How to Effectively Promote Productized B2B Services for Maximum Impact

For professional B2B service firms to grow and scale, they need to shift from using a customized to a more “productized” approach for their services. This requires a significant change in mindset and potentially new skills, team members, and even investment in technology.

That’s why we’re talking to leading expert and business leader Eisha Armstrong (Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, Vecteris) about how to effectively promote productized B2B services for maximum impact. During our conversation, Eisha explained why the successful commercialization of productized offerings are much more than marketing campaign and training sellers. She also highlighted the main pitfalls to avoid, what the biggest obstacles are when companies productize, and how they can get to revenue faster and more efficiently. She also provided some actionable tips on how B2B marketers can build a marketing engine that generates enough leads to achieve targets for productized offerings.

https://youtu.be/8VuPJSmQuJA

Topics discussed in episode

[3:56] Challenges in commercializing productized offerings for B2B professional services

[9:46] The benefits and obstacles of productization

[12:39] The differences between marketing and selling standardized services/products vs. traditional professional services

[14:11] Major pitfalls to avoid when selling and marketing productized offerings:

Being lazy about market segmentation
Not investing in new capabilities
Not iterating the go-to-market plan

[27:11] Actionable tips for B2B Marketers:

Update the website to reflect product offerings
Create product marketing contents
Consider bringing in external product marketing expertise

[30:25] Eisha’s view on productization and AI

Companies and links mentioned

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Eisha Armstrong, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp 00:00

Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today I’ll be talking to Eisha Armstrong. She is the executive chairman and co-founder of Vecteris, and a business leader with expertise in product innovation as well as product portfolio management. She has extensive experience launching new data and information service businesses, building Executive Education products, advising C level executives and overseeing data analysis and qualitative research in a recurring revenue model. She’s also a published author, and has recently released her new book, “Commercialize” -how to monetize, sell and market productized offerings in B to B professional services. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketer’s mission is. Eisha Armstrong, I’m gonna say, welcome back to the show. So good to have you here.

Eisha Armstrong 00:52

Thank you, Christian. It’s great to be here.

Christian Klepp 00:55

Wow. I mean, where do I even begin? I think I’m gonna begin by saying that, you know, I’ve been interviewing a couple of folks like yourself on the show for quite a while, and one of the guests that I recently interviewed, and we’re pushing that episode live this Thursday, he actually told me that one of the reasons why he wanted to come on the show was because he listened to my interview with you, right the past one. And I’m interviewing another gentleman in two day’s time who said he’s read your book product ties twice, right?

Eisha Armstrong 01:28

Wow, two times!

Christian Klepp 01:30

yes. But I’m gonna, like, just push you into the spotlight here, because, you know, before I hit record, you did tell me this one anecdote, and I thought it was just absolutely awesome. So please over to you.

Eisha Armstrong 01:41

Yeah. No, it’s um, yeah. So Productize has been out now for three and a half years, and earlier this year, during the summer, I was at the swimming pool, and I walked by a person who was standing in the water in the pool, but they had a book like out on the ledge, and they were marking it up with a pen. And as I walked by, I noticed it was my book Productize.

Christian Klepp 02:06

No…

Eisha Armstrong 02:07

I know. And then, you know, people are like, oh, did you offer decide I was like, No, my bathing suit. I didn’t want to, but to see it at the swimming pool and somebody marking it up was pretty amazing. And I’m just so thankful for all the people who bought it and read it and said good things about it, and I’m glad it’s, I’m glad it’s helping entrepreneurs and business leaders.

Christian Klepp 02:29

Wow. I mean, I shot, like, first of all, I’m happy for you, but you can’t make this stuff up, right? Like…

Eisha Armstrong 02:34

No, I know the pool of all places, yeah.

Christian Klepp 02:37

I mean, hopefully there weren’t, you know, there weren’t too many people around them, like splashing and whatnot, because, you know, if the book got wet, then, you know…

Eisha Armstrong 02:45

Yeah, it was in the adult section of the swimming pool, so there were no kids around. Pretty tame, but yeah, he was, there was a person at the swimming pool reading my book.

