Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [02:12] Kara Smith Brown reflects on her unexpected journey from musical theater to marketing leadership
- [03:20] How vocational honesty helped shape Kara’s path to entrepreneurship
- [07:33] The role of personality and humor in business and client relations
- [12:07] Why being resourceful and saying yes to challenges helps in a career
- [16:04] Insights on embracing setbacks and navigating mismatches in corporate environments
- [20:53] Kara’s audacious strategy for quickly scaling her business to $1M in revenue
- [24:17] Why personal growth is essential for entrepreneurs
- [25:10] How Kara’s book, The Revenue Engine, transforms B2B businesses
- [29:26] The challenges of introducing new technologies to traditional B2B clients
- [34:24] Importance of tailoring solutions to the freight industry’s unique needs
In this episode…
B2B marketing can feel overwhelming, especially in industries like freight and logistics, where traditional approaches dominate and innovative tools are often underutilized. Companies struggle to generate leads, manage pipelines effectively, and measure impactful results. This challenge is magnified when businesses fail to understand the specific needs of their market, leading to wasted time, effort, and resources. Kara Smith Brown offers a clear path forward by breaking the complexities of B2B marketing into a manageable nine-step framework, as outlined in her book, The Revenue Engine. She emphasizes segmenting the sales funnel into three distinct stages — prospect, nurture, and customer — and measuring success through volume, velocity, and value metrics. Kara also shares practical anecdotes, such as leveraging intent data and creating engaging strategies tailored to the freight industry, which she calls a perfect match for big personalities and aggressive innovation. Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as John Corcoran interviews Kara Smith Brown, CEO of LeadCoverage, about crafting high-octane revenue pipelines for B2B companies. Kara shares her journey from musical theater to supply chain leadership, insights on breaking barriers as a woman entrepreneur, actionable strategies from her book, and challenges of fitting into pre-established corporate cultures.Resources mentioned in this episode:
Special Mention(s):
- Kristin Oja on LinkedIn
- The Revenue Engine: Fueling a B2B High Octane Pipeline by Kara Smith Brown
- Crystal Knows
- Stock Investing for Dummies by Paul Mladjenovic
Quotable Moments:
- “I need to make a sandbox where I can be exactly who I am.”
- “You have to really be able to ask for what you know you’re worth and then be able to say no.”
- “Disqualification is just as important as qualification in the marketing funnel.”
- “I ended up in an industry that absolutely loves big personalities.”
- “I am willing to call people out. I’m willing to hold people accountable.”
Action Steps:
- Embrace your unique personality: Use your natural traits to your advantage, just like Kara did by leveraging her vivacious personality in the freight industry. This approach helps break the mold of conventional expectations and can lead to authentic and successful interactions in your field.
- Develop a bold sales strategy: Kara’s success in quickly reaching revenue milestones was driven by her willingness to ask for high-value contracts. This strategy can help overcome the common challenge of undervaluing services, ensuring you receive fair compensation for your work.
- Adapt and learn continuously: Kara emphasizes the importance of personal growth and adapting to new roles as her business evolves. This mindset is crucial for addressing the ever-changing business landscape, ensuring you stay relevant and effective.
- Find your niche: By specializing in a specific industry like freight, Kara leverages her credibility and expertise to offer tailored solutions. This focus allows you to differentiate services, enhancing your value proposition and client relationships.
- Leverage technology wisely: Despite working with traditional industries, Kara introduces advanced tools like Crystal Knows incrementally to clients, demonstrating their value through case studies. This approach helps bridge the gap between modern capabilities and client readiness, ultimately driving innovation and efficiency.
