How to Build Trust With Storytelling in B2B

With so many channels and so much content put out on a daily basis, B2B companies struggle to rise above the digital noise in a way that differentiates them. As such, how can companies create better content that is interesting, insightful, and delivers true value?

Join us in this week’s conversation with expert B2B content marketer Chris Rapozo (Marketing Specialist, Hannon Hill) as he talks about building trust with target audiences by telling better stories. During our discussion, Chris talks about why B2B companies need to focus less on their product or service features and more on how they are able to solve their customers’ challenges. He also elaborates on the mistakes to avoid, the importance of first-party data and research in storytelling, the role that emotions and rationale play, metrics to pay attention to, and what B2B marketers can do right now to improve their storytelling approach for better results.

https://youtu.be/57HtvF_Sx8I

Topics discussed in episode

• Chris talks about some common mistakes and misconceptions with regards to B2B storytelling and what he thinks should be done to address these. [5:40]
  
• Chris explains the relevance of first-party data and research to good storytelling. [9:15]
  
• The role that emotions and rationale play when it comes to storytelling and B2B. [14:15]
  
• Actionable tips: [21:02]
  
  • Check out TED Talk “The magical science of storytelling” by David Phillips
    
  • Experiment with data and use it to tell a story
    
  • Read the book: “Storytelling animal” by Jonathan Gottschall
    
  • Learn about your customers through your sales team and customer success team to help craft better stories
    
  
  
• Chris shares an example of great storytelling in the world of B2B. [24:55]
  
• The specific metrics that marketers should be paying attention to when it comes to B2B storytelling. [28:21]
  
• Chris shares a status quo in B2B storytelling that he passionately disagrees with. [32:44]
  

Companies and links mentioned

• Chris Rapozo on LinkedIn 
  
• Hannon Hill
  

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Chris Rapozo

Christian Klepp  00:03

Welcome to B2B Marketers on a Mission, a podcast for changemakers, where we question the conventional, debunk marketing myths, provide actionable tips, think differently, disrupt industries, and take your marketing to a new level, from improving your campaigns to making you a better marketer. These are the inspirational stories that will help us change the way we think and approach B2B marketing, one conversation at a time. This podcast is brought to you by EINBLICK Consulting, helping you to stand out in the market and drive revenue to your B2B business. And now your host, Christian Klepp.

Christian Klepp  00:44

Okay, welcome, everyone to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission. This is the show where we help you to question the conventional, think differently, disrupt your industry and take your marketing to new heights. This is your host Christian Klepp. And today I am joined by someone on a mission to help. Let me see if I get this right to help create quality B2B content that is interesting, insightful and tells a compelling story that resonates with your target audience. So coming to us from Atlanta, Georgia, Chris Rapozo, welcome to the show.

Chris Rapozo  01:16

Thank you, Christian, I’m humbled to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Christian Klepp  01:19

Great to be connected, Christopher. And before we start, shout out to Robb Conlon thank you so much, sir, for making this connection. Right. Okay. Fantastic. So Chris, let’s kick off this conversation. And I’m going to start with a quote from an article I read in Forbes. And I think I did share that with you. And it was written by a gentleman called Samuel Timothy. Alright, so his quote was, if you manage to tell a good story about your product or service, you will be able to communicate its value without listing all the features explicitly. And clients will love it. Over to you, your thoughts? And what would you add to that?

Chris Rapozo  02:00

I’ll start off with a quote as well from our company founder who says “fall in love with the market, not the idea”, okay? So too often entrepreneurs or business people or marketers, they fall in love with that grandiose idea of that product that they have without getting the input from the market and to see if they actually would utilize their product, right? We’re all familiar with the movie Field of Dreams that many of us are, you know, if they build it, they will come. But rarely in the real world does that actually work that you just build a product, and then people just want to flock to it. It’s not like the iPhone, right? That doesn’t happen very often. So we got to make sure we think market first not idea first, be ingrained in the market. Just get to know the market. It’s like when you go on a first date, right, you’re not asking somebody to marry you on the first date, you get to know them, you court them. And you would do the same with your market, with your audience to know what they really want. And once you really know what they want, what triggers them and what they’re attracted to, then you’ll be able to tell a story, after you’ve built the trust that they need from you, without having to hard sell them on your features or the benefits. You’ll have the connection, you have that trust and then the story will flow organically when it comes to your product. That’s what I would say.

