June 26, 2025 • 44 mins
Tye DeGrange (CEO, Round Barn Labs), who shared tried and tested strategies on how B2B marketers can build trust for better results. Tye emphasized the importance of partnering with trusted industry voices such as influencers and affiliates to help build trust, demonstrate expertise, and drive measurable results. He also elaborated on how technology, social media, content authenticity, and customer persona alignment impact trust-building initiatives.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
We can all agree that to securemore business in this
competitive landscape, B2Bcompanies need to start by
building trust. With so muchdigital noise and similar
marketing tactics out there,standing out has become both a
challenge and an opportunity. Sohow can B2B brands build trust
in this era of skepticism?Welcome to this episode of the
(00:22):
B2B Marketers on a Missionpodcast, and I'm your host,
Christian Klepp. Today I'll betalking to Tye DeGrange, who
will be answering this question.He's the CEO of Round Barn Labs,
and is a growth expert focusedon paid marketing and conversion
rate optimization. Find out moreabout what this B2B marketers
mission is. And here we go. Mr.Tye DeGrange, welcome to the
(00:44):
show, Sir.
Thank you, Christian. It's greatto be here and looking forward
to it.
Great to have you on the show.Tye, and I'm really looking
forward to this discussion,because I think every B2B
marketer and every B2B businessout there can benefit from
building based on trust,building relationships based on
trust, building their businessbased on trust, building
(01:08):
communities based on trust, youget the picture, right? So...
Yeah.
Well, let's dive right in,right? So fantastic. So Tye,
you're on a mission to helpconnect B2B and consumer tech
companies with trusted voices todrive growth and engagement. And
as I've already alluded to, thetopic of today's conversation is
going to be around how B2Bmarketers can build trust in the
(01:31):
age of skepticism. And I knowthat's a very strong word, but
you know what? Let's not sugarcoat it. It's it's hard to build
trust these days. But let's kickoff the conversation with two
questions, and I'm happy torepeat them. One is, why is it
so difficult for brands to buildtrust in the market? And number
two, where do these so calledtrust gaps? Where do they come from?
(01:54):
Yeah, it's a good question. Youknow this, this evolution has
kind of been happening for along time. We've seen people not
trust as much as they used tofor years now. If you think
about rewind the clock to middleof last century, ancient history
for some people, but there was alot more inherent trust in
(02:17):
authority, government, business,marketing, messaging, I think
the world has gotten a lot morenoisy, a lot more open, a lot
more transparent. A lot of thetypical gatekeepers of
television, media, authority,you name it. The list goes on
and on right have kind of beenunmasked, and we've seen this
(02:39):
across a lot of differentthings. A lot more things have
been crowdsourced anddemocratized, and everyone has a
supercomputer in their pocket.So, you know, all of those
things have really led to aoverall decline in trust.
Obviously, you know, bad actors,unfortunate challenges in terms
(03:01):
of fraud, and people are not asreliant on things, you know,
generally speaking, as they usedto. I think there's obviously a
lot of great things happening interms of opportunity and what,
what, what technology is givingto us all, but there's also some
challenges. And so nowhere arewe seeing that more really
(03:24):
readily than in marketing, inparticular, where brands can no
no longer just kind of wave thebanner themselves and spend the
dollars and get in touch withthe Mad Men Don Draper type to
run a creative and a story andand and plot that out over the
course of a, you know, TV adcampaign. It's much more
(03:46):
fragmented now, and brands arehaving to rely on third parties
to really engage into illicittrust. People are really heavily
reliant on that much more thanthey ever have been.
Absolutely, absolutely. Andjust, just going back to that
second question, Where does,where do you think this
originates from, this wholetrust gap? Or is it multiple
(04:09):
factors? I'd imagine it wouldbe.
Yeah, no, it's a great question.You know, I think there's so
much about technologyimprovements that have really
empowered people at a levelthat, you know, I just don't
think was even close to possible20 years ago, not to mention 50,
60 plus years ago, right? We cankind of, we've been kind of
(04:31):
taught how to fish, in some wayswhen it comes to finding
information, and so you know,whether it's going into a car
dealership or seeing an ad on astreaming service about an
outdoor, you know, equipmentthat you you're in consideration
to buy, you know, you have a lotof power in your fingertips. And
(04:51):
information, as we know,information, is power to a
degree. And so I think that you.Yeah, the technology is a huge
we can talk about the multitudeof factors, which there are
quite a few, but the technologyitself is a really big factor.
And that, I think that'spartially why, you know, I
think, and then conversely, Ithink, unfortunately, there's
(05:15):
been a lot of just misplacedtrust and bad actors. And enough
of that happens, and people getwise. They get their skepticism
goes up. It's not like you dwellon that, but I think the
technology, plus some of thefailures of people with that
power and with that control asgatekeepers in media and
(05:36):
marketing and business, youknow, from Enron to all the
other examples over the last,you know, 50 years, there's just
a numerous number of them. Andso I think that's why we found
ourselves in a bit of a trustgap, to where consumers in a in
a business setting, or in amarketing setting, kind of come
(05:56):
in with a pretty heavy dose ofskepticism, which I think we've
all kind of seen.
Absolutely, absolutely. How muchof this trust gap would you,
would you say is caused also bysocial media?
Yeah, I think, I think it kindof is, in a big way, on a
(06:18):
multitude of factors, right?You've got this wealth of
information. You've got theability to kind of crowdsource
information, and on one hand,that can really increase your
signal, and it can give you someinfo where you maybe didn't have
it before, especially onparticular topics. But in other
areas, you have, you know, acrazy amount of things that are
(06:42):
false, lies, misinfo, howeveryou want to describe it. So talk
about a double whammy. It kindof creates, like, a lot of a lot
more noise over signal indifferent ways, in that there's
expectations of knowledge, andit's almost like the data
marketing, you know, debates weget into, like, you get all this
(07:04):
data, but are you really gettingsome information back? So I
think you're spot on. I thinkthose things have really just
only increased the kind ofskepticism and trust gap that we
found ourselves in.
Yeah, yeah. No, that'sabsolutely right. You spoke
about this a little bit earlierin the conversation, but talking
about, like, trusted voices, sopartnering with influencers and
(07:26):
the like, I guess it begs thequestion, like, why do you feel?
Or, let me rephrase that, howcan partnering with trusted
voices? Let's put it that way,how can partnering with trusted
voices help to bridge this socalled trust gap between B2B
brands and their target markets?
Yeah, no, it's a great call out.I mean, I think we are, you
(07:47):
know, wired for socialinteraction. You know, we, you
and I are feeding off of eachother. On this conversation,
there's people watching thatare, you know, picking up
signals. And if you're inperson, it obviously is much
different and get much morecontext. We're wired for that.
(08:07):
First and foremost, there's alot of data to support that
individuals are much more likelyto trust something that comes
from friends, family, obviously.But even so, people they don't
know, a creator, influencer.What would you want to call
them, that can kind of educatethem on a topic about a brand or
(08:29):
service. And so this gap is kindof creating this movement and
this demand and this excitementaround, how can brands, you
know, tap into third parties,you know, the affiliate world,
for example, affiliate marketinghas been around for 30 years. It
has exploded in particular,probably in the last 5 and 10
(08:51):
around in particular, aroundlike content sites, reviews, top
10 guides. But there's like 15other business models that are
kind of connected to that. Thereviews and gift guides and top
10s are a great example of awriter or an author or a
collection of voices who areshowcasing value and interesting
(09:13):
information about variousbrands. It's not necessarily
directly coming from the brand itself.
And you know, varying flavors ofthat, in terms of trust and
validity that we see, we look atthat, we grade that, we take
that seriously. And then on theCreator, influencer side, on
social media, Instagram, Tiktok,YouTube, LinkedIn, X, etc, all
(09:36):
of that. It's even more, youknow, pronounced. There's a lot
of there's a social aspect wheresome of these folks are so
powerful. They're creatingbrands themselves. You know,
some of the technology you knowbrands are making or breaking
brands with their reviews andunderstanding of it and
(09:56):
explanation. And you know, andit's welcoming, kind of the 30
years ago, and ads, you wouldn'tsay, well, here's an amazing
razor, here's the downside ofsaid razor. It would be this
aspirational image of manlinessand people driving around in
sports cars and stuff, stuff.And that's fine, and that's
(10:17):
branding, that's ads, but, youknow, and then you have kind of,
like the more specific valueprop type ad stuff. But nowadays
it's like, I think people thatskepticism, that trust gap, is
really welcoming people to kindof get the good, bad and ugly
from someone down the street,amplified on digital. Now,
(10:38):
everyone has a microphone.Everyone has a super computer.
So here we are, and I thinkthat's what brands are really
clamoring for. We're seeing justinsane investment, millions and
billions to billions invested.Growth rates through the roof.
So it's happened in a prettysteady clip, and it's kind of
(10:59):
become a requirement. There'sthere's other pieces to that,
but that's, that's a bit about why?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,absolutely, absolutely. I wanted
to add something to that razorcommercial. It's not just about
driving sports cars cars. It'sabout riding horses too, right? Like...
Exactly.
(11:19):
Sorry, the audience is not goingto get that joke, but, you know.
