Latest / The Prompt / Ep. 554 | Beyond Speed & Price: Redefining Broadband Marketing with Scott Neuman

Transcript

Ep. 554 | Beyond Speed & Price: Redefining Broadband Marketing with Scott Neuman · The Prompt

• 0:01
  This is odd base, your one stop shop for solving your most
• 0:04
  pressing B to B go to market challenges.
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  Each week, host Chris Moody and Paul Gibson talk to sales and
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  marketing leaders to get you in depth insights and creative
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  strategies to set your revenue teams up for success.
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  Everyone, welcome back to the On Base podcast.
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  I'm your host, Chris Moody, and today I'm very excited to be
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  joined by Scott Newman to talk about redefining broadband
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  marketing. Scott, thanks for joining us
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  today and welcome to the show. Thanks Chris.
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  A pleasure to be here. Well, it's great to meet you.
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  We were just talking before you hit record a little bit about
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  our backgrounds, how we're thinking about the world of
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  marketing today. The first question we like to
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  start with is similar and it's about your journey.
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  What are some of the most important milestones that have
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  led you to what you're doing today?
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  OK, so that's a juicy question. I would say there have been 3
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  chapters with a big middle chapter in my kind of story arc.
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  I started out in the early 90s in the advertising business in
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  San Francisco and that gave me a sense of the creative process
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  and I was working on, you know, range of accounts, some high
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  tech, some Consumer Packaged Goods.
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  But I realized that there was, there were so many key business
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  and marketing decisions that are being made.
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  When you're the agency, you're at an arm's length.
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  And I wanted to actually be at the client side.
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  So went back to school, then started working at IBM.
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  That was the middle chapter of 18 years all over the world of
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  various business units, but all in marketing that gave me the
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  tech bug, that gave me the power of pulling together and
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  simplifying technology for the benefit of of the customer.
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  And the last stint when I was over in Europe and living in
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  Prague with my family, I was working on applying Watson to
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  the Internet of Things. And that was our whole Watson
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  IoT launch. And that got me into the world
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  of AI and and advanced machine learning at the time.
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  So skip to the third chapter and you know, an old colleague of
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  mine gave me a call and said, hey, are you back in the States?
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  You know, let's get the band back together.
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  I'm working at the coolest little company you've never
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  heard about, a company called Calyx.
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  And so we did, and that was 7 1/2 years ago.
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  And the neat thing, what we're doing at Calyx is we've
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  basically taken a lot of what I had learned from IBM days, from
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  the creative days in advertising and applied it to the broadband
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  industry. And the nice thing is we're
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  small enough to be incredibly nimble.
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  And we have a massive base of customers, you know, about 1800
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  active and about 1000 that are actively on our platform, which
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  gives us an range of insights on what we can do and share and
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  collect as best practices, apply AI to this and then feed it back
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  to them so they can actually succeed in the markets that they
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  serve. So it's been a really
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  interesting journey, but it's always been B to B, it's always
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  been into high tech. And so, you know, I, I don't see
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  that changing. It's absolutely what I I'm
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  passionate about. I love that.
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  I love the company you've never heard of that's doing amazing
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  things. Those are always the best, the
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  little magical moments we can find in our careers.
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  I've had a few of those too. I'd love to talk about
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  personalized experiences and specifically in the broadband
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  service provider space. How are you evolving to meet the
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  demand for personalized subscriber experiences?
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  So there's a, you know, the term we're using that that would, you
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  know resonate with with your audience is you know, there's B
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  to B and there's B to B to C. We always have to think B to B
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  to C, but we have to do both. So we have marketing campaigns
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  that we are putting out in the market to broadband providers to
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  communicate the value that we can help them generate with
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  their B to C. But to do that effectively, we
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  also have to think in the minds of their subscribers.
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  What's keeping their subscribers up at night?
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  How can we help our customers solve their problems?
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  So we have kind of two phases of the way that we approach really
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  targeted messaging for that audience.
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  So I'll just give an example. One of our key personas that we
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  communicate with on a regular basis are the marketing teams at
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  broadband provider companies and many of these are small regional
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  providers that are just a a section of a state or a region
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  in Canada. And most of our customer bases
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  is North America. They have some challenges.
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  They're generally understaffed. You know, they know of large
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  teams, they know of data scientists, they don't have
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  advanced, you know, go to market software and and marketing
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  automation platforms like larger companies would.
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  So we have to meet them where they are and then we have to
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  help them understand how can they better communicate with
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  their subscribers and use our solutions to do that.
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  And the big shift that we're seeing is if, well, I would
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  assume anybody who's watching this, by default you are a
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  subscriber of a broadband service provider.
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  Otherwise, you're not online. So your provider, I would be
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  willing to bet the 9 out of 10 of your subscribers, if you went
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  out to your current broadband service provider and you went to
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  their website for Internet plans, they're going to give you
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  only two options. They're going to give you speed
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  and they're going to give you price.
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  That's it. They've been doing that for
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  decades. That's the play.
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  That's the old game, old rules. And by the way, the way to win
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  at that game is to be really big, like, you know, be the
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  Walmart of broadband and you can survive on low margins.
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  And it's all based on, you know, what I want to spend.
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  We're saying no, don't play that game, change the rules, go to
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  value added services, don't talk to them.
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  And nobody knows that they need a gig or 500 megs or 2.5 gig.
