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The Fintech Marketing Lab is a podcast where Araminta Robertson, Managing Director at Mint Studios, explores, experiments, and breaks down how fintech marketing actually works in practice.
Intro: You might be familiar with
a situation like the following.
Sales says, marketing isn't
sending the right leads.
Marketing says sales isn't following up.
Somehow both teams are hitting
their own metrics and pipeline
isn't really going anywhere.
It's often one of the most
common breakdowns that I see.
When working with FinTech companies,
and I'm sure that many of us have seen
from the marketing or sales perspective,
and that's why in today's episode I'm
sitting down with Crristina Ciaravalli,
CEO, and founder of Valli Ventures.
This is her own consultancy where she
helps series A and B FinTech companies
build revenue teams that actually close.
Before starting her own consultancy,
Cristina led enterprise sales and
partnerships at Unit where she closed
some of the company's largest deals.
And before that she was a top
performing account executive at Plaid.
And even before that she
worked in sales and trading at
Goldman Sachs and BlackRock.
So she's got a good, uh, perspective of
both, financial institutions and fintechs.
And I asked Crristina to come
on because I thought it'd be.
Great for us marketers to hear
the perspective of sales and
trying to sound a bit better.
Why does the relationship between the
two often break down and what needs
to be in place so there's a more
seamless and healthy relationship.
So we talk about why FinTech
sales is, may be a bit different
and what it requires in in reps.
The biggest mistakes founders make
when building early stage sales teams.
And how sales and marketing should
work together to drive revenue.
And then finally, all about warm
outbound A BM and why this is
more relevant in today's market.
If you're in marketing.
This episode will hopefully help you
understand better the, the perspective
of the sales team and how they
think about growth and what they're
looking for from the marketing team.
And if you're a revenue leader,
founder, you know, this is a great
episode to learn about building a
sales team, generating pipeline,
closing deals, all that good stuff.
Here's Christina.
Araminta Robertson: all right, so I'd
love to start off with founder league.
I thought it was a really cool kind of,
concept and an interesting intersection.
Uh, can you tell us a bit more
about what it is and why you like
it, or, yeah, what does it entail?
Cristina Ciaravalli: Yeah.
Thanks so much.
Founder league is a way for founders
to connect that's not in the
evenings, not always alcohol oriented.
So what we are is basically a community
of founders from ones who still have
their day jobs and just have ideas
on a napkin and maybe haven't even
raised a dollar or left their actual
corporate job yet to exited founders
who are working on their next thing.
So what I like about it is it's a really
nice range of folks who are really,
really early and more experienced.
And we do 10 founders per workout.
We work out in New York
about every other week.
There's every type of fitness activity
you can think of from Pilates to berries.
And then the founders really range
from folks who have started yoghourt
companies and tampon companies and CPG
products to B2B, FinTech infra and ai.
which is fun because there's always,
you know, people might think,
oh, they have nothing in common.
No, there's always.
The coffee, which is after the
workout, where the 10 of us go around
and say who we are, what we do,
and then make one ask to the group.
And that's where I think the real
magic happens is when people go, oh,
I know someone you need to talk to.
And it might be a wholesale distributor,
it might be a venture capitalist,
but either way, everybody's sharing
resources and ideas, and that is my
favourite part about founder league.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, I love
it because yeah, as you say, it's
not, the same type of event as.
Many are, it's a bit different,
but while still being healthy
and kind of all these things.
So, and maybe some people can do
mornings it's easier, that kind of thing.
So I like it.
If I'm ever in New York, I'll
try and I'll try and join.
And yeah.
And it's been like your first year
with your own business, how have
you found it going from, in-house
sales GTM to doing your own thing?
Like how has that been?
Cristina Ciaravalli: Yeah,
it's been really fun.
I definitely feel like I'm doing more
sales than ever because now not only am I.
Helping my companies with their sales
efforts, and I really like to do top down
strategy where I work with CEOs and say,
okay, how many AEs do we need to hire?
What should we pay them?
What should the quotas be for the year?
And how should we think about our sales
playbook to really bottoms up where I'm
working with everyone from the SDRs to
the AEs and trying to figure out, okay.
What should we be doing in order
to move your deals forward?
Why is this deal getting stuck?
How can we help you, you know, close
deals faster and close bigger deals?
So I'm loving that I get to still be
in the arena on the sales, uh, sense.
The other tricky thing is now I'm
doing all the BD for my business,
which is where I feel like I still
have a quota and I'm still trying
to hit these goals and targets for
my own business and for myself.
And really we have three
main pillars of the business.
We have recruiting where I help sales
teams find their next account executives
and their founding go to market folks.
We have advisory where, as I mentioned, I
do the top down working with founders on.
What should quotas be and how many
people should we hire and what should
the territory plans be and what's our
real sales playbook to bottoms up where
I'm working with the actual reps and
I'm looking into their pipeline and I'm
helping them with deals and progressing
them forward and making sure we're closing
bigger deals and closing the deals faster.
So advisory is really
that second pick bucket.
And then the third for
me is really events.
And I believe that community is one of
the biggest go-to-market advantages.
And so.
I'm constantly throwing events, following
up from events I've thrown, making
sure I've got the next event sponsored.
We'll be throwing an event in New
York for New York FinTech week
that I'm super excited about.
And that's a lot of work.
So trying to make sure that all of the
recruiting processes, the advisory,
which is really the founding principle,
the bulk of our business, and then
also the events, which I really think.
Are a great way to earn top of
funnel, but also just to help
support the founder community,
which is really important to me.
