Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Demand-Geniuses is the podcast for revenue-focused B2B Marketers. We bring you the latest insights and expert tips, interviewing geniuses of the B2B Marketing world to bring you actionable advice that you can implement to accelerate growth and progress you career. The role of Marketing in B2B go-to-market strategy has changed drastically. It's more important to revenue generation than ever as buyer engagement becomes more digital. We equip you with the information you need to thrive in this new, revenue-critical role.
Tom Rudnai (00:01)
Okay, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Demand Geniuses. I'm not going to mess around at all. I'm going to straight away introduce our guests. I'm joined today by Kelly Allen. Kelly, long time cyber security CMO, now the founder and CMO at Unboring. So well, first of all, Kelly, hello.
Kelly Allen (00:18)
Hello. Thanks for having me. No worries at all.
Tom Rudnai (00:19)
Hello, thank you for joining us. Thank you
for joining us. Well, so first of all, guess, before I gave you a quick introduction, do want to just in your own words give us a little bit of a background into who you are?
Kelly Allen (00:32)
sure who I am. That's a complex thing. But yes. So I am Kelly, like you said, I am the founder or co founder of a marketing agency that specializes in cybersecurity called I'm boring. But my route of how I got here, I guess a little bit unconventional, I think most people in cybersecurity, that's probably how they would say it wasn't like my dream career or what I had a pinup board when I was at university. I actually went to uni
I was a qualified dance teacher. did business studies and international marketing and thought I was going to open my own dance school. And then I moved to London, got swept up in the agency life and kind of never left it. So I started in a small boutique agency, which was all film. So I did a lot of like film releases, comedian releases, a lot more kind of PR-y, guess then, and when it was like Orange Wednesday, if anyone remembers that, that was kind of kind of where I started and doing all that for that.
That just progressed. did more events. got into, did a lot with the Olympics, got into event management for a boutique event hotel. And I always loved hospitality. I'm a big believer that a service based jobs really helps with marketing and sales because you can read consumers and you get work long hours and you know how to hustle. So I always think that's a good, good, I always look for that in CVs. And then I got into an agency.
and got into agency life and they specialised more in tech. It wasn't cyber specific, it was anything to do with tech, tech platforms, anything like that. And I found out I was pregnant and we had a few cyber security clients coming in. None of the girls were interested. So I took those clients on because I thought, I'm gonna do it for like six, seven months and I'm gonna be out of here and accidentally fell in love.
with the industry and then post having my daughter, I joined a startup, which was a reseller in cybersecurity, like two really young, ambitious guys had started it, had no idea about marketing. I sent a cheeky email, joined them, was with them for seven years and we grew that into the millions. yeah, and I had an opportunity to leave that and with all my experience and frustration of how...
something such a cool thing like cyber security is positioned and marketed in such a boring way. Um, I'm boring was born and like the rest is the rest is history really like very young, only in April, but it's been going really well. Sorry. was like a whole.
Tom Rudnai (03:06)
Yeah, well,
is an unconventional path, but that probably makes you quite a good person to be involved in marketing in what I guess is stereotypically one of the more boring industries, right? guess, let's start there. I guess first question, why is so much B2B marketing so boring? Why do people do that?
Kelly Allen (03:20)
Yeah.
Such a good question. think, in my experience of it, is that everyone thinks it has to be really serious because their perception is, we're at work, it's business. I think that has diluted and changed so much. Like even COVID has spearheaded that to go even further. Like we don't wear suits, we don't sit in the office like we used to. So that's changed really differently. I think the blend of who we are with work
and life and home is much more blended. Even if you look at LinkedIn posts like the vulnerability, mental health, everything's just a lot more softer and blended and a lot more human behind it. So I think if pre when B2B marketing started, I'd imagine there was some reasoning data of why you would talk a certain way, engage a certain way and how business was conducted would have been very different with my dad as it is today.
And that's shifted and that's changed and businesses grow faster, CEOs are younger, the career progression thing isn't the way it used to be, you didn't stay there for the pension anymore, it's all very different now, right? So I think where the playbook hasn't changed quick enough of B2B is that we need to talk to human beings. And I appreciate there's multiple stakeholders that potentially buying something B2B, but we're still human. And therefore human beings have emotion.
We're supercharged by biases. We have good days, we have bad days. We want to make our lives easier. We want to save money and time. And that's done from a motive, different reasons. So I think that's where B2B has come from and grown, but does need to transition quickly. And I think in cybersecurity specifically, that's a business that's growing. Why hacks happen is through a person.
and they say it's not a good one, but like the person's the weakest link. Sure, but it's because we're trusting and if we're being educated on a subject in a really mundane, boring way, we don't take on the information. So I'm a big believer if we're gonna get people to be an ally ship to protect our businesses, to consider clicking on a link, et cetera, you cannot train them in a boring, mundane way to care.
I mean, I feel health and safety is quite similar in that thing. I don't know about anyone else that's done their health and safety training, but it's normally a quick link, et cetera. Have no idea which fire extinguisher I need to use. However, if you put me in a burning building and said, Kelly, you've got to pick one and make a quick decision, I bet you I'd work it out quicker and remember, right? Because it would go in innately to me. yeah, I think as humans, we just, and we want to be engaged more, right? Quicker, faster, TikTok style.
education and think the traditional ways of doing that, reading a long white paper or a report unfortunately, it isn't the way that we absorb information and I look at AI and the boom of that, that's changing everything too.
