Latest / The Prompt / Ep. 559 | How CloudPay transformed B2B growth with ABX

Transcript

Ep. 559 | How CloudPay transformed B2B growth with ABX · The Prompt

0:01
This is on base your one stop shop for solving your most
0:04
pressing B to B Go to market challenges.
0:07
Each week, host Chris Moody and Paul Gibson talk to sales and
0:09
marketing leaders to get you in depth insights and creative
0:12
strategies to set. Your revenue teams up for
0:15
success. Well, hello, everyone, and
0:19
welcome back to the latest in the award-winning podcast series
0:22
on Base. I'm your host, Paul Gibson.
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We like to bring different subjects to the series, as you
0:27
know with any regular listeners. And today I'm excited.
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I'm talking with Nick Webb, Global CMO at Cloudpay, who
0:33
those who don't know they're the market leading global payroll
0:36
platform out there. And we'll be discussing today
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the challenges faced when navigating change on modern GTM
0:43
success. Nick, excited to get you into
0:46
this with you. Thanks for coming on the show.
0:48
Glad to be here, Paul. Thank you very much.
0:49
Thanks for the invite. Well, it should be a good one.
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So we traditionally start before we get into the the meat of the
0:55
podcast. Simple question Nick, can you
0:57
give us a walk through your background journey to where you
1:00
are today and your current role at Cloudplay?
1:03
Yeah. So I won't give you, you'll be
1:04
pleased to hear that I've been in marketing for many years and
1:07
I won't give you a real time rendition of my experience.
1:11
But suffice it to say that I've been in B2B marketing for pretty
1:14
much all of my working life. Started out actually in
1:18
technology marketing, Vodafone, Microsoft.
1:20
Then over the last few years I've moved into sort of the the
1:24
new high growth areas, which is sort of fintech areas, financial
1:27
services. And latterly I've been working
1:30
for the last three years here at Cloud Pay, for which I was not
1:34
platform obscurity exactly, but I had a shoulder tap saying
1:38
we've got a great role for you. We think it really fit you well.
1:40
Do you, are you interested? And I was very glad, but I took
1:44
up the interest because it's a fantastic role and we've been
1:47
out of a scene where we would get into.
1:49
I've been able to make some changes which would really have.
1:52
Positive impact. Yeah, absolutely interesting.
1:55
And like you've, you've had an interesting journey and as I say
1:57
stayed in the B to B space for for a length of time.
2:00
So what in particular drew you to the world of of strategies
2:03
and go to market strategies and how's that I suppose shaped your
2:08
perspective on on driving change?
2:10
Well, probably a couple of things.
2:12
First of all, I think that the role of marketing is evolved
2:14
significantly in the time that I've been involved.
2:17
And you know, if you go back 20 years marketing where we still
2:20
get sort of tarred with the other crayons guys or you look
2:24
after the website lunches and launches and logos, that sort of
2:27
thing. But I think generally think it's
2:29
a thing of the past. It's now expected.
2:31
I know a lot of marketing people are calling themselves head of
2:34
growth rather than head of marketing.
2:36
So I do think that the, the advent, the evolution of
2:39
marketing, the advent technologies I've met a
2:42
marketing could play a much more significant role in go to market
2:45
and in driving growth. That's number one.
2:47
Number two, the role that I was brought in to do was to help
2:50
drive that growth. So that necessarily that's where
2:53
the focus of most of my work has been.
2:57
Maybe we'll get into it, but Cloudpay is an organization that
2:59
is targets to suffer growing 30% a year, which is, you know
3:03
cumulatively is significant. And for that we need significant
3:08
thought given to how we create the pipeline in order for our
3:11
sales fans to to go out and close that level of business or
3:15
that level of increased business every year.
3:17
So those are probably 2 two factors of let me in the
3:20
direction go to market. Strategy, yeah, exciting growth,
3:24
growth trajectory there. If you can stick with that,
3:26
that's, that's pretty impressive.
3:27
Yeah. So as you as you look back then
3:29
over over the period, have you got any key milestones or
3:33
lessons you could highlight from your career that maybe prepared
3:36
you for, for your, your present role leading that cloud Paze
3:39
approach to that GTM innovation? Yeah, probably two or three
3:43
things. The first thing is, is that of
3:46
the days when marketing people could get away with not knowing
3:49
their numbers, particularly with the tools that are available now
3:52
around about digital marketing, but more than that, like their
3:55
contribution to the business growth.
3:57
So I would urge all people coming into marketing at all at
4:00
any point in their career, and I say this to my team, is that we
4:04
have to know our members. It makes us more relevant to the
4:07
business. It means that we are driven by
4:09
the data that we're seeing and using and it means ultimately we
4:12
make a much, far greater contribution than doing lots of
4:15
ads, which is what marketing used to be like.
4:18
That's the first thing. The second thing is given the
4:21
fact that marketing now probably plays a greater role in go to
4:24
market and go to market strategies and so on than they
4:27
used to, but but the sales leaders need to sort of work
4:31
with us. So we need to work with them.
4:34
Previously it was the process was last and create a load of
4:37
leads and then get into sales and have sales run with them.
4:40
And some of the work and some of them don't that you know, we've
4:42
now we've got the full integration of sales and
4:45
marketing. It requires all of us as sales
4:48
leaders and marketing leaders to be much more integrated, much
4:51
more aware of how the whole system works rather than just
4:55
being the marketing guys in the corner painting pretty pictures.
4:58
Those are probably two things that come to mind.
5:00
Absolutely. And I think going back to your
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first point around knowing your numbers also, I think metrics
5:06
have changed, right? There was a crime where B to B
5:08
marketers just used the same metrics as B to C How many
5:12
clicks did I get on that ad? How much increase did I get in
5:15
my website traffic? But now B2B has got a lot
5:17
smarter and it's there's no point getting clicks and traffic
5:22
and pipeline from companies your business can't and doesn't want
5:25
to sell to. So I think that the whole
5:27
understanding of it's got to be relevant, otherwise it's a
5:30
waste. Is is definitely becoming more
5:33
the norm in B2B as well? I agree with you and I think
5:36
it's more than that. So first of all, as you say, it
5:39
needs to be the right people that are clicking in the 1st
5:42
place. So you need to have a strong
5:43
sense of your ICP and you need to have agreed with sales what
5:47
your ideal customer profile is. And then nowadays tools can
5:50
enable you to target about ICP in a way that was not possible
5:53
previously. But also the clicks and the, you
5:56
know, click through rates and you know, the amount of traffic
5:59
you got landing on your landing pages and so on are a means to
6:02
an end. They're not the end.
