Ep. 185: How to Transform B2B Marketing into a Profit Center

Jason Kramer (Founder & CEO, Cultivize), who shared his experience and expertise on how to transform B2B marketing into a profit center. Jason highlighted the importance of linking marketing initiatives to sales results and collecting vital data such as referral sources. He also elaborated on how to use CRM platforms to track leads and stressed the need for stronger marketing and sales alignment.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
In the B2B world, marketing hasbeen traditionally viewed as a

(00:03):
cost center, where money tendsto flow outwards rather than
inwards. It's also been viewedprimarily as a support function
that's not linked to revenuegeneration. So how can marketers
change this perception and turntheir business unit into a
profit center? Welcome to thisepisode of the B2B Marketers on
a Mission podcast, and I'm yourhost, Christian Klepp. Today,

(00:24):
I'll be talking to Jason Kramer,who will be answering this
question. He's the Founder andCEO of Cultivize, a consulting
firm specializing in leadnurturing and CRM
implementation. With over 20years of experience, Jason has
worked with global and localbrands to help bridge the gap
between marketing and sales.Tune in to find out more about
what this B2B marketers missionis.

(00:52):
Off we go. Mr. Jason Kramer,welcome to the show, Sir.
Thanks, Christian, happy to behere.
Oh man, I'm telling you like,well, first of all that, and
secondly, I love how we're so coordinated, too. I mean, it's
just, you know, the stars arealigned today, man.
I got the memo. I got it niceand early.
Fantastic, fantastic. Jason,great to have you on the show.

(01:14):
I'm really looking forward tothis conversation, and as we
talked about just before I hitrecord. I mean, this is a topic
that, unfortunately, is notgoing to get old, right? Like
this is something that it's ait's something that's recurring.
It's something that B2Bmarketing teams struggle with
day in day out. But let's keepthe audience in suspense a
little while longer, and let'sdive right in.

(01:37):
Let's do it.
Yeah, fantastic. Fantastic. SoJason, you're on a mission to
partner with businesses thatempower teams to focus on what
they do best, which isdelivering exceptional products
and services. So here comes thetopic that we're going to focus
on today. Hold on to your seats,folks, how to turn B2B marketing

(01:57):
into a profit center? Okay, solet's kick off the conversation
with two questions, and I'mhappy to repeat them. So the
first question is, why do youthink marketing has
traditionally been viewed as acost or Expense Center in B2B?
And the second question is,where do you see most B2B
marketing teams struggle withregards to this perception?

(02:18):
Great questions. All right, sothe first one would be simply
that when marketing isn'tconnected to sales, the often
what you're looking at in termsof a data point is, how many
leads do we get? How many timesthe phone call rang? You know,
we did marketing to get trafficto our trade show booth or to

(02:39):
our webinar. How many peopleshowed up? And that's the
quantifying number. And youmight have a threshold to say,
we want to get 100 leads, 50leads, 500 and then when you get
those, you're happy. You'relike, we hit our goal. But to
me, Christian, the disconnectis, well, what happened to those
leads? How many were qualified?How many actually made it to an
initial sales call, to a productdemo, to a sample request,

(03:02):
whatever it might be, and that'swhere there's often that
disconnect, right? Becauseyou're not then connecting the
marketing efforts to the salesefforts. Most CRM (Customer
Relationship Management)platforms, which we'll get in
today, can do that. Can fixthat, actually, quite easily.
And I think the second piece toyour question is it's also the
marketing jobs responsibility tomake sure they're collecting the

(03:24):
right data. And so a goodexample of that is when you
somebody's coming to yourwebsite, whatever marketing
channel you're doing, you'redriving traffic in B2B, often,
usually to a website or maybethe phone call. But there's
usually the two main buckets,right? I think you would agree
with that Christian?
Yeah, so absolutely.
What they're often not doing isthey're they're not capturing

(03:45):
the hidden information. And whatI mean by that is they're
capturing First Name, Last Name,Company, email, phone number,
etc. But on their form, they'renot capturing the referring URL.
They're not capturing Where didthat person come from? If
they're running AdWordscampaigns and not recording in
the form submission what keywordled them to the landing page to
fill it out. And so part of thatis either just not understanding

(04:10):
how to technically set that up,or they haven't had the
experience to track that type ofdata, and they're only relying
on Google AdWords or whatevermarketing platform they're using
right to run the campaign, andthey're not comparing that data
to what actually is comingthrough. Because you and I both
know marketing websites, and asGoogle good as Google ads is,

(04:32):
there's always going to be someinconsistencies with that
information sometimes, and soyou want to be able to compare
it to another source. And so ifyou don't have that source of
data in your CRM, in yourdatabase, then that's going to
be the first point of contentionwhere there might be a problem.
Absolutely, absolutely. I wantto go back to something you
mentioned, like briefly, as youwere answering Jason, like...

