#H2H 10: Humanizing B2B Marketing w/ Ardath Albee

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.559 --> 00:00:08.509 Hey there, this is James Carberry, founder of sweet fish media and one 2 00:00:08.509 --> 00:00:11.390 of the cohosts of this show. For the last year and a half I've 3 00:00:11.390 --> 00:00:15.189 been working on my very first book. In the book I share the three 4 00:00:15.230 --> 00:00:19.670 part framework we've used as the foundation for our growth here at sweetfish. Now 5 00:00:19.710 --> 00:00:23.420 there are lots of companies that everased a bunch of money and have grown insanely 6 00:00:23.460 --> 00:00:26.739 fast, and we featured a lot of them here on the show. We've 7 00:00:26.820 --> 00:00:31.379 decided to bootstrap our business, which usually equates to pretty slow growth, but 8 00:00:31.500 --> 00:00:35.179 using the strategy outlined in the book, we are on pace to be one 9 00:00:35.219 --> 00:00:39.090 of inks fastest growing companies in two thousand and twenty. The book is called 10 00:00:39.170 --> 00:00:42.929 content based networking, how to instantly connect with anyone you want to know. 11 00:00:43.490 --> 00:00:45.810 If you're a fan of audiobooks like me, you can find the book on 12 00:00:45.850 --> 00:00:48.810 audible, or if you like physical books, you can also find it on 13 00:00:48.890 --> 00:00:54.560 Amazon. Just search content based networking or James Carberry, CR be aary, 14 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:59.119 inaudible or Amazon and it should pop right up. All right, let's get 15 00:00:59.119 --> 00:01:04.829 into the show. Welcome to the B tob growth show, the human to 16 00:01:06.030 --> 00:01:11.069 humans segment. My name is Carlos Hidalgo. I am the host of this 17 00:01:11.230 --> 00:01:17.549 segment, the CEO of Vision C X and the author of the UN American 18 00:01:17.629 --> 00:01:23.019 dream. Today I am absolutely delighted to have a colleague and a longtime friend 19 00:01:23.579 --> 00:01:29.579 and someone who I just admire on the podcast. Artis all the artis. 20 00:01:29.700 --> 00:01:32.780 Welcome to the show. Thank Carlos. Thanks so much for having me. 21 00:01:33.250 --> 00:01:36.250 Absolutely, as you said before, we want on air. You and I 22 00:01:36.329 --> 00:01:40.209 could talk about anything for a very long time, so I'm just thrilled that 23 00:01:40.290 --> 00:01:44.689 we get the chance to do this and have people listen to listen to us. 24 00:01:44.730 --> 00:01:47.439 But before we get going, for those who have been living under a 25 00:01:47.519 --> 00:01:51.200 rock for the last decade plus, let us know who you are, what 26 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:56.599 you do and how you help your clients. Are Absolutely I have my own 27 00:01:56.680 --> 00:02:01.109 firm called marketing interactions, and what I do is help be to be companies 28 00:02:01.150 --> 00:02:08.469 with complex sales develop personas and persona driven content marketing strategy to convert prospects into 29 00:02:08.509 --> 00:02:13.590 buyers and convinced customers to stay so all the way through the life cycle. 30 00:02:14.189 --> 00:02:17.139 And been doing it for a long time, as you know, and I've 31 00:02:17.180 --> 00:02:22.580 also written two books about it. I love that and I love what you 32 00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:27.259 just said. Is through the life cycle I was in a conversation the other 33 00:02:27.300 --> 00:02:30.689 day with somebody said I hate that term life cycle because it connotates that there's 34 00:02:30.689 --> 00:02:35.969 an end, and I think that's just a term we use. But talk 35 00:02:36.050 --> 00:02:38.930 to me about that. How do you how do you see? Well, 36 00:02:38.129 --> 00:02:42.650 before even that, I don't want to assume that everybody knows what a persona 37 00:02:42.969 --> 00:02:45.520 is, and I use that term the other day and somebody said, what 38 00:02:45.560 --> 00:02:47.560 are you talking about, and they were in BTB. So, much to 39 00:02:47.639 --> 00:02:51.479 my surprise, we've been talking about it for a long time. Explain that 40 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:57.280 in detail. What is a persona as you define it for your client? 