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Dive deep into the power of branding with Christine Bartlett, former Chief Marketing Officer at SonicWall and a visionary in the cybersecurity marketing space. Discover how small innovations in branding can substantially impact corporate culture, operational breakthroughs, and business valuation.
Christine shares insightful stories from her tenure at Cisco, focusing on the significance of company culture and the fascinating concept of the 'Hummingbird Effect.' Learn how a simple change, like a CEO donning jeans, can signal a transformative shift that fosters growth, innovation, and a positive work environment. Don't miss this inspiring discussion that highlights the intersection between culture, marketing, and strategic business growth.
Christine shares insightful stories from her tenure at Cisco, focusing on the significance of company culture and the fascinating concept of the 'Hummingbird Effect.' Learn how a simple change, like a CEO donning jeans, can signal a transformative shift that fosters growth, innovation, and a positive work environment. Don't miss this inspiring discussion that highlights the intersection between culture, marketing, and strategic business growth.
00:00 Introduction to Brand Power
00:59 Meet Hanna Jernigan: Hummingbird's Marketing Strategist
01:43 Welcoming Christine Bartlett: Visionary in Cybersecurity Marketing
03:55 Christine's Journey: From Nonprofit to Cisco
06:50 The Impact of Cultural Integration in Acquisitions
09:55 The Hummingbird Effect: Small Changes, Big Results
13:43 The Role of Culture in Brand and Marketing
22:43 Valuations and the Importance of Culture in Acquisitions
26:41 The Importance of Employee Happiness
27:03 Leadership and Transparency
28:40 Leveraging Culture in Campaigns
29:11 Creativity in Cybersecurity Marketing
32:01 Diversity and Team Dynamics
33:15 Lessons from Cisco to SonicWall
38:33 The Role of AI in Modern Business
42:46 Reflecting on Leadership and Culture
46:40 Final Thoughts and Inspirational Leadership
Creators and Guests
Host
What is The Hummingbird Effect with Wendy Coulter?
Welcome to "The Hummingbird Effect," a podcast dedicated to uncovering the subtle yet powerful ways that small innovations can transform your business. Hosted by Wendy Coulter, CEO of Hummingbird Creative Group, this show delves into the stories and strategies behind successful brand building.
For over 25 years, Wendy has helped CEOs and business leaders redefine their brands through innovation and compelling narratives. In this podcast, she shares the insights and lessons learned from her extensive experience, exploring how a strong brand orientation can significantly increase the value of your business.
Each episode features engaging conversations with industry leaders, business advisors, and innovators who have harnessed the power of branding to make a substantial impact. Discover how focusing on core values, mission, and vision can drive your brand beyond mere marketing tactics, fostering a culture that resonates with your audience and enhances your business's reputation.
Inspired by the concept of the Hummingbird Effect—where small, adaptive changes lead to remarkable outcomes—this podcast aims to help you understand and implement the incremental innovations that can elevate your brand and business.
Join Wendy Coulter on "The Hummingbird Effect" and learn how to evolve your brand, attract more customers, and ultimately enhance the value of your business through strategic branding.
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[00:00:00]
Wendy Coulter: good afternoon. I'm Wendy Coulter, and I help CEOs unlock the hidden power of their brands. For years, business leaders have focused on marketing tactics, but what really matters is building a strong brand.
Have you experienced a hummingbird effect like the flower and the hummingbird? Co-evolved? Small innovations in branding can lead to surprisingly big results in other areas of a business that that might include increased valuation, a change in corporate culture, or an operational breakthrough. [00:01:00] Today I have Hannah Jernigan on with me. She's hummingbirds marketing strategist. How are you doing today, Hannah? I'm
Hanna: doing wonderful, Wendy.
Thanks for asking. How are you doing?
Wendy Coulter: I'm doing good. It's been quite a day so far. I've been out on spring break, yes, for a week. And evidently my brain's not working. Extraordinarily well this morning, so I'm so glad you're here to keep me straight today. Well, it's
Hanna: a rainy Monday morning, so we can only expect so much,
Wendy Coulter: except it's the afternoon.
Oh wait, it's the afternoon. Oh, man. Okay, Joe, you're gonna work some magic today.
Hanna: Just. Um, put it in as is. They need to see the real us.
Wendy Coulter: That's true. Makes it fun. So today we are di diving deep into the world of brand building and we're welcoming Christine Bartlett to the show. Christine is the former Chief marketing officer at Sonic Wall and she's known as a visionary in the cybersecurity marketing [00:02:00] space, having spent many years working in global marketing at Cisco.
So, um, that's. Very, very impressive and we're gonna talk to her today about how seemingly small innovations in branding or marketing can lead to big results in other areas. Um, Hannah, my research extraordinaire. Do you have any fun facts about Christine to share with us today? I do today.
Hanna: Um, and research extraordinaire is just.
Glorified stalker. Um, so Christine recently completed a generative AI business sprint from MIT Sloan School of Management. Is that correct? Yes, yes, I
Christine Bartlett: did.
Hanna: Yeah. Um, so you've been testing and using the tools mm-hmm. And just kind of figuring out how you can. Content, ideation, creation, different things that will come from it.
And then I also saw that your kids were recently invited into the cockpit of your flight, which sounds awesome.
Christine Bartlett: It's true. Yeah. I was really impressed by the pilot's ability to take my [00:03:00] 4-year-old son and just welcome him into the cockpit. And this was a Southwest flight. So for those of you who fly Southwest, you know, we don't get seat numbers.
