Managing Marketing: What Makes A Great B2B Marketing Strategy

stuart jaffray

Stuart Jaffray is the Managing Director at integrated Business to Business marketing agency Green Hat. Green Hat assists their clients with B2B strategy and creativity to attract, engage and delight their customers and turn them into loyal advocates, measuring everything that matters and aligning Sales & Marketing to deliver revenue outcomes. But with a career background in direct marketing, media, automotive marketing and now B2B consulting, Stuart brings a unique and informed perspective on what makes great B2B marketing.

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So, that’s the rules. I’ve just described all the rules.
Except that it’s one of those games because it’s so strategic that it can take a lifetime to master.

 

Transcription:

Darren:

Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, founder and CEO of TrinityP3 Marketing Management Consultancy, and welcome to Managing Marketing, a weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.

Today, I’m sitting down with Stuart Jaffray, Managing Director at integrated B2B marketing agency, Green Hat.

Now, Green Hat assists their clients with B2B strategies and creative to attract, engage, and delight their customers, and turn them into loyal advocates, measuring everything that matters and aligning sales and marketing to deliver revenue outcomes. Welcome, Stuart.

Stuart:

Thanks for having me, Darren.

Darren:

Look, I’m so glad you could make the time for this conversation because I think the area that you’re working in B2B, it feels like your career has just absolutely qualified you into this category.

When I saw that you started at Simon Richards Group in Australia, I thought what a great place to start with direct marketing, and probably what was considered one of the best direct marketing agencies in the country at the time.

Stuart:

Yeah. Look, it’s funny when you put it like that, Darren, and if I reflect back on the journey that’s taken me to Green Hat, it looks actually like it’s been fairly well-organized to get me to where I have today.

What actually has happened is that there has been experience that I’ve been able to build on, on the way through that’s been able to get me to where I am now. But look, you’re right. The foundations of that from Simon Richards Group, which was a fantastic direct marketing agency has really put me in good step with what we now do at Green Hat.

Darren:

Yeah, it’s interesting because direct marketing hardly ever gets talked about these days. Everything’s digital this and digital that, but I always say that direct marketing actually landed the foundations of what good digital should be doing today.

Stuart:

Yeah, , I’d agree with you completely there. And if I go back, this was over 20 years ago, direct marketing back then, was actually direct mail and faxes, can you believe. We were still sending those out and receiving them as well, by the way.

The foundations there from a measurement and analytics perspective absolutely have pushed through into the digital space. And as my career grew out from direct mail and fax, into what then became known as CRM, all of those foundational pieces have continued to sort of grow and evolve through from there.

Darren:

And that was really the interesting move where you set the trend, because today, we’ve seen a lot of agency people jump to client side, but you did that a long time before Brent Smart and the rest of them did it, didn’t you?

Stuart:

I did. I left Simon Richards Group to go to BMW. I think, look, it was fair to say that I had really enjoyed my experience at Simon Richards Group working on Mercedes Benz. And when BMW knocked on my door and they approached me, they had a CRM role available in their marketing team at the time, I jumped at it.

It’s an amazing brand. It was an amazing opportunity. And for me, to take what I thought, my agency experience into a client side role and add value to them because of that was a huge opportunity.

What actually happened is that I took my agency experience over there, realized how little of what goes on in a client’s day-to-day, I actually understood, and rounded myself out as a marketer. So, it actually worked in reverse to how I thought it was, but an amazing experience for me.

Darren:

Look, and it’s interesting you’d say that because I think most agency people that have not had client side experience think, “Oh, well, I pretty much understand it. I work with clients.” But they suddenly realized that the agency component is just a very small part of the day, isn’t it?

Stuart:

Yes, it is. Absolutely. And look, I think the other thing as well, Darren, is that in an agency you have the opportunity to specialize in, be it digital, be it media, be it creative, but across a broad suite of industries.

So, there is depth, but the depth is coming across your skillset. You don’t really have the depth across the individual industry.

When you’re client side, you are expected to build your depth out on the industry vertical that you work in and then broadly, sweep over the top of all of the facets of the marketing mix. So, both of them become somewhat myopic at times because of that and because of the view.

When I was at BMW, you would start to lose sight at times of the fact that not everyone understood how to spec adjust and price adjust a BMW against the Mercedes-Benz. We did it every day. Consumers don’t do that.

