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What Contemporary CMOing and Feeding Teenage Boys Have In Common · Sales Pipeline Radio

• 0:16
  Matt Heinz: All right.
• 0:16
  Here we are.
• 0:17
  We are live on the Forrester B2B Summit Marketplace floor another
• 0:21
  episode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
• 0:23
  Thank you again to Forrester for making this possible.
• 0:25
  We've been having a lot of fun, but I gotta be honest, this I already think
• 0:28
  might be our best episode of the day.
• 0:30
  I mean, no offense to everybody that has been on to date, which has been amazing.
• 0:35
  Kate Long: But I don't know who else was here, but
• 0:36
  let's do it.
• 0:37
  It wasn't you, the That's exactly right.
• 0:40
  Matt Heinz: All right, so just to set the table, we're gonna talk about modern
• 0:43
  CM Oing, and this is not scripted.
• 0:45
  We don't know where this is gonna go.
• 0:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 0:47
  Very excited to have Veena Vadgama, fractional CMO to the Stars.
• 0:51
  Veena, thank you for being here.
• 0:53
  Thank you.
• 0:53
  And Kate Long, also CMO to the Stars.
• 0:56
  Yes.
• 0:56
  Currently, running marketing at Crunchbase.
• 0:58
  Kate Long: Thanks for having me.
• 0:59
  Matt Heinz: I'm really glad you're both here.
• 1:01
  We were gonna do these separately, and then Veena got hungry and then
• 1:04
  you came early and we're like, hungry.
• 1:05
  Let's all get, let's all get, eating is
• 1:07
  Kate Long: fine.
• 1:08
  You gotta like this.
• 1:08
  Matt Heinz: It's one thing I didn't plan.
• 1:10
  I had this whole schedule of, we're gonna do these episodes when it's busy in here.
• 1:14
  And it's busy when there's lunch.
• 1:15
  But guess what?
• 1:16
  You don't get to do if you're doing shows during lunch, eat lunch.
• 1:18
  Veena Vadgama: But lunch starts at 12:45.
• 1:20
  That's not lunch time.
• 1:21
  That's time.
• 1:21
  That's snack time.
• 1:22
  No, that's why that's too late for That's Pacific time.
• 1:24
  Like Uhuh, my stomach was like, what's going on?
• 1:27
  Matt Heinz: It's too late for lunch.
• 1:28
  Like this is snack, but they be like second breakfast.
• 1:30
  You just need to work on the mealtime check.
• 1:32
  So that's breakfast
• 1:33
  Kate Long: my boys have.
• 1:34
  Two of each.
• 1:36
  First and second breakfast, first and second dinner, lunch.
• 1:39
  I don't know.
• 1:39
  They're on their own at school and like, how old are your boys?
• 1:42
  They're all teenagers.
• 1:43
  Yeah.
• 1:43
  See, there you go.
• 1:43
  Yeah.
• 1:44
  Matt Heinz: My oldest, just turned 14 and he is now getting to the
• 1:46
  point where he is eating everything.
• 1:48
  Yes.
• 1:48
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:49
  Yes.
• 1:49
  And by everything I mostly just mean carbs and processed food.
• 1:52
  Veena Vadgama: Yes.
• 1:53
  How they can do that.
• 1:54
  Yeah.
• 1:54
  Matt Heinz: There's one aisle at Costco that feeds my children.
• 1:56
  I don't know how they stay alive.
• 1:57
  My god.
• 1:57
  I don't wanna see what their inside look like at this place.
• 1:59
  That is amazing.
• 2:00
  That's pretty much.
• 2:01
  That's pretty much it.
• 2:01
  Kate Long: Maybe you can have the CMO of Costco on next.
• 2:05
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 2:05
  But as you both know, there's a parenting channel in CMO Coffee Talk.
• 2:08
  There's a sandwich parenting group.
• 2:10
  Oh, I about that.
• 2:11
  Which is about, and think about sandwich parenting is when you're parenting your
• 2:13
  kids is starting to parent your parents.
• 2:16
  Veena Vadgama: Yeah.
• 2:16
  Yeah.
• 2:16
  I'm in sandwich parenting.
• 2:18
  I'll join that.
• 2:18
  Matt Heinz: So let's talk about that then.
• 2:20
  Veena Vadgama: Yeah, sure.
• 2:20
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 2:20
  We can talk about all these things.
• 2:21
  So, modern CM Oing, I don't even know what that means.
• 2:24
  I kind of made it up.
• 2:25
  Either of you have an idea.
• 2:26
  What if you think modern CMO do you wince?
• 2:28
  A little bit.
• 2:31
  Veena Vadgama: I'll say something.
• 2:32
  So.
• 2:34
  Matt and I were talking about our oldest kids looking at colleges and I was looking
• 2:38
  at a college yesterday in Dallas with him.
• 2:40
  Oh, nice.
• 2:40
  He's looking at business.
• 2:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:42
  And one of the majors is marketing and oh my God, is it data driven?
• 2:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:46
  Right.
• 2:46
  In terms of what they're teaching them, supply chain analytics, just
• 2:50
  all the data processing, all the marketing operations side of it.
• 2:54
  I went to business school a long time ago.
• 2:56
  It wasn't about all of this stuff.
• 2:57
  Yeah.
• 2:57
  So I think modern CMOing, and as you're seeing here at Forrester,
• 3:00
  it is all about the data sets and how do you put all that together.
• 3:04
  And that's changed, right?
• 3:05
  Yeah.
• 3:05
  In the last 10, 15 years, there was a session I just left it was
• 3:08
  called MQL is Dead, and it was supposed to be with some speakers.
• 3:11
  It was a packed room.
• 3:13
  Oh sure.
• 3:13
  And the guy was like, how many of y'all still use MQLs?
• 3:15
  And everybody raised their hand.
• 3:16
  Sure.
• 3:17
  He's like, yeah.
• 3:17
  So it's a nice idea, but we're still kind of stuck in this way.
• 3:20
  So I guess modern CM Oing is finally trying to get past that.
• 3:23
  What do you think?
• 3:24
  Kate Long: Well, I sort of have two thoughts.
