WEBVTT 00:00:00.380 --> 00:00:03.960 Craig Rosenberg: By the way, what do you think of Matt's haircut, Jon? 00:00:03.960 --> 00:00:06.320 Jon Miller: I think it's fine, it's high and tight. 00:00:06.320 --> 00:00:06.900 Jon Miller: I like it. 00:00:06.900 --> 00:00:07.320 Matt Amundson: There we go. 00:00:07.320 --> 00:00:12.860 Craig Rosenberg: High and tight, but you know, sometimes when people get a haircut, they look younger. 00:00:12.860 --> 00:00:15.360 Craig Rosenberg: Like you look in your 20s. 00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:16.280 Matt Amundson: Oh, well, thank you. 00:00:16.280 --> 00:00:17.860 Matt Amundson: I think it's the good lighting. 00:00:17.860 --> 00:00:20.160 Craig Rosenberg: Me and Jon don't have the benefit of what you have. 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:20.980 Craig Rosenberg: Like, we're just... 00:00:20.980 --> 00:00:27.060 Matt Amundson: Well, you guys are in 1080p and I'm in 720, so it sort of blurs all my lines, which is nice. 00:00:29.220 --> 00:00:35.180 Matt Amundson: From ABM to PLG, from Meddic to Meddpicc, the world of business is constantly evolving. 00:00:35.180 --> 00:00:43.520 Matt Amundson: We'll cover the who, what, where, when, why, and most importantly, how you get The Transaction. 00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:46.560 Matt Amundson: I'm Matt Amundson and he's Craig Rosenberg. 00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:48.540 Matt Amundson: Let's get started. 00:00:48.540 --> 00:00:50.000 Craig Rosenberg: By the way, Jon, where are you right now? 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.520 Craig Rosenberg: I mean, I was just thinking, shoot, I'm doing the podcast from my house. 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:55.640 Craig Rosenberg: We're like maybe two minutes from each other or no? 00:00:55.760 --> 00:00:57.140 Craig Rosenberg: Are you in an office these days? 00:00:57.140 --> 00:00:59.920 Jon Miller: We're trying to do office days, Tuesdays, Thursdays. 00:00:59.920 --> 00:01:04.500 Jon Miller: So I'm currently at the Space's Clock Tower in San Mateo. 00:01:04.500 --> 00:01:06.360 Jon Miller: You know, the one above the sweet green. 00:01:06.360 --> 00:01:07.220 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. 00:01:07.220 --> 00:01:08.440 Craig Rosenberg: Oh, how is that place? 00:01:08.440 --> 00:01:10.940 Craig Rosenberg: I've been looking at driving by it forever. 00:01:10.940 --> 00:01:11.400 Jon Miller: It's all right. 00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:13.700 Jon Miller: It's a little sterile. 00:01:13.700 --> 00:01:24.200 Jon Miller: But they're being really flexible with me in terms of trying to accommodate what I need, which is kind of like an office for one day a week. 00:01:24.740 --> 00:01:26.680 Jon Miller: It's pretty non-standard. 00:01:26.680 --> 00:01:27.560 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. 00:01:29.080 --> 00:01:29.420 Craig Rosenberg: All right. 00:01:29.420 --> 00:01:35.100 Craig Rosenberg: So everyone just want to do our usual lead in on the guest. 00:01:35.100 --> 00:01:41.240 Craig Rosenberg: And like we talk about B2B famous, not B2B fabulous. 00:01:41.240 --> 00:01:42.700 Craig Rosenberg: Matt, don't worry. 00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:54.340 Craig Rosenberg: You know, what's interesting is John's notoriety came about when notoriety, there was like scale in notoriety. 00:01:54.340 --> 00:01:54.880 Craig Rosenberg: You know what I mean? 00:01:54.880 --> 00:02:02.560 Craig Rosenberg: Like B2B was like, it was basically if you spoke at shows and got quoted in newspapers, like a PR effort and then speaking. 00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:19.880 Craig Rosenberg: But John like had, you know, at the beginnings of Marketo was taken to market this whole new way of thinking at the time when blogs and social and all these things came about that could really flywheel your content and your point of view. 00:02:20.140 --> 00:02:22.920 Craig Rosenberg: And so it's like really interesting. 00:02:22.920 --> 00:02:31.200 Craig Rosenberg: You know, when, when John sort of came to market as the co-founder of Marketo, it was an incredible time in B2B. 00:02:31.200 --> 00:02:38.320 Craig Rosenberg: And because, you know, the whole idea of everything you guys were doing at Marketo was so new and interesting. 00:02:38.320 --> 00:02:50.000 Craig Rosenberg: And it was like most of the stuff I did with him, not talking about Marketo, he was talking about the new way of doing things, which was really interesting stuff. 00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:54.560 Craig Rosenberg: And so I've been friends with Jon like you forever. 00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:57.480 Craig Rosenberg: It's just cool to, it's always been cool to know him. 00:02:57.480 --> 00:03:02.800 Craig Rosenberg: And it's been cool to follow him and to learn and to watch the evolution of Jon. 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:04.200 Craig Rosenberg: So I always tell everyone this. 00:03:04.200 --> 00:03:10.580 Craig Rosenberg: So Jon got us on the MQL lead tracking, like lead everything thing. 00:03:10.580 --> 00:03:20.280 Craig Rosenberg: Then he's like, well, wait a minute, like if I'm trying to get into the enterprise, I need a completely new point of view and brought AccountBased to Market. 00:03:20.280 --> 00:03:25.900 Craig Rosenberg: Really one of the best guys to listen to and to follow in that regard. 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:29.540 Craig Rosenberg: And now he's in sort of phase three of Jon. 00:03:29.540 --> 00:03:45.420 Craig Rosenberg: And so, you know, as we at The Transaction try to help people understand the new playbook, there probably is like in the three people in the world that are most suited to have that conversation. 00:03:45.420 --> 00:03:47.780 Craig Rosenberg: And one of those guys is Jon Miller. 00:03:47.780 --> 00:03:50.480 Craig Rosenberg: So Jon, welcome to The Transaction, man. 00:03:50.480 --> 00:03:51.620 Jon Miller: Thank you. 00:03:51.620 --> 00:03:57.580 Jon Miller: You know, every time somebody says like, oh, I've known you forever, it's really just decided how old we're getting. 00:03:57.840 --> 00:03:59.100 Craig Rosenberg: No, I know, I know. 00:03:59.140 --> 00:04:00.220 Jon Miller: I was thinking about this. 00:04:00.220 --> 00:04:09.860 Jon Miller: You know, there's been more time that I've known you than the time between the movie twins coming out until I met you. 00:04:13.100 --> 00:04:14.900 Craig Rosenberg: Jesus, now you're killing us here. 00:04:14.900 --> 00:04:16.040 Craig Rosenberg: I love this. 00:04:16.180 --> 00:04:18.500 Jon Miller: So we've known each other a really long time. 00:04:18.500 --> 00:04:19.980 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. 00:04:19.980 --> 00:04:27.780 Craig Rosenberg: And so like this, and by the way, you know, the Transaction started because Matt and I were just talking B2B and we're like, let's go record it. 00:04:27.780 --> 00:04:29.140 Craig Rosenberg: And it's like the same thing with you. 00:04:29.140 --> 00:04:35.320 Craig Rosenberg: It's like there's, you know, when we're talking business, there's always something to learn. 00:04:35.320 --> 00:04:38.420 Craig Rosenberg: So it's really cool to just be able to record this and share this with everyone. 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:44.760 Craig Rosenberg: So the question that starts every Transaction podcast is this. 00:04:44.760 --> 00:04:49.380 Craig Rosenberg: So what's something that the market thinks they're doing right? 00:04:49.380 --> 00:04:53.520 Craig Rosenberg: It could be approach, best practice, methodology, whatever. 00:04:53.520 --> 00:04:57.160 Craig Rosenberg: And they're actually wrong or not thinking about the right way. 00:04:57.620 --> 00:05:00.440 Craig Rosenberg: And what is that and what should they be doing differently? 00:05:01.440 --> 00:05:03.420 Craig Rosenberg: And so to you? 00:05:03.420 --> 00:05:09.360 Jon Miller: You know, I like to encapsulate it epitomized, you know, which is that marketing is not a gumball machine. 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:17.680 Jon Miller: And I think, you know, too many people, and frankly, we taught too many people that you can think of marketing that way. 00:05:17.680 --> 00:05:24.220 Jon Miller: You know, they can be like, here's some money, here's some investment, and you're going to use it to run your campaign. 00:05:24.220 --> 00:05:25.880 Jon Miller: And I'm going to get gumballs out. 00:05:25.880 --> 00:05:29.140 Jon Miller: I'm going to get MQLs out or opportunities out. 00:05:29.820 --> 00:05:35.820 Jon Miller: And that, you know, it's a very, you know, it was a very deterministic sort of approach. 