B2B Marketers on a Mission

Christian Klepp  00:00

In an increasingly competitive B2B landscape, marketers, agencies and consultants, need to proactively find ways to help their clients stand out amidst the digital noise. One way of doing this is by analyzing the strategy, messaging and positioning of their own brands and those of their competitors. So how can they do this in a way that’s insightful, efficient and effective? Welcome to this first episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast Demo Lab Series, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Clay Ostrom about this topic. He’s the owner and founder of the branding agency Map and Fire, and the creator of the platform Smoke Ladder that we’ll be talking about today. So let’s dive in.

Christian Klepp  00:42

All right, and I’m gonna say Clay Ostrom. Welcome to this first episode of the Demo Lab Series.

Clay Ostrom  00:50

I am super excited and very honored to be the first guest on this new series. It’s awesome.

Christian Klepp  00:56

We are honored to have you here. And you know, let’s sit tight, or batten down the hatches and buckle up, and whatever other analogy you want to throw in there, because we are going to unpack a lot of interesting features and discuss interesting topics around the platform that you’ve built. And I think a good place to start, perhaps Clay before we start doing a walk through of the platform is, but let’s start at the very beginning. What motivated you to create this platform called Smoke Ladder.

Clay Ostrom  01:31

So we should go all the way back to my childhood. I always dreamed of, you know, working on brand and positioning. You know, that was something I’ve always thought of since the early days, but no, but I do. I own an agency called Map and Fire, so I’ve been doing this kind of work for over 10 years now, and have worked with lots and lots of different kinds of clients, and over that time, developed different frameworks and a point of view about how to do this kind of work, and when the AI revolution kind of hit us all, it just really struck me that this was an opportunity to take a lot of that thinking and a lot of that, you know, again, my perspective on how to do this work and productize that and turn it into something that could be used by people when we’re not engaged with them, in some kind of service offering. So, so that was kind of the kernel of it. I actually have a background in computer science and product. So it was sort of this natural Venn diagram intersection of I can do some product stuff, I can do brand strategy stuff. So let’s put it together and build something.

Christian Klepp  02:46

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Clay Ostrom  02:49

The rest, as they say, is a lot of nights and weekends and endless hours slaving away at trying to build something useful.

Christian Klepp  02:58

Sure, sure, that certainly is part of it, too.

Clay Ostrom  03:01

Yeah.

Christian Klepp  03:02

Let’s not keep the audience in suspense for too long here, right? Like, let’s start with the walk through. And before you share your screen, maybe I’ll set this up a little bit, right? Because you, as you said, like, you know, you’ve built this platform. It’s called Smoke Ladder, which I thought was a really clever name. It’s, you like to describe it as, like, your favorite SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tool, but for brand research and analysis. So I would say, like, walk us through how somebody would use this platform, like, whether they be a marketer that’s already been like in the industry for years, or is starting out, or somebody working at a brand or marketing agency, and how does the platform address these challenges or questions that people have regarding brand strategy, analysis and research?

Clay Ostrom  03:49

Yeah, yeah. I use that analogy of the SEO thing, just because, especially early on, I was trying to figure out the best way to describe it to someone who hasn’t seen it before. I feel like it’s a, I’m not going to fall into the trap of saying, this is the only product like this, but it has its own unique twists with what it can do. And I felt like SEO tools are something everybody has touched at one point or another. So I was using this analogy of, it’s like the s, you know, Semrush of positioning and messaging or Ahrefs, depending on your if you’re a Coke or Pepsi person. But I always felt like that was just a quick way to give a little idea of the fact that it’s both about analyzing your own brand, but it’s also about competitive analysis and being able to see what’s going on in the market or in your landscape, and looking specifically at what your competitors are doing and what their strengths and weaknesses are. So does that resonate with you in terms of, like, a shorthand way, I will say, I don’t. I don’t say that. It’s super explicitly on the website, but it’s been in conversation.

Christian Klepp  05:02

No, absolutely, absolutely, that resonated with me. The only part that didn’t resonate with me is that I’m neither a coke or a Pepsi person. I’m more of a ginger ale type of guy. I digress. But yeah, let’s what don’t you share your screen, and let’s walk through this, right? Like, okay, if a marketing person were like, use the platform to do some research on, perhaps that marketers, like own company and the competitors as well, right? Like, what would they do?

Clay Ostrom  05:32

Yeah, so that’s, that is, like you were saying, there’s, sort of, I guess, a few different personas of people who would potentially use this. And initially I was thinking a little more about both in house, people who, you know, someone who’s working on a specific brand, digging really deep on their own brand, whether they’re, you know, the marketing lead or whatever, maybe they’re the founder, and then this other role of agency owners, or people who work at an agency where they are constantly having to look at new brands, new categories, and quickly get up to speed on what those brands are doing and what’s the competitive space look like, you know, for that brand. And that’s something that, if you work at an agency, which obviously we both have our own agencies, we do this stuff weekly. I mean, every time a new lead comes in, we have to quickly get up to speed and understand something about what they do. And one of the big gaps that I found, and I’d be curious to kind of hear your thoughts on this, but I’ve had a lot of conversations with other agency owners, and I think one of the biggest gaps is often that brands are just not always that great at explaining their own brand or positioning or differentiation to you, and sometimes they have some documentation around it, but a lot of times they don’t. A lot of it’s word of mouth, and that makes it really hard to do work for them. If whatever you’re doing for them, whether that’s maybe you are working on SEO or maybe you’re working on paid ads or social or content, you have to know what the brand is doing and kind of what they’re again, what their strengths and weaknesses are, so that you can talk about that. I mean, do you come across that a lot in your work?

Christian Klepp  07:33

How do I say this without offending anybody? I find, I mean jokes aside, I find, more often than not, in the especially in the B2B space, which is an area that I operate in, I find 888 point five times out of 10. We are dealing with companies that have a they, have a very rude, rudimentary, like, framework of something that remotely resembles some form of branding. And I know that was a very long winded answer, but it’s kind of sort of there, but not really, if you know what I mean.

Clay Ostrom  08:17

Yeah.

Christian Klepp  08:17

And there have been other extreme cases where they’ve got the logo and the website, and that’s as far as their branding goals. And I would say that had they had all these, this discipline, like branding system and structure in place, then people like maybe people like you and I will be out on a job, right and it’s something, and I’m sure you’ve come across this, and we’ll probably dig into this later, but like you, it’s something I’ve come across several times, especially in the B2B space, where branding is not taken seriously until it becomes serious. I know that sounds super ironic, right, but, and it’s to the point of this platform, right, which we’re going to dig into in a second, but it’s, it’s things, for instance, positioning right, like, are you? Are you, in fact, strategically positioned against competitors? Is your messaging resonating with, I would imagine, especially in the B2B context, with the multiple group target groups that you have, or that your company is, is going after? Right? Is that resonating, or is this all like something that I call the internal high five? You’ve this has all been developed to please internal stakeholders and and then you take it to market, and it just does not, it just does not resonate with the target audience at all. Right? So there’s such a complex plethora of challenges here, right? That people like yourself and like you and I are constantly dealing with, and I think that’s also part of the reason why I would say a platform like this is important, because it helps to not just aggregate data. I mean, certainly it does that too, but it helps. To put things properly, like into perspective at speed. I think that might be, that might be something that you would have talked about later, but it does this at speed, because I think, from my own experience, one of the factors in our world that sometimes works against us is time, right?

Clay Ostrom  10:19

No, I totally agree, yeah, and, you know, we’re lucky, I guess would be the word that we are often hired to work on a company strategy with them and help them clarify these things.

Christian Klepp  10:33

Absolutely.

Clay Ostrom  10:34

There are a million other flavors of agencies out there who are being hired to execute on work for a brand, and not necessarily being brought in to redefine, you know what the brand, you know they’re positioning and their messaging and some of these fundamental things, so they’re kind of stuck with whatever they get. And like you said, a lot of times it’s not much. It might be a logo and a roughly put together website, and maybe not a whole lot else. So, yeah, but I think your other point about speed is that was a huge part of this. I think the market is only accelerating right now, because it’s becoming so much easier to start up new companies and new brands and new products. And now we’ve got vibe coding, so you can technically build a product in a day, maybe launch it the next day, start marketing it, you know, by the weekend. And all of this is creating noise and competition, and it’s all stuff that we have to deal with as marketers. We have to understand the landscape. We’ve got to quickly be able to analyze all these different brands, see where the strengths and weaknesses are and all that stuff. So…

Christian Klepp  11:46

Absolutely.

Clay Ostrom  11:46

But, yeah, that, I think that the speed piece is a huge part of this for sure.

Christian Klepp  11:51

Yeah. So, so we’re okay, so we’re on the I guess this, this will probably be the homepage. So just walk us through what, what a marketing person would do if they want to use this platform, yeah?

Clay Ostrom  12:00

So the very first thing you do when you come in, and this was when I initially conceived of this product, one of the things that I really wanted was the ability to have very quick feedback, be able to get analysis for whatever brand you’re looking at, you know, right away to be able to get some kind of, you know, insight or analysis done. So the first thing you can do, and you can do this literally, from the homepage of the website, you can enter in a URL for a brand, come into the product, even before you’ve created an account, you can come in and you can do an initial analysis, so you can put in whatever URL you’re looking at, could be yours, could be a competitor, and run that initial analysis. What we’re looking at here, this is, if you do create an account, this is, this becomes your, as we say, like Home Base, where you can save brands that you’re looking at. You can see your history, all that good stuff. And it just gives you some quick bookmarks so that you can kind of flip back and forth between, maybe it’s your brand, maybe it’s some of the competitors you’re looking at and then it gives you just some quick, kind of high level directional info. And I kind of break it up into these different buckets.

Clay Ostrom  13:23

And again, I’d love to kind of hear if this is sort of how you think about it, too. But there’s sort of these different phases when you’re working on a brand. And again, this is sort of from an agency perspective, but you first got the sort of the research and the pitch piece. So this is before maybe you’re even working with them. You’re trying to get an understanding of what they do. Then we have discovery and onboarding, where we’re digging in a little bit deeper. We’re trying to really put together, what does the brand stand for, what are their strengths and weaknesses? And then we have the deeper dive, the strategy and differentiation. And this is where we’re really going in and getting more granular with the specific value points that they offer, doing some of that messaging analysis, finding, finding some of the gaps of the things that they’re talking about or not talking about, and going in deeper. So it kind of break it up into these buckets, based on my experience of how we engage with clients. Does that? Does that make sense to you, like, does that?

Christian Klepp  14:28

It does make sense, I think. But what could be helpful for the audience is because this, this almost looks like it’s a pre cooked meal. All right, so what do we do we try another I mean, I think you use Slack for the analysis. Why don’t we use another brand, and then just pop it into that analysis field, and then see what it comes out with.

Clay Ostrom  14:51

So the nice thing about this is, if you are looking at a brand that’s been analyzed, you’re going to get the data up really quickly. It’ll be basically pop up instantly. But you can analyze a brand from scratch as well. Just takes about a minute or so, basically, to kind of do some of the analysis. So for the sake of a demo, it’s a little easier just to kind of look at something that we’ve got in there. But if it’s a brand that you know, maybe you’re looking at a competitor for one of your brands, you know, there’s a good chance, because we’ve got about 6000 brands that we’ve analyzed in here, that there’s a good chance there’ll be some info on them. But so this is pipe drive. So whoever’s not familiar Pipedrive is, you know, it’s a CRM  (Customer Relationship Management), it’s, it’s basically, you know, it’s a lighter version of a HubSpot or Salesforce basically track deals and opportunities for business, but this so I flipped over. I don’t know if it was clear there, but I flipped over to this brand brief tab. And this is where we we get, essentially, a high level view of some key points about the brand and and I think about this as this would be something that you would potentially share with a client if you were, you know, working with them and you wanted to review the brand with them and make sure that your analysis is on point, but you’ll see it’s kind of giving you some positioning scores, where you rank from a category perspective, message clarity, and then we’ve got things like a quick overview, positioning summary, who their target persona is, in this case, sales manager, sales operation lead, and some different value points. And then it starts to get a little more granular. We get into like key competitors, Challenger brands. We do a little SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis, and then maybe one of the more important parts is some of these action items. So what do we do with this? Yeah, and obviously, these are, these are starting points. This is not, it’s not going to come in and, you know, instantly be able to tell you strategically, exactly what to do, but it’s going to give you some ideas of based on the things we’ve seen. Here are some reasonable points that you might want to be looking at to, you know, improve the brand. Make it make it stronger.

Christian Klepp  17:13

Gotcha. Gotcha. Now, this is all great clay, but like, I think, for the benefit of the audience, can we scroll back up, please. And let’s just walk through these one by one, because I think it’s important for the audience/potential future users,/ customers of Smoke Ladder, right? To understand, to understand this analysis in greater depth, and also, like, specifically, like, let’s start with a positioning score right, like, out of 100 like, what is this? What is this based on? And how was this analyzed? Let’s start with that.

Clay Ostrom  17:48

Yeah, and this is where the platform really started. And I’m going to actually jump over to the positioning tab, because this will give us the all the detail around this particular feature. But this is, this was where I began the product this. I kind of think of this as being, in many ways, sort of the heart and soul of it. And when I mentioned earlier about this being based on our own work and frameworks and how we approach this, this is very much the case with this. This is, you know, the approach we use with the product is exactly how we work with clients when we’re evaluating their positioning. And it’s, it’s basically, it’s built off a series of scores. And what we have here are 24 different points of business value, which, if we zoom in just a little bit down here, we can see things like reducing risk, vision, lowering cost, variety, expertise, stability, etc. So there’s 24 of these that we look at, and it’s meant to be a way that we can look across different brands and compare and contrast them. So it’s creating, like, a consistent way of looking at brands, even if they’re not in the same category, or, you know, have slightly different operating models, etc. But what we do is we go in and we score every brand on each of these 24 points. And if we scroll down here a little bit, we can see the point of value, the exact score they got, the category average, so how it compares against, you know, all the other brands we’ve analyzed, and then a little bit of qualitative information about why they got the score.

Christian Klepp  19:27

Sorry, Clay, Can I just jump in for a second so these, these attributes, or these key values that you had in the graph at the top right, like, are these consistent throughout regardless of what brand is being analyzed, or the least change.

Clay Ostrom  19:42

It’s consistent.

Christian Klepp  19:43

Consistent?

Clay Ostrom  19:44

Yeah, and that was one of the sort of strategic decisions we had to make with the product. Was, you know, there’s a, maybe another version of this, where you do different points depending on maybe the category, or, you know, things like that. But I wanted to do it consistent because, again, it allows us to look at every brand through the same lens. It doesn’t mean that every brand you know there are certain points of value that just aren’t maybe relevant for a particular brand, and that’s fine, they just won’t score as highly in those but at least it gives us a consistent way to look at so when you’re looking at 10 different competitors, you know you’ve got a consistent way to look at them together,.

Christian Klepp  20:26

Right, right, right. Okay, okay, all right, thanks for that. Now let’s go down to the next section there, where you’ve got, like this table with like four different columns here. So you mentioned that these are being scored against other brands in their category. Like, can you share it with the audience? Like, how many other brands are being analyzed here?

Clay Ostrom  20:51

Yeah, well, it depends on the category. So again, we’ve got six, you know, heading towards 7000 brands that we’ve analyzed collectively. Each category varies a little bit, but, you know, some categories, we have more brands than others. But what this allows us to do is, again, to quickly look at this and say, okay, for pipe drive, a big focus for pipe drive is organization, simplification. You know, one of their big value props is we’re an easier tool to use than Salesforce or HubSpot. You can get up to speed really quickly. You don’t have all the setup and configurations and all that kind of stuff. So this is showing us that, yes, like their messaging, their content, their brand, does, in fact, do a good job of making it clear that simplicity is a big part of pipe drive’s message. And they do that by talking about it a lot in their messaging, having case studies, having testimonials, all these things that support it. And that’s how we come up with these scores. Is by saying, like the brand emphasizes these points well, they talk about it clearly, and that’s what we base it on.

Christian Klepp  22:04

Okay, okay.

Clay Ostrom  22:06

But as you come, I was just gonna say as you come down here, you can see, so the green basically means that they score well above average for that particular point. Yellow is, you know, kind of right around average, or maybe slightly above, and then red means that they’re below average for that particular point. So for example, like variety of tools, they don’t emphasize that as much with pipe drive, maybe compared to, again, like a Salesforce or a HubSpot that has a gazillion tools, pipe drive, that’s not a big focus for them. So they don’t score as highly there, but you can kind of just get a quick view of, okay, here are the things that they’re really strong with, and here are the things that maybe they’re, you know, kind of weak or below average.

Christian Klepp  22:58

Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s certainly interesting, because I, you know, I’ve, I’ve used the, I’ve used the platform for analyzing some of my clients, competitor brands. And, you know, when I’m looking at this, like analysis with the scoring, with the scoring sheet, it, I think it will also be interesting perhaps in future, because you’ve got a very detailed breakdown of, okay, the factors and how they’re scored, and what the brand value analysis is also, because, again, in the interest of speed and time, it’d be great if the platform can also churn out maybe a one to two sentence like, summary of what is this data telling us, right? Because I’m thinking back to my early days as a product manager, and we would spend hours, like back then on Excel spreadsheets. I’m dating myself a little bit here, but um, and coming up with this analysis and charts, but presenting that to senior management, all they wanted to know was the one to two sentence summary of like, come on. What are you telling me with all these charts, like, what is the data telling you that we need to know? Right?

Clay Ostrom  24:07

I know it’s so funny. We again, as strategists and researchers, we love to nerd out about the granular details, but you’re right. When you’re talking to a leader at a business, it does come down to like, okay, great. What do we do? And so, and I flipped back over to slacks. I knew I had already generated this but, but we’re still in the positioning section here, but we have this get insights feature. So basically it will look at all those scores and give you kind of, I think, similar to what you’re describing. Like, here’s three takeaways from what we’re seeing. Okay, okay, great, yeah, so we don’t want to leave you totally on your own to have to figure it all out. We’ll give you, give you a little helping hand.

Christian Klepp  24:53

Yeah. You don’t want to be like in those western movies, you’re on your own kid.

Clay Ostrom  24:59

Yeah. We try not to strand you again. There’s a lot of data here. I think that’s one of the strengths and and challenges with the platform, is that we try to give you a lot of data. And for some people, you may not want to have to sift through all of it. You might want just sort of give me the three points here.

Christian Klepp  25:19

Absolutely, absolutely. And at the very least they can start pointing you in the right direction, and then you could be, you could then, like, through your own initiative, and perhaps dig a little bit deeper and perhaps find some other insights that may be, may be relevant, right?

Clay Ostrom  25:35

Totally.

Christian Klepp  25:36

Hey, it’s Christian Klepp here. We’ll get back to the episode in a second. But first, I’d like to tell you about a new series that we’re launching on our show. As the B2B landscape evolves, marketers need to adapt and leverage the latest marketing tools and software to become more efficient. Enter B2B Marketers on a Mission Marketing Demo Lab where experts discuss the latest tools and software that empower you to become a better B2B marketer. Tune in as we chat with product experts. Provide unbiased product reviews, give advice and deliver insights into real world applications and actionable tips on tools and technologies for B2B marketing. Subscribe to the Marketing Demo Lab, YouTube channel and B2B Marketers on a Mission, on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

Christian Klepp  26:21

All right. Now, back to the show, if we can, if we could jump back, sorry, to the, I think it was the brand brief, right? Like, where we where we started out, and I said, let’s, let’s dig deeper. Okay, so then, then we have, okay, so we talked about positioning score. Now we’re moving on to category rank and message clarity score. What does that look like?

Clay Ostrom  26:41

Yeah. So the category rank is, it’s literally just looking at the positioning score that you’ve gotten for the brand and then telling you within this category, where do you sort of fall in the ranking, essentially, or, like, you know, how do we, you know, for comparing the score against all the competitors, where do you fall? So you can see, with Slack, they’re right in the middle. And it’s interesting, because with a product like Slack, even though we all now know what slack is and what it does and everything.

Christian Klepp  27:18

Yeah.

Clay Ostrom  27:19

The actual messaging and content that they have now, I think maybe doesn’t do as good of a job as it maybe did once upon a time, and it’s gotten as products grow and brands grow, they tend to get more vague, a little more broad with what they talk about, and that kind of leads to softer positioning. So that’s sort of what we’re seeing reflected here. And then the third score is the message clarity score, which we can jump into, like, a whole different piece.

Christian Klepp  27:48

Four on a tennis not a very high score, right?

Clay Ostrom  27:52

Yeah. And again, I think it’s a product, of, we can kind of jump into that section.

Christian Klepp  27:57

Yeah, let’s do that, yeah.

Clay Ostrom  27:59

But it’s, again, a product, I think of Slack being now a very mature product that is has gotten sort of a little vague, maybe a little broader, with their messaging. But the message clarity score, we basically have kind of two parts to this on the left hand side are some insights that we gather based on the messaging. So what’s your category, quick synopsis of the product. But then we also do some things, like…

Christian Klepp  28:33

Confusing part the most confusing.

Clay Ostrom  28:36

Honestly to me, as I get I’d love to hear your experience with this, but coming into a new brand, this is sometimes one of the most enlightening parts, because it shows me quickly where some gaps in what we’re talking about, and in this case, just kind of hits on what we were just saying a minute ago. Of the messaging is overloaded with generic productivity buzzwords, fails to clearly differentiate how Slack is better than email or similar tools, etc. But also, this is another one that I really like, and I use this all the time, which is the casual description. So rather than this technical garbage jargon, you know, speak, just give me. Give it to me in plain English, like we’re just chatting. And so this description of it’s a workplace chat app for teams to message, collaborate, share files. Like, okay, cool. Like, yeah, you know, I get it. Yeah, I already know what slack is. But if I didn’t, that would tell me pretty well.

Christian Klepp  29:33

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. No, my experience with this is has been, you know, you and I have been in the branding space for a while. So for the trained eye, when you look at messaging, you’ll know if it’s good or not, right. And we come I mean, I’m sure you do the same clay, but I also come to my own like conclusions based on experience of like, okay, so why do I think that that’s good messaging, or why do I think that that’s confusing messaging? Or it falls short, and why and how can that be improved? But it’s always good to have validation with either with platforms like this, where you have a you have AI, or you have, you have a software that you can use that analyzes, like, for example, like the messaging on a website, and it dissects that and says, Well, okay, so this is what they’re getting, right? So there’s a scoring for that, so it’s in the green, and then this is, this is where it gets confusing, right? So even you run that through, you run that through the machine, and the machine analyzes it as like, Okay, we can’t clearly, clearly define what it is they’re doing based on the messaging, right? And for me, that’s always a it’s good. It’s almost like getting a second doctor’s opinion, right? And then you go, Aha. So I we’ve identified the symptoms now. So let’s find the penicillin, right? Like, let’s find the remedy for this, right?

Clay Ostrom  30:56

Yeah, well, and I like what you said there, because part of the value, I think, with this is it’s an objective perspective on the brand, so it doesn’t have any baggage. It’s coming in with fresh eyes, the same way a new customer would come into your website, where they don’t know really much about you, and they have to just take what you’re giving at face value about what you present. And we as people working on brands get completely blinded around what’s actually working, what’s being communicated. There’s so much that we take for granted about what we already know about the brand. And this comes in and just says, Okay, I’m just, I’m just taking what you give me, and I’m going to tell you what I see, and I see some gaps around some of these things. You know, I don’t have the benefit of sitting in your weekly stand up meeting and hearing all the descriptions of what you’re actually doing.

Christian Klepp  31:59

I’m sorry to jump in. I’m interested to know, like, just, just based on what we’ve been reviewing so far, like, what has your experience been showing this kind of analysis to clients, and how do they respond to some of this data, for example, that you know, you’re walking us through right now?

Clay Ostrom  32:18

Yeah, I think it’s been interesting. Honestly, I think it can sometimes feel harsh. And I think again, as someone who’s both run an agency and also built worked on brands, we get attached to our work on an emotional level.

Christian Klepp  32:42

Absolutely.

Clay Ostrom  32:42

Even if we think about it as, you know, this is just work, and it’s, you know, whatever, we still build up connections with our work and we want it to be good. And so I think there’s sometimes a little bit of a feeling of wow, like that’s harsh, or I would have expected or thought we would have done better or scored better in certain areas, but that is almost always followed up with but I’m so glad to know where, where we’re struggling, because now I can fix it. I can actually know what to focus on to fix, and that, to me, is what it’s all about, is, yes, there’s a little bit of feelings attached to some of these things, maybe, but at the end of the day, we really want it to be good. We want it to be clear. We don’t want to be a 4 out of 10. We want to be a 10 out of 10. And what specifically do we need to do to get there? And that’s really what we’re trying to reveal with this. So I think, you know, everybody’s a little different, but I would say the reactions are typically a mix of that. It’s like, maybe an ouch, but a Oh, good. Let’s work on it.

Christian Klepp  33:55

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. So we’ve got brand summary, we’ve got fundamentals, then quality of messaging is the other part of it, right?

Clay Ostrom  34:02

So, yeah, so this, this is, this is where the actual 4 out of 10 comes. We have these 10 points that we look at and we say, Okay, are you communicating these things clearly? Are you communicating who your target customer is, your category, your offering, where you’re differentiated benefits? Do you have any kind of concrete claim about what you do to support you know what you’re what you’re selling? Is the messaging engaging? Is it concise? You’ll see here a 7% on concise. That’s basically telling us that virtually no brands do a good job of being concise. Only about 7% get a green check mark on this, and kind of similar with the jargon and the vague words big struggle points with almost every brand.

Christian Klepp  34:55

Streamline collaboration.

Clay Ostrom  34:58

So we can see here with Slack. You know some of the jargon we got, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), MQLs (Marketing Qualified Lead), if you’re in the space, you could argue like, oh, I kind of know what those things are. But depending on your role, you may not always know. In something like Salesforce marketing cloud, unless you’re a real Salesforce nerd, you probably have no idea what that is. But again, it’s just a way to quickly identify some of those weak points, things that we could improve to make our message more clear.

Christian Klepp  35:27

Yes, yes. Okay, so that was the messaging analysis correct?

Clay Ostrom  35:33

Yeah.

Christian Klepp  35:33

Yeah. Okay. So what else have we got?

Clay Ostrom  35:36

Yeah, so I think one other thing we could look at just for a sec, is differentiation, and this is this kind of plays off of what we looked at a minute ago with the positioning scores. But this is a way for us to look head to head with two different brands. So in this case, we’ve got Slack in the red and we’ve got Discord in the greenish blue. And I think of these, these patterns, as sort of the fingerprint of your brand. So where you Where are you strong? Where are you weak? And if we can overlay those two fingerprints on top of each other, we can see, where do we have advantages, and where does our competitor have advantages? So if we come down, we can sort of see, and this is again, for the nerds like me, to be able to come in and go deep, do kind of a deep dive on specifically, why did, why does Discord score better than Slack in certain areas. And at the bottom here we can see a kind of a quick summary. So slack is stronger in simplification, saving time, Discord has some better messaging around generating revenue, lowering costs, marketability. But again, this gives us a way to think about what are the things we want to double down on? So what do we want to actually be known for in the market? Because we can’t be known for everything. You know, buyers can maybe only remember a couple things about us. What are those couple things where we’re really strong, where we really stand out, and we’ve got some separation from the competitors.

Christian Klepp  37:18

Right, okay, okay, just maybe we take a step back here, because I think this is great. It’s very detailed. It gets a bit granular, but I think it’s also going back to a conversation that you and I had previously about, like, Okay, why is it so important to be armed with this knowledge, especially if you’re in the marketing role, or perhaps even an agency talking to a potential client going in there already armed with the information about their competitors. And we were talking about this being a kind of like a trust building mechanism, right? For lack of a better description, right?

Clay Ostrom  38:03

Yeah, I think to me, what I like about this, and again, this does come out of 10 years of doing work, this kind of work with clients as well, is it’s so easy to fall into a space of soft descriptions around things like positioning and just sort of using vague, you know, wordings or descriptions, and when you can actually put a number on it, which, again, it’s subjective. This isn’t. This isn’t an objective metric, but it’s a way for us to compare and contrast. It allows us to have much more productive conversations with clients, where we can say we looked at your brand, we we what based on our analysis, we see that you’re scoring a 10 and a 9 on simplicity and organization, for example. Is that accurate to you like do you think that’s what you all are emphasizing the most? Does that? Does that resonate and at the same time, we can say, but your competitors are really focused on there. They have a strong, strong message around generating revenue and lowering costs for their customers. Right now, you’re not really talking about that. Is that accurate? Is that like, what you is that strategically, is that what you think you should be doing so really quickly, I’ve now framed a conversation that could have been very loose and kind of, you know, well, what do you think your strategy is about? What do you know? And instead, I can say, we see you being strong in these three points. We see your competitors being strong in these three points. What do you think about that? And I think that kind of clarity just makes the work so much more productive with clients, or just again, working on your own brand internally. So what do you think about that kind of perspective?

Christian Klepp  40:08

Yeah, no, no, I definitely agree with that. It’s always and I’ve been that type of person anyway that you know you go into a especially with somebody that hasn’t quite become a client yet, right? One of the most important things is also, how should I put this? Certainly the trust building part of it needs to be there. The other part is definitely a demonstration of competence and ability, but it’s also that you’ve been proactive and done your homework, versus like, Okay, I’m I’m just here as an order taker, right? And let’s just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it right? A lot and especially, I think this has been a trend for a long time already, but a lot of the clients that I’ve worked with now in the past, they want to, they’re looking for a partner that’s not just thinking with them, it’s someone that’s thinking ahead of them. And this type of work, you know what we’re seeing here on screen, this is the type of work that I would consider thinking ahead of them, right?

Clay Ostrom  41:18

No, I agree. I think you framed that really well. Of we’re trying to build trust, because if we’re going to make any kind of recommendations around a change or a shift, they have to believe that we know what we’re talking about, that we’re competent, that we’ve done the work. And I think I agree with you. I think like this, it’s kind of funny, like we all, I think, on some base level, are attracted to numbers and scores. It just gives us something to latch on to. But I think it also, like you said, it gives you a feeling that you’ve done your work, that you’ve done your homework, you’ve studied, you’ve you’ve done some analysis that they themselves may have never done on this level. And that’s a big value.

Christian Klepp  42:08

Yes, and a big part of the reason just to, just to build on what you said, a big part of the reason why they haven’t done this type of work is because it’s not so much. The cost is certainly one part of it, but it’s the time, it’s a time factor and the resource and the effort that needs to be put into it. Because, you know, like, tell me if you’ve never heard this one before, but there are some, there are some companies that we’ve been working with that don’t actually have a clearly, like, you know, a clear document on who their their target personas are, yeah, or their or their ICPs, never mind the buyer’s journey map. They don’t, they don’t even have the personas mapped out, right?

Clay Ostrom  42:52

100% Yeah, it’s, and it’s, I think you’re right. It’s, it’s a mix of time and it’s a mix of just experience where, if you are internal with a brand, you don’t do this kind of work all the time. You might do it at the beginning. Maybe you do a check in every once in a while, but you need someone who’s done this a lot with a lot of different brands so that they can give you guidance through this kind of framework. But so it’s, you know, so some of it is a mix of, you know, we don’t have the time always to dig in like this. But some of it is we don’t even know how to do it, even if we did have the time. So it’s hopefully giving, again, providing some different frameworks and different ways of looking at it.

Christian Klepp  43:41

Absolutely, absolutely. So okay, so we’ve gone through. What is it now, the competitor comparison. What else does the platform provide us that the listeners and the audience should be paying attention to here?

Clay Ostrom  43:55

So I’ll show you two more quick things. So one is this message building section. So this is…

Christian Klepp  44:03

Are you trying to put me out of a job here Clay?

Clay Ostrom  44:07

Well, I’ll say this. So far in my experience with this, it’s not going to put us out of a job, but it is going to hopefully make our job easier and better. It’s going to make us better at the work we do. And that’s really, I think that’s, I think that’s kind of, most people’s impression of AI at this point is that it’s not quite there to replace us, but it’s sure, certainly can enhance what we do.

Christian Klepp  44:36

Yeah, you’ll excuse me, I couldn’t help but throw that one out.

Clay Ostrom  44:38

Yeah, I know, trust me, I’m this. It’s like I’m building a product that, in a sense, is undercutting, you know, the work that I do. So it is kind of a weird thing, but this message building section, which is a new part of the platform. It will come in, and you can see on the right hand side. And there’s sort of a quick summary of all these different elements that we’ve already analyzed. And then it’s going to give you some generated copy ideas, including, if I zoom in a little bit here, we’ve got an eyebrow category. This is again for Slack. It’s giving us a headline idea, stay informed without endless emails. Sub headline call to action, three challenges that your customers are facing, and then three points about your solution that help address those for customers. So it’s certainly not writing all of your copy for you, but if you’re starting from scratch, or you’re working on something new, or even if you’re trying to refresh a brand. I think this can be helpful to give you some messaging that’s hopefully clear. That’s something that I think a lot of messaging misses, especially in B2B, it’s, it’s not always super clear, like what you even do.

Christian Klepp  45:56

Don’t get me started.

Clay Ostrom  45:59

So hopefully it’s clear. It’s, you know, again, it’s giving you some different ideas. And that you’ll see down here at the bottom, you can, you can iterate on this. So we’ve got several versions. You can actually come in and, you know, you can edit it yourself. So if you say, like, well, I like that, but not quite that, you know, I can, you know, get my human touch on it as well. But yeah, so it’s a place to iterate on message.

Christian Klepp  46:25

You can kind of look at it like, let’s say, if you’re writing a blog article, and this will give you the outline, right? Yeah. And then most of the AI that I’ve worked with to generate outlines, they’re not quite there. But again, if you’re starting from zero and you want to go from zero to 100 Well, that’ll, that’ll at least get you to 40 or 50, right? But I’m curious to know, because we’re looking at this now, and I think this, I mean, for me, this is, this is fascinating, but, like, maybe, maybe this will be part of your next iteration. But will this, will this generate messaging that’s already SEO optimized.

