How Do You Market the Problem First?

In this episode, we interview Sam Kuehnle, a marketing expert who thrives on solving problems and leading innovative strategies for startups and SaaS companies.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why marketing the problem resonates more than promoting the solution.
• How to connect with your audience using real customer insights and language.
• The role of case studies, storytelling, and interactive content in B2B success.
• How to avoid becoming a commodity and stand out in crowded markets.
• Practical steps to align your entire company around solving customer problems.

Tune in to discover actionable strategies that will shift your marketing mindset and help you connect deeply with your audience.

Transcript

Ben (00:25)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Sam. Sam, welcome to the show.

Sam Kuehnle (00:30)
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Ben (00:31)
Yeah, I'm excited to have you here. Sam, this is going to be a fun discussion, but before we dive in, let's get to know you. We always ask a couple questions. What's your background? What have you done in marketing? And then on top of that, what do you love about content and marketing in general? Like, why is it exciting to you?

Sam Kuehnle (00:48)
All right. Background. Keep this short. grew up in a marketing agency family, went to school, knew I didn't want to be a doctor. No, I didn't want to be an engineer. So went the business route through different, roles in my career. Got to experience operations, got to experience digital, got to experience demand. that kind of all is just informed, like being this generalist, but I have the experience of knowing each of those where I can go deep, where I can apply different things. And I just love startups problems to solve for, like, how do you, how do you grow? How do you.

crack the problem versus red tape. You know, have to do it this way. We've always done it this way. You can chase me from an organization way too fast with that. that's kind of my marketing background. What's led to me to just like startup SaaS. Why do I love content and marketing? Because it's always changing. Like there's no one playbook. like that's exactly what I was just speaking to a minute ago. Like the organizations that follow the tried and true playbook, it's not going to work next to the exact playbook.

let alone five years, 10 years down the line. And so, and that's due to buyer behavior, human psychology, like what draws us, what platforms are all the rage right now, like watching LinkedIn try to pick up this TikTok feed is it's hilarious to But still the concept of like, how does written word work? How does audio work? How does video work? How do you short form versus long form and all that? So

Just being forced to solve problems. Cause I get bored quickly. Like there's no shortage of you have to figure out something new, something different, not just to keep up, but also to stand out from everyone else. So all of that in aggregate is just like my weird data geek happy place.

Ben (02:17)
I love it. That's awesome. So Sam, we're going to talk about something fun today. I saw one of your LinkedIn posts and this really kind of triggered a thought process where I wanted to dive into it. What you talked about is you should not market the solution. You should market the problem. And that kind of got the wheels turning. And obviously in your post, you did a great job of explaining it, but for anyone listening in, what do you mean by that? Why should we market the problem, not the solution?

Sam Kuehnle (02:42)
Yeah, and I'm not the person who coined this phrase, like, do not give me credit for this. I'm looking down on a book right now. Yuri Levine, he was the founder of Waze, but he's got a book called Fall in Love with the Problem, not the Solution. but it's the easiest concept of it is like, when someone wants to buy something, well, realistically, when do you ever want to buy something, especially in the B2B space? Never. You don't think like, I want that solution. I want to buy that brand. You're like, I have this problem that I need to solve.

who can help solve it. And so when you're marketing yourself, you can do it in two ways. You know, hi, I'm Loxo. We have the best talent intelligence platform in the world by our talent intelligence platform. People might not have any idea of who our brand is or what the heck a talent intelligence platform is. But if we say, Hey, are you struggling with finding the very best talent for your organization? Like, do you know how to find the right candidates? That's a problem that they're trying to solve for. So you can either keep beating this drum over here that people have no idea what you're saying or

When someone's finally like, yeah, like we've been struggling to hire this perfect VP of finance. remember seeing this company like Loxo or something about it. That's when they start to connect the dots between what it is that you do. And again, they don't care about solutions. No one really wants that. And especially when you're marketing to the 95 % of people who like they aren't in buying, they have a product. They don't want to buy anything right now. That's how you create this bridge between them understanding what it is that you do, what do you solve for? Cause at the end of the day, that's what they're buying is a solution to a problem, not a

solution or like a brand name product so to speak.

Ben (04:05)
I love that. So when you look at typical B2B marketing, what's kind of the contrast that you're noticing? Like obviously a lot of brands will go after the solution based marketing. How could they start to flip the script and get a little bit better about it? And there are so many channels where I feel like there's a different strategy in each one from like your advertising to your website, things like that. How, how can I, as a marketer say,

Okay, I need to be a little bit more problem oriented. How do I start to kind of adjust and move and transition into this kind of new world?

Sam Kuehnle (04:37)
Customer research. mean, that's going to be a big one at the end of the day. And it's not, yes, you, most people listening to this, probably a product market fit where they, where they work. You think you're going to know all the answers. Like here's what we do. Here's our value prop. Here's our mission statement. Here's what's on our website is our H1. But if you go and ask your customers like, Hey, pretend that you've never heard of our company before. How do you explain it to someone else who's in your exact role? How do you explain it to your parents? How do you explain it to your peers?

