Seeking Wisdom with David Cancel

Alright. If you’re into personal productivity (and getting more stuff done at work) then this episode is for you. DC and DG talk about Slack and a recent shift in how we’re communicating internally at Drift, plus lessons from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and a new book “Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day.”

Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt @dcancel and @seekingwisdomio.

Welcome to #Growth, a brand new podcast from Seeking Wisdom hosted by Matt Bilotti, Senior Product Manager on Drift's Growth team. On our first episode, Matt digs into choosing the metric that matters. Plus, Pirate Metrics, mapping out your funnel and more.

In this season you can expect to learn how to run growth experiments, get exclusive interviews from growth leaders and everything else you need to run a successful growth team.

Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @MattBilotti, @drift and @seekingwisdomio.

In this episode:

0:13 – Introduction to Matt, the host of #Growth

0:44 – What is #Growth?

1:13 – Choosing the lever that matters

1:46 – An example: Facebook

2:29 – Start with AAARRR (pirate metrics)

3:39 – A caveat for startups

4:03 – Map out your funnel and locate drop-offs

4:58 – Get the low-hanging fruit

5:29 – Go deep on one thing

6:09 – Should you start at the top or bottom of the funnel?

6:43 – Pick something, run with it, and try to move the lever.

6:56 – A warning to the listener who’s new to this

7:24 – Getting the right anchor point

7:48 – Having right expectations

We've got some exciting news from Drift and the Seeking Wisdom family of podcasts! We're launching a brand new show called Growth, hosted by Drift's Matt Bilotti, Senior Product Manager on, you guessed it, our Growth team. His show covers everything from growth tactics, the metrics that really matter to your bottom line, funnel mapping, how to run certain experiments, magic moments and so much more. You can also expect to get exclusive insider tips from growth leaders at top B2B companies on the tactics and strategies they use every day. Finally, a show for all you growth folks! Be sure to tune in.

Plus, #Build is getting it's own dedicated feed! Make sure you don't miss an episode by searching for and subscribing to the Build from Seeking Wisdom feed today.

Be sure to give all our new and existing pods ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and as always stay up to date with all things Drift at drift.com/blog.

Mentors. Role Models. Learning from others. Those are topics we talk about regularly here on Seeking Wisdom – but there are actually 3 types of role models to follow and watch if you want to grow in your career, business, or personally.

DC and DG break down Role Models, Reverse Role Models, Anti Role Models, and more on this episode of Seeking Wisdom.

Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt, @dcancel and @seekingwisdomio.

In this episode:

0:31- Introduction to today’s topic on role models

2:00 - Role models in general and why you need them

2:20 - Role models allow you to see what’s possible.

3:00 - Learn what works and doesn’t work from other people.

3:21 - We are in a constant fight with our own egos.

4:35 - We all model throughout our lives, but we get to a point when we stop modeling.

5:25 - The best marketers learn faster than anyone else.

6:13 - The classroom example- Whose earnings would you choose?

7:11 - Selecting your Role Model(s)

7:44 - Find somebody that is doing the same thing you are doing today. (peer)

7:50 - Find somebody that is one level ahead of you.

7:57 - Find somebody who is multiple levels ahead of you.

8:10 - Reverse Role Models introduced

8:18 - DG goes to a dinner event in with CMOs

10:00 - Reverse Role Models help you figure out what is possible.

10:32 - Anti Role Models- Find the people exhibiting the traits that never lead to the things that you want. (Charlie Munger’s Inversion Theory)

13:15 - Getting caught up in equipment, what you look like

13:45 - Rate & Review!

Links:

Learn more about Charlie Munger’s Inversion theory: https://www.learning-theories.com/inversion.html

On this episode of #Build, board advisor and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, Julia Austin, shares her point of view on what makes a truly great product manager. How does she know? Well years of experience spent as CTO at Digital Ocean and VP of Engineering at VMWare and Akamai.

