In this episode of the B2B Marketing Methods podcast, host Terri Hoffman, CEO of Marketing Refresh, interviews Peter Pudner, the Vice President of Sales at American Products and DustShield.
The discussion covers topics such as sales strategies, the importance of CRM tools and AI in sales, trade show planning, content strategy, and the significance of a unified sales and marketing approach. Peter also emphasizes the ‘Made in America’ value proposition and the intricate manufacturing processes of his companies. Tune in to gain valuable insights into B2B sales and marketing tactics and to learn how to align your sales and marketing teams for success.
Topics Discussed:
Aligning sales and marketing for cohesive strategies.
Effective use of CRM tools like Salesforce.
Successful trade show planning and follow-up.
Key qualities for high-performing sales teams.
Importance of a clear value proposition.
Benefits of a Made-in-America strategy.
Using AI tools to improve sales efficiency.
To learn more about Peter Pudner, connect with him on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pudner/
To learn more about Terri, connect with her on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrihartley/
To connect with Marketing Refresh, visit: MarketingRefresh.com
Full Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Terri Hoffman: Welcome to B2B Marketing Methods. I’m your host, Terri Hoffman, and I’m the CEO of Marketing Refresh. Let’s face it, embracing digital marketing is daunting. This podcast was created to make it more approachable. Join me as we talk to CEOs, sales leaders, and revenue growth experts who will share lessons learned and tips from their own journeys.
[00:00:24] Terri Hoffman: Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketing Methods. I’m excited today to have as our guest, Peter Pudner. Peter is the Vice President of Sales for two business lines, American Products and DustShield and those two businesses are part of Koch Enterprises.
[00:00:39] Terri Hoffman: I’m going to let him tell you a little bit more background about what they do and how they fit into that overall company. First off, welcome to the show, Peter, glad to have you on today.
[00:00:47] Peter Pudner: Yeah, Terri, I’m so excited to be a guest today. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:50] Terri Hoffman: Awesome. Well, let’s start with some basics.
[00:00:52] Terri Hoffman: I know you’ve had quite a journey to work through your career and arrive where you are now. And you have a pretty interesting background with the experience, you know, outside of the U S even. So, could you just start by maybe explaining how you got started in the field of sales and how you evolved to this role?
[00:01:08] Peter Pudner: Yeah. I guess I’ll go way back. So, you know, originally I’m from Richmond, Virginia, the seventh of nine kids, so I’ve come from a big family and, you know, during college, undergrad, I would say I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do. I had jobs throughout high school.
[00:01:23] Peter Pudner: And then, after an internship, I did a KPMG in New York City. I ended up actually moving, met the girl that I ended up marrying that summer, and that took me into a few different roles, did some consulting, and ended up getting a job offer in Seoul, South Korea, working in business development over there.
[00:01:42] Peter Pudner: So ended up living there for four years. Throughout my career, it wasn’t necessarily always sales, but I always gravitated towards working with customers. I think I enjoyed that, got, energized by it. That’s sort of how I grew into it, but what solidified it for me was
[00:01:58] Peter Pudner: after business school, I joined Eaton Corporation and their global leadership development program. The way that worked was a post-MBA program where they want us to do one role in operations and one role in a commercial role. I did one as an area sales manager in Maryland and one where I was the production manager at one of our 24 hour manufacturing plants in Spencer, Iowa.
[00:02:20] Peter Pudner: And yeah, yeah. So it was, it was great experience, you know, really enjoyed it. The first time I led a really big team. but you know, I, I enjoyed the sales side a lot more. And so even when I was at the plant, I would end up leading the customer visits. When we did have an issue with manufacturing, like our biggest customers, John Deere, I would go meet with the customer.
[00:02:41] Peter Pudner: And I just realized that’s what energized me and what I enjoyed doing. So when we’re done with the GLDP and I’m getting a job with Eaton’s North American sales at the headquarters in Pittsburgh and ever since then, I’ve been, really working in a sales role.
[00:02:58] Peter Pudner: Business development as well as, you know, I mentioned the area sales manager role, and then I worked with our global accounts. Leading those accounts, and then also, led the field sales team.
[00:03:09] Peter Pudner: And then, that’s what brought me into, you know, we got reached out by a recruiter for the, this is my first vice president of sales role, but I’ve been in for the last two years.
[00:03:18] Terri Hoffman: Okay. Got it. What year was it?
[00:03:21] Terri Hoffman: Even if it’s not perfect, roughly when you started your career in sales.
[00:03:25] Peter Pudner: Yeah, so really started my career in sales after finishing business school in 2011.
[00:03:31] Terri Hoffman: Okay. All right. So I asked that question because I think so much has changed in that period of time, right? That was 13 years ago. And just the way business happens and the way relationships get built have changed so much over those years.
