GTM Live

Refine Labs just crossed over 100 team members and it only took about two years. Growing a business is a learning curve no matter what, but scaling quickly comes with a laundry list of lessons. In this episode, Chris talks about the journey and key learnings from an independent consultant to 100 employees and working with some of the best-known SaaS companies in B2B.

When most B2B companies think about content they think about blogs, ebooks, and webinars. Social media posts are sprinkled on top and in most cases not even grouped into the company's content strategy. The problem with that is it's not customer-centric. Buyers spend time on social media, in communities, and building relationships with peers in their industry they can trust. They're no longer finding blog content from a google search, signing up for your newsletter, and downloading all your ebooks before buying. In 2022, buyers are asking their networks for advice or buying from the companies that provide value every day without pestering them. So how to get in front of buyers in 2022? The answer is a dark social content strategy that's optimized to educate and attract buyers over time in a non-intrusive format that they're interested in consuming. In this episode, Chris talks about what that looks like and how you can get started building it.

Marketing is evolving. While most marketing teams are still spending their time and resources writing blogs and running webinars, forward-thinking marketers are figuring out how they can create an unfair advantage for their business. In this episode, Chris dives into just that as he talks about what the goal of marketing is as a sub-function of GTM and what it means to be buyer-centric in modern marketing.

We've been seeing a lot of buzz about the TOPO "Double Funnel" lately. But what exactly is it? And is it worth implementing or is it just another shiny object that sounds good in theory, but breaks down in practice? In this episode, Chris breaks down what the double funnel is, how it works, and the reasons you should think twice about implementing it into your go-to-market strategy.

Creating a culture where people are not only allowed to test and fail but encouraged to, is a necessity for innovation. But how do you create a culture that breeds innovation? The short answer is—it starts at the top. The CEO sets the stage for what will (and won't) be tolerated and leads by doing to set the example for the rest of the org. In this episode, Chris talks about how Refine Labs has become a talent destination by combining innovation and culture.

What do B2B brands have to do stand out as more and more companies adopt demand generation strategies? First, most companies are still running the old playbook, and even though they’re calling what they do demand gen, it’s still lead gen. Companies who truly want to stand out running a demand gen playbook should focus on three things:Having a deep understanding of your customersHaving subject matter expertise in-houseHaving a clear point of viewIn this episode, Chris talks about how to stand out in a sea of information on social media.

Most B2B marketing strategies are reactive. They spend a lot of money to show up once the customer is in a buying motion. But the problem with that strategy is that it becomes way more difficult to stand out in the crowd. Buyer's don't know who you are until they're ready to pull the trigger and they have no idea what sets you apart. In this episode, Chris talks about how companies can re-tool their marketing strategy to win in Dark Social so that you are proactively getting in front of future buyers before they ever even realize they need your product. That way when they do need your solution, the ones running the old, reactive playbook, never even get a look.

Employees have more power than ever in the employer/employee relationship and it's because most companies are still playing from a legacy playbook. The best companies are attracting top-tier talent because they are becoming destination organizations. "Price's Law" is the mentality that 50% of the work at a normal organization is done by the square root of the total employees. For example, at a 50 person company, 7 people do 50% of the work. That makes it extremely difficult when one or more of those people move on. So how do you attract top talent to ensure that your entire team is built from A players? Chris and Joe dive deep on just that in this episode.

We started doing Demand Gen Live back in March of 2020 with an audience of 15 people. Two years later, we're still doing Demand Gen Live weekly to an audience of 100+ and many of the original 15 are still showing up weekly. We brought back the OG co-host, Gaetano DiNardi, for episode 100 to talk about SEO vs. Brand. With top Google content becoming more and more about optimization and less about content quality, people are going to communities like Reddit and private groups to get information. So is SEO still an approach you should be considering? Chris and Gaetano weigh in on the 100th episode of Demand Gen Live!

Community is a powerful tool in scaling a company. Marketo demonstrated just how powerful community was in B2B when they built Marketing Nation. It was one of the first communities of its kind in B2B and is one of the major factors that led to their domination in the CRM market. Today we're talking with Sarah Kennedy Ellis, former CMO at Marketo, and current VP of Global Growth & Demand at Google Cloud on how she used community to grow the company, as well as catapult her career.