How to Transform B2B Marketing into a Profit Center

In many B2B organizations, marketing has traditionally been viewed as a cost center that was seen as a support function for other departments. While this perception is slowly shifting, marketers need to do more to overcome outdated stereotypes. So how can they be viewed as a function that’s more strategic and less execution-driven?

That’s why we’re talking to Jason Kramer (Founder & CEO, Cultivize), who shared his experience and expertise on how to transform B2B marketing into a profit center. During our conversation, Jason highlighted the importance of linking marketing initiatives to sales results and collecting vital data such as referral sources. He also elaborated on how to use CRM platforms to track leads and stressed the need for stronger marketing and sales alignment. Jason emphasized how crucial it is to track marketing metrics like the quality of leads, conversion points, website traffic, and cost per acquisition (CPA). He advocated for a data-driven marketing approach to demonstrate value and impact on business growth, and provided some actionable tips for B2B marketing teams to visibly demonstrate their value within organizations.

https://youtu.be/4MxVvG5jrc4

Topics discussed in episode:

This episode is brought to you by AppUnited. The right dev partner can make or break your product. AppUnite embeds with your team to build apps that scale. Learn more at appunite.com/grow

[2:18] The challenges B2B marketers face regarding perception and data collection

[5:25] Technology adoption vs. improving processes and systems: Finding the right balance

[9:19] Key pitfalls that B2B marketing teams should avoid to ensure efficiency and ROI

[12:47] How to build stronger relationships with sales teams for aligned goals

[16:34] How to communicate marketing’s value and effectively educate senior management

[23:56] Actionable tips for B2B marketing teams to boost impact and performance

Start conversations with sales to understand tools and processes
Review website forms to capture all needed data (including hidden fields)
Track offline marketing data (e.g., Direct mail) for effectiveness
Create clear reports that show ROI and lead quality

[29:36] Metrics that prove marketing is a profit center

– Quality of leads– Conversion points– Website visits– Cost per acquisition

Companies and links mentioned:

Transcript

Christian Klepp 00:00

In the B2B world, marketing has been traditionally viewed as a cost center, where money tends to flow outwards rather than inwards. It’s also been viewed primarily as a support function that’s not linked to revenue generation. So how can marketers change this perception and turn their business unit into a profit center? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Jason Kramer, who will be answering this question. He’s the Founder and CEO of Cultivize, a consulting firm specializing in lead nurturing and CRM implementation. With over 20 years of experience, Jason has worked with global and local brands to help bridge the gap between marketing and sales. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is.

Christian Klepp 00:52

Off we go. Mr. Jason Kramer, welcome to the show, Sir.

Jason Kramer 00:56

Thanks, Christian, happy to be here.

Christian Klepp 00:58

Oh man, I’m telling you like, well, first of all that, and secondly, I love how we’re so co ordinated, too. I mean, it’s just, you know, the stars are aligned today, man.

Jason Kramer 01:07

I got the memo. I got it nice and early.

Christian Klepp 01:10

Fantastic, fantastic. Jason, great to have you on the show. I’m really looking forward to this conversation, and as we talked about just before I hit record. I mean, this is a topic that, unfortunately, is not going to get old, right? Like this is something that it’s a it’s something that’s recurring. It’s something that B2B marketing teams struggle with day in day out. But let’s keep the audience in suspense a little while longer, and let’s dive right in.

Jason Kramer 01:37

Let’s do it.

Christian Klepp 01:38

Yeah, fantastic. Fantastic. So Jason, you’re on a mission to partner with businesses that empower teams to focus on what they do best, which is delivering exceptional products and services. So here comes the topic that we’re going to focus on today. Hold on to your seats, folks, how to turn B2B marketing into a profit center? Okay, so let’s kick off the conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. So the first question is, why do you think marketing has traditionally been viewed as a cost or Expense Center in B2B? And the second question is, where do you see most B2B marketing teams struggle with regards to this perception?

Jason Kramer 02:18

Great questions. All right, so the first one would be simply that when marketing isn’t connected to sales, the often what you’re looking at in terms of a data point is, how many leads do we get? How many times the phone call rang? You know, we did marketing to get traffic to our trade show booth or to our webinar. How many people showed up? And that’s the quantifying number. And you might have a threshold to say, we want to get 100 leads, 50 leads, 500 and then when you get those, you’re happy. You’re like, we hit our goal. But to me, Christian, the disconnect is, well, what happened to those leads? How many were qualified? How many actually made it to an initial sales call, to a product demo, to a sample request, whatever it might be, and that’s where there’s often that disconnect, right? Because you’re not then connecting the marketing efforts to the sales efforts. Most CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platforms, which we’ll get in today, can do that. Can fix that, actually, quite easily.

Jason Kramer 03:16

And I think the second piece to your question is it’s also the marketing jobs responsibility to make sure they’re collecting the right data. And so a good example of that is when you somebody’s coming to your website, whatever marketing channel you’re doing, you’re driving traffic in B2B, often, usually to a website or maybe the phone call. But there’s usually the two main buckets, right? I think you would agree with that Christian?

