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Future-proofing the humans behind the tech. Follow Phil Gamache and Darrell Alfonso on their mission to help future-proof the humans behind the tech and have successful careers in the constantly expanding universe of martech.
[00:01:00] Phil: What's up everyone. Today, we have the pleasure of sitting down with Meg Gowell, director of growth marketing at Typeform.
[00:01:07] About Meg
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[00:01:07] Phil: Meg started her career in wedding planning while she was still in college. And she also started a luxury branding business for high end weddings.
[00:01:15] She then, uh, worked at a marketing agency for four years. She focused on social media, paid media, and budget management. She switched over to a boutique agency where she got a breadth of experience across a bunch of facets like web design, CRO. Project management, and also got to lead a team of marketers.
[00:01:33] She then moved over to a real estate startup, which was one of her former clients at the agency. Um, she began VP of marketing and automation where she helped grow the company from a crazy 9 million to 22 million and less. Then a year, I moved over to B2B SaaS at app queues as director of growth marketing, where she led final optimization and experimentation strategy, uh, event sponsorship is dev and a bunch of other stuff.
[00:01:56] And today Meg is director of growth marketing type form, uh, where [00:02:00] she oversees paid website life cycle, partner marketing campaigns, and I'm sure a lot of other stuff, Meg, thank you so much for your time today. Really pumped to chat.
[00:02:08] Megan: Thanks, I'm really excited to be here.
[00:02:09]
[00:02:09] Darrell: [00:03:00] [00:04:00] All right. So Meg, you've talked about, um, the. Benefits of being a full stack marketer, which I love. I've, I've talked about this concept, um, because it comes from the idea of full stack engineers and they're like some of the highest paid engineers in the world, and I've always said there should be full stack marketers and they should be the highest, some of the highest paid marketers in the world.
[00:04:46] Um, first off,
[00:04:48] How Full Stack Marketers Drive Marketing Excellence
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[00:04:48] Darrell: how do you think of full stack marketer versus T shaped marketer? Is it the same? Is it slightly different? Would you, um, are those synonymous do you think?
[00:04:59] Megan: I [00:05:00] think you can go both ways. I think I have been seeing people say T shaped more to me and experience in multiple areas and then a breadth across everything. But when I normally think of T shape, it's like you're really deep in one. So I think if you're talking about a deep and multiple, it can be close.
[00:05:14] But from my perspective, Really, to be a full stack marketer, you need a decent amount of information about most areas, and it doesn't mean you need to be an expert in all of them. It doesn't mean you could go be like the only person who was working on that area in a company, but I think you need to know enough to be able to really ask.
[00:05:31] Valuable questions to the people who are running that role, and you need to know enough to actually be able to spot an expert in that, which I think is kind of the really important thing when it comes to hiring. Sometimes, you know, you're hiring for a role that you don't really understand, and as a result, you kind of get the wrong person in the door.
[00:05:46] And so I think that a lot of times the full stack part comes in there for me of like, you have to know enough. You have know someone who really knows stuff like you have to know enough to know what you don't know. And that's how you create a team that's good enough, you know,
[00:05:58] Darrell: Yeah. Yeah. And it's kind [00:06:00] of like in each area, knowing enough to be dangerous a little bit. Do you think that as you get more senior in career, like that becomes tougher? Do you think that it's still important? Like you know, you're, you're a director now you're leading growth marketing.
[00:06:17] Balancing Technical Proficiency and Leadership in Marketing Teams
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[00:06:17] Darrell: Do you feel like you still have that need to try to get it to try to learn a little bit of everything?
[00:06:23] Like, has that changed for you or is it still the same?
[00:06:26] Megan: yeah, I mean, I think it gets harder when you get in leadership positions and you're doing less hands on keyboard work because honestly, like in our industry, things move so quickly. That it's easy to not know enough to be dangerous, like very fast, if you're not at some level kind of connected to boots on the ground or what's actually happening day to day.
[00:06:45] And so I know I've found it at AppCues, I had more of an IC role, honestly, um, and led more like cross functional teams, whereas at Typeform, I lead a team of 10. And that's a huge difference. Like it's just a huge difference in how I spend my time day to day [00:07:00] and how much hands on time I have with the actual tools and stuff like that.
[00:07:04] And so what I've found is. I really have to still dig in. I feel like I'm a very visual learner and like, it's great if someone tells you what they're doing and I can do my best to understand it. But sometimes I really have to be like, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be picky. I'm not trying to nitpick your work.
[00:07:18] You just got to show it to me in platform. Like I just have to see it in platform because until I get like, The underlying workflows of how it all works are like, show me the filter logic, like show me these random things that I shouldn't care about, but I have to care about it to like, actually fully understand what you're doing, and what you need me to do to help you do it well, if that makes sense.
[00:07:37] Darrell: And I, I bet it gives you your, it gives your team like a lot of confidence in you because you've actually done this type of work. Like you've been in the weeds and, and you're not, you know, just being fluffy about what your guidance is or what your direction is. Like you've actually done this kind of stuff because you're a full stack marketer.
[00:07:59] Megan: I hope so. [00:08:00] I don't know how it comes across. I mean, I think that like, as a manager, you're always balancing like, being that nitpicky like boss that's on you about everything and also knowing enough that you like actually are helpful in the conversation and they're not just coming to you like well I know what they're gonna say like whatever I'll just listen to it and then move on right and I've had bosses who've done both so like I totally get it and I think it's just always a balancing act you're making between like how am I coming off when I'm asking this question and like asking to dig in and does it seem like I just like found something random and now it's like this Endless project that I have to go dig information up for, or does it feel like it's actually like coming from a place of like trying to understand for better future conversations?
[00:08:39] And honestly, I don't know if I've gotten the balance right yet. I fully been there since August. We haven't done an engagement survey yet, so I can't tell you if I am managing well or not.
[00:08:48] Phil: Yeah. It's always been a fine line about trying to show the person that you're interested in their work and you wore those shoes in the past too. So you're like, you want to see it. You want to see what they've done. [00:09:00] And like, it's easy to just say like, it looks good. Like you're, you're kind of washing your hands from actually giving the feedback.
[00:09:06] But sometimes you see a couple of things that you could give advice on. And you're making that call about like, is it the right time for me to say that? Should I hold back on saying that? It's not really a big deal. Like it's, it's a weird part for sure. But I think that like, I've had managers who were a lot more hands on and we're still willing to like review the work, go through it, give me advice, but still tell me like, you know what?
[00:09:29] Like, I'm going to give you a bunch of things that are at the top of my head. Feel free to just like take them and put them in the trash. If you think they're silly and let me know why, but like, I want to like take the time and review your work and give you that feedback. So it's a, the fine line, right?
