In this episode of the B2B Marketing Methods podcast, host Terri Hoffman, CEO of Marketing Refresh, interviews Kerry Curran, the Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Revenue Based Marketing Advisors. They discuss essential topics such as marketing-led growth, demand generation, and strategies to improve sales cycles and close rates.
They delve into the importance of brand awareness, the integration of marketing and sales, and the use of CRM tools to enhance efficiency. This episode is packed with valuable tips for businesses looking to drive revenue growth and effectively align their marketing and sales efforts.
Topics Discussed:
Marketing-Led Growth and Demand Generation
Shortening Sales Cycles and Improving Close Rates
Aligning Sales and Marketing for Better Results
Building Brand Awareness and Trust
Effective Use of CRM Tools and Automation
Customized Go-To-Market Strategies
Relationship Building as Key to Sales Success
To learn more about Kerry Curran, connect with her on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerryspellmancurran/
To learn more about Terri, connect with her on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrihartley/
To connect with Marketing Refresh, visit: MarketingRefresh.com
Full Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Terri Hoffman: Welcome to B2B Marketing Methods. I’m your host, Terri Hoffman, and I’m the CEO of Marketing Refresh. Let’s face it, embracing digital marketing is daunting. This podcast was created to make it more approachable. Join me as we talk to CEOs, sales leaders, and revenue growth experts who will share lessons learned and tips from their own journeys.
[00:00:24]
[00:00:24] Terri Hoffman: Hello and welcome to another episode of B2B Marketing Methods. Today, I’ve got a special guest with us, her name is Kerry Curran and Kerry is the founder of a business that’s called Revenue Based Marketing Advisors. She is a business growth strategist and more specifically, someone who focuses on go-to-market strategies.
[00:00:45] Terri Hoffman: She’s got expertise on both the sales and marketing side of the equation, which is pretty unique and rare to find in one person. Really excited to have Kerry on as a guest. We’re going to be talking about kind of a few highlights in our conversation today. We’ll be covering marketing-led growth. How that leads into sales, how that leads into demand generation for your brand.
[00:01:07] Terri Hoffman: We’re also going to be talking about improving your sales cycle. You know, how can you shorten your sales cycle? And then really importantly, how can you improve your close rates? So these are all things when I’m out in the market, talking to prospects, talking to our current clients, very huge hot-button issues.
[00:01:23] Terri Hoffman: I think we’re going to learn a lot today together, so thank you, Kerry, for joining us. Welcome to the show.
[00:01:29] Kerry Curran: Great. Thanks, Terri. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:31] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. You’re welcome. So let’s start with the basics. Why don’t you give us a little bit about your background and explain how it kind of led you to starting your business.
[00:01:40] Kerry Curran: So I’ve been in the marketing and agency media buying space for over 20 years now. So, started brand side and then spent the majority of my career on the agency’s side. And, early on, I moved from account services into strategy roles, which were always my favorite. How do we solve business challenges for brands by using the solutions in our arsenal or portfolio and building out those custom scope of work to drive business growth?
[00:02:10] Kerry Curran: So, I would spend a lot of time, after that role on the business development side of the agency, working with clients, building out again, what should their go-to-market strategy be? How should they be using media channels and their brand differentiation? And then that role soon expanded to include the marketing of the agency as well.
[00:02:32] Kerry Curran: As most agencies are the cobbler’s kids, it was, building out, a marketing and sales infrastructure where we really were building that demand and awareness of the agencies that we’re working for, all the way through, leading a new business development team to win those accounts.
[00:02:52] Kerry Curran: And then, you know, working with account services to continue to make sure they were growing. So, I’ve done that, throughout a number of different agencies. The majority of my time was with Group M. and, you know, most recently I had the title of Chief Growth Officer, which truly is the CMO plus the Chief Revenue Officer.
[00:03:13] Kerry Curran: So I’m really your Chief Revenue Officer that understands marketing and your CMO that understands sales. And so that was when I decided to go out on my own so I could work across more brands, and we’re getting back into client-facing work, you know, that’s kind of the approach that I, or the hats that I bring into my client engagements.
[00:03:34] Terri Hoffman: Lots of hats.
[00:03:35] Kerry Curran: Lots of hats.
[00:03:36] Terri Hoffman: Lots of hats that are starting to look a lot like each other these days. It’s an opportunity to evolve how this whole puzzle gets put together. One thing that you said that I think is a really important distinction is using marketing as a growth tool, like as part of the way that you’re solving for revenue growth.