(04:55):
Yeah.
You were talking about howtechnology and the CRM
platforms, and what have you youwere talking about how that can
fix some of these problems.And...
Right.
You and I both know that there'sa camp out there that strongly
believes, and in fact, theywould probably even die on that
hill, that no amount oftechnology or software can fix

(05:16):
that gap between marketing andsales. It's all about the
processes and the systems put inplace and the people. So what
are your thoughts on that?
Well, I think it's a little bitof both. It would be my answer.
And so the reason I would sayboth is because you need to have
the process and people doing thethings the way that needs to be
done in order for the systems towork. And so what I mean by that

(05:38):
is, if you have a quoting systemthat's running your your
business and the start of yoursales process, right? And, you
know, Mary and Dave enter quotesone way, Susie and Jonathan
enter quotes a different way,right? And there's no
consistency to how the tool isbeing used or the process is
being used, then, yes, it wouldbe hard, right? And sometimes

(06:00):
impossible to have a consistentdata flow.
But I would argue to say thatit's an easy problem to solve
because you just need to connectto the data points. And
connecting the data points isn'tso much. Yes, it's technical and
yes, it could be complex, butthat's where cultivate steps in.
We help solve those problems,but before we even get to that

(06:22):
solution, Christian, we have todata map. We have to understand
what kind of data are youcurrently collecting, and what
data are you are you missingthat you're not collecting or
you're not collectingconsistently. And I'll give you
a really quick example of whatI'm talking about. Very often
when somebody comes to awebsite, right? And we talked
just a minute ago about a form,you know, on a website, a lot of

(06:45):
times you don't have a drop downthat says, How did you hear
about us? And if you do on a B2Bwebsite, it might be generic. I
found you through a web search.I found you through like social
media, and that isn't going toinform you to really how they
found you. And so what you onething you could do very easily
and very non techie, is makesure that drop down reflects all

(07:07):
of the specific ways you arerunning your marketing. I found
you through a webinar. I foundyou through a trade show or
conference. I fade. I found youthrough a referral from an
existing customer, right? And ifyou put all those things in
there, then, of course, somebodycould be lazy and pick the first
choice, but studies will showthat they will more likely pick
how they actually found outabout you, and that could be

(07:29):
sort of like a fallback togetting that to flow in. And
then the one thing I'll leavewith that is it's not just the
website, it's the inbound calls.So if you're in a B2B business
and you got a lot of inboundcalls. You have to train your
internal sales team whoever'sanswering the phone. Thanks for
calling cult device. We reallyappreciate that. My first ask,
how did you find out about us?And they need to be in that same

(07:52):
drop down in the back endsystem, picking whatever the
answer is. I found you throughGoogle search. I found you
through, you know, Facebook,through LinkedIn. If they're not
asking that question, thenagain, we're not going to have
that original origin of wherethey came from.
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question, which is about keypitfalls to avoid. So if we're
talking about like, turningmarketing into this profit

(09:13):
center, what are some of thesekey pitfalls to avoid, and what
should people be doing instead?
Well, I think one thing you knowthat a lot of you know
businesses, and I'll say a lot,because it's, you know, sort of
just a blanket statement, butit's, it's the reality that they
pick out a number, sometimes outof thin air, or they say, we're
going to spend X percentage ofour revenue on marketing, and

(09:36):
then they go spend it, butsometimes it's not spent with
purpose and with strategy. SoCultivize is not a marketing
agency. We don't do lead gen. Iused to have a marketing agency
for 16 years. I'm originally agraphic designer. So, I mean, I
come from the world ofmarketing. It whether I and I
can't turn that switch offquestion, no matter how much I
try, it just goes in my head.
There are some clues. Sorry tointerject, but just for the

(09:59):
benefit of the all. Audiencethat is listening to the audio
version of this. Jason's gotthis incredible painting in the
background that is kind of like,at least from my point of view.
It's, it's a hint to his, like,his, his graphic design
background in history.
Yeah, I appreciate that. So, thepoint that I'm trying to make is

(10:21):
that, you know, it sometimesstarts with not having clear
goals, right? So, you know, isthe marketing? What's the what's
the objective of the marketing?Is it to generate these is it
for brand awareness? Is it toget people to attend the trade
show, to sign up for a webinar?And so I think that's sometimes
where those goals aren't clearlydefined. And when you're trying
to get approval for marketing,and then be able to track the

(10:44):
ROI (Return On Investment) ofthat, whether it be in your CRM
or some other system, you know,those dots often get
disconnected. But very often,because companies are not tying
their sales data to theirmarketing efforts, it's really
just looked at as an expenseitem, You know, on the profit
and loss statement, right? Andso you say, Okay, we're gonna
spend 30 grand this year. Wespend 100 grand this year on

(11:06):
marketing, and I think a lot ofit also comes we deal with some
companies that are privatelyheld, a lot of family businesses
still doing $8 million a year inbusiness, but, you know, they're
not publicly traded. And thenyou have like the owner
involved, who has passion rightand and fear of missing out,
right? So they're doing thingsfrom a marketing perspective.