[00:03:45] Terri Hoffman: And, I’m going to ask more about that later. We’ll put a pin in that for now, but, tell me a little bit more about American Products and DustShield,
[00:03:52] Peter Pudner: Yeah, so both companies are kind of innovative, heavy manufacturers.
[00:03:56] Peter Pudner: We do the heavy manufacturing of the enclosures, both with metals, aluminum, steel, and also some, industrial plastics as well. And then it sells primarily into the telecommunications, fiber optics basically everything that’s needed for high speed internet, edge computing data centers.
[00:04:15] Peter Pudner: And then we’ve grown considerably over the past two years on the electrical power distribution, kind of energy transition side of the business.
[00:04:24] Peter Pudner: So Dust Shield, it’s a smaller business for us. So we’re on a campus with a sister company in Stratford, Missouri, where we do all of our manufacturing and DustShield.
[00:04:33] Peter Pudner: They sell a lot into like FedEx, but it’s more for their, you know, IT divisions, and so they do these enclosures that are used to protect computer equipment, basically. And then the American product side is much more the equipment that, houses the fiber optics and power systems that really empowers, high speed internet, as well as, the edge computing.
[00:04:55] Peter Pudner: And then on the electrical energy transition side, electrical switch gear and that type of equipment.
[00:05:01] Terri Hoffman: Are the spaces that you’re in for both of those businesses. Do you guys have a lot of competitors that you’re coming up against? And do you know your competitive field pretty well?
[00:05:10] Peter Pudner: We do have a lot of competitors, I would say, in general. DustShield is a little more of a niche market, but we do know our competition. It’s a smaller industry, I would say. You know, the electrical industry is massive. Telecommunications is very large as well. So, we do have a lot of competitors. I think we have a pretty good grasp on what they offer and what we offer.
[00:05:35] Peter Pudner: We do a lot of the small closures with integration, but we also do these large buildings like 12 by 24 ft buildings that are completely integrated with the cooling solutions, fiber optics. Companies like like Google buy those from us and we deliver those, you know, on-site. So we’ve got a lot of competition on the smaller enclosures with integration, I would say, and then when you get bigger, the competition gets a little more limited, but a lot of those companies are very specialized where we have a broader range of the size and type of equipment that we do.
[00:06:09] Terri Hoffman: Okay, so tell me I want to learn more about what it’s like to be in a sales role. So people who are on your team across the country or around the world, even for that matter, but tell me more about some of the things that might make it challenging for them or what you look for
[00:06:26] Terri Hoffman: in people who are on your team. What are the special skills and qualities, I guess, that you’re looking for?
[00:06:32] Peter Pudner: So the biggest thing I look for, I do like to, you know, hire on attitude. People that have a positive attitude. You know, it’s when you’re in a sales role, I mean, you’re going to face rejection fairly often, unfortunately. So you have to have kind of tough skin, you know, be able to go through that, but also just someone who’s very willing to collaborate internally.
[00:06:52] Peter Pudner: We really need to work, across the functions. And I know, you know, the marketing functions specifically, like I mentioned, we hired a new head of marketing that works exclusively with my teams now, and, you know, I’ll look at marketing as like all the activities that the company does to permit and sell their products.
[00:07:09] Peter Pudner: So you’ve got to have somebody on the team that’s looking at it as, you know, we’re, we’re all in this together. We’ve got the same goal. Sales itself can become pretty competitive. So, you know, you do on a monthly basis. It’s scoreboard starts at zero at the end of the month, we’re showing our dashboard where each person finished where they are to the goal per year. And you always want it to be a little bit of a stretch, of course but something that’s attainable if somebody’s, you know doing their role. So you do want people in a sales role to be somewhat competitive as well.
[00:07:40] Terri Hoffman: Oh my gosh. I think that’s really important. Do you guys use a CRM tool?
[00:07:45] Peter Pudner: We do use a CRM tool. It’s Salesforce and we’re currently actually going through a big update on it.
[00:07:52] Peter Pudner: I think with CRMs in general, they’re changing a lot. You know, there’s some new AI tools that are being implemented in it. And we’ve had one that was it was made for multiple divisions, before we got acquired by Koch Enterprises. And we’ve realized during that, that it didn’t really work for each of the businesses necessarily.
[00:08:11] Peter Pudner: So one thing that it had. I would say when I first came in the role was we had almost every feature, turned on, and it was cumbersome at times. And a lot of people just used it more as like a data entry tool, you know, so they have their contacts, but we’re really making strides recently to make it much more intuitive, user friendly.
[00:08:31] Peter Pudner: And we’re, you know, not to sound cliche, but where the CRM really works for the sales team, as well as the marketing team, you know, making sure those marketing campaigns are, are easy to track and just, you know, more valuable for, for selling our products.