Clay Ostrom  47:02

You know, it’s not specifically geared towards that, but I would say that it ends up being maybe more optimized than a lot of other messaging because it puts such an emphasis on clarity, it naturally includes words and phrases that I think are commonly used in the space more so than you know, maybe just kind of typical off the shelf Big B2B messaging,

Christian Klepp  47:27

Gotcha. I had a question on the target persona that you’ve got here on screen, right? So how does the platform generate the information that will then populate that field because, and when I’m just trying to think about like, you know, because I’ve been, I’ve been in the space for as long as you have, and the way that I’ve generated target personas in the past was not by making a wild guess about, like, you know, looking at the brand’s website. It’s like having conducting deep customer research and listening to hours and hours of recordings, and from there, generating a persona. And this has done it in seconds. So…

Clay Ostrom  48:09

Yeah, it’s so the way the system works in a couple different layers. So it does an initial analysis, where it does positioning, messaging analysis and category analysis, then you can generate the persona on top of that. So it takes all the learnings that it got from the category, from the product, from your messaging, and then develops a persona around that. And it’s, of course, able to also pull in, you know, the AI is able to reference things that it knows about the space in general. But I have found, and this is true. I was just having a conversation with someone who works on a very niche brand for a very specific audience, and I was showing him what it had output. And I said, Tell me, like, Don’t hold back. Like, is this accurate? He said, Yeah, this is, like, shockingly accurate for you know, how we view our target customer. So I think it’s pretty good. It’s not again, not going to be perfect. You’re going to need to do some work, and you still got to do the research, but, but, yeah.

Christian Klepp  49:13

Okay, fantastic, fantastic. How do, I guess there’s the option, I see it there, like, download the PDF. So anything that’s analyzed on the platform can then be exported in a PDF format, right? Like, like, into a report.

Clay Ostrom  49:28

Yeah, right now you can export the messaging analysis, or, sorry, the the messaging ideation that you’ve done, and then in the brand brief you can also, you can download a PDF of the brand brief as well. So, those are the two main areas. I’m still working on some additional exports of data so that people can pull it into a spreadsheet and do some other stuff with it.

Christian Klepp  49:49

Fantastic, fantastic. That’s awesome, Clay. I’ve got a couple more questions before I let you go. But this has been, this has been amazing, right? Like and I really hope that whoever’s in the one listening and, most importantly, watching this, I hope that you really do consider like, you know, taking this for a test drive, right? How many I might have asked you this before, because, you know, I am somebody that does use, you know, that does a lot of this type of research. But how much time would you say companies would save by using Smoke Ladder?

Clay Ostrom  50:24

It’s a good question. I feel like I’m starting to get some feedback around that with from our users, but I mean, for me personally, I would typically spend an hour or two just to get kind of up to speed initially, with a brand and kind of look at some of their competitors. If I’m doing a deep dive, though, if I’m actually doing some of the deeper research work, it could be several hours per client. So I don’t know. On a given week, it might depend on how many clients you’re talking to. Could be anywhere from a few hours to 10 hours or more, depending on how much work you’re doing. But, yeah, I think it’s a decent amount.

Christian Klepp  51:07

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, this definitely does look like a time saver. Here comes my favorite question, which you’re gonna look at me like, Okay, I gotta, I gotta.

Clay Ostrom  51:17

Now bring it on. Let’s go.

Christian Klepp  51:22

Folks that are not familiar with Smoke Ladder are gonna look at this, um, and before they actually, um, take it upon themselves to, like, watch, hopefully, watch this video on our channel. Um, they’re gonna look at that and ask themselves, Well, what is it that Smoke Ladder does that? You know that other AI couldn’t do, right, like, so I guess what I’m trying to say is, like, Okay, why would they use? How does the platform differ from something like ChatGPT, Perplexity or Claude, right? To run a brand analysis?

Clay Ostrom  52:00

Yeah, no, I think it’s a great question. I think it’s sort of the it’s going to be the eternal AI question for every product that has an AI component. And I would say to me, it’s three things. So one is the data, which we talked about, and I didn’t show you this earlier, but there is a search capability in here to go through our full archive of all the brands we’ve analyzed, and again, we’ve analyzed over 6000 brands. So the data piece is really important here, because it means we’re not just giving you insights and analysis based on the brand that you’re looking at now, but we can compare and contrast against all the other brands that we’ve looked at in the space, and that’s something that you’re not going to get by just using some off the shelf standard LLM  (Large Language Model) and doing some, you know, some quick prompts with that. The next one, I think, to me that’s important is it’s the point of view of the product and the brand. Like I said, this is built off of 10 plus years of doing positioning and messaging work in the space. So you’re getting to tap into that expertise and that approach of how we do things and building frameworks that make this work easier and more productive that you wouldn’t get, or you wouldn’t know, just on your own. And then the last one, the last point, which is sort of the kind of like the generic software answer, is you get a visual interface for this stuff. It’s the difference between using QuickBooks versus a spreadsheet. You can do a lot of the same stuff that you do in QuickBooks and a spreadsheet, but wouldn’t you rather have a nice interface and some easy buttons to click that make your job way, way easier and do a lot of the work for you and also be able to present it in a way that’s digestible and something you could share with clients? So the visual component in the UI is sort of that last piece.

Christian Klepp  54:01

Absolutely. I mean, it’s almost like UX and UI one on one. That’s, that’s pretty much like a big part of, I think what it is you’re trying to build here, right?

Clay Ostrom  54:13

Yeah, exactly. It’s just it’s making all of those things that you might do in an LLM just way, way easier. You know, you basically come in, put in your URL and click a button, and you’re getting access to all the data and all the insights and all this stuff so.

Christian Klepp  54:29

Absolutely, absolutely okay. And as we wrap this up, this has been a fantastic conversation, by the way, how can the audience start using Smoke Ladder, and how can they get in touch with you if they have questions, and hopefully good questions.

Clay Ostrom  54:47

Yeah, so you can, if you go to https://smokeladder.com/ you can, you can try it out. Like I said, you can basically go to the homepage, put in a URL and get started. You don’t even have to create an account to do the initial analysis. But you can create FREE account. You can dig in and see, you know, play around with all the features, and if you use it more, you know, we give you a little bit of a trial period. And if you use it beyond that, then you can pay and continue to use it, but, but you can get a really good flavor of it for free.

Christian Klepp  55:16

Fantastic, fantastic. Oh, last question, because, you know, it’s looking me right in the face now, industry categories. How many? How many categories can be analyzed on the platform?

Clay Ostrom  55:26

Yeah, yeah. So right now, we have 23 categories in the system currently, which sounds like a lot, but when you start to dig into especially B2B, it’s we will be evolving that and continuing to add more, but currently, there’s 23 different categories of businesses in there.

Christian Klepp  55:46

All right, fantastic, fantastic. Clay, man. This has been so awesome. Thank you so much for your time and for your patience and walking us through this, this incredible platform that you’ve built and continue to build. And you know, I’m excited to continue using this as it evolves.

Clay Ostrom  56:06

Thank you. Yeah, no. Thanks so much. And you know, if anybody, you know, anybody who tries it out, tests it out, please feel free to reach out. We have, you know, contact info on there. You can also hit me up on LinkedIn. I spend a lot of time there, but I would love feedback, love getting notes, love hearing what’s working, what’s not, all those things. So yeah, anytime I’m always open.

Christian Klepp  56:30

All right, fantastic. Once again, Clay, thanks for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Clay Ostrom  56:36

Thanks so much. Talk to you soon.

Christian Klepp  56:37

All right. Bye for now.

Christian Klepp  00:01

Every pay per click campaign has symptoms. Some are mild, while others are critical. With the marketing landscape becoming more competitive and budgets shrinking, ensuring your PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns are well thought out and healthy is imperative. So how can marketing teams ensure they optimize their PPC campaigns for maximum impact? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Serge Nguele, who will be answering this question. He’s the founder at your PPC doctor who specializes in implementing PPC solutions for companies. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. Okay, and here we go. Mr. Serge Nguele, welcome to the show. 

Serge Nguele  00:49

Thank you for having me, Christian. How are you today?

Christian Klepp  00:52

I’m great, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because I’ll be honest with you, I was looking through the archive of all the past episodes, and I have to say nobody has been on the show that is going to talk about this topic, so this is the first time.

Serge Nguele  01:05

Oh, yeah, good to hear. We’ll try to bring some value to all the millions of you know listener out there.

Christian Klepp  01:13

Absolutely, absolutely. So let’s dive in, because I think this is going to be an interesting topic. And I don’t know about you, perhaps you run across this many times, but in my space and in my network, the moment people hear pay per click or PPC, they get a little bit like, I don’t know. Oh, I’m not sure. And this is part of the reason, a big part of the reason why I’ve asked somebody like yourself to come on the show. It’s to take the ickiness out of this topic and get them to understand why it’s important, right? So let’s dive into the first question. Okay, so Serge, you’re on a mission to listen. I love this one. Listen, diagnose and prescribe the right paperclip solutions for B2B companies. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the topic of how to optimize your PPC campaigns for maximum impact. So I’m going to kick off this conversation with the following question, what is it about PPC that you wish more people understood?

Serge Nguele  02:16

Yeah, thanks. Yeah. Thanks, Christian for your question, and to quickly touch on what you’ve said about PPC. That’s the story of my life. You know, when people are asking, what do you do? And I will say, Pay Per Click, I will start explaining, you know, and they will just nod, and I will be like, not quite sure they got it, but you know, the quick way would be just to tell them, whenever you search for anything online, you go on Google or whichever search engine. And we’ll touch on it, there is not only Google, you know, when we when it comes to PPC, you type your keyword, and you will see a lot of links coming and the one with a little ad, which means advertising that’s pay per click. Ah, they would say, Yeah, that’s fine.

Serge Nguele  03:03

But to come to your question when it’s come to PPC, really, what I wish most marketers are understanding is that PPC, which stands for pay per click, and it’s pay per click, because whenever you type a keyword and you click on the link coming there is someone paying the advertiser, not usually the user. That’s why it’s pay per click. And what is good to I wish many people you know understood about it is that PPC it’s about buying time to test your market assumptions. Because, yeah, all of us, all the businesses, it’s really happening, not when you have the click, but it’s after the click. What’s happening there. So when done right? PPC is the fastest, one of the fastest way I know of to validate the messaging, your offer, your positioning, and I wish more marketers understood that PPC is in a silo. It’s a feedback engine, really, and when you use it to inform your market, product fit your sales messaging, or even your customer experiences. It really goes beyond clicks, and that’s where you get the magic out of PPC.

Christian Klepp  04:30

Yeah, that’s a really good way of putting it. Serge, and thanks for sharing that. We’re going to touch on this, I think even more later on. But like just you know, from a very top level perspective. Why do you think a lot of people feel, even marketers, feel that PPC is a waste of marketing investment?

Serge Nguele  04:49

Yes, with this one, if I’m taking from advertiser, let’s say you Christian, you are, you know, a business person, the way. Well. Yeah, when it’s coming to PPC, it’s fair to talk more about Google, because, yeah, Google is having 90% of the market. So we will say Google, but Google is not the world. PPC has rules here a bit later. So let’s say what Google has done over the year is to really make it easy for pretty much anyone on the planet to be in a position to choose a few keyword enter the credit card, and in a matter of minutes, they would have another running showing up to people. So that’s the easy part, but that’s not doing PPC, and what is happening out of it, soon enough, they will realize, Okay, we are having a lot of clicks, but not what we are expecting, which means sales, or whatever is that is making their bottom line. And a lot of client I would be seeing advertiser. It will be after that phase where they found them themselves, you know, out of pocket of 100, if not 1000s, of click. And they will all, all of them. They will come like, PPC doesn’t work. And I would say, yeah, it’s normal for it not to work, if you because it’s a job, you know, I’m not here to defend, you know, my job, but, yeah, it’s taking time to be a PPC expert. So really, for me, starting from the beginning, where people are doing what they are not meant to do is not like me. You know, tomorrow I won’t be going out there and say I’m a podcast host. You know, that will be an insult on, you know, all the learning you went through, you know, to be where you are. So for me, that’s really the key problem. So basically, it’s, yeah, it’s a West because a lot of unqualified people, and I’m saying this, you know, respectfully, are just, you know, wasting budget, essentially.

Christian Klepp  07:16

Yeah, so what I’m hearing you say is, like part of it is certainly a lack of expertise. The other one is also, perhaps even a lack of strategy, and we’re going to talk about that later on in the conversation, but that is a great segue to the next question about key pitfalls that you think B2B marketers should avoid when it comes to PPC. So what are those key pitfalls, and what should they be doing instead?

Serge Nguele  07:38

Yes, and this will be complementing my answer, because, yeah, I focus it on advertiser directly. But let’s say when PPC experts are doing are running campaigns for their clients. So this is to this question to as mainly PPC has said, it’s one of the quickest way to really generate clicks out there. That’s fine, but that just the beginning, but even before getting there. So it’s the strategy beforehand, because, yeah, it’s quite easy to set the keyword, generate click and realize the website is not ready. The offer is not what it was supposed to be, and it’s bringing us, you know, to really plan before even starting creating your first campaign. That means the strategy. What is your product? Are you understanding your market? What’s your positioning your competition. What are you bringing to the market? So that’s the strategy. Once you clear with it, it will make it easy for you to say, Okay, I’m understanding the market. This is my offer. This is what I’m bringing, different, you know, in the market space. And now this is the strategy, the approach I’m going to use to reach out to those people. Where are those people? Even, you know, searching for the product or service I’m going to promote online. Because, yeah, when we say PPC, it’s a full funnel. 

Serge Nguele  09:16

If we take Google, for example, people will be having multiple touch point to see your product. Yeah, I’ve been talking more about keywords, but there is a lot more than that. And if I ask you, how are you searching online? You are not only typing keyword, but you are self advertising because you’ve given some information about who you are, and search engine and marketing platform are having those information about you, your age, your job, how much you earn, all of those inside are what would be part of the strategy, how you approach market. 

Serge Nguele  10:01

Now, once that is done properly, and let’s say the companies, company is already running it’s how are you measuring success? And there it will be all the vanity metrics. So okay, it’s good to have impression clicks, but what about the bottom line? Because, yeah, if you are investing, who says investment? Expect a return out of that investment? So if you measure only how many people are clicking on your website, that’s you are missing the point. So question would be, how many are converting whatever is that you know you define as a conversion. 

Serge Nguele  10:44

Now, another part would be how you set your campaign. I said, how easy Google could, you know, make it to create a PPC campaign, they have also a lot of automatic function that have. This is not the point. I’m not here, you know, to do a very cheap Google bashing. But, I mean, yeah, this platform are having, well, I will say polite, just insane, you know, feature making it just kind of waste of budget, you know, where you’ll have the keyword targeting the, you know, network you shouldn’t be, you know, advertising on to sell it. So do setting and also aligning to the sales objective. So those are, you know, a few ways. So I said quite a lot. To bring it more into structure, I would say, first of all, it’s strategy before even, you know, thinking of creating the campaign. You have your strategy, and then once your company are there, I said, but yeah, I would keep on repeating it, the clicking, just the beginning of it. So what are you measuring? So having, you know, real matrix, not vanity metrics like click, CTR  (Click-Through Rate) and then setting your campaigns. A lot of advertisers are on set and forget, you know, not doing anything. And guess what? It wouldn’t work, you know, because you have to optimize continuously and then align with business goals.

Christian Klepp  12:33

Absolutely, absolutely no. I’ve been writing furiously as you’re talking, but like what I’m hearing you say, and I think it’s absolutely right but people tend to forget that PPC, and in fact, a lot of these other initiatives, they’re all part of an ecosystem, right? And it’s all you all. You have to think about it like, Okay, so where is this going to go? Because the, as you rightfully said, the click is just the beginning. When they click, where are they going? Where are they going to land? Is it going to be a landing page? Is it going to be an ad? And after they’ve scanned the content on that said page or that ad, what do you want them to do? So what’s the call to action? Where are you going to funnel them from there after that? What’s the follow through? So it almost seems to me like this has to all be mapped out. It doesn’t just stop with PPC, right?

Serge Nguele  13:21

Yes, and even there quickly, before you asked your other question, yeah, sorry to interrupt. I will say it’s all tied to the strategy, because, yeah, could be a lot of things. You know, you can use PPC because you want to test something on your website. You can use PPC because you want to complement what you are doing with your organic traffic strategy. Most recently, I had, I was referred a prospective client, and they came to me saying, we are doing well on our organic search. Now we want to bring PPC to complement all of that and expand. So, yeah, you know, all of those things are part of the strategy. So, and it will be different if you are coming because you want to test something on your landing page that’s been, for example, your main metrics. To go back to what I’ve said, clicks. Your clicks wouldn’t be a vanity matrix, because you really want people you know to come there and you know, validate whatever you want on the landing page. Whereas, if you are there to generate leads, probably you want, you know, content yourself only with clicks. You will want people you know to fill your lead form. You know.

Christian Klepp  14:43

Absolutely, absolutely so sales you’ve tried. You’ve touched on this already, but like, let’s expand on it further. So what do you think are the main causes of underperforming paid search campaigns? So from your experience, what do you think the real underlying problems are, and I suppose one of them is a lack of strategy. Certainly. 

Serge Nguele  15:04

Yeah, it’s starting from there. Christian, yeah, you said it a lack of strategy. But okay, let us assume you are there, you know, you are getting clicks. So there one of the main cause of on the performing campaign, I would say it’s that whenever I audit account, a lot of them are just flying kind of blind. That means the tracking is even, you know, wrong. This is something I should start with it, you know. But he has a good case to, you know, talk about it. It’s, yeah, when you have the campaign, so you need to make sure you track every single click. Otherwise, how would you even know what is performing? So this is the main cause of underperforming campaigns. For me, it’s weight tracking and measurement, and that’s mean, if you can’t trust your data, you can’t optimize and at this point, because, yeah, you have business people listening to this an important part, an important one, you know, a lot of people are not advertising. It’s also the invalid traffic. You have a lot of, you know, especially now with AI and all boats, you know, we have are there. And this there is a staggering, you know, number of invalid traffic so, and this is, you know, a proper study, so in certain vertical more than 20% of click received are all invalid. So that’s mean, if you factor that to properly understand that mean whatever you are receiving, 20% of those clicks are wrong. So that’s mean you’re working with wrong data. That’s mean everything that would follow after that are just, you know, assumption based on 20% of you know wrong information. So this is an important one. 

Serge Nguele  17:09

And I would say, has advertiser, and this is something, for example, yeah, I don’t want to oversell, but what we do in which your PPC doctor. Those are things I’m putting in place to really be working with, in value, traffic, you know, company. There are a few out there, but yeah, I’m working with lunio, for example, which is our partner. So those I would recommend, not necessarily, you know, but you find whoever you want to work with, but this is really important to make sure you are receiving, you know, the right information, so weak tracking and measurement and then ignoring the funnel in the process. So you know when, again as I was saying, depending on what you want to achieve, you will have different goals, and you will be optimizing your campaign differently regarding what you want to achieve. So a lot of campaign are only targeting bottom up funnel intent, but you know, and they will be missing all the other funnels. So yeah, to develop quickly about the funnel. So yeah, roughly, we would have the awareness and then, so that’s mean people are just discovering they want something. So they want to know what their options are out there into that phase, and then they would have the consideration where, okay, then they are quite definite about what they want. Now they are starting making, you know, their decision. And then it will be the conversion phase, where they are in a position to decide and buy, essentially. 

Serge Nguele  19:04

So when you set your campaign, you have to, you know, be considerate of all those phases, because they are someone who is in their awareness phase, they will just be there to consider their options. They won’t be buying. And you need to factor that so that your campaign, your strategy that’s tied back to strategy that’s mean, okay, you will plan your campaign to spend a certain amount, or invest a certain amount to reach people in their awareness phase, and then another amount to bring them to consider, and another one in consideration. And when you tie that to the wall ecosystem, we said, PPC is just a fraction of you know your the world, the world marketing ecosystem. So that’s mean, okay, awareness. How are you going to you? Know, once they click and you have that information, are you following up with an email, you know, to just keep them alive and making sure when, when they are in a position to convert if they see your ad, take that decision, you know. 

Serge Nguele  20:14

And then the third one, it’s generic ad copies all we’ve said so people, when they are considering they won’t be in the same, you know, set of mind, like when they are just there to discover, or when they want to buy. So you need also, you know, with your messaging, to differentiate all those phases people in the awareness you want them to to know you are there. They might even be coming, you know, online already having their assumption some, some of their preferred planned. You know, so if you come into that moment, your message should be to tell them we are here. We could be an option for you when they are there to consider your message. Need to be different and so on, when they are ready to, you know, to convert. And even there could be, you know, remarketing as well, you know, because they, if they already know about you, you won’t come again with the same message. You need to try something different. It could be, if you have a discount, or whatever, you know, could bring value. So a lot to say, Yeah, but here to to summarize, I know, yeah, I said quite a lot. But to summarize, you know, the main thing would be, really the tracking and measurement you need to track. If you don’t track your flying blind, then consider the funnel. So at which stage people are which micro moment? Are they there because they want to know? Are they there because they want to buy? Are they, you know, all those the funnel, and the third one would be having a differentiated ad copy to match all of that.

Christian Klepp  21:58

Fantastic, fantastic. You did say a lot, but I think it was very important, because I what you’re, what you were explaining was you were expanding on, not just again, it’s, I think for me, it’s also beyond the PPC, because it’s understanding the buyer’s journey. First of all, who the buyers are, and what stage of the journey that you’re at. I think you mentioned at least three times, from what I from what I can remember, are they… No, no. And I think it’s important, because are they in the Discover stage where they haven’t, you know, they’re just looking around for us to see what the options are, or are they at the stage where they’re already bought in and they’re and they’re ready to buy two completely different motivations, different messaging, different copy, is required, right? And if people are using this, I would just call it like the one size fits all approach, right? That’s a recipe for failure, right? 

Serge Nguele  22:52

Exactly, exactly. 

Christian Klepp  22:53

Okay, fantastic. Moving on to the next question. So break it down for us here. How can you know based on everything that you’ve said, How can marketers optimize their PPC campaign. So what are the steps? What are the key components that need to be in that process to make this successful?

Serge Nguele  23:11

So at this point, yeah, we’ll assume they had their strategies, right? So yeah, the first one would be, fix your tracking to make sure you are tracking the right things, and that’s been making sure your GFO (General Marketing Automation), which used to be Google Analytics, is there to or if you’re using Adobe, but GFO is the most common one, making sure your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) integration is also right. I didn’t touch on it, but offline data are also important to really get the best out of your of your optimization, because, yeah, that’s mean, you are taking information from real your real customer, your real buyer, and when you feed the system with those information, offline information, it helping you get the best out of what you are currently doing. 

Serge Nguele  24:09

Then the second step would be defining success in business terms. I mentioned earlier, vanity metrics. But yes, really, what is that? What does success means to you as a business person you know not only clicks you know, so that’s mean making sure you have your return on your ad spend right, and even tied it to the profit, because their return on ad spend would not even be considering, you know, all the other aspects. So really, are you profitable or no? And once you consider all of that, it will help you properly optimize the campaign and make them work. 

Serge Nguele  24:56

Then the third step would be segment your audience smartly. This is touching on what we’ve said that’s been differentiator, who are decision maker, who are influencer, who are researcher, that they won’t be having the same impact, and if we identify them properly, that will also help you allocate the budget accordingly and have more efficiency on that part. I will take an example, one of our clients. When analyzing their channels, we found that on meta, they were having the highest cost per acquisition. However, when looking at the lifetime value of those clients, those were the most relevant. So that’s mean it wasn’t a problem to allocate more budget there, because we knew that’s where they are making more money if you don’t have that you know segmentation, you might just be saying, Okay, we have a cost per acquisition, which is one of the metrics. You could say cost per acquisition is too high there, but without having the offline information about the lifetime value, you will be missing the point. You could cut out, you know, that channel where, really, you know, it’s where you are getting the most value, and then it will be the differentiation on the messaging. 

Serge Nguele  24:56

So build a creative, creative and message that speaks directly to the pinpoint so. And this is, again, you know, understanding your audience, really, if you know, if you understand them, that means you will talk their language. And then the fifth one I would add, there would be test, test and test relentlessly. Again. You counting probably this is the 10th time I would say the click. Click is just the beginning. So that’s been once you have the click, what can I do from that point? You know, understanding your client, testing a few different, you know, different aspect of your messaging, on your landing pages. That how you know, really, and that’s why, coming back to where we started, yeah, a lot of advertiser, when they will be coming, they would not have the time to do all of this, because it’s a full time job, you know, to be testing different aspects, you know, for a few weeks to have to validate one hypothesis. If you are a business person, your job would not certainly be, you know, doing that, and that’s why it’s a recipe for failure. When you know business people start trying to do what is not their job. And even here, you could see, even has a marketer, there are a lot of steps, you know, to be taken. And all of us, you know, digital marketer, we are not necessarily taking those.

Christian Klepp  24:56

Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, so I’ve written this down. Let me just quickly recap for the audience, yeah. So the first one you said is fix your tracking, so GFO for Google Analytics, with the CRM integration that should also be right, defining success in business terms. I think that’s an extremely important one. Like, why are we doing this right? Like, what’s the objective here? Right? 

Serge Nguele  24:56

Yeah.

Christian Klepp  24:56

Segmenting your audience smartly, back to what you were saying earlier. Like, at what stage are they at? Right? How many, how many different groups, especially in B2B, right? How many different groups are we targeting? Differentiation in terms of messaging. I think that’s another big miss with a lot of these campaigns, right? That the messaging is just too generic, or perhaps they’re just using whatever ChatGPT gave them. And Testing, testing, which leads me to another question, Serge, because I’m pretty sure it’s impacted your area of expertise as well. And we are in 2025, at the time of this recording. But AI, how has AI impacted PPC, and where do you see this going? Like, how can AI help or hurt? PPC.

Serge Nguele  25:42

Yeah, that’s a good one, you know. And I didn’t have it this issue added. I was like, okay, Christian is, you know, just uncommon. Not asking anything about AI. I was surprised. No this. So there we go, yeah, AI is, you know, it’s a part of our lives, all of us, and now it’s starting from the beginning. So, why so? So the question I’m asking myself is, you know, why do I, why do I even need AI, you know, for because, yeah, guess what, if it’s just, you know, to be following the  trend, it will be just noise, more than anything. However, coming to PPC, AI has been in PPC for a long while, even, you know, long before ChatGPT. We have more and more, you know, smart bidding, all those AI influence, but I remember when I started PPC 16 years back, not making me look younger. But yeah, don’t worry. I’m 25.

Christian Klepp  26:06

For those that are listening, you know, they’re only listening to the audio version. I mean, Serge is a young looking guy.

Serge Nguele  26:06

There you go. Yeah, yeah. I would say PPC used to be manual, you know, where you could freely influence but AI now and automation are part of the question to answer in a very simple, you know, term to your question about AI, it’s, yeah, AI is there. It’s a tool like any other tools, and it’s what you do with that tool that really matters. And also it what I’m what I’m trying to avoid it, you know, being, yeah, being lazy, as you mentioned, you know, when talking about the ad copy differentiation and people just getting what they are, you know, receiving from ChatGPT, yeah, the question is, using it as a tool, which means it could be doing a lot of stuff, you know, calculation, pulling together information, all those things that are boring, you know, let’s use the word, you know, I can say otherwise. So AI would be doing that and freeing us, you know, space to be strategizing, doing all you know, the steps we mentioned, understanding our market, the competition, segmenting, differentiating, you know, our messages, putting together the strategy. Because, yeah, AI won’t be able to do that, at least not properly. 

Serge Nguele  26:06

So yeah, that’s for me. You know, how, how I’m, yeah, you know, positioning, you know, ourselves with AI, but yeah, we are using it definitely, you know, to make our life easier, not the other one, not to replace us. And actually, this, this one, yeah, I was at the conference last week in Manchester, and that was, you know, the very topic, and also a personal experience. It was my birthday last week, and so when there we had Ed Sheeran, you know, the singer, you probably know, we had his impersonator, you know, who came at the event. Now, at a personal level, I’m just one of those guys who can walk past any celebrity, you know, art. So I went for my selfie, and I was pretty much convinced, you know, that it was the real one, because I went, had a chat, told him it was my birthday. Oh, so he sung me, you know, a happy birthday, which I was pleased to publish. Like, okay, I had the real Ed Sheeran, you know, singing me happy birthday. But it turned out, you know, it was a fake one. So coming back to AI, one of the I had an academic who was discussing on that topic, and he said one of the main competency we need in the future with AI would be for expert to really be expert to drive AI and, you know, tell it when it’s wrong or right. And that was a, you know, perfect example, you know, with that HR experience.

Christian Klepp  26:06

Absolutely, absolutely and belated Happy Birthday, by the way. And so I did see the post, and I looked closely at the picture, and I’m like, Yeah, that’s not the real guy.

Serge Nguele  26:06

You were, right? And the thing is, I didn’t have a lot of people, you know, coming to say it looks like for a lot of people, you know, I wasn’t scummed, you know, on my own.

Christian Klepp  26:06

Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, so we get to the next question, which I call the soapbox question, what is the status quo in your area of expertise? So, PPC, that you passionately disagree with and why?

Serge Nguele  26:06

Okay, yeah, one of those we already touched on it. For me, it’s PPC, it’s set it and forget it. And a lot of campaigns auditing just that way, so you could see people, they just, you know, created the campaign. And they are expecting the system, you know, to turn it magically, you know, positively. So, yeah, that’s, I disagree. So you know, when I mentioned that the step to go, the very last one was, you know, to test, test and test. So, yeah, this is where the real magic is happening. You know, within PPC, when we testing. So if we set and forget, we won’t be able to really see what works. And at this point, I would also, you know, blink, the diversification, you know, Google is 90% of the PPC ecosystem. That’s fine. However, it’s not the world, the entire ecosystem. And on this one, we have just the second search engine, you know, in the world, Microsoft Art, which is getting ignored, sorry. And so with that, I would just use metaphor to say, if PPC, it’s a brain, and our brain is having two hemisphere, Google will be the left one, and then Microsoft will be the, you know, the right one. And I’m seeing a lot of PPC or advertiser just running on one hemisphere. So if you have one hemisphere, you will never know, you might even be successful on Google, but it will never be complete. You know, once you have a functioning PPC brand where you have Google’s running, and then Microsoft, who is coming, and the way is working, because it’s two different search engine would be coming incrementally to what you are achieving on Google. So that’s really where, you know you have the magic of, you know, the full potential of your PPC.

Christian Klepp  26:06

Absolutely, absolutely. And you know it was, it goes back to what you were saying earlier on the conversation. It’s a set it and forget it. It’s also a very dangerous mindset, and it could lead to, it could lead also to a tremendous waste of money if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Serge Nguele  26:06

Yeah, exactly. Which is some time for when business owner are managing the Google ad that just, that’s just naturally happens, because, yeah, it’s not their job, you know, they are focused on, you know, running their business, doing what they are good at. So they will be like, Okay, we have some PPC running, and that just, you know, was for everyone.

Christian Klepp  26:06

Absolutely, absolutely, okay. Here comes the bonus question, which I kind of like, I hinted at it already previously. But you know, the rumor, the rumor on LinkedIn, is that you’re a runner, and I’ve seen some, I’ve seen some videos of you running, and you’ve clearly, like, participated in some marathons and the like. So my question to you, Serge, is like, what is it? What is it about running that you’ve learned that you’ve applied in your professional life?

Serge Nguele  26:06

Oh, yeah, that’s a profound one. Okay, so yeah? Well, I would say yeah, the rumor on LinkedIn is right, yeah, running is an important part of my life, and even exercising, it’s an important part of my life. I’m coming from a football background, and most gradually, I went into running, and past six years, I’ve been more of a runner participating to that, I participated to three marathons, so Paris, Eden trail and London this year, and most recently completed a half marathon the Royal Park one in London. So with with running, long distance running, remind me just the way life is. So life is a marathon. So it’s not a, you know, it’s not a sprint, and which is running it. You know, if, when you get that mindset, a marathon, a marathon doesn’t mean you are going the distance that’s in you, that means you need to really well, I will bring it back a bit to the PPC. So we need to strategize if you are to cover 42 kilometers while it is becoming serious. So you need to make sure you really manage, you know, time your effort, you have a proper strategy, because you can just, you know, wake up and say, Okay, I will cover 42k you will be, you know, really going into trouble. So strategizing and then planning and that will be influencing, you know, even your worth living, because, yeah, how you rest, how you recover, how you eat, and so, yeah. 

Serge Nguele  39:59

And then it’s also pushing you to the limit. That’s mean your mindset, which is actually the most important you know when doing this, because to run a marathon, it will be, yeah, a bit about you need to turn that for sure, but it will be about going beyond the physical battle, and at that point it will be more what you have in your mindset. Or no, do you believe you can do it? Or no, you know, are you fighting to keep on going when your body is saying, Okay, I can’t take it anymore. So and all of those things, when you bring them back to to normal life is just, you know, on a daily basis, your business person, you know, we have up and down. You will have no client, you know, sometime. So how are you behaving? You know, with when all those things are happening. And in between the running, I also developed my proper tools, one of them being what I call my three nose philosophies, which I’m happy to share with our listeners here, could be helping. It’s working for me. And yeah, I’m sure if you guys are testing it, it will be working. So the first, no, it’s no excuses. That’s been whatever you set yourself to do. You just go for it. You don’t find excuses. So it’s a respect you give to yourself. The second, no, it’s no complaint. Life is, you know, life is throwing us a lot of stuff. Not only is, you know, chocolate, if I can say but yeah, you have to face it. When is there? If you complain, it won’t change anything. So that’s mean not complaining set you to finding the solution. And the third one is no self pity. You can still say, Okay, I was born in wherever it is, this or that, that won’t change anything. The question it’s, are you willing to consider that however, whatever your condition is not what defines you, it’s what you do you know next that will be the important step. So yeah, my train of philosophy, Sophie would be the bonus for our listener,

Christian Klepp  42:31

No excuses, no complaints and no self pity. So not only is sales a PPC expert, but he’s also a philosopher, no, but it’s awesome. Awesome. I love it. But, Serge, this has been such a great conversation. Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your expertise and your experience and your running advice with the listeners, and quick introduction to yourself and how people out there can get in touch with you. And I did notice, you know, there were a couple of hints in the conversation. There were a lot of, like, medical terms floating around. What’s the story there?

