December 13, 2023 • 36 mins
Lee Odden of Top Rank Marketing has traveled the globe helping businesses and business owners connect with their communities.
Ever wondered how cultural differences can impact your marketing efforts and business growth? We've got some invaluable insights for you. We talk about his intriguing experiences of speaking engagements across the globe and the unique appreciation of an American perspective in marketing.
Learn more at https://www.tonkatalk.com where we share more about our Lake Minnetonka community, including upcoming events and our take on local experiences.
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If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions of a future guests creating community and connection, email natalie@tonkatalk.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My guest today is a leader in business to business
marketing.
His name is Lee Oden and he'sgoing to share with us ways that
you can get the word out whenyou're a brand or you're a
business to your community, andalso how you can engage and grow
that community and make realconnection with the people that
you're working with or workingfor.
I'm Natalie Webster and this isTonka Talk, where we share the
(00:23):
ways people create community andconnection.
Lee Oden has been recognized asa top business to business
marketing professional by Forbes, the Economist, the Wall Street
Journal.
For over 20 years he's workedwith his team at Top Rank
Marketing to help elevate thebusiness to business marketing
industry.
You are an impressive dude Onpaper, on paper, on paper.
(00:48):
But also Lee is the author ofOptimize and has published over
1.4 million words on youragency's marketing blog.
That blew my mind too, becausethat's a lot of words.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, when I was talking tothe acquisition editor at Wiley
to publish that book, they werelike, look, it's 60,000 words
and I'm thinking, god, that's alot of words.
And then I started thinkingabout well, I've been blogging
for so many years, I wonder howmany words I've written on this
blog.
And that's where I figured out1.4 million, or whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Wow, so you just took the word count from all the
blog posts.
Wow, I should do that.
I should see.
I wonder how much.
There's definitely not thatmuch, but it's something to
strive for.
You also, I read, or featuredin, a book called Online
Marketing Heroes.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, I had to razz you about that.
How does?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
it feel to be an online marketing hero.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
That was.
Yeah, that was a little blipand just a small moment in time
where some fellow decided well,why should he write a book when
he can get 20 other people towrite the book for him?
Genius, yeah, Just a piece totheir ego.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I like it, though you know the book I.
I too am featured in the book.
Yes, not to toot my own horn,it's called School Lunches and
it was written by a woman out ofNew York, and it's the way.
It's the different, the waythat people experience school
lunch growing up.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
And I grew up in Hawaii and I'm a huge fan of
Spam Musubi, which has got ricespam wrapped in the Nori.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
I don't recall exactly how we connected, but
she came out to Minnesota and Ikind of thought it was.
I don't even know if I knew forsure what it was, but a year
later I get this book in themail and I'm like, oh my gosh,
it was a real thing.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So I've now.
What would you say?
How would you describe what youdo with business to business
marketing?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So, you know, top-ranked marketing is the
agency that I co-founded, andyou know we're 21 years old and
what we do for technology B2Btechnology companies is helping
get them more customers.
So you have companies likeAdobe, linkedin, sap, oracle,
(03:11):
you know, so, on and so forth.
Those companies are sellingvery high priced things that
take a long time to educatecustomers about, and so it's a
different kind of marketing, andso what we do is we create
content, we create community andconnection and engagement with
potential buyers and help themguide themselves through the
(03:31):
sales journey, which could befive months, 18 months long, and
ultimately help them make theright choice and buy from our
customer.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
You've been doing this.
You've I read, you've done over300 presentations in over 19
countries.
When you go into differentcountries with all of these
different cultures, I waswondering, how does that
translate being an Americancoming in you?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
know it's interesting and, by the way, I just hit 20.
This summer.
I did my first presentation inParis and initially I think the
first other country I spoke inwas London, so it was easy.
English, english cultures arevery similar so it wasn't too
different, I didn't have tomodify so much.
But then when I've spokenBarcelona, you know here now
(04:23):
it's what I thought were Spanishspeakers and you know I tried,
I translated my wholepresentation into Spanish, I'm
sorry, into Catalan.
Actually Catalan is what theyspeak in Barcelona largely and
and apparently I offended a lotof people who are from other
(04:47):
cities visiting Barcelona thatspeak primarily Spanish.
So Spanish and Catalan are acontentious thing in the area.
So I learned quickly, not justbecause of that but because of
other interactions, that whenother countries have you come in
as an expert, they're notlooking for you to you know,
customize to their local marketso much, unless that's the
(05:08):
context for which you are hiredor engaged, because they're
looking for, in my case, theAmerican coming over with
American experience and thatdepth of budget and you know,
money that's being spent inAmerican marketing programs.
What can they learn?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
That makes sense.
They kind of that's exactlywhat they want.
Is that American experience?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, they want to know what's happening in the US.
What can we learn from whatthey're doing in a place where
there's so much more money beingspent in different ways, and
how can they gain insights andduplicate the things that are
working and don't do the thingsthat are not?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Do you think that they that when they market, that
they market differently?
Because when I think aboutdifferent cultures, when you go
and you're gonna visit a place,whether you're gonna go to
Europe, you know, don't wear thewhite tennis shoes with the
black socks.
It's just, there's usuallythings that you, you would
change in your behavior or whatyou do.
How this excitement over howbeing really excited on often
(06:08):
about an American coming andsharing that American experience
, was that something that?
I mean, is it really reallylike that?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
In terms of me participating at an event.
Yeah, because a lot of.
I mean I've spoken in placeslike Latvia, bucharest, so Riga,
latvia and Bucharest, romania,moscow, I mean a lot of
different places, and so they'renot seeing a lot of American
business people very often andthey're very curious to learn
(06:40):
about what things that areunique and special.
That you bring to the table so,but I learned a lot about how
they market differently there intheir local markets and most
often most cases I was speakingin European areas, geographies,
and they'd always say almostself depreciatingly, that you
(07:04):
know there are two, three, four,five years behind what's going
on in the US.
You know what I mean.
So, like in the US, it'sdigital, as you know, hardcore
digital.
That's where things arehappening in.
Covid accelerated thetransformation of marketing into
digital for B2B more thananything, Whereas there they
still have outside sales repsknocking on doors In some cases.
(07:27):
There's a lot more in-persontypes of interactions and that
sort of thing, Not as much inthe digital space.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
You don't see too many people going door to door
these days or knocking on doors,and if they do, you read about
it on the next door app.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, especially in the consumer space.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, Even being in real estate.
There are some realtors who dodoor knocking and it's worked
well for them.
I've not done it because I'mterrified of being chased off
somebody's property.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I can't imagine.
Do you want to sell your house?
Do you want to list your house?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Who are you?
Then there's the whole thingwith the animals and everything
too, so you never know who has adog that's going to go at you.
Have you in?
All of you've done so muchtraveling.
Are there any places that standout to you where you would go
back and maybe visit there,vacation there?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well, I can say that in terms of other countries, the
cities I mean I love London alot and I've been back to London
25 times at least Sydney,australia, new Zealand were
pretty, not so much Sydney, moreNew Zealand, the South part of
(08:41):
the island.
And New Zealand was prettyawesome In terms of being
different than what I wasexpecting or just a different
environment.
It was the Eastern Bloccountries.
So going to I was in college, Iwent to, I was going to school
in Denmark and we did springbreak in Leningrad, oh wow.
