Transcript
Speaker: Your B2B marketing pint is a podcast full of insights for tech marketers. joined by other marketing veterans. Your hosts Brian O 'Grady and Brendan Ziolo share expertise on what works today and why.
Speaker: Grab a cold pint of hot takes on branding, content marketing, demand generation and more served with a side sarcasm.
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen. Boys and girls stop what you're doing. It's time. for B2B Marketing Pipe. I'm Brian O 'Grady, that's Brendan Ziolo, and the third guy, I don't know yet, Brendan...
Speaker: Who are we talking to today? Well, Brian, today's guest is Darren Legault.
Speaker: He's a fractional sales leader and trusted sales advisor to small and mid -sized B2B companies. ah He has 25 years of sales leadership experience, including time. inside large Fortune 500 organization. He now works directly with CEOs and owners to diagnose what's holding revenue back, something we all need to figure out and find out, and then builds the systems, processes, and coaching that basically turns chaotic sales efforts into repeatable ones. His starting point is almost always a sales playbook, which he calls the GPS Bible of a sales team.
Speaker: And I know he's passionate about this, as I've heard him talk numerous times. So we'll get into that in a minute. Darren and I met. I'm going to say a year ago, but I'm bad at this. It might be two years ago now at Tycon, which is a local Ottawa event. And now I think we bump into each other at least twice a month, maybe more at various other events around here. um We've talked about sales and marketing alignment on the show before, but it's a topic that everyone, I think, needs to get right. And we haven't covered it this season. So that's why I thought it'd be great to have Darren on board.
Speaker: Well... Brendan, Brian, thanks for having me. it's It's great to be here. And you're right, Brendan, it's been... It's been about a year, I think, since we've we've met, and we've we've actually done a Lunch and Learn together a few months ago, and we're planning to do one another one later this month. so we've ah We've definitely got got' got some good synergies together.
Speaker: All right, Darren, why don't you tell us what you're drinking today, as is the tradition here. Well, as you know, Brendan, the story I was supposed to have a beer that you left me.
Speaker: I could not find any alcohol in the in my house, so I'm going to be very lame today, and I've got a Diet Pepsi. Now I typically will drink beer after a long hot round of golf.
Speaker: or after hockey, but... You know? That's what I have today. Buy a Pepsi. Well, we haven't asked any of the major cola brands for sponsorship yet, so I think this is a great idea.
Speaker: There we go. They have all kinds of money. I think. right here do you got bret What do you got, Brian? Ugh. I'm excited! I'm excited. This is a first for me.
Speaker: It's a Ganaraska Brewing Company. called Irish Red, called... The Irishman. The Irishman. Brand new. I think they're out of Port Hope. I haven't tried it before. It's a B2B marketing pint first.
Speaker: Brendan, how about you? Wow. I have had this one. I don't think it's been on the pint before and I couldn't resist the title when I actually found it again. So I actually have.
Speaker: Stay classy, IPA. Mmm! Now, you can argue whether that applies to me or not, but it is a good one. It's non -alcohol again, as everyone knows. Which does increase the chances of staying classy. It does. That's a very good point. But yeah, I've had this before, but not on the pint. And I couldn't resist when I saw it the other day when I was out. I think I was out buying Darren's beer and found this one. So at least I...
Speaker: bought something for myself too. Brilliant. of course i Of course, I have to forget it. And anyways, here we are. That's all right. All right. Let's crack these open. let's do it Alright.
Speaker: All right. And Brian, why don't you kick us off? Sorry, we should cheers first. I'm messing this up entirely. Well, it's that's because we're excited. We are. Can't wait to put Darren on the hot seat.
Speaker: Oh look at that. Now, if that's not a commercial, I don't know what is. I even had the sound. Cheers. Cheers boys and girls.
Speaker: All right. Brendan, you mentioned... Marking alignment. marketing sales alignment. Boy, if we get that right in this episode. This is going to be the most famous. podcast episode in history.
