B2B Marketing Mindset

RFPs or “Request For Proposals” are project announcements put out by companies outlining the “what” and “how” of a project they are looking to bring outside help on, with the expectation that firms looking to take up the project will “bid” on it, effectively making it a competition for who can get the job done for the lowest possible price.  In this week’s episode, we talk about the good, bad and ugly of the RFP process, share our experienced with this approach and whether or not it’s a fit for buying expertise.  For material goods, RFPs can make sense; “We need X number of trucks, capable of hauling Y pounds of cargo, and get over Z mpg,” If the product is exactly the same no matter where it is purchased, an RFP can work.  For services, particularly those involving consulting and expertise, RFPs create a lose-lose situation.  On the side of the creator of the RFP, the reasoning is that the RFP “levels the playing field” so that they can compare one company’s offering with others. On the surface that might make sense for the buyer – but it is the LAST thing any good sales person wants. If anything, when you are selling you want the playing field tilted far in your favor. So far that your offering can’t be compared to others.  RFP’s make the assumption that all consultancies are identical in all aspects –  ignoring differences in skill and experience. Even worse, if everything the client wants is specified and standardized – what is left to discuss?  Price. And only price.  Also, built into the RFP is what you need done, and how you want it done, why bother hiring a consultancy? It would be cheaper, by far, to hire someone directly to follow your instructions, than to hire a consulting firm.  On the side of the prospective “bidders” on an RFP, many buyers ask for speculative “solutions” while giving very little information upon which to make recommendations. This is bad for everyone involved because the chances your recommendations will be on target are slim  and the chances that the client will latch onto a bad idea are great. Even worse, you might win and have to implement this bad idea that has likely been “stolen” from other firms.  There’s no guarantee that you’ll be hired, leaving that work unpaid, and no guarantee that they won’t take your advice, implement it themselves, or pay someone else to implement it at a lower cost.  In our experience, successful firms don’t respond to RFPs because it’s poor practice and they simply don’t have to do so. They are busy, and spending a week giving away random ideas isn’t a sound business decision. It’s a waste of resources because bidders seldom win these contracts. Most often, there is a firm behind the scenes who wrote the RFP and is the predetermined “winner”.  What do you think? Do you respond to RFPs? Why or why not? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Some people love trade shows and some hate them. Few people actually leverage the unique opportunity in-person trade events deliver. In the Age Of Hand Sanitizer, we’ll share some ways you can leverage in person and virtual events to get the maximum return on your investment, with special guest Anna Bahr 1. Trade Shows: Still Relevant in Digital Age? 2. Key Elements to Trade & Event Success 3. How are industry events changing 4. Balancing traditional and virtual events 5. The Role of Technology

Today’s guest is Tim Hayden from Brain+Trust and he’s schooling us on the real A.I. you need to be worried about (and it’s not ChatGPT or anything on the market – yet.) Artificial Intelligence: what was once a plot point in many a science fiction story, is now shaping up to be the next biggest technological leap forward since the advent of the internet. So what does this mean for us “Organic Intelligences” and how we do business?  A.I. has become something of a catch-all term for a number of different technologies that are all in their infancy, as well as whatever fictional, sentient machines you can think of (HAL 9000, Mr. Data, Skynet, etc.).  This creates a lot of misconceptions about the A.I. we have now, and what we will have in the future.  Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is the hypothetical intelligence that we see in the media: a sentient machine that can think, make decisions, and learn, similarly to how we do. As it stands, this only exists in our imaginations, but there’s no shortage of people trying to make it a reality.  The A.I. that exists today is something of a precursor to that, known as a Large Language Model. LLMs work by taking the prompt given by the user, cross referencing it with a massive pool of data in the form of written language, and trying to “predict” what words (and in what order) and response should contain. Think of it like an advanced version of a smart phone’s predictive text feature; it looks for keywords in the prompt, pulls up data containing those words, and “averages out” the data into a response. It is a form of what is known as “Generative Artificial Intelligence.  Because Large Language Models don’t “think” in the traditional sense, but rather “reference,” it’s only as intelligent as the data you feed it. Today’s LLM’s are trained on a diverse dataset that ChatGPT says includes:  Books, literature, and written fiction/non-fiction. Articles from various publications, including newspapers, magazines, and online platforms. Websites covering a wide array of topics, such as science, technology, history, arts, entertainment, and more. Academic papers and research articles from various fields, including mathematics, computer science, psychology, sociology, and more. Conversational data from online forums, social media platforms, and messaging apps.* Technical documentation, manuals, and guides. Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content. Creative writing, poetry, and storytelling. So ultimately what comes out of today’s “A.I.” is only as good as the data that goes in.  Companies collecting, using, and selling user information is nothing new, tracking demographics and behaviors to direct what ads you see, what products you get recommended, etc. Now, these companies are buying and selling data to train their A.I. Just recently, the social media platform Reddit has struck a deal with an unnamed company developing A.I., to sell their user data and activity for $60 million a year.  This presents some new complications. A.I. can’t detect when inaccurate, or outright false information is included in its training. Tim Haden, CEO of Brain+Trust points out how this can be something of a foil when it comes to how we use A.I. going forward, “…there are all kinds of ways that this is going to be consequential whenever we think about the data sources that will be used for A.I., and what happens and what changes with human behavior?”  Hayden says A.I. will almost certainly replace search engines in the near future, and with that in mind, the quality of the training data becomes paramount. He goes on to say ‘Google gives us lists when it gives us search results. If you think about that statement, Google Search never worked. It never did. It always gave us lists, it didn’t give us answers. With A.I., “ you’ve got your answer right in front of you.”   With A.I. that can formulate direct answers to your inquiries, search engines become obsolete. So what then becomes of things like SEO, or search analytics? Much of our advertising and marketing industry as we know it today hinges on the existence of search engines and how people interact with them, so removing them from the equation entirely creates a conundrum; How to “optimize for A.I.”?  We cover this topic in much more detail in the podcast. What do you think? Will A.I. become sentient in your lifetime? 

