Getting Crafty as a Lean, Mean Team
Learn from Clare Dorrian, CMO at SugarCRM, about avoiding strategic decisions based on conjecture.
[MUSIC]
Welcome to Pipeline Visionaries.
I'm Ian Faison, CEO of Casper & Studios.
Today I'm joined by a special guest, Claire.
How are you?
>> I'm good. I'm good.
Thanks Ian. Thanks for having me.
>> Excited to have you on the show.
We're going to chat marketing.
We're going to chat SugarCRM.
We're going to chat your background and everything in between.
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Claire, first question.
What was your first job of marketing?
>> Well, I had an unusual entrance into marketing.
To be honest with you, Ian,
back in a year that shall remain unnamed,
I did a really small software company in Glasgow, actually.
Glasgow, Scotland.
I joined the business because I truly believed in who they were,
what they had to offer by WaveTech.
But I joined in a bit of a non-roll,
to be honest with you, my background prior to that.
I'd been in business analysis for the longest time.
So sat in that uncomfortable middle,
that uncomfortable between a business 90.
But I fast found myself in that role, pitching proposals,
being customer facing, and sat side by side with pre-sales and sales.
And the CMO of the business at the time, over a drink, I might add,
which is often how business is done in Scotland.
Approach me to say, you know,
I think we could use you over in our marketing team.
Do you fancy a different kind of adventure?
And I was at that point where I'd been doing business analysis
for more than a decade.
I was ready for something, you know, a fresh challenge.
And I thought, you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
And that probably says a lot about my personality as well, Ian.
>> Right.
>> And so I joined the marketing team as the most junior marketing person,
but I have to say, in retrospect,
I feel like my CMO at the time,
who is now both a friend and a mentor,
really offered me a gift because I finally found my home.
I think I finally found where I needed to be.
And in a role that I knew I would both enjoy,
that I could flourish, but that I could feel challenged in
and use everything I'd learned prior to that.
So yeah, an unusual entrance, no degree,
no Kellogg's School of Marketing program that went with it.
I learned on the street, so to speak.
>> So, flash forward to today,
tell us what it means to be CMO of Sugar Sierra.
>> Well, you know, my role is honestly all about helping our customers
and our potential customers understand
that the power of being able to connect data and insights
to teams that help move you from lead to prospect to customer,
so think marketing, sales and customer service,
and ultimately help their businesses grow, right?
By identifying and uncovering and going after accounts
that fit your ideal customer profile.
And my role here at Sugar Ian is an interesting one, right?
Because we sit in a market of mega vendors.
You know, we are the David to the Goliath.
And I'm not going to lie, I got a bit of a kick out of that.
You know, there are a number of mega vendors
that have dominated the market for years.
But where we specialize?
And I think what, you know, I don't think that's, you know,
for any business that's out there,
that is of a similar shape and size to ours
and anybody that finds themselves
and privileged to be in a role like mine,
you've got to find a niche.
You've got to find a focus.
You can't be all things to all men.
And, you know, our niche, our focus is mid-market.
So we, you know, me, my team, we are all about trying to pursue
and acquire accounts that actually look a lot
like the Sugar Business, where growth matters,
but not growth at all expense.
Being and remaining profitable, being efficient
and effective in how you grow really matters.
Because ultimately, the end of the day,
we want to deliver outcomes that matter for our customers.
And I think having come from the enterprise space, you know,
as you heard me say, I started out very much
in a start-up in Glasgow.
But I've worked in enterprise businesses
and I personally love that mid-market space
of fast-focused on growth, but not at any cost.
You know, I think for me that it brings out the best in me.
I think it challenges you in very different ways.
And, and yeah, so that's the focus of my team is
trying to draw in those accounts that look a lot like Sugar
and have similar challenges across the sales marketing
and customer service spectrum.
So it's kind of unique, right?
That I'm marketing to people that look a lot like me
and my team and the team that we actually collaborate
with to be successful.
It's kind of fun.
OK, let's get to our first segment, the Trust Tree,
where you go and feel honest and trusted
and share those deepest, darkest pipeline secrets.
You know a little bit about your company, what you do
and who your customers are.
What does that buying committee look like in the mid-market?
