Reclaiming the Voice of the Customer: How Podcasting Bridges the Gap in B2B MarketingReclaiming the Voice of the Customer: How Podcasting Bridges the Gap in B2B Marketing

Reclaiming the Voice of the Customer: How Podcasting Bridges the Gap in B2B Marketing Transcript:

Jeff White: Welcome to The Kula Ring, a podcast for manufacturing marketers brought to you by Kula Partners. My name is Jeff White, and joining me today is Carman Pirie. Carman, how are you doing sir? 

Carman Pirie: I am delighted to be here and you?

Jeff White: Yeah. Happy to be here as well. Yeah, I think, look, I love a conversation on a podcast about podcasting, that has never been done.

Carman Pirie: No. Nobody talks about this. And, seriously, I have noticed whether it’s in our client work or just manufacturing marketers and manufacturing leaders, actually more so than just the marketers. I, asked, and podcasting isn’t even close to new, but the interest in it from that category is significant. And I think manufacturing leaders are a lot more inclined to lean into podcasting than they’ve ever been in the past. And I think today’s episode is really timely as a result. 

Jeff White: Yeah, I think that’s accurate. And I, even though it does take some effort to stand one up and get going with it, learn the ropes of it.

I do think that there’s something appealing about just setting up a camera or a microphone and recording rather than having to sit down and write. 

And there, I think there for different types of people that certainly is an option and something that draws them in more so than I.

Sitting down at the computer and typing. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah. I think that a part of getting the content mix right for any leader is finding a way of producing content that fits with your personality and how you want to. Live, right? If the idea of sitting down and writing something makes you cringe for five days before you do, it’s probably not the right thing for you.

And you’re right, I think in some instances a podcast if you’re of that. Ilk it’s an easy thing to turn on and start doing. Yeah, for sure. Guys, we can talk like this with no preparation whatsoever. That’s what we’re trying to say. 

Jeff White: After 300 and some odd episodes, we’re finally good at this.

Carman Pirie: Yeah. We, smoke half a decent cigar before you get on, just to try to get the voice prepped. And you’re good. 

Jeff White: You’re good. Exactly. It doesn’t even have to be decent. So joining us today is Casey Cheshire. Casey is the founder and chief evangelist of Ringmaster. Welcome to the Cooler Ring, Casey.

Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to have you on the show. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah, Casey, it’s awesome to have you on the show. It’s always good to have a fellow podcast, sir ’cause they got the boom mic going. You know we have no excuse for audio 

quality or anything of that sort at this point, but 

Casey Cheshire: Yeah, it takes one to no one.  We can just hop on here and have a good conversation. People can hear us. 

Carman Pirie: Exactly. I think I’d love to tell our listeners a little bit more about Ringmaster and what y’all do there and maybe what led you to start this.

Casey Cheshire: I appreciate that, at Ringmaster, we create podcasts and communities to just reconnect companies with their buyers.

I created a whole bunch of technology in the past, and I’ve been a marketer often with manufacturing or other companies, and man, do they wanna sell you technology to get in between you and your customer? And I fell into that trap and I slowly found myself getting to the point where our marketing was working less and less and less.

And one of the reasons was because. I didn’t know them anymore. I hadn’t chatted with them anymore. Things that manufacturing traditionally does. And arguably better than all the other industries that are adopting all the latest tech. Manufacturing has always been the ones, or has been the ones that, you had face-to-face meetings, you met you were on site with each other.

So I’m just trying to bring that back into business where you have these face-to-face. Maybe you’re not in person, maybe you’re virtual like we are, but it’s in, in a podcast environment where you’re actually able to. Help out and promote your guests and your customers and, but really just have conversations.

Just get back to that human side. 

Jeff White: What do you think was the thing that made you realize that all this wonderful marketing technology that we’ve adopted and developed and implemented, what was the thing that kind of triggered in your mind, this isn’t working for us anymore? 

Casey Cheshire: Yeah, I’ve given it a name, it’s called Disconnected Marketing.

And what it feels like and what it looks like is that your best email campaign works a little bit less than it used to. And then a little bit more, meet week over week, month over month, or your best direct mail, or your best, whatever that channel is, wasn’t. It wasn’t the experimental channel that wasn’t working, it was the one that you almost relied on every time.

