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Hosted by Steve Phipps of Wayfind Marketing, The Growth-Minded Marketing Podcast simplifies marketing for B2B CEOs ready to grow with confidence. Each episode offers real-world strategies, step-by-step coaching, and inspiring CEO interviews—all designed to help you align your marketing with your business goals, stop wasting time and money, and scale without the stress. If you’re a growth-minded leader tired of vague advice and underperforming tactics, this is your next step.
AnnieLaurie: What's the hardest part of
marketing for most CEOs and small teams?
Steve: First, it's figuring out what
to do for marketing in the first place.
And second, it's actually doing the
marketing activities consistently.
AnnieLaurie: And that's usually because
there's no plan or framework to guide
your marketing activities and investments.
Steve: So you flounder and
get mediocre results at best.
So instead of building momentum, you're
stuck spinning your wheels today.
We're showing you how to change that
with a simple, strategic way forward.
Hi, I'm Steve Phipps.
AnnieLaurie: I'm Annie Laurie Walters.
Welcome to the Growth
Minded Marketing Podcast.
Over the past six episodes, we've
walked through the guide marketing
framework, one Step at a Time.
We have all of these episodes
listed in the show notes.
You can go back and even start with
our very first episode, which is an
overview of the entire framework to
get the context, because today we're
diving into frequently asked questions
about how to apply this in the
day-to-day operations of your business.
Steve: Because learning this framework
is the first step and the challenge
is applying it, especially when you're
juggling all the other hats that you're
wearing as a CEO or a business owner.
AnnieLaurie: So in this episode,
we're hitting pause and we're gonna
review we're gonna get practical.
And we are going to try to help you
put this into practice in your business.
Steve: So whether you're brand new to the
Guide Marketing Framework, or trying to
lead your team through it, this episode
will help you turn strategy into action.
AnnieLaurie: And just to be clear, you
don't need a big team, a fancy tech stack
or a six-figure budget to make the Guide
Marketing Framework work for your company.
Steve: What you do need is clarity,
focus, and a bias for action.
And that's what this episode is about.
It's helping you move forward
with what you have, where you are.
AnnieLaurie: So let's jump in.
We're breaking this
episode into five parts.
One for each step of the Guide framework,
we will talk about the roadblocks that
we see, how to work through them and
address some of the most common questions
that we've received for each one of those
letters in the Guide Marketing Framework.
Steve: Let's get started at
the beginning with G, generate
your story and your strategy.
AnnieLaurie: Okay, Steve, here's one.
We get a lot.
What if I'm not sure who
our ideal client really is?
Where do I start?
Steve: Great question and couple
of of ways to answer that.
Number one is pay attention and
listen to your current customers.
One of the things that I encourage
people to do and that we will do
for clients sometimes is, is have
conversations with them, interview them.
Ask them questions.
Why did you choose to do business
with us over a competitor?
What problems do we help you solve?
Why do you continue to
do business with us?
There's a handful of questions that
you can ask to gain insight into.
What they're looking for, and you can
translate that into other customers.
Now the other thing I'll, I'll,
um, mention here is the idea of
building out a marketing persona.
The terms change marketing avatar,
ICP, ideal client profile, but that's
put together a written description
of who your ideal customer is.
So Annie Laurie, its things as you
know, what are the demographics?
Because we work with a lot of B2B
companies, what is their job title?
What are their job responsibilities?
What are their priorities and goals?
What are the questions that they're
asking when they're trying to solve
the problem that you solve as it
relates to finding a company or product
or service to solve that problem?
And so when you begin putting
these things together, this written
description of who they are, job
description, et cetera, then.
You pair that with more of the
softer things of what they're
telling you, the answers, they're
giving you their motivations.
You pair that together and that gives
you a much better understanding, which
can help inform what your messaging
looks like, the campaigns you use,
the tactics that you develop to
reach them to start creating these
conversations in the first place.
AnnieLaurie: Steve, how
does Understanding Your
Story inform your strategy?
Steve: So let me define
story in this context.
We all live in story.
If you think about story is a
communication device that helps
us make sense of the world.
A simple story structure is
problem, solution success.
We have a problem.
Here's what the solution is,
here's what success looks like.
If you've ever read StoryBrand
by Donald Miller, if you've ever
studied The Hero's Journey by Joseph
Campbell, there, there are a number
of these story frameworks out there.
And so it's putting it into the context
of the story that your customer is
living in as it relates to what you
do, the problems that you solve.
And so the crux of every
story is the key problem.
If you think about, if you take a story
like, uh, Harry Potter, you know, the
problem is you have Voldemort who is
basically trying to take over everything,
and so Harry has to go fight him.
So that's, there's lots of different
problems that come up as a result of
that, but your customers have a problem.
And so the story is about them.
It's not about you.
You're a part of the story.
And so as you begin to understand
your customer's problems.
Then how what you do helps
solve their problems, create
opportunities, create wins.
Now you can start
communicating to them clearly.
So if, if we think about these
two pieces of who is my customer?
How do I understand them?
What's the problem they're facing?
And then we think about the solution
that we bring to the table and how
we are positioned to help them.
We take on the role of a guide.
So in, in the context of, I'm just
gonna use Harry Potter for an example.
If you've not read the stories or
watch the movies, they're great.
Go watch 'em.
Go read the books.
Mm-hmm.
Go read the books.
Dumbledore, is , the
main good guy, wizard.
Uh, he's, he's the most powerful wizard
on the good guy side, if you will.
He is one of the guides
who helps Harry ultimately.
Move forward and win.
So you are the guide in the story,
and when you understand your customer,
you understand the problem, then you
can begin to clearly communicate how
what you do solves their problems.
I've, I've referenced Story
Brands, a fantastic framework.
I encourage you read the book, watch
Donald Miller, some of his presentations.
He walks through the framework because
that is a, a way to put your messaging
into a structure that just makes sense.
And ultimately, that's what we want.
We wanna be able to communicate
to our buyers in a way that is
clear and compelling, builds trust,
helps them understand how you
help them avoid failure, achieve
success, and move forward in that
journey with you as the best guide.
So selling your product, your service.
Getting that clarity between , who your
customer is, problems they're facing,
and then putting it into words that
makes it easy for them to understand.
AnnieLaurie: So how do I know if my
story and my marketing strategy are
actually aligned with my business goals?
Steve: One of the first ways that you can
tell whether or not your strategy, your
story, your business goals are actually
aligned is does your current marketing,
does your current messaging win customers?
Does it win, generate leads?
If you're tracking metrics, then you
should have some insight into that.
And there's other factors at play,
but that's a big factor, especially
as it relates to your, your website.
If you're not sure, if you don't have
clear metrics one way or another, I.
The approach that you could take is have
somebody who doesn't know what you do.
Go to your website and see if they
can figure out in less than 10
seconds, what you do, why it matters,
and what they need to do next.
If they can't answer that, those
questions, if they can't give you a clear
answer of what you do and how you help
people, there's a really good chance
that your messaging and your strategy
and your business goals are not aligned.
And that's why when we're working
with somebody to develop a messaging
strategy, we work with them to
make sure they have clarity about
who is their target audience.
So starting with who are they,
get a written description.
Then making sure that the messaging,
talking about the problem, talking
about the solution, talking about
what success looks like, talking about
the steps they have to take to move
forward, talking about what happens
if they don't solve the problem.
