Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.480 --> 00:00:10.589 Welcome to the Bob Growth Show. I am your host, Carlos Hidalgo, 2 00:00:10.789 --> 00:00:15.109 for the human to humans segment, and today I have with me one of 3 00:00:15.150 --> 00:00:20.350 my favorite CMOS, Megan Eisenberg. Welcome to the show. Thank you for 4 00:00:20.429 --> 00:00:23.379 having me. So, Megan, I've known you for quite a while. 5 00:00:23.420 --> 00:00:28.980 I actually referenced you in my book driving demand as one of the CMOS that 6 00:00:29.019 --> 00:00:31.660 I admire the most. I don't know if you ever knew that, but 7 00:00:31.980 --> 00:00:36.049 I really just having, I wouldn't say a front row seat, I would 8 00:00:36.049 --> 00:00:40.369 say kind of a midtier set to your career, what you've done. Always 9 00:00:40.409 --> 00:00:43.490 had mad respect for what you've done, and then a couple of years ago, 10 00:00:43.530 --> 00:00:46.969 I got to see you speak at a merit direct conference. So, 11 00:00:47.250 --> 00:00:50.560 for those who may not know you, give us a little background on who 12 00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:54.399 you are and what you do. Sure. So, I currently in the 13 00:00:54.479 --> 00:00:58.759 CMO trip actions, which is in the this is travel management space for booking 14 00:00:58.880 --> 00:01:03.349 travel and getting travel agent support prior and I've been at trafractions for a year. 15 00:01:03.670 --> 00:01:07.870 Prior to that, I was at MONGODB for four years as their CMO. 16 00:01:07.629 --> 00:01:12.430 Took the company public and they're still doing quite successful even in our wild 17 00:01:12.510 --> 00:01:18.150 markets. And before that I was the VPA Demandin at Docu signed for three 18 00:01:18.189 --> 00:01:21.500 and a half years. Excellent. Well, thanks for that background. And, 19 00:01:22.019 --> 00:01:25.379 as you just detailed, you have been, you know, an executive 20 00:01:25.379 --> 00:01:30.219 roles, CMO, rolls for several organizations and seems everywhere you've gone you've had 21 00:01:30.379 --> 00:01:34.849 great success, even going back to to doc you sign. So, as 22 00:01:34.930 --> 00:01:38.010 you look back over your career, what has been that key to success for 23 00:01:38.090 --> 00:01:42.930 you? You know, I think a lot of it is continual learning and 24 00:01:42.890 --> 00:01:48.599 surrounding yourself with people who are, I think, learning and pushing you. 25 00:01:48.680 --> 00:01:51.680 You know, when I look back, I think about I can even go 26 00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:57.000 look at my Amazon Book purchases and see all the different books I've read around 27 00:01:57.280 --> 00:02:02.269 marketing, around growth, around leadership, around parenting as I had children. 28 00:02:02.709 --> 00:02:06.790 You know, I think a lot of it is we have to continue to 29 00:02:06.950 --> 00:02:12.509 learn and grow and, you know, gather experiences and you start to overtime 30 00:02:12.590 --> 00:02:16.699 get pattern recognition and make decisions faster and you can lead and you learn to 31 00:02:16.699 --> 00:02:20.900 be a better leader and you might you know, I try to model people 32 00:02:20.939 --> 00:02:23.620 that I think are doing a great job at leading and then learn from those 33 00:02:23.620 --> 00:02:27.139 that I think could do better. And so I think that's contributed to it 34 00:02:27.300 --> 00:02:30.650 and then just, you know, fostering a team culture and and having a 35 00:02:30.810 --> 00:02:36.729 team that just loves to go do marketing really yeah, that is fun when 36 00:02:36.770 --> 00:02:40.289 you are I've had that experience, especially when I was client side with people 37 00:02:40.330 --> 00:02:46.520 who really do love the marketing trade in the marketing discipline, and it makes 38 00:02:46.599 --> 00:02:49.879 come into work so much better. Yes, I think the other thing is 39 00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:53.800 I've always had a belief that sales is your can't you know your partner and 40 00:02:53.879 --> 00:02:59.389 your internal customer? And so when you're in B tob really focusing on what 41 00:02:59.469 --> 00:03:02.949 they need to be successful, matters a ton. Yeah, absolutely, and 42 00:03:04.069 --> 00:03:07.750 I love the words you just use, the partner ship, and I do 43 00:03:07.909 --> 00:03:12.979 believe marketing and sales have to collaborate in a real unified fashion. And so 44 00:03:13.139 --> 00:03:16.500 I would assume, which is always dangerous, but I would assume that you're 45 00:03:16.500 --> 00:03:21.379 not a big fan of the whole term throw it over the fence and definitely 46 00:03:21.460 --> 00:03:25.139 not. I hear so many marketers still use that and I'm like, please 47 00:03:25.340 --> 00:03:30.370 stop using that. Well, thanks for that background and I appreciate your kind 48 00:03:30.409 --> 00:03:35.330 of opening up and I love the fact that you are talking about continual learning. 