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October 21, 2020 42 mins

Marketing is changing and the old lead game is dead.  If your company is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result, it might be time to disengage from the monotony of the same old marketing tactics.  Marketers talk about content, but executing it well means understanding your customers and focusing on what matters.  Find out what 3 things marketing leaders and teams can do to separate their products and services from the competition in our newly minted online marketplace.

 Inside this episode, Chris and Kyle share insights on:

  • How to reach your market in innovative ways
  • Why doing more might be driving more leads, revenue, or sanity
  • When marketers need to stop listening to the KPIs

About Chris Walker
Chris Walker is an entrepreneur and marketing leader on a mission to challenge the status quo in B2B marketing. Currently the Founder and CEO of Refine Labs, a progressive revenue marketing agency based in Boston, his journey to get there wasn’t exactly a straight shot. He graduated with a B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering and worked in Product Management in the medical device space before making the move to SaaS Demand Marketing.

Chris now functions as an advisor to CMOs and CROs at B2B SaaS companies, and is well-positioned as a B2B marketing thought leader. His company, Refine Labs, is focused on augmenting Sales performance using progressive digital, social, and content marketing strategies. As CEO, Chris partners with B2B revenue executives to accelerate growth with a proven process called Revenue Engine Optimization.

About Kyle Hamer
A sales and marketing veteran with a deep understanding of strategy, digital marketing execution, and using technology to enhance brand impact. A hands-on leader with a passion for solving business challenges with process, operations, and technology. When Kyle's not tinkering on businesses, you'll find him spending time with those he loves, learning about incredible people, and making connections.

About Hamer Marketing Group
Market growth for a new product or service is often limited by market distractions, unreliable data, or systems not built to scale.  Hamer Marketing Group helps companies build data-driven strategies focused on client acquisition and sales development supported by the technology and operations necessary to create profitable growth.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Walker (00:00):
When things aren't as good in the company and the
marketing budget starts to getscrutinized.
How are you going to make thechoices about what to do?
I think is a really fascinatingdebate that a lot of people that
have had to go through duringthis time,

Kyle Hamer (00:13):
We're talking about marketing in a post COVID or
even a COVID based world.
And I'm today, we're, we're,we're here with Chris Walker,
Chris.
Um, you've had a lot to sayabout what's wrong with
marketing lately, but before weget into today's topic, you tell
me a little bit about yourself.
Just give us a, you know, ashort 20, 30 seconds on, you

(00:34):
know, how your adventure got youto where you are today.

Chris Walker (00:37):
Yeah, so, um, as quickly as possible.
So I want to get into the meatfor everyone, but I, um, they
were on 2015, before that I hadbuilt several eCommerce
companies out of my bedroom andthen moved to my first venture
funded high ticket, um, companyand built a demand function.
It was a hundred percent outside, um, outside sales and I built

(00:58):
a demand function in inside ofthat company from the ground up.
Um, during the time there, thecompany grew from 27 million to
46 million had a successful IPO.
The work that I was doing there,um, drove a significant amount
of net new revenue, which thenled to expansion revenue and
recurring revenue.
And so it had a big impact.
Um, and then I looked out in theworld and I realized that what I

(01:18):
had done, I had a gift to doingit on my own.
Cause the company didn't tell mewhat to do and the executives
didn't know how to score it.
And so I could just do whatevermade sense, like measuring
marketing on revenue made senseto me, but a lot of companies
actually don't do that.
And so, and then I looked out inthe world and I was like, wow, I
actually just did something thata lot of companies, one they're

(01:40):
they're aren't doing the tacticsto, they aren't measuring it
appropriately.
I think I've got something here.
And so moved into the world,started doing consulting for a
couple of SAS companies haverapidly scaled.
And now we work with 16predominantly B2B SAS
organizations throughout NorthAmerica to help them retool
their demand programs to driveresults.

Kyle Hamer (01:58):
That's pretty cool.
I mean, when you, I thinkthere's something interesting
and unique that identify withyour particular story in that if
you had to do it for yourself toput food in your mouth or your
belly for scaling up aneCommerce company, or there's
some risks that you're willingto take the companies that are
more established won't, but youlearn lessons at a, at a more
rapid rate than, Hey, I've donetraditional marketing.

(02:19):
This is the way this is the wayto drive revenue.
You know, the long tail things,it changes your behavior and the
way you think.

Chris Walker (02:26):
And here's, here's really, I think really the key
is that when you're selling thatproduct and it costs$60 and it's
your money and you know that youonly have$20 of margin in there,
you know, that you have to beable to get a customer for less
than$20 and ideally less than$10.
So you actually make some moneyon it.
And so you're going in andyou're running Amazon paid
search ads and you realizethat's a broad targeted search

(02:46):
to keywords are driving clicksand not driving revenue.
And you cut them out and yourealize how to make an Instagram
ad that is ROI positive, andmost B to B marketers that
execute millions of dollars inmedia do not have discipline to
get there.

