CMO James Krouse discusses how, in today’s B2B landscape, capturing the attention of buyers has become increasingly challenging. With the rise of self-service research, buyers are more informed than ever, making it crucial for marketers to reframe the conversation and provide a unique point of view.
“It is about positioning your company above a commodity, that you are a trusted advisor, that you do know more in-depth about a field than your clients do.” – James Krouse
This thought-provoking interview with James explores the importance of reframing the conversation and how it can lead to more meaningful connections with B2B buyers.
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[Transcript]
Introduction and Welcome
[00:00:05] Steve MacDonald: Welcome everyone to the C-Suite Marketing Perspectives podcast. I’m Steve MacDonald, your host. And today, we have a really interesting topic and guest, CMO James Krause. James, you’ve probably been in the B2B industry longer than we all want to admit—the same thing for me. But what we’re going to talk about today is something that all of us have to be doing as anyone who’s marketing, who’s trying to get the attention of the B2B buyer these days, which is harder and harder.
[00:00:36] Steve MacDonald: We’re going to talk about going down this more of a self-service path where they’re doing most of the research well in advance of even wanting to talk to anybody in the company. So, we’re talking today about how to reframe the conversation. How do we do this in a way that extols a unique point of view? We can’t be talking about the status quo. We can’t be saying the same things that everybody else is. We can’t be talking about just products and services, right?
[00:01:04] Steve MacDonald: We have to be talking in a way that supports them, that educates them, that lifts the eyebrow a little bit, and gets to the curiosity so they want to spend some time talking with us. We’re talking about reframing the conversation in a very positive way. And so James, you’ve got a unique job where you’re at right now at Eastridge Staffing Solution.
[00:01:30] Steve MacDonald: And you’re working with some of the biggest industries and industry players out there. Before we get into the core of the conversation here, tell us more about your background and what you’re doing right now, and then we’ll jump in.
James Krouse’s Background and Current Role
[00:01:44] James Krouse: Sure, sure, sure.
[00:01:46] James Krouse: Yeah, thanks, thanks, and thank you for having me. Yeah, I’m the Chief Marketing Officer at Eastridge Workforce Solutions. It’s been an interesting journey because staffing is not the world I grew up in from a career standpoint.
[00:02:10] James Krouse: I was doing B2B marketing and landed in staffing through that pathway. It still is a B2B message, and I like to think about staffing and that broader world of workforce solutions as being almost the ultimate conclusion of a B2B marketing career.
[00:02:34] James Krouse: A lot of times, you’re dealing with things that are in B2B that can be interpreted as a commodity. I’ve worked with the paper manufacturers. Georgia Pacific was one of the first clients I worked with at an agency in New York, or Crown Holdings, that makes cans.
The Importance of Unique Point of View in Marketing
[00:03:02] James Krouse: These are bread and butter stuff people make. And like I said, by and large, they will be sold, and even a customer relationship is built on the price of that item, the price per item, and how low it can go. In each of those industries, though, there was always a leader who saw some value in finding value.
[00:03:26] James Krouse: Just that cutting edge, just that leading edge of difference, something that could make something different or that they could sell into a new market. I’ll keep on the cans and the paper, for example, selling paper to graphic designers. At the time, in the late 90s, they were still printing annual reports.
[00:03:56] James Krouse: And so, doing a series of interviews with the designers of those annual reports and looking at their paper selection, I had the opportunity to interview Michael J. Fox for the Fox Foundation and the selection of the paper for the Fox Foundation as just an example of how far you can go down.
[00:04:16] James Krouse: And it was talking to the client about what is different here? How can we articulate that difference, and how can we tell a story about it? So there’s always going to be a bit of the business that’s going to be about commodity.
[00:04:31] James Krouse: It’s going to be price-driven. But there’s so much more than that. With staffing, it’s the same thing where the need that the customer has is very much about commodity. They need to find talent. They need to find workers for their factory, or they need to find paralegals for the law firm.
[00:04:58] James Krouse: But if they’re not working with somebody they trust, and if they’re not building out on their company’s culture, then they’re just outsourcing a vital part of the company to the lowest bidder. And, like with any client, it’s about finding that right fit so that you can tell those stories.