[00:09:45] Megan: Yeah, I think it's tricky. It's funny. I used to listen to the CMO podcasts for a while and he had someone on from Airbnb, I think, who was talking about as a manager, you have to start realizing, like, Am I making it better or am I just making it different? And that is something that I try [00:10:00] to remind myself of all the time.
[00:10:01] It's like, I'm like, a crazy idea person. Like, you're like, we need to do X. And I'm like, let's, I don't know, have 20 people in Times Square, like, do a choreographed dance. Like, that is me. Much to my team's chagrin. But there's so many times when you get brought something and you're like, well, it's like, Is it just that, like, I like the color blue better, so I'm suggesting blue, or is, am I actually making this better for our audience?
[00:10:23] And I think that's what I keep trying to bring myself back to, and I do better and worse on, on, on any given day, quite honestly.
[00:10:30] Phil: One thing that continues to come back. Whether you're in like an IC role or a leadership role is this idea of measurement, and I am really curious to get your, your take on this and how you tackle this, but you've actually said that in order to execute like an actual impactful marketing plan, you have to.
[00:10:48] You have to accept the fact that you won't be able to prove every single thing in that marketing plan. And that realistically, it's the sum of a number of different things that you're doing that made an impact, not just like one or [00:11:00] two things.
[00:11:00] Trusting Your Gut vs Measuring All Of The Things
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[00:11:00] Phil: How do you tackle the conversation with senior management when they ask you inevitably, you Meg, what is the ROI of that?
[00:11:08] How, how many of those things drove revenue last year? What's the one thing that drove the most revenue? Like how, how do you tackle those conversations?
[00:11:17] Megan: Yeah, I think it's really tough. I think marketers as a whole are in a really tough spot right now, where we've been in this phase of optimization now for right, the past two, two and a half years, where it's like, growth at all costs wasn't cutting it. Now figure out exactly what works and cut everything else.
[00:11:34] And we also have had a ton of data that we got from using ad platforms, right? Where like all of a sudden you're like, shoot, I can attach clicks to views, to conversions. This is amazing. And those two things together have led to this world where there's an assumption that you know a lot more than you do, and that you can predict everything with absolute certainty without remembering the fact that humans, Don't do what you want them to do all the time.
[00:11:59] Like, you [00:12:00] can't control what humans do. And I think that that's the part that a lot of people forget. Is that, like, I don't know exactly what someone's gonna do next week or the week after that. I can only give you my best shot and give you kind of my professional opinion. And I think it's that coupled with the fact that attribution is getting harder and harder.
[00:12:16] That really, we have to all accept this level of not being positive and take big bets. And I think if you only invest in things that you're absolutely sure on, you're You're not going to grow enough. Like the things you could be absolutely sure on would be like maybe paid search. I don't think anybody thinks paid search is enough of a channel at this point to grow an entire business on like they're diminishing returns there.
[00:12:37] And at some point you're going to hit a ceiling. And so I think you really have to be willing to commit to things that aren't safe bets. Uh, otherwise you just aren't going to grow as fast. Like if you're fine with 5 percent growth year over year forever, then like, sure. Like we can just go with safe bets.
[00:12:50] But I think overall. If you want something that's going to have a bigger impact, you kind of have to put your trust in channels, you know, like social, like influencers that are really, really hard to [00:13:00] measure and don't work in a vacuum either. Like one channel by itself isn't enough. What you need to do is create the sense of being everywhere and getting to your audience from multiple places.
[00:13:10] Right. And to do that, you can't just rely on one thing and you kind of have to look at the sum of all of it. When it comes to actually selling it to leadership, uh, I think that that really depends. So. the end of the day, you need to have a vision for your overall marketing plan. And I think if you don't have a vision, that you can clearly articulate, it's very hard to get by in.
[00:13:31] Just saying, it's the sum, isn't enough, right? I want to do all this stuff and all together it's going to work. That isn't enough. Like you have to have a hypothesis about why all those pieces fit together. And I think if you haven't articulated that well to leadership, it's really hard to get by it. It's still hard to get by and even with the vision, but at least if you can get them to like, commit to a vision and get excited about it, it's easier to explain that concept of all these other pieces work together.
[00:13:55] Finally, like know your audience and leadership being your audience here. Like if there's a channel, [00:14:00] you know. That they see and think, oh, that's working for a lot of execs. It's often noise on LinkedIn, right? Like if they see that, find a way to incorporate that in your plan and find a way to like create noise there.
[00:14:11] So they feel like things are working. I think at the end of the day, you know, we're all selling something like you're selling internally, you're selling externally, and you have to realize who you're speaking to and what things speak to them and figure out how to, how to pull that into the ask that you're making.
[00:14:25] Darrell: Do you, do you do something where it's like, Hey, 80 percent of, you know, your efforts or like your budget or your activities are going to be dedicated to the stuff that you know that works. And then there's a certain percentage, like you said, that you're just going to kind of try and make big bets on, like, do you think of it that way or, or not really? Like, and what I mean is like, you know, We need to try new things, you know, and, and, and like, but we still need to make sure we're [00:15:00] on the, you know, mainstay channels, like paid search and social. Um, it, how, how do you kind of like balance those out? Like trying new stuff with keeping the lights on with the, like the, the core channels.
[00:15:15] Yeah.
[00:15:16] Megan: think
[00:15:16] Core Marketing Channels vs New Channel Experimentation
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[00:15:16] Megan: that's actually super applicable to Typeform specifically because we have our core business and then we also have like new features like Typeform for growth, which is like a newer set of features together. Um, and we also have been working on our like enterprise, like sales led motion. And so there's definitely a conflict in some way between those different audiences and between which channels kind of help support those different motions.
[00:15:39] And so from our side, it has been. What I have found the most impactful is instead of having different people on different areas, instead I'm trying to figure out ways that, that certain threads can move through all of them. So one of them for next year is, we know from a paid perspective, We want to focus more on like LTV rather than like [00:16:00] initial new revenue.
[00:16:01] And so we want to be able to spend more on people who will pay us more in the long run. Uh, one way to go about that would be to like create a complex LTV model. Our poor data team has 9 million requests and that's just not going to happen. And so instead what we're doing is we're saying, okay, let's understand the drivers for the sales led side of the business and what signals we're seeing there, and then figure out how we can pay, pull it through to paid.
[00:16:22] And so I think that there's an interesting opportunity to kind of like, Pull things across different areas from one side. And then I think the other part of this that gets tricky is, is really around budget. Like time is one thing. I think money is the other thing that usually you're going to have to like convince leadership of.
[00:16:40] So the way that I've thought about it in the past has been, if you want to do something new, generally you need to keep the core stable in order to make sure you are as confident as possible with your new bet. So like going into next year. A lot of our bet was around awareness where we're like, okay, we've invested very heavily in paid search.
[00:16:59] We [00:17:00] know that channel, but where we're lacking is the general brand awareness, right? So that we're staying top of mind in the market. And so we're like, well, that's where we felt the opportunity is. And so instead of saying, Hey, we're going to like, take what we already had and pull 30 percent of it away for awareness.
