3 Steps to Marketing Disruptive Technology

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah. 2 00:00:05.640 --> 00:00:10.300 Hey everyone welcome back to be, to be growth. My name is Olivia Hurley and 3 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:15.650 today I am joined by Nicole Lindenbaum, who is the VP of marketing at team pay? 4 00:00:15.650 --> 00:00:20.240 Nicole? How are you doing? I'm doing great. How about you? I'm doing really 5 00:00:20.240 --> 00:00:25.210 well. I'm really happy that we get to chat today, we were talking a couple 6 00:00:25.210 --> 00:00:29.720 weeks ago, you're telling me a little bit about your career and it has almost 7 00:00:29.720 --> 00:00:34.100 entirely been in disruptive technology and marketing to a new category. And I 8 00:00:34.100 --> 00:00:39.280 have a lot of questions for you and I'm super excited to hear your answers but 9 00:00:39.290 --> 00:00:43.040 before we jump into that, I'm curious and we just love to hear what has been 10 00:00:43.040 --> 00:00:49.380 the draw, too disruptive technology for you. Yeah, I think there's a couple 11 00:00:49.380 --> 00:00:57.110 things. One is that you know, if you are marketing in a defined category, it 12 00:00:57.110 --> 00:01:03.210 begins to become really a feature conversation. Do you have this feature? 13 00:01:03.210 --> 00:01:10.050 Do you not have this future? And I think that it really brings the level 14 00:01:10.050 --> 00:01:12.780 of the conversation down that you're having with a customer because they're 15 00:01:12.780 --> 00:01:16.640 just comparing you to other things they already know about and you know, you've 16 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:20.500 got to make sure you're still leading on the product side and staying ahead 17 00:01:20.500 --> 00:01:24.970 of that and there's a lot of great technology out there. So I'm sure 18 00:01:24.970 --> 00:01:29.260 there's plenty of great challenges there that other marketers love. But 19 00:01:29.260 --> 00:01:33.630 for me that's not the most interesting challenge of how do I kind of beat 20 00:01:33.630 --> 00:01:38.090 people by having better features? What's really interesting to me is how 21 00:01:38.090 --> 00:01:42.230 do we define something completely brand new that no one's ever really thought 22 00:01:42.230 --> 00:01:46.340 of before, how do we show people that there's a totally new way of doing 23 00:01:46.340 --> 00:01:50.870 things when they've got a really kind of set vision in their mind of what 24 00:01:50.870 --> 00:01:56.180 this thing looks like. And as a market or the challenge that it is exciting to 25 00:01:56.180 --> 00:02:00.440 me about that is I'm not just trying to get my brand name out there, I'm not 26 00:02:00.440 --> 00:02:03.530 just trying to show you that my solution is better than someone else's 27 00:02:03.530 --> 00:02:08.690 solution. I have to educate people on what is this new way to do something. 28 00:02:08.699 --> 00:02:12.480 They've never seen it before, They've never thought of it before and they're 29 00:02:12.480 --> 00:02:15.670 feeling the pain of the legacy way of doing things, but they don't yet know 30 00:02:15.670 --> 00:02:20.740 there's a solution. So it's this, you know, the ability to educate the market 31 00:02:20.740 --> 00:02:25.310 and really define what is this category mean is really interesting to me. And 32 00:02:25.310 --> 00:02:29.640 then within that, how do I make sure I define and maintain a leadership 33 00:02:29.640 --> 00:02:34.270 position there? Oh my gosh, that's fascinating. I totally can see when you 34 00:02:34.270 --> 00:02:38.880 put it that way, I can absolutely see the draw and I'm even more excited to 35 00:02:38.880 --> 00:02:43.580 kind of unpack this with you. So with that being said, you are educating 36 00:02:43.590 --> 00:02:48.200 people, you are, you are presenting a brand new idea to them. What do you 37 00:02:48.200 --> 00:02:52.510 have to think about while marketing for this new category that you wouldn't 38 00:02:52.520 --> 00:02:58.980 otherwise if you are marketing in the legacy way? Sure. So if I if I take 39 00:02:58.990 --> 00:03:02.740 team pay as the example, we're displacing a lot of existing 40 00:03:02.740 --> 00:03:06.090 technologies that you might have heard of already, like a procurement solution 41 00:03:06.090 --> 00:03:10.640 or an expense management solution or a traditional corporate card solution and 42 00:03:10.640 --> 00:03:16.030 we essentially displace all of those. If I tell you that I've got the world's 43 00:03:16.030 --> 00:03:19.770 greatest expense management solution for