Darren:

Yeah, it’s also interesting because you became a team man and you’d have to say automotive is an area where most people probably don’t think of CRM. But where you’ve got a purchase of such a big item and also, the opportunity of building brand loyalty and increasing revenue with after sales and other services, makes it ideal, doesn’t it?

Stuart:

Yeah, it absolutely does. And look, when I think about what existed when I joined BMW to what existed when I left and the advent of digital data, and all of the intent signals that we were able to garner on consumers, and then use that to inform our decision-making, to influence what was going on in the purchase funnel, ideally with a view to getting the consumer through to the sales team quicker in order that we could then genuinely influence their behavior — there was a significant opportunity for CRM within auto.

Darren:

It’s also interesting from my perspective automotive, because agencies are inclined to think of these big automotive brands. Now, you’ve mentioned Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, the luxury ones, but also, some of the others.

And yet very little in a global market is actually done locally at that sort of awareness level. A lot of the advertising comes from overseas and it’s the CRM and the after sales and all that, where there’s actually real opportunities for doing and being innovative locally. Isn’t there?

Stuart:

Yeah, I agree with that completely. The pressure was always on at BMW from Munich to be taken the central of the global assets. And you needed a very, very sound rationale to be able to turn around and say, “Look, you’re 20 million production campaign just isn’t fit for purpose in Australia.” So, typically, you would end up taking the global assets.

But when you thought about it from a CRM, from a digital, and also, from a media standpoint as well, that’s where your opportunity was to actually be able to genuinely influence. And the guidance that came through from head office was minimal in those areas.

We had a lot of flexibility and autonomy there, and maybe that’s why I’ve developed my career out in those areas as well, because they were the parts that I had the greatest influence over.

Darren:

Well, you mentioned media because the next step at BMW was Starcom and managing an office of Starcom Media.

Stuart:

That’s right. So, I left BMW after 10 years, I’d spent the last three years there as the General Manager of Marketing. I’d started to realize that if I didn’t get out of auto, I was going to be in auto for the rest of my life. It was like John Wayne in cowboy movies; once you’ve done too many of them, that’s it, you’re stuck doing them for the rest of your life.

And I wanted to do something different. I am a marketer. And as I said, one of the areas that I had significant influence over at BMW was in media. And I had a very sort of strong interest around that space.

Timing worked out. I was fortuitous in terms of the fact that there was an opportunity there at a Starcom, Melbourne and I leapt at it.

It was a baptism of fire for me. I would say that first 12 months, coming from agency, creative agency, CRM agency, into client, you realize how much of what goes on there that you didn’t know. I learned the same very quickly going into a media agency.

And there was a huge cultural adjustment that I had to make as well, coming out of a Germanic suit and tie environment into a media agency where the language is different, the demographic is different. And that challenged me for a while as well. I certainly grew a lot in those first 12 months that I was with Starcom.

Darren:

Oh, it would’ve been a huge cultural shift, from as you say, the global corporate style of BMW to the more relaxed. But media is interesting, isn’t it? I always say that media reminds me of that game of Go; the ancient game of Go, where you have black and white tiles and each person takes a turn and you have to encircle your opposition and take-

Stuart:

Yes, yeah.

Darren:

So, that’s the rules. I’ve just described all the rules of the game of Go. Except that it’s one of those games, because it’s so strategic, that it can take a lifetime to master. And these Go masters have been at it for years and years and years doing nothing else.

And I think media’s the same, and correct me if I’m wrong, but sitting there at BMW, you probably think, “Yeah, media’s pretty straightforward.” Just buy the right media at the right place, at the right time to get the right eyeballs and the right engagement, job done. Except it does take a lifetime of practice to really master it, doesn’t it?

Stuart:

You’re absolutely right. And I was there for three years. I learned an enormous amount. And I was lucky though, that I was surrounded (given the role I had) by practitioners that had been doing this for all of their life.

And also, practitioners that had grown up from interns within a media agency environment that understood the nuances of what everyone in the team was actually doing. And do you know what, there are probably still some people that if I look back at the agency, if you ask me what they did, I’ll say, “I have no idea, but everyone told me they were important. So, we kept them.”

Darren:

Look, that sort of candor is always a secret to success, I think in marketing, because if you can be that candid, people just want to tell you everything they know.

Stuart:

Correct. I spent a lot of time in my first sort of three months there sitting down, for example, with the programmatic team. And I would sit with them and say, “I’m just going to sit with you for two days, because I think I know what you do, but I probably don’t really understand it.” And that in itself was eye-opening as well, how manual our automation actually really is.

