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Build Community and Leverage Data: Insights from Sarah Sehgal
100 Plays1 year ago
Episode Summary:
In today’s episode, Hana Jacover connects with Sarah Sehgal, the Director of Demand Generation for FullStory. Sarah shares her journey, from selling Yellow Pages ads to mastering digital marketing in the B2B Saas space.
She emphasizes the importance of data-driven decision-making, the evolving trends in the revenue landscape, and the power of community in shaping modern marketing strategies.
Key Topics Discussed:
- Sarah’s Marketing Journey: We learn about Sarah’s transition from selling ads for the Yellow Pages, to her thriving journey into digital marketing. We also touch on her understanding and empathy for sales.
- Evolving Revenue Trends: We talk about her shift in focus from growth to improving customer experience and retention, as well as the importance of maximizing tool efficiency to ensure ROI.
- Data’s Role in Storytelling: We explore the connection between data and storytelling, and how data plays a vital role in informing go-to-market strategies and gaining insights on how to better understand customers.
- The Power of Community: We dive into the value of communities like Women in Revenue and how they offer a platform for marketers to share, learn, and grow together.
Resources Mentioned:
Be a part of Women in Revenue and gain insights, share experiences, and stay updated with the latest trends in revenue generation.
Question to consider: Are your marketing strategies data-driven?
This podcast is brought to you by Women in Renuve. If you’re a resilient woman in a revenue role and crave connection, join our community!
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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.
Interview with Sarah Segal
00:00:42
Speaker
Hi, and welcome back to the Women in Revenue podcast. I am your host today, Hana Jakover. I am a Women in Revenue board member, and I also help head up the Speakers Bureau. I'm super excited as we have a Women in Revenue member here with us today, somebody who's been involved with the programs for a really long time. We've also had the chance to be connected and work together, and I'm really excited to introduce Sarah Segal,
00:01:09
Speaker
So Sarah is the director of demand generation for full story and I'm going to pass it over to Sarah to give a little bit of an introduction to herself as well as give us a little insight into her journey into her role.
Transition from Sales to Marketing
00:01:24
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Thank you again for having me. I'm excited to be able to just chat today, honestly, and catch up women and revenue has continued to be just a spur of connections and really strong bonds. And I'm glad it connected to us together. So I'd like a thanksgiving for having me to director dimension full story and
00:01:44
Speaker
Just for a little bit of background, I've been in marketing and sales for a little over a decade. I started out with sales, was actually selling digital marketing to SMBs and commercial companies, as well as believe it or not, yellow page ads. So that's my kind of rock to say, I get sales. I have a lot of empathy for sales because I was selling a pretty hard product to get out there in the late 2000s.
00:02:11
Speaker
But yeah, so I've been in sales and marketing for a while. I shifted over really to marketing from some of my first roles where I was doing sales, but was selling that type of marketing product and thought, Hey, like, I really like the, what I'm selling and being able to talk to clients about it. I think I want to do this more and move over into marketing. And yeah, I've been here ever since for the past seven years, really in more demand gen digital marketing roles.
00:02:37
Speaker
And my current role with Full Story have been here for a little over two and a half years and actually started in ABM. So as an ABM manager for about the first eight or nine months, and then moved to fully supporting demand gen, which here is a big piece of marketing operations, performance marketing, and making sure all of those things are working together globally. So I have a pretty awesome team, great company, great product, and yeah, all around exciting times.
00:03:04
Speaker
I love the little unknown fact around the Yellow Pages. Do the Yellow Pages still even exist? I don't know. I don't know, but I have the last Yellow Pages book that I sold ads into still as memorabilia for myself. I have that tucked away with all my son's memorabilia, so I still have that just to remember and humble myself of where I started out at.
00:03:29
Speaker
That's amazing. Oh my gosh, you need to like put it in a shadow box or like do something cool. I love it. Yeah, I know. My son's like, what is that again? I'm like, don't worry, it's before your time. Yes, you won't probably ever need to know. Well, speaking of trends, some trends as the Yellow Pages have been out for a long time. Well, I guess not that long. Maybe I'm just being, maybe I just never used them.
Key Trends in Marketing
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah, never think about them. Speaking of current trends, what do you see in your role as some of the key trends or shifts in the revenue generating landscape?
00:04:11
Speaker
Honestly, I think there's a laundry list that I could go off of, but if I were to think of the key ones that we're actually trying to action and think about right now, there's two big ones. The one, and I've seen a lot of buzz about this, is how are you marketing and emphasizing marketing and improving your customer experience?
