Episode Transcript
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So you were listening to bb revenue
acceleration, a podcast dedicated to helping software
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executives stay on the cutting edge of
sales and marketing in their industry. Let's
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get into the show. Hi,
welcome to be to be a revenue acceleration.
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My name is only a mutier and
I'm ut today with milling, the
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Max VP marketing at all more blocks. How are you today? Milling now,
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I'm doing great. Thanks so much
for having me. That's a pleasure.
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So the topic for today's episode is
is about Customer Reference Seas and how
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to build a loyal fund base that
goes to bat for you in marketing,
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which is a very interesting toping,
I believe. But before before we go
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into the detail of the conversation,
meaning that would you mind introducing yourself as
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well as your company? Are More
blocks to audience? Sure. So,
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I'M DPA marketing at a company called
Armor Block, where Cyber Security Company,
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and we launched out of self mode
back in February. We're the first company
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to apply natural language understanding, or
Nlu, to cyber security, and Nolu
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is a type of natural language processing
or machine learning technology that you use when
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you use things like Alexa or Chat
Bot, and it's used to understand communications.
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So a company, when people are
communicating across different channel, email,
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sharing documents, flack chat, the
security tools whack understanding of the textual communications
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and hackers are taking advantage and attacking
through those communications channels. So we're the
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first to apply and Lu to cyber
security to solve some of these big attack
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vectors like social engineering through email,
helping companies detect insider threat and preventing employees
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from accidentally or purposefully sharing client personal
information. So it's an exciting time for
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us because there's a lot of interest
in us. So this year's Verizon Dbi
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are stated that the large percentage,
like upwards of the s of attacks start
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being email, so they're able to
get through other security tools, and the
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reason why is because we've lacked a
way to analyze and understand human communications and
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a meaningful way to protect against these
attacks. It sounds like Alma Mbo blocks
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got to a great future out of
it. So it's it's wonderful. Thank
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you very much for that. Meninda
getting into the topic now. We all
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know that there is nothing better than
having our customers advocating for brands okay.
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Often it's it's natural movement. These
are like the service or the product that
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you're offering and and that's the reason
why they are modern happy to speak about
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it and to become your advocate.
But we also know there is a many
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ways in which marketing team can influence
in increasing the loyalty of the fund base.
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Could you please show his audience how
you can drive that increase or loyalty
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from a marketing perspective? Yeah,
so the first thing to do is to
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recognize the absolute importance of customers and
realize the all the value that you get
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from having amazing customer references. So
I've had the luck and pleasure to work
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at companies who have been very focused
on customer references and really cultivating deep customer
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relationship. So I work in the
early days at vmwhere, and I was
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really lucky because they wanted to build
a customer reference program and at that time
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they had a workstation products which was
a consumer or PC product that you know
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people people understood the value because they
were technical people who were raving about it
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because you can run multiple operating systems
on a computer and it was saving them
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from having multiple computers or or extra
equipment to test their software. So they
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were super excited about it. And
at them where they were starting to move
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to server products, which, you
know, moving to selling to the enterprise
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is a much different story and they
recognize the value of having customer references and
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moving to the enterprise, selling into
the enterprise. So I got that job.
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I had a marketing background, a
PR background and hadn't run a customer
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reference program before, but had been
at companies like hyperions and other startup companies
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who had customer reference people, usually
as part of the sales teams, and
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had interacted with them enough to know, well, if I go to BMWHERE
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and run this program, then I
know exactly what to do because I can
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talk to the customers, I can
harvest them for data, I can get
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the information out of them, I
can learn. It's a also really great
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way to learn about the technology is
through for anybody, whether whether what,
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no matter what department you are in
a company, when you interview customers,
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you find out about how they're using
the products and what's interesting and exciting about
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them using those products. So at
them, where we built the customer reference
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program, we got to really see
it take off and you know, it
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just shows the value of having that
loyal fan base and when you think of
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them where a lot of that momentum
came from, that fan base going to
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bat for them and you know when
you can do that, it's just it's
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very happy, it's very positive.
So what you should do at any company
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is, anytime you have a happy
customer, have their sales team know to
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contact you so that you can get
the information on their stories. So all
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they have to do, and you
know sometimes sales people they try to kind
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of hoard references for their own use
so that other people don't get to use
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them. If you have the executive
sign off at the company to tell them
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we really value customer references, you
have to share them. It's for the
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good of the team. You get
access to the very best customer references.
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We have a really good person managing
the reference program then you can get those
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customer references and manage it so that
you are controlling how you're using those happy
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references. So when you talk to
them, you find out what they can
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and can't do. You interview them
about how they're using the product, what
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value they're getting out of it,
and then they tell you the information.
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You ask them for feedback. So
at this point you're learning what they love
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about the products and even finding out, well, what are the negatives?