Christian Klepp 03:41

Yeah, so absolutely.

Jason Kramer 03:42

What they’re often not doing is they’re not capturing the hidden information. And what I mean by that is they’re capturing First Name, Last Name, Company, email, phone number, etc. But on their form, they’re not capturing the referring URL. They’re not capturing Where did that person come from? If they’re running AdWords campaigns and not recording in the form submission what keyword led them to the landing page to fill it out. And so part of that is either just not understanding how to technically set that up, or they haven’t had the experience to track that type of data, and they’re only relying on Google AdWords or whatever marketing platform they’re using right to run the campaign, and they’re not comparing that data to what actually is coming through. Because you and I both know marketing websites, and as good as Google ads is, there’s always going to be some inconsistencies with that information sometimes, and so you want to be able to compare it to another source. And so if you don’t have that source of data in your CRM, in your database, then that’s going to be the first point of contention where there might be a problem.

Christian Klepp 04:47

Absolutely, absolutely. I want to go back to something you mentioned, like briefly, as you were answering Jason, like…

Jason Kramer 04:55

Yeah.

Christian Klepp 04:56

You were talking about how technology and the CRM platforms, and what have you were talking about how that can fix some of these problems. And…

Jason Kramer 05:06

Right.

Christian Klepp 05:06

You and I both know that there’s a camp out there that strongly believes, and in fact, they would probably even die on that hill, that no amount of technology or software can fix that gap between marketing and sales. It’s all about the processes and the systems put in place and the people. So what are your thoughts on that?

Jason Kramer 05:24

Well, I think it’s a little bit of both. It would be my answer. And so the reason I would say both is because you need to have the process and people doing the things the way that needs to be done in order for the systems to work. And so what I mean by that is, if you have a quoting system that’s running your business and the start of your sales process, right? And, you know, Mary and Dave enter quotes one way, Susie and Jonathan enter quotes a different way, right? And there’s no consistency to how the tool is being used or the process is being used, then, yes, it would be hard, right? And sometimes impossible to have a consistent data flow.

Jason Kramer 06:03

But I would argue to say that it’s an easy problem to solve because you just need to connect to the data points. And connecting the data points isn’t so much. Yes, it’s technical and yes, it could be complex, but that’s where cultivate steps in. We help solve those problems, but before we even get to that solution, Christian, we have to data map. We have to understand what kind of data are you currently collecting, and what data are you are you missing that you’re not collecting or you’re not collecting consistently. And I’ll give you a really quick example of what I’m talking about. Very often when somebody comes to a website, right? And we talked just a minute ago about a form, you know, on a website, a lot of times you don’t have a drop down that says, How did you hear about us? And if you do on a B2B website, it might be generic. I found you through a web search. I found you through like social media, and that isn’t going to inform you to really how they found you. And so what you one thing you could do very easily and very non techie, is make sure that drop down reflects all of the specific ways you are running your marketing. I found you through a webinar. I found you through a trade show or conference. I fade. I found you through a referral from an existing customer, right? And if you put all those things in there, then, of course, somebody could be lazy and pick the first choice, but studies will show that they will more likely pick how they actually found out about you, and that could be sort of like a fallback to getting that to flow in. And then the one thing I’ll leave with that is it’s not just the website, it’s the inbound calls. So if you’re in a B2B business and you got a lot of inbound calls. You have to train your internal sales team whoever’s answering the phone. Thanks for calling cult device. We really appreciate that. My first ask, how did you find out about us? And they need to be in that same drop down in the back end system, picking whatever the answer is. I found you through Google search. I found you through, you know, Facebook, through LinkedIn. If they’re not asking that question, then again, we’re not going to have that original origin of where they came from.

Christian Klepp 08:05

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Christian Klepp 08:51

Okay, now back to the episode. I’m gonna move us on to the next question, which is about key pitfalls to avoid. So if we’re talking about like, turning marketing into this profit center, what are some of these key pitfalls to avoid, and what should people be doing instead?

Jason Kramer 09:19

Well, I think one thing you know that a lot of you know businesses, and I’ll say a lot, because it’s, you know, sort of just a blanket statement, but it’s, it’s the reality that they pick out a number, sometimes out of thin air, or they say, we’re going to spend X percentage of our revenue on marketing, and then they go spend it, but sometimes it’s not spent with purpose and with strategy. So Cultivize is not a marketing agency. We don’t do lead gen. I used to have a marketing agency for 16 years. I’m originally a graphic designer. So, I mean, I come from the world of marketing. It whether I and I can’t turn that switch off question, no matter how much I try, it just goes in my head.

Christian Klepp 09:56

There are some clues. Sorry to interject, but just for the benefit of the all. Audience that is listening to the audio version of this. Jason’s got this incredible painting in the background that is kind of like, at least from my point of view. It’s, it’s a hint to his, like, his, his graphic design background in history.