Darren:

Yeah, exactly. I think that’s actually a bit scary. I want to give you a bravery award for actually tackling that one.

So, but then from Starcom, you joined Green Hat.

Stuart:

Yep.

Darren:

Now what was the thinking at the time?

Stuart:

Okay. And again, I’d love to tell you a story where it was pre-planned and this was my destiny and all of those things. Darren, the reality is that it wasn’t.

I think like a lot of people, as we went through the pandemic, I started to sort of reevaluate what it was that I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

And hand on heart, I could tell you that running Starcom Melbourne was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I’d taken an awful lot out of the experience, but I just couldn’t see me doing that forever.

I resigned from that agency, not knowing exactly what I was going to do next, but with a fairly good idea of what I wanted to do. And I met Green Hat’s founder, Andrew Haussegger literally the week after I had resigned.

So, again, for me the timing and the stars just aligned on this. We started to talk about the agency that he had built over the last 21 years or 20 years as it was at that time. And the longer we spoke about it, the more appeal the role actually had. And he was looking for a Managing Director to come in and take away from him the day-to-day operations. He’s busted himself into the ground there for 20 years, he deserves that.

And as a family business, and it is a family business, it’s one he started, his wife works within the business. His kids have all done work experience there. He was looking for someone that he could really trust to pick up and run the agency for him.

We spent a lot of time on the chemistry between the two of us and how we saw the world and that cultural alignment as well. And the recognition I had, the more that I spoke to Andrew was that whilst at that stage, I certainly wasn’t a B2B expert, an awful lot of what I had done (and you picked up on this) had led me to a place where I could say that’s transferable, that’s transferable, that’s transferable.

Even when you think about an auto purchase, it is probably the most considered significant investment and sort of long-term in terms of that gestation period from consideration through to purchase that you’ll go through as a consumer; that’s getting to you towards when we’re talking about B2B.

So, there are experiences there that I now look back on and say that they led me to this, but I didn’t know that at the time.

Darren:

Yeah, it’s a good old 2020 hindsight, looking back on your career, it felt like, “Oh, this is a well-planned, well-oiled career path.” But as you say at the time, you’re not quite sure what the direction is, but the opportunities keep presenting themselves. And I think at best or worst, we could say you’ve made some smart decisions along the way.

Stuart:

Well, one day, I’ll get to sit down and write a book that demonstrates that this was planned out really, from my education days. So, this is where I was going to get to, and then I’m going to have to hope no one listens to this podcast, and here’s the actual truth of the matter.

Darren:

Now, the interesting thing is that B2B; business to business is a really specialist area from my perspective. Although I have had a lot of B2C agencies say to me, “Well, we think of it more as B2P,” which is business to people. And so, it’s really the same thing, but there are some significant nuances, aren’t there that make it quite a different discipline.

Stuart:

Yeah, I wouldn’t even call it nuances. There are huge differences in terms of the way that we would go to market for a B2B perspective.

It’s interesting what you said about the B2C agencies and look, you know what, 12 months ago, 18 months ago I’d have probably said the same thing as well, because I was working for a B2C agency. I wanted to do more B2B work if it was on the table, therefore, we would’ve taken that approach.

I read an article earlier this year, actually from a B2C marketer that was published in this country that said, “There’s no such thing as B2B marketing, it’s all B2C.”

And that article then went on to provide examples of selling toilet papers to a consumer, into a business. And I think they also referenced auto and cameras. Now, I think that the author of that article was right to make the point; regardless of B2B or B2C, you’re communicating with a human being. Yeah, you are. I agree, tick.

And I think that for a brand that is predominantly a B2C brand, a lot of their go-to market strategy for B2B is going to be relatively similar. it’s a very small component of what they’re doing, and they’re not considering really the B2B side of what they’re doing.

I’d also agree that the fundamentals of marketing remain the same. You need to build memory structures, you need to build brand salience. It’s all about creating distinctive brand assets, mental and physical availability. The laws of double jeopardy don’t go away. All of that foundation stays the same, but from there, it is very, very different.

Darren:

Yeah. And one of the key things is that the audience that you’re targeting, they may be people, but they’re making decisions in a different set of circumstances.

On B2C, you’re largely making decisions on a personal basis. Whereas B2B, there’s this consideration of, “I may be making the decision, but I’m doing it on behalf of the organization that I belong to.” Isn’t it?