Kyle Hamer (03:01):
Look, anybody that's, anybody that's, that's
listened to any of the clipsthat you post there or, or
consumes any of the commentcontent you put out.
They know that the refined labsand Chris Walker about aligning
sales and marketing and puttingmarketing right up against that
revenue revenue metric, right?
It's like if marketing is notgenerating revenue, you're
wasting your time.

(03:21):
You're wasting your money.
Uh, I recently talked to, Irecently talked to a fractional
CSO or us chief sales officer,and we were talking through what
was happening with field sales.
Cause COVID is not allowingpeople to go out and get out
what what's really happening formarketing what's happening for

(03:41):
these companies where I can'tcall into an office.
I can't people are moreavailable, but are they really,
do we get more attention what'shappening with marketing as
we're, as we're transitioningthrough this.

Chris Walker (03:52):
Yeah.
And so, um, it's reallyinteresting and it's, this is
not only in marketing, but myview on this really unfortunate
situation, it, it isaccelerating change.
That would have happened anyway,we're here.
We probably would have taken usthree to five years to get here
if it wasn't for this, but allthis stuff was going to happen
anyway, it was just beingprolonged.
And so now the companies rightnow that hadn't taken the steps

(04:16):
to figure out how to do thisright now are incredibly
vulnerable.
Like I compete with marketingagencies that have built their
business on referrals and paidsearch and some weird things
like that.
And I'm winning, right?
And so I think the same thinggoes, goes for companies.
It's just that they, they have,they have a lot of things that

(04:38):
they need to change in marketingthat they should have changed
already.
Um, and hopefully they can usethis time to take a step back
and reevaluate how to domarketing and how to, how to use
that budget to actually driveresults.
Instead of just doing the thingsthat are accepted inside of
their company, going to 10 tradeshows because they get the leads
every year, I'm doing a ton ofprint brochures as sales

(05:00):
enablement for their field salesteam.
Um, you know, running contentsyndication programs to get a
ton of leads like, um, those aresome of the things that I see
that when things aren't as goodin the company and the marketing
budget starts to getscrutinized, how are you going
to make the choices about whatto do?

(05:20):
I think is a really fascinatingdebate that a lot of people that
have had to go through duringthis time.

Kyle Hamer (05:25):
Well, I think they're, they're living it and
trying to understand how toreach a customer or even their,
their end user.
One of the things that I noticedthat was a very interesting
trend is probably late lastyear, late 2019, early 2020, you
start hearing this mantra ofemail is dead.
Email is dead.
You can't use it, the channelsdecay, and you can't get open
rates.
And then all of a suddeneverybody's stuck at home.

(05:47):
And what did every marketer do?
The guys that are that aren't,aren't thinking creatively,
immediately leaned into acanned, send them an email, Hey,
in this really challenging timeand literally was cookie cutter
from company to company,

Chris Walker (06:07):
How do you the six best work from home tips come
read our blog that has nothingto do with anything that's what
people were doing.

Kyle Hamer (06:20):
Yeah.
Then it just, it was wastedeffort.
Right.
So tell me, tell me what acompany say.
They're, you know, they're 25,$50 million AR software company.
Some of the people you're at,what are the things they're
struggling with?
Tell me, I mean, you talked alittle bit about trade shows.
You talked about these differentthings, but I can't do a trade
show.
Should I do an online tradeshow?

(06:41):
Should I, should I look at thevirtual events?
Like what, what are the thingsthat we should be looking at in
thinking about in this, thisworld of upheaval?
What is, what is it you'resaying that got accelerated?
What was going to happen anyways?

Chris Walker (06:52):
Now it's just been catapulted forward.
Yeah, I think there's, um, acouple of things that
immediately come to mind.
The first one is that I thinkcompanies would have a huge
benefit in focusing in picking acouple of different things.
I noticed that not only mycustomers, but when I look out
in the world, people are tryingto do everything.
And when they do everything,they spread out their budget,

(07:14):
they spread out their resourcesand they do everything mediocre.
Um, and so being able toidentify with intuition or data
or ideally accommodation to, towhere are the best places to
spend your time and budget toget the best return and you
define return, however you want.
Um, that is I think one keything.
The next one that I think isreally interesting is that now

(07:36):
that we've moved to an onlineworld, you got to produce good
content.
And the fundamental flaw in mostorganizations is that they, the
people that are creating thecontent do not have enough
expertise inside of theirbuyers.
They do not understand theirbuyers world enough.
They didn't understand theircustomers enough in order to
create content that truly bringsvalue and cuts through that

(07:56):
noise.
And that is just a, in my view,a lack of understanding about
how it, how important contentcreation is, and therefore
investing appropriately to havethe right resources to do it.
Um, those are, those are acouple of the ones that I see
right now.
And then the last one is like, Ithink that, and this is not only

(08:17):
right now.
This is like just perpetuallyall the time is that companies,
um, I think have a very flawedway to measure marketing,

Kyle Hamer (08:27):
Expand on that.
What do you mean floodway tomeasure marketing?
I mean, we've got more toolsthan you can shake a stick at
these days.

