The RevEngine™ Podcast

Jeff Davis engages in a thought-provoking discussion with Callan Young, the Chief Marketing Officer of On24. With a wealth of experience in the B2B tech space and successfully leading companies through transactions, Callan understands the importance of aligning sales and marketing for revenue growth. They dive into the challenges and opportunities of digital-first go-to-market strategies and the need for a holistic approach to marketing.Callan highlights the significance of focusing on the customer lifecycle and leveraging data and thought leadership to become a trusted advisor. They explore the changing landscape brought on by COVID, opening doors to helping others and creating non-branded content. Through an annual or quarterly planning process involving all stakeholders, marketers can achieve alignment, commitment, and optimization across the team. They discuss the need to understand salespeople's workflow and needs to tailor effective marketing campaigns. They emphasize the importance of selling internal campaigns and gaining the commitment of the sales team. Additionally, they shed light on the value of first-party data in designing meaningful, audience-centric campaigns.Tune in to discover how organizations can level up their digital experiences by personalizing interactions, creating interactive and energetic experiences, and turning programs into integrated campaigns. Learn from Callan Young's expertise and get ready to transform your marketing approach and boost revenue growth by listening to this episode now!Episode Highlights:11:01 - I like to encourage that from a leadership team and to people to feel comfortable sharing it openly with their peers, because then we're going to all learn from each other. We're going to learn from what went really well, but we're also going to learn from what didn't go well. And it's that constant kind of, I guess, cadence of let's look at the data, let's talk about how can we optimize, and talk about how we can do something differently moving forward.24:40 - If there is a way you get a technology that integrates directly into kind of their day-to-day workflow, that's going to be the best. But, to your point, if you're getting something that's like, "Hey, you should really log in to this or you should start to look at this," then you really need to make sure you're enabling them and explaining to them the value of how this is going to help them get more revenue, or else it's never going to work.35:54 - I think figuring out how to be as interactive and as energetic as possible is something key. As you're thinking about your experiences or as you're thinking about how you're engaging with people digitally, is it a two-way conversation and how can you do that at scale? So, I would definitely say making sure that you are leaning into the how can you help and what are the insights and the takeaway versus just reading through a script. I would definitely say figuring out how you can kind of take these more digital broad-based experiences and make them more personalized. Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterCallan YoungLinkedInOn24 LinkedInWebsite

Join Jeff Davis as he engages in a captivating conversation with Brad Myers, the CEO and Co-founder of RevMethods, to explore the crucial topic of sales and marketing alignment. Brad offers valuable insights to help B2B companies enhance their revenue strategies.Brad highlights the challenge of data overload and emphasizes the need to focus on actionable insights to drive revenue optimization. He presents a game-changing approach for marketers: telling better stories internally by providing contextual information on leads, moving beyond mere scores. This innovative methodology combines lead scores with valuable data signals to gain deep insights into customer behavior, enabling marketers to empower sales teams and boost lead conversion rates.Jeff and Brad delve into the limitations of traditional marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and advocate for a shift towards leveraging advanced technologies like data warehouses, open AI, and GPT to unify data sets and generate invaluable insights for sales teams. The discussion also highlights the significance of visible first-party data, which holds greater relevance for salespeople.If you're a B2B company seeking to optimize your revenue strategies and foster alignment between sales and marketing, this episode is a must-listen. Gain actionable insights and learn how to bridge the gap between these crucial teams. Discover the power of capturing and synthesizing data signals to create meaningful conversations with buyers. Don't miss out on this opportunity to unlock your company's revenue potential.Episode Highlights:10:30 - We've made a lot of investment in marketing the website and various campaigns to go gather more data, more customers and all their engagement that's associated with it. How do we start mining this information to drive greater go-to market efficiencies? The Rev Ops is the individual that's meant to wire these platforms together, and help deliver the analytics to make better decision-making.16:50 - I think we do a great job of telling stories externally and messaging to the market. We drop the ball when we need to start telling stories internally, and it only behooves us to figure that out. Because, again, how many marketers are struggling with "Hey, what's the ROI? What's my contribution to revenue?" The more white papers that we could tie back to revenue, the more efficient we'll be and the stronger our case will be to get more funding.37:24 - I could see a future, to get futuristic, of we're going to be engaging in more ephemeral ways with our data, that CRM and marketing are going to be these endpoint tools that are going to be feeding this brain, this data cloud, as what Salesforce is calling it. It's from there that we get this kind of unified view of the customer from all the different sources and we're applying AI at that level to extract revenue.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterBrad MyersLinkedInEmailWebsite