you, you automatically know what 44 00:03:19.770 --> 00:03:23.500 that is. You've seen it before, you've used one before. If you're the buyer, 45 00:03:23.500 --> 00:03:27.990 you've probably got a line item on your budget for that. But if I tell you I 46 00:03:27.990 --> 00:03:31.180 have a distributed spend management platform, you're gonna look at me like 47 00:03:31.180 --> 00:03:33.890 I'm crazy. You're gonna not know what that means. You might be able to make 48 00:03:33.890 --> 00:03:39.320 an educated guess, but it doesn't mean anything to anyone. And so what's 49 00:03:39.320 --> 00:03:44.100 different about it is you can't lead with this is the solution that we are 50 00:03:44.100 --> 00:03:48.660 and we're the best you have to lead with. You are currently feeling pain 51 00:03:49.140 --> 00:03:53.950 and I actually have a way to solve that for you. And it's an entirely new way 52 00:03:53.950 --> 00:03:57.800 to think about it, but I can solve your pain. So you really have to lead with 53 00:03:57.800 --> 00:04:04.190 what are the problems that your product solves? Not just we are the best X, y z 54 00:04:04.190 --> 00:04:11.160 solution on the market. So how do you manage the brand and how do you Yeah, 55 00:04:11.170 --> 00:04:15.440 yeah, I want to say that general because I'm learning alongside all. 56 00:04:16.640 --> 00:04:21.920 Okay. Yeah. So the brand parts really tricky because you've got the joint 57 00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:25.530 problem of people don't know your category and they don't know your brand 58 00:04:25.530 --> 00:04:30.840 and how do you elevate both of those? And I think a lot of that you can weave 59 00:04:30.840 --> 00:04:34.560 into the thought leadership that you build, which ends up being a strong 60 00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:39.970 component of that education piece. And if you can position your brand as a 61 00:04:39.970 --> 00:04:44.950 thought leader in the industry, then you attract a lot more people, they 62 00:04:44.950 --> 00:04:49.700 start to learn, they learn about different ways of doing things, they 63 00:04:49.700 --> 00:04:52.410 learn about related concepts that may not actually have to do with your 64 00:04:52.410 --> 00:04:55.860 product, but people then start to look to you as an expert and it gives you 65 00:04:55.860 --> 00:05:00.160 authority in your space. So you can start to actually have real 66 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:03.190 conversations where people are coming to you and looking to you for advice. I 67 00:05:03.190 --> 00:05:08.170 mean at team pay, we we do um educational thought leadership, virtual 68 00:05:08.170 --> 00:05:13.820 events once or twice a month, you know, depending on the month and people come 69 00:05:13.820 --> 00:05:17.490 to them and I kind of thought the webinar was dead and it was a little 70 00:05:17.490 --> 00:05:22.320 bit revived with covid, but most folks I'm talking to now are seeing a lot of 71 00:05:22.320 --> 00:05:27.110 drop off because no one wants to sit on zoom anymore. We're not seeing drop off. 72 00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:30.080 People are still coming to our events and I think it's because it's that 73 00:05:30.080 --> 00:05:34.160 educational piece and now they can associate the team paid brand with 74 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:38.050 someone who is an expert and they're going to get value from us even if 75 00:05:38.050 --> 00:05:41.700 they're not ready to buy or they don't quite know what our product is yet. It 76 00:05:41.700 --> 00:05:45.260 gives them that positive association that we do know our industry and what 77 00:05:45.260 --> 00:05:48.710 we're talking about. Yeah. You bring up something that I'm super curious about 78 00:05:48.710 --> 00:05:52.160 what these these channels that are performing really well. Have you seen 79 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:56.990 over your career as you've moved from his role to role? Had there been 80 00:05:56.990 --> 00:06:01.870 consistent channels with with knowing that education is top of mind that have 81 00:06:01.870 --> 00:06:07.910 performed well? It's a great question. I do think having a strong content 82 00:06:07.910 --> 00:06:11.930 marketing arm is really important with the thought leadership, just making 83 00:06:11.930 --> 00:06:17.560 sure that you can keep that engine running the channels kind of very 84 00:06:18.840 --> 00:06:25.670 Less by company and more by um kind of the era that we're in. So you know 10 85 00:06:25.670 --> 00:06:29.970 years