It can vary, you know, for us.
Oftentimes it does involve the CEO.
Oftentimes it involves the, if this person exists,
an IT leader, but predominantly in,
we are, our buying committee is made up of marketing leaders,
sales leaders and customer service leaders.
The end user on the other hand is,
and the influencer group are their team.
So it can be one, some are, you know,
one, some are all a combination of that type of group.
And then tell me a little bit about your marketing strategy.
Yeah.
Well, coming back to the notion of we have to differentiate,
we also have to build our brand differently.
We are private equity backed,
and we are all about growth,
but growth that is profitable.
And so one of our key marketing strategies
to help build our brand in has been intentionally centered
on aligning ourselves to partners and third parties.
Third parties who have audiences that,
guess what? Look a lot like our buying community.
Partners who can extend the value of the technology
that we have to offer, but who equally have customers
that look a lot like our ideal customer profile.
And, you know, I think a lot of businesses,
their motion is some combination of direct and indirect,
and ours is, you know, don't get me wrong.
But when it comes to building the brand itself,
we're very much leaning into, from a strategic perspective,
those third party communities that are trusted,
and that are trusted by our buyers,
alongside with those ISB partners that extend the value
of our platform and have customers that look like ours.
So that's kind of one part of our strategy.
I think like many businesses,
the other part of our strategy is to build connections.
At the end of the day, people buy from people,
you can have the best technology in the world,
but, you know, I think buying is emotional
as much as it is financial and practical and outcome-centric.
And I'm so glad the pandemic is behind us,
because we can now get back out in the field,
meeting our customers where they are.
And it's funny to me, you know, having been in marketing
for almost two decades, to see that in-person piece
come back around here,
because I think for so long, we all over-rotated on digital,
and don't get me wrong, that is still critical,
a critical part of our strategy, because, you know,
the next generation of buyers are digitally savvy,
so we have to embrace that.
But I think, you know, when I look at,
and I take a step back and look at what matters to us
as a business this year, it's getting out and about,
and in amongst the community of buyers, you know,
person to person to build those connections
and those relationships and that trust.
That's kind of another key part of our strategy for this year
that is different, because we haven't been afforded
that opportunity for the last few years.
So, yeah, just a couple of examples of how we're thinking
about our go-to-market motion here at Chicago.
And then what about your team?
How do you structure your marketing team?
Is it different because of sort of the size and scope
of your company, because it's more mid-market?
So, there are definitely some specialisms within my team,
and so, you know, a dedicated group that looks after the customer,
that, you know, handles and supports that drive for,
how do I turn, you know, the amazing win of a customer,
and how do I work with the cross-functional groups,
both internally at Sugar and the customers,
to take that customer on a journey through to advocates
so that they can publicly, not only champion their successes
of business, but also their success with Sugar.
So, yeah, very much a group that's centered on the customer.
Unsurprisingly, very much, you know, a group that is centered
on growth, and that's organized by region.
We operate in North America, in Amia, and in APAC,
so we have field marketing groups that are very much tied at the hip
with the local selling team, and their local customers and prospects,
and I think that's really, really critical.
But I think one thing I will say is, you know,
what comes with a mid-market business is recruiting talent is key,
and talent that may not come with that ready-made skill set
and that cross-functional discipline that's required
when your team is lean on me, but by goodness,
has that attitude and that appetite to want to learn,
and to cross boundaries into new skill sets.
You know, again, I reflect on my time working for a billion-dollar
software company and being a part of a marketing team
where we all very much had our swim lanes, events, websites, PR, AR,
and I think one of the beauties of working for a much smaller,
I would argue, more nimble team, is it allows you to
sort of extend your lens out into those different functions
and learn and grow, and I've personally found that hugely satisfying.
It's one of the ways that I think we retain the stuff that we do.
So there's a little bit of specialism to summarize,
but equally within my team, there's room to grow and to learn,
because I think when you are small and nimble,
both in terms of people and dollars, that's just a non-negotiable, right?
Yeah, I love that. Very cool.
Any other thoughts on sort of strategy in terms of being lean and mean
before we get under our tactics next segment?
Yeah, don't drive a strategy based on conjecture.
