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Interviews with top marketers sharing tactical tips, strategies, and lessons learned to help you grow your business. Hosted by Dave Gerhardt, founder of Exit Five, former CMO, and author of Founder Brand. Learn more at exitfive.com
E5_Clare Corriveau
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Dave: [00:00:00] That's near my area, the, the, the French Canadians. Okay, there she is, Claire Corriveau. She's VP of marketing at Tekmetric. Tekmetric is the operating system for modern, for the modern auto repair shop. Uh, Claire, good to have you on our, our podcast here at Exit Five. I need a soundboard. Yeah.
Clare: Yeah, no, I'm stoked. Thanks for having me
Dave: So, uh, one of the reasons we wanted to have you on, uh, obviously we've gotten to know you over the last year or so, but, um, you run marketing at a company that is, uh, in a little bit more of a traditional industry, and I love highlighting these types of companies and stories because, um, I think a lot of people out there, that, that's what's cool to me about B2B marketing, actually.
I try to make it cool. People say it's boring. I talk to a lot of people. I know it's not boring. I did a podcast last week with, uh, Rob Sobers, who's also one of our executive members, and he, you know, is the CMO of a $700 million cybersecurity company. He's like, "Oh yeah, we built a briefing center in Miami, and that's like a mar- part of our marketing [00:01:00] strategy this year."
I'm like, "Whoever said B2B is not cool doesn't understand."
Clare: Yeah, Rob's great. I love Rob. Super smart
Dave: Okay, so your, your background, you came... So, so you run marketing at Tekmetric today. Uh, in your words, since you're a marketer, how would you, how would you explain the company for the other marketers? Like, I like to just set the context up front so people can listen to what you're, you say about marketing, but have the context of the company that you work at.
Clare: Sure. Yeah, so Tekmetric is the all-in-one platform for auto repair shops. And so our mission is pretty simple, which I like, which is help shops thrive, help them deliver an experience that drivers love. So you and me, right? We're all customers of an auto repair shop. And do it in a way the whole industry rallies behind. And I think what that means in practice is, like, what do we actually do? Uh, as an all-in-one platform, it's everything from the moment you, as a driver, search on Google, uh, to try and find an auto repair shop near you, from the moment the car drives into the shop, from the moment the car [00:02:00] drives away. So it's advertising, it's appointment, online appointment booking, text reminders, digital vehicle inspections, um, creating estimates, repair orders, parts ordering, invoicing, payments, reporting for the shop.
So everything under one roof for a shop, so they have every advantage from, like I said, the moment a customer searches for an auto repair shop to, um, near me, um, to the moment that customer drives away and then hopefully comes back again, um, if and when they have car, car needs.
Dave: Okay, cool. Got it. What... And then, and then roughly, like how big is the company and your m- your, like roughly give the makeup of the marketing team?
Clare: Sure. So I think we are at close to 400 employees now, maybe 388, which is wild. When I joined two and a half years ago, I think I'm, I think I'm employee number, like, 121 or something, so I feel like an OG. Um,
I always say tech metric years, you times it by seven. That's how long you've actually been here because it's like working for seven different companies [00:03:00] over two and a half years at the pace that we're growing. Um, and so our marketing team has grown from... Let's see. I think when I started, there was maybe four or five people. Now we have, um, 17 full-time employees, three to four contractors, uh, have nine new roles in the second half of the year, um, for marketing, just the marketing team alone. Um, so we're growing really, really fast.
It's
fun
Dave: okay. So, so you joined three years ago. Your background, what did, what did you do before this? You were working in, uh, running marketing in cybersecurity?
Clare: Yes. I took a hard pivot into auto repair, but
Dave: I thought this was good. I don't know if this is Marissa, producer Marissa, or our AI summary of the notes, but a jarring but ultimately refreshing switch from a crowded commoditized market to an underserved vertical SaaS category. How did your experience from cybersecurity translate over here? It, it seems very different.
I'm curious, and I wrote this thing yesterday how, like, there's really no [00:04:00] marketing playbooks. You have to take a smart person, have them understand the industry. I, I'd love to try to, like, just summarize the-- some of the big stuff before we get into some, some of the other stuff, which we'll touch on. Like, just
your, your three years there
Clare: Sure. So I came fr- um, from cybersecurity before this, and before that I was in fintech. And so when I was recruited to Tekmetric, when they first told me about the company, I was like, "Auto repair?" Like, "Ugh." Like, I don't know anything about cars. Like, I'm literally that person who's like, I take my car to the auto sh- repair shop when I needed my oil changed or my tires rotated, and if anything else is wrong, I call my dad, right?
And I'm like, "Dad, they say I need new brakes. What should I do?" So I think I, I think people hear auto repair and it doesn't, you know, exactly scream exciting or sexy, and I think marketers hear it and think maybe unglamorous and low ceiling. But I'll be hon-- And, you know, I did too at first, but I think what people don't see right off the bat is the massive underserved [00:05:00] market that's there.
And I think in horizontal SaaS, you're one of 50 marketing leaders fighting for the same audience, right? Here you're building something. Like, the category is ours to define, and, um, auto repair is just really refreshing. So it was a big change. I had to learn a ton about the space, very intentional about spending time with our founder CEO, who I report to, who was an auto repair shop owner, um, dissatisfied with the technology that was in the market, created his own, and now he's built this amazing company. Um, and really spending a lot of time with our customers and understanding and getting to know them. Um, but it, it's a big shift for sure.