So it's like I have three
jobs now instead of just one.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, I'm excited
to get into each one of those different
disciplines and yes, agree on the events.
I mean, I've been to a couple of your
events and they've been fantastic.
So, yeah, there's a lot of things there
to dig into and how to do a good event.
But the theme for today that I kind
of wanted to talk about is like that.
Sales and marketing working together,
and you have a perspective from the
sales perspective, which I think
is always really interesting and
important to understand how those
two teams can work well together.
So I think, if we're talking about
building a revenue team starting from,
maybe not from scratch, but if we've
got an early stage FinTech company,
they're building a revenue team,
what would you say are kind of the
mistakes that companies often make
when it comes to building those teams?
And what would you say is maybe.
Unique, if there is anything
about FinTech specifically.
Cristina Ciaravalli: Oh man.
Let's talk about what's unique and then we
can maybe talk about the mistakes, because
I think it links back to what's unique.
So.
For FinTech sales, I think it's
inherently more complex because one,
you have the regulatory environment,
which always adds friction.
Two, a lot of deals, like for me,
when I was at my last company,
they were tri-party deals, so I
had to sign my client, but then I
also had to find a bank sponsor.
And so you think you're doing great
in this one sales cycle, this one
process with this one stakeholder,
this one company, this one person, and
you might be, and then you turn around
and you look at the other party that
also has to sign off and you're like,
wait a minute, is everybody aligned?
And really getting.
Three companies on the same page.
It's much harder than getting to.
so I think that is one, uh, hugely
unique piece of FinTech go to market.
And then the third I would just
say is really sales education.
A lot of my clients are hiring account
executives for various roles, and
my FinTech clients all need to find
someone who has a bit of a finance
background or understands compliance or
can at least make sure that if they're
on a phone call and they're showing.
A flow of funds that it's legal, right?
Because there are real implications to
someone selling a product that, or a, a
workflow or a payments flow that can't
actually legally take place without
certain licences or without certain
products or preexisting measures in place.
So I think those things
make it very unique.
You know, the sales teams aren't
just selling they're really like that
bridge between compliance product.
And sales.
So they almost need to be
good at, at three jobs.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah,
it's very consultative,
Cristina Ciaravalli: Yeah, exactly.
And so I think the best sales
reps are the ones that actually
think like compliance people.
And I've always had to work very
closely with compliance teams to
make sure that I'm keeping up because
regulation changes so quickly these days.
But that I think is the type of seller
that will help startups really avoid
making costly mistakes early on.
So I think it's important to
have at least the first one.
If not all of them have some sort of
regulatory compliance, understanding,
it'll just accelerate things.
And when you're at that
early stage, time is money.
So with all of that being said,
your next question was, was
what are the mistakes right?
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Cristina Ciaravalli: I think,
look I don't wanna talk about,
I mean, we all make mistakes.
Early stage companies, my own
included, probably yours as well,
you know, we're learning every day.
But I think some of the easy missteps
to avoid are one, hiring and twos.
I think when you bring in one rep they
have no idea where the bar is, right?
They have no idea what's possible.
They have no idea how hard to push
themselves versus what's acceptable.
And when you bring in two, I think
that creates, and I never like.
Real competition in sales
that causes sharp elbows or
mistrust.
I do believe that founding at you
should feel like they're on the
same team, and if you win, I win
and we're in the trenches together.
However, with two, you will encourage
that momentum and you will get them
to actually, I think, pick up the
pace and kind of look around and
say, all right, I don't wanna be
so far behind this other person.
Or we together can set the
pace versus when it's just one.
It's also really hard for my founders to.
Measure is it their best?
Is this good enough or is
this just what they're doing
because they're the only one?
So hiring in twos would probably be one
of the, mistakes and it can be challenging
and I wouldn't say like, don't hire
someone just because you don't have that
second person, but at least try to bring
that second person in as closely as
possible versus spreading it out too far.
The second thing I'll
say, especially on my.
Founder-led sales teams is, we've seen a
lot of founders think that they're doing
discovery when in reality they're kind
of just asking that like first, maybe
second layer question and not really
asking, you know what I would call, I have
this training I do on the five why's not
going third, fourth, fifth layer deeper.
And then they're confused when they
jump into the pitch on the first call,
or they start the demo on the first
call and they're like, it was so weird.
I thought the call went well.
And then after that first call,
we didn't get a follow up.
And I'm like.
Well, did you understand the pain?
Like, how much did you really ask them?
They're kinda like, well, no, I just got
so excited and I showed them and I'm like,
okay, we need to, you know, there's an
Italian saying, which is piano, piano,
which means slowly, slowly, and it's
like we need to make sure that while yes,
we're keeping up with momentum on our
side, we're doing our proper diligence,
we're asking the right questions.
Deep discovery is critical for any
good sales process so that you can
really understand the pain and then
tie your solutions back to the pain.
I always say we're not selling software,
we're selling solutions to someone's pain.
then the third thing I think I would
say, I see a lot of early founders
struggling with actually who their ICP is.
And I see them try to go very
broad and say, we're building this
thing and we can sell to everybody
and everyone should wanna buy it.
And here's all the people in
the world and all the types of
companies and all the use cases.
And that's actually
harder in the beginning.
I think going narrow and not making the
mistake of we are something for everyone
will allow sales teams to really.
Hone in and come up with the
example customers that they can
hopefully use as design partners.
Use those as references, explain like
we are tailor made for you and go really
deep and maybe prove out that one area
first before expanding to all these other
types of use cases and companies and ICPs.
