Intro: 0:00

Welcome to the summit. A podcast focused on bringing you the knowledge and insights for industry leaders. I’m your host, Kyle Haimer and I’m on a mission to help you exceed your potential. As a sales guy, turned marketer, I am passionate about building sustainable businesses. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 20 year career is that you won’t find an overnight growth scheme, a shortcut to success, or a way to hack yourself to the top. Nope. Success is the by-product of hard work, great relationships and deep understanding done over and over. We’re here to help you unlock that success with some secrets from other people. One conversation at a time.

Tom Spitale: 0:35

Hello, welcome to the summit. I’m your host, Kyle Hamer today. I’m here with my new friend, Tom Spitali of Imapct Planning Group. He’s a partner, an author, a speaker, and an all around crazy marketing guy. If you, if you thought you’ve heard Tom’s name before, it’s probably cause you have, Tom is the author of the book, the accidental marketer, Tom, welcome to the show. Thanks. Kyle’s great to be here.

Kyle Hamer: 1:00

It’s our pleasure to have you. It’s not every day we get somebody who’s got all of those those accolades in the front and then has such a great catchy book. Like the accidental marketer today. You’re going to talk a little bit about B2B marketing, more all things B2B. Eh , but before we do, can you tell us a little bit about your adventure and how you ended up becoming the accidental marketer? Yeah.

Tom Spitale: 1:20

And it does tie right into, you know, why we’re going to talk about B2B because our company is 20 years old and you know, a couple of years into it, we, we realize as strategic marketing consultants, that there was a certain type of client that we were working with and it happened to be business to business companies who had a lot of people that were doing marketing that had absolutely no marketing background, you know, and, and the trend continues today was just happening. Then that products were becoming more and more technical. And when these companies had a choice between hiring somebody who had like a marketing background or somebody that had technical background, increasingly they were making the choice and they do to this day to hire the technical background person and try to teach them how to do marketing. And so that’s really what we do. We work with a lot of what we call accidental marketers. And if you are one, you know, and we , we teach these people pretty quickly how to use a system that allows them to get that marketing skill, that strategic marketing knowledge pretty fast, combine it with their , their technical skill and really create strong marketing plans and differentiated offers and messaging, you know ? Well, it’s , it’s interesting that you know , you talk about being an accidental marketer, somebody who’s technical, I don’t think it’s just technical roles that we’re seeing filling marketing positions anymore. It can , it can really be a progress that comes through through any discipline inside of the business. Right? You can come up through finance, you could come up through operations,

Kyle Hamer: 3:00

Sales product. You mentioned that a little bit, but it’s, it’s not limited to one area. What’s interesting though. Is , is that the role of marketing is, is really changing dramatically.

Tom Spitale: 3:11

Yeah, well, it is it in fact, by the way, as you’ve kind of talked about the , the litany of backgrounds that qualify for accidental marketer, a lot of it is entrepreneurs too . Just people that have started a business and realize , Hey, I’ve got to figure out how to market and how did, how did, how to understand my customers and their needs better and how to talk to them and how to shape my , my offerings. And, and yes, marketing has changed quite a bit, but there are certain fundamental pieces that haven’t changed. And we try to focus on Bo like, you know, get focused on what hasn’t changed and then overlay on top of that, what has changed and you can be a really successful marketer in today’s world

Kyle Hamer: 3:55

And the topic is B2B. But before I jumped too far down that I was talking with Andrea elector, Lechner, Becker, I always get her name. She’s , it’s a tongue twister, she’s the CMO over at lead MD. And we were talking about how the , the role of marketing is really changing. There was an article done about five years ago by Kristen Walker from four procedures talks about, you know , kind of the death of the CMO, where board of directors don’t see marketing as strategic. They see it as very tactical and yet when it comes to B2B and you’re talking about these roles for, you know, whether I’m an entrepreneur converted or a product person converted an operations converted when you’re transitioning into marketing, all of the tactics that go into that become very strategic in how you move a business or how you move a , a brand specifically, you’re selling B2B talk a little bit about, you know, some of the fundamentals and some of the things that you’re seeing happening in the market today for marketers that are newly, newly minted leaders, people in this position transitioning just gives a little more perspective.

