Many CEOs say they’re too busy to participate in activities like hosting a podcast, writing LinkedIn posts, or running live events. But are they really? 

In this second episode of The Notorious Thought Leader podcast, Chris Walker, CEO & Founder of Refine Labs, joins Erin Balsa to discuss the importance of staying in the details and putting in the time to collect insights, recognize patterns, and develop leading thoughts. 

Chris Walker is CEO and founder of Refine Labs, a leading demand generation agency that challenges the status quo in B2B marketing. Refine Labs executes tactics that align with how consumers actually buy instead of generating fruitless leads. He hosts The State of Demand Gen podcast, hosts TikTok LIVE, and posts daily on LinkedIn. 

Episode Highlights:

01:25-01:35 — On being a thought leader (Chris): “I actually don’t like being called a thought leader because I really consider myself a business person and an entrepreneur and a marketer and a seller and a product developer.” 

01:40-01:58 — How to develop leading thoughts (Chris): “The key about thought leadership is you need to have leading thoughts. And the leading thoughts come from direct customer insights with the appropriate analysis and interpretation qualitatively, and by being in the details so much that you can develop leading thoughts.”

05:32-5:35 — Your point of view comes from the market (Chris): “I didn’t just make up that companies were challenged with attribution. I consulted 100 companies and recognized that 99 of them said ‘We struggle with attribution. We need help’ … That’s where I got the insight. The market communicates to you that we think our attribution strategy isn't’ working, and then it’s my job to figure out Why isn’t it working? What are the patterns? What are we going to do instead?”

07:18-8:07 — Putting in the time to get the insights (Chris): “What makes me unique is I get more insights than anyone on the planet. I talk to hundreds of B2B software companies every single month, executives at those companies, the customers that we work with. I’m inside of Salesforce data for more than 100 companies. I work with 100 different talented marketers in different areas. I get hundreds of comments on my LinkedIn posts. People send me emails. I see the reviews on our podcasts. I see all the people who show up to the live events we do 2-3 times a week. I do all of that for the insights. And then from there, I’m able to communicate patterns … I’m able to communicate things that other people can’t put into words.”

14:15-14:34 — You can’t outsource thought leadership to any ol’ writer (Erin): “A problem I see a lot in B2B marketing is they are selling an enterprise solution and they’re talking about these really complex topics — then they’re outsourcing to some writer who doesn’t have any business experience. They’re never walked a day in the shoes of a business leader.”

30:20-31:08 — Rethinking how you structure sales and marketing (Chris): “I’m suggesting that companies stop with ‘sales and marketing’ and start looking at it as ‘creating demand and capturing demand.’ When you look at it that way, you actually have sellers and marketers on both teams. You got closers. You got SDRs that are focused on capturing demand with intent data. You got performance marketers that are running Google Search and stuff like that only for high-intent buyers. You're focusing on things that are driving buyers who actually want to buy, not just leads, And then you create all the space for evangelists, subject matter experts, dark social people, a podcast producer, video editors for social, people that can run live events, PR people to get your CEO on podcasts.”

37:10-37:50 — The other reason executives should do a podcast (Erin): “You’re not just doing it to get people into the funnel. Every podcast episode educates your employees. All the new people that are joining, all they have to do is listen and they’re going to get up to speed [on your POV] way faster than the employees who are working remotely, heads down in their own little silo ... that right there is a good motivation for anyone who’s listening who says, I’m too busy, I’m too busy to do this. Maybe you’re not. Because maybe you can replace your long drawn-out all company memos and decks with the podcast.”