The RevEngine™ Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Jeff Davis engages in a thought-provoking discussion with Callan Young, the Chief Marketing Officer of On24. With a wealth of experience in the B2B tech space and successfully leading companies through transactions, Callan understands the importance of aligning sales and marketing for revenue growth. They dive into the challenges and opportunities of digital-first go-to-market strategies and the need for a holistic approach to marketing.

Callan highlights the significance of focusing on the customer lifecycle and leveraging data and thought leadership to become a trusted advisor. They explore the changing landscape brought on by COVID, opening doors to helping others and creating non-branded content. Through an annual or quarterly planning process involving all stakeholders, marketers can achieve alignment, commitment, and optimization across the team.

They discuss the need to understand salespeople's workflow and needs to tailor effective marketing campaigns. They emphasize the importance of selling internal campaigns and gaining the commitment of the sales team. Additionally, they shed light on the value of first-party data in designing meaningful, audience-centric campaigns.

Tune in to discover how organizations can level up their digital experiences by personalizing interactions, creating interactive and energetic experiences, and turning programs into integrated campaigns. Learn from Callan Young's expertise and get ready to transform your marketing approach and boost revenue growth by listening to this episode now!

Episode Highlights:

11:01 - I like to encourage that from a leadership team and to people to feel comfortable sharing it openly with their peers, because then we're going to all learn from each other. We're going to learn from what went really well, but we're also going to learn from what didn't go well. And it's that constant kind of, I guess, cadence of let's look at the data, let's talk about how can we optimize, and talk about how we can do something differently moving forward.

24:40 - If there is a way you get a technology that integrates directly into kind of their day-to-day workflow, that's going to be the best. But, to your point, if you're getting something that's like, "Hey, you should really log in to this or you should start to look at this," then you really need to make sure you're enabling them and explaining to them the value of how this is going to help them get more revenue, or else it's never going to work.

35:54 - I think figuring out how to be as interactive and as energetic as possible is something key. As you're thinking about your experiences or as you're thinking about how you're engaging with people digitally, is it a two-way conversation and how can you do that at scale? So, I would definitely say making sure that you are leaning into the how can you help and what are the insights and the takeaway versus just reading through a script. I would definitely say figuring out how you can kind of take these more digital broad-based experiences and make them more personalized.

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Join Jeff Davis as he engages in a captivating conversation with Brad Myers, the CEO and Co-founder of RevMethods, to explore the crucial topic of sales and marketing alignment. Brad offers valuable insights to help B2B companies enhance their revenue strategies.

Brad highlights the challenge of data overload and emphasizes the need to focus on actionable insights to drive revenue optimization. He presents a game-changing approach for marketers: telling better stories internally by providing contextual information on leads, moving beyond mere scores. This innovative methodology combines lead scores with valuable data signals to gain deep insights into customer behavior, enabling marketers to empower sales teams and boost lead conversion rates.

Jeff and Brad delve into the limitations of traditional marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and advocate for a shift towards leveraging advanced technologies like data warehouses, open AI, and GPT to unify data sets and generate invaluable insights for sales teams. The discussion also highlights the significance of visible first-party data, which holds greater relevance for salespeople.

If you're a B2B company seeking to optimize your revenue strategies and foster alignment between sales and marketing, this episode is a must-listen. Gain actionable insights and learn how to bridge the gap between these crucial teams. Discover the power of capturing and synthesizing data signals to create meaningful conversations with buyers. Don't miss out on this opportunity to unlock your company's revenue potential.

Episode Highlights:

10:30 - We've made a lot of investment in marketing the website and various campaigns to go gather more data, more customers and all their engagement that's associated with it. How do we start mining this information to drive greater go-to market efficiencies? The Rev Ops is the individual that's meant to wire these platforms together, and help deliver the analytics to make better decision-making.

16:50 - I think we do a great job of telling stories externally and messaging to the market. We drop the ball when we need to start telling stories internally, and it only behooves us to figure that out. Because, again, how many marketers are struggling with "Hey, what's the ROI? What's my contribution to revenue?" The more white papers that we could tie back to revenue, the more efficient we'll be and the stronger our case will be to get more funding.

37:24 - I could see a future, to get futuristic, of we're going to be engaging in more ephemeral ways with our data, that CRM and marketing are going to be these endpoint tools that are going to be feeding this brain, this data cloud, as what Salesforce is calling it. It's from there that we get this kind of unified view of the customer from all the different sources and we're applying AI at that level to extract revenue.

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Andy Paul discusses sales productivity with a focus on why sales technology has been linked to underperformance. They delve into various factors that can be contributing to inadequate results, such as metrics being misdirected or unrealistic expectations from leads generated by marketing teams.