And I have two kids with me. And my husband wasn't traveling, and I'm like, we gotta get seats. So I'm like, I need to leave him here with you. And they're like, oh yeah, that's fine. And he must have been up there for about five minutes with the pilots. That's Wow, that's amazing. So hopefully he'll be one one day.
Wendy Coulter: Well, Christine, we're gonna talk to you today about how seemingly small innovations can make a big difference and create a hummingbird effect. But as we get started, why don't you introduce yourself and give us some of your amazing background.
Christine Bartlett: Okay. No, and, and thank you for having me. It's super exciting to be here.
I've listened to some of your podcasts and, um, happy to contribute to the, to the listeners out there. Um, yeah, so a little bit about me. Yes, I had extensive background at Cisco, and I'll maybe go back a little bit further, [00:04:00] not too far into like my internship years, but, um, I graduated from Syracuse University in public relations.
Um, so didn't actually think or know I was always gonna end up in marketing, um, which is interesting and we'll probably get through some of that. And after graduating I actually went into nonprofit and I did a year in AmeriCorps. Um, and worked in early hood child education and also did a lot of fundraising, which gets into marketing, my marketing experience because to fundraise is a lot like selling, but you're having to sell for compassion in something that, you know, somebody's not gonna necessarily see the end product or result of in the nonprofit world.
So, um, that was really tough in, in my twenties, but it. You know, I earned a lot of grit and, and learned a lot along the way through that. I was about to say,
Wendy Coulter: you have to be able to market well to do fundraising. I do a lot of fundraising for organizations I'm a part of [00:05:00] and it's a different, it's a different world it to do that kind of fundraising.
Yes, it is. It requires a lot of ingenuity along the way. Yes. Yeah,
Christine Bartlett: yeah. Yeah. And then, um, you know, I had some student loans, so I couldn't work in nonprofit forever. Um, so to speed it up, I, I ended up consulting and went to the Bay Area and the, kind of the San Francisco area. Mm-hmm. And worked at hp, Chevron, pg e, and then got hired on as a consultant at Cisco working on an acquisition.
And then, um, I was the only. Glutton for punishment, person that would do it, I guess do the work. And so the manager had asked me, why don't you just apply full time? And I kinda looked at her pretty crazy 'cause I was like, you know, I don't have 10 plus years of experience. Like I'm pretty sure I'm not the person for this job.
I'm just kind of in here as a consultant and helping you guys, you know, bridge it until you find a full-time person and. [00:06:00] Needless to say, she kept pressuring me to just apply and, and go for it. So I did. And I went through 11 rounds of interviews. Oh my God. It was probably the most excruciating interview process.
Um, and I got in and I did the work for about a year integration work with big m and a, you know, mergers and acquisitions. We had acquired a company called Tandberg out of Norway. It was huge. It was, um, they brought in telepresence, which is the ability to do video. Um, and now we're all on WebEx or Zoom.
Right? But they had a really, um, like kinda high class video offering. Right. And this was back in 2010, 2011. So they were in advance of the technology from where it is today. Yeah. Anyways, it was a very, um, you know, just mul multicultural acquisition on top of just different cultural norms. Like even though being at Cisco, it's funny to say this, like the, that team was always on video.
Cisco was not on video. We were on WebEx, but we weren't [00:07:00] actually turning our cameras on, so there was just nuances and things like that that we had to work through. Anyways, fast forward a little bit further. I ended up working on the deal team on the front end of acquisition, so more on the corporate development side where you're under non-disclosure agreements.
NDAs. And, um, you get to understand, you know, why are we acquiring this company? And I would put together all the messaging, um, not necessarily branding, but the positioning and working with the PR team. I had to work with finance, legal, you know, get everybody on board. Cisco's an incredibly large company, so there's multiple stakeholders.
Anyways, worked on, gosh, close to over 50 acquisitions. Wow. And we closed a ton. I have all these like, loose sites in my office of all the ones that we got to close. Um, and I've got some fun stories about those too. And then, um, you know, kind of grew up in, in marketing because I left. The, that role in mergers and acquisitions, when we acquired a cybersecurity [00:08:00] company, it was our first cybersecurity company, um, called Sourcefire.
And that marketing team got to know me and they were like, wow, you did all the messaging and community. You already know us, you know our products. You know, everything that we do. C you gotta come work for us. Like you gotta come to our side and help us learn Cisco. So then, you know, that was kind of my trade off.
I said, okay, well I'll, I guess I'll step away from more of the PR and really learn true marketing, digital marketing, branding, um, you know, all the operational components of demand, gen marketing and things like that. So from that point on, I grew up in both marketing and cybersecurity at the same time, and was in that role year over year.
We were always acquiring another company, which is something I got to. A little preview into, because I was on the corporate development team, which was nice. Um, so I kind of took a bet that cybersecurity was gonna be a good industry to be a part of, and luckily that did work out for me. Um, and then [00:09:00] I, I ended up with a team of like three, and then by the time right before I left to go to SonicWall, I had a team of over 60.
Wow. Um, just through all the acquisitions and different facets of marketing, I was leading integrated marketing. Um, and then thought, okay, now it's my time to, to step out and, and kind of grow up outside of Cisco and took my first CMO job at at SonicWall.
Wendy Coulter: But goodness, like we talk about post-close integration, and you did that over and over and over again.
Yeah. It's not fun.
That's a very hard job. Another process that just worked everywhere. Come on now.
Christine Bartlett (2): We were building the process, we were like driving the plane and flying, you know, building, putting, attaching wings on the side to keep us, us in the air.
Wendy Coulter: Wow. Okay. Well, so I wanna jump into Hummingbird Effect. Yeah. Um, because I think you've got tons of stories you could share.
