We all know that much of the buying journey happens via word of mouth and on social media. Prospects see mentions of products in their feeds and they have conversations with colleagues who make recommendations. It’s really hard to track and measure this activity, which is why it’s called “Dark Social.” Steve Voith is a veteran of marketing in the software space, having worked in demand gen at Litera and PowerReviews. He’s now at Refine Labs, serving as Director of Demand Gen, and he has seen firsthand what Dark Social can do. I’m excited to share his insights with you in this episode!
Key Takeaways
(6:37) Dark social is untrackable — things like sharing screenshots or recordings, or asking colleagues’ opinions about a particular software before you ever visit that website.
Dark social is the place where B2B buyers are hanging out and sharing information, that will never get tracked by any sort of attribution software. It really is like the word-of-mouth marketing that every marketer is so hungry to get; it’s just a different way of thinking about it.
(9:19) Not every piece of content has to be screenshot-worthy, but it should be compelling, easy to share, and articulate what makes the company stand out.
A marketing team could look back on the output of work from the last month and ask, which of this work is shareable? Would I have shared this if I were the target buyer? It’s educating your audience, and creating that compelling content. Which a lot of times we’re doing, but I don’t think we’re packaging it in a way that can get picked up by dark social.
(12:16) Figure out which platforms your customers are hanging out on, and find ways to meet them on those platforms without taking them out of those platforms.
Your best bet is first reinforcing whether what you’re doing today is guided toward the correct platforms for your audience. And then make sure there’s a balance between demand creation channels — for example ,podcasts or social media, including paid ads — and your more capture demand functions like paid search — where customers are coming in to convert — that are very performance driven.
(14:20) To help measure dark social, add a form on the website asking how customers found you — and then make sure your content is memorable enough for them to mention it when filling out the form.
It was a good gut check for me as a marketer that if I’m not doing something really cool, dark social shareable-worthy, they won’t remember me in those platforms. They’re not going to tell me they found me on LinkedIn until I’m producing a really compelling ad or video that we posted there. It’s my job as the marketer to get some good insights in this form.
(16:49) As often as possible — monthly, quarterly, or at least yearly — look into why customers are or aren’t making purchases. That can help you determine where your marketing is failing.
Find those opportunities to talk to either a customer or someone who’s bought from us, or even a prospect that didn’t want to buy from us. Then ask them a set of core questions about where they got the information to either buy or not buy from us.
(19:09) Start with the basics of just making your content available on the right platforms in easily digestible forms. Then take it to the next level by putting field experts at the center of your marketing.
Maybe they don’t live on the marketing team, but have someone that you can put forth as the expert in your field that has that unique opinion or experience, or has done the job of the ICP or the buyer persona that you go after. Putting them at the center of your marketing, interviewing other people or just sharing their thoughts, is oftentimes a really easy way to turn out really compelling content that can be repackaged and broadcast across all those channels.
(23:06) Marketers play a huge role in company growth. But it’s important to back up any ideas with hard data.
What I wish I had done more earlier in my career is not just say yes to any requests from the top, but come prepared with my numbers that back up the strategy that I want to get.
(25:20) Marketing and sales teams should work together in partnership to ensure the leads you’re getting are qualified.
A huge part of my success in my last company had to do with asking sales how good the leads were. And I think it stunned a lot of the salespeople there. That was my whole job: to make sure we were doing the right things for sales. So that at the end of the day, we can report that we’re producing inbound interest that also converts to pipeline and revenue.
Transcript
(Laura 0:03) Marketing requires experimentation. But you need solid ideas to base your experiments on. I’m Laura MacPherson, an on-demand content strategist and writer working with SaaS marketing teams across the US. In this podcast, I interview successful SaaS marketers, who share the strategies and tactics that are working for them right now. We get specific and actionable, so you can get inspired and use their ideas in your own marketing. Here’s what’s working now.
