Ian Faison & Riika Söderlund 39 min

Accountability in Experimentation


Riika Söderlund discusses staying accountable for intentional experimentation, how she invests in talent and why she dislikes the term “marketing strategy”.



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[MUSIC]

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>> Welcome to Pipeline Visionary.

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I'm Ian Faizan, CEO of Casmin Studios.

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Today, we are joined by a special guest, Rika.

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How are you?

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>> I'm good. Thank you, Ian.

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Thank you for having me.

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>> Excited to have you on the show.

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We're going to chat Pipeline,

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and chat Marketing,

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all the cool stuff that you're doing at Catana,

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and everything in between.

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Today's show is brought to you by our friends.

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As always, at Qualified,

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you can go to Qualified.com to learn more.

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Rika, first question here.

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What was your first job in marketing?

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>> Oh, gosh. I don't know if this would even qualify as

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a marketing job, but it was telesales,

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or I guess telomearcating, you could call it,

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selling, magazine subscriptions, cold calling.

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My God, that was a harsh landing to the world of marketing.

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>> That really is.

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It is as tough as it gets.

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Flash forward to today.

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Tell us a little bit about your role, Katana.

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>> Yes. I am currently the CMO at

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Katana Cloud Inventory Management.

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Looking after all things marketing,

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pipeline generation,

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obviously driving our growth and all that good stuff.

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Let's get to our first segment,

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the Trust Tree where we can go and feel honest and trusted,

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and you can share those deepest,

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darkest pipeline secrets.

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Zoom now, what does Katana Cloud Inventory do,

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and who are your customers?

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>> Katana Cloud Inventory really solves the issue of how much

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stock do you have and where is it?

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If you think you're a product-centric company,

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a branded product, you need to know what's in your inventory,

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what's in your store, what's in your e-commerce store.

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You have multiple places where you store your inventory and sell your inventory

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You can't really track that with spreadsheets,

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and unless you're a multi-billion dollar conglomerate,

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you also can't really install any on-premise legacy software to do it.

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So you need an agile cloud-based solution for it,

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and that's what Katana does.

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>> Yes. What are the types of companies that they also sell to?

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>> Yes. The core audience for Katana is really the small business,

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entrepreneurs and medium-sized businesses as well,

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not the massive global companies really.

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So it's the small bakery chain that's really focused on one state.

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It's the cosmetics company that sells on Shopify products that they manufacture

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It's those small businesses that are building their own products,

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but it's very industry agnostic.

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So it is from cosmetics, food and beverage, heavy machinery, auto parts,

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like you name it, everything that you can think of.

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>> Yes, and it seems like these type of companies now with this modern tech

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stack,

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they need this type of inventory solution they have.

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Like you said, they have things like Shopify,

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they have a bunch of other tools that y'all integrate with,

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like WooCommerce or QuickBooks Online and all those things,

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but they need this inventory management piece of it.

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Who's the one who is the core buyer who's in that buying committee of Katana?

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>> That's a good question because it's such an integral part of your tech stack

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Like you said, you integrated your e-commerce store,

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you can integrate it to your accounting, and you probably have to if you want

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to keep

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all those systems accurate in real time.

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So often the buyer is actually the CEO, the CEO,

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the founder of the business because it's not any one function that's

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responsible for this.

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It's the entire company that's built around that branded product.

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So it's often very high up in the chain that the actual decision makers,

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then the users of the product can vary depending on the business model.

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That's of course an interesting challenge then for marketing.

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>> What does your marketing work look like?

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>> I have a fairly large marketing organization relative to the size of the

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company,

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we're now about 150 people and the marketing team is 15 people of that 150.

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So it's your typical product marketing really focusing on the value proposition

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positioning of the product, all that good stuff.

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And then brand marketing that handles our content, design, PR,

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just the awareness building and credibility building of Katana.

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And then of course growth marketing, which I guess you can summarize as

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pipeline and all that goes with it.