[00:17:13] It was more like, if I want to make this bet, I have to keep the foundation solid. And so I need something incremental on top of it in order to keep the foundation solid. It's been a hard ask to be completely honest with you, but I think that that's the tricky part of like, you have to realize when you're doing something new, you have to be able to keep the core solid.
[00:17:29] And so sometimes when you like, don't have the extra money to keep the core solid, you have to think of ways that you can partially achieve that goal by pulling bits of pieces and like, or reallocating things. So I think that budget's the part where it gets really tricky because in the past, I've had like a separate experimentation budget.
[00:17:45] So like, Maybe 20 percent of our ad spend is just for like random experiments and stuff like that. And I think that that's worked pretty well. It's really hard though, if you haven't had that expectation in the past to move to it, because then you're asking to like take [00:18:00] away from something existing. And I think that that's where the tricky part is.
[00:18:03] I think figuring out how you can like. Start to pull together an experimentation budget is huge, but inherently means that people have to be okay with there being first off a bucket of money that's unallocated kind of, which finance teams don't like. Um, and then it also means you're like shifting budget in real time, which is also hard in terms of maintaining that core.
[00:18:25] So I think a lot of times it like, You really have to ask for more if it's not something that has been established ahead of time. But if you can establish it ahead of time, like, that's great. I just think it's often really difficult to get there unless you can get everybody, like, bought in. And if you can't get everybody bought in, you kind of have to figure out how to do it bit by bit, I think, over time, which isn't going to have the same impact.
[00:18:45] And I think that's the thing that you really have to be clear with people. I've seen internally even, you know, It's so valuable to continue to reiterate, like, yes, I will do this on a smaller scale. It will not have the impact you want. And I think just being really clear about that over and over [00:19:00] again is something that, like, everyone should be doing in any leadership call.
[00:19:02] Like, it's fine if you don't want to fund whatever I'm saying is the best practice. I just need you to realize. It won't have the impact if we do it on a smaller scale. And I think just reiterating that helps people realize over time that you're not just asking for money to ask for money. You're thinking about it in terms of impact, which at the end of the day, like that's what the core business cares about.
[00:19:22] So,
[00:19:23] Darrell: Yeah, one thing that really resonates with me, and like one thing that I've done that I found helped is to map out some projections of what you think is going to happen. And then, and then for the new stuff, the experimental stuff, you can do low, mid and high scenarios. And I feel that that gives executives a lot of like, Oh, okay, this is, this is new, but this is very thought, this is thoroughly thought out.
[00:19:50] You know, they're, they're basically saying the marketing team is basically saying, you know, if it doesn't go the way we want, we're going to expect this results, but listen, this is the upside, you know, it could, [00:20:00] it could go up this way and that's why we want to bet on it. Um, so the other thing, this kind of bleeds into the next question where we're talking a little bit about brand.
[00:20:09] Um, and I think in your, in your, uh, some of your other content,
[00:20:14] How Market Leaders Build Brand Momentum Over Time
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[00:20:14] Darrell: you talk about the importance of like building momentum, uh, with brand. And I, I personally always thought that this is, it, it, this is a really tough concept because, um, it's such a, a lagging, um, um, um, Brand is such a lagging measure. Like it takes, takes a long time for it to really come and apply.
[00:20:36] And, and there's a lot of intangible, um, things that, that, that brand does like help, help, help make sales calls easier. That's so difficult to measure. Um, I'd love to hear your take on, you know, this whole like brand versus demand concept. And like, are there actual tangible things that you can do with ads or with brand campaigns that can really move the needle and create urgency?
[00:20:59] Megan: [00:21:00] yeah. So I think it's, it's tricky, you know, to think about like purchase behavior. And I think that that's what we've all been more focused on as an industry over the past, like year or so, right. In our LinkedIn echo chamber of just thinking about like. How do people actually buy and what things go into it?
[00:21:17] I think that that's where the brand and brand perception is so key, especially now that you have so much more scrutiny over budget decisions, right? Of like your perception in the market really depends, really like kind of determines what tools your, you know, stakeholders or key personas are even willing to bring up as well as what's going to get approved.
[00:21:36] Because if they don't think it's going to be an easy sell, they might not bring it up. And if they don't think it's going to be critical to them hitting their numbers, they also might not bring it up. And then if finance or the executive team doesn't think either of those things, they probably aren't going to approve it.
[00:21:51] And so I think that that's where some of the brand awareness stuff is so valuable in that you can't just expect to be somewhere at [00:22:00] the right moment, the moment somebody is searching and capture everything you need. I think at this point, especially in SAS, there's so many competing, Not even just tools in the same category, but also competing categories, right?
[00:22:13] Where it's like different approaches to solve a problem, right? There's like, if you think about, okay, I have a churn problem. Okay, do you think in app messaging is the solution you need to go to? Or do you need better emails? Or do you want to rethink your acquisition strategy? Like, you kind of have to first convince people, like, this is your problem, which category should you even go look into?
[00:22:34] And I think to do that is really where brand awareness and really where momentum comes in from my perspective, which is it's not enough for people to just think of your brand. They have to feel like your brand is a moving thing that they need to be a part of. And everyone's talking about it and everyone's doing it.
[00:22:49] And if they don't, you know, become part of it. And by that, I mean, be a customer. They won't hit their goals because that's their biggest opportunity to hit their goals, especially in this world, right? Only a few tools are going to be [00:23:00] prioritized at any time. And one of the biggest things you're fighting against is like inertia, right?
[00:23:04] Or like doing nothing. And so it has to be that like, not using your tool is way less than using your tool. I always think of the quote of like, nobody got fired for buying IBM. And I think more of us need to think like that, right? Of like, Okay, does it feel like buying my tool would really have any risk?
[00:23:20] Right? Let's de risk as much as we can. And I think to do that, it needs to feel like everyone else is doing that. And so if you do it, You know, you were just kind of doing what everybody else was doing and it seemed great. Right. And no one's going to blame you for it later. So I think there's so much psychological stuff going on and purchases that we don't think about sometimes when we're just focused on like, do I have the right tool to figure out the keyword research that the one team is doing?
[00:23:41] Where it's like, there's so much more to it around like, What's the perception of my tool? Do people think they're going to get fired for buying this? Or do they think they're not going to get fired for buying this? Right? Like, that's one of the biggest questions anybody has. And I think that that's where momentum comes in, right?
[00:23:53] Of like, if you feel like a brand is moving and everybody's using it and you see it everywhere, not only is a C suite going to be like, [00:24:00] yeah, I've heard of them, but it's going to be way harder to say like, Oh, you shouldn't have bought that. And I think that that's where like, everybody should be striving to be in some way or another.
