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#36: Fuel For Your Content Engine - The Content August Series Intro

August 10, 2024 • Gary, Andy & Tiana • Season 4 • Episode 2

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We are SO excited to present our latest gtmPRO series

🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 

"Content August" with THE ultimate special guests who preach the buyer led growth language 🙌 

This episode will give you a sneak peak on our starring guests:

Make sure you don't miss out!

Hosts: Gary Schwake, Andy Monahan and Tiana Quiroga

Andy:

do you remember the movie old school? Yeah, with will ferrell. Will ferrell was debating against james carville and he goes he, he did his thing, he's. He like went into a trance and like spewed out this answer. And james carville goes that was perfect, I have no rebuttal. And he goes yeah, that's how you do it, that's how you debate. I can't remind me that that was perfect. I have no.

Gary:

I have no.

Tiana:

I was like I, I no commentary. I don't want to miss that. It was perfect.

Gary:

No worries, all right. Welcome to the GTM pro podcast, your essential audio resource for mastering go-to-market discussions in the boardroom. Here we share insights for revenue leaders at B2B software and services companies, especially those with less than $50 million in revenue. Why? Because the challenges faced by companies of this size are unique. They are too big to be small and too small to be big. This dynamic pushes revenue leaders into executive leadership without a lot of help or support. We are here to provide that support. Your journey to boardroom excellence starts now. Okay, let's get started. Okay, let's get started.

Gary:

We now know that that's Tiana's keyword for where to find, in this massive amounts of back and forth, how we actually get started on the podcast. So now you all know, you know our secret. Well, we're here today. It's a little bit of a different twist on our podcast. So we're actually we've started a series in the month of August that will actually spill into September. Now, because we have so many great guests on content and I put content in air quotes because we all know that it's a very polluted term the fuel of the engine and how we get to content that moves the needle of many forms and types is, frankly, to many kind of a black magic, a dark art. There's a lot of ambiguity about exactly how you do that, and so we're trying to deconstruct that with some of these experts to figure that out. So we're very excited. So we're going to go through each of the guests here and give a little intro, and so this is a good starting place for those that want to follow the series.

Gary:

So our first guest actually this is a little backwards because she already went, it's already released last week was Mary Keough, and what was what was? First of all, she's a fantastic human, so much fun, great energy. But mary that what was really intriguing is that she is over both content and product marketing, and that's a unique structure for one, and it fell in line with our theme about thinking about these pillars, and so we were really excited to speak to her. I will say that one of the things that I really loved about what Mary said specifically was the way that she described typical product marketing in the lower middle market and then contrasting it with typical content marketing, which also has its faults, and bringing the best of both of those together, one of which was around this concept of pillars. Right, the content marketing side understands this idea of the importance of key pillars and how everything kind of builds off of those pillars.

Gary:

But in product marketing it becomes very tactical. But yet the most powerful product marketing content needs to tie those pillars because it's around bottom of funnel content. Start there. You have to be really good at that, and I thought that was such great insight and allows us to think about okay, if I put the titles aside and I stop thinking about content and product, thinking about content and product, excuse me, excuse me and I think about the outcomes that I'm trying to drive, that opens up a whole door of how I really get to that, that end game. So anyway, that was a big fan of mary's podcast. I think that's going to go down as one of our favorites here's the thing about mary um, wasn't there a movie about that?

Andy:

yes, it's amazing I wasn't actually referencing a movie there and you are the first time in a while he's a movie referencer, so so they sell design collaboration software. Okay, and somehow they've designed as an industrial design Right.

Andy:

It's like physical, like honestly subject matter wise, something I don't think a lot of us would point to as the most scintillating thing that we could think of about caring about and talking about. Somehow they've managed to make that exciting, right, they've managed to literally. We hear people talk about it all the time, building community. They've done that around that product, and so you talk about marketing and the power of marketing and people you know turning proverbially, chicken, chicken crap into chicken salad, not saying that their product is that. But they've made that exciting, they've made an audience really care about that and engage. That's that's, you know, that's the power of that and that's what they've done.

Tiana:

So, yep I, I honestly love the way she has done it and well, of course, her boss, um too mj, because, well, that she told me about, because I I found Mary for the first time probably like I don't remember exactly how it was probably five months ago, on LinkedIn, and the first post that I got introduced to was a post that she did as a new head of marketing of a B2B SaaS startup.

Tiana:

This is what not. This is what is not on my list of priorities, and what was was marketing fundamentals and creating a better website experience and customer research and, honestly, the buyer led growth language goes all around just making it better from the beginning, just going back to fundamentals and knowing specifically what you should do so that you're speaking your language and so that you're creating an experience from their point of view and not your own, not what you're trying to sell, but what they're trying to buy Basically. So that's what I loved about her from the beginning and that's that's why I was very excited for her to be in the podcast, because she's speaking what we know and what we we try to communicate all the time and, as Andy said, she just manages to make it so much fun.

