[00:00:00] Kacie: I really don't appreciate being asked to prove, and to devote hours and tons of money, to proving that I do in fact know how to do my job. in the areas where we trust and know that we're doing the right thing for the right reasons We're just going to do that. I'm not going to dedicate a whole lot of time for us To prove out that that was the right thing to do when we're taking swings and i'm making bets and i'm taking risks That's when we try and build in tracking and reporting that's going to show us over time. [00:00:30] What this did, and so I'm careful with where I'm telling the team, you have to prove the value of, of what you're doing. [00:01:00] Phil: What's up everyone. Today, we have the pleasure of sitting down with Kacie Jenkins, senior vice president of marketing at Sendoso. [00:01:11] About Kacie --- [00:01:11] Phil: Kacie started her career as a recording artist for six years, where she recorded and released two top 30 singles on country radio, she transitioned to fandom as a marketing manager. [00:01:21] Where she helped build and scale entertainment and gaming communities. She then shifted to consumer tech and worked at Roku, where she helped take their streaming sticks to market. She later joined Fastly wherein they were still a tiny startup and she was eventually promoted to VP of marketing while helping them scale to 200 million in AR and a massive IPO. [00:01:41] Along the way, she moved on to a few other VP of marketing stints at Ace hotel and then Sourcecraft. Today, Kacie is senior vice president of marketing at Sendoso, the top gifting and direct mail platform for revenue teams. Kacie, thanks so much for your time today. Really excited to chat. I [00:01:57] Kacie: Thank you for having me, Phil. I'm such a big fan of your [00:02:00] podcast. [00:02:00] ​ [00:02:00] Phil: [00:03:00] appreciate you doing this, especially during your, your PTO. Uh, it's just, uh, sending you a quick email this morning and I got your out of office response that you were reading a book somewhere along the river. So definitely [00:04:00] appreciate your time here. I spent a lot of time. Preparing for this by going through some of your LinkedIn posts. [00:04:06] Um, you're an awesome creative writer on LinkedIn and, uh, someone, uh, that I've enjoyed following for the last like year or so, um, but [00:04:13] Why Marketing Needs to Break Free from Last Touch Attribution --- [00:04:13] Phil: your most popular posts on LinkedIn, um, let's start there. Maybe it was putting last touch attribution to shame. Uh, you compared last touch to things like dating and getting a new job and winning a marathon. [00:04:26] So I wanted to start off there by just letting you go on a little rant about last touch attribution, if you want. [00:04:33] Kacie: Oh my, uh, lots of feelings on this subject. Uh, I think, you know, one of the ways that I use LinkedIn is to just kind of test out and feel out, you know, Does something that I care about, or that I'm thinking about resonate with more people than just me. And, um, I think just from, you know, the, the engagement we saw with that particular topic, it really hit a nerve, [00:05:00] um, last attribution and attribution in general. [00:05:03] I think. You talk about this a lot, um, on the podcast, but, uh, I, I think that marketers have in, in a lot of ways sort of, um, been boxed and also boxed ourselves into a corner a bit, um, in terms of, uh, how we're measuring and talking about success when it comes to marketing and go to market, um, My post was sort of like a little outburst because I have talked to, I talked to many, many customers and prospects. [00:05:35] Um, every month I'm talking to, um, to everyone that I can possibly have a conversation with to try and figure out, you know, what do they need? What are their pains? What are they dealing with? Were they blocked? Um, and this comes up in pretty much every conversation. I'm not kidding. Um, and I had had one, one specific conversation right before I posted this with someone who had been told by their finance team. [00:05:59] I can't even say this with a [00:06:00] straight face. Um, that they could not duplicate marketing efforts. And so every single touch point had to be separate. They could not have more than one marketing touch point Per account or per opportunity, which is [00:06:15] Phil: What? [00:06:16] Kacie: a impossible B non sense like I don't understand how you would ever think that that made any sense and they were struggling Backwards then to try and segment out everything so that only one tactic was applied uh, you know like at a time And nothing was integrated or layered which is fundamentally broken. [00:06:39] Um, and so I just had a little outburst, but I I think that um, You know, I've, I've been in marketing for a long time, and when I started, uh, I was, I was asked to judge my own success this way as well. I don't think there's really any other department in a company that is asked to prove themselves repeatedly [00:07:00] in this manner. [00:07:01] Over and over again. No one really ever goes. I'm not really sure if sales does anything or if it works sales probably doesn't work Can you every day every week prove to us that we should have a sales team? Um at all, um same with customer experience and support. No one's like Does this even matter? Can you prove to us that this should products, we don't know if we should have this team. [00:07:26] We're the only ones why I, you know, and I think, you know, we are misunderstood and the last touch attribution, you know, the post that I wrote was like, If you apply this to literally anything else, you can see how nonsensical it is. Like, you're not falling in love with someone on the very first text, you know, from, from the dating app that you're using, or in the very, very last touch point before you get married to them. [00:07:56] Like that's not how things work in um, and someone [00:08:00] I'm not actually a hockey person So I just want to call that out so that you don't think i'm a i'm a liar Um, but I was talking to someone about sports and I was like this is not really how sports work either Right, you know like there's such such encouragement and And support around collaboration as a team and one team and everyone is contributing to the win Um, and you know, I've I watched the david beckham documentary, right? [00:08:26] Like he was getting in trouble for being like the individual contributor that was getting all the credit and the points for the goal at the end Um, and in hockey they you actually explained a lot more about this to me, but they're measuring so much more than the end result Um Which makes a ton of sense, uh, and, you know, the, the, the cis gets just as much credit as, as the, as the win or the, the, the goal and, um, This is how I like to think about marketing is that I can't go into any [00:09:00] company where the product is not solid. [00:09:02] The sales team isn't firing on all cylinders. The customer's experience is not excellent. Um, we back up our actions and our, in our words with great, trustworthy, credible support. Um, and. Uh, you know, the business itself is focused and has strong leadership. There are so many things that contribute to our ability to craft what we call brand, um, or to be a good marketer. [00:09:29] I can't go in and magically make all of those things happen. They have to happen collectively. Right. And, um, And it's just so ridiculous for, you know, the amount of interviews I've had, you know, before I was at this job and in the past where I go into an interview, the CEO is like, either they're saying, I really don't think marketing actually should exist. So I'd like to hire you to prove to me that it should, uh, in which case I'm [00:10:00] just like, no, thank you. No, thanks. I, I don't enjoy that. Um, and, or they're saying everything else in our entire business is perfect except marketing. And we just need you to come in and fix marketing because that will be the silver bullet that makes this