Hey, these events always work. This always works. That always works. It starts slowly not working as much anymore, and you’re trying to figure out why that is. You might have disconnected marketing, and one of the litmus tests I’ve developed, and I had to give this to myself. I am, I’m saying that I’m fixing this and here to fix this for others, but I’ve been in this and I’ve been guilty of this, where if I were to ask you.

Name seven of your customers by company name, could you do it? Probably because of those logos, there are a couple of logos that might stick in your head and remind you, oh yeah, that, that’s a cool company. Maybe some cool stories with that. But if I were to then ask you a different question, which is, can you name seven of your customers by first and last name?

And it gets a little harder. And some folks may have the names at the ready. There’s always a delta. There’s always a difference between that first answer and the second answer, and that gets at the disconnected marketing if we don’t actually necessarily know them by name. And so this was happening on one side and on the other side.

I had launched the podcast with my last company. I. Just to make content, I didn’t even think about connection or reconnecting or this disconnected marketing. I was just, blindly doing all the things that the SaaS companies that wanna sell you software tell you to do. And I was just doing that by launching the podcast.

On a whim just to create content. But what ended up happening was I started creating connection and one particular person right after the call, yeah. I was chatting with people in the industry and they mentioned right after the call that they were actually migrating to the exact thing that my company specialized in.

I didn’t know that. They didn’t know that. It was like a serendipitous oh my gosh, this is great. We should work together and like a friends and family deal, we got our teams together. We scoped out the project and we just did the deal, right? There was no long sales cycle. The games we played to get someone trick someone onto a phone call, it was just, let’s make this happen.

Let’s help each other out. Hey team, take really good care of them. They’re a new friend of mine and we just made it happen. So you, so at the same time, things were going worse and worse in, in a weird way. Things were also getting better on the other side. 

Carman Pirie: This is going to be the only time that this woman will come up in the podcast, I assure you.

But there’s this. MP she, a member of Parliament here back here in Canada used to be a member of Parliament. She’s no longer LC Wayne, she is the famous mayor of this little city on the East coast called St. John and going through the city market with LC Wayne was it, as you would she not, she just didn’t, she didn’t just know the name of every voter that came up to her.

She, first and last, knew the name of their relative. That was most recently Ill, it was it. Oh dear. How is so and so did they get over the block? And she and you just couldn’t fathom how she could keep this in her mind. But it’s just the power of that type of connection. Like when you were saying, okay you know the logos, but do you know the names?

I was thinking yeah, you could go one step further or do you, and do you know their? The name of their spouse or their child, or do you know? They and this is an interesting test, I think, for people to give themselves a little bit to say, if I’m, if I if I can’t go too far down that chain before the answer’s no I don’t know then it’s a pretty good sign maybe that you’re allowing, I think what you’re telling us, Casey, is that it’s a good sign that you’re allowing technology to distance your firm from who you serve.

Am I picking up what you’re putting down? 

Casey Cheshire: A hundred percent. And that distance, we talk about AI hallucinating if it doesn’t have the data, we do that too, especially in marketing, right? So before we start pointing the finger at AI for just making up a random thing, we do that in marketing. So the more apps that get in between us and the customer, some can be good. I’m not the anti-app guy. But at the same time, the door has swung too far in that direction to the point where we don’t actually know what they’re, talk names and first names, but what if I were to ask, how about the pain that they’re currently facing in their role at the company that maybe you can solve, maybe you can’t solve, someone who can.

Yeah. That’s even another layer that we probably should get to. So it’s almost just I’m just trying to be kind to just ask first and last name, but in marketing, we’re supposed to know. What pain do they have right now? How are we gonna help? How are we gonna solve that? And one of the things that I found in my own marketing is I was hallucinating assuming that I was the buyer.

And if you’re a marketer selling to marketers, maybe you’re the buyer, but still maybe not. 

Jeff White: Right?

Casey Cheshire: And if your buyer is. Some kind of thing that you’re manufacturing for you most likely aren’t the buyer. And so you really need to pause your own biases, right? It’s like when you watch, an ad on TV and you’re like, that was a terrible ad, maybe, but maybe you just weren’t the intended recipient of that.

And so one of the things I realized is I just need to have some conversations to get the data so that I’m not just making something up. Something happened to me the other day where I got a request, I purchased a product. And which I do rarely because I hate buyer’s remorse. Like many people, I purchased it and I got an email saying, Hey, we have a quick survey, right?