And I think that to me is just
something that it sounds in practise,
very simple, but it's something that
I think just a lot of early founders
can get too excited about and forget.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, no, I
totally agree with all of those.
And interesting.
I like what you said about hiring in twos.
so is that, just so I understand, that's
to encourage, but a friendly competition.
And so that you know, both the founder and
the team also know kind of where we're at,
have a bar, is that what you're saying?
Cristina Ciaravalli: Yeah, I think
also look, onboarding is lonely.
When you're new to a company and there
is no onboarding playbook and you're
looking around like, I don't wanna
bother this new CEO that brought me in.
The CTO is probably over there
coding and, and trying to figure
out all the product stuff.
And you're sort of like, help
you know, who do I talk to?
Who do I bounce ideas off of?
Where do I go?
And I also think that when there's two
folks together, they can use each other
as resources to bounce ideas off of.
And I also like hiring people
with complimentary skill sets.
So perhaps.
You know, I have a PropTech client.
We hired two reps and one was an
absolute expert in the PropTech arena.
Had all these warm introductions,
this crazy network but was
less experienced as a seller.
And then the other one was
newer to PropTech, but a very
technical enterprise seller.
And it's like when you mix those two
together, I really think that balances
out and that helps the two actually
help sort of make up for the gap
in the other one and makes it much
less competitive than if two people
were coming in with the exact same.
Challenges or skillset sets,
because in the end, I do think the
better sales teams are ones where
the sales teams work together,
share resources, help each other.
Don't fight over who's tagged an
account in Salesforce is their own,
because yesterday it was tagged
as you, you know, like no, when
it's time for that kind of drama.
So you do want the salespeople to
work together, but I also think you
want them to motivate each other too.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, let's talk about sales
and marketing working together.
If we're talking to a, you know,
if an early stage FinTech is
listening, potentially a founder
how do you think that kind of early
go-to market motion should work?
Sales and marketing?
'cause you've just mentioned,
right, start with two people.
Ideally, maybe complimentary
skills, like where does marketing
come in then, and how do you think
they should work with marketing?
Cristina Ciaravalli: Yeah, I really think
salespeople have to earn the right to
get marketers, to be honest with you.
Salespeople I think usually come in first.
And if the company's been doing
founder-led sales, they're gonna
basically say, okay, founding AE or
founding go to market person sales lead.
Help.
I'm drowning.
These are all the deals I have going on.
Can you take them off my plate?
'cause maybe now we're fundraising
for a series A or whatever it is.
And the sales person is gonna come
in and basically their number one
goal is bring in revenue, right?
Full stop, close those deals.
Then that sales person needs to
start thinking more strategically
and more long term, right?
Once you have those initial
design partners in, it's okay,
are we building pipeline?
Probably not.
They're probably not outbounding
because they're trying to
close all of these deals.
So I think another, going back to
your mistake question, I think another
one is not using like your warm
network and really making sure that.
Everybody that you know on LinkedIn in
real life or that your first connections
have is their first connections are
being tapped in the process of trying to
figure out who should buy your product.
So that's another one that this early
salesperson should do Pre-marketing.
And then I think the best marketing
partner to a salesperson is the
one that can say, okay, we're
running these targeted ad campaigns.
Okay, I'm gonna make
sure our SEO is golden.
And maybe that's writing a bunch
of blog posts to put on the website
so that people can at least find
you and find what you've built.
Events, I've talked about this
already, but I think go to market.
A huge component of strategy
should be community and should be
bringing like-minded people in a
room where you're not really trying
to sell to them at the dinner.
You're trying to build
those relationships and.
Long term, you'd be shocked
what really comes from that.
And then also content, like who's writing
your case studies, who's writing, your
one pagers, who's writing your pitch deck?
And is it pretty, like who's designing
that and making it beautiful?
It's probably not the account
executive and I highly doubt it's
gonna be, you know, the two founders
unless one has a design background.
So I think assets really
help those reps close deals.
And I'm lucky enough to
even work with folks like.
Verbatim where they are a case
study as a service company.
And so you know, if you don't have
the funds to yet hire a marketing
person, there are great ways to plug
in fractional resources to kind of get
those certain assets built and things
done to support your seller until
your revenue is at the point where
you can then afford a true marketing
lead or true CMO or a marketing team.
Araminta Robertson: Is there like, sort
of a preference, maybe it depends too
much on the company, , on the kind of
marketer, like would you say it has to be
content first or it has to be, performance
first, or maybe It depends a lot.
I mean, it depends a lot
on the company, I guess.
But what are your thoughts on that?
Cristina Ciaravalli:
Yeah, I agree with you.
I think it depends a lot on the company.
I also think it depends on what
are the gaps of the salespeople.
If the salespeople are actually have this
weird, amazing design background, great.
The decks probably look
pretty good, you know?
But maybe there's, they're
clueless on SEO or vice versa.
So I'm really about zooming out and
looking at my early founding teams
on the go to market and business
side, and saying, what skills do
we need and what skills do we have?
Okay, then we're gonna
hire to fill those gaps.
Araminta Robertson: I was
gonna ask a bit about a BM.
I, I guess, I mean this is more B2B I
would say, but how have you seen it work?
Well, because a BM is a perfect example
of like sales and marketing has to be
so like working so closely together.
What have you found works well?
'cause I've always asked this
question to marketers, but
haven't asked it to salespeople.
So what are your, how do you think a good
a BM campaign works between, with both
sales and marketing working together?