• 3:26
  One is I used a term last week on CMO Coffee Talk that apparently
• 3:31
  everyone didn't know, which was about keeping your knees bent.
• 3:34
  Veena Vadgama: Oh, you were the one
• 3:35
  Kate Long: That was me.
• 3:36
  I remember that.
• 3:37
  Which essentially it means remaining agile.
• 3:40
  Right?
• 3:41
  It was a basketball thing you played, right?
• 3:42
  Yeah, it was Right, exactly.
• 3:43
  Otherwise.
• 3:43
  How are you gonna play defense if your knees aren't bent?
• 3:45
  Matt Heinz: That confused a lot of people.
• 3:47
  Kate Long: I didn't mean to.
• 3:48
  Yeah.
• 3:48
  So I love it.
• 3:49
  So bad way to characterize it, but I think agility.
• 3:53
  Yeah.
• 3:54
  So I was just commenting, I was meeting with somebody over in the 6sense, lounge.
• 3:58
  And, I was talking about, so I just recently took this role at Crunchbase
• 4:03
  and I actually was in the direct to consumer space for two years before that.
• 4:07
  And then before that I was in B2B.
• 4:09
  So I haven't been to Forrester in a few years.
• 4:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 4:12
  And I haven't used the traditional B2B tool set in a few years.
• 4:17
  It is night and day from 2022.
• 4:21
  I am having conversations with these reps from these companies thinking I know
• 4:25
  what they do, but I don't anymore because everybody's integrated AI and everybody's
• 4:30
  talking to everybody else and well, everybody's using the same buzzwords.
• 4:34
  And so I think there's something about just always needing to be learning and
• 4:39
  open and agile because it's changing faster than any one of us I think would've
• 4:44
  ever expected when we got started.
• 4:46
  Veena Vadgama: Yeah, and it's the marketing operations hire now.
• 4:49
  Yes.
• 4:49
  Is one of the most critical, right, when you're first starting in a group.
• 4:53
  And also I have been in orgs that they're so over rotated on the tools
• 4:58
  and the measuring that they can't make heads or tails out of anything.
• 5:01
  'cause it's just like, you don't get fired for getting IBM.
• 5:04
  It's like you don't get fired for putting in a bunch of tools.
• 5:06
  Right.
• 5:06
  And having a bunch of metrics.
• 5:07
  Well, yeah, you do.
• 5:08
  Kate Long: Even if they don't talk to each other.
• 5:10
  Exactly.
• 5:10
  And they're not delivering ROI Yeah.
• 5:13
  Veena Vadgama: Kind of gluttonous.
• 5:14
  Matt Heinz: So, you mentioned Veena, you mentioned data sets and back to those
• 5:17
  of us that have been around for a while, the corner of the realm in marketing
• 5:20
  has always been, how much budget do you have and how much media can you buy?
• 5:22
  And, where are you putting your ads and how many of those ads are generating MQLs,
• 5:26
  well increasingly the data is replacing that media spend as the coin of the realm.
• 5:31
  Like the better data you have, the more likely you could actually orchestrate the
• 5:35
  right behaviors and campaigns independent of how much money you spend on media.
• 5:41
  Veena Vadgama: Well, I'll say that.
• 5:42
  My sweet spot from, fractional marketing, whatever I've been doing
• 5:44
  for two years now it's all B2B SaaS, less than 10 million in revenue.
• 5:49
  Right.
• 5:50
  So we are forced to start with the end in mind.
• 5:53
  Yeah.
• 5:53
  'cause you have such a small budget, you have very little runway.
• 5:57
  So we do focus on that data.
• 5:59
  I think we're very good at it in our space, because we don't have a choice.
• 6:02
  We have to look at the average sales.
• 6:04
  We have to look at the ICP.
• 6:06
  We have to work backwards from what's our target for the next couple of quarters.
• 6:10
  And then we decide our spend based on that.
• 6:12
  Right.
• 6:12
  So that's the one luxury I think when you work in a smaller, little world.
• 6:17
  Yeah.
• 6:17
  You there's a lot more connection.
• 6:19
  Kate Long: Yeah.
• 6:19
  Yeah.
• 6:20
  Yeah.
• 6:20
  And I think, the other thing too is that right now at Crunchbase
• 6:24
  we're starting to evolve our model.
• 6:27
  We started out very much as a PLG organization.
• 6:30
  We still have that, but now we're moving into direct sales.
• 6:32
  And really selling data into the enterprise.
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  So we have a lot of data right now, but it works for the old model.
• 6:40
  And so a huge part of my job is figuring out what data do we have.
• 6:46
  And how can it be used for the new model and where are our gaps?
• 6:49
  How do I augment it?
• 6:51
  Because we're not a under $10 million company, but we still have
• 6:56
  to make sure we're landing the right leads with the right rep.
• 7:00
  None of this big fancy B2C spend.
• 7:02
  Right.
• 7:03
  Veena Vadgama: Kate, I'm curious, what's your process for looking
• 7:04
  at that tool or that data set and determining how valid it is.
• 7:08
  Kate Long: Right.
• 7:08
  And so what I'm trying to do, I'm starting with the end in mind.
• 7:12
  There was a session that happened earlier in one of the tracks about,
• 7:16
  the CMO and the B2B marketing or really being a driver of growth.
• 7:20
  And I know I joined Crunchbase with that as my primary mandate.
• 7:24
  And so it's essentially going, okay, here's our growth target.
• 7:29
  We're working on our account list.
• 7:31
  Now, what kind of data do we need to be able to get those account lists Right.
• 7:37
  And start talking to them.
• 7:38
  And one of the things, for example, that we know we need to work on
• 7:41
  is, our existing customer base.
• 7:43
  So we have a ton of data, from people who use the platform, but we
• 7:48
  haven't done anything with it to then feed into the direct sales model.
• 7:52
  Interesting.
• 7:52
  And so some of it is about figuring out how are we hitting those
• 7:55
  growth metrics and some of it's about the lowest hanging fruit.
• 7:58
  Yes.
• 7:58
  That's right in front of you.
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  I don't wanna spend on something crazy external if there's actually a lot we can
• 8:03
  do internally to get the ball rolling.
