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Empowered Decisions: Julia Stead on the Right to Say No
65 Plays9 months ago
In this insightful episode, host Jane Serra speaks with Julia Stead, Chief Marketing Officer at 15Five and a founding member of Women in Revenue. Julia shares her journey in the revenue and marketing field, emphasizing the importance of empathy for the sales team and the alignment of sales and marketing goals. She discusses the challenges of leadership in remote work settings and the importance of maintaining work-life balance. Julia also reflects on the significance of community and networking for women in revenue-generating roles, offering valuable insights for listeners looking to navigate their careers in the technology sector.
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Transcript
Introduction to Resilient Revenue
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to Resilient Revenue, a women in revenue podcast series designed to magnify the voices, victories, and valuable insights of trailblazing women in revenue-generating roles. Each episode will showcase stories of resilience, mentorship, and self-advocacy. You'll learn exactly how these remarkable women are breaking barriers, redefining success, and showing us the transformative power of unity within the tech industry.
00:00:31
Speaker
So join us as we embark on this enlightening journey toward equality and empowerment in the world of resilient revenue.
00:00:42
Speaker
All right. Hi, everybody. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Women in Revenue podcast, Resilient Revenue.
Meet the Host and Guest
00:00:51
Speaker
I'm your host, Jane Serra, 15-year B2B marketer and member of the fundraising community, Women in Revenue. So helping out a little bit here as the host today. And most importantly, our guest for the day is Julia Stead, who is the chief marketing officer at 15.5 and a founding member of Women in Revenue. So great to have you here today, Julia.
00:01:12
Speaker
Thanks, Jane. Really, truly delighted to be here, actually. I have such a fondness in my heart for women in revenue, and I'm excited for this conversation. Amazing. I'm excited, too, to chat with you. And we were just talking a little bit. We have a lot to cover today, so we'll try to get through it all. But I love to start all of my conversations with just tell us how you got into the world of revenue and how you got to be CMO, a little about your path.
Julia Stead's Marketing Journey
00:01:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question. I'll try and condense my answer because it's been almost a 20-year journey at this point. I started off my career early on in marketing kind of fresh out of college, not really knowing exactly what I wanted to do, but knowing that I kind of was strong in communications, liked writing, that kind of stuff. And after spending four or five years, what I now recognize was a SaaS company at the time. I didn't kind of think of it that way, but a SaaS company in sort of various marketing and management type roles.
00:02:05
Speaker
I realized I really wanted to make a career in marketing and in leadership, and I actually made the decision to go back to school and do an MBA with a specialization in marketing because I felt I didn't have the formal skills or training to speak the language of business, I guess, which ended up serving me well as we're sort of talking about a career in revenue, because just sort of having the rigor and discipline to do a full-time program and learn some of the business chops that I was looking to learn, then really started my journey from there in the startup B2B SaaS world.
00:02:34
Speaker
with marketing leadership roles more formally. So joined a small startup. Actually, my first role there was sales director, three-person team getting the company off the ground. And then I really leaned into the sales side of things, then joined a company that's now known as Invoca. I'm just a marketing director and did a real scale-up journey there at Invoca, where I was a bit of a marketing generalist leader for a few years when we were small, and then really started focusing in the realm of demand gen and let up the demand gen function there.
00:03:02
Speaker
for a number of years, which got me working very closely with what I think of as the revenue side of the business, right? The sales organization, the CX side of the organization, and then continuing to evolve my career there and back into that general head of marketing role. And then after that, I joined a company called Allocadia as CMO. So my first CMO role there and was there for a couple of years. Doing the CMO thing,
Role of CMO and CRO
00:03:26
Speaker
right? Helping sort of scale up, go to market.
00:03:28
Speaker
strategy and operations and really again leaning into that partnership with sales and being very revenue focused in terms of how do we share company goals and achieve growth for both sales marketing and customer success retention and then after that ended up where i am now at fifteen five where i've been at fifteen five for about two and a half years now.
00:03:50
Speaker
Most of my tenure there has been as CMO, but I also did what I think it was a fun tour of duty as CRO as well this year, the first half of the year. So I was leading the entire marketing and sales organization.
00:04:03
Speaker
Amazing, and we'll talk more about that too because the CMO, CRO, kind of trying on both hats will be interesting to dive into. I'm also curious, you mentioned you were a sales director. How do you feel that impacted the trajectory of your career? My guess would be that it gives you instant respect from the sales team as you go into demand gen and leadership after that.
