Transcript
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Now more than ever, having a
focus on the customer experience is important,
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because if we're not empathetic to what
our customers are going through, it's not
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just that you won't make a sale, it's that you're going to make an
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enemy potentially. Exposure creates familiarity.
Familiarity creates liking and understanding basic rules for
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doing well with the human condition.
And yet somehow we don't create enough exposure
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with the people who can help us
be successful. My name is Ethan Butte.
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I host the CX series here on
B Tob Growth. I'm also chief
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of angelist at bombomb and Co author
of the Best Seller Rehumanize Your Business.
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In this CX episode we're talking with
Shannie Benz or, head of marketing,
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media and growth at crunch base.
The theme is conversations. How, when
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and why to have more conversations with
our customers, with our product teams,
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with our sales teams and other people
we want to understand and connect with.
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Here's a conversation with Shannie about generating
better results through conversation. Your data isn't
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always telling the full story. To
reveal more meaningful insights, you have to
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do something unscalable. Talk to your
customers. Our guest today brings ideas to
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get a better, fuller picture of
your customer Pr Social Media Content, marketing,
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influencer marketing, life cycle, marketing, Demandin, you name it.
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She's done it at companies like dropbox
and VIDEA and sales force. She currently
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serves as head of marketing, media
and growth at crunch base. Shani Benzor,
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welcome to the customer experience podcast.
Thank you. Nice to me here.
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Yeah, I really appreciate your time
and I'm looking forward to the conversation.
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But before we get going, you're
in San Francisco. What's the state
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of affairs with regard to the coronavirus
pandemic? How's it affecting you or your
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team or your customers? Just kind
of Stet the scene there. Well,
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I've been in socialization for almost a
month now, so I'm on my fourth
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week of being in my home and
working from home. We made the transition
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pretty quickly at crunch base. Once
we saw things accelerating, we made the
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decision that we were going to go
remote and we went from a almost a
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hundred percent in San Francisco headquartered company
to a one hundred percent virtual company and
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I think a lot of other SASS
companies in the area went through the same
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thing and that in of itself was
very stressful. That, compiled with what's
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happening in the world, was more
stress. And then you know, we
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are a company that sells to a
lot of other companies that are kind of
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at the forefront of dealing with this
and they are stress. So overall,
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I would say it's kind of an
unprecedented amount of stress. And actually,
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now more than ever, having a
focus on the customer experience is important because
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if we're not empathetic to what our
customers are going through, it's not just
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that you won't make a sale,
it's that you're going to make an endem
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me potentially. I've seen a lot
of people on linkedin saying if you send
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me a note right now and you
don't acknowledge what's happening, you're going on
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the junk pile. Yeah, it
is. Everything is heightened. So for
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you, how big is your team
that you manage? I have twenty two
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people on the team right now.
And how what's that process like? So
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when I first started that crunch base
about a year and a half ago,
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we were a team of five.
So we've grown very quickly in that time
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and we are still adding a couple
team members even throughout this. You know,
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I think for me it's about having
really clear swim lanes for each person
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on the team. We span pretty
much the entire funnel for marketing, from
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brand all the way down to user
retention, and each of those teams needs
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to know what their perview is.
But I also really care about teams working
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together. So we do a lot
through slack, through scrum meetings to try
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to share out what the key learnings
from one pod are with another pod and
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hopefully identify where there's some like economies
of scale versus just more isolated and in
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a pretty already isolating time. So
you already mentioned customer experience wants. When
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I say customer experience, what does
that mean to you? What is that
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term capture or represent? I think
a lot of times in businesses we focus
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on what we want from the user. We want them to pay US money,
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we want them to be more active
in the product, and I think
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the customer experience is more about what
the user wants from us and more about
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how they actually feel when they interact
with us. Yeah, that feeling is
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a really really key thing that I'm
hearing more and thinking a lot more about.
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In so it's this idea. I
love what you offer. There's just
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kind of flip it a little bit
and think about how our decisions make them
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feel about themselves, about us and
our products and services, etc. I'm
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familiar with crunch base, but for
anyone who might not be, who is
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crunch base? Who are your customers
and what problem do you solve for them?
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Yeah, so crunch based, the
name, has been around for a
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long time. We actually spin out
as a company about five years ago,
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and it is essentially a database with
some really strong social tools on top of
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it that allow you to source for
prospects, whether you're prospecting for a sales
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lead or an investor, or you're
an investor looking for an entrepreneur. People
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come on to our site because we
have information about many, many private companies,
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typically hard to find information, and
we give them signals as to whether
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those companies are healthy, scaling viable. We have got lots of categorization that
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allow people to really kind of drill
down into what type of industries they care
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about, and for us, we're
sort of trying to lead this trend around
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account based everything. So you've heard
of account based marketing, there's account based
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selling and our belief is now that
there's more and more privacy laws at this
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sort of individual contact level, the
importance of account based information is is more
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than ever. So that's really what
we try to do, is how people
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prospect at the account level so that
they know how to better use their time
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and fortunately, our unfortunately, now
that we have so many companies that are
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dealing with distress around coronavirus, being
able to know what companies you should start
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your search on versus just sort of
like spray and pray at the lead level
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is also really important. The people
who typically use US salespeople, number one.