41 00:02:57.400 --> 00:03:01.110 It's yeah, well, think of our persona as a composite sketch of a 42 00:03:01.310 --> 00:03:07.509 target audience. And what you really want to call out about that target audience 43 00:03:07.669 --> 00:03:09.669 is all their commonalities, right, so what do they all have in common 44 00:03:09.710 --> 00:03:15.259 with each other and regards to their objectives, problems they are encountering, those 45 00:03:15.300 --> 00:03:20.219 kinds of things, because the commonalities will get you the attention of the widest 46 00:03:20.259 --> 00:03:23.659 swath of those people, right, and it helps you humanize right, understanding 47 00:03:23.780 --> 00:03:29.370 them, putting stuff in context for them. And so that's that's basically what 48 00:03:29.449 --> 00:03:34.210 what a persona is, and we need them in order to inform our content 49 00:03:34.449 --> 00:03:38.530 and and, you know, our marketing, our storylines. Thanks for describing 50 00:03:38.650 --> 00:03:43.639 that and I love that definition. So how do those or let me ask 51 00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:49.319 the question a different way. Do those personas take on different shapes or dimensions 52 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:53.080 through the life cycle? Yes, yes, they do. So picture it 53 00:03:53.199 --> 00:03:59.229 this way. When you are trying to convert a prospect into a customer, 54 00:03:59.909 --> 00:04:02.710 they're trying to solve a problem, right, that your solution hopefully helps themselves. 55 00:04:03.229 --> 00:04:09.030 Well, once they become a customer, theoretically that problems now solved, 56 00:04:09.069 --> 00:04:12.740 right, because they bought your solution. So now how do you deliver even 57 00:04:12.740 --> 00:04:15.540 more value? What do they want then, and with be to be quite 58 00:04:15.620 --> 00:04:19.540 often, the people we sell to are not the people use in your product 59 00:04:19.779 --> 00:04:23.620 and not the ones that are going to say yes, renew this or no, 60 00:04:23.779 --> 00:04:27.329 get me something else for God's Sakes. So you got to look at 61 00:04:27.370 --> 00:04:31.050 it from a different perspective, right, status quo is different, very well 62 00:04:31.170 --> 00:04:36.170 put. So really it's not just understanding, and I see this mistake made 63 00:04:36.449 --> 00:04:42.600 where, Hey, we have our buyer personas and then it's like, okay, 64 00:04:42.600 --> 00:04:45.920 they bought something and handsoff. So are you seeing that as well? 65 00:04:45.959 --> 00:04:50.920 We're a lot of companies are missing out on nurturing those relationships of their current 66 00:04:50.959 --> 00:04:55.709 customers and expanding that share of wallet. Oh, absolutely. You know, 67 00:04:55.750 --> 00:04:59.750 it's funny. I am the next book I'm working on it is about retention, 68 00:04:59.790 --> 00:05:01.389 given the change in business models. I mean, think about it. 69 00:05:01.389 --> 00:05:05.829 When I started in this business, software was a custom install right. There 70 00:05:05.870 --> 00:05:10.500 was no such thing class. You can pay a subscription to anything, and 71 00:05:10.660 --> 00:05:14.660 so it was a big, heavy duty contract with heavy duty maintenance and whatever. 72 00:05:14.740 --> 00:05:16.500 So you were locked you locked in your customers for three to five years 73 00:05:16.500 --> 00:05:19.620 or whatever. Right, you're lucky if you could lock them in for thirty 74 00:05:19.660 --> 00:05:26.129 days. So you need to start talking. Are Looking at not just talking 75 00:05:26.209 --> 00:05:30.009 about how do we keep the customers we have? How do we expand those 76 00:05:30.050 --> 00:05:32.410 accounts? How do we turn them into advocates? They help us get more 77 00:05:32.970 --> 00:05:38.240 customers. Right, and this is something that is kind of new territory for 78 00:05:38.279 --> 00:05:42.800 a lot of marketers because we become so silod especially in the enterprise companies. 79 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:45.920 I tend to work with that. You know, the right hand doesn't know 80 00:05:45.959 --> 00:05:50.550 what the left hand is doing him. Considering that we start the story, 81 00:05:51.029 --> 00:05:55.709 marketing should be completing the story. You know, and it ever is completed. 82 00:05:55.790 --> 00:06:00.949 It's ongoing, right, because if your customers are actively using your software, 83 00:06:00.990 --> 00:06:04.819 growing continuing to find more value, why wouldn't they switch to something else 84 00:06:04.899 --> 00:06:10.899 that gives them the promise of that? So remembered I first did a session 85 00:06:10.939 --> 00:06:14.660 at content marketing world, I want to say it was in two thousand and 86 00:06:15.300 --> 00:06:18.889 thirteen, about retention and nobody showed up. And then in two thousand and 87 00:06:18.930 --> 00:06:25.769 eighteen I did session on retention at marketing props and the room was standing room 88 00:06:25.810 --> 00:06:28.970 only. So that if that gives you an idea of you know, what's 89 00:06:29.050 --> 00:06:33.800 changed in the focus there. Yeah, I that is so interesting and I 90 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:38.399 hadn't really thought about it, especially in the tech context. I remember the 91 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:45.560 terms ripp and replace with