In this episode of Missing Half, Bill sits down with Greg Mischio to explore how manufacturers can fast-track their marketing transformation. They dive into the challenges of transitioning from traditional sales-led models to a digital-first approach, discuss Greg's innovative "Digital Twin" concept, and offer actionable steps to align sales and marketing for growth. This conversation is essential for B2B companies looking to modernize their marketing and drive revenue.

Greg Mischio is the founder of Winbound, a digital marketing agency specializing in helping small to mid-size manufacturers and B2B companies create and implement effective content marketing strategies.

Bill: So Greg, whenever we look at sales led organizations that maybe haven't really engaged digital marketing and haven't really gone through that digital transformation, I mean, what do you see, what are you seeing out there and what is your recommendation for sales led organizations and how they can kind of transition or start to flirt with, or maybe even have a great relationship with the digital marketing space?

Greg: So up to 60 to 70% of the customer journey is taking place without a meaningful interaction with the sales team. And for sales, it's all occurring in what we call the digital territory, right? So sales organizations have these territories and they're thinking geographically, but now they have to think in a different realm, the digital realm, because that's where prospects are. And so, it's more of a mindset, like, not only how are you going to get there with digital, but how are you going to create a sales presence out there as well? Not just being informational, but actually how do you sell in the digital space with your marketing? And in the process of doing this, you're going to be aligning and integrating your sales and marketing.

Bumper

Bill: Thank you for joining the Missing Half podcast where we're discovering what's missing in manufacturing and B2B marketing. I have very special guest today. I've been trying to get on the show for a while. Greg Mischio from Winbound. Greg, how are you doing today?

Greg: Great, how are you Bill?

Bill: Great, great. So Greg, I want to jump right into where your journey started. I think it's very fascinating to see where professional marketers and experts, how they get started. And one of the things I've found very compelling recently is some of the most effective and best marketers did not start traditionally. But maybe started similar to what you did in the career you started with. So I'd like you to maybe talk about that since we're living in a content centric world and a storytelling centric moment in marketing and how your early career maybe fed into that.

Greg: Yeah, I guess I, I'm personally like my skill set. I always wanted to be a writer when I was like a little kid, I was writing comic books and did a lot of writing in college and was a journalism major and actually got into the advertising and became, you know, copywriting. I really wanted to be the kind of a Don Draper type figure. Eventually I did work in some ad agencies, but one of my initial jobs was working in the marketing department for mass transit system. If we go way back here in Madison, Wisconsin. I eventually took a job though. A friend of mine was running a mortgage company and he said, Hey, come on board. You can be the marketing director. It's all you. And I, young, ambitious, like, yeah, I want to, I can take that on knew nothing about mortgages and started working there. And I think what was really, and the reason why I'm talking about this particular job was it was a company that was totally sales-driven. So I got into it and the marketing guy, and that's how I was referred to as the marketing guy. And everybody thought I was just there to make a nice logo. And I'm like, and they had no respect for me, you know, because I wasn't generating revenue. And, and so I got, I'm like, I got to get down in the trenches with these guys. So I went in at night. I like cold called with them. The sales director was famous for like taping guys hands to the telephone. These are back in the telemarketing days. And, then I like helped them develop their lead database. Like back, it was like running on access, you know, back in the day. And so I really, that just, I don't know why that just impressed upon me that, you know, these salespeople are the lifeblood of this company and my job at marketing, as marketing is to help them sell and make this, make them sell. And that's my role. We are here to sell and marketing isn't just about pretty pictures and nice logos. We have to get people, I have to make that phone ring. And that, so that was kind of my first job. And then I went on and worked, as I said, niche down, I did some copywriting for years, went on my own for, just to do some freelance copywriting. And then it kind of got into content marketing and realized, hey, you know, in the digital age now, we just need to content consistently. I had a lot of writer friends who were looking for work. So naively I'm like, oh I'll have an agency. And so started an agency and then realized, I need to do really learn marketing. So really started to learn SEO and paid advertising and distribution, and then getting into the business end of things and all that. So here I am. Winbound has been around for 10 years and that's the story.

Bill: Well congratulations on 10 years. That's great. I think when we look at people like David Ogilvie and some of the founding fathers of advertising and marketing, it's coming full circle because copy is so critical. When I think about some of the studies and the books I've read and about how critical copy was and how critical headlines and the hooks. Oh wait, that's exactly what we talk about today, right? Because social media has gone back to that being so important and video and activation. I just think that copywriting specifically, the ability to tell a story, it is something that is increasing in value in our marketplace. I know that, you know, we all know that we can use chat, GPT and all these AI tools to generate a lot of stuff really quickly. But that still doesn't address the issues and the need for tremendous copy that activates markets and activates people.

Greg: I agree.

