Transcript
WEBVTT
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There's a ton of noise out there. So how do you get decision makers
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to pay attention to your brand?
Start a podcast and invite your ideal clients
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to be guests on your show.
Learn more at sweetphish MEDIACOM. You're listening
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to be tob growth, a daily
podcast for B TOB leaders. We've interviewed
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names you've probably heard before, like
Gary vanner truck and Simon Senek, but
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you've probably never heard from the majority
of our guests. That's because the bulk
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of our interviews aren't with professional speakers
and authors. Most of our guests are
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in the trenches leading sales and marketing
teams. They're implementing strategy, they're experimenting
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with tactics, they're building the fastest
growing BB companies in the world. My
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name is James Carberry. I'm the
founder of sweet fish media, a podcast
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agency for BB brands, and I'm
also one of the cohosts of this show.
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When we're not interviewing sales and marketing
leaders, you'll hear stories from behind
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the scenes of our own business.
Will share the ups and downs of our
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journey as we attempt to take over
the world. Just getting well, maybe
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let's get into the show. Welcome
back to BEDB growth. I'm Logan Lyles
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with sweetfish media. I'm joined by
two guests today. I've got with me
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Toby Murdoch, he is the cofounder
and CEO of compost and now a general
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manager at Upland software, and also
Zoe Randolf, content architect at compost.
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They are coauthors of the new book
mastering one voice, a marketing fable and
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field guide to content operations. Toby, Zoe, welcome to the show.
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Thank he logan, thanks for having
us for excited to be here. Yeah,
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absolutely. So we're going to be
talking about some of the key lessons
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that you guys are sharing in your
new book mastering one voice today. Before
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we jump straight into that, though, I would love for you guys to
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give listeners a little bit of context. Toby will start with you. Tell
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us a little bit about yourself and
what you and the team at compost and
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upland have been up to these days. Sure. So, I started composed
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about ten years ago and I've served
as its CEO up until last spring when
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we became part of upland software,
and we're really excited about that and being
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part of the upland family of software
products and the composed. Our mission has
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always been to help large be to
be more marketing organizations around their content,
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and specifically, what we want to
do is enable them to have a consistent
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message across all their content assets,
that's and all the different customer touch points
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along the journey. I love it. Zoe, tell us a little bit
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about yourself. What are you up
to on the team these days? Yeah,
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so, like you mentioned, I
am content architect, which basically means
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that I get to spend my days
thinking about words. You know what we're
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saying and how we're saying it,
which is a dream country for me,
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and it's especially fun because our audience
it's marketers. So I get to talk
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to a bunch of people who are
going through the same struggles that I am
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in bb marketing and really speak to
the heart of what we're all going through
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and how we can create amazing,
cusper experience through content. I love it
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absolutely. So tell us a little
bit, guys. You know, as
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we teat up here, your new
book mastering one voice. Why was it
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that you guys wanted to write this
book? And, as the subtitle says,
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it's written in this format of fable
and field guide. So tell us
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a little bit about, you know, the why behind the book and then,
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as you guys have brought it to
life, what that process has been
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like. Then we'll dig into some
of the key lessons in the themes that
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you guys are seeing that marketers can
learn from. Sure. Well, you
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know, given that what we're focused
on content for our customers, we've always
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had to produce a lot of content
ourselves, of course, and we really
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pioneered the whole field, the notion
of content operations, and we've been writing
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about it for years and years and
years and we've had all sorts of ebooks
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and blog posts and guides that help
people with conceptual frameworks. You know,
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we have a whole content operations model
that has three levels and four different phases
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and we've always explained all these best
practices conceptually. But I thought for a
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long time I'm I love to tell
stories and and try to explain and communicate,
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and I think you know, human
beings actually most understand and communicate around
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actual fictional stories. And I was
an English major way back when, and
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I'm also a huge fan of Patrick
Lency ony that you know. Maybe some
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of your listeners have heard of he's
quite popular. He writes a lot about
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business culture and how teams work together, and his books, particularly his most
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famous book five dysfunctions of a team, starts with fables and tells the point
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that he's trying to get across through
fictional stories and then provides a conceptual framework.
