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Demand-Geniuses is the podcast for revenue-focused B2B Marketers. We bring you the latest insights and expert tips, interviewing geniuses of the B2B Marketing world to bring you actionable advice that you can implement to accelerate growth and progress you career. The role of Marketing in B2B go-to-market strategy has changed drastically. It's more important to revenue generation than ever as buyer engagement becomes more digital. We equip you with the information you need to thrive in this new, revenue-critical role.
Tom Rudnai (00:20)
Okay, hello everyone, welcome to what I think now is episode 11 of Demand Geniuses. So my guest today, I've been trying to get on the podcast for long time actually, so super, super excited to have you, Kathleen Booth.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (00:31)
Hi, thanks Tom
for having me on. I'm really excited to talk with you.
Tom Rudnai (00:34)
I guess to kick us off, do you maybe wanna just give a little bit of an intro into you, your background, and also your role at Pavilion for those that don't know?
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (00:43)
Sure. So I currently am the SVP of marketing and growth at Pavilion. Pavilion is the world's largest private membership community for go-to-market executives and the executives of the future. We have about 10,000 members around the world in 450 cities with 50 local chapters.
And about half of those people are executive level VP or above go to market leaders, which we define as the heads of sales marketing, customer success, rev ops, partnerships, and then the CEO founder. How I came to be a Pavilion, I have a funny career. I spent the first 10 years of it as an international development consultant. And so I worked on water utility privatization around the world for organizations like the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
But I had originally done an MBA in marketing and there's a long story about how that unfolded, but partway through my career as an international development consultant, I started to see these projects fall apart because of poor communication. And so I began to like come back to my roots in marketing and work with a lot of these governments around the world on how do you build consensus for big public sector reform projects using strategic communications? And when I decided to get married and have kids and I couldn't travel,
all over kingdom come, that kind of returned to my marketing roots, proved really useful. And my husband and I started a marketing agency and we owned that for 11 years. That then led to my career in B2B tech. And I've worked at a variety of different companies, generally earlier stages as head of marketing. I think I have that entrepreneurial DNA because I was a founder. So I tend to like that early and growth stage.
But yeah, I love coming in, I love building teams and solving strategies. I do a lot of fractional work with companies on the side. And today my energy is really focused on helping Pavilion grow. And interestingly, I was a Pavilion member for two years before I joined the company. And the reason I was so excited to work here, because it was a bit of a divergence from my career in B2B tech, is that it had been so impactful for me. Like I found that as I navigated that change from
founder to VP of marketing and then to CMO and then fractional advisor. Like I needed resources. I needed community and peers to help me with those changes, to understand what was expected of me and those different inflection points in my career. And Pavilion was always there and provided great support as well as access to some, an amazing network of not only marketing leaders, but really go to market leaders more broadly, which I think has, has made me a better operator. I've learned a lot about.
marketing, also about sales and customer success and other topics that are important.
Tom Rudnai (03:23)
Yeah, well that's what I was kind of thinking as you were talking was there must be, you couldn't ask for a better launch pad for a career in marketing, for example, right? Cause you're going to go and build this fantastic network of people who have been super successful in that world. And you're also going to get the kind of exposure to kind of beyond the realms of marketing into all the other facets of going to market. So it's kind of a bit of a dream job from that perspective, right?
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (03:44)
Yeah, I mean, it's great. I, every day I get to come to work and help people. Like that's what Pavilion's all about is it's helping people in their careers. It's helping people when they're in their moment of need, like if they just got fired or they just started a new job and they're anxious about being successful because there's a lot of pressure involved in these roles. There's a lot of scrutiny on them. many of our members come from companies that are VC or PE backed and the spotlight is on them. The performance expectations are on them. And so.
I really love being in a position to support an organization whose purpose is to help people navigate those challenging times in their career and hopefully reach a point where they feel proud and successful and less anxious.
Tom Rudnai (04:26)
what would you say are the unique challenges of being a marketer at Pavilion?
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (04:30)
Yeah, it's really interesting because our product is community, right? Which is different than software. You know, a lot of other people in the world that I run in are marketing software. And when you're marketing community, your product is really an experience more than anything else. And so what's been very interesting to me about leading marketing is that actually when I first joined the company, I was hired to lead marketing, but on day two, I was asked to take on customer success.
