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.

SPEAKERS

Eisha Armstrong, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Eisha Armstrong. She is the executive chairman and co-founder of Vecteris, and a business leader with expertise in product innovation as well as product portfolio management. She has extensive experience launching new data and information service businesses, building Executive Education products, advising C level executives and overseeing data analysis and qualitative research in a recurring revenue model. She’s also a published author, and has recently released her new book, “Commercialize” -how to monetize, sell and market productized offerings in B to B professional services. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketer’s mission is. Eisha Armstrong, I’m gonna say, welcome back to the show. So good to have you here.

Eisha Armstrong  00:52

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

Christian Klepp  00:55

Wow. I mean, where do I even begin? I think I’m gonna begin by saying that, you know, I’ve been interviewing a couple of folks like yourself on the show for quite a while, and one of the guests that I recently interviewed, and we’re pushing that episode live this Thursday, he actually told me that one of the reasons why he wanted to come on the show was because he listened to my interview with you, right the past one. And I’m interviewing another gentleman in two day’s time who said he’s read your book product ties twice, right?

Eisha Armstrong  01:28

Wow, two times!

Christian Klepp  01:30

yes. But I’m gonna, like, just push you into the spotlight here, because, you know, before I hit record, you did tell me this one anecdote, and I thought it was just absolutely awesome. So please over to you.

Eisha Armstrong  01:41

Yeah. No, it’s um, yeah. So Productize has been out now for three and a half years, and earlier this year, during the summer, I was at the swimming pool, and I walked by a person who was standing in the water in the pool, but they had a book like out on the ledge, and they were marking it up with a pen. And as I walked by, I noticed it was my book Productize.

Christian Klepp  02:06

No…

Eisha Armstrong  02:07

I know. And then, you know, people are like, oh, did you offer decide I was like, No, my bathing suit. I didn’t want to, but to see it at the swimming pool and somebody marking it up was pretty amazing. And I’m just so thankful for all the people who bought it and read it and said good things about it, and I’m glad it’s, I’m glad it’s helping entrepreneurs and business leaders.

Christian Klepp  02:29

Wow. I mean, I shot, like, first of all, I’m happy for you, but you can’t make this stuff up, right? Like…

Eisha Armstrong  02:34

No, I know the pool of all places, yeah.

Christian Klepp  02:37

I mean, hopefully there weren’t, you know, there weren’t too many people around them, like splashing and whatnot, because, you know, if the book got wet, then, you know…

Eisha Armstrong  02:45

Yeah, it was in the adult section of the swimming pool, so there were no kids around. Pretty tame, but yeah, he was, there was a person at the swimming pool reading my book.

Christian Klepp  02:54

Fantastic, fantastic. I mean, I gotta, I have to say, I mean, like, I must admit, that’s a first for me,

Eisha Armstrong  03:03

Yeah, especially because it’s a business non fiction book.

Christian Klepp  03:06

Right, right. I mean, if you see somebody at the airport, you know, while they’re waiting for their flight, and then they they’re reading your book. I mean, that’s one thing. Like, okay, fantastic. But this guy’s, like, in the pool, all right, yeah, he’s not even…

Eisha Armstrong  03:17

Productize. It’s a great pool read, yeah. I knew (laugh).

Christian Klepp  03:23

Yeah, forget the horror novels. Just chuck that out the window, right? Like….

Eisha Armstrong  03:27

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Christian Klepp  03:30

Fantastic. Eisha, I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because we are going to be talking about something that is very close to your heart, something that you’re extremely passionate about, and it’s something that you bring up in your new book, Commercialize, right? So for this conversation, let’s focus on a topic that is related to your new book, Commercialize, and that’s how to monetize, sell and market productized offerings in B2B professional services. So I’m going to kick off the conversation with this question, why do you think the successful commercialization of productized offerings is much more than just marketing campaigns and training your sellers?

Eisha Armstrong  04:08

Oh, yeah, good question. So this was kind of what was at the root of why I decided to write this book. So what we were seeing with the companies that we work with, B to B services firms who are trying to standardize and scale what we call productization, is that they were really stumbling in the go to market phase or commercialization phase of that. And, you know, they could have a great product idea, you know, developed it very well, but just were struggling to get the traction that they thought they would, and they would immediately go to, how do I change my marketing, or how do I better train my sellers to sell it, and while that is certainly part of the successful go to market equation, or successful commercialization. It’s, it’s missing a lot of very important components, and those include having a really good understanding of who your target market is and what their buying journey looks like, the pricing and the packaging of the product, so that you’re appropriately monetizing it, selecting the best sales channel. So before you jump in and start training your current sellers on how to sell your new product, is that the right sales channel? So kind of making that decision, making sure that you’re set up, well, if it’s a renewable product, to renew it, that you’ve got customer success, you’ve designed the product for renewal. And then, honestly, like reorienting your entire organization around this idea of “customer lifetime value”. So there are a lot of things beyond marketing campaigns, beyond training the sales team that go into successful commercialization. We try to unpack those in the book and it’s really everything we wrote about is rooted in experiences that we saw. So I start the book by telling the story of a company which we’ve pseudonymed as talent tether. They wouldn’t let us use their real name, but they’re a global provider of outplacement services, and they were productizing both in creating products that could be sold down market. So outplacement services that could be sold to a more price sensitive market segment, as well as creating products that would augment their outplacement services. And they were very candid with us in our research about how much they struggled with trying to get their traditional sales team to sell it, trying to set up an E commerce channel, getting the incentives right for the sales team, figuring out how to do lead generation. So a lot of different things that kind of illustrate all the different components that go into successful commercialization of a new product. And I thought it was such a great example about again, why this is so much more than marketing or just training your sales team.

Christian Klepp  07:05

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. You just made me think of a question, and I might have asked this in the previous conversation, but I think it’s worth repeating, and you’ve probably seen this. You probably talk about it in your books. I’m going to say plural, right. How do you change this mindset of these companies, right? That are at this stage where they want to scale, but they keep coming back to you with Eisha, we can’t do this. We can’t productize because each customer is different. It has to be customized. They all have different needs and requirements. You know, scaling by productizing this offerings is just not something that we can do. How do you, I won’t say, like, push back against that, but how do you get them to… how do you convince them that that mindset is not in their interest?

Eisha Armstrong  07:57

Yeah, so that’s, that’s a really good question. I think most companies, they have to see it to believe it. So the first thing we’ll do is we’ll say, Well, can we run some experiments and maybe identify a couple of different market segments where a more scalable approach, more standardized approach, might be sufficient for them. So certainly, there are definitely market segments that are very price insensitive and are willing to pay for highly customized, bespoke offerings. But there are also usually segments of the market that are willing to maybe sacrifice a little bit of customization in return for perhaps something that’s easier to use, perhaps less expensive to use, and let’s go out and test that and see if that’s indeed true. We also find that if an organization is really serious about the strategy of productization, there’s certainly things that they can do, from a change management perspective, to win the hearts and minds of the people that are already there, but to be successful, they will probably also need to bring in people who have a different skill set, and are, you know, from organizations where they’ve sold products before, developed products before, because it’s a very different way of going to market, and a very different way about thinking about, how do you meet market segment needs.

Christian Klepp  09:27

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. And it’s going back to your point, right? It requires a different skill set. It requires a different approach. And, you know, just short of stating the obvious, it is in their long term interest, right? If they want to grow because I think the customization, correct me. If I’m wrong, the customization approach might hinder that growth to a certain extent.

Eisha Armstrong  09:48

Yeah, it’s certainly so. Productization has a lot of different benefits, and being able to grow more scalably so not have to add costs at the same rate that you’re growing is one of those benefits. Not having to add headcount or very specialized professional talent at the same rate is one of those benefits. But also being able to assure standard quality across many different customers is another benefit of a more standardized approach, because you’re not kind of subject to the whims of the you know, quality of one professional over another, being less key person dependent is a benefit. You know, I talked about, usually, products are sold kind of on a more renewable basis. So having that revenue visibility is another benefit, kind of getting, you know, services firms, out of that feast or famine that sometimes happen. Yeah, you smile and nod, yeah. So, I mean, there are many different benefits, and I think it’s important to be clear on why are you productizing before you start running down this path and making sure that everyone in the organization understands the larger why. That also helps with the change management.

Christian Klepp  11:12

You just made me think of another follow up question, and whether this is true or not, I pass that over to you. But do you feel that companies that don’t productize and don’t scale through productizing their offerings. Do you feel that a bottlenecks at some point?

Eisha Armstrong  11:29

Yeah, it’s certainly harder to grow. Yeah, because again, you’re dependent on adding people, usually, if it’s professional services, highly skilled, perhaps hard to find people in order to grow and so that makes it more difficult. It makes it more expensive to grow as well. It’s not to say it’s not impossible. I mean, there are, there are many examples of professional services firms that are only offering bespoke custom services. But I would argue, especially in this era now of generative AI, if you’re not thinking about, where can we standardize, perhaps tech-enable how we’re delivering our existing services, you might risk being left behind.

Christian Klepp  12:19

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, I’m gonna move us on to the next question, and I’m gonna see if I can get this right. So from your professional experience, okay, what do you think are the main differences between marketing and selling standardized services, or products from marketing and selling traditional professional services?

Eisha Armstrong  12:39

Yeah. So when you’re selling traditional professional services, let’s take legal services as an example. You’re usually buying the expertise of a person, right? So I, I am asking, you know, my attorney kind of what is her background in similar companies with similar issues? And it’s really about her and her expertise. So it’s focused on the person. With the product, it’s focused on what is my need, and does this product address that need more efficiently, more effectively, than other ways that I could address that need. So it’s not dependent on a person, and it’s really focused more on what is the problem that I’m trying to solve? So when you’re marketing and selling that, you need a very different approach. When you’re selling a professional service, you’re talking about the credentials of your professionals. You’re talking about their ability to really understand your specific situation and tailor to your need. Versus when you’re marketing and selling a product, you’re talking about, hey, we understand the problem of this market segment, and we have something that is a value that’s better than what’s currently out there. So it’s just a very different approach.

Christian Klepp  13:55

Right, right. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So staying on this topic of monetizing, selling and marketing productized offerings. What are some of the major pitfalls that you think B to B marketers should avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Eisha Armstrong  14:11

Good one. Yeah, so let’s start with kind of the first step of successful commercialization, and that’s really understanding your target market. And so one of the mistakes that we often see is organizations, for lack of a better term, being lazy about market segmentation and then not being choosy enough about which segments are their highest priorities. So too often we see organizations trying to target a very broad market segment, and that dilutes their efforts, and it prevents kind of B to B marketers from building deep expertise in their segments, buying journeys and needs. And what we advocate is going, you know, it’s called uncomfortably narrow, and focus on a very specific niche or niches, and tailor your go to market strategy to the individual needs of those niches. So again, lazy, too broad of market segmentation is a common pitfall that we see. Another one is not and I alluded to this earlier, not investing in new capabilities. So how you market professional services is usually focused on things like brand building, right? So you’re trying to get your firm’s brand out there. You’re perhaps focused on thought leadership and positioning your professionals as experts. Okay, product marketing is a very different skill set, and it’s, it’s, in my experience, hard to ask someone who only knows how to do kind of brand marketing, maybe content creation, to also do product marketing. So even if you bring in someone on a fractional basis. I think that that’s, you know, important if you’re going to take a more productized approach to bring in that investment in product marketing. So that’s another kind of piece of advice and common pitfall that we see. The last one Christian is probably not iterating on the go to market plan. So again, you know, when you’re when you’re bringing something new to market, especially if it’s tech enabled, you’re going to have to run a lot of experiments, use that kind of, you know, lean startup test and learn philosophy. And that means that you need to be flexible in what your go to market looks like. You might have you know a hypothesis that you can sell this with your existing sellers, and you quickly find out that that’s not true. Or you may think you know your buyer is the CFO, and it really turns out your buyer is the Chief Information Officer. So that’s going to require a completely different marketing plan. So being flexible and knowing that this marketing plan, this go to market plan, is going to iterate and change over time and not, you know, CEOs should not be asking their chief marketing officers for a two year marketing plan for a brand new product, because it’s going to change. So that would just be a waste of time to think, you know, two years out.

Christian Klepp  17:21

No, absolutely. Those are really great. I mean, going back to your last point, these plans aren’t set in stone, right?

Eisha Armstrong  17:28

Right.

Christian Klepp  17:28

This isn’t like a one and done affair, like we, you know, we, we submitted it towards the end of the year for the next year, and then that’s it, and we don’t look at it ever again, right?

Eisha Armstrong  17:36

Yeah, exactly.

Christian Klepp  17:38

Fantastic. So understanding your target audience and getting uncomfortably narrow. I like that phrase because it’s so true. It’s so true, right? Not investing in new capabilities. I mean, it’s about constantly improving, right? You got to constantly come up with, not necessarily constantly come up with something new, but continuously iterate, right? And not iterating on the go to market plan. Yeah. Absolutely.

Eisha Armstrong  18:01

Yeah. So, you know, I mentioned that story I tell in the book about the company Talent Tether. So they had this hypothesis that they could sell their down market product via e commerce, which turned out ultimately to be true, but they didn’t have any experience selling a professional services product, or productized offering over E commerce. So they had to bring in new capabilities in order to be successful with that as a sales channel for them. And I think they were, you know, and they admitted they were a little naive in kind of underestimating the investment that was going to be involved in using that sales channel.

Christian Klepp  18:43

Absolutely, absolutely. What do you think are the biggest obstacles? Yeah, in terms of like, when B to B services organizations productize, and how can they overcome these obstacles?

Eisha Armstrong  18:57

Yeah, good question. So one common one I see is this fear of cannibalization, and I’ve been talking about this for years, but it’s the idea that if we offer what tends to be a lower priced, productized offering, it’s going to cannibalize our higher priced, bespoke, custom services. And that may be true if you are selling it to a market segment who prefers, is willing to take that trade off, is willing to pay less for something that is less customized. But there are a lot of ways to mitigate that risk of cannibalization. So the first one is to think of your more productized offerings is something that serves a different market segment, perhaps one that’s more price sensitive, more interested in DIY, for example, or one that has more internal, internal capabilities. So can DIY something that you would, you would normally do for them, the other way. And this is what we see with a lot of companies that are successful with productization as a strategy is to develop productized offerings that complement your services, not replace your services. So what is something that could be a maintenance product that can maintain the changes that perhaps your professional services team have implemented within an organization, or what’s a step on product that might be the first thing that a company tries before they then consume your higher priced services. So thinking about productized offerings as complementing your services and perhaps even being bundled with them, is a way to mitigate that risk of cannibalization. So that’s a that’s a very big obstacle. Common objection I get when we talk about go to market is, how do we make sure this doesn’t cannibalize our services revenue? That’s a big one. And then I think the other one is, is you talked about this earlier kind of the mindset shift that has to take place. So you know what makes a B2B professional services firm great, the cultural attributes that makes them great may make them a terrible product company. And I’m thinking of things like, our deliverables always have to be perfect, or we always have to know the answer. Because if you’re taking an iterative test and learn kind of, you know, lean product approach, you have to be okay with making mistakes and learning from failure. You have to be okay with putting out things that are not quite yet perfect so that you can get market feedback and decide whether or not you want to further develop them. You have to be okay with not knowing the answer and looking to your market to give you feedback. So pretty putting on that that learner’s hat, instead of always being the expert. And those are big cultural shifts that, again, can take years to make if you’re going to pursue this strategy of productization.

Christian Klepp  22:09

Yeah. I mean, not to put those folks down, but it is scary, right? Making this kind of shift. Like, as you said, it’s scary because there’s that constant fear of like, well, what if we fail, right? What if this doesn’t work? What would we have spent all this time, effort and investment on and then it’s not working? So, I mean, you know, going back to your point, the fears are legitimate…

Eisha Armstrong  22:36

Of course.

Christian Klepp  22:37

And they are grounded, I suppose they’re grounded in well, but we’ve always been doing it this way for the past. How many decades like, Why does it need to change now? Right? So you have, you have to address that, right?

Eisha Armstrong  22:49

Yeah. And also you have to look at their, how these firms are capitalized. I mean, they’re not going out and raising money from venture investors, so they’re, they’re having to either reduce distributions from partners or take money out of, you know, free cash flow, and, you know, not invest in other areas of growth or capabilities. And so for them, like the risks are very real and that’s why we work very hard. And this is what I talk all about in my first book is, how do you de-risk investment in productization? And the way that you de-risk investment in productization is doing that test and learn, rapid iteration, getting market feedback, putting out prototypes and concepts before you invest in development, getting beta customers to help fund product development, things like that, versus, you know what a typical startup might do, which is, yeah, spend other people’s money. Yeah.

Christian Klepp  23:54

Yep, absolutely, absolutely, okay. This next question is a little bit more top level, because I know there are no instant miracles here, right, but let’s just say, for the sake of conversation, right? How can B to B companies successfully commercialize packaged services and new products, and how can they get to revenue, I’m going to say faster and more efficiently.