Tom Rudnai (06:37)
Yeah, well, it's interesting because I think what you're saying, like often marketing follow, like particularly in B2B, we follow like a broad societal trend a few years behind, right? So we've done that a little bit with kind of digital transformation and digitisation of how we need to communicate with people. I think what you're saying is like particularly COVID, but just more broadly, there's been a change in like the attitude to bringing the human side of you to work, right? So I have a bit of a weird thing about people wearing suits at work. I think it's not a
about the clothing, it's not about the tie that you put on, it's what that represents, which is you cover up yourself and you come in with kind of a layer on that covers up the human being underneath. And I think that's a really unhealthy thing for people to do. I'm sure people disagree with that and have very good reasons. I'm kind of certain.
Kelly Allen (07:26)
I mean, it's like.
It's like a school uniform, isn't it? Like I think it's good and bad for different reasons. Like I have people that I work with that love to put on a suit, like they feel great in a suit. Same as I have female colleagues that like feel like a powerhouse when they have a pair of heels on. I don't think there's a right or wrong to it. It's whatever you're comfortable and whatever is your, you know, the way the way you want to look like I mean, you know, love or hate Stephen Bartlett, but you know, he was probably the first dragon that sat on there not suited and booted yet.
he's just been on the live TV show and he even put a point that I did go suited and booted and didn't wear a trainers. I think everything is, you know, contextual and how you feel comfortable and, and you know, smart dress is subjective, right? I think you can be smart dress, but that means that you can be really on point when it comes to color and styling and stuff like that. That doesn't mean it's necessarily a tailored suit. So yeah, I think, you know, traditions,
Different cultures have changed that, know, everything's a bit different. So I think as long as you're doing being your best self, yourself, who you are, and you're getting your job done. Obviously, there is work things where you have to wear PPE and stuff like that and health and safety. But as long as you feel comfortable, and you feel great, and you're doing your best job, I think that could be in anything really.
Tom Rudnai (08:45)
Yeah, well, I think that's the key, that it's authenticity. And I think that's what the workplace in general is shifting towards a little bit. And that's starting to be reflected in our marketing. And that's what really cuts through is anything that feels a little bit more real, particularly as we were kind of hammered with things that very much aren't. I guess like, practically speaking, what have you found works? Because I always think this boring B2B marketing is one of those funny things that
Kelly Allen (09:01)
Yes.
Tom Rudnai (09:12)
Everyone hates yet everyone does and buys into so when you go into a company and try to break them out of the boring mindset like What are the roadblocks that you face and how do you overcome them in a way which sticks?
Kelly Allen (09:27)
That's really really good. So we obviously we use examples like a really strong thing that we do when we go in and we however when boring starts with we we always start with an order and we don't just I'm boring means I'm boring in all sorts of ways from like how is your revs up set up? How is your content distributed? How are you? How does your customer feel from the moment they start working be like I'd rather plug in turn and go crazy and spend loads of money at the front right? You mean I'm boring doesn't just messes in
necessarily
me and Sarah walking around, like we walk around with crazy branding to stand out. That doesn't necessarily mean we walk in and do that. What we try to do is like, how can you do break the unconventional? How can you do it in a better slick away? How can we take things, you know, there's so many beautiful things from B2C that we could really integrate into B2B that just makes that journey seamless, that sort of stuff, right? So like, I think everyone has a preconception that you start working with some we're up shots and stuff like that's not it. I'm boring is all about breaking the convention and how can we do better in any
situation and that could be from a HubSpot form being way slick. I do mean, we always look for that little coolness and everything. So yeah, we always come in and audit. What we also do is like real life examples. Now in cyber, we're really lucky. Now it's been very hard for the last 15 years of my career because there haven't been those real.
Cyber security was generally quite new. So you had the big boys that had always done it a certain way. So everyone was like, we're just going to copy that way because it's worked, even if you could see a decline or whatever, but our market's becoming more and more saturated. So it's becoming more kind of like a B2C. There's not like one great tool for email security. There's multiple now. Do you know what I mean? It's not where when, when cyber security started, it was new and there wasn't many people you could buy from. So they didn't have to buy into brand because there wasn't an
option, they were having to get advice and pick what was ever on the market. It's completely flipped since I've been in the industry and now people, the customers are now researching and there's multiple options. So now it's not a platform play or a price play. There's now a brand allegiance, customer service, customer experience. How well do you work with my team? Are you for an SMP, a smaller business or for an enterprise? mean, there's loads of more factors. So that's gone, that's audited and that's changed.
Brands
are really, really important. So we then, through the audit, will give examples of businesses that doing really well. Some top ones in our industry are things like Torque and Wiz. mean, Wiz just been bought by Google. So they do mad brand activation things. They've got huge personal brand personas in their company. So we've got really good case studies now, lot harder before. It was having to find people that were frustrated like us or understood maybe a bit of
risk taker in the personality of the ICP that we'd work with. And also really interesting for us to do is screenshot our clients content and website, remove all the logos and then do all their competitors and then put them on a board and ask if they can recognise their content from their competitor.
And that is such an interesting exercise in our industry because I don't think there's been one that slam dunked it. However, if I put up a picture of shoes, you could easily recognize a converse design to an adidas design to a Nike design.
very easily. And I think that's the thing that we're having to showcase to our clients. It's not a, can't do this, you're going to have to because as your customers looking at stuff, everything looks the same. So how do they make a decision of where to buy? So yeah, that's the way we go in and do it. And luckily, since we've been born, I think there must be an undercurrent of frustration in the industry, because the agency has been really well received. And luckily, it wasn't just me and Sarah.
grumbling in a coffee shop when we met.
