Latest / The Prompt / Ep. 568 | Driving 80% more deals: Hexagon’s ABM transformation with Demandbase
Transcript
- 0:01This is on base your one stop shop for solving your most
- 0:04pressing B to B go to market challenges.
- 0:07Each week, host Chris Moody and Paul Gibson talk to sales and
- 0:09marketing leaders to get you in depth insights and creative
- 0:12strategies to set your revenue teams up for success.
- 0:18Hey everyone, this episode with Brenna Self is going to cover
- 0:21several amazing things. The biggest is the transition to
- 0:24account based. Hexagon has done a phenomenal
- 0:27job of ramping up account based in multiple business units.
- 0:30So you'll hear that story about how they've gone from one group
- 0:33using demand based to another and how that has impacted their
- 0:37account based strategy, hits on sales and marketing alignment
- 0:40and getting a ton of buy in there and also starting small.
- 0:44So before we tackle global initiatives, how to start with
- 0:47pilot and they increase their close on opportunities by 80%.
- 0:53You're going to enjoy this episode.
- 0:55Please reach out to Brenna. She has a call to action in the
- 0:57episode too, but it's going to be a great one.
- 1:01Hey, everyone, welcome back to the home Based podcast.
- 1:03I'm your host, Chris Moody, and today I'm very excited to have
- 1:07Brenna Self with us. Not Brianna, to be very clear.
- 1:10Brenna Self with us to discuss the ABM shift, how Hexagon
- 1:14unlocked growth with demand base.
- 1:16Brenna, thanks for joining us today and welcome to the show.
- 1:18Thank you for having me. Awesome.
- 1:20Well we're pumped, but we could have used the whole one hour
- 1:23talking to each other and not hit record.
- 1:26So that's really good. Hexagon is doing amazing things.
- 1:29I know some of your Co workers, you're all really excited about
- 1:32that and our starting point is usually about your journey.
- 1:37So tell us a little bit about what led you to what you're
- 1:39doing today. Yeah, yeah.
- 1:41So I originally wanted to be a journalist, wanted to be a
- 1:45writer, and then realized I was much more attracted to promoting
- 1:50the paper rather than actually writing for the paper.
- 1:53And the salary thing was a little kind of, you know, you
- 1:56don't quite make as much money as I as I thought you would
- 1:59being a writer. So post college worked at
- 2:02agencies kind of did the agency world for a while, but really
- 2:05quickly I gravitated to digital marketing for B to B clients.
- 2:10I just found it so interesting being able to market kind of the
- 2:14business to business side of things made websites and and
- 2:18e-mail campaigns. I mean, this was 20 years ago,
- 2:22you know, so it was a long time ago, but loved working on the
- 2:27agency side and then had an opportunity to move to the
- 2:31client side and really was able to own just the full kind of
- 2:36long term strategy. And I just never looked back
- 2:40that to me like, sorry, agency life.
- 2:41I realized I didn't love it as much as I love really being on
- 2:45the client side. So now have 20 years experience.
- 2:49I'm running B to B global marketing campaigns.
- 2:54I have built I think a nice track record of driving revenue
- 2:57growth. Customer engagement really
- 3:00centered around making data-driven decisions.
- 3:04Huge data geek. I totally geek out on on all
- 3:08things marketing analytics used to say, I feel like I am like an
- 3:13explorer sifting through all the data and finding like that one
- 3:17little nugget that sales is going to say, yes, that was it.
- 3:20And you know, it's like the the silver bullet and we have the
- 3:22perfect client now and you know, I just love the data.
- 3:27So I also found that I kept getting put into positions where
- 3:33there was just something going on.
- 3:35So they wanted to enter a new market or I kind of do a whole
- 3:41digital transformation or maybe shift industries.
- 3:45So I really have become a strategic builder and more of
- 3:50that like change agent. And that's what brought me to
- 3:52Hexagon. So I worked for the safety
- 3:55infrastructure and geospatial division of Hexagon and they
- 3:59brought me on really just to bring marketing analytics.
- 4:03So bring data to the marketing department.
- 4:06They just weren't quite structured on KPI.
- 4:10No one was really looking at like marketing attribution.
- 4:13People were sending emails, never really even like looking
- 4:17to see how they performed or who engaged or were their hard
- 4:21balances. So I quickly kind of got to work
- 4:23and working with the regions and the global marketing just to
- 4:28shift that whole mindset to be more data-driven.
