The Customer Journey Isn’t a Funnel - It’s a Spiral
Sun Lee, CMO at BigPanda, shares about why she thinks of the customer journey as a spiral.
[MUSIC]
Welcome to Pipeline Visionaries.
I'm Ian Faison, CEO of CastMean Studios.
And today we are joined by a special guest, Sun Li.
How are you?
Good. How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
Excited to have you on the show.
I'm excited to chat all about Big Panda and the cool stuff
that y'all are doing.
So let's get into it.
First, what was your first job in marketing?
Ooh, OK.
I started my career as a designer in a marketing department.
So I was a creative designer at a semiconductor company
out of North Bay in California.
That's awesome.
It's a little bit non-traditional for not a ton of CMOs,
our designer turned CMOs.
But I bet every single day you're happy that you have it.
Because there's so much design in marketing.
Yeah, that's true.
And I think that when you--
I think a lot of companies have a huge brand potential.
And then not a lot of them kept into that.
So I think that I really kind of have
a different perspective on how companies do that.
So yes, I'm very different.
And flash forward to today, you're the CMO.
Big Panda, tell us a little bit about what it means to be CMO.
Well, I think that the market's changing.
Also, in Big Panda, what we do is we bring AI to IT operations.
So to actually automate 90% of the mundane that IT operators
go through daily.
And as you can imagine, I'm sure you're getting like 10 emails
every day about AI.
AI is AI that--
I hope we don't--
AI doesn't replace the packets like this.
But how do we help our customers actually
go through this changes?
And also make them feel kind of--
it's OK, you don't have to do it all at once.
So how do you prioritize that?
How do you prioritize digital transformation?
And then from a marketing role, I
think we should really tell the great story about how
the journeys has been for other customers that we serve.
So I think really connecting our more
than preliminary customers to the people who
want to be like them through a--
as a market function is actually very different than typical
performance driven marketing I've been part of.
Let's get into our first segment, the Trust Tree, where
we go and feel honest and trusted.
And you can share those deepest, darkest pipeline
and marketing secrets.
Tell us what does Big Panda do and who are your customers?
So like I mentioned, we do a--
we bring AI to IT operators who's not a very well-celebrated
user base in any organization, right?
Like name your IT person.
It's probably like the why people think that--
kind of say why IT is not as well-celebrated.
But we mainly go after a large enterprise
set with a centralized IT function.
So large banks to major gaming company, streaming
companies who have a very complex IT system
with a many, many, many IT personnel within,
dealing with many different types of applications
or our target audience.
Yeah, what does that buying committee look like?
Is it all the way to the CIO?
Is it just the IT ops folks?
Is it some other people?
Yeah, we're a premium product.
So it's not cheap.
So I think that one thing I've observed through a pandemic
and it's through now with more of the post-pandemic,
it used to be like, hey, you know, VPO IT could sign up
to $250,000 without going up the chain.
Now we notice that even like 25k goes all the way
to the CFO because I think that all the survey data
is telling you the cost-caught is a number two or three
in any of CIOs list.
So I think we noticed a change in buying center, which
kind of makes our marketing effort a little bit more--
is it harder right now because you need to go after CIO, CFO,
all the way down to the usual product.
Yeah, we see the same thing as well.
And it's exactly right.
There's nobody--
you know, those old thresholds of, hey,
it's not going to have to go to this person.
That stuff is pretty much gone.
How do you structure your marketing department?
So we have a structure that's somewhat unique.
I think to some of your listeners or to you.
But we structured as a customer journey.
So I manage a team that actually works
to get new customers to get educated and understand
what we do, kind of form of a product marketing,
and then also kind of through the form of a website
and brands, a more traditional corporate marketing function,
all the way down to customer education
and the community management.
So we touch as a team.
We touch very tough with a very initial interaction,
all the way down to the post sales,
and then continuously engagement.
So that's customer education and certification.
Being private marketing is somewhat unusual,
but it's been working great for us.
