How Strategic Marketing Leads to More Profitable Clients

Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Tom Schwab. He is known as the godfather of podcast interview marketing. His book Podcast Guest Profits, how to grow your business with a targeted interview strategy, has been called the Bible of podcast guesting. He’s a frequent speaker and founded Interview Valet, the leading podcast interview marketing agency a decade ago. Get ready to have your view of the future of marketing shaken forever, and tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is. 

Christian Klepp  00:36

Tom Schwab, welcome to the show, Sir.

Tom Schwab  00:39

Christian, I am thrilled to be here. 

Christian Klepp  00:41

Great to have you on the show. I mean, like, you know, when we had our little pre interview call, we got on, like, a house on fire.

Tom Schwab  00:49

We’re gonna have fun on this conversation and go into a lot of places that are insightful and actionable.

Christian Klepp  00:57

Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, that’s part of the main reason, I would say that I get folks like you on the show, right? Because, as the name of the podcast suggests, we’re on a mission to change things, right, to change for the better. And I mean, today’s topic is absolutely dynamite, and I’m not going to keep the audience in suspense any longer. We’ll just dive right into it. Shall we?

Tom Schwab  01:19

Please. 

Christian Klepp  01:20

All right, so you’re on a mission, and you’ve been on a mission to help B2B companies look at marketing for from a different perspective, for growth. But for this conversation, let’s focus on a topic that I think has become part of your professional mission, and that is okay. Hold on to your seats, folks. This is a mouthful. How strategic B2B marketing can help you generate bigger and more profitable clients. And who the heck does not want that, right? So I’m gonna provide our listeners for some context here, because in our previous conversation, you mentioned something that well, that made me laugh, but it also jumped out at me, because it’s so true, big fish won’t swim through marketing funnels, and here’s what works instead. I’m going to repeat that big fish won’t swim through marketing funnels, and here’s what works instead. So I’m going to kick this off with two questions. Tell us what you think works for larger accounts, and why and where do you see a lot of B2B marketing teams fall flat.

Tom Schwab  02:21

I believe that you’re not one funnel away. No matter what everybody’s selling you, you are one conversation away. And think about it this way, the big B2B companies, right? Ernst and Young, Bain Capital. Do you see them doing Facebook ads and master classes and webinars to get their clients? 

Christian Klepp  02:44

No. 

Tom Schwab  02:45

No, right? They’re talking they’re holding their own conferences, getting people in there, getting that thought leadership. So why do we think if the people that are the biggest, the people that we should be benchmarking against, we’re not doing similar things. Instead, we are listening to the influencers on social media that tell us, Oh, you’re just one funnel away, right? Spend more on these little ads and then drive them to an evergreen webinar that they can sit on at 2am and you’ll lie to them that it’s live, right? All of these things, and people are being taught this, and this idea that you can sell a B2B high level service the same way you sell a small product.

Tom Schwab  03:34

When you step back and look at it, it’s ridiculous, right? The idea that that C level executive with budget authority is going to see your Facebook ad and then buy this $7 trip wire product and then sit through a 90 minute sales pitch webinar and then hire you for six figures. When you look at it that way, it’s ridiculous. And so I really believe that today, B2B marketers, you’re not one funnel away. You are one conversation away, and that’s one conversation away from your next ideal customer, your ideal referral partner, even your ideal team members that want to come and work with you. It’s all about conversations. There’s a place for automation, but that’s not how you drive the leads into there.

Christian Klepp  04:26

Yeah, those are some really great points. I’m going to go back to something you said earlier ton. So you know, things like being the Evergreen webinar at 2am and things of that nature. Why do you think a lot of companies default to these tactics? Is it because they don’t know any better? Is it because that’s what the market’s been doing for years? Is it all of the above?