Again, they’re trying to get at the pain, they’re trying to get at these things, but they’re doing it in the wrong way. They’re putting some more tech in between me and them. And their survey said, what was the primary reason you purchased this product? And there are four reasons, none of which had anything to do with why I purchased that.

There was no D, there was no E, there was no insert other answer, none of the above, and there were only four. And so before it even hit the airwaves, that survey was broken and all the data they were gonna receive back from it. Arguably might have been broken unless I’m a complete outlier. Maybe I was, but either way, there was no option, for the sake of pure and clean data they had neglected to, to maybe just have a quick conversation with me.

The other day, I had a four minute coffee conversation with a customer, and my brain exploded because I understood precisely the challenge they were facing. It was pretty challenging. They had this B two, B2C model, and it was very. Very complicated, but I understood just by having coffee and a, just a conversation with them.

So we gotta put some of these surveys. The tech, we gotta watch out that doesn’t get in between us. 

Carman Pirie: And Casey, you’re really positioning, I guess the podcasting is a bit of a great leveller here. Am I right in hearing that you’re suggesting that it’s not only a way for you to get closer to your market, get closer to who you serve, and have those more authentic conversations, but I suppose on the other side, it’s also a way of presenting that more human side of yourself, isn’t it?

Casey Cheshire: It starts the relationship off with a give and not a take. And a lot of times, even, in marketing we can be shy. We need some sort of reason to reach out. Sometimes if we weren’t shy, we’d be wearing a different, outfit and we’d be in sales and we’d have sales hair, right? So if we’re in marketing and we wanna reach out, ah, why do I reach out?

Am I gonna bother them? I know. I’ll ask them. Can I please take your time up so that I can benefit with a case study for my company? Maybe we’ll send you a hoodie or just a smile at you. So it always just felt wrong to necessarily just take time from a customer. Now they do wanna talk to us.

The happy ones would love to share stories, but it always felt like a take. And so the idea of the podcast. It’s just a mechanism to say in case you’re uncomfortable getting on the phone just to steal their time. How about you give time and attention to having me on your podcast? Here is a gift. You have given me a time, your time, your attention on this.

And then also the platform, the audience, you’re sharing them with me. It’s it’s a real gift. So this whole relationship with us has started out with you giving me something. And I’m grateful for that. And so the rest of our experiences together, and I hope we do all sorts of projects together, will be all with the angle, will be slanted.

We’ll be set up with the fact that we started with you guys being really generous, right? That’s an amazing place to start a relationship. And so that’s why I love the idea of a podcast because yes, we’re getting them on. On a show, we’re getting ’em on a call to ask them questions and let them talk. But we’re also starting it by saying, here, let me promote you and your career and wherever you’re at, make this show about them, not you.

Jeff White: And humans like to be in balance. We don’t want to, we don’t wanna feel like we owe someone something, but when you create something together. We both own this episode of the show. We’ll both promote this show, and we’ll both learn from it. And if nothing else ever comes off that’s cool.

Yeah, we’ve created something and put it out in the world together, but it’s almost like marketers really could. Learn, and especially in the manufacturing space, they could learn more from the old-school salespeople who did have those deeper personal connections. They drove to the plant where they were going to be meeting with their customer and they walked the aisles of the factory and understood the problems.

By talking to people as they go through it, you don’t really have that opportunity. A lot of marketers really don’t have that or take that opportunity to figure those things out and develop those relationships as early as traditional sales teams do. 

Casey Cheshire: Yeah it, and marketing used to be the voice of the customer that used to be us.

We used to be the ones who knew more about the customer than even sales. We used to sales, splain to sales what the customer actually needed and give them the brief and let them know, Hey, this is the angle to attack, right? Like the whole Mad Men TV show and all of that. Maybe despite or without some of the drama but like that used to be us, where we were interfacing.

And so we can actually reclaim this. We, this whole place with my last company I lost the voice of the customer because there were people for this and people for that. Especially from a leadership perspective, when you’re doing founder-led growth oftentimes leadership can lose the voice of the customer because they have teams for that.

