The Value of Engagement

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(upbeat music)

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- Welcome to Inside the O'Hanna.

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I'm Dan Darcy, Chief Customer Officer at Qualified.

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And today I'm joined by Andrea Torell.

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Andrea, how are you doing?

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- Doing great.

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Thanks for having me here.

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- Good, good, good.

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So I wanna dive right into our first segment,

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O'Hanna Origins.

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How did you discover Salesforce and start your journey?

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- So I did not know what Salesforce was

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when I first entered the workforce.

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But I was a marketing coordinator

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working for an insurance brokerage.

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And our VP of Sales called me into his office

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and said, hey, we have this thing called Salesforce.

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We don't know really what it is.

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It's on some guys' credit card.

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We have 18 admins.

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If you can figure out what it does

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and how we can optimize it,

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we'll send you to San Francisco for Dreamforce.

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And to fresh out of school,

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we knew it was like, yep, that sounds amazing.

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I can figure anything out,

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put me on a plane to San Francisco and never look back.

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So it was totally an accidental admin,

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but I was really grateful

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that that was a part of my early career journey.

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- Explain an accidental admin for everyone

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because I know that term,

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but I want you to explain it.

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- Yeah, accidental admin means like you started,

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you kind of fell into this ecosystem on accident.

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And when I went to school,

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studied a little bit of marketing,

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studied a few other things,

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like I had never even heard the term CRM.

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Marketing automation also like as a category.

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Like I knew what an email was obviously,

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but marketing automation was a buzzword

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that hadn't really taken root yet fully.

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So it was accidental in the sense that I was like,

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I have no idea what I'm getting into.

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I know I want things to be more efficient.

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I want to get more done with the resources

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that we have on our team.

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And Salesforce was like the ultimate gateway

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into that world.

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- What was your job at the time?

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I'm curious to the title

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and like your first impression of actually diving

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into Salesforce.

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- My title was Marketing Coordinator.

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I managed our website, our social media,

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HubSpot we were on at the time.

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And I knew a little bit about like databases,

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had worked a little bit with access and past roles.

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And looked at Salesforce as just like,

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okay, this is a repository of where we're storing

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all of our customer information,

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where our sales team is like managing day to day work.

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And for me as a marketer,

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this is a tool where I could figure out

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like who are we running campaigns to,

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how are we making sure our events get filled,

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that being the main driver.

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And the big thing at the time

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that our sales leader wanted built into Salesforce

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that he kind of charged me with building was

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essentially what like path on opportunities has become

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where it's like, okay, for each stage,

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what are we asking sales to put into the system?

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What are we giving them back?

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So like are we serving up presentations?

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Are we serving up helpful tips?

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Like what can we, how do we kind of nail

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but give get equation with Salesforce?

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So we built a version of path before path was cool.

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- I love that, that's awesome.

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So you started dabbling a little in obviously sales operations

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and incentivizing, you know,

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and helping drive the adoption of Salesforce.

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That's pretty cool.

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So I want you to brag a little bit

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because I know your career in working with Salesforce

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but I want you to tell other folks,

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what do you think is the biggest success you've had

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with working with Salesforce

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or something that you're most proud of this far?

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- I'm most proud of starting my company, Circontay.

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So I launched the business in 2017

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with the goal of helping marketers

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be successful in the Salesforce platform.

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So part out, marketing cloud,

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other parts of the Martec stack that connect back

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to the marketing automation tool.

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And it's been a fantastic learning journey for me

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but also an opportunity to give other people

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some of their first roles in the ecosystem

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and get their feet under them.

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- In starting that company, I think that's awesome

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and I love Circontay.

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What would you say on the opposite side of the spectrum,

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what's your biggest lesson learned?

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- Two things come to mind with that question.

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One is content marketing is alive and well.

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When I first started a company,

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I launched a blog called the Spot Perpartot.

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And it was for me, it really wasn't for the business

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or to be like a growth driver.

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My thinking was just, okay, I've been blogging

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for all these other businesses for decades at this point

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and I want to just write about what I'm learning,

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what I'm passionate about.

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And I was shocked to see how many people that resonated with

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and how many people wanted to contribute content

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and will be a part of that.

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So that was a lesson learned,

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like I wish I would have done that way earlier.

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The other lesson learned that I'm continuing to learn

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all the time is balanced.

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So the Ojana is full of a lot of super passionate people

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who are everywhere on the interwebs.