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  I mean, it's an ethereal sense and it's not something you
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  really feel we're helping them go no, meet them where they are.
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  So Chris, I know you're a parent, you've got 4 kids.
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  You don't know if you need a gig.
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  But what you do know is you need advanced security.
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  You need parental controls. You need the ability to turn on
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  and off certain devices in the home when it's bedtime.
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  You need to be able to filter content.
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  So on certain devices they can't access certain websites.
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  That's the message that you want to hear from your broadband
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  provider. And here's the package.
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  The fact that it's on a gig plan is a rounding error.
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  That's, that's not the point. The point is I'm going to help
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  you live a better life as a parent and broadband can help
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  you. So that's a message we
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  communicate to the broadband provider, but at the same time,
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  we want to arm them with, oh, by the way, here are all the
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  campaign assets you would need to do to launch a campaign to
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  parents within your subscriber coverage area.
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  So we play with both and we try to get down to as micro a
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  segment as we can. And when I say micro segment,
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  maybe it's 5060 accounts that are feeding perfect profile
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  versus let's do a broad blast to 1000.
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  That's that's the old way of thinking about it.
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  Yeah, that's a perfect example. And the ages of our kids, we
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  have different needs for each. Everyone has tons of devices.
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  To your point, it was just give me the fastest, biggest pipe I
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  can get and then I'll figure out the rest.
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  So we had to go to Bark for the cellular device and control
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  everything there and get our notifications.
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  But that should have been a centralized conversation, so I
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  love that. Well.
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  I love that you mentioned Bark because that's actually one of
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  the partners that we work with and and we partnered with Bark
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  to say, hey, broadband provider, you should offer this to your
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  subscribers. Yes, they can find it
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  themselves, but why make them do that?
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  You could do the research and make this a very simple option
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  for them to upgrade their plan. Totally.
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  And I know that I could do it myself in other ways too, but
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  the the ease of use to just say, hey, it's going to be roughly
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  the same cost and then we'll get notifications automatically of
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  anything that could be alarming. And my son's in the airsoft.
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  So every day it's like violence alert.
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  But I'd rather get too many notifications that not enough.
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  And then broadband service provider piece, everyone treats
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  that as just a commonplace thing that you have.
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  I was just on vacation at Hilton Head Island.
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  Huge thunderstorm came in on Saturday, it fried something and
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  the whole island was without Internet, which reverted back to
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  barely any bars on your cell phone because everything was
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  powered by Internet. It's an island.
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  And then you know it was 56 K type speeds trying trying to do
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  it. Back to Caveman, as I was
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  running around, you know, hunting and gathering.
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  I can't get a connectivity. Yeah, we had seven kids in the
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  house, you know, No TV because that was Internet power.
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  Everything was powered by a broadband connection.
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  So that that was interesting and and fun to live in the dark ages
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  for a few days. But but.
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  But the next thing is that example, by the way, Chris, so
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  this, this idea that yes, we agree that broadband is like,
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  you know, the 4th utility, right?
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  But it doesn't have to be marketed as utility.
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  For example, today, do you really care whose brand of
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  electricity is, you know, flowing into your house?
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  No, it's a commodity. But you don't have to treat
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  broadband as a commodity. And your point about bark, yes,
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  you're right. The you, you figured it out and
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  you went out and you found it and you added that value.
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  But wouldn't that be a missed opportunity for the broadband
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  provider to develop goodwill with you to say, I've thought
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  about you as a parent and I think this would be a great
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  solution for you because today, the vast majority of broadband
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  subscribers, they have two engagements with their broadband
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  provider every month. They pay their bill.
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  That's super happy to do that. But yeah, they pay it And and
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  every once in a while they might call them.
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  Why are they calling them? Because something's wrong.
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  Both of those are negative touch points.
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  So the question is, where are your positive touch points?
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  Positive touch points is offering them bark Positive
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  touch points is pushing notifications saying we blocked,
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  you know, 67 malware, you know, attacks on your network just
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  this past month. Like that's how you put goodwill
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  into it. And they go, I actually really
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  do like my broadband provider. Yeah, this is such a good point.
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  And early days when I was at bandwidth telecommunications
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  company, a lot of it was Ciptronx voice over IP, some was
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  Internet. But one thing to exactly what
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  you described, when someone had an issue, the default stance was
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  everyone has an issue, we wait for them to complain and then we
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  fill the calls, right? Yeah.
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  So we would watch on social media and see when someone would
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  complain. And we were nimble enough, to
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  your point at Calyx, we were nimble enough to say if someone
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  complaints on social media, they have a real profile with their
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  name. We can probably go into our CRM,
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  get their contact information, and if we have a number that
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  works when things are down, let's call them and see what the
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  issue is and say, hey, really sorry that this is happening.
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  Want to let you know that we're working to solve it.
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  And there were times where we would walk them down on our
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  personal cellular devices to a support engineer or solutions
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  tech to try to solve it right there.
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  And it took this huge negative sentiment of just being mad by
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  default to that type of service provider and turned it into
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  great relationships. I I think that's a perfect
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  example you are. Described, take that to the next
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  level. You're right.
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  Don't even wait for the social media post, say my internet's
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  out or whatever. We have the ability, we call it
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  QOE, the quality of experience score that is monitored all the
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  time across the network. And so ACSR customer service
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  agent can actually see at any given time, if you set a
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  threshold, anyone who is QQOE is dropping below a threshold.
