Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:09.029 Welcome back to be tob growth. I'm Logan lyles with sweet fish media. 2 00:00:09.269 --> 00:00:14.029 I'm joined today by Jim Rudden. He's executive vice president and CMO over at 3 00:00:14.109 --> 00:00:17.390 upland software. Jim, how's it going today, sir? It's going great, 4 00:00:17.429 --> 00:00:20.149 Logan. Thanks for having me. Absolutely Jim. We're going to be 5 00:00:20.230 --> 00:00:25.579 talking about managing the entire customer life cycle, really marketings impact in the entire 6 00:00:25.699 --> 00:00:31.620 revenue team's impact on that and how we can better aligned between CS, sales, 7 00:00:31.739 --> 00:00:34.780 marketing, all of that. For a little bit of context and why 8 00:00:34.899 --> 00:00:37.369 you're the guy talking about this today, Jim, give us a little bit 9 00:00:37.409 --> 00:00:40.729 of your background and what you in the upland team or up to these days. 10 00:00:40.770 --> 00:00:44.929 Yeah, look, and so I've been really my whole career, almost 11 00:00:44.929 --> 00:00:50.079 thirty years, in enterprise software. I started on building and installing software, 12 00:00:50.240 --> 00:00:53.960 then moved over in the selling and then for the last little over a decade 13 00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:58.759 been on the marketing side. Today I'm with a company called Upland software, 14 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:04.469 and upland has really four different areas that we sell software into. The first 15 00:01:04.510 --> 00:01:07.790 that we're going to talk a lot about today is enterprise sales and marketing cloud 16 00:01:08.230 --> 00:01:15.069 and that's really focused on companies that have more complex sales cycles can a bigger 17 00:01:15.069 --> 00:01:19.659 ticket items where you really need to synchronize and organize actions across kind of the 18 00:01:19.700 --> 00:01:23.980 whole revenue team. Second area for us is what we call the customer experience 19 00:01:25.060 --> 00:01:27.260 management, which, of course in itself is very broad. Our particular area 20 00:01:27.299 --> 00:01:34.250 of focuses around business consumer companies and within that mobile such an important the mobile 21 00:01:34.250 --> 00:01:38.489 platform such an important way of interacting with today's consumers, and so we have 22 00:01:38.609 --> 00:01:42.129 lots of technologies around kind of the mobile customer experience management. Then we go 23 00:01:42.209 --> 00:01:46.489 to the back office and we go to project and I management teams who are 24 00:01:46.890 --> 00:01:53.319 coordinating expense and projects for Really Complex digital transformations. And then finally we have 25 00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:57.799 a group called our document workflow cloud, and you know, it's fascinating over 26 00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:01.230 there. It's been a three decade journey of going from paper to the cloud 27 00:02:01.269 --> 00:02:05.909 and we have some really great technologies to do that. So it's pretty broad 28 00:02:06.109 --> 00:02:10.150 span in our portfolio. Obviously, today's conversation was zeroing in on what we 29 00:02:10.590 --> 00:02:15.189 for short, call the the EESNCLOUD enter price, sales and marketing, and 30 00:02:15.270 --> 00:02:19.300 that's where you'll find products like post. I know you've had them on previously. 31 00:02:19.699 --> 00:02:23.340 You know, altifies another company that we acquired last year that does a 32 00:02:23.580 --> 00:02:28.139 lot is kind of at the center of our thesis in this in this market 33 00:02:28.139 --> 00:02:32.090 around coordinating activity because across revenue teams and so that's kind of the overall you 34 00:02:32.129 --> 00:02:37.250 know, opens a public company coming up on three hundred million dollars at nine 35 00:02:37.289 --> 00:02:42.129 hundred plus employees around the world. That's the background. Absolutely. So let's 36 00:02:42.129 --> 00:02:45.599 talk about some of the the key areas that you guys are focusing on in 37 00:02:45.719 --> 00:02:51.039 the sales and marketing space, from marketing automation, customer advocacy, customer