July 9, 2020 • 41 mins
There are two pillars of marketing: success and engagement. Success is typically measured by revenue growth and business goal attainment. Engagement is focused on building relationships with your audience, proving value, and establishing lasting connections. This month’s guest, Joe Folan, shares how marketers can pivot from being selling-centered to relationship-centered to drive success.
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Episode Transcript
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Rhoan Morgan (00:01):
Hey everyone.
Welcome to another episode ofRevenue Rebels, the podcast that
brings marketing and salesrebels together to share their
stories and thinking on alltopics related to accelerating
revenue, generating activitiesin the B2B world.
On this show, we talk about thestrategic vision of
marketing-led customerexperience that unleashes the
(00:24):
combined power of technology,content, and data.
Are you ready to rebel?
Let's get into the show.
Hey listeners.
Thanks for joining us on today'sshow.
Really excited that we a havefantastic Revenue Rebel with us
today, the Vice President ofMarketing for The Center for
(00:48):
Leadership Studies.
He has over 19 years ofmarketing experience having
helped companies in tons ofindustries, including
technology, healthcarenonprofits, something near and
dear to my heart, and B2Bcompanies.
So working with them through,developing and evolving their
brand and offering so that theycan stay competitive and
(01:10):
innovative in their respectivespaces.
So really excited to have JoeFolan joining us today.
Welcome to the show.
Joe Folan (01:18):
Hey, thanks, Rhoan.
Glad to be here.
Rhoan Morgan (01:20):
So, for our audience, as you know, today,
we're really going to discusssome topics that are, I think
have become more and more commonand what we're hearing quite a
lot about, in today'senvironment, right?
How can marketers pivot fromwhat may have seemed and in fact
, they should have already beenpivoting from this, but anyway,
(01:40):
in any case, from maybe pushingproducts and services to
becoming much more customercentric, and focused on building
relationships.
So I'm really excited to be ableto go over that topic with you
today, but to kick things off,I'd love to start with our Rebel
segment.
And that's where I'm just goingto ask you to share a rebel act
(02:02):
from your marketing journey,from your professional
experience.
So why don't we start off, ifyou can share with us a little
bit about a rebel act that ledto a shift into a more customer
centric approach to marketing.
Joe Folan (02:16):
Yeah, sure.
That sounds great.
Um, you know, I always kind ofthroughout my career, you know,
what I like about marketing isthat you do have the opportunity
to kind of rock the boat andshake things up.
Even from the very beginning,early on in my career, we, this
is going to sound old hat, butyou know, this is probably
(02:38):
around the 2005 era when I wasrunning a job board, and, we
just had job postings o f peopleapplied.
And instead of just connectingthose two audiences, what we
decided to do, i t was actuallyto create a content hub.
(03:00):
And so that was kind of veryearly on in the game, that whole
content marketing approach,where you're actually helping
folks you're entertaining folkswhile actually getting your name
out there while generatingrevenue, and while furthering
your business.
I do just marketing as a whole.
(03:22):
I enjoy the ability to kind ofagain, think outside the box.
In terms of a rebel act, right?
I mean, I think, I think overallwhat some companies make the
mistake of doing is looking atmarketing is just lead gen.
All right.
And so when your CEO or whoevercomes up to you and says, well,
(03:45):
how many leads did you get thismonth?
You know, that's part of it, butit's not everything.
You know, marketing encompasses,branding awareness, engagement,
enablement, and feedback,competitive research, market
research.
I mean, the list goes on and on.
And so when you start to kind ofwiden that view a little bit,
it's clear that customer marketcentric, positioning and
(04:10):
relationships are really theonly option.
And so when you ask about thekind of rebel act, you know,
given the kind of state of thestate right now with this kind
of global pandemic and everybodykind of realizing this overused
phrase of the"new normal," I satdown with my executive team and
(04:31):
I said, look in our specificindustry, no one is going to be
looking for anything that weoffer today, right?
Because Center for LeadershipStudies, what we do is we, we do
in person training right aroundleadership topics.
So all of a sudden you can'tmeet in person.
(04:52):
What do you do as a company?
So my proposal was, look if wehave to pivot for anything, what
we need to do is help folksthrough this time and not look
at revenue, not look at how manypeople are looking into these
events or what not.
It's just, this is our time toshine.
(05:14):
Just say, look, we understandwhat you're going through.
We want to help you navigatethis and we're your source for
that ability to do that.
And so, you know, initially it'slike,"Oh my God, you cannot
focus on revenue." And there issome truth to that, right?
I mean, you gotta she keep thelights on, you gotta keep people
(05:36):
employed.
But at the end of the day, ifyou say, okay,"let's engage with
all these folks, let's meet themwhere they are, let's help them
through these challenges,"they're going to look to you and
you form that relationship as aresource so that when things do
kind of get into a steady paceor whatever, that looks like,
(05:59):
you're there for them, you'vemade that impression.
And so that I think is reallyone of the most timely and
obviously recent, kind of shiftsto that customer centric
approach that we did withinmarketing.
Rhoan Morgan (06:16):
As you're talking through that, you know, I take
notes as I'm listening to myguests because I take notes
about maybe something I want togo back to, or whatever thought
kind of comes to mind.
And to me, I feel like themarketing leaders and other CMOs
that I'm talking with arelooking to do the same thing.
I think it's a really brave moveand it's not an easy
(06:40):
conversation to have.
Right.
I mean, in most cases anyway.
Was there any resistance to thatsort of shift?
And not that that, I mean,resistance, it doesn't mean that
they're making a mistake ordoing anything wrong, but there
has to be, and there is an, inmany companies, some trepidation
around this, or some concernlike"Whoa, wait a second.
(07:00):
We can't stop thinking about,you know, revenue and lead gen
and all this other stuff thatwe're supposed to be doing." So
was there or how did you managethrough that, or have that
conversation?
Joe Folan (07:14):
Yeah, it's a great question.
So of course, when you'relooking at the horizon of your
business situation, you have tofactor in a lot of different
things in terms of (07:24):
Can you generate revenue?
What departments do we have?
What is our current productdevelopment cycle looking like?
where are we at with deliveringwhat could be needed right now?
And where could revenue beattained?
And, you know, I like thisviewpoint of how do you look at
(07:48):
both internal within companiesin terms of your staff.
But it's also applied externallyin terms of your market and how
you position.
And there's two kinds of pillarsthere, and one is success and
one is engagement.
And so, if your, and I'll stickwith just the internal example
for the moment, then I'll applyit externally.
(08:10):
So if you look across yourstaff, you kind of have two
competing, let's just call themwells, right?
So if you're looking at like anequalizer on your stereo, and
you've got the two thingsbumping from green to orange, to
red, and success is you'reaccomplishing your financial
goals, you're accomplishingwhatever those, those goals.
You could be putting on a tradeshow and everybody's working
(08:34):
long hours and you'reaccomplishing that goal, but it
drops your engagement becausepeople are burned out and people
are just working their buttsoff.
And then you have the timeswhere, you know it maybe the end
of the year, and you're on adown cycle, just cyclical, the
cyclicality of your business islow.
(08:56):
So that's when you have anoffice party.
And so your revenue may drop atthat point, but you've planned
for it.
But your engagement is superhigh because everybody's like
really glad and glad to workthere and culture and positivity
are very high.
So you have to balance those twothings.
And often if you balancecorrectly with the engagement
you're successful will follow,right?
(09:18):
Because if people are happy towork there, when the times get
tough, they know they just gotto knuckle down and do it.
And so the same thing, the sameconcept can be applied
externally, right?
So as marketers general day today, really all businesses, you
have to focus on success, butyou also want your market to be
engaged.
That's the whole reason forcontent marketing and social
(09:42):
media presence and ourrelationships with our clients.
And if engagement leads tosuccess, and you're looking at
it during an absolutelyunprecedented crisis, and you
know, that your success is goingto drop, what better time then
(10:02):
to turn up the dial onengagement.