company somehow successful. [00:10:19] Turn right side, right? And, and it will, it will just scale exponentially if you could just figure out how to capture the demand that we're sure is there. Um, and they're both so flawed, but I think we, we have boxed ourselves into this corner by saying, yes, I will take that job. Yes, I will do that in the way that you're asking me to. [00:10:39] Sure. I will try, you know, and you know, there are a lot of reasons why we've agreed to do those things. We've been under insane pressure. Job market's hard. Um, You know, CMOs get and marketing leaders get cycled through more often than any other leadership position. Uh, and so we've been, you know, putting these horrible [00:11:00] positions where we're actually making it worse for ourselves because we're agreeing to do things in ways we know won't work and to do things we know won't work. [00:11:07] We don't believe in, um, and I, you know, last touch attribution or first touch attribution, however you want to do it, um, can certainly be informative. Uh, but I think the way it's been used, it's, it's been abused to, to tilt marketing into this, like, Demand capture, like hack, hack human buying, you know, like, uh, growth hacking and like marketing shouldn't take this long, it should take five seconds and you should be able to generate all of this demand tomorrow. [00:11:40] Um, and you know, anything that doesn't show up in a way that can be super easily and quickly tracked, um, by finance is getting thrown out the window. And we saw a lot of this over the last few. Uh, months and years where we've been through the pandemic, pressure got tighter, uh, and, and [00:12:00] people, uh, CEOs and. [00:12:03] CFO started cutting brand and started cutting all of the beautiful, you know, integrated pieces that make marketing work and then saw it down the line tank and then fired their CMO and started all over again. And I took a lot of those interviews, you know, and I heard the same story over and over again. [00:12:24] I was like. You did that to yourself. Your CMO didn't do that. [00:12:29] Phil: Oh, Kacie, there's so many amazing jumping off points and, and that answer and a ton of wisdom. Like I feel, I feel the frustration that is kind of like underlying your answer there, especially around the, why is marketing the team that needs to prove. The impact that we're having, like finance doesn't have to do that. [00:12:50] Like HR doesn't have to do that. When did marketing become this department where we need to assign a dollar to every [00:13:00] single thing that we do? It's, it's made the job a lot trickier for sure. And I totally echo with the other thing that you said around like marketing is a team sports and like, it's not just marketing. [00:13:12] That's going to Like get us to our goals. Like it's a good product, it's a good customer experience, it's sales, it's support. Like it's, it's a whole go to market effort. Right. And, um, but yeah, I want to, [00:13:26] What’s the Best Way to Prove What Drives Revenue in Marketing? --- [00:13:26] Phil: I want to go back to your point about hockey because, um, I, I don't get a chance to, to chat about hockey a lot on the show here, but it is such a cool. [00:13:34] Analogy to the last touch attribution. Um, like you get an equal point for a goal and an assist. And, um, I think that like one metric that has picked up steam in recent years is secondary assists in, in hockey. So there's usually two assists with a goal. It's like that first pass, the second pass, and then the goal itself. [00:13:55] But studies have shown that the primary assist, the last touch, so to speak, [00:14:00] is way more valuable in a sense, because it's more repeatable year over year. But like in hockey today, we have a ton of data. Like you said, like we're tracking zone entries and possession and high danger scoring chances and like expected goals. [00:14:13] We have a ton of trackable data and it's getting better and better to be able to like generate a picture of a player's contribution and how they've improved over the years. Marketing is going the opposite direction with like third party cookie deprecation, privacy regulations, the rise of offline channels. [00:14:31] It's harder than ever as a marketing leader today to get an accurate picture of customer journeys. So like when, when you get asked by your CEO or your board, and this is advice that I'm sure is useful for anyone listening, because we've all gotten this question. We're like, What are the top things that drive revenue for us today? [00:14:49] What were the things that drove the most revenue for us last year? How do you tackle this question today? [00:14:56] Kacie: Yeah, board's favorite question. Where are the levers? Where are the levers [00:15:00] you're gonna pull? Um, yeah, I mean, I think, I think that There is no one solution for this right now. I don't think there is a perfect solution. I am not a data scientist. I'm just going to go ahead and put that out there. I am a marketer. [00:15:20] Um, and I geek out on this stuff because I'm trying to figure out how do I internally educate and tell a story that is going to incentivize. The right type of collaboration, uh, and investment and prioritization across the business. And I think if you're not measuring the assist and the goal the same way, you start to have a very weird dynamic where you're pitting pieces of your business against each other, um, incentivizing collaboration and teamwork and, um, and, and saying, you know, this is actually not a linear [00:16:00] thing. [00:16:01] Right. Like we are human, none of us are buying in this like we follow each step that someone wants us to follow. Uh, and we're thinking exactly the way they want us to think that's not happening. Um, and, and so, you know, when I get that question from my leadership and from the board, what I'm trying to do is reframe. [00:16:21] Um, from what is typically last touch or first touch thinking, because that's the way they've learned to think about this. Um, they're wanting that report and they're wanting, you know, what was the last thing that happened before someone turned into an opportunity. And so, you know, what I've done is, is look at every single tool available to me to try and, Put together a story that, that someone who is not me, who has not lived this and, and worked as long as I have in marketing can understand and, and will be compelling to them. [00:16:55] Um, so, you know, we, we use multi touch [00:17:00] attribution, not for assigning credit and not for saying like, this was more important than that, or, you know, sales. Your email was less important than this event that we attended. It's more to look at, um, all of the touch points that, that we can track, um, in every way we possibly can, right. [00:17:20] We're trying for all of it in any, anything we can get. Um, so we're using UTMs where we're using like literally anything that we can grab. Um, and then I'm pulling also, um, Self reported attributions or asking people, you know, how did, how did you make this decision? Sales is asking, we're asking in a demo field, um, so that we can aggregate all of that data and look at it and hold it against the other data. [00:17:47] Um, and then we are also looking at, you know, okay, we've stood up some things. Uh, that we're doing differently or we've added stuff month over month, quarter over quarter. What do, what are the sort of like longterm [00:18:00] patterns, you know, and what's the, what's the causality look like? Did that change certain things? [00:18:05] For example, outbound was dead at Sendoza when I joined, we thought it didn't work. Um, and we invested a whole bunch of time and effort in Brands and in credibility and in trust and in, um, you know, painting a picture of Sendoso as the leader in our space, as a bunch of people that know marketing and know what good go to market looks like and are going to go talk about it and be helpful and be useful and not ask for anything in return. [00:18:36] Um, and