[00:03:57] Terri Hoffman: Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Like what’s your mindset around that?
[00:04:01] Kerry Curran: Yeah. So especially today, over the past couple of years, budgets have gotten tighter, and resources have gotten more sparse. I’ve been talking to a lot of brands that were, especially B2B brands say, we just hired a bunch of salespeople.
[00:04:16] Kerry Curran: We’re not looking to invest in long-term marketing. We don’t want to spend money on branding or things that you can’t directly attribute to a specific lead that came in. And while there’s a lot that marketing can do to drive that short-term goal and growth, the
[00:04:35] Kerry Curran: real opportunity there is the more you are out in the marketplace, building your brand awareness and demand, educating your target audience of the unique attributes that you bring to them, how you’re going to help them solve their business growth challenges faster, better, the easier it’s going to be for your sales team.
[00:04:57] Kerry Curran: So the last thing you really want is that your junior business development or sales development rep, who’s not as much on the phone, but sending out emails. You don’t want that to be the first interaction with your brand. And so that’s really where those investment strategies can improve that sales experience
[00:05:20] Kerry Curran: when your prospect is ready to start moving through your pipeline.
[00:05:24] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. I mean, there are just so many statistics out there that support what you just said. I just think it’s very natural for brands to hire another salesperson, right, when they’re interested in growing revenue.
[00:05:36] Terri Hoffman: And that’s, I don’t really think that as marketers, we should say that’s the wrong move, That could be the right move. It’s just that there might be other pieces of the puzzle that are missing that would actually make that new hire in the sales role, more efficient and more effective.
[00:05:53] Kerry Curran: Exactly, and I do think to your point, like adding another salesperson at the expense of investing in more of that audience awareness and engagement aspects, isn’t necessarily the recommendation I would make, but to your point, you do need those, team members that are there and able to kind of take the hand raisers or connect with your target audience and bring them into your funnel.
[00:06:18] Kerry Curran: I think the key point there as well is really training them and helping them, making sure that any cold email they’re sending out is really aligned with the brand messaging, the tone. There needs to be alignment on what are the attributes or what is our unique value prop. What do we want to be known for and make sure that that is in the messaging.
[00:06:44] Kerry Curran: So that again, every touch point with a prospect is aligned with the attributes of our brand that we want them to know.
[00:06:52] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. I mean, so what are some of the things that you see go wrong? If those things that you just mentioned aren’t done, you know, if they’re not part of the equation.
[00:07:02] Kerry Curran: Well, I think, you know, going back to if you have, if your SDR/BDR is not trained or not working with marketing to get the right narrative, and actually one thing to point out is that I have been hearing of more instances where the BDR SDR team actually sits within marketing because they are more part of that upper funnel, mid-funnel engagement versus, you know, closing the deal on the end.
[00:07:32] Kerry Curran: But um I think you know, they’re so I’ve seen them and I’m guilty of trying them, there’s so many email tricks you’ve seen them you get them like, that are just trying to get someone’s attention, getting them to respond, but you’re not really demonstrating the value that you’re providing. Or you know you get the
[00:07:52] Kerry Curran: the automated sequence and the third one was, is like, oh, you’re either; not available, you’re in a ditch or you got eaten by an alligator or D) yes, you want to contact me? And like, it’s, is that necessarily on brand? Like, it, it depends if that’s your brand humor, but like, if those are those same best practices are used over and over again by all the companies, and you’re not creating that differentiation in that outreach.
[00:08:18] Kerry Curran: This is where it ties to your sales cycle and your close rate. If you’re blasting a thousand generic emails every week and your engagement rate is such a small percentage, like, you’re just continuing to spin your wheels versus a more customized targeted outreach where you’re talking about the business challenges that you can solve for them.
[00:08:42] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, wow. Very well said. I, that is something I hear in the market all the time because I think there’s just a lot of misperceptions out there, right? So if you think about the channels themselves on the marketing side, most of the people who are in leadership roles and are in decision-making roles, hate a lot of the ways those tactics are executed and they kind of hate being the victim of them, so to speak, right?
[00:09:05] Terri Hoffman: Like who loves getting 10 cold emails today from somebody they don’t even know talking about something they don’t even understand or have time for? Nobody likes getting that, but that isn’t maybe necessarily the type of email program that you would be talking about to someone or that I would be talking about to someone.
