The Marketing Zone: Building a Connected B2B Marketing System with Jorge Fuentes Zapata

And let's do a really simple, simple question. I know for those of us in marketing, this is a tool we use, but can you explain For our people who are not familiar with the term, what is a CRM?

Oh, absolutely. So I'll start kind of with the definition of it, right? So for example, CRM, what does it stand for? Basically, customer relationship management. So a CRM is a customer relationship management tool. I usually define it as kind of like the, yes, a database, right? But a database that empowers salespeople sales, marketing, and customer service teams to accomplish specific goals, right? So imagine that it's not only data storage, you know, because you can store data in a spreadsheet, you could store data on your phone, on your contacts, etc. But a CRM is not only a place to store your contacts, but also to nurture them, follow up with them, tie them to opportunities. You know, do marketing, implement marketing campaigns that actually drive or influence revenue. And then a place where you ideally could also report on the performance of that activity, that marketing, sales, customer service activity, all in one place ideally. That is when, you know, how I would define a CRM. It's more a sales and marketing and customer service as well enablement tool. Rather than just a database, let's call it, for sure.

I love that. That makes sense. 'Cause, you know, we all have leads that we've worked with or, you know, that didn't buy from us or maybe old clients that left. And it's a really good place to keep them and so you can reach out to them again.

Absolutely. Absolutely. For sure. I would say that that's where it becomes even more valuable, right? So rather than thinking of, you know, just a place where my leads are landing and I followed up with them once and, you know, just never see them again or talk to them again? No, not really, right? It's more a place where you can track kind of like the lifecycle of those folks. And they are your data in a sense of like you earned the right to reach out to them, right? So why waste, you know, having those folks in there when you can actually leverage that pretty much indefinitely in order to just continue to serve new customers and so on and so forth. So I think that's kind of like the way I would define it as well, Marilyn, for sure.

I love that. Yeah, because, you know, they always say the fortune is in the follow-up when it comes to sales and marketing. Now, what separates a CRM that simply stores contacts from a CRM that genuinely helps marketing, sales, leadership, and leadership make better decisions?

Sure, sure, absolutely. So I would say that a CRM, when thought of as a just a database, right? It tells you who the people in there are, right? It tells you their specific pieces of information like the phone number, the email, etc. But a decision-making CRM is one that actually connects who they are with what they did. So the tracking, right? Where they came from, the source, and how sales responded to them and whether that activity became pipeline or revenue essentially, right? So I would say that those are kind of like the big differentiators, right? When thinking about just a contact database is more like a static snapshot, let's call it, of multiple pieces of information of people, right? But a CRM that helps drive revenue or drive decisions is one that essentially can tell you not only who they are, but also what they've historically done, how they've interacted with your company, what pages on your website they visited, what marketing campaigns, if any, they have interacted with as well. And all of that is meaningful information in order to continue to serve them properly, appropriately, so to speak, and then continue to sell, so to speak, in that particular sense. So that is how I would define it, Marilyn, for sure.

Yes, I agree. It's the one thing that's the lifeblood of your business. If you're doing lead generation, you've got to have a way of organizing them. Otherwise, it's just you're just throwing money in it and you've got to be able to organize that to have, you know, specific follow-up and outreach and your entire team uses it.

Exactly right. Yeah, for sure, Marilyn. And, and that is one point that I also want to emphasize too, right? So when you're mentioning the team actually using it, yes, that, that part is fundamental in a, in a CRM system. The adoption of the tool, the training, onboarding training, and then the full adoption of that tool is what actually will make it useful as well, right? So when thinking about the initial, you know, the initial question we went through today, so to speak, you know, how can a CRM become valuable to an organization beyond being just another tool? It's essentially that, right? One that your team can adopt and be comfortable with it and, you know, basically use it in the best of ways for sure.

Absolutely. And so you've worked within CRM environments that contain millions of contacts. What data quality or process problems become dangerous as your database scales?