00:04:32
Speaker
I think at least in my experience for the past five years in VB SAS, this heavy focus in growth, that how are we getting more and how are we just growing at all costs, building out. And since really the last 12 months, but especially these last six months in our work, it's been a big shift to say like, Hey, how are we really thinking about our current customers and improving that experience and driving retention and driving
00:04:59
Speaker
expansion, but really a big piece of retention, right? We all know right now, especially in the SaaS space, that budgets are cut, expectations are not cut, and a lot of teams are really being scrutinized for their spend and ROI. So being able to just create that, make it easier for sales to sell by doing the right type of marketing for customers, that's been a really big one. And how we're thinking about using data for that,
00:05:24
Speaker
Power build it like shifting programs that have traditionally always been more demand gen specific to always adding in that customer Marketing layer as well the other piece I'd say is at least for again like on our side of what we're seeing is how are we using our tools like how are we really showing efficiency with the spin that we're we've been given by finance right like there I think a lot of marketing teams and
00:05:48
Speaker
have over the last couple of years kind of got used to being provided with all the tools that they want and the spin that they need. And hey, we have all like this arsenal and not as much of a focus on what's your ROI, what's your efficiency, like are you truly maximizing these integrations and making this data work together in a way that's valuable for sales, in a way that's valuable for marketing and the business. And that's something we've seen a big shift into because that accountability has heightened
00:06:18
Speaker
for our marketing spin and how we're contributing to the business. We've always been revenue and pipeline focused, but not just spend wise from an ad standpoint, but what's the spin we're putting into our tech as well and is that driving ROI. So I've just seen that a lot of buzz more around how we drive the efficiency, how our companies and especially marketing and demand gen teams
00:06:41
Speaker
looking to show the business, hey, these investments that we're making are valuable and they're driving the business. Answering the hard questions when they're not and being able to honestly say, actually, no, this is a nice to have. We need to shift and put our money elsewhere where we know we're driving impact.
00:06:58
Speaker
Both of those are super important. In terms of skills and strengths-wise for both you individually and your team, what are you
Data-Driven Decisions and Community Building
00:07:08
Speaker
looking at? How have you adapted to stay ahead of the evolving market and making sure that you are in a position where you can tackle both of those things successfully?
00:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, I'll say I see it kind of in like an internal and external way. Like internally, I've been trying to work with our team and pushing myself and my team to really push to not say yes. Right. I think that with so many things shifting with such a heavier focus, like when we know we're in a more of a downturn, right? Like B2B SaaS is more of a downturn. Our markets are in a downturn.
00:07:44
Speaker
And truly we kind of been used to saying like, yes, we can support this and let's try to do these new things. Really understanding what are getting close to the data and using that as a way to say no to even senior leadership and senior roles has been a big push that I'm trying to help. I push myself and push my team to do more. And we've seen, even though it may create some attention at first, being able to have that data as the driver behind it has helped out a lot, right? Of understanding why we're saying no or why we think we should go with
00:08:13
Speaker
plan A versus plan B. That's a big just skill internally of even confidence, right? Being able to confidently say no, which is really hard for especially more junior or mid-career people who are in marketing working with sales leaders and working with your RevOps partners or your business partners. I think there's a lot of pressure there. So being able to create that space and create
00:08:35
Speaker
Just an appreciation for making data and it sounds a little cliche, but truly like data that decision and that means being able to be close to the data. So I think that's not necessarily something that's net new, but we've been driving more into because it's helping us make smarter decisions with where we're investing time and we're investing money.
00:08:56
Speaker
externally, communities has been a big shift for myself and I've continued to push to my team. So shout out obviously women in revenue. That's a big one. But over the last 12 months or so, I've got myself in different communities like Microsoft's marketing ops professionals in metadata demand community. And there's, I know there's more out there I can name off, but there's so much that I've learned.
00:09:20
Speaker
And seen and I've screenshot it or copied over and put over to my team or share it out to say like, Hey, look at this. Look how these other teams are doing this. I just think communities have really blown up in this last year in a good way where people who are real practitioners.
00:09:36
Speaker
and real leaders are getting in there and sharing things that I think just before have always kind of been behind a wall or there's never been that space to share it in a way to to action and just have it for the masses so that's been a bit of a shift like I've made myself and have pushed the team to like just get involved in communities even not with an expectation of post every week or anything like that but just start getting involved and reading and
00:10:00
Speaker
liking and using what you're seeing. And I think it has, at least for me personally, it's made me think more long-term of like, hey, what are some of the changes that we're making? And what are other teams doing when we're thinking about these changes? How are other teams facing XYZ problem? So that's been, it's kind of a hack rather than just using AI, which I know everyone talks about right now, but I think there's a lot of information just within the people that we know and the communities that we know, rather than having to go straight to the bots first.
