Episode Transcript
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You were listening to bb revenue acceleration, a podcast dedicated helping software executives stay
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on the cutting edge of sales and
marketing in their industry. Let's get into
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the show. Hi, welcome to
be to be Raven your acceleration. My
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name is already m with shape,
and I'm here today with stree soon,
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Darling, GAM seem, advisor and
consults and for technology companies in the San
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Francisco Bay area. Straight. How
are you today? Doing Great, early
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in and thank you for having me
on your podcast. That's an absolute pleasure.
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So that you've been a leading quite
a few product and marketing function walking
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from small to bid and large size
bb companies of other less fifteen years and
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today the topic that we want to
discuss with you is around personal base marketing.
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But before we go into details,
with a little bit of a tradition
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at the beginning of every single podcast, well, we ask our guests to
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introduce himself or self, as well
as tell us a little bit more about
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what they're currently doing at the moment. Yeah, so, as you meagine,
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know led the product and marketing functions
at large and light compies and startups
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in the past two teen years.
And this is focusing on areas. They
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product marketing, product management, technical
marketing, demand generation, to name few
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the areas, and really focusing mainly
on bt B businesses working for when their
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companies selling to large, medium small
size organizations, and this is an example.
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Some of the companies that work for
our Semantic Corporation, recently shape security,
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late stage start up today, sister
systems, to name a few,
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and you know, mainly focused on
industries in the cyber security, information security
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area. They d not working as
well as enterprise software market. So that's
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kind of been my overall area expertise
as wonderful. Yeah, we've been doing
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some work with some of the company
you mentioned. Are Good on the something
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of what you what you've been doing
so so, Strae, I know you
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are big advocate of person at base
marketing and it would be great if you
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could briefly introduce the concept of of
personal base marketing to Ology and sent share
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with us how we can help on
the certain marketing fronts. Basically, yes,
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lutely, really passionate about this area
early and personal really means know you
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buy right. Such a foundational element
for sales and marketing and sometimes they tend
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to forget that. So no,
your buy there, and what I mean
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by that is when you're partly large
into a lot of enterprise organization or medium
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or small size organizations, you know
you need to understand the different buyers right
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for your particular product area that you're
wanting to sell, and and knowing the
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buyer means knowing their pain point,
you know, knowing what a critical priorities
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projects that they're driving and how to
speak their language, and it is such
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a foundational element in terms of how
you need to build your marketing, messaging
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and positioning, how you need to
enable your sales team to be able to
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talk to different types of buyers within
the organization, be able to empathize with
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them and know which pain points they're
going through and to be able to tell
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the right user stories and, you
know, really develop a credibility, because
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that early to mid part of the
sales cycle is about relating to the buyer,
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you know, knowing what they're going
through and then being able to come
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up with the valid proposition that will
drive the you know, the sales transaction
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through that. That makes perfect sense
and a much of the cells team do
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you do you involve in the finding
at the outset. So let's say you
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start on your role, your brand
new in in, let's say, a
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storage company, and you've never done
storage before. Of course you've got an
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idea of who is whoo and you
who you should sell to, but how
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much involvement from the cells team do
you need, or would you require,
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in order to define a person that
days marketing approach? I would say quit
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a bit, because the sales managers
and sales engineers who are prospecting into the
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account they're able to, you know, get to the different types of personas
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within those accounts and, you know, be able to, if they've been
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at that, you know, at
the job for a while right, be
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able to have those conversation tunes.
So they're really a good starting point,
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right, to talk to the sales
team to understand who are you talking with
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in the different accounts, right,
who has a budget versus who's the evaluator
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and you know, who'll make the
final decision and provide the recommendation. So
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starting with the sales team is a
great first, you know, phase.
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And then beyond, you know,
the sales team, there are other ways
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to do your market research as well, you know, and those reports are
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all these very helpful when they look
at their different analyst films that focus on,
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you know, different industry segments.
So these are, like you typical
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industry analyst like Donner, forester,
IDC and so on, that would publish
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reports on different market segments. I
would would typically use them to understand the
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buyers. And then there's additional research
you can do as a market here to
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collect all the data points you need
to Kinde oft get to a place where
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you start to formulate a strategy based
on, you know, who are the
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the main the buyers? WHO The
budget holder? WHO's evaluator? WHO's a
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key decision kept? That makes perfect
sense, and then to engage your sells
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team. So I'm asking your lots
of question around the around the sales people,
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because I think sometimes we walk with
great Mark Tears and people've got to
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fantastic at this. But unfortunately,
and I will go on to account,
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Base Marketing AC count by setting in
a minute. But See makely your person
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that base marketing will be as successful
as a sells team using it in the
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right way and getting the results.