Not only do we have apps for that, but we have teams for that. And so when we put those things. It’s out there and that’s necessarily a bad thing, but then you start being asked to make vision and take the company in a direction and you don’t. Quite know where your customers are at and what their challenges are today.

You may know what their challenges were a few years ago, but what are they today? So this is just recla it’s all good just to reclaim that voice, the understanding. You can be the seat in the room that just spoke to someone an hour ago and you know precisely some of the pain that they’re facing.

Carman Pirie: I really where Jeff was hinging on this notion of being in balance and where it led me hearing you guys talk about that was this idea of, frankly as a marketer, if you create a podcast for your company or what have you, and take K’s advice. In some way, what you’re doing is you’re creating an opportunity for reciprocity.

There’s an opportunity for reciprocal action to come back to you from a prospect or a customer. And I’m my mind’s spinning a little bit on what’s it like to think about marketing as just creating multiple opportunities for reciprocity. That’s, I like 

Casey Cheshire: that. I feel like this is a laboratory.

This dialogue that there are things that I hadn’t even pondered. So I love the idea of reciprocity. One of the things I like to do at the end of a podcast is send a thank-you gift. This blows their minds because they’re still thankful for the opportunity and they’re like, what are you giving me a thank you gift for I’m, I am still thankful.

And it just, what a cool relationship to, I love that, the balance, the reciprocity where I’m just here to help you. It’s very there. It’s not a trick. You can’t just do this and then trick someone into a sales call and a podcast. It has to be genuine. But yeah, what a cool opportunity for balance.

That’s cool. Said. 

Carman Pirie: Well, Casey, we’re not sending you a damn gift after this. I’ll tell you that right now. 

Casey Cheshire: I was, Rich, I’ll give you my address in the chat.

Carman Pirie: I want to get into it, because look, we’re gonna talk about this in half an hour, 40 minutes is gonna fly by, and we’re gonna be left with a whole bunch of questions we didn’t get to. But because the one that’s in my head is when I’m thinking about the manufacturing marketers that are listening to this podcast, and you’ve helped people set up a number of podcast properties and communities. Is there an area of the company or do you always advocate look leadership ought to be the host of the podcast or somebody that’s in thought leadership or product development ought to be, or marketing ought to lead at sales.

Any guidance there? How you think about it. Who you put at the front and center for, say, kinda a mid-size B2B manufacturing enterprise that’s looking to build a more authentic connection to their customers through a podcast. 

Casey Cheshire: senator. We’ve seen it work with both leadership, the CEO or someone in the C-suite head of product and or marketing.

Really someone who’s interested. And one of the things we always advise our hosts when we’re training them is how to be a podcast host. You don’t need to. These people don’t need to be trained at the beginning. We will train them. We will show them how to do what I, how not to do what I did 400 episodes ago, right?

So we will give them the training and the thoughts, but one of the things we always tell them is never ask a question. You don’t wanna know the answer to. Because then what is this? Now you’re on a tonight show. Now you’re just being forced to ask questions and we need you in it too.

Curiosity is really hard to fake, and if you are just naturally curious about where your guests are going and what they’re doing, I. They’re gonna feel it. They’re gonna be inspired, and they’re gonna have a great experience. And so is your audience. So we really want them just whoever is the most curious person in the company.

And we typically also want them on par with whatever tier level of responsibility your guest is. So if your guest is gonna be the CEO. Of your future customer, you probably should have your CEO on there, or at least someone who works with them and is in that same office. 

Jeff White: No, man, put the intern in.

It’s gonna be great, 

Carman Pirie: Jeff. But I know, I don’t know that a lot of people think about that. Yeah. I think that is really good advice. Just think about the tier of interviewee that you’re imagining having, presuming it’s an interview podcast, which we’re looking to have conversations then.

It better be, but 

Casey Cheshire: yeah, it’s just, it’s, it really, it’s like an experience level. It’s probably more than even a title because you want someone who can really talk shop. We have seen people have their evangelist, which is a cool new role who’s someone who’s been in the industry for years and maybe.

They’ve been brought back outta retirement just to teach the principles that the company espouses. And, but someone who can then talk shop with a customer. You definitely want it to be someone in your company. We could host the podcast for our clients, but we prefer they do it because whoever hosts it gets the relationship.

And so yeah, it just works magically. If you can then talk shop before talk shop afterward, and. Maybe even dig into some of those questions and find out on the podcast, find out what are the challenges you’re facing these days? What are some of the constraints? How do you feel about a cer? I would always ask this question.