00:10:31
Speaker
I totally agree. I think that the community aspect is so critical right now. And I think to just thinking about the shift from, I think a lot of folks were nervous to start talking about what they know in front of their peers versus in front of their customers or the personas, their leads, their prospects.
The Evolution of Marketing Communities
00:10:55
Speaker
It feels a little bit more daunting to do it in front of your peers where you are sharing your knowledge and they might be doing something a different way. But I think that once you get over that initial fear and you start connecting within those communities, it can be so valuable both for you as an individual, but also within your role and for your team, for your organization.
00:11:19
Speaker
Absolutely. I'll speak for myself when you, when I first came into some of these communities that are especially more tactical, right? And have some of these very specific and tactical groups of Slack channels in there. It can be like, I think as marketers, oftentimes we have innate sense of competition, right? Like we have this innate sense of like, Oh, I'm doing the best. I know that I'm doing like the top notch and whatever I have out here that we're putting through or this revenue.
00:11:47
Speaker
driving campaign. I don't want anyone else to know what that is because I know it's the top of the top. But in these communities, one thing that's been really fascinating for me is where there shouldn't be and there isn't competition. It is such a learning environment. Even when you're in there with marketers from traditional competitors of your business, it's a way to really be able to see what's going on in the market.
00:12:11
Speaker
How can I get true feedback on anything that I'm working on, any type of program or initiative, or even just a general question of how do I navigate this workplace relationship or this situation? Because oftentimes just in our own little bubble, we don't have that, right? Like we may have a mentor, which is great. And we may have.
00:12:30
Speaker
a worth BFF, which is great, but having a much larger community set who has experienced that at all levels just makes it so much easier to do marketing, honestly, like to do it in a way that you don't feel like you're doing it alone.
00:12:45
Speaker
In my opinion, B2B marketing has blown up so much in the last decade, but it can still feel lonely when you're really getting down into the nitty gritty and these communities that genuinely have created a sense of community. There's people I've talked to and met up with in person that I met through communities and it's changed the way I think we do marketing overall.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And I also think it allows you to have the confidence that you can share what you're doing. You can share your approach, but you can also have the knowing that like nobody is going to be able to do it like you do it. Nobody brings the same thing to the table like you do, because we are all going to be bringing our own unique perspectives. And then when you build out a team that has like their own special sauce, like you can't replicate that. You can share all you want.
00:13:35
Speaker
You really can't replicate that one to one.
00:13:38
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. I just wanted to go back quickly to the first point you made around using data because I think it's so critical. I feel like the connection between storytelling and data is really clear nowadays, whereas before it was like you hear the term storytelling and you literally think like almost like there's I think there's like a maturity level around storytelling. And I think that for a long time marketers heard storytelling.
00:14:06
Speaker
and didn't quite understand how to connect that to the data and actually uplevel the storytelling, increase that maturity level of storytelling. You're not just saying, explaining, here's what's happening. It's leveraging the data
00:14:23
Speaker
and using that to be able to justify the decisions that you're making, like it is that critical piece of the story. And it then allows the story to unfold, gives you all of these opportunities to demonstrate the ROI or push back on things or say no, like you're talking about. And I think that connection over the years, I feel like just with the availability of data and the tools and technology and maybe the comfort level around
00:14:51
Speaker
what storytelling actually is, I feel like has really been beneficial. Yeah, I think so. I work for Full Story, which in its name is about, hey, how do you tell the full story about your customers, about your experience that you're providing, whether that's your website or your mobile app, product, anything like that. And the idea of storytelling has shifted a lot in my mind because as a marketer, I've traditionally thought of storytelling from
00:15:18
Speaker
like a content perspective, right? Of an experience of like, hey, what's this story that you're telling people that you want to do X, right? You want people to book a demo. You want people to ultimately become a customer. What's the story that you tell them? My mind is shifting, apparently, to think of, okay, how do you think of storytelling from a way to inform even your own market strategy?
00:15:40
Speaker
How do you put your data together? All these different pieces, which is difficult and becoming even more difficult with the more data that we have. We think intent, website, what's in your center and what's in your like on your social platforms. Like all this data is just it's almost like data paralysis. And I think the truth.
