Discover the Secrets of B2B Marketing Automation with Jon Farah | Ep 012

Ian (00:02.62)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Optimize Your Marketing Podcast. My name is Ian Binek I'm the founder of Optimize Your Marketing. And today I am joined by Jon Farah He is the founder of PBLC. It is a B2B SaaS marketing automation agency. Jon, we're so happy to have you today. How are you doing?

Jon Farah (00:21.134)
I'm pumped to be here. I'm doing great and I'm doing even better now that we're chatting.

Ian (00:27.272)
Awesome. That makes me so happy. I have to say, you're actually our first actual guest on the podcast. We've been doing all these solo recordings beforehand, so this is a really cool opportunity just to have someone as awesome as you on the podcast. I really just love the kickoff season two here. For my listeners, what I want to say, what you can expect. We're going to be talking about Jon's agency, what it does, why it's important.

Jon Farah (00:28.75)
Thank you, sir.

Ian (00:56.808)
for every company out there to be doing it. Then we're gonna discuss a little bit more about where he's seeing success in the industry, as well as some things that we think are overhyped and underhyped in the marketing space. And then last, we'll wrap up with just some mental health questions that all entrepreneurs are probably coping with and think to themselves every single day. We're gonna kinda talk through how we handle stress. So with that being said.

I'm going to dive right in. Jon, could you tell us a little bit more about what you do at PBLC?

Jon Farah (01:28.714)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm happy to. So at PBLC, we work with B2B SaaS brands, and we create marketing automations that span the full life cycle of their prospects and users. So how that comes to life, I kind of categorize it into two key categories, one of which is pre-purchase marketing automations. These are everything pipeline related. So all the marketing content that

Jon Farah (01:57.214)
all the way through to purchasing. And then we also handle post purchase automations. So these are primarily user communications that are going to inform, educate, and ultimately drive more on platform engagement for users after they come on. So our marketing automation, like I mentioned, spans the full life cycle from pre-purchase to post-purchase for B2B SaaS brands.

Ian (02:22.344)
That's awesome. Yeah, that's such a, I mean, it's such a needed thing and I think a lot of brands don't really utilize it to its fullest capacity. Could you tell us a little bit about like, how you guys are different from competitors? I mean, I'm sure it's a crowded space. A lot of marketing agencies are in, they're just infested in all of these areas. And so like, how do you try to stand out and differentiate yourself?

Jon Farah (02:45.354)
Yeah, it's something I've been thinking a lot about. Ian, like you and I, for the listeners, we've been in touch for over a year now, I think was the first time that we chatted. And when we initially connected, we were working on these things and doing a little bit of everything and understanding what our offering is. Would you say the same? Like when we originally connected, it was like we were both in these worlds of, hey, I'm doing these five things, right? And trying to identify what's most valuable.

Ian (03:15.524)
Yeah, I would definitely say, I mean, I think in my situation too, I mean, I just, sometimes you're just throwing spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks really and like, I don't know, I think there's an infinite number of ways that you can actually just differentiate yourself whether it's through like personal connection with the clients or maybe the way you're building clientele. I mean, there's just tons of things you could be doing so I just find it kind of interesting to, you know, see, yeah.

Jon Farah (03:39.454)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I'd say the first order of business for me was understanding the offering. And it took a while to get to what I just walked through a minute or two ago as to exactly what we do and creating an offering that resonates with the ICP as well like the clients that we wanna work with.

But primarily how I'd say we differentiate ourselves today is I come from a big agency background, having the opportunity to work with like Fortune 50 clients and understanding how programs like the program that we implement for our clients affects folks across the organization and different teams. Right? So having understanding as to exactly how to implement and scale.

across a complex organization is really what sets us apart from other folks that are kind of more potentially narrowly focused and only focus on the actual deliverable in play versus the impact across the organization.

