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Interviews with top marketers sharing tactical tips, strategies, and lessons learned to help you grow your business. Hosted by Dave Gerhardt, founder of Exit Five, former CMO, and author of Founder Brand. Learn more at exitfive.com
Dave [0:00:01]: You're listening to The Dave Gerhardt Show.
Dave [0:00:02]: Alright.
Dave [0:00:17]: What's up everybody back on podcast deep in the the t of summer here, Rob.
Dave [0:00:23]: My kids have been in and out of the house.
Dave [0:00:25]: I'm working at home.
Dave [0:00:27]: My guest is Rob Sobers.
Dave [0:00:28]: He's CMO of Bro.
Dave [0:00:30]: Joined fifteen years ago when it was a startup up and has guided it all the way to a public company doing over seven hundred million at Arr, which is crazy on its own.
Dave [0:00:38]: We were just talking about this behind the scenes so many of the, you know, marketing is everyone knows the stats, CMOs having this short job tenure It's not often that I'm talking to a guy who's been at the same company for fifteen years taking them through, you know, startup up phase to to seven hundred million So if I had a sound now, the whole crap God.
Dave [0:00:55]: At first, you know, we just were talking about this behind scenes, but you were an early drift customer early hubspot customer, but you started your career in software.
Dave [0:01:06]: Is that guy still in there today?
Dave [0:01:08]: I'm curious as how that plays into you, you know, having this great run as a as a marketer?
Dave [0:01:13]: Are you an engineer who does marketing?
Dave [0:01:15]: How do you think of your your stat your your skill set.
Rob [0:01:18]: Yeah.
Rob [0:01:18]: And thanks for having me, Dave.
Rob [0:01:20]: I really haven't lost the engineer.
Rob [0:01:22]: In me.
Dave [0:01:23]: It's like, hotter than ever right now to have that back in marketing too.
Rob [0:01:27]: Yeah.
Rob [0:01:27]: Talk about a renaissance for someone like me.
Rob [0:01:29]: That came...
Rob [0:01:29]: You know, I spent ten years a software engineer.
Rob [0:01:32]: You know, I was building software for furniture companies.
Rob [0:01:34]: Yeah.
Rob [0:01:34]: And then I moved to Fog Creek software where we worked on things like Trello and stack overflow.
Rob [0:01:39]: So I really got to see and learn from world class engineers.
Rob [0:01:43]: And, you know, in the early days of marketing at Varonis, like, I was building the website.
Rob [0:01:49]: I was writing Javascript and Css.
Rob [0:01:50]: And even nowadays, like, I'll hop in there.
Rob [0:01:53]: The...
Rob [0:01:53]: It's not above me to go and, you know, fix a bug on the website or do something cool.
Rob [0:01:58]: And now with Ai, obviously, we're wiring all sorts of cool agents together and doing some some fascinating things.
Rob [0:02:04]: So I feel like it's a resurgence for technical marketers that come from engineering backgrounds and, yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on what the upside could be.
Dave [0:02:13]: I wanna get into, like, your philosophies, how you do things?
Dave [0:02:15]: I think that's what people are gonna be most interested in in hearing.
Dave [0:02:18]: But I'm just curious.
Dave [0:02:20]: Like, if you look back, how do you summarize a fifteen year stint at a at a company.
Dave [0:02:25]: Would you tell others to do the same?
Dave [0:02:27]: We're in a world of job changers.
Dave [0:02:29]: I'd love to hear, like, was it for?
Dave [0:02:31]: Obviously, great product, great team.
Rob [0:02:33]: Yeah.
Rob [0:02:33]: You know, they say, like, CMO has a shelf life of a banana.
Rob [0:02:37]: And I I guess that makes me, like, the hostess cake or something like not on the
Dave [0:02:41]: No.
Dave [0:02:41]: We've been making yet.
Dave [0:02:42]: We've been turning you into banana bread, like, over over over.
Rob [0:02:46]: So, I mean, the thing for me is the job has to remain super interesting, and you have to believe in the mission.
Rob [0:02:52]: Right?
Rob [0:02:52]: Like, at, we protect the world's data from cyber attacks.
Rob [0:02:56]: And now with Ai.
Rob [0:02:57]: There's like, a lot of risk.
Rob [0:02:58]: And I've always loved the product we're building.
Rob [0:03:00]: It's a fascinating product.
Rob [0:03:02]: And the job has changed a lot over the years.
Rob [0:03:04]: Like, when we started, you know, it was just, like a handful of us trying to figure out marketing.
Rob [0:03:09]: You know, the first head of marketing was a sales engineer that was good at writing and the CEO was like, okay.
Rob [0:03:14]: Now you own marketing.
Rob [0:03:15]: And then he hired me, and then we sort of built out the different functions.
Rob [0:03:19]: So I learned everything on the job.
Dave [0:03:21]: What did you get hired as?
Rob [0:03:23]: I think my initial title was technical marketer, just something simple like that.
Dave [0:03:28]: Nice.
Rob [0:03:28]: And if Fog Creek my title was member of technical staff, which is now, like, the cool title that you get it ra and open Ai.
Rob [0:03:33]: So shout out to Joel Sp for kinda making that fashionable.
Rob [0:03:38]: I think he got that from Microsoft actually when when he was there.
Rob [0:03:41]: But being at the same company and building marketing from the ground up, it's like stacking blocks.
Rob [0:03:46]: Right?
Rob [0:03:47]: It's like, okay.
Rob [0:03:48]: We'll create a blog.
Rob [0:03:48]: Because I was pretty good at writing.
Rob [0:03:50]: And then we'll run webinars because I know how to present on a technical topic and I have some credibility as a prior.
Rob [0:03:55]: And so we have a webinar program.
Rob [0:03:57]: And then you start adding in things like marketing automation and email workflows.
Rob [0:04:01]: And then Eventually, I got kinda outside of my comfort zone.
Rob [0:04:04]: It's like, okay.
Rob [0:04:05]: Now run a big event.
Dave [0:04:06]: Right.
Rob [0:04:07]: Now do field marketing in Japan.
Rob [0:04:08]: Now build a P team, and it's like, it's fun, but that's I think what's given me a long track record is that I've been hungry to learn the disciplines that didn't come natural to me and hire great people obviously.
Dave [0:04:23]: That was such a good a one liner, like, I love one the specific, like, a go do field marketing in Japan.
Dave [0:04:27]: Because the thing I wanted to ask you building on that is like, I want you to answer this in a certain way because I want people to hear it.
Dave [0:04:34]: But I feel like so many of the top people that I get to interview or talk to that our CMOs and stuff as part of the show.
Dave [0:04:39]: It's like, No one knew ever...
Dave [0:04:41]: Like, you do not know everything.
Dave [0:04:42]: Like, it's impossible.
Dave [0:04:44]: And so, yeah, you've had never done field marketing in Japan.
Dave [0:04:47]: Is there some level of like, and marketing is such a hard discipline where it can be so many things like Is it not impossible to know everything and is there some type of, like, first principles way of thinking that you've learned at, like, sure, I can figure it out how we're gonna hire P team?
Dave [0:05:02]: I'll figure it out how we're gonna do field marketing in Japan?
Dave [0:05:04]: You know what I'm trying to get at?
Rob [0:05:06]: Yeah.
Rob [0:05:06]: And I think there's, like, it's never been easier today because of all the great content, like, your podcast, you know, I can't tell you how many times, I've sort of, like, just dug in.
Rob [0:05:15]: Right?
Rob [0:05:16]: Learning analyst relations and the ins and outs of dealing with Ga and Forrest and...
Rob [0:05:21]: But you can actually find people who are willing to talk about it for two hours with you.
Rob [0:05:26]: Right?
Rob [0:05:26]: Or have recorded a hour long podcast that you can listen to and take notes on.
Rob [0:05:30]: You can go to conferences.
Rob [0:05:31]: So I feel like the ability to kinda hop around and learn the different disciplines in marketing, you know, has never been greater and now you can obviously just sit and talk to chat Or claude about it all day and get really good advice actually.
Rob [0:05:43]: So it's just really the willingness, I think, one of the things I really pride myself on at honest with our marketing team is that we have a really lean and elite team.
Rob [0:05:52]: Right?
Rob [0:05:52]: Every manager is an expert at their function.
Rob [0:05:55]: We don't have, like, career middle managers.
Rob [0:05:58]: We don't have big layers of hierarchy.
Dave [0:06:00]: Yeah.
Dave [0:06:00]: You put this Hadn't seen this quote before, but you put it in our doc.
Dave [0:06:03]: Steve jobs said the largest organ in the world only as four layers of management.
Dave [0:06:07]: That's the Catholic Church well five if you count the highest order, I suppose.
Rob [0:06:11]: Yeah.
Rob [0:06:11]: I know Steve Jobs was very big on this.
Rob [0:06:13]: I know Brian C Airbnb.
Rob [0:06:14]: Has talked a lot about how he runs things at Airbnb very similar to how we do it at Varonis where we don't have managers that aren't experts at the thing that they're managing.
Rob [0:06:24]: And for us, you still do the thing that you're managing.
Rob [0:06:28]: Right?
Rob [0:06:28]: I still run webinars.
Rob [0:06:30]: I hop in and and try to help as much as I can.
Rob [0:06:33]: No job is above me.
Rob [0:06:34]: And, you know, our head of corporate events is, like, the best at running corporate events.
Rob [0:06:38]: Our our head of P r is...
Rob [0:06:40]: She's phenomenal at P.
Rob [0:06:42]: And she really loves it.
Rob [0:06:43]: So I think that's super important.
