Episode 20
Episode 20: Laura Patterson - VisionEdge Marketing, Inc.
About this Episode: What are the latest findings from the Marketing Performance Management Benchmark Study? (Published in the Journal of Applied Marketing Analytics)
Laura Patterson shares her insights, including information regarding measurement, dashboards, culture, and more.
Interested in learning more? Check out the following study: VisionEdge Marketing and the University of Texas at Dallas (Link to document below.)
About Laura Patterson: If you're looking for a practical, no-nonsense, proven approach to accelerate growth, create value, and improve performance, then you've connected with the right person. Laura Patterson is a recognized and trusted authority for enabling companies to take a customer-centric, outcome-based approach to organic growth by enabling them to use analytics, accountability, alignment, and operational excellence to attract, retain and grow the value of customers.
Laura began her 25+ year career in sales and had the great fortune of working across functions spanning customer relationship management, strategic and product marketing, analytics, and marketing operations. Today she is at the helm of VisionEdge Marketing, founded in 1999, and is recognized as one of the pioneers in MPM. She received a patent for the Accelance® methodology, designed to connect activities and investment to business results. She has published four books, with the recent “Fast-Track Your Business: A Customer-Centric Approach to Accelerate Market Growth,” receiving industry acclaim. Laura is frequently asked to speak and facilitate workshops for educational institutions, associations, and company meetings. Laura has been recognized for her thought leadership and has won numerous awards, including Engati’s Top 30 Marketing Influencers and Top 200 Thought Leaders, Piktale’s Top 100 Influencers, and 20 Women to Watch in Business by the Sales Lead Management Association.
Links:
LinkedIn (Laura Patterson): https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurapattersonvem/
VisionEdge Marketing: https://linktr.ee/visionedgemarketing
Link to White Paper: VisionEdge Marketing and the University of Texas at Dallas (2021-2022): https://visionedgemarketing.com/mpm-benchmark-report-2022-culture-leadership-value-creators/
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/-RDY-WQqkHE
Sign up for ProRelevant Emails:
https://mailchi.mp/prorelevant/newsletter
Link to YouTube Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8TJq-pdFwY
Transcript
Hi, I'm Guy Powell and welcome to the next episode of the
Speaker:backstory on marketing. If you haven't already done so please
Speaker:visit pro relevant.com and sign up for all these episodes and
Speaker:podcasts. So what is the difference between b2b and b2c
Speaker:marketing? Laura Patterson of vision edge marketing will be
Speaker:helping us answer this question. I am the author of the newly
Speaker:released book, the post COVID marketing machine, prepare your
Speaker:team to win. And you can find more information on this at
Speaker:marketing machine dot pro relevant.com. But let me tell
Speaker:you a little bit about Laura Patterson. If you're looking for
Speaker:a practical, no nonsense proven approach to accelerate growth,
Speaker:create value and improve performance, then you've
Speaker:connected with the right person. Laura Patterson is a recognized
Speaker:and trusted authority for enabling companies to take a
Speaker:customer centric, outcome based approach to organic growth by
Speaker:enabling them to use analytics, accountability, alignment, and
Speaker:operational excellence to attract, retain and grow the
Speaker:value of customers. Today she is at the helm of vision edge
Speaker:marketing, founded in 1999. And as recognized as one of the
Speaker:pioneers in NPM, which is marketing performance
Speaker:management. She received a patent for the excellence
Speaker:methodology designed to connect activities investments to
Speaker:business results, she has published four books with the
Speaker:recent fast track your business, a customer centric approach to
Speaker:accelerate market growth. In addition, she has won numerous
Speaker:awards, including and Gandhi's top 30, marketing influencers
Speaker:and top 200 thought leaders, pigtails, top 100 influencers
Speaker:and top 20 Women to Watch in business by the Sales Lead
Speaker:Management Association. Welcome, Laura.
Speaker:Thank you, guy, it's really an honor to have a chance to do
Speaker:this program with you really appreciate the opportunity to
Speaker:talk about some of the things that I'm passionate about. And I
Speaker:know we share that passion.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. And, and I don't know if it's a good thing
Speaker:or bad thing what we both have been out more than 20 years. So
Speaker:hopefully we're good at it.
Speaker:I'd like to think that we are and congratulations on your new
Speaker:book. That's fantastic.
Speaker:Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it. It's been doing
Speaker:pretty well. So But anyway, let's get started. So what is
Speaker:your backstory on marketing? How did you get into marketing?
Speaker:That's a great question. So I'll just start from the very
Speaker:beginning. But I'll try to make it short. You know, there's kids
Speaker:that ring your doorbell to sell your stuff from school so they
Speaker:can get some money. I was one of those kids, I sold the world's
Speaker:finest chocolate when I was in elementary school, door to door
Speaker:to my neighborhood and other places in hopes of, you know,
Speaker:collecting some funds for my school. And so I got a real
Speaker:interesting exposure to sales. And shortly thereafter on you
Speaker:might remember this program, I don't know they don't do it the
Speaker:same way today, Junior Achievement. And I was in a gym
Speaker:in Junior Achievement for a few years. And I got to be really
Speaker:exposed to marketing and understand the art and science
Speaker:of crafting a value proposition and competitive differentiation.
Speaker:I was hooked.
Speaker:Yeah, fantastic. Well, it's it's interesting, because Junior
Speaker:Achievement, I thought it was a great program. I didn't get into
Speaker:it myself. I was unfortunately in the music side of things. But
Speaker:definitely wanted to do that. So good for you. And you know, it's
Speaker:fascinating to how many of the marketers that I've been, that
Speaker:I've been interviewing, have gotten their start in doing
Speaker:things like door to door selling when they were when they were
Speaker:kids. So we must learn something when we were growing up.
