Mastering Brand Momentum
Leslie Henthorn shares her insights into mastering brand momentum, the role of your website in guding the customer journey, and why marketing needs to be data driven.
[MUSIC]
Welcome to Demand Gen Visionaries,
I'm your host, CEO of Gaspian Studios.
And today I have a special guest, Leslie, how are you?
>> I'm doing great, Ian, how are you doing?
>> I am thrilled to have you on the show,
excited to chat about all the cool stuff y'all are doing at Ironclad,
talking about 90 days in the role, what is up with you and your background much
more.
So let's get into it, what was your first job in demand?
>> Actually, my first job was at Twilio.
I just left Twilio after being there for eight years and
I had been doing partner go-to-market strategy at Cisco Systems.
And I found that I really loved the marketing pieces of working with partners.
And so I decided to take that experience building go-to-market programs and
start building demand with partners working at Twilio in San Francisco.
That was 12 years ago now, I think,
is when I started working on go partner go-to-market and then working into
marketing.
Again, flash forward to today, tell us what it means to be CMO Ironclad.
>> Man, it means exciting things.
I really was in the point in my career where I was lucky enough to leave Twilio
I was the interim CMO before they decided to hire a CMO.
So I got the great experience of leading the organization and I loved it, Ian.
I loved getting to bring all the functions across marketing together.
And so the Ironclad role popping up and
them selecting me was a gift because it's a really cool industry.
It's something I never thought I'd be working in.
But when I was looking for my CMO gig, I really wanted to find a place that
one had product market fit and I knew we had a real shot at doing something
great.
And two, as a marketer, I wanted to be in the customer's shoes and
understand their pain points and what really drove them.
And as a marketing leader, when you think about contracts and
digital contracting and procurement and law, it's one of the hardest pieces of
your job to maintain that demand and that spend and get it out the door every
quarter.
So this company really spoke to me personally and
makes me really excited to talk about how we're gonna power the world's
contracts,
how we're gonna be that solve for so many business leaders.
>> My God, I feel the same way and it was one of the reasons we're excited to
do
the interview other than your stellar reputation and background.
But I feel the same way, right?
As a marketer and I'm watching my money go out every month and
managing all that stuff, contracts is just this thing that isn't freaking
behemoth.
And I always talk about this because Caspian is a vendor and
we also use a lot of vendors that it's like how you manage your contracts is
this bastion of customer experience that is so forgotten and it's so important.
How many times do you onboard a new vendor and you have to go my gosh,
our process is a while.
So hold on, just strap in, get ready.
And you're like, can you break?
What are we doing here?
>> You're so right.
I cannot think about the times that I was like, so just bear with us.
It might take 60 to 90 days and then you're starting the whole thing again
over when you have to pay them, depending on how long your organization is.
So they've waited to become an approved vendor and then you're trying to pay
them.
That's where I think to your point about this behemoth of an issue,
I think Iron Cloud is so sexy that digital contracts are sexy because
when you can move quickly, when you can accelerate the process for
business users to get their contract through.
But you can also understand everything inside that contract and
leverage the insights that you get from that contract data.
And then also make sure you manage compliance and
risk because you've got all of these things set up for the folks that really
care about that, executives, legal, finance, procurement.
It brings that whole motion together as a happy family versus arch rivals
inside
your organization.
And I will tell you honestly, I'm really grateful for the folks that have
helped
me in my career get through those processes because it is a beast.
And now look to them for advice on how to market to them.
Because now that's not easy.
>> Yeah, well, you know, funny story, I actually haven't told you this.
When I first met Leila, you'll see, oh, she's how we got connected.
One of the things that she said to me, because we're a vendor of Salesforce
metal company.
And one of the first things she said to me is she was like, how are you all
doing?
And he issues that I need to address.
And I was like, honestly, the payment terms are absolutely brutal.
Floating this amount of money is like pretty crazy.
She's like, look into it.
And I just think the funny that she's,
you know, Iron Cloud now with that sort of mindset, it's always great when
people
can figure out their contract process because it is so painful.
>> I agree.