we did a whole bunch of customer interviews and talk to a whole bunch of marketing, marketing and sales teams that we work with and, um, and use that to create content and partnerships that we felt like would actually be helpful and pick our integration partners carefully and that work. [00:18:55] Influenced outbound and it made it a lot easier for us to outbound [00:19:00] successfully It made it easier for sales to have a warm call instead of a cold call or a weird call You know where someone thinks something we didn't we didn't want them to believe about the brand Um, is that really hard to prove? [00:19:12] Yeah, it's really really it's a hard story to tell and I think this is where a lot of marketers get that pressure of like It's not fast enough. We're not seeing it fast enough. So cut all the budget, cut that whole team, you know, like, um, and you have to fight for it. And you have to say based on my learned experience and based on data from, you know, everywhere I can pull it. [00:19:34] And even sometimes you may need to go talk to your peers, talk to marketers and sales leaders at other, maybe larger companies. So you can bring that data back to your board and your leadership team and say, I don't think these 15, you know, top Fortune 500 companies and their leaders are stupid, do you? [00:19:53] Like, this is how they think about this. Um, and I also like to pull in B2C, uh, because I think about [00:20:00] this differently. I've worked there, uh, and I feel like we get very stuck in B2B, sometimes thinking about things. in terms of how we'd like them to be, in terms of how people actually consume and buy and make decisions, and B2C understands that that decision was made long, long before those last few touches, like, that consideration happened way before Uh, and, and, you know, we're not controlling when someone comes in market and when they're going to make that decision. [00:20:31] The way that I buy, I'm, like, such an asshole, you know, like, I will, I will have a tool, I will get called and pursued and invited to things, invited to events, and I'll be like, no, no, no, I have something that does this. And then, you know, two years later, after I decided that I really liked that team and those people and their product and they're trustworthy and I could learn from them, maybe I will look at the tool I had and think, Oh, this would be better. [00:20:58] And it's growing differently and it's innovating [00:21:00] faster. And I trust this whole team. And then all of a sudden I'll just be like, yeah, we want a sales call. Hurry up, hurry up. I want to buy tomorrow. Um, so like a lot of us are doing this, right. And then we're looking at attribution and going. That one LinkedIn message or like the last discussion that Kacie had with some random salesperson, that definitely is why she bought when it has absolutely nothing to do with it. [00:21:24] I just found the closest person to me because I'm ready to buy. And it's just like, you know, you have to show your board. Hey, and this is what I started with when I joined Sendoso. I said, look, we're measuring MQLs. This is meaningless. Every single thing is a lead. Look at how this is defined. Look at the conversion rate. [00:21:44] This is bullshit. Like we can't keep doing this. Do not ever ask me about an MQL again, ever, ever. Don't say lead to me. Um, we're, we're going to measure sales, qualified opportunities. Sales is going to qualify them so that we can build our trust together. We're not qualifying them. Sales is [00:22:00] saying, this looks good. [00:22:00] We're talking together about what does good look like? What is the best fit? And then, you know, I, I said, on top of that, we are going to look at, uh, What last touch tells us and I brought it into the meeting and I said look last touch tells me That I should just get More web direct opportunities. That's what this tells me Just go just go do more just do more direct traffic. [00:22:28] Just do more direct stuff You know, like literally just go get more people that are typing in, you know, our website. And I was, I just like straight face was like, do you think that's helpful? Would that help you? What does that even mean? And you know, our whole finance team was like, that doesn't mean anything. [00:22:47] Like what, what do we do with that? And I was like, exactly. What do we do with that? Nothing. Um, Do that, you know, like just logically, most, most people understand that many things happened before [00:23:00] those people typed that in and came and decided to raise their hands. Cause you know, our qualified opportunities are hand raisers. [00:23:07] So, you know, like that's where I started. And then I backed us out of it and said, okay, well, what would be helpful for us collectively to try and make these decisions? And that's, you know, talking to our customers, getting sales to ask questions that help us understand how did they come to that decision? [00:23:23] Who was in the consideration set? That's looking at multi touch. It's looking at causality. It's looking at like all of these things together. All of them are flawed. But it helps me to explain when I'm saying, no, I'm going to continue to put budget in certain things that don't show up in this last touch report. [00:23:40] Now my finance team is like, great. We understand that helps all these other things pay out in the end. [00:23:47] How to Convince Leadership to Rethink Measurement --- [00:23:47] Phil: Talk to us about that change management process. Like how long did it take for finance to be like, okay, we are buying into the explanation that you're giving us. Because like, a [00:24:00] lot of the times. They have 30 plus years, long career in finance. And they're so used to the MQL model. It's baked into the forecast and you're coming in and you're saying like, we're not tracking MQLs anymore. [00:24:12] I don't care about leads, throwing out last touch, throwing out first touch, like things that they're so comfortable with. And they're so far removed from marketing that like those terms. Are like the last straws that they're grasping at to kind of like understand marketing and you're coming in there and just blowing all that up. [00:24:30] Like, how long did it take to walk us through like the process of iteratively, like getting them to, to buy into that? Right. [00:24:49] Kacie: was already an understanding that something Wasn't working that was happening. Um, and sales and marketing did not get along and there was no trust there. [00:24:58] And so when I [00:25:00] took the job, I said, I'm going to make some pretty serious changes. These are the things I need support on. Can you, can we handshake on that? Um, I think that's really important when you're coming in to lead marketing and a new company to establish these are expectations, um, That I have, and these are the areas where I'm going to need support, and some of them are going to be drastic, um, and some of them may take time, and you may hit a bump, you know, somewhere in the middle there, which is my next point, um, where everyone's going to start to doubt, right, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, do that, that sounds great, do it, and then you're A couple months down the line, they're like, Uh, you know, like, it's not getting immediate results. [00:25:42] It's, it feels weird and uncomfortable. What is this person doing? Um, so I think I got lucky in that, I was able to say, look, we've been doing this. Here's the data that shows it doesn't work. Um, does everyone agree with me that this is not working? Uh, and I had a finance partner that [00:26:00] was really, really dedicated to understanding that with me and actually watched webinars and educated himself and like learned a lot about what I was saying and was curious instead of shutting me down. [00:26:12] Um, which I think is, Is critical, honestly, that bridge between marketing and finance. And then he also taught me, you know, about the way that he was thinking about things. And we met