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The "One Big Thing" Formula for B2B SaaS Marketing Success
70 Plays3 years ago
The biggest marketing challenge for many companies simply getting started.
There are so many options that it’s almost paralysis by analysis.
In many cases, companies do too much.
They believe that more channels or campaigns equal more success.
It’s better to focus on doing a small number of things really well.
Pick a channel and run hard with it.
A key part of Jordan Behan ’s approach to getting started with marketing is: One Big Thing.
Pick a marketing tactic like an eBook, Webinar, video, or course to stand out.
I like the idea of One Big Thing because it establishes realistic expectations, structure, and focus.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Marketing Spark
00:00:02
Speaker
It's Mark Evans, and you're listening to Marketing Spark, the podcast that delivers insight from marketers and entrepreneurs in the trenches in 25 minutes or less.
Virtual Conferences and Content Creation
00:00:13
Speaker
In the past year, the B2B SaaS marketing world has been turned upside down. In-person conferences are out. Virtual conferences are in. Brands that created little or no content have become publishing machines. And LinkedIn has become the place to consume content and connect.
B2B SaaS Marketing with Jordan Behan
00:00:31
Speaker
To provide context and insight into the fast-changing B2B SaaS marketing world, I'm happy to have Jordan Behan, CEO with Nari Creative in Vancouver. Welcome to Marketing Spark.
00:00:44
Speaker
Thank you, Mark. It's nice to meet you, I guess. This is what a meeting looks like in 2021, I suppose. So it's lovely to finally put face and voice to the LinkedIn profiles, I suppose. Yeah, it certainly is a different way to connect with people.
00:01:06
Speaker
So just as background, Jordan and I connected through a mutual friend via LinkedIn.
Connecting on LinkedIn and Digital Meetings
00:01:12
Speaker
Jordan is a marketer in Vancouver. I'm a marketer in Toronto. And by exchanging comments on LinkedIn posts, by watching Jordan's videos on YouTube,
00:01:23
Speaker
It's hard not to feel that you get to know somebody even before you've even talked to them. I think that's one of the silver linings of COVID is that we've embraced new ways of connecting and having conversations. And this podcast is a classic example of that.
00:01:38
Speaker
We're using all these substitutes and analogs for what would otherwise be. I guess, you know, you being in Toronto, this is as good as it's gonna get for us anyhow. But it's, yeah, it's always interesting when your first meeting with somebody is, you know, something is disconnected and digital, I guess, as a Zoom call or a phone conversation or something like that. We take what we can get these days. We certainly do. And I think it has changed how we,
00:02:07
Speaker
interact with each other and some of it will change and some of it will say the same.
Content Machines in B2B SaaS
00:02:11
Speaker
Let's get to the exciting world of B2B SaaS marketing. One of the things that you're focused on a lot is content marketing and the state of content marketing for B2B SaaS companies has changed dramatically over the past year. Given the fact that conferences aren't happening and a lot of brands seem to be pumping out a lot of content. I'm curious about your take on who's doing it well
00:02:36
Speaker
And what are some of the mistakes that companies are making as they become content marketing machines?
Niche Content Marketing Success
00:02:45
Speaker
Sure. Well, I think in terms of who's doing it well, there's a couple of ways we can look at that. There are the players who have always done a good job with content marketing. You think of brands like HubSpot, or I could name it off Hootsuite.
00:03:06
Speaker
I've learned a lot. I know we're going to talk later about ABM and I've learned a lot from Demandbase in that regard. But I get more excited about the early stage companies who, you know, they're probably flying under the radar as far as getting props from the likes of us are concerned because
00:03:30
Speaker
they're doing a good job of staying niche and focusing on their ideal customers.
SensorUp's Webinars for Niches
00:03:38
Speaker
And so their stories, their value and their narrative is specific just to that tiny sliver or that tiny niche of people and they're solving that specific problem. And so selfishly, I mean, I'd love to name drop all the companies that work with me because that's what we focus on is
00:03:58
Speaker
You know, there's a disconnect between your grand ambitions and your current realities as far as, you know, investing your resources and creating content that will actually resonate with, and to get results, right, to put sales on the board, ultimately. So I think the people who are, you know, narrowing their focus to a specific tribe, that's when I get excited.