And I think things that I've learned in the first 90 days of being here really
too, or that a lot of times internally you look at that legal department as
the department of no, or that finance department, right?
Like their goal is to say, no, you have to do it this way.
And it's just time and time and time.
And what I'm finding working with our community and the stakeholders,
especially inside legal that I've gotten to meet, is that they want so
badly to be the partner of yes and show real business value and
help business leaders get their contracts through.
And that's one of the things I see inside the company, but
also what our customers and prospects are really looking to do is how do we
make
these faster?
And how do we not have our vendors struggling to survive in a world where
like, fronting hundreds of thousands of dollars waiting to get paid for 90 days
is ridiculous.
I love that it's a solving product.
It solves these issues across your internal stakeholders, but also obviously
helps you move faster.
It's a great segue to our next segment.
And it also speaks to just going into a new role, like how much you need to
live
the problem.
All right, let's go to the trust tree.
This is where you can go and feel honest and trusted, share those deep
starches, demanded marketing secrets.
Tell us a little bit more about Ironclad.
What does a company do?
Who are your customers?
Ironclad's basically the smart way to make and manage digital contracts.
And what does that mean?
I think when you think about digital transformation and you think about that
last
era of transformation to our earlier conversation, contracting has been super
archaic.
And you're thinking about sending documents back and forth and editing them.
This platform changes all of that.
And it helps accelerate contracts and helps your business move fast.
So we really started with building a platform that surrounds the contract and
pulling
contract data out.
So not only can you move faster with how we build workflows and improve
contracts,
but you can also understand what's in your contracts and leverage that for
business
data.
What vendor renewals are coming up?
What sales person is sending the most contracts through Salesforce?
As sales leader to be able to look into Salesforce and go, okay, all of these
are out at the
end of the quarter.
I know we're out for signature.
It's these powerful things that typically you're trying to track an email that
are huge
for business users.
But on the back end too, also save lawyers, procurement and finance time, money
and give
them visibility into what's happening and mitigate risk and compliance across
what we
want to do.
So we have anyone from like Glassdoor to MasterCard to L'Oreal, Asana, Lyft.
These are tons of different sizes, companies, historical, digital innovators to
large scale
enterprises.
And that's what's exciting about working for Ironclad too, because you get to
be a part
of a lot of different business solutions when you're coming at it from the
contract, because
contracts start everything.
Yeah, and so I'm curious, like what does that buying committee look like?
Obviously the CFO and finance is going to be involved.
Who else is involved there?
Yeah, you know, it depends on the segment, obviously, the company size.
But I think one of the things we're finding and obviously being a new CMO, this
is somewhere
where I'm spending a lot of time for a personas who's engaged.
And historically for Ironclad, we've been starting really with legal and legal
ops being
our champions, trying to understand how to streamline contract review and
workflow inside
the company.
But we also have procurement, a lot of procurement titles looking at us, GCs,
head of legal, and
more recently as we've done some studies, also folks driving business
transformation,
digital transformation coming out of the pandemic.
So digital transformation titles, those are also showing up a lot.
We have business use cases, HR contracts are growing, I think we have a 230%
year over
your increase in HR, 285% year over your increase in sales workflows that are
being launched.
So we're expanding that audience more and more as we show value across those
customers.
And what does your org structure look like?
Is it marketing and sales or is it a little different?
It's not typical right now.
I'm coming into a situation where we kind of are bringing the marketing team
together as
a whole for the first time this year.
So we've had DG and growth reporting into sales in the past.
We've had product marketing reporting into product and we built a corporate
marketing
team ahead of myself joining that's basically brand and comms and events.
And we're starting to restructure to be more functional expertise focused.
I love that.
I shouldn't even say challenge.
That's just fun.
Well, it's fun and I'm really excited that I have the ability to do so.
I have some great leaders, but also we have so much opportunity right now.
We have an amazing community team that doesn't report into marketing and they
've been huge
on the street building a community following an influence.
Mario Carroll for those that are listening and don't know who she is.
She's basically our community influencer who just amazing motion and the legal
ops community.
She built clock, which is a huge industry awareness event that brings people
together.
And I am very lucky to be coming into the seat where that existed.
