THE THOUGHTFUL ENTREPRENEUR PODCAST
In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks with the Vice President of Find Your Audience, Nathan Yeung.
Nathan isn’t your-typical marketing professional. As a fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), he and his team serve as a plug-and-play marketing team for various clients, from national franchises to large B2B enterprises and venture capital and private equity firms.
Unlike traditional agencies, Nathan's team doesn't just provide strategic advice. They also execute marketing strategies. This dual role allows them to be more involved and hands-on with their client's businesses.
As Nathan explained, one of the key differences between hiring a fractional CMO and a traditional agency is the focus. A fractional CMO focuses on high-level strategic planning and identifying white space in the market. In contrast, agencies focus more on tactical execution based on the client's specific needs or ideas.
When asked about growing his own business, Nathan acknowledged the challenge of finding time to work on the enterprise while being busy working on it. He revealed that most of his business comes from referrals, which he strategically cultivates through distribution partners.
Nathan also mentioned the importance of content creation and being a guest on podcasts to increase visibility and generate leads. However, he avoids cold emailing due to the sensitivity of marketing services to such approaches. Instead, he encourages interested individuals to reach out to him directly.
Key Points from the Episode:
- Nathan Young's role as a fractional CMO and founder of Find Your Audience
- Difference between hiring a fractional CMO and hiring an agency
- Importance of supporting sales teams and increasing their productivity
- Content generation in successful B2B marketing
- Feasibility of generating leads within a short timeframe
- Importance of content creation and product-led growth models in marketing
- Strategic marketing approaches in the restaurant industry
- Challenges of growing a business and acquiring new clients
- Importance of content creation and being a guest on podcasts for visibility and lead generation
- Avoidance of cold emailing in marketing services
About Nathan Yeung:
Nathan Yeung is a seasoned marketing strategist with a decade of experience specializing in B2B business consulting. He has a proven track record of constructing successful marketing teams and launching new products.
Nathan's background spans marketing, finance, and management consulting, offering a unique perspective and comprehensive understanding of business operations.
His innovative, data-driven marketing strategies, bolstered by a knack for creative problem-solving, have significantly amplified business growth for his clients.
Known for his passion for delivering results and the ability to devise unconventional solutions, Nathan continually helps clients distinguish themselves in their industries. His contributions to the marketing world have garnered recognition from various organizations.
About Find Your Audience:
Find Your Audience is your dedicated outsourced marketing team, specializing in personalized, performance-oriented strategies across Brandinga, Strategy, Creative Designs, Social Media Management, and CMO Services. The team fosters growth and transparency in daily marketing activities to meet your business needs.
Core competencies include meticulous planning and execution in consulting and strategy, media buying via unconventional channels, brand management, and intuitive graphic design. Social media growth is also a key focus. The collective aim is to deliver practical, innovative marketing solutions that align with your brand's vision and objectives to successfully reach and engage your target audience.
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Links Mentioned in this Episode:
Want to learn more? Check out Find Your Audience website at
https://findyouraudience.online/
Check out Find Your Audience on LinkedIn at
https://www.linkedin.com/company/find-your-audience-online/
Check out Nathan Yeung on LinkedIn at
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yeungnathan/
Check out Nathan Yeung on Twitter at
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Transcript
Josh (00:00:05) - Hey there, thoughtful listener. Would you like consistent and predictable sales activity with no spam and no ads? I'll teach you step by step how to do this, particularly if you're an agency owner, consultant, coach or B2B service provider. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create more than $10 million in revenue. Just head to up my influence and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to up my influence and click on podcast. We'd love to have you. With us right now, it is fractional CMO and founder of Find Your Audience found on the Web and find your audience online. It's Nathan Yeung. Nathan, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much, Josh? Yes. Explain tell us what you do with find your audience and how you work as a fractional CMO.
Nathan (00:01:19) - Yeah, it's a great story. Really, what we do is we're kind of like a plug and play marketing team. We're really a marketing function. So a lot of people have probably heard the term fractional consultants. So I'm a fractional CMO, but I'm a fractional CMO with a team. And so that's because I kind of got tired of just advising and providing strategy. I really wanted to be hands on and actually being a part of the execution because I think it's great to provide the advice, but it's really important to see the execution through. So I've really built a large team around doing that everywhere from designers to media buyers, content writers to managers, just to ensure that kind of like the work that I put into is actually being executed well.
Josh (00:01:59) - What's the difference between hiring someone with kind of that fractional CMO role versus we're just going to hire this agency, is going to do marketing for us.
Nathan (00:02:10) - So I think it's just really the focus on where their attention is going to be put into and are invested into in the business.
