George Coudounaris

SUMMARY

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The main topics discussed in the podcast transcript were the B2B Playbook, a resource for B2B marketers that provides a comprehensive, actionable strategy for B2B marketing structured around the "Five B's" framework. George also teaches his 5 BEs Framework in his demand generation training course - The B2B Incubator

The podcast covers the Five B's framework in detail and provides valuable insights and tips for B2B marketers looking to improve their skills and knowledge.

The B2B Playbook aims to make B2B marketers more effective and respected within their businesses and provides a clear, step-by-step guide for B2B marketers looking to improve their marketing strategy.

The Five B's framework covers five key areas of B2B marketing: Business, Buyer, Behaviour, Brand, and Business Model.

The B2B Playbook's framework helps marketers create a long-term demand creation strategy that drives business growth and can be applied to businesses of all sizes and in any industry.

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20 top takeaways about the B2B Playbook

• The B2B Playbook is a resource designed to provide a complete, actionable strategy for B2B marketing.
• The B2B Playbook is structured around a framework called the "Five B's" which covers the entire process of B2B marketing.
• The B2B Playbook podcast covers the Five B's framework in detail, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of B2B marketing.
• The B2B Playbook aims to provide a holistic, long-term demand creation strategy for B2B brands.
• The B2B Playbook's framework focuses on creating a brand that customers love, want to buy from, and advocate for.
• The B2B Playbook helps marketers demonstrate the impact of their work on a business's bottom line.
• The Five B's framework covers five key areas of B2B marketing: Business, Buyer, Behaviour, Brand, and Business Model.
• The Business element of the framework focuses on understanding the business, its goals, and its target market.
• The Buyer element of the framework focuses on understanding the target buyer and their needs and motivations.
• The Behaviour element of the framework focuses on understanding how buyers make purchase decisions and how they can be influenced.
• The Brand element of the framework focuses on building and strengthening the brand through storytelling and consistent messaging.
• The Business Model element of the framework focuses on the business's value proposition and how it can be communicated to buyers.
• The B2B Playbook's framework helps marketers create a comprehensive marketing plan that covers all aspects of the B2B marketing process.
• The B2B Playbook provides a clear, step-by-step guide for B2B marketers looking to improve their marketing strategy.
• The B2B Playbook's framework can be applied to businesses of all sizes and in any industry.
• The B2B Playbook podcast provides valuable insights and tips for B2B marketers looking to improve their skills and knowledge.
• The B2B Playbook aims to make B2B marketers more effective and respected within their businesses.
• The B2B Playbook's framework helps marketers create a long-term demand creation strategy that drives business growth.
• The B2B Playbook provides a comprehensive resource for B2B marketers looking to improve their marketing efforts.
• The B2B Playbook podcast covers a wide range of topics related to B2B marketing, including strategy, branding, and business model development.

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TRANSCRIPT

Ricky Pearl: Today on couple of Pointers Podcast we are lucky enough to have George Coudounaris from B2B Playbook, co-host of the B2B Playbook. Welcome

George Coudounaris: Thank you Ricky. Very glad to be here. I actually just sent a podcast. I was on the other day to my parents last night, so good to have another one here so I can keep proving to them that I actually am doing something everyday.

Ricky Pearl: Yeah. You didn't become an accountant, so you'll always be a disappointment

George Coudounaris: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Accountant, a lawyer, doctor, whatever.

Ricky Pearl: Markets say you might as well be unemployed,

George Coudounaris: Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right.

Genuinely methodical process to build a relevant marketing program

Ricky Pearl: So I tell you where I've got John today, I've come across your B2B playbook. I've listened to some of the podcast episodes and it's not like anything I've heard before. Yeah, I, there's a lot of people out there, I don't know, selling expertise, peddling rubbish. Yours seemed like a genuinely methodical process to build.

A relevant marketing program. Tell me a bit about it.

George Coudounaris: Oh, thank you very much. That's very kind of you to say. [00:01:00] My business partner and I, Kevin, we basically built the B2B playbook because it was the resource that we wish that we had when we really got deep into the B2B world. Quick background was we were both lawyers and then we were both in B2C marketing at an agency together.

We entered the B2B world and we were trying to get really deep into it. We could only find really disparate parts of strategy hacks. So we thought, you know what? We've gotta go out there. We're gonna go and learn from the. And once we did that, we tested that in our clients and we found what we had was a really actionable strategy that could take you end to end for what you should do and when.

