Latest / The Prompt / Ep. 556 | AI and ABM: How to Build Smarter Target Account Strategies
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. Welcome back to the Home Based
- 0:19Podcast. I'm Miros Chris Moody, and today
- 0:22I'm very excited to have Jillian Wellis with us to talk about
- 0:26AIABM and the secret to unified target account strategies.
- 0:31Jillian, thanks for joining us today and welcome to the show.
- 0:34Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
- 0:35Well, it's good to see you. We were talking before we hit
- 0:38record. I've seen your name pop up and
- 0:40very great circles at Demand Base about the incredible work
- 0:45that you're doing with your account strategies and
- 0:47everything you're doing in marketing.
- 0:49But before we get into that, we like to start with you telling
- 0:52us a little bit about your journey and what led you to what
- 0:55you're doing today. Yeah, so my journey is kind of
- 0:58unique. My undergrad is and graduate
- 1:01degrees are from Texas Tech. I have an undergrad in
- 1:04advertising and business, and then my masters is in mass
- 1:07communications, which it is basically data analytics before
- 1:11it was a field of study. So that's kind of how I ended up
- 1:15in like the data world. So when I started my career, I
- 1:19actually was at heavy equipment, so I worked at two different CAT
- 1:22dealerships doing data and analytics.
- 1:25I always sat in the marketing team, but I got a lot of
- 1:27exposure to different sides of the business.
- 1:30And as I grew in my career from heavy construction, then I
- 1:34transitioned into a fintech, I was always the only person in my
- 1:39role. So like I got to build on and
- 1:42I'm when I say only person, I mean the first person.
- 1:44Like nobody had ever had that job before.
- 1:46So I got to build on what was working, what wasn't working,
- 1:50and kind of pivot. And then I was at the fintech
- 1:53for about 3 years doing all things data science, analytics
- 1:57for products, marketing and sales and operations has always
- 2:02been a part of my role, but it was never my job.
- 2:05Like it was always like, oh, we need to report on this, but the
- 2:09data doesn't work, so how can you fix it?
- 2:11So when I transitioned over to Al Golia, I was joining a much
- 2:15larger team where we had specific people that would do
- 2:19specific jobs. So my role when I came on here
- 2:22was to be like the manager of all of our marketing data, which
- 2:25transitioned more into an operational role.
- 2:27And so I kind of went away from doing data science and more into
- 2:32what's underneath the hood. Like you can't do data science
- 2:34unless the data underneath it is good.
- 2:37So I kind of, I felt like I just rambled a little bit there.
- 2:40No, that's perfect. I mean I'm curious about kind of
- 2:43two angles with that. The first is the intersection of
- 2:47account based go to market strategy and AI because it can
- 2:50be blurry these days. So I'm curious about your
- 2:53interest in that. And then the the second part of
- 2:56that is about alignment. So with data and looking at
- 3:00analytics, we know that the metrics that matter drive the
- 3:03behavior. So if the we have the wrong
- 3:05metrics for sales, we may not be getting sales to do what we
- 3:09want. If we have the wrong metrics for
- 3:10marketing, we may be high fiving at the bar, hitting weed goals
- 3:14when nothing is qualifying down. So I I'm curious about those
- 3:18two. So it's kind of the the
- 3:20intersection of account based go to market in AI and what makes
- 3:24you passionate about that and then how that pulls through into
- 3:27solving alignment. OK.
- 3:29So let me tackle the first one, which is actually kind of an
- 3:32interesting story because I originally was not supposed to
- 3:34be doing anything with a BMABX anything.
- 3:38And it was like we had kind of a shifting of priorities.
- 3:41People were promoted into different roles.
- 3:43And me being like the operational data person, it was
- 3:46just like a natural transition. Hey, we're switching from an XQL
- 3:50model to an ABX model. How do we do this?
- 3:53How do we structure it? Can we get the right people
- 3:55involved and can you build out the journey stages?
- 3:58So for me, it was, I'm always trying to grow and learn and it
- 4:02was new. Every single other company I've
- 4:04worked for has not been account based.