That's okay. We appreciate it.Things that are aspirational,
you know, we could go there.
That's right, no, but youbrought up something, which I
think is it's so true, it'senabled. I would even go as far
as to say it's empowered peoplewith all this, there's more
(11:40):
transparency now, right?
Yes.
On a completely different topic,because I live in Toronto, and
we, you know, we had thisdiscussion, like, back during
the Christmas time where, youknow, we had gathering with
family and friends, and we weretalking about the crime rate and
everyone's, you know, one sideof the table was talking about,
like, you know, all the crimesthrough the roof, and it's
(12:02):
increased since the pandemic.And there was another group on
the table that was a little bitolder that said, You know what,
um, the crime rate is about thesame that it was 30 years ago.
The difference is that it's justeasier to report the crime now,
right? Because, you know, youcan post it. You can post it on
social media. You've got videosof some something happening
(12:22):
there. You can even send it tothe the the Twitter or the x
account of the police servicesand so forth, right? And that
didn't exist 30 years ago,right? You had yet 911, and that
was it, right?
Yeah, yeah, yes, citizen. Nownot to go down a rabbit hole.
There's a lot of ways toabsolutely report and shine
light on things, and everyone'sgot that ability now, so I think
(12:45):
you're on to something there.
Yeah, yeah. And, in fact, that'slike, kind of a nice little
segue to my follow up question,right? Which I let's, let's, I
mean, I can't help myself butask you this question, because
people, even in the B2B spacewhen you're talking about
partnering with influencers,perhaps one of the, I would even
(13:05):
call it a knee jerk reaction to,oh, we're partnering with an
influencer. Okay, how manyfollowers, how many subscribers,
how many downloads? Is this guygonna guarantee us? Like, I
don't know if that's if that's atrend that you're seeing. And
first question, and secondquestion, what is it with
people's obsession with numbersand the bigger numbers?
(13:29):
Yeah, I think that the crazy,the cool thing is, like there's,
on one hand, there's thismovement towards brands now
being able to tap intoaffiliates, creators,
influencers, all these thirdparties with varying degrees of
trust and varying degrees ofvolume and varying degrees of
quality that can promote yourbrand, you know, to state some
(13:52):
somewhat of the obvious and notbarely too much. I mean, we kind
of help people navigate that andfigure that out, and rank, stack
and match. It's a matchmakinggame for many ways. I think
there's also a little bit of,there's also a lot of
complexities and challenges thatcome up with it. I think brands
are there's also a degree of, Ithink, blowback and fatigue
(14:15):
that's happened in the spacewhere, you know, a lot of people
are sort of fed up with shellingout these astronomical figures
for follower counts or even forengagement. Engagement is
important, but you know, to anextent, there needs to be other
ROI (Return on Investment)captured here, especially as
people have gotten more fiscallyresponsible in the last three
(14:39):
and a half years, if you will.
So comes with this kind of youknow, great opportunity comes
some responsibility in goingafter the right things and
looking at how much is thisinfluencer, creator, partner,
aligned with your actualcustomer use cases? Actual ICP ,
(15:02):
you know, ideal customerpersonas, actual demographics.
Is it aiding in that? You know,awareness, consideration,
conversion? Are you driving MQLs(Marketing Qualified Lead), SQL
(Sales Qualified Lead), leadvolume in a B2B SaaS world. The
good news is for B2B SaaS,you're kind of looking at one of
(15:25):
the most insane compound annualgrowth rate of any performance
marketing lever. You know, it'snot like people are knocking
down the door to do paid search.I mean, yeah, they are. It's
kind of a necessary piece of themix. You don't want to exclude
it per se, but it's fun to beable to play in a world where
(15:46):
you have data and all theserelationships you have to
manage. It's difficult. And sostepping back with all this
opportunities comes kind of thismess to unwind and under Help
people understand and sopresents a unique challenge for
brands to kind of go, Well,where do we start? How do we get
this going? How do we measureit? And I think, I think that's
(16:10):
where we want to collaboratewith people that are, that are
that are, have intention aboutit.
Absolutely, absolutely. Sobottom line, it's not just about
the numbers, right?
Yeah, yeah. And to build on thatChristian, you know, for a lot
of brands, it can be a contentcreator as well. You know, we've
been touting this since, gosh,about 2018 actually, where we
(16:34):
kind of call it a flywheeleffect, where if you can get
your site dialed in optimallyfrom a conversion perspective.
If you can go out and acquirethird party, uh, great reviews,
discussions, how tos,comparisons versus your
(16:55):
competitors that are appropriateand in line with your kind of
agreements and the voice of theCreator. You don't want to take
that away. You get a couplewinners there, and you get that
white listing rights. You canport those into your LinkedIn or
to to meta, and those can, youknow, oftentimes be your best
performing creative. Yeah. So,so there's a little bit of a how
(17:19):
do we build up the awareness andconsideration, a little, maybe
some storytelling element, tosome extent, for brands that can
invest that's probably ideal.Then you have a content
generation value. Then there isa legitimate, straight up ROI
value. You know, affiliateitself is generally going to be
more efficient than, I think,influencer on the surface.
But if you kind of combine thepower of that. You know, you're
(17:42):
looking at the two very, reallypowerful levers. The other cool
thing is not to go too down arabbit hole. A lot of people
don't realize, in B2B marketing,there's referrals, there's
ambassadors, there's value add,resellers like B2B SaaS has such
an ecosystem already in thepartnerships world is already
(18:04):
kind of known, and so I think,think what we're seeing is a
little bit of a collision of,like all these things into one.
It's not necessarily you'regoing to try to do it all for
everyone, but the the old schoolkind of affiliate mechanism of
brand tracking, provider,partner, and all that tracked
and going through one ecosystem,that logic can be applied to all
(18:26):
of those different players inthe ecosystem. So your
affiliates and your influencers,and your your value added
resources, your partners, yourtech partners, ideally, all that
could be kind of managed underone plumbing system, you can see
all the data of how thatinteracts directly. That's, I
think, a really exciting part ofthis, and that's, I think, the
(18:48):
Holy Grail, where B2B brandswant to be moving to.
I think you just inadvertentlycame up with a title for this
episode, like managed under oneplumbing system. There you go.
Fantastic.
Yeah, make it sound really sexy.Keep blue collar.
Yes, Mario Brothers stuffreally.
(19:11):
Now we have a theme song too,
Fantastic. On the topic of keypitfalls for B2B marketers to
avoid what are they and whatshould they be doing instead?
I think one of the big ones istreating it like consumer a lot
of people who have affiliateexpertise, a lot of people who
(19:33):
have done affiliate a lot fortons of consumer brands, think
they can just kind of bolt in akind of consumer based approach.
They're not thinking long termabout the value that partners
are bringing over the course ofyou know, quite insane. LTVs
(Life Time Value), that's thebeauty of SaaS, right? You have
margins, you have long termretention, in some cases, for
(19:56):
the leads and MQLs, SQL isrevenue that are being brought
in. So I think that applyingkind of a short term micro
approach is sort of a bigpitfall.
I think another one is likereally not being very well
aligned with the data, and notreally thinking for the benefit
(20:18):
of the B2B SaaS brand. It's easyto, you know, stand up a
tracking tool, get tracking inplace, see some metrics in the
tracking tool, recruit partners.But oftentimes what you see in
the tracking is a great start,and you have to go multiple
layers deeper to really alignwith what's happening with the
(20:39):
CRM? Where are those? Where arethose transactions, those leads,
those actions, happening lateron? Are they actually
converting? Are we gettingquality? Are you looking at
things at a cohort level? Sothose two are pretty big, you
know, I think, I think becauseit is still so relationship
(20:59):
based, it's easy, I think, tothink transactionally and to
think, start, stop and like, youknow, Uber agile, search and
social take their time to buildout and grow and mature and be,
you know, come to fruition.Affiliate, partner, influencer
is even more dramatic. It'sprobably double the time, I
(21:20):
would say, to get those thingsup and running. So because
you're dealing with humanelement, because you're some
ways pitching a story and areason why a particular B2B SaaS
brand should be promoted orcould be promoted. Why does it
match make that time requirementis really important. And I think
(21:40):
having having that askew, havingexpectations off on that, or
where a lot of brands go wrong.So those are the big three I see,
Yeah, no, for sure, for sure.Those are, those are some really
critical ones too. Um...
Yeah.
Okay, break it down for us. Imean, I know you've given us a
lot, but like, break it down forus in terms of how, if I am the
(22:03):
B2B marketer, like, say, in aSaaS company and whatnot, what
steps do I need to take to helpto build that trust, right? So
what are, what? How do brandsreclaim that authenticity in
their marketing?
Brands that are doing well inB2B SaaS and have gotten over
certain revenue growth marketinghurdles in their trajectory. Are
(22:29):
in a unique position to investin this and collaborate with
some folks that know how to dothis. I think that's obviously
helpful. I think that the morethey on, they're really kind of
coming at it from a customer usecase perspective. If this is a
(22:50):
time tracking device, if this isa calendar calendaring device,
you know, device really leaninginto what are the pain points
that the customer is feeling?What are those real, real value
benefits that they're toutingand the customer is really
(23:12):
vocally speaking about inreviews and product discussions?