Dave [0:06:45]: I think that's the engineer in you that rub engineers were always rubbed the wrong way by people who are, like, by business people and, like, Steve jobs, like, people who are not of the craft.
Dave [0:06:53]: And so maybe it's like, you've taken this engineering mindset, and you you treat marketing like a craft.
Dave [0:06:58]: And so you wanna be around other people who are actually doing jobs.
Dave [0:07:02]: And and usually, engineers have a low tolerance for, like, meetings and bureaucracy.
Dave [0:07:06]: And so you don't want a bunch of people managers, you want a bunch of marketers who manage people.
Rob [0:07:10]: Yeah.
Rob [0:07:10]: And I think it's important to under staff, because when you overs staff, you kind of get a lot of work that maybe is at the bottom of the priority list, and it doesn't really matter.
Dave [0:07:21]: And
Rob [0:07:21]: so I think the companies that are quick to hire and over staff and over fund projects.
Rob [0:07:24]: They run into communication tax.
Rob [0:07:26]: They get more meetings than they need.
Rob [0:07:28]: And so you really have to fight against it.
Rob [0:07:30]: You also have to recognize when your team is, like, you know, dehydrated and there's, like, starting for additional help and know when the right time to add more people is because it is a communication tax that is there is a penalty to adding more people when they're not necessarily needed.
Dave [0:07:44]: That's interesting that that was one of those things that made me, like, pull my pen out and want you to come back to it because there's, like, I feel two sides of that coin.
Dave [0:07:52]: One of them is, I think because of our company and, like, my view...
Dave [0:07:56]: I mean, I've worked in B2B marketing for fifteen years now.
Dave [0:07:59]: And so I feel like I see the field...
Dave [0:08:00]: I I have a weird pulse on.
Dave [0:08:02]: It's a very weird skill.
Dave [0:08:03]: My wife and I was talking, which She's like, you know a lot about B2B marketing.
Dave [0:08:06]: I'm like, yes, I do.
Dave [0:08:07]: But it's like, through osmosis of these shows.
Dave [0:08:10]: Right?
Dave [0:08:11]: Yeah.
Dave [0:08:11]: And, you know, I've grown my career I've seen others, and it's weird...
Dave [0:08:14]: We have this like lust for, like, more people, more teams, more budget.
Dave [0:08:18]: And, like, you're, like the wise...
Dave [0:08:20]: You're like Yoda on the other side of that meme.
Dave [0:08:22]: Where, like, this guy grew a company seven hundred million.
Dave [0:08:25]: It's always is this It's like, the people have really done it at a high level and grown big companies.
Dave [0:08:28]: They're always, like, please trust me, like, less is more, small is better, fewer people is better, and it just all...
Dave [0:08:35]: There's always a middle point where everyone's like, oh, my team, you know, it used to be a flat member it'd be like, how many people on your team and people would be like, I got seventy five woes.
Dave [0:08:43]: If you say that now, people be like to dude you.
Dave [0:08:45]: I have so many people.
Dave [0:08:46]: But then I also feel that I also...
Dave [0:08:47]: I know that someone's gonna be listening on on the other end and I do know that a lot of marketing teams often feel like they are under staffed, and that's more of, like, a organizational issue when everyone's burned out, but we're not hitting our goals type of thing.
Dave [0:09:00]: So it's it's interesting to hear you say that.
Dave [0:09:01]: That's just my note.
Rob [0:09:03]: Yeah.
Rob [0:09:03]: It's a delicate balance.
Rob [0:09:04]: There's also this thing called Conway Law where it's, like, you know, your product will evolve to mirror, like, the structure of your organization.
Rob [0:09:12]: And so if a very solid organization, You'll have a product that look is very dis joined.
Rob [0:09:17]: And I think that's true of marketing as well.
Rob [0:09:18]: If you have, like, a lot of siloed teams, your marketing is gonna look dis disappointed and, you know, inconsistent your brand's gonna be kinda dis disappointed and and and not look great.
Rob [0:09:30]: So that's like another penalty.
Dave [0:09:32]: How do you get everybody to row in this same direction.
Dave [0:09:34]: Like, do you have any lessons on compensation or just goal setting and marketing.
Dave [0:09:38]: One of the things I see a lot of people ask about and struggle with is, like, marketing has so many different distinct goals, but I wanna have a team where everyone feels incentivized to, like, help us win and if we...
Dave [0:09:48]: If the company wins and then we all win, but it can be easier to be like, nope no Rob's job is to be the webinar guy and really, his comp has just revolved around, like, can you get a thousand people to the webinar?
Rob [0:09:58]: Yeah.
Rob [0:09:58]: It's a tricky question.
Rob [0:09:59]: So, you know, our North star metric is opportunity creation where the opportunity creation factory.
Rob [0:10:06]: I also run the Sdr team.
Rob [0:10:08]: And so really, everybody is trying to create ops for the sales team.
Rob [0:10:12]: Mh.
Rob [0:10:12]: So we look at stage one ops and then conversion to stage two, which is, like, a really qualified opportunity.
Rob [0:10:17]: Where the product is installed and we have a high likelihood of closing the business.
Rob [0:10:20]: So everyone kind of has an element of opportunity generation in their goal.
Rob [0:10:26]: Apart from, like the creative team, you know, which a little bit more disconnected, product marketing is a little bit harder to measure, but Everyone knows that we're here to tell great stories, build a great brand and generate ops.
Rob [0:10:36]: And so a lot of the the metrics are directly or indirectly related to those two things.
Rob [0:10:42]: And I find trying to keep it really simple is, you know, I'm just all about simplicity these days.
Rob [0:10:47]: And keeping our metrics super streamlined and easy to easy to remember.
Rob [0:10:52]: Right?
Rob [0:10:53]: If you don't remember what your team members goals are, then you're probably doing it wrong.
Dave [0:11:00]: Can you give me just a couple examples of goals right now or or in the past.
Rob [0:11:05]: I'll give you an example of, like, a really goal.
Rob [0:11:08]: So we have an executive briefing team.
Rob [0:11:11]: Right?
Rob [0:11:12]: You know, we saw pretty expensive enterprise software, And so we run these executive briefings where We built this really nice center in Miami and we bring our best customers in.
Rob [0:11:20]: We show them the road roadmap.
Rob [0:11:21]: It's a really awesome program that from by a woman named Lisa.
Rob [0:11:23]: And she just has a number of executives that she wants to get through the program this year.
Rob [0:11:28]: And so I could see that number ticking up the more briefing she runs and she runs these sprint weeks where we bring in ten or fifteen customers during a whole week, you know, economies of scale getting everybody down there in Miami at the same time.
Rob [0:11:40]: And it's just a very easy number to track.
Rob [0:11:42]: Yes, we're looking at Arr generated from those accounts that attended, but that's downstream.
Rob [0:11:47]: Right?
Rob [0:11:47]: She's just focused on doing the leading indicator really well, and there's a really good book called the score takes care of it
Dave [0:11:55]: Great, book.
Rob [0:11:56]: I find that you have a really good leading indicator.
Rob [0:11:58]: You're you're good.
Rob [0:11:59]: Right?
Rob [0:12:00]: Our core persona is the chief information security officer.
Rob [0:12:04]: And so we have a team wide goal of how many Cis can we run through our marketing programs, whether that's attending a webinar meeting with us at a big trade show, like Black hat, which is next week, we're we're going through one of these E.
Rob [0:12:17]: Right?
Rob [0:12:17]: And we just all know where we stand at how many Cis have engaged in a marketing campaign, That's a good metric for us.
Rob [0:12:24]: So these are nice and simple metrics that are easy to keep track of.
Dave [0:12:29]: This is such a do thing to say.
Dave [0:12:30]: Can I give you my favorite thing from Score takes care of itself that we talk about all the time?
Rob [0:12:35]: Yeah.
Dave [0:12:37]: I won't get the quote exactly, but Bill Walsh like, comes in takes over the forty nine or Right?
Dave [0:12:41]: And they weren't...
Dave [0:12:41]: They weren't doing well.
Dave [0:12:42]: He comes in and implements a whole new culture And I use this one all the time.
Dave [0:12:45]: It's like the teams...
Dave [0:12:46]: Basically, people get so married to, like, the way it always was here or nostalgia, or, you know, Well, this person has always done it this...
Dave [0:12:54]: Like, it's like, the way we've always done it is that that's the easiest way to be disrupted if you keep relying on, like, well, that's how we've always done it.
Dave [0:13:00]: And I think, you know, you must see a lot of that Right?
Dave [0:13:02]: You've been in a company for for fifteen years, but I've joined it.
Dave [0:13:04]: Like, you know, Debbie always done that?
Dave [0:13:06]: Because it always used to be this way.
Dave [0:13:08]: It's like, well, the, you know, how's that working out
Rob [0:13:09]: for us.
Dave [0:13:10]: We gotta move on?
Rob [0:13:10]: You're not allowed to say that.
Rob [0:13:11]: My marketing team.
Rob [0:13:13]: You're never...
Rob [0:13:13]: That's never a justification for doing anything is this is the way it's always done.
Dave [0:13:18]: Right.
Rob [0:13:18]: And I'm actively hunting for those things and killing them.
Rob [0:13:21]: And our CEO is good at this too.
Rob [0:13:23]: Right?
Rob [0:13:23]: Like, we're actively des scoping the things that we do at Varonis, and I have a mantra on the team, You know, because marketing teams we wanna be helpful.
Rob [0:13:30]: Yeah.
Rob [0:13:31]: Right?
Rob [0:13:31]: So we have this mantra that's default focus instead of default helpful.