- 4:06It's always been how many leads do we need to meet our, our
- 4:09goals? How many, what's our conversion
- 4:12rates? It was never OK, there's X
- 4:15people at these accounts that we need to close.
- 4:17So we need to go after accounts like this.
- 4:19Like the account always plays part of the strategy.
- 4:22But you know, traditional marketing is more focused on
- 4:25people and their roles and personas.
- 4:27And then I kind of transitioned over to as a company, we moved
- 4:31from XQL to ABX and qualified accounts, which was a really,
- 4:35really interesting and fun journey.
- 4:38And it also had a lot of change management involved.
- 4:41And so you asked me about the alignment between sales and
- 4:45marketing. And you can't do it without
- 4:47that. You just can't.
- 4:49Marketing can try to set all these goals and all of these
- 4:53things, but sales is the one selling the thing.
- 4:56They're doing the actual work, you know, So you have to be
- 4:59aligned with them, and it's really critical to have that
- 5:02alignment. Yeah, I totally.
- 5:04And that brings me to target account list.
- 5:07Let's talk about Tao. Oh man, my brain went salt and
- 5:11pepper. Yeah, like let's talk about
- 5:13there's a remix there. Let's talk about Tao.
- 5:15So OK, the the the Tao target account list often is terrible.
- 5:21Sometimes it's just sells saying here are the 100 biggest
- 5:25accounts in the world, let's go get them.
- 5:27And then other times there's no collaboration at all and
- 5:30marketing just says, here's the list, go get it.
- 5:33Not aligned in either of those scenarios.
- 5:35But I'd love to hear your thoughts around target account
- 5:38list and why that is so critical for account based and go to
- 5:42market success. Yeah.
- 5:44So you're right. A lot of times there's very,
- 5:46very different opinions on what a target and countless is and
- 5:50what the approach that we took was.
- 5:53Basically, let's look at our historical data, what accounts
- 5:56are we winning with, what do they look like?
- 5:59And that's kind of your basis for your ICP.
- 6:01And so typically I hear people use ICP Intel interchangeably,
- 6:07but it's not really the same thing like the base of it, your
- 6:09ICP is all right, these are good fits for us, but then your
- 6:14target account list should be a subset of that and everybody
- 6:17should agree on it. So we're a big, we go after
- 6:20e-commerce companies. That's just part of our bread
- 6:22and butter. So it's no surprise that that's
- 6:25part of our ICP when you get down to the actual target
- 6:28account list. Now we've definitely iterated
- 6:31and I highly recommend iterating to anyone going down this path
- 6:34because you're going to learn a lot of things and you're going
- 6:37to think, OK, well, maybe these aren't the best fit accounts.
- 6:41So the best way to do this is get in front of sales early.
- 6:45Make sure that before you're officially going live with your
- 6:48list, they approve it. If they don't approve it, if
- 6:52they're not on board with the strategy that marketing puts in
- 6:55together, then then they're going to be like whatever
- 6:58marketing is doing a thing again, let's let's do our own
- 7:00thing. We don't care.
- 7:01So I think making sure that they're alliance is really
- 7:05critical. And also we have sales OPS and
- 7:08then we have marketing OPS. We all sit under Rev OPS, but
- 7:11what I learned during this entire iteration process is that
- 7:16you don't have to stay in your own lane.
- 7:18In fact, my counterpart in sales OPS, he doesn't want to be the
- 7:21middle man. He's like, you own the towel,
- 7:23you talk to sales, I don't want to do this, you get it done.
- 7:26So I'm not the bottleneck for you.
- 7:28So typically what I recommend doing is is you got to have a
- 7:32kick off call. Everybody hates a kick off call,
- 7:34but you kind of have to, you got to bring them along.
- 7:36You got to make sure that everybody is on board and you
- 7:39got to listen to their ideas and then bring the data.
- 7:44So bring a list. These are the ones that we think
- 7:47should be on the target account list.
- 7:48Give us feedback. The more feedback the better.