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  Let's take a quick look. Maybe we give them a call and
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  just say, hey, I know you're in and it's not down, but it
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  doesn't look like it's optimized.
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  Is there anything we can do to help?
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  Like when was the last time you were proactively called by your
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  broadband providers say, hey, just checking in, I just want to
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  make sure everything's working OK.
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  That's the goodwill that we want to get more and more of these
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  providers to actually lean in on and be proactive about.
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  I love it. It's never happened for me.
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  And and I think the that triggers a question around
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  data-driven insights, which you're already heading on.
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  How can data-driven insights empower broadband service
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  providers and others to uncover emerging trends and innovate
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  faster than their competitors? And we know that most of us are
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  in fiercely competitive spaces. So our ability to grab those
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  insights and act quickly could be enough to win a deal versus
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  our competitors. Right.
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  I mean, well, a simple example is, you know, one of the things
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  that we've been arming our, our customers with is outdoor Wi-Fi,
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  right? You know, basics like, you know,
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  an outdoor unit, you know, weather hardened and you know,
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  temperature, you know, secure mounted on a tree and cover your
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  entire backyard. Well, part of that can be
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  understanding, you know, the topography of your subscriber
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  base and knowing those that live on a lake and have a dock or you
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  know, have large plots of land. That's a very easy upsell to
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  say. Why should your broadband
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  connectivity be limited to the four walls of your home?
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  You know, you got a pool in the backyard and so forth.
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  Take that a step further, say, well, when you're wandering
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  around town, wouldn't it be great if you also had broadband
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  connectivity? And like, I live in Vermont,
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  cellular service is pretty spotty up here, you know, in the
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  mountains. So unless you're actually
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  getting into some public spaces that actually have, you know,
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  outdoor Wi-Fi, it's pretty tricky to make calls or, you
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  know, check out any emails and so forth.
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  So, you know, we're having broadband providers now and
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  start to wire entire towns leveraging the same network,
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  just putting some more outdoor units that are bit more what I
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  would call, we call them Gigapros.
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  These are the, the larger units I can throw 3 football fields
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  of, of coverage and 100 dedicated channels.
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  You can cover farmers markets and football stadiums, you know,
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  at the high school and all that. But that's, those are simple
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  add-ons to a network that already exists.
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  And you're actually just extending the experience.
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  And this is a way to differentiate again from just
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  hey, I'm your cable provider. I've got fast and cheap and you
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  know, here's the latest discount for the month, you know, and the
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  classic, hey, and here's the six month discount and then the fine
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  print. It's going to get jacked up if
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  you don't call us after six months.
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  Like everybody's playing that game.
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  Totally. And the, the jacked up, if you
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  don't call us, I, I think there's what we'll get to kind
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  of the reactive versus proactive in just a second.
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  But the, to call us to fix things.
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  We run into this in our neighborhood, we have a text
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  thread, not even one of the neighborhood groups, a text
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  thread across the whole neighborhood.
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  And one thing that we always tell new folks when they move
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  in, you will have to call your cellular provider if you live in
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  this certain pocket of the neighborhood because it's a dead
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  spot. It's literally between 2 cell
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  phone towers. That was the second house in
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  this neighborhood before it grew out.
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  They Verizon sent a tech out, said it's a dead spot.
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  So we're going to give you a device to turn your Internet
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  into cell signal. And it's a simple little device.
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  But now we have to tell every single neighbor you're going to
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  have to call, threaten to cancel with whoever your provider is to
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  get this little box to amplify your signal and then hope that
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  it builds this sort of mesh network.
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  That's something that should be better solved by a.
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  Provider. Yes, exactly.
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  I mean, that's the, that's the whole point.
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  I remember when I first moved to Vermont, it was 21 years ago.
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  And this is back when DSL, you know, was, you know, just I was
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  lucky to have it because I was, I was still working for IBM and
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  at least we were doing video conferences.
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  So it was lower bandwidth back then.
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  But I got a tech to come up at some point, you know, when
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  something was working wrong. And he goes, you know what,
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  you're not supposed to have DSL. Like you're too far away from
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  the final drop. I won't tell anybody, but, and I
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  was like, well, why would you? I'm a paying customer.
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  Like why is that even an issue for you?
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  Apparently it's working. So just get it back up, please.
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  But yeah, it's you've got to worry about those.
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  By the way, that is the vast majority of our customer base.
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  They are rural providers. These are the ones connecting
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  all the small mom and pop Hamlets all over the countryside
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  that are struggling. Why?
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  Because there's not enough density and the big players
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  haven't built out because there's just the economic model,
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  isn't there? So these are the small towns
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  that are building it out themselves.
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  These are electric cooperative providers are saying, well, if
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  we don't build broadband, nobody will.
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  So let's let's do it because it's important for the
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  community. Otherwise, you know, Main
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  Street's going to start shuttering their doors and, you
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  know, people start moving out of town.
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  The high school will close. So we're trying to basically
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  transform those communities so they don't get lost by the
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  digital divide. Yeah, I love that, that I've
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  seen communities even recruit remote workers with that
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  infrastructure. So once you get it right, it
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  does become a selling feature to say you can live here without
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  all the hustle and bustle, cheaper cost of living, have
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  your great connectivity, everything.
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  So yeah. Post COVID opened up that whole
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  world of the possibility of remote work.
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  By the way, it also opened up the ability for, you know, you
• 16:25
  can recruit talent anywhere. It's not.