So, um, [00:10:00] talk to us about a specific instance that you can remember where seemingly small change in the marketing made a. Big impact.
Christine Bartlett: Yeah. Um, so one comes to mind, I like to tell this story and I, I I don't know if it's necessarily marketing, but you mentioned like the cultural aspect of marketing mm-hmm.
Is really important in knowing who your audience is, knowing who your customers are. And I would even say that extends into your employees. Absolutely. Um, and so one of the acquisitions I got the privilege to work on was when Cisco acquired Meraki and it was just over a billion dollar acquisition.
Meraki's, um, employee count was over about 300. And so when we do big acqui, you know, that's a pretty big acquisition back then. Now a billion dollars is probably not as big of a deal, I feel like. But back in, was it like 2012? I wanna say 2013. Um. I got the privilege of with the deal team manager to prep John Chambers, who was the CEO of at Cisco at the time.
[00:11:00] And so one of the big things that we found out and what the employ, what the founders cared about was that, you know, hey, we're a laid back team. I. This is our typical startup jeans, hoodies, right? Like you can't have your CEO come up on stage and address our employees and be like, yay, you're part of Cisco.
And, and be in a suit. Like, please don't do that. You know? And, and you know, I love John Chambers. I've learned a lot from his leadership. And he is old school, you know, and he, he dresses to the nines. He's, he's very professional, very people friendly. Um, but we, we got him to wear jeans that day and a polo, and we didn't tell him he had to wear the hoodie, but somebody gave him a hoodie, I think it was one of the founders, and he put it on, you know, and everybody gave a round of applause.
And I just think like that ability to just be part of, you know, the experience of either, you know, I don't wanna say you're trying to sell that, but you know, you [00:12:00] wanna get in touch with what. Important to people. And whether you're selling a product, at the end of the day, it's still a feeling, it's an emotion that somebody's gonna connect with.
And like it connected with me. 'cause I was like, wow, we got him to do it, you know? Mm-hmm. And then ever since then, even at our, you know, all employee meetings and things like that, he would wear jeans. Um, and that typically wasn't like him. Now he's still got jeans that look almost like dress pants, but that's okay.
They were still jeans. It's trouser jeans, right? Yeah, right. But I think, I just think, you know, from a cultural standpoint, you know, it meant a lot. It, it meant a lot to the employees. Um, it's still one of the best acquisitions, I think, you know, Cisco ever made just in terms of employees. Con consumer, you know, customers.
That was our, our break kind of into the mid-market space. But I just think that that was something that really transcended across. All facets of like, who Cisco could evolve to be as a company too, that, you [00:13:00] know, we were gonna play in the startup space and we believed and we had the right leadership and the talent to, to attract that, to make that happen.
Then we obviously went on to acquire other companies that were similar. Duo was a multifactor authentication startup outta Michigan. Similar, you know, founders wore hoodies and things like that. And I think the ability to show that we could acquire a company like Meraki. And be with them at, mm-hmm. At their.
Their game and their level. You know, when another, when we go to pitch to another company and they see that, they're like, oh, okay, well maybe Cisco's not a bad place to be acquired by type of thing. Um, which is great. 'cause, you know, they, both people have to accept when a deal goes through. Right.
Wendy Coulter: Well, so from my, from my standpoint, the culture is such a big part of brand.
It's, and it's really become a bigger part of brand in recent years. Yes. Um, and so how did you see that translate to other. Areas of the marketing that your team were doing, [00:14:00] um, as you were continuing to do other acquisitions, acquisitions, how did that expand beyond the CEO?
Christine Bartlett: Yeah, I think it expands into the, you know, the employees feeling prideful, right?
So they're up there on social media, they're talking about what a great place it is to work, and I think. I don't, I think people mistake in like, oh, well, great place to work. That's just an HR thing, right? It's not, it, it's part of marketing. It's part of your branding. It's part of who you are and what, how people think about you, how they embody, you know, your brand.
It's the overall experience. So I think that's a big thing. If, if you have employees, you know, talking about how great it is. Or what this leader did, you know, type of thing. It's, it's important because people see that and then that's, that's the impression that you leave on, you know, a potential customer who might look more favorable to you down the road.
You know, you, you don't know, but you'd much rather have it be a positive influence than a negative influence, right? So I think [00:15:00] that deep connection is what makes it so, you know, powerful on the marketing side. And it's tough like being in marketing all these years. These are those things where you always say like, it's more of an art than a science, because it's hard to pinpoint like a specific data number or specific like, oh, well we, you know, our, our brand impressions, you know, grew, you know.
200%, you know, in this period, you know, it's hard to quantify like, what does that really mean? Okay. Right. Or if you can even get, sometimes you can't even really get that number. I think now you can, but sometimes I feel like those numbers are kind of inflated, you know, depending on how you're looking at it type of thing.
So you gotta be thoughtful about that too. I, I'm one of those marketing. I guess professionals that like the data's really gonna tell me something, you know? Right. Otherwise you're just this fluff numbers, you know.
Wendy Coulter: So I have a question. When, um, the CEO kind of flipped that switch at that meeting, did anything change for [00:16:00] Cisco with culture?
Oh yeah. At the same time. And can you talk about. What that impact was to the larger community, not just the people he was talking to on stage talking to that stage that day. But beyond that, how did it affect marketing? How did it affect culture in a bigger way? I mean, you said he's known to wear jeans more often now.