Stuart:

Absolutely right.

Darren:

Which is an extra consideration and filter.

Stuart:

Really simple comparison on that. I was in Coles yesterday. I grabbed a couple of cartons of flavored milk for the kids. I saw it on the shelf, it was a spontaneous purchase. I bought it home, I put it in the fridge, they got home from school and they said, “Dad, I don’t like that flavor.” And they tipped it down the sink. That was the end of it. I didn’t damage my reputation from making that decision.

Their question to me was then, “What can I have instead.” It was as simple as that, it’s a really simple sort of spontaneous piece of decision-making.

Now, consider that I had the ultimate responsibility, for example, for the purchase decision of SaaS ERP, so an enterprise resource planning system for my business. At the end of that decision making process, we’re going to sign a five-year deal. Let’s say it’s $2 million a year. So, it’s a $10 million investment.

Now, if I get that decision wrong, the implementation of that product is going to strangle our business. I could cost the business millions of dollars, not just in the investment that we’re making, but in the opportunity cost there as well.

I’m probably going to lose my job as a result of that decision. So, it’s not a spontaneous decision. It’s part of a considered decision-making process. I’ve got to look at my personal value. I’ve also got to look at the impact that this decision’s going to have on the reputation of my business.

And you sort of touched on this as well. I’m probably not the only person that’s responsible for making that decision in B2B. And we ran a webinar with clients and prospects about six months ago, we had about a hundred B2B marketers on that webinar. And we actually asked them as a poll, what is the typical size of the buying group there, or the buying party that you’re looking to influence?

There’s 5 to 10 people was the most common group that was sort of selected out. and we know that in a small business environment, that size of buying group will come down. But if you’re then talking about government, for example, the size of that buying party might double, triple, quadruple, depending on the level of investment they’re making there.

So, that changes things radically. It also means Darren, that when we start talking about the buyer, we typically start by talking about it from an account perspective, not from the perspective of an individual or a person.

So, we will start by talking about an ICP, the ideal customer profile, and the ICP is essentially, let’s call it a fictitious imagining of the perfect business, for us to sell to that’s going to be able to take advantage of the product or the service that we’re offering.

And from there, we’ll come down and start to talk about the personas or the people that make up the buying group or the buying party. So, that in itself is radically different to the way that you would typically approach B2C.

Darren:

Yeah, fascinating. And I love the fact that you’re able to articulate that viewpoint because a lot of the times when we challenge B2C agencies or agencies that have got primarily B2C, and I’ll ask them for a definition of the difference. And first of, I’ll say there’s no difference.

But then secondly, they’ll often start using examples that I would call trade marketing, rather than true B2B marketing. And you are actually doing marketing to sell to your distributors or for consumer package goods to sell to retailers and the like. Rather than true B2B, where you have a product that you’re actually selling into an organization where there is often no existing other commercial relationship.

Stuart:

Yeah, you’re absolutely spot on there. And do you know if I look back at my experience in B2C agencies and your example there of trade marketing, typically, if we were doing what we would deem to be B2B at the time, it was absolutely in that trade marketing arena.

I think the other thing that you would often see happening is that the consumer communications are literally sort of picked up with a slight adaptation for use within the B2B space. And again, look there’s a huge flaw in that given the level of buying decision that you’re being asked to make at that stage.

I’ll be candid around this one; if I look back now from a BMW perspective, we did have a B2B offering. We were looking to sell to your Australia Posts, to your Telstras-

Darren:

Yeah, fleet deals.

Stuart:

Organizations buying big fleets. Did we consider from a marketing perspective, really, the differences? No, we would just say, “Look, it’s an amazing car, and they’re just going to want to buy — like mom, and dad’s going to want to buy one. Mr. Telstra’s just going to want buy 50 of them because it’s just a cool product.” It’s a completely different buying and purchasing cycle.

Darren:

Well, especially, if you can get fired as the CEO for buying Cartier watches to incentivize … imagine buying BMW cars as an incentive for executives; God you’d be hung, drawn, and quartered in public.

Stuart:

You would, indeed. You would indeed. And then look, if I was to think about that, to reflect on it, there’s two other main points I’ll make for you. One is around the length of the buying cycle.

We know from our experience across our clients and I think Gartner would support this as well; you’re typically looking at somewhere between three months and three years for a purchasing decision in B2B, depending on the product and service. And it’s interesting that the Binet and Field have also recognized this in their work, on the six principles of B2B growth.