Jeff interviews Hannah Ajikawo, CEO and founder of Revenue Funnel, European Lead for Sistas in Sales, and sales expert with over 15 years of experience in sales roles. They discuss how important it is for sales and marketing teams to collaborate for maximum efficiency and success. Hannah highlights the need for sales leaders to have clarity on expectations such as KPIs and quotas. She also shares her idea of having a business value team that could increase chances of closing deals by 50%. Their conversation also steers towards diversity in sales teams with Hannah emphasizing the need for companies to look for different capabilities when recruiting people into their organization. It should be understood that there is no one size fits all approach and success can come from various paths. Tune in to an episode filled with practical strategies, real-world examples, and a call for diversity and inclusion in the sales industry. Gain valuable insights that can be applied to improve sales and marketing alignment and drive revenue growth.Episode Highlights11:48 - You are going to have some salespeople that are not good. However, you define that, that's just they're not that right. But the other half is going to be very simply because you have created a strategy, which is something that I call a sales to market strategy. 15:54 - What we do is we allow stuff to go wrong when we don't see the performance and say, "Well, what have you been doing?" The way that I saw and define my success was by doing these things, so I either have the freedom to do it as a lone wolf and let me go do these things that are going to get those KPIs and those results, or accept clear expectations on the reverse, which is these are the things that I expect from you. 22:54 - We just got to recognize those patterns. We have to recognize the expectations, we have to recognize those really slow pieces around how we're focusing and understand the role that we play in actually making sure that people are doing the things that we need them to do. So, don't keep complaining that they're spending 60% of their time not selling, if you haven't given them something to sell, if you haven't given them a strategy that's executable.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterHannah AjikawoLinkedInEmailRevenue Stimulator ProgramYoutube

Jeff Davis and Adam Goyette, founder of Curdis.Co and partner at HyperGrowth Partners, discuss strategies for successful B2B marketing in the latest episode of the Rev Engine Podcast. Adam stresses the importance of prioritizing marketing channels where your audience finds value, rather than relying on competitors for guidance. He suggests using results-oriented metrics, such as customer numbers and ROI, over vanity metrics like leads. They emphasize the need for sales and marketing teams to have a good relationship, with salespeople involved in marketing brainstorms to create ambassadors. To stand out among competitors, companies must deliver cohesive conversations across all platforms while providing value instead of pushing products. Tune in to hear why you should be curious about the customer journey, identifying triggers that motivate buyers, and dropping walls or egos with regards to questioning one another's roles. Learn about the concept of growth hacking, the importance of being scrappy with limited resources, and why companies must get creative and think outside the box. Episode Highlights12:30 - The morning of the demo, marketing came up with the idea. Let's send them a Starbucks gift card, just a $5 gift card. Like, "Hey Jeff, I know we're chatting later today. Coffee on me. Looking forward to chatting." Just a nice touchpoint, so it's like you're not just blowing off the meeting. Someone just gave you something. You feel more obligated now. And they jumped their demo show rates by like 15%. 18:39 - I kind of have this theory that marketers are afraid of salespeople. It's like the cool kid table in high school or something. They're like afraid to go over there. I think they're afraid to get called out on stuff and a lot of times if they're not tied into the revenue goal, it's a conversation that feels very scary. I think a lot of times they don't wanna present because they don't wanna get called out by sales. 27:23 - Start with five people, and you don't need an ABM platform. You don't need anything. If a big part of our strategy is just getting in front of these buyers and having a personalized experience, how about we just send a direct mail to five people and do handwritten notes? And then we'll also send them these emails and we'll do this thing, and just build a little micro version of it that you can launch without having to clear it by the sales team and getting buy-in and all this sort of stuff.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterAdam Goyette LinkedInEmailNewsletter

In this episode, Jeff Davis talks to Douglas Burdett, also known as the "Oprah of Book Reviews," the host of "The Marketing Book Podcast," and Founding Principal of Sales Artillery. Douglas believes there are more companies who have a sales problem than a marketing problem. Most of them don't realize that their marketing is actually going to be better if they can align it with the way they sell. They discuss how companies that approach their customers with genuine understanding are the ones who come out on top. To truly capture an audience's attention, it is essential to demonstrate genuine empathy by demonstrating that you understand what they want and need.To help companies stand out from the competition and achieve success, Douglas provides insight into buyer-centric strategies to help marketers build trust with buyers, allowing them to uncover what’s driving purchase decisions on an emotional level. Listen to discover how you can tap into this knowledge!Episode Highlights11:42 - One of the things, that I guess you could say maybe the tip of the spear of this issue, is that content. Creating some kind of content for your customers, for your sales team, is very important.18:06 - The truth is that your customers don't really care until you show you care about them and talking about your product is very self-centered. You will talk about it but don't start with that. Start by demonstrating that you understand their problems. They're not buying your product. They're buying a solution to a problem.25:42 - The most successful marketers are very much dialed into what the company goals are, particularly financial. They speak the language of accounting. 43:48 - If there's no buy in at the top level, it's just not going to happen. Don't waste your time talking to me or waste your money on things that are sort of on the periphery.45:03 - I don't tell them what they need to know. I do my very best to help them discover on their own by asking a lot of questions.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterDouglas BurdettLinkedInTwitterWebsite