Tom Rudnai (13:39)
Yeah, well makes sense that like you're saying things that you can take from B2C to B2B. Like, as a B2C brand, a lot of thought gets put into how you're going to stand out, right? What are we going to be known for? You wouldn't ever be willing to go to market with something at all undifferentiated. That's something I think a lot of B2Bs do a very bad job of. I think that's such an interesting exercise.
Kelly Allen (13:58)
Yeah.
yeah, it just really showcases it, know, like we can all really cleanly...
say what shoes we buy, what you know, for the women like, why do you buy Mac? And why do you buy like, it's, it's more than just the product, because they're all great foundations, there might be some that's got scientific stuff in, or maybe it's a skin tone thing. And that's a real niche, right? But generally, we're brought in to the brand, the feeling, the experience, maybe the influences they've used, afferentially, we want to be like that person.
you know loads of different things so and that's where i think b2b is missing that emotional energy and it's fun to be in b2b and being boring businesses because you just get to steal everything that's great that's going on to be to b2c i wouldn't say i'm a genius i just sit and watch what's going on in the b2c world and and i'm really interested i i'm pretty sure b2c don't call themselves b2c i don't know i've never been i've never worked on that side of the but i don't know do they sit in a meeting and go
we're B2C. I don't know, it's quite an interesting concept. I think it's only us that say we're B2B.
Tom Rudnai (15:11)
Yeah, well, I think they just think about how we can connect with humans, right? And that's something I think people are starting to catch on as being the goal for a B2B business still, but we tend to assume, I think, and we talked about this a bit the other day, think, that a business is a more rational actor than it actually is, right? We assume that we have to appeal to logic and reason, which I think is probably giving ourselves a little bit too much credit for how we make decisions, right? That's how we like to think we make decisions. It's not how we actually choose what to buy.
Kelly Allen (15:15)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tom Rudnai (15:43)
So
one thing that strikes me as you talk is there's a lot of focus on brand, right? And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you tend to operate within like relatively early stage businesses, kind of late seed series A. Is that correct? So how do you find, I think brand.
Kelly Allen (15:56)
Yep. So I'm boring kind of
has two modules. Sorry, I was gonna say I'm boring kind of has two modules. So the SM, SM, SME market, yes, start normally it's under resource. And that's where the under resource they don't have a marketing team or an expert to your CMO.
Tom Rudnai (16:03)
Sorry, after you.
Kelly Allen (16:16)
or they're under resourced in a territory, but that could be, they could be much bigger. They could be series B and they're looking to go into new territory. But yeah, kind of in that sweet spot. And it's normally someone looking for that plug and play marketing department. And we do work on projects with some people that are like, we want to explore doing video more, I'm boring or we want to explore. But yeah, normally when we come in and do the audit with every company we work with, it's really unlikely that brand doesn't come up.
as
as something to discuss rectify and it might not be and we're not talking about necessarily the logo itself. It could be the positioning, the messaging, how are you cutting through the noise? So it's not like we come in and necessarily like blow up a brand that someone's fallen in love with and it's their baby. It could be like, okay, but how do you stand out? What's your strap line? Who's your ideal customer persona? And it could be a lot of things like positioning and messaging. So I think everyone thinks of brand and they think the logo and the
palette. Yes, that is an element of it of course but generally it's just like a positioning and how are you standing out and...
you know, what imagery do we use to what beliefs do we stand by, know, are we a sustainable business? we what what's the business want to go back to and we try to drill into the original pain of why the business was actually created. Because normally a business in cyber is built by an incredible founder, genuinely quite technical or has found someone technical. They've been in the industry a while because there was a pain. And somehow, it gets so corporate that we live we miss the
original, what was the original ouch, what was the original pain and why did you build it and if we can drag that out in one sentence that normally is then the like there we go that's why this is going to market and that's what we're trying to sell to.
Tom Rudnai (18:10)
And I guess what I was going to ask that, do you get pushback on that? Because I think one thing I know a lot of CEOs who when you mentioned brand to them, they kind of recoil a little bit because they think hard to measure. They think very long term kind of wishy washy kind of marketing. Is that something that you encounter and how do you kind of go about repositioning a little bit how they view brand investment?
Kelly Allen (18:41)
So I think...
being called unboring, we're obviously not an agency for everyone. So I would say we're in a very lucky position that generally anyone that reaches out to us, sees our content, heard me and Sarah speak, has read something and gone, yeah, they're on the money. We want to work with them. have that pain. So I would say 99 % of the time someone comes to work with unboring, we don't have to convince them. They may not understand it. They may think it's quite a costly thing or things and there's stuff that
we need to show them or why we're doing it but generally when they work with us it's already done. In my old role as a CMO, yeah having to convince that to normally the FD more so is really hard I mean I remember
and he would laugh with me if he was on the call, I wanted to do personalised Christmas jumpers. Just fun ones to go out to our customers, you make them feel great, rather than getting, you know, that awful corporate hamper that everyone gets and gets divided around the office, etc. I was like, let's do some really fun Christmas jumpers. I think it was the year that Elf was massive at Asda, do you know what I I was like, let's go mad with that. And I remember being in the board meeting and they were like, so what was the ROI with that?
And I did a joke, I was a bit cheeky and mocked up the jumpers and put in the label, what's the ROI with this? And then sent it to him saying, look, it's there in every jumper. So I've always been that one, like a little bit of a poking. So, but as I've got mature, I've learned that you have to have the data, you have to have things to back and it has to be trackable. So I would argue, something like that.