I would say, now I had a company that did a particular software product and it was called Pardot. And I would ask a question in the show, what’s your take on marketing automation? That was the general category of products, right? I guess we’re all marketers here so we know, so I would say, what’s your take on this as opposed to?

Hey, I know you have Pardot, and I knew they had Pardot. We did our research. Instead of being like I’m creeping on you. I know you have this. How is it going? I would just say, Hey, what’s your take on this software in general? And I would get these responses. Oh man, I can never get Salesforce reporting to work.

I love it. Or we invest in it all the time. Or we love, I even had someone on the podcast say, we love upleveling it. We hire consultants all the time to help us improve it. And almost on the pod we just, we were talking about working together as soon as we got off the recording. But just, it doesn’t have to be that way.

It can just be understanding, Hey, what’s your take on this so that you understand off the call, off the recording. What’s a good way you can follow up that can help them. Hey, I heard you mention the reporting is terrible. I’ve seen that too. I’ve got a guy, let me send him over and have him work with some of your team.

Maybe 30 minutes they can just work together and just clear up some stuff on your end like. Don’t pay me, let me just send him over. So again a give, and it throws my balance off on the reciprocity, but I’m just give. And then ideally a great relationship starts. 

Jeff White: How, I wanna go back to something you said a moment ago about the right person to host a show like this.

As someone who’s innately curious, have you ever had in the work that you’re doing, in, helping? Companies set up these kinds of this sort of platform, these sorts of conversations. Have you ever had to help someone learn how to be more curious or express their curiosity better? I. 

Casey Cheshire: First of all, Jeff, I need to give you points for innately curious.

That’s very cool. I’m taking that with me. Said I, I think I, I’m just gonna go on a limb here. I’m just gonna say it. I. I don’t think you can make someone more, more curious. I feel like it’s a light switch. I could be wrong an hour after this podcast, but my gut is telling me that you’re either curious about a topic or you’re not.

Now I’ve definitely heard people approach a situation where they’re getting upset and they say, before I get upset, I’m gonna get curious. I think that’s one thing, but I think if it’s about a topic, if you were to ask me. If I’m curious about balance sheets and general accounting principles, I would say only to the extent of how’s my company doing, but beyond that, not really.

And I don’t know if I can make myself curious to that, even if you paid me a whole ton, right? So I think what we’re trying to find is the people that do find this curious and under understandably, not everyone is to be on a podcast with someone. Also, ideally what you’re talking about, what your guest is good at, not what you’re good at.

We found a lot of people trying to make podcasts all about me. And then even though it’s an interview, I. You’re just talking a lot and your guest is like, why am I here? What? Oh, I wasn’t the important one. I’m just here to watch you and laugh at your jokes. It was really weird.

So we always try to design podcasts where it’s not about the software or the product or the things that you provide, it’s about where the missions that your customers have. And so that way, you know that they can talk about these things. And then really it’s about question design, designing the questions so that.

They don’t hurt your curiosity. And I will say I have had some guests on my podcast where they started getting into a rote pattern. I dunno if you’ve experienced this. They got into a rote script. Then my brain just checked out. It felt inauthentic. I already knew the concept. And I was just like, ah, I’m not into it.

And early Casey would just let them talk and check out. And I’ll confess on this podcast, check my email and Slack. And they’re still talking and, now the version of Casey now would interrupt and throw a zinger in there to get them off of a script or that kind of thing. But, things can get in the way of our curiosity.

But I think, generally speaking, we wanna be really interested in what they’re talking about. 

Carman Pirie: I love that curiosity is king tip. Just basically you’re surveying the organization. You’re trying to figure out who’s going to be the figurehead for the podcast. Who’s gonna host this show?

The most curious one ought to, I wonder. I. Introvert versus extrovert. What differences have you noticed amongst hosts that you would put into either bucket? How do they need to approach it? 

Casey Cheshire: Guys just have such great questions. It’s you’ve been doing this for a while and maybe you’re innately curious.

And curiosity is, by the way, curiosity is king. Another thing I’m taking with me. Thank you for that. Yeah. Introvert, extrovert. I have seen both works. One of the things I find with podcasting is that. It’s asking really good questions and then shutting up, right? And oftentimes introverts have an easier time of that.

