Jeff Davis engages in a thought-provoking discussion with Callan Young, the Chief Marketing Officer of On24. With a wealth of experience in the B2B tech space and successfully leading companies through transactions, Callan understands the importance of aligning sales and marketing for revenue growth. They dive into the challenges and opportunities of digital-first go-to-market strategies and the need for a holistic approach to marketing.

Callan highlights the significance of focusing on the customer lifecycle and leveraging data and thought leadership to become a trusted advisor. They explore the changing landscape brought on by COVID, opening doors to helping others and creating non-branded content. Through an annual or quarterly planning process involving all stakeholders, marketers can achieve alignment, commitment, and optimization across the team.

They discuss the need to understand salespeople's workflow and needs to tailor effective marketing campaigns. They emphasize the importance of selling internal campaigns and gaining the commitment of the sales team. Additionally, they shed light on the value of first-party data in designing meaningful, audience-centric campaigns.

Tune in to discover how organizations can level up their digital experiences by personalizing interactions, creating interactive and energetic experiences, and turning programs into integrated campaigns. Learn from Callan Young's expertise and get ready to transform your marketing approach and boost revenue growth by listening to this episode now!

Episode Highlights:

11:01 - I like to encourage that from a leadership team and to people to feel comfortable sharing it openly with their peers, because then we're going to all learn from each other. We're going to learn from what went really well, but we're also going to learn from what didn't go well. And it's that constant kind of, I guess, cadence of let's look at the data, let's talk about how can we optimize, and talk about how we can do something differently moving forward.

24:40 - If there is a way you get a technology that integrates directly into kind of their day-to-day workflow, that's going to be the best. But, to your point, if you're getting something that's like, "Hey, you should really log in to this or you should start to look at this," then you really need to make sure you're enabling them and explaining to them the value of how this is going to help them get more revenue, or else it's never going to work.

35:54 - I think figuring out how to be as interactive and as energetic as possible is something key. As you're thinking about your experiences or as you're thinking about how you're engaging with people digitally, is it a two-way conversation and how can you do that at scale? So, I would definitely say making sure that you are leaning into the how can you help and what are the insights and the takeaway versus just reading through a script. I would definitely say figuring out how you can kind of take these more digital broad-based experiences and make them more personalized.

Learn more

Follow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:

LinkedIn 

Instagram

Twitter

Callan Young

LinkedIn

On24 LinkedIn

Website

Join Jeff Davis as he engages in a captivating conversation with Brad Myers, the CEO and Co-founder of RevMethods, to explore the crucial topic of sales and marketing alignment. Brad offers valuable insights to help B2B companies enhance their revenue strategies.

Brad highlights the challenge of data overload and emphasizes the need to focus on actionable insights to drive revenue optimization. He presents a game-changing approach for marketers: telling better stories internally by providing contextual information on leads, moving beyond mere scores. This innovative methodology combines lead scores with valuable data signals to gain deep insights into customer behavior, enabling marketers to empower sales teams and boost lead conversion rates.

Jeff and Brad delve into the limitations of traditional marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and advocate for a shift towards leveraging advanced technologies like data warehouses, open AI, and GPT to unify data sets and generate invaluable insights for sales teams. The discussion also highlights the significance of visible first-party data, which holds greater relevance for salespeople.

If you're a B2B company seeking to optimize your revenue strategies and foster alignment between sales and marketing, this episode is a must-listen. Gain actionable insights and learn how to bridge the gap between these crucial teams. Discover the power of capturing and synthesizing data signals to create meaningful conversations with buyers. Don't miss out on this opportunity to unlock your company's revenue potential.

Episode Highlights:

10:30 - We've made a lot of investment in marketing the website and various campaigns to go gather more data, more customers and all their engagement that's associated with it. How do we start mining this information to drive greater go-to market efficiencies? The Rev Ops is the individual that's meant to wire these platforms together, and help deliver the analytics to make better decision-making.

16:50 - I think we do a great job of telling stories externally and messaging to the market. We drop the ball when we need to start telling stories internally, and it only behooves us to figure that out. Because, again, how many marketers are struggling with "Hey, what's the ROI? What's my contribution to revenue?" The more white papers that we could tie back to revenue, the more efficient we'll be and the stronger our case will be to get more funding.

37:24 - I could see a future, to get futuristic, of we're going to be engaging in more ephemeral ways with our data, that CRM and marketing are going to be these endpoint tools that are going to be feeding this brain, this data cloud, as what Salesforce is calling it. It's from there that we get this kind of unified view of the customer from all the different sources and we're applying AI at that level to extract revenue.

