[Top Agency Series] Leveraging Local Expertise for Worldwide Business Growth With Cameron Heffernan

Cameron Heffernan is the Chief Marketing Officer at Your B2B Marketing, a globally focused strategic marketing agency. With a rich background as a serial entrepreneur, Cameron’s career spans three continents, reflecting a diverse and expansive professional journey. He is recognized for launching a seven-figure marketing agency that caters to a wide range of clients across the globe. His expertise lies in helping companies articulate their value proposition effectively, supporting their growth, and assisting them in entering new markets.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [03:41] Cameron Heffernan shares what they do at Your B2B Marketing
• [09:09] The importance of finding a niche and focusing on what you do best
• [11:23] How Cameron started and grew his agency
• [13:17] Common mistakes made by companies trying to reach international markets
• [14:44] Expanding business globally through localization and tailored marketing strategies
• [20:58] Why Cameron advocates for a multichannel approach to marketing
• [24:34] The value of simplicity in messaging
• [27:14] How Cameron navigates a virtual team culture
• [34:10] The importance of like-minded groups and ongoing learning

In this episode…

Leveraging the expertise and nuances of local markets can be a game-changer in global business growth. But how exactly does one tap into their wealth of localized knowledge to expand successfully on an international scale?

According to Cameron Heffernan, a seasoned global entrepreneur, the key lies in understanding and adapting to the unique cultural and business landscapes of each market. Businesses can significantly enhance their global reach and effectiveness by utilizing a strategy that respects and integrates local insights. Cameron emphasizes why it’s also crucial to use multichannel strategies, identify your niche to tailor your marketing approach, and use simplicity in your messaging.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Cameron Heffernan, Chief Marketing Officer at Your B2B Marketing, to discuss the intricacies of international market expansion. They delve into the importance of tailoring marketing strategies to diverse cultural contexts, the challenges and triumphs of setting up a global marketing agency, and the indispensable role of local expertise in ensuring successful cross-border operations.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Cameron Heffernan on LinkedIn
• Your B2B Marketing

Special Mention(s):

• Dan Sullivan on LinkedIn
• Dr. Benjamin Hardy on LinkedIn
• Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
• Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business by Gino Wickman and Mark Winters
• Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz
• Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono
• Ashtan Moore on LinkedIn
• 10x Is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy
• Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com by Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler
• Donald Miller on LinkedIn

Related episode(s):

• “Leading with Passion with Gino Wickman Founder of EOS Worldwide” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[One Question] Closing A Promising Startup with Mark C. Winters of RocketFuelNow.com” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable Moments:

• “Focus on storytelling, identifying with your audience, and on what’s important and relevant to them, rather than what matters to us or to the client.”
• “You are never going to be successful just being another agency.”
• “Give, give, give, then ask.”
• “Set it and forget it.”

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:15 

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz  0:22 

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. I’ve Cameron Heffernan, who founder of yourb2bmarketing.co and Cameron, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes, people should check out the podcast and we were chatting before hitting record of Cameron’s loves Dan Sullivan Benjamin Hardy books, so we’re talking about some of his favorites. So some of the past guests who are authors, Gino Wickman who wrote Traction founded EOS. That was a great episode, Mark winters co-authored Rocketfuel with Gino Wickman. That’s a really good one, the visionary integrator, I had one of my favorites of all time Chris Voss have Never Split The Difference. One of my favorite books, and there was many, many more and Cameron, your face some of your favorites?

Cameron Heffernan  1:14 

Well, I think the Dan Sullivan sort of Trilogy with Ben Hardy is up there. One that we had read with my group last summer was The Good Life, which is a combination of work life, and how to all integrates and comes together. One that was sitting right here is the Six Thinking Hats, which I enjoyed. It’s a short, easy read, but it makes you look at how you do thinking and how you execute decision-making processes. And the good ones who wrote that one. That is Edward de Bono.