- 4:32And we really did that. Like again, it took a little
- 4:34time, but I can very safely say that everybody who works for the
- 4:39Sigma, they think about the data and they really let data
- 4:43influence their decisions when it comes to any sort of
- 4:46strategy. We also introduce a multi touch
- 4:49attribution model on our campaigns that all the regions
- 4:52are using. And so this whole digital data
- 4:55transformation, while that was going on, we also pioneered ABM.
- 5:01So that was that was our big huge thing going on, lots and
- 5:04lots of huge things, but shifting to data and then really
- 5:08moving to a more ABM centric approach to things.
- 5:11Awesome. Well, you don't sound busy at
- 5:13all. I love that you're tackling big
- 5:16initiatives. I always say that I have to have
- 5:19adrenaline hits, and it sounds very similar when you describe
- 5:22your background. Because if I don't have a big
- 5:25complicated thing to solve or a massive problem to try to
- 5:30understand and fix, my brain goes to grasses greener syndrome
- 5:34a little bit. So I've learned over the years
- 5:37to better settle myself and find those big challenges.
- 5:40So I love that approach. I think the starting as a story
- 5:44seller and wanting to be a writer and then there's almost a
- 5:47sales mentality of hey, not going to make the money here,
- 5:50I'd rather promote it and then data to prove it.
- 5:53So a lot of great elements of account base that have come
- 5:57through your personal experience.
- 5:58I'm curious how those personal experiences have changed the way
- 6:02you approach account based marketing and go to market
- 6:05strategies, especially in a global organization.
- 6:07You told me your first meeting was today at 7:00 or 7:30 in the
- 6:10morning. Yeah.
- 6:12Well, I mean, I would say I can't think of ABM without
- 6:17thinking of like sales, right. And you mentioned that that
- 6:20sales mentality. I'm very fortunate that my first
- 6:25relationship with sales was just incredibly wonderful.
- 6:29And I had sales mentors kind of from the very beginning that
- 6:33took me under their wing, really partnered with marketing on a
- 6:37mutual respect equal playing ground.
- 6:39They came to me with problems and not with AI need flying Z
- 6:45for a campaign or for a show or for you know, like I got a demo
- 6:50I need for you to go do do this. It was always here is where we
- 6:54want to go, like here is the goal.
- 6:56What do you think? How can we get there?
- 6:58And I see so many marketers become order takers, I would
- 7:03say, and I hate that I still see it today because we really need
- 7:06each other, you know, from a sales and marketing standpoint,
- 7:09we need each other to grow the business.
- 7:11So I think I have a much skewed experience because mine was
- 7:16built on this wonderful mutual kind of trust and not everybody
- 7:19else has that. But it also has helped me
- 7:21identify then when, OK, like that relationship's not the
- 7:26right one or that's a good relationship that I see with
- 7:29sales and marketing, especially on the global side.
- 7:32So being able to be on the global team, you're just able to
- 7:36see so many different ways to go about marketing ways
- 7:41relationships within the two. And then when you throw in ABM
- 7:45and looking at the account side of things, every region is so
- 7:49different and then also so similar.
- 7:52So I have found that putting together a framework from an ABM
- 7:57standpoint, getting together the framework and then working with
- 8:00the regions on it has been the most successful just because
- 8:04then they can't adapt it to local customs or different
- 8:09languages or whatever's needed in that region.
- 8:12ABM wise. Like we all kind of go about it
- 8:15in the same way. There's just tweaks here and
- 8:18there when it it comes to the accounts and the relationship
- 8:21with sales. Yeah, totally.
- 8:23That's the relationship with sales that makes me think about
- 8:27the from to, and I love that you talked about starting sales is
- 8:31great. They pulled you in.
- 8:33Inevitably, there were some pain points that probably happened
- 8:37between marketing and sales that you've worked to improve.
- 8:40What were some of the bigger pain points that you saw in that
- 8:44alignment? We won't even call it
- 8:45misalignment just from going to being aligned to even moral.
- 8:49What were some of the pain points that you observed?
- 8:52And my experience that order taker thing is, is real.
- 8:55What sales looks at you as a means to an end and not as a
- 9:00true partner who can bring you valuable data and valuable
- 9:03insights. And OK, your mentality is let's
- 9:07do a webinar when hey, over here, there's so many other
- 9:10possibilities of things that we can do.
