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Welcome to The B2B CMO Podcast, a show for marketing executives who are redefining what it means to be a strategic leader. Join Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan every week as they talk with the very best Chief Marketing Officers who are navigating the modern marketing playbook and positioning themselves as strategic leaders.
Each episode, we unpack what it really takes to lead through complexity, earn trust at the strategy table, and shape the future of growth.
We’re building the community, research, and frameworks CMOs need to reclaim their strategic role and drive sustainable growth.
For more marketing leadership resources, visit [b2bcmoproject.com](http://b2bcmoproject.com/).
B2B CMO - 012 - Latané Conant
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[00:00:00]
Sydney Sloan: [00:00:05] [00:00:10] [00:00:15] [00:00:20] Welcome, [00:00:25] welcome, welcome to the B2B CMO Podcast. Our guest today [00:00:30] may be one of the most. Favorite marketers, [00:00:35] I get to be around, be inspired by. I'm totally gonna [00:00:40] embarrass you, Latané. Um, and, uh, you know, I have learned more from this woman [00:00:45] than anybody else on the planet, so I'm just delighted to have her here today.
Sydney Sloan: [00:00:50] Latané, you started in sales. You became one of my favorite CMOs, which I just [00:00:55] said. Crushed it at 6sense and stepped into the CRO role at that [00:01:00] point, running sales and marketing. Um, and now you're back in the [00:01:05] CMO seat. Uh, at Parloa, an AI [00:01:10] native, uh, company that turns agents into customer conversations and lasting [00:01:15] loyalty.
Sydney Sloan: And you are a force multiplier. It's your creative [00:01:20] energy, your drive, your strategic influence, and just making sure things are fun. [00:01:25] Let's not forget that. Right? Let's have a little fun doing this job. 'cause it's crazy. [00:01:30] So, today we get to talk, John and I get to talk with Latané. Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Latané Conant: [00:01:35] Oh, I'm so excited to be here. I think what you guys are doing is so [00:01:40] cool and so needed, and I love, um, just [00:01:45] all the practical thought leadership, uh, that you're bringing to B2B [00:01:50] CMOs. That's, that's what we need.
Sydney Sloan: And we've already view interviewed a couple chief [00:01:55] market officers, uh, so that that is also sticking, which you are one. Uh, but before we [00:02:00] dive in, I know how fabulous you are, but let's let our audience who has maybe not heard you [00:02:05] on a podcast before, but it alwa it, it just like every time there's new knowledge dropped.[00:02:10]
Sydney Sloan: Um, so I would just kind of tell us your origin story. Um, like [00:02:15] where did you start? Why, how did you get into this job?
Latané Conant: [00:02:20] This is crazy wild world. Um, so I actually, I don't even [00:02:25] know if you know this, Sid, I started as an accountant. I was a [00:02:30] CPA.
Sydney Sloan: No. Okay. Let's say what's not fun. [00:02:35] No.
Latané Conant: was not fun. It was not fun. But you know, I, in college, I just [00:02:40] looked at the jobs that were offering a signing bonus, and at that time [00:02:45] there was a shortage of CPAs. And I think I got [00:02:50] like a $6,000 signing bonus. What? Which at that time was [00:02:55] crazy. Uh, so I'm like, that's what I'm gonna do. 'cause I want the
Jon Miller: And you [00:03:00] you studied, uh, you had a concentration in accounting in college too, so there was maybe some early [00:03:05] draw to this too. No.
Latané Conant: Yeah. I got in college, I got a concentration in accounting and I got [00:03:10] my CPA and I, and I did that and it was terrible. I'm [00:03:15] dyslexic. By the way, I remember like having this red pencil and having to like [00:03:20] match numbers and like check when the numbers were all the same and being like, oh my God, this is [00:03:25] my worst nightmare.
Latané Conant: Why? Why are I doing this job? So I [00:03:30] quickly was like, this is not gonna be good. Luckily I was at Arthur Anderson and we had [00:03:35] a pretty significant consulting practice. So I sold my [00:03:40] wares, I sold myself to the consulting practice. It was Ariba. I ended up working at [00:03:45] Ariba. I was in consulting there. I then said, I, I, again, the common [00:03:50] theme, I wanna make money.
Latané Conant: I think I can make more
Latané Conant: money in sales. How do I get into [00:03:55] sales? Um, and so I ended up in sales there. And [00:04:00] then, um, you know, made the leap to Aperio where I was, I was in [00:04:05] sales and a sales leader. And you know, I was a pretty [00:04:10] opinionated sales leader about all the stuff I wanted marketing to do. Um, [00:04:15] and I would go rogue.
Latané Conant: I like started a field marketing team 'cause we didn't have field [00:04:20] marketing and I'm like, I need field marketing. And so I'm, I started like this shadow field [00:04:25] marketing team and we didn't have BDR so I started a shadow [00:04:30] BDR team and
Jon Miller: So you were one of those salespeople.
Latané Conant: was, and our [00:04:35] CEO, you know, at the time our, one of the founders was running marketing and he didn't wanna do it [00:04:40] anymore, and then they tried to hire some people and it just didn't work.
Latané Conant: So they said, do you [00:04:45] wanna do it? And I'm like, am I gonna get a raise?[00:04:50]
Latané Conant: You see?
Jon Miller: [00:04:55] There's, there's definitely a theme
Sydney Sloan: The ROI for.
Latané Conant: Yeah, yeah. [00:05:00] Um, so, but, but in all seriousness, it was like such a huge [00:05:05] opportunity for me and, uh, and I just ended up loving it. And, [00:05:10] um, and, and the interesting thing about Aperio is it was [00:05:15] professional services, so it was technology enabled services. And one of the things that I did was [00:05:20] like. Productize our services, um, because it's a [00:05:25] little hard to market the, sometimes you get this person and sometimes you get that [00:05:30] person.
