Episode 180: Lifecycle marketing in 2026: How to engage with buyers in AI era with Ashley Faus

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This is the Full Funnel BTP marketing podcast, brought to
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you by full Funnel Dot Yo.
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Let's starve, I have one and welcome to the new
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episode of Full Final Life. After a short break of
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our from our Full Funnel signate and because of the easter,
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we're back with the new episode and today we have
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one of our speakers, Ashley Fowles. Probably some of you
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have attended Ashley session and our signat and today we
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are gon kind of talk or dive a little bit
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deeper into that topic. Also just ask the life cycle
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marketing in twenty twenty six and beyond tend As always,
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you guys are very welcome to ask any questions. Ashley,
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thanks a lot again for joining me today.
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Yeah, thanks for having me cool.
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So guys as always, Yeah, welcome to ask any questions
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in the chat and let us know. I see that
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slowly people are joining us live. Let us know where
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you all join us from. And while you're type and
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I would love to ask or basically kick off our
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chat with the question about the life cycle marketing. So
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the idea behind the life cycle marketing was always to
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deliver the right message at the right time to the
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right person, right according to the journey stage. But honestly,
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maybe I'm wrong. I'm just sharing my subjective opinion, right,
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But with Yeses, kind of the entire idea behind the
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life cycle marketing completely transformed, and we developed these stages,
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We developed the metrics MKL, SQURL, etc. And many companies
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became so obsessed with these metrics that we build all
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go to marketsgy around it. And I'm seeing sometimes kind
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of situations that you can't even imagine, especially in enterprise organizations,
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where marketers try to gamify the game just you know,
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to hit the engagement score, because whenever a specific contact
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will hit eighty points, they will get a credit for this,
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and they have the stage one, stage two you know
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in sales force, so they could report on it, but
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there is no real joint collaboration and revenue creation. So
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I feel that this entire framework on generating mkls convert
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on them in sqls basically let us to focus on
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volume and automation and the kind of the goal to
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hit this engagement score. My question is how did we
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get here?
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Yeah?
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Oh man, so many things to unpack in all of this.
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I think.
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The first thing that I think we should kind of
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talk about is like, what is life cycle marketing and
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how is it different from product marketing or performance marketing
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or brand marketing or content marketing. Right, Like, there's all
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of these different disciplines, and I feel like life cycle
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marketing is kind of an interesting space, in large part
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to your point with this evolution of like such a
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strong focus on that MQL or SQL conversion. Historically life
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cycle marketing and this is like a very you know,
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B to B SaaS thing, right, you know, I won't
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touch the consumer side of it, but this idea of
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the lifetime value of the customer. And so life cycle
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marketing was actually originally meant to kind of combat this
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MQL SQL like short term demand gen conversion mindset because
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we realize, particularly in SaaS, that we have to keep
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winning and rewinning the hearts, minds and wallet of our audience.
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And so we were like, well, how do we balance
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that need to grow these people long term with our
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need to generate revenue in this quarter? Right, And they
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were like, new plan, We're going to make up a
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new term. It's going to be life cycle marketing. And
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historically life cycle marketing was actually for growth expansion, cross selling,
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up selling. Right, It's like, cool, we're going to have
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demand gen and performance marketing to land the net new logos.
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Those people just need to get the initial sale and
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then you know, we're going to have these other people
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who focus on actually growing and retaining these customers. And unfortunately,
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because of that, it means that any of the adoption
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onboarding time to value all of those types of metrics
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that are actually kind of hard to measure and take
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a lot more time. They started to go over into
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the life cycle side and got separated from revenue, and
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then you have this, you know again, as it happens
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every five to ten years, something happens where it's like, oh, no,
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there's a money crunch, there's a funding crunch.
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We're not growing fifty sixty percent year over year.
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Okay, life cycle marketing, you guys need to be generating
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revenue too, And they're like, well, we were with our
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upgrades and our cross seals and our and our uh,
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you know, expansions, right, And so somehow it like came
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full circle back into basically demand gen and they were like, well,
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life cycle, how do you prove that you were generating
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long term revenue? And so they ended up stuck back
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in the same bucket of like, okay, well we have
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to have leading indicators. We're going to do this idea
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of implicit intent instead of explicit intent, And so they
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basically fell into the same trap as demand gen, performance marketing,
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et cetera, that as marketers, we want proof that what
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we're doing is working so we can do more of it,
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and so we need some leading indicators.
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And unfortunately, when you think that.
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You have and something easy to met you know, easy
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to meture, easy to show in a dashboard, and in theory,
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easy to game basically, or the charitable version, easy to influence,
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that becomes the north star instead of a leading indicator
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that you are directionally going in the right right way right.
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And so from my perspective, that's how we ended up here.
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We started it's kind of the same way that we
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ended up separating brand from demand gen and performance marketing. Right.
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Brand is like long term and they need the.
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Freedom to not be so focused on, you know, short
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term revenue, and brand has basically come almost full circle
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to be like, you guys need to prove that you're
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driving revenue right life cycle. Same thing it was like,
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we need to look at the lifetime value of the customer,
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but we've come full circle. So I think it's a
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combination of the time that we're in right now, particularly
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with AI, has put a lot of pressure on traditional
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marketing thinking, practice, metrics, tactics, strategy, et cetera, and so
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we basically are just everything right now is moving into
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what is the easy is to measure that appears to
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have a direct one to one correlation between a dollar
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spent and hopefully more dollars out.
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So a little bit of a big answer.
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I'm like, let's sit back and talk about what lifecycle
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marketing was actually meant to do. But I think that
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that context really matters when we talk about how do
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we get here with We've circled all the way back
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to the MQL being the north star, when in fact
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that was always meant to just be a leading indicator
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for directional strategy and tactics.
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Yes, I thought I'd like a here as you and
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you mentioned and obviously today I actually read a post
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right before our podcast, and I think it was from
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jen aland Note and she said that she's talking now
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to companies and they say, hey, if like if your
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product can be integrated with Claude or Gonku're not buying it.
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So it's like, literally and you probably have seen the
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memor right that now like all linkedn't feed is just cloud, right,
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everybody has cloud headshots, et cetera. So indeed, aiware and
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it seems that, I mean, there are tons of products
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which I'm observing and I'm using the air and AI
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features which honestly shouldn't be edited at all because they
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don't bring any real but that is what it is.
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AI is here. So a couple of questions, what's the
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role of AI in live cycle marketing? And what do
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you need to have in place to make AI working
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for you?
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So one thing I went on a whole tangent in
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a conversation yesterday, this idea that like AI has this
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separate role, right, that it's like this new thing. And
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and the analogy I made is, if you're building a house,
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the hammer does not build the house. Frankly, the general
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contractor does not build the house, right, the general contractor
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is generally doing all the planning and coordinating and running
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the crew and making sure they have.
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The tools they need. Right.
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The way that nails actually get hammered into wood is
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that a human picks up a hammer and literally bangs
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on the nail and puts it into the wood, right,
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And so I feel like it's the same question with AI, right,
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this idea that AI is the hammer that's just magically
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doing all of this work, and like, how do we
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get the how does the hammer build the house?
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Like in any other context we would.
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Never say how would how does the hammer fit in
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to build a house? It's like a human grabs a
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tool for a purpose and uses it.
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And so I think that.
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The reminder that AI is a tool that humans use
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and should be a our ability to get something done,
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you know, faster, with higher quality, et cetera. So, when
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we think about this from a life cycle marketing perspective,
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one of the biggest things that life cycle marketing is
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able to do because they are usually working with existing customers,
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we have a lot more information about what these people
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are doing inside the product, how they're using it, what
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problems they're solving, who else on their team they're bringing
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into the products.
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Et cetera. And so because of that, in theory, we should.
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Be able to deliver more of the right message at
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the right time in the right place because we have
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more information. And so that context is what we need
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as the foundation to make AI useful in this discipline,
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to personalize, to make the right recommendations, and to help
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hone things like the product tours, the onboarding emails, all
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of that. It's not just okay, they've taken the five
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actions that we know generally precede someone being willing to
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upgrade or expand. Haha, now is the time for us
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to send them an email that's like upgrade, right, Like, yes,
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you can use it for that.
