Break Free B2B Marketing: Sarah Barnes-Humphrey of Shipz and The Art of Consistent Change

For more than a decade our team at TopRank Marketing has fostered a potent community of leading influencers, developing close relationships with subject matter experts in a wide variety of industries.

When it comes to B2B influencer marketing, it’s only natural to wonder just what an influencer actually looks like?

In our third season of Break Free B2B Marketing video interviews, we’re continuing in-depth conversations with a powerful selection of top B2B influencers, and taking a close look at the issues that each expert is influential about in their industry.

Every successful B2B influencer has a rare mix of the 5 Ps — proficiency, personality, publishing, promotion, and popularity — as our CEO Lee Odden has outlined in “5 Key Traits of the Best B2B Influencers.”

Holding all of these qualities and many more is Sarah Barnes-Humphrey, CEO at Shipz, who we’re delighted to be profiling today.

Supply chain: the steps that need to be taken in order to get a product or service into the hands of the consumer. It’s a complicated process, and it’s one that matters to many B2B marketers. Why? Because if the supply chain breaks down, you won’t have anything to market. A successfully managed supply chain can weather unforeseen circumstances — like a surprise year long quarantine — while helping businesses to reduce cost and remain competitive.

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey is a pro when it comes to talking about supply chain. She’s the CEO of Shipz Inc., bridging gaps between shipping providers and mid-market importers. She hosts the Let’s Talk Supply Chain podcast, covering topics that matter to those in the supply chain business. She’s been labeled as one of the Top 100 Women Leaders in Supply Chain and has earned that distinction over a successful twenty year career. Long story short: if you want to learn something about the role of the supply chain in modern business, you’re going to want to hear what she has to say.

These reasons are precisely why TopRank Marketing’s own Joshua Nite interviewed her for today’s new episode of the Break Free B2B Marketing interview series.

Break Free B2B Interview with Sarah Barnes-Humphrey

If you’re interested in checking out a particular portion of the discussion, you can find a quick general outline below, as well as a few excerpts that stood out to us.

• 1:48 – What has the pandemic done to supply chain?
• 4:22 – What technologies are being used to handle changes in supply chain?
• 5:49 – Increased attention on the supply chain: is that good or bad?
• 6:50 – Internal collaboration and how it impacts supply chain
• 7:17 – Do you think the progress currently being made with supply chain will last?
• 8:11 – What can marketing leaders do to reach out to supply chain folks?
• 9:25 – Breaking down organizational barriers to make room for supply chain
• 10:40 – What mistakes are being made in supply chain that should be getting corrected?
• 13:45 – How should B2B leaders right now be adapting so that they can have a great 2021 and beyond?
• 17:08 – How Sarah found her following and successfully launched her podcast
• 20:06 – What Sarah believes keeps her audience coming back
• 23:05 – When being approached for contributions or interviews, what things make you more likely to say yes?
• 25:17 – How to juggle multiple big projects and still find success
• 27:43 – Where should people go to find Sarah’s content?

Josh: Do you feel like we’re seeing some good progress? And do you think that this is going to stick once we get back to what I’m laughingly referring to as normal, should we ever get there? Do you think there’s some progress being made, and are these lasting changes?

Sarah: I would hope so. I mean, I don’t have a crystal ball. So I don’t really know what that’s going to look like, but I would absolutely hope so. On my show, I say that collaboration is the future of business, and I truly believe that. I think the only way forward is to really be able to understand what your colleagues in marketing, or understand what your colleagues in customer service, or understand what your colleagues in procurement are going through, and what they do on a day-to-day basis that can really enhance what you’re doing as an individual in your department to really create the best environment and the most accept success for the company that you’re working for.

[bctt tweet=”“I think the only way forward is to really be able to understand what your colleagues in marketing, customer service, or procurement are going through.” @bevictoryus #BreakFreeB2B #supplychain” username=”toprank”]

Josh: That makes a lot of sense. So prepare for change, and expect the unexpected, but also expect the unexpected?

Sarah: Yes, absolutely. It’s tough being a leader out there, whether you’re in marketing, supply chain, or what have you. It’s tough — they’re being pulled in a lot of different directions, and nobody really knows where that’s going to fall.

You know, some companies are staying remote till, some conferences have been canceled, up until April 2021. So how do you prepare for that, when you’ve got a conference that you’re supposed to be putting on in March? What do you do when you don’t even know whether you can go ahead with that? What are the parameters around that? Are we going to have to provide proof of vaccine before we go to a conference? And is everybody going to be able to get the vaccine prior to that? I don’t know. What is the insurance that you’re going to be able to get around that event? That’s going to be based on a lot of factors from a marketing standpoint.

Everything’s going virtual, everything’s going digital, and everybody is looking at different ways to really get their story out there, and they can’t really plan as far ahead as they used to.

[bctt tweet=”“Everything’s going virtual, everything’s going digital, everybody is looking at different ways to really get their story out there. And they can’t really plan as far ahead as they used to.” @bevictoryus #BreakFreeB2B #supplychain” username=”toprank”]

Keep your eye on the TopRank Marketing Blog and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Break Free B2B interviews. Also check out episodes from season 1 and season 2.

Take your B2B marketing to new heights by checking out out previous season 3 episodes of Break Free B2B Marketing:

• Episode 1: Kevin L. Jackson, GC GlobalNet — The Future of Cloud Computing
• Episode 2: Tim Crawford, AVOA — The New Normal
• Episode 3: Oliver Christie, PertexaHealthTech — The Future of Artificial Intelligence
• Episode 4: Liam McIvor Martin, Time Doctor — Trends in Remote Work

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