(11:27):
They're running TV commercialsfor 50 grand a year, or radio or
whatever they're doing becausethey think their competitors are
doing it, and if they don't doit, they're going to lose
opportunity. But once you starttracking that, then you can
prove whether or not thosedifferent channels are actually
working or not. And so I thinkit all comes down to, you know,
really identifying. Tosummarize, what are the goals,

(11:48):
you know? So even if you'relistening today, and you're in a
marketing role, you're the ownerof the business, what are we
trying to do with our marketing,you know, what is that specific
action item we're trying to do?And it can be many action items.
And then the ultimate questionis, right? Which we're talking
about Christian today. How arewe tracking the results of that,
you know, and how are wequantifying the results? It's

(12:09):
not so much about, oh, we gotthis many new LinkedIn
connections, but what's thequality of those connections?
How do we classify them, youknow, are they referral
partners? Are they potentialclients, etc.
Yeah, those are some reallygreat points, and we'll get to
the quantifying and metricsaspect of it later in the
conversation, moving on to thenext question now that we've

(12:31):
kind of, like, set this up,right? How, how do you think
marketing teams can break out ofthis stereotype this? Oh, you
guys are just running up a taband, you know, you're just a
cost center. How, like, how canthey break out of that and
become a profit center? So whatare the key steps they need to
take to make that happen?
Well, I think the first key stepis, is having a relationship
with the sales team. You know, Ithink a lot of marketing teams

(12:53):
are living in a vacuum, eitherby choice, or maybe it's not by
choice, the way the organizationis set up in the structure of
the company, but I think havingthose, you know, weekly, if not
weekly, bi weekly, meetings withthe sales team to understand
what's happening with the thingsthat are being passed to the
sales team. You know, if thatopen dialog isn't there, then

(13:17):
it's really hard to co exist, tokind of reach this goal of
connecting the sales andmarketing data. I think the
other thing that we also have toconsider and to look at is, are
we bringing in all theinformation we need to track
everything from a marketingperspective, right? So we talked
before about those hidden fieldson a form, you know, if you're
not already tracking that,that's something certainly to be

(13:38):
put in place right away to getall that data.
And then the third componentwould be, you know, what is the
sales team using, right? So youas the marketing team have your
software, have different thingsyou're using. What is the sales
team using? You know, is there aCRM, you know? Is there a a ERP
(Enterprise Resource Planning),is there something like a
NetSuite or HubSpot? And maybethey're using it just for sales,

(14:00):
and the marketing team doesn'thave access to that tool. That's
something to next, figure out,right, and to identify if you
are truly in a vacuum, one thingyou could do, there's a great
tool called Built With and you,I'm sure you know Christian it's
a free tool. I mean, you couldpay for an advanced version of
it, but it's a Chrome extension,and you can go to your own

(14:22):
company website, click on thebuilt with icon, and it'll tell
you what technology is installedon the website. Now, as the
marketing team, you probablywould know that, however, I have
seen situations where you have asales team that's using some
software that's been installedon website unbeknownst to the
marketing team. So that wouldinform you of, you know, some

(14:43):
technology that may be beingused by other departments other
than yourself, that could beleveraged.
Yeah, yeah. It's definitely somegreat advice. I mean, that that
first piece, I would say, isjust crucial, like building that
relationship with the salesteam. I mean. Right? It blows my
mind. Like, how many marketers,like, don't have that regular

(15:06):
cadence in terms of, like, themeetings with sales and having
those relationships and and thatleads to things like, Okay, if
they need to do, if they need tointerview customers, then that's
when the sales teams becomehesitant. They're like, No, why
do you want to talk to ourcustomers? Right then, then they
become very protective andterritorial. And unfortunately,
I've seen that. I've seen thatscenario play out so many times.

(15:27):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think,and maybe we'll get to it, but I
think you know thatcommunication is also important,
you know, to prevent overlap ofcommunication to the customer.
You know, so often we'll seethat, you know, sales team is
reaching out and the marketingteam is reaching out same time,
and now you kind of, you know,give a bad taste to the customer
experience, because they'regetting inundated with

(15:47):
community, too muchcommunication.
Yeah, yeah. Then it confuses theclient. Like, okay, well, why am
I having so many people contactme? Right?
Exactly.
Yeah. In fact, I think we are.We are going to get to that
point in a second. So it's aboutlike, and you know, you and I
have both seen this, right? Andwe understand the importance
that goes into that kind ofwork, that I call it sometimes

(16:10):
preparatory work, right? We knowthat marketers need to do this
work internally to turn theirfunction into a profit center.
So based on your experience, howcan marketers better
communicate, and I don't reallywant to use this word, but it's
true, educate senior managementand other business units about
their activities, and how canthey get buy in and validation

(16:32):
for the initiatives they'reproposing.
I think it's really simple,right? So the to me, it's we're
the marketing team, where ourresponsibility is to generate
not new business, but generateopportunity for new business.
Okay? And I think it's a veryclear distinction, right?
Because sometimes seniorleadership will say, okay, the