Jason Kramer 10:15

Yeah, I appreciate that. So, the point that I’m trying to make is that, you know, it sometimes starts with not having clear goals, right? So, you know, is the marketing? What’s the objective of the marketing? Is it to generate these is it for brand awareness? Is it to get people to attend the trade show, to sign up for a webinar? And so I think that’s sometimes where those goals aren’t clearly defined. And when you’re trying to get approval for marketing, and then be able to track the ROI (Return On Investment) of that, whether it be in your CRM or some other system, you know, those dots often get disconnected. But very often, because companies are not tying their sales data to their marketing efforts, it’s really just looked at as an expense item, You know, on the profit and loss statement, right? And so you say, Okay, we’re gonna spend 30 grand this year. We spend 100 grand this year on marketing, and I think a lot of it also comes we deal with some companies that are privately held, a lot of family businesses still doing $8 million a year in business, but, you know, they’re not publicly traded. And then you have like the owner involved, who has passion right and and fear of missing out, right? So they’re doing things from a marketing perspective. They’re running TV commercials for 50 grand a year, or radio or whatever they’re doing because they think their competitors are doing it, and if they don’t do it, they’re going to lose opportunity. But once you start tracking that, then you can prove whether or not those different channels are actually working or not. And so I think it all comes down to, you know, really identifying. To summarize, what are the goals, you know? So even if you’re listening today, and you’re in a marketing role, you’re the owner of the business, what are we trying to do with our marketing, you know, what is that specific action item we’re trying to do? And it can be many action items. And then the ultimate question is, right? Which we’re talking about Christian today. How are we tracking the results of that, you know, and how are we quantifying the results? It’s not so much about, oh, we got this many new LinkedIn connections, but what’s the quality of those connections? How do we classify them, you know, are they referral partners? Are they potential clients, etc.

Christian Klepp 12:20

Yeah, those are some really great points, and we’ll get to the quantifying and metrics aspect of it later in the conversation, moving on to the next question now that we’ve kind of, like, set this up, right? How, how do you think marketing teams can break out of this stereotype this? Oh, you guys are just running up a tab and, you know, you’re just a cost center. How, like, how can they break out of that and become a profit center? So what are the key steps they need to take to make that happen?

Jason Kramer 12:47

Well, I think the first key step is having a relationship with the sales team. You know, I think a lot of marketing teams are living in a vacuum, either by choice, or maybe it’s not by choice, the way the organization is set up in the structure of the company, but I think having those, you know, weekly, if not weekly, bi weekly, meetings with the sales team to understand what’s happening with the things that are being passed to the sales team. You know, if that open dialog isn’t there, then it’s really hard to co exist, to kind of reach this goal of connecting the sales and marketing data. I think the other thing that we also have to consider and to look at is, are we bringing in all the information we need to track everything from a marketing perspective, right? So we talked before about those hidden fields on a form, you know, if you’re not already tracking that, that’s something certainly to be put in place right away to get all that data.

Jason Kramer 13:42

And then the third component would be, you know, what is the sales team using, right? So you as the marketing team have your software, have different things you’re using. What is the sales team using? You know, is there a CRM, you know? Is there a ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), is there something like a NetSuite or HubSpot? And maybe they’re using it just for sales, and the marketing team doesn’t have access to that tool. That’s something to next, figure out, right, and to identify if you are truly in a vacuum, one thing you could do, there’s a great tool called Built With and you, I’m sure you know Christian it’s a free tool. I mean, you could pay for an advanced version of it, but it’s a Chrome extension, and you can go to your own company website, click on the built with icon, and it’ll tell you what technology is installed on the website. Now, as the marketing team, you probably would know that, however, I have seen situations where you have a sales team that’s using some software that’s been installed on website unbeknownst to the marketing team. So that would inform you of, you know, some technology that may be being used by other departments other than yourself, that could be leveraged.

Christian Klepp 14:49

Yeah, yeah. It’s definitely some great advice. I mean, that that first piece, I would say, is just crucial, like building that relationship with the sales team. I mean. Right? It blows my mind. Like, how many marketers, like, don’t have that regular cadence in terms of, like, the meetings with sales and having those relationships and that leads to things like, Okay, if they need to do, if they need to interview customers, then that’s when the sales teams become hesitant. They’re like, No, why do you want to talk to our customers? Right then, then they become very protective and territorial. And unfortunately, I’ve seen that. I’ve seen that scenario play out so many times.

Jason Kramer 15:27

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, and maybe we’ll get to it, but I think you know that communication is also important, you know, to prevent overlap of communication to the customer. You know, so often we’ll see that, you know, sales team is reaching out and the marketing team is reaching out same time, and now you kind of, you know, give a bad taste to the customer experience, because they’re getting inundated with community, too much communication.

Christian Klepp 15:49

Yeah, yeah. Then it confuses the client. Like, okay, well, why am I having so many people contact me? Right?

Jason Kramer 15:54

Exactly.