revenue 38 00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:53.400 optimization. You know, we're used to, you know, the new Crro 39 00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:59.830 of chief revenue officer or but customer revenue optimization is not something that gets talked 40 00:02:59.870 --> 00:03:02.430 about a ton. Can you kind of unpack that term as you guys see 41 00:03:02.430 --> 00:03:07.229 it and share with us a little bit about where your customers are improving the 42 00:03:07.310 --> 00:03:12.830 customer life cycle specifically in this area? Yeah, I think a couple thoughts 43 00:03:12.860 --> 00:03:15.539 on that, you know. The first is, you know, all of 44 00:03:15.659 --> 00:03:21.539 us in the considered purchase space arena are trying to move from the transactional to 45 00:03:21.580 --> 00:03:24.860 the relational. We're trying to have that long term relationship with the customer, 46 00:03:25.379 --> 00:03:29.289 and so that's that's kind of one of the imperatives. And when you start 47 00:03:29.330 --> 00:03:31.289 to say that, then you start to think about the fact that they're going 48 00:03:31.289 --> 00:03:37.849 to be multiple functions that are taking the lead in any given moment when we're 49 00:03:37.849 --> 00:03:43.039 interacting with the customer or different members of that customer team. And so really 50 00:03:43.159 --> 00:03:47.919 what we're focused on is is how how can we synchronize our teams so that 51 00:03:49.080 --> 00:03:53.759 they're they're taking the lead at the right time and bringing their their expertise and 52 00:03:53.879 --> 00:03:57.750 what they have to share for that customer at the right time, you know, 53 00:03:57.870 --> 00:04:02.150 and these these relational sales, many touch points, many different team members 54 00:04:02.229 --> 00:04:08.789 involved, many different levels of depth of the conversation, and so synchronizing that 55 00:04:09.310 --> 00:04:13.620 it's more than just you know, it's not a relay race, right, 56 00:04:13.780 --> 00:04:17.860 it's kind of a it's more I mean this is it's not really rugby's not 57 00:04:17.939 --> 00:04:21.860 the right necessarily metaphor as well, but but the idea is much more of 58 00:04:21.939 --> 00:04:27.490 a team mindset where the right folks are stepping for the right time. Yeah, 59 00:04:27.569 --> 00:04:31.089 absolutely, Lay speaking of a team mindset. I like that analogy of 60 00:04:31.170 --> 00:04:35.050 it's not a relay race, it's not like you know you have marketing here 61 00:04:35.170 --> 00:04:39.920 and then the handoff to sales and then you know they work that deal because 62 00:04:40.120 --> 00:04:44.079 in enterprise sales or even just mid market be to be, it's becoming more 63 00:04:44.279 --> 00:04:47.959 complex, with not only more digital touch points but more team members on your 64 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:53.310 side who are impacting the customer experience. What are some of the things that 65 00:04:53.430 --> 00:04:58.870 you guys are seeing amidst your customers gym in how they're getting those teams aligned 66 00:04:59.029 --> 00:05:03.470 from marketing to sales to customer success? Some some organizations now have a dedicated 67 00:05:03.550 --> 00:05:10.060 customer experience that kind of overlays customer success, because I think a lot of 68 00:05:10.139 --> 00:05:13.980 people, you know, interchange those terms, but to me they're a little 69 00:05:13.980 --> 00:05:17.579 bit different, right. Yeah, I think so. I guess the way 70 00:05:17.579 --> 00:05:21.529 I would in the way we tend to come at that Logan is is a 71 00:05:21.569 --> 00:05:27.610 little bit less from the kind of functional siload handoff perspective and a little bit 72 00:05:27.649 --> 00:05:30.209 more from from the point of view what is the core competence? What's the 73 00:05:30.329 --> 00:05:35.759 reason for this area to be or this function to be involved in the concern 74 00:05:35.879 --> 00:05:40.560 the customer life cycle. One of the greatest I got to work with a 75 00:05:40.639 --> 00:05:46.639 really fantastic worldwide consumer brand, one of their mantras for every segment that they 76 00:05:46.439 --> 00:05:51.709 delivered products