So you said some Keypi is. What
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tactics do you use to actunly get
yourselves date to use orders free subjects you've
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done, to not just carry on
doing what they've been doing but as them
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some feat is very difficult for sales
people, which is basically changing. I'm
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going to speak the more people in
the same account. So how do you
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get them to shake hands with you
and be involved in supporting you? Threat
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Approach? Right. So one of
the areas sales team always struggles with this
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and, as you mentioned, the
market hears you can come up with great
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strategies but when you roll it out, you know the same messaging doesn't work
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at different levels. Right. Yeah, I know we talk about it convas
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marketing shortly, holly, you take
a lot into pressure organization. If you're
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talking to the cyber security information security
markets, right, if you're talking to
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engineer or manager versus you know you're
talking to a director of BP or CIS,
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so who maybe the ultimate budget holder, you have to use different language,
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writing and going back to pain points. You know what is relevant to
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them in terms of the day to
day business that you're bringing to the table.
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So you know, a lot of
sales team, I've seen over and
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O again they've struggled with that.
Is because the market here, if they
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haven't formulated the right strategy and given
them the right messaging points and assets to
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be able to carry out that conversation
and develop that to it becomes very difficult
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for sales team and they typically go
up and develop some of that on their
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own. So when you formally to
strategy, I think what I would advise
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the sitting down with your sales team
explaining how you're going to go about developing
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the messaging at those different levels and
showing them what the output you're going to
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produce. Will Get by it,
you know, for you and they will
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see. I mean, if this
is the sales team that's been in play,
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they've been engaging with customers, they
will see the value. But even
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with others the tenure experience sales,
we will know that they have to use
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different language, different discussion points at
different levels and you know, should be,
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you know, straightforward. We to
get that buy, but your point
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out really and get that by show
them what you're going to produce, how
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you're going to enable them, and
then you go do it. You will
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get, you know, strong handshake
and you know sort of the collaboration going
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on and then you do have to, you know, adjust the strategy as
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you go forward. But yeah,
definitely that early engagement and agreement is very
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critical when you produced a strategy to
be successful and, you know, to
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be able to implement. Did it
make it work? Of course that makes
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sense. As coming back to to
the point I was making about the the
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account base marketing, account base setting. So it's in. Everybody is dissociating
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the concept of I can't base everything, which is which is putting your prospecting
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the center of your marketing and serves
approach, which is logic. But you
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know, Lens, some people are
dissociating it and and I do think that
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actually, from from from what we
are discussing today person that base marketing is
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actually a supper important part of the
concept. You know, if you don't
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stop by on those, on the
people and the function and the challenge in
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that function, how come out come, your very proposition can support them in
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being a better professional, then the
rest of you can base marketing, the
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rest of you can be sitting.
May Not make sense. So could you
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elaborate on on on that connection between
ABM and and and personal base marketing is
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is that really a difference? Yes, and you could do persona based marketing
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without having to do account based marketing. Right. So let's say, for
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the sake of discussion here, you've
decided your go to market strategy is you're
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going to, you know, go
after line enterprise organizations, regardless of different
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industries. You're going to target an
your organization larger than thousand employees rate,
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and you can employ your persona based
marketing with that and be successful to putting
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on the product that you're taking the
market. Another scenario could be you can
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get even more targeted without going to
account base marketing, where you could say
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with the large enterprise, you know, accounts. I'm going to focus on
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this top by verticals, right this
top by industries, financial services, great,
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healthcare on, and these five you're
going to go really luck in.
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The next level after that is the
account based marketing that you're mentioning, which
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is really say look, out of
all of the alloted enterprise accounts, there
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are these fivezero accounts that we need
to sell and it you could have filtered
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that based on industries, rate,
based on geographical region and so forth.
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There you're really getting targeted, right. So cons some of the base marketing
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can be employed regardless of using a
count based marketing or not. When you
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do use the account based marketing,
especially when you go up a lot of
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enterprise organization, it could be a
lot more impact and powerful when you also,
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you know, added Persona based marketing, because typically in a lot of
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enterprise organization, as we talked about
earlier, you're going to have different levels
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of fires or influencers you're going to
be working with, from your sort of
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the major evaluate or level to somebody
perhaps midmage most level, holding the budget.