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However, you should also be using it to improve your
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product tours, to improve your activation, to improve your monthly
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active users, right, to deliver educational content to the person
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to help them get more value faster from the product. So,
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from my perspective, AI, particularly for life cycle marketers, is
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very useful in personalization, true personalization to.
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Help someone solve the problem. And a foundational element that
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you need is making sure that you have all of
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the context and all of the clean data. So again,
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particularly in a larger enterprise SaaS. So if we think
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about it lastly, and for example, we have a number
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of different products. Those products are highly integrated and most
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of those products work better together. Right if you have
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GIRA and confluence and loom. With AI, you can now
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turn that loom note taker that you bring into your meeting,
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it'll do tasks. You can literally have it create, you know,
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a project plan for you in confluence, you can convert
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that information into jeer at tickets right, Like that is
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very powerful. In the past, a human had to sit
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there and take notes or furiously type or watch the
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recording and try to export the transcript and then say, Okay,
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we said Andre was going to do this work. I
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now have to go assigne a ticket to Andre. Right,
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That's that use case for AI helps the humans do things.
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And I now know, because I have full context, Ashley
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and Andre work together on these types of projects. Andre
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tends to handle these types of tasks. Ashley tends to
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handle these types of tasks. Right that level of context,
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it's now, okay, AI paired with the life cycle marketer
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is now helping Ashley and Andre do their work better.
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Like that's a completely different mindset. Then I saw Andre
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logged in. Haha, I can show it an upgrade message.
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Now it's like, dude hasn't done anything right and again
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knowing which product to recommend next.
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Okay, actually, an Andre or Marketers, we should if they have.
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Confluence, we should probably recommend loom not Bitbucket.
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Like why would we.
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Recommend a code repo to the marketers. We wouldn't do that, right,
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So that's like a very basic example. But again being
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able to coordinate all of these signals to help the
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audience take an action that solves their problem. And yes,
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maybe that means they need a higher addition for more
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users or more features, but the mindset is really about
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that context to help the user get more value, not
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just like waiting to pounce until we can show them
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the right upgrade, expand cross sell message.
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It's a fantastic example to be honest, And you said
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you need to have clean data, right, you need to
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have the context and direct me if I'm wrong. But
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that means that you need to have a close work
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with the product team, so they need to pringk you
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the data about the behavior of these users. And I'd
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say I was always voting for this because first of all, okay,
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we we operate an enterprise world and a lot of
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companies they think about expansion, right, but how expansion happens,
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it's in many cases it's very similar to what you
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have described. Was the only difference that account executive receives
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an account with a note, Okay, this is our existent customer.
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They bought this and you can sell way more things
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to them, right, So what an account executive what they're
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doing typically, right, they just try to find all other
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buyers and just send them the typical outbound candants, right,
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maybe seven to ten touches and nothing. So there's no
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real use is decomposition, right, there is no understanding of
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who are the power users? Like you said, Okay, we're
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in market and we're doing this and that, right, So
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for us, this is our value right there is I mean,
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we can maybe put away the entire expansion play. But
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what I feel where the biggest gap is is this
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context right about how the product is being used for
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what specific purposes? Right, how often and by whom? And
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this is the key because let's say if you have
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I don't know, a stakeholder who just locks into the
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product once a week or once and once to look
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at the dashboard and then move away, right, you don't
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need to attack with all the kind of tiny features. Hey,
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you can do this and that, and even more so
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this is this is kind of the biggest problem, which
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again leads us to the entire philosophy of how the
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team should be organized, cross functional collaboration. Right, So maybe
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the main question is any you can share your experience
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at a classon or maybe any ideas, any tips how
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to achieve this cuss financial collaboration and get this context.
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Yeah.
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So one thing that's interesting that I think for us,
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we actually have an advantage in this, and that's because
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we started with product led growth.
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So for a fair portion of our history we were
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exclusively PLG.
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We didn't have a sales team, we didn't do outbound like,
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we didn't do that style of marketing.
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And because of.
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That, we have a really strong understanding and you know,
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interest in those product metrics. And it's it's interesting I
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see a question here in the chat about like what
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are the pipeline stages in life cycle marketing and the
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metrics for BDRs, And for me coming up with such
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a PLG focused mindset, I'm like, no, you wouldn't. This
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isn't about basically like, it's just fascinating for me, right
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because because to me, this question from a sales led
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perspective and the mindset that you described, where an AE
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basically gets a list of the accounts and it's like, Okay,
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here's the customers, here's how much they're spending today. Here's
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their market cap or their revenue. This means that they
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have the potential to spend this much money with us.
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Go chase them, and they're basically just flying blind to
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your point. They're going they're trying to identify other buyers,
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et cetera. Right from a PLG perspective, we almost exclusively
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rely on the end product metrics and so understanding. We
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call them sticky actions. What are the things that people
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are doing that indicate that they are using the products
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and that they are getting value from them. So, for example,
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in Gira, creating your first project, that is a sticky action.
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Inviting a team to collaborate rate or assigning a ticket
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to someone that is a sticky action. Right, same thing
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in Confluence creating your first page, tagging somebody on that page,
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publishing that page, sharing that page. Those are very sticky
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actions because they start to bring other people into the product.
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And so.
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It's in terms of how to organize the team. We
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have historically actually collaborated very closely with our product marketing
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folks because they are the ones who are influencing a
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lot of that onboarding and product tour and those kinds
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of things, because historically there was no sales team, right,
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it was basically PMM and PM saying how do we
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how do we make the product sticky? And so I
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think there's a variety of different ways to organize the team.
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I have seen life Cycle sit more in a Demand
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Gen type of team because again, when you think about it,
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with the traditional looping decision journey, which uh we have.
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I have some aversion to the traditional linear funnel and
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the looping decision journey because again it's very focused on
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marketers forcing people down this buy intent path instead of
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letting them chart their own path. But I've seen life
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Cycle basically sit with Demand Gen because they are considered
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in a looping decision journey that cross sell, up sell
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expansion motion.
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So you've got traditional demand Gen.
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That does the awareness consideration decision portions, and then you
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PLoP life Cycle into that and then it starts it
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over right. I've also seen life Cycle sit in more
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of a customer success organization because again, the understanding that
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value precedes expansion, and customer success is traditionally tasked with
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ensuring that customers get value before they will buy. So
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I've actually I've also seen life cycle sit in a
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CSM organization very rarely more in smaller organizations, product marketing
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will take on a lot of the tasks and metrics
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associated with life cycle marketing, so things like monthly octave users,
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things like upgrades, things like you know, optimizing kind of
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the end product experience to show like hey, would you
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be interested in, you know, inviting your teammate or would
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you be interested in sharing this page? Right, like take
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the next sticky action that often sits in PMM, particularly
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in smaller organizations. So I don't think there's a right structure.
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I think that the hard part is again that mindset
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shift around value, not just immediately selling the very next thing, right.
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So yeah, it's it's it's an interesting thing in terms
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of where it should sit and how it should be structured.
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But I've seen it different ways, just depending on how
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the organization thinks about it. If if they're more on
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the PLG side, I've seen it tend to sit excuse me,
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more in either product marketing or customer success. In a
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more sales like organization, it tends to sit in the
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demand and organization. I think I do think in both
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cases collaborating very closely with PMM.
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Depending on the function.
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In a PLG organization, PMMs tend to act more like
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a general manager of their business line, versus in a
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sales lead organization, PMM tends to do more sales enablement,
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battle cards, market research, competitive research to inform what sales
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is going out with. So some of it I think
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does depend heavily on how PMM is organized, But I
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do think in either side either organization, those should be
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very closely tied.
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I love it. Before we'll move forward, I have a
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few questions from our community just to part of the
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topic of metrics and c IM set up. So the
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question from my how to valid gaps opportunities with our
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and NORCH and life cycle programs. And the second question
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is what are the top level metrics you are tracking.
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In terms of gaps? Can you can you repeat the
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question about gaps?