the the software install and so now it's to your 92 00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:48.189 point, it's just okay, we just get new logging credentials and upload some 93 00:06:48.269 --> 00:06:51.709 of our data and we can be off to the races. So I think 94 00:06:51.750 --> 00:06:57.189 that's that's really important to for us to think about from our retention, but 95 00:06:57.470 --> 00:07:02.060 in terms of retention as well, how to marketing and sales people, once 96 00:07:02.139 --> 00:07:08.579 I have a customer or acquire a new customer, beyond just proving the value, 97 00:07:08.819 --> 00:07:12.899 what are some of the things they can do to deepen that relationship because, 98 00:07:12.899 --> 00:07:18.569 as you will put it's about the humanizing of that individual or individuals account. 99 00:07:19.050 --> 00:07:23.129 How can we go about doing that? Well, there's there's a lot 100 00:07:23.209 --> 00:07:26.290 of ways and and I'll tell you a discussion that I just had with a 101 00:07:26.370 --> 00:07:30.839 client that we're working on, is that a lot of their prospects were really 102 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:33.879 bought in moving forward and then all of a sudden, man cold feet and 103 00:07:33.879 --> 00:07:39.839 they just put the brakes on. And what we've found out was we're telling 104 00:07:39.959 --> 00:07:44.750 them how easy implementation and deployment is and what we're talking about here has change 105 00:07:44.829 --> 00:07:46.269 management right, and all of them were going yet, too good to be 106 00:07:46.389 --> 00:07:48.589 true. Probably is too good to be true, this is going to suck, 107 00:07:48.670 --> 00:07:53.269 we're not doing it, and so, you know, they would just 108 00:07:53.509 --> 00:07:57.589 stop. And so we had to put together some material, some content, 109 00:07:58.069 --> 00:08:03.660 some customer testimonials and stories about really what we say about implementation. It's three 110 00:08:03.699 --> 00:08:07.339 steps, it's, you know, not difficult. We provide training, you 111 00:08:07.420 --> 00:08:11.180 know, and how the onboarding works and prove to them that over ninety percent 112 00:08:11.220 --> 00:08:15.889 adoption inside thirty days could happen. It was really a possibility, you know, 113 00:08:16.209 --> 00:08:20.250 and a norm for many of my clients, customers, and all of 114 00:08:20.329 --> 00:08:22.290 a sudden they just kind of breathe a sigh of relief and one okay, 115 00:08:22.610 --> 00:08:26.600 this is going to work and they started moving forward again. So right there, 116 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:33.320 you know. And and now what we've done, as expanded or enhanced 117 00:08:33.399 --> 00:08:37.200 the onboarding programs, to really hold their hands and get, you know, 118 00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:41.590 the end users to adopt that solution and figure out how to get them to 119 00:08:41.789 --> 00:08:43.389 on board as a matter of course, like how does it fit in their 120 00:08:43.389 --> 00:08:48.269 daily workflow? You know, and this happens to be a sales enablement platform, 121 00:08:48.909 --> 00:08:52.710 so working with sales or ups who don't want to change into what they're 122 00:08:52.750 --> 00:08:56.860 doing is interesting. But it works tremendously well and the tools are impactful and 123 00:08:56.940 --> 00:09:01.340 they make a difference and so, you know, but it's just looking at 124 00:09:01.419 --> 00:09:03.580 each step and stage. What are the hold ups? What are the possible 125 00:09:05.179 --> 00:09:09.740 obstacles? What's the pushback from the end user? How do you prove to 126 00:09:09.860 --> 00:09:11.929 them this is going to be valuable to them, you know, and then 127 00:09:13.090 --> 00:09:16.850 once they get, you know, using it, what parts of it aren't 128 00:09:16.850 --> 00:09:18.690 they using? You know, you see, and all use marketers as an 129 00:09:18.730 --> 00:09:22.570 example, because I just thought research on this that if you look at a 130 00:09:22.610 --> 00:09:28.879 marketing text dec how much of that functionality is actually being used? Not much. 131 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:33.320 They're using marketing automation is an email blaster, for example, when there 132 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:37.000 are so many other things you can use that technology for. And so how 133 00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:39.830 do you help them get more use out of it? How do you help 134 00:09:39.870 --> 00:09:43.389 them apply it? Everybody's busy. How do you make it easy? You 135 00:09:43.470 --> 00:09:48.509 know, and so you have to keep looking at what's next. And once 136 00:09:48.590 --> 00:09:52.580 they've solved that original