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So we need apply the persona based
marketing. You could produce a lot
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more high impact results for Acom Marketing, account based marketing in a tactic that
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you employ. Yeah, now I
agree with you. I agree with you
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and coming to do this influence and
evaluate urs and think you mentioned the people
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get the budget and all that.
So we are big believers, maybe what
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to traditional and to all school but
to are big believers in the fact that
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to be successful in search process it's
very important to have a connection with the
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authority. So the see level contact
that that CIO, CIS or CTEO and
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in the line of business, CMOS, Cro ceocfo is ext t exeter right.
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Of course, the the larger the
organization, the more difficult it is
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to market to these people, to
sell to the people. Two, to
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have some time in fount of just
be and I also know that in summer
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in some veralty cores particular, if
we look at if you look at infrastructure
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security, when you look at the
c CEO, the CIS, who was
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just two titles, everybody wants to
speak to them. So I believe that
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those guys are probably getting approach a
lot and probably not responding towards of prospect
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but coming to my question, and
in your opinion, all Ma Cheffor,
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should you put into targeting, influence
so and key evaluators in that person that
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based marketing approach? Yeah, great
question earlier. And Look, the reality
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is when you're at sea level right, whether you're see so or Cteo,
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you have very limited time, right, and you're not going to be the
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person who's going to be doing the
initial research and evaluation of your different initiatives
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that you have rolled out. So
it's very important not to overly pivot marketing,
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you know, to the c level
by and now I'm not saying you
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don't market to the C level,
by absolutely do you employ the right tactics
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rate when you're using a cant base
marketing and you target to sea level,
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buyer or what's really important also is
to understand, you know, all different
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initiatives within the organization. Who's going
to be the folks doing the research,
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right, the initial research, and
right, who are going to be the
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doing the evaluation? And you need
to target those people, those those persona
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right. And again, going back
to myself, a security you know,
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information security areas. You could be
an engineer doing the initial research, right,
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a security engineer or security architect.
And you know, the person who's
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going to short list the winders to
bring them in for proof of concept could
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be somebody at manager level, not
not, you know, directly meet your
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see level for that matter. So
it's very important to be able to develop
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the right material, right, iducate
them, especially when you're developing the marketing
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funnel, right, engage those folk
to be able to get invited to the
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party right. But when you're in
these large enterprise organization or even midsize organization,
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you do need to influence, you
know, who are actually going to
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be holding the budget. When you
get to that stage, you want to
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be, you know, successful in
converting the opportunities. So right. So
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I think again, you employ the
right tactics. You know, CEE level
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folks don't read emails very much.
They just going to afford it. Sometimes
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they may or may not take a
phone call. They may be will link
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to attend networking events with other see
little folks. So it's like, how
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do you employ the right tactics?
Yes, you should target them, but
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really know. You know who in
the organizations are going to, you know,
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perform the evaluations and the recommendations so
that you have a balance approach shop.
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Yeah, it's not a one trick
putty that that makes perfects and appreciate
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that so quickly. Coming to Jennifer
of our conversation today. So the really
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appreciate your time and orgins that you
you shall with us at that's great fall
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audience. If anyone wants to get
in touch with you free and he's not
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carrying on the that conversation or I'll
seemply potentially discuss your selvie season, what
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you could have felt to that company. What is the best way to to
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get in touch with you? Yeah, definitely, thank you for offering that.
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The best plays to faces me through
Linkedin and just find me on Linkedin.
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Send me a message, connect with
me and I'm happy to engage and
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two questions, as well as sect
this particular opportunities to work with different companies
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that would be excited to do that
as well. Okay, that's one enough
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ful. Well, once again,
thank you very much for a time.
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It was absolutely a pleasure to have
you on the show today. Street great.
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Thank you early and really appreciate it
and into the discussion with you.
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00:15:43.100 --> 00:15:48.779
operatics has redefined the meaning of revenue
generation for technology companies worldwide. While the
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00:15:48.899 --> 00:15:54.570
traditional concepts of building and managing inside
sales teams inhouse has existed for many years,
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00:15:56.009 --> 00:16:00.809
companies are struggling with a lack of
focus, agility and scale required in
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00:16:00.889 --> 00:16:07.120
today's fast and complex world of enterprise
technology sales. See How operatics can help
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00:16:07.159 --> 00:16:12.200
your company accelerate pipeline at operatics dotnet. You've been listening to be to be
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00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:17.759
revenue acceleration. To ensure that you
never miss an episode, subscribe to the
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show in your favorite podcast player.
Thank you so much for listening. Until
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00:16:21.990 --> 00:16:22.389
next time,