Christian Klepp 02:54

Fantastic, fantastic. I mean, I gotta, I have to say, I mean, like, I must admit, that’s a first for me,

Eisha Armstrong 03:03

Yeah, especially because it’s a business non fiction book.

Christian Klepp 03:06

Right, right. I mean, if you see somebody at the airport, you know, while they’re waiting for their flight, and then they they’re reading your book. I mean, that’s one thing. Like, okay, fantastic. But this guy’s, like, in the pool, all right, yeah, he’s not even…

Eisha Armstrong 03:17

Productize. It’s a great pool read, yeah. I knew (laugh).

Christian Klepp 03:23

Yeah, forget the horror novels. Just chuck that out the window, right? Like….

Eisha Armstrong 03:27

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Christian Klepp 03:30

Fantastic. Eisha, I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because we are going to be talking about something that is very close to your heart, something that you’re extremely passionate about, and it’s something that you bring up in your new book, Commercialize, right? So for this conversation, let’s focus on a topic that is related to your new book, Commercialize, and that’s how to monetize, sell and market productized offerings in B2B professional services. So I’m going to kick off the conversation with this question, why do you think the successful commercialization of productized offerings is much more than just marketing campaigns and training your sellers?

Eisha Armstrong 04:08

Oh, yeah, good question. So this was kind of what was at the root of why I decided to write this book. So what we were seeing with the companies that we work with, B to B services firms who are trying to standardize and scale what we call productization, is that they were really stumbling in the go to market phase or commercialization phase of that. And, you know, they could have a great product idea, you know, developed it very well, but just were struggling to get the traction that they thought they would, and they would immediately go to, how do I change my marketing, or how do I better train my sellers to sell it, and while that is certainly part of the successful go to market equation, or successful commercialization. It’s, it’s missing a lot of very important components, and those include having a really good understanding of who your target market is and what their buying journey looks like, the pricing and the packaging of the product, so that you’re appropriately monetizing it, selecting the best sales channel. So before you jump in and start training your current sellers on how to sell your new product, is that the right sales channel? So kind of making that decision, making sure that you’re set up, well, if it’s a renewable product, to renew it, that you’ve got customer success, you’ve designed the product for renewal. And then, honestly, like reorienting your entire organization around this idea of “customer lifetime value”. So there are a lot of things beyond marketing campaigns, beyond training the sales team that go into successful commercialization. We try to unpack those in the book and it’s really everything we wrote about is rooted in experiences that we saw. So I start the book by telling the story of a company which we’ve pseudonymed as talent tether. They wouldn’t let us use their real name, but they’re a global provider of outplacement services, and they were productizing both in creating products that could be sold down market. So outplacement services that could be sold to a more price sensitive market segment, as well as creating products that would augment their outplacement services. And they were very candid with us in our research about how much they struggled with trying to get their traditional sales team to sell it, trying to set up an E commerce channel, getting the incentives right for the sales team, figuring out how to do lead generation. So a lot of different things that kind of illustrate all the different components that go into successful commercialization of a new product. And I thought it was such a great example about again, why this is so much more than marketing or just training your sales team.

Christian Klepp 07:05

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. You just made me think of a question, and I might have asked this in the previous conversation, but I think it’s worth repeating, and you’ve probably seen this. You probably talk about it in your books. I’m going to say plural, right. How do you change this mindset of these companies, right? That are at this stage where they want to scale, but they keep coming back to you with Eisha, we can’t do this. We can’t productize because each customer is different. It has to be customized. They all have different needs and requirements. You know, scaling by productizing this offerings is just not something that we can do. How do you, I won’t say, like, push back against that, but how do you get them to… how do you convince them that that mindset is not in their interest?