Sure, sure, absolutely. And I think, yes, some of the most pressing or dangerous practices, so to speak, is whenever we allow duplicates, stale records, inconsistent field inconsistent field standardization, et cetera, or standardization not being in there, right? That those things can magnify as a database scales. But I would say, I usually come back to an example of a database that was quite large, one that had over 4 million contacts, right? That one of my clients historically, and they had about 15 to 20% of their database without a first name. known for the contacts, right? So what this essentially meant is that for any minimally viable personalization that they wanted to do, let's say via email, right? Such as the good old, hi, first name, hello, first name, et cetera. They just couldn't do that with about 15 to 20% of their database, right? So maybe for a database that is 100 contacts, 1,000 contacts, that's something that can be solved in in a couple hours, right? Or maybe it doesn't affect because the amount of people that you don't have a first name for is not that meaningful. But in a database of millions of contacts, that essentially becomes a personalization issue that you just cannot do the minimally viable personalization via email, via however other ways you may reach out to them, via SMS, et cetera. And so those things start compounding as a database scales. Uh, whatever is not fixed initially, or we continue to allow or tolerate in, in database, right, when, when talking about data quality, data hygiene issues, uh, that becomes even more relevant as the database scales and becomes harder to fix as well, for sure.

Absolutely. It's got to— everybody's got to be part of the team in keeping it clean. I agree. Where do you see, um, where companies create unnecessary complexity, like not getting buy-in and that sort of thing for their team?

Oh, yes, absolutely. And usually it is a process issue, right? So if there's not defined SOPs or standard operating procedures, right, regarding how a specific person with a specific role is going to be using the CRM, then that tends to create ambiguity and that tends to have— to create low adoption of the tool and then just people being burnt out because there aren't processes that they can follow systematically, right? So let's say that we need to know just from the very junior marketer that's going to be in the platform just creating emails or adding tracking links to the sales rep that is going to follow up on opportunities, right? Everybody needs to be, yes, aligned on what they're going to do in the platform and how they're going to leverage it and how that is also helping push goals forward, so to speak, right? And so I think that, yes, it is an endeavor of a coordinated effort, right, between both sales and marketing. And I would add in their customer service as well in the case that that is also a relevant department for a company for sure. I would say the whole commercial aspect of things needs to be connected properly. And yes, they need to be talking to each other and for sure need to be aligned in the goals and how this, you know, when talking about like the visibility of it and how that is established, that usually tends to drive adoption and makes it— makes the tool more useful for the team as well, for sure.

I love that. I love that. It is such an important tool. And a CRM creates value not only with the information inside of it, It helps people make better decisions. More data is not the goal. It's better visibility, cleaner handoffs, and clearer action are the goal. After the break, we'll connect, uh, the system to the spend. Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads attribution, and how marketers can know whether paid media is creating real business growth instead of just more dashboard activity. We'll be right back with more tools, tactics, and truths to elevate your marketing. This is the Marketing Zone on NOW Media Television. And we're back. I'm Marilyn Jenkins, and you're watching The Marketing Zone on Now Media Television. Let's dive into our next breakthrough. Welcome to The Marketing Zone. Stay connected to this show and every Now Media TV favorite and unlock nonstop bilingual programming in English and Spanish. If you're on the move, catch the podcast version at www.nowmedia.tv. From business and news to lifestyle, culture, leadership, marketing, and beyond, Now Media TV is streaming around the clock, ready whenever you are at www.nowmedia.tv. So before the break, Jorge and I talked about the CRM and how it's the foundation of underneath the marketing engine. Now let's look at one of the most expensive parts of that engine, and that's paid media. Jorge has managed substantial Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads budgets. So I want to get beyond the clicks and impressions and talk about what disciplined performance marketing really looks like. But before I jump into that, what I'd like to do is, Jorge, can you tell us how our audience can reach out to you and connect with you and chat with you?

For sure, Marilyn. Absolutely. Thank you. Yes. So my website, fuentesapara.co. You can reach out to me via there, absolutely. And to connect, feel free to send an invite on LinkedIn. I'm basically as Jorge Fuentes Zapata on LinkedIn. We also got our YouTube channel where I share a lot of tips and tricks, so to speak, of the marketing craft. And that is youtube.com/@jorgealbertofuenteszapata, altogether, the whole thing. And then I'm also on X or Twitter. at x.com/jafuentesapata altogether as well. And that's pretty much where people can find me. Absolutely.