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's one way for sure. I think it gave me a lot of empathy for the sales organization of just understanding what it's like to I mean, this was a decade ago now a bit more about like literally have to show up in person to these meetings and pitch your product and meet with all the different
00:04:43
Speaker
sometimes scary stakeholders in the room, whether the CFO is in the room and all the different buyers in the committee and really understand the complexity of navigating the sales process and how important having a strong product is and really being confident in the product and how it's differentiated.
00:04:58
Speaker
So I learned a lot of empathy and I think it helped me to become a better marketing leader as well as understand a little bit better what the buying process is really like from the customer point of view by just being a little bit closer and sort of in the trenches with the customers as they were buying.
00:05:14
Speaker
And also I enjoyed it. I just personally found it fun, which I think has always helped spark closer partnerships between myself and my sales counterparts because I'm genuinely interested in the work they do. And I think it's fun and interesting. So I'm drawn towards a tighter partnership. I love that. And I know kind of coming back to the CRO tour that you had at your current company, I'm curious if you can tell us a little about the difference between CMO and CRO having held both titles and
00:05:44
Speaker
who it's really the right fit for, because we're seeing a lot, this could be skewed, right? But we're starting to see more and more CMOs go into, or marketing leaders go into CRO titles. This could be skewed LinkedIn phenomena, but I'm curious what you feel about that and who you think is right for that kind of transition.
00:06:02
Speaker
Yeah, I love how you frame that question of who you think is right for that transition. I think a lot of it depends on the interests and passions and career goals of the CMO, right? I've been fortunate to have a lot of great bosses over the years, CEOs, presidents, and so on who are always sort of helping me further my career and understand like, what do I want to do? Am I happy just being a CMO or do I want to expand or whatever? And so in this particular case,
00:06:30
Speaker
I definitely felt in being in the position of CMO at 15.5, I definitely felt hungry to continue to expand my contributions to the business and do what I could as a business leader to help us grow our revenue, make our customers successful and so on. And so when the opportunity arose, we had a little bit of an urgent need for someone to step in and fill the seat. So I wasn't sort of
00:06:50
Speaker
actively pursuing the role. It was more of a, oh, this opportunity has opened up. Julia, we think you might be a good fit for it. You've had some sales experience, not to the degree of scale that we are currently needing, but you work well with sales, sharp business leader. For those reasons, we think, do you want to give it a try and could we see if this could work? That was the mindset that I approached it.
00:07:12
Speaker
It's a very different role than a CMO. I think a few fundamental differences that stood out to me are marketing has a lot of different areas of specialization within it. I think about the team I have today and the different sub departments, whether it's product marketing or demand gen or content and corporate marketing, all those things. Within sales, you have a lot of the same role and you have to figure out how to replicate success at scale. That's kind of how I think about it. And that's just a different leadership motion. And so I think some of the
00:07:40
Speaker
these skills and passions that go into being a strong sales leader are really around developing people and the coaching and the training and figuring out what works, the playbooks and the methodologies. But a lot of it is around leadership, coaching, consistency, process, rigor, that kind of stuff, and then just multiplying it, right? Like copy paste across a whole team of people. And then of course you break it down by market segment or whatnot.
00:08:05
Speaker
So it's just something to think about, I think, and consider of like, is that the kind of leadership work that I find most engaging or is it some of the other pieces, for example, in marketing more of the like the cross-functional within marketing collaboration alignment, those kinds of things. So I enjoyed the work.
00:08:21
Speaker
a lot and it was really neat having one cross-functional revenue leadership team. So having the sales leaders and the marketing leaders and the sales development function and enablement and solutions consulting all kind of be one leadership team because it helped us to really collaborate closely together and be aligned on the exact same goals in a way that just doesn't happen as organically when you have two different teams and two executives leading the different teams. So that was a really neat positive part of the experience I found.
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's so fascinating and it makes sense that having one executive leader overseeing both teams just would magically unify. Even having somebody from marketing, right, come in and oversee both teams, it just feels like it would bridge a lot of gaps. Whereas oftentimes when it's
Sales and Marketing Dynamics
00:09:10
Speaker
a zero that comes up through sales, there can remain that disconnect. Hopefully, you know, they work together and there isn't one, but it's interesting.
