Transcript
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Mhm.
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Welcome back to be to be growth. We are
joined today by Nate Skinner. He is the
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global S. VP of marketing at oracle
advertising in C. X. Nate. I'm really,
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really excited to chat with you today.
Yeah. Thanks James. Thanks for having
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me. Yeah, this is gonna be a fun
conversation as we were talking right
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before we hit record. I tossed a
question to you that I like to ask in a
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lot of our pre interviews and it was
you know, what's something around B two
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B marketing that you've evolved your
thinking on or even changed your mind
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about over the course of your career.
And your answer was really interesting
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to me. You said there's all this talk
around marketing really being a servant
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to sales. But you said, I think the
thing that I've changed my mind about
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is around this idea that marketing
actually needs to truly, truly partner
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with sales. Can you elaborate on that
idea a little bit and tell us how you
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landed there? Yeah. I spent the 1st 10
years of my life in sales. In my
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software life, I should say. Uh and the
last kind of 12 or 13 in marketing and
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the evolved thinking was around what
the definition of a partnership, like
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if anybody who has a significant other
knows a partnership is equals both
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people respect and care about the
others opinion, they debate and argue
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things, but they keep it respectful and
like look for the best path forward.
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And when I was a seller, I thought
marketing's job was to give me leads,
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that's their job. So I don't think any
more leads and I'm sure there's sales
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out there, the sellers out there that
feel that way. And as I got into
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marketing, I realized that although I
take that background with me and I'm
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very empathetic to my sales peers and
counterparts on sales teams, there's a
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tendency to have it be almost like a
servant relationship where marketing is
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in service of sales. Actually, we're
both in service of customer success and
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we're both in service of generating
awareness for our business, such that
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customers can find value in what we
offer and that means we have to do this
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together. They have the end of the
funnel to kind of deal with right,
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getting customers over the hump on. Yes,
I think that solution will work and yes,
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I'd like to buy it of course, that's
hard and that's a job that they have to
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do and our job is to go find those
people that will engage with us to have
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that conversation and move them through
what we would call the funnel and you
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can't do one of those and not the other.
You can't do one better than the other.
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They are literally a partnership. And I
find it, you know, my my thinking has
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evolved over time because there's a
little bit of a legacy, at least in
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enterprise software of, you know, sales
kind of demanding marketing doing this
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or doing that. And I don't never hear
marketing demanding sales to do this or
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that. And that's not partnership. And
so that's, that's where I I tend to
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advocate on behalf of sales with
marketing teams. Hey, look, their jobs
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hard. Let's pump the brakes and think
about the challenges they're facing.
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And I advocate with sellers on behalf
of marketing to say, look there,
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working as hard as they can. Clearly we
have more to do, Let's solve the
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problem together and stay aligned. What
are some of the things you've been able
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to do, either in your team at oracle or
in previous company is to really broker
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that partnership, create a true
partnership there? Yes. I mean there's
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two really major ones that I think of
when that question. One is field
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marketing. I mean, I know more than
maybe the average marketer who hasn't
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spent as much time as I did in sales.
How valuable it is to connect the
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marketing activity down on the ground
to the sellers. And so at Oracle, for
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instance, on my team, we've invested a
lot of our energy and our money, our
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headcount kind of resource capacity to
field marketing, literally putting in
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place the marketers that take the
marketing effort and translate that
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into sales programs on the ground, kind
of rubber hitting the road. Um, that's,
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that's one very specific way. We've
invested a lot of time and making sure
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we put marketers in region, in country
in state and city to support those
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sellers on the ground. And we've seen
tremendous results from that. The other
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is we launched an innovation program at
Oracle's. Since I've been here every
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quarter, we do releases. It became
clear to us that our customers weren't
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necessarily hearing about them in a
holistic way. And so in partnership
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with our product team and are selling
team, we created a regular scheduled
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innovation summit that every quarter we
update the web page, record demos, kind
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of list out the innovation that we're
releasing and launching and then share
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it with the world. And actually what's
happened is analysts and customers and
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the press have started to expect that
from us every quarter and we only
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started last february. So, um, that's,
that's one of those ways where it's,
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look, we can't do this on our own right.
We need marketing, marketing needs to
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drive the programming and put together
the show flow and get the web page bill.