[00:08:47] Terri Hoffman: I just see time and time again sales and marketing teams not leverage tools like a CRM because they hate using them and they’re annoying, but what’s even more annoying is not having those stats and having that data. Because if you’re a great salesperson, the last thing you want to do is waste time you could be spending with a customer in a piece of software, like Salesforce.
[00:09:10] Terri Hoffman: But if you’re not doing that, it’s very hard to show operations what, you know, they might need to be planning for. How they might need to staff for it? How the rest of your company is going to be impacted by the revenue growth of the company, and so that data is just critical. And in my opinion, it’s just not really the fun part of a salesperson’s job.
[00:09:32] Peter Pudner: I think that’s really well said. And it’s, you know, if it’s looked at as just a data entry tool. You know, I’ve heard people say to their sales team, like, what would happen if you got hit by a bus, you know, we need that data in the system. And that’s not very motivating for most people, but when you’re using it correctly and they’re getting the alerts at the exact time they need to follow up with the customer, or again, AI stuff that’s coming out soon with some of these tools are going to make it extremely helpful,
[00:09:57] Peter Pudner: They’ve drafted a simple email reply that just needs to be edited and that type of thing that’s very relevant. I think the more they see value in it, it makes their job easier. Then for me as the vice president of sales, the pipeline information is a lot more accurate. If we see the pipeline growing, we need to make sure our plant’s ready, maybe hiring, because these orders are on their way.
[00:10:19] Peter Pudner: Whereas, if you don’t have accurate data in the system, your pipeline’s not accurate. Then when the big orders come in, your plan operations might not be prepared for it or your supply chain might not be prepared for it.
[00:10:31] Peter Pudner: And that makes everyone’s job a lot harder. That’s when you have upset customers and everything else. So I do think if you can make the sales team, see value in it, where it’s working for them, all of a sudden, the rest of it really comes into place as far as pipeline management as well.
[00:10:45] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, the way that I guess our team as marketers looks at them too, is you get so much valuable data. So for example, if your marketing team puts together a great campaign and they’re seeing leads come through. One of the classic headbutting activities between marketing and sales is hey, leads are coming through.
[00:11:04] Terri Hoffman: How are they? And, you know, the classic response from the sales group is like, we’re too busy. We don’t have time to look at that. We’re like dealing with customer issues right now, or leads that I’m actually getting proposals in front of, but I’ll, I’ll let you know about that, right?
[00:11:19] Terri Hoffman: The marketing team is sitting over in a silo trying to be effective. We don’t even really know what we’re doing, but we do understand salespeople are busy, right? And we just need that little bit of information. And if you can go into a CRM, you can at least get a surface level.
[00:11:33] Terri Hoffman: Maybe the experience you guys have and maybe it’s much more cohesive between your teams, but that’s pretty typical experience that I see.
[00:11:41] Peter Pudner: Yeah, I think we’ve become more cohesive. I think, like I mentioned, we hired a new head of marketing that works pretty much exclusively with the two sales teams that I lead. And I think since then it’s working together, we’re in a lot of joint meetings doing a lot of the trade show preparation where, through the CRM, we can have very targeted campaigns that our marketing team can track the effectiveness and that data can become really valuable for the sales team.
[00:12:07] Peter Pudner: So I think we’re becoming a lot more cohesive, but yeah, there’ve been in the past, it’s kind of like who owns a CRM and no one really wants to deal with it.
[00:12:16] Terri Hoffman: No, that that’s exactly right. And that, I’m glad to hear you’re working through it. You can define what perfect looks like, but the steps between even a healthy organization and what’s perfect can sometimes be huge, right? And just gradually working towards that, I think is really important. Any of those walls you can break down, that’s really nice. And I think it ultimately ends up making the salespeople feel more supported.
[00:12:39] Terri Hoffman: And that’s huge. You know, going back to what you said earlier, you got to have a lot of confidence and you have to be willing to put yourself out there. And as a salesperson, you want to feel supported by the rest of the company. And that is one way that you can actually receive support, but it means you’ve got to put the data in.
[00:12:56] Peter Pudner: There’s no way around that necessarily, but just You know, having it synced with your outlook account emails where, you know, some of that data entry can be a push of a button. We also use LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which is synced into the CRM. So once a salesperson realizes there’s a tool that can make their life easier, that’s when you get the buy-in right there.
[00:13:18] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, well, and that’s the key. You have to make sure it’s really making their life easier. So that that’s huge. I wanted to see too, if you guys, for your value proposition, right? Like that’s so huge and making sure that your sales and marketing groups are on the same page, about your value proposition.
