1112: Are You Leveraging the Slack App Ecosystem? w/ Michael Sengbusch

WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:04.240 A relationship with the right referral partner could be a game changer for any be 2 00:00:04.440 --> 00:00:08.509 to be company. So what if you could reverse engineer these relationships at a 3 00:00:08.630 --> 00:00:14.189 moment's notice, start a podcast, invite potential referral partners to be guests on 4 00:00:14.310 --> 00:00:19.670 your show and grow your referral network faster than ever? Learn more. At 5 00:00:19.750 --> 00:00:29.940 Sweet Fish Mediacom you're listening to be tob growth, a daily podcast for B 6 00:00:30.059 --> 00:00:34.460 TOB leaders. We've interviewed names you've probably heard before, like Gary Vander truck 7 00:00:34.539 --> 00:00:38.530 and Simon Senek, but you've probably never heard from the majority of our guests. 8 00:00:39.210 --> 00:00:43.329 That's because the bulk of our interviews aren't with professional speakers and authors. 9 00:00:43.929 --> 00:00:47.890 Most of our guests are in the trenches leading sales and marketing teams. They're 10 00:00:47.929 --> 00:00:53.600 implementing strategy, they're experimenting with tactics, they're building the fastest growing BTB companies 11 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:56.920 in the world. My name is James Carberry. I'm the founder of sweet 12 00:00:56.920 --> 00:01:00.719 fish media, a podcast agency for BB brands, and I'm also one of 13 00:01:00.759 --> 00:01:03.829 the CO hosts of this show. When we're not interviewing sales and marketing leaders, 14 00:01:04.030 --> 00:01:07.709 you'll hear stories from behind the scenes of our own business, will share 15 00:01:07.750 --> 00:01:11.189 the ups and downs of our journey as we attempt to take over the world. 16 00:01:11.829 --> 00:01:22.739 Just kidding. Well, maybe let's get into the show. Welcome back 17 00:01:22.780 --> 00:01:26.420 to be tob growth. I am your host for today's so Nikki Ivy, 18 00:01:26.540 --> 00:01:30.819 with sweet fish media guys. I've got with me today Michaelsinguish, who is 19 00:01:30.219 --> 00:01:34.290 co founder is eeo of La type. Michael, how you doing today? 20 00:01:34.489 --> 00:01:38.329 I'm doing good, Nikki. Thanks for having us. Good. I'm super 21 00:01:38.370 --> 00:01:41.489 excited to have this conversation because it's not a topic I've covered on the show 22 00:01:41.569 --> 00:01:47.799 before. We're going to be talking about messaging platforms like flat and m steams 23 00:01:47.959 --> 00:01:52.920 and just really digging into how folks can leverage those and how to set yourself 24 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:56.159 up for success with with them. But before we get into all of that, 25 00:01:56.480 --> 00:01:59.239 Michael, I would love it if you would just give us a little 26 00:01:59.239 --> 00:02:01.549 bit of background on you yourself and what you we, the folks that Ella 27 00:02:01.629 --> 00:02:05.549 type, have been up to these days. Great. Well, kind of 28 00:02:05.549 --> 00:02:08.669 quick background of myself. I got into marketing technology and MARTEC about, you 29 00:02:08.750 --> 00:02:12.629 know, eight or nine years ago, and I got into Martec from the 30 00:02:12.710 --> 00:02:15.460 technology side, not the marketing side. So I kind of bring a software 31 00:02:15.460 --> 00:02:21.900 developer and Engineering Perspective on marketing technology, and one of things we really believe 32 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:25.979 here at l type is that that part is is really needed now in two 33 00:02:27.020 --> 00:02:30.409 thousand and nineteen. I mean, there's a lot of different marketing technology platforms 34 00:02:30.530 --> 00:02:35.210 out there and I think this rise of the marketing technologists as someone who can 35 00:02:35.289 --> 00:02:39.930 help connect these platforms together to actually make these marketing text acts work the way 36 00:02:39.969 --> 00:02:44.009 they were designed to, is in high demand right now and we try to 37 00:02:44.090 --> 00:02:46.520 do that and the applications that were building an l type. We've taken a 38 00:02:47.039 --> 00:02:53.800 messaging first approach to marketing tech technology and we have created a intelligent assistant that 39 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:59.710 monitors all of your search, social and email marketing campaigns and we provide that 40 00:02:59.870 --> 00:03:02.789 functionality through slack. We are slack APP and you can find us in the 41 00:03:02.830 --> 00:03:07.150 slack APP directory. I love it. I love everything that you just said. 42 00:03:07.189 --> 00:03:09.949 I mean it's where things are going and if you're if you are, 43 00:03:09.990 --> 00:03:13.500 I think it's just a smart thing to do. Man, if you're creating 44 00:03:13.500 --> 00:03:15.979 an APP, making it a slack APP is, you know, pretty smart. 