Tom Schwab  04:45

There’s a great book out there called Click Sand – How digital marketing ruin your business, right? And I love how Bill Troy, back in 2018 was the first one to say The Emperor has no clothes, right? And I think the reason we’re doing it is because this is what we’re being sold, right, that everything can be super efficient, super automated, right? And the idea is we’re getting more efficient at things that are less effective, right? In the time we’ve been talking here, you and I both could have sent a million emails. They all would have gone to spam, right? Very efficient, not very effective. And the entire marketing industry around there is sort of built up around this, right? The people that are saying you’re one funnel away, guess what? They’ve got a platform they want to sell you that will help you make funnels, right? The people that are telling you we can target your ideal C level executive on Facebook, they’re the ones that are selling Facebook ads. So it’s like they’re the industry is built up around this, and we’ve all been sold this. The carnival barkers have been out there talking about it, and I think now we’re getting to the point where people are looking and going, this doesn’t make sense, right? I don’t like this marketing. Why would my client like it?

Christian Klepp  06:12

Absolutely, absolutely. It’s that whole notion of, like, you know, you can generate leads and make money while you sleep, right?

Tom Schwab  06:20

The thing is that leads now have become the new Facebook likes, right? Every day I’m getting emails from people, oh, we can help you get more leads. Well, you know, my bank doesn’t care how many leads I have. They care how many profits I have, right, right? And so we’re optimizing for the wrong thing, especially in B2B marketing, right? It’s this idea that the sales funnel will get 1000 leads in and we’ll get one big, big client through, makes no sense, right? The cost of the sales development reps to work all of those leads and then that somebody’s going to come through doesn’t make sense, right? We had, I learned so much from our clients, and one of them talked about that he is tired of the sales funnel, right? He doesn’t want 1000 leads so he can get one client. He wants the sales cylinder, right? Let me talk to five people so I can get four clients out of it, and that makes a whole lot more sense. What works for low cost transactions of products does not scale to high relationship, high value B2B services.

Christian Klepp  07:37

Absolutely. Do you think also a part of it is, well, just the lack of understanding of who it is you’re targeting. Because, like, going back to your point C level executives and how they buy, how they make decisions, how they look for information online, I’m gonna, I might say something slightly controversial here, but like, they that they don’t that. These sales funnels don’t take that into account.

Tom Schwab  08:03

It’s interesting. Marketers are great, right? We’ll show you the data that makes us look good, and often it’ll be like, well, look at how much traffic we had here, how much engagement we had here. The problem becomes there is that our bosses, the owners, the CFO, the CEO, are looking at going, I don’t care about all of that. I care about how many clients did you get from it, how many profits did you get from it? If we keep looking at marketing as an activity as opposed to a profit generator. We’re all in deep trouble the next downturn, because if it’s seen as an expense, we cut expenses. If it’s used as a revenue generator, we don’t. And I think I can remember a client that came to us, and I asked them, like all clients. I said, Why do you want to be on podcast interviews? Right? Why do you want to use podcast interview marketing and Christian? I love this answer. 

Tom Schwab  09:10

He said, Because I think most of digital marketing is the equivalent of advertising above a urinal. And I paused, and I’m like, You got to explain that one to me. And he said, I am a high level consultant, right? He said, If someone sees me on a park bench, if they see me on the bus that goes by, if they see me advertising above a urinal, that’s going to kill my brand for sure. And in the same way, if they see me on TikTok, doing a dance, or see me on some place that lowers my status, that hurts me, he’s like, I want to be seen on the key stages. I want to be seen talking with the thought leaders there. And this, this idea of, you want to be everywhere your clients. Are. I don’t agree with that. First of all, I can’t afford to be everywhere my clients are. I just want to be where they are when they make decisions.

Christian Klepp  10:10

It’s just like that movie that won all the Oscars last year or the year before, everything everywhere, all at once, right?

Tom Schwab  10:18

That’s I don’t have the budget nor the time for that. And I think, you know, everybody, I should say, everybody, I always think sometimes of well, if I had more time, if I had more money, we are all limited by that. I don’t care if you’re Facebook or Amazon, right, you still have a finite amount of time. You have a finite amount of resources. So really is deciding where you put those into place. And had another client that I loved it. He called it Warren Buffett marketing. I said, What’s Warren Buffett marketing? And he’s like, Well, one of Buffett’s foundational principles in investing is that he will not invest in the company that he doesn’t understand right now. This caused him to miss Apple.