• 16:28
  Yes, you get the job and let me give you the details when the
• 16:30
  moving trucks are coming like you don't actually have to do
• 16:33
  that follow up. Yeah, awesome.
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  Well, let's jump to the proactive problem solving.
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  How does AI and those data-driven insights you were
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  just talking about transition from being reactive to solving
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  problems to predictive and value driven, especially for
• 16:48
  subscriber interactions. OK.
• 16:50
  Yeah. So I'll give you a scenario
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  we're working on. So let's take your three typical
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  functional silos within a broadband provider.
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  You've got your, your operations that are running the network,
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  you've got your customer support agents that are dealing with,
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  you know, reactively mostly when the calls come in and you got
• 17:07
  your marketing team that is basically your sales engine on
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  how do you acquire, you know, new customers or cross sell and
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  up sell. So let's say, you know, Chris,
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  you call, you're talking to the CSR agent.
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  My internet's down. And so that CSR is thinking, all
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  right, I've got my dashboard. I understand what's going on in
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  Chris's home, but I only have one data point and I don't know,
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  it's actually not just Chris's home, it's the entire
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  neighborhood. There are 40 homes in that
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  neighborhood that are all down. But as a CSR, you don't see
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  that, but your operator does because they're looking at the
• 17:37
  network at a more macro level. So if we start applying agents
• 17:41
  to that model, when yours goes down, that agent is now digging
• 17:45
  into it, realizes this isn't just a Chris issue.
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  This is a neighborhood issue. Now the operator knows, oh,
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  don't roll a truck to Chris's house to fix it.
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  The issue is actually 4 miles down the road where there was a
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  fiber cut. The operator already knows that.
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  So that agent now is talking to the CSR.
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  It's actually also, you know, coordinating with the the
• 18:05
  operator. But even more interesting is
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  let's say later that day, the marketing team was about to do a
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  big cross sell promotion. Well, who do you think doesn't
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  need to receive a big cross sell promotion about amazing
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  connectivity that neighborhood? So that agent can then know well
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  what are all the contact e-mail information in that neighborhood
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  and remove them from that promotional campaign that's
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  about to go out the door and make you sound super tone deaf.
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  So this is the kind of behind the scenes insights and actions
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  that can happen when a small provider may not, you know, they
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  may all even be sitting in the same office, but they're just
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  not communicating at that level of speed and frequency.
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  So that's just one example of the way that we can improve the
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  way broadband providers provide service to their subscribers.
• 18:50
  Yeah, And what a perfect time for us to be hanging out
• 18:53
  together because I just ran into this this past weekend.
• 18:57
  And normally if, if we have an issue, if you or I have an
• 19:01
  issue, Scott, we know our provider, we know our account
• 19:04
  information, we're going to call and complain if they're not
• 19:07
  proactive. We were in a rental property
• 19:11
  that was surrounded by other rental properties centrally
• 19:14
  managed in an island. So not the best connectivity.
• 19:19
  Plenty of development in Hilton Head if anyone's been there, but
• 19:23
  I was trying to find out. Is it just us?
• 19:25
  I've done all the resetting of everything.
• 19:27
  I've done it four times. My brother-in-law is also tech
• 19:30
  savvy. We had done all the
• 19:31
  troubleshooting. We knew there was an issue.
• 19:34
  We called the central number, which is an operator, not with
• 19:39
  the service provider, it's with the rental property.
• 19:42
  And the first time, oh, yeah, sometimes it takes 30 minutes.
• 19:46
  Just leave it unplugged for 30 minutes.
• 19:47
  I I'm going, that's not real. I've worked in this space.
• 19:51
  That's not real. OK, we'll do it.
• 19:53
  And that didn't work. And then we called back, Hey,
• 19:56
  we've actually had thousands of calls since you called.
• 19:59
  And then they had to change their recording.
• 20:01
  But I had no way to get straight to my provider.
• 20:05
  So to your point. Sometimes we have these layers,
• 20:08
  if we're not proactive, we're going to create a worse customer
• 20:11
  experience. And not everyone is savvy enough
• 20:13
  to understand, oh, this is a broader issue.
• 20:16
  It's not their fault they can't help me with this.
• 20:19
  It just happened like. And they're trying to solve it.
• 20:22
  I mean, it's, you know, the interesting thing also is, you
• 20:24
  know, remember, Wi-Fi is invisible, right?
• 20:27
  So it's not unlike, all right, it's 8:00 at night.
• 20:29
  There's a massive power outage. You look at your window going,
• 20:31
  oh wow, the whole the whole compound's out.
• 20:34
  OK, I get a visual confirmation. This is a bigger issue.
• 20:37
  You can't do that with Wi-Fi you unless you literally go and
• 20:40
  knock on everybody's door is your house too?
• 20:42
  Is yours out too. So you're right, you are
• 20:44
  completely blind when it comes to is this a singular issue or
• 20:47
  is this a much bigger issue and it's going to take longer time?
• 20:51
  And does your broadband provider even know that they may not?
• 20:54
  Yeah. All right.
• 20:55
  Let's dig in there because I think that's a good point.
• 20:57
  You talked about solving some of the rural challenges and how
• 21:01
  broadband service providers operate with smaller teams
• 21:05
  solving some of those use cases. I think that's relevant to
• 21:07
  anyone who markets or sells to smaller companies SMB mid size,
• 21:13
  because sometimes you're going to run into this where you have
• 21:15
  a a knowledge gap in many instances.
