This episode features an interview with Mary Wells, CMO at Cloudera, a software company that empowers organizations to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights.

In this episode, Mary discusses her maniacal focus on strong foundations and operational efficiency, and how it allows her to experiment and take calculated risks. She also dives into her focus on simplified, consistent messaging and why CMOs need to tap into their inner CIO.

Key Takeaways:

• Ruthlessly prioritizing foundations and operational excellence, especially with budgets, allows you to optimize, experiment, and take calculated risks.
• CMOs need to tap into the inner CIO. CMOs have a tech stack and their organization is an expensive line item for a company. Scaling back and leaning into data and reporting gives the CMO a seat at the table and insights into what their customers need.
• Mix matters to your audience. Do fewer things, but do them bigger and better, aligning behind one marketing strategy to find your customers where they are in the buyers’ journey.

Quote:

•  ”The other strategy is what we're not doing and cutting down on the quantity. What we want to do are fewer things, but bigger and better. By breaking down these silos, we're able to do that, so that when I wake up on a Wednesday, like today, I don't have 50 marketing things happening today. Everybody in marketing now has one playbook and together we're making it happen. And with the strategy though, again, it's not just events, it's not just hands-on labs. Mix matters, and knowing where a prospect or a customer is in the buyer's journey lots of times helps me and the team gauge where we need to dial up and down. Sometimes it's video, sometimes it's a deep dive technical presentation, sometimes it's an event, digital, et cetera. And the idea is that mix matters based on the audience.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(05:37) The Trust Tree: Prioritizing operational excellence

*(18:21) The Playbook: The value of comms

*(35:10) The Dust Up: Practice the pause – different day, different person

*(38:27): Quick Hits: Mary’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 Mary on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Cloudera
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Mika Yamamoto, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer at Freshworks, a company that provides powerful, easy to use Customer service, IT, and CRM software.

In this episode, Mika discusses surgically blending the physical and digital world, to create a campaign experience that sticks with prospects. She also talks about encouraging innovation from her team, tying marketing victory to sales’ success and focusing on customer over function.

Key Takeaways:

• Blending the physical and digital world when creating campaigns can create more lasting impact and better returns.
• Allowing your team to divide and conquer different markets and functions allows people to specialize and be the best at what they do, an impossibility if they are doing too many things.
• Incorporating humanity and a recognition of the human on the other side, not only differentiates your marketing in a B2B space, it makes the whole job more enjoyable

Quote:

• ”In terms of signals, what helps is that we have one operations function that works across all functions. There's traditionally been, marketing comes up and celebrates and says, “Woohoo, we did all this work, we’re green!” And then sales is saying, “Well, what the heck you can't claim victory because we haven't met our numbers. So how can you declare victory if we haven't met our numbers?” And so again, the construct that we have is we have one operations group in our organization, Freshworks. So, we have one dashboard that essentially ties together and we're still working on making those ties, but that ties together, marketing doesn't declare victory if sales can't. So, it's driving shared metrics in one dashboard versus this view of the world that is a marketing view, then a sales view then a product view. We want to drive one view, which is more customer focused versus functionally focused.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(08:24) The Trust Tree: Divide and conquer different markets

*(24:12) The Playbook: Focus on demand capture

*(39:20) The Dust Up: Assumptions about sellers and marketers

*(42:49) Quick Hits: Mika’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 Mika on LinkedIn
• Learn more about FreshworksLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Niki Hall, CMO at Five9, a company that provides cloud contact center solutions, facilitating billions of customer engagements annually for 2,500+ customers.

In this episode, Niki discusses the role of a CMO as a business professional first, and how important it is for them to bring customer insights into the overall company strategy. She also dives into her approach to experimentation and enhancing authentic marketing with the customer voice.

Key Takeaways:

• CMOs should see themselves as business professionals first, and marketing professionals second. As a business professional, they need to be honest about what is not going well, so while you need to highlight wins, you can’t focus too heavily on what is going well.
• CMO's need to bring out insights to inform strategy, anticipating future issues that could arise. It’s essential to use customer insights to inform overall business strategy.
• Experiments are important, and you can pilot and prove new ideas at a small scale for proof of concept. Leaders should invest in and encourage experimentation.

Quote:

• “ Pilot, prove, scale. So, I always ask my team to try new things, pilot it, prove it at a smaller scale. Once we've proven it out, then let's scale it globally. So, I've always set aside money for experiments and encourage my leaders to do that.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(03:09) The Trust Tree: Having the right ingredients as a company

*(14:02) The Playbook: Having a clear, differentiated message

*(37:12) The Dust Up: Grounding in common understanding

*(39:25) Quick Hits: Niki’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 Niki on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Five9
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Karl Van den Bergh, CMO at Gigamon, a company that helps IT organizations better secure and manage their hybrid cloud infrastructure.

In this episode, Karl talks about shifting from a lead-based model to a demand unit model, the impact of investing in brand when budgets are tight, and balancing awareness with demand. He also talks about his approach to content, creating something that stands out and that people either love or hate.

Key Takeaways:

• Transitioning from a lead-based model to a demand unit model can better align with complex B2B buying processes because it allows for more accurate targeting of entire buying committees.
• Maintaining brand investments during economic downturns is a way to seize opportunity to win market share. Companies that continue to invest in brand awareness during tight budgets will emerge stronger when the market recovers.
• Leveraging humor in campaigns, and embracing that some people will love it and some will hate it, is more memorable and can have better results than content that blends in.