So for B2C, and I think this is well-trodden ground, they advocate 60% of marketing budget spent on long term brand building and 40% on what they term as short-term activation.

Interestingly, for B2B, they actually flip that on its head and they say 54% for activation, in B2B, we typically call that demand generation and they say 46% for long-term brand building.

Now, the reason that they flip it on its head is because they recognize that the purchasing window is that much longer that you need more assets to feed the funnel once someone is actually in that funnel.

And again, if I go back to auto, once you were in the funnel one month, two months, three months, and you’re in a dealership and you’ve purchased either from the brand that you were looking at or from someone else.

Yes, from a CRM perspective, we had significant activities running across that, but it’s for a fairly short period. I now have to be able to keep on behalf of our clients, buyers engaged for a period of up to three years, and that requires us to think very differently. Creatively, we talk about it in terms of big, long ideas.

It needs an idea that is going to work from a brand perspective to bring you into the funnel, but then take you through what could be this three-year gestation period. And so, you really need an idea with legs that’s going to be able to pull through for that sort of period of time.

Darren:

Yeah. The other thing, as you were saying that, that long period gestation decision-making period, the other thing is that in the B2C area, the rise of eCommerce has actually seen a lot of B2C companies that may have traditionally had a sales force or a sales team have actually significantly reduced those sales teams because consumers are much more adept at moving to eCommerce.

But B2B, because of probably the need for that long-term relationship, still significantly relies, in most cases, on a sales team, don’t they? And so, the role of B2B is to support that.

Stuart:

Yes, it is. Look, again, I was told earlier in my career that if you didn’t work in sales, you were there to support them. It couldn’t be truer in the B2B space. And I think that there’s this notion that if you’re a pure play B2B business, you are typically a sales-led organization. I absolutely agree. I absolutely subscribe to that.

It’s relatively common in those types of organizations as well, that the head of marketing actually reports to the head of sales. Now, I know that that happens in B2C as well, but I would say it’s much more common to see that type of structure in a B2B environment.

And I guess the load-star for any B2B organization is what they’ll talk about in terms of sales and marketing alignment and B2B marketing being deeply integrated in with sales activity. I don’t think B2C marketers understand that. I don’t think that they get that. I don’t think that they would look to spend enough time with the sales team.

Our strategy team will often say, and I hear them say it to senior CMOs on our client side, “That’s all really interesting, but I’d like to talk to the head of sales about it, please. And I’d like to talk to a couple of the field force as well, because I want to challenge that.”

And typically what happens there is that some of those assumptions that exist are challenged very, very clearly by the sales team, and challenged with rigor and data as well, because they are there on the cole face.

Now, when you then look at it from a sales and marketing perspective in a B2B organization, I think sort of historically, you’ve had this notion that marketing was there to deliver MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads). MQL would go off to sales, sales were qualified. So, it’s now sales qualified lead, and then sales will continue to work through to sale to the end of the cycle.

And so, there was this almost looking at that purchase funnel as a really sort of linear thing and marketing would take it to a point, hand it off. Yeah, there would be some funnel activation on the way through.

What we’re seeing now is that the more sort of progressive (if you like) B2B organizations are really looking to reshape that. Unify marketing and sales into a CX function, as an example, focused on customer enablement, not just sales enablement and this sort of recognition as well.

But when you look at the long buying cycle, lots of people involved persona-wise, but not all involved all of the way through, the customer journey looks like a ball of spaghetti at times. It really does. And we have to help our clients to unpack that.

And we have to as marketers as well now with the sophistication that we have from a digital perspective, be able to identify intense signals that we can feed through to sales that add value to the conversations that they’re having as well.

So, for example, if we can see that the head of procurement has suddenly become involved from a particular account that we are targeting, and we can see that because we can see them engaging with us digitally — we can feed that through to the sales team who didn’t know that at the time, by the way, in order that they can now start to change the communications that they’re having with that account, and maybe we’ll deploy, or in fact, we will deploy a different level of communication through now. Because we know that something is happening there that is changing the buying cycle and things are starting to heat up.

In a conversation you’ll end up having with sales, 80% of the time they’ll say, “We already knew that.” And, yeah good I’m glad you did. It’s the 20% of the time where we’re able to identify that and provide some genuine insight through that’s going to help them to close down a deal earlier that it makes a huge difference.