Latané Conant: And, um, and so that was successful in kind of [00:05:35] productizing the services, uh, hard but successful. And the other thing [00:05:40] about services is the percent of revenue that is marketing is [00:05:45] tiny, right? The
Latané Conant: margin.
Sydney Sloan: margins are so
Latané Conant: It's a terrible margin [00:05:50] profile, right? So I think I really learned how to be like super [00:05:55] scrappy and what, you know, be able to like go toe to toe with the CFO on every [00:06:00] penny, you know?
Latané Conant: Um, I mean, you know, I could justify a [00:06:05] cup of coffee. Like that's kind of the level of, um, you know, [00:06:10] what, what we needed to be able to, to spend and get more money. And so that was just kind of like, I think a good [00:06:15] experience. I then knew I wanted to be in product. Um, but it was interesting when I [00:06:20] went out and interviewed to be a B2B Pro, you know, software, [00:06:25] CMO, I got like not a lot of bites.
Latané Conant: [00:06:30] So, um, I was They're kicking themselves now.
Latané Conant: was really lucky [00:06:35] that Jason Zac, you know, took a bet. I mean, um, and I [00:06:40] had a mu we had a mutual friend and, uh, but he took a pretty big bet on me. [00:06:45] Uh, I didn't even live in this, the Bay Area. You know, I'm a Chicago girl from services. [00:06:50] Uh, but, um, obviously that one, you know, worked [00:06:55] out and, uh.
Latané Conant: And I had to learn a lot and, and the empowered CMO [00:07:00] network was, that's why I think what you guys are doing is, you know, if you can see it, you can be it. [00:07:05] And so kind of always studying and, you know, taking notes on [00:07:10] everything and, um, but, but also being okay to somewhat [00:07:15] march to the beat of your own drum and, and, and remake the playbook, uh, is, is [00:07:20] sometimes needed.
Latané Conant: So that's my, that's my history a little bit.
Sydney Sloan: [00:07:25] so we know that your origin story is financially driven, numbers driven. Um, [00:07:30] we'll get into the creativity in a minute, but I know there's also something very near and dear to your heart. [00:07:35] Uh, so I'm not, try not to lead the witness, but, um, also like balancing out. I [00:07:40] know it's, we say five to nine, but that's not real because we know our jobs are not nine to five.
Sydney Sloan: But [00:07:45] outside of work, what brings you joy?
Latané Conant: I love [00:07:50] hosting people like I, I really, you know. You know, my, my [00:07:55] money and fun, like that's, I'm a pretty simple woman, and so if I [00:08:00] can bring the fun and create the fun for my family and my close [00:08:05] friends, like that's, that's where I live. So I just love, I love [00:08:10] just creating great, loving experiences for the [00:08:15] people I care about.
Jon Miller: Can you share an example of something that you did or something that [00:08:20] was extra fun recently?
Latané Conant: um, I'm about to leave for the lake. [00:08:25] Um, so we bought kind of a family house with another family, a group of families, [00:08:30] and we'll have 25 people. Okay. And I [00:08:35] just did all of the scheduling of all the meals and the party nights. So one [00:08:40] night everyone's wearing white. One night is Americana and a big Amazon order [00:08:45] just showed up with red, white, and blue wigs and,
Jon Miller: Okay.
Latané Conant: [00:08:50] and, you know, face paints and all kinds of [00:08:55] other shenanigans.
Latané Conant: Um, there will be a signature cocktail every [00:09:00] night. Um, I don't know. The list goes on,
Sydney Sloan: So you come by it [00:09:05] naturally, the experience matters, being around people who you love and making them have [00:09:10] a good time and you have a good time doing it. That's where your energy comes from. [00:09:15] 'cause you give a ton.
Latané Conant: Yeah. Having the right music, like all that. [00:09:20] So we, I've been working on monthly list
Jon Miller: Yeah,
Latané Conant: [00:09:25] and that's just one weekend.
Jon Miller: I think there's really interesting [00:09:30] lessons there. Just when you think about marketing, I mean, because like I think so much of marketing is about creating an [00:09:35] experience that can connect with people emotionally, and that's that's, that's what you're doing around [00:09:40] your passion.
Jon Miller: There's definitely, I think, some common theme that is going on there.
Latané Conant: [00:09:45] Yeah, I like, and that's why I think I like communities too, is like I. I don't really [00:09:50] like surface conversations. And so part of like what I try to create is a [00:09:55] place where like you can have more meaningful connections. And [00:10:00] what's nice about the family house is like when you're doing like a house party is you get the [00:10:05] morning coffee where you know everyone's eating their coffee cake and in their comfy [00:10:10] clothes and like, you know, recounting or you know, maybe talking about.
Latané Conant: Something that's [00:10:15] going on with their job and, and we've got multiple generations. And so I get to know [00:10:20] my, my best friend's kids and like what's on their mind, just this great [00:10:25] environment. But that's what I try to do with all of our remote marketing [00:10:30] programs too, is create a space that wasn't there [00:10:35] before.
Jon Miller: Yeah. Well we were just talking off camera for a minute about [00:10:40] when, when you were sort of thinking about how 6sense would show up at Con uh, [00:10:45] and what did you do? You rented a house.
Jon Miller: Or a villa, you know, in that case. So, you know, again, I I, [00:10:50] I'm seeing common themes play out through all of this. So, [00:10:55] um, I wanna go back a little bit to your origin in sales.
Jon Miller: I mean, you, you, you've been such [00:11:00] an amazing, successful marketer that, I mean, so many other marketers are like, I wanna market like she [00:11:05] does. I'm just, I'm curious like, what, what did coming from sales [00:11:10] and like. It's like being close to revenue. Teach you about being a [00:11:15] successful marketing leader.
Latané Conant: I mean, I think a crazy amount of empathy, [00:11:20] like it's, you know. We just [00:11:25] had this big event and all this pipeline and dah, dah, dah, dah, and I'm, I'm really, really [00:11:30] proud. But I also know that like the real work starts now, like just because someone wants to [00:11:35] learn a little bit more about you and take a demo, you know, it doesn't mean there's a [00:11:40] project.
