B2B Sales and Marketing #FriTalks
68 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 days ago -Welcome to the B2B Sales and Marketing #FriTalks hosted by Andrejs Juscenko and Rolands Ozolins. On this podcast, you will get insights, best practices and anecdotes right from sales and marketing leaders of B2B technology companies and Startups.
Our episodes are based on live #FriTalks LinkedIn broadcasts.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
58. Strategies for Success in Event Sponsorship
April 22, 2024 09:21 - 37 minutes - 28.3 MBHando Sinisalu, the founder of Marketing Parrot, with extensive experience as an event organizer, and over the years, he has noticed that some companies tend to use their speaking opportunities during sponsored events to deliver sales pitches, which often end up frustrating the audience. This missed opportunity could have been used to build trust and establish relationships with potential customers. In this conversation, we discuss why this happens and explore strategies for maximizing the...
57. How to Market to Technical Buyers in the USA?
March 24, 2024 10:51 - 31 minutes - 27.5 MBThe USA stands as the world’s largest and most lucrative market. However, it is also a market characterized by intense competition and some of the highest marketing costs. In this conversation with Kristine Lamberga, CMO of SAF Tehnika, we delve into her insights about the US market. SAF Tehnika specializes in the development and manufacturing of a range of high-end equipment, with its wireless data transmission technologies being its flagship offerings. Over the years, the company has su...
56. Experience of using ICP to win the most valuable customers.
March 10, 2024 09:48 - 35 minutes - 29.9 MBIn this episode of #FriTalks, our guest is the founder of Mailigen and former VP of Product at Pipedrive - Janis Rozenblats. He is joining us to share his valuable experience of building an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and the practical aspects of using it to optimise marketing execution and ROI. In our conversation, we discuss the following topics: - How should we understand the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and what value it can provide to SaaS companies - How to build an ICP and what dat...
55. 4-step framework for bridging marketing planning and execution
February 24, 2024 13:48 - 40 minutes - 34 MBMarketing often feels like an endless uphill struggle. Moreover, marketing managers often complain of poor internal alignment, conflicting and ever-changing priorities and pressure for short-term results. In this episode, Andrejs and Rolands explore the marketing planning framework that they tested and improved in well over 200 campaigns. Their framework stands on four solid pillars: alignment on revenue goals, comprehensive audience research, strategic Go-To-Market (GTM) planning, and reg...
54. How technology buyers make their decisions in 2024?
February 12, 2024 13:41 - 33 minutes - 26.6 MBThe decision-making process of B2B buyers has undergone significant changes. Over the past few years, there has been a notable shift in the behavior of B2B technology buyers, marked by reduced trust in new vendors and their sales representatives. Present-day buyers exhibit a preference for conducting independent research, forming their own conclusions and using self-service options. - In this episode, we explore the following topics: - The shifts in buyers' behavior since the onset of Covid-...
53. How to set optimal pricing strategy for your SaaS products?
January 29, 2024 10:59 - 34 minutes - 27.5 MBIncreasing pricing is the single best and most straightforward way to increase business profitability. Pricing is so important, that companies would be well advised to spend a lot of time and effort to set optimal pricing. Yet, according to research, SaaS companies only spend 6 hours on pricing. No monthly, not annually, ever. In this episode of FriTalks, we are joined by pricing strategist and founder of Soft Fight Emanuel Martonca. We discuss: Why pricing is so important for SaaS? How an...
52. Making Lead Generation Work in 2024
January 13, 2024 12:25 - 34 minutes - 29.6 MBIn this first FriTalks of 2024, Andrejs and Rolands look at key trends in B2B marketing and discuss what challenges and opportunities they bring for lead generation in 2024.
51. Sales and marketing alignment: necessary change for better results.
December 11, 2023 07:20 - 33 minutes - 27.8 MBDid you know that marketing and sales alignment is the most significant roadblock to business growth? According to Gartner, companies with strong marketing and sales alignment are 3 times more likely to meet their new customer acquisition targets. In this #FriTalks episode, we discuss: How does marketing and sales misalignment hinder business growth? What are the key issues companies face? And what are the first necessary steps to reduce conflict and build trusted relationships w...