Tom Spitale: 4:56

Yeah, well, I think that, you know, the , the biggest thing that is, is changing is the advent of how we market in terms of what has been historically a hard sell becomes a real soft sell these days with the advent of social media and new digital channels and just content marketing, you know the , the, the way that millennials by and by the way, millennials are making up a bigger and bigger portion of decision-making at firms that buy stuff from B2B marketers. So you have to , you gotta be really in tune with how they buy. And what’s, what’s shifted there tremendously is that maybe the boomers used to try to get a lot of their information from a sales rep. They would call a company. They would, you know, interview a lot of different companies and they make their decisions that way the millennials do it really, really differently. Google says, it said they , they they’ve made like they’ve done 70% of the buyer’s journey by the time they contact anybody in person. And so now what they look to do is they look to understand your company. You look at your website, look at the content that you have produced, try to figure out how maybe you are credentialized in your firm in , in your industry. You know, and , and, and can you, you know, can you make them smarter about being a buyer? All of those things have , have really changed. That’s a new whole new set of skills that marketers need today, how to maybe soft sell, how to educate, how to use content marketing that really 20, 25 years ago were weren’t as, as, as prevalent. So that’s, that’s the biggest change. I think, you know , go ahead. Just say what hasn’t changed though , and you can lose sight of this is as people kind of stop watching the ball, what really hasn’t and never will change is that you have to understand customer needs and you have to address customer needs better than your competitors. Do you have to have a differentiated value proposition that stands out in an evermore crowded marketplace, and those are some of the things that haven’t changed. So you combine those two things and you put it together and you’ve got the things that a marketer must do today to be really successful.

Kyle Hamer: 7:22

You know , it’s, it’s, it’s interesting. You talk about the new buyer, right? And when I say the new buyer in order for companies , companies have evolved, they’ve evolved to the point where, Hey, we want to attract top young, talented people. You know, there’s this, this thought process that if we don’t provide them what they need, they’re , they’re shown to leave within 24 to 36 months. There’s, you know, this , how do we keep them? And one of the things it’s done is it’s shifted the decision-making to your point from your typical C-suite executive level, top level leadership to folks that are on the front lines that are now out educating themselves and saying, yes, this will help me solve with, with X or with Y. And , and what’s interesting is, is that the evolution of marketing in many ways through content it has become a sales, it’s become a sales technique. And what I mean by that is , is, you know, 15, 20 years ago, marketing’s job was what to get your attention and to, to be there, to be trustworthy so that there was some sort of Mindshare. Now marketing’s job is to get you what you said, 70% of the way to the, to the sale. Yeah , absolutely. Right. So now, so now marketers have to deploy sales techniques. So as a guy coming from say, like, finance, where do you look like? I’m not, I don’t do sales, look this marketing thing it could do. Okay. But , but, but what is like, how do you, how do you even begin to look at this, this ECOS, ecosphere, this, this business space in a way that you can set your organization up for success? Like, what are the things that you’re teaching folks it’s like, Hey, these are the things that you have to , to still deliver and deploy.

Tom Spitale: 9:04

Yeah, it really does all go back to customer needs and understanding customer needs and how they’re changing. I mean, you know, people that are good at marketing and good at sales understand beyond a basic level, what customers in their target markets really need. And when I say beyond a basic level, we can all kind of ask a customer what they need and listen to them. They say a lower price and faster delivery because they don’t know really what to, to tell us. But I think one of the skills that we teach that are really important is really how to interview customers are and how to analyze customer data in a way that you can begin to understand what it is that really is going on sometimes even subconsciously in their brain, as they’re making decisions, and then begin to connect your value proposition and everything about it, what you say about your offers, how you construct your offer, even how you price your offer in a way that is, is, is really understanding and, and, and repeating back to the customer, if you want , you know, what it is that they want maybe a little bit better than the competition, and this is how your product or service is actually better than what they can get out there that I think is probably the biggest thing that we help companies to do. And then marketers, You know, your book, your book talks about a good positioning statement is a terrible thing to waste. I think that’s one of the titles of one of your chapters. Talk a little bit about, you know, when you, when you think about things B2B and you think about taking somebody through this customer journey, like, what are they really trying to get out of it? It’s not just where your customer’s at. It’s, it’s more than that. What, what are you looking for when it comes to building that positioning statement and why does it matter? Well, I think when it comes to positioning, it is a topic that’s as old as marketing itself, but it is just so much more relevant today because of the explosion of messages that are out there. I mean, a positioning statement and our opinion is, is meant to take a few words and how you articulate your proposition and begin to own a space in the prospect’s brain that isn’t already owned by anybody else. And so what we’re really trying to get people to, and the positioning process actually is, is kind of late in our system because there’s a whole bunch of analysis that goes in front of that to do some of the things that you and Kyle have already been talking about, understand your customer needs, maybe segment your audience, pick a target. But the positioning statement really is , is, is meant to then find angle of differentiation, you know, and say it in a few words and it is hard to do what happens a lot with the people that we work with is they get to that point and they articulate something. They say, this is how I want to position this product, and they’re excited about it. And we have to come back with the bad news that, you know, you’re excited about that, but somebody already owns that. Somebody owns what you’re trying to say already, and all your it’s gonna fall on deaf ears. You’re going to sound like a copycat player. You’ve got to try to find another angle space that isn’t owned yet. And in a crowded marketplace, that’s really, really hard to do, but it’s worth it because if you really do have a differentiated positioning and can back it up, then your offer can really deliver on that positioning. It’s the greatest thing that can happen in a crowded marketplace because you’ll be remembered and invited to the party, so to speak, you know, and I say that B2B is they , they, they put things out for bid half. The battle was just getting into the bid list, getting, get , getting the opportunity to present. And that’s what a differentiated positioning statement does it get you invited to the party at least?

