Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Gina Tabasso

Curt Anderson  00:00

Hey, Damon, happy Monday. Happy Presidents Day to you my friend.

Damon Pistulka  00:04

Right back atcha there, Curt. Do you have a good weekend?

Curt Anderson  00:08

I had an amazing weekend. And how about you? Oh, yes, yes. You survived. You didn’t? Oh, yes.

Damon Pistulka  00:14

Okay. You live the festivities this weekend. Lots

Curt Anderson  00:16

of festivities spa Hey, talking about festivities, man. Do we have a wonderful, amazing incredible guests here today are what are you doing? Are you ready to get some sleep last night? Are you ready for this

Damon Pistulka  00:27

new governor? Steve? Hold on.

Curt Anderson  00:29

All right, let’s dive in. So hey, we have a repeat offender. We have our dear friend Gina Tabasso Gina. Happy Monday. Happy Presidents Day two. How are you?

Gina Tabasso  00:39

I’m great. Thank you Happy Monday. I’m doing well.

Curt Anderson  00:42

Hey, this is well what a delight when last time you ran you and I had so much fun and we have a ton to unpack. My goodness gracious. You’re just down to the Big Easy. And so we’re talking about New Orleans. We’re talking about b2b marketing. So we have a ton to uncover. But you know what, Gina? Last time you’re on the show. There was a question that I’m dying to ask you. And I don’t think I asked you last time so we’re going to hit it up right off of coming right at you right

Damon Pistulka  01:06

off the bat with a fastball. You’re

Gina Tabasso  01:07

ready to answer.

Curt Anderson  01:09

You’re ready for this one. Okay, Damon, let’s do this. You’re ready. I’m winding up, man. I’ve been practicing. Gina when you were a little girl. You are a Clevelander. Do I have that correct. You already went through go brownies. Right. So Gina is your little girl growing up in the Buckeye State? Who was your hero? Who did you look up to? Who is your heroes? A little girl growing up.

Gina Tabasso  01:34

That’s an easy one. My grandpa my mom’s dad. He was the most gentle, kind, loving man. He was an artist and a poet. He was just he taught me to read and write and took me out for ice cream into the park. And to this day, I still think he’s the most wonderful man I’ve ever met in my life.

Curt Anderson  01:58

Wow, that is wow. Okay, that was that was Yeah. What’s grandpa’s name, please?

Gina Tabasso  02:06

Well, we’re Ukrainian. So his real Ukrainian name is of stocky Asian ski. But in the US he went by Stanley is in ski. So Stan.

Curt Anderson  02:17

All right. Well, hey, huge shout out to Stan and Happy Monday. Happy Presidents Day. Hey, we’ve got Diane buyer in the house. Happy Monday to you. Hey, we’ve got Nate here date says hey, go University of Michigan go blue national champions. Congratulations, you Nate. And so and he says, Hey, that’s a touching story. So Nate. Man sit back. We’ve got a lot Izmir in fact, speaking of Ukrainian you just shared with us that you had a little wonderful celebration at your church yesterday. Sounds like you’re doing some volunteer work. Do you want to share a little bit what’s going on with your volunteering? Oh, yeah,

Gina Tabasso  02:47

sure. The church where I live, I do some volunteer work there. I I’m on the Employment Ministry. So I work with people who are in job transition. And we also help with Catholic Charities taking in refugees, finding them homes, jobs, furnishing their houses. And because I’m 80%, Ukrainian my mom’s 100% I work with Ukrainian families. And yesterday was an appreciation dinner, just to thank all of the volunteers.

Curt Anderson  03:18

All that is absolutely wonderful. And Diane says go Grandpa, how about what what? What characteristic do you feel is in Eugene that really represents Stan? Like if you’re Do you ever think like hey, what would stand do in this situation? Or like if Stan is just beaming on his little granddaughter? What What characteristics do you think that you carry in from carry on from Stan?

Gina Tabasso  03:42

It’s definitely the artistic side. He’s the one that made me I think, the writer that I am and so it’s that creativity, creativity. Awesome.

Curt Anderson  03:51

Well, I love that story. And hey, we’ve got coming to us from the manufacturing Twitter group coming to Korea on demon cross upon Nigel. Nigel Happy Monday, my friends, Daniel. I know we’re here at lunchtime where I’m at demons just getting breakfast started and Nigel is winding his he’s at dinner right now. So yeah, he’s happy Monday to So Gina. Let’s dive in. You’ve had a long, wonderful history. I believe you’ve got a bachelor’s degree from Kent State. You have your master’s from Cleveland State, just all sorts of wonderful academia. You chose to bring your superpowers your passion into the world of manufacturing. What what what inspired you to take that path? Why manufacturing?

Gina Tabasso  04:33

My first job out of college, I wanted to be a copywriter and an advertising agency. You know, one of these glamorous agencies, maybe one day live in London. And when I was interviewing for my first job, I found that agencies didn’t pay anything. There was a manufacturing company that wanted to hire me as an in house copywriter and they paid way more than agency side. So I ended up going clients side and so my first job was with a manufacturer. He owned a number of companies and one of them manufactured vibrational analysis equipment for large rotating machinery. And the other company was a government contractor that manufactured life support systems for space Space Station Freedom. When it all started, and I never looked

Curt Anderson  05:22

back, you’ve never looked back. So guys, we’re here with Gina Tabasso. I strongly encourage you invite you welcome you connect with Gina on on LinkedIn, she puts out just wonderful, incredible content. And I noticed on your profile Jean, I’ve got like there’s, you know, the list of things that you’ve done robotic vision systems, industrial ovens, stainless steel fittings, you’ve been in financial services, it higher ed circuit board assembly, Precision Machine plastics, I mean, like, all sorts of different things. How do you keep like, walk us through like a little bit of your journey and your path of like, going into like such a diverse crew of manufactured products? Could you Dig? Dig a little deeper than that for us?

