Recession Proof Your B2B Marketing
Shakespeare once wrote, “To thine own self, be true.” In that spirit, RTU host Drew Neisser did something a little out of the ordinary.
Now, some people might consider talking to yourself for 30+ minutes to be a little crazy, but not Drew Neisser. In one of the most unusual Renegade Thinkers Unite episodes to date, Drew interviews none other than himself.
On this episode, the dynamic duo of Drew and Drew continually push the conversation to exciting territories. The discussion touches on key insights Drew has learned over the course of his 300 CMO interviews, the challenges 2019 will bring for marketers, and more. Don’t miss it!
2020 Update: To read Renegade’s 6 smart lead generation tactics during a downturn, check out our special report on B2B demand generation.
Catch Drew’s insights here.
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What You’ll Learn
Employees are a key part of marketing
You need to have dedicated employees on board with your brand and with your product. Employees purchasing what you’re selling as a marketer is highly linked to the success of a product. If they are behind the product enough to purchase it, they are likely to understand and promote it. If the employees buy the brand story, they can be tremendous advocates. They can share their real experiences and use social proof to spread the word about your brand in a cost-effective way. Especially in a downturn, employees buying in with a brand and sharing content is key. It’s free media, and you can’t live without it.
How to prepare your B2B marketing plan for the recession
Drew shares that it is vital to prepare a B2B marketing plan for the recession. Great marketers will shine during the recession, but weaker marketers will not survive. A smart marketer will recognize a good strategy and will work on all communication channels, marketing to employees, customers, and prospects alike. Drew tells the audience to prepare for budget cuts in preparation for the recession. Figure out what part of the budget will drive demand generation, because those dollars spent will yield successful business results. These parts of the budget can be defended, but defending the portion of a budget focussed on building one’s brand on will be at risk. Drew shares that a B2B organization needs to have a brand health tracking study in place before a recession, so that if a budget cut arises, marketers can still know how their brand is performing.”
Why you should secure customers before the recession
With a recession, all companies will likely experience budget cuts and potential losses. Drew explains that businesses should think about securing customers as the recession draws near. Focus should be put on keeping current customers happy. These current customers will also have problems linked to a recession, so Drew says to be prepared to answer how your specific product or service can help customers grow their business even in an economic downturn.
Timeline
- [1:02] Renegade Rapidfire
- [12:19] Why talk about the recession now?
- [15:37] Why employees are vital in marketing
- [17:51] What smart marketers will prepare for with a recession in mind
- [24:28] What marketers can do in an economic downturn to make them different
- [28:42] Other CMO’s opinions on what should be 2019’s focus
Resources & People Mentioned
- Book: Robert McKee’s Storynomics
- Book: Jay Baer’s Talk Triggers
Connect with Drew
Connect with Drew
Full Transcript: Drew Neisser in conversation with…Drew Neisser?
Drew Neisser Q: Hello and welcome to a very special, different, and bizarre episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. Today’s guest is…Drew Neisser, and I’m going to be doing something really silly. I’m going to be going back and forth between two microphones interviewing myself and trying to be the guest that I’ve always hoped I might be on someone else’s show. All right. First thing we’re going to do is kick off with a little Renegade Rapid Fire. Drew, what’s your definition of marketing?
Drew Neisser A: Well, marketing is anything and everything that impacts the attitudes, behaviors, and purchase intent of a prospect or customer.
Drew Neisser Q: Wow, that’s a rather broad definition of marketing, don’t you think Drew?
Drew Neisser A: Well, it is but I do think that marketing is just about everything that can have an impact on the brand. That’s why I spend so much time thinking about employees and the way they influence a brand and the way a consumer engages with a particular brand. So, yeah, a broad definition because there’s lots for a marketer to do.
Drew Neisser Q: What do you see as the primary role of the Chief Marketing Officer? Those folks that you’ve interviewed, what, 300 or so?
Drew Neisser A: Yeah, that’s about right. I think we rounded 300 towards the end of 2018. The primary role of a CMO is, 1, set the vision; 3, build the team; and 3, allocate the resources to achieve the vision and make sure that the team can do what they’re supposed to be doing.
Drew Neisser Q: Well that sounds like the role of any leader. That could be the same for a Chief Executive Officer. Isn’t that right?