Christian Klepp  03:35

Absolutely, absolutely. And yes, indeed. Build it and they will come is probably one of the biggest misconceptions of our time. I love how you talked about building trust, because while in B2B, it’s, it almost seems like it’s obvious. But it’s interesting to note how many companies and marketers for that matter, don’t lead with that. Right? They might. They might have it in the mix somewhere somehow, but they don’t lead with it. And that’s, that’s a dangerous path to go down if you don’t, if you don’t lead with trust, right?

Chris Rapozo  04:12

Yeah, I’m a big fan of social proof. You know, if you have great customers, you know, make sure you have those case studies, those customer spotlights, even the employee spotlights, you know, people do business with people. So you want to make sure that even if it’s B2B marketing that your customers and your clients they get to know you and your employees that they’re going to be dealing with on a day to day basis.

Christian Klepp  04:40

Absolutely. Okay, Chris, you know, we’re focusing on the concept of storytelling for B2B and we have had guests on the show previously that I’ve talked about this topic, but I think one of the reasons why I thought it would be interesting to have a conversation with you is because one of the things that I like about the show is we encourage diversity of thinking. So people can come and talk about the same topic, but offer their own perspective and that perspective, more often than not, there, there are some commonalities, but they also tend to be very different perspectives, which are all very meaningful and constructive. So on that note, on to the next question, talk to us about some of the things that you’ve seen, from your own experience some of the common mistakes, and we spoke about misconceptions already mistakes and misconceptions that you’ve seen out there with regards to B2B storytelling and what you think should be done to address this.

Chris Rapozo  05:40

One of the problems that I’ve seen, and that’s happened to me too, when somebody is trying to pitch me is that companies make it about themselves, make it about their product. And we just have to realize that it’s not about us, right, especially in this connection economy that we’re working in these days, we always want to make sure it’s about the customer, it’s about the market, it’s about the client, and we want to bring value to them, right. This is like the service industry, we’re here to serve them, they have an issue, they have a problem. And our products are there to address that problem to help them to lift them up. So when you tell a story, when you tell it to your customer, you always want to make sure you make them the hero in the end, right. So if it’s a B2B, VP of marketing, and they’re needing a content management system, or anything that helped them get better reach or get more leads, or more signups for whatever they’re doing, you want to make sure that they look good in front of their stakeholders when they decide to go with our product. So even though we have a great product that will help them, we don’t want to make us look like their Savior, right, we want to take it around with the focus on them, make them the hero, so our product is the solution to their problem. And we want to help make them shine. And I’m a big follower of Simon Sinek. So you always want to make sure you start with why right, why is this product there? Why are you getting up in the morning? Is it to simply make a lot of money? Or is it to solve a problem, you know, it’s better to give than receive, you know, that’s my motto that I live by daily. In our company, for example, we serve higher ed institutions, and higher ed institutions, they serve the next generation of leaders, right. And we help them with their messaging on their website. So if we do a good job, and if we’re able to reach them, to help them build a better website that attracts better future leaders and equips them, you know, we’re doing a good job to help better our our nation, even if we’re not directly involved in the teaching, but we’re helping those higher ed institutions get in front of those students that need to hear about them and their service.

Christian Klepp  08:04

Absolutely, absolutely. I love that you brought out like Simon Sinek about starting with why. I wanted to go back to something you said earlier. And it’s something that I encourage guests that come on the show to explain in greater detail, because you talked about bringing value to customers. And we all know that. And you probably see this on LinkedIn more often than you care to count, but people talk about oh, add value, bring value. And you know, you have to, you have to show your value. In your own words, define what you mean by value.

Chris Rapozo  08:38

Value means that I’m able to equip someone to be a better version of themselves and show them that they can do more like… sometimes we have this this ceiling that we think okay, we can’t go past that. But if we bring them a product that would help them elevate to break through that ceiling to the next level. That’s the sort of value that I’m talking about.

Christian Klepp  09:00

Fantastic. Fantastic. All right. On to the next question, love it or hate it. But this is extremely important when it comes to good storytelling. Explain the relevance of first party data and research?