And that's called the B2B playbook. We've packaged up in our five B's framework, which is the framework you need to follow to do

Ricky Pearl: We'll get into that

George Coudounaris: We're releasing it. And we're releasing it step by step. Every episode on the B2B Playbook podcast.

Ricky Pearl: Amazing.

They don't have to sign up for your course

Ricky Pearl: So essentially they don't have to sign up for your course, they can just listen to your podcast and and DIY it if they so desire.

George Coudounaris: Yeah, that's right. Look, I think we probably give away 60 to 70% of everything for free on the [00:02:00] podcast. If people want to go and work their way through it, take really diligent notes. That's what it's there for. We're there to make B2B marketers lives better. So go there and take it.

Ricky Pearl: Amazing.

That's just a feature, that's just a tactic, It's not a process or a system

Ricky Pearl: I think I needed to it, because what we have done at the, in the meantime is like you mentioned all these hacks, you find one tactic, you find one thing, oh, we need to do a website. You build a website. But that's when I refer in sales, like that's just a feature, that's just a tactic. It's not a process or a system.

George Coudounaris: That's right. That, that, that's exactly what it is. And what marketers really lacking is they're lacking a holistic, long term demand creation strategy. So how can we take how can we create a long term B2B strategy that creates a brand that people love, wanna buy from and advocate for? And. We show marketers not just how to do that, but how to do it in a way that they can see is actually having an impact on a business's bottom line.

I joked earlier, Ricky, that my parents don't really respect what we do as marketers because we're not a lawyer, accountant, or a doctor. I think marketers absolutely should be taken far more [00:03:00] seriously because we serve functions within a business that no one else is really positioned better to do.

And so part of the framework is bringing that back and showing people how to.

Ricky Pearl: Yeah, I get that. Now, a few quick questions. This is gonna determine which half of the audience turns off now and which half sits forwards in their seats.

Did you ever watch that MTV Celebrity Death Match?

Ricky Pearl: Did you ever watch that MTV Celebrity Death Match?

George Coudounaris: Oh, I didn't, I'm so sorry,

Ricky Pearl: Fine. And maybe I'm just showing my age.

George Coudounaris: Wait, what? What? Explain it to me. Maybe I've forgotten

Ricky Pearl: They had these clay figurines, almost stop motion of different celebrities in like a wWF style fight that always just went to the and they're using

Anyway.

Dunno why I brought it up. Maybe I should have prepared better, but sales and marketing in a far humans.

George Coudounaris: Oh gee. I think sales win every time,

Ricky Pearl: My audience is gonna like

this. I don't wanna I don't wanna know why. I don't wanna know why, because that's when we're gonna get into probably some some territories where I'm gonna have to edit this podcast a lot and post, and I just wanna, by all means, avoid that. All

right. So sales winning in a fight. Alright.

Where do you typically see it in organizations under sales or under marketing?

Ricky Pearl: Your friends are my friends now. And everyone's gonna like you. The [00:04:00] other one is outbound, outbound calling. Where do you typically see it in organizations under sales or under marketing?

George Coudounaris: I typically see that under sales. But I think there needs to be like a joint plan with marketing so we can turn some of that cold outbound into warmer outbound.

Ricky Pearl: Great. All right, George, we can be friends. , no, I'm sorry. I actually see it under marketing. I like, I'm pushing it as much as I can towards marketing.

George Coudounaris: Yeah. Is that because no one wants to do it or

Sales is a part of marketing

Ricky Pearl: It's because market marketing has all the budgets. No, it's I think when people are calling, particularly early stage companies, they don't have their marketing, their messaging rights, and you testing that messaging. So you're going out with a call script who's responsible for how a brand and a company is communicated through to prospect.

That's marketing's role is for controlling that narrative. What about the objections that are coming back? That can also feed marketing in terms of how do we position this relative to the rest of the market relative to people's priorities. What about the features requests that people are talking about [00:05:00] and asking for?

Firstly, that should go back to product, but that's also then about what maybe needs to be highlighted from a marketing per. Outbound, in my mind is just marketing. It's only reason it's in sales is that it's servicing sales department, which very often sales is marketing is. Anyway. Sales is a part of marketing and that the career progression of an SDR is often through into sales.

But other than that, it's a marketing job.