Cristina Ciaravalli: Yeah,
that's a great question.
I mean, we did a lot of this when I was
leading enterprise at my last company, and
I think it's critical that you know who
those top 10 accounts are and you really
focus specifically on selling to not only
those businesses, and I've only, I'm a
B2B girl, so all my clients are B2B, all.
B2B.
But not only on like who those
companies are, but who the specific
person is and really how do they wanna
be sold to, do they need documents
to forward around internally?
Then I'm gonna be like marketing help.
Like they've asked for this one
pager or they've asked for this.
A Loom video or they've asked
for something, specific.
And when I was closing one of my largest
deals it was a restaurant company.
And I said, okay, marketing, I
want all of us on this like big
executive to executive call.
I think we had like 12 execs from
our team and like 15 from there.
So it was almost 30 people on one Zoom.
I was like, we need to bring the energy,
we need to make this fun, otherwise all
these 30 people are gonna fall asleep.
And so marketing made us literal
custom zoom backgrounds with their
logo, our logo, their colour,
and like that's an example of.
I was trying to think really
outside of the box on what would
this account really wanna see?
What would like make
people smile on this call?
Because at the end of the day,
We're humans selling to humans.
We made custom landing pages where they
could type in our company's name.com/their
company's name.
And we had every resource we'd ever
talked about, and we had everything.
I mean, it was password protected,
it was like definitely just for them.
But we had everything that their team
might wanna see in one centralised
place that didn't involve crazy Google
drives, that didn't involve like
links and all this stuff in emails and
PDFs floating around with no homes.
So we really tried to create this central
place for our biggest accounts to go.
Sharing a link, you could
text it to somebody, right?
Like trying to make it
really easy for them.
And then I think what I also just loved is
that marketing was really willing to do.
Anything and everything to
win those top 10 accounts.
I mean, we talked about putting billboards
outside of their offices in San Francisco.
we talked about all of the details.
I mean, even that one restaurant
company, I remember we made the
agenda of one of the final calls,
like a TiVo appetiser main course.
Dolce, like really just to try to
keep it interesting throughout and
show them like, we get your business
like, and we get the type of.
Brand you are and we can match that.
And so I think account based marketing
has to be like a true handhold
partnership between sales and marketing.
And you can't just have marketing
do it and give it to sales.
It should really be like a back and
forth dialogue because the sales person
is one of those calls with those people.
They're gonna know best
what will resonate.
And then marketing is gonna be
like the executors and they're
gonna be the ones that say.
That was a great idea.
Let's blow it up bigger or I don't know
if that's possible , but what about this?
And so you kind of need sales and
marketing to really work in lockstep
to make a BM really effective.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, that's why
like whenever we have clients that say,
oh, should we do a BM and this and that?
And I'm like, you need to have
the right structure in place.
You need to be able to do it.
'cause I think so many people have tried
A BM and are like, ah, it doesn't work.
And I'm like, it's, you need to
really know what you're doing.
'cause I think if not, it's
so easy to waste money.
Like a lot of people say A BM and
it's really just LinkedIn campaigns.
That's what I've seen.
And it's so much more than that.
Cristina Ciaravalli: Yeah,
it is so much more than that.
And also, I'll be honest, I don't know
that a BM is necessary super early stage.
I really think you could be putting
too many eggs in one basket,
spending all this money, and they
might not even wanna talk to you.
So I think there's a balance
of like doing account based
marketing to get in front of folks.
And then once you've gotten in front
of them and you're like, okay, they've
got bait, there's something here.
Go even deeper and spend more money on
the people that are actually listening.
Otherwise, it can feel like
you're screaming into a void,
Araminta Robertson: yeah, that's true.
Early stage.
Like yeah, you've got, if you
think of kind of the funnel or your
target market, like your tam, right?
The people that are first, you're
first gonna work with, there's
easier ways to reach them.
And then I think a BM is, like
later stage companies, right?
That's when they're going
after the big companies.
That's when it makes sense.
Yeah.
I was gonna ask, you've kind of already
answered a little bit the question,
like how, what does good marketing.
Look like from a sales person perspective
how, like, is it, I mean, I'm this,
I know it's not this, not just this,
but is it like they bring in all the
leads and we just have to close them?
Is it, whatever we need a deck
or whatever they're there.
Like what, how would you describe
specifically good marketing?
Cristina Ciaravalli: Oh man.
How much time do we have?
Um, look I think I mentioned
lockstep and I really mean it.
Like for all the biggest deals of my
career, it was not done on my own.
It took a village and marketing is
a big part of that village, I think.
Yes.
Targeted campaigns, whether that's
LinkedIn ad campaigns or event and
conference strategy campaigns, like they
usually are spearheading those fully.
And I mean, we had a woman at
my last company who did the
most insane installations at
Money 2020 and FinTech meetups.
And even just that, getting people
to come by the booth because of her
work was feeding the salespeople, so
I think that's like one great example.
Thoughtful events are obviously huge.
I think also strong product storytelling.
We had a fantastic head of content and
he would write these unreal case studies.
Araminta Robertson: we had him
Cristina Ciaravalli: You know John,
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Yeah, I know John
Cristina Ciaravalli: is amazing.
He's the best and.
Araminta Robertson: good.
He's very good.
Cristina Ciaravalli: as a natural
storyteller who can really help articulate
the value prop of the business, I can do
less selling because I'm just gonna give
them his video or his piece of content,
or his case study, or whatever it may be.
The webinars that we did together.
And people can see for themselves.
