On this episode of the Pipelineology podcast, Gary interviews Niki McKinnell of McKinnell Consulting. She shares her path from government crisis communications to B2B SaaS marketing and consulting, focused on proactive story building and elevating company messaging. She explains how many companies lose leads by not responding within minutes and recommends low-effort automation: connect form fills to an immediate calendar booking option, trigger rep-like follow-up emails if no meeting is booked, and add alerts and reminders for sales. Niki defines “stabilization” as aligning teams and processes across the customer lifecycle to move faster, close more deals, and retain customers. She outlines repurposing content (e.g., turning webinars into transcripts, guides, blogs, clips, and thought leadership) using tools like Claude with brand context, noting AI gets ~80% and still needs human review. She also details pre-event planning, lead capture and prioritization, ROI measurement, and swag/gifting strategies, emphasizing cross-functional go-to-market alignment to prevent breakdowns like selling unfinished products and to refine messaging based on field feedback.

Discover:

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

00:40 Niki Career Journey

02:07 Automated Lead Capture

04:23 Easy Automation Setup

05:44 Stabilizing Go To Market

06:44 Repurposing Content Smarter

09:53 Claude Workflow for Drafts

12:39 Quality Control With AI

14:18 Event Prep and ROI

17:17 Lead Scanning and Prioritization

19:43 Swag and Gifting Strategy

23:14 Aligning Teams and Launches

27:33 Messaging From Field Feedback

31:02 Wrap Up and Thanks

linkedin.com/in/nikimckinnell

[00:00:13] Niki McKinnell: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be able to talk over marketing.

[00:00:40] Niki McKinnell: Sure. So, you know, I used to leave out the beginning of my career story because I didn't really think it applied to where I am now in B2B SaaS, but I'll start there. So I started in a government press office. My degree was in public relations first thing outta school. We were dealt with a lot of crisis communications.

Press releases, press conferences. A lot of the work was reactive. So as I'm getting into it and as I'm seeing what the legislators and the agency heads are having to be reactive, I think, what kind of story can I bring to light that is a proactive stance? So that was the start of my story building career timeline.

From this, the government. I went into the private sector and it was for a B2B SaaS company. And for the companies that I've worked with when I come in, their story needs to be either elevated or developed in a way that it moves with their technology. So it's been wonderful to be able to come into these organizations and really take them to the next level, which is what brought me to consulting because then I was able to do that for multiple companies.

And then now I actually was found through my consulting. I had an offer for a full-time role, which I've accepted.

because especially as a company that we do a lot of outreach and I tell people not, you know, not to have calendar links. Don't put that stuff out there. Because it's, I think it's a whole different mindset, so I'd love to kind of get your take and see, you know, see what you're seeing on, your end.

How is your CMS set up? What kind of automations do you have? Like I mentioned, a lot of them don't have any at all. You, you'll look on LinkedIn and everyone will talk about AI this and automated this, and sometimes it makes you feel like you're behind. But I'm here to tell you that a lot of companies don't have that implemented.

So I'll come in, I'll take a look at what they have, what is their, customer life lifecycle like, and if you can put it in automation that, here's my favorite one. They fill out the form, it has the applicable information in there. Then a calendar will pop up. It could be Calendly, it could be something.

HubSpot teams, whatever. it is calendar automatically pops up. They're able to schedule right then and there, but if they don't schedule, then you want an automated email that comes directly from the rep that looks like it's coming from the rep. Some additional information about the company, and then also another opportunity to schedule.

Then from there you go into more automation. So if they, don't schedule again, it's another one. But not just marketing emails. You want to bring in alerts, notifications, and reminders to your sales team to keep pushing them through. And then if they do schedule, of course you meet them and get on that call and then continue the nurturing after that as well.

[00:04:39] Niki McKinnell: This is actually one of the easiest things to do, and that's why it's something that's, it's a low hanging fruit. Sometimes you don't even need new technology and. It's not even really a new process, it's just automating something that's already there. So let's say for example, you have HubSpot, that's one that you know, several companies of course will have Salesforce, will do the same thing.

Lots of other automated options. You already have a calendar option in there. You've already got that. You can already make a landing page if that's something that you even need. As a part of this, you have the form that you can collect your information. You have the email. You can go in and just wizzywig very easily.