And so with that kind of frame,you kind of talk about that with
the executive team and you layall of that out, and then you
figure out, okay, what can yoube doing from a product
development from an operationsperspective?
That we can eventually get tosuccess or right now, let
(10:26):
marketing run engagements andlet's get everybody bought in.
Let's provide some value to themarket.
Let's position ourselves as avaluable resource that can help
them without any kind of salestactics or anything.
It's purely just,"Hey, we'reyour friend.
We're here for you." And thenultimately what you'll do as
things start to shift back, youcan pivot those new
(10:46):
relationships that you'vecreated, and that trust that you
gained and pivot that intosuccess.
So just as an example, with thequarantine and after we've done
this, well, like I said, thecompany I'm at now, we were
traditionally an in persontraining company.
And so nobody's searching for inperson training right now.
So our SEM and SEO has droppedoff significantly.
(11:12):
But as we put all these contentpieces out, these useful things,
and we started to help themarket, we've actually grown our
database by almost 20% in a timewhen nobody would be searching
for our company at all.
Rhoan Morgan (11:23):
That's awesome.
Yeah.
That's really exciting.
That's very cool.
Joe Folan (11:27):
Yeah.
And then, so what do you do withthat?
So when everything starts toshift back to normal, or we've
created a product that can beserved to our market during this
time, all of a sudden we'vegrown our database and we have
more people to talk to andbetter relationships to talk to
folks with.
Rhoan Morgan (11:42):
Yep.
That's a great example.
I was actually just about to askyou for an example.
So I love that.
And I think that that is, youknow, sort of leading with a
more altruistic perspective andframe.
And anybody out there listeningto this, it has to have that
conversation with our executiveteam, I love that the way that
that was framed up, and I thinkit would be hard to say,"Oh, no,
(12:04):
we don't want to do that." Youknow, so it's a good, it's a
good place to start.
I really like that.
Let's talk about team for aminute.
I wanted to, again, to, well, Iactually, I have a question to
ask and it's regarding how we'reas marketers, we're working with
who I call"our partners insales." But if you could
(12:24):
describe your relationship withyour sales team in one word,
what word would it be?
And, and tell us why.
Joe Folan (12:33):
So I'm sure there's a lot of different perspectives on
marketing and salesrelationships out there.
I would definitely say that mycurrent relationship and what I
always strive to, that wordwould be"circular." Where, you
know, I see that sales andmarketing are kind of two sides
(12:57):
of the same coin.
We both have the same goals.
We each enable success and we'redependent on one another, right?
So if you look at it from a leadgen, a branding, a sales
enablement perspective, youknow, marketing exists to
empower, and we do that throughcompetitive analysis or creating
(13:19):
collateral through generating atleast the seedlings of
relationships and providingvalue on Moss.
And once people engage, you know, that's when the sales team
steps in and continues thatrelationship building.
But what marketers need to knowis that information back from
(13:40):
sales, right?
So how are these conversationsgoing?
Where are you getting objectionsfrom?
What can we create that helpsyou overcome these objections?
And so from a problem solvingperspective, that information
flow, that kind of circularcommunication iis absolutely key
(14:01):
to success of any, anycommercial organization.
You can also capitalize on thattoo.
Right?
So as sales leaders andrepresentatives and executives
get further along, a betterrelationship with clients or
prospects, they can identify,"Hey, look, we've got a raving
(14:24):
fan over here.
You should go talk to thisperson" and you can create more
sales enablement tools, casestudies.
It's success breeds success.
And it ultimately helps withthat communication between the
teams to know where to focus andwhere to help out.
(14:44):
Now, I've been in lots ofscenarios where it's toxic and
there's finger pointing andit's,"Hey, marketing is not
bringing in leads" and"Salesisn't following up on the stuff
that we brought in." What I'vealways done is, I mean, every
place I've gone, the first thingyou do is you set a weekly or
monthly or whatever cadencemakes sense for your company.
Set a standup where the entiremarketing team is together with
(15:07):
the entire sales team and youjust have open dialogue.
Have a very loose straw, man, ofan agenda.
And just,"what are you hearingfrom the market?
What do you need out there?
What is marketing doing that'sworking?
What are these from this source?
Looking like, how was the followup going from trade shows?" I
mean, any number of differentthings, but communication is
(15:29):
absolutely key there.
Rhoan Morgan (15:31):
Oh, completely, completely agree.
When I think about the idealrelationship to me, I think
about a positive feedback loop,you know, where it's just
success breeds success, and youjust have this, you've got
feedback coming from bothorganizations, to the point
where it's, you know, reallyunified.
(15:52):
And so I love circular.
I completely relate to that.
And I would also say thatwhat's, for us anyway, it's
really cool because, you know,in our space, we deal a lot with
martech and CRM and therelationship between what
marketing is doing, usingtechnology and what sales is
(16:14):
doing.
We really focus on the sharingof the data and the insights
that sort of help thatrelationship and even support
something like the standup thatyou're talking about where
there's info, there's actualdata that says, well, actually
we, you know, we sent over athousand people into the sales
(16:39):
engagement stream, whatever it'scalled at any particular
company.
And it looks like 40 people wereactually reviewed by sales.
So we should take a look at thatprocess a little bit.
Or looks like 999 of them werereviewed and 900 of them were
accepted and that's like, youknow, utopia.
Really being able to pull in thedifferent systems, and also to
(17:06):
help us support the relationshipis critical.
I'd love to know how have youseen sales get involved in this
approach?
You know, what's, what's oneexample of sort of a shining
moment in your experience?
Joe Folan (17:22):
You know, marketing by nature, the market is savvy,
right.
I mean, you know, as a consumer,when you're just being put into
an automated email stream.
I mean, even if it looks likeit's coming from somebody, you
can tell, right.
I mean, just as it has JohnSmith over at the company you
were talking with.
So I would say as marketers,because we're mass market in a
(17:47):
lot of cases and things aregetting better, right.
And we can get more savvy and weare getting more savvy, in terms
of having individualconversations, but as a whole,
nothing replaces the individualcommunication between folks.
So without that, we can only goso far in my mind.
(18:10):
And so our role is to tee up theinitial conversation, but to
prepare the sales team for whatthat looks like once the ball is
handed to them.
So just thinking right nowthrough, through an example of
(18:31):
how that's worked well, it's,we're in the middle of this
crisis.
We send ou some resources, bythe way, I'm a firm believer in
the challenger sale model whereconsumers gain more value by
learning something they didn'tknow or disproving something
they believe to be true.
And they start to look at you asa company, or you as a
(18:54):
salesperson or you as a marketerdifferently, as a result of
that.
When we're distributinginformation, we tell the sales
team every time before we sendsomething out"hey look, we've
got this out soaking in themarket.
You may be getting inquiriesabout this, that or the other.
If one of your clients hasn'tseen this or you think it could
(19:17):
be valuable, send this to themwith these kind of talking
points.
And so you get the sales teameducated and familiar with the
concept, they're prepared tohave those conversations.
And then they have them bothwith their clients and with new
prospects that are coming in,you arm them with enough
information to say,"Let me showyou what we're talking about
(19:38):
here.
Let me bring you some value."And then they in turn give that
information back to us:"Wellhere was some of the pushback we
got...""Well, actually theyagreed with this and this helps
a lot." I do believe thatwithout a direct contact
organization there to take theball from marketing, you can't
(20:03):
fully execute on a value addengagement program that
eventually drives success.
Now, obviously in a retailenvironment or more of a B2C
that changes for sure.
I'm a big believer that there isno B2B, there is no B2C, it's
(20:26):
really business to people,right?
Because when you think about it,if you're buying a new TV for
your house, or you're looking atan enterprise wide software
across a global organization,that buying cycle is going to be
very, very similar, right?