[00:24:09] Phil: Very cool. I love your perspective on this. Like, I think you have a cool blend in your background of branding plus experimentation. And I think a lot of folks like are either really deep in one or like two of those areas and you kind of like straddle the whole thing. The two of them, I'm curious to ask you, like, maybe like not just Typeform, like past experience too, you don't have to like name a brand there, but like,
[00:24:33] Brand Campaigns That Defy Conversion Logic
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[00:24:33] Phil: if you think back on like memorable experiment results that touch on brand, what are some of the ones that like come into your head as like really surprising outcomes?
[00:24:46] Megan: Yeah, well, so probably the best one is maybe related to Typeform. We did a recent brand campaign this fall, um, and it was starting like the beginning of September. I'd only been there for like three weeks and my head of [00:25:00] web comes to me and she's like, so we're redesigning the homepage to match the new brand campaign.
[00:25:05] And I was like, what do you mean you were redesigning the homepage to match the new brand campaign? That sounds like a terrible idea. I would rather not do that three weeks into the job. I was like, I love our homepage. I love our headline. It actually says what we do. It says the word forms. Isn't that amazing?
[00:25:20] Nobody's headlines say what they do. Like, let's stick with this, please. And she was like, no, no, no. Like, I think I can manage it. Like, don't worry about it. And I was like, well, don't let them put too many words in it. Like, don't do all these things. They're like, I do love brands, but at the end of the day, like I started as a performance marketer and I started on the CRO side and I am always going to be like less words, focus people in.
[00:25:40] Like, that's always my immediate reaction to things. Um, And honestly, I'm happy to say I was totally wrong. Like they reworked it and it performed better. And I was like, super hesitant and like, we have something that works great. Why are we messing with it? Just because the brand team wants us to. And she's like, well, they don't really want, like, we all want to do this.
[00:25:57] And I was like, I don't know. It seems like a bad idea, but it [00:26:00] was one of those moments where like, I was worried about it because from my perspective, right. It was like, we already had a great thing. Like, why would we mess with it? And I was worried that it would become more about the brand moment than it would about clearly articulating what we do to our customers.
[00:26:15] And so I honestly have to give her props for marrying those two things and bringing in the brand moment and figuring out how to really communicate, like, the story that we were telling. But also make it understandable and something that, you know, Any user landing on our page, even if they hadn't seen the brand campaign videos, could still relate to and still understood what we did.
[00:26:36] And so I think that that's always a tricky one of like, you come out with new brand campaigns, but at the end of the day, you still have people buying every day who just want to know what the heck you do so they can buy it.
[00:26:45] Darrell: Well, I think your hesitation, it sounds like that, that campaign worked out really well, but your hesitation around changing the homepage, I think is pretty real. Like it's pretty founded, like, like it seems like, like all marketing leaders wanted redesigned the website [00:27:00] all the time. Like when it's like their first thing they want to do.
[00:27:03] And then the other thing is that I work with a lot of marketing teams, like a lot of ops teams where just for no reason, they want to change something, you know, and, and my fear. And what I always say is, especially when it comes to like ops and managing Martek, when you keep changing things, it's very difficult to get a level set of what's happening.
[00:27:25] So, so you actually don't know. You know, and this is classic, you know, um, this is classic, like statistics and like an experimentation. If you're changing like two or three things at the same time, you actually don't know what worked. Um, so I think that, you know, again, I'm glad that brand campaign worked, but I would be in the same position.
[00:27:44] I'd be like, why are you changing this? It does work. So anyway, go on.
[00:27:51] Phil: Yeah. When I think back of, um, experimentation in, in my career, it's, it's definitely not all, uh, all roses and, and, and [00:28:00] green win campaigns. Um, I think that I'm curious to get your take on this here, but like we, we, we asked a couple of recent guests,
[00:28:07] Why Marketing Experiments Fail 98% of the Time
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[00:28:07] Phil: this idea of like why marketers ignore bad results or to spend a lot of time celebrating the wins, but don't, don't Spend enough time reflecting on the inconclusive experiments or the, the bad results, right?
[00:28:23] Like, do you think that there's as much to gain from sharing the failures and the learnings? And how do you kind of falter this culture of acceptance or failure? So that people on your team do feel comfortable and not afraid of losing their job to like share. Experiments that like warm these big winds.
[00:28:42] Megan: I think it's really hard and I think it, in some ways it has to come very top down from a leadership level around like how open we are to experimentation as a whole and how willing we are to take big swings. I think you have to enable the team to feel like they can try lots of things. Cause what is it with [00:29:00] experimentation rules?
[00:29:00] It's like what, 10%, 5 percent are going to be successful. What was the stats of like Netflix where they were talking about like they did however many experiments and like, maybe like. 2 percent were successful, but they had like a huge impact. And people don't realize that. I think when they start experimentation in part, cause they just do a little bit of it, or they just do it here and there, and they don't have the volume.
[00:29:20] And I think it's that volume that's so key and also learning something from it. Like to my mind, an inconclusive result is probably the worst result you can have. Like, I'd rather just learn something. Like you need to learn something. If you didn't learn anything, you didn't do a very good experiment.
[00:29:34] Like it wasn't good enough in my opinion. And so I think it's hard to. I think it's really hard to foster that. I think you need to be able to give people the space to try things, you need to be able to not have everything tied to a like, really specific number that has to be impacted immediately, which like, that's the thing where it really is coming from top down.
[00:29:52] Like, if there is appetite for that, it's great. If there isn't, it can be really hard, even on an individual team, to fully foster that. [00:30:00] And then I think you have to show yourself doing it too. I think leading by example is important there. Um, just showing that you are willing to fail and that you're willing to take a big swing and that it doesn't always work out.
[00:30:11] Um, and then figuring out how to communicate it to the rest of the team, I think is where it gets tough for the rest of the organization gets tough too. Like people even sometimes don't share their wins. It's like, how do we got to share? You got to just share more, share more about what you're doing and making it, make it look like you're doing stuff and you're learning something and we're moving forward in some way or another.
[00:30:29] Darrell: I love that. Yeah.
[00:30:30] Phil: Such a good answer.
[00:30:31]
[00:30:31] Darrell: [00:31:00] [00:32:00] Yeah, like the lead, the lead by the example, I think is, is inspiring and right on like that, that go, it's the same with mistakes, you know, if, if you, as, as, as a leader can say, you know what, I bet big on this direction and it didn't pan out, you know, and I admit that, so we're going to shift.
[00:32:50] And then that, I think people unconsciously just see that and go like, Oh, it's okay. You know, it's okay to try new things. I think one thing that might, you [00:33:00] know, might help is maybe setting some guardrails and having, like, really strong vision. Guardrails in that, you know, we're not just, like, throwing spaghetti at the wall, everybody.
[00:33:10] Like, hey, I, I, uh, you know, because how many,
[00:33:12] Marketing Innovation Guardrails That Actually Work
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[00:33:12] Darrell: how many marketers are like, Hey, I have this random idea, guys. You know, I saw something on TikTok.