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>> What's your marketing strategy to acquire all those different types of

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companies

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and all those different types of GOs and industries and use cases?

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>> Yeah, yeah. God, I hate the word marketing strategy.

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I do not know.

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>> Don't we all?

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>> In a marketing strategy, we have a company strategy and marketing is one of

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the functions

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within the company that executes that strategy. So our strategy is to go after

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those SMB companies.

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And the way that we do it is the company was really built on just capturing

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existing demand,

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very focused on search SEO optimization. But we're at a stage of our growth

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where scaling does

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require some demand generation as well. So I guess that's what you could call

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is my marketing strategy,

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inserting that more proactive brand and awareness building into our strategy so

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that we can also

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spark interest, not just capture existing interest.

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>> Yeah, hitting that growth lever where people are, they're probably problem

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aware,

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but they're not sure if they're solution aware yet or even if there's something

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that they need

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to do. It's a much different mindset to convince someone why they need

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something rather than

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sell them the thing that they're looking for.

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>> It's a very different process in many ways, which is one of the reasons why

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I'm not a fan of

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the word marketing strategy because it's not like a marketer comes in and

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implements a strategy and

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then everything works beautifully. It requires other functions within that

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sales process to

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actually implement either the same or an aligned strategy for it to actually

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then work.

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>> Yeah, and then zooming into the pipeline piece and how demand fits into that

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How do you think about demand within marketing and in your growth function for

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an SMB type audience?

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>> For us, it's really capturing first and generating second. There's so much

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market potential

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in this space. Inventory management is an interesting space in the sense that

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it's not very crowded.

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There aren't that many solutions in the market. But then we really approach it

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as a pipeline

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building exercise. Marketing is a core function that drives revenue for Katana.

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We're not an outbound sales led organization. Generating that demand through

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marketing methods

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is a core strategy for Katana. We try to approach it from multiple different

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angles and honestly

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just experimenting, seeing what works and what does give us that sufficient

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pipeline to then

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convert our revenue goals. >> Any other thoughts on strategy or

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well company strategy or marketing pipeline stuff within that or buying

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committee or any

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sort of differences selling to your audience before you get to the next segment

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>> Yeah, I think the key is really to keep in mind that it is that SMB audience

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So the buying process is a little different from multiple angles than it would

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be with a very

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small company or with a larger enterprise. So that does define a lot of the

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decision

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side make or the choices Katana has made. Is that audience, that customer first

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attitude?

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>> Yeah, what's interesting for me, I mean, SMB is as categorized by the

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small business administration is a pretty wide range. It's like the five person

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company and I think

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it's up to $15 million in revenue or I don't even know. But it's a pretty wide

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group here and you mentioned on the higher end you have massive organizations

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that have built

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their own software or something on prem or something like that. But I feel like

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there's a huge gap

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between SMB and the enterprise there in that mid market. Just curious how you

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think about your

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ideal customer profile and the size of an organization of when it gets to be to

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the point where someone

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is of a certain size. >> Yeah, exactly. That's exactly why Katana was built

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because when you grow

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to that phase where you're let's say 10 people instead of just one or five

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people, you start to

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need software in order to actually be able to track your inventory. You can't

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do it with pen and paper

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spreadsheets anymore. But then there's so much room to grow and scale. So let's

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say to

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100, even 500 employees, you still don't really need a massive suite of tools.

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I love the example of

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Excel. You honestly only use 5%, 10% of all the functionality that it has. Kind

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of the same with

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inventory management. You can do a million things with the most robust software

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out there. But do

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you really need it at this point of your growth stage? Not so much. When you're

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still in that small

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or mid-market size, there's a dozen or so jobs that you have to get done. You

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don't necessarily need

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everything under the sun in order for your business to be able to grow. >> Yeah

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, and I think that

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there's just something about like a lot of these cloud native type coming, Cas

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min's one of them,

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that are 100% built in the cloud. Super agile, super fast and can do things

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augmented with

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technology that in a way allows you to, if software's not working, you just rip

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it out and just put

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in something else. And it's generally speaking not that big of a lift. And so

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to add on a technology

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to your tech stack, which isn't massive to begin with, is not super cost prohib

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itive. >> Exactly.

