Why Relationship Building is the Ultimate Sales Strategy

[00:00:00] Christian Banach: We want to jump right into the solution all the time, but it’s more about trying to get them to understand that: “Hey, there’s a problem and here is a potential solution.”

[00:00:07] Christian Banach: You’ve identified the solution, you’re bringing ’em into this funnel. Now they’re interested. Okay, you have a solution for this problem that I’m experiencing.

[00:00:13] Christian Banach: Tell me more about that solution. And that’s where you start to talk more about your particular methodology. You start talking about your particular services. But you know, a lot of people in sales, they want to jump right into that step, when they haven’t even identified, that we understand the problem you’re experiencing in the first place.

[00:00:29] Christian Banach: And then once you’ve got it down to: “Hey, we get your solution.” That’s when they’re ready to start having a sales conversation with you. Before that they’re not ready, that’s not the stage that they’re at. And I think we can all kind of relate to this, we’re all consumers in ourselves as well.

[00:00:43] Christian Banach: And just think when you’re looking for something, if you’re not in the market to buy a car, somebody cold calling you to talk about a car is not gonna resonate with you, whatsoever. But if you’re able to kind of put yourself in positions where you are talking about: “Hey, is your car experiencing this and this and that?” You can then start to position yourself so when they are in the market to buy a car, they’re gonna think about you first.

[00:01:03] Designing Growth Intro Music Plays

[00:01:13] Sam Chlebowski: Happy Thursday everybody, and welcome back to Designing Growth. My name is Sam Chlebowski, host of the Designing Growth Podcast and one of three co-founders at Motion.io. I am very excited today to be joined by Christian Banach. Christian is all about helping agencies and MarTech companies build relationships, gain perspectives, and grow. Through his business, Christian helps guide agencies and MarTech companies to predictably land six and seven figure opportunities and unlock their full potential.

[00:01:43] Sam Chlebowski: So, very excited to chat with you today, Christian, and kind of dive into some of the things that you’re doing to help agencies grow and some of the tactics you are using.

[00:01:52] Sam Chlebowski: But first I wanted to ask you just generally, how you doing today?

[00:01:55] Christian Banach: I am doing fantastic, Sam, I appreciate you, uh, bringing me on the show and looking forward to having a great conversation [00:02:00] with you.

[00:02:00] Sam Chlebowski: Amazing. And where are you joining us from today?

[00:02:02] Christian Banach: I am from cloudy Chicago right now.

[00:02:05] Sam Chlebowski: Okay. Good stuff. Good stuff. Yeah. I am out here in Denver. We’ve been having some, like beautiful weather, the past two days finally. been a long, snowy winter, but things have shaping up. I bet the same will be true for you guys in Chicago in just a little bit here, Chicago, in the summertime.

[00:02:19] Sam Chlebowski: Man, it is a vibe out there. I love being there in the summertime. been to a couple conferences there in the summer and I was always just like blown away how much is going on.

[00:02:27] Christian Banach: Yeah, no, it’s a great city. We joke, we were talking about it earlier today — it’s gonna go from cloudy and then next thing you know it’s gonna be 90 degrees in summer. There’s no spring here I feel like at times. But a great city nonetheless, especially in the summer.

[00:02:40] Sam Chlebowski: Very cool. Very cool. So let’s kind of get into it here, Christian, and I know that, you are working with, a variety of businesses and you kind of focus your efforts in the, agency and then MarTech space. How did you get here with your business? What is your kind of career background leading up to this point?

[00:02:58] Christian Banach: Yeah. Well, that’s a great question. I can’t say necessarily set out to do exactly what I’m doing. Like most people, I kind of stumbled into this. Nut, to kind of take it way back, I was always very entrepreneurial growing up, buying and selling baseball cards, had a neighborhood lawn service.

[00:03:15] Christian Banach: When I was 18 and, and a senior in high school, I actually got a group of friends together and we rented a banquet haul out and we, threw a, a DJ dance party. That went over incredibly well we made a lot of money. We made some new friends and decided, Hey, let’s do another one of these things.

[00:03:30] Christian Banach: So that’s actually how I ended up paying my way through college is doing these different events. Got out of college and ended up getting a job as a marketing coordinator, still doing these events on the side, but realized, you know, I was making more money and having more fun doing this side hustle than I was doing the main thing.