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Yeah, how to avaliate the gaps and opportunities with how
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and NARCH and life cycle programs.
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Okay, so I think there in all cases, Uh, my
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approach is to use leading and lagging indicators and then
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to match those metrics with the core intent.
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So one thing as marketers, we struggle with a little bit. Right.
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We love a buy intent CTA, right, sign up, upgrade,
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contact sales, et cetera. We also love a use intent CTA,
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so log in, use the template, book office hours, if
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you're a services provider, et cetera. But the reality is
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there are more intents besides just buy intent and use intents.
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So one is a trust or affinity intent.
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The other is true learn intent, which is based on
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the practices, the communication, the process, et cetera.
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To help somebody improve how they work. And then the
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final one is help or remediation intent.
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So something's broken if you forgot your password, if you
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don't know how to set something up bags another intent.
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So we want to match our metrics, both leading and
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lagging indicators to each intent. And the thing that gets
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a little quirky with kind of nurture and life cycle programs.
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Even this idea of nurturing right that is also used
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in demand gen So how do we nurture somebody to
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go from awareness to consideration, from consideration to purchase. The
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metrics that are associated there generally are focused more on
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buy intent metrics. Book a demo, contact sales, activate a
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free trial, request, a proposal, et cetera. From a life
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cycle perspective, we tend to focus more on the use
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intent metrics. So sign up, book a, you know, start
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a project, create a page. If you're in a CRM,
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right like export or report would be would be a
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use intent hint metric. So that's that's what I would say,
400
00:24:03.599 --> 00:24:08.720
is basically understanding the intent of your metrics. Again, for
401
00:24:08.799 --> 00:24:11.839
life cycle, it tends to be primarily focused on use intent.
402
00:24:12.599 --> 00:24:15.079
I do think one thing that we see and there's
403
00:24:16.079 --> 00:24:17.559
you know, a lot of data on this from a
404
00:24:17.640 --> 00:24:22.359
number of different communities. The more people are involved in
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the community, the more sticky they are in the product.
406
00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:27.480
And this makes perfect sense.
407
00:24:27.640 --> 00:24:30.720
Right If you're just going at it alone, you log in,
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00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:32.359
you have no idea what you're doing, and you're kind
409
00:24:32.359 --> 00:24:34.079
of like, I'm just going to bubble around in the
410
00:24:34.079 --> 00:24:35.319
product to where I'm going to go look at the
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00:24:35.359 --> 00:24:38.640
documentation separately, you're a lot less likely to get value
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versus it's like, oh, Andre, I have a question, how
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are you using this thing?
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Right?
415
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You and I start talking, We have a relationship.
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You show me your cool use case, Right, I trust
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you because you're also a customer. You're my peer, we're
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in marketing together, right, And so basically, you know, one
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of the leading indicators, which would actually be a learn
420
00:24:58.160 --> 00:25:00.799
intent indicator, would be something like how often are these
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people engaging in the community.
422
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And so it's.
423
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Counterintuitive where maybe in your nurture or your onboarding onboarding
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program you actually say, go to the community or meet
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Andre and see Andre's top use case. Right, You're a
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power user, you're a community champion, and I actually say,
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we're doing an AMA with Andre, join us. That is
428
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really hard to track in a dashboard that you joining
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00:25:25.160 --> 00:25:29.720
that AMA with Andre significantly increases the likelihood that you
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go back into the product and take an action that
431
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is sticky that adds value to you and ultimately increases
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the lifetime value of the customer.
433
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Right.
434
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So I do think that looking at those learn intent
435
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and use intent metrics is the better way to approach
436
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life cycle marketing instead of basically just trying to look
437
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at buy intent metrics around upgrades, expansions, you know, contact sales,
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et cetera. Because those learn intent and use intent metrics
439
00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:03.559
show an increased likelihood that someone is actually sticky in
440
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the product, they're getting value. And then obviously you know retention, churn,
441
00:26:07.839 --> 00:26:12.920
et cetera. Those lagging indicators around you know, customer satisfaction.
442
00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:17.680
There's a new newer term or I guess metric that
443
00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:22.359
people are using, a SEQ, which is basically the ease
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of use. So it's not just net promoter score or
445
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customer satisfaction of like will you tell other people about us?
446
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How satisfied are you? The ease of use metrics are
447
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really around is the is the product giving you value?
448
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How disappointed would you be if you were no longer
449
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able to use this product?
450
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Right?
451
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There's a psychological principle about basically, you fear and feel
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a loss more than you love and feel a gain.
453
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And so nps and CSAT are primarily focused on asking
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about gains and benefits. SEQ you tends to focus more
455
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on that loss aversion, And so it's actually flipping it
456
00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:07.839
and kind of leaning into that psychological principle of like,
457
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we want our customers to feel sad if they lose
458
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the product, because that's a much more powerful feeling than
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just feeling happy or fine that they have the product.
460
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Right.
461
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So it's a really interesting shift and the idea that
462
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this is part of their daily work or their regular
463
00:27:25.279 --> 00:27:29.039
habitual use that's a lot more powerful indicator that they're
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getting value and thus they won't turn and they are
465
00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:35.359
more likely to upgrade than saying, you know net promoter score,
466
00:27:35.400 --> 00:27:37.440
will you tell everybody else about us? It's like those
467
00:27:37.480 --> 00:27:39.799
are actually different things. So those are some of the
468
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leading and lagging indicators. And I think the big mindset
469
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shift is around not just trying to look at buy intent,
470
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but looking at use intent and learn intent.
471
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I love it, and honestly, I feel that literally everybody
472
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who is listening to us I will be listening to
473
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the record that would I create. The biggest problem though,
474
00:28:02.400 --> 00:28:07.759
is not the mindset of marketing leaders though the truth
475
00:28:07.880 --> 00:28:10.759
to be said, I'm experience and still with some of
476
00:28:10.799 --> 00:28:14.799
the clients where the leadership has been changed recently that
477
00:28:15.200 --> 00:28:18.759
the new marketing leader comes and kind of pushes for
478
00:28:19.519 --> 00:28:26.240
the let's say obsolete way of thinking about life cycle marketing.
479
00:28:26.279 --> 00:28:29.000
But that's not the case for the majority of our listeners.
480
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:32.759
I think the biggest problem is for many B to
481
00:28:32.839 --> 00:28:36.480
b cmos or the piece of marketing is that when
482
00:28:36.519 --> 00:28:40.680
they join a new company, right they become the kind
483
00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:45.240
of first let's say, real owner of the life cycle marketing.
484
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But the problem they are facing is that they're supposed
485
00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:53.599
to fulfill this linear funnel, right, then they dealing with
486
00:28:53.720 --> 00:28:57.960
the massive data. It's probably the case for too many
487
00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:01.160
B to B companies. Even I would say at full
488
00:29:01.200 --> 00:29:06.079
funnel despite a small organization, still we don't have perfect data.
489
00:29:06.200 --> 00:29:10.519
It's good, but it's not perfect. So what to say
490
00:29:10.559 --> 00:29:16.759
about the bigger organizations? Right? And they have the targets,
491
00:29:16.960 --> 00:29:22.480
they have the pressure to deliver, right, So everybody kind
492
00:29:22.480 --> 00:29:27.799
of quite often I feel that we don't have realistic
493
00:29:29.279 --> 00:29:33.480
or we can't make realistic set up realistic expectations of
494
00:29:33.559 --> 00:29:36.880
what can be achieved in this case. So let's say
495
00:29:36.920 --> 00:29:40.960
if you were wearing these shoes, right, and in ninety
496
00:29:41.079 --> 00:29:44.799
days you have the board medium where you need to
497
00:29:44.920 --> 00:29:48.279
kind of present the reality of what could be done
498
00:29:48.279 --> 00:29:50.200
in the first Yeah, what would you do?
499
00:29:50.359 --> 00:29:50.400
What?
500
00:29:51.599 --> 00:29:54.359
How would you set up the expectations? What would you say?
501
00:29:54.440 --> 00:29:58.880
What is possible and what is important to change? And why?