in the middle. Um, I think, uh, it's easier to have those conversations when you're both thinking about. You know, through, through the lens of the business itself, you know, and what are we trying to accomplish for the business, you have to establish that trust that I am not trying to game numbers or make marketing look better. [00:26:42] Or, you know, uh, fight for credit on stupid shit. I'm here to try and course correct this business and, and make marketing stronger and scale on top of that foundation. Uh, so I had to prove that. Um, but I think. You know, like I said, you typically hit a bump a [00:27:00] little bit of the way through where you're like, I'm laying this foundation. [00:27:03] It's gonna take a while. I'm, I'm redoing all of our, like, you know, sales stages. There's a lot of ops investment. Rev ops needs to help. Um, you know, we're cleaning up our data. We're cleaning up our Salesforce fields. People are like, Oh God, why is this still happening? Why does she need so much support and help? [00:27:23] Is this even like useful? Um, It costs so much time and effort. Uh, and so and then they're like, where's the payout? It's not here yet. We hate it. Um, and you have to keep going and you have to hold everyone accountable with you for like, I've done this before. Many other companies have done this before. [00:27:44] This is the way through. Uh, and you know, sometimes you don't get that support and you don't get that patience and they'll cut you loose. Um, that happens a lot of companies and to their, to the company's detriment. Um, but I think if you have the right, if you've done the [00:28:00] education and you've done the trust building and you've pulled people close enough in, And you've got sales and finance and, you know, even your CX leaders, like talking to you about how do we get the right people in the door? [00:28:13] How do we measure this collectively in a way that's gonna show that all of us contribute, uh, to what makes, uh, an account want to buy Sendoso, um, and, and want to raise their hand and then become the successful, you know, onboarding, uh, experience. And. expand, right? And recommend us and become a loyal advocate for the business, which I'm also accountable for, right? [00:28:41] Retention, expansion, upsell, like all of that is very intermingled. And if you have the right team, that's going to lean in with you, you can get over that hump of like, we're doing this really painful work and we're going to start to see results. And, you know, I did a lot of like, here's when I think we're going to [00:29:00] start to see results. [00:29:00] Here's the type of thing we're going to start to see. Give me the time. Give me the time. Cause it looks like you're failing for a little bit. Um, and, and companies hate that. Uh, and then, and then we did, right. We got over the hump and it was like, wow, we're having record breaking quarters one after another. [00:29:17] Um, but it takes. Months and months of investment to get to that place where you've invested in all your foundational systems You've brought your team together and aligned them You have crafted this picture of like when sales and marketing We like to call it account based marketing, but it's just marketing to me. [00:29:35] You know, like when sales marketing and CX are thinking collectively about who are the accounts that are great for us? Why are they great for us? How did we enable them? What did we show up and tell them initially? And why was, why is that resonating? And we're talking to our customers and we're asking them those questions and validating, like. [00:29:53] Do what does do our opinions and our assumptions actually match what we're hearing back? Um, because that's [00:30:00] another thing that that companies and marketers, you know are guilty of we just assume um And sales can also be a great partner in this and validating like you thought that looked great. That was not great Here's what's not great, you know, like um Then you have this, this like, you know, stronger, stronger group that's, that's thinking in an integration graded fashion and you don't, you, you get to a point where you're not like fighting over who touched this last and, you know, how important was that? [00:30:32] And you're thinking like, Okay, what collectively did we do that made this work? Let's do that again. How do we do that again? And it's not going to be exact because it just isn't. That's not the way that people buy. We can't force them through the same exact steps every time, but we can figure out what we think is additive and force multiplying and good and do more of that and listen to our customers. [00:30:56] I [00:30:57] Phil: Yeah. Such great advice. I love your point about [00:31:00] being lucky in a way that you worked with a finance peer who was curious about marketing and becoming more marketing literate. But to your point, I think there's something to be said about, you know, marketers love to say my fan is team doesn't get marketing. [00:31:13] Like they just don't understand what we're trying to do. Um, But, you know, we need to meet them in the middle. Like there's a lot of financial concepts that your average marketer doesn't get. And there's something to be said about financial literacy, which is obviously tied to data literacy, but, you know, meeting the finance team halfway to be able to help that change management process there, I'm sure is a super helpful [00:31:37] ​ [00:31:37] Phil: [00:32:00] [00:33:00] on the data literacy side though. [00:33:20] Um, chatting with different folks about similar topics here, like especially MTA, uh, multi touch attribution, [00:33:29] How to Use Incrementality in Everyday Marketing --- [00:33:29] Phil: this idea of incrementality, and you called it out a few times in your previous answer, causality, incrementality has been dubbed as like the golden alternative to multi touch attribution for a lot of vendors, uh, recently, at least folks that have had on the show. [00:33:42] It's the idea of like measuring sales that wouldn't have happened without specific, Marketing efforts, like true causality. We did this one campaign and we had a control group and a holdout group or treatment group. Like the focus of incrementality is understanding. The marginal return on the [00:34:00] last dollar spent. [00:34:00] Right in practice, though, for a lot of teams, especially B2B like experimentation with control groups and treatment groups, it means that you need a certain level of volume to get statistically significant results. What are your thoughts there on like, does, do you need to hit a certain volume in B2B to be able to say like, now we're going to do experimentation and incrementality, like curious, your thoughts there. [00:34:25] Yeah. [00:34:27] Kacie: think we need to be very careful about how we position these types of things. Can we, 'cause we can end up boxing ourselves right back into the corner. Um, why are we so obsessed with proving exactly, you know, the impact of every single freaking thing that we do? Um, that bothers me. Uh, there's, like you said originally, you know, 30 minutes ago in this conversation, um. [00:34:53] I'm not asking HR to measure every single action they took today and tomorrow and this month [00:35:00] and assign Dollar value to it. Um sales quite often is not measured in that way either I'm not asking them we're not asking the sales to break down their activities in the same way as marketing and assign dollar value to Every second of their day and the emails and the calls and the calendar organization and whatever else they're doing in a day, right? [00:35:20] um That's just not happening. And I think when you start to pick apart A team in this way, you can, you can start to really demoralize and in a road, um, good work. And so I just say that as a cautionary tale. I don't think there's any golden fix, uh, for this. I think. I think that I have a six person team. I don't have, you know, a data analytics team. [00:35:49] I don't have data scientists. I