I love it.
I think it absolutely should be.
And I think that any time you're communicating
with customers or prospects, you can make an argument
that it's marketing.
I love that you think of it as a journey.
Because it is.
Yeah, it is.
And what's your marketing strategy?
You can probably guess from how I structured a team.
It's our marketing strategy.
If you ask me to summarize in one word, it's actually customer.
And we're really focused on learning from our customer,
speaking in their language, and also creating
a program that's--
they are going to be part of it.
And then where they're going to be our almost active seller
for a prospect.
So a lot of a B2B marketing, especially startups like us,
when we come to market, they want to invent something different.
So they will say the very common things,
and they will label something like acronym, like ABC,
like we're so different.
We actually-- a lot of startups try that,
but it means you don't have a brand awareness.
Yet you have to educate them about the new terminology
you're introducing.
And then you don't have a lot of credit
for it to do that really well, right?
So I think that one thing that we are doing differently
is that we're going to speak as it is.
I think that they know us as, hey, we do xyze it really well.
And it's not like acronym, cool, like, hey, we're big pang.x.
We don't say that, well, hey, we do good pang.net
and that's really well.
And that's how customers are speak to us.
So how marketing drives a lot of that product terminology,
and then how do we actually educate them throughout the post
sales is actually we're looking at our search data.
So what do people actually search?
What do they type in in Google, right?
And then we marry that with some of our internal knowledge
and customer feedback and analysts feedback.
And then that's how we just plainly
speaking our customer's language.
And then we are designed the programs
and a lot of our field events and then events
are involved up with your design that are on our customers.
So that we've seen that grave success because it buying,
the community actually, you think that it's really big,
actually pretty narrow.
And then I think the best marketing channel
that I've found so far is our customers telling
their friend that picked panda's awesome.
And that was actually the best network effect that we got.
And then we're trying to do more of that.
Any other thoughts on strategy or structure
or anything that's unique to big panda,
specifically in how you go to market?
Yeah, so one thing that I always tell people is like,
traditional funnel is dead.
So when you interview with the startup CEO,
they will tell you, we have a pipeline problem.
We have a sales funnel problem or we have a product marketing
problem.
There are a lot of problems.
They're trying to classify that into certain org or function.
And then one thing that I say is like, it's actually all
above because how people buy this day,
it's not like you become a stage one prospect.
You become two or three or four and then you're down to.
And then one activity will move you through the funnel.
Like the concept actually doesn't exist.
So if you look at our how the customer journey that we have,
a big panda perspective, it's like a giant spiral
that you go from the content that we intend to design
for certain things are constantly way earlier than we intend it.
So I think that really kind of understanding,
you know, customer actually their sentiments throughout
and then transparency is really important.
So we made all our own boarding documents
and education content ungated.
Because that's one thing that we notice that people
want to buy a software that's actually
easy to implement and easy to use.
And then the B2B software is really hard.
Because like when you do the proof of concept,
they show you the magic.
But when you really get into the B2B software,
it's actually a hot mess.
A lot of them are really hard to onboard and adopt.
So I think that giving them a peace of mind
that like it's actually easy to use,
it's transparency matters, right?
And I think that you need to change how to go to market
based on how people want to get educated by themselves, right?
So because it's not like guided education
throughout the buying cycle.
So I think transparency and then really focusing
on your customer.
And I mean, in the past, when I had worked at a bigger company
with a bigger brand awareness, we
made every piece of content ungated.
Because B2B, everything is about give me your name.
But I think there's actual needs.
And then you did a good job of really building a great connection
that will come to you, right?
So you don't have to force them and give it to your names.
But we're not there yet.
Our database is a little too small that I can make
that a bold decision yet.
But eventually, I would like to make every piece of content
ungated.
Yeah, so it's so interesting.
I feel the same way for a castee for a castee
in his marketing where our database is not
a massive or a small company.
And so we have one asset that's gated and everything else
isn't sort of like our--
we wrote a book.