Rob [0:13:35]: Because the sales rep in Argentina needs a ten page white paper.
Rob [0:13:39]: And the product marketer is like, hey, sure.
Rob [0:13:43]: I'll help you out.
Rob [0:13:44]: It seems like you really need this thing and we end up doing it.
Rob [0:13:46]: Right?
Rob [0:13:46]: So
Dave [0:13:47]: well, it's human nature.
Dave [0:13:48]: Right?
Dave [0:13:48]: It's much easier to say, yes, I can do that versus no.
Dave [0:13:51]: How do you build a...
Dave [0:13:53]: This comes up a lot.
Dave [0:13:54]: How do you build that culture?
Dave [0:13:55]: Is it just like, no is plenty of good enough of a word?
Dave [0:13:57]: Like, do you tell people know?
Dave [0:13:59]: Do you say, the soft no, Like, which marketing teams do they make the soft know?
Dave [0:14:02]: Which is like, we'll we'll prioritize that.
Dave [0:14:04]: We're gonna put that on our list and then you never come back to it?
Dave [0:14:06]: How do you do it?
Rob [0:14:07]: Yeah.
Rob [0:14:07]: That...
Rob [0:14:08]: I mean, that happens a lot.
Rob [0:14:08]: That's a good tactic actually.
Rob [0:14:10]: And you...
Dave [0:14:12]: I feel like that's every...
Dave [0:14:12]: That's what every Pm from every company ever has said to me whenever I've had no one's ever used any of my ideas.
Dave [0:14:18]: I'm not like you.
Dave [0:14:18]: That I don't have good product ideas.
Dave [0:14:20]: Like, well We'll put that in a list.
Dave [0:14:21]: Thank
Rob [0:14:22]: you.
Rob [0:14:22]: Put in the backlog.
Rob [0:14:23]: Yeah.
Dave [0:14:23]: It's on the backlog.
Rob [0:14:24]: Backlog is your best friend.
Rob [0:14:25]: Yeah.
Rob [0:14:25]: Awesome.
Rob [0:14:26]: But, you know, it's a quote from Dave Kellogg.
Rob [0:14:28]: You know, he says, like, especially as CMO, like, you have to get good at saying no, but not too good.
Rob [0:14:34]: Right?
Rob [0:14:34]: So you really have to know your counterparts, your Cro and...
Dave [0:14:38]: He's the best.
Dave [0:14:38]: Hold.
Dave [0:14:39]: Can you say again you have to learn how to say no.
Dave [0:14:41]: You gotta get good at saying no, but not too good at saying no?
Rob [0:14:44]: But not too good.
Rob [0:14:45]: Right?
Dave [0:14:45]: It's such a kellogg ism.
Dave [0:14:46]: We had him in our event in March and he was, like, a better in person It was some.
Rob [0:14:51]: Yeah.
Rob [0:14:51]: Now he is the best been a great mentor to me and, yeah.
Rob [0:14:54]: He's just...
Rob [0:14:54]: Talk about wisdom and just being, like, this wise person who's kind of seen everything and has these really great analog and metaphors to kinda like, live by as a CMO.
Rob [0:15:04]: He's the best.
Dave [0:15:05]: Well, it's like, you, you know, you you have kids.
Dave [0:15:06]: It's like operating in reality.
Dave [0:15:08]: Oh so often it's it's both things can be true.
Dave [0:15:11]: Like, you have to, like, push back a lot, but there's also kind of some things that, like you might have to do because it's the sales team and you wanna show them that you're on their side.
Dave [0:15:18]: And so, yeah, you gotta just, you know, make that deck for the fifteenth time because it...
Dave [0:15:22]: It's, like, you you gotta take one for the team sometimes like that.
Rob [0:15:25]: Yeah.
Rob [0:15:25]: And We talked about longevity of CMOs.
Rob [0:15:27]: I mean, the cause of death for a lot of CMOs is the Cro or the CEO.
Rob [0:15:32]: Right?
Rob [0:15:33]: You have to know how to manage those relationships manage up.
Rob [0:15:35]: I mean you can't always be advocating for marketing.
Rob [0:15:38]: You know, Some of the best leaders hate bringing back bad news to the marketing team.
Rob [0:15:43]: Right?
Rob [0:15:43]: And my friend, Mimi who's also a great marketing leader.
Rob [0:15:47]: He says, look, if you wanna be liked, go run an ice cream truck.
Rob [0:15:50]: If you wanna be a CMO, you know, you gotta be able to come back to your team and say, no.
Rob [0:15:55]: I'm sorry.
Rob [0:15:55]: Like, we're not gonna do this or we are gonna do this for the sales team because you know, we have we have to build goodwill or, hey, we're focusing too much on our activity, but your sales is missing the number.
Rob [0:16:07]: Right?
Rob [0:16:08]: And that's how you get...
Rob [0:16:09]: So you get fired pretty quickly as the CMO.
Rob [0:16:12]: So part of longevity is about consistency and you gotta hit your number.
Rob [0:16:16]: Right?
Dave [0:16:17]: K.
Dave [0:16:17]: Back to the measurement stuff.
Dave [0:16:19]: So we talked about...
Dave [0:16:20]: You talked about, you know, simplifying things telling the story about the person who runs the executive briefing center, which I'm coming back to that.
Dave [0:16:26]: I a question about that.
Dave [0:16:27]: That's an easy one to measure it out to me.
Dave [0:16:29]: Right?
Dave [0:16:29]: It's like, if we know that if we can get Cis to that room, like it's gonna lead to pipeline.
Dave [0:16:33]: But so many of the people that listen to this show and just in marketing in general, a lot of what we do in marketing is a little bit harder to measure in that, like, yes, we should have a podcast, but I don't know that, you know, how many downloads of the podcast is gonna correlate to pipeline the same way.
Dave [0:16:48]: You know, you've also built an incredible brand.
Dave [0:16:51]: You've done a lot of content and things that...
Dave [0:16:52]: Can you give me an example of something that's like a little harder to measure than, like, getting people to the executive briefing center, Like, how would you set a goal around brand or content?
Rob [0:17:00]: Yeah.
Rob [0:17:00]: So I really strongly believe that you shouldn't try to correlate them to pipeline and revenue.
Rob [0:17:05]: We have this thing, I call it the reasonable test.
Rob [0:17:08]: Right?
Rob [0:17:09]: Running a really high quality podcast for security leaders where you bring in, you know, experts, and, you know, you have a really great setup.
Rob [0:17:18]: You have good audio, like, doing a a podcast these days.
Rob [0:17:21]: It's just reasonable.
Rob [0:17:21]: Right?
Rob [0:17:22]: It's just a reasonable marketing strategy.
Rob [0:17:24]: You me, your audience like, we all know it's a good idea.
Rob [0:17:27]: I mean, like, you...
Rob [0:17:28]: You've built a a tremendous, podcast and community.
Rob [0:17:31]: These are just things that you know are good for your health.
Dave [0:17:34]: Oh, my god.
Dave [0:17:35]: I gotta come give you a hug, man.
Dave [0:17:36]: You got this is, like This is why Love...
Dave [0:17:39]: I love when people say stuff like this.
Dave [0:17:40]: It's like, yeah, We're just gotta do it because it's...
Dave [0:17:42]: It doesn't have to have this perfectly quantified quantifiable goal.
Dave [0:17:45]: Like, we're gonna have...
Dave [0:17:46]: We're gonna always have eggs and bread and cheese in the fridge and in milk.
Dave [0:17:50]: Like, we're gonna do those things.
Dave [0:17:51]: No.
Dave [0:17:51]: We...
Dave [0:17:51]: We're gonna We're gonna walk ten thousand steps a day.
Rob [0:17:54]: Right And let me give you another good example.
Rob [0:17:56]: So woman on my team who runs content marketing.
Rob [0:17:58]: Her name's is Lexi.
Rob [0:17:59]: She'll be a drive in the fall.
Rob [0:18:01]: She's she's tremendous.
Rob [0:18:02]: She's running a capture the flag.
Rob [0:18:03]: She built us capture the flag, which is a really fun game for security people to go and try to, like, solve puzzles online and stuff like that.
Rob [0:18:10]: Really cool thing.
Rob [0:18:11]: And our persona loves these types of challenges.
Rob [0:18:14]: So she built it.
Rob [0:18:16]: Yes.
Rob [0:18:16]: She's counting the number of players.
Rob [0:18:17]: Right?
Rob [0:18:18]: Because you have to register to play.
Rob [0:18:19]: And so she's got a metric.
Rob [0:18:21]: She's looking at the the player count and she wants to get that number as high as possible.
Rob [0:18:24]: But you don't want the CMO knocking on her door saying look.
Rob [0:18:27]: We have to try to correlate these players to deals Like, are they members of target accounts?
Rob [0:18:32]: Like, are they you know, I don't see any meetings on the calendar from the Ct players, like, let's never do that again.
Rob [0:18:38]: When you try to apply this pipeline filter on top of things that are just reasonable to do and hit your target audience, you're just asking for trouble.
Rob [0:18:48]: You're asking for frustration.
Rob [0:18:50]: You're gonna get frustration on your team.
Rob [0:18:52]: So I think it's important to apply the reasonable this test?
Dave [0:18:56]: Love that.
Dave [0:18:56]: Did you make that up?
Dave [0:18:57]: Is that the name?
Dave [0:18:58]: The reasonable ness test?
Rob [0:19:00]: Actually, I got that front my former VP of demand generation.
Rob [0:19:03]: He kinda came up with that.
Dave [0:19:05]: It's really good.
Dave [0:19:06]: Okay.
Dave [0:19:06]: I like...