• 8:05
  Veena Vadgama: You know, on Coffee Talk we've had April Dunford speak
• 8:08
  a few times I think she's amazing.
• 8:10
  Right?
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  So she talks about these happy customers mm-hmm.
• 8:12
  And being able to work from that.
• 8:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 8:14
  So it kind of sounds like that's what you're thinking about as well.
• 8:17
  Kate Long: Yeah.
• 8:17
  Veena Vadgama: Yeah.
• 8:17
  Kate Long: Yeah.
• 8:18
  I think that's a good way to characterize it.
• 8:19
  Veena Vadgama: I like that.
• 8:20
  Kate Long: Yeah.
• 8:20
  Matt Heinz: Guys, there's a booth across from us here, Kate, I don't know if you
• 8:23
  can see it, but Veena, you can see it.
• 8:24
  They have puppies.
• 8:25
  They have puppies.
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  There's puppies in the booth.
• 8:26
  Veena Vadgama: I'm gonna give credit to Lead2Pipeline.
• 8:29
  Shout out to Lead2Pipeline.
• 8:29
  I can't.
• 8:31
  So there's a therapy dog right here that I've been wanting to go pet.
• 8:34
  Cute.
• 8:34
  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  But no, I can't see them.
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  Pipelines got quite the crowd, ladies and gentlemen.
• 8:39
  Yeah.
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  Because of the, puppies.
• 8:41
  Adorable puppies I can't That
• 8:42
  Kate Long: is brilliant.
• 8:42
  Blame them.
• 8:43
  Matt Heinz: Um, oh man.
• 8:44
  When you do a show like this, we've all been around long enough, you've
• 8:47
  done a billion of these shows.
• 8:48
  As much as we joke about it, that's pretty brilliant, right?
• 8:50
  Like we're putting puppies in your, because we're sitting
• 8:52
  here talking about pipeline.
• 8:54
  Veena Vadgama: Now's a conversation they must have had.
• 8:55
  Yeah.
• 8:55
  And
• 8:55
  then they have a video.
• 8:57
  In their booth that's showing all these puppies playing.
• 9:01
  I wonder if it's connected to an adoption agency that's local.
• 9:04
  Wouldn't that be cool?
• 9:05
  Well, it says
• 9:05
  Matt Heinz: puppy adoption.
• 9:07
  Veena Vadgama: It's, it's a puppy adoption.
• 9:09
  Wanna talk of that?
• 9:09
  So now Kate's
• 9:09
  Matt Heinz: really thinking about this.
• 9:11
  Yeah.
• 9:11
  Look at that little thing.
• 9:12
  Anyway, yeah.
• 9:13
  Way off topic.
• 9:14
  Yeah.
• 9:14
  All right.
• 9:14
  So I dunno how you pivot to that from team management, but we're gonna mm-hmm.
• 9:18
  When you come in as a new CMO, so you're new at Crunchbase, you inherit
• 9:22
  a team, you inherit a group of peers.
• 9:25
  How do you start to build trust and credibility coming in cold?
• 9:28
  Kate Long: Oh gosh.
• 9:30
  That's always hard to do.
• 9:31
  We happen to be a fully remote company, so I personally find it even harder.
• 9:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 9:36
  I really love getting to know a whole person mm-hmm.
• 9:42
  And understanding what they're all about.
• 9:45
  I guess in front of the screen and off screen too.
• 9:47
  Yeah, because there's no longer that divide.
• 9:50
  And that's, harder to do, remotely.
• 9:52
  So typically, I'll start by just being really open and authentic
• 9:57
  and honest about who I am.
• 9:59
  And when I do that, it tends to engender like a similar response.
• 10:03
  Yeah.
• 10:04
  As quickly as I possibly can, I make sure I'm just getting one-on-ones with
• 10:07
  everyone and I treat those one-on-ones.
• 10:10
  Much more like a getting to know you than about a, give me the laundry list
• 10:14
  of what you're working on kind of thing.
• 10:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:16
  And then, I took the opportunity just being here at Forrester.
• 10:19
  I brought four people from my team who we are spread out all over the
• 10:21
  country as a really great opportunity for us to spend time together.
• 10:25
  Yes.
• 10:25
  For them to start to learn more in service of this new direct sales
• 10:29
  model we're gonna be rolling out.
• 10:31
  So it's not a playbook, it's just little bits and pieces of here and there.
• 10:35
  And I think some of it depends on what you're walking into.
• 10:37
  If you're walking into a situation like me where they haven't had a leader for
• 10:40
  a little bit, yeah, it's all roses.
• 10:42
  'cause everybody's excited to have a leader.
• 10:44
  If you're walking into a situation where someone's been
• 10:47
  ousted, that is a whole nother
• 10:49
  . Matt Heinz: yeah.
• 10:49
  You say no playbook, but you just walked through a bunch of steps
• 10:52
  that I think that's a playbook.
• 10:53
  Kate Long: Okay.
• 10:53
  I don't have it written down.
• 10:54
  Matt Heinz: Like a checklist is a playbook.
• 10:56
  Right.
• 10:56
  Fair enough.
• 10:56
  Are looking something glossy.
• 10:57
  Just it's fancy.
• 10:59
  Just in my, no, she just
• 11:00
  Veena Vadgama: knows her steps.
• 11:00
  Yeah.
• 11:01
  Matt Heinz: So, Veena, I'm curious from your perspective as a fractional
• 11:04
  CMO and not necessarily with, I mean, the question for you is not
• 11:07
  with your team, but with your peers.
• 11:10
  What are the nuances of building trust and credibility with your leadership
• 11:14
  team peers when you are fractional.
• 11:16
  Veena Vadgama: Yeah.
• 11:17
  One of the benefits about being fractional is that you do have a limited time, right?
• 11:22
  Yeah.
• 11:22
  With the leadership team.
• 11:23
  So you have to get in, get the work done, and get out.
• 11:26
  So when I'm managing a team full time, just like Kate said, I bring in the user
• 11:31
  manuals, I discuss what's, what making you tick, why are you taking this job?
• 11:34
  Are you trying to get a paycheck?
• 11:36
  Are you trying to move in your career?
• 11:37
  So I try to really get to know 'em when you're at a fractional level,
• 11:41
  they brought you in to solve a problem.
