B2B Enablement

Introduction: MJ Peters, VP of Marketing at Firetrace (Time stamped at 1:00)

MJ Peters has been in her position for two and a half years. Firetrace sells and manufactures automatic fire suppression systems that detect and suppress fires that start inside of equipment. They sell through OEM, distribution, and direct channels.

How should marketing be viewed inside of an organization and what is marketing's role at the executive level of the organization? (Time stamped at 2:00)

Marketing teams need to be deeply involved in marketing strategy and actively bring insights to drive the strategic direction of the company as a whole.

How do you structure a marketing team within an organization and how do you set that team up for success? (Time stamped at 3:30)

There are three marketing components. Product marketing, growth marketing, and product management. Product marketing is going out to market understanding your customers, what solutions are out there, and what opportunities exist. Growth marketing amplifies the value proposition that you bring to the right customer on the channels where they spend time. You can generate opportunities for the sales team regardless of the medium you're going to market with – traditional or digital. Product management is the whole lifecycle. It addresses things like:

• What are the new product opportunities?
• What is currently moving through the new product development pipeline and is it going to meet the customer's needs?
• What's ready to launch and how are you supporting the launch of new products?
• Does the sales team know what they're going out to sell?
• Is the operations team ready to deliver it?
• Is engineering ready to support it?

How should marketing manage the voice of the customer and how do you get those insights delivered back to the organization? (Time stamped at 10:30)

Try to set up conversations where the objective is not a sales call. The purpose of the call is to really find out what the customer needs. That will bring the most insights forward. Start broad and then zoom in. The first couple of questions you ask should have nothing to do with your product. You should aim to find out what they think are the most important elements of their job because it can help you uncover latent needs.

How do you set up customer meetings to capture insights? (Time stamped at 14:45)

It's easier said than done. Try working with sales because sales can open doors for you – especially with the customers they have good relationships with. But you don't only want to talk to your friends. You want to talk to customers that might have cooled off or customers you aren't selling to right now. You will need to do some cold calling – especially if your organization hasn't done customer research like this before. People won't always take your call, but if you send enough targeted emails you should be able to set up seven or eight calls and that's all it takes.

How do you determine the most effective marketing channels for your business? Once you do that, how do you begin to scale that strategy? (Time stamped at 17:20)

Start running experiments by channel type, and you need to start thinking of events as a channel, too. If you want to have good results you should only be looking at two channels at a time – especially if your marketing team is small. Use experiments to find out what works and then scale up or down accordingly. SEO and paid ads are a good place to start.

What are your thoughts on integrating MarTech and how did you start building your digital strategy? (Time stamped at 21:30)

Start working on the tech stack earlier than you think you need to. Having an effective tech stack (website feeding information to your CRM and then Google analytics) can accelerate your knowledge about the customer. MarTech systems, like Hubspot, can identify how your new leads arrived and you can learn more about the customers from their contact information. Tools like Hubspot can provide you with information that you wouldn't otherwise have. If you don't have a marketing automation system in place, you're going to have to find things out manually and it will happen slowly. Make sure your website plays nice with your CRM and follow it up with Google Analytics (make sure you set it up properly). HubSpot is a great tool. It's a marketing automation system, it's a CRM, it's a social media management tool, and it will manage your paid ad accounts. Start implementing MarTech earlier than later and start with something that can do a lot out of the box.

With Hubspot, were you able to start making progress early on or did you have to tailor the tool to fit your process? (Time stamped at 25:24)

I had to tailor the tool and made a lot of mistakes at first, but I kept going. Eventually, the right metrics to measure surfaced, and the right fields to ask the sales team to fill in surfaced and we were able to get rid of the elements that weren't helping. You need to minimize the number of asks on your sales team to make the technology work. Do it step by step and do it in small chunks.

What metrics did you place your focus on? How do you view those data points in terms of attribution? How did that help you grow your effectiveness as a marketer in the B2B industrial segment? (Time stamped at 28:45)

One of the challenges with MarTech tools is that there is too much data. You have to figure out what data is actually going to be useful. It's difficult to manage more than two or three metrics. I don't agree with linear attribution models because they aren't a reflection of what's actually happening. They can be very misleading. Attribution models aren't at the point where they can give you the whole story, so it's best to sometimes tune them out. Look at two metrics: inbound dollars of opportunities and the number of opportunities in the pipeline from marketing sources. Keeping it simpler is better.