[00:13:36] Terri Hoffman: Can you describe maybe some of the steps that you guys have taken to articulate the value proposition? I’m always curious to hear how people go through that and then how they’ve arrived at it.
[00:13:48] Peter Pudner: A big part of our value proposition, especially more recently is, just the Made in America requirements. During COVID lockdowns, I think we all witnessed some of the supply chain issues that we faced. There’s big push.
[00:14:01] Peter Pudner: A couple decades ago, where it’s like, you want the country that’s most efficient in manufacturing something, they manufacture that component or do that portion of the supply chain and then the rest of the world will benefit. I think there’s definitely some value to that for sure.
[00:14:15] Peter Pudner: Certain countries that are just very good at doing certain things and you want them to focus on it. But we ran into some issues with not being able to get a certain component because only one country made it or some of the lockdowns where that manufacturing plant completely shut down and then the ripple effect throughout the economy is really tough.
[00:14:33] Peter Pudner: So one of our big value propositions right now for our customers is that, you know, we do all of our manufacturing and primarily sell it into the US and North American market. Part of the Inflation Reduction Act had a Build America by America requirement. So for a lot of our customers and even some of our manufacturing partners that were producing in Asia or Europe have reached out to us for partnerships because everything we do is, like I said, manufactured and integrated here in the United States.
[00:15:04] Peter Pudner: The market we’re selling into with, you know, telecommunications, data centers. There have been issues where, you know, something’s embedded in the equipment that, you know, opens it up to ransomware or or just information that that goes into the wrong, maybe an adversary even.
[00:15:21] Peter Pudner: So that’s one of our biggest value propositions right now. The other thing is just that we can do the heavy manufacturing as well as the integration all under one roof at our plants in Missouri, and I think that making it as turnkey as possible for your customer really makes it easier for them.
[00:15:39] Peter Pudner: And that’s one of our biggest value propositions right there.
[00:15:42] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, that’s huge. It’s not just that you stayed compliant with some of these federal regulations or requirements. It’s really impactful and meaningful to your client base because of some of the industries that they’re in and also the risks it could mean for them if things are manufactured outside of the US, right?
[00:16:01] Peter Pudner: There’s actually some rip-and-replace initiatives because they did find some things embedded. And then I think even, you know, I live here in Charlotte, North Carolina, we were affected by a ransomware on the pipeline, which shut down, you know, people’s access to get gasoline for their cars.
[00:16:17] Peter Pudner: And so some of that sensitivity, I think was just a little eye-opening that it’s possible. You know, there’s, I would say much less than 1%, but you are opening yourself up to a little bit of risk. And so it’s not just the, trying to bring manufacturing onshore for jobs, which is part of it, but there are just certain industries that I think are a little more sensitive to, you don’t want it to be a, maybe an adversary that just has potential to do that.
[00:16:43] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. No, that’s huge. It sounds like your company is, very diligent and mindful about those areas that are so important to your clients. And I mean, it has to start with that. Your value proposition has to start with what are the issues and challenges your clients have, and how do we make sure we’re not just promising we’re going to meet that we’re actually doing it and fulfilling that promise we’re making to them, right?
[00:17:08] Peter Pudner: Absolutely. Most of the information, feedback, and even new product development comes from our customers. What are their pain points? What are they dealing with? What are the solutions they need? And so I think that if you’ve got good relationships with your key customers, I think that’s when you’re really working together and making sure they understand maybe some of the risks, but also you understand what their concerns are and how we can have a solution to alleviate this.
[00:17:32] Terri Hoffman: If there was something you wish your customers like really appreciated and understood fully about your company, what would that be? I’m curious if you, have an answer, you know, to that question where you’re like, God, I really just wish our market understood this about us to the level
[00:17:48] Terri Hoffman: that is, is possible because it would really like help us stand out even more.
[00:17:53] Peter Pudner: Probably the biggest thing is, understanding the whole manufacturing process, what goes into this. So, you know, we do at our plant, we have industrial plastics for dust shield and then coils and sheet metal coming in and all the components that go into it. We have stamping equipment, laser cutting equipment, robotic and hand welding that goes into it. Clean fiber optics for him for all the integration and when it leaves, sometimes, like I mentioned, some of these 12 by 24-foot buildings that have all the cooling solutions, power integrated.
[00:18:27] Peter Pudner: And so the biggest thing for me that I want the customer to understand is, is sort of what goes into it? And it’s all under one roof for us, including the engineering process for it. So every time I get a customer or a prospect that comes into our plant really sees the full process and what we can offer that is just, you know, again, under one roof, a large plant, but it all is done in-house.