• 21:18
  And I think your example was a perfect one because we couldn't
• 21:22
  get online, but every single Wi-Fi network in the entire
• 21:26
  neighborhood was visible. The problem if you connect it to
• 21:29
  any, if you had the password, it would go through the connection
• 21:32
  steps and then say you're connected but not to the
• 21:34
  Internet because that's where the problem was.
• 21:36
  But anyone who doesn't understand enough to know
• 21:40
  everyone else has Wi-Fi, right, they're not going door to door,
• 21:43
  to your point. So if we think about broadband
• 21:46
  service providers operating with smaller teams, how does your
• 21:49
  organization make advanced technologies accessible and
• 21:52
  effective for those providers? So there's two really big
• 21:56
  motions that I found rather unique at Calyx.
• 21:59
  First is back to my point about thinking B to B to C We know
• 22:05
  because we're a larger company. We work with some amazing
• 22:07
  digital marketing agencies that help us create campaign assets
• 22:11
  and content and videos to do what we do everyday in
• 22:14
  marketing. But not every, you know,
• 22:17
  marketing team at a small broadband provider has access to
• 22:19
  something like that, nor the budget to do it.
• 22:22
  So we've invested millions over the last, you know, 5-6 years to
• 22:26
  basically create an entire library of campaigns in a box,
• 22:31
  all unbranded. It's got nothing to do with
• 22:34
  Calyx. The whole point is here's you
• 22:35
  want to do a back to school campaign.
• 22:37
  We've got eight of them. We've already tested, we've
• 22:39
  written the copy. We've we've created all the
• 22:41
  layouts, you know, all the rights for the imagery are done.
• 22:45
  And all you got to do is slap your brand on it, tweak whatever
• 22:48
  copy you want to do and, and make sure the color is aligned
• 22:50
  to your, you know, your brand palette and it's yours.
• 22:52
  And it's free because we want you to be successful.
• 22:55
  We have videos that we shoot every year.
• 22:57
  We just did a shot the latest batch up in Toronto.
• 23:00
  We have a comedian actor named Jerry D who's little by little
• 23:04
  making more and more waves in the US and people will start to
• 23:06
  know who he is, but he's our, you know, kind of our our foil
• 23:10
  of the lovable dad that, you know, kind of gets it but
• 23:12
  doesn't. And we shoot these every year.
• 23:14
  But these spots, again, there's nothing in them about Calyx.
• 23:18
  These are videos that we buy the rights out so our customers can
• 23:21
  use these royalty free in their go to market campaigns to be
• 23:25
  successful. So that's step one, which is how
• 23:27
  can we put a digital agency at their fingertips so they can get
• 23:30
  to market faster. Two, we have the industry's
• 23:33
  largest customer success organization.
• 23:35
  So our customers, when they say, well, OK, you give me all the
• 23:39
  ingredients and you've given me the recipe, so you've kind of
• 23:43
  given me the tools to do it myself.
• 23:45
  What if I wanted you to show me how to do it?
• 23:47
  Could I upgrade to that? What if I actually wanted you to
• 23:50
  sit next to me and do it with me?
• 23:51
  Could I do that? Yes, so we will have success
• 23:55
  agents who will come in and they'll they're specialists in
• 23:57
  marketing, operations, customer support.
• 24:00
  And we'll work through. Let's help you launch a
• 24:02
  campaign. Let's get that out the door.
• 24:04
  Here's all the best practices we picked up from doing this again
• 24:07
  and again and again. And make sure that you don't,
• 24:09
  you know, hit any, any potholes. The analogy I like to use when I
• 24:13
  talk to to customers is have you ever been bowling and you've
• 24:16
  ever been to a bowling alley where there's a kid party?
• 24:19
  Well, what's one of the first things they do when it's a
• 24:21
  little kid party in the bowling alley bumpers.
• 24:24
  They put the bumpers up exactly that's what the six said no
• 24:26
  gutter balls right. Our whole point is we will not
• 24:29
  let you throw a gutter ball why? Because we've seen this movie
• 24:32
  before. Let us help you be successful.
• 24:34
  So I think unlike any other company I've ever worked with,
• 24:38
  this post sale, yes, you bought the, you know, the solutions,
• 24:41
  you've got all the tools you need, but that's not the end of
• 24:45
  your story. The story is, are you
• 24:46
  successfully deploying it and are you hitting your own KPIs
• 24:51
  that you set for yourself? If you're not doing that, then
• 24:53
  we aren't successful. Such a good example.
• 24:56
  So many things that are applicable to partner marketing,
• 24:59
  doing things for others, just a lot of awesome traits that I
• 25:03
  love about that. And one of the cool things with
• 25:05
  you sitting in that spot between the B to B to C, right, you get
• 25:10
  a lot of observation around trends and strategies and what
• 25:13
  you're seeing that will shape the future.
• 25:15
  So what are some of the standouts that you're seeing
• 25:18
  specific to your space? So some of the trends that we're
• 25:22
  getting access to and and a lot of this, the one of the things
• 25:25
  that we really lean in on is customer advisory boards.
• 25:27
  I think we have 13 that are active everything from, you
• 25:32
  know, AGM Advisory Board from from our customers to a
• 25:35
  marketing and sales to an operations to an engineering.
• 25:38
  And then we have some that are just specific on tribal
• 25:41
  communities that are getting into broadband versus electric
• 25:43
  cooperative versus you know, wireless Internet providers.