(16:53):
marketing team is responsiblefor lead generation or for
helping drive revenue. Well,they're involved in that
process, but they're ultimatelynot fully responsible on their
own right. It has to go intandem with the sales team
that's going to convert thoseleads into a qualified customer.
So I think one thing a marketingteam or marketing manager can

(17:14):
certainly say is, well, how dowe know if the leads we're
generating are qualified or not?And if we don't know if they're
qualified, forget about even ifthere's a demo or a meeting or
anything, right, or a conversioninto a sale. The first step is
we need to know if the leadswe're generating are good leads
for the sales team or bad leads,right? And that's so that we can

(17:35):
refine our marketing messaging,our marketing approach, maybe
change up our tactic. How oftendo you hear Christian where
companies spend all this moneygoing to a trade show or doing a
webinar, and they're excitedbecause they get back in 100
business cards or tons of peoplesign up, then they find out none
of those people even qualified,or even the right type of
audience for them, right?

(17:55):
That's and if you don't fix thatand recognize that, you're going
to keep doing the same badhabit, bad strategy, over and
over and over to the point wherethen someone's going to, you
know, not be very happy with themarketing team. So I think, you
know, just asking that question,like, if you don't already know
how you're qualifying things,and again, you're not getting
information back to me, that'sdefinitely the first step. And I

(18:18):
think another piece of this too,is the marketing team can say,
well, listen, if in order for usto do a job, and yes, we're the
market team, are responsible,but in order for us to do a job
in the best possible way, weneed feedback from the sales
team. We need to say, hey, salesteam, you're you're on the
street, your ears to the ground.You know what the concerns are,
what the problems are, what theissues are of potential

(18:39):
customers or existing customersthat we're trying to solve. And
maybe those are changing. Maybethe landscape has changed. Maybe
there's, you know, a differentbuying need, maybe it's more
emotional now, versus, you know,a physical need, right? Of
something where you know this isbroken, we need to fix it. Maybe
there's other psychologicalthings involved. And so the

(19:00):
argument can be made, and I liketo say argument, but the it can
be made to say, well, we needthat feedback from the sales
team so we could refine ourstrategy on the marketing side,
you know? And that's, it's, it'sgot to be a symbiotic
relationship, because at the endof the day, both teams are
trying to do the same thing,right? They're trying to grow
the growth of the business, andso to have them in a vacuum,

(19:25):
working separately.
Yeah.
There's no really logic to thatthat I could even, you know,
sort of like combat, to say,well, this is, this could be why
someone could do it that way.There really is no way reason to
have everything siloed.
Well, unfortunately, it's, howdo I put this delicately? It's
sometimes the nature of thebeast within that organization,

(19:48):
that the way that the company isstructured, and that's also the
internal culture, right? Likethat. It's, it's created this
atmosphere of competition,tension versus actually like
helping business units to breakdown those barriers and to use
your word be more symbiotic,because I do believe that we're

(20:10):
stronger together. And I know Isound like a politician when I
say that, but it's some it'sthere is something to be said,
because I've been in thesesituations, too as a marketer,
where I've seen how much betterthe teams can perform if we work
together and stop like thiscloak and dagger stuff, where we
just don't reveal, we don'treveal information to each

(20:31):
other, right? That's an archaic,outdated way of thinking.
Yeah. The other thing I'll addto that too is, I think it's
also sometimes the seniorleadership giving responsibility
for some of these items to thewrong teams. I just got off a
phone call this morning withsomebody that I've been talking
to as a prospective customer fora few months now, and they're

(20:53):
like, well, everything's on holduntil we rebrand and we're
building new website. Okay,talking about, you know, CRM,
marketing automation, salesautomation. Well, I just spoke
to her. Name is Judy today, andshe's like, well, you know, I'm
not really involved in that, youknow, that decision right now,
the there's a new IT person,they're located here in this

(21:13):
division, like a completelydifferent state that I'm in, the
marketing agencies in the UKthey're talking about, you know,
like other things they'relooking at. And so the person
that's actually going to beusing, the team that's going to
be using the software and makingan impact with it has been
completely removed from all theresearch that's being done.
Sounds pretty fragmented.