Latané Conant: You gotta go, maybe create a project. There's a huge buying committee that you gotta [00:11:45] navigate. Um, it's a slog, you know, and, and so I think I [00:11:50] have a lot more empathy and under, and like the other, this is sort of a, maybe a [00:11:55] practical tip is understanding the sales stages [00:12:00] and because I just always think like, okay, we don't [00:12:05] have to win the deal.
Latané Conant: We have to win the stage. What, what needs to happen at the stage to win the [00:12:10] stage? And I know that sounds like a little thing, but like how can marketing [00:12:15] at each stage help the team win the stage? [00:12:20] Um, and so really knowing your specific sales process and what happens to [00:12:25] ha has to happen at that stage and the air cover or marketing cover that you, [00:12:30] you provide, um.
Latané Conant: I think goes a long [00:12:35] way. The, the other, you know, and this is not maybe so practical, [00:12:40] but on on the empathy side, the, the time pressure is much [00:12:45] more real than it is in, um, in, in marketing. [00:12:50] I mean, that quarterly pressure is, is crazy. And, and I think I've [00:12:55] adopted that with our marketing team, like it's the last day of the month and I'm like a f. [00:13:00] Crazy woman, like it's the last day of the month. Where are the, like, we need to close [00:13:05] this month strong, but B, B, B. But you know, the BDRs are always on a monthly, monthly, [00:13:10] monthly. Because it's easy to be like, oh, okay, well they'll, [00:13:15] they'll tomorrow. And, and it is not [00:13:20] like that as Yeah. sales leader,
Jon Miller: We did, we did the same thing at Marketo. You know, [00:13:25] like we had the entire marketing and SDR team there on the last day of every month, you [00:13:30] know, closing out with sales, you know, until both that last deal came in and that [00:13:35] last op came in. So I think that's, that's a good cadence.
Latané Conant: Yeah, so I think just [00:13:40] being. Like aware and having that, that empathy. I think the other [00:13:45] thing that I learned at 6sense was [00:13:50] because I had sales and that actually wasn't as challenging [00:13:55] as the customer success side of the business, and so I had [00:14:00] support and customer success. As a [00:14:05] marketer, you're kind of like, yeah, I've got a customer marketing person.
Latané Conant: We're doing some case [00:14:10] studies and we need to get our reviews on g2. And you're [00:14:15] like, Hey, you know? Um, but it really taught [00:14:20] me to like, and, and I think great marketers, you know, do this already, but, but it was [00:14:25] eye-opening to me like the amount of customer education that needs to happen. [00:14:30] Um. Particularly if you're rolling out a ton of new features, like, [00:14:35] like, there's just a lot that can be done as a marketer that [00:14:40] sometimes we just, you know, don't get the team or don't [00:14:45] have the resources and so that it kind of falls off.
Sydney Sloan: So it'll, this [00:14:50] is, um, I'm gonna go off script for a second because I, customer marketing was one of the favorite [00:14:55] roles I ever had, and I had this mantra of smart, happy customers buy more. [00:15:00] And smart, it means you have to educate them and then they have to be successful in the [00:15:05] product. And then you can ask them.
Sydney Sloan: To buy something else, another product upgrade, whatever. But if you [00:15:10] don't do the first two things, which is our job, then, then it, we don't have the [00:15:15] right to ask them, even if it's the end of the quarter. And if we can't, we just go to the customers and sell this one thing, put it [00:15:20] on special. And you're like, that's not helping to be buyers buy.
Sydney Sloan: But it's too often when we [00:15:25] talk to other CMOs and say, well, how much do you set aside in your budget? [00:15:30] Team for post-sale marketing investment versus pre-sale. [00:15:35] So what has been your experience and how you think about that, and what would you recommend to other [00:15:40] CMOs?
Latané Conant: Again, my experience is you've got a [00:15:45] huge team and maybe two or three people in customer marketing on a good [00:15:50] day, right? So that, that's just been. [00:15:55] Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think that like, it's, [00:16:00] and I, like, I, I did something different this time where I actually put customer [00:16:05] marketing and product marketing, um, which I hadn't before, [00:16:10] but, but it's really like customer enablement, [00:16:15] right?
Latané Conant: Like, think about how much we spend on sales enablement, and I'm like, [00:16:20] customers need know, like, and, and you know, one of the things I'm gonna talk about is like. [00:16:25] You know, we're releasing a new feature every two weeks. It's bonkers. Like I, you know, [00:16:30] just keeping up with the launch videos and this and that.
Latané Conant: Okay, so now how do we think about enabling [00:16:35] our customers so that they can keep up and like, what's a smart [00:16:40] strategy around that? Um, so I just think that like the, we almost [00:16:45] need to like redefine what the role is and. Like [00:16:50] case studies in G two is table stakes, like it's adoption. And that's what we did.
Latané Conant: What we started to do [00:16:55] at 6sense, we said, look, this is adoption dashboard. Your job is [00:17:00] to light up use cases or get people using the products like that. [00:17:05] That's your pipeline. You, I don't care if we open one [00:17:10] opportunity right now, I just want your, your pipeline is [00:17:15] usage. And like
Sydney Sloan: I would add engagement in those two, [00:17:20] that smart, happy, like engagement in programs. So you, you create programs for existing [00:17:25] customers, not let the CS team run their own round tables. You know, that's tends to be what I [00:17:30] see. And, and so you actually have, here's programs, here's the number of. [00:17:35] Uh, companies that are engaging in those programs.
Sydney Sloan: And when I did that before, it was like [00:17:40] an X factor. If we had 10 X engagement, that company purchased [00:17:45] 10 x and was 10 x healthier. So there was like a direct correlation between that. Um, and [00:17:50] so I think we should challenge marketers to like really start to own that.