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And that's of course reflected in Katana pricing as well. So the price point is

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also something

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that's competitive and targeted to the SMB market. Again, it's almost strange

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how quiet it is in

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this particular niche of ours. >> Yeah. Under our next segment, the playbook,

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where we open up that playbook and talk about the tactics that help you win.

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What are your

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three channels or tactics that are your uncutable budget items? >> Yeah. I

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think the first one,

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for me, is always content. I think it's so completely underestimated and people

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throw money at the

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program spend or the ad spend. But it does not matter if you don't have really

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good content that

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actually resonates with your target audience. If they don't care what you're

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advertising, then

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what's the point? You're just wasting money in the ad spend. So I think content

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is definitely one

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that I would never compromise on. A second one, I'm a B2B sales marketer. So

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obviously,

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I need to say LinkedIn. How could I ever do this without LinkedIn? And there

12:44

are multiple reasons

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for it, not just targeting and the formats that they have. But the fact that

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people are in the

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mindset of buying software, buying tools for their business when they're on

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LinkedIn,

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it helps. It's a good channel. It just this. And the third one, and in many

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ways, this is the first

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one, people. Talent development, making sure that the team is room to grow when

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we invest in their

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skills and well-being. Without the team, none of the other stuff matters. It's

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at the end,

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people who then matter if you win or lose. >> On a zoom in on content here for

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a second,

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I love on your website that if you go to the Resources tab and you hover over

13:35

case studies, that you highlight in the same, your key color there, this lime

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green,

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it's the same thing for get a demo, and it's the same thing that lights up when

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you hover.

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Do you highlight little sections of the case studies? So how do you streamlines

13:52

the workflows

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or effortlessly stays in stock? I feel like that's a nice touch. And I never

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see anything like that.

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But it really stands out. >> Thank you. It's the little things.

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Like production value matters. That's exactly, you made my point beautifully.

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That's exactly what I

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mean. And really this matter what you do with your content, not just where you

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promote it.

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>> Well, and it seems like the way that you're investing in content is

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obviously, you have

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regular blog content, but you have a ton of different guides, and you have a

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ton of different free

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tools. I'm curious, how do you think about investing in content for the SMB

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audience?

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>> A lot of the investment is focused on acquisition as well. So making sure

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that we are relevant

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when someone is searching for us, so optimizing towards SEO. But then the way

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that we approach

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that investment, especially next year, will be a lot more funnel focused,

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making sure we know

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what content resonates in which part of the funnel, what sparks awareness, what

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is that

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consideration content you need, and how our customers are actually interacting

15:03

with the content,

15:04

not just in the purchase funnel, but also customer funnel. Another area that's

15:09

often

15:09

overlooked current customers go to the website as well. They read your content

15:14

as well. It does

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play a role in full funnel, not just acquisition. >> Yeah, and so you mentioned

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obviously SEO being

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a key part of that. Outside of SEO, what types of things are you creating and

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like, how do you

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create stuff? Do you have like a roadmap? Do you have like content calendar and

15:32

that sort of stuff?

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I mean, some of these guides, the ultimate inventory management guide, things

15:37

like this,

15:38

these are pretty weighty tones here with lots and lots of really good

15:43

information.

15:44

>> Yeah, exactly. This year has really been a year of experimentation for us.

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So we've created

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those. That's a good example of a really long format content. And we've created

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short format

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versions of it. We've tried guides, we've tried checklists, and the way that we

16:01

then evaluate what

16:03

content works or not is really based on what purpose was that piece of content

16:08

built for.