Christian Klepp 15:55

Yeah. In fact, I think we are. We are going to get to that point in a second. So it’s about like, and you know, you and I have both seen this, right? And we understand the importance that goes into that kind of work, that I call it sometimes preparatory work, right? We know that marketers need to do this work internally to turn their function into a profit center. So based on your experience, how can marketers better communicate, and I don’t really want to use this word, but it’s true, educate senior management and other business units about their activities, and how can they get buy in and validation for the initiatives they’re proposing.

Jason Kramer 16:34

I think it’s really simple, right? So to me, it’s we’re the marketing team, where our responsibility is to generate not new business, but generate opportunity for new business. Okay? And I think it’s a very clear distinction, right? Because sometimes senior leadership will say, okay, the marketing team is responsible for lead generation or for helping drive revenue. Well, they’re involved in that process, but they’re ultimately not fully responsible on their own right. It has to go in tandem with the sales team that’s going to convert those leads into a qualified customer. So I think one thing a marketing team or marketing manager can certainly say is, well, how do we know if the leads we’re generating are qualified or not? And if we don’t know if they’re qualified, forget about even if there’s a demo or a meeting or anything, right, or a conversion into a sale. The first step is we need to know if the leads we’re generating are good leads for the sales team or bad leads, right? And that’s so that we can refine our marketing messaging, our marketing approach, maybe change up our tactic. How often do you hear Christian where companies spend all this money going to a trade show or doing a webinar, and they’re excited because they get back in 100 business cards or tons of people sign up, then they find out none of those people even qualified, or even the right type of audience for them, right?

Jason Kramer 17:55

That’s and if you don’t fix that and recognize that, you’re going to keep doing the same bad habit, bad strategy, over and over and over to the point where then someone’s going to, you know, not be very happy with the marketing team. So I think, you know, just asking that question, like, if you don’t already know how you’re qualifying things, and again, you’re not getting information back to me, that’s definitely the first step. And I think another piece of this too, is the marketing team can say, well, listen, if in order for us to do a job, and yes, we’re the market team, are responsible, but in order for us to do a job in the best possible way, we need feedback from the sales team. We need to say, hey, sales team, you’re on the street, your ears to the ground. You know what the concerns are, what the problems are, what the issues are of potential customers or existing customers that we’re trying to solve. And maybe those are changing. Maybe the landscape has changed. Maybe there’s, you know, a different buying need, maybe it’s more emotional now, versus, you know, a physical need, right? Of something where you know this is broken, we need to fix it. Maybe there’s other psychological things involved. And so the argument can be made, and I like to say argument, but the it can be made to say, well, we need that feedback from the sales team so we could refine our strategy on the marketing side, you know? And that’s, it’s, it’s got to be a symbiotic relationship, because at the end of the day, both teams are trying to do the same thing, right? They’re trying to grow the growth of the business, and so to have them in a vacuum, working separately.

Christian Klepp 19:27

Yeah.

Jason Kramer 19:28

There’s no really logic to that that I could even, you know, sort of like combat, to say, well, this is, this could be why someone could do it that way. There really is no way reason to have everything siloed.

Christian Klepp 19:40

Well, unfortunately, it’s, how do I put this delicately? It’s sometimes the nature of the beast within that organization, that the way that the company is structured, and that’s also the internal culture, right? Like that. It’s created this atmosphere of competition, tension versus actually like helping business units to break down those barriers and to use your word be more symbiotic, because I do believe that we’re stronger together. And I know I sound like a politician when I say that, but it’s some it’s there is something to be said, because I’ve been in these situations, too as a marketer, where I’ve seen how much better the teams can perform if we work together and stop like this cloak and dagger stuff, where we just don’t reveal, we don’t reveal information to each other, right? That’s an archaic, outdated way of thinking.

Jason Kramer 20:35

Yeah. The other thing I’ll add to that too is, I think it’s also sometimes the senior leadership giving responsibility for some of these items to the wrong teams. I just got off a phone call this morning with somebody that I’ve been talking to as a prospective customer for a few months now, and they’re like, well, everything’s on hold until we rebrand and we’re building new website. Okay, talking about, you know, CRM, marketing automation, sales automation. Well, I just spoke to her. Name is Judy today, and she’s like, well, you know, I’m not really involved in that, you know, that decision right now, the there’s a new IT person, they’re located here in this division, like a completely different state that I’m in, the marketing agencies in the UK they’re talking about, you know, like other things they’re looking at. And so the person that’s actually going to be using, the team that’s going to be using the software and making an impact with it has been completely removed from all the research that’s being done.

Christian Klepp 21:32

Sounds pretty fragmented.