[00:03:44] Christian Banach: So ended up, leaving that position and, went all in on the events business. but at this time the events had moved on from like local banquet halls to concert venues. And we were working with artists like Lady Gaga and Pit Bull and, some really big artists and tours.

[00:03:58] Christian Banach: And what ended up, uh, then [00:04:00] happening is we got approached by an experiential marketing agency who wanted some help with a local activation, and they knew we had these concept promotion capabilities, so we ended up helping them out. That went over incredibly well, which led to more and more opportunities, more in the experiential marketing space.

[00:04:14] Christian Banach: Eventually the light bulb kind of went on and said, well, why are we working directly with these agencies? Why don’t we go direct to the brands themselves and cut out sort of the middleman? So that then birthed the second part of the business, which was our own experiential and event marketing.

[00:04:27] Christian Banach: So we really had kind of two sides of the house. Business buzzed along really good for a good 15 or so years. Then the 2008 recession hit and like unfortunately, a lot of the clients that I work with today, we didn’t really have a sales process. It was a very much referrals, word of mouth type business.

[00:04:42] Christian Banach: It got us to where we’re at. But we hit a wall. So I went out, I hired a sales consultant. They came in, really helped me zone in on the processes. And what ended up happening is I loved the business development side of the business. so after another kind of year or two of struggling along, I decided it was time to, to move on, from my business.

[00:05:00] Christian Banach: I closed things down. I went to go work at, marketing agencies in a business development capacity. Did that for about 10 years. Discovered though along the way that my superpower, if you will, is really on the hunting side of the business. you know, a lot of people talk about the pitch and the clothes and sales, uh, which I like, don’t get me wrong, but the hunting to me was more energizing and it was something that a lot of people were, interested in or really loved to do.

[00:05:22] Christian Banach: So that’s really the area that I, you know, kind of carved out a niche for myself and, ended up, getting huge deals with Anheuser-Busch and Constellation Brands and Kohls and some huge companies. But in the back of my mind, through these 10 years, I wanted to do something out on my own again, but I wasn’t sure what went or how.

[00:05:37] Christian Banach: And then fast forward to the pandemic in 2020, and I felt like it was deja-vu all over again. I saw these agencies struggling like they did in the recession. The difference here was it wasn’t me. I felt like I was now the consultant that could give back to others, just like that consultant and helped me out.

[00:05:55] Christian Banach: So I ended up leaving the agency that I was at and, uh, decided I was gonna start my own consulting [00:06:00] firm, specifically though to try to help these struggling agencies land, opportunities with the companies that they wanna work with. And that was, um, a little over two and a half years ago now. And, and here we are.

[00:06:10] Sam Chlebowski: What a trajectory, and there’s a couple things that I wanna break down in there. You know, the first is the opportunities that. Recessions can provide. I mean, I heard it, within you telling the story twice, first in 2008, again, in 2020, and after, each of those recessions, it was a pivot either where your career was going or what you were doing and allowed you to expose opportunities.

[00:06:34] Sam Chlebowski: And I think that that is something oftentimes, people tend to not see when it comes to an economic recession. There’s all of this doom and gloom. 2008 I was still in high school, so that doesn’t really apply.

[00:06:47] Sam Chlebowski: But like when you get to 2020 and then even some of the stuff that we’re dealing with now, it’s like, these hard times create opportunities and I think create the next generation of businesses and business owners. I think that there’s a lot that can be learned there. Looking at your career and the businesses that you’ve been able to thrive and really grow from some of those opportunities.

[00:07:07] Christian Banach: Yeah, most definitely. I can’t say in the middle of all of it, it was crystal clear to me, you know, that, this is the path that I should go on. But, I think if you keep your eyes open and your options open, And you just keep putting yourselves in the right positions.

[00:07:22] Christian Banach: some of these opportunities, the paths start to, emerge, when I, you know, relate back to, 2008, I mean, it was very challenging and very tough, but, it was definitely a, time that I needed to make a pivot and you I think sometimes, you know, when you hit sort of the bottom, that’s the way back up.

[00:07:37] Christian Banach: to the top. And for me, at least in 2008, that was sort of the situation. And in 2020, you know, it was a little bit different, but I, used the experience that I had in 2008. and again, like I had mentioned, it sounded like dejavu, like I felt like I’d seen this movie before. and I think that comes with experience and, and some wisdom.