And it's usually going to be very different language. it's never going to be about like your, like, they helped me make more money. They helped me save time. They helped me become more like XYZ efficient or drive this ROI. It's always about like, it helps me to recruit. It helps me to find the best candidates quicker than other places or something like that. So when you understand that language, you can then use that to inform all of the content that you create. Cause usually people want to learn and understand like

how do I solve that problem? How has someone else similar to me solve that problem? And that's why the ads for like increase your ROI by a hundred X do way worse than, you know, find this organization that's exactly like you struggled with finding the perfect VP of finance. They just hired them, find out how like that's the thing that's going to get them interested because they want to see that story. They want to understand and put themselves in the shoes of that person. So.

They care more about like, are you solving the problem versus what's the solution that's supposed to do all this promise stuff. But if they can't contextualize this, then it all goes to not.

Ben (06:02)
I love it. It sounds like there's a big emphasis on the ability to get customers to talk about the pains that they were experiencing and telling their stories. Is that kind of a big part of the strategy? I mean, even that advertisement you talked about company XYZ was struggling to hire the specific role they just did. Is that how like a lot of this content is in place or are there is that kind of a mixed bag of other areas for your content marketing?

Sam Kuehnle (06:27)
Yeah, it's a mixed bag. That's just one example of it.

So yeah, along with the case studies, the, it's really easy to say like, and promise here's what we do. Write it on paper, write it in text on your website. We're a big fan of showing.

what it looks like. like you see this in interactive demos. We don't have an interactive demo. We do have, we call it like our pro trials. It's a freemium experience so you can get in and understand it. But that's the thing, especially when you're in a very competitive space, there's tons of options out there. It's like, I mean, go look at any website, number one, ATS in the world. And then you have like 10 websites saying that's like, well, which one's really number one. It's the whole like buddy, the elf best coffee conundrum, but,

When people see it in action for us, that's the aha moment. And that was what I was brought on to help people understand is like, have phenomenal win rates when people can do all this workflow in one place versus having to jump around. So it's like, well, instead of waiting for them to like get to the demo spot, why don't we proactively show that? Cause that's the aha moment. And so whether that's through video, just directly in the feed, different use cases, like how do you find the perfect candidate? How should you reach out to them?

How should you be evaluating tech that helps accomplish this? What's the best subject line to use in an outreach? All these different scenarios will just drop in different pieces of content. We'll do it through written. We'll do it through video and just proactively show that. Cause again, that's like these micro problems that people are struggling with day to day. And they're going to start seeing answers to that. And they're going to keep seeing that little loxo icon. So they're going to start saying, okay, like this is the company.

that works on these problems and buyers are very smart. I don't have to hit them over the head and say like, and Loxo solves this, get a demo today. Like they're going to know and create that association. So yeah, very much like just the days of being able to just say what you want the market to believe in them, take it at face value are gone. Like you have to back it up. And that's where I'm always gonna be a big believer in case studies, showing it and just like, you have to back up the talk with different pieces of content. And that's where it's brilliant to use.

Ben (08:16)
Yeah, I love that. And I love this whole approach to, it's not just how you talk about your product or the industry. It's how you approach content marketing. sounds like, Hey, these are every single problem that our audience could ever face as it relates to anything we do. You know, what's the right outreach? It sounds like it fuels your whole content engine. gives you a million ideas have had to provide value all focused on this. And I love that there's this dotted line.

If they know how to solve these problems, I'm guessing their solution can make all of this way better for me. And they love that association. Now, one of my things, it's kind of interesting. I don't know why my mind goes in this direction. You think about like old school cigarette ads and things like that, but they had to put on the box, know, cigarettes cause cancer. And there's all of this like fear-based advertising.

I'm not going to lie when I hear don't market a solution market a problem. I immediately think, okay, well, is this a little bit of a scare tactic? Things like that. How do you avoid that? Or do you lean into that? What are your thoughts on the fear based advertising when it comes to problem based advertising?

Sam Kuehnle (09:22)
haven't really thought about it, to be honest. I think more just in terms of differentiation. again, like goes back to like the category that we're in is so crowded. Everyone's marketing the solution. Everyone is marketing, like get a demo, do this, do that. And I'm watching people then just become a race to the bottom. Like all the brands are the same. All the features are mere identical. Okay, who's the lowest price point? Because they're all just trying to say, you know, we are all not trying to say this, but like,

They're all the same. They're all commodities at this point. If we want to create the relationship with a market that understands our value and also that becomes our competitive advantages. Yes. Like we do all this other stuff that they all do, but you can also see we have this unique knowledge. We truly understand you. We're not just some soulless VC back company that's trying to make as much money as possible and then we can sell out, but we want to help recruiters truly get better at what they do. And

There's a big difference. I'm sure you've talked to countless sales reps who you get the sense of like, do they know what they're talking about? Or are they just trying to sell me as quickly as they can? they a trusted advisor or are they just, you know, an order taker, so to speak. And when every interaction you have with a company is like, they truly get it. They get me, they get what I'm going through and they can help provide that expertise. Usually you have to pay consultants for that. You have to pay an agency for that. That's what you're getting also is part of

becoming a customer with us. And so that's one of those like when they start to see this, it becomes this other dotted line association that you were saying there of like, you're not just getting software, but you're getting all this knowledge, all this expertise, all this help that's going to help you be successful. Cause that's what leads us to be successful at the end.