(21:34):
It's just, yeah, but to yourpoint like, it's, it's very odd,
right? I mean, it's just, it's,and, yes, there's nothing we can
do from an outside perspectiveto change that. All we can say
is, and so I said that Judy wasjust perfect example is, how do
I get cult device on thepreferred list of consultants
you're talking to, what they'retalking to to help inform the
right decision? And she's like,let me find out. You know, let

(21:56):
me, let me get a pathway intothat. And so now I don't know
who these people are, but she'smentioned that head of it is in
Minnesota. She mentioned theagency in the UK. So now I could
go on Apollo and other tools andLinkedIn and try to find those
people and make some headway,and introduce myself. Say, Hey,
I'm already working with Judyhere in the US, you know. And

(22:18):
she mentioned that you might beinvolved in this new project.
Just want to introduce myself.And so that's, that's sort of
how you have to sort of think,penetrate, you know, through
that obstacle.
Precisely, precisely. And if Icould just add on to what you
know, what we've been talkingabout. And I think that was your
point earlier on. Theconversation is, if there isn't
this symbiotic relationship, andeverything is so siloed and

(22:41):
fragmented. One of the dangersthat I've seen in the past for
not just marketing, but for allall people involved, is that it
becomes this ecosystem whereeverything is very reactive.
It's everything is a knee jerkreaction, like there isn't any
because people aren't activelycollaborating, or there is no

(23:01):
communication. Then, then thingsare, you know, things are,
things move slowly, thingsbecome more reactive and and it
just doesn't, just doesn't helpanyone.
Yeah, no, absolutely. Becauseyou're, you're making your
decisions based on emotion andnot based on actual data.
That's right, that's right.Okay, sir, we get to the point

(23:23):
in the conversation where we'retalking about actionable tips,
and you've given us plentyalready, Jason, but just imagine
there's somebody out therethat's listening to this
interview, and you want them totake what you've been talking
about and implement it rightnow, not in six months, not in a
year. Like after, afterlistening to this, like, what

(23:45):
are three to five things thatthey can do if they're one of
these marketers that you and Ihave been talking about, that
they have to prove thatmarketing can be a profit center
and not a cost center. What canthey do?
So the first thing to do is, ifyou're not already in
conversation with the salesteam. You know, whether it be a
team of two or team of 200 getin touch with them, right? Say,

(24:07):
Hey, like, we'd love to get aconversation started just to
understand what tools you'reusing specifically, and more
importantly, is the first step.How do you qualify somebody?
Right? That's, I think, reallyimportant. The other thing you'd
want to do, if you're themarketing team, is understand,
what does the sales team do withthe leads once they get them

(24:28):
from you, whether they're, youknow, getting them, you know,
automatically. However they'regetting you're generating,
they're taking over. What doesthat look like? What tools are
they using? What's theirprocess? Getting a full picture
of that, I think, is going to bea really key piece to bridging
the gap.
Secondly, I would say, lookingat the company website, if
you're on the marketing team,looking at your website forms

(24:51):
and saying, what kind of dataare we collecting? Are we
collecting this hidden datathat's Jason's talking about? Or
do we have that drop down thatsays, How'd you hear about all.
And are those choices reflectiveof the things we do from a
marketing standpoint, I thinkthat's really critical.
I think the other third thing todo also is to understand, well,

(25:12):
the data that you're generatingoutside of digital. What are you
doing with that data? So ifyou're doing, let's say, a
direct mail campaign, how youtracking, you know, the results
of that people coming to thewebsite. You know, hopefully,
this QR code on that direct mailpiece, which is a great low tech
way to get people to a specificlanding page, right? That's
specific. Then we didn't evenget into technical things

(25:36):
Christian, but even tools likeCall Rail, right, which is a,
you know, populate as many ofthem out there to track inbound
calls through marketingchannels. You could have a
billboard right on route 85 andthere's a phone number. That
phone number can be trackeddigitally, and the calls can be
recorded, and you can see howmany calls that we get, what
were the quality of the calls,and you could pass that data to

(25:57):
your CRM. So there's a lot thatcan be done from a technical
perspective, which I'm happy ifanybody that's listening wants
to reach out and share some ofthose more detailed ideas with
everybody.
And then the other piece of it,I would say, is, you know, what
is your report look like today?Like if you had to bring a
report to management and say,This is our results. We've just

(26:18):
spent $50,000 this year, thisquarter on marketing. This is
the outcome of that. You knowwhat? What are you showing them?
What kind of report do you have?And not only, what report do you
have, how long did it take youto create that report? Was that
a two week project, a two monthproject, right? Was that a two
minute project? Because youalready have all these systems

(26:39):
in place that's going to open upsome ideas and also some
opportunity to say, Oh, wow, wereally can't actually show, and
this is all about the profitcenter, right? We can't really
show the ROI on our marketingspend. So I would say those
would be my tips for sure thatyou could put into place
tomorrow, today, you know, andhopefully not too far in the

(27:00):
distant future.
Yeah, fantastic tips, especiallywith regards to, like, how to
analyze and aggregate data.Because, like, you know, we all
know that sometimes marketerscan just drown in data and
they're not even sure whatthey're measuring. I love that
you brought up call real. Ithink this is the fourth time
I've heard it in the past twoweeks. So...