Eisha Armstrong  24:20

Yeah, so it goes back to kind of what I call the five levers, and I alluded to them at the beginning. The first one is really choosing your target market segment or segments carefully and understanding their needs very, very well in their buyer journey. So it’s all about customer understanding, market segmentation. First lever. Second is the monetization strategy. So how are you going to price and package so that you are not under pricing? What you’re putting out in the marketplace, you’re pricing based on value. You’re increasing the likelihood of renewal. Things like that third lever, is the marketing so squarely speaking to your audience, Christian, do you have a multi channel marketing plan that’s ready to generate the volume of leads that a more productized approach, which usually is a lower price point, is going to need, especially if you’re targeting a different market segment that you’ve targeted in the past? And do you have a product marketing capabilities? So marketing is the third lever. Fourth lover is that sales channel. So making sure that your sales channel is equipped to sell products. People who’ve spent their entire career selling bespoke services usually don’t have the skill set needed to do value based selling that product sales require. And then the last one is renewability. So are you investing, if it’s a renewable product, has the product been designed to be renewable? Are you investing in customer success? Are you orienting the firm around lifetime value? So those five levers are really kind of the keys, based on our research, to successfully commercializing productized offerings.

Christian Klepp  26:08

Definitely all great points, I would say, like with point number five, that’s one where I see a lot of companies faltering, even the big ones right now, I won’t name names, but I feel like a lot of them will only reach out to you once you threaten to leave and terminate the contract, and then they’ll have their team on you and like, Okay, well, what can we do to help? Right? But the customer support experience itself is an absolute exercise and futility. And what I mean by that is like they’re just these processes and systems in place that completely frustrate the customer, yeah, to the point where they’re like, Okay, you know what I’m done. I’ve got option B over here, right? And it’s just unfortunate that not all, but many companies, wait till it gets to that point, and it doesn’t have to be that way, right?

Eisha Armstrong  26:57

Right. Yeah. And I think you know your use of the term customer support versus customer success is interesting because that’s a different way of thinking about it. Customer Support is usually reactive, so I’m waiting until a customer reaches out and says they have a problem. Versus customer success is proactive. Looking at usage of the product, how do we get the customer to use more of it. What additional features can we be adding or subtracting or changing in order to make the product more successful? So it’s a much more proactive posture than a reactive customer support.

Christian Klepp  27:34

Absolutely, absolutely okay. You know the drill, actionable tips, right? So not that you want to give everything away here, right? But just imagine that there is a B to B marketer listening to this interview. And we’ve seen from the past that there are people paying attention, right? But what are like say three to five things? Let’s just say, for instance, the company has already decided to, you know, launch these productized offerings. What are some things that B to B marketers can do to build this marketing engine that helps to generate enough leads to achieve these targets for productized offerings?

Eisha Armstrong  28:10

Yeah, well, I’m probably not telling them anything new, but again, you’d be surprised. But if they’re at a traditional B to B services company that is now trying to offer products, the first thing I say to the marketer is, what changes are you’re making to your website? Because most product buyers are doing a lot of pre buying research online before they even talk to a sales person. So you want to make sure that your website is structured in a way that people can tell that you also have products in addition to your services, and it’s got enough information about those products that they can do their own research so that they become leads for you. So that’s the first one, and again, you would be shocked at how many B to B services firms who are trying to productize that we work with their websites still look like all they do is bespoke, custom services. So that’s why I mentioned that as kind of a good piece of low hanging fruit. The second one, because so much product buying happens before talking to a salesperson, is to make sure that there’s good product marketing content that’s publicly available on your website, through other channels, so that you you’ve got a lot of information out there that can be found by buyers who are doing product research. And then so you asked for three to five, probably third one is think really hard about do you, do you really have product marketing skills, or do you need to bring in somebody from the outside, either a new FTE or, you know, a fractional person, to do that for you, because it’s a different skill set than marketing Services.

Christian Klepp  29:52

Absolutely, absolutely. It sounds to me like you’re saying producing enough content out there that helps to. It helps to give the so called, like potential prospect, potential customer, enough information to help move them along in that buying journey, right, to help them make a more informed decision. To give your company that that credibility and help build that trust, that yes, you are probably the right person to work with, or right company rather, yeah.

Eisha Armstrong  30:22

Exactly, yeah.

Christian Klepp  30:23

Absolutely, absolutely. You brought this up earlier in the conversation, and a light bulb just went on in my head. I mean, this is a, this is a podcast interview in 2024 and you know, I do need to ask you this question about productization and AI, how do you see those working together, and what’s your advice?

Eisha Armstrong  30:45

So, you know what generative AI certainly has gotten a lot of headlines in how it’s going to replace especially professional services. So you know, different firms like Goldman Sachs did a big study about a year, year and a half ago, looking at different job categories and which ones were most likely to be disrupted by AI and things like legal services, engineering services, graphic design, obviously, coding, things like that, are all things where AI is making rapid improvements in being able to do that. Now it doesn’t mean that you don’t need a human need a human to oversee it and contextualize and make sure the quality is there and to train the models, but that that is certainly an area that we see a lot of companies we work with bringing them to productization, because they’re realizing they can use AI to automate, perhaps lower value tasks that they’ve been doing, and it now frees their professionals up to solve new problems. And they would like to think about, how can they solve these new problems in a different way, perhaps in a more scalable way, leveraging this new technology, and they don’t have the kind of product mindset internally to do it themselves. So that’s where we’re seeing demand. And again, I think it’s, it’s less about, oh, AI is going to take away all these jobs and professional services, and now you can slash your head count by 50% or whatever at your law firm. It’s more about, you can now think differently about the problems you solve for customers, and use this technology to go to market in a different way, and hopefully a more scalable way than you have in the past.

Christian Klepp  32:31

Yeah, you really touched on some great points there, and I do agree with that. It’s using AI in a way that it helps your organization to become more efficient and faster and remove… or it helps you to do these mundane tasks, yeah, so that it frees up your actual bandwidth, so that you can focus on solving something that’s well, that does require human intervention. Let’s put it that way, right? I can’t remember which company it was the other day. It was either Walmart or Amazon, one of those two that they they put up. The headline basically said that they’re hiring, like, 1000s of AI sellers, right?

Eisha Armstrong  33:10

Interesting. I miss that. Yeah.

Christian Klepp  33:11

Case in point. I’ll have to find the link and send it to you after this. But, um, and that was interesting. But, you know, again, we’re looking at it from that perspective. Are they replacing humans? I mean, to a certain extent they are. But are those jobs, I think is the better question. Are those jobs that humans want to do? Right. Would be doing?

Eisha Armstrong  33:31

Exactly, yeah.

Christian Klepp  33:33

Right? Okay, so here comes the soapbox question. So on the topic of commercializing product offerings. Okay, this topic specifically, what is a status quo that you passionately disagree with and why?

Eisha Armstrong  33:49

Yeah, so I think one is that B to B services firms can rely solely on their existing clients and network for growth and certainly, there are lots of examples of B to B services, firms that can rely on existing clients and network for maintaining the, you know, the revenue that they have. But if they really want to grow, they should think about, you know, are there different market segments that they can move into or completely different problems that they can solve for clients. And that’s just one where I think marketing in particular, speaking back to your audience, Christian, is so important, because they can reveal new market segments and new needs that are out there that might be logical next steps to take if you do want to grow your organization, and if you’re targeting a new market segment, you’re going to need marketing in order to build brand recognition, to build those relationships with them. Uh, so there’s a big demand there, if in for marketing, if you’re going to grow using new market segments.

Christian Klepp  35:08

100% agree with that. It’s also because we work with clients who have come to us and said, like, Okay, this is the reason why we need help. Because we we’ve built this business up for many years, decades, so on and so forth. And it was through word of mouth and through our network and through referrals, etc, etc. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I certainly built my business that way. But at some point that’ll dry up, right? That’ll dry up, and especially if you want to scale to your point, Eisha, is you have to, you might well have to venture into these new, new industry segments, these new verticals where you don’t have contacts, where you don’t know anybody, right? A lot of these folks that come to your website, this website traffic, this is all cold outreach, right? So, yeah, what do you do then?

Eisha Armstrong  36:04

And especially since more and more, again, when we see this, obviously with products, but also with services, more and more of the purchase decisions are being professionalized, yeah, so not just going with the services provider, because so and so went to, you know, university with them, or used to work with them. But actually, you know, taking it through a professional procurement process, and that professionalism of buying services demands a more productized marketing approach.

Christian Klepp  36:38

Correct. And you know, if you’re working in my space, which is like marketing and branding. You know, I’ve been in situations before where we don’t always, necessarily get to talk to the said customer directly or the said prospect. It’s done through in through an agency that vets the vendors, right.

Eisha Armstrong  36:56

Right. Oh yeah.

Christian Klepp  36:56

So there is, there is no existing relationship there, right? You’ve been, you’ve been selected. And, you know, these are people that you’ve never had any business dealings with, right?

Eisha Armstrong  37:04

That’s a great example of professionalizing the buying process.

Christian Klepp  37:06

Absolutely, absolutely okay. Now, here comes the bonus question. Now, if memory serves me well, I have it on good authority, right? I have it on good authority that you like climbing mountains, right? Literally and figuratively I’m gonna say, but we’re talking about climbing an actual mountain here, right? So, which mountain Have you always dreamt of climbing and why?

Eisha Armstrong  37:33

Yeah, so Mount Rainier I’m going to attempt in July of 2025, yes, and it’ll be my second glacial climb. So I did a glacial climb this past summer on Mount Baker too, which is lower altitude. It’s in the Cascades north of Seattle. Lower altitude, the crevasses are not as large, just to kind of warm up large enough, right? Yeah. And so, so that went very well. So Rainier will be the next one. And then, honestly, Christian, I’m just going to take it, kind of one mountain at a time and see how that one goes, and then decide where to go from there. But it’s… had the good fortune of turning 50 earlier this year.

Christian Klepp  38:22

Oh, well, congratulations.

Eisha Armstrong  38:24

Thank you. It’s, you know, for those people have turned 50, it’s, you know, it’s a pretty obviously big milestone, but it starts to make you realize that your body won’t be able to do the things it can currently do forever. So I’m trying to be a little bit more thoughtful about planning ahead and choosing my next adventure. Yeah, Mount Rainier. That’s the next one on my list. Yeah.

Christian Klepp  38:50

what a great goal to have. And maybe, maybe your goal in the next 10 years is to is to climb Everest. Who knows?

Eisha Armstrong  38:56

Don’t think so. Again, every time I saw people, tell people I’ve taken up mountaineering. They’re like, Oh, you’re gonna climb Mount Everest. I’m like, you know, I just… the ROI just is not seen there.

Christian Klepp  39:07

It’s a different league, isn’t it?

Eisha Armstrong  39:09

Yeah, you know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Never say never, but…

Christian Klepp  39:14

Never say never. But that’s a great one to have.

Eisha Armstrong  39:17

I’m actively working towards, yeah,

Christian Klepp  39:18

That’s a great one. It’s a great goal to have. And, you know what, Aisha, if I would just hazard a guess that if you actually, like, you know, you finish this climb and you get, you get to the summit, you might just have an idea for another book. I don’t know.

Eisha Armstrong  39:34

I actually do, yeah, I yeah, I do. I always have a couple, but, you know, I need, I need a couple months to kind of, of course, recoup and recover. I’ll see what happens.

Christian Klepp  39:45

Absolutely well. Eisha, once again, as I expected, this conversation was dynamite. So thanks again for coming on and you know, for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. Congratulations on turning 50, and congratulations on your new book. So just, you know, quick introduction to yourself, how folks can get in touch with you and where they can get your book.

Eisha Armstrong  40:05

Yeah, so the company I co found is called Vecteris.com, and as you can imagine, we’ve been working with B to B professional services firms for almost seven years now, helping them do these things. In my spare time. I like to… I’m a certified yoga teacher. Like to, obviously, climb mountains. I’m a mom to two teenagers, yeah. So staying busy. I love to connect with people on LinkedIn. So if they just mentioned they heard me on podcast, would love to connect. And yeah, Commercialize is… here it is. Wherever books are sold, Amazon, Barnes and Noble target, Apple books, Audible, all the good things.

Christian Klepp  40:53

Fantastic, fantastic. And I forgot to tell you this Eish, I got a little surprise over the weekend. (Showing the Commercialize book)

Eisha Armstrong  41:04

Oh, it came! I’m so glad.

Christian Klepp  41:05

Sorry. I’m holding up the commercialized book with.

Eisha Armstrong  41:10

It’s a great, it’s a great orange color. I love the way the orange turned out on the cover. So definitely, yeah, definitely. Check it out. Lots of good stories and,

Christian Klepp  41:19

Fantastic

Eisha Armstrong  41:20

Tips and tricks.

Christian Klepp  41:21

Fantastic. Thanks so much for sending that. I would ask you for your autograph, a virtual one we’ll have to do for now.

Eisha Armstrong  41:28

Absolutely.

Christian Klepp  41:29

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

Eisha Armstrong  41:36

Sounds good Christian. Thanks so much for having me.

Christian Klepp  41:39

Bye for now.

Eisha Armstrong  41:40

Bye. Bye.

SPEAKERS

Jamie Woodbridge, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:01

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Jamie Woodbridge. He is one of the co-founders of The Inbox Club, an email marketing agency with one mission: Get real results for brands with email marketing without all the boring stuff. Jamie has over 13 years of sales and marketing experience. Who can turn your newsletter from a box-ticking exercise into a truly engaging piece of content that nurtures and converts your contacts. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketer’s mission is. Mr. Jamie Woodbridge, welcome to the show.

Jamie Woodbridge  00:41

Thanks Christian, thanks for having me on.

Christian Klepp  00:43

I’m really looking forward to this conversation, Jamie, but before we jump in, I’d like to give a shout out to Mr. Anthony Leung for the introduction. Thank you, sir. It’s all on you. Okay, fantastic. Let’s, let’s dive into this conversation, because I think the audience is going to get a lot of value out of this. So you know, you, you’re on a mission. I’m gonna just quote what you said on your LinkedIn profile to help B to B companies develop and implement content that is interesting, relevant and generates the right results. And for this conversation, I’d like to focus on a topic that I think is going to be very useful to B2B marketers, and that’s how to implement better email marketing campaigns for B2B. So I’m going to kick off this conversation with this question, where do most email marketing campaigns fall flat, and why?

Jamie Woodbridge  01:28

It’s a great question. Christian. And we at The Inbox Club, we’re very passionate about this subject, and actually this question was something that we asked ourselves when we created our email marketing agency, because we saw it happen so often. And so when we talk about how, why do email marketing campaigns fall flat, it’s usually because of one of two things. Firstly, they’re boring, right? And so this was something that we saw a lot of… in newsletters that were going out, particularly from B to B companies, they were just too boring, and that’s sometimes about the kind of content that was in them, but also the way that they were written. So that was one thing. And the second thing is about the audience, and about gathering the right audience, and then once you’ve gathered that right audience, talking to them in a way that’s relevant. So those are two ways in which we see B2B email marketing campaigns fall flat. And hopefully we can explore both of those areas a little bit more today. And as I said, you’ll have to catch me if I’m waffling, because it’s something I’m really passionate about, so we’ll continue to talk about but, yeah, excited to be here. Thanks again.

Christian Klepp  02:44

Yeah, absolutely. And waffle away. Well, those are the fantastic way to kick off this conversation. Good points, and I’m gonna play the devil’s advocate now, because I’ve seen this a lot on LinkedIn. I actually got into it, and I would say, a very polite argument (laugh), for lack of a better description, with someone on LinkedIn on the topic of boring, on the topic of boring content, right? And basically this individual was arguing that boring wins at the end of the day in B to B something that I passionately disagree with. But over to you, define boring for us?

Jamie Woodbridge  03:23

Absolutely, I think boring is more nuanced than you would originally assume. I think what we mean, or what I mean certainly by boring, is that it’s not relevant. Because ultimately, if it’s not relevant, then it’s boring for you, because it’s not resonating with you. It’s not the right content. So when we talk about boring, we talk about it in a sense of, okay, maybe, how are you writing? So, you know, are you writing in an entertaining way? And that’s something that we like to do at the inbox club and for our clients. But also, what are you writing about? And you know, it’s got to be the right fit for the audience. Because if I was to pick out an example, someone who subscribes to a newsletter about Napoleonic military strategy, some people find that incredibly interesting. Some people find it boring, right? So when we talk about boring, we talk about it not matching the audience. The content isn’t matching the audience. But I would love to have a conversation with a guy that you had a polite disagreement about with, because I would like to hear what his definition of boring is. Because, in a way, I can kind of see his point right, in terms of, you know, getting a content strategy nailed down, sticking to it and doing it consistently. You know, maybe that’s what he meant as boring. But I just, I still think that there’s a place for us to be entertaining and for us to write passionately and in a very conversational and authentic way, as well as getting the content strategy right as well.

