ambush on air: Stop Marketing to Markets. Start Talking to People.

Speaker A: Hello.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome to this episode of Ambush on Air. I'm your host, Sam Bush, and as always, bringing you topical content all about sales, marketing and partnerships in the Microsoft Channel. Um, today I have got my friend Donna here. Donna, why don't you do a quick intro on who you are and what you're up to.

Speaker A: Sounds great. Thanks for having me. I'm Donna Krisik from Krisic Marketing Group. We are a B2B marketing agency and we do one thing. We focus on helping VARs partners, ISVs and SIs do better marketing.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. How long have you been working for yourself?

Speaker A: Going on six and a half years now.

Speaker B: Woo m. I, uh, love that. Wow, that must feel amazing. Uh, it takes a very specific kind of person to, to own their own thing and really push off. So I'm really proud of you. It's great work.

Speaker A: Thank you. Yeah, it's been hard, but so good.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's what I hear. I, I uh, pushed through to try to do it and then I realized I needed the community of work in, in the focus. So not for everybody, but I love that it's great for most people that do it. Right. Well, today we're going to talk about a kind of fun topic. Um, you and I have chatted on and off over the years, but never sat down and like dug in on something. So I'm really excited. Um, so let's talk about the elephant that's in the room. Like, we're, we're marketers. We're marketers by trade. Um, we're in this very niche focused thing in channel marketing that we do. Um, so let's just kick this thing off with why do people hate marketing so much right now? They do. Everyone hates it.

Speaker A: Well, I guess I would dial back a tiny bit from that.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And I would say, I don't know that they hate marketing. I think they hate being treated like a lead.

Speaker B: There you go.

Speaker A: Not a person.

Speaker B: Yep. Yep.

Speaker A: Because I know I hate that. But you know, dear Josh. Well, I'm not Josh. You know, like. Yeah, so the obvious AI is just overwhelming and we hate it. That that is what we hate.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The underpersonalized, under human kind of touch points. I think for me, when it comes to marketing, I do kind of hate a couple things. So I hate the non personalized. I. As a marketer, it's hard to do these things at scale that feel personal. So we get the brunt of trying to blend people being, you know, not treated the way that they would like to be in a, in a Journey with us versus my time and my team's time. Right. We get, we get stuck in the middle of like. Like, for example, we just did a roadshow a couple of actually yesterday, a, um, roadshow. And we got about 200 people that were in the room. And I'm like, I can't send a personal message to 200 people saying, thanks so much for hanging out. Here's like something, um, but I pick off the ones that I know are valuable, reasonable. They asked questions in our session, they came to the table. Like, those are the ones that I'm having our team follow up one on one with. Right. And then those other ones, I don't even know that I'll do anything with them anymore because the number of times that these people get touched by ISVs from events is insane. Even I get them from, from ISVs that know full well I'm another ISV. I still get the email. I actually don't like email marketing in general for that reason. Everybody feels like they can just blast it to everybody and hope for the best, right?

Speaker A: Yes, they do. And that is the problem is that sameness that everybody's working from the same playbook that was written about 20 years ago.

Speaker B: Oh my gosh. Especially in our space. I get in conversations and you can tell there's kind of two different marketers in the path today that I see, which is the ones that are like, I've been doing this job for a long time and I'll keep doing it the way that I'm doing it because it's working enough to keep the lights on. You know, we're not trying to grow, we're just trying to maintain. Right. And then you have the ones like me who are like, I want to be a part of a high growth startup company that's rapidly doing different things all the time and trying stuff out that maybe doesn't work all the time, but most of the time does. Right. It's a balance.

Speaker A: Well. And even if it doesn't work the way you anticipate, you learn from it.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Which that's worth the exercise.

Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So in our little ERP buying world, um, when marketers are saying, like, we're sales teams coming to the marketing team and saying like, our marketing isn't working, what do you think they're missing? Or what do you think that that thing is that's not working, why do you think that exists?

Speaker A: Well, 90% of the time when I hear that from somebody, it's that they've done tactics, they've Turned on tactics before they did the thinking.

Speaker B: Yes, yes.