Great, B2B SaaS companies knowthis inherently. They have
invested millions upon millionsin it already. Their product
teams are entrenching it for themost part. So I think thinking
(23:33):
about it in that lens andsaying, how do we line up the
best 50 content sites, the best50 YouTubers, the best 50
Tiktok, in some cases, LinkedIn,you know, AI gurus, they're all
there. And those are realpartners to work with.
I think the more that thatcustomer and those those good
(23:56):
stakeholders are being thoughtof as part of that process, the
more it's going to come out, youknow, I in some cases, you can
almost use your customers as aspartners. In some cases, if you
want to get you know literalabout it, there's a percentage
of them that could be and so Ithink the more it kind of tells
that story, the better. I mean,we look at it. We look at
(24:18):
revenue and actions and likeNorth Star metric actions, not
just lead submissions and thingslike that, as really the Holy
Grail, and really want to alignwith the whole what's the holy
grail for each B2B SaaS brand.So we have a lot of data in our
database of 10,000 pluspartners, contact information,
real time, data, contact, allthat stuff that can better match
(24:40):
make but, and I think the morethere, the more the line minutes
with the customer. And itdoesn't have to all be rosy
picture. Some of it's going tobe that, going back to that
authenticity piece, going backto that what's changed over the
last 50. Years, it's, it's okayto say this part of the software
is kind of, kind of not workingfor me, but for the most part,
(25:03):
it's head and shoulders abovethe other players, and the
pricing works. Or, hey, they'rekind of number two in this
space, but they're killer forthe overall solution. If you're
in this use case, there's, Ithink there's a lot of ways
where that authenticity comesthrough, where you're just being
very honest about it in thereview, and so it doesn't always
(25:25):
have to be is his hands down,the best solution. This is what
you know. This is why.
And the other part of thatauthenticity is that FTC
(Federal Trade Commission)requirements really require
there to be some disclosuresaround. Hey, I'm getting
compensated for this hashtag ad.There's some good disclosure
legal requirements from the FTCthat every part of the ecosystem
(25:46):
is really responsible for. Wewant to be monitoring that for
our clients. We currently arecareful about that advising
clients to make sure we'regetting that coverage and
exposure to to protect everybodyinvolved, and to let the
consumer be protected to knowthat, hey, this is, I'm being
transparent with you, going backto what we said earlier.
(26:07):
Absolutely, absolutely, and onlybecause you brought it up. I'm
gonna go back to it, right?Because, man, it is 2025, and
what kind of podcast interviewwould this be if I didn't ask
you about AI, right? Like...
Yeah.
I mean, if we're, if we're onthe topic of building trust,
right, AI comes up andimmediately, oftentimes,
(26:30):
unfortunately, has a negativeconnotation, but just over to
you, just from your experienceand based on your expertise, how
much of an impact. How much doyou feel AI actually impacts
this trust gap we're talkingabout, and how should be to be
brands if they're trying toreclaim that trust, how should
(26:51):
they go about dealing with AI?Because let's be honest. We're
not going to throw it out thewindow, right, but there's a but
there's a right and wrong way tobe leveraging it.
I think it's similar to what Ishared earlier about social
media, in that it, it both helpsand hurts. I think it, it makes
(27:13):
these types of conversationsperhaps even more valuable for
me, you know, right, wrong orindifferent, I've kind of
jokingly become a reluctantinfluencer, as I joked with my
friends and team about, youknow, and you are as well.
Obviously, some are moreexplicitly influencers than
others. You know, we have a lotof examples. YouTube's a great
(27:37):
one where it's like, let meexplain you how to onboard
Trello, Monday, HubSpot. Let medo a comparison of these in all
of that. But if you think aboutthe value of those, those
creators might be using AI tomake their job easier. You might
be using AI to improve theirworkflows and their efficiency,
(27:58):
but when the rubber meets theroad for the consumer to feel
human connection with somebodythat that actually has a
heartbeat and has issues anddealing with life. That's where
I think the magic is. And Ithink where you've seen Google
shift with the Eat framework,and a lot of the challenges to
(28:19):
the existing status quo. A lotof sites have been slapped a lot
of AI is eating, you know,organic search to some extent. I
think people are their radar,and skepticism is being fed with
that as well, because they'rewondering, was this AI generated
to some extent? And I thinkthere's this weird angle where
(28:40):
we're probably, you know, we'recertainly going to see more of
that content, and some of it canperform, quote, unquote, but
that's part of, I think, again,feeding why they want to have
those human connections andthose human voices. I think
video, yeah, eventually there's,you see, a lot of these
(29:01):
hyperbolic, Oh, can you believethis is actually an AI bot and
not a human? Sure, but we craveit. Going back to what we said,
we crave that human connection.We crave this societal, tribal
connection of one human toanother. Fortunately, that's not
going anywhere. And I think itjust amplifies that opportunity
(29:22):
for this type of stuff, that'slike, Hey, I'm here. I'm alive.
I I'm not saying it perfectly,but I'm being honest with you
about my suggestions and myconversation and my review, and
it's double edged. It's helpingand hurting, as I shared with
social media earlier.
Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely.
(29:44):
And I think it's mostly anopportunity, because I think in
exciting ways, like we get touse it to empower, build, get,
make things better, moreefficient. I'm not saying it's
not negatively impacting peoplein the market or the job world.
It is. But, um. And then we getto give people something they're
craving, which is the oppositeof a robot, which is a human
(30:07):
voice that says, hey, I triedthis software, and I really
struggled with this part. Butthis is what's magical about it,
and why you should consider itfor your use case.
Yeah, that's absolutely right.That's absolutely right? I mean,
like on the topic of humanconnection, just try calling any
bank, and once you've gottenpast that whole, like, I call it
(30:29):
like that dial that, dial salad,right, where they put you on
hold for 30 minutes and theypush you into AI, and you got to
answer all these questions. Andthen after that you got to press
four, and you know, by the timeyou actually get to talk to
somebody, 45 minutes of fast.
It's insane, yeah.
(30:51):
So I hear you there. It helpsand hurts.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
All right, we're getting to thepoint in the conversation where
we're talking about actionabletips, and Tye, you've given us
plenty. I'm looking at it now.We're at like, about 31 minutes.
But if a B2B marketer, ifthere's somebody out there
(31:11):
that's listening to thisinterview, and you want them to
take action on this whole trustbuilding initiative right after
listening to this recording.What are like three to five
things you would say they can doright now.
You know, I would take a look atyour ad set ads. We have a
history of running ads andthinking about things from a
(31:33):
multi channel marketingperspective, not just a partner
marketing perspective, but ifyou're not really tapping into
third parties, creators, socialproof, g2 reviews, you're
certainly missing the boat. Ifyou're doing a small percentage
of that, you're probably missingthe boat. So that's one part.
I think you know, are youthinking about partner
(31:55):
marketing? Do you have a programlive if it is, is it 10, 20, 30%
of your revenue, lead volume? Isit on track to get there? Do you
have somebody working on it?Have you had someone look under
the hood and do an audit of theprogram to just get an
assessment, third party, candidreview, going back to
authenticity, that is somethingthat can be extremely valuable
(32:18):
to at least have a partner,marketing expert, look at under
the hood and give you someadvice. We'd love to do that
we're happy to help, that canhelp at least give you
assessment of where you're atnow and where you might go and
what you may or may not need.There's a lot of times we'll
look at things and say, I don'tthink you need XYZ now, but
(32:40):
maybe you invest in this later.I think that you know having
some degree of of creator thataligns with that ideal customer
persona, that aligns with yourmarketing goals, that's growing
at a clip that you're you'rehappy with, and is aligned with
your business growth, is reallyimportant, and then having it
kind of sing in unison with yourother channels, again, using as
(33:04):
a content generator. There's alot there. So even if you have
one or the other in terms ofaffiliate or influencer, just
tapping into one of those wouldbe a great first step. I think
there's a lot there, and theneventually getting them kind of
complimenting one another is theideal state.
Yeah, no, there's some excellenttips. And yeah, everything that
(33:27):
you just said in terms of, like,taking a look at the ads,
talking about, like, partnermarketing, if you're on track to
get there, I'm just doing aquick recap here, third party
candidate review. I think thatthat's really important. I mean,
if we're talking, you know, onthe topic of building topic of
building trust, right? I meangetting, getting that external
assessment, not necessarilyalways validation. I mean,
(33:49):
ideally, yes, but like thatassessment review and then
having creators that align withyour customer persona. Because
nothing is worse than getting,get partnering with an
influencer or creator that thatis completely misaligned with
your target audience, right?
Yeah, that's huge, and it'shard. It's easier said than
done. Yeah, everything's gonnahit 10 out of 10. You want to
(34:11):
have some experimentation going,Yes, but that's really, that's
really a huge part of it.
Absolutely, absolutely. I knowwe talked about this before, and
I kind of jumped the gun here,but in terms of metrics, I mean,
this is, I call it the Love itor hate it question, because,
man, at some point you're goingto have to show somebody, most
probably also someone in a nonmarketing role, that your that
(34:33):
your initiatives are working andthat you're making progress. So
what metrics, just from a toplevel perspective, what metrics
would you say, B2B marketersneed to be paying attention to?