We all know that much of the buying journey happens via word-of-mouth and on social media. Prospects see mentions of products in their feeds, and they have conversations with colleagues who make recommendations. But it’s really hard to track and measure this activity, which is why it’s called “dark social.” Steve Voith is a veteran of marketing in the software space, having worked in demand gen at Litera and PowerReviews. And he is now at Refine Labs, serving as Director of Demand Gen. And he has seen firsthand what dark social can do. So I am really excited to share his insights with you in this episode.
All right, Steve, thanks so much for coming on the show today!
(Steve 1:40) Oh, happy to be here, Laura. Real excited to have a conversation with you.
(Laura 1:43) Awesome. So I’d love to start with, you know, just a little bit about Refine Labs and your role there.
(Steve 1:50) Yeah. So, you know, I think, like a lot of people, I actually first came to know Refine Labs as a demand gen agency, but I’d actually better define it as a demand gen consultancy. And that’s just, you know, I think a lot of people think of the services. If you go to their site, that’s kind of what you see first. And that’s what a lot of — we’ve started out here is, is actually demand gen execution for B2B SaaS companies in that growth stage. And that’s a big part of what I do here, as I’ve come to work at the company. It’s so much more, so we’re actually also providing documented B2B demand gen strategy.
And then even more cool is the research arm that we also offer as part of the consultancy, that is not your typical, you know, analyst firm survey fuel. Which, not dogging surveys, but I think as even just a previous demand gen practitioner, I find so much more value in the insights and research that’s derived from actually doing the work. And I think that’s one of the really cool things that Refine Labs is doing, is that through all of the demand gen execution that we’re doing, we’re pulling out those insights of what’s working and what’s driving results, and documenting that and then sharing it out with the marketplace. So it’s sort of that three-pronged service offering, if you will, that moves us beyond, I would say, definitely like your traditional demand gen agency and puts us into this more consultancy, accelerator role.
But yeah, and then you asked a little bit about my role. So I am a director of demand gen here at the company. And that is oftentimes like an in-house role, or like, you know, part of the growth or the marketing team, which I have traditionally always been. But at Refine Labs, we actually pair all of our clients up with a director of demand gen and a performance marketing team.
And one of the things that’s really unique and that I think also sets us apart from your traditional B2B marketing agency is that we hire practitioners who have worked as an in-house marketer at the client types that we work with and then embeds them as part of the team. Which just gets me super jazzed to work, because you actually feel like part of the marketing team. For the two accounts that I support, I’m, you know, I’m responsible for helping them drive strategy and execute their demand gen plans. Which puts more skin in the game for me, because I, you know, again, I feel like part of the team, and I want the strategy to succeed, because I believe in it, and I’ve worked with them to develop it. So it’s a really unique role.
And I also love that it’s also just kind of a force multiplier for my own role and experience. Because I have my job at Refine Labs, but then I also feel like I have two more jobs, working with the clients that I get to work with. You know, learn more about their audiences, what they’re seeing work, and yeah. It’s been a great ride.
(Laura 5:37) Yeah, I don’t know about you, but that’s the one of the things that I really love about, you know, working as a consultant is, you really get exposure to all of these teams doing all of these new, different things — that really helps you be better at your job — and take those learnings and, you know, build off of them. And it’s a fun process.
(Steve 5:56) Absolutely. No, if I can look back at my career, and so many times you had that tendency to stay safe and market to what you know, and yeah. Being able to say, nope, I can take my expertise and apply it to any industry — it’s a great place to do that. And you do learn so much, and are kind of just doing more that’s outside of your comfort zone.
(Laura 6:13) Yep. Awesome. Okay, so our topic today is dark social. I am super excited to talk to you about this, because Refine Labs is amazing at dark social. And you guys have been having some really interesting conversations about it that I’ve been, you know, watching online. So, before we dive in, let’s just first define dark social. What is it, exactly?