So it's like, if you want to get the book, it's free.
You can just get it.
And then that's the only thing that we gated.
But I feel the same way being smaller where you're like, OK,
there's got to be some sort of thing that I can track.
But I think that part of the thing with the gated piece
specifically selling to IT is that IT is sold to so often,
so consistently IT ops, tons of vendors
trying to get after them.
So that barrier to entry of like, hey,
you don't need to fill out five forms
to be able to get this thing is nice.
I think for IT people specifically,
because they see a lot of emails, a lot of cold stuff,
all that.
Yeah.
And also just final piece on that, I feel the same way.
As you do, but it's also just like,
if I download your iPape, I don't want you to sell me
something right away, right?
So it's like the only reason why to get your information
is so that you know that they did it.
And if you have their email address already, then you definitely--
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we have a multi-touch attribution model that we have built.
So we kind of look at what piece of content
is triggering them to take certain actions.
So we can kind of look at the combination of actions
that takes you to become a meeting.
Because I think you're right now.
You download one thing.
It means your content team did a really good job
of writing a headline.
Doesn't mean that they're ready to buy, right?
So I think that that's something that we fix quite a bit
in every pandemic is people call it least scoring.
And not everybody who download their white paper
is interested in buying your product.
I think that that's something that we realize it as well.
All right, let's get to our next segment, the playbook.
Where you open up that playbook and talk about the tactics
that help you win, what are your three channels or tactics
that are your most uncuttable budget items?
I think the first one is like the PMM budget.
And then everyone's like, PMM, how does it tie to the pipeline?
Right?
Because I think that a lot of times like pipeline driven
activity budget is like a top of the tier.
I'll say it's more for a PMM budget.
What is part of the product marketing budget
is a third party content, research content,
and kind of valid Asian, like customer marketing budget.
Like, hey, can we get customers to come write a paper
together with us?
Can we get a research done?
Because kind of really trying to show the business value.
Like, if I go to you and say, hey,
depend on save $0.75 an hour, I don't think it's as convincing
as, gardener comes to you and say, wow, hey,
Ian, depend on save $0.75 an hour.
I think the third party is a lot more effective.
So I think that we really emphasize
on an analyst relationship since we're kind of in the market
where the market category is not as well defined.
So working with the analysts is really
important to differentiate our core offerings
and our messaging resonance with a different target audience.
And now, like, one thing that trend that we notice
is more and more enterprises are going to research companies,
like gardener, forester, as for their opinion,
because there's so many new technologies
are coming into market.
And what to add that first?
How to structure it?
What is actually truly delivering AI?
Because everyone is a little bit skeptical about AI.
So how do we actually navigate this changes and expectation?
Because I think I saw in research that number one priority
for CIO is AI.
And then we're like, what does that actually mean?
Is it developing your own AI or adapting an AI
or automating everything out of it?
I think it was really like that well-classified
a priority that research firm is getting a lot--
they're getting really busy.
So I think that really tapping into them on market trend
and also getting a content out of them
of more of a credibility perspective,
really important for a company that our stage right now.
So that's number one.
I just have one question on that.
So it's interesting that that's in the PMM budget.
Do you have a brand budget?
And how does that sort of different there?
Because you can make an argument that some of those type
of activities, also a little bit there, is brain budget.
Doing a research report, obviously with like Gartner,
someone like that, analyst relations, that's different.
But if you were to do your own research report or something,
then it would be probably more on the content side.
Just curious how you know your thoughts there.
Yeah.
No, I actually--
knowing that my background is more of a brand,
I purposely actually don't have a brand KPI in the current
company right now.
And then I give more of the leading indicator
to build our brand to PMM.
Because what they do is the content, analyst relationship,
PR, it actually really drives a direct traffic coming
to Big Panda.
And then I think that I'm having them
own that aspect of the impact.
So the third party paper is going to be the massive traffic
driver.
And then they're owning that piece of it, right?
Working with them.
