Enabling Your Marketing Team to Be Bold
Analisa Dominic, CMO at Opengear, wants you to be bold and daring in your marketing strategy.
[MUSIC]
Welcome to Pipeline Visionaries.
I'm Ian Faiz on CEO of Caspian Studios.
Today, we are joined by a special guest, Analisa.
How are you?
>> I'm good. How are you?
>> I'm doing great.
Excited to chat about Open Gear,
excited to chat about marketing,
a little bit about your background,
your marketing strategy, and everything in between.
Let's get into it.
What was your very first job in marketing?
>> My goodness. Without giving away the year,
it was leading the marketing initiatives at IBM and upstate New York.
I was responsible for Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse,
and Albany in terms of email events and things of that sort.
Yeah, many, many years ago.
>> Flash forward to today, what does it mean to be CMO of Open Gear?
>> It means that I can help set strategy,
I can help grow the team,
and I can give them a permission to be bold and be daring,
and it's okay to make mistakes.
>> I love them. We're going to talk all about
those experiments and mistakes and everything here coming up.
Let's get to our first segment, The Trust Tree.
This is where you go if you're honest and trusted,
and you can share this deepest, darkest marketing secrets.
Zoom it out. What does Open Gear do?
>> Open Gear is a network resilience platform,
and in layman's terms,
we basically keep networks running at all times,
in case of outages or first-day deployments and things of that sort.
So we basically are a network outside of the production network,
and then we allow engineers to use our network to go in and remediate,
to set up, to work with a separate network that is,
is of course connected and joined altogether,
but it's basically in layman's terms what we do.
>> Who are your customers?
>> Oh my goodness. Over 75 percent of the Fortune 500 organizations use Open
Gear.
I'm really, really super proud of the logos that we have.
We have as customers, and more importantly,
we're proud of the fact that we have listened to those customers over the last
two decades.
So Open Gear is really built on division and the needs of our customers.
It's all customer-led innovation.
We're super excited to know that there were keeping many of those engineers
from doing a truck role in the middle of the night,
and many networks up and running.
We're here like Silent Ninja or Silent Partner behind the scenes,
which is cool, but then it makes my marketing job a little more difficult, but
that's okay.
>> What does that buying committee look like?
Who actually buys the product?
>> Our buyers are basically engineers.
In some large organizations, CIOs, CTOs,
but for the most part, we have found that our engineering community loves Open
Gear.
If they leave one job, go to a next and they don't have Open Gear,
they're always bringing us in.
So we've been very fortunate to have this customer base
that until I went to Cisco Live this year, I'm in, and they're like, we love
you, we love you, we love you.
I mean, the customer case studies that we can get from our engineering group is
amazing,
and it's the first time I've been with an organization that has a customer that
I can honestly say loves you.
So it's mostly the engineering community.
And occasionally, we do go upstream, we are looking to go upstream as we
continue product evolution,
but right now, it's the engineers, the network engineers.
>> And what's your marketing strategy?
>> My marketing strategy has always been to be a travel user.
The marketing strategy itself consists of multiple components,
everything from multiple campaigns to product marketing team to enabling the
sales organization,
to working with product to ensure that what they're developing is going out in
a message.
So it's a whole campaign of many different tactics.
But at the end of the day, it's just to be disruptive and to ensure that we're
providing Open Gear with as many leads
in as much business as possible.
I don't want to get into all the nitty gritty of it, but it's all the major
marketing components wrapped up.
So of course, we're looking at new technology and things, and we'll probably
get into that.
But that's it.
I could bring up the slideshow or the PowerPoint if you want to see it.
>> I might hold you to that.
If you're going to offer it, if you're going to offer it, let me see.
And how is your marketing world structured?
And how is the company structured to go get those accounts?
How does marketing and sales play with each other there?
>> So marketing and sales are basically one team.
And maybe we should start by my background.
I sold.
I carried a bag.
I did product development.
So I'm not a typical marketing person that has grown up in marketing.
And I'm a proponent of supporting and providing the sales organizations with
the tools they need to be successful.
Because I was, I've lived that.
I've breathed it.
I know what that's like.
Within Open Gear, I had up marketing.
We have a sales vice president in the US.
We have a sales vice president in Amia.
We have a sales vice president in APAC.
I won marketing globally.
We all report to the president.
So we sit on the same team.
We have basically the same KPIs, the same numbers to meet.