But we haven't been doing a lot of things that will help us move into the next
phase.
We're marketing field marketing, understanding a corporate events strategy,
industry event
strategy.
So there's a lot functionally we've got to build and then we're not a small
team, but
we're not a large team.
We're about 30 people.
And so when I look at that, it's really what are the little collectives inside
the team
that will be focused on seeing how our enterprise is doing, seeing how our mid
market segment
is doing and really like sharing and caring across the team.
Teamwork will make the dream work as we figure out this structure.
Do you have coming in first 90 days, a strategy that you're ready to employ?
What's your marketing strategy?
I think my first strategy is just data.
I know it sounds like super generic probably, but I think especially getting
into a team
that's becoming formed right now and getting to know each other, it's really
what is the
data telling us we're doing well?
What is the data telling us we're not doing well?
And then how do we focus?
And that's just like high level business strategy.
I don't even think that's marketing strategy.
What it tells me is where I need to go in that marketing strategy.
And I'm seeing things in our funnel now, lead me to believe we went away from
doing things
like industry awareness events and weren't really showing up where our
customers were
towards the end of the year.
And it's that phase of company growth where what got you there won't get you to
the next
place.
Yeah.
So how do you think about adding these motions into a team that in full
transparency as an
awesome team?
I think you're doing a lot of work.
But I think when you're in this place, you kind of have to go, okay, everyone's
doing
everything that they're supposed to do because they didn't have a marketing
leader.
So everyone was saying yes to everything across the infrastructure, right?
And it's that change in strategy to say, Hey guys, sometimes saying no actually
helps
you bring more value because we're going to align the motion with sales.
We're going to make sure we've got a really good competitive focus in the first
90 days
I've been here because that's been one of our business needs based on the data.
And it's been amazing to watch our win rate go up because of the sales and
marketing coming
together.
So I use that data to really drive focus in and then determine what comes next.
As you come in with that type of strategy in mind, how do you think about brand
brand
is playing a huge part in our strategy.
And it's I think people talk about brand and they think that it's just like
billboards
and really great ads and yeah, they think it's advertising.
Yeah, they think advertising.
I don't look at it like that.
I think it's about building kind of a movement across your organization.
And we are going to really think about brand in a couple of ways.
And that is ensuring that our connectors and our community, like they talk to
each other
about who we are.
And so we will probably be looking at a city tour to bring awareness to our
most populated
customer cities and leverage brand around that.
So yeah, we'll be advertising, but it's also SEO and paid on top of that.
It's also sales reaching out to build relationships on top of that, giving
folks this shared experience
with your brand to me really helps.
And then there's a ton of community efforts and press and things that go along
with that.
So for me, brand is momentum.
And if you're building that momentum and getting it aligned, go to market
motion, that's going
to be more successful long term in my opinion than just hitting it with an
advertising campaign.
And you're all speaking the same language.
You're doing it around the same time.
And I'm really hoping that that's going to be a big part of Iron Pod's brand
moving forward.
Any other thoughts on strategy or demand or anything else before we go to the
playbook?
The strategy is always evolving.
It's always the great part.
It's funny because I would love to go, here's exactly what I do to make sure
that we have
a great brand.
But I think you learned so much of one of the things that I found out at Twilio
when we
were there, we did a brand awareness survey.
And you just realized you haven't even penetrated.
But when you're in San Francisco, TAC, you think you're a big kid on Twitter.
That's one of the things that I would just always hold dear for folks listening
is don't
let that fool you.
And so that's what I'm thinking about when it comes to brand.
Don't just think about what you're super close to.
Think about the rest of the world and where are you there?
One thing I love from a brand strategy perspective I didn't bring up is YouTube
And just getting some really high brand awareness content.
It's funny I came into Ironclad and we were doing some of those tests, but we
were maybe
miscommunicating our strategy around what should come from those tests.
And I think that the team thought that we might get pipeline from those tests
right away.
And that was not going to happen, right?
This is a long game, but you're just reaching views and maybe some interactions
and getting
your name out there and hopefully targeting the right personas to just be
something in
the ether.
So just knowing what you're going after with brand I think is also really
important.