So I give them more of a brand related leading indicator.
But we don't actually measure the brand effectiveness
at this point.
Because we're kind of small.
And then if that's something that I am probably
too prioritizing for the later, we get a little bit bigger.
And I think the revenue is a little bit bigger.
But something that I put it under PMM for now.
Yeah.
And that's kind of why I ask is because some of those are
sort of brand activities that some way down the line,
a brand person might own.
But they fall into product marketing.
But I always--
I like to think about marketing as no like and trust.
And it's like that type of thing is your brand,
but that also is your marketing.
And so those type of activities allow them to trust you,
that you do what you say.
And having a third party look at those sort of things.
And they also impact people knowing you, knowing who you are.
It's like, oh, I didn't know who Big Panda was.
And now I do because I saw this third party research report.
So anyhow, yeah, interesting.
Yeah.
And it's very interesting because I
think that when we're at bigger companies,
there is a brand objective.
Because I think that it's one of the way
that you can defend yourself from the competitor.
Because it's a market share, like a brand awareness.
So I'm not actually reflective of your market share.
As a startup, to be really honest,
I think it's really hard to justify
spend that is not as tangibly measurable.
What's the impact are we getting?
If the brand awareness or the impression goes up,
does that equate to qualified pipeline?
Does it equate to the AR?
And it's actually not true, right?
So I think that's where like, you know,
it's a culture that you have to work with your CFO and a CEO.
But I think that a lot of startups have been part of so far.
And then a lot of companies that I talk to,
that's one area, they know it's important.
But then who owns that?
It's like, you know, somebody has to own the KPI
and really kind of measure as part of their job.
That resources a lot of times are deprioritized
because they're prioritizing the one
that's actually directly contributing to
the hard measure of the business success, right?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Awesome.
Okay, uncutable number two.
I will say, I call it a go-be-go-home on the events,
experiential events.
So a lot of, it startup, I think one of the best ways
to actually get in front of your, you know,
kind of large group of prospects, actually the events.
But how you show up matters to me.
So I think that in the example of for BPM
that was a previous year,
we went many different industry events throughout the year.
Second half of last year, collected all that money,
we went really big on just one event.
We were the biggest booth.
We had our most beautiful experiences, past SWAC,
and then very well trained employees.
And that outcome of that was way better
than seven events combined.
So I think that really integrated
the intentional execution of your biggest budget item.
And then I think it's where you can actually meet people
in person.
And I think that's where in-person connection matters.
I think the COVID kind of like headache,
oh no, now everything can be done in webinar.
You know, like people don't wanna go out to meet people
'cause they're so trained to work from home.
But I think that human connection is actually very important.
And then I think that's the reason why is like,
I feel like the one, when I meet you in person,
I think you care about, maybe a little bit more.
Now I learn about your family, my family,
that if something is not going well
or you have a feedback to give it to me,
you're more likely to actually call me.
Maybe not through the work channel, but like, hey, son,
like, you know, hey, we really liked your solution,
but like we got budget cut and this has happened.
So we learn more about the truth
rather than, oh, we're gonna reevaluate later, right?
So I think the in-person connection
and how we do that in-person connection really matters.
So like, I always do pick one or two key moments as a company
and then make that as a most memorable event for people
and don't do a smaller thing throughout the year.
So for us, we're gonna do very big customer events in April
and then we're gonna go really big, you know,
kinda experiential experience at Gardener in December this year.
- Very cool.
I love it.
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting strategy.
I agree on all the in-person stuff.
And I think that it allows you to have
off the record conversations.
I think that's part of it is like so much,
and there's no, you know,
and you have very serendipitous conversations.
And it's like, if you're, if you and I,
if you were like, hey Ian, you know,
I really wanna, you know, create a podcast next year.
We should work together.
Now it's like, great, you know, every one of our calls
are gonna be very structured.
It's like, you know, you get on a 30 minute call
or you get on a 60 minute call
or you get on these things.