49 00:03:35.370 --> 00:03:38.930 I don't think we ever stopped. No matter how long we've been doing 50 00:03:38.050 --> 00:03:42.759 this, we always have something to learn and I think we one of the 51 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:46.879 things I love about be to be marketing and it is a pretty small community. 52 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:51.120 That is there's so many great people out there that we can continually learn 53 00:03:51.199 --> 00:03:53.159 them. So I appreciate you share in that. You know, for those 54 00:03:53.199 --> 00:03:58.110 of you who are listening, we are recording here on April the third, 55 00:03:58.349 --> 00:04:04.509 so we are in the height coronavirus, covid nineteen pandemic. So you know, 56 00:04:04.629 --> 00:04:09.389 Megan, I wrote a post yesterday and Linkedin. That's that if you're 57 00:04:09.430 --> 00:04:14.979 using this as a way to sell and market and manipulate, actually I use 58 00:04:15.020 --> 00:04:17.819 the word exploit, that you're actually part of the problem. And that came 59 00:04:18.180 --> 00:04:24.100 directly on the heat bills of a linkedin invite I got. That was very 60 00:04:24.139 --> 00:04:27.850 exploitative. So I was I got my ire up a little bit. But 61 00:04:28.250 --> 00:04:30.649 you know, you and I were just talking before we came on air kind 62 00:04:30.689 --> 00:04:33.730 of what you're doing at trip actions and and some of the responsiveness you have 63 00:04:33.970 --> 00:04:40.360 had to take as an organization because you are in the travel industry. WHAT 64 00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:45.240 SHOULD MARKETERS BE? How should they approach this, because we just can't stop 65 00:04:45.399 --> 00:04:48.519 doing business. We have customers, they have needs. So what would you 66 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:54.589 say? And how do marketing and sales people, how should they approach buyer 67 00:04:54.670 --> 00:04:58.870 right now? OR RATHER UNEASY? Yeah, you know, I would start 68 00:04:59.430 --> 00:05:03.589 by saying sense of urgency matters a lot. The market place and everything is 69 00:05:04.230 --> 00:05:09.180 has changed dramatically and probably will never be the same. And about three weeks 70 00:05:09.180 --> 00:05:15.379 ago, as we started to realize everything changing quickly, especially in our world 71 00:05:15.420 --> 00:05:17.899 where, you know, we had to build new product for our travel managers 72 00:05:18.100 --> 00:05:21.569 and then, you know, we started building that maybe Friday and then over 73 00:05:21.610 --> 00:05:25.810 the weekend, from marking standpoint, we had to prepare to launch and arm 74 00:05:25.930 --> 00:05:30.089 are, you know, all our communications around that Monday morning, starting with 75 00:05:30.209 --> 00:05:33.410 our customers making sure they were aware of the new product features, around is 76 00:05:33.490 --> 00:05:39.680 this travel continuity, around blacklisting certain locations, and then there was a quick 77 00:05:39.720 --> 00:05:46.439 realization that everything about our current messaging was wrong. We to talk about trip 78 00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:50.310 actions, was the best experience and business travel and, as you can imagine, 79 00:05:50.350 --> 00:05:53.310 and it was all about the user. Well, the users are not 80 00:05:53.350 --> 00:05:56.389 having a great experience. They were either stuck in a country or trying to 81 00:05:56.430 --> 00:05:59.750 get home or they couldn't get you know, they were, you know, 82 00:05:59.910 --> 00:06:03.540 dealing with this dramatic change and so we had to go through an audit all 83 00:06:03.579 --> 00:06:06.939 of our content and I bet the company about a year in our marketing team 84 00:06:06.939 --> 00:06:10.980 group from ten to fifty, and a lot of the growth was in product 85 00:06:10.980 --> 00:06:14.860 marketing and content. And we had all we had rewritten the entire website. 86 00:06:14.860 --> 00:06:17.689 We had rewritten all our messaging briefs, all our nurture you know, we 87 00:06:17.730 --> 00:06:21.689 built nurture programs, twelve different nurture streams for the different personas. We'd localized 88 00:06:21.730 --> 00:06:25.810 it. We had all this content for our scrs, th mdrs, for 89 00:06:25.930 --> 00:06:29.930 follow up and outreach, our sales pitch and deck. Every single one of 90 00:06:29.970 --> 00:06:33.920 those things had to be rewritten. So we went on a three or four 91 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:40.199 day you know, fifteen hours a day rewriting, auditing and rewriting our content 92 00:06:40.319 --> 00:06:45.040 and changing our messaging to be more in line with what was out there. 