Latest / Sales Pipeline Radio / Fix the Disconnect: Aligning Sales, Marketing, and Events to Drive Growth

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Fix the Disconnect: Aligning Sales, Marketing, and Events to Drive Growth · Sales Pipeline Radio

• 0:15
  Matt Heinz: All right.
• 0:15
  Welcome back.
• 0:16
  We are live at the Cvent CONNECT Conference, third floor and
• 0:19
  outside the stars at night.
• 0:21
  I assume there must be a big, bright ballroom somewhere
• 0:23
  here to continue the song.
• 0:25
  "Deep in the Heart of Texas".
• 0:26
  Anybody, somebody?
• 0:27
  Okay, good.
• 0:28
  So, very excited to be here outside the Innovation Pavilion
• 0:31
  with Ajith Krishnankutty.
• 0:32
  You are the VP of Experiential Marketing at the Capital Group.
• 0:36
  Thanks for joining us.
• 0:37
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Appreciate that, Matt.
• 0:38
  Thanks for having me today.
• 0:40
  Matt Heinz: We hooked you in.
• 0:40
  You were just on stage doing a breakout session, I think on the same kind
• 0:43
  of topic, just like getting sales marketing out of silos and into sort
• 0:48
  of more of an integrated conversation.
• 0:49
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Yeah, it was fantastic.
• 0:50
  I think it was a full room.
• 0:52
  A lot of people wanted to address that topic, and I was talking to Dean
• 0:55
  in Cvent, and he was hoping we can fix that issue within 45 minutes,
• 1:00
  which apparently is not the case.
• 1:01
  But it was a great discussion and I think there was a lot of feedbacks around a
• 1:06
  topic which resonates to a lot of the organizations where there is a disconnect.
• 1:10
  Matt Heinz: Yep.
• 1:10
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And I would like to put it as much more around
• 1:13
  a very positive connotation as an opportunity for us to connect it.
• 1:16
  Matt Heinz: Yes.
• 1:17
  I think it's, more than an opportunity.
• 1:19
  It's a mandate.
• 1:20
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Indeed.
• 1:20
  Matt Heinz: I think for us to be able to do go-to-market well, sales, marketing,
• 1:22
  events teams need to work together.
• 1:24
  I think it is almost always a journey, not a destination.
• 1:28
  There's always more work to do; not something you can solve in 45 minutes
• 1:31
  at a conference, and certainly not something you're gonna solve, you know,
• 1:34
  with jazz hands at sales kickoff as well.
• 1:36
  Talk a little about your personal experience in this area and how that
• 1:39
  sort of shaped what you've learned, what you brought to the conference today.
• 1:41
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Yeah, so I would start a little bit backward, like
• 1:44
  in terms of who's Capital Group.
• 1:45
  Capital Group is one of the world's largest active asset management companies.
• 1:49
  We've been around 93 plus years.
• 1:51
  10,000 plus associates.
• 1:53
  Three different pieces of the organization, which is the
• 1:55
  investment group, our client group, and our operating group.
• 1:59
  So if you really put that together, you know, bringing the silos together is
• 2:03
  pretty challenging when it comes to that.
• 2:05
  I came to this organization in 2018 when the CMO at that point of time,
• 2:10
  the mandate was to really bring events into the marketing ecosystem.
• 2:14
  So until then, events was kind of spread all across the different parts
• 2:18
  of the organization, very perfunctory in function; no strategy behind that.
• 2:22
  Nobody knew why we are doing events.
• 2:24
  No collective portfolio of events.
• 2:26
  No collective understanding of where we should be really aligned
• 2:30
  in terms of the strategies of the organization and business objectives.
• 2:33
  So the intent was to really bring number one events within
• 2:37
  the marketing organization.
• 2:38
  Let alone strategy of why it is a big part of a marketing channel, or why it should
• 2:44
  be part of our distribution strategy.