00:05:35.820 --> 00:05:37.600 Jon Miller: You know, money in, campaign's out. 00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:42.760 Jon Miller: And as a result, we sort of, you know, got addicted to like this sugar rush of MQLs. 00:05:42.760 --> 00:05:47.820 Jon Miller: You know, thinking like, I can just keep putting my quarters in and I'm going to keep getting these MQLs out. 00:05:47.820 --> 00:05:50.400 Jon Miller: But that's not, I don't think that's the way buying works. 00:05:50.400 --> 00:05:58.320 Jon Miller: Maybe, you know, maybe it worked that way in 2008 or 2010 when we were building Marketo, you know, and there was less noise and less competition. 00:05:58.540 --> 00:06:16.060 Jon Miller: You know, fast forward to today and, you know, what's happened is we've been just, you know, bombarding buyers kind of with the same tactics, you know, and as we spend, when we send more content and more emails, more touches, you know, we're not building relationships, we're burning them. 00:06:16.060 --> 00:06:22.700 Jon Miller: So, you know, I think we're seeing the effect of these mindsets today. 00:06:22.700 --> 00:06:53.100 Jon Miller: We're seeing lower SDR productivity, we're seeing missed quotas, we're seeing slower growth, you know, we're seeing poor marketing sales alignment, and ultimately, you know, we're seeing high CMO turnover, you know, so there's lots of ways to describe, you know, what's going on, but I think fundamentally is your point of view, is just that, you know, playbook that, you know, we helped preach and define at Marketo, and you helped to help, you know, preach and define. 00:06:53.100 --> 00:06:54.640 Jon Miller: It's just not working as well anymore. 00:06:55.420 --> 00:06:57.980 Jon Miller: And I think it is time for something new. 00:06:57.980 --> 00:07:05.040 Craig Rosenberg: I think Matt literally just had this conversation in front of me yesterday. 00:07:05.040 --> 00:07:06.560 Craig Rosenberg: Would you say, Matt? 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:07.440 Matt Amundson: It's possible. 00:07:07.440 --> 00:07:09.620 Matt Amundson: We were at football yesterday. 00:07:11.220 --> 00:07:13.300 Craig Rosenberg: There's always that analogy. 00:07:13.300 --> 00:07:20.360 Craig Rosenberg: So, but I want to dig into, like, as you described, I mean, SDR productivity, I'd say. 00:07:20.360 --> 00:07:21.160 Craig Rosenberg: I mean, is it true? 00:07:21.160 --> 00:07:21.480 Craig Rosenberg: I don't know. 00:07:21.580 --> 00:07:22.400 Craig Rosenberg: You guys confirm this? 00:07:22.900 --> 00:07:34.740 Craig Rosenberg: I guess all of the sort of past playbook productivities down, but it seems like SDR productivity has taken the biggest hit. 00:07:34.740 --> 00:07:36.360 Matt Amundson: I think that there's some truth to that. 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:38.220 Matt Amundson: I don't have the numbers to back it up. 00:07:38.220 --> 00:07:51.660 Matt Amundson: The thing that I'll say anecdotally about SDR productivity is, there are best practices that exist in sales development, and Craig Topo helped really illuminate and evangelize a lot of what they were. 00:07:51.660 --> 00:07:56.400 Matt Amundson: Things like, very tactical things like the Triple Touch and whatnot. 00:07:56.400 --> 00:07:59.240 Matt Amundson: I just don't see that type of behavior anymore. 00:07:59.240 --> 00:08:06.840 Matt Amundson: What I see is people load up a sequence or a cadence into Outreach or SalesLoft. 00:08:06.840 --> 00:08:10.120 Matt Amundson: It's the same for absolutely everybody. 00:08:10.120 --> 00:08:19.300 Matt Amundson: It really feels like gone are the days where you'd see people hop on LinkedIn and be like, look at this email that I just got from a BDR. 00:08:19.300 --> 00:08:36.760 Matt Amundson: What I think is above, not just the fact that marketing isn't as effective as it was using programmatic email marketing and BDRs aren't effective as they were, is really what we touched on on a previous pod about the creativity element. 00:08:36.760 --> 00:08:53.820 Matt Amundson: Because these workflow tools are so prominent now, people are just like, well, I can just build a 12 email sequence or a six or seven email slash call cadence in my workflow tools and they don't have to be great. 00:08:53.820 --> 00:08:59.020 Matt Amundson: They just need to tell people what we do and the right people will see it and respond to it. 00:08:59.020 --> 00:09:05.620 Matt Amundson: The reality is, even the right people may not be seeing it and they're certainly not responding to it. 00:09:05.620 --> 00:09:18.780 Matt Amundson: To me, it feels like that creativity piece is lost, but I think that there's a huge opportunity using some of new technology today to actually increase that creativity piece. 00:09:19.540 --> 00:09:25.160 Craig Rosenberg: The other thing I was going to say is like, so there was the, when I, you guys might disagree with this. 00:09:25.160 --> 00:09:35.500 Craig Rosenberg: I don't know, but like, so, because I was on the outside looking in, there was the Marketo point of view, which was very MQL focused, lead nurturing, email centric. 00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:42.200 Craig Rosenberg: Then there was the HubSpot play, which is beat the living crap out of the blog. 00:09:42.200 --> 00:09:43.600 Craig Rosenberg: That doesn't work either. 00:09:43.600 --> 00:09:48.840 Craig Rosenberg: And just the volume blog doesn't work. 00:09:48.840 --> 00:10:06.140 Craig Rosenberg: As much it's like, how many 300 to 500 blog posts that don't say anything are being created still with people sort of aiming from the old playbook that we just have to increase the amount of 300 to 500 word blog posts out there. 00:10:06.560 --> 00:10:13.200 Craig Rosenberg: That's another one, as I think about things that we sort of got ingrained in our head that are no longer working. 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:14.880 Craig Rosenberg: I mean, there's a lot, but... 00:10:14.880 --> 00:10:20.480 Jon Miller: What else doesn't work are my bread and butter of writing big, meaty definitive guides. 00:10:21.800 --> 00:10:32.800 Jon Miller: We built Marketo's brand and frankly, probably a big part of Engagio's brand on writing this 200 page, really valuable, if I may say, content. 00:10:33.260 --> 00:10:38.080 Jon Miller: You know, that we would then give away and then also repurpose into a bunch of different formats. 00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:42.860 Jon Miller: Fast forward to 2024, those tactics aren't working either. 00:10:42.860 --> 00:10:52.600 Jon Miller: You know, there's, again, there's partly the changing buyer and millennials and just different tastes for how people want to learn and all that kind of stuff. 00:10:52.600 --> 00:10:54.920 Jon Miller: But I still think it just comes down to the core. 00:10:54.980 --> 00:11:03.020 Jon Miller: Or even what Matt was saying, it's like marketers and salespeople will overuse any tactic to the point of saturation and therefore destroying the tactic. 00:11:03.020 --> 00:11:05.620 Jon Miller: You know, and that's what's happened here. 00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:10.340 Jon Miller: And in doing so, we've lost sight of, I think, the core fundamental, right? 00:11:10.340 --> 00:11:14.760 Jon Miller: Matt was saying it's creativity, which I think is part of it. 00:11:14.760 --> 00:11:20.520 Jon Miller: But I think the true, true core fundamental is kind of a mindset of what's right for the customer. 00:11:20.520 --> 00:11:22.100 Jon Miller: Does this actually add value? 00:11:22.560 --> 00:11:30.780 Jon Miller: I think that's more than anything else, what got lost in this sort of gumball mentality, more volume, more, more, more approach. 00:11:30.780 --> 00:11:53.780 Craig Rosenberg: I just before I transition you into the, like the pillars of what we need to be thinking in the way today, I do want to tell you guys that in like trying to think when this was 2008 maybe, do you know what guys know Gretchen DeKnikker, right? 00:11:53.780 --> 00:11:59.000 Craig Rosenberg: She was at Genius and she had just left Genius, and I was like, how's it going? 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:10.700 Craig Rosenberg: She's like, here's the thing, we're creating a machine that will eat the ability to even use the machine at some point, because we're trying to do marketing automation. 00:12:10.800 --> 00:12:12.140 Craig Rosenberg: Essentially, that's what you guys are saying. 