Speaker:Let's tap. And you know, once I got going in college and got
Speaker:exposed to the profession, I had the opportunity to have great
Speaker:mentors and the places I went to work. And I think that made a
Speaker:difference too. And the wonderful thing about one of my
Speaker:first mentors, Dwight prayed, who I do talk about sometimes in
Speaker:my blogs is he was an Oxford professor and former Oxford
Speaker:professor, it was all about the creating customer value. And so
Speaker:long, this is a lot now. This is decades ago. Now. We're talking
Speaker:right I had a 20 year plus corporate career. So the idea of
Speaker:customer centricity was pretty much a part of my DNA from the
Speaker:start.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's funny that you say that
Speaker:because one of the things that we put on our on our PowerPoints
Speaker:for introduction is Always the customer, or the consumer has to
Speaker:be in the center of everything that you do. So, absolutely,
Speaker:absolutely.
Speaker:To add on to that, not just everything you do, but every
Speaker:decision that you make. Right, when you're running your
Speaker:business for those of us like you and me, we're running our
Speaker:own businesses. You know, we make a lot of decisions every
Speaker:day. And the key thing is to make decisions that keep your
Speaker:customer from front and center of those decisions.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So there was a new report out, it's
Speaker:called the best in class Marketing Report. Why don't you
Speaker:tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker:Okay, well, you know, you made me think about it. So we started
Speaker:this study in 2001. And then we just published the results of
Speaker:the last study in this past summer 2022, in the Journal of
Speaker:Applied marketing analytics, severity, and it was an honor to
Speaker:have been published in a peer reviewed journal, when you have
Speaker:your work, non academic work, you know, published, we were
Speaker:very privileged to work with UTS Jindal School up in Dallas, they
Speaker:were our partners on this study. And over the last few years,
Speaker:we've learned a lot about best in class marketers. And one of
Speaker:the things we learned a number of years ago is around different
Speaker:types of marketing personas in the area of performance
Speaker:management. And so those personas just quickly are value
Speaker:creators, sales enablers, and campaign producers. We can talk
Speaker:a little bit more about that. But in the past few years, I'm
Speaker:in conversations with members of the C suite who take this study,
Speaker:and who grade their their marketing organizations on their
Speaker:ability to contribute, impact and prove their value. The
Speaker:question became, okay, you've been telling us doesn't matter
Speaker:if it's b2b or b2c? I know we're gonna talk about that in a
Speaker:moment. Doesn't matter how big we are, where we're located for
Speaker:global or local, doesn't matter about the budgets, lots of
Speaker:things don't matter. Could you please tell us what does matter?
Speaker:What, what is it that enables a value creator to emerge in an
Speaker:organization or to thrive in an organization. So that was the
Speaker:focus of this study, this past study, and what we did is we
Speaker:took already accepted work around leadership and culture,
Speaker:because we kind of had a hypothesis, which, as you know,
Speaker:is pretty normal. When you're setting out to do real, rigorous
Speaker:researches, you start with a hypothesis, and we had a
Speaker:hypothesis that maybe it was leadership or culture that had
Speaker:something to do with the emergence of this of these
Speaker:groups. And we took existing work that had been already
Speaker:proven in the research and use that and lo and behold, that
Speaker:hypothesis was proven true. Actually, it's not leadership or
Speaker:culture, it is a very specific combination of leadership style
Speaker:and culture, that facilitate value creators being successful
Speaker:in an organization. And that is a culture of an and leadership
Speaker:style combined, called stewardship and results. We can
Speaker:talk a lot more about that. But if people are interested, they
Speaker:can read the report. But we were able to answer the question. And
Speaker:now we've been trying to help organizations figure out how to
Speaker:implement
Speaker:that. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And so what are you
Speaker:defining as as a value creator?
Speaker:Okay, that's a great question. So these three personas, and in
Speaker:2001, maybe only one in five marketing organizations were
Speaker:fell into this category of value creators and over, you know,
Speaker:over 40% would be failing, get failing grades. So what are the
Speaker:nuances a value creator is plays a strategic role in the
Speaker:business, and they see themselves supporting the growth
Speaker:of the company. And they are a very business Hello, our
Speaker:business acumen. And they focus on measures that matter to the C
Speaker:suite. And they're able to prove their value, contribution and
Speaker:impact to the business because they aligned directly to
Speaker:business outcomes. And the next group, which is has been a very
Speaker:large group, so this year, the value craters were, have been
Speaker:growing and they've been steady, Lee increasing to almost one in
Speaker:three, which is great. No, we're so excited to see this
Speaker:continuous improvement. Still only one to three. The second
Speaker:group is what we call sales enablers. And they are marketing
Speaker:organizations that are primarily see themselves in service to the
Speaker:sales team. The sales team is their customer. And they're very
Speaker:pipeline centric. It's all about, you know, lead generation
Speaker:and, and qualified leads and attribution. And you know, all
Speaker:of that everything and anything you can think about with
Speaker:regarding the pipeline, and I'm sure you know, lots of marketing
Speaker:people that fall into that category, and it is a
Speaker:substantial group. And then the last group was just camp. Same
Speaker:producers think those folks as people who operate like an
Speaker:internal agency, and they make things, you know, I've had in my
Speaker:career, a couple of instances where I was one of those, you
Speaker:know, 100 marketing, I needed a brochure, when it hadn't
Speaker:marketing, I need a new video when it hadn't marketing, I have
Speaker:a trade show, you know, that group? Yes, what those folks
Speaker:are. And so they're very activity oriented. And they
Speaker:measure their output, essentially, a lot and their
Speaker:activity and their output essentially. So they have a lot
Speaker:of measures, but they can't really connect everything, like
Speaker:much of what they do to business results.
Speaker:Yeah, they're fair enough. And they're more of a service
Speaker:provider, as you've as you said, kind of an internal agency. And
Speaker:they are just, their goal is to produce stuff to help somebody
Speaker:else. And I do like the the definitions that you've got,
Speaker:because I think the the value creators and then what was the
Speaker:second one was sales, enablers, sales enablers, because quite a
Speaker:few b2b and quite a few smaller organizations. A lot of them do
Speaker:fall into the sales enabler category, simply because, you
Speaker:know, the company is so sales focused, it's all about sales.