Through their discussion, they reach the conclusion that often times sales leaders undermine the importance of high-quality leads over quantity and must refocus on how to make sure buyers are getting the best possible outcomes. They also touch upon having the right attitude when attempting to sell products as well as an introduction to "Selling Without Selling Out" which is based on connection, curiosity, understanding, and generosity.

Are you looking for ways to increase sales productivity and foster better customer relationships? Tune in to learn the importance for sellers to prioritize customer relationships while leveraging resources provided by their own marketing departments in order to produce better results. Discover the importance of a human-first approach to selling, overcoming similar products in the same market, and the role of AI and machine learning in sales.

Episode Highlights

14:45 - My contention is that the productivity of the individual salesperson is measured by true productivity, which is not activity, but productivity that's measured in the world as a rate of output per unit of input. I've historically measured sales productivity as how many dollars are revenue generating per hour of actual selling time, not time in the day, but per hour, and you could track this.

24:06 - When you're selling out what you're doing as a seller is you're putting your own interests ahead of those of the buyer. The way we do that is by having this mindset that our job as a seller is to persuade someone to buy our product or service.

26:27 - When you get to that point, you understand what's really most important to the buyer, then you're in a unique position, because most sellers don't bother to get there. Suddenly, the experience you're creating for the buyer is differentiated, and you put yourself into an advantageous position to win the business.

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Andy Paul

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Sell Without Selling Out Book

In today's episode, Jeff Davis talks to Andrew Gulovsen, who has been involved in the transportation industry for over 25 years. He is currently the leader of marketing and customer success at Hubtek, but also has significant experience in sales and business development. They discuss digital transformation in the industry and aligning sales and marketing to provide a heightened customer experience to meet the demands of the modern buyer.

Andrew tells us about his professional journey and what the pressing challenges are when it comes to driving revenue growth in the trucking logistics industry. They examine the importance of creating goals and metrics in silos and making them interdependent, as well as ways to get sales leaders to change their mindset from quantity to quality.

Tune in to hear how to get successful leaders out of their inertia when it comes to change and discover how digital acceleration has given us access to regional diversity and how it’s an opportunity to have more points of view.

Episode Highlights

13:09 - If we can maintain that level of quantity of leads and qualified leads that come through, that just means that the number of sales overall will be better. So, again, looking at that, what is our conversion rate? How are we moving forward? And we sort of start at the sale and move backwards in terms of developing where, what we need to do from a marketing side to really support that.

24:23 - We have this work we have to do from a sales side. But there's this work that we want to do that we need to do to build who we are as an organization. And it's just communicating that early so it's not something where people, CEOs or CFOs, are like, "No, we're not going to fund that because it wasn't part of our plan."

28:09 - Whether it's a demo for new technology, you can tell me and you can give me all kinds of references and testimonials, but how does it truly impact my business? And so, those trials or pilots become a great way to do that. Let's give it a shot. Let's see what happens. Let's put it into a real environment and see what we can learn from it.

37:38 - The value of diversity of location, diversity of type of people, diversity of ideas becomes that much more important to the kind of growth and strength, and health of an organization.

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In this episode, Jeff Davis talks to Dr. Howard Dover, who is the Director of the Center for Professional Sales at University of Texas at Dallas. Ten years ago, he founded the Institute for Sales Knowledge and Innovation, which was sparked by his book, "The Sales Innovation Paradox." They discussed how adapting and adjusting to the natural movement of the buyer is key to standing out in all the noise that's created in the marketplace.

Dr. Howard Dover believes that every buyer has a preferred communication channel. In order to know these preferences and avoid quota attainment misses, you as a seller, have to execute strategic cadences and sequences that give you insights into buyer communication preferences and styles.

Tune in as Dr. Howard Dover explains how technology changes the way we live and our expectations. He states that technology innovation is occurring all over the place for the consumer and the buyer. That being said, the salesforce needs to learn how to adopt and adapt to those modern technological changes.

Episode Highlights

09:32 - The first thing you have to critically ask is, where did that sales goal come from? Did it come from the your VCs? Like, "Hey, that's what we need?" Or did it come from a real evaluation of the market potential and your current data, and an understanding of the diffusion curve? Or are we just picking it out of the sky?

29:52 - If you want to be a highly effective modern seller, I would say, agility and coachability are two of the attributes that you need.

54:18 - If a buyer knows exactly what they need, they buy it. They don't need or want a human interaction, unless they do. So, the buyer is going to dictate whether I'm willing to have that human interaction or not.