00:12:12.940 --> 00:12:25.640 Craig Rosenberg: These tools that we built, they were almost like temporary, because we just beat the living crap out of them and defeated their effectiveness at some point because we beat the living crap out of them. 00:12:25.640 --> 00:12:32.040 Craig Rosenberg: Anyway, just wanted to throw that out for you, Gretchen, just a heads up, I had never told Jon that one, because Jon was so... 00:12:32.040 --> 00:12:34.100 Craig Rosenberg: Remember how focused Jon was at Marketo? 00:12:34.100 --> 00:12:36.760 Craig Rosenberg: There was things I never messed with that guy on. 00:12:36.760 --> 00:12:43.680 Craig Rosenberg: I mean, I always wanted to learn from him, but man, there was things I just like, was like, this guy, there's nothing going to stop this guy. 00:12:43.680 --> 00:12:45.180 Craig Rosenberg: So now, Jon, let's transition. 00:12:45.180 --> 00:12:56.620 Craig Rosenberg: Like, if you were going to sort of set us up to be thinking about the big things we should be thinking, you know, I got the like, like the big sort of conceptual idea that we have to go back to be thinking about the customer. 00:12:56.700 --> 00:13:02.180 Craig Rosenberg: But what are the other key areas that we should be thinking about today in the new playbook? 00:13:02.180 --> 00:13:12.900 Jon Miller: Yeah, I mean, this is going to be implications of everything I'm talking about here in terms of how we measure and how we do attribution and how we set our budgets and all that kind of stuff. 00:13:12.900 --> 00:13:16.600 Jon Miller: You know, but how do we think about the mix of brand versus demand? 00:13:16.600 --> 00:13:33.240 Jon Miller: But the more I thought about, the more I really have realized, it comes down to, you know, is this resisting kind of the short-term thinking and more focusing on kind of long-term, shifting from quantity to quality. 00:13:34.880 --> 00:13:45.040 Jon Miller: And ultimately, it's about treating buyers, you know, as people, not, quote unquote, leads to be nurtured or kind of deals to be created. 00:13:45.040 --> 00:13:49.900 Jon Miller: You know, and this sounds, even coming out of my mouth, I can be like, wow, this sounds pretty squishy. 00:13:50.800 --> 00:14:05.860 Jon Miller: You know, and so I think, you know, but it does start to like imply, I think some kind of true kind of fundamental things that we've lost our approach on. 00:14:05.860 --> 00:14:12.200 Jon Miller: You know, there are things that people talk about today that are best practices that fall right out of this, right? 00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:15.320 Jon Miller: Like, you know, yeah, you know, create content, sure. 00:14:15.320 --> 00:14:18.900 Jon Miller: But are you creating content that's so valuable, people would pay for it? 00:14:19.980 --> 00:14:24.580 Jon Miller: You know, so that you can actually build community around subscriptions. 00:14:24.580 --> 00:14:26.740 Jon Miller: And we've seen the rise of these paid sub stacks. 00:14:26.740 --> 00:14:30.020 Jon Miller: People are doing like, it can be done, right? 00:14:30.020 --> 00:14:50.180 Jon Miller: It's just a different approach, you know, making it easy for people to try out and experience your products, whether that's a free trial or a product led motion, or just like a demo, click through demo or something, you know, making it easy for them to get pricing and packaging information and then connect with sales on their own terms, right? 00:14:50.180 --> 00:14:52.840 Jon Miller: How many companies are actually doing that? 00:14:52.840 --> 00:14:54.640 Jon Miller: You know, that's right by the buyer. 00:14:54.640 --> 00:15:00.180 Jon Miller: Thinking about building community around your products, you know, and for your prospects. 00:15:00.180 --> 00:15:04.820 Jon Miller: Some companies are knocking out of the park by doing that, but, you know, not everybody's doing that. 00:15:04.820 --> 00:15:16.020 Jon Miller: Then after the sale, right, how much of your marketing budget and resources are being invested into post-sale advocacy, customer success, retention versus kind of new business, right? 00:15:16.100 --> 00:15:24.820 Jon Miller: These are just examples of, if you really start with a principle of do right by the customer, these other things kind of fall out of it. 00:15:24.820 --> 00:15:35.000 Matt Amundson: It's interesting, because I hear people all the time saying, hey, we're customer-centric, we're customer-centric, we're customer-centric, and almost none of them are doing what you just espoused there. 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:40.760 Matt Amundson: And oftentimes, those are always the things we're gonna get to that next quarter, and then we're gonna get to the quarter after, right? 00:15:40.760 --> 00:15:59.980 Matt Amundson: Because we're so intently focused on new customer acquisition that we forget all of those pieces because maybe they don't look good in a board deck, maybe they don't ensure that, you know, your sales team is hitting quota at a high enough clip on a quarterly basis, and they're hard. 00:15:59.980 --> 00:16:03.220 Matt Amundson: They're also very difficult to execute. 00:16:03.220 --> 00:16:04.580 Jon Miller: We're gonna have to talk about this. 00:16:04.580 --> 00:16:13.100 Jon Miller: Not that it's not just as hard, it's this goes against the grain of what CFOs and CEOs and PE companies are expecting for marketing. 00:16:14.940 --> 00:16:19.920 Jon Miller: And I think moving companies is going to be challenging. 00:16:19.920 --> 00:16:24.660 Jon Miller: And yet, at the same time, I don't think there's alternatives, right? 00:16:24.660 --> 00:16:27.680 Jon Miller: You know, because we can't keep doing more of the same, right? 00:16:27.680 --> 00:16:29.440 Jon Miller: We all know the definition of that. 00:16:29.440 --> 00:16:35.700 Jon Miller: But I also don't want to under emphasize or underestimate how hard it is, right? 00:16:35.700 --> 00:16:44.480 Jon Miller: Because of the expectations of marketing and the quarterly pressures, and, you know, what the PE firm expects, all that kind of stuff. 00:16:45.020 --> 00:17:03.300 Jon Miller: You know, I think, you know, the other, you know, issue is, you know, I think that there's been so much time, you know, that the gumball mentality of the old playbook focuses so much time and energy into time and talking about the tactics of marketing. 00:17:03.300 --> 00:17:06.120 Jon Miller: You know, and like people are like, oh, are you running enough webinars? 00:17:06.120 --> 00:17:13.040 Jon Miller: And like, you know, have you optimized this SDR sequence that we sort of don't spend enough time on kind of the core fundamentals? 00:17:13.040 --> 00:17:16.520 Jon Miller: Like, do we have product market fit, right? 00:17:16.520 --> 00:17:21.580 Jon Miller: What is our competitive positioning, you know, versus everybody else? 00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:25.540 Jon Miller: And perhaps most importantly, what is our reputation, right? 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:31.880 Jon Miller: When we're not in the room and people are talking about us versus the competition, like, what do they say? 00:17:31.880 --> 00:17:42.620 Jon Miller: All those things have a bigger impact on, you know, your go to market, you know, than actually the quality of your demand gen programs. 00:17:42.620 --> 00:17:53.660 Jon Miller: I like to say, you know, if you have great product market fit and a strong positioning and a strong reputation, you know, you can get away with really mediocre demand gen and you'll still create lots of pipeline. 00:17:53.660 --> 00:18:01.120 Jon Miller: But even the best demand gen team in the world will really probably suffer if those fundamentals aren't in place. 00:18:01.120 --> 00:18:02.460 Craig Rosenberg: That is the truth. 00:18:02.460 --> 00:18:15.420 Craig Rosenberg: So, you know, what's funny is like, well, first of all, this is the reason we have sort of joystick driven CMOs and boardrooms is because of you and Matt, Jon, just as a heads up. 00:18:15.420 --> 00:18:18.320 Jon Miller: I mean, you were involved too. 00:18:18.320 --> 00:18:19.460 Matt Amundson: No, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:18:20.040 --> 00:18:21.400 Matt Amundson: Don't absolve yourself from this. 00:18:22.100 --> 00:18:23.700 Jon Miller: I think my part of the blade. 00:18:23.700 --> 00:18:24.640 Craig Rosenberg: But I do like this term. 00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:29.760 Craig Rosenberg: I mean, essentially, you're describing reputations a new piece to marketing or maybe not. 00:18:29.760 --> 00:18:32.080 Craig Rosenberg: But this is marketing and go to market. 00:18:32.080 --> 00:18:37.840 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, because there was there was a time where you were right, though. 