(27:21):
Oh, wow, yeah, I make, I makemoney, no money off of it.
That's not what I was implying.
But like, it's interestingthat's, you know, that tool has
come up many times inconversation. But also, to your
last point, so important. It'sso important. And, um, I

(27:43):
remember back when I was aproduct manager, and I'm sure
you've been in these situations,too, Jason. Where we had to
present to the global board ofdirectors, and we basically had
15 minutes, right? Becausethey're, they're basically going
through all the business units,right? And so marketing was just
what one one meeting that theyhad that day, and basically we

(28:04):
were told five slides only. Allright, so whatever it is that
the marketing team had to sayabout this is our progress for
the year, it had to be said infive slides. Now, mind you,
Jason like Like, everyresponsible presenter, we had
five slides to present and 30backup slides in case they had

(28:25):
questions, right? And we got allthe links to the backup slide
so, you know, in the idealsituation, they would have
enough questions for us to beable to elaborate further, and
they wouldn't have any any majorchallenges, right?
But in case they did, or in casethey had, they they wanted to
dig a little bit deeper, you cango, Oh, I'm great. You asked

(28:46):
that question. Click, and thenthere it goes, right there,
there's your there, there areyour charts, and they're your
data, right? The danger is, um,the danger is, you try to, like,
cram 100 slides into those 15minutes, and you spend, you
spend about 12 minutes on slideone, right, like, right?
Right.
That's the danger, right? But,um...

(29:08):
Absolutely.
Fun times. Fun times. But, um,you know, you brought it up
earlier, and I'd like to go backto it right? Because you are
this is basically like, you knowwhat you do on a daily basis.
But if we're talking aboutmetrics, right? And I call this
the Love it or hate it question,right? But what are what are
these metrics? Specifically, ifmarketers want to prove that

(29:30):
they're a profit center, whatare these metrics that they
should be paying attention to,and why?
So I think the first one that Iwould look at for sure is the
quality of the leads. Now you'regoing to define that, any way
you're going to define it. Buthow many leads came from a
specific marketing channel outof that? How many did the sales

(29:51):
team talk to? And the sales teamreported back? Yes, these are
SQL right sales qualified leads,versus an MQL marketing
qualified lead. So that's thefirst thing, right? Because
that's going to help youunderstand, are we least
generating the good leads forour sales team.
The second thing I would alsolook at is, if you can, if you

(30:12):
can, get access to the data,what are the conversion points
after they qualify somebody?Right? So you know, if it's a
qualified lead, what percentageof those right say it's 50% you
know, qualified out of the 50%how many went to that next step
in the sales process? How manygot the demo, how many requested
a sample request? Out of those,how many right went down the

(30:34):
funnel and did the next thing?And the reason that's important
is because they might bequalified based on, you know,
they have the money, they havethe problem, they have whatever
right so they're qualified, butthen you find out, Oh, they're
in the wrong industry. Soactually, now they're not
qualified right after talking tothem. So I think that's really
important. I think the otherthing I always also look to add

(30:56):
is a simple conversion. And I dothis in a sort of a somewhat of
a complex, but, but not overlycomplex spreadsheet I built, how
many website visitors did we getto our website in any given
month? Out of that, how manyactually converted? Did some
took some action on the website,downloaded an ebook, filled out
the contact us form, signed upfor our newsletter, whatever

(31:18):
they did, how many converted?And out of those conversions,
how many actually became acustomer? And that allows me to
look at my CPL, my cost perlead, and then also my cost per
acquisition, right? So, what amI? So? How much am I spending on
marketing, right? Comparing itto the website traffic we're

(31:39):
getting and then to thoseconversions, I think that's
really key fundamental number.
And then I think the other oneis, tracking what you spend, if
you're spending, if you're doingFacebook AdWords, you know,
whatever marketing you're doing,webinars, what was the dollar
amount you spent in thatparticular month, and how many
leads did you generate? And thenwhat was your cost per lead. And

(32:02):
then, you know, for example, ifthey cost you $1,000 to do a
webinar, and you know, only fivepeople showed up, it's pretty
expensive, right, to generateleads, whereas if 500 people
showed up, oh, wow, this ispretty cost effective. It's,
it's, it's pennies on thedollar, right, for how many
people actually showed up? So Ithink those are some key numbers

(32:23):
that aren't complicated.
Yeah.
That even if you didn't have aCRM of software, you could
easily track those in thespreadsheet.
Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Imean, like, you know, we start
with quality of the leads, whichI think is extremely important,
conversion points, and I thinkyou said number of visitors. So
like, how many came to thewebsite? How many converted? How
many became customers, and thentracking spent? Fantastic,

(32:48):
fantastic.
Yeah. Because the one thing toknow about the website traffic
too is, you know, if you're not,I mean, I can't tell how many
marketers I look at talk to thatdon't even look at Google
Analytics on a regular basis.Yeah. And so if you're doing
spending less money to drive,drive traffic, generate leads
like you'd obviously want to seeyour website traffic going up
month after month. If it's justflat line, then something's

(33:17):
So what is a status quo in yourarea of expertise that you
passionately disagree with? Andwhy?
I think that one that I wouldwould disagree with is when it
comes to two things I'm gonnado, I'm gonna give you two
answers that kind of go hand inhand. So one is, we can't change

(33:40):
our behavior, and another one isadoption of a new process or a
new system. And the reason Idisagree with those just kind of
comment very quickly, if you'vebeen doing something one way for
a long period of time, ofcourse, it's not going to be
overnight or even quick,sometimes that you're going to
change. And so the only waythat's possible, from my

(34:04):
experience, is if you havesomebody, both internally and
externally, that's going to bean accountability partner and a
coach to help you transition tothat change. And so, you know,
one thing we do here at cultdevice, you know, because we're
in the world of building CRMfor, you know, systems for
companies is we'll work withthat team indefinitely, right?