00:09:19
Speaker
The other piece I would say that I learned, I mean, I found it fascinating and I loved being on the forecast calls and just the whole mechanics of sales leadership and understanding things like open pipeline that you've got. Each A.E., each rep is walking into a quarter with a certain amount of pipeline that they have to close over the course of the quarter and understanding the mechanics of that and the importance of tight forecasting week over week.
00:09:43
Speaker
And then the importance of the dependency on marketing to produce not just the right leads and pipeline, but understanding a little bit more nuance of what pipeline is open, what's being closed, what's cycling in and out throughout the quarter. I gained a lot more empathy as well in understanding for just the needs of AEs and how they live and die by their pipeline each quarter because so much of their compensation is tied to performance. Unlike marketing, where most of your compensation is your base salary, with sales, it's very different.
00:10:11
Speaker
your take home paycheck, how you look, how you care for your family or yourself really depends on your, what you can close each quarter. And so that's impacted a lot by pipeline. So again, just really helps to understand and how I gained a lot more empathy for that aspect of how important pipeline health and quality is.
00:10:29
Speaker
It sounds like regardless of you going back into the CMO role, it was mutually beneficial for the whole team that you did this period of time as CRO because it seems like it tightened the teams and gave you this extra empathy on top of what I'm sure you already had for the sales team.
00:10:48
Speaker
Do you think or is there anything outside of what we've already discussed that you brought back to your marketing team or anything you changed after some additional insight you gained while you were CRO?
00:11:00
Speaker
That's a great question. Yes, I gained a deeper understanding and appreciation for the specialization in acquiring customers. And what I mean by that is selling to a brand new customer is very different than expanding with an existing customer and creating demand for those two scenarios is quite different.
00:11:22
Speaker
And especially at 15.5, historically, we've been a largely inbound organization. And what I mean by that is just marketing, sourcing, and influencing the majority of pipeline and us doing a lot of new logo, like new customer business. And so diving deeper into sales and seeing a lot more new revenue opportunities by expanding into our existing customer base and then really breaking that down between our managed customers versus our customers that have more of a self-service experience.
00:11:50
Speaker
led me to understand that at a deeper level, because I already had some cursory experience with this, but that different teams need to have different levels of accountability in the revenue acquisition process. And so it makes sense for marketing to really be what I think it was like the quarterback for inbound pipeline generation and ensuring the quality of that pipeline and basically sort of like teeing it up for sales to close.
00:12:14
Speaker
But they shouldn't ultimately be the quarterback and potentially for expansion pipeline and revenue creation. And there's a need to create a little bit more clarity of swim lanes and responsibility. Everyone's still working together towards the total goals and supporting one another, but have a little bit more clear decimation on who exactly is accountable and in charge of these different channels you could think of them as, you know, to revenue acquisition.
00:12:37
Speaker
And so learning from that, going back to our team and especially this quarter, we've got a fantastic new CRO in place. We've done a lot of work to make it really clear of, okay, here are the five different ways that we're going to acquire new revenue this quarter. And each of those five ways has an owner and just getting really clear on that. So there's more accountability and still collaboration, but not just sort of like, well, you know, let's all just kind of work together to achieve this one big goal, but break it down a little bit more step by step.
00:13:04
Speaker
Yeah, it seems like you streamlined the collaboration more instead of having any kind of gray area. Well, there's always going to be a little gray area, right? But it's a little more clarified and clean.
00:13:17
Speaker
And you talked a lot about just what you've brought back to each team.
Human Connection in Leadership
00:13:21
Speaker
A lot of it comes back to leadership. So I'd love to dive into that, like just managing people and recognizing just it seems like you have natural, though I'm also sure very trained skill in identifying these opportunities and challenges and skill sets of the people on your team. So over the past few years,
00:13:42
Speaker
We've all been through a lot, ups and downs and just crazy times, right? I'm sure every generation feels that way about different things going on, but the past few years have been a doozy. How has leadership or your perspective of leadership changed with your teams over the past few years?
00:13:59
Speaker
This is a great question. I'm like, where do I begin? Because I think what we're talking about here is a combination of COVID and living and working through a pandemic and everyone, or most folks, shifting from working in an office and with humans around them to either a hybrid or remote setting, as well as just some of the cultural changes that have been happening and just the way we work. Yeah, it's a lot.
00:14:20
Speaker
The biggest thing that comes to mind is how humanity has come more to the forefront of how we work and how we as leaders need to interact with our teams. This really, I think, came about abruptly with COVID and just understanding what was going on with everyone behind the Zoom and what was every person on the team's individual struggles and how can I as a leader understand and support them.
