Connect To Market

What does your buyer actually get out of working with you?

In this episode of Connect To Market, host Casey Cheshire sits down with Troy Rockman, VP of Marketing and Channel Strategy at Hooray Health, to explore why effective marketing starts with understanding the customer, not talking about your product. Troy shares how thought leadership, when connected to sales and grounded in real buyer needs, can drive measurable results, including lower customer acquisition costs and stronger lead generation. He explains why marketers need to move beyond features and benefits to help buyers recognize the real business value behind a product or service.

Troy and Casey dig into how to uncover those insights by listening to the people who interact with customers every day, from sales reps to support teams and frontline employees. They discuss why marketing and sales alignment needs to extend across the entire pipeline, how third-party experts can become powerful thought leadership partners, and why smaller transactions can help buyers build confidence before committing to a larger investment. Troy also shares his approach to using AI to speed up content creation without losing strategic judgment, the value of learning from peers across industries, and why marketers should focus on educating buyers, demonstrating value, and driving conversion.

Takeaways:
  • Lead with customer value, not product features. Buyers want to understand how a purchase will improve their situation. Listen to their needs, identify the business problems they are trying to solve, and help them connect the dots between those problems and the value you offer.
  • Connect marketing and sales across the entire pipeline. Generating leads is only part of the job. Marketing and sales need to agree on how leads are tracked, handed off, nurtured, and converted. Without that alignment, opportunities get lost, teams point fingers, and marketing spend goes to waste.
  • Build credibility through thought leadership and community. Your best insights can come from frontline employees, industry experts, or peers outside your organization. Troy shares how partnering with an industry analyst helped validate a business model and fuel marketing and sales efforts for a full year.
  • Use AI to move faster without losing the human touch. AI can help marketers create content more efficiently and explore new perspectives, but it still requires strategic direction, brand guardrails, and human review. No matter how much the tools change, marketing comes down to understanding customers, communicating value, building trust, and driving conversion.

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Connect To Market is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/ 

Creators and Guests

Host
Casey Cheshire
Producer
Erica Weser

What is Connect To Market?

A movement of B2B marketers who realize direct connection with buyers is the foundation of all growth.

tools are helpful.

Doesn't mean you don't stay true to,
to what the marketer's job is, which

is educate, show value, get conversion

Welcome to Connect to Market.

I'm Casey Cheshire.

Join the conversation with the
marketing leaders driving the

fastest growing B2B brands.

We're sponsored by Ringmaster,
building B2B podcasts and communities

to reconnect you with your audience

Okay, we're doing this thing.

I'm excited.

It's like hut, hut, hike.

Let's crush this episode.

We are going Omaha.

Who's, who's yelling Omaha?

Somebody's yelling Omaha, and this
episode is about to get started.

I can't wait to introduce my guest today.

He is absolutely awesome.

He's a great guy to talk to.

I've had some fantastic
conversations, both as a human

and as a marketing strategist.

He's also in our CTM community.

But let me get to some details.

Marketing leader, thought leader,
pipeline builder, company grower.

Like he is, he is just the
person to follow, and he's got

these stats that trail him.

He's done things like drop his
customer acquisition cost by 50%.

Who wants that?

Raise your hands.

I want that.

Let's learn from him today.

24% growth in sales leads.

I want that, too.

And not to just throw another stat
out there, but 50% reduction in

the cost per lead as well, and
growth numbers, and you name it.

It's just all there.

VP of Marketing and Channel Strategy
at Hooray Health, Troy Rockman.

Welcome to the show

Casey, thank you very much.

Glad to be here.

Glad to have an opportunity
to talk a little bit.

Well, dude, let me ask
you the first question.

I'm excited to get this thing going,
but in order to ask you this question,

I need to enlist the help of a friend.

One second

I need a giant blue foam finger
to ask you this question.

Troy, what is the number one
thing, number one, get it?

The number one thing that marketers need
to do in order to connect to their market

thought leadership, connecting with
sales that then has an actual impact

and doesn't just turn into noise.

Um, too many times you start talking
and then it just doesn't get heard

Dang, man.

Uh, like drop the mic.

H- what, why do you think this
is happening so many times with

marketing groups, with companies?

Why are they acting this way?

Well, I think really sometimes
they're talking about themselves

so much that they're not even
giving any value to their buyer.

Uh, they tend to talk about their
features, their benefits, and really

at the end of the day, the, the, the
buyer just wants to be able to know,

what am I gonna… As a result of
my purchase, I'm investing in this,

what am I gonna get out of it to
make sure it improves my situation?

And that's where you gotta go
and be, uh, above and beyond and

really provide a value, just not
feature, benefit, service, product

Yeah.

Like the, man, we, we geek out
on these features and benefits.

It, but it's like, it's, it's like
we're talking about ourselves, you know?

It's like the guy… And nobody
likes the guy at the party who's just

talking about himself the whole time.

You're like, "Excuse me, I'm
gonna go get some food now." You

know, "Let me go get another beer.