Chris Walker (08:33):
Yeah.
I mean, I haven't, I haven'ttalked about this right now, but
I was thinking about it lastnight and I was actually talking
to a CMO, um, of a pretty bigMarTech company and going into
the conversation, I was like,huh, that's really interesting.
We actually, I'd never thoughtabout this before, but we don't
have a, we are, I think probablyone of the most, well, um, for

(08:57):
the quality of our work, um,marketing agencies that are
focused on B2B SAS, and we don'thave a single customer in the
Bay area.
And I was like, this is, I'dnever put those two pieces of
data together, but this isreally interesting.
Why is that?
And then I started to thinkabout it and I've talked to
those companies before.

(09:17):
And the sense that I get is thattheir, their investors shove
this model down their throatabout MQL, which is the whole
thing that I'm against.
Right.
And so no wonder none of them,none of them work with us, but
the flawed metric is the ideathat you just get a certain
amount of MQL and then your,your world is okay.

(09:39):
Um, and those companies have thebenefit of basically playing
with monopoly money.
And what's not like what's notsugarcoated cause they, they
I've looked at those companies.
I've audited them.
Their CAC paybacks are not likethe couple that I've looked at,
the cafe paybacks are terrible,but because they're getting a
seven to 10 to 12 X valuation ontheir money, they can afford a

(09:59):
seven year payback period, whichI think is I just find super
fascinating and creates so manyflaws in an actual business in
the unit economics to do it thatway.
Um, where companies accept thatthey're getting 6,000 SQLs every
month and marketing did theirjob and the sales team
under-performs over the lasteight quarters and somehow

(10:20):
that's okay.

Kyle Hamer (10:22):
Well, it's no wonder that the, I think the statistic
is continuing to show that CMOsare marched out to the gallows
frequently.
Right?
I think the average time a COOis in their seat is somewhere
between 27 and 32 months.
I can't remember.
The last study was

Chris Walker (10:38):
Same thing with head of sales.
It's even lower, I think.

Kyle Hamer (10:43):
Yeah.
I think you're right.
I think it's like in the 23 to25 month range, like it's, it's
just a little bit over twoyears.
And if you really, if you reallylook

Chris Walker (10:52):
Deeply as to why that's happening, um, my feeling
too much capital createsunrealistic goals that are
unattainable, which then forceyou to do the wrong things in
order to hit goals that areunattainable and you don't get
there anyway, and then you getfired.
Like

Kyle Hamer (11:10):
It's actually so simple,

Chris Walker (11:11):
You really break it down.
Um, but like, you know, justbecause you didn't hit your
revenue target doesn't mean it'sthe VP of sales fault.

Kyle Hamer (11:21):
Well, you look at it , you know what I mean?
I couldn't agree with you more.
I mean, I think, I think it'sinteresting that you, you blame
it on the, the over-investmentor the, the unrealistic goals
set by capital

Chris Walker (11:31):
Goal setting process.
I've been, I've launchedcompanies set their goals.
Like I studied, I've worked insort of a lot of companies and I
studied how they do it.
And now I get a broad stroke.
I get to look at 16 companiesand how they put their goals
together.
I get to see

Kyle Hamer (11:46):
Isn't it isn't it.
Um, we'll blame it on being likethe Salesforce effect.
I mean, th really in many ways,Oracle and were the model for
what we're seeing in mostSilicon Valley and SAS companies
today that base it around theMQL, right?
It was like, Hey, this internetthing is new.
We want people to fill out aform early days of inbound

(12:08):
before HubSpot picked it up andturn it into a buzzword.
And we're going to have theseleads called by people who are
lower, the lower value salesfolks.
They're going to prequalify.
So you get your sales acceptedsales qualified.
We're going to push it over toan AA or, you know, account
manager, whatever you want tocall them in this high end
closer is actually going to sellthe software fast forward 20

(12:31):
years.

Chris Walker (12:31):
And this is, yeah, and this is per this is
absolutely perfect to touch onbecause people glorify that
model and that Salesforce hadsuccess with that model in 2004,
2007, right?
No wonder it works so good.
Then the internet was barely inmaturity.

(12:52):
The social platforms didn'texist.
Buyers had way little control.
There was no public pricing.
There was no review websites.
All that stuff has didn't exist.
No wonder they had so muchsuccess doing that.
Um, that was the way that buyersbought.
But now they continue to repeatthat model more than a decade
later and push it like it'sdifferent for the$50 million

(13:14):
company in 2004 to do that.
Then that$800,000 ARR company inSilicon Valley, that's doing
that in 2021.
Like it's a different world.
But somehow, because that modelwas successful in Salesforce did
that all of the investmentcommunity that's so far away
from the actual work, thinksthat it still works.

(13:36):
Um, and on the off chance thatyou have a good product, like
I'm not saying that it doesn'twork, right?
Like there, it's very clear thatfor the right type of company,
it can work, but it's not themodel that makes it work is how
good the product is.
It's how good the people areinside of it.
It's how good the marketing isto support it.
How much people know the brand.
There's so many components.