So I really like when marketing
has content that speaks for itself.
Events that just drive hype and buzz
and the right people to come to them.
It's very easy to throw like a
brand awareness event, but are
you really attracting the ICP?
That's a nice nuance there.
And then I think in the end, like
the best marketing teams are the ones
that work with sales as one unit.
It's not, marketing over here and sales
over here, and we're in our silos,
but really like they every single
week are on the same page, reviewing
pipeline together and strategizing
like, what do we need to do to get the
biggest and best deals closed together?
And then marketing can
go, create, build, set up.
Find ways to support sales in doing that.
Araminta Robertson: And why do you
think, like in, in your experience,
having now worked with quite a few
companies why do you think that
relationship often breaks down?
Because like, I see this as well
where this often not maybe the
best relationship maybe sales is
complaining, the leads are not good
quality marketing doesn't like that.
They have to be.
That they have to report into sales.
yeah, I have definitely seen companies
where that relationship isn't the best.
Why?
Why do you think that happens?
And what do you think
they can do to try and
repair that?
Cristina Ciaravalli: I mean, this
is gonna sound simple, but I think
the real breakdown is communication.
So much gets lost in
translation, and I feel like.
Look, salespeople are
on calls all day, right?
If they're good, they should
be on the phone all day.
And marketing folks don't
always hear those, right?
Unless they're listening to
recordings, like they're not
the ones on the front lines.
And so I think sometimes marketing could
create assets and say like, this is how
we should say it, and this is what works.
And the sales person is like,
that's very out of touch.
That's actually not how
we've ever explained it.
That's not how we want to talk about it.
And.
I've actually seen it a lot where
either the marketing language can
be so oversimplified that the sales
person is like, wait a minute, hold
on, that's actually not accurate.
Or that's like too, you know, dumbing
it And on the flip side, I've seen
marketing that could be like really
complicated and like very complex.
And a salesperson might be
fearful that you're actually
going to scare away the buyer.
So.
I think where things usually break down
is not having the two team sales and
marketing, as I alluded to earlier,
really like have live conversations,
maybe rewatch parts of calls where light
bulbs are going off and it's like that's
the wording or that's the messaging.
But at my first startup we always had
like marketing write us copy that we would
use in emails to invite people to things
or to outbound, and sales would always.
Open them and be like, well, this
sounds like a beautiful advertisement
or a beautiful, thing on a website,
but it doesn't sound like how we as
salespeople email and speak to people.
And so it's bridging that
gap of like, you don't want
salespeople to speak so casually.
They do need to be polished up a
bit, but sometimes fear marketing
language can sound overly formal.
And so it's really that.
Conversation and feedback loop to meet
in the middle and have something that
resonates and make sure marketing adapts
quickly and that, look, it's really on
sales to give marketing that info, right?
Like they're not gonna know
what's happening on those
calls unless sales tells 'em.
Araminta Robertson: Yes, and I would say
the other thing is also obviously culture.
It also has to come top down, right?
Like if the leaders, I have seen
this unfortunately, uh, where they
don't believe in marketing or they
think it's not that important.
And if your leader doesn't believe,
marketing's not important, it's gonna be
hard to create a kind of culture where
those two teams are working together.
And it could be also the
opposite, maybe the leader.
I don't know.
I haven't seen that yet.
But like, they don't like sales, which I
don't, that would be bad if that happened.
But yeah.
And then I've also seen
marketing teams that exactly as
you say, don't join the calls.
Or they're like, I've literally
heard someone say this.
Like, oh, I don't have time
to learn about the product.
I'm like.
Come on.
Like, this is your, you need
to learn about the product.
How can you write messaging for a
product that you don't understand?
So this is what I've seen as well,
like this kind of, but I often think
it has to come also from top down.
If the leadership isn't gonna try
and foster that kind of culture, I
don't know the, the sales marketing
team can try as hard as it can, but
it can be tough, I feel like, right?
Cristina Ciaravalli: I am here to
say marketing is very important, so
that is my stance.
um, but no, you're right.
And I mean, I've even worked at different
startups and with different startups where
I would call some an engineering house.
It's all about the engineers,
it's all about the product, and
it's all about shipping product.
And I've worked at other
places where it's like.
Sales is king of the castle,
and it's all about sales.
And if sales wants
something, sales gets it.
And so it's really interesting that
the biases of where founders have
come from and what they've done
previously or what they've seen work
or not work very much informs how they
feel about certain parts of the org.
And.
I think there's all those executive
functions for a reason, and maybe
depending on the stage of your
company and the type of product you're
building, of course timing depends.
But I really think that in,
in order to have an effective
sales team, you need marketing.
And in order to have marketing do
their best work, you need sales to help
inform them on how to do that best work.
Araminta Robertson: Yep.
No, couldn't agree more.
Are there any like routines or I
dunno, templates or formats that
you found that has worked quite
well between marketing and sales?
So, for example, I know when I interviewed
John at unit, he said that he at unit
had like a story time gong, gong like I
think it was every two weeks or something.
Where.
Gong, which is a sales
recording kind of platform.
They would join these calls or they
would watch the calls that sales had.
So are there any that you have
seen that are like that really
great that you've seen help bridge
that gap between the two teams?
Cristina Ciaravalli: Yeah, I mean,
John and I have worked together at
two Startups now, so our feedback loop
and our relationship is very strong.
So I'm not expecting all sales
and marketing folks to be exactly
that, but yes, a hundred percent.
I think having a sales marketing
weekly where it's not just an
update meeting, I don't hate.