You'd want to see like customer churn, you'd want to see impact on renewal rates. You'd want to see you'd want something to happen post that whether that was inviting them to an event, whether that was they were getting more information. So to have the adult conversations about brand awareness, brand awareness impacts so many things like brand awareness impacts recruitment. Like if you're a really cool brand, it's much easier to recruit and keep people and for people to be proud of their team. So we could talk to HR and
look at that and how that processes and are we lowering costs and not having to lose talent agents, that sort of stuff. You can look at like customer churn, loyalty, are they becoming brand ambassadors? Are our reviews going up, et cetera, et cetera. You can, you know, a bid advocate of sitting on demos and in like live feeding kind of like the feedback loop of what's happening on a demo call. If they're mentioning that I saw you at this or I did this and this or et cetera, et cetera, you can
You can do that. I mean, even with just me and Sarah, we have unboring jackets. We come up with different designs for different events that we go to. We went to like the ideas fest last week and we actually, someone came up to us and was like, my God, you're the unboring girls from our jackets. Now, it's very hard to track. However, you know, we've got a meeting with that person that's booked in and we've now created our own lead source from product placement and brand recognition.
recognition.
So I think it's just having a system of tracking and thinking a bit broader. And the you know, I'm a big fan of Chris Walker, who was at Refine Labs. And I think it's shifting from this like gated MQL to like signals of intent. And is someone showing interest and how many places can the brand be seen to give signals and intent?
Also, I did a post this week on LinkedIn about new job roles that are coming out and they're like the community job role, know, big salaries to build community. Well, I don't think you can force someone to be part of a community. I don't think Taylor Swift like force people to become Swifties. Like we, people love her because she's a marketing machine. She's a brand. People afferentially want to be her. Like my daughter loves Taylor Swift. I don't think she can name more than two.
songs but she will advocate that she's a Swiftie she has all the bracelets you buy everything about it she wants a Taylor Swift birthday party like that's a massive thing you know like Taylor Swift isn't played in my house I'm not a huge Swiftie so I don't think you can force someone to become a community I think people understand it and can see that and they can see that it's happened in B2C you know with like hules with the hooligans and stuff but that's because people buy into the brand they buy into the founders they bow into the story and they buy
into the mission and there is something collective that all those people want to be together, very similar to Gymshark, they couldn't launch these Gymshark days and get people all weightlifting together or whatever, know, all the things they're doing, unless all those people have this common reason of wanting to be together. So I think B2B have to catch up with branding because you don't fall in love with a business based on a white paper, in my opinion.
Tom Rudnai (23:44)
So I mean, I completely agree. think, so as markets have got more saturated, it's something that you have to do to stand out a little bit more. I also think that branding, it's just misinterpreted a lot. Branding is often seen as like the big headline grabbing activation that you do that you don't like. We went and we ran a TV ad and now we're doing brand. Like what branding to me actually means is what you said. It's positioning, it's messaging, it's thinking, okay, what's our content IP? What do we want to be known for? What's our unique?
perspective on the market. I think that's one of the first things you do at marketing. It then becomes a little bit more how do we execute and communicate that and run campaigns that get that across. And then, okay, much later in your circle, maybe there is a place for the traditional brand type activations that people do. I guess one...
Kelly Allen (24:34)
Yeah, you just have to those foundational things right because then how do you decide what events are you exhibiting at?
What if you haven't got those bits, right? I just think it makes it life so much harder and it's kind of a bit more scrappy of what decisions you're making. Whereas if someone approaches you to exhibit an event and you know your ICP, you know your positioning, you know what you stand for, you know what's your best location. Maybe you know, oh, actually we do really, really well up north. Like what would, why would we go down to Southwest now? You could make decisions based on that without a clear strategy and direction, which does come from brand. I think that's really hard to execute.
I think it's like your non-negotiables. It's your North Star and where is the business going? So I would personally, it's not about the money thing and how splashy your brand is and where it is. I would see it as your North Star guide of your business for every other decision you make.
Tom Rudnai (25:27)
Yeah, well, I guess one thing you've said is that you're lucky, your brand actually serves as a qualifier for the people that you speak to, and that means that you don't have to do the hard yards of persuading them of all of this, really. What would your advice be? Let's say I'm a head of marketing at a series A, series B SaaS company. I'm not that lucky. My CEO doesn't quite get that. What advice would you give to me to kind of make the case?
Kelly Allen (25:36)
Yeah.
I think I learned really quickly in my career is that the bits that marketing people really really care about generally is too in-depth for the board and all they want to see is that the business is going in the right direction are we hitting targets are we following the strategy that's been set by the CEO
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean they're necessarily going to care about the intricacies of a viral video or whatever, etc. That they want to just see, you pushing the needle? Is it moving in the right direction? my biggest learning and why I've definitely partnered with Sarah is like data. If I'm being honest as a creative was my worst, like I just knew I went on gut and emotion and on all these sorts of stuff. So first of all, I would get really into
data. If you're not great at data, find someone that is someone that's rev up someone that can back you someone that can prove it because you can't deny data and you can't deny facts and you can't deny and then find loads of different signaling points that you can track.
I'll be really candid, I think a lot of the targets, MQLs, that sort of stuff that we get put on is more built by the Martech things to prove that the Martech's working. So you might wanna build your own systems, some of your own spreadsheets to back some of the stuff that you're saying because there's things like dark social, other stuff that's going on that...
can't be tracked, just stuff that you can do. Even if like I used to speak to my sales guys and if they've got like a really nice email back because we'd sent something like a welcome pack, I'd screenshot it and then put it all together and then show the pipeline growth of that customer just to use it as a case study in future to be like this is why we send welcome packs, this is why we send Christmas gifts, that sort of thing.
If you don't have that, I would probably look for people that have already done it, aspirational businesses, people that your CEO board investors respect, because then you can say, look, this is what I wanna do. This is how they've done it. This is their figures and that's how I'm gonna replicate it. So if you haven't got the data, find a way of showing that. And yeah, I think there's some great resources, great books.