Bill: Well, Greg, one of the things you and I both focus a lot on the manufacturing and the B2B space. Our agencies both really look at that space and try to provide a lot of value. You've been doing this for 10 years. I've been doing this for a while. Whenever you look at manufacturers and modern marketing, like what do you see is the current state of marketing with manufacturers? Because it always seems like we're, as an industry, we're always a little bit behind, we're a little bit lagging. What are you seeing out there and what are your thoughts on where marketing stands for manufacturers today?

Greg: I think yes, manufacturing is always lagged. And I think it's probably due to the nature of the products and the services. They're a lot more technical in nature. So it's always been very convenient for manufacturers to hire somebody who's an engineer or a technician who has great communication skills, interpersonal communication skills and say, Hey, you're personable. Tell you what, we're going to make you the sales director and here's an expense account. Go to the trade show, take somebody out to the golf course and away you go because you can speak knowledgeably about the products and the marketing person is just there to get the trade show booth up and make the nice logo. I think that that still holds true and that still works and we still need these really knowledgeable salespeople and engineers and technicians who can communicate effectively. But now the need is, as I mentioned before, the need to get into the digital space as more and more of the customer journey takes place online is more and more important. So I think all manufacturers are kind of waking up to this, that the old model, the old ways, aren't working quite as well as they used to and they need to try a different channel. They need to try something else. And I think it's like any industry, there's going to be some laggards. There's going to be some smaller companies who just don't have the budget and don't think it's necessary. And then there's people who are going to invest and push ahead. So there's some manufacturers out there doing just some incredible work and, you know, are keeping up with other industries. But I think that, I think just the nature of the technical products and sometimes how difficult it could be to tell the story and get it out there. Maybe it's held some people back and maybe, you know, why if the old ways were working and you were getting all your business from the trade show, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, that kind of thing.

Bill: When you look at where we are today and we look at the speed at which we can take a manufacturer from, say a very low digital marketing adoption to high digital marketing adoption in a 12 month period, it seems to me that it has never been more available for those companies, manufacturers or B2B companies that have not invested in marketing, who are way behind their competitors, are way like just haven't even participated at all. It seems to me that we can rapidly bring these companies up to a fairly high level of competency rapidly. Whereas let's say five years ago, that was not the case and it was just too big of a lift. Do you agree with that or what are you seeing in the market?

Greg: I think absolutely the ability to publish on any of these social media platforms and just on your own website, everyone has access. And the tools have gotten a lot better, maybe even the last five years, the ability to produce video and anything, graphics, everything is much easier to produce in terms of the content. Now it's just a matter of will, and accessibility and commitment to it. But absolutely, there's just, I mean, you can get in front of people immediately with advertising. Advertising alone can get you out there and get you seen. And that's something all manufacturers should be able to relate to going back to the Yellow Pages days. I mean, you need to get out, you can get out there quickly and build your presence. In terms of establishing your brand on an organic level and social media, yeah, that's going to take some time. It's going to take some efforts and creativity, but like you said, you can get out there immediately and start to get in front of your audience tomorrow. it's just a matter of, you know, again, resources and, getting an investment mindset that you are building for the future.

Bill: I love that because I think if we could get more companies to understand that they don't need a half a million dollars a year, that they just need to be disciplined and in like kind of like value investing. They just need to invest a little bit of time and a little bit of money every month. And they would be shocked at how at the end of 12 months, at the end of 24 months, they could go from like archaic dinosaur to, I'm not going to say they're going to be the industry leader because there's probably going to be some Fortune 500 funded company or some company that's way, way out there, right? That is an aspirational brand, but you could become a challenger brand. But you could become someone who's showing up and well respected in your industry as having this as a core competency with just a little bit of time, energy, and effort. And I think sometimes, and I talk to CEOs and CMOs and folks in these companies all the time. And I think they've built this David and Goliath scenario that they can't overcome that giant. And the other thing I like to tell them is they don't need to beat the giant. They just need to go get what they need to get to hit their goals. So like they don't have to overcome the industry leader. Just, we need to grow at 12%. Well, then let's go grow at 12%. We don't need to go from 60 million to 2 billion because that's not who we are. And I think sometimes we create these false barriers. I love that idea of, you know, it's a little bit of investing consistently and man, you'll be amazed at the change before you know it.

Greg: You know, the thing too about social media is or just anything online, we look at our friends, their posts on social media, just for an example, or we look at our competitors, we're like, wow, look at those guys are out there. They're doing great. And, you know, they're just real people and real companies just like everybody else and they've got their struggles. And yeah, that is true. So, I mean, if you get out there, that's half the battle is just getting out there being seen and let those people who are watching it, let their imaginations work and let them build their own story and under kind of figure out your legend. And I think that you're not allowing people's imagination to work there with some of that imagery. So I think that's a big part of it. And what's the other thing is, when is the best time to start digital marketing? Well, it was probably 20 years ago, but when is the second best time is like right now. It's that's the, that old plant. When's the best time to plant a tree analogy. Same thing applies to digital marketing. 