- 7:51We've implemented a lot of ways that our sales can also
- 7:55contribute to the towel by operational fields and
- 7:58Salesforce. If they're going through their
- 7:59accounts, they're scoring them, they're doing whatever they
- 8:01need. They can check a box that'll
- 8:03then tell me, hey, this account needs to be on our Tel list next
- 8:07quarter. Yeah, I love that.
- 8:08And you know, I have a follow up on the kick off call because I
- 8:12do think there's that moment of anxiety for a lot of marketers
- 8:17when they actually do try to facilitate or organize a kick
- 8:21off call. And then it's we're going to go
- 8:23in, they're going to throw tomatoes at us, you know,
- 8:25whatever that feeling is. But what does a good kick off
- 8:29call look like? I don't if are there any kind of
- 8:32agenda items that you need to hit every time or a tone that
- 8:35you need to set or something you send out ahead of time to set
- 8:40context. Just knowing that we usually
- 8:42have sales and marketing that's they aren't talking enough in
- 8:45any organization and then they're coming together on
- 8:48whatever cadence for a kick off call.
- 8:50What should that look like? Yeah.
- 8:52So I think honestly a project plan whenever you're doing any
- 8:55kind of big role roll out, whatever it is.
- 8:58But for, for this, for us, rolling out ABX was huge because
- 9:02it was a big change. We're going to be qualifying
- 9:05accounts. We're not going to be counting
- 9:06how many XQLS we get anymore. So it's huge.
- 9:09So the earlier you get that in front of them, the better.
- 9:12So yes, project plan with clear, we used to do racing, now we do
- 9:17rapid but clear roles and responsibilities of who's doing
- 9:21what, who is going to look at the list and approve it?
- 9:24What eyes do we need on these? Like who's doing the next step?
- 9:29I always say failure to plan is planning to fail.
- 9:31I'm that kind of person. So with the kickoff call, I put
- 9:35an agenda in the kickoff call. Hey, this is what we're going to
- 9:37do. We're going to talk about goals.
- 9:39We're going to talk about the stakeholders involved.
- 9:41We're going to also talk about, hey, am I missing any
- 9:44stakeholders? Like are there other people that
- 9:46need to be a part of this? And I'll get to that more later.
- 9:49When if we talk about like customer strategy, because we do
- 9:53have a different strategy for prospects versus customers.
- 9:56And for prospects, we don't really talk to CS teams.
- 9:59We talk to sales like because they're the ones typically like
- 10:02they're the ones that are selling, right?
- 10:04So an agenda, yes, if there's any data that like say I have an
- 10:09idea or hey guys, I think this should be our ICP.
- 10:11This is the data that I've pulled.
- 10:12Here's the reports here in dashboards.
- 10:15Send as much of it out as possible beforehand, with the
- 10:18caveat that you know that people probably aren't going to read
- 10:21the e-mail beforehand because, I mean, we live in this corporate
- 10:24world where most people don't really read the emails.
- 10:27I don't know, is that bad to say?
- 10:29No, I think it's true. We're letting AI do that now.
- 10:31It's just where where we're headed next.
- 10:33But yeah, we used to have pal, it was purpose, agenda, outcome
- 10:39that we used when I was at Topo. So very similar to your set up
- 10:43there, like make sure everyone understands what we're trying to
- 10:46accomplish, what we're going to talk through and what we're
- 10:49working towards and then having those data-driven conversations.
- 10:53So I think that's a great approach.
- 10:54Love that. Not the biggest fan of project
- 10:58plans, but we see their importance.
- 11:00I'm a. Messenger.
- 11:01Nobody likes them until you're on a project that's going to
- 11:05crap and you're like, where's the?
- 11:06Project plan. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a thing
- 11:09where you know, you have to do it.