(Steve 6:37) Chris has defined it, I think, quite well. It’s the place where B2B buyers are hanging out and sharing information. So this can be a lot of different things. To give, like, more specific examples, it’s the screen grabs from your phone of like a really amazing ad or post that you saw that makes you think a different way, that you then, you know, text to your boss, that will never get tracked by any sort of attribution software, right? Or the Slack chat that you send your boss of, “Hey, I saw this really interesting article or post that, you know, we should do this. What do you think?” Or the podcast that you listen to. The LinkedIn posts that you look at, don’t even like, but that, again, either you screenshot or you just share with your peers and say, this is something that I think we should look at buying or think more about. Let’s have a discussion, a follow-up meeting on. And again, none of it would ever get picked up by any attribution software.
Another really good example — actually, maybe it’ll be helpful, so I can even just share a personal, like, reality that happened to me with dark social. I worked at my last company in house, and my Director of Revenue Operations had attended a sort of vendor sponsored session for a marketing software and listened to what they had to say, liked what they had to say. That attribution is 100% trackable, right? They can upload that list of attendees to whatever platform they’re using. It’s tracked. But what’s not tracked is that he then Slacked me the recording and said, “Hey, Steve, you’re responsible for growth. This is something I think that’s interesting. What are your thoughts?” I watched that. There’s no tracking of that, because it’s its own recording of it. And then, subsequently, then called up a few of my marketing buddies that I trust that don’t work at the company I am to say, “Hey, I’m looking at this piece of software, what do you think about it?”
And so it’s all of this activity that’s happening before I ever even went to the site, if I’m being honest. Because I actually trust the opinion of my peers, and other people who might have used it, before I even looked at their site, a competitor’s site, you know, going to that, or even searching for the company — that’s where sort of the dark funnel would have picked it up and run with it there. And I would have maybe started to pop up on some of those attribution softwares. So dark social is that whole piece before that’s so meaningful, and really is like the word-of-mouth marketing that every marketer is so hungry to get. But it’s, yeah, it’s just a different way of thinking about it.
(Laura 9:00) Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so we know these conversations are happening. I mean, everybody intuits that there are these people having these experiences. I would love to hear you talk a little bit more about exactly why a marketing team should be focusing on dark social, besides just kind of letting it happen however it happens.
(Steve 9:19) Yeah, no, I think kind of going back to what I said about, you know, we’ve always put word-of-mouth — and I think that sometimes as B2B marketers, we are like, that’s impossible, like our software’s not that cool, you know? It compares documents or something, you know. And word-of-mouth is hard to achieve, as is dark social. But if you think about — I think a marketing team could look back on the last output of work from the last month, and if they could say: Which of this work is shareable?
And not everything we create has to be, you know, LinkedIn shareable, screenshot-worthy. But if you can look back at that last month and say, would I have shared this if I was the target buyer? You know, if I was a buyer that we market to? If the answer’s no, it’s a good reset for any marketing team to say, we’ve got to change the way that we’re doing things, the way that we’re going about our execution strategy to make things shareable. And that doesn’t mean just having like a share function. But it’s like, it actually has a compelling point of view. It articulates what we do differently, in a way, that’s not always just “Get a demo now.” “Talk to us immediately.” That it’s just, it’s educating your audience, and creating that compelling content. Which a lot of times we’re doing, but I don’t think we’re packaging it in a way that can get picked up by dark social.
(Laura 10:33) Yeah, I think about that a lot. You know, with PDFs: PDFs are great, but they’re really hard to share. You know, even when people share them on LinkedIn, it’s like, if you’re scrolling on your mobile, it’s — forget it. You know, it’s like super tiny, and you can’t even, like, expand it properly. And like, so yeah, just thinking about those sorts of things. That’s a really good point.
