In this episode of The Business Startup Podcast, marketing technical services isn’t just about explaining what you do, but it’s also about helping the right people understand why it matters.

In this episode, the team discusses the unique challenges of marketing within IT and B2B industries, where buying decisions involve multiple stakeholders, complex solutions, and long decision cycles. Drawing from real experiences at binary10, the conversation explores how businesses can balance technical depth with clear communication, ensuring both specialists and senior decision-makers feel confident in the value being delivered.

From translating technical expertise into business outcomes to understanding how trust is built through people and relationships, this episode is all about practical insight into positioning a consultancy for sustainable growth.

Whether you’re a founder, marketer, consultant, or business leader, this episode provides a grounded look at how effective marketing connects expertise with impact without oversimplifying what makes your business unique.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why marketing at B2B technical services is challenging 01:11

• Understanding the different priorities within a B2B buying committee 02:09

• The challenge that binary10 faced 03:20

• How customer validation strengthens brand positioning 05:45

• Communicating value to both technical experts and senior executives 07:50

• The importance of approaching different sectors differently 10:00

• Thinking about the different dimensions 12:05

• The fundamentals of marketing 13:01

• What is the success for binary10 14:58

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by an AI tool that did its best, but it's never met different British accents it could fully decode. Expect a few funny mistakes. Enjoy!

[00:22] - James B

Welcome to the Binary10 podcast. My name's James Blake, I'm the CEO of Binary 10.

[00:28] - Steve S

And my name is Steve Smales, and I am the Chief Operating Officer.

[00:32] - James B

Hello, good afternoon Steve. How are you doing?

[00:34] - Steve S

Good afternoon Jamie, I'm doing good. How are you?

[00:36] - James B

Really excited about today. Well, it's going to be good, right? Because today we're going to turn them tables. You know, these podcasts, we've done a few podcasts now, and they're going great, you know, and it's fantastic talking about the subject. But we've brought Andy along with us today, and we want to talk about marketing.

[00:53] - Andi J

Yeah.

[00:54] - James B

You know a lot about marketing.

[00:55] - Andi J

A little bit. I like to think so.

[00:57] - James B

But I think what we want to do, the reason we say turn the tables is because we want to put to you, you know, you had the challenge, we came to you and said, Andy, we're, you know, we're growing our data migration business. How on earth are we going to market this?

[01:10] - Andi J

It's challenging. When you study marketing at university or wherever you study and you, you often spend a lot of time looking at case studies of consumer goods. How did Nike do this? Or... Amazon took X to Y, and here's what they did. And you go, this is it, I know marketing. And then, as you get out into the real world, 50% of marketers go and work in B2B. And none of that stuff, well, a lot of the stuff makes sense, but it's not quite as easy to promote data migration as it is to do a new shoe from Nike or something like that. So it's challenging to find the bits that you want to talk about and the bits that you're going to build on, but it's all there within the organisation. So. While from the outside it might seem like a really, really tough challenge to promote Binary 10, it actually very quickly became really quite easy because of the work you've been doing in the past. And I can take you through a bit of the process if you like. Yeah.

[02:06] - James B

Yeah. And just quickly, what do you mean by B2B? I never remember what that slogan is. No, no.

[02:12] - Andi J

No. It's good. Marketers are famous for talking in acronym. Well, everyone is really in their own sector. So you've got business-to-business, B2B, and B2C, business-to-consumer. There's a lot of...there's a lot more similarities than most marketers would ever admit between the two the difference

is is that often the products that you're marketing when it's consumer are much shorter sales cycles and much more desirable so if you think of buying a new hoodie or buying a new car there's a kind of a really obvious honest repeatable sales cycle so you know you need a new car typically for most

people every three years or whenever a life change event happens Great. You need a new T-shirt because your last ones were worn out or you're going on holiday. And these things happen. And it's quite a short decision-making process. There you go. With B2B, business-to-business, often the ticket price is higher. Often it's a buying committee. You've got to influence, in your case, maybe the chief technology officer, the chief information officer, the senior leadership, plus the people around

the organisation. There might be 10, 15, or 20 people involved. The budget's significant. The cycle could be 18 months before.

