Tech Qualified

During this episode of Tech Qualified, Tristan Pelligrino sits down and chats with Latane Conant, the Chief Marketing Officer at 6Sense. 6Sense is an Account Engagement Platform that allows companies to proactively target the right accounts based on real-time data and behavior. Latane talks about her background before becoming a CMO, discusses the trends in B2B buying and talks about this uncertain time we are operating within right now.

Episode Highlights:

• Latane Conant shares her background as a professional and talks about how she graduated with a degree in accounting...and found her way into a sales role.
• Latane discusses the ideal customer profile for 6Sense, which includes B2B sales and marketing teams.
• In a B2B buying cycle, there’s a concept of a “dark funnel” where buyers are conducting a lot of research before making a purchase.
• Only 13% of sales and marketing teams actually have confidence in their CRM data.
• During several virtual coffee talks with CMOs around the country, Latane discovered a few key themes - one being the fact that “putting our heads in the sand is the worst thing we can do.”
• Another key theme discussed with CMOs is around automation and how we shouldn’t be sending anything automated right now...and probably shouldn’t be doing that anyway.
• When operating in this climate, it’s ok to acknowledge what’s going on and empathy is very important.
• Latane mentioned that there is a lot of public shaming on LinkedIn and discusses how coaching can be done privately versus in public forums. 
• BDRs have a tough job and it’s even tougher right now. So, their team is focused on educating and learning. Right now, maybe it’s important to put double the amount of time into account research.
• Latane discusses the pros and cons of having BDRs report to marketing versus the sales teams.
• Latane talks about how she works with the leader of the BDR team and they collaboratively set the tone for the week...each week.
• ABM is really about understanding your ideal customers in real-time and identifying those key buying signals.
• ABM is more than just selecting the right accounts, you have to define a business objective up front as well.
• Latane breaks down how their podcast/video series was created and how they use it within their own marketing strategy.
• Latane discusses some projects she would execute if given a $20k budget to just “test” things out.                                              

Key Points:

1. There’s a saying, measure twice, cut once. I think it’s about educating and learning and maybe doubling the time you normally spend on account research.

This episode is produced by New North.  New North is a strategic B2B marketing agency specializing in working with tech companies. Going beyond conventional tactics, we craft a personalized marketing strategy, conduct research, lay a solid foundation, execute dynamic campaigns, and continuously refine our approach through analysis. 

With New North, your small, scrappy marketing team transforms into a powerful growth engine, achieving your goals with less pressure and more precision. 

During this episode of Tech Qualified, Justin Brown chats with the Director of Marketing at Rootstrap. Rootstrap is a company that builds apps from scratch, rescues existing products and provides additional development muscle for internal projects. Patrick talks about how the organization builds relationships with prospects and has a focus on both inbound and outbound strategies.

Episode Highlights:

• Patrick Ward shares his background within marketing and talks about what drew him to the opportunity at Rootstrap.
• Patrick discusses the ideal customer profile of Rootstrap which mostly covers three different industries - e-commerce, e-learning and healthcare.
• Rootstrap engages customers in two very specific ways: 1) Either they come to them with a product which needs to be built or 2) Staff augmentation.
• The sales cycle for Rootstrap’s engagements can be three, six or even nine months to close, so it’s important to nurture prospects throughout the entire journey.
• Rootstrap uses both inbound and outbound marketing strategies. 
• Rootstrap’s podcast serves as a way to generate interest with prospective customers and helps establish thought leadership.
• Once Rootstrap has determined a client has a problem which they can solve, it becomes more about education to help them convert.
• It’s almost like marketing and sales is one in the same, in the b2b space. You really need to be a consultant.
• If you genuinely provide the best solution for clients, even if it’s not yours, even if it’s recommending them to someone else, that’s going to get you a much better referral from the person and will build a long-term relationship. 
• Marketing is a lot about building systems and this process allows Patrick to create initiatives that run themselves. He then focuses on analyzing what is working effectively.
• What are some Patrick’s favorite resources to keep up with #b2btech marketing?                                               

Key Points:

1. Patrick urges marketers to enable products and services to continue to help other people - to keep the economy moving during the pandemic situation.
2. If your marketing is focused on inbound, you’re less at risk to algorithm changes and other major platform changes.
3. It’s helpful to listen to practitioners instead of just theorists. Taking lessons from practitioners is far more valuable than taking advice from theorists.
4. It’s important for marketers to be mindful of all the other industries that are struggling and to try and help them.

Resources Mentioned:

• Patrick Ward:

This episode is produced by New North.  New North is a strategic B2B marketing agency specializing in working with tech companies. Going beyond conventional tactics, we craft a personalized marketing strategy, conduct research, lay a solid foundation, execute dynamic campaigns, and continuously refine our approach through analysis. 