[00:07:52] Christian Banach: Uh, and I was able to use that, in a positive way. So definitely, would agree with you.

[00:07:57] Sam Chlebowski: The other piece that I wanted to get into and I thought was particularly [00:08:00] fascinating was how within your business now you’ve really kind of narrowed down into this hunting aspect of revenue growth and then also like new customer acquisition. targeting this specific niche. And it makes total sense to me because that hunting piece is something that is so hard. You know, when you look at sales and people who are really interested in sales, passionate about sales, love the clothes, they love working those customers to close. but that piece that comes before that, I think.

[00:08:26] Sam Chlebowski: There’s two reasons why people don’t go after it. first because they don’t really like doing it. But then also because it can be really challenging and time consuming to do and craft the strategy for it. Especially if you are a type of business where you are used to getting a lot of inbound referrals.

[00:08:43] Sam Chlebowski: I’ve done a couple of consulting projects, In a similar vein going into consulting agencies, whether it did like agile development or whether did they did, software development and they were getting so many leads from, these inbound referrals. And then when it’s time to set up a system for generating leads, for sourcing leads, they kind of like don’t know exactly what to do.

[00:09:07] Sam Chlebowski: I would love to know like your methodology behind, what you’re doing for organizations and what’s, really working well for you right now when it comes to this hunting side of the sales process.

[00:09:18] Christian Banach: I would say that, you know, our, vision of this has even evolved, over the last, couple of years. when we initially launched, we were really more focused just on what I’ll call demand capture. sending out, cold emails or doing cold calls and, you know, really trying to time the market and, find those prospects that are interested in, looking for whatever services that you happen to be offering.

[00:09:39] Christian Banach: And those opportunities are great, but that really represents a very small piece of the market, that might actually be in market at any given time. Research shows that may only be 3% of the market is actually looking for services like yours, at any given time. So what we noticed though was that the clients that were doing the best in this kind of hunting, we were only a piece of the pie of what [00:10:00] they were doing from a sales and marketing standpoint.

[00:10:01] Christian Banach: They had a whole other side of the house that was really focused on awareness and demand creation in the first place. And those campaigns that, and those clients, I should say, that we worked on that had that going, and then we were coming in as sort of the people that, you know, helped convert that into a, into at least a first sales meeting.

[00:10:18] Christian Banach: we’re seeing a lot better results. So our. Philosophy then has changed. and not that I say our philosophy, but our services have really changed to offer both, because I think when people are starting to think about, oh, we need leads, they wanna jump right into, the outbound, portion of it.

[00:10:33] Christian Banach: And, for most, you really have to start from the top. And we, we kind of call it like the yin and yang. You have to have a way to build that awareness and demand in the first place. There’s just so much competition in the market right now. There’s so many competitors that are out there. we are also fighting just for attention in people’s inboxes.

[00:10:49] Christian Banach: so you really have to think about this in a more holistic way. and I would say really, you need to have that, first piece to build that awareness in demand, and then you have to have a way to capture it. And, uh, and we actually, call it relationship making. we don’t actually even like to use the term.

[00:11:04] Christian Banach: Lead generation, I think that has a very short term transactional type of connotation to it versus relationship making is more, long term, and more genuine in how you approach it. And I think just given all the market conditions that are out there, having that shift in mindset.

[00:11:20] Christian Banach: is really critical and, and those clients that we work with and even how we do it for ourselves, we just see those having much better results rather than thinking short term.

[00:11:28] Sam Chlebowski: this is really exciting, to hear you say this. Partially because it’s like personally validating for me, that separation between demand capture versus demand creation is something that it sounds like, you have been focused on for a little while now. But it is only something that I’ve begun to realize with this new business and separating those two in my mind because I think it’s something that, given the current market conditions a lot of.

[00:11:55] Sam Chlebowski: Businesses, regardless of what type of business it is, could benefit from.

[00:11:59] Sam Chlebowski: And I [00:12:00] think that there is a younger generation of people who are selling, people who are marketing, who are doing these things without really thinking about it. I mean, even just the other night I was reading this Reddit thread where a SaaS startup founder, was basically asking, you know, how are people selling these days?