Gina Tabasso  06:04

Honestly, I think a lot of it has to do with my original background as a journalist. And I tell people that being a journalist, you are a detective, you’re a researcher. And you also, as an English major, I have an aptitude for language. And learning a new industry is just learning a new vocabulary. So if you have an aptitude for learning, it’s easy to make those transitions. So a lot of those I worked in house at companies that were manufacturers, some of them were clients, I worked as a consultant to manufacturers, and had a variety of clients and all kinds of different industries. So that’s how I got all that experience. Well,

Curt Anderson  06:48

I absolutely love it. And couple more comments here. Hey, night, I got Nigel here across the pond. He says, Hey, I just wrapped up dinner to join us, Nigel, thank you. That means a ton. We deeply appreciate you being here. Nate Jobson not Gina’s background is we absolutely love it. It’s like an agree. It’s like an ingredient skills list to build a great robot. So Timothy, thank you for joining us guys. drop us a note. Let us know that you’re out there. Let us know where you’re coming from. We’d love to hear from you and bring the questions for Gina man. She’s a b2b marketing guru and expert if you will. And she has started a new b2b marketing firm called Barracuda b2b marketing. And we’re gonna be diving into this. So Tina, you kick off, you bring your superpowers into manufacturing, you just found like your calling your passion. We last time we talked you were with the MVP. So you’re very familiar with the manufacturing extension partnerships. Let’s go here. What inspired you to fly your own flag you are now an entrepreneur. Welcome to the brotherhood and sisterhood of entrepreneurship. How talk a little bit about that transition for you launching your own firm?

Gina Tabasso  07:58

Well, I’m blessed to have the best of both worlds. I have a full time job as the director of marketing and business development for a manufacturing company. They cavia cottages and cabins we manufacture Park Model homes which are basically tiny homes, cottages and cabins that meet a certain standard that qualifies them as a recreational vehicle. And my boss is a friend I worked for him many years ago for three years. And then for about eight years, we stayed friends. He asked me last year to join his company. And in transparency, he told me he wanted to quintuple revenue, and then sell the company in three to five years. So he was really the catalyst behind me starting my own consulting business so that when my full time job ends, I can transition to full time with my consulting work. And so I formed the LLC last year in September, I assigned my first client in October, and I have proposals out with two other manufacturers right now. Nice.

Curt Anderson  09:02

Well, congratulations. We’re just absolutely thrilled. So if you’re a manufacturer out there, you’re looking for some b2b marketing expertise. Gina is your person. So Gina, our topic today is we want to dive into marketing must haves for manufacturers marketing must haves for manufacturers. Let’s dive right in. Yep. What are some let’s go into some tips strategies. What are some of the must haves that you feel that manufacturers need right away?

Gina Tabasso  09:28

Okay, well, first, I want to qualify myself, I guess, you know, there’s a lot of b2b marketers out there. There’s a lot of b2b marketers that specialize in manufacturing, right? But my unique differentiator is you know that I’ve worked in house with a lot of manufacturers. But also years ago, I was the managing editor of American machinist, welding design and fabrication and gases and welding distributor. So I really get milling, drilling boring leading tolerances. has all the equipment like CNCS and CMM C’s and EDMS and rams Cobots robots. I also was welding certified from Lincoln Electric. And then I have I’ve had for many years, I’ve had a Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma yellow belt. Last year, I earned my green belt. And I’m in the process of getting my black belt right now. I’ve done about six, six sigma projects for manufacturers. You can tell my passion is for manufacturing, people have said, why don’t you go out as a Six Sigma consultant, because you can make a lot more money. And I said, because that’s not my passion. My passion is marketing for manufacturers, and applying a Six Sigma lean methodology to it to look at having a process in place and continuous improvement. And if you’re going to apply that on the shop floor, why would you not apply that to your sales and marketing process? So it’s that sensibility that informs every decision I make? And my strategy? So to answer your question, Kurt, what I my first answer that I give to manufacturers is first, why do I need marketing, a lot of manufacturers don’t see the value of marketing, they perceive it as a cost center, not a revenue generator. And they don’t see it as an investment. But for marketing to be successful, it has to be trackable, you can show a return on investment if you do it properly. The other thing I found is a lot of manufacturers, the small to mid size manufacturers, it’s really an industry standard that five to 10% of revenue is spent on your marketing budget, even three to 5% of revenue will move the dial and create results. But a lot of manufacturers aren’t even spending half a percent of revenue. And then they’re wondering why their marketing program is failing. So that to make that investment to do it right. And doing it right requires a strategy. You wouldn’t go to the end of your process and just build the machine. You have to put a process in place the same thing a lot of times manufacturers want to go straight to lead lead generation. Bring me in leads I need to make sales, but they don’t start with the foundation of the house and then the whole house falls down. Look at your website, look at your content, look at your SEO look at your keywords are you know, are you ranking organically? So there’s a process before you get to lead generation and it’s not going to work? If you don’t do it sequentially? Again, Lean Six Sigma, it helps because you can call people out. This isn’t good manufacturing. We’re doing a lot of rework here. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  12:45

well, I you know what, let’s dive into that for a little bit right there Gina, because like you just dropped some golden nuggets. And hey, we’ve got a couple more comments. So let’s see what Nigel has to say here. Gina, it is rare to find a business founder who has thought about their exit strategy and makes the business development team much more focused. Damon singing your song right? Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  13:04