- 9:12Let's look at the bigger picture of things.
- 9:15And so that's been an issue. I think the biggest thing that
- 9:18I've seen and I and I saw it at Hexagon and it's one of the
- 9:21things that that we've really worked on are the silos and just
- 9:26basically sales and marketing just not talking at all.
- 9:28So there's, there's just no relationship and that we are a
- 9:32little bit different in that that we have, we do sellers and
- 9:35and marketers. We don't really have any
- 9:37middleman between the two. So if you want to know account
- 9:40prioritization or what are they hearing in the industry or what
- 9:44from an enterprise standpoint, which is our main business and
- 9:48who are the big fish? Like what, what are they going
- 9:50after? You can't just run a report in
- 9:52sales force. You've got to go talk to sales.
- 9:55You've got to have that relationship to be able to know
- 9:59kind of what's going on. I've also found some of the
- 10:02pitfalls mentioned of Salesforce having regional marketers.
- 10:06Just let me just run a report and see what opportunities.
- 10:10All right, there's my account list.
- 10:12I'll go run ads to them. Done like well that opportunity
- 10:16was put in five years ago and don't really exist or that
- 10:21opportunity is not even in Salesforce because I'm going to
- 10:24put it in tomorrow and close it the next day.
- 10:26So you just can't quite trust the data and I'm sure that that
- 10:31is not a hot take of our Salesforce data is bad.
- 10:34That's I think everybody can feel that if you're in marketing
- 10:37OPS or anything Rev OPS, it's Salesforce data.
- 10:42But the silos have got to come down.
- 10:45That's I mean, if you're going to do any sort of successful ABM
- 10:49or anything from a go to market strategy, you got to work
- 10:52together. We need each other symbiotic,
- 10:54right? So the silos to me has been the
- 10:57biggest issue. And then you know, if you can
- 10:59get them talking, OK, they're treat you like an order taker,
- 11:01at least they're talking to you like we can work on that.
- 11:04That can be the start. I totally agree with that.
- 11:07I mean, to your point, not a hot take to say we should talk more,
- 11:11but right across hundreds of accounts as an analyst too,
- 11:14that's always my first step. I actually have productive
- 11:17meetings together, talk about the right things.
- 11:19I'm curious as a great demand based customer, literally, you
- 11:23know, one of kind of, let's call it steering committee right here
- 11:27in a lot of coal circles using demand base, yeah, transitioning
- 11:31to demand base. How did that serve as a catalyst
- 11:34to reframe your go to market strategy around account based?
- 11:37Yeah. So we used Terminus really to
- 11:42run ads like we were running adds to accounts like targeting
- 11:46accounts and that's all it was. That is not ABM, it's a tactic.
- 11:50So we weren't doing true ABM and we knew it.
- 11:54We knew it. We knew that that Terminus was
- 11:57kind of a dip our toe in to things and we quickly outgrew
- 12:01it. We heard about Demand Base from
- 12:05our fantastic colleagues at Ali, the other Hexagon divisions and
- 12:09in talking with them and running some pilots with them, we found
- 12:14a true partner. And it really was the catalyst
- 12:18to be able to shift to a more ABM centric approach and kind of
- 12:22everything we do with our go to market strategy.
- 12:25And we needed a platform that could be our GTM foundation, but
- 12:30we also needed one that we could scale because with Terminus, we
- 12:32just, we didn't have that. And if say with Demand Base like
- 12:36you turn it on day one, you're just overloaded.
- 12:39There's just, there's so much, it's overwhelming.
- 12:42There's so much positive, there's so much data.
- 12:45And as somebody who loves data, I just, I love demand base from
- 12:48day one. I love being able to say that
- 12:51account went to that website and then served that up on a silver
- 12:53platter to my sellers. But it was just such a game
- 12:57changer for us to be able to get those account insights to really
- 13:02to just have a place, have one place where we can get all the
- 13:06data and really see what's going on in our business, be able to
- 13:10see how we are impacting opportunities, how we're
- 13:13impacting revenue. Are the, you know, like who's
- 13:17really in pipeline? What are the accounts doing?
- 13:20It provided so much information that impacted the marketers and
- 13:25then bigger side, it's forge the relationship that that, and I
- 13:30saw some broken relationships with sales and marketing.