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So to my point, is it built for building awareness, or is the purpose to

16:14

attract a person to the

16:16

website, or is it at the very end stages of the process that final piece where

16:21

customers are

16:22

already ready to convert to become a customer? That's how we then figure out

16:27

and determine what

16:28

content resonates at which part of the funnel? >> Any of the pieces of content

16:33

there that

16:34

particularly stand out to you as something that you were maybe surprised worked

16:38

so well or something

16:39

that works just really well in general. >> Trends and predictions always work

16:44

so well in all parts of

16:45

the funnel. I'm always thinking that it's only awareness building, but that's

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just

16:49

from year after year, that's the piece of content that seems to resonate with

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all audiences.

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Everybody wants to know what's the next big thing, what's happening next year?

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>> Yeah, I obviously cast be in, we make 65 plus different types of podcast

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series. And so

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when we're making them for our customers, one of the things that we always sort

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of like talk

17:12

about is the what's next type segment or question or thing. And those are

17:17

really good spots where

17:18

you can pull a quote out. Because yeah, no matter what, we're all interested in

17:24

how people are

17:26

thinking about the next 12 months, 24 months, whatever it is. So anyway, that

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you can lean in and

17:31

try to get people's predictions on that. We're all just guessing anyways, right

17:34

? And you have to

17:36

guess, right? You have to say, well, we all have imperfect information. So here

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in how your peers

17:43

are doing, it is really important. >> But we do have some information. So we

17:47

drew our best to

17:48

package that to our customers, whether it's those peer insights, what are

17:52

similar companies to yours

17:54

doing, or whether it's based on some of our data, we have over 2 billion in

17:59

revenue flowing through

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our platform annually. So that's a lot of SMB focused insights that Katana can

18:07

offer from

18:08

inventory management. >> I love any type of content that's that first party

18:14

data driven stuff as

18:16

like my favorite, because nobody else can do it. >> Exactly. That's how you

18:21

build a brand.

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>> Yeah, exactly. What about, you mentioned your LinkedIn strategy being core.

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What types of things are you doing on LinkedIn? >> We're doing all the things.

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This too is an

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experimental channel for us this year. So we've used it from lead generation

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and

18:46

in mail campaigns to awareness building, really like awareness building with

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awareness ads,

18:52

even that seems to work fairly well if you're really focused on what is it that

18:58

you're driving

18:58

to do in our case visits to the website, not leads, not conversions visits to

19:03

the website.

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So it has multiple purposes and it's really then more a question of choosing.

19:09

What is it that you want to do? What is required? Because you can do it all.

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>> Yeah, that's super fascinating. Do you find that because you're selling to

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so many different

19:22

types of industries and so many different size organizations and verticals and

19:31

stuff like that,

19:32

that LinkedIn is great because it gives you a built-in business audience that

19:37

could be anyone.

19:39

I imagine you could cast an extremely wide net for your audience and that might

19:45

be either

19:46

really helpful or really hurtful on LinkedIn with targeting. >> Exactly. It's a

19:51

too-edged sword.

19:52

Yes and no. So it's definitely the fact that you can target different size of

19:59

businesses.

19:59

The titles are important for us, understanding the buying committee.

20:05

Like I said, who are the people actually buying? But it's then also the fact

20:09

that it's not too

20:11

wide, that you are actually fairly targeted and I can actually say that it's

20:16

that 10 person to

20:18

100 person company that's really our ICP that's the sweet spot. I can do that

20:23

very confidently on

20:24

LinkedIn compared to other channels. >> Well, it's interesting. I don't

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know, in mid-marketed enterprises, everyone in LinkedIn is on LinkedIn all the

20:38

time. Maybe not

20:39

everyone developers are in or whatever. But generally speaking, senior leaders

20:43

are on LinkedIn a lot.