[00:09:23] Terri Hoffman: There are a lot more strategic and elevated ways to do that when you have that brand story well constructed and it matches the level of quality of every other part of your company. Right.
[00:09:33] Kerry Curran: There’s so many, technologies to help you better customize,
[00:09:36] Kerry Curran: yeah, your email. Like, did they attend an event? Then, you speak about the event or, you know, did you meet them at an event or did they download your white paper? Then you reach out. The goal really should be to build a relationship with them.
[00:09:51] Kerry Curran: LinkedIn had a stat they published last year that was B2B buyers are only in market 5 percent of the time. So 95 percent of the time they’re not in market. And so during that 95 percent of the time that’s your opportunity to make sure they’ve heard of you, make sure they like you in a favorable context in relation to, oh, you offer something that can solve their problem.
[00:10:16] Kerry Curran: And then the third is you’re there when they’re in-market. And so it’s all customized to your solution that you’re selling. But if you are selling a tech solution or an industrial solution that people only have one of at a time, yeah, you are gonna have to wait until their contract is over
[00:10:38] Kerry Curran: most likely. Right? If what your product, you’re selling is something that people can adopt all the time and they might layer onto other services, that 5 percent of the time is actually broader. But they could love you today, but their contract with your competitor might be 10 more months and they either can’t get out of it or there’s other financial implications, that’s where you’re building that relationship through those emails and other content engagement, opportunities.
[00:11:07] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, and you’ve got to have that coverage on the brand side to build that relationship, build trust, build credibility so that when you have more targeted campaigns that come out and you hit them at that right time, they’re there. I was just talking about this with someone the other day.
[00:11:23] Terri Hoffman: It’s like as marketers and salespeople, we have a toolbox sitting behind us and we have to know when the right tool is needed for the job. And you may have to have more than one tool out at the same time to ensure that whatever, path you’re crossing, you’ve got the match for that particular need, right?
[00:11:38] Terri Hoffman: I think people are surprised to learn, it doesn’t just have to be one thing. You can have all these layers going on at one time that helps get the attention of your audience.
[00:11:46] Kerry Curran: Yeah, and it can’t just be one thing because there’s so many different touch points and personas within your target audience, or, buying behaviors or personality types, you know, what, what resonates with somebody isn’t going to necessarily resonate with their counterparts.
[00:12:01] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. So, let’s talk about sales cycles. I mean, everyone in the B2B space kind of groans over the length of a sales cycle, right? Like there are industrial manufacturers that could have 12, 18, 24-month sales cycles, you know, six to 12 months is fairly common in an industrial environment.
[00:12:19] Terri Hoffman: So I would love to have you talk about, ways to shorten those sales cycles.
[00:12:25] Kerry Curran: The idea, ideal scenario is by the time you have your first meeting set up, You’ve already done an amazing job with marketing and branding and, you know, communicating your value prop that the first sales call isn’t a “this is who we are”.
[00:12:39] Kerry Curran: But even if that’s the case, what we’ve done in the past is prior to the first sales call, you need to invest time in really researching who you’re going to be speaking with. So a couple of the, kind of tactics that we’ve taken in the past is. once the meeting is set up, you send an email out with these are the questions I’m going to look for you to answer so that I can better customize my proposal for you. And then it includes things about, top competitors, budgets, like just trying to get a better understanding of what are their pain points.
[00:13:17] Kerry Curran: and the more you can get that information in advance. the better that you can prepare for the sales call. Another thing that we started putting into practice was asking if they required an NDA before talking to us about their business. The worst thing that can happen is you get on a call and you start asking them questions and they say, actually can’t answer any of those until we’re under NDA.
[00:13:39] Kerry Curran: So ideally you have the NDA set up. You’ve sent out the questionnaire and you can say, you know, if you want to send these to me advanced, great. Otherwise, please be prepared with that. And then also just doing your industry research and your competitive analysis.
[00:13:53] Kerry Curran: There’s a lot of tools out there that can tell you, get a better idea of where they sit in regards to their competitive set.
[00:14:01] Kerry Curran: Remember, it’s it’s all relationship building. So you make sure you’re spending time on that initial call not only getting the answers to your questions, but trying to build rapport with the buyer. And again, getting a better understanding, find out, are they the decision maker? Did they influence the decision maker?