00:14:44
Speaker
while still for being honest still driving the performance that we need because the world may feel like it's falling apart but we're still here to to run a business and accomplish our goals and so I would like to think that this was always part of my leadership style you know pre the past few years but I really
00:15:01
Speaker
I think it's important to emphasize just getting to know the people on your team for sort of their whole self, not just the aspects of them that pertain directly to their work. Understanding their skills and their strengths and their motivations, understanding what their sort of personal life surrounding them is, you know, their support infrastructure outside of work.
00:15:20
Speaker
their interests, their passions, and then really using that to help steer them in the right way at work and keep them energized and motivated and help them find that work-life balance so that they love the work they're doing, it's the right work for them, you know, right person in the right role at the right time.
00:15:38
Speaker
and you can kind of unlock their creativity and their motivation, even if you can't see them in person on a regular basis, and really just help them to succeed and kind of thrive at work by knowing at a deeper level as a human, I guess. It sounds a little cheesy and cliche, but it seems true.
00:15:54
Speaker
Necessary, yeah. I always struggle personally with this where there's always a million and one things to do, right? You always have to give things 120% and there's always way more things on your to-do list than you can take off. I'm curious, how do you find the time or carve out the time to really get to know everybody on your team and
00:16:17
Speaker
know these ins and outs about them and to unlock that creativity and not get distracted by the to-do list and this like ticking clock to the side. A neat practice that I learned at 15.5 actually, and I wish I'd learned earlier on, but it's basically when you hire someone within their first week or two, you spend at least like an hour, an hour and a half just getting to know them. We have our own kind of
00:16:40
Speaker
special terminology for it but it's basically it's not like an interview and it goes both ways but a series of questions around like what do you like to do outside of work what motivates you you know tell me a funny anecdote from your childhood you know what are signs that you're stressed at work that I should look out for that's just a handful of them and kind of no random order and so it helps to establish a foundation of trust and just
00:17:01
Speaker
like personal connection to one another. And I will frequently reflect back on that during like the highs and lows of business cycles, right? And sort of keep my eye out on like, hmm, are they sending me signals that they're stressed? Or are they sending me signals that like they're really happy and like super engaged right now?
00:17:18
Speaker
So I do that. I like that as a practice because it kind of sets things off on the right foot, I guess you can say. And then I do think some form of weekly one on ones is really important as well as a leader and not just jumping in the to do list, but always starting. Well, most of the time, always starting with five or 10 minutes of just that casual conversation of, you know, how are things really going or putting thought into like a specific question like, hey, you know, I know
00:17:44
Speaker
personally that this thing was going on a few weeks ago, like how are you feeling about that? And so yeah, it really is prioritizing the personal piece so that you can move faster maybe on some of the other pieces. Because once you have that trust and can kind of read the person a little bit better and understand what's going on, it makes it a little bit easier to identify when they're drowning or struggling. And when I need to have a bit more of a like, hey,
00:18:06
Speaker
I think you might need help. Let's go through your priority list or like, hey, this thing seems to be slowing down or you don't seem as engaged on this thing. Let's like hit the pause button and kind of have an honest conversation about it. I love that. So making sure you have time in all of your regular meetings to be human. But I love the kickoff where you're onboarding with an hour and a half ish of just getting to know each other. So even if it's virtual and you're not getting to meet the person, depending on remote capabilities,
00:18:36
Speaker
just having that time factored into the onboarding process virtually and kind of creating at a past company, we called this a user manual, kind of learning about each other and what, you know, little ticks and things that irk you. That's always good to know because you spend so much time with your coworkers too. So I love that. That's great.
00:18:55
Speaker
And I mean, I think it makes sense, right, that we have to intentionally prioritize this when we're working remotely, because in the past, it would have just naturally happened when you run into someone in like the office kitchen or when you're both leaving work at the same time at the end of the day and ride the elevator down together or something. We used to have those moments and we don't anymore because everything is just zoom, zoom, you know, or slack, whatever. And so, yeah, it's really about
00:19:17
Speaker
being intentional, and it may not feel like something you should prioritize, but it really is important, I think, to prioritize that human connection almost every time, or at least on a regular weekly basis with the folks you work with. Agreed. You also mentioned work-life balance, which I know we were talking on about a little bit before we turned the mics on.
Work-Life Balance Insights
00:19:38
Speaker
And aside from the past few years just being crazy for everybody, the past year or six months to a year have been
00:19:45
Speaker
up and down for you as well, if you don't mind talking us through basically your new revelation on what work-life balance means to you now.