George Coudounaris: Yeah. Look, I think I do agree with you there that the insights that you get, particularly that early stage, are incredibly valuable for marketing. Marketing should be the ones who help you with that positioning messaging to go along with it. I think. It really highlights very clearly the need for sales and marketing to work very closely together and perhaps break down some of those existing barriers between the two.

I think one of the huge issues that you touched on there is it's sales who are doing that outreach. They're the ones who are gathering that information qualitatively because they're speaking to the customers, and then that information is getting siloed, so whoever's doing it, it needs to get passed back to market.

Ricky Pearl: A hundred percent.

What's probably the biggest mistake they're making before, before they find you?

Ricky Pearl: [00:06:00] Now, customers that come to you, what's probably the biggest mistake they're making before, before they find you?

George Coudounaris: Yeah. Look a lot before they find us. They're really operating very heavily in what we would call that demand capture space. If you look at the total market of a hundred percent of people who could buy from you, they typically operate in that 3 to 5% of people who are ready to buy right now.

That absolutely helps them in that initial phase of growth. If you're a younger company and that's typically operating with direct response ads in social or in places like Google Ads. So you're capturing people who are ready to buy right now. A lot of them, their issue is they don't know how to then actually scale beyond that and start looking at that 95% of people who aren't ready to buy from you right now, but you could, that they could buy from you.

And so we teach them how to focus on that 95% how to create education. Programs that build affinity with that 95%. So you lead them from the logical conclusion that I've never even or was never even aware that I have this problem that your company solves to going all the way through to you guys are the [00:07:00] perfect solution for me.

Ricky Pearl: Brilliant, and that makes a lot of sense because that 95 percent's where that real value is, and a lot of the skills and tactics that you can learn are just about how to capture that initial demand.

George Coudounaris: That's right. That's exactly right. And for, it's the reason I think people are out there just capturing demand and only really know how to do that is because, most of our marketing information now, like a lot of it comes from tech companies like Google, Facebook, hubs, whoever it might be.

And they're mostly teaching that kind of marketing because that serves their interests.

Ricky Pearl: It's us smell a conspiracy.

George Coudounaris: Yeah, that's right. I think so. And look, I think it's hurting some of them. I'm good friends with some Facebook reps and for the longest time they've been focusing really heavily on the ROI that you can get from Facebook now that all of a sudden it's so much harder to track and attribution is a mess.

Facebook have hurt themselves because people are pulling money from the platform because they can't track from click to sale as well as they could. So instead they should have just been pedaling the idea that Facebook is a great place to reach your dream customers to build affinity with your product.

You don't need to see a click to see roi, the [00:08:00] back of it. And I think they've really hurt themselves there.

Ricky Pearl: It's so interesting that you say that we are saying the same with cold outbound. That cold outbound is primarily driving your midterm outcomes, not just the short term outcomes, because outbounds leading to inbounds later down the line and conversations started now. Become customers in six months or a year.

So you're just part of that marketing cycle, creating awareness

Ricky Pearl: So you're just part of that marketing cycle, creating awareness.

George Coudounaris: That's right. That's right. That's very interesting. It's exactly, it's just another way of generating awareness and sometimes. To be honest, Ricky, I don't really do much outbound at all. I don't have much to do with it, but I imagine when it's done it's done in the, in a A much more targeted, helpful way.

So you're doing it with the goal of building those relationships. I think we have a tendency of marketers to lean very heavily on tools and do a whole lot of spray and prey because we can just throw, add dollars behind something and try and reach a bunch of people with a message that doesn't really resonate.

But when you're running outbound, I imagine that you can do that in a far more effective.

Ricky Pearl: Yeah, I'd agree. Of course I would. Now what percentage of people with marketing and their job title. [00:09:00] Could accurately articulate the difference between marketing and branding. I'm just taking a stab. Yeah.

George Coudounaris: You know what? There are so many definitions that are. That are being thrown around. And there, there's so much distinction between different kinds of marketing. And look, part of what we talk about is, we say, yes, we teach demand generation, but demand generation is really just part of a good holistic, sustainable marketing strategy.

And so the boundaries between those things I don't know. They're quite as necessary and needed as people want them to be. Particularly in the space that we play in, right? Like we're playing in marketing teams with five or less, like at that point who cares about the difference between marketing and branding?