Eisha Armstrong 07:57

Yeah, so that’s, that’s a really good question. I think most companies, they have to see it to believe it. So the first thing we’ll do is we’ll say, Well, can we run some experiments and maybe identify a couple of different market segments where a more scalable approach, more standardized approach, might be sufficient for them. So certainly, there are definitely market segments that are very price insensitive and are willing to pay for highly customized, bespoke offerings. But there are also usually segments of the market that are willing to maybe sacrifice a little bit of customization in return for perhaps something that’s easier to use, perhaps less expensive to use, and let’s go out and test that and see if that’s indeed true. We also find that if an organization is really serious about the strategy of productization, there’s certainly things that they can do, from a change management perspective, to win the hearts and minds of the people that are already there, but to be successful, they will probably also need to bring in people who have a different skill set, and are, you know, from organizations where they’ve sold products before, developed products before, because it’s a very different way of going to market, and a very different way about thinking about, how do you meet market segment needs.

Christian Klepp 09:27

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. And it’s going back to your point, right? It requires a different skill set. It requires a different approach. And, you know, just short of stating the obvious, it is in their long term interest, right? If they want to grow because I think the customization, correct me. If I’m wrong, the customization approach might hinder that growth to a certain extent.

Eisha Armstrong 09:48

Yeah, it’s certainly so. Productization has a lot of different benefits, and being able to grow more scalably so not have to add costs at the same rate that you’re growing is one of those benefits. Not having to add headcount or very specialized professional talent at the same rate is one of those benefits. But also being able to assure standard quality across many different customers is another benefit of a more standardized approach, because you’re not kind of subject to the whims of the you know, quality of one professional over another, being less key person dependent is a benefit. You know, I talked about, usually, products are sold kind of on a more renewable basis. So having that revenue visibility is another benefit, kind of getting, you know, services firms, out of that feast or famine that sometimes happen. Yeah, you smile and nod, yeah. So, I mean, there are many different benefits, and I think it’s important to be clear on why are you productizing before you start running down this path and making sure that everyone in the organization understands the larger why. That also helps with the change management.

Christian Klepp 11:12

You just made me think of another follow up question, and whether this is true or not, I pass that over to you. But do you feel that companies that don’t productize and don’t scale through productizing their offerings. Do you feel that a bottlenecks at some point?

Eisha Armstrong 11:29

Yeah, it’s certainly harder to grow. Yeah, because again, you’re dependent on adding people, usually, if it’s professional services, highly skilled, perhaps hard to find people in order to grow and so that makes it more difficult. It makes it more expensive to grow as well. It’s not to say it’s not impossible. I mean, there are, there are many examples of professional services firms that are only offering bespoke custom services. But I would argue, especially in this era now of generative AI, if you’re not thinking about, where can we standardize, perhaps tech-enable how we’re delivering our existing services, you might risk being left behind.

Christian Klepp 12:19

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, I’m gonna move us on to the next question, and I’m gonna see if I can get this right. So from your professional experience, okay, what do you think are the main differences between marketing and selling standardized services, or products from marketing and selling traditional professional services?

Eisha Armstrong 12:39

Yeah. So when you’re selling traditional professional services, let’s take legal services as an example. You’re usually buying the expertise of a person, right? So I, I am asking, you know, my attorney kind of what is her background in similar companies with similar issues? And it’s really about her and her expertise. So it’s focused on the person. With the product, it’s focused on what is my need, and does this product address that need more efficiently, more effectively, than other ways that I could address that need. So it’s not dependent on a person, and it’s really focused more on what is the problem that I’m trying to solve? So when you’re marketing and selling that, you need a very different approach. When you’re selling a professional service, you’re talking about the credentials of your professionals. You’re talking about their ability to really understand your specific situation and tailor to your need. Versus when you’re marketing and selling a product, you’re talking about, hey, we understand the problem of this market segment, and we have something that is a value that’s better than what’s currently out there. So it’s just a very different approach.