Dave: Wait, that's actually a really cool in- ingredient. Was that part of what was interesting? That, uh, for me, it's like, oh, I, I love when there's a connection. I mean, I wrote a whole book about this, Founder Brand, but I like when you can tell the story of like, "No, this person actually lived this." It wasn't like, "No, they were, like, laying in bed with their...
You know, they were, like, laying around with their college roommates who were like, 'You know, we should make an app to get rich.'" Like, it's just different
Clare: [00:06:00] No, he ran a shop, uh, for over 10 years and, uh, was just frustrated with what was available and then literally was like, "I'm gonna create something better," and he did. And now we are the largest cloud-based auto repair software platform in the industry, which is pretty amazing. Um, and he, he's, he's incredible.
I mean, he has a really great pulse on, on the industry, still very involved, um, in the day-to-day, especially with our customers and the product. Um, on the marketing side, he, he's pretty hands-off, but he will tell me when he doesn't like something, um, and he'll tell me when he likes something. But he, he brings a perspective of actually being the person that we're targeting and talking to every day, and so he's a great sounding board and the first person that I'll go to to, to pressure test something with.
Dave: Be interesting to see a study... I just-- Founders who come from the product side, there's always something. I have a bias towards those people because I feel like [00:07:00] my skills as a marketer, I'm like, "Oh, you know this industry really well. Like, you know this product really well. I, I'll learn it too, but if I could be paired with you..."
And I, I have-- Uh, 'cause I think a lot of times when it's a non-traditional industry, where we struggle in marketing is, like, trying to be this, trying to, like... You can't fake subject matter expertise is, is what I'm, is what I'm saying. And so, so much of being a good-- So much of creating a brand and standing out, and so much of what it takes to be good at marketing, I feel is really related to, like, having a strong point of view, understanding the customer, having a deep understanding of the market.
Do you, do you, you kinda get what I'm getting at?
Clare: Totally. No, I 100% agree. It's, it's helpful to have him, and he definitely has a pulse on it, and it actually is-- it's great to walk into a company with an amazing product, a founder who's actually done it, a customer base that is ride or die for you and will support you because that is the story, right?
They understand what's going on, and what better than to actually do your marketing than your customers. And so I've been really fortunate to [00:08:00] walk into that and just already to have that organic stuff happening within the company, within the DNA of, you know, the leadership team and how the company's been built. Um, and then customers that are willing to tell their story on their behalf because like I said, I knew nothing about auto repair, so it was de- it was definitely a, a big education for me. Um, but it, it's helpful when the ingredients are there on the table and your job is really just to put them together and amplify them and, and take as much of that goodness out of, you know, a founder like Sunil is his name, like a founder like Sunil, and our customers that are willing to talk about it for us all the time.
Dave: Can you break down your, uh, current marketing team? I don't, I, I don't really care about the numbers, and actually I talk to a lot of VPs and CMOs, and some people are weird. It's like this-- Oh, it's like almost the reverse thing. Like a couple y-years ago, it'd be like, it'd be a flex, like how many people are on your team.
Now I'll do interviews with CMOs and they're like, "Actually, I don't wanna, I don't want people to know how
Clare: AI. We can't talk about how many people we have on
Dave: Yeah, so but I, I mostly care-- I [00:09:00] think people mostly wanna know, like, how do you have the team structured? How do you, you know, bucket things? Uh, can you give us a team overview?
Clare: Sure. So I, uh, I have a really amazing team of super smart people that are all way better at marketing than me, right? Like, my job is to find all the best people. So we have a brand and community team, and so they support everything from our brand positioning, our narrative, our creative, our social, um, and they actually own advocacy and community, 'cause advocacy and community is a huge part of our brand and how we build it. Uh, we have a demand gen function that's responsible for top-of-funnel acquisition, so grabbing, um, net new rooftops, as we call them at Tekmetric, which is really our North Star metric. Um, and their job is to go out, you know, everything from performance marketing to web to, um, SEO, AEO, integrated marketing campaigns, um, find all the people that are not using Tekmetric and get them to raise their hand. Uh, we are standing up [00:10:00] a customer and partner marketing team. Um, so customer marketing is really right now focused on our expansion efforts. And so, uh, since I've been here, we've transitioned from a single product company to a multi-product company. So with that comes the need to actually drive demand within our customer base, but also to support things like training, you know, retention efforts, working really closely with our product teams on product-led growth initiatives that we have going on. Um, and then partner marketing, which is really field. W- um, we have a really, uh, great field team that works with our partners, and so there's a lot of parts providers in the auto repair space. And so our partner managers are paired with partner managers in the field from parts providers. They go into shops, you know, actually boots on the ground and, um, try and get people to sign up for demos in the field. And so our field and partner team, mar- partner marketing team do a lot to help activate the territories in the field, but also work with our strategic partners from a co-marketing perspective. Uh, let's see what else. [00:11:00] We have an incredible events team. We do a lot of events in auto repair, like a lot. We have over 100 events that we do a year, and then we, we host our own.
For the first time this year had our first industry conference that we hosted. Uh, we had almost 1,000 people attend, which was wild. Um, I didn't sleep for like six months, uh, when that was happening, and that was really, really fun. It was a moonshot, uh, event that we put out there, and it, and it worked. So events team, and then we also have a, a new product marketing muscle that we're building. So building out our product marketing team, and they're really supporting go-to-market, um, orchestration, commercialization strategy, enablement of our go-to-market team, so. Um, and the way that I look at that team is a- across the board, we have four pillars that we look at that are, that are driving everything.