50. Building a future-proof marketing team
November 28, 2023 16:16 - 34 minutes - 47 MBIn the rapidly evolving digital economy and with the changing customer behaviour, marketing's role in B2B organisations is being redefined. Marketing teams are now expected to facilitate and enable growth more than ever before. We invited Jens Tinapp, VP of Marketing and Communication at Diehl Metering, to talk about the path of building a future-proof marketing team. We discussed: - How has the role of marketing evolved - How have the CEO’s expectations changed - What are the must-have sk...
49. Do we even need salespeople?
November 14, 2023 18:58 - 36 minutes - 50 MBIn today's era of customer-driven buyer processes, the role of salespeople is evolving. What exactly are customers expecting from salespeople today and how can salespeople stay relevant to their customers while achieving long-term success? Listen to an insightful conversation with Bostjan Strazer, a business trainer and ice pilot at Hansen Beck, where we address these questions and more. We discussed the following topics: - How have buyer’s behaviour and priorities changed - What do they exp...
48. Qwick-win strategies to grow from zero to fifty customers in just 3 month
October 30, 2023 08:16 - 36 minutes - 34 MBThis time, our guest is Frank Sondors, a B2B sales veteran with over a decade of experience at Google, Black Crow, SimilarWeb, and Whatagraph. He recently launched his own company, Salesforge, to address a challenge he deeply cared about: templated communication. Just within three months company grew from ground zero to fifty paying customers by leveraging low-cost lead generation strategies and channels. Listen to our conversation with Frank to uncover his remarkable quick-win approach and ...
47. The power of community and word-of-mouth marketing
October 17, 2023 06:39 - 33 minutes - 46.6 MBZabbix is a widely known software system used for IT monitoring by thousands of companies around the world. Despite being open-source and free to use, the company has established a thriving business and a global community of dedicated IT professionals, all with minimal marketing investment. To uncover the secret of their success, we invited Zane Lasmane, Head of Marketing at Zabbix, to share her secret source.
46. Overcoming positioning challenge
October 16, 2023 11:45 - 31 minutes - 43.9 MBData centre business is often viewed as a commodity market with a few global players dominating, leaving very little room for profitability, especially if you are a small player. Similar is seen in other sectors of IT business. So, how can small players still differentiate their value proposition and grow profitable business? We discuss it with our guest, Marija Bergere, Head of Marketing at DEAC, the company which seems managed to find its recipe for success. During our discussion, we cover...
45. Secrets of Successful Webinars
September 19, 2023 06:55 - 33 minutes - 31.3 MBWe are back with B2B Sales and Marketing #FriTalks and kick off the new season with a conversation about how to make webinars successful. Webinars are one of the most often used marketing tools and for a good reason. Buyer's surveys mention webinars as the most valuable marketing content and research shows that webinar registrations increased by over 80% in 2022. Moreover, webinar participants are closer to purchase decisions than those who register for text content, such as whitepaper. In t...
44. Selling to engineers and other highly technical buyers
May 08, 2023 15:42 - 35 minutes - 33 MBIn this episode, we discuss marketing and sales to highly technical buyers, such as engineers. Research shows that highly technical buyers have very specific buying behaviour. They are willing to put extra effort into product research, and, compared to business buyers, they are rather averse to anything they perceive as being marketing or marketing prepared information. Nevertheless, there is a clear path to market to this audience that we share in this episode.
43. 5 Trends Guiding the Future of Tech Marketing by LinkedIn
April 04, 2023 16:51 - 36 minutes - 33.2 MBIn this episode of Sales and Marketing #FriTalks we talk through insights from ‘Brand to Buyer’ the LinkedIn B2B Technology Buyer and Marketer Survey 2022/23 with more than 4,000 professionals in technology surveyed from North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific. In particular, we discuss the top investment priorities and challenges of tech buyers, the latest trends shared by global tech marketers, and how we can apply these insights in our local go-to-marke...