• 11:43
  Yeah.
• 11:43
  And so you don't spend a lot of time on that stuff.
• 11:45
  And sometimes it's nice 'cause you just have to focus on getting the work done.
• 11:48
  But, it's also why fractional work is usually temporary.
• 11:50
  Right.
• 11:51
  Not long term.
• 11:51
  Because once you've got the problem solved or the problem underway, you do exit.
• 11:55
  You're not building those sort of long-term relationships as much
• 11:58
  as you would be if it's full time.
• 11:59
  Kate Long: Do you find that difficult?
• 12:00
  How long is a typical engagement that you have, and if these people are key
• 12:04
  to solving that problem, but you don't have the time to, establish that.
• 12:08
  Veena Vadgama: Yeah, so where we work at 5 1 2 Financial, we've had, three
• 12:12
  models that we bring in and, mostly our engagements are between six months.
• 12:16
  And above.
• 12:17
  Okay.
• 12:17
  So we've had one client for one and a half years, for example.
• 12:20
  Okay.
• 12:20
  So we'll come in and I'll just manage their internal marketing team.
• 12:23
  So those are all full-timers, but I'm managing them part-time.
• 12:27
  In that scenario, I do get to know them because they're there full-time.
• 12:30
  I wanna make sure that they're motivated and they're happy and it's all going well.
• 12:33
  Sometimes I'll bring in my part-time marketing executors on top of strategy.
• 12:38
  And so I know my team, so we all have that, nice little bond already.
• 12:42
  And then sometimes I'm just in trying to solve a problem.
• 12:44
  Yeah.
• 12:45
  And in those situations, get in and get out.
• 12:48
  Matt Heinz: You mentioned Veena earlier, this concept of product market fit.
• 12:51
  I'm not doing a very nice job transitioning.
• 12:52
  We're just gonna go there.
• 12:53
  I love it.
• 12:54
  I don't think a lot of people think about that.
• 12:56
  Veena Vadgama: Oh, that's because they haven't had the problem.
• 12:58
  I bet, you have that problem.
• 13:00
  That's all you think about.
• 13:01
  You know, it's not that easy.
• 13:03
  Matt Heinz: It's really not that easy.
• 13:04
  And I think like if you go to a sales team and say, what do you need?
• 13:07
  Many of them are gonna say, I need leads.
• 13:09
  It's like, no you don't.
• 13:10
  Leads is a manifestation of a market that demands what you're selling.
• 13:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:14
  Right?
• 13:15
  So if the market understands and covets the solution you have,
• 13:19
  that solves the problem they have.
• 13:20
  That's it.
• 13:20
  That's a version of product market fit.
• 13:23
  So if we can nail product market fit, I'm not saying that you
• 13:26
  build that, they will come.
• 13:26
  I'm not saying like if you nail that, everyone's gonna come to your doorstep,
• 13:30
  but the response will be better, your conversion rates will be higher,
• 13:34
  your sales cycle will be shorter.
• 13:36
  Yeah.
• 13:37
  So if you tell a sales team, if you're gonna call someone and say what you
• 13:40
  represent, you want a market that's like, oh hell yeah, I have that problem.
• 13:43
  I wanna solve for that.
• 13:44
  Right.
• 13:45
  But easier said than done.
• 13:47
  Yeah.
• 13:47
  And so in the conversations we have, most people come and just say, we need to
• 13:50
  build demand, we need to build pipeline.
• 13:53
  But there isn't necessarily even a documented product market fit that tells
• 13:58
  me that they're actually onto something.
• 14:00
  Veena Vadgama: Yeah, one of the things I've noticed with my clients is that,
• 14:03
  there's a lot of smaller, B2B, 2 million, 4 million revenue companies that are
• 14:08
  struggling with product market fit.
• 14:10
  And so they'll go to a Gartner and a Forrester, I'm not trying to,
• 14:12
  discount where we are today, but they'll go to Forrester and be like,
• 14:15
  I'm gonna sign a massive, multi-year engagement so you guys can help me
• 14:18
  with my product market fit problem.
• 14:19
  Will these analyst firms.
• 14:21
  They work on mature markets.
• 14:23
  Yeah.
• 14:23
  Majority of the time.
• 14:25
  So to have a mature market person come in and help you establish product
• 14:29
  market fit, when you have an innovative new, nobody knows this thing exists.
• 14:33
  Like one of my clients, the CEO, was like, we compete with Excel
• 14:36
  and our price point is $50,000.
• 14:38
  I'm like, well, we're gonna have a hard time explaining to
• 14:40
  people that they can get Excel or they can get this for $50,000.
• 14:44
  So you have to really work on that.
• 14:46
  And I think product market fits is an all day, all night problem.
• 14:49
  A lot of people just hire demand gen 'cause they think
• 14:51
  that's what all they need.
• 14:52
  And I'm like, Nope, product marketing is gonna help you get
• 14:55
  that demand gen thing started.
• 14:57
  Kate Long: Yeah.
• 14:57
  And I'm curious if either of you have seen this, I think we're starting
• 15:01
  to see a little bit of a correction.
• 15:04
  I'm starting to see a little more out there.
• 15:08
  In support of brand and product marketing is sort of the understanding that
• 15:12
  these are like long-term demand plays.
• 15:15
  It's still all about demand.
• 15:16
  You still need to generate the demand, but these are the long-term plays
• 15:20
  and they're not necessarily gonna be the thing you can automatically
• 15:23
  translate into an MQL, right?
• 15:26
  But they're going to be the things that smooth the glide path for
• 15:30
  that sales conversation so that the sales person isn't taking an
• 15:35
  hour to explain who you are, what you do, why you're worth of value.
• 15:39
  Right?
• 15:40
  It's the kind of things that have people keep you in their mind.
• 15:43
  If they're not ready to buy now, they're ready to buy in six months or a year.
• 15:48
  And of course that's harder to measure and everybody needs to see
• 15:51
  those results today, today, today.
• 15:53
  But I think we're learning that those results are really
• 15:56
  like short term in nature.
• 15:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:58
  So I feel like I'm starting to see a little bit more out there that's
• 16:02
  a correction back, but I guess what I would say is, 'cause I was just on
• 16:05
  the job market, I felt like I started seeing more brand focused positions.