Speaker A: And M. That sounds a little harsh. I don't mean it that way. Bite M. I coach my clients from the beginning. Who are you? So. And who are you? Often translates to, what do you do? And you can't do everything.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: So what do you do? Who do you do it for? And why should they give a crap?

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: You know, if you can answer those questions, your. Your marketing suddenly got a lot better. I mean, they skip the foundational parts. They skip the. The who are you? What do you do? Why should someone care? And then they do a whole lot of talking about themselves instead of actually addressing the customer's problem.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like, we got certifications, our people are great, all that. So what?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Always the guy down the street.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: So I just. I. When I hear that, I'm like, okay, I pretty sure I know what's going on. And the good news is I know I can help.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I had a consulting client last year who, when I first started talking to him, they sell CRM and, um, implement CRM. And my very first chat with him was at a bar at an event. And he's like, we can serve anybody. Anybody. We will take anybody. And I'm, well, uh, there's not exactly a market for anything. Right. Like, I can't just go out and make a LinkedIn ad for everyone, you know? So I'm like, well, what customers do you have? Do you have more than five in a certain vertical or focus?

Speaker A: And it.

Speaker B: It took us months to get that niche down enough for him to understand, like, maybe let's pick three micro verticals and four, force those into the way we work, because that's all the customers you have anyway. And it ended up being, like, field service in three different specific niches. And we did campaigning just for that and redid the website and everything. And he's like, oh, now this makes sense why we're getting leads. And I'm like, well, because you. You know what, you deliver to people who are just like those people.

Speaker A: Exactly. I have a symbol. It's not that crazy. It's just a subtle shift and something that comes easy to us and just not as easy to them. Um, I have a client who did a webinar on Intro to BC Business Central.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: And nobody showed up because it was too broad. They concluded webinars don't work because no one showed up to their webinar. Like, you marketed to a category and not a person.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So if you change that webinar to how an ops manager can pass a, uh, surprise inspection or audit. When all of their food traceability is living in spreadsheets, suddenly people want to sign up for that.

Speaker B: Exactly. Because you put them in their own headspace and say, we're going to talk to your exact situation. It's like the human empathy, sympathy, thinking more human about how we approach marketing. M. Now more than ever because of AI. Um, I think this is the most critical time to be more human in your marketing.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's a scary time with all of the tools and all of the ways people are using it. It's though. Okay, so in B2B marketing committees, what are some things that have changed in your time as a marketer? Like in the last few years, what have you seen as been kind of different?

Speaker A: Well, that committee is enormous.

Speaker B: Enormous.

Speaker A: Um, so I think the research says, uh, it's somewhere between six and 10 people. But I would say it's often a little bigger in ERP because ERP touches everything.

Speaker B: Especially if you're working at a partner.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: I'm like, it could be upwards of a hundred people in some of these projects.

Speaker A: Right. And uh, little tip, none of them agree with each other.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: So they don't want the same things. And I think we are, we're stuck with, oh, we have an ERP buying committee. So we're just going to tell them all of this stuff.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: When you lose the Carol, the controller who's drowning in spreadsheets and the IT person who's worried, oh great, what do I have to support now? And how secure is it? And so all of these different roles and then on top of that, um, you know, Carol could have been there for 20 years. Her perspective is different than the ops person who's been there for two months.

Speaker B: Exactly, exactly.

Speaker A: And you have to talk to them differently. Mhm.

Speaker B: You have to. I think the thing that's been really cool using AI now with all of this is I can create one big piece of content and then have AI help me silo it out for each of these like buying types. So the IT sort of flavor, the uh, ops flavor, the um, the actual end user on the finance side. Right. I think now that these teams are growing so big, I'm happy we have AI. Without it, I think our teams would all be drowning.

Speaker A: We would. And that's a good use of AI.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: That's optimizing what you already created as a human.