Christian Klepp 13:55

Right, right. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So staying on this topic of monetizing, selling and marketing productized offerings. What are some of the major pitfalls that you think B to B marketers should avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Eisha Armstrong 14:11

Good one. Yeah, so let’s start with kind of the first step of successful commercialization, and that’s really understanding your target market. And so one of the mistakes that we often see is organizations, for lack of a better term, being lazy about market segmentation and then not being choosy enough about which segments are their highest priorities. So too often we see organizations trying to target a very broad market segment, and that dilutes their efforts, and it prevents kind of B to B marketers from building deep expertise in their segments, buying journeys and needs. And what we advocate is going, you know, it’s called uncomfortably narrow, and focus on a very specific niche or niches, and tailor your go to market strategy to the individual needs of those niches. So again, lazy, too broad of market segmentation is a common pitfall that we see. Another one is not and I alluded to this earlier, not investing in new capabilities. So how you market professional services is usually focused on things like brand building, right? So you’re trying to get your firm’s brand out there. You’re perhaps focused on thought leadership and positioning your professionals as experts. Okay, product marketing is a very different skill set, and it’s, it’s, in my experience, hard to ask someone who only knows how to do kind of brand marketing, maybe content creation, to also do product marketing. So even if you bring in someone on a fractional basis. I think that that’s, you know, important if you’re going to take a more productized approach to bring in that investment in product marketing. So that’s another kind of piece of advice and common pitfall that we see. The last one Christian is probably not iterating on the go to market plan. So again, you know, when you’re when you’re bringing something new to market, especially if it’s tech enabled, you’re going to have to run a lot of experiments, use that kind of, you know, lean startup test and learn philosophy. And that means that you need to be flexible in what your go to market looks like. You might have you know a hypothesis that you can sell this with your existing sellers, and you quickly find out that that’s not true. Or you may think you know your buyer is the CFO, and it really turns out your buyer is the Chief Information Officer. So that’s going to require a completely different marketing plan. So being flexible and knowing that this marketing plan, this go to market plan, is going to iterate and change over time and not, you know, CEOs should not be asking their chief marketing officers for a two year marketing plan for a brand new product, because it’s going to change. So that would just be a waste of time to think, you know, two years out.

Christian Klepp 17:21

No, absolutely. Those are really great. I mean, going back to your last point, these plans aren’t set in stone, right?

Eisha Armstrong 17:28

Right.

Christian Klepp 17:28

This isn’t like a one and done affair, like we, you know, we, we submitted it towards the end of the year for the next year, and then that’s it, and we don’t look at it ever again, right?

Eisha Armstrong 17:36

Yeah, exactly.

Christian Klepp 17:38

Fantastic. So understanding your target audience and getting uncomfortably narrow. I like that phrase because it’s so true. It’s so true, right? Not investing in new capabilities. I mean, it’s about constantly improving, right? You got to constantly come up with, not necessarily constantly come up with something new, but continuously iterate, right? And not iterating on the go to market plan. Yeah. Absolutely.

Eisha Armstrong 18:01

Yeah. So, you know, I mentioned that story I tell in the book about the company Talent Tether. So they had this hypothesis that they could sell their down market product via e commerce, which turned out ultimately to be true, but they didn’t have any experience selling a professional services product, or productized offering over E commerce. So they had to bring in new capabilities in order to be successful with that as a sales channel for them. And I think they were, you know, and they admitted they were a little naive in kind of underestimating the investment that was going to be involved in using that sales channel.

Christian Klepp 18:43

Absolutely, absolutely. What do you think are the biggest obstacles? Yeah, in terms of like, when B to B services organizations productize, and how can they overcome these obstacles?