• 25:46
  They've all got slightly different needs and gaps.
• 25:49
  And so on a quarterly basis, we're pulling them in going what
• 25:52
  should we build next, what would help you be more successful and
• 25:55
  that feeds right into our R&D department.
• 25:58
  So generally what we're seeing is they want to make it, you
• 26:03
  know, even easier to, you know, kind of turn up and provision
• 26:06
  new services and they want to basically better understand who
• 26:10
  needs to receive this message and when.
• 26:12
  So a lot of what we're doing to micro target our audience, which
• 26:17
  is our our broadband providers, we're actually helping them do
• 26:20
  the same thing with their subscribers.
• 26:21
  So, you know, in your neighborhood, Chris, you know,
• 26:24
  well, obviously we've already established you're a parent with
• 26:26
  kids. So you'd be great for what you
• 26:28
  might call the guardian package, right, where you have all the
• 26:30
  bells and whistles. But there might be, you know, a
• 26:33
  family, you know, next door that are grandparents.
• 26:36
  And the number one thing that they love in the world are their
• 26:40
  grandkids. And what do they want then?
• 26:41
  What are their grandkids to come and visit?
• 26:43
  And you might think, oh, well, their grandparents, they just
• 26:45
  need basic Internet. I mean, they're just, you know,
• 26:47
  like buying things on Etsy or we know, whatever.
• 26:50
  It's like, you know? Roblox.
• 26:52
  Exactly what they need is they probably need the the
• 26:55
  grandparent gamer package because if they don't have the
• 26:59
  gamer package, their grandkids aren't going to come visit,
• 27:01
  right. So then you can understand how
• 27:03
  to segment each one of those audience based on needs.
• 27:06
  Or another one would be, you know, well, you, you would fall
• 27:08
  in this category as well. You're working from home.
• 27:10
  Well, one of the challenges of working from home, you want to
• 27:12
  make sure you prioritize the vice, the device you're on right
• 27:15
  now in this, you know, this broadcast for us ideally is
• 27:18
  getting the first drink of the Internet coming into your home
• 27:21
  right now. You want to make sure that that
• 27:22
  is the rule you can set up. By the way, you also have a
• 27:25
  little bit more elasticity in what you're willing to pay.
• 27:28
  Why? Because you're probably
• 27:29
  expensing your Internet bill every month because you work
• 27:31
  from home. Those are insights that we're
• 27:34
  collecting from our subscribers and then trying to turn that
• 27:36
  back to them and go, great, how can we spot more work from home
• 27:39
  people? Well, the easy thing is if
• 27:42
  you're working from home, chances are you have AVPN that
• 27:44
  your customer, your company requires you to log through to
• 27:48
  keep things secure. That's really easy to spot on
• 27:50
  the network. So if you just look for who's
• 27:53
  turning on AVPN from their home, they're likely a really good
• 27:56
  target for a work from home package.
• 27:58
  So all of these are new insights that, you know, we're helping
• 28:01
  our customers understand and where we can apply agents going
• 28:04
  forward to help them do them even faster, we'll build those.
• 28:07
  That's awesome. I have one more question for
• 28:09
  you, Scott, before we get into the lightning around this, what
• 28:11
  I call it, at least I don't have any fancy sound effects to put
• 28:14
  in after I, you know, some cool sound effect.
• 28:17
  And it's about unconventional marketing bets and some of the
• 28:21
  packages you were just describing, dare I say not
• 28:25
  conventional to market grandparents for the grandparent
• 28:29
  gamer package. And again, perfect timing.
• 28:31
  Last night on the news, I watched the huge rise in gaming
• 28:35
  for seniors over the age of 65. And it talked about the motor
• 28:39
  skills and the memory development and some of the
• 28:42
  things that happen when you game.
• 28:44
  So you're seeing this huge rise of older that are playing
• 28:46
  themselves not even for their grandkids.
• 28:48
  But how do you fight some of that internal resistance?
• 28:53
  You were at IBMIBM, was a client of mine too.
• 28:55
  Lovely folks, very smart. But some bigger companies are
• 29:00
  set in their ways and some smaller companies are very risk
• 29:04
  averse too to say, hey, this is a little out there.
• 29:07
  I don't know if this is going to work.
• 29:09
  How do you battle that internal resistance when pushing for
• 29:12
  those unconventional bets? Yeah.
• 29:14
  You know, one of the things that I started to do at IBM and it it
• 29:17
  was a slog. It was when I was in in Prague
• 29:20
  and I was covering the Central and Eastern European market.
• 29:23
  You know, we had limited budgets at the time.
• 29:24
  It was 30 countries, all with different languages.
• 29:27
  I mean, you know, talk about, you know, the challenges of
• 29:29
  doing, you know, umbrella campaigns across, you know, that
• 29:32
  kind of of geography. And one of the things that we
• 29:35
  kicked around was I think we're, we're not fully taking advantage
• 29:40
  of this kind of sleeping asset, which was the IBM or themselves.
• 29:44
  You know, we had thousands of IBM or all over the region, all
• 29:48
  you know, from those countries speaking the language with, by
• 29:51
  the way, social networks of their own business ones.
• 29:54
  And so we started to create a basically a social army and
• 29:58
  empower them and encourage them and socially reward them to be
• 30:03
  more active within their business social channels.