I'm just not interested." Like,
yeah, but we, yet we do that in our

email, we do that in our marketing,
in our collateral, everything.

It's all about me.

So we gotta reverse this thing,
and you're saying build that value.

How, how, how do you do that?

Hey, if, if someone's listening to this
and they've just been, you know, they're

like guiltily enough, and I'm not gonna
ask anyone to raise their hands, but like,

if you've been maybe too over-indexed
on your own features and benefits, and

listen, I've done that with podcasts.

So like, how do we reverse the
curse and get them talking value?

Well, and it's taking the
step back, right, Casey?

So really just understanding what your
customer is wanting and needing, uh,

and leveraging the assets and tools
you have available to yourself, right?

You got a sales team, they've
got feedback understanding.

You've got your, uh, customer support
or, uh, uh, uh, so, uh, benefit advisors,

just anybody else that's talking to
the customer within your organization.

And, and now we even got the whole
beauty of a chat bot, you know, that

are on your website or wherever else you
may have it, uh, your YouTube channel.

And it's just paying attention to those
conversations and then reversing it

back out to say, "Okay, based on these
conversations, what are we seeing?

There's opportunity to have a higher con-
uh, higher different level conversation

about our, uh, about the situation."

And bring something of value to the table
that, yes, your product solves, but have

them have the aha moment that, hey, I
didn't realize that if I, you know, were

able to save XYZ on buy… You know,
in, in this situation my company saves

this, oh, well this is the product,
this is the service that solves it.

Now let them have almost the
aha moment of the connection

Yeah, and that aha comes from, "Crap,
man, I can, I can save this money," or,

"My company can make this money," or
maybe even, "I make this money 'cause

of bonuses." Man, that sounds like
value and it's not, "Cool, did you know

we have this sprocket that, uh, if you
click on it, it twirls around and does

nothing and then makes your day smile?"

Like I… That's like not value at all.

So it like, hey, connecting to dollars
and cents sounds like the way to go.

your sales team understand about how,
how to be a thought, a thought leader

slash, um, uh, just sitting and listening,

Yeah

right?

Being a listener, being a, in essence
what I call a sales therapist,

Yeah

really at the end of the day, their job
is to help facilitate the conversation.

But if they're not listening all they're
doing is talking, never gonna get to the

value and get- getting that connection for
that, uh, that company or that purchaser

Right.

Well, you mentioned, you mentioned,
you know, like reverse engineer

those conversations you had.

Where, where do you like to go?

I'm curious if you, even if you
have any stories of like those human

interactions, where do you like to go,
and how do you like to best, you know,

connect one-on-one with a customer?

Well, it's, it's just h- getting the help
of the assets you have available to you.

Um, you know, one of the
situations I had in the past was,

uh, yeah, we had a sales team.

I was trying to listen to them.

They were giving advice.

Um, but one of the places I actually
found, uh, was I had a company that

did IT support, and I actually went and
talked to the engineers, the guys that

were rubber hit the road meeting with
clients every day, where in, in talking

with them, they actually introduced me
to some thought leaders in the arena,

uh, Gartner, uh, there's, you know,
obviously other research firms, but they

were a- actually to lead a trail, uh,
for me to find, you know, a, an excellent

source, uh, to be able to, to help the
sales teams with an individual that

validated our business model without
even know- knowing we existed, right?

So it was being able to, to pull from
the assets you have available to yourself

and just go a little deeper, um, and just
spend some time with some folks that you

don't, you wouldn't think would know, but
they're doing it every… They have their

own, uh, situation that they're trying
to solve for too, and they have insights

Yo, that's such a good point, man.

The, the fact that there's the
one-to-one conversations, but

there's also the one-to-many that you
have different people on the team.

You know, one time I was doing
this, like, sales strategy, like,

workshop with this company, and
they had everyone in the room, um,

thankfully, you know, to, to their
credit, they had everyone in the room.

And, you know, I'd ask these
questions you'd think would be simple.

Like, you know, what's, like, the biggest
problem, the pain that we solve, right?

And, uh, not naming any names or
anything, but, like, head of sales

and head of marketing not really
connected enough to answer that.

That's a problem.

Red flag.

But you know what?

It was their, their head SDR guy,
or actually maybe just an SDR guy.

He's just one of the guys just, you know,
entry-level sales, dialing for dollars.

But that guy knew.

He goes, "You know what? When I call
and I leave a voicemail about, you know,

topic A, nobody calls me back. But if I
mention topic B, I get insta callbacks."

And he's like, "So
that's the value for me.

That's how I do my job." And we're,
we're… Everyone had a collective oh

shit moment, like your aha moment, where
they're like, "Holy crap, we should

probably build every single one of our
marketing strategies, or at least a lot

of them, on this particular topic that we
maybe were just treating as one of many,

because this is something that, you know,
the, the prospects are actively seeking."

Right.

Well, and it's funny you mention that.

So the fact that the marketer and the
salesperson wasn't on the same page, but

you had the, the, the guy that's on the
frontline calls, and so many times they

just get left out of the conversation.

