Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute

Today’s guest is Arthur Castillo, Head of Dark Social and Evangelism at Chili. Arthur joins Ethan Beute to share how he viewed and pursued the opportunity that LinkedIn represents and how it led to his transitions from sales to field marketing to evangelism.

Arthur shares what’s new and not new about “dark social,” as well as best practices for setting up mutually beneficial Customer Advisory Boards. He talks through fundamental shifts in B2B sales and marketing and the desire buyers have for trusted advisors. He also shares in-person and virtual tactics to turn your customers into evangelists who actively engage with your prospects.

Takeaways:

• The most important job of a Head of Evangelism is talking about problems that you solve and that exist in the market that others might not even be aware of.
• In the universal buyer's journey, an evangelist lives in three stages: unaware, aware, and consideration. It’s the evangelist’s job to help move buyers through these stages and to help them think differently.
• “Dark social” isn’t new in that it’s just “word of mouth.” But the maturity of communication channels and the frequency of engagement have changed the game here. It’s our responsibility to find the conversations that are happening in the market and to engage.
• Doing field marketing and evangelism are greats way to build relationships with your prospects and customers. And to help your customers build relationships and drive conversations with your prospects for more efficient growth.
• Questions that should be driving us as evangelists, salespeople, and marketers include: “How do I amplify customer voices?” and “How do I develop deeper relationships?”
• The future of sales is more about guiding a group of people and ensuring that they know how their day-to-day is affected - and marketing’s job will be to help people to think differently.

Quote of the Show:

• “There’s no better form of evangelism than your customers”

Links Related to This Episode:

• Arthur Castillo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-castillo/ 
• Chili Piper: https://www.chilipiper.com/ 
• Revenue Era: https://www.linkedin.com/company/revenue-era/ 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheStartUpSDR 

See or Hear More Conversations on Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute:

• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@chiefevangelist
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tEPLXnkNSYAsjpwD3O69t
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/id1652687400
• Chief Evangelist: https://www.podpage.com/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/

Chief Evangelist is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today’s guest is Blaine Feyen, Head of Community and Chief Evangelist at True Footage. Blaine joins Ethan Beute and shares his philosophy behind and approach to developing your own teachable point of view – based on experience, not on opinion – as the foundation of effective evangelism.

Blaine emphasizes how important it is to believe in what you are doing and how you can help people. This feeds the human function of trust, authenticity, and energy. It’s the fuel that helps others believe, too. He shares virtual and in-person tactics he’s used to building community and spread belief.

Takeaways:

• The most important job for a Chief Evangelist is to believe. You must have an unwavering unquestioning belief in solving problems and the ability to express it with energy and inspiration.
• Expressing sincere belief can inspire others around you. When you believe in something, you build this trust that you can help spread amongst others.
• When Blaine was younger, he became interested in the martial art Aikido, which involves blending and using others’ energy to resolve conflicts. He learned through the process to make others better than himself – something that serves him well today.
• From his instructor's advice, Blaine realized that evangelism helps other humans grow, develop, and evolve. Blaine built several businesses in those terms of helping others.
• Blaine’s strategy with his company is to evangelize the mission and the vision without evangelizing the product. He shares ways he does this internally and externally.

Quote of the Show:

• “When I believe in something, the belief is deeply tied to helping other human beings grow and develop.”

Links Related to This Episode:

• Blaine Feyen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/appraiserblaine/
• True Footage: https://truefootage.tech/
• Real Value Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-real-value-podcast/id790781360

See or Hear More Conversations on Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute:

• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@chiefevangelist
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tEPLXnkNSYAsjpwD3O69t
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/id1652687400
• Chief Evangelist: https://www.podpage.com/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/

Chief Evangelist is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today’s guest is Ryan Collins, an SEO analyst, the Founder of AfterYourPhD, and the author of a dissertation on tech evangelism. Ryan joins Ethan Beute to share what he learned from interviewing dozens of evangelists and conducting deep research into the practice.
 