00:16:00
Speaker
And the marketers that are moving ahead are trying to figure out how do you think of data to tell a story to your team and to tell a story to your leadership and to tell a story to what you're doing. That's been like a shift that I thought we need to definitely be telling stories to our customers. But the only way we can really do that accurately if we know our customers.
00:16:21
Speaker
We have the data to know them. It's like, so how are we using that to inform us? It's like a very weird like matrix type circle of like using the data to tell them a story, but us being able to get that story as well. So with using full story itself to understand like, what are people doing on our website more?
00:16:37
Speaker
What are people doing in the product? Like what engagements potentially are consumers making that identify them as high value users or potentially identified churn, right? I think there's just ways that like we're still talking into how do you really not just tell the story then, but then action on it, right? How do you change the story and like, how do you understand like what areas of the story can you pull a lever to change?
00:17:02
Speaker
I think you make a great point too, particularly for those looking to progress in their revenue generating roles. You said, how do you tell a story to your team? But then how do you tell a story to your leadership? And then how do you tell your story to your board even, you know, as you get
00:17:22
Speaker
upwards or as you move upwards and progress in your career, your storytelling has to evolve to where you can focus on different audiences.
Connecting Data with Storytelling
00:17:30
Speaker
I just saw on LinkedIn, I think I was upstairs scrolling, like Kaylee Edmondson had posted about how she was like cussed off of the virtual stage the first time she gave a board report or like her QPR.
00:17:45
Speaker
And she was promoting a webinar that they're doing to help other people learn about, hey, here's a better structure. So you don't have to go through that experience. And I think it's so important that we're teaching folks that aren't already at that level. They're a little bit more junior in their roles on how to tell that story. So they're not experiencing what poor Kaylee had to in that boardroom. They know how to tell the story for that audience.
00:18:14
Speaker
when they get there, not sitting there being like, oh shit, I've only told the story to the customer or to the team or to my boss, not the board. Cause that's a very different story that you're going to be telling. Yeah. What you're saying there is a perfect point and I'd love to give it to you, an example. So like before I do that, your emphasis on audience, I think is the big thing, right? So I go back to my sales days, like I was selling the same product usually, but the way I would sell it to a construction company
00:18:43
Speaker
versus a dentist versus a big like a multi regional law firm was completely different. And that's something that I personally believe has helped me with my career. And how do I think of like positioning? Like I think of like, hey, how are you positioning what you're sharing?
00:18:59
Speaker
But an example of this is we work a lot with cells. Both sides of my team work pretty significantly with cells, especially on the opposite side of how we're trying to. In the past couple of months, we rolled out a new lead routing system and we're rolling out new ways of attribution and the new chat tool. All these different things that require a really close connection with cells.
00:19:21
Speaker
But they also have required us to get approval from finance and have required us to be able to share with our leadership, what we call our LPC, our leadership of, hey, this is what's working, but we're moving forward. And I've worked with my team to think about who is your audience, right? We may have, when we're sharing this, an internal marketing team.
00:19:42
Speaker
for example of rolling out a new chapter it's like hey this is cool we're rolling out this new tool here's where it's gonna look on the website here's how cells is gonna use it these are some of the KPIs we're thinking of and it's rolled out to that team because that's how our marketing team is going to understand
00:20:00
Speaker
Okay, great. That's how it works. We're excited. But I share one thing. You can't use the same presentation for sales. It's completely different. It's the same tool. It's the same message, but you can't use this. We have to completely redo this for sales. And that can seem on the back end like, hey, gosh, a whole lot of work. I think that mental muscle that starts being built as like, oh, like how do you start thinking before you even build something for one audience? Who are all the audiences that you have to attack and what can be the same across all?
00:20:28
Speaker
Right, because maybe slide one or two or point one or two also makes sense for cells. But we had to shift to say, okay, for cells, this is how you're going to use it. This is why this is important because it's speed delete now for you. This is going to take away this pain point and this pain point from your team.
00:20:44
Speaker
versus also when we went to the lpc our leadership board say this is the investment that we've made this is what we're expecting out of it here's an example i like that was also like to see the stuff right if we were realistic like the boards and stuff they like to see like what's happening but it's much higher up like all of those little minutia the details none of that's there.
00:21:04
Speaker
So it's just a, I think it is a big shift for teens and to your point, like as you're growing and it's leaders roles to experience that and to be able to help their team learn what those are and set the example for it. Like I pushed myself and I was like, I'm going to be telling my team to do this.
00:21:21
Speaker
I need to be giving them examples and showing behind the scenes. This is my thought process. I just help knowledge share rather than I think oftentimes and I've been guilty of this myself of when a team member or when I see something that's like, oh, this is what should change. I go in and change because it's easier versus helping to coach to say, OK, why would you present it like this? Have you thought about this angle and helping them to learn that themselves?