We make sure that those are in alignment
with the customer and we make sure that
it's in alignment with the company.
The way that they approach
business, there needs to be that
authenticity that aligns with the,
the company's values and their brand.
So that what's being said is in alignment
with who they are and how they do
business and with the customer's needs.
When you do that, that then is going to
maximize the opportunities that you have
from a sales and marketing perspective
because you're educating, you're
clear, you're demonstrating capability.
I.
Helps establish trust and that increases
the, the percentages of people who
move forward in the buyer's journey
with you and ultimately helps you
move forward in your business goals,
which is of course one of those as
it relates to sales and marketing,
grow and scale your, your business.
AnnieLaurie: I can think of one
way to tell if your strategy is not
aligned with your business goals,
and that is if your marketing team
and your sales team are operating in
silos and not talking to each other.
Steve, talk to us about that
aspect of this for a second.
Steve: In the buyer's journey, as folks
come in from different ways, means and
methods , and they're interacting with
content, that marketing is created
and they get handed off at some
point to someone on the sales team.
Sales and marketing are not aligned,
that's gonna create confusion because at
some point, marketing is saying something
and sales is saying something different.
And when those two groups operate in
silos, they function independently.
And so there's not a lot of communication.
So marketing does their
thing, sales does their thing.
And just by the nature of not having that
alignment of not functioning as a revenue
team, there's gonna be inconsistencies.
And we all know that confusion is never
good when it comes to sales and marketing.
We're trying to help educate a
buyer about what we do, how we help
solve their problems, how we do it
differently than our competitors.
So that misalignment is gonna
ripple out in terms of the
impact that that's gonna have.
Because again, they're gonna be telling
an inconsistent story oftentimes, and
that's gonna lead to inconsistent results.
AnnieLaurie: Steve, what's a good
KPI or metric to track to make sure
that your marketing strategy and your
business goals are staying aligned?
Steve: Well, I'm gonna make the assumption
here that the business goals are
increasing revenue by certain percent.
And so that's where it's then
backing it up into how many new
customers do you need to bring on
board in whatever the timeframe is.
So if we're talking about a 12 month
timeframe and your increase is, say
20%, 10%, whatever it might be, how
many new customers does that represent?
What's the average revenue per customer?
It's also accounting for your churn.
How many of your existing
customers do you anticipate losing?
Because you've gotta replace
that to just stay even.
That needs to be accounted for in the
number of new customers, but then you
back it up into the sales process.
What's your closing rate?
So how, if you have a 50% closing
rate and you need 20 new clients,
well you need 40 proposals to go
out and then you keep backing it up.
How many leads do you need in
order to get to the proposals?
How many website visitors do you need?
Or how many, you know, initial
leads and prospects do you need to
get to the leads and the proposals?
So , it's taking that initial number,
backing it up, and then looking at what
that entails over the course of the year.
AnnieLaurie: Shifting just a little
bit, there's often confusion surrounding
the difference between a marketing
strategy and a marketing plan.
Can you please help us understand
how these two things have
very different functions?
Steve: To answer that question of
plan versus strategy, I'm gonna use
the example of taking a road trip.
Your initial step is
where are you going to go?
How are you going to get there?
And you start thinking about where are we?
What's it gonna take to get there?
What's the investment?
How long do we want to take to get there?
Who's gonna go?
That's that strategy.
Strategy is figuring out where do
we want to go as a business as it
relates to growing our revenue?
That also gets into figuring
out who is our target audience.
There's a dynamic aspect of
your strategy, but it doesn't
shift and change constantly.
That's given you that
overall sense of direction.
Why are we going in this direction?
What's the overall mission
we're trying to achieve as it
relates to growing our revenue?
So that gets into the why when
we start getting into the plan.
Now, I should also say the strategy
is also where you're gonna be
thinking about your core messaging.
'cause again, these are the things that
aren't gonna be constantly changing.
Again, there's some, some
tweaking that happens there, but
the more tactical is the plan.
So it's the how and the when.
So strategy is a lot of the,
the, the why and the what.
But your plan is getting into,
okay, how are we going to do this?
What is the process?
When are we going to do this?
Who is going to do this?
So this is where we start putting
the, the strategy into action.
Okay?
So if we're going on this road trip, but
we're gonna drive from Memphis to, uh,
Colorado, well, who's gonna be driving?
Who's taking care of the meals?
Who is organizing where we're gonna stay?
Who's determining the activities?
When are those things going to happen?
What's the day we're gonna leave?
What's the day we're coming back?
What's the day that we're going up
to Rocky Mountain National Park?
What's the day that we're gonna do X?
What's the day we're gonna do?
Y So strategy, big picture y
and what plans are gonna be more
around the how and the when?
So the tactics, these are gonna
change, uh, more quickly because
again, the marketplace is changing.
And so the tactics that may have worked
yesterday may not work today, but that's
the general distinction between the two.
AnnieLaurie: And that all goes back
to the question that I asked you a few
minutes ago about alignment, right?
Like, are, are the marketing
strategy or these activities that
we're doing to market the business,
are they aligned with goals?
We see sometimes businesses just doing
marketing just sort of in its own
little siloed vacuum and getting caught
up in the trends or getting caught
up in vanity metrics or whatever.
The, the new shiny object of the marketing
world is on social media and, and it's
not really connected to a strategy.
It's what I hear you often say
is spaghetti marketing, throwing
something against the wall
just to see what's gonna stick.
And we know that's not effective.
So we start with a story and a
strategy, but then the strategy
has to turn into some tactics.
So how do I go about building
out that tactical marketing plan?
You know, things like blogs, social media,
email marketing, that sort of thing.
Steve: This is where it's important
to understand, who's your customer,
and understanding the process they
go through when they are buying.
And one of the things that, that we
take into consideration when we're
thinking about a customer's personas,
one of our client's personas is
are they a first time customer?
Are they brand new to what you do?
And, educating themselves about the
basics in that case, we'd call them
greenfield, or are they a switcher?
Are they somebody who has
experience with your competitors?
They're familiar with the types
of services that you provide.
For whatever reason, they're
looking for a new partner.
The reason why that's important
is because their, their journeys
are gonna look slightly different
or in some cases vastly different.
But each of them has questions at
different stages, and so when we,
we think about the tactics, it's
thinking about the steps or if we
go back to the sales process, what
are the steps that your customers go
through to make a buying decision?
Something triggers, they're
looking for what you do or a
solution that you may provide.
Where are they gathering that information?
They're going to Google.
They're going to perplexity.ai.
They're going to Chad t.
They're educating themselves.
They're starting to gather information.
Now, there's also a place in here too,
because a big part of sales is outbound.
Efforts and activities.
So it could be that your outreach to them
or some sort of an outbound marketing
campaign is the trigger that gets
that person considering what you do.
So there's a variety of different
triggers here, but it's thinking
through what are those triggers?
What is it that's causing
them to look for information?
Where are they gathering information?
We know people go to Google some
people go to Reddit and some of the
different chat forms and they're
asking questions, who have you used?
They're asking the
questions of their peers.
So that's where the tactics are
driven by where are your buyers
going to get their information?
There's this, distinction of what's
called inbound marketing, and that's
doing what you need to do on your website.