I can tell you Gina that the person you’re working for in that in that full time position. Now they they’ve thought about a lot more than 99% of the people that get into business. Yeah, that’s for sure. It

Gina Tabasso  13:15

was an amazing guy. He’s brilliant. Absolutely. So

Curt Anderson  13:18

very blessed. So several things I want to pack right there in hey, we’ve got Katherine says from Brazil. So Catherine. Greetings to you. Happy Monday, our friend. We appreciate you stopping by guys drop a note in the chat box. Let us give us a hello, give Gina the glow. And if you have questions for your skin, a little sliver and what we’re going to be diving into. In Gina, what I absolutely love is you know for that manufacturer out there that first off says hey, why do I need marketing? I love your pragmatic approach on like, you can really speak for that particular manufacturer, the owner who maybe doesn’t not so much on that creative side or like hey, doesn’t view the dollars as an investment more of an expense as you’re saying, I love your approach of like, Hey, we’re gonna get into this, we’re gonna be strategic. We’re gonna be methodical. I’m bringing my green belt to this, you know, pretty soon my black belt, talk a little bit about for that manufacturer, let’s talk to that manufacturer that thinks that marketing is a waste of time. Why don’t you get it, dive into that for a little bit? What are some steps that you can help that person convert to being a fan? Sure.

Gina Tabasso  14:18

Well, the other thing that I tried to focus on is the sales team. So a lot of times sales and marketing are working in isolation in silos, when they really need to be working in lockstep. And the sales team does have a different focus sales is usually focused on that bottom of funnel. So when you have that marketing funnel, you know top middle bottom top is bringing in leads, nurturing them, educating them, you know, moving them through the funnel to get them qualified to where you can sell to them. Well, when you’re totally focused on bottom of funnel, eventually that small pool runs out, you tap out. So you’ve constantly got to be bringing people into that funnel. So the way that I recommend you do that To start with a strategy, you know, don’t throw money at a wall and hope it sticks. A lot of times people approach marketing very scattershot, or they go to the end of the process. And they start with lead generation. And they haven’t done what they need to do to scale up. Just like anything you need to scale up. It’s a process. So a lot of manufacturers don’t have a marketing department can’t afford an agency may have a junior employee who isn’t strategic and needs support. And so I love what you said, Kurt, about me being a pragmatist, because I am very pragmatic. And another leader in the industry that I really respect, told me, You’re a real, you’re a realist, Gina, you just get at it. And that’s exactly what I do, I try to be incisive, and give people what they need without all the fluff. So there needs to be an organized, methodical cumulative effort. And a lot of organizations who haven’t done marketing, try to run before they walk. So I tell them to step back, step back and do a strategy. So where do we start with a strategy, you need someone who’s an expert in marketing strategy. Second, you need a CRM. And a lot of times, manufacturers are still using an Excel spreadsheet as their CRM, sales or marketing. legal pad, it’s like that isn’t going to inform marketing, it isn’t going to track ROI, it isn’t gonna track your customer journey, it isn’t going to track that conversion point. So that’s how you get the data to show a return on investment, whether your marketing program is working or not, by using your CRM and marketing automation solution. So then, after that, I would create a strategy a one year annual strategy. The next step, I always focus on the website. You don’t want to drive traffic to a website, that’s a piece of garbage that’s going to break, you want a website where you’re going to capture leads, where people aren’t going to bounce off your website, where you’re giving them information they need, that’s a value, where you’re actually going to be able to capture them, you know, think about just think about yourself as your own consumer journey. Are you willing to give your name and email address for nothing? You know, usually, it’s something valuable, like, oh, I want that white paper, or I need these tix tips and tricks, or I want to learn about that. And when you serve them up with something they want and need, they’re willing to exchange their information for that.

Damon Pistulka  17:49

Yep, that is so important. So important. And manufacturers, they have so many different things that they can they can write about, or just with someone like yourself, Gina, they can tell you about things. And you can create a very nice piece of information that will help their customers and start that that engine flipping, you know,

Gina Tabasso  18:12

one of the reasons I really focus initially on content is because of organic search. Yeah, search engine optimization. So this is another trick I’ve learned, working for all these small to mid size manufacturers who don’t have big marketing budgets. I as a marketer have had to figure out how do I get the most bang for no buck? And pay per click and advertising is expensive. So I’ve always focused my expertise is really on organic. So how do we drive traffic to our website with little to no cost. So you have to get your website to rank with Google to rank an index. And there’s so many ways to do that. Getting backlinks from other websites that have higher domain authorities, getting backlinks from media, from giving contributed content, or press releases, claiming local listings, on and on I you know, I have a list like this, of everything that goes into SEO, it’s not just on your website, it’s not just the keywords on your front and back end of your website and like, boom, you’re done. It’s an ongoing process. And that usually takes about six to nine months for Google to really rank and index your website. So while that’s doing its thing, then you can throw some money into digital advertising to supplement that. But the digital advertising shouldn’t be fully what you rely on. Because you stop paying for those ads, the traffic stops coming with organic this traffic keeps coming if you sustain that organic.