[00:05:25] James Krouse: And I’m very fortunate because Eastridge is a company that takes that partnership seriously, takes those relationships seriously, and takes company culture seriously. And that’s really important to any kind of B2B business is that there has to be something that’s different at the heart of it.
[00:05:54] James Krouse: And it’s a matter of telling and articulating that story. You can’t fabricate it. You can’t just make it up. It’s got to be something truthful. So that’s been an interesting journey for me, going from working with machinery manufacturers to a company that really takes building the culture of a company seriously.
[00:06:22] James Krouse: It’s an interesting B2B arc.
The Role of Company Culture in B2B Marketing
[00:06:28] Steve MacDonald: And now you’re working in a B2B environment with clients who are industry leaders, but one of the things that’s interesting is that those companies have used staffing workforce solutions before.
[00:06:45] Steve MacDonald: This is nothing new to them, right? Yet, you’re trying to, in a way, reinvent how we can work with you. One of the things you just mentioned was company culture and how that makes a difference. Just about a month and a half ago, I had a phenomenal conversation on the podcast with the CRO of the year of a B2B company and his teammate, his CMO.
[00:07:10] Steve MacDonald: They came on and literally attributed over 50 percent of their success to their company culture, the retainment and the recruitment of the right kind of people, and how you bring that team together. And then how that treat team executes. I know from my past life that in terms of just trying to launch my own companies and going after original rounds and second rounds of funding, VCE PI firms invest as much in the people as the business plan and business model.
[00:07:40] Steve MacDonald: So part of what you’re talking about and how you’re reframing the conversation is the importance of the people and the importance of dedicating the right resources to get the right people so that the right kind of systems are in place and success can be had.
[00:08:06] Steve MacDonald: That’s a different conversation than how cheaply I can get a service.
[00:08:20] Steve MacDonald: I want to launch into asking you about one of the stories that you had from your past in terms of working with, I think it was in the hospitality industry about how much getting the right team and working strategically with the client makes a difference in their bottom line in their business and even how they think about operating.
[00:08:44] James Krouse: This is an example of when I was working in the hospitality industry with one of the customer case histories I was doing, which involved the GM.
[00:08:57] James Krouse: It wasn’t for one of our bigger hotels. It wasn’t for a very expensive hotel. We have worked with many luxury properties with very impressive marquees. But this was just a basic airport hotel. Talking to the GM there, he was a guy who was a teacher and a football coach before he was in hospitality.
[00:09:25] James Krouse: So, he talked about coming on board to this hotel as the housekeeping manager. Everyone was working overtime, and the front desk manager was also turning over rooms. No one knew their position on the team was how he put it. He described working with our company to build up that staff and turn things around as a breath of fresh air.
[00:09:52] James Krouse: Suddenly, everyone knew exactly what they were doing. They had the resources to get it done. And because they were paying less than overtime and less than recruiting and working with our company, they were able to do it within budget.
[00:10:15] James Krouse: And that’s a great example of digging in and not just asking somebody to say something nice about your company, but asking them to tell a story. What’s a challenge that they faced? You have to dig deep for it because a lot of times when people are talking to somebody in marketing, they want to go with, yeah, working with you guys has been a great, fantastic relationship. We love it. And that’s great.
[00:10:45] James Krouse: It’s a great testimonial, but what are your challenges? What are you trying to solve as a company? Where are you trying to go? What are you trying to do? And how are we helping to get you there? Or not even touching on how we are helping to get you there, let’s just talk about where you’re going.
[00:11:00] James Krouse: Let’s just talk about what your goals are as a company and how you’ve achieved those goals or how you’re going to achieve those goals. When you get people talking through that kind of thing, it not only results in a great story but also gives you so much more background and insight into what drives your customers.
The Impact of Quality in Staffing
[00:11:32] James Krouse: One of the things we did last year at Eastridge is a survey of our customers and prospects, people who are hiring a staffing firm. And the one thing that came back over and over and over again was quality. Quality was really, really important.
[00:11:55] James Krouse: On the face of it, it didn’t seem like it was that big of a revelation. Of course quality is important. That comes from my B2B background, where quality in manufacturing tends to be a commodity. But in staffing, it’s not. When we started to dig deeper into what they meant by quality, it had to do with sourcing candidates with the right skills and cultural fit for their company.