When you meet someone at a event,
you run into them and then they say, like,
like, hey, how are things are going?
They're like, oh my gosh, my old boss was such a jerk.
He's gone now.
Now we can finally do some cool stuff or whatever.
You know, like there's all sorts of things
that you can sort of, you know,
get very quickly to, you know,
some level of real conversation there
and events allow you to do that, you know,
and answer somebody's question of like,
oh, you know, I've always been meaning
to ask this one question about Big Pen.
I just never wanted to do the demo and, you know,
get emailed a thousand times.
Do you do this?
Oh, you do?
Oh, great.
Okay, you know, let me, I'll store that
in the back of my mind.
And I think that those are, those are little things
that are outside of your buyer's journey, right?
That you sit there and you map your customer journey.
Those are little touch points that are so meaningful
that only happen at events,
that, you know, they don't happen other places.
Yeah.
I mean, I haven't gotten there yet,
but like my previous startup,
I had all the marketers to be demo certified.
And then I'll bring them to the conference floor.
So your field marketer, social marketing manager,
you should be able to talk about your product,
the prospects and it was a great learning experience for them.
'Cause they're like, hey, some days
that this word is confusing on my gift
because we invented the word, right?
And I think that there was a lot of synergy
for non-customer-facing function, like engineering and product
to really interrupt with the people
and get the feedback real time.
And I think it's not only, you know,
understanding how they say certain things
we're getting a feedback,
but kind of like building up empathy.
Like, gosh, their job is actually really hard.
And I assume that they're XYZ type person.
And then I think the classic, it goes employee's like,
hey, all the IAP people are kind of like in the dark room.
They don't like to talk to each other.
And they're like, you know, kind of like introvert.
Like that's the assumption.
And I think that, you know, my times
and pure storage and some others,
like they're very, very full of characteristics.
So like, I think that assumptions
are really dangerous in marketing.
And that's why some of the IT marketing
are really boring because they assume
that they're kind of like stuck in their dungeon, right?
But in the reality, it's like, they're not.
Like they're just full of characteristics, right?
So I think that, you know, kind of having people learn,
you know, how we serve our customers differently
and better and more human way
and non really traditional B2B way,
I think it's really valuable.
- Okay, they're done, cuttable.
- And third one is actually, you know, it's no your number.
Like, I think that one of the things that, you know,
when you work at larger company, you're on certain function.
Like, there's a lot of numbers, a lot of people
that you can kind of pet your numbers
and you don't have to know all the numbers that's going on.
When your work is startup, you don't have the choice.
You have to know every possible number.
So I actually put a lot of emphasis on the operations
and analytics.
So anything that I can educate my team
to understand full number.
When we talk about pipeline, what does that mean?
When we talk about meeting, some number,
what does that mean?
What contributes, what activity contributes it?
Like, so I think that really kind of giving them a,
learning platform to understand the number
and then leverage them, right?
And I want them to come to me and say,
"Honey more money because look at this," right?
If they come to me as like, "I need money,"
I'm like, "I'll probably ask you, you know,
"you need to go back and bring back
"why I need to give you more money," right?
So I think setting up the platform as a startup,
it's costly, right?
'Cause I think that, but once you set it up right,
it will really serve you well.
So I think investing in a marketing tech stack,
so people can access the data
and then also make the right decision,
right, the right optimization decision
is something that I prioritize in the budget.
So yes, that's, you know, I will advocate for that one.
'Cause I think startup, it's actually more so than your dollar,
where you spend your dollar matters,
more so than anyone else though.
- All right, what about one thing that is not working
or something that you're not gonna be investing in here soon?
- You know, I'm torn on this one,
'cause I think that, you know, a lot of V2V marketing,
with a lot of field events, right?
There's a lot of happy hours, there's a lot of gifts giving,
like almost like a, you know,
we're sending gifts to get people to talk to us, right?
You know, if you look at numbers,
like is it working?
Is it not working?
It's the same customers are getting everything over and over,
right?