Christian Klepp  05:01

Absolutely, absolutely. That’s great point. And, oh yes, by the way, I’m one of those people that finds a Napoleonic military strategy interesting. (laugh) But you brought up something that I’d like to dig into a little bit deeper, Jamie, if you don’t mind, on the topic of entertainment or entertaining content in B to B, right? What’s your take on injecting humor into B to B content?

Jamie Woodbridge  05:27

I love it. I do it so I’m quite active on LinkedIn, and all of my posts, I’ll try and be funny. You know, sometimes I’m funnier than I am. Other times, in all of our own marketing, we try and inject humor. Humor is a great tool for a load of different types of content. I think B to C is obviously really good at it, right? You know, they, if you see a lot of the B to C or D to C brands, they will use humor as a ballast in their content. And this is something that’s not an original thought from me, but when we talk about B to B audience, you know, we are still talking to people, and it’s just humor is a great way to connect with people, to resonate with people, but we’ve got to balance it out with the brand as well, right? So if your brand, if you’re running a pediatric surgery, humor might not always be well placed, or if you’re running a funeral home or something, you know, so we have to balance it out with branding as well, and even some of the more professional services, maybe say lawyers, accountants, I would say there is still a place for humor, but we’ve got to balance it out with the brand guidelines. So I’m a big advocate of using humor. It shouldn’t be something that is your differentiator, and it shouldn’t be the main pivot of your of your content strategy, for sure. I think it’s an embellishment, but it’s a very valuable one.

Christian Klepp  06:53

As you said, I suppose it depends on the situation, it depends on the vertical and depends on the target audience, right?

Jamie Woodbridge  06:59

For sure, absolutely, yeah.

Christian Klepp  07:00

I’m gonna move us on to the next question, and I’m sure you’ll have an opinion about this. But where do you see the untapped potential in email marketing?

Jamie Woodbridge  07:11

So I talked about a little bit earlier about how one of our passions is in entertaining, exciting, relevant content, right? That’s kind of one of the cornerstones of what we do at our agency. The other cornerstone. So we’re founded on these two cornerstones. The other one is about first party data. And I think gathering high quality first party data in the form of an email list is an incredibly untapped opportunity for most B to B businesses. I heard a chat, I can’t remember his name, on another podcast talking about how an email list is probably a business’s most valuable asset, or at least one of their most valuable assets. So if we talk about it in those times, we start to understand the importance of gathering an email list. There’s a couple of reasons why it is so important. One, it’s the data that you own as a business. So it doesn’t matter if Elon Musk buys a platform and you lose a following overnight, or your following is impacted. It doesn’t matter if the platform gets banned in the US because it’s owned by China. You know, these things could be fragile, and you could lose audiences overnight. So if you own first party data, you own the email list, it’s yours to control within the confines of data privacy laws, etc. The other thing is that you could speak to your whole list at any time or at any point, and this was something that you’re battling with on social media platforms, for instance, where you’re battling with an algorithm, and your content might be shown to you know, 5% 10% whatever it is, of your following. With an email list, you can contact all of them at any point, and you just have to make sure that your content is relevant enough, entertaining enough to be able to inspire opens, and then the only thing. The only other thing you’re battling with is perhaps spam restrictions, where you end up in the junk folder, etc. But those things are much easily or much easier to remedy than battling with an algorithm on social media.

Christian Klepp  09:19

Absolutely, absolutely. And I’m glad that you brought up the topic of first party data, and we’re gonna talk about that later on in the conversation, right? So moving on to the next question, and it’s again regarding email marketing for B to B, what are the pitfalls that B to B marketers should avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Jamie Woodbridge  09:40

Yeah, I think one of the pitfalls for me is having this element of vanity around your subscriber count, and so chasing a high number of subscribers so that you can almost boast about the fact that you’ve got X amount of subscribers, where I actually think it’s much more important to focus on a smaller number of subscribers that are really high quality. And what do I mean by high quality? One they should be, they should match your ICP or your ideal customer profile. So be really clear on that, and gather those people on your list. And then the second thing is, is that they should be engaged. So what we want to do is keep everyone on your list engaged through great content and through creating content that is relevant for them. Because you’ve created this persona, this ideal subscriber. So for me, that’s a pitfall. And when people come to us and they need help with list growth and building their email list, we’re very clear to make sure that we are getting high quality subscribers, not a high number of subscribers. You know, there is a key difference there. So yeah, I would say that that’s that’s one of them. And again, that goes back to one of our cornerstones about building first party data, which you mentioned we’re going to talk about a little bit later on.

Christian Klepp  11:06

Absolutely, absolutely. You know what, Jamie, you just made me think of another question now as you were talking, and I think it’s very, very relevant to email marketing, and it’s because we all experience it, I certainly do, but it’s this, the email sequences and the cadence, yeah, at which these emails go out. I’m not asking you for the the secret recipe here, but I’m asking you for what, in your experience, tends to be the right number of emails, the right cadence, right? Because sometimes you get, you get these spammy emails and you get a follow up, like within a day and then two days later. So it’s almost like you get five or six emails until they finally break up with you, right?

Jamie Woodbridge  11:52

I don’t mind giving you the secret recipe, because it’s it’s not that easy to put in action. The secret recipe is testing, so we want to make sure that whatever we choose or whatever we decide upon is our cadence, that it’s something that’s decided upon through testing. And that’s one of the beautiful things about email marketing as well, right? Is that the presentation of the engagement metrics are so transparent. You know who’s is, who is opening, who is clicking. And so you can test this, this send schedule. And some topics can get away with emailing, perhaps even multiple times a day. Some topics once a month. And I would say once a month is usually a minimum for us. We usually don’t. We usually advise clients that they should be sending at least once a month. My co-founder, he runs a fantasy football newsletter, and the idea of that newsletter is that they send tips on what you should be doing your with your fantasy football team. And so it’s a hobbyist newsletter. It means, and it’s very deadline-specific, and that newsletter goes out three times a week, but for some B to B businesses, three times a week will be overkill. So again, we’re going back to that, thinking about the audience, thinking about the purpose that you’re serving with your newsletter, and how often communicating with that audience kind of ticks the box of the content strategy that you’ve chosen. So I don’t know if it’s Napoleonic military strategy. I’ll have to ask people who enjoy that kind of content how often they’ll want to read about it. But like I said, start sending emails and the data will tell you the story.

Christian Klepp  13:40

Absolutely yeah. To answer your question, I would say every 30 minutes. No, I’m just kidding. All right, moving us on to the next question, right? So talk to us about the importance of the following as it relates to email marketing. And I’m happy to repeat because there are three points, yeah, so having a deep understanding of your target audience, and you’ve kind of brought that up already, having the right strategy and approach. So obviously, we’re talking about the content plan here, and having the right messaging and call to action, right it’s not always just book a demo call.

Jamie Woodbridge  14:15

Yes, I’m going to try and remember all three of these Christian so we’ve got, we’ve got number one, which is understanding your audience. Hopefully, by the time someone decides to start sending email campaigns, they already have identified their audience and will know their audience very well, because that audience are the people they serve as customers. So hopefully they have done that work prior to to deciding, okay, we’re going to send a newsletter. And if they haven’t, then they’ve got a more fundamental issue, you know, as to, other than, are my email marketing campaigns going to fall flat? They’ve got a more fundamental issue is, does my business really understand who it serves? When it comes to email marketing, specifically understanding the audience is really key. You need to know who they are. You need to know what problems they have. You need to know what opportunities they have, and you need to understand your relationship with each of those points as a business, and how you can help them, how you can offer value. Because the newsletter needs to do that thing. Do that for those people, understanding an audience also helps with how you communicate with them as well, not just what you’re saying, but when and how you’re saying it. For instance, if you’re targeting if your ideal client or your ideal subscriber is someone in a C-suite role, you can assume that they are incredibly busy. It’s the reason why executive summaries exist, so that you want to keep your newsletter short and snappy, perhaps in the morning before their before their morning starts at maybe 8am 8:30 or something. And, you know, make it really easy and keep it short, sweet and snappy, and offer the value up front without burying the lead, you know? So it’s understanding your audience is key to not just what you’re saying, but how you you’re communicating it as well.

Christian Klepp  16:09

Fantastic. The second point is strategy and approach.

Jamie Woodbridge  16:13

So I touched on it a little bit there. But once you’ve understood who your audience is and your ideal subscriber, then we start to think, okay, what are we going to send these people? So if we know what their problems are, if we know what opportunities they have as a person in their in their job, then we can start to understand how my business can serve them, help solve those problems or help capture those opportunities. And then what we want to do is, in our email marketing campaigns, we want to talk about that, and we don’t want to give everything away, right? Because we’ve got to sell something at the end of the day. But your newsletter should have a proposition of its own. It’s almost like a gateway drug to your service, right is it’s the foot in the door. It’s how you demonstrate expertise in your field and you develop familiarity and trust. So your newsletter should have this proposition. Now, if we go back to the C suite idea, we talked about how they might be incredibly busy individuals, and we talked a little bit how we might target them. Okay, well, maybe I run a project management tool and what I’m going to send them each day or each week in the morning. Here’s your time saving tip for today. You know. Here’s how you can save an hour today. You know. So something that’s helping them something that’s welcome in the inbox every time it lands. So think about once you understand your audience. Okay, now let’s develop a content strategy. What are we going to send that’s going to resonate with them.

Christian Klepp  17:49

And then it’s the right messaging and call to action?

Jamie Woodbridge  17:52

Yeah, perfect. So I guess this ties in nicely with, you know, putting with what we’ve just spoken about with those other two points. Once we have the audience down in the content strategy, then it’s about how we write to these people. And I talked a little bit there about how your newsletter should have a proposition, you know, you’ve got to, you’ve got to sell the idea of being subscribed to your newsletter or your email campaigns, because it’s… you know, it’s a privilege to be in someone’s inbox. It’s a privilege to own their data and to have permission to email them. So we want to make sure that we aren’t that… that we are extolling the virtues of being subscribed to this newsletter. What’s the value you’re going to offer? And then call to actions is a great point, because when we talk about a call to action, we want to make sure that whatever we do, whatever we ask people to do, is moving them meaningfully through the funnel. Okay, so at this point, they’re already in your funnel, to a certain degree, in your marketing funnel, because they’ve chosen to subscribe, which is a meaningful step forward. They’re not just a stranger anymore. So when we put in a CTA, we want to make sure that we move them along the funnel in some way. And sometimes that might be book a demo, and sometimes that’s too big a step. So we might want to think about, how can we get them to be engaged even further with our business? You know, maybe we’re running a webinar series, maybe we have a podcast that we want them to listen to, whatever it is. We want to move them into the next piece of the puzzle when it comes to the marketing funnel, I’m not a massive fan of moving people backwards in the funnel, and so when I talk about moving people backwards, directing them to a social media post or directing them to a blog post, can be bit of a move backwards. We want a meaningful step forward. So when we ask people to take action.

Christian Klepp  19:44

Absolutely, absolutely no, I agree with you. You know, moving them a step back, well, that not only prolongs the journey for them, it might also hopefully not, but it might also like frustrate them, like it will lead to a bad user experience, so to speak, a bad journey, in a sense, right?

Jamie Woodbridge  20:04

Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Christian Klepp  20:06

Moving on to the next question. So you touched a little bit earlier, but like talk to us about how the following impact email marketing, so data privacy, so for example, GDPR, and we can throw in the topic of first party data as well. And the second point AI, because, you know, it’s 2024, and if I didn’t ask you a question about AI, then where would we be.

Jamie Woodbridge  20:31

Of course, yeah, you got to expect the AI to rear its head at some point. And for good reason as well. Let’s talk about data privacy first. It’s one of those things that had marketers rolling their eyes a little bit, especially here in Europe when GDPR came in, and it was this kind of panic stations approach, and was seen as perhaps a little bit frustrating for some people as well. What I will say about data privacy is that it is a good thing for marketing, because we have people who come to us where they might have, I won’t name any names, but where they have might scraped some data, or maybe even purchase some data, which is a big, big gray area. We usually turn those people away, because what we aren’t doing is we aren’t gathering an audience that wants to hear from us. And when you’ve got these data privacy rules coming in, say, GDPR, what that’s actually doing is it’s curating people’s inboxes. It’s getting rid of the noise a little bit, and it’s kind of making sure that whatever is coming through is welcome. So you know, it’s not in a perfect place at the moment, but it actually is helpful from my point of view. And it goes back to gathering an email list where I said earlier about people chasing the high number, as opposed to focusing on making sure that their subscribers are of high quality. It kind of puts the responsibility on the business to think about how they’re gathering their email list a little bit more. You know, instead of just scraping, you know, 1000s of email addresses and kind of spraying and praying and, you know, quoting and hoping and just hoping, you know that something comes in, we are thinking now about building almost a community in some sense. You know, if we’re gathering this first party data we’re gathering this email audience, you know, we’re only a couple of steps away then from building a community. And community, community marketing is something that’s, that’s kind of big right now as well. So that’s why I like data privacy and why I don’t roll my eyes when people talk about it, or, you know, I think it’s a good thing. And, yes.

Jamie Woodbridge  22:45

The other thing you asked was AI, right?

Christian Klepp  22:46

I did, yeah.

Jamie Woodbridge  22:48

So AI, look, I’m a non techie person, right? So I’m a marketer and I’m a sales person, but I do have kind of two perspectives, which people will have heard of these from other people. So they’re not kind of groundbreaking things. But firstly, uh, content generation is the first and most obvious thing that that will be impacted by AI and is being impacted by AI. So writing the emails, I actually, I’m not against it. If you can make these AI tools do it in a way that sounds like you and sounds like your brand. And it is on point when it comes to being authentic and personable. My feeling, having experimented with these things and seeing people experiment with these tools at the moment, is that it’s a little bit off. It’s too far off to be there yet. So in terms of using AI for email marketing campaigns, it’s great for ideation, it’s great for brainstorming, it’s great for research, as long as you’re checking the sources and make sure it’s  quoting accurately, because sometimes it doesn’t. When it comes to writing the content, I think you’re much better off writing it yourself at the moment. It’s, you can make it sound like you, you can… I heard a great guy talk about AI and how it’s not very good at coming up with the unexpected. And that’s something that humans are really good at doing. It’s coming up with the unexpected and coming up with this great storytelling. And I do think that if you aren’t able to write, which I would challenge, because I think most people can write how they talk. And if you run a business or you run a marketing department, you’re able to talk in an engaging way, in some way, shape or form. So writing how you talk is the first step. But if you aren’t able to do that, engaging a copywriter to help you do it. You’re far better off than using AI tools right now. The other way in which AI will impact email marketing is around the more technical back end. So we’re talking about algorithms that will help you target people better. You know, if we have these AI tools that will start to paint this picture of how people are engaging with your emails to a better degree, in terms of what time they’re opening, how long they’re spending and then to help you manage your send schedule, I think that’s one thing that might come in and we are seeing kind of this the beginnings that at the moment as well. So that assistance, because that is a big area for people. It’s like, well, how often should I send, and what time of day should I send? And what, you know, what day should I send? And all of those are probably some of the most Googled questions when it comes to email marketing. And so AI tools that will help you do that, I think will be something that’s that we’ll see and more and more of.

Christian Klepp  25:37

Great answer. And you kind of set yourself up for a follow up question there, if we’re, if we’ve been talking at length now about AI tools, if you can just what are some of these AI tools that you’ve you’ve tested out or you’re working with, and which ones would you recommend for email marketing?

Jamie Woodbridge  25:55

Yeah, for sure that we aren’t using that full a suite of AI tools, if I’m honest. We in with regards to running our agency, there are a few tools that we use that are incredibly helpful. ChatGPT is the most obvious one. We use it fairly often when it comes to researching, when it comes to ideation. Not very often. We don’t use it for image generation that much openAI, but we are using it for ideation. We’re not using it for content generation. I wouldn’t be against it if it makes some leaps and bounds eventually, but right now, it’s nowhere near where it used to be. And you know, as copywriters, we need to be at the top of our game in that respect. Another AI tool where we use quite often, which isn’t necessarily email marketing specific, but around, you know, note-taking apps in meetings, etc. And actually, for a long time, I didn’t adopt one of those tools, but now that I do the analysis that it gives me in the background after each call and the summary, huge time saving for us there. And I would encourage anyone that’s not using a note taker in their meetings, especially for those ones, but that have action points and minutes that get written up afterwards, I would definitely think about bringing one of those in. We use Firefly for that. We There are obviously native AI tools that we’re seeing on a lot of these platforms as well. So MailChimp is one that’s a platform that’s using at the moment, they have tools. I’m not on commission, by the way, but MailChimp has tools within their platform that will you put your website in for your business, and it will start to automatically generate, using AI, some design templates for you for your emails. Those are a little bit off at the moment from a finished product, but it gives you a starting point, which is great. And then there, you know, a lot of these platforms also have these kind of AI tools and tips that they’re kind of operating in the background. We have to be really careful with what we’re using there, though, because at the moment these, a lot of these tools are too early on to rely on, is what I would say. And you can see that with a platform like LinkedIn. You know what I hear, what I see, people being frustrated at how primitive the AI tools are on LinkedIn at the moment. You know, so you’ve got these suggested replies or suggested comments on people’s posts. So you’ve got these. Even suggested rewrite this in AI, you know, and it’s it… I think that’s a bad thing for for that platform. So we have to be careful that we aren’t just using it because it’s something that’s trendy and in right now, but it’s actually serving us a purpose, and it means that whoever’s receiving our emails. Gets a better quality email at the end of the day, because that’s the only thing from us.