Gary:

Yep. So definitely go back and if you haven't already done so, listen to Mary Keogh's podcast. There. I guarantee you, regardless of your discipline sales marketing founder, whatever you are going to, you're going to find some gold in them bar hills. So go listen to that, okay.

Gary:

Moving on, our next guest in the series is Brendan Hufford, and so I don't just, like Tiana mentioned earlier, I'm trying to remember exactly how I came across Brendan. It's been I don't know a year or so, but I'm a subscriber to his newsletter and I appreciated his content and the way he thinks about content. But there was one in particular that really jumped out at me and I know we're going to get into this is what he calls content IP for intellectual property. What he calls content IP for intellectual property, and I thought that was man instantly. If you think about all the ways that we think about product intellectual property or even go-to-market systems, intellectual property, this idea of content intellectual property, I'm like wait, hold, timeout, what is that? And so I'm just going to read a little snippet from his email, because I think it articulates it well.

Gary:

It's a three-step process Find a problem your customers have. It's very novel, name it and exist only to help your customers solve the problem. It seems so simple but so powerful, right? And if you boil it down to just those basics, especially the last one, do you as a company exist only to help solve that problem that you named? That to me was, and now he says it's like buying a ticket to an exclusive retreat with 100 of your ideal customers.

Gary:

But most people will not do this. It's hard, it takes a lot of time. No tool can tell you the answers. If you're bogged down doing the thing right, random acts, what we would call random acts of marketing writing social posts, weekly blogs, weekly emails, monthly you'll never find time to do this, and so that is at the core. Back to this fundamentals concept, right? So what we're looking forward I personally am looking forward to with Brendan is okay, we talk a lot about that, but how do we actually create this system of content, ip? I know the research part of it, but once we get to that point, what is the process we would need to go through? How do we actually structure this so that it becomes a repeatable thing? Right, it becomes a muscle that we can develop and improve.

Tiana:

And especially for a lower middle market where we know we don't have all the resources that we can just plug into it to make it work. Just who participates in it, who in the company is actually in charge of what and, as you said, how to get to that point and what's involved around it.

Gary:

Such a great point because you're absolutely right. What that is, I think what we're going to hear and what it's going to lead to is that founders and CEOs are going to have to think differently about the allocation of resources to their go-to-market engine. That's going to be hard.

Andy:

Absolutely, and the thing I keep going back to is we talk about the outcome of content development, which is like I have these pieces, they're produced, they're doing this as far as bringing in eyeballs, whatever that may be when, in reality, as part of that, actually Tiana, I think that people should be measured those who are responsible for that in how they develop the engine to do this is how I'm being, in part, rated as an employee, if you will, as opposed to just on the production and the end results that that's bringing in. It's a little bit of a different mindset and I feel like Brendan and I don't, you know, we'll find out has some of that as well.

Gary:

Agreed, gonna be great. Okay, moving on. So our next guest is Jen Allen Knuth, and I'm super excited here. First of all, she's quite a personality. We've been connected a little over a year now and she's really interesting is prior to that she was with Challenger, as in the Challenger sale, and what's going to be fantastic about Jen's perspective is she is working with larger companies, typically selling into the enterprise around, losing to the buyer status quo, and so we advocate for starting from the middle out.

Gary:

And this is such a powerful, important point because Jen hits on what our companies, our organization, needs to be able to respond to, and that is the unspoken, hidden, complex emotions, situations, organizational structures, dynamics that prevent forward progress, that prevent action, ie the status quo, or what we would say is probably more likely a fear of an error of commission, which is the fear of effing up, and so really looking forward to unpacking that piece of it and how it can inform our content strategy, whether that's sales enablement, it's product marketing, it's in the actual sales process, it's before the sales process, it's getting into the demo, it's what are the unspoken things that we need to consider here. So I'm super excited about that one.

Tiana:

Yeah, me too. Actually, one of the latest posts of Jen that I really really love is the one that cold email has an ugly baby problem. She's so funny and I love one of the things she said in the post is that often our prospects cling to the status quo because the way that, which is the way they're currently solving the problem, because at some point it worked and it's tough to let go of something that has been working good enough. And I really love that post because she said, instead of pointing the finger at what your prospects doing wrong, just show them why the environment has changed and why that stops working. And that's incredibly insightful. And well, of course, all of her posts are. She just goes around with the language that we love to speak, the buy like growth language, and just looking at things from the buyer's perspective.

Andy:

So that's why I'm hugely thrilled about having her here amen, yep, very simply, she's very concerned about what, what the buyers actually care about, what they're actually thinking in the moment and I think gary to your point on um, you know the, the areas of the brain, if you will, that's our, our visual representation of those things that the buyer cares about, and we think about it from a competitive standpoint a lot of times too. That's what she seems to be touching upon quite a bit that emotional side, the fear, and why do they care? And, spoiler alert, it's not a laundry list of features right, exactly all right.