In this episode, Jeff interviews Jim Karrh, who is a Clinical Instructor of Marketing, consultant, professional speaker, and host of The Manage Your Message Podcast. He is also the author of The Science of Customer Connections and specializes in strategic messaging. They discuss how marketing language has changed over time to be more conversational, customer-focused, and relevant. To keep consistency across conversations between salespeople and customers, Jim suggests introducing discipline by reverse engineering the desired outcomes from key conversations. He recommends creating a single source of conversational truth with information about targets, ideal customers, personas, or influencers in the buying process, as well as stories or questions to ask that reflect input from both sales and marketing teams.Discipline is essential during times of uncertainty. Being clear and focused on what you offer will help position your team better with buyers while relieving stress for everyone involved. Tune in to learn the importance of focus in order to be agile, gain market share, and build trustworthiness. Discover the three main categories of symptoms to look out for when assessing a company's messaging and find out why there is a need to leverage B2B influencers effectively as messengers.Episode Highlights07:47 - Marketing leaders are frustrated because they put together presentations and talks, and white papers and demos, and the like. And they're frustrated because the sales team isn't using it and the sales team is saying, "No," because it doesn't reflect the way that we want to speak at the ground level.10:33 - I think addressing this alignment issue, particularly between sales and marketing, and perhaps other units, subject matter experts, etc., is fundamental for us to be able to create distinctiveness, to be relevant, to get more access, to get more meetings, and to speed selling cycles, and to improve selling success.15:06 - Get the language that is both consistent with our overall positioning for the marketing side, but also salespeople will go, "Yes, that's the way that I talk to customers. That's reflective of the concerns that customers and prospects have. I can do that."Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterJim KarrhLinkedInWebsite

In today's episode, Jeff talks to Adrian Chang, a marketing leader with experience in customer marketing and performance marketing. Adrian offers his expert advice on how to persuade today's consumers to make a purchase. He discusses customer marketing in-depth and how to assess the health of the sales-marketing relationship. They tackle topics that include opportunities to change the incentive structure for marketers, the impact of not being a part of the customer journey, and prioritizing budgets in order to be present on the channels that matter most. Adrian also shares his insight on what organizations can do to successfully transition from multichannel to omnichannel marketing. Tune in to learn more about Adrian's strategies for aligning with his sales counterpart as a marketing leader.Episode Highlights11:02 - Given where we are now, like as a marketing organization, we have to accept that the salesperson is often the first representation of your brand with us now slowly going back to live operations. As a marketer, I feel very, very invested in ensuring that the seller's success represents my success.17:54 - As we look at our customer journey that we've architected, we found ways to follow the buyers who we market and to help them regardless of sourcing. 22:38 - You've got to figure out how do you allow your customers to advertise for you. And then once you start doing some of that, you've got to then figure out what are the other interactions that likely happen outside of your branded channels, where you can live and try to influence some of that discussion.29:33 - You got to understand where your customers live and how they buy, and then figure out what's the path they're likely going to take in terms of doing their research and how do you make some of those decisions.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterAdrian Chang:LinkedInTwitter

In this episode, Jeff speaks with John Barrows, the CEO of Sell Better by JB Sales, which is focused on training, content, and events for sales teams. He is also the author of I Want to Be in Sales When I Grow Up! The two discuss that many companies are stuck in an old model of segmentation rolls for their sales team which leads to broken hand-offs between each stage. This lack of communication creates a disjointed customer experience that often results in low adoption rates and renewal issues.John believes that the definition of value has changed drastically and that it is important to figure out what value means to the customer. To add value, sales reps should focus on building relationships and understanding what is important to their customer. They highlight the significance of quality over quantity in sales, the necessity for salespeople to be more curious and care about their clients, and aligning sales and marketing goals with a focus on revenue targets.Listen to hear John share his insights on how to be successful in sales with the mentality of "we are in this together." Discover how AI is changing the sales game by helping with things such as email personalization and giving demonstrations. Gary Vaynerchuk advised John not to fight the technology, but to learn how to leverage it instead.Episode Highlights20:40 - I call it catching your sales groove. There's a moment in everybody's career, in every sales rep's career, where they wake up one day, and it's just a little bit easier than it was the day before. You don't really know when it was or what happened, but it's the day you stop pitching your solutions, and you start having conversations about your solutions. 25:31 - That's why I believe sales reps do not have to be the industry experts in anything actually. They just need to know enough to be able to get the conversation going, and then dig and dig and dig and dig and layer and layer and layer those questions to be curious. Because when somebody can tell that you care and when somebody can tell that you're genuinely curious about whatever their challenges are or whatever it is, you'd be amazed at what people open up to. But it's that care factor that some reps get to faster than others.42:30 - The reps can actually ask the people who are living that role what a day in the life looks like. I read your job description but really, what do you do? Help me understand what this looks like and some of the challenges that you face and things you're being held accountable for.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterJohn BarrowsInstagramTwitterTikTokLinkedInWebsite