Learn more

Follow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:

LinkedIn 

Instagram

Twitter

Brad Myers

LinkedIn

Email

Website

Jeff interviews Hannah Ajikawo, CEO and founder of Revenue Funnel, European Lead for Sistas in Sales, and sales expert with over 15 years of experience in sales roles. They discuss how important it is for sales and marketing teams to collaborate for maximum efficiency and success.

Hannah highlights the need for sales leaders to have clarity on expectations such as KPIs and quotas. She also shares her idea of having a business value team that could increase chances of closing deals by 50%. Their conversation also steers towards diversity in sales teams with Hannah emphasizing the need for companies to look for different capabilities when recruiting people into their organization. It should be understood that there is no one size fits all approach and success can come from various paths.

Tune in to an episode filled with practical strategies, real-world examples, and a call for diversity and inclusion in the sales industry. Gain valuable insights that can be applied to improve sales and marketing alignment and drive revenue growth.

Episode Highlights

11:48 - You are going to have some salespeople that are not good. However, you define that, that's just they're not that right. But the other half is going to be very simply because you have created a strategy, which is something that I call a sales to market strategy.

15:54 - What we do is we allow stuff to go wrong when we don't see the performance and say, "Well, what have you been doing?" The way that I saw and define my success was by doing these things, so I either have the freedom to do it as a lone wolf and let me go do these things that are going to get those KPIs and those results, or accept clear expectations on the reverse, which is these are the things that I expect from you.

22:54 - We just got to recognize those patterns. We have to recognize the expectations, we have to recognize those really slow pieces around how we're focusing and understand the role that we play in actually making sure that people are doing the things that we need them to do. So, don't keep complaining that they're spending 60% of their time not selling, if you haven't given them something to sell, if you haven't given them a strategy that's executable.

Learn more

Follow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:

LinkedIn 

Instagram

Twitter

Hannah Ajikawo

LinkedIn

Email

Revenue Stimulator Program

Youtube

Jeff Davis and Adam Goyette, founder of Curdis.Co and partner at HyperGrowth Partners, discuss strategies for successful B2B marketing in the latest episode of the Rev Engine Podcast.

Adam stresses the importance of prioritizing marketing channels where your audience finds value, rather than relying on competitors for guidance. He suggests using results-oriented metrics, such as customer numbers and ROI, over vanity metrics like leads. They emphasize the need for sales and marketing teams to have a good relationship, with salespeople involved in marketing brainstorms to create ambassadors. To stand out among competitors, companies must deliver cohesive conversations across all platforms while providing value instead of pushing products.

Tune in to hear why you should be curious about the customer journey, identifying triggers that motivate buyers, and dropping walls or egos with regards to questioning one another's roles. Learn about the concept of growth hacking, the importance of being scrappy with limited resources, and why companies must get creative and think outside the box.

Episode Highlights

12:30 - The morning of the demo, marketing came up with the idea. Let's send them a Starbucks gift card, just a $5 gift card. Like, "Hey Jeff, I know we're chatting later today. Coffee on me. Looking forward to chatting." Just a nice touchpoint, so it's like you're not just blowing off the meeting. Someone just gave you something. You feel more obligated now. And they jumped their demo show rates by like 15%.

18:39 - I kind of have this theory that marketers are afraid of salespeople. It's like the cool kid table in high school or something. They're like afraid to go over there. I think they're afraid to get called out on stuff and a lot of times if they're not tied into the revenue goal, it's a conversation that feels very scary. I think a lot of times they don't wanna present because they don't wanna get called out by sales.

27:23 - Start with five people, and you don't need an ABM platform. You don't need anything. If a big part of our strategy is just getting in front of these buyers and having a personalized experience, how about we just send a direct mail to five people and do handwritten notes? And then we'll also send them these emails and we'll do this thing, and just build a little micro version of it that you can launch without having to clear it by the sales team and getting buy-in and all this sort of stuff.

Learn more

Follow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:

LinkedIn 

Instagram

Twitter

Adam Goyette

LinkedIn

Email

Newsletter

In this episode, Jeff Davis talks to Douglas Burdett, also known as the "Oprah of Book Reviews," the host of "The Marketing Book Podcast," and Founding Principal of Sales Artillery. Douglas believes there are more companies who have a sales problem than a marketing problem. Most of them don't realize that their marketing is actually going to be better if they can align it with the way they sell.

They discuss how companies that approach their customers with genuine understanding are the ones who come out on top. To truly capture an audience's attention, it is essential to demonstrate genuine empathy by demonstrating that you understand what they want and need.

To help companies stand out from the competition and achieve success, Douglas provides insight into buyer-centric strategies to help marketers build trust with buyers, allowing them to uncover what’s driving purchase decisions on an emotional level. Listen to discover how you can tap into this knowledge!

Episode Highlights

11:42 - One of the things, that I guess you could say maybe the tip of the spear of this issue, is that content. Creating some kind of content for your customers, for your sales team, is very important.