Speaker B: Exactly. Oh, that's my biggest thing. Some people have already heard it. My Samhage framework, which is Sam first, AI second, Sam last. Um, it is making sure that you are the one with the thought because you have lived experience, you have the knowledge, you have the story to tell. Using AI to make that perfect or better and then iterate at the end to make it more human again. Right. And like that's, that's what AI has done for us in marketing, if we're using it correctly.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Even just ask an answer. But still. Okay, so you talked a little bit about in the beginning about marketing to the market versus marketing to a person. Talk a little bit about the difference that you see in that and maybe some ways people can do that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, when you're marketing to a market. So manufacturers who need erp.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: That's a market. And then we talked about that operations manager who's facing an audit and living in spreadsheets. That's a person. You know, Carol the cfo, That's a person. So, uh, I was going to actually, when I was prepping for this, I was going to get some little Toy Story figures and be like, yes, Toy Story people. Okay. Those are actually individual people. If you've got, you've got Woody. Okay. You've got the dinosaur, which you've got Buzz. Are you going to talk to them the same way? I mean, I'm mentoring my uh, my 14 year old godchild. He's helping me doing some work this summer and I'm telling him about emotional intelligence and reading the room and everything like that. Like, well, we're marketing, we're not in the room yet. You've got to tailor that message as closely as you can to that person, that individual person. And if you don't understand them, then you need to talk to somebody who does.

Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. So, you know, favorite advice, talking to somebody who uh, who does. I think starting in a new job as a marketer, your first couple of things should be to listen to client calls.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Eavesdrop. Be on a client call and say, hey, I'm new, I just want to pay like hear how you guys are talking about this.

Speaker A: Right. And they've got a ton of recordings usually.

Speaker B: Exactly. Especially if you're a Microsoft shop. I can find any recording in our teams account that I need. So I spent like my first week, I spent like three full days just listening to client calls while I was like walking my dog and to go into the grocery because I was like, I need to figure out how these people think. Because I went from supply chain to now I'm in ap. So totally different buyer, same Signer usually on the executive side. But I'm like, um, instead of talking to a warehouse manager, shipping manager, someone who's managing inventory, I'm now talking to the controller and the AP manager. It's very different.

Speaker A: It is, but the more you can know about that person, the better you're getting at speaking to them and addressing their problem. Not talking about you and your solution. Yeah. Talking about their problem. Yeah.

Speaker B: Are you the kind of marketer that uses buyer Persona still? Like, do you create buyer Personas?

Speaker A: We do, yeah. Uh, we have the whole icp, you know, the ideal customer profile and Personas. But we've got that, we've got this grid.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And we're not looking so much at the things we used to. Okay. So we really want to know what their type, you know, their, their, their type is. So we're really trying to hammer in on that. And you talk to your customers like I talk to my customers. M. The bars and their SVs, they know, they're like, oh, okay, so like Bob hates everything new. Okay. He doesn't want to change anything and he doesn't want. So honestly, it doesn't matter if Bob's been there for two months or two years or what role he's in. That piece of data can fuel what we said. So the better that you know them and round them out. Like, I don't want a typical cfo. I don't want a typical coo. I want to know Bob.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And like you said, the best way to do that is to listen in and to teach your customer how to find the bops and the carols and the.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: And pick that stuff up.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And make it, make sure it makes it into your, your notes. Because that's kind of thing. You're like, oh, yeah, Bob's cranky or whatever.

Speaker B: No, no, it's. It's helpful to know and it gives us context that we can add. I think early in my marketing career I was like, I need to take a psychology class or something because I think marketing is fully psychology. I think you have to have that brain to think deeply about. Like, if they say this, what do they mean? Right. How do we translate that into a thing that they understand based on this one piece of knowledge I have on them?

Speaker A: Absolutely. My minor's in psychology. It's absolutely the reason I got into marketing because there's such a psychological component to how we buy, how we approach money purchases. There's a ton of that along with, with our day to day. Like, we're assaulted all day long by messaging and stress and happy things. Yeah. And those all impact what we bring to work.

Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. I know I have a couple of, um, like, brands I love to follow just because I enjoy what they're talking about. But it's stuff I'll never buy. But I'm like, it's cool to see and inspiring, but then the things that I do need to buy or want to buy, I feel like I don't get marketed to in the way that I would like. Right. Like sometimes I occasionally will, but overall it's pretty interesting. We'll see. We'll see. Um, so let's talk a little bit about some advice that you would give to, to partners right now. Stuff to stop doing. Well, the list for me is long. Yeah, it's the same for me too. Um, seriously?