Christian Klepp  28:45

That’s the key phrase right there, serving us a purpose, right? You don’t want to just use it because it’s the next shiny object. Or, you know, like a lot of people, they just want to chase the next hack, the newest hack. You know, throw in whatever analogy you want, the easy way out, the shortcut, right? It needs to have something that will make your work, that will complement your work, or make it more efficient, right? And help improve the quality, help save you some time, but not completely replace the work that you do.

Jamie Woodbridge  29:20

Yeah, absolutely. I think, actually, you know, if I was to sum that up, I think someone… a talk that I listened to, I must get better at remembering the names of people who taught me these wise things. But someone mentioned, you know, write down the business problem that you have first and then find a tool that solves it, as opposed to, you know, coming across these tools and then finding problems for it to serve, you know, so that’s a great example of why I started using an AI note taker app, right? Because I had a problem that needed solving. And so eventually I got one in, and it serves a great purpose now, so and that, I think that could go down for any, any piece of software beyond AI, you know, write down the business problem first and then find a solution for it.

Christian Klepp  30:06

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. Okay, so we get to the part where we talk about actionable tips. So provide us with something actionable here. If somebody were listening to this conversation, what are three to five things that they could do to implement email marketing campaigns that generate better results.

Jamie Woodbridge  30:25

I’m going to go for five here Christian because we want to deliver as much value as we can to the listeners as possible. First and foremost, we’ve got to think about the subscribers and we, you know, I’ve talked about this a lot already, but what I would do is as an actionable tip here, get a piece of paper and a pen, open a Google Doc or Microsoft Word, whatever you use, and start to write down the key elements of your ideal clients or your ideal subscriber. You know, who are they? What do they do? What job do they do? What do you understand about them? What problems do they have, what pain points, you know, so that would be my first actual tip. Start to write out a profile for your ideal subscriber. The second one is now that we understand that is writing a one sentence proposition for what your newsletter will be, or what your email campaigns, marketing campaigns will be. And I can give you the example of hour one. Here is that at the inbox club, so it’s once a week, you’ll get email marketing tips that will help you send better emails, and it will take three to five minutes to read. So that’s our proposition. You know, it could be better. We probably need to work on it a little bit. But what we want to get to is that one sentence, and once we understand the audience, in our audience is email marketing managers and founders of small businesses and medium businesses. Once we understand that, then we start to build this one sentence proposition out. The next thing so number three is to make your sign up forms really, really good. So like I said, we’ve understood the audience. We understand the subscribers we want. We now have a proposition for what our newsletter will do in terms of delivering value. So let’s make our forms really good. And I would encourage anyone who is sending email marketing campaigns to have three different forms, at least an embedded form at the footer, or, even better, at the header, on the header of your website. You know, make it a really high priority call to action on your website. Secondly, a pop up. I’m a big fan of pop ups. Some people don’t put them on or put them in action because they think they’re annoying. Yes, they can be annoying. And Christians hand is up. You think you’re there. They are annoying. They are annoying, especially if you get on your mobile you’re opening a website. You get the cookies pop up, and then you get the email pop up, and you’ve not even had a chance to to even visit the website yet. So what we want to do is we want to think about, okay, let’s be more clever here with the pop up so we can put time delays on them, you know. We can say, well, they only pop up as you with once you’ve scrolled, you know, a certain way down the page. We can make sure that they only appear on certain pages. We can make sure that they only appear on exit intent. You know, there are lots of ways that you can configure a pop up to make it so that it’s not annoying. And what we want to do is we want to make sure it’s popping up at a point in which the person on a website has had enough time for the website to resonate with them before the pop up gets served. And then whatever the pop up says needs to be super relevant to get them to move. Because what we’re doing there is we’re moving them along funnel, right? We’re moving them from website visitor to email subscriber. Yes, two forms embedded pop up, and then the third form is having a landing page of its own that is just for your newsletter. And we have that, and what we use that for is we send it to people, we display that on social media, and that’s where people go to sign up. You don’t want to say, go to my website and find the sign up form. You know, make it easier for people and create a landing page for your newsletter. So make your forms really good. That was point number three. Point number four is about the your email list, going back to your email list again, and it’s about audience management first. To sum up number four succinctly here, I would say you should be cleaning your list. And this is something actually that we wrestle with our clients and people that we’re talking to quite often, because the action of reducing your subscriber count seems counter intuitive, but there’s a very good reason why you should be archiving or suppressing email subscribers. What we want to do is we want to make sure that our email list is engaged. An engaged email list is a better email list so those that have stopped engaging and you can set the parameter. Is for this yourself, you could say, Okay, someone hasn’t opened an email in the past 90 days, which is three months, and that’s a long time, especially if you’re sending, if you’re sending weekly, for example, or more than weekly. So we set that pro app so no one’s they’ve not opened the email in the past 90 days. So what we want to do is perhaps then target them with an automation and say, okay, for anyone who hasn’t opened an email in 90 days, send them this to email automation that is aimed at specifically to get them to re engage with your emails so they then become engaged again. If they go through that automation and still don’t engage, then let’s archival, suppress them. And there’s two reasons why you should do that. One is because poor engagement metrics, so low open rates, low click rates, etc, high bounce rates, small scan place, those affect your sender reputation and can harm your deliverability, ie, you’re more likely to land into the spam folder. And the second reason why we want to archive these people, if they become unengaged, is because it might reduce the bill that you’re paying your email platform. You know, because a lot of these platforms will you’ll pay per subscriber or by subscribe account, and if you archive them, I would stress, archive them. Don’t delete them. They quite often come off your bill. So you know, you’re, you’re you’re curating this list, then you’re keeping people that on there that want to be there, and so you’re not paying for people that aren’t don’t want to be there and aren’t engaging with your emails. So that’s not before, that’s clean your list, and I would do that today. Number five is about your CTAs. So the call to action, we don’t want to give to people too many options. And this is something that you know. Marketers should know at this point, if you give people too many options, they end up doing nothing. So what we want to do is we want to reduce the amount of links and calls to action in our emails. You know, I once worked with a client very briefly, who had an amazing click rate on their emails. You know, we’re talking like 40% click rate, which is huge. But when I, when I looked at their emails, they had between 50 and 75 links in their email, and what we said, what we’re thinking about, then, okay, if we’re getting the clicks, that’s fine, but what are they going because if you’ve got that many links in your email, people are probably accidentally clicking links at that point, you know, because they you your farm will land on something. So we want to make sure that whatever we’re getting people to click, that it’s something that’s really intentional, something that’s that’s really meaningful and demonstrates an affirmative action, not just, you know, an accidental click or a low quality click. So reducing the amount of actions in an email when it comes to clicking on things is great, and actually sticking to one main CTA and then repeating that through the email is probably the best practice here, I would say. And what that does it just keeps the email focused centered, and any tips that you do get are very intentional.

Christian Klepp  38:23

No, those are some fantastic tips. And you know, I’ve been scribbling furiously away here, but let me just recap for the benefit of the audience, right? That’s all these tips. So the first one you said was thinking about the subscribers. The second one was, write a one sentence proposition for what your email marketing campaign is going to be about. The third one is make your sign up forms really good, and you have three different forms, right? So you had embedded, you had pop up, and you had landing page. Number four is clean your list, and number five is regarding your CTAs. Don’t give people too many options. That’s fantastic. You know, on the topic of pop up pop up forms, I’m not entirely opposed to them. And I’ll actually give you an example of a website where I think they’ve they’ve been very clever about it, and use this time delay. HubSpot, the pop up form does not appear until about you’re about halfway down the page, on a page with an article that that is about a seven minute read. So you’re looking at about maybe after, after four minutes have elapsed, then the pop up form appears. The one I’m opposed to is you haven’t even finished reading the headline, and bam, pop up. And you keep scrolling, and the pop up follows you.

Jamie Woodbridge  39:41

Yeah, those are super annoying. I completely agree. And if anyone’s going to get pop up forms, right, it’s going to be HubSpot, you know, you know, those guys know what they’re doing. So, yeah, I completely agree. And that’s, you know, it’s got to serve. We go back to that serving a purpose, right? So if you’re using a pop up, it’s got to serve. Purpose.

Christian Klepp  40:01

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. So for this next question, love it or hate it, metrics, right? I mean, you can’t do email marketing and not look at the metrics, and you did bring it up earlier. But short of giving us this exhaustive list of metrics, just give us maybe the top three to five metrics that B to B marketers should be paying attention to if they’re implementing email marketing campaigns.

Jamie Woodbridge  40:23

Yeah, for sure. I think this is one of the beautiful things about email marketing. It’s that you can, you can really track how well they’re performing, and there’s no second guessing, you know, with with the small caveat that, you know, there’s a apple privacy thing which inflates open rates or affects open rates, sometimes, but this is one of the, one of the huge plus points for using email marketing as a channel. So there are the really obvious ones right as open rate and click rate that we could talk about a little bit here. And those are super important, right? They are. They are two of the main pillars when it comes to understanding how well that your email writing campaigns perform. I think the mistake that people often take is try is looking at those metrics in isolation. What we want to do is, we want to tell a story with these metrics. You know, if we’re talking about open rates, you know, what is it that affects open rates? It’s many things. People often attribute subject lines to open rates. But actually, subject lines is something that, you know, is only one small part of what affects whether people, if someone’s going to open your email or not. You know, the from name is also super important. You know, I will open emails that come from my mom every single time, because I can see the from name that it’s from my mom. So, you know, getting the from name right and choosing the from name that that’s that resonates more with the audience is key. Preview text is another one, and something that gets massively overlooked. By the way, preview text is that small snippet of text that you see next to the subject line as you’re in the inbox view, right? So it’s the it’s the quite often it will default to text that’s in the email, but you can edit that and put what you want, and that should support your subject line. It should be a continuation of your subject line. And then, when we talk about subject lines from names and preview text, one thing that gets massively overlooked when it comes to open rates is the reputation that you have for sending good emails, right? So if someone has received, you know, a ton of emails from you, and they’ve start to paint this image of you, of someone who sends emails that just aren’t very good, that’s obviously, no matter how good your subject line is they just won’t open your emails. They’ll fall out with you. And it happens the other way around as well. If you have this reputation for sending good emails, that will have a much bigger impact on open rates than being trying to be clever with the subject line click rates. And so we’re telling a story here with the metrics. So we want to go from open rates then to click rates. So if once people are opening them, then, is the content good enough to get them to click on, you know, is it resonating with them enough? Is it ticking enough boxes? Is it valuable enough to then for them to take a affirmative action into click? And we want to take those two into, you know, in tandem, opens and click should be working together, and that’s why we quite often get the reported metric of click through rates, which is the percentage of people that have clicked that have opened your email. So the reason why that’s so good is it’s quite easy sometimes to get a high open rate, because you can resort to cheap methods like click baiting and all of these kind of things. But what we want to do is we want to get a healthy mix of open rates and click rates. To give people an idea of what they should aim for. Look these things could be Googled, Google, whatever your industry is, and benchmark over rates, something like MailChimp, HubSpot or whatever will tell you these things. I think we should be aiming for at least 40% aspirationally, getting over 50. And if you’re an email marketing agency like we are, there’s additional pressure on you to send really good emails. Ours can vary somewhere between, you know, high 50s up to into the 70s for really good ones. So we want to be in the 40s, at least, is what I would say. Click rates. I would say you want to be somewhere, you know, 2% up to 6% again, if you get it right, like, you know, sometimes we do, and we do for our clients, it can be as high as 13 to 15% you know. So those are the kind of figures that we’re talking about here. If I was going to touch on to on one more metric Christian that doesn’t quite get talked about as a as often as click rates and open rates, is replies and forwards, and some platforms will track replies, some won’t, and almost no platforms are able to or will report on forwards, but that we should be aiming for these things, right? And I talked about metrics being one of the. The things that makes email marketing beautiful in a way, if you know, and that sounds cheesy and a bit corny, but another thing that makes email marketing beautiful is that it’s, it’s, it should be this personable communication, one to one, with your subscribers. And so when you’re writing email campaigns, it should be from one person to another, and again, someone clever, who I don’t remember the name of, said that newsletters should be less news and more letter. And so we want to make sure that we, when we when we’re sending things, that we’re writing in that way, and when we do that, and we are engaging and we provide enough value. What will people do if you’re writing conversation and you’re treating it well, you’re treating it in the right way, people will reply, and you could even ask for replies. You know, because people aren’t conditioned to reply to newsletters. They just aren’t. It’s something people are so used to getting emails from these no reply addresses, right? So asking it encouraging conversation is great. And similarly, for forwards, right? That’s the Holy Grail, because then you’ve provided enough value that someone wants to share it with someone that they know. So let’s aim for those things. And those, those two metrics, are something you probably have to track on your own. And forwards, good luck tracking forwards. You know, you’re just not gonna be able to track that, but you know you could. You one way to do it, perhaps, is you. We’ve experimented this before, is to put a link for people who have received your email from someone who’s forwarded to them to subscribe, and then you can track those subscriptions through that link. So yeah, I would, I would target those two things replies and forwards as well.

Christian Klepp  46:46

Fantastic, fantastic. That’s a that’s quite a great list of metrics. And I hope the audience is taking notes and paying attention to these things. But Jamie, thank you so much for coming on the show today and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. Please. Quick intro to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Jamie Woodbridge  47:04

Yeah, for sure. So I’m Jamie. I run a email marketing agency that specialize in B to B marketing. Our agency called is called the inbox club. We fundamentally do a couple of things. One, newsletters, if that’s not already obvious, so we help B to B companies send great newsletters. So fully managed newsletter service, we build automation, something that I didn’t talk about today, but it’s incredibly powerful in B to B email marketing, helping helping people build these automated nurture sequences. And then we also have list growth services to help people grow their email lists in a very meaningful way that brings in high quality subscribers. And the beautiful thing about that I’ve said that b word again, because I do think email marketing is beautiful, or it should be, is that a lot of these B to B firms that are listening today will be selling high ticket items, and that means the value of one subscriber is quite high, you know. So these the one subscriber is incredibly valuable. So when we talk about building an email list, we’re not talking about hundreds of 1000s here. Perhaps just hundreds will do when we when we want to target these people. So, so yeah, that’s us. That was that’s what we do.

Christian Klepp  48:13

And how can they get in touch with you? Through LinkedIn, through email, or …

Jamie Woodbridge  48:16

Catch me on LinkedIn. So Jamie Woodbridge on LinkedIn at the inbox club, or you can send us an email. Our email address is [email protected].

Christian Klepp  48:28

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

Jamie Woodbridge  48:34

Thanks, Christian. It’s great to be on.

Christian Klepp  48:36

All right. Bye for now.

SPEAKERS

Jessica Deckinger, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Jessica Deckinger. She’s a senior executive with diverse and extensive experience across integrated brand marketing, product, digital strategy, insights and analytics, finance and operations. She’s valued as a strategic thinker with proven ability to lead cross functional teams, develop talent and influence team members at all levels of the organization. She’s also known for performing with a balance of financially based business thinking, exceptional creative vision and ability to adapt quickly to any team in a fast paced working environment. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketer’s mission is. Jessica Deckinger, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you here.

Jessica Deckinger  00:49

Thanks, Christian. I really appreciate you having me on as a guest.

Christian Klepp  00:52

Fantastic, fantastic. So let’s just hop right into it, because this is a topic I think that is not only pertinent to B to B marketers, specifically in the SaaS space, but to their sales counterparts as well. And so what am I talking about here,  Folks? I’m talking about how video up levels every part of the customer journey. So Jessica, why don’t we kick off the conversation with this question, what do you think is still holding a lot of B to B SaaS companies back from producing videos?