[00:33:16] Megan: me. I was going to say, I'm the random idea person.
[00:33:18] Darrell: yeah, yeah, well, Okay, and that's fine as long as you have like guardrails for yourself. Like, okay, you know, you're kind of like,
[00:33:25] Megan: My team is my guardrails.
[00:33:27] Darrell: run through this.
[00:33:28] Yeah, regardless of how the guardrails are, it's like this checklist of like, wait a minute. Is this, are we going to expect something out of this? Is it relevant and is it doable? And does this, or does this completely, is this just my mind because I'm very creative? Is this just my mind going over time because I got inspired?
[00:33:47] So, so, and, and, you know, some of them might work, but, but anyway, I think that, that it's not necessarily a bad thing as long as we can sort of reality check ourselves or our team does it for us.
[00:33:58] Megan: Yeah. I think the vision part that you mentioned [00:34:00] there is so important, too, of, like, the best ways for people to be creative, I think, is when they have some kind of a box around it, and so they need something that they're striving for, and I've had leaders who are like, we just need to impact this number.
[00:34:10] What do you want to do? And it's like, uh, like in the whole world of things I could do, I don't really know. Like what are you going to shoot down? What are you not going to shoot down? Whereas if there's a little bit more of like a vision around it of like, well this is the general direction I think we need to go in order to make an impact.
[00:34:25] How do you think we can get there? I feel like people are much faster to like towards that and to come up with ideas around that. At our, uh, marketing offsite for Typeform, actually, in October, that's kind of what we did with our marketing strategy, where we were like, here's our overall vision, kind of as marketing leaders, and where we think we want to go.
[00:34:43] All of you work in groups and come up with big ideas that you think would help us get there. And I think it was an interesting, it was a really interesting, like, workshop to do, because they had a little bit of a box, and they had peers to think about, you know, what could we do or not do. And we also took them through phases.
[00:34:57] So the first was like a really broad dreamer [00:35:00] phase. And so like we had everything from like, we're going to rent a bus and we're going to put customers on it and some of the community team on it and drive it across the United States, which like. Love it, you know, to like, okay, we really need a feature library on the website, right?
[00:35:15] Like it had like everything, like we had everything on that list, but I thought it was a really great way to like give a little bit of a, you know, box around like what our overall goals are, but still kind of open it up to the team to be a little bit more creative and to think about how they could bring kind of bigger bats into their day to day work.
[00:35:32] Phil: I'm curious to ask you how many of those ideas in that off site were about. Tech stack and tooling, obviously, um, you know, Typeform being in that Martech vendor tooling category, not just for marketers, obviously, I think you, you serve maybe more of like this horizontal, um, vertical, right. But, um, definitely in my experience, like, you know, Typeform has been a line item on the budget.
[00:35:57] For the marketing operations team or the [00:36:00] marketing team. And I'm curious to ask you your perspective on this, because, um, like one thing we talk a lot about is this idea of like self service and marketing operations being oftentimes this like service center where, you know, we take tickets and we help the marketers and we don't participate a lot in strategy.
[00:36:19] We just. We make ideas that the marketing team wants to do kind of come to life. Um, but you've actually highlighted that understanding as a marketer, you're understanding your tech stack and the core business data is essential for every marketer, like being able to self serve reports and understand how the data is structured for your company.
[00:36:39] Not only helps you work better with ops, but it helps you be more confident when you're pitching these crazy ideas, like getting customers up on a bus. Do you think that like the role of a technical marketer is more doomed to becoming like a glorified data concierge if they don't prioritize enabling team wide data literacy and maybe ask a different [00:37:00] way.
[00:37:00] Marketing Data Illiteracy Causes Millions in Wasted Spend
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[00:37:00] Phil: What's worse to you, like a marketing team that can pull reports or one that thinks they can, but misinterprets the data.
[00:37:10] Megan: I think it's a tough one. Um, I'm a big believer in being able to pull your own reports, but at the end of the day, I think somebody who misinterprets the data is maybe, is maybe worse off because they seem, they seem more knowledgeable. I think that that's where the danger lies, right? If it seems like you know what you're talking about and you have no idea what you are talking about, to me that is the most dangerous state you could be in.
[00:37:31] Um, I think, I think a lot of ops folks are in a really tough spot, quite honestly, because I think they are generally fighting fires all day. And so they don't have time to be more strategic, honestly. And I think it makes it really hard to enable others and to also have a point of view on things if you're so busy doing tickets and you're so busy fighting fires.
[00:37:54] And I think what I've found is a lot of times, like, The underlying structure of how [00:38:00] we set up a campaign or something like that should have been changed based on the tech stack, but nobody understood those intricacies when we first did it. And I think that that's where, like, I found I'm much more successful if I understand how data moves from one place to another.
[00:38:14] And if I don't fully get that, I'm way less successful. And then I think it also bleeds into reporting too. Like if I know what a given field means and how to get to something, how to get to an answer, I'm usually much more successful. I'm usually the person who can read a report versus like misinterpreting it.
[00:38:31] And I feel like it's really when you don't understand that underlying data structure and To be honest, if you don't understand like some of the assumptions that are in some of the metrics, I think that that's the biggest problem that I see a lot of the time is folks don't understand some of the like core assumptions that had to be made when these metrics were created, and that is what kind of is setting them up for failure.
[00:38:50] Because we're assuming like if you even think about like a multitouch attribution model, right? You're like, Oh, my gosh, direct is down. Okay, well, does that mean that people typing [00:39:00] in your website are down? Or does it just mean that we changed how we captured UTM parameters on this one page and as a result, it's down?
[00:39:07] And a lot of people don't realize all of those intricacies when they see a number. And so then it's like, direct is down. Let's go do these five things. And you're like, well, maybe that wasn't what it actually meant. And so I think there's the one part of like being able to look at a report. And there's the second part of being able to say, based on this, I need, I should do X or I should do Y.
[00:39:24] And I think things aren't actionable if you can't get to that next step. And I think too many people are in a world where like their reporting doesn't let them get to the next step. There's too much of like, Oh, shoot, this is down, but you don't know what to do next. And if you don't know what to do next, in my opinion, the report is basically useless.
[00:39:39] So,
[00:39:40] Darrell: Yeah. And being able to get to the data firsthand, like, and seeing it yourself is such a superpower because, um, especially as the org scales, you have this weird game of telephone thing that happens. And so someone pulls like, Oh, direct is down. And then like, let's, let's say it's not, but they start telling [00:40:00] everybody.
[00:40:00] And then all of a sudden it's like a bullet point in the executive meeting. Hey, and like, you're, you're trying to, and then, you know, I've literally, I'm not gonna like going to the story, but I've literally had it happen where. Our team has had to create projects and work to address a problem that's not really a problem.