Eisha Armstrong 18:57

Yeah, good question. So one common one I see is this fear of cannibalization, and I’ve been talking about this for years, but it’s the idea that if we offer what tends to be a lower priced, productized offering, it’s going to cannibalize our higher priced, bespoke, custom services. And that may be true if you are selling it to a market segment who prefers, is willing to take that trade off, is willing to pay less for something that is less customized. But there are a lot of ways to mitigate that risk of cannibalization. So the first one is to think of your more productized offerings is something that serves a different market segment, perhaps one that’s more price sensitive, more interested in DIY, for example, or one that has more internal, internal capabilities. So can DIY something that you would, you would normally do for them, the other way. And this is what we see with a lot of companies that are successful with productization as a strategy is to develop productized offerings that complement your services, not replace your services. So what is something that could be a maintenance product that can maintain the changes that perhaps your professional services team have implemented within an organization, or what’s a step on product that might be the first thing that a company tries before they then consume your higher priced services. So thinking about productized offerings as complementing your services and perhaps even being bundled with them, is a way to mitigate that risk of cannibalization. So that’s a that’s a very big obstacle. Common objection I get when we talk about go to market is, how do we make sure this doesn’t cannibalize our services revenue? That’s a big one. And then I think the other one is, is you talked about this earlier kind of the mindset shift that has to take place. So you know what makes a B2B professional services firm great, the cultural attributes that makes them great may make them a terrible product company. And I’m thinking of things like, our deliverables always have to be perfect, or we always have to know the answer. Because if you’re taking an iterative test and learn kind of, you know, lean product approach, you have to be okay with making mistakes and learning from failure. You have to be okay with putting out things that are not quite yet perfect so that you can get market feedback and decide whether or not you want to further develop them. You have to be okay with not knowing the answer and looking to your market to give you feedback. So pretty putting on that that learner’s hat, instead of always being the expert. And those are big cultural shifts that, again, can take years to make if you’re going to pursue this strategy of productization.

Christian Klepp 22:09

Yeah. I mean, not to put those folks down, but it is scary, right? Making this kind of shift. Like, as you said, it’s scary because there’s that constant fear of like, well, what if we fail, right? What if this doesn’t work? What would we have spent all this time, effort and investment on and then it’s not working? So, I mean, you know, going back to your point, the fears are legitimate…

Eisha Armstrong 22:36

Of course.

Christian Klepp 22:37

And they are grounded, I suppose they’re grounded in well, but we’ve always been doing it this way for the past. How many decades like, Why does it need to change now? Right? So you have, you have to address that, right?

Eisha Armstrong 22:49

Yeah. And also you have to look at their, how these firms are capitalized. I mean, they’re not going out and raising money from venture investors, so they’re, they’re having to either reduce distributions from partners or take money out of, you know, free cash flow, and, you know, not invest in other areas of growth or capabilities. And so for them, like the risks are very real and that’s why we work very hard. And this is what I talk all about in my first book is, how do you de-risk investment in productization? And the way that you de-risk investment in productization is doing that test and learn, rapid iteration, getting market feedback, putting out prototypes and concepts before you invest in development, getting beta customers to help fund product development, things like that, versus, you know what a typical startup might do, which is, yeah, spend other people’s money. Yeah.

Christian Klepp 23:54

Yep, absolutely, absolutely, okay. This next question is a little bit more top level, because I know there are no instant miracles here, right, but let’s just say, for the sake of conversation, right? How can B to B companies successfully commercialize packaged services and new products, and how can they get to revenue, I’m going to say faster and more efficiently.

Eisha Armstrong 24:20

Yeah, so it goes back to kind of what I call the five levers, and I alluded to them at the beginning. The first one is really choosing your target market segment or segments carefully and understanding their needs very, very well in their buyer journey. So it’s all about customer understanding, market segmentation. First lever. Second is the monetization strategy. So how are you going to price and package so that you are not under pricing? What you’re putting out in the marketplace, you’re pricing based on value. You’re increasing the likelihood of renewal. Things like that third lever, is the marketing so squarely speaking to your audience, Christian, do you have a multi channel marketing plan that’s ready to generate the volume of leads that a more productized approach, which usually is a lower price point, is going to need, especially if you’re targeting a different market segment that you’ve targeted in the past? And do you have a product marketing capabilities? So marketing is the third lever. Fourth lover is that sales channel. So making sure that your sales channel is equipped to sell products. People who’ve spent their entire career selling bespoke services usually don’t have the skill set needed to do value based selling that product sales require. And then the last one is renewability. So are you investing, if it’s a renewable product, has the product been designed to be renewable? Are you investing in customer success? Are you orienting the firm around lifetime value? So those five levers are really kind of the keys, based on our research, to successfully commercializing productized offerings.