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, so AI can write your content now? No, I can't.

Speaker B: It's still.

Speaker A: No, no, it's a tool.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: It can refine, it can help you optimize, it can ideate for you, it can help you with that. But it is not going to replace a marketing person and it is not going to replace the hard work. So at least stop saying, oh, AI can do that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And be thoughtful about it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, yeah, that's the thing with the sea of sameness. Like, I'm in LinkedIn all day, every day. I love LinkedIn. I use LinkedIn more than any social media platform and I'm a millennial. Like, that's telling. Um, but I hate to go into LinkedIn lately because everyone's look exactly the same. And like, my writing style has always been like, one line, another line, another line. Like, I don't write in paragraphs because I don't talk in paragraphs, you know? And so I look at mine and I'm like, oh, no. It's starting to look like some of the things people are getting out of AI. But this is how I actually talk. So now, um, I'm like, do I need to change the way I show up on LinkedIn? Because it's starting to look similar to AI generated, even though it's not. So I have myself second guessing, but most people don't second guess. They just hit post.

Speaker A: Unfortunately, it's littered. The good thing is, is that the, the real content stands out more. It does now. So at least we can tell the difference. Because you could tell AI. And I'm telling you right now, Carol and Bob and all the rest of them, they can smell AI a mile away.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And they have such risk and fear about it usually.

Speaker A: Yeah. And you're not doing yourself any favors.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, what else? Yeah, another thing is the publisher content. You know, just, just slowly back away from that, please. The, the. Maybe the battle cards will help you on the sales side. Maybe there's some sales resources that you can leverage that are safe and good and help arm you for your sales conversations. But on the marketing side, sea of sameness. You're. You're trying an easy button. That is not going to work.

Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I was on LinkedIn per usual scrolling and I saw the same generic content from Microsoft back to back with two partners, two separate partners. And I'm like, what about this Felt good to post. And it literally was just like a quote card that had a question about AI. I'm like, there's nothing memorable about this. What I really got out of it was I need to get them in touch with my marketing agency friends because they need some help. Right. M. Like the stuff that Microsoft gives you as a starting point, right. The stuff that they, they create is their messaging and their point of view that you're allowed to use. But, uh, what that is is step one, not the final product. Right. We need to start individualizing what we're creating.

Speaker A: Right. And that is where AI could help you is. But you've got to run it through that filter of Bob or Carol or whoever your, your person is. Yeah, yeah. You're not going to do yourself a favor by doing that. So please. And, um, slapping. Request a demo everywhere.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's fun. Like every button on your website is request a demo.

Speaker A: Like,

Speaker B: what do you feel about gated content? So, like, I'm publishing a big white paper right now that is called. It's actually a report that, that we did called the State of AI and ap. Um, and it's all research from like Gartner and Microsoft about the, the nature of who's using it, how they're using it. Um, and I'm like, should I gate this or should I just throw it out there for the world to see. It's my first big piece that I've done here at Doo Wop, and my normal inclination is everything's free. Everything is. There's no paywall between you and me until you literally want to watch a demo. But you'll find that on your own.

Speaker A: I am, um, a staunch anti gate.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I just give it away. The only thing your gate is doing is prompting them to give you a fake email address or go find something else to read.

Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. And it's just a research piece. It's not like it's a thought leadership research piece.

Speaker A: It is, it's valuable. But uh, honestly, you can find out who's looking at it in other ways than trying to put friction into that process.

Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Just give it away. Give it away. Love it. I love it.