Christian Klepp  11:06

Yeah, right, that’s it. 

Tom Schwab  11:07

But this, this CEO told me, I’m tired of investing in marketing that I don’t understand, right? And as marketers, we’ve got to sell it to the people with the budgets, right? The CEOs, all the rest of that. And he said, for decades, I’ve been chasing this elusive SEO (Search Engine Optimization) algorithm, right? And each year we’re spending more and more money to chase it. And then we get to the point here where they’re telling me, oh, it’s not important. Now everything’s going to AI, right? And he says, I’m tired of doing this. He says, If I don’t understand the marketing, I’m not gonna invest in it. And he’s like, I can understand when I talk on a physical stage, I get business from it. When I get introduced by someone and have that referral, we get business from it. When I’m on a podcast and get introduced by the thought leader, right, which is the podcast host, and I can talk to people, that’s when I know that I get business. So from that standpoint, Marketers on a Mission, right? We’ve got to, we’ve not only got to sell our prospects, we got to sell our bosses on why they should invest the time and money with this.

Christian Klepp  12:17

That’s right. That’s right. And on that point, that’s such a beautiful segue into the next question. Key pitfalls for B2B marketers to avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Tom Schwab  12:28

This idea of more is better, or it’s all about activity right on the coffee cup that I’ve got, I have written the words better is better, and that came from one of our clients, Steve Acho, great consultant. He runs an agency that is head hunters, right? They go out and find the perfect talent. And he was the one that pointed out to me that more is not better. Better is better. And the example he used is, you know, as a professional recruiter, he said, Which do you want, right? Do you want the 7 billion resumes that you can find on monster.com or do you want me to bring three people to you? That’s I could tell you, these will change your business, right? More doesn’t help you. 

Tom Schwab  13:18

And I think as marketers, heck is people, right? There’s this idea of hustle, more is better. And so a lot of people will go and start looking at stages, either physical stages or digital stages, and say, Well, I just need to be on lots of podcasts, right? I remember a client wasn’t a client. Prospect came to us, and he said, I want to be on 100 podcasts this month. And I’m like, why? Oh, because it’ll be massive exposure. I’m like, Well, so is streaking, but it doesn’t help your business, right? You don’t want massive exposure. You want the right exposure. You want to target it. 

Christian Klepp  13:59

Targeted. I was gonna say. 

Tom Schwab  14:00

I’ve seen, oh, and I’ve seen people that come back and say, you know, I’ve been on, I’ve been on 50 podcasts, and I listened to the podcast a few of them, and I’m like, Well, you’ve done one interview, but you’ve done it 50 times. You talked about the same things, and how did those interviews work out for you? And they’ll be like, I’m not sure. I’m like, what other marketing do you do that you don’t have attribution with it, so you’re just throwing stuff at a wall, and you don’t even look at what sticks right. So instead of just doing more right, do more meaningful ones. Make sure you’re using a system with that and for heaven’s sakes, don’t, don’t try doubling down unless you know it works, right? I’ve heard people say, well, I need to get on bigger podcasts, right? Great. But if they’re not converting on smaller podcasts, you know, doubling down on that is. We used to say in the Navy, it’s doubling down on stupid if it’s not working. Now, just getting on a bigger podcast won’t work, and you’ve got one chance there make sure that you’re ready.

Christian Klepp  15:11

Absolutely, absolutely. And on that note, regarding bigger podcasts, you might just be I’m just gonna say a number and a file right? One and done, because they just go through these, you know how it works, right? They just keep going through all these episodes, and they just pump it out, and then that’s it.