Serge Nguele  43:06

The story so, yeah. Quick Intro about me, yeah, I’m search your PPC doctor. I’m called the PPC doctor in the industry, I do quite a lot of public speaking in the digital marketing space. I’m George award at the search award in the UK, globally and at international level. I have 16 years experience in PPC, and I run my agency called your PPC doctor, if people want to be in touch with me, they can type my name online. I’m quite active on LinkedIn, so Serge Nguele, you will find me, yeah, wearing, you know, something with this PPC doctor. This is the branding. And to your question, why your PPC doctor? So there is a real story there. I’m a former Med student. So I studied medicine to become a proper doctor, but for some reason, I will spell spare the details. I pivoted into marketing and specialize into digital and PPC. So when I was creating my agency, the name was natural, your PPC doctor, which is also a real way of doing stuff. I don’t call the client. I still call, you know, my patients, and I’m having the doctor mindset within your PPC, where we really listen and then we listen, then we diagnose, prescribe, and from the prescription, we follow up with care. So yeah, that’s the doctor mindset at your PPC Doctor.

Serge Nguele  43:52

Fantastic, fantastic. The only thing you don’t do is tell people to breathe in, breathe out and cough for me, please.

Serge Nguele  43:58

Not yet. 

Christian Klepp  43:58

Not yet, fantastic, fantastic. So once again, thank you so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. 

Serge Nguele  45:09

Okay, yes. Thanks Christian, thanks for having me. 

Christian Klepp  45:12

Thanks. Okay. Bye, for now. 

Serge Nguele  45:13

Yeah. Bye.

Christian Klepp  00:00

In a B2B landscape that has become increasingly competitive and inundated with digital noise, using play it safe tactics will result in your brand drowning in a sea of sameness. That said, the path to differentiation, innovation and standing out is not an easy one, as it requires a change in mindset. You need to have room for experiments to truly create something that is relevant to customers. So how can B2B marketers do this, and how can they get internal buy in for it? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Vincent Weberink, who will be answering this question. He’s the founder of pzaz.io who specializes in developing business growth through creative, structured data driven growth experimentation. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is.

Christian Klepp  00:51

Vincent Weberink, welcome to the show. 

Vincent Weberink  00:54

Hello Christian. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. 

Christian Klepp  00:59

Absolutely I’ve been really looking forward to this conversation. I think we’re going to have a great time. We’re going to have a great discussion also about topics, and a main topic in particular that I think is going to be so relevant to B2B marketers and their teams in general. So you know, without further ado, let’s not keep the audience in suspense for too long. Let’s just jump straight into it. All right. So Vincent, you’re on a mission to drive business growth through creative, structured and data driven growth experimentation. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the following topic, which is how B2B marketers can create a mindset and design experiments to understand what customers want. That kind of sounds like it’s very, I’m going to say pedestrian, but it’s incredible, and I’m sure you’ll have plenty of case studies to show that there’s a lot of people out there that don’t follow this process, and then they get into trouble. So I’m going to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them all right? So the first question is, why do you think that design experiments are important for marketing teams? And based on that, where do you see a lot of marketing teams struggle?

Vincent Weberink  02:09

I think they’re very important because as human beings, we’re emotional when we make decisions. Problems is that, therefore when we try to drive growth. We have this idea about something, and then we tend to completely jump into it, build everything. Spend a lot of time and money and resources on building that thing that we believe is going to be very, very successful, and that takes a lot of time. And the reality is that most of the time you’re actually wrong, even though you think that you know your customer, even though you think that you know this is the best trick or marketing tactic that you’re developing. And what this experimentation model does, it sort of forces you to go through a very structured, almost scientific process, because there are some steps in there that help you to remove that emotion from your decision making. 

Vincent Weberink  03:12

And an example of how decision making often is influenced is when you’re in a small team or a large team, you’re sitting around the table and you’re trying to brainstorm, say, oh, you know, we have this, this challenge. We’re launching a new product, or we’re changing something, and we need to communicate it, driving sales up. And then the people who are best sort of equipped with sales capabilities are the ones that you know will dominate the conversation, and what we tend to do is then listen to them, whereas there are other people around the table that you know, they might be more introverted, might say less, that also have really, really great ideas. So what happens is that you collect all these thoughts and ideas, and then the person that’s very good at selling is selling their idea to you, and you end up taking that one. But it has nothing to do with reality, whereas in the methodology that I’m sort of promoting, what you actually do is you try to capture as many ideas as possible, as quickly as possible, and then, in almost a democracy, you rank and rate them according to several criteria, and that will help you to make some of those ideas float. And the ones that pop up are the ones you should actually focus on, because now, within that democratic decision making process, you’ve tried to optimize the chances that one of those ideas will actually lead to much quicker success than any of the others. And you can also use it in the reverse, the ideas that completely sink because no one voted for them, maybe only just the person that was selling. You know that they go away. You just throw them away and forget. About them, because clearly they didn’t get enough support. And the other question you were asking, sorry focused on the first question. 

Christian Klepp  05:08

No problem, absolutely, absolutely no. Well, that was a great way to, like, set up the conversation. And I guess it segues to the question, where do you see, based on what you said, where do you see a lot of marketing teams struggling?

Vincent Weberink  05:21

Well, I see them often struggling is that they tend to spend money and time on just the ordinary things that everyone sort of accustomed to, because depending on the type of company you work in, that’s the safe choice, and that ultimately doesn’t really help you grow. It’s typically the stuff that you would never expect to work. And I’ll give you a great example of this in a moment that might give you this amazing growth overnight or amazing success. It doesn’t necessarily have to be growth. It can be specific campaign where you just need people to sign up, because you’re trying to obtain information from them and to get those people to sign up. It could be a problem. You’re designing your funnel, and then something isn’t really working. 

Vincent Weberink  06:15

So in my experience, what happens is that people will say, Okay, let’s build a landing page. Let’s build a website, and let’s make it beautiful. Let’s make it perfect. But while you’re in this early stage, you have no clue if it’s going to work or not. You’re now wasting all of those resources where it’s so much better to very, very quickly, design experiments, run them as quickly as possible, see where something is happening, and then sort of iterate upon that specific experiment that you were running. And then slowly, over time, you get to a point where that experiment can be fleshed out, can be refined. You might do some A/B testing, and especially in the world we’re moving into with the rise of AI speed is everything past early days of when I was starting to do, you know, growth marketing or growth hacking, depending on what you like to call it. Let’s say 15 years ago, you could simply run an experiment, and that experiment could would last for certain periods of time. You could get away with some of the experiments, even running them for months. But with the rise of AI, what we’re seeing is that experiments only work for very, very short periods of time. And what I see with a lot of the marketing teams is that, you know, they’re not accustomed to driving fast and quickly running and failing fast, so that you can very quickly learn to see what ultimately what ultimately works. 

Vincent Weberink  07:55

So a great example of something that I experienced it when I was running one of my startups, which was a streaming service, and I believed I got everything right. I was just convinced that there was nothing wrong with the product, but I wasn’t getting any traction, nothing, literally, no one was signing up, and I just couldn’t understand. So what I started to do is just run one experiment after another. First obviously, I went out and spoke to people, because that’s the first thing you should do most of the time, especially when you’re in startup mode, either a startup or you work for corporate, maybe running a division or launching a new product, you have no data. But if you read all of the books out there, they all tell you, Oh, let’s look at the data. Well, guess what? You don’t have any data. So what you need to do is you need to go and speak to people and find the soft data to really understand, you know, what’s going on. How do I create a product that people will be willing to buy, and I did that, and then it sort of confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the product. And then months into that process, I still wasn’t getting any traction, and the startup was sort of moving to a point where it started to fail, because, you know, you’re running out of money, you’re running out of time. So I kept running experiments, believing that the methodology that I use simply works. You just need to keep running, running, running. And then one day, I essentially was close to giving up, and I decided to take on another project because I had run out of money. But on the side, I kept running experiments, and what I did is I put a play button on the homepage, allowing people to watch television for five minutes without signing up. And that simple trick got me 11,000 euros overnight. It took me 11 months. To uncover that, I had now proven that indeed, the product wasn’t wrong. The product was always right, but the way we were marketing was wrong, and it is always one of the two. It’s either there’s no product market fit or you’re selling it in the wrong way. Your marketing is wrong. And in a way that was very frustrating, because this very simple thing, almost as simple as a paperclip now gave me all the growth in one way. It was too late for me, because I had to go into that other project. The revenue wasn’t enough to sustain the business, but it did allow me to sort of keep the business afloat. And I was working this other project, and then I returned, after like a half a year or so, back full time onto the startup once I was generating enough recurring, recurring revenue there, and yeah, that’s sort of, you know, what I strongly believe in. You just need to keep running those experiments. 

Vincent Weberink  10:53

Of course. The third option is that your timing is completely off, which is another thing that I’ve experienced several times. I’ve run many startups, most of them failed over time. I’m proud to say that I never had to raise money for any of those startups. I was sort of in the last 30 years of my career. Thank you. I always managed to, you know, make enough money to sort of sustain, but many of them never became the big winner. They were just doing enough, and then at some point, there was an end of life, because either the market was fooled or or just turned out that there was no point in continuing to run that company. An example is VPN product that I did in 2003 that’s when the first idea started. VPN was a business to business product, and we decided to consumerize VPN because our only competitor at the time was called hide my ass, and the technology was very, very complicated. And after sort of what happens after 911 where a lot of governments started to invade everyone’s privacy, we decided that, you know, it is also important for individuals to retain a level of privacy, you know, within the boundaries of the law, obviously. So we spent a lot of time in developing that technology, creating a product that was very, very easy to use and that was secure and safe. And we were very, very successful in the first year and a half. We even managed to get in Google on the second place, right after Cisco, which is the inventor of VPN, but by the time we had about 40,000 customers, that was it. That was just, we just couldn’t grow anymore. And I then decided to abandon that project. Over time, someone else continued it for several more years, and of course, now VPN mass market product, but over 20 years later, and it’s the most common product out there, and we were just too early. So even though it was an exciting, exciting adventure, it made us money. It was a profitable business. Ultimately, at the time, there was no point in sort of continuing, trying to sort of push it, push it further.

Christian Klepp  13:18

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely great points. And you know, thank you for sharing those, those experiences and the you know, those past successes and challenges, failures and so forth. I think it’s, I think it’s an important part of the overall process, right? I’m going to move us on. And you’ve mentioned some of these already, but like, what are some of these on the topic of design experimentation and growth growth marketing. What are some of these key pitfalls that marketing teams need to avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Vincent Weberink  13:53

The key pitfalls they need to avoid is to believe that they’re always right. I mean, that is the first thing is, in essence, that you should learn that most of the time you will be wrong, and that success lies in the ability to admit that and to move forward very, very quickly by running a lot of those experiments, and by designing those experiments very quickly and having the ability to turn them into minimum viable products. And the pitfalls that most people fall into is that they think you’ll just read a book, and then you can just do it. It’s simple, right? Oh, it’s just like marketing. It’s the same way how I learn how to do advertising, I can simply learn how to do, you know, growth marketing. But the reality is, it’s then it is a thing or a trick so that understanding and the realization that you just need to start thinking differently, start thinking out of the box, be creative, because a lot of those hacks come from places that you simply will not expect. 

Vincent Weberink  15:15

I guess Airbnb is a typical example. You know, as far as I remember the story correctly. Two guys set up Airbnb. It was literally an air bed in someone’s house. They were running the business. They had about 10,000 you know, customers, and they could have said, Oh, you know, we’re doing great. Our marketing is doing well. We’re making money. But ultimately, they were not satisfied, so they decided to continue, and then what happens is, this is before the big thing that most people have heard of, which is correct, Greg’s list. That’s when they really exploded. But before that, something else happened, and that was when one of the founders said, Well, how do we expand our capacity, and how do we get more people interested in our products? And it was around the organization of trade shows when there was always a shortage of capacity in hotels, and they decided to try that out. And if I remember correctly, they grew sort of from 10,000 people to 200,000 people in just a couple of months. And that was actually their real growth hack, the real spurt, whereas reckless took them to millions. And that’s the thing that everyone knows. But it was that mindset, that understanding of not being satisfied with what you’re doing, and the ability to pivot, because it was a complete pivot. It was no longer just an air bet. Now you were renting out a bed in someone’s house, and that was sort of the foundation what then became Airbnb. And I think most marketing teams have never been exposed to that way of thinking. You know, they’ve been taught the simple stuff on, how do you do advertising, how do you look at data, you know, how do I build a website? How do I organize a trade show, etc. But it’s these things where you take an idea, where you’re almost stepping into the entrepreneur’s shoes by looking at, how can I make the business grow through extraordinary ways of marketing?

Christian Klepp  17:30

Absolutely, absolutely. You know what? That’s a phrase that I also heard at a business meeting on Friday where I was talking to the branch manager of a bank. And one of the things that she said, why, how she helped the branch to grow, is because she came out of a business. She was a family business, and she was running her own business, so she came with an entrepreneur’s mindset. And I do think that there is that is really, like, significant, especially if you’re talking about and I don’t want to, like, use these, like, overused buzzwords, let’s say, but like, you know, if you’re entering this world of, like, the scrappy entrepreneurs or even the scrappy marketing teams, right, you can’t necessarily go in there with the corporate mindset. No offense to anybody that’s in corporate but if you’re stretched for, as you can rightfully attest to Vincent, if you’re stretched for time, bandwidth, resources and budget, you’ve got to, you’ve got to think more like a guerrilla fighter versus a conventional army, right?

Vincent Weberink  18:38

You need to test as early as possible whether or not the ideas or your hypothesis, hypothesis that you have are actually true, and especially when you’re an entrepreneur or in a product team. And I have an example for there was a famous UK bank that had an idea where they wanted to test if friends and family would be willing to become guarantors for young people that would want to buy a house in London. And you know, banks are very, very big, slow organizations, and typically, if not alone, figuring out how this legally works will cost them millions right to develop the whole full product. So how do you do something? How do you create this experiment where you can prove whether or not there’s any viability in even thinking of offering such a product? And what they came up with is essentially to build a landing page where they would simply ask people to sign up for the service. They ran a 500 pound budget against it, so the total cost of the whole experiment was maybe 1500 pounds, and now they’ve managed to validate it, which saved them literally hundreds of 1000s of pounds and the risk that that product might have failed. And I think that is exactly the entrepreneurial mindset that a market. Marketer needs to develop and understand, Okay, I’m not just responsible for selling this product, but I’m also responsible for understanding, you know, who do I sell it to? How do I sell it? What should the product look like? How can the product evolve so that there’s a good product market fit?

Christian Klepp  20:17

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You brought some of these up already, but let’s dig into it deeper and unpack it. I should say, like, so based on your experience, like, how do you how can B2B marketers get traction as early as possible? So how can they build experiments? What are those key steps that they need to take?

Vincent Weberink  20:36

The first thing this is, so I sort of use a methodology and which is very, very structured. And I use that because if I don’t, I get lost in ideas. Because it is very easy to come up with 100 ideas. A lot of people you know, can do that. So what we do is I sit down, either with a team, or I might take a certain periods of time, where all I do is just collect as possible. Then for every idea, I write down, what is the idea? What do I believe this idea will give me? So what is the outcome? How do I prove, potentially, as a hypothesis, that what I believe is true? And then I sort of make those notes, then I store them in cards. And you can do that in any kind of project management tool, whether it’s notion or cell or bunch. Just create those cards. 

Vincent Weberink  21:31

Then what I do is I rank and rank them so, and I ask the team to do that, or the people I work with, for example, if I was doing consultancy for clients, we would have a specific, specific group of the clients do doing the same thing, and then all we would do is see, Okay, which of those ideas are floating. And we would take the top 10, again, it was very easy to then generate, like, 100 different ideas, and you take the top 10, and then for each of those, you’re now going to discuss them and essentially say, Okay, if I need to turn this idea into minimal but viable products, allowing me to prove that I am right or wrong, what is the least amount of work you can then do? And you know, so in my book, I publish a whole list of MVPs (Minimum Viable Product), but actually, with ChatGPT, you could probably just type, give me a list of all the different type of MVPs and explain how they work. So for example, you have a Wizard of Oz. A Wizard of Oz is, is an MVP, where everything happens behind the scene. The product really doesn’t exist, but the customer thinks it exists. And you do everything manually. That’s just an example. 

Vincent Weberink  22:51

So what you then do is you then going to think about, okay, who needs to do what? And then you run a short sprint. You design the sprint. Say, Okay, next Monday, with the three of us, we’re just going to spend one day on building that thing. And I, most of the time use distribution hacking, or in other words, advertising, to drive some traffic to whatever that experiment is to then prove of my whether or not my hypothesis is correct. And from there onwards, you then, of course, have some analytic tool, or, depending on how you how, you then prove it, and then you start to iterate and but I promise you, most of those experiments will fail, which is great, but if you run 10 very quickly, maybe in the course of two weeks, if you have two or three where you see the needle moving a little bit, now you have something to take the next step. And a classical mistake that I’ve seen is that people always tend to make it too complicated. So what they do is, rather than designing an experiment that gets you one answer, they try to get as many answers as possible. And that doesn’t work, because you know, if you have any exposure to data, if you have multiple data points, then it’s now up to your interpretation, and then you’re selling it to yourself, because you want the hypothesis to be true. So it’s very difficult to then again, step back and say, Ah, you know, can I really be honest with myself? So test one thing at a time. Once you’ve proven that one of those things work, you just design the next one and the next one and next one, and then within this very short periods of time, you’ll get to a point where, where it starts to work or fail. You could prove that the product simply is not viable. Which, which I’ve had many times, and then even pivoted afterwards, given up on many products, because simply, even though I believed, you know, was going to be amazing, yeah, it turns out to be wrong. So, yeah.

Christian Klepp  25:00

Absolutely, absolutely. Like, it’s really a fine, a fine balance between speed, but also like, like, the quick experimentation, as you say, and you know, as you were, as you were discussing your process, it actually just made me think of another question, which I’m sure you faced countless times, and you brought it up in the beginning too. How do you get this internal alignment? You talked about, like a team getting together in the room, and I’ve been in one of those teams right, where there were a couple, like, we used to call them the stars of the show, because, you know, when they get up on stage, they want the spotlight to be only on them. Forget about what everybody else says. My idea, my baby is the most beautiful baby in the world. And how dare you insult my baby, right? 

Vincent Weberink  25:48

Exactly. 

Christian Klepp  25:49

But, but the reality, as you rightfully pointed out, which I’ve also seen firsthand, the reality, is that the one that shouts the loudest doesn’t necessarily have the best idea, right? It’s sometimes these people. It’s sometimes these people that don’t say anything, that don’t contribute to the conversation, they actually have the solution that perhaps the market is looking for. But unfortunately, their voice is drowned out by these so called, I’m just gonna call them the Divas in the room, right? So back to the question, how do you get that alignment? How do you get those ideas out of everybody in a way that it’s not just fair, but it’s also like more, more in line with what the market is looking for. Let’s put it that way.

Vincent Weberink  26:43

The people around the table that typically don’t speak up, you know, some of them are the deep thinkers. They really think about something, and they have really great ideas, but they’ll then struggle to properly defend their idea and to explain it, whereas the other person on the table, who’s good at selling themselves, you know might they’ll do everything to defend their idea, and therefore they will attack the other ideas. And what you sort of see is by implementing this rank and rate model by definition, you’re externalizing the decision making, so you’re agreeing with everyone on the around the table, that everyone writes down their idea on the paper, on a piece of paper, and you define what that structure should then look like, which means is no one has to defend it. They just write it on paper. You then gather those pieces of paper and you add them to the tool. Then you ask everyone to rank and raise which, by the way, could be done anonymous, which I’ve done many times. And that way you just look at the one that floats, and you just, if the team look, we don’t know who’s right, we can’t afford for this venture to fail, and therefore, we’re just going to focus on the ideas that have the greatest potential of propensity. And that’s how I do it, and it’s always worked well for me. There’s, of course, when I would introduce this to new startup teams, very often it’s the entrepreneur that is the biggest problem. You know that they’re the hardest to convince, because they typically have the strongest opinion of all. 

Christian Klepp  28:34

So you’re talking about the founder, right? The founder

Vincent Weberink  28:36

Yeah. About the founder? Yes, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, because they look, you know, there might be a great marketer or great salesperson who have very strong ideas, and they might, you know, accept inputs, but it’s typically the founder that will then say, yeah, now if you know, it’s my money, so I’m going to just do it my way, and it’s wrong, because you’re now letting your emotion again, getting In the way. And this example that I gave you with the play button that was sort of happened while I was in the process of creating that methodology that I use, which is sort of based on me having read 1000 books where I really struggled that most of the books, even though they’re written for startups, if you really dive into it, they’re actually more for startup teams and corporates, very often, the way they’re described, that you just can’t apply them to normal startups, because normal startups work differently. And what I then did is I sort of took all of the models in there, and then figured out, what if you combine them, crunch them, and then create this methodology. And I was doing that for myself, because I really struggled, having done so many startups, and then I found, okay, so now I have this methodology. I just kept doing it. Kept. Believing that ultimately, it would work with the idea that sometimes you know on this path and that other people need to help you to sort of step out of your comfort zone and sometimes think from the left, from the other side, because your growth might come from a different direction, and which could even be true within your customer persona. You think you have the persona, right. But while you’re digging and running the experiments, it might be the persona next door which is the true, real customer, and you just need to uncover that by believing in that methodology. So…

Christian Klepp  30:40

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, we did one of those exercises in Q2 with a client that had was very convinced of their ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). And then we went through this exercise where we did, um, we did a diagnosis on the ICP to determine, like, is this the right is this actually the right ICP you should be going after, right? So I’m 100% with you on that one. Okay, my friend, we come to the point where we’re talking about actionable tips, and it’s really just a recap of all the great recommendations you’ve given us already. So just imagine that there’s a SaaS (Software as a Service) marketing team out there, or somebody in B2B marketing that’s listening to this conversation. They’re like, wow, that’s exactly what I’m going through right now. So what are the maybe three to five things you would say they can take action on, like right now?

Vincent Weberink  31:31

First of all, understanding you know, coming to the realization that whatever you know is probably wrong. Which is, which is the hardest thing to do. The second thing is you should really start working by using ideation and designing experiments, create MVPs fail as fast as you can, because that’s the way you learn as quickly as you can. And I sort of describe that in my book that I just launched, because it, you know, yes and into the same problem. Also, you know, trust your team. Trust that other people have great ideas as well. And very often, the great ideas come from the people that otherwise wouldn’t, wouldn’t say anything and be as creative as possible. Try to prime yourself by just, you know, search online, what are great growth, growth hacks or other marketing tips and tricks, and then try to figure out, how can I apply those? How can I use those as potential experiments? Because that way you can just simply move forward. But you know, if you’re stuck, get external help, because they’re like people like yourself, you know, who can really help to sort of leapfrog this, because otherwise, you’re just stuck and trying to learn, and while you’re running out of money, you have no time. Most starters will last for six months, and then they’ve run out of money, prove that you’re right before you build anything. And that is really, I think, the most important. And so the last tip I want to give, don’t just start building any product, because you will fail. It’s not for nothing that 95% of startups fails within within the first couple of years. It’s because, you know, you believe that people will flock and will love whatever you’re building. But the reality is just very, very different, and it might be the smallest thing that you get wrong, but you know that’s enough to fail, so…

Christian Klepp  33:46

Prove that you’re right before you build anything. I mean, if there’s anything that the audience should be taking away from this conversation, I think it’s that sentence, right? Absolutely, that’s fantastic. Thanks again for sharing those tips, and I hope the audience is taking as many notes as I am during our conversation. Okay, two more questions before I let you go, Vincent, so here comes the bonus question. So you’re, this is the understatement of the year, but you’re a bit of a nomad, right? Like you’re originally from the Netherlands, you’ve lived in Greece, and now you’ve relocated, I think the last time we spoke, you were in Florence, and now you’ve moved somewhere else in northern Italy, right? So how has this lifestyle impacted you, personally and professionally? I mean, it’s clearly changed your view of the world, I’m sure.

Vincent Weberink  34:39

Yes, so somehow I felt I was always stuck in the Netherlands as an entrepreneur. Because especially in the past, there is this thing, and I like to joke about it, where the Americans have the not invented syndrome, not invented here syndrome, the Dutch people have the invented hair syndrome, which means it’s all your Dutch. So therefore it can’t be good. And I felt I was very often, sort of, you know, locked up. And at the same time, the world is getting smaller and smaller every day. And I was lucky, being in technology, that we were able to then start moving abroad. And in all fairness, some of the moves we’ve done were actually caused because of the failures we’ve had, not that we run away or anything, but it was sort of, I was trying to do something locally. It didn’t really work. And then it was time for new challenges. And I found, always have found a lot of energy being able to now live in a completely different country, with a different language, with a different culture, and that really enriched my life. I started to look at things very, very differently, especially learning that everyone has a different view, whereas as a young person, I always had a very strong opinion, and the world had to be the way I saw it. But nothing is further from culture plays an incredibly important role on how people perceive things, how to behave, what kind of products they buy, how you should sell. Language plays an incredible, incredibly important role. So, yeah, I guess I was, I can’t say I was lucky because I created my own luck. I created my own decisions. I was lucky that my lovely wife and son have always supported me and that we’ve been on this journey through seven countries in the last 20 years. Yeah, and we’re in Italy at the moment. Indeed.

Christian Klepp  36:35

Wow. Seven countries. Yeah, yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. That’s about the same number as in terms of my own experience. Like, I live in Canada now, and that’s country number seven. So there’s more, there’s more of us out there than you think, right? Like, exactly. So it’s very similar to my story. But, like, how’s your Italian? By the way.

Vincent Weberink  36:57

It’s getting there. I’m studying hard at the moment, and, yeah, we sort of arrived here in January. Officially, my son is studying at university, and he’s finishing. But I guess, you know, I speak some Spanish, so Italian is slightly easier. Yeah.

Christian Klepp  37:16

It’s, yeah, it is helpful. I realized, like, I also speak a certain level of Spanish, and that helped me get by even in a country like Portugal, where, Let’s appreciate it’s a complete it’s a different language, but there are some similarities. So they can understand what I’m saying, they’ll just answer in Portuguese, as long as you also understand what they’re saying, more or less. Yeah, I mean, I try to figure it out, and then they, they’ll, they’ll speak slowly, and I’m like, okay, okay, I got it. Obrigado, all right. Like, fantastic, fantastic. Vincent. Thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your experience and your expertise with the listeners. So please, a quick introduction to yourself and how people out there can get in touch with you. And by the way, I really love that we’re color coordinated. And for those that are listening to the audio version of this, we’re both wearing, like denim colored outfits.

Vincent Weberink  38:11

Well, thank you Christian. Thank you very much for having me. It was a real pleasure. Yeah, of course. You know. My name is Vincent Weberink. My email is vincent@webberink.com and if anyone has any questions or potentially is interested in the book that I’ve just released, which is condensing 1000 books and failures and success, then of course, please, please get in touch with me. Thank you again.

Christian Klepp  38:42

Fantastic, fantastic, and we’ll be sure to include a link to your book in the show notes. So once again, Vincent, thank you so much for your time. Take care. Stay safe and talk to you soon.

Vincent Weberink  38:53

Looking forward, Christian, thank you very much. Take care. 

Christian Klepp  38:56

Thank you. Bye for now. 

Christian Klepp  00:00

We hear it time and time again. In B2B you need to differentiate your brand and specialize in order to stand out in a highly competitive business environment, B2B companies need to master the art of storytelling, craft a unique message and sell authentically without pressure, cringe worthy small talk industry jargon or competing on price. So how do B2B companies do this, and what role can the marketing team play? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketer in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Matthew Pollard, who will be answering this question. He’s a recognized growth expert, author and an award winning speaker who’s out to prove that storytelling will sell more than facts ever will tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is.

Christian Klepp  00:51

Okay. I’m gonna say. Matthew Pollard, welcome to the show, sir. 

Matthew Pollard  00:54

Mate. I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me on. 

Christian Klepp  00:57

I mean, you know, we’ve been on a pre interview call a couple of weeks ago, and we got on like a house on fire. I kind of feel like I’ve known you for like, 30 years or something like that.

Matthew Pollard  01:08

No, I’m glad. I’m glad we got a chance to meet when I was 11. It was a big defining moment for me.

Christian Klepp  01:14

Fair enough, fair enough.

Matthew Pollard  01:18

I guess if, if you didn’t have a Canadian accent, I didn’t have an Australian accent, right? 

Christian Klepp  01:22

Yes, yes. There is that too. There is that too. But Matthew, really excited to have you on the show. I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because we’re going to dive into stuff that you are clearly very passionate about. But that aside, I think we’re going to discuss a topic that I think is highly relevant in the world of B2B marketing. So I’m going to keep the audience in suspense just a couple of seconds longer as we dive into the first question. All right. Okay, fantastic. So Matthew, you’re known as the Rapid Growth Guy, and you’re on a mission to transform 1000s of struggling or plateaued businesses into momentum and growth. So for this conversation, let’s zero in on the topic of how B2B companies can create differentiation and specialization. It sounds like such a pedestrian thing, but it’s amazing. And I’m sure you’re going to talk about this at length in a second. It’s amazing how many companies are still getting this wrong. So I’m going to kick off the conversation with the following question, so if memory serves me well, in our previous conversation, you mentioned that if B2B, companies and their marketing teams can specialize, they can generate more clients. So can you elaborate on that a little bit more please?

Matthew Pollard  02:35

Yeah, absolutely. I think that the reason I use the word specialized rather than niching is a lot of people have in their mind that niching is this thing that everybody knows that they should do but doesn’t work for them. And while, of course, they’re wrong, they’ve created a bunch of really great excuses in their mind for why that is. And so that the best example I can give you is I worked with an insurance guy who also dabbled in wealth management, and he would go to networking events all the time, and he would talk to them, and he learned how to be interested before being interesting, which is heavily important when it comes to networking. And he did his research as well. I mean, he read my books and other people’s books, and really mastered that piece. But what he said when people reached out to him was also when, when people asked him what it was that he did, he would respond that he was in insurance. And it was like their eyes almost exploded. It was like, How do I get away from this person? They knew that they were, they were going to get this massive sales pitch. And I said, Look, Nick we’ve got to step away from you commoditizing yourself like that. As soon as you say insurance. People know what that is. They put it in a bucket. It’s like me saying I’m a sales trainer. They put me in a bucket. They’re like, most people think that sales training, you know, a lot of people feel like sales people are scam artists. So they’re like, You know what? I don’t have anything to do with you. But they’re but then the opposite is, if I say I’m in marketing, people go, Oh, I need marketing. How much do you cost? Right? Neither are positive. But when you say you’re an insurance salesman, or you’re an insurance people know that the word salesman was the next thing that was supposed to come out. So because of that, they’re trying to work out how to get away from you. And so we need to look at how you can sidestep what people think they know about your industry. 

Matthew Pollard  04:26

And so I said to do that, what we need to look at is how you can specialize, how you can speak to a different group of people that see you as the only logical choice. I said. So help me understand, like I believe that in today’s world, especially, the fact of the matter is, you can create rapid growth out of anything. So there’s nothing worse than rapid growth business with customers you don’t like, in a business you can’t stand so let’s focus on a group you absolutely are passionate about helping. And secondly, let’s focus on a group that you can actually serve more effectively, because if you’re in a space where you feel that you. You don’t have a great product, well, then go sell something else. Right? In today’s world, there’s always something great to sell, but think about the space that you want to work in. He goes, Well, Matt, I’m really passionate about insurance, but I really just want to help everyone. And I said, Okay, well, if we’re going to lean into passion, because I know the word passion now we’re using two words, right? Passion, which everyone’s like, well, I’d love to focus on my passion, but that’s not realistic or niche in which people think that don’t work for them. And I said, if we focus on who you’re passionate about, and we leaned into that for just a second, tell me who you would think about working and he’s like, No, seriously, Matt, everybody. I said, truthfully, everybody, what about somebody that earns 50,000 versus somebody that earns 250 he said, Well, no, the person that earns 250 why? Well, they make more money. They can buy more insurance, not what I’m talking about, Nick. 

Matthew Pollard  05:46

So let’s take a step back and say, let’s pick two people at random that make 250,000 the first person is maybe somebody that grew up poor study, got into Harvard through scholarship, maybe now works for a C level executive, or they’re a C level executive, C level executive that works for a big corporation, versus a person that maybe even dropped out of school. But now they’ve started up their own business and makes 250,000 a year. One has 10 staff, the other one has 10 employees. Which one of those do you want to work with most? And his response was interesting. He said, obviously the small business owner. And I said, why? Obviously the small business owner? I mean, I grew up with the reading speed of a sick grader until I was diagnosed with Irwin syndrome. There was no way I would have been able to break through some of those barriers. But I definitely wasn’t getting a scholarship to Harvard, like and getting into a C level executive job, you know, good for him or her. And he said, Well, no, I just feel like the small business owner deserves it more like, Okay, explain that for and he said, Well, you know, I had this grandfather, and my grandfather actually did save up some money and started a business. He started, he owned a farm, and he said that that farm had to have a huge amount of cash flow on hand because of the seasonal variations and things like that, Said, but he always prioritized his team making sure he had cash flow, he said. But then later in life, he got sick and he had to sell the business because he couldn’t afford to support it. He couldn’t work as hard in it anymore. And he said, I just watched my grandfather spend the last years of his life in his tiny apartment fading away in front of a TV. I just felt like he deserved more than that. And I said, you sell insurance. What could you have done to help him? And he said, Well, there’s these insurance products that you can stuff cash in when, and that give you a high yield return, but give you access to it really easily, and that he could have used the returns of that to spin into actual property in a portfolio, and if he hadn’t just done that, he would have had a really happy retirement. And I said, so it’s like, why do you know so much about this? I was blown away at how much he knew. And of course, it was because his grandfather, he saw it could help, could have helped him. I said, well, then how would it feel to wake up every morning helping these high cash flow businesses not end up in second class, like, you know, retirements, like your grandfather, he said, I mean, that would be amazing. So I said, Well, okay, then why would when somebody asks you what it is that you do instead of saying, I’m in insurance, why would you not call yourself? This is what I call a unified message. Why would you not call yourself something like the hustle lifeguard. And then when somebody asks you what that is, you can then respond with something to do with how you don’t want people to end up in second class retirements like your grandfather, that have high cash flow businesses. And then all of a sudden, you’re having a totally different conversation with them, and that changes everything. 