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They're looking to make deals. It's
really hard to make deals when people
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are in financial distress. The investor
community also use us, and entrepreneurs,
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and those are typically kind of like
our three core audiences. And then we
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also have a licensing business where people
who are building products that rely on company
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information can use our data. Really
interesting. I love this idea of account
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based everything and you're obviously well positioned
to do it, especially with some potentially
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proprietary information to help people connect with
their accounts more effectively. Have you seen
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the use go be at like in
this account based everything concept? Obviously the
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applications in in the prospecting and sales
process are easy to imagine, but beyond
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that, have you seen any interesting
use outside of the sales role? Yeah,
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I mean, when we started to
kind of develop what we're working on
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some really big changes in the product
and when we started to develop it we
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were looking at what are the types
of relationships that happened between two companies,
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and we realize, like any person
who interfaces with another company could rely on
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account based x. So an example
would be like your beady person is trying
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to look for a partnership. You
know when you go to a corporate website,
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you go www dot a company namedcom. There isn't like a website that's
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like hello bd, people come here, and I think that's sort of like
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a neat we're trying to fill as
any real business to business connection that you
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need to make, whether it's in
exchange for money or in exchange for in
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country, like a bd deal typically
is. There isn't a resource or a
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place you can go to and that's
something that we're trying to explore because it's
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just super inefficient for me to type
in like job title on a website and
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get anybody who has that job title. But who knows if they're still in
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the company I thought they were at. Who knows if their company is doing
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layoffs right now. They're very distracted. So that's that's really like the the
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niche we're trying to fill, which
is it's just a lot more efficient,
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it's a lot more effective, it's
a better use of everybody's time. Really
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good. So you've already talked about
three specific types of customers. You are
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a data company with with a really
cool service layer over it. It sounds
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like let's talk about getting a fuller
picture of the customer. What is really
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interesting to you about this challenge of
blending essentially quantitative and qualitative? Yeah,
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I mean so I come from kind
of like a growth hacking and growth background
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and I think when people hear that
they shutter. I know typically engineering teams
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try to run away when they see
a marketing person from a growth background come
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into the room, and I don't
blame them and I think it's because,
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you know, at the heart oftentimes
engineers are extremely customer centric and they see
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that those little tweaks that are two
are growth oriented, aren't always with the
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customer experience in my in there with
the dollar in mind, and for the
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most part they're right. And what
you want to look for as somebody who
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has some type of guardrail metrics where
you're not only prioritizing the dollar over the
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user experience. And an example for
us at crunch base we were experimenting with
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pay walls, with registration walls and
pay walls. And you know, if
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you push the paywall to the top, crunch bass typically been a very strong
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fremium brand. If we wanted to
push the paywall to the top, yeah,
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there would be some money that comes
through initially, but the customer experience
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would be so bad and so different
from what people expect that we would likely
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turn a lot of our core user
base away. So even though we did
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some tests, we ended up removing
any hard pay walls from the website and
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right now we only have some like
soft wall reminders, and we're even exploring
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what the user experience has been as
result of those interesting how do you in
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experiments like that? How do you
kind of organize people around the opportunity to
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the problem or the challenge is just
like a regular part of your you know,
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some part of your team's workflow,
or like how do you how does
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that work come about? I love
this idea of testing various types of walls.
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Yeah, so you know, when
we first did it in the very,
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very early days, it was kind
of like well, we never had
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trial, so let's roll out trial
and we never did this, so let's
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roll out this. And as we
became more sophisticated, and this is really
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Kudos to the engineering and product team, we rolled out an AB testing platform.
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We use split and that allows us
to make really educated decisions versus like
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well, it looks like all the
numbers are better and not, you know,
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if there's like cannibalization happening. So
that's one things. Having an AB
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testing platform is really helpful. But
beyond that, I think what we realize
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in terms of galvanizing the company behind
an idea was first principles. So we
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spend some time coming up with what
our first principles would be. You know,
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things like actually living our mission.
Our mission is to democratize access to
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opportunities. We really think that if
more people can do the thing they want
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to do, everybody benefits so like, is this wall democratizing access or is
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it not democratizing access? That's one
question we ask ourselves. We look at
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things like, you know, the
signals that we have that customers are getting
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value. One of the things we
want to do is actually deliver something valuable
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to these or not just ask for
something from them. And we did this
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like very I wouldn't say it was
a hundred percent scientific, but we took
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the first principles and for each of
the scenarios of wall do were exploring,
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we did like a plus one if
it helped towards the first principle of one,
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if it took away from the principle
in a zero. And we vetted
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the opportunities based on the AB test
initially using that score, and there were
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some obvious very negative ones, and
so we drop those out and then the
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ones that we're sort of in the
neutral to positive then we started to make
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more subjective decisions with the help of
the people who are part of the working
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group. Excellent. I really love
that approach. And when does the customer
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get involved? When do we do
essentially the unscalable? When do we pick
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up the phone or shoot out an
email or set up a zoom call or
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whatever, when you go directly to
customers to to inform decisions for us,
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and I again I think this is
a really strong vote of confidence behind the
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way our product team is organized.
We are never not talking to customers.
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So before we even begin building a
new feature, were interviewing customers. You
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know, we really wanted to figure
out how we can build a better product
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for the sales use case. So
we've been spending a lot of time interviewing
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sales people in many different industries,
and that's to help us understand where would
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we even start. And then once
we launch a feature and it gets out
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of you know, we're when we're
AB testing, we might do some like
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light interviews here and there, but
then once it gets out of a be
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testing it, it goes to a
hundred percent. Then we're sort of leaning
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on our CX team to do,
you know, a little bit more handson
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talking to customers. And on the
marketing side, we're monitoring social every day
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for any productive feedback that people are
giving. We have we as delighted,
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so we're seeing what are people actually
submitting in their delighted scores. So at
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all times we're looking at what our
customers saying and if we ever see a
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trend or if we see an uptick
in a specific conversation, that triggers another
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conversation, either within the product team
at the executive level. It just allows
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us to constantly be with our ear
to the ground on what customers are feeling
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about the product. But I think
one of the most important ones is knowing
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that we're building for what they want
versus building for what we want. Again,
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for me, that customer experience definition
is what are their wants, needs
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desires, what are they dealing with
within their lives, versus just our financial
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need? Yeah, so you mentioned
several sources of customer feedback. How do
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you all organize around it? I
mean does someone just like push the conversation
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butt or the alarm button if something's
getting really hot or you know, or
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do you have a designed, like
cross functional meeting around it? I mean
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like, for example, a bombomb
we've had a voice of the customer meeting.
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It's been in various iterations, driven
by different motivations at different times and
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you know, different teams have been
represented differently over the years. So it's
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like it's sometimes it's just top of
mind. For me, how do you
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all you know, with with the
various sources of input you talked about,
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how do you organize around that information? I mean to be honest, I
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think we have a lot of room
for improvement. I don't think we figured
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it out yet. We haven't cracked
the nut on it. It does feel
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like what we will will typically get
the signal of like this metric seems out
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of whack, but I don't know
why, and then we'll go in and
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investigate a little bit more deeply.
There are some reports that come out on
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a regular basis. So the the
UX researchers, they share reports on the
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research that they're doing. That's a
lot of the forward looking research. The
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customer experienced team shares kind of weekly
and monthly feedback that they're seeing. But
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what we would benefit from is having
something like a voice of the customer Cross
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Functional Meeting where we highlight, Hey, this is the key theme. It
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should probably impact this team's work.