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But we need product teams to
participate. We need the sellers to
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send their customers to it and it's a
symbiotic relationship that's driving
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great value for us on behalf of our
customers. Another thing we were
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talking about a few minutes before we
hit record, you you mentioned that
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there's still a lot of people in B. Two
B marketing that somehow think that B
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two B marketing is grossly different
than B two C. And what you said, you
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said they really kind of downplay the
emotional connection that both BTV
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brands and B to C. Brands have to
create between their brand and the
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buyer, whether it's a buying committee.
You know whether it's you know how many
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decision makers that are involved in
the purchase decision at the end of the
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day. Like you need to create an
emotional connection. Nike has
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obviously done that masterfully well,
you see, you know, all these PV brands
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that do that masterfully well, but It
hasn't really translated to a lot of
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B2B brands. Why do you think that is?
What's the disconnect, what's keeping
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B2B brands from embracing this idea?
That brand actually matters a lot. I
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think it's a few things that contribute
to one is just in the nature of
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attribution. I mean, of course, B two C.
Marketers need to attribute the expense
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for the campaign, the programs they run
to revenue direct to consumer revenue.
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You know, those Nike ads need to result
in surging sales of shoes or where or
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whatever. And in B two B marketing,
we're all trying to attribute credit or
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find attribution for the funnel at the
very top, because it's not a direct to
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consumer purchase. So we have this
concept of the funnel, everybody on
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your program understands and getting
traffic in and turning it into SQL and
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SQL and sales. And that I think
contributes to the problem because
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somewhere along the line, we've
forgotten that at the other end of that
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marketing offer a human being is
engaging with our company. And that
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doesn't change in B two B. Right? But
yes, we're selling to accounts
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oftentimes. And so there's more people
to engage with, you know, the buying
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committee, but there's still people.
And so if you're not creating an
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emotional connection, if you're not
kind of aligning using their language,
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what I what I call internally, my team
hears me say this all the time doing
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outside in marketing, not inside out
where, you know, we tend to have this
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and be to be land. For some reason we
start to talk like everybody knows what
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we mean and they don't. So we got to go
outside and say, well, what what are
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the problems customers are trying to
solve? How do they describe those
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problems? How do they search for the
solution to those problems and then
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translate that into an experience that
a human being will engage in? And
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that's the most important thing that I
think we lose sight of. And it's a big
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contributor to because it becomes this
amorphous account thing is supposed to
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those are all just people. You're
you're also telling me earlier that
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marketers B two B. Marketers have to
start thinking beyond the funnel, which
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is what, you know what you're getting
out there. Uh you have to start
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thinking about post sale experience as
being equally uh important, at least
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equally important to the top of funnel
activity that you're focused on. You
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told me something that, that your team
has been doing an oracle that I thought
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was really interesting. You know, you,
you guys have an integrated demand jin
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team now that is solely focused on
customers. People that are already have
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already bought a product from oracle.
Can you tell us a little bit about
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about that team and what they're doing?
Yeah, for sure. And like, just to set
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that up, I think that everyone would
agree and I'd be happy to debate this
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with folks at any company, but
marketing needs to be the driving force
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of the customer experience at your
company. You know, HR is not going to
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do that. The sales team is not gonna do
that. Product is not gonna do that.
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Marketing has to be the kind of
quarterback of the customer experience
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from the very top of the funnel to even
the sales interaction and the
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conclusion of a sale and post sale. And
we have the ability to kind of look
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across that experience and say where
are their opportunities to increase
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engagement, to increase stickiness of
our solution, to increase awareness of
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the customer with what they just bought.
And in service of that, we set up this
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installed based campaign team. Their
entire remit is helping educate and
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inform customers who are already in the
building about what it is they own and
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how to get more value from it so that
they can feel great about their renewal
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so they can feel great about the
engagement they have with us as a
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company and that that marketing is not
awareness marketing, it's education,
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it's often it's more about, you know,
did you know, heavy tried, you know,
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some examples and we don't have to go
do that out in the broad based
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marketing effort. We can do that. We
know who these customers are, we can do
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it at an account based level and um,
that is bearing a lot of fruit, not
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just for us when it comes to retention
and churn reduction, but with our
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customers who are saying, wow, this is
actually valuable and your users out
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there and probably had this experience
in their own lives, right? You and I
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talked about, I have nest thermostat in
my house, you buy the nest, you put on
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the wall and then what happens? Well,
mess, send you monthly, you know how
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many leaves you one or how you compare
with your community and your
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neighborhood or your zip code. And then
it becomes kind of a challenge to me to
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kind of get more leaves than everybody
else. But guess what? You could. You
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know, you're not crying my nest out of
my cold hands, right? I mean, it's like
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a really valuable thing that I love.