Speaker:And marketing is kind of necessary, clearly necessarily,
Speaker:but the sales guys are kind of the ones that really see
Speaker:themselves running the company. And marketing is not an
Speaker:afterthought, but just kind of a secondary priority for them,
Speaker:when in reality, it is it is the combination of both sales and
Speaker:marketing that has to drive value for the company. And, and
Speaker:at some point, especially in the consumer side, you have the
Speaker:marketers providing more of the value than the sales team. So
Speaker:yeah, I really liked those, those definitions. One of the
Speaker:things that I liked when I was looking through the report as
Speaker:well, was how important it was to understand the consumer buyer
Speaker:journey. So tell us how you interpret that.
Speaker:The customer journey, we look at that very holistically, from the
Speaker:moment that you make contact with a company, you know, a
Speaker:customer makes contact with your company, all the way to the
Speaker:point where they become a member of your community. And they
Speaker:become advocates and ambassadors for your company. And there's a
Speaker:lot of stages in between. And every customer or consumer goes
Speaker:through the stages of contact, consideration, consumption,
Speaker:conversation, they all go through this, the series of
Speaker:steps, and I didn't know those aren't in any order, but they go
Speaker:through the 60s. And sometimes it's very, very quickly, and
Speaker:often is the case in a b2c situation. And sometimes it's
Speaker:less so in a very complex, you know, decision process that
Speaker:involves a lot of, or numerous people to finally get to the to
Speaker:the Let's Make a Deal, right. So that that journey is it's
Speaker:important to understand that entire process. And it might be
Speaker:different for different verticals, if you're in a b2b
Speaker:world or different consumers, depending on what those
Speaker:consumers are even different geographies, it can be very
Speaker:different or even different buying centers. And it's
Speaker:important to understand what the channels and touches are in
Speaker:along the way that will move a opportunity forward. Right. And
Speaker:that's how you begin to build things like attribution models
Speaker:and things like that is to really have a clarity around the
Speaker:understanding of what is of value in that journey to the
Speaker:customer in order to help them move to the next stage in their
Speaker:process.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, as we mentioned early on how
Speaker:important it is to be consumer centric or customer centric,
Speaker:depending upon what your definition is. And and then that
Speaker:consumer buyer journey or customer buyer journey, is how
Speaker:you as a marketer can add value at each of the steps along the
Speaker:way, not only to that first touch not only from the first
Speaker:touch all the way to the first purchase, but it's also that
Speaker:lifelong purchase that you're trying to achieve from all of
Speaker:your customers because you want them to continue to repurchase
Speaker:and repurchase. And then to your last point about certainly
Speaker:advocacy and being part of your community to where they're
Speaker:telling other prospects that hey listen, buying something from
Speaker:Laura Patterson envision edge marketing is going to be the you
Speaker:know, the right the right decision for you.
Speaker:And I really appreciate how you how you frame that. And one of
Speaker:the things that here's a conversation I just had with a
Speaker:with a customer that I think helps crystallize this idea of
Speaker:the perspective from the from the customer's perspective. So
Speaker:the marketing team was having a conversation with the sales
Speaker:organization and they're working on trying to create a both the
Speaker:lead scoring model and attribution model. A model,
Speaker:which are different, but they, you know, trying to tease out
Speaker:the nuances. And the sales team kept saying, webinars don't
Speaker:really we don't think webinars should be part of the lead
Speaker:scoring model, we don't think they had any value. Right. So
Speaker:I'll just use that as an example. And of course, webinars
Speaker:are a channel part of a channel, that touchpoint could be a
Speaker:webinar that is a customer testimonial, which would be a
Speaker:very different kind of webinar than maybe a new product, you
Speaker:know, rollout webinar, however that might be. So I on my
Speaker:conversation was, you may not think it's important, and you
Speaker:may not want to put that behavior in your lead scoring
Speaker:model. But if the customer thinks it's important, as part
Speaker:of their buying journey, then it's kind of important to be
Speaker:sure you have that in your attribution model. So So that
Speaker:gave them food for thought, yeah, you you salespeople might
Speaker:not think it as a value. Okay. But if your customer thinks it's
Speaker:important to their decision, then you might want to
Speaker:reconsider.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly. And how true how true. And, you know, I always
Speaker:love it, I mean, no question about it, the sales do have
Speaker:their pulse on the consumer. But sometimes they miss certain
Speaker:aspects of the, of the consumer behavior. And in our case, what
Speaker:we're talking about the consumer buyer journey, that really can
Speaker:be very valuable, as you're trying to build the, the, I'd
Speaker:say, the medium, or the long term value of that lead, or of
Speaker:that consumer segment, or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker:And, and I find your story to be very, very fascinating, but also
Speaker:very true, and does reflect a lot of times the some of the
Speaker:differences that go on between a sales organization and a
Speaker:marketing organization. So there was one thing in there I really
Speaker:liked as well, and I hope you don't mind I'm gonna borrow it
Speaker:is what you call the metrics catalog. Tell us what you mean
Speaker:by that.
Speaker:Okay, so value creators have some tools that they are very
Speaker:proficient at using to help them communicate their value and show
Speaker:their contribution to the business. And one of them is
Speaker:known as a metrics catalog. Another is a data inventory. So
Speaker:they really do have a clear understanding of their data.
Speaker:They know where it is, where it comes from, you know, its
Speaker:source, how it's sourced, how it's updated, all of that kind
Speaker:of information. And that that data is used in various ways, as
Speaker:you know, and one of the ways it's used is to is in the
Speaker:development of measures and metrics and KPIs. And so the
Speaker:metrics catalog, is the company tool for what are the metrics
Speaker:they're using? How are those metrics calculated? What are the
Speaker:sources of data? You know, all what is the relationship of that
Speaker:measure to other measures? Right? What is the frequency
Speaker:that it is reviewed, all different kinds of things, and
Speaker:that's in their catalog. So they really do have a way of looking
Speaker:at their measures to understand what they're using, when they're
Speaker:using it, how they're using it. Its purpose. And that makes it
Speaker:possible for them to have a different kind of conversation,
Speaker:obviously, with their leadership team.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's funny, too. Sometimes you
Speaker:let's say, you have a metrics for social media, we need to get
Speaker:engagement. And sometimes it's, the engagement can be the
Speaker:correct metric. But if you do marketing to affect the
Speaker:engagement, it doesn't necessarily mean that you added
Speaker:value. And so you have to be very careful as to how your
Speaker:marketing can drive in my example, engagement, but
Speaker:valuable engagement, not just engagement for engagement sake.