Latané Conant: I always give [00:17:55] people the stat for a comp 'cause they say, oh, how did you get the budget for breakthrough? [00:18:00] Because of course we got pipeline for breakthrough, but the pipeline to [00:18:05] whatever, because it was mostly to current customers. Um, and I just started to [00:18:10] look at re the renewal cohort and the people that went to Breakthrough and we had a hundred percent renewal [00:18:15] rate if we got someone to breakthrough.
Latané Conant: So I'm like, mic drop, [00:18:20] like there we go.
Sydney Sloan: Why do we do it? That's why. [00:18:25] And adoption of new features and beta customers and advocates and all [00:18:30] of it. Yeah.
Latané Conant: Um, I actually ducked it off. Laura Ramos', do you remember Laura? Laura [00:18:35] Ramos wrote an article a long time ago about the different [00:18:40] customer archetypes and kind of how they wanna engage. [00:18:45] There's like the educator and the, anyway, I, I dusted that off 'cause I'm, I get [00:18:50] the, this, this job, I'm, everything's every function's new.
Latané Conant: So [00:18:55] now here I am, new customer marketing function. She starts next week and I'm [00:19:00] like, there's this article of our Laura,
Sydney Sloan: Yeah. Yeah,
Latané Conant: we need to make [00:19:05] sure we cover all six archetypes.
Sydney Sloan: that's a good [00:19:10] idea.
Jon Miller: I was just thinking about kind of, you know, the story you just told about getting trust, you know, the, the [00:19:15] getting the investment in breakthrough, you know, and I think there's like, it's, it's tied to like a [00:19:20] larger issue of, you know, just how do, how do CMOs earn the trust [00:19:25] of the CEO, the CFO, the board, um, especially for doing these [00:19:30] like less measurable investments like brand and things like that.
Jon Miller: You've done [00:19:35] that so successfully, like how, you know, like what. What, what else has worked for [00:19:40] you to do that?
Latané Conant: I just went through it again
Jon Miller: [00:19:45] Uh.
Latané Conant: and, um, what I did like, [00:19:50] I don't know, I think we all, the first thing is trust your instinct. [00:19:55] Okay. There's a theater between our ears that tells us we don't know what [00:20:00] we're doing and we're wrong, blah, blah, blah. Turn that off. [00:20:05] And instinctually, when you look at your market, your customer base, [00:20:10] your whatever, what are the right things to do?
Latané Conant: So I think it sort of starts with being like, what [00:20:15] do I know are the right things to do? And a [00:20:20] lot of that, those instincts probably come from you looking at the data. You [00:20:25] probably have looked at your category. You probably have looked at the marketing. Other folks in your category are [00:20:30] doing, you probably talked to a bunch of customers, like whatever it is, we're, we're like our [00:20:35] own little LLMs.
Latané Conant: Maybe a small language model, I don't know. But we're all like [00:20:40] taking it in all the time. And then, and then, then it's like, okay, now I need to [00:20:45] present this in a way. That is factual and compelling. And so from a [00:20:50] brand perspective, what I did was I just looked at. I created a [00:20:55] matrix of what our top competitors were doing across every single type of marketing, [00:21:00] which took some time, but you know, Claude and Scraping and you know, [00:21:05] just being kind of smart about it, talking to vendors, you would be surprised what like media vendors will [00:21:10] tell you about what other people are spending.
Latané Conant: Um, and I could just get a pretty [00:21:15] clear point of view on others' investment in [00:21:20] awareness. Versus ours. And, [00:21:25] and it's not just, it's not just a money thing, right? I mean, you wanna work smarter, so you don't wanna just say, [00:21:30] everyone's spending more, we need to spend more. But that was like one data point, right?
Latané Conant: Um, and [00:21:35] then the other data point that I looked at was I just took a look at like. [00:21:40] You know, branded search terms. I took a look at like share of website [00:21:45] traffic, like what's our share of website traffic vis-a-vis others. Um, [00:21:50] you know, we listened to Gong Calls and it was like, oh, we haven't heard of you.
Latané Conant: Like, you know, you know, like if you [00:21:55] hear a lot of people where, oh, we haven't heard of you, then obviously an awareness [00:22:00] problem. And then the other thing that was really interesting is 'cause we have this interesting microcosm where we're very well [00:22:05] known in Europe, but not in the us. And so I just, I looked at the amount of [00:22:10] effort it takes to get a meeting in the markets that we have high awareness [00:22:15] versus the markets where we don't, and it was like four times [00:22:20] more effort to get a meeting. And so you're going to [00:22:25] pay the cost somewhere, right? I'm like, so do we wanna hire a ton more salespeople [00:22:30] and a ton more BDRs? Because somehow we gotta get the [00:22:35] pipeline right, or do we wanna invest higher a peer [00:22:40] and, you know, which is less trackable, which is less measurable. [00:22:45] Um, and it was, you know, it was interesting.
Latané Conant: I had to like pre socialize this whole case with like all [00:22:50] of our board members. And, and I wasn't, I wanted more investment, [00:22:55] but I didn't wanna sign our head of sales up for a bigger number. [00:23:00] And so this is a delicate balance. Like anytime you ask, they're [00:23:05] like, okay, well tell me how much more pipe is Chris gonna sign up for more, you know, a bigger [00:23:10] number?
Latané Conant: And I'm like, that's no, you know, but at the same time, you don't wanna be like, well there's [00:23:15] risk in the current number. You know, I mean, that's not my place to be. Right? And so it was kind of a [00:23:20] delicate balance to be able to say, look. This is, this is how we're [00:23:25] gonna track it, first of all, and the way that, and yes, it might feel like kind of fuzzy math [00:23:30] website, traffic and, you know, these other very, very top of funnel type of metrics, but. [00:23:35] This is what the benchmarks and the story is telling us. [00:23:40] Um, and luckily I had like really good, I had good CEO support, I [00:23:45] had good board support. A lot of the board members were like, we agree. And you know, [00:23:50] they've seen it too. Like, especially in the ai, the AI native world is bonkers with brand [00:23:55] investment too.