Tom Rudnai (04:34)
Yeah.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (04:58)
And I led that for, I think it was a little over a year until we hired a leader for it. And I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to do that because when you are selling and experience customer success is such an integral part of the product, essentially. Like in many ways it is the product, right? And over Pavilion's history, the vast majority of our growth as a community has come from word of mouth.
happy members who refer friends and peers. And so, so as a marketer, like I really needed to immerse myself more deeply into the world of the post-sale funnel, like the right side of the bow tie, as many people refer to it. Like, what does it look like after someone joins and how can we, how can we craft an experience for them?
that turns them into an advocate or an evangelist for the community that makes them naturally want to tell their friends. Because with community, it's a delicate product. Growth in and of itself can kill the product. If we grow the wrong way with the wrong people, it dilutes the value. And so a lot of what I think about is not just growth, it's the right kind of growth. How do we make sure that whatever we're doing, whether it's
referral program strategy, whether it's events or paid ads, like how do I make sure that throughout all of that, we are attracting our ideal customer profile, the right kind of member for Pavilion who's going to truly not just benefit from what we do, but contribute. Cause like that's part of community too, is that your customers are part of the product. They're how they lean in, how they participate.
is actually part of the experience that other members have. And so you're looking for people that are willing to give as much as they want to get. And that balance is a tough one to strike. And so it's forced me to really understand more and value things like customer marketing, customer success, support, things along those lines.
Tom Rudnai (06:42)
Yeah.
I wanna come back to, there's a few things in there that you said that I thought was super interesting. The first is like the.
taking over CS on day two, which first of all, what did you say on day one?
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (07:03)
know if it was me so much as like we had our CS leader depart and they were like, Hey, how about you do this? And I mean, it was, it's scary, but it was honestly a great opportunity. I had never led customer success before. So, it's one of those moments in your career where you have to like take a leap of faith and just be like, I'll take a stab at it. You know, I may not be the best person for the job, but I'm the best person right now.
Tom Rudnai (07:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's especially for community. When the product is community, it's the equivalent of as a kind of SaaS marketer, making sure that you're a user of the product so that you build up like a much deeper empathy with the people that you're selling to and an understanding of the value of it. I'm trying not to be too Gen Z here and say the vibe of the community, but it gives you a real finger on that pulse, right? Which I presume is something that yields benefits now.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (07:44)
No, you're spot on.
you're spot on. actually this is one of the reasons I wanted to work at Pavilion is that I, I was, and still am the customer, right? Like before I joined the company as an employee, I, like I said, I was a member for two years. I was the original co-chair of the Washington DC chapter. I became a Pavilion ambassador. Like I was super engaged as a member. And so coming in, I knew the product. I had experienced it deeply as a customer.
But once I joined, I didn't stop engaging as a customer. Like I still to this day use Pavilion as I would hope our members use it as like a resource, sounding board. And there was like, I think in my first year I was here at the company, I ran a report through, we were using Common Room at the time. And I could see like who the top engaged Slack users were. And I was like the number one most active person in Slack.
of our members, of our team, of everybody. And it's because like, look, for the first time in my career, I had totally unfettered access to the voice of the customer. I've worked places where it's been hard to get voice of the customer and it's horrible as a marketer. It is the worst possible situation. And so when I came to Pavilion and I realized I don't even need to ask people for access to voice of the customer. don't have to rely on.
sales call recordings or a customer advisory board, I can just go into Slack and swim in a sea of feedback. Like I can see exactly what's on the minds of our members all the time. And so how crazy would it be to not take advantage of that, right? And to actively be immersed in that at any opportunity I could get.
Tom Rudnai (09:31)
Yeah, how does it change like the first 90 days? Because I think typically you come into a new job the first 90 days, you're kind of in listening mode a little bit. But you come in, I know exactly what I want to do, presume, right? It must make it self-balance.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (09:42)
Well, yes and
no. mean, here's the thing about Pavilion. when you experience it as a member, you have your perception of it, but there's so much that happens under the surface. And I think the first 90 days at any job, right? It's about going in a sponge mode and trying to learn as much as you can. But look, you're also building the plane while you fly it because I joined and within a month or a month and a half of joining,
We had our CRO summit, which is one of our flagship events and I needed to like the events team rolled up to me. So I needed to make sure that event was a huge success. We also had Sam's book, Kind Folks Finish First, which is today, like he's a best seller, right? He made it to the best seller list. When I came on, I had a month before publication date where I was meeting with Wiley, the publisher.