Araminta Robertson: Yep.
Cristina Ciaravalli: I'm like, that could
be an email , or it's actually more of
a brainstorm and more of a forum where
sales people can say, Hey John, I'm
really trying to move this deal forward.
Here's where I'm struggling.
That's what I think
marketing could help me with.
What do you guys think?
And then John can say, okay,
here's a piece of content I can
get for you by Friday end of day.
Here's something I think we could do.
Like it was marketing's idea to
stand up those websites, like
those specific landing pages.
And it was a great idea because
I was explaining like the number
of pieces of content that we were
sending was becoming so high.
That it was almost un unmanageable for me
as the rep to say, oh, it's in this doc.
Oh, it's in that doc.
Oh, we sent it on this day at this time.
It was like, we need a centralised hub.
And that's when marketing can really
raise their hand and say, we got you.
You know?
And that's how it should be.
So I think those meetings, I also
think like letting them into your
gong, giving them all gong licences.
I know some teams only have it for sales.
I think marketing should
absolutely have access and.
A part of onboarding new marketers should
be to listen to those and to really deeply
understand the product, as you said.
And then I also really just
think when it comes to events and
what marketing is doing, I think
the best teams running events.
That are not just like marketing throws
them in, sales shows up, but it's
to have like an actual sales person
be the assigned like DRI directly
responsible individual on said event.
So for example, me, it could be
money 2020 and like I'm gonna be
the one that's maybe in a tonne of
meetings with marketing on money 2020.
I'll shield the sales team from spending
all the time talking about money 2020.
But when it's important and it's stuff
that the sales team needs to know
or needs to action for marketing.
Christina is the one that
has to go back to the AEs and
then report back to marketing.
And so I think by designating point
people, for each of those big events
you create more accountability.
Salespeople are always more likely to
listen to their fellow salesperson,
but then marketing also knows like,
okay, the buck ends with her or with
him, and they're the person that
is ultimately gonna be our number
one partner from the sales team.
And that usually makes things seamlessly
without taking up too much time.
Araminta Robertson: I love that.
Yeah.
Have someone from sales, because
exactly what you say, they're
talking to customers every day.
They know like the event
that you're gonna run.
Will a dinner really hit or
maybe a fireside chat, like
they will know a lot better.
So, yeah, no that's,
that's a really good tip.
I wanna talk about dinners and events in
a second, but we of course have to touch
on ai because I think, interestingly,
ai, I mean, everyone's talking about
AI and marketing, but there's also
been a lot of AI in sales doing many
things, which I think we would all
agree is not, I don't wanna say it's
not appropriate, but definitely just.
Hindering sales like ai,
SDRs and all these things.
I mean, I think we all receive
like, probably like so many a day.
It's exhausting.
You've said like on other podcasts and
in your content that your favourite
is kind of like warm outbound.
Can you talk a bit more about
what do you mean by that?
And also, How can you use AI in
a way that still builds trust
and isn't like these spammy
outbound links and stuff.
Cristina Ciaravalli: Oh man.
The AI SDRs, I mean, the same
way that I think everyone Arma is
talking about AI slop on LinkedIn.
It really just does feel like someone
is throwing like three bullet points
into chat BT or into Claude and
then putting them into emails and
they're like, I did amazing outbound.
And I'm like, oh my gosh.
Like respectfully.
These LLMs are not trained
to speak like salespeople or
to, tug at the human emotion.
Really at the end of the day
is sales, because guess what?
They're not humans.
So they're very bad at that.
And I think that, all of these different
tools out there that everyone's saying
allows 'em to do such great volume.
Like Sure, ai, SDRs, they are
optimising for volume, but what they're
not doing is optimising for trust.
And that is, I think,
the biggest disconnect.
And if you lose trust, it is
very, very hard to get it back
Araminta Robertson: Especially in FinTech,
Cristina Ciaravalli:
Yes, a hundred percent.
And a regulated, money is moving.
Like it is much more complicated
than just selling, licences to a
Zoom software or a Slack channel.
You know, It's very serious and there's
real liability with using these products.
And so.
I know for example, on the sales side,
at my last company, we always said like,
you are one person away from getting
the meeting with whoever you wanna meet.
You are like, whether it's you, yourself,
or someone on this team, they know
someone who can get you in front of them.
And I really believe that if founders
aren't using like their warm introductions
and their network and whether that's
their introductions through VCs.
Or people they went to college
with or used to work with at
their last company, or again,
these community events then you're
missing out.
like it's dramatically more effective.
I think the first 100 meetings
should be through warm outbound.
I don't even think you need to pick
up the phone and do cold calling
until you've exhausted at least 100
accounts that you wanna meet with
and try to get 100 warm intros.
I fully, fully, fully stand by that.
And I think that, we've seen the
results are something like 15
times higher conversion on a warm
outbound versus a cold outbound.
So it's like, if we know it's more
effective and we all have these,
networks through something or
another why aren't we using them?
Why are we resorting to these tools
that are actually just getting
us blocked in the spam filters?
Araminta Robertson: Yep.
Exactly.
Are there ways that you
have found that AI is good?
Like, for example, it is
very good with Clay, right?
You know, the, um, the data platform.
Like it's very good for research, it's
very good for gathering information.
Are there any ways like that,
that you've been using it, that
you have found very helpful?
Cristina Ciaravalli: I mean, yes, like
I use Superhuman because it helps me
get through my emails and organise my
emails, and I always say that I think AI
should make sales reps more efficient.
And more effective.