So you've identified an issue,you think of, let's just call it
eight to 10 or companies thatyou know of just within your
(20:50):
purview.
And so you start to ask friends,you do some internet research to
see what's out there, and youeducate yourself a little bit.
And that's, what's the stat,that's 60% of the buying cycle
before anybody ever even walkson or fills out a form on your
site or engages with you.
So the content that you'reputting out there, the
(21:13):
relationships that you've builtover time, they all build
towards that portion of thesales cycle.
So that once they do reach out,the sales team is empowered and
enabled to be able to have anintelligent and worthwhile
conversation with that prospectand then feed that information
back, marketing.
Rhoan Morgan (21:33):
Perfect.
I think that's a fantastic sortexample of the journey in a way,
right?
So where is, where are we sortof really being able to connect
and work together?
I know that you're reallypassionate about customer
experience, and it's funny, Iread an article, well, I'll be
(21:56):
honest, I actually read thetitle and like the first
paragraph, and then I saved it.
So I'll go back to it.
But the title of the article waslike,"50% of customer experience
is now going to be taken over bymarketing" or something like
this.
And I thought to myself, wait,what?
(22:17):
In my mind, we've been involvedin customer experience from day
one.
But I also get that there's ITinvolved and there's often times
, product development, productmanagement and that sort of
thing.
So there are otherorganizations, but it's
interesting that we're juststarting to hear about this sort
(22:37):
of like as a quote unquote"shift," and I'd love for you to
, from your experience, tell uswhat you think about marketing's
role in customer experiencetoday and, and has it shifted
from what you've seen?
Joe Folan (22:53):
Yeah.
I think that's a good pointbecause I'm gonna take the same
perspective, right?
Marketing has always beeninvolved in customer experience.
I think the increase in use oftechnology and touch points
certainly shines a spotlight onmarketing's influence on that
customer experience, justthrough automated responses and
whatnot.
That's kind of that other sideto marketing we've been talking
(23:20):
about, a huge portion of that,which is your brand strategy.
And so if marketing creates yourbrand strategy, and you have
organizational alignment on whoyou are as a company, who you
want to be, and how you want tobe perceived, you have to pull
that through every single touchpoint that your company has with
(23:40):
your clients and the market.
And that's everything from themessage and the look and feel of
your site to when they reachout, what is your thank you for
contacting us.
Say, if you've got a broken linkon your website, and it's just
not"404 this page doesn'texist," you can add your
personality in there in a numberof different ways.
(24:00):
I remember when I was workingfor a job board way, way back,
we took branding very seriously,and it permeated every single
thing we did.
From the hold music that we hadwhen people called in to, when
we would send out handwrittenletters to folks that we had
placed, within organizations.
(24:23):
And we had custom stamps made,right?
So every little thing that wedo, it all contributes to that
brand.
And that begins to create thatoverall customer experience.
If you are in an organizationwhere you're fortunate enough to
be able to say,"hey, look, I'dlove to write some of the intro
scripts for our IT departmentwhen people call in for support"
(24:45):
or being able to influence anyof those touch points, I would
certainly take that intoaccount.
But I absolutely believe thatmarketing has always been there.
Like I said, with marketingautomation functionality and
social media, it allows us to beable to kind of flex a little
(25:05):
more and that's probably whywe're getting more of the
spotlight.
Rhoan Morgan (25:10):
Yeah.
You know, I was just talkingwith somebody on the team here
and we were talking about one ofour engagements with a client
that is actually working aroundtagging and it's not an
insignificant job.
Right.
So it's tagging within aproduct.
(25:30):
But he was saying, well, how...
you know, this is great.
It's an established client thatwe've worked with for a long
time and worked in otherbusiness units and teams for
some of the other tagging work,but he's like, okay,"So how are
we going to really work thisinto what we do for all of our
clients?" And I said, I actuallythink, I see this as yet another
(25:55):
sort of spoke to what we docentrally, which is marketing,
but we're reaching in, in termsof the customer experience into,
exactly as you put it, Joe, intoother areas because of how
technology is now enablingeverything that we do.
And so not only are wesupporting this product team now
(26:22):
with this company, but our goalis to be able to pull that data
back over into marketing, notjust to support usage
information and retention, etcetera, et cetera, but also
deeper engagement, what'sworking for the customer, et
cetera.
And to me, it is driven a lot bythe technology that we're able
(26:43):
to tap into that sort of createsthat hub and spoke sort of
environment.
Joe Folan (26:48):
Yeah, it's great.
And super fun to capitalize onbecause for folks that have been
in the industry for a long time,it's exciting to be able to kind
of influence other areas of theorganization that may not, or
have been kind of giving you theHeisman for awhile because you
can make a case for an overallbetter relationship with your
(27:09):
clients.
Rhoan Morgan (27:10):
Yeah.
Well, and I think most marketersare, you know, just chomping at
the bit to write IT supportintro scripts.
I mean, I say that a littlefacetiously, but I do think that
we would love to write all ofthat stuff, you know, because we
care so deeply about thecustomer.
(27:30):
And so those that are reallypassionate, they're listening to
this and they're like,"yep" or"yeah and I've written them." So
I wonder something, we also findthough that there are still some
marketers o r teams or companieswhere there is a bit of a
disconnect and I'd love for youto share maybe what you think
about that disconnect.
(27:51):
Why are there still somemarketers that are missing the
mark when it comes toprioritizing customer experience
and relationship building?
Joe Folan (28:00):
That's interesting.
In fact, I think one of yourpast guests had written a book,
"Fuck content marketing." Right.
I thought it was veryinteresting, but there's a lot
of truth in that.
I think where marketers can endup missing the mark, is kind of
(28:21):
a variety of different ways.
So we talked about pushingproduct down and focusing on
relationship.
Too often, companies and as aresult, the marketing team is
being pushed to focus on shortterm without that long term kind
of setup and agreement on astrategy.
(28:43):
So they'll want to put outcontent, but then it's like,
"Hey, you got to throw in someproduct placements." And once
you push this a little harder,it's that whole make the logo
bigger nonsense that we've beendealing about since day one.
Right?
And so I think if you're, if youdon't have enough integrity, if
you come across as being nottransparent, if you're not
(29:06):
providing true value because youhaven't really pulsed the market
on what they need, what theirproblems are, you're going to
come across as false and peoplearen't going to engage with you.
You know, I started off bysaying that too often marketing
departments get holed into thiswhole lead gen capacity.
And if you don't have theability to expand or you're in a
(29:29):
smaller, or less sophisticatedcompany, you're not given the
opportunity to do that.
So it's really all about makingthe case and staying true to the
strategy of"look, let's listento our folks, let's give them
value, let's not push ourstuff." And let's just make
(29:49):
those relationships and behonest and good things will
come.
Trying to continue that kind of,"Hey, look, this is super
valuable, but buy our stuff atthe same time," it just doesn't
resonate with people.
Again, shoppers are savvy.
I mean the market's savvy, andnobody likes to be sold to, but
(30:12):
everybody likes value.
Yeah.
I guess that's the biggest thingfrom my perspective.
Rhoan Morgan (30:18):
Sure.
Yeah.
Well, and it sounds like it's aculture thing at a company, you
know, and what you've gone backto a few times kind of makes me
think about culture and it issetting the tone, so what are
the priorities for the businessand businesses are going to be
(30:41):
at different stages in terms ofgrowth.
Different priorities are goingto be set based on those stages,
based on the needs, based on theenvironment, the industry,
everything.
So I do think that marketersneed to be really empathetic
towards the business on a whole,but I also think that the
executive level is setting thatculture and that tone and what
(31:03):
we have seen in terms of thework with our clients is that
they're much more successful ifthey're sort of, if they are
leading, from the perspective ofprioritizing customer
experience, relationshipbuilding and not, I mean,
numbers matter, don't get mewrong, but if that's the sole
focus, it's felt, you know, it'sdefinitely felt by the audience.