20:44

But I'm curious how many of more SMB type companies are spending a lot of time

20:51

on LinkedIn,

20:52

but especially in retail or vertical or something like that. So it's

20:56

interesting to hear you

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spend a lot of time on LinkedIn like we all are. >> Yeah, exactly. I think it's

21:05

also something

21:07

that companies that grow do a lot. When you're growing, when you're trying to

21:13

figure out your

21:14

next steps, your next tech stack, you tend to spend time on LinkedIn and see

21:18

what your peers are

21:19

doing. So again, it comes to the mindset as well of what mindset people have

21:23

when they're on LinkedIn.

21:25

It works well for B2B marketers. >> Yeah, and I think you're just in a mindset

21:32

too where you're just

21:33

looking to pass some time or engage your brain or do something. It's a very

21:43

learn something, just find something new. You are in a receptive mindset, for

21:50

sure.

21:50

>> Yeah, exactly. It's the polar opposite of being called on your phone, where

21:57

you are probably

21:58

doing something else at that time. And the last thing that you want to do is

22:02

speak to another person.

22:04

>> Exactly. >> Okay, what about something that maybe you're not investing in or

22:08

something that's

22:09

your most cuttable budget item or something that's not working? >> Well, I

22:12

guess to the same point

22:13

of LinkedIn is working, Facebook isn't. I'm giving up on Facebook. It just

22:19

works for B2B lead generation.

22:22

I feel like every six months or so, I'm like, okay, now let's try again. I'm

22:26

sure they've now

22:27

improved something. And it never really works for cheap leads, sure, but for

22:32

actual business

22:34

conversions. Now, I'm giving up. >> Yeah, I just talk to so many people that

22:42

are just not on it anymore of a certain age and demographic of people. And I

22:48

think a lot of those

22:50

people are still on Instagram. >> True. >> But it's just not, it's like the

22:58

same case that we were

23:00

making earlier of like, when you're scrolling on Instagram, you're

23:03

intentionally not working.

23:04

>> Yeah, exactly. >> You're trying to escape.

23:08

>> As you log on to LinkedIn, you are working. You're not doing that for fun.

23:13

>> Exactly. So for me, it's definitely that Facebook, not investing in it next

23:18

year.

23:19

>> What about experiments? What's your in your experimental budget? What's your

23:25

like,

23:26

the 10% that you have set aside for crazy stuff? >> Yeah. We did a lot of that

23:33

this year. So for

23:35

2024, I'm not setting a separate experimental budget just because the whole

23:43

purpose of having

23:44

an experimental budget is to improve your results, improve your conversions or

23:49

improve your LTV

23:50

CAC. And I feel that those experiments have to fit in within those, the

23:59

framework that we have

24:01

in general. I don't need to exclude it from, for example, our LTV calculations,

24:06

which I guess is the

24:08

reason why you would have it separate. So you can be smart and say, oh, this

24:11

doesn't count.

24:12

It doesn't matter if we fail there. I think it matters. I think even

24:16

experiments have to be

24:18

intentional and they have to private results. And I want me and my team to be

24:24

accountable

24:25

for what experiments we do. So it's hidden in the budget. It's there, but it's

24:29

not it's separate.

24:31

Line item. >> Any experiments that you ran in the past that were surprising or

24:35

interesting?

24:36

>> We've done a lot of experimentation with audiences this year, just trying to

24:42

understand

24:43

what audiences resonate with our message and what don't because we're industry

24:47

agnostic. It's

24:48

kind of you can't really personalize to every single audience and industry. So

24:52

that's been one

24:53

that's been interesting. We've done a lot of experimentation with AI, generated

24:59

AI,

25:00

especially seeing what we can and what we can't use it for, understanding that.

25:05

So that's something

25:07

that again, I wouldn't put it in my experimental budget anymore because now I

25:11

know. So it's a part

25:14

of the tech stack now, the parts that actually did work. So things like that.

25:17

>> Yeah.