Tom Schwab  15:29

Ego is the real thing, right? And I’ve got an ego too. And I remember early on being on a podcast, and it was one of the larger ones that I have ever been on at that point, right? And it was like, oh yes, I’m going to be heard by 30,000 people. They weren’t my people, right? Um, they said the word entrepreneurs in the podcast, but it was aspirational entrepreneurs, right? Um, wantrepreneurs, if you had a program on how to make six figures in six seconds with six hacks, and it was $6 you would have sold, you would have sold lots of them. But I went on this podcast, and, you know, I got a handful of leads from it, all right? Then I was shortly after that, Christian on a podcast, and the host told me that she got 250 downloads per episode. I looked at that, and I’m like, This is my perfect audience, right? I went on there, I not only got dozens of leads from that, I got dozens of customers and clients from that. And sometimes we think, Oh, there’s more fish in the ocean, right? That’s true, but if you can show me where there’s a barrel of fish, I’d much rather go there. So from that standpoint, it’s all about targeting, not just spray and pray.

Christian Klepp  16:47

Absolutely, absolutely, and Lord knows, there’s way too much spray and pray going on right now out there anyway, right?

Tom Schwab  16:54

And the market encourages it, right? Because we’re paying to do this spray and pray, right? Someone is making money off of those million emails that we just bought the list and emailed out there, right? Facebook is making money off of all the ads that they’re doing there, right? Google ads is telling me that if I just make this tweak, I’ll get a better click through rate and all the rest of that. Well, I’m not optimizing for click through rate, I’m optimizing for cost of customer access.

Christian Klepp  17:29

Right, right? There is a bit of a difference between the two, just a little bit, right, like, all right. Fantastic. Tom, you know, in our previous conversation, you discussed how B2B companies are usually one conversation away instead of one funnel away. And you even brought it up like earlier on today, and that’s with regards to securing new business, but discuss how conducting the relevant research and having the right strategy play a key role in this.

Tom Schwab  18:04

So the idea is, if it’s one conversation away, people will think, Well, I’ll just have lots of conversations. Right? If I go to New York City and stand in Times Square and have enough conversations, I’ll meet my ideal customer. Probably not right. So what you need to really focus on is, what I always think of is your super consumers. There’s a great book out there by Eddie Yoon called Superconsumers. Harvard Business Review wrote it right. And you don’t want to talk with everyone. You want to talk to your Uber fans, your ideal customers, to start figuring out where they are. 

Tom Schwab  18:41

And with podcasting, you know, we’ve been doing this a decade now, and early on, I have to admit, we were guessing, because the data wasn’t out there. Now it exists. You’ve got to license it right, and it’s expensive, but you can find the demographics. You can find everyone that goes to a website, what podcast do they listen to? Everyone that follows a influencer? What podcast do they listen to? And that can be very important, because I think of we do a lot of non fiction books promoting those with podcast book tours. And there was a gentleman that came to us, and it was great. He’s a great entrepreneur. He’s started three businesses, sold two of them. He’s a high school dropout, and he’s probably in his mid 20s. And he said, I want to be on ideacast from Harvard Business Review. And I said, we have gotten people on there. You will never be on there, right? Because they make their money off of selling MBAs and PhDs, they’re not going to bring somebody on that is the high school dropout to conflict with their business model. But I said at the end of the day, you don’t want to be on that podcast. You want to talk to the people that listen to that podcast. So we were able to go into that data and say, Okay, everybody that listens to Harvard Business Review, what other podcasts do they listen to? And how can we position ourselves there? 

Tom Schwab  20:09

The other thing is the conversation, right? You’re one conversation away. Well, what conversation is that? One of the things we always teach our clients at Interview Valet is that we’re all selling Preparation H, right. No one cares about your product or your service. They care about the pain in the rear end, right? So from that standpoint, when you get on a podcast interview, when you get on a stage, when you get in that conversation, start talking about the problem, right? Because when you can clearly define the problem, the customer thinks, wow, you understand me, right? It’s not this across the table. You’re selling to me. You know… It’s a confrontational thing. It’s more of a shoulder to shoulder. We’re standing side by side, facing this problem, and that’s much more effective, right? Talk about the problem you solve, talk about the way you see the world. 