Rory Sutherland is a great way of just showing that sometimes it's just nonsense to why marketing works and sometimes it doesn't. Nike's a really good one. They've got, you know, they have like a budget just to experiment and they know sometimes it's not gonna work. Like that's a really hard thing to get signed off. But I think if you could get buy-in education, even if it's just trying to go with your finance director and your CEO and sometimes you go to some marketing events so that they can talk your language or they can understand but.
Find a way to communicate what you're trying to express in a language that they understand.
because if you can't do that and they can't get on the journey with you, that's really, really hard. And I'm not saying that's easy, but yeah, that would be my biggest tip because yeah, if you start going in there of like, oh, I want to do this and this and I want to, you know, brand up a taco shop and da da da and they're like, what, what, what, what? But if you can show evidence, give proof why, you know, even, even if you're like, I don't know, you do like a survey on your customers and you identify that 95 % of them love Mexican food.
then you've got data of why you're running it. always back yourself, always back yourself, find a way to back yourself. And if you can't find it in the data that you've got, either find it in research, find it in where it is somewhere else, or use a case study that already exists. And ideally in B2C, because there isn't many in B2B.
Tom Rudnai (29:30)
Yeah, I think what you're describing is that there's a translation job, right? As a marketer, you're an expert in marketing, you understand marketing metrics and the impact that they have. And so you can look at leading KPIs and it's kind of intuitive to understand, okay, we're seeing this at the top of the funnel that will filter through. It's kind of, need to understand that that isn't how everyone thinks and there's no reason why it should be. So there is a job to translate your expertise into their world. And if you want to bring them along and you need to bring them along, then,
Kelly Allen (29:39)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Rudnai (29:57)
then that's something, yeah, that's just something that you have to spend, devote time to and potentially get help with, right? Because I think that was, there were a couple of things in there that I really liked, but one of them was that you don't have to be the expert. There are tools out there to help you and there are people that can help you. Marketing is part art and part science. Actually, I don't necessarily want the person who does both because...
I want the person with extreme strengths. I want extreme strength in both camps, right? And that often is gonna come from a couple of people. So it's knowing what part is yours as well.
Kelly Allen (30:29)
Yeah, just know what's your zone of genius and what isn't. Understand that marketing...
cannot be separated. You can't have all the creative and none of the data. You got to have both. If you're like me and you want to sit in the mess of creative and be, you know, ideas and it comes to you in a shower and you know, you're playing with fabrics and stuff like that. I love a creative, please bring them over to our industry because that's so important. However, find someone that can help you. Like I befriended the FD, I probably found him he found me very annoying, but I was like, right, how do I show this in a spreadsheet? How do I show that? What is this data telling me? I really
friended the sales director, my old sales director who I'm still connected with.
what's the problem here? And it would be like, we've got a data drop rate, what's happening with the data? Why are our demos not converting? So I'd sit on a demo. Okay, well, it's not great, is it? It's not very seamless, how they log in is not fun, you know, all these sort of things, like, become sales best friends too, like, it's not you versus them. It's a baton and you're feeding each other. So like, definitely get friendly with your team. Get friendly with finance. Like, once someone becomes a customer, what does the invoice
always
look like that lands on their inbox. Does that look the same as the experience they had with you in a local event? If not, you probably need to consider that. And that goes back to brand. Brand doesn't just stop at the front, big, francy front end. It's got all the way of the through. How is that experience all the way through for B2B?
Tom Rudnai (32:00)
Okay, so that's really interesting because I think that was where I wanted to go next is it's all very well and good saying at a strategic level, we're going to make marketing fun and we've got some people in who are helping us to do that. I think the challenge often is getting that to trickle down into the day to day. And I think there's two things that are hard, right? It's getting it to trickle horizontally because as you say, the brand isn't just what you do in marketing, it needs to filter through to other things and also vertically because it's easy to have a strategy around.
It's a lot harder when you're into the mundane elements of day to day executing, putting out content to keep it fun. So I guess, because it's where you went, let's look horizontally first. Like how do you go about necessarily influencing the elements of the business that aren't directly under your domain and helping to entrench your brand into those?
Kelly Allen (32:53)
I that's where I always go back to this brand audit and getting the brand right in the North Star and it's not just about a logo, it's just about...
How do we articulate? How do we turn up as a team? How do we work as a team? How do we want to feel as a team? How does we execute as a team? What does that feel like look like from the way we dress, the way we talk, how we interact? Like every person that works for your company is an extension of your brand. And I'm obsessed with that. Like, you know, one bad phone call, one terrible email, anything like that can cock up. Doesn't matter how hard marketing's worked at the front. If you have a really poor experience further down the chain, there's not much
marketing
can do at that point, right? Like, unfortunately, a bad experience we all know is far worse than a great one. So, and how it's dealt with, right? Like, you people, you make mistakes, but how do you deal with it, right? Especially in cybersecurity. So I think for me, it comes back to getting that right.
people being proud of their brand, if they're proud of their brand and who they work for, and they want the business to do well, and they want it to succeed, I don't think people come and do a mundane job. I think when you're so bought into it, you want that business to do well, you're proud of that business to do well, you believe in the service that you're offering or the product. So I think that stems from CEO, Mission, Northstar, where's the brand, what's it going? It then stems into HR,
that and making sure, know, like even like you're onboarding, if you're onboarding a company's fricking boring, you've started off wrong already, haven't you? Like if it's great and it's engaging and you make that person feel fun and what's the welcome pack they get and how do they feel like that extension of the brand, you know, with personal branding, you know, when someone starts for your company, you really want them to put a great post about I'm working here. Look at what I got. This is the training that I offer. Like they offer. I love my job. Like that's great. I mean,
I mean, and also, you can see the success of those sort of things with like, going back to the Dario CFO, but things like Grace Andrews, you know, who's been there for like, for a while, grew it, grew her own personal brand. Now look where she's going. Like that's how people operate now.