Jason Kramer 21:34

It’s just, yeah, but to your point like, it’s, it’s very odd, right? I mean, it’s just, it’s, and, yes, there’s nothing we can do from an outside perspective to change that. All we can say is, and so I said that Judy was just perfect example is, how do I get cult device on the preferred list of consultants you’re talking to, what they’re talking to to help inform the right decision? And she’s like, let me find out. You know, let me, let me get a pathway into that. And so now I don’t know who these people are, but she’s mentioned that head of it is in Minnesota. She mentioned the agency in the UK. So now I could go on Apollo and other tools and LinkedIn and try to find those people and make some headway, and introduce myself. Say, Hey, I’m already working with Judy here in the US, you know. And she mentioned that you might be involved in this new project. Just want to introduce myself. And so that’s, that’s sort of how you have to sort of think, penetrate, you know, through that obstacle.

Christian Klepp 22:28

Precisely, precisely. And if I could just add on to what you know, what we’ve been talking about. And I think that was your point earlier on. The conversation is, if there isn’t this symbiotic relationship, and everything is so siloed and fragmented. One of the dangers that I’ve seen in the past for not just marketing, but for all people involved, is that it becomes this ecosystem where everything is very reactive. It’s everything is a knee jerk reaction, like there isn’t any because people aren’t actively collaborating, or there is no communication. Then, then things are, you know, things are, things move slowly, things become more reactive and and it just doesn’t, just doesn’t help anyone.

Jason Kramer 23:13

Yeah, no, absolutely. Because you’re, you’re making your decisions based on emotion and not based on actual data.

Christian Klepp 23:19

That’s right, that’s right. Okay, sir, we get to the point in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us plenty already, Jason, but just imagine there’s somebody out there that’s listening to this interview, and you want them to take what you’ve been talking about and implement it right now, not in six months, not in a year. Like after, after listening to this, like, what are three to five things that they can do if they’re one of these marketers that you and I have been talking about, that they have to prove that marketing can be a profit center and not a cost center. What can they do?

Jason Kramer 23:56

So the first thing to do is, if you’re not already in conversation with the sales team. You know, whether it be a team of two or team of 200 get in touch with them, right? Say, Hey, like, we’d love to get a conversation started just to understand what tools you’re using specifically, and more importantly, is the first step. How do you qualify somebody? Right? That’s, I think, really important. The other thing you’d want to do, if you’re the marketing team, is understand, what does the sales team do with the leads once they get them from you, whether they’re, you know, getting them, you know, automatically. However they’re getting you’re generating, they’re taking over. What does that look like? What tools are they using? What’s their process? Getting a full picture of that, I think, is going to be a really key piece to bridging the gap.

Jason Kramer 24:44

Secondly, I would say, looking at the company website, if you’re on the marketing team, looking at your website forms and saying, what kind of data are we collecting? Are we collecting this hidden data that’s Jason’s talking about? Or do we have that drop down that says, How’d you hear about all. And are those choices reflective of the things we do from a marketing standpoint, I think that’s really critical.

Jason Kramer 25:07

I think the other third thing to do also is to understand, well, the data that you’re generating outside of digital. What are you doing with that data? So if you’re doing, let’s say, a direct mail campaign, how you tracking, you know, the results of that people coming to the website. You know, hopefully, this QR code on that direct mail piece, which is a great low tech way to get people to a specific landing page, right? That’s specific. Then we didn’t even get into technical things Christian, but even tools like Call Rail, right, which is a, you know, populate as many of them out there to track inbound calls through marketing channels. You could have a billboard right on route 85 and there’s a phone number. That phone number can be tracked digitally, and the calls can be recorded, and you can see how many calls that we get, what were the quality of the calls, and you could pass that data to your CRM. So there’s a lot that can be done from a technical perspective, which I’m happy if anybody that’s listening wants to reach out and share some of those more detailed ideas with everybody.

Jason Kramer 26:07

And then the other piece of it, I would say, is, you know, what is your report look like today? Like if you had to bring a report to management and say, This is our results. We’ve just spent $50,000 this year, this quarter on marketing. This is the outcome of that. You know what? What are you showing them? What kind of report do you have? And not only, what report do you have, how long did it take you to create that report? Was that a two week project, a two month project, right? Was that a two minute project? Because you already have all these systems in place that’s going to open up some ideas and also some opportunity to say, Oh, wow, we really can’t actually show, and this is all about the profit center, right? We can’t really show the ROI on our marketing spend. So I would say those would be my tips for sure that you could put into place tomorrow, today, you know, and hopefully not too far in the distant future.

Christian Klepp 27:02

Yeah, fantastic tips, especially with regards to, like, how to analyze and aggregate data. Because, like, you know, we all know that sometimes marketers can just drown in data and they’re not even sure what they’re measuring. I love that you brought up call real. I think this is the fourth time I’ve heard it in the past two weeks. So…

Jason Kramer 27:21

Oh, wow, yeah, I make, I make money, no money off of it.

Christian Klepp 27:25

That’s not what I was implying.