into was no me to serve me. And internally they would always 77 00:05:51.709 --> 00:05:56.149 push each other to say do we know this customer? And then, and 78 00:05:56.230 --> 00:05:59.189 then what is unique about us in terms of how we're going to serve that 79 00:05:59.750 --> 00:06:02.629 customer? And so, you know, when I think about the synchronization of 80 00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:09.540 different teams, my point of view is marketings role here is to bring forward 81 00:06:09.540 --> 00:06:13.740 or to unearth the expertise that it sits in our business, and that expertise 82 00:06:13.819 --> 00:06:16.699 might be with our product experts, that expertise might be with the people who 83 00:06:16.699 --> 00:06:19.529 are actually going to install the solution or have installed the solution. It might 84 00:06:19.569 --> 00:06:24.730 be with sales teams who have seen these scenarias before. Marketings job is really 85 00:06:24.810 --> 00:06:29.730 to unearth those stories and then package that that together, and so that's that's 86 00:06:29.730 --> 00:06:32.439 kind of one element of it. I think sales role is to participate that 87 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:38.560 and help share what they've learned and what they know about the marketplace so that 88 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:43.079 again, marketing can package that. And then the kind of the customer success. 89 00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:46.550 This I always tell marketers that this is where you should spend almost the 90 00:06:46.629 --> 00:06:51.350 majority of your time is talking with the teams that are actually helping the customers 91 00:06:51.750 --> 00:06:55.870 install the software. What were their expectations? What are their challenges? What 92 00:06:55.949 --> 00:06:59.750 if they told their management teams they're going to go achieve? That is fruitful 93 00:06:59.750 --> 00:07:03.420 information because it it brings forward and it packages this expertise, which is, 94 00:07:03.819 --> 00:07:08.660 at the end of the day, in a relational sale. The reason you 95 00:07:08.779 --> 00:07:11.899 ask for more interaction with the sales team, the reason you ask for more 96 00:07:11.939 --> 00:07:14.699 interaction with a customer success team, is they're going to make you smarter. 97 00:07:15.220 --> 00:07:18.089 You feel like reaching out to them is going to give you better insight than 98 00:07:18.170 --> 00:07:23.569 you had just by googling things, and so I think that's what we're trying 99 00:07:23.649 --> 00:07:27.490 to do with synchronizing revenue teams, is making sure that we have the right 100 00:07:27.529 --> 00:07:32.600 expert with a point of view and depth of experience for that customer at the 101 00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:36.000 right time. That's you have to know that customer, you have to understand 102 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:40.720 what the account relationships are. You don't bring your deepest dive person to a 103 00:07:40.839 --> 00:07:45.550 meeting with the CMO, but similarly you don't send a salesperson who has limited 104 00:07:45.589 --> 00:07:48.389 product knowledge to a group that wants to talk about configuration. So that's the 105 00:07:48.670 --> 00:07:54.870 synchronization we talked about. That demands account planning, it demands the right packaged 106 00:07:54.990 --> 00:07:58.939 content. You know, it demands that you show up as an expert again 107 00:07:58.980 --> 00:08:03.019 and again. Yeah, absolutely. It reiterates that Monterre you were talking about 108 00:08:03.379 --> 00:08:07.019 know me to serve me, which kind of leads to if you know me 109 00:08:07.259 --> 00:08:09.699 in order to serve me, then you know how to serve me. and 110 00:08:09.819 --> 00:08:15.089 You provided some really good examples there of not sending the wrong team member into 111 00:08:15.129 --> 00:08:18.889 the wrong situation right where where they're just going to come out of the Lions 112 00:08:18.970 --> 00:08:22.410 Ten, you know, Mard and torn up and all those sorts of things. 