Joe Folan (31:27):
Yes, that's absolutely correct.
Rhoan Morgan (31:28):
Yeah.
And the competitors will outpacethem.
By doing it better.
So do you guys have a customerexperience team in place or is
this something across the entireorganization?
Joe Folan (31:41):
We don't have a dedicated team, no.
Right now we're a pretty smallcompanyvand so it's fairly easy
to align around a message and aposition, and really just the
internal culture is of caringfor our clients and super high
customer service and all ofthat.
So it really does permeateliterally every corner of our
(32:03):
organization.
Rhoan Morgan (32:04):
Cool.
Yeah.
I think that's great.
That's really great.
All right.
So, you know, this has been anawesome conversation.
I have a million otherquestions, but we're going to
head into our next segment ofthe show, which is what we're
calling the"Lightning Round."You can guess what that is!
Before we end, we're just goingto do this lightning round
(32:27):
segment where we're going to askyou five questions and you're
not in a psychotherapist's seator anything like that, so not to
worry, you won't be judged.
But if you can respond asquickly as you can with kind of
the first answer that comes tomind, that would be really
awesome.
And that's no pressure.
So why don't we head into thatand jump right?
(32:50):
You ready?
Alright.
Okay.
So what is one fun fact aboutyou that listeners might be
surprised to know about you?
Joe Folan (33:01):
I like bowling, and when I lived in Atlanta before
moving up to Raleigh, I was on abowling league and also on the
bowling league was Grammy awardwinning artist, Big Boi from
Outcast.
So I bowled with him a lot.
Yeah, he's a super nice guy anda very good bowler actually.
Rhoan Morgan (33:25):
Wow.
Okay.
Very cool.
Very nice.
Yeah.
I don't think I found that onyour LinkedIn profile.
Joe Folan (33:34):
That's a Facebook thing.
Rhoan Morgan (33:35):
Yeah.
Okay.
Next question.
So what is your current go-toresource for marketing news and
insights?
Joe Folan (33:46):
This is going to sound cliche, but I really do
like LinkedIn.
I think that with an everexpanding network, if you can
sift through all the BS, there'sactually a lot of different
perspectives in there.
Read through the comments, lookat the articles with folks that
(34:07):
you may be second and thirdconnected with.
I love it.
Rhoan Morgan (34:11):
Yep.
Agree, agree.
Yep.
The next question, can you giveus the top three tools in your
sort of martech stack that youwould say are most important and
why?
Joe Folan (34:27):
That's actually an easy one.
So, in no particular ordermarketing automation, right.
So your Marketo your, HubSpots,your Eloquas, whatever.
An analytics umbrella, right?
So all your Google tools,Analytics, Search Console.
I like SEMrush as kind of partof that as well.
And then Salesforce, right?
(34:49):
And so when you get all three ofthose working together and
sharing information, I'm a big,big data nerd.
I love it.
So when I can trace every stepof a customer journey, where
they came from, attribute ROI,list out primary, secondary
(35:09):
tertiary marketing influencesand what actually gets them over
the hump to A) reach out to us,at what point is it appropriate
for sales to contact them?
What's the count?
It's just so much fun to be ableto peel that back, than in the
old days where you throw up abillboard on the interstate and
hope somebody calls.
Those are without a doubt my topthree.
Rhoan Morgan (35:35):
A hundred percent, hundred percent.
And you know, what's really coolabout that.
You just made me think aboutthis a little bit is that with
these tools in place, andanalytics umbrella, I'm going to
say, is more than one becauseit's a whole suite of awesome
stuff, it's bringing you a lotof goodness into these other
systems.
But what I also love about thisapproach, and where I think
you're coming from, is that itactually is serving your
(35:57):
customer or your client too.
Like when you put in the efforton the inside, you're really
doing a great service for yourcustomer and your prospects.
And that's what these toolsenable, which I think is really
important.
Alright, alright, alright.
Okay.
So, let's see.
What is one piece of advice thatyou would give to an up and
(36:22):
coming marketing leader?
Joe Folan (36:26):
One, I can't do one.
Network, network, make friends,share, listen.
You know, get your hands dirty.
Play consumer, right.
Like go out, if you're in one ofyour markets, and click around
the social sites, see what othercompanies are doing.
And always be learning.
(36:47):
So there's your one.
Rhoan Morgan (36:48):
Yeah, exactly.
Well, one statement orconversation point.
Right.
That's great.
And so then finally, is there, arebel that you look to for
inspiration or motivation?
They can be real.
They can be fictional.
They can be in marketing.
They can not be.
Who might that be and why?
Joe Folan (37:10):
You know, it's interesting.
I get that question.
I've been asked that before andit's actually a hybrid of four
different people.
It's like the Garys and theStevens.
And so on the Gary front, Ireally, really look up to Gary
Kelly.
Who's the CEO of SouthwestAirlines.
(37:32):
If you read through his past,you know, he had a mission, he
was dedicated to the mission.
People would say,"Hey, look, wecan serve meals on our flights."
And he said,"does it help us getpeople where they want to go
cheaper?
No, it's going to increase costs, then don't do it." And, you
know, do you like to drink?
He was a good beer guy, had alot of good culture things going
(37:55):
on.
So there's him.
The other Gary would be GaryVaynerchuk.
I think she is very kind of likeoutside the box.
He pushes a lot of hustle.
Just"work hard,""thinkdifferently,""the world's your
oyster" kind of thing.
And then the two Stevens(Stephens) are Levitt and Dubner
, the authors of Freakonomics.
(38:18):
I love how they take kind ofseemingly innocuous stats and
data and pivot that intosomething different, something
that you wouldn't necessarilythink of.
And so I think when you carryall of those, dedication
mission, thinking outside thebox, hustle, all of those kind
of combine into something that'spretty cool, that within
(38:41):
marketing we can really do somecool things with.
Rhoan Morgan (38:45):
I really like that.
You're going to have to come upwith some sort of a naming for
the, the, the Gary/Stephen quadof some sort.
But I really like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's great.
So that was an awesome lightninground and really very overall, I
think super rich conversation,Joe.
(39:06):
I really appreciate you takingthe time to be with us today and
really sharing a lot of new anddifferent perspectives.
It's just fantastic.
Joe Folan (39:15):
Yeah.
I had a good time.
Thanks for having me andhopefully folks get something
out it.
Rhoan Morgan (39:19):
What would be the best way for listeners to
connect with you?
Joe Folan (39:23):
You can connect with me on LinkedIn, anytime you
want.
Just look me up, Joe Folan, I'msure I'll be listed somewhere on
the website.
That is certainly the best way.
I'm not much of a Twitter personpersonally, but professionally
that's, I spend all my energy onthat platform.
Rhoan Morgan (39:44):
Well, we'll definitely link to your
LinkedIn, your Twitter andanything else that is relevant
to our professional world.
And for anybody looking rightnow and can't wait to go to the
website and take a look and seethe spelling, Joe is on LinkedIn
(40:06):
under Joe, J-O-E, Folan,F-O-L-A-N.
Thanks so much.
And I really look forward tobeing able to stay in touch in
the future.
Joe Folan (40:16):
Absolutely.
Rhoan, thank you.
Rhoan Morgan (40:18):
Thank you again, and a big thank you to our
listeners for tuning intoRevenue Rebels.
Remember you can get our shownotes, links, and other content
related to today's topic atwww.demandlab.com/revenuerebels.
While you're there, let us knowif there's a leader you want to
hear from or a topic you'd liketo hear more about on this show.
(40:39):
I'm your host, Rhoan Morgan.
And you can find me on Twitterat@rhoanmorgan.
It's R-H-O-A-N Morgan.
And of course, look us up onLinkedIn, look up DemandLab, or
search for R-H-O-A-N Morgan.