In this episode, Jeff talks to Greg Mischio, who is the Owner and Strategic Director of Winbound, a digital sales and marketing agency that specializes in helping manufacturers use online content to create a digital twin of their sales team. Greg has deep industry expertise in manufacturing and believes that this sector is going through a lot of transformation right now. They discuss the challenges that manufacturers face when it comes to sales and marketing alignment. One of the biggest challenges is that there is often no marketing, and manufacturers are realizing that they need to be more strategic in their approach. To get out of a purely tactical approach to marketing, organizations need to understand that content must align with the overall sales strategy.Listen to learn about content marketing from a sales perspective, focusing on how to create a narrative that educates customers about their problems and why the company could be of assistance. Discover the importance of aligning sales and marketing goals, as well as defining what constitutes a lead when you tune in.Episode Highlights18:53 - We meet them halfway. It's like I'm not just going to throw a bunch of marketing "hoo-ha" at you and get you to go along with it and jargon, because you're going to tune out. I need to talk and speak in your language, and meet you halfway, and I think that's what the whole alignment is about.25:43 - Marketing is saying, "Hey, we've got all these leads," and sales is saying, "They're horrible leads." You need to, out of the gates, agree on what constitutes a lead for the sales team. You need to discuss it. You need to talk about what's the ideal customer, so the sales team and the marketing team are both aware of who they are going after, and what an actual lead looks like, and get agreement on that. 44:33 - We have a very simplified report that we give and it shows those KPIs, and then quarterly we analyze what content is working best for us, and then what channels are working best for us, and those are actually kind of linked together but keep it simple and keep it clean. Have clarity and like you said, tie it back to the overall strategy.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterGreg MischioLinkedInWebsite

In this episode, Jeff Davis interviews CMO, Author, and Co-Founder of Women in Revenue, Tracy Eiler, who has been named one of the 15 Most Influential Women in B2B Marketing. She shares her background story of how she spent 30 years in marketing leadership roles leading up to CMO roles in enterprise SaaS companies and her passion for the industry. Jeff and Tracy examine what it takes to be a modern marketing organization, how different it was years ago, and how it ties to the demands of the extremely informed modern B2B buyer Tracy gives some suggestions on how to modify the way marketing teams are structured. They dig deep on how diversity and skill sets impact the demographic makeup of marketing teams, how millennials are quickly joining buying groups and making decisions, how senior leaders need to shift the way they communicate, why we need a testing mindset right now, which function SDRs should report to for the best results, how to shift to an omni-channel approach,  and how executives can look at marketing compensation differently. Tune in to find out what metrics marketing leaders should prioritize to evaluate the health of the revenue engine and discover how market leaders can improve their relationship with sales.Episodes Highlights06:58 - There are silos in marketing and silos are never good. Right? Information gets trapped, the blame game happens, you're inefficient, et cetera. So, the very first thing that I try and do when I come into a company is really assess how are things flowing today and where are the silos, so that we can break down those silos.19:15 - I'm very passionate about it being part of marketing. I think that a good marketing leader can align themselves very tightly with sales and make sure that that SDR team that sits in the middle between sales and marketing is very well exposed to all of the processes.34:29 - First of all, marketing should be tied to real numbers that are not MQLs. Minimally, our variable comp should be tied to pipeline, ultimately to revenue, but pipeline I like as kind of the core one.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterTracy Eiler:LinkedIn (Tracy’s book)Women In RevenueSV Academy