All right, great. So let's jump into marketing. So when a, when a company is spending aggressively on Google Ads or LinkedIn Ads, which numbers actually tell you whether the program is healthy and which common metrics can create false confidence?

Oh, absolutely, Marilyn. So I think that the healthiest paid programs, right, are those that show or can help show qualified pipeline, cost per qualified opportunity, win rate by source, and revenue or return on ad spend by channel, right? So imagine that the metrics that are more relevant are not those that are simply clicks, impressions, amount of conversions, et cetera, but rather those that are tied to a growth engine or a system that You know, can actually tell you, you know, the numbers of the people that landed in there, right? So I would say that more than focusing on numbers, focusing on actual people that, you know, became opportunities, that became customers as well, and how that influenced revenue, that those are kind of like the more, I would say, helpful metrics on any healthy paid program, right? Whether run on LinkedIn ads, Google, etc., because we usually don't want to just spend or burn money for the sake of doing that, right? I mean, it's great to for sure generate top-of-the-funnel campaigns to generate awareness. It's great to have, you know, ideally the retargeting campaigns to follow up on people that visited the website but didn't convert. I mean, all of those tactics are great and they help, but ultimately The campaigns that are the healthiest are those that we can justify and say, this contact came from Google Ads and eventually sales followed up and eventually they became a customer. But there is that attribution of that revenue to that specific campaign for sure, right? So, and very clearly. And I would say that essentially the best way to do that is via utilizing, yes, a CRM like for example, HubSpot, that can give you that visibility. You can connect Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads to HubSpot, and then you can actually see who came from that source and continue to follow up with them with the sales team, right? So I would say it is, as we mentioned before, a coordinated effort between both sales and marketing. But for sure, any metrics that I would say mislead on the other side, so to speak, would be just clicks alone, the click-through rate alone, like the impressions, pretty much anything that might be very in-platform data, I would call it, right? So those could be vanity metrics, right? You could be thinking that, you know, we got a ton of impressions, tons of clicks, and, you know, a couple conversions here and there, right? That might look healthy on the in-platform dashboard, but in the CRM where we're actually tracking, you know, people that, okay, the conversions you sent over from LinkedIn and Google Ads, how are they actually doing in being closed or becoming closed won revenue? I would say those are the metrics that matter for sure. And that's the visibility that LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads campaigns or just paid campaigns in general should have when thinking about them serving as a source of growth for the company. Yeah. For sure.

Agreed. And then looking at, you know, you're talking about passing through those metrics or the data. I know it's very, very important to know, especially on Google Ads, you know, what keyword did they search to come through, right? So if you find that you're getting tons and tons of impressions but no clicks or no leads, maybe looking and see what keyword was that on. Maybe that was not relevant. But I do like the idea of what you're saying is being able to see all of that data in the CRM, be it HubSpot or whatever you're using. And the team being able to, to work with that. And your, your program is, uh, you— it's so talking about teams. So you'll have like basically one person that makes sure everything's connected, and then the sales team, the marketing team, and the customer service team can get in and work on things independently and different leads at the same time, right?

Absolutely. Sure, sure. Uh, and ideally that's what, what you want, right? Uh, because definitely, um, it's never just marketing, it's never just sales or even, you know, customer service that should drive leads or retain leads or make them become customers, right? I would think— I would say that it needs to be thought of as a team effort but across the different departments or roles, right, depending on the size of the company as well, right? But I do think that, yes, as you mentioned, right, it is a matter of not only thinking of you know, the how, how we're gonna spend on a, on a channel, right? Because we think, you know, it might work, etc. Um, there usually is something that already is working, right? Especially for any, any business that's been around for, let's say, 2 to 5 years and so on and so forth. They already have kind of a client acquisition process or system in place. Uh, some may not even know it yet, but, you know, if, if they've been around, let's say, and they have historically had a ton of referrals, uh, people that, um, you know, that, that is, that is meaningful as well. And you can create, uh, testimonials based on those referrals. Those testimonials can be content, written or video content, and that video or written content can be used for advertising, uh, so sharing on socials, etc. So, so I think like, um, yeah, the, the ultimately the paid campaigns can be fueled by things that already have worked historically for the organization. And that's pretty much how it should be thought of instead of just let's try another channel and see what happens, right? So absolutely.