That same emotional connection can be
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created for customers in the BB
landscape. But they have to feel like,
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you know what they're dealing with
beyond just you bought it and then you
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go away. Marketing can't just be about
getting the SQL handed over and then
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clearly, you know, walk away. We can do
a lot to help at scale. Automate the
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education and information for our
customers on their behalf. And the
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downstream effects are dramatic and
lifetime value customers improved the
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customer's experience is better. It's
just a virtuous cycle. And what I love
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about what you've done is you're
actually putting people in a position
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to do this instead of what we hear so
many. We just did it some research and
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we interviewed 100 B two B marketers.
And all of them are saying that they're
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they feel like they're having to juggle
18 different things all the time. And
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what I like about this is you have a
dedicated team that is solely focused
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on existing customers. Can you speak to
some like Maybe the structure of your
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marketing team and what are some other
either bets that you're making or some
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things that you've done as you
structured your team to focus on the
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areas of marketing that you think
really need to be focused on in a 20,
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landscape. Yeah, I mean look, I think
that's a really important question
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because for many companies that are mid
market and kind of below or mid market
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and above even large companies,
marketing budgets are no uh infinite.
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And so you can't just throw bodies at
the problem. Right? And I think what
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I'd say to answer that question first
is when we thought about this and
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consider the creation of this installed
based campaign team, we knew that that
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was going to mean that something else
was going to go away, right? Because we
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don't, we didn't just say, oh, well
let's just add 10 people. Like we just
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don't have the ability to do that. So
we have a philosophy that is ruthless
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prioritization. We know exactly what
our top five or six strategy kind of
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pillars of our strategy are. What are
the most important principles that
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we're trying to achieve. And one of
those is customer retention and
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increase customer lifetime value and
ultimately the experience customers
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have with us and the products we sell
them. And so that meant this is
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important. It was important enough to
say this group, you should go do that
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and that alone and nothing else. And
your metrics are different and how were
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measured are different. And it's not
about funnel and you know, it's about
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this customer metrics. Uh, but that man,
we have to stop doing other things. And
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so in some cases we had to make hard
decisions about what we were not going
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to find. We'd love to do all kinds of
stuff, right? I'd love to fly balloon
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over the top of Times Square and do all
that. We can't do all those things
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because we're focused on the things
that matter the most. And so that's I
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think an important thing. It's not, I'd
hate for someone in the audience on
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your show to say, oh well that's oracle.
You know, they just threw a bunch more
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bodies. That actually that's not at all
true. We have just as much fiscal
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responsibility and awareness of the
need to be frugal as we do what we're
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doing in a product engineering
organization, right? This is a product
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lead company that we need to do
everything we do within the constraints
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of some type bounds. And so I don't
know if that answers the question, but
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to say for us it was a priority and we
made it a priority and we definitely
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gave people the space to focus on that.
And I think that's the last thing I'll
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say, I'm a big believer in ownership.
So who is the human being that is
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responsible for that thing? And carving
out the team to say that's your thing
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and this person is responsible for it
makes it clear that they own it and
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that others don't and that's okay,
right? Like I'm gonna participate, but
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I don't know. And so that makes things
move much faster. Are there some things
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that are top of mind that you can think
of that you have ratcheted back and
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dialed down because you know, in the
process of ruthless prioritization.
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Yeah, I mean big kind of awareness
things, right? Uh you know, we're not
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buying tv ads. Um we're not doing out
of home buys in major cities. You know,
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our team doesn't have a bunch of
Patagonia jackets with a logo on them.
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I mean like those are the things we
don't do those things. We use those
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dollars to invest in the things that we
know we need to invest in and knowing
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that we are constrained. Um, we're not,
you know, infinitely resourced and I
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don't think anybody is. And so, um,
yeah, we've done a lot less events. Uh
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you know, I think about obviously Covid
and the pandemic have reduced in person
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events whether you wanted to or not,
but you can still do virtual events.