Speaker:And I don't know, I'm sure you've run into situations like
Speaker:that, where marketers go off and then drive engagement, but it's
Speaker:not really leading to any incremental value.
Speaker:And that is why metrics, chains, metrics, data chains are so
Speaker:crucial to marketers or any function. So engagement might be
Speaker:a valuable measure, but where in the chain is it? So to your
Speaker:point, it may be an important measure that has implications
Speaker:for another measure or metric further up, such as increasing
Speaker:consideration or inquiry rate or something that might be more
Speaker:meaningful, for an example or product adoption rate or
Speaker:something that's higher up and closer to the outcome that you
Speaker:might need to get the engagement rate up in order to get that
Speaker:rate up. So it's really understanding that chain, and
Speaker:that's the other primary tool that value craters had to say
Speaker:really understand the relationship of the measures.
Speaker:It's not just a smorgasbord of measures that they are tracking
Speaker:and reporting, but they are looking at those in the content
Speaker:Next up, how they relate to each other and the outcome or the
Speaker:business result that they're trying to achieve.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for that. That's pretty
Speaker:good. All right, so one last question on the report, and then
Speaker:we can talk about a handful of other topics. So what do you
Speaker:think is the biggest conclusion that a reader should be able to
Speaker:take away from from the report?
Speaker:Well, this particular report was pretty focused on culture and
Speaker:leadership. But there were some other little valuable nuggets, I
Speaker:would say. One is that even though there are value craters
Speaker:are improving, there was still a growing, there's still plenty of
Speaker:improvement on all fronts for every marketing organization.
Speaker:And I don't know if you saw the CO marketing study that came out
Speaker:earlier this month, that talked about marketing, still
Speaker:struggling with ROI. Our report basically said, here's where the
Speaker:places are to improve. And so in the report, we kind of say it
Speaker:based on where you are, here's kind of things that you might
Speaker:want to do to get better at what you're doing. So while most
Speaker:value creators are much better at data than their counterparts,
Speaker:and understanding what data is appropriate, and much better at
Speaker:measuring and understanding what measures are valuable and
Speaker:meaningful, they still need to work on dashboards, for example,
Speaker:right? They still have better dashboards, but a still a long
Speaker:way away. And they still need to work on models. So some analytic
Speaker:capabilities need to improve. So each group needs to get better.
Speaker:And some of them need to get better at really understanding
Speaker:how to use data, and how to get insights from their data to make
Speaker:better decisions with it.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah. All right. So you, you brought up the word
Speaker:dashboards. Tell me, what do you see as being the kind of the
Speaker:value proposition for a dashboard? Is it a soft value?
Speaker:Or is there a real hard ROI that that you've seen for, for a good
Speaker:marketing dashboard?
Speaker:Well, I think what's important to before I give my, my humble
Speaker:opinion about this, it's an informed, humble opinion, is to
Speaker:get clarity around a dashboard. So dashboards are essentially a
Speaker:visualization of data. And there can be a variety of dashboards,
Speaker:and a lot of people have a lot of technology today, you know,
Speaker:the amount of martech, at the hands of marketers, is pretty
Speaker:prolific. And it has substantially grown in last 20
Speaker:years that you and I have been doing this. And almost all of
Speaker:them have a Dashboard button, where they you can put back and
Speaker:click and poof, up comes a dashboard. It's not a dashboard
Speaker:in the sense of what we're talking about for our
Speaker:performance management dashboard. Those are just
Speaker:reports that are up the data inside and some visual, you
Speaker:know, visualized fashion, a performance management dashboard
Speaker:is doing a few things for a marketing organization, and
Speaker:there is real value in that one. It's helping them understand,
Speaker:are we achieving the commitments we set out? And so we were going
Speaker:to achieve? Right? So how close are we? Or how far away? Are we?
Speaker:And getting some insight as to why in a moment, I'll come back
Speaker:and give you a metaphor for that. And what do we need to do
Speaker:about it? So it helps facilitate decisions and helps us
Speaker:understand what isn't isn't working, and makes a marketing
Speaker:organization able to have a business conversation. There's
Speaker:nothing better than that, right? Who doesn't want to have a
Speaker:business conversation when it's time to talk about the work and
Speaker:that contribution they're making to the company? Right? So it
Speaker:changes the conversation. So I think it's very healthy, to be
Speaker:able to look at it and use it to make course adjustments. So when
Speaker:people ask me, Can you give us a way to think about our
Speaker:performance management dashboard, which is just again,
Speaker:a type of data model? I said, well, because a lot of them,
Speaker:they'll use their marketing automation system, they think
Speaker:they're getting a dashboard. I said, No, you're not really
Speaker:getting a dashboard. When you click that button, what you're
Speaker:getting is a scorecard. And, and the way I say you know, think
Speaker:about it when you play putt, putt golf, and you go and you
Speaker:get a scorecard for your round. And it tells you what your par
Speaker:should be for that hole. And if you play real golf, obviously,
Speaker:you have even more data. And you're you're tracking your
Speaker:scope, how many strokes it took for you to get that ball in the
Speaker:hole. And if you're playing with friends, you're you're competing
Speaker:with each other. So not only are you competing with yourself for
Speaker:the whole, but you're competing with each other. And so you're
Speaker:tracking it all along the way. And you can see how many strokes
Speaker:it took for you to get there. Right. And but it won't tell you
Speaker:why it won't tell you that you hit the ball out of the out of
Speaker:the little space that you're supposed to be in right or that
Speaker:you kept missing the hole you have absolutely no idea why
Speaker:there's no information on the scorecard to help you do that.