One is build the brand, two is build the advocacy flywheel, three is land acquisition, and four is expand. And so if what you're working on doesn't roll up to one of those four pillars, stop doing it, um, and [00:12:00] focus on those, those four areas, um, our four, you know, core pillars of marketing at
Dave: Nice. And tho- those four, 'cause I was gonna, my question, my he- in my head was, like, trying to formulate a
question around all, all the team stuff. But those four pillars, are those set from you? Do those come from the company? Where do they come from? Let's talk about that for a
Clare: Sure, yeah. So we, we set them in marketing, um, but e- everything rolls down from our overall
company strategy. So
Dave: let me, tell you the, the reason why I'm asking is I feel like whenever I'm trying... I'm certainly no expert at this. I'm more of a thought leader than a marketer these days. But I feel like I like your four pillars because I feel like you need, you need a marketing plan, but you almost need, like, a narrative first because you're-- there's like, there's so many things that we could go and do this year, and I love when I talk to someone and you're like, "Yep, we got the four pillars."
It was like, what did you say? Yeah, build the brand, build the... Go through them again, can
Clare: Yeah, brand advocacy, land and expand.
Dave: Because then it's like, okay, now [00:13:00] we, we like wrote those down on a cocktail napkin, a Post-it Note, the whiteboard, then we can go decide, so that means we're going to go do this instead of that, and do that. And I think I talk about this a lot where I, I feel like s- uh, all these great marketing leaders that I get to hang around, like you, I mentioned Rob last week, you all usually have a, you have a narrative on how you're going to do marketing.
It's not like, it's not so, so incredibly channel-focused. The product marketer's gonna do this. It's like, here's kind of the, the way we're going, and then we're gonna like, we're gonna build the plan in around that
Clare: Totally. Yeah, and I think, you know, we love OKRs at Tekmetric, I know a lot of people use that. But I, I think it's important to make a hard distinction between OKRs and KPIs. So you're talking about channel performance versus overall what we're trying to do. And so I think a lot of teams blur them, and it creates confusion.
So, uh, we look at OKRs as build the business and KPIs as run the business, or build the biz and run the biz.
Dave: All right, give me an example. My, my [00:14:00] acronym brain is spinning. Give me, give me an example of each
Clare: So build the business is like capabilities and programs we're creating. They don't exist today, but they're required to get Tekmetric to that next stage of growth. And so an example would be, um, let's say right now we're working on building out our founder-led content, right?
As one of our build the biz. We don't have a strong founder-led content motion today. Um, we know that we have to move into brand creation, and brand and demand really, you know, work hand in hand. And so that's one of the pillars that we're creating around category ownership, right? Of our OKR. Uh, we don't have that today.
We know that we need to invest in it to build to the next stage of growth for next year. So what do we need to do this half to get there? Whereas a KPI is the ongoing operational metrics that keep the business and the engine running every day. So it's like how is our paid media performing, right? Are we hitting the metrics that we need to hit there?
So build the biz, create the things and capabilities that don't exist today that we need to exist in the future. [00:15:00] KPIs is run the biz. What are the things that we need to do to make sure we keep the lights on?
Dave: How do you articulate your, your role on this, uh, team and organizing all these things? You gotta, you report to the founder and CEO, but you gotta run the team, you gotta come up with these plays. Like, how do you... What, what's, what's Claire's job here?
Clare: That's a really good question. What is my job, Dave, as
Dave: Yeah, it's a great, I know what is... I feel the same way most days, and then they're like, "Just do the podcast and you'll be okay."
Clare: Yeah. Yeah. No, I get that. Um, let's see. What is my job? I mean, our, our job in marketing is, is to support the entire organization. I think it's interesting as a marketing leader, I think it's one of the few roles in a company where you're literally attached to everything that's happening. You're working
Dave: that's the question, that's the question that I'm asking. To talk to the, the aspiring or your peers, VP of marketing, what do you realize that the job, what do you realize the job is now versus maybe what it was two or three turns of your career [00:16:00] ago?
Clare: Hmm. Yeah, I mean, it's to tell the Tekmetric story and make sure that everybody that isn't using Tekmetric knows about us, whether they use us or not, and the customers that are using us are continuing to see value in what we're doing, and that we're getting our customers to results. Honestly, I think that's everybody's job across the organization.
It's just how people do
that individually is a little bit different. And so, um, from a marketing perspective, w-we're, uh, we're, we're responsible for telling that story, right? In every sense of the word, to get people to the results that they're trying to do. Um, and my job as a marketing leader is obviously to orchestrate that across the organization.
Everything from employer branding with the people and culture team, to working with the product team on launches, to the sales team on making sure we have enough pipeline. Um, I have to orchestrate that, but at the end of the day, the thing I think I'm learning in this role is it is-- it all comes back to finding the right talent on your team to build towards that.
Which has been, I think, a realization for me. [00:17:00] So this is my first, um, VP of Marketing gig.
My background's in demand generation and growth, and I came up through that. This is the first time I've done the whole shebang. I know I could... If I could go back to Claire three years ago that thought she knew everything, I'd be like, "Oh, you have so much to learn." Um, because yes, there's marketing, and yes, there's creativity, and yes, there's understanding the metrics, but it really comes back to people and making sure you have the right talent on your team to help grow, um, and people that can grow along with the pace of the business, which is, I think, really challenging with how fast we're growing.
Like, what got-- I say to my team all the time, "What got us here will not take us there." And we all have to be willing to reinvent ourselves, our teams, our roles every three to six months because that's how fast we're changing as an organization. So talent, my job is to find the right talent and then orchestrate and support everybody, and then get out of their way
to do their jobs 'cause they're all way better than me.