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You can turn those out overnight all
the time. We actually decided we were
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going to focus on some very specific
events and investments in those and not
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do the quantity game, do more of a
quality game. And so that freed up
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capacity. So those are some examples
introducing the safety management show
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the podcast that shares the inside
stories on safety management from
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00:15:40.070 --> 00:15:43.900
experts in the trenches. On this show,
you'll hear interviews with safety
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directors from the podcast hosts at
safety services company. We talked with
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00:15:48.590 --> 00:15:52.090
veteran safety professionals working in
all sorts of industries from
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00:15:52.090 --> 00:15:56.500
construction to manufacturing to
telecom and transportation, even some
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00:15:56.500 --> 00:15:59.570
who manage safety and unique
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zoos. You'll hear engaging stories
about their safety management journey,
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00:16:03.600 --> 00:16:07.050
the lessons they've learned along the
way and actionable safety management
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00:16:07.050 --> 00:16:11.500
tips that you can implement today.
Don't believe me here for yourself. Do
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00:16:11.500 --> 00:16:15.470
you want to be compliant or you're
really looking out for? I understand
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you're looking out for the well being
of your employees and what the
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expectation is of the type of tradesmen
you want on your project. But
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unfortunately you're right. It just
checks. The compliance box. Doesn't
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00:16:27.300 --> 00:16:30.950
check anything else for more subscribe
to the show wherever you listen to
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podcasts. Let's get back into the show.
You're really passionate about
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diversity, diversity, about equality.
And as we were talking off line, you
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mentioned, you've actually written an
article about this on linkedin. Um,
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there are some very specific things
that we can do specifically as men um,
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to really be allies to our female
colleagues. Can you share, uh, some
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things from that article, some things
that you've seen that have been really
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effective um as as we as men attempt to
be more, more allies to everybody on
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our team. Yeah, yeah, very, very
important to me and to our team.
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Generally speaking, I would say that
everyone on my team is super passionate
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about this subject. It's interesting to
I've been invited to participate in
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oracle women leadership seminar, which
is an oracle network of women leaders
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as an ally because of the stuff that
I've done to kind of educate and share
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on what it means to be an ally. That's
the article you're referring to. And a
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couple of things that I remember and
would focus people's attention on a
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literal takeaways. One is being
proactive, proactive in meaning even in
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a zoom world, you can tell when
someone's trying to talk, you can see
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their body language change or you can
see they kind of a mute themselves and
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if you're actively participating,
especially as a leader and you see
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those nuances be the person that says,
hey, did you have something you'd like
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to add and make the space for people?
Because too often in business it's
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dominated by the overly aggressive kind
of a type personality which oftentimes
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is a man. And so men take the time to
realize that you're being overbearing
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and missing out on the opportunity to
hear a much more diverse point of view.
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If you open up the floor and hear from
from everyone, a very specific one that
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I I talk about all the time is in
representation of the opportunities to
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help others shine. So in the article I
wrote, the number five was step aside
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and create opportunities for women to,
to shine. And it's and B two B
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marketers are all familiar with events.
I'm doing this one right now with you,
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Jason James. Sorry, There are lots of
opportunities to have people show up
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and do demos or do keynotes or do video
vignettes of like ads or whatever. And
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oftentimes because it's a male
dominated world so far, those people
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tend to be met and what we can do is
man and say, hold on, you want to do
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what now you want to do this or that or
whatever. Well, there's three other
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people that are perfectly qualified to
do that that are not me and invite them
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to do it. And I said this to you in the
pre show is like oftentimes, the
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feedback I get is, well, the title, you
know, they don't have the title. When
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was the last time anybody on your show
went to go to an event and said, oh,
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I'm not going to attend that session
because that person's title is not
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sufficient. Like that doesn't happen.
What you care about is what they have
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to say. Can they say it in a way that
gets you to think differently?
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Hopefully take away some lessons
learned and go be a better person and
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that can come from anywhere. And so
that's a very specific one. I've gone
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as far as making up people's titles
because I just don't care about that,
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what people want. And by the way, it's
not even about what I care about what
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is best for the audience they want to
hear from the most qualified people
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with the most energy and the most
enthusiasm for the subject, whatever
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that might be. And those people exist
in your organization, all over the
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place up and down the order chart, find
them and pull them up and give them
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these opportunities. It'll change there
career, potentially. And why do you
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need to be on the thing? You know, I
mean, honestly, James, if I could have
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had somebody else do this, I would have
and you did actually, what's funny is
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like you're, you're not just preaching
about this when we reached out to you,
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you actually said, hey, uh, you should
also talk to Heidi Eisenstein who leads
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field marketing in oracle. So we do
that episode is uh, will have gone live
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before this one because I talk to Heidi
a couple weeks ago and that came
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because you're not just a talking head
saying this is what you should do. Your
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actually walking this out and you do it
so often that you didn't even remember
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that you did that, which I think is
awesome. Um, so, so I, I am uh, yeah, I
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am completely on board with this
thinking it's something I'm trying to
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do more and more of people, You know,
ask me to talk about what we're doing
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on linkedin or like what we're doing
with podcasting, whatever. Hey, there.