Speaker:Dashboards will help you have better clarity as to why so in a
Speaker:real round of golf is the why because I never get the ball on
Speaker:the fairway. I'm too I'm always too short in my distance, or I
Speaker:just can't do putts in regulation. What are the Why do
Speaker:you feel that dashboards help you understand that and that
Speaker:gives you a better insight not that still won't help you get to
Speaker:where like, that may not give you insight onto whether or not
Speaker:you have a bad grip, or you just have a bad, you know, form. But
Speaker:that might help you say, you know, maybe I need to address my
Speaker:grip, or my form because I have a problem getting it on the
Speaker:fairway or maybe I need to change my club, because I'm not
Speaker:getting enough distance. So that would be how you would use that
Speaker:dashboard. And you wouldn't be able to do that on a scorecard.
Speaker:Well, I like your your definition, there. And the
Speaker:difference between a scorecard, which I think is what a lot of
Speaker:people believe, is a dashboard, because the you're just to your
Speaker:point, Google Analytics gives you a dashboard, what they call
Speaker:a dashboard, and Facebook gives you one and Twitter gives you
Speaker:one and all these other things, all these different online
Speaker:services give you a dashboard, but they first of all, they're
Speaker:very narrow, they're very narrowly focused. They're not
Speaker:broadly focused. And to your point, they don't kind of
Speaker:integrate everything in so that you can actually understand
Speaker:what's driving your performance and start to make some business
Speaker:decisions and have business questions potentially even
Speaker:answered as to how to act moving forward, so that you can take
Speaker:the information that's being visualized in the dashboard, and
Speaker:really connected to the true drivers of the business. I
Speaker:really like what you're talking about there.
Speaker:Okay, well helps the people listening to
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. All right. So thank you for
Speaker:for that. And thank you for what's going on on the on that
Speaker:report. And that report is available on vision edge
Speaker:marketing.com. And we'll put a link in the video and in the
Speaker:audio as well for how you can actually download that report.
Speaker:All right, so now let's move on to the next topic. So tell us
Speaker:what you believe are the big differences in measuring the ROI
Speaker:for a b2b company versus a consumer company. And, and we
Speaker:can play devil's advocate here and hopefully have a good
Speaker:conversation on that.
Speaker:I'd like that. So again, I think we'd let's be sure we are half
Speaker:terms in common. So I want to talk a little bit about b2c and
Speaker:b2b for a moment. Because people, I think, today, those
Speaker:are very blurred lines. So one of my jobs I've done, I've been
Speaker:in non sales my whole career. And one of my jobs during
Speaker:graduate school is I sold office supplies, door to door. This
Speaker:isn't the old days guy who didn't have Office Depot and
Speaker:OfficeMax, and staples that were regional and mom and pop shops.
Speaker:And people actually would go to offices and look in office
Speaker:supply cabinets and work with the office manager or business
Speaker:manager and say, Oh, it looks like you're short on paper, or
Speaker:you need more legal pads and whatnot, and they take an actual
Speaker:physical order and bring them back. Right.
Speaker:I'm way too young for that to know, though. Yeah,
Speaker:I know. Absolutely. I'm making this up. Way too young. Anyway.
Speaker:So that it even though I was a business salesperson selling a
Speaker:to a business, that was really a b2c Sell. Alright, and so I
Speaker:wanted to use as an example. So in my mind, a b2c sale is a
Speaker:situation where the buying process has very low risk, it
Speaker:can happen relatively quickly, it does not involve lots and
Speaker:lots of people. So you don't have a lot of buyer's remorse. I
Speaker:mean, you know, if those new pens that I recommended to the
Speaker:office manager weren't there to their liking, you know, wasn't a
Speaker:big expense, and it wasn't going to you know, bring the office to
Speaker:a standstill, right. And she didn't have to was a sheet back
Speaker:then she didn't have to get you know, permission from someone to
Speaker:buy those pens, right. She just had an art she had a a budget
Speaker:for buying pens and paper and she just did what she needed to
Speaker:do. And to keep supplies on hand. b2b. And it can occur in
Speaker:in non business environment involves a consultative complex
Speaker:sell, usually involving multiple people in the process. So I
Speaker:don't know if you remember buying your first home, but I
Speaker:remember buying my first home. And I remember that I did not
Speaker:buy that first home all by myself. I had parents involved
Speaker:and I had another friend involved in it with me to look
Speaker:at houses and of course I had a real estate agent and I had a
Speaker:bunch of other people along the way that were involved in this
Speaker:process. And so they I was closer to a b2b cell. And it
Speaker:took a long time, I wasn't like I was just setting up the
Speaker:checkout counter or making a decision on whether or not I
Speaker:wanted to indulge in that chocolate bar. All right, it was
Speaker:a complex decision, and it took time. And so to me, those are
Speaker:the differences are the nuances. And so that also means when
Speaker:you're looking at ROI, you have to understand that buying
Speaker:journey again, because usually in a b2b sale, which has been
Speaker:the majority of my life, you're not gonna get that ROI right
Speaker:away. Right? And you're not going to necessarily, although
Speaker:obviously, today, would you happy to see like, you know,
Speaker:products out there, a lot of plg products are very b2c in nature,
Speaker:you know, you click on the button, you do your trial, you
Speaker:click on the button and you buy, you know, it's like doing a
Speaker:sample in a grocery store. Now, that tasted pretty good, I'll
Speaker:buy that ice cream. But the point I'm trying to make an ROI
Speaker:is a little different animal. And so that is why we really
Speaker:talk about value impact and contribution for b2b. Because
Speaker:you can be looking at those as interim measures. Are we moving
Speaker:the needle? How far did we move it? And what did it take for us
Speaker:to move that needle? Even if we haven't gotten to the end deal
Speaker:yet? So I'll give an example. I spent 14 years in the
Speaker:semiconductor industry, and selling microcontrollers, and
Speaker:marketing, microcontrollers. And designing of a microcontroller
Speaker:into an automobile is a pretty long process. Right. And as a
Speaker:marketer, you have to be thinking about how can I tell
Speaker:whether I'm making a difference. And there are steps in the
Speaker:buying journey like simulation boards and evaluation boards,
Speaker:and samples, and mask sets and ROM coats. So if I can connect
Speaker:my work to those kinds of things, I can begin to show my
Speaker:contribution and impact, even if it's three years before that
Speaker:product is actually sell. Right? So that's an example that helped
Speaker:clarify the difference. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:And so I think, and I liked the way you You did it, because
Speaker:although I may not agree necessarily with the term b2b
Speaker:for buying a house, but it's kind of more the the complex
Speaker:sale versus the, my husband. Yeah, but, but definitely, that
Speaker:that concept of the complex sale, where it's not just an
Speaker:individual making the purchase, or an individual making the
Speaker:purpose purchase, maybe for a family, it's an individual
Speaker:that's maybe part of a decision team, or a purchase committee,
Speaker:or whatever your terminology is making a decision and taking
Speaker:into account a lot of different factors that go into it. And I
Speaker:do like your point about the length of the sales cycle. I've
Speaker:used that example as well. And you know, that sometimes the
Speaker:sales cycle can be five years, it might even be eight, eight or
Speaker:10 years. And it's it's fascinating to see how you know
Speaker:how, as a marketer, you need to be able to figure out how to add
Speaker:value at each of the steps at each of those waypoints along
Speaker:that along that, that sales cycle.