Latané Conant: It's way, way, way more. So [00:24:00] I think that made it, that kind of helped. I wasn't like totally coming
Latané Conant: outta.
Sydney Sloan: could you like take us [00:24:05] inside that conversation? 'cause this is one of the big areas, like how does marketing build its [00:24:10] reputation on the metrics that the board cares about? You didn't mention your CFO [00:24:15] in that, like did you go to the CFO first? Was he in on it or was, you know, you're trying to like, so did you [00:24:20] get the CEO and CFO or are you talking to all of 'em at the same time?
Sydney Sloan: Like, let's, let's triple click [00:24:25] on this one.
Latané Conant: Yeah, I mean, and honestly my CEO's amazing. And so he was like, [00:24:30] I just think, he's like, I think this market is moving fast. And I was a little bit more [00:24:35] dragging my feet. Like, I don't know. And I just, I, I'm, this is a [00:24:40] big as to go back and we're only a quarter in and like. [00:24:45] You know, um, but he was super supportive and, [00:24:50] um, and so we kind of did a bottom, again, we did all the benchmarking.
Latané Conant: We did a [00:24:55] bottoms up of kind of what we thought we would need. [00:25:00] Um, and then it was, that was almost Did you give examples of [00:25:05] other, like your competitors? Like did you have, like, was it just a spreadsheet in math or was it [00:25:10] like, like, look, look. See here, look. See us not [00:25:15] the same. Yeah. Okay.
Latané Conant: are great and like, like, you know, a lot of people are [00:25:20] like hiring celebrities for their ads now. I mean it, you know, you go to an [00:25:25] airport, you never used to see like B2B and now every airport is [00:25:30] like, you know, B2B and, and, and I kind of went in and said, Hey, I'm not like trying to run [00:25:35] billboards in the airport.
Latané Conant: That's not my dream as a CMO, but I also don't wanna [00:25:40] get. Outplayed, you know? Um, and so, [00:25:45] um, we had a lot of examples and then I think that [00:25:50] it wasn't just give like we, we, the other kind of [00:25:55] line I think that you, I felt needed to get walked was. [00:26:00] I don't wanna be so specific about what we're gonna do, that it opens up the door to like a [00:26:05] lot of opinions.
Latané Conant: And then, you know, we already have a lot of opinions in marketing [00:26:10] and so now every board member's, like, I think that, you know, this white, this is a good I, [00:26:15] this influencer's good and that one's bad, you know? I was like, oh my God. Like I, so, but at the [00:26:20] same time, we needed to be specific enough that it wasn't just giving.[00:26:25]
Latané Conant: Money and we might not be able to track it by e, you know, [00:26:30] so I think that we had, um, four kind of key [00:26:35] pillars for exactly what we were gonna do with it. [00:26:40] Um, that made sense given our business, uh, that [00:26:45] they could stand behind and be like, oh, okay. Yeah. That makes sense. You [00:26:50] know, we would we get why that would be a smart move or, you know, we understand [00:26:55] why that that would be needed.
Sydney Sloan: awesome. That's, uh. So what [00:27:00] I, you know, hear you saying, and I don't think enough marketers do, is having [00:27:05] the conviction to a, get the math show what your share of voice [00:27:10] is and, and what your other competitors are doing. Shop it [00:27:15] around to the board. I wanna, I wanna know how many, you know, people in our [00:27:20] marketing network are comfortable going to the board to pitch their ideas.
Sydney Sloan: I, I don't think it's very many, [00:27:25] um, alongside the CEO and then giving enough, but not too [00:27:30] much, um, of like what the plan is. Like, you know, here's, here's the [00:27:35] sketch work with me, right? Like, we'll flesh it out, you'll love it. Um, and, [00:27:40] and, and they got the go ahead. And, and now are you going back and saying, okay.
Sydney Sloan: See, I told you here, here, [00:27:45] here. Are you doing it in the board meeting? Are you doing it before then?
Latané Conant: Well, this all just kind of [00:27:50] went down, so over weekend.
Sydney Sloan: Yeah. You've only been in seat six months. Let's
Latané Conant: Yeah, I've only been here six months and I was [00:27:55] scared shitless to do this. You guys, like, I, I was like, I'm gonna get, oh my God, I've only been here. And I'm [00:28:00] like, you know, I should take what I have and show a little progress. And [00:28:05] we had some like baby progress, but like. At that [00:28:10] time, I don't know, it was four and a half months in, like, it's not like I had like, oh look, and that was [00:28:15] scared me. Like it's one thing for a board can see if it's like, we've done this and we wanna pour gas on it, [00:28:20] like that's easy, you know? So I, I, I don't wanna act like I was [00:28:25] mis confident. I definitely prepared a ton. Um, and I [00:28:30] think I got a lot of people on board, but ultimately, like our CEO was a hundred percent behind it and so was [00:28:35] our CFO too. So, and even our head of sales, 'cause he talks to the board all the time, [00:28:40] so I think that helped me a lot. But, um, so [00:28:45] yeah, like this weekend I put together. Okay, here's what we're gonna [00:28:50] do.
Latané Conant: Um, you know, and here's the output. And, um, and then actually I'm [00:28:55] working on, I don't know if this will work or not y'all, but stay tuned. [00:29:00] I'm trying to build with Claude and aided [00:29:05] unaided awareness study because I don't wanna have to [00:29:10] pay for one, and I don't wanna wait for one. So I did a [00:29:15] ton of research about how we can maybe pull in like a bunch of [00:29:20] different data points and analyze them to have some sort of aided, unaided [00:29:25] like awareness score.
Jon Miller: like a synthetic research project.
Latané Conant: yeah, [00:29:30] it might be, I mean, it might, might not work, but I figured may as well [00:29:35] try.
Jon Miller: I will have to do a follow up when you figure Yeah. Some of the AEO vendors [00:29:40] have that built into their platforms too now. 'cause they're kind of building, I mean, that's what they are [00:29:45] anyway, right? They, they actually don't know what people are doing. They're, they're, they're synthetically making [00:29:50] it so.