• 2:46
  So that was step number one for us to do it.
• 2:49
  So I came from a technology background organization for 16 years into an
• 2:54
  asset management organization where marketing was not a big focus area.
• 2:58
  It was much more getting our thought leadership out in print and web.
• 3:02
  And from there, if you really look at our industry 60% of our advisors are
• 3:07
  retiring in the next five to ten years.
• 3:09
  Matt Heinz: Wow.
• 3:09
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And new generation taking over, so look
• 3:11
  at the challenge in front of us.
• 3:12
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 3:13
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And the opportunity for multimedia.
• 3:15
  And look at, like, we have a big studio like this in our facility, and we are
• 3:19
  leveraging video content more than ever.
• 3:22
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 3:22
  Ajith Krishnankutty: I would say in the past two years, we have grown
• 3:25
  200% more in generating media content.
• 3:28
  Matt Heinz: Wow.
• 3:28
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And events has grown three folds in the past three years or so.
• 3:32
  So that's a big challenge, and it's a kind of like, I would say experiential
• 3:35
  marketing when I say is a bigger fold, just not events, but it's also multimedia
• 3:40
  events, design, everything put together.
• 3:42
  How can we inspire our clients and new generational clients in
• 3:46
  a different way of marketing.
• 3:48
  Matt Heinz: I love that.
• 3:49
  The status quo is alive and well.
• 3:51
  Isn't it like just the, and the barriers you gotta get through to sort
• 3:54
  of do what you're talking about doing?
• 3:56
  You know, you referenced status quo in terms of sort
• 3:58
  of sales and marketing silos.
• 3:59
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Yeah.
• 3:59
  Matt Heinz: Status quo is in terms of the mix of marketing focus happening,
• 4:02
  the status quo in terms of people that have been around forever, and
• 4:04
  this is the way it's always been done.
• 4:06
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Always.
• 4:06
  Matt Heinz: All barriers to breaking down those silos.
• 4:09
  Talk about what have you found are some of the most common reasons why
• 4:12
  these teams fail to work together?
• 4:14
  Ajith Krishnankutty: I feel like, number one, to your point, status
• 4:17
  quo is always the challenge.
• 4:18
  And when you go into larger organizations where people have been working in
• 4:21
  the similar roles for many years, they know the usual notion is this
• 4:25
  is how we've been doing it forever.
• 4:27
  And also, I feel like there is a very, you know, taken-for-granted
• 4:31
  approach in terms of "this is how the organization operates".
• 4:35
  Matt Heinz: Yep.
• 4:35
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And you know, there is no outside in perspective
• 4:37
  on what that really means.
• 4:39
  And also partnering across the table.
• 4:40
  So think about sales as an organization, and they meeting these clients on
• 4:44
  a day-to-day basis, and marketing putting together a portfolio of
• 4:47
  events without talking to them.
• 4:48
  Matt Heinz: Yep.
• 4:49
  Ajith Krishnankutty: It doesn't resonate to each of them.
• 4:50
  Matt Heinz: That's right.
• 4:50
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And that's where I feel like the challenge is
• 4:53
  not always working together; It is also understand who your consumer is.
• 4:56
  So for marketing to understand sales is their consumer, and sales and
• 5:00
  marketing to understand our end client is our joint consumer, I think that
• 5:04
  point of view changes the perspective of how we operate the business.
• 5:07
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 5:07
  Ajith Krishnankutty: So for me, that was the biggest challenge, at the same
• 5:10
  time, an opportunity that I saw within the organization to really go into
• 5:13
  there and then say that to the sales guy as to I'm here to support you.
• 5:17
  Matt Heinz: Yep.
• 5:18
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Let us know how we can help you.
• 5:19
  Matt Heinz: Yep.
• 5:19
  Ajith Krishnankutty: But at the same time, I saw the opportunity of
• 5:22
  data and technology underneath that.