- 13:33It really forged that bridge between the two departments to
- 13:37be able to talk because if you've got some, you've got some
- 13:40data to show them. And it's, it's a fact.
- 13:43Like it's not like I'm making up that this account was on the
- 13:46website. I mean, I can show you, you
- 13:48can't refute that. And and it becomes such a much
- 13:51more interesting conversation having all of those account
- 13:55activities in one spot and then connecting it to sales floors.
- 13:58It just opened our eyes to all the possibilities that we could
- 14:02do from to shift more to that ABN focus.
- 14:07I love that. One of the big things that we
- 14:11stressed both at Topo and Gartner was to start with the
- 14:15right group and account base and then expand from there.
- 14:18So create more of a poll strategy than to push.
- 14:21And I know that you started with a North America pilot program.
- 14:25So a couple things on that. I'm going to spoil your results
- 14:28because this is important. We'll pull this first social
- 14:31clip, I'm sure, but I'd love to understand why starting with a
- 14:35pilot versus starting global was such an important step.
- 14:39And then the factors that you think contributed most to the
- 14:43success. And here's the part on success
- 14:45for everyone. 53% increase in website visits and an 80% rise
- 14:53and closed one opportunities. Yes, 8 zero, 80% rise.
- 14:58So tell us more about why the pilot was the right move and
- 15:01what the biggest factors of success were.
- 15:04Yes, that what I said about demand base where it's like so
- 15:07overwhelming to try to go global like boiling the ocean.
- 15:12We do just, you know, like there were silos in the sales and
- 15:16marketing world and you can't fix them all in one, one fell
- 15:20swoop. So we knew we, we needed to
- 15:22start small and we knew we needed to start in a pilot
- 15:25project. And we chose North America
- 15:28really for a few different reasons.
- 15:30I think the first get this out of the way, the sales team and
- 15:34the marketing team in North America are fantastic.
- 15:37They're both just incredible people, so smart, so
- 15:40intelligent. There were some, you know, I
- 15:43think some communication issues, but two very productive and
- 15:47wonderful teams. So we saw a lot of opportunity
- 15:50there. We also had a ton of executive
- 15:52support in North America. So we had some leaders who were
- 15:56championing on digital marketing, who were championing
- 15:59switching more to that ABM. So to have that support, you
- 16:04know, trickles down. We knew that that was going to
- 16:06help. There was also, so I, I
- 16:08mentioned that fantastic marketing leader, her name is
- 16:11Maureen Mack. She is another reason why we
- 16:14chose North America because during COVID, when their biggest
- 16:19lead generator trade shows was not available, she shifted more
- 16:23to like webinars and e-mail marketing and quickly realized,
- 16:27my goodness, our database is trash.
- 16:29So she made a mission of cleaning up the data.
- 16:34So we knew that OK, North America, great salespeople,
- 16:37great marketing people got executive support, have good
- 16:41data, surprisingly enough. I mean, I, I think that a clean
- 16:44database is just wonderful English, you know, I mean, North
- 16:48America, we don't have to quite worry about all the different
- 16:50languages. Also not as much legal
- 16:53requirements from AGDPR perspective.
- 16:55So, so that was nice. We knew that that that was just
- 16:58kind of setting us up for success.
- 17:00So that's the area we first looked into when we onboarded
- 17:04demand base. I was working on sinking
- 17:07Salesforce, adding the intent data, you know, creating the
- 17:11buyer journey. I'm making sure accounts
- 17:14matched, really looking at the data that was starting to flow
- 17:18in. That was really the kind of
- 17:20cemented at all was because I could quickly see some immediate
- 17:24wind when it came to and all right, we closed this
- 17:27opportunity last year and hey, I can now see in the data that
- 17:31account really surged during certain sales points.
- 17:36So I could take this example and go show it to sales.
- 17:39So I had a way to get my foot in the door while I was, you know,
- 17:43kind of getting everything set up on a demand based standpoint.
- 17:48I had Marine starting all those conversations at the time, like
- 17:51brain was still fairly new. So it was a perfect time for her
- 17:54to really start bridging that gap.
- 17:57So I was feeding her data. She was going to sales starting
- 18:01those conversations about getting a better sense of what
- 18:05is our ICP, what are the the right buying groups within those
- 18:09priority accounts and really getting all of that information
- 18:13that that we need to power than demand base and power kind of
- 18:16our whole ABM strategy. All of that kind of happening at
- 18:20the same time really set the stage for us kind of jumping
- 18:25into ABM. We started small.