So think yeah, brand has to extend all the way through. And again, I'll go back to it. It's a team sport. Everyone's got to be part of it. That, if HR is not aligned to how we onboard people and how it feels, if finance don't want to send an invoice in a way that you would say is how it would be received by your company, you're a bit broken. So that's why I'm so big on getting this foundational bit so right. Because I think if that's right, you ornately hire the right people too. I don't imagine Gymshark has anyone working for them that's not.
into the gym. I might be completely wrong, but the perk is they have a gym in the office, isn't it? Like the perks are they get merchandise and stuff for that and gym gear.
I'm not saying that they're like bodybuilders, but I'm imagining everyone in there enjoys exercise, enjoys community, enjoys doing something as a team. And that's an extension of their brand. Whether they meant to do that on purpose or not, it's just happened, hasn't it? So, you know, I just think if your brand's right, you hire the right people and then it's a rollout impact. Is that answering your question?
Tom Rudnai (36:09)
Yeah, it's interesting because I
guess you have I guess what I'm imagining there's a lot of kind of marketing leaders listening to this who are sat there thinking, okay, this is all sounds great. But what you like the prerequisite is executive button, right? You have to have it because it starts at the top and you're saying it needs to feed through every element of what you do. It kind of reflects something I think a lot. I think in the context of content marketing specifically, just because it's more relevant to what we do, but
I think it's very relevant here as well. What marketers, marketers core skillset is building a narrative, right? Around the brand, around a particular message that all is directed externally typically.
And I think what you're saying is there's a lot of opportunity and it's a much bigger requirement than a lot of people recognise to start directing that to how you craft a narrative and a story and a feeling internally as well, because that will project outwards. guess, there practical things that you've seen work really well to go and start achieving that from day one that maybe if you've kind of gone down the wrong path a little bit can bring you back? And like, what's the first step?
Kelly Allen (37:20)
So what if you were in a content role about how you'd want to bring it back and make it more exciting or is that what you're
Tom Rudnai (37:25)
I guess
marketing more broadly, but maybe you're someone who's not coming in as a consultant working directly with the CEO, you're in-house and you want to start taking steps towards this, but you maybe don't have to buy in immediately to go and change everything across the whole organization. How do you start?
Kelly Allen (37:33)
Yes.
listen, sit in every meeting like you don't know anything and just listen. would ask, I would like said, start befriending someone in each department and just learn how they're doing it, what they do and how marketing might be able to ease some of that pain. you know, sales, they have to do a lot of outreach, they have to send things, you could sit there and befriend, I don't know.
an SDR, a BDM and they'd be like, oh God, you know, I'm really struggling to get engagement. And you could go, why don't we work out a LinkedIn campaign for you? Why don't we build your personal brand? Let's record some videos on my lunch break. Let's start putting video into your outreach. Let's la la la la la la la, how you'd wanna do it and test roll it.
And you could speak to the sales director and go back and just make sure that they're happy that obviously don't upset anyone. And then you can just use one person as a case study. If you couldn't see that that BDM's outreach improved by X, the number of demos they put by X and it was because you did X, Y and Z, then you can make the argument of like, could you imagine if we did that on every salesperson profile? And then you just have to move the needle a little bit.
And I would always say move the needle in sales is the quickest way to get people to be like, yes. Or if finance is struggling to, I don't know, get people to fill their details in to be invoiced, I don't know, something like that. If there's some sort of friction, is there a way that marketing can make it cooler? Could it be a 30 second explainer video of, hi, this is why we need your details. If you just feel it, feel it, otherwise, finance are gonna email you quite a few times. So we recommend you just do it now. Do you know just a little bit more playful.
feel a little bit more human. Here's a few easy, easy steps. Also a downloadable PDF if anything doesn't make sense. If not, Jane in Finance is always ready to jump on a call if you've got any problems. It's just warmer, isn't it? just, anywhere that you can remove friction to get money into the business quicker, free marketing, I would do that. I would pick a pain and try and fix it because then you can see a result and you can go to someone.
look, I've done this, how could I roll it out on a bigger scale? Because it's hard to move a whole shift like a ship, right? But if you can plug one hole or improve one thing from your content, or a marketing idea, then great, I would do that. And just be like, be really hungry, put your hands up, go, so and so has dropped out of being at an event. can I be there? and can I video some content? I would really like to interview some of the attendees. Would you mind me doing that? No, yeah, actually, great. Like, don't wait for it to happen.
saying like you want something to happen like make it happen for you because yeah everyone's busy everyone's doing their own jobs it's not that they don't care about marketing but sometimes you just go put yourself out there
Tom Rudnai (40:31)
I think that's such good advice because I think it's so easy to be and I've had jobs before where you kind of you bang your head against a brick wall trying to make grand change and then eventually throw your hands up and say, well, I couldn't what I think what a lot of people don't do is start small and think about how we can take slow steps toward change, kind of plot a strategic path to what we want the change that I want to see. But again, it is we act completely differently externally to internally, you would never go and expect to walk into another company as a sales rep or something like
that you want them to make a change and kind of do it all in one you would be a lot more deliberate and strategic in how you go about it we just we interact very differently with our own our own environment and our own company for some reason I guess
Kelly Allen (41:16)
Yeah, yeah.