Chris Rapozo  09:15

Yes, definitely. So where I went to school, Communications College Journalism College at the University of Florida, they’re big on primary research. So we learned a lot about that. And primary research or first party data, it helps marketers create a more purposeful message to build a direct relationship with your audience. So as a marketer, you want to be super in-tune and close to your sales team, and your customer success team. So in tech, there’s a lot of customer success teams that I’ve heard of and we have a great customer success team where I work and they do check-in calls with the customers to see you know, are they getting the most out of their subscription. And then our success team, they write up a recap of all the conversations that they have with clients: what’s going well, what’s not going well, what the client would like to see updated in the product in order to help them even more. So we have big shout out to Charlie and Rebecca on our success team. They’re a phenomenal team. And they always helped me become a better storyteller, because I hear about that itch that our customer has. And if I know that I’m able to scratch that itch with a compelling copy, May there be a FAQ, or a short form video series on how to do certain things with our product, right? So you want to have that first party data directly from our clients, because chances are that if they’re in the same industry as a prospective client, those prospective client, they’re probably dealing with the same issues. So you’ll be able to write up case studies, write up customer success stories, or customer spotlights to showcase: Hey, somebody in your position had that issue. And that’s how they overcame it. And it’s instant social proof. Right? Instant social proof right there.

Christian Klepp  11:18

Absolutely, absolutely. Identifying, you know, to your point, what’s keeping the customer up at night? And not even not even necessarily just that, but like, what is it that they need to do in order to succeed in their role in their job? And if you can help them to get there, right? What a compelling story that would make right? Fantastic.

Chris Rapozo  11:41

Bringing value, you know.

Christian Klepp  11:43

Yes, yes, indeed, indeed. You brought up something earlier, and I’d like to go back to it. It’s about video series, or just the concept of videos in general. We all know that it’s becoming more and more important in the world of content, you know, from your point of view, and from where you sit in the B2B content marketing space. How important are videos in your work?

Chris Rapozo  12:08

It’s immensely important, especially, you know, everybody loves Tik Tok, or at least the Gen Z generation, I’m not on Tik Tok, but I love YouTube, I love YouTube Shorts, bite size, instructional videos, or even videos that entertain me. But I believe that videos are the future in marketing, because people are always on the go. And if you can just like this podcast, for example, if you can just listen to it on your commute, to and from work, or if you’re doing the dishes, or folding laundry, whatever it is. You don’t have to watch it, but at least you have the audio. So video is huge. Or for example, when I need to fix something in my house, I don’t know how to do it. I don’t google it, I go to YouTube, and I search for it to see, hey, can somebody show me how to do this real quick. And also, you know, since we were children, we were conditioned to sit in front of the TV. So a screen… you see a screen you’re like, hey, I want to pay attention to this. Right? And it’s the same video. That’s why we’re so drawn to, to videos. And I think that’s why video marketing or advertising is so effective.

Christian Klepp  13:17

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, I’m ashamed to say that every time and you can appreciate this living in the United States. But every time we have to, you know, there’s Daylight Savings Time, and you have to adjust the time on your watch. And I’ve got a G shock. And every time it comes to the date, where I have to change the time, I’m like, Man, am I really going to read through this 40 page manual. I’ll just look it up on YouTube. Alright. And there you go. That was one… the other the other day I saw like, it’s like 56 seconds. Bam. There you go. Yes. On to the next question, which is one of those things, you know, where people say, Oh, you don’t need this in in B2B marketing, because B2B marketing is all factual and information. But I’m gonna throw this out there anyway. What role do you think emotions and rationale play? When it comes to storytelling and B2B?