Andy Paul discusses sales productivity with a focus on why sales technology has been linked to underperformance. They delve into various factors that can be contributing to inadequate results, such as metrics being misdirected or unrealistic expectations from leads generated by marketing teams. Through their discussion, they reach the conclusion that often times sales leaders undermine the importance of high-quality leads over quantity and must refocus on how to make sure buyers are getting the best possible outcomes. They also touch upon having the right attitude when attempting to sell products as well as an introduction to "Selling Without Selling Out" which is based on connection, curiosity, understanding, and generosity. Are you looking for ways to increase sales productivity and foster better customer relationships? Tune in to learn the importance for sellers to prioritize customer relationships while leveraging resources provided by their own marketing departments in order to produce better results. Discover the importance of a human-first approach to selling, overcoming similar products in the same market, and the role of AI and machine learning in sales.Episode Highlights14:45 - My contention is that the productivity of the individual salesperson is measured by true productivity, which is not activity, but productivity that's measured in the world as a rate of output per unit of input. I've historically measured sales productivity as how many dollars are revenue generating per hour of actual selling time, not time in the day, but per hour, and you could track this.24:06 - When you're selling out what you're doing as a seller is you're putting your own interests ahead of those of the buyer. The way we do that is by having this mindset that our job as a seller is to persuade someone to buy our product or service.26:27 - When you get to that point, you understand what's really most important to the buyer, then you're in a unique position, because most sellers don't bother to get there. Suddenly, the experience you're creating for the buyer is differentiated, and you put yourself into an advantageous position to win the business.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterAndy PaulLinkedInSell Without Selling Out Book

In today's episode, Jeff Davis talks to Andrew Gulovsen, who has been involved in the transportation industry for over 25 years. He is currently the leader of marketing and customer success at Hubtek, but also has significant experience in sales and business development. They discuss digital transformation in the industry and aligning sales and marketing to provide a heightened customer experience to meet the demands of the modern buyer.Andrew tells us about his professional journey and what the pressing challenges are when it comes to driving revenue growth in the trucking logistics industry. They examine the importance of creating goals and metrics in silos and making them interdependent, as well as ways to get sales leaders to change their mindset from quantity to quality. Tune in to hear how to get successful leaders out of their inertia when it comes to change and discover how digital acceleration has given us access to regional diversity and how it’s an opportunity to have more points of view.Episode Highlights13:09 - If we can maintain that level of quantity of leads and qualified leads that come through, that just means that the number of sales overall will be better. So, again, looking at that, what is our conversion rate? How are we moving forward? And we sort of start at the sale and move backwards in terms of developing where, what we need to do from a marketing side to really support that.24:23 - We have this work we have to do from a sales side. But there's this work that we want to do that we need to do to build who we are as an organization. And it's just communicating that early so it's not something where people, CEOs or CFOs, are like, "No, we're not going to fund that because it wasn't part of our plan."28:09 - Whether it's a demo for new technology, you can tell me and you can give me all kinds of references and testimonials, but how does it truly impact my business? And so, those trials or pilots become a great way to do that. Let's give it a shot. Let's see what happens. Let's put it into a real environment and see what we can learn from it. 37:38 - The value of diversity of location, diversity of type of people, diversity of ideas becomes that much more important to the kind of growth and strength, and health of an organization. Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis on Linkedin, Instagram, and Twitter - @meetjeffdavisAndrew Gulovsen:Mobile # (618) 302-7790LinkedinEmailInstagram and Facebook - @drewgulov

In this episode, Jeff Davis talks to Dr. Howard Dover, who is the Director of the Center for Professional Sales at University of Texas at Dallas. Ten years ago, he founded the Institute for Sales Knowledge and Innovation, which was sparked by his book, "The Sales Innovation Paradox." They discussed how adapting and adjusting to the natural movement of the buyer is key to standing out in all the noise that's created in the marketplace.Dr. Howard Dover believes that every buyer has a preferred communication channel. In order to know these preferences and avoid quota attainment misses, you as a seller, have to execute strategic cadences and sequences that give you insights into buyer communication preferences and styles. Tune in as Dr. Howard Dover explains how technology changes the way we live and our expectations. He states that technology innovation is occurring all over the place for the consumer and the buyer. That being said, the salesforce needs to learn how to adopt and adapt to those modern technological changes.Episode Highlights09:32 - The first thing you have to critically ask is, where did that sales goal come from? Did it come from the your VCs? Like, "Hey, that's what we need?" Or did it come from a real evaluation of the market potential and your current data, and an understanding of the diffusion curve? Or are we just picking it out of the sky?29:52 - If you want to be a highly effective modern seller, I would say, agility and coachability are two of the attributes that you need.54:18 - If a buyer knows exactly what they need, they buy it. They don't need or want a human interaction, unless they do. So, the buyer is going to dictate whether I'm willing to have that human interaction or not.ContactJeff DavisFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedInInstagramTwitterDr. Howard DoverLinkedInThe Sales Innovation Paradox

