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The #1 resource for B2B marketing professionals. Each week, hosts Dave Gerhardt and Dasha Shakov sit down with B2B marketers to break down everything from strategy and leadership to the channels and tactics that drive growth, plus what it takes to build a career in marketing. You'll find real ideas you can put to work right away, and the gut check and inspiration to keep getting better at your job.
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Dave [0:00:01]: You're listening to the Exit Five podcast.
Dasha [0:00:12]: What's up?
Dasha [0:00:12]: It's Dasha, and the episode that you're about to hear is a special one.
Dasha [0:00:16]: It was recorded live in stove vermont for Exit Five Drive event, and it's kind of a mis mash of me talking to a bunch of marketers that I deeply deeply respect I got to sit down with them live, and I got to ask them all the same question.
Dasha [0:00:31]: I asked them what is your big bet for twenty twenty seven.
Dasha [0:00:36]: As marketers, we always wanna know what is the next big thing?
Dasha [0:00:38]: What are people doubling down on?
Dasha [0:00:40]: Where are they betting on next?
Dasha [0:00:41]: And so it was really interesting to hear everyone's response without further ado.
Dasha [0:00:46]: Here it is.
Dasha [0:00:47]: Biggest win of twenty twenty six.
Dasha [0:00:50]: One personal and one professional.
Dave [0:00:52]: Alright.
Dasha [0:00:52]: Because you're a human.
Dave [0:00:53]: Yeah.
Dave [0:00:53]: Professional.
Dave [0:00:54]: I think we have the best version of the Exit Five team that we've had, You know, you're you're a manager, your a manager of people.
Dave [0:01:01]: I think I said this last night of dinner, but, like, most of the problems with a business is mostly who not how problems.
Dave [0:01:08]: You know, they said...
Dasha [0:01:10]: Like that framing a lot.
Dasha [0:01:10]: Yet.
Dave [0:01:11]: Yeah.
Dave [0:01:11]: And so I think it's like, I think this is a simple business, and Dan used mad me when I'd say that because he think...
Dave [0:01:19]: I I think he felt like it was, like, diminishing what we do.
Dave [0:01:22]: Right.
Dave [0:01:22]: But my point is, like, it's not the thing that we're building is not complicated.
Dave [0:01:26]: It's like, it's content.
Dave [0:01:28]: It's a newsletter.
Dave [0:01:29]: We take the feedback.
Dave [0:01:30]: We do this thing is not where you're not putting...
Dave [0:01:32]: You know, we're not saying rockets into space.
Dave [0:01:33]: Right.
Dave [0:01:34]: And we've had all these ideas, but you can't execute them be yourself, You need the right people to do them, and we went through some pain with, you know, hiring and firing and, you know, onboarding, and that stuff sucks.
Dave [0:01:46]: Right?
Dave [0:01:47]: People is really hard, and I you know, It's emotional.
Dave [0:01:51]: It's hard bringing on someone new as hard because you don't always know instantly if someone's gonna be awesome.
Dave [0:01:57]: Yeah.
Dave [0:01:58]: There's nine people on the team right now, and it's it's you know, as you'd hope, every iteration should be better.
Dave [0:02:04]: The team is really, really, really good.
Dasha [0:02:06]: Any personal wins?
Dave [0:02:07]: It's not one particular win, but I think like, something that I'm proud of is, I think if you look at me on Linkedin.
Dave [0:02:14]: If you just look at that, Yeah.
Dave [0:02:16]: You'd think, like, I wake up
Dasha [0:02:18]: and I'm, like, B2B marketing
Dave [0:02:19]: Yeah Mark, I live breathe that.
Dave [0:02:20]: I think if you found me offline, like, I'm a very I'm a very good dad and husband, and I'm very proud of that.
Dave [0:02:28]: And I've had some bad role models in my past, and I'm happy to be, like, I think I'm as good as a...
Dave [0:02:35]: I'm I'm as good of a parent and father and husband as I am at, like, this side of things, But there's no format to, like, flex about that or see that.
Dave [0:02:44]: Yeah.
Dave [0:02:44]: And I'm just...
Dave [0:02:45]: I'm I'm proud of that.
Dasha [0:02:46]: And what is your big bet for twenty twenty seven?
Dave [0:02:48]: I think we live in a world of, like, more, more, more, more, more.