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Are there other people on the team that
can speak to this? Uh, and inevitably
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there are, I mean, uh, so do people
want to hear from the founder of the
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thing? Like there's some element to
that, like, okay, but but you probably
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actually will get more value hearing
from the person who actually leads are
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linked and evangelist program. She can
speak much more intelligently to it
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than I can. And it gives it gives her
an opportunity to your point, uh,
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advance her career. Give her a piece of
content that she can put on her
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linkedin profile. It's helpful to her
and it's more beneficial to the
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audience as well. So I think we're very
aligned in our thinking there Nate. Um
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Hey, I've got another question. I was
listening to an interview that you did
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on another podcast and you were talking
about how demand gen leaders don't
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spend enough time with messaging. And I
resonated with that so much. Um just
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because I've seen as, you know, as a
founder that is very passionate about
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marketing. I I sometimes maybe get a
little bit too romantic about the
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messaging and probably bottleneck some
of the things that campaigns and stuff
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that we're trying to run because I care
so deeply about it. But can you speak
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to either how this has played out at
oracle or maybe it's some other
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companies where you've led marketing,
How do you get demanding leaders to
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inject themselves more into messaging?
Pay attention more to messaging? Why is
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I I think our listeners honestly
understand why that's so important. But
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how do you how do you actually do that?
Yeah, I mean 111 exercise I've run
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before and I've run it. Um more than
one place is it's almost like a
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homework assignment around your
favorite movie or your favorite book.
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Everybody said, you know, I love this
show, I love Shits Creek, right? I love
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Shits Creek. What is it my work, Home
work is what is it about that that you
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love? And if you get people to write
down, like literally pause and say
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right here, they created a new
narrative for, you know, I forget their
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names now. But on the spot for David,
right, the narrative is shifted. He was
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here and now he shipped, we'll write
that down. Right, okay. Well, this one
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moment where David's soon to be fiance
is serenading him in their show floor.
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Why is that so touching? Why do you
find yourself fighting bacteria? What
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is it about it? It's the words of the
song. It's the setting is where he's
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standing. Well, what you realize is
that all of that is messaging. It's all
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storytelling in a narrative format that
people can identify with without you
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explaining it to them, right? You don't
have to explain who these characters
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are for you to know that that's
meaningful and that's an exercise. I've
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done what I tell the same with the book.
Like what makes a great book, great
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book. You know, what makes it great for
you may not make it great for me. Why?
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And what you find is that people get to
the point where what they're really
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saying is that message resonated with
me. And then you can start to tease out,
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well, what about what, Why, what was
that? And what did they say? How did
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they say it? When did they say it? And
so you start to back up to what is
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basically blocking and tackling
fundamentals of effective marketing,
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concise, clear language that people can
understand without you having to
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explain it to them, right? We're not
what is marketing ultimate value? It is
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scale its mass reach. You know, I I use
this not not a great metaphor, but in a
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military context. The marketing is the
Air Force, right? It's like out in
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front, way over the top, kind of
creating opportunities in space for
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everyone else to do their job and you
do that better if you get people to
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understand what you're saying without
explaining it to them. And that usually
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means very simple language. Very clear
language don't use don't use fancy
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words and fluffy words and things that
people don't really understand. Yeah. I
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I think touching on that point, there's
another note that I took when I was
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listening to your other interview. We
talked a lot about voice of the
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customer and how marketers need to
either. Like they need to understand
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the customer's voice better than what a
lot of them do. Um How do you go about
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doing that? Is it as simple as just
talking to sales on a more regular
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basis? Do marketers need to actually
direct directly speak to customers?
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Like how do how do you lead this with
marketers? Yeah. I mean I think there's
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nothing that substitutes for actually
talking to a human being that is the
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customer. But even more nuanced than
that. James don't just talk to
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customers. Customers are already biased.