With New North, your small, scrappy marketing team transforms into a powerful growth engine, achieving your goals with less pressure and more precision. 

During this episode of Tech Qualified, we chat with Dawn White, the Director of Marketing and Account Management at Integrated Design, Inc. (IDI). Dawn talks about her background in account management, how she transitioned to marketing, why she focuses on the success of customers first and outlines some of the major changes she made when taking over marketing. 

Episode Highlights:

• Dawn White shares her background story and talks about how she started in account management at IDI...then transitioned to overseeing marketing as well.
• Dawn discusses the ideal customer profile of IDI, which includes both direct customers and partner organizations.
• Dawn talks about the homegrown CRM that existed prior to her rolling out Hubspot to the team.
• One of the first initiatives Dawn went through in marketing was to complete a content audit.
• Hubspot is an integral part of the marketing and sales infrastructure at IDI. 
• Dawn focuses on really keeping in touch with customers, through newsletters and simply picking up the phone.
• Dawn discusses how the website is used to complete a pre-evaluation for prospects and then how this information is shared with sales & partners to create a relationship.
• When moving into her marketing role, upselling was a component of her job...but so was customer satisfaction.
• Hubspot is a crucial component to ensuring marketing and sales teams are on the same page throughout a customer’s lifecycle.
• From the account management side, it’s important to never ask for more than we are giving in the relationship.
• At IDI, we’re consultants. We’re not trying to sell you something that you don’t need.
• Our sales process involves consultation. It requires a deep-dive into a customer’s environment and overall organization. 
• Dawn took a Storybrand course to further refine IDI’s messaging. One of the big lessons learned is how the customer is the “hero” in your messaging.
• What are some Dawn’s favorite resources to keep up with #b2btech marketing?                                               

3 Key Points:

1. Hubspot is a key part of IDI’s technology stack and ensures marketing and sales teams are aligned throughout the customer journey.
2. Dawn participates in a Rising Leaders Program within the Ann Arbor area and this helps her get plugged in to the local marketing community.
3. Dawn took a course from Storybrand to help facilitate the company’s website redesign efforts.

Resources Mentioned:

• Dawn White:

This episode is produced by New North.  New North is a strategic B2B marketing agency specializing in working with tech companies. Going beyond conventional tactics, we craft a personalized marketing strategy, conduct research, lay a solid foundation, execute dynamic campaigns, and continuously refine our approach through analysis. 

With New North, your small, scrappy marketing team transforms into a powerful growth engine, achieving your goals with less pressure and more precision. 

During this episode of Tech Qualified, we talk with D.J. Haskins, the VP of Marketing at SilverCloud. D.J. talks about the dramatic changes happening in the banking industry right now and pinpoints the importance of using empathy when engaging with prospects & customers.

Episode Highlights:

• D.J. Haskins shares his background and discusses his role at SilverCloud. 
• D.J. Haskins talks about his background as an agency owner and what made him want to switch over to the other side.
• What does SilverCloud do for their customers and how is their solution important in today’s environment?
• What types of shifts do we see in the banking industry - especially with digital and mobile access?
• With social distancing and the “new” work environment, how does SilverCloud communicate with customers and discuss their offering?
• Why is empathy so important when it comes to communication with prospects and customers?
• From an outbound point of view, we need to be very empathetic. But, from an inbound standpoint, we need to almost double down when someone needs our solution.
• Why is it important, now more than ever, to “give” first in the marketing lifecycle?
• How does a webinar fit into a marketing strategy in this type of sales environment?
• SilverCloud’s prospects and customers are still going about their business and banking customers are demanding quite a bit of information right now.
• SilverCloud has a small marketing team and D.J. serves very much as a “player coach” in their environment.
• We’ve gotten really efficient in terms of content design - enabling us to get out content quickly.
• What are some of D.J.’s favorite resources?                                                                    

Key Points:

1. We’re very targeted and webinars are one of our best lead sources.
2. We just had our biggest webinar of the year [despite the social distancing many individuals are operating within].
3. A lot of our target audience is still going about their business.
4. We’ve committed to content design and creating templates, this allows us to generate high quality content quickly.

Resources Mentioned:

• D.J. Haskins: Linkedin
• SilverCloud: www.silvercloudinc.com
• Revenue Collective: https://www.revenuecollective.com/
• Motion: motionagency.io/access

During this episode of Tech Qualified Podcast, we talk with Ray Grieselhuber, Founder and CEO at DemandSphere. Ray Grieselhuber talks about how DemandSphere’s core audience, how they serve their customers, his interest in SEO, the difference between keyword searches versus semantic searches, and how SEO is evolving with audio and video.  