00:04:29
Speaker
Okay, I'll give you the ability to name drop and I'll give you the ability to cite one of your customers because as marketers, it's easy to talk about things that are close to home and things that we have a direct impact on. Maybe you can talk about one of your customers and what have they created and why has it worked so well?
Common Content Marketing Mistakes
00:04:47
Speaker
I work with a bunch of different companies, but to speak to one in particular, I work with a brand called SensorUp, and they are like an Internet of Things data platform.
00:05:02
Speaker
all of your sensor data in one. Let's break down the silos and give you a dashboard of all of your assets and things like trajectory. What do you have and how fast is it moving in real time in the world, whether it's people or trucks or what have you? To go back to what you were saying about the absence of in-person events,
00:05:26
Speaker
The webinar is really sort of experiencing a moment and when you can create a webinar that is focused on a specific niche and a specific
00:05:40
Speaker
I don't like the word user, but that persona or that, you know, one individual person out there for whom this will resonate with and you choose to create, you know, it takes a lot of work to prepare and host a webinar. And it's counterintuitive to think, well, let's just limit the focus to engineers within industrial companies.
00:06:04
Speaker
It's kind of obscure and it seems almost like a massive challenge to reach people like that. But when you can create something that, and this is a trick that I use often, is put it right into the name of your content.
00:06:21
Speaker
who it's for so that there is no ambiguity and the person you're trying to target immediately perks up and feels that FOMO and has no choice but to subscribe to your webinar and either attend live or listen to the recording. So that's one area where the idea of taking a topic and a subject matter expert and maybe a subject matter expert guest as well
00:06:47
Speaker
and just holding court on that topic and shedding light and focusing on the education piece. This is what is possible. There is a better future for you if you follow certain, you know, if you have a plan and you, you know, set a course for where it is that you want to go. And I guess, you know, to answer your previous question, too, is like you're doing it well when your focus is on
Branding and Quality in Content Creation
00:07:13
Speaker
instruction and teaching and helping people to learn what's possible and you actually show them the steps necessary to get there. A lot of the time, I don't know if you're going to ask me about this but I'll go ahead and answer it.
00:07:31
Speaker
The biggest mistake I think a lot of, especially B2B companies make in SaaS is to focus so heavily on the product and its features when, and then that's, it's easy to fall into that trap because you work so hard on something that is so beautiful and elegant and solves all of these problems, but you lost sight about talking about the fact that it solves those problems. And that's really the only thing that your potential buyer cares about.
00:07:58
Speaker
What's it going to do for me? What have you done for me lately? And if you don't lead with that, if you can't make the focus of sharing that information and teaching people, if that's not your priority, then it's a miss. This is a strange question to ask, given that
00:08:20
Speaker
Many B2B SaaS companies have been producing a lot of content over the past year. But how did they get started with content marketing? The reason I asked this is because a lot of companies have rumbled down the path. They've created a lot of content and it's misaligned. It's not very good, inconsistent quality. They're doing a lot of things wrong. So if those companies had to take a step back and reload on their content marketing strategies, how would you suggest that they get actually get started?
00:08:51
Speaker
I love this question because that is my sweet spot. The very first thing that you need to do is to have an internal conversation around branding. Who are we? What is our message? What is our focus? What are our desired outcomes?
00:09:09
Speaker
Get everybody, all the stakeholders at least, to agree on those things so that all of the subsequent decisions become a little bit easier. You have something of a true north where if something is up for debate, you can go back to
Creating Impactful Case Studies
00:09:24
Speaker
your brand principles and vision and say, okay,
00:09:27
Speaker
This is this is the course we want to take because it's aligned with what we agreed is the essence of our our company's brand. And then you have to focus on that end user and I've hinted at this already, but it's, you know, there's a difference between
00:09:42
Speaker
With B2B SaaS, you probably have an investor deck somewhere that talks about how you've charted a path to becoming a unicorn, but you also have the realities of that little bit of runway you have in the bank, and you have to make that count. And so you have really no choice but to say, okay, well, here's what we think we can afford to focus on in terms of a tiny niche market.
