THE INSIGHT

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What’s the one marketing trend that you wholeheartedly disagree with?

I think one of the biggest trends that I see that I’m really not on board with is hyper focus on bottom of the funnel.

And it just seems like with all the technology that’s out there today with intent data and things like that, and just this demand to grow pipeline, everybody wants to focus on the bottom of the funnel.

And the problem with that is that when you think about our addressable market for any kind of business, maybe one to 5% of our customers are actually in market at at a given time, which means that if all we’re doing is focusing on that bottom of the funnel, we’re missing out on 95% of our customers.

Trying to go after just the bottom of the funnel is really trying to convince a stranger that doesn’t know you or doesn’t understand your brand promise to get married to you.

So what works so much better is to focus on marketing to all of your customers all of the time, and really helping them understand why you can help them and your point of view on how to overcome the problems that they have.

If you could talk to all B2B revenue leaders in the world for 1 minute, what would you say?

You know, the one thing I would advise b2b marketers or revenue marketers is, let’s avoid the shiny trinkets syndrome.

I mean, there’s so many options out there today, for us to go and try to get in front of our customers. But sometimes we forget that we’ve got to focus on the fundamentals and get them right first.

Like, let’s make sure that we understand who our customer is, who’s our ideal customer, let’s understand or come up with a plan on how we’re going to get their attention and hold their attention. Let’s understand where do they go to learn. And let’s really focus on getting our message out there and helping them accomplish their goals and objectives in those platforms.

And so I’m not necessarily saying don’t test things like TikTok or some of the other shiny trinkets that are out there today.

All I’m saying is, let’s make sure that you’ve got your fundamentals right first.

What’s the most important character trait that helps you succeed in your career? Why?

You know, I’m gonna give you actually two of those, because there are two traits or pieces of advice that I got very early on in my career that I have hold held dear to me for over 30 years.

And they were given to me by the vice president of sales that my very first quote unquote, real job.

And the first one was to be a problem solver.

He said, if you wanted to be successful in your entire career, focus on solving problems. And if you can solve problems, then you’re gonna go far. And so I’ve always tried to be a problem solver. And that’s worked really well.

The other thing that he said was hone your craft, that you’re only as good as you are today. But you’ve got to constantly be feeding your mind and practising and practising if you’re going to continue to grow and, you know, really optimise your performance in your career over time.

And I can’t tell you how valuable that’s been.

I’ve been in business since 1990. So that’s 32, 33 years. The internet didn’t exist in 1990.

But I’ve always focused on solving problems and honing my craft.

And that’s why I’ve been able to evolve and continue to deliver value in this internet platform that didn’t even exist when I started my career.