Julia also opens up about her time as a lecturer at Harvard Business School and experience serving as a board advisor to startups including Drift, Wistia, Help Scout, ZappRx and others.

Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @maggiecrowley, @drift, @seekingwisdomio and @austinfish.

In this episode:

0:09 – Maggie introduces Julia Austin

0:40 – Introduction of the two big topics of today’s show: 1. What is a great product manager, 2. How one builds a carrier in production management

0:57 – Julia shares how she went from production itself to teaching about it

4:23 – Product manager is not a cool CEO position, but it turns ideas into made products and can be very gratifying

5:48 – The process of idea to realization in project management that she teaches in Julia’s class

8:32 – By taking a product management class one can walk through and gain knowledge about the whole process

9:05 – Kinds of people customarily being most successful in product management

16:29 – Julia explains what a ‘typical’ product manager looks like

20:24 – You don’t have to build the most fancy things all the time

21:57 – Sometimes you have to take scary risks

23:20 – What makes a great PM is someone who says ‘I know this is the right thing to do,’ and can make the call

23:28 – Julia shares advice on how one can get their first PM job

26:46 – Advice on how to evaluate the next carrier steps as a PM, and whether to go / remain in a big or a start-up company

35:32 – Julia shares some final pieces of advice

37:21 – Be willing to take risks

38:03 – Don’t be focused on titles, but on what you will actually do

In this episode of #Exceptions, a revelation about leadership and team happiness and retention in B2B. Indianapolis startup Lessonly teaches us about the communication principle most needed but often overlooked across the corporate world. It's one that explains why customers send Lessonly unsolicited letters praising them, and why the company's VP of Marketing spent a recent evening alone in his garage, spray painting 700 toy llamas gold.

This is an #Exceptions episode unlike any other. If you like it, be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and say hi on Twitter: @lessonly @kyleplacy @jayacunzo @seekingwisdomio.



In this episode:


0:35 - You’re only as good as your last at bat.

1:20 - Read Break the Wheel

1:56 - Meet Lessonly

2:56 - Jay reaches out to one of Lessonly’s happy customers.

4:10 - Putting the customer at the center of it all

7:17 - Jay explains Lessonly’s road map… with llamas.

9:00 - Jamie advocates really knowing what conference you’re going to.

10:09 - If Lessonly were a person it would be Jamie’s friend that would follow through.

13:00 - Psychological Safety introduced

13:17 - Employees are the best place to invest.

13:54 - Most marketers are reactive and skittish.

14:57 - At the core of psychological safety is trust.

15:21 - Marketing successes

16:40 - Caring about the whole person on our team

17:40 - Meet Kyle Lacy (Lessonly’s VP of Marketing)

17:47 - Non-violent communication & appreciative inquiry

20:53 - Katie Brunette (Marketing Manager) talks about Lessonly’s CEO & work/life integration.

23:40 - Kyle Lacy explains being too metric-heavy.

24:55 - The Golden Llama trophy

27:14 - The things that aren’t scalable are typically what works.

27:53 - Why Yellowship?

29:55 - Psychological safety while event planning for Yellowship

32:15 - Lessonly’s branding and unexpected touches

33:30 - Jay reads a letter from a customer.

35:54 - Gut-checking as a team

37:28 - The ability to help others do better work IS the platform.

On this episode of Seeking Wisdom, DC and DG discuss former Intel CEO Andy Grove and his book High Output Management – which just might be one of the most important management books of all-time. Plus DC shares one secret tell that will show you who your next great manager might be.

Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends!

Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt, @dcancel and @seekingwisdomio.

In this episode:

0:47 - Introduction of the book covered in this episode, High Output Management by Andy Grove.

1:07 - How Andy Grove has made an impact

2:28 - Why it’s important to pair your learning with a moment in time

3:05 - Main lesson of the High Output Management: be conscious of how everything you do reflects on the people who work

for you.

3:30 - Additional lesson: everything you do/don’t do counts and says something about you to your team.