[00:14:18] Kerry Curran: Are they talking to 10 people or are you already on a short list? Understanding if your solution fits their budget. I mean, that’s important too. Talking about money at the beginning is always awkward, but you don’t want to spend four weeks, on, engagement and proposals to find out that they never could afford you in the first place.
[00:14:35] Terri Hoffman: How often do you find that sales organizations within brands have that type of rigor developed? Is that something that your company can come in and help provide a solution for?
[00:14:47] Kerry Curran: I think because there’s so much pressure on sales teams to go, go, that there’s not always a lot of time spent on that rigor, that level of research. The ideal scenario for me was always like, if they respond with the answers, you can actually have a proposal practically ready for them on that first call.
[00:15:09] Kerry Curran: I mean, either way, you could say, oh, that’s so interesting. This is some of the information I found, does this align with what you’re seeing? Like just, you know, the more you can get, but no, I found that a lot of the sales teams that I’ve worked with, they prefer to just get on and have that all on the first call.
[00:15:27] Kerry Curran: But then you have to schedule the next call to share your research. And so that was one of the best practices that I’d put into place in my last agency and that I try to do for clients is when you get into this practice, you could almost eliminate a step to the sales process because now you’re getting more in-depth on that first call.
[00:15:46] Kerry Curran: The other kind of sales best practice that don’t do well is set the next call before you hang up the call. Even if it’s a week out and you realize like, you’re not ready or they’re not ready, then you can change it.
[00:16:00] Kerry Curran: But at least having it on the calendar, they’re not gonna just disappear and not engage you with the next. So that’s kind of the best practices for the very first call.
[00:16:10] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. You know, and what you’re talking about there’s some risk involved. And so let’s say for example, they’re like, we’re not really ready to set the next meeting.
[00:16:19] Terri Hoffman: It’s like, that’s good news and bad news, right? Like bad news is, well, I just invested X amount of time and you’re not willing or ready to set the next one. But the good news is, I can move on to numerous other things that I need to do because this doesn’t sound like that big of a priority for you to solve, right?
[00:16:35] Terri Hoffman: And maybe I need to make this a lower priority, keep it in more of a nurture relationship-building status, right?
[00:16:43] Kerry Curran: Yeah, no, I think that’s a really, really good point. And that response also tees you up to ask more questions and to your point, say something like totally understand, just so I have a better understanding of what your timeline is, like, when were you looking to choose a new partner? Like maybe they’re like, it’s your point, I’m fact-finding for an RFP I’m going to do in March. It happens. But then you ask, can we put a call on the calendar for February and see what they say, but you want to keep those touch points warm.
[00:17:14] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. I like that. That’s like the never-say-die attitude of a true salesperson right there.
[00:17:19] Terri Hoffman: You have to kind of go at the pace they’re willing to go at. You can’t force someone to be ready for something you can, you can prompt and you can make those nudges, but yeah, it’s, otherwise it does turn into icky and, and then the trust erodes, right?
[00:17:34] Terri Hoffman: Like they might not have the same level of trust for you anymore.
[00:17:38] Kerry Curran: I think another point too Terri, is harping on that you’re building a relationship here and you really need to, especially when there’s such a long sales cycle that you know you’re going to be talking over time and then there might be dinners involved.
[00:17:51] Kerry Curran: Like you’re building this relationship and there needs to be a lot of trust there. One example of, a fortune 500 brand that, we were pitching about a year ago is the woman on the phone, she just had her resources decreased. She knew she needed to hire somebody that did what we did. And she admittedly was like, I am in over my head.
[00:18:13] Kerry Curran: I don’t know what I’m doing, you know? And so we took that opportunity to say, we are your partners, how can we help? Do you need more information? Like, do you want us to put together more of a one-on-one that you can share with your team and just kind of showing, demonstrating, and kind of leaning into that help us help you, but you know, what do you need?
[00:18:35] Kerry Curran: And reiterating that once we’re engaged, we’re going to be your partners. So let’s, let us help you now. And that, I think ultimately really led to us winning the business because from the beginning, we just leaned in and really provided the level of education and comfort that she needed in choosing a partner.
[00:18:56] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Yeah. That’s an awesome story. Have you ever seen that Gartner image, the long hard slog? That story made me think about it because, you know, we all want to really think about our sales process in like four steps, right? Yeah, and people move through them logically and sequentially and like that doesn’t happen ever.