Kyle Hamer: 13:13

Well, you know, and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting to hear you talk about that because I’ve, I’ve got a strong opinion about how B2B is doing marketing wrong and not everybody in B2B, but a lot of B2B companies are focused on the mirror. So it’s kind of like the emperor’s new clothes, right? It’s like, how good do I look in the mirror? Everybody tells me how good I look. I’m sure that I look fabulous and they forget that the person on the other side buying isn’t a business, a business isn’t looking at you, you don’t have an in one organization, Salesforce, isn’t looking at Microsoft and saying, Oh, we need to buy Microsoft. They’re looking at a specific pain that they have somebody out there has been in charge of making a decision on bringing back the people that , like you said, invited to the list or put on the list of be invited to the party so that they can present what they have to solve, whatever the problem is. But at the end of the day, it’s a human human transaction. Why is it, why is it so hard for organizations to distill it down to human, to human B to C has been doing it for years. And they’ve worked really hard on that. You know, why is degree better than, you know? Sure. Which is better than I don’t know, old spice, like whatever your pick, your pick your product, they’ve really focused on that. Selling human to human transaction. Why is it so hard for B2B to make that?

Tom Spitale: 14:40

And I agree with you that everything is human to human, but it might surprise you to hear me say this. I think it’s an issue of scale and other words I, that what businesses are set up to do at their most successful levels to be efficient at scale and sell a lot, you know, sell a lot and in , and drive down their costs. And what happens is, is there’s a , there’s a lot of different, you know, like personality types and you know, consumers look at the battleground is one sale at a time, one consumer at a time, whereas a business as a, as a mixture of collection of these, of these personalities. And so what we advocate actually is this, we think that marketing draw, as opposed to say, I mean, I think marketing and sales can work together in the following way. Marketing’s job, in our opinion is to segment the B2B market space and find out, you know, three and four to five different types of firms that are out there in , in the , in the market that are different from each other. There’s some firms that are trying to reduce cost and be operationally efficient. There’s other firms that are trying to be really innovative. And there’s other firms that are really trying to be close to their customers. You know, that’s just three segments, right. So ,

Kyle Hamer: 16:03

And before you get to your next point, give me examples of what big companies that we would all recognize. What are the three, three different, like, just give me somebody out there.

Tom Spitale: 16:14

Okay. Just throwing out. And maybe there are different industries, but Walmart is, is an operational efficient company. Right. They’re trying to drive cost out. Nordstrom is a customer intimate and okay, let’s stick with retail. Trader Joe’s is an innovator. If you have any trader Joe’s in your marketplaces and they’re all about what’s the newest laser , but Costco is a treasure hunt kind of place. Okay. So these are three different types of retailers that businesses sell to. You’re trying to get your products into, into Walmart, into, in , into Nordstroms or, you know , into trader Joe’s or into Costco. Right. And , and they have to deal with them differently. Look now, within Walmart, for example, there’s a lot of different personality types that are working for Walmart, but the one thing, the one thing that somebody working for Walmart cannot do is not have operational efficiency in their mind as they’re buying goods and services, they can’t, they’ll be fired. They’ll go to something that maybe Nordstrom will hire. Okay. So, so the idea is that marketer’s job we think is to help to segment the world into these kinds of different pockets and think about what’s the messaging that’s going to appeal broadly to these companies and then work with sales to figure out the different personality types that the sales folks are going to deal with. One-On-One all right. And help sales to deal with that. We think that’s kind of more of , of, of sales sweet spot, right. Is understand how this person is a task master. And this person’s more big picture thinker. You know, it’s a different type of segmentation. We think those two can work together. And the beauty of that is, is the segmentation that marketing does helps the business kind of get scale, right? They can think of maybe three different types of value propositions and sales can figure out how to sell it to the diff the 10 different personality types, but the business can organize their value props around the three big segments. And and let the sales sales, you know, work with the personalities.