(Steve 10:52) Yeah, I mean, thinking back to, you know, virtual conferences are a big thing. And there’s obviously a huge emphasis on driving live attendees to it — which is, yeah, wouldn’t argue, it’s great to have that live audience to attend. But, you know, so often then, as marketers, we just say, great, we’ll record it, send it to those who attended as a courtesy, and then try to push them to a demo. Which I mean, always send the recording, 100%. But why wouldn’t you — I think we have the speaker that, like, oh, if we share it more broadly than that, then no one will attend live subsequently. And I think it’s just, like, totally false. I’m totally guilty of this, too. But after coming across Refine Labs and this notion of dark social, that was where I had to sort of, like, let go of some of my previously, like, I call them habits of just like, “Nope.” Like, “That content stays safeguarded for that audience who has already given me their information.” And it’s like, absolutely not. Like, even just for webinar, chop that up, put it front and center for your audience to consume, you know, in the channels that they’re visiting.
(Laura 11:49) Yep. So, like we’ve talked about, by definition, dark social is super difficult to measure. Its attribution is almost impossible. But, you know, at the end of the day, leadership teams want to know what impact this is having. So, what are some ways that you can determine even just, you know, what channels should receive the resources, and how to divvy up those resource allocations?
(Steve 12:16) Oh, yeah. And I think it starts with just going back to, like, marketing basics of, do you know where your customers are? Which I think I would say most people do, but I think we have to gut check ourselves sometimes on, you know, hey, like, we don’t think they’re on Facebook, but like they probably are. And so having customer conversations of, where do you consume information about anything, you know? And then figuring out ways to meet them in that platform in a way that’s not meant to take them out of that platform. Because that’s not, you know, we don’t go to Facebook or Instagram to always learn about new technology or those kinds of things. But we do see the things that come across as we go. So I think having that conversation first about, where is your audience? And gut checking that with consistency, so that you’re, you know — because there are new emerging platforms all the time — to keep that steady pulse. That’s your best bet of, one, just reinforcing: What are you doing today? And is it guided towards the correct platforms for your audience?
And then, two, another thing you can do is really look at, what’s the split of my marketing budget? You know, if we pay for promotion, you know, what’s allocation right now? And is there a balance between what we call demand creation channels — so things like a podcast or social media, then the paid ads include within that — versus your more capture demand functions, where — you know, paid search — where they’re coming in to convert, that are very performance driven.
Because oftentimes. what we’ll see is a huge allocation towards those very attributable platforms that say, yep, I can take this back to the CFO. And say, yep, here’s how many conversions we got. Like, it’s totally, you know, we make an ROI here. It’s safe. I’m not going to get in trouble as a marketer. But if you don’t have this balance — and it’s not always gonna be the same. It’s not always 50/50. It’s not always 60/40. But having a balance between your creation channels and your capture channels, that’s a really good level set of, like, if those are not in some kind of balance — or we don’t have things activated across both of those, that’s another really good sort of gut check of, am I doing my marketing right?
(Laura 14:15) Yeah, looking at the pipeline and making sure that you’re, you know, allocating across.
(Steve 14:20) Yeah, absolutely. And then I think maybe one other thing is like, the content — like so once you’ve identified, again, the platforms that they’re in, and then, do we have a balance of pay? Then you have to look at the content. And is it compelling? Right? Because like, one of the things we also advocate that will help you measure its effectiveness is — and it’s a pretty simple way; we’ve talked about this a lot — is adding a form on your site of, how did you hear about us?
But I literally just did this analysis for a client that has recently implemented it, and it’s just insane the volume of inputs that people are willing to give, to tell you exactly where they saw you. Which is not the same of how they came in. That’s the analysis that we ran. Which is, again, comparing what out-of-the-box, you know, marketing attribution will tell you how they converted, which is oftentimes going to be direct to the site or organic search. But then it just, it astounds me as a marketer, like, oh my gosh, the buyers are like, yep, I saw you on Facebook. Yeah, I listen to your podcast. I saw you — I talked to this consultant about your business, which is just gold for marketers.
(Laura 15:22) Right.