Christian Klepp 26:08

Definitely all great points, I would say, like with point number five, that’s one where I see a lot of companies faltering, even the big ones right now, I won’t name names, but I feel like a lot of them will only reach out to you once you threaten to leave and terminate the contract, and then they’ll have their team on you and like, Okay, well, what can we do to help? Right? But the customer support experience itself is an absolute exercise and futility. And what I mean by that is like they’re just these processes and systems in place that completely frustrate the customer, yeah, to the point where they’re like, Okay, you know what I’m done. I’ve got option B over here, right? And it’s just unfortunate that not all, but many companies, wait till it gets to that point, and it doesn’t have to be that way, right?

Eisha Armstrong 26:57

Right. Yeah. And I think you know your use of the term customer support versus customer success is interesting because that’s a different way of thinking about it. Customer Support is usually reactive, so I’m waiting until a customer reaches out and says they have a problem. Versus customer success is proactive. Looking at usage of the product, how do we get the customer to use more of it. What additional features can we be adding or subtracting or changing in order to make the product more successful? So it’s a much more proactive posture than a reactive customer support.

Christian Klepp 27:34

Absolutely, absolutely okay. You know the drill, actionable tips, right? So not that you want to give everything away here, right? But just imagine that there is a B to B marketer listening to this interview. And we’ve seen from the past that there are people paying attention, right? But what are like say three to five things? Let’s just say, for instance, the company has already decided to, you know, launch these productized offerings. What are some things that B to B marketers can do to build this marketing engine that helps to generate enough leads to achieve these targets for productized offerings?

Eisha Armstrong 28:10

Yeah, well, I’m probably not telling them anything new, but again, you’d be surprised. But if they’re at a traditional B to B services company that is now trying to offer products, the first thing I say to the marketer is, what changes are you’re making to your website? Because most product buyers are doing a lot of pre buying research online before they even talk to a sales person. So you want to make sure that your website is structured in a way that people can tell that you also have products in addition to your services, and it’s got enough information about those products that they can do their own research so that they become leads for you. So that’s the first one, and again, you would be shocked at how many B to B services firms who are trying to productize that we work with their websites still look like all they do is bespoke, custom services. So that’s why I mentioned that as kind of a good piece of low hanging fruit. The second one, because so much product buying happens before talking to a salesperson, is to make sure that there’s good product marketing content that’s publicly available on your website, through other channels, so that you you’ve got a lot of information out there that can be found by buyers who are doing product research. And then so you asked for three to five, probably third one is think really hard about do you, do you really have product marketing skills, or do you need to bring in somebody from the outside, either a new FTE or, you know, a fractional person, to do that for you, because it’s a different skill set than marketing Services.

Christian Klepp 29:52

Absolutely, absolutely. It sounds to me like you’re saying producing enough content out there that helps to. It helps to give the so called, like potential prospect, potential customer, enough information to help move them along in that buying journey, right, to help them make a more informed decision. To give your company that that credibility and help build that trust, that yes, you are probably the right person to work with, or right company rather, yeah.

Eisha Armstrong 30:22

Exactly, yeah.

Christian Klepp 30:23

Absolutely, absolutely. You brought this up earlier in the conversation, and a light bulb just went on in my head. I mean, this is a, this is a podcast interview in 2024 and you know, I do need to ask you this question about productization and AI, how do you see those working together, and what’s your advice?

Eisha Armstrong 30:45

So, you know what generative AI certainly has gotten a lot of headlines in how it’s going to replace especially professional services. So you know, different firms like Goldman Sachs did a big study about a year, year and a half ago, looking at different job categories and which ones were most likely to be disrupted by AI and things like legal services, engineering services, graphic design, obviously, coding, things like that, are all things where AI is making rapid improvements in being able to do that. Now it doesn’t mean that you don’t need a human need a human to oversee it and contextualize and make sure the quality is there and to train the models, but that that is certainly an area that we see a lot of companies we work with bringing them to productization, because they’re realizing they can use AI to automate, perhaps lower value tasks that they’ve been doing, and it now frees their professionals up to solve new problems. And they would like to think about, how can they solve these new problems in a different way, perhaps in a more scalable way, leveraging this new technology, and they don’t have the kind of product mindset internally to do it themselves. So that’s where we’re seeing demand. And again, I think it’s, it’s less about, oh, AI is going to take away all these jobs and professional services, and now you can slash your head count by 50% or whatever at your law firm. It’s more about, you can now think differently about the problems you solve for customers, and use this technology to go to market in a different way, and hopefully a more scalable way than you have in the past.