Why?

I don't know why you wouldn't bring
some of those kind of folks into the

conversation, 'cause again, to lead where
you're going, then it's then making sure

that transition occurs that, okay, we
have identified that opportunity of how

to go to market or how to, how to present
the, the product in a campaign, how are

you aligned with sales at that point,

Yeah

right?

And not just aligned with sales.

How are we then gonna make sure from,
you know, developing that lead all the

way through to the meeting, all the way
through to the closed deal, everywhere

along the step of the way, you've got
data, you've got a way to be able to

track it, make changes, make adjustments.

You're agr- you know, you
and sales can agree with that

pipeline and that, that process.

Because if there's not that alignment,
you-- marketing can always push,

push, push and develop more leads
or, you know, get more meetings.

But then if marketing can't see how
the sales process is working, then it's

just over the fence conversations and
the one gets frustrated with the other,

and then you've just got a frustrated
organization that isn't seeing the

revenue or the sales they expected

Yeah.

And that's, I mean, that's like
lighting your cash on fire right there.

I mean, that's so huge.

I mean, if, if you're locked in with your,
your sales counterpart, the… I mean,

it's, it's not a guaranteed win, but man,
you're not gonna leave stuff hanging.

I, I remember one time I, I, I
came into an org and I looked at,

uh, their connector between their
CRM and their marketing tool.

You know, the marketing tool
fed stuff into the CRM at

certain points in time, magic.

Um, and I looked in there and man, they
had something like 10,000 leads stuck in

that connector, meaning it tried to send
them over, but it didn't send them over.

Marketing's like, "We sent them."
Sales is like, "We never got them."

And they're just in there, and
they're not staying fresh all day.

They're not, they're not, you know,
sitting on a deodorant stick in there.

They are g- they are dying on the vine.

And I was just like, "This is a
considerable spend just hanging out here."

And that, it just, it was such a example
of what you're talking about, the idea

of like, they're not connected, man.

You… It doesn't matter how much cash you
throw at that thing at that point, you're

just eith- they're disconnected and you're
just gonna have so much waste in there

Well, and it's even little things
back to where you're saying throw, you

know, you've got those 10,000 in there.

It's also even them making sure from a
sales perspective, are those leads even

properly identified and in your CRM?

Because that's where, that's where
I've, I've had situations on most

recently where, you know, the sales
team's asking, "Hey, you know, we don't

really see any, any connection here."

And it's, well, but the LinkedIn
post or the email or whatever

it is, it's getting traction.

But then finding out that contact
isn't even in HubSpot or Salesforce or

Sure.

and you're trying to help them
understand, guys, you've got to

be able to make sure, you know.

It's two sides here.

I can drive it, but you have to help them
make the connection for them to us take

it the next step and try to close it.

So, a- and that's the thing.

If there's not that regular conversation
between sales and marketing, where,

that's where the, the, the finger-pointing
begins and the regular conversations

of what's working, not working doesn't
help rapid cycle success, right?

Because one's gonna be pointing
at the other, the other one's

gonna be pointing at the other,
and then no one's gonna benefit

Yeah.

Man, well said.

Um, I'd love to transition and ask
you a little bit about community.

We have the Connect to Market community.

This is the Connect to Market pod.

You're a member.

You're in there.

You're in the breakouts.

You're dropping wisdom and knowledge,
and there's something about learning

from peers in the industry and also not
in the same industry, maybe grabbing

some strategies from elsewhere.

What's your take on the CTM community
and just the community in general?

Oh, just h- have I been, has
it been four months, Casey,

Man, it, you know, it's, it
feels like it's been both four

months but also four years.

I feel like we've,

been, it's been great.

And the thing is, I think the reality
is it goes back to you- strategy, right?

You get into your way, sometimes
you can't see around the tree.

And by having someone else in the
conversation, um, alleviates that.

Uh, case in point, I had a situation
recently with, with, uh, the prod-

this product, and we're pushing it, and
someone had made the comment of, "You

know, there's another way with Meta
that we can go directly to employees

to be able to serve them ads about
the product." common sense would be,

okay, why would I ever wanna put our
product on Facebook or Instagram?

But the reality is the target audience,
that's where they're consuming.

So why would we not?

And if we have the ability to target
them, and the, the conversation occurred,

uh, actually at a happy hour with a,
with a person from a- at, not, not even

the a- agency we were using mind you.

Uh, it was, it was, uh, someone
from another agency that had, uh,

you know, taken the hood off, taken
the hood off and just said, "Hey,

maybe you should look into it."

And it has completely
altered, um, participation

and exposure about our product

Right?

And, and that initial judgment where, "Oh,
you know, Facebook ads." Yeah, maybe for

your, you know, someone listening, yeah,
maybe your ICP doesn't go on Facebook.

You know, cool.

But hey, if the ICP or the customer
or the customer's customer, if,

if that's, if that's where they're
at, man, go to where they're at.

You know?

No judgment.