Chris Rapozo  14:15

Yeah, I guess it depends on the on the product that you’re buying, or let’s say a customer decides to buy an enterprise level software that’s going to cost them a tremendous amount of money. You know, to run their infrastructure, they, they have to be rational in their decision making, they can’t just buy on impulse, because a wrong decision could put the company’s future in jeopardy or, you know, and as a follow, of course, that person’s job if they’re just aloof and just, you know, jump on anything that kind of, you know, excites them right away. So you have to be rational when you make decisions. So let’s say somebody identifies a problem and they do their research, choose their solution right, even though they’re rational, they’re doing their research through to find a solution, but then you come in with your storytelling and you bring that emotion in to just convince them of their, you know, their issue can be solved, while they’re doing their research, let’s say through. Again, I always go back to the social proof, because I’m just such a big fan of it with the case studies and a customer spotlight. So they’re, they’re rationally looking for reviews, they’re looking for some sort of an example of how somebody had the same issue and how they overcame it. And when they evaluate their options, you want to be top of mind, you want to stand out with, with your emotional storytelling abilities, when you tell the customer success stories or the customer spotlights, how a different…  let’s say universities, because we deal with universities, overcame a certain challenge, if I may, I wrote up a customer spotlight about a Canadian school, University of Alberta, and they have a lot of international students in China. And in order to communicate with them, they use Google Forms. But Google has been blocked in China, so they could no longer utilize the Google Forms to communicate with their Chinese international students to make a smooth transition to their Alberta campus. So they use our Clive forms a personalization tools, our forms in order to what I called, penetrate the Great Firewall of China. So I wrote a story about that, how they did that, and how they were able to bring those Chinese students over to Canada, and then bring it from the airport to campus, right, bring that emotion in to show them, hey, they are there not just for the tuition, they are there to bring a good experience. So people go about it when they look for a product in a rational way. But then they get swayed kind of by the emotional storytelling part of it. That’s what I believe, should answer your questions, I hope.

Christian Klepp  17:04

Yeah, yeah. No, no, that’s a great example, by the way. And yeah, they I have heard it being called that as the Great Firewall of China or the firewall, right. I was talking about it in another podcast, but you know, it’s not a physical wall, per se. Right. It’s actually a it’s actually an entire ecosystem, if you will. It’s a combination of legislation. There, there’s definitely a software and the censorship apparatus in place. So it’s a combination of all of these, these elements, right, that make that censorship, but like, great example of what was clearly an impediment. Right? And how they overcame that by just using another channel or using another alternative, using another approach. Right, fantastic. Fantastic. And with that story, that’s a great segue into the next question, because, you know, break it down for us just think of this like it like Lego blocks, and then you just, you’re just taking them apart to show us the pieces, right. So from your perspective, what do you think is required for effective storytelling and B2B? And you have mentioned some of them already.

Chris Rapozo  18:09

Yeah, you have to know your audience, you have to know them deeply. You have to know how to build your personas, in order to know how to talk to the individual. You know, what’s important to them, what you mentioned, what keeps them up at night? What are they worried about? You know, what do they care about? And then you want to tailor your message to their needs. But you also have to understand that not every story resonates with everyone, you know, you may have different personas, for us for examples, our target audiences are VPs and CMOs of marketing, but also IT Directors. Now if I share a story about how to effectively create content with an IT Director, he couldn’t care less, he’s worried about security, system security, right? So we have to tailor that message for that particular person in that way. Or if it’s a web developer that we’re trying to engage, we have to show them that they can use different coding languages, that they’re not just don’t just only have to use HTML or CSS, they have different options with our product so that they know what the what to expect if they go with our product. And you also, and I said this before, like existing customers stay hero, you know, tell their story, how they overcame a certain challenge that they faced before. So I think that’s the way to effectively tell a story in B2B marketing is always go back to the social proof and just give examples, you know, show don’t tell, I would say, show people, this is what our product did for somebody else that was in your position, and that’s where you can be if you go with our product.

Christian Klepp  19:57

Absolutely, absolutely. No, those are great list, I’d like to throw one other element in there. It’s absolutely like, knowing your target audience, I think is paramount. The other one is what I’ve seen in my own experience is understanding their buyers journey. Right? Like what they go through, which touchpoints to them are critical. And then going back to your overall storytelling / content strategy and understanding how that content will influence their journey and move them along, essentially. Right?

Chris Rapozo  20:33

That’s right. Yeah.

Christian Klepp  20:33

Okay. Great. So Chris, one of the things I told you in a previous conversation is that this show is about actionable tips. So we get to the point in the show where you give us something actionable. And let’s, let’s, let’s appreciate that. You can’t do all of this, like, you know, in five minutes. All right, well, what are some things let’s say three to five things that you hope the audience will walk away with, and that they can do right now to improve their storytelling approach? Off you go.