Kyle Hamer: 18:17

You know , it’s, it’s, what, what I think is , is really beautiful about what you just did. There is so often we hear companies say, Oh, you’ve gotta work on your personas. You’ve gotta work on your personas. You gotta, it’s gotta be Bob at Applebee’s he’s the GM, or it’s gotta be Sally at the, at the drive in they’re all in food service, but once a sit down restaurant, the others a drive through, right. And , and , and if you’re , you’re not thinking about it, your messages can really fall flat. I , you know, help me understand why companies have such a hard time segmenting by operational behavior or company archetype before segmenting by, you know, individual personalities inside of the business, if you will. I don’t think

Tom Spitale: 19:06

It’s possible. They , they see they, they see too much how much in AIT it, rather than, you know, the differences that truly exists . They don’t really ask the , the, the, the questions in the right way. And it’s it’s, it’s, it’s never black and white, you know, there , there, there are people that, you know, they, they look at Walmart and they see the diversity of personalities that they call on and they say, how can we put this business into one bucket? But all you gotta do is go to the annual report, right. And look at what the chairman’s talking about and how do they make their money. And it’s very clear, you know, if you ask the question, how does this business go about making money different than their competition? You know, that’s the thing you got to . So, so it really is about asking the right questions that allow a business, more business to business marketers to start to see, Oh yeah, there really are some differences that can give us an edge if we can just find them. And and , and, and once they start to get that mindset, it starts to click for them. But, you know, it looks, it looks really complex without the right tools and the right questions to kind of overlay on the problem.

Kyle Hamer: 20:26

Well, you’re right. Says easy does hard, right? The I’ve been fortunate or unfortunate if you will, of being part of several umbrella brand and messaging components where you’re trying to take eight companies with individual brands in the market, roll them out as a singular message and get the the market to go, yes, we love this new big brand a few missteps . And, you know, I think, I think one of the things that was was a lesson, there was the , you know, just listening to you talk less than I learned was, is that, well, part of the problem was, is that we didn’t segment the businesses by their personality. We just threw a bunch of personas together. And we said, well, there’s this title and there’s this title. And there’s this title at these organizations. This organization might be a little bigger. This one might be a little bit different, but we didn’t actually talk about their personality and how they behave the difference of am I an innovator and trying to be cutting edge, or am I slow and steady? Am I the GE of the world and into your point about messaging and getting it right. I think one of the best examples that I can think of, of an organization going through this is Apple, because Apple is, we know it today is ubiquitous mobile technology, right? I mean, they’ve, they’ve got desktops and , but your laptops, everything is really designed to be mobile. Like if you think about Apple, you’re thinking mobile phone, iPhone, iPad, mobile, but where Apple started was an education and they stumbled multiple times trying to get outside of education. Yeah. Talk about that evolution of, of what happens for a business as they start to find the right message. And, you know, if maybe there are elements that you’re aware of inside of Apple where it’s, it’s an easy parallel use those, but to me, it’s like, wow, they’re a long way away from education in the early eighties.

Tom Spitale: 22:19

Yeah. Well, I think it’s a mindset of experimentation is what’s important to figure out and get past your stumbles. You know, having that analytical mindset and saying, you know, what is really working in , what’s not working in always having a couple of experiments going on with different target markets, different value propositions, AB tests, that’s, you know, the long, the long journey of experimentation and optimization that leads, leads to the right path. I mean, Apple, what I think is fascinating, we do write about Apple in our book. What I think is really fascinating about Apple and germane to what we’ve been talking about here today is that they are fantastic at focus and targeting. They really have believe it or not, you know, really been , been focused on. I think, you know, my , my analysis is they, they really stand for cool and elegance . I mean, you know, in , in counterculture . And what’s interesting about that is that many companies see what they stand for and they think it’s not broad enough, even though it’s differentiated and what Apple teaches us so well is something we call them the book, the magnetic effect of focus. It’s not like Apple began, you know, as they decided education, wasn’t really where, where it was that they were trying to, they were, they were getting some, you know, some traction as the, you know , the counter-cultural alternative to IBM’s and the PCs. And we all remember the 1986 commercial on the Superbowl and all of that, but they didn’t stop and just say, okay, look, you know, we’re getting some traction with this counter-culture thing, but if we want to have a mass market, we’re going to have to really broaden our positioning. No, they didn’t. They said, let’s stick with this, you know, real, counter-cultural be different tagline and theme. And what happens is people that are outside of that immediate target market are drawn in because they know what Apple stands for. They see the success and it has sort of a magnetic effect because you walk around and you realize that there’s a lot of people that aren’t really that core, right . That counterculture , or even care that much about being different, that are using their products across the board , because they were so focused on a particular message of particular positioning. They stayed there, they got great reviews, great word of mouth. And all of a sudden they’ve drawn in this massive, massive market. And then they just keep going, finding new products for these customers. And , and, and, and, and so to me, that’s the message of Apple is the magnetic effect of focus and being true to a differentiated positioning, even if it seems like it was going to be limiting to them

Kyle Hamer: 25:24

Well, and, you know, I , I think we , you know, we said we were gonna talk B2B. The thing that I think is interesting in most curious to me about Apple, Tom, is the fact that they unseated the beat of B behemoth in the mobile market. I mean, you talk about being counterculture . I mean, it just, you’ve got 1984, they, they try and take PC or they try and take on PC and IBM head to head with , with the new Mac was , was it 86?