Sponsor: Rise25
At Rise25, we’re committed to helping you connect with your Dream 100 referral partners, clients, and strategic partners through our done-for-you podcast solution. We’re a professional podcast production agency that makes creating a podcast effortless. Since 2009, our proven system has helped thousands of B2B businesses build strong relationships with referral partners, clients, and audiences without doing the hard work. What do you need to start a podcast? When you use our proven system, all you need is an idea and a voice. We handle the strategy, production, and distribution – you just need to show up and talk. The Rise25 podcasting solution is designed to help you build a profitable podcast. This requires a specific strategy, and we’ve got that down pat. We focus on making sure you have a direct path to ROI, which is the most important component. Plus, our podcast production company takes any heavy lifting of production and distribution off your plate. We make distribution easy We’ll distribute each episode across more than 11 unique channels, including iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. We’ll also create a copy for each episode and promote your show across social media. Cofounders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, YPO, EO, Lending Tree, Freshdesk, and many more. The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast. Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships. Are you considering launching a podcast to acquire partnerships, clients, and referrals? Would you like to work with a podcast agency that wants you to win? Contact us now at [email protected] or book a call at rise25.com/bookcall. Rise25 Cofounders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.Episode Transcript
John Corcoran: 00:00 Today we’re talking about revenue engines. What’s a revenue engine? It is a tool for driving revenue in your business. We’re going to talk about it and explain what it is. There’s a new book that explains all about it. My guest today is Kara Smith Brown. I’ll tell you more about her in a second, so stay tuned. Intro: 00:17 Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders, and thought leaders and ask them how they built key relationships to get where they are today. Now let’s get started with the show. John Corcoran: 00:34 All right. Welcome, everyone. John Corcoran here. I’m the host of this show. And you know, if you’ve listened before that each week I talk with smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs from all kinds of companies. Check out the archives. We’ve got Netflix, Grubhub, Redfin, Gusto, Kinkos, YPO, EO, Activision Blizzard, lots of great episodes for you to check out. And of course, this company brought this episode brought to you by my company, Rise25, where we help B2B businesses get clients referrals and strategic partnerships with done-for-you few podcasts and content marketing, and you can learn all about our new platform, Podcast Copilot, by going to Rise25.com or emailing us at [email protected]. All right. My guest here today is Kara Smith Brown. She’s the CEO of LeadCoverage, which is a B2B marketing and sales enablement consultancy, and she began her career at a rocket ship, Echo Global Logistics multi-billion dollar company, before taking on other marketing leadership roles at other companies. And she founded Lead Coverage in 2017. And we’ll talk all about that. And she has a new book out. It’s called The Revenue Engine, which focuses on revenue generating strategies for B2B companies. That is just coming out as we speak right now. So I’m super excited about that. And she I know Kara, through participating in an entrepreneur’s organization community called the Entrepreneurial Master’s Program. Kara, happy to have you. So happy to have you here. I love chatting with you, and I love to ask people about what they were like as a kid. And you of all people, I’m so shocked that I was like, what entrepreneurial ventures did you have as a kid? And she was like, nothing. I didn’t do anything. But you didn’t do anything. There’s nothing. You didn’t do anything. You actually were big into musical theater. Surprise, surprise. Kara Smith Brown: 02:12 Yes. I was not entrepreneurial. I spent a lot of time on stage as a child. I’m from Chicago and I was basically Chicago Broadway as a child. I was yellow child number 12, in the rendition of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Donny. That’s critical. John Corcoran: 02:34 Role in that. Kara Smith Brown: 02:34 Performance. Yeah, I was actually yeah, I was a I was a vulture child. If you remember the show “Oh Canaan Days, there are vultures on the stage. It was a very big job for me. Yeah. I got to hang out with Donny backstage while I held a vulture. It was a big deal. Donny Osmond was twice. It was horrible. Wow. John Corcoran: 02:53 Very cool. And are you, like, just trying to shiv like yellow child number 11 so that you can move up in the pecking order. Kara Smith Brown: 03:00 I think yellow child number 11 was like five and I was like 13 or something. So get out of here, kid. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Just kick them down the stairs. John Corcoran: 03:10 So you’re really into this. But then you had a kind of shocking conversation with a vocal coach at some point. Who got real with you? Tell us about that. Kara Smith Brown: 03:20 Yeah. So I was ready. I was ready to go to, you know, school and be a, you know, Broadway star. And my vocal coach told me, hey, you’re too tall. I’m six feet tall. You can’t dance. Which is true. I cannot actually dance. And she said, all of the girls will be, you know, be able to dance and you don’t care that much. And all of the men in the theater are like five, nine or shorter. So you’re going to be too tall. You’ll never be a leading lady, and you don’t really want it that much. You have this kind of gift. Does God give a gift to be able to, you know, have perfect pitch and sing, but you don’t really care that much. And she was absolutely right, John. Like, well, well, hold on. John Corcoran: 04:01 But there must have been a moment where, like, were you in tears after she told you this? Like what? Oh, of. Kara Smith Brown: 04:06 Course. I mean, it. John Corcoran: 04:07 Must have been. Kara Smith Brown: 04:07 Devastating her life up to this point. I’m like, I don’t know, 17 when she tells me