Curt Anderson  19:50

Well, hey, we’ve got some great comments here. Jean I want to pull up on stage here. So Timothy, he’s coming across a pond from Amsterdam. So Timothy again, thank you for joining us. Happy Monday. I’ll put Gina to the point and our friend Ecosa if I’m saying that correctly, I love your approach. And again, Timothy says greetings have grabbed this one greetings from Amsterdam. And Nigel I’m going back a little bit Nigel says hey, doing some marketing no matter how small will make a difference doing a lot will make a huge difference. Nigel Excellent point. And again,

Damon Pistulka  20:23

mirrors your mirrors Rollo. Oh, yeah. Greetings,

Curt Anderson  20:27

man. So awesome. So again, guys, drop us a note. Let us know that you’re out there big give a hello. If you have questions. Boy, we have a lot to unpack here, Regina. We’ve got Gina Tabasco from Barracuda b2b marketing. And we would love your questions. We’ve got an expert on stage here to dive in. Gina, I would love selfishly, I would love for you to expand a little bit on that buyers journey. In a couple of points that I’d like to unpack that you just dropped. You made a point about boy if your website you know Damon, we use that word making a great first web pression ya know whether if we’re in person, you’ve got one chance to make a great first impression. With your website, you’ve got one chance to make that great first, web pression. Right. So when you’re talking about that buyers journey, so Gina, let’s dive in. If that’s a little bit new to somebody I know it’s like, you know, for us marketers, maybe that’s a little bit of Captain Obvious, but talk to that market talk that manufacturer who like they know their widgets inside and out, but they just don’t really think about that buyers journey. Can you walk through? What are some challenges that you see on people’s websites were like quick, easy fixes. And let’s walk through that buyers journey and how we could help that manufacturer improve that process.

Gina Tabasso  21:36

You know what I think the best way to answer that is to give you a real world example and tell you a story of a client I worked with Yeah, so I had a client, probably a year and a half ago, there a precision plastic machining company. They hired me to do a 12 year lead generation campaign for them. But when I got in there, again, they didn’t have the infrastructure in place did not have the tech stack. So we went in, we had to update their website to create the best user experience, add new content, optimize it with keywords, they hadn’t identified keywords from their industry that they wanted to rank for in a Google search. So we had to optimize the front end and the back ends, you know, so of course that took a little bit creating the strategy took a little bit, then we we had to get them up and running on a CRM and marketing automation platform. They weren’t using anything. So we went with the free version of HubSpot, they to this day, they’re still using the free version of HubSpot that was adequate for their customer base. So then we started doing some email marketing and some some campaigns and generating started to generate some leads. Then after that, that was about six months to get to that point, then we started turning toward a pay per click campaign. Unfortunately, it was not incredibly successful, because when I signed the contract, the understanding was that we were going to do a minimum $1,500 A month spend on a pay per click campaign. If you spend any less than that each month, you’re not going to get anything or wasting your money. Yeah, well, when we got to that point, they only authorized $500 A month spend, which is not going to move the dial. Yeah. So we still did generate leads, the leads came in, they did get a conversion immediately they got a sale. And so we’re at the end of this first year of marketing. And the owner said, you know, I’m unhappy with this, because we paid you I’ll make up a number. Make something easy. It wasn’t this much. It wasn’t. Let’s say $1,000 We paid you $100,000 And in that sale, we only got $110,000. So you were a failure, because in a year you only made us $10,000. I said wait a minute back out. Number one, if in your first year of a foundational marketing program, when you’ve done no marketing before, yeah, it pays for itself. And you got that year of marketing for free. You’re ahead of the game. Yeah. Plus, you told me when I first met you that your sales cycle was a year and a half, right? So you’re just bringing leads into that we go back Kurt to your question. That’s a funnel. Yeah, bringing in leads up here. I don’t know you don’t know what you do. Don’t know your product don’t have a relationship with you. And you’ve got to nurture them through that cycle and educate them and convince them and build a rapport and trust with them to the point where they get ready to make that purchase. So you’re not going to see a reason A lot of what I’ve done this year, for possibly a year or year and a half, because that’s your sales cycle and your sales cycle. Yeah. So we, you know, we really, it’s my marketing and sales really need to work together in lockstep. And I tell people a marketing strategy is, is a long game, it’s a long game, you don’t do it one year and expect results. It’s cumulative, it builds upon itself and it grows like anything else.

Damon Pistulka  25:27

That’s the that’s the thing that that I think, I’ve we’ve got a terribly long sales cycle in my business, right? I might talk to a business owner, and three years later, they may decide to come and talk to us, right, we’ve had people as long as 11 years, right, that I’ve talked to take them to talk to us, right. So you what you really have to get comfortable with, as as a manufacturer in this as a, like you said, I used to be an injection molding, selling the big companies, it would take us two years to get anything coming out of a big company, usually maybe a year if you were lucky, right. And so you know, this marketing doesn’t make things like you said, it just drops it into the top of the funnel, and you got to keep working to get it to the other side of that. So you getting one sale out of that is huge.