Ryan emphasizes the need for enough history and maturity with innovation and within a market to have credible and authoritative voices to evangelize in that space.

Takeaways:

• The most important job as an evangelist is education. Evangelists need to educate people about innovation in a way that anyone can understand. An edge of excitement helps, too.
• Defining an evangelist is difficult; there are so many different kinds. It differs for each organization and within each market. Talking with evangelists is the best way to get into that nuance and variety.
• The religious connotations of the title, role, and function are apt; they’re about spreading the good news of innovation, whether that’s physical and tangible or conceptual and abstract.
• Diffusion of innovation and social identity are two theories helpful to exploring and understanding tech evangelism and brand evangelism.
• Evangelists have a lot of experience in their spaces – enough to earn authority from their audience. Their stories of personal experience make them more effective and credible.
• Guy Kawasaki, our guest on Episode 006 of Chief Evangelist, remains a helpful source of information, perspective, and stories about secular evangelism.

Quote of the Show:

• “A lot of it is strategy and understanding who your audience is.” (15:53)

Links Related to This Episode:

• Ryan Collins’s on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanwilliamcollins/
• Ryan Collins’s on Twitter: https://twitter.com/collinsryan1993
• AfterYourPhD: https://afteryourphd.com/
• Terakeet: https://terakeet.com/
• Ryan Collin’s Personal Site: https://www.collinsryan.com/

See or Hear More Conversations on Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute:

• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@chiefevangelist
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tEPLXnkNSYAsjpwD3O69t
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/id1652687400
• Chief Evangelist: https://www.podpage.com/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/

Chief Evangelist is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today’s guest is Bill Sherman, COO and Thought Leadership Practice Lead at Thought Leadership Leverage and podcast host of Leveraging Thought Leadership. Bill joins Ethan Beute to share how to get ideas into the mind space of the people you’re trying to reach.
 
Bill describes how to create client connections through podcasting, how evangelists and thought leaders can partner for success, and how to reach and engage people both emotionally and rationally.

Takeaways:

• The most important job of an evangelist is helping scale ideas, building communities, sparking conversations, and collaborating with others.
• The most important job of a thought leader is curating foundational ideas for their organizations, aligning with organizational goals, meeting customers’ needs, and encouraging more ideas.
• Most businesses would benefit from appointing a thought leader.
• Before bringing a thought leader into your company, figure out where the role and work fit relative to marketing, content marketing, and product marketing.
• Bill found that working in organizational development resonated deeply with him. He found that getting the right people to do the right thing for the right reasons and making sure that they were rewarded was really fulfilling work.

Quote of the Show:

• “Podcasting is one of the most delightful roles you can do.” (37:48)

Links Related to This Episode:

• Bill Sherman’s on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-sherman-274a02/
• Bill Sherman’s on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillSherman
• Thought Leadership Leverage: https://thoughtleadershipleverage.com/
• Leveraging Thought Leadership Podcast: https://thoughtleadershipleverage.com/thought-leadership-podcasts/

See or Hear More Conversations on Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute:

• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@chiefevangelist
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tEPLXnkNSYAsjpwD3O69t
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/id1652687400
• Chief Evangelist: https://www.podpage.com/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/

Chief Evangelist is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today’s guest is Diana Cabrices, Founder & Fractional Chief Evangelist at Diana Cabrices Consulting, a firm that focuses on the WealthTech industry. Diana joins Ethan Beute to share the benefits of a fractional approach to evangelism for both the evangelist and the company.
 
Diana describes the essence of evangelism: evoking emotion, exciting people, and motivating action. Watch or listen for her insights differentiating a fractional Chief Evangelist from a marketing consultant or an influencer.

