Jessica Arent’s Post

Want to know the biggest mistake I see #cannabisindustry operators making? It's not understanding the graphic below 👇 I see it time and again. "We need marketing" followed by "Why aren't they closing sales." Or "Why won't this PR agency guarantee me article placements?" Or "I hired a sales team and it's working for our wholesale business, but not doing a thing for retail" The list of examples could go on for a bit... The reality is: Every. Single. Cannabis. Company. Needs. It. All. They just don't know that. They THINK they need 1 or 2 of them, and then some slick sales person promises them the world. They sign on with a marketing agency expecting sales, or a publicist expecting advertising, or SOMETHING like that. 6 months later the account rep is catching heat for it. The business owner is mad and likely hurting in the pocketbook region. The agency's reputation is damaged. Or... They hire a new CMO and expect them to run a sales team, or they hire a new VP of sales and wonder why the marketing calendar is hurting and all the article pitches keep getting rejected. Or... They hire someone and expect them to do 5 jobs, or they hire an agency and expect the same level of commitment as an employee. Or. Or. Or. Many Scenarios. Same Errors. Every Time. And it's always the operator's fault. ALWAYS. It's their duty to ask the right questions. Here's my three best tips to start you off right: 1.) Clearly explain your goals, and ensure any KPIs align with them. Want more sales? Tie success to that metric alone, and make sure you get a detailed explanation about how each planned activity drives towards that goal. 2.) Agency's scale faster, Internal Teams scale better. Early stage companies need strategy internally and to contract out the work, late stage companies need to contract out the diversity of thought (and occasionally the work). Hire accordingly. 3.) Think holistically. CROs and Rev Ops people get a bad rap for being "just another sales guy" but with some spreadsheets... and that just isn't the case. A good CRO (Even a fractional one, or an agency filling that role) is the glue that holds the front end of a business together. Find one of those and you can ignore the rest of this post. Have any other tips on this topic? Drop them in the comments 👇 Disclaimer: This post is brought to you by a former sales person who got a master's in PR (that he rarely uses) and parades around as a marketer (and somehow people believe it). 🤷♂️ Take it with a grain of salt. 🧂

Approach PR-Marketing, Marketing-Sales, Sales-Customer Success as if you are the customer, because at in the end it’s ALL about the customer or else your just another salesperson. In 2024 and years to come customers will become hyper aware of which brands are authentic and which are just out for quick cash. Yes I just said that, meaning $ shouldn’t be your driving force because if it is, you just built your house upside down.

"We Need More Leads, More Clients! We Need Great Marketing!" But often, the business problem isn’t in the number of clients at all! As usual, I’ll share a colleague's story: The owner is focused on growing new clients. Let’s push harder, friends! We’ll launch a massive advertising campaign and flood the sales department with leads. Said and done. The marketer increases the budget: Traffic is launched, leads are coming in, the sales department is working. After a month: conversion to sales drops by 20%! Along with increased marketing expenses, hiring costs have also gone up. Three weeks later, the Head of Sales resigns. What happened? Marketing in the company was already doing well; new clients were coming in and, most importantly, closing in sales. BUT with the increase in traffic volume, the sales department physically couldn’t handle the influx of leads. The quality of processing started to fall: objections weren’t being handled, communication with clients was mediocre, and the rejection rate increased. And this is just the tip of the iceberg! Managers burn out and... turnover begins: managers leave, and new ones don’t have time to adapt and immerse themselves in the product, leading to poor lead processing and inability to close sales. New managers come in, and the story repeats itself. What do we have as a result? The flow of new clients indeed increased, with new leads coming in constantly, but the company lacks resources for processing them. Due to the large volume of work, employees burn out and leave, and their replacements need time to adapt (which, unfortunately, isn’t available). Turnover increases, and hiring costs rise. Sales targets aren’t met, the Head of Sales’ salary drops, and the Head of Sales leaves. The sales department is left without control. What should have been done to prevent this? Focus on the product, not the traffic! Initially, it would have been enough to increase the average check and the cost of the main product. Even such a simple action would have already brought the company a 5% revenue increase. Prepare the sales department for scaling: build an adaptation system, hire 5-6 more managers, and correctly integrate them into the work process. Gradually increase traffic volume, setting each manager a weekly and daily plan.

