Scrappy B2B Marketing 101: How to Capture More Market Share for Less Money – In Just 7 Minutes with Colton Briner

Resources/Links:

• To get more FREE money-making marketing advice, click here: Scrappyafsolutions.com/resources

Summary

Have you been trying to compete for your place in the market but end up being pushed down by those big companies?

What should you really work out on– is it increasing your ads, trying out new strategies or, something just as simple as, igniting your creativity?

Are you ready to learn how you capture more market shares without the stress, struggle and worry?

Colton Briner has spent his entire career where the rubber meets the road between product development and branding on the one side and marketing and sales on the other side. This experience has enabled him to combine strong strategies with creative execution to help companies grow fast while spending less.

In this episode, Colton talks about the hidden gems when competing with the top companies in your market– from analyzing these companies at a micro perspective to what should you be focusing instead to outshine them and resonate with your clients.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 02:30 – Colton’s ideal client: I work generally with early-to-mid stage B2B companies in complex enterprise selling contexts, right, that typically have high ticket items. Their solutions, cost, or average contract value is five figures and above.
• 03:10 – The problem he helps solve: Small players struggle to capture market share from the deep-pocketed industry incumbents, right? Those guys have big budgets because those companies have a lot of revenues.
• 04:02 – The symptoms of the problem: Well, you’re certainly getting like the “Who are you? Who are you guys? We’ve never heard of you.” You don’t find that people are immediately resonating. They’re not connecting with you on an emotional basis.
• 04:56 – Clients’ common mistakes before consulting Colton: Well, number one, and first and foremost, right, they are playing the same game as the big competitors are. They have let the big competitors basically set the rules. They’re not creating their own path, right?
• 06:47 – Colton’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): Well, I think you actually set it in summary for the last answer, which is created is going to win, right? No B2B sector on the planet is 1/10 as creatively competitive as any B2C sector that exists on the planet, right?
• 08:02 – Colton’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): To get more FREE money-making marketing advice, click here: Scrappyafsolutions.com/resources
• 08:36 – Q: What does it look like to look different and be creative? A: Like if you’re going to, for example, a conference and everybody else is in business suits? Well dress your team up as the Game of Thrones characters, right?

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“A thimble of creativity is basically all it takes to just blow away the competition in a B2B market.” -Colton Briner Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Welcome, everyone, to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I’m Tom Poland beaming out to you from the Sunshine Coast in Australia, joined today by Colton Briner. Colton, good day from Down Under. Sir, a very warm welcome. Where are you hanging out?

Colton Briner 00:21
Oh, good day to you as well. I’m in Northern California, wine country.

Tom Poland 00:26
Oh, a little birdie told me you’re off to wine country in the south of Australia, and Adelaide, later in the year.

Colton Briner 00:34
Yeah, that’s right! Heading there in September. Looking forward to it!

Tom Poland 00:36
Bring lots of those nice fat US dollars, please. Because we can use a boost our wine economy here in Australia!

Colton Briner 00:44
Happy to do it. Yes.

Tom Poland 00:46
Check in extra baggage on the way back because you’ll be taking back some beautiful bottles of Australian red wine. I’m sure.

Colton Briner 00:52
I look forward to it!

Tom Poland 00:54
So, in addition to being the son of a vineyard owner, Colton is- he spent his entire career in between the sampling wine, really, where the rubber? This is not on his bio, by the way. But where the rubber meets the road between product development and branding on the one side and marketing and sales on the other side. Now, folks, if you don’t know, there’s normally a solid brick wall between the two. You got the folks doing product development, maybe branding, etc. Then you got the people to try to sell the stuff and they’re often going, “It’s your fault. We’re not selling!” No, no, it’s your fault. So that combination of experience is, if it’s not unique, it’s certainly very rare. And it’s really enabled him to combine strong strategies, which is missing in so many different businesses trying to grow their business– strong strategies with creative execution, which is what gets you the cuts through. So, one without the other is almost impotent. But Colton has this ability to match the two together. So, this is, as we say in Australia, fair dinkum, and it’s effective. So, you can use that when you come down here, Colton, fair dinkum

Colton Briner 02:07
You’ve already given me a totally revised version of my bio, Tom. Thank you!

Tom Poland 02:12
You’re very welcome! Royalties checks will be in the mail, I’m sure. So, our title here is, “How to Capture More Market Share for Less Money”. And don’t we all want that? So, Colton, our seven minutes is going to start now. Sir, question number one, who is your ideal client?

Colton Briner 02:30
I work generally with early-to-mid stage B2B companies in complex enterprise selling contexts, right, that typically have high ticket items. Their solutions, cost, or average contract value is five figures and above. They have long sales cycles that they’re dealing with. And they really aim for engagement-based, like, relationship selling is where they’re at.

Tom Poland 02:53
And this is a complex sales or marketing challenge, isn’t it? Where you’ve got low leads, high costs, and potentially multiple decision-makers.

Colton Briner 03:00
And the client journey is substantial.

Tom Poland 03:03
The client journey is substantial. Thank you for that! Six and a half minutes left. Question number two, tell us more about the problem you solve?