6:05
Whereas previously, I think in previously today, so great, we
6:07
had a 30% increase in people landing on our website.
6:11
Great. But what difference does that
6:12
make to anybody Unless it becomes something that sales can
6:16
actually pursue in terms of an opportunity, then there's a bit
6:20
of So what goes along with that? Yeah.
6:22
And I think we've all been in those sales and marketing
6:24
meetings where marketing say I hit all my goals, I gave you a
6:27
200 breeds and sales say, yeah, but 100 of them are rubbish.
6:31
And it's it's overcoming I think.
6:33
I think the market's changing. Well, as you say, technologies
6:36
are helping that get a much more focused on just those, those
6:40
businesses that actually are relevant to you and you can
6:42
deliver value to because it's not just winning Dales, it's the
6:45
ability to keep them and keep your renewal rates up, which is
6:48
so important. Well, when I first arrived at
6:51
Cloud Paint three years ago, we had in place, I inherited a sort
6:54
of a marketing engine if you like that was had many of the
6:58
theaters that we just talked about that we now believed to be
7:00
a bit dated. The objective of the marketing
7:03
team and by extension myself were simply to create lead to
7:07
when I first started, I did the usual thing of, you know,
7:10
speaking to our best a ES and our account managers and our
7:12
sales people and say what do you need from marketing.
7:15
It was always give me more leads and we were about, I'd say I was
7:19
about a year into my tenure and I realised that actually when I
7:23
looked at pipeline in dollar value as opposed to the amount
7:26
of leads, we were bringing in more leads than ever we
7:29
committed. We'll bring in 1000 leads a
7:31
month, which is like 3 times what we previously done, but it
7:34
wasn't making any difference as a pipeline inside the actual
7:37
sales pipeline was falling. And so I it's the sort of, I
7:41
sort of had a sort of Damascene moment and I realized that
7:45
actually the type of marketing we were doing was not it
7:49
remotely the right sort of marketing that that we the type
7:53
of marketing that we should be doing.
7:54
And so this led to me going through a process of changing
7:58
that marketing engine, working with the sales guys.
8:01
And this is where the change management came in to get them
8:04
to think differently about how we created.
8:05
It wasn't leads that we that they should be asking for, it
8:08
was something else. And so it was a lot like we have
8:12
completely changed and revolutionized the way that we
8:16
go to market. And specifically I mean in the
8:18
way that we we create sales pipeline.
8:20
And it's been a pretty interesting journey with some
8:24
some key principles attached to it.
8:26
But of course, a lot of it's around change back both for
8:29
marketing and for sense. Yeah, absolutely.
8:31
Yeah, really good points there. So we went a little bit off
8:34
topic. So just for the, for the sake
8:36
of, of, we'll get back into the meat of the subject.
8:40
So why would you say transitioning to an A/B MABXGTM
8:44
strategy is so critical in today's business landscape?
8:48
Huge question and perhaps the best way I can answer it is sort
8:51
of to cut to come back to my arrival three years ago and my
8:55
realization that the marketing that we're doing was making
8:58
absolutely no difference to the quality and to the quantity in
9:02
the sales pipeline. Even though as you said
9:04
previously, we could go around whooping joy because we created
9:07
1000 leads a month. And So what I began to shape was
9:10
that when we were creating all these leads, which isn't what
9:14
sales guys have asked us to do, it was like, and one of the one
9:17
of my marketing directors said at the time, so it's like having
9:21
a rubbish tip where the seagulls are having to pick their way
9:24
through the rubbish tip to find the good bits.
9:26
And what we meant by that was that we were creating these
9:29
thousand leads a month, but we were not able to, but they were
9:34
not connected. So we will start doing some
9:36
analysis. We realized that we will get it.
9:39
There were 28 different, different leads across the globe
9:41
from Amazon, but no, but we weren't connecting those on an
9:44
account level. We began to appreciate that we
9:47
were doing smaller business marketing in so far.
9:50
I was like we were doing loads of point leads and what we did,
9:53
we said we were targeting the right personas.
9:56
We weren't didn't have a strong sense of our ICP.
9:59
So we found out that like basically when we arrived at our
10:02
ICP and applied it to what we were doing, we found out that
10:06
only about 20% of the leads we were bringing in were in the
10:08
least bit relevant to the types of customers we wanted to be
10:11
speaking to. We were targeting the right
10:13
personas, mainly they were T junior.
10:16
Although they were wrong, they were the wrong people for us to
10:18
be talking to. And it will none of this was
10:20
translating its sales pipeline. So I began to realize that we
10:24
two things that's all that we need to change the way we
10:26
thought about this totally. But the second thing and most
10:28
important thing why it relates to ABM and ABX is that we were
10:32
throwing out loads of marketing and still what came back, we
10:35
likened it to net phishing where you dragged the let in.
10:39
And like you, you've randomly chucked the net out, you
10:42
randomly put it back in and most of the stuff that you've got is
10:45
actually by cat. So you throw away anyway.
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And because So what we've said is let's do, we call it sphere
10:50
fishing, let's target, let's agree what the customers that we
10:54
want to target and target those relentlessly and point all of
10:57
our marketing resources and our BDR resources and our A
11:00
resources at those customers. And we will find that then that
11:04
we will be more successful, which is the very essence of ABM
11:07
and ABS. So that's what we did.
11:09
So the basic process we agreed with sales what our ideal
11:13
customer profile was. Some of it was filmographic,
11:15
some of it was around types of customers and what, what
11:18
existing IT architecture they have or existing HRM systems and
11:21
so on. So we agreed that.
11:23
We then agreed with the with the sales guys, then we then
11:26
nominate a list of customers that they wanted us to target.
11:29
We then targeted them including the three personas we'd agreed
11:33
on using ATM, using e-mail, using content syndication,
11:37
webinar events and so on. And then we used, and this is a
11:41
critical thing that we the marketers of the past signal
11:43
have. We used demand base to find out
11:45
who and most just was actually responding to our marketing.