You should all be having quite a similar goal. As that marketing team evolves, then you can start to section off different responsibilities of marketing. But for me, I, I. To be honest, Ricky I don't see a huge difference between them when you're at a smaller stage.

Ricky Pearl: I love that answer.

We are seeing even SDR as part of the sales team doing personal branding exercises

Ricky Pearl: And we are seeing even SDR as part of the sales [00:10:00] team doing personal branding exercises supported by marketing as part of demand generation. It's all getting mixed in now.

George Coudounaris: Yeah.

Ricky Pearl: It's exciting. It's exciting, but it does require more education, more capabilities, more holistic strategies to be running and permeating through all departments.

So talk to me about your course now, Is it 12 weeks? 12 parts?

Ricky Pearl: So talk to me about your course now. Is it 12 weeks? 12 parts?

George Coudounaris: Yeah, that's right. It's 12 weeks. So it's called the B2B incubator. And so for those who believe in our five Bs framework it's a way of them actually implementing that in their business over a 12 week period. So we give people the strategy, the templates, the tools to go ahead and implement it with nine other similar marketers, and they go through and do it together.

Yeah. We walk them through step by step exactly how to create and implement a sustainable B2B marketing.

You mentioned they do that with nine other people, so do they get a bit of a cohort out of this?

Ricky Pearl: You mentioned they do that with nine other people, so do they get a bit of a cohort out of this?

George Coudounaris: Yeah, that's right. So it's a cohort approach. And the reason that we wanted to do that was, look, we understand that there's so much to what everyone does, [00:11:00] right? Like we give people a strategy. Yes, we give them the templates and the tools, but every business is slightly different. And so I think when it comes to the implementation of that strategy within a business, That's gonna be slightly different from one business to another.

And so we thought the cohort approach was a fantastic way for these marketers to actually be learning and implementing together from each

Ricky Pearl: Yeah, that makes so much easier. It's being able to check the answer sheets of the person writing the test next to. It doesn't mean that they know the right answer either, but just seeing how everyone around you is answering that, that question

George Coudounaris: Right. And look, Parts of the program is doing like a lot of fundamental things that marketers should all be doing, but they don't wanna do because we always revert to leaning on the sexy tech or running ads or running tests. But we don't do a lot of the fundamental work like, Deeply understanding customers, learning how to create scalable, helpful content programs using paid media in a smart, efficient way.

So when people do this in a cohort and they see other people in their cohort going, oh, I actually interviewed three dream customers today, and [00:12:00] here are the answers and insights I got from it. They go, oh Dan, this actually works. I should go and do that.

Ricky Pearl: Yeah that's brilliant. And at the end of the 12 weeks, you don't just have knowledge and. 12 video webinars that you're never gonna re-watch. You practically have the program like you've built something.

George Coudounaris: That's exactly right. So every week there's activities that you need to do and they're not activities for the sake of going through something theoretical. There's activities that you should be doing in your business, and so you document that at every point. So at the end of the program, you're left with a three part document which really is your plan for creating demand, and you should be then implementing that over at least the next 12 to 18.

Ricky Pearl: Yeah, I, it's great that I just completed a course over in the US that I couldn't attend because it was, the hours were incompatible with human life in Australia and So they just sent the webinars, so it was a six parts, six week course, and I've got a certificate. I never attended any classes, and I haven't even watched the recordings.

George Coudounaris: Yeah.

What are you doing with the certificate? I was thinking about sending out [00:13:00] certificates for the B2B incubator. But I don't know if that undermines the

Ricky Pearl: No, they're certificates. They're fucking marketing plan. Here's a proper plan, I'm gonna get paid for the next year because of it. The certificates is the check that you get in the mail, or not in the mail. The money you get deposit in your bank account every fortnight, every month for your salary.

That's the certificate. Like some tuck's practical benefits.

George Coudounaris: Yeah. Yeah. No, that, that's right. That's why I haven't gone and issued certificates yet, but I don't know. I don't know, Ricky, some people still want that certificate at the end of the day as well. Something to consider.

Ricky Pearl: I think you should consider that as part of your marketing plan.

What does your market want?

Ricky Pearl: What does your market want?

George Coudounaris: Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. At the end of the day, I've gotta cater to them and we do really seem to have niche down into B2B marketing managers who are in that first one to two years of being a B2B marketing manager. Cause all of a sudden, whether they're doing it alone or they're starting to develop a little bit of a team, this marketing plan becomes so,

Ricky Pearl: Yeah.