Dave: No, it's great to hear you say that, and I, I kinda chalk this up to one of those [00:18:00] things that almost, you know, you, you have children. Uh, there are certain things that, like, my parents used to do that I didn't understand or roll my eyes at, and now that I have my own kids, I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's why they did that."
And I think I've had bosses, mentors, whatever, that, like, all they did was recruit people, manage a team. And I'm like, "That's not the job. That's not the job. The job is to be great at marketing." It's like, no, no, no. That is-- It's like the obstacle is the way. That's the one thing that makes everything else easier.
And I used to work for this guy, Mike Volpi, who was the CMO at HubSpot at the time, and he was like, "Nah, I s- dude, I literally spend 90% of my day, like, working with people, recruiting," because that is the thing. The marketing stuff is easy. You can always figure out the marketing stuff, but if you don't have the right people on the team...
And the right people can mean many different things. You might not have the deepest pockets. You might have to go, I always use this analogy, but, like, you might have to make a s- you know, dinner with, with, like, three eggs, an onion, and two pieces of bread in the fridge, and that's, like, all you can, you can get, but you gotta find somebody to do that
Clare: Totally, totally. And it, and [00:19:00] it's like I look back at bosses that I've had where we've all had those thoughts where like, "What do they do all day? Do they even know what I have going on?" And now I'm like, "Oh my God, that's me." I'm that person where my team is probably like... You know, I would love to get in a room and, and put together a really amazing campaign, right?
And brainstorm ideas, and I do that, and I will be the first person to roll up my sleeves, much to my team's chagrin sometimes. They're like, "Oh, great, Claire's here with an idea." Um, and I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm the idea person now. I'm the person that comes in and like messes everything up."
Dave: That's the job though
Clare: but I, it is, it is.
But it, it's been, um... And I credit a lot, you know, our founder, CEO, and, and our SVP of revenue and the other leaders that I work with really pushing me as a leader. 'Cause right now it used to be, be the best at this job and that's how you move forward, right? Like be the best at demand. And now my job is to make sure I have the right leverage on the team to support the company moving forward, and that has been something I don't think I truly understood until I actually sat in the seat.
And now I'm [00:20:00] like, "Okay, it's... I'm no longer graded on being the best demand marketer. It doesn't really matter. I'm graded and the success of my team is based off of do we have the right people in place to move that company to the next stage of growth?" And I think things have changed so quickly just with how fast we're growing and with AI and the type of people that we're looking for, um, and the personality type and like the work ethic and the high slope, you know, can operate in ambiguity in the fog of war type of thing.
It's, it's, it's hard to find. So yeah, I've, I've learned a lot and I look back at Claire three years ago and think, "Oh, she was so cute. She thought, she thought she knew." Um, so I'm learning, I'm learning all the time still.
Dave: You have a bunch of open roles, so you, you're basically gonna double your team over the, over the second half of this year, which is interesting because if I open up LinkedIn, everyone tells me-- or if I go to YouTube, everyone tells me that they're replacing the marketing team with, uh, Claude code, and yet I'm talking to the, you know, head of marketing at [00:21:00] a successful vertical SaaS company who's like, "Actually, no, we're hiring nine people right now."
Clare: Right. So AI is important. I don't wanna say that it's not. Obviously, you know, Claude is my homie, right? We hang out a
lot and we spend a lot of time together. Shout out to Claude. Pour one out for Claude. Uh, but I still think... You know what I'm seeing is like AI is great. We all know that we can leverage it to replace the things that took a lot of time, but we still need people to think, and we still need people to look at things and say, "Does this make sense?
Do I actually understand our customer? Um, do I actually understand the numbers?" You know, "Do the-- do we have the right foundation in place?" So I do want people that are AI forward and AI fluent in how they're thinking, but I don't think that replaces the human component of being strategic and actually knowing who our customers are.
We, we, we sell and market into, at Tekmetric, a very, very human industry, and so you have to actually know who those people are, and I [00:22:00] don't think... I, we still need humans, um, to get deep on that.
Dave: Yeah. What's the, what's the tone and sentiment in your ideal cu- what, what are the car dealership owners, what are, how are they feeling about AI?
Clare: So couple things, just this is what I've learned about auto repair. We don't, we don't target dealerships. Dealerships is a whole different flavor, Dave,
Dave: All right. Look, I don't work in this industry, so you're allowed to correct me. You can
Clare: repair, general auto repair
Dave: you do, the cars, the cars, the, whatever you do with the cars, the software in the cars, yeah.
Clare: Totally. So, I mean, I think AI is, is
Dave: Auto repair. Let me a- what, what,
how do, how do auto repair shops feel about AI, Claire?
Clare: So, I mean, they're using it, right? Like, there's a lot of repetitive things that happen within an auto repair shop that AI can help with, but they're also in customer service at the end of the day. They're constantly talking to customers. So, um, you know, they're using it for things like appointment booking or email and text reminders or AI phone receptionists to call and know [00:23:00] everything about your car. Um, they're using it-- They're using it the same way we are. Like, "How do I look at my reporting? What am I missing? What's going on?" And so, um, but the job itself, actually the manual work that a technician, which is what... They're not called mechanics, they're called technicians, just so we all know. The work that technicians do still require people to be able to, like, fix cars manually, right?
So it's never gonna... Right now, it's not gonna replace. I'm sure at some point there will be a robot, right? That can fix cars too. But it still requires somebody with the knowledge of a trade, right? To go in and be able to fix something. Um, but they're looking at it in the same way as any other B2B business.