ago webinars were like one of the best ways to reach people. People were 86 00:06:29.970 --> 00:06:33.350 going to several a week and it was like you know this really incredible 87 00:06:33.350 --> 00:06:37.720 educational experience. And then that really went by the wayside and like I 88 00:06:37.720 --> 00:06:42.490 said it had a bit of a renaissance over the last year, 10 years ago when QR 89 00:06:42.490 --> 00:06:46.560 codes came out it was like everyone was saying we've got to use these in 90 00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:51.200 marketing. So every piece of collateral that I ever printed, how to Q. R. Code 91 00:06:51.200 --> 00:06:54.610 that would take you to our website, I don't know why you needed that. I mean 92 00:06:54.610 --> 00:06:58.460 the website wasn't that long of A. U. R. L. But it was you know everyone just 93 00:06:58.460 --> 00:07:01.930 felt like that was the way to engage people because it was the cool new 94 00:07:01.930 --> 00:07:06.210 thing that went away and then also came back over the last year. Although less 95 00:07:06.210 --> 00:07:11.470 so on the marketing side and much more practical way to use it. I do think the 96 00:07:11.470 --> 00:07:18.640 opportunity to share information with your audience and reach them is really 97 00:07:18.640 --> 00:07:23.150 really critical for defining a new category. And so that could 98 00:07:24.440 --> 00:07:27.900 manifest itself in different ways. Whether that is that webinar where 99 00:07:27.900 --> 00:07:31.740 you're giving great content with speakers or it's your blog where you're 100 00:07:31.740 --> 00:07:36.350 sharing really great insights or templates that people can use or other 101 00:07:36.350 --> 00:07:40.680 kinds of information or actually you know going to in person events and 102 00:07:40.680 --> 00:07:44.970 meeting people and being able to share without leadership at a conference. Um 103 00:07:44.980 --> 00:07:47.750 so I think there's a lot of different ways that that manifests itself but it 104 00:07:47.750 --> 00:07:54.500 comes back to how do we get the thought leadership and education into people's 105 00:07:54.500 --> 00:07:58.870 hands and what are the right ways to distribute that? Yeah I want to go kind 106 00:07:58.870 --> 00:08:03.100 of granular here. And how do you tell people about this new category when 107 00:08:03.100 --> 00:08:06.940 they don't know it's a new category. What does that look like practically 108 00:08:06.940 --> 00:08:11.350 with the messaging and with the right time right place all of that in mind. 109 00:08:11.840 --> 00:08:16.420 Yeah I think it comes back to something we touched on already around leading 110 00:08:16.420 --> 00:08:19.990 with the pain that they're feeling and the problems that they're facing. And 111 00:08:19.990 --> 00:08:24.060 if we can talk about all the manual work that they have to do right now, I 112 00:08:24.060 --> 00:08:27.920 mean, I don't know the last time you did an expense report, but they're not 113 00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:32.830 very fun and that can resonate with pretty much anyone you talk to, we get 114 00:08:32.830 --> 00:08:39.520 rid of those, right? So if you can actually tap into, you are probably 115 00:08:39.520 --> 00:08:43.049 frustrated at work because he was an employee are spending all this time on 116 00:08:43.049 --> 00:08:46.990 expense reports, the finance pain is even greater. So when we're talking to 117 00:08:46.990 --> 00:08:52.360 our actual buyers that are in a finance role, they've got so much manual work, 118 00:08:52.360 --> 00:08:56.920 they always have to be the bad guy telling, you know, they never know 119 00:08:56.920 --> 00:09:01.210 what's been spent. So their numbers aren't reliable, they have to go back 120 00:09:01.210 --> 00:09:05.130 and forth all the time between employees, uh and the books to make 121 00:09:05.130 --> 00:09:08.550 sure that everything is really accurate, They don't have visibility, they don't 122 00:09:08.550 --> 00:09:13.330 have control. We can talk about those problems and then they're not along 123 00:09:13.330 --> 00:09:16.170 because there are things that we all feel, whether you're on the employee 124 00:09:16.170 --> 00:09:20.500 side or the finance side and then we can paint this picture of like, you 125 00:09:20.500 --> 00:09:23.930 know, there's a better way, there's a, there's a world where this doesn't have 126 00:09:23.930 --> 00:09:29.640 to be this way and it's by using tools like a spend management platform to 127 00:09:29.640 --> 00:09:34.540 help you get that better control and better