(13:57):
And so I think a lot of peoplejust look at, um, whether it's
marketing or an outboundpredictable revenue model or
whatever it is, just look at it,be like, yeah, I'll just like
plug this into my company andwill be a unicorn.
Um, I've talked to keep peoplethat thinks that's what's
happening when they hire us.
And it's just not the way itworks.

Kyle Hamer (14:17):
I'm laughing because there's really, there really is
this unrealistic expectation ofcapital.
And this thought of, well, Iwas, I was speaking with
somebody at this last week andtheir, their CEO had come to
them inside.
We just got this round raised.
What are all the levers we needto pull in order to hit a 30%

(14:38):
year over year growth?
Ben, my first question, whichI'm sure yours was as well.
What's your historical growthBennett to this point?
Well, we're our historicalgrowth is somewhere around 8%.
Okay.
So is that a, is like, is it 8%because this a new market and
you're, you're making themarket, so it's all leading edge
or bleeding edge buyers or is it8% because this is a mature

(14:59):
market and you're just capturingpeople as they come through on
the back end, like where where'sthis ad and the person I was
talking to, they said, well, itdoesn't matter.
We have to hit 30%.
I'm like, who came up with thatnumber?
The investor, the investor wasthe one that wanted to see a 30%
year over year growth.
And, um, it's really interestingto hear your perspective as you

(15:22):
work with these other companiesin, in bring in, because that,
that model is so busted and itcreates so much animosity
between sales and marketingmarketing.
Can't really do what it's goodat.
And sales is always worriedabout whether the

Chris Walker (15:37):
Right like really visit.
Um, and this is I'm makingblanket statements, but there
are obviously very responsibleinvestors that invest in
companies and show them how todo the right things.
I just want to put that on therecord, but for the most part,
like I've worked in a lot ofcompanies.
I work with a lot of companies.
I talked to a lot of companiesthat raise, whether you're in

(15:58):
the series D raising$60 millionor your series, a raising$5
million that get a number put ontop of them that make them do
all of the wrong things, whichcreate short term profile of
your, of your employees.
Like your employees don't stayfor very long.
Cause the environment sucks.
You're never hitting yourtarget.

(16:18):
So everyone feels like they'replaying from behind which hurts
culture.
Um, your marketing team wasdoing the wrong things.
Sending a bunch of leads tosales that doesn't, that are not
good.
Sales is coming back sayingthese leads aren't good.
Like sales is playing behind thegame.
And then eventually when theycan finally hit quota, they
can't wait to go and move to adifferent company.
So they don't have to be in thisenvironment.
So no wonder you can't retrain,you're retaining your best

(16:40):
players.
And so I just find that like,it's been really fascinating for
me to, um, go and build mycompany over the past 18 months
to over 2 million in revenue.
Um, and to, to look at how I didit with, with no funding, no
outbound phone calls, nooutbound emails, no advertising

(17:02):
expense, except for a$423YouTube pre-roll experimental
where we could roll it out toour clients.
And so with none of thosefactors, and we were able to
grow at that rate, which is muchfaster, which is faster than
most of the series, a companiesthat just raised$5 million and
burn it.
And the reason is because itforces you to be creative.

(17:25):
It forces you to be smart.
It forces you to do differentthings than what the normal
people are doing.
Um, and like I'm so proud andhappy about the quality of life
of our employees.
I'm super happy that the companyis profitable.
I'm super happy that we continueto grow.

(17:45):
I'm super happy that we have areally strong brand and deliver
work and we don't have to do anyof the wrong things.
I don't have to take on thewrong customers.
Like I said no to a companytoday, they wanted to pass
$10,000 a month.
And they told me very black andwhite what they wanted us to do.
And I was like, no.
And, and most, most executivesCEO's head of sales.

(18:06):
Don't have, don't have thediscipline or the environment to
say no to a customer.
That's going to pay them thatamount of money because they
have a target to head.
And so, um, I just find it likereally fascinating.
I think that we will see aninteresting turn, not tomorrow,
not next year, over the nextfive or 10 years where, um, I

(18:27):
personally would like to see alot of early stage companies get
to a certain level first, whichforces them to build a real
business, which forces them todo the right things, which
forces them to make sure thatthe market actually wants their
product.
Um, and so that's what I, that'swhat I'd like to see.

Kyle Hamer (18:49):
We're in complete agreement on that.
I think there are too manycompanies that on the back of a
napkin have an idea that a it'sa variation or a niche of a
product that's already in play.
They, they raise capital andfunding and then they spend all
of their time running in circlesversus actually building
something that people want iscompelling and will keep them
coming back for more.