[00:12:25] James Krouse: That could be a paralegal. For example, I’ve talked to our staff about the legal industry and the law firms we work with. They’re very careful to find out what is really important about your law firm.
[00:12:48] James Krouse: How is it different? What is the culture of that law firm? Because they vary widely. So if you’re in a high-pressure situation where everyone is working tons of hours, and you can get ahead and work with large clients, and that’s what you want, then you’re going to find one candidate.
[00:13:08] James Krouse: If you’re more of a family-oriented firm and the hours are a little bit different, and you’re very family-friendly, that’s going to find you a different kind of candidate and a staffing partner that can do that is going to find you the best candidate probably faster and more efficiently than somebody that doesn’t take the time to ask those questions and find out those details.
[00:13:31] James Krouse: Listening to those stories can give you insight, not just to write one piece, but to formulate your whole strategy moving ahead.
[00:13:45] Steve MacDonald: We didn’t talk about this before, but it reminded me of years and years ago when Nike was one of my clients, and they had a hiring philosophy that they wanted to hire the right corporate athlete who was passionate, loved to be there, and whatever task you gave them, they were going to be able to accomplish it and move forward.
[00:13:59] Steve MacDonald: If we look at the cost in an organization, almost always one of the biggest overhead costs is employees.
[00:14:18] Steve MacDonald: One of the biggest areas where you can manage costs is reducing employee turnover. So, going back to hiring the right people, whether it’s the family-focused law firm or this is a law firm where we’ve got really great clients, but man, you’re going to be churned. You’re going to be burned out, but it’s going to be a notch on your career.
[00:14:36] Steve MacDonald: There are very different people that fit into different organizations and cultures, but there isn’t a company alive that isn’t saying I need to reduce my overall cost of overhead related to employees. And one of the best ways to do that is to hire the right people.
Reframing the Conversation
[00:14:56] Steve MacDonald: And then have the right culture to do that. So you’ve reframed the conversation. This isn’t about how we get something very, very quickly and how we do this most efficiently and at the lowest cost. This is about a long-term strategy for your business.
[00:15:14] James Krouse: Yeah, it really is. To your point about reframing the conversation, it starts to get to what is really important to your customers. It’s having that mindset because, in the B2B realm, you run into a lot of commodification, which can permeate everything.
[00:15:36] James Krouse: That can permeate a sales organization. That can permeate like leadership. Usually, when a company recognizes the need for marketing, even just having that recognition, they’re four or five steps ahead of their competition because they have a great story to tell.
[00:15:57] James Krouse: We want to tell that story. That also relates to a lot of the tools that are out there that are related to SEO search engine optimization. Plenty of companies are like, hey, I want to be on the number one page of Google. For what?
[00:16:20] James Krouse: What do you want out of that? That’s based on what people are searching for. Let’s use those tools. Let’s figure out the conversations that are happening out there. And then let’s figure out which ones we want to be part of. And then what is our part going to be?
[00:16:35] James Krouse: And now it’s a much more complex conversation out there that a lot of B2B companies are just not doing that kind of in-depth work that it takes to really analyze what the conversation actually is before they even say something.
The Power of Thought Leadership Content
[00:16:55] Steve MacDonald: Yeah. And the way that I look at that conversation, which is a stat that is just amazing, the sense of connection to a company from a B2B buyer is as important as what that company actually does. What that means is, can that company actually help me, do something for me, help educate?
[00:17:27] Steve MacDonald: It’s that trusted advisor, that expert status. And this is an area that I wanted to get into. Once you decide, I’m going to reframe the conversation in the positive ways we’ve been talking about. How do you do that? That typically is done by the content. That precedes the conversation, right?
[00:17:48] Steve MacDonald: That sparks the conversation. Forbes put it great. They said content marketing solves problems. Thought leadership sparks conversations. So, if we’re trying to spark conversations that are reframing that conversation and getting that interest, tell me a little about your thoughts on thought leadership content and its role in the organization.
[00:18:16] James Krouse: It’s so important. Partially, it is reframing that conversation. So, positioning yourself above a commodity that you are a trusted advisor. You are more in-depth about a field than your clients, which is a natural extension.