Matthew Pollard  08:42

But it comes from a place of specialty, like when I moved from to, you know, from the US, from Australia to the United States, I made the decision that I wanted to help introverted, service based business owners, predominantly highly complex businesses. And because I decided I wanted to do that, because I felt like there was something heroic about a person with enough talent, skill and belief in themselves to start a business to their own. But the moment that I started talking about sales training, they saw me as a sales trainer. The moment I started talking about marketing, they thought I was talking about marketing, general stuff, and because of that, they said, Oh, do you do digital advertising? How much do you cost? And so what I realized is I needed a hook at the beginning, and so I call myself the Rapid Growth Guy. And then when somebody said, what exactly is that? Because that’s powerful. For the first time, you’ve actually got an opportunity to respond because they genuinely interested, as opposed to the elevator pitch. I do this for this group of people, even if which sounds so transactional. So it gets people to lean in and ask. And then I would say something as simple as, one of the things I love to see more than anything in the world, is an amazing, introverted service provider with enough talent, skill and belief in themselves to start a business of their own. What I find, and I just hate seeing this, is they get stuck in this endless hamster wheel, struggling to find interest to people, trying to set themselves apart, trying to make the sale, really, feeling like people only care about one thing, price. Do you know? Want anyone like that, and when they respond in the affirmative, I said, Well, I’m on a mission to help people like yourself realize you really can have a rapid growth business doing what you love, just not by getting better at your functional skill. You’re probably amazing at that. Instead, by just three things outside the scope of that, they really allow you to build a business that revolves around you, your family and your life, not the other way around. 

Matthew Pollard  10:17

Actually, let me give you an example. Then I would tell a story. The difference you’ll notice is there’s not transaction. Transactional. I’m not talking about myself. I’m talking about the change I want to see in the world, the difference that I want to make. It’s all about helping others. You just can’t do that without having a specialty. Otherwise, I really want to help people with everything that they could possibly hire me for. And really it comes down to well, I just want to work with people that treat me well that let me help them with what I want to help them with, and get paid really well for doing it. I mean, that should be a starting point, but it shouldn’t be the end. And so that’s why I get people to lean into a specialty, because as soon as you focus on a specialty, all of a sudden everyone’s like, Oh, I’m like that. Can you help me? The biggest fear people have is, oh, but what if they’re not like that. And here’s the truth. When you say you specialize, if you go to a doctor, they’re a general practitioner, you’re like, oh, they can help me with everything. When you go to a specialist, you assume they have a specialty in that thing, but you also assume that they have a better general knowledge than everyone else. So you’re used to paying a specialist a premium, but you also see them as the best generalist. So it actually doesn’t exclude you from working with anyone else. Since I started working with introverted service providers, I have more extroverted clients than I ever had because they understand the benefits of sales systemization. Because you’ve got a business you’re trying to sell, there’s no way you’re going to sell it if you’re the primary sales person. I work with some of the biggest billion dollar product based companies in the world, but yet introverted service based business owners and my specialty, and because of that group, it’s opened up so many doors to all of those other groups. So a lot of people say, Well, I want to work with lots of different people. Well, you get to but only by speaking to a smaller few at the beginning. And I know it sounds counterintuitive, it’s just the fact, though.

Christian Klepp  11:57

Absolutely, absolutely and what a way to kick off this conversation. Thanks so much for sharing that anecdote. I would say the next question would be around the key pitfalls for these marketers and these individuals, like business owners, of these key pitfalls that they should be avoiding when it comes to specialization and what should they be doing instead? 

Matthew Pollard  12:21

Yeah. So I think that the key pitfalls is people start saying, What am I passionate about, rather than the difference that they can make? Right? So especially if you’re on the introverted side, you kind of feel uncomfortable thinking about who you want to work with. So if you make it about others and say, Well, who do I make the biggest impact for? Who can I make the biggest change for? What change do I want to see in the world? How can I make the biggest effect on the world? The other thing that I see is people get stuck on that. As I said, I just, you know, I just love helping all people, and that’s never true. You can’t possibly have genuine care equally for every person, and you personally can’t have equal amounts of experience helping everybody. So, you know, for someone like myself, I grew up really introverted. I fell into door to door sales. So I specialize in helping introverted service providers, because I created a methodology for myself to help introverted service providers, because I was selling introverted services, and before that, I was selling products as an introvert. But the truth is that, can I still help extrovert? Yes, but I can help introverted, service based business owners more. So why would I not want to focus on that? And people say, Oh, but I don’t want to give up the opportunity to get any customer, especially if you’re struggling, if you’re listening well, any customers, a good customer. Why would I turn down someone? Well, the truth is, most of you get most of your customers from repeat business or referrals, and they’re not checking out your website anywhere near as much as you think, if at all. Right, the fact is, no one’s going like Christian. If you put I am now a dentist, on my website, your current clients would not stop working with you. And if I referred you to somebody like they might say, look, I checked out your website and says you’re a dentist, but Matt said, you’re really good at, you know, my bookkeeping and accounting services. Could you still help me with that? Of course, they’re trusting a referral. So nobody cares what you put on a website. What you’ve got to realize is, from the outside, it’s a, you know, specializing is a new customer acquisition strategy, so if you focus just on that, and don’t worry so much about losing referrals and repeat customers because they don’t care, you’ll be fine. 

Matthew Pollard  12:21

And the third thing is, people tend to focus on their functional skill, and everybody’s had the same training on the functional skill, and that’s where things go wrong. So what I mean by that is this, actually, let me give you another quick example. I worked with a client, Wendy. She was a language coach. She taught kids and adults Mandarin, and she’s like, so how I’ve got this big issue? There are people moving into California charging 30 to $40 an hour for private consultation. There are people on Craigslist offering to do it from China for $12 an hour. And now there’s even technology. I’ll teach you Mandarin and you teach me English. We just won’t charge anyone anything she’s competing against free. So she said, Well, how do I compete this crowded marketplace? And of course, I could have said specialty, but first I had to look at the unique skills she had. So I said, Look, if I help you with sales, yes, absolutely, we’ll be able to close more deals. But instead, let’s look at how we can avoid the battle altogether. So what I did is I looked at all the customers she worked with over the years, and what I realized is that for a small number of them, really it was only two. She helped them with far more. She really helped them understand the difference between E commerce in China in the Western world, these are executives being relocated to China. She helped them understand that the difference between the importance of respect, like how to handle a business card, why to reduce your accent, not just learn the language. And she also helped them understand the difference of rapport. Like, Christian, if I was trying to sell you something in the Western world, I’m really bad at sales, I might say something horrible at the end of 45 minutes, like, do you want to move forward? If you say you want to think about it now and next week, my chances of getting that sale are pretty slim. In China, they want to see me five or six times before they discuss business. They’re probably going to want to see me drunk over karaoke once or twice. And it’s just the character of the person that they sorry. They want to understand the character of the person they’re doing business with, because they’re talking about 20 to 50 year deals, not transactional contracts. And she helped understand all of this. 

Christian Klepp  15:49

Fantastic. That’s one heck of a story. And you know, coming from somebody like me who has spent time out in China, I can definitely attest to the fact that business deals aren’t being done with alcohol and karaoke, right? Like not all of them, but many of them are. I did have one follow up question for you, Matthew, and it’s really just for I guess. Let’s just say I want to play the devil’s advocate here, just a little bit. Right? Everything that you’ve said to me makes a lot of sense, but there’s people out there, without question, that are like doubting this approach, right? Like, and what I mean by that is like you’re calling yourself the growth consultant, when, in fact, you’re an insurance salesperson. She’s calling herself the China Success gal when she’s actually a mandarin teacher. What do you say to people that challenge the way that you’ve packaged this approach?

Matthew Pollard  20:09

And like, when you for these two people, you’re doing far more than just language tuition. What are you doing? And she’s like, well, there’s just a few things I’m just trying to help. And this is where people get stuck. They actually focus on their speciality based on their functional skill, as opposed to what they do great. And I said, Look, Wendy, is it fair to assume as a result of decisions you’re giving these two people, they’re going to be more successful in China? I mean, yeah. I mean, that’s the point, right? I said, Great. Then let’s call you the China Success Coach. Forget about Mandarin education for a second. Let’s create what we ended up calling the China Success intensive. So we leaned into a skill set that she had beyond her functional skill, that complemented her functional skill. Well, now she’s like, well, you know, I’m, I’m ecstatic about this. Like, who do I sell it to? What she’s asking is, who do I get networking to me, what’s, you know, what niche am I supposed to go and talk to? And I said, Well, who do you think it is? And then she went with something broad, like executives. And I said, Well, I mean, that makes sense. I mean, executives going to China. I mean, I moved from Australia, the United States. I was United States. I was terrified. Imagine going to China. I just don’t think it’s your ideal client. It’s not what, obviously, the companies are paying. So let’s go with something broad. Like, everyone goes broad. I don’t know why. Like, when you’ve got less economies of scale, less proof of concept, especially, why would you want to go like for like against somebody that’s faster, quicker, better and got more testimonials. But even when, even when you’re bigger, why would you want to do that? 

Matthew Pollard  20:09

I said, companies don’t go broad, firstly, but secondly, they might have millions of dollars riding on an executive being successful. I just don’t think it’s the right fit for you. And she said, Okay, now she’s frustrated with me. Oh, who? Then I said, I think it’s the immigration attorney. Then she looks at me like I’m speaking a foreign language. I said, think about it. These people have they may make five to $7,000 for doing the visa or the paperwork that comes with it, all the bureaucracy that comes with that. They’d be lucky to make $3,000 for any successful visa. I said, why not offer them $3,000 to match it for any successful introduction to the China Success Coach? They love the idea. They’re like double my profit for a simple introduction. Sure. What have I got to say? She just had them say, congratulations, you’ve now got your visa. I just want to double check you’re as ready as possible to be relocated to China. They’d always think they had their visa. They’ve learned the language. Kids are getting pretty good at two. They’ve got their place sorted. They’re set that she would just have them respond with, there’s a lot more to it than that, and tell them that they think that they should speak to the China Success Coach. She got on the phone with the easiest sale in the world. They were terrified to go. The organization was motivated to pay, and that’s why she was able to charge $30,000 instead of $50 to $80 an hour, minus a $3,000 commission, she made $27,000 for the easiest sale in the world, all by leaning in to her actual skill set outside the scope of a functional skill, leading into a specialty and then creating what I call a unified message on top of it to help her be seen as the only logical choice. 

Matthew Pollard  20:10

Absolutely, and I believe that everybody should challenge everything they hear for the first time. They should try it on if it fits them. But absolutely, you need to validate first. And so for me, I look at if you’ve got a vanilla message, just like everybody else’s, then you have to be the loudest in the room, not because you can’t be the clearest. So how do we actually be the clearest? Well, if we talk about our functional skill, are we? Are we actually being clear? Because who here can possibly define themselves by their just their functional skill that doesn’t make any sense. Like you are a lifetime of experience, a lifetime of past customers and up. You’ve had different upbringings, different education because of that, you are a byproduct of all of these things. So what was interesting is the language coach actually became the China Success Coach because that’s who she was to these two people, and then we fixated on getting more clients. Yes, she taught the Mandarin, but she taught them other ways to be successful. Help the kids be ready, so the whole family unit could be successful. Because, truthfully, if the kids aren’t successful, good luck. 

Matthew Pollard  21:18

Now, if you think about me, I mean, I’m a master in neuro linguistic programming, I’m a business coach, I’m a branding expert, I’m a Sales systemization expert. I specialize in helping introverts. I mean, I’m too many things. The only thing I know for sure is nobody cares. They don’t care how hard it was for me to learn these things or how long I spent learning them. So the Rapid Growth Guy simplifies it for them, but it’s also a better, definitive explanation of what I do. I’m far more aligned. Like I don’t like a lot of sales training. I feel like it forces people to focus on more dogmatic and Bulldog techniques, and that’s just not me. I also know my ideal avatar, the introvert, hates sales so it’s not in their best interest to hear that I’m a sales trainer either. 

Matthew Pollard  21:57

Now, from a marketing perspective, I know that most marketers these days, unfortunately, see marketing as Facebook ads, and they see the bro economy of a bunch of people with jets they rented for the hour, saying, You can be like me too, and I don’t want to be in that bucket, so I want to be in a category of my own. Now, a lot of people struggle with that. They’re like a category of my own, but that means I have to explain to everybody what I do. Well, wouldn’t that be amazing to not be in a category that’s full of other people that are destroying the industry or fight on price, but actually be in a category of my own, but that means I’ve actually got to explain what I do. Now think about the science behind this. If I’m interested before I try to be interesting, people feel like they have to be interested in me as well, right? It’s about being reciprocal. Then I say I’m the Rapid Growth Guy, and people’s brains explode, because our brains are programmed to understand who what something is, to work out, what box to put it in, whether to exclude it or include it. And because of that, that then leads to a massive issue for them, because they’re like, I don’t know where to put this person. So because of that, they have to ask, because they’re interested, because our brain wants to solve issues with what exactly is that they’ll ask. And then I say, Well, I love to see this. I hate to see this. I’m on mission to do this. But notice I didn’t even tell you what I did. I just conveyed who I care about. So now I’m like, Wow, I’ve never heard anything before like this. Usually I hear this self gratification elevator pitch, or somebody say, Well, my day job is this. Nobody wants to hear that. Now, smart people say, Well, I don’t tell them what I do. I just ask questions. I’m like, Oh, great. Everybody loves to be interrogated the moment that they ask somebody what they do. So none of those things are helpful. So by sharing who I care about, even if it doesn’t fit them, they’re starting to think, Wow, I like this person. Who can I introduce them to? And then I say, which is why I’m on a mission to do this. Let me give you an example, and when I move into the example, I’m then giving them the exact framework of what I do. I might tell them the Wendy story, and I explained the Wendy story, and at the end they say, does that make sense? And they’re all now I get it, because here’s the thing 

Matthew Pollard  24:07

If I try to educate you on what I do or why I’m different, first thing is, it comes across as I’m bragging. Second thing is, they won’t remember it. The statistics say if I embed it into a story. First thing is, it doesn’t come across as bragging. Secondly, people remember 22 times more information when embedded into a story. And thirdly, it activates the reticular activating system of the brain, which actually causes our brains to synchronize, and that actually creates artificial rapport. And because of that, people feel like they have an uncanny connection with me. It’s a total advantage. Everyone feels like, even when you’re in the sale, my job is to explain all the options so they can make a decision. No, you’re up. You did if your product or service benefits them. Your focus should be about getting them out of their own way to make a decision. You’re the expert. Tell them a story of someone just like them that wanted what they wanted and how you got them to an amazing outcome. The goal isn’t about talking about variables or educating the customer or. Hitting them with all these functional skill piece jargon. Your first job is to explain why you care and who you care about, then convey a story that educates and inspires people to act in their best interest, even if they don’t hire you. Because the truth is, if you can be the clearest in networking room, you don’t need to be the loudest, and it’s the same online, if you don’t want to be that person taking a photo of a dog or donut for something to say online, you can’t be as vanilla as everyone else. You have to be unique. You have to be different. And that’s what my goal is for everyone listening today.

Christian Klepp  25:31

Mic drop. That was a bit early in the conversation, though, for the mic drop, but like, I’ll take it well, fantastic. Fantastic. Fantastic. And I do absolutely see your point. I do absolutely see your point in terms of, like, how do you stand out in that, you know, use whatever analogy you want, right? I’m in that sea of sameness. How do you become that signal amidst the noise? And, you know, for those people, because I’ve gotten that as well, like, you know, but you’re just packaging it up with all this fluff, and you’re using fancy words, but then, if you scratch beneath the surface, what you’re actually selling is a genuine area of expertise where you help, to your point, transform the client, right? Whether it’s their business, whether it’s in your case, whether, whether it’s their skills, and so on, right? 

Matthew Pollard  26:21

Well, one of the things that’s always interested me is people want to explain what they do. 

Christian Klepp  26:25

Yeah.

Matthew Pollard  26:26

I don’t know anybody that doesn’t prioritize their own interests over somebody else’s. 

Christian Klepp  26:31

Yeah. 

Matthew Pollard  26:32

And I know there’s a lot of people that say, well, that’s not true. You know, I prioritize my kids that that’s different. I’m talking about in a business situation. People always prioritize their own business future over somebody else’s. And so if I said, Hey, here’s all the stuff I do, my expectation is that they have to figure out how that applies to them. That’s laziness. If you sit there and go, Well, how does what I do change them help them. What outcome do they even want? Like, if I start with, if I want to specialize in this group, what outcome can I deliver them? And then all you want to do is articulate to that outcome. Because when you explain the outcome that you get someone or the pain you remove someone from people are far more likely to go, you know what? Matt, that sounds amazing. I want to do that because now they’ve tried on the outcome. They don’t care what you do. I could then say, You know what? All that it takes for you to get this outcome is to put this stapler on your desk. They don’t care if that gets the outcome. I’m putting the stapler on my desk. They just want to know that you’ve worked with someone in the past to get the outcome that they want, and you’ve got a system to do it. That’s it. They don’t actually want to know what the system is.

Christian Klepp  27:46

Well, the procurement team might, but, like…

Matthew Pollard  27:49

It’s been really interesting. I do a lot of sales kick off events, and when you’re looking at a group of people that are on board. They’ve heard the story, and they want the outcome. So the procurement team wants a statement of work, and they want the statement of work to be really simple, right? They want we’re going to focus on these are the number of days. These are the number of hours, and these are going to be the outcomes in each one of these things, they actually don’t want to know what you’re going to do in each one of those things. They want to know what they get, because a computer, a procurement team’s job is to say we have a budget for x. Now, if you’ve marketed yourself correctly, if you’ve articulated your value in the networking room correctly, they’re creating a budget for you. You’re not going into a tender, like, for like, against everyone else. So because of that, you’re the only person going through the amount of times I have worked with procurement that they have said to me, we have been told that we have to push this through. So what we’re missing inside your Statement of Work is these things. Can you fill this out for us, because we need to check these couple of extra boxes, or you’re working collaborate with someone and say, Okay, help me understand your KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) so I can match this exactly. But they’ve already said we’re hiring you. You’ve agreed on budget, and now we’re turning it into something functional, if we need to through the statement of work to get procurement to agree. But what you’ll find is the decision is already made. Procurements job is to either find a vendor once a decision for what is needed is already found, is already decided, in which case you got to the sale too late, you didn’t convince them of your value and create a category. If you’re just going into a tender process, you can use story to highlight why you deserve to be a little bit more expensive, but you’re already into a category, so you’ve already lost that’s okay. You can use other techniques and highlight your specialty to still get the business. But if you can sidestep that and be seen as the only logical choice, people reach out to me and say, Matt, we want you to do this initiative that we heard about. We want you to do what Wendy, what you did for Wendy, for us, or we want you to speak on storytelling, because we heard about this amazing thing that you do. Tell us, tell us how you can help. And at the end they’ll say, Okay, so now we’ve got to work together to get you through procurement. And here are the changes with what we’ve got to do, because we’ve got to tick these boxes in procurement, but the customer is working with me to get it through procurement. That’s a much better situation to be in.

Christian Klepp  30:21

Absolutely, absolutely, all right, my friend, we get to the point in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and man, you’ve given us so much already, like my hands getting a little sore from all the note taking, but yeah, thank you, Otter. But if there’s somebody out there in particular, like either a B2B marketer or a team within a B2B company that is responsible for putting the brand out there, for lead generation, for all these marketing initiatives. What are like based on everything that you’ve said, just think of this like a recap, question, right? What are three to five things that B2B companies and their teams can do right now to create that differentiation and specialization that will truly set them apart right, that will pull them out of this. What’s that term that you kept using? Vanilla? Right? The vanilla landscape, the vanilla content, that vanilla, that vanilla set of assets, and so forth.

Matthew Pollard  31:21

Absolutely, I think the first thing is, if you look at your website, and I tell everybody, especially in digital marketing, to look at their website, because usually when I look at especially somebody in digital marketing, to the point that you just made their website looks like a Cheesecake Factory menu of services, and it’s, oh, we provide SEO (Search Engine Optimization). We pay digital marketing. We do this, we do this, we do this. It’s you just tell me what you want to buy, and I will sell it to you. It also says, Hey, we do everything, which means there’s no way you can do everything well. And it also is just a list of industry jargon, of the functional skills that you’ve got certifications on, none of that helps the customer. That’s you saying, This is what we do. Tell me what you need. And that’s lazy sales. It’s lazy marketing. 

Matthew Pollard  32:10

So for me, the first thing I always suggest to most marketers is to rip their list of services that the customer won’t understand off their website, then highlight what you specialize in. Pick an industry group and then say, what are the unique skills that we have above and beyond our functional skill? Outside all the jargon words for helping this demographic, it’s going to be unique care, unique insight, unique understanding, unique experience. There’s a template that I can give you that will help with that, because you don’t need to hire me for this. What you need, you know, actually, funnily enough, I did this template at the National freelance Association nearly 200 people in the room a few years ago, and at the end, I said, Look, do me a favor. Put your hand up if you believe that now that we finished this, you have a group or a specialty that you know that will pay you a premium. They’ll be excited to work with you. And you’ve created your version of the rapid growth guide, the China Success Coach. You know, the unified message that looks and inspire people to want to know more about you. Like 97% of the room put their hands up. The sad part was when I said, Look, do me a favor. Just keep your hands up. If this is the most time you’ve actively spent working on your marketing since you started your business, like 85% of the room kept their hands up. I mean, the whole session was less than 90 minutes long. So the key is that this will work if you spend the time doing it. So if you go to https://matthewpollard.com/growth, then you will see a you’ll be able to download a template, and that template will take you through the five step process to do this. 

Matthew Pollard  33:40

Now, I would suggest, heavily, recommend, that you do not do this in isolation. Get a friend of yours that is doesn’t have your same functional skill to listen to this podcast as well, and then you help them and get them to help you, so they get you out of your functional skill, and you can do the same for them, because what happens is we get into our own industry jargon, so a business coach will get another business coach to help them. The next thing you know, they’re both just as bad as each other, because they’re both inside their box. Now, I’ve spent so long getting this certification, I want people to know that I’ve got it. Nobody cares that you’ve got it, except for you. And the truth is that because you’ve done that certification, you’re so into the industry jargon, especially if you were just certified, that all that you want to talk about is that, but you’re far more than that, and that’s what you need somebody external for. So go to https://matthewpollard.com/growth, download that template, and then work with someone, spend about an hour on them, and then swap over and get them to spend an hour on you. You’ll be miles different just by doing that. 

Matthew Pollard  34:37

And remember, just because you can help everyone doesn’t mean you should, and that’s a really important thing to learn, to know doesn’t mean you don’t get to you might get referred to someone, and you don’t need to turn down the referral. But when you’re talking about reaching out to the people that you specialize in, I would much prefer to have 10 of my absolute right clients come to me and I can charge them a higher premium because they appreciate my specialty. And they want to move forward straight away. Then get 30 people to show up, where my closure rate is 30% it’s the same number of customers, but much higher profit, because there’s less money wasted in customer acquisition, because I haven’t spent my time on the phone with 20 people that didn’t buy plus, I can charge more, which means I make more profit. And then thirdly, most people refer me to other people that are the exact right fit, and a whole bunch of other people that aren’t, but don’t question me because they were referred by somebody that they know, like and trust.

Christian Klepp  35:29

I love it. I love it like I think one of the things that really stood out to me was, let me see if I can quote you accurately here. Just because you can help everyone doesn’t mean you should. Amen of that. Amen of that. Because, like, you know, as tempting as it is, like you said that, as tempting as it is to try to, like, say, everybody’s my customer. I mean, going back to the insurance guy anecdote, I can help everybody, right? Um, it’s, it’s, it’s just, just think about all that time that has been burnt, that has been consumed, that has been spent focusing on the wrong clients or focusing on the wrong prospects. And it’s going back to your point, right? Hence, the reason for needing to specialize.

Matthew Pollard  36:14

I think what’s really interesting is when you ask someone to specialize, the first thing is, oh, I want to specialize in people that can afford me and to treat me well, I’m like, that’s not a special that’s about you. Number one rule of marketing is it’s not about you. Number one rule of sales is it’s not about you. And once you’re being on a podcast, right? It’s not about you, right? It’s the sooner, like, the amount of times I’ve seen people that get on a podcast interview and a question is asked, and then they answer it with all this functional information, and they haven’t, for once, said, are people actually going to be able to consume that like the truth is, I could have shared a whole bunch more on this podcast, and if we had more time, maybe I would, but the truth is, I probably wouldn’t. I would probably go deeper into these primary topics, because the fact is, I know that I can teach you a lot more, but I also know that you won’t apply any of it, because you’ll be overwhelmed at that point. So you really have to make it about the other person. And I think that what happens is mainly because it’s we’re fear of not having enough clients, or our want to help everyone else, depending on whether we talk about it, from a move towards or move away from either way. It’s all about working with everybody we can to make money, because we’re in business to make money, of course, but the truth is that we get to help our clients more, and we get to help more people, while it sounds counterintuitive, by focus focusing on helping less people, at least in our initial messaging, as I said, I get to help more product based companies than I ever did, and more extroverts that I ever did by focusing on introverted service providers, because they open so many doors for me because the results I get them and now you know, I’ve got some of the biggest tech companies in the world that sell hardware as clients of mine, where they learn my introverted sales system, or my total sales system, and I’ve got whole bunch of extroverts that are learning my sales systems too, because they know they can’t sell their business unless they’re not the primary sales person. And the best person to hire and train is an introvert, because once they’ve learned your sales system, they ain’t going anywhere else, because they hold on to the sales system for dear life, right? So the focus is, for me, is helping people understand that if they stop focusing on themselves and start focusing on others, and not everybody but the groups, they actually can provide the best impacts for it’s like the world all of a sudden realizes and opportunities to show up. And the reason they show up is because, when you talk about things in a bland way, how could opportunities ever present themselves? You’re not even asking for them.

Christian Klepp  38:42

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, Matthew, two more questions before I let you go. All right, so here comes the bonus question. You. This was probably the understatement of the week, but here we go. You’ve traveled all over the world to provide training and deliver keynotes and conduct workshops. And I think on your LinkedIn profile, it said, from Thailand to Las Vegas. So the question is, what was that one place that you’ve gone to for any of these right that has left a lasting impression on you? And why?

Matthew Pollard  39:14

So it’s an interesting question, because I don’t particularly love Las Vegas, especially as a speaker. You find yourself in Las Vegas, way too much. And Thailand also, I have, I have different opinions on there. There’s a couple of places that I absolutely love, but one of them got me out to Iguazu fall. So I spent some time in South America and Iguazu. I’m hoping for the South Americans listening, I apologize if I’m pronouncing it wrong, but hopefully it you’ll forgive me when I say it’s the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s about 320 waterfalls that converge in one place, and it is extraordinary to experience. And I say experience not see, because it really that you feel the water when you’re there. It’s just, it’s phenomenal.

Christian Klepp  40:02

Wow, wow. Yes, yeah, I have heard of those waterfalls, and it is, it is a sight to behold, right?

Matthew Pollard  40:09

Yes, and I know that I’m probably saying the wrong thing, promoting a different waterfall to somebody in Toronto. So I hope you forgive me.

Christian Klepp  40:17

That’s all right, the Niagara Falls are nice too. But, like, I got what you mean.

Matthew Pollard  40:24

Yeah, why I see Niagara Falls from both sides? I’ve spoken in Buffalo, saw it from that side, and then got to see it from the Toronto side. And I mean, it’s definitely extraordinary. I think it’s definitely grand Iguazu Falls is it’s in absolute nature. It’s actually a trek to get there, and it’s so I wouldn’t it’s just different, it’s unique, and it is a lot easier to visit Niagara Falls.

Christian Klepp  40:50

Yes, yes. I mean, I suppose Iguazu it was more like, it’s, it’s, it’s a bit untouched by civilization, if I can put it that way, right?

Matthew Pollard  40:58

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I, yeah, I, and I feel like one of the other differences, and maybe that’s just a me thing. I’m definitely I love water, but the Brazilian side is what won the one of the most beautiful places on earth top 10 list. Maybe they were just better at marketing, but I loved the Argentinian side a lot more. And now I’m going to get hate mail for a bunch of people from Brazil. I love Brazil too. But the Argentinian side, you get to sit or stand in the mouth of the waterfall like the largest waterfall, and it’s such an extraordinary experience. And I’m going to get the science wrong, but this thing, I think it’s ionization or whatever that happens at that point. But you lose, you can’t not agree to anything. Like, if I feel like, if I wanted to close a really big deal and somebody hadn’t said yes to me for the last 10 years, I would fly them to the mouth of that waterfall and ask them the question there, because there’s no way you can say no to anything in the mouth of that waterfall.

Christian Klepp  42:03

Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. Well, Matthew, this has been such an incredible conversation. And yes, you’re right. We probably could have been chatting for another five hours. But in the interest of time, I want to thank you for coming on the show, for sharing your experience and expertise and those incredible anecdotes with the listeners. So please. Quick introduction to yourself and how folks are thinking in touch with you?

Matthew Pollard  42:24

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I appreciate that. So firstly, for those people that want to get in touch. I mean, go and check  https://matthewpollard.com/growth. That templates what’s going to help you most. But I’m known as the Rapid Growth Guy. As I mentioned, I’ve the author of the best selling book series, the introverts edge, which is now sold, I’m delighted to say over 120,000 copies. It’s in 16 languages, and I it just, it’s predominantly focused, and my publisher is going to hate me when I say this, but you don’t need to buy the books if, for instance, if you’re interested in sales, just go to the introvertsedge.com. Download the first chapter, and there I’ll give you overwhelming evidence to help you believe that introverts make not just great sales people, but I believe, beat the extroverts hands down. And then it will give you a methodical process that if you just grab the chapter head, like the chapter headings I talk about in the introduction, and put what you currently say into it, you’ll quickly realize that there’s a bunch of things that don’t fit. Stop saying that to customers. Then you’ll realize there’s some things out of order, and then there’s some gaping holes. If you fix that, you’ll double your sales, no problem in the next 60 days. And the introverts edge to networking. You can download the first chapter there as well for my networking book. But, you know, I spend my life, you know, helping introverted, service based business owners rapidly grow. And then I also do a whole bunch of sales kick off events. And I, you know, I saw, I spend a lot of time speaking at big corporations, helping them use storytelling. Because the truth is, I believe, especially if you’re doing technical sales, which a lot of introverted service providers are selling in a technical way as well, honestly, you’re one story away from the rapid growth business or career that you deserve. The problem is, most people think their job is to educate a customer. Think about the Wendy story that I told you earlier, if you instead, just motivate, inspire action. My story educates and inspires, but it also kind of embeds me as the only logical choice to do something with right now, my goal is to help, because I personally couldn’t help everybody anyway, is to inspire lots of people to try and do it on their own, and do it on their own. But of course, there’s always people that are going to want you to do to want you to do it for them, or if you sell a product or service to go, Okay, I now know I need this type of product or service, why wouldn’t I use the person that changed my thinking to do it with, you know, to do it for me? And so storytelling is a really powerful resource, and I feature, I go deeper into the storytelling topic in both of my books.

Christian Klepp  44:43

Okay, fantastic, fantastic. And we’ll be sure to put those links in the show notes for this episode. So Matthew, once again, thank you so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Matthew Pollard  44:55

My pleasure mate, thank you so much, and it was I was excited to be here.

Christian Klepp  45:00

Thanks bye for now.

Christian Klepp  00:01

Most B2B companies don’t lose traction because they have a weak offer or a substandard product. They tend to lose it when their prospective buyers ask, Why should I buy from you? And the answer they hear just does not land. So how can B2B companies and their marketing teams develop the right language and messaging that leads to revenue? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Michael Liebowitz, who will be answering this question. He’s the founder of Magnetic Mind Studio, who is focused on messaging strategy fueled by behavioral neuroscience and linguistics. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. 

Christian Klepp  00:01

Michael. I mean, we had a dynamite pre interview conversation. I mean, that was already like foreshadowing what was to come. Let’s put it that way. 

Michael Liebowitz  00:01

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  00:01

And I’m really looking forward to this discussion, because not only is this near and dear to my heart, but I think it’s also something that’s more importantly, highly relevant to B2B marketers and the companies that they represent. So let’s not keep the audience in suspense for too long, and let’s just jump right in on. 

Michael Liebowitz  00:01

Sounds good. Let’s go. 

Christian Klepp  00:01

Fantastic. So Michael, you’re on a mission to build communication clarity that aligns teams and supercharges marketing and sales. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the topic of how to create a B2B message that can’t be ignored. 

Michael Liebowitz  00:01

Okay. 

Christian Klepp  00:01

I’m going to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them, right? So the first one is, why do you think it’s so important to develop the right B2B messaging? The second one is, what is it about B2B messaging that you wish more people understood?

Christian Klepp  00:24

All right. Michael Liebowitz, welcome to the show, sir. 

Michael Liebowitz  00:47

Thanks. I’m glad to be here.

Michael Liebowitz  01:54

Messaging in general, communication in general. I’ll see if I can find some pieces that are specifically applied to B2B. But my area of expertise is in the realm of behavioral neuroscience and linguistics, and that is shared by all humans, regardless of B2B or anything else. So the best way to create a message that can’t be ignored? Well, most messaging is speaking to the wrong part of the brain. Right? It’s speaking to a part of the brain that has almost, but not entirely, anything to do with whether or not someone’s going to want the service that you’re selling or not. There is another part of the brain that’s operating in the background, and I’m just going to, for sake of learning, we’re going to call it the critter brain. Now this is a metaphor for learning. There is no such thing. You know people say is that the amygdala is like, well, the mingle is part of it, but just, it’s just how the brain operates. And this part of the brain just wants to know if you are safe to be around all it does it. It controls emotions and it controls survival. That’s all it’s concerned with. 