Yeah. And all of that, but how did it affect other things? Sales. Um. Just, yeah, no, I think,
Christine Bartlett: you know, I mean, sales increased a decent amount because it opened up a whole new, you know, kind of opportunity for us in the mid-market space. I think too, we, we sold primarily through the channel, through, through partners, so, you know, other partners doing business with us that instills confidence in, in them, and that we're diversifying our portfolio.
And making it easier for them to sell to their end customer, right? We're kind of right. They're the middle. I hate to call it a middleman middle woman, but [00:17:00] um, you know, they're kind of that InBetween and they're trying to add advice too. So it gives them something exciting to talk about. Like, Hey, you know, Cisco's acquired this company, now we have more products to offer you or more services to offer you.
You know, so I think that's a positive, you know, aspect of it. Um, and then I think the other thing too, that. That is, is maybe a little silly, but this was kind of in the early days of people wanting to bring their pets to work and things like that. Mm-hmm. So Meraki was very big on, hey, let's, you know, we, we bring our pets to work.
You know, we have pet space and dog treats for them, and we have, the other thing they also had, which was another thing that, that a lot of startups did was, you know, the free snacks or free breakfast every morning. I don't know if that's the way the economy's gone up and down, that it's not so much the case anymore, but.
You know, back in the 2000 tens, 2000 fifteens, there was a lot of that happening. And so I think a lot of the people felt like, Hey, I don't want this to get taken away. And so Cisco said like, no, we're gonna embrace [00:18:00] that. That's gonna be part of our culture. Like we're gonna bring that in and we're gonna, you know, allow departments to have whatever additional funding or things mm-hmm.
For people in communities type of thing. And ways to, you know, have folks come into the office and. And culminate have conversation and that type of thing, which, you know, and before where we're at today, like before Covid, Cisco was actually really good about being virtual and remote work. It didn't take Covid to make that happen, right?
For Cisco. So I think the interesting thing was, um, you know, now having this c. This direction of, Hey, we're acquiring startups that have these other cultures. We're gonna actually, we're gonna also grow up as a company and, and instill those values for the rest of our employees. Another thing I was just gonna say is I think it, it really opened the doors for younger talent to come in.
Wendy Coulter: Mm-hmm.
Christine Bartlett: Because I think Cisco was known as, you know, kind of, you know, it came out of the.com boom in the 1990s. And you [00:19:00] know, I don't know that a lot of people nowadays maybe kind of know who John Chambers is, right? Some people do, but Cisco was known as the networking company. You know, we were the plumbing, I hate to say that because you're always like, don't say that as part of the marketing team because you don't wanna be known as that.
But I mean, it, it's just a. Quick, easy visual. We're like, what's behind the wall, you know, of a building or a business that's fully operating and their internet's working, their data centers and their servers are working and you know, we're kind of the, the inside. Job, you know that not a lot of people know what Cisco really does.
Um, so anyways, I, I think that that helped kind of broaden our reach and from a branding and, and just marketing that ability to attract top talent or talent out of colleges is really important too, because that speaks to, you know, what your company is bringing economically into the, into the local cities and, um, into the, you know, environment that.
Those city, you know, those [00:20:00] towns the cities operate in, which is really important.
Wendy Coulter: I think it also can feed innovation to have that younger talent coming in all the time. Exactly right. So talk a little bit about. How this decision to wear jeans on stage led to Right. Led to, in a more innovative outcome.
Christine Bartlett: Yeah, no, I, I definitely think, think so, right? Because you know, on top of that, we also had an investment arm, so that was another thing. We were investing in startups. Um, and so being part of the local, I, I wasn't actually here in RTP. Um, at the time of those acquisitions, but we were, you know, showing up at, you know, innovation summits and stuff in San Francisco and where founders were, you know, sharing their business ideas and stuff like that.
So we would not only come in and look to potentially acquire companies and products and, and their talent, but then we were also investing to keep a pulse on, okay, what's, what's happening? What's gonna be the latest technology? You know what's gonna happen [00:21:00] when type of thing. Um, and really gives an opportunity to have a pulse on the market.
Um, and just where the talent is coming from too is really, really important. So being part of those kind of communities, I know in, in RTP, we had a university program at Cisco, had a university program as well where we were recruiting straight out of, um, NC State, UNC, duke, et cetera. And I think that's also a big contributor, right to.
Hey, you graduated college, you know, you meet the requirements, you get an internship and then hopefully you get a job and then maybe not right away, guaranteed. Like you'll get, probably get picked up somewhere else. 'cause you've had that experience at a big corporate company. Mm-hmm. I know when I graduated.
It was in 2004 and the job market wasn't that great at the time, which is why I ended up going into nonprofit. 'cause I was like, well I gotta, I gotta work somewhere, right? And I mean, my heart was in it too, but I don't know that it was my initial first choice. I thought I was gonna go work at like a PR agency or something like that.
But it was just. So hard to break into and they didn't want to get pay you [00:22:00] anything to start.
Wendy Coulter: Those were the days of the free internship. Yes. Yes, they were. Yes. Those were the days they, yep. Absolutely. . So you were on the acquisition team at S Cisco. So I wanna talk about, as you guys were looking at startups to buy or companies to invest in, did you see.
Valuations. Like when they were talking about what they were gonna purchase these companies for, right?
Christine Bartlett: Yeah. [00:23:00] Oh yeah.
Wendy Coulter: That. We're just like, wow, um, this is really significant. And what do you, you know, when you saw something like that happen, did marketing and brand have something to do with it? And do you remember a time when it did?