You know, maybe it's the marketing team.
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Sometimes we'll run an advertising campaign that
might be too unclear what the goal
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is or will have a content piece
that's out there that maybe is controversial.
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Like there needs to be a way
that those teams can direct the feedback to
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the team that can actually take action
and I think that's something we're looking at
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but we haven't quite figured out yet. Yes, so just for if this
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is useful to you or to anyone
listening, we have delighted and we do
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some serving through Pendo, feeding into
one slack channel that anyone can subscribe to
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and that I find that to be
really, really interesting and useful, especially
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when people choose to add comments to
the to the scoring. And so anyway,
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see it anytime. It's it's really
good. So you've mentioned your CX
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team a couple times in so they're
kind of two camps on this per my,
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you know, dozens of conversations on
this on the show. Some people
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that's just like an evolution or a
sub team within customer success and for other
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people it is it's this designed additional
layer that works across multiple teams. What
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is cx mean for you from an
organizational structural standpoint? So crunch base has
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two product lines, kind of.
We have a self surf business that's the
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free crunch based most people know it's
crunch based pro and then we have a
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direct sales business that sells an enterprise
and kind of a licensing solution. The
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CS team covers many of the like
larger accounts who have custom contracts. They
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have CS managers. And then on
our self, surf business, that's where
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our CX team sits and they're kind
of doing more of the scaled support.
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So that's that's really the division of
labor between the two teams. They do
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roll up into one overall customer success
director and she's thinking about how do we
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create a great experience for our customers
throughout whichever product lying there on? And
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then we do a lot of information
sharing between the two. So if we're
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seeing that there's an FAQ coming in
from our SELFSERF business, will share that
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information over to our direct sales business. And often times, and why I
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say sort of like customer experiences a
nonscalable but very critical thing. Often Times
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your sales people, your CS people, the ones who are on the front
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lines. They are the canaries in
the coal mine and they will bring you
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something that's not yet scaled and they'll
say, hey, this is something to
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look out for and, depending on
how sensitive your team is to being able
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to pivot and change, you either
take action at that point or you take
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that information and you start looking for
data that backs it up at scale.
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And that's what's happening with both our
sales team and CS team. I mean
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just last week our sales team was
telling us, Hey, our prospects are
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telling us that, you know,
their budgets are getting frozen. And then
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when we go look at the data, we see are a fewer people are
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starting trials and they were two weeks
before now and it's a result of that.
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Or, you know, we're seeing
on the demanding side of marketing,
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we're seeing that we are getting the
same level of mqls, but those mqls
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aren't turning into appointments. And then
when we talk to the sales team they
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tell us they're not even agreeing to
get on the phone anymore. Like these
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are good leads, but those companies
are dealing with so much in the world.
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So again, it's not you know, if you went to an analytics
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person, they would say this isn't
statistically significant. But I think the business
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is an art and you are looking
for that middle ground between statistical significance and,
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frankly, human significance. It's really
good. It's the art in the
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science piece of it. The so
really good in that CS and sales are
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obviously customer facing. There are a
lot of customer conversations. They're just by
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the nature of the role and having
that come into marketing and other teams.
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When does marketing go out in and
directly communicate with customers, like is that
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is that a regular thing, or
is that on an an ad hoc as
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needed basis, like in terms of
direct customer communication, besides something something like
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social obviously, which is one of
the channels you mentioned, when do you
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get out in talk to customers?
Your team members rather yeah, so I
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look at my product marketing team.
One of their core goals is to help
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us deeply understand who the customer is. So they sit alongside the UX research
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team in order to help us get
a better understanding of the customer. And
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while the uxe search team is asking
questions that relate to how people experience the
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product, product marketing team is asking
questions about the person. So an example
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would be like, you know,
we now know that, for our our
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perspective, customers who are sales development
reps, they love reading sports publications,
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they love ESPN, and that's not
a thing that the US researcher would find
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out, but it is something that
the pmm would find out and for as
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it gives us a glimpse into like, okay, well, if they love
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sports and now, because of chronic
virus, pretty much every major sport has
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been canceled, that's another layer of
stress that they're dealing with. You know,
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it also tells us, can we
come up with the sports analogy for
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something that we're talking about? You
know, it's this three hundred and sixty
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view. You who the person is
and what their highs are like, what
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their lows are like. That's the
PMM team and they're going out and talking
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to customers constantly. I think there's
also sort of the engagement that we get.
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So when we send out an email
to users, most of our emails
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don't have no replies. There actually
are repliable in boxes and we're reading that
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feedback. An example was we have
a daily newsletter that we send out that
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has kind of like the latest funding
rounds from companies, the latest acquisitions from
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companies, and we hadn't decided yet
how we were going to change that in
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light of coronavirus. So we were
continuing to send it out as normal and
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we got several emails back where people
are saying like I am glad to see
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that others are thriving, but I
am truly in the worst position I have
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been in my entire career and seeing
this newsletter makes me feel bad. And
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for you know, for us,
it was like, okay, we were
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working on some other things. You
had prioritize some other things around coronavirus,
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but then we shifted our priority to
making sure that we had some kind of
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acknowledgement in that newsletter of like,
if you need resources, these resources available
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to you. This newsletter will continue
because we think that knowing what companies are
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still thriving is a positive signal for
anybody WHO's trying to do business. Still
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had such a good example and I
think it's so important, mostly because I
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did it for years and I learned
so much doing it. Is Being I
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was to direct reply, like is
the only marketing person. For several years
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every email, whether it was an
offer or a newsletter, Webin or invite,
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whatever, came from my personal email
address, which meant that I had
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and I felt like that gave me, as a marketer or just a really
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good feel and I love I love
that example of what you offer and how
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you can take something and just,
you know, a little tweak makes it
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more appropriate for the situation because you
care about how customers feel. This is
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a kind of a call back to
earlier in the conversation, but there's something
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I was interested in is you know
your first principles. Are these? Are
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these stated? Are they documented?
How many are there? In is scalability
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like, do you just crunch base
in your team have a position on some
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things that just are not appropriate to
even work on scaling? Yeah, I
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think at this point our first principles
are decided almost in the kind of like
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not initiative level, that's too narrow, but sort of overall project area will
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have first principles. There are a
few things that are unchanging, like that
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idea of are we giving more value
than we're asking from the customers? Are
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we living our mission? Those are
things that kind of are persistent through everything.
