Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Bill Rice. He’s the principal consultant of Bill Rice Strategy Group, where he helps FinTech companies scale their sales and revenue growth by implementing lead generation strategies. He’s also the Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of KALEIDICO, a digital marketing agency that specializes in helping mortgage lenders and law firms develop effective lead generation strategies. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. 

Christian Klepp  00:36

 Okay? Mr. Bill Rice, welcome to the show, Sir. 

Bill Rice  00:40

Thank you. Thank you. It’s a pleasure. 

Christian Klepp  00:41

Right? Great to be connected. Great to have you on the show. Because, man, we are going to talk about a topic today that I think, Well, I don’t say I think, I hope, B2B marketers out there are going to listen carefully and they’re going to take notes, or if they, if they don’t want to take notes, they’re going to, like activate their transcription software and read that afterwards, right? Because we are going to get into a topic today that I think is going to be really helpful to the audience, right? 

Christian Klepp  01:09

So, yeah, let’s dive in. Okay, right? So Bill, you’re on a mission to help B2B companies to reach their potential through innovation, collaboration and excellence. So for this conversation, as I said, let’s focus on a topic that I think is extremely useful to B2B marketers, right? And that is how to create a 90 day B2B marketing plan to achieve fast and predictable growth. Let me just repeat that in case people didn’t hear how to create a 90 day B2B marketing plan to achieve fast and predictable growth. So let’s kick off the conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. Okay. So first question is, why do you think this approach is digestible and more likely to succeed? And the second one is, where do you see B2B companies falling flat with their marketing plans?

Bill Rice  01:59

Yeah, absolutely. So in my experience, I found that the 90 day plan and that time period in particular is optimal. So it’s, it’s kind of the Goldilocks scenario. It’s not too long and it’s not too short. It has some nice features to it. 90 days is something that most of us can sort of envision, and it gives us the opportunity to plan, meaning it’s a little bit too long for you to just kind of wing it and do some things and sort of be very tactical. So you do have to do a plan, but it’s also short enough that you have to be discerning, you have to be focused in order to get things done. Can’t just throw everything in the kitchen sink into the plan. 

Bill Rice  02:43

And that really goes kind of to the second question is, what are they often, you know, mistake, or how do they fall flat and and this is kind of where I came to using especially as I start engagements, making sure that we start with a 90 day plan is because oftentimes marketing organizations have a tendency to make plans too big, too large. They try to sort of achieve everything, and they don’t do a really good job of time bounding things, figuring out and understanding how much they need to kind of set up foundationally to even be effective at any of their campaigns. They often don’t actually plan out campaigns in a sort of an organized way, and so they just sort of start throwing things at the wall, start running some Google ads, or start doing some email outreach. And it’s very haphazard. 

Bill Rice  03:35

They don’t have a good understanding of what they’re trying to achieve, what the metrics might be early on to see if you’re getting traction, because ultimately, we often don’t succeed immediately. We start to look for sort of trend lines and indications of traction, and then those things we optimize, and ultimately, hopefully are able to scale. And so that’s where I think these things work together. It gives us a really sort of tight, functional, time bound way to go at what we’re trying to achieve, but at the same time sort of prevents the age old common mistake of trying to do everything at once and being too big in your planning.

Christian Klepp  04:16

Yeah, man, that last point really resonated with me, because once upon a time, I was a product marketer in a fortune 500 company, and this was one of their best practices, is to come up with a five year plan, all right. And as you can imagine, Bill, you know where I’m going with this, the five year plan was 100 slides long, all right? And we spent at least four to five months working on that plan.

Bill Rice  04:43

Yeah, and so much changes in that time period. I mean, just and I’m sure we’ll get into this a little bit, but just like AI  burst on the scene and sort of changed everything in the landscape. So there’s always these little market factors we had back and this is something that affected me personally in our agency. See, but 2007-2008 in the US, we had a financial crisis that like changed all of the assumptions. So, although I’m not against sort of having a big vision and planning forward, you know, in out years or whatever, but putting sort of too much credence in that can really be, you know, it can set you up for sakes, because all those assumptions are probably going to change on you.

Christian Klepp  05:26

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think the other, and I believe that was your point, too. The other problem with that is, if you spend so much time planning, that basically opens the door, especially in larger organizations and smaller ones too, it opens the door to analysis paralysis and opinionitis.

Bill Rice  05:43

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  05:44

Right? 

Bill Rice  05:44

For sure. 

Christian Klepp  05:45

Yeah, absolutely. 

Bill Rice  05:47

Yeah, no, I think you can. You can really get lost in that. You can also lose your edge, right? I mean, you’re spending so much time, and I see this a lot with marketing directors and senior level marketing folks, or even, you know folks that are new to an organization, a lot of times they haven’t done sort of the nitty gritty hands on stuff. So as they get into being strategic, because their role demands that they don’t have enough sort of tactical knowledge to know if those who are supporting them, maybe an agency or other marketing personnel are doing the right thing, right? They just don’t have a sense of that. So I think being too strategic, you can kind of lose that edge of like, what feet on the street marketing can accomplish, or should be accomplishing, or what tactics you should be using.

Christian Klepp  06:38

Totally agree, and that’s, as I mentioned before, that’s one of the objectives of the show. It’s to help the audience who are probably in that moving in that space that are a bit more on the strategic side but less of the tactical, and also serving those who are more tactical but not very strategic, right? So it’s always, it’s a bit of a balancing act, isn’t it? 

Bill Rice  07:02

For sure, for sure, it’s important to have, you know, facets of all of that in place, and as you go up, more strategic, like I said, knowing the tactical or having enough knowledge to make sure that your team, or, you know, like I said, your agency or whoever supporting you is kind of on the right track, right? Because you’re just kind of sitting in the tower and you’re hoping they get it right. You know, you could be surprised at the end of the quarter.

Christian Klepp  07:29

Yeah. I always jokingly used to call it sitting up on Mount Olympus and looking down at the land of the living right? 

Bill Rice  07:35

Yes, yes.

Christian Klepp  07:37

Yeah.

Bill Rice  07:37

Right. 

Christian Klepp  07:38

Fantastic. I’m going to move us on to the next question about key pitfalls that B2B marketers need to avoid when they’re coming up with this 90 day marketing plan and what they should be doing instead.

Bill Rice  07:51

Yeah, I think you know, as you’re building out the 90 day plan, some of the things that can kind of get you hung up on, is, what I always start with is, I think oftentimes we will lay down a plan that is very optimistic, idealistic. So I always start a 90 day plan with an inventory. So I want to inventory the organization, and again, depending on you know where you are in your role or entering an organization, if you’re if you’re new to the organizations particularly important, but even if you’ve been there for a while, a good inventory of what you’ve done before, what skill sets you have, what foundations or campaigns or platforms that you have built, and looking for the gaps. 

Bill Rice  08:40

So again, from a pitfall standpoint, it goes back to your Mount Olympus analogy, right? You don’t want to sit up there and be idealistic in your planning. And so I’ve found that a good inventory, asking a lot of questions, going cross functional, talking to your product people, talking to your sales folks, talking to your operations people, figuring out, sort of, you know what you have in detail, and then things that you’ve done before. And this is particularly true if you’re entering an organization as a new marketing executive or director, is to come in there and really don’t always try to, sort of, and I say this all the time, don’t try to defend your ego or intellect. Ask a lot of questions. See what has worked in the past, see what has been done. See if there’s any sort of analytics or metrics around what has been done. 

Bill Rice  09:29

And then one of my secret weapons, too, I talk cross functional a lot, is to talk to your sales counterparts, your operational counterparts, your product and your tech technology folks, a lot of times, those have been at other organizations, and they’ve seen some successful marketing in the context of what they do. And sometimes those can be as you’re doing this inventory, this can be really good resources, because that they most likely have seen some successful marketing strategies before on the types of things that they the reason they were brought in, the organization, the types of things they work on, and so they can be a really good resource. Again, try not to let your ego or your intellect be bruised. Go in with a lot of questions as you start to build the plan.

Christian Klepp  10:17

Absolutely, absolutely leave the ego out the door basically, right for sure? No, I think that’s a really good point. And I’m sure you’ll agree it’s important to find, for lack of a better description, internal champions that will also advocate this, not necessarily advocate you, but if you use this more collaborative approach, where you get other members of other business units or departments involved in the process, they will feel like they have a stake in this, right? As opposed to, oh yeah, marketing is doing something, not sure what it is, right, or they’re asking for our feedback about something, right? Like, then this is, this is the more collaborative approach, where they bought in because you’re asking, you know, you’re asking for their opinions. You’re asking for their input, things of that nature. 

Bill Rice  11:06

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, from small startups all the way up to, you know, Fortune 500 companies. You know, to some degree, when you’re building out these plans, there’s kind of a business development, sales element to it, right? You do want to identify the pain points, what’s, what’s making their job hard? What can you do to make it easier? What can you leverage that they’ve already done? I think that’s a really kind of important skill to hone as you go in there, to again, to figure out in a sales sort of way, you know, what, what are their pains? What’s their vision? What are they looking to do? And that can be really helpful to nurture that champion sort of and collaborative sort of mentality as you start to build these things out.

Christian Klepp  11:52

Absolutely, absolutely. Let’s move on to the topic of market research and having the right strategy. So I know you said a couple of minutes ago, that folks shouldn’t spend too much time planning. And while I agree with that, it’s important to also do your homework, right? Like do the due diligence and what have you. But again, because a lot of this is time bound, because let’s face it, 90 days isn’t an awful lot of time in the grand scheme of things, right? So speed is also the name of the game, but you got to do it the right way. So here comes the question, so how can B2B companies and their marketing teams conduct just the right amount of research to formulate a plan they can implement?

Bill Rice  12:33

Yeah, so obviously, I come from the perspective of an agency, and so we have multiple clients, so one of the things that we do right off the bat is sort of, now this is done in Notion. So it’s digital, but we create a file, right? We want to create a file that gives us context around that company. So in that file is competitive research, product information, positioning, messaging, all those sorts of things. So even as an internal marketing director or executive, I think it’s really important to have those materials at your fingertips. So as you’re building new campaigns, or you’re building new marketing plans, you have a deep familiarity, or you’ve already done the base research on the product, where it sits in the market space. You know, how the audience is resonating with it, or a position. 

Bill Rice  13:25

Because, again, in B2B, there could be a lot of different, you know, phases to where your organization and your product is, like, is the market, you know, aware of the problem? Are they aware of the solution? Opportunity? Like, where are you in that cycle? So I think it’s really important from a research perspective. And this takes a little more time at the beginning, is to sort of assemble that core base around messaging, product information, how you position, how you want to position, and then, of course, those things you gathered in the inventory, what sort of platforms do you have available in order to run your campaigns on, you know, do you have a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) that will allow you to run outreach campaigns? Do you have the capabilities to run, you know, LinkedIn campaigns? Are you reliant on paid advertising? Have those sorts of things like I said, assembled in that file, I think is really important. 

Bill Rice  14:19

And then the other thing that just necessary needs to be added, is AI has changed this immensely. So I can go in and this is getting better. I mean, the ChatGPT just, I think yesterday, released a deep research tool that allows you to even do more of this. But one of the things I love to do with AI is have it as a research assistant. So not only can it kind of go out in a more efficient way than I could searching the web and doing competitive but it can now also do some reasoning and some thinking. And then my favorite application of this is to. Actually give it a role. So this could be a role inside the organization as the product manager, could be a role as a potential ICP or ideal customer profile, and then ask it questions. 

Bill Rice  15:11

So an interview that I wouldn’t necessarily get the opportunity to do or it wouldn’t be time efficient. I can give ChatGPT, or my favorite generative AI tool a role, and then I can interview that person and get a lot of good information. And then the other sort of sizable benefit to AI is as a B2B marketer, having done this 20 plus years, I always say I’ve got my tried and true, my bread and butter that I know is going to work, and I probably is, is the thing I’m always going to do. But now I’m more open to kind of going to AI and saying, what’s the whole range of possibilities here? Like maybe I, you know, haven’t done certain types of campaigns traditionally, or I’m not as comfortable with, let’s say, Field Marketing and conference. I’m mainly sort of a digital guy, but like, are there opportunities in conference appearances? Are there opportunities in podcasting? Is there opportunities in video? Is there opportunities and again, some sort of field marketing that I haven’t thought about? AI is really good at looking broad, bringing you sort of all the possibilities, and then you can sync that up against your inventory and say, hey, well, in this particular organization, they have a real advantage, you know, they’ve got a lights out thought leadership executive team who’s comfortable on stage. And there’s a real, sort of conference opportunity or a thought leadership opportunity. So anyway, again, AI can help us sort of broaden our field of view. And so that’s kind of another little shortcut to research.

Christian Klepp  16:48

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, this wouldn’t be a podcast in 2025 if we didn’t talk about AI at some point, right? 

Bill Rice  16:56

For sure. 

Christian Klepp  16:57

No, but I mean, and I think that was your point, there is certainly a time and place for AI and that that is definitely one of those situations where it can help to expedite the process a little bit. Because, I mean, to your previous point, if you’re coming up with a 90 day marketing plan, you don’t have the luxury of conducting a six month like research, right? Because, again, it’s about speed, but it’s about doing things the right way, right? And doing things accurately, ethically, things of that nature.

Bill Rice  17:29

And you want to, you know, obviously maximize your probability for success, right? So, and in 90 days, again, with all of its advantages, the disadvantage is it’s a fairly quick period of time to get results so.

Christian Klepp  17:42

Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Okay, my friend, we’re gonna come to like a very, I’m gonna say the juicy part of the conversation, right? Because this is where we start unpacking everything that you’ve that you’ve been talking about in the past couple of minutes. So walk us through this process of creating this 90 day marketing plan, specifically highlighting what the key steps are and what those key components are that need to be in this plan. 

Bill Rice  18:10

So, my framework generally has about five key components to what’s going to be in this plan, and then there’s a time component to it. So the first part you’ve already heard me talk, you know, pretty extensively about is that inventory process. I think this is an often missed opportunity to really leverage up, because, like we said, 90 days is a decent amount of time, but you’ve got to take some shortcuts. So that inventory is going to show you where you have points of leverage. 

Bill Rice  18:41

And then the second thing goes around, and at the top of every one of these programs and planning documents, if you will, there should be some very specific set of SMART goals. So we talked about Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and kind of Time bound. And time bound sort of is inherent in the 90 day plan. But I reiterate this, this sort of, that SMART framework is a good way to make sure that you, you have some goals in there that are well articulated, because too often this is where you drift off into the the Mount Olympus, and you get too lofty, and the plan becomes too big. So I think the SMART goals helps, again, keep some constraints on this, because they’re necessary. 

Bill Rice  19:25

The next section is a very specific action plan. And in this action plan needs to be who’s going to do it, and what are they going to do? So oftentimes, we’re really good at putting together lists or outlines of like, Hey, we’re going to do all these things. But then the missing component, and where we often fail is we’re not really sure who owns that. So that can be just a misstep of like, no one grabs the ball and runs with it. But the other thing that’s probably the more frequent misstep in this section, is. We don’t have the skill sets to do what we’re planning right? So we don’t have the expertise in Google ads. We don’t have a database full of excellent ICPs to run a successful email outreach. We don’t have the ability or the understanding of how to acquire audience in such a way to make a thought leadership or a social campaign work in our favor. And so the Action Plan gives us a good validation of like, do we have everything we need? And then, as I’m defining that, it becomes very clear who owns it, and this is sort of a checksum on do we have the skill set to actually execute? 

Bill Rice  20:46

Then the other thing that I like to do, because it helps the the overall team, feel a level of success, and if there’s an executive level above this plan that sort of is evaluating you as you’re executing, I like to have a section that carefully identifies the quick wins that I expect and the long term plays that I’m building. So again, that first 30 days in particular is probably going to be a little nerve wracking, because we probably got to set up some foundational stuff. And we’re probably not going to get a lot of actual action. And so to put in there some quick wins, some things that I know I can get, some sort of, you know, feel good impact is really powerful. And articulating, like, how I’m gonna do that is really important. And then for that executive level who’s kind of watching you and observing and hopefully getting and gaining trust in you. Those long term plays give them an understanding of what you’re building for and why you have to do some of these initial building steps, particularly in that first 30 days. 

Bill Rice  21:54

And then the last piece is, kind of the tools and resources section. So again, oftentimes, especially in sort of the modern era where a lot of this is digital or takes place in a sort of a virtual way, we need to make sure that we have the correct tools and resources. I mean, just simple things, if we’re going to run an outreach campaign, do we have a scheduling tool? Is that scheduling tool allow us to fully use our sales team, you know? Or is it like I’ve seen this before, is like one scheduling tool and then somehow we’re de conflicting, like, five sales people schedules, right? And so we don’t have the proper tool, or we haven’t set it up. So tools and resources are really important. Resources often goes to budget, too like, what are we going to have to be sort of resourceful in this plan and kind of use what we have at our disposal, and what are we going to sort of ask for, or try to expand to or capture some budget? And so I think that’s really important. So that’s kind of my five step framework to actually building out the plan and the steps I need to go through to make sure that the plan is viable at the end.

Christian Klepp  23:06

Wow. Just give me a second here. I think my hand is a little bit sore from all that writing. Well, fantastic framework, and just for the benefit of the audience, let me just repeat the five key components. Yeah. So Part one was the inventory process, which I totally agree with, right? I mean, sometimes you don’t have to start from scratch or reinvent the wheel. There are assets in place. Some of them might be hidden and buried in some ancient archive, but, you know, there’s something there to work off of. Right? 

Christian Klepp  23:37

Number two, SMART goals, absolutely, because, and I think you really hit the nail on the head, let’s not, let’s not get too like, you know, all the way up there with, um, you know, we aspire to be the most innovative B2B tech company, and, you know, all of that kind of, like, fluffy language, right? Like, really, have something that, have something, I always say, have something that people can grab hold of right? 

Christian Klepp  24:03

Third one is a specific action plan, and I’m all about that, right? Because it’s, it’s really spelling out, like, Okay, so you’ve got the goals. Now, what exactly are you going to do? Who’s going to do it? Right? So, and also, what outcomes are you expecting, right? 

Bill Rice  24:20

Yeah, totally. 

Christian Klepp  24:21

And that, that next bit was, um, I hope I’m formulating this prof up properly, but it’s being able to manage expectations from the get go in terms of, these are the quick wins, and this is more long term. So people actually see that there is a, there is an end game here, right? 

Bill Rice  24:42

Absolutely. And that’s what gives you a little bit more room, you know, to maneuver in the than the plan.

Christian Klepp  24:48

Correct, correct. And then the last one being tools and resources. And I did have a follow up question on Part Five, because there is a temptation. And I’m sure you know what I mean by this, there’s. A temptation to like, okay, let’s just have a tool for everything, right? Because that’s just gonna make the work so much easier. And what sometimes ends up happening is, you’ve got too many tools, and all of these tools somehow don’t sync with each other, or, you know, the software is not they’re not talking to one another, and it ends up being this big mess. How do you in your experience? How do you prevent that from happening?

Bill Rice  25:25

Simplicity, you know, is often kind of the best solution, right? Is like, what is the simplest test we can do? What is the simplest campaign we can run to see the initial traction? What’s kind of the most reasonable investment we can make to see if this is going to work, probably in the B2B space. One of the more specific example of this, which is almost always a disaster, is in the CRM space, right? So oftentimes we’re running some sort of outreach campaign, or we’re leveraging our customer base, or a series of list, pipelines. 

Bill Rice  26:10

And so in comes the marketing. Hey, we’re going to do these kind of campaigns. Our CRM won’t let me do like what I’m familiar with. So let’s throw out the CRM system. Let’s implement a new one that’s got all these bells and whistles. We had this great demo. They say they can do everything for us. And the fact of the matter is, you know, in the CRM marketplace in particular, which I think in this stat, I think is still accurate, it is the largest meaning, the most solutions in a software space, by like, exponential amount. So there’s so many different solutions, but they’re roughly all, you know, parity. You know, they’re all about the same, right? 

Bill Rice  26:55

So, on the tools front, what I often say is, how can we use the least amount of tools, the least amount of complexity? And again, it goes back to your inventory. Let’s leverage the resources and skill sets that we have, because if you have someone administering the CRM, or you have all your sales people on a CRM, and you want to do some outreach to maybe an age set of leads in that CRM. So it’s past, you know, deals that you’ve tried to work on, or clients, or you want to engage new folks, like, I bet someone in that organization who probably has is deeply seated in that CRM can help you do what you’re trying to accomplish. Or, if not, like, again, be flexible. So I think on the tools front, I think you’ve hit on a, you know, a really important problem set to try to avoid is, let’s not get too complex. Let’s not assume that any technology is going to be a panacea and do all my work for me. And let’s try to use the simplest and the least amount of complexity inside of this 90 day plan. And then from there, we’ll know exactly what we need to leverage and scale. I think, at that point of trying to scale something, that’s where technology becomes a big leverage point, and you can be a little bit more considered in sort of analyzing the technology. But most everything you need to do, especially in your first 90 day plan, you probably should be doing less with tools and technology.

Christian Klepp  27:06

Absolutely, absolutely do not be seduced by the shiny objects.

Bill Rice  28:34

For sure. 

Christian Klepp  28:35

Okay, so Bill, you’ve given us a lot now, but if there’s somebody out there who’s a B2B marketer that’s listening to this. What are three things that you think they can do right now to start creating this 90 day marketing plan?

Bill Rice  28:49

I think you know the first thing, and this helps in a lot of things in life, in your career, is start building some cross functional relationships, right? So within your organization, make sure you know you’ve got a close working relationship with the sales director, the product folks in particular, especially B2B, there’s usually some sort of product or service delivery involved here. So whoever is directly involved in developing that product or service and then interfacing with the customers, build those relationships. I can’t talk enough about the inventory, like really understand what you have available in your organization, what they do well, you know. What skill sets and talent your people have, again, cross functionally, right? Not just within your marketing department, but what you know is, is your CEO? Is your CMO, is your COO like, are they a personality? You know, is it somebody that you can leverage for thought leadership, or, again, really do a nice assessment of that. 

Bill Rice  29:56

And then I think the other thing is, like we’ve talked a lot about and why I came to this sort of 90 day plan, is try to simplify what you’re trying to accomplish. So instead of trying to boil the ocean with your marketing strategy, let’s pick some very specific, you know, well defined, things that we’re going to do that can give you some quick successes. Because again, depending on where you are in your phase or your role, whether you’re new or maybe you’ve been in there for a while and haven’t had really a big win for a while, you’re probably in some sort of trust building phase. And so getting something that is small and can be accomplished, and you have high confidence in and maybe in some degrees, you have more control of your success and your performance can be a really good way to sort of bite size some of that, get some wins, build some trust, and then from there, you can again, whether it’s your role or your campaigns or your overall marketing strategy. Once you get some of that traction and trust, then you can, of course, scale from there and do really big things.

Christian Klepp  31:07

Absolutely, absolutely. So fantastic. There was something that you said which is such a great segue into the next question about metrics. So you’ve been talking a lot about quick wins. Is there a way that you can, I wouldn’t say, quantify, but like, talk to us about metrics when it comes to quick wins, like, what should B2B marketers be paying attention to?

Bill Rice  31:29

I mean, I think at the highest level, I mean, ultimately, we’re trying to generally and B2B marketing, we’re trying to give sales more opportunities, right? So that’s, that’s probably our kind of overarching metric. And I think a lot of times we forget that, like we’ll do things that, like, look pretty, they feel good. The CEO likes it when he sees it online, and stuff like that. So we can, we can get sort of intoxicated with just like, the creativity of it, and doing something clever or interesting. So I think keeping a North Star of hey, we’re trying to create as many opportunities, high quality opportunities, as we can, for sale, as for sales, as that overarching, sort of, you know, metric. And then I think kind of going the opposite direction as we’re building these sort of bite-size early campaigns or things that we’re trying to do, be a little more forgiving of those metrics. So looking for things that are trend lines or that are traction so that could be our audience is growing in a particular channel or on a particular platform, or our traffic is starting to increase the and then you can, kind of, you can start to stair step it, like, Okay, I’ve got traffic and audience. Now I’m getting engagement. Okay, now I’m getting engagement, now I’m getting conversion, and now I’ve got conversion. Those are opportunities. What is the quality of those opportunities? So I think that’s kind of the other piece and metrics is be specific, oftentimes, to the channel, and what’s important in the channel that you’re running campaigns, and what are the most appropriate metrics there, and then sort of stair stepping them up to your ultimate goal, which is, again, more opportunities for sales.

Christian Klepp  33:17

Absolutely, absolutely. And I like that you kept it simple, because especially when it comes to metrics and attributes, I mean, you can go down this deep rabbit hole, yeah, right, or you just get caught up, like, measuring the wrong metrics or paying attention to the wrong metrics. I should say, right? 

Bill Rice  33:34

Yeah. Well, that’s a good like realm where we talk about starting small and building larger like, I love dashboards, and I love being able to get in there and look at the data in real time and see if we’re moving the needle. But sometimes people will start a six month program to sort of aggregate all of their marketing analytics get the right dash and again. So then you get back into that five year plan sort of scenario, and you know, you could be fired before the dashboard comes alive, right? So we’ve got to be discerning when we’re looking at these projects.

Christian Klepp  34:08

Absolutely, absolutely, all right, my friend soap box time, a status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why? 

Bill Rice  34:20

I think, you know, one of the status quos that I see a lot is we get stuck in just sort of the old way of doing B2B marketing. And quite honestly, a lot of B2B marketing has been a heavy reliance on heroics from our sales operations and teams, right? So I’m a big believer in collaborating very tightly. Sometimes the team now with kind of this CRO or Chief Revenue Officer thing, sometimes these teams are blended, which I’m a fan of. So as tightly as we can get for marketing supporting sales. And not forcing the sales operations to do his heroics and to even out the distribution of performers on the sales team. Because of that heroics, a lot of times you’ll see, and I hate when I see this in an organization, is like, you’ll see like 10% or maybe 5% of the sales teams are the top performers. They do 80. You know, it’s the 80/20 rule. But it doesn’t need to be like that. If we’re doing B2B marketing appropriately, and we’re giving a lot of opportunities to sales, that distribution should blend out, and we should be getting more from the whole team, sort of lifting all boats, so sort of sitting back as a B2B marketer, and just thinking that our only role is to provide beautiful sales collateral to heroic sales people, I think is probably what you see in most organizations. And it’s really a disservice to not only the sales operations, but your organization, just in general, in aggregate, not just the marketing team, is going to underperform, if that’s your approach. And I still see that as a big, pretty common model.

Christian Klepp  36:15

Absolutely, absolutely, it has to be a collaborative effort. The marketing team has to be more visible, and that’s one of the reasons why I started the show, right? Because the way that marketers, in order for marketers to initiate that change, they need to be the change. They need to evolve. They need to push themselves out there and not sit in their Ivory Tower or Mount Olympus, you know, like, pick your analogy, right? Absolutely, totally agree with that. All right, here we go. Bonus Question time. So I have it in good authority that you used to be in the Air Force, so I thought it’d be a good idea to, like, ask you some trivia questions linked to well Top Gun.

Bill Rice  37:02

Well, that’s Navy, but we won’t hold that against you, so.

Christian Klepp  37:08

Something with a plane in it, but I love it.

Bill Rice  37:11

One of my favorites. Hopefully I’ll do well. 

Christian Klepp  37:14

So I’m gonna read you a quote, and all you need to do, Bill is tell me which character said it. All right, so here we go. I’m gonna try to do it in the person’s voice, but you know, let’s see how it goes. “You’ve been busted. You lost your qualifications, a section leader three times put and hacked twice by me, with a history of high speed passes or five air control towers and one Admiral’s daughter.”

Bill Rice  37:42

I’m not gonna get his name right, but it was the commander on the aircraft carrier right after he and goose did their high speed pass. 

Christian Klepp  37:51

Oh, the flyby. Yes, yep, yes. So the character’s name is Stinger. 

Bill Rice  37:55

Stinger, okay.

Christian Klepp  37:57

Played by the actor James Tolkan, who today is 92 or 93.

Bill Rice  38:03

Wow, yeah, he always played a tough guy. I like him, he is a good actor.

Christian Klepp  38:07

Yeah, and at least in Top Gun, he had the, he had the cigar in his mouth, right?

Bill Rice  38:12

Which would not have flown.

Christian Klepp  38:15

I mean, by today’s standards, I mean just the thought of smoking in an aircraft carrier, right?

Bill Rice  38:20

Like, yeah, I know I was an Air Force officer, and it was even back in the day, and I’m older, but even back in the day, it was kind of frowned on to smoke period. And then in those kind of facilities like the, and I’m not a Navy guy, obviously, Air Force, but I do know that, like, the number one, like, worst, scariest thing is a fire on a ship. So I guarantee you that was not standard protocol.

Christian Klepp  38:47

There are some clues. There are some clues. But like, you know, thank you for being such a good sport, and my apologies for mixing that up. But like,

Bill Rice  38:54

Oh no, it’s all good. Yeah, I won’t go into I’ve got some funny stories around that, so.

Christian Klepp  39:01

I’m sure you do. I’m sure you do, Bill, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. So please, quick intro to yourself and how folks thought that can get in touch with you. 

Bill Rice  39:14

Yeah, so obviously, I’m Bill Rice. I’ve been doing B2B and marketing in general for 20 plus years. I’m probably longer than that, but we won’t, we won’t fully disclose how many years. I have an interesting sort of thread as to how I got into marketing. Like you said, I was in the Air Force. I did counter intelligence and and oftentimes people are interested by like, go from Intel to marketing. But one of the things that’s always been fascinating to me, and I think is really important for B2B marketers, to try to harness a little bit, is one of the things that we did in Intel, particularly as we were starting to do what’s now sort of categorized as information warfare and some more digital sort of Intel activities, was we were constantly looking for patterns to tell us what was going on, or if something was going on. 

Bill Rice  40:04

Marketing has become more and more analytical, and so I think as you’re building plans again, looking for those trends, those patterns, as you go into your organization, using some of those, some of that pattern recognition to give you an advantage as you kind of move into a new organization, or try to kind of re-energize your organization for more success. That can be really valuable. So that’s kind of my background. As far as what I do today, I have actually two agencies that I work with. One is more B2C focused. And then, of course, what we’ve been talking about B2B focused is Bill Rice Strategy Group. And in the context of that, we help organizations come in there build those strategies at very different levels and phases, right all the way from strategic planning to full execution. And so we love it, because we get to see a lot of different use cases and examples, and in particularly, we focus generally on fintech. And so that’s a really exciting space right now. We’re seeing blockchain, we’re seeing AI, we’re seeing all kinds of, almost a full transformation of a lot of our financial services and financial institutions and infrastructure, and we’re heavily involved in that, and it’s sort of fun space to be kind of on the edge as we move forward and doing marketing for those really interesting innovations.

Christian Klepp  41:33

Fantastic. That’s a heck of a background story. But how can people get in touch with you?

Bill Rice  41:38

Yeah, so there’s really kind of two ways. Obviously, you can go to https://billricestrategy.com/, that’s our website. I encourage people to get on my newsletter, https://www.myexecutivebrief.com/ the neat thing about that is we’re constantly trying to equip executives, whether this is something, a space you’re moving into, to really give you that full view, because we’re curating, sort of the most important things and trends that you need to be on top of. And then, of course, LinkedIn, very active on LinkedIn, you can find me at Bill Rice. I was early, so if you search for Bill Rice, you’re probably going to find me relatively quickly. Always involved there, doing both video and content, to try to give back as much as I can. I love the education portion of what I do, so you’ll definitely find me and can interact with me on LinkedIn.

Christian Klepp  42:27

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

Bill Rice  42:33

All right. Awesome. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you. 

Christian Klepp  42:36

Thanks. Bye for now. 

Christian Klepp  00:01

Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking with Rai Cornell. She is a marketing psychologist, strategist and the founder of Cornell content marketing. Together with her team, she helps to transform the way companies market to their audiences by leveraging a deep understanding of human behavior, behavioral changes and neurotransmitters. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is.

Christian Klepp  00:32

 All right, I’m gonna say Rai Hyde Cornell, welcome to the show.

Rai Cornell  00:37

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Christian. 

Christian Klepp  00:40

Great to have you on the show, and I really enjoyed our previous conversation and the conversation that we had just before I hit record, because I think I’ve learned more about you, I should say, in these past 20 minutes, than I have in the past couple of months. And that’s always a good thing, right?

Rai Cornell  00:56

Yep, always is amazing. What comes up just in those little GET TO KNOW YOU little tidbits of connection there. 

Christian Klepp  01:02

Absolutely, absolutely. So let’s dive into today’s topic, because I’m going to say we’ve had many guests on the show talk about B2B content marketing from different facets and perspectives, but we’ve never quite had anybody come on the show that is going to be discussing this next topic, which I’m not going to give too much away right now, but let’s just say it’s highly relevant, not just for B2B content marketing, but for B2B marketing in general. 

Christian Klepp  01:30

But it very rarely gets discussed, and part of that might be because a few people actually understand how to approach it, all right? So I’m gonna, like, stop keeping the audience in suspense, and I’m going to actually reveal what the topic is, right? That might be a good way to start. So you’ve been on a mission for a bit now, to help B2B businesses become thought leaders by creating long term demand generation strategies and eliminating short term manipulative tactics like ads. 

Christian Klepp  02:00

So today we’re going to focus on a topic that I think is going to be useful to B2B marketers, and it’s how to get 90% of pre-sold buyers using psychology driven marketing. And I know that that seems like a very, very deep kind of term, but let’s unpack it here, right? And we’re going to kick off this conversation with this question, why do you believe that psychology driven marketing is so important in B2B?

Rai Cornell  02:29

Because ultimately, you know, a lot of B2B businesses, they take it literally when they think they are business to business, and that lends itself. That kind of thinking lends itself to being very sterile in your communications and very logic oriented, where all you want to talk about are features and benefits and cost savings and ROI and of course, those are important elements to the decision making process. But it’s not businesses that are making a decision. It’s humans, and humans are driven by psychology. And, you know, we’ve talked even just in the short amount of time, we’ve thrown out a lot of buzz words. We’re talking about thought leadership, psychology, demand generation, B2B marketing, organic, without all the manipulative tactics. You know, we’re throwing around a lot of these terms, but really everything that that comes back to is helping businesses heal the relationships between their brand and their buyers. And the reason psychology is so pivotal in all of that is because the way to heal those relationships is by treating people with respect and treating them like humans, not treating them like transactions.

Christian Klepp  03:49

What a great way to kick off this conversation. Absolutely, absolutely. And I did have a follow up question for you, Rai, just based on what you’ve been saying, right? And you’ve probably seen this online, especially on LinkedIn, more times than you care to count, especially in B2B content marketing. I don’t know if you have a feeling, you know what I’m gonna say, but like, there’s a lot of talk out there, and several camps of people in the specific field of yours that are saying that no, in fact, B2B, content marketing has to be sterile, has to be factual, has to be logical, because it should appeal to a buying committee that consists of people in procurement and people that deal with vendors and and all these different other functions, right? So I bring all of that up to say that B2B content at the end of the day must be boring. Boring wins at the end of the day. So I’m going to get off my soapbox now and over to you your thoughts on that.

Rai Cornell  04:56

So the thing is, yes, there is a place for that very clinical, cut and dry, black and white. Here’s what’s included. Here’s what’s not, here’s what you can expect. Here’s the ROI (Return On Investment). There is a place for that. But the problem is it’s at the bottom of the funnel. We as humans tend to like to think of ourselves as very logic oriented, very rational, level headed decision makers, and we’re not. We are very emotion driven. And the thing that I love about this marriage of psychology and marketing, and it’s so funny that, you know, back in the day, if I go back 18 years ago, I was on a path to be a counselor in the prison system, and I worked in drug rehab centers and community counseling centers and a mental hospital, and I had this deep understanding of the paradigms of how we look at the world as human beings, how we shape our behaviors, and then to completely pivot over to something like marketing and for our models of understanding of human behavior to match up so perfectly with the marketing funnel of brand awareness, interest, decision, action, and then I always like to say there’s a fifth stage that a lot of people forget about, which is retention, but for that funnel to map so perfectly to the way we process information in the way we form bonds, in the way that we decide to take steps closer to people and things in our world.