Anybody can go and just make that email and then connecting it together. It's already there. So it's not something that you even have to say, Hey, let's have everyone from leadership on board to pitch, get an RFP, or three options to evaluate for new technology and then get everyone together. What is the process?

It really is something that you most likely already have.

[00:06:06] Niki McKinnell: Yeah, so with stabilization. That is getting all of your team going in the same direction so that all the leads are being processed throughout the entire life cycle of that customer. All of your processes for go to market, your product launches, how your customers are being communicated to that, all of once that's stable.

Once everyone's on the same page, you can move forward faster, more efficiently, and you're going to be able to close more deals and retain more customers. Because everyone is moving in the same, the same wheel. It's all going together.

I'm kind of curious for your, take on kind of this really leveraging the content. You, do spend the time to create.

A lot of companies have webinars, maybe they do a really good job at promoting them. They get all these people on this webinar. Or maybe they do a webinar and nobody shows up. But it's a really great topic either way. You have a recording that has some really incredible information, so you take that, you get the transcript from it, so now you have information that you can make into, maybe it's a how to guide or, some, kind of white paper.

Then you can change it into a, use it as a blog post. You could use it even as a script for another video that you're going to do. You could do an email campaign based on that information. You don't have to start from scratch on writing. Then the video itself, now you've got clips that you can break up.

You can use those as little short videos throughout social media, throughout your website. There's so many different ways that you can use the content, the collateral that you have.

we can post about or add it to the frequently asked questions and things like that because, you know, it's that that real world thing that, people are, people are wondering about.

Right? If somebody, if one person's asking it, it's usually there's 10 people thinking it that, that kind of behind the scenes that are so yeah, like. I like, I like that idea of really kind of leveraging that, especially when you've got, you know, your leadership and stuff, their, their time is, is always pretty valuable and tough to come by.

So, you know, I think it's always about kind of that, how do we make sure we're, we're making the most, if they're gonna take 30 minutes or 45 minutes, or their time, or however long it is, to, to, you know, to, to communicate with people.

Put that together into a first draft for a thought leadership. Posting or article from your CEO, they're not gonna have time to get all of that together in the beginning. But if you can provide that context and then they can go from there, you're, everything's moving faster.

Because I know it's, you know, there's. It's the whole, okay, it's created, and now we're like, well, I don't know what to do with it, so we forget about it. So how do you make sure that something gets done with, okay, we created the content. What do we do now? How do we make sure that this, all these next steps happen?

You know, here's my website even. You have to get that project set up so that you have your company's voice. So to kind of, to start from the beginning, you go into Claude, you're able to add a project. Within that project, you're able to add context. So whether that's different documents that you have about your company, you can add in the voice and the brand.

You can add in things not to say things to say. You want to put everything about your company in there so that you have. Essentially copywriting agent at your service that can write something without you having to say, no, don't make this sound like ai. No, that's about my competitor. Have something already prepared.

So when you're taking all of this information, we used the example of the, webinar, the thought leadership piece. So you've got a webinar, if you've got a webpage that you already have that you want to. just under, if you want to make sure that you're emphasizing the information there, maybe there's a new campaign or new product, something that came up in a webinar that you want to mention.

Put all of that information together. You can even say, here's a video. Give me the transcript, and take that into consideration too. Throw it all together in Claude, then tell it. This is your role, this is the goal. This is my audience. This is the format I want. Put as much of that information in there as you can, and then have it come back with that first draft, so then you can massage it a little bit.

You know, you're gonna have to go in and tweak, tweak your prompt a little bit, but once you get it narrowed down, then ask it. I want to repeat this process in the future. Give me a prompt that will help me do that. So the next time that you have, I know we're using this example, the, webinar, you can put that all together and immediately you have a machine that's cranking that out.

So kind of what are, what is your approach to that?

How can we make this more efficient? But I, I will tell you though, you're not gonna get all, you're not just gonna be able to take this information and throw it in AI and say, Nope, it's done. At least not yet.

Fingers crossed.

[00:14:18] Gary Ruplinger: so before I derailed us here with, with, with this, AI detour here, kind of getting back to some of the things I was looking at here, events. I know one of the things you are big on is the preparation for an event versus just the event itself. So I'm, kind of curious what your approach is there and can you kind of walk us through that?