93 00:06:45.079 --> 00:06:47.189 Otherwise you come across as tone depth. We had to Redo all our social 94 00:06:47.269 --> 00:06:50.430 handles. Everything was the best experience in business travel. We had launched a 95 00:06:50.470 --> 00:06:55.910 new product the week before called trap actions liquid, which is a corporate card 96 00:06:56.029 --> 00:06:59.430 for travel, and it was all about business travels never been the smooth. 97 00:06:59.829 --> 00:07:01.699 Well, business travel is not smooth right now. So all of a sudden 98 00:07:01.699 --> 00:07:05.939 it was actually you need to deal with business travel and spend with diligence, 99 00:07:06.060 --> 00:07:12.500 because everything is changed to cost control, cash preservation, being safe with your 100 00:07:12.579 --> 00:07:15.329 travelers, and we have all of that as part of our product and we 101 00:07:15.449 --> 00:07:18.810 deliver that. But that wasn't what we had led with before because the environment 102 00:07:18.850 --> 00:07:23.689 was so different. So for every marker out there you need to figure out, 103 00:07:23.810 --> 00:07:27.730 first of all, does your product have product market fit anymore? If 104 00:07:27.850 --> 00:07:30.519 not, work with the product team to quickly pivot to what your customers need. 105 00:07:30.680 --> 00:07:34.480 Now then you need to change your all your core messaging and then wherever 106 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:39.800 you syndicate that or wherever you enable your sales seemed also our CSMS. We 107 00:07:39.879 --> 00:07:43.800 had enable all of that. All the onboarding language for new customers and travelers 108 00:07:43.839 --> 00:07:46.750 all had to be changed. You need to quickly change that and your social 109 00:07:46.829 --> 00:07:49.350 media. So I would say that was kind of the first phase that we 110 00:07:49.470 --> 00:07:54.949 went through and then we started to realize people had so many questions around coronavirus. 111 00:07:55.509 --> 00:07:59.259 What countries were open? What did shelter and place mean? What are 112 00:07:59.259 --> 00:08:01.540 the best policies out there? How do I wear a mask? Do I 113 00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:03.620 not wear a mask and we thought, you know, we need to stand 114 00:08:03.620 --> 00:08:07.740 up a community because we've never had one, and so we quickly evaluated the 115 00:08:07.819 --> 00:08:13.089 technology out there. What could we buy an implement and then create content and 116 00:08:13.209 --> 00:08:16.209 bring the community together on within twenty four hours? And so the team quickly 117 00:08:16.290 --> 00:08:20.769 looked at tools. We landed on Vanilla forums. We had to go through 118 00:08:20.769 --> 00:08:22.170 procurement and legal, get it all signed off on, then we had to 119 00:08:22.250 --> 00:08:26.250 go implement it. You have to design the framework, then you have to 120 00:08:26.290 --> 00:08:28.319 have a content counter, then you have to pay all your influencers and your 121 00:08:28.399 --> 00:08:33.279 customers and then start contributing content. was very impressive. Within three or four 122 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:37.480 days we had a thriving community of people asking questions, even our partners and 123 00:08:37.559 --> 00:08:41.629 suppliers, like if you imagine airline, and people had questions around mileage and 124 00:08:41.950 --> 00:08:46.149 how that was going to happen that no one was traveling, or hotel points, 125 00:08:46.230 --> 00:08:48.190 where am I going to lose status and so, or how do I 126 00:08:48.269 --> 00:08:50.830 cancel or how do I get a rebate? And there's waivers out there, 127 00:08:52.309 --> 00:08:54.549 and so all these questions were coming up. It was very impressive to see 128 00:08:54.590 --> 00:08:58.419 the team stand up a community within three to four days, something that I 129 00:08:58.500 --> 00:09:03.379 would probably have taken one to two months to really think through, strategize, 130 00:09:03.860 --> 00:09:07.340 have a content plan and really be more, you know, less urgent, 131 00:09:07.659 --> 00:09:13.370 but I think that really mattered to bring community together. Content. You know, 132 00:09:13.450 --> 00:09:16.009 we pivoted the type of content. But you know, our budgets are 133 00:09:16.009 --> 00:09:20.169 all getting slashed, so you're you know, you'd like to think, okay, 134 00:09:20.289 --> 00:09:22.370 well, the world's change. We're not doing events, so you know 135 00:09:22.409 --> 00:09:26.600 that gets cut right away, and field marketing dinners. You can't do those, 136 00:09:26.639 --> 00:09:28.519 so that gets cut right away. You can't really do direct mail. 137 00:09:28.559 --> 00:09:31.600 Everyone's at home, so that gets cut. What are people doing? Well, 138 00:09:31.919 --> 00:09:37.320 they're reading. There there on social more than ever before because they feel 139 00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:39.110 isolated and they're trying to figure out real time what's happening in the world. 