I think that part of the thing with brand, we talk about your message.
Scott Holden said on the show that it's about getting your brand message out in
front of
as many people as possible with as many channels as possible.
And I think that that's what people kind of miss sometimes is like it's about
getting
your message in front of all those people regardless of what channel it is.
You're just as the CMO trying to find the channels that work.
And like at the end of the day, like it's you still got to get to the 13
impressions equals
the sale thing.
You got to get there when no one really knows what you are or you're not on the
consideration
phase or you're not in the budget for next year.
It's like you got to get there.
Totally.
Any channel everywhere with whatever you can give them, I totally agree.
And hopefully we'll be doing more of that next year's not mentioned coming in
and being
like, Hey, we're using Sarah fonts.
No, so that's the funny thing for me.
I am a creative person, but I also really like to let creative be creative.
I care deeply about the overall image that's out there, but those little
details are not
my sweet spot.
I am the person that will really get the feedback across the stakeholder and
not have
a strong opinion.
Or I will have a strong opinion, but it'll be loosely held on those certain
things.
Now, don't get me wrong.
I remember doing a brand campaign where the red was so red at Twilio that I was
like,
this is like, yeah, this is way too much.
Right?
I do care about some details, but yeah, you know, it's funny.
I think we're still in the building phases too.
So I'm having fun with that right now, talking to the team and seeing where we
go.
Strong, fun.
I don't have a strong opinion on that.
And do you have a strong opinion on your fonts when you're going out?
No, I mean, you want to be consistent, but I think that there's like the Apple
and the
IBM school of thought and I did a print campaign with Apple one time.
And they literally scrapped half of the campaign and paid for it.
And they were just like, yep, we're just like, couldn't risk having the colors
in the campaign
not show up like they just wanted 100% control.
Again, I get that.
If that's your thing for Apple and IBM and those sort of people, but for the
rest of
us, I think it's about how you make people feel.
And again, what the message is that you're repeating over and over again.
And that message should be like how you're helping people.
I think also too, I think people go so overboard with brand consistency is just
my opinion.
Yeah.
And then every post that they put on the internet looks the same.
I'm like, you use the same three colors over and over and over.
Use it for a webinar.
Use it for your podcast.
Use it for your.
So nothing ever stands out.
It's like, though, I think it's a funny thing to talk about too, because I
actually think
like in the digital world that we're in now, of course, you want consistency
around who
you are and your values and color schemes.
Sure.
You're not having any fun and trying anything new, you're also not like going
to keep engagement
with your channels.
It becomes super bland.
I love seeing like we have someone on the team now who's really doing a lot of
TikToks.
And that would necessarily be aligned to the brand of the company.
But it's so great.
And it gets so much engagement from business users on LinkedIn that I'm like,
that's where
you got to just have some fun too.
I wholeheartedly agree.
I think the biggest thing that people miss with that is like this user
generated content
stuff, which is like super rewarded by LinkedIn and obviously by TikTok and
like those algorithms
don't favor brand sharing.
They favor people sharing.
So if you don't have like a people sharing strategy, but at the end of the day,
if Leslie's
only sharing brand safe content, if Ian's only sharing brand safe content, then
they're
not putting their personality into it and like, it's okay for that person who
has their
own personality.
They're into to put their personal spin on stuff.
That's what makes a company feel like a company and not just a product.
Your product stuff can say your product.
No, I totally agree.
I think that that experience too, like folks will look at you differently.
If there are people in their community using you and loving what they're doing
and in this
day and age, like not one person on a podcast looks the same or thinks the same
Why would we all share the same exact post or no for again?
I'm always thinking about what reacts on my own network and it's funny.
The ones that I'm the most vulnerable on and just say the truth and just put it
out there
are the ones that always get the most engagement.
Especially in B2B.
Yes.
And the secret in B2B that we've all known forever, which is like your sales
rep actually
matters, right?
It's true that as a human being who's going to deliver the message a certain
way and the
kind of experience that comes with it.
Let's get to the playbook where we open up the playbook.
You can talk about the tactics that help you win.
You play to win the game.
Hello.
You play to win the game.
You play to just play it.