don't have, um, you know, people who do this full time. My team does it ourselves. Uh, and, and so, you know, [00:36:00] I could devote 90 percent of my time to proving that what I'm doing works and then I would probably fail because that doesn't make any sense. Right. Um, so I think you just gotta be really careful. [00:36:11] Like there is a mix. Uh, and I'm gonna say something that, that probably a lot of CEOs will, and CFOs will hate, but like, I know how to do my damn job. I've been doing it a long time. There is some experience and some gut feel and, you know, some, some, Some data that I have collected over my many, many years of doing this job that tell me what would be a good decision and what would be a bad decision. [00:36:39] Um, and I really don't appreciate being asked to prove, uh, and to devote hours and hours and, you know, tons of money, um, to proving that I do in fact know how to do my job. Um, and I don't want my team to feel like that either. Um, so. That aside, I do [00:37:00] think, you know, obviously we have these short and long term goals that, that marketing is trying to balance where we know that some of these longer term investments pay out and feed the shorter term. [00:37:12] And we need some way to, to put that into a context that, uh, a CEO who's not a marketer, uh, and. Finance and, and others understand. Um, and then we have these short term goals where it's like, how do we make sure that if someone is in market, that everything that every step that they are going to take to buy is exemplary. [00:37:35] Um, and that we have just gotten out of their way and we've made that, uh, a wonderful experience for them and they're getting support and the answers and the, um, you know, the streamlined experience that they expect. If you sell to marketers like we do, that's. Just paramount, right? Like, um, they won't trust us if we have a bad buying experience. [00:37:56] Um, but I think, I think in [00:38:00] terms of like having a golden standard for how you do this, uh, if maybe if I was in a larger enterprise, um, and even at Fastly, you know, we got to the point where we had a team that we could dedicate to, to some of this, um, you know, like measurement and, and looking at all the different ways that we could. [00:38:20] Report on what we were doing. Um, I just don't I don't have the ability I have to sort of be very careful with how I balance our time And so in the areas where we trust and know that we're doing the right thing for the right reasons We're just going to do that. I'm not going to dedicate a whole lot of time for us To prove out that that was the right thing to do um There when we're taking swings and i'm making bets and i'm taking risks That's when we try and build in like, okay, let's do it Let's see if we can, uh, you know, set up tracking and reporting that's going to show us over time. [00:38:57] What this did, hopefully, you know, [00:39:00] as quickly as possible, but in some cases, it's going to be a longer term play where we'll see it start to prove out in a couple of months. Um, and, and so I'm careful with where I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm telling the team, you have to prove the value of, of what you're doing. Um, I think, you know, we're lucky in that we're a direct mail and gifting company. [00:39:23] I know that works because I've used it successfully at a bunch of other companies. Um, and so has my whole team. Uh, and so we don't need to go prove that to ourselves. What we need to prove is like, In coupled with what targeted to whom? How are we doing it? How are we doing it in a way? That's delightful and resonant and is going to put us in the consideration set early and how do we How do we incorporate so the risks that we want to take or the bets that we want to make where we? [00:39:51] incorporate Drinking our own champagne with other experiments um And how do we talk about that internally, you know [00:40:00] when when we're at being asked to? Okay, you're doing everything that's possible to help us scale. What haven't you tried and what might, what bets might we take? Um, that's where I think this gets really helpful and interesting because you can pull from all these different resources to try and craft a picture of like, okay, near term, here's what's happened, what happened. [00:40:21] Okay. Longer term, here's what happened and here's the impact packed on sales. Here's the impact on churn. Um, you know, you gotta be thinking all the way through. Uh, and so, you know, like we run certain programs that we just know work and I don't really need to look at them more closely than like, you know, is, are we putting in dollars that are coming out? [00:40:41] And, you know, does that make sense? And then there are other things that we're doing where we're like, we've never done this before, but we think it's a good idea. And we're going to need a little bit more robust, you know, like, um, structure around it so that we can prove out, do we want to keep investing in it? [00:40:58] Or do we want to invest [00:41:00] more? I [00:41:01] Phil: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I love the point about brand and having it when you're doing bigger bets, like at least having some sort of data to show early indicators that there is some success involved there. Like I've had the chance to chat about brand with a couple of different guests on, on the show this year, including your friend, uh, Liam Rooney. [00:41:21] And, um, he was really big on this idea that like marketing can't simply be reduced to a pipeline number because there's way more that marketers do. That's. A lot more long term than that, like short, immediate, uh, impact of like direct response marketing that a lot of CEOs, um, enjoy about marketing as an SVP, you kind of answered this already, but I'm curious about, [00:41:42] How to Make the Case for Brand Investments --- [00:41:42] Phil: maybe you can give us an example of how you were able to make the case with your senior management peers that. [00:41:48] We're going to invest in this big brand bet, and it'll be impossible to accurately measure everything. We won't see the results in the immediate or even medium term, but [00:42:00] trust me that it'll work in the longterm or at least like, give us the ability or freedom to experiment with this. How do you make that case? [00:42:08] Like, give us, give us an example that that comes to mind, maybe. [00:42:12] Kacie: think saying we're going to invest in brand. Immediately scares the shit out of, you know, all people that you're [00:42:20] Phil: Okay. So don't start with using the B word. [00:42:25] Kacie: I don't know why, you know, brand has gotten this weird, you know, like tarnished, um, reputation. Um, but I did, uh, I went into my job and said, I am new and so I am I am less biased than everyone else here and I'm going to use that to my advantage And i'm going to go pull everything I can possibly find by talking to my peers by talking to our customers and prospects by Going through every community group I can find And every reddit mention and every g2 [00:43:00] mention and i'm going to pull all of this data about how we're perceived And i'm going to match what you're telling me about how we're perceived with that You And it didn't match. [00:43:11] So that was a good starting point. You know, like I didn't make any assumptions. I just came in and said, okay, what do we think? We think we have a strong brand. We're trusted. Anyone would buy this. Everyone understands gifting. You know, you name it, we had a sort of a mismatch going on. Um, and, uh, and so I didn't say we need to invest in brand. [00:43:35] I said, we have made some assumptions that are extremely flawed about the way that we are being thought of and perceived in the market and, um, You know, we need to do some course correction here because we're, we're not attracting the people that we think we're attracting. They are seeing us differently. [00:43:55] They don't understand the value