Tom Spitale: 25:52

I said it, you said, you said it right. It’s 1984. That’s the name of the book.

Kyle Hamer: 25:55

Yeah. Yeah. So, but they , you know, they, they released that commercial in 84. It’s the super bowl commercial. They have some limited success, the higher Pepsi, because they want to expand and they want to get into more corporate sales. They want to do B2B the same way. They’ve been doing a, B to C and everything stalls right now. So part of it is , is , is jobs and the whole transition of the organization, but the organization lost focus and I lost this magnetism. Right . But, but you look at, you look at when they got back to their roots, right. You had the think differently campaign, and then you had all call them the, the you had the nineties designer, right? You had the, kind of this stereotypical, like, I’m kind of in this weird space, I’m not a nerd, a little bit, Trinity I’m younger. And they leaned heavily into that. Whether you were corporate or you weren’t, they leaned heavily into that particular component. And with their IMAX series, they, they took on PCs , nerds, and structure and everything being organized in a specific way and completely disrupted it just by, like you said, being who they were, are there, are there other examples in the market that we see today where you’re like, wow, that that’s not, that’s unexpected. I wouldn’t have expected them to figure it out or to come back to that, creating a magnetic environment.

Tom Spitale: 27:18

You know, I unfortunately I see more negative examples of it. Then I see positive examples, Apple, you know, being Apple is a shining Paragon of, of how, how you stay really focused. What you, what you really see is you still see companies trying to extend their brands or change up positionings that have worked really, really well. Let me ask you this, Kyle, I’m going to ask you a question. When you think of, of FedEx and you think of a tagline, what do you think of, do you think the there’s a particular tagline come to mind for you?

Kyle Hamer: 28:04

So a particular tagline tagline does not come up. What, what triggers in my mind, when you say think FedEx is I think about what they did with their logo, where they have the forward arrow going through it to try and create that, you know, the speed and delivery and in but I don’t, there’s not a tagline that comes to mind

Tom Spitale: 28:22

If I say when it absolutely. You’re too young. You’re too young. You’re too young to remember when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight.

Kyle Hamer: 28:32

I re like , I remember , I remember those commercials now that now that you’ve said it, like it triggers, let me go . Okay. Yeah, I remember those, but

Tom Spitale: 28:40

I think it may be maybe picking up a subject here that you’re too young for Kyle, but I’m like , but a lot of times when I say that to people, they’re like I say, what do you remember about FedEx? What’s the tack that people, people, Scott maybe the, the, the more mature members of your audience. So the, the, the people absolutely positively has to be there overnight, but, you know if you have, if you’ve heard it, you , you, you typically remember it. And it is, it’s just an example is that, that hasn’t been their tagline for 30 years and it’s still super powerful and explains their differentiation. So you asked about, you know, present day examples of, of focus and what you, what you see is you know, more of the opposite of , of companies kind of reaching destroying taglines when a new management team comes in trying to extend a brand into something that it doesn’t really, you know , stand for line extensions, et cetera, et is , is you see a lot of that these days. And, and, and it’s, it’s you know, it’s damaging to the bottom line for sure.

Kyle Hamer: 29:52

Well, you know, I , I think the thing that’s interesting is, is you look at, you look at organizations that have been through, been through the meat grinder. Fedex is one of them. I mean, they’ve, they’ve, they’ve had their share of ups and downs over the years, same thing with ups. And they’re currently poised for a market disruption with FedEx taking on the logistics or not FedEx, excuse me Amazon with Amazon taking on logistics and starting to deploy their own fleet. And I mean, there’s just, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of turmoil when an organization is selling B2B and their particular industry is going through a commoditization or through a you know, w where all of a sudden, there’s a big disruption and that’s dropped to the race to the bottom of the floor. What are the things you tell your clients, or what are the things that B2B businesses can start to think about on how to, to help them not be in a race for being the cheapest or the fastest, or, or the things that maybe are very expensive to deliver?