Michael Liebowitz  03:02

Here’s the nut, the up shell of that, the nutshell that we feel good when we are with people who are like ourselves. To this part of the brain, I don’t want me to die, therefore people like me probably don’t want me to die either. Makes perfect sense to the Creator brain. So here’s how this relates to messaging. The meta frame on top of all messaging is how do you create like kind with your audience? Which is why I say and let me be clear about this. That means you do audience research. But here’s what most B2B marketing misses to the extent that it should be done as much as the audience clarification is, well, what is this business really all about? What does it stand for on a belief level? So to answer that question, how do you get these messages to really break through and get a yes, you have to communicate on a belief level, not just the level of the service that you provide.

Christian Klepp  04:07

Fantastic, fantastic. And, yeah, and I suppose, like, what are these like when you’re developing that messaging that can’t be ignored? What are some of these? And you’ve probably seen that, all right, what are some of these key pitfalls? Let’s keep it top level, some of these key pitfalls that marketers should avoid, and from a constructive perspective, what should they be doing instead?

Michael Liebowitz  04:30

Okay, the avoid part, hey, you’re going to be able to do all these things, fantastic, and even the surface level benefits, you’re going to be able to know, no more of that. Now it’s freedom for this, no more that. Now you’re got more money for that. Those are useful things to communicate, but you have competition, so your competition is saying the exact same thing. So here’s how you differentiate yourself, is this part of the brain that credit brain really only wants to know two things. Number one, what is the main outcome you deliver? So all those things that you’re saying that you’re going to be able to get from this business, we’re going to do all these things for you. Well, what do they what does your client have when they have that? That’s the main outcome. And the best way I’ve ever heard this described, and many marketers in your audience are going to recognize this quote comes from Theodore Levitt Harvard Business School around 1960s or so, which is, people don’t want a quarter inch drill. What they want is a quarter inch hole. 

Michael Liebowitz  05:35

So the big mistake I see a lot of B2B marketing make is they’re talking about the drill. Hey, our stuff, that our platform, our thing, does a lot of this stuff. You need this stuff. It solves this specific problem for you. Great. I’ll put you on the list with the other ones I’m talking to to help solve the problem, right? And then we’ll somehow make a decision. Instead, your audience wants to know, like, Okay, what do I really get from all that, like, on that deeper level? So you have to dig deeper, like, the question, or one of the questions I ask is, kind of tongue in cheek, what did they get when they got what you gave them? Right? So that’s just one thing that the brain wants. This part of the brain wants to know. It gives it context, and it says, okay, but here’s how you make a real connection. And this is so deceptively simple, a little bit harder to surface, but this part of the brain just wants to know, do we share the same beliefs? That’s how it recognizes like kind it just wants to know what you believe to be true about your business or about the context of the business you’re offering, and once the critter brain on the other side of you, the buyer, is able to see clearly what you believe to be true, and as long as it doesn’t violate their criteria for Survival, which is hard to do in this context. You’ve just became a very survivable option. Now they don’t think of this consciously, or at least not not in their foremost awareness. It’s happening way in the background. Is practically automated, right? And so that’s what’s going on. Avoid talking about the surface level benefits. And here’s all the things you’re going to get are useful. I wouldn’t say avoid them. Just put them down below these two. What’s the main outcome and what do you believe to be true?

Christian Klepp  07:34

Yeah, those are definitely interesting points. But I guess my question is, look, why do you think, from your experience, why do you think a lot of B2B marketers go back to stuffing as much information or statistics into their messaging?

Michael Liebowitz  07:50

Because this belief stuff no one’s aware. You need to do it. It kind of comes out of studying behavioral neuroscience. So if you studied marketing, and you’re really good at marketing, and you know how to set up marketing strategy, marketing structures, and all the things, then the consciously aware stuff you’re going to talk about is all that surface level things, because it’s, it’s, it’s in short term memory, it’s in really easy to access sort of information. It takes quite a bit of digging to find the core belief system operating within a business that’s going to resonate with the audience. Now every marketers have the experience of the A/B test and messaging, and one lands, and you’re like, fantastic, let’s move into that one. And sometimes that happens quickly, but more often, it takes a lot of sort of trial. When you move into just talk about your outcomes and beliefs, your A/B testing trials are going to be probably cut in half to maybe a quarter of the attempts, because you’re getting right to the parts of the brain that feel trust. This is how we calculate trust? So, yeah, you can accidentally hit it. Sure. In fact, a good marketer will have the experience to accidentally hit it a lot faster than an inexperienced marketer. But when you know exactly what to look for you, can you hit it every time? All right, yeah.

Christian Klepp  09:19

Yeah, there is that tiny little detail, right? Like you have to, you have to know what you’re doing. Well, at the time of the recording, this is 2025, and I have to ask you this question, also, because you wrote about it on LinkedIn, where does AI fit into this entire equation of developing messaging? And what are your thoughts on that?

Michael Liebowitz  09:42

I’m going to go to a place that’s not tactical, like, how do you integrate AI into marketing? It’s more like this. Here’s what I see the future looking like. 

Christian Klepp  09:50

Right. 

Michael Liebowitz  09:50

I think we are moving away from the attention economy we’ve perfected that we know how to do that, right? So. I think because of AI and how AI makes it really easy to pull the levers of attention at scale, at a much bigger scale than we’ve ever seen before. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be real now I’m not talking in marketing. I’m just talking about what people are going to experience in their online digital lives with the quality of video and audio mimicry that AI is going to be able to achieve. That it’s going to create an overall sense of, I don’t know what’s real. I don’t know what’s true. Because you’re going to look at something, you’re going to believe it, you’re going to comment on it, and then you’re going to find out, Oh, that was completely made up by AI. We’re already seeing things like that, right? And I think the zone is going to get flooded by bad actors in marketing who are just going to pump out a bunch of stuff, because now they can again at scale. So out of the attention economy, we’re going to move into what I’m going to call the trust economy, because the zone has been flooded by a bunch of dubious information, and everyone’s got is going to get burned by it, 2, 3, 4, 10 times. We’re going to look for islands of trust, right? 

Michael Liebowitz  11:17

I think the lever point of the future for all brands, including B2B, is how quickly can you get from first contact to trust? Because ain’t no one going to have the patience to take the journey with you anymore. Now, with B2B, it’s different, because longer sales cycles, it tends to be more of a personal touch, but still, you know it’s going to apply, especially if the top of your funnel for B2B has something to do with an online presence of any kind. Yeah. But if you’re going to networking meetings, and that’s how you’re doing your B2B market your or speaking engagements, a lot less so of this impact of AI with the trust economy.

Christian Klepp  12:09

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we hear it all the time. We see a lot of posts about it on LinkedIn, about how the trust gap is widening. 

Michael Liebowitz  12:17

Yep. 

Christian Klepp  12:18

It’s not narrowing. It’s widening. And, you know, going back to all those things that you just mentioned. So I guess the question here is really, or the challenge, in fact, for B2B marketers out there is like, how do you build that trust quickly?

Michael Liebowitz  12:32

Yeah, everything cycles back to beliefs, the fastest way to gain trust and the fastest way to authentically, be authentic. Oh my god, we’re going to see so much like faux authenticity out there is going to be insane. Is to just be able to look the prospect in the eye, whether that’s in person or digitally or like whatever the form of communication is, and just say this is what we believe to be true. Because here’s the thing about human beings and how our neurology operates in any human interaction, the person with the strongest belief wins every single time. The example I always use is if the child believes they deserve that piece of candy more than their parent believes they don’t. Guess who’s going to get some candy, and pretty soon, right? Eventually, the belief systems will align on the strongest belief in the room. We’ve all experienced this as well in any group setting where you’re all deciding on where to go to lunch. I guarantee you went to lunch at the place of whoever had the strongest belief in that organization or that gathering of we should go here. It’s part of social dynamics. It’s part of tribe building. It’s part of safety patterning. It’s wired in so when you lead with a message based in your business’s core belief, call it brand. Call it whatever you want, but it’s a belief. You become the strongest belief in the system, and what you’re going to find is, anyone on the other side of that communication, you’re going to come off as more believable, more authentic. We have a tendency to adopt the map of whoever’s expressing the strongest belief in the room. It’s a function of, you know, getting along as with other human beings. And so, you know, we’re, we’re an animal that seeks community with each other and belonging. So this is just one of the mechanisms by which we do it. Okay, marketers, you’re, you’re, you got 150,000 years of a human evolution in there. Use it, right?

Christian Klepp  14:41

Absolutely, man, absolutely. You touched on this previously, but I want to go back to it, like behavioral neuroscience. 

Michael Liebowitz  14:50

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  14:50

Like, I know that that’s really like something you focus on in your area of expertise. What role does that have in developing the right B2B messaging? 

Michael Liebowitz  15:01

We all okay, every human being follows the same neural pathway to saying yes, and your audience takes in whatever is being communicated. Marketers know this, that everything is a piece of everything is communication, right? So here’s what happens. We take that in the very first thing we do is we’re trying to make that light, kind, identity, belief level, match whichever way that goes, yes or no. And you’ve seen or heard of the study say, hey, turns out decisions are made in a split second. Well, this is this. This is the decision they’re talking about. It’s not the decision to buy or not buy. It’s the decision of, are you survivable or not? And this part of the brain is fully wired up by the time we’re two months old. So by the time you’re in any position to buy something, you’ve gotten really good at this. Right? Whichever way that answer goes, gets kicked upstairs to the other part of the brain, which we’re just going to call the human brain, wraps a story around the emotional content that the critter brain just told it either scary or yay, and then we output into the behavior of, yes, I want to buy that. So what we often think is, what do I have to say over here that will entice someone to buy when in reality. And here’s what the neuroscience says, ah, the real thing is to what do you need to say over here to make the critter brain feel like you’re safe and that you’re like kind the rest of the neurology will take care of itself. That lead to the buy button.

Christian Klepp  16:45

Interesting, yeah, it definitely goes back to like, it’s almost, um, not, not pedestrian, but it’s the very basic, like, fundamentals. 

Michael Liebowitz  16:55

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  16:55

Of not even human survival. It’s like, it’s like, almost like the animal instinct, if you will.

Michael Liebowitz  17:00

So technically, we can really organize sections of the brain because our brains were built common like Microsoft does their operating systems. Everything’s backward compatible, right? And the parts that are on operation technically are, let’s these are just metaphors. Is the lizard brain, that’s survival, and the mammalian brain, which is the emotion. So those two things come together to create the critter brain. They work really well together on this sort of like lightning fast, you know, systems thinking that Daniel Kahneman talks about, and then the other parts of the brain are more advanced. It’s the primate brain, and it’s the human brain, and then there’s the or the advanced primate brain, and then there’s the human brain, which is the frontal cortex. All those do a lot of complicated stuff, including social dynamics, language logic, reasoning. We put those in finger quotes. Time is in there. All that stuff is up there, but the control panel is on the other side. Survival. You mean, okay, this top of the brain. The top of the brain, the human brain does, let’s just call it rational thinking. Put that in finger quotes the critter brain does survival thinking. So given the choice of making a survival decision or a rational decision, which one do you think we’re going to default into survival? If you get a rational decision wrong, what happens? Well, you just made the wrong decision. You get that survival decision wrong. Guess what happens?

Christian Klepp  18:40

Oops. 

Michael Liebowitz  18:41

Oops. You’re no longer around to make any more decisions, right, right? Yeah, so that’s what we default to every single time.

Christian Klepp  18:49

Absolutely, absolutely, all right. I mean, you’ve given us a lot of stuff here, so why don’t we try to, like, break it down. Like, what is it that B2B marketers need to do to develop that messaging that can’t be ignored. Like, walk us through those steps. What are those components like? Like, think of this like an engine. Well, what needs to be in there?

Michael Liebowitz  19:08

Number one is finding out the operating belief within the business. Here you’re going to be talking to, and this, I’m just going to lay out what my process is. You need the CEO in the room and whoever is, this is my language, whoever is in charge of loving this brand into existence, right? If that’s your COO, that person needs to be in the room. If it’s the CMO, bring them into the room. If it is your HR person, bring them in the room. But if HR is not involved with that, they don’t need to be in the room, right? So you make the call of who’s in the room and the first thing you want to do, and I’ll give people the exact question I use, because here I’m going to maybe get some hate mail, but I think Simon Sinek got it wrong.

Christian Klepp  19:57

Do tell. 

Michael Liebowitz  19:58

Start with why. Because, and Simon doesn’t know this, or maybe he does, but he’s on the right path, but he’s a little bit off on the technicality. When you say, What’s your why, when the critter brain, or when people hear why, the critter brain takes over and starts panicking with the word why? Because there’s a lot of perceived judgment on top of that question, and plus, it narrows it down to one. Was there’s one why? Like, why’d you do that? Well, you have to have an answer and better be convincing. It just puts a lot of pressure on the system. And so what happens is it gives a lot of false positives, because you kind of want to look good. 

Michael Liebowitz  20:45

The better question to ask to get to the same territory that Simon Sinek was talking about, is, instead of What’s your why it is, what is important to you about and then you fill in the context of their business when you ask someone what’s important to them? Well, there’s lots of things that can be important, right? Pressure is off, and no one judges you by what’s important about it. You can agree or disagree, and no one’s going to judge you harshly, right? So you get a lot of really good quality information, but it gets to the same territory, which is the belief system. I guarantee what you find important about something will reveal your beliefs. And so I listen to everyone, I ask everyone in the room, say, Okay, you and I just met, describe this business to me. Just use your own language, and they describe it, and it’s usually very surface level, and I’m listening for how they use their language, not just what they’re saying. And I’ll find something key in there. I’ll say, Great, what’s important to you about and I’ll find the piece that was really interesting about this. 

Michael Liebowitz  21:53

For instance, if I have a client that says B2B and say, like I met with one yesterday, they do, they fix operations in really fast growing startups or found like founder led companies. And one of the words that was used was this frame of optimize was asking like, hey, what do you do? Oh, we optimize X, Y and Z. Now they could have used any word in the English language, but they chose optimize. I’m gonna get curious about how come they use that word. So I say, hey, great. What’s important to you about optimization? How come things need to be optimized? They’re going to tell you a belief, right? So that’s what you do. And then you can dig deeper, like we’re not quite there. And he says, This is where the experience and the sensitivity to where the territory really is. And you can go too far. If you dig all the way down, you’re just going to go to, I get to live, right? So that when you get there, you’ve gone too far, because they all will go there eventually. 

Michael Liebowitz  23:01

The next thing you want to know is, what’s the meaning of that? So you find the one belief. There’s going to be many in the system, and you’re going to find the one that is, the one that is the bigger one. Great. So here’s the belief. So now that you are able to have this in your world. What does having that do for you? They’re going to give you the meaning of that belief. Well, guess what? When you share the belief and meaning of your business with the with your audience, the second a part of them agrees with you, that’s the first, most important yes, you’re ever going to get and you’ve already beat out the competition, because even if they offer the exact same service as you do, and your audience can see that there’s a part of them that just goes there’s just something like this company I like, And it’s because you became the most survivable option available to the critter brain, and it’s just squirting out like the chemicals. It’s like your brain is a chemical machine, right? And so those are the first two movements I do. What’s the belief in the system? What is the meaning of that belief in this system? 

Michael Liebowitz  24:17

And here’s the thing, this is about the company. This is coming from the company. You can’t source your brand from the outside. This is the company planting their flag. Now, you can absolutely source the outcomes from your customers. What are they looking for? But then you’re going to want to frame it from the viewpoint of the brand, of the belief system, to attract the people that are going to be fantastic, fit clients. Oh, you can do this. A company is going every time you’ve ever had a bad fit client, it’s been because of a mismatch of belief and belonging and things like that. When you’re clear about this stuff, the bad fit clients will never come into your orbit. They will. Self eject because you’re being so clear, and they’ll just disagree with you and say, not for me, right? 

Christian Klepp  25:08

Which is not a bad thing. 

Michael Liebowitz  25:10

Which is not a bad Oh no. This work takes courage, because I hear like, Oh, aren’t I? Like, narrowing the field? Like, yeah, you kind of are and delivery so, but you’re narrowing it into people who are going to be the most amazing clients you’ve ever had. Yeah, and, and they’re going to stick with you, because this is how loyalty works. Again. Creator brain survival is I already know you’re survivable, and even if someone else has a quote, unquote, better option, better service, or better whatever that is. I don’t know if I can survive them, right? So I’m going to stay here, just why people stay, honestly, with some bad companies, right? Because it’s survivable to the critter brain now it operationalizes as, Oh, what a pain in the ass to move everything over. And it very well may be, but believe me, if that other option had better things for you and the critter brain said they are 100% survivable, you’d be like, how do we get this done?

Christian Klepp  26:16

Yes, right. Let’s move over. Right? Like, let’s do it.

Michael Liebowitz  26:20

The juice is now worth the squeeze. But if it’s just like we do these things, these five things, we do these seven things. Oh, I want those two other things, but there’s no safety level there. You’re going to stick with the five, five things and ask them, Hey, can you incorporate those two other things into your business? 

Christian Klepp  26:37

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely, okay, my friend, we get to the part in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and, man, you’ve given us a ton, right? 

Michael Liebowitz  26:48

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  26:48

So think of this like a recap question. So if there’s somebody out there, hopefully a B2B marketer, that’s trying to figure all of this out, and there were three to five things that you would advise them to take action on right away when it comes to developing. 

Michael Liebowitz  27:02

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  27:03

B2B messaging that can’t be ignored. What are those things?

Michael Liebowitz  27:08

I would just get your client into a room and ask them what’s important to you? Right? It’s just this, the fundamental Keystone block that holds the entire system together. Not only are you going to understand your client more, they’re going to start to understand themselves more. And as a B2B marketer, they are going to fall in love with you beyond just the results you’re able to get. Here’s another action item, if your current messaging is not performing well, ask yourself this question, what identity are we communicating here? Because identities are just beliefs that start with the words I am. So it’s another type of belief. But writing on top of every message is an identity. Like, read the message. And if you can imagine what kind of person is saying this, what picture comes up in your head, like, describe them. They’re the kind of person who is technical. They’re the kind of person who is like, fun, loving, whatever. And if that kind of person doesn’t match the business that you’re trying to market for, that’s why the message isn’t working, or if it’s one of the reasons, right? So because we pick up on those things almost instinctively. Well, here we read a message, and we get it, it’s not conscious, but we get a picture of the kind of person who is saying that, and then we just do a quick hit of, Is this my kind of person or not, right? And so you want to pay attention to those that level of detail. It’s kind of fuzzy. It’s on that emotional level. But we all know that, you know, marketing is an emotional, even B2B is an emotional when people buy on emotions. So that’s another layer. If you’re not doing that, that’s a good exercise to do when things are not working, and if you have a message that is working, do the same thing and deconstruct that identity and try to say, Well, this one works. Okay, let’s do more of that.

Christian Klepp  29:28

Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, a lot of the things that you said resonated with me, because part of what I do also is like, you know, auditing a client’s website, or sometimes checking out their competitors. And every so often, I would say, more often than not, you come across websites where you’re looking at the homepage, or I’m looking at the homepage and I’m scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. I’m like, Okay, back to the top, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. And I still don’t understand what this company does, right?

Michael Liebowitz  29:58

Like I saw one the other day. I’m like, I still don’t know what you do. I’ve looked at probably three of your pages on your website. I have no idea what you do or what context you even exist in. 

Christian Klepp  30:08

Yeah. 

Michael Liebowitz  30:10

Yeah, yeah. Well, some of my favorite clients are like that. They’re like, Okay, this isn’t working. Like, well, yeah, let’s redo the whole thing, and we’re good with that, right? 

Christian Klepp  30:21

Well, that’s, that’s why you’re there, right? 

Michael Liebowitz  30:23

Yeah.

Christian Klepp  30:24

Yeah, fantastic. 

Michael Liebowitz  30:25

I like working with technical founders because they’re all about the, obviously, the technology. They can’t get out of their own way. And when I uncover the beliefs are, like, I had no idea that was in there. Like, yeah, let’s, let’s, let’s start leveraging the stuff that works. You still get to have your stuff. It’s just coming later in the communication. The first two things here’s actionable. The first two things any piece of communication you should do, especially a website, is what’s the main outcome? What’s the core belief? Sometimes a message is a belief outcome combo, right? And that’s usually in the form of what I call a meta frame. And what’s the because the company does a whole bunch of things, and you find the meta frame that captures all of them into one bucket, those tend to be a belief in outcome combo. But start with the outcome, especially like me. This is the Donald Miller stuff, the you know, story brand. It’s all about them. So the first payment headline, first headline is what they get. But don’t get too tactical. Make what they get. The main outcome of the thing you deliver, you’re going to get a report that does X, Y and Z, like, no, what do they have when they have a report right? 

Michael Liebowitz  31:42

And then the next line, I kid you not, the next line needs to be what the company believes to be true, and the beliefs do not have to be profound. I literally got a company going from flat sales to 10% jump or 10% jump in one month based on the belief it’s fun to show off. 

Christian Klepp  32:08

Really? 

Michael Liebowitz  32:08

Not profound whatsoever. Yeah, it was a company that made cooking gadgets. 

Christian Klepp  32:15

Okay. 

Michael Liebowitz  32:15

And they were saying, hey, buy our stuff. It’s makes food quickly. No, no skill necessary. It’s more it’s perfect. Every time those stories are competition, who freaking cares? But when we discovered finally had to, like, get the CEO to finally feel comfortable enough to admit it, he said, I just love showing off the food, the food I make. I just love it. When people say, Holy crap, you made this. This is unbelievable. And everyone in the room just went, Yeah, well, of course they did, because the CEO hired like kind he didn’t know he was doing it, yeah, but he hired people. It was like himself, and they all obviously liked cooking. It was one of the criteria he wanted. But they all loved that moment. You know what? They like to show off. So this turned into a message of, instead of, hey, buy our gadgets, it’s perfect food and blah, blah, blah, it’s, would you like to be the star of the dinner party? It’s an identity appeal, right? Anyone who says that’s like me, I want to be the star of the dinner party. And of course, the imagery we have is a dinner party situation where all the attention is going to one person, right? And it just hit, it opened up new avenues for where they market, including some unexpected places, like on Facebook, targeting people who have had like are interested in cosmetic surgery, not reconstructive, but cosmetic, like Botox and things like that. Because who likes to show off as well? I’m my appearance. I like to how I appear. It matters to me, so they mark it there. And lo and behold, there was an audience there with this message for cooking gadgets. 

Michael Liebowitz  33:48

Tell people what you believe. Now that example I just gave you the belief does not have to be explicit, like it’s fun to show off, but you want to communicate that that’s what we’re all here for, right? And definitely some of their communication did say, you know, shit, let’s, let’s face it, showing off is fun, isn’t it? Right? Let’s kind of like, be real with your audience. And like, hell yeah, it is right, where you’re among friends here, but that’s the most overlooked piece. Just tell people what the main belief is, and you’ve hooked them. The rest is the details.

Christian Klepp  34:29

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. For sure. Okay, here comes the soapbox question. 

Michael Liebowitz  34:36

Okay. 

Christian Klepp  34:36

All right, yeah, a status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why?

Michael Liebowitz  34:45

Okay, here’s what I disagree with. There is a conventional wisdom in communication slash marketing that says you have to understand your customer. Now, it’s not that I disagree with that, but I think it is step two, when often it is thought of as step one, because sales is a relationship, and guess what? The business is part of the relationship. The business is involved, and not just the customer. And this is where you get to, like, pure transactional sales that are so easy to switch. And just like, we’ll pick whoever has the best price, because it gets too transactional. And all you did was say, our customers say they want this, so we’re going to give them that. Okay, you and the 100 other companies that I can throw a stick in the middle of the road, and there it’s going to be, within five miles of them. 

Michael Liebowitz  35:53

To fully understand your customer, you have to first understand yourself. That is the level up. Step one is you have to really understand yourself, because you are in the equation, and honestly, you get to say who you want to be in a relationship with, right? So that has to be step one. And I’ll I tell you, marketers, this will help you ask better questions to get the customer insights, because once you know what the company you are marketing for, what they’re really all about, on that belief level, that meaning level, even we haven’t talked about this yet, but what I call belonging traits. Oh my god, belonging traits blow ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) out of the water, right? ICP is like, who, like, where do they find themselves in the world, and what are their needs and such like that. Great belonging traits, literally like, what makes them feel like they belong with this business, like, on that fundamental core level, by the way, belonging is one of the fundamental needs of all human beings that we cannot survive without. Once you have that, and you know you’re looking for like kind you can go find those people and then start asking them questions. Because if you just go, like, find ask questions to the audience, a lot of those people would probably never buy from you in the first place because of that identity mismatch.

Christian Klepp  37:24

Yeah, no. 100% with you on that one. I mean understanding yourself first. 

Michael Liebowitz  37:30

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  37:30

Before immediately defaulting like, who’s our? 

Michael Liebowitz  37:33

Yeah.

Christian Klepp  37:34

Our customers, who’s our target audience, right?

Michael Liebowitz  37:36

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And if you’re and if you’re a startup, this will help you find product market fit faster.

Christian Klepp  37:46

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Michael, wow, this has been a dynamite conversation, man, I enjoyed it. 

Michael Liebowitz  37:53

Thank you. 

Christian Klepp  37:54

Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listener. You’ve certainly given me a lot to think about, and I hope that the same holds true for our audience. But please, a quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you, especially if they’re struggling with messaging. 

Michael Liebowitz  38:10

Yeah. So I’m on LinkedIn quite a bit. You can find me at Michael J Leibowitz, you’ll see the picture of me has me like, well, it’s no it’s got a picture of me saying I got question marks in the background and like a chalkboard thing. So feel free to connect with me there. Ask me a question. But if you really want to dive into the neuroscience, whether you are working on a message or not, but including if you’re working on your own messaging is I have a workshop every month that’s really easy to really accessible where. And I say it’s a workshop. This is a you get work done in this thing is two hours. It’s open to everybody. And the first part is you’re going to learn all about the neuroscience and how to apply it to a messaging strategy. And then in a second part is, now that you’ve learned that framework, and I’ve told you, beliefs are the main piece of it. I do an investigation of everyone in the room on the core belief within their business, basically, which is forming the core of their messaging. We we uncover as far as we can get in a little bit of time, but you definitely come back with a better understanding of your message than you did coming in, for sure.

Christian Klepp  39:22

Fantastic. Is there a link anywhere online where people can access that? 

Michael Liebowitz  39:26

Oh, yeah, go to my website, https://www.mindmagnetizer.com/, it’s the only CTA (Call To Action) on there to go to the workshop, and I’ll take it to a landing page where you can learn more about it. And it’s all run through Eventbrite.

Christian Klepp  39:41

So, okay, okay, fantastic. We’ll include the link in the show notes to this episode. 

Michael Liebowitz  39:45

Fantastic. 

Christian Klepp  39:46

All right, once again, Michael, thank you so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Michael Liebowitz  39:51

Thank you, Christian. I’ve enjoyed it.

Christian Klepp  39:53

All right. Bye for now.

Christian Klepp  00:01

Search engine optimization can be somewhat confusing, and it’s become even more confusing in the age of AI, both because of how people use AI to generate content and because of how Google search itself is changing. There are those out there who claim that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is dead. It isn’t. In fact, it’s more competitive now, which means you need a more refined approach. So how can B2B SaaS (Software as a Service) companies get AI to recommend their business? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Adrian Dahlin, who will be answering this question. He’s the Founder of Search To Sale, who creates content strategies that drive revenue from organic search and generative engines, tune in to find out more about what the B2B marketers mission is.

Christian Klepp  00:52

All right. Adrian Dahlin, welcome to the show. 

Adrian Dahlin  00:55

Thanks for having me. 

Christian Klepp  00:56

Great to have you on. I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because it’s super pertinent to content marketing. It’s something that B2B companies should be paying attention to. So I’m going to cut to the chase, and we’ll just dive right in. 

Adrian Dahlin  01:13

Awesome. 

Christian Klepp  01:13

Fantastic. So Adrian, you’re on a mission to help B2B SaaS companies show up in AI interfaces. So for this conversation, let’s kick it off with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. So the first question is, what is it about generative engine optimization or GEO that you wish more B2B SaaS companies understood, that’s the first question. And the second question is, where do you see marketing teams struggle regarding you both.

Adrian Dahlin  01:42

We have right now is a stage of evolution where we’re overlapping between the Old World and the New World. And the tactics that work to get you ranked in Google, get you mentioned by an LLM (Large Language Model ) are relatively similar to the way SEO hasn’t working for years, but the paradigm is fundamentally shifting, and basically what that means is that you can do pretty well at getting mentioned by ChatGPT by doing a good job at traditional SEO, but the risk is that you’re not preparing for the future by not actually changing the paradigm of how you think about this.

Christian Klepp  02:23

Care to elaborate on that a little bit more, especially that last sentence, like, you know, preparing yourself. How should companies prepare themselves? Right? 

Adrian Dahlin  02:32

And I think it actually, it probably starts with timeframe for your goals. If you’re in an organization that has short term incentives, like your startup that needs quick wins to get a couple of enterprise customers so that you can raise your next round of funding. You’re probably sticking a little bit more with the tried and true stuff that has always worked. But if you have the ability to think long term, then you really want to work on changing your thinking. If you have the ability to plan long term, you want to change how you’re thinking about digital marketing fundamentally. And one of those shifts is from a channel strategy to what I’m calling an authority strategy. So a channel strategy is a big way about how marketers would think about particularly the go to market process, where you’re deciding initially where we should even be investing in the first place. You consider who your audience is, you do some research about where they spend time online, and you pick a couple of platforms, you’re probably not trying to be everywhere. We’re trying to focus on a couple of channels. And most channels, I think you can describe as a place where supply and demand interact. And if you play by certain rules and best practices, you can do pretty well. 

Adrian Dahlin  04:02

So Facebook, like, 14 years ago, I was like working on Facebook as a marketing channel, interactions between customers and companies play about certain rules you can do well. Tiktok today, paid search another channel. What’s different about AI is that ChatGPT, or any other AI chat bot is not a channel, because the supply side is not present. It’s not engaging directly with the customer. You have customers engaging with a large language model, which is looking at the entire Internet. Well, rather, its brain is trained on the entire internet, and then when you give it a query, it’s looking at some of the Internet to help inform its answer. In many cases, when you’re doing a kind of a search, type of a query in ChatGPT. Yeah, so this AI is making choices. It’s doing curation and filtering among all the information on the web to give you an answer to your query. 

Adrian Dahlin  05:12

And the analogy that I’m starting to use a lot is that AI is like a consultant working for your customer, you actually want to think of it like a person. The way a person reads a bunch of information, it consumes a bunch of information, synthesizes, it comes up with a point of view that’s, that’s what AI is doing. It has the ability to look at it much more information than a human can, and it’s not as good yet as we are at synthesizing that information. But when you think about AI more like a person, like a brain, then I think the strategies that emerge from that are going to work in a longer term way. Those will be more durable strategies than just doing the tried and true stuff that hasn’t worked for SEO for the last bunch of years.

Christian Klepp  06:06

That certainly is an interesting analogy. I’ve never heard of AI being compared that way before, like the one that I always hear is you treat it like an intern or you treat it like a co-pilot. But there’s, there’s definitely something to be said about treating it like a brain? 

Adrian Dahlin  06:21

Yeah, I mean, I think treating it like an intern is useful when you’re using AI to get stuff done, you know, you’re building workflows, you’re asking questions, you’re even if you’re asking it to, like, work on content, whatever, and but we’re talking about when, when kind of use cases where someone is, like, researching product options or the kinds of queries that make sense to try to market to. That’s where I think this other paradigm of AI as consultant makes sense. Yeah. And if you imagine, imagine those human consultants, you know your job, if, if you’re like a software company that tends to sell through partners, your job is to get in the brain of the partner, to get in the brain of the consultant. So that’s podcasts and maybe books and trade shows and conferences. So what’s the analogy for those? For AI, that’s where we start to get to the tactics of where you want to show up online. You want to show up in the places where AI is forming its view of your world. And what we’re learning is that that’s a lot of our own media and platforms like Reddit and Quora and Wikipedia and these, these kind of community spaces that demonstrate credibility, particularly when that credibility is propped up by an authority like a industry, media company or the wisdom of the crowd. 

Christian Klepp  07:56

Exactly. I’m going to move us on to the next question about key pitfalls that you think marketing teams need to avoid when it comes to this topic, and what should they be doing instead?

Adrian Dahlin  08:08

So the number one cited website in LLM answers is Reddit, which has created this whole new incentive to be more present on Reddit as a marketer, and that comes, certainly comes with pitfalls, because Reddit cares a lot about the quality of its platform. Moderators of communities care a lot about the quality of the conversation happening in those communities. So a pitfall definitely would be to jump on to Reddit, because you hear that it gets cited a lot, and post a bunch of self promotional stuff, because you are risking getting shadow banned by Reddit itself by disobeying their rule of thumb that only 10% of your posts should be promotional, and you might be disobeying moderator policies about particular communities, in which case your stuff might just get deleted by moderators. 

Christian Klepp  09:10

What’s your take on that? Like, because I’ve seen that a lot actually, about Reddit. Like, is that, is that a platform that you would recommend B2B companies be on? Or is it something like you should approach with caution?

Adrian Dahlin  09:24

Yes and yes. 

Christian Klepp  09:25

Yes and yes? 