00:19:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to talk about this. And I was thinking as I was sort of prepping for this conversation as well, one of the themes that had come up for me was like mentorship and role models throughout my career. And I've been really lucky to have both female and male bosses. I guess that's the technical term, yes, bosses that I didn't realize at the time, but we're modeling very healthy work-life balance for
00:20:20
Speaker
me in ways that have stuck with me. Like I think about my earliest boss who was the CEO of the company and had like a one year old or very, very young child that she would bring into the office and he would just work in his, he wouldn't work, sorry, she would work and he would just sit there in his bassinet and like, she just made it so normal to be a working mom. And I didn't realize at the time when I was in my early twenties, but that really stuck with me. Yeah. And then I think of another amazing boss that I've had that I think of as a mentor during my time in Invoca who
00:20:48
Speaker
made it very well known that he had young kids and he also had a partner, his wife, who had a career that was just as demanding as his. And he really modeled that how you can have two parents that are both going to go, go, go in their careers and still prioritize time for kids. And he would make it clear when he was going, you know, leaving early to do preschool pickup or whatever. And so that was really neat to see modeled as well. And so I share that because now that I'm in the position I'm in,
00:21:15
Speaker
I also try to model to my team what work-life balance can look like, at least for me in my situation. As a mom, I have two young boys, four and seven, and this year was really interesting because I was, as I mentioned, given this CRO opportunity. I was a little bit apprehensive about it and I said, well, I'm going to give it a try. How am I going to make this work?
00:21:36
Speaker
You're supposed to say yes when you're offered new opportunities, right? That's always been ingrained in me. You always say yes, you always, right? You always are supposed to push for that next step in your career. It doesn't matter if you want it or not, just you got to achieve the next thing. When opportunity knocks, open the door, right?
00:21:51
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. And so this year, my biggest learning was about about a month and a half into the new role, I was doing some self-reflection and I was going through some really heavy stuff personally. And I just realized I don't want to be taking on so much more at this point. Like I will do it and I will absolutely do it to the best of my ability. I'm not going to drop the ball or let anyone down, but like long-term, this is not going to make me happy right now.
00:22:13
Speaker
And I had a couple of very hard conversations for me, hard to admit that to myself and to admit it to my boss and to our head of people and culture of like, I don't think I want to do this and I'm scared that I'm not allowed to say that out loud. And then what was going on in the background over the first six months of the year, my husband and I separated. We are actually very happily reunited. So it ended up being a nice story, but I was going through a marital separation. You know, one of my children is neurodivergent and I was going through diagnoses of that and trying to figure that out. So, you know, kind of single parenting in a very challenging situation taking on this big new role.
00:22:43
Speaker
And for me, the balance just wasn't there. And I had to kind of take a step back and realize I'm not happy. I kind of want my old job back. And the biggest learning for me was giving myself permission for that to be okay and to not feel like I have to say yes and take on all the things because someone thinks I'm capable of it or because the opportunity is being presented to me.
00:23:06
Speaker
realizing at this point in my career, who knows a year from now, maybe I'll be hungry again for something new and different and want to tackle a CRO role or something different. But at this point in my career, I'm really happy with the CMO role and the challenges within that role and the team I'm continuing to build and mentor. And then I've also got all this heavy personal stuff going on. And so it's okay for me to just be where I am and not have to push for more.
00:23:31
Speaker
So yeah, I wanted to share that because it ties back to work-life balance. And often, I think especially as maybe women or working moms, we feel like we just have to say yes and take on all the things. And sometimes it's okay to just be like, nope, this is too much. And I'm just going to say no and put up some boundaries and step back a little bit. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing. I wrote down a few different things to touch on after this.
00:23:56
Speaker
I love that you took the time to listen to yourself when you seemingly had zero time at all to do so. It's good that you prioritize that or like heard this somehow inside yourself that something was off balance and you needed to regain control and you found the steps that needed to take that back for yourself. So, kudos.
00:24:17
Speaker
And thank you for sharing because it gives us that reminder and realization that we need to take the time to do that as well. It's so hard, especially you mentioned like being a mom, especially though for non moms too, it's also very difficult.
00:24:34
Speaker
you're taking on so much and you kind of become like a yes person. You're right. You just learn to keep taking it and taking and taking on more and more. I mean, hopefully not to the point where you break and you can have this conversation with yourself beforehand. But I love that you did that self reflection and found this out in your path.