Nathan (00:02:18) - So I think when it comes to a fractional CMO, it's really fundamentally high level, It's very strategic, it's really opportunistic and trying to identify kind of like key white space in the market. I think when you go down to kind of the agency level, you're really looking at execution and tactics. So I think a lot of people on this podcast will probably really understand this. But like, you know, you go to an agency, you typically already know what you want or you have an idea of what you want. So when you go into an agency, you're kind of like, I want a website, you go to an agency, I want a webinar, you go to an agency, I want a brand. When you're going to a fractional, it's really like, Hey, so I have this idea, what exactly should I be doing for marketing? Where should I be positioning, how should I be positioning? So it's a little bit of that brand work, but it's also just fundamentally building out that operations and function as well for that organization and prioritizing the actual operational execution of marketing things.
Nathan (00:03:13) - And so I think that's really marketing things to plan. So I think that's kind of the big difference is one is very strategic high level and planning perspective kind of longer term. And obviously when you go to the agency, it's much more tactical and execution oriented.
Josh (00:03:26) - Yeah. And who do you typically work with?
Nathan (00:03:30) - We have a full breadth of clients. I think we're one of the few agencies, I guess, that really work across a ton of industries. So we work with like natural franchises. So we deal with like national franchise campaigns all the way down to supporting the local restaurants. We work with the largest BDB enterprises in Canada, such as firm and pro com Firm is the largest data room provider in Canada. Procom is the largest IT recruiting company in Canada. We even assist in several portfolios inside of Constellation Software, which is another large incumbent in Canada, the largest software company in Canada. They have well over 100 different software companies that they own. And so we also then work for venture capital and private equity, and people go, Well, how does that work? And I go, Well, if you really think about it, marketing is a cash flow number.
Nathan (00:04:20) - And our goal here is to make sure that that cash flow number is very prudently spent and kind of forecasted. Well, so we use this private equity firms on the buy side and diligence. And then in venture capital, we assist in actually just building up the function for some of their portfolio companies.
Josh (00:04:35) - Yeah. So two kind of client categories I'd love to talk about. I'm going to ask you about restaurants in just a moment, but I would really love your perspective on what is working well for B2B today, because I know that that's one area that you do a lot of work in.
Nathan (00:04:53) - So the one thing that I think working well in B2B is really, really, really simple. And I think this is the one thing that just a lot of people forget about marketing. I always say that marketing is an amplification of revenue. It's not just marketing. And I think we get pigeonholed in this idea that it's like, okay, well your KPI is just inbound. One of the things that we do very, very well is we increase the productivity of the sales teams.
Nathan (00:05:18) - So, so really taking away all of that unnecessary work and putting it onto our shoulders so that your sales team are really focused on what they do best, which is technical selling and really customer relationships and customer retention. Like that's where they should be spending all their time in. So our marketing team actually takes away all those additional work, like working on the PowerPoints, providing more ideas for sales likes, you know, sometimes even coordinating for conferences. They're absolutely not good uses of their time. And so we actually focus on that. So that's actually like a campaign initiative when we engage with clients. So I know this is probably not great news for everyone, but, you know, focusing on your sales is number one. And you can actually do that by marketing, by actually making sure that your sales team are properly supported. I think this is fundamentally overlooked all the time. The other thing that I think is incredibly important is just content generation. That's also not something anyone really wants to hear because content generation is hard.
Nathan (00:06:16) - But the one thing that I will simply say is content generation plays dividends not only in the short term but the long term. Because when you're doing content generation, you have the ability to repurpose content, you have the ability to re-engage people. It becomes kind of this multipurpose tool, like kind of this a Swiss army knife. Every time you do a piece of content, it's like a Swiss army knife you're producing. It can do multiple things. You can use it for emails, you can use it for follow-ups, you can use it for webinars, you can use it for SEO. So content generation is always going to be a key part of your marketing function.
Josh (00:06:48) - So I hear you talking a lot maybe about demand, gen content, that sort of thing. Do you get clients that come in the door and say, Listen, Nathan, we just need leads in the next 30 days? Can you help us out? Like, where would you take that conversation?
Nathan (00:07:07) - So first and foremost that's highly dependent on their price point and highly dependent on how complex their sales cycle process and process is.
Nathan (00:07:15) - So if we're talking about a product that has a lower price point, call it something that lends itself to a product, that growth model lends itself to a single stakeholder making a decision, that's probably quite possible. It's probably very possible. You know, realistically, you can you could probably do a demand generation campaign or a paid performance campaign, and you could probably actually produce leads and actually get conversions. The retention of those conversions might be a little iffy because you're rushing into a campaign, but nonetheless, it's probably something you can do. And it's highly probable if you're looking at a product that has a sales cycle that's anywhere between 3 to 6 months, has more than 2 or 3 stakeholders in their buying group. The reality of that is you can do it, but just know it's going to be bloody expensive. The reality is that the more complex your the stakeholder group is, the longer the sales cycle, the more expensive it is for you to drive a direct performance campaign.