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Like they're active on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,

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WhatsApp, Slack, they're creating content

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and they're in events.

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And there could be sort of like a keeping up

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with the Jones's thing that is really hard to navigate.

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So I've had to learn to be okay with,

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all right, I'm gonna put out there what I can right now

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and just enough, there's a point where it's enough

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and knowing where that is for you is something I'm learning.

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- I mean, being part of the Ojana obviously is addicting

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'cause there is so much to stay on top of

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but I think that's a great lesson learned.

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If you could go back and talk to Andrea

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just starting out your Salesforce journey,

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what advice would you give yourself?

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- I would tell myself to go all in on Salesforce sooner.

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For the earlier part of my career,

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Salesforce was one of the hats that I wore

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and it took me a while to say, okay, yep,

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I'm gonna specialize and this is gonna be

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the main thing that I focus on.

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There's so much opportunity in this ecosystem

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and if I could go back and do things

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a little differently it would be specializing sooner.

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- So I wanna ask you about the meaning of Ojana

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and I asked this of all my guests

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because I feel like everyone describes this completely

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differently but I'm curious,

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how would you describe the Ojana and what does it mean to you?

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- The word that comes to mind when I think about Ojana

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is generosity, generosity is like one of the common themes

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that I've seen a lot.

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Like people that are willing to go out of their way

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that help others even when there isn't an immediate payoff

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for them, people that are just looking for opportunities

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to just genuinely be helpful and be resources

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to other people, that's what comes to mind for me

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and that's unlike many of the places where I lived and worked.

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So it's something that I very much appreciate

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about the Salesforce world.

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- Are there any special stories or Ojana moments

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that are a little behind the scenes that you'd wanna share?

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- I guess one that sort of comes to mind is

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when I was first starting Surkhandi

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and first kind of getting things off the ground with my blog,

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there was this epic Twitter DM thread called "Pardashians."

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Sarah McIner started it actually and Laura Black

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and Becca Miller and a few of the folks

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that were really active around part of at that point in time.

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And this Twitter thread just became this like,

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it was giant, like dozens of people that were a part of it.

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It was like the most active social channel

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of like all things that I was on.

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Like if that's a place where I wasn't even checking Twitter,

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I was just checking that one DM thread.

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And then finally we hit a wall where we're like,

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okay, we need to graduate to Slack.

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But that became a Slack community called "Pardashians."

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And yeah, I don't know how many people know

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that it actually started as just like a big Twitter DM,

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but that's where I came from.

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- I love that story because I was always curious.

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I never knew what the origin of that name was,

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but a shout out to the "Pardashians" out there.

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So before we get in credit for coming up with that name,

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'cause I think Adam Blitzer used to call the "Pardashians"

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like in the very early "Pardot" days,

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but the community definitely co-opted it to describe

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who we are and what platform we represent.

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- I love it, I love it.

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Now, before we get into our next segment,

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I wanna talk a little bit about Dreamforce.

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Do you have any Dreamforce moments or stories

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that are special to share?

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- Dreamforce definitely has some of my fondest memories

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of the ecosystem because there's no other

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more energizing place to fill your sales force tank

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than Dreamforce.

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It's just great energy, great people, great vibes.

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Yeah, lots of epic "Pardot" parties.

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I feel like somehow I've always ended up missing the concerts,

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even though the concerts are really great time.

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The one thing that stands out in my memory from last year

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is surrounding in a buyout of the pink elephant alibi.

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And our marketing team made these stencils

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of like elephant footprints and like spray painted pink chalk

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like leading up to the site.

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Like they did it in front of police,

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like they stopped traffic to do it in a crosswalk.

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They did it in front of a police officer,

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like security for the safe redis.

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And I'm still amazed that we were able to publish that

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without like somebody having a slaviest on the wrist.

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- I mean, San Francisco, do whatever you want.

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(laughing)

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So I want you to tell us about that first Dreamforce

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that you spoke about earlier,

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that you attended that your boss sent you to,

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you know, and why it meant so much to you.

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- The theme of that Dreamforce was the social enterprise.

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It was right when Chatter came out,

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social media was kind of like a new thing

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that businesses were investing in.

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But the number one thing I remember being surprised by

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was like going to Keynote and thinking it was like,

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all right, we're gonna be talking about tech.

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And like, I'm here to learn about the platform

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and what I need to build on the platform.

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And I felt like every five minutes Mark Benioff

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was like, "And now here are the black eyed peas

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and now you're so, so."