George Coudounaris: Learning how to report on that plan becomes incredibly vital.

So they're the people who I'm [00:14:00] listening

So off the top of your head, what are the five "Be's".

Ricky Pearl: So off the top of your head, what are the five "Be's".

George Coudounaris: Yeah. So the five bes are, be ready, be helpful, be seen, be better, and be the best. Do you want a one liner for each of those? Yeah, sure. So Be Ready is all about how to deeply understand your customers. Be helpful is about how to build relationships through helpful and educational content programs. Be seen is about how to amplify and scale those relationships and then start to close some demand with account based marketing Be better, which we're just getting into.

The podcast now, is about how to optimize the first one to three B. And then be the best is looking at strategies and tactics that are used by normally the big end of town. So how to use things like neuro marketing and use it to your advantage as a smaller business.

Ricky Pearl: All right. I'm excited for level five.

Could you just gimme a one line of what the fuck is neuro marketing?

Ricky Pearl: Could you just gimme a one line of what the fuck is neuro marketing?

George Coudounaris: Yeah. Yeah. So neuro marketing is, it's basically, learning to manipulate people's brains and brain chemistry to get the outcome that you want. So it's whenever you step into a supermarket the reason that everything is laid out the [00:15:00] way it is all probably based on your marketing principles.

It's the reason why you come out and you've bought a whole lot more stuff than you planned on buying.

Ricky Pearl: Okay. And I get the concept, I just hadn't heard the term, but I'm not a marketer. And that's, I'm, that's, it's super interesting, right? Because we do these things all the time. We might not just be, there's companies like the big social media groups that have real experts that are studying these things.

They funding studies for these things. And if you could adopt some of their learnings into your small little business, could make a huge difference.

George Coudounaris: And look, it definitely can. But there's a reason why it's the fifth and final B. We've really waited them in order of what you should do them in. There's no point in doing that if you haven't made your way through those first three fundamental bees. Because be better and be the best.

They're the things that are getting you the, two, 3% incremental improvements. And if you don't have a really strong base, then a two 3% uplift on that base isn't really gonna be doing much. So that's why that comes right at the end of the framework.

Ricky Pearl: That makes so much sense.

Do you think there's geography that makes a difference, culture makes a huge difference, or is it some universal principles?

Ricky Pearl: Your program [00:16:00] international, do you think there's geography that makes a difference, culture makes a huge difference, or is it some universal principles?

George Coudounaris: No, I think they're universal principles, really. And we've had people go through from the US, Canada, and India. We've had applications from the UK as well. The UK's tricky because the time zone Ricky is so damn awful for us over here. There's just, there's literally no good time

Ricky Pearl: No. I've got, I've, I'm up at six in the morning meeting, meeting with the East Coast, then eight o'clock with the West Coast and then seven, eight at night. I'm starting the uk.

George Coudounaris: Yeah it's wild that the uk I think is the biggest challenge time zone wise. But I think. We've managed to have some international appeal and we haven't deliberately done that at all. To be honest. We've been really trying to double down on the Australian market and we have got interest in people going through from Australia, but it really seems to be internationals that I think are probably the least effort for us.

Ricky Pearl: I think business is so hard and [00:17:00] fast in countries like the US there's a need to succeed a lot quicker. And programs like yours, 12 weeks, get your strategy done. You couldn't really do it yourself any quicker unless you were already seasoned, experienced. You've ran your team of 2030, you've built three or four marketing programs like this, failed on two of them, then you could do it yourself.

But if you're not in that position, if you want to get it right first time, you're gonna need someone who's done it tens of times before to give you. Give you the roadmap.

George Coudounaris: That's right. And look, as you said, who has the time to sit down and do this themselves? It, it took us. Such a long time to put this together. We've digested so much information. We have tested this so many times ourselves, and when you read through what the contents of the program are, it's not rocket science, Ricky it all makes a lot of sense.

But yeah we've done that hard work for you and we've pointed, put it in something that's, that is. That shows you how to do it step by step and gives you those tools to actually do it. So as we say, you know what? You can go through and listen to the [00:18:00] B2B playbook and you can take notes for 60, 70 episodes.

You can go through and try and figure it out yourself, or you can pay a pretty nominal fee and come through our program and do it with a bunch of other marketers.