- 18:27The Intel she was getting. We were running just kind of
- 18:30like someone to one ads, someone to many.
- 18:33We were being very nimble and kind of like shifting
- 18:36accordingly just because this is all still fairly new for us and
- 18:39looking at all of this data coming in.
- 18:43I also had another fantastic marketer, Mallory Hildebrand,
- 18:47who is like our ad whisperer. She is fantastic and data and
- 18:51and demand based ads and works with Debbie and demand based
- 18:54shout out to Debbie. But she was getting so good at
- 18:57knowing kind of when to change creative and making sure that,
- 19:00you know, are we laying on the right job titles?
- 19:03And there was just a lot of trial and error that we could
- 19:06not have done in a global sense. Because the other thing going on
- 19:10that I mean, I think that I've got to mention demand base and
- 19:13ABM was like 15% of our job. So Mallory was looking at all
- 19:19global campaigns and all global events.
- 19:21Marine was running the entire North America marketing.
- 19:25I had websites and SEO and martech and marketing automation
- 19:30and I'm all legion. I'm so we were all wearing so
- 19:35many different hats. We knew ABM was where we needed
- 19:40to shift to it just we had to make it a priority, right?
- 19:43Like we had to somehow find the time for it.
- 19:47So that's kind of another reason why we had to start small
- 19:50because there were just, there's no way we were going to be able
- 19:53to, you know, start running all these ABM campaigns in
- 19:56Australia, Germany, Brazil, with all the different languages and
- 20:00all the different cultural differences started small in
- 20:04North America. And it really did well.
- 20:06It really did well. Yeah, your statement of the
- 20:09year, come on Brandon, you had to own that market, your
- 20:12marketing there. 80% increase is insane and close on
- 20:17opportunities. I love that incredible job.
- 20:20You gave great advice there for the folks who may be hesitant or
- 20:24struggle about switching to account based.
- 20:27So you can expand on that in this next question too if you
- 20:30want. One thing that I do like you
- 20:32calling attention to, there were two key factors when we
- 20:35benchmarked this at Topo for success of account base.
- 20:39And number one was how well aligned marketing and sales
- 20:42were, which we've talked about and #2 was a dedicated account
- 20:47based leader. So even if it's a shared
- 20:49responsibility, someone who is championing the calls, starting
- 20:53small, building the right consensus.
- 20:55So check, check there. I think that was awesome.
- 20:59The question I have building on that is how can leaders
- 21:03effectively communicate and demonstrate the value of account
- 21:06based marketing to internal stakeholders, especially sales
- 21:10because we know it could take a while to get to that increase in
- 21:13close one deals. Bringing on demand base, right,
- 21:16Sorry. I mean, I mean, I'm not going to
- 21:18lie, like Demand Base really did change the game for us because
- 21:22how you can do that data data all day long when we shifted.
- 21:27But like I said, we started small.
- 21:29We weren't throwing spaghetti against the wall anymore.
- 21:31We were super hyper focused on these very specific accounts.
- 21:35We were building dedicated landing pages and a whole kind
- 21:39of personalized experience with nurture and then with the ads
- 21:43and we also brought in LinkedIn. And so, you know, there was just
- 21:46we were creating content specifically for this account
- 21:49where they're at within the buying journey.
- 21:51We couldn't scale it quite yet, but we were really hyper
- 21:55focused, focused on this. And like you said, we had to
- 21:58champion it. And if you don't have that
- 22:00dedicated person kind of pushing, then it's it's not
- 22:03going to nothing is going to happen.
- 22:05I'm so so we did this and then we started getting in the data,
- 22:10right. What I saw in demand base,
- 22:13besides like all the wonderful marketing things, I saw a sales
- 22:17like goldmine because there's so much important information for
- 22:22them to have and we can serve it up to them on the silver
- 22:26platter. So what I was doing kind of in
- 22:29the background as Valerie and Marine, we're, we're, we're
- 22:33getting everything set up on the ads and the landing pages and
- 22:36talking with sales. I was learning the best way to
- 22:39onboard them to demand base. So there was some trial, brought
- 22:44in a group, group training did not quite work, started doing
- 22:48one-on-one, found huge success in that.