[00:19:15] Terri Hoffman: The image it’s got all this kind of chaos happening around it because you can move forward a step and then another stakeholder asks a question that takes you back a step. You might jump forward a couple, move back one that is continuously happening through all of this relationship building.
[00:19:34] Terri Hoffman: In my mind, that means several different things. One of them I’d like to ask you about is, you know, how do you see CRM tools or systems really supporting all of this, what’s your viewpoint on that?
[00:19:46] Kerry Curran: I definitely think, they’re valuable. I use HubSpot myself.
[00:19:51] Kerry Curran: I don’t quite utilize all of the bells and whistles and some of the add-in partners, but absolutely important for, tracking, getting a better understanding of what is your actual average sales cycle. I went into a company that didn’t have a marketing-to-sales infrastructure at all.
[00:20:11] Kerry Curran: And they had a very kind of rudimentary, iteration of Salesforce and with some Salesforce expert consultants helping me we were able to identify that that sales cycle was 90 to 120 days. And then so we had a benchmark that then we could improve upon and we could look at where we’re on. And this is from like the sales side of HubSpot, but where were our engagements getting stuck, you know, and, and how can we improve those? How many days between? So, on that side, it gave us more like numerical goals that we could target and kind of work on from the CRM email side of it.
[00:20:54] Kerry Curran: Absolutely, I think going back to what we’re talking about is that it gives you the ability to customize your outreach based on what you know about the customer. And I know there’s so many different tools that are available and that can add on to your HubSpot or Salesforce or other CRM. What do you know about your buyer?
[00:21:14] Kerry Curran: Where was their last touch point in really customizing that outreach to make it feel personal? Cause again, you’re developing a relationship.
[00:21:20] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, right. Exactly, and you can use these tools, to help you save a lot of busy work time so that you can focus more on making all of the connections as personable as possible, because that just shows the genuine nature of your brand, the way that you’re trying to connect and solve for problems.
[00:21:38] Terri Hoffman: I think the tools help. So definitely.
[00:21:40] Kerry Curran: Yeah. Well, and the automation to your point saves so much time, right? So you can say like two points, the example of the person who said not today, not scheduled any other call you maybe have a special email sequence for that. You send them just a note every, every week and a half or so just saying, checking in that can all be automated. But if they respond or if they open it, then the next email is something more customized, based on the fact that they opened it. If they just never open your email again, at least you’re, you’re staying top of mind because even you never know, six months down the road, they might be like, oh, who, who was that person I talked to? Let me see,
[00:22:20] Kerry Curran: I got to get back to that girl, Kerry, she kept calling.
[00:22:24] Terri Hoffman: Right. Yeah, and that, engagement helps. Like, I think if somebody ever indicates to you, like, well, first of all, if they tell you, stop sending them, you stop sending them, right? Or if they’re giving you the cold shoulder a little bit, then you can always pull back on the frequency.
[00:22:38] Terri Hoffman: But I think the biggest thing that you’re saying, like one of the big insights that I would love for the listeners of this podcast to hear is you develop a rigor in a system and a set of metrics that you’re using to benchmark every other part of your business. Bring that mindset to your sales and marketing operations, because you can develop benchmarks and go make sure that your sales reps, your marketing folks, and everybody who’s involved in that process are learning from the numbers and the metrics, right?
[00:23:09] Terri Hoffman: Like you wouldn’t not run a financial statement every month. You wouldn’t fail to have the person running operations and running the night shift of your welding team, not look at how many different welds a person can do per day, right? Like you’re going to look at all of that and how many mistakes are made and how many redos you’ve got to do on a piece of equipment.
[00:23:30] Terri Hoffman: Do that in your sales and marketing area and hold those people accountable so that you have something to build on from a benchmark.
[00:23:37] Kerry Curran: Right. And it gives you more visibility into, is it a training challenge or is it a bandwidth and resource challenge? Like maybe you’re seeing your sales team slow down in how quickly they’re booking that second meeting because they’re too busy with all their meetings.
[00:23:54] Kerry Curran: Maybe that’s an indication that it’s time to add another salesperson. it gives you a lot of data and insight. Especially then if you can categorize it by specific type of company industry, it might give you a better idea of who your ICP really is versus who you think it is.
[00:24:12] Kerry Curran: There’s so much data and insights, that can come out of having that tracking and that process. And I know there’s also so much automation and AI available now that the sales reps don’t even have to write lengthy notes anymore. It can record the call and drop it right in.