Jeff Davis and Morgan J Ingram discuss optimizing BDRs for successful sales strategies. Focusing on the importance of having the right technology, realistic KPIs, and coaching to help them excel, they delve further into the benefits of performing an audit of existing tech stacks when transitioning leaders and piloting a technology solution before rolling it out to multiple users. Real-time data was also identified as a key factor in optimizing performance across all departments.In terms of communication between sales and marketing, they emphasize that it is essential to cultivate relationships in order to have an effective conversation across platforms. They also explore the topic of B2B influencer marketing, with Morgan introducing his concept “Deep Social” which recognizes the importance of building relationships with people and being mentioned in conversations between high-level decision-makers who don't usually invite vendors.With three types of influencers—those with consistent presence on LinkedIn, employees of the company, and customers—it is clear why tech companies are struggling without proper execution of modern social media strategies. Don't miss this insightful episode where you can learn more about optimizing your sales strategy!Episode Highlights14:27 - If marketing's outcomes are lead-focused and sales is trying to close things, you just have different outcomes, which leads to that discrepancy. Expectations in communication are important. So, if you could communicate and understand what both parties need, marketing versus sales shouldn't be a fight. It should actually be the most aligned across the board.16:54 - If you're on the marketing team, and you're like, "I don't know how to talk to the sales team." You would be the hero. Go and say, "Hey, I know you all get a lot of sales objections. I know sales is super tough. What can we do better as a marketing team to help write blog posts, articles, videos, to talk to these objections." I guarantee people are going to be excited. 19:50 - The reason no one's responding is because they don't have time to respond to you. And if they do respond to you, they don't have time to meet with something that's irrelevant. So, that's why you have to make sure that you are relevant and you are personal in some way.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterMorgan J IngramLinkedIn

In this episode, Jeff talks to Joel Harrison, Editor-In-Chief at B2B Marketing and Community Leader for Propolis, the new exclusive community for B2B marketers. Joel believes we are going through a fourth wave of change in B2B marketing with two aspects: from the internal marketing point of view and the buyer point of view. Some effects COVID has had on buyers include them becoming more self-sufficient by doing more research themselves and getting more comfortable with ecommerce for larger purchases. They discuss web 3.0 and how its implementation relates to B2B marketing, as well as the dark web, dark social, and private communities where people have candid conversations out of the sphere of organizations. Joel addresses how marketers can add value to these conversations and suggests focusing on advocacy and helping customers become advocates for their business.In light of economic uncertainty, B2B organizations will strive to grow in the places they know and understand. As a result, B2B growth strategies will tilt heavily toward retention, cross sell, and upsell revenues. Listen to learn why marketing always has to prove and show ROI, which can be difficult depending on the tactic or strategy used. Discover how to demonstrate the impact and value of marketing in four areas: revenue evidence, brand evidence, customer evidence, and engagement evidence.Episode Highlights07:49 - That means that there's a shift in balance between marketing and sales. It's ongoing. It also means that marketing has got to be not only more responsible for more of their journey, but also got to raise their game in terms of the activities they're doing.18:31 - When the economic headwinds are stronger, people will then seek to maximize the relationships they've got and not lose any of those. 32:02 - In times where businesses are transforming all the time against different metrics, it's not a one-and-done. It's an ongoing challenge. Personalities change and relationships change. All these dynamics lead to this challenge.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterJoel HarrisonLinkedInTwitterWebsiteEmail

In this episode, Jeff interviews Scott Gillum, who is the Founder and CEO of Carbon Design, a marketing agency that uses audience insight and personality to increase conversations, engagement, and revenue for clients. Scott believes that in order to differentiate a message or get people to advocate for it, one must create a personal connection with them by understanding their motivations, behaviors, and personalities.They discuss the four distinct personality types that are found in a buying group: the influencer, champion, challenger, and steady. They also talk about how to effectively coach B2B salespeople to connect with modern buyers and emphasize the importance of understanding corporate culture, motivations, and dynamics between people in the deal when coaching salespeople. Salespeople often come across false positives who seem friendly but don't actually do anything; these are influencers who like new ideas but are not invested enough in the process to move things forward. Listen to understand why softer sides of selling are important and how tools are not able to capture them. Don't miss out on this opportunity to gain more insights into your customer's purchase decisions! Tune in and learn how you can be more strategic about casting a wide net for leads.Episode Highlights05:46 - In order to be able to actually differentiate yourself in the marketplace, you have to be able to create a personal connection. If you don't know or understand a person's personality, you won't know their motivations, you won't know their behaviors, and you won't make a connection that actually moves them or gets them to advocate for you.20:26 - What's really important about tracking influencers is it's not engagement that's important. It's about sharing. For that particular audience, you want to track your sharing and trying to figure out where it's going. So, there's different ways you can do that, but that's an influencer. They're very, very good at selling ideas.37:45 - So, if you're having your weekly sales meetings, go through and dissect the accounts and the opportunities to get down into those softer factors, like what's motivating the organization and quiz the reps. Do you understand why this person that you're dealing with is going to advocate for us inside the organization? Let them try to figure that out. That's important.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterScott GillumLinkedInWebsiteTwitterPersonality Based MarketingUnderstanding Personality Types