[00:18:44] James Krouse: Yeah. One of the things that I talked to our sales team about is that they’ll often be resistant to a very typical salesperson approach, all of your marketing stuff. That’s fine. But I want to wing it, and I just have a conversation with my client, or I want to hear them talk.
[00:19:08] James Krouse: And that’s fine. But what I remind them is they’ve come to us expecting expertise. They’re not in a therapy session. Yeah, you do want to learn more about the client. You do want to learn more about what they do and their challenges, but you also want to be ready with some strategies that have been proven to work and then be able to talk more broadly about some of the things we discussed today.
[00:19:38] James Krouse: So, the way I view thought leadership is it gives you a chance to address some of those things that are the, hey, did you think about it this way? Did you think about, if you’re trying to build company culture, maybe you should look at your staffing partner because they might be able to help you with that?
[00:20:05] James Krouse: Have you thought about even just the phrase candidate quality? And this was very interesting internally when we were talking about candidate quality. We said, oh, we have to talk about this. We have to put it in all of our marketing material. We have to do this.
[00:20:20] James Krouse: And somebody within our organization said, how are you defining that? How are we even defining what candidate quality is? Because it could mean a lot of things. It could mean turnover. And we had a whole conversation about that, where we were able to do a deeper dive into why candidate quality counts, staffing, what it is, and how we define it.
[00:20:48] James Krouse: Because it’s not just turnover because turnover could be related to how you’re managing people. It’s not just about pay. That can be an inaccurate statement. It’s not just about the volume of candidates that you’re getting. How do you define quality?
[00:21:07] James Krouse: That’s when it gets into thought leadership, where you can broaden that conversation and get people thinking and feeling about your company and your brand in a whole different way. That’s a major role for thought leadership.
[00:21:29] James Krouse: That’s out there. The best way to describe it is to get people to think differently. It gets back to what you’re talking about, which is reframing the conversation. Thought leadership can be that and can do that.
[00:21:50] James Krouse: That can be very direct or indirect. One of the things we’re doing right now is having these conversations between our CEO, Seth Stein, and other leaders in the industry. It started with talking about company culture, and there’ll be other conversations and stuff that Seth has with other leaders out there. Still, it’s just as much about the fact that the conversation is happening and less about what’s actually being said or direct business related to it.
[00:22:21] James Krouse: It goes to that point that we were talking about: we don’t always want to talk about our clients or prospects as just the business targets we’re going after.
[00:22:46] James Krouse: It really is, these are people, and these are people who are running companies, and they are doing that for a lot of reasons, some of which are about making money. Some of it’s just about a passion that they have. But I run into more CEOs who care about their organization and care about the vendors and the partners they work with more than anything else.
[00:23:05] James Krouse: And if you can capture that and reach them with something like thought leadership, all the better.
[00:23:14] Steve MacDonald: It’s tremendous what you guys are doing and what Seth is doing out there having these conversations with others that are wondering the same kind of things about what is the impact of company culture and what it does is it take.
[00:23:31] Steve MacDonald: There’s not a B2B organization out there that doesn’t want to move on the scale from vendor to partner. The last thing we want to be is a vendor because a vendor is commoditized. A vendor is anybody who can do this. A partner has much more of an impact, and the only way you’re going to have an impact is if you’re in the middle of the important conversations your audience, your ICP, has to deal with and think about.
[00:23:52] Steve MacDonald: If you’re bringing that conversation together like Seth is doing, and that’s one good topic, then what you’re doing is now you’re adding to the overall conversation. You’re adding to the ability to educate, understand, and make changes based on what’s happening all around you within the industry.
[00:24:19] Steve MacDonald: That’s fantastic.
[00:24:22] James Krouse: Yeah. It also gives one of the things we talked about, quality. There’s also service and expertise, which were other things that came out of that survey I was talking about. And it’s a double-edged sword because people talk about service, which is really important to me in staffing.
[00:24:39] James Krouse: Well, what do you mean by that? Everyone says that they offer great service, but it issues that challenge to your organization to then dig down and say well, how do we articulate that? How do we demonstrate great service? One of those ways can be with thought leadership because it shows, hey, I’m looking out for trends that are out there that you may not have seen. I’m looking out there from an expertise standpoint. We have an entire legal team that offers advice to clients that gives them insight into labor markets and compliance, which is more complex now than ever.