And I had to put together the strategy for the book launch. And, you know, that was happening at the same time as the summit, at the same time as like I was taking on customer success and trying to run marketing and like not break anything, right? Like that was the first 90 days for me were like, let's just not break anything. And then the one, the one change that I made in the first 90 days was we introduced our first ever self-serve enrollment.
when I joined, still had to like go to the website and apply and then you would be screened. And most of our applicants went through an interview process and we don't do that anymore today. And there's like aspects of that that have been challenging because having the interview led to a certain caliber of member, but it also slowed down our growth. And so I think like one of the things we're thinking about today is we have opened up Pavilion and made it more accessible to people, but how.
How do we preserve a feeling of intimacy within the broader community, given that we are growing? Like how do we create smaller experiences so that in the face of all this growth, doesn't dilute the value of what you find in the community.
Tom Rudnai (11:37)
Yeah, and looking from the outside in, think there's two points to make. One is I think you've done it well. Literally before this call, I was on with someone who's a CRO and they were basically selling Pavilion to me. I'm not actually currently a member, but I will fix that. The other thing is from the outside in, it's forced you to be super focused on kind of segmentation and being very strategic about how you open up new growth opportunities. It can't just be about let's open the floodgates, make it self-serve and let more people in.
It's about how do we build a super specific specialized package for a new audience. And that's what I've kind of seen from the outside in as you've gone now to AEs and all the different tiers, more specialization.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (12:16)
Yeah, there's a degree of that. There's also like in our case, and I've always said this, like the most successful communities are the ones that become self-governing. And so a big thing that we've invested in is elevating members of the community into leadership positions. So we have chapter heads at the local level. We have functional group leaders, which are, for example, like chief revenue officers who've stepped up to run our chief revenue officer sub-community.
We have an AI community that has members who lead it. We have women of Pavilion with some amazing women leaders. So like all of these members are people that have taken more official roles within the community and they're compensated. You know, it's, they're not their full-time job, but we do compensate them for this because obviously their time is precious. And I think that's been a huge driver for us is having members who are very invested in our success and like,
invested in delivering experiences that they themselves would find valuable. You I think that's really the key to it. And then right now what we're looking at is, how do we create those more intimate experiences? And that happens in different ways. So some of it is like, we have the chapters, so there's local get togethers, right? That's one example. Now we're looking at rolling out more broadly something we've done with our CEO members, which is called cabals. And these are small groups of,
eight to 10 people, non-competitive, that meet on a regular basis. And this is like your inner sanctum. And so I think we'd like to move to a place where that model was structured more formally throughout the community at a certain level of membership.
Tom Rudnai (13:51)
So one of the questions that I had is how do you approach the kind of, for want of a better word, the value exchange? As a marketer, you live in a world where two of the biggest elements of your product, community and content, are also two of the tools that you have in your toolbox. So that's an immensely powerful thing that you can leverage. How do you approach the value exchange in terms of how you give people a bit of a sneak behind the curtain without...
allowing them in as a free member, I suppose.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (14:20)
Yeah, this is a really interesting question, mostly because it's coming at a time when we're talking about exactly this. So until now, Pavilion has always been very binary in the sense that like you're either a member or you're not, right? And so we would tell people, for example, hey, we're running Chief Revenue Officer School this summer. If you want to participate, join.
Right. And it's so you're either a member or you're not, you're either get the thing or you don't. and I think we are exploring now, like, are there other modalities where maybe somebody could take a course if they're not a member and, and try before they buy, or maybe there's a version of membership, which is you just get access to our on demand courses and digital resource library, like TBD on where we'll land on that, because we're going through that exercise now. But I think we see an opportunity to give people,
an easier entry point to Pavilion. And at the same time, like, I think the heart of your question is like, there's all kinds of content and resources that we have. How do we think about what is reserved for members versus what is okay for anybody to access? And in our case, I think our courses are really the thing that we've said, these are just for members until, you know, up until now. And a lot of people join just for the courses.