113 00:08:22.610 --> 00:08:26.970 I love what you said there as well. Moving from transactional to relational, 114 00:08:26.050 --> 00:08:31.839 and you mentioned a lot their jim the relationship between the different departments marketing 115 00:08:31.879 --> 00:08:35.480 talking to the folks who are interacting with the customers at different touch points. 116 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:39.399 Can you dive a little bit more deeply into that, either within your own 117 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:43.149 team or some of your customers in the way that they are getting marketing to 118 00:08:43.710 --> 00:08:48.750 more regularly have those fruitful conversations because, as you mentioned, that's kind of 119 00:08:48.830 --> 00:08:52.629 where those gold nuggets lie. It might be product, it might be your 120 00:08:52.710 --> 00:08:56.299 implementation team, it might be your customer success team in ways that they can 121 00:08:56.340 --> 00:09:00.980 kind of pull out some of that knowledge and then use that to empower those 122 00:09:01.100 --> 00:09:07.340 teams more curious how you're seeing some teams in more complex environments do that on 123 00:09:07.419 --> 00:09:11.169 a regular basis and just make that part of their normal day to day. 124 00:09:11.809 --> 00:09:15.289 Well, I think they're established rhythms and then there are rhythms that you need 125 00:09:15.330 --> 00:09:18.009 to create, and one of the more established rhythms, certainly in the software 126 00:09:18.049 --> 00:09:22.649 arena, is that your product marketing group is going to interact with the product 127 00:09:22.690 --> 00:09:24.600 management team and really understand, you know, what's coming down the pike on 128 00:09:24.600 --> 00:09:28.240 the product. WHO's that relevant? To wise that relevant? Who of our 129 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:31.480 existing customers asked for that? How is this going to benefit them? And 130 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:35.519 that that is also, as all, really great insightful information that you could 131 00:09:35.519 --> 00:09:39.549 package and deliver back out to the market. For customers like that, you 132 00:09:39.669 --> 00:09:43.110 know that is always going to be a bit more aspirational. You know that 133 00:09:43.230 --> 00:09:46.549 here's what we hope and what we believe the product is going to be. 134 00:09:46.710 --> 00:09:50.629 I think you have to create a cycle, and this really for I think, 135 00:09:50.909 --> 00:09:54.379 be to be marketers, and particularly and kind of software field that I'm 136 00:09:54.740 --> 00:10:01.139 deepest in, of sitting down with your customer success teams on a regular cadence 137 00:10:01.179 --> 00:10:05.860 as they're deploying and saying what are you hearing? What do? What do 138 00:10:05.980 --> 00:10:07.809 we think? was going to go well? That didn't go well. What's 139 00:10:07.850 --> 00:10:11.289 been a surprise? That went well. You know, look, and we 140 00:10:11.409 --> 00:10:16.570 were we had a sales kickoff this year actually in this that you some cloud 141 00:10:16.610 --> 00:10:18.769 group and one of the customers was up on stage and the salesperson asked them, 142 00:10:18.809 --> 00:10:22.720 Hey, what's the best bit of content I could send to you? 143 00:10:22.759 --> 00:10:26.399 You know you're a real expert in sales enablement and you're a Multifi customer for 144 00:10:26.440 --> 00:10:30.799 a long time now. What's the type of content that breaks through to you? 145 00:10:31.559 --> 00:10:35.149 And this leader, who's leader for sales enablement for thousands of sales reps, 146 00:10:35.509 --> 00:10:39.470 he said, you know, the most the best thing you could send 147 00:10:39.509 --> 00:10:43.110 me is, how's my year going to go if when I sign on the 148 00:10:43.269 --> 00:10:46.070 DDTTED line and I started sawing this software and three months in I don't have 149 00:10:46.149 --> 00:10:50.899 the adoption I want? What do I do then? And so that just 150 00:10:50.019 --> 00:10:56.019 encapsulated from me. The way you win, the way you distinguish yourself with 151 00:10:56.179 --> 00:11:00.580 customers, the way you bring your expertise forward is you you articulate for them 152 