Bill: Whenever, so let's stay on the same thread, Greg, if we can, when we're thinking about companies and they're thinking about budgeting and they're also thinking about staffing, right? Because you and I have both had successful relationships with clients and suboptimal relationships with clients based on the type of staffing they bring to market. Because it's one thing to come with a budget. It's also another thing to commit resources as far as some people time to make sure they're supporting the initiative. And what we're seeing in the market is often, we like to call it a hybrid approach where we're a big arm of getting things done, providing strategy, planning, execution, but we need a person, at least at that company who has anywhere from 10 to 20 hours a week to dedicate in support of the effort. So they're chasing stuff around. Like that's the hybrid model we really find we get outsized results at whereas the like some of the worst relationships we've had is where we're working directly with someone in the C suite. And it's not because they aren't amazing. It's not because they're not smart. It's because they've got 90,000 other things they have to do every day. And you know, you get the emails from them from seven to nine o'clock at night because you were the last thing they thought about that day. I know I've been rambling here a little bit, but can you maybe talk about the constructs of what you've seen as far as successful engagements with insourcing, outsourcing, and that hybrid model with your clients?

Greg: Yeah, we, we might be gluttonous for punishment, but we work a lot with those, sales led manufacturers who maybe don't even have a marketing department, but they know they've got to get there and they have a sales leader at least. And, it's kind of a hybrid approach, as well. And some of our clients do have, like you said, the one marketing person. I think the best scenario to me is the, where you've got the agency, the hybrid approach, you're working with an agency or a specialist. And then you've got either, you've got to have one point person on it. Yeah, having a CEO trying to do this will not work. A sales and marketing leader and or sales and marketing leader and a marketing specialist or coordinator. That's a good basis to work with some outsource specialists. But the idea is that the outsource specialist is very good at like, you we know digital marketing, you guys know digital marketing. We understand how it works. We understand how it works for manufacturers and what's the best way to do it. The manufacturer and the sales and marketing person, they know their business and that's what they should be spending their time on. They should be spending their time on what's their product. How to price it, what's their marketplace, getting to know their customer. They should know their business inside and out and be able to focus strategically on those really critical, important parts. What are the challenges? What are their differentiators? And then give that, serve that up to us. That's gold if you've got that well-defined. And then we can help you take it to the next level to really validate a lot of the findings that you may have created internally. Our job is to tell that story then. And the last thing I think I would add into this is on the marketing side, now more than ever, you mentioned the strategist, that's huge. I mean, that's to be able to put all the marketing pieces, digital marketing pieces together with strategies, really a big thing. But the day of the generalist just being able to do all this, that's kind of come and gone. Like I was talking to a potential client the other day and they're like, we were gonna do like two or three aspects of the marketing plan for them. I think it was the advertising and the SEO. And for our costs, they're like, well, that's what I would cost me to hire an entry level person. And of course, the first thing I did was to say, well, first of all, no entry level person is gonna be able to do SEO and digital advertising at a high level. And even if they did, what you think of as entry level costs are way low. And I sent them like the comparison to what they actually are. And I said, and by the way, you're gonna need a senior level person, senior level expertise to really make this work.

Bill: Sure.

Greg: And so I think that kind of fractional specialists that you get in the digital marketing side, that's where that hybrid model really works out because no, might not need a senior level SEO or ad specialist 40 hours a week, but I might need that chunk that I can't hire internally without spending 90 to 120 grand a year for that position.

Bill: Greg, I couldn't agree more. And I think there's a couple really important points you made there. Number one, if any company thinks they're going to hire an entry level person who's relatively new out of school or maybe four to five years of experience, that's going to come in and execute at the level of companies that have, multiple, agencies have multiple people that do this across hundreds of clients that have been doing it for years and have time for R&D, have time to test, fail, optimize, fix, know, do all that stuff. It's not going to happen. And what you're really paying there is probably six months of education before any ground is made up. So this is kind of in that budgeting conversation. When, when we talk to potential clients and they start looking at that, they're like, wow, for that, could hire two people. Sure. We might have anywhere from 20 to 25 different people touch that project over the course of 12 months that are each going to do their own little bit and monitor and optimize and improve their little bits as opposed to one person who, let's be honest, that person is going to get bogged down with the day-to-day and the internal meetings and the just the way life goes. We all get it. We've all lived it. You and I have very similar early career experiences where we were the marketing guy, the marketing manager who, you just got dumped on. So at best that person will have half of their time to really focus on one thing. And in your scenario, could they potentially over the course of three to four years develop a competency and SEO that could mimic what you can deliver in the first 30 days? Probably. Right. But you start adding that up. That's a lot of money. Worse, the opportunity costs, all that business you lost for those three or four years to get them there, right? So I completely agree with what you're saying. And I think we're starting to see companies wise up to the fact that you can't just go hire the marketing person or the marketing kid. And they're just going to figure it all out because it's unfair to those young people and early market entrance, whatever their ages, and it's unfair for the company to expect that from them.