Speaker: We're going to be done for if we get sales and marketing alignment right in this episode. So that leads me to my first question for you, Darren. I'm a marketing guy. I'm not a sales guy, but I've had to do my share of sales. And I suspect you're going to tell me where I've gone wrong over the years.
Speaker: But when we were preparing for this sales episode, I had this epiphany, and then I had a second one. The second epiphany was, that should not have been an epiphany, Brian, because you've been at this so long. Shouldn't you know this already? Here's the question. If you're selling automotive parts,
Speaker: Or if you're selling two by fours or attic insulation or enterprise SaaS products, the way most of our our clientele does. The one thing that is in common in all those completely disparate situations is the word selling.
Speaker: and sales. And it doesn't matter how good your product is or how good your service is if you haven't figured out that word. not a lot is going to happen. So if that's true...
Speaker: Why do so many companies stumble? When they get to that... Point. Why is that part not locked down? If it's... integral to everything and every type of business everywhere. And as a follow -up.
Speaker: Secondly, is it radically different? If you're selling a ah ah product I can pick up in my hand right now. Versus one that takes... 18 months for a 12 -person buying committee in B2B land.
Speaker: to sign off on is it different in your experience between the the two b2c b2b styles And why isn't it locked down? well first and foremost what what typically happens what i see is that a founder business owner did the selling themselves, right? and then they're like okay i gotta unload this on
Speaker: to somebody else because this is this is getting too much if i want to scale i need to bring in some sales folks And they think that because they have a sales rep or two, um that replaces the, what I call the sales engine that is needed to scale. And ah very often when they bring sales people in.
Speaker: They don't provide too much training or onboarding. It's really just, okay, here's some product training. Now go figure it out. And... What happens is that you've got a you know group of salespeople, three or four of them. They're all figuring out, okay, who who are we targeting? Who's our ICP? What's our value proposition?
Speaker: How do we do a discovery call? And then everyone's doing it. differently. there's no There's no cohesion. There's no consistency. And that's what I see when I start working with clients who are unable to scale. Their their their sales are stagnant.
Speaker: is that you know they're but they've they've had some success, but because they they are so inconsistent, they're unable to scale. And so that's what I see ah from... you know from from that perspective and to answer your your your your second question you know what what the differences are the fundamentals are the same right whether you're selling attic installation or you're selling a $100 ,000. enterprise solution.
Speaker: You're still... trying to figure out what the pain points are. right what What are the pain points? What value am I bringing in? And then, you know, helping them along the decision. The difference is really the complexity of of the sale. And as you mentioned, Brian, ah you you may be. talking to one or two people in b2c whereas in b2b You've got a buying committee of 10 to 12 people.
Speaker: They all have different priorities, right? There's legal, there's finance, there's marketing, there's a whole bunch of different people. There's internal politics that you have to figure out. and The thing that I coach my my clients on that is you need to have a champion.
Speaker: Identify a champion within that process within that organization with that business. that can really go to bat for you, for those people who may not have been in the room when you know talking about your solution. And then the other thing too is that very often you have to guide them along the process because very often The prospect doesn't even know how they buy.
Speaker: Right. they they They don't even know what, you know, how how how procurement works within their own business. so If a rep has some experience with that and you have a playbook, you can actually guide the prospect through that process.
Speaker: Wow. There's a lot of content there. And your last point resonated most with me. I'll be honest. Sometimes it feels like the procurement system is ah an entirely. separate sales process after you think one. Now you start down the procurement line of things.
Speaker: Oh, I love that. And I especially like the feedback on it's just not a system. It's a bunch of random individual contributors doing their best. But I guess that's not a team or or a system, is it? And what's interesting too is that if you look at different businesses, they they have very tight processes.