Depends by organization, youknow, for us, you know, we, we
are pretty focused, you know,just to lay all the cards on the
(34:55):
table like we're very focusedon, you know, are we getting the
satisfaction and the resultsthat we want from clients. So we
were really lucky. Q1, 2025, 9.4out of 10 in terms of like,
happiness level, very, veryexcited to see that we're seeing
retention of our clients of overthree and a half years, which is
(35:16):
kind of nuts in this world. It'smoving rather quickly when you
think about one of the reasonswhy is like we want to, we
operate like an extension of ateam. So oftentimes, as I said
earlier, you might have, like,sign up or traffic, or maybe a
lead, or maybe somethingslightly better in terms of a
platform, like an impact or apartner partner stack, or
(35:38):
another platform that you mightbe measuring your partner
marketing from we need, you gotto go a little deeper there and
pull in as much CRM (CustomerRelationship Management) data as
possible, or do some correlationthere to see and make sure that
those are as connected aspossible, ideally as much as
possible is in those platforms.So getting it as far down that
(35:58):
SQL pendulum as possible isreally powerful. Ultimately, we
coach our teammates. We're veryfocused on Hey, even if we can
get some estimates, we wantevery dollar spent with us, and
with this initiative to behighly ROI, high ROI positive at
a great CPA, all in CPA or costper lead, or cost per MQL. So
(36:23):
it's kind of all of those thingsacross that pendulum, and then
certainly a lot of validationwith the client to understand,
like, are these the actualmetrics that they're they're
looking at? But it's far toooften. There's a little too much
just kind of top level lead,traffic focus, and there's not
enough. Is this our all inpenciling for business, and
(36:48):
that's kind of we're talkingabout that absolutely as early
as we can, and we model that outas absolutely as early as we
can, with with our partners andour clients.
Yeah, that sounds about right.All right. Get up on your soap
box, sir. I think you've kind ofbeen up there already, but just
to stay up there a while longer,no offense. What's the status
(37:15):
quo in your area of expertisethat you passionately disagree
with and why.
I'm shocked how often we look atprograms that appear to be on
autopilot despite having anagency or a team of experts
working on them, we're talkingabout multi billion dollar
(37:38):
brands trying to grow, trying toget partners, trying to get
authentic trust throughaffiliate or creator influencer.
And it's, it's surprising to seehow often it's not happening.
They'll, they'll have extremelylow number of partners. They'll
(37:58):
be a one size fits all approachapplied, or, as I alluded to
earlier, you're getting someancillary metric signal through
the platform, and not much else.And if you ask about all in our
life, you ask about cost perMQL, or some of the more the
(38:19):
metrics that matter most to theclient. It's it's lacking. So
that's just kind of hits mefirst and foremost, that we see
far too often. And it'sunfortunate, because I think
there's a lot of work to be donein this space. There's a lot of
business out there. There's alot of opportunity to kind of
(38:44):
evangelize the value and thebeauty that is this, this kind
of marketing lever. I like tothink of it as a channel of
channels you can tap into somany marketing channels within
affiliate creator, it's not justmeta, it's not just content
sites, it's not just LinkedIn.So that's a big one that comes
(39:09):
to mind for me, that I think weare excited to keep improving.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.It's, um, it's like many, many
areas are many facets of themarketing discipline. It's in a
constant state of evolution, andespecially your line of work,
you'll agree, I'm sure, whereit's working with influencers,
(39:33):
you're working in this like it'san it's an ecosystem with a lot
of moving parts,
Yeah, I think, I think that'swhat's so exciting about it. I
think there's a little you haveto almost be a little audacious
to tackle it. You're not justlogging into meta and building
out ads and not to take anythingaway from that, because there's
(39:56):
a lot to it, or the Googleecosystem, for example, there's
so much power. Are in those twojust alone, as we know from
where the numbers are, they ownso much of the ecosystem. But I
think the beauty of the partnerworld is there's always another
partner to recruit. There'salways a partner to optimize.
There's always a relationship todevelop. And it can get complex
(40:20):
and vast because of you know howmany players are in that space,
it's challenging, but alsoreally exciting.
Sounds almost like the WildWest, right? Like,
The round barn, round barn, isthere ready to help?
But I bring that up because it'ssuch a nice segue to the bonus
(40:43):
question, right? Because, youknow, before we started
recording, you were telling meabout this little like, trip
that you did a couple of weeksback with, I think it was
family, if I'm not mistaken, andit's a bit of a cowboy trail
that you guys went on. And I wassaying that I was imagining, I
was imagining, like, you know,somebody playing The Magnificent
Seven in the background, andthen you know that that voice,
(41:03):
that voice comes on, come towhere the flavor is right? But
jokes aside, because youmentioned that you've been doing
this for years, so obviously ithas, it has a special place in
your in your mind and in yourheart, right? And I guess the
question to you is, what is itthat you've learned from going
(41:25):
on this trail? I don't know ifit's the same one, perhaps it's
a different one each time, butwhat is it, what are some of the
important lessons that you'velearned going on this trail, and
how have you applied thoselessons in your in your
professional career?
I think it not to sound cheesy,but I think a lot of it does
come back to that authentictrust. There's the cowboy code
(41:46):
is is also can be consideredmaybe hokey for some people, and
obviously it's a different era,and it has pros and cons
depending on who you talk to,but ultimately, I think there's
a simplicity and a humanness toit. There's a lot of cool
history on the positive aroundit. You know, shake handshake
(42:08):
deals and trust that is verysimple and clear and not
obvious, skated by legalese andmodern society, for lack of a
better term. I think there's awork ethic of effort and drive
and hard work and things thatare not necessarily easy. In it,
there's principles of like, youknow, belief in what you're, you
(42:30):
know, writing for the brand, anda belief behind what you're
doing, a belief in saying anddoing what is kind of aligned
there in terms of integrity, youknow, I think there's a
simplicity around a lot of theblue collar and business aspects
of that, of the cowboy culture.No group or, you know,
(42:52):
institution or anything isperfect, per se, but it's been a
fun, you know, honoring of likemy what things my grandfather
and dad enjoyed and, you know,and what they instilled in me.
And it's funny, because growingup, I I was exposed to it early,
but then I was like, I got thebaseball bug and got, you know,
(43:15):
got to do a lot of the moderncity. Ways of life were
attractive, interesting to me,but it's funny how, you know,
raising a family and just goingthrough life in general. I
think, I don't know, maybe it'sbecause I am so involved in
technology, but I think there's,I think a lot of people are
(43:36):
seeing, like waking up to go,this is kind of a cool, I don't
know, return to wholesomeness tosome, to some extent, and, and
maybe to agree of somesimplicity, but, but it's cool.
It's those are some thoughtsthat come to mind in terms of
why it's important and special,and just something I want to
(43:58):
keep, you know, being a part ofa little bit.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.And if, um, I could just add my
two cents worth, I would imaginethere's a little bit of, like,
True Grit there. I think they, Ithink they had a movie, right,
that was called, uh, yeah, cameout a couple years ago, yeah,
Yeah. It's funny because, like,not to go around John Wayne
path, but we, with a group offriends in this crew, to go see
(44:20):
his Museum in Fort Worth, andlike a lot of the preconceived
notions of what I thought abouthim, which I didn't, I wasn't
really a fan, to be honest. Iwas like, and I was too young to
probably watch most of hismovies, but kind of maybe caught
the tail end. But long storyshort, his like, how he
presented his story in the inthat museum was really, in some
(44:42):
ways, he was progressive. Insome ways, he was doing things
that were innovative. It wasreally, it was really cool, kind
of miss, you know. And I thinkthat you don't always think of,
you know, that that group asinnovative or a thoughtful or
inclusive, but in the realitythat those. These are, they kind
of, kind of are in some ways.And yeah, it's, it's, it's kind
(45:05):
of fun, and the two crew truegood things spot on to, like,
doing challenging things is, isgood for you. And I think that's
kind of part of it.
Probably also teaches you to beresourceful, right? Because,
imagine you're out in this trailand the weather turns, I mean,
you can't exactly like runs tothe next hotel, right? Because
there probably isn't one formiles, right?
(45:26):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not. I'm notgonna sit here and claim I'm,
you know, we're out diggingditches or or or doing things
that are crazy difficult, butthere is a resilience factor to
it. And, you know, people thatare kind of outdoor enthusiasts
get that, and people that arekind of doing physical things
and, you know, manual things, Ithink, get that too. So you
(45:49):
can't just hail an Uber and getout of dodge. You have to figure
out other ways.
Yeah, yeah. Probably not.
Not yet.
Not yet. Fantastic Tye, this hasbeen such a great conversation.
Thanks so much for your time andfor sharing your expertise and
experience with the audience.Please quick introduce yourself
and help folks out there can getin touch with you.
(46:11):
Yeah, no, appreciate you.Christian. It's been a pleasure,
enjoyed every moment of it. Andyeah. Tye DeGrange, CEO and
founder of Round Barn Labs,happy to be here and happy to
help anybody who needs it. Bestway to find me is probably
through LinkedIn or or maybejust hit me up on through our
website,https://www.roundbarnlabs.com/.
Thanks for the intro and excitedfor more conversation.