Rai Cornell  06:30

It tells me that there is something so valuable here, and what a lot of the people who you’re referring to who say, Oh no, B2B marketing and content has to be very clinical and cut and dry and logical? Well, you’re never going to get to that point of the decision, because the initial stages. There’s two forks here. One is usually the people who are bringing you to that logic oriented table and conversation are the gatekeepers who make a decision based on, Ooh, I like this post, or, I like this article that really helped me get closer to satisfying a request that my boss sent me on. Or, oh, this branding is very intriguing and interesting. And of course, these are all subliminal things that people are processing beneath the surface, but they have to like you and feel comfortable before they’re even open to processing the logical information and bringing you to that you know, superficially logical decision making conversation, even though there’s still emotion and relationship built under there. And the other thing I’ll say about that is I don’t know a single person in the business world who wouldn’t agree with the statement that a huge part of business success is not what you know, but who you know, which tells us it’s all about relationships and using content to form emotional bonds and relationships with people before they have a conversation with your sales reps. That goes a long, long way to giving you more cachet in that conversation when it does get to the logic point.

Christian Klepp  08:15

Absolutely, absolutely. And also you’ll agree with me on this, I’m sure. But nobody wakes up in the morning and says, You know what I want to do today? I’m going to read some boring content, right? 

Rai Cornell  08:28

Yes, there was a study I was just reading the other day about what lasts longer in someone’s memory and joy, laughter, those are things that cause memories to be more deep seated. There was a study that did this kind of exposure of someone looking at a page that had competing ads and non competing ads. Competing ads were, let’s say, two brands of laptop computers shown on the same page and another page of non competing ads, where you may have had a laptop computer, a cell phone and a keyboard, where they’re not selling the exact same product. And the study showed that when people were delighted, when they were introduced with humor and joy, they remembered the brands far longer in both instances than if you lead with scarcity tactics and trying to create a negative mood. So it’s this, you have to focus on how people feel, and if you lead with that at the top of the funnel, then they’re willing to come closer to you, learn more, spend more time with you, consider you more. And you can get to the logical part of the conversation, which is when all of those you know, battle cards and case studies and things like that, really. Come into play. 

Christian Klepp  10:01

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. I’m gonna move us on to the next question, which is about key pitfalls that B2B content marketers need to avoid and what they should be doing instead.

Rai Cornell  10:14

Yeah. So this really goes back to respecting your buyer. I think a lot of us in B2C relationships with brands have had the experience where we feel duped, or we go up. It had got me. The ad got me. Because you see something eye-catching. You see this grand promise, you click it, you engage with it, and then suddenly, Oh, it’s not what I thought it was. And how did I go down this rabbit hole? And, oh, I feel a little manipulated. I feel a little duped. I feel kind of lied to. 

Rai Cornell  10:50

We can’t do that in the business to business world either, because that’s really where we start to break down trust and in business to business deals, the sales conversation lasts so long. Months, sometimes even years, and if you’re breaking down trust at the very first encounter with these manipulative scarcity FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), you know, trying to pressure someone into Making a decision before they’re ready. Sorts of tactics that those are the biggest pitfalls I see in marketing that is going to make sure that you’re let you’re leaving a bad taste in their mouth, as opposed to if you do the opposite, you build trust, you go slow, you allow your buyer to set the pace, and you are there for them every step of the way, answering questions and guiding them along the stages of change model. That’s where you’re going to be the one with the endurance to make it to that final decision making conversation at the end of that long buyer journey.

Christian Klepp  11:57

Absolutely, absolutely. And I’m totally with you on avoiding the use of manipulative tactics, or creating the sense of urgency. I mean…

Rai Cornell  12:07

Yes.

Christian Klepp  12:07

I don’t know about you, but creating the sense of urgency, I get that, but especially in these, like you said, some of these B2B transactions. I mean, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? You can’t be using the same, I’m gonna call them supermarket tactics, right? Like the promo expires next week.

Rai Cornell  12:26

Right, right. Or get those flowers before Valentine’s Day, or whatever the case may be. Those are situations where, yes, a clock is relevant. But nowadays, buyers are so much more savvy than they were 5, 10, 20 years ago, and if you use those tactics, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. And the problem is a lot of companies focus too much on ROI in a short time frame, and what they’re sacrificing is more ROI over a longer time frame.

Christian Klepp  12:58

Yep, Yep, absolutely. I have one follow up question, just based on the things that you said earlier, actually, your take on injecting humor into B2B content, what are your thoughts on that?

Rai Cornell  13:11

Yeah, I love it. It’s one of the things that it’s so disarming and in B2B relationship building. We are all so readily armed. If you think about just the way that you interact with your own LinkedIn profile, where you log into your account, maybe you check your messages, you see who sent you an in mail versus who sent you a connection request. How often is your default assumption? Oh, this person’s just trying to sell me something. Why is this person reaching out to me? Why do they want to connect? What are they trying to get me to buy? We are also armed and guarded, whereas, when you use humor, the simple fact of making someone laugh, and I tried to do this on all of my quote, unquote sales calls, which I call them because people know what sales calls are, but I never think of them as sales calls. They’re problem, solution brainstorming calls. But I always try to get somebody to laugh, because they’re only going to open up to me and really get into the meat of what we can actually accomplish together. Or if I’m not the right one to work with them, at least tell me what I can do to help them connect with the right person. That’s only going to happen. We’re only going to get to the most valuable information when they are at ease, and laughter is the quickest path to ease.

Rai Cornell  14:29

So if you can make someone laugh with a LinkedIn post, an article, a video, an ad, an infographic, something that not only tells them, oh, this company would be enjoyable to work with, but also, oh, my God, they get me like we can both laugh about the same shared experience and how ridiculous or how painful, or how, you know, mind numbingly challenging it is to encounter. Then you’re starting on. Shared ground. And that’s really what laughter and humor does, is it brings you together on that shared ground.

Christian Klepp  15:05

Well, it’s the best medicine, as they say, right? And by the way, I’m going to steal that one for a LinkedIn post, laughter is the quickest path they ease.

Rai Cornell  15:15

Yeah, good. Absolutely, the more people who are doing this, the more people who and that’s really when we talk about marketers on a mission. My mission is to heal those relationships between businesses and buyers, and if you can share a laugh together, I mean, instantly your relationship is a little bit more healed, and so the more people we can get using these tactics and being more human to one another. Mission accomplished.

Christian Klepp  15:42

Correct, correct, absolutely. I’m gonna move us on to the next question, which we’re I’m not gonna say we’re gonna psychoanalyze people, but let’s dive into the psychology aspect of it, right? And you can’t talk about the psychological aspect of it without conducting research, right?

Rai Cornell  16:02

Right.

Christian Klepp  16:03

So when you’re leveraging psychology driven marketing, as I said, conducting the right research, having the right strategy also are important, right? So how can B2B marketers go about doing this quickly and efficiently? Because, let’s be honest, not everybody has 12 months to do research and then implement these initiatives.

Rai Cornell  16:25

Yeah, absolutely. So, yes, research is important. Yes, outside data is important. But I think a lot of companies, especially when they’re faced with a fork in the road where they have to decide, okay, either we are going to commit to this long journey of research and go all in on that it’s going to take 12 months, or we could do this shorter route and commit to learning along the way. They often discount how much knowledge they really have inside of their organization, and this is when marketing often misses an opportunity to speak to other departments within a company. 

Rai Cornell  17:09

So for example, one of the first things that I like to do when I start working with a new company is set up this feedback loop between the sales team and the marketing team, getting these two departments working in the same direction, as opposed to being rivals who point the finger at one another. Marketing also needs to talk to service delivery. They need to talk to customer support. They need to talk to the people who are talking to the people, and really figure out, what do we know about our dream customers, the ones that we hope stay with us for years and years and years. What do we know about them? What are they struggling with? What are they asking for help on how are they using our product or service? When you tap into that wealth of knowledge that you already have and do that internal data analysis, you can leap yourself forward in magnifying your results of more of what you want, you already have some great clients and customers. Magnify how much of that you have by examining that particular subset of data.

Christian Klepp  18:15

Yeah, no, absolutely. I totally agree with that, even just from previous experience, that it’s really important for content marketers, especially not to like, pick whatever analogy you want, like working in silos, being up in their ivory tower, working in isolation, they have to work through this ecosystem within the organization. And I agree with you, it shouldn’t just be through the sales. It should also be through customer support. I was in a previous role where we had inbound and outbound sales complete. They’re both sales, completely different scenarios, though, right? And, and even for the BD (Business Development), are you talking about retainer accounts? Are you talking about project based accounts, I get different situation, right? Yeah, and each of them comes with their own unique set of challenges, objectives. The clients also have different goals and motivations for working with the company, right?

Rai Cornell  19:16

Exactly. And you know, you’re asking about, how do we start to kind of psychoanalyze quickly, if we can look at that internal subset of data. And then one of the things that I love pulling into marketing conversations is what’s known as the CBT triangle. So CBT is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and it’s a really popular psychotherapy modality used to help people with depression and anxiety. And the reason that it works so well is because this triangle, which consists of thoughts, emotions and behaviors, and it kind of, you can kind of think of it like the recycling triangle, where they all feed into one another, and it all cycles back around and around and around.

Rai Cornell  19:58

If you look at those three elements of your ideal customers, thoughts, emotions and behaviors, and you see, okay, where are they going off course? You know this is what we do in therapy and in counseling. Is we go, okay, your thoughts about this particular experience are causing you to have these particular emotions, which are causing you to choose these particular behaviors. And if you can look at that cycle and see where things are going awry, where people are flying out of your funnel instead of getting more comfortable in your funnel and going further down the process, that’s where you can interrupt. You can course correct. You can change those thoughts. You can change those feelings and emotions, and you can then change those behaviors. 

Rai Cornell  20:44

And if you really understand what’s working and what’s not, for the people that form the majority of your ideal clientele base, that’s when you really start to find not only your brand voice, but in that’s your marketing messaging, but you also start to find your marketing methods and mechanisms, whether that’s going to be particular types of content, like how to content or motivational content or data reporting content, you know, depending on what is really driving that particular segment of your target audience, and then also your mechanisms. Where are they consuming it? How are they consuming it? Video, text, podcasts, infographics, AI (Artificial intelligence) search, whatever the case may be. But it all starts with that internal experience that your ideal customer is having based on their thoughts, emotions and then the derivative behaviors.

Christian Klepp  21:47

Great answer, Rai, and I wasn’t, I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic there. I mean it however, I’m gonna play the devil’s advocate now, all right, because you’ve probably run into this before. I mean, especially working with B2B, you brought up so many very profound insights regarding behavior, thoughts, emotions, what triggers people, what motivates them, what motivates them to look for a specific solution or product, things of that nature. How do you take this psychology aspect of it and package it? How should I put this for a customer who has a senior management consisting mostly of CFOs, CIOs, CSOs, you get the picture, right?

Rai Cornell  22:38

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  22:39

That are going to look at. Are going to look at everything that you’ve just said and said, and would react like, Okay, how is this actually going to help us. 

Rai Cornell  22:48

Right, right. 

Christian Klepp  22:48

How is this going to move our business forward? We get what you’re saying, Doc, right? But like, how is this going to help move our business forward, and how is this going to impact the initiatives that the marketing team is going to roll out.

Rai Cornell  23:02

Right. So when it comes to those C suite decision makers, particularly the ones that are focused on revenue drivers, I think it all comes down to finding a common ground. And I think everyone can agree. And this is why, even though it may feel trite and overused the marketing funnel is that common ground for all decision makers, and what I mean by that is, everyone wants the conversion at the bottom of the funnel, right? But I think everyone can agree, both logically and experientially. If you look at your past history as a marketer that in order for people to get to the action stage, they have to get to the decision stage. And in order for them to get to the decision stage, they have to have interest in your brand, and in order for them to have interest in your brand, they have to be aware of you. 

Rai Cornell  23:55

And each of those things ties to parts of what you’re going to execute in your marketing. So brand awareness is all about visibility. Interest is all about traffic, traffic to your website, your landing pages, and then the decision in action is all about engagement. You want people to take action and actually show initiative of coming towards you. And so if you can all agree on that, then it becomes very clear, and it becomes very metrics oriented. If you look at your metrics and your visibility metrics are poor, and your interest metrics are poor, and your conversion and engagement metrics are poor, well then where do we need to start? We don’t need to start at the bottom. That’s not going to do you any good, because still, nobody’s going to get into the funnel. You have to start at the top. You have to start with your visibility. 

Rai Cornell  24:46

And even though, in my experience, and I think a lot of people have had this same experience, the Chief Revenue Officers and the Chief Financial Officers, they care about conversion. They can all agree, there’s nothing to convert if you don’t have brand awareness. And so you have to look at the numbers very objectively and see where are we strong and where are we weak. And you know, I have worked with companies that have fantastic brand awareness numbers. Their visibility is great. Their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ranking numbers are great. Their followers on social media, especially LinkedIn, are great, but they’re not getting the traffic and they’re not getting the conversions. If that’s the case, well then that points you exactly to where you need to start fixing the problem, and that means your top of funnel is doing really well. You’re doing great with your top of funnel content, but now you need to focus on the interest aspect of it. 

Rai Cornell  25:46

And this is where, again, psychology really comes in tanned because what that means, and this is where I like to reflect it onto the stages of change model. What that means is your target audience may be aware of the problem. So in the stages of change model, there’s the pre problem awareness, there’s problem awareness, there’s pre contemplation, there’s contemplation, and then there’s action. And again, voila, that maps up perfectly to the marketing funnel Exactly. And so what that tells you is, if your top of funnel content is performing really well, the metrics say so then they know that there’s a problem. What they don’t know is that there’s a solution that they need to contemplate changing too. And so that’s where you can really focus. This is where the big, ginormous question in any marketing room is, what do we talk about? What do we create? And that’s where psychology points you to, exactly what you need to create.

Christian Klepp  26:48

You’ve clearly been asked this question before.

Rai Cornell  26:53

It’s it all you know, when we start talking about marketing and psychology, it sounds very heady, and it sounds very like this amorphous conceptual idea and this philosophy, but it’s very practical, and that’s why I love pairing data analytics with the stages of change model in the CBT triangle and the marketing funnel, because they all point you in the same direction. It’s like using triangulation when you’re trying to find someone’s cell phone out in the forest. You are triangulating exactly where you need to start and where you need to solve problems in your funnel when you use all of these tools together.

Christian Klepp  27:35

Absolutely, absolutely, no. I do love the way that you’ve packaged that and how you’ve it’s it’s almost like telling a story, right? Like the different components in the story are interconnected. And I think what you’ve shown us in these past couple of minutes, is the strong correlation between all these, we can say moving parts, because there are a lot, right? No, that’s, that’s, that’s absolutely right. So on to the next question, just from your experience, and I know that it really depends on the industry, the company, the stage the company is at, but like just from your own experience, are there any content formats or assets that you would recommend to B2B marketers just based on what you’ve seen out there?

Rai Cornell  28:19

Yeah, so there’s what people want, and then there’s how they find what they want. And these are two very different questions. You know, I think we’ve all in marketing, heard that phrase of, if you try speaking to everyone, you’re speaking to no one. And so a lot of companies try to create all different kinds of format content. They’ll create text based long form content, and then they’ll chop that up and create infographics from it, so we have static images. And then they might also create videos or create kind of like a podcast version of that long form content, and then they might chop that up into short form videos that can be distributed over social and unfortunately, I have to tell everyone listening to this, that’s what you have to do. You have to do that. You have to create all the different formats of content, because humans will want to consume it in different ways. You know, prior to hitting record on this episode, you and I were talking about how, you know, I’m one of those weirdos who would rather read a 2000 word article than watch a two minute video. Just do not put a video in front of me. I will read and read and read and read all day long. I will listen to audio books, but I will not watch a video. And then you’ve got someone like my husband, who’s the exact opposite. He’s like, I will not read two sentences, but I will watch a two hour video on how to do this thing. So you have such diversity in how people consume content nowadays, so you have to be catering to that. 

Rai Cornell  29:55

But ultimately, if that feels overwhelming, what I recommend is. Focusing on what’s going to make Google and now SEO in the time of AI very happy, and the reason you have to focus on that is because when you cater your content modalities to the humans, you have to do everything. And you’re never going to please everyone by focusing on one particular thing. You just have to do it all, whereas, if you focus instead on them even finding your content before they decide if they even enjoy your particular modality, you have to please google and the AI search. And now my answer would have been very, very different four years ago, but now long form content, which includes snippets of quick, short answers that the AI can grab as a feature, coupled with a focus on images embedded within your content. And here we go again video you can progressively work through these things. So that’s typically what I do with companies. When we’re trying to figure out how to triage all of this content that we have to do, you start with the long form text, because that is, if you can get that right, everything else is derivative from it, and it’s going to be so much easier to make all the other criteria satisfied.

Christian Klepp  31:24

Thank you for breaking that down for us. And it almost sounds to me, and I’m going to oversimplify it now, Rai, but it almost sounds to me like somebody that says I’m going to, you know, I want to get a six pack, but they don’t want to put in all that work. They don’t want to put in and they don’t realize that it’s not just about doing the cardio, it’s also about watching what you eat or not eat, right? So there’s this whole combination of factors involved there, and I, and I agree with you, because I do quite a bit of this, like content, development and copywriting myself, that you have to put in the work. You have to put in the work of writing out the long form content, and then you can, I’m just gonna throw in another analogy here. Get more juice out of the squeeze, right? 

Rai Cornell  32:13

Yeah, absolutely. 

Christian Klepp  32:14

Or chop it up, as, I think, another popular term that everybody loves to use now, like, especially with video, like, chop it up into snippets or clips or like what you said, extract them, extract some insights from that long article, and create an infographic out of it, right? So something that would have been very dry and factual can actually now be very visually interesting because you’ve turned it into an infographic, right? Things of that nature.

Rai Cornell  32:39

Yes, and it’s very difficult to go from having something like, okay, so a lot of companies nowadays, they think, Oh, we have to do video, video that’s so powerful online. So let’s do video.

Christian Klepp  32:52

Right.

Rai Cornell  32:53

And yes, they’re right. It is extremely powerful online, and I highly recommend any business does video. But the problem is, when you start with video, you get overwhelmed. There is so much work that goes into producing videos, coming up with the script, doing the actual recording, figuring out, are we going to make this a 30 minute long video, or are we going to focus on doing a 90 second video that can be used as a reel or a clip or a short? Those are way too many questions to ask. So why not start long start with the thing that’s the easiest for people to get out, which normally is written content or dictated content. So hey, let me just talk into my text to what is it called, talk to text feature on my phone. Or let me record this audio clip and send it to my assistant and have it transcribed. Or, you know, whatever the case may be, that is usually the easiest way to get started. And then you can create all of the derivatives from there. And it reduces that investment barrier. It reduces that energy commitment barrier, and it reduces the overwhelm by just simplifying it so it’s all about the order of operations and making sure that you’re working smart, as opposed to just trying to jump your way up to the top of Mount. Everest. Right off the bat.

Christian Klepp  34:17

I completely agree with you, and I’m grinning because I’ve been in situations like that, with clients in the past where, you know, they got they they went really deep down this rabbit hole of how, how we should produce this video, and what type of video, and it got into the stage where there was so much analysis paralysis that it was almost like, Okay, why don’t we just call Steven Spielberg or Jerry Bruckheimer, right? I mean, let’s just Hollywood stock production, right? 

Rai Cornell  34:43

Yeah, yeah. 

Christian Klepp  34:44

Which they don’t need. And you and I both know that, right? Like, it does not have to be overly produced. 

Rai Cornell  34:50

Agree.

Christian Klepp  34:51

That said. And I’m gonna throw in this caveat there for people that are gonna take my, take my word, you know, at face value, and say, I’ll just take out. My iPhone and film something that’s not what I that’s not what I mean either, right?

Rai Cornell  35:04

Correct, and it has to come down to quality. That’s another you know, at the beginning we started talking about that. In order to heal your relationship as a brand with the people who you want to buy, you have to show them respect. And I think we’ve all kind of been in those situations where you see something that a company or, you know, personal brand has thrown together, and you go, Oh, you’re you’re really winging it here. You’re really not trying. This is and you lose respect for that person, and you want to make sure that you’re putting your best foot forward. You are putting out the highest quality content that you can, however, and this is the caveat that we all kind of find ourselves in throughout life, not just in business or in marketing, but perfectionism is the depth of creativity, and you have to accept that while you strive for high quality standards and you want to put out the best quality content that you can done is always better than perfect.

Christian Klepp  36:08

I used to work with this creative director that absolutely hated that phrase, um, but he was, again, to your point. He was one of these people that got caught in this trap of perfectionism and then the work always got delayed, right? So going back to your original point, absolutely, absolutely.

Rai Cornell  36:28

Within my team, we call it full life content. And what we mean by that term is we all start out in life clumsy and, you know, falling down and rough around the edges and awkward, and we get to this gangly stage, and eventually we evolve into figuring out who we are, and we have richness, and we have depth to us, and then we have something to offer the world, that is the lifespan of humans, and that is the lifespan of content and ideas we need to start, just to start, because that’s at least going to teach us something that’s going to get us traction in the world, and then as that content lives and we learn, we know exactly how to improve it, and we can make improvements over time that gradually enrich that content and make it more and more and more valuable to our audience. But we can’t just jump to the ripe old age of an 80 year old perfect, self aware human. Neither can we do that with our content and our marketing.

Christian Klepp  37:29

Absolutely, absolutely. We get to the point in the conversation, we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us plenty already, so I’m gonna narrow it down to three important things, all right, so just on this topic, right of leveraging psychology driven marketing for better results, what are three things that you think B2B marketers can do right now?

Rai Cornell  37:52

Yep, so you know, it’s funny. I was actually just talking to a colleague this morning about how there’s this tendency in B2B marketing for companies to over segment and over analyze and over personalize. And ultimately, what that ends up doing is it costs you more time and energy and resources to speak to fewer people. And so I think for a lot of companies that feel like they need to make a big change and they don’t know where to start, which that is one of the biggest analysis paralysis issues that we see in the marketing world, is pick your largest group and focus on that first you will always find spin offs and subsets and subcultures eventually down the line. But even if that largest group is something as simple as you know, the example my colleague gave earlier was Johnson & Johnson speaking to women, just women, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, mothers, just speaking to women. If you start there and you start creating content that are going to help women make this decision to come closer to you and choose you as their brand they’re loyal to, you’re going to learn so much, and you’re going to create so much that’s valuable to you, not just in the short term, but in the long term. So actionable tip number one is, choose your largest segment, whether that’s 40% of your audience, 80% of your audience, choose that focus there, start there. 

Rai Cornell  39:32

The next thing is, if you think about your marketing methods and mechanisms, particularly your methods, meaning, how am I reaching people? Always, always, always do this litmus test of, how would I feel if I was on the receiving end of this marketing, if you do not feel respected, if you feel duped or pressured or deceived, do not do. Yeah, it’s, it seems like such a simple thing, but it’s this golden rule of treat others how you would want to be treated. And I can’t emphasize enough how important that is in marketing. 

Rai Cornell  40:12

And then the third actionable step, I would say, is go back to the numbers. So many companies think they need to double down on the bottom of the funnel, when they’re not even getting anybody into the top and middle of their funnel. So go back to the numbers and let those point you in the direction of your absolute top priority. And do exactly that. Focus on the top priority, the top of the sales funnel, the part of the sales funnel that the numbers are showing you are in need of help more than what is below it and what is blowing. What is blowing?

Christian Klepp  40:47

Well, I love it. I love it. Let me just quickly recap for the benefit of the audience, right? So choose your largest segment and focus on that was the first step, or the first tip, the second one was, I would say, for lack of a better description, empathize with the target audience and put yourself in their shoes. And if you see this content, or you see this marketing, how does it make you feel? Do you feel like you’re being manipulated? Do you feel like you’re being pressured? Do you feel like you’re being pushed to make a decision right now, right? And number three is going back to the numbers right and focusing on those excellent, excellent Rai I’m going to ask you to stay on your soapbox a little bit longer, if that’s okay with you. But the question is, what is the status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with and why? And my sense is that you have a lot of things that you disagree with, but just pick one.

Rai Cornell  41:46

I do. There’s a lot, you know, even though I am a marketing professional, there’s a lot that I don’t like about the marketing and advertising industries. But think the one that I think really encapsulates everything that we’ve talked about today is that a lot of people, especially decision makers, in their attempts to be very logical and be very rational, which that’s all about the ego, right? We all want to feel like, oh yes, I’m very level headed and pragmatic, and I just follow the numbers and I just do, you know what the most logical decision is they lose sight of what’s actually going to be required for their long term success. And if you focus purely on revenue, you’re going to have some short term success at the cost of alienating a huge population that could set you up for a slow, steady, stable growth over time. Instead of prioritizing revenue at all costs, prioritize humans. Prioritize relationships. If you focus on those things, those two things, relationships and the humans you’re in relationship with the revenue will come. Whereas, if you focus on the revenue only, the humans will not come.

Christian Klepp  43:09

The humans will not come, but the robots will no. Sorry,

Rai Cornell  43:15

And is that what we want? I don’t know. Every sci-fi movie tells us no.

Christian Klepp  43:19

Absolutely not, absolutely not, no. But I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you. And I know there are many out there that are very well, let’s just say they subscribe to a different school of thought. And that’s putting it politely, right? They’re more of the transactional kind that believes that it’s speed, it’s speed to revenue, right? And I get that right? I get that you don’t like I said before, you don’t have 12 months to produce results, but not at the expense, and I think that was your point, not at the expense of destroying potential relationships and tarnishing your brand and your company’s reputation.

Rai Cornell  43:59

Right, and there’s a whole, I’m sure we could do a whole other episode on short term ROI solutions that don’t destroy relationships and that don’t destroy your brand’s reputation long term. There’s so much we could go into there. It’s, I’m not saying it’s one or the other. I’m saying you have to use the goal of forming relationships and having those healthy bonds with the humans who are going to determine the success or failure of your company. You have to use that as your guide. Post. That is your North Star.

Christian Klepp  44:30

Absolutely, absolutely okay. Two more questions, and I’m going to let you go right to the bonus question, if you had the opportunity to travel anywhere in the world. Where would it be and why?

Rai Cornell  44:46

Is this a purely personal question? 

Christian Klepp  44:49

Yes. 

Rai Cornell  44:50

Okay, Thailand. I have been dreaming for years, potentially decades, of going to Thailand and interacting with the elephants there. I. Saw this video one time of somebody wrestling with a baby elephant, and this, this baby was like 300 pounds, and so this person.

Christian Klepp  45:06

Wow.

Rai Cornell  45:07

You know, struggling, but it’s just, there’s something so magical about elephants and just Thailand is such a magical place to me. I That’s absolutely my number one choice. If you were to give me a plane ticket, yeah, I’d be on my way. 

Christian Klepp  45:24

Yeah. No, no, it is an amazing place, and I’ve been there before. I was there for about two weeks, yeah, spent a couple of days in Bangkok. And Bangkok is an eclectic mix of being a beautiful and wild place all at the same time, right? 

Rai Cornell  45:41

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  45:42

But, um, but, but you’re absolutely right. It’s a wonderful country, and the people are very warm, and they are really, really, very welcoming, and they smile a lot, and they’re happy. And there’s just something about that, that aura, right, that vibe, right, that you get from them, that that, I suppose, appealing to people from the west who are always, you know, at times, overly worked.

Rai Cornell  46:10

Yes, yes. It’s very, it’s very attractive seeing the culture, commune with nature, the way that they do in Thailand.

Christian Klepp  46:18

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, Rai, this has been a great conversation, and thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners I might take, I might take you up on that idea, though, for another podcast episode. So for those of you listening, stay tuned, but please quick intro to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Rai Cornell  46:41

Absolutely. So as you said, I’m Rai Cornell. I’m the owner of Cornell Content Marketing, and you can find me on LinkedIn. My first name is spelled a little weird. It’s Rai Cornell, like the university. And if you are looking to get started with any kind of psychology driven marketing, I want to make as many tools as I possibly can, available to anybody who wants to do this, even if you don’t ever work with me. Just please take these tools and run with it in house. And we do have a great starter kit, which is called the demand generation brainstorming kit, which you can get at www.cornellcontentmarketing.com/demandgenkit.

Christian Klepp  47:17

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

Rai Cornell  47:24

Thank you so much, Christian. 

Christian Klepp  47:25

All right. Bye for now.

Christian Klepp  00:00

Chris, welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today I’ll be talking to Dan Balcauski. He’s the Founder and Chief Pricing Officer of Product Tranquility, who helps high volume B2B SaaS (Software as a Service), CEOs define pricing and packaging for new products. His approach emphasizes understanding customer segments and measuring value in ways that drive long term growth. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. All right. Dan Balcauski, welcome to the show, sir.

Dan Balcauski  00:37

Good to be here. Christian, thank you for having me.

Christian Klepp  00:39

Great to be connected, Dan, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because this is going to be a first for the show. We’ve never had anybody on to talk about this topic. Nonetheless, it is very relevant and very pertinent for B2B marketers. So let’s dive in. Shall we?

Dan Balcauski  00:57

Let’s do it. Hopefully I can clear the high bar you’ve said already for your listeners.

Christian Klepp  01:02

No pressure whatsoever, none. Okay, so Dan, your mission to I think what you called it was help dispel B2B, SaaS pricing illusions, right? So for this conversation, let’s focus on the topic of how to leverage customer segmentation in pricing for B2B. So I’m going to kick off the conversation with this question, why is segmenting your audience crucial for setting prices that reflect true value and maximize revenue?

Dan Balcauski  01:33

Well, I’m really excited to dive into this topic, and I’m going to actually probably do a faux pas right off the bat, which is I’m going to ask the host a question to his question. So Christian, what should a beer cost?

Christian Klepp  01:50

Where is it brewed? Is it imported? Is it local? Ingredients, alcohol content, I don’t know. Maybe $1?

Dan Balcauski  02:02

Maybe $1 okay.

Christian Klepp  02:03

I’m hoping it’s $1.

Dan Balcauski  02:05

Okay, so, Christian, you just articulated several different, what we call attributes of that product. What type of beer is it? Where is it brewed? What’s the alcohol content, things you didn’t comment on is that beer in the grocery store. Are you at a bar or nightclub? Are you at a sporting event or a concert? That same beer that might cost you $1 you’d be happy to pay $1 at the grocery store. You’re at your sporting event, they’re going to charge you $20 I don’t know what the Canadian US conversion is this day, so I’ll stay in the US denomination. I think it’s about parity, last time I checked. But nonetheless, that context is incredibly different. 

Dan Balcauski  02:51

You know, I’ve asked this question before, and people are like, well, I don’t know. I don’t drink beer. I’m not a beer drinker. So they’re a non market participant. So I think it’s interesting, because where your head went to is incredibly common when we’re working with technical teams, technical founders building software products. Hey, why is your product better? Well, we have feature a, b and c, and our competitors don’t have they don’t have those or or they have x, y, z, but they don’t, aren’t as good as ours. 

Dan Balcauski  03:22

Value, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s only exists in the consciousness of men, and it’s contextual and relative to everything else. When you’re at the ball game and the guy’s selling you that beer for $20 you may not be happy, but what are your alternatives for you may be in a celebratory mood, okay? Whatever I knew kind of getting into this, but there’s also very legitimate what we might term price fences. There’s security at the front, patting you down, making sure you didn’t bring in your own alcohol. The cruise lines know this extensively, heavy screening on your luggage, because that cruise ship ticket relatively cheap, almost no margin. They make all their margin on alcohol, so they want to make sure that you’re buying what they have on ship at a captive audience. 

Dan Balcauski  04:16

And we could play this it’s not just alcohol. We could play this game with any commodity. You’re walking down the street and you stop, it’s a hot day, you pop in a gas station, buy a bottle of water. I guarantee you your valuation and how much you pay for that bottle of water be very different if you were wandering in the Sahara desert for seven days. What does all this have to do with the topic that you hinted at the beginning is that customer segmentation is important to pricing because the value rests in the eye of the consumers. And what we do with customer segmentation is we try to create relatively homogenous subgroups of customers that. Have similar needs or in or in similar contexts, and that way, we can create offers, create products and price them to meet the needs of those specific customers.

Christian Klepp  05:14

Wow, you went really deep, really fast, and all of that from man, I just wanted a beer like but um, you brought up something earlier in the conversation then, and that was a great segue to the next question, because you and I both know the word value gets thrown around these days, and there may or may not be any context, but I know in your world and in your area of expertise, there is context to it, and I’d like to get into that a little bit deeper here. So let’s talk about value, and what are some of the different ways to think about value concerning pricing, I think is one part of the question, and the second question is, why is a clear definition of value essential for successful pricing strategies, and you hinted at it earlier. 

Dan Balcauski  06:03

Well, I’ll answer the second question first, because I think it’s simpler and helps ground the first part. I imagine at some point, many of your listeners took some sort of ECO (Economics) 101 course, where they were introduced to this thing called a demand curve. Supply curve, demand curve, they intersect. Where they intersect is a market, what they call the market clearing price. Those are great tools for economists, and yes, price does have a relationship to volume, but unless you’re probably the professor teaching that every day, a detail that they you probably have faded with the Sands of Time is that those curves often depend upon a very specific market context, which you tend to get taught in Your ECO101 classes are two very specific and rare market situations, the situation of the pure commodity I’m selling, pork bellies, steel, gold or the pure monopoly, I’m the only provider of a good in a market. The rest of us live in this messy middle, and I think most of our econ teachers just didn’t have enough time in the semester to go over what happens when you’re living in that messy middle. But unfortunately, most of us work at companies that are not on those extreme ends, probably for the good, because it’s really hard to be on either of those ends. And you know, the government tends to go after you if you’re a monopoly, might seem like a good thing. Seem like a good thing, and if you’re a pure commodity business, it’s hard to be a go to market leader, because you’ve got a real tough job on your hands. The other foundational relationship besides volume that pricing has is to value. And so it’s one of these areas that folks we really need to understand what that means in order to do a rigorous pricing well, and especially as we’re developing innovative products, because value clarification is a really crucial lever. 

Dan Balcauski  08:14

Again, going back to the technical teams who are building products, we tend to talk in feature language, but put yourself on the other side of that table on a demo call. We’ve got feature a, b and c, and you’re leaving it as remember those old textbooks, they say we leave this as an exercise to the reader to figure out you have left as an exercise to the reader what feature a means in the life of your customer, and so not only in pricing, but also in being able to properly describe how we’re going to make an impact in a customer’s life. Value clarification is the most has the largest room for improvement. So as you mentioned before, value tends to be really over abused, vaguely defined, probably just as much, if not more, than customer segmentation I find. I rest on the shoulders of giants. 

Dan Balcauski  09:09

I use a couple of frameworks that really help to make this specific. So I’ll just name them quickly, and then we’ll kind of elaborate them a little bit more. So the first is what’s called the value cascade. It was elaborated, as far as I could tell, first, by a gentleman named Tom Nagle who wrote what might be considered the Bible of pricing, the strategy and tax, the pricing. If you’re really, really into this topic, it’s kind of a must for anyone who’s serious about this topic. It’s a little bit dense, but he outlines this concept called the value cascade. And then I use a lot of Jobs To Be Done, which has many fathers, Theodore Levitt, famous Harvard Business School professor back in the day, Clayton Christensen, Bob Moesta, Tony Ulwick, many people have contributed to the evolution of Jobs To Be Done. And both of these come together to really give a crisp understanding of value. 