Speaker: with their finance team, with their customer service. Right? Warehouse. right everything's kind of rolling and they have a process but when you Take a look at the sales side. it can be very chaotic And. That's why when i when I go into a lot of these businesses, very often it's just a lack of of that infrastructure.
Speaker: That's great feedback. Yeah. So... you know we've talked We've talked a bit about the chaos, the lack of process, and some of that, Darren, and I know the playbook is a key part of it.
Speaker: what you think solves for that. But could you give us a maybe an inside look at some of the key things that you need to cover in your playbook and then maybe some experiences on what you see you know kind of pre -playbook and post -playbook within an organization.
Speaker: Yeah, so... So what what I do is I essentially sit down with the with the founder, the owner. And. Try to get a sense of you know what the objectives are, what what the challenges are, right? Talk with the customers. and And if I can even, you know, listen in on some sales calls, that would be.
Speaker: really really helpful as well. And, ah you know, like like you said, Brendan, before, I look at it as the GPS of your go -to -market strategy. And the playbook is is is divided into three components, three major components.
Speaker: You've got sales strategy, sales methodology, and and and sales process. Sales strategy, this is where I work with you know folks like yourselves in marketing, where we we identify who the ICP is.
Speaker: what the value proposition is, the buyer persona. What's your elevator pitch? you know that that kind of thing a lot of businesses haven't done that In fact, if i if I ask, owners who i meet at networking events to to give me the value proposition i would say one out of Five can...
Speaker: articulate it A lot of it is just, oh, we're customer obsessed. Well, that's not ah that's not a value proposition, right? what what You know, whats what's going to make me... buy off you versus your competition.
Speaker: So we have to we have to nail that down in the in the stale strategy. And then afterward, we we go into a sales methodology. okay so that's your you know your qualifying criteria what type of discovery questions you're going to be asking, how to handle objections because in sales,
Speaker: If you're in sales every day, you're getting objections and you should welcome those objections because That shows interest. they never be scared of those but you need to be able to handle them And then the other the third component is called sales process. So this is the sales cycle status. And Brendan, you saw a case study where we did our with our seminar, right? One business in particular had a seven step.
Speaker: sales cycle stage right with timelines for each step. So you want to make sure that your sales team follows those those steps. um apis you know You want to make sure that you have ah key metrics that you're that you're measuring, email messaging, territories, LinkedIn messaging. So those are the three major components of a sales playbook. And then the other things that I add for the for the owner would be you know how to hire.
Speaker: how to onboard job descriptions comp plans and then another very very important piece is training and coaching and having a ah very regular coaching cadence because often you you talk to sales reps and i asked when was the last time your your your manager was out with you And they'd be like, well, they've never been in with me or it's it's been a a very long time. So they're not getting that much.
Speaker: you know coaching or guidance. and and that's And that's a huge mess. And. you ask you know what What's the difference between... you know, starting a playbook and afterwards.
Speaker: well, your your your your win rates will go up, your closing rates will go up. And then you have more consistency across across the board. You have... reps who are sing from the same songbook as we say, right? So there's more consistency.
Speaker: And when you bring in. New hires, they ramp up a lot. quicker because they have something that they can refer to. And the I guess my final point. especially since we're talking about small business, small to mid -size.
Speaker: businesses here, um I'm a firm believer that everybody within the business has to know the sales playbook inside and out Because if your customer service, if your operations, if you're in marketing, you're touching the customer at some point.
Speaker: It's not just the sales team. So everybody. has to know what is in this playbook. Yeah, it its As you were talking there, I was thinking through where you started, where it's, you know The finance has solid processes, you know, supply chain or operations or fulfillment. That side of it has stuff. But yeah, you're right. I mean.
Speaker: Sales. often lacks it and i mean marketing lacks it too we might have brand guidelines but There's a whole lot more to a marketing playbook than that. so you know, I definitely I've always liked your thinking around this topic and appreciate you. You're sharing some of the context there.