Tom Spitale: 30:47

One thing that we’ve already talked about a lot, they just really have to understand their customer and your segments better than ever before. But the combination of that, and, and having a real good sense of what their differentiators are, what are the, what are the critical capabilities that they have that set them apart today that have, that are sustainable. And you know, and , and what are the critical capabilities that they can acquire in the near future to, to really be even more differentiated with the targets in the segments and the targets that they want to compete on. I mean, we deal, we , this is a very, you know, a daily question that we deal with with our clients, because what’s happening is not only the situation that you described, this commoditization, the race for the bottom. Something even more insidious is happening. A lot of B2B players take a look at their entire range of their value proposition, which includes their products and the service layers and everything like that. And they realize that new competitors are coming in and actually hiving off and competing on the stuff that’s really high margin and weaving the incumbents with the very commoditized things. I’ll give you an example. I mean, you, you know, in , in the equipment industry or , you know where you make equipment for, for plants or for drilling, or what have you, you know, the, the actual hardware and the physical stuff is the low margin stuff. The high margin stuff is the services that you wrap around that will help people to kind of analyze their operation and optimize their operation. And what’s happening is you mentioned Amazon, you mentioned Microsoft, you know, you’ve got Google, you’ve got those companies kind of taking their tentacles and reaching into these B2B spaces and saying, Oh, Hey, you can buy your hardware and your equipment from the company that you’ve always bought for it . Let us help you understand how to optimize it. That hurts the incumbent so badly because they’re left holding the bag. And now they’ve got new competitors on the hardware side, and they’re losing their high margin business. They’ve got to figure out, you know, they’ve got to figure out how to stop them. And we spent a lot of time working on those kinds of strategies with them.

Kyle Hamer: 33:17

It’s, it’s interesting to me because there are a lot of businesses that have been here for a long time in tool and die equipment manufacturers to the point of what you were talking about. And that , and just over the last five years, there’ve been several brands that I think have stood out from others. So again, to age myself a little bit, when I grew up, if you were in construction, you had Milwaukee, or you had Makita, but I mean, there, there were maybe a few other brands, but for the most part, it was, it was Milwaukee or Makita. And one of the things that there was a full, full court blitz on was the wall. And so, you know, my dad has a small remodeling business and deck building business in the Midwest. And, you know, I grew up after we got through the Makita phase, we grew up in Winston DeWalt, and it was about the Walt and their battery. There was something innovative and just brand new about, Oh my gosh, I don’t have to be tethered to an electrical outlet. This is amazing. And so that was a big innovation we’ll fast forward. And what was it? Three years ago? Four years ago, I was at a , an association event for the industry that was in, I was in the construction industry for a , for a company. And I heard the owners of these businesses saying, Oh my God, I love this particular app. Oh my God. I absolutely love what this company is doing. Oh my God, I absolutely love. And they started talking about Hilti tools and I was like, I don’t even know who healthy is. And you started looking at them . Well, here’s a, here’s a company that had taken that high margin stuff that you’re talking about. The , the , the services, the, the leasing programs, they’re making money on, you know, on the, on the, the financing. And they had built products and services. Their core products were still the same, could be a DeWalt communicator . Like I got a drill. I got a saw ultimately, you know, they used to say, well, all I want to do is build a wall, right? You want the wall, but you gotta have the saw. So, but what Hilti was doing is they were wrapping these value added services, training their their sales team or their field marketing reps to go out and actually be consultants coming in and helping the businesses grow by driving down their tooling costs , not, not saving them money per se, but building programs to where the value was irreversible. It’s like, well, I could, I could go buy a Hilti tool for $600, or I could go to the Walt and get it for two 49. But the additional things that I get when I buy it for 600 bucks are worth so much more to my organization. Two, three, four, five, six times more. I would be an idiot not to go buy that thing. So it’s amazing as you’re talking about. So like , wow, I, I wasn’t even thinking about it when you hear that, but that’s how you, that’s how you change. That’s how you focus. That’s how you drive those additional margins is as you really listen to your customer and what they’re , what they’re dealing with,

Tom Spitale: 36:15

We try to understand a broader you try to get a broader sense of their needs, not, you know, so off we started this whole call, we were talking about how do you get customers to kind of open up to you? You know? And I said, there was a specific, very specific kind of inquiry so that you get things that are not what we call cabbage, you know, just lower your price and deliver faster. It’s really a broader inquiry that starts with, you know, tell me what you’re trying to accomplish. Tell me about your frustrations, you know, and, and the inquiry needs to be broader than your product category, because if you just talk about your product category, the customer is really limited. They’ll talk about features and functions, but if you can get them to talk about, we like to say their whole life at work, and maybe even expanded to their life at home, depending on what you’re selling, you start to get a sense for the holistic nature of, of, of what their needs are. And now you can start to put together a value proposition. That’s broader, like Kilty did, that’s broader than just the , the, the, the hardware, the there , or the, you know, the piece of metal. It’s, it’s a service it’s perhaps a service offering that, that wraps around the hardware that really helps them solve the customer, solve something that the hardware only solutions can’t. So you’ve gotta be comfortable with talking to customers and eliciting more than just their needs around your product. That’s where the gold is absolutely innovative .