Content optimizing it
for the search engines.
Sometimes that involves pay-per-click
advertising to be visible when somebody
is searching for what you do or they're
asking questions that you can answer.
And so that's the whole process
of search engine optimization,
creating articles, et cetera.
And then there's outbound marketing,
which again, could be any number
of different outbound tactics
that could be leveraging LinkedIn.
Some people will use
cold outbound emailing.
It could be some sort of paid
advertising that is reaching
people to create awareness.
So again, there's any number of,
of combinations there, but it's
make a list of all the tactics.
Make a list of where they're going.
Are they on social media?
Are they going to LinkedIn?
And it begins by identifying where
are they gathering information?
So.
I'll give you a for instance here.
'cause again, there's a lot
of different use cases here.
, Let's go with an inbound scenario.
I'm just gonna use the example
of,, bookkeeping services,
for small businesses.
If you're a CEO and you were looking for
bookkeeping services and maybe you've
been doing it in-house and it's time to
outsource it, let's say you're looking
for bookkeeping and you're looking for
CPA services, where are you gonna go?
Who are you gonna ask questions?
Or of whom are you going to ask questions?
My guess is if you're in a peer group,
like, Vistage or somebody on your
teams in a networking group like
BNI, you're gonna ask people there.
So that's where a strategy can be.
Making sure that you have referral
sources, so that when somebody's
asking that you are who they're
going to refer and recommend.
If you have a bookkeeping and CPA
business, maybe that's being a
part of a BNI networking group.
So that's part of your strategy.
But also if you're the CEO looking for
that service, you're probably gonna end
up on a search engine at some point, even
if that's just to verify and validate
companies that have been referred to you.
Or it could be that you're looking
for somebody that has experience
in your industry specifically.
So you go in and you search for,
bookkeepers, and CPAs who work
with, engineering companies.
Let's say you have an
engineering company and.
You're gonna find companies
that are gonna pop up.
So you're gonna start asking questions,
you're gonna look at their websites,
you're gonna start making comparisons,
and maybe there's one of those websites.
You read some articles, they
answer questions intelligently.
You like what you've seen.
Maybe there's a video of
some of the folks there.
So you get a chance to watch the video.
So now we've interacted with that site
was optimized for the search engines.
They have really good content.
They're informing you with content.
Their website, they upgraded their online
presence because it was, you're able
to find the answers that you needed.
They've got a clear sales process because
they make it clear what to do next.
So you take that next step, maybe you
schedule a call with them, and then
ultimately you're gonna make a decision.
Maybe them compare to another.
So, and maybe what happens is
you get to that website, maybe
you don't do anything initially.
Maybe you read a couple of articles,
but you're not ready to schedule a call.
And then you leave the website.
But then over the next few days, you
start to see that you're getting.
Ads popping up on different
websites and you're seeing ads
for that particular business.
So now they're using retargeting
ads to stay in front of you, to,
to keep that awareness going.
So maybe you end up back at their
website, you schedule a call.
So, again, I could keep talking because
there are a lot of different tactics
and there are a lot of different
ways to put the tactics together
based on who your audience is and
how your business is structured, the
size of your business, what's already
working for you, what's not working.
So really it's one of those things.
I, I would say if you have questions about
that, take our assessment, feel free,
you could reach out and schedule a call
with us and we can have a conversation.
Because there's a lot of different
ways that can get used and tailored
based on each company's position,
goals, target audiences, et cetera.
AnnieLaurie: Okay.
So once you've got a clear strategy
in place and you know what you're
trying to say, the next step is making
sure people can actually hear you.
Steve: That brings us to the second
step in the guided marketing framework.
Upgrade your online presence
because your message, your story,
doesn't matter if your online
presence is working against you.
AnnieLaurie: So let's dig in to what
this really looks like and what to focus
on if your website and digital presence
feel more like a liability than an asset.
Okay, Steve, so first question up with
regard to upgrading your online presence.
How do I know if my website is
actually helping my company grow?
Steve: One is, are you getting leads?
Look at the results that
you're, you're getting from it.
A lot of times what happens
is a website was built several
years ago, maybe it looks nice.
But the question is, is
it really doing anything?
If you're getting leads, fantastic.
Could you be getting more if
you're not getting any leads?
Well, that's a problem if
you're hoping that your website
is going to generate leads.
For some people, they just want a
static website that just validates that
they exist, and in that case, they're
not worried about generating leads.
If that's your situation, I don't
know that we're gonna add a whole
lot of value to you at this stage
if you're content with that.
But if you're looking for more,
then I would encourage you go take
a look at your website and you can
run a couple of quick tests here.
One's called the grunt test so that the
idea is if you were a caveman and went to
the website, could you figure out within
five to 10 seconds about that website,
about the company, what do they do?
Why would it matter to
you and what to do next?
So run that test of your website.
Now you know what you do,
so imagine that you don't.
Is that clear?
Have somebody that you know who doesn't
know what you do, go to your website, see
if they can answer that question in those
three questions in five to 10 seconds.
The other test is the you versus
we test, and that is does your
content focus more on you?
In other words, are there more
instances of the words and the phrases
we, us and our than there are you.
So talking to your customer, you want
more instances of you and your talking
to your customers, talking to your buyers
than we and our, if that's reversed,
if it's more about us, that's a really
strong sign that your website's not
helping you grow, or at least it's not
helping you grow as much as it could.
Now, the other thing too is when was
the last time you updated your website?
If you haven't updated your website
in several years, there's a strong
reason to think that it's just sitting
there and it's not helping you grow.
AnnieLaurie: Okay, here's
another question that we get.
A lot company comes, they have
decent website traffic, but
they're not getting leads.
So you said that one of the main ways
you can know if your website is helping
you grow is, are you getting leads?
Well, what about the business owner
who's looking at their traffic and
scratching their head wondering why this
traffic isn't actually producing leads?
What's broken?
Steve: It could be any
number of things, but.
I would go back to the answer
that I just gave to the previous
question, and that's take a look.
Is the messaging clear?
Can people figure out what
you do, why it matters?
But then I would look at it from
the perspective of how easy is it to
navigate your website if, if you have
a clear understanding of who your
customer is and the questions that
they're asking when they're in buying
mode, can they easily find the answers
to those questions on your website?
Or is that information hidden
somewhere or is it not there at all?
Uh, you know, again, I've mentioned
this, uh, this book and this
framework before, but they ask
you answer by Marcus Sheridan.
It's a sales and inbound marketing
framework that, that we leverage.
I'm a certified coach for
that particular framework.
He mentions in his book that 80% of
the buyer's journey happens before,
a prospect reaches out to a company.
And so if people can't get the
information they need to answer their
questions on your website, that's a
big reason why you're not getting leads.
There's nothing there that's
building trust or credibility.
The other thing is, if your site's
hard to navigate, if it loads really
slow, if it's noisy and messy has
a bad user experience, all of those
are good indicators, and reasons why
your site's not generating leads.
AnnieLaurie: I'll add to that
and say from an SEO perspective,
you can get a lot of traffic.
But it's not the right kind of traffic.
So you really need to understand
how to use Google Analytics search
console or have someone on your
team who can look at that for you.
Have a trusted agency that
can look at that for you.
Hire a coach to teach you how to do that.