Take-aways (Time stamped at 34:20)

1. Effective marketing is not just communications. Most industrial marketers are still thinking in terms of broachers and trade shows. The companies that are winning are thinking about marketing in terms of strategy.

2. The digital opportunities in the B2B industrial space are huge because there are still many companies that are focused on traditional marketing methods. Trade shows happen once a year, but with digital, you can reach out to the same people every day on social channels.

3. There's a lot of technology out there that can help you accelerate everything from your customer insights to how quickly you can reach the right customers with the right message. But, at the end of the day, it's all about fundamentals. It's about understanding what your customer wants, keeping your message simple, being disciplined about what you measure and what you're doing, and taking away what's not working.

MJ Peters LinkedIn profile

Firetrace website

HubSpot website

Dave Karr LinkedIn profile

Klyck.io website

Klyck.io product platform

In this episode, Kristine Sizemore joins to discuss the importance of refining your sales training strategy for 2021. With so much changing in the world of solution selling since the pandemic, many organizations are struggling to pivot their sales operations to adapt to the new normal. We'll discuss ways that organizations can leverage new training techniques to ensure that their teams are equipped to succeed in 2021 as they navigate the post-COVID environment.

Introduction: Kristine Sizemore, President at Sandler Training

At Sandler Training, Kristine Sizemore works with companies that are doing well but looking to grow in terms of revenue, prospecting process, and having better conversations with customers in their ideal target market. She also helps companies that are tired of cutting costs to win deals when they don't need to. (Time stamped 1:00)

Discussion topics and time stamps

What are the fundamentals of what has changed in sales training since the pandemic? What has stayed the same? How should we be thinking about 2021? (Time stamped 2:20)

What sort of adaptations are organizations and sellers having to make to continue to stay relevant? How can organizations help train their sales teams on how to better adapt to the new normal? (Time stamped 6:25)

How are organizations looking at their training metrics to figure out if there is the stickiness factor in actually seeing results from what they're implementing in terms of training? (Time stamped 16:10)

How has training for channel partners or rep agents changed as we've morphed in 2020? How is that going to play out in 2021? (Time stamped 22:30)

What has changed in terms of the bid process? How are people handling the touchpoints in between in that process? (Time stamped 27:50)

Take-aways

1. You control the leading indicators of your success. We control what we do every day, every week, and every month.
2. Make sure you're really understanding what's going on with your prospects. Learn from your current clients. Make sure your process is in alignment with what matters most to them.
3. Learning from each other and pivoting and shifting based on what you're seeing in your marketplace can set you apart from your competition.

Resources

Kristine Sizemore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/link-kristine-sizemore/

Dave Karr: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davekarr/

Sandler Training: https://www.ksainc.sandler.com/

Article - The Importance of B2B Sales Training: https://www.klyck.io/blog/the-importance-of-sales-training-for-b2b

Klyck.io: https://www.klyck.io

In this episode of B2B Enablement, Paul Tkach joins to talk about sales enablement best practices and the value it can bring to B2B organizations. He shares insights and tips on how your business can use sales enablement to help improve sales and marketing alignment, increase ROI on marketing content, and deliver powerful customer insight data.

Introduction: Paul Tkach, Director of Business Development at Klyck.io (Time stamped at 1:00)

Paul has been with Klyck since its inception and has been on both the sales and customer success sides. He helps companies with their sales enablement deployment and projects. Over the last few years, he's been working to implement sales enablement solutions both locally and globally.

What is sales enablement? What is the difference between sales enablement as a function in a business and sales enablement as software? (Time stamped at 2:20)

Sales enablement enables teams to sell your products more effectively and efficiently. As a function, there are a couple of different teams and stakeholders (sales, marketing, and customer success) involved to help achieve the main goal. It's about teams coming together to figure out what empowers them to sell to your customers. In terms of sales enablement as software, it combines what's needed (training users, streamlined digital content, team alignment, collecting data) to do that into a single platform

How does sales enablement bring sales and marketing together? (Time stamped at 5:33)

There is a major disconnect between sales and marketing teams right now. Sales might not know what content is available and marketing doesn't know what content sales teams are using on the frontlines. Sales enablement allows marketing teams to know what content is being used and sales teams to know what content exists.