Tom Schwab  21:09

And often people will say, well, it should be magnetic, right? I want my marketing to be magnetic. I want it to attract everyone. Well, that’s not how a magnet works, right? A magnet attracts the right thing and repels the wrong thing, right? So be very clear in your point of view, right? This is how I see the world, right? If you go back to the beginning of this interview, that first question that you asked me, I believe I said something like, well, our point of view, or my point of view is, right. If you don’t agree with that, that’s fine. If you turn off at that point, that’s fine. Save your time. Save my time. Once again, we don’t want more leads. You want people that hear that point of view and go, Wow, I agree with that too. I’m going to listen more, right? And that can be great, because the right marketing makes sales so much easier. Because if you can help have people self identify and self educate through that marketing, those sales calls become more like qualification calls than discovery calls. So all of those things in the conversation, think about it, the data to find the right people to talk to, talking about their problem, and then being very clear of who you are, who you work with, what you do, what you believe.

Christian Klepp  22:36

That was beautifully said, I’m gonna say. And it definitely goes back to what you were saying earlier, right? And this is the reason why it’s so important to conduct that right research and have a strategy. I think you brought it up earlier in the conversation. You know, when you ask customers, well, why do you want to get on a podcast? Why do you want to be on this podcast? Right? This has to be thought through, because if the guy gets on 100 podcasts that are not relevant to him, and whatever he or she is talking about is not relevant to the listeners, then it’s a complete exercise in futility, right?

Tom Schwab  23:12

We refer to our clients as the talent, and so often it could be the CMO that comes to us, right? And says, We want to start to use podcast interviews, right? But it’s the CEO or the founder that is the talent, and you’ve got to keep them excited about this. You’ve got to keep them engaged, because there’s 1000 things they could be doing during that hour, and if you lose their trust, they will implode your marketing efforts, right? So we look at that and say, Okay, let’s make sure that we get some quick wins with that, right? So not only making it easy for them, preparing them for the interview, so they can show up confident and comfortable, then repurpose the content when they see that, and it’s like, wow, I gave up an hour of my day. And you got a blog from it, you got an article, you got all of these reels from it, and it was heard by our ideal clients and the large language models that you know are going to become our best referral sources. They look at that, and then they come back and say, Oh, great job marketing, right? Let’s do more of these. Because as marketers, we’re selling to our prospects, but we’re also selling to the leadership of the company, and I think especially now, as money gets tighter, right? As we look at, you know, we’re either in a recession, coming out of a recession or going into a recession. Money is not cheap. It’s not free anymore, and the powers that be are asking, What am I getting out of my time and my money invested on this? And it’s important to be able to explain that to them, both in the quantitative and the quantitative, where they can feel it makes sense.

Christian Klepp  25:02

Absolutely, absolutely. It’s interesting, because I had a conversation with somebody else about the same topic yesterday, and it boils down to, from my point of view, three things, right? Is internal customer service, communication, and I would even hazard, I guess, to say negotiation skills, right? Because it’s not a given that your budget is going to be approved to your point, right? It might even be cut or completely taken away. And then what?

Tom Schwab  25:30

All politics aside, the other day, I heard a CEO use the phrase Doge up. We need to Doge up. And I’m like, oh, that’s become a verb now, right? Where they’re saying, okay, what can we do to come in here and, you know, cut waste, right? Either to get ready for a recession or whatever? And they’re starting to look at that. So you need to start thinking of, how can I show that this is driving revenue, this is driving results, not just vanity metrics.

Christian Klepp  26:01

Correct, correct. Or, as I like to say, we got to prune the tree somehow, right? Make it grow and bear more fruit. That’s less political. There we go. So you robbed something earlier, and that’s such a great segue into the next question. You believe that, and I believe this too, better marketing makes sales easier. So on this topic about being one conversation and not one funnel away right from your ideal customers, break it down for us, right in terms of what you recommend B2B marketers use in terms of that strategic approach and what role marketers have in making the sales process easier.

Tom Schwab  26:46

It’s one of those things where I’ve spent time as a sales rep, I’ve also spent time as a marketer, and I’ve also spent time as a founder and as a CEO, right? And sometimes I look at it as a parent, right? And I see the two kids that I love dearly, why don’t you just get along and work together as opposed to fighting? Right? It’s a marketing problem, it’s a sales problem. It’s his problem, it’s her problem. No, it’s our problem here. So I think when we can start to align that, then the organization thrives. 