Drew Neisser A: Yeah, I really think that at a CMO that wants to be in the board suite and be on the team needs to act like a leader—I refer back to Episode 99 with Greg Welch and the importance of being a leader and what it means to be a leader, and that’s set the vision, build the team, allocate the resources. From there, life can be good because if you achieve your vision, if you have the right team, you’ll achieve your vision. If you give them the resources that they need then the vision will be realized.
Drew Neisser Q: What’s your favorite part of your job, Drew? We won’t talk about a CMO.
Drew Neisser A: Believe it or not my favorite part of the job is learning. I love these interviews. I love the chance to pick the brains of Chief Marketing Officers, and really get maybe under their skin a little bit, but just try to understand what their motivations are and how they are tackling challenges in new and fresh ways.
Drew Neisser Q: What’s your least favorite part of the job?
Drew Neisser A: Huh. Well, let me think about that. Probably having to follow up on invoices. Fortunately, these days I don’t do that much but, yeah, money discussions have been never my favorite part of the marketing agency business.
Drew Neisser Q: Fair enough. So, what’s the best advice you were ever given?
Drew Neisser A: Well, I’d probably go back to Harry Truman who said: “Never forget who you are and where you came from.” I’m just a nice kid from Newport Beach, California who loves tennis and racquet sports and being outside. Of course, I ended up living the last 30+ years in New York City—very different than planned, but the way I think about things, it does come back from my roots of being an outgoing, friendly, optimistic individual.
Drew Neisser Q: All right. Well, that makes sense, I guess. What is the proudest moment that you’ve had as a marketer?
Drew Neisser A: Gosh. That’s hard. And I understand why that question is so hard. I suspect the proudest moment has to do with conceiving, hatching, naming, and launching the Toughbook for Panasonic. There were so many things that that we did right in that launch and once we had named the product it really became about constantly proving how tough it was. And so, one of the things, after they built the first true Toughbook, was that we had the audacity to suggest and then the client had the bravery to agree to let us run, on live television—the large show was Comdex, this goes way back—a 6,000-lbs Hummer on live television over one of these prototypes to see how tough it really was. Fortunately, it survived. The screen did crack but the machine kept working.
Drew Neisser Q: That does sound like a somewhat renegade thing. Is there a brand that you admire the most that hasn’t already been mentioned on the show?
Drew Neisser A: Well, I think I have an advantage over other guests in that I’ve been part of every show. There is a brand that I’ve really been enjoying. It’s this brand called Shinesty. It’s a direct mail company and they sell really goofy clothes. In fact, my wife and I decided to buy these crazy—and I’m talking about crazy—matching Christmas outfits. Mine was a suit and a tie and hers was a dress and the clothes were silly, but it was the brand experience that I really paid attention to.
The catalog was very cleverly written. When you go online to order it was a pretty positive experience and then, the day before the product arrives, there was a text that was quite funny. In fact, if I can find the text I’ll read it to you because it was shocking the surprising so unexpected. Here it is: “Andrew. Shinesty here. Sir Tobin, our carrier pigeon, rigged the reindeer games and is en route with a full sack. Your package is out for delivery.”
That was November 27th, and then the next day the text arrived that said: “Holy shit. Slide your chute open because Sir Tobin actually made it. Your package has been delivered. Questions? Peep this.” And then there’s a link to a URL, which I did, and it went to their customer service.
Drew Neisser Q: Well that sounds like a very cool brand. Indeed, a lot of personality. What I like about that story is that they followed it up. It wasn’t just in the moment and having silly clothes. The brand was consistent all the way through the experience.
Next question is there a recent book that’s made you rethink something?
Drew Neisser A: Oh gosh. I am a voracious reader and I have an advantage in that I also am listening to Audible books all the time, so I’ve got usually two going, either a historical fiction or biography that I’m reading and then any other kind of books that I listen to. I’m currently listening to Storynomics by Robert McKee, and I’ve read and listened to a lot of books on story but I’m finding this one extremely helpful in defining what is a story and what isn’t. The profound moment in this one was the opportunity to use story to help someone learn something without realizing you’re teaching them, and of course, I think that was a quote from Aristotle. Anyway, that, to me, if you can achieve that as a marketer—to teach without someone realizing that you’re teaching them—that’s pretty cool.
Drew Neisser Q: All right. Storynomics. Drew, do you think machines will ever be able to do your job?
Drew Neisser A: That is unlikely.
Drew Neisser Q: Why not?