Takeaways:

• Every Chief Evangelist has different talents which leads to different approaches and even different outcomes. In her eyes, the most important job of an evangelist is to evoke emotion and motivate people to change. This process is based on trust between people and builds loyalty toward the product, service, or brand.
• More than ever and driven by the pandemic, people are feeling disconnected from each other. We’re more distant from our customers, who can evaluate and buy without any direct interaction with people inside our organization. This creates a great opportunity to differentiate your experience by building relationships with your customers.
• Diana’s business model is based on serving just a few companies with category exclusivity.
• Diana expresses how critical it is to have your values aligned between an evangelist and a company.
• The fractional approach has advantages and disadvantages both for the Chief Evangelist and for the company; Diana walks through them.

Quote of the Show:

• “I have found this world of evangelism and it's the number one thing I love about my job.” (13:22)

Links Related to This Episode:

• Diana Cabrices on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianacabrices/
• Diana Cabrices on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dianacabrices
• Diana Cabrices Consulting: https://dianacabrices.com/
• Diana’s Podcast: https://dianacabrices.com/podcast/

See or Hear More Conversations on Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute:

• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@chiefevangelist
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tEPLXnkNSYAsjpwD3O69t
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/id1652687400
• Chief Evangelist: https://www.podpage.com/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/

Chief Evangelist is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today’s guest is Daniel Jester, Chief Evangelist at Creative Force. Daniel joins Ethan Beute and shares the two things that were useful for his start as a Chief Evangelist: breaking down the complex and becoming an analogy factory.
 
Daniel shares his journey from surviving as a freelance photographer during Covid to being recruited into an evangelism role. Watch or listen for his advice on communicating with your customers through support channels to improve your product or service experience and on becoming the historian or archaeologist for your industry.

Takeaways:

• Two things helped Daniel when he was starting as Chief Evangelist: understanding and then simplifying a relatively complex system in a short amount of time as someone shares it with you and quickly developing analogies that help people better understand what you’re communicating.
• Daniel needs to prepare a young industry to evaluate and purchase more advanced tools by educating away ignorance, hesitancy, and skepticism. This effort helps create a more level playing field and gets more people in the space to help each other.
• When Daniel started at Creative Force, he focused on customers and customer education through video. By having been in their shoes and working from that empathetic perspective, you better understand where they are and what they need to move forward successfully.
• When Daniel first took on the title of Chief Evangelist, he felt what we all do: imposter syndrome. But the CEO saw clearly the value in him and in the role for their innovative tech company.
• Daniel learned a lot doing customer support. Talking with customers provided relationships and perspectives that continue to serve him today as he works to connect and mature a young industry.
• As a Chief Evangelist, you must be – or become – a great storyteller. Becoming a student of storytelling will benefit you immediately and in years – and in roles – to come.

Quote of the Show:

• “My role has become much more outward facing because we're trying to build community.” (24:29)

Links Related to This Episode:

• Daniel Jester on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieltjester/
• Creative Force: https://www.creativeforce.io/
• The E-Commerce Content Creation Podcast: https://www.creativeoperations.com/podcast
• Daniel Jester on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danieltjester/?hl=en
• Daniel Jester Portfolio: https://www.danieltjester.com/

See or Hear More Conversations on Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute:

• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@chiefevangelist
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tEPLXnkNSYAsjpwD3O69t
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/id1652687400
• Chief Evangelist: https://www.podpage.com/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/

Chief Evangelist is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today’s guest is Dan Steinman, Chief Evangelist at Gainsight. Dan joins Ethan Beute and shares the idea that creating awareness of something that’s making a difference is the most important aspect of the role.
 
 Dan also discusses the three aspects of being a great evangelist, two ways to source insights to generate thought leadership, and why he and his CEO stopped trying to track and measure the ROI of his role.  Be sure to listen in on Dan giving his advice on how you can become a better listener to your clients about what does and doesn't work for them!