(Steve) And again, we were taught long ago that, like, if we add one more field to the form, they won’t convert. And I would totally just challenge that. I mean, and I had to do it for myself, too, at my last company, of like, it’s okay to add this form. Anybody who’s not willing to give me this information probably isn’t worth speaking to about a demo or, you know, a meeting we want to set up.
But then I think, you know, again, I can also share that, you know, when I first turned this on at my company, we got a lot of, “Search.” “Googled you.” You know? Which is not bad. We know that’s how a lot of buyers are going to come in. But I think it was also a good gut check for me as a marketer that if I’m not doing something really cool, dark social shareable-worthy, they won’t remember me in those platforms. So you know, it’s like, sort of like a chicken and the egg of like, okay, they’re not going to tell me, they found me on LinkedIn until I’m producing a really compelling ad or video that we posted there. So it was actually kind of a motivator to me of like, it’s my job as the marketer to get some good insights in this form. So that’s just a couple ways that I think teams can start looking at, like, how do we measure dark social? And then sort of share that back with the org of how marketing is driving results.
(Laura 16:31) Yeah, that’s really good advice. So I’m curious, you know, you mentioned repeatedly going back and, you know, talking to the customers to figure out, you know, what are they using now? What are they interested in now? Where are they looking? How often do you recommend doing that? Is that like a yearly process? Or how often do you go back and check in?
(Steve 16:49) Oh, man. I mean, as much as you can achieve it. And not — because we, we’re marketers. We’re busy, right? You know, I’m not saying it has to be a daily part of the job. But any opportunity that you have, you know — I’m guilty of this, too. You get in the weeds, and you just kind of deprioritize it. But I think if you can’t have a monthly shadow of even just listening in on a demo call. But even better, finding those opportunities to just say, hey, I’d love to talk to either a customer or someone who’s bought from us. Or even maybe, perhaps Richard asking to speak to a prospect that didn’t want to buy from us.
And then just asking him a set of core questions of, you know, what prompted you to look for a vendor at all? Why didn’t you or did you choose us? Why did you or didn’t you choose the competitor? And, you know, and then again, those other questions of, you’re just kind of gut checking, where are they getting information? How do they get the information to either buy or not buy from us? That’s — as much as you can do that, I would highly recommend.
I think if you’re working for an organization where that’s a little bit harder to come by, or perhaps the customer-facing teams are a little more protective, some of the insights can be garnered, you know, by scheduling regular monthly meetings of like a win-loss program, where the salespeople actually share that qualitative feedback of, why did we win a deal? Why did we lose a deal? And that can also help you identify, you know what, that sounds like a really interesting story. We’d never lost a deal for that reason. I would like to speak to that customer.
I find if you ask, most salespeople are really good about doing that. So, yearly, yeah, probably at a minimum. And then quarterly is even better. And then if you could get monthly insights? The best, yeah.
(Laura 18:19) Yeah. I like that approach. It’s more organic. You know, rather than making it this big, huge thing where we have to go and talk to 50 people, it’s, you know, one here, one there, as you can kind of spot the opportunities.
(Steve 18:31) Oh, yeah. Because especially if you can document some of those qualitative insights over time.
(Laura 18:35) Right.
(Steve) You know, keep a document refreshed, and just kind of, what are we hearing? And again, some of those nuggets are just going to be gold for, you know, restructuring a marketing program or messaging, even towards the audience that you’ve been marketing to for a long time. Which we all know, we kind of get in bad habits. So this is how we say this thing all the time, and never deviate from that.
(Laura 18:54) It’s true. So I’m really curious about, you know, you have already shared a lot of advice. But any other advice that you would share with SaaS marketing teams who are specifically interested in doing more with dark social?