Jessica Deckinger  01:22

Thank you so much. I mean, great place to start. Look. I think video is this feels like this really big, scary thing to a lot of folks. You feel like you have to be specialized and be you know Steven Spielberg and be able to do incredible, powerful things you know yourself as a creator, to be able to tackle video. I think many people feel that acutely. They kind of feel intimidated by the source of like, how am I going to do something that that really breaks through, feels brand worthy, feels beautiful, and how can I make a good video? So that’s definitely something holding people back. I think the other part is really just that it’s always been very painful to produce video. And I know that anyone who’s a B to B  marketer, sales person, commercial person in this area is going to resonate with that. It has always been super painful. You know, you had to produce and hire a crew, and it was expensive. It took too long, and then, honestly, by time you got everyone’s opinions, everyone wanted to comment on the blue back screen, and the way someone tilted their head and whatever you did in the video itself, it always winds up being that, once you put it out there, it’s already outdated, right? Like it just feels unwieldy, or felt unwieldy to this point, and that, I think those are the two biggest pain points that have kept people back from really taking advantage of what’s one of the most powerful ways to communicate.

Christian Klepp  02:41

Absolutely, absolutely, you know, having produced a couple of like videos myself in my career, I can truly relate to that and how, yeah, it can be a painful logistics exercise. I’m not gonna lie,

Jessica Deckinger  02:54

and expensive

Christian Klepp  02:55

And expensive. And to your point, it’s this constant pressure that it has to be this Hollywood style produced video, right? Like you said, Steven Spielberg or James Cameron is going to show up and direct it, right? But, um, that that probably like, begs another question, like, does it have to be that style of video?

Christian Klepp  03:15

Yeah, absolutely. The technology aspect of it is really an important or a key component, right? And we’re going to touch on that later on in the conversation, but I’m going to segue us on to the next point, which is again, on this topic of producing videos for the different stages of the customer journey. What are some of the pitfalls that you think B to B marketers should avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Jessica Deckinger  03:15

I mean, I think one of the wonderful things about the time we’re in now technologically, is that it doesn’t have to be that now, it really doesn’t. I think there’s so many creator tools. You know, I’m a board member of a company called SundaySky. I think they do a spectacular job of enabling not just static creation process, but also personalization at scale, like really taking video, making it easy to produce, easy to make it look really high quality, easy to customize and personalize, and then spread and scale effectively in real time, so that you can take advantage of this incredible medium and not feel restrained by that creative process, the production process. There is so much out there now that enables that to happen. You know, I think there’s also value in thinking about the personalization side, right? Like, really, nobody wants a… unless they’re going to, you know, logging on to Netflix and watching a film that was produced for mass audience. They’re not expecting something that’s mass when you’re marketing, right? No one wants mass that way. I mean, in essence, also, even when you get onto something like Netflix, it’s personalized in a way, because you’re getting content, hopefully that’s more towards your liking. But the level of expectation around personalization has ramped up so dramatically, and so I think the software, the capabilities we have now to do that, to execute on that, have made it much more accessible for everybody.

Jessica Deckinger  05:04

I mean, I think one of the biggest pitfalls is thinking about, you know, like trying to make video solve all the problems. I think you have to think about where you add the most value with video. Thinking about onboarding, acquisition, where are the most painful parts of your journey, customer experience, you know, where are the parts that you’re feeling the most pain, and then laser focusing on those so that it becomes a really pragmatic, you know, exercise, and you’re not kind of like just trying to blanket, do everything for everyone all the time. You can, with the technology that’s available now, but really thinking about where is the biggest pain in your acquisition, onboarding experience journey, and then using video as a tool to enable better experience there. Because, frankly, I think, you know, I mean, there’s a ton of data around this. Like, one of the things I think is really interesting is that, if you think about kind of how our human brain works, video is processed. There’s a study that showed that it was processed 64,000 times faster and had a 90% plus recall when you see something in video versus read something in text or hear something in audio. And you know, I think that is a really powerful stat. And when you think about your most painful pain point, bringing something up the curve that quickly, with both the processing and capability of the end user and the retention of the end user, there’s a potential to make really big leaps and bounds and have really big ROI on fixing that process first. And so I think that’s a pitfall that people do fall into, is they try to fix everything at once, but the potential to really fix the most painful thing and bring it so far up the curve is pretty, pretty phenomenal.

Christian Klepp  06:41

Absolutely, absolutely. You just reminded me of a project that was involved with a couple of years ago where, well, let’s just for lack of a better description, the client tried to cram every piece of information into two minutes, right? And at the end…

Jessica Deckinger  06:58

I think that’s a common problem. I don’t think that’s a pain point just for you.

Christian Klepp  07:02

No, no, no, it’s I think it’s a recurring trend. And I think the objective, to your point, the objective of the exercise, is people, this is not meant to be an instruction manual, right? Try to think of this and, there might be a different analogy. This is just the one I like to use. Just think of this like a teaser trailer. Have you ever watched a teaser trailer that was five minutes long?

Jessica Deckinger  07:23

I mean, there’s a reason for that, right? Because you can hook people very quickly. And I think the to get back to our first point about what’s holding people back. You know, there’s something about the capacity to create bite size pieces of information. And frankly, I think it’s important now Millennials are the biggest buyers of everything, coming up next in the queue, you know, whether it’s software or services or products, and they’re in the prime of their careers, right? And they’re thinking about bite sized content because they are more digitally native. You know, they are… They have been fed bite sized content, and know the value of it and appreciate the value of their time, and want to be, you know, respected and not kind of like expected. To your point, read an entire brochure of content, or watch an entire brochure of content in one video. And I think the platforms that are available now enable us to create as marketers, as commercial people, you know, those bite sized chunks, because we can do it more efficiently, and it’s not going to be this huge production that we talked about in the beginning of the conversation.

Christian Klepp  08:24

Absolutely, absolutely. You just made me think of another question, and it’s really on this topic of having a teaser trailer rather than a five minute short film. How do you deal with that kind of pushback? Because I’m sure you’ve dealt with this before, where folks want to produce a video and they just want to cram everything under the sky into that two or three minutes. How do you go to these people and say, Hey, listen, let’s not do that.

Christian Klepp  08:47

yeah, yeah, we used to…

Jessica Deckinger  08:47

I mean, it’s hard. You tapped on a good point, which is that everybody has opinions about creative. I always joke, as a marketer that the two most painful things are people have comments on words and colors, right? Like, I don’t like the blue, it reminds me my childhood bathroom. Or that word evokes, you know, a bad feeling for me. And it’s always interesting as a marketer to navigate that, and I joke about that, but it does. It is representative of a larger thing, which is that when you’re creating a piece of creative content, there are going to be lots of opinions. One of the ways to combat that is this kind of thinking about empowering your team with operational efficiency tools that allow you to create things at scale, because you can kind of make everybody happy that way, right? You can create multiple pieces of content rapidly. AI enables that more than ever, you know, being able to rapidly iterate so that, like, even if you do wind up having a hard time pushing back on the massive content, you know, direction, you can both create a large piece of content and slice it and dice it and make everybody happy. And so I think the software that’s enabling video creation at scale and personalization at scale, like SundaySky that I mentioned earlier, I think it’s… those are the kinds of things that will create empowerment with marketers that we’ve never had before. I mean, it is doing it now I use that tool. I think there are many tools out there, but it’s great to have that level of empowerment yourself as a decision maker in that role, because it is really hard when you feel at the mercy of someone’s, you know, opinion, weighing in on a piece of creative content that’s going to hold you back from getting your job done. That feels frustrating, I think, to a lot of folks,

Jessica Deckinger  09:06

Smiling. I hope it’s not that frustrating to you.

Christian Klepp  09:46

No, no, no. Well, it’s just, it’s just evoking these memories of like, you know, everybody’s, everybody’s a copywriter, everyone, the creative director, and then the old decision by committee and opinion is cases, right? So, but, yeah, no, you brought up such a good point, and I totally agree with that, I think, to a certain extent. And we can jam on this a little bit further later on in the conversation, that technology might help to to break the tie so called right to give people like what they want, but also in a way that’s relevant, first and foremost to the customer at the different stages of the journey, right? Because I’ve learned this the hard way, that getting internal consensus is one thing, but then if you put it out into the market and it flops, then that internal consensus means nothing.

Jessica Deckinger  11:22

Right. And you lose trust if that happens too sometimes, yeah, and I think having the analytics around the performance of the assets is critical and the capability to test and fast fail is critical. And that, like trying to do it old school, where you’re producing with a large you know that Spielberg style production, I think actually hinders your ability to build trust and credibility in your own organization. Because if you do produce something and it’s really expensive and time consuming, and you put it out there and it flops, where do you go from there? So you’re kind of like shooting the moon every time you want to make something, versus being able to kind of fast fail and iterate and AB test. Hey, let’s test this with this audience and this with that audience and see how it performs. And having analytics around it, which is another critical reason, you have to have a tool that will give you analytics, like I think you have to have a metric way to measure now, I’m sure you’re seeing this too. Everyone wants to measure everything. And for people in brand awareness building, this is like the most agonizing thing, because some brand awareness things are hard to measure, but not less valuable. And I think, but I think being able to kind of, as technology evolves and allows us to measure more things, the easier it will be for us to navigate when we’re talking with folks and stakeholders who want to measure everything.

Christian Klepp  12:35

Yeah, yeah, that’s absolutely right. You brought up some of this already in the past couple of minutes. But how do you deal with internal pushback, like, say, from senior management who doesn’t know much about producing a video, and because they don’t know much about it, they don’t think that this should be done.

Jessica Deckinger  12:53

Yeah, I mean, I think, look. We call it, I call it video readiness, like I think there is, there’s a level, a degree to which people are video ready or not. I think there are kind of three ways to address that. When folks are not video ready yet, they’re like, I don’t really believe it. I don’t know how you’re going to do it. I don’t understand it. I think you have to start with data. In fact. I mean the fact that that 90% retention was a neuroscience research piece, like, there is data to show how powerful video can be. I think there’s some data to show how powerful video has been for other companies. And I think, you know, that’s a great starting point. I think the second part is thinking about presenting the how you’re going to get it done efficiently is a great barrier breaker. You know, one of the biggest fears, I think was that first thing we touched on, which is, oh, my god, is this gonna cost me a million dollars? And even if you told me it’s gonna work, how is it gonna get done? I think creating a believer is about having the data, showing the process, and then talking about the potential result is the third part, which is, you know, when you think about the part of the journey you’re trying to influence, looking at what’s out there in the market, and showing how you can rise above the noise, perform above competitors, show up with more personalization, create stickier customers. All of that is, is just, is in support of the why it matters, how you’re going to do it right then it’s what it’s going to deliver. And I don’t think you have to be wild and say, Oh, we’re going to acquire at a 50% higher rate or whatever, you know, I think. But I do think setting the bar for what we should expect to see and measure and be able to show out of this is pretty important, and that has worked really well for me with pushback. That kind of three pillar approach, I mean, frankly, helps with almost anything. Because I think, like, that’s how many minds work is they want to understand the why, the how and the what. And I think those three questions, if you can answer them, it tends to push people towards being a believer, or at least suspension of disbelief, which is part of the what you need to get moving forward. And I think if someone is like dead set, that it’s not going to work, that. It’s a much harder nut to crack obviously.

Christian Klepp  15:03

Just judging from the answer you’ve been giving in the past couple of minutes, you’ve clearly had this conversation with someone before. (laugh)

Jessica Deckinger  15:11

I mean, I think we all have, not just about video, but about anything. And I think as you grow in your career, learning about managing, up, managing, you know, horizontally, managing down, are all parts of that growth. And if you’re lucky, and I’ve been fortunate to have very talented, qualified, thoughtful leaders that I’ve worked under, you know, you see that, and you can echo it, because those behaviors and thinking about being calm, logical, you know, in your approach to getting buy in, hopefully we’re all lucky enough to see that, you know, do as I do, not as I say, but I’ve been fortunate, so I practice what I preach in that area as well, just trying to, kind of like, not get defensive when someone’s coming at me, pushing back hard on something. I think video is one of those things I’ve been pushed back on many times. So I’ve learned,

Christian Klepp  16:05

Yeah, absolutely.

Jessica Deckinger  16:06

But, you know…

Christian Klepp  16:08

Let me just quickly recap that, because I think it’s worth repeating for the benefit of the audience. So you were talking about having the data showing the process, and if you don’t have the results already, show how you are going to get the results and what the results are going to be.

Jessica Deckinger  16:21

Right.

Christian Klepp  16:22

I’m going to move us on to the next question. So basically, from your professional experience, how can video directly and positively impact the customer journey? And if you can provide examples where relevant, that’d be great. So for three parts, right? So for purchasing, onboarding and usage, and renewal and growth, and I’m happy to repeat.

Jessica Deckinger  16:43

Yeah, I mean, I think, look, the biggest things are thinking about purchase, right? You have to tell a story that’s going to differentiate and share more about your whatever it is you’re trying to influence purchase for. And if you think about static content, right, not just what I said earlier around, like video being more engaging, but I think it gives you the capacity to tell a really meaningful portion of your story really effectively through multiple mediums. So you can kind of incorporate all different kinds of learning styles in that purchase decision. When I go out there, I don’t love static ads. I don’t learn by reading. I learn by human interaction, like I’m that kind of learner. And look, I think one of the great things about the world we live in now is that we recognize there are many different learning styles. There are people who are auditory learners, visual learners, people who are human interaction learners. There are people who learn when they say it. And I think, you know, having all of the mediums you can incorporate into video enable that decision to be much more effective, because you can really get the message across to multiple audiences or multiple types of learners in your audience, really effectively. That’s the first thing. And then the second one, can you repeat the second parts of the question?

Christian Klepp  18:01

Yeah, absolutely. The second part of the question is about onboarding and usage.

Jessica Deckinger  18:05

Oh, yeah, big one, big one, which is, I think that, look, technology is accelerating. The amount of things we have to know in a day is accelerating. Think about how many passwords you have to know in a day. I know there are tools to keep these things, but really, the amount of process, the amount of technical savvy, the amount of information we have to process, enable and put into use in a day, is more so when you’re getting someone to onboard onto your service, software, technology, physical product, consumer product, name,your thing, financial services instrument, you as the owner and seller of that good service, whatever it is, have more burden, because you have to enable learning in a deeper, more sticky way. Well, we just talked about 90 plus percent retention using video. I think the fact that you can… and we talked about the learning styles, the fact that you can teach people in a way they can understand and help them retain better is really powerful, and I think it’s a miss. It’s a miss not to be leveraging video in an onboarding so I just had this happen, actually. I just… was, I bought a new phone, and I got sent I got, like, you know, think about the IKEA version of this, right? I got a five page instruction manual with the phone. I was like, I’m not reading this. It feels like IKEA, I’m not gonna put this together. I’m not gonna go to do this. That’s not how I learned, right? So I went on YouTube and watched a video, and it was very powerful for me, because I was able to kind of like, Oh, I get it now, I see where the thing is, and I get them set up in the button and the thing, and that was a user created video. But I think if companies can harness that power, we’re all teaching ourselves more this way. Now, right? Like, look at younger generations. This is how they learn. This is how they evolve and grow. And I think, you know, it’s a really, potentially impactful platform to be able to personalize a video to the person, using data, explaining the thing in a way that they can understand their own learning style, and it’ll be sticky and create retention. So to me, it’s a really powerful customer onboarding tool, video.

Christian Klepp  18:06

Yeah, absolutely okay. And then the third part was renewal and growth.

Jessica Deckinger  20:12

I mean, nowadays, if you’re not talking to me as your customer and letting me know how valuable I am, me Jessica, I really don’t… I’m not going to be loyal to you. I’m going to be loyal to the next best thing. I think you… customers have to feel valued, and have to feel individually valued now in order to give you the right to keep them, you know like it is a right to be kept by a customer these days, because there are many, many options in every single category you can think of, and it’s not just about the quality of your product, it’s about the experience of the customer. And again, to that teaching thing, when you’re onboarding someone, the keeping them tied in is about recognizing how valuable they are, making them feel seen. I’m seeing this more with smaller startup brands where they’re doing this, where you, kind of, like, you buy something, they send you a note from the CEO to you, like, I think it’s really nice. It’s it’s hard to scale unless you have a software solution if you’re a larger organization. When you have like, five people and you’re a startup, it’s easier to do when you’re a Kickstarter or something. But I think that’s where the software part comes into play, is that you can scale personalization. Can scale that retention capability. It’s just so critical now to retaining your customers.

Christian Klepp  21:24

Absolutely, absolutely. I wanted to go back to something you said with… it was talking about, you were talking about learning on YouTube, right? Like, rather than reading this very long instruction manual for your new phone, you went on YouTube to look something up. And I mean that one in itself, I think, is living proof of the power of leveraging video as opposed to the written word. And I’m not saying, and I shouldn’t be saying this as a copywriter, but, like, but I’m not saying that the written word is not useful, right? Because all videos had started as a script at some point, right? But the point here is the attention span, the time and the speed with which to convey and dispense that information, right? I mean, it’s another great example is, I think couple of months ago, I had problem with my garage door, like it just wouldn’t close right. All those remote controls, you know, where you push the button, it comes down, and you’re like, and it’s not working, and it keeps bouncing back up. And that’s not a great problem to have in the middle of winter, right? And as you said, I went through the instruction manual, and that thing is like, 50 pages, 50, 70 pages, and I’m like, Oh, boy. So we looked it up on, we looked it up on YouTube, right? So there’s a two minute video how to fix it. Knows something about, like, loosening a screw and the in the mechanism that sits, sits on the roof the garage, and before you know it, it was fixed, right? So…

Jessica Deckinger  21:25

I mean, it’s amazing, it’s amazing and life changing.

