96. How to Optimize Your Revenue Engine: Strategies & Tactics with Chris Walker

03/30/21 • 45 min

Marketing is no longer what it used to be.

Forget coaxing customers to attend a demo. Using education to raise buyer awareness is now key.

Chris Walker from Refine Labs joins me today as we go over their own way of helping B2B companies grow through marketing. Chris comes from a very unique background (engineering) and this gives him an advantage of looking at the entire ecosystem of revenue and not broken down into silos.

So if you’re looking into transitioning your revenue acquisition model to drive demand from digital, Chris is just the right man to help you make those crucial changes.

Tune in to this episode to grab insights from this highly disruptive demand marketer!

We’ll talk about:

How an engineering background gave Chris the advantage in marketing [01:51]
- Losing his own money as a vital point in his experience [04:33]
The gap in the marketplace that Chris saw [06:13]
- Removing assumptions that are no longer true [08:06]
The benefit of working with a blank slate [09:07]
Barriers preventing companies from driving demand from digital [10:26]
Attribution is not marketing against sales [12:38]
Why you shouldn’t measure social channels the same way with Google [13:27]
The first step for founders is to know what they’re good at [20:25]
Adspend is a cost of doing business [22:41]
Why buyer intent is a critical factor to sales [24:45]
The major shifts in the buying process [25:35]
Customer success should be part of your product [29:48]
Through education, you create awareness [31:51]
You don’t really need salespeople [33:46]
Companies need a recurring revenue model driven by customer acquisition [35:50]
How COVID impacted sales and marketing [38:59]
The one thing Chris recommends [41:36]

Resource Links:

Brett Trainor Website (https://bretttrainor.com/)
Download The Growth Readiness Checklist (https://bretttrainor.com/resources/)
Refine Labs Website (https://www.refinelabs.com/)
State of Demand Gen Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/state-of-demand-gen/id1511588213)

About Our Guest:

Chris Walker is the CEO at Refine Labs, a marketing consulting firm focused on growing B2B SaaS companies. Their Revenue Engine Optimization Formula combines revenue operations, growth marketing, and buyer enablement.

If you liked this episode, please don’t forget to tune in, subscribe, and share this podcast.

Connect with B2B Founder:

Subscribe on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCySoKsETeKxu-Fnf2VfE7Gg/

Marketing is no longer what it used to be.

Forget coaxing customers to attend a demo. Using education to raise buyer awareness is now key.

So if you’re looking into transitioning your revenue acquisition model to drive demand from digital, Chris is just the right man to help you make those crucial changes.

Tune in to this episode to grab insights from this highly disruptive demand marketer!

We’ll talk about:

How an engineering background gave Chris the advantage in marketing [01:51]
- Losing his own money as a vital point in his experience [04:33]
The gap in the marketplace that Chris saw [06:13]
- Removing assumptions that are no longer true [08:06]
The benefit of working with a blank slate [09:07]
Barriers preventing companies from driving demand from digital [10:26]
Attribution is not marketing against sales [12:38]
Why you shouldn’t measure social channels the same way with Google [13:27]
The first step for founders is to know what they’re good at [20:25]
Adspend is a cost of doing business [22:41]
Why buyer intent is a critical factor to sales [24:45]
The major shifts in the buying process [25:35]
Customer success should be part of your product [29:48]
Through education, you create awareness [31:51]
You don’t really need salespeople [33:46]
Companies need a recurring revenue model driven by customer acquisition [35:50]
How COVID impacted sales and marketing [38:59]
The one thing Chris recommends [41:36]

Resource Links:

Brett Trainor Website (https://bretttrainor.com/)
Download The Growth Readiness Checklist (https://bretttrainor.com/resources/)
Refine Labs Website (https://www.refinelabs.com/)
State of Demand Gen Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/state-of-demand-gen/id1511588213)

About Our Guest:

If you liked this episode, please don’t forget to tune in, subscribe, and share this podcast.

Connect with B2B Founder:

Subscribe on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCySoKsETeKxu-Fnf2VfE7Gg/

Previous Episode

95. Eva Nahari’s Journey from Cloudera to Venture Capital & What She's Looking to Invest In

It’s an exciting time for the B2B startup world.

With so many opportunities present and probably triggered by the current climate, we’re seeing trends rising for innovative companies to get the spotlight.