(19:10):
Right.
It's better to have fiveextremely happy customers than
to have 500 people that dotransactions with you, but are,
yeah,

Chris Walker (19:18):
They're irritated either.
It really depends on, on whatyou're trying to accomplish.
Right?
Like I'm not trying to sell mycompany next year.
And so if you are like, thenthat's, it, it really depends
on, on your goal because a lotof people love to if their, if
their objective is to sell thecompany next year and they get

(19:41):
people on 12 month contracts whocares whether or not they're
happy.
Right?
Like it's, I mean, when you,obviously, I'm not saying that
everyone thinks that way, butlike, that's, that's what ha
that's what happens.
Like you get driven to the, like, if we can pump up our ARR by$5
million over the next 12 monthsbefore we sell it, we're in it.
We're going to get 10 X more, um, whatever, we'll get a better

(20:04):
multiple, and we'll get blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it'll end up being$40million to our investors and the
people that have stock in thecompany

Kyle Hamer (20:13):
Look in, in what's.
What's fantastic to hear yousay, and I actually, cause I've
lifted.
It's fantastic to hear you saythat because you're, you're
100%, right.
That depending on what the, theexecutives and the leaders want
to accomplish, and if it'sselling your company, you're
going to make short sighteddecisions that are going to have
longterm effects that you're notgoing to be able to live down.

Chris Walker (20:31):
It's interesting because once you, once you sell
it, it's no longer your problem,right?
Like I've actually, I'veactually, I've actually watched,
I know executives that have soldcompanies for$500 million in
those companies have gonedirectly over in the, in the
trash over next five years.
Cause they didn't investanything in product.
They pumped up all the metrics,they stripped out a bunch of

(20:52):
different things to Bumbamargins.
And then, you know, the bigacquire comes in and then get
screwed and who, I mean,

Kyle Hamer (21:03):
Well into that, even to that, in that all the time,
way too much, you know?
And, and sometimes it's as

Chris Walker (21:09):
This is actually the acquire fall to you think
about it.
Yeah.

Kyle Hamer (21:12):
Right.
Cause they didn't do their duediligence.
Yeah.
Well they, I mean they didn't,they didn't fully appreciate
what it was that they wereprocuring.
Um, so in this, in thistransition phase, who's doing it
well.
Like who do you think out there,B2B, who's doing a really good
job of, of having high IQ,creating good content, making

(21:34):
sure that they're focused andin, from what you can at least
see, you're seeing what looks toit appears to be profitable
results or, or happysalespeople.
Right.
Fat and happy salespeople is asign of good marketing.
Um,

Chris Walker (21:49):
You know, I can't put my finger on anyone
particular.
I've been shouting out thiscompany called[inaudible]
lately.
I'm very hope high profile HRtype of software.
Um, mainly just because I thinktheir, the executions that
they've been doing are smart.
Um, they raised a ton of money.
They raised like$200 million.
So they're kind of like goingall out here and I'm not sure

(22:11):
that it's something that Irecommend for everyone, but like
their paid social execution hasbeen very strong, which I think
is honestly like the best placethat you can market right now,
as long as you know how to do itwell.
And I think there's a lot ofpeople that don't do it well.
Um, and then the second piece isthat like, if you don't know how
to measure paid Facebook or paidLinkedIn, then you aren't going

(22:34):
to keep spending on it becauseyou don't know how to measure
it.
And I've just over time, I've,I've gone and spent$50,000 in
Facebook and watch what happensin the CRM.
And yeah, there's noattribution, but I know what's
going on.
And then I take the 50 and moveit to a hundred and I see what's
happened in CRM and it goes upsome more.
And so like, um, I think becausepeople need direct attribution

(22:55):
to everything, they end up doingthe things that are the most
intent based and mostmeasurable.
And I talk about that a lot.
Like that's, that's what peopledo.
Um, and I think it's just a lackof understanding, a lack of
understanding how peopleactually buy products and a lack
of common sense.

Kyle Hamer (23:12):
Yeah.
If somebody wants it, somebodywants to told me that it's not
B2B or B-to-C, it's a, HDH thatall marketing and all sales is
done human to human.
It doesn't matter what theinterface is or at what scale it
is.
At some point that transactionthat conversation, that content
comes down to one humancommunicating something to
another human in order to movethe sale forward or backwards.

(23:36):
When you look at, you know, youtalked about the three things,
focus, good content, and a wayto measure marketing, where are
the areas that you thinkcompanies should be focusing or,
or starting to divert attentionto, to understand what's next
for them?

(23:56):
Cause I mean, a lot of peopleare putting together their 20,
21 budgets and plans at thispoint.

Chris Walker (24:02):
Um, I've been talking about this for awhile.
I've seen it.

Kyle Hamer (24:06):
Very few people take it

Chris Walker (24:08):
Me up on it.
Um, the ones that have, whethertaking me up on it, on my advice
for done it without knowing myadvice, but just because they
were intuitively thought it wassmart are hiring or somehow
acquiring or whatever you needto do two or three subject
matter experts that are focusedon creating content that helps

(24:30):
your customers.
Like that's it.
The reason that my, the reasonthat my company has been able to
grow is because I am an expertin the things that the CMOs that
I'm trying to sell to careabout.
And the reason that it's verysuccessful in the cybersecurity
company that I talked to and howdo I podcast last week?