Gary:

So, uh, no pressure, jen, but we're very excited for that one. Our next guest is gia laudi and, kind of by default, her business partner, claire. Um, so they, we have actually worked with both and are huge fans, so they are authors of their business. Forget the Funnel, but Customer-Led Growth. Here's the book, here for those who see the video, and so we hear this all the time Go talk to your customers, go talk to your customers. And so companies endeavor to go out to talk to their customers and we have content marketers talking to customers and product marketers, and certainly salespeople are doing it every day, listening to sales recordings, marketers, even founders, everybody's out talking to their customer, but we never ask the question what are we saying? And, more importantly, what are we asking and this is going to be awesome because they literally wrote the book on this Customer-led growth is how do we get to insights that actually matter, information that, if you go back to what we just talked about with Jen, how can we unpack those things?

Gary:

That are the things creating the inertia, the status quo? How do we understand that? How do we understand how they're making decisions? We so rarely do that. Nor do we do it. Well, we launch a research project every now and again. A lot of times we'll hire a third party help to do it, but how can we build that DNA into our engine, into our system, so that we can do that? So there's actually a structure around that, and so for that, I'm very excited to have Gia walk through that with us. Okay, so our final guest in our five-part series on strategic content in the month of August, which probably is going to spill into September because we have so much of it, is Emma Stratton and Tiana. You're an Emma fan and brought Emma to the table. Thank you very much for that. Very excited to have her. But give us a little background on what caught your eye about Emma as we think about this topic.

Tiana:

Actually, before we hit record, andy just mentioned it. That is basically the way she approaches messaging is all about clarity and not using the buzzwords or marketing jargon that most of us are used to reading and that's why we ignore them. We haven't realized so far that content is not, as mary said, of course, in the previous podcast mark. Content is not only what you read in a blog or, basically, or a LinkedIn post or any of the sort. It can. It is, but it can also be use cases and what you're saying in your website and what you're saying everywhere, basically, and she's all about messaging and all about clarity and how to make that creative, and I love that. She's completely transparent and she calls out all those buzzwords that we're so used to reading and we don't want to anymore, and the way she writes is just amazing to me. So how to write the content that you're putting out? There is what just sparked the light to me.

Gary:

Yeah, I love the idea the clarity over cleverness. The clarity over cleverness right, we've heard that and we say that frequently as well is that we, we, we get so overly complicated so quickly and boil it down to again another buyer led perspective. Right, put yourself in the shoes of the buyer. What is their language? How would they describe it? What does it look like? The other important point I think I'm really excited about, emma is we talk a lot about how do we get the content. What does that content mean? We've got a blend of content and product. We've got Jen's perspective of starting from the middle out and really the mindset of the buyer. We have Gia who's helping us understand how we get to that mindset. But all of that culminates where the rubber hits the road is how do we say it? What are we saying?

Gary:

Whatever the asset is right and that's where Emma comes in, I think is how do we take all of that information and then make it something, say it in such a way and over such a set of mediums that the buyer actually will resonate with the buyer. It makes sense to them, it's simple to understand and it's relevant in the moment. So I'm excited. Now the challenge is we talked about how do you actually build that muscle? How do you do that DNA? Everybody says, be creative, but I'm not very creative. I wish I could just be creative, you know, sprinkle some creative dust and make it happen, but I don't think it's going to. But I know there are structures that we can put in place to help us in that manner some rubrics, frameworks, what have you and so that's what I'm really looking forward to exploring with Emma.

Andy:

Yeah, I don't think you can force innovation, but you can structure it. It sounds like she's good at that.

Gary:

Yeah, agreed, force innovation, but you can structure it. It sounds like she's good at that.

Tiana:

Yeah, agreed, yeah, definitely she's had. She also has some posts on it like um, there's this one where she says that, uh, you can't always rush creativity, but if you do, there is like a happy medium and, for example, like, avoid abstract phrases filled with buzzwords and jargon. I said, make your writing simple, human and compelling and basically tell a good story. So, and she's a great storyteller she actually shares a lot about her personal life on linkedin too, so I feel we can definitely get into all of that yeah, great, we're excited, okay, so that's there.

Gary:

There you have it. That's the rationale behind that, or the method of the madness, as, as they say, the rationale behind this content series. And again, it's not about creating content, it's about how do we build the muscle, the DNA, so that we can deliver information that's benefiting, tied to our product, so that we can be in front of our prospective customers and our existing customers in a clear and concise way. So at the end of this, we're going to extract all of it, hopefully build out a little bit of a framework that can really help those in the little lower middle market. Then think about how do we allocate resources, what are the structures that we need, how do we get good at this whole thing called content? So stick with us.

Gary:

They'll be out consecutively the next well, mary's has already been released. As we said, consecutively the next four weeks, and we're working on a bonus guest which might spill into September as well. So stay tuned for that. Until then, we'll see you back next week when we get a chance to speak with Brendan. Until then, bye, leader, offering the insights you need to thrive. For further guidance, visit gtmproco and continue your path to becoming board ready with us? Share this journey, subscribe, engage and elevate your go-to-market skills Until next time. Go be a pro.