31:35

Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, so just let me quickly recap that for the benefit of the audience. So start on the foundational level. Alright, so having those discussions internally, number two, is start defining what value you create that is desirable for the customer. And the third one, I hope I captured this correctly. What makes you fundamentally different versus incrementally better?

Ton Dobbe  32:00

Exactly. The first one is part of the foundation, but it’s about who you for who you’re not for, because it’s really about looking at your customers with an honest face.

Christian Klepp  32:08

Right. Right. Right. Not not always easy to do at times, I would say, right.

Ton Dobbe  32:14

No, no, no, no, no, it’s like I said, it’s especially because of that complacency and the blind spots and the blur. The bias, you get blur.

Christian Klepp  32:23

Absolutely.

Ton Dobbe  32:26

Yeah, for a lot of people, it’s like every customer that is paying is a good customer. But it’s not.

Christian Klepp  32:30

Right. Right. Yes. I think we all know that from experience that sometimes isn’t the truth, or sometimes isn’t the case. Right? Absolutely.

Ton Dobbe  32:42

I’ll give you an illustration of that. I’m not sure how we’re doing time wise.

Christian Klepp  32:46

We’re good. Keep going.

Ton Dobbe  32:47

I came from the ERP world, like I said, and at some point, we repositioned and I was starting to do some work with the Benelux like the Belgium and the Netherlands at a region where I was living at that point in time. And I started working with those teams to get it, make it part of the DNA of sales. They picked it up and other regions didn’t pick it up automatically, at least not by free will so to say because they have always done it their own way. What we saw is that selling the same product to the same industries. It was the same functional scope to similar type of organizations, in the Benelux we started to get to raise the win rates from 20% to 80%. We’re not as stuck at 20 and sometimes even dropped to 15 or 10%. So explain that. Right. The other thing was also that not only did their win rate increased to 80%. They were also selling faster, like months were cut off the normal sales charge cycles because of the perfect fit. And the word discount disappeared. And the good part, a good anecdote around that one is that our competitors, and these were Oracle and Microsoft and SAP very often at some point in time, after a couple of months, when they realized that we were in, they qualified us, because they realized we have no business here. It’s one of those again.

Christian Klepp  34:25

Interesting.

Ton Dobbe  34:25

So that’s, that’s how powerful it can be. And it’s the same organization. That was that was so powerful for me to see the difference. Because it is something that you have to believe in.

Christian Klepp  34:36

Well, you have to believe in it. You have to substantiate it, of course, and you have to act upon it. Right. And I think that’s at least one of my takeaways of the things that you’ve been talking about in these past 30 minutes or so. And, Ton, I believe, like throughout this conversation, you have already been on your soapbox and I would like to kindly ask you to stay up there a little bit longer. Here comes the question. So specifically on this topic that we’ve been discussing today, okay, what is the status quo that you passionately disagree with? And why?

Ton Dobbe  35:12

I mean, I got a number.

Christian Klepp  35:14

Just pick one.

Ton Dobbe  35:15

If I think about it, and it’s I think it’s actually grown recently. It’s this whole notion of “at scale”. I mean, I have nothing against scale. I think it’s a good… companies have to scale. But I think what scale needs to be about is creating leverage about the things that really work that are remarkable. And that work. Because once you got that, that’s where you can drive scale about it. What is misused for, and there’s so many solutions out there these days that if you look at my websites, it says personalization of email, at scale, and, 50 different varieties of that. That means we don’t believe in ourself. But now we can spam the hell out of people, wherever they are. And at some point, some people will stick if it’s 1%, perfect. If it’s half percent, also good. I think we go in completely the wrong way there. Because it’s is the opposite of being remarkable. It’s actually being irritable. And I don’t like to see that at all. That’s my soapbox there.

Christian Klepp  36:21

Yep. No, nope. 110% agree with that. And I think there was another guest on the show, who I interviewed probably two years ago, now two or three years ago. And he posted something on LinkedIn, which really drives this point home of this whole mass emailing, or email blasting or whatever you want to call it. And the you know, everybody’s trying to sell that as like you’re trying to, to reach people at scale and try to do outreach at scale. And perhaps maybe you’ll get three people that are interested, and you’re pissing off everybody else.

Ton Dobbe  36:59

True. And the stupid thing is, that’s another… It’s kind of like, I’m extending the soapbox. I mean, the bulk of my customers are sales at SaaS companies. So they sell to mid market and enterprise. For them to have a good year. They’re often… if they close 30 new deals, 50 new deals, sometimes maybe 100 new deals, depending a little bit on where they are in the market, they got a fantastic year. Going back to the notion of okay, if you can get to a close rate of 60%, 70%, 80%, but you only need for 30 customers, you need 40 leads, why would you go after them at scale? And still they do, because marketing has to kind of go out and they have to find leads. And, anyway.

Christian Klepp  37:48

That just does not make any sense at all. Yeah, but yeah, exactly. All right. So here comes the bonus question. So some of the listeners might not know this, but you’re originally from Holland and you’re now residing in Spain. And so the bonus question is, what is your favorite place to go to in Spain and what makes it so special?

Ton Dobbe  38:09

Well, I mean, I would say the town where I live. It says the small town called Jávea. And maybe not doing myself a favor because now more people will come to Jávea. But it’s one of those little pearls. It’s in microclimates on the east coast of Spain, between Alicante and Valencia. I already think Instagram has already spoiled it because a couple of the beaches are in the top 10 of Spain. But the summer is not too hot, Celsius… it’s 32 At the moment, whereby in other parts of Spain, where everybody’s going at the moment, Madrid and Seville, it’s 42-45. And in winter, it’s also pretty mild. So it’s like San Diego. The differences are not too bad. So that’s one. And I think if every time I speak to people from outside of Spain, the first thing they say I love Spain, I love to go to Madrid I love to go to Barcelona until people have actually been to, for example, a city like Valencia. And then they say, Okay, I was wrong, because this is something that feels, it feels… it’s a city, but it feels like a village. And it’s the pedestrian area. It’s just a vibe there. And the atmosphere is fantastic. So that’s one of my cities that I favor the most.

Christian Klepp  39:39

Wow. You’re really selling it man because I have bought in. Fantastic. I can imagine. I can imagine. I went to Spain many years ago and yeah, I’m sorry. It was very cliche. We went to Barcelona. Yes. But in my defense, we also went to other towns around Barcelona. So we can see the Catalan countryside. And that was truly amazing. And yes to your point, we were there in December and it was 20 degrees Celsius. So sunny blue sky, very pleasant weather. So yeah, it was a very, very memorable experience. But indeed, I would love to talk about sunny Spain and sunsets and beaches for another three hours. But in the interest of time, I would like to thank you so much for coming on the show. And sharing your expertise and experience with the audience. Please a quick introduction for yourself and how SaaS founders or anyone interested out there can get in touch with you.

Ton Dobbe  40:38

Oh, okay. Oh, that’s, I mean, if you if you’re not bored with me already. If you want to know more about me, I think the best way to kind of connect with me is on LinkedIn. I don’t think there’s a lot of Ton Dobbe. But find me there, my website valueinspiration.com. This is where you can download my book. And a number of other goodies that I have for free there. But just say hi, and let’s have a conversation.

Christian Klepp  41:08

Fantastic, fantastic. Ton, once again. Thank you so much for your time. Take care, stay safe, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Ton Dobbe  41:13

Thank you. It’s a pleasure.

Christian Klepp  41:15

Bye for now.