Greg: And at the point where they've reached that level of mastery and knowledge of the SEO or the advertising, where finally all the training and the time you've put in, that's exactly when they're going to leave your company and go to a better paying job that you really can't afford to pay. And, you know, then what are you going to do? You got to start all over again. And it's right back into the cycle.

Bill: One of the things we see that occurs with that type of model where you're hiring the marketing person and not giving them support from an agency team or from fractional specialists is there, when we do analysis for companies, we see so many starts and stops. Oh yeah, three years ago, we spent like six months really working on how to do video, but then we tried it and the first video was terrible and we blew the budget on one shoot and we didn't get a lot of videos out of it. So then it was kind of, you know, nobody wanted to touch it because it was a really sore subject. So it's going to be a couple of years till we can address that again. And those starts and stops also, one, they're expensive. Two, they demoralize the marketing team because they weren't successful in delivering an initiative. And then three, it erodes confidence from the other stakeholders at the company. The salespeople aren't confident in marketing anymore because they just waste money, start stuff and don't finish it. Ownership or C-suite or whoever is investors, the board, whoever are like, yeah, we didn't get anything from that. We don't believe in marketing anymore. So it's, the damage that is done with this type of model is far reaching and lives almost in perpetuity until there's some big sea change and then they realize the new life they can live.

Greg: Agreed, 100%. So much time is spent in that inertia, the waiting to start, waiting to get going. And it's like, you've got to get out there and you've got to stay out there. I've always felt like some of the best results over the long haul for us has just been consistency, just showing up. Yeah, maybe it wasn't the greatest effort, but we were there and we were building on that and learning from that and getting in that mindset of continuous improvement and iterating off of that and adapting and making it better. And those starts and stops, you're not going to get to that kind of continuous, agile state of growth.

Bill: One of the other things you mentioned, and I think it's also so very important that the hybrid model brings to companies is strategy. And we can all go to ChatGPT now and type in, develop a marketing plan for my company. And we can all sit around and convince ourselves internally at our company that this is the best way to go to market. The reality is it takes companies like yours, companies like ours, other agencies, other professionals who have access to all the research, have access to all the tools, but then go out and test these ideas on a continuous basis showing up, right? Every day in the market in on LinkedIn, on YouTube with industrial or manufacturing websites, thousands of pages in the market that are showing up every day and then seeing what happens with that work that then allows us to craft strategic plans for other companies really quickly that allow us to design tests that can fail fast, that we can then optimize and then move forward more quickly. I feel like that strategic and this may be something that like one of the things I've thought of as I mature in years is wondering if, is digital going to pass me by? Am I just not going to be able to keep up because it's a young person's game? Well, maybe the newest techniques and the newest platform is more natural to those who are earlier in their careers. But perspective and understanding of the way companies and markets and marketing moves together and can work harmoniously is something that I don't even think AI is going to be able to figure out. Like you have to be able to see it. You have to be able to touch it. You have to be able to research it and then deliver plans. Greg, what do you see in the market around that strategic offering that your team can offer that our team can offer in the manufacturing and industrial space?

Greg: Boy, I think that first of all, I'm big on a company really having a framework and a proven framework that they use for marketing in terms of the strategic approach that they take. That's really important, I think, just to have a methodology. There was a basketball coach here at UW Madison, I'm in Madison, Wisconsin named Bo Ryan. And he, he was a great coach here and he did the same thing every practice. He had the same practice and he had the same system and he stayed with that his entire career and he won like 70% of his games. That kind of proven approach, I think that speaks a lot in terms of strategy and what will work with the company that you're working with. Do they have a kind of strategic framework that they follow and that is proven, proven to be effective? In terms of a marketing strategy and what's going to be the most effective, a lot of it is just, it's taking your best guess. And in terms of like, what's the customer's pain points, identifying that as fast as you can. I'll get into that in a little bit with the kind of our digital twin framework and then, you know, finding out what insights get them to take action and then offering them kind of the trustworthy content and the offer to get them to move. I try not to complicate it too much. It's like kind of bringing those things to the market and then finding as fast as you can what actually works and what gets somebody to buy.

Bill: So I love the way you frame that. And Greg, one of the things I think we should also differentiate between, we've been focusing a lot on those late market entrants, those who are late to the digital game. But we also, I know your organization, our organization, they both can help clients who are a little more mature because we can also pinpoint, maybe they don't need a holistic transformation, but maybe they need a second look. And you know, often what we find is that they have not defined the pain points. They really don't understand them or their offer is like, let's attract content and then try and sell them a $20 million something as like, you know, we're not going to like try a pickup line. We're not going to go out for drinks or a first date. We're going right to the altar, marriage, kids, mortgage, the SUV. It's like, let's get it all. Right. Like, what are we doing with our 401k and IRAs? Like it's that. And those, that's not the way it works. You may get lucky and find that, you know, love at first sight and happily ever after, but that's not predictable or scalable. So that's not what we focus on. But do you also see your ability and your team's ability to go in there and how you're able to find and fine tune organizations that have been on that journey for a little bit of time?