Kyle Hamer: 37:53

Absolutely. So look, I mean, I think that’s a really, that’s a really good spot to segue into a couple of questions that I like to ask as it comes to you personally, stuff that interests Tom and still being focused on B2B and still being focused on what you do for your day job. Tell me about your , the craziest or the most enjoyable project you’ve worked on, but set it up a little bit with, Hey, here was what the problem was. Here’s what some of the outcomes were, and here’s the process we went through and here’s the outcomes, or you know, what the result, which is kind of a high level, either the most ridiculous, crazy story you’ve got, or, or the one where you’re like, Oh my gosh, this was,

Tom Spitale: 38:36

This was my favorite to work on. Okay. The names will be changed to protect the innocent and a little Dragnet here. I like it. This is a juicy one. We got called into a particular pharmaceutical company. That’s sold a particular product that they’d had a what any anybody would, would consider a massive success with, but it was, it was, it was becoming close to the end of its patent and a lot of competitive offerings. And the company was, was, was trying to figure out, you know, what are we going to do when this thing comes, comes off patent? I’m a little bit hesitant, cause I’m trying to make sure I can talk about it. So, and it , it , it , it really dealt with the product itself really dealt with with proceeded by a uncomfortable conversation that you had to have with your physician. The crazy part of it was, was that it was a product that was sold to men of a certain age. I know where you’re headed, but was being managed by a group of 30 something young ladies. And so we, we were, we , we, we had a long circuitous path to try to kind of convince these folks that maybe weren’t necessarily at the time in their customer’s shoes, so to speak how you would overcome this, this situation. But, but what it really led to very ironically was a set of commercials that used to focus on a car that uncomfortable conversation, it switched to a significant other of that spouse encouraging that spouse to get help for this particular problem and the introduction of a completely internet based discreet way of not only having the product diagnosed, but also an understanding that there was a little bit of an embarrassment even picking up the product that the pharmacy led. It led to it being actually delivered actually you know, delivered via mail. So that’s a long security , security has path to, you know, a particular product you might be able to for what the product is maybe not. And you might be surprised what the product was. But you know, that’s, that’s, that was, that was a crazy, crazy situation that turned out really, really, really well for that particular company.

Kyle Hamer: 41:57

But what’s interesting here is, as you talked about it, the, the thing that’s , that’s interesting as it relates to the stuff that we do is yes, you had messaging and positioning. It sounds like, yes, you had these certain businesses challenges that you were trying to navigate now and drive outcomes through, but ultimately the closer you got to your customer, you truly understood the, the inconvenience, embarrassment, how it impacted people around them, and then ultimately looked to remove all of that friction and did so through innovation like that. That’s the cool part of this, right? It’s like, I can take your story and you start to narrow it down. It’s like businesses might be surprised how easy it is to innovate or how easy it is to stay well connected with their customer if they just shut up and listen for a minute,

Tom Spitale: 42:46

If it, and , and , and I guess the reason I, you know, mentioned, you know, about the product managers and who they were, was it just getting out of your own way? And out of your own biases is really, really important asking the right questions of , of the customer searching out their frustrations, their roadblocks and , and then, you know, really trying to find a way, I mean, th th this innovation that took place was kind of unheard of at the time that they were looking into it, but they did the proper innovation thing. They did a pilot project, they found some small geographic areas where they could experiment with it and make it work. So it had, it had so many elements of, of you know, different best practices in marketing strategy is why that one just really, really comes to mind.

Kyle Hamer: 43:42

That’s really, really, really cool. That’s a fun story. Other, other things, or other insights that maybe you’ve learned across your , your career for people that find themselves accidentally in marketing, what are, what are some other insights or tips that you might share with those folks?

Tom Spitale: 44:01

I think that one of them would, would, would be for actually leaders of accidental marketers. You know, the marketing, the marketing head. What we have found is that you, you probably, by nature of the types of companies that you’re in are pigeonholed in marketing as collateral developers or sales support. And you do have the power might take some time, but you do have the power to elevate you and your team’s roles. If your team can get the proper tools and skills and just, you know, learn how to think like a really good strategic marketer, there are ways that you can begin to elevate your importance in the company and take on more and more of a strategic role. And that’s important because, you know, when you’re a collateral developer or sales support, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re really, you can’t be thought of as a little bit expendable, or at least not as important as some of the other functions in the company. And that’s a shame because marketing is positioned so well to be in a leadership role, to be the orchestrator of the company’s strategy, to occupy that space between the customer and the company, and kind of finding that match between the customer’s needs and the company’s , you know, unique capabilities and, and helping direct the organization in that, in that way. So a lot of our mission is to really help elevate the role of marketing, not just individual accidental marketers, but help marketing the function, take its rightful place within the B2B. And so the message is it can be done. We see it happen. We work with a lot of companies where it , it, it happens all the time and it does take time, but it’s a beautiful thing when it happens.

Kyle Hamer: 45:51

So it’s, it’s, it’s interesting for somebody that’s maybe new to marketing. I mean, you mentioned a couple of things here that I think are really interesting to call out one, you talked about communications design and elevating yourself from more tactical and doing to strategic in your mind, and in the clients that you’re working with, how do you differentiate between what is tactical getting things done and what is strategic, what you need to get done.