• 5:24
  Bringing data into the forefront, using the data to have a much more
• 5:28
  informed conversation, and showing them, "Hey, listen, we can add more value.
• 5:32
  If you redistribute some of the resources and money in a different
• 5:36
  part of the business, which is more building, more sales.
• 5:39
  And I'm giving them insights for them to actually run that as a much
• 5:43
  more better portfolio of an event.
• 5:45
  And I think that changed the point of view.
• 5:47
  Matt Heinz: Well, and so, I mean, good, there's anecdotes that can
• 5:50
  help with that, I think, but I, you know, how do you bring a number into
• 5:52
  that to help people understand how costly that silo environment is?
• 5:57
  Ajith Krishnankutty: I would say Matt, if you really look at our
• 6:00
  portfolio, we were doing close to around 300 plus events pre COVID.
• 6:05
  And we never had a virtual event strategy until COVID hit.
• 6:09
  And I think most of the organization started to adopt that.
• 6:12
  And we were spending, I would not say the number, but multimillion dollar;
• 6:15
  double digits number in terms of how much we were spending on events.
• 6:18
  Matt Heinz: Right.
• 6:19
  Ajith Krishnankutty: So from there, it's also really looking at it and
• 6:22
  see there was no connecting the dots.
• 6:24
  So I'll take a conferences as an example.
• 6:27
  Going into a conference, our intent is to really go and talk to people.
• 6:30
  There was no strategy behind bringing a lead back in.
• 6:34
  Using a technology to nurture that lead.
• 6:36
  Use that to grow the business, working with the broader marketing team
• 6:40
  to nurture that lead and create a marketing qualified lead into sales
• 6:44
  call; that notion never existed.
• 6:46
  You have to start with it.
• 6:47
  And I can't put a number against that, but I feel like it's a, we are almost a
• 6:52
  3 trillion in an organization from an AUM (Assets Under Management) perspective.
• 6:55
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 6:55
  Ajith Krishnankutty: I would say it's a couple of billion dollars.
• 6:57
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 6:57
  Ajith Krishnankutty: I would say at that point of time in terms of lost
• 6:59
  opportunities we could have done a much better job in being proactive with
• 7:03
  our clients to address their concerns.
• 7:06
  And what helped us was the adoption of technology like Cvent, et cetera.
• 7:10
  Yep.
• 7:11
  Is to bring that together, use the technology, drive the business,
• 7:15
  and drive the business together.
• 7:16
  And I would say to answer your question is multi-billion dollars.
• 7:20
  But we see that as an opportunity and showcasing this lost opportunity with
• 7:24
  sales helped us move the needle faster.
• 7:27
  Matt Heinz: So let's break down some of the building blocks and think
• 7:29
  of driving that better alignment.
• 7:30
  And let's start with just joint planning.
• 7:31
  Like how do you do this?
• 7:32
  I mean, it's a lot harder if you're just gonna versus doing this in a
• 7:36
  silo to say, I'm gonna get my event, my marketing, my sales team together,
• 7:39
  but it's critical to make sure you're starting from the right place and have
• 7:41
  some consensus on the what and the why.
• 7:43
  What does planning look like for you to make that happen?
• 7:45
  Ajith Krishnankutty: So in Capital Group, the planning cycle, we
• 7:47
  operate on a calendar year while
• 7:49
  the budgets are on a fiscal year.
• 7:51
  Matt Heinz: Yep.
• 7:51
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Like, you know, I don't know why we create that complexity.
• 7:55
  I'm sure a lot of the organization have that complexity.
• 7:57
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 7:57
  Ajith Krishnankutty: If you really look at different channels like
• 7:59
  social, events, multimedia; every channel has a seat at the table.
• 8:03
  And we are jointly working hand-in-hand.
• 8:05
  So we have three levels of that planning cycle: the initial planning,
• 8:09
  the level one, level two, level three; level three is where it goes to the
• 8:13
  management committee for approvals.