42. Cracking International Markets: Success Factors for Software Companies
March 20, 2023 07:45 - 35 minutes - 32.6 MBIn this episode, continue talking about expansion to international markets. Our guest is Aldis Erglis, VP of Technology Strategy at Emergn, a global software development company that operates in various markets, including financial services, healthcare, retail, government, and technology. Their clients include large multinational corporations as well as smaller organizations. Emergn has offices and teams located in North America, Europe, and Asia, and they have a global network of partners ...
41. Implementing as-a-Service business model
March 06, 2023 15:50 - 32 minutes - 29.7 MBMost growth in the technology business is coming from as-a-Service business model. In this episode, we discuss how to move from the traditional one-off sales model to recurring revenue or as-a-Service business. While highly attractive in the long term, this is by no means a simple journey requiring good planning, a strong ability to invest and a true obsession with pleasing your ideal customers. In this episode, we talk about the following: - Key metrics of SaaS business, such as LTV, CAC...
40. The True Cost of International Expansion
February 20, 2023 07:46 - 29 minutes - 27 MBIn this episode, we discuss the costs of expansion to international markets and other key metrics that tech company founders need to consider before planning growth in global B2B markets.
Scaling SaaS Globally: Insights and Learnings From The First Year
February 06, 2023 17:10 - 34 minutes - 31.7 MBIn this B2B Sales and Marketing #FriTalks our guest Olha Olifirenko, Product Marketing Lead at Newage.io, share the key learnings from her first-year journey of scaling a SaaS product to the global market. She also provides valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities that come with scaling a SaaS product and how to overcome them. This episode is an opportunity for anyone who is interested in taking their SaaS product global.
39. Scaling SaaS Globally: Insights and Learnings From The First Year
February 06, 2023 17:10 - 34 minutes - 31.7 MBIn this B2B Sales and Marketing #FriTalks our guest Olha Olifirenko, Product Marketing Lead at Newage.io, share the key learnings from her first-year journey of scaling a SaaS product to the global market. She also provides valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities that come with scaling a SaaS product and how to overcome them. This episode is an opportunity for anyone who is interested in taking their SaaS product global.
38. Exploring the future of B2B marketing: The impact of AI
January 23, 2023 11:13 - 32 minutes - 45 MBIn this episode of our B2B Sales and Marketing FriTalks, we delved into the world of AI and its impact on B2B marketing. We examined how AI is revolutionizing the way businesses approach marketing strategies and how it's helping them reach their target audience more efficiently. From chatbots to personalized content, we explored the latest AI technologies and their applications in B2B marketing. Join our conversation with Andriy Burlitky, Head of Business Development at Profisea, a seasoned...
37. Where does the revenue come from?
December 19, 2022 15:28 - 35 minutes - 48.9 MBIt has always been a bit of a mystery for B2B companies to understand what actually drives their revenue. More specifically, how exactly does marketing contribute to the sales pipeline growth and which strategies, programs, channels and tactics to prioritize and which to drop. Our guest, Steffen Hedebrandt, Co-founder of Dreamdata.io, joined us for a B2B Sales and Marketing #FriTalk, to share his insights from the recent B2B go-to-market benchmark study. And helped us understand “how can B2...
36. How to build trust and win new international enterprise clients
December 05, 2022 08:00 - 30 minutes - 42.5 MBDespite being a relatively small player on the global landscape, CloudServices became one of the leading Microsoft partners in the region, with hundreds of clients across Europe and Central Asia. Our guest Iryna Moiseyeva, CEO of CloudServices, a company out of Ukraine that specializes in Microsoft Data and Analytics technologies talked about her experiences, challenges and success factors. We will also answered the following key questions: 1. What are the main challenges while scaling t...
35. Top 5 mistakes to avoid in B2B marketing
November 21, 2022 08:00 - 33 minutes - 45.5 MBWe will be discussing our experiences, mistakes and learnings from over 200 campaigns and how our approach has changed, with the environment becoming more complex and demanding. We will be highlighting the top 5 mistakes made and how they have impacted us and our business, how to avoid them and how to use them to your advantage.