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But then there are some that might
be just specific to that particular kind
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of area of work and we typically
will publish those. We use like marketing
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request dogs are product request Docs.
In those outline who the decision makers are,
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who the input people are and then
also what the first principles are and
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what the hypothesis is and typically,
when you're one of them, more see
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your reviewers, what you're looking for
is what's the like potential impact or scale,
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and you're weighing that against what are
all the other ideas I've seen come
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across my desk. So that question
of how do you prioritize one thing or
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over another? That is really what
I spend most of my time with my
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team talking about. Is like this
is a great idea. Is this the
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idea to execute now, or is
there a different idea that you have in
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the hopper that would have figure potential
impact? And we kind of triangulate between
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difficulty, likelihood of success and potential
impact and using that triangulation will come up
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with what are the initiatives we prioritize
and use the okay. Our system here
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nice is that monthly, quarterly.
So the okay ours our quarterly goals.
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And then within each team we use
the sprint system, when we use a
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one week sprint and with these request
docs the projects can last through multiple sprints,
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but they're essentially the tactics that will
help us achieve the key result we've
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outland. And are okay ours really
good. So you have a very what
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I feel like is a very large
role. Can you just describe the scope
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of your role in specifically any philosophy
that guides you shared some of it already,
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and then maybe let's transition from there
into how you interface with other teams.
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You've already talked a little bit about
that, but you know the goals
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the show is to talk a little
bit of alignment and it seems like seems
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like you have a lot to offer
there. So start with me again the
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scope of your role. Yes,
so I have a several commas in my
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title, but what they really turn
into is is my team runs brand,
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product marketing, digital marketing, comes
opts, and I think that's all of
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it. It's essentially top of funnel, midfunnel consideration and then customer acquisition,
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demand generation and customer attention. So
it's really all parts of engaging with customers
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from before they've ever heard from us
to being a multiyear customer. And for
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me, my philosophy with the whole
team is one thing is if you can't
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measure it, should you be doing
it? Ask yourself that question. The
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other is we don't do initiatives,
we do experiments. I think you know
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traditionally marketing is seen as a thing
that does big, flashy stuff and is
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measured on the number of stuff they
do, and I don't want that to
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be what our team is about.
It's more around we have a hypothesis of
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what a particular project could do,
we test whether it can actually do that
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and then we scale it too many
users and by followinging that kind of ethos
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we're able to ensure that everything we
do provides value to the company and to
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the customer. And in terms of
the partnerships, we work really closely with
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sales, so we have a demand
Gent team that is driving leads for sales.
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We're also beginning to partner with our
CSTSM team to see if we can
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use some of the automation that marketing
uses on the self serf side to support
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how they manage accounts on the CSM
side. And we we partnered very closely
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with the product and engineering teams because
we're trying to help them figure out how
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do we bring to market the new
features that they're building and how do we
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bring back some of that with the
customer to them to inform with the product
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roadmap should be, and then the
CX team, so I would say social
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sort of a shared service between us
and CX and because we are very closely
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aligned with product, we can also
give cx a heads up. Hey,
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this new feature is coming out.
We think it might raise some questions.
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Can you help us kind of bulk
up what is happening on the knowledge base
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with information to proactively tell them?
So, in a lot of ways marketing
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is is kind of like a connective
tissue between multiple teams, and I think
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there's lots of points of connective tissue. But for us we are one part
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service organization supporting those teams and one
part strategy organization helping them think about how
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marketing should be supporting them. So
smart. I love your approach and I
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want to know the answer to the
question. If you can't measure it,
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should you be doing it? It's
just like kind of hearkens back to the
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kind of the art in the science
pieces. Like I can you think of
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something that you green lighted or supported
even though it couldn't be measured? Yeah,
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I mean I think this is where
teams can get frustrated with leaders,
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because what they want is consistency and
reliability and sometimes you just have to break
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the rules. I think one thing
that we've really been trying to drill into
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the team is that our primary target
audience right now is the salesperson. But
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when this kind of coronavirus crisis took
over and we started to think about how
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can we provide value to our users, and it was really around highlighting free
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resources, we started looking for resources
that also supported the other personas that are
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typical uses of crunchbies. And I
think people are sort of like wait,
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but you told us we have to
focus just on sales. Why are we
392
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doing this? And for me it
was like, look, these are members
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of our community, these are members
of the ecosystem. The purpose of this
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initiative is just to create a supportive
environment for these people who are truly in
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distress. This is separate from our
kind of more commercially prioritize gains. Is
396
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it confusing? Yes, I would
be confused if I was on my team.
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In my boss said way, but
now you want me to focus on
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everybody. But this is one of
those exceptions where it's like these are exceptional
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times and I think we can differentiate
our brand if we show that we actually
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care about what people are going through
and that we really do want to be
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helpful to them. So I hope
that my team accepts that as a as
402
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a proper reason why we veered from
our very strict course. Yeah, that
403
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is it is very challenging. We
decided something that we could do uniquely to
404
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help was to offer bombomb absolutely free
to educators at all levels, from like
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Pre k through PhD, and so
within like thirty six hours of green lighting
406
00:28:17.490 --> 00:28:19.970
the project, we had it live. It's been live for a couple weeks
407
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now and we've got like thirty five
hundred to four thousand, I don't know
408
00:28:23.289 --> 00:28:26.559
where we are exactly right now.
Teachers of all over, from all over
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00:28:26.599 --> 00:28:33.160
the play using it in order to
stay facetoface with their peers and with students
410
00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:36.799
and with parents, and we're getting
really good, positive feedback on it.