What are the things that we do at all the time that doesn't require a person that we could replace to be more efficient to get us to the results that we're looking to do?
Dave: What, what, what works marketing to this, uh, we have this on our doc, the non-desk buyer, right? Um, people who own these auto repair shops are not always at the desk. They're not on LinkedIn. They don't go to [00:24:00] webinars. They don't often respond to cold outreach or email.
How the heck-- W- what have you learned?
What-- Give me, like, one or two plays that have, that have worked to marketing to this audience.
Clare: Let's see. What have I learned? With this audience... Well, there's a couple things. I'll give you some tactical examples. So Bing was one that just surprised me. Um, Bing for paid search. We-- Like, the team was skeptical. Turns out shop owners use Microsoft Bing to do quite a bit of searching. Um, so I think it's just a good reminder that don't assume your audience behaves like a default tech-savvy B2B buyer.
So that was, like, a specific channel
Dave: why is that? Is that just like the default browser installed on whatever their computer they're using?
Clare: Totally, totally. I mean, it's like my parents are like, "I don't use Chrome, I use Safari because it's on my computer and that's easier to use." And so I think it's the same id- um, i- you know, idea. Um, one of the biggest things about auto repair that surprised me, I just didn't know. It was just like I didn't know what I didn't know.
Uh, do you know when you're like looking for a new car and all of a sudden [00:25:00] you see that car that you're looking at everywhere on the highway and you've never seen it before? That's how I feel about auto repair shops now. I'm like, "They're literally everywhere," and I'm obsessed. I'm like, "Do they use Tekmetric?
Who are they using? What's going on? I should stop in and look." But they, um... It's a very heavy coaching group industry. So there are these peer advisory groups for shop owners. If you think about I'm a technician, I've worked in a shop, I wanna try it on my own for the first time, but I've never run a business.
I have no
idea how to do that. So
Dave: You know what's funny? Like, this is literally ex- it's Exit, the same company we have is Exit Five for B2B marketing professionals. There's someone who influences auto repair shop owners. They need to learn how to run their business. Yeah, I love
Clare: Totally. And so they have a facilitator, they share financials, they have a coach, they put them into 20 groups, they're called, where there's like 15 to 20 operators in a room. They're not competing with each other, but they're talking about, you know, how they run an auto repair shop.
Um,
Dave: can you, influence those people?
Clare: totally. So [00:26:00] that's, that was really the early stage strategy at Tekmetric is it's basically a mastermind group for auto repair.
So if, if Tekmetric gets endorsed inside one of those groups, it spreads like wildflower, wildfire because the most trusted recommendation you can get is from a peer you respect, right? Who runs a business like yours, who's in a similar r- um, role as yours. So we didn't invent that channel, but we've definitely learned to work it intentionally. Um, and it changed how we think about partner and community marketing. So, um, that's a, that's one that I just didn't know about, but it makes total sense. It's just like Exit Five, and then that kind of leads to community. Like our-- I believe that our customer community is our moat. We have over 6,000 customers.
Um, sorry, 16
Dave: this is crazy. This was in our doc. Tech, uh, uh, Techmetri- Tekmetrics Real Moat, they have 16, they have 16,000 people in this Facebook community, 6,000 active in the Tekmetric user group, which is, which is crazy
Clare: It is crazy. So we have, uh, we have 16,000 customers, [00:27:00] um,
around the world in our, in-- It's called TUG, our Tekmetric User Group. It's a Facebook group. Auto repair shops love Facebook. They love Facebook for everything. And so, um, we have this user group, and you have to have been a customer for 30 days. You then, you can request to get in,
Dave: Yeah. Who manages that? Somebody on your team?
Clare: Somebody on my team, along with the customer support, we have a tiger team that really looks at it and tracks it. But I mean, everybody's in there. That we-- It's, it's light on kind of management for, on purpose because we don't wanna disturb the organic nature of the group. So you have, you know, customers in there that are swapping tips and tricks about the product.
You have people complaining about the product. You have people asking for things.
Dave: Is it like a support forum?
Clare: It, It, it is, but it isn't. People, some people treat it like
Dave: Yeah, 'cause I've al- I've always wondered, like a user, uh, like so many... A bunch of different people have cr- shown examples of crushing it with a [00:28:00] user group. As a community guy myself, as you know, Claire, I've just always wondered, like, how do you pr- how-- What's the right angle? How does that not just become like, you know, I'm posting in the HubSpot, you know, community about like why is this thing rendering in a weird way?
Do you discourage that? Is it okay? How do you... Like, what, what's the lane that works for this community?
Clare: Um, we don't discourage people. People are gonna come and talk about what they wanna talk about regardless,
right? So, um, I do think we've, we've been intentional about trying to make sure that it, we transform it from a support forum into something closer to community as a product, right, when we're in there.
So we definitely do surprise and delight gifting in there. We start, you know, conversation threads similar to what you all do with Exit Five today.
But also the interesting thing is like our customers literally defend us to other customers in there. So like a customer might say, "Hey, I don't like this.
Why doesn't Tekmetric have it?" And someone will come in and say, "Of all the things that they do for you, you know,
this is what
Dave: that. I [00:29:00] love that.
Clare: And so you
Dave: need more of that. Yeah
Clare: like... I, I think people are sometimes a little nervous about our user group, but I think it's awesome. Like where other pl- like what other place can you have 6,000 active customers to talk to, right, and to get feedback from?
Our CEO is in there,
our CTO is in there, our product team's in there, our marketing team's in there. And so, but they're literally, um, our customers are act- are answering questions for each other. They're supporting each other. So it's a wide range of topics and so I think if you try and put too many rules on it, then it disturbs the organic nature of the group and then people don't, people don't wanna participate.
