134. How to Optimize Your Revenue Engine: Strategies & Tactics with Chris Walker

We're taking a short break over the holidays so I've chosen to re-air a couple of the most impactful episodes - impactful both from a business and a personal perspective.  So today, we have the episode with Chris Walker of Refine Labs where we went over his company’s ways of helping B2B companies grow through marketing.  Chris comes from a very unique background (engineering) which allows him to look at the full revenue ecosystem rather than breaking it down into silos. If you want your revenue acquisition process to rely on digital to create demand, Chris is the man to call. Join me as we look back to this very insightful episode! We talked about: 1. How an engineering background gave Chris the advantage in marketing [01:36] Losing his own money as a vital point in his experience [04:20] 2. The gap in the marketplace that Chris saw [06:00] Removing assumptions that are no longer true [07:53] 3. The benefit of working with a blank slate [08:54] 4. Barriers preventing companies from driving demand from digital [10:13] 5. Attribution is not marketing against sales [12:25] 6. Why you shouldn’t measure social channels the same way with Google [13:14] 7. The first step for founders is to know what they’re good at [20:12] 8. Adspend is a cost of doing business [22:28] 9. Why buyer intent is a critical factor to sales [24:32] 10. The major shifts in the buying process [25:22] 11. Customer success should be part of your product [29:35] 12. Through education, you create awareness [31:38] 13. You don’t really need salespeople [33:33] 14. Companies need a recurring revenue model driven by customer acquisition [35:37] 15. How COVID impacted sales and marketing [38:46] 16. The one thing Chris recommends [41:23] Resource Links: Brett Trainor Website (https://bretttrainor.com/) Download The Growth Readiness Checklist (https://bretttrainor.com/resources/) Refine Labs Website (https://www.refinelabs.com/) State of Demand Gen Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/state-of-demand-gen/id1511588213) About Our Guest: Chris Walker is the CEO at Refine Labs, a marketing consulting firm focused on growing B2B SaaS companies. Their Revenue Engine Optimization Formula combines revenue operations, growth marketing, and buyer enablement. If you liked this episode, please don’t forget to tune in, subscribe, and share this podcast.  Connect with Chris Walker: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-walker-41597028/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisWalker171  Connect with me and learn more about growing your business: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bretttrainor/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCySoKsETeKxu-Fnf2VfE7Gg Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrainorBrett Twitter: https://twitter.com/Brett_Trainor Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bretttrainor/ If you liked this episode, please don’t forget to tune in, subscribe, and share this podcast.