And it's really by operators for operators, right? Like our courses are taught by people who are in the seat today. They've got the battle scars. They can tell you exactly what's working and what's not and what's changing as it's changing. So that's a big differentiator for us. But we do a lot of things like virtual events, round tables. We produce a ton of content and reports and research and we generally lean towards not gating.
as much of it as possible. So great examples, we just released our B2B compensation study about a month ago. the only gate on it is that you have to answer the survey to see it, which is sort of like the glass door model. Like we want you to contribute to the data set so that we can make it more robust so that everybody benefits. ⁓
Tom Rudnai (16:20)
It's also super
reflective of your brand though, right? That's who you're trying to reach. It's a community with more people who contribute in as well as take out.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (16:27)
Yeah, and that's, mean, I would say the other big thing with Pavilion is we are a values based community, which is something that does set us apart. And it's all premised on the whole thing started with this notion that you need to give to get. And that's why Sam's book is all around kindness, right? It's about this vision of the world where success is not about clawing your way to the top and
taking people down on the journey. It's about lifting other people up as you go and believing that by being helpful, by being kind, by giving, that will all make you more successful in the end. And we bake that into our community's values. And I think it shows, people pick up the phone, they take the meeting for other Pavilion members. And we get that feedback all the time.
Tom Rudnai (17:11)
If you're like a marketer at a software company at the moment and you see that and you know, you kind of want to get started with it, how would you go about that? Like what's step one if you want to build up a community?
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (17:24)
it's such a great question. And I think community is only going to become more important with AI. Like it's the thing that AI can't replicate is that collection of human relationships that you get through participation in a community. So that makes me excited to be working at Pavilion, like, because that's a product that AI is not going to disrupt. Like it will many other things.
So the question is like, what should someone know if they want to start a community? And I think we need to back up. And the first question is like, should you start a community? Because not everybody should, right? Like there's different modalities for you to engage in what I would call community led growth. There's starting your own community, there's sponsoring an existing one, and then there's just like joining and participating organically.
All three of those are viable options. There's some companies that do all three at once, some pick one or two, but all of them have very different levels of like resourcing and commitment that's required and also payback periods. like if you're gonna, I have started communities before. I was involved at a company called Impact where we built a 5,000 member marketing community. This was back in 2017. And,
What I've learned is that like it only works if you're truly willing to dedicate the resources to it and you're willing to to accept that you might not see results for a while. Like there are some results that you could see quickly, but I would say big picture. Like if you're trying to use community to drive revenue, it could take a year or more to do that. And it's hard, often hard to track. And so
you just, need to believe in the long game. And when I've seen it done well, like when I was at impact, we had a full-time person who reported to me whose title was director of audience engagement and community. And her job was just to like be in the community every day to know the members, to understand their needs, to drive conversation, to make sure that everybody who posted a question who like, who like actually took the time to engage in the community got an answer. ⁓ she would host events like, and, and that.
Tom Rudnai (19:20)
Mm-hmm.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (19:23)
community worked, it was successful, but it was because we had a full-time person working on it, right? That's a lot of resourcing. Plus we had funding, know, we had technology stack, we had events, there was a lot that went into it, but it was successful. I think what I see a lot of software companies do is start communities and they're just like, we'll throw up a Slack group and people will come and they'll talk. like the truth is, I love Slack as much as the next person, but we all have a lot of Slack groups we're in.
And if you look at my Slack sidebar, there's probably 25 different Slack groups in it, and I regularly only go to two of them. you know, people just don't have time for that. And so you need a reason for people to continually come back. And it's not just gonna happen organically. Like it either needs to be that they've made deep connections with people there that they trust. And so that becomes their circle of confidants, or there needs to be something happening, whether it's an event or
Tom Rudnai (19:56)
Mm.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (20:18)
or engaged conversation that draws people back.
Tom Rudnai (20:23)
Yeah,
so what I mean, like the first step, like step back and focus on why you're doing it and ask yourself, is, I think there's a couple of, like one, is that why something that is actually gonna allow you to build a community? Because if the why is purely revenue focused, at least if it's revenue focused on too short a time horizon, that's gonna come across in how you run the community and it's gonna be palpable and that's gonna be a barrier to the kind of connection that would actually attract people.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (20:28)
Yeah.
if you want ROI quickly and you're not willing to like seriously resource your community, that's when I would say like, don't start one, join communities and participate organically. Cause if you just like throw your time behind like, Pavilion's an example. We have members who join and they're just super active in the Slack channels. They go to all the events. They see results pretty quickly and all their spending is the cost of a membership. But.