[00:24:27] Kerry Curran: So, so much time can be saved too.
[00:24:30] Terri Hoffman: And I think the positive to that is again, find ways to use AI that saves those repetitive mindless tasks from having to be done by a person. Don’t have it replace actual building of relationships. Like that’s where you want the salespeople to spend their time and make sure these AI tools are used to fill in the gaps and make, not only time savings on mindless, repetitive tasks,
[00:24:56] Terri Hoffman: but also predictive pieces of information. I can’t get over, when I record a meeting now, you get an immediate summary from these tools and it tells you the high points. Who doesn’t have a vice president of sales with three reps in that region working for them that wouldn’t love to just see that recap, right?
[00:25:16] Terri Hoffman: Like I immediately know what happened on the call.
[00:25:18] Terri Hoffman: give me that report.
[00:25:20] Kerry Curran: Right. That’s a really good point too. I remember iterations of my boss asking me questions about a certain deal and I didn’t have to then go ask the sales rep.
[00:25:32] Kerry Curran: I could go into HubSpot and say, well, actually, They spoke to them today and the next call’s tomorrow without having to keep that all in my brain or spend time, getting that all, for myself. So many, to your point, really valuable insights.
[00:25:48] Terri Hoffman: So we talked about, the sales cycle and
[00:25:51] Terri Hoffman: I think you touched on close rates a little bit, but I think you may want to elaborate that on a little bit more. Like what are some things companies can do to improve close rates also?
[00:26:02] Kerry Curran: So some of the biggest factors are trust, right? So that needs to be again, part of the branding strategy, the initial communication, and contact, but really demonstrating that you have the experience to solve their business challenge.
[00:26:20] Kerry Curran: So this is where you really need to spend time interviewing your account management team or your customer success team. Or, if your business is one that has call centers, find out what are a lot of the pain points that people are calling about so that you then can understand how are we solving those?
[00:26:42] Kerry Curran: So then you can say I hear your business challenge of, you know, X, Y, Z, we actually have experience with that. Specifically, we had this client that had a similar challenge.
[00:26:55] Kerry Curran: These are the steps that we took, to fix that or improve that. This is how we used our area of expertise to solve those business challenges. And so I’m proving to you that we’ve done this and we can. In the ideal scenarios, that you can say, and, you know, happy to have you speak to them as a reference.
[00:27:15] Kerry Curran: You know, that’s another point that I’ll go back to, but, I think it’s really, you know, the more you can demonstrate a specific, very customized solution, and you might not have. You know, you’re selling men’s boots and we’ve sold men’s boots, but you might have, an example where they didn’t have the right
[00:27:36] Kerry Curran: infrastructure and you were able to help a company with infrastructure. So, you know, it’s, it’s really understanding not just, Oh, we have another client that had that same product that they sold. It’s understanding again, what the business challenge and how we’re able to solve it with our arsenal. You know, some of the first sales trainings that I took back in my early youth, we actually did Toastmasters trainings and storytelling training. They saw as, what need, we needed the strengths that we needed to persuade our buyers that we were the right choice.
[00:28:14] Kerry Curran: So it’s important to remember that and to have that arsenal of examples, and that’s again, something that you can do in that research. Take the time to research, and get those examples. Yeah. Your team.
[00:28:27] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. You’ve got to know as a salesperson, what your company is capable of solving for it.
[00:28:32] Terri Hoffman: And you’ve got to have that background. You’ve got to take some time to do that internal training and research, but then you also have to take that same time and do that same type of research to better qualify who you’re talking to
[00:28:45] Terri Hoffman: so you can improve your close rate by doing a better job of doing your homework.
[00:28:50] Kerry Curran: Yeah. And really customizing, giving, showing examples of pain points and talking through how you would solve it, help them get that feeling of what it would be like to be working with your company. And ideally, you have the case studies and numerical stats as well.
[00:29:06] Terri Hoffman: Is there a particular framework or methodology that you’ve developed or follow that is part of your engagement?
[00:29:16] Kerry Curran: Yes. So a lot of kind of the examples that we talked through today. but the first things I do are to really find out again, like what are your business challenges, getting a better understanding of, okay, you say you need revenue growth, which is, what I’m good at, but what do you have in place?
[00:29:33] Kerry Curran: What have you tried? I recently had a conversation with a brand who said, we have some junior-level salespeople and they need training. So, that’s something that I can come in and do. Other clients need that fractional CGO person to come in and build that brand story.