But there's more that you can do, and it's another thing where you're not having to spend any more money, it's just more preparation. It does take a little more time, but really not that much. So here's what I like to do. Say you're going to, you're going to an event in a particular location. Maybe it's a regional event.

You're gonna look in your system and you're gonna find, of course, where, your customers, what do you have there? Where are your leads that are around there? Do you have any hot leads? That you can visit while you're there. because you're going to have a salesperson, maybe you have an executive. Who do you have at this event?

Don't just go to the event and be done. Go and see the people in the area around it, but then also make sure that you're inviting those people to the event. And then if you know that they're going to be at the event, setting up some time to talk with them. But to have a goal, not just, Hey, let's get together and have some coffee.

Know what your goal is. Where are they in that cycle? Is it a customer who might be at risk? Do we need to talk to them about a particular thing? Is their usage showing that they're not really capitalizing on this part of your product? So maybe we need to get them in with a customer service rep, you know.

And maybe they need some one-on-one coaching. So I know this is, it's kind of complicated as all the different options that you can do. But really to simplify it, you're just trying to meet your leads and your customers where they are, and to take advantage of the fact that your staff is going to be in that area and they have an actual event to be able to work around.

Now while you're at the event, that's another thing is that you have to be able to capture those leads. You can't just, you know, very, at the very minimal, you are going to want a piece of paper to write people's names down, but ideally, you're able to have this automated in a way so you can scan their names.

You have data enrichment on the back that's gonna fill in all of that information, and you're going to have specific goals for where you want people to be each step of the way. Then When you get back to the office, you do have that follow up and assessing, have you met those goals? That's how you find the ROI of the event.

[00:18:17] Niki McKinnell: You're right in that the number of scans that you get do not determine the ROI, they don't determine the success of the event. so being able to use those scanners, it really depends on what's the capability of that scanner. Some of, some of what you get with a conference may not have everything that you need.

There are some systems and just some software you can download to your phone for all your reps to have that. Will allow you to, fill in specific fields. So yes, you have the data enrichment of, all right, you're scanning it. You get the, the, all of the information on the backend, even down to what is the revenue of their company.

You can pull all of that in, but if you have sections in there that identify specific criteria that you need and you're able to prioritize. Those potential leads. So they don't, they don't, you know, maybe they're asking you about a particular product or they have a particular use case, or they're at a certain point in their journey, or maybe they have to have two of those in order to move to the next stage.

your team, your sales and your marketing customer success product, whoever you need to bring together, identifies what those key factors are. And if you can input that information into the system, then you have that to one, have his knowledge, but even to kick off automated messaging after that.

I'm, curious in your experience, what actually works to bring people into your booth that gets them off the, floor and actually talking to somebody?

I think that quality is better than quantity. I also like to have products that your customers either. You know, I'm gonna use a B2B SaaS as an example. If you have a software that's powering a company that has a great item that you can use as swag, it's not something out of a magazine for that everybody else is gonna use.

Do they have something that you could give away? Put a, sticker on there with a quote from them saying how amazing you are. put even, you can put a QR code on there to a case study about them saying even more about how great you are, but think outside of the box so that you're not just going through a catalog of what everyone else is looking at and throwing your name on it.

That's another idea. The other thing is that, so this is a, this goes a little bit into gifting. It's not necessarily the swag side of it, but I'll talk about it anyway. So. Trying to deliver something that people are going to almost, maybe they even confuse it with their own materials already. So there, was a company that I worked with where one of the, one of the reps sent over an item that this company actually already sold, but it was packaged in a way that was only possible because of their company.

So when they sent it over, it got past the front desk because it looked like something they already had. But then once they opened it, they realized, oh, this looks better than the other products that I have that were packaged in this way. And so it was something that got a callback, but it, you have to get past that front desk.

[00:22:31] Niki McKinnell: Favorite. So I'm, I'm the worst. This is what people say you shouldn't get for swag. But I love a Yeti. I love it. I have a full shelf at home that's just full of them so not the person to ask that because I know that everyone has those. So it's just probably why I enjoy going to conferences.

[00:22:56] Niki McKinnell: I man can you really have enough Yetis?

[00:23:29] Niki McKinnell: So I feel like the root cause of everything we've discussed today, and really the biggest issues that I see companies having when things are really breaking down, it is that go to market process that has a hole in it somewhere. I also see this a lot when you have companies who are growing really quickly.