Adrian Dahlin  09:26

Yeah. I mean, you just can’t, you can’t deny the impact of being, by far, the number one sided website by LLMs. So there’s, there’s the native benefit of Reddit where, like, it’s probably the case your B2B solution. It’s probably the case that people are talking about your space on Reddit already because, because people will talk about everything on Reddit. And so there’s, there’s, like, a native opportunity to be part of the conversation on that platform. Reddit is so good at. At segmenting people into areas of interest and also like the cool thing about being a user on Reddit is that you can have many interests, and you get to go to different feeds to discuss those things, which allows for this depth of conversation. It’s what’s kind of annoying about posting on social media when you have a niche interest, because only a fraction of your followers are going to be interested in that. So that makes it such a good place to have focused in depth conversations about anything, and regardless of what you’re selling, there’s probably a conversation happening there about maybe your actual solution, certainly stuff around it, stuff related to it. So there’s this native benefit of being part of the conversation, building your brand through answering people’s questions, giving advice, sharing, sharing how you do things in non promotional ways, being helpful, the fundamental principle we’ve always had a marketing which would be helpful. 

Adrian Dahlin  11:01

And then there’s the secondary benefit that some of that stuff might get picked up by LLMs. Like, there might be some question that someone asked in Reddit. You post a really nice answer that gets upvoted a lot. Someone asks a similar question in ChatGPT or Google’s AI mode, and your answer in that Reddit thread gets cited, gets shown in that response. So businesses like you pretty much have to be thinking about it again if you want a future proof, if you’re trying to plan for the long term, you definitely you got to jump on Reddit, and you got to see just how, what the scale of the opportunity is in your space. Are people talking about this? Are there really rich communities of people talking about your industry? And then, and then figure out how? And yes, yes, that means proceeding with caution and care and like, slowly, but it’s becoming a non negotiable.

Christian Klepp  11:59

Yeah, interesting. Interesting because I’m seeing a lot of people talking about it, like, on platforms like LinkedIn, but then there’s also, like, if you Google it, like, there’s, there’s a lot of articles out there about, like, how you should go about establishing that digital presence on Reddit, right? So that’s, um, that’s pretty interesting. Um, you brought this up, like, a while, a while ago, and I wanted to just maybe dig a little bit deeper, do a bit more prodding, but um, how, from your experience, how do you think GEO has changed the game, and how, what should B2B marketers be Paying attention to?

Adrian Dahlin  12:39

How has it changed the game? Well, first by sowing rampant anxiety among digital marketers everywhere, the anxiety that comes from uncertainty, and so presenting us all with the opportunity to adapt and learn and face our fears. It’s forcing marketers to learn new skills. You could debate if this is a good or a bad thing. It will be. It will be both good and bad. In different cases, it can be easier to quote, unquote rank in ChatGPT than it was in Google before, because traditionally, you’d have to invest a fair amount in content on your website that’s high quality and targeting the topics that people are looking for. And you’d want to invest in backlinks from sites, ideally, that have authority and rank for similar terms that yours is trying to rank for, and all the technical infrastructure of your site to make sure you’re not kind of accidentally signaling to Google not to rank your site, and especially because of the maturity of SEO, that’s no longer easy to game, so you have to invest in doing it well. And it’s and it’s a kind of a gradual process to earn domain authority. 

Adrian Dahlin  14:03

In LLMs, there are these quick wins that can happen. Where, like the example, in the Reddit example, you might find that there’s a vastly there’s actually just, like one really relevant thread that already exists about your product category, and just dropping an answer in that existing thread, if there’s an opportunity, if there’s like a gap, or someone hasn’t actually answered the question that well, yet you might be able to drop in there with a really good answer. They get some visibility, and that thread gets cited. And there you are. You do that one thing, and suddenly you’re getting excited at the top for LLM questions on this topic, right? And there’s other things like that where you can do the there are like lean tactics that can kind of get you visibility with less investment. Now. That will probably change as the whole world shifts to understanding these tactics, then we get more flooded, for better and worse, with people trying to gain this system.

Christian Klepp  15:10

Right, right. So I know you’ve mentioned this some of us already before, but like you know from your experience, can you provide examples of how B2B companies can get AI to recommend their businesses. So specifically, what steps should they be taking? What are some of those key components that need to be in that process?

Adrian Dahlin  15:30

I think this is actually one of the times that it’s probably a really good idea to work with an outside partner, but to vet them well for kind of being up to date on these AI tactics, because it’s going to be hard to do a fully flesh GEO program internally, unless you have a pretty large team and a lot of capacity and a lot of like, just desire and curiosity and willingness to experiment. So first off is the right people in place. And then it’s a matter of like looking at the sites that tend to get cited the most by LLMs, Reddit is at the top. Close to the top are Wikipedia. Quora was on the list. LinkedIn is on the list, thinking of B2B specifically. There’s other stuff that’s not relevant to B2B that’s high on the list of citations, looking at those and then doing some research about if your audience spends time on those platforms, because ideally, you want to invest in platforms that have native, inherent benefits and the secondary benefit of boosting LLM visibility. 

Adrian Dahlin  16:45

So like, let’s find out if your audience uses Reddit, if there’s conversations about your space on Reddit, on Quora, maybe niche, niche industry forums that are similar, but more focused. So validate where your audience is spending time, and then, and then be focused, you know, it’s probably Reddit or Quora or LinkedIn or something that’s in a niche in your industry. And then, and then really invest in being present, in demonstrating thought leadership and being helpful, and actually building relationships. Think of it as a relationship building project, where you’re you’re a part of the conversation, and you’re not going for silver bullets and for one one thread to to rule all threads, but you’re just present in the conversation, because people will actually people in your niche will get to know you that way, and plus you’re increasing like the level of brand visibility and mentions on the platform that’s going to ultimately drive LLM citations. 

Adrian Dahlin  17:52

So picking probably one to focus on for those in that category of communities and forums where a conversation is happening and citations tend to come a second pillar is going to be the earned media side of things. So this is another, another signal of brand authority when either a very large media entity with national, international credibility, or a credible, focused industry publication talks about your brand. You know, it can be quoting your… we’re talking like startups. It might be just kind of telling the founder story and getting quotes from the CEO in one of those publications, might be sharing your point of view, the old digital PR playbook, which is, and this is one of those areas that it’s like SEO, people were kind of aware of, but unless you were really doing holistic SEO, you probably weren’t touching digital PR. So it’s kind of a new muscle, but it’s increasingly valuable, again, for its inherent benefits. Of course, it’s good if people find you while reading an industry publication, and the secondary benefit that it signals authority to AI and will increase the chances that you get listed. 

Adrian Dahlin  19:16

And I think if I understand this isn’t this is one of the newer areas for me that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. But I think the actual mechanisms by which earned media effect GEO include actual citations, but also the general impression that the LLM has of your brand’s place in its industry. So like, the goal with the digital PR, I think, is not just that the piece where your CEO gets quoted gets cited in LLM answers, but it’s that the more your name is associated with your industry, the more likely that LLM brain is to include you once. Someone asks a question like, What are the best providers of x? And in that case, there might not be a citation that actually shows that breadcrumb trail when you’re looking at your LLM answer. It’s just that the brain has been trained by the associations between your brand and your industry and your competitors, so you make it onto a top 10 List?

Christian Klepp  20:24

Yeah, it’s interesting that you brought up that topic of digital PR, because I’ve, I’ve heard that from at least three other experts in this particular area. Do you think that? And I’m just, you know, I’m curious here, like, do you think that previously, with traditional SEO, marketers were not paying as much attention to it? But now, with GEO, because it gets because of these citations on ChatGPT and so forth, it’s given a bit more limelight.

Adrian Dahlin  20:56

I don’t know if it’s getting more attention overall. Definitely different people are giving it attention. 

Christian Klepp  21:02

Right, right. 

Adrian Dahlin  21:05

So LLMs gave a new cohort of people a reason to care about digital PR. There’s, of course, always been people. There’s always been the PR people are the people whose worldview leans on that as a viable channel, yeah, but it’s like, yeah, I think, I think that, like the tech people maybe are paying more attention, and definitely SEO people are paying more attention.

Christian Klepp  21:33

Well, probably is linked back to, I guess, if a SaaS company is thinking about, like their target audience, and in B2B, that tends to be a buying committee. And the buying committee usually consists of people in different role, with different roles and responsibilities, technical and non technical. So there may be some association there. 

Adrian Dahlin  21:52

You’re saying, like different people on the buying committee with like different biases, or kind of pay attention to different channels. 

Christian Klepp  22:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s my working assumption, just based on what you’ve been saying, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, fantastic. So we get to the point in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips. And Adrian, you’ve given us a ton here, all right, but if you were to, and this is almost like a recap question, right? Like, if you were to, like, recap all this advice that you’ve been giving us now, for someone that’s listening to this conversation and you want them to walk away with three to five things that they can take action on right now as it pertains to GEO, what would those things be?

Adrian Dahlin  22:36

Yeah, for the marketing leader, right now is a super important time to be learning from other smart people. So LinkedIn is probably the best place for that. Maybe Reddit, maybe podcasts, but find maybe find people who have smart things to say, insightful things to say about GEO and look for in picking kind of your sources. Look for those that cite data, maybe their own, if they have access to a lot of data, like if they run an agency with lots of clients. But even better, those that are like looking at doing their own research on large public data sets, or, you know, purchased large data sets, or like Ahrefs publishes great data and interesting studies. You know, if someone is citing an Ahrefs study about Gemini, that’s that’s a good signal. 

Adrian Dahlin  23:46

Look for intellectual honesty in what they’re talking about. If it’s clear that everything they say is about articulating a worldview that benefits the thing they’re trying to sell that’s not that’s, don’t prioritize that thought leader, but find the one who’s obviously really interested in finding the truth and has like, uncertainty, accepts uncertainty, and can be wrong. And like, if you see that, like they post something about I said this six months ago, and I’m changing my mind as things have evolved. So yeah, find some people to learn from.

Adrian Dahlin  24:31

Since I mentioned Ahrefs, Ryan Law, who’s their content marketing leader, is a great LinkedIn follow. He obviously does have something to sell, but because their business is data, he’s great at content and they’re great at research, he’s a really good follow, so that’s what allows you and then, and then I said, like a roughly five, so you get a little bit diversity of perspectives and different people who are kind of looking at different things that will help you. Stay on top of things, because things are changing. And like, I feel like I said a lot in this conversation that was presented with a relative degree of confidence, and like a whole lot of what I’ve just said could be wrong in in a few months, that’s why I want to stay in touch with people who are themselves really staying abreast and remaining curious about what actually works. 

Christian Klepp  25:25

Well, because it’s to your point that you brought up earlier in the conversation. This is a continuously evolving ecosystem. 

Adrian Dahlin  25:31

Yeah, and that’s currently a quickly evolving one, and it’s like not a lot is not a lot of settled right now. There’s, there’s, there’s emerging correlation between what people are doing and things we see happening in LLMs. We don’t know anything about causation right now.

Christian Klepp  25:50

Exactly, exactly. Okay. Moving on to the next question, like in terms of metrics, because you kind of can’t talk about things like SEO and GEO, if we don’t talk about metrics, right? So what are like? Maybe three to five key metrics that you think B2B marketers should be paying attention to.

Adrian Dahlin  26:10

B2B metrics, marketers working on GEO, it’s definitely a less data rich space than SEO, because we don’t know the volume of queries prompts being done in chat bots, so we can only make guesses about what people how people would interact with a chat bot. Or you could do real custom research and ask people, What are you putting into ChatGPT when you’re researching x. So you can have real data about what people are doing, but you don’t know how much, the way we know monthly search volumes for Google. 

Adrian Dahlin  26:52

So one of the things you can measure is referral traffic, and I do find that super compelling. How much traffic is coming to your website from ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc, but we don’t want to think about that traffic the same way we thought about referral traffic in the past, because coming, because it’s coming at the end of what might have been quite a long interaction with the chat bot, and so one of the theories right now, where there’s some emerging research about this, is that referral traffic from AI chat bots is higher Quality and higher converting because they have just that user has just learned a whole lot about you and your competitors, probably in their AI interaction, and they have all this context, and they learn some things specifically about what you offer. And they decided that that you, what you’re doing is well enough, relevant enough to what they need to click on a citation which, let’s be honest, is not presented as the goal of the chat bot the way Google wants. Its whole purpose was directing you to one of 10 blue links. 

Adrian Dahlin  28:10

The AI chat bot. I mean, it’s a platform like social media that whose main incentive is that you use it more so that you get more value out of it, and they can either charge more for it in the future or add in an ad platform that benefits from your eyeballs so track traffic to your site. Think about it differently. Compare the conversion, compare the engagement and conversion for a cohort of users that come from LLMs versus other sources. See if you can validate this assumption that it’s higher value. Traditional rankings are useful. The correlation is positive, but definitely not one to one between ranking well on Google and showing up in an LLM answer. So it’s like you still want to rank in Google. I mean, Google is still, by far, a much larger discovery platform than all the other AI is combined. So work on ranking in Google and then use that user ranking as one of the inputs to your assessment of how well you’re doing with GEO. 

Adrian Dahlin  29:28

For the like digital, PR or media side of things. I’m newer to that world. I don’t really know the variety KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for Reddit. We’re, I mean, we’re paying attention right now, in the early days, to the karma of the profiles that are engaging, because you need history on Reddit to be allowed to engage. So user user karma, part of the Reddit game now is having an own subreddit. AKA community that’s like in your niche, or maybe tied to your brand. And so membership and engagement in a community, if you’re a moderator of one, that’s a decent metric. Overall though, I have to say where you’ve probably heard the term zero click marketing. We are moving away from the paradigm where everything is measurable and like let’s keep measuring the stuff that’s helpful to measure, while not letting that form our entire picture of what a marketing strategy looks like, or what success looks like.

Christian Klepp  30:42

Absolutely, yeah. Let’s not let that be the deterrent or the impediment to move forward, right? 

Adrian Dahlin  30:48

Yeah, yeah. 

Christian Klepp  30:50

Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, two more questions. I’ll let you go. So what is the status quo in your area of expertise? So in this case, GEO, that you passionately disagree with, and why? 

Adrian Dahlin  31:04

I had trouble with this question.

Christian Klepp  31:07

I’m sure you did. 

Adrian Dahlin  31:09

I think I’m a little bit jealous of people who are really contrarian, and I still know that I am. The best thing I came up with, well, I kind of already have talked about, which is just don’t think about GEO the way you’re thinking about SEO. 

Christian Klepp  31:25

Right. 

Adrian Dahlin  31:26

Even though I come from the SEO world, I come relatively recently from the SEO world. I’ve been focused on SEO for three years. So you know, like I was making the decision to niche my business from digital marketing generally down to SEO exactly as ChatGPT launched almost three years ago. 

Christian Klepp  31:43

Okay, well. 

Adrian Dahlin  31:45

So it’s like, I’m coming into GEO from SEO kind of but I don’t have the all of the inertia of people who have been in SEO for 20 years. And yet, something you’ll really often hear in SEO circles is people basically saying it’s the same GEO is just the same as SEO. And this gets at what I said right at the start of the call, which is, many of the tactics are the same, but the paradigm is totally different. So it’s like, keep thinking the same way at your own peril. GEO is not SEO. 

Christian Klepp  32:15

Yep, yep, not exactly, exactly. Adrian, this has been a great conversation, especially because this is all new territory, not just for you know, you’re the expert in this area. It’s like for all of us, right? 

Adrian Dahlin  32:29

So sort of. 

Christian Klepp  32:29

This is something, this is something that we all need to, like, continuously learn about, because it’s, it’s just gonna keep, keep growing from here, at least from what you’ve been saying, right? So, thanks again for coming on the show, for sharing your expertise with the audience. Quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Adrian Dahlin  32:50

I’m Adrian Dahlin, Founder of Search To Sale, a full service done for you. SEO and GEO agency focused on B2B. I’m based in Seattle. I love fitness in the outdoors and music. Any of your listeners in Seattle I would love to connect with. I’m trying to network more locally, and I’m actually starting a community for small business people in Seattle, so a little niche call out there. You can find me on LinkedIn. Adrian Dahlin, you can find me on Reddit and Adrian Dahlin.

Christian Klepp  33:31

Yeah, it’d be kind of weird if, like you talked about Reddit this whole time, and then you’re not actually on there. 

Adrian Dahlin  33:36

Yeah, I am on there, but I’ve only been using it regularly as of recently. 

Christian Klepp  33:41

Fair enough. Okay, fantastic, fantastic. All right, so once again, Adrian, thanks for coming on the show. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. 

Adrian Dahlin  33:50

Thank you very much for the opportunity. 

Christian Klepp  33:52

All right. Bye for now. 

Christian Klepp  00:00

South Korea is a country situated in East Asia that has a highly developed, export driven economy that ranks among the world’s largest so what should B2B marketers operating in North America or Europe take into account when they expand into markets like South Korea? What cultural and linguistic nuances should they consider? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Hyein Yoon, who will be answering these questions. She’s the founder of HY marketing with proven expertise in the Korean market. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is.

Christian Klepp  00:41

Okay. Hyein Yoon. Annyeonghaseyo (Hello), welcome to the show.

Hyein Yoon  00:49

Yeah. Thank you for having me here.

Christian Klepp  00:52

It’s a great pleasure to have you on. I think you get an award for being the first person that I’m interviewing from South Korea.

Hyein Yoon  01:01

So much pleasure.

Christian Klepp  01:03

Very, very, very exciting, very exciting. And I really appreciate you taking the time to be on the show, because I know it’s a little bit late on your side of the world, and it’s so interesting. You know, when we have podcasts like this and conversations like these in these so called Modern Times, because, you know, we can be talking to anybody around the world at different times, and it’s and I think it makes it it makes it interesting, but I think also what makes it very interesting, and we’re going to get into that in today’s conversation, is that we’re all B2B marketers working in different markets, and it’s very important for us also to understand, especially here in North America where I’m based, it’s very important for marketers to understand that what may have been successful in this market might be a completely different situation than them in another market, right? So I guess we’re going to get into that today. So let’s dive in. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. 

Hyein Yoon  02:03

Yeah, I’m so excited about this. Let’s do this. 

Christian Klepp  02:05

Okay, fantastic. So Hyein, you’re, you’re on a mission to help companies scale their brands through strategic marketing in Korea, so in South Korea. So for this conversation, as I just said, We, we’d like to focus on the following topic, which is how B2B companies can build a successful content strategy for the Korean market. So I’d like to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. Okay, so first question is, wow, and we can talk about this one for hours, but just give us some top level answers. What are some of the key differences between B2B marketing in the west and Korea? So that’s the first question. And the second question is, what are some misconceptions that B2B companies have about doing business in Korea?

Hyein Yoon  02:58

All right, that’s actually great questions, and I’m ready to answer everything possible to answer for the first question, actually, you have to understand that we have very difference between individuality and then collectiveness. And actually, when I visited the US for the first time, I realized so many things that we can actually make our customized plan, even at the restaurant, like you can make your customized burger sauce, the bun, bread or ingredients possible. But whereas in Korea, we don’t really prefer that option, it’s really uncomfortable to choose everything possible. For example, the subway, the sub sandwiches, they actually entered Korea, and they didn’t even realize that things like giving the options possible is really making uncomfortable customers. So they have to make the options to have the set menu combo. So you actually choose the numbers and then you get the all of the things ready made for you. You don’t have to choose. That was actually interesting story. So if I can go into more about the B2B market, we actually have some key factors, like hierarchical system and then result trust focused and the relationship driven. 

Hyein Yoon  04:19

So actually, when I had a conversation with one of our guests on our podcast, he actually once mentioned this, and then this is kind of like overview that you can think of Korea really easily. So for example, when he have a conversation and then have a meeting for the first time, he maybe can share about the whole pictures about the companies or services or products, but after the first meeting, he will really not mention about the product or being salesy all the time until the prospect mentioned about what was your product you are talking about before. Can you talk about them more like because. We really value building a relationship first, not about really directness or, you know, being salesy or saving time. So it’s important to building the trust signal in the beginning, and then also in B2B market. When I had another conversation with someone specializing in sales and marketing from IBM, Korea, which is the biggest company in the world. She also mentioned that even if the company suggested you have to do everything online, but she didn’t agree with that, because she understand this, you know, hierarchical system, relationship driven system, so once you actually have a cold call or cold email, first she will be present offline, and then setting up meeting offline, so that you can actually make a relationship first, and then report. And then, you know, saving energy to have, you know, more meetings further for from the get go. So it’s important to have your presence offline. And then, of course, international business sometimes doesn’t have presence in Korea, so that’s why, maybe we can talk about later, having the local partner is important. 

Hyein Yoon  06:11

And second question was about, yeah, the misconceptions that B2B companies have about. So this is actually also related to the key factors, for sure. And maybe you can think about online meetings are just fine, and then, you know, cold calls or cold emails, and then you set up the meetings all the time just online. But when you think about ROI (Return on Investment), actually, it makes sense just doing online. Maybe that’s the cost effective that you can approach. But if we just don’t know you at all, like you don’t have any presence in Korea, we had to research about your companies all the time, like case studies or like website all of that, only to realize it just would, you know translations? Yeah, there with English sometimes. So it doesn’t really make sense to us. 

Hyein Yoon  07:00

And then the interesting part is that the English versus Korean language has different contexts, meaning English has a low context versus Korean language as a high context. So when we talk about some sentences like or speaking actually, sometimes it doesn’t mean the same way. So for example, when we say, let’s catch up later, but we have a mind reading skill like which is we call Nunchi. This is actually registered in Oxford dictionary, and we don’t really expect we are going to meet anytime soon. Or we can just say things because we want to be polite. So there are a lot of cultural nuances that you can think of. So online meetings are fine, or English is just fine, and translation is fine, something like we have to think about as a part of misunderstanding or misconceptions. And also 5% foreigners living in Korea in population, whereas 95% of our population is Korean, just who speaks Korean. mainly. That means, like, once we actually see English content, it’s just like Alien messages to sometimes. And then when you Google about how fluent our English is on Google, you would actually think about like, Oh, it’s just moderate. Oh, it’s just okay. But when you come to Korea, it’s not the case that you can actually have the imagination. And so most of time, like when we had a recent conversation with some prospects recently from Malaysia, Singapore, they actually wanted to test the water first. Like, oh, we are going to just put our content out there and then running advertisement all of that. But if you don’t really understand, you know, Korean consumer psychology, and then they just run in English, we are just gonna, you know, scroll down and watch this. Like, I don’t really understand, yes, so that’s the key factors or scene we have to understand first, yeah.

Hyein Yoon  09:05

Yeah, yeah.

Christian Klepp  09:05

You brought it up a little bit earlier, but I want to dig into that a little bit, right? Because I think this is something that a lot of Western B2B companies don’t quite understand, that you cannot just wholesale, like do a wholesale translation of a piece of advertising. It’s very important to understand how that will translate into the Korean language number one and number two, there has to be, there has to be some kind of adjustment to take what I call the bigger barrier than the language barrier, which is the cultural barrier, right? Because, well, what I’m trying to say is, because, again, from experience, right? You might, you might translate something and then, okay, so here we’ve got the Korean version, but the translation doesn’t necessarily take the cultural context into consideration. So over to you. My question is, have you experienced that and how, how did you deal with it?

Christian Klepp  09:05

Very, very interesting insights. It also reminded me, as I told you before, of my time in China, because there were similar challenges, right? Absolutely, like some of our clients back then that we’re trying to launch something into the China market. Oh, we’ll just advertise in English. I’m like, Okay, are you only targeting the English speaking expats? Because that’s the only person that’s going to read your ad, right? Like, if it’s, if the ad is in English, it will, it will be ignored, right? And you brought up something very interesting that I wanted to go back to, because I had a similar experience in China. But I want to know more about your experience in Korea, similar to Chinese, the Korean language also is very especially because. Use, you know, your language uses characters. It can be very complex, but it’s also very rich in meaning, right? Like, the characters have different meanings. 

Hyein Yoon  11:11

I mean, yeah, we are seeing a lot of content just in English or just with translation, yeah, for example. And then when we had a conversation with international business, for example, in discovery call and then something like that, they would actually prefer the global content first here, and then they try to just, you know, change the copywriting in English and Korean, Japanese, just That’s it, without ever Considering the tone of voice, or even the design look. And then we have a certain eyes for, you know, if we see some content, oh, we can actually check that this is from overseas or not, because we really know about how we are actually putting content out there. It’s not about just, you know the language itself, because we have this sense of cultural nuances on our copywriting, and then we can feel as a native speaker the right at the sense right away. 

Hyein Yoon  12:11

So maybe that’s why, if you are maybe going for, let’s say, impressions and rich you can just maybe run advertisement on Google or meta, like right away in English, for sure. That’s how you get just impressions. That’s kind of like an idea. But if you’re going for lead gen, or, you know, conversion, or if you want to improve ROI, that’s another level that you have to go for some of like frictions that you can actually tackle, and then you can actually improve the ROI really faster, like a payment figures, payment features, or even, like putting your case studies on your website, they can actually make things really a lot better compared to just putting English content or the translation from GPT even, because GPT can actually make great translation, for sure, but we our, we, as a Korean native speaker, we also check all the things, because, just to make sure everything is really clear, or we don’t really against our cultural, you know, rules or something like that, because we barely group. We value group rules, not about, you know, just being individual or something like that. So if you don’t have the mind reading skill or following the rules, you can be outsider in this community. So that’s why you have to really understand that, like we are not just, you know, being individual, like back in the day, like, when we were in a covid 19, we didn’t really argue about wearing mask, even we just gladly wear the mask, because it’s for us. Like, that’s kind of like a big difference. So that’s why, like having only English content or just translation itself, it feels really off. And then you’re not going to just go for impressions, right? You want customers, clients, and then, you know, the emails, all of those, and I can maybe talk about email marketing later, but yeah, that’s just like this yeah.

Christian Klepp  14:13

Okay, okay, yeah, absolutely fantastic, fantastic. I’m sure you have this. You have experienced this to a certain degree, also in Korea. But what I also experienced in China was that some companies that wanted to enter the market, they thought, okay, maybe we can save ourselves money if we work with somebody back in our home country that we can trust, and we can translate all the content into Chinese already. So we already advised them against doing that right, because it’s not the same, right? But for them, it’s like, what it’s, it’s, it’s Chinese, it should be the same, right? And then we gave their translation to our local colleagues, and our local colleagues read it, and they said, this was written by a Taiwanese person.

Christian Klepp  14:59

All right? So I have a feeling like because in Korea, you’re a smaller country, but you also have different provinces and regions, and maybe the way that the people in the north and the south speak differently, and perhaps even the Koreans that live abroad speak differently, right? So that’s that’s a great that’s really a great point that you bring up, that people are trying to find a shortcut because they think it’s gonna save them money in the long run, but actually it’s hurting them, right?

Hyein Yoon  15:32

Exactly. I mean, I mean, I think the right strategy is something that you have to go from in the beginning, not above in the middle of somewhere. Like, most of time, like, when we have a conversation with our prospect, they just prefer testing the water first. Like, we just want to test, like, putting the advertisement, yeah, just Google or neighbor our search engine or YouTube. And then later, when I suggested, like, you have to build a strategy first, how you’re going to actually change, how you’re going to actually choose the right platform for you to begin actually the advertisement, or even the copywriting, or messages, like unique selling point, like all of that. But they just want to copy and paste from the Western market. And then just put the advertisement first, and then see how it goes. And then afterwards, maybe we can have a conversation to optimize, yeah, something like that. But why you want to waste money first? Like, I just…

Christian Klepp  16:31

Big mistake, big mistake. And I like that. You brought it up because that’s a great segue into the next question about key pitfalls to avoid, right? You just, you just, you just brought up one of them. What are some of these other key pitfalls that you think B2B companies should avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Hyein Yoon  16:50

Yeah, actually recently, like when I had a conversation with one of our guests, who were VP at Dropbox and Nitro, the Microsoft, he actually had the experience about, you know, helping international expansion to Japan and Korea. And then, actually, they didn’t realize that NAVER, our search engine, is the main search engine in Korea. So they were actually doing advertisement on Google all the time. And then afterwards, you know, the conversion or ROI was not that good. And then later, they decided to pivot our we need NAVER right now. So they actually wasted a couple budget in the beginning. And then they are such a big company, so probably it could be not about, like, less than $100 or something like, it could be like $1000s, you know, budget, right? So it’s important to have the right platform strategy first, because in Korea, we have a Kakao messenger, chat application, and also the NAVER search engine, you know, not about Google, of course, Google. We use Google for sure, like when we don’t want to feel like we don’t want to see any advertisement on NAVER because NAVER is so saturated with advertisements all the times, or young generations prefer to just type some keywords on Google just to see organic content there. Yeah, it could happen a lot, but most of time we have an application, the NAVER application on our mobile. And then when we want to search for some specific reviews or, you know, certain case studies, or even just, um, buying some products, there we usually go for NAVER first. 

Hyein Yoon  18:32

So if you don’t really optimize your all of the you know, product pages or services pages or case studies, or even your website, or simple things about from your product for sure, like, if it just not visual on neighbor, you are actually missing tons of opportunities. So yeah, I can talk about more action steps for sure, more technical things that you could do later, how to audit. But yeah, this is something that you have to really be mindful about ignoring the platform reality. And then the thing that I mentioned earlier, like copy pasting from the Western market is, like, such a huge, big mistake. Like, we need the localization strategy. Even the McDonald’s know how to do this. Like, they usually collaborate with local partners, like they actually, let’s say the cabbage is from some certain produce in Korea. This is really special. And then we want to part of this community like that, kind of, like a feeling that, like we are expecting. And then the another question is, why we have to even buy your services from overseas, because we all have the options, plenty of options here already. So you have, if you want to, like, convince us really hard, and then if you are serious about what you do, it’s important to put the cultural nuances into all of the content. And actually the Duolingo. So the language app is really great at this. They optimize, localize every account possible. So once you go to Duolingo Korea or Duolingo Japan, we feel like this is not from overseas. It’s part of our community, like a Korean marketing team. We can actually feel that. So if you can aim that actually building the fan or community, which is I usually recommend, like community targeting first, so that you can nurture the process, and then maybe they can spread the word, and then bring the network so that you don’t have to actually put all the money all the time to run the advertisements. Actually, that’s the key that we can do in this, you know, modern era.

Christian Klepp  20:43

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, take the local, I guess, also the digital ecosystem into consideration. And as you talked about before, understanding the link the language and cultural differences, right? Because it’s not just about doing a wholesale like, okay, let’s just translate whatever it was that we did in this market and just use it for Korea, right? I’ve seen that so many times, and I’ve seen and it’s those haven’t been very successful. I’m gonna say, right? You brought up something earlier, and that’s a part of the next question. It’s about selecting a local partner and the importance of finding one, right? So talk to us about that a little bit like, why is it important for B2B companies to work with a local partner or somebody who is familiar with the Korean market, somebody like yourself, and what should these companies look for in a partner?

Hyein Yoon  21:40

So first of all, if you hire the local partner, especially from Korea, the Korea a native Korean speaker, like sales manager or Korean marketing team, they already know how Korean market is working right now. Like trend all of like, we can actually find that the trending research on NAVER. It’s actually completely free if you are up for it. And if you actually want to hire like Country Manager, they might have their own network, the business network. So even if you are really not running advertisement, let’s say like YouTube, or YouTube is actually something that every generation are using in Korea, by the way, if you’re not really just running advertisements like those platforms, you can be present in that network, and then you can be part of that network start. You can start selling stuff first, or making the first lead gen stuff first. Like you could try, like, a seven day free trial, even, like, you know, 14 day free trial, and then gather all of the testimonials. And then you could try putting that testimonials on your website, so you don’t have to really waste your money for running advertisements from the beginning. Rather, you could just hit the community first. So that’s kind of like way that you can save money or lowering risking everything possible. And also the marketing team, they understand how consumer psychology works here in Korea. So even though we really don’t think about like research, because our, you know, DNA is from Korea, so it’s not really big country here, to be honest. And then once certain content is going viral, if you don’t know about it, you’re not a Korean person here, that’s actually important, actually something that you have to remember. 

Hyein Yoon  23:38

So once, once viral content hit, like, let’s say apple cider vinegar was something that trending recently, and then if you don’t know about it, you are why you are here, like, it’s kind of like awful. So you can have the all of the consumer psychology and data and even the trending research better, and especially if you don’t know about the language itself, it’s so hard to navigate the NAVER platform, even because the all the great content is stuck with NAVER, or the kaka or those like native platform first, and then in English, there is a little content out there that you can actually understand. So that’s why I’m trying to publish the blog more, so that you can understand this navigation first. But yeah, that’s kind of like something that maybe foreigners like struggling to understand this Korean market because of the language barrier, the cultural barrier, and also you have the very far distance barrier that you have to overcome. So having the right it’s not gonna be the team, but maybe one or two person first like to begin with, or even the agency that you can collaborate with, can be the great option for you too, yeah. 

Christian Klepp  24:56

Okay, well, thanks for sharing that with us. Um, I had a follow up question for you, and it’s when you’ve dealt with clients in the past, B2B companies that want to break into the Korean market, and they’re trying to, like, gain new clients, or do this like lead generation. I think one of the things I’m sure prospects will ask them, especially if they’re a foreign entity, is, do you have Korean market experience? Can you show us any case studies of how you help other clients in Korea? And they and they probably want to see that first before they decide to commit, right? 

Hyein Yoon  25:33

Yep. 

Christian Klepp  25:33

So just from your experience, like, how do you, how do you, how do you deal with that? How do you, how do you help your clients with that, especially if they’re new to the market, because if they’re new, then that probably means they don’t have a lot of local experience, and they don’t have any case studies yet.

Hyein Yoon  25:50

So first things first, like, we need to really check where there is stage in you know, if it’s about entering the market for the first time, like, we need to start from the market entry, consultation first. Like how we can help the research part, the competitors analysis, you know the strength or weakness, the SWOT analysis. And even like how we can find the positioning first. Because as we, as we already talked about this, we have tons of opportunities, tons of options already existing here. So that’s why, like, having the right brand voice message, like, very clean, like, just one keyword or two keywords. I usually recommend mapping up your keyword journey, like, from the awareness to conversion. Like, let’s say, for example, I’m just gonna put the random stuff here, like a body wash, like you’re gonna if you are gonna search for just body wash, it means just from awareness. But once we put something like brand name plus product name, it means there is a more engagement into it. But once you put more like how to find this product in specific location, that means there is a high potential for conversion. 