25:19

How do you view your website? >> Oh my god. Right now, not viewing it at all,

25:25

or maybe we're exploding it, redoing it. >> Oh my god.

25:29

>> The most overlooked assets always, always for B2B, SaaS marketers. I don't

25:38

really understand

25:39

why that is because it's the most important touch point that you have. Every

25:45

single prospect

25:46

and customer goes to the website. It's the part that you should be investing

25:51

the most, not the least.

25:52

>> Yeah, I could not agree more. And I don't really get it either. It's just

26:02

like how your website works

26:04

is probably how your product works. It's kind of that simple. It's like, if you

26:10

don't invest in it

26:10

a lot, how are they ever going to think that your product is any better? >>

26:15

Exactly. It's brand,

26:17

it's conversion. We literally would not have a business if there was no website

26:22

. It's not like

26:23

you can walk into a store and purchase Katana software. It's the website. So it

26:30

's by far our

26:31

most valuable marketing asset. >> How do you measure success? >> Revenue.

26:37

I have a gazillion other marketing KPIs, of course, but at the end of the day,

26:43

if we're not

26:43

driving revenue, then it doesn't matter. I am not a fan of measuring leads or M

26:50

QLs or,

26:51

honestly, revenue is the only metric that tells you, did you generate pipeline?

26:58

Did you reach the right audience? Is your value proposition correct? And is

27:03

your brand

27:04

resonating with that target audience? It's the only one that combines all the

27:09

aspects of marketing.

27:11

>> Are there any leading indicators to revenue or things that you find are

27:16

particularly helpful

27:17

or useful? >> Yeah. Well, obviously, yes. From a pipeline perspective, we tend

27:25

to look at SQLs

27:26

of qualified sales, qualified leads. That's really the metric where I feel most

27:31

comfortable.

27:32

I'm, I guess, not if MQLs, it's easy to generate cheap leads. But the match

27:38

with the audience is

27:40

really a key focus for me, that it's not just volume. It's also quality. SQL is

27:46

the best leading

27:47

indicator then. >> What big trends do you think are coming? >> I mentioned AI

27:52

already. I actually

27:54

don't think that's a huge trend for marketers next year. I think it was this

27:59

year. I think every

28:01

smart marketer did a lot of things with AI this year, learned a lot, and is now

28:07

perhaps not looking

28:09

to over invest next year. I think 25 will be a more interesting year for

28:15

marketers in terms of AI.

28:16

When the design aspect and generative design is also a bit further along. Right

28:23

now, it's more

28:24

useful in the copy and editing front. So that's definitely one thing that will

28:29

keep an eye on,

28:30

but not necessarily looking to invest heavily in. >> Yeah, it's an interesting,

28:36

interesting point. I haven't heard that, but I like it because I'm kind of in a

28:41

little bit of

28:41

wait and see mode. I'm kind of ready for all the tools that we're using now to

28:47

sort of like take

28:48

the next step of whatever that is. Because I feel like we, by no means, are

28:55

experts in them. But

28:57

kind of know what you got right now when it comes to specifically AI as it

29:05

relates to marketing.

29:06

And so many companies are putting AI into their product and it's sort of like

29:10

very early.