Tom Rudnai (20:55)
Yeah.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (21:11)
The other option is to just sponsor, right? Like that's another pretty quick path. sponsor a community and there's different shapes that that can take. You could either sponsor a channel or sponsor, like in Pavilion, some people sponsor courses, other sponsor events. Like if a community has your audience, you don't always have to like build a community of your own. You can just draft off of somebody else's for a smaller amount of money and a quicker payback period. So there's lots of options out there.
Tom Rudnai (21:36)
And I guess it also comes back to if you are gonna do it, you have to make sure that you have buy-in within your organisation for what you're doing and that they understand the actual route it's gonna take, right? That you've got at the levels above you. And I guess this isn't a problem for you because it's so at your core, right? But the CEO knows this is gonna be a slow process and you're doing it for a reason and they're bought into that.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (21:55)
Yeah, mean, Sam is deeply believes in safeguarding and protecting the value of the community and investing in that. And then we also have a board that understands it. I mean, one of our board members is a person who wrote a book on community. And so she's a great resource because she can, she's always there to remind us like, hey,
This is about the experience that people have and about the relationships they build. Like you can't think of it as a software product. You can't think of these people as numbers. you have to have heart behind what you do. And I think that's true of any community. If it's going to be successful, there needs to be some degree of like heart to the strategy.
Tom Rudnai (22:31)
of like course.
One post that you made which really resonated with me was talking about kind of being an introvert involved in community and in events. That's something I feel massively and I think you were talking about like small, quiet rooms where everyone's chatting. Great, I love that.
big event where you have to go and go up to people, just drains the hell out of me. I think that probably resonates a lot with a lot of marketers who would be listening to this and kind of daunted by the notion of starting a community and being really active from a networking perspective. Like, how did you get yourself comfortable with that? Talk about that journey.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (23:04)
Yeah,
it's so funny how many marketers and like people think marketers by nature are all extroverts because it's marketing, How many of us really aren't and I've learned this just because I do posts like that and then people reach out and they're like, me too. And, you know, introversion is about where you draw your energy from. It's not about being shy per se. Like shyness is something different.
And there have been times in my life when I've been pretty shy. And I think there's still times when I feel that way. actually what's been interesting for me is that community, particularly the fact that like Pavilion for me started as a virtual community because, you know, it was on Slack, it was over Zoom, actually made it easier for me to engage because it wasn't that awkward, like walking into a room, hey guys, what are you doing? Who are you? What are you up to?
you know, it was more intentional where I could post a question and people either answered it or they didn't. And I didn't have to stand around feeling awkward waiting. And a lot of the chapter level events were great. mean, the thing that Pavilion does very well is when we do get people together, we have some really defined formats that we do that in that are highly effective. So like we do salon dinners and there's a structure to them that is repeated.
every time and very consistent. And one of the hallmarks of that structure is that it's a single conversation. Only one person can speak at a time. And we have an expectation that everyone contributes. And so what's great about that is you can sit and listen and only one person's talking. So there's no awkwardness of like the two people next to you are having a conversation and you're not participating. It's like only one person at the big table is talking and the host may call on you.
Tom Rudnai (24:33)
Yeah.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (24:39)
to contribute. And that's a great way to draw people out and make them feel included in a way that's not awkward. And so all of that to say like that initial experience in Pavilion where I was able to engage virtually actually made it very easy for me to participate. And I started to form relationships in a virtual world such that when I finally did walk into the big room where I kind of freeze up like a deer in the headlights, typically I already knew people and like
Tom Rudnai (25:05)
Mm.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (25:06)
This is the weirdest thing about Pavilion, but it's like good weird, which is that you come to our events and what's remarkable is the number of people who walk in and are like hugging, they're hugging. And many of them have never met in person before, but they've gotten to know each other so well over Zoom or on Slack that they feel deeply connected. And that's what I think is so beautiful about Pavilion and community more broadly is like that we can, we really can build.
meaningful relationships virtually that then translate into great in real life relationships as well.
Tom Rudnai (25:42)
I mean, there's your KPI right there. That needs to be on the big screen. Hugs per minute. That should be the, get that off on the big screen. Awesome. No, I love that. It's, yeah, it resonates a lot with me. Cause I think you talk about like that moment where you're stood there with your drink and everyone seems to be in a really deep conversation.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (25:44)
The number of hugs. Yeah, I love that.