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How can we improve? And by
that time you learn about what they'll say
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and if they're going to say anything
negative, and from that you can kind
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of Parse it out into different ways
that you can harvest that information for every
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little nugget. So you know at
BM where we published a QA or your
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transcript of the interview and we'd email
the summary to every person in the company
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with a headline of before and after
information about their Roi. An excerpt of
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their best quote, and it was
labeled for Inter internal use only. But
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engineers, product managers, everybody got
value out of knowing those customer stories.
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So yeah, and Diane Green,
the CEO, you know that was really
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important to her. So that was
an executive mandate and she would have her
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admin print out every single customer brief, every single case study, and she
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would read every single one. And
then, you know, when everyone in
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your organization knows those customer stories,
it's truly powerful because the engineers have pride
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about what they're building. It focuses
their work and helps give them ideas for
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for a product. It focuses your
branding and messaging. You can pull out
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consistent things for messaging and branding and
of course you get to work on map
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marketing assets and get the customers really
willing to go to bat for you.
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Huh, that's that's sounds wonderful.
Tour. So I guess what you say
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is that it's kind of a double
edge world in a positive way, while
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you can not only use that fun
base to attract you customers, but or
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so from men in Donald Perspective,
really getting the team to to run around
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your around your brands. So it's
kind of a Internet and extello communication tool
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that desolutely and I think that that
makes not make sense. HMM. And
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it's also you're really building the relationship
with your customers. So you know,
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when you when you think about going
to a company, one of the things
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I always do is look for those
companies who realize this customer centric value of
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an approach. So you know,
people like the end green got it.
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When I when I moved into the
security industry, when I went to quality
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the CEO, the first thing he
said was customers come first, and that
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was something always saw. And you
know they'd had lavish parties for customers.
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They had paid for all the user
conferences and free training and support. They
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really put customers first and that kind
of an idea really really focuses the company
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and helps with marketing. Because,
yeah, in Tech, in the tech
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industry, what people buy, a
lot of it depends on what their peers
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are saying. You can invest in
add you can invest in analysts relations,
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you can invest in PR and,
you know, everyone my background is and
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PR and have a lot of experience
of journalism and the way that things are
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right now, it's hard for even
good reporters to write about the things that
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they want to write about, and
so what happened is people are just so
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skeptical about marketing materials or or even
articles, and even some of them don't
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even listen to industry analyst. Yeah, what who? You know that they'll
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always listen to is their peers and
other customers, because they know the challenges
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that you're facing. And what better
way to validate a tool? You know,
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when you think of if you're going
to buy something, how do you
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figure out what you're going to buy? You go on the product, on
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the website, maybe, but do
you look at reviews? Reviews are very
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powerful. Completely. Yeah, reviews
are very, very important. Mean this
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is almost like bring your betc way
of buying into the BB wall. So
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that makes perfect sense. But my
next question for you is around using references
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as part of the of the cells
process, and I must admit that sometimes
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I get a little bit frustrated because
I would have someone in my cells team
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coming to me and as king to
speak to one of our clients, for
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people will only just add one coluies. We've not even they don't even know.
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You know, what's the what's the
coastal? What's the we don't even
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have a business case in place,
but they already want to speak to customers
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to try to on those on dis
bience in working with us. And my
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feeling is that it's far too all
in the cells process because if you do
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so, in a sense you almost
use your clients as a cells tool and
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unfortunately I'd like to believe that our
clients have a day job to attend and
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can just be on reference calls,
for for Paratys, on us a business.
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But I'd like to get your opinion
and and based on your experience,
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and great news with you that you've
done it with very large organizations, will
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organization, and now for our start
ups. So you've got that kind of
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three hundred and sixty view. But
in which part of the cell cycles do
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you believe it is the best to
get a prospect in front of a client?
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And also, the second part of
the question is, do you think
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the client should be briefed before and
as to what they should say or you
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know, how do you prepare your
custom Oh, you should. You just
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actually had prepare them and let them
speak completely naturally about the expense of working
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with you. Yeah, so the
great question. I'm all about prep being
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my personality T I've been running marketing. Anything I can control or prepare I
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will, I will do. But
you know, there's a couple of things
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there that I would adjust. So
first of all, when you interview the
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customer and saying like you harvest them
for information, you find out what they
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can or cannot do and then you
kind of hear it depending on what they're
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comfortable with doing, and you want
to tailor how you use them to what
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their availability and willingness is. So
maybe you have a customer at an amazing
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brand name cut company and you got
your you were able to you know,
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because customer references are priority, you
were able to negotiate so that they would
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be a public reference for you if
they signed a contract, and maybe you
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give them a discount to be a
reference, but it's a top level person
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who has limited time and you want
to use their time wisely. So you
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definitely as great as it is to
have them as a reference, there's no
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way you're going to have them taking
individual sales calls like it just doesn't make
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any sense. So that's where something
like getting them to talk to a reporter
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who covers customer case studies and and
there are reporters who just write customer feature
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stories, connect them with a reporter, because then you have a third party
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interview of your customer. You can
get a reprint or you can point people
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to it and there there's your customer
reference without having to pick up the phone
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and waste waste your client time.