11:49
And not only did we know why by customer name, we knew by the
11:52
individuals that were looking at our stuff that were coming onto
11:55
our website. And that formed the basis for
11:58
the targeting, the outreach, the targeting outreach that our BDRS
12:02
then worked on to build the relationship with that prospect.
12:06
And from then it became a then it then found its way into the
12:09
sales pipeline. So that was the basic and the
12:12
process we agreed we put some organizational changes in for
12:15
that to happen. For example, number one, my KPIs
12:19
changed from number of leads to sales ready pipeline and sales
12:24
decided whether that pipeline was ready.
12:27
I mean put we, we and we put customer forward say we believe
12:30
this customer is the right size and shape and that there's
12:32
there's a prospect of a sale item.
12:34
I mean sales would agree whether that was the case or not.
12:37
So we didn't say we've shown you loads, you haven't done anything
12:40
with it. We knew that we had to pass the
12:42
tests as it were in terms of quality.
12:44
My KPI's became a Dell pipeline value.
12:47
We moved BDR into marketing. So there was interlock between
12:51
the marketing campaigns and the BDR subsequent BDR outreach we
12:55
renamed leads signals because it was a signal that and there may
13:00
be an interest in our products and services from that company.
13:02
It wasn't a lead pursued one individual you go let's say that
13:07
the company we have seen that a company, somebody from a
13:10
particular company come out to our website and download
13:13
document of some sort. We'll go to signal that company
13:16
might be interested. Let's not pursue the individual.
13:20
They might be quite a dreamy person.
13:21
Let's target the CFO, the CHRO and the head of payroll in those
13:26
organizations. So it was a signal we should do
13:28
something else, not let's relentlessly pursue this
13:31
individual who just happened that attend the webinar.
13:36
So there's so many changes going on in here in the way we think
13:39
about this. But this you know and this we
13:41
introduced us about two years ago in terms of the, you know,
13:44
million numbers, our pipeline is now nearly four times the size
13:48
that it was this time last year. The rate of new pipeline we're
13:52
bringing in is nearly triple per month what we were doing and all
13:57
of it is high quality like it adheres to our ICP most
14:01
previously. As I said, a huge chunk of what
14:03
we're bringing in was not ICP, just for a complete revolution
14:07
in the way we operate and. We're NFS very impressive and
14:10
obviously speaking the language that we talk every day, it's,
14:13
it's quality over quantity. And I'm sure your sales leaders
14:17
love the fact that now they've got a pipeline that's full of
14:20
stuff they can and actually can close and deliver real value to
14:25
because it helps not just with the close rates, right?
14:27
It helps with the average value because you're delivering value
14:30
that you know the customer will actually achieve.
14:33
And probably it accelerates the the dual velocity I would
14:37
assume. But then they're then down the
14:38
line because the company selling to are are the right companies
14:43
with real value. Your renewal rates are probably
14:45
going up as well, I would assure.
14:46
So all the metrics are going up and the way that we define the
14:50
ICP beyond some like some geographical boundaries about
14:53
relating to our own capabilities.
14:55
So you know, we actually did the analysis.
14:58
All of this was based on data. So for example, a couple of
15:01
examples. First of all, we realized that
15:04
that one group of customers was converting it well over 20%.
15:08
Another group was converting at under 5%.
15:11
So we said we're not going to do the 5%.
15:13
That was a bit of change for sales because a lot of sales
15:16
people want to sort of provide themselves a comfort packet of
15:19
having a larger pipeline or a larger set opportunities set.
15:22
So look you could you know if you're going to win that at 5%
15:26
and win that at 20%, you need like some of the lower ones to
15:30
even remotely get to the what you'll get to with with the one
15:33
that is more likely to convert. So that was a bit of a change.
15:36
It's like, no, we're not going to target these by exception.
15:39
Some sales spouse will come for and say, hey look, can we target
15:41
this one? We think they're good.
15:43
I'll say well, they're not ICP and go, yeah, I get it.
15:45
But you know for for other exchanges reasons we might sell
15:48
a better chance. I'm good with that.
15:50
It's intended to help us focus on the right things, not
15:53
intended to police how we do it. So that's a good example of a
15:58
change. Another example might be that we
16:00
said to the sales cars you need to nominate.
16:03
Here's the size of shape, here's the data set for your territory.
16:06
You now need to nominate 15 prospects each for our ABM
16:10
program and another 120 for our ABX program.
16:14
There was, you need to tune this on like wisely.
16:17
You can't even say, oh, there's another 30 over here.
16:20
I want to target because you go, well, why weren't they in the
16:22
original Target list in the 1st place?
16:24
So there's a bit of planning involved.
16:26
And that means that the sales people in terms of their own
16:28
prospecting need to move away from the churn and burn.
16:32
Like, I mean, it's going to speak to 150 customers every
16:34
month and eventually I'll find one that is interested because
16:38
the essence of ABM is that. And the disadvantage of ABM and
16:42
ABX is that you're not basing it on customer intent, you're
16:46
basing it on your intent to target then.
16:48
And so you've got to wait a bit until their contracts for a
16:51
global payroll come up. Some of them may never come up
16:54
and that's the disadvantage. There's a sort of a bit of
16:57
nervousness around it. When we first launched it, I
17:00
remember speaking to the chairman of our board and he's,
17:03
I was explaining how we would change it.
17:05
So he said, well, does that mean we need to wait a few months?
17:07
I said it does. And like he said, well, I think
17:10
it was November, I was talking to him.
17:11
I said the actual time is when we expect pipeline to start
17:14
building. And in fact it was June or even
17:16
July when it started building because their customers aren't
17:20
coming to you, you're going to them.
17:21
We did still run some marketing where customers were coming to
17:25
it. So we in band stuff is is far
17:27
less important to us now, but it's still there because it
17:29
makes no sense for us not to talk to customers.
17:32
It's their ICP who won't talk to us because they're not on the
17:35
list. So yeah, lots and lots of change
17:38
for sales leadership and for marketing leadership built into
17:41
this new process. Yeah.
17:42
It sounds like it was a challenge, but getting through
17:45
it, the results of speaking to the sales.
17:46
So again, just for the listeners, if you're OK, what
17:50
would you say were the biggest hurdles?