(46:33):
Fantastic, fantastic. Onceagain, Tye. Thanks so much for
your time. Take care, stay safeand talk to you soon.
Sounds great. Christian, thank you.
We can all agree that to securemore business in this
competitive landscape, B2Bcompanies need to start by
building trust. With so muchdigital noise and similar
marketing tactics out there,standing out has become both a
challenge and an opportunity. Sohow can B2B brands build trust
in this era of skepticism?Welcome to this episode of the
(00:22):
B2B Marketers on a Missionpodcast, and I'm your host,
Christian Klepp. Today I'll betalking to Tye DeGrange, who
will be answering this question.He's the CEO of Round Barn Labs,
and is a growth expert focusedon paid marketing and conversion
rate optimization. Find out moreabout what this B2B marketers
mission is. And here we go. Mr.Tye DeGrange, welcome to the
(00:44):
show, Sir.
Thank you, Christian. It's greatto be here and looking forward
to it.
Great to have you on the show.Tye, and I'm really looking
forward to this discussion,because I think every B2B
marketer and every B2B businessout there can benefit from
building based on trust,building relationships based on
trust, building their businessbased on trust, building
(01:08):
communities based on trust, youget the picture, right? So...
Yeah.
Well, let's dive right in,right? So fantastic. So Tye,
you're on a mission to helpconnect B2B and consumer tech
companies with trusted voices todrive growth and engagement. And
as I've already alluded to, thetopic of today's conversation is
going to be around how B2Bmarketers can build trust in the
(01:31):
age of skepticism. And I knowthat's a very strong word, but
you know what? Let's not sugarcoat it. It's it's hard to build
trust these days. But let's kickoff the conversation with two
questions, and I'm happy torepeat them. One is, why is it
so difficult for brands to buildtrust in the market? And number
two, where do these so calledtrust gaps? Where do they come from?
(01:54):
Yeah, it's a good question. Youknow this, this evolution has
kind of been happening for along time. We've seen people not
trust as much as they used tofor years now. If you think
about rewind the clock to middleof last century, ancient history
for some people, but there was alot more inherent trust in
(02:17):
authority, government, business,marketing, messaging, I think
the world has gotten a lot morenoisy, a lot more open, a lot
more transparent. A lot of thetypical gatekeepers of
television, media, authority,you name it. The list goes on
and on right have kind of beenunmasked, and we've seen this
(02:39):
across a lot of differentthings. A lot more things have
been crowdsourced anddemocratized, and everyone has a
supercomputer in their pocket.So, you know, all of those
things have really led to aoverall decline in trust.
Obviously, you know, bad actors,unfortunate challenges in terms
(03:01):
of fraud, and people are not asreliant on things, you know,
generally speaking, as they usedto. I think there's obviously a
lot of great things happening interms of opportunity and what,
what, what technology is givingto us all, but there's also some
challenges. And so nowhere arewe seeing that more really
(03:24):
readily than in marketing, inparticular, where brands can no
no longer just kind of wave thebanner themselves and spend the
dollars and get in touch withthe Mad Men Don Draper type to
run a creative and a story andand and plot that out over the
course of a, you know, TV adcampaign. It's much more
(03:46):
fragmented now, and brands arehaving to rely on third parties
to really engage into illicittrust. People are really heavily
reliant on that much more thanthey ever have been.
Absolutely, absolutely. Andjust, just going back to that
second question, Where does,where do you think this
originates from, this wholetrust gap? Or is it multiple
(04:09):
factors? I'd imagine it wouldbe.
Yeah, no, it's a great question.You know, I think there's so
much about technologyimprovements that have really
empowered people at a levelthat, you know, I just don't
think was even close to possible20 years ago, not to mention 50,
60 plus years ago, right? We cankind of, we've been kind of
(04:31):
taught how to fish, in some wayswhen it comes to finding
information, and so you know,whether it's going into a car
dealership or seeing an ad on astreaming service about an
outdoor, you know, equipmentthat you you're in consideration
to buy, you know, you have a lotof power in your fingertips. And
(04:51):
information, as we know,information, is power to a
degree. And so I think that you.Yeah, the technology is a huge
we can talk about the multitudeof factors, which there are
quite a few, but the technologyitself is a really big factor.
And that, I think that'spartially why, you know, I
think, and then conversely, Ithink, unfortunately, there's
(05:15):
been a lot of just misplacedtrust and bad actors. And enough
of that happens, and people getwise. They get their skepticism
goes up. It's not like you dwellon that, but I think the
technology, plus some of thefailures of people with that
power and with that control asgatekeepers in media and
(05:36):
marketing and business, youknow, from Enron to all the
other examples over the last,you know, 50 years, there's just
a numerous number of them. Andso I think that's why we found
ourselves in a bit of a trustgap, to where consumers in a in
a business setting, or in amarketing setting, kind of come
(05:56):
in with a pretty heavy dose ofskepticism, which I think we've
all kind of seen.
Absolutely, absolutely. How muchof this trust gap would you,
would you say is caused also bysocial media?
Yeah, I think, I think it kindof is, in a big way, on a
(06:18):
multitude of factors, right?You've got this wealth of
information. You've got theability to kind of crowdsource
information, and on one hand,that can really increase your
signal, and it can give you someinfo where you maybe didn't have
it before, especially onparticular topics. But in other
areas, you have, you know, acrazy amount of things that are
(06:42):
false, lies, misinfo, howeveryou want to describe it. So talk
about a double whammy. It kindof creates, like, a lot of a lot
more noise over signal indifferent ways, in that there's
expectations of knowledge, andit's almost like the data
marketing, you know, debates weget into, like, you get all this
(07:04):
data, but are you really gettingsome information back? So I
think you're spot on. I thinkthose things have really just
only increased the kind ofskepticism and trust gap that we
found ourselves in.
Yeah, yeah. No, that'sabsolutely right. You spoke
about this a little bit earlierin the conversation, but talking
about, like, trusted voices, sopartnering with influencers and
(07:26):
the like, I guess it begs thequestion, like, why do you feel?
Or, let me rephrase that, howcan partnering with trusted
voices? Let's put it that way,how can partnering with trusted
voices help to bridge this socalled trust gap between B2B
brands and their target markets?
Yeah, no, it's a great call out.I mean, I think we are, you
(07:47):
know, wired for socialinteraction. You know, we, you
and I are feeding off of eachother. On this conversation,
there's people watching thatare, you know, picking up
signals. And if you're inperson, it obviously is much
different and get much morecontext. We're wired for that.
(08:07):
First and foremost, there's alot of data to support that
individuals are much more likelyto trust something that comes
from friends, family, obviously.But even so, people they don't
know, a creator, influencer.What would you want to call
them, that can kind of educatethem on a topic about a brand or
(08:29):
service. And so this gap is kindof creating this movement and
this demand and this excitementaround, how can brands, you
know, tap into third parties,you know, the affiliate world,
for example, affiliate marketinghas been around for 30 years. It
has exploded in particular,probably in the last 5 and 10
(08:51):
around in particular, aroundlike content sites, reviews, top
10 guides. But there's like 15other business models that are
kind of connected to that. Thereviews and gift guides and top
10s are a great example of awriter or an author or a
collection of voices who areshowcasing value and interesting
(09:13):
information about variousbrands. It's not necessarily
directly coming from the brand itself.
And you know, varying flavors ofthat, in terms of trust and
validity that we see, we look atthat, we grade that, we take
that seriously. And then on theCreator, influencer side, on
social media, Instagram, Tiktok,YouTube, LinkedIn, X, etc, all
(09:36):
of that. It's even more, youknow, pronounced. There's a lot
of there's a social aspect wheresome of these folks are so
powerful. They're creatingbrands themselves. You know,
some of the technology you knowbrands are making or breaking
brands with their reviews andunderstanding of it and
(09:56):
explanation. And you know, andit's welcoming, kind of the 30
years ago, and ads, you wouldn'tsay, well, here's an amazing
razor, here's the downside ofsaid razor. It would be this
aspirational image of manlinessand people driving around in
sports cars and stuff, stuff.And that's fine, and that's
(10:17):
branding, that's ads, but, youknow, and then you have kind of,
like the more specific valueprop type ad stuff. But nowadays
it's like, I think people thatskepticism, that trust gap, is
really welcoming people to kindof get the good, bad and ugly
from someone down the street,amplified on digital. Now,
(10:38):
everyone has a microphone.Everyone has a super computer.
So here we are, and I thinkthat's what brands are really
clamoring for. We're seeing justinsane investment, millions and
billions to billions invested.Growth rates through the roof.
So it's happened in a prettysteady clip, and it's kind of
(10:59):
become a requirement. There'sthere's other pieces to that,
but that's, that's a bit about why?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,absolutely, absolutely. I wanted
to add something to that razorcommercial. It's not just about
driving sports cars cars. It'sabout riding horses too, right? Like...
Exactly.
(11:19):
Sorry, the audience is not goingto get that joke, but, you know.
That's okay. We appreciate it.Things that are aspirational,
you know, we could go there.
That's right, no, but youbrought up something, which I
think is it's so true, it'senabled. I would even go as far
as to say it's empowered peoplewith all this, there's more
(11:40):
transparency now, right?