34. Can word of mouth marketing alone grow SaaS businesses?
November 07, 2022 08:00 - 37 minutes - 52 MBWord-of-mouth marketing can work wonders for a company. This “free” marketing can create free advertising and make customers come to you. However, WoM may not be as free as you think. Understanding and creating this WoM effect requires much greater effort and planning than expected, and on this B2B Sales and Marketing #FriTalks together with Ugis Briedis, Chief Business Development Officer at DeskTime, we discussed his real-life learnings about word-of-mouth marketing and answered the foll...
33. Maximizing the impact of marketing events.
October 24, 2022 07:00 - 33 minutes - 46.4 MBIn-person events are returning to the marketing mix of many B2B marketers. It always has been one of the preferred tactics for brand awareness, lead generation, community building and more. But, same time very resource-consuming and challenging to measure. So how do we turn significant internal efforts and substantial marketing investments into true impact on the sales pipeline? Our guest for B2B Sales and Marketing #FriTalks was Anastasia Zencika, CMO at ECOMMPAY. She helped us find ...
32. Learnings from 18 years of building IT services business.
October 10, 2022 07:30 - 32 minutes - 44.6 MBIT services can be a highly profitable business in the home market. However, expanding internationally is a completely different game. In this episode, we welcomed Rinalds Sluckis, CEO of Digital Mind with 18 years of learning and experience in running an IT services business in international markets. Over this time Rinalds has opened and closed sales offices in several markets and his company Digital Mind recently acquired Alna Business Group, thus significantly expanding its product po...
29. Overlooked power of PR in B2B
September 27, 2022 05:51 - 34 minutes - 47.3 MBIn our new episode, try to uncover the overlooked power of PR in B2B with our guest Mike Maynard, managing director of Napier Partnership Limited and marketing/PR expert. In our conversation we covered the following topics: 1. What do we understand by PR in B2B? 2. Why should companies include PR into their marketing mix, especially in the digital era? 3. When can PR be most impactful? 4. How to measure the impact? 5. Can PR generate sales leads? Or how it can help sales? 6. Where to...
31. How effectively scale your Cloud business?
September 19, 2022 07:17 - 31 minutes - 29.3 MBCloud has introduced many new opportunities for resellers, IT service providers and system integrators, but also new challenges in staying competitive and profitable while scaling the business. In this episode of the B2B Sales and Marketing FriTalks, we explore how to scale Cloud business effectively with Gabor Vass, Partner Business Development Lead at Microsoft. We discuss the role of the resellers’ “Intellectual Property” and how it impacts the Go-To-Market approach, what some of the ke...
30. The Unicorn Formula
September 05, 2022 08:46 - 43 minutes - 40.6 MBThere are over 1000 unicorns in the world today, valued at more than $3.5 trillion combined. What ingredients or variables do successful startups bring in the mix of their dream and company to make it work in the end? What are the must do's, must have's and must not do's in order to become part of the select group? Our guest Michael Kogeler, Vice President of EMEA Scale-Ups and Unicorns at Oracle, shared his thoughts on the winning ingredients of the Unicorn formula. Before joining Oracl...
28. Best Practice of Cold Sales Outreach Automation
August 01, 2022 12:51 - 34 minutes - 32.2 MBCold sales outreach technologies and processes have matured in the last few years. Some companies see results so good that it is difficult to believe. We decided we wanted to get to the bottom of this. Our guest is Ivars Pavlovics, an "outreach hacker" with extensive practical experience in highly effective sales outreach campaigns for B2B. In this episode, we discuss the following: What is cold outreach? How does it work? Which businesses are best positioned to benefit from it?...
27. How To Run Product Demonstration That Sells
July 04, 2022 09:34 - 36 minutes - 33.6 MBEvery software company wants to think that it is the unique features that make them successful. And every customer wants to believe they make their choices based purely on the ‘best’ product. Both are wrong. As an industry matures, its products all take on the same capabilities. Increasingly, how the product is packaged, marketed, and sold becomes the differentiator. Can the way something is presented cause somebody to change their position towards the software dramatically? Probably not, a...