00:10:07
Speaker
And again there's that's completely at odds with the company's ambitions you have to scale it back to the realities of this current quarter what can we achieve with our current budget and people this quarter.
00:10:22
Speaker
And only then once you've established that persona, that company type or wherever the sweet spot is. And it's like I always picture a Venn diagram of who can we help now with our current product and who's able to buy from us. And it's in that sort of sweet spot between the two. And you decide on that and only then do you start preparing content.
00:10:46
Speaker
And for me, the single most powerful piece of content that you can create is a case study, some sort of social proof. Let's get it in the customer's words, sing the praises of the wonderful transformation they experienced by using your product. If you're going to make one piece of content this week or this month or this quarter, make it a killer case study that shows the next 100 B2B customers that you want to sign
00:11:16
Speaker
shows them a version of success that looks a lot like them.
Integrating Marketing with Sales
00:11:20
Speaker
And so you're demystifying the potential outcomes and, to some extent, the pathway to get there. Aside from that, assuming, let's say you do have a case study. You've got that all lined up, but you're still scratching your head around how to start with content marketing. My advice is maybe different from most. I think create one great thing.
00:11:45
Speaker
It could be a webinar for example we talked about webinars i like ebooks as well because they are easy to produce easy to version. You know there's no fancy resources or hardware necessary right words on a page some element of design.
00:12:02
Speaker
But if brand is solved and customer persona or ideal client profile is locked in, then create one great thing and it could even be a top of funnel general awareness of your problem document and then focus on distributing that.
00:12:23
Speaker
And if you can, I mean, I go a little deeper than that. I also say, find a way to convert people to your list to receive that thing. And webinars kind of solve that piece for you, right? Because as much as we're here to talk about marketing and marketing is kind of our respective discipline, the reality, especially with early stage SaaS, is that marketing and sales are really mashed together. They're often the same person.
00:12:52
Speaker
or that technical founder whose core competency is neither, but they're forced to do both. Especially for me, the lines between marketing and sales get very fuzzy. You use marketing to get somebody onto your list or to start a conversation, and you very quickly transition to sales,
00:13:15
Speaker
Because that's what it's about, right? That's what marketing is. And maybe that makes me a little different, that I firmly believe that marketing works in the service of sales.
00:13:27
Speaker
which maybe, I don't know if that maybe sort of transitions us to other parts of the conversation where, you know, I guess eliminating that silo, both in terms of people, collaboration, content creation, like thinking of those things as two parts of the same whole, especially in the early stages of a company, is kind of, I think it's necessary.
Foundations of Branding and Positioning
00:13:51
Speaker
Let me take a step back. Sure. Let's pause before we move forward. And I want to be clear about the focus on a case study and a big piece of content, whether it's an ebook or a really great video or webinar. So what you're suggesting is that quick wins.
00:14:07
Speaker
is to get the content marketing machine rolling because i think a lot of the sas companies get mired in planning how many blog post are we gonna do how many who's gonna do them how do we what's the workflow how many videos do we create and then i think they get intimidated or they get overwhelmed by the amount of content that they possibly could create and it sounds like what you're suggesting is that.
00:14:31
Speaker
Just focus on a couple pieces of low hanging fruit get it done get some momentum get some energy get a feel for what content is like and that'll set the stage for whatever you gonna do next is that an accurate depiction.