18:06 - The truth is that your customers don't really care until you show you care about them and talking about your product is very self-centered. You will talk about it but don't start with that. Start by demonstrating that you understand their problems. They're not buying your product. They're buying a solution to a problem.

25:42 - The most successful marketers are very much dialed into what the company goals are, particularly financial. They speak the language of accounting.

43:48 - If there's no buy in at the top level, it's just not going to happen. Don't waste your time talking to me or waste your money on things that are sort of on the periphery.

45:03 - I don't tell them what they need to know. I do my very best to help them discover on their own by asking a lot of questions.

Learn more

Follow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:

LinkedIn 

Instagram

Twitter

Douglas Burdett

LinkedIn

Twitter

Website

In this episode, Jeff interviews Jim Karrh, who is a Clinical Instructor of Marketing, consultant, professional speaker, and host of The Manage Your Message Podcast. He is also the author of The Science of Customer Connections and specializes in strategic messaging. They discuss how marketing language has changed over time to be more conversational, customer-focused, and relevant.

To keep consistency across conversations between salespeople and customers, Jim suggests introducing discipline by reverse engineering the desired outcomes from key conversations. He recommends creating a single source of conversational truth with information about targets, ideal customers, personas, or influencers in the buying process, as well as stories or questions to ask that reflect input from both sales and marketing teams.

Discipline is essential during times of uncertainty. Being clear and focused on what you offer will help position your team better with buyers while relieving stress for everyone involved. Tune in to learn the importance of focus in order to be agile, gain market share, and build trustworthiness. Discover the three main categories of symptoms to look out for when assessing a company's messaging and find out why there is a need to leverage B2B influencers effectively as messengers.

Episode Highlights

07:47 - Marketing leaders are frustrated because they put together presentations and talks, and white papers and demos, and the like. And they're frustrated because the sales team isn't using it and the sales team is saying, "No," because it doesn't reflect the way that we want to speak at the ground level.

10:33 - I think addressing this alignment issue, particularly between sales and marketing, and perhaps other units, subject matter experts, etc., is fundamental for us to be able to create distinctiveness, to be relevant, to get more access, to get more meetings, and to speed selling cycles, and to improve selling success.

15:06 - Get the language that is both consistent with our overall positioning for the marketing side, but also salespeople will go, "Yes, that's the way that I talk to customers. That's reflective of the concerns that customers and prospects have. I can do that."

Learn more

Follow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:

LinkedIn 

Instagram

Twitter

Jim Karrh

LinkedIn

Website

In today's episode, Jeff talks to Adrian Chang, a marketing leader with experience in customer marketing and performance marketing. Adrian offers his expert advice on how to persuade today's consumers to make a purchase. He discusses customer marketing in-depth and how to assess the health of the sales-marketing relationship.

They tackle topics that include opportunities to change the incentive structure for marketers, the impact of not being a part of the customer journey, and prioritizing budgets in order to be present on the channels that matter most. Adrian also shares his insight on what organizations can do to successfully transition from multichannel to omnichannel marketing.

Tune in to learn more about Adrian's strategies for aligning with his sales counterpart as a marketing leader.

Episode Highlights

11:02 - Given where we are now, like as a marketing organization, we have to accept that the salesperson is often the first representation of your brand with us now slowly going back to live operations. As a marketer, I feel very, very invested in ensuring that the seller's success represents my success.

17:54 - As we look at our customer journey that we've architected, we found ways to follow the buyers who we market and to help them regardless of sourcing.

22:38 - You've got to figure out how do you allow your customers to advertise for you. And then once you start doing some of that, you've got to then figure out what are the other interactions that likely happen outside of your branded channels, where you can live and try to influence some of that discussion.

29:33 - You got to understand where your customers live and how they buy, and then figure out what's the path they're likely going to take in terms of doing their research and how do you make some of those decisions.

Learn more

Follow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:

LinkedIn 

Instagram

Twitter

Adrian Chang:

LinkedIn

Twitter

In this episode, Jeff speaks with John Barrows, the CEO of Sell Better by JB Sales, which is focused on training, content, and events for sales teams. He is also the author of I Want to Be in Sales When I Grow Up! The two discuss that many companies are stuck in an old model of segmentation rolls for their sales team which leads to broken hand-offs between each stage. This lack of communication creates a disjointed customer experience that often results in low adoption rates and renewal issues.

John believes that the definition of value has changed drastically and that it is important to figure out what value means to the customer. To add value, sales reps should focus on building relationships and understanding what is important to their customer. They highlight the significance of quality over quantity in sales, the necessity for salespeople to be more curious and care about their clients, and aligning sales and marketing goals with a focus on revenue targets.

