This episode features an interview with Karen Budell, CMO, Totango + Catalyst. Totango and Catalyst recently joined forces to build a leading customer growth platform that helps businesses protect and grow revenue, providing businesses with a united platform that drives recurring revenue success and measurable growth.

In this episode, Karen talks about leading a marketing team through a merge. She talks about the importance of customer success and investing in the full marketing “bowtie” to focus on retaining customers.

Key Takeaways:

• Post-merger, marketing teams need to harmonize the brand and messaging, the product, the tech stacks and more. While this is a challenging process, it allows you to take the best from each company and present a unified brand that fosters trust.
• Start with outcome-based conversations when talking to prospects to make sure you understand their objectives before you complete the sale. Your customers’ success is your success.
• Don’t just invest in the marketing funnel. Invest in the full marketing “bowtie”. Retaining and growing current customers is very important.

Quote:

• “We stood up a sales enablement and go-to-market enablement role and function within the marketing org. So reporting up to me, but a dotted line to the CRO’s organization. And part of the reason that I thought that that was a great fit and was so successful was because you really want to make sure that your frontline team understands who your target audience is and what your galvanizing story and narrative is all about. So, being close to the marketing team that was working on that messaging and positioning and the programs and events really helped create a nice bridge and reinforce the partnership that we had with our sales team.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(4:18) The Trust Tree: Outcome-based conversations with customers

*(16:02) The Playbook: Updating the website post-merger

*(33:24) The Dust-Up: CMOs that come from a brand focus

*(39:59) Quick Hits: Karen’s quick hits

Sponsor:

Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links:

• Connect with Ian on LinkedIn
• Connect with on Karen Budell on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Totango + Catalyst
• Learn more about Caspian Studios