Kyle Hamer (24:47):
Because they have two people that were

Chris Walker (24:50):
CIS is inside of companies.
And now they, all they do isscan the dark web, find
insights, produce content thatCIS those want, which then
creates a lot of awareness andtraffic to their website and
drives more inbound results.
Um, and so it's there, I guessthere's really two components
here.
It's one, you need people thatactually know what they're
talking about and can speak it apeer or even a thought

(25:11):
leadership level to those, tothose buyers.
The second thing is that, youknow, you need to know what
you're trying to do.
And so like a lot of people thatcreate content, they say that
they're creating content, butthey're mainly doing it so they
can get your email address andsell something to you.
And so it's, it's not only aboutwho's doing it and what you're
producing.
It's also about what you'reexpecting out of it, because I

(25:32):
think a lot of companies have,have ruined content marketing
for lack of a better term basedon how they do it.
Um, which is not a bad thing foreveryone listening here.
The fact that so many companiessuck at it gives you a real
opportunity to stand out.
Um, I think that is a realrecommendation I've seen for

(25:52):
four or five companies, a couplethat we work with directly do
that and have a ton of success,but their C CEO on, you know,
the CEO that is an expert inwhatever they do onto, um, four
podcasts that are top in theirindustry.
And just let them talk about howthey would do something
different for those audiences,not pitching the product, not

(26:15):
asking someone for a demo, notasking for their email address,
not seeing if they'll set up ameeting with their SDR, just
providing information that helpspeople.
Um, and so I think that that'sone, um, if you'd gotten me back
on the question, I could thinkabout what the next one would
be, but I mean the take homeyear, especially where we are

(26:36):
right now is that, um, people

Kyle Hamer (26:39):
We're on all these platforms for B to B, there's a
lot of people on LinkedIn, we

Chris Walker (26:44):
Use paid to get to a lot of people on Facebook and
Instagram.
Wouldn't recommend that as anorganic strategy right now.
Um, and then there's, thenthere's podcasts, which is in my
view, one of the mostundervalued, um, channels,

Kyle Hamer (26:59):
Mike

Chris Walker (27:00):
And I, I won't go into deep, deep detail, but on,
on Tuesday night I rented forlike nine minutes on a podcast
about how all of the differentbenefits that are outside of
just having your podcast onSpotify, all the different
benefits of doing it.
And so people can reference thatif they want, but I think that's
a super undervalued channel.
Again, people don't do itbecause they don't know how to

(27:21):
measure it.
No wonder they don't do it.
Like if you really break itdown, marketing comes down to
performance and brand andcompanies because of the, all of
the different things that happeninside an organization, they
just do 100% performancemarketing, AKA sales.

Kyle Hamer (27:40):
What's what's interesting about that is if you
go back to the 2004 to 2007paradigm where you were talking,
we were talking about, you know,the Salesforce effect right?
In, in these models, one of thebig cohorts or not even cohorts,
but, um, pillars for marketingat that time was creating a
brand, creating a lasting brand,creating something that would

(28:00):
leave an impression.
And for the organizations likeSalesforce, they used their
business model, their MQL, theiroutbound efforts.
At that time to create brandthat's shifted.
It shifted because people aremore interested in being
educated.
They want to learn something.
They want to know what you know,and that they can trust you

(28:22):
because your knowledge is atlike tier two, your point of the
SME.
I think, I just think that'sreally, really wise when we
started, when one of my lastorganizations, we started
printing subject matter expertsin front of cameras and doing
tips and tricks.
And when they were talkingthrough how people were
preparing for, for doing theirjob, as they started creating
content, the value not only wentup, but our understanding inside

(28:46):
the product and the way that thecompany behaved changed
dramatically, because now youhad these subject matter experts
that were creating things andyou had something that the rest
of the company was trying tolive up to.
So I think that's really wiseto, to provide that

Chris Walker (29:00):
Just the, just the , the tactics on brand quote on
quote unquote, have itultimately comes down to, can
you make a connection withsomeone, right?
And that was basically what itwas.
And so if you look back in the2004, seven timeframe, the
places, the ways that you madeconnection was a great
relationship with your salesrep, going to the booths and

(29:23):
seeing the new product, becauseyou couldn't see it anywhere
else getting a piece of mail.