• 8:14
  But we are actively working with them.
• 8:16
  And the reasons are twofold.
• 8:18
  One is making sure that we are giving them a proactive way to support the
• 8:22
  business, and second is do we have the right resourcing and capacity to
• 8:25
  manage that as part of that equation.
• 8:27
  So that's the way we plan it.
• 8:30
  And one of the thing that we have changed during the planning is
• 8:33
  most of the portfolio events are kind of, I would say 80% are same;
• 8:37
  20% vary based on new vehicles and strategies that we are evolving.
• 8:41
  So think about ETF as an example, or public private funds that we are
• 8:44
  launching right now - that would need a little bit more focus from
• 8:48
  a go-to market strategy standpoint.
• 8:50
  So instead of doing a 12 months, so three months planning cycle on a
• 8:55
  12 months period and squeezing your capacity to execute events in nine
• 8:59
  months, we have gone to an 18 months execution cycle, which essentially
• 9:03
  gives us more capacity around that.
• 9:05
  And so we have created a capacity model within the space with different
• 9:08
  tiers of events and that levers that we can pull us moving events from one
• 9:13
  month to a different month where the capacity is not that much affected.
• 9:16
  We are really looking at and saying is they, should we move this to a
• 9:19
  different side of the country where the cost is much less, et cetera.
• 9:23
  So there is theorized approach that we have been adopting
• 9:27
  within the organization.
• 9:28
  Sales teams allows it, because now they have a 18 month cycle of event,
• 9:33
  versus a nine month cycle of an event.
• 9:35
  And we do a three month planning.
• 9:36
  So I feel it has worked for our organization incredibly well.
• 9:40
  They value us, because we are bringing data and insights to
• 9:44
  the table to drive the business.
• 9:45
  Matt Heinz: Awesome.
• 9:46
  This is amazing.
• 9:47
  We got some great insights today from our guest in this episode, Ajith
• 9:51
  Krishnankutty, VP of Enterprise Marketing at Capital Group.
• 9:54
  So we talked a little bit about the planning, and sort of
• 9:56
  aligning the teams around that.
• 9:57
  Let's talk about what happens after the conference, or after the event,
• 10:00
  'cause too often, especially when you've got like a robust event
• 10:02
  schedule like yours, it's easy to start moving on to the next event...
• 10:05
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Absolutely.
• 10:05
  Matt Heinz: ...versus capitalizing on what you've built and the momentum you have.
• 10:08
  Like, talk about the culture and the habits required to do that well.
• 10:11
  Ajith Krishnankutty: I would say is one of the thing that we have
• 10:13
  actively done, Matt, is the post event is where I feel like most of
• 10:18
  the organization don't do a great job.
• 10:20
  Matt Heinz: Right.
• 10:20
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And we have been focusing on that as an opportunity, and I
• 10:24
  was talking about iCapture as a solution.
• 10:25
  Matt Heinz: Yep.
• 10:26
  Ajith Krishnankutty: So we recently work with Cvent in terms of adopting
• 10:29
  iCapture, and implementing iCapture in conferences, and, and the, in most
• 10:34
  of the organizations, what they would do is they will adopt the iCapture,
• 10:37
  they capture the leads and that's it.
• 10:39
  Matt Heinz: Yep.
• 10:39
  Ajith Krishnankutty: So we have solved one part of the problem; so we worked
• 10:42
  with the consulting arm of Cvent in terms of adopting it and also bringing
• 10:46
  in sales and lifecycle marketing.
• 10:47
  And when I say lifecycle marketing, it's a different mentality within
• 10:51
  Capital Group right now to really look at an always-on journey.
• 10:54
  Matt Heinz: Got it.
• 10:54
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Versus a one time journey with a client.
• 10:56
  Matt Heinz: Right.
• 10:57
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And really understanding behavioral triggers by the
• 11:00
  consumer to really address what they need versus what we want to give it to them.