29:12

I saw something super funny. This is totally random. But there was this like

29:20

car dealership

29:20

that their chat and it said like powered by chat GPT. And the person screenshot

29:27

it. It was like,

29:29

why pay for chat GPT? And was asking the bot on the website. All these like

29:35

basically just treating

29:36

it like chat GPT. And just like their personal chat GPT is just asking it all

29:42

this stuff. And

29:43

I was like, that's hilarious. And I feel like. >> So if you're measuring your

29:50

marketing with

29:51

revenue, doing things like that, probably don't unlock a lot of incremental

29:57

value in 24. I think

30:00

we've kind of we're at a point where we know how much value we actually get

30:05

from AI tools. And

30:06

it's not going to exponentially change in the marketing realm next year. That's

30:13

my prediction

30:14

for next year. >> I like it. I think that's a really sound

30:21

sound thing. And I think also why I think that's pretty interesting for me is

30:25

AI is moving so fast

30:28

and we have no idea what's going to happen with it. And so it's like, yeah,

30:32

there's a possibility

30:33

that in three months there's some massive thing that happens or drops or comes

30:37

out and it's sort

30:38

of changed it. But like we can't predict that. But like I mean, like I said,

30:43

like we're using a

30:43

bunch of AI tools and we've kind of we've actually been using AI tools for a

30:49

little while and like

30:50

you know, they do what they do and we're getting proficient with them. But

30:55

beyond that, it's like

30:56

I kind of feel the same way. Cool. Fun prediction. You mentioned just team, you

31:02

know, as one of your

31:03

three channels and tactics. Obviously, you know, really it's the number one of

31:11

all is team.

31:14

Curious, what are you doing to make your team better? How do you invest in them

31:19

Yeah, I think it's a combination of kind of understanding the individual growth

31:26

goals and what

31:27

their motivations and aspirations are and building on top of that. And then

31:32

combining that with

31:34

company goals and company objectives that you need to, for example, do upsk

31:39

illing with the team,

31:41

making sure that they have the right skills and tools, they're disposal. So

31:44

when you can actually

31:46

combine those aspects, that's the sweet spot. So it's both skills training, but

31:52

then also just

31:53

connecting that with their personal aspirations. All right, let's get to the

31:59

dust up where we

32:00

talk about healthy tension, whether that's with your board, your sales teams,

32:03

your competitors,

32:04

or anyone else. Have you ever had a memorable dust up in your career? I love

32:08

this question,

32:10

because I'm such a normally such a calm person and I never ever get emotional

32:18

in meetings,

32:20

except once. It has happened once in my life. It was almost 10 years ago, and I

32:26

just lost it

32:27

in a meeting with my CEO, my then CEO, and our advertising agency. It was a

32:35

meeting about

32:36

building our first e-commerce store. It was a D2C brand, and the brand didn't

32:40

have any e-commerce

32:42

presence, and the ad agency wanted to build the most flashy and experimental

32:47

site that was completely

32:49

unusable. I was the head of digital for the brand at the time, and I just, I

32:54

could not get them

32:56

both the CEO and the agency to understand that that's not the way you do e-

33:01

commerce.

33:02

And it wasn't. I was right, but I wasn't able to convince them, and we built

33:10

that stupid site

33:11

anyway. So, obviously, the learning for me was that I need to get better at the

33:18

in-journal

33:18

communication and influencing opinions and people, and that's hard. It doesn't

33:24

always,

33:24

it's not enough that you're right. That doesn't guarantee that the company

33:29

makes good decisions.

33:30

You also have to make other people understand your point of view. So, that was

33:35

definitely a learning

33:37

experience. I love it. All right, let's get to our final segment here. Quick

33:44

hints. These are quick

33:46

questions and quick answers, just like how quickly qualified helps companies

33:50

generate pipeline

33:51

quickly. A lot of cues. So, you can go to qualified.com to learn how you can

33:57

tap into your greatest

33:58

asset, your website, to identify your most valuable visitors and instantly

34:03

start sales

34:04

conversations. Quick and easy, just like these questions, go to qualified.com.

34:08

You can talk to

34:08

someone right now. Go speak to someone on qualified team. You can buy it in the

34:13

next 20 minutes.

34:14

It's not quite, but pretty much. Quick hits. Rika, are you ready? I'm ready.

34:21

Shoot.

34:21

Number one, what's a hidden talent or skill that's not on your resume?

34:27

Mm. Writing. I'm a writer. Literally, that was my training. I trained to be a

34:33

journalist. So,

34:34

I do write quite a bit still, but it's not on my resume anymore. It used to be.