502
00:29:59.480 --> 00:29:59.599
How?
503
00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:02.079
By the literally that conversation.
504
00:30:02.160 --> 00:30:06.319
Yeah, it is a hard conversation, and I think that
505
00:30:07.519 --> 00:30:11.319
first you have to start from shared definitions of what
506
00:30:11.480 --> 00:30:16.880
these things actually are. When you say MQL or you
507
00:30:16.960 --> 00:30:20.880
say a LEAD, what do you mean by that? Do
508
00:30:20.960 --> 00:30:24.119
you mean contact acquisition like you literally have a name
509
00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:24.720
in an email?
510
00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:26.319
Do you mean.
511
00:30:27.640 --> 00:30:30.799
Somebody who is engaged and has actively raised their hand
512
00:30:30.839 --> 00:30:33.960
and clicked contact sales or requestner FP or book a demo?
513
00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:34.319
Right?
514
00:30:34.480 --> 00:30:37.960
Like? What is that actual definition and what goes into it?
515
00:30:38.200 --> 00:30:41.680
That's step one, same thing, customer, What do you mean
516
00:30:41.720 --> 00:30:45.200
by that? Do you mean somebody who has one hundred
517
00:30:45.200 --> 00:30:48.359
free users? Ten free users? If you've got a free tier?
518
00:30:48.680 --> 00:30:50.400
Do you mean people who.
519
00:30:50.359 --> 00:30:52.319
Are paying you a minimum amount of money?
520
00:30:52.599 --> 00:30:55.279
Do you mean people who have been in the product
521
00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:58.920
a certain you know when you when you say active users, like,
522
00:30:59.599 --> 00:31:02.000
are you looking at a certain number of daily, weekly,
523
00:31:02.200 --> 00:31:05.839
or monthly active users? Like, let's get very clear on
524
00:31:05.880 --> 00:31:09.839
what we mean because frequently, and I've talked with a
525
00:31:09.880 --> 00:31:15.839
couple of different organizations about this, those definitions are not
526
00:31:15.960 --> 00:31:16.400
the same.
527
00:31:16.599 --> 00:31:16.799
Right.
528
00:31:17.160 --> 00:31:19.279
I talked with one company I was doing a little
529
00:31:19.279 --> 00:31:23.119
bit of consulting as a nonprofit, and marketing was basically
530
00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:27.680
counting any email address that they received as a lead.
531
00:31:28.720 --> 00:31:31.359
You will not be surprised to hear that sales said
532
00:31:31.400 --> 00:31:35.839
those leads were junk because they were not, in fact leads.
533
00:31:35.839 --> 00:31:37.759
Anybody who fills out a form is not a lead, right,
534
00:31:38.359 --> 00:31:41.599
And so the conversation at the board meeting was really
535
00:31:41.640 --> 00:31:46.400
around changing that definition of an MQL to being like, no,
536
00:31:46.599 --> 00:31:48.960
these people actually have to do more than just one
537
00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:50.079
time give us their email.
538
00:31:50.160 --> 00:31:50.359
Right.
539
00:31:50.599 --> 00:31:54.240
Again, we have a whole separate conversation about mqls and.
540
00:31:54.200 --> 00:31:55.720
Scoring and all of that.
541
00:31:56.160 --> 00:31:59.400
I have some pretty foundational problems with that whole mindset
542
00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:03.720
because again it's marketers trying to like into it that
543
00:32:03.839 --> 00:32:06.319
someone is ready versus giving them the option to say no,
544
00:32:06.440 --> 00:32:08.920
I'm actively ready. So that's the first thing, is like
545
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:11.839
documentation around what the actual definitions are.
546
00:32:12.720 --> 00:32:14.839
Once you have agreed on that, then you go.
547
00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:18.079
Into your CRM or your marketing automation platform however you're
548
00:32:18.079 --> 00:32:22.119
doing this, and you understand what it is actually capturing
549
00:32:22.519 --> 00:32:25.160
so you can build your lead reports however you want.
550
00:32:26.279 --> 00:32:30.640
I full disclosure, have not been poking around in HubSpot
551
00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:34.799
or MARKETO or Salesforce for many years. I you know,
552
00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:37.200
especially working in a bigger company. We have air ops
553
00:32:37.240 --> 00:32:39.640
team that does that, right, So it's been quite a
554
00:32:39.640 --> 00:32:41.960
while since I've gone in and actually pushed all the
555
00:32:41.960 --> 00:32:44.680
buttons in those systems. But you know, you get to
556
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:48.319
set whatever your definition of an MQL is right, You
557
00:32:48.359 --> 00:32:50.400
get to set whatever your definition of an SQL is
558
00:32:50.440 --> 00:32:52.920
in those systems, and so making sure that what you
559
00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:55.559
have agreed on as the definition is actually what is
560
00:32:55.599 --> 00:32:59.319
being tracked in the CRM, because frequently people want to
561
00:32:59.359 --> 00:33:02.759
hack it. Right, Oh, we're gonna just decide that my
562
00:33:02.920 --> 00:33:05.960
webinar today is worth forty points, and then Andre is
563
00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:07.799
going to decide that this LinkedIn.
564
00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:09.359
Live is worth sixty points.
565
00:33:10.079 --> 00:33:13.519
Why why is when I show up on the computer
566
00:33:13.599 --> 00:33:15.400
worth forty points and when Andre shows up on the
567
00:33:15.400 --> 00:33:16.359
computer worth sixty?
568
00:33:16.559 --> 00:33:18.480
Like what are we talking about?
569
00:33:18.559 --> 00:33:18.720
Right?
570
00:33:18.799 --> 00:33:19.519
So going in and.
571
00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:22.440
Making sure that things are actually reflecting what those shared
572
00:33:22.440 --> 00:33:26.359
definitions are. If they are not, then step one is
573
00:33:26.599 --> 00:33:28.160
now you've got to go do a whole audit and
574
00:33:28.160 --> 00:33:30.480
clean up, and you got to rebaseline because I find
575
00:33:30.519 --> 00:33:34.559
it in a lot of cases the metrics that are
576
00:33:35.200 --> 00:33:37.839
having to grow twenty thirty, fifty one hundred percent your
577
00:33:37.839 --> 00:33:42.440
over year the definition has changed over time and or
578
00:33:42.519 --> 00:33:45.079
the tracking has changed over time. And so again, if
579
00:33:45.079 --> 00:33:48.319
you're going to change the definition, you got to change
580
00:33:48.359 --> 00:33:50.599
it in the system too. You can't just change it
581
00:33:50.720 --> 00:33:54.440
in the board meeting or on the slides. So realistically, honestly,
582
00:33:54.480 --> 00:33:58.599
that first ninety days. That board meeting is basically like,
583
00:33:58.799 --> 00:34:00.519
let's be clear on the definition, and so let's be
584
00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:03.599
clear on what our system is actually tracking. Let's be
585
00:34:03.720 --> 00:34:06.559
clear on what our baseline is. If those things are
586
00:34:06.559 --> 00:34:08.480
out of whack, you go go on a data clean
587
00:34:08.559 --> 00:34:10.320
up project, right, and I get it. You still have
588
00:34:10.360 --> 00:34:13.519
to spend money, you still have to grow revenue, et cetera.