Tom Rudnai (26:00)
but you don't quite know how to get involved in that. ⁓
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (26:03)
Yeah, yeah,
it's terrible. Unless you have three to four people that you know, because you've been in that zoom round table or you've had a great exchange on Slack and maybe you've said in advance, hey, I know you're going to be at the conference too. So let's meet up at this place and time. Like those are great ways in. And then one of the things we're starting to think about is at our big conference this fall.
Tom Rudnai (26:17)
Yeah.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (26:26)
having a first timers reception before the welcome reception so that everybody who's coming for the first time and might not know other people can come in and we have a really structured way for them to get to know others.
Tom Rudnai (26:37)
Yeah, that's really cool. Okay, I want to step away from Pavilion specifically a little bit then and just get your take. One of the other things you must see is just like broad industry trends I've got loads of questions on that. I guess the first thing that I've been interested in lately is like the evolution of the role of marketing within a broader revenue function. how have you seen the CMO role?
evolve over the last three or five years
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (26:57)
I don't know that I've seen the role itself evolve. I think I've seen an evolution in how people think about the role and approach it, if that makes sense. And so the dialogue that's happening right now, more broadly, there's a couple of key themes around it. One is that there are many classically trained marketers who believe that
marketing is the four P's and marketers are the representative of the market and should be involved in a lot of different, you know, everything from product to pricing to placement to promotion, et cetera. And then there are marketers who I think are very like frustrated right now because they see that they feel that marketing has simply become demand generation.
and that there's a lack of appreciation for brand. And then there are marketers who I think are frustrated because there's been a movement over the last 10 years to hire chief revenue officers. And in many cases, the marketer rolls up to that person and there seems to be this assumption in the market that the CRO should come from a sales background. And whether that's true or not, like that's a thing, right? And so all these different forces are coming together.
And happening at a time when like our audience that we deal with, a lot of them are venture or private equity backed. There are tremendous expectations for growth and growth is hard right now. Like for a lot of reasons in the last few years, growth has been hard. And I think the other thing marketers are feeling is that they're scapegoated a lot and that when the going gets tough, it's often the marketer that's the first to get fired. When in reality, the company might not even have product market fit. Like the product might not.
be good and the best marketing in the world can't fix that. But the marketer is still the one that's let go, right? And so I think there's just this brew of frustration forming and there are marketers reacting to this in different ways. There is a school of marketers who saying, we all need to change our titles and become chief market officers to recapture that original.
theme of like the marketer is the voice of the market, right? And the position within that market and that elevates our position and makes us more strategic. And there's some great marketers who champion that and who are great examples of that in action. Then there are marketers who think, no, the marketer should be the chief revenue officer. Like, why aren't we in contention to lead all of revenue? And I think there are some who are doing a great job doing that, right?
So there's a lot of different avenues. I would say that like, as the voice of Pavilion, it's not necessarily my job to say which of those is correct, right? Our job as Pavilion is to advocate for the, in this case, the head of marketing, the go-to-market leader, and to advocate for what they need and to try to empower them such that
They have longevity in their role. They feel successful and they're able to hit their targets and get promoted. And so we're focused less on what should the role of the marketer be and more on what do you need to be successful today? And that's why we spend a lot of time and energy talking about you need to master and understand unit economics and you have to be financially fluent because these are the things that the board and the CEO care about.
Tom Rudnai (30:17)
the question that I was thinking of as you were talking there was like...
Okay, we live in the world that we live in, but it must be super confusing if you're a mid-level marketer with ambition and you're surrounded by all this noise and confusion around the future of your role and trying to work out how to kind of make your own path through that. So if you're in that situation, what advice would you give to them in terms of what they should be doing to future-proof themselves?
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (30:40)
Yeah, I think what we tell people today, we actually have a program called Go To Market Leadership Accelerator. And it's less about like, in this case with marketing, it's less about like, what are the skills that you need in marketing to be the best marketer? Because I think there's probably other, candidly other communities that you could go to to learn marketing more. We have CMO school, we have all kinds of like intro to marketing leadership.