Dave [0:19:06]: I love that's such a kellogg thing too.
Dave [0:19:08]: That's why he's a genius marker.
Dave [0:19:09]: Like, when you name something you already hit you with the cock gave me a principle before.
Dave [0:19:13]: It's like, I love that.
Rob [0:19:14]: Conway law.
Rob [0:19:15]: Yeah.
Rob [0:19:15]: Yeah.
Rob [0:19:16]: And the reason why you have to have the reasonable test is because if you kinda let people go wild, then you start doing things that are outside of your target audience or maybe just a stunt to pull off a stunt, But to capture the flag example, it's giving our target audience, it's like cat net for them.
Rob [0:19:32]: I, like, it there's a really strong reason to do a Ct because our audience really loves playing them.
Dave [0:19:37]: Yeah.
Rob [0:19:37]: Right?
Rob [0:19:37]: We could give them all free ipads and that wouldn't be past the reasonable past right.
Rob [0:19:42]: It's not sort of playing into a thing that they love that that lends credibility to Var?
Dave [0:19:48]: How does that play into, like, long term strategy and planning and budgeting because I think, totally agree, that's a great way to frame it.
Dave [0:19:55]: People will agree with that.
Dave [0:19:56]: But everyone also then asks, okay, Rob, but, like, how do I...
Dave [0:19:59]: When I budget?
Dave [0:20:00]: You know, I've read this law that you wanna budget, like, you know, seventy percent for things you can measure and thirty percent that stuff that's harder to measure eighty twenty.
Dave [0:20:07]: Does that fit anywhere here?
Dave [0:20:09]: How do you think about this playing out.
Dave [0:20:10]: So you have some money in the budget to do things that don't go directly back to a dollar.
Rob [0:20:16]: I mean, there's so many ways to do this, but the way that I always do it, and I know others do it this way too because you've had, I think Peter Malone on the podcast talking about this a lot.
Dave [0:20:26]: Mah.
Dave [0:20:26]: I can't...
Dave [0:20:27]: You got the second the same same country, same Irish last name, but he's Mah.
Dave [0:20:31]: He would be upset about that.
Dave [0:20:33]: He's about.
Rob [0:20:34]: Sorry.
Rob [0:20:34]: I've never never met.
Rob [0:20:35]: But I...
Rob [0:20:35]: I know that he talks a lot about reverse engineering the number.
Rob [0:20:39]: Yeah Right?
Rob [0:20:40]: So we always take care of the pipeline first.
Rob [0:20:42]: Right?
Rob [0:20:42]: We know how much of the pipeline, we need to hit our revenue number.
Rob [0:20:46]: We know what the contribution from marketing and Sdr str needs to be.
Rob [0:20:49]: We back back into a budget based on that.
Rob [0:20:52]: Right?
Rob [0:20:53]: We know the cost to generate an opportunity.
Rob [0:20:55]: So you always wanna take care of your number first and then fund the other programs afterwards.
Rob [0:21:00]: That's kinda how I look at it.
Rob [0:21:02]: Especially as a public company.
Rob [0:21:03]: We can't miss our number.
Dave [0:21:05]: So this guy He's got a million dollars in here for b.
Dave [0:21:09]: What is that?
Dave [0:21:09]: Actually, that might...
Dave [0:21:10]: That might be a thing in an enterprise.
Dave [0:21:12]: Okay.
Dave [0:21:12]: So basically, you're gonna act, like, you need to make sure you're asking for or have at least enough money covered to feed everybody, and then you can work in the fun stuff somehow.
Rob [0:21:21]: Yeah.
Rob [0:21:21]: And it gets gets kinda complicated when you look at cost opportunities different per channels.
Rob [0:21:26]: So you have to think about the channel splits.
Rob [0:21:27]: You have to think about Geo.
Rob [0:21:28]: Yep.
Rob [0:21:29]: You have to look at conversion rates.
Rob [0:21:30]: So it's not, like, an easy problem.
Rob [0:21:32]: And this is where the engineer and kinda, like, mathematician in me kinda like, geek out on that side of marketing.
Rob [0:21:36]: And having really good ops people who can help you with this is a great a great thing and to align with your sales leader and your CFO, you know, to build the model and agree on the model.
Dave [0:21:47]: Are you able to make more confident or, like, gut driven decisions because you've been the CMO there for so long because you've been with this team for a while.
Dave [0:21:55]: Like, there's gotta be like, you must have a longer leash than someone who comes in new.
Dave [0:22:00]: Right?
Dave [0:22:00]: And asked to try to prove their worth.
Rob [0:22:02]: Yeah.
Rob [0:22:02]: I think I think I do, and I you know, another gabe Kellogg is and this is advice for anybody who wants to go from VP to CMO is that the job of a CMO is to run marketing, but also help the CEO run the company.
Rob [0:22:14]: And I think in helping this CEO run the company.
Rob [0:22:17]: I have a much wider lens.
Rob [0:22:18]: And from being here for a while.
Rob [0:22:20]: I know the business fundamentals, I know the behavior of the sales team.
Rob [0:22:24]: I know the trends in conversion rates and Asp.
Rob [0:22:28]: And, like, the sort of underlying mechanisms that are true here.
Rob [0:22:32]: You know, now things change.
Rob [0:22:34]: Right?
Rob [0:22:34]: We acquired three companies in the last sixteen months that introduces a whole new set of challenges and operations and opportunity for us.
Rob [0:22:41]: So yes, you know, for the things that remain the same, but things are always changing, so you have to always check your assumptions.
Dave [0:22:49]: I was gonna go back to that one, but...
Dave [0:22:51]: Because we we had it in our in our doc, but you eloquently weave that into your answer, but I wanna just rewind to that and just talk about it again.
Dave [0:22:58]: What is the difference between?
Dave [0:22:59]: We were actually having this discussion Internally we were thinking about, like, our community and stuff and we're were trying to...
Dave [0:23:04]: You know, some companies have a VP of marketing, some companies have a CMO, Some companies have a Sv, But then when I do talk Demos, there is a difference in your...
Dave [0:23:11]: In their minds about...
Dave [0:23:13]: Yes.
Dave [0:23:13]: There is a difference between a VP marketing and a CMO.
Dave [0:23:16]: What what is your answer to that?
Rob [0:23:18]: Well, regardless of the title, like, there's the head of marketing job.
Rob [0:23:21]: Right?
Rob [0:23:22]: Like, if you're reporting to the CEO, and responsible for the brand and the marketing generated pipeline.
Rob [0:23:29]: You know, you're effectively the CMO, regardless of what your actual title says.
Rob [0:23:34]: But I think once you get to that level where, you know, your top of the food chain and we're reporting to the CEO, you have to get really good at managing up.
Rob [0:23:43]: I know you're a big fan of this, and you talk about it a lot.
Rob [0:23:47]: And and I I learned this from you is that you have to get really good at internal marketing and I think you've called it, like, merchandising.
Rob [0:23:55]: Right?
Rob [0:23:55]: Like, because you just assume that everyone knows what marketing is up to.
Rob [0:23:58]: But if you don't do that enough, and you don't communicate up, then, you know, you run the risk of someone's saying, what is marketing doing anyway??
Rob [0:24:06]: Like,
Dave [0:24:07]: Can I tell you where I learned that by the way, like, you've done marketing at a bigger level, bigger company than than I have, but I learned it because just quite selfish?
Dave [0:24:13]: Very early days of drift.
Dave [0:24:15]: I was, like one of the early marketing people, and we had this thing on Friday.
Dave [0:24:18]: I'll show and tell where you go around and show what you worked on.
Dave [0:24:20]: It was like, nine and I'd never been at, like, a really technical company or early stage company.
Dave [0:24:25]: So I was like, it's so cool.
Dave [0:24:26]: Like, the only marketing guy here.
Dave [0:24:28]: And it's like ten engineers and designers and they're all doing cool shit with the terminal.
Dave [0:24:32]: I don't even know Right?
Dave [0:24:33]: And we have to go around the room and it, they're all like, you know, demoing things in, like, my very first week there.
Dave [0:24:38]: They're like, alright, Dave once don't you show what you did this week and I, like, pulled up a blog post that I wrote, and I was like, I wrote this article.
Dave [0:24:45]: And no one understood it and I was like, oh, man.
Dave [0:24:48]: And the next two weeks, so two weeks later, I came back and I was like, okay.
Dave [0:24:52]: We...
Dave [0:24:53]: You guys just all I'll ship this new feature.
Dave [0:24:54]: Here's what Did.
Dave [0:24:55]: I made a video about it.
Dave [0:24:56]: I wrote an article about it.
Dave [0:24:57]: Check this out.
Dave [0:24:57]: We had nobody that came to our website before, seven hundred and eighteen people came.
Dave [0:25:02]: Six people checked it out.
Dave [0:25:03]: Three people said this new feature you built is awesome.
Dave [0:25:05]: And it was like, we all, like, clicked that same day and ever since then I was like oh, It's this...
Dave [0:25:09]: And then I saw it at a bunch of different scales, which is just like, yeah.
Dave [0:25:12]: It's the same thing.
Dave [0:25:13]: Like, you need to get people to to believe, like, they they need to be involved with you, and it's to your advantage if as a marketer, you can get all the smart people in the company because you're not the smartest person in the company.
Dave [0:25:23]: You want product.
Dave [0:25:24]: You want...
Dave [0:25:24]: I wanna work with the product team.
Dave [0:25:25]: I wanna work with the engineering gym.
Dave [0:25:26]: Wanna work with the sales team, but it it's like that type of culture is, like, what makes the job really fun and you have to do that.