Nathan (00:08:10) - And one of the things that I like to really explain why that is, is because when you're doing a direct performance campaign, you're targeting people that are already well in the funnel, right? So they're already near the decision-making thing, but you're actually forcing them to consider you at a point of decision. And to do that, that means you're probably spending one a lot of money on expensive things like pay per click, you're on pay per click, you're specifically looking at incredibly high intent keywords and you're building out landing pages very specific to those keywords. So it's going to be expensive, you know, easily 500, $750 a lead. But you're hoping to see conversion rates that are obviously above 50% because they're so bloody expensive. And then the worst part is few and far between. So I think that's the other thing is that when you look at really, really high intent keywords for these complex sales products or solutions, you typically have very low keyword volumes and so therefore everything gets more expensive. So again, very possible, but you have to align that expectation of how much it's going to cost to acquire that customer.
Josh (00:09:17) - Yeah, that's fantastic. Are there any trends that that you're seeing or that anyone that is on the B2B side of things? The reason I'm asking some questions, but I mean, that's kind of our world on the B2B side, so I'm fascinated. But any trends that you would say, listen, if you're in B2B sales or marketing or you own a B2B company and growth is know your, you know, your mandate, I would be paying attention to. Blank and anything that you're excited about that's on the horizon, you know, on the horizon.
Nathan (00:09:51) - I don't know if there's anything on the horizon that I would be super excited about. I think fundamentally, you know, when we look at the new horizons, it's always shiny objects. And, you know, we're marketers are the bane of that, that we create those shiny objects and they're not always the shiniest. So, you know, if I were to say, like, what would I really lean into right now? I think leaning into your email infrastructure and really understanding how to create email infrastructure for outbound I think is super important.
Nathan (00:10:15) - And some people might argue, Oh neat, that's not really marketing stuff. And I'll argue it kind of is. The other thing that I think is incredibly important is not just the email stuff, but really, again, going back to this content creation, it's this idea of I don't believe product led growth models work for every organization, but I do think the framework is a healthy thing for every organization to think about. And so creating content that is under the kind of the direction of product that growth is really important for onboarding for people who want to do a self discovery journey on your on your business. So I think really leaning into those and scaling that through time is really important because it's something that takes a lot of time. You can frontload it, but it's going to be incredibly painful and I think that's something that everyone should lean into always, because the more content you have, the more content you have to basically sell people on themselves. I think it's just a weight rate to kind of constantly layer your sales a bit more without actually sales doing anything.
Nathan (00:11:17) - So I think that's really what I would lean into right now.
Josh (00:11:19) - Yeah, Yeah. And so, and you do a lot of work in the restaurant space too. What trends have you been seeing in on that side of it? And or also when we think about how you can drive growth and revenue, you know, for a restaurant chain or single location or whatever, like where I mean, it's not content necessarily. Well, it's different content. I'll let you explain. Like what you typically do there.
Nathan (00:11:45) - Yeah. So, so restaurants is such an interesting business because it's such a departure from B2B. But fundamentally, some of the things that we work in and we think of are still the same things when it comes to restaurant marketing or even any single store marketing. You know, even if you're just selling, you know, pencils, for example. The one thing that I always say is, you know, everyone's like, Oh, let's do a promotion, let's do sales. And I go, look, that's fine.
Nathan (00:12:10) - But the reality is you have to identify kind of what's the purpose of the sale? Is this sale to essentially grab new users like new customers? Or is this sale kind of a gift to your current customers? And really think about the pricing around that and think about also your concentration of sales. So one of the things that I find really amusing is often we get a lot of restaurants that come to us and be like, Oh, you know, we have like this overstocked food. We got to let go. So we're going to do a sale. Can you help us promote it and go, I can help you promote it, but it's not going to sell well. And they go, Why isn't it going to sell well? And I go, Well, first of all, if it's overstocked, it means it's not selling well anyways. Yeah. Second of all, if it's not selling well anyways, unless you're willing to give it a cost, what kind of promotion are you going to get people driven to your restaurant to really want to buy that? Right? So if you're a seafood chain and you're selling wings, like, you know, having a wings promo isn't really going to be very enticing for a lot of people unless.
Josh (00:13:00) - It's unless it's fish wings, of.
Nathan (00:13:02) - Course, unless it's fish wings, Right. Or something that they've concocted that's relevant to their brand. And so I often go, you want to do promotions around actually your highest selling product. And the reason is, is because it gets the most reach, right? So, so safe. So let's now bring this not away from restaurants. Let's just say pencils. Let's just say you sell the best pencils in the world. Everyone knows about your pencils. You know, you do a promotion on erasers. Why bother do a promotional on pencils? Why? Because. Because essentially when you do that promotion, everyone that wants that promotion is going to promote it even more, right? They're going to tell their friends and their communities. And so the number one advice that I would give every single person in the restaurant industry or in any of your businesses is promote your highest concentration sale product. And I know that seems counterintuitive because you go, oh, well, if I promote it, I discount it, I lose my margin.