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The Sales Innovation Paradox

Jeff Davis and Morgan J Ingram discuss optimizing BDRs for successful sales strategies. Focusing on the importance of having the right technology, realistic KPIs, and coaching to help them excel, they delve further into the benefits of performing an audit of existing tech stacks when transitioning leaders and piloting a technology solution before rolling it out to multiple users. Real-time data was also identified as a key factor in optimizing performance across all departments.

In terms of communication between sales and marketing, they emphasize that it is essential to cultivate relationships in order to have an effective conversation across platforms. They also explore the topic of B2B influencer marketing, with Morgan introducing his concept “Deep Social” which recognizes the importance of building relationships with people and being mentioned in conversations between high-level decision-makers who don't usually invite vendors.

With three types of influencers—those with consistent presence on LinkedIn, employees of the company, and customers—it is clear why tech companies are struggling without proper execution of modern social media strategies. Don't miss this insightful episode where you can learn more about optimizing your sales strategy!

Episode Highlights

14:27 - If marketing's outcomes are lead-focused and sales is trying to close things, you just have different outcomes, which leads to that discrepancy. Expectations in communication are important. So, if you could communicate and understand what both parties need, marketing versus sales shouldn't be a fight. It should actually be the most aligned across the board.

16:54 - If you're on the marketing team, and you're like, "I don't know how to talk to the sales team." You would be the hero. Go and say, "Hey, I know you all get a lot of sales objections. I know sales is super tough. What can we do better as a marketing team to help write blog posts, articles, videos, to talk to these objections." I guarantee people are going to be excited.

19:50 - The reason no one's responding is because they don't have time to respond to you. And if they do respond to you, they don't have time to meet with something that's irrelevant. So, that's why you have to make sure that you are relevant and you are personal in some way.

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In this episode, Jeff talks to Joel Harrison, Editor-In-Chief at B2B Marketing and Community Leader for Propolis, the new exclusive community for B2B marketers. Joel believes we are going through a fourth wave of change in B2B marketing with two aspects: from the internal marketing point of view and the buyer point of view. Some effects COVID has had on buyers include them becoming more self-sufficient by doing more research themselves and getting more comfortable with ecommerce for larger purchases.

They discuss web 3.0 and how its implementation relates to B2B marketing, as well as the dark web, dark social, and private communities where people have candid conversations out of the sphere of organizations. Joel addresses how marketers can add value to these conversations and suggests focusing on advocacy and helping customers become advocates for their business.

In light of economic uncertainty, B2B organizations will strive to grow in the places they know and understand. As a result, B2B growth strategies will tilt heavily toward retention, cross sell, and upsell revenues. Listen to learn why marketing always has to prove and show ROI, which can be difficult depending on the tactic or strategy used. Discover how to demonstrate the impact and value of marketing in four areas: revenue evidence, brand evidence, customer evidence, and engagement evidence.

Episode Highlights

07:49 - That means that there's a shift in balance between marketing and sales. It's ongoing. It also means that marketing has got to be not only more responsible for more of their journey, but also got to raise their game in terms of the activities they're doing.

18:31 - When the economic headwinds are stronger, people will then seek to maximize the relationships they've got and not lose any of those.

32:02 - In times where businesses are transforming all the time against different metrics, it's not a one-and-done. It's an ongoing challenge. Personalities change and relationships change. All these dynamics lead to this challenge.

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In this episode, Jeff interviews Scott Gillum, who is the Founder and CEO of Carbon Design, a marketing agency that uses audience insight and personality to increase conversations, engagement, and revenue for clients. Scott believes that in order to differentiate a message or get people to advocate for it, one must create a personal connection with them by understanding their motivations, behaviors, and personalities.

They discuss the four distinct personality types that are found in a buying group: the influencer, champion, challenger, and steady. They also talk about how to effectively coach B2B salespeople to connect with modern buyers and emphasize the importance of understanding corporate culture, motivations, and dynamics between people in the deal when coaching salespeople. Salespeople often come across false positives who seem friendly but don't actually do anything; these are influencers who like new ideas but are not invested enough in the process to move things forward.

Listen to understand why softer sides of selling are important and how tools are not able to capture them. Don't miss out on this opportunity to gain more insights into your customer's purchase decisions! Tune in and learn how you can be more strategic about casting a wide net for leads.

Episode Highlights

05:46 - In order to be able to actually differentiate yourself in the marketplace, you have to be able to create a personal connection. If you don't know or understand a person's personality, you won't know their motivations, you won't know their behaviors, and you won't make a connection that actually moves them or gets them to advocate for you.