Speaker A: I, I'm just not a big fan. I mean, and then, uh, more leads is better.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's another one I die on the hill of. I don't actually talk about leads ever. I call them either contacts or records because they're. They, they're nothing to us. Right. They didn't ask for anything from us. They didn't do anything with us. They're just records in the database. The minute that they express intent in a couple of different signals, then yes, then you're, you're in my, you're in my marketable database now. Um, and I don't even report or talk about anything before that marketable database anymore. I'm like, you're never going to see a funnel from me on a report that says leads MQLs, SQLs ops closed. You're gonna see. We have this many people in our marketing database that we're speaking to, we have this many that have identified an intent signal and they're sitting in a sales like sales readiness. Then they're going into an opportunity and then they're going close. Like I don't even talk about it any differently now because that junk in the beginning is, is what it is. It's junk. It's just emails we got from a conference for no reason.

Speaker A: You're filtering, you're filtering until you have a conversation. That's how we talk about it. How many conversations did you have? That is where the meat lies. If you're actually talking, whether it's verbally or in an email or uh, on LinkedIn, that deserves attention. That is success. But all the rest of that noise and noise.

Speaker B: Noise and a waste of time on your BDR's part.

Speaker A: Exactly. That's the biggest thing is that's a waste of time that you're paying for.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And they're getting frustrated because. Oh, uh, they're like. Wants to talk, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's a very hard role to be in right now.

Speaker A: It is. Unless you've got a savvy, A savvy partner. Mhm. Getting on board with what we're doing these days.

Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. I love it. Okay, so what's one thing every Microsoft partner should be doing differently tomorrow? If if you could say, change this one thing, here's a positive thing to go do. What would you recommend?

Speaker A: Absolutely. That is an easy one for me, is before you publish anything next week, take a look at it and ask yourself, would I say this to a person? Yes. Yes.

Speaker B: Would I say this to a human?

Speaker A: To their face, Right in the hallway, in, you know, the old classic in the elevator. Would I say this to a person? And if the answer is no, you've written marketing speak. You know, you've written junk. So, uh, uh, I'll share a little story, please. Before this, I went out and I looked at 10 Microsoft partner sites. They were all highly recommended partners.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: They would be names you might recognize.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: And I ran, I ran their hero image on their page through this test.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: All 10 fail.

Speaker B: Really?

Speaker A: Marketing to a category?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: They were marketing to a category. They're not talking to a person. And I understand your homepage, you're trying to serve a lot of masters and that's a delicate balance to run. But uh, if your homepage is speaking, is trying to speak to everybody, it's speaking to no one.

Speaker B: Exactly. M. You cannot serve every master.

Speaker A: You can't, you can't. So you've got some work to do. And we're. There's a whole bunch of us out here who are really good at it and would love to help you do it.

Speaker B: Exactly, Exactly. I love that. I love that. Well, before we wrap up, anything else you want to share?

Speaker A: You know what got me thinking? You know, when we were talking about this whole topic about, you know, the ERP buyer.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And the, the biggest thing that I would tell folks is when, when you're looking at that as your market, the ERP buyer.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: You're already kind of missing the mark. You're already kind of veering off into category land. And the, the other thing is, is that when you talk about an ERP buyer, that phrase sneaks in a lie. It assumes they're already shopping.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Most of your future pipeline doesn't even know they're not ready to shop. They're frustrated, they've got a problem. Yeah. But they're not shopping. They're educating. They're asking, they're searching in chat.

Speaker B: GBT all about you.

Speaker A: Right. So let's get rid of that term that we created, uh, for ourselves just to make, you know, the buckets easier.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Really start focusing on people in your sphere that have problems.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What are you really good at solving?

Speaker B: Yep. Yep. It's like the solution selling mindset, but for marketing. Right? And, like, you gotta do them both together in tandem. I love that. I love that. I have some ideas on what I need to update on do op right now. There's a world of. As you step into a new role or a new business or a new client, there's the list of things you could work on is so long. So it's like navigating what you focus on. First, second, third. Um, so that's been a fun game. Definitely. One near and dear to me.

Speaker A: Uh, I know. And you've been jetting around the world, too, so.

Speaker B: I have been jetting around, having the time of my life, but, man, I'm tired. I'm excited for my weekend.

Speaker A: Yes. Happy Friday.

Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. I love it. Well, thank you so much for joining today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Um, we'll have to do this again and continue the conversation.

Speaker A: I would love that. Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: Yes, definitely. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. And as always, party on.