• 30:05
  Like they might keep a yes, LinkedIn happy to, you know,
• 30:09
  help amplify the IBM story. But my Facebook is my own or,
• 30:12
  you know, my Pinterest is my own or Instagram.
• 30:15
  Fine, you know, up to you, but let's arm you with it so you can
• 30:18
  actually for free. This is all earned coverage, not
• 30:21
  paid. How do we help you reach deeper
• 30:25
  into your respective markets? Now that took a while because
• 30:28
  IBM was big and there was a lot of, you know, how do we get this
• 30:30
  through the the process And things had to go all the way
• 30:33
  upstairs for approvals. Calyx has been a hell of a lot
• 30:35
  faster. So, you know, arming the 1800
• 30:39
  plus employees that we have at Calyx and feeding them.
• 30:43
  Here's some drafts, here's where we're posting it.
• 30:45
  Here's our social platform that you can tap and make it your
• 30:48
  own. And we're not asking you to
• 30:49
  amplify everything that we do. Pick the ones that resonate with
• 30:53
  you, pick the ones that resonate with the people that you connect
• 30:56
  with. So for me, since I've been in
• 30:58
  marketing my entire career, 95% of my network on LinkedIn,
• 31:03
  they're generally in the marketing business of some kind.
• 31:05
  So the stories I'm amplifying are things related to marketing
• 31:08
  and best practices and insights and things that we're doing in
• 31:11
  the space, customers that we're helping to be successful.
• 31:14
  I may not be amplifying half the stuff because it's a little bit
• 31:17
  less relevant, but if I'm an engineer, Alex, I'm going to
• 31:20
  jump all over the engineering news and make sure that that
• 31:23
  gets amplified. So it's one of the engines I
• 31:26
  don't think enough companies take advantage of because you
• 31:29
  have to think this is, I like to use this as the the cocktail
• 31:33
  reception test. What I mean by that is you're
• 31:36
  eventually in your life, you're going to go to some cocktail
• 31:39
  reception where you don't know many people and you're going to
• 31:42
  introduce yourself. And right after you do your
• 31:44
  name, they're going to say, what do you do?
• 31:47
  And whatever comes out of your mouth of what you do in the
• 31:50
  company that you work for, if you brand it from that point on,
• 31:53
  you are now an extension of that brand.
• 31:55
  How you behave at that cocktail party.
• 31:57
  If they've never met anybody from that company, they're going
• 31:59
  to size up that company based on your behavior, whether you're
• 32:02
  smart, whether you're funny, whether you get too drunk and
• 32:04
  you know, you tip over the the punch bowl.
• 32:07
  All of that is part of the brand.
• 32:09
  And so when people start to understand that, yes, I actually
• 32:12
  am an extension of the brand of the company that I work for,
• 32:16
  then why wouldn't I also also want to be an active voice and
• 32:18
  helping to promote it? So I think it's it's an
• 32:21
  generally an untapped resource and there's a lot of things you
• 32:24
  can do to really turn that on. Perfect.
• 32:26
  Yeah, That's so true. I mean, everyone remembers the
• 32:29
  first time they went to a business center and someone had
• 32:31
  terrible manners. I will never forget.
• 32:35
  I Yeah. I'm not going to describe it
• 32:38
  because I don't ever want that person to know.
• 32:39
  But you remember forever. Forever.
• 32:42
  OK, this is like Family Feud. Now we're going to enter this
• 32:45
  final round. I don't want to keep you late
• 32:47
  for your next meeting, so we're going to have some quick answers
• 32:50
  to these questions. The first, you can only pick one
• 32:53
  thing. What is the biggest challenge in
• 32:55
  B2B marketing? I mean, honestly, it's, it
• 32:58
  literally comes down to it's, it's not a technology itself.
• 33:00
  We know AI is, you know, in here.
• 33:02
  It literally is. How do you create for everyone
• 33:06
  on your team, including yourself, the mental space to be
• 33:08
  curious? You literally do have to, on
• 33:11
  your calendar, block it out. Hey, I've got 20 minutes between
• 33:14
  the next two calls. I'm going to go back and I'm
• 33:16
  going to start playing with, you know, copilot notebook.
• 33:18
  And I'm going to play around with an agent that I'm going to
• 33:21
  try to create and figure out what that could help me do in my
• 33:23
  day. Like it just needs to be a
• 33:25
  discipline. You know, it's like the, you
• 33:27
  know, 7 effective habits. Like how do you make sure that
• 33:30
  everybody's showing up every single day going?
• 33:32
  There's still more I don't know. So it's truly a mindset and you
• 33:36
  just have to keep encouraging it.
• 33:37
  Fail fast, learn, celebrate it. And by the way, if there's ever
• 33:41
  a time, because normally business is always like, just
• 33:44
  what's the end recommendation right now in the age of AI, this
• 33:48
  is a show your homework because then people can't follow your
• 33:50
  bread crumbs. So if somebody says, oh, look
• 33:53
  what I built and this is really cool and people go, oh, that's
• 33:55
  awesome, but how did you do it? What you really want after that
• 33:58
  is, oh, by the way, this is how I did it.
• 34:00
  Here's a little recipe I did if you want to try it yourself.
• 34:02
  That's how you bring people along for the journey.
• 34:05
  Favorite tools or technology? What stands out to you?