Episode Highlights:

• Ray Grieselhuber shares his background and what he is up to at DemandSphere. 
• Ray Grieselhuber’s interest in SEO came from its combination of all the technologies he was interested in. 
• What does DemandSphere do for their customers and their connection to the start-up community? 
• What was the state of DemandSphere when it was happening in Japan? 
• What has helped expand the skillsets needed for growth?  
• Ray is an engineer who also likes to talk to customers.                                        
• Ray Grieselhuber talks about DemandSphere’s core customer profiles and how to stay in their lane with the companies they can help.  
• What is the right time for an organic search strategy? 
• How do you penetrate the market when there isn’t a lot of information on the service you focus on?                                   
• Talk to your customer and listen to what they need? 
• Should you start with a budget and look at your goals within those restrictions? 
• Ray Grieselhuber discusses the difference between keyword searches versus semantic searches.                                         
• How much weight should you place on single pillar pages of content versus content clusters? 
• How do you balance the call-to-actions at different stages? 
• Capture emails and figure out how you can show potential customers benefits.   
• How do audio and video factor into SEO? 
• What are Ray's favorite resources?                                                                    

3 Key Points:

1. DemandSphere handles programmatic SEO for very large database-driven websites with a lot of automated content generation.  
2. The main customer profiles for DemandSphere are large websites driven by data, many of which are on the e-commerce side or start-ups in the technology space. 
3. The marketing funnel that you need to reach 500 really high paying customers is much smaller than the funnel you need to reach 20,000 low-level paying customers.

Resources:

• Ray Grieselhuber: Linkedin
• DemandSphere: demandsphere.com
• Hacker News: news.ycombinator.com/news
• Found Conference: foundconf.com
• Motion: motionagency.io/ultimate

During this episode of Tech Qualified, we talk with Chris Miller, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at ATB Technologies. Chris Miller talks about how ATB Technologies stays in front of new prospects, taking the time to ask and answer your customer’s needs, the marketing approach that ATB takes, why competition is a good thing, and their client onboarding process.

Episode Highlights:

• Chris Miller talks about his past work history and current work at ATB.     
• Chris Miller explains what ATB Technology’s ideal customer profile Is and how why serve them. 
• What are some of the first steps they take with clients and who do they report to? 
• What types of marketing efforts do they have in place and is it a regional focus?
• How does their onboarding process work and having conversations with current customers?  
• How is ATB Technology differentiating themselves from other IT companies?                                       
• What are some of their plans for 2020?
• How does ATB stay in front of prospects? 
• What is ATB’s process for creating content ideas?                                      
• ATB may only choose to take on 6-10 clients a year that are a good fit.  
• Is there a particular area that they focus on with their blog and other modalities? 
• Competition doesn’t have to be seen as a negative thing.                                         
• Being transparent about your pricing puts clients at ease.  
• What types of targeted marketing efforts does ATB have on the table? 
• What is his favorite resource that he relies on to keep up to speed on marketing?                                     

3 Key Points:

1. ATB Technology’s unique selling proposition focuses on its engineers, how they are very proactive, and their in-house development expertise. 
2. ATB Technology has almost zero job turn-over with its engineers which builds a strong rapport internally within the company and with clients.  
3. Customers are often driven to make a purchase decision by the company being consultative and taking the time to inquire about the client’s needs and finding ways to solve them.

Resources:

• Chris Miller: Linkedin
• ATB Technology: atb-tech.com
• Book: They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan
• Motion: motionagency.io/ultimate

During this episode of Tech Qualified, we talk with Ray Mina, Head of Marketing at Fieldwire. Ray Mina talks about how he got involved with Fieldwire, the market they are serving that isn’t accustomed to being marketed to, the importance of implementing the fundamentals of marketing, content pieces that they implement, and the development of ideas.

Episode Highlights:

• Ray Mina talks about his work history.     
• Ray Mina explains who Fieldwire is, and who their core audience is. 
• How did the leadership go from video games to construction technology? 
• What does the internal marketing structure at Fieldwire look like? 
• What are some of the marketing content pieces that they are sharing with their core audience members?
• How are they building trust with consumers that aren’t typically being sold to?                                          
• What is it like being a marketer in a saturated market versus being in an unsaturated market? 
• How is his team developing ideas? 
• What are some new things that Fieldwire is working on?                                        
• Ray Mina talks about being an early user of Slack. 
• What is his favorite resource that he relies on to keep up to speed on marketing?                                     

3 Key Points:

1. Fieldwire’s core customer is construction teams who actually work in the field and need an app that works as easily as Spotify.   
2. Instead of ABC, it should be ABH, ‘always be helping.’  
3. Your playbook may not work forever so you have to have the discipline to do the fundamentals of marketing.