140 00:09:39.110 --> 00:09:43.350 So I've there's more people on twitter, there's more people on facebook trying to 141 00:09:43.350 --> 00:09:46.269 make connections. So that we thought about that a lot. Content. You 142 00:09:46.350 --> 00:09:50.230 know, there's definitely a week or two where people are adjusting and working from 143 00:09:50.230 --> 00:09:52.549 home. So they're not. You know, I think most people have seen 144 00:09:52.590 --> 00:09:56.220 their website traffic decline because probably people are adjusting. There's a lot of layoffs 145 00:09:56.259 --> 00:10:01.419 going on, so all of that is impacting what's going on there and what 146 00:10:01.620 --> 00:10:05.820 really matters and how they prioritize what they need to do and their daytoday to 147 00:10:05.940 --> 00:10:09.690 adjust to the new reality. So we thought a lot about content, with 148 00:10:09.250 --> 00:10:13.090 a lot about social as well, and where we were, you know, 149 00:10:13.250 --> 00:10:18.169 where it made sense to spend money and not, and we obviously had a 150 00:10:18.250 --> 00:10:22.240 lot less of it. Yeah, and you know, if I could boil 151 00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:24.960 it down, and you use the word a couple of times, community, 152 00:10:24.159 --> 00:10:28.440 it sounds like you guys responded and said, what is the best way we 153 00:10:28.559 --> 00:10:33.519 can be human in our communication? Yes, our customer. And what do? 154 00:10:33.720 --> 00:10:37.710 What do people need? Another thing we stood up that has gotten pretty 155 00:10:37.710 --> 00:10:41.710 good tractions. We realize we were feeling disconnected. We had, you know, 156 00:10:43.149 --> 00:10:46.190 team, our team was separated. We're separating from families. My father 157 00:10:46.509 --> 00:10:50.379 can't go out. He's, you know, in his s and need someone 158 00:10:50.460 --> 00:10:52.340 shot for him. But he's a very social person that was used to go, 159 00:10:52.500 --> 00:10:56.100 you know, very mobile and social, and now he's, you know, 160 00:10:56.340 --> 00:10:58.899 at home, worried, an uncertain. It's like, how do we 161 00:10:58.019 --> 00:11:01.500 connect and we and how do we also stay true to who we are? 162 00:11:01.779 --> 00:11:05.210 And we came up with this thing called past the plane and we created a 163 00:11:05.289 --> 00:11:09.409 group on facebook and we started started within the company first, where we created 164 00:11:09.490 --> 00:11:13.529 airplane vert you know, and we recorded on our phones and we threw it 165 00:11:13.649 --> 00:11:16.730 to someone and then we tag them in it and then they threw it and 166 00:11:16.769 --> 00:11:22.039 then we started to put the videos together and on Sunday I Ping my dad 167 00:11:22.120 --> 00:11:24.919 and I said, Hey, create a paper airplane for me and record it 168 00:11:24.159 --> 00:11:26.559 and then send it, and he totally got into it and then he tagged 169 00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:31.240 my nephew and Albuquerque and my nephew did a video and it was just it 170 00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:35.070 was this moment of connect acting while we're apart, and this moment like even 171 00:11:35.110 --> 00:11:39.470 my kids have three kids. They had so much fun for over an hour 172 00:11:39.629 --> 00:11:43.429 they were making airplanes and throwing them around the yard, and so it was 173 00:11:43.509 --> 00:11:46.350 just like this relief. Like these horrible thing you're happening in the world, 174 00:11:46.389 --> 00:11:50.019 but on some level almost everyone has paper or bill that they're not going to 175 00:11:50.059 --> 00:11:54.700 pay right so fold that up and decorate it and throw it, and so 176 00:11:54.899 --> 00:11:58.899 that's kind of been uplifting for us a little bit to be connected some way, 177 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:03.490 even in this tragedy of what's happening in travel right now. So I 178 00:12:03.529 --> 00:12:05.610 don't know if you can find some way that something that matters to your company 179 00:12:05.649 --> 00:12:11.169 and then matters to your your customers. I think now's the time to do 