• 11:04
  Matt Heinz: That's right.
• 11:05
  Ajith Krishnankutty: As an example, think about the leads that we are
• 11:07
  getting out of a conference now; we have a great mechanism where it is now
• 11:11
  integrated with our Salesforce database.
• 11:14
  The sales team sees that if they have an existing contact; marketing
• 11:17
  team will see that if it's not an existing contact, and we can nurture
• 11:21
  those journeys based on a conference.
• 11:23
  So if I'm going to future proof, which is predominantly driven by ETF as a product,
• 11:27
  and if a client is walking into a booth, we are meeting during the conference,
• 11:31
  and we are talking about ETF, now there is a trigger which essentially goes
• 11:35
  into whether it's a fixed or equity ETF.
• 11:37
  Matt Heinz: Yep.
• 11:37
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And I can cater to the client based on what they need.
• 11:40
  So I feel like you spoke a little bit about the lost opportunity; this
• 11:43
  is how we are addressing the lost opportunity to be much more proactive.
• 11:46
  And the sales team is happy, and we as a marketing team has also
• 11:50
  adopted a digitally driven lead generation campaign, which adds more
• 11:54
  value as a collective organization in terms of meeting our goals.
• 11:57
  Matt Heinz: You also talked about how you spend time training the sales
• 12:00
  team to listen for signals at events.
• 12:02
  What does that look like?
• 12:04
  What kind of signals are you prioritizing?
• 12:05
  How do you stack rank those to know which of them are maybe longer term
• 12:08
  buying signals versus which of them could use some immediate follow up?
• 12:12
  Ajith Krishnankutty: So it's also going back into a portfolio
• 12:14
  of events that we construct.
• 12:16
  And again, going back any organization, I think there are two goals: one
• 12:20
  is how do you retain your clients and how do you grow your clients?
• 12:22
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 12:23
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And I think it's more about objectives of the business
• 12:26
  that we need to lay out and say that, hey, if a sales guy is saying that I need to
• 12:30
  go to a X conference because we always been there, the question is much more
• 12:35
  as how has that yielded results for us?
• 12:37
  And showing, and we have a great ROI framework that we have done it, and the
• 12:41
  framework is based on twofold: one is we do something called a connected ecosystem,
• 12:46
  where connected ecosystem is market.
• 12:47
  Like you and I'm like, a financial advisor with the same portfolio of
• 12:52
  things and you attend one of our event and I don't attend an event.
• 12:55
  How does your behavior and your consumption change based on my, so
• 13:00
  we have a connected, you know, like a data science model that we have built.
• 13:04
  Matt Heinz: Yep.
• 13:04
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And that model triggers in terms of
• 13:06
  have you taken more meetings?
• 13:08
  Is your sales gone up or gone down?
• 13:10
  Et cetera.
• 13:10
  So I think we give that insights and we do a six months post-event engagement,
• 13:15
  and ROI, and now the sales guys have a clear understanding of how that
• 13:19
  drove sales; how that drove meetings, because getting meetings with AFAs
• 13:23
  are the most difficult piece of the puzzle that we are trying to solve.
• 13:26
  Matt Heinz: Right.
• 13:27
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And that gives us the right insight of should we be going there?
• 13:30
  And if we are going there, is that conference a growth opportunity
• 13:34
  or retention opportunity?
• 13:36
  And which sales person or wholesaler should I be sending to that conference?
• 13:40
  So a lot of the decisions are made based on data.
• 13:43
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 13:43
  Ajith Krishnankutty: If it is made out of emotions, I don't think so.
• 13:46
  That is always where the ego kicks in.
• 13:48
  That's when the sales and marketing doesn't work together
• 13:51
  in a lot of the organizations.
• 13:52
  So that's my observation on how things have been different
• 13:55
  within our organization.
• 13:57
  Matt Heinz: So last question for you as we wrap up here.