Ricky Pearl: It's, there's a reason statistically people who hire personal trainer, Have greater success, and I don't necessarily think it's only because of the expertise of the personal trainer, but that you are committing to a program. Yeah.

George Coudounaris: That's right. And that is some of the feedback that we've had from the program is, but for the fact that we had, cuz we have live consultations where the group comes together every two weeks. If we didn't have that, I. Some of them said, you know what, we actually might not have got through that content, but they actually felt the pressure to go through, watch that content, implement at least parts of it.

So when they turned up to those live sessions they actually had something to

Ricky Pearl: I'm on a couple of board meetings and I can tell you now 48 hours before a board meeting is when 90% of action items from the previous board meetings get done. For a reminder goes out, Hey everyone, see you Wednesday nights at [00:19:00] 8:00 PM and that goes out on a Monday morning, Monday, Tuesday, the work gets done because nobody wants to come on Wednesday saying, sorry guys.

I've, lets, I've let everyone down and I didn't get to my action item. We're all on the board. We professionals, we're never gonna do that, those two days. So if it wasn't for that board meeting, it would easily push out easily.

George Coudounaris: Amazing. And look I not a huge fan of email automation generally. There's not many things I automate when it comes to communication, but just simple reminders like that. My God, I'm so glad that we have some email automation tools to

Schedule and things like that and make sure people keep up to date.

Ricky Pearl: If you are not a fan of email marketing, I've, you've just given me a challenge because I need to, here's the thing, right?

George Coudounaris: Tell me.

Ricky Pearl: If I could get you. In the inbox, definitely in the inbox, not in the spam, not in promotions, in the inbox of any single person that you wanted to talk to, you could control the message.

You determine what that message says, how long it is what the message is. But if I put that message in front of him to say there's a 80% chance they're gonna read it,

George Coudounaris: Yeah.

Ricky Pearl: Surely that's a [00:20:00] challenge you'd accept. I think I could turn some of that into revenue or into conversations at least, that eventually turn into revenue.

George Coudounaris: I totally understand what you're saying and I know it can definitely work, I think. When it's your own product and your own business, I'm Ricky. I'm constantly terrified of that first interaction being one that wasn't solicited by that other person and that being a negative experience for them.

Ricky Pearl: That's so interesting and I think that's the difference, one of the differences between a role that a salesperson is comfortable doing, right? Because that's always our job, like cold calling, we professional interrupters. What were Hey, did I get you at a bad time? Like they, their burrito was on their way to their mouth before they answered the phone.

It's always a fucking bad time to get a call. Yet it generates, billions of dollars worldwide.

George Coudounaris: Can you challenge me on that though? Like why shouldn't I feel that way?

Ricky Pearl: Why?

George Coudounaris: Like why shouldn't I feel that? Like I, for me, I feel doing cold outbound. I'm scared of that first interaction being one, as I said, that I feel like that other person might not wanna [00:21:00] have, even if they're like really tightly within my ICP and I know that I have a program that can help them, but I still feel bad about landing in those people's inboxes.

I want you to why.

Ricky Pearl: So first of all, they don't care about you and they don't know who you are, and you can't care about random people's opinions. That's the first thing. Second thing, you can look at anyone from like Winston Churchill or any of the greats that would say, if you're not pissing off a certain percentage of people, you're not actually doing anything meaningful. You have to be willing to push some boundaries. And these days you need to have like your fans and your detractors. But just to be Blair and in the middle, isn't a winning formula. So you can't push some people. Thirdly, I'd say what's wrong with interrupting someone? If you're walking down the streets and you saw someone and you needed the time, would you feel uncomfortable stopping someone saying, sorry do you have the time for me?

Or excuse me, could you point me in the direction of Central Station? Would you feel bad doing that?

George Coudounaris: No, that'd

Ricky Pearl: So you happy to stop someone, interrupt them and ask them to help you, but you're not happy to stop someone, interrupt them and ask if you can help them.

George Coudounaris: That's a good point. That's

It's barriers we've put up that are not helpful to ourselves

Ricky Pearl: It. [00:22:00] It's barriers we've put up that are not helpful to ourselves.

George Coudounaris: I think something you mentioned there was really interesting was the like no one cares about you. And I think that's absolutely true, and the longer I've been in business and doing this, the more I realize no one really cares about you. We all suffer from the spotlight effect where everyone just thinks that their life is under this great spotlight on stage, and everyone's watching you.