visibility and it still takes a 128 00:09:34.540 --> 00:09:37.600 lot of work from there to really help people reframe how they're thinking 129 00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:40.550 about it, but that's kind of the journey that you need to take them on. 130 00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:45.560 Mm I love it. Okay, so if I missed it before I get it now, lead with the pain 131 00:09:45.570 --> 00:09:50.950 and I love that it seems like built into the brand of, of a successful 132 00:09:51.340 --> 00:09:58.070 disruptive technology company. Is this like benevolent facilitator of 133 00:09:58.080 --> 00:10:02.820 education and of information and being the like public square for a lot of 134 00:10:02.830 --> 00:10:08.100 people as they learn. I think that's so cool. So so you need a strong message 135 00:10:08.100 --> 00:10:13.310 externally, obviously educating your buyers, bringing them to awareness that 136 00:10:13.310 --> 00:10:17.010 they have, there's a better solution to the problem they encounter every day. 137 00:10:17.020 --> 00:10:21.360 But I'm curious about what this looks like internally, as you arm, your sales 138 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:27.080 team with the same message. How do you educate internally and make sure that 139 00:10:27.090 --> 00:10:31.810 your sales team is really equipped with the information they need to talk to 140 00:10:31.810 --> 00:10:37.300 buyers in a brand new category. Yeah, that's a great question. And the, the 141 00:10:37.300 --> 00:10:40.820 partnership between marketing and sales is always so important but I think a 142 00:10:40.820 --> 00:10:45.480 lot of times we focus a lot on the demands on side of those things, which 143 00:10:45.480 --> 00:10:48.740 is very important as well. And, you know, our team meets weekly as a 144 00:10:48.740 --> 00:10:52.780 revenue team to make sure we're aligned on everything but where this really 145 00:10:52.780 --> 00:10:56.780 comes into play is in the product marketing of the product and you know, 146 00:10:56.790 --> 00:11:01.060 having a strong product marketer who can really define that message, distill 147 00:11:01.060 --> 00:11:04.880 it down, put it into the right materials, but also work hand in hand 148 00:11:04.880 --> 00:11:07.330 with the sales team to make sure they're living and breathing. That 149 00:11:07.330 --> 00:11:13.720 message becomes really critical. So we run actually a team pay every other 150 00:11:13.720 --> 00:11:16.990 week. I think it is a sales enablement session where we're rolling out new 151 00:11:16.990 --> 00:11:21.640 materials or reiterating new messages or getting feedback from the team on 152 00:11:21.640 --> 00:11:25.390 what they're hearing in the market. And are there new objections coming up or 153 00:11:25.390 --> 00:11:29.360 new competitors coming up that we need to start to develop some messaging for? 154 00:11:29.740 --> 00:11:33.250 So that's one way we really look at, you know, how do we really partnered 155 00:11:33.250 --> 00:11:39.910 together? We also listen to a lot of their calls so that we can understand 156 00:11:39.910 --> 00:11:43.760 what are buyers saying, How are they reacting to the message, which helps us 157 00:11:43.760 --> 00:11:48.180 get a lot sharper uh, and make sure that what we're saying is going to 158 00:11:48.180 --> 00:11:51.280 actually resonate with people. And if it's not, we need to figure out a 159 00:11:51.280 --> 00:11:55.960 different way to talk about it. Um, so I think you set up those regular 160 00:11:55.960 --> 00:12:00.500 cadence is whether it's once a week or once a month for us, you know, twice a 161 00:12:00.500 --> 00:12:04.990 month we're doing sales enablement, but it's got to be this constant feedback 162 00:12:04.990 --> 00:12:09.400 cycle between the sales and marketing and a real partnership. So there's 163 00:12:09.410 --> 00:12:14.080 there's definitely a lot to do is we scale to make sure that our approach 164 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:19.020 will scale with the business. Um, as we hire more and more sales reps, you know, 165 00:12:19.020 --> 00:12:22.920 it's harder to keep tabs on. Does everyone actually feel good about the 166 00:12:22.920 --> 00:12:26.560 message and have it down and where do they need help? Um, so that's something 167 00:12:26.560 --> 00:12:29.260 we're actually looking at building out over the coming year as the business 168 00:12:29.260 --> 00:12:32.570 skills up. How do we scale up the enablement side with that to make sure 169 00:12:32.570 --> 00:12:36.100 that they are