45 00:03:17.020 --> 00:03:21.180 So so I'm a fan and and that's why I wanted you to be 46 00:03:21.300 --> 00:03:24.180 on the show. To Talk to us about this particular topic. So leg 47 00:03:24.340 --> 00:03:28.490 I said at the top of the the top of the show, these messaging 48 00:03:28.569 --> 00:03:32.370 platforms are taken over. Everybody knows what they are, but he uses them, 49 00:03:32.610 --> 00:03:36.930 likely more than they're using email. Do they talk to us, Michael, 50 00:03:36.969 --> 00:03:40.680 about how we got here? Yeah, well, slack in particular is 51 00:03:40.759 --> 00:03:46.800 the fastest growing enterprise software ever. It got its start in the devops community, 52 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:49.639 so it was, you know, kind of came up through the engineering 53 00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:52.759 ranks and the software developer ranks. That's how we got in touch with it 54 00:03:52.879 --> 00:03:57.189 and we started using it and when we were building technology, we realize that 55 00:03:57.229 --> 00:04:00.550 a lot of our customers were using it and they were using it daytoday, 56 00:04:01.189 --> 00:04:04.909 more so than email. And if that's where the teams are, and then, 57 00:04:04.990 --> 00:04:10.099 in our case, marketing teams, we thought couldn't we deliver our technology, 58 00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:14.460 you know, directly to where the teams are, without creating another log 59 00:04:14.620 --> 00:04:17.620 in, you know, or another ashboard or another product have to go check 60 00:04:17.660 --> 00:04:19.779 out because you know, as you know, and I think a lot of 61 00:04:19.819 --> 00:04:24.649 the audience knows, I mean marketing technology is highly fragmented. So a lot 62 00:04:24.689 --> 00:04:28.290 of tools out there and if your start up like we are building new marketing 63 00:04:28.370 --> 00:04:32.889 technology. The idea of introducing yet another tool into that mix is a pretty 64 00:04:32.889 --> 00:04:36.850 big ask when you go to a marketing agency. But if the Marketing Agency 65 00:04:36.889 --> 00:04:40.959 was already using slack and we can kind of slip in as a BOT and 66 00:04:41.079 --> 00:04:43.839 slip in behind the scenes, people go yeah, I get that, that 67 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:48.480 fits in with my workflow. So we were experimenting with different ways to deliver 68 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:54.069 our solution and we kind of landed on slack because that's what we liked and 69 00:04:54.149 --> 00:04:56.509 that's what we were using and we found a lot of customers who were going 70 00:04:56.910 --> 00:05:00.189 yeah, that makes sense to us. And I spoke at an agency conference 71 00:05:00.230 --> 00:05:05.269 about back in the spring and we surveyed the audience and we found that ninety 72 00:05:05.310 --> 00:05:10.420 five percent of the agencies that were there you'd slack. And we're like, 73 00:05:10.500 --> 00:05:13.379 well, I think we got this one pretty close. And the other the 74 00:05:13.699 --> 00:05:17.699 only other standout is Microsoft teams, and Microsoft has made a really big push 75 00:05:17.860 --> 00:05:23.649 into the space, understandably because this is kind of an area where you'd think 76 00:05:23.730 --> 00:05:27.129 Microsoft Wood and should have a big presence and I think they got caught off 77 00:05:27.209 --> 00:05:31.649 guard a little bit about by what slack was providing, and so Microsoft did 78 00:05:31.689 --> 00:05:36.000 a great job building Microsoft teams. It's a great product. It looks very 79 00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:40.040 similar to slack, and that's because slacked in a lot of things right. 80 00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:44.839 But micro off teams is out there too, and you see that in certain 81 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:46.720 settings, or we see it in certain settings that we're running into. But 82 00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:50.069 those are really the two big players and right now there's only those that that's 83 00:05:50.110 --> 00:05:53.629 really the only two in the space. Yeah, well, you just put 84 00:05:53.670 --> 00:05:56.829 me up on game. I maybe I should be embarrassed to say I hadn't 85 00:05:56.829 --> 00:06:00.550 actually heard of Microsoft teams until you just mentioned to hear. I thought there 86 00:06:00.670 --> 00:06:05.019 was only slack. The things for that that little overview of what this real 87 00:06:05.100 --> 00:06:10.860 landscape is right now