Speaker: We've all received the HR manual, right? And read it that thoroughly. Well, I was going to say, how many have read that, though? Cover to cover, baby. A lot of thought was put into it.
Speaker: and And they have it. So... and And I agree with it. I mean, there's no question. However, when you look at what's generating revenue for your business, you should have a playbook. Yeah, to hear you describe it and the the integrity that goes into the system and making it a systematic approach. It seems obvious when you describe it that way, but boy, I...
Speaker: I think a lot of places don't have it locked down quite that way yet No, they don't. ah similar Similarly on the marketing side. in my more of my experiences on marketing and i can tell you i've been part of some mad successes gentlemen but i've also been part of the occasional boondoggle and some of the boondoggles i've been part of have locked down a full funnel Outreach.
Speaker: machine Multi -touch. multi -channel They had their ICP locked down. All the offers. every stage, all the tracking. This was ah this is a pretty impressive. marketing.
Speaker: Machine. No one picked up the phone and called sales though along the way. And it turned out, even though we might be measuring, oh, look, they came in the top and then they progressed to the middle and now they're dropping out the bottom. And now we should call sales and find out if they're going to buy yet. Has sales sold them anything yet?
Speaker: And then if we. actually did get around to calling sales. They might tell us, you know, they don't actually do that. They're not actually taking that first offer and then that second offer and then that third offer. They're actually going.
Speaker: sideways and up and disappearing and then going golfing and then coming back and demanding something right away. They're not really. following your precious. marketing plan. So I've heard that a bunch and try to avoid that now. And it occurs to me that one of the ways to avoid that is. know talking to the sales reps who seem to have a a better read.
Speaker: On what? that prospect is actually doing and what they're going to to go do next. so if you're If you can't afford a big ABM platform, that it helps. break down those barriers between marketing and sales. If you don't have a fully installed and rolled out six cents or demand base or something like that, but you still want to eliminate that barrier.
Speaker: between marketing and sales. How do we get that? Sales intelligence, let's call it. back into the marketing. side of the house. as ah as a common discipline or as a regular practice. rather than just, ah did anybody think to call sales?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, that's that's key. i think I think both sales and marketing need to have... regular communication. And when I say regular, it's not just once every quarter. It's regular communication. And one of the things that I highly recommend. for the marketing folks.
Speaker: Go on sales calls.
Speaker: Okay. actually they sit down and Actually, sit down in a sales call and and see what... questions the the prospect has, right? and and see how they answer the sales rep questions on on a discovery.
Speaker: What are they looking for? right That's very, very helpful. Because a lot of lot of a lot of folks just kind of rely on what's in the CRM if they have a CRM. And let's be honest, CRM notes are aren't always accurate. There's a lot of garbage in and garbage out kind of situation. so you know, for for marketing, I would almost be attached at the hip. uh with with sales the sales manager, sales reps. I'm going out there on a regular basis with you.
Speaker: not to evaluate or measure but i want to hear the voice of the customer I want to know why they engaged with us. you know, what prompted what what prompted them to give us a call. what what what What are the reasons why they're holding back?
Speaker: Right. Because. ah Sales reps. you know, opinion may may be different than yours. Right. ah You want to take a look at that the data. And the other thing that I i think is is important too that that many businesses miss is that Why did we win that customer?
Speaker: We focus so much on on why we lost a customer. But why do we win these ones? That's important too. And if we want all these, well, maybe we can do a copy and...
Speaker: copy and paste right and and and do it that way so that's how i i try to you know bring those departments together But you know it's difficult because a lot of these small businesses don't have a true marketing.
Speaker: person or department. Maybe they've engaged folks like yourself. so but But it's very, very important to have have those constant communications. Yeah, again, you're Sounds obvious when... You say it out loud. Bye.
Speaker: How many marketers have actually sat down on the sales calls? That's a... That's a best practice right there. And not just marketing, i know my customer service. Everybody in the business should go out on a sales call.