[00:18:50] Peter Pudner: That’s where I think they really see the value because a lot of what we do, you know, you’ll have maybe the enclosure is manufactured in a different country and then it comes in for an integration facility. And so I think just manufacturing, like I said, it’s a big process. It’s hard in general, especially with what we do,
[00:19:08] Peter Pudner: it’s mostly engineered to order. So having them come in and just watch the entire process, I think that’s when they realize what we can do that, you know, we don’t have a lot of competitors that can really do, do it all like we do.
[00:19:21] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, I mean, you’re fully controlling your entire product beginning to end.
[00:19:25] Terri Hoffman: Just things that I’ve seen in other manufacturing companies is if you have that one component being manufactured somewhere else, it comes in, you can have a quality standard in place, but it’s not your quality standard, it’s their quality standard. There could be delays in receiving things.
[00:19:41] Terri Hoffman: And if you’re controlling all of that under one roof, I’m sure it shows in the final product and your ability to deliver on time.
[00:19:48] Peter Pudner: Yeah, it does. And you know, one thing I will point out if we have customers come into our plant is even our paint line. You know, we do some contract manufacturing for some Fortune 200 companies, and they’re testing that quality regularly as well.
[00:20:03] Peter Pudner: All of our other customers benefit from that because we’ve got to meet those standards that they’re requiring for that portion of the product that they’re buying from us, or we’re manufacturing for them. And sometimes we will brand label it for other companies as well, but because of those quality standards, everyone else benefits from it, no matter how big or small the customer is.
[00:20:23] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, no, that’s awesome. I’m sure that takes a commitment from the top. You know, cause that,
[00:20:27] Peter Pudner: Absolutely.
[00:20:28] Terri Hoffman: that’s affecting every single part of the entire company when you operate that way.
[00:20:32] Terri Hoffman: You talked a little bit earlier about preparing for a conference or a trade show.
[00:20:36] Terri Hoffman: And I know you attend a lot yourself. Talk to me about, you know, how you involve marketing in that process, because ultimately the people who listen to our podcasts are people who are in roles like yours and they’re trying to figure out, like, how do I make the best use of our marketing budget and the time my salespeople are spending out in the field.
[00:20:58] Terri Hoffman: So I’d love to hear more about, how you approach conferences and trade shows.
[00:21:03] Peter Pudner: Trade shares are a big part of our marketing and sales strategy. And one thing we’ve done, you know, over the last few months now that we have a head of marketing that works exclusively with the two sales teams that I lead is, you know, we’re looking out a year. So for us, you know, spring and fall typically are the biggest trade show seasons and they’re back-to-back weeks and like, last month I had a trade show in Vegas.
[00:21:29] Peter Pudner: And then 2 weeks later I was in Anchorage, Alaska for another trade show. So a lot of planning needs to go into it. One for us, especially serving a few different industries is, figuring out which trade shows are the ones that we need to be at. We just added one in April, we’re going to do Data Center World in Washington DC for the first time.
[00:21:49] Peter Pudner: So we’re constantly looking at that. And then, you know, occasionally we will decide, you know, this trade show was, maybe it was good for us five years ago, but either that industry’s died down or the trade shows just not being managed well, whatever it may be. So I think that’s the first thing let’s make sure we’re going to the correct trade shows.
[00:22:06] Peter Pudner: The next one that I work really closely with our marketing team is, you know, what products do we need to be showing at these shows? What pre-show marketing campaigns do we need to, reach out through the CRM typically, if we do it well, but, you know, we want to be targeting the people.
[00:22:23] Peter Pudner: We do some regional trade shows, so we want to make sure we’re targeting the right customers in those regions. And we also don’t want to send, data center information to somebody who’s in, electrical power distribution, if it doesn’t relate. So that’s a big part of the pre-show planning.
[00:22:39] Peter Pudner: When you’re, going through that pre-show planning, having meetings set up, sometimes we’ll do a special event with certain customers, sometimes co-sponsored with some other manufacturing partners. And I think getting that set early and getting on their calendar is very key.
[00:22:56] Peter Pudner: And then lastly, just making sure they know, if you’re gonna have a booth, what your booth number is, come find us. Maybe set up an appointment, and that’s something that we work really closely between sales and marketing to make sure that’s set. And then at the show, of course, got everybody in the industry. Hopefully, you’re meeting some great customers, great prospects, because you did your pre-planning correctly, the booth looks great, whatever you’re showing looks great. But then I would say probably even more important than all of that is really the post-show.
[00:23:24] Peter Pudner: You know, follow-up, which can be marketing campaigns that are targeted to certain people that were in attendance. But on the sales side too, I mean, that’s when you really get the value out of it is post-show. And if you don’t have a plan going into that, you’re going to get back into your role fighting fires like we do on a daily basis.