I think that what I oftentimes see in smaller, more nimble teams,
are ideas very quickly become the de facto execution.
And sometimes that is built out of that notion of we need to move quickly,
particularly again, I come back to when you're in a market of mega vendors,
like Sugaris, that sometimes that you don't allow enough time for the idea to
formulate,
to look at the data, to really validate the strategy or the idea that you are
moving forward with,
is directionally correct.
What I have seen in the past is that idea fast becomes an execution engine,
without necessarily understanding, "What am I working towards?
And how am I going to measure things along the way to ensure that
what we do do is worth our time effort and our investment of people and dollars
?" Well, yours is, or whatever currency it is.
And so, I would say that that's an important role of any CMO,
in any size of business, quite frankly, but particularly in a business that is
lean and mean,
that I think it's really important to challenge yourself, and to keep yourself
and your team
honest in terms of if we do this, what difference is it going to make?
And try to quantify that to the best of your ability.
Because guess what? That's what you see here wants to hear, right?
When you come back to the beginning of the budget cycle and say,
"I need three more people over here," or, "I need X number of dollars because
we're going to go
back to trade shows," you kind of have to prove it, or guess what? You're going
to lose it.
So, I think that's a really important role of not just a CMO, but anybody that
you have on your team
to point in a direction, be clear where you're headed, be clear how you're
going to measure
the success along the way, and celebrate it. I think I see two million teams
that move on to the
next cycle here, move on to the next project. And I think it's so important to
take those moments,
not just a celebration, but a reflection, and ensure that you learn from what
it is that you do,
because guess what? You're not always going to get it right. And that's fine.
And that's fine too.
Just don't always get it wrong.
Okay, let's go to our next segment. The playbook where you open up that
playbook and
talk about the tactics that help you win. What are three channels or tactics
that are your most
uncuttable budget items?
Okay, so the first one I would call out Ian is reputation, what I call
reputation management.
Today, all of us, you think about when you go on a holiday, what's the first
thing that you do?
You go to the review sites, right? To look at the villa, the apartment, the
accommodation,
how does it stack up, across all the different things that really matter to you
Software technology, it's no different. And all of this is happening without us
being able to
understand and control it. And so for me, it's so important for us to ensure
that on the relevant
review sites, things like G2, things like got an appearance sites, and I'm not
trying to give
them free publicity, that we have both up to date relevant customer feedback,
that potential
customers of sugar can point to to learn a little bit more about who we are,
what we do, and how we
can help on their own. Because guess what? They're going to do it anyway. And
so we as a marketing
team are very much prioritizing our reputation management focus to ensure that
we put our best
foot forward for when our buyers are doing their research, just like we do as
consumers in everyday
life. So that for me is one of our uncuttable focuses, and I think that stems
from just
changes in how people buy these days. It wasn't like that 10 years ago. The
second thing,
and some of this has been around for a long time in tech.
So the technology industry has often looked to industry analysts to help extol
the market category
and the trends that are happening in the category that you reside in. But
obviously over the last
over the last decade or so, that notion of your traditional industry analyst
has very much shifted
and there are influences out there, influences who have their own communities
and have built
their own communities that operate on social media channels. There are still
the traditional
industry analyst out there. And you know, there are certain segments of the
market where it matters
that you embrace them and you get to know them. But I think that notion for us,
as part of our go-to
market motion of identifying, engaging, and being side by side with credible
experts and influences
in our space is a critical part of our brand build. You heard me say that
earlier, you know,
it's one of those strategies that we are using to help elevate sugar among our
coal buying community and potential buying community as part of our go-to
market. And to me,
that is critical because when the market, when you've got work to do to drive
brand awareness,
piggybacking is an important strategy on brands, you know, piggybacking on
brands that already have
credibility, QDOS, is important. So that's one of the things that we are
certainly prioritizing
as part of our investments. And then the third thing, and this sort of closely
ties to the
influencer play in is content because it's one thing being side by side with
that group of,
you know, industry experts and folks that, you know, people look up to, but you
got to have
something interesting to say. And you've got, you know, the way we're thinking
about the influencers
is much less about influence on pipeline, albeit, you know, there are some that
do. It's much more
about how can we together help educate the market on how to solve the problems
that they're facing.