It's mad, isn't it? But yeah, I would find one small thing. You know, it's like, doing the renovation of a house. Like you can't do it all at once. You've not got all the finance. So what's the biggest impact that you can make?
right now while you're living in it or something. You know, like what can make your life a little bit better? You know, it's going into winter. If you haven't got heating, probably do that first, right? That's going to make life a little bit warmer or a little bit better. Like you can't fix it all at once. So what can you do that just makes that needle move a little bit forward? And I feel like that's...
If you do that in bite size and say, I'm gonna focus out on a month, I'm gonna move that for a needle. It makes work much more manageable. If you zoom out and go, God, our brand's wrong and our website's wrong and our messaging's wrong and our position, like you're gonna drown. And even with, I'm boring, like, God, the website needs redoing and our pitches aren't great and all they need is designing. But just gonna keep moving the needle, pick what's the next thing you're gonna back up. And no one's perfect. Nothing's ever perfect in marketing. You can always do better. So if you get frustrated with that, that that's gonna be really
difficult but if you're just moving it you know like consistency just keep going
Tom Rudnai (42:24)
Yeah, it's something that helped me know when just with building the business. think it's very easy when you're building a startup, don't just it's not just that the change that you need to create is so insurmountable. None of it's there in the first place and that can be quite overwhelming. And what really helped us is just breaking everything down into one week sprints and me and my co-founder, we meet every week on a Thursday. We agree on what's the most useful thing each of us can do that week. Try not to be too ambitious because then you kind of you get whole new stresses and you just keep doing that week on week. And what we found is that we've moved
things a hell of a lot further forward in that seemingly slower, more methodical way than we would have otherwise. I wanna ask one more question before I get into a couple of quick fires, which has actually occurred to me and as I was looking through your socials through this. And I was like, this is so intimidating. Cause it's fun. Every single post that you do is fun. And I'm like, okay, I think one day a week I'm in the mood to do that.
Kelly Allen (43:12)
I'm like, what the
Tom Rudnai (43:19)
what I would find really difficult is on my bad days, still being fun, because I don't feel fun. And I think probably if I felt that, then a lot of people do. Like, how do you make sure that you're still fun on your bad days?
Kelly Allen (43:19)
Hmm.
Ha. So I'll be honest, I set a target when we started the business that I would post Monday to Friday every single day for a year, measure the metrics, see how that works. So that's what I've set to myself as a goal. My business partner, absolutely not. She's quite comfortable with three days a week. She doesn't wanna do that. But I was like, no, I'm gonna do that. I wanna do that. I'm gonna do that.
It's similar to going to the gym if I'm being honest. I'll wake up in the morning and I'm like, no, absolutely not. No, I can't be bothered. I've got nothing interesting to say. I'm really struggling. And I even did one post of like, I tried 10 times to record a video and nothing came out. Here's some screenshots of what didn't come out. Cause I had nothing to say. And actually people really quite like that. So I think you can be vulnerable. You could put a post of like, I have nothing fun to say. Like that's what my day is like.
But I think my biggest thing that I've learned from it is something that you think is really stupid or really easy or really obvious isn't to someone else. So if you've learned a knack of something or you've realised that Canva can do this now or, if I put this prompt into AI, that's amazing. Yes, there may be someone way better at Canva or AI than you. Sure, there'll be an expert. But there'll be someone in your audience that'll be like, that's cool. I didn't know that.
People really engage with the books that I've read this month. Like never thought that would be a big thing, but people seem to really like that. I did a post about how it looks like I'm on LinkedIn all the time, but I'm not really, and this is how I do it. I save stuff. I save a lot of posts that I like that I find engaging, and then I remix it into why did I find that engaging and how could I share it to my audience? I look outside of...
just linked in, I'll go on to different feeds. My husband's really great. He'll send me stuff like, have you seen this? This is really cool. It's like having someone that's got your back to send you stuff is really great. I've built my own personalised, on chat GPT, know your own personalised GPTs. I've built one like that so it's learned a lot of languages. We start in the morning and I'll go hit me and come up with some good ideas and what we're thinking today and I'll play with it like that. I read books, highlight stuff and
put things down and just keep it like a journal, like, you know, tags of things that I could write. And it's just, yeah, I guess it's like muscle memory. It's got to the point of like, you know, like we're really good people going to the gym and you know, they keep going every day, even if they can't be bothered. I guess that's kind of my similar thing. And for us, you know, nearly 90 % of our business comes direct through LinkedIn. So if I'm having a bad day, I have to just think.
could be someone that misses seeing something that I've seen today. Like me and you are talking today because of LinkedIn. This wouldn't be happening if I hadn't posted on LinkedIn. So I guess when you're having that bad day, just think there could be someone that really needs to hear what you've got to say. And it could be a most missed opportunity, whether that's a new job, whether that's connecting with someone, whether that's falling in love, maybe, I don't know, like someone might need to hear or see something. So I just think.
It's just muscle memory, it's momentum. It's a bit like stocks and shares. You put like the money in each month and it barely goes up, but you know, it's gradually going up. I just think it's that. you never know. Honestly, you never know who's watching. And that's the biggest take back I can say from this. But people reach out and I think, God, I didn't even think you know who I was or I existed. And yeah, they are. And they are watching, even if they're not liking or commenting. I think that's another thing. Just don't worry about it. Like don't log in the next day and go, I only got four likes.
Just don't worry, people do scroll and they look at it and that's not what it's about. It's about if someone looks you up, there's loads of content and you're giving loads of free value and why someone would work with you. So I think that's, if that's in a nutshell, yeah, just even on a bad day, just think that could be a missed opportunity.