4:17 - Be able to model good management and leadership for your team, as perception is reality

5:01 - “The streets are watching” - your team looks to you for cues on how they should act.

5:30 - Additional lesson: A manager’s output equals the output of his organization plus the output of the neighboring

organization under his influence

6:27 - The secret to getting promoted is to go beyond doing 100% of your job

7:05 - DC and DG’s bonus tip on how to spot a natural born leader and your next great manager

8:15 - Additional lesson: saying yes means saying no to something else

9:30 - Be straightforward and leave the interview gimmicks alone so as not to leave the wrong impression

10:44 - Hiring is luck, so the interview process needs to be scientific

11:53 - Management should adjust based on talent and knowledge and the Task Level Maturity approach

Books mentioned in this episode:

High Output Management by Andy Grove

On this #Marketing edition of Seeking Wisdom, DG syncs up with legendary marketing operator, Steve Johnson. Together they discuss his time at Constant Contact, Hootsuite, Vidyard and more.

Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt @seekingwisdomio.

In This Episode:

0:33 - Intro with Steve Johnson

1:29 - The rise of social media

2:31 - Hootsuite and social media

3:51 - Lessons from the high-volume business

4:16 - Lessons from Constant Contact

4:34 - Fremium

5:43 - How did Hootsuite grow?

6:33 - Community marketing

7:25 - Ambassadors to reach area influencers

8:16 - Hoot-ups

10:52 - South by Southwest and an owl bus

12:02 - All a matter of marketing and public relations

12:34 - The move to enterprise

14:46 - The proliferation of free/enterprise combinations

15:44 - A lesson from Survey Monkey: switch to annual subscription

17:12 - A lesson from Survey Money: use an agency

17:28 - The most recent parts of Steve’s journey

17:40 - Lessons from Hootsuite: purpose and model

18:26 - On the need for an international move

19:24 - Things learned from Vidyard

20:45 - GoVideo success

21:30 - Fremium is good for horizontal markets.

22:25 - The attitude needed to build a big company

First Round Capital is one of the most widely loved venture capital firms in tech -- no small feat for a VC firm to claim. Through their platform (VC for brand marketing and value-add projects), they've built the Harvard Business Review-of-Startups, hold 80+ events per year for their portfolio companies, and even help founders pitch them through a program called Pitch Assist. Today, host Jay Acunzo talks to First Round partner Bill Trenchard and how and why FRC bets on brand (and how that changed the VC world for good). We also hear from the founder of a growth-stage startup, Lloyd Tabb of Looker, who describes his experience with Bill and the First Round brand.

Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt, @dcancel and @seekingwisdomio.

In This Episode:

1:00 - Overview of #Exceptions

2:02 - First Round Capital

4:40 - What do entrepreneurs think of First Round Capital?

7:30 - First Round’s alignment with entrepreneurs

9:00 - First Round’s programs & network of professionals

11:30 - Good behavior under stress: living out brand values

13:20 - Today’s big idea: Thinking long-term

15:11 - “What’s in it for the customer?”

19:20 - Shared experience & empathy

23:00 - Evaluating investment opportunities through empathy

24:33 - Companies with the best customer experience

27:28 - The ugly duckling vs. the swan

28:39 - Hacks vs. the long view

32:00 - Two tactics for handling the hard times in a VC

35:00 - Bill’s hard conversation with a founder

36:00 - Key learning points from this episode

This week on Seeking Wisdom, DC and DG re-visit one of the most popular episodes of all time to share their secrets to reading more books. Why? Because reading is key to transforming you into a learning machine. And that means helping you get ahead in your career.

Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt, @dcancel and @seekingwisdomio.

In this episode:

00:37 - Did you vote? Who are the copywriters for ballots?

2:00 - Why we made this episode

3:54 - You’ve been taught the wrong way to read

5:50 - The key to becoming a learning machine

7:30 - James Altucher: “Idea sex”

9:07 - Stop reading boring books

10:54 - How to stay inspired and keep learning

14:19 - A six-star review from Ethan