(Steve 19:09) I think it can kind of almost be daunting if you’re just, oh my god, we have to change, seismically, everything that we’re doing. But the reality is, like, most B2B marketers are probably doing some of the right fundamentals now. We host a monthly webinar program — that’s a fantastic way to start, but it’s sort of, as I mentioned, taking that next step of, like, we’re not just gonna host it and only share it with them. Who cares? Like, we want everyone to get this information. Wouldn’t it have been great if everyone registered live? Which we know they won’t do.
But you know, making that content available instead of, like, a modern consumption environment, you know, where we listen to podcasts on demand. We don’t — you know, again, it’s great if we can listen to that webinar over lunch, but the reality is we’re not always going to make it. So you know, just again sharing that content, either in its entirety, but even more impactful, taking what we have as low-hanging fruit, packaging it up, displacing the best clips that — maybe it’s three minutes, maybe it’s 30 seconds — but then sharing those across, you know, the right channels. And just making sure that your message is getting across, not just in your organic platforms, but then also packaging them up as ads to get them in front of that ICP audience that we know we want to consume the audience.
So I just wanted to give you an example of a really, like low friction way to get started. But then I think beyond that, I mean, a podcast or regular series where you’re cultivating, you know, outside expertise. Maybe it’s having your customers on. There’s a big thing that we sort of ran up against at my last company, which was, hey, we don’t have the in-house expertise of someone who has been a B2B e-commerce, like, store runner or brand manager, you know? So we can speak to things as a digital marketing, you know, solidarity, but we didn’t have that in-house, I think Chris calls it, you know, expert, that should almost be the center point of a lot of your content.
So working towards or identifying someone internally — maybe they don’t live on the marketing team, but having someone that you can almost put forth as like the expert in your field that has that unique opinion, the experience, or, you know, has done the job of the ICP or the buyer persona that you go after. And putting them at the center of your marketing, interviewing other people or just sharing their thoughts, is oftentimes like a really easy way to kind of turn out really compelling content that, again, can be repackaged and broadcast across all those channels.
And I mean, I don’t know, you’re probably also, like me, thinking back to… You know, I’ve worked at several companies where we had so many experts, and we would do just traditional webinars — and that’s it — with them.
(Laura 21:33) Right, yeah.
(Steve) And wouldn’t, you know, do as much — just looking back, it’s so much opportunity, I felt like, wasted. And it gets me really motivated to do really cool and compelling stuff now.
(Laura 21:43) That’s such a great point. There’s so much you can do, you know, with repurposing and all these different formats. That’s something I’ve been seeing more people do, which is cool. But there are still a lot of companies that it’s just — like you said, I feel like you get stuck in this way. Because everybody’s trying to do so much. So the more, you know, you can streamline your processes and kind of go on autopilot, the more you can get done. But it’s very easy, then, to just keep doing everything the same way you’ve been doing it and miss these opportunities. So yeah, that’s a really good point.
(Steve 22:16) Yeah, it’s a really good gut check, too, if you’re just doing the same — if it’s easy for you as a marketing team, it’s probably getting stale for your audience. And not to say that everything we do should be so hard. But I mean, yeah, it’s — I always recommend, like, try to tap what you have existing and then work towards what you could achieve. Because if you don’t have that in-house expert, mention it to your marketing leader as like, this is probably a hire we should make somewhere within the org. Maybe they’ll also be a solutions engineer, but can we tap them for a certain amount of hours in marketing to make sure that we’re getting their viewpoint across, which is incredibly valuable to our audience? And not just to try to get them to, again, get a demo, but just to educate them on what we do, so that they know what your company does when the buyer’s ready to buy.
(Laura 22:58) Great tips. So that’s the last question I have for you. Is there anything that I didn’t ask that I should have asked? Anything else that you want to share?
(Steve 23:06) You know, I just, I think, having worked at Refine Labs now for a couple months, I’m looking back at my career, and there’s so much now that I feel like I now have, like, permission to go and do. Or, you know, get off the MQL hamster wheel and, you know, just really do good marketing.