Like, right on

be scared, and don't be scared of
the fact that just because you think

they're not there… I, I can tell
you, I have been shocked between, you

know, uploading LinkedIn audiences,
uploading Facebook and, and Instagram

audiences and thinking, "Oh, you know,
it's a list of 2,000. We're not gonna

get much of a connection." And I get,
we get feedback that, you know, there's

a 90-plus percent connection of users
on the platform to our targeted list.

So yes, they are there.

Yeah

is, it took me, it, you know,
takes seven to 14 hours to get

the data back to go, "Yes, I'll
do it," or, "No, I don't." Okay.

Well, that was worth my time.

100%.

go back to your point though,
to CTM and why I love it so

much is because of that, right?

It's, it's having someone else give
a perspective of their business

that is just as relevant to you
in some way, shape, or form.

Maybe not today, but something else may
occur in your, your process, your systems,

and as you're talk- as you talked about
today, we're coming up to, you know,

budget, end of year, spend your money.

You know, what, what do I need to be
on the lookout for that I need to,

A, be budgeting for 2027, think about
it, think about for 2027, or do some

investigation in preparation for it

Yeah.

You know what?

My breakout group had, uh, someone in
the ag industry, and y- you know what?

J- to your point, you,
like, you never know.

And we actually had
really good conversation.

I'm so glad she was there because
that just kinda, it kinda shook up

the room a little bit, and then we
had to think about it in terms of a

totally d- different sales cycles,
different business structures.

And you know what's interesting?

Because of the, you know, planting
harvest seasons, it kind of forces

there to be these shorter sales cycles.

Never even thought about that.

And then you kind of go, "Well, how does
that compare to the longer sales cycles

that you might ex- have in healthcare
or in some of these other things?"

Totally different.

And, but, like, it ju- it can be so
helpful to, you know, like you picked

up that idea from another agency, and
it just, to bounce ideas off each other.

Man, I'm, I am, uh, w-
I'm long on community

Well, and interesting you
mentioned the ag thing, right?

And they were talking
about shorter sales cycle.

And our conversation today
was about, you know, urgency.

Well, the reality is, is there some
urgency in having another type of

conversion help if you have a longer sales
cycle, So what, what are the other things

that, you know, again, from a thought
leadership perspective, conversion, blog,

content that you can put in between there
that then helps create and elongates that

conversation to get to, you know, the
bigger sale that you wanna have happen

I like that.

I feel like that's, that's like, uh,
you know, it's like applying that

age-old idea of like getting out of
the waterfall development of apps where

people just spend nine months building
something only to push it live and find

out, yeah, they don't actually want
this anymore and it doesn't have any…

yeah

go lean, right?

And so to your point with, with that, man,
you know, get it out there quick, find

out, adjust, adapt, and go on from there

And by the way, it can't… You,
if you're waiting for perfection,

you've just lost another sale.

Yeah, for sure.

For sure

the- these, this day and time, um,
you know, I understand the fact you

don't want to look bad in terms of
having misspellings and mistakes,

and yeah, I, I agree with that stuff.

But at times getting to market can be
such a battle within an organization.

That's, that… we were talking about
competition, and Steve was talking about,

you know, your biggest competition,
X, Y, Z. You know, one of the things

that popped in my head was competition
is just your own organization.

Your own organization not being able
to make a decision or putting marketing

in a, in a stagnant situation of not
making a decision because, "Well, wait,

we can't, we can't quite go there yet
because of this or because of that."

Yeah

let's figure out some other scenario
to stopgap it if that's the case.

Yeah

say, we cannot not be in the market

Right.

It's like it's not,
it's not an option, man.

We have to be out there.

I do like the idea of those like mini
transactions, um, so that we're not just

trying to get that five-year sales deal.

Like what are the smaller deals?

Um, and even not even deals, but to
your point, like they converted on a

form or a took you up on a webinar or
a consult or something and get them

committing even if there's no money
and maybe they buy something small.

You know, and I, someone… I think
it's probably everyone says this, but

like, you know, the customer's given
you some money tends to… It's easier

to give you more money, you know?

Right.

Right?

So you kind of like grease the
skids a little bit so that you

can convert them to that larger
deal that, that takes more time.

yeah, proof of concept and all.

of those bigger ticket, uh, like when I
was mentioning the IT services situation,

you know, that was, that was trying
to get a company to fundamentally, you

know, take sometimes hundreds of, of
software people and basically either,

A, hand them over to us or, uh, you
know, unfortunately let them go and, you

know, they have to find other things.

But, you know, that's a
per- that's a huge swing.

That's a huge process.

But back to your point, what
is something in between there?

What's something smaller that is maybe
more palatable that they can manage

or have the person that's, you know,
that may need to have more buy-in by a

bigger part of the organization that,
hey, if I just do one server or I just

do, uh, this smaller transaction where
it really won't cause a problem, but

I can validate my purchase, then I can
go make the five-year, you know, big

investment purchase because now I've
val- I've been able to validate it.

But I've under- now I even
understand the value, right?