Thinking of a fractional CMO simply as a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire can limit their value and impact on your business. I have never met a founder or executive who was looking to limit their success or the impact that someone can have on their business. Let's talk to see how we can optimize this opportunity. https://lnkd.in/gZ-WW7-n #fractionalcmo #fractionalexecutive #fractionalleadership #marketingb2b #saasmarketing #marketingstrategy #marketingsuccess

It’s been 8 months since we went full time with The Playbook Agency Here’s the 8 things I’ve learned since going on this journey and the key takeaways I’d use when doing it again 🟣 Co founder skill set overlap is a challenge Me and Leo Branica are both sales leaders with a lot of overlapping skills. We realised this a bit too late and were often 2 people doing the same job, rather than being effective as 2 individuals 🟣 The product is everything You can spend a lot of time on other aspects of the business, but really your customers will live and die by the quality of your product. There are no shortcuts. 🟣 Do the thing, before you hire for it Hiring can seem sexy and feel like growth. But if you don’t hire with the processes (somewhat) built, you’re asking for trouble. Build clear SOP’s and hire lean. 🟣 Spend time understanding your time cost and delegate accordingly Sit with a spreadsheet and calculate how much each hour costs you (let’s say it’s $50) Then delegate everything that isn’t a $50 dollar task or above 🟣 Branding Helps Sales Cycles Our brand has magnetised people towards us in a way that I didn’t really consider. People trust us, we’re not like the other agencies and don’t claim to be. Spend time on marketing and making yourself “cool” to work with 🟣 Have constructive arguments We argued for about 30 minutes the other day, on moving a task from 4 day delivery to 3 day delivery (it was more a debate) but in the end we got the things we needed to sorted. Nothing happens if you both stay quiet. 🟣 Everyone is more successful LinkedIn, Instagram and so on. Everyone seems to be doing well, it’s easy to get caught up in it and get a bit disheartened It’s rarely the truth, lock in and focus on your business. 🟣 The more you progress, the more devils knock on the door to distract It’s easy to get distracted by the next new product or shiny service you can offer. Or the endless partnership offers etc. Stay focussed, don’t get distracted and only do things that make sense and genuinely progress you, not just feel like progress. ____ My names Abbas Somji👋🏽 and I run what will be the best cold outbound agency in the world ✌🏽

The fact that so many businesses make this catastrophic mistake blows my mind. Please spread the word by tagging someone in your network. Executive leadership: 1. Let's go hire a bunch of salespeople before we hire a head of marketing... 2. Sales is not performing well. Yup. That must be the answer. It's the salespeople we have. We need more salespeople. Customer success to sales: why was the customer told x,y,z? That's not true. Now they are trying to leave. They left. We keep losing customers. Stop telling prospects x,y,z, it's not right. Sales: not admitting it but knowing it's true... they didn't know any better. They didn't have a messaging guidebook from marketing. They are saying whatever they can to get deals to close. They are doing the best they can with the limited resources given to them. A head of marketing comes in oftentimes late in the game. Oftentimes after a lot of customers have left. Oh yeah, and they left a negative Google review on their way out. Marketing to CS and sales: do you guys talk to each other? How are you communicating the brand? Of course, sales is saying one thing and CS is saying another. Customer success, sales, and marketing alignment are crucial. Marketing owns brand. There’s no head of marketing. See the problem? PS. I'm not just saying this because I'm #opentowork for a head of marketing, marketing director, vice president of marketing, or chief marketing officer role. I'm saying this because it's a #FACT.

I agree with the post below by Chris Walker at Passetto and Refine Labs when he mentioned...The person in the seat (CMO) isn’t the problem. The process of how we plan, measure, and optimize our Pipeline Creation process is the real problem. But I'll take it one step further. The real problem is how we plan, measure, optimize our pipeline creation and pipeline acceleration process that is the problem. You have to remember that if "marketing" is hitting their pipeline numbers and sales or the business is not hitting their numbers then marketing is not succeeding. We, marketers, need to impact stage progression, enterprise win rates, deal sizes, ARR/GRR/NRR. We have to impact what the business cares about. As Chris rightfully mentioned in his video and post below...Change how you measure the success of your CMO and magically Marketing strategy changes and the impact of Marketing investments will increase dramatically. 