[00:12:14] Sam Chlebowski: And in the comments one after one, it’s, cold outreach, it is, using paper click ads. and nobody in that entire thread, there was probably 150 comments, was talking about how do you create. That demand in the first place, all of the strategies that were covered are a hundred percent still completely viable, but it fulfills a different part of the funnel in my mind.

[00:12:38] Sam Chlebowski: Like when somebody clicks on a paper, click ad, a YouTube ad, whatever ad you’re putting out there, that is capturing demand. That’s not what created that demand, what created the demand is all of the other things that you are doing.

[00:12:49] Sam Chlebowski: Is that a similar philosophy that you subscribe to? It sounds like it is,

[00:12:54] Christian Banach: Yeah, absolutely. You know, when you think about the, funnel, first of all, the, the funnel is not a linear process. People are bouncing in and out of the funnel at different stages, But we really think first and foremost about that awareness and kind of decision. Making, part of the funnel.

[00:13:07] Christian Banach: So we’re thinking about the funnel awareness, consideration, and then decision. so it’s really showing Where these buyers are at and creating content, to meet each one of those different various stages. So from the awareness stage, may be, creating some sort of like an email newsletter.

[00:13:21] Christian Banach: It could be showing up in social feeds, it could be appearing on podcasts like we have here today. other sorts of, content creation. And it’s really, you know, more so about. zeroing in on, Hey, we think you might be experiencing this problem, and here’s a solution to that problem.

[00:13:36] Christian Banach: You know, we wanna jump right into the solution all the time, but it’s more about trying to get them to understand that, Hey, there’s a problem and here is a potential solution. Because the bottom line is if you’re suffering sales, there’s. Infinitely many ways that you can solve that. Maybe you need a new website, maybe you need a new salesperson, there’s a thousand different ways that you can slice and dice it.

[00:13:54] Christian Banach: So it’s really trying to show up there and understand that, hey, we get your problem and here’s a solution to think about. [00:14:00] And then the next step you’ve identified the solution, you’re bringing ’em into this funnel. Now they’re interested. Okay, you have a solution perhaps, for this problem that I’m experiencing.

[00:14:08] Christian Banach: Tell me more about that solution. And that’s where you start to talk more about your particular methodology. You start talking about, your particular services, but you know, a lot of people in sales, they want to jump right into that step, when they haven’t even identified, that we understand the problem you’re experiencing in the first place.

[00:14:24] Christian Banach: And then once you’ve, you know, narrowed it down like, Hey, we get your solution. that’s when they’re ready to start having a sales conversation with you. Before that they’re not ready, that’s not the stage that they’re at. And I think we can all kind of relate to this, we’re all consumers in ourselves as well.

[00:14:38] Christian Banach: and just think about like, when you’re looking for something, if you’re not in the market to buy a car, somebody cold calling you to talk about a car is not gonna resonate, with you, you know, whatsoever. But if you’re able to kind of put yourself in positions, you know where you are, talking about, Hey, is your car experiencing this and this and that, you know, you can then start to position yourself.

[00:14:55] Christian Banach: So when they are in the market to buy a car, they’re gonna think about you first.

[00:14:58] Sam Chlebowski: So much of what you just said is kind of this like two minute masterclass basically of like a modern sales and marketing funnel. And I think there’s a lot of tiny pieces within there that you could take away about how you can best attract your ideal type of clients, how you can bring customers to you and helping you avoid, spending extra time, extra resources on.

[00:15:19] Sam Chlebowski: Leads and prospects that aren’t going to buy. One of the things that I think is a big problem that holds companies, especially companies who, you know, maybe have established sales processes, have established metrics they’re looking to hit, trying to kind of achieve that next level of growth.

[00:15:35] Sam Chlebowski: One of the things that I’ve seen as a struggle is, tracking. Some of these demand creation exercises. I mean, I even saw it when I was working, a few years ago at a much larger business. I ended up leaving and kind of going back into the startup space. But one of the things that was tough for our marketing department and what would cause us to butt heads a lot of times with the sales team was we had this top line metric of leads that we were bringing in, and that was [00:16:00] what we had to report on quarter after quarter.

[00:16:02] Sam Chlebowski: If we weren’t doing that, we weren’t doing a good job. The thing is, there was no metric that was holding us accountable to the quality of those leads. So we were doing things and you know, when you’re working on a team I’m reporting to somebody who reports to somebody else, who reports to somebody else, At the end of the day, you don’t have complete control of that. And that’s kind of why I like the start of space, but we are bringing in all of these M qls, we call them marketing qualified leads, and you know, they would convert at such a small percentage because it was just looking at the sheer number of leads, not the quality of those leads.

