Unedited Transcript

Jim Rembach (00:00):

Okay, B2B DM gang. I have somebody on the show who actually I knew of many, many years ago in the contact center space, who is actually going to help us get a better understanding of how to break down silos within your organization from a marketing and sales perspective. And then also add significantly more business value. Uh, Linda Ruffenach, uh, has been the CEO of a multimillion dollar international organization. Uh, she’s founded something called whiskey chicks, which I don’t know if we’ll get into that, but, uh, very, very interesting, uh, organizations. She’s also raised a lot of money for charity for that organization, which is fantastic. And now she’s getting into something that is kind of full circle, I think, but it still gets down to adding overall business value and leveraging marketing sales operations, and in alignment with one another. So that ultimately the success is profitability outcome, which is really what we want from a marketing perspective. So Linda, if you could tell us a little bit about, um, you know, your background and experience in terms of what we’re talking about. Uh, when we, when we refer to business to business digital marketing and those longer sales cycles.

Linda Ruffenach (01:10):

So as you mentioned, my background was a lot on the customer care side of it. And so, you know, one of the lessons I learned by being in the customer care industry, it’s all about the experience. And so, um, I was with the company for 19 years and I, when I decided to leave, you know, my mission became about paying it forward and using the experience that I gained over those 19 years to help other business owners grow their business and scale their business. So I’ve spent the last several years doing that and really am now focused on some of that value building processes to help businesses plan for their eventual transition. But one of the key things in that is from a direct marketing standpoint, specifically from a B2B, even for myself, I really had to shift some of my, my beliefs on how to do the marketing and do the B2B type strategies that, um, you know, it’s very different being on the B2B side than just being on the customer care side and, and really working to get things aligned from that sales operations, um, and the direct marketing piece of it.

Linda Ruffenach (02:16):

But I’ve been doing this for several years and, you know, there’s always those opportunities to really engage better with your customers and your prospects. And that’s one of the areas where, you know, I spent a lot of times focusing on and I call it, define, get, and keep the fine, get, and keep more customers. And there’s lots of things you need to do at each stage to think about what that looks like. And it all comes back to that customer experience side of it.

Jim Rembach (02:41):

Well, I named him was you you’re talking, I started thinking about the whole, you know, shifts and changes that have been made and looking at digital and the importance of digital and you and I talked about another D and that whole digital thing in which is dysfunction.

Linda Ruffenach (02:54):

No, there’s none of that out there is there, but I think part, it is what you just talked

Jim Rembach (03:00):

About is that legacy thinking, um, if the separation and you even mentioned something about organizations would put in one thing and think about it from a sales perspective and then put in something else from a marketing perspective and expect those to connect. And it just doesn’t matter.

Linda Ruffenach (03:15):

Well, being a classic operations person, the last person they consider in the whole equation is the person who has to execute it at the end of the day. And so you have something that marketing comes in and they get an idea of what the brand looks like. And you know, what this image type thing is, and really starts working on the strategy before they’ve gone deeper in the organization. They may go to the next tier and they actually talk to the sales team, or they may talk to some of the leaders on the executive team. Generally, it’s the CEO. Um, they may talk to the COO depends because a lot of times in many traditional organizations, they kind of leave that up to the chief business development person or the sales person to kind of define that marketing strategy. Right. And so, and then from a classic example of been there done that is that, you know, sales goes out there and sell something that when it gets landed at the feet of operations is like, you’re going, wait a minute.

Linda Ruffenach (04:13):

Now we don’t even do that. How are we going to do that? Oh, and you said, we’re going to do it in 60 days. How does that work? Um, you know, I ran into it all the time, but it used to frustrate the daylights out of me. So when I kind of pulled out and started doing more of the consulting, that became the focus, because what it ended up doing is creating a lot of discontent. Right? You had your marketer who worked really hard to generate these leads, and then they send over sales. And their biggest complaint of sales does nothing with these leads. They just sit on them, the sales is going well, these aren’t the type of leads that I need. Um, you didn’t get them set up and teed up the right way. And then sales goes and sells one of them. And then they go over to operations. They’re like here, do it. And operations is looking at like, what did you just sell? I don’t know what I need to do with this. Um, and it’s classic it’s it happens in all industries. It happens in all different businesses of all different sizes. Ironically, sometimes even the one that just has a CEO in place. Um, the June, all three, they sometimes don’t even make that connection across the board, which is kind of sad, but it does happen

Jim Rembach (05:17):

Well. It’s kind of funny is you’re even talking, I’m sitting there and thinking about just even the experiences for me when going to some of the trade shows in our industry, which now we’re not having any given the con of a year that we’re in, in the season and don’t know how many of them are going to come back. It’s going to be really interesting to see how that shakes out. But I would have these discussions with people who are, you know, they’re their marketing people or their presales, you know, they’re, they’re on the very front end of all of that. And they don’t know who I am and that I’m an old guy who’s been in the industry for several decades. And so they start sharing with me about their solution and they all say basically the exact same customer experience, this, this, this, and I’m like, who is giving you this stuff to talk about?