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So for this book was someone I
really wanted to do. We aggregate
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a lot of what we'd explain in
terms of our various conceptual frameworks around content
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operations, but we wanted to do
uniquely this time around was actually tell the
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story, and tell the story from
both the perspective of a Bob Marketing Organization
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and what's going on inside that organization, and also from the perspective of their
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customer and how that customers interacting with
the marketing content along the journey. And
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and so we just took a plunge. We made up a whole plot line
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and invented some characters and off we
went and we just thought this would be
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the best way to really convey all
of our ideas on how marketing organizations can
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work better and ultimately drive better results
through working together in a new, more
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collaborative, more lined way. I
love it. It's obviously a topic that
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you guys are really passionate about.
Toby Zoe is as content architect, I
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have to give you a chance to
kind of chime in on you know,
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you're thinking around choosing this style,
this format to communicate your story. You
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know, here at sweetfish, where
big fans of Donald Miller, building a
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story brand. PODCAST is one that's
in my regular rotation. So tell us
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a little bit about how you guys
started to build the characters and kind of
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tell this story. I think it's
really interesting that it unpacks the story from
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a BB marketers perspective as well as, you know, the customers perspective.
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Right. Yeah, I can't lie. When Toby First, you know,
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came to me, I've got this
idea that's going to be a fable.
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I'm not. Okay, all right, I'll hear you out, but I
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was not entirely convinced. And then, you know, he gave me Patrick
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Lencione's book to read and I saw
the way that it could work and we
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also just kind of started talking about
it until we actually kicked off the writing
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and wrote a couple of the first
chapters and I could already see the story
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taking place, and the thing is
it's a really complicated thing that we're trying
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to explain here. Like toby mentioned
earlier, we've got charts and levels and
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phases and it's easy to kind of
read through that information and say, yeah,
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I get it, I get it. I think we're doing that,
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you know, in my business.
But when you're confronted with characters that look
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like you and sound like you and
your colleagues, you start to see yourself
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and your business reflected in the story
in a way you might not in a
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white paper, and so I think
it really allows people to hold up a
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mirror to themselves and see maybe there's
a little more that they didn't see the
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first tie with a just read the
information at or in a white paper or
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something like that. So it was
very fun to kind of develop these characters
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and a lot of them are based
on, you know, folks that we
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know or have worked with and we
didn't just pull them out of thin air.
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It's really hopefully reflective of what real
be to be enterprize marketers are going
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through and what they're experiencing. So
yeah, and for me just to add
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to that a little bit, as
I've been working with, you know,
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some of the largest be tob companies
in the world, GEIBM, sales force,
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Fedex, on and on for ten
years on this topic, and so
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the story was was pretty easy to
envision because it's really just an amalgamation of
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all those interactions and all those experiences
that I've had with those companies for four
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years and years. And then,
you know, it was a kind of
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crazy idea. I did get the
ball rolling with the first few chapters and
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then I was very lucky to have
of zoe is a partner because she's a
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fantastic writer and she loves to write
and I think once she kind of realized
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that this was that ridiculous and and
a sane idea, she I think excited
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and ran with it and built out
and wrote the the bulk of the of
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the story, and so I think
we were a good partnership in terms of
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me having some crazy ideas and her
having some fantastic writing talent. Yeah,
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absolutely, it's always fantastic when those
sorts of partnerships come to be. In
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as a journalism major myself, you
know, hearing someone who says they just,
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you know, love thinking about and
using words every day, you know
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I can tell that there's passion in
what you do, Zoe. So let's
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talk about you know what this concept
is all about. That is the title
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of the Book Mastering One voice,
and I think you know, for some
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folks you know, as you said, to be you guys have been writing
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and blogging and speaking about content operations
for years. It might be worthwhile to
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pause real quick and just define the
term content operations in the way that you
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guys think about it and then start
to unpack this idea of mastering one voice.
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What's the challenge and what's The opportunityy
for marketers today? So I'll kick
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it back over to you for those. Sure great question. So a content
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operation is a set of processes inside
of a marketing organization such that all the
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interactions with their customers along the journey
have a consistent and personalized message and story.
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So let me step back and you
know. And why is that so
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important? And how did this all
come about? So over the last ten,
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fifteen years and being marketing, things
have changed, things have revolutionized in
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the huge way. We've gone from
being dissails support to an equal partner in
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the revenue machine and we've had to
build out all these touch points, the
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video channel, the web channel,
the blog channel, the email channel,
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the Webinar channel, the social channel, it goes on and on and on.