Ian (04:47.396)
Yeah, yeah, I know that's so cool. I think that's a really good way to differentiate yourself, especially at the enterprise level experience. Honestly, I think kind of just on the topic of finding that flow for the listeners and other agency owners out there that are kind of thinking about how do I come to the market and actually differentiate myself? And even just like the processes and systems that they're gonna create. I would say this, I think don't be...

so worried about the scalability of your offer when you get started, because there's gonna be like economies of scale as you grow, you're gonna get better at certain things. You might have team members that handle things really well over time. And so what might seem like an unscalable thing at the beginning, actually could turn into something really scalable later on. And that just means that you could have higher margins at the end of the day. So it sounds like you have a great flow now, Jon.

Jon Farah (05:44.566)
Well, on that topic, you know, that's a really good point, Ian. I think we should dive into that a little bit more because it is so important to avoid like analysis paralysis as you're getting started. And like, because essentially what you said there, the way that I interpreted it was you will find ways to differentiate down the road. What's most important is getting started initially. And Alex Hermosy has this framework about differentiation where he essentially says, like, when you're getting started.

You can do something faster, better, or cheaper. Just pick one. Right? Because if you're doing something faster, you're gonna start focusing on like, how do I deliver more immediately versus the competition? If you're gonna do it better, it's something like more so kind of what I talked about, where hey, we have the ability to really see across an organization and implement things effectively for the long term and scalability. And then if you're gonna do it cheaper, that's pretty easy, right? You just get some data on exactly what.

Ian (06:16.624)
Yep. Yeah.

Ian (06:38.605)
Yeah.

Jon Farah (06:40.086)
your competitors are charging and deliver it at least as good and as fast as they do, but for a few dollars less. So I thought that was a really interesting insight that you mentioned and I think something that you and I both have experienced in the last few years where it's just about starting, right? And then you ultimately learn by trial.

Ian (06:47.662)
Yeah.

Ian (07:00.836)
Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think also as an agency owner, it's worth testing all three of those that you mentioned. I mean, I've done the whole faster and then the whole like, oh, like very white glove approach and then also just the cheaper. And I don't know, they all have their pros and cons. So I mean, it's really just like your behavior and how you like to operate. So that's really cool. I really like that insight.

Jon Farah (07:21.453)
Yep.

Ian (07:30.729)
I want to get into the next question. So what are you seeing that is successful right now? What is successful right now at PBLC in terms of your lifecycle automations?

Jon Farah (07:44.202)
Yeah, I think that I like that you added in that question, like what right now, because I think that it's always changing. And that's what's most exciting about what we do in marketing. I really got into advertising and marketing initially because of the human psychology side of it, just understanding the consumer and how that plays into what we execute as marketers and. Ultimately aligning.

the actions you're taking, what you're doing and where you're seeing results with what your audience or what your customer or consumer wants, needs and indicates is important to them will always evolve. And right now, what we're seeing most in automation work that we're doing with clients is primarily post purchase, the opportunity to what I like to call drive organizational penetration where what we're doing, we work with

like I mentioned, B2B or enterprise software products. And we're using post purchase user communications to further embed our clients' products in their users' customers' organization. So how that comes to life is, ultimately we identify a champion for the org, and then we utilize them, drive them, urge them to bring more users on across our organizations.

even if they're in different departments. And ultimately what this does is it further embeds the product in their process and how they do business. So there's a short term need for the product because it's so good, but there's a long term reason to retain it because it's so embedded in the way that they do business.

Ian (09:28.392)
That's so cool, man. Yeah, I love that you're picking a champion. I think I come from the advertising side of things. And so there's actually the campaigns that we'll run at times, especially for larger organizations or account-based marketing campaigns, is, hey, let's hit up account executives and try to get our foot in the door with these guys because...

They have their hand on the pulse, essentially, of the business, right? They know how much deal flow is coming through. They know how many inbounds from the marketing side are coming through, and if it's not really that good, then maybe they can kind of champion us in there and come in and optimize the marketing campaigns and start to actually bring them more deals, which is good for them because they make commission off those deals, so they want more deals. So that's, yeah, I love that approach, man. I think that's really smart.