[03:19] - James B

But a lot of it's quite the same too, yeah and I think that's brilliant, and i think the challenge that we had or at least the challenge we brought to you, was that you know we've been going for a few years, you know our business is building but everything we got Steve wasn't it was it was word of mouth

You know, which is fantastic. You know we were quite proud of that and actually, we liked that you know that's the best way it's a positive sign, but yeah, but yeah we need you know to expand properly we need to start getting people in from from outside, the people who've already worked with us before, so.

[03:46] - Steve S

Obviously, we came to you. I mean what i'm really interested in is when we first came to you and we said data migration consultancy what were your initial thoughts because it's complete it's not something that anyone will have marketed before because it's such a niche service that we offer.

[04:03] - Andi J

I mean the first word the first word that comes to mind is what?

[04:08] - Steve S

And then panic.

[04:09] - Andi J

Yes so in my deep and dark history I did once work with a company who made ball bearings very small ball bearings so that was that gives you A bit of an insight into how to take a product that isn't perhaps all that sexy and find something interesting about it, which can be challenging in ball

bearings. But I think there's more to you than the ball bearing sector.

[04:30] - Steve S

We're very sexy. Very sexy. Some days.

[04:32] - Andi J

Some days. But what you find when you first start to look at it, and I love coming to new sectors. Some marketers hate it, some marketers just work in one sector all the time. But the beauty of

coming to a new sector is you have to ask a lot of questions. If I've worked with 20 data migration consultancies, you kind of come with the answers. We'll do this, we'll do this. You can't do that when you're new to a sector. And the first thing you notice when you look around is... Everyone looks exactly the same. You might be called different names, but a lot of the colour schemes are quite similar, the language that you use, quite similar. Going back to acronyms and sort of use of them, all

the language looks the same, and you're like DM cycles and... cutovers and hyper cares and you all use the same language to talk about the same things selling to the same people and he said say me say me say me say me and actually then you go well it is that's why you're getting a lot of word of mouth because no one thinks because when they think I've got a problem of this, they don't think binary 10. They just think what's the easiest way to get to an answer? I'll ask that person who's done it before. And that's where it goes. So the trick, I think, for binary10 was to find what would make you stand out and would make you be a little bit different. And you said the great answer that everybody says when you ask this question is, are people makers different? And I would say nine out of 10 of my clients tell me, are people makers different? And then you go to their website and you look. you look at the website, there's no mention of their people anyway. You can't see anything about them. And then you speak to their clients, their customers, and they never mention the people. They just say, oh, they were cheap. So what was really interesting when you said, it's how people that make us different, I then said, right, can I speak to some of your customers? And you put me in front of four or five customers, I think. And I spoke to them and I recorded some interviews with them, and every one of them said, it was almost like they were reading a script. Binary 10,

amazing people, great customer service. they went the extra mile they were part of our team and it was they were just everybody was saying the same thing different companies different sectors and I was like this is actually true you know you you actually mean this and when I've pushed them on

what about other places that you've worked isn't this the same across the sector like no it's not you're like that's where you have the point of difference the people do actually make you different here at Binary10. And it's not just you saying it, validated by customers. Customers who keep referring other people to you and keep coming back with more business. So once you've got that, we've got something to work with.

[07:03] - James B

Yeah. And I, and I mean, I gotta be careful. I could pass a lot of love your way. So I've got to try and calm down a little bit, but you know, I was super impressed about, you know, and I think you sort of said it there where, you know, how, how are you going to understand what we're talking about? You know, like, are we going to have to take you through like a whole one Oh one of what data migration is or hence what these podcasts are doing in part, but no, you're absolutely right. You, you took on,

you know, the mantle to really understand our world, you know, speak to our people, understand what we do, even to the point where I thought, Remember you. produced a product pack for us that talked about data migration and I was even reading it going yeah this is great this is this is what data migration does oh my god let's hire this guy to do other stuff um but no and and i think you know but that is part of the challenge isn't it i think in order to to expand and get beyond you know the the

normal stakeholders and the normal people that we work with right you know that the cfos the program delivery people to get it wider than that you almost have to simplify what we do and you know it's difficult to do that right because we're passionate about it and we almost don't want to simplify it because it you feel like it devalues it somewhat but actually it's the opposite.