So that was 1988, a long timeago.
(09:01):
I was still called to Leningradat the time and so I was able
to speak in Moscow and then, Imean, on that old trip, I went
to Moscow as well.
But going to somewhere likeMoscow was pretty interesting.
When I was there originally itwas just very gray and just I
don't know, it was justnon-eventful.
(09:22):
You know what I mean?
Just big, monolithic buildingsand expressionless people in
public, no smiles or anythinglike that, and I was wondering
what it would be like.
So why did a workshop there andI presented all day and then at
the end I'm like, ok, I'm goingto walk to Red Square.
It's a quarter mile away.
I've got to see Red Squarebefore I fall asleep because of
jet lag and I walked to RedSquare and I was thinking I was
(09:45):
going to be this gray monolithicbuilding kind of situation.
What was in the corner of RedSquare?
You know where, you've seenvideos in the past of those
Russian troops and the missileswalking by.
There was a Louis Vuitton bagabout two stories high, like
some installation, promoting theLouis Vuitton store.
So currently along one side ofRed Square it's a big mall
(10:08):
called the GUM G-U-M GUM malland Louis Vuitton is an anchor
store there.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Wow, who would have thought?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I never no.
And so there were pockets inMoscow that were very Las Vegas,
to be honest, and then therewere other areas, just like it
was in 1988.
Wow, so that was an interestingplace.
Almost like a time capsule inways, but it's changed a lot now
today, yeah, and the first timeI was required that I had to
have a guide.
(10:35):
We had to have a guideeverywhere we went, whereas this
time it was only recommended.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Oh Well, there you go .
Do you think that withmarketing, and specifically
you've done so much withbusiness to business marketing,
if someone is listening to thisand they want to maybe start
their own business and getsomething going, how is there a
way to?
It's such a broad questionBecause I know what you do is on
(11:01):
such a large scale, but whatwould you say?
What kind of advice would yougive people when they're
thinking about I want to buildmy own brand around my company,
around myself?
If that's the person deliveringthe services, are there things
that you would say that wouldkind of encourage them or kind
of give them a starting point?
Because I think that's a bigpart of I know what I hear from
(11:22):
people when they talk about oh,I really want to get into this,
or I would really love to open abusiness that does this, and I
was like, well, then, go ahead,go do it.
You go do it, and a lot of itis like well, but I have to have
this figured out, and there isa lot to figure out ahead of
time sometimes.
But I think there's also somefear of putting yourself out
(11:42):
there, and so what advice wouldyou give someone who wanted to
start their own business interms of marketing themselves
and maybe even kind ofovercoming that fear, because I
feel, with so much of what youdo, it's the whole lead a horse
to water kind of a thing as well.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Well, it's kind of an interesting thing because
there's a lot of people thatthink about how great it would
be to go start.
In fact, right now there's alot of folks in the I guess Gen
Z age group where it's justdon't want to follow the and I'm
making a generalization butdon't want to follow the
traditional career route andthey want to get things more
(12:22):
quickly and there's a lot ofopportunities through the
internet, through digital means,to monetize right and so,
whether it's that way ortraditional, obviously if
someone's got the idea that theywant to start a business, they
must have some competency orsome skill or have identified an
unmet need in the marketplacethat they want to make money on.
(12:42):
But it's important that theonly way to turn that into a
business, of course, is toconnect with customers and the
way for customers to understandwho you are, you've got to
create content.
So that's my answer.
It's about content creation.
I can reflect on what I did inmy business and maybe I'm still
an introvert, but I was verymuch an introverted person and
(13:03):
started out literally just coldcalling and it was just a
desperate way to like, hey,we're selling marketing services
and we get meetings, and mypartner and I would go pitch
someone in an office somewherejust the two of us and one or
two of them and it was a verylaborious and low close rate
(13:23):
kind of thing.
And so I got the idea of like,well, ok, I'm going to start
blogging, I'm going to startwriting about what it is that we
do and why people need to thinkabout this as a way to go
forward and how it might bebetter for them.
And as I started writing aboutthis, other people would react
and I would interact, and so itbecame very because it was
(13:43):
published online as a blog andit could be done through social
now or through video or whatever.
It was easily accessible,frictionless in terms of being
able to reach people.
And what happened then is I gotasked to speak at an event at
the JJ Hill Library here or nothere, but in St Paul and that
(14:06):
sparked off me starting to givepresentations about okay, here's
what a thing is, here's what itmeans to you and here's what
you should do next.
So being helpful, creatinghelpful content for the audience
that you're trying to sell to,is probably one of the most
important starting points ofstarting a business, I think,
(14:29):
because you're creating valuefor why they will ultimately
want to buy from you.
You know what I mean.
And if you're helpful tosomeone, they appreciate it.
And now, if you're lucky enoughto have a personality and have
charisma which I don't, but lotsof people do put that on camera
and put that out throughInstagram or Snapchat, a TikTok
(14:53):
or whatever channel and LinkedIn, depending on what audience
you're after you can really makea lot of progress efficiently
at connecting with your audienceand getting that business going
.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
That makes a ton of sense and it's interesting to me
that that would work forsomebody just starting out and
even a larger, a much largercompany.
As someone who's, like you said, an introvert, which so you get
your, you kind of recharge themprobably more by being alone
when, after you've been aroundlike large crowds of people.
I know that's how I relate toit, because I consider myself an
(15:27):
introvert too In the way that Irecharge.
I love people and I lovegetting out and talking to
people, but then often I need tobe in a windowless room in my
house.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
The best analogy I heard was from Simon Sinek, who
said you know, an introvertwalks into a party and has five
coins to spend and they'respending their social battery,
so to speak, or spending theirsocial currency, and then it's
gone.
They've got to go, but for anextrovert, they're making those
coins, they're earning thosecoins.
They're getting energized fromthe social interaction and that
(16:00):
I can relate to that.
When I'm in a situation whereI'm giving a presentation and
I'm presented, you know,obviously, to rooms small as 10,
20 people to over a thousand.
That's exciting.
I can't tell you how powerfulthe energy is of having a huge
audience leaning forward, payingattention, raising their phones
, taking photos of your slides.
That's exciting, right, but anhour later I need to go check
(16:27):
out.
It's very draining.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So what do you do when you check out?
How do you recharge?
Because it's again.
You were talking about a coupledecades of traveling and
presenting and really connectingwith people in an impactful way
.
That's a lot of energy.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So I'll often schedule meetings with someone I
really want to spend time witha customer, one of my coworkers
that has to be at the event, orjust a friend in the industry,
and that's often how I'llrecharge Is that a one-on-one
interaction after the event.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And it is possible then to be an introvert and
still go out and market and doall those marketing, because
that's kind of sometimes thefeedback I'll hear, even from
other people in real estate,where you're your own brand and
you're building something, isthey're like well, I don't want
to do videos or I don't want tobe on camera and you don't have
to.
It's not.
(17:26):
It's not the.
If you don't do it, you can'tbe successful, but it's such an
easier way of getting a messageout there.
It's.
Was it difficult for you at all?
Is it something you just gotused to or you just enjoyed this
, being able to be in front ofpeople and share something and
get that energy back?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Initially it was a functional thing.
It's just like, look, this isnot productive.