Speaker: Because again, everyone touches the customer, right? So you want to know. what Who are our customers? What are they looking for?
Speaker: And I also have always said, look, for sales reps, that you should also sit in on customer service. You should also spend a day with your installers and your and your warehouse crew to to fit to know exactly what they're doing. Because you know some of the things that you're doing, the mistakes that you're making on on your contracts and your agreements and your promises may affect things down the line. right So having that cross -pollination. is extremely important.
Speaker: Yeah, avoiding setting up false expectations in the first place because you know better, right? That's that's pretty good. Yeah. So...
Speaker: Totally appreciate your perspective on the sales and and how this helps and some of the elements of the playbook. But from a marketing perspective and bringing this back to you know many of our listeners here, is there certain as you're building out the playbook, you know your strategy, your methodology, your processes, or even outside of that, Darren, like it doesn't have to be playbook centric. What are some of the things you need?
Speaker: from that marketing person. agency, organization, obviously, depending what size. uh we're talking about here and then if we flip it around you know what does marketing do that sales is like I don't need this. You just keep sending it to me. I don't need it. So you know what do you need from marketing and what do you get from marketing that you don't need?
Speaker: Well... As a sales rep, I want leads. So I want i want i want leads and and more and more leads right and good quality leads. So I think that's probably the... The the first thing that i would I would ask. But, you know, all joking aside, I think as as the...
Speaker: Sale goes. further along or i should say the you know the sales cycle case studies I think case studies are are really good. sewing feature.
Speaker: especially in B2B and those long sales cycles. Case studies are really, really good night we're really really good to have. And i like I like getting marketing involved early on when I'm...
Speaker: designing these playbooks. So I'll engage with with you on the ICP, on the value proposition, help you know you guys helping me on putting together that elevator pitch.
Speaker: Right. So we can all put that together and then we can agree on it. So, you know, I like that. I like that, those types of things. The things that i that i've that I've seen that sales reps don't typically use are those generic.
Speaker: Brochures. Right. Because... you're You're in a very specific conversation with ah with a prospect, and I find... a lot of these brochures marketing brochures, whatever you know whatever it is.
Speaker: can be very, very vague and very general. And the other thing that I find is that a lot of sales reps don't even know that these exist or where to find them.
Speaker: Right. but So you guys you guys... do a you know really good job. You work really hard on developing these things. And then sales doesn't even know. ah where to find them or or or if they actually exist so That's that's that's the you know the gap between the two departments, right?
Speaker: And ah you have to bridge that. you have to bridge that and that's why you know we talked about the you know the the regular communication and and all that sort of thing so that's that's huge Yeah. and and you're right i mean i
Speaker: Again, it sounds obvious, and I think Brian and I have both said that a few times on this call, but yeah, there's so many organizations where, you know, sales has an ICP and marketing has an ICP and it's like. you two both work for the same company are you selling and marketing the same thing you know same for messaging etc and yeah point taken we'll we'll stop the brochures or at least tell you where they are
Speaker: Or at least tell you where they are. Yeah, which i really which is a constant one. And then it's a version control. Once you find out where it is, then it becomes a version. Is this the latest brochure? Is this the latest presentation? I think I really like the comparison guides.
Speaker: those are Those are great. when you're out in the field. because you know your your your your prospects are looking at the competition. yeah So having having a quick summary comparison between you know the top three competitors and products and solutions, those are great.
Speaker: Come on, you know. and And then you combine that with a case study. then that's that's what you need. Yeah. Yeah, no, I hear you on the case studies loud and clear. Yeah. So, Brendan, to please take a note. We need to tell Darren where to find the brochures first. We need him to throw them out.
Speaker: Because apparently they're not working. But case study is good. They're all collecting dust. Make sure they look different than the case studies so he doesn't throw the wrong thing out, too. That's right. That's right, or the wrong version.
Speaker: So i want to I want to switch it to sales questions for a second. Because. looking me personally. and Maybe. if youre any asking better questions. speak More and more important. team The eye.