Kyle Hamer (29:31):
Like

Chris Walker (29:33):
There's probably a couple of other ones that I'm
leaving out here, but those aresome major ones about the
opportunities to, to createbrand.
And then ultimately someone intothe product where they can see
it and get the value and thencommunicate the brand to others
through word of mouth, which isby far the most effective
channel there is.
Right.
And so when you look at it now,companies still do all of those

(29:54):
different things.
Well, the attention about howyou would actually do that and
mainly focused on because thebuyer has more control through
all the different availabilityof information, they have way
more control for their process.
They don't need to go to yourbooths and see your new product
anymore.
They don't need your sales repto call them to get pricing.
And so, because of those thingshave moved people and the buyer,

(30:18):
um, consumption of informationhas changed.
There are different ways that weneed to do the same job to build
the brand, to get people intothe products, to create the word
of mouth.
Right.
And, um, I think companies havejust been, um, slow to adapt to
those things.
And I don't expect this is goingto be like, people are gonna
listen to my podcast and thenchange their whole marketing

(30:41):
measurement.
Like that's not going to happen.
Um, but I, I do just think thatit comes down to one being stuck
in a certain way of doing it.
And I talked about this a lotover time.
As you keep growing yourcompany, you get more and more
stuck.
It's no wonder companies don't,you know, shift their go to
market model when they have 95SDRs.

(31:01):
It's hard.

Kyle Hamer (31:04):
Well, it, it, yeah, cause there's a, there's not
only the, sometimes I think it'sabout ego, right.
And admitting, well, maybe thatwasn't the best decision and
then trying to figure out how tonavigate out of it.
There's, there's always some,some of that that plays into it.
But the thing that I think isreally interesting, and it's a
question that I don't know, aswe ask often enough is before
you could measure performance ata one to one level or do the

(31:26):
paid spend to try and, you know,tie it all out, how did
companies grow?
What was it they spent money on?
And if you ask yourself thatquestion at a core, you realize
that it's, it's the exact same.
The game's the same, just playedon a different field.
It's 100% about brand awareness.

(31:48):
You, you know, your content andall the different pieces have to
have to be valuable, but you're,you're creating something that
people want to be a part of.
Whether it's a, you know, a newenergy company or space X going
to send people to the moon.
Like it doesn't, it doesn'tmatter what the company's
product or services, there'ssomebody out there that cares
about it.
Do they know you, can they findyou and is the stuff that you're

(32:09):
educating them with or creatingawareness with resonating with
them.
And I think that there's a lotof wisdom in what you're, what
you're sharing.

Chris Walker (32:18):
It's, it's really, um, for lack of a better term.
I, I think it's reallyunfortunate the situation that a
lot of marketers get put intocompanies.
Like I have my wives QA onTuesday nights, we've been doing
it for six months every week, 26episodes.
And I get questions from people,10, 20 questions per episode.

(32:39):
So a lot of questions that I'vebuilt up and a lot of them
definitely come back to, how doI convince our CEO to do X?
How do I change our measurementaway from MQL?
How do I do it all comes back tohow do I change the way that the
people above me that actuallymake the decisions about how I
do my job?
How do I change that?
And the answer that I usuallygive is you go find someone else

(33:02):
that already understands thethesis.
It really is the easiest way.
Um, and I think it's really liketo go back to the unfortunate
point.
I think it's tough because likethese executives have come up
through the era where, um, thepredictable revenue model worked
a lot better than it does today.
And then they were brainwashedthrough the early 2000 tens

(33:25):
about how you need to measureeverything and are just so far
away from the actual like workand buyer that they haven't
realized how things have been,have been shifting.
And so now marketers get in andthey want to do a podcast and
they want to post organiccontact through content
marketing on LinkedIn, not spamDMS and other shit that you can

(33:47):
measure putting a wink in yourpost with a UTM tag on it.
Like, so not doing those thingslike doing true marketing, they
can't do any of those thingsbecause the executive comes back
and says, you know, you've beenposting on LinkedIn for six
months now I see that you'vegotten 800 more followers, but
how many leads did I get then Ithink it's just, I'm just really

(34:10):
not smart.

Kyle Hamer (34:14):
It's short term investment versus a longterm
investment, right?
I mean, there's, there's alwaysgoing to be some components
you're going to need to try anddrive the revenue right now,
whether it's, Hey, I gottahustle and get a contract to do
something today to get started.
Do you gotta have something tostart the flywheel?
But once you start the flywheel,you're now going to start
placing longterm bets and toomany companies aren't betting

(34:36):
longterm.

Chris Walker (34:36):
It's not even in my view, like I do this the$50
million company and with noextra budget, no extra people
just literally changing thethings that they do are able to
impact their demo requests byfour or five X impact their
sales qualified opportunitiesper month by three to four X,
literally by just doing thingsthat are more customer centric

(34:58):
by not spending$70,000 a monthon LinkedIn getting eBooks, and
then having your STRs chasingaround by not buying broad match
ad words terms, and driving theminto a squeeze landing page for
an ebook downloads that you cancall them five minutes
afterwards, like by not doingthose things and doing things
that actually help your customerby showing them the things that
you, they can accomplish withyour product by showing them

(35:19):
other companies that have hadsimilar successes by showing
them the problems that yourproduct can solve, that they
might have and doing it in aneffective, communicating that in
an effective way.
Like it's not that hard.
I don't know what to say, butlike I lose, I lose customers at
the same by doing that becausethey want 9,000 SQLs and they're

(35:41):
only getting 300 demo requests.
Um, even though they will get,definitely get more customers on
this 300 demo requests and the909,000 empty Wells.
And, um, but they've been,they've been trained to only
look at that the leading metric,not the wagging one.
And during that period ofuncertainty where you have a 90
day sales cycle and you've gonethree months without 9,000 MQL,

(36:04):
and you haven't seen the funnelmetrics play out and you're not,
you don't understand the actualrevenue model enough to know
what's happening at the leadingend of the metrics and see how
they're progressing to STOs andlooking at the conversion rates.
They haven't seen it before.
You're kind of sitting there asthe VP of demand and being like
I'm out and I'm, and I'm, I'mcomfortable with that.