Speaker:Exactly. And that also has implications if you're going to
Speaker:be a value creator, you have to think differently about. So
Speaker:where are the markets that we can go in? and pursue which
Speaker:markets? Where can we get traction in the market for a new
Speaker:product quickly? Where can we grow share a wallet? Where can
Speaker:we expand our footprint inside a particular customer base? So
Speaker:there's all kinds of things that we can look at in terms of
Speaker:measures besides ROI?
Speaker:Yeah, well, and actually, I like your term as well. Roi is
Speaker:certainly a financial term. And in the end, it is about the
Speaker:money and we do have to make a profit. Or we do have to spend
Speaker:the money wisely if it's a nonprofit. But in reality,
Speaker:though, to what your point is, is that it's marketing
Speaker:performance measurement. And, and there are definitely a lot
Speaker:of challenges. And maybe we can talk a little bit about the
Speaker:challenges in a way how you're defining the b2b sale or the
Speaker:complex sale. So what kind of challenges do marketers have in
Speaker:measuring their performance for a complex sale?
Speaker:Figuring out where are those points that they should be
Speaker:connecting to? Right? Because you'll often if you're in a in
Speaker:some organizations, and you're very channel you have a lot of
Speaker:partners, right? So your your business has goes through a lot
Speaker:of partners, resellers value added resellers, distributors,
Speaker:whatever they might be wholesalers, you may not have
Speaker:visibility to the very end. So you really do need to look at
Speaker:well, where do we have a way to show that we have, we're moving
Speaker:the ball down the field, so to speak, because that's really to
Speaker:your point. Our job is to move the ball down the field. You
Speaker:know, that's our job and we may not actually make the touchdown
Speaker:in In some businesses, we might, but for the most part, we might
Speaker:not actually make the touchdown, which is why we wrote an article
Speaker:in LinkedIn recently about, you know, being marketing being a
Speaker:quarterback, and really having, you know, a passer rating, for
Speaker:example, or score. Because other people, the salespeople are
Speaker:really the receivers are running backs that are taking the ball
Speaker:over the touchline most of the time, right? Right, right. We
Speaker:don't, we don't often get to run it across the line. Now that
Speaker:does change again, in some businesses like plg, and others,
Speaker:but we can get much closer, very, you know, way closer to
Speaker:the stand. But then a lot of things around customer
Speaker:experience become pretty important in that in that.
Speaker:Yeah. Let me interrupt you there. Just for the audience.
Speaker:Can you define plg?
Speaker:Oh, product lead growth. So those are often software
Speaker:applications that really require hardly any sales people to touch
Speaker:it, in order to sell it. So I bet that I bet many of your
Speaker:folks are very familiar with PLDs, Hootsuite zoom, these are
Speaker:all PL G's, and almost you go in you, your trial is very
Speaker:intuitive, it doesn't take much to figure it out. You like it,
Speaker:you give them your money, and you're rockin, right. It doesn't
Speaker:require it doesn't require a salesperson, maybe a chat here
Speaker:and there. And, and you're kind of on your way.
Speaker:Yeah, you know, one thing you brought up to is, is marketing
Speaker:and sales. And I was going to use marketing versus sales. But
Speaker:I don't think that's really the right way to look at it. One of
Speaker:the things that I think is, is also critical. Now, most
Speaker:definitions of marketing or you know, don't include the selling
Speaker:function, and the the order taking function, so to speak,
Speaker:and to your point about the PL GS and being able to order
Speaker:online. But in reality, kind of if you if you take one step up
Speaker:above that, so if you move up another 10,000 feet, so to
Speaker:speak, then then sales and marketing are basically
Speaker:delivering messages. So if I send out an email blast or a
Speaker:direct mail, blast, I, it goes out, maybe I get some response,
Speaker:maybe I get somebody to you know, to hit on a chat button or
Speaker:something like that. And the level of interaction is
Speaker:relatively low. But in reality, the salesperson is sending
Speaker:messages as well, only that his messages are very interactive,
Speaker:his or hers. Messages are very interactive, because then they
Speaker:can respond immediately to questions and, and potentially
Speaker:even say a very similar message that might fit for one vertical,
Speaker:and then modify it slightly for another vertical and modify it
Speaker:again for another vertical. So in that sense, you know, you
Speaker:have marketing and selling functions delivering messages to
Speaker:the marketplace. And now the only difference though, is that
Speaker:typically, marketing doesn't take orders. So you do have a
Speaker:slight difference in the sales function. So when you were
Speaker:driving around and visiting those businesses and taking
Speaker:orders for legal pads, and pens, you were physically taking the
Speaker:order. Nowadays, it's kind of interesting, even for large
Speaker:kinds of contracts and complex types of things. Quite often
Speaker:they can be entered into on the on the internet, you just you
Speaker:just put them into a website and you've configured you know, your
Speaker:100 laptops, and here's what I'm going to buy and stuff like
Speaker:that. And so it's kind of fascinating to see now how over
Speaker:time the the the sales and marketing functions in terms of
Speaker:delivering messages and the quality of the messages versus
Speaker:potentially even the quantity of the messages and certainly the
Speaker:cost. And then lastly, how does that order actually get get
Speaker:taken? I don't know if you've seen that as well in what you're
Speaker:doing or if that's any different from what you're what you've
Speaker:seen with your clients?