589
00:34:14.599 --> 00:34:18.440
The other piece of this from a business standpoint is
590
00:34:18.760 --> 00:34:21.719
basically looking at you know, things like campaign efficiency and
591
00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:25.760
understanding if a customer is truly profitable just because they
592
00:34:25.800 --> 00:34:27.559
spend a lot of money with you, if you have
593
00:34:27.599 --> 00:34:30.119
to spend a lot of time on the customer's success
594
00:34:30.119 --> 00:34:32.719
side or the support side, troubleshooting, et cetera, because they're
595
00:34:32.760 --> 00:34:35.159
not the right type of customer no matter how big
596
00:34:35.199 --> 00:34:37.519
the spend is. If the cost is out of line,
597
00:34:37.559 --> 00:34:40.559
they are not necessarily a profitable customer. And so looking
598
00:34:40.599 --> 00:34:43.360
at that on the back end to say, you know,
599
00:34:43.519 --> 00:34:46.480
what is our mix? Are we actually hitting our revenue
600
00:34:46.480 --> 00:34:50.119
targets just because we happen to have one customer who's
601
00:34:50.119 --> 00:34:52.559
spending a ton of money with us, that's a massive
602
00:34:52.599 --> 00:34:57.280
business risk. And again, if we're spending tons of man
603
00:34:57.280 --> 00:35:01.119
hours and tons of compute to support this customer they
604
00:35:01.559 --> 00:35:05.000
might not actually be particularly profitable, and so really understanding
605
00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:07.440
on the back end what is that customer mix, what
606
00:35:07.559 --> 00:35:12.840
is that revenue mix, and what is the true profitability
607
00:35:12.960 --> 00:35:17.840
mix of our customers and our business. So, yeah, that's
608
00:35:17.880 --> 00:35:19.079
that's kind of what I would do in the first
609
00:35:19.119 --> 00:35:22.320
ninety days. And then obviously from a what's possible in
610
00:35:22.360 --> 00:35:24.039
a year? I think it kind of depends on like
611
00:35:24.840 --> 00:35:26.239
what are you dealing with when you.
612
00:35:26.159 --> 00:35:29.679
Do that audit? Uh, and you know, how.
613
00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:35.960
How open is the leadership team to potentially taking radical
614
00:35:37.480 --> 00:35:43.159
action to fix something. And obviously the larger the company,
615
00:35:43.199 --> 00:35:46.079
the more difficult it is to make these changes because
616
00:35:46.320 --> 00:35:48.760
you've got something that's working. If you're a public company,
617
00:35:48.800 --> 00:35:52.119
you have to report publicly on what you're doing, how
618
00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:54.519
it's how it's doing, why you're doing it, et cetera.
619
00:35:55.079 --> 00:35:57.800
So like this is very complicated, Like this is not
620
00:35:57.920 --> 00:36:00.760
an easy thing, and it's it's very easy for me
621
00:36:00.800 --> 00:36:03.199
to sit here and say like, yeah, just use you
622
00:36:03.199 --> 00:36:05.599
know the playground, just ditch litt your funnel, right, just
623
00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:09.360
follow the metrics that actually matter. But I am under
624
00:36:09.360 --> 00:36:13.440
no illusions that, particularly in larger enterprise companies, this is
625
00:36:13.480 --> 00:36:18.320
a very difficult discussion, and untangling the messy data or
626
00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:21.719
putting the infrastructure in place to ensure that you're able
627
00:36:21.800 --> 00:36:27.360
to have honest conversations and actionable conversations like this is
628
00:36:27.480 --> 00:36:30.239
not a small problem. And so I think to your point,
629
00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:33.519
the ninety day mark and the one year mark are
630
00:36:33.559 --> 00:36:36.440
actually indicative of you thinking correctly that these are long
631
00:36:36.519 --> 00:36:39.480
term projects. Not okay, in your first thirty days, what
632
00:36:39.559 --> 00:36:41.599
are you gonna do listening to her? In your first
633
00:36:41.599 --> 00:36:43.599
sixty days, what are you gonna do? Reset strategy?
634
00:36:43.880 --> 00:36:45.119
Ninety days? See impact?
635
00:36:45.280 --> 00:36:49.239
Like, that's that's way too short of a time horizon
636
00:36:49.320 --> 00:36:53.039
for most larger companies, especially if they already have something going.
637
00:36:53.679 --> 00:36:54.599
Again, if you're.
638
00:36:54.440 --> 00:36:58.960
Just building, like sure, take your shot, But if you're
639
00:36:58.960 --> 00:37:03.760
having to understand, potentially undo and then rebuild, that's a
640
00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:04.800
very different conversation.
641
00:37:06.519 --> 00:37:13.079
Makes perfect sense, CENTI. Why I would love to move
642
00:37:13.199 --> 00:37:17.400
next is the concept of playground that you presented at
643
00:37:17.440 --> 00:37:20.480
our assignment. You talk about it on linked In, on
644
00:37:20.679 --> 00:37:27.119
other podcasts, et cetera. Right, Basically, the entire idea of
645
00:37:27.239 --> 00:37:32.440
playground is just given the buyers the opportunity to buy
646
00:37:32.440 --> 00:37:36.360
the way they want right, and we shouldn't create any friction.
647
00:37:36.559 --> 00:37:40.119
We should allow them to enter our final or move
648
00:37:40.159 --> 00:37:44.280
away from it and come back anytime they want. Just
649
00:37:44.440 --> 00:37:50.880
any simple word. Basically you said they can go in
650
00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:56.039
any order and engage with you, not the way you like, right,
651
00:37:57.159 --> 00:38:02.079
the way we prefer. It makes perfect sense. But again,
652
00:38:02.559 --> 00:38:05.239
what if the company operates on the old system, right,
653
00:38:05.239 --> 00:38:10.119
that the one that we have discussed, And what if
654
00:38:11.119 --> 00:38:14.280
sales treat every signal like you said, oh you locked in.
655
00:38:14.320 --> 00:38:18.199
There is an opportunity to upgrade, right, But in sales
656
00:38:18.239 --> 00:38:21.400
world or in our scenario, it's completely different. So they
657
00:38:21.559 --> 00:38:24.000
just use it as an opportunity to immediately pitch the
658
00:38:24.039 --> 00:38:27.840
demo right, any website, visit any I don't know, email,
659
00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:31.519
open whatever, any linked and like it's an opportunity. Hey
660
00:38:31.559 --> 00:38:34.079
you like this post, Well you like to have a
661
00:38:34.159 --> 00:38:38.840
demo with me? Write something like this. So basically it
662
00:38:38.960 --> 00:38:44.519
requires a lot of change management. I'm just wondering, right,
663
00:38:44.559 --> 00:38:48.320
because we spoke about life cycle marketing and the metrics,
664
00:38:48.320 --> 00:38:52.000
the definition, et cetera. But now it just also it
665
00:38:52.119 --> 00:38:56.679
requires the wemb of how sales are also thinking about
666
00:38:56.719 --> 00:39:02.480
all the signals about sales clients. Basically, any client facing functions, right.
667
00:39:03.719 --> 00:39:09.039
So I'm just wondering how would you do the change
668
00:39:09.079 --> 00:39:13.719
management in the organization right around the concept of the playground, right,
669
00:39:14.480 --> 00:39:19.039
because it's not only about the advice and get all
670
00:39:19.119 --> 00:39:22.679
your content and allow them to do whatever they want, right.
671
00:39:23.079 --> 00:39:27.840
So it's about how can we align and match our
672
00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:31.599
marketing and sales processes with the way how our buyers
673
00:39:31.639 --> 00:39:35.559
are buying. So I'm just curious to chat with you
674
00:39:35.679 --> 00:39:38.599
about this and listen to your experience.
675
00:39:40.239 --> 00:39:41.000
So the one.
676
00:39:42.440 --> 00:39:45.559
Benefit of this approach of like you liked my LinkedIn post,
677
00:39:45.639 --> 00:39:47.119
do you want to buy my product?
678
00:39:47.119 --> 00:39:47.400
Now?
679
00:39:47.880 --> 00:39:50.880
The fact that that fails so often is actually a
680
00:39:50.960 --> 00:39:53.719
really handy starting point with sales. But they're like these
681
00:39:53.800 --> 00:39:56.960
leads are junk, and it's like, what do you think
682
00:39:57.000 --> 00:39:57.880
you mean by lead?
683
00:39:58.000 --> 00:39:58.480
And they're like.
684
00:40:00.119 --> 00:40:03.199
I have literally I had a discussion with a marketer
685
00:40:03.280 --> 00:40:08.199
that was literally like, can we go can we use
686
00:40:08.239 --> 00:40:12.519
AI to basically scrape all the people who left a
687
00:40:12.599 --> 00:40:16.760
comment on this person's LinkedIn post and like pass that
688
00:40:16.840 --> 00:40:20.320
off to sales as like a list to go outbound to.