Tom Rudnai (47:32)
Nice, yeah, that's really good advice. think that's a very nice note to end on. So let's stop there and get into a couple of quick files. We've got five minutes, we'll see what we can get through. First one, what is an AI case, yeah, what's an AI case that you absolutely love?
Kelly Allen (47:48)
Oh God, um, an AI case that I absolutely, I think, I think just like as in marketing or I mean for me, I think AI for me.
Tom Rudnai (47:51)
I've put that on you a little bit, haven't I?
Sorry, yeah,
a tool or a use case or something that's just blown your mind a little bit.
Kelly Allen (48:03)
there's so many of what people are doing. Like, I think for me, it's just taken so much of the grunt work or the hard graph work out of marketing. And I think from research data, like to be a startup now in a world of AI is so exciting. Like video production that you can do, Canva that can make you stuff, imagery that you can create it like back in the day when I started.
the photo shoots that you'd have to pay to create the images that you can now. So I think there is multiple reasons of why AI is amazing and a great world to be in marketing and to be a startup. But my big caveat on that is that AI does the grunt work. You still need a human touch. You're still gonna need a photographer and a graphic designer. So I think it just enhanced and makes us go faster. I don't think AI is the be all and end all for marketing. Don't freak out, you're not gonna lose your job.
Tom Rudnai (48:57)
Nice, okay good. And then, for you personally, is there a skill or a trait that you think has been the biggest needle mover in your career?
Kelly Allen (49:12)
I think I'm just curious by nature and I always ask why and if you ask any of my team that's ever worked with me anything we ever did I used to just sit there and go cool but why does the customer give a fuck like is that Ferrari girl for yours so I think yeah I'm a bit of a poker bear I always push and I always sit in what I would
think is the customer's position. But yeah, curious by nature. And always put my hand up to give a go on something even if I thought I couldn't do it. yeah, and I think, and I think I, although I come across quite chatty, that's coming out of my shell. So I do have to push myself quite a bit to do that. So connection, and that's a lot of things. But yeah, I think being a people person and being curious.
Tom Rudnai (50:04)
Yeah, I think that's two things that come out in interviewing a lot of leaders on the show is like curiosity about people, but also like a deep desire to know why they're doing something, right? They hate the idea of...
Kelly Allen (50:16)
you
Tom Rudnai (50:17)
Like I was giving this piece of work and that's why I have to do it. Like, no, I want to know why I want to know what we're doing before and up before to decide this is worth doing and what we do after to use it. And that if you kind of get that mindset, you will find that you kind of climb. And then we'll say last one is, and I know we had a quick chat about this before, so I think it's a good answer. If I were to give you like carte blanche tomorrow to do one thing and the way I think of this is like the thing that your CEO would never
ever actually be stupid enough to give you the budget for in reality, what would you do?
Kelly Allen (50:54)
as my co-owner Sarah. I mean, Sarah actually is luckily the finance controller because if she wasn't in the business, I would do loads of mad stuff. But yeah, I was saying to you before we jumped on the call, have you seen The Wizard of Oz and their takeover at the Sphere? I would love to do that in some immersive experience as well, like smell, sight, visual, something like incredibly unboring to just...
Yeah, if there's anyone out there that has the budget in cyber security and wants to achieve that with me, then yeah, that would be an absolute dream. But I sometimes like the underdog though, and not having much budget. And what impact can you make on a shoestring is kind of more fun. Because when you've got everything, it's like you should make an impact. Do know what I mean? Like if you've got that much money, you should.
So, but yeah, if you put the money in my bank and I was working with a client, I'd go Glasgow mad, let's take over Vegas or yeah, let's just put on a musical that's themed or I don't know, something like that, just something just really, yeah, an experience of some sense.
Tom Rudnai (52:08)
Nice, I can imagine you've had to get used to not having budget because as you can say, I reckon you're a dangerous person to give budget to. I think you do things that would give a CFO a heart attack.
Kelly Allen (52:12)
yeah.
I am,
I am. But like if I've got an idea and I know I've not got the budget, I would always find a route around it. I will always find a way to do it in a way around it or I'll, you know, yeah, I'll find some way of doing it. But I think if you go to the aspirational big and then work away of doing that on your budget, that's also quite fun. Like, is there a way of doing that in a cool streamlined way that still does the same impact but isn't that much fun? But yeah. yeah.
I love marketing. I love everything about it.
Tom Rudnai (52:48)
Yeah, okay, awesome.
Very last question before I let you go. One recommendation for people, whether it's like a book or a podcast or a thought leader that they should check out.
Kelly Allen (53:02)
Ooh, I'm just thinking what books have I got in front of me. If it's a book, I love Rory Sutherland. Anything to do with Rory Sutherland, I would definitely read. Podcasts of marketing specifically, The Nudge is really good. That's a really good one that I was sponsored by Hubbs, but that's a really good one. But yeah, and I would just start joining communities. Like if you're looking to get into marketing or you're looking to expand your career,
There's like, you know, pretty little marketeer. There's like girls in marketing. There's lots of things like that, different organisations that you can join. And like that's what I said about being curious, like expand your network, do as many free courses as possible, have a clowat vibe coding, play with AI. You're not gonna break anything. And then you might find something that you really love and that you really enjoy. yeah, just have fun. Marketing's meant to be fun. So enjoy it.
Tom Rudnai (53:58)
Awesome. Good note to end on. Cool. Kelly, I've loved this. Thank you very much for joining and everyone who's listening, thank you. Thank you for listening this far.
Kelly Allen (54:02)
Thank you.