I'm doing two-on-one,two-on-two pitching.
Let me speak to a group ofpeople how many customers can we
attract that way?
And once I started to see thatproductivity, it became like,
okay, I can deal with this.
And then as time went on and Igot a little better and got
(18:04):
positive feedback and got betterat creating value for people
and ultimately really creatingtapping into the community of
marketers that are out there.
Being part of something biggerthan yourself and being
recognized that's supermotivating.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Have you ever had a time where you've ever not
wanted to go out and do that?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Do you ever find yourself in a situation where,
because you do it so much, Well,now I've hired a new CEO at our
agency and I'm not reallyresponsible for.
So yeah, right now, in a way,I'm not really responsible for
being the face of the agencyanymore.
I do have a couple of speakingthings coming up.
I've got one in Slovenia allthe places.
(18:53):
I can't recommend Sloveniaenough as a place.
If you're a foodie, it'sactually an incredible place
Anyway, but I'm not reallyresponsible so for that function
anymore.
So, yeah, I'm comfortable notgoing out and doing that if I
don't have to.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
So that's kind of a nice transition for you versus
you've not had to get used tonot being that person.
It's more welcomed.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, and it was a transition for me.
To be honest, most peopleassociate their identity with
what they do for work, and so mywork has changed quite a bit
when I've hired my replacementand I'm still working with our
CEO.
But the nature of my work as aface of the company and doing
(19:41):
public speaking and being outthere has transitioned quite a
bit, and that transition wasn'tjust the function of doing the
work or not doing that kind ofwork anymore, but also mentally
thinking about okay, now what amI doing?
I know what I'm doing, but youreflect on that.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, Do you think you reevaluate that question of
what do I wanna be when I growup?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, I think it's a good thing for people to reflect
on actually periodically, evenif they're in the middle of
their career.
Is this what I wanna be doing?
Where do I get satisfaction?
Where am I making the mostcontribution?
I love the question of if moneywas no object, what would you
(20:30):
be doing?
Yeah, yeah and go find a way togo.
Do that.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, so what would you be doing if money was no
object?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Well, that's a really good question.
I think I love the idea.
One of my favorite things thatI got to do when I was CEO at
our agency was do this, dointerviews with other people and
basically shine a light onpeople in the industry and
elevate or lift up people andwork in the industry.
(21:00):
And that's interesting to me.
The relationships I didn'tthink that would, the
relationships that have resultedas a consequence of that.
That wasn't the objective, butwhat has happened as a result.
That has been amazing.
The connections I've been ableto make people who are so smart
(21:21):
and so passionate.
About 14 years ago, excuse me,I was put on a list of marketers
that rock or something likethat, and I was looking at this
list and I was like there's nowomen on this list.
And I thought that was reallyweird and so, off the top of my
head, I made a list of 25 womenwho were kicking ass and
(21:42):
marketing and I published it onour blog and boom, I was like
wow, that was interesting, okay.
And then I started the nextyear.
I thought I think I'm gonna dothat list again, but I'm gonna
go back to the people that wereon it and have them nominate
someone else, oh yeah.
And so every year for the last14 years, I've been recognizing
(22:05):
people, meeting them, learningabout what kind of work they're
doing, and that has resulted insome really amazing
relationships and also communityin a sense, because a lot of
these folks are connecting witheach other and they're like oh,
you were on Lee's list.
I was on Lee's list too, and atthe time maybe they were a
director of marketing at amid-market company and now
(22:25):
there's CMO at a Fortune 500 orFortune 1000.
And it's like they had to workharder to get where they are.
They had the stories, theaccomplishments that I've
learned about from thatcommunity has really been
inspiring to me.
So doing that kind of thing,something in that area, is
(22:48):
really interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I can completely see that.
I think it's such a wonderfulway to be able to take what is
an inherent talent and abilitythat you have and I know you've
learned as you've gone throughthe process and you go through
20 years and you probably pickup a few things.
But to be able to use that to,like you said, elevate another
community and other people makesperfect sense as kind of the if
(23:13):
you could do anything, whatwould you be doing?
Yeah, I'm still in marketing,which is great.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I think being able to come to the situation,
come to the conversation withsome deep experience in the
industry, but also with quite abit of empathy and, hopefully,
practical perspective on what'sreally out there in terms of
talent, what's really out therein terms of remarkable,
interesting work and innovativeideas, diversity of thought,
(23:43):
diversity of people, which I dobelieve can create strength.
It's not automatic, though.
Just because you have adiversity of people or thoughts
doesn't automatically mean it'sstronger, but it can definitely
become much stronger than ifyou're in those siloed thinking
(24:04):
or legacy status quo trains ofthought.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
It's interesting to hear you talk about it in the
industry, because it seems thatit's like my takeaway is the way
that, as you moved through it,you have found the things that
work.
You've found the things thatare helpful.
When you're working withsomebody, a client, or you're
writing a blog and you'retalking about providing help,
doing things that are helpful,is it something that you look at
(24:30):
and go well, I think they coulduse this or do you have other
means of finding out?
What is it?
Because you know what I'msaying.
Sometimes you show up.
I know I've had this happen toit.
I might think selling my childa house was an experience like
that.
My daughter is gonna buy ahouse.
Well, of course I'm gonna helpher buy a house.
She did not wanna buy any ofthe homes I thought she should
(24:53):
buy and I realized I would neverhave done that to a client that
wasn't my child and I'm likewhoa, what I think you need,
what, how I think I'm helpingyou, is obviously not helping
you, and I had to really kind ofput the brakes on and listen to
her on what it is that she andher husband felt that they
(25:14):
needed and how I could behelpful in that really hard as a
parent.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, and you're describing something that is
super, super common marketers,brand marketers, even some
agency people coming to thetable with here's what I think,
and not using data, and that isyou asked about.
Well, where do you get thoseideas about how to create value,
how to create connection andthat sort of thing content?
(25:41):
And you can get customerinsights through data and
understand what questions.
What we think of it is wecreate what we call best answer
content strategies.
What is the best answer?
We wanna become the best answerfor what your buyers are
looking for, and so you've gottause data about what are they in
(26:03):
our case, what are theysearching on?
What are they talking about onthe social web?
What questions are they askingin forums and special interest
groups?
And we capture those things.
It's like they're not typing in, like in my case, they're not
typing in B2B influencermarketing agency.
And they're like how to workwith influencers.
What are good examples ofinfluencers in B2B technology?
(26:25):
You know they're asking longerand longer questions, and so you
can use data to understand whatdoes the buyer actually wanna
know?
And then, of course, you giveit to them, and you give it to
them in the formats that theyprefer, and there's a sort of
information journey that existswithin especially B2B marketing,
where you have someunderstanding of how buyers
(26:45):
discover content or channelsright, social and ads and email
and people that they areinfluenced by, but also what are
the preferences for contentconsumption.
So you have to understand thetopics that are of interest,
like I was just talking about,but also the formats.
So is it video Business buyersdon't just turn off at 5 pm,
(27:06):
they're still going to otherchannels.
So, as Instagram makes sense,this TikTok makes sense for B2B
actually turns out it does, butit's a different kind of content
that would be on LinkedIn.
And then the third thing thatyou're empathizing about is
what's gonna motivate them totake action.