really comfortable with the message and how they deliver it and 170 00:12:36.100 --> 00:12:40.400 that it's consistent. I think one of the things for me that's been really 171 00:12:40.400 --> 00:12:43.810 important throughout my career is if we're going to define a message, I want 172 00:12:43.810 --> 00:12:48.820 to make sure that the first time a lead ever interacts with us, they're hearing 173 00:12:48.820 --> 00:12:52.710 the same words and language that they hear when they then meet the sales team 174 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:55.900 and that they then actually encounter when they're a customer and they're 175 00:12:55.910 --> 00:12:59.590 talking to RCs team where they're getting released notes from us, 176 00:12:59.590 --> 00:13:02.990 etcetera. We should be talking about the product in the same way across, 177 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:06.530 even if it's a little more on the awareness side, in one place, in a 178 00:13:06.530 --> 00:13:10.950 little deeper on the other and just really taking a consistent approach and 179 00:13:10.950 --> 00:13:14.660 consistent view of how we get that message to the entire team pay team so 180 00:13:14.660 --> 00:13:18.680 that we all feel like we're singing from the same song book. I love that. 181 00:13:18.690 --> 00:13:25.510 It's it's so funny and just so human that there's like opportunity for 182 00:13:25.510 --> 00:13:30.280 miscommunication and opportunity for people to get things just by nature of 183 00:13:30.280 --> 00:13:34.920 having conversations and being sometimes so deep in the weeds that you 184 00:13:34.930 --> 00:13:39.220 kind of miss out on some of the messaging or the overall tone and it's 185 00:13:39.230 --> 00:13:44.040 awesome that that's such a coordinated effort. I think that's so cool. Well 186 00:13:44.040 --> 00:13:48.820 and I think it has to be, I think again, if you're leaning on an established 187 00:13:48.830 --> 00:13:52.250 category and everyone knows the thing that you're selling your selling 188 00:13:52.250 --> 00:13:56.700 marketing automation, yeah, you've got to sell your finer points but people 189 00:13:56.700 --> 00:14:01.040 know what it is. You don't have to be as focused on the message across the 190 00:14:01.040 --> 00:14:06.630 board, but when you're completely starting something new for someone it's 191 00:14:06.630 --> 00:14:09.280 going to you're going to lose them, you're going to confuse them if you're 192 00:14:09.280 --> 00:14:13.820 not having the scene consistent message across the different touchpoints. Yeah, 193 00:14:13.830 --> 00:14:19.470 I'm curious. What do you think the like most common in defining a new category 194 00:14:19.470 --> 00:14:24.960 specifically? What do you think the most common like reasons why somebody 195 00:14:25.740 --> 00:14:30.160 gets lost or somebody doesn't purchase if there are a good candidate? Like 196 00:14:30.160 --> 00:14:36.020 what do you think? What do you think are kind of the common hurdles or flaws 197 00:14:36.030 --> 00:14:43.000 of if I may be so bold? Well it comes back to the fundamentals of crossing 198 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:47.960 the chasm a little bit and I think where we lose people are if they are 199 00:14:48.540 --> 00:14:54.280 later adopters and later on the maturity scale for that there are much 200 00:14:54.280 --> 00:15:00.380 more resistant to change and there they're resistant to thinking about 201 00:15:00.380 --> 00:15:04.260 things differently. They know how to do something. They've done it a long time 202 00:15:05.040 --> 00:15:08.380 and it makes perfect sense. I mean you've got your habits, you you know 203 00:15:08.380 --> 00:15:11.310 what you're looking for because you've seen it before and you just want to do 204 00:15:11.310 --> 00:15:15.240 it the way you've always done it. And so the challenge then is like how do 205 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:19.690 you open those minds? So team pays early success was definitely with 206 00:15:19.690 --> 00:15:25.550 people that were more digital forward digital friendly, open to new ways of 207 00:15:25.550 --> 00:15:28.770 doing things. There's a lot of, we work with a lot of other tech companies 208 00:15:28.770 --> 00:15:32.680 where I think that's just part of the D. N. A. And as we scale we're starting to 209 00:15:32.680 --> 00:15:37.430 find we've got to figure out how do we get this message to really resonate 210 00:15:37.430 --> 00:15:41.320 with people who might be more reluctant to try something a different way. And 211 00:15:41.320 --> 00:15:46.890 