00:11:01.299 --> 00:11:05.529 it's not a perfect world and when things go sideways, here's what that's going 153 00:11:05.570 --> 00:11:09.529 to look like and here's how you have to respond. And the only repository 154 00:11:09.610 --> 00:11:13.809 of information for that in a company are the people, the customer success teams, 155 00:11:13.049 --> 00:11:16.769 the consulting teams that are doing this work. And so I think it's 156 00:11:16.809 --> 00:11:20.039 a cycle that I don't see exist in a lot of companies. It is 157 00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:26.360 marketing going and looking not just for the case study of we we got for 158 00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:31.039 x Roi on this software, but actually asking the question where do things go 159 00:11:31.279 --> 00:11:33.909 wrong and what do you do when things go wrong? Right and and all 160 00:11:33.990 --> 00:11:37.389 of us have the there's a quote widely attributed. Everybody has a plan and 161 00:11:37.429 --> 00:11:41.269 until they get punched in the mouth. And I think that is the most 162 00:11:41.309 --> 00:11:46.230 powerful marketing, is the authentic marketing. are around things go wrong and here's 163 00:11:46.309 --> 00:11:48.940 what to do when things go wrong, and that's an area of fascination for 164 00:11:50.059 --> 00:11:54.940 me right now of how can you bring that expertise, that reality forward and 165 00:11:54.100 --> 00:11:58.179 represent that. Yeah, I was just going to say I heard, I've 166 00:11:58.259 --> 00:12:01.889 heard, you know, some people talk about some examples of this. We 167 00:12:01.090 --> 00:12:05.809 did a podcast episode on, you know, five areas where our service was 168 00:12:05.929 --> 00:12:09.009 really sucking and we put, you know, five freasons our service sucks and 169 00:12:09.169 --> 00:12:11.809 how we're improving it in the headline of that podcast episode. And the reason 170 00:12:11.850 --> 00:12:15.649 we do as kind of what you alluded to. Their gym is, you 171 00:12:15.720 --> 00:12:20.080 know, everybody's doing the case studies and and they're well polished and they're putting 172 00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:22.600 the numbers, you know, right in front. But everybody expects to see 173 00:12:22.679 --> 00:12:26.080 that, right. And as I was talking to todd caponey on the BB 174 00:12:26.159 --> 00:12:31.990 sales show about his experience diving into the psychology of buying and when he was 175 00:12:33.029 --> 00:12:37.389 at power reviews, they they realize that four point two, two, four 176 00:12:37.470 --> 00:12:41.190 point five star rated products, services sell better than a five point Oh, 177 00:12:41.269 --> 00:12:46.299 because we know that five point Oh isn't reality. And so then if we 178 00:12:46.379 --> 00:12:50.100 let ourselves have that expectation, we're always disappointed, right, but we know, 179 00:12:50.659 --> 00:12:52.100 you know, it's just like on Amazon, they don't. I don't 180 00:12:52.100 --> 00:12:56.940 even think they have a filter for a five star rating and only it's four 181 00:12:56.019 --> 00:13:00.649 star and above, right, which kind of lends itself there maybe some other 182 00:13:00.730 --> 00:13:03.049 good examples. I know we're kind of getting on a tangent here on, 183 00:13:03.370 --> 00:13:07.330 you know, authentic marketing, but I just love the thread here of leaning 184 00:13:07.370 --> 00:13:11.690 into those because I think it was justin well show was reading a post he 185 00:13:11.769 --> 00:13:16.000 did on linked in about anytime your team is trying to solve a problem, 186 00:13:16.519 --> 00:13:20.559 is facing a challenge, has a customer issue, that's a content opportunity and 187 00:13:20.679 --> 00:13:26.080 I don't think a lot of marketing teams have that mindset or are willing to 188 00:13:26.679 --> 00:13:28.710 share that. But that's what the customers are looking for and I love that 189 00:13:28.870 --> 00:13:33.029 that quote from from your customer. Your sales kickoff there. Yeah, so 190 00:13:33.350 --> 00:13:39.590 I think perhaps not a very specific example Logan, but but a little bit 191 00:13:39.629 --> 00:13:43.820 more of a philosophy, I think