Refine Labs has had a seismic impact on B2B marketing.

Whether you agree with their philosophy or not, it's hard to deny its influence. They've set the agenda, defined the terms of the debate, and challenged many aspects of the status quo.

Former CEO Chris Walker catapulted the agency to prominence with his LinkedIn thought leadership. But behind the scenes, there's also been an intricate operational odyssey to scale Refine Labs from scratch to nearly 100 employees.

Today's guest, Megan Bowen, partnered with Chris from the beginning as COO before taking over as CEO in January of 2024. In this no-holds-barred episode, she shares an operational perspective on building Refine Labs, with candid stories and insights about scaling a service-based business, riding the hyper-growth rollercoaster, and weathering economic storms.

Many thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak.

If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform.

You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button.

What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners.

Try Knak

Over her 20+ year career, Megan Bowen has built and scaled go-to-market teams at eChalk, ZocDoc, Grubhub/Seamless (IPO: 2014), ManagedbyQ (WeWork Acquisition: 2019) and Platterz.

In 2020, she teamed up with the Founder of Refine Labs to change the way B2B companies go-to-market.

Today, she is the CEO of Refine Labs, A B2B Demand Generation Agency.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganwhitebowen/

• [00:00] - Introduction
• [01:32] - Megan’s background
• [07:06] - Building Refine Labs
• [14:15] - Stepping into the CEO role
• [16:34] - Prioritizing the health of your team
• [21:56] - Segmenting clients and service levels
• [23:54] - Packaging, pricing, and service design
• [25:46] - Transparency in the sales process
• [27:43] - Achieving consistent service quality when scaling the team
• [31:21] - Onboarding process
• [31:59] - Balancing supply and demand in agency staffing
• [35:23] - Transparency around layoffs
• [37:12] - Evolution of Refine Labs methodology
• [40:36] - Partnership with Aspireship

• Refine Labs | Leading B2B Demand Generation Agency
• Refine Labs x Aspireship - Get subsidized access to the Refine Labs IP library with Aspireship.

Visit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter:

Newsletter

I think marketing is one of the toughest functions to lead successfully.

Your job is part art, part science. You need to hire, coach, and retain talent with a huge range of skillsets that you may even not be master of yourself—from the creative to the analytical to the technical.

And then your job is to simultaneously create demand, capture demand, help sales convert that demand, help customer success retain and expand that demand...your job is never done.

Today we chat with one of my favourite marketing leaders, Thao Ngo. We'll explore her unconventional marketing strategy and also her leadership playbook—how she grows her team and creates an environment where people do their best work.

Many thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak.

If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform.

You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button.

What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners.

Try Knak

Thao Ngo is a senior B2B marketing leader with 20+ years of experience in building world-class teams, generating sales-ready leads, and creating brand awareness for tech companies of various sizes. She's led marketing teams at Elastic Path, Vision Critical, and SensorUp, and is currently SVP of Marketing at Uptempo.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thaongo/

• [00:00] - Introduction
• [01:09] - What makes a great marketer?
• [02:40] - Evolution of marketing skills
• [04:48] - How to use data
• [06:25] - Marketing leadership and operating rhythms
• [09:30] - Trust and psychological safety
• [12:49] - Coaching and feedback
• [24:32] - First hires on a marketing team
• [25:43] - Division of labour between CMO and VP
• [28:05] - What keeps Thao up at night
• [29:47] - The marketing planning process
• [36:24] - Influencer / community marketing programs
• [47:13] - A day in the life of Thao

• Live MOps Huddles

Visit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter:

Newsletter

More and more marketers are embracing demand creation as a strategy, at least in principle.

But making a fundamental GTM change is HARD.

You need to build executive alignment, define new KPIs, identify how to educate your target audience, fine-tune your content engine, and a whole lot more.

As VP of Demand Gen at Refine Labs, Sam Kuehnle has been a big part of the movement evangelizing a shift from lead gen to demand gen and has helped many companies make the transition.

Now he's leading a similar shift as an in-house marketing leader.

We go deep into what it takes to actually implement this strategy in practice, go beyond leads, and deliver real revenue impact.

Many thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak.

If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform.

You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that’s slick, modern and beautiful. When they’re done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button.

What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it’s got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners.

Try Knak

Sam Kuehnle is VP of Marketing at Loxo, the Talent Intelligence Platform. From working in-house at a publicly-traded company, to advising seed stage companies trying to figure out how to crack their first $1M in ARR, to everything in-between, Sam is passionate about learning and sharing better ways to do marketing.

• [00:00] - Introduction
• [01:37] - Sam’s marketing experience before Refine Labs
• [06:33] - Joining Refine Labs
• [08:11] - Refine Labs onboarding process
• [10:21] - A typical engagement + aligning with customer teams
• [13:36] - How to communicate a demand creation strategy
• [20:26] - Identifying the right mix of channels / platforms
• [25:02] - Leading indicators for demand creation
• [26:45] - Brand awareness vs. demand creation
• [31:32] - Evolution during Sam’s tenure at Refine
• [33:33] - The band-wagon effect and how to identify the best practices of tomorrow
• [35:11] - Joining Loxo
• [37:10] - Sam’s first priorities after going in house
• [41:38] - LinkedIn ad strategy
• [45:09] - Experiments with Connected TV
• [51:35] - ChatGPT as a marketing channel

• Sam's Marketing Meditations - Sam's Substack

Visit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter:

Newsletter