Speaker:Well, you I have seen that. And I do think you're right, it is
Speaker:marketing and sales, hence my quarterback receiver running
Speaker:back metaphor. Um I think it's important to understand that the
Speaker:role of technology in today's buying journey. Right. And that
Speaker:there's, and we also know, I think it was from the Conference
Speaker:Board that X percent, I think it was like 60 something percent of
Speaker:the buying decision today or 50, something percent of the buying
Speaker:decision happens before you even talk to a salesperson, but in a
Speaker:complex consultative sell, eventually there is going to be
Speaker:that conversation. So there may be some technology things that
Speaker:happened before that conversation. And there may be
Speaker:some technology things that happen after that conversation.
Speaker:But sooner or later in a complex sale, someone's going to if
Speaker:there's if they're spending, you know 4568 Here are more money
Speaker:amount of money further on, you know, then they want to look at
Speaker:somebody, they want to know we are giving our money to you, or
Speaker:they should want to know they're giving you their money too. So,
Speaker:and especially if it's going to the level of, I'll call it risk,
Speaker:the level of risk, right? Because I think there has a lot
Speaker:to do with the process. If it's something that isn't going to,
Speaker:you know, cause your company to either go out of business clash,
Speaker:like it's a relationship, and if that chip doesn't really matter,
Speaker:and it's not going to make your your product, you know, if you
Speaker:don't get it, because you have a bad deal, or you chose the wrong
Speaker:supplier, or Well, that's one thing. But if it means that you
Speaker:end up without being able to make your product and you're
Speaker:lying down, and you're out of business, and you know, a few
Speaker:weeks, that's kind of a big problem. So I do think that is
Speaker:an important part of the process. And that is why is, in
Speaker:my mind, marketing sales have to be really good partners. And in
Speaker:the, in the old days, before our time, in the old days before our
Speaker:time, in the in, if you were reading business books, selling
Speaker:was a part of marketing those books. So it was marketing was
Speaker:leading the charge. And we somehow got that flipped
Speaker:somewhere in the last few decades. And I do think that we
Speaker:need to remember the role of marketing is to find, keep and
Speaker:grow the value of customers. And if we keep that in mind, that
Speaker:it's a pretty broad responsibility. Those, you have
Speaker:to have big shoulders.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, and one of the things too, is,
Speaker:after you kind of come up with recommendations on how to drive
Speaker:the business forward and marketing and and of course,
Speaker:selling by doing the analytics and doing the doing what needs
Speaker:to be done to really prove what needs to take place to improve
Speaker:the overall effectiveness of marketing and selling. Sometimes
Speaker:companies have a lot of trouble acting on that. Tell us what you
Speaker:found and some of the things that you've done to get around
Speaker:that?
Speaker:Well, I think that the most important thing that marketers
Speaker:can do a better job of is the plan that they create. I think
Speaker:it all starts with that because the plan demonstrates your
Speaker:alignment to the business, I don't care if you're b2b or b2c.
Speaker:And I find that many marketing plans and plans for all
Speaker:functions have real challenges. They're not measurable, they're
Speaker:not aligned to business outcomes. There's all kinds of
Speaker:issues. So I think the number one thing is to have a really
Speaker:good, well constructed plan that shows the connection between the
Speaker:things you're going to do and the money, you're going to
Speaker:invest on behalf of the company, or the organization, and the
Speaker:results that the company is trying to achieve. And it's very
Speaker:hard to do that, in that some of the planning structures that we
Speaker:have today. That's a first and foremost thing. So getting that
Speaker:right, and it becomes a real, it serves as your roadmap, right,
Speaker:your blueprint for what you're going to do. And that is a
Speaker:starting point. Here we are on the verge of another calendar
Speaker:year. And people are in planning mode. And I bet you've seen
Speaker:this, you've never done this, but I bet you've seen this, you
Speaker:need to submit your budget for next year. And so you open up an
Speaker:Excel worksheet, and then you open up last year's Excel
Speaker:worksheet. And you copy the things from the last year's
Speaker:Excel worksheet and you put it in this year's Excel worksheet,
Speaker:and you change some dates, maybe some events and whatnot, and
Speaker:maybe you take your costs up along, you know, 10% or whatnot
Speaker:to up for inflation or whatnot. And maybe you know, you need a
Speaker:couple people. So you take up your talent, and you hit total.
Speaker:Follow your plan, right.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah. And that that plan is not a plan. And, and I talk
Speaker:about that a lot. That is that's a budget. That is not
Speaker:the budget. That's the plan. Yeah, yeah. And people are doing
Speaker:do that. And then they go put a plan together for their budget.
Speaker:Right. So in my in our point of view, you should understand what
Speaker:the what will be success for the business? How will success be
Speaker:measured for the business? In one year, or 18 months, whatever
Speaker:the time horizon is, what does the leadership team expect you
Speaker:to do to contribute to that? And how will they know you did and
Speaker:if you start there, you'll be on a much better path to being able
Speaker:to show your value be more effective, be more efficient,
Speaker:you know, understand what data you need. It just has numerous
Speaker:implications.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. It's so funny that you bring that up and, and
Speaker:I spend a lot of time and in my last book about talking about,
Speaker:you know, the corporate plan, the annual plan, the strategic
Speaker:plan, a tactical plan. I remember when I was a lowly
Speaker:product manager, you noticed, oh, we got to think
Speaker:strategically here and, and in reality, you know, to me, a
Speaker:strategic plan You know, you're looking three to five years out,
Speaker:whatever, where am I going to be in three to five years? And I'm
Speaker:saying, Well, what are we going to do strategically this
Speaker:weekend? totally got it wrong. But it's also interesting. I
Speaker:mean, you bring up a good point, we've got a call tomorrow with
Speaker:the CEO of, of a one of our prospects. And we've been doing
Speaker:our due diligence ahead of time and speaking with the various
Speaker:other folks that are involved in, in the decision. And one of
Speaker:the things is they have a growth goal, like everybody, we all
Speaker:have growth goals, we all have want to make a certain amount of
Speaker:whatever revenue and sales are a unit sold, or whatever the right
Speaker:target is. And what's interesting is the, their their
Speaker:target, based on just what we've seen so far, is there's no way
Speaker:they're ever going to hit it. And because we can, we know
Speaker:ahead of time, how effective their marketing is, and what
Speaker:their, what their plan is for how much money they want to
Speaker:spend on marketing, and that they'll never get there. It's
Speaker:just not possible. And, you know, and unfortunately, we as
Speaker:kind of the, in many cases, the the the evil accountants, we
Speaker:have to give them the bad news that says, you know, that's a
Speaker:great plan, that's a really good opportunity, but you're not
Speaker:going to be able to get there, given what you think you're
Speaker:you're going to try and do and, and so I really appreciate your
Speaker:points there, it makes a lot of sense in terms of the definition
Speaker:of a plan and the definition of a budget and stuff like that.