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So marketing has gotten way more complex
managing all these different channels. There's
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still, of course, the sales
and service channels that do a lot of
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human interaction with the customer. And
then in large organizations you have different divisions
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and product lines, you have different
geographies, and so you see all these
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different dimensions of complexity. In it
actually gets nuts, to be honest.
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It gets totally nuts. And really
large organizations in terms of you know,
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you have the email channel in Europe
on the big data du saying one story
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and then you have the security be
you in Asia in its blog channel,
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saying a whole nother story. In
CMOS are finding that the message and the
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story they're trying to be bring to
market gets fractured and splintered and fragmented and
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it's all over the place, and
often they find this in really ugly ways
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when they survey their their customers and
they say, now, what do you
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think of when you think of our
brand and our message? What are we
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trying to tell you? And they
find in these studies firsthand just how all
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over their place, their story,
in their message, is become and it
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really makes all their efforts as a
marketers, they try to bring a story
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to market, all their efforts are
wasted in a hideous way because, you
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know, you spend all this money
to create content, build up these channels
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and you know, by amplification and
by ADS and enable your sales team and
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many marketing leaders are finding in the
wake of all this complexity we've built that
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they're just ended up confusing their customers
because these customers are finding radically different messages
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and stories from all these different touchpoints. So a content operations the way of
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first taken a big deep breath and
then saying hey, we need to work
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together and how we create this customer
experience and all these different teams need to
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be aligned on the same strategy in
terms of what the message in the story
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is that we're trying to bring the
market and then have a set of processes
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so that we can create all this
content and a collaborative way so that each
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interaction, whether it's an email or
a video or a sales meeting or a
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piece of you know, services or
support collateral, all is consistently telling the
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same story, personalized appropriately to whomever
that customer is, and so that's what
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a content operation is all about.
Them. Today's growth story centers around exactly
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a SASS company that helps enterprise companies
with their incentive compensation. They'd work with
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search marketing agencies in the past,
but they'd had issues with transparency and Roy.
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They wanted to improve net new leads
via their organic and paid search channels,
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so they reached out to directive.
Optimizing search engine market share for exactly
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was the top priority. Directed did
this by improving search engine visibility for target
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audiences at the bottom of the funnel. In order to generate qualified leads.
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They focused on value driven content on
relevant, winnable terms, landing page testing
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on PPC platforms and a laser focus
on third party directory optimization, specifically Cap
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Tera. Directive grew sales accepted lead
volume by one hundred percent, increased Cap
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Tera conversion volume by three hundred and
thirty six percent and boosted pre qualified clicks
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to Captera by thirty nine percent.
If you're looking for results like this with
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your search engine marketing, there's a
good chance directive can help. Visit Directive
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consultingcom and get a free customized proposal. Now I love it and I loved
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the more your passion on this subject
that comes through, Toby, because you
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know, as you describe it like
we all need to take a deep breath
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because we've created all of this complexity
around us. I imagine that you know
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you see some of these same complexities
and same challenges, no matter the size
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of the marketing team, where content
gets created in a silo or something.
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Something is happening over here that other
folks over in a different business unit or
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a different region didn't even know that
was happening. Would you say that's true?
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I would always just laugh because you
know, we serve all kinds of
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baby companies, financial services companies,
chemical and food manufacturing companies, you know,
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industrial companies, technology companies, energy
companies, all kinds, all different
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shapes and sizes. We don't really
do small businesses, but we do know
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high growth midsize companies. We do
the biggest of the big companies. Be
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Do companies all over the world and
it just it always but I when you
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know a salesperson will come back and
tell me how I'm meeting. When are
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all go and see someone in this
story is the same. Everywhere in the
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story is the same everywhere. You
know about that. This this kind of
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Frankenstein like monster of complexity they've created
in the impact that that is happening on
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their customers and their experience. And
so again, the story that Zoe and
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I decided to tell was really just
a distillation of what you know. I
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had particularly heard over and over again
from all of these marketing organizations and,
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as different as they all are and
as different as all their businesses are,
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ultimately the story it was uncanny how
consistent it was for every business. And
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funny enough as though, and I
have shared the draft of our book with
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different people, it's so far they
laugh and they say, Oh, that's
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me, and everyone sees themselves in
this fable that we put together just because
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the experience in the story is so
consistent across all these businesses. Oh Man,
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again, just your experience in talking
to all these marketers just just comes
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through, Toby. So you know, we've put forth a lot of the
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the realities, the challenges that everyone
is facing. What are some of the
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things that that you guys recommend in
the book and as you're talking to your
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customers that are in bb marketing.