• 16:10
  I started seeing a little more words like positioning right?
• 16:14
  Like out there.
• 16:16
  Yeah.
• 16:16
  Matt Heinz: I want that to be true.
• 16:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:18
  And I know that there are some companies that are doing that.
• 16:20
  Even in the B2B space, I'm seeing companies do everything from just
• 16:24
  investing more in their communities, investing more in customer advisory
• 16:27
  boards, investing in even sort of activations beyond just, the
• 16:31
  normal things in their industry.
• 16:32
  Like Smartsheet has been heavily into Formula One.
• 16:35
  Yeah.
• 16:35
  You've got a lot of, B2B brands that are heavily into sports and
• 16:38
  golf and tennis and other things.
• 16:40
  Yeah.
• 16:40
  Where it's not just about having someone's logo on your sleeve,
• 16:42
  it's the activation around that.
• 16:43
  Right.
• 16:43
  It's getting a golfer to come do putting lessons for your customers, right?
• 16:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:47
  I mean, you could argue some of those are lead gen related, but
• 16:49
  that investment in the logo on someone's car, that's brand right?
• 16:52
  And that's a brand activation.
• 16:54
  You can't measure that purely on pipeline, right?
• 16:56
  My eyebrow went up because I think everyone wants that.
• 17:00
  But when it comes down to it, when it comes down to how much you spend on
• 17:03
  that, like even just in the half day we've been doing this session here, I've
• 17:06
  had my, oh man, that's a great idea.
• 17:08
  We should have like a podcast booth.
• 17:09
  Well, this isn't free, right?
• 17:11
  You gotta spend money on the space and the equipment and everything else.
• 17:13
  And it's not crazy expensive, but.
• 17:15
  A dollar for dollar on that when you've got a board or leadership team
• 17:18
  saying like, how much pipeline did we get out of every dollar we spent?
• 17:22
  I think when the rubber meets the road, people just want pipeline.
• 17:25
  We can argue this forever, that you know why that balance should exist and yet
• 17:29
  the reality is it's still pretty Yeah.
• 17:32
  Unbalanced.
• 17:32
  Yeah.
• 17:33
  Veena Vadgama: Well, you can do anything with your budget.
• 17:36
  If you can explain to the board how it added to the bottom line.
• 17:39
  Yeah.
• 17:40
  Right.
• 17:41
  I mean, at the end of the day, you can talk about how the puppies here,
• 17:45
  added triple their leads hopefully at the show, which ultimately,
• 17:51
  tripled maybe, opportunities.
• 17:53
  Matt Heinz: You can A/B test puppies
• 17:54
  Veena Vadgama: and yeah, you could.
• 17:56
  So I'm saying, even the logo on the race car can be attributed somehow.
• 18:01
  Yeah.
• 18:01
  Matt Heinz: Wouldn't it be cool if we had data here where like you, okay.
• 18:03
  Like that booth has plush dolls.
• 18:06
  That booth has chocolate, that booth has puppies.
• 18:10
  Who's got the most traffic?
• 18:11
  I can eyeball this right now.
• 18:12
  I mean, to tell you who's winning.
• 18:14
  Kate Long: Yeah.
• 18:14
  But is it the right traffic?
• 18:15
  Is it qualified traffic?
• 18:16
  Matt Heinz: Well, but that's the conference's job, right?
• 18:18
  Right.
• 18:18
  So if I'm looking at a place like this thing, I want to attract
• 18:21
  mid-market to enterprise B2B marketers.
• 18:24
  This is your shot, right?
• 18:25
  If you were gonna have puppies at Dreamforce, where it's like a
• 18:28
  hundred thousand people and you've got developers and marketers and
• 18:31
  salespeople and everybody, I don't know.
• 18:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:33
  Right.
• 18:33
  And so you still gotta do that math.
• 18:35
  Yeah.
• 18:37
  Kate Long: I do wanna come back to the question of, you were saying as
• 18:40
  long as you can attribute the spend to the bottom line, I think the issue
• 18:42
  becomes a short term, long term.
• 18:43
  Like what is the boards view of when that bottom line should hit?
• 18:49
  Yes.
• 18:50
  And I think that's the really, really big tension.
• 18:53
  Yes.
• 18:53
  I think particularly in the last few years, especially just given
• 18:57
  how tight things have been.
• 18:58
  And,
• 18:58
  Veena Vadgama: and I'll do a plug from my article on LinkedIn, why
• 19:01
  marketing cannot Report to Sales because I believe very, very,
• 19:05
  Kate Long: I'm gonna need to read that one very, very consistently.
• 19:07
  That you tell No,
• 19:08
  Veena Vadgama: just real quick.
• 19:09
  I was just saying, you know, marketing has to think of that long term, right?
• 19:12
  The puppies.
• 19:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 19:13
  And it has to think of what's happening this quarter.
• 19:15
  Yeah.
• 19:15
  Right.
• 19:15
  And if you report to sales, you're only thinking about
• 19:17
  what's happening this quarter.
• 19:18
  This quarter, and then you don't get to do the puppies.
• 19:20
  Yeah.
• 19:20
  See how I keep bringing it back?
• 19:22
  Back to the puppies?
• 19:23
  To puppies.
• 19:23
  Kate, what are you thinking?
• 19:24
  Oh, no, all I was gonna
• 19:25
  Kate Long: say is I wrote an article about why product marketing
• 19:27
  shouldn't report to product.
• 19:28
  Veena Vadgama: Ooh.
• 19:29
  I would read that one.
• 19:30
  You and I are
• 19:30
  Kate Long: cut from a very similar cloth.
• 19:32
  Veena Vadgama: I would agree with that premise and I wanna read it.
• 19:37
  Matt Heinz: This has been a great conversation.
• 19:38
  Kate Long: See, this is
• 19:38
  Matt Heinz: where, this is segue.
• 19:40
  We're all, old enough to have kids and I think we all have
• 19:42
  teenagers at this point point.
• 19:43
  We do.
• 19:43
  What does raising teenagers teach you about B2B marketing.
• 19:50
  Veena Vadgama: Oh, that's a good one.