Dan Balcauski  09:16

So the first part of the value cascade. So why is it called the value cascade? Thomas Nagle, he drew a diagram. Sorry, this is not a visual medium, but I’ll try to briefly describe it. If we think of it. What is a cascade? Cascade is another word for waterfall. So if we think of a bar, a series of bar charts where each bar proceeding from left to right is shorter than the one next to it. In order, you have use value, exchange value, perceived value, and then willingness, customer’s willingness to pay and eventually price. So it really helps us understand how we get from understandings of value and tying it to price. So the first part of that is what’s called use value. So this is where something like Jobs To Be Done is super helpful, because use value is really the sum of all benefits a customer could potentially receive from a product. Economists might use a term like utility within the frameworks of jobs to be done. We tend to focus, especially a lot in the B2B world, around what jobs to be done might call functional jobs helps me make more money, save money, decrease risk, save time, those type of things. 

Dan Balcauski  11:09

Why do I love jobs to be done, though? Is because jobs to be done helps remind us that functional jobs aren’t the only type of value we get. We also have emotional jobs, which jobs theory breaks into both personal and social job. So what would be a personal job? Personal emotional job is, help me increase my status, help me increase my confidence. We see this all the time. A Rolex and a Timex have the same functional equivalent. They will tell you exactly what time it is. Why do people pay $20,000 for a Rolex and $20 for a Timex? Because they’re paying for status and emotional value, right? Social value very useful if we’re working for the government or NGO (Non-governmental organization). So, you know, we’re humans. We’re social creatures by nature. We don’t do things only for our own good. Thank God. So we would have things like increasing access to education or health care or voting rights, right things like this. So those would be social benefits. So that’s kind of where the economists lay right. It’s like, okay, what are all the benefits that someone would get out of this? But we don’t live in that pure world, because, especially when it comes to pricing, like use value is almost never relevant in a pricing exercise, because there’s always some option, some status quo. We live in a market environment, again, assuming you’re not in a monopoly situation.

Dan Balcauski  12:30

So Tom introduces this idea of exchange value. So exchange value is okay. I have some reference value. I’m getting some job done, and then I’m positively or negatively differentiated from that other option. So example I like to use would be, imagine our good friend Elon Musk is he’s swapped place with Tom Hanks is on the Cast away Island, and he stranded there for years, and he finally sees in the distance a ship coming. Ship captain arrives on shore. Says, Elon, I’m here to take you to shore. The use value for Elon is tremendous, right? It doesn’t matter that he’s got $500 billion in the bank. All of that is useless to him, like getting back to civilization should be the only thing that matters. So his economic cost is equal to his use value. He should be willing to say, I will give you, let’s leave the ethics of the situation aside, a bit willing to give you all my money and borrow from all my friends for whatever you want to get me off this island. 

Dan Balcauski  13:34

But then, while they’re having this discussion, ship Captain B shows up. Elon’s lucky days he hasn’t had anyone for years or two show up at once. The ship Captain B says, Hey, Elon, you don’t need to pay him your entire fortune. You only need to pay me a million dollars. So now we have a new market price. So now ship Captain A has a decision, right? He could bow out and say, Well, okay, I couldn’t get 500 billion. I can only, you know, now there’s a mark rice. Or now you start creating this situation where ship Captain A says, Hey Elon, I’ll do it for, you know, 1,000,005 but you can sleep in my captain’s quarters, and I have a band on deck, and we’ll entertain you. And, you know, with free flowing alcohol, whatever you want. And so now they’re talking about differentiated value. And this is the, this is the area we most live in but it doesn’t stop there with this value cascade. So this is the transition from use value exchange value. 

Dan Balcauski  14:26

Because even though we may, we do this all the time as marketers, we say, hey, our widget is so much better than what you’re doing today. I’ve got a spreadsheet that proves it. If you’re pumping out this many widgets in your factory per hour. We’ve got, you know, case studies, etc, that prove that, you know, we could increase the amount of revenue in your fact, your factory will generate for your company by 50% that only matters to the extent that your buyer understands that value and believes that value. And so this is where the. The next level comes in, which is customer perceived value.

Dan Balcauski  15:02

Why does this matter? Because humans are not spreadsheets. It’s a very messy economic world. Rarely do we have just a choice between two options, two ship captains trying to outline just between two things. Anytime you’ve gone to buy a complex piece of B2B, hardware or software, what do you do? You ask a couple friends for Hey, what have you used to your companies? You go to G2 or Trust Radius or one of these review sites. You get a kind of short list of candidates. You go to their websites. You look at Logo Gardens, which you know, hey, this is used by Samsung or Disney or JP Morgan. Oh, okay, does everyone go to the pricing page and look at all 300 features, if that’s even available, publicly listed, and if they could, could they even understand what they were looking at? No, because we only can have time for so much where most people are, what economists would call satisficers, not maximizers, like we’re not going to the finest detail on every single piece. And so again, this idea of value only exists in the consciousness of men, and therefore, I guess you should be politically correct, using it for mankind. We have a lot of work as marketers to increase the perceived value of our product. That’s why we use things like customer testimonials, case studies, logo gardens, etc. So and perceived value is finally what drives customer willingness to pay. So that’s how those things tie together. 

Christian Klepp  16:28

Yeah, no. Thanks for, thanks for packing that. Because I kind of knew that this wasn’t going to be a very straightforward answer, right? You’d have to, you’d kind of have to get into the weeds of it, right? I did have one follow up question before we move on, and do you feel that from your experience with the folks that you’ve worked with, you feel that perhaps their lack of understanding of this value cascade leads them to do things where they just default to, well, they compete on price, which then means They’re competing with features, instead of actually understanding, to your point, how their product or their solution delivers value to the customers.

Dan Balcauski  17:10

It constantly boggles my mind how common it is for companies to not understand the value they provide to their customers. I wish I had a bulletproof explanation for this, because I am not the first and only person to say, talk to your customers, figure out their world, where you fit into it, why people made a choice so I would say too often. You know, I have talked to CMOs, VPs of marketing in charge of very important large B2B software companies, who say we have no differentiation. And I’m sorry that is a cop out, if, if the brand manager of Evian can charge a 3x price premium over Dasani, which is charging a 10,000x price premium over in the US, what is almost perfectly suitable substitute coming out of your tap. You as a B2B software person. Do not need to say, cannot say, we have no differentiation. You just have not thought deep enough about why customers choose you. It’s even more extreme, because in many situations, especially as you get into higher dollar value B2B goods, you don’t just usually have one person making the decision. You’ve got one person who maybe this vendor is interacting with, but then they’ve got to turn around and make a justification to the CTO (Chief Technology Officer), or maybe the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and the CFO (Chief Financial Officer), right? Why we charge? Why we go, Oh, we’re buying a CRM (Customer Relationship Management). Why did you guys just go Salesforce? We went with this other company because XYZ. 

Dan Balcauski  18:49

So if you’re CRM, VP of marketing, and you’re like, we have no differentiation, but they, they bought you, like, at some point, your end buyers had to go have that conversation. It just reflects that you, haven’t done your due diligence to go do that, and therefore it creates a lot of confusion for the rest of the go to market organization, because you’re then sort of left guessing and guiding everyone in terms of, what should we put first? How do we talk about what we do, why we’re better? So yes, I agree, lack of this understanding is incredibly prolific, and I think it leads to a lot of dysfunction down the line. 

Christian Klepp  19:30

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. All right, I’m gonna move us on to the next question about on the topic of leveraging customer segmentation and pricing for B2B, what are some of the key pitfalls to avoid and what should be done instead?

Dan Balcauski  19:45

So there’s a couple of different pitfalls that I would highlight. So the first is maybe the most extreme, and probably your audience of marketers don’t run into this themselves much, but they may run into. It from the C suite executives that they have to talk to, which is we don’t this idea of customer segmentation can be anathema. Within an organization, all our customers are the same. If you are in an organization where your C suite talks like that, I might leave that organization. Might be my point of view, because you’re gonna have a really hard time doing anything well, what you’re probably going to have to do a lot, if that is a situation you’re dealt with, is the product or innovation teams are going to build a product, and then you are going to get told, Hey, go position it for why audience. But it almost never is a good I was saying it is never a good strategy to have either a vague group in mind when you develop a product and go try to sell it to another, or have or have one group A in mind, then try to go sell to Customer B, because there’s just going to be misalignment. 

Dan Balcauski  20:56

So that leads me to step two, assuming you’re not an organization, or a kind of tactical approach too, which assuming you’re not an organization where you’re in that I would say first is look around the building and see if everyone is on the same page in terms of how we’re thinking about customer segments, because it’s more common than you’d imagine, where maybe product and design have a set of personas that they developed, because somebody in their agile training said that they had to have a persona so they could write a user story, and so they went and did some work independently. And then marketing maybe has some personas that they’ve developed. And then maybe sales doesn’t think of personas, but they’ve sort of developed demo scripts or kind of walk throughs based upon some qualifying questions. And if those things aren’t in harmony, you kind of end up in that same situation. So kind of walking around the building and trying to figure out, okay, hey, we’ve got these things, but is everyone on the same page in terms of who we’re talking to? 

Dan Balcauski  21:57

And then I would say number three, and this one is a little bit more intense, assuming that you know the first two are not a problem. A lot of B2B marketers have suffered from inheriting this idea from B2C around using demographics, which in B2B we call firmographics as primary segmentation criteria. And so what the root cause of this is, okay, hey, we’ve got a set of customer segments or personas that we’ve defined, but they don’t actually drive decision making within the organization or determine what customers buy. Because, you know, the simplest example at a high level is SMB (Small Medium Business) mid market enterprise. It’s like, okay, I get it. I guess it’s better than having an all, all one size fits all approach. But you may have an enterprise customer that is acting very much like a SMB because of their particular use case, or how their organization is structured, or the other contextual tools that the department you’re selling to is using. And so that would be the third thing is, if your personas segments are purely defined on kind of firmographic basis, and just quickly, what I mean by firmographics usually some sort of size variable, whether it’s employees or amount of revenue, industry, vertical, department, head, region like, yes, there can be differences between those, but they usually are not what’s underlying the defining purchasing criteria or why they make certain decisions over others.

Christian Klepp  23:39

No, those are some great insights. And I had a follow up question for you, Dan, and it kind of like lends or opens the door to talk a little bit more about market research. So that third point about the personas and them not basing them on firmographics, because that could lead folks down the wrong path. What do you think that they should be doing instead. So what should they be basing the segmentation, or this, these personas, on? Right?

Dan Balcauski  24:07

Yeah, it’s a great question. So there’s, there’s also right, like, who is, who should be doing this in an organization? And usually this is probably something that should be driven by marketing or and, or product, probably jointly together. It’s not something that you I wouldn’t leave it to any other group outside those two, because it does require some intense work. So let me just start at a very high level. When we do a segmentation well, at the end, we need to know two things, who customers are and what they want. The problem with kind of relying on firmer graphics alone is we only we kind of stop and end at the first part who they are, right? We do need that, but we also need to know what they want, because what they want determines the context, the and the value. Goes back to the beginning of our conversation. And so then the question is like, where do you start? And so if you are, I’ll give a little bit of a contextual frame here. 

Dan Balcauski  25:08

If you are in an organization where you have nothing, your first battle is to try to make sure that everyone understands that not all customers are the same. You do not sell the same thing to everyone. People have different needs, and so one way that you can do that is by starting with something like a firmographic segmentation, right? So if you’re starting from zero, where that’s your battle. I would not go off on a deep qualitative research project, because you may have a battle on your hands to even convince people that, hey, we need to think about our different customers separately. And so that’s a good place to start if you have nothing, or if that’s the battle you’re facing. And assuming that you have at least sort of an A, what we might call an a priori framework, right, a firmographic framework, and maybe you use something like Mark, maybe you bought a research report from Gartner, Forrester, or one of these analyst firms, right? And sort of inheriting that like, I even think of those the same way, because, because when we think of a priori segmentation, we’re using sort of characteristics that people have already defined, right? I can go to this CIA Factbook, or, you know, the World Bank, right? And these people have data sets that are already sort of sliced and diced, you know, worldwide, right, that I can already use. And so maybe you start there, and then I want to go and do the next level, which is in depth customer insight gathering, right? 

Dan Balcauski  26:36

And I’m using customer in the broad sense, because some of these people may not are, are unlikely to even be your customers, but trying to figure out, okay, these are all the different market segments that we have from our a priori. Now we want to go in depth and talk to different groups of them. And this is where Jobs To Be Done really helps us, where the idea is that we want to really understand what their context is, what they’re trying to achieve, what they’ve tried at the past. Why that doesn’t work, how they ran their process, who was involved? What were the decision criteria that they used? There’s some really good talks if you want a sort of master class on how to do this. I think it was the business of software conference. Bob Moesta did this live on stage for everyone, where he did a very in depth, jobs to be done, level interview. And I think it was about like buying a car, and I’m going to do a very poor impression of him right now, but the things that he was talking about is like framing it like a you’re filming a documentary. Who was there, what was going through your mind? And you talking to the guy on stage, it’s like, well, we were looking at this hatchback, but, you know, the earlier in the conversation is like, Oh, my wife was about to have a baby. I knew our our new co our old car wouldn’t work for our growing family, and so we’re at the car dealership, and we had the stroller with us, and we tried to put it in the back of the car, and the stroller wouldn’t fit, and he goes, I’m not living the rest of the 10 years I have this car with this struggle, right? Or however long the stroller was be needed for it, right? 

Dan Balcauski  28:08

That’s the type of thing that you don’t get out of, oh, we’ve got analytical data, you know, from our Google Analytics of the people things we’re looking around their websites. Like, no, you’ve got a real idea there of how. Like, okay, oh, people have to be able to fit their stroller in the back, right? Because, I mean, look, you can go on the website and be like, Oh, the trunk diet, you know, dimensions are 3.7 feet by 4.8 and nobody knows what that means until you’re there living it, right? And so, but that makes a lot of sense. And then you have a whole way as a go to market, as a marketer, to talk to that and then build, you know, your messaging around things like that, because you really understand deeply the customers, you know, context and why that matters to them. You know, because they’re not. They don’t need a bigger trunk in their hatchback, because they’re, you know, they’re not also looking at the Ford, f1, 50, because they’re looking at haul and gravel every day, right? And so they need it to be rough and tumble. They gotta put the stroller in the groceries and back, right? So knowing these deeper things only really comes from this in depth customer conversations. And then, as you do that, you have these patterns emerge. And then you can use other statistical analyzes, more quantitative methods, once you have those to further refine if people want that advanced class, I’m happy to go down that road, but I’ve written pretty extensively on my blog about it as well.

Christian Klepp  29:28

Yeah, yeah. I would save that for those who are going to be inspired by this conversation, and then give them an excuse to reach out to you and find out more about that master class. 

Dan Balcauski  29:40

I love that. 

Christian Klepp  29:41

Okay, now we’re gonna get to the point in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us quite a bit already, but if, let’s just say that there’s somebody out there, whether it’s somebody who’s in the who’s a B2B marketer, or maybe even somebody in the product department that’s listening to this conversation, and you you want them to. To walk away with three to five things they can take action on, based on today’s conversation, what would those things be?

Dan Balcauski  30:08

Well, I definitely would point to those things I already talked about around customer segmentation, in terms of, you know, making sure that your executive team not all understands all buyers are alike, making sure that at least, if that’s the case, the departments are not misaligned on what are those descriptions of buyers and or customers, and then go, if you have that all good going on, talking to you’re actually talking to your customers, because there is no end substitute. And I was actually talking to another CEO who had come to this realization as well, because they, you know, this is the thing. Founders know this in their bones, because they had to work so hard to figure out what customers needed. It’s when companies get to a certain scale and you bring in non founders who are trying to run this process, that insight gets lost, and if you’re still a CEO, founder running the company, potentially, you may just think that everyone has the same understanding as you do, right? But all even that information can get out of date, and markets can change, etc. And so I was asking him, I was like, Well, why don’t people do this? Because the talk to your customers is so it’s, it’s almost cliche at this point, but he’s like, it’s because it’s uncomfortable. It’s like, we like to look at our dashboards because they tell us the story we have in our minds already, and we have this confirmation bias, but we in front of a customer and they’re reaming us out because the product doesn’t work in their environment because of some situation you can’t avoid that. I guess we could rationalize anything else away, but know that it’s gonna be uncomfortable, right? So I guess that’s just, you know, know that going in, but do it anyway, right? I and learn to really love that feeling when I walk out of those conversations and I’m like, Man, I had a totally different view of how customers used our product. And now I have something different, like, now I love that feeling, right? That’s like, that’s a good day. It was like, Oh, I learned, right. So I think a reframe there is helpful as well. 

Dan Balcauski  32:08

And then look, I would say for pricing in general. You know, we could talk about a whole lot of techniques, etc, but two basic things, make sure there’s an owner in an organization that’s explicitly defined, and then have a process. And that process does not have to be perfect from day one, but pricing and packaging is a thing. Your product is constantly evolving. Your value is evolving. Your differentiated value is definitely evolving because your competitors aren’t standing still. Even if your product is the same, your competitors are moving, as some of the AI (Artificial intelligence) companies found out, unfortunately, this week.

Christian Klepp  32:45

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Dan Balcauski  32:47

And so, okay, well, what happens? Like all right, now, we have a process to revisit it. We have a cadence, right? And someone is what. Someone is in charge of that. And you know, again, one of these things that you’d be surprised how often you know it’s this thing that nobody owns, and there’s not a regular process to revisit when it’s such a powerful growth lever, right? It’s like, we have a marketing department, right? And everyone’s laser focused on MQLs (Marketing qualified lead) and sales pipeline, right? And that’s all around quantity, and that’s good, and we need that. And just you’re like, Wait, there’s only three ways to grow a SaaS business, acquisition, monetization and retention. And all the you guys are only looking at one of these levers most of the time, retention comes up when we hit a recessionary period. Then everyone really cares about their existing customers. Make sure they don’t leave, because acquisition gets really, really hard. But I would say, yeah, having a process and paying attention to it, right? And look, it’s not going to be perfect, but, you know, there’s you’ll get better over time, and those two things will go a long way.

Christian Klepp  33:51

Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, on the topic of retention, you don’t want to ever wait until times are hard. And then you go, and then you get your teams to go to the customer and say, hey, please stay right. I mean, by that point in time, they might have already like abandoned ship, gone somewhere else.

Dan Balcauski  34:09

Yeah, no, I have been violent agreement with you. That is a, not a good strategy, but in times, especially as we saw in the zero interest rate era, where it was kind of growth at all costs, things like retention got put on a back burner as people were trying to do a mad land grab of capabilities and growth. So.

Christian Klepp  34:29

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, okay, Dan, get up on your salt box. Man, what is a status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with and why, and I know you’ve got a million, but just I’m only asking for one.

Dan Balcauski  34:46

It would probably be my general dislike of freemium, especially as it applies to B2B companies. I think this is something that was. Are imported, again, from B2C companies, where it sometimes works on the margins, but rarely is a good move, if ever, for a B2B software company. It tends to, you know, the flames are fanned by folks who wave the exceptions when it does work around, versus really understanding that those are the exceptions, and the rule is most people should avoid it.

Christian Klepp  35:28

Yeah, I think, if I’m not mistaken you, you wrote about it on LinkedIn. It’s definitely on your profile, and I think you wrote a post about it, and I’ve written about it a lot, yeah, yeah. But you know, that’s a fair point, and that’s a fair point. Okay, the bonus question, and we talked about this in our previous conversation, so let me see here, in your bio, it says that you completed a solo round the world expedition to 21 countries. That’s a handful, a lifelong dream involving several life changing volunteering experiences and a new collection of friends and good stories. So the question is, tell us about one of your most unforgettable moments during that trip around the world and how it changed you.

Dan Balcauski  36:13

The experience that I would say changed me the most was right at the beginning, which is I did a while I was traveling for a year and a half. I did two 10 day meditation retreats. But the first one, I would say, was there. Every single one I’ve done has been very, very impactful. But that has changed me tremendously. If we were talking about status quo in general that I severely disagree with it’s that we are given this incredible piece of machinery called the human mind with no instruction manual. There are ways of finding out what that really is in 10 days of silent meditation that are not available elsewhere, and the ability to clear the lens of the way you process the world and so many different aspects. You know, there’s so many ways of being that we did not choose consciously. And I’m not one to say that this is the only way to truth, or even that there is truth at the end, but it is a way, at a very powerful way, to unwind What are probably ways that you didn’t even know you were looking at the world through, let’s call it non rose colored glasses, because we all too often account our perception of reality with reality itself. So sorry if that got too philosophical there in the last. 

Christian Klepp  37:55

Very profound, very profound. May I ask where you did the Silent Retreat, or the silent meditation? 

Dan Balcauski  38:00

I’ve done several of them, and two I did while traveling. I actually did the first one here in the States, up in Dallas, and I did the second one while I was traveling down outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Christian Klepp  38:10

Wow. Okay, so you’ve seen a bit of the world then, huh? 

Dan Balcauski  38:15

Little bit. 

Christian Klepp  38:16

Yeah. Any tips for getting over jet lag just as we’re wrapping up?

Dan Balcauski  38:20

None, none. I’m not. I’ve not conquered that as a skill set. 

Christian Klepp  38:25

That’s a hard one to tackle, huh? Like, yeah, no, fantastic, Dan, this has been an absolute blast. I mean, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing your expertise and experience with the listener. So please quick introduce yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you?

Dan Balcauski  38:41

Yeah, well, I really appreciate the opportunity to share what I’ve learned along the way. I try to do that pretty regularly on LinkedIn so folks can reach out to me there. Just let me know. You heard on the podcast, I get separated from the rest of the LinkedIn spam. I try to blog semi regularly, although not as much as I’d like on my website, producttranquility.com, you can also reach out to me there. And I also have a podcast myself called SaaS Scaling Secrets, where I interview CEOs of scale up B2B SaaS companies about how to grow software businesses from 5,10, 20 million and beyond.

Christian Klepp  39:19

Awesome, awesome. And we’ll be sure to drop the link to the show in the show notes for this episode. All right, once again. Then thank you so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Dan Balcauski  39:31

Thank you, Christian.

Christian Klepp  39:32

All right. Bye for now.

Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Becky Lawlor. She is the Founder and Chief Research and Content Officer at Redpoint with over 10 years of experience creating thought leadership content for B2B Tech brands from startups to Fortune 500. Becky saw firsthand how original research based content could drive performance, unlike almost any other type of content, her goal is to ensure that every project is tailored to deliver thought leading, high quality content that will deliver her client’s content marketing goals. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. 

Christian Klepp  00:43

Okay. Becky Lawlor, welcome to the show. 

Becky Lawlor  00:47

Excited to be here. 

Christian Klepp  00:49

Great to be connected. Becky, I’m really looking for this conversation, because I think you’re the first person I’ve interviewed on this particular topic, right? There’s a lot of folks that come on the show and talk about B2B content marketing, per se, but not necessarily so much about the research aspect of it, and that’s what I’m really excited to dig into today.

Becky Lawlor  01:10

Great. It’s one of my favorite topics to talk about. 

Christian Klepp  01:12

I’m sure it is. I’m sure it is, all right. Well, let’s dive in. So Becky, you’ve been on a mission to help B2B companies produce original research based content, I’m going to say that achieves high marketing performance. So for this conversation, let’s focus on a topic that I think is going to be very useful to the audience. And that’s how to discover what content drives B2B buyers to act. And let me just say, Who doesn’t want that, right? So for context and for the audience’s benefit, your company, Redpoint, created this 2024/2025 blueprint for high impact content, and it’s a report, and in that report, you help decode the exact content types that trigger purchasing decisions. So I’m going to kick off the conversation with this question, why do you believe original research based content is the key to success in B2B content marketing?

Becky Lawlor  02:08

Yeah, so I have my own personal beliefs, but I also, as you noted, this research report that I did, I actually went out and surveyed 250 B2B buyers about what type of content they will actually share with others, give their personal data for or even make their purchasing decisions, often among a lot of other questions that I kind of asked them around, you know, impacts of the content. So what I found in that research really drove, also, what I personally believe, which is that original research just fundamentally performs better and stronger across almost every marketing KPI you can think of than any other type of content. In the report, you’ll see, you know, 91% of B2B buyers say that original research increases our awareness of a brand, and 93% say that it builds trust. And that was far higher than any other kind of like. I asked about educational content, how to content, I asked about different types of original research to to be more nuanced on like interview based or analysis of, like internal data versus survey. So there was so in that there’s a bunch of different ways. So the 91% is kind of a more overarching of different types of original research. But across the board, any type of content that had some kind of original research performed better, and I guess really quickly, I think we should just maybe define what original research is. It should be a term that people are familiar with, but not everybody is. 

Becky Lawlor  03:53

So what I mean by that is it has to have some unique insight that essentially isn’t already there. And typically, original research would be running some kind of survey, but it can also be your internal data that you have analyzed and are sharing, but it’s still data that nobody else has. It can also actually be like third party data, but you’ve done a unique analysis of that data. And the fourth type, which is probably the easiest type to get, is more what we call their qualitative data, which can just be interview based. It’s still original research. You’ve gone out, you’ve interviewed one or more people to get their insights, and now you’re delivering those insights which are unique to your audience.

Christian Klepp  04:37

Yeah, absolutely right, absolutely right. And I know we’re going to get into the details later on in the conversation, I couldn’t help but ask you this question, just based on this research that you conducted, what were your findings in terms of how, or for lack of a better word, how haphazard the buyer’s journey is in B2B?

Becky Lawlor  04:58

Yeah. I mean, I think I didn’t drill into the buyers journey really in depth in this report, but I think that it kind of goes to the point one of the things I did ask about is how often they want content published, and especially original research and buyers. I thought it would be lower amount, but they actually wanted it. The majority wanted it quarterly, and the second level wanted it monthly. So I think, to me, what that says is, when buyers are on a journey period, and we all know they kind of go all over and it’s not linear at all, they do want content. They do want a lot of content, they are looking for answers. So I think you really need to keep that top of mind, and the more that you’re delivering, again, that unique value through like original research, the more you continue to build your authority and your brand awareness, and those things are critical. When it comes to closing the deal, it’s going to be much easier to close the deal if you’ve have built a lot of awareness and authority in your buyer’s mind.

Christian Klepp  06:04

Absolutely, absolutely. I’ve got another follow up question for you, Becky, only because you brought up that word, right? That word that seems to be very loosely used these days, value, right? Delivering value, right? So in the context of the research, define what you consider valuable to B2B buyers?

Becky Lawlor  06:24

Well, I think value to B2B buyers, I did ask them, like, what made content stand out and when? And that was an open ended question, and what people responded was really the data. There are bunch of different ways it can add value. Can add value. You can add value by having data to actually be able to now go make their case for something, because now they can go to the other stakeholders internally and have real data to support kind of their positioning. Content stood out. Case studies. Was another one that performed pretty well in that report, and that is because case studies, especially if there was a problem that they felt really aligned with, it was their own problem as well, and they saw solutions to it. That was another high value type of content for folks. 

Becky Lawlor  07:15

So again, that goes to that kind of relevancy piece, just really making sure you’re relevant. But really, people were just looking for insights that they didn’t already have. They wanted something value is really giving them something new to think about, or allowing them to benchmark against other people, to understand their performance and where they maybe are doing well, but also where they really need to invest to improve. So those kinds of things were all high value types of content. 

Christian Klepp  07:44

Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Okay, I’m gonna move us on to the next set of questions, which I did say was gonna be around the research that you conducted and you brought you mentioned some of the answers already, but based on the research you conducted, what content formats do B2B buyers value the most, and why? 

Becky Lawlor  08:01

Yeah, so it really, as I said, there was I asked about different types of original research, as well as, like, how to content, educational content. And I even asked about, like, you know, thought leadership content that didn’t include original research and all of those ranked lower, but any type, whether it was industry specific data analysis interviews of peers or industry experts, or survey data from industry peers, those three consistently ranked as the highest types of content that people felt would push them to act in some way, as well as just also help build more authority and awareness about a brand. 

Christian Klepp  08:47

Okay, okay, speaking of authority and awareness, that was a great segue to the next question, what type of contents based on the research, again, did you find will help to improve the brand credibility of B2B companies? 

Becky Lawlor  09:03

Yeah, again, it’s the same thing. You really need to, I mean, to kind of beat the same drum again, but you really need to invest in doing some kind of original research. And, you know, I think the reason for that is because, when you’re investing, and you’re actually investing in your industry and really bringing new insights to that industry. It shows one that you know the space. But I think even just showing that you’re willing to make that investment helps build your authority, because you’re doing something that maybe a lot of your competitors aren’t doing right now and and you are showing that you have insights that your competitors don’t have about the industry in the space.

Christian Klepp  09:45

Right, right. I did have one follow up question for you, and maybe you found this in your research, or maybe you didn’t in terms of the different types of content. So you’ve mentioned all these different types of content, right? This, these content types. Types in this content format? Was there a particular style in which the content should be structured or written, that is, that would resonate more with the buyers? Do they want you to give it to them straight? Did they want it and with text and infographics? Did they want it to be more visual? What were your findings?

Becky Lawlor  10:21

Yeah, I did ask a question, kind of around the format that they preferred. And what we found, was that, and this actually surprised me, because I thought it would be lower down. Is that actually deep analysis? Because I asked, you know, do you want in depth analysis? How valuable is that? You know, visualization. So there were a couple of different things in there, but the in depth analysis and then making it highly visual and scannable were kind of the two highest. But the in depth analysis actually was highest. So I think that it’s important to realize that they do want you to not just present the numbers. They want some thought and analysis behind it, but then think about how to still do that in a highly visual scannable way. And I think you can do a lot with head headlines and headers and call outs to combine both of those.

Christian Klepp  11:16

That’s a really interesting finding, and it’s something also I’ve been talking to, you know other B2B content marketers about for years now, I think, right, like, and I don’t know what your experience has been, Becky, but like, you know, there’s folks that say, like, no, it’s got to be factual and boring. Because at the end of the day, boring wins. And I and in my head, I’m going said, no one ever Right. Like, I mean, even if it is a vertical that is very, let’s just say, technical in nature, they still, I truly believe that the reader, in this case, the B2B buyers, want to digest that content in a way that’s well, it’s well, it’s easily digestible. Let’s put it that way. But it’s also in a format that helps provoke some kind of, like, new way of thinking about specific topics. Am I right to say that?

Becky Lawlor  12:07

Yeah, I think so. I think that’s where I think the combination of how you visualize it, along with…, you know, I was surprised, because I think there’s also this idea that, Oh, we just need to dumb down content. Content needs to be shorter. People don’t have attention spans, you know, they’re just going to skim everything. So seeing that, I think when buyers are really in the buying stage and they’re trying to make a decision, especially on something really technical, maybe something really expensive, you know, more complex. They need some analysis. You know, they’re not… It’s true that they’re not just there for entertainment, they’re there to make a decision, so they need knowledge, but you still want to capture attention. So I think that’s where kind of hitting a nice balance of having some really kind of, you know, edutainment type of headline. So you’re, you know, you’re gonna draw some headlines from your most kind of shocking or interesting pieces of data, but then you need to go deeper about why that is, I think that’s kind of a good way to balance that sometimes. 

Christian Klepp  13:05

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Okay, so for the next question, your report also identifies what you call ROI (Return on investment) boosters. So apparently this is where you recommend that B2B companies should focus on creating high impact results driven content. And you might have mentioned this already, but can you provide some more examples of these?

Becky Lawlor  13:24

So, yeah, again, I think any type of content you do that has that original research in it is an ROI booster. My clients have seen, usually two to three times the lead generation from these types of reports, they just tend to drive more engagement. And when we asked in the survey, you know, folks said they were 2.5 times more likely to share this type of content, and they were two times more likely to share their personal data. So it is a type of content I think you still can justifiably gate to drive more of those leads, which should help with ROI. But it also is great. 

Becky Lawlor  14:07

This kind of data also works really well for sales enablement. It works on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), backlinks, driving traffic. It also and even in today’s world where SEO is getting a lot harder with generative AI search and things. This type of content is actually really effective for SEO, because it is kind of the type of content that is authoritative that search engines are prioritizing right now. So it’s going to help drive that. It’s also great for media mentions, which, again, can you know it’s a little harder to tie direct ROI too, but I’ve also seen companies use it to get, like prestigious speaking engagements that they weren’t able to get before at trade shows and events and conferences, which, again, can drive more leads and just more general brand awareness. 

Becky Lawlor  14:56

And the other piece of content, though, is also, I do want to mention, is customers’ stories. I think people already know that those are can be high value, especially later in the buying cycle. And again, those rated pretty high. So that would be the other one where I would say, if you’re not doing those, the other great thing about those is, in some ways, there are, they are still there’s not research, per se, but there are unique insights. You’ve gone out, you have a real world story that you’re telling here. And so in addition just creating customers’ stories, I would highly encourage folks to make sure that they’re really weaving the problems, the solutions and the results throughout all of their content, so that they’re like, even if they’re just writing a blog article, but bringing in those unique insights, again.

Christian Klepp  15:43

Absolutely, absolutely, I did have two follow up questions for you, Becky, and I wonder if this is something that you found as you were conducting this research or not. Certainly, with you know, folks conducting original research and that giving their content that high degree of differentiation. There’s probably two camps of professionals out there, like and the one camp is saying, like, gate, all that stuff, right? Because we’ve done so much work. And you know, the very least is that if people are coming to our website, we should be able to capture all that content information. And there’s the other camp that says, Well, I wouldn’t gate all of it. I mean, you can get some of it, but like the rest, you can just, you know, have them download it and, you know, they we don’t need to get anything in return. But what are your thoughts on that?

Becky Lawlor  16:35

Yeah, I mean, generally, I’m a don’t gate stuff kind of person, but I also live in a practical world, where, as a marketer, you know, you do need to drive leads, you need to collect emails somehow. And I feel like, as I said earlier, that if you’ve invested in true original research, whether that’s, you know, a survey or an analysis of your own data, that’s really useful and valuable, it does justify and can work as a gated piece of content. But even there, I kind of go with the strategy of like, gate it for a month maybe, but then put the whole thing on your website so that you’re then getting the SEO benefit from it. So gate it for a short period of time, try to get those you know, leads in quickly with that first kind of campaign launch and then open it up so that you’re getting other benefits from that content, and it’s not staying gated that long. That’s my recommended approach.

Christian Klepp  17:32

Yeah, that’s definitely, that’s an interesting one. So you were saying gate it for like, a month and no more, am I right?

Becky Lawlor  17:39

Yeah, a month or six weeks. But I wouldn’t go much longer than that, if you want. I mean, again, it all depends on what somebody’s goal is with the piece of content. Everybody has different kind of priority goals. But if you were trying to get, like, the most juice in a number of different ways out of it, I would say gate it for, you know, a month or six weeks, drive your ads, drive whatever towards that, get those leads, and then get it up on your blog, your website, then get the benefit of backlinks and driving that SEO traffic to it.

Christian Klepp  18:12

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. Fantastic. That was the first follow up question. Now the second follow up question on the topic of case studies, or customer success stories, as they’re now also called, um, everybody likes to see that, right? It’s a type of a social proof. It’s a demonstration of how said company helped their customers to succeed, and things of that nature. So, uh, from the research, did you were you able to, like, find out if there was anything in particular that B2B buyers were looking for when they looked at case studies, like they these things absolutely had to be there?

Becky Lawlor  18:52

Yeah, I didn’t ask any in depth questions around it, so I can’t say that I got those kind of insights, but I’m planning to do this report annually, so that might be something good to consider. To go deeper on that one for this year? 

Christian Klepp  19:05

Yeah, I would hazard a guess that they would look at the results right.

Becky Lawlor  19:09

Like, yeah. I think results are always important. But I think my own opinion when you’re creating those is that you should create two levels of a case study. The first one should be deep and in depth, and that is so you can use it in all the other ways that make sense in your content. But then you need to have a really kind of short, pithy one, because a lot of times, I think customers won’t necessarily read the in depth one. But by developing it allows you to pull that stuff out in so many other ways in your content. If you just start with a short one, then you don’t have the depth to use in different articles and topics where it would apply.