(36:26):
Like the results speak forthemselves to people that don't
want to do it.
I have no interest in, in tryingto convince anyone to do
anything that they don't want todo.

Kyle Hamer (36:36):
You know?
So I think, I think if we hadsome takeaways here from today's
chat, cause I think I could, youand I could talk about this
stuff until the cows come home.
What are we talking until 8:00PM tonight?
I guarantee that, but thetakeaways for people navigating,
it's just like, let's get backto the basics, focus on what's
most important, right?
Make sure what you're providingfolks is, is good content and

(36:59):
it's a value to them.
So, you know, don't go higherPeewee, Herman to talk about
engineering.
It's probably not going to,

Chris Walker (37:06):
And you create the content one Hunter, sorry to
interrupt you.
But you create the content 100%to help them 0% about how you're
going to get a sale out of it.
And people can feel it, even ifyou're 1% of the way of trying
to, like you put the button atthe bottom of your content,
which is, Oh, by the way, if youwant to talk, here's a way to

(37:26):
book a meeting.
Like just leave it out.
I don't know.
I don't know how to communicatethat in a more direct way, but
like the sales intent ruins thequality of the content over time

Kyle Hamer (37:40):
Who knew we would over and engineer things as
marketers.
Uh, and then the last thing, thelast thing that you said, which,
which I think is really, um, isreally interesting is revisit
the way that you're measuringmarketing and success and
failure, right?
Because what's successful.
What's what's right by whateverthe model is that you're working

(38:02):
may not actually be successfulfor your ultimate goal is.
And so figuring out that formulathat works or that the comfort
level, to your point, you'vefound that you mean, you found
your Zen with what you'recomfortable doing and where
you're comfortable, the spaceyou're comfortable functioning
in other marketers that arelistening or sales guys that are
listening.
They've got to find that spacefor themselves.

Chris Walker (38:22):
Yeah.
And I've, I've created thestructure here in the
relationships with the customersthat I get to do a bunch of new
things every day, like buyingpodcast, podcast ads for this
company and run tech talk adsfor another company and things
that marketers that are workingin house would never do.

(38:43):
Um, and so, yeah, I do have acore model that works.
And at some point in time, thecore model won't work as well as
it does right now.
I know that Facebook ads do notwork as well right now than they
did in 2015.
Cause I ran them in 2015, justlike the executives that are
running their predictablerevenue model.
Probably know if they reallylook deep that it worked better

(39:05):
in 2009 than it does today.
Right?
And so over time, at some pointI won't want to buy Facebook ads
anymore and I'll need to knowsomething else to do.
And so I'm, I'm on the way totry to figure those things out.
Um, and other people that doclaim to do similar things, to
what I do are going to runGoogle ads, no matter what, even

(39:25):
if the ROI is bad, a companycomes to you and says, we're
going to, we want to spend ahundred thousand dollars in
Google ads.
And, and we're okay if you take10% of that, you, so you'll make
$10,000 a month.
Um, and then if you actuallywent in there and you looked at
the keywords and you said, okay,but actually you still need to
be spending$40,000 a month.
No agency is going to tell youthat because their fee would go

(39:47):
from$10,000 a month to$4,000 amonth.
And so there's, there's somereally interesting if you, if
you look deeply about thosetypes of relationships where
it's a single channel, I thinkthat one of the benefits of what
we do is that because we managethe entire digital media budget,
I've had companies that arelike, we want to spend$200,000 a

(40:09):
month and I'm like, you shouldonly be spending one 20.
You, you decide if you want meto, how you want me to do what
with the other 80,000.
But like, I know that you shouldonly be spending one 20 and
most, most people can't do thatbecause of things that are set
up.
So, um, I don't know how I goton that little tangent, sorry to
interrupt your closure.
Um, I feel like that was kind ofa way to try and like reopen

(40:30):
this.
We could keep going, but uh, no,I look, Chris, I appreciate you
being on the show today asalways, it's, it's a blast to
chat with you to talk what youcall it.
Common sense marketing.
And I think it's just businessone Oh one, right?
You find something that works.
You work it until it doesn'twork anymore, but while you're

(40:52):
doing it, you're a, you're anavid learner of other things
that are out there alwayslooking for that next advantage.
And I think that there's,there's something very cutting
edge about this conversation.
And yet it seems so incrediblybasic, but thanks for being on
and sharing with the audience.
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