In this episode of Rev Engine Podcast, Jeff Davis welcomes Gabe Larsen, who is the Head of B2B Marketing at Meta and an expert in the startup space. Jeff and Gabe have an intriguing conversation about how B2B revenue leaders can leverage the metaverse.Gabe shares his experience and insights on how businesses can use the metaverse to enhance revenue growth, including adapting work experiences with a 3D element, using video more creatively, and exploring new platforms for customer service and advertisement. He also introduces the concept of "Signal-based Marketing," emphasizing the importance of listening to customers' signals to pursue them effectively. Gabe highlights the significance of customer behavior and using data from multiple sources, such as Shopify, job change alerts, and customer support rep hires.They discuss the importance of communication within sales and marketing teams and how AI technology can optimize customer service. They suggest that a CRO overseeing both marketing and sales, along with rules of engagement, lead scoring, and opportunity scoring, can help align sales and marketing teams. Rev Ops can act as a mediator if there is disagreement between the teams.Tune in to hear valuable insights into the metaverse and how B2B revenue leaders can leverage it to enhance revenue growth. Listen about the significance of customer behavior and effective communication. Episode Highlights 04:29 - There's something missing. We all feel it and it's something over here that is, by definition, something that's a little more 3D, something that's a little more interactive. I think when it comes to the way in which we work as marketers, we've got to change. We've got to adapt, and I think that's going to be one of the primary areas that I try to play around with, that we try to play around with, to make the work experience better.06:37 - What if I could watch more of an interactive video with somebody in this concept of the Metaverse where I could then interact with the product in a way that takes demos, not light years from where we are, but like I can actually touch that thing. Or can I play with it in this area? Like I can experience it in a more real way.14:02 - One of the phrases I've been playing with is this idea of signal-based marketing. And what that basically means to me is, I think there's some great concepts in ABM for those who actually think it means what they think it means, but targeting people, it's a great idea.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterGabe LarsenLinkedIn

In this episode, Jeff has an incredible chat with Julia Nimchinski and Justin Michael - two visionary leaders in B2B revenue innovation. Through the co-founding of HYPCCCYCL and authoring "Reinventing Virtual Events" together - these insightful pros offer so much for you to learn about re-imagining go-to market strategies. They stress the importance of building relationships with customers, making them the stars of events, and following up to build a community.Key takeaways from this discussion include: flipping the script by having sales and marketing superstars coach others on their methodology; putting your audience first versus panelists or vendors; utilizing simulation role plays for maximum engagement during virtual events; aligning sales and marketing strategies such as guided selling and revenue intelligence to better meet customer needs. Learn how salespeople and marketers have different languages, which can cause a dysfunctional relationship between the two. Discover how practicality is key when aligning sales and marketing teams - getting them in the same room together with coaching sessions will help create collaboration on both sides. Gain knowledge about the challenges of making human connections through automation and how technology should be used for creating conversations instead of automating them. Key into Julia and Justin's expertise when you tune in! Episode Highlights17:17 - The idea of the book is a framework that doesn't actually require a lot of tech stacks, and we have that in the book. But it's more like if you're just throwing a static Zoom webinar or podcast, how do you make it more interactive? How do you gamify it? How do you turn it into a competition? How do you use things that we utilized in GTM games to make your next event just more robust, maybe increase retention, more customer focused?28:42 - If I'm a seller, I tend to be focused on the pipeline, on the number, on the revenue, on my compensation plan, you name it. And that is driving the whole relationship more often than not, that practicality. If I have a micro-marketing lens on the customer, it will help me with the first touch with targeting, with strategic messaging, with adjusting that strategic messaging depending on the flow of the conversation and not just hammering the working script that my marketing team or my VPs of Sales just gave me.35:23 - So, if you want to bring practicality to this matter, you really have to literally take your sales team, put them in the same room with marketers, and show them what they're doing, make them write the messaging, make some meetings, make some mini GTM games where a CMO would talk directly to AEs and SDRs and just try to coach them.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterJulia NimchinskiLinkedInReinventing Virtual Events: How To Turn Ghost Webinars Into Hybrid Go-To-Market Simulations That Drive ExplosiveWebsiteJustin MichaelLinkedIn