Christian Klepp 27:27

But like, it’s interesting that’s, you know, that tool has come up many times in conversation. But also, to your last point, so important. It’s so important. And, um, I remember back when I was a product manager, and I’m sure you’ve been in these situations, too, Jason. Where we had to present to the global board of directors, and we basically had 15 minutes, right? Because they’re, they’re basically going through all the business units, right? And so marketing was just what one one meeting that they had that day, and basically we were told five slides only. All right, so whatever it is that the marketing team had to say about this is our progress for the year, it had to be said in five slides. Now, mind you, Jason like Like, every responsible presenter, we had five slides to present and 30 backup slides in case they had questions, right? And we got all the links to the backup slide so, you know, in the ideal situation, they would have enough questions for us to be able to elaborate further, and they wouldn’t have any major challenges, right?

Christian Klepp 28:40

But in case they did, or in case they had, they wanted to dig a little bit deeper, you can go, Oh, I’m great. You asked that question. Click, and then there it goes, right there, there’s your there, there are your charts, and they’re your data, right? The danger is, um, the danger is, you try to, like, cram 100 slides into those 15 minutes, and you spend, you spend about 12 minutes on slide one, right, like, right?

Jason Kramer 29:04

Right.

Christian Klepp 29:04

That’s the danger, right? But, um…

Jason Kramer 29:08

Absolutely.

Christian Klepp 29:09

Fun times. Fun times. But, um, you know, you brought it up earlier, and I’d like to go back to it right? Because you are this is basically like, you know what you do on a daily basis. But if we’re talking about metrics, right? And I call this the Love it or hate it question, right? But what are these metrics? Specifically, if marketers want to prove that they’re a profit center, what are these metrics that they should be paying attention to, and why?

Jason Kramer 29:35

So I think the first one that I would look at for sure is the quality of the leads. Now you’re going to define that, any way you’re going to define it. But how many leads came from a specific marketing channel out of that? How many did the sales team talk to? And the sales team reported back? Yes, these are SQL right sales qualified leads, versus an MQL marketing qualified lead. So that’s the first thing, right? Because that’s going to help you understand, are we least generating the good leads for our sales team.

Jason Kramer 30:07

The second thing I would also look at is, if you can, if you can, get access to the data, what are the conversion points after they qualify somebody? Right? So you know, if it’s a qualified lead, what percentage of those right say it’s 50% you know, qualified out of the 50% how many went to that next step in the sales process? How many got the demo, how many requested a sample request? Out of those, how many right went down the funnel and did the next thing? And the reason that’s important is because they might be qualified based on, you know, they have the money, they have the problem, they have whatever right so they’re qualified, but then you find out, Oh, they’re in the wrong industry. So actually, now they’re not qualified right after talking to them. So I think that’s really important. I think the other thing I always also look to add is a simple conversion. And I do this in a sort of a somewhat of a complex, but, but not overly complex spreadsheet I built, how many website visitors did we get to our website in any given month? Out of that, how many actually converted? Did some took some action on the website, downloaded an ebook, filled out the contact us form, signed up for our newsletter, whatever they did, how many converted? And out of those conversions, how many actually became a customer? And that allows me to look at my CPL, my cost per lead, and then also my cost per acquisition, right? So, what am I? So? How much am I spending on marketing, right? Comparing it to the website traffic we’re getting and then to those conversions, I think that’s really key fundamental number.

Jason Kramer 31:44

And then I think the other one is, tracking what you spend, if you’re spending, if you’re doing Facebook AdWords, you know, whatever marketing you’re doing, webinars, what was the dollar amount you spent in that particular month, and how many leads did you generate? And then what was your cost per lead. And then, you know, for example, if they cost you $1,000 to do a webinar, and you know, only five people showed up, it’s pretty expensive, right, to generate leads, whereas if 500 people showed up, oh, wow, this is pretty cost effective. It’s, it’s, it’s pennies on the dollar, right, for how many people actually showed up? So I think those are some key numbers that aren’t complicated.

Christian Klepp 32:25

Yeah.

Jason Kramer 32:25

That even if you didn’t have a CRM of software, you could easily track those in the spreadsheet.

Christian Klepp 32:30

Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, like, you know, we start with quality of the leads, which I think is extremely important, conversion points, and I think you said number of visitors. So like, how many came to the website? How many converted? How many became customers, and then tracking spent? Fantastic, fantastic.

Jason Kramer 32:49

Yeah. Because the one thing to know about the website traffic too is, you know, if you’re not, I mean, I can’t tell how many marketers I look at talk to that don’t even look at Google Analytics on a regular basis. Yeah. And so if you’re doing spending less money to drive, drive traffic, generate leads like you’d obviously want to see your website traffic going up month after month. If it’s just flat line, then something’s off with the market.

Christian Klepp 33:17

Absolutely, absolutely okay, sir. We get to the I call it the soap box question. So what is a status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with? And why?