Linda Ruffenach (06:04):

And I didn’t even touch on the irony that the customer experience doesn’t align at all on what they thought, what their expectations were set up front. You know, that even once operations gets it in place, is that experience what the customer’s expecting. And that’s why, you know, a lot of people focus on that acquisition piece, but the execution piece is equal if not more important than the actual acquisition, because you know, it drives retention and, you know, you can drive extra churn. If, once again, you focus so heavily on the sales, but you’re not following it all the way through to the end. You know, I was kind of, I’ve worked with several startups and, you know, you’ve got those young energetic, and once again, I’m dating myself as well, which is young, energetic, passionate, startup, um, leaders that are so proud of like their software that they’ve created.

Linda Ruffenach (06:56):

Software’s a service. And they’re so proud because they actually have customers and they actually have revenue coming on board, and it’s, it’s a decent amount. And so they tout all this revenue coming in, but they forget that that revenue is just the beginning. You actually have to deliver for that customer and the number of software companies out there that don’t focus on the onboarding and the engagement. And then they wonder why they don’t renew. They think, well, I’m on automatic renewal. They’re just gonna keep getting billed. And that’s okay because I still got money coming in. But what ends up happening is they don’t renew in the second year or they slowly start to drop off. When the credit card expires, you can’t get ahold of them. There’s no way you’re going to reach out to them because they’ve never used your product. And so a lot of times I encourage them to focus, not just on this piece, but find out how long it takes them to actually use that product. Can you measure utilization? Because if you’re not measuring utilization, you’re not measuring whether your, the effectiveness of what it is that you’re selling.

Jim Rembach (07:57):

You know, then you bring up a really interesting point from a marketing perspective and talking about that whole digital marketing piece is that client success, you know, area and taking the insights and the learnings from that and feeding it back in perspective.

Linda Ruffenach (08:12):

Well, I’ve always told, I’ve always said to, you know, we had marketing agencies when I was at my prior company. Um, and we worked a lot of times our clients, we work with some of the people on the front end and the marketing side on sales programs. Um, and I was told them, the answers are always on the front line. If you want to know how to fix your business, you go to the front line and they’re going to tell you what strategies work, which ones don’t work, where you’re basically, um, you know, they can call BS on what it is that you’re doing very quickly. If you give them the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions. And it just, you know, you’ve been in the customer care industry, as long as I have, and that, you know, people forget those people that are talking to your customers, they may be the only live interaction that your clients or customers have with your brand. And they can tell you so much if you take the effort to listen.

Jim Rembach (09:03):

No, most definitely. But when we start talking about the shifts, I mean, even your own shifts and the work that you’re doing now and where, you know, the experiences and the foundation that you’ve built. And, you know, I start looking at, you know, some of the things that have been going on, or that need to go on that we have to focus in on. And I started getting, you know, excited about some of these things, but for me, for you, what are you excited about right now when it comes to B2B digital marketing?

Linda Ruffenach (09:28):

Here’s what I’m excited about is that people, you know, LinkedIn, you know, I was used LinkedIn before, but it was more casual, right? It was like, Oh, there’s a connection. I know this person. And this one, the one thing I’m finding is the real power of LinkedIn right now, for B to B marketing. Especially if you can find a common link that you can talk about. So one of the things I went through is I went through certification as an exit planner, and there’s only a few people out there that have the same certification and the certification is there for accountants and lawyers and financial advisors and others. But I’m one of the few people in that mix that actually bring the value advising, working with the business owners directly. So I’m finding, I can go out to a CPA and say, Hey, I see that we’re a SIPA.

Linda Ruffenach (10:15):

We share this common thing. Would you like to connect? And then I can easily go back and say, Oh, can you get on a phone call real quick? And let’s learn about each other’s businesses. And I’m able to do that where I never would have been. Yeah, whatever, whatever people are all about having that zoom face to face. And you’re able to actually create better relationships with these, these, uh, potential partners than you would before in a networking situation, because you’re eye to eye, right? You’re actually talking to each other, you’re having a conversation. You’re not distracted by somebody else. You’re not having to share the conversation with somebody else standing next to you. You actually get to talk about each other. And, you know, I find touching, talking to them both personally and professionally and getting to know them and making those connections, it’s truly transformed the way that I do business. If you would’ve told me I would be selling the way that I’m selling six months ago, I would have laughed at you. Like there’s no way I’m picking up the phone and calling them to have these conversations. Now it’s become easy. But the important part is it has to be personal, but relationship building has become more and more important than ever before. I believe in that direct marketing strategy that you’re putting out there.