[00:16:35] Sam Chlebowski: When you go into a business, are you doing anything to help them? With their analytics and kind of reframe their minds around how they can adjust goals that will support some of these other, demand creation strategies you’re implementing. How do you look at that?

[00:16:53] Christian Banach: So most of our clients, I wanna preface this, are generally taking more of an enterprise approach. So they are looking to land those bigger six and seven figure opportunities. So, part of the initial work that we’re doing with them is to get really clear on. What is that addressable market?

[00:17:07] Christian Banach: what are the industries they should be playing in? Who are the right companies they should approach? generally these target lists are in the hundreds, not the thousands or 10 thousands. We really wanna narrow down, you know, who the target audience, you know, happens to be.

[00:17:18] Christian Banach: but to your point, yeah, it’s not a volume game about the number of, you know, MQLs or whatever that, that we can generate. It’s really about how can we show engagement from those accounts that we’ve identified, in our prospecting list. We are working with, website visitor ID tracking type tools that will identify, those visitors to your website.

[00:17:37] Christian Banach: Are they coming from any of the companies that are on our target lists? have an email newsletter, we can track back, and see, are we getting engagement from anybody within, those target accounts. If we’re running ads, LinkedIn ads for example, you can see if there’s companies that are engaging in your ads.

[00:17:51] Christian Banach: So there’s a number of ways, but we look at it more from a engagement standpoint. are they engaging because that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to warm them up, or we’re trying to build some demand, [00:18:00] first and foremost, for the products, or services that, our clients are having to offer.

[00:18:04] Christian Banach: we also look at some other software metrics, which I think are indicators that your marketing is working. branded search, in Google, are more companies now putting your name in and Googling and trying to find you? If that’s the case, then your marketing is probably working.

[00:18:16] Christian Banach: Are you getting invites from different media to, speak about certain topics? If they are, then again, you’re marketing and thought leadership is starting to resonate. so we look at the metrics a little bit differently. in terms of then actually being able to report on that, I think, it’s twofold.

[00:18:28] Christian Banach: I mean, if we’re talking about an inbound lead, most of our clients aren’t using any, you know, sort of attribution software. we’re not really playing the volume game. So for most of those, that, that doesn’t really make sense from a financial standpoint. but it’s as simple as having a, how did you hear about us, option in your contact us form, you know really great insights.

[00:18:45] Christian Banach: You know, I saw your LinkedIn ad, or I read your thought leadership, or a lot of times it’s multiple things because again, we talk about a buyer journey. It’s not one piece of content, one LinkedIn post that ultimately drove them to wanna meet you. Usually it’s a series of things that happen over a long period of time.

[00:19:00] Christian Banach: so we’re thinking about that usually from an inbound standpoint, but, To be honest, I mean, there’s still that other portion of it where, it’s that capture piece. You know, we’ve done a warm up job. We can tell that these prospects are hitting our website, they’re engaging with our ads, but they’re still not reaching out to us directly.

[00:19:14] Christian Banach: But once they’ve reached a certain threshold, then we can start reaching out to them with our cold outreach, whether that be email, whether that be phone, direct mail, and then, ultimately try to schedule a meeting. But, It helps us to narrow down on, since resources are limited, especially in a recession, or whatever type of period we happen to be in right now, to be able to narrow down the lists, and this is who we should target.

[00:19:35] Christian Banach: This is who we should spend more extra time on with our one-to-one, outreach, based on, the engagement levels that we see through our marketing efforts.

[00:19:42] Sam Chlebowski: What you had just mentioned specifically, with the lead gen forms of transitioning that from trying to use kind of like third party tracking and using all of these different data sources to transitioning it to just like a “how did you hear about us” form question.

[00:19:55] Sam Chlebowski: I love that. I kind of just realized when I was hearing you saying it — because you’re [00:20:00] exactly right — there’s all of these different ways that people can hear about you. What you need to know is the thing that really stuck in their mind. And if you are asking them on a form like, Hey, how did you hear about us?

[00:20:10] Sam Chlebowski: I think that at the end of the day is gonna provide you a lot more information than what Google Ads is reporting what your CRM – for example, HubSpot, Salesforce, or whatever is reporting.