00:24:53
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, I hope it's like a universal thing because whether you're a caregiver to children or a caregiver to a partner or a parent or more have other, you know, have health issues yourself, there's so many different ways that it can show up for us as women and just learning to trust your gut. You know, it's like cliche advice, but the older I get, the more I come back to it. If something feels like too much and overwhelming
00:25:20
Speaker
or it's just not making you happy. Like you should kind of pull up that thread and let yourself explore that feeling a little bit more rather than just moving on with what you think you're supposed to do, whatever that ladder is or that path that you think you're supposed to be following. Yes. And two big questions. I have still money. I think I can talk to you all day. Do you feel like it's still great that you said yes to this opportunity because you experienced
00:25:46
Speaker
so much from it. And then you found like now you know that that wasn't the path for you right now and you're back to where you want to be. But if you said no, would you be questioning if you should have tried that?
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I love that question. And my answer is 100%. I'm glad I did it. I'm a very honest person. So one, it felt good for my ego. I'm not going to lie about that. I was like, okay, I tried it out and I got offered the opportunity. And with my colleagues, we pulled off some great stuff with what we had to work with, you know, with my peers. So I'm proud of what I did. And I did learn a ton, which was really interesting. And yes, it was really helpful for me to now
00:26:25
Speaker
realize a little bit more what I do like and what I don't like. And do I want to be a CRO, you know, someday in the future? I'm not sure. I love the operational aspect of it. So I'm like, maybe more of like a COO pivot down the road might be more up my alley. But yeah, it's it's always.
00:26:44
Speaker
personally, I at least find it really interesting to try something new to validate that it's not for you. So yeah, I'm still fully glad I did it and encourage people to, if you're not sure, try it, but then just be okay saying, oh, I tried it and it's not for me. Yes. It's not a failure, it's a learning so that it's moving you forward in your journey. And we're putting that out there, the COO vibes for the future. I love that.
00:27:09
Speaker
Another question, I'm a little nervous to ask this in general, because I feel like the way I've been hearing about CMO and CRO lately in the news of LinkedIn feed is that CRO is a step up from CMO. And I've always seen them as counterparts, not as one being above the other. So I'm curious your thoughts on that. Is it just that I need to learn my own negativity?
00:27:36
Speaker
it really is above CMO? Or do you feel like that's something I'm just misunderstanding from feeds? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, titles are, I think, always the context of the title and the company, I think, is always new. And there's a lot of hype in general on LinkedIn right now. But how I think about it is most businesses need an executive level head of sales and an executive level head of marketing.
00:28:03
Speaker
because the two functions, although they need to complement each other and work really closely together, have their own strategies and leadership needs. I would say the same thing for the customer, whether you call it customer success or customer experience, that trifecta needs executive-level representation, where I think
00:28:22
Speaker
the CRO role. And this is where titles like, our CRO is amazing. He leads sales. He does not lead marketing and he does not lead customer experience. He's responsible for all of our new revenue acquisition, but there isn't a hierarchy there. So I guess if I were answering your question directly, no, we're peers. We're very much peers. But where I think a true CRO role
00:28:43
Speaker
would warrant marketing reporting into it or being a step above is where they own the entire revenue journey for the customer, right? Like let's orient more around the customer experience versus our own personal fiefdoms. And if you think about someone that owns revenue acquisition and revenue retention, then it would make sense that both sales and customer experience report up into that type of role and then sure, marketing can get thrown into the party.
00:29:09
Speaker
But that is not a role, like a true CRO role that I've seen at a lot of companies, at least not at this stage. We're like a series C kind of scale up stage of business. Yeah, interesting. I wonder if what I'm seeing is CMOs becoming CROs and overseeing both. So it kind of replacing the CMO of sorts, in which case it becomes a bump up because your responsibilities are doubled. Right. That is true. And I mean, I think if you had a CRO with
00:29:37
Speaker
some sort of very senior, you know, VP, SVP of sales and VP, SVP of marketing. That could work. It still does feel to me though, like that customer retention piece is just as critical as the marketing piece in a CRO role. So I kind of question that a little bit. Yeah. So interesting. Titles, I feel like can be an entire, I mean, I'm sure titles are many, many a book. Yes, yes.
00:30:04
Speaker
Another thing we touched on, so you were one of the founding members of Women in Revenue.