They may bring in a lot of executives from other companies to get their company to the next level, which is absolutely fantastic. But all of these executives are going to have very different ways of doing things. Very strong opinions about what approaches need to happen, and then also what will be successful.

They all want, they all have the same goal. Their goal is to move your company forward. So make sure that all of them are coming into the room, your sales, marketing, customer success, your product people, have them all in the same room, and identify what are the goals and how are we going to get there?

Because each of them is going to have some great information and some great. Experience on what will work. And you have to take the pieces from their experience for what is going to work for your company so that your sales and marketing aren't fighting, that they're working together. They are the closest of friends,

[00:24:51] Niki McKinnell: Tale as old as time. but the go to market, the process from product as well. So, you know, a lot of teams will have their dashboards that it, that product understands, but does engineering understand what product has does marketing and sales? You have to make sure you have all of the materials ready.

When it's going to launch, I, cannot tell you the number of companies who have had a product sold before it has been finished. And I, this again, is something that companies need to understand that they think they're alone when this happens, and they're very embarrassed by it. When I come in and I ask, like, you know, trying to dig into the data and what's happened, I, want to tell you.

Probably 75% of the companies that I've worked with have had that happen, but it's so easily fixed when you get that whole go-to-market process aligned.

[00:25:56] Niki McKinnell: It, it takes, a, a delicate touch. Because you are possibly going to have some egos. You may even have people who don't have an ego, but they've been doing this the same way forever. So why would we change? It's been working and yes, it 1000% has been working so far. If we want to get to the next level, we're gonna have to make sure that everyone is going with us.

And usually it's little changes. So maybe you have product is working off of a color coding system. Well, and engineering doesn't know what that color code means. And if they, if someone says, well, it's in beta. Does that mean sales can sell it to an early adopter? Is how are we getting feedback? Does marketing need to have collateral ready for when sales is talking to a beta cus these are the, the terminology, the definitions.

It's so easy to fix it. You just have to have the conversations to align and make sure everyone's talking the same language.

And that's, then we, we kind of, they must have forgotten that they turned it on or something on my account. So, and it's, it's always kind of interesting how that, you know, communication thing is, yeah, how are, how are we gonna communicate this? What are we doing with it? Or, but.

But there was one part of a recent release that was not selling and it didn't make any sense because all the research had been done. This was supposed to be the messaging. So I went out and talked to some of the people who are actually with the company, but in the field. And I'm asking for like tell, just walk me through the day.

Tell me, tell me what's happening so that I can see like, where is this pain point? And there was one, one person who said, well, you know, when I, I talked to a group of their executives at, at our customer's company, and I mentioned this one use case. They all did. They just throw their arms up and they laugh and they say, that's it.

I have to deal with that so much. And it is such a pain, but it hadn't really been identified in our messaging And so we. Did some more research on it. Said, is this something other people are dealing with too? And found that this is a hole, something else that we can grab onto, and we put together some more marketing materials, did some sales training, customer success training, and did we need to change anything in the product?

The product didn't need to be changed at all. It was just a slight change in how it was messaged. So once we gave that to the sales team, immediately resonated and we were able to sell that part of the product. But that go to market alignment, even as, as much as this company was aligned, you have to constantly come, come back and make sure that you're getting this feedback.

From this case. It was customer success.

I, you know, I talked to somebody recently where they had a, a solution for, salons and, you know, they said this, this fix is one of the big pain points with the app you're probably using on your site. but you know, up until that point they were, they were an app development company. It's like, so was everybody else. But now that they, they finally were able to communicate that one specific thing to that one specific group of people. It's like, take my money. And it,

it's, you know, it's, it's that, it's, it's that boom, just that quick. It's. Who is it for? What's the pain point? What do you solve? And he is like, yes, I need that now.

Versus, yeah, call me in six months. Well, you know, push it off, push it off.

[00:30:46] Gary Ruplinger: I, I'm familiar with the quote and

I'm I'm gonna, I'm gonna butcher it if I try and do it so.

[00:31:00] Gary Ruplinger: Yes, for sure. Well, good, good stuff. Niki, I, I do appreciate you kind of sharing this. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a blast chatting with you today.

[00:31:11] Gary Ruplinger: Take care.