As long as they’re curious. And sometimes the extroverts need a reminder to shut up gently. Hey, stop talking. Your guest is the, is the answer. And sometimes what we’ll do is we’ll actually have a, a. A special episode where the host gets to share what they’ve learned. One, of the things that I did to balance my extroversion with interviewing people, was at the end of a month, I would make my podcast have a theme where every week it was around a particular theme, that particular month, and at the end of the month, I would present a webinar on that topic of what I already knew, plus what I learned from my guest.

And it was fantastic. It was really rich, really fun. And what’s interesting is I did that and after 12 months I turned each of those into a, I turned it into a book. Each webinar turned into a chapter in my book. We just transcribed it and became the basis for it. Obviously a little bit editing afterward, like that became a serial way of creating content that, that stood the test of time and is on Amazon today.

And is everything I knew about that, that last company, that last industry, that was definitely one way that I was able to do the intro, the extroversion. I also find that it’s just a matter of pacing and timing and how many podcasts you can do in a day, how many conversations. I love this.

I could chat with you guys all day and then chat again with you all day. I’m good. And then I’m just gonna be like, like Wally with his battery fully charged, that little noise that I’m sure Jeff will…

Jeff White: Hey, I know the noise queue-up 

Casey Cheshire: And Rich will be like, boop. Then we get copyright hits, and we can’t do it.

But you know what, like I’ll be fully charged from that. But obviously, our introverts are a little bit less right? They’ll be drained from that. So just making sure we find a way to recharge ourselves. Not jamming them in there. I’ve experimented, jamming those things in there and it doesn’t usually work.

You don’t want this getting transactional, right? It needs to be relational, not transactional. And so if you jam them in there too much and you have a hard stop at the end of your podcast, it can really beat. Put a downer on there. Sometimes at the end of a great podcast, I don’t smoke, but I kind of wanna light up a cigarette and be like, wow guys, that was great.

I gotta go. Hey, great chatting Casey. I’ll talk to you later. But wait, we just created something. I think, Jeff, you mentioned this earlier, we created something together and it’s just nice to dwell, in fact, hey, great show guys. We made something great here. 

Carman Pirie: I think great advice there, Casey.

And. Good guidance for how to think about selecting hosts coaching them on how different personalities may lead you to structure, even your recording days and things of that nature differently. It’s what’s fascinating. And frankly, I think a lot of people, are maybe trying to convince somebody in their company that they ought to take the take the mic and be the lead for a podcast.

The first on the other end of that often thinks, oh, if you’re gonna do something like this, you need to be super extroverted. You need to be out there. I just loved when you said, look, introverts have a better. Easier time to know when to shut up. And that’s a really good skill to have as a podcast host.

Just that tip alone is I think we’ll get some people off the chair and in front of the mic, if you will. 

Casey Cheshire: Yeah there’s, it’s just a balance. And then when in doubt you can send your extrovert out to do podcast interviews as a guest. 

Carman Pirie: That’s right. That’s right. 

Jeff White: That’s good training actually.

For anybody who’s looking to start a podcast is get on some other shows and get interviewed so you can at least understand the mechanism of it and the cadence and all of that so that when you do create your own show, you’re ready. 

Carman Pirie: This has been a lovely conversation, Casey. I really thank you for joining us.

It’s been nice to have you on the show. And I just I do feel we’ve created something very very special here and I think the folks will enjoy it and hopefully learn something from it. And if you’re looking to learn more about podcasting in the B2B space I’m sure Casey and the folks at Ringmaster will be helpful to that as well.

I don’t typically, pitch anybody ever on this show, but I just think it’s been a fascinating conversation and I thank you for sharing your expertise with us. 

Casey Cheshire: Thank you guys. And same I’m just here to help. I just wanna re get people reconnected. So if I can give anyone pointers or tips, casey@ringmaster.com, just shoot me an email and I’m happy to answer questions or give you some guidance.

What mic should I get? Any of those little simple questions, I’m happy to just share some recommendations. It doesn’t take a million dollars to get the right kind of microphone maybe just start. Start ugly, like a friend wrote a book called Start Ugly. Just get something going, but the key part is just to have that conversation with your buyer.

Jeff White: Wonderful advice. Thanks again.