Latané Conant: Right. So I was, so we, and we work with all of those. So we've got that data, [00:29:55] we've got this. I'm like, let's just try to put something together and put a [00:30:00] line in the sand of like, this is pre this big campaign we're gonna do. [00:30:05] And then this is post so that we at least have something, you know.
Sydney Sloan: [00:30:10] Yeah.
Jon Miller: I'm curious, like, so you've, you've done this switch that I think a [00:30:15] lot of CMOs want to do, which you've moved from like a traditional SaaS business to an AI native. [00:30:20] Business. What, what, what else are you feeling is like different [00:30:25] about marketing in the AI native world and for an AI native [00:30:30] company?
Latané Conant: It is, I [00:30:35] mean, the markets move really fast and so I think the [00:30:40] speed of like turnover is, is Yeah, [00:30:45] higher.
Jon Miller: you, you mentioned product releases every two weeks.
Latané Conant: I think that the level [00:30:50] of brand is much higher, which is why we did the, you know, we went and did [00:30:55] the investment. I think that the, the [00:31:00] design is. More like video content [00:31:05] and like there, like I feel like the types of content that we need to [00:31:10] put out is on a much higher caliber than [00:31:15] what it was before.
Latané Conant: So like a lot Yeah, thank you, OpenAI. Right? Like thank you [00:31:20] OpenAI. As soon as they started doing those highly produced videos, like everybody had to do them like
Latané Conant: Yeah, so [00:31:25] yeah, so it's interesting, like my AI use cases. I'm like, okay, cool. We wrote some [00:31:30] blog like who cares? Like moving on. Yeah, we're all doing that. Mine is like testing, [00:31:35] which, which one makes videos that don't seem AI generated, and like a lot more of [00:31:40] like the design that's like our biggest bottleneck is.[00:31:45]
Latané Conant: Just producing things at, at, that like kind of critical [00:31:50] friction point. So doing a lot of things with AI to be able to unlock that, um, [00:31:55] and stay on brand, which is, or create, like, it's hard, like if you wanna create a consistent [00:32:00] character, for example, like it sucks at that. [00:32:05] I'm like, no, I want the same guy in all the videos and like every time [00:32:10] he's different I'm like, nah.
Latané Conant: You know, so.
Jon Miller: So AI lets you do [00:32:15] more, but that just has raised the bar for the quality of what you have to do.
Latané Conant: I, I, yeah. [00:32:20] Well, and, and I think that content is so easy and can be low quality, so I think [00:32:25] now everyone is standing out with like high quality video and aesthetic [00:32:30] that it's harder to, and it's hard, way harder to [00:32:35] use AI there. So.
Sydney Sloan: do you use a product there or are you trying to build it on your own?
Latané Conant: [00:32:40] No, no. I mean, we've got run, we have like every, some is good for this, some is good for [00:32:45] that, some are, you know what I mean?
Latané Conant: And like, to string stuff together.
Latané Conant: yeah, yeah, And it kind of [00:32:50] depends on the, you know, what it is. And sometimes we just can't, it just [00:32:55] won't work. But.
Jon Miller: uh, one more AI question I want to ask, uh, is, yeah, I [00:33:00] mean, I guess you, you famously wrote, you know, the book, you know, no forms, no spam, no code calls, [00:33:05] right? Which is all about new buyer, like kind of how buyers are changing. [00:33:10] Um, but increasingly our buyer is an AI agent, not even a human. [00:33:15] Like how do you think that changes the whole thesis behind the [00:33:20] book?
Latané Conant: So I think, I think a lot of like the high level things are still [00:33:25] true. I think maybe the tactics are not, potentially not as [00:33:30] relevant or need to like evolve. Um. So like, [00:33:35] I still don't think gated con, like that's not smart. Like especially in today. It's even dumber today. You [00:33:40] know what I mean? So I was onto something even though I had no idea.
Latané Conant: Um, or, but, [00:33:45] so that's even, I, I think that's a no brainer. Um, and I think when you think [00:33:50] about spam, I mean, again, like a lot of AI can be more of a spam [00:33:55] slinger. And so that's what I talked about earlier. Whereas like our big. [00:34:00] It's funny, I re like, I bet like, you know, you can't go on LinkedIn without a [00:34:05] post that like I redid my entire marketing team and it's five AI agents and [00:34:10] Claude and ba ba and that's all great.
Latané Conant: And so, but I take all those and we have a whole benchmarking [00:34:15] thing of like making sure we're doing everything that is like feasible to be as [00:34:20] efficient as possible. But my passion project with AI is more [00:34:25] like the experience, which is what I wrote about in the book. Like how do we make sure that everyone that [00:34:30] goes like interacts with Parlo has this amazing [00:34:35] bespoke experience to them?
Latané Conant: And in B2B it's harder 'cause you have to create an [00:34:40] experience for the person and the account. Where [00:34:45] B2C, it's like, I know you like canoes. I'm gonna sell you a canoe. This is like, maybe you like [00:34:50] canoes, but he likes Pat. You know what I mean? It's like you, you and I'm, I'm preaching to the converted. I don't need to go go much [00:34:55] longer on that, but, and so like, we're trying to build [00:35:00] and what we have successfully built is an engine that allows us to, again. Create [00:35:05] every email bespoke in real time based on all their signals, buying stage, persona, [00:35:10] buying group, what's happening with, you know, others, landing pages in real time. That's our next kind [00:35:15] of piece of this project. It's been, you know, five months, six months. So the first thing was [00:35:20] that was we needed to build.
Latané Conant: Getting all the signals in organizing [00:35:25] them. Um, and then like the engine about parlo of course, 'cause that needs to come to [00:35:30] bear and a lot of testing and stuff. And so that, like, that's kind of what I'm more passionate about than [00:35:35] we wrote 17 more blogs or, you know, I've got a better dashboard than I had before, even though that [00:35:40] stuff's cool too.