Christian Klepp  19:48

Yeah, absolutely. I suppose it also depends on the situation and at what level or what stage both sides find themselves at, like the vendor and the potential customer, like, if they were, if the potential customer were truly interested, okay, they read the short version of the case study. And, okay, let’s have another call, and let’s ask the vendor to go in depth. Like, okay, we see the results here, but talk to us about your approach, your methodology. How did you implement all this stuff? Right? Because they want to, they want to see like as part of the due diligence process, right? 

Becky Lawlor  20:24

Yeah, and I think that to your point, that’s when a more in depth one is important, when they’re getting down to really understanding your processes and your approach and how you work. I mean, I think it’s really a way to show how you work with clients and whether that your culture and your approach is right for them. 

Christian Klepp  20:40

Right, exactly, exactly. Okay, so we’re gonna move on to the next question. And I know we can go really broad and or deep with this one, but just give us something top level here. So based on this report and the research you conducted, what would you say are some of the key pitfalls that content marketers need to avoid based on what you’ve uncovered.

Becky Lawlor  21:04

You know, the first pitfalls would just be not investing in doing some kind of original research. If you think that, you know, you can just go out and kind of do these generic SEO blogs and stuff like that, you’re not going to elevate your content to the point that you’re going to have a competitive differentiation. So that would be a big pitfall. 

Becky Lawlor  21:29

Another one would just be, again, not using your customer stories across broadly. There’s just so many different ways that you can use them, so you should really be getting a lot of mileage, and that would go for if you do invest in original research. I also see that pitfall, like, there’s so many different ways you can break it out, webinars, like I said, speaking engagement, sales enablement, SEO. I mean, you really need to think about your distribution channels and really maximize. I mean, that’s how you really maximize the ROI of it is that you’re putting it across so many different uses and channels to get the most out of it. 

Becky Lawlor  22:04

Now I want to talk about some pitfalls specifically in doing research, because I just see these. I think a lot of folks try to do it yourself, which I totally am supportive of. But it is more complex than just creating a piece of research. And one of the biggest pitfalls I see is people just thinking, oh, I’ll just whip out a survey, no problem. And I want people to kind of pause from it and recognize that actually the survey is so critical and so important that it’s done right. And so if you were to get help anywhere, that’s where I get help, because I see this over and over, that they don’t spend a lot of time and effort on the survey, and then suddenly the data comes back. It doesn’t… There’s not really a narrative there. There’s just a bunch of different data points, because there was 10 cooks in the kitchen, and everybody wanted to know something. But now you don’t really have a story. You just have data or the way the questions were asked. Now it just kind of makes it hard to analyze. It makes it hard to message it and in content.

Becky Lawlor  23:08

Another pitfall I see is people kind of confusing market research with content marketing original research. If you just go to a market research firm for this kind of help, I’ve seen this again as well. Like market research firms are great at doing market research, and they understand how to do that, but a lot of them don’t actually know how to write a survey again for content marketing. So you when you’re writing those surveys again, you really need to be thinking about, how does this translate into headlines? How does this translate into the message? How is this translating into a narrative? I’m going to tell because as a content marketer, you’re in the business of storytelling. You’re in the business of having a narrative and headlines. So you really need to be thinking about that right out of the gate. 

Becky Lawlor  23:50

And the third one is just the data piece that, again, making sure either you have in house capabilities or you’re using a vendor that really can do in depth analysis. This is another huge pain point and pitfall. There’s so much cross tab or analysis that can be done question by question, and if you’re not getting that done, you’re missing so many data points, so many additional stories, so much ROI from the investment you’ve already made. So make sure that you have those data capabilities, or that your vendor truly has those data capabilities, because I see that as a huge pain point often for folks. 

Christian Klepp  24:24

Yeah, no, that’s definitely some great advice there. And I’m sorry if you saw me like grin to myself there, because you just met me. You just reminded me. And I think we’ve all been in those situations before, you know, either in meeting rooms with clients, or back then, when I was in product marketing, where you’re facing the senior management. And then there’s this whole, like, decision by committee, initiative right or opinionitis and analysis paralysis. And no, I think we should add these questions in there, because this is like, so important. And then they give each other what I call the internal high five. And then. I mean, you start going out to market and you realize, like, yeah, these are not the questions we should be asking at all, or these are not the insights that we are meant to extract from this customer. And so, you know, I can totally relate. And these are some really important pitfalls to avoid. And hence, also the reason why perhaps there are certain things that the company shouldn’t be doing by themselves, and they should actually, like, outsource that to an expert.

Becky Lawlor  25:29

Yeah I mean, you know, I understand that budgets are what they are, and you can’t always do that, but I think if you can get some help, you know, it’s gonna make all the difference in terms of making sure that you’re having a credible data, you have a strong narrative with it. And again, you know, to that other point of like, you also need to make sure you’re getting insights that are interesting externally to the, you know, internal stuff. As people start like, well, I’d like to know this, and I’d like to know this, and it’s like, well, take a step back. Are you doing this for your own internal knowledge, which that’s great if that’s what you’re doing it for. But if you’re doing it for content marketing, you need to think about what your audience needs, what your goals are. If it’s media, what does the media care about? If it’s lead gen, what does what are those leads going to care about?

Christian Klepp  26:15

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. Becky, so we get to the point in the point in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us plenty already, but like, just based on this conversation, if somebody were listening to this interview and you want them to walk away with three to five things they can act upon, based on this research that you’ve conducted, what would those things be? 

Becky Lawlor  26:41

Yeah, so I think a very low hanging fruit. One would be conduct more interviews with both internal subject matter experts, external subject matter experts and industry experts. I think that’s not a high bar. Most people can conduct interviews and then bring that into the content. It doesn’t cost a lot of money to do that. It’s just not as involved. Yes, it’s more involved than just, you know, whipping out a piece of content without that piece. But it’s definitely worth it to bring in those unique, original insights. 

Becky Lawlor  27:13

Again, another one would be just to create more customer stories. You know, invest in that, because there’s just so many different ways you can sprinkle that in and have that those real world insights, which are kind of similar to the interviews, but different, right? 

Becky Lawlor  27:27

And then the last one is, again, yeah, I think every company should be investing in some kind of original research, whether you have your own data, if you are some kind of analytics technology or just have a way to anonymize your data and pull it out. That is a great option. It can be challenging in its own right. I’ve worked with a lot of companies doing that, and it has its challenges as well, to get the data out from your technology and into a workable format, but that’s one option. 

Becky Lawlor  27:57

Or I think you can invest in one survey, even a year, and really get a lot of mileage from it. A lot of my clients, I feel like it’s a great foundational piece. And then you can use the data you’ve got, especially, like I said, if you get that in depth analysis done, you have data and stories and different angles and topics you can use for the entire year to fuel your content strategy. And your content strategies better, because now you know you’ve actually surveyed your audience, and you know what their challenges and pain points are and what you should be talking to them about.

Christian Klepp  28:28

Absolutely right. Absolutely right. Okay, so what is a status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with? And why? Off you go.

Becky Lawlor  28:41

Yes, I have one for sure. And it is this idea that you have to use a third party research firm versus producing brand owned research. And what I mean by that is, particularly, you know, this idea that you have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and go with a big consultancy firm or a big academic research, you know, to do this research, which shuts out a lot of people right there just because they don’t have the budgets. But even if you have the budget to do it, I don’t think that it’s actually the best way often, because when you invest in brand owned you are setting yourself up as the industry expert and authority. 

Becky Lawlor  29:23

When you do it with a third party, you’re actually not owning that piece of authority as much and so, because this was such a big, you know, myth that I wanted to break in my report, I actually asked me to be buyers. Who they trusted more? Did they trust research from a third party more than they trust research done from a brand? And the results were that 54% said they trust them equally. So it doesn’t really matter to the majority. They don’t care who doesn’t but of those that had a preference, of those that had a preference, 29% said they trusted brand conducted research more than research conducted by a third party. So that was more than said they conducted trusted the third party. 

Becky Lawlor  30:11

So and then I went on to ask for those that had said they trusted brands more than a third party, why? And the responses that people gave were really and it makes sense. They said the brands have to care about their reputation in the marketplace. I think buyers aren’t dumb. They know that even if you’re going with the third party, you’re paying that third party. And some folks even said, well, the third party is just getting paid to kowtow to the brand, so it’s not really any more independent. 

Becky Lawlor  30:38

But over and over, it was kind of like, you know, they know the space better because they’re in it, and their reputation is really on the line when they’re publishing this stuff. So again, that doesn’t mean, you know, like folks can work with a vendor to do it, but I strongly encourage brands to put their name on the research and own it. You know, however they do it behind the scenes to get there, but they shouldn’t think that they have to, and should only publish research by a big name consultancy or a third party. They should be doing their own and branding it as their own.

Christian Klepp  31:11

That’s right. I suppose there’s pros and cons for either one, right? So, yeah, okay, fantastic. So here comes the bonus question, if you were to go and learn a new skill right now, what new skill would it be, and why?

Becky Lawlor  31:32

For me, it would be, how to use the custom ChatGPT is a little better. I’ve been playing with those. I know that. I don’t think AI (Artificial intelligence) is going away. You know, a lot of people have different opinions about AI in writing content, but my belief is it’s just a tool, and a tool is only as good as the expert driving it, and I don’t care, like, you know, how it’s about the outcome is the content quality. Yes, doesn’t matter to me how it gets there, whether it’s all human driven or it’s AI-human driven, but is it good quality? So just figuring out how to use those kind of AI drafting tools like ChatGPT a little bit more effectively and efficiently is something that I’m working on. 

Christian Klepp  32:16

Yeah, yeah, no. That’s great. That’s great. And I think we’re all still trying to, like, wrap our head around that, right? Like, I mean, a lot of people that are out there saying that they’re ChatGPT experts. I mean, like, you know this, this technology hasn’t existed for that long, right? So…

Becky Lawlor  32:31

Yeah, I just think there’s better ways for me to, like, you know, how can I put in, like, a client style guide and, like, have it consistently check that? I mean, those are things that, like, it can be way more accurate than me, like I have to when I’m every, you know, editing something, I’m keeping all those little pieces in my head and checking this dial guide, but it’s going to do a much more efficient, effective job if I can get it set up, right? You know?

Christian Klepp  32:52

Yeah, yeah. Well, for sure, for sure. Becky, once again. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for sharing your expertise and the in this research report, which I thought was incredibly interesting with our audience. So please quick introduce yourself on how folks out there can get in touch with you. 

Becky Lawlor  33:09

Yeah, so I’m Becky Lawlor, and I am Founder and Chief Research Officer at Redpoint content, and folks can get in touch with me at [email protected], on LinkedIn, or at my website redpoint.com which also you can download your free copy of my report. It’s actually not gated, so feel free to go there and just download the report if you’re interested in digging into the findings more.

Christian Klepp  33:38

Fantastic. Fantastic. All right. Becky, once again, thanks for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. 

Becky Lawlor  33:44

Yeah, thanks. 

Christian Klepp  33:45

All right. Bye, for now.

Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking to Aya Saad. She is the partnerships team director and project manager at Vivian agency and influencer and affiliate marketing agency. Aya is also a skilled project manager who excels in affiliate programs and combines expertise in business growth, marketing and client services. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. Okay. Here we are. Aya Saad, welcome to the show. 

Aya Saad  00:37

Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

Christian Klepp  00:38

It’s great to be connected. Aya, I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because I think there’s a lot of untapped opportunities in B2B when it comes to this particular topic. So let’s dive in. So you are on a mission to build communities for brands by connecting ambassadors and their audiences to products. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the following topic, how to launch and manage affiliate and influencer programs for B2B. So let’s kick off the conversation with these with this question, right? So what do you think is the untapped opportunity for B2B regarding affiliate and influencer programs? Maybe we start out by explaining what that is, because maybe some people out there are not familiar with it. 

Aya Saad  01:23

Sure. So having an affiliate or an influencer program is basically having people who have a network of potential customers that fit your target persona, promote your product and earn commissions from doing that. So every time they sell your product, or they provide you with a qualified lead, depending on your compensation structure. And we’re gonna, I think we’re gonna mention that a little bit down the line, when we dive more into the B2B, they earn commissions per sale or per qualified leads. So that’s essentially the concept of affiliate and influencer marketing is having people representing your brand and reaching potential customers that you cannot reach in typical ways, I’d say untapped opportunities. So I don’t really see a lot of B2B affiliate programs. I mean, it’s it’s getting there, but it’s not there yet. 

Aya Saad  02:17

Compared to B2C, I think the whole thing is still an untapped opportunity, but off of the top of my head, I’d say actually utilizing niche influencers and thought leaders in your niche and in your industry to promote your product to their networks, they have the reach to those decision makers that you’re seeking after as a B2B company or as a B2B product. So utilizing them and having partnerships with them can really have a huge impact. 

Aya Saad  02:46

Another thing is actually, and this might be a bit unusual, but employee advocacy, turning your own employees, with their networks, into micro influencers who share content and can create an authentic reach and experience about your product to potential customers as well. 

Aya Saad  03:04

I’d say another thing also that a lot of B2B companies overlook is the law, what we call long tail affiliates. And by that I mean the much, much smaller affiliates, like a very small blog or a very small community or a very specific industry newsletter, these actually prove to have a much higher conversion rate just because they are very targeted towards your niche, and it’s a very closed community, and it’s kind of close knit, and people actually follow it and remain up to date with it, and it could be a great potential opportunity for you to market for your products. 

Aya Saad  03:41

One final thing, also, I see it’s overlooked a lot are co marketing opportunities. So basically, as a brand, you can partner with a brand that’s complementary to yours and create either special offerings or promote each other in a different way. These types of co-partnerships would actually put your product within reach for customers that you couldn’t reach otherwise. And also, it doesn’t really mean that you are in competition. There is no direct competition. You’re just complimentary brands that serve the same audience, and you’re working together to promote both of your products.

Christian Klepp  04:22

Yeah, no, that’s absolutely correct. And I think that there are some really great points that you brought up here, and I think it’s worth going back and unpacking them a bit more for the benefit of the audience. That is, as I said before, not very familiar with affiliate or influencer programs. Let’s start with the first thing that you said, talking about the untapped opportunities and utilizing influencers to promote companies, products or maybe even solutions. Right? So what would you say to B2B customers, if you bring this up as a proposed. Strategy, and they look at you with braced eyebrows and say, well, isn’t that more of a consumer facing tactic? Isn’t that more for like, B2C? Why would you why would you even suggest that for B2B? Like, how do you handle that kind of objection? I don’t know if you’ve ever encountered that before, but like, um, how would you deal with that? 

Aya Saad  05:20

How I typically see it is that the concept of affiliate and influencer marketing can be applied regardless of your business model, whether it’s B2C or B2B. The whole point of affiliate marketing is getting your product in front of the people who can potentially buy it, and the key to doing that is finding the people who have reached to those customers or potential customers, and while it may look a lot different for B2B, like I wouldn’t go after an Instagram influencer, for example, to promote a high tech solution for enterprises, but I can find someone who is a thought leader in that industry and can be able to recommend that product to other decision makers. So it’s really about finding the right people to get your product in front of those customers. And that’s it. This is the whole concept behind it, and this can be applied whether it’s a B2C or a B2B product. 

Christian Klepp  06:16

Okay, okay, that’s fair well, that’s a fair point. That’s a fair point. Um, okay, so you another point that you brought up was on the topic of employee advocacy, which I totally agree with. I think this is really, there can be really a gold mine here if it’s done the right way. But I think more often than not, in B2B. Let me see if I can phrase this properly, there might be hesitation on the side of employees to push themselves out as the face of the brand, right? And that’s what’s needed also as part of employee advocacy. So how would you go about helping a client that wants to push this out? But perhaps they have employees that are not really entirely bought into the concept.

Aya Saad  07:01

So it’s actually the same way that we reach out to typical B2C influencers or typical potential affiliates in general. It’s the compensation. If they think that this is something that would properly compensate them, and they see that this is something that’s going to earn them money with, I’d say, a few posts that they make, or a few networking opportunities that they attend. If you really put your offer out there to them in the right way and actually structure that offer very properly in the beginning to ensure that it’s attractive, then you got a deal. And 90% of the time, no one really says no to money and the potential to earn and grow. Because why not? Like, instead of you just having your typical salary as our employee on top of that, you could earn commissions on every contract you bring us, and you could earn commissions on every qualified lead you bring us on or on every booked call. And this is something that’s on top of them, using things that you that they already do. So when I would target those employees, I would pick ones who already have some I’d say their LinkedIn profile has a lot of connections. They’ve already posting regularly. They have a lot of engagement. So someone you’re already doing that, so why not actually utilize it to earn extra money?

Christian Klepp  08:21

Yeah, absolutely Money Talks, huh? So no, but you were, you’re absolutely right, and it was good that you brought that up, that there are certain criteria that these people have to fulfill. It’s not just okay. You’re an employee of the organization, and then there you go. You can be, you can be an employee advocate, right? They have to have a certain number of followers. I’m assuming they have to already be putting content out there, the content and I think most importantly, it’s not just about putting content out there. I mean, there’s people that work at companies that are just putting company content out, right? They have to put out content that is getting good engagement as well, right? So there. So that’s how we build up the followers. Okay, fantastic. The third one, which I think is extremely interesting, because I’ve done this in the past as well, is partnering with other companies whose services are probably complementary to yours. And there can be a lot of benefits to doing that for B2B companies out there that are thinking about doing this but have not done it before. What advice would you give them about how to approach this?

Aya Saad  09:25

First thing is, don’t be scared to do it. This actually has been one of the most successful approaches overall, just because, as someone who is a higher up decision maker, and I’m looking for viable options for my company, whether it’s let’s assume it’s in tech, for example, and I see this SaaS option that I was really looking at is also feature that is collaborating with something that I’m already using, for example, like the project management tool that the whole company uses, recommends that SAS for this specific service. Or for this specific solution, and then this is an immediate trust that’s gained in that product. And I would definitely put that higher up on my options when comparing it to others.

Aya Saad  10:12

 Second thing also, if they have, like, some sort of collaboration opportunities where it’s they would offer companies who use both, like a certain type of discount, or if you buy this, then you get a free month of that, and vice versa, something like that. These everyone is looking to cut down on costs and the technology they use, for example, or anything basically that serves their company and having these things like a one thing fits all, one thing that has all the solutions that I need. It’s a no brainer that they would go for it.

Christian Klepp  10:50

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, there’s definitely my one size fits all, right. It depends on the vertical. Depends on what stage the company is at.

Aya Saad  10:58

Of course. 

Christian Klepp  10:58

Have they? Have they done this before? Is this their first time? So there’s a lot of factors to take into consideration, right? 

Aya Saad  11:05

Yeah, of course. 

Christian Klepp  11:07

All right, let’s move on to the next question, and this can get this list can get quite exhausted, but try to just go at it from a top level point of view. Okay, so tell us a bit about the do’s and don’ts of affiliate and influencer marketing specifically when it comes to B2B.

Aya Saad  11:23

I wouldn’t actually specify something for B2B. This is something that I recommend in affiliate and influencer marketing overall. The very first thing that you need to do when you’re starting affiliate and influencer marketing is having a proper plan and strategy in place. This just plans out everything that you want to do, what you want to achieve, who are your target, in terms of influencers and affiliates, what do you expect from them? How will you compensate them? Do you have room for bonuses? Do you have room for a tier, type of commissions, for incentives? All of this, don’t go in without planning and just launch an affiliate program and say, hey, I’ll give you this amount if you promote my product. No. 

Aya Saad  12:08

Have a proper plan and also niche down target people who are most engaged in your niche and are good representatives of your brand. Do not open this to everyone, as we mentioned, for example, for the employee advocacy, we wouldn’t just offer this to everyone, but we would offer it to someone, for example, who has pretty good content on their LinkedIn profile. They have the connections and they’re already posting, and they build their engagement. So don’t be too general when you’re offering the affiliate and influencer marketing opportunity, just because not everyone will be able to reach your target customer, and this is the whole point of it. So just seek the people who can put your product in front of the people who would buy it. 

Aya Saad  12:54

Second, third thing, I would say, affiliate and influencer marketing are long term partnerships. So do not settle for okay, I recruited that person, and they promoted me once or twice, and they’ve driven to me a couple of good leads or a couple of sales, and that’s it. This is a long term partnerships, and you need to put your side of effort in order to maintain that partnership, because if your offer goes out of date at some point and another company is offering something better, then the affiliate is just going to move on to someone else and start promoting them more than they are promoting you. 

Aya Saad  13:29

Last thing would be to prioritize the platforms and narrow down the channels first, where your B2B buyers are at. So LinkedIn, industry specific blogs, professional communities, narrow down those channels first, and I would also recommend actually looking at how your customers learned about you in the first place. So your existing customers, how did they find you? This would give you insights on what channels do they follow? And probably, if you’re at a phase where you’ve already done some marketing, overall, you’re probably mentioned in a few blogs, and you have some things out there, so social media and all of that. So knowing and learning how your customers, your current customers, found you, is also key to targeting who are the influencers and potential affiliates that you want to target.

Christian Klepp  14:21

Okay, well, that’s a really great list. And what about the don’ts? Like, what? What shouldn’t you do?

Aya Saad  14:27

The very first thing I always say when I’m asking, When I’m asked about don’ts is, do not go after a number of followers or the reach. Don’t go after that. Go after the engagement instead, and go after the relevance. Relevance is everything when it comes to affiliate and influencer marketing, because if you find someone with a lot of followers and your product is just not relevant to the rest of their content, it doesn’t look authentic, it doesn’t look organic, then it’s just not gonna work. It’s not gonna perform. So this is my biggest don’t. Go after a big follower number, go after engagement, go after relevance. 

Christian Klepp  15:04

Absolutely, absolutely. So don’t chase the vanity metrics, right? Like, as we say, as we say in podcasting, don’t always look at the number of downloads and subscribers, and especially in B2B, like, you know, do you really need 100,000 followers, right? Questionable. And it’s the same thing. And it’s the same thing for B2B. I mean, I’m just going to give an example. Let’s say you’re doing an influencer marketing initiative for a company that’s selling like automotive spare parts. Do they need 200,000 followers? Questionable. All right. 

Aya Saad  15:38

Very questionable.

Christian Klepp  15:41

Okay.

Aya Saad  15:42

How many of those 200,000 followers are actually gonna buy your product? Actually needed? 

Christian Klepp  15:47

Right.

Aya Saad  15:48

Probably a fraction.

Christian Klepp  15:50

Right. Oh, you just made me think of another like follow up question, Aya. And I don’t know if you’ve dealt with this before, I’m assuming you have, but um, what’s your take on those that are trying to push out artificial engagement there, because, you know, we You did say, like, don’t focus on the vanity metrics. But you know, it’s just human nature. Some people just cannot help themselves, because they need to show impressive numbers to somebody higher up, and then they resort to this type of tactic. But what’s your advice to these people.

Aya Saad  16:21

So my advice is that if you want something that converts at the end of the day and actually brings in the sales, then focus on the engagement and the relevance. If you just are looking for exposure, we do collaborate with like really big influencers and 100k plus, but for these types of campaigns, I don’t really focus on sales. I’m not seeking sales. I’m not seeking the engagement. I’m seeking the exposure that I could get from that campaign. So if you are after the follower count and you want that exposure, then this is just it. Your goal for that campaign is exposure, not affiliate sales or not affiliate referrals. Of course, there are a lot of influencers who do have a high number of followers along with the engagement, because they really worked into the platform. So these would work on both sides, both the sales and also the exposure.

Christian Klepp  17:21

Absolutely, absolutely. You brought it up when you were talking about the do’s for affiliate marketing and influencer marketing. But talk to us about the importance of conducting the right research and having the right strategy in place before you implement any campaigns. Like, why is it so important to do all that due diligence upfront?

Aya Saad  17:45

The importance of doing the due diligence upfront is it actually minimizes your failures down the line, so when? And it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to fail at all. There are going to be failures, and there are some things that are just not going to work out for you, but having a good solid strategy, having a good system, having done your research and targeting the people that you actually think that they can reach your target audience, and you also have some data to back this up, does put you on the road to success. When you go in and not knowing what you’re doing or without a plan, you’re basically just asking everyone who is interested in earning from this product to promote your product. And then you might end up having, like, a couple of people who are selling or doing a few sales here and there. But this is not scalable, and it’s not productive down the line.

Christian Klepp  18:43

Good. I did have another follow up question, and I’m sorry to put you on the spot here, but I think it’s important. I think it’s important for B2B marketers to understand this, especially those that are thinking about doing influencer or affiliate marketing, at some point they have to go to the senior management of their company, and try to, like, pitch this to them. And one of the hesitations, or I think the objections, that most likely is going to come back is, well, we’ve never done this before. How do we know that it’s going to work? Right? So how do you address those doubts? Because I’m sure they have them in B2C as well, right?

Aya Saad  19:18

Yeah, typically what we do in these cases, we do provide case studies of similar models. And I know this might be a bit on the rare side for B2B businesses. It might not be as feasible, but it really helps the decision maker to actually visualize the process. So basically, I wouldn’t just tell them, hey, we’re going to get those influencers and they’re going to promote us? No, I would find an example, a really solid example of that type of influencer that I’m thinking of in my strategy, and say, Hey, look at their posts. Look how much engagement they’re getting. Look at what type of people are actually engaging with them. This CEO (Chief Executive Officer) commented on their post and his interested in his insights. This CEO has been engaging a lot with that person, etc, and this is helping the decision maker visualize what their brand can do in that dynamic. Would really help them make the decision.

Christian Klepp  20:17

Okay, that’s absolutely right. That’s absolutely right. Okay, so I call this one the Lego question, right? So break it down for us. What are some of these key components? And you’ve mentioned some of them already. What are some of these key components that you need in order to have a successful affiliate or influencer campaign? 

Aya Saad  20:37

I’m gonna sound like a broken record, but again, research, research, research, do proper research and have a solid strategy. And your strategy should include who you’re targeting and also how you can compensate them. And into the compensation structure, you really need to account for not having a tail a stale compensation structure, meaning that you need to always provide growth opportunities to these affiliates, or otherwise, as I mentioned, they’re going to go elsewhere. 

Aya Saad  21:08

Also, your strategy needs to be solid but flexible. So it you need to have a concrete steps of what you’re going to do next and targeting these people for this reason, etc. But it also needs to be flexible, and it needs to be adaptable, so that you can take the data of the actual results you’ve achieved and apply it and tweak that strategy and improve it accordingly. Another thing would be to be consistent with your outreach. So you need to do really consistent outreach, proper follow ups, be super organized with what you’re doing, what your choice of words is, what you’re saying, how you’re representing your product, how you’re pitching your offer to those potential affiliates and influencers, because it makes all the difference. Also ensuring that you have dedicated and consistent support to your affiliates, because again, this is even more important than compensation, because the if the partners feel like their questions are not answered, their needs are not being met, they’re being neglected, they’re just going to go elsewhere as well. So it’s not only about the money, but actually providing resources and proper support to those affiliates. 

Aya Saad  22:22

You providing that resource is actually making them believe it even more that you’re setting them up for success. Always have room for bonuses, incentives and growth opportunities. Again, in your compensation structure, you need to account for that from the very beginning. You don’t really want to go too high with what you’re offering, and you don’t want to be too low. You need to be moderate, but also have proper incentives.

Christian Klepp  22:47

Yeah, somewhere in the middle, all right, yeah, no, I like what you said about allocating the right resources, but also having, like, that dedicated point of contact. And I think that applies across the board. That’s not just for affiliate or influencer marketing, right? Like, there needs to be a person that’s responsible for working with, let’s call them partners, right? They probably all have these FAQs (frequently asked questions), these questions that they that they need answers to, and there needs to be somebody on the company side that’s going to help them and make them feel like, okay, you know, yes, you are working for us and on behalf of our company and our brand, but we are also here to support you, to ensure that you will be successful, because your success is definitely in our interest, right? 

Aya Saad  23:36

Exactly. 

Christian Klepp  23:37

Okay, I’m really sorry. I’m gonna, I just have to pull up another question again, and it’s, it’s not to put you on the spot, but I think it’s, look, it’s 2025, and, you know, we, it wouldn’t make sense to avoid this question. All right, so, AI, right. How have you seen that? How have you seen artificial intelligence impact affiliate or influencer marketing, and I’m not when I say impact, I don’t necessarily mean that in a negative way. It can be constructive as well, right? But what’s your take on that?

Aya Saad  24:14

It depends. Are you asking about the AI influencer trend that we have recently been saying, or are you asking about AI technology to help with affiliate and influencer marketing in general?

Christian Klepp  24:24

Both.

Aya Saad  24:25

Okay, so regarding the influencer I really don’t mind the concept, because if they have the reach to the right customers, again, it’s fine, whether it’s AI or AI or not, it’s fine with technology. I definitely say that finding and recruiting affiliates and influencer marketing has definitely improved with the help of a lot of AI tools, and I don’t mean the basic ones, but there are super specific platforms for influencer marketing, and they do utilize AI technology in terms of filtering, finding with certain keywords, and this really helps narrow down the people that you want to contact, and makes your work overall more efficient. 

Christian Klepp  25:12

Yeah, I suppose, if it helps you to save time, makes the work more efficient, like you said, with the research, like, for example, instead of spending hours going through, let’s say, a search engine looking for those specific influencers, if AI can help you to filter them out. Yeah, filter out. I think it’s the right word. Like you tag them, or you put in certain prompts or keywords that you’re looking for an influencer in this specific industry, and probably with this many followers, this is the budget range, so you start narrowing it down a little bit, right? And if you can exactly, if you can do that search within Well, seconds, minutes instead of hours, then yes, by all means, right?

Aya Saad  25:57

Yeah, I would say, though, that I don’t think that we’re still at a level where you can completely depend on those results. So one thing, for example, that we do is that we always hand pick the influencers or the potential affiliates. So while we do utilize influencer marketing tools to kind of narrow down the millions of influencers out there to match specific criteria, we still put in the time to hand pick, check the content and make sure that this is actually 100% fit for the product that we’re seeking them for.

Christian Klepp  26:30

Right. Yeah, no, absolutely. It requires human intervention at the end of the day. Don’t rely 100% on AI, yeah, no. Fantastic, fantastic. Okay. Aya, we get to the point in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us quite a bit already, right? But just imagine there’s somebody out there that’s listening to this conversation between you and I, and they want to start implementing this right away. What are some, let’s say, three to five things that you would advise them to do and take action on right now, with regards to affiliate or influencer marketing.

Aya Saad  27:04

Alright. So I would put them basically, I would say what we’ve just discussed into action items. So first thing that you want to do is do your proper research, and that research is also really deep, diving into your customer personas and where your customers are reachable, online and offline, that’s a very important thing to build your strategy on. 

Aya Saad  27:25

And then, of course, building your strategy, and the strategy would not only be who you’re targeting, but also the compensation structure. I’d say that for B2C, it’s very easy to put a cost per action compensation structure, but it’s a bit different for B2B, because many of the products are not something that’s shoppable or that you would click here to subscribe or buy and pay immediately. It’s especially if the product is like something that’s customizable or has a different pricing for every company and depending on their needs and all of that. So I say, I’d say the most common compensation structure for B2B would be cost per lead, where basically the affiliates are doing lead acquisition for you, and then your sales team would, in turn close them. And then it depends you could still pay per lead. Or you could pay for per qualified lead, so CPQL (Cost Per Qualified Lead), where you have a certain criteria, and if the lead matches all of that criteria, it does. And you could also do a small payment for the lead itself, or you could and then if the lead actually converts, you end up giving them a percentage from the total of the contract. And this, I think something would be of most interest, especially for higher ticket affiliates who are not who would be really narrowing down on the quality for you and getting you those deals that has high potential to convert. 

Aya Saad  28:55

After that, you really need to identify a system of how this would work whether you would have like a tracking system on your website or even a Google form, but you need to have a proper system to be able to track your campaigns properly. And then also, you need to have a lot of transparency with your affiliates. They need to be able to view everything they have brought in, what converted, what did not, and all of these data needs to be very transparently communicated to affiliates. 

Aya Saad  29:25

And then after these three things are settled and you have a plan already, you start identifying the potential affiliates and getting contact information based on your strategy, and you plan a multi channel outreach strategy and launch your program. Or you could come to us at Vivian Agency and save yourself all the time, and we do all of that for you.

Christian Klepp  29:50

That was the point of this whole exercise. 

Aya Saad  29:54

Yeah. 

Aya Saad  29:55

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  29:55

No, but you know, thank you. Thank you for sharing that you’ve actually unpacked a lot there. Let me just. Quickly recap for the benefit of the audience. So of course, doing your proper research is the first step, then building a strategy, which includes your compensation, identifying a system of how this will work. And fourth is identifying potential affiliates and then start reaching out to them. 

Christian Klepp  30:18

Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, I’m gonna move us on to the next question, which I call the Love it or hate it question, metrics. At some point, and you’ve you’ve talked about it already, but at some point, B2B, marketers have to prove that these initiatives are working to somebody. And when I say prove that they are working, I mean that in numerical form, right? So what type of metrics from a top level point of view? Once again, because I know this can get quite granular, but what are some top level metrics they should be paying attention to? When it comes to affiliate and influencer marketing. 

Aya Saad  30:54

I would actually divide that into four categories. So first category would be just top of the funnel, which is maybe you could measure it by website traffic or the content engagement, or the impact that this content had. So maybe this certain influencer attacked you on social media, you gain the 100 followers that day, and you see the impact of the content. So this is like top of the funnel. 

Aya Saad  31:17

And then middle of the funnel would be the quality of the leads that the affiliate is driving to you. And this is something I’d say more specifically, B2B. For B2C, I’d say the quality of the sales, meaning that they’re not resulting in a lot of refunds, and they’re not, of course, something that’s fraudulent sale or something like that. So the quality of the leads or sales that they’re driving to you. 

Aya Saad  31:43

And then bottom of the funnel would be the conversion rates, so how many of the leads that they’ve driven to you actually booked demos or made a sale and actually ended up getting a contract with your company. 

Aya Saad  31:55

And then finally, would be retention and return on investment. So this also maybe would relate a bit to the lead quality and then for the retention. What’s the lifetime value of the customers that are acquired through that channel? So is that affiliate bringing you a customer that’s gonna contract you for one year or three years or just three months. What’s the lifetime value for that customer? Because this affects the return on investment. Because if you pay them that amount, but in return, you’re earning X amount, then that’s a good investment. So it’s kind of how I would measure it, and then overall partner performance on an individual level, I always look at that on a very individual level and what channels they’re utilizing, because these are the type of insights that I need to change my strategy and tweak my strategy in order to continuously improve what I’m doing. 

Christian Klepp  32:57

Thanks for sharing that. And I’m going to tell you right now that there are two metrics that you just mentioned, that the senior management and the board are going to care about, and nothing more. 

Aya Saad  33:08

Yeah, of course.

Christian Klepp  33:09

Conversion and retention and ROI (Return on Investment), everything else is going to go right, like, but no, but you’re absolutely right and, and I was kind of anticipating that the answer was going to be a little bit more detailed, because there are so many different areas to look at, so many different attributes to measure, and it’s depending on what stage of the marketing funnel the leads find themselves in, right or the campaign.

Aya Saad  33:38

Yeah, I would say that the bottom and middle of the funnel are just more of maybe the decision makers wouldn’t really care about those, but they’re really important for whoever is running the affiliate and influencer program because they are also insightful on how this is going to progress. So if I’m seeing that the content from this specific affiliate has had no engagement at all, no impact whatsoever, then I’m not really going to spend a lot of time on similar affiliates, but instead, I’m going to shift my strategy to others and so on. 

Christian Klepp  34:13

Well, absolutely, and it’s going back to a point you raised earlier in the conversation, right? To keep that strategy flexible, not be to focus on one aspect of the entire campaign or the entire initiative, right? 