- 11:11It it's it's like the it's stretching before you play a
- 11:14sport, right? Like not the most exciting thing
- 11:16in the world, but once you get hurt a few times, you're like,
- 11:19yeah, that's pretty important. So I'm with you on that for AI,
- 11:23how is AI changing the way you approach and we approach account
- 11:28based and go to market strategy. So this could be the positive
- 11:31and the negative, either or both, however you want to tackle
- 11:34it. I mean, I think it's changing
- 11:36the way we work and and many different aspects because it it
- 11:39helps us prioritize accounts better, it helps us within
- 11:44demand base. You can build a bunch of
- 11:45different predictive models that use AI and our, our sales teams
- 11:49are utilizing them for prioritization.
- 11:51Like if our models say that they're more likely to become
- 11:54pipeline or a better fit for a customer, then we've we've
- 11:58trained the sales reps on going after those accounts first.
- 12:01It also helps with our journey stages.
- 12:04And I feel like we're probably only scraping the surface of
- 12:07what we can do because AI coming to organizations is kind of
- 12:11newer. I mean, I'm very, very grateful
- 12:14that I work for an organization that is fully supportive of AI.
- 12:17Like I'm on the Velocity Squad where we we have meetings that
- 12:20we talk about, OK, how can we use AI internally?
- 12:24Like our product, yeah, it's already got AI, but we
- 12:27internally, how can we use it to help our workflows?
- 12:30How can we use it to not just prioritizing accounts for sales,
- 12:34but also from the operational side, how can I make sure that
- 12:38sales knows what they're doing in an strategic manner?
- 12:41So documentation, I tell ChatGPT, this is what my journey
- 12:46stages are in demand base. This is what I'm doing.
- 12:49Help me come up with a how to guide for sales like it's great.
- 12:53Yeah, I love that too. I've used AI tools to also help
- 12:57with meeting prep and tell me what this person's typically
- 13:01motivated by. Give me a little bit about their
- 13:03personality. Just a lot of the context
- 13:06setting that I think is really important.
- 13:09One thing that that I worry about a little bit, as we talked
- 13:12about this, we need to tackle how we're staying aligned as the
- 13:17technology evolves with AI. The thing that I can sometimes
- 13:22be concerned with is if there's a tendency to put infinite trust
- 13:28into technology, I worry that many marketing and sales teams
- 13:33are going to fall in the trap of talking less, even though we
- 13:37should be talking more about how this is changing.
- 13:39Because that's the thing, right? Like, yes, we can get a better
- 13:43prioritized list. Yes, we can get more efficient
- 13:46work flows. Yes, we can automatically build
- 13:50campaigns based on desired outcomes.
- 13:52All of these things are great improvements.
- 13:55We're helping to drive that, you know, this, we work together.
- 13:58So that part is awesome. But I, I do worry about the
- 14:02human element a little bit. So I, I'm curious how you're
- 14:06tackling that to keep sales and marketing together knowing that
- 14:10we might not talk as much based on getting things solved auto
- 14:14automagically? Yeah, well, and you, you also
- 14:17brought up a really good point about too much trust in AIAI can
- 14:21be wrong. Like my boss always says trust
- 14:25but verify. And that's what you have to do.
- 14:27Anything that you run through AI, you can't just blindly trust
- 14:31it because it could be very, very, very wrong.
- 14:34It has pulled random data from you before.
- 14:37And I'm like, where did you get this data?
- 14:39And OK, so one example I and it's kind of hilarious and scary
- 14:43at the same time. I gave a very specific task.
- 14:47I said give me this thing. It said the nearest Sonic to you
- 14:51is in the colony. And I was like, I'm not really
- 14:54sure why you're giving me a Sonic.
- 14:56And then I said, I think you misinterpreted the ask.
- 14:58And then it said maybe we need to work on your expectations of
- 15:03my output. And I was like, it's passive
- 15:05aggressive to me now. Like, OK, so I closed it out.
- 15:10I started a new model, I started a new chat and then it gave me
- 15:13what I was asking for. But that's just one example of
- 15:15when it can be off. So yes, you can't not
- 15:19communicate with sales just because you're using AI.
- 15:21So we have meetings with them. We have check in calls.
- 15:24The way our business is segmented, we have Amia and Amir
- 15:28and there's different different leaders of each org.