[00:40:16] So like being able to, to, to pull that I think is such a superpower and it's great that you can, you can do that yourself, which ties back to being a full stack marketer. This whole thing kind of connects. Um, so
[00:40:27] Why Data Warehouse Native Martech Stacks Excel at PLG
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[00:40:27] Darrell: let's talk about, uh, tech stack a little bit. Like, are there any tools that you feel like particularly excited about using that, that you feel, um, Um, is helping you move the needle, maybe something unexpected.
[00:40:39] Um, do you have a, uh, you know, is your tech stack pretty standard set up or do you have something unique going on? What, tell us, tell us about that.
[00:40:49] Megan: Yeah. So I think type form is a really interesting case that I haven't had in the past where you have this like core business that's self serve and then you kind of added the sales led [00:41:00] motion on top and I just haven't experienced it before. I'm sure there are other people who are like, yeah, that happens all the time, but like, I just haven't seen it before.
[00:41:05] And so the part about our tech stack that's so tricky is like, I'm used to Salesforce being the single source of truth or HubSpot being the single source of truth. And here it's like our core business. Is more represented in the data warehouse than it is anywhere else. And then Salesforce more has the sales led part of the business.
[00:41:22] And so understanding how those data pieces come together is something that like, to be honest, I'm still working on. I've been here for three and a half, four months, right? It's tricky. And I think that that's what we struggle with the most is. Figuring out how those pieces fit together and how we're not just putting a motion on top of another because they have to, like in PLG, they have to serve one another.
[00:41:42] And yet if your tech stack doesn't support that, it makes it really, really hard. And so, you know, we run into challenges sometimes of like, okay, do we have all the data points in the right places for people to action on them? Like, do we know everything we need to know? And I think. I've really experienced here how [00:42:00] important that underlying data structure is and consistency across tools.
[00:42:04] And that's something like, you know, we have a great new VP of data here and he's doing a ton of foundational work where in the past we had a really wide spectrum of stuff where it was like, okay, we went really, really deep and we have this very advanced multi touch attribution system. And yet, like when you go to this other side, it's like, Oh, that's just like very basic reporting.
[00:42:21] And so there's just like a very weird mix of like, like, Super deep, super surface level, but like no underlying structure that fully works. And so I think that, and I think that happens to a lot of companies, right? When you're growing fast and you're like taking, you're taking opportunities where you see them and you're moving quickly.
[00:42:35] And I think now we're kind of taking a step back and like, we really need to shore up the foundation because that's kind of what supports everything else. Um, so yeah, I don't even know if there are specific tools that I'm using at this point. I'm just really like at the end of the day, I feel like having that data foundation is just so valuable and being able to use it across your tech stack is like one of the most important things I think for anyone just to understand your users and to be able to capture [00:43:00] different signals and action on them in a way that like actually will impact revenue.
[00:43:05] Phil: Such a cool topic. This is something that Daryl and I've, uh, chatted about quite a bit. Um, Daryl actually pulled his, his audience a couple of weeks ago. And you did this previously too, right? Uh, Daryl, like what is the, uh, the, the source of truth, where does the source of truth live or what is the center of your, your stack?
[00:43:21] And most people still say today, the CRM like Salesforce or earn HubSpot. And I think that's a preview to what you just said, like the comfortable nature to just, this is. What I'm kind of used to, this is how I've done it at other companies. And I was like, you too, Meg, before I joined, uh, my most recent startup, where we actually had a data team and a counterpart on that data team that were tan and hand with me on growth ops and on marketing ops.
[00:43:50] And he really helped me open my eyes and understand the world of. Building a warehouse first tech stack and having [00:44:00] BI on top of the warehouse, ingesting data ETL across all the tools. So you can do ID resolution. So you can push out completed data to all of your other tools. Like he really opened my eyes to this world where like, before I was like, this CRM needs to be the source of truth.
[00:44:17] Cause like, this is where I live. This is where the sales team lives. It has to be in that place, but like, Hey. Like you're trying to grow the business, not just like what the sales and marketing cares about. You have product data. That's not going very well into Salesforce. You have data that's coming in from the support team and you have like enrichment data, and there's all these other sources of data across the business and finance and all that stuff that only using the warehouse as a central source of truth.
[00:44:46] Really allows you to power some of that stuff. So yeah, maybe chat about that experience. Like, I'm really curious. Like, I think
[00:44:51] The Learning Curve for Marketing with a Data Warehouse First Stack
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[00:44:51] Phil: you mentioned that you have the BI tool on top of the warehouse. So you're not pulling reports directly out of the CRM anymore. How's that like a three or [00:45:00] four months gone so far?
[00:45:01] I talked to us a bit more about that.
[00:45:03] Megan: Yeah. You know, I never thought I would miss Salesforce reporting things. You never expected to say learning. Looker has been a steep learning curve. Let me tell you. Um, I think part of it is, you know, there's the learning the tool and then there's the learning the fields, right? And learning the underlying data structure.
[00:45:20] And I think that those are two different things. And because I did both at the same time, it made the whole thing harder, right? Like if I had just gone into another company where it was Salesforce again, I would have still had a lot of learning to do of like, What's stage one? Does it mean a meeting has been booked?
[00:45:34] Does it mean something totally different? Because everybody uses that differently, right? That's hard enough in and of itself. But doing both together, I think, has really been the challenge. Especially when, again, we have these two different motions in the business on the self serve side and the sales led side.
[00:45:48] And marketing is responsible for supporting both. And I can't just look at one or the other. Like, I have to look at both. And so, for Understanding what all the data field means, how they work together is something that I am still [00:46:00] working on. Um, I think it's been overall, it's been cool to feel like there are more data points that I can pull than I've previously had access to in a CRM.
[00:46:12] Probably. Um, I think there's that level of familiarity though, where like, I feel like it takes me longer to pull stuff still in Looker and so I feel like I'm not quite as. Quick, I guess, as I used to be. And so it makes me not look things up as much as maybe I would in the past. And then I think the other layer on that, that I still haven't figured out is in a CRM world, I would often drill down onto individual contacts and dig into like historical changes and stuff like that.
[00:46:43] So that I could really get an idea of like, well, the data is telling me this, but like, is that extra actually true? Like, let me look at a couple of specific examples and that's a lot harder for me to do. From the data warehouse perspective, just because the data isn't quite structured the same way. And so I think part of it is like figuring that out too, of like, how [00:47:00] do I spot check what I'm doing?
[00:47:02] Because I'm kind of approaching it from a different way than I, than I used to in a Salesforce or HubSpot world.
[00:47:08] Darrell: Yep, yep, no, that, that makes a lot of sense and, and, uh, yeah, I think I have, I have this theory now that, you know, if your CRM is the source of truth, then your tech stack kind of is this like, you Standard setup, you know what I mean? But then if, if you have the data warehouse as your, as your single source of truth, all of a sudden, your tech stack looks kind of different.