(34:27):
So we might have weekly calls,they might eventually go to bi
weekly, then monthly, but we'vehad clients for years. We still
meet with them every month,because we make sure that
nothing's falling off, thatthey're doing all the things
they're supposed to be doing.And so I think sometimes people
have the mindset, well, we'vebeen doing it this way for so
long, like it's not going tohappen, like there's no way we
can change. And, yeah, if youdon't want to change, you're not

(34:49):
going to change. But if you havethe willingness to say, Okay,
we're willing to to to change,we see the value in changing. We
see that's going to help us. Youknow. Lot of times, the
misconception that this type ofchange is going to require more
work, it's going to requiredouble data entry, it's right,
it's going to make life harder.And it's like actually complete
opposite that, I think it's verycommon to your question, common

(35:12):
myths that all these things aregoing to cause more problems
than solve and if it'sapproached the right way, and
you're the right partner and myteam, it's that that won't
happen. It will be a breath offresh air. Yes, you know, yes,
at the end of the day.
Yeah.
So if you have people on theteam that are, you know, in
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean,you know, like, there were a lot
Absolutely, absolutely okay.Here comes the bonus question.
Of course, and I
their 10 year, they're, youknow, older generation then,
yeah, they've been doing it forso long, versus someone who's
younger. You know, it's maybeeasier for them to adopt. But it
doesn't mean that it'simpossible. But yes, it's, it's,
it's all about the attitude.
So when you're not drivingclient success, I have heard
this rumor that you enjoy beingon a boat in the Hudson, right?
So the question is, if you weregiven the choice to pick any
boat in any location on Earth orany location in the world.
Oh, wow, okay.
To sail that thing? Well, Iguess it's a two prong question,
right? Like, what boat would youchoose, and which location would
you choose, and why?
So that's really interesting. Sothe Hudson River, if anybody's
ever been to the Hudson River,it's a very dirty river. It's
before it's brown, well, closerto New York. Yeah, machinery is
beautiful, if you if you look atlike, you know, above the
horizon level. I mean, it'sbeautiful landscape, and it's
great. You look down, you know,my joke, my wife, my wife's
like, why do we let the kids andwhy do we swim in here? Like,
well, it's hot, you know, wejump in and, you know, nothing,
nothing's falling no body partsfalling off, yet we'll be

(35:32):
of people that over covid orduring the pandemic, they went
alright, you know, so. But Ithink being somewhere in a more
tropical setting. The idea of,like the open ocean, to me,
isn't as appealing as like ifyou were, I remember we went to
place called Peter Island, whichis off the coast of Portola from
my honeymoon, almost like 20years ago. And we went, you
know, snorkeling, and the waterthere so beautiful, and just the
mountains and everything. So Ithink being in a place like
that, some type of, likeCaribbean tropical area, I think
would be kind of exciting to beable to navigate and kind of
have just beautiful coral water,you know, to explore with. I
think as far as type vesselgoes, I would say something
that's manageable to handle onmy own. So, you know, probably,
you know, a 35 you know, foot,40 foot boat that's got a nice
cabin that could, you know,withstand weather conditions.
And it's interesting, you askedme that question, because I've
always wondered, like with theon the Hudson, like my boat, you
know, I've gone, you know, acouple hours in either direction
of where I keep it at themarina, you know, partly
because, you know, the amount offuel I can have on the boat, and
back and, you know, they tookcourses and they relearned
it's, it's not that thing likewhen you're driving, I mean,
yes, you got to plan out thegas, but it's a little bit
easier when you're on a boat.There's only many, so many
places you can get gas, right?So you have to be very strategic
about that, and so, but onething I've thought about is,
well, like, would I becomfortable going out into the
open ocean, where there's noframe of reference, there's no
navigational points. I've talkedto other people at the marina
who have gone and taken thosebig trips, and even met people
from I met a couple last year ona nice, big boat from Michigan
to him and his wife, you know,came up, and they're they've
been on, living on the boat forlike, three months, and they're
just going all around, you know,the US on the boat that's a
completely different.
Yes.
You know, challenge and skilllevel and sort of set of
Kahunas, you know.
Indeed.
something. And I think one ofthe my best, or biggest
takeaways from that period oftime was that I had to learn,
into an answer, but I havethought about as my point, you
relearn and unlearn certainthings, right? And I would say

(35:54):
that the third one was probablythe hardest, right, the
unlearning. And, you know, toyour point, it's, it's not
impossible to change, but itdoes become harder, like it does
become harder. It's a mind, it'sa question also, of mindset,
right? So...