Greg: Yeah, think it's really, boy, how have some of these manufacturers grown? I look at some of these companies and they're big. They're multimillion dollar companies and they've done it on the backs of individual salespeople going out there and hitting the streets and making it personal contact. I mean, that's how I started Winbound and grew Winbound was just hustling and making contacts. But you can't scale like that. And it's much harder to just take that approach in today's digital world. So working with a strategist can help you kind of take that tribal knowledge and communicate it and put it in a a format and communicate it through digital to get to your target market. And I think both that channeling of what works and just keeping you focused. I mean, half the things that we do, I swear, are just getting people focused on what to do next to take action. I mean, hey, we all need it. I mean, I've got coaches telling me, helping me focus too. It's just you're getting your own head and your own space and you need somebody from the outside to steer you sometimes.

Bill: Absolutely. I think so when we look at building companies on the back of salespeople, that was the model for a long time and that has lived. And as long as your competitors were also doing that, I think it was equal. Right. So then you weren't being left behind because you didn't have that digital marketing. You didn't have that other way of activating the market. And Greg, one of the things I've been really excited to talk to you about and I'm glad we're going get into it now is when we think about moving from on the backs of salespeople to having some type of scalable, repeatable model that's in digital marketing that will help sales led organizations. You guys have come up with this digital twin concept to really address that pain point, right? That need in the marketplace. Could you tell us about the digital twin and why you came up with it, how you've developed it, and what results you're seeing from that approach to helping your clients?

Greg: Yeah, I've told this story so many times. Whenever I'm in the car with my wife and maybe I get a sales call, she just starts to roll her eyes because she's heard it so many times. But basically when we really started to focus on manufacturers, as we did more of our research and we found out a lot of what we've been talking about that the manufacturers are these sales led organizations. And I was trying to figure out, you know, how do I meet these manufacturers halfway because most of them are just didn't understand at all how digital worked or what we're doing. You know, once, if you start talking to a marketing person, usually the buzzwords, you know, they'll pester you and, you know, hit you with marketing buzzwords galore and your eyes roll back in your head. So I'm trying to figure out how to reach these people. And I was at a presentation. It was a manufacturer was talking about the digital twin that they produce now a digital twin in the manufacturing space, as you know, is a digital recreation of a product or a process and it's used for prototyping, testing materials, things like that. It's digital. And so when I heard that concept, I was like, man, you know what? Manufacturers need, they've got these sales led teams, sales led organizations, they need to make a digital twin of their sales person. And that digital twin needs to take the form of content. Now we had to be careful with this because manufacturers are traditionally engineers and technicians and they're very literal people. So when we said you need a digital twin of your salesperson, they're like, I'm gonna go make a digital recreation at Cliff. Is that what you're saying? I'm like, no. It's kind of more like think of it more of a conceptual, think of your content in the aggregate making a digital twin. So your blogs, your videos, all that content you can make is a representation of your sales team out in the digital space. So that all sounded great. I was like, I was all proud of myself, pat myself on the back. And then I'm like, wait a second, I'm going to make a digital twin of the sales team. I have to know how to sell. And I remembered my days, know, cold, know, telemarketing, getting my hand taped to the phone and I wasn't very good at it. So I started to do a ton of research, read a lot about neuro selling, read about the challenger sale. And I realized that a lot of these techniques could really be integrated into our marketing approach and our content. And eventually we came to the conclusion, why don't we just structure the content like a salesperson would in how they engage with a person? And we we just lean back or just relied on the most time-honored sales formula. People will only do business with you if they know you like you and trust you. Knowing that, we said, we're going to create content for each one of those stages. Okay, so in the know you stage, what kind of content would really get people's attention? Well, the piece that we really settled on was pain. What pain point are you solving? You've got to lead with that because if you go to a party and you just talk about yourself, nobody's going to become friends with you. But if you go to a party and you're empathetic and you're listening to people and you start talking about what their problems are, they're going to, they'll like you and they'll get to know you. The next piece was the like you content. Okay. So if I'm talking to that person at the party and they know me now, and cause they're, we're making this connection. And I hear about their problem. What if I give them some sort of insight on how they can improve it or solve the problem or do their business better? And that's challenger sale right there. People who, if you have to prove to somebody a better way of doing their business, you have to give them an insight and you have to really know their business as well as they know themselves. So we integrated that insight into the like you. So know you pain, points, neuro selling right up there, get that emotional connection. Like you, insights, challenger sale, get them, share them something that can improve their business. And then the trust you is boy, that's all the social proof and the case studies and the things that can really show you know how to walk the walk and a great offer that really shows that you have a product that can solve their problem and you know their problems. So really that trust you content, you we love doing case studies. Love, if you make a marketing claim on your website, you better have data to pack it, back it up, social proof reviews, all that kind of stuff. So then once you get all the content out there, that's like your pitch from your salesperson. Now he's got to go prospecting. He's got to get that, he or she's got to get that message out. And so then we use marketing channels to do that digital marketing, that's breaking down into paid and organic. Paid being advertising. It can be social media ads, Google ads, search ads, things like that. Organic can be social media posting, as well as organic, it can be YouTube videos, things like that. And then also organic search engine optimization. So that's kind of it. That's kind of the nutshell, the content and the marketing, all the digital twin of your sales team and getting them out into the digital territory.