Christian Klepp 32:31

Yeah, you really touched on some great points there, and I do agree with that. It’s using AI in a way that it helps your organization to become more efficient and faster and remove… or it helps you to do these mundane tasks, yeah, so that it frees up your actual bandwidth, so that you can focus on solving something that’s well, that does require human intervention. Let’s put it that way, right? I can’t remember which company it was the other day. It was either Walmart or Amazon, one of those two that they they put up. The headline basically said that they’re hiring, like, 1000s of AI sellers, right?

Eisha Armstrong 33:10

Interesting. I miss that. Yeah.

Christian Klepp 33:11

Case in point. I’ll have to find the link and send it to you after this. But, um, and that was interesting. But, you know, again, we’re looking at it from that perspective. Are they replacing humans? I mean, to a certain extent they are. But are those jobs, I think is the better question. Are those jobs that humans want to do? Right. Would be doing?

Eisha Armstrong 33:31

Exactly, yeah.

Christian Klepp 33:33

Right? Okay, so here comes the soapbox question. So on the topic of commercializing product offerings. Okay, this topic specifically, what is a status quo that you passionately disagree with and why?

Eisha Armstrong 33:49

Yeah, so I think one is that B to B services firms can rely solely on their existing clients and network for growth and certainly, there are lots of examples of B to B services, firms that can rely on existing clients and network for maintaining the, you know, the revenue that they have. But if they really want to grow, they should think about, you know, are there different market segments that they can move into or completely different problems that they can solve for clients. And that’s just one where I think marketing in particular, speaking back to your audience, Christian, is so important, because they can reveal new market segments and new needs that are out there that might be logical next steps to take if you do want to grow your organization, and if you’re targeting a new market segment, you’re going to need marketing in order to build brand recognition, to build those relationships with them. Uh, so there’s a big demand there, if in for marketing, if you’re going to grow using new market segments.

Christian Klepp 35:08

100% agree with that. It’s also because we work with clients who have come to us and said, like, Okay, this is the reason why we need help. Because we we’ve built this business up for many years, decades, so on and so forth. And it was through word of mouth and through our network and through referrals, etc, etc. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I certainly built my business that way. But at some point that’ll dry up, right? That’ll dry up, and especially if you want to scale to your point, Eisha, is you have to, you might well have to venture into these new, new industry segments, these new verticals where you don’t have contacts, where you don’t know anybody, right? A lot of these folks that come to your website, this website traffic, this is all cold outreach, right? So, yeah, what do you do then?

Eisha Armstrong 36:04

And especially since more and more, again, when we see this, obviously with products, but also with services, more and more of the purchase decisions are being professionalized, yeah, so not just going with the services provider, because so and so went to, you know, university with them, or used to work with them. But actually, you know, taking it through a professional procurement process, and that professionalism of buying services demands a more productized marketing approach.

Christian Klepp 36:38

Correct. And you know, if you’re working in my space, which is like marketing and branding. You know, I’ve been in situations before where we don’t always, necessarily get to talk to the said customer directly or the said prospect. It’s done through in through an agency that vets the vendors, right.

Eisha Armstrong 36:56

Right. Oh yeah.

Christian Klepp 36:56

So there is, there is no existing relationship there, right? You’ve been, you’ve been selected. And, you know, these are people that you’ve never had any business dealings with, right?

Eisha Armstrong 37:04

That’s a great example of professionalizing the buying process.

Christian Klepp 37:06

Absolutely, absolutely okay. Now, here comes the bonus question. Now, if memory serves me well, I have it on good authority, right? I have it on good authority that you like climbing mountains, right? Literally and figuratively I’m gonna say, but we’re talking about climbing an actual mountain here, right? So, which mountain Have you always dreamt of climbing and why?