Jeremy Weisz  1:47 

Six Thinking Hats. Hopefully, it’s an Audible added to my list. So thanks. And so check out more episodes in the podcast. This episode is brought to you by Rise25 and at Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 relationships and how do we do that? We actually help you run your podcast, we’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast and we do the strategy the kind of building the full execution. So Cameron, we call ourselves magic elves that are running the background and make it look easy for the host and the company so they can develop amazing relationships, create great content and run their business most importantly. For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. And I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships. And I have found no better way over the past decade to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions, go to rise25.com to learn more, and I’m excited. And thank you to Ashton Moore, who kind of formally informally introduced us via EO group. He runs ModelB. And as Cameron said, also a lot of bars and restaurants too. So Cameron Heffernan, he’s a serial entrepreneur, he’s lived and worked on three continents, launched a seven-figure marketing agency with clients all over the world, which we’ll see that’s kind of his special sauce and his specialty. Cameron founded yourb2bmarketing.co, which is globally focused strategic marketing agency. So it helps companies better articulate their value proposition to support their growth and their new market entry. And Cameron, thanks for joining me.

Cameron Heffernan  3:30 

Thanks, Jeremy. I’m excited to be here looking forward to it.

Jeremy Weisz  3:33 

We’ll dig into the continents thing, but um, just tell people a little bit about Your B2B Marketing. And what you do?

Cameron Heffernan  3:41 

Sure, Your B2B Marketing is a strategic communications and marketing agency that helps global businesses scale. And maybe to start with the last part, first, I mean, if any business wants to grow, I think that’s obvious. I think with a lot of mid-market companies, b2b companies in particular. There’s a there’s a maybe a deficit there and knowing well, what do we need to do from a marketing perspective? We’re really focused on product development or operations or building and growing team. But where should we start with the marketing and communications to make it clear what we do that’s different, special, unique, we had talked about the Dan Sinclair books, I think the last one that I didn’t read was 10X Is Easier Than 2X. And then there —

Jeremy Weisz  4:30 

Dan Sullivan, co-author with Benjamin Hardy that one?

Cameron Heffernan  4:33 

Yeah. And they talk about what is your unique ability, and really applying that to entrepreneurs, to founders, to owners of companies. And there’s a whole section, a whole chapter about that. I think that also applies to companies. And I think that our job as the marketing agency, is to really help them to identify what is their secret sauce, what’s their superpower. And to then articulate that.

Jeremy Weisz  5:03 

Love it. Yeah, totally. And so I want to, to get a little granular with this before we dig into because there’s several companies you helped, you branch out into different markets in different countries, which is not an easy feat to do. And we mentioned working on three continents. I know you did a lot of work in Europe and in Belgium, what brought you there?

Cameron Heffernan  5:30 

I was managing PR and communications for a Fortune 500 staffing company in the West Coast, I needed somebody to come in to run the communications and marketing function in Europe, for I think, 11 countries, seven languages, something like that. So they sent me over to do that. And that was 2000. Or no, sorry, that was yeah, 2008-2009 bad timing of the economy. But I managed to stay in Europe and did some communications consulting work there. And that led to me then founding starting my digital agency when I got back to the US.

Jeremy Weisz  6:04 

So when you first started, what services because you could do a lot of different types of services. Yeah, what were the services you decide to lead with coming out of the gate?

Cameron Heffernan  6:17 

I think, if I could go back and do that part of my life over with the knowledge I’ve gained since then it would make it a whole lot easier. I just kind of went with what I knew. And my background, my training, I was a journalist, I worked in technology journalism in the West Coast, and that’s where I kind of came from the world has changed so much since then. But I feel a lot of those fundamentals are still what we do every day. And we shouldn’t be doing storytelling, identifying with your audience, and focusing on what’s important and relevant to them, rather than what matters to us or to the client. And if I think as marketers, if we can crack that not, we’re well on our way to a successful program. I think we get the time I just was kind of an accidental entrepreneur, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I just kind of went with it. And one day I woke up, I bet all these people work has been I’ve got a seven-figure agency, how did that happen?

Jeremy Weisz  7:14 

What were some of the things you put in place to grow it? Because I feel like there’s a lot of accidental agency owners.