• 19:51
  Shoot.
• 19:53
  Matt Heinz: About that.
• 19:54
  That was, that was unfair.
• 19:55
  Well, that was kind of, that was kind of click bait without really the answer.
• 19:58
  Gimme time.
• 19:58
  It was click.
• 19:58
  It was click bait.
• 19:59
  Yeah.
• 19:59
  What is raising teenagers and is your, are you a boys?
• 20:02
  Kate Long: I'm a boy.
• 20:02
  Mom, boy, mom.
• 20:03
  Three boys.
• 20:03
  Three boys.
• 20:04
  Three boys.
• 20:05
  That's why I liked you.
• 20:06
  You have three boys.
• 20:07
  You're a three point mom too.
• 20:08
  How many eggs do you go through in a week?
• 20:12
  Veena Vadgama: A lot.
• 20:12
  Eggs.
• 20:12
  Oh my god.
• 20:13
  Before eggs and
• 20:13
  Kate Long: bread.
• 20:14
  Before coming to Phoenix.
• 20:15
  I am not even kidding you.
• 20:17
  On Friday I bought 72 eggs.
• 20:19
  Count them 72 when I left on Monday morning, 24 we're already gone.
• 20:25
  Oh my God.
• 20:25
  And eggs are expensive.
• 20:26
  Do you know what the pro tip is?
• 20:27
  Matt Heinz: Get chickens.
• 20:30
  Kate Long: I know people aren't doing that.
• 20:31
  I just, I don't want another thing to take care of.
• 20:34
  Well, I can't even keep plants alive.
• 20:36
  I just Fair, I feel like that would be a bad recipe.
• 20:38
  Fair.
• 20:39
  Matt Heinz: Chickens are lower maintenance than cats.
• 20:40
  We've had chickens for years.
• 20:42
  Oh, okay.
• 20:42
  And it does take a little extra time.
• 20:44
  And if you think you're saving money, you're kidding yourself, you will
• 20:46
  spend way more money on your eggs.
• 20:48
  Well, then don't tell me that's the secret.
• 20:49
  But you don't have to go to the market.
• 20:51
  Like, we have 10 chickens at this time of year.
• 20:53
  We get 8 to 10 eggs a day.
• 20:55
  Oh, that's amazing.
• 20:55
  They just keep showing up.
• 20:56
  And between kids and baking and everything else, we go through a lot of eggs, so.
• 20:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:59
  They're not cheap eggs, but they are also fun.
• 21:01
  Yeah.
• 21:01
  Yeah.
• 21:02
  Yeah.
• 21:03
  Um,
• 21:03
  Veena Vadgama: I've been trying to answer your question.
• 21:05
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:05
  Which was a good one.
• 21:07
  And my only comment that I'll make is that understanding how to parent my
• 21:13
  children has made me better at marketing.
• 21:16
  'cause the targeting is so critical.
• 21:18
  Okay.
• 21:18
  And how you talk to a teenager.
• 21:20
  Okay.
• 21:20
  You learn that.
• 21:21
  Not so quick.
• 21:22
  I wish I learned it quicker, but I'm better at it now with
• 21:25
  my second teenager there now.
• 21:27
  But yeah, I don't know about B2B.
• 21:29
  That's a good one.
• 21:30
  Kate Long: No, but I think that's right.
• 21:31
  If you're nurturing an audience over a long period of time, the
• 21:35
  way you talk to your teenager, it's different than how you talk to them
• 21:38
  when they were in middle school than they were in elementary school.
• 21:41
  So it's like the whole customer life cycle right there.
• 21:44
  Hundred percent.
• 21:44
  A hundred percent in front of you.
• 21:45
  Veena Vadgama: We were going to visit a college.
• 21:46
  Like I said, on the way back, he was driving the car so he gets to do the
• 21:49
  music and he kept changing the song after every 30 seconds, and I'm like, you listen
• 21:54
  to Spotify, like you listen to TikTok.
• 21:56
  He just couldn't get through the whole song.
• 21:59
  This whole generation, man, I'm telling you.
• 22:00
  I know,
• 22:01
  Matt Heinz: I know.
• 22:01
  My youngest son is really into baseball, but what that means
• 22:05
  is he likes watching highlights.
• 22:06
  Ah, he has never sat through a whole game like I've taken him to games and
• 22:10
  he can't sit there the whole game.
• 22:11
  Even if you keep buying food, he won't wanna sit the whole game.
• 22:14
  Yeah.
• 22:14
  It's a different attention span.
• 22:15
  It is.
• 22:15
  It totally is.
• 22:16
  It's so different.
• 22:16
  It totally is.
• 22:17
  It's scary as
• 22:17
  Kate Long: heck, I think my learning of parenting, especially teenagers, as
• 22:23
  it pertains to B2B marketing is like.
• 22:26
  Don't hold anything too tightly.
• 22:28
  Let everything roll off your back.
• 22:30
  Again, maybe this again, like a knees bent.
• 22:32
  Hey everybody, back to the bad analogy.
• 22:35
  But like agility, right?
• 22:36
  I think you parent differently for each kid and you can't get your fur
• 22:41
  up, about every little thing that they say and do that annoys you
• 22:45
  because you would just constantly be
• 22:47
  Veena Vadgama: 100%.
• 22:48
  It's the same way.
• 22:49
  Like
• 22:49
  Kate Long: you can't get your fur up every time your CEO says something stupid
• 22:53
  or your head of sales wants something.
• 22:55
  It's really about just being super chill and rolling with things.
• 23:00
  Veena Vadgama: Absolutely.
• 23:00
  Kate Long: So my husband, he and I are really different in that way.
• 23:04
  Yeah.
• 23:04
  We ended up balancing each other out.
• 23:07
  There were times where he would get so frustrated with me because I wasn't
• 23:10
  reacting to something the kids were doing and or I would get frustrated
• 23:13
  with him 'cause I'd be like, I don't think that's worth reacting to.
• 23:16
  Matt Heinz: So my wife sent me something the other day 'cause i'm a little too
• 23:19
  hard on the kids, I'll admit that.
• 23:21
  But I think she sent me something that said if your kid comes downstairs
• 23:23
  in the morning and they're happy and they're talking to you, do not
• 23:26
  bug them about their messy room.