Takeaways:

• Dan thinks that the most important job for a Chief Evangelist is to raise awareness and understanding of the category of customer success. Growing the category helps grow your company.
• As Chief Evangelist, you must provide thought leadership about your category, your product, and your business. This content helps attract, educate, engage, and activate people within your broader community and within your customer base.
• Evangelizing and creating thought leadership have three sources of insight. One is the fundamentals of customer success, two are the things that evangelists are trying, some working and not working, and three are all of the thoughts you hear from your community.
• Dan shares that their book, Customer Success, was likely the best evangelistic work they did at Gainsight. But to make a book useful and successful in service of your mission, you must adhere to the basic dos and don’ts that he offers here.
• It is always so important to listen to your clients about what works for them and what doesn't work for them. Listening to what works and what doesn't work, it becomes pressure on your product to make it better for those kinds of big-scale ideas that your clients may have in mind.
• Attributing revenue. Tracking activities. Measuring outcomes. Dan and his CEO spent a lot of time on this, but eventually gave up because it wasn’t worth the effort. They both knew the work was valuable.

Quote of the Show:

• “Evangelism is the idea of creating awareness of something that's making a difference.” (02:41)

Links Related to This Episode:

• Dan Steinman on LinkedIn: ​​https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-steinman-79b272/
• Gainsight: https://www.gainsight.com/
• Customer Success (Book): https://www.amazon.com/Customer-Success-Innovative-Companies-Recurring/dp/1119167965

Ways to Watch or Listen to More from Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute:

• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@chiefevangelist
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tEPLXnkNSYAsjpwD3O69t
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/id1652687400
• Chief Evangelist: https://www.podpage.com/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/

Chief Evangelist is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today’s guest is Mike Grigsby, Executive Advisor at MWGrigs LLC and Citizen Engagement Solutions Lead at Lumen Technologies. Mike joins Ethan Beute and shares one of the best analogies you'll hear to the work of evangelism. Mike discusses the importance of having your evangelist get out there to prepare the way and spread the good news of the change or transformation ahead. 

Be sure to listen for Mike's advice on how you can do better at asking questions in order to get people to engage with you, as well as balancing an internal and external voice for your message.

Takeaways:

• Mike thinks that the primary role of an evangelist is to spread the good news. Whether it's about a particular product or about a domain, he believes the main role is to spread the good news.
• Another role Mike thinks is crucial for an evangelist is to pave the way and prepare the way. Mike believes that there is an educational and awareness element around evangelism that he thinks should not be dismissed or overlooked.
• One of the core attributes an evangelist should give is an “aha” moment to those around them. Evangelists help break down complexity for others to help them get started on their journeys.
• As you make a shift to change, you have to communicate about the change with your external stakeholders, your customers, and your partners. Ask yourself, what does it look like? What does your supply chain look like? How is that shift in your organization's direction? How is that gonna affect all of the stakeholders around?
• The evangelist focuses on the problem, not the product. Mike believes that this is a key component of understanding how to activate the role of evangelism in the organization or externally to your stakeholders.
• A big failure that Mike has seen in companies is that the evangelist has not been enabled or empowered at the highest levels. Mike believes that there almost needs to be an agnostic element where the evangelist plays a role within the company.

Quote of the Show:

• “I have a passion for seeing that light bulb moment in people.” (05:28)

Links:

• LinkedIn
• MWGrigs LLC and Lumen Technologies
• Twitter

Ways to Tune In:

• YouTube
• Podpage
• Spotify
• Amazon Music
• Apple Podcasts
• Stitcher

Chief Evangelist is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today’s guest is Jo Zichterman, Data Evangelist at ZoomInfo. Jo joins Ethan Beute and shares ways to scale the impact of evangelism by working internally and the value of the human face and voice in creating belief. He also shares his path through a high-growth company from customer service through account management to evangelist. He also shares his path through a high-growth company from customer service to account management to evangelist (and how he titled the role).
 