17:51
You've mentioned a couple there and other teams listening may
17:54
face because we are adopting this ABA and the ABX approach
17:58
and it's a complete change for the business.
17:59
What would you say that the biggest challenges and hurdles
18:02
you face? So probably #1 was attitudinal
18:05
that the old sales and marketing mentality is from both sales and
18:11
from marketing. We we're watching Chuck leads
18:13
over the fence. You guys are going to receive
18:15
them. You're going to complain that
18:17
well, good enough and we're going to complain that you're
18:19
not doing enough with what we're giving you.
18:20
And so we have to fall a genuine partnership.
18:23
You both have to realise that like we need to collaborate.
18:27
If the 125 that an AE has selected for his, his or her
18:31
account set is not white ones, then we should change them.
18:34
But we don't throw them all out because we just spent the last
18:37
six months like warming them up and getting, getting so they
18:40
know us and then so you track them all like you're literally
18:42
back to this time again. So there's a little bit of the
18:45
partnership between sales and marketing needs to be more
18:47
genuine than this otherwise transactional thing.
18:51
So that's like a sort of an attitude more thing.
18:53
The second thing is that the use of the technology really helped
18:57
us with change bandwidth would be with our salespeople.
19:00
So we were talking about using demand based or something
19:03
similar. We ended up selecting demand
19:05
based and of course, I was not initiated into the extent of how
19:09
these tools, how good these tools really are previously is
19:12
that, as I said, you know, a sales person can select their
19:15
accounts that we want to target. And then literally every day
19:18
they get all live, they get a fee of one of our aides said,
19:20
the first thing I do, everyone is get up and I look at the wild
19:23
base and see which of my customers has responded to the
19:25
marketing or signed up to the webinar or it's going to be an
19:28
event that we're going to. So suddenly the lights come on
19:31
and those of the our salespeople who are using it are like
19:34
absolutely flammographs it. I think it's amazing and they
19:37
say, hey, are this customer hasn't responded to hasn't done
19:40
this thing for two months. Can we sort of brought them a
19:43
bit with some marketing And you can see the gap between those
19:46
people who do use it and those that don't use it because they
19:48
sort of, you know, they think it's a marketing thing.
19:51
In fact, it's a dashboard for them.
19:53
So it's the a dashboard. So trying to get salespeople to
19:56
use those dashboards in a way that's useful.
19:59
That was a challenge. And with it then working with
20:02
the BDRS who are now in marketing.
20:04
And of course the salespeople are used to for the most part,
20:07
BDRS or STRS. Tend to be in sales and they
20:10
just do what the sales personal shares.
20:12
But actually the BDRS now do what the data tells them they
20:15
should do from the mind base and says this, this prospect is
20:19
showing a lot of interest. We've had the CFO on our
20:22
website, we've had this going on.
20:23
This is the outreach we now need to do.
20:26
So that was another change. And so, yeah, those are probably
20:29
the two, two biggest ones. And it comes a lot of it comes
20:32
down to the relationship between sales and marketing, which is
20:34
always important. Yeah.
20:35
And it's interesting, we've seen it over time that the attitude
20:38
of sales and marketing teams changed dramatically when they
20:41
start seeing actually what you're giving me now is
20:44
something I've got a much better chance of closing.
20:46
So it does take some like that and you hit on an interesting
20:49
point actually, we we'll maybe touch on AIA little bit later,
20:52
but we're hearing lots of disgruntled BDRS and sales
20:57
leaders saying, you know, they're getting signals from
20:59
technology, which is saying go after that account.
21:02
There's no insight on to why go after that account.
21:06
They're going off and wild goose chase isn't spending half their
21:08
time on the wrong things and then actually making their close
21:12
rates worse. They lose confidence in these
21:14
signals and give up words. I think it's a term.
21:17
I've put AI without the Y, and I think businesses need to be
21:21
careful that if you're just firing AI signals at people
21:24
without any insight, you're just opening yourselves up for lots
21:27
of problems. So yeah, interesting that you've
21:30
had that you've gone through those hurdles if you like and
21:33
come out the other side. So how do you think that
21:36
transition impacts the cross functional collaboration within
21:39
a company? And are there any shifts
21:41
required in team dynamics? Yeah.
21:43
I mean, I think that it requires a level of open mindedness on
21:46
the on the part both of marketing leaders and the sales
21:49
leaders for it to work really well.
21:51
And I've been fortunate that for the most part here at Cloud Pay,
21:55
that has been the situation. What helped us move that was the
21:59
fact that we were using data to prove the points is like for
22:03
example, there was a view when I arrived that the only people we
22:06
need to target in our marketing was the ebb of blood payroll.
22:09
And when we did some analysis on we, we did an analysis on some
22:13
of the customers that we had won and we found out that there were
22:15
17 different roles involved in the actual process from the
22:21
customer side. So that told us we needed to be
22:24
much broader in terms of our marketing.
22:27
And that the role of BDR was not just to get to know the global
22:30
sales payroll person more and more and more, it was to get to
22:33
know char project managers and all that sort of stuff.
22:36
So that was a good example of where there was resistance to
22:40
what we're proposing, but we have the data to prove that
22:44
actually it would that, you know, this is the way we stop,
22:47
right. Another thing is that like who
22:49
back to the content of the lead, maybe somebody was found to an
22:52
e-mail that would have been the lead.
22:54
But the week we again, when we did this analysis to some of the
22:56
customers that we had work, we found out that we're like
23:00
between 160 and 200 interactions with our marketing by by the
23:05
1617 different people that might be opening emails coming on our
23:09
website in the event webinar, all that sort of stuff.
23:12
And so there's no way we can have this concept of a single
23:14
lead because that's just not how bTB buying works.
23:18
So that's another good example where there was resistance to
23:20
that idea and we were able to prune for the data.
23:23
So that that what I would encourage marketing and sales
23:26
leaders who go through this or look, re examining their go to
23:29
market to use the data wherever possible to underpin what your,
23:32
you know, what your ideas are attitudinally.
23:35
You need to be open and say, well, that might mean that
23:38
there's a bit of, you know, sort of more like, for example, we
23:41
move BDRS into marketing because that make more sense for it to
23:45
be closer for the camp, for BDRS to effectively be completely
23:50
integrated into the campaigns because itself we can't do that.
23:53
We're struggling to get the BDRS to follow up in the way that we
23:56
thought the campaigns were set up for.