So that means how do I get themfrom understanding what is a
thing to well, okay, what doesit mean for me?
And then that, what do I donext?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
So when you say finding out, like getting data
using data, I guess it dependson the business.
You said that sometimes peoplelook to social media to find out
what people are asking aboutsurveys, things like that.
Well, social monitoring tools.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Sprinkler is a great one and, in the past of years,
tools like BuzzSumo, seo toolsGoogle itself has some.
If you're a paid advertiser,you have access to the keyword
research tool, but there are SEOkeyword research tools like
SEMrush or Ahrefs.
There's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
You speak in Japanese now?
Yeah, sorry, sorry.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
But there are companies that collect data and,
yes, you're on the internet,your data's being collected so
anonymously, of course, but thenthat information can be used.
You can also tap into platformsthat offer advertising, so
LinkedIn and Facebook andYouTube offer advertising and
(28:29):
there's information you can getabout demographically,
firmographically, about who'sthere and what are they doing,
and you can kind of use thatinsight to decide whether it
makes sense, maybe for you topublish videos there about the
topic at hand.
So it's tools, yeah, and thatyou can use to answer those
(28:50):
questions for your customers.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Makes so much sense, and I like what you said, too,
about what type of platformsmake sense and that the content
that you share on Instagrammight not be the content you
share on LinkedIn, exactly.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
And LinkedIn might be .
Here's a new product launch.
It's like very explicit, Likehere's a new thing that's
happening at our company.
And then on Instagram it's abehind the scenes, Like here's
how we made that really coolvideo.
Or here's what's behind makingthe solution that we do.
Or here's an interview with acustomer talking about their
personal journey with how ourcompany or our product is.
(29:27):
Their services help them.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
What if I wanted to use interpretive dance?
That would probably be TikTokyeah.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Well, I'm sure there's an AI platform that
could construct an interpretivedance for you.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
No doubt Do you think again, as someone you've done
this for such a long time, thatyou've seen the changes with the
internet and especially withsocial media and this might not
be a simple answer or questionWould you say that, with the
advent of social media and theway that so many more people can
(29:59):
have a platform and share interms of a business, is that a?
Do you think it's been abenefit for businesses in terms
of marketing?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
You can reach more people as the phone been you
know useful for communications.
Absolutely, absolutely.
The companies of all sizes Imean virtually every person is
connecting through some socialapp of some kind, and, of course
, kids now and for years, havebeen growing up on them, and so
(30:29):
it's their understanding of howto connect with people that are
important to them, yeah, andinformation that is important to
them.
So you know, if you want toconnect with your customers, you
need to be where your customersare.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, that is, that's so true and often the case.
Again, going back to like withreal estate, getting in front of
people on social media, andit's really neat to see people,
even other business owners, kindof start out and you can tell
they're a little shy about it.
But then when they getcomfortable, especially when
they're sharing what they knowI'm fortunate to be able to talk
to so many business owners thatare so good at doing what they
(31:07):
do that when you get themtalking about it, it's like,
well, that's exactly what youjust got a video and put out on
social media, what you just said.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, exactly, you know we've told I mean it
doesn't have to be toocomplicated, especially when
people are starting out and justanswering buyer questions, as I
mentioned before.
You know you find you can.
Of course, I was recommendingusing tools and even, by the way
, I didn't mention ChatGPT it'sa gold mine for finding out data
like that.
But if you're answeringquestions every day, you know
(31:36):
you're answering questions ofyour co-workers or of your
customers.
Start documenting those andthen you know you can do that on
video right.
Or you could sit there with aco-worker and just have a
conversation and record it aboutwhat are some of the top
questions that came up with yourcustomers today.
Go ahead and make a video outof that.
That could be really, reallyuseful to a potential buyer.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, is that part of what your company does too,
working with businesses to helpthem?
It's to create their content.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
But when you say content, you mean all content,
all content Written contentvideo yeah, video content, audio
content, text content, ofcourse, interactive Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Do you have people in the company then that where
their job is to show them how touse these different social
platforms.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Our job is to use the social platforms to execute a
marketing function, as opposedto teaching the client how to
use those platforms.
Sure, and to be honest, we'reworking with mostly large
enterprise companies, so theyalready have access to all these
platforms.
They already have people whoknow how to use these platforms,
but they're very sophisticatedplatforms and they only have so
(32:38):
many people to get the thingsdone.
So it makes a lot of sense, forthe price of one head count, to
hire an agency like us that canbring a whole team into the
situation with long expertiseover a portfolio of different
clients solving difficultproblems, to use those tools to
get the job done.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah.
And two with marketing withyour company.
You mentioned working withinfluencers of different types.
That's obviously somethingthat's changed from probably
when you first started and werefirst in the business.
Yeah, what has that been likewhen each of these changes occur
, You're going along and thensuddenly influencer marketing is
definitely a thing.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yeah, especially in B2B.
You know, back in 2011, we wereinvited by Dell to help them
create what they wanted to bethe Forbes of the IT world
called Tech Page One.
Wow, we had to find influencerstech influencers who would
commit to writing a monthlycolumn, and that, plus some
(33:43):
other things we were doing forourselves, was really our entree
into working with influencers,but in a B2B sense, and it just
wasn't common at the time.
It was mostly public relations.
The public relations functionwithin a company is who would
engage with influencers oranalysts or members of the media
or something like that.
Fast forward to today, andwe've done I can't tell you how
(34:05):
many influencer programs forlarge B2B companies.
I mean LinkedIn, for example.
We're running an influencerprogram for LinkedIn.
In fact, we've been doing workfor LinkedIn for nine years now
and this is identifying peoplewho have the attention and trust
of the audience that you'reafter and partnering with them
to co-create content.
So it's very different than B2C, where B2C, you've got someone
(34:29):
who's that's business tocustomer.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
yeah, business to customer so you've got someone
who is a TikTok influencer andthey're very charismatic and
they've already got a communityand a channel and the brand will
hire them to make content thatthey publish on their channel,
hopefully promoting theirproduct In a B2B sense.
Most of what happens is thatthe content is co-created, so
the influencers contribute someinsights of some kind.
(34:52):
That content then is combinedwith the brand content and
published on the B2B brandchannel, so on their blog, on
their website, on their YouTube,Instagram or whatever and then
hopefully the influencer or ifyou pay them, they'll promote
and then it reaches theiraudience.
And anytime you pay aninfluencer, of course there has
(35:12):
to be a disclaimer that this isan ad or a compensated action,
or something like that.
But there's lots ofopportunities to be creative.
A lot of people think of B2B asstanding for boring to boring,
and in many cases it's awell-earned reputation, and so
that's why I think thatincorporating influencers who
have really strong mediacreation skills, that are really
(35:33):
good in front of the camera,good at creating video and audio
, and those things can really bea differentiator and at least
that's what we found that goesabove and beyond what the brand
can do on its own.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
That makes so much sense.
It's so fascinating.
I think I could talk about thisfor hours, but we have to wrap
it up because after this I haveto ask Lee to help me write a
whole marketing plan for mybrokerage.
What we're locking you in, okay?
Well, thank you so much forcoming and sharing.
I think it's such a great topicand hopefully people,
(36:05):
especially people who arethinking about doing something
and getting a business goingjust do it.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Just do it yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
But find out what people need help with and
provide it.