Hyein Yoon  27:03

So like from finding the right keywords, actually it’s the beginning journey that we have to do. Like from market entry, consultation and then the research part, positioning is something that we can begin with, especially for the market entry. But if you are really going for launching campaigns, it’s a different story for sure, like how we can actually target the community first, because NAVER cafe or Kakao groups are kind of like a ways that you can target, as if the Facebook group, like, we don’t really use Facebook group, by the way, like more of like NAVER cafe or Kakao group first. So what we normally do, we jump in all the groups, or, you know, the cafes related to your brand, and then see what kind of like influencers, if you’re especially like a SaaS (Software as a Service) product you’re selling, like, what kind of like influencers they are mentioning what kind of like trending, they are actually mentioning that that’s a golden nugget you can actually make the content with. And then we can, you know, do like UGC (User-Generated Content), the content strategy for sure. Like the social media content for sure, something like a YouTube is for every generation, and then Facebook is like in Korea, like, more of a like, over 50s or 40s, mainly men there. And then, we don’t really use the Twitter x for the professional use. It’s more about like gamers, the video gamers, or talking about sports, like, very like a meme, like situation going on. And then, rather, the thread is recently actually increasing, trending a lot, like more professionals like joining there. So there are a lot of landscape going on. So the having right platform strategy, first, like research positioning right platform. And then from there you can create your content pillar, content strategy. And then finally, you can launch your campaigns for sure. If you’re aiming to target, you know, those users who want to use your products for sure. So it could be different. 

Hyein Yoon  29:11

And then, if you’re someone who want to scale up like, let’s say you want to improve ROI, you need to actually check your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) like, because when I had a conversation or meeting with this nine figure global brand, they actually spent like $1 million for that year, and only to realize they only get the impressions and rates like 15 or 10 million. Like impressions only. And when I go deep inside, the influencers were really scammy or fake. So most of time, even big agencies struggle with to find out the right influencers, because they really go deep inside about, like, the how genuine those interactions are. So that’s why, like we usually highlight, you have to go. For probably the NAVER keyword link, sorry, NAVER keyword rankings, or even search volumes. From the content to search volume, it’s so easy to actually track and then from there, you can also track your ROI, how genuine your comments are, or the shares not about, you know, focusing on, you know, breach or impressions.

Christian Klepp  30:23

Wow, great stuff. Great stuff. Okay, we get to the part of the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us a lot already, but if we’re gonna maybe recap or summarize, right for those B2B marketers out there that are listening to this interview and they’re thinking, or their companies are thinking about expanding into Korea, what are, what are three to five things that they can do right now to take action?

Hyein Yoon  30:50

So I really wanted to share this. So you have to go to NAVER that search engine, and then you have to check if your website is really existing or not. Let’s say you could put site column, and then you put URL there, and if your website is popping up, that means you are visual on NAVER, yeah, of course. But if it’s not, you have to actually register manually with our, you know, NAVER system that you might understand. If you don’t understand, maybe I can give you free resources later, but in this time, like, you could just audit, like, um, is this really available? Like, site, Colin, URL first, and then, if it’s just with only English, you have to really working, it should be with Korean language, because we don’t really research English on NAVER at all, like at all. So you have to be think about this and then prepare the Korean content for sure, and then the adding the Korean reviews on your website is so much better than just having random reviews from other countries for sure. So maybe you could run the test campaigns for a couple of like month and then get the reviews first. Like, as I said before, like seven day free trial. That’s something that you could do demo introductions and then put the content on your website and make it available on NAVER. Also the content in Korean language, the English for sure, the three steps are kind of like a you can audit really easily. And then you know, if you want to launch the test campaigns, I think that’s the free trial is kind of like an interesting part you could do. And email marketing is not really popular idea in Korea yet. So if you can jump in right now, that’s the golden thing that you can you really unlock. Because some might say, like, Korean market is kind of like a 20 years behind the United States. So like, if the traditional approaches are already going on, although, like, email marketing is kind of like a changing so the US email marketing is kind of packed with a lot of emails, of course, but in Korea, it’s still like very great spot that you can really start with.

Christian Klepp  33:13

What’s your experience been with email marketing in Korea? As I’m very curious, because, as you said over here in North America, it’s, I’m not saying that people don’t use email marketing, but a lot of, a lot of times, we have to take into consideration things like, or is it going to end up in the spam folder, right? And then there’s this. There’s the whole issue around data protection as well, right? And depending on where, where, which area you’re targeting, they have different laws around data. But what’s your experience been in Korea?

Hyein Yoon  33:44

So basically, like, we are seeing experiments a lot like your our service provider, or B2B focused businesses. Do you have, like, white papers or case studies, or, you know, the free guidelines, and then they put, like a NAVER blog, which is our from the search engine, for sure. And then they rebrand the whole NAVER blog first. And then they put the guideline, you can download this for free, and then click on it, you go to website, and then from there, they read it, read all about it. Actually, it’s a similar way that we actually promote from the Western countries, for sure, but the volume itself is kind of like a very low compared to the US or other, yeah, Western market. So that’s why, if you can try that hard, a lot like white papers, case studies, or even in demo or, you know, company overview, but it should be really good, good enough, for example, the market currently, the retailer from Korea, they usually highlight those recipes. They don’t even talk about promotions going on. And then the IKEA Korea is kind of like doing some blood well, like they promote the pop up event. And then, oh, this is something that we are going on. You can join for free. The Pajama party, all the things that we can hear from. So there are several ways that you can choose from, but for B2B, especially those like related free resources, something that you can unlock first and then from there you can expand further with more engaging content.

Christian Klepp  35:19

Okay, fantastic, fantastic. So on the topic of metrics, and I know we can talk about metrics for hours and hours and hours, but what are some of the what are some of the key metrics that you tell your clients to focus on, especially if they’re starting out in the Korean market?

Hyein Yoon  35:36

Yeah, I really, really suggest NAVER keyword rankings first. So once you audit all of your websites, it’s visible there. You can go to NAVER keyword planner or NAVER data lab there, and then from there, it’s actually free to research everything. There. You can check the monthly search volume very easily. And then probably, like, if you don’t have any like, a visibility there, it could be like zero, or if you already started your journey, probably like, let’s say, 1k per month, or something like that. But if you want to really aim for, let’s say, do the test campaigns first 20% rise, or 30% rise, something that you can aim for instantly, for the KPI. And then let’s say, as I mentioned before, the community targeting is really important. So what we normally really recommend is hitting the UGC (User-Generated Content) influencers with the content or the community targeting first, like NAVER cafe, the Kakao group. I don’t really recommend Kakao group for, you know, the promoting stuff, I would usually recommend the NAVER Cafe better, because Kakao group is more of a like a chat or messenger style. But anyway, the if you can hit the cafe, NAVER Cafe first, and then the UGC community, that’s how we discovered if it goes viral, and then we also have Naver clip, which is similar way that we speak to the short film videos on YouTube channel. 

Hyein Yoon  37:08

And NAVER clip brings a lot of actual impressions reached compared to YouTube shorts or reels nowadays, because when we collaborate with Australian brand, we hired a really great influencer, and then they put the content on Tiktok and YouTube, Instagram and NAVER clip, and then NAVER clip was hit like over 1 million views for the single video, and then in that two month period, it was over 5x ROI. So it’s also important to know that for B2B service businesses having the social media is kind of like important as a community. And I understand that even Korean businesses are kind of like conservative about like doing social media for sure, but YouTube or Facebook and Instagram is something that you can begin with, because YouTube works with SEO, the search engine optimization keywords, and then Instagram and Facebook also over 50 men are their professionals for sure. Instagram for women or, you know, like those young generations, but you know, like, once your son or daughter know about your brand, they will likely also spread the word for sure, like, why we don’t try it? So, like a lot of Institute, institutions or government, usually utilize more fund related or engaging stuff nowadays, so it’s growing trend right now. So yeah, I recommend those jumping in those community first and then hiring the influencers. If you want to really generate the search volume, really increase so from the content, from influencers or your community, to search volume that you can track for sure.

Christian Klepp  38:55

Yeah, it’s very interesting, because, like, you know, I also did a lot of B2B marketing in China, and at first, at first, we’re like, oh, you’re gonna use influencers for B2B campaign. But actually it works because, because a lot of these people in the clients, target audience, are actually following these influencers, right? 

Hyein Yoon  39:16

Exactly. 

Christian Klepp  39:17

So again, it’s one of these differences between, between the way that B2B marketing is done in the West and the way it’s done in places like Korea, right?

Hyein Yoon  39:27

Yep. 

Christian Klepp  39:27

Yeah, okay, so two more questions before I let you go, and I really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today. So if you are like the ambassador for Korea, you’re representing your country, and there you’re talking to people that have never been to Korea before, right? What is there a particular place in Korea where you would advise them to go and visit? And if yes, what place is it and why?

Hyein Yoon  39:59

I mean, I actually thought about this a lot, what kind of like places I should recommend to those, you know, buyers, yeah, all of that. And then we have a very interesting places called COEX and KINTEX. And then it’s kind of like buyers or the consumers engaged there for the conferences event or trade show event. So, once you present there, you can actually go deep inside about Computer Research, how they are actually selling stuff, how actually they are engaged with customers, for sure, and how they promote their services. There you can, you know, have the overview of picture of our business landscape. Outside of that. You know, if you want to target more of like young generations or Genji stuff, you could go to Seongsu and then it could be cliche, you should visit capital city Seoul, for sure. Like how Korean market without going to the capital city tower or Busan, like, that’s the two things that we are having the mainstream here. So the CK as a conference or event or trade show, and then Seoul and then Seongsu for young generation. Outside of that, maybe if you can go to Pangyo area, there are lots of startups going on. So if you want to really observe those startup scenes, you may visit there too.

Christian Klepp  41:29

Okay, okay, well, that’s, that’s a pretty long list, very interesting. And you know, thank you so much for your time today, I think I learned something new about doing B2B marketing in the Korean market, so I hope the audience got a lot of value out of that as well. So please quick introduction to yourself and how B2B companies can get in touch with you.

Hyein Yoon  41:53

Yeah, thank you so much for asking. I mean, I’m the founder of HY marketing, helping international brand succeeds, such as in Korea, Japan and beyond, with specializing in social media marketing. So we have a team of Korean native marketer, native Japanese marketers and English speaking marketers, for sure. And then I am the one who strategize everything and direct or the for the creative part. And because of that, we kind of really work with everyone. So it we limit the volume is like a main three full campaigns per month, so that I can also focus on our clients, because we are a part of, like a boutique marketing agency, and then we actually strategize everything from the beginning, not about just, you know, test the water without ever knowing the consumer psychology. So that’s the thing that I’m really passionate about.

Christian Klepp  42:51

Okay, okay, fantastic. Well, once again, Hyein and thank you so much for coming on the show today, gamsahabnida (Thank you). Right?

Hyein Yoon  43:02

I forgot to mention that if you want to reach out to me, yeah, connect me on LinkedIn or apply to work with us on our website for sure.

Christian Klepp  43:08

Yep, yes, yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. And we will be including the links in the show notes for this episode so people can get in touch with you directly. So once again, thank you so much for coming on the show. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. 

Hyein Yoon  43:25

Okay, sure. Bye. 

Christian Klepp  43:26

Thank you. Bye. Bye.

Christian Klepp  00:00

Many companies struggle with generating the right traffic to their website. They obsess over quantity rather than quality. The key lies in understanding your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), what they’re looking for and developing the right content to answer their questions. So how can B2B companies start getting their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) right and increase their web traffic from scratch. Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Nicholle Stacey, who will be answering this question. She’s the Chief Marketing Officer at altitude B2B who helps B2B companies to improve their SEO. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. 

Christian Klepp  00:41

And off we go. Nicholle Stacey, welcome to the show. 

Nicholle Stacey  00:50

Thank you. 

Christian Klepp  00:51

Great to have you on the show, and it’s great to chat with a fellow Canadian and a fellow Torontonian. I’m just gonna try not to talk about the traffic and the road works, and then we’ll be fine. Like, fantastic. So, um, if it’s all the same to you, let’s just jump right in, because I think this is a topic that man, B2B companies and their marketing teams should be paying attention to this stuff, if they’re not already, right? 

Nicholle Stacey  01:19

Yes. 

Christian Klepp  01:20

So I’m gonna say that you’re on a mission to help B2B companies elevate their online presence with SEO and Expert blog content. For this conversation, I would like to focus on the following topic, which is how B2B companies can increase web traffic from scratch. And that sounds like a pretty big deal, and it probably is, to a certain extent, right? But that’s why we’re here, right? Where we’re here to, like, break it all down, and we’re here to tell people that it’s not impossible, but it does require work. So let’s kick off the conversation with two questions, all right, and I’m happy to repeat them. So the first question is, what is it about SEO that you wish more B2B companies understood? And the second question is, where do you see B2B companies and their marketing teams struggle regarding the above?

Nicholle Stacey  02:11

So for B2B SEO to make some progress on their own, first and foremost, I would say, take an audit, just see where your website’s performing. Look at your metrics. What is your traffic like? What type of traffic are you getting? Are you resonating with your ideal client profile? If not? Look at the audit, look at the technical fixes and look at your content. Are you answering questions that your ideal client might be asking into search engines, you really want to make sure that you’re positioning yourself in a manner where you’re that response and on the flip side, you want to address all of those technical issues and make sure that your domain health is really elevated so that Google sees you as trustworthy, credible, and is willing to show you as a search result to those users. And then I’m going to ask you to remind me the second question, please.

Christian Klepp  03:11

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. Where do you see a lot of B2B marketing teams struggle regarding SEO.

Nicholle Stacey  03:19

The biggest struggle is they don’t understand, or fully comprehend, the power that SEO has in regard to their marketing and investment in marketing. I’ve seen time and time again with B2B businesses where they don’t take digital marketing seriously. In this day and age. It’s so fundamental, and it’s so important, because if you’re not doing that, you’re missing a big portion of the market share, depending on the industry that you’re in. If you can get even, you know, 1% more market share, that’s huge return on investment that you’ll get just from SEO. So it’s super important. And you know, they just need to realize that it’s a true value.

Christian Klepp  04:05

From a marketers point of view. All the things that you’ve said make total sense. But as we all know, there are business owners out there, or, if it’s a larger organization, there are people in the senior management that let us say they don’t quite understand what SEO is. And B, I think something that’s even more dangerous is out of sight, out of mind. If I don’t know about it, then it means it’s not that important. And that couldn’t be any further from the truth, right? 

Christian Klepp  04:35

So you’ve probably run into the situation before, so that’s what I’m going to ask you. But how do you get buy in from those types of folks to invest in SEO?

Nicholle Stacey  04:42

Yeah. 

Nicholle Stacey  04:46

Yeah, it’s so true. Like, out of sight, out of mind, you just pretend it’s not there, and you don’t address it. But the reality is, like I said, like, if you look at specific industries, you can look at the data. And I always say numbers don’t lie. Okay, I have my own data from my own clientele that I’ve worked with as well, where you really see the value in investing in SEO. So for people who are business owners, who, you know, they may not understand, or they’re just like, You know what, I really don’t need this, I would say, Well, who doesn’t want more market share. Who doesn’t want to connect with more clients? Is that what you’re telling me? Because if that’s the case, then Are you really serious about doing business? And if you do want that, then SEO is the way to go. And again, the numbers don’t lie.

Christian Klepp  05:35

Absolutely, absolutely. I’m gonna segue to the next question, or move us on to the next question rather, which is about like key pitfalls to avoid. And so again, we’re on the topic of building up your web traffic from scratch. So one of these key pitfalls that B2B marketers should avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Nicholle Stacey  05:56

Yeah, I would say just don’t get overwhelmed. Take it one thing at a time. With SEO, there’s a lot of technical jargon that gets thrown around, and I always like to educate my clients on like what specific things mean and why they’re important and why we need to address that. So when you’re running an audit and you’re getting overwhelmed. Just really take a moment to take a deep breath. It’s all good, it’s all okay, and take it one step at a time. And you know, don’t get overwhelmed by that.

Christian Klepp  06:31

Okay, okay. And what else should they be avoiding? Should they be avoiding the traffic trap, as they call it?

Nicholle Stacey  06:40

Yeah, you want to be avoiding the traffic trap like you want to make sure that your traffic is, you know, quality traffic over quantity. There are certain things that you can do to ensure that you’re getting real quality traffic. One of the things that comes to mind is always make sure that you’re using, for example, reCAPTCHA, which is just basically a plugin that you use on your site, where, when users fill out a contact form, you can segregate from, you know, bot intakes versus real human intakes. So simple things like that can be a good practice to avoid falling into, you know, false numbers, so to speak.

Christian Klepp  07:23

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, there’s this, there’s this obsession about, like, numbers, right? Like, okay, like, look how much traffic we have versus, or what you actually should be focusing on is the quality of that traffic. Like, are there quality leads there coming to the website? Right? 

Nicholle Stacey  07:39

Exactly. And that’s one thing too, that I would add, is before you even start implementing SEO like out of the gate, you should, as a bare minimum, be tracking these metrics from the get co just so you see where you’re at before you even address anything. So then you can look back at the metrics and see what’s really driving progress and getting you to where you’re looking to be. 

Christian Klepp  08:07

Yeah. No, absolutely, absolutely. 

Nicholle Stacey  08:09

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  08:10

This next question is, while we can go down a really deep rabbit hole with this one, but let’s keep it down. Let’s keep it top level. Talk to us about what has changed in the world of SEO and why marketers should be paying attention to that.

Nicholle Stacey  08:23

A big hot topic right now in the world of marketing and SEO specifically, is, you know, AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), or whatever acronym you want to use. It’s essentially just, you know, answer engine optimization or AI snippet overviews. The reason I encourage people to pay attention to this is there’s a lot of noise, and you need to, you know, break through the noise to understand what’s really going on here. I’ve done a lot of education and research on this myself, and at the bottom of it all, it’s essentially, SEO is not dead. That’s what everyone keeps saying. SEO is dead. It’s really not at the basis to rank for AEO, you still need to implement the foundational practices of SEO. You know, even Google’s own people, I think it was last month came out and said, you know, you don’t need to be doing all of these, you know, jumping through hoops to rank on AEO or have AI snippet overviews happen. You just really need to practice the foundations of SEO. 

Nicholle Stacey  09:34

The one thing I will say, though, is you do need to pivot how you’re practicing SEO. And an example of that is you can’t just, you know, write blogs how we were writing blogs before, or, you know, doing what I call a bad practice where you’re having AI write your blog. That’s a whole another a can of worms that I can get into. But you really wanna think of intent, so only user intent, but AI intent. So when you’re writing your blogs, you want to be answering questions that people are asking into search engines, but you also want to format and write your comment in a way where AI is more likely to reference your content as well. So looking at things in a simple way, such as how you structure the content it could be, you know, these are the top five things to look for when you’re searching for an SEO agency as an example. And having that structured of, you know, five points, and having the question answered or asked in the content, and then answering a very firm answer, like, this is the answer, and here’s the points as to why. That’s just going to better position you for those a answer engine optimization overviews, and also keep you in the game for SEO as well.

Christian Klepp  10:58

Absolutely, absolutely. How do you, how do you explain that what you’ve just mentioned, how do you explain that to business owners or the well, the senior management, if it’s like a bigger organization, what you’ve just mentioned about, like, how much AI has changed, and why it’s in their interest to adapt to these changes. Like, how would you go about explaining that?

Nicholle Stacey  11:24

Yeah, it’s a good question. Um, I again, I always like to look at the data like, I like to show you know, this is the fact. And the matter of fact is, yes, people are still do conducting searches on Google as an example, but people are also conducting searches and AI, so I would, you know, just share that data and education on here’s how people are conducting searches, and that is essentially the reason why we need to integrate the practice of, you know, making sure that we’re writing content for AEO and making sure that we’re also still practicing fundamental SEO and pivoting how we do SEO. So just having that conversation around that, and then I’m also a big analogy person too, so I like throwing in analogies that someone might relate to and understand. So that’s another way as well.

Christian Klepp  12:20

Yeah, I would almost say it’s, it’s kind of like you need to inject a little bit of, I don’t know if you want to call it FOMO (Fear of Missing Out ), but if they’re not buying into this whole like, we need to adapt, because SEO has evolved with AI, if they don’t buy into that, you could say something to the effect of, well, if you’re not doing it, I can guarantee you that your competitors are.

Christian Klepp  12:50

Okay. So, because we talked about this before, please provide examples of how B2B companies can increase web traffic from scratch. So specifically, what steps should they take, and what are the key components that need to be in that process?

Nicholle Stacey  13:00

Totally Yeah, definitely. 

Nicholle Stacey  13:05

Yeah, a few initial things that come to mind is always look at the technical aspect of your website. This is super important, because Google and other search engines want to make sure that they’re referring credible and trustworthy content to the users. So doing something as simple as conducting a website audit to look at where you stand from a technical standpoint, you want to find any gaps, any issues, and address those. 

Nicholle Stacey  13:34

The second thing you can do is look at who your ideal client profile is, really hone in on on what problem they’re trying to solve, what pain point they might have, and what words or phrases might they be typing into Google or or, you know, AI search engines to find a result for what they’re looking for. Really look into that, and you can run analysis too, on you know, how frequent those terms or words are typed in, and what’s the competition like for ranking and resonating with that amongst your competitors. When you find what I call the sweet spot of, you know, High search volume, low competition, you can start integrating content and keywords into your website that really resonates, and also just touching base, again, on really having a answer based content, where you’re answering and touching on topics that people are really interested in within your industry. By doing that, you’re more likely going to bring that organic traffic and that quality traffic of your ideal client profile to your website. 

Nicholle Stacey  14:44

Last but not least, I always say this is an easy one to overlook, but really look at the user navigation experience of your website. It’s one thing to get the traffic to your website. It’s another thing to keep it and have it engage on your website. I’ve seen use cases before where people did like a DIY SEO, which no hard feelings against that. I totally respect people who take on SEO themselves. They got traffic coming to their website, but they weren’t getting the conversions. And when I ran a deep look into this, what I was seeing is that their website was not performing well. Their navigation was really bad. It wasn’t clear how to get from a specific area on their website to another or how to contact or connect with the business owner. So by addressing that, we essentially closed the gap, so that the traffic that was coming eventually started converting into connections and business for them. So I would say those are the three things to look at.

Christian Klepp  15:54

Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Yeah, I’m totally with you on that one. We had a call earlier today with a client, and they’re going through the same challenges with their website, where it’s, you know, it’s difficult to navigate. And I, I can’t claim to have, like, created this phrase, but people have to burn calories to find information, right? Yeah. Like, scroll, scroll, scroll, click, click, click, click, and then sometimes the there were issues with the clicking and the actual, the value, the valuable information that those, those golden nuggets, as we like to call them, they were buried deep down and at the bottom of the page somewhere, so things of that nature, right? 

Nicholle Stacey  16:37

Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  16:38

Yeah. What? Would you say in terms of content, right? Like, because, you know, when we’re talking about SEO and we’re talking about website traffic, we’re also talking about, like, the quality of the content that’s on the website, from your own experience, and perhaps also based on the recommendations you would give to clients. What kind of content would you suggest they create that would help to increase this traffic. I suppose the immediate answer would be, it depends. But over to you.

Nicholle Stacey  17:07

Yeah, I again, it would all be industry relative, but at a high level, again, you really want to resonate with what questions is your ideal client asking? You also want to look into incorporating, you know, visual appealing things, whether it’s, you know, a dynamic graphic, really cool infographics, things like that, to really keep people engaged and keep their eyes moving along. But yeah, just really, when it comes down to it, it’s quality content. I always emphasize it’s quality over quantity, and you really want to resonate with the hot topics of your client profile.

Christian Klepp  17:54

Fantastic, but now I’m going to play the devil’s advocate, right? Because same quality content is almost like somebody on LinkedIn saying you’ve got to add value to your target audience. Define, define quality content like. Well, from your experience, what does quality content look like?

Nicholle Stacey  18:12

Yeah, quality content is really well researched, references, other data points, shows, the homework, so to speak, it’s really well structured. And again, it all comes back to touching on those topics that the ideal client profile is looking for, like, what questions are they asking? What information are they looking for? So really taking the time to to have your your tone of voice, have your, you know, branding in it, including those data points like I mentioned, just really putting that work towards having a well rounded, detailed piece of content go out that is quality to me, versus on the quantity side, just trying to pump, you know, blogs out once a week, or however frequent, just for the sake of saying that you’ve done it, and for trying to get more traffic again, like I’ve seen it with my clients, where it’s we focus on quality, and you really see the traffic come from that.

Christian Klepp  19:21

Fantastic, fantastic. Okay, so we get to the point in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and Nicholle, you’ve given us quite a handful already. 

Nicholle Stacey  19:30

Yes. 

Christian Klepp  19:31

Let’s just assume. Let’s assume there’s somebody out there that’s listening to this interview when it comes out, and that person is either an owner of a B2B Company, or the marketing team of SaaS company, and you want them to take action on what you’ve recommended, like right now, not in 12 months, not in six months, like right now. So what are the three? It’s. Almost like summarizing or recapping what you’ve been saying in the past couple of minutes. But what are like, three to five things that you would recommend they do right now to, like, start increasing the web traffic from scratch.

Nicholle Stacey  20:13

Again, like I would say, point one, look at where you’re at right now. Make sure you’re tracking metrics. If you’re not a good, you know, freebie to use that I always recommend is, you know, use Google Search Console. Use Google Analytics. Sync that up to your website so you have that data. You know, really identify who your ideal client profile is and what your goals are with your website. Once you have that, then you can look at the technical side of the website. Build that domain authority, domain trust by addressing technical issues so that Google is more likely to show you as a search engine resolve. And then just look at the user navigation experience. So once we get that traffic to the website you want to, again, make sure that users are staying engaged on your website. They know where to go to go back to a specific page. They know where to go to connect with you. And then again, that quality content, I would say those are my well rounded considerations to action right away to really make some great progress. And again, like SEO, it does take time, so you want to make sure that you’re committed and you’re consistent with what you do, and you really watch those metrics to see, you know, what is driving traffic at the end of the day, is there a specific blog that was on a specific topic that really resonated. Perhaps we can have a part two or a sub blog of that blog to continue on that topic.

Christian Klepp  21:53

Yeah, like a series, right? 

Nicholle Stacey  21:54

Exactly, yeah. 

Christian Klepp  21:55

Yeah, yeah, that the blog article doesn’t end, that the content doesn’t end with that specific article, that it has a bit more longevity, right? That you can chop it. 

Nicholle Stacey  22:07

Exactly, yeah, yeah. 

Christian Klepp  22:08

Okay, fantastic, fantastic. I’m going to go back to something that you said, and I want to, I want to, like, expand it and then massage that a little bit, if you will, because on the question of domain authority. A lot of people have heard about it. Some people might even know what it is. 

Nicholle Stacey  22:26

Yes. 

Christian Klepp  22:28

And I would hazard a guess that it’s pretty important to know. All right, so two prong question, number one is, for the benefit of the audience that doesn’t know what it is, please explain what domain authority is. And number two is, how can a company, if they’re already working on increasing their web traffic, how can they take some small steps to improving their domain authority? Because, again, from my understanding, is that takes time as well.

Nicholle Stacey  22:57

Yes, so one what is domain authority. It’s essentially a score or metric that Google and other search engines use to look at your overall trustworthiness, so to speak. So it’s a graded score based on different aspects of your website. So things that Google and other search engines look at to give this domain authority score, is they’re looking at your content, are you relevant? Your credibility, are you trustworthy? And they’re looking at things like your backlink profile as well, like who is your website associated with? Are you associated with well known websites or blogs? Are they referring to you? It’s kind of like, I always like to say. It’s almost like a street cred, like, oh so and so knows you. Okay, I trust you. It’s kind of like that. So at a super high level, that’s basically what domain authority is. 

Nicholle Stacey  24:03

How you can improve your domain authority is looking at, you know, again, what kind of content are you writing? Is it credible? Is it trustworthy? That’s where you know, referencing data points and linking to data points and things like that is super helpful looking at websites that you refer to and websites that refer to you. So conducting a link audit in the event that you have links that are referring to you that are quote, unquote toxic, meaning they have very poor domain score, they’re essentially bringing you down. And you want to make sure that you address that and let Google know, like, hey, we don’t know these people. We actually have no association with them, and get rid of that. And then on the flip side, you want to conduct research and reach out to find those net new healthy backlink opportunities. Opportunity. So it could be something like a guest blogging opportunity. It could be, you know, an interview that you do through like a reputable agency, that you’re an, you know, they’re interviewing you on an industry expert opinion on something. So by doing little things like that, you can improve your your domain authority, and then Google, when it’s looking for, you know, who am I going to show as a search result for this specific person’s question? If you have better domain authority than your competitor, then Google’s going to show you as the result versus your competitor?

Christian Klepp  25:38

Yeah, no, absolutely. That’s definitely a good place to start. We can’t talk about we can’t avoid the topic of metrics. I should say, when we talk about SEO, and again, I know we can go down a deep rabbit hole with this one. Just give us some top level metrics. Right? What are some if a B2B Company and its marketing team is trying to improve website traffic from scratch. What are some of those key metrics that the team should be paying attention to?

Nicholle Stacey  26:09

Yeah, I always like to use the overall health score. So there’s a lot of different applications that you can use, like SEMrush, Ahrefs, SE ranking, etc. There’s a bunch out there. You can get your overall website health score. It’s just an overall good indicator of where you’re at. Other ones that I like to watch and recommend people watch is looking at the organic traffic, seeing, you know, even the data on where that traffic is coming from, from a geographical perspective as well. You know, looking at that, looking at the conversions, you can even use heat maps on your website as well to see recorded sessions of users on your website, like, where are they clicking? And you can do like, an analysis on your overall user navigation experience through that as well. Yeah, just, just things like that. I always say, at a basic bare minimum, always look at Google Search Console and Google Analytics. They have great metrics in there that you should be paying attention to. And Google is the real time, you know, like they’re the internet gods, so to speak.

Christian Klepp  27:22

Yeah, that’s certainly one way of putting it, yeah, for sure. All right, no, fantastic. We’re gonna move on to what I call the soapbox question. And I know that you’ve got an opinion about this, right, but what’s the status quo in your area of expertise, SEO, that you passionately disagree with and why?

Nicholle Stacey  27:45

Yeah, a status quo that I run into quite a bit is people are like, Oh, we don’t need SEO. We touched base on this a little bit before. But I I’m of the opinion that if you’re not investing in SEO, you’re missing out on huge market share, especially depending on your industry. Some industries, the market share, you know, it might be 1% but in some industries, it can be huge. So if you’re not investing in SEO, you are missing out. That is my strong opinion. I know I’m biased, but I have, I’m all about the data. I have the data, and I’m shouting from the soapbox, it’s a good investment.

Christian Klepp  28:28

Yep, yep. Well, absolutely, I completely agree with that. So I’m in the B2B branding space, and so I guess what irks me is when people say, like, now we don’t need branding. We’re good. We’ve got a logo on our website, and I’m like, and therein lies the problem. Yes, the fact that you say that already shows that you don’t understand what branding is, right? Yeah. So before you, before you start revamping your website, and before you, like, invest in SEO, like, you have to actually understand how you want to be positioned in the market and what you want to convey to your target audience. And when I say convey, it’s not like we have proprietary technology and we’re award winning with so many rounds of funding. That’s not what I mean.

Nicholle Stacey  29:16

Yeah, like, what is the end goal? And like, if you’re a service industry or you’re selling a product, like, is there a specific service that you’re trying to promote, or a specific product based off of all of the products? And then you can even, you can shift and pivot your SEO strategy based off of that too, right? So… 

Christian Klepp  29:35

Exactly. 

Nicholle Stacey  29:36

You really gotta put pen to paper, so to speak, or open your laptop and really make you know what are, what is the goal here, and what is the strategy?

Christian Klepp  29:45

Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, the misconception and branding is basically like, oh, okay, let’s, let’s obsess over the logo design. 

Nicholle Stacey  29:52

Or the colors. 

Christian Klepp  29:53

Or the colors, right? And that certainly is part of branding, but that’s the end result. 

Nicholle Stacey  29:58

Yeah. Yeah. 

Christian Klepp  29:59

And I would hazard a guess that in SEO, there’s also this misconception with all it’s just stuff as many keywords in this as possible, right? Okay, so here comes the bonus question. So rumor has it that you’re, you’re kind of like a Canadian version of Mary condo, right? Like you like to clean, and you like to clean and organize stuff. 

Nicholle Stacey  30:24

Yeah, I do, yeah. 

Christian Klepp  30:26

So and which probably tells me that you’re a very structured person, right? Like you, you thrive on, you thrive on having some, some kind of structure. Or as a British colleague, ex colleague of mine, used to say you’re a fan of older. 

Nicholle Stacey  30:41

Yes, yeah. 

Christian Klepp  30:43

So the question is, like, what is it about cleaning and organizing? I suppose it’s too pronged again, sorry, what is it about cleaning and organizing that you find therapeutic? And number two, how has that impacted you, personally and professionally?

Nicholle Stacey  31:01

It’s a good question. Um, I guess, like, cleaning and organizing has always been therapeutic for me, because I am a big believer in your environment impacts you, like the Feng Shui and like the clutter, like a cluttered room is a cluttered mind. How they say, right? I’m a big believer of that. And I just find it therapeutic to just, you know, if there’s a mess, just clean it up and then you feel better. I don’t know. It’s just very rewarding to me. So I, yeah, I find that very rewarding. And sorry. What was the second part of the question?

Christian Klepp  31:40

The second part of the question is, how is that sense of the need for cleanliness and order? How has that influenced you personally and professionally? Like, how has it impacted the way that you work? How has it impacted the way that you interact with other people?

Nicholle Stacey  31:55

Yeah, I would say it definitely translates and impacts how I work. I’m going to sound really nerdy when I say this, but I get a kick out of seeing my audit reports improve. So when I see like, overall health scores improve and they go from the red to the green, I’m just like, Yes, we did it, it’s such a sense of satisfaction. And that’s where my a type side comes out. Like I’d like you say I love order, I love structure, I love seeing that before and after of positive progress. And it definitely translates and resonates in how I work and even day to day, how I structure my day and my to do’s so it’s, yeah, very transferable and in personal and professional side of life.