Aya Saad  34:25

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  34:26

Okay, fantastic. Okay, Aya, please get up on your soapbox. What is the status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why?

Aya Saad  34:39

Because we’re mainly talking about B2B and and it’s pretty obvious what I’m just about to say right now, but many B2B companies believe that influencer marketing is only for B2C, and they really passionately believe that this is the case, and it’s really not. At the end of the day, from my perspective, and why I really disagree with that is that people buy from people, and people prefer authentic experiences, and influencer and affiliate marketing bridges that gap, so it just creates this instant trust when I see someone I follow or someone I’m connected with promoting this product that I maybe was hesitant a couple of weeks ago in trying or buying, and this applies in the professional and B2B setting as well.

Christian Klepp  35:33

I totally agree with that. It’s the same, you know, when you’re talking about B2B podcasting, right? Like it’s the same, like, people are always asking first about, Okay, how many downloads? How many subscribers and like, do you really need? Again, I brought this up earlier, right? Do you need 100,000 followers? If you are a podcast, say, for example, that is focusing on aeronautics engineers. That’s a micro niche, right? 

Aya Saad  36:00

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  36:00

If you get 300 people, and all of them are in that particular vertical, then I think you’ve already achieved your goal, right? So it’s the same, right? It’s the same, absolutely, absolutely, okay. Now here comes the bonus question, and not many people know this, but you’re the first person that I’ve interviewed on this show, who’s from Egypt, right? And, and I think you’re also,  are you based in Alexandria? Is that correct? 

Aya Saad  36:26

Yeah, I am.

Christian Klepp  36:27

Yeah. So fun fact, there was the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was built a long time ago, and it crashed into the sea during an earthquake, if I’m not mistaken, right? Yeah. So when people outside of Egypt think of your country. The first thing that comes to mind, sorry, pyramids and mommies, right? 

Aya Saad  36:48

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  36:48

So what is one thing about Egypt you wish people around the world knew more about and why?

Aya Saad  36:58

I’m really proud of the fact that people do identify immediately with the pyramids and the mummies and the very rich culture that we have, but there’s also more to that. We have, a lot more than just that culture, and many times I feel like people are just stuck in that point of time where we had the pyramids and the amazing museums and all of that, and we still love them, of course. But there is way more to Egypt than that. Brilliant people out there, brilliant developments. And I wish that people would not really look at Egyptians, or at Egypt just from the micro lens of seeing the pyramids, and that’s it. There is a lot more to Egypt than that. 

Christian Klepp  37:49

Absolutely agree. Absolutely agree. So you don’t want people to just, you know, when they think of Egypt, they think of antiquity, right? Ancient times.

Aya Saad  37:58

Exactly, and we’ve evolved since then. 

Christian Klepp  38:01

I’m sure you have.

Aya Saad  38:03

Yeah, yeah. It’s just that sometimes people don’t really believe that. They think, for example, that Cairo or Giza is just the area where the pyramids is, and that’s hit, and Cairo is, like, huge. It’s a huge city, and has a lot of different people.

Christian Klepp  38:20

Yeah. 

Aya Saad  38:21

And places and everything. 

Christian Klepp  38:23

Yeah, exactly. I think I read it somewhere. Isn’t Cairo, the city with the largest population on the African continent?

Aya Saad  38:32

Yeah, I believe.

Christian Klepp  38:33

I think so, right? And you also have a very Egypt also has a very large young population, right? That’s, which is also a very interesting statistic, which also means that you have a bit a larger, younger population that is internet savvy, right? 

Aya Saad  38:48

Yeah, true. 

Christian Klepp  38:49

Right? So there’s a lot of benefits to that as well, right,?

Aya Saad  38:52

Yeah. And I feel like definitely the Internet has helped with that, and social media, and having a ton of social media influencers representing Egypt and the culture and everything else out there to the world definitely made a difference on educating people and just giving them the insights that we go beyond the culture. It’s not just we’re not all revolving around the pyramids and riding camels in the desert, you know.

Christian Klepp  39:22

Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been such a fun but also very informative conversation. So thanks again for your time. Please. Quick introduction to yourself and how people can get in touch with you. And one last question, how does somebody with a degree in pharmacology, find yourself in the world of affiliate and influencer marketing.

Aya Saad  39:46

Yeah, it’s a funny story, actually. So for everyone, my name is Aya, and I’m Egyptian, and I do have a degree in clinical pharmacy from Alexandria University. And. I’ve started working in marketing as early as my second year in college. I just wanted to be more independent, and just went out there and took the first job I got, but it just developed from that. So after a few years working in companies, I decided to work as a freelancer, and I started teaching myself different things and skills, and I actually landed the job as an outreach manager, which led to me also falling into affiliate and influencer marketing. And it kind of stuck there. I thought that this is something that I’m really passionate about and I believe in, and it worked out from there. So I’ve been doing affiliate and influencer marketing for a little bit over four years now. And as I mentioned, I started as a self taught freelancer, but now I’m partnership director of Vivian Agency, where we connect ambassadors with, sorry, where I connect brands with their communities through affiliate and influencer marketing or ambassadors as well. And, yeah, you can reach me at [email protected] that’s my email. And you can also visit www.vivianagency.com book a call with us, or just fill out the contact form and I’ll be in touch.

Christian Klepp  41:22

Fantastic, fantastic. A true renaissance woman in every regard. Yeah, once again. Aya, thank you so much for your time. Shukran, I’m sorry that’s, that’s as far as my Arabic goes.

Aya Saad  41:36

No, that’s, that’s actually pretty good. Not bad at all. 

Christian Klepp  41:38

Thank you. Thanks again. And take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. 

Aya Saad  41:43

Excellent. Thank you so much. Bye.

Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Laurier Mandin. He is the president and CEO of Graphos Product, who is on a mission to help innovators de-risk, position and market innovative B2B products for Category leadership. He is also the author of the book “I NEED THAT”, creating and marketing products people are compelled to buy. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. 

Christian Klepp  00:31

Okay so. Laurier Mandin, welcome to the show, Sir. 

Laurier Mandin  00:36

Great to be here. Chris, been looking forward to it. 

Christian Klepp  00:39

Absolutely, absolutely. It’s great to be connected. I’m really looking for this conversation. I think this is probably the first time that we’re going to discuss this topic on the show. So it’s going to be an interesting one, for sure. So let’s dive in.

Laurier Mandin  00:52

New ground. I like it. 

Christian Klepp  00:54

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Um, so let’s just say that you’ve been on a mission for a while now, to help innovators and B2B marketers create and sell products that people truly need and transform struggling products into market leaders. So for this conversation, let’s zero in on a topic, and I think I believe you wrote about it too, so how small businesses can outperform larger competitors by deeply understanding customer needs. You know, for marketers like you and I, that kind of sounds like table stakes, but we know, in reality, we’ve seen so many examples out there of what happens when you don’t do this. All right. So I’m gonna kick off the conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat, okay, so the first question is, where do you see many small businesses and their marketing teams, if they have any where do you see them struggle? And the second question is, why do you believe that focusing on features and benefits alone won’t drive sales?

Laurier Mandin  01:52

And this often applies to large teams too, but small teams especially struggle with trying to do everything within really tight constraints. So teams, budgets, limited skill sets on the team, time commitments, all that pressure to perform, pressure to ship, and you’ve never, ever got enough of what you need to do it as well as you’d like to. So those constraints, the smaller the team you have, the more hats people are wearing. Often the more unrealistic the commitments are that people are making, and the expectations are and so those pressures are all a lot higher. 

Laurier Mandin  02:26

And the second part of the question is, why I believe focusing on features and benefits alone doesn’t drive sales? It’s because features and benefits are never on buyers’ minds. Buyers have needs and goals and lots of fears, but your feature list is never on their radar. It’s never going to be, and their brain isn’t even built to do or to want to do the work to understand it and to get it there, especially with, you know, all those constraints that we were talking about, and I can go into more detail on this, and I explore it in the book, but thinking is hard and highly energy intensive to do, and your buyers have other things to invest that energy into. Teams don’t have enough of anything. They’re under-resourced in every way, and they’re under constant pressure to move fast. So when they come to your website, when they’re looking at what your product does or your service does they don’t have the capacity and their resources, the time or the interest to go through connecting those dots for themselves? You really, really have to do it for them. 

Christian Klepp  03:31

Yeah, you really brought up some interesting points there. And I want to go back to the first bit about small marketing teams and their constraints. And you’ve seen this happen a lot, but short of stating the obvious, there’s a lot of chaos in an ecosystem with a lot of moving parts. But let’s look at this from a more constructive perspective. I’m going to say, and I’m going to quote, I think his name is Jean-Marie Dru who used to be the CEO of TBWA, and he wrote this book, “How Disruption Brought Order”, and he talked about creating order amidst the chaos. So back to you, how do these small marketing teams that are, as you said, wearing many hats, they’re trying to create order in this chaos, and they just can’t seem to do it. So how would you advise them to go about creating that order?

Laurier Mandin  04:21

The only way to create order and chaos is always to step back and create basically structure, and to turn that structure into a plan and move forward in an organized, non-chaotic way. So having a really solid sound go-to-market roadmap that your team can action on and be on the same page. That holds everybody accountable is one really important way to do it, and so that everybody on the team knows exactly what they need to be doing, and they know what they’ve got to answer for. That’s one of the things I help a lot of teams work on, is  designing and flushing out action plans like that. A go-to-market roadmap, so that they know everybody is singing from the same song sheet. And at least the chaos will continue to happen, and every day still brings surprises, but then you at least have a framework and guidelines to put things back into rows and columns and make things more orderly so you have a chance at managing it and prioritizing it again. So again, in chaos, everybody’s trying to put out fires and take care of urgencies and very often, what’s truly important and the mission can get ignored. So really, really important to build in that structure and to and to understand what it is that we’re all working to achieve.

Christian Klepp  05:42

Absolutely, absolutely. And you can use whatever analogy you like, right, like whether it’s manning a ship and having the right captain of first mate, or having the orchestra with the right conductor, something to that effect, right?

Laurier Mandin  05:55

Yes, yeah, for sure. I use, you know, singing from the same song sheet a lot, just because it’s very often you see where that’s not happening, and everybody is just kind of doing what they think needs to happen. And you don’t end up with a concert, you end up with a lot of noise. 

Christian Klepp  06:08

Absolutely. Well, it sounds like what you know, what the orchestra sounds like when they’re tuning up right before the concert?

Laurier Mandin  06:14

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think of that too. Or it’s kind of an interesting noise sometimes, but it’s not music. 

Christian Klepp  06:22

Yes, yes. Exactly, exactly. I’m going to move us on to the next question. So in your book, I need you speak at length about something you refer to as the coveted condition. So for the benefit of the audience, can you tell us more about that and how it relates to creating and marketing products that people want to buy?

Laurier Mandin  06:40

I came up with the name coved condition thinking about I wanted something memorable for what I saw as this desired future state that your buyer achieves, not immediately through using a product usually, but through owning and using it and making full utilization of everything that it can do for them. And I tell clients that they should imagine, if their product was taken away from a power user after a full year of use, what would that person miss the most in their lives? What would be the big Oh no, and not just now, I’ve got to go back and do my research and find a way to replace this. But now, what is? What is that, that gulf, that gap, what could no other product do that yours has done? And I have a kind of a little mental tool that I use to help people understand that I have, I say, fill in the blank on this sentence, on behalf of your customer. 

Laurier Mandin  07:32

So the sentence is, I need, and then the product’s name in order to become what, and maybe that what is a new job title of where you want to be promoted to. Maybe it’s become free to focus on another area of the business or life. But whatever that thing is that they say, I need the product to become, takes you beyond I need it to do. And it points out what that coveted condition is, what the real reason is that someone would go to all the pain and trouble and cost of adopting a new product that’s far beyond the you know, those features and benefits that we’ll talk more about, that companies tend to list when they’re trying to promote and sell something. 

Christian Klepp  08:16

Absolutely, absolutely. You just made me think of something. And I suppose you could say this is same, same, but different, but it’s almost like the same exercise that you go through with branding, right? Like so there’s always that question and workshops, let’s say, for example, you take away your company’s logo from the website. Well, people still know it’s you, right?

Laurier Mandin  08:36

And could, I think that is wonderful, and I think it’s another way of saying that is, if you took your positioning, the messaging on your company’s website, those headlines, and stuck it on another brand, could they wear it and Could they say us too? Because if so, then there’s no differentiation. And that’s one of the big challenges, especially in B2B, is having this kind of not differentiating, differentiation that everybody says, Oh no, ours is uniquely asked. It’s like, oh yeah. How come? Your competitor could wear it too, likewise, with the logo, right? If I could put and I think it’s just kind of interchangeable. Whichever part you’re swapping out shows that you’re missing that differentiation, not just in the client size, but really in the way that the company itself sees the product.

Christian Klepp  09:22

Absolutely, absolutely. On that note, that was a great segue into the next question about key pitfalls to avoid. So talk to us about that and what small businesses and marketers should be doing instead.

Laurier Mandin  09:35

There’s so many pitfalls in terms of what the things that kind of that tension between connecting with our audience and pleasing our bosses and peers. And we talked initially about, before we hit record, about content marketers in particular. And I was thinking before this conversation about, you know, where a good example was that content marketers are forced to write SEO (Search Engine Optimization) content and get that word count up, having keyword density, all those types of things. But really what Google is going to measure you by is engagement and time on page and those really important things. And regardless of what those other distractions are, as marketers, we really need to focus on big picture, desired outcomes in the differentiation that’s going to matter to our buyers, to our readers, being memorable and showing value that leads to sales not, you know, not churning out words that we think, especially if we’re in workshops. I have one client that I tried and tried and tried to explain to them why have calling themselves a solution right at the top of their home page was not differentiating them. And if you go to their home page now, that word solution is still there, I couldn’t succeed with that client. And you know, sometimes it’s really a losing battle, and it’s just because B2B is so conditioned, they believe that their customers want to see them positioned in a way that fits with the expectation, but that’s not again, differentiation. It’s about being memorable and showing value that’s going to lead to sales. It’s and for that reason, it helps to really understand what goes on inside of the buyer’s brain. 

Laurier Mandin  11:14

And in the book, I explain, and I need that, I explain in simple terms, how brain science works, with the limbic system being purely visual and having a central role in buying decisions, often making them in a matter of milliseconds. The what I call the dog brain, because it responds passionately and emotionally and quickly, like a dog it, it sees things and makes decisions in as little as two milliseconds. Well, the rational brain, the neocortex, rationalizes and justifies, but it’s 250 times slower than the limbic system at responding and even at reading, which takes a lot of back and forth between the different parts of the brain. The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text, and features and benefits, things like that are mostly, if not all, text. So it’s really important that when we’re talking to our buyers minds, we’re using language that is strongly visual and helps people to process things and get an understanding of what it is we’re, how we’re going to benefit them in a really clear way that the limbic system understands. 

Laurier Mandin  12:25

So with my client, you know, an example is, instead of saying our automated IT (Information Technology) solutions, use next generation AI (Artificial Intelligence) to reduce manual interventions and provide proactive issue resolution, which isn’t far off from what that client was saying. You might say something like, you could have a self healing system. Well, competitors, IT departments, are still running around with fire extinguishers. Now we have a visual that people can imagine and convert into images, and they’re going to remember you that you’re the company that stops you from having this crazy, chaotic, you know, fire extinguisher comical scene by giving us a self healing system, you can imagine things fixing themselves behind the scenes. So even when you can’t necessarily just present images, because what you’re doing is fairly complicated, you can use visual language that brings images to mind and automatically makes that processing and understanding of why you’re different that much easier for your ideal buyer. 

Christian Klepp  13:26

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. Like, I love that whole visual language piece, but you brought something up earlier in the conversation. I wanted to go back to it, because I think you’ve seen this 1000 times. How do you deal with clients like that, where there’s a lot of well, for lack of a better description, there’s a lot of analysis paralysis and decision by committee going on, and this is, this is how we think the market wants us to be represented, and this is how we should communicate to the market, like, how do you deal with that internally, to let them know that perhaps this is not really in their best interest.

Laurier Mandin  14:06

Usually, I succeed that one outlier is kind of one of these. Okay, I’m gonna let them have this one because they’re so set on it. But I think it’s really important, you know, and if I were to go back to that client now and kind of explain to them some of the things that I just said to you, as far as how the brain makes these decisions, and to really show them even what we just discussed about, you know, if, if I could take this very tagline and put it on your competitors website, then that means it’s not differentiating you, and people are not going to, you know, When you use the word solution, it’s a blah, blah, blah word, and I’ve listed out before, kind of, there’s a there’s a long list of names, and it seems to keep on getting longer. Of words that either are too commonly used in industry or they’re words that AI really, really likes. Like the word crucial is one of those words that you. It, LLM (Large Language Model) tools like ChatGPT and Claude just can’t help but spitting out every third sentence. And because of that, those words are becoming just more ignorable. 

Laurier Mandin  15:11

So I think it’s really having getting to the point with clients, with the businesses and the decision makers, that they want to come up with something that’s really uniquely them, authentically them, and not just put out words that people are going to skip over. If you’re putting words on a page, recognize that visitors are there just sometimes for a few seconds, and if one of those words is solutions, despite that, you know, as that client would argue, people are looking for solutions. They’re going to see that all over the place, and they want to know how you’re going to be the solution, not just that you think you are going to.

Christian Klepp  15:52

Yep, yep, no, absolutely, absolutely. Okay. Moving on to the next question. We all know that research is a key component, right? Like, especially in creating marketing products that people are compelled to buy, but, and I know we can go down a very deep rabbit hole here, but I’m gonna ask you to, like, be as succinct as you can how B2B marketers can validate a business product or service idea without requiring, well, a monster sized research budget?

Laurier Mandin  16:24

And you can spend a lot of money doing research for sure. The other side of that is, you know, whenever I do research projects with clients, I’ve never had them say to me, well, that that just told us what we already knew. That’s what you often think when you’re being dismissive of doing the research because you don’t want to be to see that you’re on the wrong track. And that’s the big fear, is you don’t want to be told that you know by maybe the wrong people, that what you’re working on is the wrong idea. But it’s more the insights really you want insights when you’re doing research. So the key thing when you’re doing research on a limited budget, and I have quite a lot of the book dedicated to doing this validation, because it’s such a critical area, it’s so important to do this right. But the most important thing is talking to strangers, and if you think it’s going to be hard, finding strangers that match your ideal client profile, now wait until you’re selling their product, because then it gets harder and not easy. You’re trying to do it at scale, but you need to talk to strangers, not not family, and especially not friends, because friends are your friends for a reason. You chose your friends because they say things that make you feel good about yourself, and they want to stay friends, and they want to see you make something cool. So they’re going to tell you that what you’re doing is cool, and everybody’s going to buy it, and it’s going to be amazing, and let’s make it, it’s going to be awesome. I’ll buy it, but they won’t. And so you’ve got to ask these strangers specific questions. 

Laurier Mandin  17:55

I’ve got three key questions that are really, really important. So first of all, have they actively searched for a better solution? Have they gone online and used ChatGPT or Google to try and find a better way of doing what it is they’re doing that your product does? If not, there’s a concern, because that means your solution isn’t being sought. And to market something people are looking for is much, much easier than marketing something that people don’t know exists, or don’t know that they’ve got a problem. 

Laurier Mandin  18:23

And the next question, number two is, what do they like most about their current approach? What do they like about what they’re doing that they would be hesitant to abandon, because, again, we have all these biases, and a really big one is status, cool bias. So if they really, really love their current approach, for some reason, you need to know why that is because you need to fight that status quo bias, and you need to address why your way is better.

Laurier Mandin  18:46

And then number three is probably the most important. One of all is because you need to know this going in into market, and you need the results of it is, what would they pay to solve this problem properly? And with that question, high to low ranges are great. And next important thing after they give you that high to low range is to offer it to pre-sell the product to them at their suggested low price. And that separates the genuine need from the polite interest. They’re saying everybody’s going to buy it if they’re going to write you a check or give you money, cash money to have that pre order down, then you know you’re onto something, and you’re able to take that forward and tell investors that you have people who are putting money down for this product, and it’s just the kind of the biggest acid test for validation is yes, people are willing to actually pay me money. Strangers are willing to actually pay me money to use this product, and you don’t need to do massive market research to do this. I tell people, you can do this entire validation process with just five good conversations with strangers. Might not tell you as much as comprehensive market research, but you. Have some pretty good indicators, and you’ll definitely have insights that you didn’t have before you went into those conversations.

Christian Klepp  20:06

Yeah, no, no, no, those are really good insights, and just one follow up based on what you said, was definitely conducting research and identifying those customers and the types of motivations that they have. I call them demand triggers, right? What would trigger them to find the solution online? What importance or priority would you give to competitive ecosystem analysis, like checking because, you know, a lot of people are saying, Oh, we’re the only ones in in the market that are providing this type of solution. I usually say, Well, I kind of doubt that’s true. There’s an alternative to what you provide that in itself, directly or indirectly, can also be considered a competitor. But what are your thoughts on that?

Laurier Mandin  20:49

Yeah, I’m always surprised at when I meet a new client for the first time, and they tell me something like that, or they tell me there’s just this limited set of competitors. And then when I go out and do fairly simple research, even I’m uncovering all these businesses and these options that I think they look very much like competitors to me, and usually they prove to be real competitors. 

Laurier Mandin  21:09

So I think that’s one of the things about just being, you know, have being inside of a product, being too close to the solution, that you don’t recognize what the other competitive options are. And for that reason, you know, having somebody like you or me, having someone external, take a look at what the other options are, and build those into the if we’re doing a roadmap for them, or coming up with their go to market strategy, really recognizing that there are more competitors maybe, than the inside people think. And that can be, there’s good things about competitors, too. If you if you have a number of competitors that aren’t doing the best job of solving the problem, you know, they they don’t have the best UX (User Experience), they don’t have the best solution, and the solution that the client is working on is much better, then that tells you the you’re in a market that exists. There are customers out there. There’s people trying to solve this problem and paying for it already. Now you’ve just got to show them that you’ve got the best solution. 

Laurier Mandin  22:05

So being able to do that and recognizing that you do have a reasonable number of competitors, but it’s not a market that’s saturated with solutions, and the solution you’re working towards really has those significant differentiators, then finding, you know, having a great understanding of what those competitors are, are essential to get in the point where you can put up positioning that anybody else, looking at those other options, can clearly see why this product is the standout.

Christian Klepp  22:39

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. As you were talking, I just came up with another follow up question. And I’m pretty sure you’ve got your thoughts on this. You brought this up, and especially if you’re dealing with small businesses, right, they’re forever going to be constrained by everything from funding, budget to resources, bandwidth, etc, etc. And there are certainly, I know this, but there are certainly benefits to having an external I’m going to call them strategic partner, conduct this research, right, versus them doing it in house. What are your thoughts on that? Because I know that you probably run into this all the time where people are like, well, can’t we do this ourselves?

Laurier Mandin  23:21

Yeah. And why? Here’s the interesting thing is, it’s not just the small the smaller companies, just the startups that have that problem. And I find that even for some of my larger clients, when my Graphos team, and I go in and we and we show them all the things that are possible, and we bring them the extra value that a good partner can, that it usually expands our scope of work. And pretty soon, we’re not, you know, we’re not arm wrestling their internal people for the tasks that we can do better. They’re handing us stuff and bringing us things from other departments and saying, Can you help us with this too? Can you this other department needs some similar help to what you did for this department. 

Laurier Mandin  24:03

So I find that if you know, as long as you’re staying within your wheelhouse, and you’re able to bring that extra expertise to the to the client, to the business, you tend to discover more and more ways, and they become often, I think, just better at identifying and freer to see the ways that they’re weak or that their point of view is limited by being by only seeing things from the inside, I find the best clients tend to kind of recognize that organically, like they already realize that they’ve got these shortcomings. They recognize that they’re that they’re too small, that they’re strained, and that’s an easier position to come at it from as an outside partner, but I feel that in my experience is that if we do our work really, really well, that the client tends to get better at seeing themselves and seeing their limitations as what they are. Because. So having a great partner come in also helps them focus on why they’re there in the first place. And all these people do have their superpowers, but if they’re wearing 17 hats, they’re not able to go out and do the things that they came in to do that they do really well. So it’s, you know, offering a really good outside team sometimes really flushes out the skills that people have internally and makes everybody better at doing what they were hired to do. 

Christian Klepp  25:27

Yeah, no, that’s exactly right. And then, you know, short of sounding corny, it’s, it’s viewing, viewing you as the extension of their team, and that that additional team that’s coming into to support you or provide those to use the military terms, those reinforcements, right? That you that you absolutely.

Laurier Mandin  25:45

Yeah. And again, it’s so different from one business to another. When you’re working with clients, is some of them just, you know, kind of see that naturally and and that that flow just happens, and they’re just eager to bring in a good partner. And other times, you kind of have to really prove yourself, and you have to fight through it. You have, you know, the odd you have, maybe one difficult person that is being really resistant, and when you win that person over, now, all of a sudden, the magic starts to happen. And you know, they’re happy to all of a sudden take credit for your work, because that’s one thing that I had a mentor teach me years ago, like over 20 years ago, was, he said to me, you know, what I learned in my career is that we’re not here to do stuff for clients as much as we’re here to make them look good. If they take credit for what you’re doing, if they’re happy to say, Look what we did, that means you did something good. It means you did good on them. Because now they’re not saying, look what this partner did. And you know, seeing what their bosses say you’re seeing what the others say. They’re saying, Look what we did, and that says, now we’re now, we’re working together. 

Christian Klepp  26:46

Absolutely, absolutely. And I guess that’s just that comes with the territory, right? If you’re working in this ecosystem, you have to allow the client to take credit for your work, right? It’s just part of the game.

Laurier Mandin  27:00

Yeah and it’s the highest compliment. It really, really is, because if they’re still saying, you know, look what Laurier did, look what Graphos did, then I feel that they’re not truly invested in what they brought us in to do. And you kind of do see that change when all of a sudden the credit taking happens and and I always when I start working with the client, is even if I’m really fresh and new with the brand, I really talk about it as we I really talk about us, because it’s so important that when you get in there and you’re working together with a new team, is that they recognize as early as possible, from your language to that this is a we thing. We’re everything that we’re doing. We’re going to succeed or fail together. We’re going to experiment together, and we are going to find a way.

Christian Klepp  27:42

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I found in my own experience that that hesitation on the client side, you know, when dealing with an external partner usually comes when it’s the first time they’ve done it, like it’s the first time they’re outsourcing this kind of work. So there’s that fear, I guess part of it is the whole letting go, like letting go that I’m not going to be working on this, it’ll be somebody else, and then it’s still, you’re still in that stage where I call it like the first date, right? You’re still trying to build that trust and see if the other person can, can deliver on this or not, right?

Laurier Mandin  28:14

Exactly, yeah, on that first date, your night’s not so much of a we thing. It’s, you know, it’s her and me, and we’re going to figure out if this works or not, and the we kind of happens as as you start to have a partnership.

Christian Klepp  28:26

Absolutely, absolutely okay. So we come to the part in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us plenty already, but so if somebody were listening to this conversation, who is probably in one of these companies, right where they’re dealing with these kinds of situations. 

Laurier Mandin  28:43

Yeah.

Christian Klepp  28:44

And what are some simple frameworks that any business can use to evaluate product market fit? 

Laurier Mandin  28:51

And product market fits is one of those things that’s tricky, and I think you have to have frameworks, you have to have objectivity somehow to be able to know if it’s going to happen. So I’ve got what I call the three Rs of product fit, and it’s the first R is for reviews. If customers, what are customers saying and saying consistently? If you’re organically getting five star reviews written by people in a specific market, then you’re on to something within that segment, within that market, there’s a good chance that you that you’re achieving, or beginning to achieve, product market fit, because people are are buying their liking, and they’re going forward and saying that they’re liking. 

Laurier Mandin  29:28

The second R is returns or retention in physical products. If you have a return rate that’s below 5% that signals strong fit. If there’s 5% or less, if you’re up in that 10 plus range, then your product market fit is weaker. And if you’re 15 to 20, then you’re probably doing something wrong in the positioning. Maybe the product is junky, and that’s a whole different problem. But with product market fit, people buy the product, like the product, and they don’t want to return it. They want to retain it. They want to continue subscribing and in B2B size. Where you watch your turn rate, if, if customers are renewing and expanding their use rather than dropping off, then you know you’ve got strong fit. They’re they’re telling you that.

Laurier Mandin  30:08

The third R is referrals. If customers are actively recommending you, not just saying they would, or promising they will, refer you to other people in similar industries, then you know that they’re actually, they’re putting their reputation on the line. They’re putting their contacts on the line, because that’s the strongest signal of all, that they really believe you’re doing something well and that you’re worth recommending to other people. If you’re scoring well on all three of those Rs, then I say that you’ve almost certainly found your fit, and really, by the time you’re scoring well on all those Rs, you’re kind of off to the races in other ways too, because you’ve got that retention, you’ve got those referrals, you’re getting great reviews, and those are great things to utilize in your marketing, to leverage in your case studies, to bring forward in everything that you’re doing, but if not, there’s, you know, those three Rs also tell you where to focus if there’s one of those that you’re doing especially poorly at if you’re not able to get good reviews, if nobody seems to recommend you to their colleagues or peers, then you’ve got to improve the product experience, reduce buyer friction, or find better ways to delight your customers.

Christian Klepp  31:27

Yeah, no, no, absolutely, absolutely. So just to recap, for the benefit of the audience, those three Rs, right? So we’ve got reviews, we’ve got retention, and we’ve got referrals. So I have a feeling I might know the answer to this question. I’m gonna ask it anyway, just from your experience, Laurier. How long does it usually take a business to get a balanced score for all three Rs?

Laurier Mandin  31:54

Well, in consumer products, it can be quicker than with B2B products. In B2B, it can take, you know, I hate to say it, but it can take years, and it shouldn’t. If you’re able to do things right, if you’re iterating quickly, and you’re reaching out and try and recognizing those because I think when you have those three Rs as KPIs (Key Performance Indicator), you get there faster. You know, I would say it, it’s nice to ideal to be able to get those three Rs happening within a year of launch. To me, that’s, you know, if you, if you aren’t moving towards them, then there’s a chance that you’re doing things that is, you know, potentially quite wrong, that your positioning might be off significantly, that you, either you the product needs improvement. But there’s something that’s wrong if you’re not making measurable strides towards getting that product market fit inside of that first year.

Christian Klepp  32:49

And that probably goes back to something you mentioned earlier in the conversation, right? There’s got to be either that one person or that team that’s like the gatekeeper for all these three Rs, right? That does these regular checkups to make sure that, you know, everybody’s held accountable and that everybody is moving or rowing in the right direction. 

Laurier Mandin  33:09

Yeah, with any KPI right, you have to have someone who is the champion of it, because if you and is able to push that through to the other team members who are accountable for making it happen, to be able to say that, you know, our retention is low. We’re slipping. You know what is there’s something that we’re doing wrong because we’re getting way more turn than we should be, and we’re getting more than we had last quarter. And to have people aggressively go in and work together to solve those problems. So, yeah, you need that, not just to be able to say that’s what our three measurables are here, we need to have identify what the standards are for them. You know, if it’s that 5% that’s your goal, to recognize that, you know, or it’s or sub 15% whatever that goal is from where you are right now, to make it measurable. And then you can continue to adjust and tweak it as you strike those goals and you start to do well at them.

Christian Klepp  34:02

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Okay, my friend, please get up on your soapbox here a status quo that you passionately disagree with and why.

Laurier Mandin  34:17

I’ve got a few of them, but I think the one that you know is most consistent with what I’ve been saying, and it really is one that bothers me. It’s the main reason I wrote the book is that people believe, still out there, even if they you know whether they say it or not, they believe that product validation kills innovation again. They might say it, they may not, but that’s kind of the key reason to not to do the in depth and serious validation, to do the work that it takes to validate the product. And you know, it’s a pervasive myth that’s often backed up by repeating that Steve Jobs quote that customers don’t know what they want until you show it to them. And that’s okay when you have a huge idea and huge money sometimes, but you. Got to remember this, Steve Jobs also got kicked out of Apple and wasted millions and millions of dollars on failed products that we don’t talk about because he had that, you know, that belief, and that’s really expensive experimentation. Validation is, you know, even the expensive validation is so cheap compared to the cost of launching something and not knowing what customers are going to think until they see it. 

Laurier Mandin  35:24

And likewise, you know the brain science that I talk about in the book, and I talk about a lot as a result of that, it tells us that it’s the validation is important too. We use tools like fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging). We can literally watch buying decisions being made in milliseconds in the emotional center of the brain, and when you validate properly. You’re not asking people what features and benefits they want, you’re discovering what’s going to trigger that dog brain to say, I need that. I spent 30 years watching really smart innovators put their life savings and their investors money into products that could have succeeded but failed because they confused validation with feature requests from their peers and focus groups that weren’t properly set up, and just making mistakes like that. That you know doing, it’s not hard to do it right? It really is, you know, it’s, it’s quite simple stuff. It’s just basically understanding, not leading people, not framing for them, what you, you know, giving them the these ideas of saying, Would you pay this much? And of course, they’re going to say yes, because you led them and you framed it. But just really having, having the customer guide you, and to not just be dismissive of the inputs they give you, because it’s not what you want to hear. I think that’s the other side of that. You know, as soon as you start getting answers you don’t want to hear, you go back to that. Well, yeah, but they’re not going to know how great it is until we show it to them anyway.

Christian Klepp  36:57

So true. So true. Okay, here comes the bonus question. And I thought long and hard about this one, but let’s just say that there’s somebody out there, and I’m not going to name any names, but somebody like cuts you a check or calls you up and says, Laurier, I’m going to give you this much funding, and I want you to go out there and create this product that’s going to change the world. If you were given that opportunity, what product would you build? And why?

Laurier Mandin  37:25

That’s a great question. And you know, I’ve thought about this a number of times before, too, because to me, if it’s something that’s going to change the world, it would have to be something around solving some major problems, like flooding or like fires. So I think what I would come up with would be something that would help people to protect their home in a situation where I think of areas not that far from where I live, where very frequently there’s, you know, there’s low lying areas that river has come up and overflow. And if people could create kind of an instant dam system around their house that would protect house after house from flooding. It would save insurance companies huge amounts in claims, and they could subsidize these things. So I think solutions around helping people to better protect themselves, instead of just having to run when things go wrong and come back to the disasters and try and fix disasters after the fact, and you know, that’s becoming unsustainable. That’s where I would put my efforts. If I were all of a sudden to have Elon Musk come to me and say, Hey, here’s a billion dollars. Go and build something cool. My R&D (Research and Development) would go into. I’d probably first of all find out where we could make the biggest impact and then quickly focus on developing something that would be scalable and would be really effective in helping people to protect what they value.

Christian Klepp  38:51

No, absolutely. I think that’s an amazing idea. I’ve always been thinking about finding a cheaper form of desalination, because, as you might know, it’s a very expensive process, right?

Laurier Mandin  39:03

Yes, and even for fighting forest fires right in in LA, I was surprised. I asked that question. A lot of people thought, why can’t they just grab water from the ocean, on the ocean, but they can’t because, and they do in some cases, but it’s really not good because of what happens when you put salt water into these helicopters and into all this equipment, it just wrecks everything, and the salt doesn’t work as well for fighting fires, so not just for human needs, because we’ve got all this salt water and so precious little fresh water in so much of the world. I think that’s a great one, too. I’ll go in with you on that when we get the billion dollars.

Christian Klepp  39:36

But again, making coming up with an affordable desalination solution. Because everything that I know right now about desalination, it’s just expensive. It’s just, you know, unless you’re a wealthy country, there’s no way that you can afford that, right? 

Laurier Mandin  39:51

It is and that, you know, here’s the strange thing. I mean, there’s all kinds of ways, like through reverse osmosis and other processes, to do it, and then it goes and happens on itself in nature. Here is that, you know, there’s, that’s how clouds happen. It’s desalination. You just have evaporation, but to make it happen at scale, in a way that you can capture and put where you want, that’s, you know, that is the really tough question is, how do you do that? I believe we’ll get there, because it’s such an important.