proposition. They, um, [00:44:00] they're, they're not going to put us in the day one consideration set, uh, for all of these reasons. And, you know, that's, that's a huge problem for us. And. So I think, like, you have to be crafty as a marketer in, in terms of how you position things, you have to give people concrete examples that they understand and can work with instead of saying, brand is really important because that new people freak out. [00:44:27] Um, and I also came in and said, I'm. I'm not going to redo the whole website. I'm not going to redo our whole color palette. You know, there were things that people like wanted me to do because they were, they, they were annoyed with, and I just said, I don't have time for that shit. You know, like, I can't do that right now. [00:44:43] That's not the problem. People are not, uh, not buying us because we use a pastel color palette right now. Um, And it was more around like the message and the understanding of who we are. Why would you use us? What [00:45:00] business critical, you know, like challenges could you solve if you used us? um, and uh You know even some just foundational like people didn't understand that you could still gift. [00:45:12] Uh, when folks are remote They thought that you had to have Everyone, every single person's address in order to even think about a gifting strategy, or they thought you have to have thousands and thousands of dollars to dedicate to this. And it's hugely expensive. Um, and you could only do it if you have massive enterprise accounts. [00:45:29] Um, so, you know, that's, that's where I started. And I, I put together, like, these are the topics that are misunderstood. These are the, the, the areas where we need to generate content. And then I actually pulled my whole leadership team in. And again, I was lucky. I had You know, folks who are game to play, um, and they were, they were curious and interested. [00:45:50] Um, and our CEO, Chris is, is already very good at this and has invested a lot of time in an advisor network and in, you know, organic LinkedIn, um, [00:46:00] growth. And so he understood it so that from the beginning that I had a whole leadership team. Um, who jumped in and said, we want to help create the content and we want to, we want to get more involved and we understand that getting closer to this audience would help us get better at, um, at what we do and to fix our assumptions and to, you know, like, um, learn what people care about. [00:46:22] And so I, you know, I, we trained a bunch of executives and then we got them on a regular cadence of posting on LinkedIn and interacting with the folks that we are trying to sell to. And so they saw firsthand, they started to see that people were engaging with certain topics or not with others, or, um, you know, that we started to get actually DMs of people who wanted to book meetings, um, once we started investing collectively around these topics and adding value, um, and, you know, we have in Salesforce a field that's like, you know, meeting books through Chris's LinkedIn, meeting books through Kacie's LinkedIn, um, through [00:47:00] Katie's, my whole team, like we get, we get inbound pipeline this way, um, and so it was, I did, bet in the areas where I thought we would be able to show and tell. [00:47:11] Um, and it wouldn't be just like, Oh, we made everything look really pretty and now it's going to be better. Um, also put our executives on the front lines at events so they could see what do we do differently? Right. It's, we're not just buying a booth and sitting behind it and it's, you know, just dumped money into something that's not going to pay back. [00:47:29] It's, we crafted a whole experience. There are multiple different. You know, like sidecar events we crafted and programs and campaigns that are tied to those events, and there's an integration partnership tied to the event, and they saw all of that work and started to understand. This is different than what we were doing previously. [00:47:47] This is brand work, right? This is Important and the conversations are different as a result that they're having at those events um, so yeah, I think It's easier when you [00:48:00] have a leadership team that wants to lean in with you and is curious and wants to understand um But for us, it was, it was like very clear that you're, we're selling to go to market teams to revenue teams. [00:48:12] So we leave LinkedIn is where those people are. And they're also, you know, dying to network and learn from and interact with each other in person. And there are a lot of community spaces where this is happening. Um, and we are in the unique position to facilitate that networking and to almost match make and bring people together and to Model what best in class might look like, um, and to hold ourselves to a higher standard. [00:48:40] And so that's what we tried to enact from a brand mission standpoint is like, we, we are going to do the right thing for the right reasons. And we're going to model that because marketers need to see that that's possible. And sales needs to see that that's possible. And, um, and we want to be You know, as a good example as we can, obviously, we're not perfect of [00:49:00] what that could look like. [00:49:00] And, and then the success that could come from that, um, because so many of the folks we sell to are hamstrung is they're not being allowed to do it. [00:49:09] Phil: hmm. I'm sure it's so refreshing for listeners hearing you say a new marketing exec joins a company and the first thing they want to do isn't. A rebrand or a new website or stripping out a big marketing tool from the stack because they're not used to using that tool and they're bringing something used to before. [00:49:28] Um, yeah, there's, there's so many things that, um, I want to pull a thread on there from, from your answer. You said this earlier in the conversation to this idea that like. [00:49:38] Working for a CEO Who Doesn't Believe in Marketing --- [00:49:38] Phil: If you're interviewing somewhere and you know part of your job is having to prove to leadership that marketing works And isn't a waste of time that you should run from that particular hiring manager or that job but I wanted to let you unpack that a little bit more because um, your friend liam said that Uh, ceos [00:50:00] who didn't get marketing and he actually loved it I've personally had two types of ceos who don't get marketing those who are like um I'm going to hire someone that does get marketing and I'm going to trust them. [00:50:12] And like, I'm going to let those people hire and build their own teams. But then there's some CEOs who don't get marketing and they're going to hire someone and they think that they're going to be able to tell. This marketing leader, what to do. And that person just becomes like a yes man or a yes woman. [00:50:31] Like, how, how do you deal with the ladder? Like the CEO who is like a bit more opinionated, even though he's like, where she's admitting that like, they're not a marketing expert. [00:50:42] Kacie: This is such a common, uh, challenge that I don't think there's a single marketing leader that I know who hasn't encountered a version of this. Um, what I meant originally when I said. You know, if they're asking you to prove that [00:51:00] marketing is valuable run is that there are founders and CEOs. Oftentimes they come from an engineering or an analytical background, um, who fundamentally do not believe that marketing should exist and think it could be replaced by the AI and algorithms and growth hacking. [00:51:21] Um, And they think they probably could figure that out, but they're, they're trying to prove out, you know, like, Am I wrong or am I right? Is there, is there anything valuable that marketing could add to this business? If you're going up against someone who's very entrenched in the, in a belief that you should not exist in the first place. [00:51:46] That is a bad place to be. Um, I just don't think it's worth taking the job. Um, and you can vet that