Chris Rapozo  21:01

Off you go, man, I’ll give you one thing go to ChatGPT. ChatGPT does give you a lot of your list. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. (laugh) When somebody’s watching this episode, but ChatGPT is huge right now. Everybody’s talking about it in March 2023. So I don’t know if that’s still gonna be relevant by the time somebody’s listening. But I would say if you only have an hour today, I would suggest somebody go to TED, watch a TED talk on storytelling. That’s how I learned about storytelling. I recommend one by David Phillips, the magical science of storytelling, which currently has about four to 5 million views on YouTube, it’s really practical and helps somebody you know, tell better stories. And then, right after that, probably a lot of people that listen to this podcast, they’ve been in industry for a while,  they know their audiences. And I would just say, like, we talked earlier about short form videos, you know, you don’t need a big production, just prop up your smartphone, tell a compelling story, or in 59 seconds or less, and upload it to your YouTube shorts and see what happens. And experiments but experiment with data. That’s what I’ve been doing lately, just tried my hand on YouTube shorts. And it’s fantastic reach there. Because it’s popular right now. Another thing if you have about a week or so I would say pick up the book, Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall. I don’t know if you heard this one before. But that was recommended by one of my mentors, to me, who’s an extremely great storyteller, and a great presenter. And it’s just this book, The storytelling animals, it just explains the life’s complexity of social problems that are brought out through storytelling. And then I would just say, Sit with your sales team and your customer success team, you know, figure out what worries your customers, and how your product can help them and then use that information to craft your your stories going forward. And then practice, practice, practice, you know, you have to sit down and you have to create videos, it’s super awkward at the beginning, when you hear yourself talk or see yourself on video. But the more you do it, the easier it gets. And the same with writing compelling stories, story articles. If you sit down the first time, you’re like, oh, my gosh, I don’t know what to write. Or you think in your own head that it’s a terrible way you just crafted a story. But I always say write for one person, right? You don’t, you don’t want to write for everyone. I say if your piece or your content, helps one person, you know, then your job was well done. If you affect somebody out there that you may never get in contact with, they may read your content on LinkedIn. And they may never like it, comment or reach out to you, but it may have affected them positively. And if you do that, as a storyteller job well done.

Christian Klepp  24:04

Yeah, those are some really great tips. And, you know, to your point, though, one of the clients I got like about a year ago was somebody that never engaged with the content, my content on LinkedIn. So, you know, it’s just a message to, you know, the listeners out there never underestimate people that, you know, they don’t comment, they don’t share, they don’t engage with your content. That doesn’t mean that, you know, just because they don’t do that, that doesn’t mean that they’re not reading it. Right.

Chris Rapozo  24:31

Yes. Yes. That can be frustrating at times, you know, it feel like… if you think you have a great piece, and then you don’t get that feedback, but again, you do it for that one person, you may never know who it is.

Christian Klepp  24:42

Absolutely, absolutely. So you brought up a couple of great examples already. But give us another one. Give us an example. You know, from your point of view, an example of great storytelling in the world of B2B.

Chris Rapozo  24:55

I did a little bit of… I thought about that quite… And I, there was one commercial by Salesforce team Earth, it’s called, or it’s actually called the new frontier. It was a Superbowl commercial in 2022. And it was pretty timely because it was, during a time where there was some turmoil in the United States, you know, lots of conflict in a racial conflict, and a lot of tension between different groups. And so the commercial shows Matthew McConaughey in an in a hot air balloon on the edge of space, and you’re talking about the new frontier spaces, the new frontier, and he’s like, You know what, I don’t think so. And then, you know, I can, let me look up the script here real quick what he says. He says, you know, it’s not time to escape, it’s time to engage with other people. Because, you know, if the turmoil that we had, you know, he says, It’s time to plant more trees, it’s time to build more trust, you want to build more trust with each other, because I don’t want to get political here. But it doesn’t start in Washington in the United States. It starts in our neighborhoods, it starts in our households, it starts in our companies, right, in order to get along with each other, we don’t want to look at somebody that we’ll never see we’ll never talk to, we want to make sure we we communicate with each other. And that we just build that trust and get to know each other. And this what this commercial base that he talked about his sight, it’s it’s time to make more space for all of us, you know, be more inclusive. And you know, so while others look at the metaverse or go to Mars, and it was also during the time with Jeff Bezos, Branson, you know that there’s space based travel, it’s he said, It’s time to stay here and restore our world, right, it’s time to blaze our trail crossed a new frontier, he says It Ain’t Rocket Science, the new frontier is right here. And it was through Salesforce, you know, our CRM, or you have always, you know, make connections with others. So I thought it was a really timely message to what was going on in our world, and how to connect with one another. And that’s basically what Salesforce does, you know, it’s it was a great storytelling there in their way to bring up the emotions as well as they, as they, you know, shot that commercial for their CRM.