24:00
So it requires change, flexibility, and the right KPI
24:03
is like, well, I propose that my personal KPI should have changed
24:07
to dollar value of π Pi created in any given year, which is like
24:10
most marketing people would shy away from, you know, so there's
24:14
lots of things beyond that control, all that sort of thing.
24:16
But I think that if we were to be relevant as marketing people
24:19
and part of the growth story, then we have to carry a number
24:22
just like sales people do. So I carry a number and I'm sort
24:26
of pushed on it by the CEO and by the board just as much as the
24:29
Chief Revenue Officer who's my partner in crime is on the sales
24:34
number. And that's, I said, quite right.
24:36
Yeah. And it's good to hear.
24:38
It's a sensible approach and there's, as you're, you're
24:41
saying, the fruits of the success coming from it.
24:44
You mentioned those, those multiple people involved.
24:46
Obviously buying groups is a is a big topic now and, and
24:50
becoming a buzzword as well. And I think that's really
24:52
important because there will be in a time, and we've all done it
24:55
in sales where someone you've never heard of comes out of the
24:58
woodwork and kills the deal. And I think the importance of
25:01
maybe sales will get in touch with five or six of those
25:04
people, but it's going to be another half a dozen, 10 people
25:07
who somewhere along the line will be involved in making in
25:10
that decision. And I think it's so important
25:12
for marketing to be able to nurture those and get the
25:15
messaging out to those. They may always anonymous, but
25:18
if you can still make sure they're getting the same message
25:21
as the people sales are speaking.
25:22
So I think that that makes it much more likely that you're
25:25
going to get those deals over the line.
25:27
Yeah, agree. Yeah, you've touched on that
25:30
already, but data obviously play has played a big role in in your
25:34
success. How important do you think it is
25:36
as you're scaling out an ABM ABX strategy so.
25:39
Is it basically who drives our decision making?
25:42
My background is my training, my degrees in economics rather than
25:46
in anything more marketing related.
25:47
So I'm personally quite numerous and quite data-driven.
25:50
And I sort of encourage the support and expect my team to be
25:54
equally so. And our campaign members, for
25:56
example, on a weekly basis are sitting down and looking at the
25:59
data and you can look at the data with the tools we have.
26:03
I think I mentioned previously, we use demand base.
26:05
We've got it set up so the sales people can see how they're
26:09
selected or typed for the council responding to our
26:11
marketing. But we can also flip it, of
26:13
course. And so, well, how many counts
26:15
did this particular webinar affect and positively impact and
26:20
what should we do more on what should we do less of what's
26:22
working, what's not working, so we could gravitate towards
26:25
tools. For example, we decided to
26:26
double the amount of webinars we're doing because we found
26:29
that they were so effective in engagement.
26:31
And so that's a good example where we dialed down on some of
26:34
our digital marketing, digital advertising in favor of the
26:38
webinars because that's where we were getting the engagement.
26:40
Previously, my predecessors as marketing leaders just wouldn't
26:44
have had that sort of insight to be able to make sure that we're
26:47
putting the our money in right places.
26:48
And an old adage isn't a marketing guy say, I know that
26:52
90% of my spend is wasted, but I just don't know which 90%.
26:56
And we as Marxists have absolutely no excuse for that
26:59
adage anymore because the data is there.
27:01
If you have the right tools and the right opponents to how you
27:03
use the data, you get it. Yeah, I think you're absolutely
27:06
right. And as you know, we get involved
27:07
in advertising quite a lot and it's amazing today you see
27:11
people who spend all their time and effort identifying their
27:14
ICP, their towel, coming up with campaigns to be very focused on
27:18
it when they're, you know, deciding what they're going to
27:21
do. So they've got a clear picture.
27:23
And then they go and do spray and pray advertising to anyone.
27:26
90% of the advertising is being delivered to companies that they
27:29
don't, they're not interested, they don't want to sell to.
27:31
And I, I think to your point, there's no excuse now we've got
27:34
the technology. Yeah.
27:37
Well, one thing you you touched on and maybe just a couple of
27:40
tips for the listeners that sales and marketing alignment is
27:43
a Nirvana for anyone. Any tips to, you know, make a
27:46
quick impact on that? So I don't think there's any
27:50
quick tips for it. I think that you know, I can't
27:52
say and pretend that it's all harmonious between sales and
27:55
marketing at Cloud Pay. So the most part of it is, and
27:58
we have a level of established understanding about how we
28:01
operate together that took some work to get to.
28:04
And then particularly we find that for example, when we have
28:07
new sales people coming, they used to work in a different way,
28:11
new sales leaders, they used to work in a different way.
28:12
And one of the first things we try and do is explain here's how
28:15
the model works. And it only works if marketing
28:19
and BDR and sellers are literally all all on the same
28:22
track, because if we decide that we want to target the different
28:26
customer set, it's more than happening is wasted because
28:28
we're, we're not, we won't be targeting the ones that you want
28:32
us to target. So I think it's hard work and it
28:35
requires no doubt on both sides, the occasional biting of tongues
28:39
and like, and often I'm still like, I'm explaining this for
28:42
the 4th or 5th time now about this is how the model is meant
28:46
to operate because it's new. It's pretty, you know, I've
28:48
spoken to two people around the industry and you know, sound
28:52
panels and so on and it's clear to me which I'm appreciated.
28:55
We are some way ahead of the way most people are working.
28:58
But let's find key to come on things like this because like
29:01
literally we've got 3 1/2 times more pipeline this month in 25
29:06
and the same month in 2024. And it's pretty much all come
29:11
because of these changes that we've made.
29:13
So I would definitely urge people in our profession to
29:17
start looking at it this way and try and go through the pain, the
29:20
at times painful predecessors change to get people to do it.
29:23
But I'm sorry I don't have any quick hints or tits.
29:26
A lot of the KPIs. A couple of things that perhaps
29:28
were sacred cows that we broke. First of all, me proposing that
29:32
I didn't have a leads KPI that was a dollar value KPI was
29:36
significant. The second thing is when we
29:38
stopped calling leads leads, we started calling the signals
29:41
because leads implies that you follow that lead.
29:43
Whereas the idea is the signal just gives you an indication
29:46
that company being may be interested to do very different
29:50
thing. We stopped doing attribution.