Christian Klepp  22:57

Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, it was, yeah, that was something that you brought up in the onboarding and usage stage. So I thought, yeah, absolutely agree that that’s one of many benefits of video.

Jessica Deckinger  23:08

And ultimately, I think, like there is something also about the fact that you just said something very real, which is that we all have human experience, and even in B to B world, this is true now, which is recognizing that it’s not just that a user, be they B to C or B to B, is a human. At the end of the day, everything is B to H, right? So even if it’s business to committee, it’s business to human, right? There, there are a bunch of humans there, and nobody wants dehumanized unilateral one per one size fits all experience in any part of the journey anymore, because we’re all humans, and we recognize that. And so I think there’s also like, something about you as a customer of this company, like not wanting to call and get like, press one for blah de blah, press two for like, that is a dehumanizing experience. You have been taken and fed to a machine, and it feels dehumanizing. And I think that is a larger sign of you wanted to feel like a person, have someone tell you how to do it, figure it out, feel good, resolve your problem, right? And that’s all true in the way that customers in any setting, in any kind of type of customer, is expecting to be addressed and written word like you said, is valuable. It’s not not valuable. Websites still convert people, emails still convert buyers. You know, there’s lots of different tools in the arsenal. I just think that there is a power and a special value in video, in the part of engaging the human part of the experience, the emotional response you have to something when it feels like it’s for you, when it feels like it solves a pain point, even if it’s a pain point about a garage door, right? There’s a there’s something that feels really good about solving your pain, like it feels a relief.

Christian Klepp  24:50

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, as opposed to, like, what you just said, just calling up the customer support hotline and waiting in the queue for half an hour, or 45 minutes.

Jessica Deckinger  25:02

It’s horrible. Everyone knows. Everyone’s been there. Your wait time will be 22 minutes. You’re like, Oh my God, that’s 22 minutes. I can’t get back of my life. (laugh)

Christian Klepp  25:10

And then when you finally get to talk to an actual person, they don’t know how to solve the problem, and they refer you to somebody else. So you end up like, having an hour of your life wasted. Let me get back right?

Jessica Deckinger  25:19

You bring up a really good point also, which is that as a customer experience, as a Customer Success tool, when you are a company, you should prove that you know your customers better by a certain point of the journey.

Christian Klepp  25:30

Absolutely

Jessica Deckinger  25:31

And know their pain better by a certain point of the journey. So I’m sure that you are not the first person to experience this pain point. And there’s something great about being able to gather those data points, and then use video to solve those data points about pain in a way that’s scalable, which like if you call that… for that person may not have answered that question before, but if you have the content in your repository about that problem and can push it forward, that’s really powerful, too, right? Because then you can basically operationalize and streamline the efficiency of your customer service experience and your customer success experience. You know, because there’s shared, there’s shared problems and shared solutions out there.

Christian Klepp  26:12

Exactly, exactly you brought up such a good point earlier on the topic of technology. And I mean, this is a podcast in 2024 so I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t ask you this question. But AI and video, right? Do these two go together? And why?

Jessica Deckinger  26:32

I think sometimes yes, sometimes no, and I’ll give you a couple examples. So I think AI as an enabler of the creation process, meaning, like AI as an enabler of editing, suggesting new ideas, bringing creative thinking, kind of being like a co pilot person with you, doing the thing is great, updating and editing imagery that might take you hours to edit, you know, suggesting new creative executions that you could add into the process. Like, I think as a partner in crime, AI is amazing. That’s great. As a replacement for humans, I don’t think it’s so great. Like, I think it’s a support lift mechanism, not a replacement mechanism. But it’s funny. The other day, I watched a segment about Eric Yuan, who’s the CEO of zoom, saying that AI is going to replace us in meetings. Humans like you just have an avatar replacing your meetings. I know they’re like, making this so immediately I was like, Well, that sounds like great, not to have to go to meetings anymore. But also I’m like, do I want to replace the myself in meetings, I actually do find meetings sometimes they’re not valuable if I’m just sitting on a screen, but if I’m actually engaging with another human, I find that really valuable, and I think the other place. So when I think about AI avatars, like companies that have gone that direction, where you replace a person with a machine, to me, it feels a little bit not helpful and counter intuitive because of what we just talked about, right? Like, you call that phone number and you get press one for a bloody blah like, taking away the humanity, the personalization in video, to me, feels counter to what I’d want, because I don’t want a machine telling me something in a different medium that doesn’t help me, like I don’t need I don’t… just as much as I don’t want the machine telling you what to do when I pick up the phone. I don’t want them telling you that on the screen. And I think it’s not sophisticated enough yet to be able to not tell the difference like I think it’s hard to replace the people element, but to scale the people element is amazing. So to me, the scale part, the thinking about the response, the data analysis off of the video performance, the creation, co piloting, of the creation of the process like those are all tools we should be leveraging now and are really productive in getting us to do more, better, faster, more personalized. All the right things?

Christian Klepp  28:55

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think the description you used is really, really appropriate. You said co pilot. So it’s somebody like, you’re a wing man or wing woman. Make it a bit more balanced. And I totally agree with that. I think there’s a time and place for AI, but this notion of, like, completely replacing what we’re doing now with artificial intelligence or machine learning. Yeah. I mean, not even far-fetched. But like, to your point, do we really want that? I mean, like, I can share an experience with you that I’ve had here. Any you call any bank in Canada, right? And they will put you into this, into this loop where you know you have to press one for this and press two for that. But now they’ve introduced AI, and they will introduce themselves as, Hello, I am this bank’s AI. What are you looking for today? Oh, I want to check my account. I’m sorry I didn’t hear that. Please repeat. And it just creates, I think, even more frustration in a situation where the customer is already calling under, yes, exactly.

Jessica Deckinger  29:05

Like you’re under duress, and it’s aggravating you more,

Christian Klepp  30:02

And it’s aggravating you more. So by the time you actually talk to a human you’re just pissed off.

Jessica Deckinger  30:07

And I think that the thing is, I think we will get, I actually think it will get there to the point where it’s that sophisticated that you could if it’s large language model based things, but the big but is what you just said, I think, like some chat bots now, AI chat bots have gotten really pretty refined. If the large language learning model, language model is like sophisticated enough, and it’s closed loop and it’s interesting, but it’s not, I think a lot of that’s not there yet. And so a lot of hallucinations you get AI that does weird things, you know, you get AI that tells you something nothing to do with what you said, and you make the problem worse. So I think, look, I said this the other day that we were talking about this with someone else, and I was saying this, like, being leading edge is great. Being bleeding edge is a little dangerous, especially when you’re talking about, you know, you’re addressing customers pain, and there’s risk there that you’ll… like what we just talked about earlier. With retaining your customers, they have to feel valued. If you make them more upset when they’re under duress, you’re not going to solve that problem, right? You’re going to make a bigger problem. So to me, it’s really thinking about ways to co pilot and create more better, but with the end goal of being, scaling the humans to create better experience, scaling personalization to create better experience. That’s the way you use AI right now, I don’t know where it’s going to land. No one can predict.

Christian Klepp  31:31

Nobody knows,

Jessica Deckinger  31:32

But I think right now, that’s where it is, and I think we’re going to be there for a while, because it’s going to, you know, the AI is only as good as what we put in.

Christian Klepp  31:39

It’s constantly evolving. It’s constantly learning, right? So they’re always talking about, you have to train the AI, and it’s still learning. It’s still learning your behaviors, your patterns and…

Jessica Deckinger  31:49

Exactly. But I think what you experienced is very common, and actually people are getting irritated by it because they just don’t want to, like, stop with AI. It’s too much,

Christian Klepp  31:59

Absolutely, and some of them, and I’ve seen this, like, live and unplugged, they just resort to going to the branch in person, right?

Jessica Deckinger  32:05

Yeah,

Christian Klepp  32:06

Because they just can’t solve it online. I know that the banks try to, like, push you to like, oh, just, just go online. You can do this all online, and you can do it on your app, but if the app and the artificial intelligence just creates this extremely frustrating experience for the customer they’re gonna default to, well, the old way of doing things.

Jessica Deckinger  32:25

100%. This is where I do think, like proactive engagement across known challenges and training and the onboarding process. Like, again, having that really good onboarding process is pretty critical and and then I think having a really strong infrastructure to support that with humans. It’s that balance, right? So I 100% agree. I think that’s really an interesting dynamic. We’ll see how it changes over time.

Christian Klepp  32:47

Well, only time will tell. Only time will tell. Okay, Jessica, we get to the point in the conversation where we are talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us plenty already, but if there’s somebody out there that’s listening to this, this conversation you and I are having and saying, You know what, we’ve got to, like, start leveraging video, right? So what are these three to five things that B to B marketers can do to leverage video for every part of the customer journey?

Jessica Deckinger  33:15

Yeah. I mean, I think there are many, but I’ll pick a few just so we don’t run out of time. One is, I think, compartmentalizing information to digestible chunks, like thinking about how you’re going to communicate in those small format chunks we talked about, which I think is critical today more than ever, makes you more relevant, helps you get more ROI on the information you’re delivering through video. I think, you know, that’s a critical piece of this success. A video is being that, being digest… thinking about the digestibility of it.

The second is thinking about mapping your communication barriers out, like actually thinking before you tackle stuff. First of all, will help with the stakeholder issue. Because if you’re sensing a massive communication pain point, they probably are too. And I think tackling the most painful things first is critical. Really being on top of those priorities of what’s most painful in what priority rank order.

I think understanding the video readiness of your teams pretty important, and also encouraging folks that anyone can really do it, and then having that kind of three pillar approach we talked about to getting any people who are not video ready on board with it, right like making sure that they get on board so that you’re… if you’re gonna get into the video game, you need people to be believers, even if it’s just suspension of disbelief right now, because what you don’t want to do is jump in and like, and everyone’s too scared and doesn’t necessarily want to do it, or they’re actually not engaged.

And then I think that’s the fourth thing is really probably one of the most important, which is thinking about where you can leverage what you already have, like, if you’re going to go out and start investing  in software to produce video content at scale, you need to make sure that you are not wasting the things you have, and that the tool you buy doesn’t waste the things you have, like you shouldn’t have to create from scratch, everything new. If you are a marketer, if you’re a salesperson, you probably have built out, at least in your head, if not out in the world, some kind of content, some kind of imagery, some kind of branding, some kind of positioning, some kind of messaging around what your value proposition, what your differentiators are, and you need a tool that’s going to help you co pilot those things into content that can be scaled. And I think that’s important to know where you can leverage those things, what things you have, understanding what’s in your arsenal already. And then when you get a tool, you can then, like, plug and play those things.

Christian Klepp  35:42

Those are, those are some dynamite tips. Some dynamite tips. And, you know, going back to your point, um, folks don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I think it’s a part of it is also resourcefulness, like check your existing assets, your existing content, and see what can be leveraged there or even repurposed. There is some merit to repurposing content in different formats.

Jessica Deckinger  35:42

And I think the last thing I say, just like, you need to make sure, as you’re assessing a tool, if you’re thinking about bringing in a tool, that the AI is, is the right formula. We just talked about, right, that the AI is, if there’s AI, that it’s real, it’s a real thing that’s actually going to help you, and that it’s going to be co piloting. Because I do think there is that first topic we brought up, which is, what’s keeping people from video, if the copilot can actually help you get over the hurdle of feeling like it’s too hard, it takes too long, it’s too expensive, all those things, takes too much genius, as Steven Spielberg, right? Like, I think if it can help you tackle those things, then you know it’s a legitimate co pilot and a legitimate AI functionality. And I think those are going to be important things to consider. Those are my five. I could go on, but I’m not going to do that.

Jessica Deckinger  36:30

100%

Christian Klepp  36:32

But again, just for the benefit of the listeners, I’m just going to repeat what you said in terms of the actionable tips. So compartmentalization of information into digestible chunks, I think, was the first point. The second point was mapping your communications barriers out and tap into the most painful things first. Couldn’t agree with that more, because I’ve done it. Understanding the video readiness of your teams. Absolutely important. Leveraging what you already have in terms of existing assets and content, and finally, the assessment of technology per se, or determining whether AI is the right fit or the right formula for you to use.

Jessica Deckinger  37:32

100% that’s right. Yeah.

Christian Klepp  37:33

Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, so we’re gonna get to the, I call this the soapbox question, so I’m gonna ask you to, like, get up there, right? And on this topic of leveraging video, right? What is a status quo that you passionately disagree with, and why.

Jessica Deckinger  37:54

A status quo? Oh, I have, I have one. I have one. This is very highly personal.

Christian Klepp  38:00

Let’s hear it. Let’s hear it.

Jessica Deckinger  38:01

It’s okay?

Christian Klepp  38:01

Yes.

Jessica Deckinger  38:02

So I started my career in marketing in B to C, business to consumer marketing. And I kind of referenced this earlier, but I’m going to go deep. I think it’s important. And I transitioned into B to B, business to business marketing mid-career. And I think there is a deeply held perspective by a lot of folks, that they are separate animals, like completely different animals. You cannot transfer those skills. You do not have shared insights between those two. That they’re basically different career paths, and that transitioning between both doesn’t hold a lot of value, and that the implications of the learnings from both wouldn’t apply across either field. I deeply, deeply disagree with this to my heart and soul, and it’s not just because of my own personal experience. I think there is a ton of insight from B to C, the transferable to B to B and the other way around. I think the differences that most people sense are foundationally in language barriers, right, different terminology used in B to C and B to B, but ultimately it’s all B to H really. It really is at the end of the day. And so look, I think B to B marketing tends to focus on because you’re selling to committees, because you’re selling to corporate personas, thinking about data driven, data enabled, data measured tactics, and oftentimes are a little more squeamish about very above the funnel, awareness building, brand generating things. I’m making assumptions here based on my experience. But and then on the B to C side, I think B to C, you know, feel much more that emotional purchase requires a lot of or emotionally driven, charged purchase of an individual, requires a lot more consumer psychology, developed stuff at the above the funnel, awareness building. And they love to do more data driven things, but feel a lot of times that they have to focus so hard on that, like brand awareness, brand loyalty stuff, visuals, all those things. I actually think that both of those things should merge like there is an emotional factor to a B to B decision. I don’t, I don’t care who says there is not. I completely disagree. I think when you are a human making a decision about something, your relationships with the company, your feeling that the your problems are heard, your understanding of what you’re going to buy and feeling like it’s aspirational to what it’s going to deliver versus what you’re going to pay are all just as important as they are in B to C. And I think in B to C world, the need to have data driving the marketing motions, you know, understanding customer feedback in meaningful ways. Integrating that into new learnings is critical too. And I’m not saying everybody blanket is in those two categories of separation, but I think it validates how much marketers are more alike than they think B to C and B to B land. And look, I think being really sharp in all those things makes kind of great B to C marketers who operate like B to B’s and great B to B’s who operate like B to C’s, and people who do both really well. And I think that’s a really like, great unifying factor. We could all bring ourselves together more. Should we all be thinking like strategic B to H marketers. That’s my that’s my soapbox.

Christian Klepp  41:36

Yeah, yeah, you weren’t kidding. That is a soapbox moment. No, no. But, I mean, like, a lot of the things that you said, I mean, they totally resonated with me, and I do agree with that, right? I do know that there is a camp out there, and you probably know some of these people as well that completely keep these two camps separate, right? That say, like, Absolutely not B to B’s a different beast. You should stop, people should stop saying we should be influenced by B to C. Throw that playbook away. I mean, yeah, yeah, I don’t agree with that. I mean, for me, it’s similar to AI. It really depends on the situation, on the vertical,  at which stage the company is at. But to completely dismiss that these two have certain aspects of, you know, characteristics that overlap. To completely dismiss that. I don’t think that that’s right, right?

Jessica Deckinger  42:30

Yeah, yeah.

Christian Klepp  42:31

And there’s, and there’s living proof of that. And I know that some of these campaigns are dated, but living proof that you can be creative in B to B. I mean, there’s a couple of campaigns that ran many years ago. I’m just gonna say, um, there was one by GE, and it was a video series called Data Landia. If you’ve never heard, I remember, do you remember that one?

Jessica Deckinger  42:50

Yeah,

Christian Klepp  42:51

Wasn’t that incredible, and that…

Jessica Deckinger  42:54

I think there are lots of these that really do think, like the end human buying the stuff. So yeah, and it’s not a blanket like it has to be true for every single thing. I agree with you. It’s all specific to the case.