Jim Rembach (11:31):

Uh, I, I think that’s a really interesting and compelling point, which changes the dynamic and a lot of different ways, even from a personnel perspective. So I have to change my strategy. I have to change my tactics and I may have to change some personnel.

Linda Ruffenach (11:44):

Yeah. When you gotta be sincere in the reach out, right. The cans, you know, one of the things that I had, one just the other day, you know, I got one of the, we linked in with me and, you know, it sounds a little personal on the first time. And then the second one was a little less personal, which should have been more personal. Right. And then I didn’t respond right away. And I got a third one and it was just so like, okay, you have no idea who I am. You have no idea what I’m about. Um, so I basically unfollowed them because, you know, I don’t, you know, I don’t have time for that. Um, but the one thing that I’ve been focused heavily on, and I think it’s real important, particularly when you’re in the B2B market is working on creating those strategic partnerships and, um, finding where you can create a win, win, where the customer’s in the middle, where you can help each other deliver the services that you provide in a cohesive solution.

Linda Ruffenach (12:37):

Um, and not feeling like that business owner has to work with two, three different people to get what they need. How do you come together in that? And also how do you cope, present those ideas through content? Because when you’ve got two people touting each other, it’s far stronger sometimes than when you’re just hurting yourself. And, um, I’m finding a lot of success in that area where, you know, I get to promote the CPA and the CPA gets to promote me and you create a cohesive, digital story. People start to listen a little bit differently in a different way.

Jim Rembach (13:11):

You know, that’s really interesting. So, I mean, for years and years, we’ve had these whole, you know, partner agreements and strategic partners and this, that, and the other. And the fact is, is that less than 1% of them really result in anything positive? Um, they’re not managed well, they’re not constructed well, but I think we may see based on even what you’re sharing here, a brand new approach and a brand new, you know, Renaissance or revolution entire whole channel concept.

Linda Ruffenach (13:38):

Well, I think part of it is people have to get beyond what’s in it for me, right out of the gate, if you focus heavily on what’s in it for the other person on the other side of the line, on the other side of the phone and try to figure out how you take care of their agenda. First, it sets the tone for them wanting to take care of your agenda, but in a very genuine way. And, and so it’s not about getting on there and doing a sales pitch. It really is about getting to know, okay, Jim, what is it that you’ve got going on? Tell me a little bit about your business, where do you see your biggest challenges? And then, you know, Oh, I see where your business owners, you know, it’s interesting. I run into this situation, have you ran into it?

Linda Ruffenach (14:17):

And then you start to get those questions going back and forth. And all of a sudden, it’s not a partnership in the sense of I’m going to write an agreement about it. It’s almost an understanding that says we’re going to help each other and let’s figure out how we help each other. Um, and my philosophy is I’ll give and give knowing that I’m only gonna eventually get back. And, you know, some people might say that seems a little naive. That seems like you’re getting taken advantage of not once. Have I felt like I’ve been taken advantage of when people get from you first, um, you get good then they’re than likely to ask you the question. Well, how do I get more?

Jim Rembach (14:54):

Well, I mean, goodness, you’ve given us several things that we could thinking upon, you know, and, or start focusing in on in order to make some of those shifts that are necessary, but there’s also some things we should not focus in on. And those are the things that are overrated and have too much hype. So when it comes to B2B digital marketing, what do you think is just kind of like blown out of the water at the mall?

Linda Ruffenach (15:14):

I think, I think there’s a lot of content being thrown out there, um, that that’s not relative, uh, relevant and just being thrown out there and just throwing it and see if it sticks. And there’s a lot of effort being put in that content that may or may not be relevant to your audience. And you feel like you’ve got to hit these quotas when it comes to social media posts, or you got to hit these quotas when it comes to likes and other things like that. Um, but once again, if it’s not genuine and it’s being driven somewhere by an automatic machine over here, um, and B to B people buy from people they know, and that they trust and particularly in the B2B market. And so it’s about building that trust and that credibility and the more that you can be sincere in that and make it relevant to who it is, your customer, um, the better off you’re going to be.