Because again, and particularly when we’re talking in sort of the IT space, for example, a lot of the decisions here are 1, 2, 3, $4 million a year for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years. So, if we can help to provide that additional insight through on 20% of the deals going through, then we’re adding a significant amount of value to the organization.

Darren:

I’m listening to a CRM marketer talk to me about supporting sales through lifetime value of a B2B customer. And I absolutely love it because it’s the technology, digital technology and these ways of being able to not just communicate, but also, track audience behavior, the B2B audience behavior.

Because as you say, when you’re dealing with a group of people that are making decisions, understanding what their behaviors and hopefully, extracting attitudes and insights into that, becomes incredibly valuable.

Now, as you say, great sales people will intrinsically be across this, but increasing complex world, it becomes harder and harder for one person or a group of sales people to really have it all covered. So, being able to embrace that technology and get those insights is invaluable, isn’t it?

Stuart:

Yeah, no, you’re absolutely spot on there. And I think because from a B2B perspective as well, we are opening up more and more digital channels for the buying party to be able to engage with us within.

And as we do that, does it change the role of the sales team at times? Yeah, really simplistic example, I don’t have to call the organization to get a copy of that brochure or their perspective anymore. I can download it online.

If I want information particular to the technical specifications for a product, it’s there for me. Probably surrounded by some, let’s call them, gated assets with some thought leadership that sit alongside that, that I can download, that’s going to help to sort of inform me and make a better decision.

So, it’s really important as we are deploying those types of tactics to engage the buying party on the way through, that we’re also then feeding that back through to sales. Because at times, you could argue that some of the marketing activity is taking away from that direct contact that would’ve happened in the past. So, we have to find ways to augment, improve, and also, speed up the process as well.

Darren:

Yeah. Now, looking back on your career, just to change pace and direction a bit; looking back on your career, what would you cherry pick as the sort of two or three key lessons you learnt along the way that you find most valuable in the role that you have now at Green Hat?

Stuart:

Oh, I would say first and foremost is that I’ve always been really sort of inquisitive and just interested. I read a lot. I read the marketing publications, I read a lot of marketing books, I read about marketing science.

And I think that, that level of curiosity has been really, really important to me all the way through the career. It’s probably also when I look at it, informed the way that I have gone on a fairly untraditional path from a CRM agency to a client, to a media agency, to a B2B agency.

So, that level of interest from me and curiosity has enabled me to do that. And I think that that’s really important for marketers.

It’s interesting, you mentioned Brent Smart earlier on, and he articulated this really well at a lunch I was at recently. He talked about the fact that as a marketer, when he picks up a copy of The Fin Review, he will also read The Daily Mail. He will make sure that he goes to the Royal Easter Show and he does all of those things because we do operate within this sort of bubble within the marketing industry at times.

And that’s not what Australia looks like, and that’s not what the greater population looks like. So, it’s really important to do things like that. I absolutely subscribe to that. And I also find that it gives me some really interesting experiences and insights as well.

The other part, and this probably goes back to my CRM days, it was drilled into me at BMW as well, is always know your numbers. And I think that one thing I would say to you there, particularly across people in agencies at times is that they’re just not close enough to the numbers and the numbers that actually matter; revenue, sales, et cetera, because that’s how ultimately, we’re all measured.

So, knowing your numbers to a level that if someone asked you now, you would be able to actually answer that question is really, really important. And those marketers that get that and can demonstrate they’re commercial savvy, have got a leg up already.

Darren:

I love that. Being born in this sort of era of space exploration, I love the word telemetry. And the idea of that I’ve seen is smart marketers have this telemetry, this dashboard of the smart numbers that their fingertips all the time. Because what that actually shows you is where you are, where you’re heading and how far away you are from getting there.

And I think that’s so important because strategy is the plan on what we are doing, but you need those numbers to actually measure your progression through your strategy and implementation. So, I think that’s so, so important.

Stuart:

I think the other part there, Darren, and I’ve learned this the hard way; if someone’s asking you about a number, it’s probably because they know what it is. So, if that sits in your realm and your responsibility, you should know what it is as well.

Darren:

As well, absolutely. Stuart Jaffray, this has been a terrific conversation, but unfortunately, it’s gone all too quickly. I really appreciate you taking the time and sitting down, having a chat especially around B2B.

Stuart:

I enjoyed it, Darren. Thanks for the opportunity.

Darren:

Look, just before you go, one last question and that is of all the clients out there in the B2B, who’s the one that you think Green Hat could make the most impact on their business?