Right. And what are the biggest mistakes B2B companies make when they increase their media spend before fixing their, say, targeting or the landing pages, lead follow-up, or the CRM attribution?

Absolutely, Marilyn. So yes, and I've basically, you know, Long story short, it ends up in burning money for nothing, right? So I would say that it does become a waste of resources. I've historically seen how that takes place, especially on platforms that are quite expensive, such as LinkedIn ads, right? Depending on the ICP you're targeting historically, and this is just kind of a tip to provide out there. I've seen that B2B SaaS companies that sell solution to IT people, right? So, and especially the CSO or people that are in charge of IT at a company, those leads are really expensive, really expensive. Like the cost per lead can be beyond $1,000 or so. Wow. And so that is when that becomes relevant for sure. having a well-defined ideal customer profile before jumping into the platform. And then obviously, yes, as you mentioned, right? The CRM side of things, how we're going to handle leads side of things once they come in, that is fundamental, just crucial to have in place before even thinking about spending money on the platform, right? And that's, you know, when talking about LinkedIn, that is kind of like a more expensive platform historically, but essentially the same goes for Google Ads as well, right? Because, you know, You could think, well, Google Ads, yes, you can run campaigns for much less and actually get some qualified leads from there, especially because the search portion of it provides you with intent that might be more meaningful for sure. But either way, you still got to have a way to handle those leads essentially via CRM, a process, a marketing-to-sales handoff, a way of qualifying those leads for sure, and actually essentially having them close or becoming closed-won revenue so that you can attribute to those campaigns, whether on LinkedIn or Google Ads, that they're working and that they influenced closed-won revenue essentially, right? At the end of the day or at the end of the quarter, at the end of the fiscal year, etc., you're going to want to have those uncomfortable maybe conversations if nothing resulted in— if nothing provided results or great conversations as well if you actually can tie Those efforts to real business impact for sure.

Of course, it's, it's all about the reporting at the end. If you're getting good data in, you'll get good result reporting at the, at the end and know where to spend the money.

Absolutely, for sure.

So paid media becomes more valuable when the campaign is connected to the full customer journey. And that's what we're talking about with the CRM. The question is not simply how many people clicked, it's whether the right people moved closer to becoming the right customers. Coming up next, we'll move from automation to intelligence, how AI agents and new marketing tools can increase speed and capacity without creating a new layer of noise, risk, or disconnected technology. We'll be right back with more tools, tactics, and truths to elevate your marketing. This is The Marketing Zone on Now Media Television. And we're back. I'm Marilyn Jenkins, and you're watching The Marketing Zone on Now Media Television. Let's dive into our next breakthrough. Welcome back to the Marketing Zone. I'm Marilyn Jenkins, and I'm here with Jorge Fuentes Zapata. We've covered CRM foundations and paid media, and now we're moving into AI. Jorge builds marketing-focused AI agents and productivity tools so that— so this is where strategy, implementation, experimentation, and governance all meet. So Jorge, AI is one of the hottest topics to talk about now, wherever you stand on the option. Where are AI agents genuinely useful in marketing today and where are companies adopting them because the technology is exciting and rather than because the workflow needs them?