Gina Tabasso  26:18

And we really were only marketing for three months, in six months to get the website built the CRM. So I thought we succeeded. And

Damon Pistulka  26:29

then as you go, your things like your email marketing get more effective, because now we have more people that want want our email campaign or on one or email content that want our content, and that just continues to grow. And then you’re building that CRM functionality into it. So that’s helping people more in your resource centers. It’s just the stuff builds, that’s all I can say is it’s awesome. What you’re doing there. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  26:52

it builds on it. And I think the big the big takeaway right there, Gina to think about was number one is being is, you know, I know, it’s not a good word and entrepreneurship is patience, right? Nobody who nobody wants to be paid me that for that one. Right. So who wants to be patient? But like you said, it is the long game. It’s a long term investment. And a big thing is what’s the lifetime value of that customer? You know, if you landed $100,000? You know, was that $100,000 A year? Is that are you going to see that every year? Or what do you like? So I think it’s an individual question that has to be asked, but I actually love this. You know, Diane says, Hey, we call it the pipeline. Thank you, Diane. I so love that. All right, we’ve got a big question. Are you ready, Gina? Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  27:34

I see.

Curt Anderson  27:35

We got a big one. And hey, Nate says it’s an interactive process. So iterative process. So hey, thank you for stopping by. We’ve got nag Ronnie, if I’m saying that correctly, Damon, how long should be de m ideally take to get the lead can covered by prospective customers who are prepared to make an investment in the product that the business will sell? This is not very well organized with any marketing strategy. Is it possible to get sales done in one month? My friend Gina, what do you think of that question? Okay,

Gina Tabasso  28:13

well, how I would come at that question is first, I would say it’s really, it’s really unique to every industry in every company. So even in manufacturing, you could have the precision plastic machining person and the laminate flooring person. And the the circuit board manufacturer, each one of those has a different sales cycle, a different type of customer and prospect. So I always have to really when I go in, I do a lot of industry research and market research, and even Company Research. And I look at all of that when I go in and do an assessment. I do business development for my current company. I’m the director of marketing and business development. And so she asked the specific question, though, about when what I noticed was, she said, when they are prepared to make an investment in the product, the question is finding those people who are prepared because a lot of times when you’re doing marketing, you’re bringing in leads, but you’re not sure where they are in the buyer process. You know, is it someone with interest someone who doesn’t know anything? So the way I address that question? Yes, I think you probably, I mean, our sales cycles, probably six to eight weeks. So if I bring in someone who’s even qualified, like ready to buy, they usually aren’t going to buy in four weeks. Yeah, they need to trust you if they’ve never worked with you before. There’s conversations, there’s quotes, there’s pushing the paper back and forth. But the way I’ve found very creative ways, I’m very creative to find those people who are ready to make an investment. One way is like right now for my current company, I’m doing IP address are getting. So we go to a lot of trade shows, most of the people at those trade shows are interested in that product. There are trade shows we can’t go to because there’s a conflict where two of them are happening at the same time. Anybody who’s attending an our RV trade show is probably interested in buying an RV or considering it. So I’m pulling all the IP addresses of everyone that was at that specific location at that time, and serving them up ads on their cell phones, their smart TVs, their tablets, their laptops, because I know they were at that show. Another thing I’m doing right now is this is kind of top secret, but I’ll share it this is some free consulting, which I try not to do. All right

Curt Anderson  30:47

now, hey, we have a team and so everybody out there. So this is just between us, right? The fat friends and family secret sauce Gina, here we go. This is

Gina Tabasso  30:57

something I stumbled upon last year. And now it’s very specific to that type of industry. Again, it’s probably easier to do with a software company than it is to do with a manufacturing company. But what I did is I had my team, I paid them to scrape data. And I said I want you to go out on Google, and Facebook and and Better Business Bureau and all these review platforms. And look up all of our competitors. And look at the one star and two star reviews. And then try to find them on LinkedIn and find their contact information. So a good example. Here’s a really good example. You are a seller of HubSpot. And you go to HubSpot Google reviews, and you find all the one and two stars. I have HubSpot. I hate it. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t do this. It’s too expensive. The customer supports terrible that it ended up. And I’m a provider of CRM software like clickdimensions Power Pack. You know those people use your product, you know they’re unhappy with your competitor. If you find them, go get them they are ready to buy. They’re awesome. So it’s about that’s why I’m a marketing strategist. Like I think of things outside the box that like other people don’t think of. And I’m using a lot of AI now, you know not to generate content. Not I’m not having AI right for me. But AI can help so much with marketing right now.

Curt Anderson  32:31

Yeah. Okay, man. All right. Drop the mic. Damon, that was absolutely brilliant. So guys, if you’re just joining us, hey, I want to pull up a couple more comments. So again, here’s Timothy, how true entrepreneurship takes patience, but those who don’t give up will be victorious. Speaking of Victoria, say, we’ve got Brian Fleming in the house. He says brand new national champion and Arbor. And so he says that’s a great tip. big bag. I’m gonna say Big Bang right there. So I, Gina that was absolutely brilliant. I love that. So we’re talking guys, again, connect with Gina here on LinkedIn, we strongly encourage you invite you drop. Let us know where you’re coming from. Do you have any questions for Gina, you’re just getting a little taste of like some of these awesome ideas. We’re talking about marketing must haves. Gina, you’ve talked about, you know, make sure your website is speaking the right language to that right buyer. You’ve talked about the CRM, you’ve talked about email marketing, and a couple of words that you use earlier that I love. Damon, she used the T word trust. Yep. And educate. Gina, let’s go on that. That is one of my all time favorite words for marketing is educate. How about so let’s go there for a little bit. Talk a little bit about how we can be fierce educators or like some of the strategies that you use for the companies that you’re working with? And how do you help them educate their customers through that buyers journey?