'cause that's really something I'm very interested in. Yeah,
Christine Bartlett: I, I mean, I definitely think it does 'cause it, it, it, it, it all helps with positioning, right? Because what can you talk about that's more favorable to the deal? Happening in, in your favor, right? Because as the company looking to be acquired, yes, you want a high evaluation, but you also want it to be meaningful.
And there's gotta be some there, there, like what's the, what's the underlying value? Because you know what drive a, a lot of what drives is. That valuation is the total addressable market. How many competitors are there? Right? How profitable are you? Are you, is that profitability gonna continue on X number that we think it is and it's gonna [00:24:00] compound and make us more money?
You know, I mean, those are kind of the business transaction elements of it. But then I think there's the other thing that, um. You know, and again, I didn't get to witness this at other countries or companies, so maybe I'm biased in the sense of, you know, Cisco really took a, like a 360 approach, right?
Like, yes, it was the business and the product and the offering and the fit that was filling a void that we kind of had in our product portfolio. But then they really looked at the, the founders, the employees, um, you know, was this gonna be worth, because I think we've all seen those acquisitions that like.
Go south real bad because you know, the deal team, you know, the acquisition gets announced and then every, you know, they lose all the talent or they lose a good portion of the talent right. Type of thing. Because not everybody gets golden handcuffs, right? A lot of the right middle management and even the, the early in career folks or the, especially the startups, are who you wanna keep and retain.
So I think that. [00:25:00] Not to go back to the cultural element, but that cultural element does play a big role in mm-hmm. Okay. Are we gonna really retain that and let these people know that we believe in them, that we are not just gonna come in and slash jobs and look for efficiency? Like this is a growth opportunity, right?
That the whole valuation there should be a, a growth opportunity. But then, you know, and there are some deals that, that don't flip that way and unfortunately, you know, I don't wanna say can go south, but you know, the. The investment's not there on the people or the investment's not made in the right negotiation areas that are more meaningful for that deal to take place.
And then, you know, you lose key leaders and then you might lose some of that, you know, equity or even ip, like a lot of this technology, like you've got IP coming into the, into play too that you don't wanna lose, or you wanna make sure that that's also signed in as part of the the deal. I love
Wendy Coulter: that you're talking about [00:26:00] culture, and Anna and I talk about culture with our clients a lot.
Um, you know, in today's competitive marketplace, generally the, the culture fit is everything. It's so important, it's everything. Um, so from a brand standpoint, you know, we're looking at core values, we're looking at the why. Um, how do you see those changes, um, impacting business metrics? Mm-hmm. Um, what kind of positive business metrics changes?
We talked a little bit about sales increase, but Yeah. Otherwise, did you see from the culture changes? Yeah. Well, I
Christine Bartlett: think, I mean, kind of goes without saying, right? You have happier employees. The, usually the trajectory is a lot better. Um, just in terms of overall performance. So I think, you know, people would always ask me like, how'd you get a such a big team?
And I'm like, I don't, I didn't ask for this. [00:27:00] You know, but it's like you treat people how they wanna be treated. And you know, people always say, you know, for me, at least in my leadership anyways, was like, um, I'm honest, you know, I, I'm a big believer in radical, you know, candor and also just transparency I think is really important.
I think. If part of what you value or your culture, you know, allows for that, , there's a level of respect. And then, you know, people get to do their jobs. I mean, most people wanna wake up and, and have a good day, you know, I mean, like nobody wants. And then on top of that, they, they wanna do good at their job.
They might need a little bit of help. They might need, you know, assistance that you don't want to knock 'em down. And they should feel free to like, you know, raise their hand, ask for help type of thing. And I think. At least Cisco. 'cause you know, since I, I feel like I kind of grew up there, my own leadership, like they gave us that experience to, to grow.
And I felt like, 'cause I got that, you know, I passed that on to my [00:28:00] leaders and, and the folks on my team and I just think that that was, now I'm trying to think back. I'm trying to loop back to your question, your original question, but, um, I just think that that is so important, you know, in how people. Feel like if, if they're not excited to be at work or their manager's beating 'em down, you're not gonna get any output outta Right.
I'm like, I, I mean it's just, I don't wanna be micromanaged, you know, type of thing. And I have been, so I guess I knew from that experience. When I started managing people, I was like, okay, Christine, don't, don't do that to these people. They're not gonna like you.
Wendy Coulter: Were you ever able to leverage the culture piece into a campaign or, um, use data from employee satisfaction to help drive?
Any initiatives
Christine Bartlett: that you were doing there? I'm trying to think. I mean, I'm sure we were, nothing [00:29:00] like jumps to mind, but I think, you know, I would say that we got to do a lot more kind of creative, um, things or outlets. So we were also, you know, in cybersecurity and cybersecurity is a very. Persnickety audience in the sense that , you're dealing with ethical hackers, you're dealing with people that are constantly like questioning trust and you know, so trying to market to those individuals can be very challenging.
Um, but I would say that because of the culture that we had at Cisco, we were able to try, you know, different things. We were able to do AB testing and, and, you know. Do different web forms, use photos? I mean, just, I mean kind of basic tactical things, but I think because of people feeling inspired or empowered to come up with ideas, even though it was a harder kind of target audience that we were going after.
It didn't mean we couldn't be creative, right? You just had to be thoughtful about, okay, who's your, you [00:30:00] know, ICP, who are we going after? What are they interested in? And then really leveraging, you know, those, those paths to kind of go down. Um, you know, there was one silly little marketing, I shouldn't call it silly 'cause it was fun, but we did a lot of research to understand with our own threat researchers to understand like, okay, how could you.