My, my product is showing value to you.

Now you can a- appreciate it,
absorb it, and then be able to be

an advocate of the bigger sale,
have that person be an advocate

Man, that, this is good stuff.

I, I'd love to throw this
next question at you.

It is, actually has a name.

That's how you know
it's a serious question.

It's called the framework.

So here we go, Troy.

All right.

Yes

If you had to build a connect-to-market
strategy from scratch, no budget

for ads, what would be your top
three moves to get in front of and

build trust with your ideal buyers?

Yeah.

Well, I'm gonna go back a little bit to

Please.

Already talked

about,

Yeah, bring it in

it's there, right?

Again, who in the organization
understands our customer?

Who's got some information?

Where can I find the details, the
little nuggets of opportunity to be

able to start beginning or to begin
to understand where can I find, uh,

a, a v- a speaker, internal person,
something of a advocate to help me

find an advocate in, in that arena?

Yeah

you know, that's, that
to me is number one.

And that can take time.

That does not mean it
has to be done in a week.

Um, again, different scenarios, but, you
know, to at least be able to identify

that and begin to put that as your,
uh, to bring in Ted Lasso, right?

Gotta have your belief, and if you got
your belief, then, you know, you can

have everything else begin to follow.

So, um, uh, just a great way to
be able to, to start that process.

And then the second part
is what is that voice?

Who is that voice?

You know?

It does not… Your thought leader
doesn't have to be an internal person.

Uh, as I mentioned before, I used
a, a, a phenomenal individual from

Gartner, um, that basically had a
publica- you know, he published this

huge research document as related to,
you know, building or not having, I'm

sorry, not internally building, but
outsourcing IT, and it fundamentally

changed how we were able to gain market
share just from a simple, uh, I think

it ended, it was like a three-page,
uh, started as a three-page document.

we ended up hiring him.

He blew it out to a, to a 10-page
white paper, and we used him to go

on… We used him in trade shows.

We used him at face-to-face
luncheons with golf tied to

Hell yeah

there's a lot of decision-makers
in the C-suite that love a

little lunch and a little golf.

Um, but it, it doesn't have to be an
internal person, but it's just, it's

getting someone out there that validates
the value you bring to the market.

Um, and again, yeah, they could be paid.

They could not be paid.

at times it, it's really not about that.

It's just, it's a matter of someone
being able to make the connection

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I love that, man.

Before we get to number three on, on that,
the fact that you need a thought leader

and that it doesn't have to be internal.

I guess I never really thought about that.

And, and quite honestly, I bet you
jumped over a bunch of hurdles by even

just having it be someone at Gartner.

I mean, uh, because they're, they're
like, they're the analyst, and if

the analyst is saying something that
furthers your, your company, well, crap.

And then Gartner's not gonna
have a problem with that.

They could use some free publicity.

So you're just like, "Hey, we're
gonna parade you around everywhere

Well, and, and the beauty part
was is once we connected, I,

I… So marketing connected with
their marketing team, right?

So yeah, there was a symbiotic situation
that we were l- able to level, uh, uh,

Wow.

off each other, uh, to be
able to take advantage of it.

So yeah, I mean, they, they had
the conversation didn't just turn

from, you know, you being able to
leverage him, but it turned into a

conversation of, you know, helping
invest back in to get that white paper.

Otherwise, would they
have done the white paper?

But then they had a partner
to be able to facilitate.

So that those are the kinds of
things that you can kind of uncover

and be able to, to leverage.

'Cause originally I thought, "Okay,
this thing will maybe have legs

three, maybe four months." We,
we pumped that thing for a year.

Wow

We're, we were able to
leverage it for a full year.

And then it real- really wasn't at the end
of that year, uh, that we started kinda

seeing, uh, just started falling off,

Sure

a little bit.

But still, and, uh, but
actually that'll lead into to

Yeah, please

is has got, has gotta be along
with us on the journey, right?

And, and the beauty part that we were
able to leverage with, with that situation

was, um, you know, I made sure the sales
team was involved in, you know, if we went

to an event or, you know, we had, uh, we
created a video or we had LinkedIn posts

or whatever email campaigns, I wanted the
sales team to be intimately involved and

educated with, um, him as a researcher.

I had him spend time with the sales
team for them to get his kind of

thought process and knowledge at a,
at a, on a research style, right?

So then, then they're kind of, uh,
we were talking earlier about, uh,

being able to be consultative, right?

Now we're not just talking about,
uh, some sales guys throw and

dribble about IT and, um, servers
and, you know, whatever it may be.

It was more about, hey, understanding
the financial impact, uh, being able

to better manage, uh, the, the flow of,
of, uh, funds within an organization

to be able to make other investments as
a result of, of changing, uh, internal

support of IT service versus outsourcing.

Man, you know what?

Like some people have
sandwiches named after them.

I'm gonna name this, uh, this move
after you, the idea of getting a, a,

an analyst to be your thought leader.

You don't have to pay them
salaries or anything, you know?

Like this is a gr- I'm calling
this the Troy right now.