180 00:12:11.330 --> 00:12:16.080 those kind of things, to to have a brand that cares and is empathetic 181 00:12:16.159 --> 00:12:22.519 and is not tone death. Right. Hey, everybody logan with sweet fish 182 00:12:22.600 --> 00:12:26.720 here. You probably already know that we think you should start a podcast if 183 00:12:26.759 --> 00:12:30.269 you haven't already. But what if you have and you're asking these kinds of 184 00:12:30.309 --> 00:12:35.309 questions? How much has our podcast impacted revenue this year? How's our sales 185 00:12:35.389 --> 00:12:39.269 team actually leveraging the PODCAST content? If you can't answer these questions, you're 186 00:12:39.269 --> 00:12:43.700 actually not alone. This is why I cast it created the very first content 187 00:12:43.860 --> 00:12:50.700 marketing platform made specifically for be Tobe podcasting. Now you can more easily search 188 00:12:50.100 --> 00:12:56.580 and share your audio content while getting greater visibility into the impact of your podcast. 189 00:12:56.019 --> 00:13:01.850 The marketing teams at drift terminus and here at sweet fish have started using 190 00:13:01.970 --> 00:13:05.250 casted to get more value out of our podcasts, and you probably can to. 191 00:13:05.889 --> 00:13:11.450 You can check out the product in action and casted dot US growth. 192 00:13:11.850 --> 00:13:18.399 That's sea St Ed dot US growth. All right, let's get back to 193 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:24.879 the show. You know. So it gets me thinking, because you know 194 00:13:24.960 --> 00:13:30.149 you and I've been done this probably longer than we care to admit in terms 195 00:13:30.149 --> 00:13:33.629 of of B Tob Marketing, and you know, you see so much content 196 00:13:33.750 --> 00:13:39.269 being created year over year. You just I appreciate you going into the detail 197 00:13:39.309 --> 00:13:41.779 you did because the first of all, I don't know if you or your 198 00:13:41.820 --> 00:13:45.740 team have slept in the last two weeks, but I hope you get caught 199 00:13:45.779 --> 00:13:50.419 up on that. But you guys really just mobilized to create and pivot on 200 00:13:50.539 --> 00:13:56.129 a dime with your content. But I continue to just seek content from B 201 00:13:56.250 --> 00:14:03.529 tob brands that is sterile, it's not interesting, it is void, devoid 202 00:14:03.610 --> 00:14:07.409 of any kind of human element. But you just described how, in a 203 00:14:07.450 --> 00:14:11.639 very short period of time and response to Covid that you actually did make it 204 00:14:11.720 --> 00:14:16.440 humans. So where's the disconnect with these brands and with marketers who are just 205 00:14:16.679 --> 00:14:22.279 producing really just horrible content, because even in B tob we're selling to people, 206 00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:28.029 we're selling to human beings. So you know, I as you've kind 207 00:14:28.029 --> 00:14:31.269 of gone through, what's that missing element and why are more doing it? 208 00:14:31.669 --> 00:14:33.509 Yeah, I think it's a couple thing. One, I think it's shut 209 00:14:33.629 --> 00:14:37.750 some are in shock and some are in denial and some are in automation. 210 00:14:37.309 --> 00:14:41.019 So if people have stuff automated and they don't realize it and they haven't gone 211 00:14:41.019 --> 00:14:43.740 through and audited the content that's going out, they're going to be in trouble. 212 00:14:45.460 --> 00:14:48.700 The ones that are in denial are you know, they probably are. 213 00:14:48.019 --> 00:14:52.779 You know, probably won't have much of a business left or won't have you 214 00:14:52.860 --> 00:14:54.450 know, they may be laid off soon, I don't know. You know, 215 00:14:54.529 --> 00:14:58.850 we went into wartime mode immediately. You know, we certainly are fortunate 216 00:14:58.889 --> 00:15:03.049 with our leadership team and our board. They've gone through recessions and downturns. 217 00:15:03.169 --> 00:15:07.679 You know, there's a really good book, the hard thing about hard things, 218 00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:09.399 by Ben Horowitz, and I read it about a year ago and it 219 00:15:09.480 --> 00:15:15.039 talks about being a wartime CEO and what they went through to survive. And 220 00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:18.320 I think right now every company needs to get in that mode. Even if 221 00:15:18.360 --> 00:15:24.110 you saw a spike because you have a certain technology that's useful for remote work 222 00:15:24.149 --> 00:15:28.990 or, you know, digital transformation, if more and more businesses go out 223 00:15:28.110 --> 00:15:31.309 of business because they run out of cash, you know, when we've seen 224 00:15:31.350 --> 