Like three stuff, especially it's a cool stuff.
But I think the answer is it depends.
We're significantly lowering our field marketing budget this year,
because we're gonna make it more of a regular cadence,
so people have some expectation versus every other week,
there's like, you can go get a box of tequila,
and then let's do the tequila tasting,
and then let's talk about ITL.
It's like, you know, when you get a shadow tequila,
you probably don't wanna talk about the ITL, right?
So I think that we're gonna make it more of a schedule,
and then I use the word infotainment,
not from entertainment based to more of an infotainment based
field marketing that we're gonna try.
I'm not 100% sure it's gonna work out,
but I think that we're gonna have more of a content driven
field events.
There will be aspect of entertainment,
but entertainment is not the reason for people to come.
So I think that we're trying to get people who want to learn,
and then give them a little token of a gift,
but gift is not our only driver.
So I think that's something we are rethinking it,
'cause we spend big chunk of our marketing budget,
and then ROI hasn't been that great.
- Yeah, that makes sense to love that.
What about something that you're excited about
that you are gonna be investing in?
- Yeah, so we're doing our customer event
for the first time, so, 'cause, you know,
we are gonna invite 70, and hopefully like 20, 30
of them will show up in person, but, you know,
it's, we want to be seen as an innovator.
I think that we do innovate faster than our big competitor,
but like, we want to have a moment that we're,
with our customer and then share the invention that we have.
Like it's really cool innovation,
it will be the first in market,
and I want customers to see it in person,
and then now on our product management team to the live demo.
So it's almost like connecting a, creating a moment
of innovation being the glue of our product team,
and then our customer team, and then, you know,
we're gonna have a, you know, them sharing their best practices,
and then also learn about like, you know,
what's it like a certification path?
How do I get my people to be more engaged with a product
and the ecosystem changes?
So we're gonna give them a little bit of a
thought leadership content, and also kind of opportunity
to network with each other.
So in April, we're scheduling that,
and so far the registered interest is really high.
So I am super excited to see how many people actually do come.
- Any other thoughts on, on budget items or money
or anything like that?
- I think for, in our invest money and employees,
that's another thing that I always do
from a marketing person, like, hey, why is a marketing
set up money for employees?
And I think for startup, you know, we have 300 employees
and we're distributed in employees in Israel, UK,
and all over US.
And I think when employees are really aligned
and excited about the company,
that you get a lot more done, even the distributed team.
So I think that how do we actually create that moment?
And I think it's very important.
I think one of my past companies, I worked at,
I think that drove the completely cultural shift
happened in the company.
And then I actually will call that as a pivotal moment
for the company, so.
- Love that.
How do you view your website?
- The website, actually, I mean, some, I will call it,
that's a marketing and revenue, right?
And I worked at a PLD companies, and then most,
majority of the web revenue came from the website.
So it's not just a storybook, it actually has the function.
So I think this is where the design, technology,
and the user experience, like, has to all marry together.
And also you have to work with Google
to make sure that they rank your right,
and that you build it right,
so you show up in the certain timeframe.
So it's very, if I can, if some, if you were to ask me,
how do you summarize marketing as a artifact,
I'll call it website, 'cause it's all in there, right?
Technology, analytics, story, user experience,
continuous optimization, and then a, you know, budget.
It's not cheap to maintain the website, right?
- So you've been a CMO already before.
I'm curious if there's anything that coming to this time
that you wanted to do differently,
or anything that you sort of like change your approach.
Obviously different company, different size,
different, all that stuff.
- But yeah, so this was, this is my second CMO job,
and then, you know, CMO job is not the glamorous,
in my opinion, but my previous company,
since it was my first CMO job,
I really wanted to do my job well, right?
'Cause if it's the first one, I wanna do it well.
And then I feel like that I held back quite a bit
on like, oh, I'm gonna just really focus on my own house,
and then do my job really well, because that's, you know,
you may always make the first time mistake, right?
