Do You Love a Gartner Forester?

As you all know, normally there aren’t any guests for Lochhead on Marketing. But today, we have a special episode for tech entrepreneurs and marketers, as we have a dialogue with Megan Bowen and Chris Walker of Refine Labs. Megan Bowen and Chris Walker are the COO and CEO of Refine Labs. They also have an amazing podcast, called The State of Demand Gen podcast. As there have been a lot of bad thinking in marketing, a lot of which stems from old thinking. Chris and Megan have been doing a lot in helping drive the conversation onto new grounds, and making tech companies become in demand again. So if you’d like to hear their thoughts on the matter, stay tuned. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind.   Contributing to the Marketing World The conversation starts with lauding Megan and Chris on the wonderful work they are doing on their podcast, State of Demand Gen. Christopher himself has been a guest before; you can check the episode here. But while Refine Labs has been around for a while, there’s not really a lot of things that people know about Chris and Megan, and what they do. Megan shares that her background has always been in customer success and company operations. For her, Chris is the true visionary and disruptor when it comes to marketing. “What I think I really bring to the table is a different way to think about company building. And I've had a ton of fun becoming a marketer in how we think about acquiring great talent and positioning our company in the eyes of candidates.” – Megan Bowen Chris adds that without Megan, it would’ve been hard to make his ideas become reality.   A Clear Shift in the Market Chris comments that it has been obvious to him and the team that there has been a shift in how people in B2B actually want to buy things. But surprisingly, a lot of companies are not adjusting to that reality because they’re stuck in the old ways of marketing. “That shift sort of goes in line with what some of those topics that you talked about, Christopher. Native Digitals and Native Analogs is one piece of it. So how do people primarily want to engage research, discover, evaluate their suppliers and decisions and make decisions? How do they want to do that? As we start moving into the workforce, there's more, I think you've mentioned, a stat of like, at least 50% of actual decision makers in a B2B buying process are now Native Digitals.” – Chris Walker With this shift comes a lot of new opportunities and approaches to try out. So the slow adjustment of most companies nowadays to adapt to such things is what gives companies like Refine Labs to sort of “pop out of nowhere” and dominate the market.   On Native Digitals and Native Analogs On the topic of Native Digitals and Native Analogs, it seems that S&P 500 CEOs, who are still majority Native Analogs, are not aware that the buying market is being overrun by Native Digitals. According to Chris, those who have noticed have started to create categories and marketing catering to that demographic. But for Chris, that isn’t nearly enough. “I think that it's important to look more holistically at the overall business. So some of the things that power our advantage. We think about our culture and our talent, talent, experience and talent management from a native digital lens. We think about building future products and experiences for customers through a native digital lens. And so when you look at the entire business, not just your marketing, there's a lot of companies that can go out and put nice wallpaper on their marketing. Well, the foundations and stuff is cracking inside of the actual building.” – Chris Walker Megan adds that it’s not only an approach that one should take in marketing, but in other aspects of the business as well. “I think that a core component of any business, being successful and continuing to grow is attracting and retaining the r...