• 23:27
  Do not bug them about leaving milk on the table.
• 23:29
  Do not get on their case about little things.
• 23:31
  Just enjoy the moment.
• 23:33
  Enjoy the morning.
• 23:34
  Yes.
• 23:34
  Yes.
• 23:35
  And it was a good reminder, and I wish I heard it five years ago.
• 23:38
  Yes,
• 23:39
  Veena Vadgama: I try.
• 23:39
  I'm not good at this either, but I try really hard, like every day I wanna
• 23:42
  give them more positive affirmations.
• 23:45
  than criticisms, right?
• 23:46
  Yes.
• 23:47
  And so if at the end of the day if my balance was more positive, then
• 23:51
  you know, that I feel like, okay, that's a win for me as a parent.
• 23:55
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:55
  'cause man, I've had days where it's been not that way, it's bad.
• 23:58
  Well, and I think it's even a win if
• 23:59
  Kate Long: they're, especially when they're teenagers, and they're boys
• 24:01
  that they're just talking to you.
• 24:02
  So in the morning, what I'll do, because my job is now fully remote, I
• 24:06
  will wake up when they wake up, I will make my coffee and I will just sit
• 24:09
  there with them while they're getting ready, they may not say anything to me.
• 24:14
  But I'm there if they want to.
• 24:16
  And then if they do say something, I'm like, oh my God, they love me.
• 24:19
  I know I
• 24:19
  Veena Vadgama: got validation.
• 24:21
  Oh my God, they thought of me.
• 24:24
  We're the puppies.
• 24:25
  We're.
• 24:29
  Matt Heinz: So I think maybe the last question I wanna ask you guys,
• 24:32
  'cause we're all parents of kids that, rely on us on a daily basis.
• 24:35
  It sounds like we've got, spouses that can chip in when we're traveling, but
• 24:38
  as important as events like this are, how do you make that trade off to
• 24:41
  decide when you come to an event like this and when you need to stay home?
• 24:45
  I think about this a lot as the events have come back.
• 24:47
  For me as a consultant, like going to events is a big part of our
• 24:51
  visibility and biz dev, and yet I don't wanna be gone all the time.
• 24:53
  Yeah.
• 24:54
  So you gotta pick your spots.
• 24:56
  Veena Vadgama: I find as a mom of three, which you can
• 24:58
  relate to, I get re-energized at these sorts of conferences.
• 25:02
  I learn, I get outta my comfort zone.
• 25:04
  I take care of myself for a couple days, which is really nice.
• 25:07
  I come back, I'm a better parent.
• 25:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:09
  So to me, doing this a couple times a year, at least it helps me at home.
• 25:14
  Yeah.
• 25:14
  Believe it or not.
• 25:15
  Kate Long: Yeah, I very much feel the same way.
• 25:18
  And I've had the good fortune ever since my kids were young.
• 25:20
  I was the one who was always traveling and thank goodness that my spouse
• 25:25
  had a job where he didn't have to.
• 25:26
  And I always found that getting away was like what I needed to be reinvigorated.
• 25:31
  But that said, it does always come with a trade off.
• 25:34
  I still don't make the decisions lightly, but it's definitely more
• 25:38
  on a case by case basis or it's more on a like, they play baseball.
• 25:43
  Which season is it?
• 25:44
  Okay.
• 25:44
  I am missing a bunch of my kids' baseball games this week, but which season is it?
• 25:47
  Or is it during their finals week?
• 25:49
  I'm not gonna leave during finals week.
• 25:50
  So some of it has to do with the calendar at home too, you know?
• 25:53
  Yeah.
• 25:55
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 25:55
  It's wrestling season, it's middle school wrestling season.
• 25:57
  Ooh.
• 25:58
  And my middle son's eighth grade.
• 25:59
  And he's not the world's best wrestler, Uhhuh, but he really enjoys it.
• 26:03
  It gives him a lot of confidence.
• 26:04
  Yeah.
• 26:05
  As a, middle schooler that we all struggle with in middle school.
• 26:07
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:07
  And, to be there, whether he wins or loses, it's a big deal.
• 26:10
  Right.
• 26:11
  Yeah.
• 26:11
  I think that earlier in my career I justified traveling a lot.
• 26:14
  'cause I'm like, well, I don't miss birthdays.
• 26:15
  I don't miss first days of school.
• 26:16
  I don't miss weekends.
• 26:17
  But you know what I do miss is Tuesday.
• 26:19
  Aw.
• 26:19
  Yep.
• 26:19
  You miss those midweek moments.
• 26:21
  And the older I get, the more mistakes I make.
• 26:23
  I realize building relationships with my kids is not about the big moments.
• 26:27
  It's about the everyday moments.
• 26:28
  It's about driving the car connect.
• 26:30
  It's on the way to practice.
• 26:30
  It's exactly, it's the windshield time.
• 26:32
  It's prioritizing with each of the kids having something
• 26:35
  that is just the thing we do.
• 26:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:37
  Just the two of us.
• 26:38
  Oh, I love that.
• 26:39
  It doesn't even have to cost money, but it's just something that we do together.
• 26:42
  I almost said, if you come to my hotel room and I stopped myself
• 26:45
  'cause that would be inappropriate.
• 26:46
  Yeah, that's inappropriate.
• 26:47
  Kate Long: But
• 26:48
  but on my bedside
• 26:49
  Matt Heinz: table right now is the first, book of the Wings of Fire series.
• 26:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:53
  Do you know the Wings of Fire?
• 26:54
  Yes, I do.
• 26:55
  And so it's a, young adult.
• 26:56
  I don't even know if it's a young adult.
• 26:57
  It's a scholastic book, right?
• 26:59
  Yeah.
• 26:59
  It's about dragons that are supposed to have a prophecy and a destiny.
• 27:02
  Yes.
• 27:02
  And so my middle son, I am reading this because my middle son loves
• 27:05
  this series and he's on like book 12.
• 27:07
  Oh my gosh.
• 27:08
  And he's trying to explain it to me and he is like, daddy, you should read it.
• 27:11
  And I'm thinking the last thing I want to do is read this week.