- 15:31Like I need to make sure that I am aligned with them before any
- 15:34huge marketing effort goes to say, hey, have you seen this?
- 15:37Are you good with this? Because AI and just quite
- 15:42frankly, data enrichment, it can also be wrong.
- 15:45Like you got to make sure you are looking at the correct data
- 15:48point and you're validating it and you're not just blindly
- 15:51trusting. Yeah, I think the notion trust
- 15:54but verify is a really good one. I've run into those situations
- 15:57too doing account research. We have some that's in the tool,
- 16:01but I, I was doing a little bit of a test to see what I could
- 16:04get from Gemini versus Chat GPTI was just comparing the two at
- 16:08the time. And one of them told me, here's
- 16:12the CMO, here's what they care about.
- 16:14That person had never worked there and there was no
- 16:17explanation of why it was a direct competitor.
- 16:20There was no explanation of why. And then I say, hey, I think you
- 16:23missed that they actually work here.
- 16:25And it was, you're exactly right.
- 16:28We fixed that. But you're going, oh, man, what?
- 16:31How many other things are we assuming are correct and we're
- 16:36not taking the time to go through and verify?
- 16:39And even last night I, I got in a fight with one of the AI tools
- 16:43and it was telling me that my request was violating their
- 16:46content policies. And there was nothing
- 16:49controversial at all about the content policies.
- 16:52So I was trying, pretty curious and stubborn.
- 16:56I was trying to understand what am I doing wrong and it wouldn't
- 16:59tell me. And it said I can rephrase that
- 17:01for you. I said great, rephrase and
- 17:04rephrase. Content policy, potential
- 17:06violation. OK, rephrase it where it's not a
- 17:09content policy violation. Content policy violation.
- 17:13I think you're mistaken. This is not a content policy.
- 17:16That's great. You could report that here.
- 17:18Okay, just start over. Make me an image that I can use
- 17:22on a slide that has creativity and big words.
- 17:25Content violation. I'm like, I can't use the word
- 17:27creativity. So it's like me yelling at the
- 17:29wall, which there are times where those things are going to
- 17:33happen. But if we're not doing that but
- 17:35verify step, yeah, it can be very problematic to walk into
- 17:40that kick off meeting. So we found some great data and
- 17:43then you have all the sellers looking at each other and going.
- 17:46That never happened. Yeah, absolutely.
- 17:49Now you you can challenge it and be like, this does not violate
- 17:52it. I've had that before and I'm
- 17:53like, it doesn't violate it. And it's like, Oh yeah, you're
- 17:55right. Here's your Studio Ghibli
- 17:58picture. Yeah, I couldn't get around it
- 18:01last night. And then I, you know, I did have
- 18:04that moment where I stare at the clouds and just think, man, I
- 18:07could have built this 50 times over by myself.
- 18:10So like, I love using AI tools to help me with creativity, but
- 18:16every now and then you'll run into one of those loops.
- 18:19And if you don't know how to circumvent it and.
- 18:22And it just makes me think of, you know, quotes we've had from
- 18:25customers where I don't ever want sales to come to me and
- 18:28say, why'd you pick this account?
- 18:30Right? To your point about the Tau, you
- 18:32have to do the verification step and make sure.
- 18:35So I think that's a a great lesson for all of us.
- 18:39Let's talk about leaders. So for the leaders who are
- 18:42listening, how should everyone be approaching the integration
- 18:46of AI into their strategies without over complicating the
- 18:49process and making sure that we're taking full advantage of
- 18:53what AI can help us do? I think that you got to start
- 18:57small, like don't try to boil the ocean, start with a use
- 19:01case. Honestly, what I really like
- 19:03about what Algolia has done is as we have organized a velocity
- 19:07squad so people can start bouncing ideas off of it.
- 19:11We can start pilot groups. We can get people that are
- 19:13really passionate about learning new tools and figuring out new
- 19:16things and just you got to start with the basics, whether it's a
- 19:22specific use case, you get your hypothesis, you run it through
- 19:26and then you see if it's successful.