from a marketing perspective, where we are 192 00:13:43.860 --> 00:13:50.379 always feeling the tension of scale versus personalization, is I should be developing something 193 00:13:50.700 --> 00:13:54.019 that we can put across all these different channels and that will be my campaign 194 00:13:54.139 --> 00:14:00.809 and things like that, and that necessarily comes at the expensive of specifics and, 195 00:14:01.129 --> 00:14:03.090 of course, personalization. You know, we love getting down in there, 196 00:14:03.210 --> 00:14:05.529 but then there's a little voice at the back of our head that says, 197 00:14:05.529 --> 00:14:09.529 but this is really only relevant to a small set of people. I 198 00:14:09.649 --> 00:14:13.519 feel like this, the past decade was really all about breadth and you know, 199 00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:18.519 how can I just leverage digital technology social at the end to get the 200 00:14:18.639 --> 00:14:24.279 story to them Max Possible scale, and then we'll just sort out the leads 201 00:14:24.509 --> 00:14:26.509 as they come in. And I think all the reason all of us are 202 00:14:28.110 --> 00:14:33.710 interested in account based marketing and account based selling is because, intuitively, we 203 00:14:33.830 --> 00:14:39.100 feel like that's the right direction to go in in terms of making customers more 204 00:14:39.100 --> 00:14:43.299 successful. And so I think we're going to go through a phase here now. 205 00:14:43.740 --> 00:14:48.220 How do you scale up lots of very specific customer journeys as opposed to 206 00:14:48.259 --> 00:14:54.809 trying to normalize everything down to the same customer journey for everybody? And that's, 207 00:14:54.970 --> 00:14:56.889 you know, kind of coming back to our thesis in this marketplace. 208 00:14:58.370 --> 00:15:03.169 That's that's why software package like all tofy exists. It's why content operations, 209 00:15:03.250 --> 00:15:09.480 through composed exist. Say How can we scale up lots of very specific customer 210 00:15:09.519 --> 00:15:13.960 journeys that we have the expertise to get people through? And you know, 211 00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:18.639 in a self interested way, the the deeper you are with your expertise, 212 00:15:18.799 --> 00:15:22.269 the higher success rate you're going to have, the more your customers will pay 213 00:15:22.269 --> 00:15:24.350 you, the higher your renewal rates, all of the magic elements that go 214 00:15:24.470 --> 00:15:28.830 into a SASS business. High renewal rates follow on sales. Things like that 215 00:15:28.350 --> 00:15:35.070 happen when you get you get specific and they evaporate when you get generic. 216 00:15:35.470 --> 00:15:39.059 And so I think that that's that's the but we have to scale. You 217 00:15:39.179 --> 00:15:43.580 know, tell any sales rep that their territory is twenty accounts and they'll freak 218 00:15:43.620 --> 00:15:48.539 out right and and so so I think that's I don't think there's an easy 219 00:15:48.580 --> 00:15:52.929 answer to it, but I think as marketers in BETB scenario supporting sales teams, 220 00:15:52.970 --> 00:15:56.250 we should always be thinking about where am I on the scale, from 221 00:15:56.289 --> 00:16:03.129 from kind of generic down into two personalized and how can I push from the 222 00:16:03.129 --> 00:16:06.279 personalization that which goes back to the what I was saying before. The way 223 00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:10.480 you get to personalize as going in, sitting with those customer success teams and 224 00:16:10.679 --> 00:16:14.919 understanding the individual stories and then say, okay, who can I apply this 225 00:16:15.039 --> 00:16:18.000 more broadly to? This is applied to a hundred accounts as it supplied a 226 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:22.269 thousand counts. You know, that type of approach. Yeah, I like 227 00:16:22.429 --> 00:16:25.710 what you said. There are, you know, finding those those common threads 228 00:16:25.990 --> 00:16:30.269 and then trying to scale multiple. It's not swinging from, you know, 229 00:16:30.269 --> 00:16:36.899 no personalization to mass to personalizing on