out, you know, through the interview process. Uh, you'll find, you know, the answers to the questions are, [00:52:00] are like, you know, literally, I don't believe. In marketing, or I'm not sure that marketing actually does anything. [00:52:06] Um, or I've never seen a marketing team actually do something there. There's too much for you have to climb over to, to get your job done. In that case, there's like you said, there, there are variants of this that are fine. There are founders and CEOs who know their strengths, know what they're good at and where they spike and know where they're not, and they bring in leaders to, to supplement and to compliment them. [00:52:31] And. Uh, and they step back and they give trust and, um, that's very different. Like, I am happy to work with, you know, someone who is not a marketing expert, um, but has other strengths and areas where I can learn and they're going to let me do my job and, um, and they're going to trust that they hired the right person for the job. [00:52:52] Um, that can be, you know, Wonderful. Um, you know, neither of my co CEOs at Sendoza are marketers. Uh, [00:53:00] one came out of engineering, one came out of sales and I learned a ton from them and they have a lot of great ideas, but they're not forcing them on me and they're not, um, micromanaging my work and they trust that, that I know how to do my job. [00:53:15] Um, when you have a, a CEO. Um, and I think that's a really important thing to remember. Um, you know, if you're a leader, uh, who in, in, with, with any of their executive team is unable to trust and is unable to step back and let them do their job. Um, I think you have an immediate, pretty immediate problem. Um, and I have not seen a lot of examples of that working out. [00:53:36] Well, um, you know, there's this, I could go on and on about. You know, founder mode and micromanaging leaders who don't know how to give away their Legos and don't know how to scale a business. Um, I think that's this, this is critical for anyone leading or managing a team. You have to be able to delegate, to hand [00:54:00] off your job should be to replace yourself ultimately, and to make yourself relevant. [00:54:04] If you cannot do that, you should not be leading teams and you certainly should not be leading companies. And, uh, obviously I have strong opinions on this subject, but, uh, you know, this is not just a marketing problem. It does tend to get pointed at marketing when anything else in the business is, is a little bumpy. [00:54:22] Uh, I feel like marketing gets pointed at first and then it's like, you know, the, the, the trust starts to erode. Um, but yeah, I think, I think it's, as far as I've seen, it's, it's almost never just one. Thing or just one department, um, that, that is, is a problem. If a business is struggling. [00:54:47] Phil: As a, I got two last questions for you. Um, as a hiring manager yourself, uh, I'm going to like flip that table there a little bit for you. But [00:54:55] Key Traits to Look for When Hiring Problem-Solving Candidates --- [00:54:55] Phil: one of my favorite posts of yours on LinkedIn is when you listed a bunch of shit that doesn't matter in a [00:55:00] candidate, like having, uh, A top brand name on their resume or like gaps in their history, or if they're a job hopper and they've only spent a certain amount of time at a company. [00:55:08] Things you do care about are integrity, kindness, curiosity, determination, communication, all sorts of like intangible things. How do you look or test for those things during your hiring process? Hmm, [00:55:22] Kacie: Uh, so what I find works best, uh, in a, in a startup environment, um, is folks who are sort of natural problem solvers. They have a natural drive to pick stuff up. Um, and if they see something wrong, they're going to, they want to fix it. And. The ways that, um, that those people get satisfaction and fulfillment are oftentimes different than, than other people. [00:55:54] And I'm not saying this is better or worse where everyone's different. Right. But this is why I don't work for a company like [00:56:00] Google. Um, you know, I like. Uh, to be in the mix and have my hands on things and to be able to, um, make huge, uh, impact and, you know, what would be a very, very short amount of time for a larger enterprise company. [00:56:15] Uh, and that gives me satisfaction and joy. And so when I'm hiring, I'm looking at. Do you actually light up when you're talking to me about helping other people? What sort of, of a sense are you giving me when I ask about a time when, um, when you messed up something, um, or when there was a conflict between you and someone else and you didn't agree, or where something went wrong and how'd you handle helping to, to right it? [00:56:44] Um, we asked questions very directly about the best gifts you've ever given, because that actually gives me a lot of insight into how people think. Sometimes it's very transactional, uh, in which case I know that you're probably not a good fit. Um, uh, and you know, I want to know, are [00:57:00] you thinking about, uh, who the other person is and what they care about and love and you, you understood what matters to them. [00:57:09] Um, and, and then, you know, I, I'm also looking for, can you, do you have the self awareness to say. I messed this thing up and, and, uh, and here's what I did about it. Um, and I'll probably mess something else up again, uh, cause we all do. And, um, all right, when you're talking about your team, how are you describing And are you talking about yourself and using I a lot? [00:57:35] Are you talking about we and what we did together? Um, so there's, there's a lot of, of ways we use, and I'm, I'm a pretty conversational interviewer. But I, I'm, when I'm, when I'm wanting to understand are you the type of person who wants to be, A, a small and very clearly defined part of a larger mix where, you know, like you have very clear boundaries or are you the type of person [00:58:00] that if you see something over there, you know, on the CX side that they really need help with, and it's broken, uh, you're going to help pick it up because you know, that matters to the business. [00:58:10] And, um, and that's actually going to bring you joy, you know, like, um, it's, it's going to feel good. Is what I, what I'm looking for. And then also, you know, this, this sort of, um, drive to raise your hand and to say, I think this could be done better. Um, and I want to try it. Will you let me go ahead? Here's what I want to do. [00:58:31] Here's how I'm going to do it. Um, and I'm a big believer in this sort of like, uh, you know, tell, tell your boss what you're going to do. Tell them when you're going to do it. Tell them how you're going to do it. Let them say, Okay. You know, give them a very defined frame of time in which they could say no, and then just go fucking do [00:58:50] Phil: Yeah. [00:58:50] Kacie: Um, uh, and, and I will support you all day in, and, um, and I prefer that massively to you waiting and waiting and waiting and [00:59:00] waiting for permission to do something. Um, so I want to see signs of that. Like, you know, I saw this was broken. I thought this tool was bad. I thought we were doing our customers a disservice, uh, whatever. [00:59:11] And here's what I did about it. And. And that gave me energy, you know, like, uh, it's not, you know, it's, I think hiring is, and, and hiring and firing are the, some of the most important pieces of a, of a job when you're managing a team. And, um, I think you didn't ask this, but I think the other thing that we fail on as leaders often is. is identifying when we made a mistake and we hired someone who is not a fit and it's not good for them and it's not good for the team and we let it drag. [00:59:45] Um, so I'm a, I am a big proponent of like, if it's not going well, you get in there and you solve it and you find that person a different job and you let them know that this is not a good fit as fast as you possibly can.