And finally, only if you thinkwe've earned it, please head
over to Apple Podcasts, Spotifyor wherever you're listening to
(41:02):
us right now, and subscribe,rate and review the show until
next time, Rebels.
Thank you.
Hey everyone.
Welcome to another episode ofRevenue Rebels, the podcast that
brings marketing and salesrebels together to share their
stories and thinking on alltopics related to accelerating
revenue, generating activitiesin the B2B world.
On this show, we talk about thestrategic vision of
marketing-led customerexperience that unleashes the
(00:24):
combined power of technology,content, and data.
Are you ready to rebel?
Let's get into the show.
Hey listeners.
Thanks for joining us on today'sshow.
Really excited that we a havefantastic Revenue Rebel with us
today, the Vice President ofMarketing for The Center for
(00:48):
Leadership Studies.
He has over 19 years ofmarketing experience having
helped companies in tons ofindustries, including
technology, healthcarenonprofits, something near and
dear to my heart, and B2Bcompanies.
So working with them through,developing and evolving their
brand and offering so that theycan stay competitive and
(01:10):
innovative in their respectivespaces.
So really excited to have JoeFolan joining us today.
Welcome to the show.
Joe Folan (01:18):
Hey, thanks, Rhoan.
Glad to be here.
Rhoan Morgan (01:20):
So, for our audience, as you know, today,
we're really going to discusssome topics that are, I think
have become more and more commonand what we're hearing quite a
lot about, in today'senvironment, right?
How can marketers pivot fromwhat may have seemed and in fact
, they should have already beenpivoting from this, but anyway,
(01:40):
in any case, from maybe pushingproducts and services to
becoming much more customercentric, and focused on building
relationships.
So I'm really excited to be ableto go over that topic with you
today, but to kick things off,I'd love to start with our Rebel
segment.
And that's where I'm just goingto ask you to share a rebel act
(02:02):
from your marketing journey,from your professional
experience.
So why don't we start off, ifyou can share with us a little
bit about a rebel act that ledto a shift into a more customer
centric approach to marketing.
Joe Folan (02:16):
Yeah, sure.
That sounds great.
Um, you know, I always kind ofthroughout my career, you know,
what I like about marketing isthat you do have the opportunity
to kind of rock the boat andshake things up.
Even from the very beginning,early on in my career, we, this
is going to sound old hat, butyou know, this is probably
(02:38):
around the 2005 era when I wasrunning a job board, and, we
just had job postings o f peopleapplied.
And instead of just connectingthose two audiences, what we
decided to do, i t was actuallyto create a content hub.
(03:00):
And so that was kind of veryearly on in the game, that whole
content marketing approach,where you're actually helping
folks you're entertaining folkswhile actually getting your name
out there while generatingrevenue, and while furthering
your business.
I do just marketing as a whole.
(03:22):
I enjoy the ability to kind ofagain, think outside the box.
In terms of a rebel act, right?
I mean, I think, I think overallwhat some companies make the
mistake of doing is looking atmarketing is just lead gen.
All right.
And so when your CEO or whoevercomes up to you and says, well,
(03:45):
how many leads did you get thismonth?
You know, that's part of it, butit's not everything.
You know, marketing encompasses,branding awareness, engagement,
enablement, and feedback,competitive research, market
research.
I mean, the list goes on and on.
And so when you start to kind ofwiden that view a little bit,
it's clear that customer marketcentric, positioning and
(04:10):
relationships are really theonly option.
And so when you ask about thekind of rebel act, you know,
given the kind of state of thestate right now with this kind
of global pandemic and everybodykind of realizing this overused
phrase of the"new normal," I satdown with my executive team and
(04:31):
I said, look in our specificindustry, no one is going to be
looking for anything that weoffer today, right?
Because Center for LeadershipStudies, what we do is we, we do
in person training right aroundleadership topics.
So all of a sudden you can'tmeet in person.
(04:52):
What do you do as a company?
So my proposal was, look if wehave to pivot for anything, what
we need to do is help folksthrough this time and not look
at revenue, not look at how manypeople are looking into these
events or what not.
It's just, this is our time toshine.
(05:14):
Just say, look, we understandwhat you're going through.
We want to help you navigatethis and we're your source for
that ability to do that.
And so, you know, initially it'slike,"Oh my God, you cannot
focus on revenue." And there issome truth to that, right?
I mean, you gotta she keep thelights on, you gotta keep people
(05:36):
employed.
But at the end of the day, ifyou say, okay,"let's engage with
all these folks, let's meet themwhere they are, let's help them
through these challenges,"they're going to look to you and
you form that relationship as aresource so that when things do
kind of get into a steady paceor whatever, that looks like,
(05:59):
you're there for them, you'vemade that impression.
And so that I think is reallyone of the most timely and
obviously recent, kind of shiftsto that customer centric
approach that we did withinmarketing.
Rhoan Morgan (06:16):
As you're talking through that, you know, I take
notes as I'm listening to myguests because I take notes
about maybe something I want togo back to, or whatever thought
kind of comes to mind.
And to me, I feel like themarketing leaders and other CMOs
that I'm talking with arelooking to do the same thing.
I think it's a really brave moveand it's not an easy
(06:40):
conversation to have.
Right.
I mean, in most cases anyway.
Was there any resistance to thatsort of shift?
And not that that, I mean,resistance, it doesn't mean that
they're making a mistake ordoing anything wrong, but there
has to be, and there is an, inmany companies, some trepidation
around this, or some concernlike"Whoa, wait a second.
(07:00):
We can't stop thinking about,you know, revenue and lead gen
and all this other stuff thatwe're supposed to be doing." So
was there or how did you managethrough that, or have that
conversation?
Joe Folan (07:14):
Yeah, it's a great question.
So of course, when you'relooking at the horizon of your
business situation, you have tofactor in a lot of different
things in terms of (07:24):
Can you generate revenue?
What departments do we have?
What is our current productdevelopment cycle looking like?
where are we at with deliveringwhat could be needed right now?
And where could revenue beattained?
And, you know, I like thisviewpoint of how do you look at
(07:48):
both internal within companiesin terms of your staff.
But it's also applied externallyin terms of your market and how
you position.
And there's two kinds of pillarsthere, and one is success and
one is engagement.
And so, if your, and I'll stickwith just the internal example
for the moment, then I'll applyit externally.
(08:10):
So if you look across yourstaff, you kind of have two
competing, let's just call themwells, right?
So if you're looking at like anequalizer on your stereo, and
you've got the two thingsbumping from green to orange, to
red, and success is you'reaccomplishing your financial
goals, you're accomplishingwhatever those, those goals.
You could be putting on a tradeshow and everybody's working
(08:34):
long hours and you'reaccomplishing that goal, but it
drops your engagement becausepeople are burned out and people
are just working their buttsoff.
And then you have the timeswhere, you know it maybe the end
of the year, and you're on adown cycle, just cyclical, the
cyclicality of your business islow.
(08:56):
So that's when you have anoffice party.
And so your revenue may drop atthat point, but you've planned
for it.
But your engagement is superhigh because everybody's like
really glad and glad to workthere and culture and positivity
are very high.
So you have to balance those twothings.
And often if you balancecorrectly with the engagement
you're successful will follow,right?
(09:18):
Because if people are happy towork there, when the times get
tough, they know they just gotto knuckle down and do it.
And so the same thing, the sameconcept can be applied
externally, right?
So as marketers general day today, really all businesses, you
have to focus on success, butyou also want your market to be
engaged.
That's the whole reason forcontent marketing and social
(09:42):
media presence and ourrelationships with our clients.
And if engagement leads tosuccess, and you're looking at
it during an absolutelyunprecedented crisis, and you
know, that your success is goingto drop, what better time then
(10:02):
to turn up the dial onengagement.
And so with that kind of frame,you kind of talk about that with
the executive team and you layall of that out, and then you
figure out, okay, what can yoube doing from a product
development from an operationsperspective?