00:21:44
Speaker
Mm hmm. Oh, my gosh, that can be such a such a hard habit to break as a manager and a leader is to enable your team and have them move up towards autonomy. But oh, that one's hard. I remember being like, no, like stop, like stop what you're doing just to myself so I can remember like I need to tell them here's what I'm looking at. Here's what I want to change. Here's how I would do it or how would you do it? You know, and just giving them the power to do that themselves is so important.
00:22:14
Speaker
But yeah, I think when you're talking about changing the message for the audience, it's really about what are the motivators? What's going to motivate them? Sales doesn't care unless it's going to help them close deals faster. And so understanding what the drivers are behind
00:22:34
Speaker
the pain point or behind the action is so important in that storytelling component. You also presented a great segue for us because I wanted to talk about sales and marketing collaboration and you and I and many
00:22:50
Speaker
People out there know that it's the key to revenue growth.
Building Cross-Functional Partnerships
00:22:54
Speaker
It really is. I'm very passionate about that topic. I spent a lot of time in my career helping sales and marketing teams align better and working from the strategic side of it.
00:23:06
Speaker
to the tactical, to the technical, to the relationship side of it. There's so many components to that relationship. But from your perspective, how do you build that successful cross-functional partnership with sales?
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah. You mentioned like the tactical relationship, like all these different pieces. My belief is it starts with the relationship. It's, I've just seen it over and over and every role that I've been in, where I've worked with sales and roles where I've been in sales and worked with marketing. That relationship is absolutely right. And I'm going to talk about the specifics of that because that's a broad term, right? Relationship, but being able to have like that respect and communication
00:23:48
Speaker
is absolutely critical in war times when things are tough and like maybe pipeline isn't being hit as well as peace times when things are going great and we want to try something new. That relationship is the core. From my perspective, what I mean by relationship is really being able to have some level of constant communication with cells. And I think that starts when you first start in a role.
00:24:13
Speaker
But when you first start working with cells, I don't care what level you are. As you move up, obviously it becomes even more important, like a junior level. I can start with, hey, can I join in on this cells call? Can I have like just a quick one-on-one with the cells rep and then a cells manager? Can I talk to our SDR? Can I sit in or see the recording of the QBRs? Understanding what they're talking about, but also showing, hey, I'm interested.
00:24:37
Speaker
Like that is like an initial kind of open the door. And I think it's really critical that teams don't just immediately just back door open and say like, all right, I'm taking over from a marketing perspective. I've seen that fail in the past. So being able to just like start that relationship, start showing like, Hey, I want to hear what your pain points are being open to hear that like sales complain because it's going to happen. Like there are things that they're going to complain about.
00:25:01
Speaker
But being open to that and being able to understand, all right, yes, I hear you. Maybe these are some things that we can work on. But being able to at least start having that conversation. I'll share an example that was earlier in my role here at Full Story that helps solidify when I think of like relationship with sales. So I was a couple months into the ABM role. ABM was net new. I was working on a commercial team.
00:25:24
Speaker
I heard before like when I after got the role that sells was not a big fan of marketing and I'm just the type to say like watch that change like that's not going to stay the same and we were kind of did that and joined in on calls listen to what they had to say and any type of We're pushing a new campaign and before saying yes, this is what we're going to do I brought them into that planning session and
00:25:49
Speaker
which is like hey just and not just hey what's your idea like being able to come to say this is the data that I'm seeing here's I did an ICP analysis can you check out this is the same thing you guys are seeing when you're on the ground talking to sell or talking to customers like these are the right personas that you're hitting so being able to come to the table with again data not to harp on it but being able to show hey I know my stuff
00:26:12
Speaker
I'm here to help you. Here's what I'm bringing to the table. I think that helped out a lot. We went forward with that, but later on in the relationship, they came to the table with an idea that vetted out and made sense. I'd like to caveat to say, I know sales can come a lot of times with ideas, but again, I think as you grow in your marketing career and
00:26:32
Speaker
practitioner level, like you see like, you know, like, yes, this may make sense. We want to do this. No, this doesn't make sense. But I met them in the middle. They had an idea and like showed that like partnership that yes, all right, we'll try this as well. And it worked out we ended up getting like five or six new customers within like a two month span. It was really, really fast. And that just solidified again, just solidified, hey, marketing is willing to work with us.