411
00:28:36.920 --> 00:28:38.400
But to kind of what you offered
there was like we knew it was the
412
00:28:38.440 --> 00:28:42.869
right thing. It's not commercials,
generating no revenue. In fact it's costing
413
00:28:42.950 --> 00:28:47.950
US money to a host all the
videos be, you know, we're trying
414
00:28:47.990 --> 00:28:52.190
to have themselves served, but of
course they're still in our communication channels,
415
00:28:52.230 --> 00:28:55.069
you know, needing some help and
guidance, which is reasonable. And then
416
00:28:55.109 --> 00:28:59.220
the tension of you know, we
still do have to adjust so much of
417
00:28:59.299 --> 00:29:03.579
the rest of our marketing and messaging
pieces at the same time. So how
418
00:29:03.619 --> 00:29:07.339
do you balance all of this and
where does it fall in the priority and
419
00:29:07.420 --> 00:29:10.490
how long does it stay a priority? Me was like all hands for two
420
00:29:10.529 --> 00:29:14.009
days basically to get it live,
and so really interesting and challenging. But
421
00:29:14.410 --> 00:29:18.809
it's this obviously, as you're experiencing
leadership in a really, really unique time,
422
00:29:19.849 --> 00:29:22.769
you know, to your point,
sometimes you have to either break the
423
00:29:22.849 --> 00:29:26.960
rules or just throw them out or
just not look at them or something.
424
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:33.240
Yeah, yeah, I I never
expected that I would be going through this
425
00:29:33.440 --> 00:29:37.640
and leading through this and it's,
you know, at times it's overwhelming because
426
00:29:37.640 --> 00:29:40.950
I care. I spend a lot
of time caring right like I cared deeply
427
00:29:40.990 --> 00:29:44.390
about my team, I care deeply
about the company, I cared deeply about
428
00:29:44.390 --> 00:29:47.509
the customers, I care deeply about
my own family and my own community,
429
00:29:47.950 --> 00:29:52.029
and all of that care is sort
of overwhelming and it makes it difficult to
430
00:29:52.069 --> 00:29:55.619
make the logical decisions that I've typically
known for. But I think like if
431
00:29:55.660 --> 00:29:57.859
there ever was a time to not
be logical, this is it, sure,
432
00:29:57.900 --> 00:30:00.579
because it a lot of it doesn't
make any sense. I'm going to
433
00:30:00.660 --> 00:30:06.339
ask you a couple of questions that
I really enjoy asking, especially with someone
434
00:30:06.579 --> 00:30:08.769
like you who's working, you know, the way that you view your marketing
435
00:30:08.849 --> 00:30:12.490
team and what it's purposes and the
way it connects to the rest of the
436
00:30:12.569 --> 00:30:17.650
organization, the connective tissue, as
you said, what do you wish more
437
00:30:18.210 --> 00:30:23.839
product people or developers newer understood about
marketing or the marketing function? Like you're
438
00:30:25.279 --> 00:30:29.960
you're setting me up to start a
fire. I have got that reaction before,
439
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:33.160
but I still like the question.
I always find like anyway, I
440
00:30:33.519 --> 00:30:36.750
won't see that anymore. If do
you have anything to offer there? I
441
00:30:36.829 --> 00:30:40.349
think it's a very symbiotic relationship.
You know, I would say that the
442
00:30:40.509 --> 00:30:45.430
tightest symbiotic relationships, again, are
that marketing product, marketing sales and marketing
443
00:30:45.509 --> 00:30:52.900
see us and the marketing products.
Symbiosis is we can give insight into what
444
00:30:53.180 --> 00:31:00.059
people want on an ongoing basis.
We can also give insight into what people
445
00:31:00.140 --> 00:31:03.500
will consume at a higher rate.
So there's you know, I think it
446
00:31:03.579 --> 00:31:06.009
was apple who always talked about like
people don't know what they want. You
447
00:31:06.130 --> 00:31:08.049
know, they're building these products that
we never asked for. If you just
448
00:31:08.210 --> 00:31:11.170
ask the question, what do you
want? You're going to end up with
449
00:31:11.250 --> 00:31:14.970
a product that's a direct competitor of
something they've already know. We can help
450
00:31:15.009 --> 00:31:17.410
you with that, sort of like
what they don't even know they want,
451
00:31:17.450 --> 00:31:19.960
but what they need. That's part
of the symbiotic relationship, this sort of
452
00:31:21.079 --> 00:31:26.880
informing the product roadmap, and the
other is we can also help understand when
453
00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:30.680
and how to bring those features to
market. So yes, you could just
454
00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:34.029
keep releasing things on an ongoing basis
and just let it be a steady drip
455
00:31:34.150 --> 00:31:38.430
of features to users, but there's
something really powerful about kind of putting things
456
00:31:38.470 --> 00:31:41.230
into a bucket. So we might
be able to help you understand hey,
457
00:31:41.509 --> 00:31:47.140
all these features, these things are
collaboration features and I think you know in
458
00:31:47.259 --> 00:31:51.339
this time of isolation, collaboration is
really important. So why don't we change
459
00:31:51.380 --> 00:31:53.500
the timing of the releases of these
things and put it under this kind of
460
00:31:53.579 --> 00:31:56.819
messaging banner? And that's not something
product has to think about, but that
461
00:31:56.940 --> 00:32:00.609
is something that marketing things about and
can help sort of inform. And that's
462
00:32:00.650 --> 00:32:04.450
around this like go to market strategy, go to market position and go to
463
00:32:04.490 --> 00:32:07.210
market messaging. That's really where we
can be useful. where I have seen
464
00:32:07.289 --> 00:32:12.730
the relationship not be symbiotic or I've
seen it sort of be less effective is
465
00:32:12.809 --> 00:32:15.920
when one team or the other is
the soul leader. It really does have
466
00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:21.000
to be sidebyside. You know,
if marketing is just informing product, they
467
00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:25.039
might be overpromising what they can actually
deliver. If Product is the only one
468
00:32:25.079 --> 00:32:30.349
leading and marketing is involved, they
might just be doing things into, you
469
00:32:30.430 --> 00:32:31.789
know, an echo chamber or like
a tree falls into force and no one
470
00:32:31.829 --> 00:32:35.829
hears that kind of thing. But
when they work together, that's when you
471
00:32:35.950 --> 00:32:39.109
build products that actually have product market
fit and that customers really want and meet
472
00:32:39.190 --> 00:32:44.029
and understand. Yeah, that I
like the way you took that and I
473
00:32:44.150 --> 00:32:46.460
like the symbiosis language. Can you
talk about the same thing with regard to
474
00:32:46.539 --> 00:32:52.859
sales and marketing? Yeah, I
mean it's it's so interesting because I have
475
00:32:52.019 --> 00:32:58.380
I've worked in organizations where those relationships
were very unhealthy and now and crunch based.