Founding Women in Revenue
00:30:09
Speaker
So A, thank you, the great organization to be a part of. And B, I'm curious, your thoughts, you touched a little bit on mentorship throughout your career and how that's been pivotal for your growth. How do you see, why were you part of this committee and group to start Women in Revenue and how do you see it evolving and just your thoughts on community, I guess, in general?
00:30:32
Speaker
It's so important. So this is probably five years ago now, I guess, and I wasn't like a VP out of marketing yet. I was leading demand gen at Involca and I was just so hungry to learn and get better at my job and be a better marketing leader in general. And what I did at the time is I called outreach to Sherry Johnson, who is the like
00:30:55
Speaker
the godmother of women in revenue and I think it was her idea and she kind of you know brought the founding members together because she was speaking at some conference and I looked at her profile and background and I said wow this is a woman I can learn a lot from I want to meet her for coffee because I'm going to this event as well and I think she's speaking at it so
00:31:10
Speaker
She's amazing, and she said yes. And so she met me for coffee, and I picked her brain on a very specific topic. I forget what the topic was, something demand gen related. And I just realized I'm hungry to learn from more people like Sherry. And I was also at the point where I was still very often the only woman in the room when it came to leadership meetings. And I think a year later, I ended up being the VP of marketing, so I would go to board meetings. And again, I was the only woman in the room. And so what Sherry was cultivating, and with all the founding members of Women in Revenue,
00:31:39
Speaker
really felt like this safe space for me to learn from. Emphasis on learning because I just felt I had so much that I didn't know and I wanted to just be able to bounce ideas off of folks who had been there, done that, had experience and just didn't mind sharing, you know, where it didn't feel like an imposition. And so I think that's the sign of a good community where it feels like your people and a space where you can learn and contribute and share back and also just feel welcome.
00:32:05
Speaker
Because the founding members, and I was on the board for a little while, like, they're just all such amazing people. And at various points over the past five years, I've reached out to them for career advice. And so women in revenue has had a really big impact on my career and my career growth.
00:32:20
Speaker
And where it goes from here, I hope it continues to flourish and really just be that space where women in revenue facing roles can learn from one another, get new ideas, ask for advice, and then contribute back as well. And feel like they have, I mean, it's crazy now, thousands of other women basically who have their back is how I would describe it.
00:32:39
Speaker
I love that and the community is so great. It definitely feels like a safe space. The Slack group itself is just so welcoming and helpful. I wonder when you talk about reaching out to Sherry on LinkedIn, kind of blindly or cold, you reach out.
00:32:55
Speaker
Or how do you recommend that others do the same? Because there can be a block, right? If you're reaching out to people who you either want to be a mentor or you're marketing heroes or just other people or women that you look up to, how do you take that first step just to reach out cold and hope to connect with them and chat with them and get them to let you pick their brain a bit?
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah. So one thing that comes to mind is be specific with what you want. Women reach out to me and there can be two types of outreach, right? Of sort of general like, hey, I'd love for you to be a mentor. Are you interested? Or hey,
00:33:36
Speaker
I'm looking for advice on this one specific thing. What do you think? And it's a lot for me, and I guess so this is what I'm recommending. It's a lot easier to create space for someone or time for someone to say, sure, I'm happy to hop on a call if there's like a clear agenda or it's clear in your mind of like, oh, this person could use my help on this thing. Yeah, I can help them with that versus sort of the vague like,
00:33:54
Speaker
Hey, do you want to like, do you want to hang out and chat? So like, I guess so, but I get to the punchline like what? And I think that's the best way to like start the relationship or the conversation. And I think that's how I did it with Sherry. Like I had a specific ask. It wasn't just like, Hey, I'm a big fan. Okay. That would be a little excessive. But like, Hey, you know, I think you're right. Um, I want to learn from you, but more like, Hey, could you help? Like I'd love to pick your brain on this one specific topic.
00:34:16
Speaker
So that would, I think, be one piece of advice. Just be as genuine and succinct and specific as possible about it. And then I think the other is don't be afraid of rejection, because I'm sure I've done cold outreach to a number of people in my career, and maybe like 10% of them have replied.
00:34:34
Speaker
And that's okay. And I just, you know, kind of learn to not take it personally and just keep trying. And eventually you'll find someone who will say yes. It's kind of like dating, you know? Yeah. It also makes me think your sales background comes into play. Like, you have to get used to and get a thick skin, right, of putting yourself out there and X percent are going to respond and that's fine. That's all you need.