00:26:58
Speaker
So when they ask things that of our team, like let's make sure that we're listening to them as well and vice versa, right? Sales is one asking, let's make sure we're listening, have like the open communication and like respect between the two just to make it work out. And I spent in the same bowl anymore, but I work even more closely with our sales team today. And it's the same situation at this level and down to my team's level two. I kids have communication, come to the table with data, not just questions and be able to kind of like give and take where it makes sense.
00:27:27
Speaker
such a good approach. And I mean, the story that you tell just showcases the foundation of trust building to like bringing them in early and giving the space to just share and be on the same page of we're talking about the same thing even and then allowing them to contribute and feel like they're in a place where they can share right without
00:27:54
Speaker
somebody saying no because they hear no all the time like sales here's no all day long and so I would be guarded in relationship building if that's what I was hearing every day and when you have a win it feels really good but like for the most part they hear a lot of no's so that trust building I think is super super important to like have everyone get their guards down so you can be on the same page you're talking about the same thing and then it builds out like psychological safety where they feel
00:28:22
Speaker
OK, they feel good about coming to the table and raising their hand and saying something or just sharing. Right. Because there's a lot of environments where if they're used to hearing no, they might not feel like they're in an environment where they can share their ideas because they don't want to hear no again from like somebody else.
00:28:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's 1000%. And also add to that, that I think it just in my mind, but one of the other key pieces to it is, aside from like the data itself that you're bringing to the table, having some place to be accountable for what everyone's responsible for, all the different parties that are responsible, a big part of that is ops, right? Being able to make sure you're able to track what is marketing doing, what's marketing supposed to be bringing in or whatever, like if it's net new versus retention, how are you tracking the marketing activities
00:29:10
Speaker
and how are you tracking the cell's activities, right? And I think being able to make sure that system is in place, which can be difficult sometimes, but having that system in place and having that in place and everyone aware and thumbs up before moving forward in the initiative is so helpful when things go wrong. When things go right, great. But when things go wrong, it's so easy, especially times of like end of quarter or if we're behind the number for like the tendency for fingers to start being pointed.
00:29:39
Speaker
And I think that's another outside of a relationship. I think something to go back to and say, look, this is what we agreed upon. Is marketing missing the bond where? OK, great. We are. Let's address that. Is sales missing the bond? OK, great. Let's address that. But without having that foundation of accountability in place, it makes those kind of anecdotal, well, you were supposed to do this. Or what happened here? Why didn't this rep follow up? It makes the likelihood that happened more. And that creates that tension that really does hurt that bond between sales and marketing.
00:30:09
Speaker
Absolutely. I have seen so many cases where it's like SLAs and definitions are the reason why sales and marketing is not aligned. And how easy is it to just focus on those things and fix on those things? It's the foundation. It's so, so critical.
00:30:29
Speaker
It will save you so much time, so many headaches, so many arguments if you have that out of the gate, the SLAs that everyone agrees to and the definition that everybody is aligned with.
00:30:43
Speaker
It's like you said and have it out there and if things change like as or it's change and adjust like where I'll give you the example we're facing We're in the middle of like an adjustment right now with we've expanded a ton globally in the last year and a half so our lead routing may need to adjust to be a
00:30:59
Speaker
person-based versus account-based, and we're thinking of who it goes to from a regional standpoint. And thankfully, we worked earlier this year, which is great. We wasn't there for quite some time, but we established at the very beginning of this year all that information in one place. So rather than it just being a talk about, well, it's supposed to be this way or that way, the conversation with sales management and RevOps and teams have been a lot smoother to say, this is how it was set up, and this is why, and maybe it's time to revisit.
00:31:29
Speaker
and let's do that collectively and continue to document it versus just kind of, I think it's so easy and especially in more startup space to move on and move fast. There's some time to move fast, but as you're growing and establishing to make sure that documentation is in place so that you can pivot when you need to and have a reference of why were you with this in the first place.
00:31:51
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, so important. I always use the analogy of having like a map and then you have the actual terrain when sometimes the map doesn't match the terrain. And when you're all aligned and you have that foundation, like you work as a team, then you're going to have to update your map. And it's just
00:32:11
Speaker
the terrain changes all the time. And it'd be silly to think that you would never update a map. Like, think about Google Maps constantly updating. Think about maps that we look at that are no longer accurate, right? Like, they no longer match the terrain. I love that example.
00:32:28
Speaker
But thanks, you know, I actually had to use it once I use it with a client once that was really, really angry because we had a scope change. And it was because the map, the S.O.W. did not match the terrain that we went into. And there were things that evolved. And so we had this scope creep. And that was ultimately the metaphor that I used to explain to the angry clients that I'm sorry, but we have to kind of adjust our
00:32:58
Speaker
approach here.