That we can eventually get tosuccess or right now, let
(10:26):
marketing run engagements andlet's get everybody bought in.
Let's provide some value to themarket.
Let's position ourselves as avaluable resource that can help
them without any kind of salestactics or anything.
It's purely just,"Hey, we'reyour friend.
We're here for you." And thenultimately what you'll do as
things start to shift back, youcan pivot those new
(10:46):
relationships that you'vecreated, and that trust that you
gained and pivot that intosuccess.
So just as an example, with thequarantine and after we've done
this, well, like I said, thecompany I'm at now, we were
traditionally an in persontraining company.
And so nobody's searching for inperson training right now.
So our SEM and SEO has droppedoff significantly.
(11:12):
But as we put all these contentpieces out, these useful things,
and we started to help themarket, we've actually grown our
database by almost 20% in a timewhen nobody would be searching
for our company at all.
Rhoan Morgan (11:23):
That's awesome.
Yeah.
That's really exciting.
That's very cool.
Joe Folan (11:27):
Yeah.
And then, so what do you do withthat?
So when everything starts toshift back to normal, or we've
created a product that can beserved to our market during this
time, all of a sudden we'vegrown our database and we have
more people to talk to andbetter relationships to talk to
folks with.
Rhoan Morgan (11:42):
Yep.
That's a great example.
I was actually just about to askyou for an example.
So I love that.
And I think that that is, youknow, sort of leading with a
more altruistic perspective andframe.
And anybody out there listeningto this, it has to have that
conversation with our executiveteam, I love that the way that
that was framed up, and I thinkit would be hard to say,"Oh, no,
(12:04):
we don't want to do that." Youknow, so it's a good, it's a
good place to start.
I really like that.
Let's talk about team for aminute.
I wanted to, again, to, well, Iactually, I have a question to
ask and it's regarding how we'reas marketers, we're working with
who I call"our partners insales." But if you could
(12:24):
describe your relationship withyour sales team in one word,
what word would it be?
And, and tell us why.
Joe Folan (12:33):
So I'm sure there's a lot of different perspectives on
marketing and salesrelationships out there.
I would definitely say that mycurrent relationship and what I
always strive to, that wordwould be"circular." Where, you
know, I see that sales andmarketing are kind of two sides
(12:57):
of the same coin.
We both have the same goals.
We each enable success and we'redependent on one another, right?
So if you look at it from a leadgen, a branding, a sales
enablement perspective, youknow, marketing exists to
empower, and we do that throughcompetitive analysis or creating
(13:19):
collateral through generating atleast the seedlings of
relationships and providingvalue on Moss.
And once people engage, you know, that's when the sales team
steps in and continues thatrelationship building.
But what marketers need to knowis that information back from
(13:40):
sales, right?
So how are these conversationsgoing?
Where are you getting objectionsfrom?
What can we create that helpsyou overcome these objections?
And so from a problem solvingperspective, that information
flow, that kind of circularcommunication iis absolutely key
(14:01):
to success of any, anycommercial organization.
You can also capitalize on thattoo.
Right?
So as sales leaders andrepresentatives and executives
get further along, a betterrelationship with clients or
prospects, they can identify,"Hey, look, we've got a raving
(14:24):
fan over here.
You should go talk to thisperson" and you can create more
sales enablement tools, casestudies.
It's success breeds success.
And it ultimately helps withthat communication between the
teams to know where to focus andwhere to help out.
(14:44):
Now, I've been in lots ofscenarios where it's toxic and
there's finger pointing andit's,"Hey, marketing is not
bringing in leads" and"Salesisn't following up on the stuff
that we brought in." What I'vealways done is, I mean, every
place I've gone, the first thingyou do is you set a weekly or
monthly or whatever cadencemakes sense for your company.
Set a standup where the entiremarketing team is together with
(15:07):
the entire sales team and youjust have open dialogue.
Have a very loose straw, man, ofan agenda.
And just,"what are you hearingfrom the market?
What do you need out there?
What is marketing doing that'sworking?
What are these from this source?
Looking like, how was the followup going from trade shows?" I
mean, any number of differentthings, but communication is
(15:29):
absolutely key there.
Rhoan Morgan (15:31):
Oh, completely, completely agree.
When I think about the idealrelationship to me, I think
about a positive feedback loop,you know, where it's just
success breeds success, and youjust have this, you've got
feedback coming from bothorganizations, to the point
where it's, you know, reallyunified.
(15:52):
And so I love circular.
I completely relate to that.
And I would also say thatwhat's, for us anyway, it's
really cool because, you know,in our space, we deal a lot with
martech and CRM and therelationship between what
marketing is doing, usingtechnology and what sales is
(16:14):
doing.
We really focus on the sharingof the data and the insights
that sort of help thatrelationship and even support
something like the standup thatyou're talking about where
there's info, there's actualdata that says, well, actually
we, you know, we sent over athousand people into the sales
(16:39):
engagement stream, whatever it'scalled at any particular
company.
And it looks like 40 people wereactually reviewed by sales.
So we should take a look at thatprocess a little bit.
Or looks like 999 of them werereviewed and 900 of them were
accepted and that's like, youknow, utopia.
Really being able to pull in thedifferent systems, and also to
(17:06):
help us support the relationshipis critical.
I'd love to know how have youseen sales get involved in this
approach?
You know, what's, what's oneexample of sort of a shining
moment in your experience?
Joe Folan (17:22):
You know, marketing by nature, the market is savvy,
right.
I mean, you know, as a consumer,when you're just being put into
an automated email stream.
I mean, even if it looks likeit's coming from somebody, you
can tell, right.
I mean, just as it has JohnSmith over at the company you
were talking with.
So I would say as marketers,because we're mass market in a
(17:47):
lot of cases and things aregetting better, right.
And we can get more savvy and weare getting more savvy, in terms
of having individualconversations, but as a whole,
nothing replaces the individualcommunication between folks.
So without that, we can only goso far in my mind.
(18:10):
And so our role is to tee up theinitial conversation, but to
prepare the sales team for whatthat looks like once the ball is
handed to them.
So just thinking right nowthrough, through an example of
(18:31):
how that's worked well, it's,we're in the middle of this
crisis.
We send ou some resources, bythe way, I'm a firm believer in
the challenger sale model whereconsumers gain more value by
learning something they didn'tknow or disproving something
they believe to be true.
And they start to look at you asa company, or you as a
(18:54):
salesperson or you as a marketerdifferently, as a result of
that.
When we're distributinginformation, we tell the sales
team every time before we sendsomething out"hey look, we've
got this out soaking in themarket.
You may be getting inquiriesabout this, that or the other.
If one of your clients hasn'tseen this or you think it could
(19:17):
be valuable, send this to themwith these kind of talking
points.
And so you get the sales teameducated and familiar with the
concept, they're prepared tohave those conversations.
And then they have them bothwith their clients and with new
prospects that are coming in,you arm them with enough
information to say,"Let me showyou what we're talking about
(19:38):
here.
Let me bring you some value."And then they in turn give that
information back to us:"Wellhere was some of the pushback we
got...""Well, actually theyagreed with this and this helps
a lot." I do believe thatwithout a direct contact
organization there to take theball from marketing, you can't
(20:03):
fully execute on a value addengagement program that
eventually drives success.
Now, obviously in a retailenvironment or more of a B2C
that changes for sure.
I'm a big believer that there isno B2B, there is no B2C, it's
(20:26):
really business to people,right?
Because when you think about it,if you're buying a new TV for
your house, or you're looking atan enterprise wide software
across a global organization,that buying cycle is going to be
very, very similar, right?
So you've identified an issue,you think of, let's just call it
eight to 10 or companies thatyou know of just within your
(20:50):
purview.
And so you start to ask friends,you do some internet research to
see what's out there, and youeducate yourself a little bit.