Jon Farah (10:21.41)
Thanks and that totally makes sense what you had outlined like identifying opportunities to

Sometimes, you know, we talk especially in B2B software products in the sales process about identifying and driving results with stakeholders instead of decision makers. And sometimes it's just about identifying folks that are most impacted by a problem and earmarking them as champions to ultimately impact the decision maker who's going to sign on the dotted line. It's more of a long-term sales play.

But clearly, on the advertising side, if you're seeing results from a similar approach, like I think there's relevancy across the board to implement more of that long tail strategy.

Ian (11:09.452)
Yeah. I mean, referrals are such a big thing. And even though the referral might be coming from the same company, it doesn't really negate the fact that people aren't really going to buy from you or your agency unless they've heard of you before or have consumed some of your content or someone they trust is recommending them to you. So yeah, all of it works together. I think it's such a cool concept.

almost like it's referral marketing, I guess you could say. Yeah. Cool, so now we're gonna get into some of the fun part here. Not that it wasn't already fun, but I really wanna talk about something that, I don't think anyone talks about this in digital marketing, but what is the most overhyped thing that you hear about on a daily basis?

Jon Farah (11:40.163)
Definitely.

Jon Farah (11:46.146)
I'm going to go to bed.

Ian (12:03.048)
or just regularly enough that people are swearing by it, but then you as an expert are like, I think this is just like a load of baloney. So like, what do you think is the most overhyped thing in the digital marketing world?

Jon Farah (12:15.711)
Yeah, yeah, and I think I'm this is I this topic is always interesting, right? Because there's a lot out there that we can talk about. I think for the work that I'm doing right now, it's AI only tools. And let me let me explain a little bit more. So it's really the creation and potentially implementation of end to end AI tools. So tools that

Ian (12:34.181)
Yeah, please.

Jon Farah (12:43.522)
do everything from the strategy to the creative development and the execution, all via AI. And I almost related to the first person to send an email, right, because it was great that they could send the email and they had a computer, but no one had a computer to receive it. Like everyone else still needed to receive letters. So I think that ultimately, like, that these tools will evolve over time and become super relevant. I just think it's a little bit early.

Ian (13:04.06)
Yeah.

Jon Farah (13:13.37)
Right? Are you seeing like some similar things with AI where potentially the tools that are coming out for the work that we're doing is a little bit too, you know, ahead early?

Ian (13:25.2)
Yeah, I will say this. I 100% agree with you on AI in general right now. I think for it specifically to maybe narrow down on one piece of that is writing content and thought leadership. It's funny, if you look at my old content from a year ago, I was all about no code and SaaS.

Jon Farah (13:33.294)
Mm.

Ian (13:52.508)
and using AI to automate things that traditionally would take a lot of time. For a while there, the market was not aware. They didn't know if something was AI written or not. But it's a year from then, I would just say almost all people that are writing content, they're using some sort of AI. A lot of it talks the same way. Whether you tell it to...

Jon Farah (13:57.483)
Right.

Ian (14:21.4)
have a bold tone or a casual tone, you can tell it's AI written. And the thing that's bad about it is it's not just in blogs, which people are doing it primarily because they want to rank higher in Google for SEO, but if someone clicks to that blog, it's kind of crappy. It doesn't really answer that question. And...

Jon Farah (14:36.856)
Yeah.

Ian (14:44.696)
What's even worse is some bigger companies like enterprises are using it to write like ebooks and white papers because it can like make them in a day, you know, where it normally would take seven to 14 days to write an ebook. And the thing is, is like it also is crap. Like it doesn't make sense and it's not like quote unquote thought leadership. So I think, I think it's overhyped and there's tons of tools out there right now that are selling the AI blog content stuff, but I think it's really going to go away.

pretty soon and or people are going to go back to, hey I want to actually read human written things. So either it's going to get better, hopefully it does, or humans come back and get back and saddle.