and why it would make sense for to be where, 88 00:06:10.899 --> 00:06:13.860 like you said, to be where the teams are. And so, once 89 00:06:13.939 --> 00:06:16.259 you figure that out right, once you've understood how we got here and at 90 00:06:16.300 --> 00:06:20.089 the point is to be where the teams are, talk about what it looks 91 00:06:20.129 --> 00:06:26.050 like to effectively leverage something like what you're talking about, a sort of native 92 00:06:26.129 --> 00:06:30.209 slack APP. Yeah, well, before you adopt anything kind of like as 93 00:06:30.250 --> 00:06:32.639 a slack APP, before you actually get involved in, you know, using 94 00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:38.199 and leveraging the the slack act APP ecosystem, which is where we deliver our 95 00:06:38.279 --> 00:06:44.160 product. Getting your team comfortable with slack and getting it implemented properly is really 96 00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:46.629 important, and I think a big part of that is understanding that this is 97 00:06:46.670 --> 00:06:50.990 a generational shift and how we work, and it's not. This is not 98 00:06:51.069 --> 00:06:55.389 a new concept, right. This goes back to even like in the S, 99 00:06:55.470 --> 00:06:58.110 right, where, you know, everything you know became that we were 100 00:06:58.189 --> 00:07:00.939 on PC's and then pretty quickly things went online and that was a big shift, 101 00:07:01.220 --> 00:07:03.819 you know, and how we do business. You know, things were 102 00:07:03.860 --> 00:07:09.420 getting done online rather than necessarily on the desktop, and the web was kind 103 00:07:09.459 --> 00:07:12.339 of a big thing and that was like the beginnings of the Internet. And 104 00:07:12.420 --> 00:07:16.050 then that lasted for about ten years until we started to get APPs right, 105 00:07:16.250 --> 00:07:19.889 and apps on the phone, especially on an iphone. That was new and 106 00:07:19.930 --> 00:07:24.370 unheard of. You know, how do I deliver my product? You deliver 107 00:07:24.410 --> 00:07:26.569 it as an APP. Where do you put it? You put it in 108 00:07:26.649 --> 00:07:29.889 the the APP store. That that was a big thing. You know, 109 00:07:29.970 --> 00:07:32.720 that was very that was new. Now it seems commonplace. But now, 110 00:07:32.920 --> 00:07:35.639 as you get into kind of two thousand and nineteen, two thousand and twenty, 111 00:07:36.120 --> 00:07:40.920 messaging has become a new way to collaborate it's become a new way to 112 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:44.629 do work and, frankly, I think it improves on a lot of the 113 00:07:44.709 --> 00:07:48.910 problems that we had with traditional ways of communicating. And it is very generational. 114 00:07:49.149 --> 00:07:54.389 And it's generational in the sense that kind of whether it's the millennial or 115 00:07:54.430 --> 00:08:00.259 the Gen Z generation, they didn't grow up like it through your careers using 116 00:08:00.420 --> 00:08:05.339 email. They didn't grow up in conference calls and meetings and their remote, 117 00:08:05.339 --> 00:08:09.899 highly remote workforces where people have flexible schedules, where these type of team based, 118 00:08:09.939 --> 00:08:13.689 kind of collaborative tools are what is needed in order to run today's types 119 00:08:13.730 --> 00:08:18.689 of businesses. And with those constraints, you see messaging being the way in 120 00:08:18.730 --> 00:08:22.490 which people want to collaborate and communicate and, frankly, the the current new 121 00:08:22.569 --> 00:08:28.839 generation of employees find email very tedious. So that I know of. I 122 00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:33.840 don't know that I engage with any acts in flat. Is that by design? 123 00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:37.120 So are flag APPs supposed to just sort of run behind the thenes and 124 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:41.870 you don't know that you're using them but sort of they this within flak, 125 00:08:41.029 --> 00:08:45.190 or are they just not very many of them yet? Well, I think 126 00:08:45.190 --> 00:08:48.909 there's over one five hundred different slack apps out there right now. I think 127 00:08:48.070 --> 00:08:52.830 the slack APP directory, if I check, has probably been out for the 128 00:08:52.830 --> 00:08:56.779 last two or three years. I think it's a new way in which to 129 00:08:56.220 --> 00:09:03.940 deliver products and if your product is if the use case that you're designed for, 130 00:09:05.259 --> 00:09:07.659 works well in messaging, then delivering it as a slack Bot or a 131 00:09:07.700 --> 00:09:11.289 slack application makes sense. And that's that's the same thing for any type of 132 