But if you want to go deep on like how to be the best demand gen marketer or brand marketer in the world, I don't think you're coming to us for that. What we're here to like how to be a great go to market leader. And what that involves is, again, it is mastering unit economics. It's understanding how businesses succeed.
the financial fundamentals of that, it's understanding how to work as a first team with your leadership counterparts and developing empathy for if you're the CMO, like what does the CRO care about? What does the CCO care about? What does the head of ops care about? What does the CFO care about? It's also about teaching people how to communicate as a leader because, and I'll say I struggle from this sometimes still, like you could be the smartest marketer in the room, but if you can't effectively communicate.
your strategies and if you're not persuasive and explaining how that's going to drive business value and ROI, you're not going to be successful. And so a lot of it is about like, how do you tell a story with data? So we're more focused on like really that, because when you get to that role, when you get to that VP or CMO role, at that point, you should know your discipline. should know marketing. So
Tom Rudnai (32:16)
Yeah.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (32:17)
The value we can add isn't teaching you the latest practices in ABM. It's teaching you what is the board going to expect of you. And when you step into that leadership role, how should you show up in the boardroom and communicate what you're doing? How should you prioritize? How should you lead a team? Those are the things that we really believe are going to lead to success.
Tom Rudnai (32:38)
Yeah, well, and to me, that's one of the biggest differences, biggest adjustments that you need to make. When your title starts with the C, right, your job no longer becomes to look after just your function. It becomes to look after the company as a whole and you're part of the core TV's job, who are the students of that.
Another question that came to my mind, you so I think there's a common thread at the moment towards like devaluing formal education, but then everything you've just said says like go to an MBA is actually a super valuable thing. And I know that's something you did. Do you think an MBA is more valuable now than it was 20 years ago?
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (33:07)
⁓ that's
such a hard question to answer because I, without revealing my age, let's just say I did my MBA a really long time ago. I, you know, I don't know the answer because it really depends on what you want to do. I do think there's still some, like if you want to go work at a big company, a Fortune 100 company, I think having an MBA is super useful because like you might not even get in the door without an MBA.
And I do think like MBAs do teach you to take a broader perspective on a business and you learn things that you might not otherwise learn. Like candidly, I hated it at the time, but I'm so glad I had to take accounting. It made me so much more savvy in terms of how I speak to the CFO.
Now, but I'm also a person who learns by doing and so like that only takes you so far. You got to get in a job and have to use those skills. I think if you're like interested in working in startups or if you're very entrepreneurial, I think there's a lot you can do to self-educate. I personally don't think an MBA is like necessary. I think it can be helpful and if you have an opportunity to do one and it's not going to break the bank, it could be an awesome experience. I'm glad I did mine, but
Look, education is so much more democratized and accessible today than it was when I did my MBA. Like there just wasn't online education back then in the way there is now. There wasn't like AI that can teach you so much. You could build your own MBA program with AI. It's kind of crazy. So, you know, the other part about doing an MBA that I think people always tell you is valuable is the connections you make in it. And so if you think in your future career,
like having that kind of a network and coming out of like a marquee business school could benefit you. That's, that's a reason to go, but it's such an individual decision.
Tom Rudnai (34:51)
Okay, awesome. Look, I'm conscious of time and we're coming towards the end. I've always got a few quickfire questions that I like to run through at the end. So let's get into those. And I've got one extra one for you because of the role that you do. So first of all, what traits do you see in Pavilion that all the best marketing and go-to-market leaders have in common?
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (35:10)
wow. I think I, there's something that I've always referred to as a high figure it out factor, which is like when you boil it down, it's deep, deep, deep curiosity where you want to understand how things work and you want to dig in yourself and like pick it apart. Right. And you're going to be like a dog with a bone until you get the answer. Like those kinds of people I think are generally very successful. I also think, people who, who,
who wanna understand the human condition. This is something specific to marketing because marketing changes, there's a lot of aspects of marketing that change a lot, like that are technologically driven, channels dry up, tactics don't work as well. All of those things are temporary, right? But like underneath it all, there are truisms about how people function. Like we want connection, we want trust.
we, we respond with to a degree of urgency, like people who want to understand the human psyche and the way people make decisions, make great marketers because that knowledge can help them like transcend trends and tech stack and channels and like really see things that other marketers don't who are just like using typical industry playbooks.
Tom Rudnai (36:22)
Yeah, okay, that's a great answer. And there's a lot of common thread between the two, right? It's kind of a deep curiosity about both things and people. a lot of marketing is trying to work out how we can get those two things to intersect better. Okay, awesome. And then I was inevitably gonna turn this around on you. For you personally, what skill or trait has been the biggest needle mover for you in your career?