Tom Spitale: 46:18

Okay, great question. And a lot of our, a lot of our really big clients totally like separate those functions, where they have upstream marketers and downstream marketers, the upstream marketers have the strategic marketers and the downstream marketers or the executional marketers. And so the delineation is pretty clear to us. Okay. We think that what is strategic is doing things like, and this is just a partial list. Okay. understanding the stakeholders in your market. All right. So in B to B , that’s not an easy thing to do, right? There’s a lot of different constituents within a single firm , the financial people, the executives, the users. So stakeholder management is strategic rethinks and, you know, understanding and prioritizing stakeholders. We think that understanding customer needs is actually very, very strategic because it leads to segmentation and targeting, which we think is very strategic marketing roles. And then differentiation, like taking that target marketing target market and, and figuring out how you can create, communicate. And we say capture or price in a differentiated way. You know, and, and, and putting that plan together as strategic, the executional piece of it is then connecting it to actual messages in your advertising, your campaigns, your emails, interfacing with the Salesforce, doing that Salesforce collateral and that sales force support and, and , and really having your ears to the ground to, to understand how all the strategic work is being reacted to in the field and bringing that back to the strategic pieces, if it’s different people, you know, letting them know what needs to change about the strategy and , and, and making that like real continuous loop between strategic and tactical marketing. I mean, that’s just a real, I mean, that’s, I could go on, but that’s kind of the basics how we, how we delineate between strategic and tactical marketing.

Kyle Hamer: 48:34

I mean, it makes, it makes perfect sense to me. I’m not sure that, you know , everybody listening, it was like, Oh yeah, I get it. What will , you know , I guess we’ll find out in the comments final thoughts. I mean, we’ve, we’ve had a wonderful conversation today talking about everything across the marketing spectrum. Tell me you know, final thoughts for folks that are listening.

Tom Spitale: 48:56

I think the , the, the one, the one thing well , I’m actually gonna , I’m going to do two things, cause it’d be quick. What is, is really important that you’ve got to you, you, you’ve got to learn how to talk to customers or prospects in a way that elicits a broader set of needs, and you probably are eliciting today. If you’re talking to them at all, okay. You’ve got to understand how to understand their entire life at work and maybe even beyond so that, because your competitors aren’t asking about that stuff probably, and this is the angle that allows you to then do the second piece is, and that is do something that is differentiated. That is unique. That is different, that stands out in a crowded marketplace. Whether that be the way you configure your product, the way you talk about it, the way you price it or , or, or, or the business model that you, that you, you, you sell to them, or maybe all of the above, but that’s those, those are the key things, be different and, and, and find out how to, you know how to elicit broader set of needs in your today. If you do those two things, you’re going to do a lot better marketing then than you worked before you were doing those things.

Kyle Hamer: 50:08

That’s great. Before we, before we fully wrap, how can people, how can people get ahold of you? And, and what sort of things should they have prepared, or should they be thinking about before they reach out

Tom Spitale: 50:25

How, how they can get of us? I mean, I think the best place to do is to come to our website, which is the accidental marketer.com tremendous resource site. It talks , yeah, it talks about what we do, but what it really does is it has tremendous amount of content on many of the topics that we’ve talked about today. We have podcasts, we have articles, we have videos. You know, what we’re trying to do overall, as I mentioned earlier, is to elevate the role of marketing and B2B firms. And so a lot of our content is written not to, not to, to, to sell our services, but to make you a smarter marketer, a better accidental marketer and in elevate marketing in your company. So that’s really, you know, what you’ll find when, when you come to the site. And of course, if you think that we can help you, and you would like to know about our , more about our system, we’ll tell you all about that, you know, and how you can use our tools to , to, to which you, you know, what we’re talking about here, but mainly you should come to our site and look up a topic that you’re really interested in and and , and, and see an article or a podcast or a video on it. And and go from that’s a great place to start.

Kyle Hamer: 51:40

Awesome. Well, thanks again for being on the show. We’ve we’ve enjoyed having, you know , it’s , it’s , it’s been great for the listeners that are out there. I, Tom said it’s accidental marketer, power tools for people who find themselves in marketing roles. And I can tell you that as somebody who enjoys the technical, as well as the educational component of wanting to learn something, not only just how is something built the philosophy, but how do you actually get into the details and execute it? The accidental marketer not only takes you through the philosophy, but takes you down into the X’s and O’s of how you execute and begin delivering on what you need in order to be successful. So love the book that you and Mary have done a tremendous job, Tom. I’m your host Kyle hamer , make sure you like subscribe, share. And until next week, this has been summit podcast. Thanks for tuning in .