so I think when people get lost in the story it's because they can't get over 212 00:15:46.890 --> 00:15:52.910 their own bias of how something should be. And that really comes back to us 213 00:15:52.910 --> 00:15:56.530 focusing back on that pain and like you've you've been doing it this way. 214 00:15:56.530 --> 00:16:01.520 Sure. But what if you had you know 10 hours back each month that you're now 215 00:16:01.520 --> 00:16:05.500 spending on manual reconciliation, What would you do with that? How would you 216 00:16:05.500 --> 00:16:09.130 partner better with the business. What if you had confidence that your numbers 217 00:16:09.130 --> 00:16:13.460 were up to date accurate in the middle of the month and you didn't have to 218 00:16:13.460 --> 00:16:17.930 wait for tens of thousands of dollars of expense reports to come in several 219 00:16:17.930 --> 00:16:21.890 weeks later to know how much money you've spent and really just kind of 220 00:16:21.900 --> 00:16:25.950 helping them understand that value that a different way in a different approach 221 00:16:25.950 --> 00:16:31.130 can provide becomes really critical. Um, but I do think there's always going to 222 00:16:31.140 --> 00:16:34.540 be some folks out there that are used to doing things a certain way and are 223 00:16:34.540 --> 00:16:39.510 not necessarily interested in experimenting. I love that and that's 224 00:16:39.510 --> 00:16:46.550 okay to their own. I'm curious with, you know, one of the most common topics 225 00:16:46.550 --> 00:16:49.970 in the B two B marketing space is sales and marketing alignment. We talked 226 00:16:49.980 --> 00:16:54.450 about, you know, just a few minutes ago about the importance of communication 227 00:16:54.450 --> 00:16:59.280 and sales enablement marketing like you were saying, listening to the sales 228 00:16:59.280 --> 00:17:03.090 calls, meeting weekly with them, hearing what the buyers are saying. But 229 00:17:03.090 --> 00:17:09.329 I'm curious what your thoughts are on the evolution of even more intimacy 230 00:17:09.329 --> 00:17:14.490 between sales and marketing and if you as a marketing leader in your own 231 00:17:14.490 --> 00:17:19.329 organization, how closely you kind of link arms and see those two things as 232 00:17:19.339 --> 00:17:25.210 more and more the same. So I would say that they're not the same. But I think 233 00:17:25.210 --> 00:17:30.450 the alignment is more critical than ever, buyers are smarter than they've 234 00:17:30.450 --> 00:17:34.860 ever been there do more research on their own than they ever have and 235 00:17:35.240 --> 00:17:38.540 you've got to be aligned and coordinated in your efforts, your 236 00:17:38.540 --> 00:17:43.070 approach, the message, you know, from start to finish. So we've got a really 237 00:17:43.070 --> 00:17:46.820 great relationship with our sales team team pay. It's something that is a 238 00:17:46.820 --> 00:17:50.240 personal mission of mind to build because I would say for the most part 239 00:17:50.240 --> 00:17:53.710 of the companies I've worked for that have been more successful are the ones 240 00:17:53.710 --> 00:17:57.910 where marketing and sales are aligned. So we find the KPI s that we're going 241 00:17:57.910 --> 00:18:02.720 to actually share and measure together my marketing team, we align ourselves 242 00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:07.530 on the qualified opportunities that we generate for the sales team. We then as 243 00:18:07.530 --> 00:18:11.130 a marketing team back out, how many MQ else does that mean we need and how 244 00:18:11.130 --> 00:18:14.280 many leads does that mean we need? So we can actually, you know, run the top 245 00:18:14.280 --> 00:18:19.060 of funnel. But by aligning on the qualified opportunities, it means sales 246 00:18:19.060 --> 00:18:23.080 is not just saying you brought us the quantity we want, but you've also 247 00:18:23.080 --> 00:18:26.250 brought the quality and not just make sure that the incentives are in the 248 00:18:26.250 --> 00:18:30.740 right place. We meet very, very frequently as a team I mentioned is the 249 00:18:30.750 --> 00:18:34.260 entire um, sales and marketing organ meats every monday morning, we kick 250 00:18:34.260 --> 00:18:37.780 things off for the week. We talk about what happened last week. What went well, 251 00:18:37.780 --> 00:18:42.070 what can we do better, what do we want to do next week and anything, making 252 00:18:42.070 --> 00:18:45.870 sure that they've got everything they need to know, uh, to be successful and 253 00:18:45.870 --> 00:18:51.440 do their jobs. I personally meet one on one with our