So
Dave: Or like if you just pumped it full of, you know, tech metric stuff, people would not use it in the same way. But you probably still can pick and choose spots to promote things like your, you
know, your, your event or whatever
Clare: Totally. Yeah, we talk about Tectonic in there, but we're careful, right? It doesn't become like a marketing newsletter for us. We'll share things, our product team will share things. It's part of our, our pr- our go-to-market, you know, [00:30:00] tiered bill of materials for our product launches of like we have to make sure we post in Tug.
But I also remind the team it's only 6,000, it's only 6,000 active members compared to 16,000 customers, right? So there's a lot of customers that aren't in there. Um, but our customers ask each other questions, they share best practices, they troubleshoot, they fight with each other, they show us love, they tell us when they don't like something.
I love it. I, I've never worked at an organization where we have it. Um, and then Facebook, on the opposite side of our community, we do a lot of, um, advertising on Facebook, and I would say, you know, Meta ads aren't necessarily like a huge producer of, of leads for us, but the ad, the, the thread comments are wild.
Like, it's like a shoe ad. It's, it's like you posted something, and there's thousands of comments in there of people being like, "I love Tekmetric," people being like, "I, I don't like it at all. I wish they had this." And then you have our customers in public threads of paid ads defending us and then sharing their stories, and I'm [00:31:00] like, "That's it," right?
Like, it, it's unprompted. People are sharing what they like and don't like. They give our product team feedback, um, and then our customers rep for us.
And so
Dave: interesting. You, you're almost in like a... My industry is marketing, and marketers are very vocal. Uh, it seems like, it seems like this is a very vocal online, you know, person that you're selling to, so these things are really important. And so you need to, like, open yourself up to those things versus fully control all of it
Clare: Totally. Totally. Yeah. It's, it's great. And so our job is to, um, earn that trust from our customers, right? And then feed it, which is what we're really trying to do. So all that organic stuff happens on its own, um, and continues to push us forward. So, like, I love our customers
Dave: Inevitably, inevitably when we talk about community, I think there's lots of companies that will listen to this and have an example of how a user group could work for them. Whenever I mention Facebook or the community platform, someone always says, "Why did you pick Facebook?" My guess is you didn't pick it, it just started and it's [00:32:00] grown, and now you can't move it.
Would you ever move it? Was this just m- would that just be marketers trying to, like, measure it better? Any, any
Clare: Yeah. I mean., like, it would be... 'Cause You do have limitations right Like you can't create subgroups, and you're kind of stuck with it. But, uh, it's not a problem that I need to solve right now because people go there,
and that's where they live. And so we are gonna listen to our customers. That's where they like to communicate. That's where they like to live. So sure, if we move to a community platform, would we have more capabilities?
Yes. But getting 6,000 people to move to it, um, probably won't happen, especially people, um, that love Facebook. Um, so we're gonna keep it where it's at. There's no reason, there's no problem that we're solving by moving it. We would just be annoying marketers in tech trying to make something work for us instead of listening to our customers about what works for them,
Dave: Absolutely. I mean, it's just good, it's good advice, right? Uh, I used to work for a mentor of mine would always be like, "Is this a company problem or a customer problem?" Meaning like, are we trying to... [00:33:00] Do we s- What's better for the customer? Are we trying to solve this so we can, like, measure it better and track it better, or are they gonna get plenty of value from, from where it's at?
And it's nice, just refreshing to hear someone be like, "Nope, it's not an issue. We're not gonna do it."
Clare: It's not an issue, and it's also like technology is not ever a blocker, in my opinion. So like what problem are you actually trying to solve? And if the answer is tech-- Like the answer to that problem is we need new tech, like I'm really gonna push on you. I'm gonna say, "Is that actually the problem that we're trying to solve right now?"
Or, you know, I think people just jump to solutioning, and sometimes tech is the answer. Let's get a new community platform, but like it's working. We have 6,000 active members, um, that communicate. Sure, would we like things to be different in there and have more capability? But it's not, but it's working, so
Dave: are you, it seems like, you know, you have a big market. Are you under... Is demand gen like a big function of your, like, mark- Like, do you need to acquire a certain number of leads every month? Is that a big part of your business? Or are you doing more like [00:34:00] targeted outreach to, you know, auto repair shops that are not on you?
Clare: Totally. So we, it's... Demand gen has been a huge focus for us. Um, demand, I will say demand capture,
uh, relative
Dave: And can you talk about some of the mechanics of that? Like, I'm just curious, like what, what offers work, what calls to action? Like I get that you're doing Bing and Facebook and all that stuff, but if you could talk about some of the like how you tr- how, how you actually go and capture leads today, what's working?
Clare: So paid search is a big demand capture for us. Google's table stakes. Like I said, Bing was a surprise. Um, Facebook, Meta, you know, shop owners are heavy Facebook users. Um, but also there's a lot of industry groups on Facebook outside of our actual user group, like shop owner groups that people join that we're in and we're tracking. Events and trade shows are big. Um, I, I'm not gonna share anything groundbreaking, I guess. Like
this is just like
Dave: But are you trying to book like, is it like I'm trying to book a meeting with a shop owner? And then what, what do you... Is it just, "Hey, book a meeting and we're gonna teach you how to improve your sh-" Is [00:35:00] there some v- What's the offer? Is it like talk to sales? You know, what, what, what gets people on the phone with you?