Because I would say that if a company
truly is getting a decent amount of
traffic and it's not converting that a
key place to check would be what kind
of traffic, what, what keywords are
bringing the traffic to your website,
because those tools will tell you that.
Like we can look in tools like Google
Search Console and uh, Semrush is a
tool that we use, and it will tell
you the percentage of traffic that a
keyword is bringing to your website
that Intel is really key in helping you
converting more leads from your website
is understanding what are the search
terms that's bringing you the traffic.
What are the sources of your traffic?
Is it coming from social media?
Is it coming from your newsletter?
Is it coming from even a
podcast or a YouTube channel?
Where's the traffic coming from?
Why are you getting traffic?
You gotta know that to really begin to
untangle the knot of why is all this
traffic not producing quality leads?
Steve: And you know, one simple
example is where geographically
is your traffic coming from?
If you do business in a particular
region, but most of your traffic is
coming from outside of that area, or
even if your website is generating
a lot of international traffic,
but you only do business in the us,
that could be a problem.
AnnieLaurie: Okay.
Steve, what about the listener who
may have just completed a brand new
website redesign and they aren't
seeing any difference in their traffic
or their leads or their conversions,
and they're wondering what happened?
Why is this not working?
Steve: Yeah.
We see this scenario, a fair bit actually.
And so a couple of things here.
Number one, there are professionals,
graphic designers, folks who
are very capable of building
websites that look really good.
However, that does not always equate
to a website that also drives traffic
and generates leads and customers.
I've seen a number of websites that
looked great images that sounded good.
The language, the verbiage was
clever, but it wasn't clear.
And so in those instances, again, people
left, , because it was unclear, or in
some cases maybe the website was built
on a template that just looked generic.
We've recently worked with someone
who just came on board as a
client a couple months ago, , and
they were in this . Scenario.
And unfortunately they
were really held captive.
Because the company built their
website and was doing the marketing,
they didn't, they weren't getting
the results they were wanting.
In some cases you have an existing
website changes, and updates can be
made to that existing site to get
better results, whether it's reworking,
layouts, updating messaging, doing
things to optimize it for the search
engines that weren't done initially.
So it doesn't always mean that
you have to redo your website,
redesign a website, especially
if you just had it done recently.
But in some cases, that is the right
choice because you might be limited
in terms of what can actually be
done with your current website.
Unfortunately there are times
where, yeah, it the best move is to.
Get a new website, redesign it,
and there are times where your
existing website can be repurposed
or revamped some so that you do start
getting more traffic and more leads.
AnnieLaurie: Okay.
Let's talk about social media, especially
within the context of B2B marketing.
, What should B2B companies be focusing
in on with regard to social media?
Steve: So the, the default answer,
especially for B2B companies is LinkedIn,
but even there, the question I'll ask is,
where are your buyers now again, LinkedIn.
'cause that's for business and
professional networking, is a
logical place for most B2B companies.
In some cases being on some of the
other social networks makes sense.
Maybe it is Facebook,
maybe it's Instagram.
Maybe it's even TikTok again, depends
on who's your target audience?
Where are they spending time online?
Are they on TikTok?
Are they on Facebook?
Are they gonna interact
with your content there?
So LinkedIn's the default
answer, but then taking into
consideration where your buyers are.
And then two, if you're doing
this in-house, what do you
have the capacity to manage?
It would be better to be
active on, say, LinkedIn.
Pick one social channel that you
can do a really good job of, rather
than doing a mediocre halfway
job across four social networks.
AnnieLaurie: You know, that
makes really good sense.
And one thing that I see a lot when I am
just scrolling social media, different
businesses, I follow the ones that are
just posting the typical branded content.
Those posts really don't get much traffic.
How should we approach it?
Like, if the goal is to get some traffic,
to get some interaction on a social
media post, it's pretty clear that the
typical, you know, branded squares or
you know, stock photograph thing , that's
not really gonna get someone to comment.
Especially thinking about LinkedIn,
what kind of posts get people talking?
Steve: So on LinkedIn, it's not just the
post,, it's seen LinkedIn , holistically.
First and foremost, even before
thinking about your content, is
your profile, is it optimized?
Does the messaging on your profile,
your headline you're about, does it help
your buyers who look at your profile,
understand the problems that you solve?
If it doesn't start there, once you
get your profile updated, a good
headshot, a good profile banner,
then when you think about the content
that you're posting, is it content
that answers your buyer's questions?
Is it sharing your perspective on
things that matter to your audience?
So you can get into some thought
leadership type content, and
it's using a variety of formats.
As I mentioned, thinking
about LinkedIn holistically.
There's also the aspect
of building your network.
So especially there's an
opportunity for CEOs to.
As well as salespeople on LinkedIn
to connect with your target audience.
So you go back to having a clearly
defined persona to give you that
guidance where you intentionally
connect with those types of folks.
You use Sales Navigator to filter
and create lists, but you reach out
and connect with those folks so that
over the course of time they have
the opportunity to see your content.
LinkedIn's a , long play.
You're building trust and credibility,
you're building visibility, and
there's different tactics and different
approaches, and a lot of different
systems and strategies that people
implement on LinkedIn, which we don't
have the bandwidth to go into here.
But just suffice it to say that
you want your profile optimized.
You wanna think about who you're trying
to connect with, and you want your
content to answer buyer's questions.
AnnieLaurie: Last thing on social media.
Speaking of systems, what's your advice
for the CEO or the marketer who is
juggling a lot of different priorities?
How can they stay on top of social
media and not let it be something
that they push to the back burner?
What's a real practical
strategy you could give them?
Steve: So for the CEO, who's wanting
to post on LinkedIn, or if it's the
marketing manager, whoever's doing
it, the first thing is commit to it.
Make the commitment that you're
going to do three posts per week,
two posts per week, whatever.
Pick a number start so you start
getting some level of consistency.
Number two, you can use tools like
Chat g PT to help brainstorm this.
Think through, what's the content
that you're actually gonna post?
What are you gonna post about?
And then number three is schedule time
on your calendar to create the content.
And again, if you're using a tool like
chat, GPT, you can use educate it.
Don't just take what it comes up
with at first blush, educate it,
edit it, put your voice to it.
Uh, but you can use that to give
you something to start working with.
And then schedule it out.
You can schedule it directly in LinkedIn.
You can use tools like Buffer
and, and other social media
posting tools to schedule it out.
But if you batch it, just
do it in one fell swoop.
You could generate and give yourself
an hour, maybe two hours, and
you could generate, you know, a
month's worth of LinkedIn posts
and then get it scheduled out.
AnnieLaurie: Okay, Steve, let's
move on to the I part of our
guide marketing framework that
stands for Inform with Content.
There are a lot of different questions
that we get with regard to content
marketing and types of content and all
the things you can possibly imagine, but
one I wanna talk about first is, should
we talk about pricing on our website?
And I know that's kind of a real deep
cut to start with, but I think it's
an important one because that is one
that folks oftentimes feel a little,
uh, weird about like, am I supposed to
just put all the info on the website?
Am I just supposed to
lay it all out there?
And I think you would say, yes,
you should tell us more about that.
Steve: I would say yes within context.
So.
Let's step back and think
about when you are the buyer.
So let's go back to the example,
that we used earlier of, if you're
looking for bookkeeping, CPA
services for your business, what
are the questions you're gonna ask?