It's kind of seems so simple,but true.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Create content that's useful to people.
Build a community first, andthen think about what you can
offer them in terms ofmonetization.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I love it.
I have so much homework to doafter listening to you.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Well, thank you again .
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
And everybody else.
I will talk to you later.
My guest today is a leader in business to business
marketing.
His name is Lee Oden and he'sgoing to share with us ways that
you can get the word out whenyou're a brand or you're a
business to your community, andalso how you can engage and grow
that community and make realconnection with the people that
you're working with or workingfor.
I'm Natalie Webster and this isTonka Talk, where we share the
(00:23):
ways people create community andconnection.
Lee Oden has been recognized asa top business to business
marketing professional by Forbes, the Economist, the Wall Street
Journal.
For over 20 years he's workedwith his team at Top Rank
Marketing to help elevate thebusiness to business marketing
industry.
You are an impressive dude Onpaper, on paper, on paper.
(00:48):
But also Lee is the author ofOptimize and has published over
1.4 million words on youragency's marketing blog.
That blew my mind too, becausethat's a lot of words.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, when I was talking tothe acquisition editor at Wiley
to publish that book, they werelike, look, it's 60,000 words
and I'm thinking, god, that's alot of words.
And then I started thinkingabout well, I've been blogging
for so many years, I wonder howmany words I've written on this
blog.
And that's where I figured out1.4 million, or whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Wow, so you just took the word count from all the
blog posts.
Wow, I should do that.
I should see.
I wonder how much.
There's definitely not thatmuch, but it's something to
strive for.
You also, I read, or featuredin, a book called Online
Marketing Heroes.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, I had to razz you about that.
How does?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
it feel to be an online marketing hero.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
That was.
Yeah, that was a little blipand just a small moment in time
where some fellow decided well,why should he write a book when
he can get 20 other people towrite the book for him?
Genius, yeah, Just a piece totheir ego.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I like it, though you know the book I.
I too am featured in the book.
Yes, not to toot my own horn,it's called School Lunches and
it was written by a woman out ofNew York, and it's the way.
It's the different, the waythat people experience school
lunch growing up.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
And I grew up in Hawaii and I'm a huge fan of
Spam Musubi, which has got ricespam wrapped in the Nori.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
I don't recall exactly how we connected, but
she came out to Minnesota and Ikind of thought it was.
I don't even know if I knew forsure what it was, but a year
later I get this book in themail and I'm like, oh my gosh,
it was a real thing.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So I've now.
What would you say?
How would you describe what youdo with business to business
marketing?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So, you know, top-ranked marketing is the
agency that I co-founded, andyou know we're 21 years old and
what we do for technology B2Btechnology companies is helping
get them more customers.
So you have companies likeAdobe, linkedin, sap, oracle,
(03:11):
you know, so, on and so forth.
Those companies are sellingvery high priced things that
take a long time to educatecustomers about, and so it's a
different kind of marketing, andso what we do is we create
content, we create community andconnection and engagement with
potential buyers and help themguide themselves through the
(03:31):
sales journey, which could befive months, 18 months long, and
ultimately help them make theright choice and buy from our
customer.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
You've been doing this.
You've I read, you've done over300 presentations in over 19
countries.
When you go into differentcountries with all of these
different cultures, I waswondering, how does that
translate being an Americancoming in you?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
know it's interesting and, by the way, I just hit 20.
This summer.
I did my first presentation inParis and initially I think the
first other country I spoke inwas London, so it was easy.
English, english cultures arevery similar so it wasn't too
different, I didn't have tomodify so much.
But then when I've spokenBarcelona, you know here now
(04:23):
it's what I thought were Spanishspeakers and you know I tried,
I translated my wholepresentation into Spanish, I'm
sorry, into Catalan.
Actually Catalan is what theyspeak in Barcelona largely and
and apparently I offended a lotof people who are from other
(04:47):
cities visiting Barcelona thatspeak primarily Spanish.
So Spanish and Catalan are acontentious thing in the area.
So I learned quickly, not justbecause of that but because of
other interactions, that whenother countries have you come in
as an expert, they're notlooking for you to you know,
customize to their local marketso much, unless that's the
(05:08):
context for which you are hiredor engaged, because they're
looking for, in my case, theAmerican coming over with
American experience and thatdepth of budget and you know,
money that's being spent inAmerican marketing programs.
What can they learn?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
That makes sense.
They kind of that's exactlywhat they want.
Is that American experience?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, they want to know what's happening in the US.
What can we learn from whatthey're doing in a place where
there's so much more money beingspent in different ways, and
how can they gain insights andduplicate the things that are
working and don't do the thingsthat are not?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Do you think that they that when they market, that
they market differently?
Because when I think aboutdifferent cultures, when you go
and you're gonna visit a place,whether you're gonna go to
Europe, you know, don't wear thewhite tennis shoes with the
black socks.
It's just, there's usuallythings that you, you would
change in your behavior or whatyou do.
How this excitement over howbeing really excited on often
(06:08):
about an American coming andsharing that American experience
, was that something that?
I mean, is it really reallylike that?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
In terms of me participating at an event.
Yeah, because a lot of.
I mean I've spoken in placeslike Latvia, bucharest, so Riga,
latvia and Bucharest, romania,moscow, I mean a lot of
different places, and so they'renot seeing a lot of American
business people very often andthey're very curious to learn
(06:40):
about what things that areunique and special.
That you bring to the table so,but I learned a lot about how
they market differently there intheir local markets and most
often most cases I was speakingin European areas, geographies,
and they'd always say almostself depreciatingly, that you
(07:04):
know there are two, three, four,five years behind what's going
on in the US.
You know what I mean.
So, like in the US, it'sdigital, as you know, hardcore
digital.
That's where things arehappening in.
Covid accelerated thetransformation of marketing into
digital for B2B more thananything, Whereas there they
still have outside sales repsknocking on doors In some cases.
(07:27):
There's a lot more in-persontypes of interactions and that
sort of thing, Not as much inthe digital space.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
You don't see too many people going door to door
these days or knocking on doors,and if they do, you read about
it on the next door app.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, especially in the consumer space.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, Even being in real estate.
There are some realtors who dodoor knocking and it's worked
well for them.
I've not done it because I'mterrified of being chased off
somebody's property.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I can't imagine.
Do you want to sell your house?
Do you want to list your house?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Who are you?
Then there's the whole thingwith the animals and everything
too, so you never know who has adog that's going to go at you.
Have you in?
All of you've done so muchtraveling.
Are there any places that standout to you where you would go
back and maybe visit there,vacation there?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well, I can say that in terms of other countries, the
cities I mean I love London alot and I've been back to London
25 times at least Sydney,australia, new Zealand were
pretty, not so much Sydney, moreNew Zealand, the South part of
(08:41):
the island.
And New Zealand was prettyawesome In terms of being
different than what I wasexpecting or just a different
environment.
It was the Eastern Bloccountries.
So going to I was in college, Iwent to, I was going to school
in Denmark and we did springbreak in Leningrad, oh wow.
So that was 1988, a long timeago.
(09:01):
I was still called to Leningradat the time and so I was able
to speak in Moscow and then, Imean, on that old trip, I went
to Moscow as well.
But going to somewhere likeMoscow was pretty interesting.