Colton Briner 03:10
Well, this is really common, right? Small players struggle to capture market share from the deep-pocketed industry incumbents, right? Those guys have big budgets because those companies have a lot of revenues. And larger competitors are basically just using the brute force of dollars to create their own brand visibility. And they’re out there buying perceived trust, right? So that’s really the challenge that young companies are dealing with– how do you penetrate that kind of brute force?

Tom Poland 03:39
Absolutely. How do you? It’s not just an incumbent, it’s a Goliath of an incumbent. So, question three, five and a half minutes left. How would you describe the typical symptoms that someone listening to this, if they were potentially an ideal client of yours, what’s happening in their business right now? What’s going on where they go, “That’s a heads up that I need to find out more about what Colton does”?

Colton Briner 04:02
Well, you’re certainly getting like the “Who are you? Who are you guys? We’ve never heard of you.” You don’t find that people are immediately resonating. They’re not connecting with you on an emotional basis. They’re not connecting with you on a trust basis. You’re not standing out. If you market at conferences, you just are off in the corner so people don’t notice you. If you’re in the major advertising channels, again, you’re just being totally crushed and dominated. You know, if that’s your sense of how your marketing is going, then those symptoms are signs that that’s exactly the problem I can solve for you.

Tom Poland 04:31
I guess they’re going to feel some frustration with being confident. They’ve probably got a product or service which is going to knock the socks off their competitor. They’re the world’s best-kept secret. Question number four, we’ve got four and a half minutes left, so a bucketload of time. What are some of the common mistakes you hear about that your ideal clients made before they find your solution?

Colton Briner 04:56
Sure. Well, number one, and first and foremost, right, they are playing the same game as the big competitors are. They have let the big competitors basically set the rules. They’re not creating their own path, right? So, I would say you really want to figure out, rather than, “How do I do the low budget version of the same game that everyone else is playing? How do I use strategy and creativity to do something different in a more meaningful way than what everybody else is doing?” Because if you let the big boys set the rules of the game, you’re going to lose until you bootstrap your way to the same kind of budgets that they have, which is, you know, it’s a huge problem. So, I mean, let’s pay attention to what channels they’re not in, and what ways they’re not leveraging personality. And again, you know, the big companies have a challenge in expressing meaningfully significant personality, even controversial views, because they’re very risk-averse. And that creates- it actually gives the little guys who can take advantage of that opportunity, a clear path to outflanking, out navigating, and out marketing those same competitors with much less money.

Tom Poland 06:02
Right! Then, so instead of just spending a bucketload of money, which is easy to do, if you’ve got it-

Colton Briner 06:08
Yep!

Tom Poland 06:09
A creative idea could actually circumnavigate the opposition. Thank you for that. There’s a heck of a lot of wisdom in that, folks! To unpack that would possibly take a one-week seminar. But, you know, I would really encourage you to rewind and listen to that because that’s a strategic insight into how the big competitors, not at their own game, but by playing the game the way they can’t play it.

Colton Briner 06:36
That’s right!

Tom Poland 06:37
So, let’s go, two and a half minutes left, number five, a top tip, please. A valuable free action someone listening to this could take. Not going to solve the whole problem, but it might take them a step in the right direction?

Colton Briner 06:47
Well, I think you actually set it in summary for the last answer, which is creativity is going to win, right? No B2B sector on the planet is 1/10 as creatively competitive as any B2C sector that exists on the planet, right? A thimble of creativity is basically all it takes to just blow away the competition in a B2B market. So, I’m going to do suggest building the creative capacities of your teams. There are tons of books out there, if you want to bring in somebody who can do like a creativity-building seminar, I know a guy. Or there are two books that I highly recommend. This one is called, A Technique for Producing Ideas. It’s a 70-year-old book that you can read, not even on a flight, you can read this while taxiing for a flight. And then another book from Stanford’s D School. This one is called, Creative Acts for Curious People. If you want to build the creative capacities of your teams, including your marketing team, check out those two resources.

Tom Poland 07:42
Thanks for that! I’ll add a third one, Thinking for a Living. If you can get it, it’s by Joey Reiman. Thinking for a Living is one of my all-time favorite books. Thanks for that, sir! And question number six, we’ve got 75 seconds left, one valuable free resource, where can people go to find out more about your work?

Colton Briner 08:02
Well, I have many and you can find them all in the same place. Scrappyafsolutions.com/resources. Scrappyafsolutions.com. And the Resources page, I think, only one or two of them actually require you know, any kind of email entry. The rest of them are there for you to download and use as you like.

Tom Poland 08:19
Thank you, sir! Dare I ask what AF stands for?

Colton Briner 08:23
I don’t know. Well, if this is a family show, maybe we can’t explain that. But it is, as you may suspect.

Tom Poland 08:29
Scrappy as? All right. Thank you! 30 seconds left. What’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t?

Colton Briner 08:36
Maybe what does it look like to look different and be creative? Like if you’re going to, for example, a conference and everybody else is in business suits? Well dress your team up as the Game of Thrones characters, right? Everybody’s- Yeah, everybody’s throwing big expensive parties. Take your clients to a wagyu steak tasting. I mean, these are the things that really create a different experience that helps you to capture market share from incumbents.

Tom Poland 09:01
Colton, thanks so much for your time.

Colton Briner 09:04
A delight! Thank you.

Tom Poland 09:06
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.