689
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:28.000
I was just like, do you understand that you will
690
00:40:28.280 --> 00:40:33.599
fundamentally destroy all trust and the relationship if you do
691
00:40:33.679 --> 00:40:39.159
that these people have in no way at all indicated
692
00:40:39.320 --> 00:40:44.119
that they are interested in anything that you were selling
693
00:40:45.159 --> 00:40:47.480
by you know, again, it would be the equivalent of
694
00:40:47.639 --> 00:40:51.400
like me looking at all the people who have commented
695
00:40:51.440 --> 00:40:55.920
on any of your posts and being like, yep, they're
696
00:40:55.960 --> 00:40:59.960
ready to buy something that makes absolutely no sense, right,
697
00:41:00.119 --> 00:41:03.320
So the one I mean, if you want to be
698
00:41:03.360 --> 00:41:06.320
spicy about it, you know what you do that, see
699
00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:09.960
how that goes for sales. It's gonna absolutely tank clearly, right,
700
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:11.519
and sales is going to come back and be like
701
00:41:11.599 --> 00:41:14.880
that lead list was crap, like we're not doing that, right.
702
00:41:15.320 --> 00:41:18.639
So I actually think that as much as there's friction
703
00:41:18.719 --> 00:41:21.760
and it's a trope, right that, like marketing hits their
704
00:41:21.840 --> 00:41:25.679
lead goals and sales says the leads are junk, right, good,
705
00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:28.679
If sales is telling you that they can't close these leads,
706
00:41:29.840 --> 00:41:32.760
it's not that they're all literally the likelihood that your
707
00:41:32.880 --> 00:41:37.440
entire sales organization just fundamentally can't sell that seems unlikely, right,
708
00:41:38.039 --> 00:41:42.440
So that actually does open the conversation to say, what
709
00:41:43.800 --> 00:41:47.599
does a good lead look like? And like, shocker, if
710
00:41:47.599 --> 00:41:53.320
somebody hits contact sales, book, a demo, activate a trial, shocker,
711
00:41:53.360 --> 00:41:57.079
that those close at a higher rate than people who
712
00:41:57.159 --> 00:41:59.000
you outbound or cold prospect to.
713
00:41:59.199 --> 00:41:59.400
Right.
714
00:42:00.079 --> 00:42:02.920
So we have some baselines for this, and I think
715
00:42:02.920 --> 00:42:07.480
that understanding the full journey to really look at what
716
00:42:07.599 --> 00:42:10.960
are those touch points that influence the journey. What content
717
00:42:11.039 --> 00:42:16.159
is consumed frequently in closed one journeys but is not
718
00:42:16.239 --> 00:42:19.480
necessarily from a last touch attribution or a first touch attribution.
719
00:42:19.519 --> 00:42:20.440
I mean, I think this is the other thing. We
720
00:42:20.440 --> 00:42:21.840
can have a whole conversation about.
721
00:42:21.599 --> 00:42:27.119
Which attribution model you're using, but this content is frequently
722
00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:29.239
you know. Again I go back to the community, right,
723
00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:32.239
We see that people who are engaged in the community
724
00:42:32.400 --> 00:42:35.960
tend to spend more, get value faster, have more monthly
725
00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:42.119
active users. Right, So that conversation about what other actions
726
00:42:42.119 --> 00:42:47.119
are people taking besides just the traditional hand raiser action
727
00:42:47.239 --> 00:42:50.119
or buy intent action. That's where you start that conversation
728
00:42:50.280 --> 00:42:53.239
from with the sales team. Perfect example that I give
729
00:42:53.280 --> 00:42:57.639
in terms of the funnel being outdated or and why
730
00:42:57.639 --> 00:43:01.280
you should use a playground. So pricing is traditionally considered
731
00:43:01.320 --> 00:43:04.760
a bottom funnel or a decision level or purchase level conversation.
732
00:43:05.440 --> 00:43:07.360
And yet if you.
733
00:43:07.360 --> 00:43:10.920
Need to go get budget, like how are you going
734
00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:13.199
to do that if you have no idea about ballpark pricing.
735
00:43:13.280 --> 00:43:15.800
So I had this experience we were going to buy
736
00:43:15.800 --> 00:43:18.800
a tool. My manager said, you know, we're going to
737
00:43:18.840 --> 00:43:20.719
finance to ask for the budget. How much budget do
738
00:43:20.760 --> 00:43:22.119
you need? And I'm like, I don't know. So I
739
00:43:22.159 --> 00:43:24.400
start googling around. I reach out to a bunch of
740
00:43:24.440 --> 00:43:26.079
the big players in the space and I say, Hey,
741
00:43:26.519 --> 00:43:28.400
can you just give me a ballpark for this mini
742
00:43:28.440 --> 00:43:32.119
licenses at this service tier? And they all came back
743
00:43:32.159 --> 00:43:33.800
and said like, oh, you need to book a demo.
744
00:43:34.079 --> 00:43:36.400
Oh you need to read this thought leadership report.
745
00:43:36.480 --> 00:43:39.400
And I'm like, I.
746
00:43:38.239 --> 00:43:40.880
I have no budget. Guys, like, I know BANT. I
747
00:43:40.920 --> 00:43:43.079
know we're not using BANT these days. I think medpick
748
00:43:43.119 --> 00:43:45.400
is the new standard. But like ban is budget authority,
749
00:43:45.519 --> 00:43:49.599
need and timeline. I have no budget currently. I have
750
00:43:49.679 --> 00:43:52.000
no authority because I'm not the you know, I don't
751
00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:53.400
have the authority to sign off on this.
752
00:43:53.480 --> 00:43:54.320
In terms of the need.
753
00:43:54.960 --> 00:43:56.360
Like I have the need, but if I don't have
754
00:43:56.360 --> 00:43:59.960
the budget authority and then timeline until I get BUDG,
755
00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:04.559
I have no timeline to buy right. So me reaching
756
00:44:04.599 --> 00:44:06.760
out to these people, I am not a lead just
757
00:44:06.800 --> 00:44:09.320
because I'm asking about pricing. If you come back and
758
00:44:09.360 --> 00:44:11.840
you tell me that it costs one hundred thousand dollars
759
00:44:12.199 --> 00:44:14.480
and I can only get budget for one thousand dollars,
760
00:44:14.920 --> 00:44:17.119
it doesn't matter how much I agree with you that
761
00:44:17.159 --> 00:44:21.360
this problem is worth solving, I fundamentally cannot afford to buy.
762
00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:24.119
Like we're a hundred x off.
763
00:44:25.159 --> 00:44:26.519
I am not a good lead for you if I
764
00:44:26.519 --> 00:44:28.280
think I could solve this problem for one thousand dollars
765
00:44:28.360 --> 00:44:30.840
or ten thousand dollars and your minimum spend is one
766
00:44:30.880 --> 00:44:35.519
hundred thousand dollars, right Like, So again those types of
767
00:44:35.559 --> 00:44:37.519
examples where we say someone reaching out to you for
768
00:44:37.599 --> 00:44:41.480
pricing does not automatically make them a lead because they
769
00:44:41.599 --> 00:44:44.480
might not have one of the key elements required budget.
770
00:44:44.519 --> 00:44:46.119
And no matter how much you try to sell me
771
00:44:46.159 --> 00:44:49.400
the value, if we are that far apart, I cannot
772
00:44:49.480 --> 00:44:52.360
buy from you. I am not a legitimate lead for you.
773
00:44:52.480 --> 00:44:57.360
Right So, I think some of those hard examples of
774
00:44:57.440 --> 00:45:00.199
what content is being consumed in the journey?
775
00:45:00.360 --> 00:45:02.519
What is that sales close rate? Is it steady? Is
776
00:45:02.559 --> 00:45:04.679
it dropping? Is it above or below your peers and
777
00:45:04.719 --> 00:45:05.880
your industry benchmarks?