And I think, maybe, you know, advice I could pass on — that I’m obviously taking to heart now — is that, you know, it’s important that we as marketers take our place as a serious contributor to all. Especially in B2B SaaS, right? We have a huge role to play in company growth. And it’s up to us as marketers to tell the company what way is up when it comes to successful marketing. But that doesn’t mean that we can just say, oh, I heard this on a podcast that seems really cool. It’s up to us marketers — who have traditionally been, like, more creative minded and, and just like, excited about the story we can tell — and absolutely, all of that. But then we have to couple that with hard data. In particular, as we think about things with dark social.
So doing those things like getting that form field, where you can take that information to a CFO or a rev leader that might challenge you on, like, you know what, I like your idea of a podcast, but I really need you to do more events. Or I need you to make a million more cell sheets. You know, you can’t just say no to those, you have to be able to say, hey, I think we can do something more, and here’s the results that I’m seeing.
So I guess, advice maybe that I’d impart, that I wish I had done more earlier in my career, is not just say yes to any requests from the top, but come prepared with my numbers that back up the strategy that I want to get. Which is not always easy, but there’s just, there’s tons of resources now of — The Sate of Demand Gen being one example of, like, concrete tips of how you can split the funnel and understand which of your channels are driving pipeline and revenue, or how to calculate a CAC payback, which are numbers that your leadership team needs you to come to the table with. So I think it’s just, it’s a great time. It’s never been a better time to be a marketer. I think more and more are being seen as growth engines for the company and, you know, less of, you know, servants to sales, but rather partner with sales.
(Laura 25:11) Yes.
(Steve) And together, that mix is just so good. But it’s also, it’s up to a marketer to make that happen. We can’t just say, oh, we’re marketers. Everyone’s saying we’re great now.
(Laura 25:20) Yeah, that’s true. And it’s interesting you brought up the sales team. I just had a conversation with someone yesterday, and they were talking about, in their company, almost all the leads come from marketing. And so, as part of their process, they talk to sales and say, you know, what’s the quality of these leads? And then they’ll take what the sales team said about their leads, and bring that to the leadership. And I’m like, that is brilliant, you know? Because a lot of times, the sales team isn’t just necessarily out there broadcasting how great the marketing team is. So if you can kind of, you know, pull that along, then that can be, you know, a good strategy.
(Steve 25:57) Absolutely. You know, it’s a great call out of, like, one, it’s so much easier to be friends with sales than it is to be enemies. And the whole marketing-sales thing is just so boring, right? You know, like, it’s been a big thing in my career of just, like — I think, actually, part of it helps that I at one point had a short career in sales, and I realize how hard it is. So, max props to all of our sales listeners. But I think having that empathy for sales and working with them to drive — because they’re the ones, they’re the gatekeepers of the customers. They’re gonna help you get those good insights.
But then even just, you know, another quick thing you can do is if you’re not, today, breaking down the revenue that’s coming across the teams, right? So how much of the pipeline and revenue is coming from your AEs, who are, you know, cold calling themselves, versus the SCR team that’s doing outbound dials, versus that’s coming from the marketing team, right? So that you have a baseline of where we’re contributing.
And then, absolutely, like, for the leads that are getting passed through the demo form from the site, from an event, don’t just like toss those over and get mad if they don’t qualify. Like, that was a huge part of my success in my last company, is that, like — and I think it stunned a lot of the salespeople there. Like, no one’s ever asked this, like, how good the leads are. And I’m like, well, yeah, that’s my whole job —
(Laura 27:07) Should be common sense.
(Steve) — to make sure we’re doing the right things for you guys. And that at the end of the day, we can report that we’re producing inbound interest that also converts to pipeline and revenue.
(Laura 27:18) Awesome. Well, this has been amazing! Thank you so much for your time and your insights. I know this is gonna be of a lot of interest to people. So this has been great.
(Steve 27:26) No, it’s my pleasure, Laura. I super enjoyed talking with you. I look forward to doing it again.