26. From Marketing Automation To Engagement Automation
June 20, 2022 15:36 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBIn this episode, we talk about how the rapidly changing digital landscape and customer behavior redefine requirements for marketing automation as we know it. Our guests are Olha Olifirenko and Sanjulian Nis from the Ukrainian product-led company Newage.io and we discuss: - what trends drive the change and how to prepare for it - what is engagement automation and how it is different from marketing automation - what benefits B2B marketers can expect from the engagement automation approach ...
25. How to make customers come to you. Lead generation vs. Demand generation.
June 06, 2022 15:01 - 34 minutes - 32 MBThis is our 1st-anniversary episode, and we devoted it to discussing the lead generation vs. demand generation approach. During the conversation, Andrejs and Rolands share their insights and try to understand: what is demand generation and how is it different from lead generation? how to measure the success of these two? can one exist without the other? what approach is better for B2B markets? what makes them work or fail?
24. Secrets Of Entering Norwegian Market
May 23, 2022 06:36 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBThe Norwegian market is considered one of most desired by many companies, especially in the IT industry. Still, is it worth it and what does it take to succeed in the Norwegian market? We have invited Anneli Andersen, the Owner of Export2Norway, who is helping companies enter the Norwegian market, to share her insights and recommendations. We discussed: - Whether the Norwegian market can give outside IT companies what they are looking for - Can the "low cost" strategy sure success or wha...
23. You got a lead, what’s next? Best practices on leads follow-up.
May 09, 2022 07:16 - 36 minutes - 33.8 MBMaking leads flow into your CRM is just halfway to growing sales. Another essential part is to qualify and nurture them so leads convert into paying clients. In this episode of Sales and Marketing FriTalks, we talk about some of the best practices of the follow-up process: Should all leads be followed up When the follow-up should take place How to structure and measure the follow-up process How to prepare for the conversation. and more
Growing to $1M ARR with help of content marketing
April 25, 2022 07:36 - 37 minutes - 35 MBThis time our guest is Kevin Sahin, the co-founder of ScrapingBee, a web scraping API that grew to $1M ARR in 2 years with the help of content marketing. During the conversation, Kevin is sharing his path to creating engaging content for a very demanding audience as developers, particularly we cover the following topics: Finding out what truly matters for your audience Looking outside of mainstream SEO tools for content planning Balancing between volume and quality Aspects of content di...
22. Growing to $1M ARR with help of content marketing
April 25, 2022 07:36 - 37 minutes - 35 MBThis time our guest is Kevin Sahin, the co-founder of ScrapingBee, a web scraping API that grew to $1M ARR in 2 years with the help of content marketing. During the conversation, Kevin is sharing his path to creating engaging content for a very demanding audience as developers, particularly we cover the following topics: Finding out what truly matters for your audience Looking outside of mainstream SEO tools for content planning Balancing between volume and quality Aspects of content di...
21. Where to find your first customers?
April 12, 2022 06:55 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBIn this episode, we discuss essential marketing and sales strategies for acquiring first prospective customers. We look at both inbound and outbound approaches and talk through the practical aspects of each. This episode can be similarly helpful for early startups and experienced marketing and sales teams.
20. How to know if your marketing delivering and how to improve it?
March 28, 2022 13:49 - 32 minutes - 29.9 MBMarket research and industry surveys show that lead generation is the most important marketing objective in B2B. But how to manage marketing and what to reasonably expect from it? In this episode of #FriTalks, we discuss the role of today’s modern marketing from the company management perspective. How to measure and benchmark performance, how much revenue to budget for marketing, what results to expect and how to make sure investments in marketing are money well spent.
How to know if your marketing delivering and how to improve it?
March 28, 2022 13:49 - 32 minutes - 29.9 MBMarket research and industry surveys show that lead generation is the most important marketing objective in B2B. But how to manage marketing and what to reasonably expect from it? In this episode of #FriTalks, we discuss the role of today’s modern marketing from the company management perspective. How to measure and benchmark performance, how much revenue to budget for marketing, what results to expect and how to make sure investments in marketing are money well spent.