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (36:29)
Yeah.
That is such a good question. think it's a combination of speed and creativity. And part of that is because I've always worked in early stage companies that speed has been a real superpower for me. I probably wouldn't do well in a really large company because I'd chafe against the slowness. ⁓
Tom Rudnai (36:58)
Me neither. Yeah.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (37:01)
But I think, the ability to move fast, especially in marketing, because so much of it is like testing and iterating. And if you can get something out in front of an audience, you'll know pretty quickly whether it's working. And then that gives you the opportunity to pivot and try something different. And I am never more excited and energized than when I have opportunities to work with a team that wants to move quickly and launch something and do something that's different, that's experimental.
That to me is exciting and it cuts through the noise. And those are the things I tend to gravitate towards.
Tom Rudnai (37:31)
Is there, so I guess it's also something that you look for in anyone you hire. Is there, have you got a particular way or a question that you'd like to kind of draw that out and find that in other people?
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (37:41)
Yeah, I mean, I definitely look for that in other people. And I think it's about situational behavioral interview questions, like tell me about a time when. But I think the other quality I look for is a very, very high degree of ownership, like people who take ownership for their decisions, for the outcomes they drive, who aren't like, I couldn't do that because so-and-so didn't give me the thing, right? Or so-and-so didn't answer the email. It's like, no.
You are in control of your destiny. I like people that are, that want to take that ball and like run with it.
Tom Rudnai (38:13)
And then next one's a bit fun. If I were to give you your plan A budget request or if let's say Sam was willing to give you carte blanche to do something, money's no object, any campaign or kind of marketing initiative, what would you do?
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (38:28)
boy. Well, there's two things I think that immediately come to mind. One of which we're talking about doing already, which is we're building a media brand around Topline, which is currently our podcast. But, the vision there is to truly build it into a media brand with more properties, other things happening, and we're starting to work on that. So that would absolutely be one. I would just want more resources to make it go faster per my earlier comment about speed.
And then the other is that we do have members all over the world. And I would love to structure a road show where we take Pavilion on the Road and, you know, we try to go to all 50 cities where we have a local chapter and hold little events in every single one of them. Because I think so much of what we do now is North America focused by necessity because our team is here. But if we had more resources, I'd love to like get out and like go to our members in Singapore and go to our members in Dubai.
and all these other places where we have a presence and like be there with them and experience their day to day and get to know them. I think that would be really powerful.
Tom Rudnai (39:30)
Basically you want to travel the world. want to fly all over
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (39:32)
Well, I mean that too, but no, really is
about like, I think this brings the conversation full circle to like what we started with with voice of the customer. And there's no better or more powerful way to drive growth than to immerse yourself in the life of your customer and to be able to like be there in person and build those relationships given that we're a community is really powerful.
Tom Rudnai (39:52)
Yeah, awesome. And then last question, what was the biggest fuck up that you made in your career? Like a heart-stopping moment.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (39:57)
gosh. ⁓
I mean, there's always the stories of the, you the email you sent that you wish you could take back. But I think like the bigger, the bigger one is,
Honestly, when I was a CEO of my own agency, I was unwilling to make difficult decisions as quickly as I should have. was unwilling to fire people as fast as I should have because I wanted to be nice. And that really backfired and hurt not just me, but a lot of other people as well.
Tom Rudnai (40:26)
I'll let you go because I you've got a hard stop. Before I do just give you a quick second to promote anything you're doing yourself or Pavilion.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (40:32)
Just Pavilion, I I believe in it so deeply, because as I said, I was a member. I think it's a great opportunity to grow your career by surrounding yourself with a group of peers who are exceptional at their craft. And you can learn more about it at joinpavilion.com. And if you want to connect with me, just do it on LinkedIn and tell me that you heard about it here, and I will accept your connection request.
Tom Rudnai (40:52)
Yep, awesome. And I one thing that does shine through from this conversation is that the level of passion and enthusiasm that you have for it, which is really cool to see. hope one day people talk about Demand Genius in that way, other than me. Kathleen, thank you for joining us. Cheers. Bye bye.
Kathleen Booth | Pavilion (41:05)
Thanks for having me on.