476
00:32:58.380 --> 00:33:00.609
I think it's the first time where
I've seen them be extremely healthy and
477
00:33:00.650 --> 00:33:05.089
I don't know if it's a factor
of the company being so small that we
478
00:33:05.170 --> 00:33:07.930
actually have personal relationships. Like I
have a very close relationship with the head
479
00:33:07.930 --> 00:33:12.490
of product, with the head of
sales and I don't know if that's the
480
00:33:12.529 --> 00:33:15.720
reason, but whatever it is,
I would I would fight somebody if they
481
00:33:15.839 --> 00:33:21.279
tried to get in the way of
the efficacy of that relationship. So the
482
00:33:21.400 --> 00:33:25.240
symbiosis between marketing and sales is,
on the sale side, what they're offering
483
00:33:25.400 --> 00:33:29.269
is that frontline canary in the coal
and what are people actually saying? In
484
00:33:29.349 --> 00:33:32.069
a lot of ways they're like the
UX researcher for us and on our side
485
00:33:32.230 --> 00:33:35.950
we are letting them know, hey, here's how we can get to scale,
486
00:33:36.470 --> 00:33:39.430
like you may be finding that only
people with this very specific job title
487
00:33:39.470 --> 00:33:43.339
are the ones who convert. But
if we only focused on that, before
488
00:33:43.380 --> 00:33:45.460
it gets to you, you won't
have any leads to work. So we're
489
00:33:45.500 --> 00:33:49.940
giving them feedback around like what's the
macro trends that are happening out in the
490
00:33:50.019 --> 00:33:52.420
world, and bringing that down to
them. We're also able to say,
491
00:33:52.740 --> 00:33:55.690
Hey, we've been doing these like
top of funnel content marketing things, either
492
00:33:55.690 --> 00:34:00.529
ebooks or Webinars, and this is
what's resonating with them and and feeding that
493
00:34:00.690 --> 00:34:04.490
back to the sales team as like
topical information that they could be bringing up.
494
00:34:04.890 --> 00:34:07.730
So it really is they're telling us
what's working on their side, we're
495
00:34:07.809 --> 00:34:12.920
telling them what's working on our side
and and again we're triangulating what's actually the
496
00:34:13.079 --> 00:34:15.079
need of these are in the customer
and I think the other part of the
497
00:34:15.159 --> 00:34:21.639
symbiotic relationship is because we have entire
relationship with product, we can help translate
498
00:34:21.960 --> 00:34:24.670
what it is that sales people are
seeing customers or prospects ask for on the
499
00:34:24.750 --> 00:34:30.230
Front Line into a reason noble request
for the product team because, you know,
500
00:34:30.989 --> 00:34:34.750
typically what you see happen is you'll
have one sales interaction where a prospect
501
00:34:34.789 --> 00:34:37.070
will say, Oh, I want
this feature, and then that sales person
502
00:34:37.110 --> 00:34:38.300
will go to product and be like
this is what we need and pot it
503
00:34:38.460 --> 00:34:42.380
was like, I don't even understand
the words that you're saying. You can
504
00:34:42.460 --> 00:34:45.780
be the middle people for that and
help translate. Yeah, it's a great
505
00:34:45.820 --> 00:34:51.460
that is a really good marketing function
relative to sales and product. I love
506
00:34:51.539 --> 00:34:53.650
that call out and I think you're
absolutely right. I do think the personal
507
00:34:53.690 --> 00:34:58.130
relationships make a big, big difference. There's just, you know, so
508
00:34:58.329 --> 00:35:04.489
much that comes out of a healthy
relationship with another human that just can't be
509
00:35:05.170 --> 00:35:08.280
faked or replicated any other way than
then through the you know, knowing,
510
00:35:08.400 --> 00:35:15.039
understanding and appreciating the other person at
the foundation for being successful together. The
511
00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:22.309
emotional safety to be vulnerable between those
teams is also critical. So it really
512
00:35:22.429 --> 00:35:24.429
is you have to win together,
but you also have to fail together.
513
00:35:24.909 --> 00:35:29.670
And if there starts to be situations, especially now and in high times,
514
00:35:29.710 --> 00:35:31.110
where leads are going to be harder
to come by, if you have a
515
00:35:31.230 --> 00:35:36.539
situation where there starts to be finger
pointing and that trust gets lost, that's
516
00:35:36.579 --> 00:35:39.340
also when, I think, that
symbiotic relationship becomes unhealthy. So finding a
517
00:35:39.420 --> 00:35:45.179
way to build lots of visibility and
transparency between the teams such that anybody anywhere
518
00:35:45.219 --> 00:35:49.300
can make a suggestion. No commitment
whether it'll happen, but a feeling of
519
00:35:49.420 --> 00:35:51.809
like, Hey, I can throw
this idea over to you I know that
520
00:35:51.929 --> 00:35:53.809
you'll take it in the spirit in
which it was intended. That, I
521
00:35:53.929 --> 00:35:58.730
think, is also a really important, important part and what makes the symbatic
522
00:35:58.769 --> 00:36:04.480
relationship work. It's fantastic. I
think this idea of winning and losing together
523
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:08.039
really prevents one of the worst things
that can happen from a from a relationship
524
00:36:08.079 --> 00:36:14.599
standpoint or a functional standpoint is blaming
Thea a looking for blame and these kinds
525
00:36:14.639 --> 00:36:17.630
of liks, some of that negative
behavior that happens when you're not losing together
526
00:36:17.750 --> 00:36:21.550
and being honest about it with each
other. And again, some of the
527
00:36:21.590 --> 00:36:24.590
keywords you offered there, including transparency, so that everyone understands exactly what's going
528
00:36:24.710 --> 00:36:29.750
on. I have so enjoyed this
conversation. You have a lot going on.