20:26 - What's really important about tracking influencers is it's not engagement that's important. It's about sharing. For that particular audience, you want to track your sharing and trying to figure out where it's going. So, there's different ways you can do that, but that's an influencer. They're very, very good at selling ideas.

37:45 - So, if you're having your weekly sales meetings, go through and dissect the accounts and the opportunities to get down into those softer factors, like what's motivating the organization and quiz the reps. Do you understand why this person that you're dealing with is going to advocate for us inside the organization? Let them try to figure that out. That's important.

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Personality Based Marketing

Understanding Personality Types

In this episode of Rev Engine Podcast, Jeff Davis welcomes Gabe Larsen, who is the Head of B2B Marketing at Meta and an expert in the startup space. Jeff and Gabe have an intriguing conversation about how B2B revenue leaders can leverage the metaverse.

Gabe shares his experience and insights on how businesses can use the metaverse to enhance revenue growth, including adapting work experiences with a 3D element, using video more creatively, and exploring new platforms for customer service and advertisement. He also introduces the concept of "Signal-based Marketing," emphasizing the importance of listening to customers' signals to pursue them effectively. Gabe highlights the significance of customer behavior and using data from multiple sources, such as Shopify, job change alerts, and customer support rep hires.

They discuss the importance of communication within sales and marketing teams and how AI technology can optimize customer service. They suggest that a CRO overseeing both marketing and sales, along with rules of engagement, lead scoring, and opportunity scoring, can help align sales and marketing teams. Rev Ops can act as a mediator if there is disagreement between the teams.

Tune in to hear valuable insights into the metaverse and how B2B revenue leaders can leverage it to enhance revenue growth. Listen about the significance of customer behavior and effective communication.

Episode Highlights 

04:29 - There's something missing. We all feel it and it's something over here that is, by definition, something that's a little more 3D, something that's a little more interactive. I think when it comes to the way in which we work as marketers, we've got to change. We've got to adapt, and I think that's going to be one of the primary areas that I try to play around with, that we try to play around with, to make the work experience better.

06:37 - What if I could watch more of an interactive video with somebody in this concept of the Metaverse where I could then interact with the product in a way that takes demos, not light years from where we are, but like I can actually touch that thing. Or can I play with it in this area? Like I can experience it in a more real way.

14:02 - One of the phrases I've been playing with is this idea of signal-based marketing. And what that basically means to me is, I think there's some great concepts in ABM for those who actually think it means what they think it means, but targeting people, it's a great idea.

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In this episode, Jeff has an incredible chat with Julia Nimchinski and Justin Michael - two visionary leaders in B2B revenue innovation. Through the co-founding of HYPCCCYCL and authoring "Reinventing Virtual Events" together - these insightful pros offer so much for you to learn about re-imagining go-to market strategies. They stress the importance of building relationships with customers, making them the stars of events, and following up to build a community.

Key takeaways from this discussion include: flipping the script by having sales and marketing superstars coach others on their methodology; putting your audience first versus panelists or vendors; utilizing simulation role plays for maximum engagement during virtual events; aligning sales and marketing strategies such as guided selling and revenue intelligence to better meet customer needs.

Learn how salespeople and marketers have different languages, which can cause a dysfunctional relationship between the two. Discover how practicality is key when aligning sales and marketing teams - getting them in the same room together with coaching sessions will help create collaboration on both sides. Gain knowledge about the challenges of making human connections through automation and how technology should be used for creating conversations instead of automating them. Key into Julia and Justin's expertise when you tune in!

Episode Highlights

17:17 - The idea of the book is a framework that doesn't actually require a lot of tech stacks, and we have that in the book. But it's more like if you're just throwing a static Zoom webinar or podcast, how do you make it more interactive? How do you gamify it? How do you turn it into a competition? How do you use things that we utilized in GTM games to make your next event just more robust, maybe increase retention, more customer focused?

28:42 - If I'm a seller, I tend to be focused on the pipeline, on the number, on the revenue, on my compensation plan, you name it. And that is driving the whole relationship more often than not, that practicality. If I have a micro-marketing lens on the customer, it will help me with the first touch with targeting, with strategic messaging, with adjusting that strategic messaging depending on the flow of the conversation and not just hammering the working script that my marketing team or my VPs of Sales just gave me.

35:23 - So, if you want to bring practicality to this matter, you really have to literally take your sales team, put them in the same room with marketers, and show them what they're doing, make them write the messaging, make some meetings, make some mini GTM games where a CMO would talk directly to AEs and SDRs and just try to coach them.

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Julia Nimchinski

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Reinventing Virtual Events: How To Turn Ghost Webinars Into Hybrid Go-To-Market Simulations That Drive Explosive

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Justin Michael

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