problem, that can either introduce new problems or open it 137 00:09:52.659 --> 00:09:58.139 up for them to solve additional problems that they hadn't even thought to tackle before 138 00:09:58.139 --> 00:10:01.460 they got your solution. So it's always about what's next, right. So 139 00:10:01.980 --> 00:10:07.169 this is a very brief question with probably a really big answer. Why aren't 140 00:10:07.330 --> 00:10:13.330 more brands doing this? Because it's hard. Hey, it takes effort and 141 00:10:15.210 --> 00:10:18.250 you know I mean it can be daunting. But here I'll give you an 142 00:10:18.250 --> 00:10:24.000 example. So I acquired a client when I spoke at connects in Toronto last 143 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:30.159 year and the first thing they said to me was they wanted personas there was 144 00:10:30.200 --> 00:10:35.600 a new content strategy team that have been created their attach company, but there 145 00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:39.429 was a mandate that they were not allowed to talk to the sales team or 146 00:10:39.590 --> 00:10:43.350 customers. That's hopeful. Yeah, so, you know. So we had 147 00:10:43.389 --> 00:10:46.029 to RELEA, sit down and think, okay, how are we going to 148 00:10:46.070 --> 00:10:52.220 do this? You know, what can we do? And so, you 149 00:10:52.340 --> 00:10:54.620 know, through the course of that work, what I ended up doing was 150 00:10:54.820 --> 00:11:01.539 creating different types of persona where the lift was a little easier in some ways, 151 00:11:01.580 --> 00:11:05.090 depending on what you use them for. So I'll give you an example. 152 00:11:05.250 --> 00:11:09.129 So, for example, one of the things everybody says is we need 153 00:11:09.210 --> 00:11:11.490 to see sweet persona. You know, we've got to reach the CXO. 154 00:11:11.690 --> 00:11:15.250 And Nine Times out of ten, no, you don't, because they're not 155 00:11:15.370 --> 00:11:18.490 talking to you and they're not buying it right. It's not strategic enough. 156 00:11:18.799 --> 00:11:22.320 They've delegated to their team, which is why they have a team. We 157 00:11:22.440 --> 00:11:24.960 need to reach the team. WHO's on the team? And so but then 158 00:11:26.039 --> 00:11:31.080 again, that C Xo may show up for the vendor presentation and they may 159 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:37.029 be involved in the when the whoever's evaluating presents the business case, you know 160 00:11:37.149 --> 00:11:41.230 in the request for approval to buy it. And so with that kind of 161 00:11:41.350 --> 00:11:46.379 a person maybe you need one or two assets that are going to help build 162 00:11:46.460 --> 00:11:50.940 brand awareness. So they're don't like, who the heck is that bring them 163 00:11:50.980 --> 00:11:52.100 into the room, you know, something like that. But you don't need 164 00:11:52.179 --> 00:11:56.379 to create an entire storyline for them because they're not going to read it. 165 00:11:56.980 --> 00:12:01.529 So what's the minimum biable persona for that, for example? And so what 166 00:12:01.769 --> 00:12:07.009 happens with something like a sea sweet persona? Thank goodness, they're interviewed all 167 00:12:07.090 --> 00:12:13.289 the time. They speak at conferences, they you know, join round up 168 00:12:13.330 --> 00:12:16.840 posts and give their thoughts and all of that. So you can actually get 169 00:12:16.679 --> 00:12:20.679 what they're saying, the words they use and that kind of thing by doing 170 00:12:20.879 --> 00:12:24.720 research into, you know, what's being what they're saying, how they're being 171 00:12:24.759 --> 00:12:30.190 interviewed, things like that. So it is possible to get to some level 172 00:12:30.230 --> 00:12:35.549 of personalization. That helps with relevance and resonance with their content, but it 173 00:12:35.669 --> 00:12:37.830 takes some effort and you have to know what you're looking for so you know 174 00:12:37.950 --> 00:12:41.710 what it's. But it was a you know, things like that. Companies 175 00:12:41.789 --> 00:12:46.419 just put stumbling blocks in their team's way and it's like how are you supposed 176 00:12:46.419 --> 00:12:50.899 to get to personalization and understanding your customers if you can't talk to him and 177 00:12:52.019 --> 00:12:54.899 he can't even talk to the sales team, who are the people who are 178 00:12:54.019 --> 00:12:58.570 talking to him. So the other thing we just go to customers success, 179 00:12:58.970 --> 00:13:01.570 because they hadn't put them off limits right, and so we listen to some 180 00:13:01.769 --> 00:13:05.009 calls and we talked to them and and that was helpful. But, for 181 00:13:05.129 --> 00:13:09.490 God's sakes, you know me. Do you want to set them up to 182 00:13:09.570 --> 00:13:13.519 fail? Well, I you know, I hear similar things, so I 183 00:13:13.639 --> 00:13:20.840 guess where my head goes is. But our customers now are demanding this because 184 00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:24.240 we have all the information we could ever want in the palm of our hands 185 00:13:24.279 --> 00:13:30.549 via our smartphones. So I mean it is not to sound too dramatic. 