Christian Klepp  32:42

Fantastic, fantastic, and you’re all the better for it.

Nicholle Stacey  32:46

I think so. 

Christian Klepp  32:48

Fantastic. Nicholle, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your experience and your expertise with the listeners. Please quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get another show you.

Nicholle Stacey  33:03

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me so. My name is Nicholle. My firm Altitude B2B is a fractional marketing firm based out of Toronto, Ontario. Myself and my team work together fractionally towards cohesive goals for our clients. We essentially address their pain points and their issues when it comes to digital marketing, and essentially, more often than not, that means that we’re turning their website into a 24/7 sales rep for them. People can find me on LinkedIn or my website, https://www.altitudeb2b.com/ Yeah, just connect with me on there or message me via my website, and I’m happy to chat. 

Christian Klepp  33:03

Fantastic, fantastic. All right, so once again, thanks for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. 

Nicholle Stacey  33:50

Thank you so much. 

Christian Klepp  33:52

All right. Bye for now.

Christian Klepp  00:04

Mr. Sam Dunning, I’m gonna say, welcome back to the show, right? Good to have you back on.

Sam Dunning  00:10

Hey, appreciate it, man, and glad I didn’t annoy too many people that weren’t protesting for do not get Sam back on for round two. So glad, glad I made it back.

Christian Klepp  00:21

Nah, I’m pretty sure that they’re a fan of your online video series, and we’re gonna talk about that little bit later on in the conversation. I’m sure.

Sam Dunning  00:32

Looking forward to it.

Christian Klepp  00:33

Yeah, but you know, Sam, great to have you back on. You know the drill. We try to, like, not do any too much of the small talk here, cut off the fluff and just hop right to it. Looking forward to this conversation because you shared a LinkedIn post with me about a month ago now that I felt was really pertinent in terms of, like, what B2B marketers should be doing. So let’s dive right into that, right? Because you’ve been on a mission to help B2B companies to up their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) game, as you call it, for revenue, not vanity. So for this particular conversation, I’d like to zero in on the topic of how B2B marketing teams can crush their competitors with organic So let’s kick off the conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. So first one is, why is it so important for B2B companies to get it right with SEO? And as a follow up to that one, where do you think many B2B companies get it wrong when it comes to SEO?

Sam Dunning  01:34

Yeah, sure. So I suppose I should preface that first and foremost for as a B2B Company, SEO isn’t always the best thing to invest in, and now there’s a couple situations where it might not be a smart move. One is, which is quite common, especially in B2B Tech and SaaS, is if you’re creating almost a new category or a new solution or a new offering, where there isn’t active demand. What do I mean by active demand? Well, there isn’t any prospects that are aware of that solution or that offering, meaning that SEO might be the best bet, because people aren’t searching for it, whether that’s on Google search, whether that’s now on LLMs or similar, or it’s not always the best bet. If, let’s say you’ve perhaps got a leadership team that have never done SEO before. SEO is not an easy internal sell. It’s often, if I was to imagine a marketing budget for a B2B team as a barrel, usually SEO is scraping the bottom of it, and usually somewhere towards the top is things like outbound sales, yeah, plenty of budget for that. Paid media, yeah, plenty events, yeah. SEO is usually something that’s not given the kind of priority resource or similar. So there is a couple things you’ve got to consider. And also, hate to say it, but it’s not always the quickest thing. There are quick wins that you can yield with SEO. But if you’re a company that’s perhaps venture backed. You’re funded, you’ve got investors that want to see results super fast, whilst there can be quick wins as fast as 90 days with a solid SEO program, it’s not something like paid media or kind of super cold out cold calling, or things that we can kind of see, see appointments or meetings or demos booked relatively quickly. Usually you will need some kind of runway. I 90 days or so. So it needs to, needs to have that in mind. 

Sam Dunning  03:27

But with that said, if you are a B2B company that is in a mature market, aka. your target clients know your offer or your solution or your software or service exists, then it’s a solid channel to get in front of those dream clients, when they have that high sales intent, when they have the problem you solve, when they need your solution. Now, when they’re actively in market, when they’re comparing options or comparing vendors, or they have kind of a good level of intent towards your solution, to get in front of them on Google organic search, or now LLMs (Large Language Models). And start kind of driving awareness, driving kind of high, high intent prospects to your website that could potentially be booked, calls, demos, sign ups, whatever your kind of end conversion point is, so that tees it up a little bit, hopefully in terms of how it can be effective. And I suppose when you compare SEO to paid media, whether that’s Google ads, LinkedIn ads or similar, opposed to paying for each and every click, you’ve got more of that evergreen effect where, just like when you do a YouTube search, right, like you might see content that’s a week old, a month old, or even years old, and SEOs are similar, like your content can work almost around the clock, and you’re not paying for each and every click. It kind of compounds over time with the right strategy in place, so that that hopefully teases up a little bit. And I forgot what the second part of your question was.

Christian Klepp  04:52

No problem at all. Where do you see a lot of B2B marketing teams getting it wrong with SEO?

Sam Dunning  04:58

There’s many, many ways. So one is trying to do SEO. If there’s not actually active demand for your offer, I maybe you’re a new solution, new category that your dream clients know about. In that case, I would suggest that you actually work out where your ICP or your ideal client profile spends time, where they get their trusted information from, and one of the best ways to do that is with customer research, whether that’s leveraging sales calls or actually interviewing kind of target prospects, or recently churn clients or recently won clients. Understanding what are those top two three channels they get their trust information from, be it a podcast, maybe they listen to certain industry podcasts or newsletters, or hang out on LinkedIn and work out that spend time there, educating them, talking about the problem you solve, positioning your product as a painkiller, building trust, social proof, authority, and that’s more much more likely to get your clients than SEO is. 

Sam Dunning  05:46

Where else do folks get SEO wrong? Well, let’s pretend you are in a segment. You are providing an offer that’s known, and you do have potential clients searching for it. Well, most of the time it’s we often see companies falling into what I call the quote, unquote traffic trap. So they’re going after, let’s call it real top funnel informational based searches. And that could be something like, what is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management), or how to build a website, or what is a KPI (Key Performance Indicators), or those kind of real high level queries, informational based stuff. And the thing is, if you search for those kind of keywords on tools like Ahrefs, they might show up as having tons of traffic. But the issue is, if someone’s searching for something like how to or what is, or things like that, they’re probably super early in their journey. They might even be a student. They’re just looking for information about that. But what’s worse is a lot of those queries now, especially on Google search, are being wiped out by AI overviews. So the instant result above the fold, where Google will give you an instant explanation to the question, sometimes cite a website, sometimes not. And the problem is, whilst historically, that was a big SEO play, kind of go for super high traffic search terms, build content around them, get traffic at all costs, and a small chunk of that will convert. Nowadays, it doesn’t really make sense as a strategy, purely because AI, AI is wiping out a lot of it. 

Sam Dunning  07:14

And secondly, because even if those prospects do eventually click through to your website, be it an article or landing page or similar, in most cases, they’ll get the information they need and hop straight off. Or a best case scenario, they might grab a lead magnet, or check out your YouTube channel, your podcast or something like that. So going after what we call vanity metrics, like traffic at all costs, that isn’t going to attract high sales intent prospects. Because most of the time if B2B companies are looking to do an SEO program, they’re doing it to feed their sales team with booked calls or demos, or they’re looking, if they’re product led, then they’re looking to drive sign ups or trials of their product. So we can talk about this, that the crux of great SEOs doing the opposite, working out what those dream clients actually search for when they need the solution, or they’re comparing options, or they have the crisp problem that you solve, and starting at the bottom and working up.

Christian Klepp  08:11

Yeah, no, those are some really fantastic points. I had three pull off questions there, but let me just work through them here. So you mentioned but one of the circumstances in which you wouldn’t advise companies to use SEO is if they’re creating a new category. So I guess my question is, Okay, that’s fair enough. But like, at what point in time would that category have reached a certain level of I don’t know, you can call it maturity, and then that’s when you would recommend, yes, you can use SEO now.

Sam Dunning  08:44

Yeah, good question, and there’s no, I don’t have a pinpoint answer to be fair. I’d probably say there’s a couple ways you could think about it. So if you were in a new category, creating a new solution that hasn’t existed before, there is an argument that you could go do SEO, but I’d say unless you had, unless you were well backed, had a good amount of or had a good amount of cash in the bank, it might not be your best bet. But if you really wanted to do SEO, there’s a couple ways you could hit it. One would be leaning more into the problems that your dream clients might face. So I don’t know. And one example we sometimes use is like, one of our clients is a, I suppose, to tee up some context, one of our clients is a proposal software SaaS (Software as a Service). So if you had their problem, it might be something like how to build sales quotes that convert in Google Docs. If you knew your dream clients crisp and specific problems and how they’re getting the job done today, chances are they’re probably searching for that. And if you can map those out in problem based, crisp and specific searches that are relevant to that pain point, then those could be one, one way you could do it that would be reasonably top funnel. 

Sam Dunning  09:52

So if someone searched for something like that, they might land on an article. And you could say, look, you’re probably getting it done this way, like messing around with Google Docs, trying to build these lengthy sales proposals, taking you an hour and a half each day to do it. Why not try our SaaS? Grab a free sign up. You can do this process in five minutes. Follow these AI prompts, and it’s going to build it all out for you. So that’s one way to do it, quite top funnel. Another way, if you really wanted to attack it, was going after maybe competitors that aren’t direct. So maybe there’s competitors that you could try and target that maybe aren’t direct but are loosely related to your product. So if maybe someone’s frustrated with this incumbent solution, and they’re looking for like, X alternatives, or whatever the software name is, alternative to that, that’s another way you could position your product, and those would be reasonably high intent. So there’s a couple ways you could do SEO. It would just be a lot more of a slow burn. And of course, you could, you could build out content, build out pages, put up product pages, industry pages, feature pages to wrap, to show up for your category terms. And then meanwhile, the strategy would be to build awareness, build brand and build demand on those channels. You do know that your your dream clients are getting trust information from so whether that was LinkedIn organic content, LinkedIn ads, guesting on niche, relevant podcasts, featuring on industry relevant newsletters, attending events, then all this stuff you’re doing outside of SEO, we’re building up that awareness and that brand and that demand, and then when they search on Google or AI search now, and you have that foundation in place, I guess.

Christian Klepp  11:30

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely, no, fantastic. Okay, so that was the first follow up question. Um, second follow up question is, and I know that you’ve probably been in the spot more times than you care to remember. But as you said, getting buy in from leadership to do SEO, if a, they’ve never done it before, and B, they kind of sort of know what it is, but not really right. And but perhaps it gets to that point, and I suppose it got to that point with many of the people that you’re working with now. It got to the point where SEO has become a necessity, and they needed to get that buy in, right? They can’t, they can’t do this like slow dance around the room anymore, right? Well, how would you, how would you get that buy in from senior leadership? Is, I think what I’m trying to say.

Sam Dunning  12:23

Yeah, it’s difficult. So you’ve kind of got a leverage. There’s a couple ways you can go about it, but there is no easy way in, yeah, and it’s usually the most difficult when your leadership team haven’t invested in SEO before. I maybe they’ve historically grown their company through referrals or trade shows or maybe even outbound sales. So they’ve got a completely different mentality to maybe inbound marketing or similar, that’s where it gets tough. But there’s a few ways you can leverage it, like one is with Google search. For example, you could, you could literally just sit down and show them and say, look every time, or maybe create a loom video, if you’re working remote, remotely, whatever makes sense. And you say, look every time someone’s searching for our type of service or our solution or our software, I’ll send you screenshots or record on this loom video, we’re nowhere to be seen. So every time someone’s searching for X software or X solution or X service, X industry, or searching for this specific problem we solve, or they’re fed up of our main competitor, and they’re looking for alternative solutions. We’re nowhere to be seen, but these top three competitors show up each and every time, both in Google search or now LLMs, and they’re enjoying that visibility, that mind share, but most importantly, those high sales intent visits and potential leads, 24/7, that we’re just sleeping on around the Klepp so they’re literally eating our lunch for free whilst we rely on whatever it is, cold, outbound, etc. 

Sam Dunning  13:52

If you were already doing paid search, it would be a lot easier, because if you’re already doing Google ads, you could say, Look, we’re quite literally paying for each and every click through. Some of those will convert to opportunities. Some won’t. Why not start owning that organically so over time, we can reduce our reliance on paid and lower our cost per customer acquisition and kind of build that out and also realize that our prospects aren’t stupid. They know what’s a sponsored ad and what’s not, and quite a lot of folks do place more emphasis on the organic results. So those are a couple ways. And the third I’d say is it’s better I forget the exact phrase, but it’s better to seek forgiveness than it is to ask for permission. So if I was ABM (Account-based marketing) marketers, then I and I knew that SEO was a valid channel for our business, I probably just start doing it anyway. It’s like, I probably just work out, like, I call them money keywords, but what is the, what are the terms that we can map out that our dream clients are going to look for when they need our solution? When need our solution for their industry, when they’re fed up with competitors, which is often a quick one to rank for that content can rank super fast. And how can I start with like the lowest difficulty but easiest to build out pages. Do a bit of research. Build those out, start mapping out those pages. If we see a bit of traction, then report to leadership and say, Look, I’ve built these articles, or affiliate solution pages, I’ve built these landing pages. And if you’re getting some impact, then they’d be stupid not to buy in. And if they’re not buying into that of work you’re doing off your own back, then you’re probably in the wrong company. 

Christian Klepp  15:36

Absolutely. It’s almost like you’re injecting them with a little bit of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), right, or maybe not even FOMO. But like, you know, if we’re not doing it, the competitors will, right?

Sam Dunning  15:46

Exactly, exactly. That’s it. And I appreciate the advice I’ve given. Is a lot more difficult if you’re an enterprise company, and I know things, there’s way more red tape stuff, stuff moves a lot, lot slower because there’s various tiers of management. But let’s pretend maybe you’re startup or mid market, then you’ve probably got more flexibility to do some of this stuff. 

Christian Klepp  16:06

Yep, absolutely, absolutely fantastic. So that was the second follow up question, the third follow up question, and this in itself, could be an entirely different episode, but like, what’s your take on AI and SEO and where it’s going.

Sam Dunning  16:24

Yes, it’s probably one of the biggest changes in SEO in like, the last 10 years or so, because everything’s changing in the sense that historically, SEO was mainly Google organic search, search for what you want see, the 10 blue links, if you’re top three, you’ll probably get a chunk of those visitors. And if you’re a B2B Tech or service company, then a set amount of those visitors for those high sales intent keywords will convert, convert into calls or demos or signups, whatever is relevant to your company. That’s changed a lot with one Google AI, AI overviews. Now Google’s rolling out AI mode, which is basically their version of ChatGPT. And now, of course, LLMs like ChatGPT. 

Sam Dunning  17:10

So historically, someone, if they if they wanted, let’s say payroll software, they might search on Google best payroll software as a CMO, and then what would probably show up on Google would was, would be a listicle, an article listicle, like we evaluate the top 10 payroll software as a 2025, you’d click a few of those links, look at the top three, make a short list, and reach out to some for demos. Whereas now on an LLM, a CMO might search. I’m a CMO at this company, I need a payroll software for a company with, I don’t know, 100 execs or 100 reps, it needs these features. It needs to solve these pain points, and I need it within this budget. And then you’ll get presented instantly, these, these results that hit that quota, I’ll hit that search criteria, that prompt criteria rather and some of those will have links to external sites, some of them won’t, so LLMs will right now, Google still, by far, got market share. So traditional SEO for Google is by no means a waste, because I still see Google as the demand capture beast. It’s still really solid to drive inbound leads and pipeline for mostly to be companies, but LLMs will slowly gain more and more market share, and they already have, if you’ve got a technical, if you’re, for example, if you’re a B2B company that sells to a technical ICP, a technical end user, they might have scrapped Google altogether, and they might solely use LLMs like ChatGPT and so on. So in that case, you probably want to go all in on your strategy. 

Sam Dunning  18:42

But the point I’m making is, to me, at least, it feels like we’re going more into the era, because a lot of companies that have historically done SEO will see that their non branded traffic might be taking a hit, their impressions might be going up, but their click throughs might be going down, but they might be getting more direct traffic to their homepage or their general website. So what’s traditionally been kind of great SEO to get loads of non branded traffic get loads of click throughs is changing because AI is giving instant answers, likewise with LLMs, so I feel we’re moving more into the mind share era. So which was all mind share, in my opinion, has always been big for B2B marketing, like getting your brand known for the problem you solve as the end solution, sharing why you so your differentiators in the market and being remembered. So if someone thinks of your category or solution, you’re in that consideration set. And that’s kind of where I feel that SEO is going. With LLMs, because they’re less encouraging click throughs more giving you instant answers, instant responses. So it’s more a case of you want your brand shown each time someone has the problem you solve, someone’s comparing vendors, someone’s searching directly for the solution. And someone’s asking questions around your niche, if your brand can be consistently mentioned, then that will put you in the consideration set you might you’re probably going to see less non branded traffic. But what probably happens is folks do their valuation, whether that be on Google, whether it be on LLMs, discuss that internally, and then just go direct to your website when they’re ready, type in your website directly, or search for your website name on Google, and then click through to your site and grab a call and grab a demo. That’s kind of how I see it going.

Christian Klepp  20:34

You can kind of go down this really deep rabbit hole with that question, right? Like there’s a lot, yeah, and what I appreciate that you’ve given us a top level perspective, and you mentioned earlier some aspects of like, where B2B marketing teams get it wrong when it comes to SEO. So looking at it from a more constructive perspective, what else could you add in terms of what are some of key pitfalls that marketers need to watch out for when it comes to SEO, and what should they be doing instead?

Sam Dunning  21:08

Yeah, yeah. So most of it is ruthless prioritization. So a lot of marketing teams, especially ones we deal with at B2B Tech and SaaS companies, they’re small marketing teams, right? Marketing teams of anywhere from one solo marketer could be a VP of marketing to maybe they’re 2, 3, 4 max on the team. So they have a lot of stuff to juggle, be it their website, be it SEO, be it paid media, be it events, be it communities and more. So ruthless prioritization is important, not just an SEO but in their work in general. So where am I getting at with this? Well, like I said, not falling into the traffic trap with your SEO, kind of working out, in our case, doing the opposite of that, working out, what would a dream client search, not for fun, but when they need our solution now, or they’re comparing their options, or they have very specific problems we solve, or they’re looking for our solution for their specific use case or their specific industry, or they’re looking for a specific feature that we provide, or all that kind of stuff, and mapping that out, and I’ve got a bit of a flow that we kind of recommend to see. We recommend a lot of small marketing teams to follow if they want to see kind of pipeline as fast as 90 days with SEO, which I can run through in a sec. 

Sam Dunning  22:31

But yeah, a lot of it is ruthless prioritization, working out what is realistic. So like mapping out those money keywords, working out what is actually realistic for your team to manage. Like, can we put out, I don’t know, five net new pages of web, of content on a website each week or each month? What’s actually gonna be realistic? Can we do this in house, or do we need to get a contract or an agency or an external team, like, what’s going to be good use of resource or budget, or, like we said earlier, is it? Can we actually make SEO a good bet right now? Well, if we do it, are we going to be able to access resources or cash flow to make it happen? Or we better spend doubling down on what’s going on already and then maybe looking at SEO again in 3, 6, 9, months, when we know we’re going to have even gonna have either cash or resource to make it a good bet, because doing a month of SEO is pointless. Really. I’ll say that to prospects. I’ll say, Look, if you want to do this for one or two months, I’d rather not not partner yet. I’d rather pick it up when you’re ready. So we can actually make it a good bet. It’s not something you can kind of switch on, switch off.

Christian Klepp  23:43

Pretty good advice, pretty good advice. Going back to the article that you wrote on LinkedIn that received quite a bit of engagement, and I thought it was an interesting one, and which is why I asked you to come back on the show, right? So you published this post, it received great engagement, and it was on the topic of crushing competitors with organic so the question, I suppose, is, walk us through what you talked about and what are those steps you would take, what are those key components in that process? 

Sam Dunning  24:15

I’ll try and make it as actionable as possible, and feel free to dive in if anything is kind of a bit too high level. So all of this is on the premise that you’ve got 90 days. And the reason we say 90 days is often, especially on Google, if you publish net new pages or content, it usually takes roughly 90 days for rankings to settle. So that’s tends to be why we use that as a benchmark. So the I suppose, to set some context, this is, if you’re a small marketing team and you want to kind of make SEO or organic search a good bet from both LLMs and Google as soon as possible. So one is starting where you win right now. That’s the first step, and that’s basically mapping out who the industries we’ve historically sold well into. Like, what they accounting, finance sports, whatever, and those are the ones that have the crisp and specific problem that we solve. Are motivated to solve it we’ve sold well into before and can easily afford our offer. And kind of map that out. 

Sam Dunning  25:17

Once you’ve done that, you kind of got to look to build a moat. So you know the industries, you should also know the problems that dream clients might search for when they need your solution. So we talked a bit about that before. Great framework for this is jobs to be done, knowing what kind of struggling moments your prospect face when they’re evaluating solutions like yours, or they get so frustrated with what they’re working with, whether that’s the incumbent or whether it’s a botched together or cobbled together solution internally that gets so annoying that causes churn, or causes revenue loss or causes time loss, that they need to evaluate a solution like yours to map out those industries, map up those those problems, I’d also say, map out the main competitors that often get raised on sales calls, almost to an annoying level. There’s always three or four that you’re sick and tired of. Heard of hearing of that your sales team always say, Look, we’re up against these again. Map those out. 

Sam Dunning  26:14

And the fourth is probably most important. What is, what are actually your category terms? So what do folks call your solution or your service? So if you are providing payroll software, they might call it best payroll software or best payroll solutions. Or then you could tap into your industries, like best payroll software for nonprofits, or best payroll software for HR teams or finance teams, the industries you’ve established there’s money in because you’ve sold well into them historically. And the reason we do that exercise, this is a simplified version, but the reason we do that is to build out the long tail potential searches, queries, keywords or prompts that dream clients are looking for, not when they’re in information gathering mode, but when they’re in buying mode. And that’s how they could look at those kind of industries or solution based searches, but if they were those sometimes take a little while to rank, and usually what will rank well for those is kind of landing pages, or what’s called product listicles, where you evaluate top 10 vendors in the space. But ones that can often rank even faster is alternative pages. So this works especially well in tech and SaaS like if you know, there’s three or four vendors that often get raised on sales calls, if you can make that competitor alternative page, and again, usually that’s the top 10x alternative vendors of 2025, or something like that. And the way you build those in simple terms is it’s kind of a list. You position your product or services number one, but you share why folks choose you problems you solve that others don’t. How you stand out your differentiators. You weave in social proof, and then you put a fair comparison of the others below those rank really well for those kind of terms. So map out all those terms. Look to build out all those pages in as much depth as possible. Make sure when you’re building these other articles, industry pages, landing pages, product pages, comparison pages, that you’re leveraging customer research. 

Sam Dunning  28:08

One of the biggest mistakes in SEO is just trying to optimize for search when really you shouldn’t just optimize for search. You should do that, but you should think about your end user, and that’s why a lot of the stuff I talk about is regularly having a feedback loop of talking to your dream clients, whether they’re recently won, target prospects recently churned, so you have a good pulse on what their problems are, why they chose you, what they like about the offer, the features they care about, and more. So that’s ingrained into the content you build. So yeah, basically we’re talking about step two is building out a moat like no other. So you have all these useful pages that are actually money pages, like high commercial, high sales intent, pages that cover industries, use cases, the product itself features alternatives, maybe competitor one versus competitor two, all this kind of stuff that’s high sales intent, that all these lines in the water that people could search for that could position your product as the solution. 

Sam Dunning  29:06

And then step three is kind of looking at quick wins to craft and improve. So you might already have, if you’ve got a website that’s been around a while, you might have pages that already have commercial value, and tools like Ahrefs will let you easily look at these. I think they call it like low hanging fruit keywords, or stuff like that. And you can basically look at the pages that are lagging on page two or bottom page one, and benchmark against what’s ranking top and look for gaps. I basically have a strategy called the blow out the water strategy. So evaluate the top ranking pages. Look for gaps. If it was landing page, maybe they’ve built out the landing page with the problem agitation solution framework, and I’d say, Well, how can I blow this page out the water, leveraging our customer research? Maybe I’ll add in a nice YouTube video that talks about the topic. Maybe I’ll go into more depth on the problem my dream client might be facing. Maybe I’ll weave in, weave in some relevant case study. Maybe I will add an FAQ section at the bottom that talks about kind of real difficult questions we get leveraged on, we get asked on sales calls, and kind of really weave those in. Like, why are you so expensive? How long is customer onboarding? What’s your refund policy? All that stuff that everyone else is scared to address. 

Sam Dunning  30:17

So improve those pages that are lagging. Step four is, like, one of the cheat codes I touched on it a bit, and that’s that’s listicles. So especially in B2B Tech and SaaS and B2B service, if you’re doing prompts on LLMs, like I mentioned payroll, like, show me the best payroll softwares for this specific use case, this specific feature set, in this budget, the small links that get cited on there are often listicles like we evaluate at the top 10 payroll software as these articles. So two angles to this. One is build out all those articles, those listicles, on your own website, so you own them. And the second part is reach out to those, those listicles that are often cited on LLMs, or those list schools that are ranking well on Google organic search, reach out to try and get featured placements on those, ideally in the top three, because not many people scroll past like the first 123, when they consider options. And a lot of folks think these are only pay to play. But we’ve had quite good success by value exchange. So you kind of reach out to these listicles you want to get placements in, find out who’s the best person to speak to. Maybe find them out. Search for them on LinkedIn. I’m a big fan of painfully short connection request messages, so I’ll find out maybe the author of the post or who manages content for the page. And might say something like, Hey, Jess had a weird idea, if you’re listicle, you against a conversation. And then she’ll probably connect with me on LinkedIn and say, like, Sam, what the heck are you on about? And I’ll probably send her a quick loom video that would just be like me, on their list, on their article, like top 10x software page. And I’ll just say like, I’ve enjoyed this recent read. Was having a look. I wondered what it would take to get a placement here. Perhaps I could have you as a guest on my podcast, or maybe we could feature in an article writing for this. Or maybe you’ve got another idea of a fair value exchange, and that’ll separate you from probably the masses of wall of text emails that they’re getting and get, likely get your response, whether it’s no way, or it’s pay to play, or, yeah, we can actually do a value exchange, at least you’re going to get straight to the point. 

Sam Dunning  32:27

So we’ve had good success with that for our own company, breaking B2B, and also for clients. See, I’m making a process to steadily reach out to those listicles is super powerful. One, because LLMs love them, and two, because LLMs really like brand mentions. So if you get your brand mentioned, along with your category really strong, also you can get a backlink, which is going to help your SEO. And also, the chances are those listicles already get good traffic, so they can, they can drive you direct leads, direct inbounds as well. That’s step four. 

Sam Dunning  32:59

Step five is leveraging past media. So if you’ve got a founder or someone in your exec team, maybe a marketing or revenue leader, or IT leader, whoever it is that’s done a lot of podcasts or press or articles or stuff like that in the past, what you can do is tools like Ahrefs SEO tools, you can literally just copy and paste their LinkedIn profile into that tool, and it will come up with all the press that they’ve been on, and then look for those articles or those podcasts or similar and they’ve probably just in the article, just put in their LinkedIn profile. So similar process to before reach out to whoever wrote the article and just say thanks again for including our founder, or whoever it was in the article. And I wondered if you could change this and actually mention our brand and possibly give us a backlink back to one of our focus pages and keywords, and that’ll give you a nice little boost again on both LLMs and SEO.

Sam Dunning  33:54

Step six out of seven is again really big. Reddit is getting cited like crazy, both on Google and ChatGPT and other LLMs. So looking to really control the narrative, a lot of people ask me on sales calls, like Sam, what’s the best way to ramp up our LLM visibility? And I’ll say we just need to go back 10 years and build a brand. So yeah, nothing difficult. But unfortunately, not many people are able to do what Back to the Future did in the DeLorean so.

Christian Klepp  34:23

No, at least not yet. 

Sam Dunning  34:25

So controlling the narrative is really important, because LLMs love to cite from all over the web, not just your website, places like Reddit, Quora, Wikipedia could be YouTube, could be elsewhere to build thinking, which could be to be marketers have done anywhere anyway. They’ve known the channel from customer research. They’ve known the channels that their dream clients get trusted information, and they’re trying to build positive affinity around the problems they’re solving, and how their brand’s positioned to solve those and why they should choose them on channels outside of their website. So having a process to do that, it’s going to help you control that narrative. And then the last thing is to is speed. So a lot of this goes outside SEO, but the thing that slows down SEO programs the most is kind of building out what those money keywords we talked about, what stream client actually searching for on Google ABM when they need your offer now. Building out that content at speed pace that you can keep up with, whether that’s a couple articles a week or a couple of landing pages a week, whatever your team can manage, and then getting those published as fast as possible, because it’ll take a while for them to get indexed or Google get visibility on a lens. But often what hamstrings SEO progress is this is very common in enterprises. You can kind of build a strategy for SEO, work out what you’re targeting, or work out the updates you’ve got to do to existing content, and likewise, net new content, build this clear plan of action roadmap, which is priority based, and then that might take a couple months to get approved. Couple months later, the contents written couple months later, it’s checked by legal. Couple months later, web design and dev team have got it, and a couple months later, you’re a year down the line that’s eventually got published. Your advantage as a scrappy startup or kind of smaller marketing team is you can do everything we’ve talked about in this episode, but speed and meanwhile, these slow moving giant competitors are slowly publishing. You can get stuff out the door, see how it tracks, see how it goes. Like does it show up in LLMs? Does it show up in Google. Great. Let’s do more of it. All right? It didn’t go as well as we did. Let’s go back to the drawing board. Update it, ramp it up, refresh it. Okay, now it is. Let’s keep going. So I think that’s such a massive advantage as a smaller marketing team that you can really outpace these slow moving giants just by doing things done at speed. They don’t need to be perfect. They need to have the strategy we talked about and be well executed. But it’s better to get out the door and then see how it fares and then update it if you need to. That’s kind of a high level seven step progress or plan. Rather that we encourage a lot of our clients to do that kind of can actually drive pipeline from LLMs and Google as quick as 90 days.

Sam Dunning  34:25

I mean, that might be coming soon. Might be a new SaaS tool, go back in time for 10 years, but the next best thing is to do all this stuff that we talked about, to really look to control the narrative. So try and guest on industry relevant and niche, relevant podcasts. Make sure, when they publish the article, that they’re uploading a transcript, mentioning your brand and also giving a link back to your site. Maybe, if you’ve got resource, you build out your own podcast, niche, relevant show and YouTube channel. If you’ve got someone in your team that knows how Reddit works and they. Many tools now that can actually notify you when someone’s talking about your niche for your industry, and Reddit, if you can get involved in those Reddit threads and have someone from your team that actually knows how to use Reddit, knows how to add value, and when I say add value, I mean, be a useful resource like give tips about your industry, actually answer the questions people care about, talk about problems that they might want to solve. Give them the step by step, and then only mention your brand where relevant. So give real, tactical, useful advice and kind of avoid getting your comments instantly deleted, which is easier said than done. 

Christian Klepp  38:21

Dynamite stuff. Dynamite stuff. Yeah, I’ve been, I’ve been just writing down the stuff furiously here, and I hope the audience does the same thing. Or if they’re too lazy to write them down, they can just use transcription AI, right? 

Sam Dunning  38:32

True, true that. 

Christian Klepp  38:35

Yeah, yeah, no, I haven’t, because I was like, hey, palace. Um, if you have the opportunity to take this series because you’ve been doing this, um, you’ve been doing this mostly in the UK, right where you live. But if you had the opportunity to take this series abroad, where would you go? And why?

Christian Klepp  38:35

All right. Um, two more questions before I let you go. All right. So the bonus question is, for those of you in the audience that don’t know, um, so Sam has this video series on LinkedIn called I asked the public. So you’ve done this video in many places, and I think one of them was outside Buckingham Palace, if I’m not mistaken. 

Sam Dunning  38:54

I forgot about that one. 

Sam Dunning  38:56

Do you know where? For some reason, I don’t even know why. It just came into my head. Literally, as you said it, what’s the place in America where they’ve got those paving slabs with the stars name in stars?

Christian Klepp  39:25

Oh, it’s an, um, it’s in LA. 

Sam Dunning  39:28

For some reason, when you said that, that just came into my head, yeah. And maybe I’d do it. Maybe I’d do it like, we’d Photoshop, or we’d AI work famous marketers into those stars. And I’d say, like, I don’t know, for example, have you heard of Adam Robinson, or have you heard of Chris Walker, just famous B2B SaaS folks on LinkedIn, and just do some kind of spoof or something like that, confusing the public. 

Christian Klepp  39:55

That’ll be awesome. 

Sam Dunning  39:56

Probably getting some abuse along the way, as usual.

Christian Klepp  39:59

Yeah, you can. Cut those out in the post production. Fantastic. Sam, thank you so much for coming back on the show and for sharing these excellent tips with the listeners. So please a quick introduction to yourself and how people out there can get in touch with you.

Sam Dunning  40:14

No, I really appreciate having me back on there’s. Yeah, three main ways. One is LinkedIn. I’m showing daily ramblings on SEO and SaaS marketing. The second is the podcast called breaking B2B, much like this, we interview B2B marketing leaders, share tips, and we have solo episodes on SEO as well. And then the third is, if you’re perhaps a little frustrated that your website is not driving a steady flow of organic pipeline through SEO. LLMs, we might be able to fix that. It’s https://www.breakingb2b.com/ Happy to have a chat.

Christian Klepp  40:15

Fantastic, fantastic. Once again. Thanks for coming on the show. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. 

Sam Dunning  40:33

Cheers. 

Christian Klepp  40:34

All right. Thanks. Bye for now.