I know you're only 90 days in, but what are some channels or tactics that are
either your
uncutable budget items or items that you're investing in for next year?
In my first 90 days, there's a lot that I'm super grateful for that the folks
on the team
did ahead of me being here and I think it's made me kind of rethink what my top
three
are just in general.
But I think great SEO is probably the one that I'm most grateful for right now
if I'm
being honest because it drives a lot of the other tactics and channels and that
come with
it, whether it's content marketing or paid social like website optimization.
Like SEO for me is where it's all starting and I'm coming into a place where
they've
done it very well.
And I feel super grateful about that.
And I love what it's driving for us to take a look at across the website and
all of those
kind of things.
So I think that's a huge piece of the tactics and strategy in terms of where I
start.
But I'm going to throw out an X factor one here that I think most people
probably don't
say and depending on your company, your strategy, who you're going after, I'm
going to put
up their industry events because it's an interesting one.
And the reason I put it out there is because I've seen this for the last even
and even
during the pandemic, it is where your most qualified prospects are and
customers are
if you're choosing them correctly.
And it also helps you drive a motion that can include all of those other things
that
create demand in a really awesome way, whether that's content, whether that's
social, whether
that's PR.
There's a lot that goes into industry events if you're doing that motion
correctly.
But most importantly, you're building your brand with your community and you're
giving
them a shared of experience of who you are and what you do.
And I see it every time.
It's not a return on investment within the first six months.
It's definitely a nine months to a year play.
But you can see it if you're looking at attribution, you can see what comes
from that motion.
I'm curious on this because that is one that a lot of people say that they're
cutting.
I think that the reason why people are cutting it part of it is the ROI
conversation for
sure.
But it's also just that the pricing is so crazy for these things.
They don't know how they're doing it or they're doing it in a way that is
perhaps old fashioned
or the end or the event is being put together by someone who is a little old
fashioned the
way they think about stuff because I hear this all the time.
Like personally, like people like, yeah, I got this 250,000 event sponsorship.
I'm cutting that for sure next year.
And I'd rather spend that on content.
Like I hear that no joke once a week is that exact thing.
I'm curious to your thoughts there.
Here's my counter to that.
I look at the data a lot.
And when you think about getting in front of people, if you're selecting them
correctly
and you do have to have a review process on these and you're right, like some
will not
make the cut going into the next year, but it's also like it should never be a
one and
done.
You should never just show up with a booth and follow up if you're doing it
that way, it's
never going to work for you.
But if you're thinking about how you're even promoting paid ads on meeting with
us in the
booth, putting another strategy together for dinners, understanding like of
your customers,
who's going to be there working with sales to invite prospects to specific
activities
and events there, getting good content while you're there researching your
competitors,
having great alignment follow up after and very personalized follow up and
experiences.
There's so much here that goes into it that is a great go to market aligned
motion if
you do it correctly.
And it has to be reviewed.
You've got to be willing to take all the feedback from all your stakeholders
that need
to be there.
But if you're not showing up weeks to weeks ahead of time with a digital
strategy around
that industry event and then a follow up strategy and nurture program, then it
's not going
to hit you well.
That's just my belief.
The other thing I will say is if you just do the minimum viable product on site
, that's
probably not going to work for you either.
So it's what's creative there.
What are the pain points you're trying to solve?
How are you going to demo that experience?
How can you use your own technology to give those people on site an experience
that they'll
remember?
When I was at Twilio, we used to do text and orders for coffees.
And it sounds so simple, but people are leveraging your tool right then and
there.
Right?
They're thinking, "Oh my God, this is so easy.
This is the customer engagement experience that I would hope for."
And it just texts me when my coffee is ready.
So I don't even have to wait in line if I don't want to.
Like those kind of pieces of how you show up, it's really powerful and people
stick with
it.
It's also a great way to get people on your team aligned with how they pitch
your company,
how they differentiate.
There's just so much in this that I feel like it's a big win.
But again, that investment is heavy.
So you've got to actually put the resources and the plan around it.
I love it.
I agree with everything you said.
I've run a big event.
It absolutely sucks.
I've been there and I know and like, "That's why I don't do events anymore."