• 34:08
  I mean where we're leaning with account based marketing, the
• 34:11
  main shift for us which is traditional in all of marketing
• 34:14
  is shifting from the concept of a qualified lead, which is an
• 34:17
  individual raising their hand going, hey, I like a demo or
• 34:20
  like talk to your sales team or whatever to a qualified account
• 34:24
  and start thinking about that. That is fundamentally changing
• 34:27
  the way that we are thinking holistically about the entire
• 34:31
  account because when you're in the B to B space, it's great for
• 34:33
  B to C individual leads, you're selling gum, great, go for it.
• 34:37
  But B to B, it's complex. There's influencers, you've got
• 34:41
  to think holistically about the entire account.
• 34:43
  And when that whole account is moving into a buying posture and
• 34:46
  then that's when you do what's the next best action.
• 34:49
  It's just a different way of thinking, but it's it's a much
• 34:52
  richer way to get a view of what we should be doing next.
• 34:56
  And and that's been the last year, year and a half that's
• 34:59
  been a pretty big pivot for us mentally.
• 35:02
  Of that, yeah, we're shifting to buying groups now too, so that's
• 35:05
  the the next layer of specificity on top of accounts
• 35:08
  so we'll stay in touch on that. What about Goodreads now?
• 35:11
  We, we're generous here. That could be book, blog,
• 35:14
  newsletter, podcasts. What are some of the most
• 35:16
  important things you consume? Yeah, it's funny.
• 35:19
  I was thinking about, you know, we're we're at the on the pre
• 35:22
  call, we were talking about if somebody recommends a book on
• 35:24
  AI, it's like, yeah, it's already probably out of date,
• 35:26
  right. So we're thinking podcasts and
• 35:29
  vlogs and so forth. One that I've been starting to
• 35:31
  lean in more lately is the the Marketing AI Institute.
• 35:35
  So, you know, a couple marketing guys, it's not AI generated.
• 35:38
  They promise like they, they've done, I think now up to like 160
• 35:43
  episodes and they just dive into how AI is continuing to
• 35:47
  transform and change, you know, the, the business of marketing.
• 35:50
  And so you know, it's, it's a regular podcast and it just
• 35:53
  gives you, it's, it's a great coffee.
• 35:55
  Listen, you're out for a walk with your dog or whatever it is.
• 35:58
  And I'm, I'm always on the move. So anything that I can just plug
• 36:01
  into my ears and digest, I know it's easier for me to adopt that
• 36:05
  as a habit. And I'm always looking for
• 36:07
  what's the next one. And the nice thing is, you know,
• 36:09
  when they have guests on the show, they'll do exactly what
• 36:11
  you're asking is what's the next best one that you're listening
• 36:14
  to. And so I'm, you know, continuing
• 36:15
  to build out that library. Perfect.
• 36:17
  We're going to move into people. Then we only have one more
• 36:20
  question. Who inspires you in the B to B
• 36:22
  space? Well, for me, the the original
• 36:27
  Colonel was John Awada as the, you know, the legendary CMO of
• 36:32
  IBM. You know, he was just a master
• 36:34
  of messaging and simplification. I mean, under his watch, you
• 36:39
  know, we created IBM. Let's make the world a smarter
• 36:42
  planet. And then how do you create all
• 36:43
  the derivatives? In a sense, it was great.
• 36:46
  Back to my, my cocktail reception test, having the
• 36:50
  ability to say, yes, I work for IBM and what I might, what do I
• 36:52
  do at IBM? I am applying technology to
• 36:55
  solve the problems of the world, you know, basically to make it a
• 36:58
  smarter planet. One, it was really easy for
• 37:00
  people to understand. Two, it was very mission driven
• 37:03
  and it's something that you can really kind of get excited
• 37:06
  about. It wasn't just, well, we're just
• 37:07
  trying to sell some technology and make some more money, right?
• 37:10
  So that's the other challenge is ideally, and I can say the same
• 37:14
  thing at Calyx. At Calyx, it's very clear to say
• 37:16
  that our macro goal, our mission, why do we exist as
• 37:20
  we're literally trying to transform society one community
• 37:23
  at a time by helping our customers connect those
• 37:26
  communities so they don't get left behind.
• 37:28
  That's a bit gets me out of bed everyday.
• 37:30
  So if you've got Acmo and you've got, you know, someone who can
• 37:33
  be visionary in a way that connects it to an emotional, not
• 37:36
  a logical, you've got a really good story.
• 37:40
  And, and John was, you know, the the the first one I was exposed
• 37:43
  to along that journey, I've been exposed to many more.
• 37:45
  But, you know, he jumps out as, you know, kind of the OG.
• 37:48
  Perfect. And then the very last question
• 37:51
  most important of all, Scott, how can everyone get in touch
• 37:54
  with you after this episode? That through LinkedIn, my
• 37:57
  LinkedIn profile, we'll make sure it's, you know, part of
• 37:59
  what you've got. But I'm very active on it and
• 38:01
  always looking to grow my network.
• 38:03
  And you know, there's people that have suggestions on who I
• 38:06
  should follow or what I should follow.
• 38:08
  Like I said, open mindset, you know, be curious everyday.
• 38:12
  Perfect. Well, you crushed it, Sir.
• 38:13
  Thanks so much for your time today.
• 38:15
  Oh, Chris, thank you. It was a really fun
• 38:17
  conversation. Thanks for joining us for On
• 38:20
  Base. If you enjoyed this episode,
• 38:22
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• 38:29
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• 38:32
  based experience platform built for sales and marketing
• 38:35
  alignment.