And at the core of that is content. Content that you can consume easily,
content that takes you on a
journey that sparks your imagination, that clearly articulates how you can
solve a problem that I
face in my role as a team, as a business that our customers are facing, because
it's not just
the internal problem, obviously, businesses are trying to solve how that
problem manifests
for their customers and prevents them from grabbing. When I think back to how
my, my team and my
investments were structured, even just a few years ago, one of the, one of the
areas that has seen a
significant uplift is content, because at the end of the day, you know, what
draws you in as a
story, a narrative that you can identify with and that the crux of that is
content. Do you have any
piece of content that particularly stand out to you or types of content or
anything like that?
So rather than a piece of content, maybe I'll talk to you about how we approach
it.
So, and again, I think that this comes back to getting crafty when you are a
lean mean team.
We think about big rock pieces of content. And so as a, for example, we are
working with an
industry publication right now to conduct a survey, conduct a survey out into a
market segment and
a group of respondents that guess what? Look a lot like our buyers. And the
reason why we're doing
that is, well, several faults, right? Firstly, we want to make sure that the
messaging that we're
putting to market actually correlates to the problems and the challenges and
the things that
keeping them awake at night. Secondly, when I talk about big rock pieces of
content,
those research insights is the big rock piece. But the way that we approach
content is to break
down those insights and map themes, topics that those insights have and will
uncover,
and we're in the middle of this right now, by the way, this piece of research
into social media
sound bites, webinars into short form, long form, and multiple formats. And
with a perspective that
will resonate to each of our core buying groups, so that we get the most out of
the research that
we're doing. Does that make sense? Yeah, for sure, of course. We're not. We're
approaching content in
a way where we're trying to uncover insights that we can then package in many
multiple ways
to educate when people are at the top of the funnel, to reinforce that the
challenge that
they're having or that they're expressing to us when they become a prospect is
shared by many others,
and they are not alone. But also into door openers for our sales team, to give
them reason to reach
out, to give them reason to connect as well. So yeah, I'm thinking about the
format working
in different ways. You know, social media is a plastic example of where bite
size really matters,
right? Long form just won't cut it. But building that story, so what most like
they do in movies,
right? You know, what Hollywood movie doesn't come with a trailer? We always
think about social
media as the trailer, you know, in the long form research report as the as the
movie itself. And so,
yeah, thinking about content as a big rock piece that you can break down into
lots of different
formats that work for the channels that are right for your business. And that's
what we're doing.
But then how you can apply it along the different customer journey to either
educate and light
and emotionally connect, validate whatever it is that you're trying to do. That
's how we're thinking
about content here at Sugar. I love that. Yeah, in my book, I wrote, you know,
educate, inspire,
entertain is sort of what we do here at Caspian. And I feel the same way about
those trailers,
like you you want to be able to give give the message in in the format, in the
place where it's
supposed to be. And I think a lot of people, you know, just see social as like
just spreading
the stuff rather than like just if they can consume it right there, and they
can get the
insight or get the information or, you know, find that one statistic of the
report right there.
It's like, that's a good action. That's a good spot to be. I saw someone, one
of the CMOs who's
who's come on the show just released a report that he said that on average that
their deal,
their deals were doing 695 touches with with all their different, you know,
content, you know,
all these sort of things. And he's like, there's just so many different ways to
engage at this point.
And if you're putting out all of those different, you know, pieces, that's,
that's where you want
to be, right? I mean, like, to me, 13 impressions equals a sale, right? Well,
an impression is
doesn't equal an impression anywhere, I suppose. It doesn't. It doesn't. And
you know, I think
it's easy to fast get overwhelmed, isn't it? By as you think about all the
different places that
you can put your content. And, you know, for those that are on the content
journey, not everybody is
blessed with having, you know, a dedicated content marketing team as a, you
know, for example,
A/B test. I always say A/B test, A/B test the format, A/B test the, A/B test
the channel. That's
how you're going to learn what works for your target buyer. And, you know, the
outcome that it is that
you're trying to drive. Don't think that just because you produce the content
in one way once,
that it doesn't have life beyond that. Because guess what? If you have the
insights to help you
understand what's driving the engagement, what's driving the connection, and
ultimately driving
the conversion, then, you know, hopefully you're able to go back and optimize
that content and
breathe new life into that content as a consequence of what it is that you've
learned.
