“I noticed you don’t talk much about your product on the podcast you host.”
I was talking to an up-and-coming marketer the other day on their podcast when he said the above to me. He was curious about why we didn’t promote our product more on it and asked if I thought we were leaving opportunities on the table as a result.
I told him I didn’t think so. In fact, it works more in our favor that we don’t heavily promote our product on it.
The market is smarter than we give them credit for
Real talk for a minute. I severely underestimated the intelligence of the audiences I marketed to for a number of years.
As a marketer, I’ve done things like:
Perfectly sequencing funnels to try and handhold prospects every step along the way
Thinking that changing the color of the website CTA from blue to green is going to significantly increase the website > handraiser conversion rate
Believing that a $25 Starbucks gift card would be the compelling tipping point to get someone to buy a 5-figure piece of software
So let’s start this newsletter off with something that completely changed how I approached the market(s) I’ve served in recent years that has significantly improved the efficacy of our marketing and larger go-to-market (GTM) efforts:
Prospects aren’t dumb
Prospects know to go to the top right corner of a website and click that button when they’re ready to start the sales process (regardless of its color)
Prospects can smell sales breath from a mile away and have been trained to distrust anyone (or any entity) that reeks of it
People buy from people they trust
Think back to a large purchase you’ve been a part of personally, or at your company. You most likely evaluated a handful of options, but had a few top contenders already in mind. How did those contenders get to that place?
I usually take most studies from Bain + the other big consultancy firms with a grain of salt, but this study was absolutely spot on.
When an organization knows they need to solve for something, they usually have at least a few companies in mind that can help with that before diving into research mode and heading to Google.
RFPs are a rarity nowadays, and that’s because buyers have the power now, not sellers. Buyers used to only be able to get it at an event, by calling the seller, or request for it to be faxed over.
Now, information is readily available everywhere. And that means sellers need to get ahead of buyers by making sure they know who they are, what they do, and what they help solve for.
The best way to do this? By marketing the problem you solve, not the solution you sell.
Why? Because it instills trust and demonstrates credibility.
By talking about the problem, it shows that you understand the market + what they struggle with. Further, by *not* immediately talking about a solution to the problem, it shows that you’re trying to help the market you serve to solve that problem, regardless of the tech they use.
Marketing the problem > marketing the solution
Go scroll any social media feed for a few minutes and you’ll come across a number of ads and content pieces. Most will fall into the first of these two categories:
The ad/content piece talks about the company/product/service and an associated outcome (make more money, save time, etc.)
The ad/content piece talks about something you’re currently struggling with and gets tactical in how to overcome that struggle
Now, fast forward a few months later. You’re struggling with something in your job and need to do something about it. Do you remember the company from bucket 1 or bucket 2 above?
Yeah, I also said bucket 2. Why? Because we mentally associate companies with the problem(s) they solve.
I have no clue what the ROI of using Salesforce is, but it helps me to quickly know if we’re on track to our pipeline and revenue targets
I don’t know how much time I save by having Hatch.fm edit our podcast, but they enable us to build awareness + share our POV with the market we serve
Sure, we have an ROI calculator for our product at Loxo to help estimate outcomes, but we lead with the problem most recruiters struggle with: having to juggle 10+ disjointed tools just to make 1 hire
So back to the question I was asked the other day, “I noticed you don’t talk much about your product on the podcast you host.”
That’s correct, we don’t talk about our product. We talk about the problems our market regularly faces and the strategies + tactics to overcome those.
And in those conversations, we usually even say things like “yes, you can do this in Loxo, but you can also do it in some form with most other tools as well.” Why?
Because it builds trust
Because we genuinely want to help recruiters
Because it’s the Tic Tac that keeps the sales breath away
AMA (Ask Me Anything)
A reader asked me for my thoughts on who I thought BDRs should report to within an organization after reading this post about org structure from Emily Kramer.
And to be honest, I think it’s a much simpler answer than many of us think. It’s less about WHO they should report, and more about the philosophy the organization has about the role and goal of BDRs for their market.
If the philosophy is to be blasting phones + emails, they should report to sales
If it’s being consultative partners to the market, they could report to either sales or marketing
If it’s sharing value with the market and being human nurturers, they should probably report to marketing
In the end, it comes down to the strategy + understanding what you want them to accomplish that determines where they’ll be most successful reporting into.
Have a question you’d like me to take on next week? Reply back to this email!
See you next week,
Sam