every single individual level. But there's some 230 00:16:37.259 --> 00:16:41.019 there's some area in between, right where we can leverage technology and we can 231 00:16:41.059 --> 00:16:44.980 leverage I like what you said, what we feel intuitively that we need to 232 00:16:45.019 --> 00:16:48.129 lean back the other way. I'm just I don't know, I'm just such 233 00:16:48.129 --> 00:16:51.129 a moderate in so many ways that I think the truth is usually in the 234 00:16:51.169 --> 00:16:55.129 middle ground somewhere. So it kind of on that note, Jim, as 235 00:16:55.169 --> 00:16:57.490 we kind of wind down today, any other parting thoughts that you want to 236 00:16:59.049 --> 00:17:03.400 share with fellow marketers that are dealing with some of these challenges of personalization and 237 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:11.920 scale or aligning with customer success or putting out managing their content operations and infusing 238 00:17:11.079 --> 00:17:15.519 that with those authentic stories? I mean, we've touched on a number of 239 00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:18.109 great things today. If someone listening to this was going to take one thing 240 00:17:18.150 --> 00:17:21.950 away from this conversation, what do you think that would be? Today, 241 00:17:22.470 --> 00:17:27.589 I would simply say be clear with yourself and your organization about what problem you're 242 00:17:27.589 --> 00:17:30.660 solving at the moment, and I've given you a couple of frames for thinking 243 00:17:30.700 --> 00:17:34.339 about that. Am I am I going for scale and I going for personalization? 244 00:17:34.859 --> 00:17:40.940 And in a transactional situation or my in a relational situation, am I 245 00:17:41.059 --> 00:17:45.529 facilitating discovery or do I need to be discis facilitating kind of depth and differentiation, 246 00:17:45.609 --> 00:17:49.650 and so I think you have to clearly articulate those because when you when 247 00:17:49.650 --> 00:17:52.970 you have a sense of each of those, that gives you a real great 248 00:17:52.970 --> 00:17:56.210 compass on. Okay, this is a level of depth I should be going 249 00:17:56.369 --> 00:18:00.440 to, this is who I should be talking to on the team, and 250 00:18:00.519 --> 00:18:03.559 then this connects all the way back to what we talked about with the customer 251 00:18:03.640 --> 00:18:08.200 life cycle and and revenue teams across the board. What conversation you're trying to 252 00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:12.190 have and then how do we bring the expertise forward, you know, to 253 00:18:12.269 --> 00:18:17.869 have the appropriate level of that conversation and just the reality, which is great 254 00:18:17.910 --> 00:18:19.069 news for us. There's a lot of work to be done here, because 255 00:18:19.190 --> 00:18:22.630 you have to be able to go at all of these altitudes, and I 256 00:18:22.710 --> 00:18:26.460 always think of looking at my kind of content map around. Do I have 257 00:18:26.579 --> 00:18:32.099 my different altitudes covered and can I go to depth in the key areas, 258 00:18:32.579 --> 00:18:36.420 key markets, you know, for me, and then can my colleagues do 259 00:18:36.579 --> 00:18:40.500 that as well, which we could talk a whole other aspect on how you 260 00:18:40.619 --> 00:18:44.289 enable sales teams and customer success teams to make sure that they're speaking with with 261 00:18:44.970 --> 00:18:48.490 one voice Yep, absolutely. So on that note, we're talking a lot 262 00:18:48.529 --> 00:18:55.759 about one voice back in episode twelve, how to manage content operations chaos with 263 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:59.279 toby murdock and so it ran off on the compost team. So will link 264 00:18:59.319 --> 00:19:02.559 to that in the show notes. So we'll leave that conversation for now. 265 00:19:02.680 --> 00:19:06.440 But there's another one right there if you're interested here and figuring out how to 266 00:19:06.759 --> 00:19:11.069 make this work very tactically. Jim, I like those three questions that you 267 00:19:11.230 --> 00:19:15.630 posed or you are encouraging marketers out there to ask themselves for how they're going 268 00:19:15.710 --> 00:19:19.069 to impact the customer life cycle. Jim, this has been a great conversation. 