You can also if if you can't do
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the public relations and with public relations
you can either do it through tech pubs,
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business pubs, but there's also a
lot of vertical industries pubs who will
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pick up customer case studies, which
is valuable to because if it's a big
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name and the healthcare industry. There's
healthcare publications who are looking for customer stories
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of how they're using technology. So
and people read those, but also you
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can. That's an easy way to
share their the reference story with so you
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know, PR is always if they'll
do interview with a reporter. That's always
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highest priority to me. If you
can't get pr just write a case study
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and use that and and again use
those in marketing. When you get approval
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for the case study, make sure
you're getting it. You get mileage out
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of it. So when you get
the approval for the case study, ask
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for approval, for approval of the
case study and tell them you know you
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get to approve it, so you
should be comfortable with it and feel free
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to make any changes. Make sure
that you're comfortable with everything in this case
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study and is it approved for use
on our website and in marketing materials.
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Then you can pull it for use
and press releases for data sheets as a
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pull quote. So again that's this
helps the sales people present package sales reference
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materials that client has already approved.
You've written. So getting you have,
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you know, the most control over
it. Now in terms of oneonone sales
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calls. You want to be careful
because this is this is a problem I've
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seen a lot when the reference program
is run out of the sales team is
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they're mostly connecting people for sales reference
calls. Yeah, every once in a
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while they'll feel the marketing a marketing
request, and it's those a little bit
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in reverse of what I'm saying.
Happens when marketing really owns the program.
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So when the sales team, when
the sales person in the sales or runs
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the reference program there's a lot of
burnout and that's really frustrating. And so
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you know, if you get marketing
to do their part more on the front
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end than you're say, saving the
sales references in the one on one calls
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to be not needed as much,
and then I would I would absolutely do
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it later in the sales process.
And then also when you're managing the customer
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Reference Program or Managing Marketing, you're
always concerned. You should always have that
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concern or understanding of what are your
you want to make an impact on the
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organization, so you want to find
out what are the challenges of selling your
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technology? What are the sales people
facing, because they only need the references.
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It's the marketing and content and everything. You know, they're kind of
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they're kind of, I don't want
to say lazy, being lazy, but
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they know how powerful the customers are
and selling the product. So it's like
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a shortcut, whereas if you understand
the the challenges of selling the product and
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you're doing all the right things to
provide information for those challenges that they're facing,
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whether it's competitor pressure, if it's
pricing pressure, you know, that's
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how you're adjusting your marketing. So, like if they're running into problems selling
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at the price that you want them
to pay, for example, when they're
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having hard time selling for value or
competitors seem to be undercutting price, then
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you're going to market for to show
the value of your product, for example.
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And then the same thing with customer
references is you're going to hunt for
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those references or your you know,
when you do the interviews, you're going
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to ask them the questions to see
how they feel about the biggest challenges.
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So if it's a top competitor you're
facing, then you ask a lot of
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questions to the customer references, the
client to say who did you switch from?
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What do you think of competitor solutions? And then if they're saying,
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oh, this, this competitor product, it was terrible, then you note
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that and you know that they're good
about talking about that and then that way
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it's very strategic. When they're pulled
in to talk to prospect you know,
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you know exactly what they're going to
say, you know they're good at talking
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about certain subjects and they can really
again close, they can help you close
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the deal. But I would,
I would absolutely do it later and then
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try, you know, if they
are pulling having to pull them in too
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early. It's almost the sign of
while we need better marketing materials and can't
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things that we can use. It
does make sense and I think prospects totally
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understand that. If you say,
we have amazing references that I can connect
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you with, so let me show
you some case studies first, because we're
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trying to be mindful of their time. But totally makes sense. Yeah,
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I agree with you. So ask
question is around the the concept of breeding
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low your fund based and building a
community. I believe that they are very
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close to each other. What we've
been speaking about is more wrong, you
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know, the one to one relationship
between you know and user being your reference
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as a vendor. But what I'm
talking more about from the question is more
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on the building up a community.