Dave [0:02:51]: Growth, growth, growth, double triple quadruple dot.
Dave [0:02:53]: I think we have a great business right now.
Dave [0:02:56]: I I think I we'd like to grow it a little bit next year and just continue to raise the bar on quality and our number one goal is to be...
Dave [0:03:04]: Our our goal is to be the number one resource for B2B marketers.
Dave [0:03:07]: And to have Exit Five continue to be like, it used to be, like, Dave, Dave and...
Dave [0:03:15]: Though, Dave has Exit Five.
Dave [0:03:16]: I think it's to continue to surpass that, And I'm...
Dave [0:03:19]: I just happened to be the guy who, started the company.
Dave [0:03:21]: Right.
Dave [0:03:21]: But people know Dan and they know Dasha, and they know Anna and Allison and Maria and Marissa, like, that's that's the go.
Dave [0:03:28]: I don't I don't really have a big go goal, honestly.
Dave [0:03:29]: It's like, let's just do...
Dave [0:03:31]: Let's just keep doing a little bit better down.
Dasha [0:03:33]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:03:33]: Double
Dave [0:03:34]: is that...
Dave [0:03:34]: That's not a cool answer.
Dave [0:03:35]: I'm sorry.
Casey [0:03:36]: No, but I feel like
Dasha [0:03:37]: It's the simple answer, You know?
Dave [0:03:40]: We have a good thing.
Dave [0:03:40]: I just wanna keep...
Dave [0:03:41]: We're just gonna, like, keep getting better at it and keep sharpening the sword, you know?
Dasha [0:03:47]: What was your biggest win in twenty twenty six?
Ross [0:03:50]: The biggest win that I had in twenty twenty six would have probably been a lot of the partnerships.
Ross [0:03:55]: Like, I've been partnering with a lot of brands to create content, helping them, like, with their actual stories through my team at foundation and foundation, has just grown and built an amazing team.
Ross [0:04:07]: So I would say, like, the biggest win is actually building the team.
Ross [0:04:11]: The team that we have at foundation and the work that they do to be able to go into some of these top brands in the world and influence their culture amidst so much change.
Ross [0:04:19]: Would probably be my biggest win even though I didn't actually do it.
Ross [0:04:23]: So my biggest win of twenty twenty six, Let me put this on a bumper sticker would be the ability to create a culture where my team can go into these organizations do best in class work and really move the needle for these clients on an innovative problem, which is Ai visibility and then translating that into pipeline.
Ross [0:04:45]: It's been really cool to see and the fact that they're doing it without me and so many of them are better than Me now I've read it at Linkedin and stuff like that is just, like, chef's kiss.
Ross [0:04:53]: That's what it's all about.
Dasha [0:04:55]: That's beautiful.
Dasha [0:04:55]: What is your biggest bet for twenty twenty seven?
Ross [0:04:59]: My biggest bet for twenty twenty seven would be that there's going to be a massive surge in in real life events.
Ross [0:05:05]: I think people have loved the Internet and Ai and social and all of that, But I think there's a real desire amongst buyers to get together with real people, build those connections in person.
Ross [0:05:18]: I've always been a digital first person.
Ross [0:05:21]: I love the Internet.
Ross [0:05:22]: I built my career on the Internet, but there's something special about going from pixels to flesh.
Ross [0:05:27]: And I think it will never be replaced and amidst the rise of Ai I think it's becoming more and more of a necessity hence the reasons why some of the top Ai firms in the world are starting to actually hire for these community and events roles.
Dasha [0:05:40]: What is a win for you, your team in twenty twenty six.
Casey [0:05:44]: So I grew up in California.
Casey [0:05:44]: Yeah.
Casey [0:05:45]: And for my whole life in California, there was this fear of the big one.
Casey [0:05:49]: And the big one, California, if you don't know sits on the San Andreas fault, which is a meeting of two t plates.
Casey [0:05:54]: And the big one, quote unquote is when these two t plates are gonna shift and create a very life changing or earth changing earthquake.
Casey [0:06:02]: That would be very bad for many people.
Casey [0:06:04]: And that that was a something that was always on my mind.
Casey [0:06:08]: Oh, the fear of big one that's gonna really shift and change California forever.
Casey [0:06:11]: And so whenever a small or earthquake happened in California.