• 13:59
  I think, you know, the bar continues to get higher for people getting outta
• 14:02
  their home office and getting on a plane and going to events like this.
• 14:05
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Yeah.
• 14:05
  Matt Heinz: There's a great advantage to that from an event production as
• 14:08
  well as an event attendance standpoint.
• 14:10
  And yet you get to a conference like this and you see the energy and the passion of
• 14:12
  people that are here and just the optimism for where events are going moving forward.
• 14:16
  For you at a Capital Group, what do you see as the future of events as
• 14:19
  part of your go-to-market strategy?
• 14:21
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Great question.
• 14:22
  We look at the portfolio.
• 14:24
  I spoke a little bit about our strategy was always due
• 14:27
  diligence meetings.
• 14:28
  And I think if you
• 14:29
  Ajith Krishnankutty: really look at asset management firms, most of their
• 14:31
  strategy is due diligence meeting.
• 14:33
  And pre-COVID virtual strategy was relatively zero.
• 14:38
  And if I really look at our portfolio right now, we do close
• 14:41
  to around 600 events a year.
• 14:42
  And if I really look at the mix of it, it's 70/30: 70% sponsor.
• 14:46
  30% hosted.
• 14:47
  And within the hosted events, I would say is 80% is virtual.
• 14:51
  Matt Heinz: Okay.
• 14:52
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And I'm looking at it and saying is that virtual things,
• 14:55
  and the larger due diligence meetings are also changing the perspective to it.
• 15:00
  Virtual meetings are much more replayed.
• 15:02
  So I'm really looking at a virtual event that is happening and taking
• 15:05
  that to a LinkedIn or, you know, like Instagram to do short snippets and
• 15:09
  driving people to watch the replays.
• 15:11
  And the larger due diligence meetings are being changed to road shows,
• 15:16
  and the smaller road shows are really driving, so we are taking
• 15:19
  the content to the local market.
• 15:21
  So we just finished like a 11 city tour in Canada launching an ETF.
• 15:25
  Was an incredible success.
• 15:27
  And it's a great way for us to really look at that as a product
• 15:30
  instead of doing one large farm and expecting clients to fly to you.
• 15:34
  Matt Heinz: Yes.
• 15:35
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Why don't we come to you?
• 15:37
  And then, and create that, and we call that as Capital Ideas Live as a big event.
• 15:40
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 15:40
  Ajith Krishnankutty: And we are doing the road shows, not just
• 15:42
  in the US, across the world.
• 15:44
  And I think that is one of the way we are changing that.
• 15:46
  Second is this whole notion of trade booth and all of those things are changing.
• 15:50
  So think about future-proof as an example.
• 15:52
  You know, we've been partnering with them.
• 15:54
  It's called Festival and the booth property over there, that notion is
• 15:59
  changing, and we are now launching a pickleball court over there.
• 16:02
  I think it's more about bringing people into the mix, seeing people as people,
• 16:07
  and then really building relationships.
• 16:09
  And I think that is much better than walking somebody into a 10'x10'
• 16:13
  or a 10'x20' booth and expecting them to walk away thinking that
• 16:17
  they're gonna buy your product.
• 16:18
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 16:18
  Ajith Krishnankutty: So I think that the landscape is gonna change.
• 16:20
  And of course, embracing AI is a great component of it.
• 16:23
  Really technology is a key component of it.
• 16:25
  So as marketers, if you're not doing it, and really leveraging the data to convert
• 16:30
  them to actionable insights, I think we are missing the game on that otherwise.
• 16:33
  Matt Heinz: Yeah.
• 16:33
  Yeah.
• 16:33
  I would agree with you.
• 16:34
  Awesome.
• 16:35
  Thanks so much for being here.
• 16:36
  Ajith Krishnankutty: Appreciate that.
• 16:36
  Yeah, thank you.
• 16:37
  Thanks for the opportunity.
• 16:37
  Matt Heinz: Of course.