Listen to hear John share his insights on how to be successful in sales with the mentality of "we are in this together." Discover how AI is changing the sales game by helping with things such as email personalization and giving demonstrations. Gary Vaynerchuk advised John not to fight the technology, but to learn how to leverage it instead.

Episode Highlights

20:40 - I call it catching your sales groove. There's a moment in everybody's career, in every sales rep's career, where they wake up one day, and it's just a little bit easier than it was the day before. You don't really know when it was or what happened, but it's the day you stop pitching your solutions, and you start having conversations about your solutions.

25:31 - That's why I believe sales reps do not have to be the industry experts in anything actually. They just need to know enough to be able to get the conversation going, and then dig and dig and dig and dig and layer and layer and layer those questions to be curious. Because when somebody can tell that you care and when somebody can tell that you're genuinely curious about whatever their challenges are or whatever it is, you'd be amazed at what people open up to. But it's that care factor that some reps get to faster than others.

42:30 - The reps can actually ask the people who are living that role what a day in the life looks like. I read your job description but really, what do you do? Help me understand what this looks like and some of the challenges that you face and things you're being held accountable for.

Learn more

Follow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:

LinkedIn 

Instagram

Twitter

John Barrows

Instagram

Twitter

TikTok

LinkedIn

Website

In this episode, Jeff talks to Greg Mischio, who is the Owner and Strategic Director of Winbound, a digital sales and marketing agency that specializes in helping manufacturers use online content to create a digital twin of their sales team. Greg has deep industry expertise in manufacturing and believes that this sector is going through a lot of transformation right now.

They discuss the challenges that manufacturers face when it comes to sales and marketing alignment. One of the biggest challenges is that there is often no marketing, and manufacturers are realizing that they need to be more strategic in their approach. To get out of a purely tactical approach to marketing, organizations need to understand that content must align with the overall sales strategy.

Listen to learn about content marketing from a sales perspective, focusing on how to create a narrative that educates customers about their problems and why the company could be of assistance. Discover the importance of aligning sales and marketing goals, as well as defining what constitutes a lead when you tune in.

Episode Highlights

18:53 - We meet them halfway. It's like I'm not just going to throw a bunch of marketing "hoo-ha" at you and get you to go along with it and jargon, because you're going to tune out. I need to talk and speak in your language, and meet you halfway, and I think that's what the whole alignment is about.

25:43 - Marketing is saying, "Hey, we've got all these leads," and sales is saying, "They're horrible leads." You need to, out of the gates, agree on what constitutes a lead for the sales team. You need to discuss it. You need to talk about what's the ideal customer, so the sales team and the marketing team are both aware of who they are going after, and what an actual lead looks like, and get agreement on that.

44:33 - We have a very simplified report that we give and it shows those KPIs, and then quarterly we analyze what content is working best for us, and then what channels are working best for us, and those are actually kind of linked together but keep it simple and keep it clean. Have clarity and like you said, tie it back to the overall strategy.

Learn more

Follow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:

LinkedIn 

Instagram

Twitter

Greg Mischio

LinkedIn

Website

In this episode, Jeff Davis interviews CMO, Author, and Co-Founder of Women in Revenue, Tracy Eiler, who has been named one of the 15 Most Influential Women in B2B Marketing. She shares her background story of how she spent 30 years in marketing leadership roles leading up to CMO roles in enterprise SaaS companies and her passion for the industry.

Jeff and Tracy examine what it takes to be a modern marketing organization, how different it was years ago, and how it ties to the demands of the extremely informed modern B2B buyer Tracy gives some suggestions on how to modify the way marketing teams are structured. They dig deep on how diversity and skill sets impact the demographic makeup of marketing teams, how millennials are quickly joining buying groups and making decisions, how senior leaders need to shift the way they communicate, why we need a testing mindset right now, which function SDRs should report to for the best results, how to shift to an omni-channel approach,  and how executives can look at marketing compensation differently.

Tune in to find out what metrics marketing leaders should prioritize to evaluate the health of the revenue engine and discover how market leaders can improve their relationship with sales.

Episodes Highlights

06:58 - There are silos in marketing and silos are never good. Right? Information gets trapped, the blame game happens, you're inefficient, et cetera. So, the very first thing that I try and do when I come into a company is really assess how are things flowing today and where are the silos, so that we can break down those silos.

19:15 - I'm very passionate about it being part of marketing. I think that a good marketing leader can align themselves very tightly with sales and make sure that that SDR team that sits in the middle between sales and marketing is very well exposed to all of the processes.

34:29 - First of all, marketing should be tied to real numbers that are not MQLs. Minimally, our variable comp should be tied to pipeline, ultimately to revenue, but pipeline I like as kind of the core one.

Learn more

Follow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:

LinkedIn 

Instagram

Twitter

Tracy Eiler:

LinkedIn

(Tracy’s book)

Women In Revenue

SV Academy