Get your Demand Strategy out of your brain and down on paper.

Absolutely. So when I joined the business they definitely had a good idea of who their dream customers were. And they knew that the, like our businesses product solve problems for different. Industries or niches, but it was really hard to put it all together.

The business had tried marketing strategies that were fragmented and as it’s common for every like business that usually will just try out like ads and then will have a social media strategy and things like that.

Like it’s very common for every business to do this, but it’s really not so common to Kind of intentional all these strategies and make them intentional.  I also came from like an entertainment heavy marketing background. And like I had experience working with brands and [00:01:00] like brand activation, but not really B2B and SaaS and most specifically like transportation, demand management.

So I started like personally seeking out for support in my B2B marketing journey to help me support the business mission and goals in marketing. So I was looking at LinkedIn. I went LinkedIn typed in B2B marketing just to see what’s going on. What are people talking about right now in real time?

Who are the leaders that are popping up and getting all the comments and likes and what are their thoughts on marketing right now? So I was like, Getting information, seeking out like key words. That’s where found out about like lead generation, demand generation. So all these like B2B marketing words were starting to Pop up in my sphere and I was like, okay, this is the kind of stuff I need to learn.

I found you speaking on B2B marketing on LinkedIn. So I was like, okay, George is saying things that are really aligned with, so I’m gonna follow him. So I followed [00:02:00] you and I had your as a resource in LinkedIn. And then I went, there were like a couple other like B2B marketing resources outside of LinkedIn.

I looked at. But yeah, so when I, when I saw that you were also posting about The B2B Incubator in your posts that was cool to see that like you had a thing to support marketers. I checked out the incubator. It was super aligned to what I wanted to learn. And I saw like the the five Bs and how, there was like an intentional strategy from start to finish and I thought that, A super helpful way for me to structure what me and my business wanted to do for 2023. That’s why I signed up for The B2B Incubator

I felt like it was more. now. I trusted it more like I felt like your information was current. And then it was so personable. Like it was you, what you, the thing that you were offering, [00:03:00] the product that you were offering was more personable. I felt like I could learn easier from you than if it was one of these courses that felt maybe more alienated. If I had questions like like I really love the one-on-ones because I was able to ask you questions in real time and get feedback in real time and that was super helpful. And then when I was stuck with a challenge, I had that in my mind that I was like, oh, I’m gonna talk to George about this.

So I really like that personal personality. And then also I just felt like the information was more current and just like it was now. It’s like what people are doing now, what marketers are doing now.

I think the structure, I’m someone who like needs structure. So I think you breaking down marketing in that way, like even for someone who’s been doing it for so long or has been doing it like not that long like I’ve been doing marketing [00:04:00] for so long, but I haven’t been doing B2B for so long, like it was I loved like restarting okay, forget everything, and here’s the structure that you need to follow.

I love that so much. So start from finish structure and then the templates were super, again, it’s also with the organization, having someone to provide me, like this structure. What, and then I can plug and play from like information I have and information I can act on. Was super helpful.

Absolutely. I think I think so because I definitely came into the role super confident. And then when things wouldn’t work and then we paused them I think there would be like a kind of like a snowball effect of okay I haven’t seen personal [00:05:00] results in so long in my role so I must be doing something wrong.

So I think um, like to kind of restate, reset and do a forget everything you know and do the structure is Good for people for people who are struggling, but they have the information, they just need like a structure. And then also the tools like you in the templates, you you would give examples of tools to use.

So you would say okay, here are like channels that you can do. And then you would put examples of the channels and why. And then for the podcast, for example, you would say for the B2B incubator for the B2B podcast that we do. Here are the tools we use and here’s why. And you had that graphic of Riverside and Descript and and so that was for me, helpful to note down oh, I can use Descript.

So that also was like really good, like supportive.

Streamlining [00:06:00] our marketing efforts, I would say, and like making it clear what marketing is doing. For everybody on the team. And I think when I started the program, I had, we had a team meeting. We have weekly team meetings or every other week we have a team meeting with everybody, developers, and everyone says they’re part.

And I, I said that for 2023, we’re breaking it down. We’re breaking marketing in three parts for, we’re spending quarter one. breaking down 2020 three’s efforts. And this is gonna, it’s gonna be in three parts. And I said we have to be ready, be helpful, be seen. And then I of did this like chart of what, how we like our logline like unifies logline from like when we first started to.

Last year and next year’s and saying oh, like we’re honing in on our why and like our messaging and we’re gonna do all these like customer feedback interviews and we’re going to just like really figure out where to put our content. Like I was summarizing the [00:07:00] cohort.

Which is good visibility for them to see like what marketing’s going to be doing in q1. And then also, Like I was telling you, George, every week, every time we met, that my boss would ask me a question and I would be going through it at, in the incubator, so I would be answering his question, like in a really nice, structured, detailed way.

So I think I was also like the incubator was like answering the questions at the right time. Yes, they would ask me about okay, what’s. okay, we have her content now. Where are we gonna place it? And I would be like so we have two ways to be seen and there’s like ABM and there is a paid media.