What are some of your recommendations on what
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sales and marketing leaders can do to, as you call, master one voice
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and deal with this complex set of
circumstances in their content operations that have built
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up or been built up around them? First I want to say you can
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see I may have done a lot
of the writing, but you can see
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how nice it is to have a
brain like toby's behind these kinds of efforts,
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because you can take all this and
just put it right on the page
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and it really comes through. But
yeah, I think that one of our
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big messages in the book and what
we see so often is simply that it
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really starts by taking a look inside
and getting your house in order. And
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people are really, really eager for
external solutions. You know, how can
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we automate our content so it gets
where it needs to be faster? How
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can we package it in a more
exciting way? How can we deliver it
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in a more quote unquote, personalized
way? And what we find really is
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that the first thing people need to
do is really it's not sexy, but
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they need to sit down and talk
to one another. And you hear this
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from our professional services folks all the
time that they'll come into an organization and
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what they find is, when they
get the folks they need in a room,
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they find that they're introducing themselves to
one another because they haven't gotten together
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before, they haven't spoken to together
before, and they're really the first step
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is that people get together and agree. What are we trying to achieve and
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how are we going to achieve it
together? What are we trying to say
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and how does that message filter through
all of our bus at, our product
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lines and our geographies? But if
you don't have the first answer, you're
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never going to get to all of
these those other answers. So really conversation,
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I think, is the first step. Getting aligned. Absolutely. I
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love it, Zoe. What are
you guys seeing as far as teams?
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As you mentioned, Zoe, it's
an internal struggle that that needs to happen.
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It's not so much how you're getting
the content out there to market it,
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it's, as toby was saying earlier, take a deep breath and getting
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on the same page internally. Who
are you seeing that are successfully kind of
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championing this charge of mastering one voice
internally and getting everyone aligned, getting everyone
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on the same page, getting everyone
to stop and say, hold on,
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we're telling disjointed stories, we need
to pause for a second, because that
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pause is going to, you know, not keep going fast in the wrong
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direction, but it is going to
help us, you know, write the
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ship or whatever the case might be. How are you guys seeing teams start
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to make that shift? WHO,
inside the organizations have been successfully kind of
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championing this cause in your opinion?
You know, it's a whole range of
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people. You know, we've seen
it. A leader of demand Jin,
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a leader of product marketing. There's
getting to be more and more content.
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You know, people that are content
marketing leaders, of VP of content who
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sometimes take the mantle. So it
can be, you know, a functional
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leader, but typically, you know, and they might get it going on
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a small team and a division,
but really for it to succeed it's got
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to get to the marketing leader of
that division or the you know, the
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head of marketing overall. So,
you know, to give you some examples,
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you know IBM has really prioritized content
and they have an executive, George
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Hammer, who leads all the content
efforts across all of IBM. So,
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you know, we didn't begin working
with him there there were some kind of
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small efforts bubbling up across the organization, but his leadership really crystallize the effort
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so that they really could take their
marketing efforts to another level. At sales
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force, funny enough, we started
working with a woman named Jessica Birdman who
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is leading content at a Boston based
startup called demand where and really did a
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great job of unifying all their content
and telling a consistent story at demand where.
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Demand where then, you might recall, got bought by sales force and
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she became part of that team.
And then the CMO of sales for Stephanie
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Buschemi, said Hey, you know
what, we really could take it to
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another level in terms of how we
produce our content, in the consistency of
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our message and all of our touch
points, and she made it one of
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her very top priorities. And then
she was like, how can I do
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this? Who knows how to do
this? And she found Jessica, who
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had been brought into sales force through
the acquisition, and now Jessica is really
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the key person, you know,
working under this top priority for Stephanie,
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that the Como of sales force,
to bring what they call a unified content
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strategy across all of sales force,
all of its regions, all of its
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clouds and business units. So I
to answer your question Logan. You know,
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usually there's some champion who's sort of
a mid level leader, who is
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who's leading the charge, and then
they ultimately partner with that top level marketing
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executive. And in fact, and
thoughing Nice fable, that's just what happens.