00:14:46
Speaker
That is exactly right. That's why I answered the question the way I did, because as somebody who is a consultant who was previously primarily a content creator on behalf of SaaS brands,
00:15:01
Speaker
It's that that's the most common issue is they'll come to you and say we need x number of blog posts this month or we need a blog post about y or x and and all of the necessary follow-up questions that a content creator like myself has to ask to gain clarity as to exactly what it is that you're asking for you often get
00:15:23
Speaker
you know, blank stares and, you know, no detail in the responses. Okay, so you say you want to blog post about this thing, which funnel stage should that be for? Or who is the audience for this thing? Or what's the desired outcome of this blog post and all of that stuff that hasn't been considered? There's this like, it's a fallacy that you need to be churning out content like crazy, although
00:15:49
Speaker
Obviously, there are many brands who do that successfully, but it's because they've already nailed the fundamentals. And they probably have given thought to what is the objective of this piece? What's the action that we want somebody to take if they read to the end? And those basic fundamental things. And so to get trapped in thinking that you have to create four or five blog posts this month,
00:16:13
Speaker
is you're chasing the wrong metrics and goals. I would advise that rather than focus on volume, figure out quality first and then invest your time in distribution of that great thing. If all of your marketing this month was just
00:16:34
Speaker
you know, sort of social media and email marketing that is in the service of promoting a single webinar this quarter, you're going to achieve better results than if you are, you know, turning over blog post after blog post constantly in that creative problem of what do we talk about next. And I'm saying worry less about that and talk about one thing. And where can you have that conversation?
00:16:59
Speaker
Before we talk about ABM, because I do want to talk about ABM and the different moving parts, because it's getting a lot of attention these days, to circle back with your initial comment about branding.
00:17:10
Speaker
Where does positioning fit into the scheme of things? Because when I start with a lot of clients, I start with positioning, getting that story down, providing context about what they do and why it matters. Because like you, I believe that you've got to put the foundation down before you can do any kind of marketing on top of it. You don't know who your ideal customer is. If you don't know how you're unique, if you don't know the competitive alternatives, you're operating
Addressing Customer Pain Points
00:17:34
Speaker
blind.
00:17:34
Speaker
Are they kind of the same? Is the way what you do and what I do kind of the same to really set the stage or is it different? I don't think it's different at all. We have maybe different hammers for the same nail, I suppose. I kind of already alluded to this when I talked about my process where it's determine what your brand is, what you're about,
00:18:01
Speaker
That's kind of the branding play. And then once you've solved the customer, who is it specifically that we're trying to reach? Who is the internal champion at that company whose life will be made better by our product? And that's what determines your positioning. And this is where I start talking like a marketer. But in order to reach them and to resonate with them on any meaningful level,
00:18:28
Speaker
you have to key into what hurts. You have to find their pain and promise a solution to that pain. And in order to do that, you kind of have to exploit that pain a little bit. I did it today in a LinkedIn post. Do you feel like, is that, are you looking at that runway drop dead date and freaking out about the fact that you don't have enough leads coming in this quarter? It's that,
00:18:58
Speaker
something that can cause a visceral reaction in them.
00:19:03
Speaker
first. And it's, again, I joke about the fact that it's like a marketer being a marketer to exploit, I use these words like exploit to be cute. But in reality, that is the most altruistic thing you can do is to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about the people whose problems you can solve. And the way that you show them that you understand
00:19:30
Speaker
is to highlight those problems and to talk at length about what hurts. And only then, and you agitate a little bit too, like this is what happens when it hurts like that, right? I mean, you fear exactly this thing, this horrible worst case scenario outcome on the horizon that you desperately want to avoid. Your positioning becomes, we understand your pain,
00:19:56
Speaker
but we also have a solution that can get you to this transformation from where you are now, where it hurts, to where you want to go. And maybe we're gonna show you examples of people who have done that, or maybe we're going to give you a roadmap to success to go from here to there, but it's first understanding what hurts and then proposing a solution, of course, but always with the eye on the prize of what is the
Account-Based Marketing Explained
00:20:26
Speaker
What is the transformation that is going to occur if you consider a solution like ours? And at the top of the funnel, that's it. It's just a solution like ours. It's this type of technology or this new way of cobbling together a set of solutions, or it's our product, which is similar to others, plus our solution of our willingness to help you, or whatever it is that you use to differentiate. But you got to start with the pain and promise a transformation.