778
00:45:06.199 --> 00:45:09.599
Right? Is there one salesperson who is just completely killing
779
00:45:09.599 --> 00:45:12.519
it on their quota and everybody else is tanking. Okay,
780
00:45:12.559 --> 00:45:16.679
what is that person doing differently? Frequently they're taking the
781
00:45:16.719 --> 00:45:20.079
best leads? Great, how are they spotting that from a
782
00:45:20.079 --> 00:45:23.679
sales perspective? How are they filtering out the junk? Let's
783
00:45:23.719 --> 00:45:26.679
see what we can do to scale that mindset, not
784
00:45:27.159 --> 00:45:28.960
tell all the rest of the sellers that they're terrible
785
00:45:28.960 --> 00:45:30.280
and put them on a thirty day pip that they
786
00:45:30.280 --> 00:45:32.800
can't hit their quota. Right. So there's a lot of
787
00:45:32.880 --> 00:45:36.280
diagnostic tools that we can actually get from the salespeople
788
00:45:36.559 --> 00:45:39.559
to then take that back into our lead scoring, into
789
00:45:39.559 --> 00:45:43.320
our marketing programs, right, And what we see frequently is
790
00:45:43.360 --> 00:45:44.760
that it actually behaves like a playground.
791
00:45:44.760 --> 00:45:46.840
Oh I met this person an event two years ago.
792
00:45:47.079 --> 00:45:51.440
I sent them our state of industry report, you know,
793
00:45:51.480 --> 00:45:53.519
I sent them the Gardner and Q or the Forester
794
00:45:53.639 --> 00:45:58.159
Wave if they're an enterprise. None of those assets closed them.
795
00:45:58.360 --> 00:45:59.800
But then we got on the deal and they were like,
796
00:45:59.840 --> 00:46:01.880
oh yeah, I remember, Andrea. I don't remember it, no
797
00:46:01.920 --> 00:46:03.960
if you remember, but like we met each other at
798
00:46:04.280 --> 00:46:06.760
you know, Unbound Hubspots.
799
00:46:06.880 --> 00:46:09.920
Hubspots conference is now Unbound. I met you at Unbound
800
00:46:10.119 --> 00:46:13.920
two years ago, right where where does that show up
801
00:46:13.960 --> 00:46:15.039
in the system.
802
00:46:15.559 --> 00:46:18.119
It might not, like maybe we didn't scan a badge,
803
00:46:18.159 --> 00:46:19.840
or maybe you didn't put me in the system as
804
00:46:19.840 --> 00:46:22.159
somebody that you met. But being willing to look at
805
00:46:22.159 --> 00:46:24.480
the verbatims and look at that journey, all of that
806
00:46:24.559 --> 00:46:25.920
starts to point.
807
00:46:25.599 --> 00:46:29.480
To the fact that we need to have leading.
808
00:46:29.199 --> 00:46:33.639
And lagging indicators across multiple intents. And that's how you
809
00:46:33.679 --> 00:46:37.400
start to have that conversation. Depending on the size of
810
00:46:37.400 --> 00:46:42.320
the organization and how entrenched they are with their you know, strategy, tactics, metrics,
811
00:46:42.360 --> 00:46:45.320
et cetera, it's a hard conversation to have because, as
812
00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:47.960
you note, if you suddenly tell an organization that their
813
00:46:48.039 --> 00:46:49.320
mqls are going to tank.
814
00:46:49.880 --> 00:46:54.079
Like nobody wants to hear that right the volume going down.
815
00:46:54.119 --> 00:46:57.079
But it is interesting, I think, especially if you're able
816
00:46:57.119 --> 00:47:00.079
to take let's say an emerging product product line and.
817
00:47:01.679 --> 00:47:04.719
Fundamentally rethink how you go to market with that product
818
00:47:04.800 --> 00:47:08.280
from a metrics standpoint, an asset standpoint, strategy tactics, et cetera.
819
00:47:08.960 --> 00:47:12.440
That starts to prove out this mindset shift, and then
820
00:47:12.480 --> 00:47:14.599
you can expand it to your larger product lines. So
821
00:47:14.960 --> 00:47:17.559
it is a tricky balance, but I actually think that
822
00:47:17.840 --> 00:47:21.000
in some cases sales complaining that like the leads are
823
00:47:21.000 --> 00:47:23.559
bad or things aren't converting is actually a really great
824
00:47:23.559 --> 00:47:27.480
conversation starter to say. Is it because our criteria is wrong?
825
00:47:27.599 --> 00:47:29.480
Is it because the way we are thinking about this
826
00:47:29.559 --> 00:47:33.280
journey is wrong? And what if we thought about it
827
00:47:33.280 --> 00:47:35.159
this way? What would our metrics look like? What would
828
00:47:35.159 --> 00:47:37.199
our strategy look like? What would our goals look like.
829
00:47:38.599 --> 00:47:43.880
I have a strong opinion that if you don't ayitiate
830
00:47:44.199 --> 00:47:49.440
this conversation, and if you just try to survive one
831
00:47:49.480 --> 00:47:52.840
more quota right, I will hit my target this quat
832
00:47:52.880 --> 00:47:55.519
and next quotter, it will be better. I feel it's
833
00:47:55.599 --> 00:47:59.199
just kind of similar to rearrange and the you know,
834
00:47:59.320 --> 00:48:05.039
the chairs Titanic, because no way you can. But again
835
00:48:05.119 --> 00:48:08.599
it's just my subjective opinion. I feel I simply don't
836
00:48:08.639 --> 00:48:13.440
see a way how you can be successful long term
837
00:48:13.519 --> 00:48:17.199
as a marketing leader, as leading marketing function right under
838
00:48:17.239 --> 00:48:20.159
these circumstances. Do you say the same or do you
839
00:48:20.239 --> 00:48:23.960
feel there are some workarounds that can help you without
840
00:48:24.039 --> 00:48:26.320
having this kind of tough conversation.
841
00:48:28.159 --> 00:48:29.559
Oh man, this is hard.
842
00:48:29.679 --> 00:48:33.599
So I think the average CMO tenure these days is
843
00:48:33.639 --> 00:48:36.159
like eighteen months maybe twenty four months.
844
00:48:35.880 --> 00:48:42.320
Right, I thought recently Stockport, Yeah, so eighteen that was.
845
00:48:44.400 --> 00:48:46.119
Data like a minimum.
846
00:48:46.199 --> 00:48:47.880
We can at least a year and a half, right,
847
00:48:49.599 --> 00:48:54.400
I think that the fact that CMO tenure is the
848
00:48:54.440 --> 00:48:58.000
shortest of all of the c suite, and that is
849
00:48:58.039 --> 00:49:01.079
that short, you know, eighteen months of quite short fifteen months,
850
00:49:01.119 --> 00:49:03.159
I mean, good lord, like you've barely even ramped up on.
851
00:49:03.159 --> 00:49:05.039
The organization by that point.
852
00:49:07.199 --> 00:49:11.760
So I agree with you. I think that it is
853
00:49:11.920 --> 00:49:14.719
very difficult to have these conversations. It is very hard
854
00:49:14.760 --> 00:49:18.519
to shift, you know, not just the mindset, but the strategy,
855
00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:22.760
the data, the tracking, all of that, and particularly in
856
00:49:23.079 --> 00:49:25.320
larger entrenched organizations.
857
00:49:25.719 --> 00:49:26.960
So I agree with you.
858
00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:29.079
I mean, and the reality bears it out right with
859
00:49:29.079 --> 00:49:32.840
the shorter CMO tenure. Full disclosure that I have not
860
00:49:32.960 --> 00:49:34.840
been a CMO. I have not been the person that
861
00:49:34.880 --> 00:49:37.119
has had to drive this from the top down.
862
00:49:37.800 --> 00:49:42.039
And my what I have.
863
00:49:42.119 --> 00:49:45.800
Seen is that traditionally this goes better in smaller organizations. Again,
864
00:49:45.840 --> 00:49:49.719
when you're trying to come into a large organization multiple
865
00:49:49.760 --> 00:49:59.000
product lines, it is basically terrifying to say we're going
866
00:49:59.039 --> 00:50:02.840
to fundamentally shift how we approach this and how we
867
00:50:02.880 --> 00:50:05.679
are measuring it. It's got to be done incrementally, and
868
00:50:06.400 --> 00:50:10.559
if you have emerging products or emerging teams, that tends
869
00:50:10.599 --> 00:50:12.679
to be the easier place to make these types of
870
00:50:12.760 --> 00:50:15.719
changes because it's seen as more of a pilot you have.