I would say it really impacted my marketing strategy. Like I’ve, I’m really taking everything that I’ve learned and applying it to my marketing strategies because it just makes sense to me now. Like it just makes sense to me to structure. It the way I [00:08:00] learned the way I, what I learned from the program. So yeah, I would say it’s really it really impacted it and to a way that like, it’s not just me trying to sell it to my team, like even my bosses and my supervisor and then like other people from like product customer developer, like they’re all impressed.

They all like the structure that I’m coming in with.

I think all kinds of, all levels because it’s I find it like a, it really reminds me of like when I went to university and I was a freshman, And the first class I went to for my program, it was like a math class, so it was every like student in first year. And it was for like television.

I went to radio and television arts. And so we were all like, obviously media like fans and thought we knew our stuff, our professor really told us like, whatever, you forget it. I think it’s [00:09:00] that’s how I felt with the program. I felt like a freshman. And but in, but also in that regard of like imposter syndrome, clean slate.

So that’s, and I was telling you like, oh, I’ve been doing marketing for a while and then I’m also new to b2b. So I feel like both sides benefited, like the one that’s done marketing for a while and the one that’s like new to b2b. Yeah, so I would say like even if I was an expert, like I would say I’m a professional and not a freshman, it was also beneficial for me. Okay.

I would say it goes back to the personal aspect of it that would be missing. And maybe there would also I feel like maybe there would be more information than I need to go through. So I feel like your program was structured in a way where it just gave you the information you needed. And sometimes like you’ll get a [00:10:00] course or like you’ll buy a product and there’s just way more things to sift through.

Or like you’ll get a lot of good valuable stuff, but not a good walkthrough. So I think you did a good job at walking through the program.

Our live sessions were really fun they were great because I got to, you were asking me about like how it’s been and I would catch you up. So it was nice to every time that we caught up, it was like there was progress. And then it was nice to go through. The exercises together and then expand on the exercises, like you would, we would go through on a page and then we would expand on one part of it and you would give me more.

Like we would just get talk about it more. And that I think is like more valuable than doing like a textbook exercise, like an exercise on piece of paper because like you were looking at it and then [00:11:00] we were having a bigger conversation about like one thing that’s on that one page from like the canvas template.

And then I was also like editing what with you and that was super helpful. Yeah, the one-on-ones were super helpful actually. That was like the one that I wanted to do.

Yeah, absolutely. I love the Canva template. I love like watching the exercise on the The B2B Incubator. And then Seeing you go through the exercise and I’m like, okay, now I like, now I have, now I went through that session and I’m like, I’m amped to fill out my own, like my own paid media channels or like social media channels.

And then I like that you made it customizable for the marketer. Like you’re made it so that it’s like a report to give [00:12:00] to the team. So yeah, they’re super useful. Linking the sheets to the template is also super helpful.

Especially also with if I was doing a report to my team, I’ll be like, and then this is expanding here’s the content scheduler and then go to the sheets from the template.

Those templates were super helpful and they were like a crowd pleaser with the whole team. Like from the feedback interview questions. Man, they gave me like gold stars for months, like people were. So impressed because it really juiced out valuable information from customers that like, again, we like guessed in our heads or had ideas or felt or had intuition of like how things were going with their customers, but didn’t really know and didn’t even record their thoughts anywhere.

And so no one really knew what to expect from these customer [00:13:00] interviews. But when we were like asking these questions and they were just like, So many like valuable things and like product feedback. The product feedback was where I was like, oh, this is gonna be a crowd pleaser. Cuz I went back to my my C T O and the developers, the product team, and I like told them like, Hey, the existing customers love our product so much.

And by the way, here are like the things that they like, want want improved on and they’d be like, oh, this is like an easy thing to improve. Like word, we got it and like our customer would be happy. And so they were happy to have that synchronicity. And the other templates, like also with the ABM and the social media.

The, just all the templates and then even the independent one that you gave me with, that you provided with like more marketing things that can support the B2B program strategy. That was super helpful. Like also a crowd pleaser with me in the. And my supervisor. And then also because they do synchronize the team, like they do [00:14:00] synchronize the product team and the CRM and the sales and then provide visibility to my c e o.

He’s such a numbers guy, so he loves that. One of the paid ad templates, the one that has all the revenue and ROI and things like that. So it’s great visibility for him to see what marketing’s doing. And yeah, so the templates are golden. They’re super valuable.

yeah, absolutely. 100% I feel like I’ve walked out with knowledge that I was, that was absorbed. So fun and casually that it’s like water cooler talk. Like I sound so cool talking to my friends now, like I’ll just be like, my friend was talking about wanting to do a podcast and then I was like, oh yeah, so your podcast is your pillar content and then you can do your blog to [00:15:00] Repurpose, I swear.

And they’re like, oh my God, I need to write this down. And yeah, and I would be like, oh, you should use Riverside. You know, Things like Um, so yeah, it’s been like it’s made me sound so, so smart.

There’s a bunch of best parts, like the templates for sure. They really helped organize, information and thoughts and structure. The videos, the walkthroughs of the cohort was a really good way to absorb the knowledge, the information the uh, exercise templates and like visually too.

Made it also fun, made it want, made me want to take part of the exercise because if it was like a boring one, I’m sure I would’ve been, like subconsciously unmotivated to wanna do it or something. But I think I made that comment once or twice to you too. I was like, oh I really like this template or something..