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But we know, we don't want
to spill all the details, but
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people can see how that happens.
YEA, in that fable, but again
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it reflects the experience and what we've
seen with our customers. Yeah, as
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you have marketing leaders, as you
as you mentioned a few folks that are
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championing the cause right now in different
organizations. Toby Zoe, whoever kind of
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wants to take this one. You
know, I think identifying the problem,
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as you mentioned, sharing the draft
of the book, you kind of got
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these smiles and nods and yes,
that's what's happening and I think identifying the
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problem is is a first step.
It's maybe a little bit easier than realizing
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where do we go from here,
and so getting internal alignment being one step,
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then taking the the problem to leadership
you know, I imagine the next
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step is then getting leaderships by in
into an action plan. And the next
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step, so for folks who identify
the problem want to start that conversation of
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internal alignment on what is the story
that we're telling? What are some of
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the ways that you advise them to
start the conversation, get some early wins
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and get more of the team on
board? Well, I think that a
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lot of the times what really helps
people is getting those other departments really on
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board and clamoring for answers. So
we've seen a lot of folks it gets
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success by by talking with sales actually
and getting sales on board understanding that if,
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if marketing is more aligned and they
have better content and then sales has
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access to that content, you know
how many hours we sales people could be
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saving and in searching for the content
that they don't have, or how many
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better and bigger deals they can be
making by having the right content for the
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right context and be able to use
it and deliver it. And so a
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lot of times building that pressure is
often often helps from outside of marketing actually
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and really connecting it to revenue in
a real way. Sure, yeah,
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I think that's get connecting it out
to revenue, and no one has this
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way around revenue. And and you
know the criticality of projects like the sales
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leadership. So I think so brings
a great point. I think another great
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step is, okay, obviously this
is a problem we're hearing from our customers
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that were confusing them with all these
inconsistent interactions. Where's your point Logan?
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Where do we start? What do
we do? And so you know and
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you start, we feel, with
an assessment and you have to break this
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problem down into its component parts.
And we've created models and framework and we
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actually have an online kind of automated
assessment that's totally free and and we have
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other assessments. You do, but
you can start to break down and say,
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okay, you know there's a planning
stage, there's a production stage,
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there's a distribution stage, there's analytics
stage, there's also levels. You know,
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we doing working at kind of the
execution level, the collaboration level,
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the governance level we have. So
we have this three by four model in
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twelve different jobs to be done that
aligned at the intersection of those three and
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four dimensions and through that assessment you
can start to get your arms around the
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problem and understand. Okay, where
where are we stronger and where are there
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some real holes that are, you
know, low, low hanging fruit that
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if we address immediately, we can
get some big gains, and so that's
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what we really typically recommend to our
customers as where they should start and where
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they should go, as they say, okay, I have this problem.
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Now how should I take those next
steps? That assessment typically helps, and
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I think the book so to.
We lay out that framework and give people
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a notion of what that frameworks about
and how they could think about it in
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regards to their own organization. The
great and I think also a good point
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there, is that it's really about
prioritize a which of those pieces you want
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to tackle firus and knowing that you
can do it all at once and that
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you probably shouldn't also have everyone on
board at once, is important to kind
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of find the group of folks you
know across section of people or you know,
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you might pick a few different teams
within marketing and sales enablement that you
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want to do a pilot program with
and really focus on getting it right at
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a smaller scale and then expanding out. If you try to get everyone on
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board right away you're going to experience
those growing pains on a much larger scale.