269 00:19:19.109 --> 00:19:22.069 I think we could. We could go on about football, marketing, 270 00:19:22.630 --> 00:19:26.700 revenue teams in general, great content all day long. You and I become 271 00:19:26.740 --> 00:19:30.900 fast friends. If anybody listening to this is also become a fast fan of 272 00:19:30.980 --> 00:19:33.539 yours and wants to stay connected, what's the best way for them to reach 273 00:19:33.579 --> 00:19:37.930 out to you or stay connected with the upland all tify and and the rest 274 00:19:37.970 --> 00:19:42.089 of the team's over at upland. Well. So, for for myself, 275 00:19:42.369 --> 00:19:47.130 you know, just Jim Rutten at Linkedin is the best path for there. 276 00:19:47.130 --> 00:19:49.890 I think linkedin has become such a powerful content marketing platform as well. I'm 277 00:19:49.890 --> 00:19:55.519 at I'm a periodic twitter user at Jim Rudden on twitter, so you can 278 00:19:55.559 --> 00:20:00.279 certainly reach me there. You know, upland softwarecom is where we are. 279 00:20:00.799 --> 00:20:03.640 You know, if you are in it going to be to be company and 280 00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:07.150 you you have complex sales and marketing needs. I hope you'll give our our 281 00:20:07.190 --> 00:20:11.950 enterprise sales and marketing tool set a look. You'll know it is all to 282 00:20:11.029 --> 00:20:15.430 five post and we also do proposal management things like that. So I think 283 00:20:15.470 --> 00:20:18.670 it'll hope to check that out. In the last plug, I'd say, 284 00:20:18.789 --> 00:20:22.140 is across our company right now we're running what we're calling our connected through change 285 00:20:22.220 --> 00:20:26.019 campaign, which is really focused on, you know, through this Cup covid 286 00:20:26.099 --> 00:20:32.579 nineteen crisis and pandemic, how can we keep people connected, you know, 287 00:20:32.700 --> 00:20:34.660 to the jobs, to their colleagues and things like that. So if you 288 00:20:34.730 --> 00:20:38.450 look for those hashtags or, you know, come check us out on upland 289 00:20:38.490 --> 00:20:42.609 softwarecom you'll hear more about that. I love it. I love both the 290 00:20:42.930 --> 00:20:48.009 the heart and the execution behind that campaign. So definitely encourage people to check 291 00:20:48.049 --> 00:20:52.200 that out. I appreciate the share their Jim. As I mentioned, episode 292 00:20:52.240 --> 00:20:56.400 twelve on managing content operations chaos, probably one that you'll like if you enjoyed 293 00:20:56.519 --> 00:21:00.759 this. That to your last point. Their gym about enabling the rest of 294 00:21:00.799 --> 00:21:06.109 your team to kind of speak the same language. Back on episode thirty seven, 295 00:21:06.109 --> 00:21:10.190 we had UMRITA Gurney on from crowd riff talking about how marketing lives in 296 00:21:10.390 --> 00:21:12.750 other departments and what to do about it. So to other episodes you might 297 00:21:12.789 --> 00:21:15.910 want to check out if you enjoyed this conversation with Jim. As always, 298 00:21:15.910 --> 00:21:18.259 folks, thank you so much for listening. Jim. This has been a 299 00:21:18.339 --> 00:21:22.059 fantastic conversation. Really appreciate you joining us on the show to thank you for 300 00:21:22.140 --> 00:21:29.779 having me. There's a lot of fun. I hate it when podcasts incessantly 301 00:21:29.819 --> 00:21:33.130 ask their listeners for reviews, but I get why they do it, because 302 00:21:33.170 --> 00:21:37.410 reviews are enormously helpful when you're trying to grow a podcast audience. So here's 303 00:21:37.410 --> 00:21:40.049 what we decided to do. If you leave a review for me to be 304 00:21:40.130 --> 00:21:44.529 growth and apple podcasts and email me a screenshot of the review to James at 305 00:21:44.569 --> 00:21:48.200 Sweet Fish Mediacom, I'll send you a signed copy of my new book, 306 00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:51.880 content based networking. How to instantly connect with anyone you want to know. 307 00:21:52.359 --> 00:21:55.240 We get a review, you get a free book. We both win