- 22:50So we were given kind of a debt from demand base on how to
- 22:54onboard sales. I kind of threw it out the
- 22:56window. It was great.
- 22:57There were a couple of like great slides, but then I had to
- 23:00change it for my audience. So with sales, you know, they're
- 23:04like what's in it for me. And so I personalized every
- 23:08single training so that they only solved their accounts.
- 23:11They only solved their data and looking at it will like, what do
- 23:16you see in Salesforce under that demand base tab?
- 23:19Why should you even go looking at it?
- 23:20What's in it for you? I am.
- 23:23And so to be able to serve up to them that data, that's when
- 23:26they're like, oh, that's great. And then setting up weekly
- 23:29reports that they are emailed all of this, just getting all of
- 23:33that data automated to rolling out to them without them having
- 23:37to do anything. Now I've got sales guys that
- 23:40will look at their report that's emailed to them and that's it.
- 23:43That's great. We have like an over 90% open
- 23:46rate on. We have over 100 sales people
- 23:49and now using it, it's now it's, you know, wonderful to see that
- 23:53that attribution or that adoption, but it's just them
- 23:56using data and knowing it was coming from marketing.
- 24:00So then that sets Marine up for success.
- 24:03We now have weekly pipeline meetings with sales and
- 24:06marketing where we talk about, OK, what are we not looking at,
- 24:10right? Like what accounts aren't in our
- 24:11sales force? What are are we seeing through
- 24:14AI or through, you know, like like whatever we've got in
- 24:17demand base, what are those new things coming up?
- 24:19We could have never had those conversations prior to this.
- 24:23Data was big, data was big in terms of getting kind of
- 24:27broadcasting this out and getting sales to latch on to it.
- 24:31The other thing, and I mentioned it previously, we had fantastic
- 24:33executive support. So we were meeting with
- 24:36executives every month showing exactly what was going on and we
- 24:41didn't shy away from the hard conversations, but we also
- 24:43really celebrated our wins and they talked.
- 24:47So then I mean quickly North America jumped over to EMEA,
- 24:51jumped over to APEC, jumped over a lat ham.
- 24:53And so it was great and it kind of like naturally scaled, but
- 24:58having those champions like, I don't know if we could have done
- 25:02it without them. It's always great to have the
- 25:04Champions and then you build such strong relationships in
- 25:07that process too. What is the single biggest
- 25:11lesson or surprise that came from rolling out the ABM
- 25:14strategy globally? That's a good question because
- 25:17there's so many. There is so many.
- 25:20I'm surprised at how similar some things are just because I
- 25:25mean, like I know globally, like there's a lot of things that are
- 25:27very different, like in Germany compared to like Tennessee,
- 25:31which is where I'm from. But there's also a lot of
- 25:33similarities. If you've got a hungry sales guy
- 25:36in Germany, he's going to care about that data.
- 25:38So I've got a hungry salesperson in Tennessee.
- 25:42They're going to care about that data.
- 25:44So the framework really could be lifted and used throughout the
- 25:48globe. So it was definitely nice to see
- 25:50that things translated. We didn't have to completely
- 25:52rebuild a program and we could take a lot of pieces, a lot of
- 25:56the successes from North America and leverage it.
- 25:59But then also there were a lot of things different sales is
- 26:03structured differently. I will say that because of that
- 26:07different structure, it can be very challenging on the
- 26:09marketers. And so I really had to list,
- 26:13listen to what those field marketers were telling me
- 26:16because if they don't adopt to it.
- 26:17So like even if I have a hungry sales guy in Germany, if the
- 26:21marketers really aren't talking with him or aren't building
- 26:24campaigns with him and we're not going to have that cohesiveness,
- 26:28then we're not going to see the 80%, right, because he'll have
- 26:31no marketing backing. So I found that I had some
- 26:35champions and sales and I had to really work on the marketing
- 26:39side of things. But then once everybody kind of
- 26:41got on the same page wonderfulness like we're seeing
- 26:45huge increases in account engagement, which is then help
- 26:49building pipeline and then we're starting to see those
- 26:51opportunities close, which you know yay for marketing
- 26:54attribution. Awesome.
- 26:55Well, we have a few quick hitters.