So, uh, so those listening,
consider, consider the Troy as

a move in 2027 because man, they
have that third party backing.

You can collab with their marketing
team and you know, you know,

some of these, uh, analysts have
had, they had some hard times.

They, they need, they need a
little help with the limelight too.

So if you can scratch their back, dang.

And, and, and if they're saying
stuff that already helps you

out, man, that is fantastic.

But yeah, point taken on making sure that
sales is along the ride with you for that.

Um, my next question for you here is
like, we haven't talked about it yet.

We've been going hard on the human
side as, as we should because the

noise is getting noisier out there.

But talk to me for a second
about your approach to AI.

Where, how does it, how does it fit in?

How do you keep it balanced?

And you know, how do you walk that
line between the human strengths

and then also where you leverage AI?

Yeah.

So again, the good thing
about AI process, right?

Being able to shorten timeframes of
content development, uh, being able to,

to get some tasks done a little faster,
uh, being able to, uh, again, back to

content, just being able to get the
variety of content you need these days,

um, done faster and, and when you don't
have a big team or, you know, you d-

you, uh, one of the guys in CTM, David,
is a big marketing department of one.

So he-- But he, you know, the, the
amount of content he has to develop and,

and be able to have at his fingertips
to be able to provide his sales team

and also his, uh, CEO, who gets pulled
into a lot of exposure situations.

So again, from that perspective, love it.

Uh, being able to work faster creatively,
being able to get some assistance,

um, really be able, trying to also to
make sure you got your guardrails with

your brand, uh, within the system.

Um, and I, will say from a strategy
perspective, get pers- get the, um, having

kinda back again where we were talking
about getting other people's input, AI can

still be that other people's input, right?

It's still a way to ask it questions,
um, to see what kind of response you get,

uh, in terms of validating what you're
thinking or do you need to maybe try to

find a different, different angle to take.

So again, AI, we all hear it, right?

AI is gonna give you
what you want to hear.

Um, but I've also, I've also experienced
if you prompt it right, you can get some

pretty interesting perspectives to say,
"Okay, that makes sense. Maybe I need

to try to investigate this other angle."

Yeah.

I mean, absolutely.

And, and what's crazy is, like, even
across the different ones, the same

prompt gets different answers sometimes.

I recently, Perplexity impressed me.

I was like, "Okay, coming out of
left field over here, Perplexity."

But yeah, like, what I, what I
like about what you're describing

is that you're leveraging all of
the assets, like you said before.

Like, who knows the customer, and hey,
what, what can I learn from, from AI?

And it's not like an anti-AI.

You're not over-indexing on it.

I feel like you've got the right
approach where you're, you've

got that healthy balance of,
like, it is absolutely a, a tool.

It can be an advantage.

If your competitors aren't using
it and you are, man, you're

helping that company grow.

Um, but you're also not, like,
outsourcing your brain to it, you know?

Right.

Well, and again, do I wanna take two
weeks to find a writer that's gonna

write me, you know, the different assets
of my campaign that I need to get done?

Or do I, you know, spend a day just
hyper-focused, tied in on it, and

again, you know, put the prompts in,
understand what I wanna get out of it.

And again, doesn't mean I don't check
it, 'cause we all know we still, just

because you did it, you still need to
make it, take a moment, check it, make

sure you don't have your em dashes and
all your other crazy commas that come

out of the AI, uh, sphere of, of spelling

Oh yeah, all that slop, right?

Yeah.

You know what?

Death to the em dash, man.

You know, any of those people listening,
they're like, "But I love the em dash.

I keep writing with it." Well, like,
well, it's dead now, so stop writing

with it, 'cause even if you, even if
you are really good at your grammatical

punctuation, then you're, uh, you're,
you're shooting yourself in the

foot by just even using the em dash.

But you know what?

Good riddance.

Well, and it's funny you say that.

did anybody know what
an em dash was before

Right

Like, if you saw it, it would probably
have been in, and be old school for

me, an encyclopedia or… You know,
I was trying to really think about

before AI kept throw- putting it into
everything that, you know, we were

trying to develop in terms of content.

I really don't remember ever seeing
an em dash on, uh, in anything.

It was just weird how that
started to be such a big deal

Uh, y- uh, 100%, man.

And I just know that it's hard to actually
get that thing to happen on a computer.

I think you gotta do, like,
Function and that… I don't know.

It's not Shift.

Maybe it's Shift.

I don't even know, man.

Like, I don't even know how to make one.

I'm s- looking at it right here, I'm
like, "There's a big one and there's…"

I don't even know, right?

So, like, bunch of nerds were like,
"Well, I use the em dash." Yeah,

right next to the semicolon friend.

You know, that's like in the old
days, and you saw a semicolon,

you're like, either… Like, I
don't know where that came from.

Like, who even… In, in… And even
cooler if you'd used it the right way.

But, like, I don't know.

It just simplify the human communication.

But, but man, Troy, my next
question for you is, is like,

you know all these things.

Who are you?