Clare: It is book a demo right now. I hate to say it. I, again, I wish I had a, a more exciting answer, but ours is really, um, our main CTA is to book a demo, test the product, try it out for yourself, um, and get them in the door. I think what we're seeing happen is right now we are capturing most of the in de- like the, the group that's in demand, right?
They're looking for something. We're capturing everybody. If you're looking for an auto repair shop platform between what we're doing on search and paid and social, we're finding you. We're starting to move more into that demand creation. Like we're capturing everybody that wants something. We need to create more demand, which comes back to brand and comes back to community. Um, so there's been a lot of focus for us on, you know, content, stories, customer testimonials, YouTube. We have a YouTube docuseries, um, called "Under the Lift" that I'm super passionate about, that tells our [00:36:00] customers' origin stories. Has nothing to do with Tekmetric or our software, but just tells their stories. And so it's a little bit longer tail of a play, right? Where you have to play that game, but you're trying to create that demand, so we can capture it with the really strong demand capture systems that we have in place.
Dave: Okay, I got it. So you have a great-- The product, the product works. You have a lot of social proof and success with it. The product is really good. Marketing's job here is to basically, we need to tell more people that this thing exists and can help them, and then they will, they will book demos. I- it's interesting how many earlier stage companies I talk to where so many of the marketing, uh, th- so many of the problems that seem like marketing channel problems are actually product market fit problems.
You know what I mean?
Clare: Um, no, it's a... We have an amazing product. It is much easier to do marketing when you have great product market fit, a great product, and customers that love you. Like, honestly, like I'm, I'm a l- I'm a lucky, I'm a lucky marketing [00:37:00] lady. We have those ingredients there. I've worked for organizations before where the-- you don't have great product market fit, and marketing has to work even harder, and the strategy's a little bit different. This is, we have great product market fit, we have customers that love us, we just need to convince part of the market that isn't quite ready to make the change, which I think is interesting about this. It's, it's... If you're looking for an auto repair shop software, you've, you've heard of us, and you've talked to us, and you're probably using us.
Otherwise, you've been using something for 25 to 30 years in your shop, and you're good with it because it works. Like, I've had conversations with shop owners and they've said, "Listen, I, I know who you are. I'm sure what your product does is better than what I have today, but I've been doing this for 35 years, and this works for me." So it's, it's, it's more about change management and trying to get people there, and that's a much harder thing. So again, like coming back to community and hearing from other shop owners
about what they're doing and the success that they saw is, is really where we're [00:38:00] leaning in.
So-
Dave: probably like a lot of, you know, they would always say, like, the biggest competitor is, is like a spreadsheet or like a notepad, you know, in some industries,
Clare: Pen and paper.
Dave: Pen and paper.
Clare: Pen and paper or server-based
on-prem
Dave: Tell, tell me about, uh, this. This says a lot about your internal cont- uh, your internal culture. Tell me about Tekmetric University for new hires and TechTreks for every employee
Clare: Totally. So you asked like how did you, how did I get up to speed on auto repair come, not coming from it. Um, so our, we have internal, our people and culture team does a great job. Um, every new hire has to complete or get an, an on, really ongoing employees. We have a Tech U, which is Tekmetric University, regular courses that are there to help teach people about the industry, about the product. Um, our onboarding, you come to Houston, where we're headquartered, for the first week, and part of that is shop visits too. So you go to shops, you meet the customers. That's a really cool thing about working here. So in cybersecurity, I would [00:39:00] never meet a CISO outside of a trade show, and they didn't wanna talk to people anyways, right?
Like, their job is to keep people out, and then marketing's trying to get in. I can look up on our internal tracker all the Tekmetric customers within, you know, 30 miles of where I live, and I can call them and I can say, "Hey, I'd love to come into your shop today, just stop by, say hi. Is it okay if I stop by this da- today?" And usually the answer is yes. And so we also have something called Tech Tracks internally, where all employees are encouraged and have a stipend monthly to go visit a customer shop, bring them swag, bring them food, ask them how it's going, and just learn.
Dave: Yeah, so you're, you're, these, a bunch of these new marketing hires that you're going to bring on, are they gonna go and do this as part of onboarding?
Clare: Absolutely. They'll visit Tekmetric shops, they'll complete Tekmetric University.
Um, there is a, a very vested interest in the organization that, you know, as you get bigger, when you start, everybody knows everything. Everybody knows the product,
everybody knows the industry, and as you add people, you lose that [00:40:00] tribal knowledge. So the company has been very intentional about, about investing in people and making sure that they have that information. And, and listen, I, again, I don't like, I don't like cars. Like, I'm not a car person, but I love our customers. Like, I absolutely
love our customers.
Dave: cars
Clare: I don't-- I'm not a car person. Like, you
know, I drive a Hyundai Palisade.
I'm like a mom,
I'm just a mom mobile. I'm like,
Dave: Whoa, whoa. Hyundai's a big sponsor of the show. Relax with the s-
Clare: I love my Palisade, don't get me wrong. But, I mean, my whole thing about cars is like, does it get me from point A to point
B with all of my kids' sports stuff, and is it paid off? But when you think about our customers, they're second-generation operators, legacy businesses, family-owned shops, people that are, like, super proud of their craft and fiercely protective of their independence.
And
so, you know, our job at Tekmetrics is to make sure they have every advantage to continue to have a thriving business. And when you meet them and you hear their stories, it's just-- it's so, it's so refreshing, especially [00:41:00] coming from other industries that I've been in
Dave: Well, I think it was cool to hear you lay it out that way because I think in order to be great at marketing, you have to have a deep understanding of your customer. Okay, no kidding, Dave. But, uh, it's hearing you articulate it at that level, and I think we live in a world now where it's, like, very easy to like, "Oh, I'm listening to call recordings.
