In this rapid‑fire "6 questions in 7 minutes" interview, Professor Pete Alexander talks with Matt Heinz, founder and president of Heinz Marketing, a B2B consulting firm that helps companies create more predictable sales pipelines. Matt explains how his firm uses measurable, math‑driven demand‑generation tactics to turn erratic funnel performance into visible, confidence‑building results. He emphasizes the centrality of customer empathy—understanding and articulating the problems customers keep up at night—as the most important chapter for any business. Matt also shares leadership advice: stay curious, humble, and continuously learn through daily reading, videos, and podcasts, while fostering an accessible, supportive culture for employees. He gives a personal referral to Jill Sharensky of Denny Mountain Media, praising her balance of work, life, and humility. The conversation closes with a story about Matt’s first job as a courtesy clerk in a Bay Area grocery store, highlighting hard work and service as foundational values. Finally, Matt provides contact information for Heinz Marketing (website, Twitter, and personal handle).
Chapters
This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
My name is Matt Hines, founder and president of Hines Marketing. We are a B2B consulting firm. We help companies build more predictable sales pipelines for those that feel like they have lumpiness in the pipelines they created or inconsistency of the results they're getting from their sales and marketing efforts. We can create more predictability.
Matt, it's great to have you on the show, and I've learned a new term, lumpiness in the, in this, in the sales funnel. Great term. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?
You know, I mean, we— what we do is very measurable. You know, it's not fluffy arts and crafts marketing. We are a bunch of math marketers that think in terms of how much demand to generate, how many opportunities to generate, how much business. And, you know, results vary. I mean, it's not, you know, it's not, you know, paint-by-numbers by any means, but you can see whether something's working or not. You can see the impact of what you're doing. You can see the before and after of where a company may have had sort of, you know, random acts of marketing to now being able to sort of have better visibility and better confidence in what they're going to do moving forward. You know, we work a lot of like growth and growth-oriented up-and-coming businesses, and to see the impact that has on their trajectory, on their valuation, is really, really exciting.
That's really great. I love it. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
There's a chapter in the middle of that book that's really important to me, and I can't remember what the number of the chapter is, but it's all about customer empathy. It's all about understanding who your customers are and what problems they have. It's not about what you're trying to sell them. It's about being expert in their problems. It's not about asking them what keeps them up at night. It's about telling them what should keep them up at night. So the better you understand those customers, the better you understand their problems, the better you can exercise empathy The more credibility you have, the more trust you build, and that is something that is going to support you to build loyalty throughout the customer lifecycle.
Mm-hmm. And it's interesting because as you describe it, it sounds like you become much more of a value-add to the customer as opposed to trying to just sell them.
Absolutely. And I think, you know, if you understand the problem you're solving and understand the problem your customer has around that, it's going to make it much more of a win-win, and I think you're going to be able to you're going to go from being interrupted to being irresistible in your sales and marketing efforts. You're going to have customers that want to spend more time.
Love it. Question number 4: Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
Be curious and humble. Continue to learn. Dedicate time every day to like reading, watching videos, listening to podcasts. Never assume you know everything, especially since the world changes so often and so rapidly. Also, like, just exercise humility. Like, we all have been that intern. We all have been that junior employee new in their career. We've all been that person that was scared to go ask their president or go ask their leader a question, afraid of sounding dumb. Like, lean into that and give back and be that resource. It will come back to you in spades with the loyalty and productivity you will have from a workforce that understands that you're human, that you're accessible, and that you're someone that they want to go to bat with. Mm-hmm.
It's very powerful words. And I like how you said early on about being curious, because a lot of people say, oh, keep educating. But curious has a more fun openness to it. And I really like how you mentioned that, as well as just being humble. It's very powerful words. Question number 5, what other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
There's a gal, her name is Jill Sharensky. She runs a company called Denny Mountain Media. She has no idea that I'm doing this, but I have learned so much from her, the way that she runs her business, the way that she balances work and life and prioritizes herself and her fitness and her health. She would also describe herself as somewhat of an accidental entrepreneur, but I think she's been highly successful at it. She's very humble as well. She's someone that's easy to talk to about the ups and downs of business. And, you know, if she, if she heard me saying this, I think her first reaction would be like, oh my gosh, I don't have that much to share. And then you would watch her 7 minutes and there'll be— I guarantee it's going to be phenomenal. So no pressure, Jill. You're going to be great. But I would love to have Jill participate in this as well.
Perfect. I'll reach out to her. Thank you for that referral. And our final question, question number 6. Please tell me about your first job.
I was a courtesy clerk at a mom-and-pop grocery store where I grew up in the East Bay, Bay Area, Northern California. And what that meant was I restocked shelves, I bagged groceries, I took them out for people, I did all the cleanup at the end of the day, the mopping and all the, you know, the store cleanup. And it was just good old-fashioned hard work. You know, I got to know, I got to understand like different levels of sort of store management. First time I really had exposure into sort of union. It was a very, it was a good job that really sort of helped me just reinforce and appreciate just hard work, just putting your head down and doing the work and serving other people. And I'll always have very fond memories of that job.
That's great. And, you know, it's, it's interesting because I remember my first retail job and I had a very similar experience. So it's, it's, it's something that we take with us, you know, throughout our lives, those, those lessons. So it's great. So, Matt, thank you so much for being on the show. How could people find you?
You can find us online just at heinzmarketing.com, H-E-I-N-Z marketing dot com. We've got a ton of content up there, blog posts. You'll find our podcasts, research. It's all for free. @HeinzMarketing on Twitter, we're posting sales and marketing best practice articles. If you're curious and want to be curious about what's going on in B2B sales and marketing, most of the stuff we post is not ours there. It's other stuff we find. So I'd encourage you to check that out. And if you want to talk to me, I'm just Matt, M-A-T-T, @MattMattis. Hinesmarketing.com.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. For more insights and ideas, please go to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or iTunes and search for the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