[08:07] - Andi J

There's a really there's a fine line and one of the beauties of starting from the outside is that you you have to ask those questions but i'm never going to be a data migration specialist but i don't need to because you are but you've got to remember that buying committee of people you've got to influence you've got uh product managers or project managers and people who are in the weeds and are going to be leading that project and they're going to want that level of detail that you've got

they're going to want to sit and go through that 800 page power point and want to know line by line in the detail they're not the only decision maker the chief finance officer might be signing this off at some point um the ceo might be involved because it's a significant budget line for the next year in a sector if it's he for example where budgets are reducing they don't want that level of detail they need to understand it almost on my level of what's the depth to it right okay i get that they almost need the

summary that you're going to do these six things it's going to take this length of time and these people are going to be involved it's going to cost this much can you do this do i believe you're going to do it can i trust it what are the people who are technical saying they're nodding along what the

budget people sitting there then you've got to influence four or five people who care about four or five different things and if you just focus on the hyper technical bit you miss out on those three or four other people. And that's the bit that I think I was trying to do, is to kind of not change the technical understanding, but pull you back a little bit for the other people in the room so that they could get it without dumbing it down too much. Because if you just look dumb...

[09:39] - James B

You're not going to tell it to anybody yeah and i also like and again you would say some stuff and it would just go from the end and i'd be like oh of course you know why haven't we really thought about this and one of those you just mentioned it was sector where you know we had actually probably delivered for three or four different sectors public sector retail sector manufacturing but never really thought about the care or the approach or the direction of what that sector cares about

or you know what what's what's coming up in that sector and i remember having a conversation with you for some say so what sectors you're approaching and and how are you targeting them and I was like uh we're not you know oh my god of course you know and how i mean how important is that you know do you find that because we're you know we were we're lucky in a way that we can offer products and we can offer services that all sectors you know can can sort of take on but actually it's almost a bit scary as well isn't it that we almost have to get that expertise in every single sector yeah and i think at the risk of contradicting myself having said it's great when you come to a

sector new and you can ask a lot of questions there is an.

[10:39] - Andi J

Element of that as well and a lot of the skills you have can you can pick up and move between different sectors because the the migration of the data is relatively standard but the the nuances of the sector do do change quite a lot between retail and between he and various other things so you have to be careful of just sort of trying being a bit too generalist and not being for anybody but The thing that you find when we start to focus on sectors is that you can be really attuned to the rhythm of their business. So in retail, where I know you've done a lot of work, Steve, Christmas is a huge time. You know, that final quarter between October... and December, a lot of retailers can do 50% of their revenue in those three months, if not more, depending on the type of retail they are. You can't do data migration or anything that's really critical to their business during that time. And you've done some work in the entertainment. sector where easter to october half term in the northern hemisphere is the key time again you can't do anything there higher education different timings a level results day can't do anything around there it's summer everyone's on holiday now and even just those little things of what matters to people in different places and what are the levels of sign off and things like that and where do people have budget responsibility and when you start to get that people just go they can just relax the shoulders a little bit and go you know this and it kind of gets you through the door and gets you talking about more things.

[12:06] - James B

But what a complex world. And then I imagine, what if you had the dimension of obviously, you know, location, you know, global, like different countries, you know, religions, you know, beliefs, different holidays. I mean, you add that in as well and there's a lot to consider, isn't there? To get it right, to pitch it right.

[12:21] - Andi J

I've got another client who does a lot with a Chinese company and the first three years they worked with this Chinese company, it seemed to catch them by surprise that all the... of China shut down for the Chinese New Year and when I say shut down I mean it's literally shuts down they couldn't get an

email response they couldn't get their emergency contact on any emergency number nothing for two weeks and then they come back like yep New Year's over now what do you what is it you need and it was the the Chinese were just looking at them going of course there was no one here it was New Year and the Brits were looking at them going but we needed you why weren't you there and you've got to really understand those local nuances as you start to move but it all starts with the foundation of good marketing are really simple it's understand the customer the person you're trying to sell to and understand what you do that's better or different or faster or quicker or cheaper than everyone

else and once you've got those two things you can build everything else on top of that and obviously you've been working with us over.

[13:19] - Steve S

A year now you've got us heavily involved in linkedin marketing strategy for that website podcasts that we're doing now and just thinking back um are you happy with how it's gone Are we as a company very different to work with than say other companies you worked with before?