00:18:37.840 --> 00:18:45.480 Craig Rosenberg: Well, I'm not sure this is exactly how you said about something I took from this was like you could stand up. 00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:55.360 Craig Rosenberg: You could actually copy other people in your markets, topics and run webinars and get 300 people, let's say. 00:18:55.360 --> 00:18:56.140 Craig Rosenberg: You could. 00:18:56.140 --> 00:18:59.700 Craig Rosenberg: You could drive and without what John said. 00:18:59.700 --> 00:19:01.140 Craig Rosenberg: Now you can't. 00:19:01.140 --> 00:19:07.320 Craig Rosenberg: And that, I think, you know, is really interesting and a big change, you know? 00:19:07.340 --> 00:19:11.860 Craig Rosenberg: And but what your guys are calling for, well, what John's calling for, the mat was nodding. 00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:14.940 Craig Rosenberg: And I'm by the way, I agree with. 00:19:14.940 --> 00:19:15.520 Craig Rosenberg: Okay. 00:19:15.520 --> 00:19:22.660 Craig Rosenberg: What we are calling for is that's classic go to market marketing and those things. 00:19:22.660 --> 00:19:25.920 Craig Rosenberg: They not only were lost, but like now they're required. 00:19:25.920 --> 00:19:30.740 Craig Rosenberg: And then on the customer thing, I'm not sure what happened there. 00:19:30.740 --> 00:19:34.060 Craig Rosenberg: Like where we lost sight of what the customer finds valuable. 00:19:34.060 --> 00:19:38.280 Craig Rosenberg: Is that just because everything work before? 00:19:38.280 --> 00:19:39.480 Jon Miller: I mean, that was maybe part of it. 00:19:40.120 --> 00:20:00.820 Jon Miller: But I think it's more like there's so much pressure on the short term and deliver some number and I got to hit this quarter, that it just creates a dynamic to optimize for the short term over what's going to do be right in the long term. 00:20:01.100 --> 00:20:14.660 Jon Miller: And I think just you turn that crank for 40 quarters over 10 years, and you end up with something that's like, sure, you're running the program volume because you need to run that much volume to hit your number. 00:20:14.680 --> 00:20:19.420 Jon Miller: Like in Marketo, we used to do this, like, oh, it's the end of the month or the end of the quarter. 00:20:19.420 --> 00:20:23.380 Jon Miller: We don't have, we haven't hit our MQL goal. 00:20:23.380 --> 00:20:28.180 Jon Miller: So we call them catch up campaigns, like, well, let's just blast something else out. 00:20:28.180 --> 00:20:30.440 Jon Miller: And like, we would do it, and you know what? 00:20:30.440 --> 00:20:33.900 Jon Miller: We would hit that MQL goal, but fine. 00:20:33.900 --> 00:20:48.360 Jon Miller: So we did maybe that quarter, we hit our number, but I think over enough time, you keep doing that kind of thing without the quality behind it, and eventually you start to hurt your ability to make that number as opposed to helping. 00:20:48.360 --> 00:20:49.520 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. 00:20:49.520 --> 00:21:03.280 Matt Amundson: I think one thing that was really true about the definitive guides from Marketo, and probably the reason why, and this was true for Engagio as well, was also true for brands like Outreach and SalesLoft. 00:21:03.820 --> 00:21:06.240 Matt Amundson: And it's not often true for other brands. 00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:15.160 Matt Amundson: Is definitive guides that we did at Marketo were essentially a textbook on how to do marketing now. 00:21:15.160 --> 00:21:20.200 Matt Amundson: And there was a whole group of people that didn't know how to do it, right? 00:21:20.200 --> 00:21:25.200 Matt Amundson: Because there was a massive change going on in the B2B marketing space. 00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:29.120 Matt Amundson: And Marketo and some other brands were at the forefront of that. 00:21:29.120 --> 00:21:31.320 Matt Amundson: And so somebody had to go educate the market. 00:21:31.920 --> 00:21:33.400 Matt Amundson: Engagio, same thing. 00:21:33.400 --> 00:21:35.460 Matt Amundson: Now we've shifted to account-based marketing. 00:21:35.460 --> 00:21:40.500 Matt Amundson: Great, I understand why this is valuable, but I don't know tactically how to do it. 00:21:40.500 --> 00:21:42.840 Matt Amundson: And that's why the Big Guide works there. 00:21:42.840 --> 00:21:51.540 Matt Amundson: I think in other businesses, it doesn't work well because as revolutionary as you think your product is, it's kind of not, right? 00:21:51.540 --> 00:21:52.600 Matt Amundson: It's just kind of not. 00:21:52.600 --> 00:21:57.840 Matt Amundson: It might be slightly better, it might be slightly cheaper, it might give you a 10% efficiency gain. 00:21:58.300 --> 00:22:10.300 Matt Amundson: But transitioning from the world of using Bronto to going to a full powered suite of MarTech tool like Marketo is a real change. 00:22:10.300 --> 00:22:14.720 Matt Amundson: And then shifting to having an account based platform is a real change. 00:22:14.720 --> 00:22:19.060 Matt Amundson: So I think one of the things that people lose sight of is, hey, do I have a great product? 00:22:19.060 --> 00:22:20.020 Matt Amundson: Is it selling well? 00:22:20.020 --> 00:22:21.480 Matt Amundson: Yes, that's awesome. 00:22:21.480 --> 00:22:28.260 Matt Amundson: Does it need a definitive guide to reeducate the masses on the sea change that our product is creating? 00:22:28.260 --> 00:22:29.380 Matt Amundson: Maybe not. 00:22:29.380 --> 00:22:30.120 Matt Amundson: Maybe not. 00:22:30.120 --> 00:22:42.100 Matt Amundson: And that's where shorter form content like videos or, let me just get you into the product so I can prove to you that you're going to see the same level of value from a cheaper product or whatever, are actually a better fit. 00:22:42.100 --> 00:22:50.340 Matt Amundson: So I think some of the things about Marketo that people tried to copy didn't work because their products weren't massively changing the market. 00:22:50.340 --> 00:22:57.360 Matt Amundson: And so I think all marketers need to be realistic about what Jon said earlier, which is what does our customer really need? 00:22:57.360 --> 00:22:57.780 Matt Amundson: Right? 00:22:57.780 --> 00:23:07.060 Matt Amundson: If I'm trying to make, you know, deploying a landing page 50% easier, do they need a 100 page guide on how to do that? 00:23:07.060 --> 00:23:08.320 Matt Amundson: Probably not. 00:23:08.320 --> 00:23:13.700 Matt Amundson: They need to see how the product works and how it's better than whatever the incumbent system that they're using is. 00:23:13.700 --> 00:23:22.300 Matt Amundson: So we have to not necessarily just take other people's playbooks and run with them, but we have to think about what's best for our customer given the product or service that we're selling. 00:23:23.020 --> 00:23:36.220 Craig Rosenberg: How do we, on the earlier point you made, we know the relationship damage that we do, but what are other ways that we can build better relationships with the customer? 00:23:36.220 --> 00:23:38.640 Craig Rosenberg: What tactics should we be thinking about now? 00:23:39.040 --> 00:23:51.720 Jon Miller: Well, you know, I'm sort of struck by anybody listening to this, right, today, right, is engaging with an incredibly time-consuming, rich form of content. 00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:53.640 Jon Miller: Right? 00:23:53.640 --> 00:23:59.900 Jon Miller: Like, you know, like, people are talking about, oh, all our buyers only have the attention spans of goldfish. 00:23:59.900 --> 00:24:04.180 Jon Miller: There are going to be lots of people who are listening to this whole thing. 00:24:04.180 --> 00:24:04.340 Jon Miller: Yeah. 00:24:06.400 --> 00:24:15.980 Jon Miller: And I think that's an example of, you know, you can create content, you know, it's long-form, deep and engaging. 00:24:15.980 --> 00:24:23.620 Jon Miller: It's got to be about, you know, speak to an audience and deliver kind of a certain level of value. 00:24:23.620 --> 00:24:29.820 Jon Miller: You know, obviously, we're not talking about any products here, but most content shouldn't talk about the products, right? 00:24:29.820 --> 00:24:35.220 Jon Miller: I mean, that's just the best practice, you know, that that everybody knows and not everybody follows. 00:24:35.220 --> 00:24:38.400 Jon Miller: But, you know, we go, it goes back to that reputation point. 00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:46.520 Jon Miller: You said reputation is a new thing, by the way, and like, actually, to me, reputation is just a sort of a more CDO friendly word, you know, named to the word brand. 00:24:46.520 --> 00:24:48.400 Jon Miller: Yeah. 00:24:48.540 --> 00:24:51.240 Jon Miller: And we can talk more about that. 00:24:51.240 --> 00:24:56.860 Jon Miller: But, you know, how do you build your reputation, you know, in the marketplace today? 