- 26:57You've covered a ton today. I feel you've given us an
- 27:00outline for how to start with the pilot and how to build
- 27:03alignment and how you've done this internally and
- 27:05transitioning to demand base. Lots of great things where I'm
- 27:08seeing green checks across the board in my head.
- 27:10If I'm thinking of the agenda for us to hit today, the first
- 27:13one, this is a big question, but we're going to try to keep it 30
- 27:17seconds or less. So just a quick punchy mic drop
- 27:20answer. How is AI going to change
- 27:22account based go to market? Clean your data, Clean your
- 27:26data. There is no excuse not to have
- 27:29clean data because AI will help you.
- 27:31And there's I've got a fantastic deck on it.
- 27:33Reach out to me. All right, sweet.
- 27:35There's your call to action. I will say with AI as someone
- 27:38sent me last night, this is a news story and the B2B speaker
- 27:42space of a company that went under and they sent this awesome
- 27:46podcast and it was 18 minutes and I listened to it and then
- 27:49they told me that it was a Google Notebook LLM that did the
- 27:53whole podcast. They just sent the article and I
- 27:56mean, it was one of the we were all talking amongst ourselves.
- 27:59It was my fantasy football group of speakers.
- 28:02And then I'm just going like, goodness, how do I that's.
- 28:05Crazy. I'll send it to.
- 28:07You that's cool. That's.
- 28:08Cool. So message me if you want to get
- 28:10that one. There you go.
- 28:11OK. What is the biggest challenge in
- 28:13B2B sales today? Talk with your marketing people
- 28:16aligned with marketing. Don't just shout orders at them.
- 28:19Love it, partner with them. All right.
- 28:21What are your favorite tools and technology that you're using
- 28:24today? Demand base.
- 28:26Checks in the middle. I will say what's been fantastic
- 28:29and what's new is more technology that is on like our
- 28:34industry and sales. So we're branching out more on
- 28:38technology that's technically more tech, but it's specifically
- 28:41helping sales. So like consensus is fantastic.
- 28:43And then we've got this new one that is providing us a ton of
- 28:47insight that we're connecting with demand base and and sales
- 28:50is loving it. I don't want to mention its
- 28:52name, but it's been great. Just look and see what what kind
- 28:54of technology you've got specific specifically for your
- 28:56industry because there's a lot of hot stuff popping up.
- 28:59Outstanding. What about good reads?
- 29:01We're really generous with reads too.
- 29:03This could be book, blog, newsletter, podcast, video, any
- 29:06content format. But what are some of your
- 29:08favorites? Yeah, Neil Patel.
- 29:10I'm like super high on Neil Patel right now Love everything
- 29:13that I mean he sends me like 5000 emails a week, but I still
- 29:15like I'll read them all. I love him and he's just had
- 29:17such a great viewpoint on AI and SEO.
- 29:20I also have been really big on like a marketing OPS, Rev OPS
- 29:24kind of world. So like Sarah McNamara and Daryl
- 29:29Alfonso, fantastic newsletters. I feel like I keep every single
- 29:34one of them to go back and look at.
- 29:37So and really it was like LinkedIn recommended.
- 29:40So I'm finding all these like fantastic voices through
- 29:42LinkedIn, which is really great. Awesome.
- 29:45This. You hit a couple already.
- 29:47I like to ask about good people and it could be the same.
- 29:49You could hit Neil and Sarah, whoever.
- 29:52But who are the folks who inspire you in B to B?
- 29:54Exact same. Well yes, love always of them,
- 29:56but I will be remiss if I don't talk about my own colleagues
- 30:00Mallory Hildebrandt and Marie and Mack.
- 30:03They were my shining stars. They've got such a fantastic
- 30:06viewpoint on ABM and really could think we couldn't have had
- 30:09this success without them, so I recommend them.
- 30:11Awesome. Well you have teased this deck
- 30:14that everyone should reach out to you for.
- 30:16So the most important question of all, how can everyone get in
- 30:19touch with you after this episode?
- 30:21Find me on LinkedIn. Right.
- 30:22Well, it was awesome. Brenna, thanks so much for
- 30:25joining us today. Thank you.
- 30:28Thanks for joining us for On Base.
- 30:30If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to share, rate,
- 30:33review and subscribe on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you
- 30:37get your podcasts. This show is brought to you by
- 30:39Demand Base, the only account based experience platform built
- 30:42for sales and marketing alignment.