Speaker:We just did a post on outcome based budgeting and why you want
Speaker:to do that compared to doing traditional subaccount
Speaker:budgeting. And we've gotten some really good feedback on that.
Speaker:And I think if more functions within an organization would
Speaker:think about the outcomes and budget, that way, they wouldn't
Speaker:be able to have different kinds of conversations as we face what
Speaker:might be challenging, you know, economic times, and it's coming
Speaker:down, and we're already facing inflation, there's a lot of talk
Speaker:about what that means. And you and I've been around long enough
Speaker:to know that that oftentimes, results in someone coming along,
Speaker:whether you're in marketing or another group that says, you
Speaker:know, I think we're going to need to tighten the belt.
Speaker:I've never heard that before.
Speaker:No, never. We need are always been good. It's always been a
Speaker:feast, no ban. But, but in the innocence situation, when that
Speaker:does occur or could occur. If you have an outcome based
Speaker:budget, you can really engage in a very different kind of
Speaker:conversation than if you do that budget with the Excel sheet.
Speaker:Because the CFO or whomever is coming along to have this, I'm
Speaker:here, I'm from XYZ, and I'm here to help you with your budgeting.
Speaker:In they said we know you need to cut your budget by 10%. Let me
Speaker:show you where you can do that. Yes, what you end up with in
Speaker:that scenario, if you have an outcome based budget, you can
Speaker:have a different conversation that says, I'm a team player,
Speaker:I'm happy to take my my budget down, I know what we need that
Speaker:we need to do that. Let's talk about where we can do that. But
Speaker:most importantly, let's also talk about the impact that's
Speaker:going to have on the end result, how we're going to have to
Speaker:change and be real, change our expectations of the end result.
Speaker:And speaking to your conversation tomorrow,
Speaker:yeah, and especially in marketing, and especially in
Speaker:sales, we we've worked with a company and the CMO, and we had
Speaker:done the the ROI analysis and the connecting marketing
Speaker:activities to incremental sales. And, and the CEO said, Hey, we
Speaker:want to cut, you know, 5 million out of your budget, and she has
Speaker:absolutely no problem at all glad to help out. But let's take
Speaker:20 million out of our sales budget to because that's the
Speaker:impact. And he said, you know, and he basically said, Ah, but
Speaker:how do you know that? And he says, Well, here's then the
Speaker:report, and here's how it all connects together? And and then
Speaker:she said, you know, and the budget X move to the next
Speaker:office. She was able to keep her budget.
Speaker:Exactly. Yeah. That's a great story. I love it.
Speaker:So yeah, well, Laura, thank you so much. Is there anything else?
Speaker:Or is there any one message that you'd like to get across? Before
Speaker:we close?
Speaker:I think a couple I'll close a couple. One is marketing is the
Speaker:engine of growth. And if you want to grow, you have to invest
Speaker:in marketing, but marketers have to be responsible for that
Speaker:investment and be able to show how the money that they are
Speaker:being entrusted with is going to help the company achieve its its
Speaker:growth targets, right achieve growth. So it's a really is a
Speaker:partnership. So that means you need to really, truly be a value
Speaker:creator. It's not just about more leads, or more deals
Speaker:because you can actually sell yourself out of business. We
Speaker:know that right? We've seen companies do that.
Speaker:Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Laura, thank
Speaker:you so much and Okay, why don't you tell us where we can reach
Speaker:you and where we can get that report.
Speaker:Or so I'm welcome hearing from anyone and my email is Laura p.
Speaker:So first name, last initial PSM Patterson at Vision edge
Speaker:marketing.com. Feel free to reach out to me, if you can go
Speaker:to the website, you can find the report at Vision edge
Speaker:marketing.com and pm slash Benchmark Report. I'm sorry,
Speaker:dash benchmark report as 2022 Dash culture leadership value
Speaker:creators. So we'll wait let's make sure we get that in where
Speaker:they can see it and click on it. And we we had has been very well
Speaker:received and it is making people think about the culture and I
Speaker:think culture is been at the top of mine over the last couple of
Speaker:years for sure.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. And again, that's vision edge marketing.com
Speaker:And they will put the link specifically in the show notes
Speaker:for to be able to download that report. I've read through it and
Speaker:I really liked the breakout of the valley value creators the
Speaker:sales enablers and I can't remember the last one Hey
Speaker:producers, campaign producers that really a good way to to
Speaker:position where different marketing teams are in their in
Speaker:their journeys as they as they try and grow the business. With
Speaker:that. Please stay tuned for many more videos in this series of
Speaker:the backstory on marketing, please visit marketing machine
Speaker:dot pro relevant.com to download the first chapter of my book and
Speaker:get other episodes. Other episodes. Other excerpts, if I
Speaker:can get the word out. And don't forget to sign up for more
Speaker:episodes. And if you like this one, please give it and review
Speaker:it with five stars. Laura, thank you so much and thank you to the
Speaker:audience.
Speaker:My pleasure. Really appreciate being a part of the
Speaker:conversation.