[00:23:42] Peter Pudner: And so I think working really closely with the marketing campaigns and sales. You know, pre, during, and post-show is just vital to making it really give you the best, bang for your buck.
[00:23:54] Terri Hoffman: It sounds like you have a great strategy in place. Those three buckets and really making sure, like you said, pre, during, post. I can’t believe how many brands miss post.
[00:24:03] Terri Hoffman: You know, they focus very much on being there and of course that has to happen or you don’t need to worry about the pre or the post, but, I think there’s so much emphasis put on the being there part that you forget while people are at those kinds of events, they’re being hit with hundreds of messages or thousands sometimes depending on the size of the show.
[00:24:24] Terri Hoffman: Even if they had a great experience meeting with you during the show, they’re going to go back to their lives too, and the fires they’re fighting and they’re going to forget. If you don’t immediately have a strategy to follow up with them and make sure that you’re really reinforcing that relationship and reinforcing what you discussed during the event.
[00:24:43] Terri Hoffman: It’s great.
[00:24:44] Peter Pudner: Very well put.
[00:24:45] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, we all get exhausted after those kinds of events. You’re like, well, I don’t want to think about that for another week. You got to follow up or you’re not taking full advantage of the investment of time and money.
[00:24:54] Peter Pudner: Yeah, a lot of times while you’re there, you know, you’ve got early mornings, late nights, you’re still getting your regular emails while you’re at the trade shows. and it is easy, you know, you get back, you do get a little backed up sometimes on your, your regular emails and everything else that you have, you know, meetings getting pushed back till after the trade show.
[00:25:12] Peter Pudner: So if you don’t have a plan in place, you’re, you’re not going to do proper follow-up. And it’s, it’s really a wasted opportunity.
[00:25:18] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, I agree. One thing that I think is a newer, important trend is using content about your brand to support the sales process. Do you guys have any type of content strategy that, that you use? Whether it’s about your facility, about your products to just, like raise that awareness and support your sales efforts. How do you guys leverage those channels?
[00:25:43] Peter Pudner: Yeah. So I think, you know, we did hire a new head of marketing that just as focused on the, two sales teams that I work with. We’ve got a list of projects we’re working on currently. We realized our website’s a little bit dated. We’re making small incremental changes, but then we’re also going to go a complete overhaul where our website next year will look completely different than it does today.
[00:26:03] Peter Pudner: I think there’s some good stuff on there, you know, and you can have the greatest products in the world, but if no one knows about them, then, you’re not going to sell them. Right. So, you know, some of it, we’ve got some quote and configuration tools just because of the type of products we do.
[00:26:16] Peter Pudner: We’re making sure that those are in a place where they’re easily accessible. Our new, head of marketing is learning a lot about just Google and the paid advertisements and, that type of thing. One of the projects she’s working on right now with the sales team is making sure we have all our keywords for the right products. The right keywords that are going to show up when customers are doing internet searches.
[00:26:39] Peter Pudner: And one thing we’re trying to you know, internally talk about is play the customer. You know, what would you be searching for? Is it just an outdoor enclosure? Is it, something for data centers? And then see what pops up on those searches. So that’s one initiative that our head of marketing is working on right now, still a work in progress.
[00:26:58] Peter Pudner: Going to play in with the entire, kind of website overhaul. Another thing is our LinkedIn outreach. I think that’s when you get a lot of value, other than the time that goes into it. When I first started, we would have a LinkedIn post about, some, internal lunch-type thing.
[00:27:13] Peter Pudner: You’ve got to understand which channel is best for what. LinkedIn is really your marketing page. As a company, you want to know some of the great stuff you’re doing, new product launches, that type of thing. For my team, I encourage everybody to be active on those channels.
[00:27:28] Peter Pudner: You know, you can share your personality. I’ve connected with a lot of my best customers through LinkedIn, actually, Terri, I think you and I connected through LinkedIn. And so I think it’s important to look at that as a way to market, to customers. 15 years ago, that was just showing recruiters that, your resume was online, but now it’s really a marketing tool that I think is extremely targeted and valuable if you do it right.
[00:27:50] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, I love that you said that. I mean, the trends, especially since COVID have just rapidly evolved. And I think one of the stats that really stands out to me is 70 percent of your buyers are actually doing research online before they ever get in touch with you.
[00:28:05] Terri Hoffman: Right. So 7 out of 10 people are doing a Google search or going on YouTube or searching on LinkedIn to do research, maybe not research on your company, but research about the type of solution they need. Like, don’t you want to show up there somehow and be part of that conversation so that if they go to a trade show and visit your booth or learn about you some other way, it’s like all these dots start to connect for them.