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So getting that that Core Group of
folks who is willing and ready to
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to make an effort to do something
different, and then once she starts seeing
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those wins, you're going to have
to be bear hitting the doors to keep
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people up. Because, yeah,
yeah, I love it. I mean
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it reminds me of what we've heard
on this show from a lot of our
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past guests. So and to be
about their shift to account based marketing and
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starting with some sort of pilot starting
with, you know, some some key
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allies on the sales team, to
begin testing the waters with abm and those
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sorts of things before you try and
go far and wide and and go deep
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with a small group. And it
sounds like you know, that same recommendation,
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that same piece of advice, is
echoed here for you guys in for
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marketing teams trying to get their content
operations in order. Well, I love
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the passion that you guys have brought
to this and I love this this model
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for for the book that you guys
have followed here at sweetfish, where big
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00:27:42.920 --> 00:27:48.630
fans of lots of the content out
from Patrick Lyncay only. So seeing another
359
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kind of in in that vein is
really interesting to me. We did we
360
00:27:52.910 --> 00:27:56.309
went through five dysfunctions of a team
last year in our regular monthly book club
361
00:27:56.349 --> 00:28:00.660
here at Sweet Fish. So for
folks like me that are excited now that
362
00:28:00.779 --> 00:28:03.940
this book is out and want to
see, okay, maybe I can identify
363
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with kind of the mess of content
operations and then figure out what is the
364
00:28:08.500 --> 00:28:11.339
the field guide that I can follow? What are some of the frameworks I
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00:28:11.539 --> 00:28:17.009
can follow to get out of that
mess? What's the best way for them
366
00:28:17.089 --> 00:28:19.210
to go further? The book is
out now, where the can they find
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00:28:19.250 --> 00:28:22.769
it? How can they stay connected
with you guys, till we all kick
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00:28:22.769 --> 00:28:25.890
it over to you first as we
round it out today? Man, I
369
00:28:26.089 --> 00:28:29.079
appreciate it, but I'm going to
defer to Zoe who I think can answer
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00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:36.640
this question better than I can.
Just the book is available at Content Operationscom.
371
00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:42.869
You can then from there there's a
direct link to the Amazon link and
372
00:28:44.470 --> 00:28:51.309
if you use for listeners who are
listening today, using the discount code growth,
373
00:28:51.509 --> 00:28:56.380
will give you a thirty percent off
there for your purchase. And if
374
00:28:56.420 --> 00:29:00.380
you want to connect with me,
I'm on Linkedin and Zoe brands off.
375
00:29:00.980 --> 00:29:03.779
I appreciated. Zoe. All right, content OPERATIONSCOM. That Promo Code is
376
00:29:03.900 --> 00:29:07.339
growth for thirty percent off the book. tellby. How about you as linked
377
00:29:07.380 --> 00:29:11.250
in, the best way to get
in touch with you as well? Yeah,
378
00:29:11.289 --> 00:29:15.410
I'm Toby Partcom Linkedin and would love
to chat with listeners on their thoughts
379
00:29:15.450 --> 00:29:18.369
on the book. Awesome. Well, Toby Zoe. This has been a
380
00:29:18.410 --> 00:29:22.490
great conversation. CONGRATS on the book
launch and the tour. I hear you
381
00:29:22.529 --> 00:29:26.920
guys are doing some events and stuff
here coming up. So much luck and
382
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:29.799
safe travels and all of that.
Thank you for being on the show today.
383
00:29:30.039 --> 00:29:32.519
Thanks so much for having us.
Yeah, thank you, we loved
384
00:29:32.559 --> 00:29:37.079
it. Hey, there, this
is James Carberry, founder a street fish
385
00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:41.150
media and one of the cohosts of
this show. The last year and a
386
00:29:41.190 --> 00:29:45.029
half I've been working on my very
first book. In the book I share
387
00:29:45.109 --> 00:29:48.349
the three part framework we used as
the foundation for our growth here sweetfish.
388
00:29:48.789 --> 00:29:52.549
Now there are lots of companies that
ever. He's a bunch of money and
389
00:29:52.670 --> 00:29:55.740
have grown insanely fast, and we
featured a lot of them here on the
390
00:29:55.819 --> 00:30:00.660
show. We've decided to bootstrap our
business, which usually equates to pretty slow
391
00:30:00.740 --> 00:30:03.859
growth, but using the strategy outlined
in the book, we are on pace
392
00:30:03.940 --> 00:30:07.690
to be one of ink's fastest growing
companies in two thousand and twenty. The
393
00:30:07.769 --> 00:30:11.930
book is called content based networking,
how to instantly connect with anyone you want
394
00:30:11.970 --> 00:30:15.490
to know. If you're a fan
of audio books like me, you can
395
00:30:15.490 --> 00:30:18.210
find the book on audible or,
I'd be like physical books. You can
396
00:30:18.250 --> 00:30:22.960
also find it on Amazon. Just
search content based networking or James Carberry,
397
00:30:22.240 --> 00:30:26.960
CR be aary, inaudible, or
Amazon and it should pop right up.