Talk about our cybersecurity products in like layman's terms, right? Mm-hmm. And make it fun. We came up with a concept of, I think they were technically prairie dogs. They were either prairie dogs or Meir cats. So we put together a whole video, and it wasn't even me. It was my team came up with the ideas.
We did all the research with our threat researchers, you know, and just put something fun together like that. I could not tell you the metrics. We did run it. We had it in email campaigns and things like that. Mm-hmm. I know it went well, but I think we were able to do things like that, that were kind of out of the box.
We weren't trying to do the whole put a hoodie over and somebody like, you know, black mm-hmm. Dark room, like play the, the typical stereotypical [00:31:00] hacker, right? Like, that's not what these guys want to see, you know? Um, but then I think there's also an element of education, cybersecurity that is lacking big time.
So if we don't take the time to explain it and put it in like. You know, a friendly Right. You know, kind of explanation. Like, okay, well, you know, Prairie Dogs, they protect their home base and here's how they do it. And there's a lot of similarities in how they operate as an animal that's similar to how we have to operate in cybersecurity world, you know, type of thing.
So I think, you know, we got to do, and you know, again, my team felt encouraged. They felt empowered. Mm-hmm. And I think that. Some of those folks have gone on to be managers themselves and been empowered. So I look at that as like, okay, well then I, I did my job because, you know, my job is not to tell people what to do.
I wanna lead them in a way that, you know, they can, you know, grow up and in their professional careers and, and, you know, take on new jobs as [00:32:00] well and believe in themselves.
Hanna: Do you feel like the hiring tactics kind of led to that outcome of it being a little bit more fun when you got the diverse pool?
Like bringing in the younger college students totally. Bringing in different personalities that you might not have looked at before? Correct.
Christine Bartlett: Yeah, no, I, a hundred percent. Yeah. 'cause I think some of the, I did have, I had a couple. You know younger folks, folks, right outta college. Mm-hmm. Or, or not that, you know, far off.
And then I had a couple very senior folks too. Um, so I had a good blend from that perspective. And I do think that made a big difference because you kind of got, you know, when you all got in a room, you had a lot of difference of opinions, but in a good way. Not, I mean, nobody was like disagreeing, but you just had a lot of ideation flowing, which was really, you know, necessary when you're trying to think about.
And this was before chat, GPT, you know, before you could just go a, you know, do a prompt and you know, and ask, right? Like, what are my competitors doing? Right? We could see some of that, but [00:33:00] it was like, how do, how are we gonna be different? How are we gonna show up? And what, what matters, you know, most and what things can we do?
What levers can we pull to be a little bit different and pull that together? Um, and I do think, yeah, yeah, the diversity of the team really does make an impact. That's awesome.
Wendy Coulter: So talk about like what you learned from that, that you took to SonicWall or that you see yourself kind of doing in the spaces you're in today.
Yeah. Um, that you learned from those experiences at Cisco. Yeah.
Christine Bartlett: Um, gosh, it's so many. I would say you know, another, I guess one is, you know, just the ability to kind of trust people that they wanna do a good job, right. And that, you know, when you step into a new leadership role like I did at SonicWall, I didn't know anybody.
I mean, I did know, I did know one other leader 'cause he was previously from Cisco. But outside of that. You know, it was, I had to learn all the marketing team. I had people, you know, they left before I got there, which you know, is fine. All these things. So you have to [00:34:00] quickly come in and assess, okay, who can I trust?
Who really still wants to be here? Who's probably looking not to be here? Who doesn't wanna be here? Right? And then you have to have those tough conversations. 'cause it's not about me personally, it's. At the end of the day, I got hired to do a business, you know, do a job for a business. Mm-hmm. That is transacting, but I also am people first, so I want, you know, them to have a good experience.
So I think part of what, I guess, you know, a, a lot of what I did with in those first kind of 30, 60, 90 days was quickly evaluate my team because I can't do all the work myself. You know what I mean? SonicWall was close to 2000 people and I had a marketing team of close to 35. Um, so I had to quickly assess like, okay, who, who are, you know, the rock stars?
Who are the people that I know that are gonna rise to the occasion? 'cause we're all gonna have to chip in to figure out how to make this work. Um, while I'm over here talking with the executive team, trying to build out okay, capacity for where the hole, what am I gonna fill, [00:35:00] type of thing, and build that in.
Um, and then also invest in the leadership team. 'cause I still had a couple layers. Not everybody reported to me, I think is. Something that I had to learn at Cisco to survive, you know, and not in a bad way, but like if I was gonna make it through the day, then I needed my other leaders to make it through the day and feel good about their choices and what they were doing, and know that they could come to me if they needed anything type of thing.
Um, yeah.
Wendy Coulter: You feel like such, you feel like such a leader that leads with culture? Like just, just naturally, like you don't see that as something that should be any different than the way you've experienced, experienced it. I got lucky at, at Cisco, which yeah, she did. Yeah, she did for sure. Um, what advice would you give other businesses looking to identify and leverage similar opportunities?
Christine Bartlett: Yeah, I, you know, I guess going back to the culture thing, one thing I wanted to mention, 'cause you kind of talked about, you know, it's interesting, right? [00:36:00] 'cause and I see this now, like startups or even company, even the bigger companies, they have their mission, their values, and then they kind of have like their holding statement.
And I can't tell you how many times I've read and I'm like, you guys aren't even aligned on those, like three things, those same things. Yeah. Like how is like, you can't. You know, and then you gotta, and then that's gotta transcend into Yes. Ultimately how you sell or build relationships mm-hmm. To sell products or however, whatever it is that you're doing.