What are the things that you want to know?
Well, somewhere in there on that list,
pricing is going to be one of those
questions because you want to know,
does that fit within your budget?
Does it make sense for you?
Do you feel like you're gonna
get the value of whatever you
would spend with that firm?
So when you go to a website, if
you're going to a CPA's website and
you don't find pricing information,
how does that leave you feeling?
Is that building trust or is
that creating some frustration?
Do you want to have to reach
out to somebody to get that
information or would you prefer to
be able to get it on the website?
They say most of us would prefer
to be able to get that information
on the website without having
to have a conversation with a
salesperson in order to get it.
Now what it does not mean is that you
post your exact price and there, there,
so there, there are a lot of objections
that initially come up when, , this topic
of writing about pricing on your website,
especially in B2B, a lot of objections.
What if my competitors see our pricing?
Our pricing is tailored to each of our
clients based on their specific needs.
You know, there's other
concerns that people have.
Number one question is, do you have a
good idea of what your competitors charge?
The answer's probably yes, which means
they already have a good idea of what
you charge, so you're not giving away
something that they don't already know.
Number two.
Our pricing can vary depending
on their needs, et cetera.
Absolutely.
We get that.
That's, I mean, that's
the case in our business.
So in that case, what can you
do to explain the pricing?
Can you give ranges?
Can you help them get some sense of what
the investment is to do business with you?
Because if you provide that information,
think about how does that help them?
Now again, some people, we don't
wanna put pricing out there because
we don't wanna scare 'em away.
Well, if you're already building
trust and credibility because you
have clear messaging and you're
answering your buyer's questions,
are you really gonna scare 'em away?
Or in turn, are you actually
gonna build trust and credibility
because your competitors probably
aren't answering those questions?
So the other thing too is a lot of times
that's a, a top question that buyers have.
That's the type of content that
can rank fairly quickly in a lot
of industries in the search engines
is, well, how much does this cost?
What does pricing look like?
How much should I spend on?
And so, you know, we've got
pricing articles on our website.
It's also where having the pricing
calculator or an estimate calculator
can be another good tool to have.
'cause again, people wanna know
how much is this gonna cost?
Am I wasting my time here?
Is this gonna fit within my budget?
So there are a lot of different ways
to answer the pricing question without
giving away your exact pricing, but still
giving your your buyers enough information
that they can make an informed decision
and know whether or not you're even
in the range of what they can afford.
AnnieLaurie: Right.
So when we talk about content,
we can mean a lot of things.
So let's talk just for a
second about website content,
specifically blog content.
Because some people may think that
it's not worth the time, they may
not understand the purpose and they
may not know what kind of content
works best within their industry.
And you know, I would say that creating
meaningful, helpful content that answers
your buyer's questions is the best way
that you can start to help potential
customers like, know and trust you.
How does that translate
into the B2B space?
Steve: So the questions that
buyers are asking tend to be pretty
universal, whether it's B2B or B2C,
whether it's products or services.
And so using your blog, I.
Using your website as a repository
of educational information that
answers your buyer's questions
is a really great thing to do.
Uh, because becomes searchable
content for the search engines for ai.
It helps your buyers when they're on
your website, build trust and credibility
when you're answering their questions
openly and honestly, unbiasedly.
And you're creating content that your
sales team can use in the sales process
to further educate the buyers, and it
can do so more quickly than if you're not
providing those answers to your buyers.
Now, Laura, to get a little bit
more granular in terms of what do
we actually write about, what are
the questions, and that's where we
can point people to the big five.
Now you've, you've.
May have heard us talk about the Ask
You Answer, and it's a framework that
I coach on, uh, and that we incorporate
into our guide marketing framework.
And so the big five, there's an article
on our website, we'll put it in the
show notes are the five questions
that people are asking typically.
And it has to do with pricing, the
problems, comparisons, reviews, and
best of, uh, so who are the best of,
I'll give you another quick example.
Again, the idea is if somebody's gonna
ask the question, answer it on your
website and answer it openly and honestly
because you can point people to it.
one of the questions that
I've received in the past is.
I remember the conversation went,
went something to the effect
of, Steve, we really like you.
We like your team.
We think y'all would be a good
fit, but just in the case for some
reason, if we opted not to work
with y'all, who would you suggest?
Which of your competitors
would be worth talking to?
And, and ultimately we ended
up working with that company.
But I gave them the honest answer.
I, I said, here are some other
agencies here in the Memphis
area that, I trust that I, I know
the owners, they do good work.
And if you don't feel like we're
the right fit, those would be
folks that you could talk to.
So we wrote that article.
We put that on our website,
who are the best digital
marketing agencies in Memphis?
And what shocks a lot of people is we
didn't put our name on the list, because
all of a sudden if I put our company
on that list, we're no longer unbiased.
The truth is we're not giving
opinions about our competitors.
We're listing them out.
Again, these are folks that have been in
business for a while and, and folks that
we know and, I would say do good work.
That is one of those things that
builds trust and credibility, because
I'm not trying to, pitch us as,
oh, we're always the best option.
We're not always the best option for
folks depending on what their needs are
and what, they're needing to grow with.
But in some cases, we are the right fit.
And so anyway, it's important
to, to answer those questions
openly and honestly.
AnnieLaurie: So for someone who is not
doing any sort of content marketing,
they're not posting blogs, they're
not posting social media posts, coach
them through how to get started.
Steve: Start with what are the most
commonly asked questions from your buyers.
You can think about it this way.
What, do you wish , your
prospects, your buyers?
What do you wish they knew before
your first meeting and conversation?
Write down those questions.
If you're not quite sure what
those questions are, they're just
not coming to you top of mind.
Keep, keep a notepad or, you know,
just write it down somewhere.
Put in your phone, but as you
have conversations with your
buyers, your discovery meetings,
your , demo conversations, list out
the questions that they're asking.
If you record your, your sales calls,
go back through the transcripts.
You can drop it in chat, GPT and
ask it to pull out the questions.
You can brainstorm with chat,
GPT, educated who your buyer is,
but, but get those questions.
Frame it in terms of the big five.
Use that as a matrix to go through
and think about your buyers.
And then what questions do
they ask you about pricing?
What, what do they ask
you about the problems?
Not just the problems that they
experience, but they wanna know
what are the potential downsides
of this product or service?
No, nothing's foolproof.
If we buy your product, what are some
of the challenges that we could expect?
We, so for us, it might be something
along the lines of, okay, if we, if we
go with you guys to build a website, what
are some of the potential concerns that
we might need to have about a website?
What are some of the things
that could go wrong with it?
Just with the nature of websites.
So answer , those questions.
But those are a couple of starting points.
What are the questions that
you get asked frequently?
What do you wish folks knew?
Use the big five and use that to
create a list of topics and then write
out your answers to those questions.
AnnieLaurie: Steven, our episode that we
did on this part of the Guide Marketing
Framework, I inform with content.
We, we talked a lot in that episode
about AI and how to use AI to
create content and so forth, and
we do plan to do a series on AI and
marketing coming up here pretty soon.
But just quickly as we wrap up
questions about this specific
section, talk to us about AI and
marketing as it pertains to content.
What would be the, the quickest, easiest
win for someone who's not using AI
to start using AI to help make their
content marketing process more efficient?