Oh, absolutely, Marilyn. And I think that within, you know, how people are leveraging AI right now, right, it's kind of like thinking of it as a magnifier of the human talent rather than a replacement tool for that talent, right? So I would say that they are generally useful in marketing whenever they're plugged into a workflow or a process that is already working, right? I think that if and when AI is being used to reinvent the wheel or just simply have it done, have it do everything for you on a specific task, that is when it might not be as useful or as powerful and the output may not be as great as people think, right? There is this term of AI slop going around a ton because essentially I see it especially on a platform like LinkedIn. People that are just sharing thought leadership or just their essentially like blog articles, creatives, etc. All of those are being made with AI and they are not resonating with a lot of people, right? It's very clear that that is AI slop, let's call it, right? And so we don't want to be those types of marketers, right? I think that doing AI for the sake of, of it just being able to do it is, is not a great choice either. Um, I think that, um, it does talk about kind of like the, the brand being a little bit lazy, so to speak, in those efforts, right? So that is how I usually envision, you know, that they, they have— if they have designers in-house, if they have, uh, people that, you know, can, can create, you know, blog articles that, that Our copywriters, right? Essentially, right? Leverage them still. I would say that there's no reason to just go full AI if budget permits, right? And that is how they are essentially more useful today, right? So when talking about specifically AI agents, right? Any tasks that you hand off to them, ensure that there's still a human in the loop for that. I would say that if there's a bit of a— when thinking about it as a distribution of kind of the workload, even if it's 80% the agent, but 20% of you, the human, actually QAing the work, revising it before it actually goes out to people, and that content that represents your brand is out there and it's not, you know, AI slop, making sure that that is the case, then yes, that is when they actually become useful rather than harmful, I would say, to a brand for sure.

I absolutely agree. I know of people that are— that talk about how fast they were able to get their social media booked out for 30 days and But they didn't really touch much of anything. And then it just creates this stuff. What I've noticed in long conversations is many times the, the thought process is lost. So if that's your branding going on and in the middle or say 2/3 of the way down the line, the memory is lost in the AI agent. Did you actually keep your brand? Did your brand colors change slightly? So that's, uh, yeah, you make a good point. And LinkedIn is, is showing a lot of very boring generic leadership content that might have been good 5 years ago. But now, you know, you've got 20 people doing the same thing from the same AI agent or something. So got to be careful with that stuff.

For sure.

Which, which marketing tasks are good candidates for AI assistance? Like, you know, which decisions should still require strong human review and judgment?

Oh, absolutely, Marilyn. I would say that anything— I narrow it down to one word, so to speak, which is Accountability, right? So anything that still requires accountability cannot be delegated fully to AI just because you still need someone to speak on the results of it, to be the face of that effort, that campaign, etc., especially when talking about marketing in general, right? So I would say that any tasks that are candidates, you know, for AI assistant cannot be fully something that a human would 100% be accountable for, right? So anything that is a great candidate for AI now, the other side of the coin, anything that actually is good to delegate, so to speak, to AI is anything that's repetitive, anything that could be also automated, let's say, right, that you haven't automated, but AI could help you automate it and do it faster with a great quality output. Those are great candidates as well, right? Those specific tasks and also anything that might be contextual, right? And that AI can get context on more quickly. That is also very helpful, especially for marketing, for marketers out there, right? On my end, for example, I have ChatGPT is, let's say, my agent and it's connected to my Gmail so it can provide for me a daily summary at 8:00 AM my time of any high-priority emails that I got to respond to. And it's beautiful because it helps, you know, with my workflow specifically, right? Mm-hmm. But I would say that that is how we need to be thinking about it, right? It's kind of like AI should assist in tasks that empower the human and the human to do better work, so to speak, and rather than just AI replacing your brain and your talent and the things that you actually enjoy doing, right? So I would say that that's where we should start, man, for sure.

I absolutely agree. I mean, we look at it and on my team and for our clients is an efficiency standpoint, you know, we can get more writing done and take the experience, you know, so instead of it just, you know, having to write an article or something, you give it the specific information about what it's gonna be writing about. So it's more custom, but then never take that and just publish it. You know, always have that eyes on. I love the— I love your, your thing. You said 80% AI and 20% human, and that way you're going to distinguish yourself from anything that you're publishing from other people that aren't taking that moment.

Exactly. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. I mean, and, and you mentioned a great point there, Marilyn, like the context, providing context to it. It's fundamental, right? The voice and tone of your brand, it needs to know it right before even writing an article. About or that represents your brand, so to speak. It needs to know, yes, your brand colors, right? Your brand identity, etc. And so all of these things need to be taken into consideration before actually deploying AI, just going full-blown AI with assigning tasks to it. Absolutely. I would say it is a bit of a mastering of processes before actually delegating it to AI for sure.