“Our focus is on new business” Even if you’re near capacity, or you have a banging sales pipeline, new business doesn’t guarantee a bigger margin in your #marketingagency. In the last 5 years supporting marketing agency leaders I’ve seen an out-of-balance focus on new biz. Winning feels great. It’s good for morale, and new revenue is always good, right? Yes, but did you know increasing retention by 5% can increase profit by 25 to 95%?! (Thanks for the stat Jo Rogers) Increasing the commercial capability and confidence of your account management and client services functions simply has to be right up near the top of any agency leader’s agenda Client services have the most face-time with the client, and are best-placed across the whole agency to drive profit with a “hunter-gatherer” mindset and remit New biz and marketing functions at agencies are generally bonused on bringing in new biz Lot’s of agencies don’t bonus client services on retention or margin expansion though, leaving some of their most potentially profit-capturing talent without the impetus and encouragement to proactively grow client relationships Don’t treat organic growth as an after-thought, or just hope that it happens. Your team needs new skills and a new mindset. They need new incentives Too often client services default to acting as a PM with the client I get it, sales gives people the “ick”. Sales is a dirty word Until the job description changes and the skills are put in place, many of your best client services people will stay in their (perceived) lane and just take on what’s in front of them, perhaps even concerned that more briefs means more work and burnout When agencies sell time and list services, burnout is real When agencies codify their work into programs and products where they pre-set the margin and provide pricing options, organic growth can be achieved without the risk of feeling drowned in projects Agency leaders and account services crew: YES / NO?.... do you / are you incentivised to grow accounts?

I know you believe in your product(s) and services. You’ve worked incredibly hard to get them to the level that you’ve always known was possible. Congrats! That is no small task. So many Founders reach a time when they look up from being deep in the building phase and realize they haven’t given enough thought to their Go-To-Market strategy. Of course, sales and marketing efforts are required to attract and onboard new customers. That’s a “given”. But just hiring sales and marketing roles, letting them loose, and giving them quotas is not how you will succeed in going to market. To my surprise at times, this is most certainly NOT a “given”. B2B prospects won’t positively respond to your marketing or outreach campaigns (at scale, that is… you’ll get lucky the odd time if you play “the numbers game”) unless you’ve put in the groundwork to solidify your go-to-market strategy with: ⚫ a high-quality website, ⚫ consistent content that brings them value, and  ⚫ a growing Founder-led social media presence to control the narrative and build brand credibility… I can’t stress how important this is. The first thing a prospect will do after seeing your outreach message, or becoming intrigued by an advertisement is do some digging to see if you’re the real deal. Do you understand their needs? Can you address their needs?  Can they trust that their investment in you will pay off? Yes? Prove it. Because you don’t have long until they come to their own conclusion about you and find someone else that instills more confidence.

5 thoughts about recognizing when your B2B business should hire me. There are some very recognizable factors that can indicate it's time for us to meet. === No. 1 - You’re hiring more people - especially sales people. When you begin to increase your employee headcount - especially the sales team - it’s often time to recalibrate the brand message and rebuild the sales presentation. I provide the strategy and the language you need to succeed. === No. 2 - You’ve handed the reins to the next generation. When you hand over management to the next generation - children, grandchildren, trusted outsiders who have been part of the team - it’s often time to revisit the way the brand is described. I am the outside voice that expresses your marketing messages for the new generation. === No. 3 - You acquired a new business or new people. When you acquire a new business or a new team it’s time to revisit your brand messages to include the new capabilities and abilities they bring to your customers. I show your customers why your acquisition and expansion makes sense for them. === No. 4 - You introduced a new product, service or location. New products, services and locations must be shared with your customers with the same excitement and confidence you had when you launched the business. I launch and expand brands so customers take notice (and competitors take cover). === No. 5 - You hired a ‘New Sheriff’ When you hire a new CEO, CRO, CMO or President, it’s time to let your “New Sheriff” share their thought leadership and let the industry know they mean business. I build thought leadership content that grabs industry attention. === Are You Ready? Hire a brand strategist and storyteller who gets your business. Work with someone who understands what you need to accomplish without wasting time and resources on the latest shiny marketing objects. I create and support the brand building activities you need to grow. === Let's meet. Get a free consulting call to see if we’re a fit. https://lnkd.in/eJ2J8iCt #marketing #branding #brandmarketing #brandstorytelling #brandtelling