Dave [0:25:31]: And some so many people have the arrogance of, like, you you don't know what marketing does.
Dave [0:25:35]: It's like, oh, that's your job.
Dave [0:25:36]: If you can't get the people inside of your company fired up about what you do.
Dave [0:25:39]: How do you think you're gonna get strangers to care?
Dave [0:25:42]: I've always, like, somebody told me that years ago, and I've I've really felt that.
Rob [0:25:46]: Yeah.
Rob [0:25:46]: And that is the job of the head of marketing?
Rob [0:25:48]: And, you know, if you hire well too, like, you'll have other people on the team who lead functions who are super proud of their function and wanna always share and I have some great examples of that internally here at Rowan, leaders who are just always sharing, Especially now with Ai as well, like, everyone is encouraged to show and show and tell what they're working on.
Rob [0:26:06]: We have a Friday session.
Rob [0:26:07]: Called Ai Show and chair and everyone's coming and showing the skills they made and what boring process they automated away and it's been really fun to see everyone kinda sync their teeth in and and get excited about it.
Dave [0:26:19]: Where are we at with how we feel about Ai and in marketing.
Dave [0:26:21]: What's it gonna what's it gonna do?
Dave [0:26:23]: What's it gonna change?
Dave [0:26:24]: Tell me?
Dave [0:26:24]: I want your perspective?
Rob [0:26:26]: Yeah.
Rob [0:26:26]: I don't know if you saw this because I think it's relatively new, but click up, You know you wear that company to, like, a project management software.
Dave [0:26:33]: My friend tom Went edwards tagged me in a post last night, and it was...
Dave [0:26:36]: He...
Dave [0:26:36]: Who wanted me to comment On.
Dave [0:26:37]: It was is it click up his hiring a CMO for a million bucks a year or something like that.
Rob [0:26:41]: Yeah.
Rob [0:26:41]: To run the entire...
Rob [0:26:42]: Like, so basically, a one person marketing team.
Rob [0:26:44]: I think that is taking it to the extreme my lean team philosophy, I think is it's built for this Ai era because we all have leverage.
Rob [0:26:52]: Right?
Rob [0:26:53]: Especially with, like, things like, you know what my dream is with Ai is it's such a struggle to get the company to stay on brand.
Rob [0:27:01]: Right?
Rob [0:27:02]: Some companies are really master at this.
Rob [0:27:04]: I think Salesforce is really good at it.
Rob [0:27:06]: Servicenow is another one that I feel like whether I show up at their offices, or I get an email or I see them at a trade show.
Rob [0:27:13]: Like, the branding is just always on point the voice and tone.
Rob [0:27:17]: Getting brand compliance is just a nightmare as you scale.
Rob [0:27:21]: And I think Ai.
Dave [0:27:22]: Why did that matter?
Dave [0:27:23]: Just you have...
Dave [0:27:24]: You gotta look...
Dave [0:27:24]: You gotta have the company uniform?
Dave [0:27:26]: Like, what's your...
Dave [0:27:27]: What's the why behind that?
Rob [0:27:29]: I'm a big fan of no rough edges.
Rob [0:27:31]: Mh.
Rob [0:27:32]: Right?
Rob [0:27:32]: I think everything you do as a brand says something about your...
Rob [0:27:35]: About you.
Rob [0:27:36]: You know?
Rob [0:27:37]: Let me give you an example.
Rob [0:27:38]: I was talking to a CMO who's in, like, the, Ae space.
Rob [0:27:42]: But their company been around for, like, fifteen years.
Rob [0:27:45]: And there's a lot of, like, hot new startups ups doing, like, Ae.
Rob [0:27:48]: Right?
Rob [0:27:49]: You've got profound.
Rob [0:27:50]: You've got Air ops, These are, like, cool new companies.
Rob [0:27:52]: And I was looking at their website.
Rob [0:27:55]: And I just like, put it side by side with these, like, hot new Silicon Valley startups.
Rob [0:27:59]: And I'm like, oh, I could just, like see.
Rob [0:28:02]: Right?
Rob [0:28:02]: Your problem is that people think of you as legacy, but, like, you know, your website looks like it's from twenty twenty.
Rob [0:28:09]: Right?
Rob [0:28:09]: So, like, if you don't get those things right, then no messaging, no strategy is really gonna help you overcome it.
Rob [0:28:16]: Right?
Rob [0:28:17]: It's like, show up to, like, a fancy dinner and you're in, like, you a logo t shirt, like, people will immediately assume things about you.
Dave [0:28:24]: Yeah.
Dave [0:28:24]: I always say that marketing is a game of perception.
Rob [0:28:28]: Yeah.
Dave [0:28:28]: And I think people often read that and interpret, like, in a really negative way.
Dave [0:28:33]: They think it's, like some evil, like, the evil capitalism way, but I'm like, no, it's just literally like, if you walk into a place that makes sandwiches.
Dave [0:28:40]: Really, if you...
Dave [0:28:41]: Rob tells place makes really great sandwiches but I walk in there and there's like, it smells like piss on the floor.
Dave [0:28:45]: You know, it's like, I do think all those things matter how you show up.
Dave [0:28:50]: So it's cool to hear you talk about that.
Dave [0:28:51]: I pulled I pulled this post up, I was typing while you're Melissa Rose thought she's gonna come on this podcast.
Dave [0:28:56]: I met her once.
Dave [0:28:56]: She's cool.
Dave [0:28:57]: She posted this from click, the hundred x CMO job is real.
Dave [0:29:00]: Click up is paying a million dollars for one person to be the entire marketing part department.
Dave [0:29:05]: No team.
Dave [0:29:06]: Brand positioning campaigns creative.
Dave [0:29:08]: They they lay off the whole marketing team and now they're gonna find one person.
Rob [0:29:12]: I have no idea.
Dave [0:29:14]: Anyway, why is this I have no beef with click up.
Dave [0:29:17]: I know they're Chris Cunningham was on my podcast.
Dave [0:29:19]: He's all hilarious.
Dave [0:29:20]: But let's poke holes in this.
Dave [0:29:22]: Why can you not...
Dave [0:29:23]: Why would this not work?
Dave [0:29:24]: Why can you not pay a million dollars for one person to be the the CMO.
Dave [0:29:27]: What does that mean?
Rob [0:29:29]: I actually think in some businesses, you can get away with one.
Rob [0:29:32]: I think you will be able to get away with one or two extremely well rounded and technically minded marketers, maybe paired with, like, one or two engineers.
Rob [0:29:42]: Someone with really good taste, really good marketing sense.
Rob [0:29:45]: Right?
Rob [0:29:46]: Like, just like a killer marketer, like a seth code and type person.
Rob [0:29:49]: I think you can pair, like, a Seth God with two engineers and probably run a full marketing team for a certain class of company.
Rob [0:29:58]: Now the moment you work for a company that needs to have a big events motion.
Rob [0:30:02]: It breaks down completely.
Rob [0:30:03]: Right?
Rob [0:30:04]: Like, we run hundreds of field events a year, like hundreds, maybe even over a thousand.
Rob [0:30:09]: Right?
Rob [0:30:09]: There's no Ai that's gonna help you scale that.
Rob [0:30:11]: The executive briefing program that I talked about.
Rob [0:30:14]: Like, you cannot get the leverage for that type of marketing strategy like you can with a blog with webinars.
Rob [0:30:20]: Like, there's a lot you can do, but it starts to break down when you do a lot of physical world stuff.
Rob [0:30:25]: Right?
Rob [0:30:25]: It just does.
Rob [0:30:26]: Like, Red bull couldn't do their marketing with this type of CMO because they're out there, you know,
Dave [0:30:32]: Well, neither could you guide, like, you know, you're company like a perfect example of that?
Dave [0:30:35]: Like, you sell to...
Dave [0:30:36]: I don't know anything about enterprise, but you sell to, like, really high end, you know, Cis of probably Fortune five hundred companies.
Dave [0:30:44]: Right?
Dave [0:30:44]: Like, you need to get people to an executive briefing center in Miami.
Dave [0:30:48]: Like, you're not gonna win them over with just some Ai generated drool.
Dave [0:30:53]: But the answer somewhere in the middle, like, I get...
Dave [0:30:55]: I totally get your saying, which is, like, someone like Seth Gordon because you understand, like, how to move people, how to tell stories, how to build a brand, how to get people to feel something, power that up with two people who can actually, like, you know, run some ads and build some funnels or something.
Dave [0:31:08]: Yeah.
Rob [0:31:08]: Yeah.
Rob [0:31:08]: I mean, look, but if I were back Trello, for instance, if I were, you know, selling a, a twenty dollar a month, product that you can buy with credit card, and there really is no events motion in the strategy.
Rob [0:31:19]: Everything is about online marketing, ads, organic funnel.
Rob [0:31:25]: Like, you can really...
Rob [0:31:26]: I think you could run a company like that with one or two marketers.
Rob [0:31:29]: And they could do a lot of the traditional marketing functions.
Rob [0:31:32]: You know, they could build brand ads.
Rob [0:31:34]: They can run Linkedin campaigns.
Rob [0:31:35]: They could run Google ad campaigns with an agent.
Rob [0:31:37]: I think you can get a lot done.
Rob [0:31:39]: I think this is great for startups that are typically starved for marketing resources.
Rob [0:31:44]: Because I think you could do a lot more with less.
Dave [0:31:47]: This is so random.
Dave [0:31:48]: This is gonna take a soft topic, but I meant to share this earlier I know, you may just think of it.
Dave [0:31:51]: Have you seen this by the way?
Dave [0:31:53]: Do you still follow the company?