00:15:35.779 recessions and downturns, you'll see eighty percent of startups will go bankrupt. And 225 00:15:35.299 --> 00:15:41.659 so if your leadership team is not doing cash preservation and doing what they need 226 00:15:41.659 --> 00:15:46.100 to protect the core, it'll end up everyone losing their jobs because the entire 227 00:15:46.179 --> 00:15:48.779 company will go out of business. And at from a marketing standpoint, if 228 00:15:48.820 --> 00:15:52.649 you have not figured out how to drive revenue and your cost center, you 229 00:15:52.929 --> 00:15:56.809 are gone. Right. You can't afford to be a cost center. You 230 00:15:56.889 --> 00:16:00.409 need to figure out how you're enabling your sales team and your CSM team to 231 00:16:00.490 --> 00:16:03.759 keep customers right now so that you have revenue coming in, that you have 232 00:16:03.879 --> 00:16:07.360 a future business, that you can get back to business and your CFO and 233 00:16:07.399 --> 00:16:11.559 your finance team are working on how you preserve cash and modeling out your runway 234 00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:17.360 on that. And so I you know, marketers need to quickly adapt or 235 00:16:17.440 --> 00:16:19.710 they're going to die. Right. It's just I think of it and I 236 00:16:19.870 --> 00:16:23.350 think you know business travel got hit first, but text getting hit next. 237 00:16:23.669 --> 00:16:27.149 You know, there's tons of tech companies right now that are laying off because 238 00:16:27.429 --> 00:16:30.669 right now all the CFOs are ranking all the cont you know, all their 239 00:16:32.629 --> 00:16:34.620 all the technology and software they have, and they're saying, do we need 240 00:16:34.700 --> 00:16:37.460 this? Do we need that? Do we need this? Why do you 241 00:16:37.580 --> 00:16:41.179 have this? Is this matter anymore? And you're going to start to see 242 00:16:41.220 --> 00:16:44.860 that impact your renewals and maybe they'll be a delay and SASS because of the 243 00:16:44.940 --> 00:16:48.570 model and how it works. But if we can't figure out how to pull 244 00:16:48.730 --> 00:16:52.289 ourselves out of the you know, we have a health crisis and a financial 245 00:16:52.409 --> 00:16:56.210 crisis, you will see this effect across the board that were I think we're 246 00:16:56.210 --> 00:17:00.570 already starting to see. You know, you look at unemployment, was like 247 00:17:00.690 --> 00:17:03.559 ten million people in a week or something, yea, or rooted ten million 248 00:17:03.679 --> 00:17:07.240 right like this. So yeah, I would say for marketers and be tob 249 00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:11.960 marketers like focus on sales, enablement, CSM enablement and pipeline, with less 250 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:15.279 money, fee, creative, find ways to not spend money to get what 251 00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:18.750 get what you need. Yeah, and you know what? I hear you 252 00:17:18.910 --> 00:17:22.549 say that I can help, but think and again, I'm not. I 253 00:17:22.670 --> 00:17:26.150 want to be careful how I say this because I don't want to come across 254 00:17:26.190 --> 00:17:29.069 as as an I told you so. But I know there's been a lot 255 00:17:29.109 --> 00:17:30.460 of us out there that have been saying, Hey, guys, marketing is 256 00:17:30.460 --> 00:17:33.900 a growth engine, marketing is a revenue engine, and we've been saying this 257 00:17:34.059 --> 00:17:40.819 for years and I think now marketers are going, Oh, this is what 258 00:17:40.940 --> 00:17:45.849 that means. Yes, and it's highly unfortunate, and that's putting it mildly, 259 00:17:45.970 --> 00:17:48.130 that it took this to get marketers to kind of wake up and go 260 00:17:48.329 --> 00:17:52.890 okay, but I think you're absolutely right, like you've got a pivot now, 261 00:17:53.690 --> 00:17:57.130 figure this stuff out now, and what I really hope, if anything 262 00:17:57.170 --> 00:18:00.200 good can come out of this from a business perspective, is that we do 263 00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:04.720 come out of this with marketing having a true fresh lend and truly understanding what 264 00:18:04.799 --> 00:18:08.079 our goal and our mission is for an organization. Yeah, and I think 265 00:18:08.119 --> 00:18:12.990 even more important on the driving revenue is how you navigate your brand through this 266 00:18:14.630 --> 00:18:18.349 right and marketing own grand side and if you're doing tone deaf stuff. And 267 00:18:18.789 --> 00:18:22.549 you know, we haven't been perfect. We've been learning this new world as 268 00:18:22.589 --> 00:18:25.309 well. But you know, as the CMO, I have to think a 269 00:18:25.349 --> 