When I was there originally itwas just very gray and just I
don't know, it was justnon-eventful.
(09:22):
You know what I mean?
Just big, monolithic buildingsand expressionless people in
public, no smiles or anythinglike that, and I was wondering
what it would be like.
So why did a workshop there andI presented all day and then at
the end I'm like, ok, I'm goingto walk to Red Square.
It's a quarter mile away.
I've got to see Red Squarebefore I fall asleep because of
jet lag and I walked to RedSquare and I was thinking I was
(09:45):
going to be this gray monolithicbuilding kind of situation.
What was in the corner of RedSquare?
You know where, you've seenvideos in the past of those
Russian troops and the missileswalking by.
There was a Louis Vuitton bagabout two stories high, like
some installation, promoting theLouis Vuitton store.
So currently along one side ofRed Square it's a big mall
(10:08):
called the GUM G-U-M GUM malland Louis Vuitton is an anchor
store there.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Wow, who would have thought?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I never no.
And so there were pockets inMoscow that were very Las Vegas,
to be honest, and then therewere other areas, just like it
was in 1988.
Wow, so that was an interestingplace.
Almost like a time capsule inways, but it's changed a lot now
today, yeah, and the first timeI was required that I had to
have a guide.
(10:35):
We had to have a guideeverywhere we went, whereas this
time it was only recommended.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Oh Well, there you go .
Do you think that withmarketing, and specifically
you've done so much withbusiness to business marketing,
if someone is listening to thisand they want to maybe start
their own business and getsomething going, how is there a
way to?
It's such a broad questionBecause I know what you do is on
(11:01):
such a large scale, but whatwould you say?
What kind of advice would yougive people when they're
thinking about I want to buildmy own brand around my company,
around myself?
If that's the person deliveringthe services, are there things
that you would say that wouldkind of encourage them or kind
of give them a starting point?
Because I think that's a bigpart of I know what I hear from
(11:22):
people when they talk about oh,I really want to get into this,
or I would really love to open abusiness that does this, and I
was like, well, then, go ahead,go do it.
You go do it, and a lot of itis like well, but I have to have
this figured out, and there isa lot to figure out ahead of
time sometimes.
But I think there's also somefear of putting yourself out
(11:42):
there, and so what advice wouldyou give someone who wanted to
start their own business interms of marketing themselves
and maybe even kind ofovercoming that fear, because I
feel, with so much of what youdo, it's the whole lead a horse
to water kind of a thing as well.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Well, it's kind of an interesting thing because
there's a lot of people thatthink about how great it would
be to go start.
In fact, right now there's alot of folks in the I guess Gen
Z age group where it's justdon't want to follow the and I'm
making a generalization butdon't want to follow the
traditional career route andthey want to get things more
(12:22):
quickly and there's a lot ofopportunities through the
internet, through digital means,to monetize right and so,
whether it's that way ortraditional, obviously if
someone's got the idea that theywant to start a business, they
must have some competency orsome skill or have identified an
unmet need in the marketplacethat they want to make money on.
(12:42):
But it's important that theonly way to turn that into a
business, of course, is toconnect with customers and the
way for customers to understandwho you are, you've got to
create content.
So that's my answer.
It's about content creation.
I can reflect on what I did inmy business and maybe I'm still
an introvert, but I was verymuch an introverted person and
(13:03):
started out literally just coldcalling and it was just a
desperate way to like, hey,we're selling marketing services
and we get meetings, and mypartner and I would go pitch
someone in an office somewherejust the two of us and one or
two of them and it was a verylaborious and low close rate
(13:23):
kind of thing.
And so I got the idea of like,well, ok, I'm going to start
blogging, I'm going to startwriting about what it is that we
do and why people need to thinkabout this as a way to go
forward and how it might bebetter for them.
And as I started writing aboutthis, other people would react
and I would interact, and so itbecame very because it was
(13:43):
published online as a blog andit could be done through social
now or through video or whatever.
It was easily accessible,frictionless in terms of being
able to reach people.
And what happened then is I gotasked to speak at an event at
the JJ Hill Library here or nothere, but in St Paul and that
(14:06):
sparked off me starting to givepresentations about okay, here's
what a thing is, here's what itmeans to you and here's what
you should do next.
So being helpful, creatinghelpful content for the audience
that you're trying to sell to,is probably one of the most
important starting points ofstarting a business, I think,
(14:29):
because you're creating valuefor why they will ultimately
want to buy from you.
You know what I mean.
And if you're helpful tosomeone, they appreciate it.
And now, if you're lucky enoughto have a personality and have
charisma which I don't, but lotsof people do put that on camera
and put that out throughInstagram or Snapchat, a TikTok
(14:53):
or whatever channel and LinkedIn, depending on what audience
you're after you can really makea lot of progress efficiently
at connecting with your audienceand getting that business going
.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
That makes a ton of sense and it's interesting to me
that that would work forsomebody just starting out and
even a larger, a much largercompany.
As someone who's, like you said, an introvert, which so you get
your, you kind of recharge themprobably more by being alone
when, after you've been aroundlike large crowds of people.
I know that's how I relate toit, because I consider myself an
(15:27):
introvert too In the way that Irecharge.
I love people and I lovegetting out and talking to
people, but then often I need tobe in a windowless room in my
house.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
The best analogy I heard was from Simon Sinek, who
said you know, an introvertwalks into a party and has five
coins to spend and they'respending their social battery,
so to speak, or spending theirsocial currency, and then it's
gone.
They've got to go, but for anextrovert, they're making those
coins, they're earning thosecoins.
They're getting energized fromthe social interaction and that
(16:00):
I can relate to that.
When I'm in a situation whereI'm giving a presentation and
I'm presented, you know,obviously, to rooms small as 10,
20 people to over a thousand.
That's exciting.
I can't tell you how powerfulthe energy is of having a huge
audience leaning forward, payingattention, raising their phones
, taking photos of your slides.
That's exciting, right, but anhour later I need to go check
(16:27):
out.
It's very draining.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So what do you do when you check out?
How do you recharge?
Because it's again.
You were talking about a coupledecades of traveling and
presenting and really connectingwith people in an impactful way
.
That's a lot of energy.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So I'll often schedule meetings with someone I
really want to spend time witha customer, one of my coworkers
that has to be at the event, orjust a friend in the industry,
and that's often how I'llrecharge Is that a one-on-one
interaction after the event.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And it is possible then to be an introvert and
still go out and market and doall those marketing, because
that's kind of sometimes thefeedback I'll hear, even from
other people in real estate,where you're your own brand and
you're building something, isthey're like well, I don't want
to do videos or I don't want tobe on camera and you don't have
to.
It's not.
(17:26):
It's not the.
If you don't do it, you can'tbe successful, but it's such an
easier way of getting a messageout there.
It's.
Was it difficult for you at all?
Is it something you just gotused to or you just enjoyed this
, being able to be in front ofpeople and share something and
get that energy back?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Initially it was a functional thing.
It's just like, look, this isnot productive.
I'm doing two-on-one,two-on-two pitching.
Let me speak to a group ofpeople how many customers can we
attract that way?
And once I started to see thatproductivity, it became like,
okay, I can deal with this.
And then as time went on and Igot a little better and got
(18:04):
positive feedback and got betterat creating value for people
and ultimately really creatingtapping into the community of
marketers that are out there.