Tom Schwab  27:26

And once again, how do you make sales easier? Well, if you can use your marketing assets to get leads that are self identified right that close faster for a higher initial amount and churn less. We’ve got studies that show podcast interview marketing does that, but also to have those resources that sales can use. So when we say one conversation away, right? Prime example here we’re talking about how B2B marketers can use podcast interview marketing. Well, if I’ve got a prospect coming in for a sales conversation, and I looked on their LinkedIn and I can say, Oh, they’re a B2B marketer, maybe they’re, they’re connected to Christian already on LinkedIn, right before we jump on the call, sales rep is going to reach out to them and say, Hey, looking forward to the call. I thought you might enjoy this interview that our founder, Tom Schwab did with Christian talking about this. 

Tom Schwab  28:33

Imagine that if your clients start to listen to the founder, listen to specific things before the sales call, right? It’s almost like you’re pre selling them, right? And it’s a great way to feed them information. And it’s not just, Hey, we did a webinar. I looked at the camera and read the questions and all the rest of this. It’s like, No, we are a leading company. We’re the category King, category Queen of this industry, and these, these prove it. And I think for marketing, at the end of the day, you know, they’re now talking about Chief Revenue Officers in the C suite, right? It’s not sales or marketing, it’s revenue. I think it’s going to get to a point where it’s going to be Chief Profits Officer, right? And so it’s like, if I can cut out a whole level of sales development reps, right, and just have qualified leads coming in and talking, I’ve now, I’ve made it much more efficient on there. 

Tom Schwab  29:37

So it’s one of those things where people will say, with certain types of marketing, right, how many leads does it drive? How many page visits? No, we’re always looking at how many customers. How big are the customers? Right? How fast do they close? Because, you know, speed is everything money. Money loves speed, and it’s the same way with clients. If they hear your founder on a podcast interview, and they’re the answer to prayer, right, or they know someone right that, oh, I was just talking with so and so at a networking event, and this company is starting to deal with this problem, I’m going to tell them about this podcast. It’s a great way to get directly to that decision maker, that person with the budget, and that can make marketing happy. It can make sales happy, and it makes the financials happy, which makes everybody happy. 

Christian Klepp  30:33

Yeah, you know these, these examples you’ve just highlighted, made me think about this Gartner report. And it might be, it might be a little bit dated. Now it was, it came out two years ago, but it shows the B2B buyers journey, right? And just from that diagram alone, it goes without saying that the B2B buying journey is not linear, right? I think the best adjective that I could think of as it’s haphazard at best, right? Because there are your key stages, but you keep seeing like arrows and diagrams, like going back, going back, going back, doing online research, looking at a white paper, looking at a podcast interview, asking the CEO, having a committee meeting, vetting the vendors, having a call with the vendors, and it just keeps going all over the place, right? You until they ultimately make a decision, yeah?

Tom Schwab  31:25

And, and sometimes it’s even people will take credit where it’s not.

Christian Klepp  31:30

Right. 

Tom Schwab  31:31

And Rand Fishkin from SEO Moz and SparkToro, he gives a great example, right? You hear Rand talk at the inbound conference with HubSpot, right? And you’re like, Oh, this guy is smart. I’m going to go to his website and sign up. Well, you go there, but you misspell the name whatever Google brings it to you there, and Google is going to say, I brought you. I brought you that traffic. Great, right? Now, you start to sign up. But, you know, you get distracted, something happens, and you have to leave, and Facebook retargeting brings it back there. A couple days later, you see an ad on Facebook, and you go back and you sign up. Now Facebook is going to say, we brought you all of that. Now, what’s true, is it Facebook? Is it Google? Well, I would argue that none of that would have happened if you wouldn’t have seen Rand speaking at inbound, if you wouldn’t have heard Rand on a podcast, right? And there’s this idea that everything has to be attributed, right? And unfortunately, the people that can attribute everything or claiming success for everything, right? If you believe that everything has to be attributed, then never again, you know, do an ad in a newspaper, or newspaper. I’m showing my age here. Never do an ad in a journal.