Agreed. Absolutely. And how should companies protect their voice and their data quality, privacy, and accuracy when AI tools begin interacting with the CRM or with content or customer-facing workflows?

Oh yeah, absolutely. So definitely, and that's fundamental there, Marilyn, right? Like, I think a lot of companies need to, and this all needs to happen pre-adoption of AI, right? In the pre-adoption stage, right? Right. So when thinking about, like, you know, what are we actually allowed to share with the LLM, right? Or with ChatGPT, et cetera, or Claude, whichever LLM somebody's using. What data can actually go in there? Like, for example, are we going to be sharing just, you know, the, let's say, the brand, identity document, or are we actually allowed to maybe even share the articles of incorporation of a business, right? Like, we need to be very careful on what data we actually share with it because if not, it actually would become— could become harmful for us, right? And especially when, you know, when you feed context into it of documents that you shouldn't be sharing with it, right? and if you then don't revise the output it is producing, then that's a recipe for disaster as well, for sure, because it could reveal, let's say, company secrets, intellectual property issues, etc., whatever, that it shouldn't, and it just does it because you shared it with it. I would say that that is fundamental. One thing people need to be thinking about when interacting with AI, especially when thinking about the context of their CRM, their, their content, their documents, etc. Sure, sure.

Okay, so we can cut there and we'll come back.

Yep, yep, absolutely. Sure, sure.

We'll be right back with more tools, tactics, and truths to elevate your marketing. This is the Marketing Zone on NOW Media Television. Those are great, great points. I absolutely agree with all of that, being careful. Where do you think AI agents have the biggest impact in operating in marketing operations over the next 2 to 3 years?

Oh, absolutely, Marilyn. And I think, I think, you know, when I was exploring some of the recent advancements on AI, right, specifically I'm talking about Grokbot from, from, from X, right? This, it's basically an agent team that you can build with that specific tool, right? So you provide access to it to your martech or marketing tech stack, so to speak, and then it can actually perform tasks on it, right? So I think that the future of marketing ops is AI being more ingrained into the daily workflow of operations, specifically for marketing tasks, crafting emails, crafting copy, launching ads, et cetera. But I think that there still needs to be As mentioned, right, a human in the loop. And that is how I believe it's gonna impact that specific area of marketing ops for sure.

I think they do. It's an amazing thing that they can help with. Again, I have to come back to efficiency. I know we've all heard horror stories about things AI agents have rampantly done, but that's, you know, I think, like you said, human intervention, you've gotta have somebody there holding its hand to make sure that it does its job appropriately.

That was great.

Yeah, great information. AI can increase capacity, but speed without structure can create faster mistakes. And the advantage comes from connecting the technology to a real workflow, clear standards, and measurable business value. When we return, we'll bring the CRM, paid media, analytics, automation, and AI together in one question. What does a modern B2B growth system actually look like? When it's built to scale. We'll be right back with more tools, tactics, and truths to elevate your marketing. This is The Marketing Zone on NOW Media Television. And we're back. I'm Marilyn Jenkins and you're watching The Marketing Zone on NOW Media Television. Let's dive into our next breakthrough. Welcome back to The Marketing Zone. Stay connected to this show and every NOW Media TV favorite live or on demand anytime you like. Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and unlock nonstop bilingual programming in English and Spanish. If you're on the move, catch the podcast version at www.nowmedia.tv. From business and news to lifestyle, culture, leadership, marketing, and beyond, Now Media TV is streaming around the clock, ready whenever you are. www.nowmedia.tv. Welcome back to the Marketing Zone. Today, Jorge and I have explored the pieces of the modern marketing stack, CRM, paid media, analytics, automation, and AI. In this final segment, I want to connect those pieces into a system that can actually support sustainable B2B growth. So Jorge, if you were designing a B2B marketing operation from the ground up today, what would you build first, second, and third?