00:24:57.700 --> 00:25:13.640 Jon Miller: I think what a lot of people are doing is they are relying or purposely using the founder or other people in the company, you know, to sort of, you know, almost build kind of their personal brands. 00:25:15.220 --> 00:25:17.000 Jon Miller: And that seems to work. 00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:29.040 Jon Miller: You get to know a company and you start to build a positive view of them because of what that executive is sharing, you know, specifically on LinkedIn but kind of on other channels. 00:25:29.180 --> 00:25:42.220 Jon Miller: The other tactic that seems to really be resonating, you know, here in 2024, is companies that are producing research that is based on their proprietary datasets. 00:25:42.220 --> 00:25:48.420 Jon Miller: You know, and I think the two best examples out there today are Gong Labs and then Carta. 00:25:48.420 --> 00:25:58.580 Jon Miller: Those companies are doing a great job building their reputations, you know, with useful, valuable content that, again, only they can produce from their datasets. 00:26:00.300 --> 00:26:01.460 Craig Rosenberg: That's interesting. 00:26:01.460 --> 00:26:10.520 Craig Rosenberg: So, but the people part equation of reputation building, I mean, isn't that what we started this show? 00:26:10.520 --> 00:26:13.240 Craig Rosenberg: Isn't that what Jon Miller did at Marketo? 00:26:14.280 --> 00:26:19.600 Jon Miller: To a degree, I think it does feel slightly different, right? 00:26:19.700 --> 00:26:25.420 Jon Miller: I mean, like, at Marketo, I didn't even put my name on most of the definitive guides. 00:26:25.420 --> 00:26:28.700 Jon Miller: Like, those were Marketo's definitive guides, not mine. 00:26:28.700 --> 00:26:36.240 Jon Miller: I think to the extent that I got well-known through any of that, it probably took time. 00:26:36.660 --> 00:26:38.900 Jon Miller: And it certainly wasn't deliberate. 00:26:38.900 --> 00:26:47.340 Jon Miller: You know, I think whereas today, partly because my new company is in stealth, like I'm building, I'm doing a lot of my thought leadership under my own name and my own brand. 00:26:48.520 --> 00:26:52.120 Jon Miller: Yeah, I'm sort of building it under me. 00:26:52.120 --> 00:26:57.600 Jon Miller: That's different, you know, in terms of the intentionality of kind of how I'm approaching it. 00:26:59.140 --> 00:27:04.120 Matt Amundson: The Transaction is presented by Ringmaster, the go-to branded podcast team. 00:27:04.120 --> 00:27:09.320 Matt Amundson: You know, when Craig and I were thinking of starting this podcast, we had all the ideas in the world. 00:27:09.320 --> 00:27:12.880 Matt Amundson: But you know, all the ideas in the world won't get you a great podcast. 00:27:12.880 --> 00:27:14.260 Matt Amundson: That's where Ringmaster comes in. 00:27:14.780 --> 00:27:24.000 Matt Amundson: They handle the creative, book guests, and do all the production for the podcast so we can focus on what we do best, talk to one another, and our amazing guests. 00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:31.240 Matt Amundson: To discover how your company can leverage B2B podcasts to deliver outsized ROI, visit ringmaster.com today. 00:27:33.900 --> 00:27:35.620 Craig Rosenberg: Got it, okay. 00:27:35.620 --> 00:27:52.520 Matt Amundson: I think it's right because right now, Jon Miller the brand is bigger than the brand that you have from Stealth, and regathering your followers and re-engaging your followers is the right way to prepare to take something from Stealth into public. 00:27:52.520 --> 00:27:52.760 Jon Miller: Yeah. 00:27:52.760 --> 00:28:03.260 Jon Miller: The question is, when I was CMO at Demandbase, would Demandbase have been more successful if I had built more Jon Miller brand there, right? 00:28:03.280 --> 00:28:07.620 Jon Miller: Or versus kind of working on the Demandbase brand. 00:28:07.620 --> 00:28:08.860 Jon Miller: In retrospect, perhaps. 00:28:09.540 --> 00:28:10.060 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. 00:28:10.060 --> 00:28:17.600 Craig Rosenberg: I mean, I don't want to dig into that, but certainly one of the competitors in the space had people associated with the brand. 00:28:17.600 --> 00:28:18.260 Jon Miller: Yep. 00:28:18.260 --> 00:28:24.220 Craig Rosenberg: And so I think that's really interesting. 00:28:24.220 --> 00:28:26.640 Craig Rosenberg: We are big on that right now here, Matt and I. 00:28:28.320 --> 00:28:42.600 Craig Rosenberg: We had Adam Robinson on who's like the textbook now in terms of building reputation on LinkedIn, including using negative reputation to build even more of a following. 00:28:42.600 --> 00:28:47.860 Craig Rosenberg: And then we had his consultant that helped him do it, Alec Paul, who came on and talked about this stuff. 00:28:47.860 --> 00:28:49.500 Craig Rosenberg: We've seen it now in action. 00:28:49.720 --> 00:28:54.940 Craig Rosenberg: I think this LinkedIn, I think, you know, it's funny, we're doing our framework. 00:28:54.940 --> 00:28:56.300 Craig Rosenberg: I'm like, LinkedIn. 00:28:56.300 --> 00:28:58.160 Craig Rosenberg: Like, well, that's just one of the social channels. 00:28:58.160 --> 00:28:58.760 Craig Rosenberg: No, it's not. 00:28:59.920 --> 00:29:06.120 Craig Rosenberg: Like, it is a one of the most important platforms for everyone to figure out their strategy on. 00:29:06.120 --> 00:29:08.420 Jon Miller: Well, the other big piece, I think, is community. 00:29:09.520 --> 00:29:10.480 Jon Miller: Communities. 00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:16.500 Jon Miller: And I think that there are a lot of companies that really want to do that and relatively few who have cracked the code. 00:29:17.300 --> 00:29:18.340 Matt Amundson: Yes. 00:29:18.340 --> 00:29:24.840 Jon Miller: I like what Anthony Connaught is doing with Audience Plus around community. 00:29:25.220 --> 00:29:32.660 Jon Miller: And I think one of his secrets is that community, a big part of that is in-person events. 00:29:32.660 --> 00:29:34.760 Jon Miller: And yeah, it's old school, right? 00:29:34.760 --> 00:29:39.600 Jon Miller: But if you put together a really good set of in-person events, you build community. 00:29:39.600 --> 00:29:46.340 Jon Miller: And then had you can parlay the in-person event into the online community and kind of vice versa. 00:29:46.340 --> 00:29:54.900 Jon Miller: I don't have all the secrets, but when I think about building reputation in 2024 and 2025, those are my three pillars, right? 00:29:54.900 --> 00:29:59.360 Jon Miller: Personal brand, content based on proprietary research and community. 00:29:59.360 --> 00:29:59.800 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. 00:29:59.800 --> 00:30:00.360 Craig Rosenberg: So cool. 00:30:00.360 --> 00:30:04.160 Craig Rosenberg: So on number two, on like Carta is a really good example. 00:30:04.160 --> 00:30:09.760 Craig Rosenberg: You know, when we have questions on stuff like equity, we want to find out what Carta said. 00:30:09.760 --> 00:30:11.940 Craig Rosenberg: It's like there's the research there also. 00:30:11.940 --> 00:30:25.020 Craig Rosenberg: This is again, in my opinion, this is what you guys did at Marketo too, which was like you became the trusted source of information on a particular topic. 00:30:25.020 --> 00:30:27.860 Craig Rosenberg: Yes, I follow the Carta research as well. 00:30:27.860 --> 00:30:30.080 Craig Rosenberg: I mean, it's my life in that they're just amazing at it. 00:30:30.160 --> 00:30:35.360 Craig Rosenberg: But also, man, like when we get questions, like we sort of verify what Carta says. 00:30:35.360 --> 00:30:38.700 Craig Rosenberg: That's, that's reputation. 00:30:38.700 --> 00:30:39.740 Jon Miller: Yeah. 00:30:39.740 --> 00:30:43.680 Jon Miller: Now, Carta also had some bad breathes for kind of what they were doing. 00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:44.580 Jon Miller: You know, that matters too. 00:30:44.580 --> 00:30:45.680 Jon Miller: My point is that matters too. 00:30:45.880 --> 00:30:51.320 Jon Miller: You know, and like stuff is, stuff takes, it's really hard to move the needle on. 00:30:52.440 --> 00:31:01.580 Jon Miller: I mean, like, just an example, if I may, like, you know, demand base, I think even today still probably has a reputation of being expensive. 00:31:01.580 --> 00:31:02.060 Jon Miller: Right. 00:31:02.060 --> 00:31:12.000 Jon Miller: And that literally comes from like 2018, 2019, when, you know, they thought they were the premium brand and they were overcharging. 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:18.920 Jon Miller: You know, and like, I know for a fact, like that doesn't, that didn't continue until like 21, 22, 23, but the reputation stays. 