Jon Farah (15:27.166)
Yeah, I know that you and I have our ear to the ground across the agency and marketing services world. I won't be surprised if a year from now we see like anti AI agencies where it's like, Hey, once the data starts to show that there's a significant step back. For utilizing AI only tools and that human touch is driving better results. I think that we'll see it in like value propositions.

Ian (15:56.268)
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's funny when AI first came out too, I was like, oh, we should just be like the first AI marketing agency. And I mean, when you think about it, it's like, I don't, that's, you know, AI is there to save you time. Why would you work with an agency for AI specifically, especially with like kind of results that we're seeing now and like, you know, Google came out saying it penalized AI written content by 40% the other day.

Jon Farah (16:05.099)
Yes.

Jon Farah (16:20.895)
I'm sorry.

Ian (16:22.904)
And I think it's only just gonna trend more in that direction as time goes on. So yeah, I mean, we'll see, man. It's just really interesting.

Jon Farah (16:32.082)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Ian (16:36.405)
Awesome. So let's get into maybe more of a positive light here. So what do you think is the most underrated thing that digital marketers are not talking about, business owners are not using? What do you think is the most underrated thing?

Jon Farah (16:49.27)
Yeah, man, I was actually going to talk about AI a little bit again, because...

Ian (16:52.955)
Okay.

Jon Farah (16:57.99)
I think the hardest thing to do in the creative space is start from zero. Start with a blank piece of paper and say, hey, write a five page essay. I think we can all relate to like remembering back in our younger years when we had to do that as being one of the hardest things to do. However, coming up with a premise and evolving something that already exists, essentially acting like an editor in a way.

Ian (17:15.26)
Yeah

Jon Farah (17:27.326)
It's something that we can all do. So I think if you're not using II tools right now to at least aid in your creative process, whether it's, you know, I'm not a creative executionally, right, I'm not designing any work or writing a tight enough copy necessarily, but if you can use it to aid in your strategy, if you can use it conversationally to help when you have some of those like blank mind, blank piece of paper moments.

or ultimately to help you organize your thoughts. I think if you're not using it as a tool, you're almost like not taking advantage of having the first iPhone in a way. So I think that what we just agreed on was like, hey, it's not viable for end-to-end execution of a project. However, if you're not using it as an aid and a tool to optimize your human process and approach, you could be missing out.

So that's something right now that I found, and I just recently embraced this over the last few months or so, and by no means has it made a groundbreaking impact, but I noticed that some of those moments where I'm struggling to get to the next step, it's a great aid.

Ian (18:43.188)
Yeah, I actually like, I really resonate with that. As much as it sounded like I was so anti-AI before, it was just because people were clicking two buttons and then being done with something that normally takes a long time. So, but I 100% agree with you. In terms of like getting an outline, maybe even saying, hey, like for SEO purposes, I need to put these 100 related keywords in this really long form blog that I just wrote. Can you help me?

Like that is a great usage of AI, but I don't think a lot of people are doing that right now, but I still think that, yeah, especially the small businesses too, and even the startups, they're not doing that, and I think it's because maybe SEO's not important, or maybe that's just not something they wanna focus on, but it could save them a lot of time, and they could still develop some really quality stuff, so I love that answer, man.

Jon Farah (19:34.422)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the analogy that I like to use for how we're both using AI is like, hey, if I need to get somewhere that's too, if I need to get to my office two miles away from home, I can take my bike or I can spend like 60 cents in gas, take my car, and then what could I potentially do with those other like 10 minutes that I save? Could I like spend an extra moment with my dog or with my girlfriend or like what, you know, where can I potentially make?

Ian (19:49.559)
Yeah.

Jon Farah (20:03.134)
other impacts in my life because I use that mechanism of efficiency.