Gina Tabasso  33:55

Yeah, so top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel, I talk about it all the time. And actually when I I create marketing strategies for manufacturers, I did one for my current company. It’s about it’s a PowerPoint presentation. That’s about 45 slides long. And I go through, sorry, I’m starting to lose my voice here. That’s okay. I go through and look at so much I’m like, where I’m gonna pull one up just so I can actually go through my slides. So I’ll go through all the marketing channels, the marketing mix, annual marketing goals, quarterly timeline, unique selling points. I do a SWOT analysis. So I look at strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. I do a market size analysis. I look at market growth over the past number of years. I do a competitive analysis. I do a target market analysis. I create buyer personas for all their customers, I do market segmentation. And then I do get to the marketing funnel, which I’ll get back to, I do a communication strategy, a comprehensive marketing calendar, a marketing budget, and a tech stack. So that’s what’s involved in a marketing strategy that I do for a client. So one of the slides in that presentation is marketing funnel. And I look at what is the stage and what is the content requirements. Again, that can vary by industry, not every manufacturer or company is going to have the same kinds of content requirements at that stage in the funnel, like B to C and consumer is very different than b2b. So, but that type of funnel is the awareness. So industry information, tips, checklists, and infographic photos. A podcast, a newsletter research, trade shows white papers, social media, just creating awareness about your product or your industry. Then the next stage in the funnel is consideration where you’re getting them to consider it, you you make them aware of it, but now you want them to think about it. And that’s usually where you introduce your product. And you allow them to evaluate it through content. So that can also be case studies, white papers, drip campaigns, newsletters, and ebook a webinar, a class, a quiz, a survey, then you get to that conversion point, this middle of funnel, where you start to bring in the sales focus, maybe a free trial a demo, give them a reason to buy testimonials from happy customers, spec sheets, so it’s more specific data. And then once you convert them, you don’t forget about them. It’s not like okay, got them as a marketing qualified lead, turned them over to a sales qualified lead, sold them we’re done, move on to the next person, you want to then create loyalty and advocacy. You want them to be loyal to you and your brand. So you want to continue to engage and delight them, give them a reason to stay, give them a reason to come back, then you want them to not only do that, but be an advocate for your company, and go out and tell other people give you reviews give you referrals, you want them to spread it through word of mouth and reviews. That’s my six sigma project this year for my current company, we do not do any customer satisfaction surveys or anything like that. So I want to implement a net promoter score survey. And anybody who gets gives us an eight or above on that survey. I want to ask for a review from them. Because they’re a satisfied customer. Anybody with a seven or lower? I want my sales team to reach out to them to see how can we grow? What can we do better? Where did we fail you how can we save this relationship? So that’s my funnel.

Curt Anderson  38:14

Gina, we’re just going to take a moment right there. We’re just gonna take a moment of silence that was just explodes

Gina Tabasso  38:21

every day. There’s too much knocking around up here. That

Curt Anderson  38:25

was That was awesome. That was a masterclass right there. So multiple mic drops right there. In hate. We’ve got one more comment here. Majola majali Oh, my saying that quick and short find people who hate competitors with AI and data scraping? I absolutely. Was just

Damon Pistulka  38:44

That’s an awesome strategy. I mean, because what you’re talking about manufacturers usually they don’t encourage and I talked about this luck. They don’t want 100 new customers if they got five or six new customers it’s a huge thing. If they got three A lot of times sometimes it is like Kurt said what? Yeah, sometimes

Gina Tabasso  39:01

that’s in a manufacturing it’s a little harder because a lot of manufacturers don’t have a Google My Business. Yeah, well get Google reviews. They don’t have a Facebook page. They’re not book reviews. So finding those people is a little harder. That’s why I said it’s a little easier for other industries like I have a friend in software. He does SAS software and he used G to to find bad reviews for his competitors and he’s hitting them and he’s getting sale after sale. So it really depends on the industry and the product.

Curt Anderson  39:33

Absolutely. Absolutely brilliant. So all right and I don’t want that. That was the secret sauce for that boy guys take that man thank Gina for in Hey, how about synth synth Gina like you know, holiday card or something? If you close these sales because of that little tip, man send Gina like a little Starbucks card or something that was that was awesome. Hey, Timothy over in Amsterdam says wonderful. Brian, our friend in Michigan says a lot of manufacturers one star review was our upset employees that’s that’s very true brand. So all right Gina, you just you gave us a masterclass top of funnel and then diving each step and again guys, if you’re just joining us hit that little rewind button, catch what Gina just said, Gina, how about are there any tools? And maybe if you I apologize this kind of redundant question, Are there tools that you personally cannot live without?