Who are you?

How do you, how do you know this?

How, how you m- you know, obviously
this marketing leadership and

some great strategy that you have.

Take me back in time, little Troy days.

Did you know you were gonna be a marketing
leader teaching people stuff on a podcast?

What was it like?

So, uh, gonna again go old, old school.

So, uh, my dad started, um, uh, he was
with a, a company called Palos Cashways.

And, uh, part of the responsibility
of the, uh, manager was had to

put together the Sunday flyer.

Talking old school, right?

Let's go

ev- every Wednesday night, he had
to put the Sunday flyer together.

So literally marketing, advertising
started with me helping my dad, taking

rubber cement and a red Sharpie and
putting together the big, the big

flyer, uh, for what was gonna be in the
Sunday paper for the next week, and,

uh, literally just started that simple.

Um, so from there, just always had
a, had a f- uh, a… I knew it was

business, but I liked a little bit
more the creative development side.

Uh, so that's where the advertising came
in, and really then just looked at, uh,

go… Out, out of high school, went to
Texas Tech for an advertising degree.

Uh, then the real slap
in the face came, right?

Because I thought I was gonna
be this, you know, set the

world on fire creative director.

And I had a, a gentleman, uh,
who came down to Texas Tech.

We had to do our f- our, our final
th- thesis, if you will, and,

uh, put together some campaigns.

He… Uh, I happened to have an
internship in Minneapolis that summer.

I went to go spend some
time with him at his agency.

He was at one of the biggest agencies
in Minneapolis at the time, we…

He s- he s- he lovely gave
me an hour of his time.

But Casey, the first five
minutes, I felt like I needed

to put my tail between my legs.

He basically said, "Troy, you are not
creative. You, you do not need to go down

this path." Um, and actually, I was about
to invest in a whole going to creative

arts school, gonna take it to that level.

And he said, "I think, I think what you
really need to do in terms of your, your

problem-solving skills is look at the
data and the business side of where you

could use your skill." And so really,
it r- soon as I graduated from Tech,

I was blessed, walked into a company
that did of all things coupon tracking

Wow, you got that data flowing

then the data l- and, and I happened to
learn, I happened to know how to use a

Mac at Texas Tech 'cause we were, Texas
Tech happened to have a Mac school as

part of the advertising, curriculum.

So from right there it was data.

It, it wasn't about, it wasn't
about I think, I feel, right?

It was about data, understanding
offers, understanding, you know,

creative, understanding how to piece
it together to optimize the outcome

of, of what was being invested in.

And then I would j- I just took that
and built it and, you know, as you

get, as, you know, we talked in the
CTM, you start seeing other industries,

other businesses, you just alter…

You have your core set of ability,
but how do you alter it based on

the situation and the product or
service you're in that to make sense?

'Cause I, I think there's always,
uh, from a marketer perspective,

you've got your knowledge.

Yes, you've got your specialty healthcare,
maybe you've got a vertical in SaaS or

whatever it may be, but I truly believe
a, a, a really good marketer at the end of

the day really can really market anything
if you have the tools available to you.

As long as you have the tools.

Because really then it's just
understanding offer, value, transaction

Man, seems so simple
when you put it that way.

Dang.

Sometimes I think we overcomplicate
it a lot of the times

I true, I, I agree with you.

I think we've got in
this age and time of, um,

When we were talking the
other day, Y2K, right?

The dot com.

the, the just, just add AI
now being a part of this mix.

There is complexity there, but the
reality is it still comes back to

person wants to buy from a person,
and all these other things are tools.

We have to know how you use
them to help us do a better job.

But marketing's job in connection
with sales, how to make it a personal

situation to where they feel they
can trust who they're buying from

and they, they know they're getting
value out of their investment

Yeah.

Dude, fantastic.

It makes me wonder though, are you,
are you secretly painting on the

weekends or something like that,
keeping that little creative going?

Or you, or you just, you took
that advice and you ran with it

Yeah, I just, I, I, I don't think
I've picked up a pen or, uh, a

color… I think, I take that back.

I apologize.

I, while my, my nephews and niece
were in town, I did get the coloring

book, the coloring menu out, and I
had fun with them doing that, but

that's as far as it goes these days.

m- and maybe that's enough, right?

That's enough

your advisor had said, like, "Hey, you
know what? That's, that's the sweet spot."

It's, and then, and then after that it's
the offer, the value, the transaction.

Let's stick to the data wherever we go.

Exactly

I've got one final question that I'd just
love to ask you, but it is a bit of a

hypothetical question, so I need to check
to make sure you're prepared for this.

Sure.

you ready?

Ready

Set, hike.

Okay, here we go.

I may or may not have a time
machine up here in New Hampshire.

So let's say you come visit,
customer event, you know, doing

something in Boston, drive up north,
we get some lobster, some beer.

And look, it's in the backyard covered
in a tarp, but don't tell anyone.

That's just between us.

So you use this time machine, but
it's a special kind of time machine

where you get the chance to go back
in time and you get to meet yourself,

and you get to meet yourself four days
after getting that ad degree, right?