Yes.
On a completely different topic,because I live in Toronto, and
we, you know, we had thisdiscussion, like, back during
the Christmas time where, youknow, we had gathering with
family and friends, and we weretalking about the crime rate and
everyone's, you know, one sideof the table was talking about,
like, you know, all the crimesthrough the roof, and it's
(12:02):
increased since the pandemic.And there was another group on
the table that was a little bitolder that said, You know what,
um, the crime rate is about thesame that it was 30 years ago.
The difference is that it's justeasier to report the crime now,
right? Because, you know, youcan post it. You can post it on
social media. You've got videosof some something happening
(12:22):
there. You can even send it tothe the the Twitter or the x
account of the police servicesand so forth, right? And that
didn't exist 30 years ago,right? You had yet 911, and that
was it, right?
Yeah, yeah, yes, citizen. Nownot to go down a rabbit hole.
There's a lot of ways toabsolutely report and shine
light on things, and everyone'sgot that ability now, so I think
(12:45):
you're on to something there.
Yeah, yeah. And, in fact, that'slike, kind of a nice little
segue to my follow up question,right? Which I let's, let's, I
mean, I can't help myself butask you this question, because
people, even in the B2B spacewhen you're talking about
partnering with influencers,perhaps one of the, I would even
(13:05):
call it a knee jerk reaction to,oh, we're partnering with an
influencer. Okay, how manyfollowers, how many subscribers,
how many downloads? Is this guygonna guarantee us? Like, I
don't know if that's if that's atrend that you're seeing. And
first question, and secondquestion, what is it with
people's obsession with numbersand the bigger numbers?
(13:29):
Yeah, I think that the crazy,the cool thing is, like there's,
on one hand, there's thismovement towards brands now
being able to tap intoaffiliates, creators,
influencers, all these thirdparties with varying degrees of
trust and varying degrees ofvolume and varying degrees of
quality that can promote yourbrand, you know, to state some
(13:52):
somewhat of the obvious and notbarely too much. I mean, we kind
of help people navigate that andfigure that out, and rank, stack
and match. It's a matchmakinggame for many ways. I think
there's also a little bit of,there's also a lot of
complexities and challenges thatcome up with it. I think brands
are there's also a degree of, Ithink, blowback and fatigue
(14:15):
that's happened in the spacewhere, you know, a lot of people
are sort of fed up with shellingout these astronomical figures
for follower counts or even forengagement. Engagement is
important, but you know, to anextent, there needs to be other
ROI (Return on Investment)captured here, especially as
people have gotten more fiscallyresponsible in the last three
(14:39):
and a half years, if you will.
So comes with this kind of youknow, great opportunity comes
some responsibility in goingafter the right things and
looking at how much is thisinfluencer, creator, partner,
aligned with your actualcustomer use cases? Actual ICP ,
(15:02):
you know, ideal customerpersonas, actual demographics.
Is it aiding in that? You know,awareness, consideration,
conversion? Are you driving MQLs(Marketing Qualified Lead), SQL
(Sales Qualified Lead), leadvolume in a B2B SaaS world. The
good news is for B2B SaaS,you're kind of looking at one of
(15:25):
the most insane compound annualgrowth rate of any performance
marketing lever. You know, it'snot like people are knocking
down the door to do paid search.I mean, yeah, they are. It's
kind of a necessary piece of themix. You don't want to exclude
it per se, but it's fun to beable to play in a world where
(15:46):
you have data and all theserelationships you have to
manage. It's difficult. And sostepping back with all this
opportunities comes kind of thismess to unwind and under Help
people understand and sopresents a unique challenge for
brands to kind of go, Well,where do we start? How do we get
this going? How do we measureit? And I think, I think that's
(16:10):
where we want to collaboratewith people that are, that are
that are, have intention aboutit.
Absolutely, absolutely. Sobottom line, it's not just about
the numbers, right?
Yeah, yeah. And to build on thatChristian, you know, for a lot
of brands, it can be a contentcreator as well. You know, we've
been touting this since, gosh,about 2018 actually, where we
(16:34):
kind of call it a flywheeleffect, where if you can get
your site dialed in optimallyfrom a conversion perspective.
If you can go out and acquirethird party, uh, great reviews,
discussions, how tos,comparisons versus your
(16:55):
competitors that are appropriateand in line with your kind of
agreements and the voice of theCreator. You don't want to take
that away. You get a couplewinners there, and you get that
white listing rights. You canport those into your LinkedIn or
to to meta, and those can, youknow, oftentimes be your best
performing creative. Yeah. So,so there's a little bit of a how
(17:19):
do we build up the awareness andconsideration, a little, maybe
some storytelling element, tosome extent, for brands that can
invest that's probably ideal.Then you have a content
generation value. Then there isa legitimate, straight up ROI
value. You know, affiliateitself is generally going to be
more efficient than, I think,influencer on the surface.
But if you kind of combine thepower of that. You know, you're
(17:42):
looking at the two very, reallypowerful levers. The other cool
thing is not to go too down arabbit hole. A lot of people
don't realize, in B2B marketing,there's referrals, there's
ambassadors, there's value add,resellers like B2B SaaS has such
an ecosystem already in thepartnerships world is already
(18:04):
kind of known, and so I think,think what we're seeing is a
little bit of a collision of,like all these things into one.
It's not necessarily you'regoing to try to do it all for
everyone, but the the old schoolkind of affiliate mechanism of
brand tracking, provider,partner, and all that tracked
and going through one ecosystem,that logic can be applied to all
(18:26):
of those different players inthe ecosystem. So your
affiliates and your influencers,and your your value added
resources, your partners, yourtech partners, ideally, all that
could be kind of managed underone plumbing system, you can see
all the data of how thatinteracts directly. That's, I
think, a really exciting part ofthis, and that's, I think, the
(18:48):
Holy Grail, where B2B brandswant to be moving to.
I think you just inadvertentlycame up with a title for this
episode, like managed under oneplumbing system. There you go.
Fantastic.
Yeah, make it sound really sexy.Keep blue collar.
Yes, Mario Brothers stuffreally.
(19:11):
Now we have a theme song too,
Fantastic. On the topic of keypitfalls for B2B marketers to
avoid what are they and whatshould they be doing instead?
I think one of the big ones istreating it like consumer a lot
of people who have affiliateexpertise, a lot of people who
(19:33):
have done affiliate a lot fortons of consumer brands, think
they can just kind of bolt in akind of consumer based approach.
They're not thinking long termabout the value that partners
are bringing over the course ofyou know, quite insane. LTVs
(Life Time Value), that's thebeauty of SaaS, right? You have
margins, you have long termretention, in some cases, for
(19:56):
the leads and MQLs, SQL isrevenue that are being brought
in. So I think that applyingkind of a short term micro
approach is sort of a bigpitfall.
I think another one is likereally not being very well
aligned with the data, and notreally thinking for the benefit
(20:18):
of the B2B SaaS brand. It's easyto, you know, stand up a
tracking tool, get tracking inplace, see some metrics in the
tracking tool, recruit partners.But oftentimes what you see in
the tracking is a great start,and you have to go multiple
layers deeper to really alignwith what's happening with the
(20:39):
CRM? Where are those? Where arethose transactions, those leads,
those actions, happening lateron? Are they actually
converting? Are we gettingquality? Are you looking at
things at a cohort level? Sothose two are pretty big, you
know, I think, I think becauseit is still so relationship
(20:59):
based, it's easy, I think, tothink transactionally and to
think, start, stop and like, youknow, Uber agile, search and
social take their time to buildout and grow and mature and be,
you know, come to fruition.Affiliate, partner, influencer
is even more dramatic. It'sprobably double the time, I
(21:20):
would say, to get those thingsup and running. So because
you're dealing with humanelement, because you're some
ways pitching a story and areason why a particular B2B SaaS
brand should be promoted orcould be promoted. Why does it
match make that time requirementis really important. And I think
(21:40):
having having that askew, havingexpectations off on that, or
where a lot of brands go wrong.So those are the big three I see,
Yeah, no, for sure, for sure.Those are, those are some really
critical ones too. Um...
Yeah.
Okay, break it down for us. Imean, I know you've given us a
lot, but like, break it down forus in terms of how, if I am the
(22:03):
B2B marketer, like, say, in aSaaS company and whatnot, what
steps do I need to take to helpto build that trust, right? So
what are, what? How do brandsreclaim that authenticity in
their marketing?
Brands that are doing well inB2B SaaS and have gotten over
certain revenue growth marketinghurdles in their trajectory. Are
(22:29):
in a unique position to investin this and collaborate with
some folks that know how to dothis. I think that's obviously
helpful. I think that the morethey on, they're really kind of
coming at it from a customer usecase perspective. If this is a
(22:50):
time tracking device, if this isa calendar calendaring device,
you know, device really leaninginto what are the pain points
that the customer is feeling?What are those real, real value
benefits that they're toutingand the customer is really
(23:12):
vocally speaking about inreviews and product discussions?