[00:29:53] Kerry Curran: So it’s all the way through to closing the deal. So really I get a better understanding through those discovery calls of what the business challenges and then customize what the scope of work is exactly to what the client’s challenges are. The framework is the audit and the competitive analysis to get the better understanding, making sure they have an ICP.
[00:30:16] Kerry Curran: If they don’t have an ICP, that’s where we start. If they do, great, then we start elsewhere, but it’s always customized. The end goal is that I leave them with a process and an infrastructure where they can continue to scale revenue growth, after, at the end of my engagement. If I’m successful, you don’t need me anymore because I’ve built you up for your success.
[00:30:38] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Well, and I think, brands love hearing that from a consultant, right? Because the traditional way people think about a consultant is you’re always trying to sell me the next thing that I’m going to need, and so you’re very focused on creating a connection between the business goals, the strategy and what activities, the sales and marketers are working on, right?
[00:30:59] Terri Hoffman: Right. Right. Yeah. That’s awesome.
[00:31:01] Kerry Curran: And I think it’s important to point out that, We always are parallel pathing as well. So I might come in and see, again, like you don’t have an ICP. You don’t have like, you’re a clear differentiator. That’s going to take months. You need to grow revenue now. So then I’ll also look at, you know, auditing that sales pipeline process, and saying, what are things that we can improve upon now?
[00:31:25] Kerry Curran: May, you know, let’s shorten the sales cycle while we work on identifying your ICP and how we’re going to fill that pipeline.
[00:31:35] Terri Hoffman: Okay. Yeah, that’s awesome. I do think that’s important too, because, if a company has revenue growth challenges, hopefully there is like, an expectation that those aren’t just, you know, you can’t just quickly turn that around if you’re trying to really change their mindset, change their strategy.
[00:31:51] Terri Hoffman: But, still being in that parallel path and kind of thinking about quick wins, I think is, is really helpful because there likely would typically be some sitting there, right?
[00:32:02] Kerry Curran: Yeah, there always are some, more near-term improvements that can be made to improve the sales rate, the close rate, and shorten the sales cycle out of the gates.
[00:32:12] Kerry Curran: And then, it’s like, let’s go through the pipeline as quick as possible while we work on those longer-term initiatives to fill the pipeline. Absolutely.
[00:32:20] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, I love it. are there, any other points that you want to make sure that we cover?
[00:32:24] Kerry Curran: Two last points to share. McKinsey did research a year ago that showed that brands that have marketing at the core of their growth strategy outperform their competition.
[00:32:36] Kerry Curran: And so that just reiterates the importance of having that investment to build awareness and differentiate yourself so that you can drive demand and sales and then the other key part of that is to break down the silos between your marketing and sales infrastructure so that there is clear communication feedback for improving all of those stages and steps.
[00:33:00] Kerry Curran: Sales shouldn’t be creating a sales deck, or pitch deck that marketing hasn’t been part of to make sure that aligns with what they’re saying out in the marketplace. So it’s that, integration, the importance of marketing as part of your growth and revenue strategy, but also the integration between marketing and sales.
[00:33:20] Terri Hoffman: Oh, my gosh. I love that. Okay, I have some fun questions because it’s just helps me get to know my guests better as well. Let me start with the first one. What is the best vacation you’ve ever been on?
[00:33:30] Kerry Curran: Oh my gosh. you know, we went to Portugal last year and I think that was one of my most amazing, places that I’ve ever been.
[00:33:37] Kerry Curran: I think the people, just the wine, everything there is so beautiful. So definitely, top of my list, places that I want to go back to.
[00:33:47] Terri Hoffman: Okay. All right. That’s making it onto my list now to hear like Spain and Italy a lot, but Portugal that’s, that’s interesting.
[00:33:55] Kerry Curran: I love Italy as well, and beautiful, but it’s crowded and I know I’m going to get in trouble here, but like the, the people in Portugal are so much nicer and friendlier to Americans than the Italians are. So.
[00:34:07] Terri Hoffman: okay.
[00:34:08] Kerry Curran: All right.
[00:34:08] Terri Hoffman: We’re going to check out Portugal then. Hopefully, you are a music fan, even if you’re a light music fan, but if you could see any band or artists that are alive, that you’re like, oh, I wish I would have seen this group or this person who, who would that be?