Christian Klepp  43:06

For sure, for sure. I mean, that one was on, on, on big data, right? Yeah. And then Cisco came up with a series a couple of years ago focusing on CISOs, on the topic of cyber security. And they came up with a comic book series, all right, about these superheroes that were, you know, trying to like, rid the world of like cyber threats, right, right? Okay, granted that Cisco and GE also have very generous budgets. All right, okay, and that,

Jessica Deckinger  43:34

But I think, I think the micro tactic of that is just thinking about personalization as a tool to the individual buyer. And I think a lot of ABM softwires are thinking about this now as well. Like, how can I think about my unique buyer and their particular pain point? And that is a very B to C, traditionally, B to C lands to live in. Like, let me think about you individual D to C buyer, but in B to B, we’re starting to do that now, like think to the account based personalized company approach. And so that’s where I mean, it’s not… I’ve made it very dramatic for the soapbox, but I think it is ultimately about refining down what you’re doing to personalize it enough that at the end of the day the buyer feels like you’re actually doing something for them.

Christian Klepp  44:23

Yeah. I mean, you made it dramatic, but rightly so, rightly so. I think it’s something that needs to be said. But, yeah. Okay, so I’ve got two more questions for you, Jessica, and then I’m gonna let you go. All right, so here comes the bonus question, and what career advice would you give your younger self, and I’m not saying that you’re that you’re not young you are, but like your younger self, when you started…

Jessica Deckinger  44:47

I’m self-aware, yes… my younger self, I think I would give myself the advice that I should not be afraid to approach risk with a measured lens. I think I was very risk averse as a young person. I was scared to try the new thing. I was scared to not do what I was told. I was scared. You know, I was like, I was I’m a rule follower, like a hard rule follower. And I think it took me a really long time, and a lot of people pushing me, and I’m grateful for those mentors and advocates who pushed me. But to get more risky, and I don’t mean it has, I don’t mean risky, like doing crazy… I don’t have a motorcycle, but I think like being sharp about when to try something that is a little scary, and could fall flat on my face. I think I didn’t learn until I hit startup land. Really like the fast fail concept. I wish I had had that fast fail concept in my arsenal way earlier, because fast failing, if you set it up like, we’re gonna fast fail at, like, really inexpensively, at these like five things, learn a ton and be so much better for it. And failure is where you learn the most. And so if you’re not going to take risks, you’re not going to fail, you’re not going to learn and grow and do better. And as a marketer, it’s critical, like you cannot die hard on your sort of righteousness of the thing you’re going to do right and spend a gazillion dollars at it. And it’s where this rapid iteration comes into play being able to make videos on fast right, like really fast, fast fail things. But I wish I had known earlier on in my career that I could safely fast fail and I wish the technology had been there to support it more. But, I also, if I’d known it, I probably would have done a couple more courageous or shattering things than I’ve done in my career. So any advice anyone I could give is that don’t be afraid to fail.

Christian Klepp  46:45

Fantastic, fantastic. You would have taken more leaps of faith, right? Yeah.

Jessica Deckinger  46:50

I mean, yeah, definitely.

Christian Klepp  46:51

I think that’s something that resonates with a lot of us. I mean, myself included. I was exactly like that too. I was a was a Boy Scout bound to the T right? Like people pleaser and, oh, we shouldn’t do that. I might rattle a few cages. And then I and then later on in my career, I realized, well, I think you need to rattle the cages to wake the animals up, right like…

Jessica Deckinger  47:11

And look at you now. I mean, amazing what you’re up to. So, you know, we all get there. We all get there eventually.

Christian Klepp  47:16

Absolutely, absolutely. Jessica, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. Quick introduce yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Jessica Deckinger  47:26

Sure. So I am a board member, a marketing executive. Best way to reach me is at my email. I know it’s like super old school or on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn. Jessica Deckinger, I’m also my email is [email protected]. You’re welcome to reach me there, if people want to reach out and have questions, but those two places are the best places to reach me, and I’m so grateful that you had me on today. Thank you so much, Christian. It was lovely speaking with you. I hope you enjoyed. I enjoyed a ton. So really, really grateful for the opportunity.

Christian Klepp  47:58

Oh, you’re very welcome. It was an absolute pleasure. So thanks again, Jessica, take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Jessica Deckinger  48:04

Thanks, Christian.

Christian Klepp  48:05

Bye, for now.

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Hamish Knox

Christian Klepp  00:01

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today I’m talking to Hamish Knox. He supports entrepreneurs to sustainably scale their sales so they can eventually exit for their number instead of the number they’re told to take. He’s one of the top franchisees in the Global Sandler Network, has been a four times must-see keynote speaker at the Sandler Summit, and holds the recognition of being the first franchisee in Sandler’s history to publish more than one book. Why am I talking to a salesperson when this is a show for B2B marketers? Well, tune in to find out more about how sales and marketing can create incredible results together. All right, Mr. Hamish Knox, welcome to the show.

Hamish Knox  00:46

Thanks for having me, Christian

Christian Klepp  00:47

Man, I feel like we’ve known each other 1000 years. I really have to say, it was, it was a real pleasure to be on your podcast. And you know, I have to, of course, reciprocate in kind and welcome you to this show. I was thinking about this earlier today, and folks are going to be like, Well, hang on a second here. This is a podcast for B2B marketers. What the heck is the sales guy doing here? And to which I say, and therein lies the problem. And this is exactly why I’ve asked you to come on the show.

Hamish Knox  01:21

Perfect.

Christian Klepp  01:22

There is so much to be said, and there are so many opportunities to be had when sales and marketing work together. So if we’re gonna dive right into it, the topic for today’s discussion is how B to B sales and marketing can collaborate and generate better results. And I’m going to kick off this conversation with this question, and yeah, I bet you’ve never heard this one before. Why do you think this ancient conflict between sales and marketing persists?

Hamish Knox  01:52

I appreciate you asking, and ultimately, I coach my clients that all conflict is because of a mismatch of goals, values, beliefs, or here’s the kicker, incentives and marketing and sales from the dawn of time have been incentivized differently, and so ultimately, we have one group who is doing the things that they believe are right because it’s going to get them to their incentive plan, and the other group who is doing the things that they believe are right to get them to their incentive plan. Unfortunately, the incentive plans are mismatched, because ultimately, it’s not necessarily about sustainably driving company growth or supporting the end user. It’s ultimately about this group gets more, and this group gets more, except if one of them is going to get more, the other one feels like they have to get less. And that’s really not the case.

Christian Klepp  02:50

Absolutely, absolutely. Do you also think, I suppose it also goes back to the way that the organization is structured and the company culture. Because, I mean, I’ve worked with a lot of B to B industries, traditional B to B industries, so you’re talking heavy machinery, steel, chemicals, etc., and they were just programmed to think that marketing was a support function. And they’ll just, you know, if they need something, they’ll, they’ll ring the bell or pick up the red phone or whatever, whatever other analogy you want to use.

Hamish Knox  03:25

Yeah, I’ve heard, I’ll call my girl who does that and that, I heard that recently. So, you know, yes, like, hey, we have a girl who does our brochures. Like, okay, well, she is a wonderful human being who provides very great value to your organization. You’re just minimizing and diminishing her contribution. Fine. So yeah, it’s been seen as not the real work, right? Like marketing has been seen as, oh, well, you guys just like, make brochures and do trade shows and you have a lot of fun. And by the way, sales gets the same thing, right? Sales is like, Oh, you guys don’t do real work. You just take people out for lunch and go golfing. And there isn’t this understanding that until someone sells something, nothing else happens. However, marketing is the thing that gets us to Hello, so until we get to Hello, we don’t even have the chance to sell something. And I just had a client, we hosted a sales leadership conference in Calgary at the start of October, and one of our now former clients shared that they had sold their business in four years, instead of six years, at a 1200% ROI to what they paid for it, and what they showed on their slide was, before they started working with us, they were operations, finance, sales. And where they ended up was sales, finance, operations. And to me, sales and marketing are part of that client facing right? So some of the listeners are going to get offended because they didn’t hear marketing in there. What I want to share with you is, I look at that as client facing. So are you in some way touching a client, whether it’s before they even know that they want to work with you, to all the way after they’ve been a client for decades, client facing is what sales and marketing is.

Christian Klepp  05:17

Absolutely, absolutely and just for the benefit of the listeners, you know, I didn’t invite Hamish on the show to like, you know, have a go at marketing people, or even if, or even if he does have a go at marketing people. Perhaps there is a reason, right? But, um, I’m gonna move us on to the next question, and I think it’s one that really resonates with you. Um, what do you wish more marketers knew about sales?

Hamish Knox  05:43

That it’s really, really hard. Sales is really, really hard. Sales people, especially frontline sellers, get rejected every single day. And if we, if we break this up into like the BDR, SDR world, those BDRs and SDRs are hearing more no’s in a day than most individuals hear in a year, because that’s their world. They’re just out there trying to find that one person who says yes to an initial conversation. And so for marketers to understand that that sellers and all the other direct client contact individuals. They want support. They want their lives to be easier, and they often feel unsupported. And I will gently poke at marketers today, as I’ve already said, marketing is an incredibly important part of an organization, and sometimes they get up in their head about certain things and are not necessarily supportive of sales, just as much as sales is not supportive of marketing. So today’s episode will be fair and balanced.

Christian Klepp  06:54

Absolutely, absolutely. I’ll take your word for it. I mean, you know, to be fair, and you know, we’ve had a conversation about this. I didn’t start out as a marketer my career.

Hamish Knox  07:03

Right.

Christian Klepp  07:04

I actually started out as a salesperson, and I think my first job, if I remember correctly, and I’m gonna age myself a little bit here, c’est la vie. I started out as a sales guy, like doing cold calling for Motorola walkie talkies.

Hamish Knox  07:22

Wow.

Christian Klepp  07:22

Do you remember those old gals?

Hamish Knox  07:23

Oh, yeah.

Christian Klepp  07:26

And, you know, to your point about like, getting rejected. I mean, we had a call about 100 companies a day, and I would say 96 or 97 of them either hung up or said no or don’t ever call me again. Yep, they might have said a few other used another, a few other choice words after that, but I will not repeat those here, but you get the gist. And maybe there was one or two that said, okay, oh, it’s a free trial, sure. So you kind of can’t blame salespeople for the way that they conduct themselves, because, as you said, they have to have this a bit of a thicker skin. If I can say that, like, because just rejection is part of the game. So, and going back to a previous point, why do you believe it’s so important for sales and marketing to work together? Like, what is this magic that they can create if they actually, like, get all their ducks in a row?

Hamish Knox  08:20

Because ultimately, they create velocity in the revenue growth of the organization. Because if sales and marketing are aligned, it’s to use a tired analogy. It’s like rowing in opposite directions, and marketing and sales, and by the way, they think they’re rowing in the same direction, but they’ve got a wall between them. So like, Well, why are we spinning? Well, I’m rowing left. Well, I’m rowing left too, except that, because we’re on opposite sides of the boat, the two left spin us in a circle. So they, if we, if we align marketing and sales, now we have this rocket that can very easily bring in the right type of buyer to our frontline salespeople again, whether they’re BDRs or whether they’re that more traditional prospector qualified closer, and then that person is already set up for a successful conversation, because the buyer is coming in, knowing who the company is, knowing the types of challenges they’re solving, and it becomes a much warmer conversation for that first sales contact and to that point when marketing sends over a lead to sales, sales actually believes that it’s worth their time to call because that’s something that I’ve heard over and over. You know, in my previous roles, as well as working with my clients, it’s like, yeah, they send me a marketing qualified lead, which is essentially a single name that’s probably made up and a Gmail address. As like, how am I… I sell multimillion dollar pieces of industrial equipment. What am I supposed to do with this? So when we align everything, that goes away, everybody gets to be more effective and more efficient.

Christian Klepp  10:16

Absolutely, absolutely. And you did touch on it, like a few minutes ago. But how do you, what do you think marketers can do differently, because I get that, because I was on the receiving end of that, like getting the wrong leads, yeah right, or getting what marketing considered a qualified leads, and then sales looks at it and says, Well, no, in fact, it’s not.

Hamish Knox  10:37

Yeah.

Christian Klepp  10:38

Right. So how can we, how can both sides close the gap there? How can, how can we get this on the right track?

Hamish Knox  10:45

That is an amazing question. So it starts again, fair and balanced here. So number one, sales has to be willing to share. And this is a challenge that I see sales leaders in particular. They’re like, well, you’re marketing, we’re sales, we’re the, you know, we’re the ones who make things happen. You know, stop bothering us. Just go make some more brochures. And that is a defeating attitude. So if we look at the top end of the of each group, you know, the sales leader and the marketing leader, the sales leader has to look at the marketing leader as a peer and as someone who is going to support their team in getting to their goals faster. So sales, be open minded to working with marketing. Marketing, I’m going to steal from you a little bit, which is marketing. Go to the field. Go on sales calls, double Jack, which is a, you know, if you’re listening on the calls or or zoom along is another, is another new phrase, right? And by the way, for the marketers who are listening, and they got a little tight when they heard go on on sales calls, it doesn’t mean you have to participate. The salesperson says, Hey, this is Hamish. He’s my colleague. He just joined the firm. He’s sitting in to get a sense of what our clients are, and then he’s going to take notes. And then, by the way, the buyer is going to be like, awesome. Hamish goes in the corner, he’s going to take notes, and I don’t have to worry about him. Now, the key part of this is Hamish has to keep his mouth shut the whole time, right? He cannot be… The frame cannot be: Hamish is here to take notes and observe, and then all of a sudden, Hamish like, Well, what about this? Because now we’ve destroyed the credibility and the rapport that we’ve built with our client. So go on sales calls, which is something Christian and I talked about on my podcast. The other, the other thing is, really genuinely listen, not only to sales but also to the clients. Because a complaint that I had with a marketing department that when I was in the corporate world is they would probably be incentivized to really push a strategic product. This is a strategic product, by the way. It’s strategic for this quarter. It’s going to change in 90 days. But this is a strategic product. You’ve got to go talk to your clients about this strategic product. And in one case, I was selling investor relations services, and I said to our head of marketing, most of my clients are junior listed mining companies where 70 to 80% of the stock is held by the CEO and the CFO who go have their annual general meeting at a bar. If I go in and start talking to them about this strategic product, I’m going to kill my credibility. I’m going to be a pushy sales person so I get that you want me to talk about this, my clients are going to destroy me if I try to do this. So when marketers are actually going out and gathering this data, actually going back and really saying, Oh, this is the real data, not coming up with a hypothesis, and finding data that fits the hypothesis, having a hypothesis, and being willing to adjust the hypothesis based on the real data that’s received, because then that’s going to create much more effective content to attract more of the right buyers.

Christian Klepp  14:10

Amen. Amen. And you know, something that you said earlier really resonated with me, because, I guess you can use the police drama analogy right? Where you’ve got, you’ve got the suspect in the interrogation room, and there’s folks on the other side of the mirror, yeah, watching the interrogation as it’s unfolding. And I kind of imagine myself as the marker being the guys that are in that other room going, going, That guy’s lying right? Like he totally did it, right? Totally, yeah, they shouldn’t be the one bursting into the interrogation room. You did it. You’re guilty.

Hamish Knox  14:50

Exactly, exactly.

Christian Klepp  14:51

That’s the detective’s job or the interrogator’s job, right? In this context, the interrogator is the sales guy, right? But, um. You know, absolutely, absolutely. Um, just on that vein of, what are some of those pitfalls? And you spoke about a few of them already, but what are some of these pitfalls that marketers should avoid? Um, when working with sales?

Hamish Knox  15:15

Number one is delivering completed content. So my favorite word when I’m working with a marketing group is the word draft, because draft means there’s still room for adjustments. Now, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, both people have to be open to that adjustment, right? So I have worked with individuals, both in sales and in marketing, who, to use an Anthony Bourdain term, were artists. And so when they delivered something, whether it was a PowerPoint deck for a presentation or whether it was a brochure for a trade show, it was their precious object that shall never be in any way criticized like that’s not the real world. Everything is a draft. Everything is a work in progress. So for marketers and for sellers, I love using the word draft because there’s some there’s some opportunity. And even if we have to publish it because we got to get it ready for the trade show or we’ve got it ready to launch for our digital campaign, it’s still a draft. It can still be edited and still be adjusted. So using that word draft, like, Hey, we’ve drafted this looking for some insights, and then again, for the sales team to give genuine insights about because for the sales team to think marketing is here to support me. They are asking for my help, right? It’s the help me, help you scenario, so I’m going to make the time to give them real, genuine notes that are actually going to enhance whatever they’ve drafted, because ultimately, we’re both working towards the same mountain top, which is grow revenue for the company.

Christian Klepp  16:53

Absolutely, absolutely. There might have been one other one that you told me about in the previous conversation, that, let’s, let’s just say, rub you the wrong way. Is when, when marketers say we’re going to try something.