[00:47:30] You know, it's, it's a more composable and it's more like, you know, it, it starts to, to shape around the data warehouse, which is super interesting. And I think it's also like, you know, thanks for sharing too, that, that you've had some, it's been a, it's been a journey to try to learn Looker, you know, I, um, I don't know.
[00:47:49] I don't think you should do this, but in my, in the, in, in my past, I've been like, Oh, you on my team, you're the looker expert now. [00:48:00] So, so, you know, when I need something, you're going to be the guy and, and, and it's a growth opportunity for you.
[00:48:05] Phil: heh heh heh
[00:48:06] Darrell: But anyway, I'm just kidding. Half kidding. Um, you
[00:48:12] Megan: done that, but maybe that's the tactic I should have taken, honestly.
[00:48:15] Darrell: I, you know, you never know.
[00:48:16] And I, I, so I'm, I'm taking a look at the poll that Phil mentioned and it's, uh, so out of 719 people, um, 55 percent say that the CRM is their source of truth. Um, which is still more than half, but I will say when I ran this poll, like two years ago, it was, it was like 70 to 80%. So the tides of change, they're, they're upon us.
[00:48:42] Megan: Interesting. That is interesting to know. I would not have expected it actually to be that low. So yeah.
[00:48:48] Darrell: Yeah, it's, it's, um, you know, oh gosh, Phil and I have talked about this like ad nauseum, but it's because, um, um, all of the, the data, like there's more [00:49:00] and more data about our customers and that, that doesn't live in the CRM. So it, so in order to personalize and understand and segment customers more, we have to have access to the data and as in, in as much real time as possible.
[00:49:13] And that the volume of data is just growing. So it has to go somewhere. And, and, and so many people have been hacking custom objects in Salesforce, but you know, it's not designed for that.
[00:49:25] Megan: I was like, been there. Seen that happen.
[00:49:27] Darrell: why, yeah, yeah. So it's, it's interesting. I will say I was like thinking of something. Um, where it's like, it's so funny, like as you move through your career, that like you start to be on the other side where, you know, you say, Hey, you know, the CRM should be the single source of truth because we've always done it that way. You know, it's not funny. It's just like, no, it shouldn't be that you shouldn't change it because we've always done it this way. So, and like now it's kind of us saying that, like, cause I've, I've said it too. Like, no, no, like, let's keep it as a CRM. Um, [00:50:00] but, but, uh, it is, I think time for us to change and adapt.
[00:50:03] And, um, sounds like you're doing that gracefully at Typeform, Meg.
[00:50:08] Megan: I say I can't take any credit for it because it was already the state things were in. Um, but yeah, I think that that's kind of how they've been from the beginning. Instead of having the CRM be the single source of truth, like Salesforce is more of an addition more than anything else to support the sales led motion.
[00:50:22] So. I'm interested to see where we take it. And again, I think it's really just us investing in the foundational parts of it to make it as effective as we need it to be. And I'm also interested to see, I would be interested if your poll could be like split by company size. Cause I think there's a level, right?
[00:50:37] Where it's like, you have to be a certain size to even begin to think about it from a technical perspective. Right. And before then you kind of have to focus on the CRM because it's your only shot at it.
[00:50:46] Darrell: hundred percent. Yeah. If, if you're like, whatever, whatever it's called series A or, or, you know, under 50 person company, there's no point. I would say, unless it's like a straight, you know, consumer or PLG.
[00:50:58] When to Use Marketing Agencies Versus Building In House Teams
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[00:50:58] Darrell: You know, actually, I'd love to talk [00:51:00] about agencies if we could. And so, so, you know, and I've always kind of struggled with this because you have your full time employees, you have, which, you know, hard to come by these days, and then you have contractors and then you have consultants and then you have full on agencies, um, you know, Do you, do you use that mix?
[00:51:20] Do you have a preference? Do you, do you, um, are you in really particular about, Hey, this is the type of work agencies take on, this is the type of work my team takes on, you know? Like what, what do you prefer to have full control over? What do you like sort of seek out outside expertise? Tell us about that, Meg.
[00:51:38] Megan: Yeah, you know, I think it really depends on your stage and what you're trying to do. I think you have to look at what kind of expertise you need. I think a lot of people recently have been talking about, like, if you're trying to do something, go find the person who already did it. Like, don't try to, like, reinvent the wheel on your own.
[00:51:55] And so I think that in some ways that's where a consultant or even a freelancer or an [00:52:00] agency can be really valuable. Um, but then I think at the end of the day, from being on the agency side myself. There's just information they won't have. You're only going to be able to give them so much information, and you're only going to be able to give them so much context of what's going on.
[00:52:14] You know, even in situations where I felt like I was really read into what was happening on the business side, like, At the end of the day, I only saw so much. I didn't understand what was coming from leadership fully. I didn't understand where the business was focusing fully. I didn't like see those internal reports every single day necessarily.
[00:52:32] Right. I was to some extent more on the platform side. And so I think you really have to balance how you have a check of an internal expert on an agency and then, or a contractor, and I think you have to look at Really the management, too, of those external folks, right? Like, that, I think that that cost isn't always put into mind, right?
[00:52:53] If you're managing, like, ten contractors, like, that's not an insignificant amount of work. And so, like, at [00:53:00] some point, you have to decide what's faster and what type of thing is it. Is it more of a discrete project that can be very clearly briefed and then someone can run with it? Or is it the kind of thing that's going to need a lot of, like, day to day management?
[00:53:11] And so There's that like onboarding level. I think with it, there's a level of expertise, right? Of like, is there enough to warrant paying for this in house or do I have to just get a consultant because they're the only ones with the expertise I need? And then I think on the agency side, there's that level of How much folks are seeing, like, I always found it really valuable on the agency side that we had access to all these different client accounts.
[00:53:34] So I could tell you if this is going down, it's not just you. It's something we're seeing across a base of clients. And when you're the only person working in the account, you don't have that like external knowledge, really. Like you're just, you're relying on ad platform reps, which. All of us feel generally medium about, I think.
[00:53:50] And so I think there's this level of like, how can you get that external opinion? when you need it, but also realize that some things require more onboarding than others. And [00:54:00] so I think, you know, something with maybe like a piece of blog content, like that could probably be briefed, especially if you have known, um, known agencies or contractors.
[00:54:09] I don't necessarily differentiate between the two. I think it kind of comes down to cost and the quality of what you need and how many people you're managing. And then I think if you look at, you know, paid ads. That's another thing that an agency can manage. But again, you're going to need someone managing that agency too.
[00:54:23] And so I think you kind of have to look at like time that you have, opportunities to hire when you can, and then finally, overall company appetite. So Typeform, I think has been in a situation for a while where the overall narrative has been Asking to have more agencies and I think that that's been true of a lot of companies of like instead of full time hires where we can Let's outsource work because we're less committed than in the long run if we change direction And so I think you kind of obviously have to take that into account of like when can you get a full time hire?