Bill: Greg, I think that's great. And a couple of comments. Know you like you trust you. I love that because that actually challenges me to simplify the way we communicate what we do because I think sometimes I get too complicated. Right. I try to dive down the weeds. I think that's amazing. And I know that there's a lot of detail behind what you have there. Right. But it's just making a very simple, straightforward presentation. The other thing I like about what you've just said there and this goes back to our earlier conversation. Right. So let's let you and I let the rubber meet the road. You have a framework so that whenever you go to market, you can start to test and analyze where each company is on that journey in that framework. Because correct me if I'm wrong, when we go through our model, which is similar to yours, but we have different words for it and different communication, we often get companies to a point, and this is what the Missing Half podcast is about, find what's missing in manufacturing and B2B marketing. We generally, as we're going through that journey with a client, we'll find that one area, like maybe it's the offer, or maybe it's the know you. It's not the whole thing is broken. It's that there's one area that really needs maybe a 50% improvement and everything else needs a five to 7% tweaking. And then you get the momentum. Then you build the results you're trying to achieve. Do you see that? And is that also going back to what we said, that's the value of the framework? That allows us to figure those things out.

Greg: Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of the problem I find is that bottom offer, end of the, you somebody could have problems all along. There's no doubt about that, but two things really, the offer at the end, like really making something that, you know, people would be foolish not to take advantage of. And you might have to kind of change your thinking a little, and we're really trying to work with manufacturers and figure out ways to do this in unique ways that might be a little bit different than just request a quote. You know, can you come up with something a little bit different and to get that ball rolling, to get that engagement started. It’s like, you know, that's a huge part of it. And I think the thing about the framework is you get to move much faster in more of a sequential way. Let me give an example. When we start out with the know you content, we do a very high level set of ads, just focused on the pain points and usually they're just text only ads. And we want to see what people are responding to. We’re not looking for, we're not looking for deals out of this, but once we know that, and once we see that, that tells us what kind of insights we can produce around that and what kind of content would be good. What's their main problem? That tells you what kind of content you want to build off of that. You're not spending a ton of time just shooting darts at what people might look at. You're using the digital tools to get responses and then learn from that and build off of there.

Bill: Well, and Greg, I think this this topic of offers is so important because it's kind of like Fiddler on the Roof. I feel like manufacturing is stuck in that construct where we're looking for marriages that were arranged when we were children, right? That was part of the premise of Fiddler on the Roof, right? And all the problems that the main character had with all of his daughters not really wanting to be involved in that pre-arranged marriage situation. Well, we have moved out of that era. We are not incumbents who are going to supply in industries forever as manufacturers. There are market entrants, new challengers, new competitors, whether they're domestic, foreign, like it's a very dynamic global marketplace. And we have to be able to meet people in a new way and have an offer that isn't having the elders of the village betroth us to someone for centuries to come. So we need those smaller movements, right? And probably not as casual as some of the social media relationship making that is a pandemic in our society today for the younger people. But we need something in between that is reasonable offer for that next step forward. I couldn't agree more that that is one of the biggest things that's missing in manufacturing and B2B marketing is a successful small step, next step offer that moves the viewer into that marketing qualified lead space. Instead, it's we have great customer service. We've been doing this for a long time. Please submit your RFQ for multiple millions of dollars over many years. And we'll get back to you with that price and hopefully sign it on Friday. It doesn't work like that.

Greg: No, it doesn't. It doesn't. And it's going to be painful to get to that point to figure out what does work and you're going to fail. And you know, we're working with a client right now. We thought we had a slam dunk offer out there and, you know, it's just not converting. And so it's like, okay, you know what? Back to the drawing board. Let's try it again. And yeah, you failed, but you know what? You failed forward. You've got some insight and data now on how to do this better. Your competitors don't, you know? One of my business coaches always told me, it's like, are you gambling or are you investing? And if you view your advertising as a gamble, you're gonna do what you were talking about with that company who tried the video. It didn't work well, onto the next thing. You know, I rolled the dice, didn't happen. Or are you investing? Are you experimenting? Are you trying, failing, and then learning from that and improving?