I don't think that AI is
going to replace sales reps.
You heard it here first.
I know a lot of people are
like, AI's coming for your jobs.
I continue to believe salespeople
will still need jobs because
people buy from people.
But in terms of things like
building great decks, let AI do it
summarising calls, I mean, we all
have gong and granola and grain.
Like let the AI do it.
Organising your next steps, like
those are great tools for that too.
Even training reps and going through
practise scenarios, like I don't
think it's bad for, an actual account
executive before they bother their
manager to try to chat through
something with Claude and figure out
like, what should my next step be?
And then, oh, maybe the light bulb goes
off and now they're more self-sufficient.
You're protecting everybody's time.
So I think that's where AI can
come in handy and actually create.
A more efficient and more
effective sales process for reps.
But I think where it breaks is,
when it's used to replace human
judgement on writing, copy.
That actually sounds like a human.
I don't think it's there yet,
and maybe it will be, and then
I'll have a different take.
But this is March, 2026, so
that's just times stamp this.
And I think that it's so easy
to have your AI outbound look.
Very generic and be very boring and look
fake, and then that is easy to ignore.
But when you actually are yourself and
bring human character and warmth to an
email, I think that's when people say, oh
wow, this person did their homework on me.
And this doesn't sound like a robot.
There's a real woman.
On the other end of this
note, I'm gonna respond.
Araminta Robertson: Yes.
And until agents can buy and,
I mean like B2B Enterprise,
like pick a payment provider.
You know, We're always gonna
be selling to humans, right?
It's always gonna be a
person who's buying it.
So that's, relationships are always gonna
be important until that happens, which.
I don't see that happening.
'cause why would you delegate that?
But anyway so yeah, it's all about
relationships and building trust,
hence why events are so good for that.
And I think everyone, I mean, I've had
a few people on our podcast talk about
events and it's just like, everyone's more
and more like, they're just becoming more
important because of AI and everything.
So, you have a lot of
experience doing events.
would you consider in a way events are
kind of warm outbound because you can.
Even if you're not in touch
with that person, you're asking
them to speak at your event or
even just come to your event.
It's not a ask to sell,
it's an ask to an event.
Do you feel like, does that tie in
a little bit into your strategy?
Cristina Ciaravalli: A hundred percent for
both me and Value Ventures and my clients.
I think, look, if you don't know
someone, the chances that they're
gonna hear you out about your product
and try to understand what it's
you're building are pretty low.
But if you invite them to an event,
which everyone loves a free meal, and
then you know, you give them a good
reason to come to said free meal,
because now I think there's so many
dinners that it has to be more than just.
Look at this new hot
restaurant in New York.
It's like, okay, well next week
there'll be another FinTech doing
an event at that restaurant.
So it's really like, here's the
thesis, here's the theme, here are
the other guests that are coming,
and everyone should really have a
motivating force aside from just.
Meeting the host, but of who
else is in the room or what else
they could learn or have to gain.
Maybe it's an intro they've always wanted
and you know, 'cause people in FinTech
sell to other people at FinTech, right?
So it doesn't have to just
be one to many, but it can be
many to many across the dinner.
And I believe like the small curated
events are a lot more common now.
I think when I started and back to New
York in 2021, we were all vaccinated.
We just wanted to get out and be
with people and so happy hours and.
Drinks with anyone in the FinTech
ecosystem felt like good enough
because we were just thrilled
to be in the world again.
But now There's so many
events and it's hard.
In a night I'll get invited to three
events in a night sometimes, and I'm like.
How can I choose where to go?
And part of that is based on venue,
location, making sure it's accessible,
easy to get to in a great spot.
The other part of that is really what
am I gonna get out of this event?
What is the ROI on my time?
Because everyone is short on time.
And so really thinking deeply about,
okay, what can they leave with?
And then articulating that, like
going one step further to say like,
after the dinner, you're gonna
expect to meet these kinds of people,
eat this kind of food, learn these
kinds of go-to market tricks and.
You know, Expand your network.
And for a lot of people like.
That is compelling and
so they'll want to go.
The dinner that I just hosted two
weeks ago, I applied the same founder
league model where we went around
and said one task with the group.
And we didn't stop talking.
I mean, we got kicked out of the
private room, like every single
person.
there were about 12 of us there,
and every single person said one
thing that was on their mind.
A lot of it was about AI and FinTech.
A lot of it was about go to market and
selling in the compliance and regulated
environments and oh my goodness, like
the level of honesty, the level of
vulnerability, it was all time high.
And I felt like people reached out
to me after to thank me for having
those specific people sit next to them
and.
You know, Doing the seating chart I
always think is something you should be
intentional with is pairing the right
folks at the certain ends of the tables.
But I think vulnerability and intimacy
and intentionality in those dinners,
like even if it's just 12 people,
beats a 120% event every single
time because it's really curated.
It's really specific, and people
can be sure that they'll walk
away with something tangible.
Araminta Robertson: And so I know
you also do like side events.
Do you have a preference for doing,
like, when I say side events, I mean
more like your typical networking
for drinks canapes, and everyone's
just chit-chatting and maybe there's
50 people versus a 12 person dinner.
Do you prefer the dinners now?
Do you feel like those are better?
Cristina Ciaravalli: It's tricky.
Like for FinTech week, you know no one's
gonna wanna sit at a dinner, right?
Because there's gonna be five events.
Per evening.
And so it's gonna be harder to wrangle
those seats and get them confirmed.