Leveraging Customer Data for Growth
00:33:01
Speaker
Okay. So I know you said we're not to harp on data, but we are going to harp on data because we're talking about all things revenue and data is like, right, the key piece of that. So I want to hear, and I think obviously being at full story, you have such a great perspective on this. How should others be thinking about using customer insights and data to drive that revenue growth?
00:33:25
Speaker
Oh my gosh, we could do probably a podcast literally just on this session, just on this, but I'm going to distill it down to one question. What is your customer data? I think that simple question can create a quarter's worth, a six month's worth of work for some team. Maybe some teams have it in place and that's great, but I think just ask that as such a simple question that
00:33:49
Speaker
Is going to be different for almost every org and that most teams that i've seen have been a part of like they don't fully know what that answer is Or haven't scope what all those different touch points are so that's the first piece i'd say is like honestly especially if you're getting the directive down to focus more on customers, which a lot of us are
00:34:10
Speaker
Is map out what are your data points for customers? Is it like what do you get out of Salesforce? What do you get out of something like your maybe your product tool? Like we have like full story, right? What do you get from a product analytics and digital experience tool like that?
00:34:26
Speaker
and being able to map out all those data points because in a more relatable, I think more on the B2B side of I like to relate, it's like intent data, which intent is also part in there of customers. But there are so many intent data points that even that hasn't been fully tackled. So I think first off is understand, out of mental, what are your key data points for your customers? And from there, tying that to what are your goals for your customers? Some orgs aren't concerned with
00:34:54
Speaker
expansion right now, they're really concerned with retention, some vice versa, others really want to figure out like, think about customer love score, or in PS, like I think this just understand like, what's the business? How's the business thinking about customers? Because that's a great, like the customer experience is always outside of just marketing. So there's always other internal stakeholders that you can connect with to understand like, how are they thinking about customers? And what are the pain points that
00:35:20
Speaker
We're seeing with customers that we need to drive with customers and using that to be like, okay, we have this set of 50 to 100 customer data points. These are the 10 that we need to focus on and distill down to figure out how we action. I'll share that we're thinking about that ourselves and how our marketing team
00:35:37
Speaker
uses product analytics within full story more often. And this is new terrain for my team. And I think new train for a lot of B2B marketers, but not for B2C marketers. And it's really interesting to think of, Hey, how B2C marketers, like they're so, it's so transactional that they are in that data so much. That's how to B2B get even more into that like customer, like product analytics data. That's what our team's working on right now of how are we thinking about like product usage.
00:36:07
Speaker
How do we put product usage into our systems like Marketo to be able to create different type of segmentations for personalization outside of just our standard ICP pieces because again, it's just a whole new environment when you think of that data and lastly I'll add on that that over the next like my prediction like hot take over the next 12 months and
00:36:29
Speaker
is that's going to be even more important as GDPR continues to rise. Like there was just updates in the APAC region with GDPR. So another effort there as the importance of first party data rises and decrease cookies, like having those data sets and like product analytics and web analytics, right? Just understanding what people are doing on your website and being able to go in and truly analyze that.
00:36:51
Speaker
It's going to be so much more critical for marketers. It's not even just about campaigns or how we're reporting. It's true about understanding customers, understanding why do they like our product? What do they not like about it? And using that to truly inform your marketing.
00:37:09
Speaker
suggest just like numbers, right? Because the numbers tell one part of the story, but being able to actually tie it to what are they doing? Like, can I watch what, like, watch a session or something like that to see like, okay, this is really what my customer is experiencing. And that's what should impact my marketing strategy versus just, oh, this is like, exit are, are converting, let me target them.
00:37:30
Speaker
It totally goes back to what you were saying around storytelling too, right? And like leveraging that data to understand, right? Not just to have it, but to understand why, like you say, why do they love it? What are they doing in there? And then how can I use that data to further tell a story to whatever audience it is? I think to thinking about like,
00:37:55
Speaker
the B2B go-to-market trends also, and how data and customer insights and product data are becoming so important as we see PLG exploding. Product-led growth is, everyone's talking about that now. And at MadCudu, we were ahead of the curve on that. And we would have a lot of conversations around, hey, we want to do PLG, but we don't know how to get our
00:38:22
Speaker
product data. We don't want to get our product data, plus this data, plus like from all of these different disparate systems into one model. And that was something that that Matt Kudu was able to provide. But I think that people are starting to really think about that. Well, if I want to take this product-led approach,
00:38:41
Speaker
I'm going to need that data. I'm going to need a lot of it and I'm going to need it within the systems that allow me to report, that allow me forecast and do all of the things that I'm already doing, but with that data incorporated. So I think that that's another angle to look at it as well.