Okay. What about your most cuttable budget item? Something that isn't working
or fading away or
just something that you're not investing in right now? You know what? Ebooks is
probably one.
And I think that, you know, five to six years ago, the Ebook was the latest,
greatest type of content,
right? And I think like with most trends, there's an over rotation. And what I
've seen is a lot of
gated ebook fluff, to be honest with you, out there. And so, again, I come back
to,
we are in a crowded market. Firstly, we've ungated a lot of our assets for good
reason,
because I would much rather have eyeballs on our content than I would, you know
, create a barrier
for our buyers to consume and get educated. So the gated ebook is definitely
one that has
RIPed over here at Sugar. And I think the other thing that we are trying to do
more of, and I don't
think we're alone here, is personalize things. You know, I think the days of
the equipping the
sales rep with the standard email and nurture campaign for the prospect who isn
't ready to buy
is just because they're probably not reading their email in the first place.
They're probably
looking elsewhere to learn more. And so, yeah, we aren't doing much of, you
know, stock standard
emails that we put in the hands of our, put in the hands of our reps. And then
the third thing,
where frankly, as a business, we are seeing, to some degree diminishing returns
is in paid
advertising. That may be unique to us. But we simply can't compete in with our
competitors.
So we have to look elsewhere to do that education, to drive that engagement.
That's not to say that,
you know, when I first joined the business, paid media wasn't a strategy that
worked better. It did.
But we've seen increased competition and increased investment from, you know,
who we come up against.
And so we just we've just had to look elsewhere. Yeah, I couldn't agree with
all three of those
things. I think, I think you're going to have, you know, with the rise of AI,
you're going to have a
ton of people using chat GPT to write more and more ebooks, which like, I think
that stuff is like
going to be total garbage, not that AI isn't super valuable. But that
particular stuff,
I think is totally garbage. You know, here's a here's a interesting anecdote.
So I wrote,
I wrote this book and, you know, technically it's a book, but 69 page book,
photo, thoughts,
pictures. And we actually use chat to, so I wrote all the, I wrote all the like
outlining and did
all that stuff of what I wanted to say. And our team, we sat down and we
actually use chat GPT to
write, to basically write the entire book. And we, and we looked at all of it
and we threw it all out.
It was terrible. And like, again, not that, not that chat GPT is not valuable
for a million
other reasons, but for our purpose, every sentence was saying nothing. And I
just kept looking at it.
I'm like, I would rather say one sentence that I created that I feel very
passionate about
and put a picture that I think speaks to that or an example. And so what we did
was we actually
went and we took quotes from CMOs about all the topics and we like,
interpret those throughout the entire thing. And we got a ton of great feedback
. Those like,
this is like how business books should be done going forward. Because you don't
need to write
140 page book, right? Because after about 70 pages, like, you got your point
across, the rest is
just example anyways. Don't fill it with fluff because who wants to read that
crap anyways,
we just want to read the headlines. Like, that's all you want to do. And then
we just threw it,
like, I threw it on LinkedIn and you could just literally, you know, sit there
and use the, you know,
upload it as a PDF. You just sit there on LinkedIn and just scroll through the
entire book if you
want in five minutes. And so I just think that that sort of stuff is just way
more consumable
than reading a bunch of words that really nobody cared about in the first place
. You know what I
mean? Like, it's just, it's so hard to write something compelling and make it a
page turner.
When you're talking, you know, those type of content, if you're filling a full
of examples,
great. But if you fill full of examples, all those examples could just be one-
off individual
things that are two pages rather than burying them 78 pages into into a book.
So anyways,
I digress, but I totally agree with what you're saying. You know, you know,
what though, in,
you know, for me, you bring up a really important point that, you know, for me,
the power of AI
lies in the marriage of AI and humans, not AI alone. And I think you've just
perfectly illustrated
that right. I think there are many marketing teams that are looking to chat TPT
to write content
for them. And you know, I talked to my team a lot about this and I say, use
chat TPT for ideas.