Nathan (00:13:53) - But that's not the purpose of the campaign. The purpose is for you to acquire new customers. Right. So you acquire new customers by gaining more reach and you maximize your reach by promoting things that you sell the most of and getting the most attention of. Now, you don't want to train your customers to get used to discount. So I'm not recommending you do this discount every single month, but you do one big discount or yo do twice a year where essentially the goal is to really get new customers in. So, you know, if you're, again, going back to that pencils, maybe you sell the most expensive pencils, you're now going to get this person who just likes pens. But you know what? You have that promotion. They've seen it. Their friend keeps telling them, buy it, They buy it, they love it. They become a customer. Right. So, yes, you are losing margin, but the game plan is to get new customers. And so I think a lot of people get too stuck on the margin perspective and forget it's about acquiring new customers.
Nathan (00:14:42) - And the customer base is what ultimately keeps your business very sustainable. That's the main focus we have when it comes to marketing for local businesses.
Josh (00:14:50) - Nathan You've been at the helm of Find your Audience for nearly six and a half years now. Congratulations. What do you do as you know, as a consultancy or agency owner to grow your own business?
Nathan (00:15:05) - That's a beautiful question. Be incredibly frustrating. And I feel like a lot of people on this call will attest this. There's a saying where it's like you're so busy working in the business, you never work on the business. And I am certainly at fault for that too. So if you were to ask me, Hey, Nathan, where do I find a majority of my business? A majority of my business comes from referrals. Now, that's kind of a lie because those referrals were strategic in the sense that I find distribution partners. And so in my eyes, what I do is when it comes to sales and what comes to marketing, I identify people within my network or within my businesses that we're servicing that are strategic distribution partners.
Nathan (00:15:49) - So if I know that a client could probably refer me to ten people, they get extra effort because ultimately I know they refer me to ten people. So they're essentially a distribution partner to me. So the way I look at it is I try to find distribution partners and I try my best to work with organizations that I actually think are going to be distribution partners. So when you work with venture capital, it's a great example. They have multiple portfolio companies. When you work with private equity, same thing. They have multiple partners. If you're working in insurance companies, you could potentially think the clients of the insurance company could be your distribution partner. So, so, so your, your future client. So this whole idea is, you know, I say that everything's referral, but it's really much a very strategic referral marketing deployment strategy where again, I'm looking for these points of influence. And the way I look at it is like they're pseudo partners, pseudo distributed distribution points, and then I market towards those people.
Nathan (00:16:43) - And so I do essentially like account based marketing around those individuals so that they, I retain kind of mental convenience with them. And, and generally speaking, they find me and they hire us. So demand generation, all that kind of stuff. We don't do too much. We do a ton of content creation. So I am on this guest but this, this podcast, I'm on a bunch of other podcasts now. I also have my own content creation channel, so we are doing a lot more of that and we have seen some some fruit from that, that effort. We don't do any specific emailing just because marketing historically is actually the most sensitive service to email. Cold email.
Josh (00:17:21) - Yes. Right. Yeah. You've heard that.
Nathan (00:17:24) - To hate marketers. Um, so, so we don't do too much of that. And then in conferences.
Josh (00:17:31) - Yeah. Nathan your website is, is find your audience online who should be reaching out, connecting and like what are those next steps? They're listening our conversation.
Josh (00:17:43) - Maybe they did a search on you. They found this podcast, have been listening to a conversation and now they're ready for kind of that next step. Yeah, what would that be?
Nathan (00:17:52) - I think you can just truthfully just go to the website and you can just book a meeting. We have a button on the top right where you can go ahead and you get access to my Calendly link. You can even just go find me on LinkedIn, add me on LinkedIn and ask me a quick question or if you're really bored, you can go find me on for marketing bites with a Y on Instagram and watch videos until hopefully I sell you that I'm intelligent enough to maybe help you. But you know, realistically, I think it could be as simple as a meeting, but it really depends on where you are on your marketing journey. If you're really looking for just some high level advice, I recommend taking that discovery call because probably in that 30 minutes I'm going to help you more than, you know, you doing research for four hours.
Josh (00:18:32) - Yeah. Nathan Yeung, again, founder of Find Your Audience, Fractional CMO, your website, find your audience online. Nathan, it's been great having you. Thank you so much for joining us.
Nathan (00:18:44) - Thanks, Josh.
Josh (00:18:51) - Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up My Influence slash guest. If you're a listener, I'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free. You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group. Just search for the thoughtful entrepreneur and Facebook. I'd love even if you just stopped by to say hi, I'd love to meet you. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together. We are empowering one another as thoughtful entrepreneurs. Hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning. That's right, seven days a week. You are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed.
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