Drew Neisser A: Well, first of all, they’d need a machine with extreme ADD. Second of all, what I love about my job is it’s so varied. I bounce from helping do strategy for B2B brands to coming up with the ideas that will help bring that strategy to life. There’s a lot of left-brain thinking, right-brain thinking, and I don’t think a machine will be able to do all of the things that that I do.
Drew Neisser Q: But certainly, a machine will be able to help some of it.
Drew Neisser A: I’d love it if a machine could take care of all my emails. That would be awesome.
Drew Neisser Q: That makes sense. What would you be doing if you weren’t a marketer?
Drew Neisser A: That’s funny—I can’t imagine not being a marketer. I don’t see myself retiring ever. I just said that on the air, I really don’t. I love this business. It is so stimulating, so challenging, and so varied, and it always is changing. But if I had a chance, I suppose I’d love to be a professional photographer. It would be great to actually realize an artistic dream.
Drew Neisser Q: Very cool. All right. Drew, well that ends Renegade Rapid Fire. Let’s take a break and see what else you can come up with.
BREAK
Drew Neisser Q: We’re back and my guest is, yeah, you know who. Anyway, one of the things that I wanted to talk a little bit about with myself are some of the trends that I’m seeing on the horizon. Been working on a story for AdAge about that, interviewed about 11, actually make that 12 different CMO s in the B2B world to see where their heads were at. I think I’ll ask myself some of those questions but before I do, I think the first question that I want to ask myself is: Why are you talking about the recession now?
Drew Neisser A: I feel like we are very much where we were in 2007—my spidey senses sort of started to tingle at that moment. I was in a meeting at Gartner’s marketing sales conference in October in Vegas and Brent Adamson had a group of CMOs, probably 15-20 of us in this nondescript room. We’re having this conversation about various challenges and then Brent sort of throws out there, he says: “So, how are you all preparing for the recession?” You could have heard a pin drop.
Drew Neisser Q: I would have loved to have been in the room.
Drew Neisser A: You were in the room. What was interesting about it is that at that moment I really thought to myself, “Okay, I’ve been having these same feelings that he’s talking about.” There are obvious indicators from the stock market. I mean this bull run has been going very strong. And even if the recession doesn’t happen next year it is always good to use—as they say, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
Drew Neisser Q: All right, so let’s talk a little bit about the recession and the kinds of things that a marketer would do differently.
Drew Neisser A: The first point I want to make is that this is when the great marketers will shine. My uncle, Ed Neisser, was a very successful financial advisor and he used to say, “Look, any idiot can make money in a bull market. But it does take—not necessarily genius—but it takes somebody really really good at their profession to do well in the recession. And I think that’s where we are now—because there’s been this prolonged business expansion, you have marketers in their role where the rising tide has lifted all the ships and been able to cover, perhaps, flaws in strategy or flaws in execution or an inability to work with sales. A recession is going to bring those things to the forefront.
Drew Neisser Q: So you’re saying that, in a recession, the great marketers will continue to do well, but the weaker ones will probably not survive.
Drew Neisser A: Exactly. The smart marketer will recognize the critical importance of a really profound strategy, one that is deeply rooted in an insight that can work across all the communication channels including employees, customers, and prospects.
Drew Neisser Q: Let’s talk about that for a second. You’re constantly talking about employees, and we know that 83% of dollars in B2B are spent on acquisition and not retention even. Why are we talking about employees on a show for CMOs and marketers?
Drew Neisser A: We’re talking about employees for several reasons. The first is that if employees don’t buy what you’re selling as a marketer, the chances of that actually succeeding are very thin. I mean, imagine a customer buys into the Shinesty example I mentioned earlier, this really fun, flavorful, different tongue-in-cheek brand. But the employees don’t buy in on it, so you call the call center and they say, “Yeah. What do you want?” that brand would fall apart at that very second and no amount of marketing will help recover that.
Drew Neisser Q: That’s part of the employee story—that you have to have this consistent brand. But what else?
Drew Neisser A: The other big part of employees is, if they do buy your brand story, they can be tremendous brand advocates. We’ve had a number of people on this show Jeanniey Mullen talking about Mercer, which is a huge company, and how she was making employee activation a top priority. We had Diana O’Brien on the show from Deloitte. Another huge company, and Diana spends 50% of her time focused on communicating with employees. If you can get the employees involved in the brand idea, you have a platform for making it real and spreading the word cost-effectively. I think this is going to be even more important in a downturn because getting an employee to share content is essentially free. It’s free media.