Great, B2B SaaS companies knowthis inherently. They have
invested millions upon millionsin it already. Their product
teams are entrenching it for themost part. So I think thinking
(23:33):
about it in that lens andsaying, how do we line up the
best 50 content sites, the best50 YouTubers, the best 50
Tiktok, in some cases, LinkedIn,you know, AI gurus, they're all
there. And those are realpartners to work with.
I think the more that thatcustomer and those those good
(23:56):
stakeholders are being thoughtof as part of that process, the
more it's going to come out, youknow, I in some cases, you can
almost use your customers as aspartners. In some cases, if you
want to get you know literalabout it, there's a percentage
of them that could be and so Ithink the more it kind of tells
that story, the better. I mean,we look at it. We look at
(24:18):
revenue and actions and likeNorth Star metric actions, not
just lead submissions and thingslike that, as really the Holy
Grail, and really want to alignwith the whole what's the holy
grail for each B2B SaaS brand.So we have a lot of data in our
database of 10,000 pluspartners, contact information,
real time, data, contact, allthat stuff that can better match
(24:40):
make but, and I think the morethere, the more the line minutes
with the customer. And itdoesn't have to all be rosy
picture. Some of it's going tobe that, going back to that
authenticity piece, going backto that what's changed over the
last 50. Years, it's, it's okayto say this part of the software
is kind of, kind of not workingfor me, but for the most part,
(25:03):
it's head and shoulders abovethe other players, and the
pricing works. Or, hey, they'rekind of number two in this
space, but they're killer forthe overall solution. If you're
in this use case, there's, Ithink there's a lot of ways
where that authenticity comesthrough, where you're just being
very honest about it in thereview, and so it doesn't always
(25:25):
have to be is his hands down,the best solution. This is what
you know. This is why.
And the other part of thatauthenticity is that FTC
(Federal Trade Commission)requirements really require
there to be some disclosuresaround. Hey, I'm getting
compensated for this hashtag ad.There's some good disclosure
legal requirements from the FTCthat every part of the ecosystem
(25:46):
is really responsible for. Wewant to be monitoring that for
our clients. We currently arecareful about that advising
clients to make sure we'regetting that coverage and
exposure to to protect everybodyinvolved, and to let the
consumer be protected to knowthat, hey, this is, I'm being
transparent with you, going backto what we said earlier.
(26:07):
Absolutely, absolutely, and onlybecause you brought it up. I'm
gonna go back to it, right?Because, man, it is 2025, and
what kind of podcast interviewwould this be if I didn't ask
you about AI, right? Like...
Yeah.
I mean, if we're, if we're onthe topic of building trust,
right, AI comes up andimmediately, oftentimes,
(26:30):
unfortunately, has a negativeconnotation, but just over to
you, just from your experienceand based on your expertise, how
much of an impact. How much doyou feel AI actually impacts
this trust gap we're talkingabout, and how should be to be
brands if they're trying toreclaim that trust, how should
(26:51):
they go about dealing with AI?Because let's be honest. We're
not going to throw it out thewindow, right, but there's a but
there's a right and wrong way tobe leveraging it.
I think it's similar to what Ishared earlier about social
media, in that it, it both helpsand hurts. I think it, it makes
(27:13):
these types of conversationsperhaps even more valuable for
me, you know, right, wrong orindifferent, I've kind of
jokingly become a reluctantinfluencer, as I joked with my
friends and team about, youknow, and you are as well.
Obviously, some are moreexplicitly influencers than
others. You know, we have a lotof examples. YouTube's a great
(27:37):
one where it's like, let meexplain you how to onboard
Trello, Monday, HubSpot. Let medo a comparison of these in all
of that. But if you think aboutthe value of those, those
creators might be using AI tomake their job easier. You might
be using AI to improve theirworkflows and their efficiency,
(27:58):
but when the rubber meets theroad for the consumer to feel
human connection with somebodythat that actually has a
heartbeat and has issues anddealing with life. That's where
I think the magic is. And Ithink where you've seen Google
shift with the Eat framework,and a lot of the challenges to
(28:19):
the existing status quo. A lotof sites have been slapped a lot
of AI is eating, you know,organic search to some extent. I
think people are their radar,and skepticism is being fed with
that as well, because they'rewondering, was this AI generated
to some extent? And I thinkthere's this weird angle where
(28:40):
we're probably, you know, we'recertainly going to see more of
that content, and some of it canperform, quote, unquote, but
that's part of, I think, again,feeding why they want to have
those human connections andthose human voices. I think
video, yeah, eventually there's,you see, a lot of these
(29:01):
hyperbolic, Oh, can you believethis is actually an AI bot and
not a human? Sure, but we craveit. Going back to what we said,
we crave that human connection.We crave this societal, tribal
connection of one human toanother. Fortunately, that's not
going anywhere. And I think itjust amplifies that opportunity
(29:22):
for this type of stuff, that'slike, Hey, I'm here. I'm alive.
I I'm not saying it perfectly,but I'm being honest with you
about my suggestions and myconversation and my review, and
it's double edged. It's helpingand hurting, as I shared with
social media earlier.
Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely.
(29:44):
And I think it's mostly anopportunity, because I think in
exciting ways, like we get touse it to empower, build, get,
make things better, moreefficient. I'm not saying it's
not negatively impacting peoplein the market or the job world.
It is. But, um. And then we getto give people something they're
craving, which is the oppositeof a robot, which is a human
(30:07):
voice that says, hey, I triedthis software, and I really
struggled with this part. Butthis is what's magical about it,
and why you should consider itfor your use case.
Yeah, that's absolutely right.That's absolutely right? I mean,
like on the topic of humanconnection, just try calling any
bank, and once you've gottenpast that whole, like, I call it
(30:29):
like that dial that, dial salad,right, where they put you on
hold for 30 minutes and theypush you into AI, and you got to
answer all these questions. Andthen after that you got to press
four, and you know, by the timeyou actually get to talk to
somebody, 45 minutes of fast.
It's insane, yeah.
(30:51):
So I hear you there. It helpsand hurts.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
All right, we're getting to thepoint in the conversation where
we're talking about actionabletips, and Tye, you've given us
plenty. I'm looking at it now.We're at like, about 31 minutes.
But if a B2B marketer, ifthere's somebody out there
(31:11):
that's listening to thisinterview, and you want them to
take action on this whole trustbuilding initiative right after
listening to this recording.What are like three to five
things you would say they can doright now.
You know, I would take a look atyour ad set ads. We have a
history of running ads andthinking about things from a
(31:33):
multi channel marketingperspective, not just a partner
marketing perspective, but ifyou're not really tapping into
third parties, creators, socialproof, g2 reviews, you're
certainly missing the boat. Ifyou're doing a small percentage
of that, you're probably missingthe boat. So that's one part.
I think you know, are youthinking about partner
(31:55):
marketing? Do you have a programlive if it is, is it 10, 20, 30%
of your revenue, lead volume? Isit on track to get there? Do you
have somebody working on it?Have you had someone look under
the hood and do an audit of theprogram to just get an
assessment, third party, candidreview, going back to
authenticity, that is somethingthat can be extremely valuable
(32:18):
to at least have a partner,marketing expert, look at under
the hood and give you someadvice. We'd love to do that
we're happy to help, that canhelp at least give you
assessment of where you're atnow and where you might go and
what you may or may not need.There's a lot of times we'll
look at things and say, I don'tthink you need XYZ now, but
(32:40):
maybe you invest in this later.I think that you know having
some degree of of creator thataligns with that ideal customer
persona, that aligns with yourmarketing goals, that's growing
at a clip that you're you'rehappy with, and is aligned with
your business growth, is reallyimportant, and then having it
kind of sing in unison with yourother channels, again, using as
(33:04):
a content generator. There's alot there. So even if you have
one or the other in terms ofaffiliate or influencer, just
tapping into one of those wouldbe a great first step. I think
there's a lot there, and theneventually getting them kind of
complimenting one another is theideal state.
Yeah, no, there's some excellenttips. And yeah, everything that
(33:27):
you just said in terms of, like,taking a look at the ads,
talking about, like, partnermarketing, if you're on track to
get there, I'm just doing aquick recap here, third party
candidate review. I think thatthat's really important. I mean,
if we're talking, you know, onthe topic of building topic of
building trust, right? I meangetting, getting that external
assessment, not necessarilyalways validation. I mean,
(33:49):
ideally, yes, but like thatassessment review and then
having creators that align withyour customer persona. Because
nothing is worse than getting,get partnering with an
influencer or creator that thatis completely misaligned with
your target audience, right?
Yeah, that's huge, and it'shard. It's easier said than
done. Yeah, everything's gonnahit 10 out of 10. You want to
(34:11):
have some experimentation going,Yes, but that's really, that's
really a huge part of it.
Absolutely, absolutely. I knowwe talked about this before, and
I kind of jumped the gun here,but in terms of metrics, I mean,
this is, I call it the Love itor hate it question, because,
man, at some point you're goingto have to show somebody, most
probably also someone in a nonmarketing role, that your that
(34:33):
your initiatives are working andthat you're making progress. So
what metrics, just from a toplevel perspective, what metrics
would you say, B2B marketersneed to be paying attention to?