529
00:36:30.070 --> 00:36:31.860
I'm going to give you the rest
of your day back, but before
530
00:36:31.900 --> 00:36:36.300
I do I want to let listeners
know that if you enjoyed this conversation,
531
00:36:36.460 --> 00:36:39.739
you might like episode thirty four with
Michael Redboard, formerly of hub spot,
532
00:36:39.900 --> 00:36:45.820
for things every customer wishes you understood
about them, and episode sixty three and
533
00:36:45.900 --> 00:36:50.329
more recent one with David Merman Scott
creating fans through human connection. Shinny,
534
00:36:50.449 --> 00:36:54.170
before I let you go, I
would love to know someone who you appreciate
535
00:36:54.610 --> 00:36:58.969
for the positive impact that she or
he has had on your life or your
536
00:36:59.050 --> 00:37:06.400
career. Caddie serve US and she
was my former manager at dropbocks. I'm
537
00:37:06.440 --> 00:37:09.960
a really direct person. Sometimes that
is good, sometimes that is bad,
538
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:15.829
and from most of my career I
was told to just be softer, to
539
00:37:15.150 --> 00:37:20.989
be less intimidating, and I think
that was really hard for me kind of
540
00:37:21.030 --> 00:37:23.309
growing up in my career because I
always felt like who I am was not
541
00:37:23.469 --> 00:37:27.789
right, who I am was not
good for the workplace, and Daddy was
542
00:37:27.829 --> 00:37:31.300
the first person who said they're wrong. Who you are is what it makes
543
00:37:31.420 --> 00:37:37.340
you magical and lean into it.
Flex to people. You're not trying to
544
00:37:37.380 --> 00:37:39.980
hurt other people, but lean into
what makes you strong. Don't be afraid
545
00:37:40.500 --> 00:37:44.929
and honestly, it was like an
unlockgate where I just felt like I was
546
00:37:44.969 --> 00:37:47.289
able to achieve a million times more
than I ever had before because I wasn't
547
00:37:47.329 --> 00:37:51.289
wasting as much time thinking about how
to be smaller, how to be less.
548
00:37:51.929 --> 00:37:54.289
So huge thank you to caddy.
I think she really changed my life
549
00:37:54.329 --> 00:37:59.559
in a lot of ways, starting
with my job. The phrase I was
550
00:37:59.719 --> 00:38:04.039
thinking as you're sharing, that was
like life changing me, like this opportunity
551
00:38:04.079 --> 00:38:07.440
give yourself permission just to do what
you do as you do. It is
552
00:38:07.920 --> 00:38:10.840
just so wonderful. Great call out
there. How about a company that you
553
00:38:10.960 --> 00:38:15.070
really respect or appreciate for the way
that they deliver for you as a customer?
554
00:38:16.070 --> 00:38:20.989
So I've been noodling on this,
this idea, and I think I'm
555
00:38:20.989 --> 00:38:23.670
going to call it a really small, small business. I'm a member of
556
00:38:24.150 --> 00:38:30.059
a small wine club up in Napa
and originally I had my delivery address as
557
00:38:30.219 --> 00:38:34.500
my husband's office, because, you
know, you have to sign for alcohol
558
00:38:34.500 --> 00:38:37.460
in California, and I got the
email notification that it was being shipped to
559
00:38:37.500 --> 00:38:40.889
the office and we were under a
lockdown. So I immediately shot them an
560
00:38:40.929 --> 00:38:45.090
email. You know, I'm just
like shooting emails to random email addresses at
561
00:38:45.090 --> 00:38:46.409
the winery and I'm like hey,
is there any way we could change this?
562
00:38:46.769 --> 00:38:50.730
And you know, in less than
twenty four hours they said no problem,
563
00:38:50.889 --> 00:38:53.289
they had it redirected, which I
can only imagine how difficult that was,
564
00:38:53.889 --> 00:38:58.119
and they they were just like so
happy to do it for me because
565
00:38:58.159 --> 00:39:01.639
they understood what I was going through, being literally locked indoors, and I
566
00:39:01.760 --> 00:39:06.119
think it just showed a you know, I can only imagine how stressful it
567
00:39:06.159 --> 00:39:08.639
is for them. They're very small
business. I'm sure that as people lose
568
00:39:08.679 --> 00:39:12.829
more of their income, luxuries like
wine are going to be things that they
569
00:39:12.869 --> 00:39:17.510
cut. And yet they took the
time to express loyalty towards an existing customer
570
00:39:17.670 --> 00:39:22.429
and go above and beyond what my
expectations were of them. And I'm seeing
571
00:39:22.510 --> 00:39:25.860
that actually that level of loyalty and
customer focus. Happened from a lot of
572
00:39:25.980 --> 00:39:30.539
really small businesses is and I have
this hypothesis and hope that there's going to
573
00:39:30.579 --> 00:39:35.940
be a resurgence in the sort of
like cottage industry and maybe a beginning of
574
00:39:35.980 --> 00:39:39.250
a shift away from the monolithic brands
because of this level of customer focus.
575
00:39:39.849 --> 00:39:43.849
Yeah, it's really interesting to think
about. I love the example, by
576
00:39:43.889 --> 00:39:45.969
the way, and it's it is. I think they're going to be okay,
577
00:39:46.610 --> 00:39:51.210
and I say that only because here
in Colorado, when we got our
578
00:39:51.610 --> 00:39:54.480
stay, they call our stay at
home, when we got our stayathome order,
579
00:39:54.880 --> 00:39:58.360
they accepted, of course, grosceries
and some other things like that,
580
00:39:58.440 --> 00:40:00.920
but they also accepted the liquor stores
and beer stores and wine stores, and
581
00:40:01.519 --> 00:40:06.199
same thing happened to my buddy Steve
Out in Pennsylvania. You know that they
582
00:40:06.199 --> 00:40:09.789
at first they closed the beer stores
and then they opened a backup like a
583
00:40:09.909 --> 00:40:13.989
week later. So I hopefully that
business will be okay. But what you
584
00:40:14.070 --> 00:40:17.590
offer is really interesting, especially is
people's careers are disrupted and they need to
585
00:40:17.630 --> 00:40:22.019
maybe reinvent whenever we're on kind of
the better side of this situation that we're
586
00:40:22.019 --> 00:40:25.099
all in right now and so I
have the same hope. It's really it's
587
00:40:25.099 --> 00:40:30.699
an exciting thought and I do think
the kind of the essence of what you
588
00:40:30.860 --> 00:40:35.300
offered there too, is this idea
that these are the times we are going
589
00:40:35.380 --> 00:40:39.530
to remember how the brands and companies
and products and services made us feel so
590
00:40:39.849 --> 00:40:45.170
the ones that make us feel cared
for long term wealthy. Yeah, I
591
00:40:45.250 --> 00:40:47.769
think that's all about empathy. Right
now. It is. It's I'm seeing
592
00:40:47.769 --> 00:40:51.599
a lot of that on Linkedin and
it's nice. I hope that a lot
593
00:40:51.639 --> 00:40:55.480
of these things that emerge, including
like I recording this on a Monday,
594
00:40:55.880 --> 00:41:00.360
so you know I'm home, but
I feel like now, a couple weeks
595
00:41:00.360 --> 00:41:04.909
into it, we're not as far
along as you are that I feel obviously
596
00:41:04.989 --> 00:41:07.349
closer to my family, because I
see them a lot more, my wife
597
00:41:07.389 --> 00:41:10.710
and my son, and in closer
to my neighborhood because I'm walking and running
598
00:41:10.710 --> 00:41:15.469
a lot more and at different times
of the day. I'm more familiar with
599
00:41:15.550 --> 00:41:17.269
the way the light moves through my
own home during the day. It's just,
600
00:41:17.619 --> 00:41:21.059
you know, I'm hoping that some
of these some of these small things,
601
00:41:21.099 --> 00:41:24.019
in these nice things, stay with
us when some new normalcy returns.