186 00:13:30.870 --> 00:13:35.110 Is this really going to separate the customers that thrive versus the customers that die? 187 00:13:35.509 --> 00:13:37.870 For the brand, I'm sorry, the brands that that thrive versus the 188 00:13:37.950 --> 00:13:43.659 brands that die? I would say yes, and here's why. Gartner did 189 00:13:43.740 --> 00:13:46.740 some research that I've thought was really interesting. And so it used to be 190 00:13:46.100 --> 00:13:50.419 that, you know, there's all this content out there and and it's all 191 00:13:50.500 --> 00:13:54.340 terrible, right, that was that was the big challenge for a long time. 192 00:13:54.500 --> 00:13:58.090 Well, that's changed, right, we've learned how to create content that 193 00:13:58.370 --> 00:14:01.049 buyers are willing to say is high quality. I thout, you know, 194 00:14:01.090 --> 00:14:05.289 high quality the problem is is not high value because it's not relevant. So, 195 00:14:05.450 --> 00:14:09.120 while I think it was, and I'm guessing here without looking at the 196 00:14:09.159 --> 00:14:13.799 stats, but I think it's like eighty percent of buyers say we come into 197 00:14:13.799 --> 00:14:18.919 high quality content during our buying process and seventy some percent of them say, 198 00:14:20.360 --> 00:14:24.110 but it's not relevant to us. So that's the problem. We can produce 199 00:14:24.149 --> 00:14:28.389 all the high quality content we want if it doesn't do the job and it 200 00:14:28.470 --> 00:14:33.590 doesn't speak to our prospects, what good is it? Right? And I 201 00:14:33.230 --> 00:14:39.299 even, as part of that, put include in that the random emails that 202 00:14:39.419 --> 00:14:41.100 you and I and everybody else gets, about four or five a day, 203 00:14:43.019 --> 00:14:46.580 that tells me what they think they can do for me and then ask me 204 00:14:46.620 --> 00:14:50.299 for a fifteen minutes to go through a demo. Now I get more than 205 00:14:50.340 --> 00:14:52.129 four or five in the problem is what they tell me they can do for 206 00:14:52.210 --> 00:15:00.370 me half the time is what my firm does right even look exactly. So 207 00:15:00.850 --> 00:15:03.529 you know, at the beginning, when I asked you to kind of give 208 00:15:03.570 --> 00:15:05.330 some background on yourself, you used to turn which I really loved, which 209 00:15:05.450 --> 00:15:09.960 was humanize. And when I think about humanizing, my head and my thoughts 210 00:15:11.039 --> 00:15:15.639 go to empathy, which seems to be all the rage right now in especially 211 00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:18.000 in B to be a lot of people are talking about empathetic marketing and creating 212 00:15:18.039 --> 00:15:22.470 empathetic content. What are you seeing in that regard? Is it right now 213 00:15:22.669 --> 00:15:28.029 just a buzz word or brands actually doing it? Is the starting place for 214 00:15:28.149 --> 00:15:31.230 that, creating those personas kind of kind of give me your thoughts on that. 215 00:15:31.590 --> 00:15:37.059 Well, one of the things that I see often, and goes to 216 00:15:37.179 --> 00:15:39.179 empathy, goes to content, goes to a lot of things, is that 217 00:15:39.740 --> 00:15:46.019 when you don't do the research, you tend to base those things on what 218 00:15:46.299 --> 00:15:50.250 resonates with you. So how many times have we sat in a meeting and 219 00:15:50.409 --> 00:15:54.250 somebody speaks up and says we can't write that white paper because I'd never read 220 00:15:54.289 --> 00:15:58.049 it? All Right, I'm not the customer, you know what I mean? 221 00:15:58.090 --> 00:16:00.809 I'm not that the target, so you know. But we tend to 222 00:16:02.330 --> 00:16:07.960 take what we think and transfer that onto our customers because we don't know any 223 00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:12.320 better. And so and even people with personas will do that because they'll forget 224 00:16:12.519 --> 00:16:17.919 that the biggest problem with a persona is that companies create them but then they 225 00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:18.669 don't know what to do with them, so they don't use them. So 226 00:16:18.789 --> 00:16:22.190 they say, okay, check the box and they put them in the in 227 00:16:22.350 --> 00:16:26.629 the file folder somewhere on a drive, never to be seen again, you 228 00:16:26.710 --> 00:16:30.029 know, and so they don't understand how to apply those insights. And you 