How does sales enablement fit in with new selling resultant from COVID-19? (Time stamped at 9:25)

Gone is the handshake. Teams are being forced to use technology that they haven't had to use before. Even before COVID, the sales landscape was changing drastically. Buyers are so much more informed than they were before. Buyers are looking at five or more pieces of content before even interacting with a seller or trusted advisor. Sellers need to have the information on hand to field questions, cross-sell, and/or up-sell.

How does sales enablement fit into how customer interactions are changing and the way that salespeople are changing? How has sales enablement changed the game? (Time stamped at 11:40)

There are two benefits: personalization and analytics/customer engagement data. Sales enablement allows you to personalize messages for every step of the buyer's journey. It also helps align the content you present with where the buyer is in their journey. When content is shared, analytics and data provide insight into how to focus follow-ups with more accurate information. You can see how often content has been opened, which content has been viewed the most, and how long they looked at each piece. This gives the seller an idea of when best to reach out again and what to focus on. Data fuels personalization. Sales can see customer engagement and marketing can see what's working and what's being looked at the most and can continue making more of it. Plus, from an administrative/managerial level, you can see what's being shared and adjust training to focus on what works or change processes depending on what's building up to opportunities.

How can sales enablement improve employee training? (Time stamped at 17:00)

Sales enablement allows you to have all of your training content in one place in your platform. Teams can navigate through that content based on filters or keywords and be onboarded faster. Using Conversations – a package of content together on a certain topic – provides a holistic view of a product or service and also includes coaches that have sold the product successfully. They can share best practices or tips via a document or recording. Identifying buyer personas empowers teams so they know who they are meeting with. They help sellers know what questions to ask and what topics are most relevant to the buyer.

How do industry leaders in sales and marketing use data created from sales interactions? How is sales enablement empowering that data creation and analysis? (Time stamped at 22:00)

The data can help identify who the best performers in the company are and what content they're using. Then they can help train the rest of the team, or provide a video or document that explains a little about their best practices and habits. Marketing can see how content is performing. They can see that a piece of content has been used X number of times and led to X number of opportunities and then they can make more of that kind of content. Marketing can see where they got the best return on investment from a content perspective. The data collected provides sales and marketing alignment.

Take-aways (Time stamped at 26:20)

1. You need to be more informed and have the right tools in place
2. You also need a plan to goes with the tool
3. Start small and scaling up and growing

Resources and links from this episode:

Klyck's Sales Enablement Best Practices eBook: Download the eBook here

What is Sales Enablement, A Beginners Guide: Link to the article

Paul Tkach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paultkach/

Dave Karr: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davekarr/

Klyck.io Website: www.klyck.io

On this episode of B2B Enablement, Chris Dickey (CEO and Founder of Visably) joins to discuss how B2B marketers can apply new techniques to increase search engine visibility. Chris shares insights on ways that search engine visibility differs from traditional search engine optimization (SEO) and how marketers can use this concept to help them more effectively rank their brand, not just their website.

Introduction: Chris Dickey, Founder and CEO at Visably (Time stamped: 0:45)

Chris has been a marketer for 17 years and has been involved in publishing and agencies for 11 to 12 years. His new company, Visably, helps companies measure their brand footprint and search. Chris also owns his own PR agency.

What's the difference between SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEV (Search Engine Visibility)? (Time stamped: 2:05)

SEO is about trying to get your company's content at the top of the search results. If you're successful, that's fantastic, but it's tough to do because there is an incredibly competitive landscape. SEV is about trying to get your company's brand to rank. It's about your customers discovering you in any kind of search.

How does SEV relate to ranking your brand versus ranking your website? (Time stamped: 3:45)

The main point is to get people talking about you. eCommerce partners and wholesale partners have a huge presence online, have a more powerful domain, and do well in non-branded search terms. The idea is that you're trying to get other people's websites working for you.