Linda Ruffenach (16:07):

You know, part of it comes back to understanding the personas of who it is that you’re selling for, and really taking that time to understand where is that they live, what’s important to them. What keeps them up at night and how do you solve their issue? Not about how you solve your issue, but how do you solve their issue? Um, and sometimes you just throw a contents thrown out there just because, Oh, I got to feel like I got to Brie post an article today, or I got to write a blog post. And, you know, if it’s not relevant to your audience, it’s not going to get read

Jim Rembach (16:39):

Well, as you’re talking, I start thinking about everything, all the things that you’ve shared. And I’m like, okay, focus, you know, I’ve got to focus, uh, cause that’s critically important in order to be able to execute. So if, if I was to say that there was one area, um, that you feel will enable people to disrupt and stand out based on all the things that you shared with me, how do you, how can you make that more succinct so that we can now take action?

Linda Ruffenach (17:03):

I think it really is on that personal relationship and going out and linking in through a genuine way and reaching out to those particularly, like I said on the B2B world. Um, because a lot of times we’re all going after the same customers. And if you take the time to think about who are your strategic partners in this that are going after that, the compliment, what it is that you do, that you’re not competing with them, but how do you compliment what it is that they do and how do you help them and kind of using that strategy to kind of build your network. And then in turn, you know, it builds theirs and you create those win-win situations. Um, that’s how I’ve shifted a lot of my strategy to where I’m able to really connect with people and I’m getting, you know, instead just going out to LinkedIn and seeing if I can get somebody to connect and I’m building up my number of connections and my followers out there, which is important, but I’m getting people that are actually now will engage and listen to watch what it is that I’m saying, because instead of it just being Jim as a guy that’s randomly, I met and connected, Jim and I now have had a connection and now he knows a little bit more about me and as I’m doing my content and I’m doing putting information out there, it’s getting recognized a little bit more because it’s not just a name and a stream.

Linda Ruffenach (18:20):

It’s somebody that I know and I recognize, and I want to engage with

Jim Rembach (18:25):

Well, and as you’re talking, I start thinking about constraints that I currently have to live under. And one of those is our budgetary constraints. I mean, I have what I have. And so I start thinking about some of the shifts that you’re talking about, where would I potentially pull, you know, from, and then allocate to in regards to where I’m investing in my B2B digital marketing.

Linda Ruffenach (18:46):

That’s a great question. Um, you know, it depends on where you’ve been spending your money. I mean, a lot of people spend a lot on digital campaigns and going out and Facebook ads and you know, other things like that and paid advertising and there is a place for that for different businesses. I mean, you know, you talked about whiskey chicks. That is a place that does really well using Facebook ads, um, because that’s where my audience lives and that’s where my audience engages and the content we’re bringing to them is a little bit different. Um, but sometimes people just put these big marketing budgets together and it’s all about placement and things like that. I’ll give you an example was I had one client, we were working with the direct marketing agency too. They had basically done kind of an incline trade and they had, you know, $10,000 to spend.

Linda Ruffenach (19:34):

And originally when they started talking about the 10,000 was about, well, let’s Mark it here, here, here, and here. And we’re going to go spend this much money on LinkedIn ads and this much on Facebook ads and all this kind of stuff. Well, I came back and I said, what are you going to do? If these are successful? It wasn’t even about whether they failed or not. It was about what do you do if these are successful, can you handle the leads coming in? Can you, do you know how you’re going to respond to them? Can you take care of the customers? Come in. And so a lot of times in that situation, I actually had them divert some of the money more on the back end than on the front end, because if you’re generating leads and no one does anything with those leads and they don’t know how to service them, and all you’re doing is focusing on that lead generation versus the execution part.

Linda Ruffenach (20:21):

Um, you’re basically flushing money down the toilet. Um, so that’s one of the things that I’ve done with some of my clients, which is let’s look at making sure you’ve got that balance so that the experience just isn’t about finding them. And it’s not just about getting them, it’s about keeping them. And ideally you’re turning them into raving fans because all through that process, you’ve created expectations and met those expectations and delivered on it. And they’re what they want and what they need. And they’re willing and ready to tell all their friends about it, because frankly in this market today, that’s an innovative thing that disrupts a lot of markets when you can create that consistency across all those channels.

Jim Rembach (21:01):

No, that’s very true. But then, then, then we can also, and I think you, you’ve kind of hit this a little bit. Um, but you know, we also want to reach, stretch and think about what’s possible, right? The way that we look at that from a budgetary perspective is like, you know, okay, no constraints. You get, you know, you get a million bucks, do whatever you want with it. What would you do with it?