00:38:58
Speaker
Absolutely. And I love that you pointed it out. It was hard for you guys at first to get that data. And I think that's like setting the reality is like it is hard to really get some of this data sometimes. And it's one of the pieces, especially in like maybe like a more of a mid-sized company.
00:39:17
Speaker
or even some startups, depending on how it's set up, you don't own those data points. So having to go and find them and make the case to that audience, whether it's a product manager or CX or someone else that, hey, can you spend the time to work with me to show me how to get this data? Or we're working with our engineering team right now to pull it into our right systems and making the case that, hey, this is worth your time. Can you put this on your backlog to get this done?
00:39:45
Speaker
It's not as easy as like oh yeah I know these metrics there's a lot that goes into your point of being able to put it into a model and make them usable because being able to see the data is like a third of the battle you actually need to be able to use it.
00:39:59
Speaker
Yep, absolutely. Okay, well, as we are winding down with our time, which has been so lovely, I would love to hear from you just something that's a little more centered around our mission at Women in Revenue because we are really wanting to, with this podcast, inspire and educate people through stories of successful women like yourself that are in these revenue generating roles.
Involvement with Women in Revenue
00:40:27
Speaker
I'm curious if you could share a story or some words of inspiration just around the power of women's leadership and the impact that it can have specifically on driving revenue growth within organizations.
00:40:41
Speaker
Yeah, back first to the idea of community. And I found women in revenue before my current role, when during COVID, when I was a little bit of a dark place, like from a career standpoint, right, I was realizing I wasn't in a career that I was passionate about and not doing what I was passionate about. And it wasn't, I didn't have many of those connections with other women, like a lot of my leadership at the time wasn't.
00:41:05
Speaker
I found Women of Revenue, and it was truly a catalyst for me to not only connect with women like yourself and other amazing women in the group, but also just the idea of, hey, look, there's all these other female leaders out there that seem to be enjoying what they're doing and are passionate about what they're doing. I deserve more. I deserve that as well, and pushed me to make the change to look for a new role. And I'm so thankful I did, because now I'm in a role where I have an amazing female lead,
00:41:33
Speaker
My team is all female, actually, and they're total badasses, like literally a complete team of badasses. And that's helped me out. And I'd say specifically from a leadership level, as women, especially as you're getting, I think, higher in your career, it's so important to have people in your corner, whether that's a mentor or your manager, whoever else it can be, that have relatable experiences and can help guide you to say, like, hey, yes, I've been through that, too.
00:42:01
Speaker
Yes, like I understand like this may traditionally be like a door that's been closed, but like this is how I opened it. And that's been my experience like the last two and a half almost three years with in my current role with having a female leader who is like that I.
00:42:17
Speaker
Admire and I'm inspired by I think that's really important because it's not just about male or female or non-binary It's like someone who truly it's a you're inspired by as well and who you feel is helping bring you up So that's been great. And my other push would be for just for ladies Go find your crew like raise your hand, right? Like raise your hand I know before I call I shared with you that I think there's oftentimes this little like voice in the behind her head like
00:42:44
Speaker
all you don't need that or all like no like you're not even not worthy of that or not part of that but I've raised my hand more in the past like year and a half with women in revenue than ever before and it's opened up doors to be involved in like the annual women in revenue report. I've been a speaker I've like here like talking to you and I've got a mentor I've been a mentor so I just think it's so critical for women like just to raise your hand and get connected even though how regardless of how scary it is because
00:43:13
Speaker
It can be lonely when working remote and being in these roles. So like having that power of a group and a power of ladies that you can connect with is so valuable.
00:43:23
Speaker
I'm so happy that you've had that experience and we're grateful for you as a member. And yeah, power in numbers, power in numbers, especially women, because together we can do some pretty badass things and a lot of revenue generating things and a lot of other badass things too. Wow, we're doing revenue generating as well. So yeah.
00:43:47
Speaker
We're grateful to have you and thank you so much for joining us on the podcast and sharing your story and your experience. And I am excited to continue to watch your journey. Yes, same. Thank you again for having me and everyone who's out there listening. If you're not part of Women in Revenue, get on board. It is an amazing community. Thanks, Hannah. That's right. Thanks, Sarah.
00:44:12
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.
00:44:32
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.