That's like, "Well, personally, don't create events anymore."
I don't know the answer for that industry.
But like if they were thinking of more creative ways to do productize what they
're doing,
to offer those things for you all, then that's where I think the value really
is.
And like just figuring out ways to get stuff more engaged.
And the same thing with the impressions thing is like, how many times can you
get in front
of one person at one event?
And like the answer right now is like, they see your logo a couple of places
and maybe
they do one event.
Yeah.
But if you have a little bit more of a strategic thing where like, "Hey, can we
hit this account
20 times in this event?"
I agree with that.
That's a huge power play right there.
It really can happen quite easily.
And if you've got that strategy going in where you're trying to get across the
buyer circle,
what's the executive strategy there?
What's the product manager strategy there?
The line of business buyer strategy and hit it.
Yeah.
Okay.
Any other uncutables or stuff that you might cut going forward or maybe might
not invest
in.
Brand awareness with PR is always big.
I think like our AR strategy is going to be a lot bigger.
And I say that because we're going into an economy that is unknown.
Like, what is going to happen next year?
What's happening now?
You're hearing about a lot of restructuring.
And I think like really investing in value for your company and different
benchmarks with
analysts, teams and understanding the market even more is going to be a place
where we
probably go harder.
That's something we should all be thinking about next year.
It's how are you going to stand out and show value?
What is the real data for those buyers coming in?
How do you think about your website?
For me right now, I think about it a lot.
I'm talking to people a lot.
We're doing like an outside analysis of what's working from a website
conversion perspective
and heat map and what's working.
But I also just am thinking about that story and message and how do we want to
evolve it
as we go in?
Customizing landing pages more, really thinking about the offers and our
customer journey.
It's data and it's also just analysis there.
So I still in that process, but I would say to any person that's in your CMO,
spend a
lot of time there because it's the front door and the front door needs to look
good and
work, needs to open.
That's just where I'm at with it right now.
Love it.
Okay, let's go to the desktop.
It's where we talk about healthy tension, whether that's with your board sales
team
or competitor, anyone else, if you had a memorable desktop in your career list.
Oh, I've had a couple.
I think as a younger woman later, I had desk steps that are very typical in
tech, which
are like, you could be deemed emotional or there's just, it's a different
communication
style that I've had to work through.
But I think the one I'll tell you about most recently is actually not getting
the CMO role
at Twilio and being the interim CMO for six months.
And the healthy tension was really a great learning experience.
I'm happy to share it, even though it's more of like a raw moment in my career,
which I
grew up on the inside.
And I think folks had a hard time viewing me as that next level leader.
And I think even the sales leader that I had at the time, who I'd been at the
company
with for years, really was looking for someone who had been leading 20,000
person marketing
teams or much bigger enterprise than I had the experience.
And what I did and what I will always do is we got to honor who you are.
We open and honest and direct about I'm sensing this.
Is this actually true?
Asking for feedback, understanding where you sit, but also listening to what
people say
to you in those moments and time.
I was going through being interim, taking on a lot and folks were telling me,
my coaches,
advisors, people in my network, they're not going to give you that job.
They're not going to give you that job.
And I am a forever optimist, Ian.
It's one of the things that I hold true to as a characteristic.
I really thought I might get that job.
I think that it was such a gift to not get it because I learned so much about
listening
to what people are saying to you, especially folks that you care about and
trust.
And also ask why.
And if you can't get an answer as to why, run for the freaking hells.
That was something for me that I've always learned is like, if you're having a
dust
up with somebody and they can't tell you why they feel a certain way or they
won't be
honest or direct with you, then get out of there.
Because at the end of the day, there's nothing there for you anymore.
They're not investing with you in enough to tell you the truth.
I think Twilio was a wonderful place to where they loved me and I loved them.
That's not representative Twilio, but just in general, if you're working with a
couple
of people and making decisions around your career or on your campaign or your
strategy
and they won't give you the why, for me, that's like you can't work to fix that
anymore.
Be open and honest.
And if people are open to us with me back, yeah, feedback might hurt, but it's
still a gift
and you got to take it.
Yeah.