Ben (10:55)
I love that. So you talk about every interaction with a company, they get it. How are you training and how are you like educating the entire business to really understand the problems that these people are going through and making them experts? Cause I'll be honest, I have talked to people who know how to do a demo, but they don't know what I'm feeling. They're like, yeah, that's an interesting use case. I have no idea how the product can solve that, but it would be interesting to hear.

How do you do that? How do you make that content and this philosophy actually company wide?

Sam Kuehnle (11:25)
Yeah. Two-pronged there's, and there's two ways that we do this. So one, lot of our sales team and a lot of our customer success team and a lot of our customer support team have recruitment backgrounds. They were recruiters. So they've been in the shoes of those people. They can talk the talk because they've walked the walk. They understand the ins and outs, the nuances, the jargon, all of that, like they are one of them. So they get that there. Then you have people.

engineers, product designers, marketers, our entire marketing team, none of us have recruiting background. Like, yeah, we've at companies that have helped make hires before, but we were never formal recruiters. So in those instances, it still comes down to hiring, the hiring profile. And we look for people, no matter whether they have recruitment background or not, but it's like that growth mindset. These are the people that just always want to learn. They always want a new challenge. They want to solve for something and improve and

with that comes the desire, like I want to know my market so I can market as well as I can to them. And that's only going to come through having that knowledge. Yes, we probably could find recruiters who want to be marketers, but that's the other side of the coin, so to speak. And if I go into our own platform and try to find recruiters who have the very specific skills that they would need for a VP of marketing also, that's going to be really hard, right? So, okay, you have two options. Do you hire a recruiter and train them up on the marketing skills? Or do you find someone who has the marketing skills with the

a voracious desire to learn this and learn the market and then apply that into it. And usually you'll find it's a little bit easier to go with the second route. So that's where really what we do on that side to get the whole company where it's like, they either have that innate knowledge and experience or they want to learn it and the learning curve because it's not forced upon them, but they have that desire to learn it is that much faster.

Ben (13:00)
I love that. And even like you mentioned, not every single role has to have that same background, but you have a lot of roles that do have the background and you have access to those people. Like it's so nice for you to be able to say, Hey, like what problem is this solving? Like what does this do? Or the engineer or the product team can come and talk to that support rep or that success rep or that sales rep who has that background. say,

This is going to make life so much easier because this, this, and this, and here's this little tidbit and this little insight. Here's the pain they're feeling at this moment in time. So I love that even though not everyone has that background, you've got enough that you probably have access to way more subject matter experts than a lot of other people do. Is that kind of how that works in your business?

Sam Kuehnle (13:43)
Exactly. Yeah. And you led right into that. was going to say like, even though, you know, you might have one subject matter expert who came from a certain job board company, one subject matter expert who came from a certain type of recruitment that might be in sales, that might be a product engineer. When a certain scenario comes up, say we have a new customer that's onboarding in this segment, we have an engineer who used to work over there. We'll connect them, say like, Hey, go chat with them understate. Like you can be our translator, so to speak. And we do that all the time where regardless of like

You're not a sales rep, your sales rep, you're in customer success. We pull each other back and forth to help one. helps with just the internal knowledge. Those people who want to learn, they get to learn that much faster. And two, with the relationship side with the customer, when they see and they can relate to all. So I'm like, perfect. Like, yeah, you're, you're, you're my type of person. Like let's talk. And just that, that goes back to what we were saying earlier, where when they see that we have that knowledge, we get them. Cause that's the biggest thing when it comes to software analysis, it's like, are you built for my specific type of recruitment? Are you.

built for the very specific thing that I'm trying to accomplish. When they see that and feel out there, they're okay, no other company has this or very few do this. Like they're investing me. I know that this is going to work.

Ben (14:47)
I love that. Well, Sam, there's a lot of insights and learnings. I really love this episode. There's so much to dig into. I'm guessing people will have additional questions, though. If they want to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?

Sam Kuehnle (15:00)
Yeah, LinkedIn, I'm very active on there. Shoot me a DM. I have a sub stack. So samkeenley.substack.com. You can shoot DMs on there as well as usual, but long form and then our website, loxo.co. So really easy to find us in any of those.

Ben (15:13)
Love it. And we will link to Sam's profile on the show notes. Again, he has great content on there. So give him a follow, connect with him. Sam, again, thank you so much for the time and insights today.

Sam Kuehnle (15:22)
Yeah, this is fun. Thanks man.