And I think coming to be Panda,
I think that I do see marketing's role,
like broader than just delivering pipeline, right?
So I think that, you know, I am, you know,
probably nicer way of saying that I'm kind of like, you know,
collaborating more with the correspondially,
or some mindset, like, hey, you're pointing things out
and what's not working in other departments,
I think let it be more passionately,
but yes, I've mentioned a lot more vocal on
how do we do product innovation differently and faster?
How do we do customer service differently,
software function could be different,
because I think that, you know, your point,
like brand is really important,
and brand means like emotion, what are we creating?
And it's not just a marketing job, it's everyone's job.
So we actually did embark on the brand refresh
at Big Panda, and we're gonna go live in April,
but it wasn't just a marketing activity.
Like, how do we actually serve our customers in support
to really deliver the promise of the brand?
And I think that, you know, my perspective on the marketing
role and my role has probably wider than,
broader than my previous one, because at the end of it,
we all are the shareholders of the company.
So you have to do everything to make sure
that it works out, right?
So.
- All right, let's get to our next segment,
the desktop where we talk about healthy tension,
whether that's with your border sales,
senior competitors, or anyone else.
Have you had a memorable desktop in your career, son?
- Yeah, no, I think that if I may mention the company name,
I worked as a survey monkey almost five years,
and the entire rebrand and then worked on the IPO.
I think one of the biggest debates that we had
when I went through the major brand refresh
at Survey Monkey, which we're known for,
self-service, very PLG-friendly motion.
And we wanted to sell to enterprises.
And then the biggest debate we had was the name.
It's a name preventing us to go into a enterprise segment.
And I think the answer was actually no.
'Cause then the debate was like, well, it is.
It's not, we had an internal debate.
And then I think that we had a team of executives
who strongly believed the name,
pre-pants of code enterprise,
or do well do better in enterprise.
And then we did a survey of, hey, we're a survey company,
why don't we answer all our customer base?
Or a prospect, so we did a massive, massive survey.
The answer was no.
Your name has nothing to do with us,
not you not being able to go into the enterprise segment.
So we didn't change it.
And we rebranded it, we're an IPO, and I left the company.
And then I think later,
they did change the company name.
So, and now they're back to Survey Monkey.
But I think that maybe the reason why I firmly believed
that it wasn't the name,
not because our customers were telling us it's not the name.
It was a feature differences.
We had a competitor in an enterprise space,
and then we were the dominating in the PLD space.
And then our feature, what we prioritized to build
is for very enter the PL differently.
What they're prioritizing to build
is very enterprise data science level features,
which is not what we were building.
But in that, it was more like the,
can we actually catch up on the features, right?
Versus changing our name.
But I think that,
our competitors done a great job of positioning us
as more of a ethical, not the data science level,
but that that was probably one of the most interesting
debate that I had.
And then I felt like that, oh, I made an impact.
And then, they went through the name change twice now.
And then interesting, I'm not saying I'm right,
but I think that I'm pretty damnated
just based on their data at the time.
But yeah, that was the moment I remember.
- Yeah, it is fascinating, right?
I remember interviewing folks who were at
serving Mikey both before and after that.
So yeah, it's a fascinating,
and you know, as of all this stuff,
like there's no right answers,
but it is really fascinating
to think about great desktop.
Final segment, quick hits.
These are quick questions and quick answers,
just like how quicklyqualified.com
helps companies generate pipeline,
tap into your greatest essay, your website,
and turn your most valuable visitors
into sales conversations.
Quick and easy, just like these questions,
go to qualified.com.
To learn more, qualify as the Pipeline Cloud,
go check them out, go to qualified.com.
Quick hits, son, are you ready?
- Yes, I'm ready.
- Number one, do you have a hidden talent or skill
that's not on your resume?
- Kitboxing.
- Do you have a favorite book podcast or TV show
that you've been checking out that you'd recommend?
- You know, I love the book by Ben Horowitz,
"Heart Things About Heart Things."