00:18:29.859 lot about how we connect with our customers and prospects, how we carry ourselves 270 00:18:30.140 --> 00:18:33.099 on as a brand, how we show empathy and we provide knowledge, because 271 00:18:33.140 --> 00:18:37.859 right now people have a lot of questions and are learning what they need to 272 00:18:37.940 --> 00:18:41.849 do. MMM. So what does that look like internally from a cultural aspect, 273 00:18:42.130 --> 00:18:47.049 like what kind of culture? You talked about your marketing team, which 274 00:18:47.089 --> 00:18:49.890 moves in a matter of days. You know, what kind of culture do 275 00:18:49.970 --> 00:18:56.000 you look to to bring into develop that kind of team? You know, 276 00:18:56.079 --> 00:19:00.759 it's interesting. It's a balance of motivation, North Star, giving a Northstar, 277 00:19:00.920 --> 00:19:06.720 motivating and tough love, because you you've really got to get your team. 278 00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:11.230 You can't freeze and you can't afford not to. You've got to raise 279 00:19:11.470 --> 00:19:15.710 productivity with the team. You've got to act fast. You know it's it 280 00:19:15.789 --> 00:19:18.029 could be exhausting, but you have to. You have to. I think 281 00:19:18.029 --> 00:19:22.430 it's a true a true leader has to figure out the delicate balance of driving 282 00:19:22.470 --> 00:19:26.099 and motivating your team but being very frank and realistic with them. They need 283 00:19:26.180 --> 00:19:30.259 to understand what's at risk and you're not fear bongering. It's like some people 284 00:19:30.299 --> 00:19:34.539 say, there's a balance for leaders between fear and love, and it does 285 00:19:34.579 --> 00:19:37.970 a delicate balance of and when I say fear, it's more like this is 286 00:19:38.009 --> 00:19:44.529 the realities. If we don't drive revenue, we won't exist. And then 287 00:19:44.690 --> 00:19:48.289 this like, you know, how can you move faster? We've been we've 288 00:19:48.329 --> 00:19:52.799 been talking a little bit about the mindset of if there's no wind row and 289 00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:56.319 we have to row. There's no wind out that right now. So what 290 00:19:56.400 --> 00:19:59.799 are we doing to row? We're pivoting our product, we're pivoting our message, 291 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.160 we're enabling the field. were, you know, trying to do better 292 00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:06.480 on different types of content, like we've got a row really hard right now. 293 00:20:06.519 --> 00:20:08.069 Yeah, no, I would. I would agree with that. I 294 00:20:08.470 --> 00:20:12.829 love that analogy. So you you used a word that I think is really 295 00:20:12.869 --> 00:20:15.589 important and it seems to be all the rage right now with marketers, and 296 00:20:15.630 --> 00:20:19.750 that's empathy. I know that Michael Brenner and Brian Carroll have done a lot 297 00:20:19.789 --> 00:20:23.420 of work around that, but especially in this day and age, we're hearing 298 00:20:23.500 --> 00:20:29.180 that word. What I'm seeing right now is it's still a it's a really 299 00:20:29.259 --> 00:20:33.859 cool thing to talk about, but very few brands are know how to do 300 00:20:33.059 --> 00:20:37.650 it. You've been thrust into it. Whether you're doing it before is neither 301 00:20:37.730 --> 00:20:40.289 here nor there. You've actually been thrust into the middle of that. So 302 00:20:40.849 --> 00:20:44.329 can you tell everybody a little bit about like how did you tap into that? 303 00:20:44.890 --> 00:20:47.690 You know, how are you putting that in motion? And then do 304 00:20:47.809 --> 00:20:49.720 you know if any other brands that are really doing it? Well, yeah, 305 00:20:49.759 --> 00:20:53.599 you know, I think core to our values and even our mission, 306 00:20:53.640 --> 00:20:59.279 as we've always focused on the traveler and the user and most of the things 307 00:20:59.279 --> 00:21:03.240 we've built in the product around you as a traveler. What do you need? 308 00:21:03.640 --> 00:21:07.710 Travels hard enough as it is, and so that was, in many 309 00:21:07.750 --> 00:21:10.190 ways, our north stars. What are the what does the traveler need, 310 00:21:10.230 --> 00:21:14.750 and hence the travel manager to support them? And and what do our customers 311 00:21:14.829 --> 00:21:18.029 need? So I think part of empathy is really understanding your end user and 312 00:21:18.109 --> 00:21:22.660 your customers and what they really need in that current time. And so that's, 313 00:21:22.740 --> 00:21:26.259 I think, one way we've done it. and to just I mean 314 00:21:26.339 --> 00:21:30.539 whenever we do a program we think about like put myself in