Casey [0:06:15]: But those not affect lives, maybe affects property or buildings, but is small enough to not be you know, life altering.
Casey [0:06:22]: Geo are very happy about it because it is not the big one.
Casey [0:06:26]: It's releasing a little bit of tension from the two t comic plates.
Casey [0:06:29]: Something that I'm really proud of with my team is that we've we've done those little, dissolving and little earthquakes for ourselves to disrupt what we've been doing this whole year Every week.
Casey [0:06:41]: Like, we're not waiting for the big one where someone comes and says, well, what are you doing with Ai?
Casey [0:06:45]: Like, every day my team has been disrupting how we do things or changing or building something new to make sure that that tension is released gradually rather than having a big, you know, shake up in a year that that really changes everything that we're doing.
Casey [0:06:59]: So, I like I like to keep the disruption going because it actually helps keep consistency going so that we're...
Casey [0:07:05]: They're...
Casey [0:07:06]: We're never behind enough, Where a big one happens in a huge shift, you know, really changes everything that we're doing.
Casey [0:07:10]: So I'm very proud of that for It.
Dasha [0:07:12]: What is your big bet going into the next year.
Casey [0:07:15]: As a whole business, we are automating more of our workflows, but then also augmenting how we do.
Casey [0:07:21]: So it's not gonna be the same same, but, you know, more, it's gonna be different and better.
Casey [0:07:26]: But with all that automation with all of that change to how we do, you know, day to day activities, I wanna see what we can do different and better?
Casey [0:07:35]: So this year, we've experimented with things like account based billboards?
Casey [0:07:38]: How do we put a billboard outside of, you know, an account in Tulsa Oklahoma where we're having a field marketing event that day.
Casey [0:07:46]: And say, hey, we we put that up for you, Like, this was, you know, as if the billboard was right there and it was like, we put this up to make sure that you saw us, and and sometimes those activations are, you know, less expensive than most of our marketing campaigns.
Casey [0:07:58]: So What are we doing that's new, and then one to one an industrialization, and we've also run and filmed and produced videos with our CMO talking to other CMOs that, you know, calls out the company name calls out exactly their challenges and exactly our current place with that business.
Casey [0:08:13]: And we've had a lot of success with those businesses recognizing, oh, this is CMO to CMO.
Casey [0:08:18]: She knows who I am.
Casey [0:08:19]: I'm gonna email her, and we're gonna set up a call with the with the rep that's responsible.
Casey [0:08:23]: So we're getting into new lines of business to make sure that...
Casey [0:08:25]: But we're getting in two lines of business, but I'm doing it in different ways than we ever had before.
Dasha [0:08:32]: When you reflect back on on twenty twenty six, everything you've done and your team's done so far this year.
Ross [0:08:36]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:08:36]: What is...
Dasha [0:08:37]: Would you say is the team's biggest win You're a biggest win?
Ross [0:08:40]: Our growth as a team is a very easy one.
Ross [0:08:42]: And one that at a at an organization, like, professional services, like, a marketing team.
Ross [0:08:47]: It it's tough.
Ross [0:08:47]: You can be seen as a call center, you can be seen as overhead, but we've done a phenomenal job at building a team that really cares about marketing, really passionate and spent so much time with customers with clients, and with our subject matter experts getting in the minds of clients, and the biggest win for this year is translating that into revenue from events.
Ross [0:09:08]: We've really leaned in over the past few years particularly since Covid, once event started coming back, we've really been doubling down on that, and it's been something that each year, we've been able to attribute a lot of revenue to those events.
Ross [0:09:21]: And there...
Ross [0:09:23]: It's an investment in time.
Ross [0:09:24]: It's an investment investment in resources.
Ross [0:09:26]: But what's been really effective for us is we've been able to take, go beyond just the sponsorship.
Ross [0:09:31]: How do you make sure that you get your your people an opportunity to speak at these events?
Dasha [0:09:36]: Yeah.
Ross [0:09:36]: And a lot of our events, A lot of the the ones we attend are more of like, the decision makers in finance.
Ross [0:09:41]: And they start to stack these events, and they start to really...
Ross [0:09:45]: Just like the way you guys do it.
Ross [0:09:46]: You know, you you start to have people that are speaking at multiple different events in front of similar crowds, different Right.
Ross [0:09:52]: Different people, but you start to accumulate a lot of credibility and a lot of thought leadership.