Christian Klepp  27:23

Yeah, yeah. Perfect example. And what a great message. I mean, like, you know, to your point, it was, it was timely, it was pertinent. And it’s, it’s really driving that message home about like, stop locking up, you know, up there and locked down here. Instead, we’ve got plenty going on down here, right, that we can, that we can be paying attention to, and that we should be paying attention to. Yeah, no, fantastic example. On to the next question. Love it or hate it, right. But at some point in time as marketers, right, we can come up with creative campaigns, and we come up with amazing content and videos and what have you. But at some point in time, we’re going to have to show proof to someone higher up that all the stuff that we’re rolling on is working, right. So from your point of view, what specific metrics should marketers be paying attention to when it comes to B2B storytelling?

Chris Rapozo  28:21

Yeah, I’m a big fan of Google Analytics. I look at it all, especially my blog page, you know, because I put a lot of content on my blog, see what resonates. I just say what the videos but the short form videos, you know, who’s looking at it, or getting engagement through it? Do people watch my videos? Do people stay long enough on my on my blog, to actually read the whole thing? Or do they just stay there for 5-10 seconds and then bounce because it’s not relevant to them. And then with that data, you know what, what sparks someone right, and you can hone in on that. It’s like an A|B test. You want to make sure that you create content that speaks to your, to your, your audience. I always like to put a call to action at the end of my blog post, you know, if I get a if I get a demo request, then I know it worked. So that’s something I always want to look at. What else? Let’s be honest. We talked about this a little bit earlier with lurkers on social media, a lot of people they don’t look, they don’t engage with their stuff, but I still look at it. You know, do people share my content? Do people like it? So a couple of weeks ago, I created a 10 must listen higher ed podcast and you probably know about this one because Robb told you about it. That list and it was shared by so many people because I I tagged every podcast host and they liked the recognition. So they shared it with their network and that got a tremendous reach. Right? So this is something I look at so like how can I get outside of my network with my posts by tagging others but I don’t want to be creepy about. I just want to tag people just just to get the reach, I want to bring value to them and then bring so much value to them that they’re inclined to share my posts with their audience, you know? So that’s kind of like the metric stuff I look at. Do people like it? Do people share it? Do people comment it, do I get negative feedback in the comments? It was something I got to look at too, because sometimes I approached my storytelling from a certain angle that it may upset somebody. So I want to make sure I don’t do that, again, even if I didn’t think it was upsetting. But if a number of people feel the same way about my content, I’m like, Okay, I need to pivot, right? I can’t do that approach anymore. So you always it’s always in marketing…, it’s the beauty about marketing, you always, you adjust, you have to adjust all the time, you adjust to the market, and to the beat of the market. So there’s… those are like the metrics that we’re looking at. And you just want to make sure that you don’t get in an echo chamber, right, you are there. You gotta see what’s what clicks, what doesn’t, what’s trending.

Christian Klepp  31:03

Absolutely. Well, I mean, to your point, I mean, it’s, it’s a work in progress, right, that you have to continuously iterate. I mean, that’s, that’s marketing in itself, right, like, summed up and summed up in a sentence. But you said something earlier, which I thought was super interesting, because we, we all know, people who do that on LinkedIn, and I think it has a specific name, but they start tagging, like everybody under the sun, right? And like, Okay, Jeff Bezos, come on, like Simon Sinek, like way in here. Give us your two cents worth. But I think, to your point, if you tag thoughtfully and meaningfully, which is what you were doing, obviously, by giving recognition to the podcast hosts, then you might see better engagement, but if it’s, but you know, people, people can see through, you know, someone’s intentions, if you’re, if you’re just like trying to voice your opinion, and you’re trying to like, tag all these influencers out there, then you know, that’s an exercise that could clearly backfire. Right?