Christian Klepp  40:15

I think so too. I think so too. Laurier, I’d love to talk to you for another couple of hours about like decent elation and all these other product solutions that can help change the world. But you know, I just want to thank you again for your time. Thank you for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. Please, quick Introduce yourself. How folks can get in touch with you and tell us a little bit about your book.

Laurier Mandin  40:36

Sure. Yeah, well, I’ve been running my company. I founded Graphos Product in 1993 so for over 30 years now, we’ve been helping clients to take products to market, to de-risk their new product ideas to create go to market roadmaps. And that’s what I do on the day to day, and that’s what I’ve done in my career all my life, and starting just before COVID, I started writing a book, as I said, it was motivated by seeing businesses fail again and again, because there were simple things they could have been doing differently that would have saved them so much grief, and could have got them to having a product that is built around a need that’s felt by many people. So that’s what the book I Need That is all about. 

Laurier Mandin  41:22

It’s about creating and marketing products people are compelled to buy and how to get there. So, and the book, if you want to get a copy of the book, you can find it on Amazon. It’s called I Need That by Laurier Mandin, and another good way to get it is go to lmandin.com, and there you can get it in paperback, hardcover, ebook and audiobook, or you can sign up to my daily emails. And I think that’s the thing that I spend some time on every single day. Is coming up with ways to move people forward, to move product makers, regardless of if they’re consumer products or B2B products, every single day to move them forward. So I create these short daily emails, and you can sign up to these at lmandin.com you can find out where to write to where to get the book, or how to connect with me with that website, lmandin.com and graphosproduct.com. There’s ways that you can get in touch with me and find out more about what I do. And maybe we’re a fit, and if so, I’d love to work with you.

Christian Klepp  42:25

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

Laurier Mandin  42:31

Thank you, Christian. It’s been a delight. 

Christian Klepp  42:32

Bye, for now. 

SPEAKERS

Pete Fairburn, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on Mission, and I’m your host. Christian Klepp, today I’ll be talking to Pete Fairburn. He is the director and co-founder of morphsites, and has a proven track record in helping businesses grow online by maximizing revenue potential and improving efficiency. Pete and his team focus on delivering strategic, bespoke web development consultation and digital marketing for businesses. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. 

Christian Klepp  00:31

Mr. Pete Fairburn, welcome to the show. 

Pete Fairburn  00:34

Thank you for having me. Good to be here. 

Christian Klepp  00:37

I’m really looking forward to this, Pete, and I’m going to say Happy New Year, although I know that this this episode is probably coming out in February, but it is a new year, new start. So yeah, let’s dive right in. This is going to be an interesting conversation. No doubt. 

Pete Fairburn  00:52

Looking forward to.

Christian Klepp  00:53

Fantastic. Okay, so Pete, you have a proven track record in helping businesses grow online by maximizing revenue potential and improving efficiency. So for this conversation, let’s focus on a topic that I think has become part of your professional mission. And in a previous conversation, we’ve talked about this at length, how B2B marketing teams can measure what matters for better results. And I believe it was Peter Drucker that said, what gets measured gets managed, right? Incidentally, that’s probably one of the most misquoted quotes of all time, because a lot of people say what gets measured gets done. But let’s kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat, yeah. So on that topic, what do you think is the biggest frustration in digital marketing, and where do you see a lot of marketing teams falling flat?

Pete Fairburn  01:46

I think the answer to that varies depending on who you speak to, because in any marketing function, you’ve got a lot of different people with a stake in the outcome. So you’ve obviously got the marketers themselves who need to prove that what they’re doing is generating results, and that that can be frustrating if it’s hard to prove that. So they might be working really hard, but you know, when they’re asked, well, what we’re getting for this is sometimes it can be really don’t know, or it’s nebulous. 

Pete Fairburn  02:18

You’ve then got the sales team who are hungry for good leads, and you know, to a large extent, they may be dependent on marketing activity to get that so if those leads aren’t the right quality or properly qualified, that can be hugely frustrating for them. You’ve got business owners or C suite members who are just interested in how all this activity and expenditure, because they don’t often see marketing as an investment, right? They they see it as expenditure. All they’re interested in is, well, how is this affecting the bottom line? And then on top of that, you’ve often got digital marketing agencies who are sometimes somewhere in that mix, trying to justify their fees and existence. So the frustrations can vary, but I think a lot of it does boil down to not being able to truly grasp what’s working and moving the needles for a business or brand. 

Pete Fairburn  03:11

And where do I see a lot of marketing teams falling flat? This was a tricky one, because this is massive generalization, but broadly speaking, we’ve seen marketing teams and agencies fall into two types. So this, like I say, with the caveat, it’s a massive generalization, but you’ve got what I call the fluffy scatter gun teams that focus purely on the creative. They don’t really have any kind of coherent strategy or reason for doing what they’re doing beyond we’re doing marketing right. Make some noise, and they will come. That’s not to take away from the effort they’re putting in. They put huge amounts of effort into campaigns and creatives, but they never really measure or assess the effectiveness or the results of that. It’s essentially a box ticking exercise based purely on output. 

Pete Fairburn  03:28

So have we done our monthly newsletter? Have we done our five blogs this month? Have we done our 10 social posts, and it doesn’t really change or react, exact change or react, except at when or at the direction of some stakeholder within the brand or the business, and often, along with that comes a target audience that is everyone and the channel that is everything. So everything spreads super thin. There’s no targets. The marketing team aren’t given anything to perform against, no metric to perform against, so they are literally just outputting and hoping that some of it sticks so that that’s that I see happening a lot. And then you have teams who do have a strategy. They know why they’re doing what they’re doing. They have a plan. They they have targets, they have metric. Looks at the business is set in place. Might not be the right ones, but they have them. They probably have the right audiences and the right messaging. So they’re more business focused, outcome focused, but they fall flat because they cannot effectively measure that outcome of the activity that they’re doing. So then they get grief from sales or owners, or C suite executives. 

Christian Klepp  05:24

Absolutely, absolutely fluffy scatter gun teams. I’m gonna, I’m gonna steal that one and use that from now on.

Pete Fairburn  05:32

You’ve seen it. You must have seen it.

Christian Klepp  05:34

Absolutely, and I did have a follow up question there. I mean, you’ve brought up a lot of, like, very important points. And this might be a leading question, but I am going to ask it anyway. Do you feel that a lot of that has to and I know it’s very top level, like, like generalizing here, but do you feel a lot of that has to do with the lack of a holistic or coherent strategy, and also for all members involved, whether it’s the marketing team, whether it’s the agency that’s executing upon the plan, it’s also a lack of under their lack of understanding of the customer and that ecosystem in which the customer thrives and lives in.

Pete Fairburn  06:19

Yeah, I think it’s all of those things. So you’ve got to have, you’ve got to have someone who owns that marketing function. I don’t necessarily mean the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), or that could be the CMO or the business owner, but someone, often is those, depending on the size of the organization that’s doing the marketing, you’ve got to have someone that says, This is what we want to achieve from our marketing. This is what we want to get out of it, other than just hey, we’re getting some brand recognition here. So I think someone needs to own it and set those goals. And what else did you ask? Sorry, it was a big question. 

Christian Klepp  06:55

No problem, no problem. It was. One is certainly the lack of a coherent strategy. And the second one is really that neither side, so whether it’s the marketing team or the agency, have done enough due diligence on the customers, right, on that ecosystem. Because oftentimes in B2B, even in B2C, we’re not just talking about like one target group. It could be multiple, right? Like in B2B, sometimes you’re also talking about a buying committee or consisting of different functions, different roles, different responsibilities, and you have to appeal to each of them.

Pete Fairburn  07:28

Yeah, yeah. So I do think that that’s a hugely common thing, and I think the problem for that is because it’s, it’s the perception I get is it’s really hard. So there’s this mentality that we don’t know who our target audience is, which sounds crazy, but it does seem to be the thing. It’s like, well, our target audience is everyone. Well, you get the classic. Our target audience is 18 to 85 male, female, every demographic. And yet there are some very simple things that you can do to really narrow that down very quickly. But I think it’s just that not having those methodologies and techniques to do that you just end up, or marketing teams or agencies can just end up appealing to everyone, and that just comes from not doing enough planning and due diligence and discovery up front to understand who the customers are, and alluding to what you said as well within an identified target audience, understanding at what stage that individual is in the funnel. 

Pete Fairburn  08:34

You know, are they just the researcher, the awareness gatherer, not the decision maker, but understanding where they are on the funnel, and then also understanding the pain points that you need to address for that person so that you’re speaking their language. And that just seems to bypass a lot. Yeah, it’s actually, you know, it’s an easy thing to do when you know what you’re doing, like anything. I guess.

Christian Klepp  08:58

Absolutely, absolutely, I’m going to move us on to the next question, and it’s about key pitfalls to avoid, and again, on this topic of measuring what matters. And you’ve probably seen it all, but maybe like some top level pitfalls that marketers should be avoiding.

Pete Fairburn  09:15

Still see a lot of marketers getting trapped in the focus on vanity metrics, and hopefully your listeners know what that means. But the things that sound good and are quite easy to say, Hey, we’ve had 10s of 1000s of this or that, or people have spent this amount of time on the website, that kind of thing probably harder with GA (Google Analytics) 4 than it was with Universal Analytics, but still focusing on those sort of easy to achieve things that don’t really tell you anything. So they get trapped in that rather than looking for metrics that have a higher indication of value to the business. So conversions is the obvious one, but it could be other interactions that move a user along the funnel towards conversion. 

Pete Fairburn  10:00

So that would be one focusing on the wrong channels that aren’t actually help, helping in some measurable way, just because someone said, hey, we should everyone’s doing TikTok, we should do TikTok, and nothing against TikTok, or whichever platform. But it’s like, that goes back to your target audience, right? So well, are your audience there are? Is it the right time to talk to them? And that’s often just not even considered. It’s just, oh well, we’re going to do it because everyone else is doing it, or our competitors doing it, but it doesn’t mean they’re getting results from it, because no one’s measuring it. So that that will be a second thing. 

Pete Fairburn  10:40

And a big thing, and we have this frustration as an agency for years, is only measuring what happens in the digital space on the website. i.e., so you’re measuring everything coming into the website. You’re measuring what people do on the website, and then it goes into this black hole. And we have this problem for ages with customers where we were saying to them, Hey, we’ve got you all these, you know, all these people filling in conversions on landing pages. Or we can see you’ve had this many phone calls this month, but we had no idea what was happening next. And sometimes the customer would say, yeah, we’re getting some great stuff. Keep it going. Or, well, I mean, we have one, one legal firm as an example of this, where they had a very specific target audience, and they were getting lots of inquiries, but they just couldn’t tell us what happened once they captured the inquiry, once the form had been filled in. 

Pete Fairburn  11:38

And it was this just was really painful, manual process to try and identify the inquiry and attribute it and say, Well, what happened to it? Did it actually convert into something and how much was that worth? But if you, if you do that, you get lulled into this false sense of security, of thinking, hey, we’ve got loads of conversions, loads of people filling in the contact form or the landing page form or picking up the phone, but they could be just, I mean, tide was, you know, spam, that kind of thing, that could all be there, and you’re just getting loads of that. So that kind of ties into my, my final Pitfall, if you like, which is not connecting the marketing activity with the sales process. So not connecting it to a CRM(Customer Relationship Management), not having a sales process for that CRM, or more often, more often than you think, not even having a CRM beyond a spreadsheet or post it notes. So those are some of the pitfalls, and then you’re just into guesswork.

Christian Klepp  12:38

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, I mean time wasters, time vampires, I heard, I heard another one the other day, which I coined,  EV, so “energy vampires”, exactly the same thing, right? So, yeah, not, not electronic vehicle, energy vampires, right? So, yeah, so, no, absolutely, and especially that last point, and I think correct me, if I’m wrong, that’s where some of this conflict between marketing and sales persists, because they have no way of actually accurately measuring, okay, so Well, this is actually coming in from marketing, or this is, this is marketing’s contribution to this entire initiative, right? So that’s where some of this persists. I did have a follow up question for you, and I’m wondering, if you’ve seen this, I certainly have. Do you sometimes find that there are marketing teams out there that spend way too much time planning and not executing? They’re just like, always like, Okay, we’ve got to do more research. We’ve got to do, you know, we’ve got to wait until we’ve got the perfect plan before we you know, we let it take off, right?

Pete Fairburn  13:44

Absolutely. One of my big bug bears, not the biggest, but don’t get me wrong, planning and strategy, you know, for any new client, we on board. We do Discovery sessions to find out who the clients are, what the pain points are, and that kind of thing. But you just need to get some traction. I’ve just seen so many times businesses spin their wheels for months, years, or that they just never get anything going. And you can sometimes it’s cultural. A lot of the time it’s it’s the fear of failure from not planning effectively. But not planning effectively isn’t the same of planning to perfection, because there is no such thing as perfection,

Christian Klepp  14:23

Absolutely, absolutely. You touched on it a bit like earlier in the conversation, Pete, but I’m gonna just dive a little bit deeper, if you will. How can, how can B2B marketers work more collaboratively and strategically with sales regarding metrics? So how can the marketing team be held accountable.

Pete Fairburn  14:43

Sales and marketing should be best friends. They’re often not. Because marketing is saying, we’re giving you loads of leads, and sales are going, Yeah, but they’re rubbish, and that doesn’t help anyone. It just creates friction. So. So if you can get a sales and marketing team to understand that they’re two sides of the same coin, or different sides of the same coin, sorry, and loop, loop the marketing team into the sales process, loop them into the CRM, so that when leads drop in from the website, be it a form, an email, phone call, text message, whatever it might be, the marketing team can see what happens to that lead. So if they’re running, I don’t know, a Google paid search campaign, and they’re getting loads of conversions, they think this is going great. If they can look in without even saying to the sales guys, what’s happening to these if they can look in and go, these are shocking. 

Pete Fairburn  15:42

We’re not even able to quote on them, let alone convert them, because they’re just they’re all trash, trash inquiries. They can start going right. Well, what’s wrong with that campaign? Is it the messaging? Is it the targeting? Is it the creative? Can they tweak it to make it better? Or can they go actually, this campaign over here is driving all our good leads, but we’re only spending 5% of our budget and time on it. Let’s flip that around, because we all have our pet channels, don’t? We all have our pet platforms that we like and our our things that we want to do. But if, if the marketing team can see the feedback from the sales team on what’s going on, they can focus their effort on the most profitable and effective channels, and you kind of get this positive feedback message, then where the sales team are going? We want more of those. Yes, please. So they got to do their bit, but the marketing team can go, okay, yeah, we can do that for you, because we can see exactly where it’s coming from, rather than to know where it’s coming from.

Christian Klepp  16:40

Yeah. No, absolutely, absolutely. And I did have a follow up question there, because I’ve seen this happen a lot, where marketing people come in to the sales and say, okay, but you know, in order to, like, pull this off and to generate the leads that that you guys need and want, we’re going to have to come up with the right strategy. And sometimes I’ve come across sales people that you know once, the moment you say strategy, they’re like, Okay, well, why do we need that? Let’s just hit the ground running. Let’s just, let’s just skip all of that, and let’s, let’s just go right. So what would your advice be to those marketers that need to get buy in from the sales like, look, we need to take this time to come up with the right strategy, because that’s going to get us the right results.

Pete Fairburn  17:25

Yeah, that’s a good question. I think, I think sometimes semantics, word choice can can hinder that, because strategy sounds really grand. And let’s face it, there are plenty of agencies out there that can do just what we were talking about earlier, they can strategize forever, because strategy is fairly safe if you just keep planning, but you never activate, you never execute, then you you never fail, in danger of it failing or not getting the results you want. So I think sales people have probably seen a lot of strategy over the years, whether it’s either months and months and months of research and personas and all that kind of stuff that US marketers love to get into, and they’re kind of like, we ain’t got time for that. 

Pete Fairburn  18:12

We need to start getting some results now. So sometimes just framing it correctly, rather than say, hey, we need to do a big strategy piece, it’s like, okay, day one, can we just sit down with you? Who are you talking to? What? What job roles are you talking to? What type of people are you talking to, and what conversations are you having with them, that the ones that actually go somewhere, what are the pain points that you’re talking about? What? What is the sweet spot for you in terms of customers? 

Pete Fairburn  18:38

And you know, a few hours just sat with the sales people, actually just asking them questions, then listening. Can can build you up a target audience very quickly and understand the pain points very quickly. And even if, even if you want to do it’s natural, as marketers, we want to do the big strategic piece and then the big rebrand and the big launch. But sometimes the best thing you can do before you make all that investment, the time and energy and cost, is do that little piece first, put in, put in place some some smaller pieces of work, maybe, I don’t know, just a few landing pages around those target audiences, on the right channels, and you can start justifying your existence. And then the good thing about that is you’re you’re you’re starting to get results which justifies a bigger expenditure. And the sales team get what you’re doing. So when, when you come to them and say, can you just tell me a bit more about this target audience, or we’ve noticed we’re getting a lot of channel, you know, leads from here. Tell me more about those. The sales team buy into it, rather than just thinking marketing aren’t sending us any good leads.

Christian Klepp  19:45

Absolutely, absolutely. You know what you just mentioned that really resonated with me, and I’m sure you’ve gone through the same experience. But a couple of years ago, I wasn’t, I was in corporate marketing, or, sorry, on the client side, rather than I was a product marketer, and one of the. Things that we did was we, one of our first mandates was to make sure that the sales people are our friends, right? And what that basically meant was that I was sent out into the field together with the sales people so I could hear it, hear it. I could hear it from the client, essentially what the challenges were, what the objections were to the product that we were selling at the time, what questions the client was asking, right? Because at some point, especially if they were targeting the same industry in the same type of like persona, these people will basically have the same questions. So one of the things that we did was, when we went back, was we listed all these questions out, and we came up with, I wouldn’t say argumentations, but how we came up with answers to address these questions, to address these objections, right? So that way, that way the salespeople won’t be fumbling or just winging it, as they like to say here in North America, right when they’re going out on field visits. 

Christian Klepp  21:01

I think the other thing that we did, which I think was extremely important, was, as we were developing the campaigns, especially early on, on the piece, we got the sales people involved. And you know where I’m going with this, right? It’s to get their buy in, to get them to make them feel like, okay, we’re doing all the work, but we’re involving you, right? Your your opinion matters. I know I sound a little bit like an MP (Member of the Parliament) now, but like your opinion matters. We want to get you involved in this. We want to hear your opinion. We want to hear what you have to say, whether this will work or not, and why, and by using that approach, rather than, you know, the big reveal with fanfare and all that which five times, all the time, would fall flat. The sales team felt invested. They felt like they were a part of this. And then it was easier to get buy in. And then we were sitting in the board meetings, and the sales people would vouch for us, right? So.

Pete Fairburn  21:54

Yeah, yeah, absolutely the right way to go, get make friends with the sales too. That’s That’s brilliant, and get all your stakeholders bought in C suite as well, or the owners, the leadership team, if you can. But critic, that critical point that you said about going out field visits with clients, we always try and do that if we can. Desk research is great, but there’s nothing better than speaking to clients and asking them for everything, warts and all, because they’ll tell you, they’ll tell you. They probably won’t always tell the sales guy if they, if they, if they got a good relationship with the sales guy, but they’ll often tell the marketing team if you say, we just want to make things better. But yeah, that’s a really good approach. 

Christian Klepp  22:42

Absolutely, we even did that when we were trying to launch a new product and we were, we were trying to, like, interview clients and tell them, in theory, what we were trying to come up with in terms of a solution. And that was no filter, they would tell us, like, not, totally can’t use that. That’s, that’s absolutely, like, not going to be helpful to my business at all, but that’s how we took those learnings, and then we went back to whoever was developing the product and saying, Hey, listen, we tested it out, and this is what the client said, and this is how they would iterate it, right? Of course, sometimes you have to take what clients say with a grain of salt, because not all of it, not all of it, is going to be real. You can’t implement it realistically sometimes, right again, it depends, depends on the topic, depends on the situation, depends on what part of the journey they’re at to right so, yeah. 

Pete Fairburn  23:34

Yeah, yeah. But we’ve seen that same thing with with both lead generation, sort of digital marketing strategies, but also with the other side of our business, where we’re we’re looking for the the innovative thing, the magic one question for clients. Sometimes you can go in and you’ve, you’ve often been given a preconceived idea about what the solution is, and you go into the client and they go, no, no, that’s not a problem at all. If, if we could sort this problem out. But why is that a problem for you? Oh, because of X, Y and Z, and sometimes it’s the perception that that’s a really hard problem to solve. But if you you can find out what those are and they are solvable. And like you say, Not everything’s feasible, but if you can find a way to do that, it can really give you an edge, only your competitors, particularly if you’re in a commoditized B2B market, you know, where everyone’s basically doing the same thing, you can do something that stands out as different, makes the service offering of the product better, or what have you that can be a game changer for a business.

Christian Klepp  24:36

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. Pete, I mean, it is 2025, and I will have to ask you this question, measuring what matters and AI (Artificial Intelligence), what’s your take on that? Like, where do you see AI, fitting into this whole ecosystem of digital marketing? Marketing teams working with sales and using artificial intelligence to make that whole measuring what matters, for lack of a better description, ecosystem more efficient and beneficial for everyone?

Pete Fairburn  25:15

Yeah, that’s a hugely important question, and I’m always quite cynical about new things, new shiny things, not because I don’t like new shiny things, but I like to prove them first. And I think AI has has had a bit of a danger of the The Emperor’s New Clothes, to a degree. However you’ve, you’ve hit on a really salient point here in that AI can take away a lot of guesswork. To give you an example, maybe about eight years ago, we had a client. Who we were, we were we had a phone recording system where we could listen to calls, understand where they were coming from, and that kind of thing. Nothing particularly new in that. 

Pete Fairburn  25:59

And they, commissioned us to build a new website because we felt we could improve on the one we’ve done before, after the learnings that we had and the market changed a bit their strategy as a business of change. So what we did is we we downloaded maybe 80 conversations between an inquiry a prospect and one of the sales team, but to analyze those, we literally had to have someone listen to everyone, and not just, you know, hear it, but listen to it and pull out salient points. And we got some really good insights out there. It was a very, very worthwhile thing, which you can from that it’s the same as going for a client interview. You can say, we think you should be doing this, and a business owner will go, no, no, no, people aren’t interested in that. And then you show them the Bank of calls where people are absolutely interested in that. And it can be very useful for other things, like sales quality, telephone call quality, that kind of thing. 

Pete Fairburn  26:55

But putting that side, what we do now is we do that same process using AI, so we can get AI to summarize a conversation, summarize, you know, the the the feeling of the client. So was it happy conversation, or was it negative one? What was the intent of the user, what was the salient points of the conversation? What keywords can we pull out to see if there’s some commonality? An example of this, we’ve got a client that operates in the automotive sector, but they they only deal with clients who have absolute pristine credit records. So what we found when analyzing calls is that certain customers would be talking up front when they were phoning up our client, saying, I haven’t, you know, I’ve got a few spots on my credit record. Well, for them, that’s not interested at all. So what that enabled us to do then is say, well, okay, if we change the positioning and messaging on the ads. 

Pete Fairburn  28:01

Does that help? Yes, it does. It cuts them down. Less of those, are they coming from certain channels? Well, actually, in this case, they were, they were coming from so certain social media platforms. So it’s like, okay, so it tends to be sub prime credit inquiries are coming from a particular platform. So let’s not do that as much. There was still some good stuff coming out, so AI enabled us to do that on the scale of 1000s of calls, as opposed to 100 and you also haven’t got a poor junior marketing person literally dying of boredom, trying to not just listen to the calls, but pull out salient points. So for things like that, AI can be an absolute game changer, and that made a real difference to those clients inquiries.

Christian Klepp  28:48

Wow. That is a that is an excellent example, because Pete, I have been one of those junior marketers listening to all these recordings. So and one thing, and you, you brought it up. It’s, I mean, what was it? You said 80 conversations. I mean, just think about the like prior to AI, the number of hours you needed to invest to listen to those recordings and to and to extract those insights, right? And I think 80, probably by the by the 10th recording, you had already run out of steam, right? And I think one of the things that you mentioned about AI is like, especially in this particular situation, it, it just saves you an incredible amount of time, right? That way you it can extract those insights for you. And I don’t know what transcription software you guys are using, but we, for example, are using otter. And otter has one of these AI assistants where you can go into, let’s say, the interview recording, and just type in what were the key pitfalls that the guest mentioned, and it will extract that within seconds versus. You having to read through the entire transcript, right?

Pete Fairburn  30:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we use otter for client meetings and that kind of thing, video calls, teams meetings, when we’re doing on site workshops, and then for our lead generation activities, we’ve got some other software that will record the call, obviously, with the appropriate GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) caveats at the beginning. That’s a ck, that’s a Europe thing GDPR, but privacy statements that calls are recorded. We take that data where, where customers want to use it, where the client has opted into it, and we can analyze that for lead generation. So again, we can start to understand it’s another way of refining your target audience, the pain points, the frequently asked questions, and yeah, it can just save you a huge amount of time on what something is hugely valuable but very mundane to do, and is actually, historically, been a tough sell to the customer. When you say, I want to pay a junior to sit for 80 phone calls and pull stuff out. So that’s where AI for me is, is a big winner is just on automating the stuff that you know is mundane that then, using the brilliance of the human brain, the creativity the marketers have to then analyze that and go, how can we leverage these insights to the maximum?

Christian Klepp  31:30

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, my friend, we get to the point in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us some already. But if there were somebody out there, a B2B marketer listening to this conversation between you and I, what are like, three to five things you would say they can act upon right now, right to leverage metrics and generate better results, just from a top level perspective?

Pete Fairburn  31:54

Okay, I’ve got four. So I thought three to five. I go, go in the middle, be safe. So the first is to measure the entire lead life cycle. Don’t just stop at the website conversion or something that happens on the website. Understand what happens to the lead after that and its lifetime value. And if you have to do it manually, do it manually. There are, there are tools that can help you with that and make it much more easier to manage. But you can do that from day one. Just talk nicely to your sales team, record it, get access to the CRM, whatever it needs to be. That’s point one, whole lead life cycle. 

Pete Fairburn  32:33

Second point is, once you are measuring that whole lead life cycle, the other danger we have is that we say, right, we’re measuring that now and then. We never look at the data, never analyze it. So don’t just tick the box and say, I’m doing doing an analysis. Sorry, I’m doing measuring. I’m measuring. That’s good. Analyze it. Don’t just leave it. Look at what channels, what campaigns, what messaging is working and which is not so, identify what’s working. 

Pete Fairburn  33:04

And then the third point, which kind of follows on from that, is act on it. Don’t be afraid to curl something that isn’t working. Don’t be afraid to change something that could be improved. Even if you’ve spent ages on the creative part, you think, Oh, that’s really good. Just change it if you can make it better, do it. And if you find something that’s golden, do more of it. So, you know, if you’re if you find this golden channel that’s just bringing in these absolutely brilliant leads, and I don’t know, you’re spending $10,000 a month on the the PPC (Pay-Per-Click advertising) for that, spend 20. But keep measuring the results. Is there a drop off? Sometimes there is you don’t, but sometimes there isn’t. And as long as you can prove, well, that 20 turned into 250,000 or whatever your ROA (Return on Advertising) is, then just keep doing more of that and but let people know. 

Pete Fairburn  33:55

And that’s, that’s the fourth point really, is keep that feedback loop, that measuring, analyzing, changing, going, but ensure that everyone is in the loop on that. So your marketing team, if you’re an agency, the people you’re reporting to your sales team, your leadership team, understand what the results are and why they’re working, because then, you know, you breed confidence in the whole business, and they don’t have to go, Well, I think we should try this channel or this channel, because they don’t marketing’s got that under control. They’re looking at it. They’re feeding back. They’re changing things suddenly. You’re if you’re doing a weekly or a monthly or a quarterly marketing meeting, if you’re doing that, the look on faces when you report back on that, rather than, yeah, we’ve got some results, but we don’t really know where they came from. 

Pete Fairburn  34:43

Of course, no more frames it that way. But if you can just say Yeah, we were, we’ve been spending X amount on Facebook ads, but we were finding that they were just bringing in poor quality leads. So we’ve called those but what we’re finding is LinkedIn when we’re targeting these personas or these job type. Or whatever it is, are bringing in absolute gravy for the sales team. And the sales team will go, yep, because they’re getting what they need, and every everyone looks good. Yeah, that’s what we’re all here for, is to justify, right? So that’s my four top tips.

Christian Klepp  35:13

Win, win. Everyone’s happy, right? 

Pete Fairburn  35:16

That’s, that’s what’s got me. Everyone’s got…

Christian Klepp  35:18

Absolutely, absolutely. Let me just quickly recap that I think it’s worth repeating. So number one is, measure the entire lead life cycle, and the second one is, don’t just tick the box. Find out what’s working. Three is act on it. Analyze, analyze it. Three is act on it, and four is keep that feedback loop going, right? 

Pete Fairburn  35:40

Just keep doing it. 

Christian Klepp  35:41

Absolutely.

Pete Fairburn  35:42

Don’t, don’t rest on your laurels, because over time, things can change, and therefore you need to tweak or a new product or service comes along that your business is offering so that may not fit into the same nice loop that everything. So you might need to change that.

Christian Klepp  35:57

Right, okay, so time for you to get up on your soap box, a status quo that you passionately disagree with and why.

Pete Fairburn  36:10

You probably guess what it is. It’s that whole notion that marketing cannot truly be measured, and that all noise is good noise, and that may have been true before digital. I don’t know. It’s probably before my era, although I’ve been doing this for 25 years, but the true non digital era is well and truly behind us, but I don’t think it’s true now. I’m not saying there isn’t a degree of brand and awareness marketing that brands need to do to drive awareness that you can’t directly attribute, but lead generation can be measured and the ROI (Return on Investment) quantified for lead generation campaigns. 

Pete Fairburn  36:52

And I’m specifically, I’m not talking about E commerce here. E commerce is a different proposition, because you make the transaction on the site that’s, that’s, it has its own pitfalls. It’s easier, but I’m talking about lead generation, where you’re looking to provide a proposal, quote, service, a product that needs interaction. You can measure that the notion you can’t isn’t is you’re either being you’re either being lazy, that’s a bold thing to say, or you just don’t have the right tools and skills in place, and you just might need some help to do that, but it can be measured.

Christian Klepp  37:30

I absolutely agree with that. And yeah, I mean, I think it’s, it’s worth mentioning that that like, yeah, it could be a combination of all of those factors that you mentioned, right? It’s a you can’t be bothered, you don’t have the tools, you don’t have the right software, or you might not just have the right, know how, right. Maybe you’re dealing with somebody that doesn’t know how to set up Google Analytics, right? And that’s why they can’t measure the traffic that’s coming to their website. They keep talking about it, but then they don’t have any actual metrics to measure all of that against, right? So, no, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you know, and I work a lot in the B2B branding field, and the main objection that we get is, well, branding can’t be measured, right? And it’s to your point, I would, I would dare say, I would push back and say, yes, it can, actually, it just has to be measured in a different way, right? Like, don’t talk about impressions. And I think that might have been like a point you mentioned earlier in the conversation, these vanity metrics. Oh, we got 150,000 impressions. And so what? 

Pete Fairburn  38:33

So, show me the money. That’s what that’s what business owners are interested in. Or, if you C suite, you got to report to shareholders. That’s you just got to justify your reason for that.

Christian Klepp  38:47

Exactly, exactly. Okay, here comes the bonus question. And I was thinking long and hard about this one. Okay, so here it goes. If you were to pick a song that would be kind of like the soundtrack of your life. What song would that be and why?

Pete Fairburn  39:06

Oh, the soundtrack of my life. That’s a really hard one, Christian.

Pete Fairburn  39:15

Yeah, some radio Rage Against the Machine. Ideas are coming into a headco.

Christian Klepp  39:21

Wow. Okay.

Pete Fairburn  39:23

No, I think the soundtrack of my life would be Love Shack by B-52s. 

Christian Klepp  39:31

Nice.

Pete Fairburn  39:31

Because whenever you hear the start of love shack, you have to be a cold hearted person not to want to get up and dance to that. It’s a real good feeling song. It’s liked by most people, and it can’t help but make you smile. And I’m a fairly chipper person in life, fairly cheerful, and I just like to get on with things, and and, yeah, so I would say that would perhaps be the soundtrack. My life? It’s an interesting question, so I’m going to go with that out. 

Christian Klepp  40:04

I love it. I love that song too. Yeah, my mine would be, maybe not so chipper, but it is a song that will make you get up and scream at top of your lungs. It’s Journey. Don’t stop believing. 

Pete Fairburn  40:17

Oh, nice. 

Christian Klepp  40:19

Except that I’m not a city boy born and raised in South Detroit, but other than that, yeah. Like, other than that, yeah, fantastic. I like, yeah, fantastic. I like. Pete, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. So please a quick introduction to yourself and how people out they can get in touch with you.

Pete Fairburn  40:40

Thank you for having me Christian. I’ve really enjoyed it. So I’m Pete Fairburn. I’m co founder of morphsites. We help businesses and brands grow online by maximizing their revenue potential, improving their efficiency and innovating digitally across all sorts of different things. We’re also pretty good at helping marketing teams build meaningful measuring into their funnels so you can get in touch me. Yeah, exactly. So if you need some help with that, or some tools, or both, you can get in touch with me via LinkedIn or by visiting morphsites.com. That’s MORPH SITES.

Christian Klepp  41:20

Fantastic. Fantastic. Pete, once again, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and see you soon. 

Pete Fairburn  41:27

Yeah, thanks Christian, good to see you. 

Christian Klepp  41:29

Bye.

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:01

Welcome everyone to this episode of B2B marketers on a mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. This will be the final episode of 2024 and we will be taking a short break over the holidays before returning with new episodes in February 2025.

Christian Klepp  00:16

Today, I’m going to be talking to you about some of the best episodes of 2024 and some highlights from the amazing conversations I’ve had this year with some talented B2B marketers. I’m going to be discussing in my category what the episodes topic was and what I think you should look out for. Let’s dive in.

Christian Klepp  00:38

Okay, so here we go on the topic and the category of B2B content marketing. We start out with Episode 127 and that was with Linda Malone, a great and talented B2B copywriter, and she talks about how to help B2B companies find their value proposition. And we also talked about why that’s important. So look out for Linda’s advice on what to find when you’re conducting customer interviews, and how to leverage AI the right way. She also gave us some actionable tips on how to develop a value proposition that truly differentiates your B2B Company from the competition.

Christian Klepp  01:13

Moving on to Episode 130 with Mr. Casey Hill, he takes us behind the scenes of building owned assets that perform, which I think is extremely important, right? He highlights the importance of setting the right goals and performance indicators and how to be more thoughtful about attribution. He also explains why segmentation and personalization are paramount, and discusses some key trends that B2B marketers should be aware of.

Christian Klepp  01:40

Then there’s episode 138 with Joe Sweeney, and he talks about how to create truly differentiated B2B content that provides a unique perspective. So he highlights the pitfalls to avoid and why boring B2B content is a thing of the past. And I actually talked to him about what boring actually means, right? He also discussed the importance of conducting research and why B2B marketers should build relationships with subject matter experts or SMEs ( small and medium enterprises).

Christian Klepp  02:08

Moving on to Episode 139, with Miss Naomi Soman, this one was also really interesting. So she talks about how to develop the right personas for B2B content. She explained or elaborated on how marketers can leverage customer research to great personas that are actually useful based on moments in the buyer’s journey. She also talked about why mapping B2B messaging across the customer journey at different stages of the funnel is crucial.

