Back Office to Boardroom

Peter was a competitive intelligence specialist when he first joined Sprout Social back in 2017. Barely four and a half years later, Peter Mertens landed the role of Director of Market Strategy.  It was clear to Peter that the executive team at Sprout — a team that plays in the uber-competitive social media space — was hungry for competitive insights. Lucky for him, analyzing broad trends and turning them into actionable intel was a muscle he'd already developed as a competitive intelligence specialist. It was these skills, and many more, that helped Peter get from the back office to the boardroom. He sat down with host Clara Smyth to talk about his career journey and much more in this episode of Back Office to Boardroom.

Key Moments:

(01:43) Peter's career journey from PR Agency to Sprout Social
(03:50) How competitive intelligence helped him climb the ranks
(06:24) The moment Peter knew he had "made it" as a CI professional
(07:59) What it looks for CI to engage with the executive team
(10:06) What to do when execs don't follow your recommendation
(17:20) How competitive intelligence has evolved throughout Peter's career
(22:38) Why you shouldn't measure success by how big your team is
(28:38) Peter's newfound passion for coffee

This podcast is brought to you by the Compete Network.  The Compete Network is your home for the best content, events, and resources on competing. From building your first battlecards to enabling thousands of reps, the Compete Network brings together the biggest names in the competitive enablement community.

Check out past episodes of Back Office to Boardroom here.

Competitive intelligence pro, win-loss evangelist, and proud Minnesotan Jennifer Roberts is Clara's guest on today's episode of Back Office to Boardroom. Jennifer has honed her compete skills for major brands like Expedia, Thomson Reuters and now ServiceTitan. Through win-loss interviews and working in concert with her key stakeholders, Jennifer has learned a ton about how to build and run a successful compete program. And today, she shares a few of the tricks she has up her sleeve.

This podcast is brought to you by the Compete Network.  The Compete Network is your home for the best content, events, and resources on competing. From building your first battlecards to enabling thousands of reps, the Compete Network brings together the biggest names in the competitive enablement community.

Key moments: 

(00:23) Meet Jennifer Roberts
(01:36) Jennifer's compete journey
(03:49) The cost of not connecting with your stakeholders
(05:26) How to build credibility
(09:10) Building a culture of compete within an organization
(12:17) The importance of win-loss for building credibility
(14:08) What Jennifer would have done differently if she had a do-over
(15:42) Nailing differentiation as a compete pro
(18:50) Something surprising about Jennifer
(19:50) Where CI will be as a profession in 10 years

Check out past episodes of Back Office to Boardroom here.

Clara Smyth is joined by JFrog's Competitive Intelligence Team Lead Gal Toren to talk about how having the courage to be vulnerable and humble has helped Gal become the leader and competitive intelligence expert she is today.

This podcast is brought to you by the Compete Network.  The Compete Network is your home for the best content, events, and resources on competing. From building your first battlecards to enabling thousands of reps, the Compete Network brings together the biggest names in the competitive enablement community.

Listen to past episodes and dive into more great compete content on the Compete Network. 

Host Clara Smyth is joined by Procore's Competitive and Market Intelligence Manager Darrius Shaw to take you through his career and what it took to get him from the back office to the boardroom.

This podcast is brought to you by the Compete Network.  The Compete Network is your home for the best content, events, and resources on competing. From building your first battlecards to enabling thousands of reps, the Compete Network brings together the biggest names in the competitive enablement community.

Check out past episodes of Back Office to Boardroom here.

Alysse Nockels, Director of Competitive Intelligence at Elastic, joins host Clara Smyth for the inaugural BO2BR episode!

In this episode, Alysse shares what she did to earn a seat at the executive table, why job titles aren't the key to accelerating your career, and the power of saying no.

This podcast is brought to you by the Compete Network.  The Compete Network is your home for the best content, events, and resources on competing. From building your first battlecards to enabling thousands of reps, the Compete Network brings together the biggest names in the competitive enablement community.

Check out past episode of Back Office to Boardroom here.

Welcome to Back Office to Boardroom.

Host Clara Smyth, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Slack, is joined by the best competitive professionals in the business to share how they got from where they were, to where they are today.

We get into the best decisions they made, those screw-ups they’d like to forget, and the lessons these leaders want to pass on to listeners that are looking to elevate their compete career.

This show is brought to you by the Compete Network.