this, but the whole ten years leading up to that, I was the star of the show. I was the one on stage, you know? I was like, I was that theater girl in high school. And for her to tell me, like, hey, this is probably not the right path for you, for your life. I think my parents were so surprised that she was honest with me, and also relieved that I was not going to follow this path. That was going to be kind of really, really hard. John Corcoran: 04:38 And why? Because it’s just so difficult. Kara Smith Brown: 04:41 Oh my gosh. Yeah. So I actually there’s a funny story there. The woman that was my understudy in high school, she was always one step behind me. She could dance, but she couldn’t sing. And she went to Broadway and did it like she tried it and she failed spectacularly. And I saw her at our ten year high school reunion, and I was like, oh my gosh, like, how was it? I can’t believe you did it. That’s amazing. And she’s like that, but I failed. I’m like, right, but you had the balls to do it like you did it, and I never did it. And so it’s one of those things like you always kind of wonder, like, could you have done it? And maybe it has fueled a little bit of not wanting to fail at other things. Yeah. So I don’t want to fail right at being an entrepreneur. I did Iron man. Like I do like really hard things. Yeah. And maybe that all stems back to someone telling me I couldn’t do what I really wanted to do, which was to be on stage. John Corcoran: 05:36 I also think there’s an element of sometimes we’re drawn, we find ourselves getting into things that were naturally good at, and then we’re also sometimes drawn into things that we’re not naturally good at because there’s more challenge involved. What are your thoughts on that? Because you said you naturally had a really beautiful singing voice. Kara Smith Brown: 05:55 Well, it’s interesting, I think I’ve been getting on stage more often now that the book is out. I’m on stage a lot more, and having been a thespian in, you know, at a super young age, I have an ability to be on stage and hold an audience, you know, have stage presence and throw my voice across the room. And I think that may have always been there. Right. And so now as an adult, being able to use those skills, you’re utilizing it. John Corcoran: 06:22 Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Kara Smith Brown: 06:24 Right. I stood up for a minute. I’ve done, you know, different sorts of comedy. Improv. Right. On improv before. Yeah, yeah. And so I think it’s all kind of culminating now in my 40s to like, okay. Yeah. Now I did all this stuff as a kid. I did this comedy in college. You spend, you know, 15 or 20 years kind of getting serious. And now it’s really fun because I get to kind of put it all together and tell jokes on stage. And actually in the book, The Revenue Engine, which should have a copy on the way to you. There are three hilarious stories. The first is using. We call them silly names like Angel and Bambi to get truck drivers to open emails, which works by the way. Two is how I trapped my husband into marrying me, and three is how I got fired from being a Girl Scout cookie. Mom and I associate all three of these like, actually really funny stories. Back to the revenue engine and how you use the funnel in marketing. So it’s really fun. So being able to do all that and tell these silly stories and bring back those kinds of thespian goals, I think you’re right. I think sometimes you lean into things that are easy. John Corcoran: 07:33 Yeah. I mean, well, what I was going to say about you is that, you know, you have a great personality, you use your personality, and I’m sure you’ve used it in the business in order to motivate your team in order to open new accounts. You know, you’ve embraced that. Use humor, you know. You’ve used all those things, I’m sure. It’s not like you’re running a bank or something like that. Like the business. The business that you have now actually allows you to utilize those skills that you’ve had for a long time and to take advantage of them. Kara Smith Brown: 08:05 It’s really funny. My, the last job I got fired from on the way out, they said to me, we just think you’re so fun. Like, you’re the best, but you can’t work here anymore. Like, we don’t, we don’t have a job for you. We don’t really want you to work here, but. But we really think you’re awesome. And I remember thinking to myself, like, I need to make my own sandbox. I need to make a sandbox where I can be exactly who I am. And thank you for saying I have a great personality. There are many people in my wake who think I do not have a great personality. But it’s okay. I can be polarizing and I think as an entrepreneur you’ve experienced this too. Like, I don’t belong in someone else’s sandbox. This is a lot of energy to have in someone else’s sandbox, and I get to kind of do whatever I want and be whoever I want, which is really, really fun. And I can be exactly who I am, which is really big, really bold on stage, kind of like in your face, but really has worked for us. So I appreciate that. Thank you. I think that’s it. John Corcoran: 09:03 Why many of us find entrepreneurship is because we realize that we don’t want to fit, you know, square peg in a round hole type of situation in other companies. But you must have made it work for a little while because you ended up working your first, I guess, job after college was this company, Echo Global Logistics, now a multi-billion dollar company. But it was, I believe it was a startup. When you started working there, what was it like? Kara Smith Brown: 09:24 Yeah, it’s such a good story. So echo was started by the guys that started Groupon. Eventually, Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell and I were hired before the CEO was hired. It was really fun. In 2006, CEO, his name is Doug Wagner, and I got hired three years later. Doug walked by and said, hey, you want to write an S-1? We’re going to go public. And I was like, yes, I will Google that and I will tell you what that is, and then I will tell you how long it will take me to do it. And he’s like. John Corcoran: 09:52 One is hundreds of pages long. It’s a massive document. Yeah. Kara Smith Brown: 09:56 It’s also like a financial document for taking a company on the, on the market to Nasdaq. I had no business doing this. Yeah. John Corcoran: 10:05 Well maybe draft number one.Pages: 1 2