Christian Klepp  02:37

Then there’s episode 152 with Jessica Malnik, and this was also a great conversation, and she talks about how to build a powerful B2B content mold that creates lasting results for B2B brands. Jessica discussed the importance of the content mode framework that she has and why she thinks the current B2B content marketing playbook is broken. So keep a lookout for her signature content mode, and what that consists of and how content marketers can use AI ethically.

Christian Klepp  03:07

Then we move on to Episode 157 with Mr. Jamie Woodbridge from TheInboxClub, and he talks about how to implement better B2B email marketing campaigns that are interesting, relevant and stand out in a sea of digital noise. So he discussed the untapped potential of email marketing and the importance of first party data and high quality subscribers. He highlighted the pitfalls to avoid, the key metrics to focus on, and how data privacy and AI can impact email marketing. So we’re moving on now from B2B, content marketing to li case studies, which is also a really interesting area.

Christian Klepp  03:45

So we start off with Episode 129, with Alexander Ferguson, who is a good friend, a return guest, and fellow Lord of the Rings nerd who can sing. I just found that out recently. So he talked about how to craft interesting and engaging customer stories. He also highlighted the pitfalls to avoid and what marketers should look out for when conducting customer interviews. He elaborated on how you can add more emotion to your B2B videos and provides actionable tips that marketers can also implement immediately.

Christian Klepp  04:20

Moving on from there to Episode 156, with Jessica Deckinger. She talks about how video up levels every part of the customer journey. So during the conversation, Jessica dispelled that common misconception that video production is a huge endeavor, so Hollywood style, right? That requires specialized skills and expensive resources, which is totally not the case. She highlights the pitfalls to avoid, how to get internal buy in for video production and how videos can impact the customer journey across different stages. So we depart now from the video case studies area to LinkedIn, the topic in the category of LinkedIn.

Christian Klepp  05:03

And here we have episode 128, with Mr. Anthony Lung. And he talked about how to get engagement on your LinkedIn content, which I think we all want, if you’re active on that platform. So Anthony talked about why a lot of content on LinkedIn falls flat, and what can be done about it, so it’s looking at it from a bit more of a constructive perspective, right? What pitfalls to avoid and why you should conduct research before writing anything. So back to the strategy piece. He also elaborated on whether companies should or shouldn’t be leveraging B2B influencers, why a personal brand is crucial, and what people who are hesitant to post on LinkedIn should be doing.

Christian Klepp  05:44

We move on from there to Episode 153 with Mr. Indrek Poldvee from Estonia, who talked about how to leverage LinkedIn untapped potential and what that untapped potential is. Well, you just have to tune into the episode, right? But he highlights the importance of having a good LinkedIn profile, and why an understanding of your audience and having the right strategy and messaging are paramount. He also provided us with some actionable tips and explained why commenting on other people’s posts helps to build trust. So we now move on from LinkedIn to the demand gen category, and here we’ve got a few good ones as well.

Christian Klepp  06:22

So episode 133, what was with Mr. Eddie Saunders, Jr, fellow, Lord of the Rings. Nerd. Hi Eddie. He talked about how to craft better demand gen campaigns that deliver good results. He discussed why it’s important to start with a campaign audit before doing anything else in which demand gen techniques he thinks are obsolete. He also talked about reverse engineering with intention, which I thought was a really interesting one, and positioning your company as the top choice for potential customers. He emphasized the need to be open to new strategies and digital channels and delivering relevant and helpful content and provided tips on which key metrics to focus on.

Christian Klepp  07:07

We move on from there to Episode 149 with Dilara Cosette, also known as the demand gen queen, and she talked about how to leverage social selling through brand ambassadorship. She explained the importance of personalization and being intentional in content creation, and she elaborated on pitfalls to avoid, how to get buy in for social selling. And you should also stick around, because she shared strategies for working with subject matter experts and obtaining testimonials.

Christian Klepp  07:38

So tune into this episode to get those tips moving on from demand gen to podcasting, we start with Episode 132 which I thought was a good one as well, and that’s what Mr. Eric Melchor. So Eric and I have become really good friends over these past two years, and he’s organized and put together this amazing community of B2B podcasters, and I’ve learned so much from our monthly virtual meetups. And he talks about how B2B companies can grow through podcasting. He also discussed why he feels this is an untapped opportunity for B2B brands, and highlighted which pitfalls they need to avoid. And Eric also talked about three ways for B2B companies to grow. The importance of having a good pitch in which metrics to pay attention to. So tune in for that.

Christian Klepp  08:28

Then we move on to Episode 142 with Mr. Robb Conlon, also a great friend who runs this great company called Westport studios out of port, Washington, Wisconsin, if memory serves me well. So Robb believes that podcasting is still a largely underutilized component in a company’s marketing mix. And he talked about how to leverage podcasts as part of your B2B marketing strategy. So Robb discussed why there are so many untapped opportunities in B2B podcasting and what you should avoid. And he explained how to get buy in from senior management for podcasts, because, let’s face it, not everybody will understand the benefits of launching a podcast. He also talked about the importance of understanding who your ideal listeners are, and provided some actionable tips. Moving on from podcasting to AI and market research, because, you know, we are in 2024, and it just wouldn’t be a podcast if we didn’t talk about AI right.

Christian Klepp  09:28

Starting off with Episode 151, with James Hipkin. So I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing James three times on this podcast, and it’s always been a great conversation. Every time for this particular episode, he talked about how insights into your target audience and how avatars of your target audience and buyer’s journey maps are crucial to B2B marketing success. He also elaborated on what important aspects of customer research B2B marketers should focus on, and provided tips on how to get in internal buy in to conduct the relevant research.

Christian Klepp  10:03

Moving on from there to Episode 154 with Mr. Dale Thomas, he talked about how to use AI for market research. So during our conversation, Dale reiterated the importance of embracing the use of AI for research purposes, highlighted the pitfalls to avoid, and talked about how B2B marketers can better organize their approach when they plan for market research, find experts and synthesize data.

Christian Klepp  10:27

Moving on from AI and market research to the category of strategic marketing, we start off with Episode 140 with Mr. Gee Ranasinha, and he talked about how marketers can build greater trust. So as we all know, there’s an ideological disconnect between marketing, the C suite and the rest of the organization. So during our conversation, Gee discussed the importance of understanding your internal audience as marketers and finding those champions within the organization right to help further your cause.

Christian Klepp  11:01

We move on from there to Jeff Coyle, who’s a return guest, who talked about how B2B marketers can leverage subject matter experts or SMEs for greater differentiation. So during this conversation, it was interesting because he explained why the rise of the SME is already here and how to get buy in from them. He also talked about how they can shed light on key insights that will be instrumental to B2B marketers in creating the right marketing assets.

Christian Klepp  11:31

We move on from there to Episode 144 with Mr. Ton Dobbe and Ton talked about how B2B SaaS companies can position themselves more strategically. He explained how they can become more remarkable and discover their hidden values. And Ton also talked about how B2B SaaS companies can uncover what he calls invisible things and provide some actionable tips on how they could become unique and ignite further growth.

Christian Klepp  11:58

Moving on from there to Episode 146 with a fellow that calls himself Marketing Max. He talked about a slightly controversial yet highly relevant topic, and that is how to fix marketing that isn’t working. Because, let’s face it, many B2B companies invest heavily marketing campaigns, but their efforts don’t always actually translate into sales or marketing engagement. So during this conversation, Marketing Max highlighted how having clear messaging, consistent touch points and an understanding of customer needs enables B2B marketers to implement campaigns that are effective, impactful and deliver the right outcomes.

Christian Klepp  12:38

We move on from there to Episode 148 with Mr. Ren Agarwal, who is also returned guest. And he talked about, I thought it was a very interesting topic. So he talked about how marketing plays a vital role in a crisis. So he elaborated during the conversation on the new skills and approaches that marketers need to address expected and unexpected volatility, right? So he 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. We move on from strategic marketing to the topic of product led growth and productization, which was also very interesting.

Christian Klepp  13:24

So we start out with Episode 137 and that was with Dr Masha Petrova, and she talked about how to market complex products to engineers. Believe me, I’ve worked with engineers, and that’s no small feat. Masha believes that marketers can bridge that gap between them and the engineers once, once they understand how engineers think and work, how they search for information and what resonates with them. So during this discussion, Masha talked about how marketers should probe properly to extract better insights from engineers, and how to find an engineer who can be the subject matter expert, as well as the advocate for the company.

Christian Klepp  14:03

Moving on from there to episodes 147, and 158 by Eisha Armstrong, who is a return guest. So she talked about how to effectively promote B2B productized services for maximum impact. So in episode 147, she talked specifically about the deadly, the Seven Deadly Sins of productization, and how B2B companies can avoid these pitfalls. She highlighted the challenges in 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. So tune in if you want to find out what those are right. Then episode 158 Eisha talked about how to effectively promote productized B2B services for maximum impact. She also highlighted what the biggest obstacles are when companies productize, and how they can get to revenue faster and more efficiently. She also provided some actionable tips. Tips on how B2B marketers can build a marketing engine that generates enough leads to achieve targets for productized offerings. So you want to tune in to find out what those are.

Christian Klepp  15:10

So we move from episode 147 and 158 to Episode 160 which is with Mr. Wes Bush, and he talks about how to create a winning B2B product strategy. So he explained why he believes product like growth is only half the story, and he elaborated on the need for a solid system growth processes and a lean team. Wes also highlighted why clear messaging, positioning and the potential for a software product to streamline product marketing strategies are important. So tune in to find out about Wes is nine step framework to help scale product led businesses.

Christian Klepp  15:48

So we move on from that to marketing and sales. And we have one here, which is episode 155 with Mr. Hamish Knox. So he’s from the sales side. He’s a sales leader, and he talked about how B2B sales and marketing can generate better results. So Hamish explained why this ancient conflict persists and how to avoid it, right? And he provided actionable tips on how marketing can proactively work with sales and how they can get them involved in upcoming marketing initiatives that will resonate better with customers.

Christian Klepp  16:19

So we move on from marketing and sales to networking communities, and we’ve got two gentlemen here. Episode 145 is with Mr. Donnie Boivin, and he talked about how B2B marketers can leverage networking for success. Donnie explained how B2B marketers and other professionals can harness that power of networking for growth, and highlighted why most networking falls flat, and the importance of having a networking and follow up strategy. Episode 159 with Elzie Flenard III he talked about how B2B companies build strong communities for growth. And Elzie advised against quick, superficial and transactional efforts and emphasize the need for intentionality, understanding the audience and building trust. He also provided great examples of how communities can help B2B companies become authorities in their niche. So you want to tune in to this episode to listen to those tips.

Christian Klepp  17:16

We move on to the next category on the topic of websites. So that’s episode 136, with Mr. Sam Dunning. And this was also a great conversation, because he talked about how to create a B2B website for revenue and not vanity. So he walks us through how you can turn your B2B website into an incredible revenue generating machine. He highlighted also the seven The Deadly Sins of B2B websites and how to fix them, and left us with some actionable tips on building SEO from scratch for your website.

Christian Klepp  17:48

And the final category is marketing in a different language or culture. And this was episode 131 with Hugo Gomez, and he talked about how to successfully market to a Hispanic audience in the US. So we discussed how B2B companies can leverage cultural and linguistic insights in their marketing campaigns, and what roles multicultural best practices and data play. He also elaborated on the fundamental differences between English and Spanish and why a simple translation will not suffice.

Christian Klepp  18:24

If you’ve managed to get it to this point in the conversation, I would really like to thank you for your patience. But trust me, it’ll be worth it, because these were all great conversations. They weren’t just great conversations, they were very insightful and very pertinent and relevant to B2B marketers. So I’ll be dropping all the links to these episodes mentioned here in the show notes for easy access. And I hope you found this recap of the best of 2024 useful. So as mentioned earlier in the conversation, we’re going to go into winter hibernation, but we’ll be back in February 2025 with new episodes. So in the meantime, for those who celebrate, have a very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2025 and let’s continue to change and improve B2B marketing one conversation at a time.

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Wes Bush

Christian Klepp  00:01

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission, and I’m your host. Christian Klepp, today I’ll be talking to Wes Bush. He’s the CEO and founder of ProductLed over the last eight years, he’s worked hands on with more than 400 SaaS companies to help them unlock more than $1 billion in self-serve revenue through product-led growth. He’s also the author of the Product-Led Playbook how to build a product that sells itself. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketer’s mission is. All right, Mr. Wes Bush, welcome to the show.

Wes Bush  00:36

Thanks so much for having me.

Christian Klepp  00:37

You know, every now and then I do get Canadians on the show. And it’s always a pleasure, you know, to have a chat about B2B marketing with folks in my neck of the woods. And you know, I say neck of the woods very loosely, because, you know, Canada, short of stating the obvious, is a pretty big country.

Wes Bush  00:54

Totally.

Christian Klepp  00:56

Absolutely. So let’s jump into it, Wes, because, you know, this is going to be, I’m sure, a pretty great conversation. But more importantly, I think it’s one that’s going to be interesting and relevant, right? And if we’re just going to, like, start, I’m going to start with saying that you are on a mission to help B2B companies to unlock self-serve revenue and dominate their markets with tiny teams, right? So for this conversation, we’re going to focus on a topic that is, I would say, near and dear to you, which is how to build a winning strategy that ignites growth. Now I know for some members of the audience that might sound very top level and generic, but we’re going to get into it here, and gonna get into the weeds, and then they’ll understand why we’re calling it that, right? So let’s kick off the conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat, right? So a big part of what you focus on is product-led growth. So why do you believe product-led growth is only half the story, and what should marketers do about it.

Wes Bush  02:00

Yeah, so for product led growth, like if you’re not sure what it is, it is a go-to-market motion where you’ll use your product to acquire users. You can use it to engage those users, to get them to value, also monetize them, and also use it to expand into account. So if you think about like a company, what does that look like? You’ll typically see like a free trial or freemium motion, or something like that, where that’s what the company is using to acquire more people come in the fold. And so from a marketers point of view, like this is really huge, because every single time I’ve worked with a company, let’s say that sales-led, where they just have a demo led kind of motion, and then they launch a free trial, or freemium motion, right off the top same traffic, you’re gonna have like 20 to 30% more people signing up. And it’s nothing like crazy behind the scenes stuff. It’s just like people want to try before they buy. And when we ran the study, we found out actually, 97% of people would prefer to try before they buy versus talk to someone in sales. And so you’ll see that in your conversion rates as well, and everything else like that. So that’s kind of like what product-led growth is, and then why it’s really relevant for marketers to consider. And that’s just talking about one aspect of it, where it’s like from your call to action for your main product. But there’s so many other ways you could leverage product that grows, like powered by x company. You might have seen that like with companies like Drift or Intercom and stuff like that too, which can really fuel growth and help you acquire customers with a very low customer acquisition cost.

Christian Klepp  03:42

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. I wanted to go back to something you said earlier, which I think is very interesting, and I have seen it a lot, right? There’s even reports about that out there. A lot of users prefer to, like, yes, absolutely try before they buy. But they also want to have this I’m just going to say there’s contactless, but there’s also sales-less experience, if that’s even a word, right, which means that they want to try and buy and conduct this research and make an informed decision without necessarily having to have a conversation with that sales person. Why do you think that is?

Wes Bush  04:23

It’s a, yeah, it’s like, why do we think that is, I don’t know. Like, there’s like, goes back to the psychology of like, okay, do you need to do this at the end of the day too? Like, the question I always ask companies, where it’s like, when it comes to sales, is, like, is this person adding value or friction, and a lot of times when it’s like, hey, the only way you can buy from us is if you talk to us and you go through our sales process, like, who has the leverage in that kind of relationship? It’s the buyer, you would think, right? But what’s changed is every single industry right now, especially in the software space, with AI booming and all that stuff too, is never been easier to create a product. So in every single market, there’s tens or hundreds of different options. And so you lost your leverage. If you ever thought you had leverage, you’re like, hey, we’re gonna get people to buy the way we want them to buy. That’s gone out the window, and you need to actually cater towards, hey, this is what buyers want. And I think it goes back to your question of, like, why do people want this? Well, they’ve been probably burned at some point. Like, I think as so many products I’ve personally bought where I’m like, you know, back when I was working on video art, for instance, we were purchasing Marketo, and Marketo is, like, this ultra powerful marketing automation platform. And I was like, on the website, and I was like, Oh, wow, this thing’s so slick. It does so many things. This be great. I’m excited. And then we signed it, and then we got the product login. I was like, Oh, this thing’s complicated. This is going to take a lot of work to just figure out how to set up this tool. And I was like, Man, I thought it was so much easier, better slick, like that marketing side and all that stuff. And so you just have to have one of those experiences to be like, You know what? There is this marketing, sales-led way of building a company. And then it, yes, you can build trust that way. It takes longer. But then there’s this other way of like, Hey, listen, just here’s the keys to the product. See for yourself if you like it or not. Just like, when you buy cologne or perfume, you’re like, Oh yeah, I’m gonna, like, have a little sample of that, see if it smells good, and then you can try it on. And sometimes that’s a completely different experience too. You’re like, smells good in the bottle, but then you put on your skin, like, an hour later it’s either washed off or like, I don’t like that. And so if you want to build trust faster, you have to actually have that product-led experience.

Christian Klepp  06:46

Sounds to me that you want to create a better customer experience, which is actually more surprise, customer centric.

Wes Bush  06:55

Surprise.

Christian Klepp  06:57

Yes, absolutely. No. Totally agree with that. And I think we’ve all had those experiences right, where you didn’t have the opportunity to try before you bought right said product or service, and then when you actually got it, you, for lack of a better description, just didn’t have a very seamless, or perhaps even a horrible experience with said product, and just that cycle of having to go through customer support or get getting some help with a said, like, for example, software that that in itself probably was a nightmare, right?

Wes Bush  07:31

Oh, yeah. And they’re like, Oh man, I’m gonna have to, like, spend all that time learning how to use this. Man, wouldn’t it have been nice if we just purchased something easy to use?

Christian Klepp  07:40

Exactly..

Wes Bush  07:41

It’s like.

Christian Klepp  07:41

Exactly.

Wes Bush  07:42

You realize that you’re like, man, it would have been right?

Christian Klepp  07:44

Yes.

Wes Bush  07:45

But we didn’t do that whole process.

Christian Klepp  07:47

Exactly, exactly. Moving us on to the next question, which is still focusing on this topic of building a winning strategy, right? What are some of these key pitfalls that you think B2B marketers should avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Wes Bush  08:03

Yeah. All right, so the very first question, like, when I go through like, how to build a winning strategy, it all comes down to like, hey, which market could you become the obvious choice in? Because in any market there’s four buckets you’re going to fall into. The very first one is, like, the scariest, hardest place to be in and get out of, which is just commodity zone. And when you’re a commodity in your industry, everybody’s just saying, hey, like, what’s the best price? What can you do for me? And it’s really hard to stand out and build a sustainable business, because your profits are just slashed. The second kind of bucket, a little better is your contender. And a contender does at least one or two things a little different to break out of the commodity zone land. And so that might be a unique feature. It might be a unique approach, way of doing something, and that is just enough to get them out of that commodity zone. So I can charge a little bit more make a little bit more profit. But you know what? There’s this next group, which is above them that looks at what contenders are doing and likes to copy them. And these are the companies that are on the cusp of their market. So there’s like three to five companies, usually in any market that’s established, and the companies on the cusp, they are, you know, in aggregate, usually taking about, like 25% of the market share, and they are really competitive with each other. But they have built this scale. They’ve built a great go-to-market motion. So they have usually, like a contender. They do one, maybe two things different, but they also have that go-to-market motion, and then there’s only usually one company like the Canva, the industry, the Zoom of the industry, the Slack of the industry, that becomes like this is the obvious choice. And so the like, core tenant of building winning strategy is, where can you become the obvious choice? And in order to answer that, you need to say. Hey, we are the obvious choice for, you know, this market, or this subset of the market who’s looking to do Y, or this specific thing. And I literally just went through this with some other SaaS founders today. And it’s fascinating, because it’s like, let’s not think like big vision here. Let’s think like, the next year. Where can you win? We’re realistically can you become the obvious choice in and even just that exercise alone, it’s really simple, but it grounds you in the reality that in order to stand out, you need to be crystal clear on where you’re going to win and make sure that actually aligns with what are your product’s core capabilities. Who actually cares about that stuff too.

Christian Klepp  10:42

Absolutely, absolutely, I’d like to jam on that a little bit further, if you don’t mind, Wes like this…

Wes Bush  10:47

Yeah.

Christian Klepp  10:48

This whole approach of like becoming the obvious choice in your market. And I know, for probably people outside of Canada, they might not know this, this brand, but there is a brand in in Canada called no name, right? Or it’s basically like no brand name, right? And you can find those in like, No Frills and whatnot. So it’s like, no name baking soda, no name cooking oil, right? And if I understood you correctly, you don’t want to fall into that category, right? So you want people to, like, recognize your name, right? You want your name to be synonymous with good quality, good experience, and so forth. But here comes the question, because you said, become the obvious choice, right in your specific vertical, vertical or segment rather. So how do you, how do you go about doing that? And I know you named some of the steps already, but how do, how do you get SaaS companies to identify that, that segment where they can become the obvious choice?

Wes Bush  11:47

The very first kind of piece of that is the second question, which is like, well, now where do you play best? And this is really hard to do, especially if you’re a product market fit stage, like, trying to identify, like, who is our best users and stuff. What I always say at that stage is like, hey, try out a lot of customers, just as much as they’re trying to try out you see, which use cases resonate best. See what kinds of customers you work best. You get the most energy with. Because there’s something like an unwritten rule of building a company which is like founder market fit. And I actually believe, like, that’s a lot like, more important than product market fit, which is, like, do you actually like these people? Like, for instance, for me, it’s like, I love working with SaaS founders. It gives me energy. It’s fun. I can do this for the long term. Now, product market fit is like, just trying to understand who resonates best with your company and the products you do. So the next step where to play is like, Get really clear on your ideal customer. Now everybody says that not everybody has, like, a way of whittling it down. Now, there’s three factors I really look at to see, like, is this an ideal customer or not? And the first one is motivation. So are they, like, insanely motivated to solve this problem? Whatever your product solves, that should be very high. The second thing is ability, do they have the ability to actually see success in this product, to get it set up? You know, if there’s like, the no name buying chips, it’s like, okay, most people have that ability to eat chips. We’re gonna just put that for everybody. But for a software…

Christian Klepp  13:19

One would assume.

Wes Bush  13:22

Yeah, opening up some of those bags is tricky, huh?

Christian Klepp  13:25

Yeah, sorry, go on.

Wes Bush  13:30

Yes. And where some certain software like it’s hard to figure it out. And so if you give like a marketer, this like technical web development app where you can create your own website. It’s like, you know, is the developer going to be more successful with the marketer? And it’s like, the marketer might be the big visionary, the creative here, but the developer actually would see better success setting it up, at least. So ability. The second thing, the third thing is triggers. So does this person get triggered, whether it’s internally or externally, to solve this particular problem. Now, if you have, like, zero triggers, but you’re like, motivated and ability, it’s like, you know, when they find out about you, eventually they’re gonna be like, Oh my god, I gotta, like, get this right now. But you want ideal users and customers where it’s like, this is pretty frequent. Like, hey, your customer acquisition costs are high, and they keep hearing this from their boss, the rest of their head of marketing, all that stuff, and they have that consistent awareness of this, and so they want to solve this problem. So those three things help you kind of whittle down who are your ideal customers and where you should play best.

Christian Klepp  14:40

Fantastic, fantastic. So motivated, or motivation, rather ability and trigger or triggers, there might be more than one, right?

Wes Bush  14:48

Oh yeah, definitely there should be more than one for your ideal ones.

Christian Klepp  14:51

Yes, yes. All right, I’m gonna move us on to a question where I’m gonna say it’s one of those where you just have to unpack everything. So just imagine your travel in a bag, and you’ve just, you’re just, you’re coming back from a trip, and you’ve got to unpack everything, right? So here we go. In your book, you talk about this approach that you use that’s called the Product-Led system, right? So how does this approach help scale product led businesses and help them become the dominant choice in their market?

Wes Bush  15:22

Yeah. So there’s a lot to unpack here. Definitely. I got my bag. My suitcase is loaded. How long do we have?

Christian Klepp  15:30

Off you go, off you go. As succinct as you can but I know there’s a there’s quite a bit to talk about here.

Wes Bush  15:36

Yeah, totally. All right, so when working with over 400 plus SaaS companies, what we distilled is there’s these nine core components that if you want to build a product-led company, you have to dial these in. And what I learned after building the Product-Led system is there’s actually a strategic order of how you could go about building and scaling your product-led business. And so especially if you’re a marketer listening to this, this is going to be really, really helpful for you to even get in alignment with your founder and rest your leadership team to go through this. Because if they just come to you be like, hey, we want to be product led and get started on that landing page. You’d be like, Well, I had this great podcast. Have a listen to this part and get started.

So the very first kind of phase of the Product-Led system is all about building a foundation that is unshakable when it comes to building your product-led business. Now the first piece we did touch on a little bit, which is your strategy. So what does that look like? And the reason that’s first for building a product business is because at the end of the day, like, if your product led growth strategy isn’t connected to like, how is your company going to win? It usually doesn’t get much legs or resources or support, or you don’t really build the right capabilities on your team to support it really well. Because what happens if you don’t do this is a lot of times, companies will get started with PLG (product-led growth), and then it doesn’t work, and then it’s like, hey, wait a minute. Like this isn’t functioning really well for us because we don’t have the right capabilities. And so that’s one thing we got to think about quite a bit.

Now, the second piece of this, once you get your strategy built out, is you have to understand who is your ideal user. And this is not to be confused with your ideal buyer, your ideal like, the difference between the two is the buyer is the one actually purchasing that the decision maker, whereas your ideal user is the person who’s actually using your product. And so you need to understand exactly who that is. Go through those same three things we talked about, like motivation, ability, triggers, and more importantly, you also got to understand what is ultimate success for this person, like, what’s their end game? What does that look like? And we break it down into like these five main stages, what that goes through like for your user journey. And you got to understand that very well. But even that alone, when you break down, like, I’ll give you an example for marketers, it’s like when you think about the stage in the user journey of just signing up. Okay, what are all the challenges that somebody’s gonna encounter or try and go through in order to sign up? It could be simple things, like, hey, we just have, like, too many form fields. It could be something a bit more complicated, like, Hey, I don’t trust what this site is like. I give you an example, one of our product led clients. Like, they have a company that, basically, if you hook up your AWS (Amazon Web Services) or your cloud servers, they will run all these reports and help you identify, like, hey, there’s these errors here and all that stuff. Now, the biggest objection that the founder didn’t know that was there was that if I give you access to that, like you have the keys to our entire app, everything, if we if, like, something goes wonky here, like our app could get shut down all these, like, scary things. So trust was huge. Now how do we build that? Well, we got to understand, first off, what is that challenge, and then we can come up with some solutions of what that looks like. And so when you know your user that well, you can be like, this, Jedi, of like, Oh, I know you’re struggling with that. Like, here’s the solution ahead of time, and then you actually confront a lot of those objections. And so that’s the second component. Got to understand your user better than anyone else in your market.

Once you do that, then you can finally move on to the third step, which is, what is your free model? What does that look like? The best product companies, they all have a free motion that they lead with, and it’s something you can try before you buy. But the biggest challenge here is most companies are not intentional with it. They just give away something random, where they slap on a 14 day free trial. It’s like, Hey, we’re product-led, yet it doesn’t solve a meaningful problem. It doesn’t lead to a transformation where it’s like, hey, I went from, you know, Wes 1.0 to Wes 2.0 like, when I think about ChatGPT and I started using it, there is a notable difference in productivity, because I can just brainstorm ideas faster. Even writing the book was actually a lot faster, brainstorming so many different ideas, even for the Product-Led system, it was called the product led method before, method before that, then I found out it’s a system. I was like, oh, okay, so like, a lot of these different things that just come out of it.

Christian Klepp  20:30

Thank you. ChatGPT.

Wes Bush  20:34

Sponsored by ChatGPT, so, yeah, that’s the third step, is just understand, like, what do you give away for free? Because you best free motions all have that transformation in common. And so those first three components are all about that foundation that you must have.

And phase two is really all about your go to market motion. So what does that look like? How do you get customers to find out what you do and sign up for your product and actually upgrade. So the core focus for phase two is all about, how do you unlock self serve customers, customers that can just sign up, get the value upgrade without talking to you.

And in order to do that, there’s three things you gotta have. First one is you gotta have an irresistible offer that is something that is hugely compelling for them. You speak to them, since you know your ideal user very well, you’re calling them out. Like, for us, it’s like, four SaaS founders, uh, hello. They’re like, Oh, it’s me. And you actually speak to them, and that’s really compelling. And based on your strategy, you’re also pulling in that strategy into your offer. One of our clients, PromoTix, for instance, they’re going up against Eventbrite, and their strategy to win against Eventbrite is literally two things. It’s like, we’re cheaper, 20 or 40% cheaper. And then second piece is we actually give you really good marketing tools to sell more tickets. That’s it. That was like their strategy. They just mentioned that on their home page, and they saw 40% more sign up, so the exact same traffic. So when you do this right and you have a good strategy, your offer should be a lot more compelling. Not to mention you can also put in that new free offer that you have from the model component, which makes it compelling. So once you get that, you’ll have more signups from the ideal users, not just more signups in general. That’s an important distinction.

And when you have those motivated people signing up, then you can move on to the next component, which is the fifth one, and that’s onboarding, and that is really where you go through. How do we get people to value as soon as possible? And I always say, like the first seven minutes is insanely important because there’s a little pandemic in product led companies, which is 40 to 60% of people will just not come back after that first time. And so you really have to guide people to the value as soon as possible. Now, because you’re smart, because you’ve gone through the user component, you know exactly, okay, what is end the end game for these people? What does that success look like? And you broke it down into every single stage you should know, like, what is the first strike? What is something where, if we get people to this moment, they’re like, aha, yes, I like this product. And then it’s really about in order to do onboarding well, it’s creating the fastest path to get to that specific point. And when you do that, and you get people to value, what I believe, as far as product led companies go, is we’ve done our job. That is a great product led motion. We’ve served before we’ve sold people, we’ve given them value.

But in order for this model to work, we got to actually have pricing and people upgrading. But this is the kind of sixth step, which is we’ve got to go through how to make that easy so it can be a self serve experience, so somebody could look at our pricing page in five seconds understand, like, hey, this is the right plan for me. And there’s a lot we could dig into here, but the main thing I’ll kind of give a shout out on is you need to identify, like, what are your value metrics? Like, if you look at email marketing platforms or sometimes even CRMs (Customer relationship management), it’s, you know, per contact. And if you have 10,000 contacts, here’s the price. If you have 500,000 contacts, it’s it’s a bit more. So you can understand that relationship pretty quick, and that’s important for your product company. So you can start somebody off on, let’s say, a $50 per month plan, and grow it to something like $5,000 per month and but that only happens if you have really dialed in value metrics and understand the pricing side of things. So that’s the first six components, first two phases, anything you wanted me to dive in on or go on?

Christian Klepp  24:53

I mean, this is really dynamite stuff so far, and I’m gonna do a recap once you get to number nine. But, like, there were so many things that you said that resonated. Like, for example, having an irresistible offer, I mean, just a cult Marlon Brando, I’m making an offer you can’t refuse, right? Like, but, um, I think on the topic of onboarding, do you, from your own experience. Do you see that that’s a that’s an area where a lot of SaaS companies struggle. Because, you know, you always talk about churn, and then Customer Success gets involved to make sure that the customers don’t churn. But some, but sometimes, they enter at a little bit later stage of the entire process, and by that point, customers will say, you know what I’m actually done where we’ve actually signed a contract with somebody else, but like, over to you, like, what’s, what’s your experience been?

Wes Bush  25:49

Oh, I think it’s one of the biggest problems that a lot of companies struggle with. One caveat, though, is a lot of times they think it’s the biggest issue, but it’s not. I’ll give you a couple examples. So I was talking to this one founder, and he had a low, free to paid conversion rate, which for many product led companies, like, it’s usually the free to paid conversion rate that drives them crazy. They’re like, It’s low. Why is it low? It’s onboarding. It’s hugely the first thing they come to. Because usually it needs a lot of work. But then in this case, that wasn’t the scenario. So I like heard what he was trying to do to fix the free to paid conversion. He was like, I’m going to spend the next quarter fixing our onboarding. This is exactly what we’re going to be doing. And then I went to his website, I was like, now tell me, what do you do? I don’t understand. It’s something AI enabled. But like, what the heck do you as nicely as possible in my Canadian accent. And so he’s like, Oh, we do this. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, I get that. I get what you told me, but I did not get that from your website. So here’s what was happening is he was having people sign up, and they would go through the onboarding and they’d be like, not actually seeing value, because they, one, were not the right people, because he wasn’t speaking to them. Two, they didn’t actually really know what they were signing up for, so they had almost next to zero motivation. And so of course, they would just like, bugger out halfway through, because they’re like, I’m not really that committed. I don’t really understand what this product is, unless you have a lot of extra time. And what was interesting about that too, is he, if he was talking to the people, he would be able to close them and upgrade them. So there was this weird thing going on where it’s like, okay, whatever you’re saying, buddy, it’s important. And whatever you’re showing them in the product is very important too, but when you’re making this self-serve, that’s not quite happening. And then the other most common thing where they think it’s onboarding is somebody signs up for free. They can, like, click around, they can do stuff, but they can’t actually experience any meaningful transformation because they’ve gated it because they didn’t understand, like, from the model component, like, what is something we got to give away that actually gives people a power up in life. It has to feel like there’s the before and then there’s the after of this product. And if it doesn’t have that, if it’s just bland or I just sign up for another app, and now they’re bombarding me with emails and all this fun stuff, and I’ve got zero value. Of course, I’m not going to upgrade, and that was a long winded way of saying there’s a lot more that goes into free to paid conversion rate than just the onboarding. But you are right that most people focus almost too much of their time, I would say, on fixing the onboarding, when the foundational elements before it actually matter a bit more, and just most people don’t think about those.

Christian Klepp  28:46

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, no, in your best Canadian accent, you mean, like, sorry,

Wes Bush  28:52

So sorry. What do you do? (laugh)

Christian Klepp  28:56

But you mentioned, you mentioned a couple of things, but the one that jumped out at me is part of it, is the messaging, or the way that you package it, right? Because I’ve been on a couple of those websites too, and I scroll up and down. I go back up to the above the fold of the website, and I read through all the copy, and I scroll down again, and I’m like, okay, yeah, still don’t understand. Go back up. And I go through it two times, and I’m like, I still don’t quite understand what the SaaS company is doing, right? So to your point, right? If that’s not clear in those first couple of seconds, right, because you’ve got a you’ve got a window, right, a very short window of time in which to grab people’s attention and to communicate what it is you do and how it benefits them. And if companies can’t do that, you know, you’re going to see a bounce rate. People are going to drop off and won’t have you. But the other thing that you said was the before and after, right? I, in fact, as I was taking my notes, I put like, these massive exclamation points right next to it, right? Because there’s many companies out there. That don’t communicate that enough, right? That transformation that they are not necessarily aspiring to bring what they probably have already brought, but it just doesn’t come across in anything that they communicate.

Wes Bush  30:14

Yeah.. And it’s very common for that. And one thing on the marketing side that, like a lot of people resonate with and think is like, once you hear it, you’ll be like, oh, yeah, that’s true. Sales-led companies can actually have much shorter whether it’s home pages, product pages and all that stuff, that can keep things a little more vague, high level focus around the value prop, but then just get people onto the call, where they can deliver a lot more of those messages. That gets people to understand, okay, this is exactly what it is. This is how you help me. Whereas product led companies usually it’s a bit longer, but that’s why product marketing right now is booming, especially for a lot of product led companies, because it’s a unique capability you have to develop. You got to make something really, really crystal clear, like, what the heck it is? What does it do? How it’s going to enable you? And that can’t just be left up to, oh yeah, we’ll catch them on the call. If they don’t understand what it is, it’s like, no, no, you won’t ever see them. They’re probably going to be anonymous visitors on your website before they even sign up, and you just won’t have a chance or a second bat with them.