00:09:11.370 --> 00:09:16.330 medium. Right. Certain mediums are good for certain things and when we think 133 00:09:16.370 --> 00:09:20.690 about messaging, messaging is really great, at least in our world at all 134 00:09:20.809 --> 00:09:26.320 type we'd use messaging for is for monitoring, alerting and notifications, and if 135 00:09:26.399 --> 00:09:31.159 that's the core value that you're bringing, then messaging is a great way to 136 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:33.879 deliver it. Messaging doesn't work great for a lot of things. That's a 137 00:09:33.960 --> 00:09:39.669 very limited medium. It's a very constrained medium. If you don't have all 138 00:09:39.710 --> 00:09:43.230 of the interactivity that you have on a smartphone or a tablet, you don't 139 00:09:43.309 --> 00:09:48.750 have all of the screen real estate that you have in a browser, you 140 00:09:48.870 --> 00:09:54.259 don't have the kind of the rich interfaces that you see in other mediums. 141 00:09:54.340 --> 00:09:56.379 But what you do have, if you have the attention of the team, 142 00:09:58.059 --> 00:10:01.539 give the attention of individual people, you can have conversations with them in a 143 00:10:01.620 --> 00:10:07.490 way that makes a lot of sense and it's ideal for things like chat bots, 144 00:10:07.129 --> 00:10:13.850 voice spots, monitoring, alerting, anything that is timely and has a 145 00:10:13.970 --> 00:10:18.250 layer of ai in it. It's great for AI solutions and you see that 146 00:10:18.370 --> 00:10:22.840 manifesting itself in Chat Bots, customer service Bots, voice spots, because you 147 00:10:22.919 --> 00:10:26.440 know, voice is a type of messaging as well. You certainly see that 148 00:10:26.639 --> 00:10:30.879 with Alexa. So when I talk to folks about not only what we're building 149 00:10:31.080 --> 00:10:35.320 but, you know, how can you take advantage of tools like slack and 150 00:10:35.360 --> 00:10:39.070 Microsoft teams, is to remember that it's a new medium and it's a medium 151 00:10:39.269 --> 00:10:43.309 that has a lot of constraints, but sometimes constraints, constraints, can really 152 00:10:43.389 --> 00:10:48.389 refine what you're trying to deliver and to think about the use cases and see 153 00:10:48.429 --> 00:10:52.940 if your solution can take advantage of messaging, and I think our solution does, 154 00:10:52.980 --> 00:10:58.059 and I think there's a lot of great digital assistance and bots and other 155 00:10:58.299 --> 00:11:03.019 forms of kind of messaging ai out there and I think it's just a new 156 00:11:03.019 --> 00:11:05.730 way to build applications and I think that's where the trend is moving right now 157 00:11:05.769 --> 00:11:11.970 and it's every bit as transformational as what we saw with the browser and the 158 00:11:11.049 --> 00:11:16.610 web and then what we saw ten years later with mobile and the APP store, 159 00:11:16.049 --> 00:11:20.159 and I think now we're living in this messaging first kind of world and 160 00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:22.559 it's a good spot to be. It's a great spot to build tech G 161 00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:24.919 for sure. Thanks for Lana out for so like I said, I knew 162 00:11:24.919 --> 00:11:30.120 I was going to learn something. There's others called day. Apparently I need 163 00:11:30.159 --> 00:11:33.029 to give up the program if I don't know that I'm engaging within the indies 164 00:11:33.149 --> 00:11:35.750 ass. I don't mind. I don't mind being the ADA here in these 165 00:11:35.990 --> 00:11:39.669 conversations. So I would like if I'm the one who knows the least in 166 00:11:39.710 --> 00:11:43.070 the room, then I think I'm doing something right. Yeah, but now 167 00:11:43.149 --> 00:11:46.580 that I've successfully, Michael, picked your brain and see what I could get 168 00:11:46.580 --> 00:11:50.379 out of it, it's time for you to tell us about what you are 169 00:11:50.460 --> 00:11:54.019 putting in it. So talk to us about a learningly source that you know 170 00:11:54.100 --> 00:11:58.659 that you've been engaging with, that it's either in forming your approach or maybe 171 00:11:58.700 --> 00:12:01.169 this just thought you excited these days. Yeah. Well, I'll do a 172 00:12:01.250 --> 00:12:05.690 couple kind of shoutouts here. I guess really for some folks that and in 173 00:12:05.850 --> 00:12:11.690 our ecosystem that we work with in Atlanta. We have put together a group 174 00:12:11.730 --> 00:12:16.440 of companies who are building in messaging platforms and there's a lot of folks out 175 00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:22.080 there that are doing things with chat bots, customer service spots or building within 176 00:12:22.279 --> 00:12:26.720 other messaging