What is the difference in how you rank a page with SEV versus traditional SEO or SEM and how is the buyer intent different? (Time stamped: 6:50)

Most modern marketing organizations have several different functional groups (SEO, content, PR, eCommerce, etc) and they can all be brought together through SEV to improve overall SERP performance. Google tries to determine intent based on three things: do you want to click to buy, click to learn, or click to go. Marketers need to match the content and strategy with the intent of the keyword. Visably will go through and aggregate the content on the first page of the search to figure out intent for you.

How does one handle the difficulty of keywords in niche market and is it worth it? How can SEV help B2B marketers? (Time stamped: 11:10)

When you do a search, look at the page. If it's full of click to learn sites, that is your contact list. You can ask one or more of the writers to consider updating a blog post to include some new information you provide them. Try to make better relationships with the people getting the top Google spots. If you can get in front of them, the next time they write a review, your company might be in it. It's important to build visibility that's not just your own content. This is an integral part of improving overall SEV.

How does media and other site listings affect SEV? (Time stamped: 18:40)

Reverse engineer how someone finds you by getting a handle on your keywords. Ask yourself: What are the search phrases people are using to look for what I offer? Then you can figure out the relative search volume for each of your keywords. Use the search results to build lists and targets, then allocate those targets to your respective teams to work on optimization.

Examples of when SEV has shown good results for B2B. (Time stamped: 22:15)

Using Visably as an example: Seeding and answering questions on question-and-answer websites like Quora helps improve online visibility. Similar approaches can work well for B2B in general.

Take-aways (Time stamped: 24:05)

Shift your search engine results strategy from just ranking your website to ranking your brand

Don't think about the current SERP results as opportunities you've missed, but future opportunities you can gain. Use the results as a list building tool.

Don't write off competitive keywords - Create strategies to get into search results with a more holistic approach, including SEV.

Resources and links from this episode:

Chris Dickey's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-dickey-6619b712/

Dave Karr's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davekarr/

Visably Website: http://www.visably.com/

Klyck.io Website: https://www.klyck.io/

On this episode of B2B Enablement, Sam Shepler (CEO of Testimonial Hero) joins to talk about the importance of using customer testimonials in your sales and marketing strategy. He shares insights and tips on how your business can use video testimonials to help reduce friction in the customer journey and build brand equity with potential clients.

Introduction: Sam Shepler, Founder and CEO at Testimonial Hero (Time stamp 1:00)

Testimonial Hero is a video testimonial creation service for B2B marketing leaders. They produce videos all over the world (in-person and remotely) and help B2B marketers drive better results by using the voice of their customers.

Why do video testimonials really matter for B2B revenue teams and how does that function bring together sales and marketing? (Time stamp 2:10)

Prospects want to hear from other prospects. Many buyers are skeptical of sales content and are more interested in hearing from their peers. In fact, only 9% buyers rate vendor content as trustworthy.

How are testimonials valuable for marketing and sales? (Time stamp 4:00)

For marketing, video testimonials reduce friction wherever you use them (landing pages, cold emails, etc.)

It's best to make several versions of the video. Use a 90 second version as standard, 30 second version for social, and a 15 second version for digital paid ads. Testimonials help you build trust faster and increase credibility thus accelerating the buyer journey.

What are the friction points and where do testimonials come into play? (Time stamp 6:25)

There's never a time when buyers don't want to hear from other customers. Traditionally, testimonials have been used in the final stages of the sales process. Now they are being used in all stages of the funnel.

If video testimonials are so important, why aren't more people using them and what's preventing them from becoming more popular? (Time stamp 10:30)

One major problem is that no one is putting their hand up to be featured in them. Marketing, sales, and customer success all need to come together to figure out who is the best person to approach. Testimonials aren't only for you. They hold your customer up as an example of best practice in their industry, plus, it's good PR for the individual featured in the video. People want to showcase their achievements.

How do you go about making a video testimonial? (Time stamp 14:25)

Big companies are hiring videographers and can use in-house resources. But there is also the DIY approach. You can simply record a video meeting and do some simple editing. It won't likely be a show stopper, but it's an option. You can also work with a partner, like Testimonial Hero, that can do on-site and remote filming for you.