602
00:41:24.780 --> 00:41:29.780
I agree I agree. I think
there's a lot of really interesting new changes
603
00:41:29.820 --> 00:41:35.210
that are happening around us, and
the people and the companies that are agile
604
00:41:35.289 --> 00:41:37.210
and able to adapt to this world, I think we're going to find so
605
00:41:37.289 --> 00:41:40.969
many cool new things happen. I'm
also a little optimistic about this. Like
606
00:41:42.369 --> 00:41:45.250
obviously I hope that we find a
way to stymy the the spread of this
607
00:41:45.409 --> 00:41:51.119
disease, because the like, the
human impact is horrible, but this is
608
00:41:51.159 --> 00:41:54.039
also where like interesting innovation is going
to happen. People are going to be
609
00:41:54.079 --> 00:41:57.679
more connected to their family, people
are going to be more connected to their
610
00:41:57.719 --> 00:42:00.679
communities, and that's a thing,
at least in the US, we've needed
611
00:42:00.840 --> 00:42:05.710
for a while. You know,
it's weird that isolation is what's driving connection,
612
00:42:05.829 --> 00:42:07.989
but it is. Yeah, I
feel like all the social networks are
613
00:42:08.030 --> 00:42:13.309
a bit more lively than before.
Of course, facebook in particular still as
614
00:42:13.429 --> 00:42:16.579
kind of antagonistic as ever. It's
weird how something like this can be so
615
00:42:16.739 --> 00:42:21.460
political, but I do feel like
there is the more people are there looking
616
00:42:21.619 --> 00:42:24.340
for that kind of connection. Of
course, at bombomb because we make it
617
00:42:24.420 --> 00:42:28.500
easy to record and send videos and
not just do zoom calls like this zoom.
618
00:42:28.539 --> 00:42:30.369
Of course, is probably through the
roof crazy busy right now, but
619
00:42:30.809 --> 00:42:34.170
so are we. It's really interesting, you know. On the one side
620
00:42:34.170 --> 00:42:37.889
we have people, you know,
strung customers who are struggling, you know,
621
00:42:37.010 --> 00:42:39.849
and they're reviewing all of their expenses
and trying to figure out what they're
622
00:42:39.849 --> 00:42:43.130
going to do. But on the
other side we have, I guess,
623
00:42:43.210 --> 00:42:46.280
generally speaking, lead flow that is
that we haven't seen in some time.
624
00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:51.039
It's been it's also just so interesting. I am going to let you get
625
00:42:51.079 --> 00:42:52.840
back to your day. I appreciate
you so much. I appreciate your time
626
00:42:53.039 --> 00:42:57.960
and I know if someone is listening
to us right now they appreciate your time
627
00:42:58.119 --> 00:43:00.550
and your insights as well. So
if anyone wants to follow up and connect
628
00:43:00.590 --> 00:43:05.389
with you or with crunch base,
where would you send people with crunch bits?
629
00:43:05.510 --> 00:43:09.309
Just wwtcrunch Bascom with me. I'm
on Linkedin. Shinney Ben's Are there
630
00:43:09.389 --> 00:43:12.980
on a lot of us, so
you'll probably find me, and also on
631
00:43:13.219 --> 00:43:16.300
twitter match. Shiny Benz are awesome. Thank you again so much and I
632
00:43:16.340 --> 00:43:21.260
hope you have a great rest of
your day. I hope you are unlocked
633
00:43:21.860 --> 00:43:28.929
soon. Thank you you too.
The power of conversation and the power of
634
00:43:29.090 --> 00:43:31.849
coaching. I loved the thank you
that Shanee gave there. None of us
635
00:43:31.889 --> 00:43:37.369
should overlook our opportunity and ability to
influence people's lives and careers in the way
636
00:43:37.489 --> 00:43:44.519
that hers was. To hear more
conversations about creating awareness, understanding, conversation
637
00:43:45.039 --> 00:43:49.400
and alignment with the people who can
help us be successful. Check out the
638
00:43:49.519 --> 00:43:55.150
customer experience podcast. You can search
the customer experience podcasting your preferred podcast player,
639
00:43:55.590 --> 00:44:00.989
or you can head over to Bombombcom
podcast for links to the podcast and
640
00:44:01.110 --> 00:44:07.550
links to details about every episode,
including short write ups, video clips and
641
00:44:07.750 --> 00:44:14.059
betted audio and much more. Again, that's at Bombombcom podcast. My name
642
00:44:14.139 --> 00:44:21.380
is Ethan but and I appreciate you
listening to be tob growth. Is the
643
00:44:21.420 --> 00:44:24.329
decisionmaker for your product or service,
a beb marketer. Are you looking to
644
00:44:24.409 --> 00:44:30.050
reach those buyers through the medium of
podcasting? Consider becoming a cohost of BB
645
00:44:30.329 --> 00:44:35.449
growth. This show is consistently ranked
as a top one hundred podcast in the
646
00:44:35.489 --> 00:44:38.360
marketing category of Apple Podcasts, and
the show gets more than a hundred and
647
00:44:38.480 --> 00:44:44.599
thirty thou downloads each month. We've
already done the work of building the audience,
648
00:44:44.920 --> 00:44:49.199
so you can focus on delivering incredible
content to our listeners. If you're
649
00:44:49.239 --> 00:44:52.360
interested, email logan at sweet fish
Mediacom