Jason Kramer 33:28

I think that one that I would disagree with is when it comes to two things I’m gonna do, I’m gonna give you two answers that kind of go hand in hand. So one is, we can’t change our behavior, and another one is adoption of a new process or a new system. And the reason I disagree with those just kind of comment very quickly, if you’ve been doing something one way for a long period of time, of course, it’s not going to be overnight or even quick, sometimes that you’re going to change. And so the only way that’s possible, from my experience, is if you have somebody, both internally and externally, that’s going to be an accountability partner and a coach to help you transition to that change. And so, you know, one thing we do here at cult device, you know, because we’re in the world of building CRM for, you know, systems for companies is we’ll work with that team indefinitely, right? So we might have weekly calls, they might eventually go to bi weekly, then monthly, but we’ve had clients for years. We still meet with them every month, because we make sure that nothing’s falling off, that they’re doing all the things they’re supposed to be doing. And so I think sometimes people have the mindset, well, we’ve been doing it this way for so long, like it’s not going to happen, like there’s no way we can change. And, yeah, if you don’t want to change, you’re not going to change. But if you have the willingness to say, Okay, we’re willing to to to change, we see the value in changing. We see that’s going to help us. You know. Lot of times, the misconception that this type of change is going to require more work, it’s going to require double data entry, it’s right, it’s going to make life harder. And it’s like actually complete opposite that, I think it’s very common to your question, common myths that all these things are going to cause more problems than solve and if it’s approached the right way, and you’re the right partner and my team, it’s that that won’t happen. It will be a breath of fresh air. Yes, you know, yes, at the end of the day.

Christian Klepp 35:27

Yeah.

Jason Kramer 35:27

So if you have people on the team that are, you know, in their 10 year, they’re, you know, older generation then, yeah, they’ve been doing it for so long, versus someone who’s younger. You know, it’s maybe easier for them to adopt. But it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. But yes, it’s, it’s, it’s all about the attitude.

Christian Klepp 35:27

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you know, like, there were a lot of people that over covid or during the pandemic, they went back and, you know, they took courses and they relearned something. And I think one of the my best, or biggest takeaways from that period of time was that I had to learn, relearn and unlearn certain things, right? And I would say that the third one was probably the hardest, right, the unlearning. And, you know, to your point, it’s, it’s not impossible to change, but it does become harder, like it does become harder. It’s a mind, it’s a question also, of mindset, right? So…

Christian Klepp 35:28

Of course, and I think it becomes harder with age too.

Christian Klepp 35:28

Absolutely, absolutely okay. Here comes the bonus question. So when you’re not driving client success, I have heard this rumor that you enjoy being on a boat in the Hudson, right? So the question is, if you were given the choice to pick any boat in any location on Earth or any location in the world.

Jason Kramer 35:30

Oh, wow, okay.

Christian Klepp 35:30

To sail that thing? Well, I guess it’s a two prong question, right? Like, what boat would you choose, and which location would you choose, and why?

Christian Klepp 35:30

So that’s really interesting. So the Hudson River, if anybody’s ever been to the Hudson River, it’s a very dirty river. It’s before it’s brown, well, closer to New York. Yeah, machinery is beautiful, if you look at like, you know, above the horizon level. I mean, it’s beautiful landscape, and it’s great. You look down, you know, my joke, my wife, my wife’s like, why do we let the kids and why do we swim in here? Like, well, it’s hot, you know, we jump in and, you know, nothing, nothing’s falling no body parts falling off, yet we’ll be alright, you know, so. But I think being somewhere in a more tropical setting. The idea of, like the open ocean, to me, isn’t as appealing as like if you were, I remember we went to place called Peter Island, which is off the coast of Portola from my honeymoon, almost like 20 years ago. And we went, you know, snorkeling, and the water there so beautiful, and just the mountains and everything. So I think being in a place like that, some type of, like Caribbean tropical area, I think would be kind of exciting to be able to navigate and kind of have just beautiful coral water, you know, to explore with. I think as far as type vessel goes, I would say something that’s manageable to handle on my own. So, you know, probably, you know, a 35 you know, foot, 40 foot boat that’s got a nice cabin that could, you know, withstand weather conditions.

Jason Kramer 35:36

And it’s interesting, you asked me that question, because I’ve always wondered, like with the on the Hudson, like my boat, you know, I’ve gone, you know, a couple hours in either direction of where I keep it at the marina, you know, partly because, you know, the amount of fuel I can have on the boat, and it’s, it’s not that thing like when you’re driving, I mean, yes, you got to plan out the gas, but it’s a little bit easier when you’re on a boat. There’s only many, so many places you can get gas, right? So you have to be very strategic about that, and so, but one thing I’ve thought about is, well, like, would I be comfortable going out into the open ocean, where there’s no frame of reference, there’s no navigational points. I’ve talked to other people at the marina who have gone and taken those big trips, and even met people from I met a couple last year on a nice, big boat from Michigan to him and his wife, you know, came up, and they’re they’ve been on, living on the boat for like, three months, and they’re just going all around, you know, the US on the boat that’s a completely different.

Christian Klepp 35:40

Yes.

Jason Kramer 35:40

You know, challenge and skill level and sort of set of Kahunas, you know.

Christian Klepp 35:40

Indeed.