00:20:56
Speaker
There are many ways that B2B SaaS companies can get to prospects and customers. Some things are more of a shotgun approach where you spread the word as widely as possible and you get the brand out there and you identify who matters to you and you connect with them at different places. There's a lot of attention these days on ABM, account-based marketing. I am curious about your take on how does a B2B SaaS company that may not have expertise in ABM
00:21:26
Speaker
Why should they consider ABM to start? And then what are the key pillars to actually start to implement an ABM strategy? It's an excellent question. And I love that we are talking about this because I'm ABM certified. I went out and I learned everything I could about ABM. And it feels as though ABM is like
00:21:54
Speaker
I don't know, it's like the tool of the massive corporate almost Fortune 1000 companies where it has occurred to them that maybe they would achieve better success if they had meetings between their sales and marketing departments. And maybe what if marketing was creating assets that were specifically designed to help the sales department? To answer your question,
00:22:18
Speaker
With early-stage SaaS companies, the reason why they should embrace ABM is because they have no other choice. I said before, sometimes your founder, marketer, salesperson are all the same person, or there's a very small body count in the early days where that level of collaboration and making resources go further
00:22:44
Speaker
Absolutely require that you're not gonna waste resources building marketing materials or branding campaigns that are. Somewhere off in the ether and not directly connected to getting more. Inbound leads or however it is that you do that i mean maybe you're using outbound sales but the assets created by marketing have to be very specific to the job of converting and nurturing leads.
00:23:14
Speaker
And to do anything else is to waste resources and time. And so ABM is not this. All the materials that you'll read will make it seem like some difficult to achieve concept when it is exactly the opposite, in my opinion. It's a sales and a marketing person in the room saying, how do we work together?
00:23:39
Speaker
to achieve a common objective. As much as you got demand base in these companies who are selling ABM only to the upper echelons of B2B sales out there, and I'm saying, really, all these guys are saying is that sales marketing need to work together and that marketing needs to build assets that help sales.
00:24:00
Speaker
I don't know why there's so much mystery around it, right? But in simple terms for a small nimble B2B SaaS company, is it a matter of identifying the customers or the prospects that matter to us are these group of companies? They're 50, 100, 200, 500, and then focusing our efforts directly or indirectly
00:24:24
Speaker
on those companies, whether it's direct outreach by a salesperson or advertising campaigns that are targeting these people. And when you break it down into simple terms, is that it?
00:24:36
Speaker
Yes, and again, to do anything but is a fool's errand, right? Maybe it's just a few people, maybe the marketing department of one person or a team of two and finite resources. You don't have a ton of budget. And so absolutely, make a list of 100. And as I said, if you've got brand locked in, if you know who the ideal client profile is, then go out and make a list of 100 companies that match those
00:25:05
Speaker
characteristics and mindset that you talked about in your ideal client profile exercises, it makes marketing and sales that much easier because now there are only 100 for whom we are focused. Go out and follow them all on social media. Pay attention to every single thing they say. Sign up for every single newsletter that they have. Understand them on a level
00:25:30
Speaker
that will shock them that you put that kind of time in when you reach them. And so whether it's list building or outbound or virtually any sales and marketing tactic that you can think of, if you limit your focus to that small list, the likelihood that you resonate with any of them is way higher. And I know what everybody's thinking is like, well, what about the rest of the world? What about the people not on that list of 100?
00:25:59
Speaker
Well, people who are adjacent to that list or one degree different or maybe the 105th company that didn't make your cut are still gonna resonate with your message because you took the time to focus. You understand exactly who it is that you're trying to reach. And so people who look like the 100 will still get value from what it is that you're doing. You can still land those accounts. You can still sell to the people who are in existing sales cycles with you. It's just that you're not going to waste any time, resources or content creation
00:26:29
Speaker
on people who don't.
00:26:31
Speaker
fit the very specific criteria that you set for your list of 100. And when you're an early stage marketer, whether you're a junior or the first hire VP, you've got to act. You've got to do something. Creating that list and focusing on them and their needs and listening to them is like a terrific step one. And again, it has this name of ABM, but to me, it's like you have no choice, right?