Cameron Heffernan  7:23 

Yeah, I think that’s true. I think I was focused a lot on business development. I’m finding who are the companies that we know need our solution. Reaching out to them, a lot of it was referral and word of mouth. I then learned how to do a more deliberate sort of proactive business development strategy. Another book that I should mention, is Predictable Revenues. I’m a big believer not approach. He was the guy who at the beginning was instrumental in Salesforce and how it grew and their marketing and their outreach approach. And that concept of predictable, regular consistent marketing and sales I call the flywheel that we know these inputs that we’re going to go and develop and build. And these will be the outputs of puts we can get from that it’s not going to happen right away. But over time, if we follow those steps, these things will happen, within this range of certainty. And I think at the beginning, I didn’t have a handle on that. I think a lot of what we do as entrepreneurs is in marketing to actually is let’s try something out. Let’s iterate let’s see what works. In the 10X Is Easier Than 2X book, they talk a lot about the courage to fail to try things and, you know, entrepreneurs gain a lot of battle scars from things that they did and didn’t work out and how many things that we’ve done, rather than seeing that as a failure and a flop and I should not be doing this as an incentive to pay that’s a great learning experience.

Jeremy Weisz  8:57 

How did you come to the niche that you serve? Because again, with what you do, you can serve a lot of different niches. So talk about the niche that you decide to go after?

Cameron Heffernan  9:09 

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it’s something that I would say to my clients, or prospects every time that we meet with them and look at there are a lot of companies that do X know, right here I am now in central Ohio, there are many companies that are digital media, marketing, multi-channel agencies. So we’re never going to be successful. I feel this, I say this to my team. We’re never going to be successful. Just being another agency. You know, another company that makes vanilla ice cream, it’s a really good vanilla ice cream. There’s a lot of companies that are doing that a lot of agencies that can do exactly what we do. So I feel it’s better. And again, this is right out of the 10x book and platform is let’s focus on the 20% that we do really, really well. Okay, what’s our special unique ability? What is our superpower? As a team, as an agency, let’s focus on and develop that. But that book starts within talking about how Michelangelo didn’t just go build David right from scratch, there are other things he did first and other a lot of work and effort that he did to learn what his expertise where it lie. And I feel that that’s what we’re, if we’re doing it well, that’s what we’re doing, you know, we’re really leaning into where are we different, special and unique. And that is working across borders, the knowledge of working in Europe, helping b2b companies from outside of the US to either get a foothold here to enter the US market for the first time, or to do what they’re doing here and grow, some of our customers that are based in Europe, they’ve got more of a maybe a sales function or a managing director with a limited operations team. They don’t have the marketing, they don’t have the communications. So I feel that our ability, our strength is to say, give us the keys to the marketing communications car, let us handle that you go and focus on business growth, working with mentoring your team, and we’ll handle that outreach, we’ll make sure that your messaging is on point that your messaging is directed to, again, to the people who really benefit from your unique ability as a company.

Jeremy Weisz  11:19 

What type of companies are those typically?

Cameron Heffernan  11:21 

I guess one common thread for our my client base currently is that concept of either wanting to reach or work across borders, whether they’re in the US, and they’ve either operations in another region of the world, like Latin America, or they want to, they’re in based in another continent, say, Europe or Asia. And they want to have effective communications and marketing strategy here. So just like if you were to launch a new business, you wouldn’t just let’s say that you’re based in Europe. And you wouldn’t just even if you’re in Ireland, or the UK, it’s not a language thing. But it’s really about, you’re going to start in a new country, you have no credibility, you don’t have the team that’s on the ground that knows that market. So the best thing is that you would be doing as a starting point is looking at who do we need there on the ground that knows the US market, and let’s work with those people, just the same as if I were to enter Europe for the first time, how different it would be, you know, GDPR, 22, some odd nation-states in the EU, that was one of the biggest differences that I encountered when I work there. Right from the outset, are the languages, right, Belgium alone is this Belgium is the size of Maryland’s a tiny country, but they have three official languages there. Okay. And then one of the reasons I was brought over because my English communication skills, which, which isn’t really enough to build a career on in this country, but I think it was essential to languages, there are some they have to deal with right out of the gate, and not something that we’re used to here. Unless you’re in a specialized business, or a bilingual kind of business, it’s not something you have to navigate there. It’s clear from the outset.

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