- 19:28Don't try to use AI to automate all the things when you can't do
- 19:35that yet. You know what I mean?
- 19:36Does that make sense? Yeah, it totally does.
- 19:38And I mean my personal gripe, which I think we're doing a
- 19:43solid job to make sure this is not the case internally at
- 19:46demand base. So, you know, demand base
- 19:48excluded from my personal rant, I think that many instances when
- 19:54we talk about AI as marketers, we're really talking about
- 19:58efficiency and solving things that we don't want to do.
- 20:01So it's how can I fast track these things?
- 20:04Or man, I need to be more prolific on LinkedIn.
- 20:06Write me this great post. And then they all look the same
- 20:09and they all have the same emojis and they all have the M
- 20:11dash and the poor M-I mean, talk about a victim and the evolution
- 20:15of AI, the M dash, which is such a great.
- 20:19It's a great character. Yeah, I know maybe this is the
- 20:24movie script we write, the revenge of the M dash or
- 20:27something. But I think there needs to be
- 20:30more of an emphasis on the creativity and the strategic
- 20:35side of how we use AI. Because it's certainly going to
- 20:38check a lot of boxes for solving for efficiencies and saving US
- 20:41time and doing things easier and getting rid of clicks in any
- 20:45tool. But at the end of the day, it's
- 20:48going to be harder and harder to win.
- 20:50I mean, I, I just recorded one this morning about how no one's
- 20:52clicking on anything in search now the zero click research
- 20:56that's starting to happen. So if we think about that, my
- 20:59brain is wanting to solve for creativity.
- 21:01So I didn't ask a question. This is a very poor job as a
- 21:05podcast host. But if you have any reaction to
- 21:08that, it's just something I think about a lot, right?
- 21:11Like I, I think for our audience, especially if we're
- 21:14selling to anyone similar to people like us, great creative
- 21:18stands out, impactful messaging stands out, visually compelling
- 21:23design stands out. And those things aren't talked
- 21:26about as much with AI in the circles I'm in.
- 21:29No. And I also think that one of the
- 21:31things that's kind of missing is the acknowledgement that you
- 21:36can't automate something or you can't fix something if there's a
- 21:41broken process. Even before AI was as widely
- 21:45used, every company I've worked with, there's always been one
- 21:48leader who's like, there's a tool for this.
- 21:50There's a tool for this, Let's implement this tool.
- 21:52You can't buy technology to fix something if the underlying
- 21:57foundation of it is crap. You know, like if tools aren't
- 22:00going to fix your broken processes, you have to make sure
- 22:03that you have everything established in a way that makes
- 22:06sense and that you stand before you can tell an AI tool to fix
- 22:11it. Does that make sense?
- 22:12Oh, it makes a ton of sense. Yeah.
- 22:14I was just writing in my notes. Grab sound bite that ends in
- 22:17crap. Yeah, Yeah.
- 22:21It's such a good point because the notion of garbage in,
- 22:24garbage out, I think we treat that like it's antiquated, you
- 22:28know? Oh, we moved past that.
- 22:29You know, that was back in the CRM days and when we were only
- 22:33using marketing automation. But it's the same thing if we if
- 22:36we don't solve anything. I mean, all the AI inferences
- 22:39are going to be based on the wrong data if we don't fix it
- 22:42first. Absolutely.
- 22:43Like I feel like, I mean, my entire job is dealing with data
- 22:47and the quality of the data and it's not a sexy job.
- 22:51It's absolutely not. But it's it's necessary because
- 22:54all of these other cool things that can happen like you need a
- 22:58found aid. It's like building a house just
- 23:01on a whole. Let me just plop a house on this
- 23:03hole and see what happens. Like, well, the whole house is
- 23:06going to just go down, you know what I mean?
- 23:08But we can have such a cool basement, I mean so much space
- 23:13like. This.
- 23:14Yeah, so much space. OK.