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And I'd never been in a room with so many celebrities

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at the same time in my life.

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And I kept wondering, like, what do all these crazy people

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have to do with Salesforce?

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But yeah, now I've learned that's just part of the process.

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- I mean, everyone needs CRM.

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Even the black eyed, even will I am, even will I am,

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needs CRM.

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- Yes.

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- I love it.

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So let's get into our next segment, What's Cooking?

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Andrew, you're now the CEO of Circontae.

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I want you to talk a little bit about how you got

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to where you are now, how you thought about, you know,

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starting Circontae and what that journey has been like

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in starting that company.

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- Yeah, so kind of going back to that first experience

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that I shared of landing in a role

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where Salesforce was one of the many hats that I wore

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after that role.

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So I joined that company as a,

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they're only marketing person and then helped them grow

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a marketing team as the company scaled

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and opened other locations.

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And then after that, took kind of a more specialized route

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where my next, the next stop on the train

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was working for a digital marketing agency

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who was looking to broaden their footprint

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to include more marketing automation

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and more content marketing types of services.

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So I helped lead kind of that pivot into those service areas.

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And then the role after that worked for a Salesforce

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consultant helping be their part on to me on the team.

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And what I learned from kind of those two experiences

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were that marketing agencies and Salesforce consultants

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come at marketing automation in two very different ways.

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And they come up short for customers

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in slightly different ways.

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So like marketing agencies are great at strategy,

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they're great at creative,

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but as soon as a lead hit Salesforce

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that's often out of their depth.

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So things like analytics, things like streamlining

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the marketing sales handoff,

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those typically art spaces where marketing agencies

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really shine.

12:24

Salesforce consultants have the opposite problem

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where the process and technology side

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like they can do all day.

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But when a customer comes to them and says,

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"What kind of content should I be creating?

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What kind of nurture journey should I be thinking about?

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Like how do I bring this to life on my marketing team?

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That's not really their real house either."

12:43

So when I started to marketing,

12:45

my goal was to sort of position us right

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between marketing agency and Salesforce consultant

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where we're bringing strategy, technology,

12:52

creative and analytics so that across the whole

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kind of life cycle of using marketing automation,

13:00

marketers have what they need to be successful.

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- Awesome, I love that.

13:03

I love hearing how you thought about solving that problem.

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So what challenges are you seeing now?

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And how are you applying what you've learned

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obviously through years of working with Salesforce

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to those challenges?

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- One of the biggest challenges/opportunities

13:19

is the way the platform is evolving

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and how critical data is across every step

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of the marketing journey.

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I think most of the folks that set out to be marketers

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didn't realize how much the data would drive

13:37

everything that we do,

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but your ability to run complex segments,

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to look at data from other systems

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that aren't just sales and marketing owned,

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like that's the secret sauce behind

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all these beautiful campaigns that get spotlighted

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on entry force and really move the needle on sales revenue.

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So that I would say is the biggest challenge

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is navigating kind of all the different components

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of the future tech stack and increasing data literacy

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and making sure that you have the tools

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to get that incorporated into your marketing strategies.

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- I'm seeing that across all the customers

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I'm working with too and it's surprising.

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It's just, I do feel like there is going to be

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almost like data analysts in marketing.

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Obviously it's happening and it's probably

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obviously the operations role.

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- Well, I think too, the definition of like,

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what is marketing has expanded so dramatically?

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'Cause it's your customer experience.

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It's your customer service journey.

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Like what isn't marketing anymore?

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Like pretty much every customer interaction

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comes back to marketing in some way

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and it's challenged, but it's also a major place

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where data savvy marketers can shine.

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- Absolutely.

14:51

So what's next for secante

14:52

and how are you guys shaping the future?

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- Yeah, so I would say continue to evolve

14:57

to support marketers with those data needs

14:59

and being a full stack of marketing cloud partner.

15:03

So marketing cloud engagement, marketing cloud intelligence,

15:07

marketing cloud loves to rebrand its product.

15:11

So these names change often,

15:13

but marketing cloud personalization,

15:16

that full suite of marketing cloud products

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we support customers with and expanding capabilities there

15:22

so that we can support marketers wherever they need us most.

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- And I'll just give a rest in peace to part out the brand.

15:30

- The brand will never die.

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When a lot of a last person stops calling it part out,

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I think I'm gonna fall over

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'cause it's gonna be hard to take that one

15:40

out of customers lips.