Bill: No, I couldn't agree more with that. I mean, the ability to test and find that offer that works is magic, but you don't just happen upon them. You have to try different things because each market is different. You have to find the pain point. You have to find the trigger. You have to look at the buyer persona and then their buyer journey and what activates them. But whenever you can find that alignment, it is almost like magic because it's like a new world you live in with the leads that come in and not only MQLs but SQLs that immediately turn into good quotes and hopefully they're high, you know, a high enough percentage of wins, which you and I can't control the sales team and the pricing and all those folks have to deal with that, but that we at least have to get them there. So, no, I love that. And this digital twin model, I think that makes just a lot of sense. The framework. Whenever you, if you were going to give a couple of quick tips to any manufacturers or B2B companies like, I want to get started in digital marketing. I need to like go from zero to something is what would you recommend or maybe a couple of quick wins, first steps to at least get the moving in the right direction?

Greg: I really, I believe that I really am a big proponent of getting that strategy out there, getting some sort of strategy scoped out, like who are we going to try and reach? What kind of messaging are we going to put out there? You know, take our framework if you want, take your framework, you know, find somebody who’s out there and got a frame. If you're trying to do this yourself. Find a framework and then start to execute, follow it through and just start working on it. But I think strategy first, don't rush to get on social media, for example, just to be on social media. Everybody will probably tell you that. Don't make a beeline right to execution. You might fail no matter what, even if you do the strategy, but at least you've kind of got a framework in line where you, you know, for example, on the pain points, you're trying to find that pain point. None of those worked. Well, okay. Then let's go back to the customer and figure out and talk to them directly and see what's really motivating them. And then let's get some content out there and see if that gets a reaction. Hey, we now know we can get in front of our customers. They are responding to what we say. Oh, okay. Now what? How? What can we say to show them the problems, how we solve the problems? Let's experiment that, let's find that. And then like you said, what's the offer? What's gonna get them in and close the deal? And it's like a sales process that any salesperson does. I mean, it's like follow the same process. Know you like you, trust you. It's pretty simple format. And yeah, I'm pretty simple guy. so that's why I don't, I get confused very easily. So that's why I try and do things like stick to simple things like that.

Bill: Well I understand it, so I'm a simple guy too, so that we're we're meeting in the middle. But one of the things you said there and I think it's so important is if we invest in some strategy to get started, we move from gambling to investing. Because it's not just like taking $100 bills and throwing them down on the blackjack table and hoping. It's, we're trying some things and whether we fail or whether they're super successful. We're at least moving the right direction. And it's that value investing of showing up every day of, of putting some time, resources and money into investing in a better marketing future. And I think that absolutely makes sense. We've, we've gotten to the point now, Greg, where we're offering strategy as a service, as a standalone. And I know you guys do something similar where it's like, okay, if you want us to do your strategy, and then you want to execute it, whatever, but at least get a professional that this is what they do to come in and take a hard look at it and give us a framework and give us some ideas. Because I hear what you're saying about some, some companies say, okay, I'm going to go find a framework and execute it myself. That's great. And I think there's a certain percentage of the market that's always going to be that DIY and self-sourcing. And that's fine. What we've found is that generally less than 10% of the market is able to do that successfully. So we really see that there's so much more space out there for agencies like ours and yours and professionals to really engage in this hybrid model to be able to support these companies and help them move forward. I want to change gears here because we are associates or friends or connections, whatever we want to call ourselves on LinkedIn. And I've really appreciated recently that you've been, using more comic content, more memes and that type of thing. And I'm like, man, I want to do that. Cause it's amazing. Like some of the, funny posts you've made, what could you just talk to us about that journey? What led you to do that? What your, maybe your muse is and what you're seeing is a response to using humor, memes, and maybe some contemporary culture in, dare I say it, a business platform to activate the market?

Greg: Well, you're on a social media platform first and foremost that is happens to be a business platform, but it's just conducive to humor and a lot of people, there's a lot of funny things that get put up on LinkedIn and these memes, you know, always kill. You know, this was not, I'm one of the great, marketing strategy thieves of all time. I read, my superpower is that I scour other marketers' newsletters and find out what they're doing and then try it and make it fit into our formula. But I remember seeing the CXL newsletter, which is really good. There was a comment about building your LinkedIn page, company page. And I sent an email to the guy who wrote it and I'm like, okay, just give me the number one tip. What will build your company page and get you seen? Just one word reply, memes. So we started just, you know, doing some memes and they're fun and easy and there's meme makers out there. But then I started kind of taking those and then pairing them with some in-depth writing on the post. And then we started using them as thought leadership ads on LinkedIn and they really started to perform. And our clients are all kind of like, I don't know about that. And I'm like, well, do you want clicks or not? So there's ways you can do it to just get on people's radar. A lot of, we're talking about pain points too. It adds a little levity to the situation. There's, I think I did one where it's like, I think it was Keanu Reeves and the caption said, dude, where, you said there would be leads. That one just like took off and people loved it. And you can just do fun stuff like that. And I think, I think what I like about it, just being the copywriter and remembering the days when one plus one equals three, when you do a great headline with a great visual produces, you know, combined for this effect. It's kind of a throwback to that and like kind of gets back to what you said at the beginning about copywriter and the writing in doing that approach. It really makes it fun. And it's kind of like what I got into the ad world for and the marketing and, you know, so, you know, are we becoming digital Don Draper as well? I sure hope so, because it's fun to do.