And I think that it's really tough anytime that you're the insider when they
want someone
with experience that like there's no way that you could have.
There's nothing I can change about me other than leaving and then coming back
with said
experience.
If that's non-negotiable, then why are we negotiating at all?
100%.
And you got to think about what you want.
I felt so grateful for the promotion opportunities and for the titles and all
that kind of stuff.
But when you want something different, go get it.
And I think we're seeing that right now, obviously.
This is a really interesting time in everyone's career.
It's like, yeah, that's a great resignation.
Now you have the quiet quitting, but you also have like lays offs and all these
other things.
And so I think everyone just needs to figure out like, do I want to be here and
then commit?
And that happens a lot in your career, but I'm a big committer.
So I'm hoping Ironclad wants to commit to me because I definitely am committed
to them.
I think that's a two-way street.
And thanks so much for sharing that.
That's the sort of stuff that sometimes I'll share those type of stories as I
hear them
of those type of situations where it's like, hey, we wanted someone with public
company
CMO experience or we wanted someone who had investors that are blank before.
You know, there's no such thing as that five-star CMO.
Like it doesn't exist because they're already working somewhere else.
So go pry them away from wherever and get the golden parachute over their way.
At some point, you're not going to have with somebody once.
You know what I mean?
And that's okay.
If your career is long and you're doing the right things, like it's okay to not
be the
person they want.
And it doesn't mean the next person coming in is bad.
It means they're probably great and sold themselves maybe even better than you
did.
And there's things you can learn in that too.
So I'm grateful for it.
It doesn't mean it's not hard to go through, but I'm really in a much better
place having
had that experience.
So thanks again for sharing.
Okay.
Let's get to our final segment.
Quick hits.
These are quick questions and quick answers, just like how you can go to Qual
ify.com.
Get helped quickly so you can generate pipeline faster.
Tap into your greatest asset, your website to identify your most valuable
visitors and
instantly start sales conversations.
It's quick and easy.
Just like these questions.
Go to Qualify.com to learn more.
Quick hits.
Leslie, are you ready?
Let's do it.
Number one, what is a hidden talent or skill that's not on your resume?
I am an amazing holiday decorator.
Do not come to my house during the holidays if you don't want to be wowed
because you
will be wowed.
Are you available for rental because that might be my side business and
retirement because
they charge on the money.
There you go.
I'm ready to pay.
Do you have a favorite book, podcast or TV show that you checked out recently?
This podcast is a good one.
I have a list of them.
Hey, now.
I just want to throw that out.
I also will say right now I'm reading Miracle Mornings.
I actually really like that book a lot.
I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get more growth time out of my day
being a
new CMO and not having a lot of time left.
So figuring that out.
But I'm a big self helper.
I also for fun, love listening to smart lists.
I will just say it's not a business podcast, but I'll just put it out there.
If you haven't listened to it, it definitely makes me crack up and it's a great
one to
throw on for some comic relief.
So good.
If you weren't in marketing, what do you think you'd be doing?
Oh my gosh.
Such a great question.
I was a high school teacher before I went into tech and I think that might have
been
a path that I took.
I really liked teaching, but as I get older, it is something more like owning
my own business
that I can like have my own hours, my own destiny a little bit probably
interior design.
Now I love holiday decorating.
I love just thinking of how you put a space together.
I've been a huge remodeler of our 1991 home that we live in.
We're done now.
My husband's super grateful, but I think that would be like the creative part
of my life
would be something I'd probably want to go into more.
What is your best advice for a first time CMO trying to figure out their demand
strategy?
I'll go back to my original answer.
Get as much data as you can.
Get as much data as you can about that funnel, what's working and what's not.
And then think about your strategy from that perspective.
Leslie, it's been absolutely awesome having you on the show.
Thanks so much for joining.
For listeners, you can go to ironcladapp.com to learn more.
If you're in marketing, you should check it out because you work with creative
agencies
and SEO consultants, Instagram influencers, and you don't want to slow those
contracts
down.
Go check it out.
Tell your CFO.
Tell your legal team.
Tell them all.
Thank you, Ian.
Thanks so much and take care.
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