Have there been any big changes in the way customer testimonials are handled as a result of COVID? (Time stamp 21:25)

There has been an increase in remote-only testimonials. Though in-person filming is still happening. The challenge isn't maintaining physical distancing, it's that many offices are closed. Videos are being filmed in rented conference rooms or co-working spaces that can be dressed up to provide a nice background.

Tips for people looking to get started with video testimonials? (Time stamp 23:10)

The challenges are getting people to agree to do video testimonials and getting comfortable asking for them. There are some options. You can build the ask into the initial sales agreement. It has a greater chance of being redlined, but also sets the expectation early. You can also use the ask as a bargaining tool. If they put the brakes on the project because of the cost, you can offer to discount the price if they agree to do a video testimonial (pending satisfaction, of course). That way, they get a discount and conversation about a testimonial is already started.

Take-aways (Time stamp 27:00)

1. Find out where the friction being created and figure out how to leverage the customer voice to push through those barriers.
2. If you're in marketing, talk to sales to find out who the best customers are. If you're in sales, talk to marketing and ask for video testimonial assets.
3. B2B buyers are skeptical of vendor content. So, do a brand/messaging audit and ask yourself. “Do we have the voice of the customer in our story?”

Resources and links from this episode:

Written summary overview of this podcast : https://www.klyck.io/how-to-use-customer-testimonials-to-close-more-deals-and-build-brand

Sam Stepler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samshepler/

Dave Karr: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davekarr/

Testimonial Hero: https://testimonialhero.com/

Klyck.io: https://www.klyck.io/

Testimonial Hero's The 15 Ultimate Video Testimonial Interview Questions

In this episode, Dave Karr (VP of Marketing at Klyck.io) and Michael Hartman (Director, Marketing Technology, Demand Generation and Analytics at Freeman Company) discuss how marketing automation and MarTech systems can support B2B marketing operations. We'll discuss how marketing automation can be optimized to support the sales funnel, best practices and concepts for launching a MarTech integration project, how to handle change management when implementing new MarTech, and how to align MarTech systems to support overall revenue generation in the organization.

Summary and Time Stamps:

Introduction: Michael Hartman, Director, Marketing Technology, Demand Generation and Analytics at Freeman Company (Time stamped at 0:40)

Michael's background is in implementing and deploying marketing automation and MarTech. He is currently leading demand generation at Freeman, but started out in management consulting then took a turn into marketing.

Marketing automation and its importance (Time stamped at 2:10)

Marketing automation and CRM are the core of what every B2B enterprise has and that's not going to change. The major problem is the enormous growth in point solutions in marketing technology and finding a leader in that space. Marketing automation is the core in scaling what you do and CRM is at the center of all of that.

Properly making MarTech work and where you get started (Time stamped at 4:00)

You need to understand what is currently in place. You need to know how you go to market and decide if your organization is ready for a MarTech solution. ABM is an example of where things become challenging. First you need to get sales and marketing in alignment. Then you can experiment. People and process need to go in front.

How to Setup Marketing Automation for Success (Time stamped at 6:25)

People and process should precede technology. The system needs to support the day-to-day needs. One of the challenges is the hand off of leads to sales and getting information back to the marketing system. There needs to be a clear picture of the full lifecycle. With that, you can start to see which channels are working better to generate pipeline and revenue.

How to leverage the capabilities of marketing automation and the data (Time stamped at 10:45)

Enable the sales team to have visibility and see what's happening with prospects and customers. Marketing automation can make the information they're tracking visible within the CRM application. Get the intent information and then you can customize to a prospect or organization. Make sure you update lead statuses and then keep them up-to-date. Having the discipline to update makes the work the best it can be.

How marketing automation empowers personalization in customer touchpoints (Time stamped at 14:20)

Educate sales teams how marketing automation and the data it can collect can help the them with personalization. It doesn't have to overly complex, you can start by making simple lists. Much of the time, keeping things simple can generate the most wins. The simplest way is often the best way. It's important to not get caught up in complexity and to remember that it won't be perfect.

The role management plays in MarTech (Time stamped at 16:40)

Bring in middle management because they can upsell through the chain and help sell it to their managers. It's important to enable people to make decisions, but also to give them space to get it wrong. That said, you should continue to try to get better and better. “Done is better than perfect.” It's the journey. It's not the event.