So that is for me, more of a week where
it's like, we know it'll be highly
competitive, so let's have something
where 50 people can come and go.
Maybe they need to get to their next event
or they're coming late from a different
event, or they wanna get home on the train
or to wherever they live in the city.
That's fine.
And I still think there's value in 50
people, happy hours and networking events.
I mean, look at Money 2020, we're
all running around Vegas with.
Thousands of us, but I have run
into people in the bathroom that
I have then done business with.
You know, like it's so, it's crazy.
And so I do think that
like the dinners for me.
I'm also running a million miles an hour.
And I feel like the dinners for me
are a great way to slow down in the
very fast pace city that is New York.
But it really Depends.
If I'm competing for airtime during
like a FinTech week or a tech week
or a conference, then yeah, it's
gonna be really, really tough.
But I think if it's just another week in
New York, like having an intentionally
curated focused dinner that's planned
well in advance can be really effective.
Araminta Robertson: And would you do,
during that dinner, would you do like
a farside chat or like, like something
to watch or consume or something?
Or is it just like the dinner?
Like I hear people have experimented
with a few different things,
so I wonder what you've found.
Cristina Ciaravalli: No.
In my dinners, I feel like they're
probably looking at screens all
day, so I'm not trying to give
them more screens to look at.
I have done fireside shots.
I have done panels.
I do think that there's a time
and a place for more educational.
Um, but I also prefer to do a lot of
those like in one hour, more like zoom.
You know, they're squeezing it
in in the middle of the day.
I feel like it is really tough when
people have mentally left the office
or left their home office to be like,
okay, and now I'm gonna listen and
watch something else that's like
super structured and educational.
I think people prefer the candid
conversations and so that's what I
really try to instigate and start
and provoke at these dinners.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah.
Yeah.
Very cool.
So this has been fascinating
Christina, thank you so much.
I have one last question.
Because you have so much experience in
this space and you work with so many
founders in the FinTech space and revenue
leaders, is there a belief that you
have when it comes to building GTM teams
that maybe not everyone agrees with?
Cristina Ciaravalli: Oh man, this
was a tough one to think about.
I mean, a lot of my
founders are very Type A.
They come from investment banking
or they come from consulting, and
so they're really metrics obsessed
and I think that's important.
I myself used to work on
Wall Street, so I know that.
Numbers don't lie, but sometimes like
my hot take is sometimes I see founders
focus so specifically on a goal number or
a target metric, that they're losing the
forest between the trees a little bit.
And what I mean by that is if our goal
is 250 cold calls per rep each week, and
you've got one rep who's making 250 cold
calls and another rep who only hit 25.
But the rep that did two 50 cold calls
only got one discovery meeting to move
to demo, and the rep that only did 25
maybe went to two or three events or did
some LinkedIn, warm outbound and got.
Three meetings that moved
from the first call to demo.
Let's not look at the 25 versus the
two 50 and say that, oh, the 25 calls
person is behind and let's actually
look at who produced the real meetings.
And I think that's more so the
metric we should be looking at.
And it's not just about the activity
metric, it's about the results.
And so I think my hot take is that
some people over index on activity
metrics when in reality I think
it's uh, more about the outcome.
Araminta Robertson: Couldn't agree more.
I mean, this is happens in marketing
so much where everyone's tracking M
QLS from a ebook download, and I'm just
like, that does not mean that's a lead.
Like, you know, someone who just
downloaded your ebook doesn't mean
they want a demo, so, totally.
Yeah.
This is a recurring theme.
Cristina Ciaravalli: Yeah, and sales too.
Like it is a volume game.
You know, you do need to pick up the phone
and see how many people you can reach
out to because the chances will increase
that one will answer and be the right
fit.
But in an addition to a volumes
game, it really is a results game.
And so, however you're getting
results to me it doesn't matter.
Just get the results.
Araminta Robertson: Yeah, and also
just think of your target audience.
Like for example, I mean, I'm
selling to marketers and these
are people who hate being sold to.
So you have to think about like dependent
on your, depending on who you're
targeting, are they more likely to pick
up a call or prefer an event, for example?
Something like that.
And I think, yeah, keeping that
in mind is also super important.
So,
Cristina Ciaravalli: now everyone's
getting spam calls, so no
Araminta Robertson: oh yeah,
Cristina Ciaravalli: be out
there.
Right,
right.
So I'm like going back to my 100 warm.
Like that's my goal to any
founder listening to this.
I really encourage you to make
your list of a hundred accounts and
figure out a warm way to get into
all of them, because to me that
is time better spent than making
250 cold calls that no one will pick up.
Araminta Robertson: Amazing.
Well, this has been super interesting.
Thanks so much, Christina.
I really appreciate it.
And do you have an event during
New York FinTech week that is open
Cristina Ciaravalli: Yes.
Araminta Robertson: it in invite only.
Cristina Ciaravalli: it's
a little bit of both.
So it's Wednesday, April 29th.
We are looking to meet like
series A, series B founders.
That tends to be my client
base as well as the sponsors.
So we're trying to create a space
for them to meet each other network.
We're gonna do it on a rooftop.
They'll be canapes and drinks on us.
Um, So yeah, if you're in New York for
FinTech week, you know, hope to see you.
Araminta Robertson: Perfect.
Amazing.
Well, thanks so much, Christina.
Appreciate you coming on.
outro: Thanks for listening.
You can find show notes and
information about guests@www.mint
copywriting studios.com/podcast.
And finally, huge thanks to orama
TV for producing this podcast.
Thanks for listening, and
see you at the next episode.