Social Media Portal interview with Bryony Thomas from Clear Thought Consulting
Social Media Portal (SMP): What do you do there at Clear Thought Consulting?
Bryony Thomas (BT): I?m
Bryony Thomas, I describe myself as a Marketing Clear Thinker and author of ?
Watertight Marketing?. I help ambitious, growing businesses to make their marketing pay through business speaking, writing and hands-on consultancy.
SMP: Briefly, tell us about B2B Marketing training, when are they scheduled?BT: A series of 90-minute online masterclasses, each useful in their own right, but particularly powerful if attended as a series. They build to map marketing against the way that real business buyers really buy things, so that you can plan, execute, and measure marketing right through to a sales outcome.
SMP: What will you be doing for them?BT: Each session will kick off by outlining the Watertight Marketing framework; a powerful visual that allows you to see your end-to-end marketing strategy. This will be used to interrogate each of the topics, leaving the attendee with an action plan at the end of the session.
Each event is paced over two hours, with real life examples, practical tips that you can put into action, and plenty of time to have your questions answered ? whether they occur to you on the day, or submit them in advance.
SMP: Who are your target audience and why (and who should sign up)?BT: These online sessions are suitable for people who are responsible to putting together, and justifying, a marketing strategy for their business. It is particularly relevant to marketers who directly support a sales team, or whose organisations are heavily sales driven.
Marketing Directors, Head of Marketing, Marketing Manager, Sales & Marketing Directors, and business owners. Attending these sessions will equip you to assess, select, and justify your an integrated marketing activity plan that will deliver sales results.
SMP: Why has B2B Marketing started the training, and how long have they been going?BT: B2B Marketing?s online training workshops started in February this year. We wanted to offer another solution for those marketers who were in need of in-depth learning on a specific marketing channel but didn?t have the time to leave their desks.
SMP: What is B2B Marketing training doing that?s different?BT: We use industry renowned trainers to speak at our events and all our courses are geared around practical, hands-on learning. We only reference b2b case studies and often the clients involved in the campaigns speak alongside the agency representative.
SMP: What will be the highlights of the training?
BT: A unique and highly visual framework to help you understand and plan your marketing activity to support sales results, which you can then use to get the internal support you need to make it happen. Across the four sessions, you will achieve:
- Clear understanding of the steps in a considered purchase
- Template social media activity plan that supports the sales pipeline
- Clear rationale for selecting and investing in social media
- Powerful technique for visualising your expenditure against the sales pipeline
- Three-level approach to strategic budget setting
- Practical method for setting and spending a contingency budget
- Clearer understanding of how marketing is perceived by other disciplines and why
- Guidance on your use of language and marketing metrics
- Framework for presenting all marketing proposals within a sales-driven rationale
- Plan for shifting perceptions of marketing in your business
SMP: How are you attracting the attendees to the training?BT: We?re talking to them through all the regular means of communication, including B2B Marketing magazine, DM, telemarketing, email and social.
SMP: What are the most important things that attendees can take away from training?
BT: A unique and highly visual framework to help you understand and plan your marketing activity to support sales results, which you can then use to get the internal support you need to make it happen.
SMP: What are the low moments of what you have been doing so far (and regarding the training)?
BT: None so far. I?m loving putting the material together and I?m excited to get it out there for people to put into practice in their businesses.
SMP: If we?ve missed the training, is there anyway we can still catch up?BT: The material presented in these sessions is based on my forthcoming book, Watertight Marketing. It has been tailored for the business-to-business audience, with examples and case studies specifically for these sessions, but the key ideas are all explored in the book.
SMP: Is there anything else we should know about the training?
BT: The first 10 people to register for each event will be put on the waiting list to receive a free, signed copy of my book, Watertight Marketing, due out later this year.
SMP: Your book Watertight Marketing is out later this year (when exactly), what is about?BT: It?s coming out in September, published by Ecademy Press. It?s written for businesses at the smaller end of the scale. Those who need to out-think, rather than out-spend their competition.
It?s a must-read for any managing director of a small business with big ambitions. It systematically walks you through how to plug the profit leaks in your new business activity. And, then how to turn the taps on to steady, predictable and profitable sales in the long term.
SMP: Why did you decide to write it and how long did it take to do?BT: It?s taken me three years, with 11 months out having my first baby. With all the ?not writing? I did along the way, it should have been a 12-month project.
I wrote it because small businesses deserve better. I?m not talking about start-ups, I?m talking about step-ups. Those businesses that are onto something good, have potential to really go places, but don?t have a Coca Cola sized marketing budget. Marketing advice, at the strategic level, for businesses of this kind, is woeful. Bordering on damaging in many cases.