[00:34:26] Kerry Curran: I think it’s, I’ve got a daughter and she would kill me if I didn’t say Taylor Swift.
[00:34:34] Terri Hoffman: Okay. She’s like, thank you, mom. I see that in my future now.
[00:34:39] Terri Hoffman: Do you find yourself recommending a book, like a favorite personal or business book that you just find yourself, you know, kind of recommending over and over?
[00:34:49] Kerry Curran: Yeah, that’s a good question. I actually read a lot. I think it’s, and it so much depends on the genre, but one that I keep coming back to is, “Devil in the White City.”
[00:35:01] Kerry Curran: It is historical fiction murder mystery. It’s Eric Larson and it’s also, the World’s Fair in Chicago. So, it also shares a lot about some of the things that were invented or presented for the first time at the World’s Fair like popcorn with a little murder mystery parallel pathing through so I’m definitely recommend that as a great book.
[00:35:25] Terri Hoffman: Wow. Yeah. You hit like a lot of hot buttons. If you had said something about chocolate and coffee also in there, I would be like buying it now.
[00:35:33] Kerry Curran: That sounds like it might have been there too. I just remember popcorn.
[00:35:36] Terri Hoffman: That sounds like a good book. and then my last question is what’s your favorite job that you’ve ever had?
[00:35:42] Kerry Curran: So earlier I mentioned I was a strategist for a while. And, that was one of my favorites. I’d say so junior level. That was my favorite because every day was a different vertical or business challenge. Like one day, it’s a healthcare company. The next day was CPG. The next day it was consumer electronics.
[00:36:00] Kerry Curran: And it was like really diving into what’s the challenge that we’re going to need to solve. loved that, but I would say, my best job as a leader. I had the most amazing team, at Catalyst, which is part of Group M and we call ourselves the pirate ship in Boston. We built out an extraordinary agency or rebuilt an extraordinary agency over a four-year period that’s still continuing to grow
[00:36:31] Kerry Curran: and we just had the energy. This energy of this team that was always peddling towards the same North Star. And we talk about it today. We worked so hard but we were all in it together and the team chemistry and just everything was amazing.
[00:36:49] Kerry Curran: Someday I hope that our BMA is big enough to have a team like that. And I can hire all those colleagues back. We helped so many brands, by taking them on as our clients and evolved with the rapid, e-commerce space and just worked hard, but had a blast.
[00:37:08] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, that sounds like a great mix. I mean, because you were part of a culture and helped to develop a culture that was like that. It sounds like you have a really good vision in mind for your company now.
[00:37:18] Kerry Curran: That was my first go at really marketing and sales together.
[00:37:22] Kerry Curran: And I think to me, it’s like, why would you ever have it in silos after that experience?
[00:37:28] Terri Hoffman: Oh, okay. That’s pretty insightful too. Yeah. Well, I agree. I mean, I think that’s just all blending together. It’s unavoidable. And if you don’t create a structure and a mindset and accountability systems now that like embrace that, Competitors are going to pass you up, right? Are they are, they’re going to do it
[00:37:47] Kerry Curran: better.
[00:37:48] Kerry Curran: Yep.
[00:37:50] Terri Hoffman: Well, thank you for being our guest today. I really appreciate you spending the time. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you better. If somebody is interested in getting in touch with you, what’s the best step for them to take?
[00:37:59] Kerry Curran: Yeah, two things. One is revenuebasedmarketing.com is my consultancy. And of course that is to remind everyone that good marketing is tied to good revenue growth. And then I also have a podcast. You can search on any podcast, directory or YouTube for “Revenue Boost, A Marketing Podcast.” We are launching episode 24 tomorrow and just hit a thousand downloads since launching in July.
[00:38:28] Kerry Curran: So that’s awesome, it covers all topics of marketing strategy related to revenue growth.
[00:38:35] Terri Hoffman: Congratulations. I mean, I think everybody should search that out and look for my episode, of course. So that’ll be.
[00:38:40] Kerry Curran: Thank you. Yes, of course. we’ll have to make a special announcement when it goes live.
[00:38:44] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, no, that would be fun. So thanks, and have a good rest of your day, Kerry.
[00:38:48] Kerry Curran: Thank you. You too. Thanks so much.
[00:38:50] Terri Hoffman: Thank you for listening to B2B marketing methods. Please be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast channel and leave us a review. We’d love to hear from you and connect. You can find me on LinkedIn or visit our company website at marketingrefresh.com.
