EXIT FIVE

Why More Lead Nurturing Is Not the Answer in B2B

The solution is never more lead nurturing. I don’t mean that example specially, but here’s what I’m trying to articulate – the marketing team often defaults to the smallest possible solutions…

Sep 1, 2022 · 3 min read

EXIT FIVE

Do you need your boss too much?

Stop relying on your boss. The less you can rely on your boss, the better.

Aug 25, 2022 · 3 min read

EXIT FIVE

Community for B2B

Community Is The #1 B2B Marketing Trend Community is the most important trend to understand and try to harness for your business today. Smart marketing teams (and the executives at those companies) understand the value of building an audience of their dream customers. Community can come in different forms and channels. But for me it’s about building relationships through content with your dream customers — that has nothing to do with selling your product, but everything to do with helping them achieve their goals personally / professionally.

Aug 15, 2022 · 5 min read

EXIT FIVE

LinkedIn vs. PR

LinkedIn vs. PR. You could pay a PR agency $10k/month to write and place articles in publications that few of your actual customers will ever read. Or — through only text + images — you could build a following for your CEO/Founder/Company Page on LinkedIn and reach customers directly. Maybe you’ll get the PR bump of you land a massive feature in a Tier 1 publication, but that is pipe dreams for most B2B software companies today. So instead you get the random blogs so the PR team can feel good about “placing” something. Forget that approach.

Aug 10, 2022 · 4 min read

EXIT FIVE

Why Audience-First Marketing Is the Smartest B2B Strategy

I like to do marketing backwards. And start with the audience first. Marketing and sales are about the feedback loop. The quicker you can get feedback from the people you’re trying to sell something to, the better thing you can create. It is an incredible advantage to be able to test ideas quickly with an email and then Google Form / Typeform.

Aug 1, 2022 · 2 min read

EXIT FIVE

Why Sales and Marketing Get Over-Measured in B2B

They love to drown us in metrics, but… Have you ever noticed this? When it comes to management level reporting and internal strategy discussion, there are 27 different metrics they want to use to hold sales and marketing accountable… and yet none of the other teams inside of the company have metrics like that!

Jul 28, 2022 · 4 min read

EXIT FIVE

Blame the CEO

Blame The Founder/CEO If your brand has nothing to say, don't blame marketing. Blame the Founder/CEO. There's a reason why Andy Raskin told me he only works with CEOs / Founder on the strategic narrative. Because it's way more than just "messaging & positioning." A narrative drives the product you build, the people you recruit, the company you create.

Jul 25, 2022 · 3 min read

EXIT FIVE

Double down on what you’re good at

Double down on what you’re good at. That’s a timeless growth hack. Personally. As a company strategy. As a marketing team. We spend a lot of time chasing new ideas and new channels vs. nailing a niche and doubling down on what you’re good at. You will see greater returns turning your B skills into A skills vs trying to turn a D into a B. One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence. It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence. And yet most people – especially most teachers – concentrate on making incompetent performers into mediocre ones. Energy, resources, and time should go instead to making a competent person into a star performer. – Peter Drucker – Managing Oneself OK, back to the family. I've been behind on work this week. Always happens this week of the year but it's nice being home with the kids. See you around. – Dave PS. have you been listening to the Exit Five podcast? I'm about to put out the next episode but wanted to send this email first. Last week's show with Kaylee Edmondson and Amanda Natividad was our most downloaded episode yet. Search for Exit Five wherever you get your podcasts. PPS there's not a single link in this email! imagine that

Jul 7, 2022 · 1 min read

EXIT FIVE

Dear Founder re: LinkedIn

Founder: I am having a hard time hiring marketers. Me: Are you active on LinkedIn? How often do you talk about what you’re doing there? Founder:  Look. LinkedIn is not magic. But for startup founders, there’s no better brand awareness channel. Brand awareness meaning: people knowing that you exist. Not comfortable promoting yourself? Great. That’s what works best. Self-promotional content is not what works anyway so you’re in luck. What works: sharing your ideas and vision for your industry, talking about your customers problems, sharing learnings and observations from what you’re seeing.

Jul 1, 2022 · 1 min read

EXIT FIVE

How to Do B2B Creative That Gets Attention

My wife is under the weather; she's fine but she's in the basement away from us and I've been on solo parenting duty with the kids this week so I'm behind. You ever been there? Behind on Slack, email, writing a newsletter, making some videos I wanted to make … but that's life.

Jun 23, 2022 · 3 min read