229 00:16:30.110 --> 00:16:34.460 know, my favorite pet peeve is the people that are are the people that 230 00:16:34.500 --> 00:16:41.340 are saying, now that we have ai and intent data, we don't need 231 00:16:41.379 --> 00:16:45.259 to do this anymore because the data will build the personas for us, it 232 00:16:45.299 --> 00:16:48.409 will tell us exactly what they're doing. And I'm kind of like, yeah, 233 00:16:48.450 --> 00:16:51.529 but you won't know why right, you won't know what they thought about 234 00:16:51.529 --> 00:16:53.450 it and you won't know what drove them to look at it in the first 235 00:16:53.490 --> 00:16:57.610 place, and you won't understand how to even if you can identify a topic 236 00:16:57.649 --> 00:17:02.320 they're interested in, you won't understand how to talk to him about that topic 237 00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:06.359 because you don't understand their viewpoint about it right, or the problem they're facing. 238 00:17:06.839 --> 00:17:11.240 And so empathy is really about the thing that persona's help with. Empathy 239 00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:17.509 is really using the phrases and the words that your customers would use themselves, 240 00:17:17.549 --> 00:17:21.390 understanding how they feel about this stuff they're going through, you know, because 241 00:17:21.430 --> 00:17:22.710 marketers tend to say, Oh God, this is an urgent problem. The 242 00:17:22.829 --> 00:17:26.829 buyer has to solve this and then you talk to the buyers and are kind 243 00:17:26.829 --> 00:17:29.630 of like, no, that's not the urgency. The urgencies this other thing 244 00:17:29.710 --> 00:17:33.099 over here, you know, and I'm going to lose promotion if I don't 245 00:17:33.140 --> 00:17:36.099 fix that. But this other thing, yeah, that's a nice side benefit, 246 00:17:36.180 --> 00:17:37.779 but no, that's not it, you know. And so we need 247 00:17:37.859 --> 00:17:44.410 to understand the degrees of nuance, you know, and really what what is 248 00:17:44.569 --> 00:17:48.369 causation, you know, versus just what it looks like. And so, 249 00:17:48.170 --> 00:17:52.130 you know, the problem with empathy when you don't really understand your buyers is 250 00:17:52.490 --> 00:17:57.329 what are you basing it on? Something that appears to be empathetic to you 251 00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:03.799 could come off as an affront to someone else. You know, seating a 252 00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:07.200 piece of content that one of my guy on a team for one of my 253 00:18:07.319 --> 00:18:11.910 clients wrote and he was trying to do the stick and carrot thing, but 254 00:18:11.990 --> 00:18:18.910 yet this stick part of the content was so negative and talking down to the 255 00:18:18.069 --> 00:18:22.670 buyer. I was just like, you can't do that. It's the lack 256 00:18:22.789 --> 00:18:26.309 of perspect there's no empathy for what this person is coming through. You're making 257 00:18:26.470 --> 00:18:30.900 flippant negative comments that if I was, you know, if you were sitting 258 00:18:30.900 --> 00:18:34.740 across from me and I was that prospect, I'd slap you. I would 259 00:18:34.740 --> 00:18:40.220 like to see that. No, you wouldn't, but you know what I'm 260 00:18:40.220 --> 00:18:42.849 saying, though. It's like, we won't we he thought he was being 261 00:18:44.089 --> 00:18:49.049 cute and doing something that would, you know, create curiosity or attract attention 262 00:18:49.089 --> 00:18:52.809 or whatever, and I said, know, you're insulting people, and he 263 00:18:52.890 --> 00:18:56.240 didn't see it that way and I said you don't understand what they're going through. 264 00:18:56.359 --> 00:19:00.960 This is serious. This is like we're asking a customer a buy or 265 00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:03.920 to spend, you know, four hundredzero dollars to solve this problem and you're 266 00:19:03.960 --> 00:19:07.519 making a negative joke out of it and putting them down. Excuse me, 267 00:19:07.960 --> 00:19:11.869 you know we can't be so it's context, you know. I mean there's 268 00:19:12.430 --> 00:19:15.549 there's we've gotten. If we're going to be empathetic, we have to have 269 00:19:15.630 --> 00:19:21.230 the right context and understanding, and I think there's a total lack of context 270 00:19:21.670 --> 00:19:25.140 in a lot of what we do as marketers. Yeah, I don't disagree 271 00:19:25.180 --> 00:19:30.980 with that. I see that as well, in for many reasons. What 272 00:19:30.339 --> 00:19:34.819 role are you seeing executives play? Because some of what I hear is I 273 00:19:36.019 --> 00:19:40.049 hear what you're saying I agree, but you don't understand the pressure we're under 274 00:19:40.049 --> 00:19:42.289 to get the stuff done. So