Ian (20:07.852)
Yeah, yeah, just all about the toolkit at the end of the day. I think almost in a sense, in the digital marketing world, like we're technologists, we just adapt to technology quickly and then use it to do things that take a lot of time. And then you still have that human oversight, but I mean, yeah, you just gotta use what you got. That's cool. All right, so getting into the last question we have today. I really wanna talk about stress.

Jon Farah (20:11.775)
Yeah.

Ian (20:37.224)
as an entrepreneur, as someone who owns an agency, both of us can relate to this. I'm sure a lot of our listeners probably can as well. So I mean, how do you decompress, man? Like after a long day, maybe you worked more than 10 hours or something like that. Maybe you were in calls six hours of the day. Like maybe you had a fire, you know, pop up and something completely blew up for you. How do you handle that, man? Like how do you rest your...

Jon Farah (21:05.098)
That's a good question. It's something that I haven't really become intentional about until like four or five years ago, just my life in general, how I approach this. And I approach it on the, a small scale and a large scale almost. So on a smaller scale, I have daily things that I prioritize. Um, I really got into exercise in college, um, initially without any sort of mental health intent in mind.

more so just to connect with other people that I wanted to work out with. And ultimately over time, I've maintained that practice of like lifting every morning, Monday to Friday, because it allows me to like physically experience life how I want to, but also mentally, I start my day with a very hard challenge, right? And anything else that comes at me throughout the day.

is probably less of a challenge than like what I put myself through every morning in a way. So I ultimately try to get like, I know that things are going to come to me, they're going to be challenging. So I almost try to go to it to start the day, go to challenge, overcome those challenges as far as like the exercise and the early wake up and all of this to soften the day a little bit. And then nightly, I always walk my dog. I

I never prioritize anything over making sure that I do that. I found that at the end of a walk I have some of my best ideas. I'm the most creatively inspired. I'm the most intentional about things that I hadn't had a moment to consider in my life or my work. So those are the two things I kind of like butt end the day. I kind of start the day and I'm like, hey.

hard 530 alarm, loud alarm, go do something really challenging, take on the day from there and then at the end of the day I almost take things much more calmly and enjoy a walk and enjoy my dog that I really enjoy spending time with and just having him has been such an amazing addition to my life over the past many years. And then lastly, on a larger scale, things that I do every now and again.

Jon Farah (23:32.13)
I kind of focus on like two physical things. So the first of which is hiking. I read a study once that folks that live near the beach or near the mountains are statistically like the most relaxed because they're reminded every day about how small they are. Because you look at this big mountain range, you look at this vast ocean and you say, well, I'm just one of many million ants on this planet. And mountains remind me of that.

Ian (23:48.543)
Yeah.

Jon Farah (24:01.282)
So I like to go for hikes. The dog also loves a good hike. So I want to hike every now and again. And then also golfing. I like recently fell back in love with golfing. I did it a lot when I was a kid. And it just gives me the opportunity to have active relaxation, as I like to call it. Like it's mentally engaging. I can't be thinking about other things while I'm doing it. And it's also a great way to just enjoy being outside, relax and connect with other people.

Ian (24:06.288)
Yeah

Ian (24:33.552)
I love all those things, man. I think I have a couple things that I took away, I think at least in terms of like, I'm very similar to you, or at least used to be. I, excuse me, hold on. Okay. Generally speaking, I call it eating the frog or eat the toad in the morning. So you do the hardest thing. And so I don't.

Jon Farah (24:34.626)
Thank you.

Jon Farah (24:55.234)
Mm-hmm.

Ian (25:00.096)
I used to work out in the morning before I did stuff. Now I just like far-over-tie sleep. And I take my workouts like during the day because I find that my stress levels like really get high around like one to two-ish. So like I'm actually like at the time of recording this, I'm thinking about working out soon. But I mean, generally, yeah, in the morning, like I'm gonna do my hardest thing possible. So it's like all my energy, all my focus goes to that thing.