15:42

- Yeah, absolutely.

15:43

Let's get into our final segment, "The Future Forecast."

15:46

What do you envision as the future

15:47

of the Salesforce ecosystem?

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- I mean, it seems like there's no space

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that Salesforce won't touch these days.

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Just like broadening across every industry,

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across every department within an organization.

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And again, looking at data

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as sort of the underpinnings of how this all comes together.

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So I think we're gonna continue to see Salesforce expand

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and relevance in terms of like number of businesses

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touched and the number of people it touches.

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I think we'll also start seeing less focus

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on individual products and more solutions orientation.

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So instead of like, okay, I have to grab these 10 skews

16:28

off the shelf to build whatever I'm trying to build.

16:31

Salesforce coming to us and saying,

16:33

this is kind of the suite that we recommend

16:36

for companies like you, which is really exciting.

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'Cause I think that helps cast a vision

16:41

for where companies need to go

16:43

with their technology roadmap

16:45

and gives them things to grow into

16:48

versus like trying to implement solutions

16:50

a little bit more piecemeal.

16:52

- So, Andrew, you're an incredible CEO and founder.

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What advice do you have for aspiring founders

16:58

or leaders that are out there?

16:59

- My advice would be just start.

17:02

Just start whatever it is that you're trying to do

17:05

and go for it.

17:06

I had a lot of head trash before I started to probably

17:11

about needing to come up with like a very unique,

17:15

there's no other company out like this

17:17

like this in the marketplace

17:18

before launching my business.

17:21

And what I've learned is there's a lot of room

17:23

for a lot of successful people in the ecosystem.

17:26

So even if your business or your idea is similar

17:28

to somebody else, there's still probably

17:31

a lot of people that you can help.

17:32

So go for it is my advice and short.

17:35

- Love it, love it.

17:37

Just go for it.

17:38

All right, before letting you go,

17:39

let's have fun with a quick lightning round.

17:42

Okay, ready for this?

17:44

Secret skill not on the resume.

17:47

- One of the things that I'm very good at

17:49

is packing incredibly efficiently.

17:53

Like if you have a large number of objects

17:55

to fit into a very small space,

17:57

I'm your girl for that.

17:59

- I thought you were gonna mention your homemade gin.

18:02

(laughs)

18:03

- I agree to make you homemade gin.

18:04

I also have a green,

18:05

we had a winery that is not a secret skill,

18:08

it's secret, very challenging and never.

18:11

- Yeah, absolutely, it definitely is.

18:14

What's the best way to spend an evening after work?

18:18

- The best evenings after work for me

18:20

are unplugged from technology,

18:22

hanging out with my 21-month-old daughter,

18:25

hanging out with my German Shepherd Murphy and my husband.

18:30

So just kind of quiet evenings, walks in the neighborhood,

18:35

decompressing from the day.

18:36

- Favorite brand of anything?

18:38

- Rothy's shoes is one.

18:41

Drive-over, dry shampoo,

18:47

best for busy professionals.

18:50

Those are two that stand out.

18:52

- You just won front row seat tickets to your dream event,

18:54

what is it?

18:55

- I really want Taylor Swift tickets.

18:58

She's coming to Atlanta at the end of April.

19:02

I definitely procrastinated on trying to look at

19:05

what those availability of those.

19:07

Yeah, that'd be amazing.

19:09

- Well, we'll get this episode out there fast,

19:12

so if anyone in the Atlanta area

19:14

has tickets to Taylor Swift, please reach out.

19:17

- Oh, God.

19:18

- Yeah, reach out.

19:20

You know what, I would fly to Atlanta

19:22

for Taylor Swift tickets as well too.

19:24

So anyway, Andrea, this has been so much fun.

19:26

Before I let you go,

19:28

will you let the listeners know where they can find you

19:29

and is there anything else you'd like to share or plug?

19:33

- Only other thing I'd like to plug is

19:35

Marjorieman, our conference for all marketing cloud

19:38

and product customers.

19:40

It's coming back on October 31st.

19:43

So we'd love to see everybody there.

19:45

In terms of where to find me,

19:46

I'm pretty active on Twitter, LinkedIn,

19:49

and then my blog, just bought from part.com.

19:52

- Bought for part.com.

19:53

Well, thank you, Andrea, for their conversation today

19:56

and we'll see you soon.

19:58

- Thanks for having me.

19:59

Have a good one.

19:59

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