• 27:14
  And I'm into it now and I'm like, God, this is definitely written for a junior.
• 27:17
  Oh, that share with me.
• 27:17
  We're gonna have something to talk about.
• 27:19
  Yes.
• 27:19
  And then I'm gonna be like, well, I wonder what happens now.
• 27:21
  No spoilers, Nick.
• 27:22
  And it's one of those moments, you know, you get.
• 27:24
  Veena Vadgama: I'm into Outlander, right now.
• 27:25
  You think I can get my kids to read Outlander?
• 27:27
  No, I don't think so.
• 27:27
  Is that,
• 27:28
  Kate Long: isn't that a little Yeah, I know.
• 27:29
  Okay.
• 27:30
  Yeah, it's a joke.
• 27:30
  Just, yeah.
• 27:31
  I was like, wait a second.
• 27:32
  Took me a second there.
• 27:33
  But it's a good story.
• 27:34
  Scottish.
• 27:34
  We got Bridgeton.
• 27:36
  Veena Vadgama: That's love.
• 27:37
  Some Bridgerton.
• 27:38
  Well, you know, not with the 11-year-old.
• 27:43
  Matt Heinz: Well, this has been fun.
• 27:44
  I'm glad we did this together 'cause it would've been fun separately.
• 27:48
  So good.
• 27:49
  Veena.
• 27:49
  Kate, thank you so much for being here.
• 27:51
  What are you looking forward to the next day and a half?
• 27:53
  Veena Vadgama: I'm gonna continually go to all the sessions where I do
• 27:57
  not understand anything in the title.
• 27:59
  Yeah.
• 27:59
  Perfect.
• 27:59
  'cause those are the ones where
• 28:00
  Kate Long: I,
• 28:01
  Veena Vadgama: that's a great strategy.
• 28:02
  That's a great
• 28:03
  Kate Long: strategy.
• 28:04
  What does that mean?
• 28:07
  And I am going to, my team and I already did a split up so that we
• 28:12
  all go and get different content.
• 28:14
  And so we're all doing learning against some of the big things we've gotta do.
• 28:18
  And I of course look forward to the sessions, but I look forward
• 28:20
  to the team debrief too, because it's us coming back to together and
• 28:24
  sharing all of our learnings, which is the only way it sticks anyway.
• 28:28
  It's true.
• 28:29
  Matt Heinz: All right.
• 28:30
  Thank you so much for being here, Matt.
• 28:31
  Thank you.
• 28:31
  Thanks Matt.
• 28:32
  Look forward to see you out and about at Club 6 at the parties, the raves
• 28:35
  and the all-nighters later tonight.
• 28:36
  Yes, the all-nighters, we had someone come on earlier, a hundred
• 28:39
  bucks if you can guess who it was.
• 28:40
  So another CMO was on earlier, and I found out that she was
• 28:43
  a DJ when she was in college.
• 28:46
  And she called it the Saturday Night Gig, but it was 5:00 to 8:00 AM Sunday morning.
• 28:50
  And that's not the kind of Saturday night.
• 28:52
  Oh.
• 28:52
  I'm thinking of, that.
• 28:55
  Kate Long: Well, they've got a DJ out there and I was thinking to
• 28:57
  myself, it's probably the best gig.
• 28:59
  It's a daytime gig and you laugh at all these nerdy tech guys as they walk past.
• 29:03
  And you probably get paid better than a bar.
• 29:06
  Matt Heinz: I often think that the musical acts they bring onto these things.
• 29:09
  I just make fun of people.
• 29:10
  I still remember when Metallica played Dreamforce.
• 29:12
  Oh my God.
• 29:13
  Veena Vadgama: They had Journey at Cisco Live one year Journey
• 29:16
  I've never seen, men run
• 29:17
  Matt Heinz: How fortunate are we,
• 29:22
  that for your job, you go to a conference that has Train, right?
• 29:26
  Yes.
• 29:26
  And it has Metallica and Journey.
• 29:28
  Yes.
• 29:28
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:29
  But the look on some of their faces when they're in a convention center.
• 29:33
  Yes.
• 29:33
  And they're hopefully getting paid pretty well, but half the
• 29:35
  people are paying attention.
• 29:36
  The other half are just like, this is not the future they
• 29:39
  Kate Long: envisioned for themselves.
• 29:40
  No.
• 29:41
  No.
• 29:41
  Well, I
• 29:41
  Matt Heinz: assume the Metallica was gonna show up a Dreamforce and
• 29:43
  play like the more pop songs that people, I think they are like.
• 29:46
  No, we're going old school.
• 29:47
  We're gonna play Kill 'em All and Ride the Lightning, do all the old stuff, and just
• 29:51
  scare the crap out of these developers.
• 29:53
  Kate Long: Uhhuh sounds about
• 29:53
  Matt Heinz: right.
• 29:54
  Yes.
• 29:54
  I still have a picture, I went with Annika Sealey and she does
• 29:57
  her own sort of sales consulting and she's been around for a while.
• 29:59
  Mark Benioff worked for her in an inside sales role back in the day.
• 30:03
  Wow.
• 30:03
  So she's like an OG and I remember we were at an event right before that and I said,
• 30:07
  I'm gonna go to the Metallica concert.
• 30:08
  And she's like.
• 30:09
  I wasn't gonna go.
• 30:10
  I'm like, oh, you did really good.
• 30:12
  I said, what kind of music?
• 30:12
  She's like, well, metal.
• 30:14
  She's like, oh, go check that out.
• 30:15
  I have a picture somewhere of her, but just this quizzical, like she's
• 30:19
  watching, and it's this combination of what is that and why am I here
• 30:23
  and who dragged me to this and when will it be over all in one look?
• 30:28
  It was phenomenal.
• 30:29
  Oh, shout out Annika, I love you.
• 30:30
  You know I tell this story and I hope you did enjoy some of that because
• 30:33
  we got to be like five feet from James Hetfield and it was amazing.
• 30:37
  Kate Long: That's awesome
• 30:38
  Veena Vadgama: memories.
• 30:38
  Matt Heinz: Thank you everybody you see out there.
• 30:41
  Veena Vadgama: Thank you.
• 30:41
  Have a good day.