Linda Ruffenach (21:22):

I would invest in video content and not major video, but little snippets of video content. And that you can engage an audience in 30 seconds or less and get somebody really good who knows how to produce it and how to get right there at that message and pull the best out of you and know how to capture that, that, and it’s not cheap to fund somebody who can really pull that out of you. Um, and then also even on digital content that people can use and utilize. I mean, one of the best ways to create a recurring revenue stream is have digital content. This is relevant to individuals that they can access at any time. Um, and doesn’t necessarily have to involve you. Um, and it’s part of an overall cycle of, uh, the customer experience, not the whole thing, but that piece of it.

Linda Ruffenach (22:10):

I think the third thing, and this is what I learned from the whiskey checks is if you’re going to do online, if you’re going to do online events, make an, an experience. You know, I think all of us have sat in the last six months on some really boring webinars just to try to fill our time. Um, if you’re going to do a webinar, make it engaging, make it something that people can have fun with. Don’t just talk, talk, talk, have things that they can engage in the conversation, or they’ve got activities to engage. So that it’s more about the experience as well as the teaching and learning that you’ve got going on, but that takes time and it takes money.

Jim Rembach (22:47):

Well, it does. And I think a lot of the forethought and the planning, you know, that you’re referring to here and you hit it on multiple levels, everything from even the, you know, being an exit, you know, certified consultant, it’s all of the planning that goes into creating value and, you know, just getting stuff done and trying to hit a metric. I always used to say from a context and a perspective, which is so heavily metric driven, I’m like, what metric do you want? I said, I’ll hit it for you. A matter of fact, just don’t ask me how I got there.

Linda Ruffenach (23:22):

You know, I, it’s so funny, I’d say that same thing, which is, you know, you know, I love working with clients that want this, this and this. I want customer satisfaction. And one agency hit, I went this cost per call to be hit, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, alright, you can’t do everything one. You have to start prioritize them at least because you can’t do everything, but you’re right. It takes, thought and strategy to get the outcomes that trying to drive and, you know, stepping back and putting yourself in the shoes of who it is that you’re selling. You know, the thing I still laugh at, you know, once to get, as I worked with some of these tech startups, but it’s not all about the technology. My technology is the best. It’s the end all be all. And I’ve done this, this and this, and I’ve invested millions of dollars in the platform. It does this, and I’ve got developers that are top class at the end of the day. I don’t care if it doesn’t solve my problem and it’s not relevant to me. And so it’s once again, thinking about who is that customer at the end of the day, what is it they need? What are their biggest I was calling their wants, needs and fears. And how do you address those and what it is that you’re providing to them?

Jim Rembach (24:28):

Oh, I love it. Okay. So, uh, when you start looking at all, um, you know, all of this, we have to start reflecting and asking.

Linda Ruffenach (24:36):

So what is

Jim Rembach (24:37):

A B to B digital marketer to ask himself? What’s that one

Linda Ruffenach (24:42):

They should be asking? It’s kind of a simple one. What do you want the customer think about you at the end of the day? You know, what, what are the, I always go back to what I start all my engagements when I’m talking to it, doesn’t matter in what I’m doing is what are the words you want the customer to use to describe your brand? What is that? Um, and if you can identify that, then you gotta use that as a thread, through every single strategy you create. You know, I had one client, one time says they want to be the Zappos of the mobile network. You know, the mobile phone world, I’m sorry, there’s not a mobile phone provider out there. That is a Zappos. Uh, you know, it can even compare to some of that, which you know, is kinda like, well, if you want that, I think that’s great aspiration, but are you willing to do what it takes to get you there? Right? And then that becomes the question. If you can’t, if it can’t be genuine and you can’t get there and it’s not, you’re not willing to go far enough, then shoot for something different. Don’t say you’re going to be this and you can’t deliver on it.

Jim Rembach (25:47):

Linda, I had fun chatting with you today. Can you please share with the B2B digital marketing gang, how they can connect with you?

Linda Ruffenach (25:53):

Yeah. So my email address is linda@execuity.com. It’s E X E C U I T y.com. And all the information you want about me can be found on our website at www dot [inaudible] dot com. And I’m also on LinkedIn and it’s Linda Ruffenach. And if you don’t know how to spell it, it’s R U F F E N a C H. Feel free to reach out to me and connect, and I’d love to see how we can create win-win situations together. So thank you so much for having me.

Jim Rembach (26:22):

You’re welcome. And also make sure you check her out on whiskey chick.

Linda Ruffenach (26:26):

Yeah. We have an Instagram account at whiskey chicks and it’s spelled without an E and yes, it’s spelled, right. Um, and there’s a Facebook page as well. I’d love to have you follow. We create experiences throughout the year that make learning about bourbon, fun and approachable. So

Jim Rembach (26:43):

Thank you for helping us all move onward and upward.

Linda Ruffenach (26:47):

Thank you so much for having me. It was a great, it was a pleasure.