It's, I think he just celebrated 10 years,
this past week, and great book.
- Yeah, it's my favorite too.
- Yeah. - It's my favorite.
As a CEO of a company, it's required reading.
- Mm-hmm, yeah.
- And really it should be required for anyone
who's working with a CEO to sort of like get a mind
and get a little lens into their mind.
Do you have a favorite non-marketing hobby
that maybe sort of indirectly makes you a better marketer?
- I think cooking, I love cooking,
because it's something that I think
machine cannot replace.
It's very similar to storytelling,
like different ingredients, temperature,
what do you cook with, how much liquid?
Like all the variables that comes to your way,
you have to be okay with mistakes and then learn from it.
So the cooking, to me, not the like a recipe-based cooking,
like pinch of salt, two pinches of this.
Like I love that part of the cooking,
'cause it makes me think stronger.
- The robots? - Yeah.
- Robots can't taste yet.
- True. - Yeah.
- You know, I mean, it's, it's, you know,
I think AI is gonna do a lot of things,
but that's why I feel, you know, creatively,
that that part, that part, exactly what you said,
like a robot can make latte, right?
Or a robot can make a salad, but can it taste the salad
and then go, you know what?
That piece of it, that character is too strong.
That, you know, the way that that sounds,
is that really, you know, sound good.
Ultimately, I think we look to tastemakers a lot.
- Yeah.
- If you weren't in marketing or business at all,
what do you think you'd be doing?
- I think it's a lawyer.
I thought about this question.
I've been asked about this question quite a bit,
because I think lawyer, it's not only like, you know,
trying to apply a role to certain things,
but it's about listening,
listening people's emotion perspective
of serving the body language,
and like, you need to actually make it, you know,
that aspect of the lawyer,
and also trying to help some people in need.
And I think that's a fascinating job.
And I think if I weren't in marketing,
I'll probably participate coming a lawyer.
- What is your best piece of advice for a first time CMO?
- The marketing, everyone's telling me like,
"Hey, AIA is gonna replace most of the marketing."
But I think I kind of find that as,
then what aspect of the marketing
cannot be replaced by technology.
And I do actually adopt quite a bit of automation
in my practice.
One is actually really, it's a storytelling.
I mean, going back to kind of the cooking,
I don't think robots can, you know,
kind of connect with a customer
and apply what you built as a company.
I call them more of a magic.
How do you connect a customer with the bright magic
they were trying to bring the market?
Like, that is a skill that any machine or CHTCPT
cannot replace, right?
So I think that marketing's job is really, really trying
to know your customer and then connect them
with the magic that you're bringing to the market.
And that to me is really important.
So, you know, I've done a lot of job interviews,
I think to, you get CMO job.
And then a lot of recruiters will try to box you.
Are you a product marketing background?
Are you a DMM marketing background?
Are you a brand background?
And then I think the best advice
that I can give to people is become a really great,
great storyteller.
'Cause regardless of where you're falling marketing,
data leader needs a storytelling component,
demand leader needs to put a story out in the market,
power market, you need to craft a story.
So regardless of which function,
I think you should just be able to confidently say,
like, my superpower, I think in marketing and storytelling,
regardless of the job you throw at me,
I'm gonna be the best storyteller.
So I think that, you know, don't get classified
into a certain area and then, you know,
just really focus on your storytelling aspect.
- Fantastic.
Son, it has been wonderful having you on the show.
For listeners, you can go to bigpanda.io to learn more.
Check out all the cool marketing that they've been doing.
Any final thoughts, anything to plug?
- Well, we are doing something big in the market.
And then I think that if you come to visit us
in April timeframe and, you know,
just tell me what you think about our new experiences
that we're putting in the market.
And then, you know, you can just find me on LinkedIn.
- Fantastic.
Thanks again, wonderful.
And just such a great conversation.
We're super excited to follow along on BigPanda's journey.
Thanks, son.
- Thank you.
Thank you, Ian.
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