[00:20:20] Sam Chlebowski: And it helps you gain a much clearer picture of like what strategies you may want to consider doubling down on what you want to consider throwing more money at.

[00:20:31] Sam Chlebowski: And has been really, really useful just in, what we’ve done [email protected] so far. When it comes to paid advertising, are you helping people set up flows for that as well? what are the platforms that seem to be working for you right now as far as like digital ads go?

[00:20:46] Christian Banach: Yeah, so we’re primarily focused right now, with LinkedIn ads. We see really good success with that, mainly because of the targeting that you’re able to do, especially if we’re doing more of an account-based, approach like we typically do for clients. So, we’re able to zero in on specific companies, specific, seniority levels, job titles.

[00:21:03] Christian Banach: I think LinkedIn ads sometimes get a bad rap because they’re expensive. I’m willing to pay a little bit more knowing that I’m reaching the exact, audience that, we want to get in front of. So building that out. And then we’re seeing success, you know, with retargeting ads then, on LinkedIn, as well, So that’s, primarily where we’re playing right now is, LinkedIn ads. But I think, depending on your industry and depending on who you’re targeting and the type of firm you are, I mean, there are obviously other areas, but I think from the agency space and MarTech space, that’s where we’re seeing, best results right now.

[00:21:30] Sam Chlebowski: With your LinkedIn ads, that is, kind of that demand capture piece of the puzzle. Are you also helping people, within these organizations, get their team more active on LinkedIn to support some of those things? Do you do any of that work as well?

[00:21:43] Christian Banach: I’ll answer that. I wanna come back to it because first is that we look at LinkedIn ads as having two different sides. We do think of it as a demand creation because these ads are not necessarily lead gen type forms. It is educational type content. that is, again, just trying to show up and, and say, Hey, you might be experiencing this [00:22:00] problem.

[00:22:00] Christian Banach: Here’s some educational type of content. Then there are another set of ads though that are driven more so to try to convert that into, a meeting. So, I think LinkedIn ads can do both. in terms of more like a LinkedIn organic approach, yes, we are helping clients with that as well.

[00:22:15] Christian Banach: Ads are great and we see results and it’s a little bit quicker, but again, trying to get your team on LinkedIn, first and foremost is key, and, and getting them posting that same type of thought leadership content. Our approach and philosophy on LinkedIn is not to connect with someone and, Pitch, slap ’em or whatever, you know, where you’re instantly in their DMs, asking for a meeting, We’re not even asking, for a meeting, we are just connecting, sharing something, you know, nice to meet you. But the idea is you’re in the network now and you’re posting content on a regular basis.

[00:22:42] Christian Banach: You’re showing up, they’re gonna see when the timing is right, they’re gonna remember you, and they’re gonna, reach out to you. How we are approaching LinkedIn is a very much more hands-off, long-term relationship, type of an approach.

[00:22:54] Sam Chlebowski: I appreciate you calling out that, difference, that you can use LinkedIn ads as demand creation when you are offering these kind of educational resources. That’s a very good clarification. Something I actually hadn’t really considered thinking about the way that we will develop parts of our funnel going forward.

[00:23:10] Sam Chlebowski: And I think it helps show people that there’s a different way to use LinkedIn other than what they may have seen, because I think that is part of the reason why organizations are hesitant to use LinkedIn because the first thing that they think of is somebody just sliding into their inbox and saying “hey, book this meeting” or “try this product, this software”. Where are you seeing value in terms of the different tools that you’re using?

[00:23:35] Sam Chlebowski: Is there any software technology that you really love right now, either that you are working with internally or that you are, helping people implement within their own businesses?

[00:23:44] Christian Banach: That’s a good question. One of our go-tos still thinking more on the demand capture side, outbound prospecting, we work with Outreach.io, which really serves a great purpose. It’s sort of a CRM kind of built right in.

[00:23:56] Christian Banach: But it allows us to put together our different follow ups and [00:24:00] email sequences we have, and we use it in kind of interesting ways where we’re still able to keep it very highly personalized. So, that is where our team is kind of living and breathing, day in and day out.

[00:24:09] Christian Banach: As I mentioned earlier, website visitor id tracking is something that, we’ve been using, but now we’re really rolling it out through all of our clients. And that’s just been a tremendous, tool again to see, you know, what are those companies that are visiting, your site and, are they actually clicking?