Ross [0:09:56]: And so what we found is that has helped really create more of a magnet at the booth, more of a magnet in our events.
Ross [0:10:02]: And I think that we are very scrappy and how we approach that.
Ross [0:10:07]: And so it used to be...
Ross [0:10:09]: You you sponsor an event, you have an exhibit booth.
Ross [0:10:11]: People stop by.
Ross [0:10:12]: You just hope that the right person.
Casey [0:10:14]: Stop you
Ross [0:10:14]: start to have speaking events.
Ross [0:10:15]: You start to have events with clients and prospects.
Ross [0:10:17]: And next thing you know, you have four to five touch points with folks that never knew you before.
Ross [0:10:23]: That are now seeing you at an event in February seeing it an event in March.
Ross [0:10:26]: And what's been great is the team has done a really great job at being able to take that that speaking event that content we're creating for it and then repurpose it and distributed after the fact.
Ross [0:10:37]: So it it it gives you a little bit more purpose, a little bit more meaning, and it's not just a one off event.
Ross [0:10:42]: It can really start to layer on it and create an experience where for a firm like Sc and h where we're not a household name.
Ross [0:10:49]: We really have to fight tooth and nail to to establish a brand and to become memorable.
Ross [0:10:55]: And so when you start to see that really big companies are starting to include us in Rfp, they're starting to reach out to us directly, they're starting to connect with our thought leaders on on Linkedin, that's big for us.
Ross [0:11:08]: Whether we win that first opportunity or not, it's something where the S and h brand continues to grow.
Ross [0:11:14]: And for my team to be able to see the revenue dollars that come in because of that, it's huge for confidence.
Dasha [0:11:20]: What are you betting on in twenty twenty seven?
Ross [0:11:24]: Perfect transition.
Ross [0:11:25]: I am betting on employee advocacy and personal branding for our leaders.
Ross [0:11:29]: We absolutely took a step in the right direction.
Ross [0:11:32]: And by the way, this is not like you know, I'm putting myself out there on some crazy bet.
Ross [0:11:37]: But in our world, it it is still something that is a little bit less familiar and comfortable.
Ross [0:11:43]: Mh.
Ross [0:11:44]: Obviously, in the marketing world, I think we...
Ross [0:11:46]: We all understand and we all are comfortable we're putting ourselves out.
Ross [0:11:49]: We're thinking like marketers.
Ross [0:11:50]: But we are still seeing a lot of people embracing it, adopting it and what we're gonna do next year is make bigger bets, not just in the time that we're spending and the budget that we're spending.
Ross [0:12:01]: But how we're helping them, put themselves out there.
Ross [0:12:05]: But one of the things that we really believe very strongly is that we need it to be theirs.
Ross [0:12:09]: How can we help you gain confidence, inspire you come up with ideas, but you have to be the one that's crafting this.
Ross [0:12:17]: Because when folks meet you in person, like, you want to make sure that, like, the online persona matches the in real life persona.
Dasha [0:12:24]: Totally.
Ross [0:12:25]: And figuring out how you make it easier for for thought leaders that are strapped for time, is something that is just not a a perfect science, but the more that we can invest in time in training and in in dollars, that's a bet that we're gonna make next year because that's gonna lead to more speaking events, it's gonna lead to more prospects and clients knowing who we are.
Ross [0:12:44]: And also it's gonna help with clients understanding, like, in being proud of the people that they're working with in the...
Ross [0:12:49]: And and understanding their perspective and that it, you know, it it transcend just their engagement.
Ross [0:12:55]: And I think that that's something that we're gonna double down on and triple down on next year.
Ross [0:13:00]: And I think we could take a lot of playbook from the Exit Five team too.
Ross [0:13:03]: Right?
Ross [0:13:03]: Like, what you guys are doing right now.
Ross [0:13:05]: I know you're not on the the Exit Five team, but like, you are absolutely an extension in the face of that in some ways now.
Ross [0:13:12]: But the challenge that they're going through to really, like, become more comfortable putting some themselves out there and and and being the thought leaders they are.
Ross [0:13:21]: That's what I wanna see us in H do.
Dave [0:13:27]: Hey.
Dave [0:13:27]: Real quick before we wrap up, I just wanna give a quick shout out to all the stuff that we're doing at exitfive.com.
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