Eisha Armstrong 37:33

Yeah, so Mount Rainier I’m going to attempt in July of 2025, yes, and it’ll be my second glacial climb. So I did a glacial climb this past summer on Mount Baker too, which is lower altitude. It’s in the Cascades north of Seattle. Lower altitude, the crevasses are not as large, just to kind of warm up large enough, right? Yeah. And so, so that went very well. So Rainier will be the next one. And then, honestly, Christian, I’m just going to take it, kind of one mountain at a time and see how that one goes, and then decide where to go from there. But it’s… had the good fortune of turning 50 earlier this year.

Christian Klepp 38:22

Oh, well, congratulations.

Eisha Armstrong 38:24

Thank you. It’s, you know, for those people have turned 50, it’s, you know, it’s a pretty obviously big milestone, but it starts to make you realize that your body won’t be able to do the things it can currently do forever. So I’m trying to be a little bit more thoughtful about planning ahead and choosing my next adventure. Yeah, Mount Rainier. That’s the next one on my list. Yeah.

Christian Klepp 38:50

what a great goal to have. And maybe, maybe your goal in the next 10 years is to is to climb Everest. Who knows?

Eisha Armstrong 38:56

Don’t think so. Again, every time I saw people, tell people I’ve taken up mountaineering. They’re like, Oh, you’re gonna climb Mount Everest. I’m like, you know, I just… the ROI just is not seen there.

Christian Klepp 39:07

It’s a different league, isn’t it?

Eisha Armstrong 39:09

Yeah, you know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Never say never, but…

Christian Klepp 39:14

Never say never. But that’s a great one to have.

Eisha Armstrong 39:17

I’m actively working towards, yeah,

Christian Klepp 39:18

That’s a great one. It’s a great goal to have. And, you know what, Aisha, if I would just hazard a guess that if you actually, like, you know, you finish this climb and you get, you get to the summit, you might just have an idea for another book. I don’t know.

Eisha Armstrong 39:34

I actually do, yeah, I yeah, I do. I always have a couple, but, you know, I need, I need a couple months to kind of, of course, recoup and recover. I’ll see what happens.

Christian Klepp 39:45

Absolutely well. Eisha, once again, as I expected, this conversation was dynamite. So thanks again for coming on and you know, for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. Congratulations on turning 50, and congratulations on your new book. So just, you know, quick introduction to yourself, how folks can get in touch with you and where they can get your book.

Eisha Armstrong 40:05

Yeah, so the company I co found is called Vecteris.com, and as you can imagine, we’ve been working with B to B professional services firms for almost seven years now, helping them do these things. In my spare time. I like to… I’m a certified yoga teacher. Like to, obviously, climb mountains. I’m a mom to two teenagers, yeah. So staying busy. I love to connect with people on LinkedIn. So if they just mentioned they heard me on podcast, would love to connect. And yeah, Commercialize is… here it is. Wherever books are sold, Amazon, Barnes and Noble target, Apple books, Audible, all the good things.

Christian Klepp 40:53

Fantastic, fantastic. And I forgot to tell you this Eish, I got a little surprise over the weekend. (Showing the Commercialize book)

Eisha Armstrong 41:04

Oh, it came! I’m so glad.

Christian Klepp 41:05

Sorry. I’m holding up the commercialized book with.

Eisha Armstrong 41:10

It’s a great, it’s a great orange color. I love the way the orange turned out on the cover. So definitely, yeah, definitely. Check it out. Lots of good stories and,

Christian Klepp 41:19

Fantastic

Eisha Armstrong 41:20

Tips and tricks.

Christian Klepp 41:21

Fantastic. Thanks so much for sending that. I would ask you for your autograph, a virtual one we’ll have to do for now.

Eisha Armstrong 41:28

Absolutely.

Christian Klepp 41:29

Fantastic. Eisha, once again, thank you so much for coming to the show. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Eisha Armstrong 41:36

Sounds good Christian. Thanks so much for having me.

Christian Klepp 41:39

Bye for now.

Eisha Armstrong 41:40

Bye. Bye.

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