I'll drive a community into being a loyal
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advocates for your brands. So I
guess that's my question. Do you I'll
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do you drive a community into being
a loyal advocate of your brands? Yeah,
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so when you when you have a
community, it's an interesting thing to
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think about building because you have to
be very comfortable about what your customers will
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say. So because you're basically letting
them loose to talk amongst themselves. So
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that's where the importance of building the
relationship comes in and and building a really
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strong relationship. And whenever you communicate
with a customer, it's about making them
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feel like you want to be a
partner to them and ensure the success of
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their project versus just I want to
sell you this or close this transaction because
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I need to make my revenue goals. There's a there's a big difference and
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feeling that culture of we're partnering with
you to help you, or we want
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to be a cheerleader for you and
your career. And if you have that
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kind of if you built that kind
of relationship trust. You've been able to
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help them with issues they've been having. Then building a community is amazing because
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you have, you have some fans
who are excited about your tech. You've
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helped them. They feel like they've
been involved in your company. Maybe you've
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given them some in exchange for being
a reference. Maybe you've given them advanced
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notice of a product release so they
could play around with it and they've given
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you feedback and you taken that feedback. That's the kind of stuff that really
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makes them feel involved in your company
success and as your company success grows,
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they want to be a part of
it and they want they want to be
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almost like a part of your company, and that's that's the ideal mindset to
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use for a community and and to
build that demand where people want to be
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in your community. So at them
where we built that. We built our
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community and my qualities. We built
a community and you know, people want
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it to be in those group and
talking to each other about the prop how
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they're using the product, sharing best
practices. Every once in a while they
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might have an issue and discuss it
among themselves, but you know, we
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would watch, we keep an eye
on it. And take the feedback and
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and also right back to them to
say that we're aware of the issue and
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we're working on it. And it
just you know, in the tech industry
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everything's very transparent, so you don't
want to have to censor things because you
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you want to do the best for
your clients and and it's only goodness for
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your product to kind of open that
up, and you know you can.
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There's a lot of value in that
to let them talk about talk amongst themselves,
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and especially in the security industry it's
extremely valuable, like I said,
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because tech, technical people, they
don't want to listen to marketing people.
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They don't want marketing fluff, they
just want information and and they don't have
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a lot of time because they're busy. So they want to cut straight to
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information that's useful to them and having
a way to get to that through piers
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is is helpful to them. And
when when you have the kind of company
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where people are excited about using the
products and take technology is you can open
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that channel where they can communicate.
And then with security people they're even usually
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more skeptical than just technical people because
they don't they're not always as anxious to
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share their tips and they don't always
want to speak publicly about using certain tools
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because sometimes if you brag about how
great your security is, they feel like
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they get a target on their backs. Is a very practical reason for security
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people to have that personality type.
But you know, going in and talking
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to peers is a way that they
gives you a lot of credibility in your
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industry. It shows that you want
to move the industry forward and those are
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all good things that help your company
in your brand and sale, because you
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00:21:52.920 --> 00:21:56.359
can say look, you know,
we're not trying to hide anything. We
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have all of this great stuff going
on and you can and see how happy
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our customers are. Are Doing,
and this isn't really monitored by us.
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We're just opening a channel for communication. That's true. Yes, while we're
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coming to the end of the podcast
with thank you very much for your incitementing
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that I was very, very useful
and the really appreciate or the or the
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exam poured to eat their wall stories. That's you share with us today and
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I think about audience will feel the
same now if anyone wants to connect with
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00:22:26.819 --> 00:22:30.089
you to La Lam more about armor
blog. So I'll just take that conversation
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00:22:30.210 --> 00:22:33.690
of flying with you. What is
the best way to get to hold of
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00:22:33.730 --> 00:22:37.890
Human Indow? Sure, so.
We're a newer company, but we're rapidly
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00:22:37.970 --> 00:22:41.289
adding more info and concept to our
website. So you can check us out
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00:22:41.410 --> 00:22:45.920
at www dotcom bloxcom. So it's
armor and then blocks with an act,
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00:22:47.240 --> 00:22:51.240
and then you can also feel free
to drop me a line at Mt Armor
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00:22:51.279 --> 00:22:56.599
Bloxcom, which is from all Indot
Armor Bloxcom, or I'm also on Linkedin.
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00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:00.109
Okay, that's one's wonderful. Well, once again with Indus. Thank
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00:23:00.150 --> 00:23:02.470
you very much for today. It
was great to have you on the show.
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00:23:02.750 --> 00:23:07.710
Thank you so much. operatics has
redefined the meaning of revenue generation for
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00:23:07.829 --> 00:23:15.140
technology companies worldwide. While the traditional
concepts of building and managing inside sales teams
308
00:23:15.220 --> 00:23:18.980
inhouse has existed for many years,
companies are struggling with a lack of focus,
309
00:23:19.220 --> 00:23:26.779
agility and scale required in today's fast
and complex world of enterprise technology sales.
310
00:23:26.369 --> 00:23:33.930
See How operatics can help your company
accelerate pipeline at operatics dotnet. You've
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00:23:33.970 --> 00:23:37.210
been listening to be tob revenue acceleration. To ensure that you never miss an
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episode, subscribe to the show in
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313
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much for listening. Until next time,