Christian Klepp  31:20

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, Wes. We’ve been keeping the audience in suspense. Now, what are the last three parts of that process?

Wes Bush  31:29

So the first one all about unshakable foundation. Second phase is all about, like, unlocking self serve customers. Now, once you’ve graduated at this stage, the last phase is all about, how do we unlock exponential scale? And in order to do that, now that we have the inner workings of a product led motion, with the offer, the onboard and the pricing, now we gotta look at your data and understand where is the biggest bottleneck. We have to understand that at every single week. We gotta know, okay, this is where most people are dropping off. This is where they’re getting stuck. And so the main metrics we look at for a product-led company is number of, like, unique users that are on their website, number of ideal signups. What does that look like every single week? How many of those signups got to, you know, successfully onboard, go through the onboarding setup, and then how many of those people got to what we would consider a first strike, something like tangible first value moment, aha moment, whatever you want to call it. We just like first strike, because it goes with our framework of the bowling alley framework. And then once they get the first strike, how many of those people get to a key usage indicator, which is experiencing the value of the product at least two, maybe three times. And the reason why this one’s really important is because what you’re trying to build here is a bit of a habit, and it’s not just enough to get, like, one quick aha moment. Like, yeah, that was good. We want people to come back again and again and be like, oh, yeah, I created, you know, a new graphic, or something like that. Canva is an example where you’re like, I’m really getting this. And then how many of those people who hit that key switch indicator upgrade? And so with just those simple go to market metrics, there’s a few others, like business health metrics and your north star metric that we also go through. But with that, you can easily find out where is the main constraint of this business is it signups, which is holding us back? Is it, you know, not enough people getting to value which is, like you mentioned with onboarding, it’s actually one of the biggest problems. But what’s unique is every one of those metrics should have a unique owner. And let’s say if this week, you know, you own the metric for first strike, and not enough people are getting to a first strike in the product. You actually become the mini CEO on the leadership team, and you’re saying, Hey, listen, everybody. I know I’m holding everybody back. We got to solve this. I got to enroll your help. And even if other people have high priority stuff on their plate, they have to support you if you need their help, because it’s the company’s bottleneck, and that alignment and that focus around the data side of things creates insane focus, which you need, because if you’re scattered everywhere, you’re like, okay, it doesn’t matter. You know, Christian’s got it, I think, but it’s like, Hey, if you need your help, drop it. Drop whatever you’re doing. This is the main priority, and companies that do that grow way faster. But it’s not enough to just have the understanding of like, Hey, this is a big bottleneck.

The next component, this eighth one, is all about your growth process. So how do you understand like, Okay, if, let’s say first strike is the biggest bottleneck, how do we understand like, we should do this experiment versus that experiment, or we should do that or this, and you got to have an experimentation framework to actually understand, hey, what do you prioritize? What does that look like? And that cadence and rigor really helps build discipline so you’re not just like, oh, the CEO said this idea. I think, yeah, I don’t want to get fired. Let’s do it, meanwhile, you know, it’s a shitty idea, like, it’s like, okay, let’s not do that, but at least you can go to them and be like, is this high impact? Is this low impact? Oh, it’s low impact. Okay, so maybe we don’t do that, and you actually have a process for that.

Now the last component is all about team. Now, the reason this one’s last for a product led company is just by fact that most of the issues that would have arisen with the data and the growth process, you would be able to find a solution with your product, because your product should eventually become in a product led company, your best marketer, your best sales person, your best customer success rep, all those things in one and it’s only when you hit certain problems, like, I’ll give you an example, where it’s like, okay, we, for the last month, have been struggling to get enough signups. We’ve tried all these experiments, but we’ve actually shown a lot of promise with, let’s say LinkedIn ads, believe it or not, and it works. Now we want to scale that up. It’s like, okay, let’s look at a maybe it’s a LinkedIn ad specialist, contractor, somebody on the team full time, and that’s when you can start to look at, okay, we need to bring people into this equation to scale this up, and that allows you to keep a lean team and highly profitable business at the end of the day.

Christian Klepp  36:20

That was a handful. But thank you for distilling it down to these nine points today…

Wes Bush  36:23

I unpacked big.

Christian Klepp  36:26

You sure did, my friend. I think those are probably five suitcases instead of one.

Wes Bush  36:32

Yeah.

Christian Klepp  36:33

But let me just quickly recap this for the benefit of the of the audience, right? So number one is building an unshakable foundation. Second one is, who is your ideal user and don’t come, don’t confuse that with the buyer, right? The third one is, what is your free model, also designing something that solves a meaningful problem, right? Then you get to the GTM motion, or go to market motion. Sorry for the abbreviations, folks. Having an irresistible offer was number four. Number five, which we spoke about at length, onboarding. Number six is pricing, having the right plan. And there’s also clearly some value metrics involved there. And then that last stage, which is unlocking exponential scale, is looking at the data, identifying the biggest bottlenecks and solving them. Number eight is the growth process and having an experimentation framework in place. And number nine, the grand finale, team.

Wes Bush  37:36

Great summary. You got them.

Christian Klepp  37:38

All right, fantastic. Now here comes the next question for you, Wes. So we’ve gone through these nine points of these nine core components in the product led approach. And so for the sake of providing the audience with actionable tips, if there’s somebody out there, like a product marketer, or somebody in SaaS that’s in a marketing role that’s listening to this and doesn’t have 12 months to deliver on results, right? And needs to act upon this right away. What are like three to five things that these folks can do right now to build a winning strategy?

Wes Bush  38:14

Yeah. So the first thing I would recommend for you to go through is just analyze, like, where are you at today on each of these nine components? So we actually built a free product-led assessment, not trying to pitch it here. It’s just super helpful when it comes down to like, okay, what are those specific questions? So each of the nine components we have, like, a question. You can rank yourself from a 1 to 10 on and like, for instance, your ideal user like, Okay, on a scale of 1 to 10. Do you know your ideal user better than anyone else in your market? And I was like, if it’s 10 and 10, it’s like, fantastic. You shouldn’t need to focus there that much. But we all know most people would be like, maybe 7, 6, 4, who knows and based on the order of them. So if your strategy, your user, your model, is low. You have to start there. And although you might want to be like, Oh yeah, our onboarding, let’s focus there. Everything builds off of each other. Those nine components have an order. And so if your earlier components are really weak, the rest of your product led strategy is weak, and there’s no amount of like, okay, let’s just add more people to the equation that’s gonna help. I always say, like, nail the process before you scale it. And that should be true. That’s why it’s the last kind of lever you pull in your business. And so yeah, for many companies we work with, it’s usually like, tightening up your strategy, and then it’s getting a little bit more clear on Who’s your ideal user, so you’re not spreading yourself too thin. And then it’s sometimes like, the model might be okay. We don’t always have to, like, come in guns blazing. Like, let’s switch it, because you’re working with Product-Led. Sometimes it’s just like, Okay, it’s good enough. It’s not perfect, but it’s like, 7 out of 10. So let’s move on to the higher leverage things that are going to actually show that, hey, we made an impact here, which a lot of times that’s your offer as your onboarding or your pricing, because those go to market levers when you go through and implement and improve them, you that’s where you see the revenue at the end of the day, and then the data and process side of things in the product at playbook, I outline some meetings that you should install. So, like, on a weekly basis or a monthly basis, quarterly basis. How do you structure meetings so that you create the rhythm in your company to review some of these things so it’s not static. Like, yeah, we updated our offer last September, I think, is no, let’s review that more frequently and see what we can do to improve that.

Christian Klepp  40:48

Dynamite stuff. Man, dynamite stuff. And absolutely, on the topic of data and processes and having those regular meetings, I think those regular meetings, if you have a fixed agenda and you have fixed goals and objectives, it helps keep everybody accountable. It’s not something that just fades into the ether, right?

Wes Bush  41:09

Totally.

Christian Klepp  41:09

Because people are going to be like, okay, where we’re at, where are we at? What do we need to do? What issues are we facing? What do we need to tackle? Where do we need the validation, the approval? Where do we need support? What are we going to do next? What are the next steps? Wrap up the meeting with next steps, right? Instead of just like, all right. Well, thanks, everyone. Like…

Wes Bush  41:30

Totally. And if anybody wants like those templates too, for like, how to run those meetings. I know we talked a bit about this on our last chat, too, but everybody who’s listening gets the free product led playbook. If you want the audiobook for that, that’s my gift to you, so you can just go grab it at   productledgift.com and then that has the templates as well that you’ll need to actually run those meetings.

Christian Klepp  41:51

Fantastic, man. Fantastic. Christmas came early. Thank you, sir.

Wes Bush  41:54

It did.

Christian Klepp  41:55

Very, very generous. Very generous. All right, Wes two more questions, and I’m gonna let you go, right? So here comes the bonus question. I’ve been thinking hard about this one for a bit, but, um, let’s just say that after this interview, right? The interview wraps up, then suddenly you get a call, and it’s one of these tech billionaires that you that you follow, or that you admire. I’m not going to name names, just take your pick, right? And he says, Wes, you know what? I read your book, great stuff. I’m gonna fund your next SaaS project, whatever you want to do. All right, so here comes the question, if that ever happened to you, what kind of SaaS would you build? And why?

Wes Bush  42:37

Interesting question. Because there’s, like, you know, the highest, you know, hottest kind of ideas you could think of, or the biggest market potential. And then there’s the stuff that I know that would be a great product.

Christian Klepp  42:52

This is the reason why I’m asking the question.

Wes Bush  42:55

I consider myself like there’s the fox versus the hedgehog? Yeah, I’m totally a hedgehog. Man.

Christian Klepp  43:00

Okay.

Wes Bush  43:00

So it would literally just be doubling down on the Product-Led system, turning that into its own software product. Because, like, for instance, with the strategy and everything, after helping hundreds of companies do it, it’s like, I know pretty much, like, what’s a good strategy and stuff like that, pretty quickly. And it’s like, I could train an AI on that and get people 80, 85% of the way there. So yeah, I would definitely just make it way easier and faster to implement part of that system. That’d be my favorite thing to do.

Christian Klepp  43:30

Fantastic, fantastic. Great answer. Wes, thank you so much for your time 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.

Wes Bush  43:42

Yeah. So if any of you want to learn more about product led growth, you can easily find me at Wes Bush on LinkedIn. And also, if you want to learn more about some of the programs we have to help you level up and scale up PLG, you can just check out productled.com.

Christian Klepp  43:56

Fantastic, fantastic. And we’ll be sure to drop those links in the show notes when this episode gets pushed live so once again, sir, thank you so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Wes Bush  44:06

Thanks for having me on.

Christian Klepp  44:08

All right. Bye for now.

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Elzie Flenard

Christian Klepp  00:01

Welcome to this episode of B2B marketers on the mission, and I’m your host. Christian Klepp, today I’ll be talking to Elzie Flenard the third. He’s the founder and CEO of Podcast Town, and helps B2B brands uncover their unique voice to broadcast through the world. His expertise lies in turning content into a powerful tool for growth, whether it’s through launching a podcast, building a robust content strategy or monetizing efforts to drive real results. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketer’s mission is. All right, I’m gonna say Elzie Flenard the third. Welcome to the show.

Elzie Flenard  00:40

Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited about this conversation.

Christian Klepp  00:44

Likewise, likewise. And, you know, based on the conversation we had before hit record, I love, I love your name, because it really does sound like a monarch, right? Like, and now that you’ve got us, now that you also have a son, he’s, he’s the fourth, right?

Elzie Flenard  00:58

He’s the fourth. And I’ve already, I’ve already prepped them. Said, Okay, you know, when you have a son, what, what we’re going to name them, right? So be any, any, any kickback.

Christian Klepp  01:09

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So there is a successor, so to speak. But Elzie, I really appreciate you coming on the show. I’m really looking forward of this conversation, because it is not just highly relevant to B2B marketers. I think it’s really highly relevant to B2B companies as a whole. So the topic for today’s discussion is how B2B companies can build strong communities for better growth. And I think you do have a bit of experience in that regard. So why don’t we kick off the conversation with this question, why do you feel that authentic connections are the foundation of success?

Elzie Flenard  01:47

Well, the biggest reason is twofold, really, but the first reason is because connection is the differentiator, right? If I am looking at three different companies, and they all do very, very similar things. I’m going to choose the company that I feel the most connected to. It’s an age old business principle right now, people are going to do business with people with that they know, like and trust. I call it the KLT (Knowing you, liking you, and trusting you). It’s like a sandwich, the know the like and the trust and I like the like in the middle, because people can trust you and they can know you, but if they don’t like you, that you still are going to lose that sale, right? So you have to have all three. And I think that that is the thing that as we move forward with technology and AI, speed to market is changing. It’s faster than ever. So competition is higher than ever. You’re gonna… that KLT factor is gonna be the differentiator, and you don’t get connection without that KLT.

Christian Klepp  02:52

Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s even more so in a case I had a guest on yesterday, and we were talking about this very same topic, about the you know, building credibility, building trust, and what have you. And even in B2B, that can get tricky at times, especially if you’re involved in the situation, because I’m in the marketing and branding industry, and sometimes we don’t have direct access to the client, right, like we get vetted by an agency that’s responsible for looking right, looking for those so called vendors, and you know, they we have to go through this vetting process and then we get introduced to the client, right? So there’s no existing relationship there. But regardless, to your point, if you don’t build up that trust, then how are you ever going to get in the door? Right?

Elzie Flenard  03:41

Yeah, exactly. And I think too people try to take shortcuts. Trust is not a shortcut thing. You have to put in the work like there’s no way around it. It takes time. It takes time to listen, it takes time to act, and then to iterate it, you just have to do the work. There’s no shortcuts, which is cool, because that means like people, like you, are going to win because you’re willing to put in the work to do the research and to make those adjustments. So but, but Trust is everything. And you know, the biggest thing though, is really hard to get, really easy to lose, and once it’s lost, it’s gone forever. So it’s a delicate thing that you have to manage.

Christian Klepp  04:29

Are you talking about business relationships or marriage or both?

Elzie Flenard  04:34

They’re quite similar. If you think about it, they’re pretty close to the same thing, right?

Christian Klepp  04:40

Absolutely, absolutely I’m going to move us on to the next question before we start venturing into dangerous territory here. But like, what do you wish more B2B marketers knew about building communities in their industry?

Elzie Flenard  04:55

I wish more B2B marketers understood that it takes time. This is not a microwave solution. My kids tease me all the time because I 9 out of 10 times if I need to warm up my food, I’m not going to do it in a microwave, because the way that it, you know, it works, is it sucks all of the juice out of the food, and by the time you eat it, it’s just not the same, and so I’ll put it in the oven, I’ll set the temperature to 350 and I set a timer that I keep right beside the stove to 15 minutes, and that’s how I warm up my food. It takes longer. I have to be more intentional. Takes a couple of few more steps, but the end result is much, much better than using the microwave. And so that’s the analogy that I always like to use. Is like, don’t put it in the microwave, put it in the oven.

Christian Klepp  05:49

I love this.

Elzie Flenard  05:49

Take, take your time, and the end result is going to be that much better.

Christian Klepp  05:53

Aboslutely. One other thing about heating up food and microwave is that it ends up either getting harder or dry, right?

Christian Klepp  06:02

I love that you brought that up because I just thought of another follow up question. You know, you’ve, you’ve seen, and we’ve all seen them, especially during the pandemic, right? There were online communities like just sprouted up everywhere, and many of them don’t exist anymore. Why do you think that is?

Elzie Flenard  06:02

Yep.

Elzie Flenard  06:21

Well, because it wasn’t intentional or genuine in the first place, and that’s the nature of relationships, right? When you come to it as a superficial thing, then it doesn’t last right to the point that you know we were making earlier. It has to be intentional and it has to be authentic, and it has to be genuine, otherwise it will not last. Just the same if you’re going to start a podcast, a ton of podcasters, I call them, COVID casters, popped up everywhere, and now everyone had a podcast. A lot of those folks are not here anymore, right? They’re gone because they weren’t really doing it for the right reasons, and so they got to episode seven, realized that it was really, really hard. It was a lot of work, and they weren’t going to become Joe Rogan, and then they quit. Right? Same thing with community. You know, you have to have a leader of the community that is authentically and genuinely interested in the success of the community. If they’re not, the community will fail

Christian Klepp  07:22

Absolutely, absolutely and correct me if I’m wrong. But you know, similar to podcasts, right communities, you have to go in there with some kind of plan. And when I say plan, I’m not saying like, Okay, let’s try to see how many leads we can convert. That’s not the type of plan I’m talking about, but the plan of like, okay, how do we grow the community? How do we keep them engaged? How do we keep them coming back? Right? I’m gonna age myself here a little bit, but it’s just like, you know, those old radio shows, right? Like you sit there and listen, and then, oh, you know, they end that episode with a cliffhanger, and then you gotta come back next week, right? Or any, any TV series, right? Just take your pick. Same thing, right? To be continued, shucks, gotta wait till next Sunday, right?

Elzie Flenard  08:04

Yeah, yeah. I think the one thing about community, and I think in this is at the time of this recording is 2024… I think in 2025 and beyond, we’re gonna see community become more and more important. When you think about brand, when you think about KLT, like no, you know No, like trust, just because it, it really does take a concerted effort to maintain them. And I think the thing that makes a community great is not necessarily the leader. Now, know that sounds like a contradictory statement to what I make, what I said before, but hear me out. A really good community is one that builds on itself, where you can go and you can get value from other community members. Now it’s an extremely important that the leader of that community has that heart, because people will follow the heart of their leader. All right, so if the leader is transactional, the community is going to be transactional. If the leader is genuine and caring, and they share information, they make connections, then the community is going to do the same. You can tell if a community is going to survive, not based on just the leader, but of the people. If the people are there to help each other, to connect each other, to keep each other engaged, the community will thrive. But if that community is depending on Elzie to always be adding the values, always doing the connections, that community does not stand a chance. So, so I think community is going to continue to be important. And B2B organizations need to take notice, because this is going to be one of the major ways to to grow brand and to grow affinity in 2025.

Christian Klepp  09:57

That’s incredibly interesting. And, yeah. It’s, it’s a bit of an ecosystem, right? For lack of a better word. And if I can throw in another science term there, it’s symbiosis, right? It’s like, you know, in science class, they talk to us about, like, symbiosis is when organisms feed off each other, right? And I don’t mean that in a cannibalistic way, but, um, it to your point, right? It’s, it’s also what the what you vibrate within the community, right? Because it can’t just be the leader by himself or herself. It’s got to be, you know, the members as well. So they feed off each other’s vibes somehow, right? Because if it’s a, if it’s a one sided affair, to your point, and we’ve seen it, right, like some of these communities are no longer around, or they’re just not active anymore, or they’ve lost a lot of members. And the list goes on and on and on, but, um, that’s a great segue to the next question, and you’ve brought up some of them already, pitfalls to avoid when it comes to building communities.

Elzie Flenard  10:56

I think the biggest one is not understanding the difference between an audience and a community. They’re not the same and really and not understanding the difference between engagement and transaction, right? So my LinkedIn audience is an audience. It’s very transactional. If I make a post that speaks to them, that gives them value, they engage, they like, they comment, they share, if I don’t, you know, adding in the complexity of the good old algorithm. So if they happen to see my post and it doesn’t add value, then they’re not going to they’re not going to engage with it. The people who are in my community, they not only see what I what I share with them, but they engage with it because they want to engage with it and because they want to add value to other people, right? So it’s a very different level of relationship. And I think people are, they sometimes try to use those as one in the same and they’re very, very different touch points and different points in the relationship. So I think that’s one of the bigger downfalls. And I think the other one is just not giving it enough time, you know, again, it’s an oven. It’s not a microwave. It takes time to build, you know, a thriving community. It does not happen overnight for most people.

Christian Klepp  12:23

I’m going to totally sound like a Wall Street bro here, and that’s not my intention, but it’s kind of like investing in stocks, right? You don’t cash out after three months, unless you’re super lucky, which almost never happens. You got to keep on putting something in. You got to be patient. You let you let the stock grow, right? The stock market kind of like the sea, it will ebb and flow, right? And, yeah, to your point, it’s, it’s, it’s taking that time, putting in that effort, because the community, like a lot, like a podcast, it’s an investment, right? It’s not, and I’m not just talking about monetary investment. It’s really, I think the time factor, right? Because you’re, you’re spending, what an hour, two hours a week, on some of these calls, right?

Elzie Flenard  13:10

I will say that it’s a time investment, it’s a relationship investment, it’s a, it’s a social investment, it’s, it’s a, it’s a business investment, but you’re investing to your point for the long term. It’s not a short term play. And I would even argue that a podcast is a community, if you, if you do it well.

Christian Klepp  13:32

Absolutely, absolutely, you brought something up, and I want to go back to it, not because I’m playing the devil’s advocate, or maybe I am. I don’t know this term that people constantly use about like, you know, you got to add value to the community. You know, you got to give value. Define value for us. You know, from your own interpretation.

Elzie Flenard  13:51

Value is information, expression or connection that moves you closer to your goal. So, I mean, that could be a post, it could be an encouraging word, it could be it could be a handshake and a smile, right? I always tease when I go places. One of the first things I do is I see if people are smiling, because I know, and I don’t have a scientific, you know, staff for this Christian, but it is very, very, very difficult to not smile at somebody that’s smiling at you, unless you’re just having the absolute worst day. And even still, it’s really hard if I, if I come up to you and say, Hey Christian, how are you? And I’m smiling, it’s very hard for you to not smile back, right? So that’s the first thing I look for, is like, are they smiling? Are they happy to be here? If they’re not, then that that diminishes my experience, right? And so, so I said all that to say you, you have to understand that what you put out is what’s going to come back. The seed and the harvest, right? So value is putting out content, putting out energy, putting out things into the world that will have a positive impact and help people get to their goal. To me, that’s what value is, and it could be again, as simple as a smile in the checkout line or or a handshake or an encouraging word?

Christian Klepp  15:25

Absolutely, absolutely, great definition. Great interpretation of value. Great interpretation of value. Okay, I’m going to move us on to the next question and provide an example, ideally from your own experience, of how communities can help B2B companies become authorities in their industry and strengthen relationships.

Elzie Flenard  15:46

One example, and I won’t, I won’t use their name, but there’s a that where we were working with, we’re working with, and their number one thing was, how do we help people understand what it’s like to work with us, right? And so we helped them launch a podcast, and their clinic attendance went up by three three times, right? So they 3x it. And it wasn’t because their show was amazing and it was. It wasn’t because of the quality of the content. The content was great. It wasn’t because of them specifically. It was because they took an intentional, concerted effort to build community, and by doing that, by the time the folks got on the phone with them, they had shortened their sales cycle by five, right? It was like, they already like you, they already know you, they already trust you. That part’s out of the way. Now it’s like, what, what deeper value do you have over and beyond what you’ve already given us? Right? And that’s just one example of taking the community approach, right? Understanding KLT, understanding value, understanding community, and wrapping that all up and seeing the return on that investment.

Christian Klepp  17:07

Great story. You just made me think of another question, and I was gonna save this for later. But you know what? Let’s just go. You’ve got a bit of experience, obviously, with communities and building them and nurturing them and what have you. What would you say if you were to look at it from a top level, like, I call it like an eagle eye perspective, what do you think B2B companies can do differently, um, to build communities and not necessarily. I’m not, I’m not implying that they need to do something crazy, right? But what can they do to make their communities stand out a bit more?

Elzie Flenard  17:44

I think again, the biggest thing is stop being transactional. You know, transactional sales is over. People are they, you know, they don’t want to buy from corporations anymore. They want to buy from people. P2P is a good way. I like to think of it. It’s person to person now, and that mindset shift, I think, will differentiate B2B organizations, even though, you know, we’re corporations, we’re businesses, we have to understand that we are working with people, and people love to do business with other people. So that mindset shift. And then again, the other thing is just taking the time and the investment. It’s not a microwave, it’s an oven. So just understanding that it takes time to grow it. And to your point, you have to nurture it. It’s not like you just do one thing and then, you know, three months go by and nothing happens. No, you have, you have to nurture it. You have to create feedback loops and make, you know, iterations and adjustments, and then, you know, continue to feed, feed that community for it to be effective.

Christian Klepp  18:53

Absolutely, and one thing that I always like saying is, please stop making it a pitch slap fest, right? Because I don’t know about you, but I’ve been in a couple of communities where that was the case, where they would, you know, send you into these breakout rooms, right? These famous breakout rooms, and then they said, Okay, off you go, pedal your wares. And I was like, Well, I don’t know. You know what I mean. Needless to say, I didn’t stick around for too long, right?

Elzie Flenard  19:03

But that, but again, that goes back to relationship, right? You know, in business, being similar to a marriage, you wouldn’t approach someone and say, Hey, Christian, let’s, let’s, let’s get married. You just wouldn’t do that. And so what? Why do we do that in business, it is just, it just doesn’t work.

Christian Klepp  19:38

Absolutely. That’s a great segue into the next question, which is, you know, so we talked about, like, how communities can stand out a bit more. How can you engage the members in the community in a way that, you know, keeps them coming back, like, and how can B2B marketers play a role in that to keep the community engaged and active? Because, you know, we’ve seen what happened, right? Like, I don’t have the numbers, but I. I lost count of how many communities sprung up in 2020 for example, right? And fast forward to 2024 some of those communities aren’t around because they just lost steam.

Elzie Flenard  20:11

Well, I think the first thing to know is that community is not cookie cutter. We went to Vegas a couple of months ago for my son. We went to go see battle bots. Vegas is a example of a community, because you could go there to play slot machines, and that’s a whole community, or you can go there to watch battle bots, different community, not the same content, not the same value, different expression, different ways to engage. If I try to engage the battle bot community the same way I engage the slot machine community, probably not going to work, right? And vice versa. So I think you have to understand who you’re building community for. You know, if you’re building a community for extremely busy professionals, right? CEOs, founders, I don’t want to log on every day, Monday through Friday and post seven times, engage with seven different posts and post my like, I don’t have time to do that. I’m not I’m just not going to do that. And so if your community does that, then I’m probably not a right fit for your for your community. So I think again, just understanding your people what they value, and then, in my case, I value my time, so don’t ask me to post every day like I don’t have time. I’ve struggled to keep up posting with social media every day. I’m not gonna do that, plus this community, right? So understanding your people what they value, and engaging them where they are and how they like to be engaged, right? I think if you do those things right, your community will have that differentiation. It’ll be a little bit different, because some communities are all about that. You need to log on every day to communicate, to connect with folks and like that’s part of where you are as a professional. So I think again, knowing who your people are, what they value, and how to engage them, will bridge that gap, right? Because if you try to engage them in a way that they don’t want to be engaged again, just like in a in a relationship, then it, you know you’re not speaking their love language. It’s not, it’s not going to be successful.

Christian Klepp  22:21

I was thinking of singing one of these boy band songs where, you know, where there’s a breakup, but I’m just going to skip that part. (laugh) I think the audience got the gist. No, no, absolutely, absolutely. It’s, um, it really boils down to having a deep understanding of who your audience is, who you want to. I don’t want to use the word target, but understand who it is you’re reaching out to, who your who your community appeals to, meeting them where they’re at, as you said, like, Okay, what kind of content do they like? What do they engage with? What do they find interesting? What resonates with them, or also very important, what kind of challenges are they having, I mean, what kind of problems, right? What kind of questions they have? What do they look for online? Right? Yep, fantastic, fantastic. Okay, we get to the point where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us plenty already, but if somebody were listening to this, right? Hopefully a, B2B marketer who’s like, you know what? I’m so inspired by what Elzie said, and I want to build a community. But how do I do this quickly? Right? So what are three to five things that you would say they could do? Right? To take action.

Elzie Flenard  23:13

Okay, so I was just gonna say, you don’t want to do it quickly, but I would say, understand the business you’re in. And I’ll go a little bit deeper on that, be intentional and strategic, and then finally, formalize the community. I believe that podcasting is probably the best way to do that, for a number of reasons. So let me go back to understanding the business that they’re in. You are not in the software business, you’re not in the accounting business, you’re not in the marketing business, you’re not in the podcasting business. You are in the attention business. Period, understand how to earn, retain, convert and transact and connect and transfer attention. If you do that, then you’re golden. And those, those are my steps.

Christian Klepp  24:29

Awesome. So that was awesome, um, let me just recap, earn, retain, convert, trans, transa…

Elzie Flenard  24:40

Transfer.

Christian Klepp  24:41

Transfer, connect. You make it sound so simple.

Elzie Flenard  24:44

But simple is not easy. Simple. This simple, but simple is not easy.

Christian Klepp  24:50

Very true, very true, very true. You made me just think of another follow up question, and it’s on the well, it’s one of these love it or hate it questions. So let’s just say, for as an example, right? There’s a B2B marketer out there who’s listening to this and says, Okay, I’m going to go and start building this community based on these steps that you’ve been suggesting during this conversation, and at some point, couple of months down the road, this B2B marketer then has to go to the board and show that they’ve made progress, right? So you probably know where I’m going with this. How do they show progress in the form of metrics or things of that nature?

Elzie Flenard  25:34

Yeah, I would say the metrics are going to depend on what type of community you’re building. Naturally Speaking, you know, you want to measure the number of people that are in the community. I think that’s a fair, legitimate measurement, or KPI. Now, again, it doesn’t have to be 15,000 right? So whatever that goal is, but that’s a easy way to measure. The other thing that I that I like to tell folks to measure is, you want to kind of do it on two levels, right? So there’s the audience level, meaning social media. You know, engagement, likes, comments, shares, is the content resonating, right? That’s one of the ways that you know, if people are engaging with it more than they were before you started, right? So just kind of measuring that against that as a reference point, and then a level deeper. Are they taking the next step? So your email list? Is it growing? Are people opening your email? Are they clicking on stuff in your emails? If so, what things are they clicking on? If they’re clicking on the things, are they then taking action? Right? So those are levels of engagement. So first of you will say, Okay, open rate, are they opening it? That’s a level of engagement. Click rate, are they clicking on it? That’s a level of engagement. What are they clicking on? That’s another level. Are they taking action from the thing that they clicked on, that’s another level. So I would just map those things out as metrics, and then track those as they go. Right? Because they you know, your email list can sometimes be a leading or a lagging indicator, right? So if your social media is going crazy, everybody’s liking, sharing and engaging, but they’re not joining the email list, then, as a marketer, you have to start asking questions, okay, why? Is it because they’re just my audience and not my community? What do we need to do to bridge the gap? Are we targeting the right people? If it’s converse, it’s like, okay, we’re not getting much action on social, but the email list is, is blowing up. Okay, cool. Where’s the disconnect? Because those should be in alignment, right? Those two numbers should go up at the same time. They should be directly proportional, right? So things like that really just analyzing the actions and the levels of engagement and building based on that.

Christian Klepp  27:59

Yeah, fantastic, fantastic. You gotta look at it as a type of funnel, right? Like that funnel has different stages, and then you try to, you try to move them carefully and intentionally through that funnel, right? Yes, to your point, to take the next steps. Okay, fantastic. Okay, we get to the soapbox question, and it’s on this particular topic of building communities. All right, so what’s a status quo that you passionately disagree with? And why?

Elzie Flenard  28:28

This was a hard one, Christian, because I don’t know that I passionately disagree with.

Christian Klepp  28:33

Anything

Elzie Flenard  28:34

Anything other than…

Christian Klepp  28:37

Here we go. Here we go.

Elzie Flenard  28:38

So, so here’s the thing, I I recognize the potential, the opportunity, of social media. Okay, so I don’t want you, your viewers, your listeners, to take this what I’m about to say the wrong way. Okay, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna provide some context what I’m about to say, I understand that it’s a it’s, you know, it’s powerful. And I’m not speaking of just one, I’m speaking of the concept and the construct of social media. I understand the power of it. I understand the necessity of it. I understand the trade off. I’m just having a really tough time understanding why they choose to design the algorithms the way they do. And as a business owner, entrepreneur, storyteller, it frustrates me to no end that my people, that I’ve earned their attention. We talked about that a little bit early, but I don’t have control over the content that they see from me. That is incredibly frustrating for me, which is, which is, again, I think, wow, we’re going to see private communities explode in 2025 because. Because I’m not the only one who is extremely frustrated with the fact that it could be the most brilliant post or video or value add and only a fraction, a tiny fraction of the attention that I’ve earned. Now, again, I understand that it’s their platform. They took the risk and built the tech I get it, but the fact that a fraction of the people of the attention that I earned are gonna see that content, I struggle with that that’s a struggle for me.

Christian Klepp  30:33

I truly share your sentiment, and I share your frustration, because it’s happened to me as well, right? I mean, I don’t post as often as I did during the pandemic. During the pandemic, I posted like three or four times a week, and even then, the algorithm kept pushing my content down, apparently, right? So people that were following me and checking out my content at some point said, I can’t see your content anymore, right? And there’s this other stuff that’s floating to the top that’s not even relevant to what what they’re consuming. And to your point, Elzie, that that just frustrated me like to no end. I don’t understand that. So yeah, I am, I am frustrated with you. I would say, right, yeah, that’s crazy. That’s crazy.

Elzie Flenard  31:23

It’s one of those things where, as a as an entrepreneur, you look at it and you say, Okay, it’s, you know, it’s like, going to your, your friend’s house. It’s like, yeah, that’s, it’s their house. They can do what they want, you know? So how, how you respond to it is, you figure out ways to either play the game the way that they designed it, or you play a different game, and really, that’s what it boils down to.

Christian Klepp  31:25

Or you build your own house, right? Like where you pitch a tent in front of the house, I don’t know.

Elzie Flenard  31:45

Or you leverage the house, you know, to build your own house. So there. You know, there are ways to get around it, but does it change the frustration?

Christian Klepp  32:00

Absolutely, absolutely okay, My Friend, here comes the bonus question. If you were to pick a song that would describe that would be like the soundtrack of your life, what song would that be and why?

Elzie Flenard  32:14

Boy, that was not in the prep questions.

Christian Klepp  32:19

Nope, no.

Elzie Flenard  32:23

I missed it. Wow. Song track of my life I would have to go with and I’m dating myself.

Christian Klepp  32:34

Go.

Elzie Flenard  32:36

Michael Jackson wrote a song called Man in the Mirror. I like that song because it, it acknowledges things that are, are happening, that are going on, but it takes self accountability.

Elzie Flenard  32:56

Says, Okay, if you, if you want to make change like I know it’s not perfect, I know it’s not ideal, and you’re right to feel the way you feel, but it needs to start with the man in the mirror like it needs to start with you, like you have to own your journey, right? And so that, I think, is the way that I live my life. That’s the way I run my business. I know I’m not perfect, but I know that that by shifting my mindset, by taking account of accountability, of my peace in it, I can to the for lack of a better term, I can make my bed right and so. So that’s the song that comes to mind off the top of my head that would encapsulate the be the soundtrack, soundtrack of my life.

Christian Klepp  33:30

Yes.

Elzie Flenard  33:30

For it.

Christian Klepp  33:39

Yes.

Christian Klepp  33:49

I love it. I love it. You handle that one really well, man. Fantastic, fantastic. Yeah, I was thinking about this one too. I think mine would be a journey. Don’t stop believing, right? Except that I’m not a city boy born and raised in South Detroit like but that, but that chorus line there that don’t, don’t stop believing, hold on to that feeling. Yeah, pretty much. Elzie, this is such a great conversation. Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. So please. Quick introduction to the mayor of podcast town and how folks can get in touch with you.

Elzie Flenard  34:28

Yeah, so the mayor of podcast town, so podcast town is essentially a agency that helps business owners leverage podcasting to build community. Essentially, is what we do. The best way to get in contact with me, actually, is just to shoot me an email [email protected].

Christian Klepp  34:49

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

Elzie Flenard  34:55

All right, appreciate the time.

Christian Klepp  34:56

Thanks. Bye for now.