[00:54:52] When can you have someone externally run it and then what's going to let you move faster because at the end of the day I think that that part's really important too like [00:55:00] You've got to keep moving quickly, and sometimes that's going to be bringing somebody in, and sometimes that's really not. And if you're trying to impact a number in the next few quarters or even a year, you might need to use an agency or a consultant to get moving faster.
[00:55:15] Darrell: Yeah. And, and I think too, maybe it also depends on. Like what's consuming your time, you know, in the business. Like, for example, if you're super busy with planning or coming up with the strategy for the next year, you know, some extra hands could help out, you know, but, but, um, um, you know, if, if you have a very capable team and you have like, you know, great, you know, Proficiencies that you have in house, then the usefulness of an agency might, might not be there.
[00:55:44] So I guess it is pretty, pretty unique. And, and, um, but you, you make such a good point. I think that people make the mistake of bringing on an agency or consultant and then just letting them do their thing. Like it's not, it definitely requires a lot of management, a lot of meeting and, [00:56:00] um, true partnership.
[00:56:01] Uh, so, so that's right on. Yeah.
[00:56:05] Phil: this has been a super fun conversation. I was looking at the time and there's like a couple more questions. We want it to pick your brain on Meg, but, um, yeah, we'll, uh, we'll call our last question here.
[00:56:16] Make the Most of Your Remote Marketing Career Without Sacrificing Family Time
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[00:56:16] Phil: You're a marketing leader at an awesome company. Uh, we talked about full stack marketing already, but you're also a mom of two.
[00:56:23] You've got a three year old and a Five year old at home, clearly keeping you very busy. I'm sure. Uh, one question we ask everyone on the show is how do you remain happy and successful in your career? And how do you find that balance between all the things you're working on while staying happy?
[00:56:39] Megan: Yeah, I mean, I think it's tough, especially in a remote setting, and I've been remote actually most of my career, but I think it's really hard to separate, obviously, like work from your personal life. And it's something that, you know, my husband, who's also remote, and I both struggle with some. So I think for me, it has been really.
[00:56:56] Finding those specific moments with my family that are more family time and [00:57:00] setting that expectation pretty clearly when I can internally of this is when I'm working and this is when I'm not working. And also trying to be an example for everyone else, right? Like we are a type where it's a very international team.
[00:57:11] So like I might think of something an hour from now and yet half of my team is already asleep and I'm going to send the message anyway and they're probably going to hate me for it. But like trying to set an expectation of like, we're all working at different times. I don't expect you to work. Or answer things like that are outside of your working times, and you should be prioritizing that time outside to do your own things.
[00:57:32] And so for us, you know, I try to prioritize like family dinner, all of us sitting down for dinner together and like spending that time with my kids, I think it's like really valuable. We have a game we play called popsicle and poopsicle where each person says a positive thing from their day and a negative thing from their day.
[00:57:48] You can have multiple, don't worry. Um, and so that's been like a fun way to get kind of conversation going and And also to show them and try to, you know, I think as parents we're always trying to like teach our [00:58:00] kids like what we think is important and I think we show with our actions right more than we do with our voices and so I think like prioritizing that time, not having phones at dinner and doing something like that is just a little way to be like, we separate work and we separate home and we, you know, invest in our time with you and so I think, you know, Doing things like that is really valuable to keeping your like mental sanity and to stop thinking about work.
[00:58:21] Um, and then I think on the work side, it's also just understanding like what your end goal is. And so for me, I never really had like a super clear career path in a lot of ways, but I knew what I wanted my life to look like. And so I think that focusing on that is really important of like. You know, I don't care as much about being, you know, of super high profile CMO for a big company as I do Having the freedom to have dinner with my kids every night and like go on vacations with them and stuff like that and so I think it's figuring out how to Understand what you really care about from your life and what kind of flexibility you want or [00:59:00] don't want or maybe the high profile thing is what you care about more and then making that the focus of like what you're looking for in a job rather than just like What looks good on your LinkedIn profile.
[00:59:11] Phil: Such a cool answer. I love the popsicle and poopsicle. How old did they get until you, uh, you started that, um, that tradition?
[00:59:22] Megan: I think we started like a year ago when my younger one was just barely two. And so he was not great at it. And he would just, he would just repeat again and again. He would be like, well, my Popsicle is Popsicle. And so now what he has been saying for his Popsicle is he'll be like, well, my Popsicle is that, you know, I had to do a lot of work and, I was doing a lot of work and I was busy today.
[00:59:43] And I was like, It's not exactly a popsicle, honey, but We're getting there.
[00:59:49] Phil: love it. That's so cute. Yeah. My daughter just started kindergarten, um, like three, three-ish months ago or whatever, and we're like, we went from a stage of knowing what she does all the [01:00:00] time and like every minute of the day to now like having a single idea. And like our daycare provider, it's, it's a private home and she's super busy when she like hands us off at the end of the day.
[01:00:09] We don't have to like ask her like a bunch of questions. So. We asked my daughter who like talks a lot for a one and a half year old, but like, you don't really know, like, what is true or not. And we were like, did you have spaghetti today? And she's like, yes. Like, did you have sandwich and soup? Yes. Did you also have ice cream?
[01:00:27] Yes. So you had all of those things. Yes. And banana. And it's like, I don't, I don't buy it. Like, I don't believe her yet. You know.
[01:00:36] Megan: That's what we change it to. Cause I used to sit down at the table and I'd be like, Boys, like, what'd you do today? And they're like, Oh, it's fine. I was like, Oh, no, no, no, this is not enough for me. I need to know more. And so we tried to frame it around like popsicle and poopsicle to like, create more of like a, well, let's just tell me a good thing and a bad thing.
[01:00:51] And then we started to pull out a little bit, but even so, you know, like as they grow up, you just like know less and less about what they do.
[01:00:59] Phil: Awesome. [01:01:00] Really appreciate your time. This is super fun. Uh, we'll link out to, um, the Typeform site, obviously, and, uh, your LinkedIn. Um, any, uh, last words for the audience, anything you want to plug or share?
[01:01:11] Megan: I don't think so. Really just excited to be here. Great to chat with you. Um, and yeah, I think finding tools that move, help you move fast is really valuable. And for my opinion, Typeform is one of those that can do that for you. So
[01:01:23] Phil: Awesome. Yeah. A free plug for me also, a big, big fan of type form. If you're building a survey or a quiz or just like a fun form, I think there's hard to find a better UI for a form building tool. So a free, free props to the product team there too.
[01:01:40] Megan: Thank you. I'll let them know.
[01:01:42] Phil: Awesome. Thanks again, Meg.
[01:01:43] Darrell: Thanks Meg.