Steve: So many different ways
that I could answer this question.
I would say part of it depends on
what someone's comfort level is
with tools like Chat, GPT or copilot
Gemini, pick your AI tool, Claude.
For somebody that is just
beginning, maybe they've only
used chat, GPTA handful of times,
think of it as a brainstorming
partner and I would say use it to help
you brainstorm a list of questions
that your buyers are going to ask.
Give it some basic information.
You tell it, here's who my
buyer is, here's their job
title, here's their age range.
Here's some of the problems
that they're typically facing.
Here's how what we do
solves their problems.
Give it your website so it can go
and get some information about you.
And then ask it based on that to give
you a list of what are 25 questions.
And you can even prompt it with using
the big five framework from the ask
you answer, what are 25 questions that
my buyers are going to ask when they're
considering our product or service?
That's one way that you could use it.
If you wanna go even simpler than
that, ask it to write you an email.
Ask it to write you a sales email.
Again, you want to educate the, the,
the thing with, with AI an important
principle is it's on you to educate it.
AnnieLaurie: Right?
Steve: You know, a, Laura, you and
I have talked through this and I,
I, I mentioned this when I give
presentations on AI marketing.
Think about ai, these tools as
if you just hired a really smart
team member, somebody who's very
capable, but they need guidance.
They need to understand who
you are, your tone of voice.
So it goes back to making sure
you educate and then take what it
gives you and, and validate it.
AI's not always right, it can't
replicate your voice, your
experience, your perspective.
So you want to take it, it may give you
something that's 60 to 70% done, but
you wanna go back and put your voice to
it, your experience, your examples, you
know, even, , if you read articles in
and whoever's writing talks about their
personal experiences or who they've
worked with, how they've helped clients,
the , the wins and those types of things.
That's the kind of stuff that,
that you can input into it.
, If you wanna start getting a little
bit more robust, then you can use it
to not only brainstorm the topics,
but create outlines and, using some
different frameworks like Google's
EAT framework, which we talk about in
our episode on Inform with content.
Um, that's Google's framework for
how they measure content on websites.
So you can instruct Chat, EPT
to use that as a framework.
And so again, there's a lot of
different ways that you can use it
to create outlines, to brainstorm,
create content, edit content.
You write the blog post and
you give, you know, again.
So there's a lot of different ways,
um, to leverage it and, and certainly
more than, than what we have the,
the time to, to dive into today.
And let me also mention on our website,
if you go to, um, our learning center,
you'll see in the dropdown that
we have an AI page on the website.
So we have some AI specific articles
there, AI and marketing, not
just AI for the sake of ai, but,
but in the context of marketing.
We also have a guide, uh, an AI
marketing guide that you can download,
how to Win At Marketing in 2025.
Talks about how AI is changing
by your behavior, the impact that
it's having and will have on search
traffic, um, as well as practical
things that you can do with ai.
So that's a, it's a pretty
robust resource that's, that's
available on our site for free.
Hey, quick pause.
. If this conversation has you wondering
where your own marketing stands.
We have a tool that can help.
It's called the Guide
Marketing Assessment.
It's a free tool that walks you through
the same five steps that we've been
unpacking on this podcast and previous
episodes in less than 10 minutes.
By answering 25 yes, no questions.
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It's free, it's practical.
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But there's real insight
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And when you get done taking the
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And it correlates to each
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So if you go to way find marketing.com,
you can take the assessment
there to get started.
Now, back to the show.
AnnieLaurie: All right.
Let's talk about the part of the
guide marketing framework that
most companies struggle with
aligning sales and marketing.
Steve: Because whether you've
got two people or 20, these two
functions have to work together as a
revenue team, not in separate silos.
When they aren't working together,
leads get dropped, deals stall and
frustration's gonna grow on both sides.
So Annie, Laurie, what are some
questions that we have on this topic?
AnnieLaurie: The first question
is, what should be included
in a documented sales process?
I'm sure this is a super big question,
so maybe it just a high level,
like what are the main things that
someone would need to make sure they
have included in the sales process?
Steve: So there, this is
gonna be contextual, but I
would say the very minimum.
You wanna make sure that your
sales process accounts for each
step in the buyer's journey.
And as it relates to what, what
does your process look like?
What's the first thing that
you want somebody to do?
So if they go to your website and they
schedule a call, what happens then?
What are the steps that somebody has
to take in order to become a customer?
Use that flow, chart it out,
put it on a whiteboard, and make
sure that you're clear on what's
happening in those different steps.
Start there.
So again, that could look like an intro
meeting, which then goes into a deeper
discovery meeting, which goes to a
proposal meeting, which then goes into a
follow-up sequence of, communication until
you get an answer one way or another.
So that's a super simple sales
process, but then if you wanna
start flushing out that out more.
You could then account for what are some
of the steps leading into that, , in
terms of where are you getting your
prospects, the steps to reach out to them.
But then again, once they enter into that
process, thinking through who is doing
what, what are the different activities?
So you might have a meeting, but then
is there an email that goes with it?
Do you have some sort of a questionnaire
or form that either you are using or
that you're asking them to complete?
If you're gonna take the content
that we've been talking about and
put it into the sales process, maybe
there are a couple of articles or
videos that you, provide at one of
those steps as a standard procedure
to answer the buyer's questions.
Um, you know, again, there, there, it
can get super detailed and nuanced, but,
but the big thing is capturing the steps
that the buyer's taking and the steps
that you, you're taking, internally.
To guide them through the buying process.
AnnieLaurie: So in one of our
last episodes when we talked about
develop and execute your sales plan,
one thing that we talked about, I.
In that episode was the importance
of marketing and sales collaborating,
working together, meeting regularly.
What about companies with small
marketing and sales teams?
Because we've talked about some
companies don't have a sales team.
It might just be one person who wears
many hats, some might not have a
marketing team, same kind of thing.
Some might have, you know, one
or two people on both sides.
When we're talking about a smaller
company, do they need formal meetings?
Steve: You know, formal might
be a strong word, I would say.
There needs to be consistent.
There need to be consistent conversations
where you are in these various roles.
Thinking about what's happening
from a marketing perspective, what's
happening from a sales perspective.
A lot of the collaboration is so that
marketing can create better content.
That's informed by what the sales
team's actually experiencing.
So the questions that buyers are
asking, because it works much better
when marketing has that perspective
and can provide content that the
sales team can use, and that's
gonna answer questions even before,
a buyer gets to the salesperson.
So even in a team of one or two
people, it's still important
to have those conversations.
So even if you're a one person operation
and, and you're both the sales and
marketing, make sure you're sitting
down and thinking through from that
perspective, okay, from the sales side,
what are the questions we're getting,
over here on the marketing side?
What content could we create?
Whether you're outsourcing that or
you're doing it yourself using ai,
create the content that's going
to answer those buyer questions.
, Let's say you're the CEO and, and you're
the main salesperson and, and you're
starting to do some blogging and, , let's
say in three months you plan, it's to
hire, uh, a content writer or a marketing
manager, even if it's part-time, but
you're ha planning to hire somebody
to take over that responsibility.