their shoes, 315 00:21:30.099 --> 00:21:33.210 like how would I respond if I read this? How would I respond if 316 00:21:33.250 --> 00:21:37.250 I saw this when I first saw did it make me? Did it make 317 00:21:37.289 --> 00:21:38.450 me laugh? Did it make me smile? Did it get my attention, 318 00:21:38.529 --> 00:21:42.289 or was there something in my that said something's not right about this? And 319 00:21:42.450 --> 00:21:45.529 so I think part of empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of WHO's going 320 00:21:45.529 --> 00:21:48.559 to be looking at it and reading at it or reading it, and then 321 00:21:48.599 --> 00:21:52.000 if you have a weird gut feeling about it, there's probably something there. 322 00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:56.920 And you know, having multiple people look at something, everyone interprets things so 323 00:21:57.160 --> 00:22:00.990 differently they'll be one thing that I think is amazing and great and someone will 324 00:22:00.990 --> 00:22:04.430 see it so differently and so making, you know, kind of understanding. 325 00:22:04.910 --> 00:22:08.869 It's not designed by committee, because that doesn't work either, but it's, 326 00:22:10.109 --> 00:22:12.910 you know, testing, trying out things in the market. Oh that didn't 327 00:22:12.950 --> 00:22:15.019 really work, pull back, pull back, or Oh, that looks like 328 00:22:15.099 --> 00:22:18.259 it's working, double down on it. So if we're going to do that, 329 00:22:18.619 --> 00:22:23.180 then and get people to and I agree it's not a design by committee, 330 00:22:23.380 --> 00:22:26.700 but it sounds like we also have to check our ego at the door. 331 00:22:26.740 --> 00:22:30.569 Yes, for sure, because I mean, I've come up yeah, 332 00:22:30.569 --> 00:22:34.690 I have an idea a minute and probably about ninety percent of them end up 333 00:22:34.730 --> 00:22:40.049 on the cutting room floor as they say yes, yes, I understand that. 334 00:22:41.130 --> 00:22:44.359 Well, Megan, I know you are up against it. I truly, 335 00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:45.599 from the bottom of my heart, thank you for taking the time. 336 00:22:47.160 --> 00:22:51.000 You could have easily rescheduled, but I really have. I've respected you for 337 00:22:51.079 --> 00:22:55.240 a very long time. I think the first time we met you were back 338 00:22:55.279 --> 00:23:00.069 at Docu sign and I'm just always respected of how you've approached marketing, how 339 00:23:00.190 --> 00:23:04.390 you've led teams. So it's been fun to watch a really, really really 340 00:23:04.509 --> 00:23:07.869 just thank you for taking the time. For those who are listening who want 341 00:23:07.869 --> 00:23:12.019 to follow you or kind of clean some of your wisdom, where can they 342 00:23:12.059 --> 00:23:17.339 find you? Yeah, on twitter I'm at M Eisenberg, so first initial, 343 00:23:17.380 --> 00:23:21.859 last name, and then on Linkedin same Megan Eisenberg. My name is 344 00:23:21.900 --> 00:23:23.940 spelled a little funny. I think it's hard for people to find it at 345 00:23:25.019 --> 00:23:30.849 me Agen and then I'm also on on facebook for those that like that channel. 346 00:23:30.890 --> 00:23:33.490 Awesome, and those will all be in the show notes as well. 347 00:23:34.009 --> 00:23:38.970 Megan, thanks again so much. Appreciate what you guys are doing to advance 348 00:23:40.089 --> 00:23:42.599 the cause of marketing. I wish you all the safety and wellness in the 349 00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:47.519 world for you and your husband and your children, and for the folks out 350 00:23:47.559 --> 00:23:49.880 there. I hope you've learned something. If you haven't, you probably need 351 00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:53.240 to go back and listen to this again. Thank you, everybody. This 352 00:23:53.359 --> 00:23:57.309 is a rap on the BB growth show human to human segment. Thanks for 353 00:23:57.549 --> 00:24:04.990 tuning. I hate it when podcasts incessantly ask their listeners for reviews, but 354 00:24:06.029 --> 00:24:08.750 I get why they do it, because reviews are enormously helpful when you're trying 355 00:24:08.789 --> 00:24:12.180 to grow podcast audience. So here's what we decided to do. If you 356 00:24:12.259 --> 00:24:15.579 leave a review, for me to be growth in apple podcasts and email me 357 00:24:15.660 --> 00:24:19.900 a screenshot of the review to James at Sweet Fish Mediacom. I'll send you 358 00:24:19.980 --> 00:24:23.690 a signed copy of my new book. Content based networking. How to instantly 359 00:24:23.769 --> 00:24:27.049 connect with anyone you want to know. We get a review, you get 360 00:24:27.089 --> 00:24:29.529 a free book. We both win.