Absolutely, Marilyn. And I would simplify it to 3 things essentially, and in that order, right? So processes, systems, and then AI enablement, right? And I'll dissect the 3, so to speak, right? So the processes, that can actually be, I'll say, pen and paper, but it can also be just, you know, a Word doc, a Google Doc where you actually map that out, right? So mapping out the processes that you're going to be using. For sure, that would be the very first thing that I would do if building a B2B marketing operation from the ground up. So SOPs. Then the second would be, yes, then the systems, the actual software, the tools. So for example, the CRM, the ad platforms, the initial configuration of those specific marketing technology systems. I would say that would be the next step. And then the third, yes, it would be fitting or thinking about how AI would fit into the picture with those systems as well, right? So we don't want to just plug AI because we can do it. We actually wanted to follow the processes we've established and then how they fit into the marketing systems that we've acquired. And then, yes, now we can actually think about how AI can enable operations. And a lot of the time it is, you know, whenever those processes and systems are in place, seeing how people actually use them and where the bottlenecks start to be, you know, visible, so to speak. Let's say sales reps have a hard time manually updating a CRM or notes in it after having jumped on a meeting with a prospect via Zoom. Then let's see how a note-taker can fit into the picture, a tool like a note-taker, and then how that can feed automatically the notes into the CRM for them. So all of those things are kind of like how we can dissect Uh, those processes. And I would say that's where I would start when thinking about designing a B2B marketing operation from the ground up today, for sure.

I absolutely agree with that. The note taker feature has been so— to make sure that you don't skip things. You know, we've been recording our Zoom calls forever, right? But now to have a note taker that helps us with that, that is, again, a very way of becoming efficient. And I love the SOPs because you have to have those to be able to scale. Now, how do you know when a company needs better strategy, better technology, better data, or simply better execution of the tools it already owns?

Oh, absolutely. And I would say it starts with the, you know, if and whenever we think about the goals, right, how it is accomplishing its revenue goals or its organizational goals in general. And if we're missing the mark, right, like generally, Obviously, when thinking about companies that are maybe in a crisis or in a decline, etc., that is one thing, right? Like that requires survival mode, a lot of different, you know, a lot of hard decisions that have to be taken, right, in a year like that, right? But assuming, you know, all things being equal, the business continues to be sustainable, but it's just not growing like we want to, right? That's when also the, you know, and we say, you know, it might need a better strategy. better technology, uh, overall better data, etc., that is when, uh, we can identify that, right? So whenever a company is stagnating, right, and, and they could be achieving their goals but they're just not hitting them year over year, or, or getting there but, but not surpassing them, so to speak, that's when there is room for improvement. And I think that's when, uh, a, a new, uh— it all starts with a mindset too, right? But, but a new way of thinking of, of how we can improve that needs to be put in place, right? Right. It's, it's so, so I think that the beginning of the end is whenever a company thinks that, you know, we've always done things this way, so we'll just continue to do them that way, right? Because we can keep the lights on, right? And I think that, you know, kind of like defeats the purpose of growth in a company, right? Mm-hmm. So whenever we're, you know, starting to see that that is happening inside a company, that is when it's time to kind of like revamp the strategy, revamp the tools we're using, and see how we can, you know, enhance the daily workflow of people in general, for sure, within the company.

Agreed. Absolutely. And so how can leaders keep their marketing stack from— we're talking tech stack— becoming a collection of expensive tools and that no one fully owns or understands? That seems to be a bit of a thing. How can we avoid that?

Yep, yep, absolutely. And it does come back to the, you know, the initial establishment of the processes, right? So, for example, I think that a lot of leaders want to obviously hit their goals, spend their budget, and as much as possible be efficient with their budget and so on, because they want to provide results. They want to be able to justify what they did throughout the whole year, right, especially to top management and so on and so forth. But I do believe that if we're thinking about just, you know, create— generating results in the short term, right? If we're very short-term focused up to, you know, you know, within 6 weeks we gotta be getting a lot of leads from this campaign, within 1 week we want to have like visible results from, uh, XYZ effort, etc., that's when things start becoming a collection of expensive tools. If, if we're acquiring, let's say, a new tool just for the purpose of accelerating results in one area, right? So I think that whenever there is that sense of urgency in everything that a marketer is doing, especially a marketing leader, that's when it's kind of a bit of a recipe for disaster, right? Because we don't want to be just busy. We want to be productive, right? And I think that is when that becomes even more relevant for sure.