Well, if you're already in that pattern,
that rhythm of having conversations and
doing the brainstorming yourself from
the sales and marketing perspective
and evaluating what's happening from a
marketing perspective is that generating
leads, et cetera, then it makes it
easier to continue that when you bring
somebody else into that conversation, uh,
as opposed to having to try to develop
it new when you bring that person on.
AnnieLaurie: So that leads me
to another relevant question.
Who should be in the room when you are
planning the sales or marketing campaigns?
Steve: Based on my experience with this
and what, I've seen, , one, there's
a, there's an element of this that
depends on the nature of the team.
, What I think makes sense is for
sales to be involved with, again,
thinking through what are the
questions that they're hearing.
Sometimes s sales will have
ideas or suggestions in terms
of the type of marketing content
that they would find helpful.
Uh.
So there's definitely a conversation
in some cases of even letting
them know what is available.
So what if we created some kind of a
video that answered buyer's questions?
Would that be helpful?
What if we had articles
or some sort of a PDF?
So sometimes they're bringing ideas
to the table in terms of the type of
marketing material that they would
find helpful, but ultimately, I think
marketing wants to be informed by sales.
But it, you get into the scenario
sometimes where if you have too many
salespeople too involved in creating
marketing campaigns, it doesn't get
done because there are nuances of
marketing that the sales team may
not have experience with, . And so
marketing needs to have the freedom.
And the expectation that they will take
that and then build out a campaign.
So again, sometimes there's a tension
because there are things that the sales
team may want that from a marketing
perspective isn't the best move.
They may wanna offer some sort of an
incentive or a discount, or there may
be something that they want to do that
from a marketing perspective isn't
going to work for whatever reason.
And so again, there's just a natural
tension that can exist there.
And that's why it's also important to
have somebody who, from a leadership
perspective, can mediate when needed.
Whether that's a chief revenue officer,
whether that's the CEO, but that way
there can be somebody who can help,
, mitigate that tension when it comes up.
So the marketing has the freedom
to do what they need to do.
Sales has the freedom to do what they need
to do, but we find that middle ground of.
Sales informing, but marketing gets
to create and get sales buy-in and
approval where needed, or maybe the sales
manager so that they can move forward.
AnnieLaurie: Steve, you alluded
to this earlier, but I wanted to
bring it back up to the surface.
Can alignment still work if one side,
either sales or marketing is stronger
or more experienced than the other?
Steve: The the answer is
yes, and there's context.
Because really this is going to be
a fairly common scenario, especially
if you have an existing company
that's been around for a while.
, You have salespeople that have been
there, they've been successful.
Or even if your sales team is new
and your marketing team is new, you
might be bringing in an experienced
salesperson and a new marketing manager
and either, whatever the scenario is.
One, , it's rare that you're
gonna have equal experience
between sales and marketing.
Somebody's gonna have more
experience than the other.
It's just gonna be the nature of it.
But it comes down to leadership.
I.
A clear delineation of who is responsible
for what, if there's a lack of clarity
as far as who's responsible for,
what is marketing responsible for?
What are their, the deliverables,
the expectations of them,
their responsibilities?
What is sales responsibility?
If it's a place where it's unclear
expectations and sales can just sort
of run and, and, and in some cases
run over marketing and, and they
get whatever they require, well then
that's just gonna be sales dominated.
That's not a collaborative team.
That's just, sales getting their way.
And, and so it comes down to the
sales leader, the, the chief revenue
officer, ultimately the CEO, the owner.
Giving that clear direction and making
sure that those boundaries are observed.
Because if marketing, especially somebody
new that's figuring things out, they
launch a campaign that doesn't do well
or the sales team doesn't like it,
it's navigating and making sure that
there is a sense of humility between
the two different sides, if you will.
And making sure that person, whoever the
new person is, it's making sure that they
have what they need to be successful.
And so part of that also goes
to the culture of the business.
, If it's a place where there's a sense
of humility and an understanding,
a curiosity, wanting to make sure
that everybody is equipped and they
have the opportunity to succeed.
And so really as a leader, it comes
down to having clarity about what
alignment means, what's the goal
everybody's working towards, and making
sure there's clarity of roles and
responsibilities so that you avoid.
Needless conflict there.
So it's shared data, shared
feedback, shared wins.
It's culture of collaboration , and
the rhythms to keep it going.
AnnieLaurie: Another point that you
touched on before that I wanted to
bring back up is this, is it ever
okay for marketing to say no to sales?
Steve: The answer is yes.
And there are times that
marketing should say no to sales.
And, and let me also put this in the
context of even the previous question of
this goes back to company leadership to
make sure that there are clearly defined
roles, responsibilities and expectations
between marketing and sales, how they work
together, who gets to make the decisions.
If we make the assumption that it's a
revenue team, so sales and marketing
functioning together led by a sales
leader, maybe it's the CEO, depending on
the size of the company leading that team.
And , if they're doing what we suggest
or what EOS suggests, and that's
, you operate in 90 day increments.
So you have your priorities, you have
your day-to-day responsibilities,
and so the marketing person has the
things that they are working on.
They've been given priorities.
Expectations have been set.
They are working on these things.
So it's not unusual for ideas to come up.
Midstream salesperson has something
coming up and all of a sudden they need
a slide deck prepared for this particular
presentation or this particular event.
And so in some cases, they might
just go straight to the marketing
person, say, I need this and I need
this in the next three days, and
it's gonna take a bunch of time.
Well, it might be, or, or maybe
they wanted that, maybe they decide,
maybe it's something like that.
Or it could be, Hey, we need to
run this particular campaign.
I just saw this other thing.
Our competitors are doing it.
We need to launch this email campaign,
the social media campaign, whatever it is.
So again, if we're assuming that
this marketing manager has their
responsibilities, their priorities
that they've been given, they need
the freedom to be able to say no, or
at least instead of just having to
kneejerk and say, oh yeah, I can do that.
Having some sort of a mechanism where
they can go back to whoever their
manager is and clarify priorities.
This is what I've been given.
These are the
responsibilities that I have.
However, I now have somebody else coming
to me asking me to do this particular
campaign or this particular thing.
Do you want me to shift my priorities?
If I do, it delays this other thing.
So that would be one scenario where
they might say, you know what?
No, we're not gonna do
this particular campaign.
It's a great idea.
We can consider this next quarter.
We already have this
other thing in motion.
So in some cases, it's also not only
protecting their capacity and the
priorities that they have, but it's
also protecting the, plans that are
already in motion based on what's
been defined for that quarter.
So to shift gears to do
what's being requested.
Might require a complete shift in
focus that would get off track of
what's been already mapped out.
So sometimes it's a matter
of, Hey, you know what?
We've committed as a team,
we're doing this other thing.
That's a great idea.
We can take it and use it later.
And in some cases, just the ideas
aren't gonna work marketing
wise for whatever reason.
And so again, that goes back to creating
that alignment, that relationship
between the teams where there can be
this collaborative approach rather
than one of demanding or sales.
Having the, the Trump card, if you
will, over what gets done or not done
AnnieLaurie: the last stop on the
framework is e evaluate and adjust.
This is a very common
question that we get.
What should a 90 day
review actually look like?
So, Steve, let's get tactical.
Tell us.
Steve: So one element of this is
taking a look back at the last 90
days and reviewing the priorities
that were set and to see if those
priorities were accomplished.