Drew Neisser Q: We’ve been talking about employees and the marketer being able to have a focus story and activating employees. Think of the smart marketer looking at the gloomy storm clouds ahead—what are the kinds of things that they need to prepare for?
Drew Neisser A: Well, one, in all likelihood, you’re going to need to prepare for budget cuts. One of the things that will really help you is to know which part of your budget is really good at driving demand gen, and knowing that you can make the argument that “if we spend X dollars, we’ll acquire Y customers,” and as long as that number is cost-effective you should be able to defend that part of your budget.
Drew Neisser Q: That’s interesting. You’re saying basically that if you can create a demand generation engine then you will be able to keep your budget.
Drew Neisser A: Yes, that is true to some extent. I would refer you back to a couple of episodes with Eric Eden (part 1, part 2) where he talked about how to a build demand generation engine and how to create the math that works where you have a fully loaded cost per acquisition, and then you can have some certainty that the dollars spent will yield some business results.
Drew Neisser Q: All right. That’s interesting. We can defend our demand generation budget, but I gather that defending the brand budget is going to be harder.
Drew Neisser A: Absolutely. Those dollars are going to be at risk and those are going to be really hard to defend. One of the reasons that I believe strongly that every B2B brand should have a brand health tracking study in place is exactly for this circumstance. When the recession comes, you still need to know how your brand is doing. How do your customers perceive your brand? What’s your churn rate? What are they thinking about in terms of switching? How likely are they to recommend?
Now, you’ll notice that I didn’t put NPS first. I’m increasingly dissatisfied with NPS as a core metric. I just don’t think it tells you “why.” It’s a nice point in time, but it’s not enough, so if we’re going to do brand health research, we better really blow it out so you have a clear understanding of the perception and brand strength, so that when you stop spending you’ll notice that, chances are, that’s going to decline. That will be a problem for you because then your cost per acquisition is likely to go up.
Drew Neisser Q: I’m not sure that logic held but we’ll let you off the hook because this is, after all, your show. You need brand health tracking. I get it. But you still said that your brand spend is at risk and you may have to give that up.
Drew Neisser A: Exactly. That’s going to be very very hard to maintain. The second thing that I want you to think about as you prepare for the recession is securing your customers. It’s actually legend—there’s no math anywhere, there’s no study that you can find that will say that it’s 6x more expensive to get a customer than it is to keep one. It probably is true. But find that study and prove me wrong.
Drew Neisser Q: Why not try to keep your customers? Why not double down on them? As a marketer, that’s also a very cost-effective way of growing your business. If you can keep your customers happy and figure out, alright, they’re going to have a problem with the recession, too, so how does that impact their relationship with you? What can you do to help them grow their business despite the economic downturn?
Drew Neisser A: That’s a really interesting point. As you go into this defensive mode, if you think about it that way, you really need to be putting your customers out there and saying—I’m just thinking about that now for our clients—we should be going to them with a plan that says, in the event that budgets start to be cut for, say, marketing technology software or for digital transformation, what are you going to be able to do to make the case that your particular product—that there’s an urgent need for it and that, in fact, this is a good thing to do in an economic downturn and not a luxury.
Drew Neisser Q: Wow, that was a lot. I need to digest that because I think you both stated something in a question and answered it. Let’s take a quick break.
BREAK
Drew Neisser Q: We’re back, and my guest is me. I have to tell you—my brain hurts. This is a lot harder than I expected. I mean you try this. I’ve got two mics just in case you were wondering.
All right. We were talking about in a recession, in a downturn, having a very clear, succinct brand strategy. We didn’t go into that with too much detail but focusing on employees and making sure they’re on board and then moving on to customers. Having secured our employees and gotten them on board, getting our customers to be even more passionate about it, and creating something for them that helps them recession-proof their business. That sounds inspired. Now, what about acquisition? What can you do in an economic downturn that will make a difference?
Drew Neisser A: I think we really need to be thinking about the basics of marketing again, making sure that your story is crystal clear and addresses a need in a unique way. This is the time where, if your brand is very much like somebody else’s, you’re going to struggle. Unique always wins. It may not be the maths, but unique means that your margins are different, unique means that you can tell your story in a way that others can’t.
Drew Neisser Q: We’re back to basics. I get that. That means having a clear story. You’ve already mentioned that. What else? What are we talking about? What are some of the tangible things that marketers can do to prepare?