Bill: Sure, no, that's great. I love it. And I have some folks working on trying to bring some humor to my life in the social media space. Someone on the team suggested that we do, they call it a Gen Z edit of all of the clips of me making mistakes, making videos and the outtakes and stuff like that. Yeah, the team seems very excited to increase our engagement and performance on social media at my expense. They said they're all for it. And so I just said, well, how about we start turning the camera around to some of you and you make a fool of yourselves that that that idea was not ranked high in the prioritization of things to do for some reason, I don't understand. But yeah, I think I've read some studies, humor, animals, and comedy are the three most engaging things on LinkedIn. So I don't understand the difference between humor and comedy, but maybe that's also just shows why I'm ineffective at that space. The, I think we have to be more edgy. I kind of was laughing whenever you were saying about like clients. We have clients who ask us for more edgy social media. And then as soon as we show them any ideas, they get shot down because it's not about their trade show, about their new product launch, about a feature, about a benefit, about, right. I mean, so I think the manufacturing space has a long way to go to get to the point where we see a proliferation of memes and humor in company pages, but we'll see. No, I think that's, that's great. I've really enjoyed watching that journey that you've been on and I'm a fan and I've really loved it. 

Greg: Thank you.

Bill: But whenever you think about maybe final thoughts for manufacturers looking to accelerate their marketing journey, when you like, if only this is what's missing in this space, is there any like final thought or hot take on what's missing in manufacturing marketing?

Greg: Just the mindset that you can use this as a method to generate additional revenue. You can sell in this space and you can do it in a way that is going to align your marketing and sales team like never before. If you integrate those two teams into the effort. So I think that this is a real opportunity for manufacturers. It's an opportunity to not only move from the ways of the past, but also to capitalize and build on the lessons of the past that have worked and bring them into the new way of doing business in the new realm. So you're not abandoning what worked before. You're modernizing it, you're digitizing it, and you're taking all that accumulated knowledge and wisdom and you're modernizing it, just like you do with your equipment. You just have to do the same thing with your sales and marketing approach.

Bill: It amazes me how in B2B and manufacturing space, companies will invest a lot in new equipment and they will accept failure for the first two or three months while they're installing that new equipment and getting that production line up and accept that as standard or par for the course. But if a marketing initiative in the first 30 days doesn't put them number one on Google or hit the leads or whatever, they kind of look at it differently. It is the same. It takes time. You have to have that mindset shift that it is not. If you want to move from gambling to investment, you have to show up consistently. You have to invest consistently and you have to test to find what's going to work. So I agree that if it's a mindset shift, it's happening because companies are being forced to deal with this because the sales function is not working like it used to. People want to buy online without having contact with the salespeople. The other issue is people can't find salespeople. There's a huge recruitment issue in this country. There are very few young people who come out of college who think, man, I want to be an industrial salesperson at an old economy type of company that makes dirty stuff or that keeps this country moving. They want to go for the new sexy stuff, the AI and all of the technology, which is fine. But the replacements are not coming in industrial sales. That's also, I think, to force this issue. Well, Greg, this has just been a great conversation. I feel like we're kindred spirits and we have a lot of shared experiences. It's good to hear some similarities and also to be challenged by some of your thoughts and frameworks and ideas. I just really appreciate you joining us today. I want you to, shameless plug time, because we're all about shameless plugs. Greg, tell us where and they'll include these links in all the episodes and all of the postings online, but tell us where our listeners can find you and your company online.

Greg: Sure, so we're Winbound, W-I-N, as in win the game, bound, you're bound to win if you work with us, B-O-U-N-D, winbound.com, that's our website. I'm on LinkedIn, connect with me, love to see what content you're putting out and I'm always looking to build my network. So connect with me there. If you do go to our website, we do publish our pricing and our approach, right? You'll see the link right at the top of the page. And we are putting out a, I put together a 30,000 foot executive overview on how manufacturers can integrate digital into their sales and marketing approach. And I wrote it so it could be read. Like you can read it as an executive and really understand digital marketing. But the deal was, I tried to do it so you could read this thing in 15 minutes. So that's all it'll take and you will know how it all works. That's my challenge. And man, it took me a long time, because I'm rather verbose, to just keep tightening this thing, tightening this thing. So it's just designed to be really quick and it's got those funny memes like you talked about with each section. So. We're going to have that up on our website and we're going to put a link right on the homepage so you can get it and download it.

Bill: Greg, can't wait to see that 30,000 foot overview. We will also, if you'd like, we can put a link to that in the episode digits and those type of things as well for people to find. Well, Greg, thank you so much for joining us. I just really appreciated the conversation and thanks for coming on.

Greg: Hey, thanks for having me. Really appreciate the opportunity.

Bill: Thank you for joining the Missing Half podcast, where we're discovering what's missing in manufacturing and B2B marketing. Please like, share, subscribe. Have a great day.