Hamish Knox  17:08

Yeah, well, that’s the that’s also the quickest way to kill any initiative with anybody, right? Is the the word try in a corporate context, uh, says this too shall pass. So when I and again, this is more, this is corporate world, and I would have the marketing team send out an email, Hey, we’re going to try this out. And the sales team was like, okay, so this is going to put us through a bunch of nonsense that we’re going to have to comply with for, hopefully 30 days, maybe 90 days, we just got to ride the storm out, and we’ll make sure that it’s not damaging to our relationships with our clients. It doesn’t hurt our brand in our local market. Because again, this is the other challenge as marketers, if you’re a national or an international organization, and marketers have gotten way better at this, especially in the in the 2000s is really hyper localizing things. So I don’t want the audience to think I’m absolutely beaten up on marketers. You’ve, you’ve really, you do amazing things, and you can now measure things, right? And that’s where sales oftentimes gets kicked in the teeth by management. There’s like, Well, hey, look at your friends over in marketing. They’ve got data all over the place. What about you? So for marketers, when you’re rolling out something, yes, it could be a short term thing, I get it. You’re doing a trial, even the word trial is better than the word try, because it doesn’t matter what we say. It matters what the other person hears. And when somebody says, We’re gonna try this ad campaign, sales rolls their eyes. Whereas, if we say, Hey, we’re doing an ad campaign trial, and here’s the outcome that we’re looking for, sales goes, Oh, okay, yeah, clarity, right, we understand this is a trial, and you’ve told us what the outcome is. It’s not a bunch of wishing and hoping that things are going to magically get better. You’ve got some real data behind here, by the way, that’s something that sales could learn from marketing on most occasions, is to have real defined outcomes and real clarity, as opposed to, I don’t know we’re going to talk to some people and hope to sell stuff.

Christian Klepp  19:19

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. The other thing I do remember from my experience, also being in corporate, what salespeople really hated was if we used to call meetings and we don’t say, Hey, listen. And we got better at it over time, obviously, but like, call meetings and not defining what the purpose of the meeting is and what the expected outcome is. By expected outcome. Do we want feedback? Do we want validation? Do we want collaboration? Who’s responsible for said meeting? Right? Because somebody has to be responsible, like who called it right?

Hamish Knox  20:01

Overarching in any role. High performers do not want to be in meetings. Now high performer, operations, marketing, finance, sales, like pick a department. The true high performers want to be doing the thing that they do really well, whether that’s supporting clients, finding new clients, developing new content to bring in ideal leads, delivering, whatever it might be, they don’t want to be in the meetings. And you nailed it. Christian of whenever someone looks at a at a meeting invite and says, I don’t know why I should care. I don’t know why it’s set for an hour, or whatever it might be because, and by the way, it’s probably because it was the default. And again, What’s the purpose? Like? What? Why? What am I expected to be doing here? Ultimately, if they’re going to get forced to the meeting, and then it’s not going to go well, because they’re sitting there. To you, you know, a bit of a terrible word, but they’re sitting there like a hostage, and they’re not present. They’re thinking about all the things that they could be doing that they feel would be a better use of their time than this meeting, which, by the way, might be really critical to the success of their role. However, the frame was so terrible that they’re not even willing to engage.

Christian Klepp  21:20

Absolutely, absolutely. Framing it, packaging it, and using the right approach, yeah, right, all of those things together.

Hamish Knox  21:27

Exactly, yeah, exactly, yeah. Sandler. Sandler. Part of the Sandler system is something called an upfront contract, and it literally is The Purpose. How much time? What are the agendas? And what are the expected outcomes? All of this is done in advance, so that everybody who goes in knows. And then, by the way, because we have those people in meetings who sometimes want to pontificate for lack of a better word, or maybe not stick to the agenda, that’s where the person who’s leading the meeting, who’s accountable for the agenda, can say, Hamish, I appreciate your insights on why your customers are very different and why this approach isn’t going to work. That’s actually not the purpose. What the agenda item we’re on is this, do you have something to say about that? By the way, the answer is usually no, I just want to hear myself talk. By having that frame up front. It’s way easier to have a much more productive meeting in significantly less time.

Christian Klepp  22:26

Absolutely, absolutely. We used to call those guys the meeting hijackers.

Hamish Knox  22:30

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Christian Klepp  22:32

And you have to have that guy, for lack of a better description, I’m just going to call that person the moderator. The moderator has to step in and say Christian or Hamish. Thank you for your contribution. Thanks for the thanks for, you know, sharing your opinion. But let’s stick to the matter at hand. If you don’t mind, we can certainly go back to what you were discussing in a couple of minutes. And of course, the trick is you never go back to that topic right?

Hamish Knox  22:58

Exactly, exactly. We’ll circle back to that later, which is never.

Christian Klepp  23:02

Which is never, yeah, we’ll talk about after the coffee break. Yeah. Provide an example, ideally, from your own experience, of course, of how sales and marketing can work well together.

Hamish Knox  23:18

So and I was gently touching on it a little bit earlier. Of in my organization, my marketing group is actually empowered to say, Hey, that’s a great idea, and it’s not going to work. So we have an agreement between us that when we want to raise our revenue, that’s the ultimate goal. We’re going to collaborate on this. So and each group has the right to say, I don’t think that’s going to work. What about this? And so when we have those conversations about, hey, let’s do an event, or hey, let’s do a campaign, or hey, let’s do this trade show, or this sponsorship. Both parties are equal in the conversation around, why should we do this? What’s the payoff? Is it going to work? If so, how and how are we going to execute it, pre, during and post? Because with that framing, everybody feels like their contribution matters, as opposed to sales coming in and saying, Hey, we’re doing a trade show next week or in next quarter. Figure it out, and marketing is like, awesome dude like, that wasn’t in the budget. That wasn’t in the planning. We were already on this, etc., etc. I have another client where the marketing group ended up going on some sales calls like I mentioned earlier, and it was that frame of Hamish is here. He’s just observing. He’s brand new to the company. He wants to get a sense of what our clients are like. And then marketing came back and said, Okay, here’s what we’ve heard from you sales people. And they didn’t literally say, you sales people, that’s aggressive. And here’s what we’ve observed in the field, and what we’re noticing is these disconnects. What we need help on is resolving the disconnects. So it was a collaborative conversation, not around you guys are lying to us, which is what sales think marketing is going to do if they actually get to go talk to real clients. Instead, it was I’m confused, and I tell all of the clients I work with that confused is a great place to be, because it means there’s a disconnect between what somebody said and what is actually observed. And so that was another great way of aligning marketing and sales, because marketing could go out and actually get real data and come back and say to sales, I need your help. And then from there, they were much better able to develop real tools that spoke to problems the buyer was experiencing, as opposed to features and benefits. We’ve been in business 25 years and won all these awards that no one cares about. And then again, when sales got a lead, it was actually based around a problem that my client solved, as opposed to, I don’t know, I just wanted to download a free report on the five things I should know about fill in the blank.

Christian Klepp  26:23

Absolutely, absolutely. I think it’s… you touched on a lot of points that really resonated with me in the past couple minutes. And I think a lot of it is really just also both sides, regardless of whether it’s marketing or sales, just leave your ego at the door, right? This shouldn’t be seen as a personal attack on your integrity or on your level of professionalism. It should be seen or viewed from that perspective that okay, continuous improvement or trying to get this boat rowing in the same direction, right? But that brings me to a follow up question, and it’s well, how do you maneuver because what I’ve been hearing you say in the past couple of minutes is all very constructive. That said you have a lot of internal politics to maneuver there. How do you deal with that?

Hamish Knox  27:22

So one thing that we or one person we haven’t talked about, is the is the CEO or the owner of the organization. And so ultimately, sales and marketing, yes, all this wonderful collaboration, all these things, and then, yeah, well, what about I’m trying to get ahead. I’m trying to advance my career. And, you know, in big, big corporate that’s that’s a reality. And so ultimately, it is on the leader of leaders to set the culture. And so a corporate culture is the behavior that is approved implicitly or explicitly. That’s it. There’s no other definition. You can go do all your off sites and planning sessions and whatever your corporate culture is the behavior that is approved implicitly or explicitly, so if we have a leader of leaders who is approving the behavior implicitly or explicitly of politicking and backstabbing and things like that, and we have someone in the in the marketing role who really genuinely wants to make their work with sales a collaboration, and they genuinely want to make it rowing in the same direction. Yet they have a sales leader who is playing politics, and they have their leader of leaders who is allowing it that is an awkward conversation that the marketing leader will need to have with their leader of leaders and say things like, here’s what I’m observing. You know, my sense is I’m struggling with and so then again, it’s not the finger pointing. It’s genuinely looking for a solution, which, at that leader of leaders level, that’s what they’re looking for. They’re not looking for. You know, wow, they stole my lunch box. They’re looking for. This is what I’m observing. This is how I’m feeling. And here’s what I’m thinking about, a solution. How do you feel about that? And then letting the leader of leaders say, suck it up and deal with it, which is one option, or the scales have fallen off. My eyes I can see again. Oh, thank you for bringing this to my attention. Another option, by the way, both are probably not going to happen. And and having that clarity right, creating that clarity around desired future state. And as I’ve coached plenty of clients in big corporate at some point, you have to ask yourself, is it worth the brain damage? Because you have to go have the conversation. This is not permission to just run away. Right? Yeah. At some point, if you do everything that’s under your control and have stated clearly your needs and in your desires to create success for the organization, and you’re not getting supported, you have to ask yourself, is it worth the brain damage. For some people, the answer is legitimately Yes. And for other people, the answer is, no, I’d rather go find an organization that truly wants to have a collaborative, client facing organization.

Christian Klepp  30:29

Absolutely, absolutely. So it’s got to be the right fit, right at some point. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, my friend, we get to the point in the conversation where we talk about actionable tips, and, man, you’ve given us plenty. And I guess the way that I’m gonna frame this question Hamish is, if there is a B to B marketer out there who is facing this issue that we’ve been talking about right now, and there are three to five things that you want them to walk away with, what would they be?

Hamish Knox  30:58

So the first one is, when you are listening to a seller or a member of the sales organization, sales leader, front line doesn’t matter. Always restate, never paraphrase. So we’re taught in conflict resolution to paraphrase. You know, Christian what I think I heard you say is, did I get that right? And I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t matter what we say, it matters what the other person hears. And in a conflict situation, and as we’ve already identified, it’s a conflict situation, typically, when we paraphrase, the other person doesn’t actually hear us genuinely wanting to engage. What they hear is you’re not listening. What they think is you’re not listening to me. So we have to restate exactly what they said. So Christian, when you tell me that all the leads for marketing suck, what do you mean by that? That’s a restatement. And by the way, I’m using my nurturing voice right now, audience, if you’re listening. So I’m going to be a little bit gentler in a real conversation. I’m saying it for a fact. So number one, restate, don’t paraphrase. Number two, bring a draft. The phrase of draft is great. Number three, create clarity at every stage “I’m asking you because”, “the goal I have is”, “we’re doing this for this period of time with this expected outcome” that creates clarity, that raises our credibility. Number four, seek engagement by ending sentences with question marks. The minute we end the sentence with a period. We’re doing this sales is like, awesome. We’re going to fight you. Now. They’re not going to say it, but their behavior is going to change, right? We’re doing this with this expected outcome. What else would you like to know? Or what do you think we might have missed? Or something like that. Again, that’s a draft, right? There’s no perfect plan. And the last one is, and I’m going to steal it from you, leave your ego at the door. Ultimately, this is about getting to the same mountain top, which is revenue growth for the organization. The minute that we decide that we are more important than that mountain top, things are going to go sideways.

Christian Klepp  33:23

Amen, wow. I’ve been, I’ve been, um, like, taking notes furiously here, but let me just quickly recap those, because I think it’s worth repeating, right? So listening to the seller, restate, don’t paraphrase, right. Bring a draft that was number two. Number three is create clarity at every stage. Number four, I thought this one was really awesome. Seek engagement by ending with a question, right, not a period. And number five, yes, leave your ego out the door. And that applies to marketing, when we interact with creative people as well.

Hamish Knox  34:02

Amen, yes, absolutely.

Christian Klepp  34:05

Fantastic, fantastic. I’m going to ask you to get up on a higher soapbox than you’ve already been on. But like, um, just on this, on this very topic, what is a status quo that you passionately disagree with. And why.

Hamish Knox  34:21

Well, so, and it ties across marketing and sales, and it’s that relationships are the key to growing a business. And it’s complete nonsense. There’s a Harvard study several years ago it turned into the book The Challenger sale, that showed that sellers who tried to base things on relationships were the single worst performers. And in marketing, it’s like, well, we have great relationships with our vendors or with our suppliers or with our creatives. And ultimately, I bet, if you went and asked. Them. You know, how do you feel about work with XYZ CO., you’re probably going to get some information that you didn’t want to have. So what I share is that rapport beats relationship, and the root of the word rapport is the word Trust. So trust is the reason why we have the societies that we have today, because we decided that we would trust each other instead of bashing each other in the head with rocks and sticks so I would rather focus on creating great rapport with my vendors, my suppliers, my colleagues in the sales department, the marketing department, the finance department, as opposed to attempting to go through the long slog of building a relationship. A relationship is trust over time. So if we focus on the relationship, we’re probably never going to get there, and we’re probably going to seem as pushy and aggressive and off putting. If I focus on building trust with my colleague in the sales department and by delivering consistently, by listening, by taking what they say and actually doing something with it, that is something that is going to accelerate us to that growth mountain top, as opposed to, well, I’ve got a great relationship,

Christian Klepp  34:26

And this, my friend, is exactly the reason why I asked this question, right? Because a lot of folks that I’ve brought on to the show, and, you know, interviewed and what have you, would argue that it’s everything is relationship based, right? And it’s all about building relationship. And that’s, you know, to you, to your point, that’s what we’ve been taught to believe over time, right? That it’s, it’s all about building relationships, and that kind of intermingles somehow with trust and credibility. Yeah, right. And so thank you for bringing that fresh perspective on that. That is definitely something I’m gonna ponder on. I mean, like, you know, after your explanation, it 100% makes sense. But I wasn’t that I was in that camp, right? That said, yeah, no relationships first, right?

Hamish Knox  36:55

Absolutely. And it’s, it’s something that, again, it’s, and also it feels easy, right? Oh, I’m building a relationship with Christian. Hey, Christian, kind of curious. Who’s your creative person working on this? I don’t know. It’s some guy who’s doing stuff for me, right? Like there’s no… but it’s the rapport that trust over time and relationships are crucial. I should, I should clarify to the audience, relationships are crucial. As I said, if we focus on the just, oh, I got to build a relationship. We’re actually not creating trust, which reduces the potential of a relationship.

Christian Klepp  37:27

Absolutely. Okay, two more questions. I’ll let you go. Okay, so bonus question, all right, rumor. Rumor has it that you grew up in BC, or you lived in BC for a bit.

Hamish Knox  37:39

I did grow up in BC. Yes.

Christian Klepp  37:42

Oh, I’m sorry. For the benefit of the audience. BC is British Columbia. So you know, for those that are not very familiar with that part of the world where you’ve spent, you know, quite a number of years of your life, what’s a fun fact about BC that not many people know?

Hamish Knox  37:59

So a fun fact about BC, and actually the town I went to high school in, because I grew up in a village of 500 people, so there was no high school. Sicamous, British Columbia is the houseboat capital of Canada. It used to be the houseboat capital of the world that is now Lake Tahoe in the United States. However, 80% of the houseboats that are on Lake Tahoe were actually built in Sicamous and shipped down there. So, yes, so little, you know, 3500 people year round, goes to 12,000 in the summer for houseboat related reasons. It’s a world leader in the production of houseboats.

Christian Klepp  38:39

Wow! See, I didn’t even know that. But then again, I do live in Ontario, so, you know, like…

Hamish Knox  38:46

You have cottages instead.

Christian Klepp  38:47

We do, we do, yeah, not many houseboats in this part, but Hamish. Thank you so much. I mean, like, as expected, this conversation was dynamite, and I certainly hope that there are B to B marketers out there that are going to be listening to this show, listening to this episode, and hopefully taking as many notes as I have. So thank you again for coming on the show and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. Please quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Hamish Knox  39:15

Yeah. Thank you very much for inviting me, Christian. So Hamish, Knox, I am with Sandler Calgary, based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. There are not many Hamish Knox is in North America. So if you Google Hamish Calgary or Hamish Sandler, you’ll find me very easily. You can also go to go.Sandler.com/Hamish, which is H, A, M, I, S, H, and you’ll find my website. And then I’m very easy to find on LinkedIn as well. So best way to get a hold of us and at Sandler Calgary, we support our clients in having more effective human to human interactions, professionally and personally, so they can sustainably scale their sales and eventually exit for their number, not the number they’re told to take.

Christian Klepp  39:57

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

Hamish Knox  40:04

Thank you, Christian.

Christian Klepp  40:04

Alright. Bye for now.