Drew Neisser A: Obviously doing some models right now to help you think through what happens if sales start to decline, if leads start to decline. Are there ways that we can improve our conversion rates? How do we do that? Thinking about conversion rates and trying now to say “Is this a pricing issue, is this a service issue, is this a bundle issue? Are we needing to make it easier using the freemium model to get someone on board?” I think what you will see is that there will be even less risk-taking by your prospects, so you need to bring certainty to the sale, and that certainty is: “You need our product or our service regardless of the economic conditions.”
You need to be able to state that in a way that is both rational and emotional, and there is going to be a tendency and a lot of pressure on you to focus on the rational. “We’re better because of these three things.” That will not do it. That is one truth about marketing that won’t change regardless of the recession. Logic doesn’t always prevail. It’s not about just the cheapest. It’s not about a lot of bids or one because they’re more expensive, but they come with a sense of certainty. Well, we know there’s no certainty in the world yet, these brands are able to communicate it through a number of things if they’re doing.
Drew Neisser Q: This is a little bit vague but maybe you can be more specific.
Drew Neisser A: All right. Well, specifically, I think this would be a good time to study up on what Brent Adamson was talking about in buyer enablement—creating as many things that make it easier for your buyer to buy. That’s recognizing the 5.4 decision-makers on the committee. It’ll be interesting to see if in a downturn there are more or fewer people on the buying committee, we can only hope for less. But regardless there’s always going to be a financial person, an IT person, a security person, and you need to anticipate those needs and you need to make sure that you have the content and tools that will enable them to make it easier. Whoever your champion is, that first person that you’ve engaged with that thinks this particular product or service that you’re providing is critical to the organization, you need to make it easy for them to sell and persuade their peers.
Drew Neisser Q: Right. Buyer enablement. That’s a good place to think about investing. Always a good place to invest. Drew, you’ve been interviewing a lot of CMOs lately talking about trends, what are some of the things that they’re saying? You’re not a CMO.
Drew Neisser A: Right you are. I’m not a CMO, but maybe in my next life, I will be. Let’s talk about some of the things that the CMOs shared with me, and the trends. Funny enough, they were equally divided between art and science. It was fascinating. Michael Mendenhall talked about how he sees the critical importance of brand building with an organizing principle and a strong narrative that is meaningful, consistent, and differentiated. That, to him, is his top priority for 2019.
It’s really interesting to me because so much of Silicon Valley—he works for a company called TriNet—is centered around data marketing technology. You’ll remember from my interview with Meagan Eisenberg from MongoDB, she mentioned 28 marketing technologies, and more recently in the interview with Brian Kardon, he also talked about a huge tech stack. I thought it was interesting that Michael came out of the gate talking about brand.
Drew Neisser Q: That is interesting. Did any others talk about brand?
Drew Neisser A: Yes. Diana O’Brien who you’ll hear in a podcast soon enough—actually, I think this is sort of a back to the future moment. The Diana episode is before this one. Anyway, Diana talked about technology as a bit of a distraction and sees 2019 as the year of getting back to the basics of marketing. She has these four M’s—mindset, moments, moves, and meaning—and you’ll have to go back and listen to that episode to get the details on that.
Drew Neisser Q: Anything surprising on the art side?
Drew Neisser A: Well, Paul Gottsegen, who was in an episode—he’s the CMO of Mindtree—is hoping that he can build an organization of what he calls “techie storytellers” and he’s really hopeful that he cannot allow anyone in the company to speak in acronyms. So, we wish Paul a lot of luck in that front.
Drew Neisser Q: Who else?
Drew Neisser A: Kevin Noonan, the CMO of Expiry. Really interesting company that owns a lot of licenses. Kevin talked about marketing internally, marketing the marketing, and making sure that the organization is more aware of the successes that they’re having.
Drew Neisser Q: Anybody else?
Drew Neisser A: Sure. Penny Wilson who is the CMO of HootSuite talks about—and this is where both the science and the art start to meet in the middle—she talked about the whole need to reassure customers and their customer’s customers that their data is safe and secure, and certainly, that was one of the outcomes of GDPR and obviously the Facebook and the Marriott breach. All these things are happening that are generating distrust, so I think a lot of 2019 will be about rebuilding trust. Certainly, on a micro-level, every company needs to be thinking about that and what they’re doing to keep their data secure and so forth. That was a good observation.
Drew Neisser Q: You mentioned that there were a lot of brands or marketers who were focused on the data side of things. Talk a little bit about that.