00:31:19.200 --> 00:31:21.840 Jon Miller: And it's very hard to move the needle on that stuff. 00:31:21.840 --> 00:31:27.220 Jon Miller: And without, you know, massive amounts of time and energy and effort. 00:31:27.620 --> 00:31:34.460 Jon Miller: And markers don't spend enough time understanding their reputation and then being proactive about how to really think about moving it. 00:31:34.460 --> 00:31:35.080 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. 00:31:35.080 --> 00:31:35.280 Matt Amundson: Yeah. 00:31:35.280 --> 00:31:40.740 Matt Amundson: And I think that's true for all ABX platforms, is they all have the reputation of being expensive. 00:31:40.740 --> 00:31:52.460 Matt Amundson: And you talk to startups and they're like, hey, I'm not adopting it because, you know, it's going to, they command too much budget and, you know, I need to allocate that towards something else. 00:31:52.460 --> 00:31:54.820 Matt Amundson: So I think, I think that is definitely the case. 00:31:54.820 --> 00:31:57.480 Craig Rosenberg: But to Jon's point, it's not true. 00:31:57.480 --> 00:32:07.660 Jon Miller: Sorry, just to be precise, I would say ABM platform as a budget line item is a big thing and the entry level price is higher than what most startups can bite. 00:32:07.660 --> 00:32:07.920 Matt Amundson: Yeah. 00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:08.400 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. 00:32:08.400 --> 00:32:13.640 Jon Miller: But I was more referring to demand basing as relatively more expensive than even some of the competition. 00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:15.160 Craig Rosenberg: Sure. 00:32:15.640 --> 00:32:16.140 Jon Miller: Yeah. 00:32:16.820 --> 00:32:25.620 Jon Miller: Just as an example, reputation is hard and even all Carta is amazing content, and a little bit of bad PR can still hurt that too. 00:32:25.620 --> 00:32:26.520 Matt Amundson: That's true. 00:32:26.520 --> 00:32:26.740 Jon Miller: Yeah. 00:32:26.740 --> 00:32:33.600 Craig Rosenberg: But to your point, they know what, for example, I need or a portfolio needs, and so they've built that. 00:32:33.600 --> 00:32:34.980 Craig Rosenberg: We had, do you know JJ. 00:32:34.980 --> 00:32:36.200 Craig Rosenberg: Scherck? 00:32:36.200 --> 00:32:37.560 Craig Rosenberg: John-Henry Scherck, by any chance? 00:32:38.400 --> 00:32:40.000 Craig Rosenberg: Really good SEO guy. 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:41.160 Craig Rosenberg: We had him on. 00:32:41.160 --> 00:32:51.040 Craig Rosenberg: Matt, he was talking about, like he had a company he was working with from a content perspective, and they did, I think, international tax. 00:32:51.040 --> 00:32:59.560 Craig Rosenberg: And so they built the content to be, not just old school SEO, where it's like, what is this? 00:32:59.560 --> 00:33:05.280 Craig Rosenberg: And showing up on Google, but to be the place that people went to verify they were doing the right thing. 00:33:06.360 --> 00:33:07.800 Jon Miller: It's building on that a little bit. 00:33:07.800 --> 00:33:12.520 Jon Miller: The other thing that we haven't talked enough about, I think, is just literally the nuts and bolts of positioning. 00:33:13.800 --> 00:33:32.660 Jon Miller: I talked to so many marketing executives and CEOs even, and say, okay, what is your company, what do you want planted in your customer's mind, that they think of you as the best at compared to the competition? 00:33:32.900 --> 00:33:35.720 Jon Miller: And it's got to be like one or two or three words. 00:33:35.760 --> 00:33:47.160 Jon Miller: Almost no CMOs or CEOs I talk to can really articulate that, and even more so, and have every other single person in the company say the same thing. 00:33:47.160 --> 00:34:00.660 Jon Miller: And how can you expect to move your reputation brand in the marketplace, which will have this massive magnifying effect on everything else that you're doing, if you can't even get that crystal clear and articulate? 00:34:01.060 --> 00:34:04.720 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, that has been true. 00:34:04.720 --> 00:34:07.260 Craig Rosenberg: That is an amazing observation. 00:34:07.260 --> 00:34:07.820 Craig Rosenberg: Wait, go back. 00:34:07.820 --> 00:34:10.380 Craig Rosenberg: What was number three before you added that one? 00:34:10.380 --> 00:34:17.440 Jon Miller: When I thought about building a reputation, I talked about personal brands, content from research and communities. 00:34:17.440 --> 00:34:18.420 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, communities. 00:34:18.420 --> 00:34:19.340 Jon Miller: Yeah. 00:34:19.340 --> 00:34:24.540 Jon Miller: And then I'm saying positioning is almost like even a foundation below all that. 00:34:24.900 --> 00:34:30.260 Matt Amundson: When you think about positioning, John, do you think about the classic, like is, does, means? 00:34:30.260 --> 00:34:32.480 Matt Amundson: Do you think about the means part, right? 00:34:32.480 --> 00:34:36.800 Matt Amundson: Like where it's like, what does this mean to the user? 00:34:36.800 --> 00:34:42.100 Matt Amundson: Like it's like HR made simple, like rippling is HR made simple or something like that. 00:34:42.100 --> 00:34:42.660 Jon Miller: Yeah. 00:34:42.660 --> 00:34:44.480 Jon Miller: I mean, yes. 00:34:44.920 --> 00:34:55.060 Jon Miller: And, you know, what I'm really getting at is the, how do we, how do we reconnecting to our buyers' reptilian rights? 00:34:55.780 --> 00:35:08.220 Jon Miller: You know, what, what is that kind of, you know, how can we differentiate from the alternatives and kind of therefore own a distinct place in the buyer's mind? 00:35:08.220 --> 00:35:08.620 Jon Miller: Right. 00:35:08.620 --> 00:35:10.880 Jon Miller: In their words, not our words. 00:35:10.880 --> 00:35:18.060 Jon Miller: And again, like you can, there's all these big boring examples, like, you know, when you think of Apple versus Samsung, you think of something, right? 00:35:18.060 --> 00:35:21.560 Jon Miller: You have a feeling that you could probably put into one or two words, right? 00:35:21.560 --> 00:35:27.700 Jon Miller: If you think of BMW versus Volvo, you think of something, you know, that you can kind of put into some words. 00:35:27.700 --> 00:35:32.720 Jon Miller: And yet, you know, we can't do that for our own companies, usually. 00:35:32.720 --> 00:35:37.280 Jon Miller: So yes, there are formal positioning frameworks and messaging docs and all that kind of stuff. 00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:38.360 Jon Miller: All of that's important. 00:35:38.360 --> 00:35:39.960 Jon Miller: And I'm not denying any of that. 00:35:39.960 --> 00:35:42.560 Jon Miller: But it's, I'm sort of almost more talking about this more fundamental thing. 00:35:43.340 --> 00:35:43.980 Craig Rosenberg: Interesting. 00:35:43.980 --> 00:35:44.940 Craig Rosenberg: All right. 00:35:44.940 --> 00:35:48.480 Craig Rosenberg: So I was going on the community thing just really quick, you guys. 00:35:48.480 --> 00:35:49.500 Craig Rosenberg: And then we'll go back. 00:35:49.500 --> 00:35:50.020 Craig Rosenberg: I promise. 00:35:50.020 --> 00:35:51.420 Craig Rosenberg: I'm just sort of digging in here. 00:35:51.420 --> 00:36:05.520 Craig Rosenberg: So one thing I sort of have to combat, I'll just give contextually, is like the, you know, automatic assumption that the definition and ability to evaluate community is in a digital. 00:36:05.760 --> 00:36:10.240 Craig Rosenberg: I, you know, I don't know that apps people used to be like jive and get satisfaction. 00:36:12.200 --> 00:36:13.340 Jon Miller: Now they're just a Slack community. 00:36:13.340 --> 00:36:17.800 Jon Miller: And next thing you know, you have like 12 different slacks are logged in to and you don't have to check any of them. 00:36:17.800 --> 00:36:31.960 Craig Rosenberg: But I do think that's an important differentiation, which is like if you take Anthony or even, you know, some of the other descriptions you had of community, like live events are community. 00:36:33.260 --> 00:36:49.220 Craig Rosenberg: And then when you say like Anthony brings it to the website, because he's bringing these folks that want to talk about what he's presenting in on, you know, via video and whatever, whatever that has on audience plus. 00:36:49.220 --> 00:36:55.560 Craig Rosenberg: And that is community building, which also sort of ties back to everything as well. 00:36:55.560 --> 00:36:58.040 Craig Rosenberg: And I think that's really important. 00:36:58.040 --> 00:37:10.500 Jon Miller: You know, probably a great example of community, you know, even though it's quote unquote from the old school playbook is the Marketo Marketing Nation, which was, you know, people, more than anything else, people fell affiliated to that. 00:37:10.500 --> 00:37:13.800 Jon Miller: Like I'm in the nation, I'm part of the nation. 