Jon Farah (25:13.646)
Yeah.

Ian (25:26.576)
get that done, now I know that almost everything else is going to be easy. Now obviously, if I have a stressful meeting or maybe I'm trying to close a client and so I'm stressed, there's a lot at stake here, I'll prep as much as I possibly can for that. So I'm basically doing the meeting ahead of time. I'm walking through the whole talk track and everything. So that's sort of how I handle my stress too. But yeah, in terms of after work, man, I'll just say this, I think

I think the classic like nine to five schedule is pretty outdated. I think it's okay to work before like standard working hours or after. I can't tell you the number of friends that I have that like ended up starting like software companies or whatever and they just work like in the in the nighttime. Their day starts at six o'clock and they'll go to like two at night and that's just like what they like and they like to wake up at 10 a.m. And you know that's just like what they do.

Jon Farah (26:08.046)
Yeah.

Jon Farah (26:20.7)
Thank you.

Jon Farah (26:26.26)
Yes.

Ian (26:27.06)
So, hey, I think it's like to each their own. I think just don't let societal norms really like weigh on you and feel like you have to operate in certain time frames.

Jon Farah (26:37.362)
Yeah, most definitely. Like on that topic of kind of identifying what works for you, I think that's what's most important on this topic, right? Like something I learned about myself a few years ago is like if I can start my day with small wins, that will snowball into overcoming the voice in my mind that says like, oh no, you don't have to do that. You can just do it tomorrow. Like for example, I never leave my bedroom now without the bed being made.

Ian (27:04.676)
Oh, nice.

Jon Farah (27:04.99)
And that's just my easiest. It's a 50, it's a 30 second win for the day. And then the winds just snowball from there. I think that we, we think about things like, oh, I need to get this huge project that's gonna take me two hours done, or I need to dedicate time to prepping for a pitch. But just like you outlined, I think if you can.

find a way to get it done in a way that is conducive to and aligns with how you've organized your day, then that's great. If it is during your workout is when you're getting ready for that call or that conversation, that's perfect.

Ian (27:44.824)
Yeah, yeah, it's like operational efficiencies, like try to do things that stack, where there's some synergy there. And I think it's good. Like I used to run a lot too. I haven't since I ran a marathon and then I just like cut out running like since. So I've been just like, you know, I go on walks now and that's what I do. And when I go on my walks, I'll either journal or voice memo or literally just think about like.

Jon Farah (28:00.34)
Yeah.

Ian (28:11.824)
something that needs to get done, and then I come back and then I just do it. And I feel like it was just, you know, synodist. I move my body and then stay healthy and all that. So, this is great, man. I feel like we had some really good stuff here today on the podcast. I hope as listeners, you guys all found this useful as well. We're gonna be doing these once or twice a month, maybe more, but I'll commit to once or twice a month for now, so. You know, Jon, it was a pleasure having you on the call.

I really enjoyed it. We gotta do this again, maybe in like another couple months, see where we're at. And yeah, we'll take it from there.

Jon Farah (28:48.306)
Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. And if I can, if I can leave folks here with one closing note and something that I've learned from our relationship is as you're starting in a new endeavor, whatever it may be in life, find someone who's aiming to be on a similar track and is potentially along a similar stop as to where you are, because you can help each other out immensely. And that's ultimately.

how our relationship has evolved, which I very much so appreciate. So I think that that's like the biggest air quotes hack that I'd recommend to people. Like find someone who is on a similar journey, generally in a similar area, and stay in touch in a way that, you know, you could potentially find opportunities to help each other out and collaborate.

Ian (29:23.708)
Thank you.

Ian (29:35.908)
Yeah, I love that man, I 100% agree.

Jon Farah (29:38.614)
Thanks for having me on today, man. I appreciate it.

Ian (29:41.657)
Thanks, Jon. Take care, everyone.

Jon Farah (29:43.096)
Thanks again.

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