Gina Tabasso  40:23

Yeah, um, I love WordPress. I would never build a site on anything but WordPress. I love CRMs and I’m CRM agnostic. I mean, I’ve used Zoho, I’ve used HubSpot exact targets, you name it, I’ve used them. Have you Salesforce before, you know just have one, just have one. Um, I love sem rush. Because it you can find competitors keywords, you know, advertising spends rankings, it just everything’s there. But I’ll be honest with you, I’ve used a lot of free tools that can give you a leg up like you can use the free version of sem rush or Moz mo Zhi. And there’s a few other ones out there, I use site checker, like you can run a website through some of these check tools. And it will give you a report that tells you it rates your site and tells you everything that’s wrong with it or broken that needs to be fixed. You can really start with free, you don’t have to pay for the really expensive fancy tools. Right?

Curt Anderson  41:37

It’s our favorite word right Damon free and you those free tools out there keywords, you can use Google Keyword Planner, that one’s free. So Gina, we’ll start I know, man, you’re super busy, and we’re just doing an amazing job I want to start I’m gonna be mindful of your time we’ll start winding down. What for I want to go back to your entrepreneurial journey, if you will, please. Okay. So for any of our friends out there, maybe they have a job, they’re working for someone and just like deep down, they’re like, Man, I wish I could take that leap of faith, you know, maybe financial obligations, family obligations, it’s just it’s scary, taking that leap. And in making that plunge into entrepreneurship. What was it like for you any tips or advice for any friends out there that might be considering entrepreneurship and just want to take that plunge? What advice do you have?

Gina Tabasso  42:23

I adore you, you ask the best questions. I’m so glad you asked this question. I will I will tell you truly from the bottom of my heart. My entire life, people have encouraged me to go out as a consultant, right? When do they encourage you to do that? Usually when you lost your job, that’s not the time to do it. I was like, wait, I need money, I need an income. I need medical benefits. I can’t build a business right now. So I was scared. I’m not a risk taker. I am a calculated risk taker. I like a paycheck every two weeks, I like paid time off. I like knowing that paychecks coming. And and so I plotted along and sold my soul and did the thing who and took abuse and toxic environments and and then this summer, when I actually lost my job, they eliminated my position a few weeks before I was having a major major colorectal surgery. That was going to be like a 16 week recovery time. And I’m like, oh my god, what am I going to do? I can’t get a job. I’m not going to have an income. I have $13,000 of medical bills. And my current boss hired me because he was a former boss, and he needed me and he said, I cried when he hired me. He said, listen, as much as I love you. I didn’t do this. out of the kindness of my heart. This is a business decision. But he’s the one who encouraged me to go out on my own. And he gives me the freedom during the day to do things like this to meet with a client. So that that kind of relationship allowed me to take this leap of faith in this risk. But anybody out there planning to do it the best things I could tell you that helped me score S C O R E, free mentors, free business coaches. They helped me do my business plan my financials. They were invaluable. I also worked with what’s the other organization that wasn’t prepared for this question. SBDC Yes, thank

Curt Anderson  44:33

you Small Business Development Center. And there’s there’s nearly real quick Gina, there’s nearly 1000 SBDCs. We’ve interviewed a lot of SBDC folks on our program, Small Business Development Center. If you are boy, if you’ve been in business for 30 years, you’ve been in business for 30 days, the SBDC I’m just a huge raving advocate for the SBDC there’s 1000 throughout the United States, it’s government funded They are completely free. They’re always parked at a university. I strongly encourage you invite you to check that out. Gina, keep it going, please.

Gina Tabasso  45:07

I think that’s why I didn’t do it. I was so afraid because I’m great at marketing. But I’m not great at all that other stuff. I’ve never done a business plan. I’ve never done financials. Do I need a checking account? Do I need a credit card? Do I need an attorney? Do I need an accountant? Where do I go for this? Where do I go for that? And they just took away the fear. Like I felt like they had my back. I could do this. And literally, I got my business. And I work full time and I volunteer and I’m on nonprofits. And it was so easy. It was a little bit of work. I formed my LLC in September, got my business checking account, my business credit card, got my business cards made. I have my my websites being built still right now right now. I only have a landing page. My web developers still building it out. And I signed my first client in October. And it wasn’t so scary. I think the thing that still scares me as is taxes. And I’m we’re working on some contracts right now. Yeah, you can then my score mentor said go out to this website, pull the free contracts, rewrite the contracts for your business. Let me look at them. I have written 1000s of contracts in my lifetime. I’m not an attorney, you still should have an attorney look it over. But you don’t have to spend hours with the attorney writing the contract. I will get you to the stage where it’s a 15 minute appointment with the attorney to just look it over. Yeah, so I can’t speak highly enough of them. And

Damon Pistulka  46:37

that’s the real thing. They can help take those the big hurdles away in the beginning and then they can get you to the right people to get the last bit of help you need. Absolutely

Curt Anderson  46:48

our friend Diane buyer Diane, Happy Monday to you our friend on the Philadelphia SBDC is a manufacturer know your SBDC and your N E P Brian and Michigan says profits over paychecks and Brian knows he and his sons are just crushing it with their business. And hey, Nate Johnson nice No, they thank you. I appreciate that. Kurt should be a sigh. Sacra Socratic, how do you say that kradic Socratic discussion leader? Great question. So thank you, brother. I appreciate you, dude. Diane says taxes scare everyone but accountants alone on that one. So yeah, Timothy says how true so guys, we’re gonna start winding down. Thank you for the comments. Thank you for the questions. And again, we’ll be here for another minute. But Gina, let’s start taking home. First off, I want to first I want to encourage everybody connect with you on LinkedIn. Is there any other place that you’re hanging out that folks can find you?