what do you say to those executives who 275 00:19:42.289 --> 00:19:47.569 have unrealistic expectation that hey, it's been thirty days, how come were this 276 00:19:47.609 --> 00:19:49.769 stuff isn't done? I know I hear the same things. I just sat 277 00:19:49.809 --> 00:19:53.240 in a meeting about it this morning where it was all about. It was 278 00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:59.000 kind of like, you know, you have to you cannot force people into 279 00:19:59.079 --> 00:20:02.279 a demo or whatever, because his thing was, I don't care where they 280 00:20:02.279 --> 00:20:04.200 are in the buying process, get them to take a demo. I like, 281 00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:07.069 okay, yeah, let's just, you know, Lind them up against 282 00:20:07.069 --> 00:20:11.990 the wall, get the rifles out and say Demo or die. To write. 283 00:20:11.349 --> 00:20:15.589 You know, I mean you can, you've got to think about what 284 00:20:15.710 --> 00:20:19.430 you're doing. But the thing about it is is that, in my experience, 285 00:20:19.589 --> 00:20:26.539 what I'm seeing is executives create that issue for themselves. And what I 286 00:20:26.619 --> 00:20:30.900 mean about that is there under a lot of pressure to present numbers that are 287 00:20:30.380 --> 00:20:33.819 ridiculous in my opinion, like, okay, we create an x amount of 288 00:20:33.859 --> 00:20:37.809 opportunities last year, we're going to five x that this year. Really was 289 00:20:38.009 --> 00:20:45.490 what what created that exponential growth factor? You know, then they hold everybody's 290 00:20:45.529 --> 00:20:48.450 feet to the fire for this number they made up to look good to the 291 00:20:48.529 --> 00:20:52.440 executive team, which they have no prayer in Hell of meeting, you know. 292 00:20:52.839 --> 00:20:57.119 And and then it's just a lot of pressure for everyone. And so 293 00:20:57.319 --> 00:21:02.519 but the other thing is I don't think a lot of executives have ever actually 294 00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:07.710 either been in the trenches doing this work or have ever done it this way 295 00:21:07.750 --> 00:21:11.750 since buying or buyers took control of the situation. You know what I mean? 296 00:21:12.269 --> 00:21:18.259 Yeah, because body is changed tremendous amount in the last will have twelve 297 00:21:18.259 --> 00:21:22.460 years since I've been doing this this probably work in consulting has changed a whole 298 00:21:22.539 --> 00:21:26.180 lot and it used to be a lot easier. It's not anymore. And 299 00:21:26.500 --> 00:21:32.930 buyer expectations have changed. They've taken control, so much more information is available. 300 00:21:33.650 --> 00:21:34.930 It's not the same as it used to be and I think a lot 301 00:21:34.970 --> 00:21:41.650 of executives haven't been in the trenches with this since that happened. Yeah, 302 00:21:41.690 --> 00:21:44.730 I agree with that as well and I have a I have a theory about 303 00:21:44.769 --> 00:21:47.599 that that I know we've talked about, but I agree with that. So 304 00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:51.640 people who are listening her like yes, yes, yes, yes, that 305 00:21:51.720 --> 00:21:55.160 I'm sitting here nodding my head, who say hey, I want to get 306 00:21:55.160 --> 00:21:59.519 started or I know I have before I get started, I have an uphill 307 00:21:59.519 --> 00:22:03.869 battle of convincing my sales leadership and my executive team that we have it's imperative 308 00:22:03.910 --> 00:22:07.829 that we do this. What, two three things can they do to just 309 00:22:07.990 --> 00:22:12.549 get the ball rolling? Well, it's tough. It depends on, you 310 00:22:12.670 --> 00:22:17.579 know, what your executive team is hung up on. One of the things 311 00:22:17.700 --> 00:22:22.180 that I've found really useful is getting the sales team involved because you know, 312 00:22:22.579 --> 00:22:26.619 companies are hanging their revenue goals on that sales team and if you can get 313 00:22:26.740 --> 00:22:30.410 one of the first things I do when I'm doing a persona project just go 314 00:22:30.569 --> 00:22:33.490 talk to the sales team and find out who are they talking to, who 315 00:22:33.490 --> 00:22:36.130 do they want to talk to, what are they hearing, all of those 316 00:22:36.210 --> 00:22:40.289 things, and then get them pumped up and excited about the kind of insights 317 00:22:40.329 --> 00:22:42.809 we're going to bring them back from this persona project and then get behind it. 318 00:22:42.970 --> 00:22:47.799 They help you get, you know, conversations with customers everything else, 319 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:49.720 and then you have to follow through on that. But of course what they 320 00:22:49.880 --> 00:22:55.839 want is