Depends by organization, youknow, for us, you know, we, we
are pretty focused, you know,just to lay all the cards on the
(34:55):
table like we're very focusedon, you know, are we getting the
satisfaction and the resultsthat we want from clients. So we
were really lucky. Q1, 2025, 9.4out of 10 in terms of like,
happiness level, very, veryexcited to see that we're seeing
retention of our clients of overthree and a half years, which is
(35:16):
kind of nuts in this world. It'smoving rather quickly when you
think about one of the reasonswhy is like we want to, we
operate like an extension of ateam. So oftentimes, as I said
earlier, you might have, like,sign up or traffic, or maybe a
lead, or maybe somethingslightly better in terms of a
platform, like an impact or apartner partner stack, or
(35:38):
another platform that you mightbe measuring your partner
marketing from we need, you gotto go a little deeper there and
pull in as much CRM (CustomerRelationship Management) data as
possible, or do some correlationthere to see and make sure that
those are as connected aspossible, ideally as much as
possible is in those platforms.So getting it as far down that
(35:58):
SQL pendulum as possible isreally powerful. Ultimately, we
coach our teammates. We're veryfocused on Hey, even if we can
get some estimates, we wantevery dollar spent with us, and
with this initiative to behighly ROI, high ROI positive at
a great CPA, all in CPA or costper lead, or cost per MQL. So
(36:23):
it's kind of all of those thingsacross that pendulum, and then
certainly a lot of validationwith the client to understand,
like, are these the actualmetrics that they're they're
looking at? But it's far toooften. There's a little too much
just kind of top level lead,traffic focus, and there's not
enough. Is this our all inpenciling for business, and
(36:48):
that's kind of we're talkingabout that absolutely as early
as we can, and we model that outas absolutely as early as we
can, with with our partners andour clients.
Yeah, that sounds about right.All right. Get up on your soap
box, sir. I think you've kind ofbeen up there already, but just
to stay up there a while longer,no offense. What's the status
(37:15):
quo in your area of expertisethat you passionately disagree
with and why.
I'm shocked how often we look atprograms that appear to be on
autopilot despite having anagency or a team of experts
working on them, we're talkingabout multi billion dollar
(37:38):
brands trying to grow, trying toget partners, trying to get
authentic trust throughaffiliate or creator influencer.
And it's, it's surprising to seehow often it's not happening.
They'll, they'll have extremelylow number of partners. They'll
(37:58):
be a one size fits all approachapplied, or, as I alluded to
earlier, you're getting someancillary metric signal through
the platform, and not much else.And if you ask about all in our
life, you ask about cost perMQL, or some of the more the
(38:19):
metrics that matter most to theclient. It's it's lacking. So
that's just kind of hits mefirst and foremost, that we see
far too often. And it'sunfortunate, because I think
there's a lot of work to be donein this space. There's a lot of
business out there. There's alot of opportunity to kind of
(38:44):
evangelize the value and thebeauty that is this, this kind
of marketing lever. I like tothink of it as a channel of
channels you can tap into somany marketing channels within
affiliate creator, it's not justmeta, it's not just content
sites, it's not just LinkedIn.So that's a big one that comes
(39:09):
to mind for me, that I think weare excited to keep improving.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.It's, um, it's like many, many
areas are many facets of themarketing discipline. It's in a
constant state of evolution, andespecially your line of work,
you'll agree, I'm sure, whereit's working with influencers,
(39:33):
you're working in this like it'san it's an ecosystem with a lot
of moving parts,
Yeah, I think, I think that'swhat's so exciting about it. I
think there's a little you haveto almost be a little audacious
to tackle it. You're not justlogging into meta and building
out ads and not to take anythingaway from that, because there's
(39:56):
a lot to it, or the Googleecosystem, for example, there's
so much power. Are in those twojust alone, as we know from
where the numbers are, they ownso much of the ecosystem. But I
think the beauty of the partnerworld is there's always another
partner to recruit. There'salways a partner to optimize.
There's always a relationship todevelop. And it can get complex
(40:20):
and vast because of you know howmany players are in that space,
it's challenging, but alsoreally exciting.
Sounds almost like the WildWest, right? Like,
The round barn, round barn, isthere ready to help?
But I bring that up because it'ssuch a nice segue to the bonus
(40:43):
question, right? Because, youknow, before we started
recording, you were telling meabout this little like, trip
that you did a couple of weeksback with, I think it was
family, if I'm not mistaken, andit's a bit of a cowboy trail
that you guys went on. And I wassaying that I was imagining, I
was imagining, like, you know,somebody playing The Magnificent
Seven in the background, andthen you know that that voice,
(41:03):
that voice comes on, come towhere the flavor is right? But
jokes aside, because youmentioned that you've been doing
this for years, so obviously ithas, it has a special place in
your in your mind and in yourheart, right? And I guess the
question to you is, what is itthat you've learned from going
(41:25):
on this trail? I don't know ifit's the same one, perhaps it's
a different one each time, butwhat is it, what are some of the
important lessons that you'velearned going on this trail, and
how have you applied thoselessons in your in your
professional career?
I think it not to sound cheesy,but I think a lot of it does
come back to that authentictrust. There's the cowboy code
(41:46):
is is also can be consideredmaybe hokey for some people, and
obviously it's a different era,and it has pros and cons
depending on who you talk to,but ultimately, I think there's
a simplicity and a humanness toit. There's a lot of cool
history on the positive aroundit. You know, shake handshake
(42:08):
deals and trust that is verysimple and clear and not
obvious, skated by legalese andmodern society, for lack of a
better term. I think there's awork ethic of effort and drive
and hard work and things thatare not necessarily easy. In it,
there's principles of like, youknow, belief in what you're, you
(42:30):
know, writing for the brand, anda belief behind what you're
doing, a belief in saying anddoing what is kind of aligned
there in terms of integrity, youknow, I think there's a
simplicity around a lot of theblue collar and business aspects
of that, of the cowboy culture.No group or, you know,
(42:52):
institution or anything isperfect, per se, but it's been a
fun, you know, honoring of likemy what things my grandfather
and dad enjoyed and, you know,and what they instilled in me.
And it's funny, because growingup, I I was exposed to it early,
but then I was like, I got thebaseball bug and got, you know,
(43:15):
got to do a lot of the moderncity. Ways of life were
attractive, interesting to me,but it's funny how, you know,
raising a family and just goingthrough life in general. I
think, I don't know, maybe it'sbecause I am so involved in
technology, but I think there's,I think a lot of people are
(43:36):
seeing, like waking up to go,this is kind of a cool, I don't
know, return to wholesomeness tosome, to some extent, and, and
maybe to agree of somesimplicity, but, but it's cool.
It's those are some thoughtsthat come to mind in terms of
why it's important and special,and just something I want to
(43:58):
keep, you know, being a part ofa little bit.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.And if, um, I could just add my
two cents worth, I would imaginethere's a little bit of, like,
True Grit there. I think they, Ithink they had a movie, right,
that was called, uh, yeah, cameout a couple years ago, yeah,
Yeah. It's funny because, like,not to go around John Wayne
path, but we, with a group offriends in this crew, to go see
(44:20):
his Museum in Fort Worth, andlike a lot of the preconceived
notions of what I thought abouthim, which I didn't, I wasn't
really a fan, to be honest. Iwas like, and I was too young to
probably watch most of hismovies, but kind of maybe caught
the tail end. But long storyshort, his like, how he
presented his story in the inthat museum was really, in some
(44:42):
ways, he was progressive. Insome ways, he was doing things
that were innovative. It wasreally, it was really cool, kind
of miss, you know. And I thinkthat you don't always think of,
you know, that that group asinnovative or a thoughtful or
inclusive, but in the realitythat those. These are, they kind
of, kind of are in some ways.And yeah, it's, it's, it's kind
(45:05):
of fun, and the two crew truegood things spot on to, like,
doing challenging things is, isgood for you. And I think that's
kind of part of it.
Probably also teaches you to beresourceful, right? Because,
imagine you're out in this trailand the weather turns, I mean,
you can't exactly like runs tothe next hotel, right? Because
there probably isn't one formiles, right?
(45:26):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not. I'm notgonna sit here and claim I'm,
you know, we're out diggingditches or or or doing things
that are crazy difficult, butthere is a resilience factor to
it. And, you know, people thatare kind of outdoor enthusiasts
get that, and people that arekind of doing physical things
and, you know, manual things, Ithink, get that too. So you
(45:49):
can't just hail an Uber and getout of dodge. You have to figure
out other ways.
Yeah, yeah. Probably not.
Not yet.
Not yet. Fantastic Tye, this hasbeen such a great conversation.
Thanks so much for your time andfor sharing your expertise and
experience with the audience.Please quick introduce yourself
and help folks out there can getin touch with you.
(46:11):
Yeah, no, appreciate you.Christian. It's been a pleasure,
enjoyed every moment of it. Andyeah. Tye DeGrange, CEO and
founder of Round Barn Labs,happy to be here and happy to
help anybody who needs it. Bestway to find me is probably
through LinkedIn or or maybejust hit me up on through our
website,https://www.roundbarnlabs.com/.
Thanks for the intro and excitedfor more conversation.
(46:33):
Fantastic, fantastic. Onceagain, Tye. Thanks so much for
your time. Take care, stay safeand talk to you soon.
Sounds great. Christian, thank you.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.