In this episode, Jeff speaks with Dan Cilley, the CEO of Vendor Neutral, which is a company that helps organizations with sales technology identification, selection, integration, onboarding, and adoption. Dan believes that too many internal teams are busy talking but not communicating with each other, which produces silos within those organizations, leading to poor communication and ultimately failed digital transformation initiatives. He shares his recommendation to ensure that all software platforms are integrated and aligned with one another. They also discuss how many sales leaders think about new technology in terms of workflow, but often fail to integrate it into a larger system. They agree that tech acquisitions are often done in silos, which can lead to the technology becoming shelfware and they argue that a more holistic approach is needed, one that takes into account the entire company ecosystem and how different technologies can work together.Listen to the discussion on digital selling and how it connects with the modern buyer, the importance of having a sales playbook that is aligned with technology in order to be successful, and the importance of educating channel partners so they can sell successfully. Find out why sales and marketing teams need to work together closely with transparency and communication to be successful and learn why senior leadership is typically the champion or catalyst for change within an organization when it comes to digital transformation. Discover why it is important to define the sales process first and then think about what technology will actually help move the needle forward at each stage of the process. Technology should be integrated into a single strategy, rather than having multiple isolated technologies that do not communicate with each other.Episode Highlights10:43 - If you really want to truly transform your business through technology, you need to align to process, process, process. I have an equation we use and I share this sometimes in social media and a lot with our clients: New tech plus old process equals expensive old process. You have to really think ahead and think about what technology is actually going to move that needle.22:31 - Often your team has office access to a knowledge base, a lot of content, a lot of resources, and the channel has a unique capability and a unique level of access sometimes. So, we have to make sure that they are equal, and that the channel and your internal team have the same resources, have the same capability at the end of the day.31:55 - I think sales technology organizations realize they never wanted to want a tech stack of that size. So there you see a lot more consolidation in the sales tech market. And I think you've seen that, especially over the last few years, when it comes to sales enablement, technology, sales engagement, or prospect engagement technologies, you know, they're now integrated into single platforms, you're even seeing data integrated into those platforms as well.Episode Takeaways:Top reasons digital transformation projects fail for the salesforce: https://vendorneutral.com/3-red-flags-for-failing-sales-saas-ecosystems/How should leadership be addressing the necessary culture change it takes for sellers to effectively adopt new technology and/or a digital-first sales approachHow and why an organization should conduct a tech stack audit in order to have an optimize revenue tech stack. Walk us through the process: https://vendorneutral.com/3-stage-sales-saas-procurement-readiness-test/What

In this episode, Jeff talks to Steve Patti, a multi-industry Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and a GTM Leader. He has over 30 years of combined experience starting out in sales and then eventually transitioning to marketing. He was also featured as a guest on our first podcast "The Alignment Podcast", which was well-received. So, he's back to elaborate about his expertise and to see how the market has changed to help understand the revenue engine holistically.Steve suggests that successful marketing and sales leaders focus on capturing demand as opposed to creating it. By leveraging awareness of your brand and product, buyers will become familiar with what you have to offer, making sure they don't miss out on potential solutions offered by the company. Once attention is captivated, forming preference for a particular solution should be achievable.Listen to learn how to stop selling and start helping people buy, how to facilitate discussions, how to extract impactful quotes and stats from ICP discussions, and how to develop authentic relationship. Uncover the secrets of helping people find what they need through productive conversations so you can provide tailored solutions that solve real buyer needs.Episode Highlights04:34 - There is a difference between educating and sharing insight, building rapport, and building trust that leads someone to conclude, "I like this brand."13:39 - Most buyers don't trust vendors. They trust peers, more than vendors. 16:02 - Effective marketing and effective sales are about conversations, not presentations.16:32 - You've got to be adding value to the community, not there solely for self-serving reasons to sell. 16:50 - One of the greatest ways that you can unlearn bad habit is join these communities where you've got to show up, engage, and add value or your account is closed or frozen.37:49 - They want to be heard, they want to be acknowledged, and then they want to be advised or educated. And invariably, you do that well, they're going to remember where they got that.39:15 - Marketing is a long-term activity. Sales is a short-term activity. Marketing goes out and educates the market.Learn moreFollow Jeff Davis (@meetjeffdavis) on:LinkedIn InstagramTwitterSteve PattiLinkedInEmail