Right. Or you're, you're solving, I shouldn't say sell a product, you're solving a need for your, for somebody, right. That has this need. That's why businesses get created. And so I just find it interesting that it's like. And I saw this, I had this experience at SonicWall too. Like they had gone, they had before I had arrived, and again, nothing against them, but they had built out this whole ethos and cultural and thing.
And I'm like, well, how did you do that without marketing? And then, and so [00:37:00] it just kind, unfortunately kind of fell flat. 'cause it's not like. There was a demand that we had to use it. So it's fine, we let HR use it, but again, that seems so broken and piecemeal. Mm-hmm. So I guess my advice is, you know, to CEOs or you know, marketers and hr, whoever's kind of coming up, coming up with like the cultural, you know, mission values.
Mm-hmm. What we stand for. Like that's all part of who you are as a company. And that goes that. Bleeds into your marketing messages and your PR and everything, that it should really be the backbone. But I feel like it just gets written down, put in a deck. Mm-hmm. They get sent to new employees and then, and then never looked at again.
, or maybe at a com few company meetings, it gets flashed up and then that's it. Um, yeah, I, I, I, I, I don't know. So I would say that there's, we gotta do a better job as leaders of figuring out a way to really, truly integrate that and not make it feel like. It's just something we checked the box and did, and we feel [00:38:00] good about it.
So we're just gonna leave it off, you know, on a shelf somewhere and kind of collect dust. I don't know if you
Wendy Coulter: agree or or not the history of the marketing plan. Write it and set it on a shelf. Yes. Absolutely, especially for small business, like some of the startups, you know, it's like check it, mission, vision, values, value proposition, and we see it too, where the time just hasn't been spent to get everything in alignment.
Right. Right. Which is really, really important. Um, and that kind of takes me to my next question, which is around like how fast things are moving today, right? Yes. Like, we're in this extremely fast environment, especially with AI that is just getting better and better and better, and impacting all of us.
Mm-hmm. Um, but how do you think companies can stay nimble and adapt and make sure that they're doing what they need to do to. [00:39:00] You know, move things, move things forward, and capitalize on potential hummingbird effects.
Christine Bartlett: Yeah, I mean, I think, look, AI's not going away. So the one thing I would say is like, if you haven't started.
Tinkering around with it or exploring it. You, you gotta, you gotta get in there. Like, it's just, it's like when Google came out for the first time. Mm-hmm. And people were like, what is that? You know, and that, oh, that, you know, it's just another web brand. Nope. It like, look at where it is today. And I say the same thing would be for a ai, right?
Like. The ability to embrace it. And I think the, the other thing that's made me so excited about is it makes my life a lot easier if you think about what are the things that you wanna achieve with it and still be true to your own values and who you are and what you bring to the table like. You know, AI is not gonna replace leadership.
It's not gonna replace people's personalities. Mm-hmm. Right? It's not gonna replace how you show up to work. Like those are all still incredibly [00:40:00] important things. If anything, now there's gonna be probably more attention on those types of things 'cause people are gonna forget how to do those things. But, but I just think that, you know, with AI and, and just all the technology and I, I guess.
, I, I got to grow up at Cisco, so you got to see all the technology and through all the acquisitions, like, it was just constant change of pace. So for me, like this is like a no brainer. I've lived in this world forever, that when something new comes up, it's like, yeah, I wanna know what that is. I wanna know what's happening.
Mm-hmm. I wanna know what's going on type of thing. Um, and so I just, yeah. So that, I guess that would kind of be, you know, my advice or what I'm even doing is, is learning. All the different types of AI tools when I can, or if there's an interesting webinar I try to get on, I follow different, mm-hmm. You know, marketing AI practitioners that are kind of coming out now and things like that, who literally, like I know a couple people, a couple women that just, I don't know if they quit their job or they were looking for work and then they just became an expert in ai.
Mm-hmm. Because Right, there's not a lot of people are, yeah. [00:41:00] Not a lot of people have had the time to invest and, and I've even, you know, I took that, that one class and I, I just feel like when I try to get some time in, I try to listen to other podcasts or hear about, okay, what are people using for prompts?
What's the next I. Tool that really is useful that I can just use hands on for myself and you know, yes. The scary thing, you know, people are like, what'll be scary is when you have like, you know, a manager and then you have an agent that you've trained to do X, Y, and Z, but then that agent can train other agents beneath it, right?
Like we, we will come to a day that that is happening because there's so, even in marketing, there's so many tasks like. I think about when you build out a campaign, right? Oh, wow. Yeah. You, you, you have the messaging framework. You have your ICP, like you have the, the bare minimum, like core documents, right?
You're like holy grail of how you're gonna get started. And then from there you're just piecing out what's my email nurture journey? What's my, you know, social media plan? What's all my content? What's my [00:42:00] one pager? What do the demos look like? Like that can all eventually, you know, it's not perfect yet, but a lot of that can get built out today.
It just wild. Well,
Wendy Coulter: and we just met a IX firm. We did, did you, um, who is, um, training marketing people. Oh. How to build out those, um, those, um, cadences kind of workflows and workflows. Yeah. So very interesting. Um, Hannah, you got some thoughts here? Yeah, I do.
Hanna: I wrote down a lot. You have a lot of notes. Yeah.
Um, I thought that this was a cool, cool one because it was a full circle hummingbird effect and I've even started a second circle, so I'm gonna try to recap it as best as I can. Um, but I think it really started when you personally took the time to. Understand Meraki, is that how you say that one? Uhhuh.