00:37:13.800 --> 00:37:21.980 Jon Miller: And there were five pillars to what we did to sort of build that, you know, one was the user conference and the in-person events. 00:37:21.980 --> 00:37:25.220 Jon Miller: You know, one was the little physical digital community. 00:37:25.220 --> 00:37:30.180 Jon Miller: And those were probably the biggest things, but it was also, we sort of put our whole partner ecosystem under that umbrella. 00:37:31.240 --> 00:37:34.860 Jon Miller: You know, so we kind of had community go through that. 00:37:35.400 --> 00:37:40.400 Jon Miller: We included a bunch of our content resources under that. 00:37:40.400 --> 00:37:46.780 Jon Miller: And then lastly, this part never did much, but the ability to kind of actually share best practices in the product. 00:37:46.780 --> 00:37:49.740 Jon Miller: And collectively, that was the marketing nation. 00:37:49.740 --> 00:37:56.780 Jon Miller: In many ways, probably in the early days, people bought Marketo because it was easier and cheaper than Eloqua. 00:37:57.700 --> 00:38:02.900 Jon Miller: By sort of the later days, people bought it just because they felt part of the marketing nation. 00:38:02.900 --> 00:38:03.360 Craig Rosenberg: I agree. 00:38:03.360 --> 00:38:09.200 Craig Rosenberg: The other thing on the market, you had these really cool things that I remember you and I were on some tour, John. 00:38:09.200 --> 00:38:18.100 Craig Rosenberg: It's like, and you had a marketing nation meeting and there was a local user group in marketing nation. 00:38:18.100 --> 00:38:20.160 Craig Rosenberg: They had users that ran the meeting. 00:38:20.160 --> 00:38:21.780 Craig Rosenberg: John was actually a guest. 00:38:22.380 --> 00:38:24.880 Craig Rosenberg: He was the co-founder. 00:38:24.880 --> 00:38:28.060 Craig Rosenberg: He was a guest and there was real ownership. 00:38:28.060 --> 00:38:29.020 Craig Rosenberg: It was amazing. 00:38:29.020 --> 00:38:30.160 Craig Rosenberg: I remember it was amazing. 00:38:30.160 --> 00:38:32.480 Craig Rosenberg: I went to it because I was with John. 00:38:32.480 --> 00:38:35.520 Craig Rosenberg: I mean, it was like 20 people at the time. 00:38:35.520 --> 00:38:37.680 Craig Rosenberg: You guys were growing. 00:38:37.680 --> 00:38:40.040 Craig Rosenberg: Now it's like a small amount, but that's where you start. 00:38:40.040 --> 00:38:41.160 Craig Rosenberg: That was a huge win. 00:38:41.160 --> 00:38:46.560 Craig Rosenberg: And then there was two folks, I don't remember who they were, but they ran it to John. 00:38:46.560 --> 00:38:51.460 Craig Rosenberg: And that was incredible community ownership of that. 00:38:51.460 --> 00:38:56.440 Craig Rosenberg: That was, I mean, old school user group type play there, but like real. 00:38:56.440 --> 00:38:57.880 Matt Amundson: There's a couple of things about those. 00:38:57.880 --> 00:39:00.340 Matt Amundson: One, they were the Marketo user groups. 00:39:00.340 --> 00:39:01.740 Matt Amundson: We called them mugs. 00:39:01.740 --> 00:39:10.460 Matt Amundson: And like actually the small size was a good thing because there was intimacy to it and there was real conversations happening there. 00:39:10.480 --> 00:39:14.660 Matt Amundson: One, you have to remember like this was in the city of Atlanta, right? 00:39:14.660 --> 00:39:19.200 Matt Amundson: So it's a city that was like not the Atlanta that we know today just yet. 00:39:19.200 --> 00:39:21.720 Matt Amundson: It wasn't the tech hub that it's become now. 00:39:21.720 --> 00:39:37.700 Matt Amundson: So getting 20 people out to that who are all Marketo power users and all wanted to share information from one another, in a weird way to me, it's like that's better than getting 100 people who just came for, you know, the fruit tray and the free beers at the end, right? 00:39:37.700 --> 00:39:49.740 Matt Amundson: Like these were people that were having hardcore conversations about like real marketing ops topics around how to build this, how to build workflow between Salesforce and Marketo, etc. 00:39:49.740 --> 00:39:59.380 Matt Amundson: And that is like as much to me, a part of the component of what the market, the Marketo marketing nation was, is that it wasn't fluff. 00:39:59.380 --> 00:40:02.340 Matt Amundson: It was people that were really talking about this stuff. 00:40:02.340 --> 00:40:21.120 Matt Amundson: And I think there is something to be learned from that, that can still be applied today because if you have these really strong in-person events, it actually makes your digital community, I think, thrive a little bit more because you know what you get when you go to the event, you know the people, now you know them by name. 00:40:21.120 --> 00:40:27.360 Matt Amundson: And so you actually feel comfortable talking about them in a somewhat anonymous function on Slack. 00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:29.640 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, that's really cool. 00:40:29.640 --> 00:40:34.360 Craig Rosenberg: I think there's a lot there, but we'll move on. 00:40:34.360 --> 00:40:48.280 Craig Rosenberg: So back on the positioning, but like, so John, I get the problem, but like, what's, how do we get people to to realize this two to three words on how we're described against the competition? 00:40:48.280 --> 00:40:51.780 Craig Rosenberg: Is there like, like, so you're in that scenario and they can't do it? 00:40:51.780 --> 00:40:53.960 Craig Rosenberg: What do you do to help them get there? 00:40:53.960 --> 00:41:01.680 Jon Miller: Well, I guess I start by saying, I think that's a bigger part of the CMO and the marketing leadership's job than it has been. 00:41:02.160 --> 00:41:02.560 Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. 00:41:02.560 --> 00:41:03.360 Craig Rosenberg: Okay. 00:41:03.360 --> 00:41:04.180 Craig Rosenberg: Got it. 00:41:04.440 --> 00:41:05.580 Jon Miller: And I'm guilty of this. 00:41:05.580 --> 00:41:11.820 Jon Miller: You know, as a CMO, you come in, first thing you think you got to do is like, revamp the website and then like change the demand gen programs. 00:41:11.820 --> 00:41:12.160 Jon Miller: Right. 00:41:12.160 --> 00:41:15.620 Jon Miller: But like, you know, did you get this positioning right first? 00:41:15.620 --> 00:41:15.860 Jon Miller: Yeah. 00:41:16.140 --> 00:41:19.780 Jon Miller: And you can change the color is all you want. 00:41:19.780 --> 00:41:23.560 Jon Miller: Or redesign the logo all you want, but get that positioning right first. 00:41:23.940 --> 00:41:49.600 Jon Miller: So, you know, and again, I think the real elephant in the room here that I alluded to earlier, you know, is can the CMO actually have the time and space to do that properly in a world of MQL expectations and short-term pressures and PE firms asking for MQL counts, all the other, you know, stuff that's out there. 00:41:49.600 --> 00:42:07.820 Jon Miller: I think it's, I think we're going to actually see a change in kind of the marketing leaders who are the most successful, you know, whereas the last 15 years sort of celebrated the most, you know, operational and quantitative CMOs who could really build and tune the machine. 00:42:07.820 --> 00:42:15.800 Jon Miller: I think, you know, you would, you probably think I'm going to say, what we're going to need for the next 10 years are like the right-brain creative CMOs who can do the brand of the messaging. 00:42:15.800 --> 00:42:16.820 Jon Miller: But I don't think that that's it. 00:42:16.820 --> 00:42:34.200 Jon Miller: What I think we actually need, you know, for the next 10 years, the CMOs who are going to really excel at collaborating with their peers and leading the strategic dialogues around these business fundamentals, who can have conversations around how is marketing changing? 00:42:34.200 --> 00:42:35.560 Jon Miller: Sorry, how is buying changing? 00:42:35.560 --> 00:42:36.760 Jon Miller: How is go-to-market changing? 00:42:37.340 --> 00:42:41.120 Jon Miller: And what does that mean for the role of marketing? 00:42:41.120 --> 00:42:45.900 Jon Miller: And what does that mean for the way we should be even, you know, measuring and investing in marketing? 00:42:45.900 --> 00:43:02.620 Jon Miller: And ultimately, you know, I buy into this whole trend of, you know, not even calling the CMO the Chief Marketing Officer, but calling them the Chief Market Officer, to sort of move it away from sort of being about a function and into being more about, you know, focusing on the strategy. 