[01:00:00] [01:00:00] Phil: Yeah. There's so much great advice there for the, the job seekers. I think. You know, letting that enjoyment when you talk about the things that you solved in your job, shine through in the excitement and you're like non verbal, you know, it's always like kind of tricky sometimes when you're doing this over zoom or over video interview. [01:00:19] So like trying to like go above and beyond and let the interview know, or like how much you enjoyed that part of like solving that problem and letting that shine through in their, in their This has been such a fun conversation. Kacie, honestly. Packed with wisdom. If I had a marketing leader like yourself earlier on in my career, I feel like I wouldn't have the jaded opinions that I do about some of the marketing stuff. [01:00:45] So I really appreciate your, your time. [01:00:47] How Can Marketing Leaders Achieve True Fulfillment and Balance in Their Careers? --- [01:00:47] Phil: I got one last question for you. Uh, you're a marketing leader, a well traveled speaker. You're also a dog mom and avid reader, a one on one beginner gardener, as well as a singer and a songwriter. Self described extroverted introvert. One question we [01:01:00] ask everyone on the show is how do you remain happy and successful in your career? [01:01:04] And how do you find balance between all the shit you're working on while staying happy? Hmm. [01:01:11] Kacie: most important learning, um, after many years was, uh, that. I did not actually derive my happiness from the winning. Um, so, you know, like fastly, I was there for almost seven years. I, um, I thought, you know, like the, the end goal was the IPO. And, you know, we had been working for that for so long that when it actually happened, then we took the company public. [01:01:42] Um, I expected there to be like fireworks and I was just gonna be the happiest person alive and like everything was gonna click into place and of course it didn't you know it was just like I felt sort of melancholy actually because it was like oh I did that and now what um and I what I realized [01:02:00] upon trying to you know I was just like what is wrong with me you know this is this is crazy uh is that what actually mattered to me was was the People. [01:02:09] This is going to sound really cheesy, but the people and experiences that I have, the friends, lifelong friends I have from all of my jobs, um, and the support I have from those people and that I give, I'm able to give back to them. That's what matters to me most. And so I take jobs. For the people. Um, I get to work with people that I just absolutely adore and respect who inspire me every day and that makes me happy and, um, you know, whether we're, we're winning or we're losing, I get to be with those people, um, and associate with those people and learn from them. [01:02:41] And that's what's most important to me. And then in my personal life, I'm, uh, you know, trying to get to a place where it's, I can incorporate that when I'm traveling, when I'm speaking, what, when I'm at events, one of the biggest blessings from this specific role has been that I've gotten to [01:03:00] meet so many amazing, um, marketing leaders and, and peers and people that I've admired for forever. [01:03:07] Um, who I now get to call friends, um, because I put myself out there, which was scary and I got to meet them and, and, you know, One of the things that I would recommend most, uh, because I think a lot of marketers feel very alone, um, is it's really scary, but like, just go to events, sign up to speak, sign up for the webinar, do the podcast. [01:03:31] Like, I was scared to come on this podcast. You're really smart. You've had many, many really smart people on this podcast. On this podcast, um, but if you're, if you're putting yourself out there and you're talking about things that resonate with and matter to other people and you're lifting them up and you're hyping them up and you're commenting on, on their posts, uh, you're going to build yourself a little mini network of people that make you happy. [01:03:53] Like I don't just talk to them about work, but I also have that support for when I feel alone or crazy or confused. [01:04:00] Um, And that's one of the most valuable things that's, that's come out of my whole career. Uh, and then, um, I just say, like, I am in constant, uh, in learning state of, of how can I balance better? [01:04:14] Um, you're talking to me on a break, uh, where I still am thinking about marketing, but in the way that that's fun for me, right? And, um, I get a chance to, like, apply my more creative thinking without a lot of pressure, um, which I think everyone needs and gardening and walks. Like for me, um, I've realized that I need that space where my brain can kind of disconnect and I'm just doing something that feels restorative and not time bound. [01:04:43] Um, and that's sometimes when I have. The best ideas, and I think everyone has their own version of this, but for me, sharing a plant and watching it grow is really satisfying. And, um, and so is, you know, walking through my neighborhood and getting to know my neighbors [01:05:00] better and, um. And being able to just do that for me every morning, um, I just take a walk for myself. [01:05:06] There is no other purpose. Uh, and I, I think we often forget or, or sort of like cut the things that are just for us in our days, um. And we're like, oh, no, no, we have to take care of our kids and our dogs and work, you know, comes first and, and then we get upside down in our, in our balance because we're not prioritizing what makes us feel grounded and restored and cared for. [01:05:30] And we got to do that for ourselves first. I talked to a lot of leaders about this. And, you know, I've only recently gotten to a place where every morning I block the time to take my walk. Do not book over my walk. I don't really care what it is, like, just, that's time when I do stuff for myself. [01:05:49] Phil: Auto decline calendar events for, for my wall. Don't even try. Google's going to take care of saying no to that for me. [01:05:56] Kacie: Yep, [01:05:57] Phil: Love it. Kacie, this has, uh, been [01:06:00] super fun. I really appreciate the, uh, the advice there at the end, especially as, uh, probably less extroverted introvert myself, uh, going back to in person events. [01:06:11] I think I've gotten so used to the co ver of just like, uh, virtual events. Yeah. Yeah. It's good enough. Like, I'll just like spend my free time with family instead, but it's definitely something to this idea of like being in person with your people who just like Get your side of the world. You know, like you have a lot of friends and family at home, but like, they don't get marketing like we do and the problems that we solve and just being able to like chat through that over dinner and learning, like you said, those peers personally, I think that's great advice. [01:06:41] So really [01:06:42] Kacie: It's invaluable. I also want to say, I said this last, uh, month at the, um, Wednesday women dinner, to a smaller room, but one of the things that makes it easiest to show up and to put yourself out there is having people who support you. [01:07:00] Um, and, um, You don't even have to really know them. I would love to do that for anyone that's listening If you if you want someone to help support you to show up and comment in the chat on your webinar to You know show up to your talk if i'm at the event um That makes me happy. [01:07:15] I would love to do that. I have people who do that for me who sit in the front row when I'm terrified and smile at me when I'm shaking and, you know, show up to my webinars and that has made it possible for me to do things like this, uh, even when I'm scared. So I think we all need more of that, uh, and we could all help each other that way. [01:07:34] Phil: I'll, uh, I'll take you up on that myself, Kacie. It's been super fun. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate you. [01:07:41] Kacie: course. Thanks so much for having me.