platforms. There's some great companies here in Atlanta. We have a 177 00:12:26.799 --> 00:12:31.230 little group that we get together, we do meetups. We talked about how 178 00:12:31.230 --> 00:12:35.950 to build chat in their faces, interfaces, conversational assistance, conversational Ai, 179 00:12:35.830 --> 00:12:39.990 and we see some really great things going on. So anybody WHO's in Atlanta, 180 00:12:39.990 --> 00:12:41.429 please reach out let me know. We can kind of add you to 181 00:12:41.470 --> 00:12:46.019 our group. And there's some great companies here that are doing some stuff inside 182 00:12:46.059 --> 00:12:50.139 the slack ecosystem and the other one that's really big as intercom. I don't 183 00:12:50.139 --> 00:12:56.340 know if you're familiar with intercom. How Intercom actually puts digital assistance on the 184 00:12:56.460 --> 00:13:03.129 web and creates chatter interfaces. There are friends over at user feed have a 185 00:13:03.330 --> 00:13:07.889 great podcast called made with grit and I'd encourage everybody to check that out. 186 00:13:07.289 --> 00:13:13.519 User feed builds their product inside of the intercom ecosystem and there an intercom APP. 187 00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:16.600 We're slack APP, and so we work with these guys a lot just 188 00:13:16.840 --> 00:13:22.240 on how the best practices are for developing these type of conversational interfaces and messaging 189 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:26.919 applications. So I'd encourage you guys to check that out, but otherwise to 190 00:13:26.960 --> 00:13:28.830 keep up in touch with what we're building at La type, you can go 191 00:13:28.950 --> 00:13:35.590 to Llo typecom news. We write a weekly brought blog post and we're covering 192 00:13:35.750 --> 00:13:41.259 things from the slack APP ecosystem. We're talking about messaging platforms, we talked 193 00:13:41.259 --> 00:13:46.580 about startups. We are a text ours company and we're covering our journey through 194 00:13:46.700 --> 00:13:50.460 text ours and we are about two thirds of the way done on that. 195 00:13:50.860 --> 00:13:56.370 We will be showcasing our product at text stars Atlanta Demo Day on October thirteen 196 00:13:56.889 --> 00:14:01.370 and if anybody again is in Atlanta and wants to know more about the text 197 00:14:01.370 --> 00:14:03.610 stars program you can reach out to me. You can find me on twitter. 198 00:14:03.970 --> 00:14:09.240 My handle is M Sing Bush one at twitter, and also you can 199 00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:13.200 follow us at Llo typecom or la type on pleare you cover it at all? 200 00:14:13.240 --> 00:14:16.799 I didn't even get to ask you how to how to connect, because 201 00:14:16.799 --> 00:14:20.320 you are already on top of it. Man. I really appreciate, like 202 00:14:20.399 --> 00:14:24.000 I said, you coming on here and talking about this for our listeners, 203 00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:26.029 because it's not something that I've gotten to put in front of them before. 204 00:14:26.629 --> 00:14:30.990 I'm excited for where this whole thing is going and I like your answer to 205 00:14:31.190 --> 00:14:35.470 the you know, where are you learning from question, because essentially you're talking 206 00:14:35.509 --> 00:14:39.899 about learning from the community and not and not in like an insular kind of 207 00:14:39.940 --> 00:14:43.980 way, not just from folks at Your Organization, but folks in the industry 208 00:14:45.100 --> 00:14:48.539 overall who are trying to do something big and have a larger conversation. That's 209 00:14:48.580 --> 00:14:52.779 something that I, and certainly the folks here at sweeps media, one hundred 210 00:14:52.779 --> 00:14:56.730 percent get behind. So, Kuldils, you for that. A million other 211 00:14:56.769 --> 00:14:58.529 questions I could ask you about this subject that you just kind of introduced to 212 00:14:58.649 --> 00:15:01.850 me today. So it sounds like we'll have to have you on again sometime, 213 00:15:01.970 --> 00:15:05.769 Michael, but the first for now. Thank you so much for being 214 00:15:05.769 --> 00:15:07.639 on the show man. You have a good one. Thanks. Hey, 215 00:15:09.559 --> 00:15:13.879 we totally get it. We publish a ton of content on this podcast and 216 00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:18.200 it can be a lot to keep up with. That's why we've started the 217 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:22.309 BETB growth big three, a no fluff email that boils down our three biggest 218 00:15:22.350 --> 00:15:28.710 takeaways from an entire week of episodes. Sign up today at Sweet Phish mediacom 219 00:15:28.429 --> 00:15:33.710 big three, that sweet fish Mediacom Big Three