Christian Klepp  32:57

In the Yellow pages (laugh).

Tom Schwab  32:59

The Yellow Pages. Don’t do public speaking, don’t do podcasts, don’t do billboards, because I’m sorry, those all don’t get, you know that perfect attribution.

Christian Klepp  33:10

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, Sir. I mean, you’ve given us plenty now, but like, provide us with, I would say these tips for somebody that’s listening to this conversation, all right, like if there’s a B2B marketer out there listening to Christian Klepp and Tom Schwab, having this conversation about generating better results through conversations and not funnels. What are the three to five things that you think marketers can take action on right now? 

Tom Schwab  33:39

First thing I would say is, do you believe what we’re saying? Right? Does this make sense? Right? Because it’s a big paradigm shift, right? Do you believe that you’re one funnel away and you’re just going to keep doubling down on what was working? Well, I can’t help you then, right? I see the world differently. All right. So think about that. 

Tom Schwab  34:00

I would also encourage you to have that discussion with the talent, right? The CEO, the who’s ever going to be speaking? Because you can be all for this idea of one conversation away, but if the talent, the speaker, doesn’t want to do it, then there’s no point in going forward. That’s the second one. 

Tom Schwab  34:22

The third one is to look at where you could start to have those conversations. And you know, it used to be, well, now we got to go to networking events. And, you know, buy a booth at this event. That’s the old world, right? Today. You can do it on podcast interviews. You can do it on physical stages. You can do it on webinars. And a great place to start testing that is a place where it doesn’t good cost a lot of money or time for the talent, right? So podcast interviews there, and some of our best clients are introverts, and you see this from a lot of CEOs, where they’re like, public speaking, sounds great. I don’t want to do it right, because giving a keynote, that’s tough, but if you can explain to them, No, we’re just going to get you on a podcast, right? You listen to podcasts, it’s a discussion, right? So, starting slow, making it work for them. So that’s the third thing. 

Tom Schwab  35:26

The fourth thing would be, make it fun for them. Make it easy for them, right? If it’s a chore, they’re not going to do it right? 

Tom Schwab  35:36

And then the fifth thing on there is, make sure you’ve got a system and a process behind it, right? This is not just sending your talent out there on a street corner to talk. No. Make sure you’ve got the data to find the right shows, right? The understanding of how podcasts are different than other media, right? So that you can set them up for success. And then, you know, even to the point of helping them the last question of every interview is going to be so, you know, Mr. CEO, you know, where can people find you? Where should they go? Make sure that you prep them for that, so that you can move people from being a passive listener to an active visitor to an engaged lead. You do those five things, and you’re going to be your CEO’s best friend, and they’re going to be talking to you and saying, Hey, when’s the next interview coming up? And now, once again, you’re not a you’re not a cost center, you’re a you’re a revenue center, and you’re a partner in helping them grow the business.

Christian Klepp  36:47

Absolutely strategic. All right. Fantastic. Let me just quickly recap that for the benefit of the listeners. So the first one is, do you believe what we’re saying? The second one is, having that crucial discussion with it, with the talent. The third one is where could you start to have those conversations, whether that’s a podcast, whether that’s a physical stage, whether that’s a webinar, starting slow. The fourth one is, which I really like is make it fun and make it easy for them, right? Because, of it, because if it’s a chore, or if they, if they start to, like, show some kind of hesitation, they’re not going to do it right? And the fifth one is, have a system and process behind it.

Tom Schwab  37:32

It’s not, it’s, it’s not reinventing the wheel, right? It’s been done before, and it’s the same thing that my grandfather did, you know? God rest his soul? He’d go to the country club, he’d go to the Rotary Club. He’d speak where his ideal customers were. He knew that when he got introduced, he could speak with them and get clients. It’s the same thing today. We’re just doing it with… 

Christian Klepp  37:59

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, sir, get up on your soapbox. I think you’ve actually been there already, but like, I’m gonna ask you to stay there. Stay there a little bit longer. What is the status quo that you passionately disagree with and why?