Sydney Sloan: Yeah. Um, last, last question and, and this goes [00:35:45] against our research as well. Surprisingly, one of the areas [00:35:50] that CMOs feel the least, uh, ready for, even though we've [00:35:55] kind of been going through it. But as you come into a new company and you're getting to build a new [00:36:00] team, how are you thinking about building out the organization design for next year?
Sydney Sloan: [00:36:05] And I think we were like, here's all, here's my boxes and here's my agents. And I don't think that's the right approach and I [00:36:10] can't imagine that's what you're doing. So what. What are you, how are you [00:36:15] thinking about functional responsibility and where AI and agents kind of fit within that [00:36:20] in the next, in the team you're building?
Sydney Sloan: Like where you wanna be at the end of N next year?
Latané Conant: [00:36:25] So I, I feel like I, I don't believe in making small plans, [00:36:30] so I think the key to using a lot of AI is having like a big enough [00:36:35] vision that it's. Freaking impossible to do it, doing what you did before. [00:36:40] And so that's kind of like what this vision of how I want our customer experience to [00:36:45] go. And I also wanna use our product, which is voice.[00:36:50]
Latané Conant: And so we're doing a lot of work with our own product too. And, [00:36:55] and how does that integrate? Um, and so that's kind of just a, a, a [00:37:00] fun, you know. Place to be and that's what gets me the most excited [00:37:05] then I think. But then on the more like, Hey, I've got this team. Do I add AIs to my [00:37:10] org chart? I think if that helps you get there and maybe set how [00:37:15] serious you are and you need to do that, then cool.
Latané Conant: Um. [00:37:20] Where we are is, I do have a centralized kind of like you're [00:37:25] the AI, god and goddesses, and they are [00:37:30] responsible for helping people build things that they wanna build. And like [00:37:35] assisting, they are responsible for the benchmarking I talked about. So every quarter everyone gets [00:37:40] benchmarked their function versus what's possible.
Latané Conant: And, and then they, you know, in the QBR they have to talk [00:37:45] about what they've done, um, and. [00:37:50] Then we are also starting to now introduce like [00:37:55] once a quarter. We haven't done this yet, but we're once a quarter gonna have like an education day. [00:38:00] Um, like Claude puts out a great, a lot of great education [00:38:05] and so we're gonna kind of like, you know, force family fun like, [00:38:10] um, on, on that just so that everyone has like enough literacy.
Latané Conant: But I guess [00:38:15] I'm not feeling like the team's not. So it's a little bit of a [00:38:20] different place. And I also don't, I think that if you had a [00:38:25] huge team and you're looking around like, shoot, I've got a [00:38:30] ton of people doing similar type of work. I think it's very different than, I have nothing, [00:38:35] like I have no customer marketing, so I need a leader and I, my [00:38:40] expectation of a leader is that they're going to use a lot of ai.
Latané Conant: So we don't need a 50 person [00:38:45] customer marketing team. I need at least one. You know what I mean?
Sydney Sloan: [00:38:50] Yeah,
Sydney Sloan: you need a human to design, deliver, but so [00:38:55] you is your, so is your thinking in 2027 that. And I, I, I [00:39:00] hear this, right? Like, we don't need as big of a team anymore. Like so, but functionally [00:39:05] still, like maybe the, the product marketing, customer marketing, demand gen are still in the [00:39:10] same org structure, but you're just changing the way the teams work and [00:39:15] infusing ai, so you don't need as big of a team.
Latané Conant: Yeah. I think that what we've done is sort of like [00:39:20] broken the growth to higher curve. Like if [00:39:25] to grow, we had to hire, this meant the slope looked like this of the line. [00:39:30] I feel like the line now looks like this. Hmm. You know, and [00:39:35] so that's kind of what,
Sydney Sloan: Yeah.
Latané Conant: how, how I see it playing out, [00:39:40] you know? But like field marketing, I mean, [00:39:45] it's, people need to show up and do the stuff,
Sydney Sloan: [00:39:50] Come on, Claude.
Latané Conant: you know, [00:39:55] so I, we can have an AI for the messaging so we don't go back and forth. You [00:40:00] know, 90 times on what goes on the booth, like I'm down with that, but.
Sydney Sloan: [00:40:05] So the in-person things still need people to run them. And the things that can [00:40:10] be scaled still need leaders to, to build it. And we'll [00:40:15] see. I think we were talking at the beginning of, you know, right now you're building, [00:40:20] but if somebody builds something, there's no pride in authorship of, you know, right [00:40:25] now I'm building it because I can't find it anywhere else.
Sydney Sloan: And so we're gonna build it to get that bespoke.
Latané Conant: [00:40:30] Yeah, like, I like competitive intelligence. I was like, this has to be ai. [00:40:35] Like we either need to build it or, and because they came and they said, we wanna [00:40:40] buy, I don't know, crayon one of the ones. And I'm like, I'm like, no, you, we, [00:40:45] this should be so easy. We shouldn't need, and they were like. It literally already does all [00:40:50] that stuff and does all this other, and I'm like, oh, okay, great. [00:40:55] Moving on. If we don't have to, let's go. You know? Um, but I do think that's part of the [00:41:00] problem with like the token scoring
Sydney Sloan: Consumption. [00:41:05] Yeah.
Latané Conant: because. I think about my team, we [00:41:10] use Gemini, Claude, we still have some stuff that we built in chat, GPT, [00:41:15] and we haven't moved it quite to Claude Runway I mentioned, you [00:41:20] know, and then all the other tools that just have, you know, I mean, I can mention like 50 [00:41:25] things that are ai, but what we track is clawed, [00:41:30] you know? So that's kind of a, just [00:41:35] interesting. Dynamic G [00:41:40] Yay on Anthropic. Like great
Latané Conant: market. seriously. Talk about a six month turnaround.
Latané Conant: [00:41:45] Yeah.
Sydney Sloan: Whoa.
Latané Conant: [00:41:50] Wish I was the CO there.