871
00:50:15.960 --> 00:50:19.199
You don't have that baseline of like we've got, you know,
872
00:50:19.360 --> 00:50:21.760
millions of dollars coming in every single month or every
873
00:50:21.800 --> 00:50:23.320
single quarter for these products.
874
00:50:23.559 --> 00:50:25.320
And now you're telling me you're.
875
00:50:25.119 --> 00:50:27.880
Gonna shift how you do your measurement, Like is that
876
00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:31.800
ultimately going to tank the revenue? And so the hard
877
00:50:31.800 --> 00:50:34.480
part of basically like separating out which of those metrics
878
00:50:34.519 --> 00:50:40.960
are actually showing real, profitable, sustainable customer relationships versus which
879
00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:42.360
ones are just showing.
880
00:50:43.840 --> 00:50:47.719
Junk is hard.
881
00:50:48.360 --> 00:50:52.280
The other way to do this is, and again I
882
00:50:52.320 --> 00:50:54.280
get it, you can't do this across the entire org.
883
00:50:54.360 --> 00:50:58.800
But take one program or one channel or one campaign
884
00:50:59.280 --> 00:51:03.280
and either go super big or turn it off. And
885
00:51:03.320 --> 00:51:05.599
I find what most people do. Let's say, I don't
886
00:51:05.599 --> 00:51:07.400
know if you're familiar with the ten dollars game. This
887
00:51:07.519 --> 00:51:11.000
is like a well known kind of game in product management,
888
00:51:11.199 --> 00:51:12.920
and it's like, if you have ten dollars, how are
889
00:51:12.960 --> 00:51:15.320
you gonna spend that ten dollars. If you put one
890
00:51:15.360 --> 00:51:18.440
dollar on ten things, obviously you're not gonna get that
891
00:51:18.519 --> 00:51:21.199
much return. If you put all ten dollars on one thing,
892
00:51:21.519 --> 00:51:23.800
that's one huge bet that's either going to be amazing
893
00:51:23.880 --> 00:51:25.760
or it's gonna fail catastrophically.
894
00:51:25.880 --> 00:51:26.039
Right.
895
00:51:26.440 --> 00:51:28.360
So what most people try to do is say, I'm
896
00:51:28.360 --> 00:51:31.079
gonna do three dollars on three things, and then I
897
00:51:31.079 --> 00:51:33.480
have a dollar leftover, so I'll do fifty cents, right,
898
00:51:33.480 --> 00:51:36.880
And they basically place their bets equally. What I would
899
00:51:36.960 --> 00:51:39.760
recommend is find one program where you're like, I think
900
00:51:39.800 --> 00:51:42.119
that I'm seeing some early signals, or I've seen this
901
00:51:42.159 --> 00:51:44.320
work in the past, or I think this has potential.
902
00:51:44.400 --> 00:51:49.239
You know what, blow it out, put a ton of money, triple.
903
00:51:48.880 --> 00:51:51.599
Your budget on it. Do you get triple the returns?
904
00:51:52.039 --> 00:51:54.639
Or if you're like, it feels like this is just
905
00:51:54.719 --> 00:51:55.760
kind of limping along.
906
00:51:55.559 --> 00:51:57.760
But we surely we can't turn it off. What if
907
00:51:57.800 --> 00:52:02.079
it's working? What if you kill it? What if you
908
00:52:02.159 --> 00:52:05.079
do just turn it off? What bad thing is going
909
00:52:05.119 --> 00:52:08.360
to happen? Now that's terrified, because what if that's the
910
00:52:08.400 --> 00:52:11.760
one thing that's working well In theory, If that's the
911
00:52:11.760 --> 00:52:15.360
one thing that's working, it's gonna show up fast enough
912
00:52:15.360 --> 00:52:17.440
that you can turn it back on right and if
913
00:52:17.480 --> 00:52:19.840
it's not working, great, you've just killed it.
914
00:52:19.960 --> 00:52:20.119
Right.
915
00:52:20.480 --> 00:52:24.199
So I think that this idea of finding something where
916
00:52:24.199 --> 00:52:26.920
you can go very big or go very small and
917
00:52:26.960 --> 00:52:29.880
just completely pull back is a really good way to
918
00:52:29.920 --> 00:52:33.039
start to test some of those assumptions with a little
919
00:52:33.039 --> 00:52:36.199
bit of that safety net that you're not going to
920
00:52:36.280 --> 00:52:39.480
just completely kill an entire business or you know, an
921
00:52:39.639 --> 00:52:43.920
entire set of strategy and tactics that's actually working.
922
00:52:44.800 --> 00:52:47.920
Yeah, And I think kronesty, it's all about the efficient answer, right.
923
00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:51.199
Everybody thoughts about AI will bring that EFFICI answer, so
924
00:52:51.320 --> 00:52:54.159
we can do more. But the question is do we
925
00:52:54.320 --> 00:52:58.559
really need to do more? You needs to excel at
926
00:52:58.679 --> 00:53:04.280
several activities actually create the revenue, right, that lead to revenue.
927
00:53:04.599 --> 00:53:09.480
That's the key. So quite often like there are fundamental activities,
928
00:53:09.519 --> 00:53:14.280
we all talk about it awareness, right, print activities, I
929
00:53:14.280 --> 00:53:17.559
don't know, account engagement, a count research. But then like
930
00:53:18.199 --> 00:53:21.199
in ABM, we talk a lot to sales reps. Have
931
00:53:21.280 --> 00:53:23.960
you done that account research? I didn't have time for this.
932
00:53:24.320 --> 00:53:26.360
Have you engaged? Have you done Multiustralia?
933
00:53:26.400 --> 00:53:26.519
Oh?
934
00:53:26.559 --> 00:53:28.719
I didn't have time as as okay, A country search
935
00:53:28.880 --> 00:53:34.320
was AI probably is not excuse anymore. But let's say engagement, multistradia,
936
00:53:34.320 --> 00:53:37.239
et cetera. Nobody has time for this, And then the
937
00:53:37.360 --> 00:53:41.559
question is why, right, why don't we kind of allocate
938
00:53:41.920 --> 00:53:45.199
time to activities that actually lead to the revenue. The
939
00:53:45.239 --> 00:53:47.840
same in marketing, right, So do we need to do
940
00:53:47.880 --> 00:53:51.239
the hundreds of these things that we do just to
941
00:53:51.480 --> 00:53:54.239
tick you know, the box and now a zero conference
942
00:53:54.320 --> 00:53:59.119
or whatever, right or asana instead of like focusing on
943
00:53:59.199 --> 00:54:02.800
what really kind of helps us to hit our targets.
944
00:54:02.920 --> 00:54:05.719
So totally ACQUI with you and thank you so much
945
00:54:05.760 --> 00:54:10.039
for sharing this. I feel it was a brilliant conversation
946
00:54:10.159 --> 00:54:14.400
and I also coming from Valeria, she enjoyed it. Thank
947
00:54:14.440 --> 00:54:16.559
you so much for joining us. I think it was
948
00:54:16.599 --> 00:54:18.800
a brilliant I don't know what you have shared on
949
00:54:18.880 --> 00:54:21.599
the signate and guys, thanks a lot for coming and
950
00:54:21.719 --> 00:54:24.360
asking your questions. Was fun.
951
00:54:26.519 --> 00:54:29.239
Thanks so much for having me and continue in the conversation.
952
00:54:29.400 --> 00:54:32.800
It's definitely a big one in the industry.
953
00:54:33.599 --> 00:54:37.480
Yeah, absolutely, Thank you so much and we'll continue our
954
00:54:37.519 --> 00:54:41.000
chat on linked in. Thanks soul and see your problem
955
00:54:41.119 --> 00:54:43.880
one week. Have a good day, Take care,