Best practices in marketing automation (Time stamped at 21:40)

No company is the same, so there is no one size fits all. Having marketing automation and CRM in place is at the core. There are some principles that apply across the board, though. One thing is keeping things simple and solving for the 80% and not the 100%. Also, try things and try to move forward. When it comes to technology, figure out if there is a way to achieve the same goal without buying new technology.

Picking the best marketing technology and aligning to your needs (Time stamped 25:05)

Most marketing technology can do the same things. You have to decide what you're comfortable with and figure out what the technology can integrate with it. You can win with any of them. It also depends on the size of your organization.

Take-Aways (Time stamped 32:55)

1. Best practices are a myth. Every organization is different and how they implement is different.
2. People and process first. Technology should follow what you're doing with go to market.
3. Keep it as simple as possible.
4. Marketing automation is foundational with CRM. Don't look at other technology before having those in place.

Resources and links from this episode:

Michael Hartman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhartmanndfw/

Dave Karr: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davekarr/

Freeman Company: https://www.freeman.com/apac/

Klyck.io: https://www.klyck.io/

LeadMD: https://www.leadmd.com/

HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com/

Zinc Partners: https://www.zincpartners.us

In this episode, Lewis Mudrich, Founder of KonvertLab, joins as our guest to discuss how B2B companies can build a PPC and social media advertising strategy. Topics include how to get started with PPC and online ads, the best ways to set up a strategy with internal or external resources, common mistakes made with PPC, how to set up analytics to track success, how to align your sales funnel to nurture the leads, the power of LinkedIn advertising for B2B, and how to ensure that you are getting a positive ROI on your efforts. Links to episode resources: Lewis' LinkedIn Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewismudrich/ Dave Karr's LinkedIn Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/davekarr/ Klyck.io Website https://www.klyck.io KonvertLab Website https://konvertlab.com/

In this episode, Drew Franklin (Marketing Specialist at Altec) joins us for a discussion about why B2B businesses need a video marketing strategy. Video has solidified itself as the king of content and marketers must understand how to utilize video in their overall content marketing strategy.

Topics of discussion include : What is video marketing, how to build a video marketing strategy, what type of videos you should be creating, how to track analytics on video marketing, and what B2B companies are benchmarks for success.

Links to show resources below:

Drew Franklin's LinkedIn profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewdfranklin/

Altec's Website - http://www.altec.com

Altec's YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/AltecTrucks

SPOC Automation's Website - https://spocautomation.com

SPOC Automation's YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/spocautomation

Refine Labs Video Library - https://refinelabs.com/videos/

Peter McKinnon's YouTube Channel (great educational content on how to produce video!) - https://www.youtube.com/user/petermckinnon24

In this episode, we dive further into the concepts of sales enablement and the connection to revenue enablement within organizations. Jamie Kirmess, Principal at LeadMD, joins as our guest to discuss how B2B companies can leverage sales enablement to support better connectivity between sales and marketing, digitalization, change management, and ultimately revenue enablement.

Jamie shares real life examples of how LeadMD's clients have applied sales enablement strategies in their business to drive better marketing results and increased revenue. She also leaves listeners with 3 powerful concepts that can be immediately applied in their business.

Links from the episode:

Jamie Kirmess's LinkedIn profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiekirmess/

Klyck.io Website - https://klyck.io

LeadMD Website - https://www.leadmd.com

In this episode, I'm joined by Stephanie Friedman, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at City Paper Company, to discuss the importance of personalization in your sales and marketing activities during COVID 19. We discuss a number of best practices from B2B business that are doing this well and share some practical steps that you can take to improve your outreach.

If you are looking for creative ideas on how to connect with your customers and break through the cloud of COVID 19, this episode is for you.

Resources and links below from the show:

City Paper Company's Website : https://citypapercompany.com

Stephanie Friedman's LinkedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephkfriedman/

Klyck.io's website : https://klyck.io

Klyck.io's blog : https://blog.klyck.io/blog

Dave Karr's LinkedIn Profile : https://www.linkedin.com/in/davekarr/