And that's, what's the stat,that's 60% of the buying cycle
before anybody ever even walkson or fills out a form on your
site or engages with you.
So the content that you'reputting out there, the
(21:13):
relationships that you've builtover time, they all build
towards that portion of thesales cycle.
So that once they do reach out,the sales team is empowered and
enabled to be able to have anintelligent and worthwhile
conversation with that prospectand then feed that information
back, marketing.
Rhoan Morgan (21:33):
Perfect.
I think that's a fantastic sortexample of the journey in a way,
right?
So where is, where are we sortof really being able to connect
and work together?
I know that you're reallypassionate about customer
experience, and it's funny, Iread an article, well, I'll be
(21:56):
honest, I actually read thetitle and like the first
paragraph, and then I saved it.
So I'll go back to it.
But the title of the article waslike,"50% of customer experience
is now going to be taken over bymarketing" or something like
this.
And I thought to myself, wait,what?
(22:17):
In my mind, we've been involvedin customer experience from day
one.
But I also get that there's ITinvolved and there's often times
, product development, productmanagement and that sort of
thing.
So there are otherorganizations, but it's
interesting that we're juststarting to hear about this sort
(22:37):
of like as a quote unquote"shift," and I'd love for you to
, from your experience, tell uswhat you think about marketing's
role in customer experiencetoday and, and has it shifted
from what you've seen?
Joe Folan (22:53):
Yeah.
I think that's a good pointbecause I'm gonna take the same
perspective, right?
Marketing has always beeninvolved in customer experience.
I think the increase in use oftechnology and touch points
certainly shines a spotlight onmarketing's influence on that
customer experience, justthrough automated responses and
whatnot.
That's kind of that other sideto marketing we've been talking
(23:20):
about, a huge portion of that,which is your brand strategy.
And so if marketing creates yourbrand strategy, and you have
organizational alignment on whoyou are as a company, who you
want to be, and how you want tobe perceived, you have to pull
that through every single touchpoint that your company has with
(23:40):
your clients and the market.
And that's everything from themessage and the look and feel of
your site to when they reachout, what is your thank you for
contacting us.
Say, if you've got a broken linkon your website, and it's just
not"404 this page doesn'texist," you can add your
personality in there in a numberof different ways.
(24:00):
I remember when I was workingfor a job board way, way back,
we took branding very seriously,and it permeated every single
thing we did.
From the hold music that we hadwhen people called in to, when
we would send out handwrittenletters to folks that we had
placed, within organizations.
(24:23):
And we had custom stamps made,right?
So every little thing that wedo, it all contributes to that
brand.
And that begins to create thatoverall customer experience.
If you are in an organizationwhere you're fortunate enough to
be able to say,"hey, look, I'dlove to write some of the intro
scripts for our IT departmentwhen people call in for support"
(24:45):
or being able to influence anyof those touch points, I would
certainly take that intoaccount.
But I absolutely believe thatmarketing has always been there.
Like I said, with marketingautomation functionality and
social media, it allows us to beable to kind of flex a little
(25:05):
more and that's probably whywe're getting more of the
spotlight.
Rhoan Morgan (25:10):
Yeah.
You know, I was just talkingwith somebody on the team here
and we were talking about one ofour engagements with a client
that is actually working aroundtagging and it's not an
insignificant job.
Right.
So it's tagging within aproduct.
(25:30):
But he was saying, well, how...
you know, this is great.
It's an established client thatwe've worked with for a long
time and worked in otherbusiness units and teams for
some of the other tagging work,but he's like, okay,"So how are
we going to really work thisinto what we do for all of our
clients?" And I said, I actuallythink, I see this as yet another
(25:55):
sort of spoke to what we docentrally, which is marketing,
but we're reaching in, in termsof the customer experience into,
exactly as you put it, Joe, intoother areas because of how
technology is now enablingeverything that we do.
And so not only are wesupporting this product team now
(26:22):
with this company, but our goalis to be able to pull that data
back over into marketing, notjust to support usage
information and retention, etcetera, et cetera, but also
deeper engagement, what'sworking for the customer, et
cetera.
And to me, it is driven a lot bythe technology that we're able
(26:43):
to tap into that sort of createsthat hub and spoke sort of
environment.
Joe Folan (26:48):
Yeah, it's great.
And super fun to capitalize onbecause for folks that have been
in the industry for a long time,it's exciting to be able to kind
of influence other areas of theorganization that may not, or
have been kind of giving you theHeisman for awhile because you
can make a case for an overallbetter relationship with your
(27:09):
clients.
Rhoan Morgan (27:10):
Yeah.
Well, and I think most marketersare, you know, just chomping at
the bit to write IT supportintro scripts.
I mean, I say that a littlefacetiously, but I do think that
we would love to write all ofthat stuff, you know, because we
care so deeply about thecustomer.
(27:30):
And so those that are reallypassionate, they're listening to
this and they're like,"yep" or"yeah and I've written them." So
I wonder something, we also findthough that there are still some
marketers o r teams or companieswhere there is a bit of a
disconnect and I'd love for youto share maybe what you think
about that disconnect.
(27:51):
Why are there still somemarketers that are missing the
mark when it comes toprioritizing customer experience
and relationship building?
Joe Folan (28:00):
That's interesting.
In fact, I think one of yourpast guests had written a book,
"Fuck content marketing." Right.
I thought it was veryinteresting, but there's a lot
of truth in that.
I think where marketers can endup missing the mark, is kind of
(28:21):
a variety of different ways.
So we talked about pushingproduct down and focusing on
relationship.
Too often, companies and as aresult, the marketing team is
being pushed to focus on shortterm without that long term kind
of setup and agreement on astrategy.
(28:43):
So they'll want to put outcontent, but then it's like,
"Hey, you got to throw in someproduct placements." And once
you push this a little harder,it's that whole make the logo
bigger nonsense that we've beendealing about since day one.
Right?
And so I think if you're, if youdon't have enough integrity, if
you come across as being nottransparent, if you're not
(29:06):
providing true value because youhaven't really pulsed the market
on what they need, what theirproblems are, you're going to
come across as false and peoplearen't going to engage with you.
You know, I started off bysaying that too often marketing
departments get holed into thiswhole lead gen capacity.
And if you don't have theability to expand or you're in a
(29:29):
smaller, or less sophisticatedcompany, you're not given the
opportunity to do that.
So it's really all about makingthe case and staying true to the
strategy of"look, let's listento our folks, let's give them
value, let's not push ourstuff." And let's just make
(29:49):
those relationships and behonest and good things will
come.
Trying to continue that kind of,"Hey, look, this is super
valuable, but buy our stuff atthe same time," it just doesn't
resonate with people.
Again, shoppers are savvy.
I mean the market's savvy, andnobody likes to be sold to, but
(30:12):
everybody likes value.
Yeah.
I guess that's the biggest thingfrom my perspective.
Rhoan Morgan (30:18):
Sure.
Yeah.
Well, and it sounds like it's aculture thing at a company, you
know, and what you've gone backto a few times kind of makes me
think about culture and it issetting the tone, so what are
the priorities for the businessand businesses are going to be
(30:41):
at different stages in terms ofgrowth.
Different priorities are goingto be set based on those stages,
based on the needs, based on theenvironment, the industry,
everything.
So I do think that marketersneed to be really empathetic
towards the business on a whole,but I also think that the
executive level is setting thatculture and that tone and what
(31:03):
we have seen in terms of thework with our clients is that
they're much more successful ifthey're sort of, if they are
leading, from the perspective ofprioritizing customer
experience, relationshipbuilding and not, I mean,
numbers matter, don't get mewrong, but if that's the sole
focus, it's felt, you know, it'sdefinitely felt by the audience.
Joe Folan (31:27):
Yes, that's absolutely correct.
Rhoan Morgan (31:28):
Yeah.