Jon Miller: I actually, I [00:41:55] wrote, well, I actually wrote about this not long ago. I mean, like, [00:42:00] I think that's such an example of product market fit, dominating anything you can do in marketing.
Latané Conant: [00:42:05] Yay.
Sydney Sloan: But the, the words, they still have good marketers there. I know a couple of 'em that just, [00:42:10] uh, joined the product marketing and, and, uh, uh, yeah. So [00:42:15] Casey's over there. She was at, said Doso. Yeah, Francois, they're, they've got some great, great marketers.
Latané Conant: [00:42:20] totally.
Jon Miller: so we like to end every, every podcast with just an opportunity for you to shout [00:42:25] out, uh, to the mentors and the people who helped you get to where you are today.
Jon Miller: 'cause none of us achieve what we do on [00:42:30] our own. We're all standing, you know, with the support of everybody behind us. So who, who do you wanna give a shout out [00:42:35] to?
Latané Conant: So Chris Heineken and Chris Barbin that though they were [00:42:40] the ones at Aperio who I think gave me my shot, Krista Abel, who is working [00:42:45] there and on the team, and we did great things together and is now back [00:42:50] with me at Parlo, which I love working with, uh, people that, you know, just works [00:42:55] well. I think there's so many 6sense OGs that we just. [00:43:00] I mean, it was just a good run, you know? So I wanna thank, uh, you [00:43:05] know, appreciate so many people like sales team. Like it was just awesome. And it [00:43:10] was funny, a lot of us are in this same space now, and we were just at a show together and [00:43:15] I'm like, bring it in. We're competitors with your Bears. I love you guys.
Latané Conant: You know? [00:43:20] Um, so you know, a hundred percent there. I think the CM Empowered [00:43:25] CMOs, like I learned so much from them. And then. I was on this [00:43:30] women's panel last week and um, I [00:43:35] was thinking about the name of the panel was the Knowledge, [00:43:40] technical Knowledge Gap for Women.
Latané Conant: Horrible Panel name. [00:43:45] Like, why are we putting this [00:43:50] into the universe? Like, you know, I'm the marketer. Like this is very bad [00:43:55] marketing. [00:44:00] So,
Sydney Sloan: the room was full. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. [00:44:05] Well.
Latané Conant: yeah. Yeah. So it worked, but like, you know, it was a women, but I'm just like, so [00:44:10] I think it's a confidence gap. More than anything. [00:44:15] And I think that like that's the gender thing is we, we tend to sometimes have, [00:44:20] not a knowledge gap, but a confidence gap. [00:44:25] And so one of my kind of practical tips is like, have your hype squad, you [00:44:30] know, Sydnee, you're part of my hype squad, like Dasha Fierce.
Latané Conant: Just click. Like we all [00:44:35] need those people that we call when we're like. Just tell me I'm cool. [00:44:40] Like I need a little shot in the arm. And I think that like, for, [00:44:45] especially for women that like, sometimes our confidence holds us back [00:44:50] like that, you, you just need that. So love them. Love the hike squad.
Sydney Sloan: [00:44:55] Yeah. Well that is fantastic, and as I knew time [00:45:00] flew. So we are at time. Uh, key takeaways, uh, John, [00:45:05] for, for our conversation today. Here's, here's my top two. The first one is I [00:45:10] really love Latin. How as new Inea, you had the confidence [00:45:15] to be able to build a business case and shop it around, not only to your CEO and [00:45:20] CFO, but go to your board.
Sydney Sloan: And I think that that. Not a lot of people have the confidence to do [00:45:25] that as early on as you did. And by using research and industry insight and [00:45:30] benchmarking made the case, the investment now is actually gonna pay more than [00:45:35] making investment in other areas later and, and show and mapping that out. Uh, we [00:45:40] can say brand, you know, if you don't spend invest in brand now, you'll pay more in demand later.
Sydney Sloan: But you actually proved [00:45:45] that. So that is my number one highlight. I think the second one is. [00:45:50] Um, you know, just the speed of AI native and it's not a joke. And so really
Sydney Sloan: having to [00:45:55] build
Sydney Sloan: out this, the supporting infrastructure to how do you keep up, [00:46:00] um, with the speed of innovation, um, and, and what you've been able to build [00:46:05] and, and still like, anchor on the experience is the thing that will be [00:46:10] uniquely parlo, um, and uniquely you.
Sydney Sloan: Uh, so those are my [00:46:15] two highlights. I dunno, John, if you had another one.
Jon Miller: I'll go back to the very top, you know, where we were talking about how [00:46:20] you, you know, kind of your passions and who you are and why you are the way you are. You know, I mean. [00:46:25] I, I, great marketing is about connecting with people. It's [00:46:30] about creating experiences. Um, you know, and I think [00:46:35] you just, and, and doing it with empathy, you know, understanding your customer, both [00:46:40] your real, your actual customer and your sales customer.
Jon Miller: And like, you just live all that naturally. And I [00:46:45] think that's, you know, why, whether you trained for it or not, you've just become such a, a great marker that [00:46:50] other CMOs look up to as well. So I, I really appreciate you joining us today.
Latané Conant: Thanks. Thanks [00:46:55] for having me on and thanks for your project. It's meaningful work. Appreciate what you guys are
Sydney Sloan: [00:47:00] Awesome. Well, if the listener who's still listening would like to learn more about the [00:47:05] B2B CMO project, you can follow us at the b2b CMO project.com. You [00:47:10] can join our newsletter, you can join the community, um, and watch more [00:47:15] pod awesome podcasts like this. So, and you Lany for being here. Thank you community for.[00:47:20]
Sydney Sloan: Stepping up and we're, we're in this together. We are gonna learn, we're gonna keep growing. [00:47:25] Um, and I hope everybody has a fantastic day. [00:47:30] [00:47:35] [00:47:40] [00:47:45] [00:47:50] [00:47:55] [00:48:00] [00:48:05] [00:48:10]