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Chris Walker was asked to join the Rev Up podcast, hosted by Ben Shipley of Trust the Process, to chat about customer-centric marketing and the importance of returning to fundamentals. Chris discusses the need to create demand by understanding customers and delivering value through content and thought leadership. He also shares insights on building a successful marketing team and utilizing essential tools for executing effective marketing strategies. They wrap up the conversation talking about content, the status of podcasting

Chris Walker hosts weekly Private Coaching Events for Vault Subscribers, and this week he opened by covering a couple important and timely industry observations. First, he previews the current state of Revenue Operations, including the expectations and what he is seeing in practice. He presents this as an opportunity for people to think about assuming higher level responsibilities in order to vault their careers forward.  Then, he digs into some recent feedback on reasons that companies aren’t shifting from Lead Gen to Demand Gen. He acknowledges that attribution is going to keep holding people up until they reframe their thinking around it, and also talks through the misuse of terminology between MQL and SQL to create a perceived void in sales team productivity. 

Chris was invited on the Revenue Formula Podcast, hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Mikkel Plaehn to discuss planning. They cover the challenges and problems faced by companies when planning marketing strategies, and Chris emphasizes the need to view marketing and sales planning as one overall system, rather than separate entities. He explains the importance of analyzing historical data to determine the effectiveness of different pipeline sources and make informed decisions about future strategies. He also highlights the inefficiencies and hidden costs associated with traditional MQL models and the need to focus on capturing high-intent buyers. Chris suggests that companies should optimize their demand capture budget and allocate resources to demand generation activities that drive meaningful results.

“Do less, but do it fucking phenomenally”Chris Delivered a keynote presentation on Attribution and Measurement at the 2023 SaaStock Conference in Austin. He starts his presentation by discussing the current state of the market, highlighting the fact that companies have less money and marketing budgets are being scrutinized, and the implications of that. He emphasizes the need for companies to scale their projects down to focus on what’s working, rather than spreading their resources thin across multiple programs. Chris then delves into different strategies for capturing and creating demand. He emphasizes the importance of organic thought leadership and content distribution, using platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, Reddit, and Quora. He wraps up by covering the need for a new framework for attribution, and then answers audience questions. 

Chris Walker hosts weekly Private Coaching Events for Vault Subscribers, and this week he opened by covering two important and timely industry observations. First, he interprets the results of the Metadata Paid Social Benchmark Report to show that when you use paid social for lead gen, the outcomes are a very high cost of acquisition and very low lead to win rate. He breaks down the percentages of win rate and length of customer acquisition cost payback time to reveal shocking results. Then, he digs into the potential reasons he has seen so many B2B companies abandon their sourced model in favor of an influenced model for their marketing. He explains why he thinks that’s a bad idea and ultimately proposes an alternative approach.

You’ve asked and we’re listening! Here is a compilation episode geared towards all-things Revenue R&D from Chris’ recent podcast appearances. Different areas he breaks down include:A definition and overview of the concept and use casesHow to use Revenue R&D to evaluate the business in a holistic, standardized wayA deep dive into the Revenue R&D Exit Criteria and how to adjust based on individual goals and sales cycle lengthsAn argument dispelling the myth that Revenue R&D is unnecessaryLet us know what topic you want to hear a compilation episode focusing on next!

Chris was invited onto the Game Changers webinar, hosted by Oana Manolache of sequel.io, to chat about his journey in building a $20 million business. Chris shares his background as a B2B professional and how he started RefineLabs after realizing that his unique approach to marketing was not being embraced by traditional companies. He discusses the shift from being a marketer to a CEO and the importance of thinking about the entire business holistically. Chris emphasizes the need for marketers to focus on the customer and use direct customer insights to drive their strategies. He also highlights the power of content in breaking through the noise and connecting with customers. Chris challenges the traditional methods of measuring content ROI and suggests looking at the overall impact of content rather than individual pieces. He advises marketers to analyze their programs and identify areas of wasted spend. Finally, Chris discusses the challenges of planning for H2 and offers insights on optimizing conversion rates and pipeline marketing.

Chris was invited onto the Power Producers Podcast, hosted by David Carothers, to share his insights on marketing and sales as applicable to the insurance industry. He emphasizes the importance of leveraging digital tools to reach customers and the need to adapt to the changing landscape of consumer behavior. Chris also highlights the power of creativity in marketing and the ability to make a real impact on business growth.Chris's strategies for releasing valuable information for free and the importance of self-reported attribution in dark social channels provide actionable takeaways for marketers in all industries.

Chris got to sit down with Anna Gullstrand, Chief People and Culture Officer at Mentometer, about her extensive background in management and leadership. Anna shares her insights and Chris expands on building high-performing teams, the importance of intentional leadership, the role of technology in employee engagement, and the future of work and remote teams. She also stresses the importance of continuous learning and development, diversity, equity, and inclusion education and implementation, and more. Then, she turned the questions back onto Chris and asked for his perspective and recommendations on supporting the Chief Marketing Officer - where they can get inspiration and conversations management can have with them to ensure alignment. 

Chris sat down with George Boot and Justin Hanna of Acquired.com to chat about creating and measuring meaningful metrics. They cover the misalignment between sales and marketing, the flaws in the traditional MQLs and KPIs, and the importance of measuring the right metrics for revenue growth. He also talks about the changing landscape of B2B sales and marketing and the need for companies to adapt to the new reality.Additionally, Chris shares practical advice on how businesses can allocate their funding for growth, the importance of measuring the right metrics, and the benefits of using LinkedIn and Facebook ads for B2B companies. Chris's emphasis on the importance of understanding the customer and the need for businesses to be agile and adaptable in the new reality is a key takeaway from this episode. Finally, Chris teases a follow up to this episode to cover the how-tos of starting a podcast!