Like you as a marketer, you're talking
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to someone who's already got the kool
Aid or they get the vision, talk to
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someone who doesn't know anything like
my neighbor is actually an orkin uh,
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guy like the organ truck, you know the
terminator, the bug bug exterminators.
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I have literally had so many
conversations with him about where I
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work what I do. And it's fascinating
how quickly he'll say, I don't know
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what that is and I'll be like, okay,
well I'll try to kind of say and I'm
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like, oh, you mean like, and that's
what people do, right? They say, oh,
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you mean like they do association so
that there's nothing that is better
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than that. And I would, I would say
even create goals around it for your
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team, especially product marketers, if
you're not actually talking to people
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who are your audience that you want to
convince to buy your product about how
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they describe the problem, How they
describe the ideal solution to that
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problem. How they describe where that
problem fits in their priority list. If
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you're not having those conversations,
you're not doing your job. And I think
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you got to find those opportunities,
whether it's your neighbor or at shows
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events, even user groups. Although I
encourage people not to just go get a
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bunch of customers to go to them
because there's bias get actual users
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with people that are doing the
profession of the thing. You're selling
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them, but aren't customers don't have
no awareness of you and you'd be
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surprised. I always found, sorry I'm
gonna tangent Now one of the funniest
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things I discovered in my career was
like research about customers. We
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talked to 1000 customers and they all
said this, Well, those may be the
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customers that we've had for years or
for months or for decades. But are they
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the customer we want next year or next
five years and maybe we're pivoting.
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Maybe we're changing. Maybe our future
customer is slightly different. And so
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if all you're doing is talking to
customers who are in the door, you're
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missing an opportunity to re imagine
what the next customer might need.
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That's different. This has been
incredible. I want to I want to close
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with a question that I like to ask, ask
a lot of our guests. What's something
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that B. Two B. Marketers should start
or stop doing? Uh That's a good one. Um
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Stop trying to take credit for
everything. Uh I think that we have
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grown up in a world where B2B.
Marketing, we need to show attribution
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and marketing generated pipe versus
sales generated pipe. And that's all
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important. I'm not suggesting it's not
if you're if you have entire teams of
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people that are doing nothing but
churning through data to try to create
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a vision of marketing contribution, you
got to move further upstream than that.
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You've got a different problem. The
problem is like your systems aren't
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working or your dashboard isn't right?
Or there's a there's a much further
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upstream issue than than that. Uh And
and honestly, if you're spending that
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much time energy focused on taking
credit, how much time and energy are
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you actually able to dedicate to the
experience of your customer through
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that journey? Like we said earlier,
even through post sale, you can't, it's
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the bucket has water that goes out of
it on both sides, Right? So I think
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that's one. You should definitely stop,
stop trying to create credit or take
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credit. Remember the partnership
comment we made and like line up around
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the objectives you have for the company
and your customers and rest usually
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takes care of itself. This has been
awesome. Thank you so much for your
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time today. If there's anybody
listening, I want to stay connected
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with you. What's the best way for them
to go about doing that?
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That's good. My email is Nate dot
skinner at oracle and on twitter, I'm
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at Rennes my last name in reverse, uh
rednecks and I think it's at six and I
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00:29:13.900 --> 00:29:18.960
just realized I didn't know that one by
my heart. Let's see. Yeah, at Lenox.
403
00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:23.200
And so it's my last name reverse with
my first initial awesome. Thank you so
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00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:25.900
much for your time today. This has been
incredible. Yeah. Thanks James. It's
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00:29:25.900 --> 00:29:27.360
great to be here, appreciate you having
me.
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00:29:30.440 --> 00:29:30.670
Yeah.
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00:29:31.840 --> 00:29:36.040
Is the decision maker for your product
or service of BB marketer. Are you
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00:29:36.040 --> 00:29:40.250
looking to reach those buyers through
the medium of podcasting? Considered
409
00:29:40.250 --> 00:29:45.460
becoming a co host of GDP growth. This
show is consistently ranked as a top
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00:29:45.460 --> 00:29:49.610
100 podcast in the marketing category
of apple podcasts, And the show gets
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00:29:49.610 --> 00:29:55.200
more than 130,000 downloads each month.
We've already done the work of building
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00:29:55.200 --> 00:29:59.230
the audience so you can focus on
delivering incredible content to our
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00:29:59.230 --> 00:30:03.670
listeners if you're interested, email
Logan at Sweet Fish Media dot com?
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00:30:07.340 --> 00:30:09.040
Yeah.