Chris Rapozo  32:06

Yeah. When somebody shows up in the comment section that brings no relevance to it with their comments, and or yet somebody uses their company page to to write a comment about it in front of this person’s audience. It’s like, I know what you’re doing. And that’s not gonna work.

Christian Klepp  32:25

Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I’m glad you brought that up, because it’s a great segue into the next question. Okay. gentle on your soapbox here, man. What is the status quo in B2B storytelling that you passionately disagree with? And why?

Chris Rapozo  32:44

It’s all about the bottom line, man.

Christian Klepp  32:48

Yeah, of course. Of course.

Chris Rapozo  32:50

Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s the status quo that I passionately disagree with. Because in today’s connection, economy, you know, it’s not all about the bottom line, man, it’s about building connection, trust, familiarity. And establishing yourself as an industry expert, which again, increases trust with potential clients. Now, sure, I’m not stupid, I know that there’s some part about the bottom line because you got to keep the lights on at the end. You know, overall, this is a it’s a business you want to keep the lights on. But if you’re just concerned about the bottom line, you know, you come over pushy, you come up with desperate and then you come over annoying, you know, we’ve all had this connection request by somebody with like, oh, new friend, and all of a sudden you get you get that that pitch from them. But you didn’t earn that, right? You didn’t build that connection with me, I didn’t give you permission to pitch me. Like what makes you think that you can just pop into my messaging and try to pitch me without getting to know me,  getting to know my needs. So absolutely. There’s this connect right there. You know, it’s like, not working. So make sure it’s all about the customer, knowing their pain points. And once you have figured that out, and you build a relationship with them, like we do right here, I can’t just ask you to come on your podcast, if you don’t know me, we build a relationship before, you know, and hopefully I brought some value to your audience and to your life, the short amount of time that we met each other, known each other so that’s the way you want to go about it, you know, build relationship. It’s not all about the bottom line, I understand. It is in some point because you got to run a business and you got to play your own toys but don’t come over desperate, you know, build a relationship first, then go from there.

Christian Klepp  34:48

Absolutely. Absolutely. No, that’s such a great point. And I mean, you know, one of my all-time favorite pitch slaps are the ones that they send out this message under the Are you texts that they’re trying to like, they’re interested in what you do, or they’re trying to try to find some way to collaborate with you to a certain degree. But then when you start reading between the lines, it really is just a veiled the pitch slap, right? Yeah. So it’s just, it’s just them trying to sell their product under a false pretext of actually being interested in your company, which turns out, they’re not interested in you at all. Alright, they, they just, they’re just trying to hit their quota. Right. And so there’s plenty of that stuff out there. But, um, Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show. And you know, for sharing your expertise and experience with the audience. So a quick intro to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you. Und ich habe auch ein Paar Gerüchte gehört dass du Deutsch sprechen kannst.

Chris Rapozo  35:47

Ja, ich spreche auch Deutsch. Vielen Dank. So I’m bilingual, German, and English. Born and raised in Germany, and, you know, moved out west to find the American dream, which I did. Also recently made a career change from the legal industry to tech marketing. So I’m currently the marketing specialist at Hannon Hill, makers of Cascade CMS content management system. And as well, we have a product called Clive that’s a personalization tool that integrates with any content management system out there to share or target content to specific audiences. So each visitors that comes to your website actually gets the content that’s most relevant to them that just stale generic content. You can get in touch with me on LinkedIn, I’m big on LinkedIn. Like to create there. So Chris Rapozo on LinkedIn or send me an email at Chris.rapozo@Hannonhill.com. That’s Hannonhill.com.

Christian Klepp  37:02

Fantastic. Fantastic. So once again, Chris, thanks so much for your time. Take care. Stay safe and talk to you soon.

Chris Rapozo  37:09

Yeah, thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.

Christian Klepp  37:11

All right. Bye for now.