Dave [0:31:54]: Know, I've seen, like, stack overflow since chat Is really interesting.
Rob [0:31:58]: Yeah.
Rob [0:31:58]: It used to be we couldn't live Without stack overflow as engineers.
Rob [0:32:02]: And, you know, I got cool behind the scenes look being there while it was being built.
Rob [0:32:06]: I didn't work on that team, but, yeah, It was like the bible for all developers and now just I think they sold it to Pe firm or something, so they got I'm sure they made it really great.
Dave [0:32:17]: It just...
Dave [0:32:17]: Is an example It's like, the perfect example of, like, what CMOs and marketers are struggling with when it come to, like, web and search and what matters in the world of the digital.
Dave [0:32:26]: Oh, this is what I wanted to come back to in my crazy notes all over here.
Dave [0:32:29]: I don't know anything about the enterprise.
Dave [0:32:31]: You guys built a briefing center.
Dave [0:32:33]: Is this like, you own...
Dave [0:32:34]: You rented some space in, like, a regis coffee conference center, Like, this is like a, like a country club where you bring Cis, so like, show them.
Dave [0:32:41]: I have no idea about what a seven hundred million dollar enterprise cybersecurity company how you do marketing.
Dave [0:32:46]: So can you please tell me?
Dave [0:32:47]: And is there like, good snacks in there or something?
Rob [0:32:49]: Great snacks.
Rob [0:32:49]: There's a a barista and everything.
Rob [0:32:51]: So we built...
Rob [0:32:53]: We moved our headquarters to Miami and when we built our office in Miami.
Rob [0:32:56]: We we built, like, a section of the office.
Rob [0:32:58]: That's a really nice briefing center with a a big conference room room and a nice kitchen and everything.
Rob [0:33:03]: It's a really nice space.
Rob [0:33:04]: So we just we bring people down to Miami and customers have a good time and they read...
Rob [0:33:08]: They sort of go through with our exact team, a road map.
Rob [0:33:11]: They bring up...
Rob [0:33:12]: Know, it's like a customer advisory board type situation.
Dave [0:33:15]: Yeah.
Rob [0:33:15]: But we also do them remotely.
Rob [0:33:16]: Like, we'll get, like, a conference space in Southern California, you know, so that's local for the customers we have down there.
Rob [0:33:22]: Pretty common playbook.
Rob [0:33:23]: I know I've been to Eb at, like, Salesforce and servicenow at at Hubspot.
Rob [0:33:28]: I've I was on there.
Dave [0:33:30]: Like, if we crack into that, what's like the timeless marketing principle in there?
Dave [0:33:34]: Because there's some...
Dave [0:33:35]: Why would I wanna go to that, spend some time?
Dave [0:33:39]: Is it about status?
Dave [0:33:40]: Is it about a feeling?
Dave [0:33:41]: Like, it's almost is like get inviting someone to a dinner or a webinar just at a bigger scale.
Dave [0:33:46]: What's the, like, timeless marketing lesson in there?
Rob [0:33:48]: I think it's that people wanna be heard.
Rob [0:33:50]: Right?
Rob [0:33:51]: People want to feel like they're super valued as a customer?
Rob [0:33:54]: I know when I was an early early hubspot customer and Da and Brian, like, brought me up to boston and I was with their entire executive leadership team talking about, like, the bugs that I was experiencing, and, oh, I wish you guys can do this.
Rob [0:34:09]: Why do Have to buy this other tool for SEO when you guys are...
Rob [0:34:12]: You could easily build it into your software and they just they listened.
Rob [0:34:15]: And if you felt like you had a voice as a customer.
Rob [0:34:19]: And you got to meet people and you got to kinda know them as humans and I feel like it's kind of a lost art in software, you know, so much of so many software vendors that we use everyone, like you buy and then they're just gone.
Rob [0:34:31]: And you get a Cs who might be okay might not be, but you lose connectivity to maybe the leadership team that sold you on it.
Rob [0:34:39]: And we're very man about treating our customers extremely well for ron.
Rob [0:34:43]: And, you know.
Dave [0:34:44]: So it's not too dissimilar than other than, like, oh, we know the lady who runs the bakery down the street and our kids go to the same school and, like, we feel like we know her and we're, like, we wanna give feedback, but we're vested in her business.
Dave [0:34:55]: There's something that there's a human principle there.
Dave [0:34:58]: As long as we're selling to human, this will be okay.
Rob [0:35:01]: Yeah.
Rob [0:35:01]: And there's also an attention span thing, like Var veronica we're a big product.
Rob [0:35:03]: You know, Like I mentioned before we acquired three companies in the last year, We're doing some really exciting things.
Rob [0:35:08]: And for a decision maker to keep up with all that stuff, it's unreasonable.
Rob [0:35:13]: But if you're sitting down in a conference room for a few hours and you get to see the demos of everything and ask questions, Like, that is focused time with your best customers, Really how can you beat that?
Rob [0:35:25]: You know what I mean?
Dave [0:35:26]: Let's talk through some of your lessons, marketing to a skeptical crowd, which is selling into cybersecurity, and I'm asking, obviously, you don't need to help...
Dave [0:35:35]: You're not doing this to help any other cybersecurity marketers in this.
Dave [0:35:39]: I'm asking this because, I think it's a great lesson in just what works in marketing when you have...
Dave [0:35:44]: I'm gonna learn from someone who has to market to a really skeptical buyer.
Dave [0:35:48]: So number one is, like, your Ic, which is, Cis this is in our doc here.
Dave [0:35:52]: Says Cis are zero trust buyers by training.
Dave [0:35:55]: They're deeply skeptical of marketing claims.
Dave [0:35:57]: So how the heck do you do marketing to these people who are very skeptical of marketing in the first place.
Dave [0:36:02]: Yeah.
Rob [0:36:03]: It's a great question.
Rob [0:36:03]: I think part of it is hiring people who have technical backgrounds on marketing, so that they can do the sniff test of, like, hey, Is this a sound like it's something that's coming from peer?
Rob [0:36:14]: Or does it sound like it's something written by a marketer.
Dave [0:36:17]: Say more about that.
Dave [0:36:17]: Like, what does that mean hiring some with technical backgrounds where a former engineers or marketers who did work at a technical company.
Dave [0:36:23]: How do you crack that?
Rob [0:36:25]: Yeah.
Rob [0:36:25]: Sometimes, I mean, this is my background.
Rob [0:36:27]: Like, a former engineer who can write really well and can understand the customer is curious and doesn't mind working with salespeople.
Rob [0:36:34]: Those are great fits for a technical marketing team like at Varonis.
Rob [0:36:38]: But you can also learn it.
Rob [0:36:40]: I actually have a lot of people here, you know, our best copywriter.
Rob [0:36:43]: She didn't work in cyber before she worked at Varonis.
Rob [0:36:45]: And I thought she wrote some really authentic copy that passed the test for me and for a lot of our customers.
Rob [0:36:52]: Like, she didn't use a lot of jargon.
Rob [0:36:54]: She just had, like, really good voice and tone for our audience.
Rob [0:36:58]: I think the other thing is, like, a lot of our marketing is actual pretty hardcore content.
Rob [0:37:02]: Like, we do a lot of threat research.
Rob [0:37:04]: We build capture the flags, like, we talked about our webinars.
Rob [0:37:07]: We don't just run them with marketers.
Rob [0:37:09]: We bring in, like, you know, our best hackers and our product builders.
Rob [0:37:13]: And so I think that's Those are kind of the easy, easy things.
Dave [0:37:17]: Wait.
Dave [0:37:17]: I wanna try to articulate that.
Dave [0:37:18]: It's like, you're not just doing content for the sake of doing content.
Dave [0:37:21]: You're doing a few things that are really interesting and unique and that is your content strategy.
Dave [0:37:27]: Right?
Dave [0:37:27]: Did I interpret that right?
Rob [0:37:29]: Yeah.
Rob [0:37:29]: You're not gonna find a lot of fluffy ebooks.
Dave [0:37:32]: Like, you're not just doing a webinar every week because you should do a webinar every week.
Dave [0:37:36]: Right?
Rob [0:37:37]: Yeah.
Rob [0:37:37]: What some of our best webinars?
Rob [0:37:38]: We call them attack labs.
Rob [0:37:40]: Basically, you show up, and we run an actual attack simulation.
Rob [0:37:44]: Live, and then we show you how the var verona product is either alerting or fixing the problems that that are coming up.
Rob [0:37:51]: So we show, like, the attacker and then the defender.
Rob [0:37:54]: And people love it because it's it's real content.
Rob [0:37:56]: It's stuff that's actually happening in the real world.
Rob [0:37:59]: It's not just top ten things.
Rob [0:38:00]: See so should care about this month.
Dave [0:38:02]: I just got an idea.
Dave [0:38:03]: I take notes during these because I get, I, like to, like, put my notes in with the show, but attack labs is sick.
Dave [0:38:09]: That's such a good...
Dave [0:38:10]: It's a perfect idea.
Dave [0:38:12]: We're doing this thing on webinars next week or whatever, but Yes.
Dave [0:38:15]: It's a webinar, but, like, when your packaging is really good, like, attack labs makes it feel like you're gonna go to that.
Dave [0:38:20]: You're gonna learn something.
Dave [0:38:20]: You're not, like, I'm going a Var erroneous webinar.
Dave [0:38:22]: Exactly.
Dave [0:38:23]: So we could do, like, marketing labs or something.
Dave [0:38:26]: That would be so cool.
Dave [0:38:27]: We're, like, you know, someone comes on this show something specific.