00:27:00
Speaker
To think of a list of greater than that or to have content or messaging that is homogenized such that it's more mass appeal, it's never going to stick.
Introduction to Lean Marketing Playbook
00:27:18
Speaker
It's only when you choose that focus and you make your list of 100. And then, like I said, things like getting out on social media and creating a list, for example, of all of those companies and the things that, that's how you determine what hurts. That's how you determine what it is they're looking for, or what's next, or the kinds of things that motivate them, and you understand it, and you use that for your next content piece.
00:27:42
Speaker
I wanted to ask you about the Lean Marketing Playbook. I went through it. I downloaded it. I watched the video. Love it. I think it's a great approach to B2B SaaS marketing. Curious about the fact that you made this methodology front and center and that you're essentially giving away the trade secrets of Navera Creative.
00:28:04
Speaker
Why did you do it? What kind of response do you get to it? And does it make your brand, your message that much easier? Because our audiences know exactly how you operate.
00:28:15
Speaker
I think so, yes. That's a lot of questions. I'll try to remember them all and answer them all individually. That's okay. The reason why I created it, and first of all, I should start by saying how much it means to me to hear you say that, because it
00:28:34
Speaker
That is not getting old yet. When people say that they love it and they get it, it just warms my heart. It helps me to appreciate all the work I put into creating it. It's a lot of work. It looks like a lot of work. It is. And just for a bit of background, the Lean Marketing Playbook for Software Services has many forms, but the end product is a combination of video training and group coaching.
00:29:01
Speaker
and agency services. So a company, they sign and we take them through the video training modules and documents, take them through that process of asking themselves those branding questions. In module two, it's asking yourself those ideal client profile questions. And then from module three onwards is, okay, complete a creative brief based on everything that we've talked about and our agency services will create that content for you while
00:29:31
Speaker
coaching you along with the methodology, both through video training and group coaching. So it's an opportunity for me to scale the services that I offer to early stage software companies. But because of the need that I see, they often do have this mistaken notion of what they're supposed to be doing. It's almost like running on the hamster wheel, trying to create volume or keep a certain pace of something up. And they haven't stopped to think about the focus.
00:30:00
Speaker
And so I created a system where they're forced to, you know, establish that focus for themselves before we move on to essentially it's creating an entire inbound funnel landing page, an ebook giveaway offer, an email nurture sequence that triggers when somebody signs up.
00:30:18
Speaker
We produce a product document and a case study as well because those assets help facilitate a
Response to Lean Marketing Playbook
00:30:26
Speaker
sale. Convert somebody at the top of the funnel by talking and understanding their problem, e-book, nurture them along with an email sequence that includes information about your product and proof of success with other companies. It's what I consider to be the
00:30:40
Speaker
absolute foundational table stakes as far as content is concerned. All B2B SaaS companies want to scale. They all want some idea of what to do first in terms of content marketing. And so I'm solving for that and presenting it in a way that recognizes that you don't have probably a budget to hire a VP marketing.
00:31:04
Speaker
you probably don't have a budget to go out and just hire any given B2B content creation agency. And you're in essentially the same business, right? Our resources allow for a fractional CMO, not for a complete agency. So our fractional CMO has to be able to coach our team of juniors, or it's the resourcing issue that I'm solving for, but also that coaching and instruction that sort of walks people through.
00:31:32
Speaker
And the reason why my ebook more or less gives away the entire secret sauce is because this is designed for people who are willing to put in a little bit of work. Of course, like you have to watch videos, you have to complete creative briefs, you have to ideally you attend a coaching call so you can learn this stuff. There's still a lot of work involved in that piece, even if we're creating the content. And I'm OK with giving away the the roadmap and the steps necessary to get there.
00:32:02
Speaker
in order to build that trust. There's a meta-component here. I am eating my own dog food. I'm teaching these companies to share information and to teach and to focus on solutions and transformations as a way of building trust and converting more leads and getting sales. And so, effectively, that's what my marketing is doing. I have a 23-page ebook that says, here's exactly what we're gonna do, or a 12-minute video that's like,
00:32:29
Speaker
Let's demystify it for you. This is what we do. Then we build a landing page. I guess it's just my belief that by sharing that information and being the source of that information, improving my level of expertise will build trust and convert more leads.