00:34:58
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And I think just like letting yourself be okay with that, you know, like psyching yourself up of like, hey, I'm going to get nine people to not not respond to me and that's okay. And I'm not going to like let that get me down because that's what I'm expecting. I'm only expecting one person to reply. And then if the one person replies, you're like, yes, that's what I was expecting. Or if two, you're like, well, that's better than I thought. So
00:35:18
Speaker
setting the right expectations for yourself, I guess, versus getting nervous and doing outreach to one person and then that one person doesn't reply and then feeling like, oh, gosh, you know, like, I'm bad at this or this didn't work. I can't make it work. So true. I know some people say, give before you take, right? Give, give, give, and then take or ask. This is where I guess a personal struggle of mine, if I ever want to reach out to somebody who I'm just who I look up to, right? And I'm a little nervous approaching,
00:35:48
Speaker
I always wonder, like, I can't give anything to this person. This person has everything. So all I have is an ask right now. Should I ask that ask? Or how do you think about that give, give, give, ask kind of setup that people propose?
00:36:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's something there with experience and balance and power and balance. Power is probably the wrong word here, but I think it's okay to ask. If you are reaching out to someone that has the more experience and that he would like something from, not in a sales capacity, then it's okay to ask. We're not talking about pitch slapping.
00:36:22
Speaker
Exactly. I think it's okay to ask because hopefully those folks get joy out of giving back, right? Because hopefully they were in that same position at some point earlier in their career and they recognize that and someone said yes to them. So it's sort of like the whole, you know, like pay it back philosophy. So I think it's okay to ask without anything to give and then just give it back when you can, you know, and maybe down the road that person will develop a relationship and they'll be hiring and want an intro to someone that you know or
00:36:50
Speaker
later on in your career, you'll give it back. So, yeah, I think it's OK to ask. And I hope this is where I'm going to get cheesecake, but I hope that there's enough like kindness and goodness out there that people want to say yes and give back.
00:37:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's true. You never know who can recommend you for boards in the future or get you a foot in the door or something. So that's true. Again, I feel like I could talk your ear off or ask you to talk my ear off all day. But I'm curious as a sign off, because I know where we're coming to time, what's your one key tip for fellow women in revenue? Be sales, yes, marketing. If you have one tip that you've learned in the past year or your whole career, what would it be?
00:37:34
Speaker
So, sorry, it's hard to sign off on this quickly. So what comes to mind for me, especially since we're talking about women in revenue, is the power of community and network, right? But I also know it can be hard. It's a question I've heard a few times of like, well, how do I create a network? And that's great. You're almost 20 years into your career, you've built that network, and it's so valuable for me now. And so I think the tip is,
00:37:54
Speaker
form as many peer friendships and relationships as you can. Like wherever you have the opportunities, make those connections and sort of like nurture them because they really do pay off in the long run. And whether it's I think the easiest is usually people at your company, you know, that then move on and you stay in touch, fellow colleagues, but also tapping into opportunities like the Women in Revenue Network, going to in-person events when the opportunity arises and make a goal to meet one or two people that you'll stay in touch with.
00:38:23
Speaker
the more of that kind of support you can surround yourself with, I think the easier your career path will be. Love that. So true. Thank you so much for all of your wisdom and advice today. We appreciate it so much. Thank you. Oh, well, thank you for giving me the opportunity to chat and share. Yeah, I love the giving back. There you go.
00:38:44
Speaker
See? Putting it all out there. Thank you. And everybody, thank you for listening. If you like the show, like, share with a friend, review. It helps the show grow and it helps women in revenue grow. Again, we're a nonprofit. If anybody would like to sponsor and help fundraise, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. And Julia Ware is the best place for people to connect with you if they want to get that coffee. LinkedIn is a great spot to connect with me. So yeah, hit me up that way. Perfect. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day.
00:39:13
Speaker
And that wraps up another episode of Resilient Revenue. These narratives are more than just personal triumphs. They embody the collective journey that we undertake as we strive for a future where every woman, no matter her career stage, location, industry, or demographic profile, has the opportunity to excel in her chosen field.
00:39:33
Speaker
Women in revenue exists because we know amazing things can happen when driven, talented, bottom line oriented women are fired up and collaborating to grow their careers and organizations. We invite you to join our amazing community of 7,000 plus members. If you'd like to become a member for free, head on over to womeninrevenue.org to join today. See you next time on Resilient Revenue.