Being part of something biggerthan yourself and being
recognized that's supermotivating.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Have you ever had a time where you've ever not
wanted to go out and do that?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Do you ever find yourself in a situation where,
because you do it so much, Well,now I've hired a new CEO at our
agency and I'm not reallyresponsible for.
So yeah, right now, in a way,I'm not really responsible for
being the face of the agencyanymore.
I do have a couple of speakingthings coming up.
I've got one in Slovenia allthe places.
(18:53):
I can't recommend Sloveniaenough as a place.
If you're a foodie, it'sactually an incredible place
Anyway, but I'm not reallyresponsible so for that function
anymore.
So, yeah, I'm comfortable notgoing out and doing that if I
don't have to.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
So that's kind of a nice transition for you versus
you've not had to get used tonot being that person.
It's more welcomed.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, and it was a transition for me.
To be honest, most peopleassociate their identity with
what they do for work, and so mywork has changed quite a bit
when I've hired my replacementand I'm still working with our
CEO.
But the nature of my work as aface of the company and doing
(19:41):
public speaking and being outthere has transitioned quite a
bit, and that transition wasn'tjust the function of doing the
work or not doing that kind ofwork anymore, but also mentally
thinking about okay, now what amI doing?
I know what I'm doing, but youreflect on that.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, Do you think you reevaluate that question of
what do I wanna be when I growup?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, I think it's a good thing for people to reflect
on actually periodically, evenif they're in the middle of
their career.
Is this what I wanna be doing?
Where do I get satisfaction?
Where am I making the mostcontribution?
I love the question of if moneywas no object, what would you
(20:30):
be doing?
Yeah, yeah and go find a way togo.
Do that.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, so what would you be doing if money was no
object?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Well, that's a really good question.
I think I love the idea.
One of my favorite things thatI got to do when I was CEO at
our agency was do this, dointerviews with other people and
basically shine a light onpeople in the industry and
elevate or lift up people andwork in the industry.
(21:00):
And that's interesting to me.
The relationships I didn'tthink that would, the
relationships that have resultedas a consequence of that.
That wasn't the objective, butwhat has happened as a result.
That has been amazing.
The connections I've been ableto make people who are so smart
(21:21):
and so passionate.
About 14 years ago, excuse me,I was put on a list of marketers
that rock or something likethat, and I was looking at this
list and I was like there's nowomen on this list.
And I thought that was reallyweird and so, off the top of my
head, I made a list of 25 womenwho were kicking ass and
(21:42):
marketing and I published it onour blog and boom, I was like
wow, that was interesting, okay.
And then I started the nextyear.
I thought I think I'm gonna dothat list again, but I'm gonna
go back to the people that wereon it and have them nominate
someone else, oh yeah.
And so every year for the last14 years, I've been recognizing
(22:05):
people, meeting them, learningabout what kind of work they're
doing, and that has resulted insome really amazing
relationships and also communityin a sense, because a lot of
these folks are connecting witheach other and they're like oh,
you were on Lee's list.
I was on Lee's list too, and atthe time maybe they were a
director of marketing at amid-market company and now
(22:25):
there's CMO at a Fortune 500 orFortune 1000.
And it's like they had to workharder to get where they are.
They had the stories, theaccomplishments that I've
learned about from thatcommunity has really been
inspiring to me.
So doing that kind of thing,something in that area, is
(22:48):
really interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I can completely see that.
I think it's such a wonderfulway to be able to take what is
an inherent talent and abilitythat you have and I know you've
learned as you've gone throughthe process and you go through
20 years and you probably pickup a few things.
But to be able to use that to,like you said, elevate another
community and other people makesperfect sense as kind of the if
(23:13):
you could do anything, whatwould you be doing?
Yeah, I'm still in marketing,which is great.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I think being able to come to the situation,
come to the conversation withsome deep experience in the
industry, but also with quite abit of empathy and, hopefully,
practical perspective on what'sreally out there in terms of
talent, what's really out therein terms of remarkable,
interesting work and innovativeideas, diversity of thought,
(23:43):
diversity of people, which I dobelieve can create strength.
It's not automatic, though.
Just because you have adiversity of people or thoughts
doesn't automatically mean it'sstronger, but it can definitely
become much stronger than ifyou're in those siloed thinking
(24:04):
or legacy status quo trains ofthought.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
It's interesting to hear you talk about it in the
industry, because it seems thatit's like my takeaway is the way
that, as you moved through it,you have found the things that
work.
You've found the things thatare helpful.
When you're working withsomebody, a client, or you're
writing a blog and you'retalking about providing help,
doing things that are helpful,is it something that you look at
(24:30):
and go well, I think they coulduse this or do you have other
means of finding out?
What is it?
Because you know what I'msaying.
Sometimes you show up.
I know I've had this happen toit.
I might think selling my childa house was an experience like
that.
My daughter is gonna buy ahouse.
Well, of course I'm gonna helpher buy a house.
She did not wanna buy any ofthe homes I thought she should
(24:53):
buy and I realized I would neverhave done that to a client that
wasn't my child and I'm likewhoa, what I think you need,
what, how I think I'm helpingyou, is obviously not helping
you, and I had to really kind ofput the brakes on and listen to
her on what it is that she andher husband felt that they
(25:14):
needed and how I could behelpful in that really hard as a
parent.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, and you're describing something that is
super, super common marketers,brand marketers, even some
agency people coming to thetable with here's what I think,
and not using data, and that isyou asked about.
Well, where do you get thoseideas about how to create value,
how to create connection andthat sort of thing content?
(25:41):
And you can get customerinsights through data and
understand what questions.
What we think of it is wecreate what we call best answer
content strategies.
What is the best answer?
We wanna become the best answerfor what your buyers are
looking for, and so you've gottause data about what are they in
(26:03):
our case, what are theysearching on?
What are they talking about onthe social web?
What questions are they askingin forums and special interest
groups?
And we capture those things.
It's like they're not typing in, like in my case, they're not
typing in B2B influencermarketing agency.
And they're like how to workwith influencers.
What are good examples ofinfluencers in B2B technology?
(26:25):
You know they're asking longerand longer questions, and so you
can use data to understand whatdoes the buyer actually wanna
know?
And then, of course, you giveit to them, and you give it to
them in the formats that theyprefer, and there's a sort of
information journey that existswithin especially B2B marketing,
where you have someunderstanding of how buyers
(26:45):
discover content or channelsright, social and ads and email
and people that they areinfluenced by, but also what are
the preferences for contentconsumption.
So you have to understand thetopics that are of interest,
like I was just talking about,but also the formats.
So is it video Business buyersdon't just turn off at 5 pm,
(27:06):
they're still going to otherchannels.
So, as Instagram makes sense,this TikTok makes sense for B2B
actually turns out it does, butit's a different kind of content
that would be on LinkedIn.
And then the third thing thatyou're empathizing about is
what's gonna motivate them totake action.
So that means how do I get themfrom understanding what is a
thing to well, okay, what doesit mean for me?
And then that, what do I donext?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
So when you say finding out, like getting data
using data, I guess it dependson the business.
You said that sometimes peoplelook to social media to find out
what people are asking aboutsurveys, things like that.