- 23:16I'd love to hear your favorite example of sales and marketing
- 23:19collaboration at Algolia. I know you've done some
- 23:21incredible stuff there, but hit us with your favorite example of
- 23:25working together and what the takeaways are for everyone
- 23:28listening. Within the Velocity squad that
- 23:31I'm in, we have a lot of use cases.
- 23:33And one of my coolest examples is one of my sales managers was
- 23:36like, hey, I'm trying to build something, can you help me?
- 23:40And so he came up with a project.
- 23:42What he wanted to do is, is use an AI tool to help prioritize
- 23:46the people. OK, so Demand Base tells us
- 23:49these are your qualified accounts, right?
- 23:51We train our reps on, let's look at them when they're engagement,
- 23:55so then we can push them into qualify.
- 23:57So what he was trying to do is like, okay, well, what's the
- 24:00best way for me to go after the people?
- 24:02So he came up with this tool using another AI tool and he was
- 24:07like, how, how can we do this? And so it was sales, marketing
- 24:11OPS and sales OPS. And we came up with this pilot
- 24:14that we as operations, we're like, OK, this is the structure.
- 24:18If you want this, we need to make sure that, OK, can we pull
- 24:21the data points for you? Does it match our CRM?
- 24:23Are we adding people to the CRM? If you're going to provide this
- 24:26tool to have contacts of prioritize, do they already
- 24:30exist? Do we need to add them?
- 24:31Like what is the process behind that and just kind of getting to
- 24:34build out that now It is, it is very new.
- 24:37It's a project we're still piloting, but it's just really
- 24:41cool to have. You know, typically sales
- 24:43people's, I don't, I don't find that they're like going out and
- 24:46looking for new ways to innovate.
- 24:48But this guy really did and I was very impressed with him.
- 24:51So I think it was a really fun project to be part of.
- 24:54Yeah, I love that. And anything to breakthrough the
- 24:57noise, you know, soapbox moment. Before I ask the the last
- 25:01question before we move into some of the faster lightning
- 25:04round style, I need a sound effect like, you know, we'll
- 25:07have to figure something out for that.
- 25:09But yeah, I mean, we just recently had several open roles
- 25:14that I was involved in helping to make selections on, and 1
- 25:18specifically was on my team. I will not name the role because
- 25:22I don't want to candidate Bash or anything.
- 25:24But I did say very specifically we're looking for someone who
- 25:28can show their creativity and you know, really bring that to
- 25:32the role because we need it. So try to stand out when the
- 25:35job, right? Because if you want a job, go
- 25:38get the job and there's such an opportunity to stand out.
- 25:42So to your point of a seller being creative, out of all the
- 25:46candidates there were 1000 plus candidates.
- 25:49I had almost 600 LinkedIn messages and about 3 did
- 25:55anything above normal expectations.
- 25:59So the person who won the job did a personalized video, kind
- 26:03of said what they'd be like to to work with.
- 26:06I mean that was literally part of the role.
- 26:08It's not asking you to do a project, it's just saying if
- 26:11this is the job you want, go take it.
- 26:13So yet another nudge for curiosity, creativity.
- 26:17I think it's going to define success and some extent.
- 26:21It's hard to put a metric around it, but I I do feel like it's
- 26:24going to stand out. Well, and also, I think you have
- 26:26to be, you can't be afraid to fail because AI is relatively
- 26:31new for, for marketers and we're just trying all sorts of
- 26:35different things. And yeah, some stuff is going to
- 26:37suck. It's not going to work.
- 26:38But you have to just be able to continue to iterate and, and it
- 26:43might not work in the way that you had originally thought it
- 26:45would, but it could allow you to innovate in another manner.
- 26:50So we were trying to use AI to do this.
- 26:52One thing wasn't working. So we switched and we used, we
- 26:56were like, OK, rather than using ChatGPT, what if we try a clod,
- 27:01which I find clod is better for coding.
- 27:03And so we were able to use clod to then build us a program in
- 27:08hex to then do the thing that ChatGPT was not able to do.
- 27:13So it's you have to be able first.
- 27:16Don't be afraid to fail and try new things.