And you, I don't know if you've
had that conversation yet with that

advisor, um, four days after grad.

And, and so what do you tell yourself?

You can have a conversation with yourself.

What are you saying?

Really the biggest thing in terms
of telling the, uh, then 24-year-old

Troy, one, congratulations,
you finally graduated.

Amen, right?

Thank you.

Let's just put that, the,
the diploma up on the wall.

The parents are thrilled.

Uh, and I think it, a little bit of
what we talked about before in terms

of understanding what my role is in
an organization as the marketer stay

focused on that, the data, trust yourself
with data, trust yourself with, uh,

understanding the customer, how to
communicate, uh, value, how to work.

And one thing we didn't even bring
up, Casey, is, is a marketer's

ability to re- having a relationship
also, not just with the sales

team, but across the organization,
operations, finance, C-suite.

Um, a marketer really has the beauty
of being able to unify an organization

if, if presented to them, and really
ha- can have the ability to impact

a lot of areas in the organization
that sometimes people don't think

marketing can really make a difference.

But if things are working well,
know who's a marketing person.

Everybody knows them.

Because in some way, shape, or form,
they're always gonna run into them.

So I would just always tell that
24-year-old, that, but also be ready

for the t-the changes of tools,

Yeah.

Yeah

tools changed fast,

They did

they only will change faster.

And a- again, tools are helpful.

Doesn't mean you don't stay true to,
to what the marketer's job is, which

is educate, show value, get conversion

Dang.

I feel like we've got something like 30
sound clips in this whole conversation.

I feel like you somehow, and not everyone
can do this, I think I have a lot of

conversations with people where their
wisdom is spread out over a two-minute

period with a bunch of stuff in between.

But man, how, that was
concise, that was powerful.

Now my follow-up question then is,
does young Troy listen to older Troy?

Well, probably not.

And, you know, uh, I will
say, you know, it takes time.

Yeah.

know?

Yeah

age and time just, they, they are, even
though they're on the same path, they're

just kind of at a different level, right?

You get to a different stage, you learn
things, and, you know, you look back and

you just go, you made some decisions from
a, from a career perspective that got

the dollar or got a title, w- at the end
of the day, did that make you happier?

Or did you make that change
because you were chasing something?

And I, you know, speaking for myself,
I probably have made at least two,

uh, decisions in my career where it
was about chasing and not just, I

don't wanna say be happy with where
you're at, but just understanding your

environment pushing that environment.

Instead of going somewhere else and
pushing, what can I do in the environment

I'm in, and am I getting too complacent?

Do I need to be looking
for new tools, right?

Educating myself on new platforms and
stuff like that, versus just going

and chasing a title or, or more money

Dude.

Fantastic, man.

How can people connect with you?

Where do you want them to reach out?

My personal, uh, email address is T, D as
in Doug, T-D-R-O-C-K-M-A-N uh, gmail.com.

Um, and then of course, I've got my
LinkedIn profile, uh, which is the typical

LinkedIn and just Troy Rockman at the end

Hell yeah.

Man, that's fantastic.

Folks can connect with you.

I know you are rocking it right now.

Um, and, uh, you're a good
guy to get connected to.

and I just want to say, Troy, thank
you so much for coming on here.

I feel like this was like a master
class in marketing and just, oh

man, there's just so much to it.

The idea of the bringing the value, the
aha moments come from solving problems

and, and thinking bigger picture
about how we can connect to the market

with the assets we have available.

Who knows the customer in those
orgs when you first come in, finding

them, and then, hey, m- and, and the
Troy has forever been created now.

We got that move where we can

I

partner with Gartner.

Absolutely, man.

So thank you

Thank-- Casey, thank you so much, and
appreciate the opportunity to, uh, have

a chance to get on the platform and
express, express my thoughts and ideas.

So I greatly appreciate your
time, energy, and effort

Well, absolutely, man.

Well, I-- feeling is mutual.

For those listening, if you've learned
something, and I freaking know you have,

'cause I literally have two pages of
notes over here, front and back, right?

I've run out of paper.

I'm starting to write sideways.

So, um, I've got some learnings here.

I've got some to-dos.

I've got some things I gotta go,
uh, fix thanks to this conversation.

I got some, some
conversations I need to have.

I gotta make sure I
get back in that value.

Maybe see if I can't pu-pull a
little Troy move off as well.

Um, so I've got some moves.

But if you learned something, share
this episode with someone else.

One person, three people, nine is cool.

Nine thousand's cool too, but even one
person who needs to hear this, right?

Who needs to get
reconnected to their market.

Um, so many power plays in here.

Uh, this is definitely the thing to send
to someone else if you care about them.

If you don't like them, don't
send it to them 'cause it's

definitely gonna help them.

Um, and with that, Troy,
thank you again, sir

Talk to you soon.

Appreciate you

All right, everybody.

This has been a crazy cool, very exciting
episode of the Connect to Market pod.

We will see you all next time