29:52
So at one point we said does the has the lead been generated by
29:55
the salesperson? Has it been generated by a lion
29:58
to see, has it been generated by marketing or was it something
30:01
else again? Because when we did the analysis
30:03
I talked about it showed that all four of those so-called lead
30:07
sources were having an impact. And so it was just all it was
30:11
doing was just causing internal arguments that had no value
30:15
whatsoever. And so we said, let's not do it.
30:17
So I own the pipeline KPI, the, the overall 1 and I enlist to
30:22
have all my colleagues in departments that necessarily in
30:25
marketing in order to make that happen.
30:27
And that's quite a big thing. I think I learned that I was at
30:30
some lunch and another CMO was talking about this and she said
30:34
we just stopped doing it. And straight away the fighting
30:36
stopped. It was remarkable.
30:38
I mean just as a worth noting, we do do attribution a campaign
30:42
level. So we need to know whether a
30:45
particular campaign or a particular part of a campaign
30:48
has contributed. So we do do multi task point
30:51
attribution. But what we don't do is at an
30:53
organizational level, this is what the sales person brought in
30:57
versus month has no value and it's irrelevant to the way that
31:01
companies buy. Yeah, yeah, I think very valid
31:03
points. I think you probably touched on
31:06
some of the first steps you took, but if you've got a
31:08
listener on the call now, that's because you've got a very
31:12
compelling story and decides absolutely we're doing this.
31:15
Would you give any indication of what you think the first steps
31:18
an organization should change if it a transition to that
31:21
strategy? So the first thing I did was
31:24
that I called the CROCRO account and I said I'm looking at the
31:30
numbers and the pipelines are going down.
31:31
The amount of pipeline we're creating is falling, not going
31:34
up to start thousands of leads. So we've got a problem when we
31:38
need to change what we're doing. So that was #1 is the
31:41
recognition that like what we're doing isn't working.
31:44
Even with my own team, people will say, oh, Nick, you know,
31:47
you're causing problem. We just need to campaign to sort
31:51
of grow a bit. I said, no, the model is wrong.
31:53
We have to be able to recognize that, that we're not doing the
31:56
right thing. So that's the first thing.
31:57
Then the second thing that we did, and we did get a group of
32:00
sales and marketing leaders together.
32:02
But one of the first things we did was to agree on what our ICP
32:05
was. And you would think it's so, but
32:08
if sales have a different view to alliances to have a different
32:11
view, the marketing have a different view, you're never
32:13
going to succeed. That is the foundation.
32:15
Once you're agreeing on that, then even if you're not doing
32:18
ABX or ABM star marketing, you cannot at least attune your net
32:22
fishing marketing to that ICP. And that's the sort of the
32:26
beginnings of of that was providing the foundation for us
32:30
to then move on and work out how we develop this more
32:33
sophisticated models. Tell us the first steps.
32:35
I'm on recognition as a problem, a bit of ownership and it's
32:38
like, yeah, what we're doing is working with section doing and
32:41
then and then agreeing what is good luck?
32:43
What does a good customer look like?
32:44
Yeah, excellent, excellent tips there.
32:46
And it sounded like the the CRO was on board, but there are
32:49
always detractors in these things.
32:51
And have you got any ideas are examples of way a business can
32:56
overcome that resistance to change so?
32:58
Yeah, no, you're quite right. It's like it was for the the CRO
33:01
was working at the time and now subsequently a new one is like
33:04
really open to the model and we work really closely together.
33:08
But you know, typically in these types of change scenarios, my
33:12
experience is three groups as the irredeemably resistant.
33:16
So they're a difficult group to deal with, particularly if they
33:19
they're often very experienced salespeople who have been
33:22
around. But their ideas of how marketing
33:25
and pipeline generations should be done are rooted solely in
33:27
1997. And that that is a challenging
33:30
area because they're, they're good salespeople and they're
33:33
they're well regarded in the industry.
33:35
Then there's the sort of the persuadable, which is most
33:38
people. And then there's those that of
33:39
course are going to be the advocates for you.
33:41
And I'm talking about salespeople in particular.
33:43
We use the advocates like couple of service people when we showed
33:47
the demand bytes for example, and we put up a data on Oh my
33:50
goodness, this is like amazing. And we use those as our
33:53
advocates within the sales community to say here's how I do
33:56
it. We set up calls and so on.
33:59
The middle group is the persuadable group is normally
34:01
OK. So, so long as you can provide
34:03
results. The caveat being, as we've
34:05
touched on earlier that with ABM and ABX, sometimes there's a bit
34:08
of a wait whilst you build the engagement and the momentum
34:11
within your program. So that was a little bit nerve
34:13
wracking at the time if I'm honest.
34:15
But of course, those guys are now like, you know, they might
34:19
be wildly enthusiastic about all these changes we've made, but
34:23
they can certainly see the result.
34:24
And then there's irredeemably hostile to it because they just
34:28
don't think that's a right way to do things.
34:30
And fortunately, there are less and less of them.
34:32
And I think that they didn't particularly engage and as a
34:36
result they didn't get the benefits of their colleagues are
34:38
getting, which is it's a shame for them really because this is
34:41
all driven by technologies that we didn't previously have.
34:44
I mean, that's really ultimately I'm mainly thinking our thinking
34:48
is involved, but it's enabled by the technologies of the likes of
34:51
demand makes and similar systems.
34:53
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and and I've seen it in
34:56
real time. I've sat in on on customers
34:59
sales and marketing meetings or just sales meetings where
35:02
there's the three or four champions who are utilizing the
35:04
stuff today and you're having a facing with them and
35:07
understanding I'm going to go and do this.
35:09
I'm bargained to this company because they've done XY and Z
35:12
showed this in I they came to our website and saw that and
35:15
they're at this stage in the bio jet and others sitting there
35:17
going why can't I have that information?
35:19
So it really they find your champions and then they'll help
35:23
you internally. So yeah, again, really good
35:25
advice. Thank you.
35:26
It sounds like cloud I'll get it right eventually.
35:28
Cloud pay. I'm having a great, a great time
35:31
and, and things are going in the right direction, but we know and
35:34
the economic climate is pretty challenging right now and, and
35:37
for some, you know, resources and budgets are limited.