Rob [0:38:30]: Yeah.
Rob [0:38:30]: I think you I think I've seen you do, like, tear downs and stuff like that.
Rob [0:38:33]: It's kind of a similar concepts.
Rob [0:38:34]: It's like, let's, you know, let's open someone's marketing budget file and, like, sc it Like, the people love to see the real stuff.
Rob [0:38:40]: Yeah.
Rob [0:38:40]: I mean, don't get me wrong.
Rob [0:38:41]: You can do some, like, topical Yeah, webinars that are interesting or panel discussions that could be really interesting.
Dave [0:38:47]: But the point that I'm trying to make though is like, I think it's like, I think you have this built in, and it's just like, if you...
Dave [0:38:53]: I think a lot of people do the webinar for the sake of the webinar in that, like, this is a marketing manager on the team, and they need to generate fifteen From webinars and so they need to go do the webinar.
Dave [0:39:02]: First, like, you're operating from the like, no.
Dave [0:39:05]: Like, let's create something that someone would actually want to go to and that's kinda like the ninety nine percent of what it takes to be good at marketing.
Rob [0:39:13]: Exactly.
Rob [0:39:13]: Yeah.
Rob [0:39:13]: And our numbers show, Like, it's one of our better tactics.
Rob [0:39:16]: And it's it's always...
Rob [0:39:17]: Always has been, and we have a great team that knows how to put on good webinars.
Rob [0:39:20]: Knows how to get great guests.
Rob [0:39:22]: And listen to the audience and understand what they wanna see next.
Rob [0:39:26]: So, yeah, Not every webinar program is built equally.
Dave [0:39:30]: I wanna come back to this...
Dave [0:39:31]: Where you mentioned this earlier three acquisitions in the last eighteen months.
Dave [0:39:34]: This comes up a lot.
Dave [0:39:36]: How do you integrate brands, people ask that, hey.
Dave [0:39:39]: We just...
Dave [0:39:39]: My company just got acquired, or we acquired this company.
Dave [0:39:42]: You've been in the the thick of this the last three months.
Dave [0:39:45]: Any lessons that would be related relevant for this audience based on your experience doing these.
Rob [0:39:50]: Yeah.
Rob [0:39:50]: What I've learned is, you know, as a marketer or you wanna maximize these opportunities.
Rob [0:39:54]: These are marketable moments.
Rob [0:39:55]: Right?
Rob [0:39:55]: It's a reason for people to pay attention to your company.
Rob [0:39:57]: It's a reason to get people to look at you again if they haven't looked at you in a while.
Rob [0:40:01]: So I always think about it, like, how can I squeeze as much juice out of this as possible?
Rob [0:40:05]: So you've got the actual announcement.
Rob [0:40:07]: And if you could disclose things like how much you paid, people love that.
Rob [0:40:10]: Right?
Rob [0:40:11]: If you're making an announcement that we acquired a company for an undisclosed price, it's not as sexy as saying, we've acquired, you know, so and so a company for a hundred million dollars.
Rob [0:40:19]: Right?
Rob [0:40:20]: So you wanna think about the initial news.
Rob [0:40:23]: And some companies even do a good job at getting multiple bytes at that apple.
Rob [0:40:27]: Right?
Rob [0:40:28]: Maybe there's a leak, a rumor of an acquisition.
Rob [0:40:31]: And that gets, like, some attention for your company.
Rob [0:40:33]: And then it's always signed a letter of intent, and then, okay, the deal closed and you get kind of three attempts at kind of keeping that news alive.
Rob [0:40:40]: And then you make your big acquisition announcement.
Rob [0:40:42]: Hopefully, you've got a cool price tag attached to it or whatever, something exciting.
Rob [0:40:46]: Maybe there's, like, a really smart founder that's coming along.
Rob [0:40:49]: Right?
Rob [0:40:50]: We've had that twice.
Rob [0:40:51]: We had actually all three times.
Rob [0:40:53]: Really interesting people and in the in the most recent acquisition, someone who's really well known because he had founded two kind of foundational cyber cybersecurity companies before and everyone kinda knows and respects him.
Rob [0:41:04]: So the fact that he's coming along and joining Var verona great for marketing as well.
Dave [0:41:09]: There's a lesson in there too.
Dave [0:41:10]: Marketing is like, you're, like, at the beach and you put a bunch of sand and you kinda shake it out and you've see and you're like, oh, alright.
Dave [0:41:15]: That's a good one.
Dave [0:41:16]: That's a good shell.
Dave [0:41:17]: Like, you're trying to find these, like, one or two ingredients.
Dave [0:41:19]: Like, I heard you kinda talk to, like, maybe this.
Dave [0:41:21]: Maybe this.
Dave [0:41:22]: Maybe this.
Dave [0:41:22]: It's like, you're trying to find one or two things that could be a hook to tell a story.
Rob [0:41:27]: Absolutely.
Rob [0:41:27]: Yeah.
Rob [0:41:28]: And then do your acquisition announcement, that's hopefully gives you a nice spike of attention.
Rob [0:41:32]: Right?
Rob [0:41:32]: It's an attention game.
Rob [0:41:33]: And then you integrate the product, and then you relaunch it.
Rob [0:41:36]: Right?
Rob [0:41:36]: So We acquired a company called Alt true.
Rob [0:41:39]: And we...
Rob [0:41:40]: Within a couple months, post closed the acquisition, we re relaunch Atlas.
Rob [0:41:44]: And that's the product from the acquisition, and then we kinda get, like a second wind of that.
Dave [0:41:50]: Yeah.
Dave [0:41:50]: Do you guys have a philosophy on that?
Dave [0:41:51]: Like, is you're trying to acquire...
Dave [0:41:53]: Does everything become like, var blank versus, like, what what do they call, like, a house of brands or, like, all separate things?
Dave [0:42:00]: You know, Salesforce does it?
Dave [0:42:01]: I don't...
Rob [0:42:01]: Yeah.
Rob [0:42:01]: House of brand versus branded house?
Rob [0:42:03]: Yeah.
Rob [0:42:04]: Yeah.
Rob [0:42:04]: We're branded house.
Rob [0:42:06]: And that...
Rob [0:42:06]: You know, it's tricky.
Rob [0:42:07]: Like...
Rob [0:42:08]: So the acquisitions we made, it's it was an easy call because they were smaller companies that didn't have brands really and didn't really have marketing teams So it's not like I inherited this sort of, like, generational company.
Rob [0:42:20]: Like, we didn't acquire splunk or something like that or, you know, when Palo alto acquired Cyber arc, Cyber arc was a very well known company with a distinctive brand in Cyber, and then they had to make a choice.
Rob [0:42:31]: Do we keep the Cyber art brand that everyone knows?
Rob [0:42:34]: Or do we now make it Palo Alto something or other, which they eventually, I think did.
Rob [0:42:39]: So for us, it was an easy call?
Rob [0:42:40]: It's Var, Var Intercept was from an acquisition, Ver Atlas from an acquisition.
Dave [0:42:46]: The house of brand seems like a nightmare for marketers, branded house feels like you could probably figure that out.
Rob [0:42:52]: Yeah.
Rob [0:42:52]: It might be different in B2c.
Rob [0:42:53]: Yeah.
Rob [0:42:54]: True.
Rob [0:42:55]: I know the CEO of Liquid death.
Rob [0:42:57]: He's a big fan of the branded house even though a lot of beverage brands go with house of brands.
Rob [0:43:03]: Right?
Rob [0:43:04]: Or you may not even know that two beverage companies are really the same.
Rob [0:43:06]: Part of the same conglomerate?
Dave [0:43:09]: True.
Rob [0:43:10]: He's really big on making sure that liquid death energy drink feels like the same brand as liquid death, the water.
Dave [0:43:17]: So do you take responsibility for, like, the marketing of those...
Dave [0:43:20]: Like, when you make those three acquisitions, they have marketing people do they get folded into your team, do you guys now have to, like, drive pipeline for...
Dave [0:43:28]: How does that work?
Rob [0:43:30]: Yeah.
Rob [0:43:30]: So in the three acquisitions we made, there really weren't any marketers.
Rob [0:43:33]: So we didn't, you know, we didn't have to deal with, like, a big team integrations on the marketing side?
Rob [0:43:39]: But, yeah, now that you have a new product line, you figure out the packaging of pricing.
Rob [0:43:43]: You have to come up with a marketing strategy.
Rob [0:43:45]: Luckily for us, it's all the same persona.
Rob [0:43:48]: It's the Cis at the end, buying all of these products, but you know, we've evolved from the company where our mantra was always thrown as we protect data.
Rob [0:43:56]: Right?
Rob [0:43:57]: That we were the data security company, and we still are.
Rob [0:44:01]: And our Dna, but we'd also now do a few other different things.
Rob [0:44:04]: Right?
Rob [0:44:04]: We do social engineering defense with intercept.
Rob [0:44:07]: And we do Ai security with Atlas.
Rob [0:44:09]: And so that's always a challenge.
Rob [0:44:11]: And you've seen this...
Rob [0:44:12]: I think Salesforce has done it quite well.
Rob [0:44:13]: Right?
Rob [0:44:14]: They're no longer the Crm.
Rob [0:44:15]: That's still their Dna, their core dna, but they also do a lot of other things now.
Rob [0:44:20]: Many other things with the acquisitions they've made.
Dave [0:44:24]: I forget that day.
Dave [0:44:24]: I used Slack every day, and I don't ever think that that Salesforce.
Rob [0:44:28]: Yeah.
Rob [0:44:28]: Again, well, that was actually, I think a good call to be, like, house of brands in that situation because Slack brand was just so good.