Well, social monitoring tools.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Sprinkler is a great one and, in the past of years,
tools like BuzzSumo, seo toolsGoogle itself has some.
If you're a paid advertiser,you have access to the keyword
research tool, but there are SEOkeyword research tools like
SEMrush or Ahrefs.
There's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
You speak in Japanese now?
Yeah, sorry, sorry.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
But there are companies that collect data and,
yes, you're on the internet,your data's being collected so
anonymously, of course, but thenthat information can be used.
You can also tap into platformsthat offer advertising, so
LinkedIn and Facebook andYouTube offer advertising and
(28:29):
there's information you can getabout demographically,
firmographically, about who'sthere and what are they doing,
and you can kind of use thatinsight to decide whether it
makes sense, maybe for you topublish videos there about the
topic at hand.
So it's tools, yeah, and thatyou can use to answer those
(28:50):
questions for your customers.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Makes so much sense, and I like what you said, too,
about what type of platformsmake sense and that the content
that you share on Instagrammight not be the content you
share on LinkedIn, exactly.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
And LinkedIn might be .
Here's a new product launch.
It's like very explicit, Likehere's a new thing that's
happening at our company.
And then on Instagram it's abehind the scenes, Like here's
how we made that really coolvideo.
Or here's what's behind makingthe solution that we do.
Or here's an interview with acustomer talking about their
personal journey with how ourcompany or our product is.
(29:27):
Their services help them.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
What if I wanted to use interpretive dance?
That would probably be TikTokyeah.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Well, I'm sure there's an AI platform that
could construct an interpretivedance for you.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
No doubt Do you think again, as someone you've done
this for such a long time, thatyou've seen the changes with the
internet and especially withsocial media and this might not
be a simple answer or questionWould you say that, with the
advent of social media and theway that so many more people can
(29:59):
have a platform and share interms of a business, is that a?
Do you think it's been abenefit for businesses in terms
of marketing?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
You can reach more people as the phone been you
know useful for communications.
Absolutely, absolutely.
The companies of all sizes Imean virtually every person is
connecting through some socialapp of some kind, and, of course
, kids now and for years, havebeen growing up on them, and so
(30:29):
it's their understanding of howto connect with people that are
important to them, yeah, andinformation that is important to
them.
So you know, if you want toconnect with your customers, you
need to be where your customersare.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, that is, that's so true and often the case.
Again, going back to like withreal estate, getting in front of
people on social media, andit's really neat to see people,
even other business owners, kindof start out and you can tell
they're a little shy about it.
But then when they getcomfortable, especially when
they're sharing what they knowI'm fortunate to be able to talk
to so many business owners thatare so good at doing what they
(31:07):
do that when you get themtalking about it, it's like,
well, that's exactly what youjust got a video and put out on
social media, what you just said.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, exactly, you know we've told I mean it
doesn't have to be toocomplicated, especially when
people are starting out and justanswering buyer questions, as I
mentioned before.
You know you find you can.
Of course, I was recommendingusing tools and even, by the way
, I didn't mention ChatGPT it'sa gold mine for finding out data
like that.
But if you're answeringquestions every day, you know
(31:36):
you're answering questions ofyour co-workers or of your
customers.
Start documenting those andthen you know you can do that on
video right.
Or you could sit there with aco-worker and just have a
conversation and record it aboutwhat are some of the top
questions that came up with yourcustomers today.
Go ahead and make a video outof that.
That could be really, reallyuseful to a potential buyer.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, is that part of what your company does too,
working with businesses to helpthem?
It's to create their content.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
But when you say content, you mean all content,
all content Written contentvideo yeah, video content, audio
content, text content, ofcourse, interactive Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Do you have people in the company then that where
their job is to show them how touse these different social
platforms.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Our job is to use the social platforms to execute a
marketing function, as opposedto teaching the client how to
use those platforms.
Sure, and to be honest, we'reworking with mostly large
enterprise companies, so theyalready have access to all these
platforms.
They already have people whoknow how to use these platforms,
but they're very sophisticatedplatforms and they only have so
(32:38):
many people to get the thingsdone.
So it makes a lot of sense, forthe price of one head count, to
hire an agency like us that canbring a whole team into the
situation with long expertiseover a portfolio of different
clients solving difficultproblems, to use those tools to
get the job done.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah.
And two with marketing withyour company.
You mentioned working withinfluencers of different types.
That's obviously somethingthat's changed from probably
when you first started and werefirst in the business.
Yeah, what has that been likewhen each of these changes occur
, You're going along and thensuddenly influencer marketing is
definitely a thing.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yeah, especially in B2B.
You know, back in 2011, we wereinvited by Dell to help them
create what they wanted to bethe Forbes of the IT world
called Tech Page One.
Wow, we had to find influencerstech influencers who would
commit to writing a monthlycolumn, and that, plus some
(33:43):
other things we were doing forourselves, was really our entree
into working with influencers,but in a B2B sense, and it just
wasn't common at the time.
It was mostly public relations.
The public relations functionwithin a company is who would
engage with influencers oranalysts or members of the media
or something like that.
Fast forward to today, andwe've done I can't tell you how
(34:05):
many influencer programs forlarge B2B companies.
I mean LinkedIn, for example.
We're running an influencerprogram for LinkedIn.
In fact, we've been doing workfor LinkedIn for nine years now
and this is identifying peoplewho have the attention and trust
of the audience that you'reafter and partnering with them
to co-create content.
So it's very different than B2C, where B2C, you've got someone
(34:29):
who's that's business tocustomer.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
yeah, business to customer so you've got someone
who is a TikTok influencer andthey're very charismatic and
they've already got a communityand a channel and the brand will
hire them to make content thatthey publish on their channel,
hopefully promoting theirproduct In a B2B sense.
Most of what happens is thatthe content is co-created, so
the influencers contribute someinsights of some kind.
(34:52):
That content then is combinedwith the brand content and
published on the B2B brandchannel, so on their blog, on
their website, on their YouTube,Instagram or whatever and then
hopefully the influencer or ifyou pay them, they'll promote
and then it reaches theiraudience.
And anytime you pay aninfluencer, of course there has
(35:12):
to be a disclaimer that this isan ad or a compensated action,
or something like that.
But there's lots ofopportunities to be creative.
A lot of people think of B2B asstanding for boring to boring,
and in many cases it's awell-earned reputation, and so
that's why I think thatincorporating influencers who
have really strong mediacreation skills, that are really
(35:33):
good in front of the camera,good at creating video and audio
, and those things can really bea differentiator and at least
that's what we found that goesabove and beyond what the brand
can do on its own.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
That makes so much sense.
It's so fascinating.
I think I could talk about thisfor hours, but we have to wrap
it up because after this I haveto ask Lee to help me write a
whole marketing plan for mybrokerage.
What we're locking you in, okay?
Well, thank you so much forcoming and sharing.
I think it's such a great topicand hopefully people,
(36:05):
especially people who arethinking about doing something
and getting a business goingjust do it.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Just do it yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
But find out what people need help with and
provide it.
It's kind of seems so simple,but true.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Create content that's useful to people.
Build a community first, andthen think about what you can
offer them in terms ofmonetization.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I love it.
I have so much homework to doafter listening to you.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Well, thank you again .
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
And everybody else.
I will talk to you later.
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