I'm reading call transcripts. Yep, I understand the customer." But it's a different feeling than walking into an auto repair shop. What do you see? What do you smell? What does it feel like? What does it look like? Pairing that with then, like, um, yeah, or is this person gonna click on this ad that we're running?
Like, I feel like that's where the, you know, so that's how the sausage gets made, right?
Clare: Right. Yeah. My, our buyers are not on LinkedIn. They're literally never gonna download anything ever.
Dave: like walk into the sh- like walk into the shop and then match, like take up, take all of our marketing touchpoints and match it and be like, "Is that person really gonna like go to this webinar?" And of course not. So let's
Clare: Yeah, no, they're not
Dave: Like
Clare: Yeah, and it's like: How did you learn about this? Well, my guy, my buddy down the street was [00:42:00] using you, or I saw you at a trade show, and they can name the people. The first trade show I went to for Tekmetric when I started, because I went to a lot of events just to get face time with customers to understand the space. I, I had a customer walk up to me and I said, "Oh, hey, I'm Claire. Nice to meet you." And, and they said, "I'm shop number 1,792." That's how they identified themselves. And I was like, "What?" And they're like, "That's my shop ID." So when you join Tekmetric, you get a Tekmetric ID.
People are so proud of their shop IDs, right?
Like, that's a real thing. And so I think that's, you know, that's what we're trying to do, right? We're trying to get our customers, and they do it already, um, to be able to represent for us. And the fact that someone will walk up to me and introduce themselves with their shop ID before they actually share their name is something to pay attention to.
So I, I just think, you know, again, community is so important and we-- when you think about building a community flywheel, you know, it's like being authentic. Like, then [00:43:00] how do you become the authority? And then that true long-term play is peer-to-peer advocacy at
scale, where they're actually, you know, unprompted representing Tekmetric and they feel like they are part of the brand.
Dave: It seems like you just, you really get it, like, and that comes from the founder on, all, all the way down. The way to build community and advocacy is not... Is having a great product, yes, but also to letting those things happen on their terms, right? If you over-engineered this, like, Facebook community, it would, it wouldn't work.
If you, you know... Anyway, um, Claire, this was great. This was great. Uh, you're gonna get a bu- I, I hope you get a bunch of messages, 'cause here, here my call to action is if you are, if you also work in a non... What, what did we, what did we call this in the beginning of our, of our show? It's a, it was a different switch from cybersecurity, right?
If you work in a, I guess technically they call this, like, mid-market SaaS, verticalized SaaS. I-
Clare: horizontal. I'm in vertical SaaS. They would call it
horizontal SaaS, right?
Dave: What does that, what, I don't even know what that
Clare: [00:44:00] I
don't even know. Who knows what anything means anymore?
Dave: didn't...
Clare: it's all different. At the end of the day, marketing is pretty simple, I, I think. It's like know your customer, right?
Dave: I think the marketing is simple. I think people are the challenging part. Internal teammates, like all of my issues are like, and this is not, not even now, it's all people. It's, it, it, pe- people on the team, stakeholders inside the company, the, you know, head of product you gotta work with who doesn't really like you, the head of sales who likes you but is crazy.
You know, there's just like so many factors to like
Clare: Right. Yeah, I, for the record, I love our head of sales and our head of product. I, I do think that's an important thing. So I'm just gonna say it on record
Dave: Say it on record. I mean, it's, it's no surprise. It's a common trend between companies who get marketing at this way, strong founder, the brand, they understand the product, came from that deep level of expertise. It's typically the companies that are, like, a little bit more later stage and you kinda have, like, very siloed orgs where it's just kind of cutthroat, where every exec has their own different OKRs that they're trying to hit and achieve their bonus based on that, and then otherwise [00:45:00] they don't really care
Clare: Yeah, I think it, I think it's different here. And I think the interesting thing about a vertical SaaS market too is just, like the growth opportunities with it. Like there's 250,000 auto repair shops in the US. We're the largest cloud-based player, and we only have 5% of the market share and we're growing 50% year over year.
Like that's insane. Like in cybersecurity, by the time you're the leader, you, you've got 30 to 40% share and 20 competitors eating your lunch. And here the runway's huge. Um, and we have a really great product, a super rad customer base, and a growth rate I think most SaaS companies would kill for. So it's just, it's really exciting and also a reminder of like we still have a lot of work to do in front of
us.
Dave: But that's cool. That's a cool, uh, a lot of people are thinking about jobs, career stuff. Maybe go, go find-- look for like a head of marketing, a VP of marketing at a, at a company in a, a bit more of a nontraditional industry and space, and you can, you can have a lot of runway to do some cool stuff.
Claire, thanks for coming on, uh, our podcast. I've enjoyed getting to know you, [00:46:00] one of our executive, uh, members. If you want more peers, if you wanna have people like Claire in your, in your peer network, um, you should, you should reach out. We have this really cool executive community. Claire's, Claire's been a part of that.
And, uh, I'm spending more of my time doing podcasts with, uh, with our members 'cause I don't know, I, I like geeking out on, on what you're doing and, and hearing what fires you up at work, so.
Clare: Totally. Well, thanks for
having me. I appreciate it.
Dave: Yeah. Two weeks of summer. Good luck. Good luck surviving the last two weeks till we get back, everybody get back into school, get a little bit more routine going
Clare: You too. All right. Thanks, Dave.
Dave: All right, Claire.
Good job
Clare: All right, bye