sales leader once a week. 254 00:18:51.450 --> 00:18:56.130 Um and then usually more than that at hawk with other things that come up. Um 255 00:18:56.130 --> 00:19:01.340 I just got out of a meeting where we were talking through our upcoming fall 256 00:19:01.350 --> 00:19:04.540 email calendar because it's really packed with a lot of events and how do 257 00:19:04.540 --> 00:19:07.690 we want a sequence in the sales emails and that was, you know, between sales 258 00:19:07.690 --> 00:19:11.500 leadership and marketing leadership meeting and and aligning on that. And I 259 00:19:11.500 --> 00:19:17.030 just think it's really important that we all feel like we're one team. But I 260 00:19:17.030 --> 00:19:20.480 do think there's some healthy tension between marketing and sales at times. 261 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:25.280 That's important because we do have, we're all marching to the same greater 262 00:19:25.280 --> 00:19:29.430 mission, but we've got different things we need to achieve. And I think one 263 00:19:29.430 --> 00:19:33.660 example is if we want to go back to talking about the brand sales doesn't 264 00:19:33.660 --> 00:19:38.060 necessarily care that I've got a billboard out in san Francisco I mean 265 00:19:38.060 --> 00:19:42.290 it's cool, it's fun, I love having a billboard that's really important for a 266 00:19:42.290 --> 00:19:47.010 brand awareness That does not translate into a direct lead for them, but it's 267 00:19:47.010 --> 00:19:50.780 still something I need to do, so we need to be aligned, but it doesn't mean 268 00:19:50.780 --> 00:19:54.300 that we necessarily are prioritizing all the same things because I'm 269 00:19:54.300 --> 00:19:57.090 thinking about what's best for the business from marketing perspective and 270 00:19:57.090 --> 00:20:01.350 they're going to focus from a sales perspective and 95% of the time that's 271 00:20:01.350 --> 00:20:04.820 gonna overlap and the other 5%, I'm going to do the things I need to do and 272 00:20:04.820 --> 00:20:08.040 they're going to do the things they need to do. And I think that's okay. I 273 00:20:08.040 --> 00:20:11.460 think it's actually a really good thing. So, and when I say attention, it 274 00:20:11.460 --> 00:20:15.670 doesn't mean that it has to be a negative tension. It's really just, you 275 00:20:15.670 --> 00:20:19.190 know, these kind of competing ideas and making sure we are prioritizing the 276 00:20:19.190 --> 00:20:24.340 things that matter. Nicole for somebody who is marketing to a category. A new 277 00:20:24.340 --> 00:20:29.590 category. For the first time, I'm curious what you wish you knew or what 278 00:20:29.590 --> 00:20:33.550 you would tell them. You wish you knew when you first started out or what you 279 00:20:33.550 --> 00:20:39.370 would tell them as advice. Yeah, I think the most important thing is 280 00:20:39.380 --> 00:20:44.510 because the education component is so important and the establishing yourself 281 00:20:44.510 --> 00:20:51.550 as an expert is so important. You have to know a what are the words that my 282 00:20:51.550 --> 00:20:56.910 audience uses and be? Where are they going to get information? Because those 283 00:20:56.910 --> 00:21:02.720 are the places you need to be. So, one of the first things I typically do when 284 00:21:02.720 --> 00:21:08.680 I started a new role is ask the buyer or if there's someone in my own 285 00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:12.220 organization whose representative of the buyer for example, a team pay our 286 00:21:12.220 --> 00:21:17.260 own VP of finance is a great potential buyer. Where do you go for information. 287 00:21:17.270 --> 00:21:21.120 What are the newsletters? You sign up for? What are the websites you read? 288 00:21:21.120 --> 00:21:27.160 What are the events you go to and that helps inform where I deliver my content, 289 00:21:27.170 --> 00:21:31.510 where I want to spend my marketing efforts, but then you really have to 290 00:21:31.510 --> 00:21:37.370 listen to the customers. And so that might mean going to other vendors, 291 00:21:37.370 --> 00:21:40.430 webinars that are in your industry, even if they're not necessarily doing 292 00:21:40.430 --> 00:21:45.050 the same thing where they've got different, you know, leaders in that 293 00:21:45.050 --> 00:21:48.610 role speaking and you can start to absorb the language. It probably means 294 00:21:48.610 --> 00:21:52.460 reading a lot of those websites that you just uncovered where the buyers are 295 00:21:52.470 --> 00:21:56.400 are going for information. And then any time you can actually talk to your 296 00:21:56.400 --> 00:21:59.920 customers, um, which is certainly different in every company, how 297 00:21:59.920 --> 00:22:03.260 accessible they are. But if you can talk to them and interview them and 298 00:22:03.270 --> 00:22:08.070 understand the pain they go through and how they would freeze it or you know, 299 00:22:08.070 --> 00:22:12.490 how how do they think about wording certain things and just put on your 300 00:22:12.490 --> 00:22:17.160 listening listening hat for for that if you can listen in on sales calls. 