Quote:

• “We said, look, I'd rather put something out there that people either love or hate, as long as it's done, again, it can't be offensive, but people love or hate. I'd rather have something that stands out than something that's bland that no one would object to. And sure enough, as I said, it way outperformed benchmark.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(04:30) The Trust Tree: Shifting from a lead-based model to a demand unit model

*(20:26): The Playbook: Put out content people will love or hate

*(38:06) The Dust-Up: Authentic Dialogue

*(39:47) Quick Hits: Karl’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 Karl on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Gigamon
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Allison Breeding, CMO, Apptio, an IBM Company that provides data insights that empower leaders to make smarter financial and operational decisions.

In this episode, Allison talks about shifts that have stuck around post-covid, getting really clear on personas, and pushing the envelope through experimentation.

Key Takeaways:

• It’s worth pushing the envelope and trying out-of-the-box approaches. If you’re not pushing the boundaries a little bit, you’re not trying hard enough.
• When the market is turbulent and shifting, you have to be able to adjust your value prop and positioning to endure. Apptio made a big shift into digital marketing during COVID. Then, when the market plunged after hitting a high, they were able to shift to allow for continued success.
• Focus groups, and feedback from partners, prospects and employees, can inform the direction that you need to go in and support your efforts to understand your value proposition.

Quote:

• “We've been doing a lot of really fun kind of guerrilla, out of home concepts, outside of events. Getting our hands slapped every now and then, but that's okay. If we're not getting in trouble, we're not pushing the envelope enough. But yeah, we're kind of trying to own the spaces that people are kind of in the mindset of thinking about our product in. And so whether that's airports or outside of event venues, on taxi cabs, on trains, that sort of thing around the events that we're participating in.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(03:45) The Trust Tree: A bottom-up and top-down approach

*(17:35) The Playbook: Spending money fast and utilizing events
*(32:31): The Dust Up: Navigating the founders’ mentality

*(34:58) Quick Hits: Allison’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 Allison on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Apptio
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Dorian Kendal, a former CMO and a multi-time marketing leader. Most recently, Dorian served as CMO at Netlify, a platform for developers to build highly-performant and dynamic websites, e-commerce stores and applications.

In this episode, Dorian discusses his non-traditional path to the CMO role, his experience restructuring teams for an enterprise focus, and the value of partner programs. He shares his thoughts on why you should avoid checklist marketing.

Key Takeaways:

• Moving from product-led growth to an enterprise focus requires more targeted, “surgical” campaigns.
• Evangelist and influencer programs can drive long-term pipeline growth more effectively than short-term, paid media strategies.
• Over-reliance on SEM (Search Engine Marketing) can stifle creativity and drain budgets without delivering proportional returns. Redirecting resources to SEO, community engagement, and innovative campaigns like events can offer better long-term ROI.

Quote:

• “I'm very anti-checklist marketing, I call it, where you just have, every campaign you're like, here's the eight things we need to do, and you just check them off. Because it just sucks creativity out of the process. And I think that we oftentimes, instead of finding really unique ways to attract audiences and engage them, we sometimes just fall back on stuff. And search engine marketing, I've always felt it's been like the easiest thing for people to be like, you know, we're gonna do a campaign. Well, of course, what's our SEM budget? So I think sometimes just sucks creativity out of the process.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(03:59) The Trust Tree: Restructuring to target enterprise customers

*(13:23) The Playbook: Investing in search optimization over search engine marketing

*(35:45) Quick Hits: Dorian’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 Dorian on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Jason Ing, CMO at Gusto, a company that automates and simplifies payroll, benefits, and HR, while providing expert support. Jason was early on the ground at Xbox and Prime Video, playing pivotal roles in revolutionizing online gaming and digital media.

Jason offers a behind-the-scenes look at marketing major shifts in entertainment consumption, like launching Netflix on Xbox and his role in getting Amazon fire sticks into our homes. He also dives into his current marketing strategy at Gusto.

Key Takeaways:

• Everyone loves good content, and creative, entertaining content attracts and retains customers.
• Commitment and excitement about a long term vision can lead to groundbreaking success, even if others are skeptical initially.
• There is value in trying out unexpected or unconventional strategies, such as direct mail for Amazon Prime Video.

Quote:

• “As it relates to Netflix, and streaming overall, this was during the years in which people were still getting Netflix by mail. That was what they were known as. But the technology was being built and the amount of Xboxes we had in living rooms in the U.S. households and across the world was at a point where these streaming providers could create a viable business by getting into all those living room spaces. And this was before TVs were all smart-TV-enabled. So, it was really cool to see a vision for the future. And there was a bit of belief that you had to have around knowing that there was a better way. When you're fortunate enough to work for a company that is as successful as Microsoft was, and it's even more successful today, the company was willing to think long term. And I think that was really the first time in my career where I was exposed to this idea that you had to manage things on a day-to-day level and for the short term, but you had to have long-term vision and commitment to it. And I think all of us who were there, we were just very much bought into that idea, that there was just a future that was around the corner.”

Episode Timestamps:

*(29:09) The Trust Tree: Bringing elements from B2C to B2B

*(34:58): The Playbook: Controlling the narrative through brand

*(45:39): The Dust Up: Tension around partnership deals

*(47:42): Quick Hits: Jason’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 Jason on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Gusto

Learn more about

Caspian Studios

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