[00:28:30] Terri Hoffman: And that builds credibility for the salesperson who has to go in and do all the heavy lifting of building that relationship. Some of those early hurdles are chipped away at, and you’ve already got some credibility built before they sit down and do some kind of a needs analysis or assessment of what that client might need.
[00:28:49] Peter Pudner: And I think the website overhaul, like I said, we’ve made some incremental changes, but just because of what you said, I mean, that’s the tip of the spear. What customers will see first when they first start researching, you want that to be very impressive and to be something that looks good, but also just to have that valuable content. And I really think the way that our head of marketing is doing it by having these meetings with the sales team. What would you search for?
[00:29:12] Peter Pudner: What would your customer search for? What are the long tail searches, as well as keywords? And which products are we trying to promote? I think having everybody’s buy-in and looking at it from the different angles too, I think it’s really helpful.
[00:29:25] Peter Pudner: It’s been helpful over the past couple months and I’m really excited about next year when we have our new website in place.
[00:29:31] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, that’s great. Would you say that your salespeople lean on the website now and how would you see that sort of evolving as the improvements come?
[00:29:41] Terri Hoffman: Trying to figure out how to use that as part of their toolset, I guess is a different mindset that they’re going to have to adopt, right?
[00:29:46] Peter Pudner: Previously, a lot of times it was sort of that, I guess, shotgun approach where you’re just sending a lot of information, but I think the targeted links, like I mentioned, a lot of what we do is engineered-to-order or configured-to-order at least.
[00:29:59] Peter Pudner: Sending a link to those configuration pages or that product that’s very specific to what they were searching for, as opposed to just a huge list of products, right? That’s hard to, hard to get into. I don’t think we’re ever going to get completely away from emails,
[00:30:13] Peter Pudner: but when you’re following up with emails, you know, to make sure you have a link to that specific page and not just, hey, here’s our product catalog.
[00:30:22] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Well, I love it. It’s a journey, you know, it’s not a, here’s where we’re going to go and we’re going to get there. Because as soon as we all think that way, well, guess what?
[00:30:31] Terri Hoffman: Some new technology comes out or, platform changes how it functions and it all evolves again. But you talked about the Salesforce AI tools and all of these CRMs, you know, HubSpot, Salesforce. Those are really the main two platforms that any of our clients are on. It’s really exciting to see some of the AI tools they’re coming out with.
[00:30:53] Terri Hoffman: My first thought is I hope they’re not the icky type of impersonal AI tools because nobody likes those. But I’m really impressed with the quality and potential time savings that the new tools have for better targeting, quicker ways for your sales team to function.
[00:31:10] Terri Hoffman: Is that the promise and kind of hope that you’re seeing out of the Salesforce tools?
[00:31:14] Peter Pudner: You know, I was actually on a call with LinkedIn, on their sales navigator tools that do, you know, sync into Salesforce and CRMs. And it is great as far as framing up an email. I don’t want anybody on my team to look at it as, hey, I’m going to take this artificially generated email or message and send it straight to the customer.
[00:31:33] Peter Pudner: But, you know, a lot of times it’s just getting started. It’s the hard part, right? When you’re trying to figure out how to create the message, and with some of these AI tools now, you know, you put in the correct prompts and you have something that’s maybe it’s 80 percent there. And you’ve got to put in some work to make sure that it doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a robot or AI, but I do think it just can save you so much time and you don’t have as much of that, writer’s block, you know, type of thing. Where it’s like, okay, how am I going to create this message, where it’s put in the prompts, get it framed up?
[00:32:02] Peter Pudner: And then from there, you know, it’s, it’s, again, you’ve got to make sure it’s personal, make sure it’s something that sounds like what you want to say and what you would say. I don’t think it’s going to do everything for you, but I think there’s going to be a lot of value in the people that know how to use these tools correctly.
[00:32:19] Peter Pudner: And then, you know, who knows where it goes from here, I guess.
[00:32:22] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, no, I agree with you. Why not use something that saves you time, as long as you’re still validating it yourself. Because you don’t want someone to get to know you, and then they start getting emails from you that sound nothing like you.
[00:32:35] Terri Hoffman: You also don’t want to fail to send those follow-up emails to stay connected with someone and get them the information that you know is going to help them make a more informed decision. And so, you know, it’s hard when you’re in a sales role to not procrastinate like that thing you just really don’t want to do.
[00:32:51] Terri Hoffman: And so if it gets you over that hurdle and you started, I think it’s awesome. It’s pretty cool.
[00:32:56] Peter Pudner: Yeah, and I think some of the prompts to where it’s not just a reminder, you know, you talk to Terri on, you know, whatever date and it’s been two weeks. Follow up with them. Where some of the AI tools now can be like, you know, it could add sort of a generated draft of “Hey, we had this conversation sort of based on the notes that you put in your CRM.”