Don't use it as your author. One, because you won't be able to differentiate AI
can do many
things, but right in an emotionally compelling way, it's not there yet. And,
and two, you know,
don't underestimate the power of your own experience and, and you know, how you
can connect with your
audiences. So I think you, you, you're very, very nicely illustrated. You know,
the, the power on
the combination of the two is, is, is really what we need here, right? So
experimentation is key,
experimentation is key, but I think you have to go into it eyes wide open.
Speaking of experiments, what do you set aside for that little 5%, 10% budget
for those crazy
experiments? Do you have any experiments that that you're working on now?
Yeah, so we set aside about 10% of our marketing budget for experimentation.
And I would say that
most of the experiment, and this might maybe doesn't surprise you, most of the
experimentation
that we do resides in our digital channels, because I think that they demand it
And, you know, so experimentation around a different message and style of ad,
you know,
whether it's an advertisement that served up, you know, through a LinkedIn
community,
through a third party community, or indeed, you know, albeit we reduced paid
media spend,
you know, in terms of paid media. On the websites, we are a global business.
web presence in multiple different languages. And that affords us an
opportunity
to try things differently, to see what resonates with the different cultures
and the different
job of these. But I would say on balance, the line share of where we're doing
the innovation
is very much centered on our digital presence. How do you view your website?
You know, I always find that website, a little like brand evokes a very
emotional response
in people, and a very diverse response in people. And I always find that, you
know,
web and brands are probably the two that people have the most opinions on, you
know.
And the reason why I think that's the case is because it really is your
shopfront, right? Your window into the world of whatever business you represent
. And so
it's really important to put your best foot forward, you know, in terms of your
in terms of your web presence. How do I think of our website as a vehicle to
continue to educate
on how we can help? And as a vehicle to ensure that if you think we can help
solve a problem
that you have, that you can get in touch with us and get in touch with us real
quick.
Because convenience really matters, Ian, when it comes to website, you know, we
've all been,
we've all been educated by the BTC experiences of make it fast, make it easy,
make it convenient,
and make it all about me. And I think that prevails when it comes to B2B
website presence.
So that's how we think of our website. Ironically, our website is in the middle
of
transitioning. We are on a bit of a journey with our website as we fine tune
our message and tell
our narrative in a more cohesive fashion. It's a window of validation for our
customers that
they've made the right choice. But for us, our website is much more geared
towards, you know,
acquisition of new accounts, acquisition of prospects. And like I say, valid
ating whatever
it is that they found on those reputation sites in our content out there in the
dark funnel,
making sure that when they land there, that, you know, they see more of the
same, but at a next
layer down. All right, let's get to our next segment. The dust up, where we
talk about healthy
tension, whether that's with your board, your shell scenes, your competitors,
or anyone else,
have you had a memorable dust up in your career, Claire? You know, it might not
surprise you, Ian,
but I'm not an argumentative type. I like to think I'm pretty rational. But you
know what?
I do remember a moment, a time when I was actually working for a business in
the same
private equity portfolio that I'm in right now. And our business was in
transition. And
we were extending our footprint out into, you know, new buying community with a
wider portfolio
that had come both through acquisition and organically. And so guess what? The
rebrand project became
a thing. And and I remember very distinctly, a conversation with my CEO where
he was target
fixated on color choice. And I think I can say it now with hindsight, he just
had an emotional
connection to certain colors. But at the time, I found it really difficult to
reconcile why
color should matter to a, you know, to a CEO. And my path through that, being
very honest,
was to take a step back and go ask some sample customers, go poll the community
, the very
community of people that we were trying to target with alternatives, present
the brand or the
to be brand. And not just the visual application, but the narrative that went
with it. Because
brand is obviously so much more than that. But present that in a couple of
different ways,
almost a B test before we went live and gathered that input and that insight.
And that's what that
groundswell of opinion from at the end of the day, the people that we the very
people that we were
trying to attract. And that's what I used to convince our CEO that red was not
it.