We're looking at this from the
standpoint of this is a planning
session so we're looking back,
but we're also looking forward.
So, coming into the meeting,
what were the priorities?
Did we get 'em done?
What's left undone?
What kept us from getting
those things done?
It can also be a time to evaluate
campaigns that ran longer than a month.
If we had a quarter long campaign,
what were the results of that?
What did we spend?
, How many appointments were scheduled?
How many customers did we get from that?
What was the ROI?
So it could be used to evaluate
campaigns, and this is where
I've mentioned it previously.
Having some sort of a scorecard.
So when we're working with a coaching
client, we have a 10 part scorecard based
on our framework that we complete at
every quarterly review to assess progress.
So it's a self scored assessment
and we go through and we use
that to help determine what the
priorities are for the next quarter.
Part of it is, evaluating campaigns,
evaluating, movement on the priorities for
the previous quarter, and then using the
scorecard to determine overall progress
and helping to determine what , the
priorities are for the next 90 days.
AnnieLaurie: Okay, if I'm just getting
started, what are the top three
metrics that I need to be tracking?
Steve: we say three, but there's
really, five sort of implicit in here.
Number one, how much website
traffic are you getting?
, number two is how many leads are
you getting from that traffic?
And then I would say, based on that,
look at your close rate . Look at
how many appointments, , or leads
you're getting . And then ultimately,
how many customers are you getting?
But in between each of those
steps, you have your conversion
rate, so what percentage of
website visitors become leads?
What percentage of leads become customers?
So you're, there's three, but
really there's five because it's
looking at those conversion rates.
AnnieLaurie: Okay.
Some people listening may not
consider themselves a number person.
So how can someone who will say,
I'm not a numbers person, how, how
can they embrace this concept of
reviewing the data and converting
what they're learning into action?
Steve: One, it, it starts by
focusing on a few key metrics.
I mean, the general rule is
if you're looking at KPIs, key
performance indicators, you're
choosing with a small handful.
They give you some sense of
what's happening and what's
working and what's not.
Those numbers give you a story.
And so as, especially as a CEO,
even if you're bent, isn't naturally
towards numbers, it's really the
requirement of getting enough
familiarity with what the numbers are so
that you at least have a sense of what
question you start asking questions.
Uh, and especially when you start looking
at those numbers over the course of
time and you can see are they moving up?
Are they moving down?
Are they moving in?
What we would think is a good direction.
If not, then digging in.
And again, these are, this is
one of the places where sometimes
it, it means asking for help.
It means finding someone who isn't expert
in marketing or in analytics that can give
you some insight using tools like Chat g,
pt, uh, using it to help you analyze the
data and give you insight, using it to
help you figure out what questions to ask.
But ultimately, if you are the one tasked
with growing your business, these are
metrics you've gotta be looking at.
AnnieLaurie: So finally, with regard
to Evaluate and adjust how long
should you wait before you pivot?
Steve: It, it depends on what we're
talking about in terms of pivot.
So at a micro level.
If you're testing out specific elements
of a campaign, like an email subject
line, you can pivot pretty quickly
because you can see from tests, this
subject line worked, this one didn't.
Especially if it's some sort of
an ongoing campaign, some sort
of a nurture campaign, great.
You see what's working, you get enough
data, you just start changing things
as you're going, so that incrementally
you're getting better results.
So again, email subject lines
are a good example of that.
If we're thinking about a larger
strategy or a larger plan and campaign,
here again, it's gonna be crucial
that we're looking at the metrics and
knowing how long is your buying cycle?
If it's a long buying cycle,
then it's gonna take longer
to make those determinations.
If it's a quick buying cycle, then
you can make those decisions faster.
But ultimately it's gonna be
looking at, are you getting
ROI , and there's a threshold there
of one, what's your tolerance?
Because sometimes, so there's this concept
in business of what's called the J curve.
And the J curve is that when you
implement something new, oftentimes
you dip down , your efficiency, your
productivity, the results you're
getting actually go negative or they,
they decrease before they increase.
For instance, we have a client
where we're gonna be managing
their Google ad campaign.
And typically what we'll tell
people is you wanna take the
first three months to evaluate.
Because it's testing different
keywords, different ad combinations,
different factors on the landing
page, and it's taking that time
to really get it rifled in.
It's not always just a clear set
timeframe, but it depends on the
nature of the campaign, what's
your cost of customer acquisition.
If your service or product is $50,000,
you're probably gonna have to spend
more in order to acquire a new customer
versus a service that's $5,000.
So that goes into it as well.
but I would say it depends on what
the campaign is, the nature of it.
There are some things that just take
time to, to start seeing traction.
If we're doing, if we're talking about
generating traffic through search
engines, well that's committee for six
to 12 months of creating consistent
content and doing the different.
Things that need to be done
to optimize the website.
There's a lot of variables, but it comes
back to monitoring the activities and
looking at what's a generally accepted
timeframe or thought timeframe for that
particular campaign, types of tactics,
and then making decisions from that.
AnnieLaurie: Okay.
We've covered a ton of
questions today, Steve.
So before we land the plane, what
do you wanna leave the listener with
Steve: I would say this, Annie, Lori,
don't let the apparent complexity of
this stop you from getting started.
We are really gearing this towards
companies that are wanting to
build an implement, , a marketing
system that is going to help them
grow and scale for the long term.
And so the, the guide marketing
framework isn't about.
Executing your marketing perfectly.
There is no such thing, but
it's about giving you direction.
It's giving you, guardrails so
that you can begin to identify the
pieces of what go into building this
marketing system so that you can
grow and scale for the long term.
It's like we've said with the
quarterly planning meetings.
Pick something, pick one thing,
pick a couple of things, make it
better, and then pick the next.
Start at the beginning,
start with your plan.
If you don't understand who your customers
are, if you don't have clear messaging,
all the other things aren't going to be
as effective until you get those done.
So there is, an element of order
to this, especially with generating
your story and strategy and.
Especially with growing scaling companies
marketing, it's a leadership function.
Yes, there's a, there's absolutely
an execution side of this, but
as a leader, you know, you have
the opportunity and really the
responsibility to create clarity even
if you don't have all the answers.
And so using a framework like this and
help guide the conversation, it can
give you, again, a common framework
that can build alignment and help
you make better informed marketing
decisions that are going to move
your business forward profitably.
AnnieLaurie: Thanks, Steve.
That's a great word.
Let's wrap this thing up.
So there you have it, your guide,
marketing framework, questions answered.
If you've been listening along and
wondering, can we really do this?
Yes, yes, you can.
One step at a time,
Steve: and you don't
have to do this alone.
Uh, marketing is a team sport.
If you haven't taken the Free Guide
Marketing assessment on our website,
head over to way find marketing.com.
Take the assessment.
It is the fastest way to see where
your marketing's strong, where
it's stuck, and what to do next.
And along with that, again, that gives
you access to our marketing playbook,
and it also gives you an opportunity if
you want to schedule a one-to-one call
with me to walk through your results.
We can do that and talk about what
makes sense for you over the course
of the next 90 days so that you can
move forward and not stay stuck.
AnnieLaurie: Marketing
doesn't have to be a mystery.
With the right framework, it becomes
a system one that helps you lead with
clarity and grow with confidence.
Steve: Thanks for being a
part of this journey with us.
We will see you next time.