301 00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:21.520 That's always a great a great piece too because you can often hear people talk 302 00:22:21.520 --> 00:22:25.980 about their current set up their current day to day and really not just 303 00:22:25.980 --> 00:22:29.490 get an understanding of what that data is, but again, really sharp on what are 304 00:22:29.490 --> 00:22:33.530 the words they used to describe it. Is there was there a warning sign you 305 00:22:33.530 --> 00:22:38.370 encountered any red flags along the way as you first ventured into this new 306 00:22:38.370 --> 00:22:42.860 category that you would warn people against or tell them to watch out for. 307 00:22:43.840 --> 00:22:49.100 It's kind of the two sides of the same coin like you've got to watch out for 308 00:22:49.100 --> 00:22:54.620 like not just assuming you know about your buyer and not just assuming you 309 00:22:54.620 --> 00:22:57.670 know how they're going to think about things, but you've got to do the 310 00:22:57.670 --> 00:23:02.650 research otherwise you're just going to come across as an authentic and people 311 00:23:02.650 --> 00:23:06.670 will write you off and you don't always get a second chance to reframe their 312 00:23:06.670 --> 00:23:13.010 opinion. Oh, I love that if there was only one thing that somebody could take 313 00:23:13.010 --> 00:23:18.100 away from this episode, what would you want it to be defining new categories 314 00:23:18.100 --> 00:23:23.390 as a marketer is really hard but really fun and I think if you want an 315 00:23:23.390 --> 00:23:29.850 interesting challenge, this is it. And so you know, go for it. I would say so 316 00:23:30.440 --> 00:23:36.100 Oh my gosh, what a blessing. I love that. Do all the new the new category 317 00:23:36.100 --> 00:23:41.910 marketers, I love that. Well I I have learned so much. I feel like I'm really, 318 00:23:41.920 --> 00:23:46.100 really, I think the thing that stands out to me the most is again I said this 319 00:23:46.100 --> 00:23:50.560 before, but this like being the facilitator of education and 320 00:23:50.560 --> 00:23:54.870 conversation is especially in the information age. I think that's some of 321 00:23:54.880 --> 00:23:59.770 just continuing to arm yourself with new information is so valuable and so 322 00:23:59.770 --> 00:24:03.300 being in a position where you can make that happen for other people, 323 00:24:03.310 --> 00:24:08.380 strategically your buyers but is a, I just, I said this before, but it's a 324 00:24:08.380 --> 00:24:12.550 really benevolent position to take Nicole. If people wanted to learn more 325 00:24:12.550 --> 00:24:17.310 about you or team pay, how could they do that? Where could they go? Yeah, I 326 00:24:17.310 --> 00:24:22.530 am on linkedin. Nicole linden mom, you can look me at, I'm happy to connect 327 00:24:22.540 --> 00:24:25.710 and if you want to learn more about team pay, you can come to our website 328 00:24:25.710 --> 00:24:31.290 which is team pay dot C. O or check us out on linkedin twitter, whatever your 329 00:24:31.290 --> 00:24:36.000 favorite social media is, you love to, love to meet you. Well, thank you so 330 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:39.590 much for joining me today. I'm going to be growth. Thanks Olivia. It was my 331 00:24:39.590 --> 00:24:41.060 pleasure. 332 00:24:43.640 --> 00:24:47.670 Is the decision maker for your product or service at BBB marketer. Are you 333 00:24:47.670 --> 00:24:51.880 looking to reach those buyers through the medium of podcasting? Considered 334 00:24:51.880 --> 00:24:57.100 becoming a co host of GDP growth. This show is consistently ranked as a top 335 00:24:57.100 --> 00:25:01.250 100 podcast in the marketing category of apple podcasts And the show gets 336 00:25:01.250 --> 00:25:06.820 more than 130,000 downloads each month. We've already done the work of building 337 00:25:06.820 --> 00:25:10.860 the audience so you can focus on delivering incredible content to our 338 00:25:10.860 --> 00:25:16.550 listeners if you're interested email Logan at sweet fish media dot com.