And the competitors will outpacethem.
By doing it better.
So do you guys have a customerexperience team in place or is
this something across the entireorganization?
Joe Folan (31:41):
We don't have a dedicated team, no.
Right now we're a pretty smallcompanyvand so it's fairly easy
to align around a message and aposition, and really just the
internal culture is of caringfor our clients and super high
customer service and all ofthat.
So it really does permeateliterally every corner of our
(32:03):
organization.
Rhoan Morgan (32:04):
Cool.
Yeah.
I think that's great.
That's really great.
All right.
So, you know, this has been anawesome conversation.
I have a million otherquestions, but we're going to
head into our next segment ofthe show, which is what we're
calling the"Lightning Round."You can guess what that is!
Before we end, we're just goingto do this lightning round
(32:27):
segment where we're going to askyou five questions and you're
not in a psychotherapist's seator anything like that, so not to
worry, you won't be judged.
But if you can respond asquickly as you can with kind of
the first answer that comes tomind, that would be really
awesome.
And that's no pressure.
So why don't we head into thatand jump right?
(32:50):
You ready?
Alright.
Okay.
So what is one fun fact aboutyou that listeners might be
surprised to know about you?
Joe Folan (33:01):
I like bowling, and when I lived in Atlanta before
moving up to Raleigh, I was on abowling league and also on the
bowling league was Grammy awardwinning artist, Big Boi from
Outcast.
So I bowled with him a lot.
Yeah, he's a super nice guy anda very good bowler actually.
Rhoan Morgan (33:25):
Wow.
Okay.
Very cool.
Very nice.
Yeah.
I don't think I found that onyour LinkedIn profile.
Joe Folan (33:34):
That's a Facebook thing.
Rhoan Morgan (33:35):
Yeah.
Okay.
Next question.
So what is your current go-toresource for marketing news and
insights?
Joe Folan (33:46):
This is going to sound cliche, but I really do
like LinkedIn.
I think that with an everexpanding network, if you can
sift through all the BS, there'sactually a lot of different
perspectives in there.
Read through the comments, lookat the articles with folks that
(34:07):
you may be second and thirdconnected with.
I love it.
Rhoan Morgan (34:11):
Yep.
Agree, agree.
Yep.
The next question, can you giveus the top three tools in your
sort of martech stack that youwould say are most important and
why?
Joe Folan (34:27):
That's actually an easy one.
So, in no particular ordermarketing automation, right.
So your Marketo your, HubSpots,your Eloquas, whatever.
An analytics umbrella, right?
So all your Google tools,Analytics, Search Console.
I like SEMrush as kind of partof that as well.
And then Salesforce, right?
(34:49):
And so when you get all three ofthose working together and
sharing information, I'm a big,big data nerd.
I love it.
So when I can trace every stepof a customer journey, where
they came from, attribute ROI,list out primary, secondary
(35:09):
tertiary marketing influencesand what actually gets them over
the hump to A) reach out to us,at what point is it appropriate
for sales to contact them?
What's the count?
It's just so much fun to be ableto peel that back, than in the
old days where you throw up abillboard on the interstate and
hope somebody calls.
Those are without a doubt my topthree.
Rhoan Morgan (35:35):
A hundred percent, hundred percent.
And you know, what's really coolabout that.
You just made me think aboutthis a little bit is that with
these tools in place, andanalytics umbrella, I'm going to
say, is more than one becauseit's a whole suite of awesome
stuff, it's bringing you a lotof goodness into these other
systems.
But what I also love about thisapproach, and where I think
you're coming from, is that itactually is serving your
(35:57):
customer or your client too.
Like when you put in the efforton the inside, you're really
doing a great service for yourcustomer and your prospects.
And that's what these toolsenable, which I think is really
important.
Alright, alright, alright.
Okay.
So, let's see.
What is one piece of advice thatyou would give to an up and
(36:22):
coming marketing leader?
Joe Folan (36:26):
One, I can't do one.
Network, network, make friends,share, listen.
You know, get your hands dirty.
Play consumer, right.
Like go out, if you're in one ofyour markets, and click around
the social sites, see what othercompanies are doing.
And always be learning.
(36:47):
So there's your one.
Rhoan Morgan (36:48):
Yeah, exactly.
Well, one statement orconversation point.
Right.
That's great.
And so then finally, is there, arebel that you look to for
inspiration or motivation?
They can be real.
They can be fictional.
They can be in marketing.
They can not be.
Who might that be and why?
Joe Folan (37:10):
You know, it's interesting.
I get that question.
I've been asked that before andit's actually a hybrid of four
different people.
It's like the Garys and theStevens.
And so on the Gary front, Ireally, really look up to Gary
Kelly.
Who's the CEO of SouthwestAirlines.
(37:32):
If you read through his past,you know, he had a mission, he
was dedicated to the mission.
People would say,"Hey, look, wecan serve meals on our flights."
And he said,"does it help us getpeople where they want to go
cheaper?
No, it's going to increase costs, then don't do it." And, you
know, do you like to drink?
He was a good beer guy, had alot of good culture things going
(37:55):
on.
So there's him.
The other Gary would be GaryVaynerchuk.
I think she is very kind of likeoutside the box.
He pushes a lot of hustle.
Just"work hard,""thinkdifferently,""the world's your
oyster" kind of thing.
And then the two Stevens(Stephens) are Levitt and Dubner
, the authors of Freakonomics.
(38:18):
I love how they take kind ofseemingly innocuous stats and
data and pivot that intosomething different, something
that you wouldn't necessarilythink of.
And so I think when you carryall of those, dedication
mission, thinking outside thebox, hustle, all of those kind
of combine into something that'spretty cool, that within
(38:41):
marketing we can really do somecool things with.
Rhoan Morgan (38:45):
I really like that.
You're going to have to come upwith some sort of a naming for
the, the, the Gary/Stephen quadof some sort.
But I really like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's great.
So that was an awesome lightninground and really very overall, I
think super rich conversation,Joe.
(39:06):
I really appreciate you takingthe time to be with us today and
really sharing a lot of new anddifferent perspectives.
It's just fantastic.
Joe Folan (39:15):
Yeah.
I had a good time.
Thanks for having me andhopefully folks get something
out it.
Rhoan Morgan (39:19):
What would be the best way for listeners to
connect with you?
Joe Folan (39:23):
You can connect with me on LinkedIn, anytime you
want.
Just look me up, Joe Folan, I'msure I'll be listed somewhere on
the website.
That is certainly the best way.
I'm not much of a Twitter personpersonally, but professionally
that's, I spend all my energy onthat platform.
Rhoan Morgan (39:44):
Well, we'll definitely link to your
LinkedIn, your Twitter andanything else that is relevant
to our professional world.
And for anybody looking rightnow and can't wait to go to the
website and take a look and seethe spelling, Joe is on LinkedIn
(40:06):
under Joe, J-O-E, Folan,F-O-L-A-N.
Thanks so much.
And I really look forward tobeing able to stay in touch in
the future.
Joe Folan (40:16):
Absolutely.
Rhoan, thank you.
Rhoan Morgan (40:18):
Thank you again, and a big thank you to our
listeners for tuning intoRevenue Rebels.
Remember you can get our shownotes, links, and other content
related to today's topic atwww.demandlab.com/revenuerebels.
While you're there, let us knowif there's a leader you want to
hear from or a topic you'd liketo hear more about on this show.
(40:39):
I'm your host, Rhoan Morgan.
And you can find me on Twitterat@rhoanmorgan.
It's R-H-O-A-N Morgan.
And of course, look us up onLinkedIn, look up DemandLab, or
search for R-H-O-A-N Morgan.
And finally, only if you thinkwe've earned it, please head
over to Apple Podcasts, Spotifyor wherever you're listening to
(41:02):
us right now, and subscribe,rate and review the show until
next time, Rebels.
Thank you.
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