Jason Kramer 35:49

Because, you know, I will tell you I’ve been in rough waters on personal boats before. It’s not fun, you know, it could be a little scary, and you really have to know what you’re doing and be prepared, not only for mother nature, but just for, like, mechanically, like, if something somebody works breaks down the boat. So not to go too far into an answer, but I have thought about as my point, you know, and I’m like, okay, like, what would I be willing to your point about? Learning, you know, uncomfortable with to figure out, but there’s so much, you know, where I live, I live towards, like, upstate New York. I mean, I’ve thought about, you know, taking trips to Connecticut to out, you know, east to Long Island. I mean, there’s, like, tons of places I can go from an access point, you know, I’m not on a lake, right? So that’s something that I definitely would love to do. I could also see myself, you know, moving and being in that tropical area. I used to my wife be fun to, like, have, like, a charter boat, you know, if we retire, just take people out snorkeling in the Caribbean. And that’s what we did for fun, you know, yeah, so.

Christian Klepp 40:33

Or set up the cult of ice office in the Bahamas, or Barbados or something.

Jason Kramer 40:38

You know what? It’s not a bad idea. I have one son that’s almost in college, and another daughter that’s a few years away. And I said I really liked the idea of being that digital nomad and just, you know, you know, kind of just moving around a little bit and working wherever so…

Christian Klepp 40:54

Fantastic.

Jason Kramer 40:55

We’ll see, maybe…

Christian Klepp 40:56

Fantastic.

Jason Kramer 40:58

Maybe we’ll have another podcast, and in a few years, and we’ll see, maybe a week, we’ll have it from the boat. It won’t be this beautiful picture behind me. There’ll be some tropical scenery.

Christian Klepp 41:05

Maybe, maybe, yeah, wow, Jason, this has been a fantastic conversation. So thanks again for coming on the show and for sharing your experience and expertise with those listeners. And please quick intro to yourself and how folks can get in touch with you, and another question on top of the question is, how does somebody who is in graphic design end up working with data and CRM?

Jason Kramer 41:30

So I’ll answer that first. So I’ve always been a left brain, right brain sort of person. I’ve never really knew that about myself, but I’m a very detail oriented person I love, kind of like, even I’ll give a really quick funny story. So I think it’s funny when I saw when I was in art school on Syracuse, and I had this painting teacher, I did, you know, all different, you know, figure drawing, things like that. But this painting teacher, who, you know, never really like, loved my style of painting. Let’s just say that. And so I was doing this painting. It was very abstract. And they’re like, but to me, like everything had to be perfect, like I was not like a Jackson Pollock type painter, like my arrow the lines buttoned up, like I needed to be things just way my brain and my sort of, like thought process work.

Christian Klepp 42:15

Yeah.

Jason Kramer 42:15

And so they saw this very abstract painting I was doing that they’re like, Wow, this is really outside, like, your comfort level, it’s great that you’ve broken out. And they were like, you know, patted me in the back, basically, little did they know I had masking tape over the entire canvas, and my plan was to reveal it, to reveal a very like, organized structure of a painting on top of the mess I was putting on top of it. And so at the end of, like, everything dried, you know, and getting ready the presentation, I started peeling off all the tape, and they’re like, they flipped out. They took that roll of tape, they threw it out the hallway. They’re like, massive. Tape is never allowed in a painting class. Like, why would you, you know, like, this person was, like, off the charts, eccentric and, and so, so, like, I guess my point is that I’ve always gravitated in the art world. I’ve always done things in a more sort of, like organized fashion. And so I got into this because we started doing a lot of marketing automation, a lot of email marketing, and understanding how CRM plays into that with my old agency. And so when I sold that company about six years ago, I was like, Well, I think the CRM is where we’re going to fix this idea of bridging the gap between marketing, sales, you know. And that was really why I wanted to get into and start cultivate to solve that problem. Everything else we do on top of that, the lead nurturing and all these other things all sort of got built on top of that foundation, you know, if you will.

Jason Kramer 43:41

So, yeah. So as I mentioned, Cultivize, you know, I’m the Founder of Cultivize. We’re a team of six. I’ve been based in New York, mostly the team. All the team, I should say, is in the US, except for one girl, Heather. She’s in Canada, up near you, Christian. And the best way for people to find me is go to https://afterthelead.com/ that’s https://afterthelead.com/ on there. You’ll find on my social you can connect with me. There’s a link to book a call, and we have a lot of great guides and other assets on there. So even if this topic resonated, there’s tons of other topics I’ve talked about on other podcasts and articles. So it’s just a plethora of information. And if you want to go down the rabbit hole https://afterthelead.com/, is definitely a place to jump in and you’ll be happy with what you find.

Christian Klepp 44:29

Fantastic, fantastic. Well, we’ll be sure to drop the link to that website in the show notes, right?

Jason Kramer 44:36

Okay, terrific.

Christian Klepp 44:38

Once again. Jason, thanks for coming on the show. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Jason Kramer 44:42

All right. Thanks, Christian.

Christian Klepp 44:43

All right. Bye for now.

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