[00:33:15] Peter Pudner: And then all of a sudden, you’ve got a, you know, again, 80 percent drafted email follow up or at least gives you the reminder of what you should say when you’re reached out to them, you know? Which product you talked about, what project they’re working on, and I think those are the tools that are just going to save you a ton of time if you use it correctly.
[00:33:34] Peter Pudner: And, again, I think we’ve all been stuck in a couple conversations when you realize it’s, you’re talking to a bot after, you know, one or two messages. So you definitely don’t want to be there, but I think some of these tools, again, it all works together where you can get something that’s just saved you a lot of time because it has some very valid information or something about their project that again, if you entered in the notes correctly in your CRM, you know, one month later, when they told you to follow up, you’ve got something already basically drafted based on that.
[00:34:04] Peter Pudner: I think it’s going to go a long way from here. So I’m interested in it. Still learning, of course, but, I do think that’s going to be very helpful for the people that use it correctly.
[00:34:13] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. That’s the key, is, we’re always going to have to constantly learn. As soon as we think we figure it out, something is going to change or a new feature will get added.
[00:34:21] Terri Hoffman: And you’ve got to adjust how you’re using it at that point. One other area I wanted to ask you about is, under the umbrella of accountability and having dedicated marketing being something that you’re still integrating with, like, what are some of the conversations that you guys have around accountability between both groups?
[00:34:40] Terri Hoffman: Ultimately it’s a two-way street. You’re all together accountable for helping to grow revenue and retain relationships. But like, what are some of the things that are important to you in that vice president role when it comes to accountability?
[00:34:53] Peter Pudner: As far as accountability, I mean, it’s, you know, I hate to say tracking in general, just because
[00:34:58] Peter Pudner: I don’t want people to feel like they’re just being tracked on everything. But I do think like we talked about, you know, trade shows specifically where we’re going into these trade shows and after the fact, a lot of times it’s like, hey, we’ve got this big list. But how many of those people that you met at the trade shows or conversations you had at the trade shows turned into revenue.
[00:35:18] Peter Pudner: And so that’s the type of thing that we’re trying to make sure we manage better. And it’s accountability to first make sure to the sales teams doing the proper follow-up. You know, what percentage of conversions, that type of thing. But then also just such valuable information.
[00:35:32] Peter Pudner: Somebody who’s doing it very well, like with their trade share follow-up, inevitably, they’re going to see more revenue from that. And then it becomes a best practice thing.
[00:35:41] Peter Pudner: So, you’re holding them accountable. You’re looking at, their information through the CRM or follow-up from these trade shows. They’re going to see value in it if they’re being tracked on it.
[00:35:52] Peter Pudner: And so I think that’s how you do hold them accountable. But, you know, promoting the people that have done really well and highlighting some of those success stories. I think all of that really holds them accountable, but also just pays a lot of dividends as far as making sure you’re successful as a team.
[00:36:07] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. I love that. Cause finding that success as a team and making sure that you’re driving towards the right goals is if you’re holding people accountable, then you’re actually helping to make them successful in their role, right? And you’re making sure you’re working towards the right company goals together.
[00:36:23] Terri Hoffman: So that’s a great perspective. That Duke MBA just shining through, Peter.
[00:36:29] Terri Hoffman: Well, Peter, this has been a really valuable conversation.
[00:36:32] Terri Hoffman: I think there’s tons of nuggets that are going to be relatable to our listeners and will help people in their own management process hopefully improve what they’re doing. Progress over perfection is always what I preach, for my own business and for, what anybody’s working on.
[00:36:47] Terri Hoffman: But I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to join me today. Really appreciate it, and for people who are listening and they want to get in touch with you, maybe there’s people out there who are like, I’d love to work for Peter. These sound like great companies or people who would want to connect with you.
[00:37:02] Terri Hoffman: What’s the best way to get in touch with you?
[00:37:04] Peter Pudner: For me personally, I guess for anybody here, you could just reach out to me through LinkedIn. For our company, we have our LinkedIn pages set up. So dustshield.com is our website for DustShield, amprod.us is for the American products site. You could definitely reach out through those methods. If you want to reach out to me directly, probably through LinkedIn’s easiest. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me through any of those channels.
[00:37:30] Terri Hoffman: Awesome. And we’ll include all those links in the, in the transcript and the show notes, just for anybody who’s interested. You should be able to find that pretty easily. So thanks again. I really appreciate your time.
[00:37:40] Peter Pudner: Thank you, Terri. Really appreciate your time.
[00:37:42] Terri Hoffman: Thank you for listening to B2B marketing methods. Please be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast channel and leave us a review. We’d love to hear from you and connect. You can find me on LinkedIn or visit our company website at marketingrefresh.com.