Rob [0:44:35]: I think.
Rob [0:44:36]: I think it was smart Instead of calling it, like, I don't know.
Rob [0:44:39]: Even putting it making it Salesforce slack would have been kinda goofy.
Rob [0:44:42]: So I'm kinda glad they stuck with Slack.
Rob [0:44:45]: What do what do you think?
Dave [0:44:47]: Yeah.
Dave [0:44:47]: I Slack Slack to me is a brand.
Dave [0:44:48]: I know it's like a silly answer, but it's like, I feel like I remember using Slack early on when it was cool when it was a startup up, and I've it I've used it at every company since then, and lots of people complain about it, but I think that's what happens with any product as you you get scale.
Dave [0:45:01]: Slack has been awesome.
Dave [0:45:02]: I...
Dave [0:45:03]: It's changed how I've been able to work, and we have a remote company, and that's our office.
Dave [0:45:07]: And Yeah.
Dave [0:45:08]: And they used to have a cool brand.
Dave [0:45:09]: It was cool.
Dave [0:45:10]: I used to think it was cool to have that little, like, the knocking sound now.
Dave [0:45:13]: There's no notifications.
Dave [0:45:14]: I was back in the notification era.
Rob [0:45:17]: Yeah.
Rob [0:45:17]: And they also achieved a a marketing feat of becoming a a verb.
Rob [0:45:21]: Right?
Rob [0:45:21]: You know, All Slack me.
Dave [0:45:24]: True.
Dave [0:45:24]: You know what?
Dave [0:45:25]: Now that you mentioned Slack and marketing.
Dave [0:45:26]: I used to...
Dave [0:45:27]: They used to be really good at, like, a product mark like, in app, like, they, like cute little, like, copy, You know, you'd go to upload an image and it failed.
Dave [0:45:34]: They have some, like, good witty copy, almost like mailchimp type of vibes that I'd like.
Dave [0:45:39]: That is what was part of their early brand.
Dave [0:45:41]: I don't I don't know if that's true now, but...
Rob [0:45:43]: Yeah.
Rob [0:45:43]: And, you know, I think I think wrote something.
Rob [0:45:45]: I think I saw a newsletter of, B2B branch should have a mascot.
Rob [0:45:48]: Yeah.
Rob [0:45:49]: A believer of that.
Rob [0:45:50]: So we have protector two two eight one four is, like, our robot kind of character.
Dave [0:45:55]: Our team is gonna be so pumped.
Dave [0:45:56]: I can't wait till we hear clip because, like, the newsletter is great.
Dave [0:45:59]: Like, we got another guy for mascot.
Dave [0:46:00]: Nice.
Rob [0:46:01]: Yeah.
Rob [0:46:01]: And and we have a, you know, protector who's just, like, big robot.
Rob [0:46:05]: Right?
Rob [0:46:05]: Who's, like, the defender of data.
Rob [0:46:07]: And a big thing about Jonas is automation.
Rob [0:46:09]: Right?
Rob [0:46:09]: Like, automated outcomes is our thing.
Rob [0:46:11]: Like, we don't want our customers to have to lift a finger.
Rob [0:46:13]: We want their security issues to go away through automation.
Rob [0:46:15]: But he, he has a mascot called pixel, the cat, and it's a robot cat and actually, a black cat Next week, we have a big robotic pixel in the airport.
Rob [0:46:25]: So when you arrive, like, Pixel is gonna be there promoting to capture the flag, which is called beach at the beach, and there's gonna be, like, cool beach towels and stuff like that and you could take a photo a selfie with pixel, but you have to have a remarkable brand.
Rob [0:46:37]: And when you go one of these cyber cybersecurity trade shows and you look around, it's just boring.
Rob [0:46:42]: Yeah.
Rob [0:46:43]: And then you have, like, there's a couple vendors, like Crowds strike is doing a great job, like, they have their big adversary characters.
Rob [0:46:49]: Like, so they have, like, the villains and then you've got a couple of other companies doing some pretty cool stuff, but, I mean, I don't know.
Rob [0:46:56]: I...
Rob [0:46:56]: I'm a huge fan of having a remarkable brand, which means that people wanna remark.
Dave [0:47:00]: I love it.
Dave [0:47:01]: Look, I think so much we spend so much time in marketing talking about automation in this workflow in this nurture.
Dave [0:47:06]: And this is, like, this is what I feel like, the eighty percent, It's like, no.
Dave [0:47:10]: Is there...
Dave [0:47:10]: If we just zoom all the way out and, like, there's ten companies that all looks and sound the same.
Dave [0:47:15]: Just logic cl.
Dave [0:47:17]: Our job is to get awareness and attention from people so we can tell them what they do and solve their problems.
Dave [0:47:21]: Like, when we wanna, like, stand out or be different somehow, you know, everyone's like, well, you...
Dave [0:47:26]: You know, literally Seth Gordon.
Dave [0:47:27]: Right?
Dave [0:47:27]: Like, don't just that purple cow?
Rob [0:47:29]: Yeah.
Rob [0:47:29]: And I think the art is, like, knowing when to use your mascot.
Rob [0:47:33]: Like, you don't wanna plaster it everywhere.
Rob [0:47:35]: Right?
Rob [0:47:36]: You're not gonna do an executive briefing and, like, Yeah.
Rob [0:47:40]: Have stuffed animals all over brains.
Dave [0:47:43]: No I think it's cool.
Dave [0:47:44]: It's like a secret, you know, like in consumer, it's kinda like a secret kinda drop or something.
Dave [0:47:48]: Don't always gonna use the Yeah.
Dave [0:47:50]: The cat.
Dave [0:47:50]: But when you use the cat, you use it wisely.
Dave [0:47:52]: Exactly.
Dave [0:47:53]: Okay.
Dave [0:47:54]: Last question.
Dave [0:47:55]: We gotta let you back to defending the world from cyber attackers.
Dave [0:47:58]: If you weren't doing this job when you had to make a living, What would you be doing?
Rob [0:48:03]: Oh, that's a good question.
Rob [0:48:03]: I've been talking to my son about teasing him, like that, I'm gonna open up, like, a wood shop in Vermont or something like that.
Rob [0:48:10]: And do woodworking after I retire, but I've never actually, like, done any woodworking.
Rob [0:48:14]: It just sounds appealing and very zen.
Rob [0:48:16]: And after being a CMO and, you know, building pipeline and, you know, worried about numbers and brand and everything, I feel like I just I need to be doing something that's totally disconnected from a computer.
Rob [0:48:28]: Yeah.
Rob [0:48:28]: Just totally zen.
Rob [0:48:29]: I don't know Something like that.
Rob [0:48:31]: I think, would be my choice.
Dave [0:48:32]: I love that.
Dave [0:48:33]: I could see that appealing to you.
Dave [0:48:35]: My father law's as a carpenter and just seeing how his mind works.
Dave [0:48:39]: It is constant math and problem solving and angles and ideas I guarantee you would figure that out and love it.
Rob [0:48:47]: Yeah.
Rob [0:48:47]: And I'd be fine.
Rob [0:48:48]: If you if I made crappy stuff just for myself, just the process.
Rob [0:48:51]: Right?
Rob [0:48:51]: It didn't...
Rob [0:48:52]: It doesn't even have to be good.
Dave [0:48:54]: I like that.
Dave [0:48:54]: I don't know if you'd be able to maintain your your level of living unless you you sucked away a lot of money from from Var verona.
Dave [0:49:00]: It might not be fruitful in the bank account, but hopefully, it can be, like a retirement activity.
Rob [0:49:05]: Yeah.
Rob [0:49:05]: Maybe it maybe it could be like a ten year plan something like that.
Rob [0:49:08]: Post retirement
Dave [0:49:09]: ten year plan.
Dave [0:49:09]: Alright.
Dave [0:49:10]: Rob, you are awesome.
Dave [0:49:11]: Matt is gonna be so happy.
Dave [0:49:13]: Matt Matt's like your biggest fan.
Dave [0:49:14]: And he's like, you gotta have rob.
Dave [0:49:15]: You gotta Rob.
Dave [0:49:16]: He's great.
Dave [0:49:16]: Great.
Dave [0:49:17]: Great.
Dave [0:49:17]: Great.
Dave [0:49:17]: And you did great.
Dave [0:49:18]: You over delivered so give up for Rob, Great job.
Dave [0:49:20]: Bunch of know
Rob [0:49:21]: Oh, thanks.
Rob [0:49:21]: And appreciate
Dave [0:49:22]: you coming on the show.
Rob [0:49:23]: Appreciate it.
Dave [0:49:23]: And I'll talk to you.
Rob [0:49:24]: Alright, man.
Rob [0:49:24]: Catch up soon.
Rob [0:49:25]: See you
Dave [0:49:26]: see you.
Dave [0:49:26]: Hey.
Dave [0:49:30]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.
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Dave [0:49:51]: Our mission at Exit Five is to help you grow your career in B2B marketing, and there's no better place to do that than with us at Exit Five.
Dave [0:49:58]: There's nearly five thousand members now in our community people are in there posting every day, asking questions about things like marketing planning, ideas, inspiration, asking questions and getting feedback from your peers, building your own network of marketers who are doing the same thing you are, so you can have a peer group.
Dave [0:50:14]: Or maybe just venting about your boss when you need to get in there and get something off your chest.
Dave [0:50:19]: It's a hundred percent free to join for seven days so you can go and check it out risk free, and then there's a small annual fee to pay if you wanna become a member for the year.
Dave [0:50:28]: Go check it out, learn more, exitfive.com, and I will see you over there in the community.