Commitment to Continuous Learning
00:32:45
Speaker
And to answer the third or fourth part of your question, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I still have
00:32:54
Speaker
my only generation challenges. I don't have as many sales calls in my calendar every week that I would love to have. Paid acquisition and things like that are levers I'm still pulling, but I have tremendous success in sales calls. I'm delighted to report. And so when I actually do present it to people and lay it out for them and just reassure them that we have a system that you can follow,
00:33:16
Speaker
I think the accountability piece is big for a lot of people too, right? Like I want you to show up every week on a coaching call and we're going to talk about the progress we made this week and we're going to talk about maybe the content we're creating for you and we're going to move from step three to step four this week. The absence of that for, especially for junior marketers or for technical founders,
00:33:35
Speaker
who, you know, marketing is a mystery to them. This, you know, I guess it just sheds a little bit of light and helps them move along their continuum towards having an established system and to gaining momentum and traction. I'll include links to the video and the ebook.
00:33:55
Speaker
in the show notes. One final question. Thank you for that, Mark. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. We've been at home, we've had a lot of time to watch Netflix, but I always ask my guests, is there one book that you've read over the past year that has resonated? Fiction, nonfiction, business, non-business. Anything come to mind?
00:34:14
Speaker
Can we choose just one? Or a couple. I'll give you two. I'll give you two. A fiction book I read, Seven Eves by Neil Stevenson. I just loved it. Great story about, it's kind of several stories in one. And to be honest, I liked the first half better, but I just love that book. I went and read a whole bunch of his other books and they didn't resonate as well with me as the first. And I joke about it with my partner. It's like,
00:34:39
Speaker
You're on page 850 of a Neil Stevenson novel and it really starts getting good. But right now I'm reading a book called Copywriting Secrets by Jim Edwards.
00:34:51
Speaker
And I almost feel, I don't want to say ashamed to admit that, but it's kind of, that's me humbly admitting that I am constantly sharpening the saw to use a Stephen Covey reference. I want to get better at my craft and creating B2B marketing content
00:35:14
Speaker
comes fairly naturally to me, whereas creating direct response advertising copy and things like that, sales letters, the sort of thing that still performs very well is something of a mystery to me. It's not a core competency. And so I look for weaknesses in my own skill set and go looking for the training material. So right now it's Copywriting Secrets by Jim Edwards. And I read three or four pages to put myself to sleep every night.
00:35:44
Speaker
Miraculously, I retain the information, but it's a direct way to like something other than a screen to look at to lull you to sleep.
00:35:54
Speaker
I think what you just said is probably an important lesson for many marketers, salespeople, customer success folks because you can never stop learning. The ability to improve your skills, to get new perspective, to do things better comes from curiosity and the willingness to realize that there's other people out there who are not only smarter than you but have different opinions and I think that's a good place to
Invitation to Connect
00:36:18
Speaker
be. If people want to learn more about you and narrate, how can they find you online?
00:36:24
Speaker
The easiest place to start I suppose would be my website narratecreative.com. Virtually every link you find on the site though is going to send you to either the free ebook or an opportunity to book a call with me.
00:36:37
Speaker
And if you find me on LinkedIn, connect with me there. I'm very responsive to questions. I love answering questions. That's how I learn what hurts. Yeah, start at naryatcreative.com or add me on LinkedIn and don't be shy. I like conversations. I crave interaction right now. I'm sure a lot of people can probably identify with.
00:37:02
Speaker
Thanks, Jordan, for being such a great guest and your insight about a variety of topics. Glad that we finally connected and great to have you on the podcast. Mark, thank you very much for having me.
00:37:14
Speaker
Thanks for listening to another episode of Marketing Spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review and subscribe by iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. If you'd like to learn more about how I help feed these SaaS companies as a fractional CMO, strategic advisor and coach, send an email to mark at marketingspark.co. I'll talk to you next time.