Speaker: And it's not new. Any fans we can block? I think all the way back. And like. that it All about that. Better. And when I've been part, when I've been a prospect in a sales process, I can tell.
Speaker: Oh, hey, they're not asking that question randomly. that that and that question is important for this process for some reason for them maybe i don't know the reason but i can tell that that's not a random question that's like scripted or important in some way so If you're the sales pro, you probably know what those questions are. What are the what are the really, really important questions?
Speaker: and And that tell you... when where somebody is in their buying journey. Um, What are the ones that are a waste of time that reps are using all the time? that don't inform you.
Speaker: of anything. is ah Can you tell? Is there is there a top 10 or is there a difference? Well... i would say especially nowadays if you walk in to a prospect and ask them or say tell me about your business You've lost it.
Speaker: Okay, you've lost it because you need to do that research. it's ah It's on you to do that research. You should know about that locking in. you should know that walking in, so so don't ask that. you're You're just wasting their time. And you know, from my experience, the the best reps.
Speaker: are the ones who are the most curious. And they're the ones who ask the really good good questions and the follow -up questions. And they don't make it sound or seem like they're doing a survey or...
Speaker: or interview it's very natural and it flows very very well So some really good questions that i've that I've seen or that I've asked myself. would be simply what you know what brings me here today Right. What prompted you to.
Speaker: Call us. Why am I, doing why why am I, yeah. yeah why am i here And how are you handling it today? Right now. right There's obviously a pain. There's ah there's an issue here.
Speaker: How are you handling it? Who have you engaged? to try and solve this. is it is another one. Because that will tell me that the the problem has existed and they've tried bringing in other solutions which... which haven't worked.
Speaker: So that's probably a good question to ask. And probably... One of my favorite ones is that, you know, if if we don't do anything. What will happen?
Speaker: So if we do nothing... What's going to happen in... three months, six months, a year. And that can the the response to that can tell me, you know, how how hot the lead is or how lukewarm the lead is. Because if they say, well, if we don't do nothing, I don't think... Nothing nothing major is going to happen.
Speaker: Okay. that That's, you know, that tells me all I need. Yeah, that tells me all I need to know. But if they if they tell me, well, fires are going to start in the office, then okay, this is this is hot and we need to come up with a solution.
Speaker: Well, i've I've had a prospect tell me in that situation, well, we'll either solve it this time with you or I won't be here anymore. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: know Who else in the organization is affected by this? um how How would a decision like this be made within your within your business? So those are some key questions and you'll notice that All these questions that I'm asking are open -ended. I would highly recommend sales reps to avoid asking close -ended questions because you're not going to have a discussion afterwards.
Speaker: so um So try to be open -ended and be curious because if you're if you're curious... you You ask some very, very good follow -up questions and very often that will...
Speaker: Engage. more thought on the prospect's end. that they may not have thought of. previously. Cool. you probably I don't know if you salespeople actually think of themselves as ancient Greek philosophers very often, but there's obviously a connection between.
Speaker: asking the right questions and getting the results you want. I've seen it happen all the time. I mean, and I've seen reps who weren't necessarily. you know, the best presenters or the slickest, you know, salespeople, but the ones who are the most curious.
Speaker: typically are the ones who are most successful. And that comes within, you know, Again, asking those questions, but they're also. almost obsessively curious as to what's going on in the industry, what what the competition is doing.
Speaker: how my product works. right my solution i want to know the inside inside and out of all my all my products and all my solutions so uh you know the ones that are that are very very curious or or tend to be the Love it.
Speaker: All right, well. I love this topic. and I could keep going on about this and those discovery questions were great, Darren, but I think we're getting close to that time where we have to wrap this up. And I think I'm going to take the... favorite B2B marketing pint question today, Brian. I don't know if it's my turn or not, but I'm taking it.