- 27:20Yeah, love that this is a very loaded question, but we're going
- 27:25to pretend it's not and try to have a very simple precise
- 27:28answer. What are the biggest ways that
- 27:32AI is changing an account based go to market strategy?
- 27:35Oh, that is a very, very loaded question.
- 27:38I mean, I think honestly the account scoring used to be you
- 27:43would use data to build out your account scoring.
- 27:46All right, Like are we doing an RFM model?
- 27:48Are we doing what are we doing? But now you can use AI to also
- 27:53look at a bunch of different metrics with maybe data that you
- 27:57don't have in your system to begin with, right?
- 27:59So you can use it to to blend a bunch of different metrics with
- 28:03with enrichment and all of these other things to come up with,
- 28:06with account prioritization. I don't know if it's going to
- 28:10change it or if it's just going to help it.
- 28:14Like, I don't feel like it's going to take our jobs because I
- 28:17do still feel like there's a huge need for humans involved.
- 28:22But I think it's going to help us be more efficient and test
- 28:26new things that we might not have been able to before because
- 28:28we just have access to more data.
- 28:31Yeah, that's a great answer. And I mean, hopefully it creates
- 28:35some of that extra margin that we can spend on being more
- 28:39strategic, more creative, more experiments to your point.
- 28:42So I, I love that one. We have a few quick hitters
- 28:45before we get to the end of our time.
- 28:47I'm watching the clock. I know we have some hard stops
- 28:50very, very soon. So the first, this is very quick
- 28:53Family Feud style session for these.
- 28:56What is the biggest challenge in B2B sales?
- 28:59I think sales and marketing alignment, if you look at across
- 29:02the board, if you look at every company, all of my friends, if
- 29:05there's always that marketing is not given enough pipeline, sales
- 29:09is not closing enough deals, sales and marketing alignment
- 29:12across any, any industry in the B to B space, I feel like that's
- 29:16just at the heart of it. Yeah, awesome.
- 29:19Favorite tools or technology that you're using today?
- 29:22Oh, hex Hex, ChatGPT and Cloud. Awesome, good look at that.
- 29:27That was bang. Steve Harvey would be proud.
- 29:29Good reads. So we're generous with reads.
- 29:32It could be book, blog, newsletter, podcast, video, any
- 29:35consumption format. But what are the most
- 29:37inspirational things to you today?
- 29:39I mostly listen to like true crime podcasts, so that's not
- 29:42good. I'm like, I don't know.
- 29:45I feel like I don't have any good books lately.
- 29:47Best true crime podcast? Let's pivot.
- 29:50Morbid. All right, Morbid put it on our
- 29:52list. All right, good people.
- 29:54Who are some folks who inspire you and B to B specifically?
- 29:57So I will give you their Linkedins, but I think Sarah
- 30:00McNamara, I don't know how to say her name.
- 30:03She's really good in the B to B space.
- 30:06I also really love Carly Taylor. She's more of a data person, so
- 30:10she does do B to B, but it's on the data side.
- 30:13So she was a chemist and then like, she's kind of my girl
- 30:15crush, but maybe don't put. That on, now we're weaving it
- 30:19in. That was even better.
- 30:20No, that's awesome. I love that.
- 30:22That's a great 1. So we'll check those out.
- 30:24And I see Sarah's content too. She's really, really good.
- 30:27So that's awesome. And then the most important
- 30:30question of all for everyone listening, how can they get in
- 30:33touch with you after this episode?
- 30:36And find me on LinkedIn and I can give you the link or you
- 30:39e-mail me jillian.lellis@agolia.com.
- 30:42Outstanding. Well, Jillian, thank you so much
- 30:44for your time. We crushed it.
- 30:45Thank you, hopefully that was entertaining all.
- 30:48Right. It was great.
- 30:49We'll talk to you soon. Thank you.
- 30:51Thank. You bye.
- 30:54Thanks for joining us for On Base.
- 30:56If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to share, rate,
- 30:58review and subscribe on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you
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- 31:05Demand Base, the only account based experience platform built
- 31:08for sales and marketing alignment.