35:40
How can you get going if you have those, You know those
35:43
restrictions today? So I'm sorry, I was saying that
35:46
we're pretty fortunate at Cloud pay, but within reason we get
35:51
the resources that we asked for. And one of the reasons that we
35:53
get them is because oil is reasonable in what we asked for.
35:56
So we've been fortunate in that from that perspective.
35:58
But I think that my realization that we need to change from the
36:04
net fishing approach to the steer fishing approach was
36:07
driven at least in part by the fact that if we wanted to
36:10
continue to grow 30 percent, 30%, you know, the the compound
36:13
effect of that, it gets bigger and bigger.
36:15
But the net fishing approach just isn't scalable.
36:19
You can't just keep going off and asking for more and more
36:21
more money because you get diminishing returns.
36:24
You can't just put real money into Greenwood Search and think
36:27
you're going to get a commensurate amount more needs.
36:31
You've got to be more thoughtful and more intentional and more
36:33
scientific about it so you know if there are people or no doubt
36:36
there are, we will have other constraints to grace or less as
36:39
agree. My view would be you're far
36:41
better targeting an agreed set of prospects for customers with
36:46
your sales guys and you are spatting out load of marketing
36:50
and hoping good stuff comes back because the tools are they, you
36:53
know, even simple things like LinkedIn, you're targeting
36:56
algorithms are pretty good. Now they're not as good as we'd
36:58
like them to be for reasons that are obvious, but as marketers,
37:01
but you know, they're pretty good.
37:03
Connect syndication really works for us.
37:05
Even e-mail, not in its own right, but as a means to an end
37:08
of inviting people to webinars or to events and so on.
37:11
All these tools are now pretty much for precise as they were
37:15
even a few years ago. So I would encourage people to,
37:18
particularly if you're in B to B as we are for large enterprises
37:23
and you don't need to win that many enterprises in a year to
37:26
hit your number. It's you're in B to B like very
37:28
small businesses, one to five employees, that's probably a
37:30
little bit different and you wouldn't use ABM or ABX
37:33
techniques for that group. Again, and really, really good
37:36
points and it's funny actually because I have more and more
37:39
conversations with sales leaders these days around A/B MABX and
37:42
of course those acronyms make make them initially think that's
37:46
not for us, that's a marketing play.
37:47
But actually what you've just described then you know the
37:50
ability to help marketing ensure that everything they give you is
37:54
stuff that's relevant for your sales team.
37:56
But close more. All of us starting well also
37:59
want that from a sales leadership perspective.
38:00
Help Me is definitely a change we've seen over the last
38:04
probably 18 months actually it's it's interesting, but sales are
38:07
now demanding this as much as marketing are.
38:09
They are interesting you when we were going, when we were
38:12
thinking about how we managed to change and the tradition that
38:14
we're talking about especially to sales people, we did at one
38:18
point and it never really latched on, but we did at one
38:20
point rename account. Account based selling for the
38:23
very reason that you're talking about is like sales people will
38:26
say, OK, we're doing account based selling, which is
38:28
targeting a particular account based on their merits.
38:31
And both sales and marketing and BDR strictly targeting it simply
38:34
to get to try and remove the notion that this is something
38:37
that marketing is doing. And I think even the word ABX
38:41
helps because it's not a cat makes marketing.
38:43
And we sort of so name. I think, you know, significant
38:47
things that things like that are more significant than they can
38:50
see. And like, for example, I
38:51
remember presenting at the sales kick off about how this new
38:54
system was going to work and it was positioned by me.
38:57
And I think this is it's not untruthful that that the purpose
39:00
of account based marketing and, and, and ABX is to put the
39:04
salesperson in the driving seat. It's the sales person that
39:07
chooses their list of customers that you want us to target
39:11
rather than us deciding for ourselves.
39:12
And you get what we give you. It's the salesperson that can go
39:15
on to demand base and see those customers or prospects who are
39:19
responding to the marketing and then work with the BDR to build
39:22
an outreach plan. And it's the salesperson that
39:24
decides where they're putting their own time in terms of
39:26
developing it. So, you know, in a sense, I
39:28
don't know why whoever, whoever invented ABM was a genius.
39:32
We all called it AB Campus marketing.
39:35
There's not so much. No very very rare point and I've
39:38
heard ABM has turned into ABX and GTM.
39:43
Revenue. Revenue ups, all sorts of
39:45
different things. I think that the latest one I
39:48
heard is BGM by a group marketing, whatever we call it.
39:51
I think if you're, if you're not doing it that way, I think
39:53
you're missing a trick in the B2B1.
39:55
I normally at this stage, Nick, I, I would ask you to look back
39:59
over the years and share an example of a successful
40:02
transformation you've done. But you've just spent over 2530
40:05
minutes talking about a fantastic transformation you've
40:08
had at cloud pace. I don't know if there's anything
40:10
else you could add to that. I mean, I would just say that in
40:13
this, you know, I would say that I've given the transformation
40:17
the the intellectual contribution about how we should
40:20
do things better has come from a number of people.
40:23
Hopefully the list of this, they know who they are, some of the
40:25
sales managers and the sales people, some of the marketing
40:28
managers, some were marketing people.
40:30
We've used a couple of, excuse me, really good agencies as an
40:33
agency called Modern who we've used a fair bit for a number of
40:37
things. And they were a lot of the
40:39
thinking that went into this came from them.
40:41
So I think that I get the advantages that I come and sit
40:44
on a call for an hour or so and explain what a brilliant job
40:47
I've done. But actually it's not true at
40:49
all. I perhaps provided the
40:50
environment where other people don't bring the job.
40:52
Certainly all the thinking didn't come from me.
40:54
And it takes, it does say it's a horrible tripe phrase, but it
40:58
does take a village to bring something like this into being.
41:01
There were times when I was exasperated that we we were
41:04
getting resistance to what we were trying to do, which didn't
41:06
seem obstacle to me. But we're there now.
41:08
So that'd be one thing. The second thing that our signs
41:10
become conscious of is that now we've established this way of
41:14
working the speaks is successful.
41:16
The danger for for us and maybe for me as an individual is that
41:19
is that I come complacent. So the next thing is what now AI
41:23
is an obvious route for us to start making use of it.
41:25
But like, do we need to change the ICP?
41:27
Do we need to change the way we operate?
41:29
So otherwise I'll become the guy that's rooted in 1990.