Typically, they will have tried a few things on the marketing front. Some will have worked. Some will have failed. Often, more by luck than judgement. Watertight Marketing turns that on its head. It gives businesses the marketing judgement to make sure that they?re always lucky on the sales front.
There?s such a flood of advice, it's no surprise that many businesses, large and small, suffer from 'tactic burn'. That is, jumping from one ?essential? sales and marketing activity to another, never getting the consistent results that the business so badly needs. It?s the yo-yo dieting of the marketing world, pursued in the hope that one day they will uncover that magic silver bullet.
What they need to know is that there isn't one?
There are three!
Your bucket, your funnels and your taps. And, that?s Watertight Marketing.
SMP: What?s the next big step for social media and networks ? and what impact could this have for B2B marketers?
BT: I think social media and network marketing has given the human relationship back to business-to-business marketers. When I started out in marketing it was okay to socialise with people in a business-to-business setting. You could take people to lunch. You could even get drunk together.
Corporate governance, fears of perceived bribery, and an increasing reluctance to get out from behind a computer screen has steadily reduced the opportunities to build real relationships with people. Social media has given this back to us. There?s now the space and context in which to chat about mutual hobbies, how your day is going, about things that matter. This is extremely powerful, precisely because it?s not new. It?s powerful because it taps into human nature. And, that?s as old as the hills.
SMP: What?s going to be the most interesting aspect regarding social media / technology throughout 2012 and heading into 2013 ? what are the main mistakes that B2B marketers tend to make?
BT: The normalisation of it. Apple are deep-linking Facebook and Twitter into their operating systems. Business cards are listing Linkedin and Twitter IDs as the norm. It?s becoming the normal way to do business. In that context, those who?ve set themselves apart through their use of social media will see the pack catch-up.
There are two key mistakes that marketers make with any new phenomenon. The first is ?shiny thing? marketing, and the other is not taking it back to human psychology. ?Shiny thing? is where you try something just because it?s new, rather than because it actually serves a purpose. Social media is fantastically powerful, if used well. Used poorly, it can quickly end up on the pile of ?tried that, didn?t work? techniques.
Not thinking about how real people really buy things is a critical failing across all marketing, not just social media. If your audience like to print things out to read on the train, no YouTube video in the world is going to float their boat. You need to engage with your audience on their terms.
SMP: What are your top five predictions for social media throughout 2012 and heading into 2013?BT: I?m no crystal ball gazer I?m afraid. I think if you?re genuinely helpful you won?t go far wrong whatever the medium. Cop out, sorry!
SMP: What are your top five tips for B2B marketers?BT replies with:- Stop talking rubbish. Most of your peers have never heard of WOM, buzz metrics, going viral, hashtag fail, or many of the other pieces of jargon you hear marketers coming out with. If in the company of non-marketers, and especially your finance team ? speak in plain English.
- Learn the difference between an indicator and a result. An open-rate, click through, follow, etc. is not a real business result. A sale with a £value is. Marketing metrics may indicate what is coming down the path, but unless you can show the connection, you?re speaking Swahili to your sales team.
- You are not the marketing department. Your whole organisation is the marketing department for your company. Your role is to equip, empower and enable them.
- Their thinking = your marketing. You will never find a magic formula that shortcuts the psychology. Understand and tap into what your audience already feeling and thinking.
- Invest in your Commercial Karma. What goes around, comes around. Find ways to treat every person who comes into contact with your company with respect. Even better, be genuinely helpful. It will pay you back.
SMP: Best way to contact you?BT: LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bryonythomas and Twitter
@bryonythomas
Now some questions for fun
SMP: What did you have for breakfast and lunch?BT: For breakfast I had porridge with a spoonful of Nutella mixed in. For lunch I had a homemade quiche cooked by my wonderful husband (pastry and everything!)
SMP: What?s the last good thing that you did for someone?BT: I lent a very good friend my bike. She?s kicking off a health regime and wanted to give it a go before investing.
SMP: If you weren?t running or working at Clear Thought Consulting (or doing what you do) what would you be doing?BT: If I didn?t have a nine month old daughter, I?d say travelling South America. As I do have a nine month old daughter, I?d say finding new ways to make her giggle.
SMP: When and where did you go on your last holiday?BT: Brittany. It rained.
SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning?BT: I wish I could say something like? close my eyes, do some deep breathing and visualise myself completing whatever I have on plan for that day? but, in truth, I check Twitter.
SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?BT: A personal duplicator, so that I could be in more that one place at a time.
SMP: One of your favourite brands using social media?BT: Mailchimp. They get it spot on. Every time.
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