What are those and what should you do to get one step ahead of the competition?

Today, I got Eva Nahari from DNX Ventures. As a Principal at DNX, we go over what’s she’s working on, her thoughts on the difference between AI and ML, the areas of her focus, and how automation & streamlining processes are key at this time.

Jump into this powerful episode to find out what this venture capitalist sees coming up next.

We’ll talk about:

The journey from Sweden to DNX Ventures in California [01:40]
Moving from angel investing to VC [09:18]
Her role and what’s she’s working on at DNX [13:44]
Key things to think about when scaling [19:00]
- Select & prioritize where you put resources [21:32]
- Put confidence in your pipeline [22:43]
What Eva looks for in potential investments [24:17]
Differences between machine learning & artificial intelligence [29:48]
COVID and the focus of her thesis [32:07]
- We’re seeing greater automation of non-value-added tasks [33:12]
- Never underestimate back-end innovation [36:13]
- Expect more entrepreneurs to become more innovative [39:26]
- See more migration to cloud [42:43]
The one thing Eva recommends [44:29]

Resource Links:

Brett Trainor Website (https://bretttrainor.com/)
Download The Growth Readiness Checklist (https://bretttrainor.com/resources/)
DNX Ventures Website (https://www.dnx.vc/)

About Our Guest:

Eva Nahari is a Principal at DNX Ventures, a VC fund focused on early-state B2B startups. Prior to joining DNX, she worked 9 years at Cloudera building products and go-to-market strategies and helping businesses scale.

Keen on AI, machine learning, and autonomous systems, Eva looks to invest in companies building SaaS, Cloud, ML-Enabled Enterprise Software, and DevOps that could revolutionize how IT is delivered to enterprises.

Eva has also spent time as an angel investor and startup mentor. You can reach her via LinkedIn and Twitter.

If you liked this episode, please don’t forget to tune in, subscribe, and share this podcast.

Connect with B2B Founder:

Subscribe on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCySoKsETeKxu-Fnf2VfE7Gg/

Next Episode

97. How to Leverage Digital Transformation to Thrive in the New Economy with Lynda Roth

The saying hindsight is 20/20 holds true most of the time.

Learning from the mistakes made by businesses that have either gone up or gone under is a worthy exercise.

In this nearly hour-long episode, digital transformation expert, Lynda Roth, takes us back with stories from companies that rode the wave of technology change and those that didn’t and sunk in the process.

We hear about companies such as Sears and Amazon, Blockbuster and Netflix, and even a little sewing pattern maker who craftily built a business digitally.

Don’t get left behind and grab the lessons you can pick up in this episode. Tune in now.

We’ll talk about:

Getting into and being a pioneer in I.T. [01:58]
Stories of success & failure in the midst of technology change [08:05]
The contents of her book - Digital Transformation [16:56]
- Comparing Sears to Amazon [19:31]
- Comparing Sears to Emerson Electric [23:58]
Whatever business you’re in, start as a digital company [26:59]
- How a little sewing pattern maker grew through digital [28:38]
- When new tech changes a previous solution [34:52]
Online stores have to replicate the experience in-store [38:44]
An example of digital being driven by data [45:26]
Mine the gold from subscription and data [47:51]
Reimagine your business as a 21st-century business [50:16]
Lessons from the Blockbuster story [53:29]
The one thing Lynda recommends [55:06]

Resource Links:

Brett Trainor Website (https://bretttrainor.com/)
Download The Growth Readiness Checklist (https://bretttrainor.com/resources/)
Digital Transformation: An Executive Guide to Survive and Thrive in the New Economy (https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Transformation-Executive-Survive-Economy/dp/198225727X)

About Our Guest:

For over 20 years, Lynda Roth has been leading business and technology transformations. She is the author of the book, Digital Transformation: An Executive Guide to Survive and Thrive in the New Economy. Lynda is also a frequent speaker on topics such as I.T.-driven business optimization, successful outsourcing approaches, establishing or growing an internal I.T. department, and creating a high-functioning organization with strategic I.T.

You can connect with Lynda by emailing her at [email protected]

If you liked this episode, please don’t forget to tune in, subscribe, and share this podcast.

Connect with B2B Founder:

Subscribe on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCySoKsETeKxu-Fnf2VfE7Gg/