Yeah. Um, and you didn't just look at the [00:43:00] company and go, okay, they like whatever, they like the color blue. Right? And you went to your CEO and said, okay, you're gonna need to wear blue today. You really like sat down and looked and saw something that was important to them, which was, you know, just being laid back in themselves.
So you got that to happen. Um. But then that kind of opened the eyes to everyone, paying attention to the culture when you guys began to acquire. And it was both ways. It was. Mm-hmm. They wanted a strong culture, which you wouldn't have gotten if you didn't have him dressed down. You would've never really, I.
Known to do that, but it was a whole language you needed to speak to startups at the time. So I thought that was really cool. 'cause you probably weren't really thinking about that. But they came, not at the time came. Right. We were just
Christine Bartlett: like, how do we get this man? How do they get there? Right.
Hanna: But I mean, now you have a culture that people want to be a part of.
Yeah. And it's still a taboo thing of like, can I wear jeans to work? I mean, yes, like it's okay for [00:44:00] you to be comfortable in what you're doing, um, but then you embrace it still. You take it with you. You let people be the best that they can be by the way that you lead them. I mean, I think just it was all more successful all the way around.
These companies got to be acquired. Cisco got more, so it was just a really cool story to hear and I feel like I missed. A bunch of it because I took so many notes I can't read over my notes. Um, but it was really awesome to hear how just that little piece that you accepted and you saw and you implemented, made such a big difference in Cisco and, and in what you were able to take.
On with you. Oh, thank you. Yeah,
Christine Bartlett: no, yeah, it's interesting. Like you don't spend a lot of time reflecting. Right. And I think that that was one, and yeah, for the record, it wasn't just me. It was like, , a big team. Right. But, but yeah, I mean we, we understood what was really important to, you know, the founders and the culture.
And I just think , , in order [00:45:00] to, to. In order to share, you know, your ability to say like, okay, I see you and I, we understand who you are, then there's gotta be some trade-offs. You know, I mean, Cisco was previously more antiquated or what felt very antiquated company. Mm-hmm. And here we are acquiring these like hip new startups.
Like then something culturally has to shift too, right? And how we show up. And so I do think that. I mean, it was, it was a big success. You know, people could bring their dog. I mean, literally, actually here in the RTP office, one of the gals that worked for me, she gotta bring her dog to work. And that literally was because of the Meraki acquisition.
Right. Because that changed the, the direction that we were headed in as a company.
Hanna: And it's a big thing as well that Cisco listened and learned Yes. Right. Because they were they, they are. Who you look to. Yeah. And so the fact that they, you all were just willing to change, speaks a lot to what you guys were able [00:46:00] to accomplish, and I hope that that's a takeaway that people get from this is I.
Your way is not always the right way. Like there are other ways to do it and letting people be who they want to be and accepting them. Get you the best people in the places they're supposed to be sitting. A thousand
Christine Bartlett: percent. Yeah. And I've always had to learn like change is constant. Yeah. You know, and you can't beat yourself up over it.
Like just do what you can do and what you can contribute and realize your value. And then the rest, you just kind of have to let it flow to some degree.
Wendy Coulter: This has been awesome. Is there anything else that you wanted to share today that you haven't been able to? Um,
Christine Bartlett: yeah, I, I mean, I'll go back and I, this is one of the things that I wrote down just really quickly is one of the things I did for my leaders at Cisco, so obviously Cisco being a big company, we had this whole process where you had to do weekly check-ins.
Mm-hmm. And it, we didn't always have it. This was. Probably in my last, like two to three years as a leader. And it was actually helpful for me 'cause [00:47:00] people would have to go in, you'd check off like five things and then, um, you know, but it was, it was tactical and it was like an just another thing that somebody had to do in their workday they didn't wanna have to do until you, their manager, where they were working on.
But it was a great communication tool and it only took like three minutes. So one of the things that I would do is, as an incentive to my leaders is I would leave a quote. Because I'm like, they don't need to hear me always go back and forth. They know they can call me. They can. Mm-hmm. You know, so one of the things that I, one of the, one of my favorite quotes, which I'm sure you guys have heard this, but I'll just read it, is.
Maya Angel's, um, you know, I've learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And like that was one of my favorite quotes. And I had other ones from like Michael Jordan and other athletes. 'cause I'm an a, you know, former athlete myself.
But, you know, it's just like, that makes a difference. And like, ha you know, if you're going in to read your manager's feedback and you get [00:48:00] like an inspirational quote
Wendy Coulter: mm-hmm.
Christine Bartlett: My hope was that Okay, well hopefully that leaves them feeling a little bit more inspired than just, you know, Hey, why didn't you do this?
Hanna: I see you did 99.9% wears some other one.
Christine Bartlett: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just, you know, looking for fun ways, I guess, to, to engage with your employees or your customers. It doesn't, I mean, I could do that for customers too, right? Is. People wanna be seen and they wanna feel good. And I just think that we forget about that, especially in, in the day of, you know, AI and robots and all those fun things.
Wendy Coulter: I think it's fabulous that today we have met a visionary in cybersecurity. I. Cybersecurity marketing, but a quintessential woman leader in stem. Thank you. That is just amazing. So thank you so much for sharing your stories. Thank you. Well, thank you for having me. It's great to be here. Absolutely. Tell our listeners how to get in touch with you.
Oh well [00:49:00] LinkedIn, it's probably the best way. And it's Christine Bartlett. Yes. You're looking for on LinkedIn? Yes. Um, we are so thankful for your time today. Mm-hmm. I think there's a ton of nuggets that our listeners will take away. And for all of you listening, thank you for giving us your time and take what you've learned today from Christine and go find your hummingbird effect.