34:40

It used to be a

34:41

copywriter. That was how I started. That's fun. So, how do you view writing now

34:50

, now that you're

34:52

a CMO? And I'm sure editing a lot more than you're writing. Yes, and honestly,

34:59

not even doing that

35:00

that much. As a CMO, I spent most of my time with spreadsheets, not writing or

35:06

design or

35:07

anything fun. It's more about numbers than anything else. To me, writing is my

35:11

creative craft. I wish

35:13

I was a painter or did music or something. To me, it's like, I love a blank

35:18

page. That's where my

35:19

creativity then comes to life. I love that. That's awesome. Do you have a

35:24

favorite book or podcast or

35:26

TV show that you'd recommend? Yeah, I'm not really loyal to any one show or

35:32

podcast or book. I jump

35:33

around. Currently, I'm listening to a lot of sales podcasts. I think every

35:38

marketer should listen to

35:40

sales podcasts as well. So, it really understands what's going on there. I

35:43

could not agree more.

35:47

I just listened to a show the other day, a product podcast because I was trying

35:53

to get more

35:54

product information. And that stuff is so helpful as a marketer. There's a

35:58

great

35:59

post by Emily Kramer from MKT1 where she talks about how marketing teams are

36:05

actually more like

36:06

product teams than they are like sales teams. I find that extremely fascinating

36:09

. Interesting.

36:11

I need to check that out. Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to Emily. Favorite non-market

36:17

ing hobby that

36:18

indirectly makes you a better marketer? Exercise. I go to cycling classes and

36:26

when your heart rate

36:27

is like at 95%, that's like when you get your best ideas. I swear that's when

36:33

you get your best

36:34

ideas. The trick is then you need to remember them after the class and that's

36:38

the hard part.

36:40

If you weren't in marketing or business at all, what do you think you'd be

36:43

doing?

36:44

I would be a kindergarten teacher. For sure. I would spend my days with

36:48

toddlers. I love kids.

36:50

They're so good. Because I spent my days with influencing perceptions and how

36:58

people

36:59

see products or propositions. I would just love to be in a very straightforward

37:05

relationship.

37:06

That's easiest with a four-year-old. They're the best. I have a two and a half-

37:10

year-old.

37:11

It's just so fun. All of we went to a birthday party the other day and all the

37:19

kids are just so

37:20

fun. What is your best advice for a first-time CMO?

37:30

I guess it's reflecting to my desktop story. Understand the internal dynamics

37:36

of the company.

37:38

Understand who is there and why they are doing what they're doing. Because only

37:44

then you can

37:45

plug marketing into that bigger picture and then it starts to make sense and

37:49

you can get your voice

37:50

heard as well. Matters much much less if you're doing the exact right things,

37:55

matters more.

37:56

Who are you doing them with and why? Rika, it has been absolutely wonderful

38:03

having you on the

38:04

show today. Any final thoughts? Anything to plug? Thank you. It's been fun.

38:09

Thank you for having me.

38:11

I guess it's such a great time to be a marketer. Honestly, 2024 is probably

38:18

going to be one of the

38:19

most exciting years with all things that are happening with technology and

38:23

seeing what's going

38:24

to happen with AI and injecting brand and creativity into that to actually get

38:30

your

38:30

voice heard and message across. It's just the best time to be a marketer.

38:35

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I'm super excited. I think that there's so many

38:41

tools, there's so

38:42

many things. Obviously, there's a lot going on, but it just allows you to pick

38:46

your lane and pick

38:47

and choose how you want to build your team and all that stuff. There's no right

38:50

way to do it.

38:51

And yeah, it's exciting. If you're a marketer that works in apparel or

38:58

cosmetics or electronics or

38:59

food and beverage and you need to figure out your inventory solution, go to k

39:05

atanamarp.com

39:07

to learn more. Well, Rika, it's been wonderful. Thanks again, and we'll talk

39:12

soon.

39:14

Thank you, Ian.

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