(39:57):
know, and I'm like, okay, like,what would I be willing to your
point about? Learning, you know,uncomfortable with to figure
out, but there's so much, youknow, where I live, I live
towards, like, upstate New York.I mean, I've thought about, you
know, taking trips toConnecticut to out, you know,
east to Long Island. I mean,there's, like, tons of places I
can go from an access point, youknow, I'm not on a lake, right?

(40:17):
So that's something that Idefinitely would love to do. I
could also see myself, you know,moving and being in that
tropical area. I used to my wifebe fun to, like, have, like, a
charter boat, you know, if weretire, just take people out
snorkeling in the Caribbean. Andthat's what we did for fun, you
know, yeah, so.
Or set up the cult of ice officein the Bahamas, or Barbados or

(40:37):
something.
You know what? It's not a badidea. I have one son that's
almost in college, and anotherdaughter that's a few years
away. And I said I really likedthe idea of being that digital
nomad and just, you know, youknow, kind of just moving around
a little bit and workingwherever so...
Fantastic.
We'll see, maybe...
Fantastic.

(40:58):
Maybe we'll have anotherpodcast, and in a few years, and
we'll see, maybe a week, we'llhave it from the boat. It won't
be this beautiful picture behindme. There'll be some tropical
scenery.
Maybe, maybe, yeah, wow, Jason,this has been a fantastic
conversation. So thanks againfor coming on the show and for
sharing your experience andexpertise with those listeners.
And please quick intro toyourself and how folks can get

(41:19):
in touch with you, and anotherquestion on top of the question
is, how does somebody who is ingraphic design end up working
with data and CRM?
So I'll answer that first. SoI've always been a left brain,
right brain sort of person. I'venever really knew that about
myself, but I'm a very detailoriented person I love, kind of

(41:42):
like, even I'll give a reallyquick funny story. So I think
it's funny when I saw when I wasin art school on Syracuse, and I
had this painting teacher, Idid, you know, all different,
you know, figure drawing, thingslike that. But this painting
teacher, who, you know, neverreally like, loved my style of
painting. Let's just say that.And so I was doing this
painting. It was very abstract.And they're like, but to me,

(42:04):
like everything had to beperfect, like I was not like a
Jackson Pollock type painter,like my arrow the lines buttoned
up, like I needed to be thingsjust way my brain and my sort
of, like thought process work.
Yeah.
And so they saw this veryabstract painting I was doing
that they're like, Wow, this isreally outside, like, your
comfort level, it's great thatyou've broken out. And they were
like, you know, patted me in theback, basically, little did they

(42:26):
know I had masking tape over theentire canvas, and my plan was
to reveal it, to reveal a verylike, organized structure of a
painting on top of the mess Iwas putting on top of it. And so
at the end of, like, everythingdried, you know, and getting
ready the presentation, Istarted peeling off all the
tape, and they're like, theyflipped out. They took that roll

(42:46):
of tape, they threw it out thehallway. They're like, massive.
Tape is never allowed in apainting class. Like, why would
you, you know, like, this personwas, like, off the charts,
eccentric and, and so, so, like,I guess my point is that I've
always gravitated in the artworld. I've always done things
in a more sort of, likeorganized fashion. And so I got

(43:08):
into this because we starteddoing a lot of marketing
automation, a lot of emailmarketing, and understanding how
CRM plays into that with my oldagency. And so when I sold that
company about six years ago, Iwas like, Well, I think the CRM
is where we're going to fix thisidea of bridging the gap between
marketing, sales, you know. Andthat was really why I wanted to

(43:29):
get into and start cultivate tosolve that problem. Everything
else we do on top of that, thelead nurturing and all these
other things all sort of gotbuilt on top of that foundation,
you know, if you will.
So, yeah. So as I mentioned,Cultivize, you know, I'm the
Founder of Cultivize. We're ateam of six. I've been based in
New York, mostly the team. Allthe team, I should say, is in

(43:52):
the US, except for one girl,Heather. She's in Canada, up
near you, Christian. And thebest way for people to find me
is go tohttps://afterthelead.com/ that's
https://afterthelead.com/ onthere. You'll find on my social
you can connect with me. There'sa link to book a call, and we
have a lot of great guides andother assets on there. So even

(44:12):
if this topic resonated, there'stons of other topics I've talked
about on other podcasts andarticles. So it's just a
plethora of information. And ifyou want to go down the rabbit
hole https://afterthelead.com/,is definitely a place to jump in
and and you'll be happy withwhat you find.
Fantastic, fantastic. Well,we'll be sure to drop the link

(44:33):
to that website in the shownotes, right?
Okay, terrific.
Once again. Jason, thanks forcoming on the show. Take care,
stay safe and talk to you soon.
All right. Thanks, Christian.
All right. Bye for now.