Speaker: um So Darren, we've asked this. of every guest now i i think and our regular listeners will remember this but We'd like to ask you to dispel the biggest myth. And in this case, we're curious about what's the biggest myth about sales and marketing working or not working together that you see, and how would you dispel it?
Speaker: The floor is yours. This is your opportunity to just put this to rest. Let's see, I think... I think the biggest myth is that... once Once a lead is handed off to sales,
Speaker: Marketing's job is done. I just do this. i just are Yeah. ah Yeah. and that's not And that's not accurate at all. Like I said, everybody in the business.
Speaker: has to be involved because they touch the customer at some point. And. if you look at if you look at a buyer's journey right um You know, Brian might come in to see me.
Speaker: As a rep, and we have a really good conversation, but then when he leaves... i'm still I'm still... doing some research on your website. Right? i'm I'm looking at reviews.
Speaker: you know um'm um You know, people just don't behave like, oh okay, I'm just going to you know deal with Brian and and that's it, right? I'm going to be doing some research. I'm going to be looking at your credibility reviews, all that kind of stuff. I may read a case study.
Speaker: Right. So marketing is always involved. in In terms of. You know, that sales cycle that we talked about before, right? What happens from... prospect all the way to close is is huge.
Speaker: And. I think that's the myth that you know marketing just... Does its work to provide leads and then sales takes over? No, it it's it's ah it's a team. the team approach. that that that you have to that you have to take. And then the the big the big thing that I see missing from the sales process that I think a lot of businesses need need to address.
Speaker: is what happens post sale.
Speaker: It's great getting a customer, but... Who owns the customer after that? Is it the sales rep? Is it customer service? who Who owns the customer? And are you having regular communications? Marketing obviously is going to be involved with that. Do you have a referral program?
Speaker: Right. Because your customers, they sell to people. Right. So that could be business for you. So you really need to embed that into your sales process at the end. Whereas that, you know, Once we make that sale,
Speaker: What happens to that customer? Who owns it? how much How much communications are we going to provide that? Are we sending them newsletters? Are we having QBRs?
Speaker: yeah what are What are we doing with this customer after the sale? Because what happens is that Our competitors are calling on them aggressively. And if there are some irritants.
Speaker: invoice issues, product issues, whatever. those a little irritants add up a little bit and then they haven't heard from you And they're like, you know what, I'm going to give this competitor a shot.
Speaker: And then. You're wondering why you're getting churn at the back door. And the reason is because... you're you're not being proactive. you're You're being reactive. So I've seen it. So often where a business gets caught off guard.
Speaker: because they they lost a big customer. you know they they they didn't see it coming well how didn't you see it coming In fact... That that's explains the situation right there. The fact that you didn't see it coming is the problem. Yeah.
Speaker: And you work so hard to get that customer. You you you need to make sure that you're in in constant communication and that that involves marketing. and sales and customer service, everybody in the business. Yeah, you've you've really described two handoff situations there, right? Marketing isn't done when they hand off to sales. And sales isn't done when they hand off to... whomever, dot, dot, dot. We better know who's catching that, right? know yeah yeah that's You have to identify that for sure.
Speaker: I love those answers. Yeah, but I do really appreciate your time, Darren, in all seriousness. Really some great insights. I love touching on this topic and I can't believe it's taken us this long to have you on B2B Marketing Pint, but glad you joined. And I know I will run into you shortly at some event and our upcoming webinar as well.
Speaker: So cheers. Hopefully Brian saved a bit for the final cheers. got A little. Got a little. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me, guys. It's much appreciated. I enjoy myself, and hopefully we can do this again.
Speaker: Lots of fun, Darren. Thank you. Take care.
Speaker: Hey folks, if you liked that episode, you won't believe the next one. So don't forget to subscribe on your favorite platform and you won't miss out. Or... If you've got an idea we haven't thought of yet. Hit us up in the comments. We'll cover that too.