Today’s special guest is Steve Harper, author, speaker, entrepreneur and networking master. Steve is sharing his secrets and methods to drive more referrals and word of mouth for your business. We’ll talk about leveraging your professional network to build social capital and go from waiting for the phone to ring to deliberately driving opportunities. 1 Why build a professional network?2 What is social currency?3 Bring value first4 How it works (building social capital)5 The Ripple

It blows my mind that so many companies don’t know these two fundamental operational pieces that virtually ensure growth – or they do know, but execute them terribly. Bill and I talk about two Silver Bullets that make B2B companies grow. We’ll break each down so you understand how they work and share what we’ve learned from running our own B2B firms and working with hundreds of B2B clients to help them grow. Get these two things right and you’ll see profitable growth.

Today I yell at the sky about how companies like Canva and Adobe lie about their products, disparage the marketing industry and insult their customers by showing them as goofy goobers. These advertisements depict using their tools effectively as so easy, a child (or room of dancing interns) can do it. We’re going to watch the ads on air and take Photoshop’s generative AI feature for a spin to see if it does what it says on the box.

Today we discuss the advantages of bringing in outsiders to your company to move decision making faster while making better decisions. The concept is widely used by big companies but far fewer SMBs are familiar with the practice so they never think it’s an option. You can bring in someone, with or without domain expertise in your industry to facilitate faster, better decision making. Consultants can be facilitators, but not many have the tools and capability to lead a client team to a specific outcome. The facilitator brings the team together, creating consensus and objective guidance. It’s their job to make sure the decisions are sound and that the process is solid in that decision making. They also move much faster than clients alone. I’ve seen companies struggle to get a marketing plan in place for 10 months (or sometimes years). A good facilitator will get you there in weeks.

Today we are unlocking the mysteries of how publicity and PR work to help you score some sweet press. Do you find yourself wondering “Why do my competitors get press coverage – why not us?” Join us with Master Marketer of the Week Lisa O’Neil and find out what’s up with that. Is “free press a thing?” DIY or PR Partner? What is the most important factor in getting coverage? Why do press relations? (What they can expect from the effort) How to leverage coverage to extend reach Final Thoughts

Today we are joined by the Master Marketer of the week Scott Thomas to talk about how to get the sales team to work with the marketing team like one big, happy family. We’re breaking down five reasons things go south plus our final thoughts at the end where we bring it all together. Different perspectives and incentives Leadership sees sales as more important No agreement on goals, definitions and data Lead handoff too soon Overall Lack of planning on both sides Join us as we expand on these points and suggest some ways you can bring your teams together.

This week we are giving the the five DON’Ts – there are probably a lot more than five but it’s a start. It’s 2024 – last week I talked about the five things you MUST do in 2024 to thrive in the post COVID market landscape where everything has changed – except how you do marketing. Since COVID the market for every product and service has changed dramatically. If you aren’t satisfied with the results of your GTM strategy in this episode and future episodes we’ll give you a roadmap to tune up your approach.