[00:24:22] Christian Banach: Cuz if you’re not asking for their email address, in a lead gen form, it can be. Has anybody seen this? You know, I don’t know. but if, you know, you’re targeting certain companies and you see that they, have visited your website and spent time on this page and that page, and then they came back two weeks later, you know, things are working and that just will help inform, the outbound side,

[00:24:41] Sam Chlebowski: Are you setting that up through something like Google Analytics or is that its own tool?

[00:24:45] Christian Banach: Its own tool. Lead Feeder and Lead magic are two of the industry leaders. But it’s something completely separate than from a Google Analytics. And it more or less will turn anonymous website visitors into things you can track. It could track the IP address, and using their algorithm’s technology it will know somebody from Pepsi visited our website. And you know then that if you’re targeting Pepsi, you know that you can now do a more pointed outreach. You’re not gonna know the individual that reached out, from Pepsi, but you’re gonna at least know somebody from the team is, and that’ll help inform again, your outreach.

[00:25:20] Sam Chlebowski: Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think it also did like pose that really interesting problem with this new sort of, iteration of marketing tactics and sales strategies, that the third-party cookies kind of dead. Like you used to be able to track everything where they’re coming from.

[00:25:36] Sam Chlebowski: And now, you know, I’ve seen too, just having that first party. Data of seeing how somebody’s moving through your site, seeing what they’re engaging with, can be incredibly insightful for helping make, improvements to a sales process.

[00:25:49] Christian Banach: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:25:50] Sam Chlebowski: When it comes to relationship building how are you kind of crafting a relationship building strategy around that? I know we had talked about [00:26:00] some of that, demand creation, the demand capture.

[00:26:03] Sam Chlebowski: What are some of the things that you’re doing that you’re seeing working well right now to nurture those leads to get them to eventually buy?

[00:26:08] Christian Banach: I’ll answer that in two ways. You know, the first thing that I, I want to say is, we call it providing value. That’s one of the first steps. And, and this, this is related to both sides. it’s understanding first and foremost, like you’re, you know, when you’re reaching out, even in a cold email, like we’re not reaching out saying, Hey, we’d love to get 15 minutes in your calendar to tell you all about our.

[00:26:25] Christian Banach: Service and how great we are and all of that. It’s just such a crowded marketplace. People are becoming blind to those types of messages. So it’s really, again, trying to understand what are the problems that they’re experiencing and what can you do to add value back to them.

[00:26:39] Christian Banach: is that some sort of, thought leadership content that you have that talks about the problem that, they’re experiencing? is it original research? Maybe you’ve done into their industry and you can provide industry insights. Can you do a free audit of some sort for them? are there PR opportunities maybe that you could provide them?

[00:26:54] Christian Banach: Maybe it’s inviting them on a podcast like this, so there’s a lot of different ways, but the idea here is that you’re gonna wanna start that relationship. By giving them something before you try to get something. We call it a “give to get.” So, you’re gonna give them something before you get something back.

[00:27:07] Christian Banach: what you want to get back is ultimately their time, right? You wanna get that 30-minute call, an hour call from them. but think about, what do you have that you can offer value to them upfront so that right off the bat starts that relationship off differently than a typical kind of sales demo type of conversation.

[00:27:25] Christian Banach: And I think from there, once you get that actual first engagement, that first meeting with them, it’s now about understanding their the pain points that they’re experiencing and continuing to nurture them along the way. And what I love about this kind of awareness and demand, you know, creation is that yes, the ideas to try to get ’em into the quote unquote funnel, but much of that same content is also there to nurture them along the way because you may meet with them and they may not be ready to buy.

[00:27:53] Christian Banach: In that moment they might like you and all of that, you know. But doesn’t mean they’re always gonna buy right away. But that same content, if you [00:28:00] continue to serve that up to them, will continue to help them, you know, in their journey. and maybe that’s a month, maybe that’s 18 months, you know, you never really know.

[00:28:08] Christian Banach: But it’s about, you know, having that sort of always on demand creation awareness. And then also, once you’ve met with them, then Providing a level of one-to-one, communication with them as well. being able to listen to what those pain points were, get to know them a little bit and shooting them a one-to-one email about it with an interesting article that you think might be helpful to them or, liking their posts on social media.