[13:36] - Andi J

Yeah, look, things have moved on greatly and I'm not going to sit here and take all the credit for that. Raina, who's not in the room, is doing a lot of the heavy lifting to make that happen. But also the changes that the two of you have made to your roles, to create the time to allow that to happen and being influential in that change. I think that the hardest bit... working with binary10 is often the easiest bit of working with some other clients which is the the kind of the final step which is the

promotion so if you are doing go back to the car example if you're selling cars it's really easy once you've nailed the company and the customer you say right where are we going to tell people about this right well we can tell them about it in high footfall areas and we can put it on we're talking we're selling to older men so we know what tv programs they watch and what channels they use and it's really easy to do the promotion bit but But with binary 10, we've got all the building blocks in place

and it's like now where do we go to find cfos and go oh but it's actually cios in that industry and it's the tos over there in that industry and where do they go and how do we find them and how do we get the message that's actually a really tricky part of it so there's a lot more work to do to try and get those next couple of steps but you know where we've come from to where we are now i think there's been a great journey so far and.

[14:46] - James B

I think god i almost want to catch you out with the question but i don't think i'm gonna be able to um i'm thinking what is a real hard question I can ask but I think I think So what would you then, to sort of close it out, what would you say is success for you? So in terms of, yes, we've got a marketing strategy, we've implemented it, this is the outcome, and it's been a success because of A, B, and C. What are those factors?

[15:10] - Andi J

I think that the sales cycle in this sector can be quite long. And you know those projects you've talked about, and you're like, oh, it'll be, and then six months later and 12 months later. But I think success, what we're always looking for is business objectives. So... A project to land that we can very clearly draw back to some form of marketing activity. Now, you know, there are multiple things that take place. There might be somebody who started work there, used to work here, but something I can say, someone saw this or saw us at this thing, then made an inquiry, then we followed it through and then followed it. And that could take 18 months, it could take two years, but hopefully in the next 12 months we should be starting to see some of that activity dropping out. So then there's a pound sign at the end of this and you can go, oh. we spent this and we made that that's where you start to see real success that makes sense you see and that's why when you go on the websites and stuff and you see that oh where did you hear from us was it on google was it in an advert was it here and i guess that is what that is right that's them trying to trace that back just as you back through yeah follow it through so being and it can be hard sometimes and sometimes someone will say oh no no no we we just um we we stumbled across you accidentally and then you

find out three months later this they actually saw your someone had listened to three podcasts they saw you at an event They Googled you, they checked your services out, mentioned it to somebody, and then the person who they mentioned it to didn't do any of that work, then just went, I'll get in touch with these Binary10 guys. So it can be hard to trace back, but being able to follow that through, that would be a real success where you can go, this money, this revenue has been generated from our marketing activity. That's success.

[16:43] - James B

Brilliant. Brilliant. And that's taught me that I thought data migration was hard. and that it was the most complex thing you could do and that's why I do it. Boy, it is. I mean, it is, but also, like you say, getting the marketing right and the strategy and all the different variables and all the things that

you've got to consider, I mean, that's been a real eye-opener for me.

[17:00] - Steve S

Yeah, well, it's like we said before about the DM resourcing. It's getting the right people in place, you know, that's what they call it, round pegs in round holes, and getting experts in their field. And that's what we do, but we recognise that we can do the marketing ourselves.

[17:15] - Andi J

And that's what and that do you know what there's too many businesses who haven't made that decision now we'll keep doing it ourselves and understanding that and looking at that next growth the decisions you made a couple of years ago at the decisions that got you to this period of growth at the minute so you know you've done the hard way the hard bit not me well.

[17:33] - James B

No but no i mean i'm sure i talk for steve as well but thank you because you've definitely taken us to that next level i mean we're doing a podcast i mean we wouldn't we just wouldn't be doing we wouldn't even have about it and actually We found it so rewarding, you know, and we've had lots of really positive feedback on it, you know, for lots of reasons.

[17:48] - Andi J

Thousands of views as well. Thousands of views.

[17:51] - James B

There's an amount of people out there. Nothing better to do, obviously. No, maybe not. But no, no, thank you ever so much. And like you say, we're just partway through this journey and I can't wait to see where it takes us next.

[18:01] - Steve S

It's been great, Andy. Thanks. Thanks very much.

[18:03] - Andi J

Thanks for having me.

[18:04] - James B

Thanks a lot. We'll see you next time.

[18:05] - Steve S

See you next time. We really hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you for joining our podcasts.

[18:12] - James B

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