I think you're right because a collection of tools, there's so much overlap in tools now. You know, a person like you can come in, analyze the situation, and find a tool that does the work, you know, the majority, like I said, 80/20. If you can find one tool that combines and can do all these things that can help a business move towards revenue cost-effectively, and that's something you can help businesses with, right?

Oh, absolutely, Marilyn. Yes. Historically, that's what I've helped businesses with. And a lot of what I do is what I usually call martech simplification, right? So a lot of businesses, especially that have— that strongly rely on marketing and sales Uh, they generally have a bit of tech bloat, right, across the board, right? So they, they, the marketing team got, uh, you know, a social posting tool, uh, an SEO analyze— analysis tool, uh, then they got the CRM, which also has email marketing in it, but they for some reason also bought a specifically an email marketing tool for, for other purposes, etc. So you start seeing how kind of like, uh, people have great ideas, and if you allow them to, to, yes, uh, buy the tools to bring those ideas to life. I think that's good if that happens, but if that is done without a roadmap, right, and without an established, you know, kind of process or without even looking at historically what's already working, I think that's when it becomes unnecessary to just pursue, you know, buying a bunch of tools for the purpose of, you know, just accelerating results. I think that's when, you know, it becomes even more important And especially with my clients, I've seen that that's even more important to keep things simple in a sense, right? So, you know, and a tool like, for example, HubSpot, which I really love, is, you know, a tool like that can help you do your email marketing, your SEO, your social posting from one place. And I think that becomes essential, right? Instead of just having a bunch of tools out there that help with, you know, a coordinated effort, one tool or the least amount of tools is usually better for sure.

I agree with you because one tool that can do so many things, well-trained, your staff use very efficiently, is revenue in and of itself. You're saving time and you're moving towards the goal. Well, with, for a business owner watching today who wants more predictable growth, what's the one practical audit that they can perform this week across their CRM, paid media, analytics, or automation?

Oh, absolutely, Marilyn. I would say that I would simplify it with taking a hard look and more than a hard look, an honest look of what's working right now, right? Like historically, let's say take the last 365 days or maybe even maybe the last 90 days of data across the board and just dissect kind of like, you know, what channels we're investing on, and what is actually historically driving new business, right? And then that is where I think leaders need to start, right? So cutting the, let's say, cutting the fat on the great, you know, what we usually think are great campaigns, great initiatives, right? If, for example, a specific type of business is not getting a lot of traction on, let's say, their webinars, right? Like you got maybe a couple signups, etc. Well, should you be spending that much time and resources on continually trying to do webinars, right? Maybe yes, maybe no, right? Depending on that, right? So a hard, honest look at what historically has been working for the last year or so can go a long way, right? And that's just a matter of sitting down for a couple hours, maybe with somebody you trust within the team. It could be like, you know, maybe just the head of marketing, head of sales, etc. It could be just a meeting of like, let's Let's be brutally honest, what's working, right, historically, and let's, let's push the winners further. And let's just cut off any, any losers, right, or any that are not producing, you know, what we expected. I think that's how leaders need to think about that, right? Like, so fuel the winners further, I would say, for sure.

Fabulous. Great advice. Now, Jorge, I know our viewers may want to reach out to you, connect to you. Where could they do that? Where can they reach you?

Absolutely. Yeah, so they can visit my website. Absolutely. Fuentesapara.co. I'm also on LinkedIn as Jorge Fuentesapara, on Twitter or X as you go to x.com/jafuentesapara, and on YouTube where I usually upload a lot of great videos of and tips and tricks. YouTube.com/jorgealbertofuentesapara. All all together.

Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Marketing Zone and for helping us move beyond individual tactics towards more connected view of marketing operations, measurement, technology, and growth. I really appreciate your time.

Absolutely. Thanks, Marilyn. My pleasure. And it's fantastic to have been here for sure.

To everyone watching, the strongest marketing engine is not the one with the most tools. It's the one where data, strategy, execution, and customer understanding work together. I'm Marilyn Jenkins. And this is the Marketing Zone. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you next time.