Gina Tabasso  47:39

Um, I am on Twitter, I do a weekly Twitter chat for manufacturers. I actually just ran the last Twitter chat on Lean Six Sigma. Nice. So you can find me on Twitter at Barracuda b2b or my personal handles G Tabata so I’m more active on my personal because I sometimes do Twitter work for like clients and stuff. So I can’t be promoting my Barracuda business all the time. And yeah, LinkedIn is the probably the best place. My website my my landing page right now is up. It’s Barracuda b2b dot com. And if somebody needs a marketing consult right now I offer a free 30 minute marketing consultation.

Curt Anderson  48:25

Excellent. Well, man, well, you just gave us a whole masterclass and a cup and one thing I want to close out with is you on your read on your LinkedIn profile, you talk about like marketing with authenticity, purpose driven content, and I just and you really just you are one of the most authentic individuals I’ve met. And just you know, we’ve become dear friends your second time on the show. And I just want to thank you for coming on. So let’s do this. Number one. I want to thank everybody that took time in the chat box, drop a note drop a question. Thank you for your support means the world. Thank you. Thank you, Diane and Nate Timothy. Everybody, Nigel, come on everybody in the program here on Ronnie if I said that correctly. I hope I said your name. By the way. She said thank you to Gina, you answered your question earlier. So I want to thank the audience. Thank you guys for joining us week in and week out. But how about if you guys have been sitting down and hanging out and just really enjoying this marketing masterclass? How about we stand up and give a huge round of applause for Gina Tabasco from Barracuda b2b marketing. Thank you for your expertise in Nigel says thank you Damon and Kurt and Gina for informative presentation. That was a lot to unpack as always. That was the last pack and but I’ll tell you I don’t know if that was about 1015 minutes ago. Guys, you might want to replay that. Back through she shared genius shared a real powerful trip. Yeah, go back and check out your competitors on Google Business Profile. are awesome and look for negative reviews. Those are opportunities she shared about how important it is to have a great website presence content. And boy, we’re getting some more comments here. Brian says great job. Thank you. Diane says Make it a great week. Buddy, as we close out, let’s take take everybody home. How about any words of thoughts or words of wisdom? Any thoughts that you want to share with anybody, everybody, as we close out today?

Gina Tabasso  50:29

I’m presenting today but I’m always humble because I learned from everybody. And Kurt, You crack me up because I’m like, I think that’s my tagline. Barracuda b2b No bullshit. There’s a mic. Because that’s, that’s my goal in life is authenticity. I feel, you know, I belong to a network called the giver Marketing Network. And you have to be a giver to belong. It’s it’s that you help people you give and the money will come if you put people first. So my clients are my friends. And I also do not use up their budgets. I had a client who came to me who wanted something done. I asked what his budget was, he told me $10,000, I said, I can get it done for you for less. I got it done for him for 7000. He’s like, there’s no marketer on the planet that wouldn’t take that whole 10,000 $10,000 budget. Okay, I can do it for you for 10 I don’t need to rob you to support myself. I do what’s best for you. It’s a win win. You save money, I make money. It’s all good. And you know what, that customer is going to keep coming back to me? Yeah.

Curt Anderson  51:37

Gina, you, I tell you what a treat. Yeah, you know, just your again, your authenticity, your integrity. And just you’re you’re just such an inspiration to all of us. And just I want to tell you, thank you for joining the Entrepreneurship Club. We just are wishing you massive, massive success. Couple of comments here, Nate, every program you want to catch, go to b2b tail.com my website, we have the replays Daymond has replays, you can catch them on our LinkedIn profile. But we we archive every program goes right on both of our website. So check out b2b tell.com Go to Exit your way. Timothy, Timothy says thanks. Hit the right buttons, and neck Ronnie, I hope I’ve seen your name correctly. It was a first time attending a marketing strategy based discussion and I found it educational and enjoyable. Thank you, and we’ll get back to you. So guys, thank you for joining us every week and Gina Stanley says how proud he is of you. We’re proud of you. We’re excited for you it we’ve got some more comments. Sweet. Thanks. We’ve got I agree with your statement and we send send lots of love to all you guys out there. Gina. We wish you Monster Monster success. Damon, close out your takeaways today.

Damon Pistulka  52:50

I just thanks, Gina. It was it was great learning for me today. And and thanks everyone that’s less than and as Curt said before, go back and rewind. There’s some real golden nuggets in here. You should be gleaning from this. But just thanks a lot for being here today. Gina. Like you’re you’re both

Gina Tabasso  53:05

two of my gurus. And you are both an absolute blessing to the world. So thank you for giving me the honor of spending an hour with both of you today. And with all of our wonderful attendees. I never saw so much participation and I’m blown away. I love it. And I’m so grateful.

Curt Anderson  53:22

Join and guys join us every here. We’re here every Monday every Friday. We’ve got a great, great another fun program lined up for next Friday. Yes, well 32 Eastern Time, whatever time zone you’re in. We’ll have to do the math on that one. So, Gina, hang out with us for one second. God bless you. God bless everybody out there guys. And just like Damon I like to say at the end of every program, just go out and be someone’s inspiration. Just like our dear friend Gina was for us today. And so guys, have a great week. We’ll see you back here on Friday.