 Learn about his approach to developing a thesis, advancing ideas, and impacting people at scale by interacting with all of your customer-facing team members. Listen in for his advice on discerning whether you’re dealing with an education gap or if there's something that needs to be addressed and fixed!

Takeaways:

• You don’t need to convince anyone that data is useful. Good data has utility and value to help people and organizations but a lot of people don’t understand data’s utility or its limitations. This requires evangelism.
• It is always important to ask a lot of questions at your place of work. Get to know the processes your company goes through. This will help you figure out any mistakes your company runs into since you’ve gathered information.
• If your company does not have a lot of structure, ask how to justify your work and prove the value and contribution of your role. Set up a meeting with your business and talk about where you think your time is best spent and where there are areas where you need to pull in more people who fit those roles.
• In the workplace, you don't need to work as hard to convince people that the thing you have knowledge of (data, etc.) is useful to them. It's much more about them understanding how and when it's useful for themselves.
• When telling a customer about your product, tell them every detail about the who, what, why, how, and when before they search for something else. Being upfront and open about what your product is can be beneficial to keeping them as a client.

Quote of the Show:

• “My job is to be the person people come to with questions, help them understand things, and help them make sense of the world.” (11:46)

Related Links:

• Jo Zichterman on LinkedIn
• ZoomInfo.com

Ways to watch or listen to Jo on Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute:

• YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Amazon Music
• ChiefEvangelist.com

Collin Mitchell started his relationship with Humantic AI as a customer and advocate before becoming Chief Evangelist and now Head of Sales. Collin joins Ethan Beute to share the most important job of an evangelist, ways to build community, the potential in creating a media brand or media company, and the future of sales and marketing.
 
Collin also discusses why evangelism was necessary for Humantic AI - including the problems with the status quo and developing and sharing a point of view on improving it. Listen in to get his advice on how to connect with influential people in the spaces where you're looking to learn and grow.

Takeaways:

• The most important job of a Chief Evangelist is to evangelize the problem you solve, not the product you sell - to become a thought leader in that space that people can seek and learn from.
• Why evangelism for Humantic AI? To help people understand the need and opportunity to sell to the PERSON, not to the PERSONA.
• One tip Collin shares is to be a good evangelist, you need an enemy. For him, it’s the targeting of a persona and the sequencer that shoots messages at people who fit that persona.
• People buy from people and people follow people ... not brands. It's important to develop a relationship with each buyer, providing them with a personal relationship and a strong bond.
• You want to build a network of people to share conversations and to learn with. Bouncing ideas and info off of one another helps with communication in your workplace and with customers.
• When a customer is having a problem, listen to them and bring their concerns back to your company. Making your customer feel heard and listened to is so important when wanting to keep loyal buyers. Bringing the concerns back to the company to work through them is enforced in order to build a better business.
• When starting as a Chief Evangelist, surround yourself with passionate customers and team members. Being surrounded by people that you trust at the start of your journey can be beneficial. Go to them if you have any questions and talk to them about any issues or doubts you run into. At some point, everyone will need this role - even if they don’t know, believe, or take it seriously right now.

Quote of the Show:

• “It's not about quantity, it's about quality interactions with people.” (07:25)

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collincmitchell/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/collinm_sales
• Website: https://humantic.ai/

Ways to Watch or Listen to Collin on Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute:

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/4D693zClUuA
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/008-collin-mitchell-humantic-ai-on-joining-the/id1652687400?i=1000593946560
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5rPQ9LTJPuwcAUY6eVLwxG
• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a1ac6eea-f0ab-4546-a3ff-80b4f7a05fd9/episodes/46dc2422-3552-4b61-9452-2ff16d0fbc08/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute-008-collin-mitchell-humantic-ai-on-joining-the-conversation-as-chief-evangelist
• ChiefEvangelist.com: https://www.chiefevangelist.com/008-collin-mitchell-humantic-ai-on-joining-the-conversation-as-chief-evangelist/