[00:25:23] James Krouse: So, articulating that comes across in the most genuine way through thought leadership. There’s no better way to demonstrate that you have the expertise or that you’re offering service above and beyond than just to come out and say it. It could be a byline article by the legal team on a new law coming out in California.
[00:25:48] James Krouse: It aligns with the values that are important to your clients and your prospects.
[00:25:56] Steve MacDonald: It takes cycles away from the sales process. I was just talking to a CRO who oversees all of the sales, marketing, and customer success. So, the whole revenue engine. He said one of the best things that happens is when we have a first conversation, and they acknowledge that we’re not talking to you, but we know you guys.
[00:26:20] Steve MacDonald: They’ve been consuming the content they’ve been creating, so they already have that sense of connection. They already feel like they respect and trust that organization. That is a tremendous way to start the conversation, and it takes cycles away instead of having to build that trust in those initial conversations.
[00:26:41] Steve MacDonald: Obviously, you’re going to support it. If salespeople are supposed to be trusted advisors, then as much as the brand and the thought leadership can position the entire company as thought leaders, as trusted advisors, you’re just that much farther ahead.
[00:26:57] James Krouse: Yeah, absolutely.
The Importance of Storytelling in B2B Marketing
[00:27:00] Steve MacDonald: So, we could talk for another hour right here, but we’ve covered a lot of territory.
[00:27:06] Steve MacDonald: In terms of reframing the conversation, if there was a single takeaway that you had for the audience to leave us with, what would that be?
[00:27:20] James Krouse: It’s important always to challenge the status quo when it comes to B2B marketing because it’s always easy to say that things are just about price.
[00:27:40] James Krouse: From a sales perspective, this can seem a little bit abstract, but when you drill down and get down to it, say something really simple. And this is where I always start with people. We talk about case histories.
[00:28:03] James Krouse: We talk about thought leadership. And it can seem like the marketing terms, and I understand our audience and everything, but to people in sales, it sounds like, okay, that’s nice. But it’s about a handshake and a smile.
[00:28:18] James Krouse: I sprinkle the sales fairy dust on things and make everything happen. What I always tell them is, let’s just talk about stories where we were able to help a company succeed. And if you can sit down with somebody and say, look, I helped company ABCD, which can be a recognizable name within the industry.
[00:28:47] James Krouse: There are strategies that we’ve worked with them to employ and have been successful for them. And I’d love to share those strategies with you. At the very base of it, it is about storytelling, and it’s about this need to hear and tell a story.
[00:29:08] James Krouse: But then it’s also like, hey, I’m just sharing with you some helpful information. That always sparks a good conversation, both in terms of how a prospect or a client reacts to it and how internally you frame things. We’re just going to tell stories.
[00:29:28] James Krouse: We’re just going to tell the stories about how we’re successful and helping people out. And that’s served me well throughout my whole career, so I think it always starts with storytelling. Now, whether or not that’s telling the story of client success or telling a story about leadership perspective on a business like we were talking about with culture.
[00:29:50] James Krouse: No matter what, if you enter into it with that spirit of sharing information that you believe is valuable to other people, you’re going to get a good reaction to it.
Conclusion
[00:30:01] Steve MacDonald: Yeah, and it always helps. We’re all supposed to be storytellers as marketers. It’s good to talk about strategies. It’s good to talk about theory. But it’s also good to see in the application. How did that help?
[00:30:11] Steve MacDonald: What really happened there? Telling that story brings it to life. So, James, if there were follow-up conversations that people wanted to have or questions for you, would it be appropriate to send them a link to your profile on LinkedIn? Would that be a good way to start?
[00:30:28] James Krouse: Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. LinkedIn is a great place to start for that. And always happy to engage in dialogue.
[00:30:36] Steve MacDonald: Fantastic. Well, thank you for coming on and sharing your insights. If we can reframe the conversation in the staffing industry, which has been around for as long as there’s been business, then we can do it.
[00:30:48] Steve MacDonald: That’s the takeaway I have here from this is that as B2B marketers, we need to be constantly thinking about that and how we do that. And so this has been very, very inspirational. I appreciate it.[00:30:59] James Krouse: Oh, terrific. Yeah. Thanks for having me. It’s a lot of fun.