The reality is no one gives a shit about you at all. Like they just don't. I think maybe also part of it, Ricky, To be quite honest, we haven't included outbound explicitly as part of our five Bs framework and everything that we're doing, I'm trying to relay remain extremely true to our five Bs framework, but I, there's absolutely a place for it.

There is absolutely a place for it. So I would love to learn more about it from someone like yourself, get you on the podcast and find a place for it in our. because I do think it is absolutely very valid way

Ricky Pearl: Super useful for the right stage at the right time. Early stage for sure. Huge value. You can even help refine your message, which [00:23:00] ultimately lands up increasing your return on ad spend. Just because you're gaining more insights from that first, your first one where you gotta know your market. So you can use it in different ways at different stages of your b I don't think it changes your five B's framework. I really just think it's a maybe a tactic to help implement some of the strategies that you'd already be doing potentially through a different way

George Coudounaris: Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's very fair. Yeah, it is a great way of getting feedback on your uvs, help you adjust your positioning. No, I do see that. I would absolutely love to learn more about your process and,

Email Marketing

Ricky Pearl: I mate. I'll tell you the one last thing about email. It's not my process. Like email's a universal standard. Everyone has it. Everyone uses its SMPT, and. It really then comes down to the marketing message, which is the clever side. Now before we head off, let's, someone's listening to this, they're pretty curious.

They before I ask how they can get hold of you, let me ask this. What does someone look like right now? And if they do look like that or they do feel that, or that are experiencing that, it should be a flag for [00:24:00] them that they should get hold.

George Coudounaris: Yeah, , if they're feeling unsure about how they're actually going to. Create more demand in how their market is gonna drive more revenue for their business in 2023. At a time where purse strings might get a little bit tighter, their ad budgets might be getting a bit cut. We've got a strategy that's gonna help you out.

Ricky Pearl: That's so clean and so someone sitting there thinking, yeah, that's me. I'm a little bit worried. I'd like to do a little bit better. And I've currently been tasked with building a strategy and I'd love to just use this as a tool over the next three months or for your next cohort to build my strategy.

How do they get hold of you?

Ricky Pearl: How do they get hold of you?

George Coudounaris: Yeah look, I'm always on LinkedIn, so look up George Ku NAS on LinkedIn. If you wanna apply for the program, check out the b2bincubator.com. There's a lot more information on it there. Or if you're not ready for that and you wanna try and do it yourself, check out the b2b playbook.com where we have all our podcast.

Ricky Pearl: Awesome. Now, just before I let you go one quick question. How many hours a day do you spend on linked.

George Coudounaris: Gee, I'd say I'm on it [00:25:00] total, probably an hour and a half, I reckon.

Ricky Pearl: All right,

George Coudounaris: An

Ricky Pearl: Thank you. I just asked all my guests this because you're doing so well there, and I always look at people that are doing so well thinking, oh, they've gotta be spending 12 hours a day. They've gotta be a full-time job. This surely.

George Coudounaris: I batch all of my content. It all stems from the podcast, and so I just sit down and write all my LinkedIn posts for the week and a half in the future. O over an hour or so, Every Tuesday.

Ricky Pearl: I'm jealous.

George Coudounaris: Then I just jump on and post it. And then the tiring stuff is, the, but also the really good stuff is responding to comments and

Ricky Pearl: Yeah, the engagement, the building relationships. It sounds like I need a better strategy. I need to be better before I can be the best. And I'll certainly benefit from from joining your program. I'll, you'll get my application in the mail.

George Coudounaris: Wonderful. Wonderful. We'd love to have you

Ricky Pearl: It's been so good chatting to you and I'm so excited to just introduce you to my audience or the people who you know, I engage with on LinkedIn. So it is, I know how necessary the work that you're doing is cause I see how [00:26:00] much everyone's just flattering around struggling to drive that revenue.

And a simple 12 week program that takes you from zero, from go to o as you would say in Australia, is exactly what's needed. So I wish you the best of luck and hopefully we can chat again soon.

George Coudounaris: Thanks very much Ricky really enjoyed it and very much looking forward to having you on the B2B Playbook to talk about outbound.

Ricky Pearl: right, mate, we'll chat soon.

George Coudounaris: Cheers.

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