41:33
Seven, yeah, absolutely. And I think that evolution is
41:36
important and and you hit the nail on the head.
41:38
It's it's the collaboration between the different parts of
41:41
the business. If, if there's any one of those
41:43
that isn't involved, it doesn't work.
41:45
So yeah, really a really good way of describing it there.
41:48
So looking forward then, so the market we're in is constantly
41:51
evolving. As you look to the future, there
41:53
are any trends or innovation, do you think that's going to shape
41:56
what happens next in the A/B MABXGTM, whatever we call it,
42:00
strategies I. Think how we use AI is I think
42:03
that we as marketing leaders need to to put our minds to
42:08
there's you know, some of them are obvious things.
42:09
He's using ChatGPT to help you write a copy whatever many of us
42:14
already do it. I saw a couple of presentations
42:17
early on in the year and I forget the name of a marketing
42:19
guy and he has his team using AI to do stuff that's miles ahead
42:23
of what we're doing. So I think that I need to put my
42:27
mind to and my teams might how we make better use of AI and
42:31
we're using a lot, but we're using it to do things, but we
42:35
already do better and more efficiently rather than to do
42:38
new things. And I think that's what the
42:39
opportunity will lie. But I'm not clear to it's not
42:42
clear to me what those things are now.
42:43
That's probably the most obvious one.
42:46
And the other thing is that the start affects me now is the
42:49
certain percent year on year thing starts to hit is how
42:52
upwardly scalable is ABM ABX? Because the point of it is that
42:57
you narrow down on a smaller group of 7% of prospects you
43:01
want target and as your desire to grow and maybe a number of
43:05
salespeople you need support grows, at what point does it
43:07
just to become mass marketing that you happen to be calling
43:11
ABS? That's something that we're
43:12
trying to put our minds to about how do we maintain the
43:15
exclusivity that couples with ABM and ABS and the white glove
43:18
treatment for ABM in particular at scale?
43:21
Because it's I don't, it's let's me slightly captitutive.
43:25
If anybody's listening to this as they alter them, I'd love to
43:28
hear from them because I don't have it yet.
43:30
And that is a really interesting topic and that, you know, a lot
43:32
of the technologies allow you to purse is by industry by, yeah,
43:37
Egypt. So is that sufficient as you
43:40
scale it up or does it need more?
43:41
But yeah, interesting to see where it goes.
43:42
And AI, yeah, I mean, as you know, Demand base has got a load
43:45
of AI agents now. Glass is focused on one of those
43:49
time consuming, manually intensive tasks that take
43:52
marketers away from doing marketing.
43:54
Let's AI to do that. And I think that's really
43:56
effective. So we've seen very news.
43:58
But yeah, AI is, is here to stay.
44:01
And we'll all start utilizing in the right ways as time comes on,
44:04
I'm sure. So you sound like someone who
44:07
consumed lots of content and books and all that sort of
44:10
stuff. So there any book, blog,
44:12
newsletter, podcast you'd recommend our listeners should
44:15
look out for? Obviously on base,
44:18
disappointingly, because I I saw that you're going to ask me this
44:21
question in the briefing. The answer's no.
44:23
If you change a question, say, well, how do you learn on stuff?
44:27
The answer is I learned from other people.
44:29
So previously just said just now that the idea is that generated
44:33
that came to this go to market model that we now have came from
44:36
a diversity of people within our own organization and actually
44:39
some external agencies. I do like to speak to agencies
44:42
regularly. Some of the questions you're
44:43
asking me, how do you think we should be using AAI and most
44:46
agencies, marketing related agencies, I have to have a chat
44:50
and no commitments and so that's probably how I learned so from
44:54
colleagues and from external agencies.
44:56
Perhaps I need to do a bit more reading than I do, but it's it's
45:01
time consuming. I put you and I in the old
45:04
school. Nothing to do with age, by the
45:06
way. You.
45:07
Still can't get better than speaking to someone face to face
45:10
or on the phone or like we are now.
45:12
So I agree Nick, you've been an awesome guest and I'm going to
45:15
be, I think fair to say we should definitely look at doing
45:19
a follow up because what you've given us is some really good
45:21
real world scenarios and I'm sure there's room for a follow
45:24
up session. But right now I'm going to be
45:26
cheeky and asked if I can could you share the names of any
45:29
inspirational people in the bTB space you recommend and we
45:32
should have as future guests? Oh gosh, you're able to do this
45:34
on camera Be. You don't have to.
45:37
So Kate Cox from she she runs an agency called Brayleno.
45:42
So remarkable individuals should be an obvious one.
45:45
Probably the CRO here at Cloudplay, Tim Johnson
45:48
perspective on some of the work we're doing and no doubt he'd
45:51
have a different, but although hopefully related perspective.
45:54
So there are a few others that Andy McFarlane, he's an old boss
45:58
of mine. He now lives in Australia, so
45:59
you might have to deal with the time differences, but he's a
46:03
very about marketer and a fantastic boss without.
46:06
There's a few others I'll have to dress through through my ever
46:09
lengthening memory to give you some names of people who I think
46:12
you should talk to. That's great.
46:13
And I think from memory I don't think.
46:15
They've had any of those guests on, so that as definitely
46:17
something we'll begin to. So I think you've probably
46:19
opened up lots of questions from the audience.
46:22
So if you're happy to, how would people be able to get in touch
46:25
with you after this? Oh goodness.
46:26
Well, so first thing, I'm happy to do a.
46:28
Follow up, maybe based on some of the questions that we get
46:31
more probably the best way to contact me, at least initially
46:34
is through LinkedIn. If people have any questions or
46:36
ideas or anything, you know, I'm always open to discussions.
46:40
We all have plenty to learn and it's been a learning journey for
46:43
me going through what we just talked about.
46:45
So I'm always happy to have the right conversations with people.
46:49
That's great. Well, Nick, thank you very.
46:51
Much. That was a great session.
46:53
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and I hope the listeners
46:56
found that very interesting. Lots of great information on
46:58
that one. If you've joined this episode,
47:00
don't forget there's nearly 600 other episodes out there in the
47:03
series, so make sure you check them out.
47:05
But for now, thanks again, Nick. Thanks everyone for listening.
47:07
Until next time, Cheerio, thanks for joining us for.
47:12
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