00:43:02.620 --> 00:43:07.300 Craig Rosenberg: Well, you pull that out now at the end of the show, like a mic drop. 00:43:07.300 --> 00:43:08.160 Jon Miller: Well, that's not my idea. 00:43:08.160 --> 00:43:09.740 Jon Miller: Other people have talked about that. 00:43:09.740 --> 00:43:12.500 Craig Rosenberg: I know, but once you're on board, it's a lot different, man. 00:43:12.500 --> 00:43:13.420 Craig Rosenberg: That's amazing. 00:43:13.420 --> 00:43:15.900 Craig Rosenberg: End of the show, just dropping a bomb. 00:43:15.900 --> 00:43:18.520 Craig Rosenberg: That's incredible. 00:43:18.520 --> 00:43:19.600 Craig Rosenberg: Now, I like it. 00:43:19.600 --> 00:43:24.800 Craig Rosenberg: I actually was telling Adam Needles this morning, you know, we were just talking about the show and how we're trying to redefine things. 00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:29.300 Craig Rosenberg: Like, well, I can tell you right now, I actually don't think you need a CMO anymore. 00:43:29.300 --> 00:43:31.060 Craig Rosenberg: I think you need it. 00:43:31.060 --> 00:43:33.980 Craig Rosenberg: By the way, don't worry, CMOs, he does mean you should exist. 00:43:34.100 --> 00:43:38.060 Craig Rosenberg: He thinks it's bigger with a bigger point of view there. 00:43:38.060 --> 00:43:40.860 Craig Rosenberg: And I think that's really interesting. 00:43:40.860 --> 00:43:43.220 Craig Rosenberg: So dude, you're doing a lot of thinking on these things. 00:43:43.220 --> 00:43:44.780 Craig Rosenberg: You're going to go change the world again. 00:43:44.780 --> 00:43:48.760 Craig Rosenberg: So we're looking forward to seeing what you do there. 00:43:48.780 --> 00:43:55.400 Craig Rosenberg: And it's been awesome just sort of going through these things with you and talking about this stuff. 00:43:55.400 --> 00:44:01.840 Craig Rosenberg: But I feel like we're just sort of, you know, kind of just at the beginning of this conversation. 00:44:01.840 --> 00:44:08.080 Craig Rosenberg: And every time I talk to you, it feels like you're taking these ideas to market and learning as you're coming back. 00:44:08.080 --> 00:44:20.700 Craig Rosenberg: And the way you're talking about it is continues to be not CRISPR, because that sounds like you were all, you always had a good point of view on this, but you're learning from like how people are behaving today as you go on and take this to market. 00:44:20.700 --> 00:44:28.120 Craig Rosenberg: So we definitely want to have this conversation with you again, as you continue to learn here. 00:44:28.160 --> 00:44:33.360 Craig Rosenberg: And certainly as we start to think about the, to continue to think about the changing playbook. 00:44:34.540 --> 00:45:06.720 Craig Rosenberg: I would say, by the way, one thing, and I brought this up the other day, that I do think about a lot, I'm just going to throw this out here, is when we think about radical change and playbook change, I think the vendors, service providers, whoever that are changing the playbook, I think one thing that they miss in the go-to-market side that I think is really important, is in many ways, this won't be exactly the way I'm thinking about it, because I'm still crisping this up, but like started working backwards from the board deck. 00:45:07.160 --> 00:45:24.200 Craig Rosenberg: I still feel like ABM, we trained the market, we spent so much time trying to train the marketers to get off the MQL tip, but we didn't realize that that reporting had to go to someone up top that we actually trained to follow us by scoreboard. 00:45:24.200 --> 00:45:34.840 Craig Rosenberg: And so I'll give you an example, John, like one of the really cool things you said, and by the way, AJ Gandhi said this to us on the pod, and he's PE, was like marketing will take time. 00:45:34.840 --> 00:45:40.980 Craig Rosenberg: Like you do need to put these sort of fundamentals in the new playbook into play. 00:45:41.440 --> 00:45:49.600 Craig Rosenberg: And so one thing to think about, and certainly everyone should think about is, how do we position that? 00:45:49.600 --> 00:45:55.200 Craig Rosenberg: Because you will have to report on that to the ELT and to the board. 00:45:55.200 --> 00:45:57.420 Craig Rosenberg: Like, what does that look like? 00:45:58.920 --> 00:46:05.260 Craig Rosenberg: How do we make our case on that level, I think, is something that's really important. 00:46:05.260 --> 00:46:18.520 Craig Rosenberg: And now that I have this sort of purview, I'm like, man, like if you want to change the way, we have to spend a lot of time with the functional leaders to help them think about the change. 00:46:18.520 --> 00:46:20.560 Craig Rosenberg: We have to enable them. 00:46:20.560 --> 00:46:24.140 Craig Rosenberg: We can't just go, here's what you should report on, because that's them, right? 00:46:24.140 --> 00:46:25.860 Craig Rosenberg: We have to say, here's how you should present. 00:46:26.180 --> 00:46:29.640 Craig Rosenberg: This is what we want to present to the top level. 00:46:29.640 --> 00:46:32.340 Craig Rosenberg: Just a thought, I think I brought it up the other day. 00:46:32.340 --> 00:46:34.920 Craig Rosenberg: I think it's really important, man, now that I'm seeing it. 00:46:35.240 --> 00:46:41.420 Craig Rosenberg: As we think about this new playbook, what does that mean for how we present what we're doing on the highest of levels? 00:46:41.420 --> 00:46:43.840 Craig Rosenberg: So anyway, I leave you with that, Tidbit. 00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:45.340 Craig Rosenberg: What do you think of that, Jon? 00:46:45.340 --> 00:46:46.560 Craig Rosenberg: Is that stupid? 00:46:46.560 --> 00:46:47.540 Craig Rosenberg: Is that bad? 00:46:47.540 --> 00:46:51.200 Jon Miller: I think it's exactly the conversation needs to happen. 00:46:51.200 --> 00:46:53.400 Jon Miller: It needs to happen in the market, right? 00:46:53.580 --> 00:47:01.740 Jon Miller: So that the boards and CEOs and CFOs kind of evolve their thinking, right? 00:47:01.740 --> 00:47:03.580 Jon Miller: It's part of the reason I'm talking about this a lot. 00:47:03.580 --> 00:47:10.520 Jon Miller: Yeah, can I help marketers everywhere by sort of changing hearts and minds of investors and executives? 00:47:10.520 --> 00:47:16.420 Jon Miller: And I think the marketing leaders themselves need to sort of figure out how to have those Socratic conversations, right? 00:47:16.420 --> 00:47:20.440 Jon Miller: Don't come in and say, you know, oh, we're changing how we're measuring marketing. 00:47:20.440 --> 00:47:22.660 Jon Miller: We're not using NQLs anymore, right? 00:47:22.860 --> 00:47:24.660 Jon Miller: Start up and say, but like, you know, like, hey, you know what? 00:47:24.660 --> 00:47:25.560 Jon Miller: This isn't working. 00:47:25.560 --> 00:47:27.600 Jon Miller: We need something different. 00:47:27.600 --> 00:47:28.880 Jon Miller: You know, like, like it does. 00:47:28.880 --> 00:47:31.040 Jon Miller: It seems like buying is changing. 00:47:31.040 --> 00:47:32.400 Jon Miller: Let's brainstorm together. 00:47:32.400 --> 00:47:34.620 Jon Miller: How should we measure marketing in this new world? 00:47:34.620 --> 00:47:38.360 Jon Miller: You know, and like Socratically take them to sort of end up at the right place. 00:47:38.360 --> 00:47:43.800 Jon Miller: Because because as you said, until the born deck changes, until the metrics change, marketing can't change. 00:47:43.800 --> 00:47:44.640 Craig Rosenberg: Yep. 00:47:44.640 --> 00:47:45.960 Craig Rosenberg: Perfect. 00:47:45.960 --> 00:47:46.400 Craig Rosenberg: All right. 00:47:46.400 --> 00:47:46.940 Craig Rosenberg: Cool. 00:47:46.940 --> 00:47:48.320 Craig Rosenberg: Well, that was awesome, man. 00:47:48.320 --> 00:47:51.000 Craig Rosenberg: And looking forward to having you on the show again with new learnings. 00:47:51.800 --> 00:47:52.780 Craig Rosenberg: Really appreciate it. 00:47:52.800 --> 00:47:57.340 Craig Rosenberg: And that's what we're trying to do on The Transaction, is talking about different ways of thinking. 00:47:57.340 --> 00:47:59.400 Craig Rosenberg: So thanks for coming on, man. 00:47:59.400 --> 00:47:59.680 Jon Miller: Thank you. 00:47:59.680 --> 00:48:01.280 Jon Miller: Thank you. 00:48:01.280 --> 00:48:04.240 Matt Amundson: Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Transaction. 00:48:04.240 --> 00:48:08.080 Matt Amundson: Craig and I really appreciate the fact that you've listened all the way to the end. 00:48:08.080 --> 00:48:10.020 Matt Amundson: What are you actually doing here? 00:48:10.020 --> 00:48:13.940 Matt Amundson: For show notes and other episodes, please visit us at thetransactionpod.com. 00:48:13.940 --> 00:48:18.860 Matt Amundson: Like and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other place you get your podcast from. 00:48:19.660 --> 00:48:24.800 Matt Amundson: The Transaction is sponsored and 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