During this episode of Tech Qualified Podcast, we talk with Joy Justus, Senior Vice President - Channel Marketing at ThinkHR. Joy Justus talks about what ThinkHR does, how her role at the company has evolved, obstacles she overcame to get the messaging in a comfortable place, typical channel partner engagements and customizing marketing messaging for those channel partners.

Episode Highlights:

• Joy Justus talks about her work history.     
• Joy Justus explains the value proposition of ThinkHR and describes its ideal customer profile.
• She discusses how ThinkHR implements a channel marketing strategy. 
• What are some of the typical channel engagements?  
• What were some of the challenges that Joy overcame in order to help ThinkHR get their marketing messaging out more effectively? 
• How did Joy separate ideal channel partner profiles to be more specific with marketing messaging?                                           
• How did Joy link the messaging exercise she went through to developing content? 
• How does she determine how to prioritize content for partners? 
• Joy talks about working with Outreach.                                        
• What does the handoff look like between sales and marketing? 
• How do you manage ThinkHR’s content calendar? 
• Which resources does Joy rely on the most to keep up with B2B tech marketing?

2 Key Points:

1. ThinkHR goes through a channel marketing strategy and distributes through channel partners (insurance agencies/brokers, PEOs, HCM platforms, payroll companies) who then purchase and resell their product to employers.  
2. To avoid the generic one-size-fits-all approach to marketing you have to come from the perspective of that channel partner and really understand the dynamics of what they deal with on a daily basis.

Resources Mentioned:

• Joy Justus: Linkedin
• ThinkHR: thinkhr.com
• CoSchedule: coschedule.com
• HubSpot: hubspot.com
• SaaStr: saastr.com
• Motion: motionagency.io/ultimate

During this episode of Tech Qualified, we talk with Julianne Thompson, Sales Development Manager at Outreach in the Tampa office. Julianne Thompson talks about what her work with Outreach involves, the change in the industry towards account-based sales and marketing, how they are using content to educate the market, the value of thought leadership, the impact of direct mail, and the importance of having omni-channel content. 

Episode Highlights:

• Julianne Thompson talks about her work history.     
• Julianne talks about what problem Outreach solves and what types of customers it serves.
• How are things evolving with Outreach? 
• What have you seen with the changes taking place towards account-based sales and marketing?
• What does Outreach use for content in order to reach prospects and cut through the noise?
• What value has thought leadership had for Outreach? 
• Julianne talks about the impact of direct mail and gifting.  
• What are some of the takeaways Julianne has had from speaking at Outreach’s conference.       
• How is Outreach harnessing the skills from their team and distributing through content? 
• How is account-based sales and account-based marketing being used by the Outreach team?  
• Which online resources does Julianne rely on?

3 Key Points:

1. Outreach provides content to help buyers understand the value that they bring and this is done by educating the market on what sales engagement is all about.
2. Be able to find out where your sales reps are failing and where their sales funnel may be broken by understanding when your buyers are most likely to pick up the phone, and who is most likely to be a buyer.
3. It's important to have an omni-channel approach to content because people consume content differently.

Resources:

• Julianne Thompson: Linkedin
• Outreach: outreach.io
• Sales Hacker: saleshacker.com
• AA-ISP: aa-isp.org
• Motion: motionagency.io/ultimate

During this episode of Tech Qualified, we talk with Fara Hain, Vice President of Marketing at Run:AI. Fara Hain explains how Run:AI is benefiting AI companies and helps to define the core elements of AI. She also discusses some of the steps she took to understand the customer base and ensure the company's messaging resonated with their audience.  

Episode Highlights: 

• Fara Hain talks about her work history.     
• Fara Hain describes the ideal customer profile that Run:AI serves and how the company helps solve some of their major problems.
• What are the layers of AI and what is deep learning? 
• What are some things that Fara Hain did to relate to Run:AI customers - especially right when she arrived? 
• What types of initiatives does Run:AI plan to focus on when connecting with their core audience?  
• How did the messaging at Run:AI get established early on? 
• What are some things that were crucial to the two-day workshop that helped establish the core messaging within their organization? 
• What were some of the major strategies used in order to get other employees involved and excited about the brand messaging exercise? 
• What was the methodology she used to get people on the same page at Run:AI - especially early on when she started her role?  
• How does she balance short-term lead generation goals with the creation of long-term branding initiatives?
• Are there any online resources that she finds helpful? 

3 Key Points:

1. AI is divided into three groups: traditional AI with automation, machine learning, and deep learning.   
2. Product marketing needs to be clear to articulate the company’s value to customers. After you build your messaging, test it.  
3. Get your team on the same page and ensure everyone (from sales, marketing and other teams) discusses the company in the same way.  

Resources Mentioned:

• Fara Hain: Linkedin
• Run:AI: Run:AI
• Run:AI Linkedin: Linkedin
• Moz: moz.com
• Motion: motionagency.io/ultimate