[00:28:29] Christian Banach: so there’s a lot of different ways, but again, I think it’s all boils down to having that mentality. You’re not trying to get. A lead. You’re not trying to get a sale, you’re trying to build a relationship. And if you’ve effectively done that, when the timing is right, things will work out.

[00:28:42] Sam Chlebowski: Givers gain. Yeah, it’s a mindset that’s been really impactful to me. not only when it comes to sales and marketing,

[00:28:49] Sam Chlebowski: but I also, I think that there’s things that you can learn from, part of what you just shared when it, comes to things like partnerships as well. Like if you’re approaching a new business with a partnership where you want to co-promote each other’s services or you want to collaborate in some other way,

[00:29:03] Sam Chlebowski: if you can be the one who first offers up.

[00:29:06] Sam Chlebowski: To spend the time to create something for them,

[00:29:09] Sam Chlebowski: to provide something for them, provide that initial value, like you said, it can be a really great jumping off point for, not only sales, but yes, things like marketing things like partnership initiatives, all of these kind of things within your business.

[00:29:22] Sam Chlebowski: So really love the, uh, thought process behind that as well. So, two final questions here, just to wrap up our conversation today. And Christian, once again, so thankful to have you on and sharing your expertise in what’s working, within the businesses that you are helping. I think that this new point of view and the way that you are handling, demand creation, demand capture, and ultimately, helping companies land deals, I think that there’s a lot that can be broken down.

[00:29:50] Sam Chlebowski: To all businesses of all sizes. So thank you again. This was an awesome chat. Two final questions for you. First is a business question, second one is a fun one. If people wanna learn more about you and the work that you are doing, where should they go and find you?

[00:30:06] Christian Banach: Yeah, I would say the best spot would be our website, it’s christianbanach.com. On there we offer a free masterclass. If you want to dive into any of this deeper, you can register there. We also have our own weekly email newsletter where I provide some motivational stories and some other insights into what CMOs are doing and other industry-wide insights.

[00:30:26] Christian Banach: So that would be a great place to start. If you want to connect with me on a personal level, connect with me on LinkedIn. I answer all my own messages. Feel free if you have any questions about anything or just wanna say hi, shoot me a DM there.

[00:30:37] Sam Chlebowski: Love it. And we will put links to all of those things in the show notes of this episode. That will be up on our blog. And finally, for my last question for you before we sign off here, Christian, when you are not working, how do you like to spend your time? What do you like to do?

[00:30:49] Christian Banach: Well, I will say that I am a pickleball addict. I picked up the sport a little less than a year ago now. Started off playing maybe once a month, and then it was once a week and then it was twice a week, and now it’s about three times a week and I’m in tournaments. But it’s been really fun from a athletic standpoint.

[00:31:07] Christian Banach: It’s great to get out there and gets exercise. From a social aspect, I’ve met a lot of new friends and I’ve always been a competitive person, so it kind of scratches that itch as well. So, pickleball is definitely, where I spend a lot of my time.

[00:31:19] Sam Chlebowski: I love it. Pickle ball. I have been hooked now for like three years and it began a similar way for me too, where it would be, you know, we play once a month and then it quickly got to the stage where like, oh, there’s a indoor, pickle ball. Place, 10 minutes down the road we can play all winter.

[00:31:34] Sam Chlebowski: This is great. And that quickly led to, playing, once a week almost. And I am so excited now that it’s finally sunny to be, to start playing outside again. The only thing we have to deal with in Colorado though, is it can be really windy sometimes even in the middle of the summer, which I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to play pickleball when it’s really windy, but it just does not work.

[00:31:56] Sam Chlebowski: Oh, well, Chicago, you probably know all about that, right?

[00:31:58] Christian Banach: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We’ve been [00:32:00] able to get outside a couple times and, it’s been a little challenging. I feel like I’m an amateur sometimes when it’s windy, so I’m actually like, I might like indoor better, believe it or not.

[00:32:09] Sam Chlebowski: I love it. I love it. So cool. Thank you so much again, Christian for coming on and sharing your expertise. Until next time, everybody. My name is Sam Chlebowski, host of the Designing Growth Podcast. If you liked this episode, we would love it if you went ahead and gave us a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. Until next week, everybody. Have fun, good luck, and go crush it. Bye-bye.