19. Building Repeatable Remote Sales Practice
March 14, 2022 08:42 - 35 minutes - 32.7 MBThis time we are delighted to have Inga Sartauskaite joining us for a Sales and Marketing FriTalks to share her insights on building a repeatable and remote sales practice. Inga is a Sales Director for Central and Eastern Europe at Companial (formerly known as 1ClickFactory). Together with Inga, we try to figure out: - Is building a repeatable business practice different than traditional sales practice? - How to make your sales team ready for repeatable sales process - What is the requi...
18. Taking customers from recognizing the problem to demanding the solution
February 28, 2022 12:25 - 34 minutes - 31.9 MBIn this episode, we have Vedran Soloja joining us to talk about what it takes to make prospective buyers not only recognize the problem but also take a step further and act on solving it. Vedran is Senior Marketing Communications Manager at Microsoft, responsible for demand generation for security and productivity solutions in Central and Eastern Europe. During the conversation, we dig deeper into the following topics on positioning and selling solutions like security to small and mid-size...
17. Managing sales at growing tech company
February 14, 2022 16:57 - 34 minutes - 32.3 MBAny marketing is worth only as much as its ability to support the company’s sales. Therefore, strong alignment between marketing and sales is critical to benefit from a modern marketing approach. In this episode of #FriTalks, we look at modern marketing from the perspective of sales. Our guest is a multiple award-winning sales expert, trainer, and author of two books Vigants Lesausks. Vigants has over 20 years of practical sales experience in large international companies (IBM, Microsoft,...
16. How to set your company's LinkedIn strategy for success
January 31, 2022 08:44 - 34 minutes - 32.1 MBLinkedIn indeed is the best place to meet and engage B2B audience, but how to build a solid ground for your brand on the platform and make your marketing efforts profitable? For this #FriTalks episode, we invited Ketrina Ozola, Linkedin marketing strategy manager at Httpool, to discuss key building blocks of a successful LinkedIn strategy for Tech companies. In the episode we talk about: - Best practices for LinkedIn company page - Ways for building the audience with the help of organic ...
15. B2B Marketing in 2022
January 17, 2022 10:48 - 38 minutes - 36 MBIn this episode first, of #FriTalks in 2022, we look at the latest developments in B2B marketing and, together with guest experts, discuss a strategic approach to growing business in 2022. In particular, we discuss the following priorities: Sales and Marketing Alignment Lead generation vs. building trust and creating demand Adoption of martech stack
14. Building a partner channel: key principles and best-practices.
December 12, 2021 16:53 - 32 minutes - 30.1 MBIn this episode, we welcome back Gints Mednis, a very experienced partner channel manager with a track record of building Sonarworks' global partner channel from scratch. Not every company needs a partner channel, but a partner channel can be one of the best ways to scale their business for those who do. In this episode, we discuss: - How to evaluate if you need a partner channel at all? - How to select prospective partners? - How to structure partner offer: what to give and what to ask?...
Measure or not to measure? Top sales and marketing KPIs to look after.
November 29, 2021 07:49 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBThere are tons of different KPIs on the marketing and the sales side. And it can easily occupy most of your time and resources to measure and report on them. But what exactly does it make sense to measure and why? In this FriTalk, we discuss the most important KPIs to monitor at different sales and marketing pipeline stages. We also talk about how even minor changes in the performance of one element can influence the success of the overall efforts. And how to build a truly meaningful approa...
13. Measure or not to measure? Top sales and marketing KPIs to look after.
November 29, 2021 07:49 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBThere are tons of different KPIs on the marketing and the sales side. And it can easily occupy most of your time and resources to measure and report on them. But what exactly does it make sense to measure and why? In this FriTalk, we discuss the most important KPIs to monitor at different sales and marketing pipeline stages. We also talk about how even minor changes in the performance of one element can influence the success of the overall efforts. And how to build a truly meaningful approa...