Tom Schwab  38:15

More is better, right? This maybe it’s an American thing, right? It’s got to be more and more and more, right? More is not better. Better is better, right? The best restaurant in town is not the $10 Chinese buffet all you can eat, right? 

Christian Klepp  38:34

Right.

Tom Schwab  38:35

It is the one with the small plates and the great quality. So I think this idea of we’ve got to have more. No, we’ve got to have better.

Christian Klepp  38:42

Absolutely, absolutely. Oh, there was one more question I forgot to ask you, because I know you were talking about attribution, and I know that some of these things can’t be measured all the time, but what if, if you had to measure them, what metrics should marketers be paying attention to?

Tom Schwab  39:02

For podcast interviews. I think once again, too often we start at the top of the funnel, right, and all that our boss cares about is the bottom of the funnel. So I think optimize start with the end in mind of things like, what clients did we get from it? What was the average sale price? What was the days to close? Things like that. Those can be very powerful in explaining why the strategy works. And then you can start going upstream from there, what offers worked best, what podcasts converted the best, going from there, but starting at the bottom of the funnel, not the top.

Christian Klepp  39:43

Yeah, that’s a great answer. And I think it’s going back to what you said earlier in the conversation. Marketers are great at like, showing everybody all this fluff, impressions, web traffic, SQL (Sales Qualified Lead), MQLs (Marketing Qualified Lead), and it’s like, you know when you’re presenting to the CEO or the C suite you got? To cut all that stuff out and just give it to them as it is. 

Tom Schwab  40:04

You want to be seen as a profit and a revenue source, not as an expense. 

Christian Klepp  40:10

Absolutely, absolutely, all right, my friend, here comes the bonus question. Hold on to your seats. So I have it on good authority that you’re a Navy veteran. And I think you brought it up already earlier on the conversation. So I’m going to ask you a, I’m going to say a US Naval History trivia question. Here we go. So the question is, who, who in history, said this, Damn the torpedoes, Captain Drayton, go ahead. Joy, full speed.

Tom Schwab  41:57

That was Farragut. He was Mobile Bay and the torpedoes. What he meant by that was mines. There were the mines in there, and for whatever reason, they weren’t working. They kept bouncing off of it, off the ships. And he just said, Damn, the torpedoes, you know, full speed ahead. And I think that’s a great thing for Marketers on a Mission, right? It’s not about being timid, it’s about going out there and Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead.

Christian Klepp  42:32

Indeed, indeed. Well, lucky for them that the mines didn’t work, right? 

Tom Schwab  42:38

Once again, it’s like the things we believe, right? So a couple of them, it hit the hall already and they didn’t work. So as marketers, we can think, oh, this, this won’t work. Well, if we got a couple of bullet points, or shouldn’t say bullet right, a couple of data points that say this might work, well, maybe everybody else is wrong. Maybe, maybe it’s not dangerous here, maybe we should go full speed ahead on.

Tom Schwab  43:02

Exactly, exactly. Tom, as expected, this is a great conversation. Thanks again for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. So please quick introduce yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Tom Schwab  43:15

Yeah. So I had mentioned this before, right? How do you attribute the traffic? Send them to one place. Give them three ways to say Yes, right? Meet them where they are. So if you go to http://interviewvalet.com/b2bmission right? Everything Christian and I talk about, will be there. There’s a assessment. Will podcast interview marketing work for me? I wrote a book called Podcast Guest Profits, how to grow your business with the targeted interview strategy. You can buy it on Amazon, or if you go there, I’ll mail you a copy. If you’re in the US, if you’re overseas, I’ll email you a copy, and then I’ll put all my social media there, calendar scheduling link, if you’d like to talk about how you could use this to grow your brand, to grow your business, just go back to http://interviewvalet.com/b2bmission

Christian Klepp  44:13

Dynamite stuff, no pun intended. Tom, once again, thank you so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.