And I think therein lies, you know, a really important lesson that we all work
with people who
can be very opinionated on, you know, I do think marketing is one of those
teams that
everybody has an opinion on, much like as I said earlier, everybody has
something to say about
your brand and your website. And I think that's how we develop our shoulders as
marketing teams. But
that's where I would encourage anybody that's listening. Go use the power of
the very community
that you're trying to reach to help validate what the right choice is. Go look
at the insights,
you know, based on what's worked previously. Go test, go A/B test, you know,
whether it's words,
colors, content, mediums, channels, go test to prove and validate what it is
that you should be
doing. Because I'll bet you're bottom dollar that no CEO or no rational CEO in
my experience
would ever push back on the grandswell of feedback and opinion from the people
that the
business is trying to attract in order to grow. And that's how I work my way
through it in.
All right, I'll do our final segment. Quick hits. These are quick questions and
quick
answers just like how quickly qualified helps companies generate pipeline to
have a near great
assassin website to identify your most valuable visitors in instantly start
sales conversations.
Quick and easy just like these questions go to qualified.com to learn more.
Claire, quick hits. Are you ready? I think I am.
Number one, was a hidden talent or skill that is not on your resume?
I'm going to cringe as I say this. Miss Damps of Great Britain in a year that
shall not be named.
Yeah, on to the next question quickly. Do you have a favorite book podcast or
TV show that you
do recommend? Sherlock. Yeah, the TV show written by two of my favorite writers
, Stephen Moffat and
Mark Gattis, just exquisite, exquisite acting, exquisite script, exquisitely
filmed. And I
didn't think the other thing I loved about it Ian, and I could say it works lyr
ical about this series.
For a long time, I'll try and keep it short. Just it was, you know, they're lay
the modern day classic,
right? Out there revered for years, who knew that something that TV show could
really
mix it up, twist it up and turn that iconic super sleeve into a high
functioning sociopath.
It's incredibly done. It's one of my favorites as well. One of my all-time
favorite shows.
Everything about it is just fantastic. Exquisite. Yeah, it really is. I'll have
to, we have a different
podcast where we talk about our marketing lessons from our favorite content. We
'll have to get you
on to talk Sherlock. Love to. If you weren't in marketing or business at all,
what do you think
you'd be doing? Teacher. I come from a long line of teachers, and I'm pretty
much the only one in my
family who didn't teach. Probably says a lot about my personality. But I think
what's interesting
Ian is there's a lot of parallels to what I do, I think, with the teaching
profession. But yeah,
I think I had a fan myself teaching. What grade, what topic? Kids, I love the
creativity, the lack of boundaries that comes with the mind of children. Most
kids are curious,
right? I think it's such a privilege to be able to influence so young and to
help them chart a
path that makes them be successful based on, you know, based on them as an
individual. So yeah,
it would be kids. I don't think I could handle the teenagers. I have nephews
and nieces that are
hitting the teenage years. And yeah, definitely that would be a that would be a
segment I would
avoid in the teaching profession, I think. What is your best advice for a first
time CMO?
Don't take the job in a pandemic like I did. That was a good one. Oh, honestly
though, listen,
you don't know what you don't know as a CMO. And you know, my job here at Sugar
, this is my first
time as a CMO. And I think that the listening skill set is not to be underrated
. You know,
as you join the business listening to how is marketing perceived? What is the
reputation of
marketing? What does your team look like? How are they performing listening?
Who does the customer
look like? What are they trying to do? How can you help them on that journey?
Yeah, listening.
How are you going to learn? How are you going to figure out where your quit
wins lie and
how to build your own term strategy? Claire, wonderful chatting with you today
for listeners.
You can go check out Sugar CRM. Claire, any final thoughts on anything to plug?
Nothing to plug. But you know, I will say to the marketers out there who,
I think I said this to you in when we were thinking about this podcast. I don't
think there's any
other profession where we've ever had to, that has to face change, either at
the speed, speed and
pace as marketers do, whether it's the change in tech, the change in the
customer behavior,
the change in channels available to us, the changing skill sets of the
marketing team,
the changing way in which you work with all your different cross-functional
stakeholders.
And so, you know, I'd much less plug and much more just say, you got this. You
got this team
marketing, you know, embrace the change because it's how you learn and grow.
Fantastic. Claire, wonderful having you on the show. Thanks again and we will
talk soon.
We will. Thanks for having so much for your time. Appreciate it.
And so we do have