better qualified opportunities to pursue right more sales. Yeah, and so, 321 00:22:56.279 --> 00:22:59.910 but if you can join forces. Is Why it drives me nuts that 322 00:23:00.029 --> 00:23:03.829 we're still having this stupid alignment conversation. What has been going on for twenty, 323 00:23:03.869 --> 00:23:07.589 thirty years now at least. Can we not get over ourselves? And 324 00:23:07.829 --> 00:23:12.539 so if we can join up with sales and get them excited about it, 325 00:23:12.660 --> 00:23:18.339 we can show impact, you know, and that sales is actually using the 326 00:23:18.500 --> 00:23:22.700 stuff that we're creating to help them win, then marketing gets, you know, 327 00:23:22.779 --> 00:23:26.410 latitude or license, if you will, to pursue more of that. 328 00:23:27.130 --> 00:23:32.569 And so sometimes I've even done pilot projects at companies. It's a just let's 329 00:23:32.569 --> 00:23:36.089 see what we can impact in thirty days or sixty days, and the only 330 00:23:36.170 --> 00:23:38.410 way to do that is go after, you know, the low hanging fruit, 331 00:23:38.450 --> 00:23:41.240 to people who are already in buying mode. You're not going to generate 332 00:23:41.359 --> 00:23:45.599 a lead and convert it in thirty or sixty days when your sales process is 333 00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:52.240 nine months. So what can you do to actually show impact that gets buy 334 00:23:52.359 --> 00:23:56.750 in and loosens those purse strings, you know, and gets people on board. 335 00:23:56.269 --> 00:24:00.750 And it's all about showing what's possible and you have to figure out how 336 00:24:00.829 --> 00:24:03.950 to do it somehow. The other way. I did it once was we 337 00:24:04.069 --> 00:24:11.259 actually created looked at my clients boss as a persona and we did kind of 338 00:24:11.299 --> 00:24:17.539 I call it the water trip torture method. We created an email campaign where 339 00:24:17.579 --> 00:24:22.579 she was sending an emails building her case. We build personas and by treating 340 00:24:22.619 --> 00:24:27.490 him as a persona, he actually finally replied to her and an email and 341 00:24:27.650 --> 00:24:34.329 said are you profiling me? And he started to understand the difference in the 342 00:24:34.450 --> 00:24:41.519 emails and and we actually got approval to do a POC and that worked and 343 00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:45.119 then he gave approval to build out the whole thing. But you know I 344 00:24:45.240 --> 00:24:48.640 mean, there's extreme methods. We've had to the right point. I got 345 00:24:48.759 --> 00:24:53.509 thank God he didn't opt out of the emails. Right. Put You on 346 00:24:53.589 --> 00:24:59.150 a black lust. Well, artith we as I said at the beginning, 347 00:24:59.190 --> 00:25:02.750 and what we talked about off air. I know you and I could talk 348 00:25:02.750 --> 00:25:04.750 about this and many other things for a long time, but we don't have 349 00:25:04.869 --> 00:25:08.500 that time, unfortunately. For those who are listening who want to follow up 350 00:25:08.539 --> 00:25:14.380 with you understand more about you. Your prolific writer. You've got lots of 351 00:25:14.420 --> 00:25:17.900 great thoughts on this. Where can they find you? Well, they can 352 00:25:18.220 --> 00:25:22.730 look me on up on linkedin under my name Artith Alb and they can visit 353 00:25:22.849 --> 00:25:29.609 my website at marketing Interactionscom or they can follow follow me on twitter at artist 354 00:25:29.930 --> 00:25:33.970 two one awesome and for those listening, I highly recommend all of those things. 355 00:25:34.009 --> 00:25:38.359 I have learned a ton from artis. She is a wealth of knowledge 356 00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:44.759 and just makes things practical. So, artist, thanks again for joining the 357 00:25:44.839 --> 00:25:48.440 be to be gross show. It was a pleasure absolutely. Thanks so much 358 00:25:48.440 --> 00:25:51.349 for having me. You bet take care of everyone. This is the B 359 00:25:51.509 --> 00:25:55.269 to be gross show, human, human segment. We hope you have enjoyed 360 00:25:55.390 --> 00:26:00.029 this and go follow artist by her book. You're learning on on how you 361 00:26:00.190 --> 00:26:07.740 can make your marketing more human to human. Have a great day. We 362 00:26:07.980 --> 00:26:12.059 totally get it. We publish a ton of content on this podcast and it 363 00:26:12.140 --> 00:26:15.220 can be a lot to keep up with. That's why we've started the B 364 00:26:15.380 --> 00:26:21.009 tob growth big three, a no fluff email that bols down our three biggest 365 00:26:21.049 --> 00:26:26.289 takeaways from an entire week of episodes. Sign up today at Sweet Phish Mediacom 366 00:26:26.930 --> 00:26:30.130 Big Three. That sweet fish Mediacom Big Three