Drew Neisser A: Sure. Leela Srinivasan, who is the CMO of SurveyMonkey, believes that “in 2019, B2B marketers will be laser-focused on finding a way to cut through the massive troves of data available and identify the insights that matter most.” She says that you’re going to need to “leverage the voices and opinions of people who matter most to their business to better understand the context behind the data.”
I think that’s easier said than done. I mean, there’s no shortage of data but there is a deep shortage of the insights, so I can understand why Leela believes that’s so important and of course, as a company that does research, it would also make sense that they would be focused on helping companies do that.
Drew Neisser Q: Who else you got?
Drew Neisser A: Scott Olrich, the CMO of DocuSign who was on this show, recommends that CMOs follow the money so to speak and get closer to revenue. He’s really talking about being part of the revenue-generating engine—creating a revenue-generating engine, being in lockstep with sales. That makes sense. Jennifer Wong, the CMO of Convoy, believes that the biggest challenge B2B marketers face is getting the timing right. By that, she means she wants to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time and she believes that technology will be the key. Jennifer Wong is at a Convoy.
Drew Neisser Q: Who else do you have and what are they predicting for the next year?
Drew Neisser A: Aaron Clifford, CMO of Binary Fountain, also is an advocate for bringing sales customer success and marketing together to make sure that their data—or as he calls it, “data hygiene”—what he really wants to do is make sure that they’re eliminating the bad leads so that only the good leads are followed up on.
Drew Neisser Q: It’s a lot of data management.
Drew Neisser A: Exactly. Erica Hill, VP of Marketing at Trellance believes that it’s time to find a more efficient analysis of the buyer. She thinks the way that’s going to happen is through AI and machine learning: “to leverage your creative juices to truly pinpoint what buyer’s needs, wants, and expectations are in an innovative and empowering way.” Now, that’s a lot of words, but I think the idea is you can use artificial intelligence, or that is the vision, in order to more creatively put the right message in front of the right person.
Drew Neisser Q: Was Erica the only one who talked about AI?
Drew Neisser A: Well you know the answer to that, of course not. Everybody’s talking about AI. Eric John Schmidt, who’s the CMO at Stratus, he shares Hill’s optimism about artificial intelligence and believes that it can’t come soon enough given the velocity, complexity, and volume of omnichannel marketing tools. He thinks that this will provide insights that will allow marketing to provide a direct line impact on revenue. Personally, I think AI is being used by a few with remarkable success. We certainly did a couple of podcasts with folks that have talked about AI and I think it’ll be very hard for a small marketer to apply it, but the big ones certainly are not just looking at it—they’re putting it into action.
Drew Neisser Q: All right. Drew, we’re way over time here so why don’t you provide a wrap up for this episode, and try to be a little inspiring, would you?
Drew Neisser A: Seriously this is the time that great marketers will shine. 2019. There’s so much good stuff out there. We do want you to get back to basics in terms of making sure that you have a very clear story. If you cannot articulate your story in five words or less, it is not sufficiently clear. Number two: now is a really good time to get the right team collected. If you make a list of the things you’re tolerating, I suspect one of them is having someone in a seat that isn’t quite delivering what they should be doing. You can’t afford it in a downturn not to have exactly the right people you need. Every CMO needs a right-hand data person and a right-hand strategy person, and those two roles are critical. There are lots of CMOs who would say, yes, you also need a content person and maybe even a whole in-house agency. Good luck with that. In fact, that’s a big trend, and I suspect 2019 will see the peak of that, and in-house agencies will start to decline as headcounts are forced down. That’s what’s happened in the past.
So, we’re getting back to basics, and then finally, you do need a marketing technology stack. You may not 35 different technologies—I think this is the time right now to do an audit of the technology that you have like Brian Cardon talked about. Get rid of the ones that aren’t paying for themselves, get rid of the ones that are providing nice to know information not need to know information. Then, finally, as you look ahead, you can never go wrong by taking care of your customers first. Now is the time that you need your customers to be shouting from the rooftops saying how amazing your organization is.
I might actually go back and say probably one of the most important books that I read this year was Talk Triggers by Jay Baer. Jay was on the show and what I love about Talk Triggers is that it does help you focus your story and create something tangible that people can talk about, and that is what we’re talking about here—marketing that gets noticed and that cuts through.
Drew Neisser Q: All right, Drew. That was pretty good for something on the fly. For those of you who are still listening—thank you as always for listening to the show. Let us know how you feel about it. Until next week, keep those Renegade Thinking Caps on and strong.