And then within my organization, I've delineated the marketing organization.
I've got products, product marketing as a focus.
I've got the digital components as a focus.
I've got the analytics to separate stream of work.
I've got events and web cams and webinars and podcasts and the whole nine yards
separated.
So I have found that by keeping those in those stovepipes, that's been the most
effective.
Obviously, we're talking daily.
And the organization is small enough that we all know what each other is
working on.
But that's the way I have it organized.
And I should say, I've got a person in Amia.
I've got somebody in APAC.
And they're basically running the country right now.
And then we also have an individual who's running our channel.
Channels are the biggest form of distribution for Open Gear.
Yeah, can you go into that a little bit into the channel approach now?
That's a little different.
Yeah.
So all products are manufactured, assembled in the United States.
We sell through our channel, our distribution model.
We do have large strategic accounts that buy directly from Open Gear, but most
of them
are going through a channel organization.
So therefore, we have a separate marketing team that's dedicated to channels
who are
running those channel marketing activities.
And then we have a team dedicated to the Open Gear.
It's more about branding and lead and gen awareness and stuff of that sort.
So two separate groups all coming into one point.
And we've been hugely successful.
I mean, the CEO has grown this business by gangbusters the last 10 years he's
been here.
And it's working well.
Obviously, the channel will always want more resource and the marketing group
will always
want more resource.
But it's being able to manage through that and to ensure that we're doing the
best and
most effective thing for the business.
Yeah.
And you have thoughts on just strategy generally or things I know that.
I think from a strategy perspective, understanding your audience and what exc
ites them, what keeps
them up at night, understanding where they're spending their time, you know,
walking into
Open Gear two years ago is really interesting for me because I was more
accustomed to dealing
with that C-suites and not so accustomed to dealing with the engineering teams.
And I can remember when I was new, my boss kept saying, I don't really say
these guys
aren't going to be doing this, right?
So it's really being able to understand the buying persona then creating the
strategy.
Because if you think you understand the buying persona and you create a
strategy, it doesn't
matter how good the strategy is.
If you're not speaking to them in the right way and the right times and pulling
all those
levers, you're never going to be successful.
So I think there when you set strategies, it's also important to have that
alignment
with sales organization.
But what's important to you?
What are you trying to hit?
What are your target customers?
Who are you, you know, who are going to be making those decisions, et cetera,
et cetera.
So it's not just a marketing strategy.
It's a business strategy.
Yeah, couldn't agree more.
I mean, I think that that's probably one of the biggest mistakes that people
make is trying
to do, you know, roll out the play that worked at the last company and it's a
totally different
type of buyer, you know, this person doesn't like to go to events or this
person loves
to go to events or this person hates webinars and this type of person loves web
inars or,
you know, a third of the people really like webinars, but a third of them, you
know, don't
like that sort of thing at all or, you know, like whatever that thing is, you
have to,
you know, figure it out who they want to talk to, how they want to talk to them
when they're
buying cycles are.
Like the more that you understand all of those things, you can, you know, craft
a strategy
in all of those tactics.
Absolutely.
You don't know it then, you know, and I'm curious, like, to you coming into the
organization,
having to learn all that stuff, were there things that perhaps the organization
didn't
know about themselves that you sort of uncovered in that, you know, quote un
quote diligence
process?
Wow, that's a really good question.
I think the organization needed to learn that it was okay to break.
Mm hmm.
Right.
Because my boss is not necessarily a humble person, but he has been so
successful without
being allowed and bold in terms of, like, in your face.
So I think that they had to learn that it's okay to break.
We are open gear.
We are in 75% of the Fortune 500.
Hello.
Do you know what that means?
Like, the value of that, we keep Facebook and Apple and Microsoft and Google.
I mean, like, I could just, I could spit out all these logos that everybody
would know.
They were never accustomed to bragging publicly, right?
Well, maybe we'll brag in a boardroom, but bragging publicly and sharing this
information
and making people aware and comfortable with the technology, knowing that, yes,
we're relatively
a small organization, but, oh my God, our customer base is, it's something that
any Fortune
100 would want.
So that's, I had to get, I got, I had to get them comfortable with that.
It's a really interesting point.
And I'd say it also is a pretty common one when it comes to like, you know,
product people.
It's a sort of different type of a message where, you know, people are very
much like
the product stands out on its own.
Why do we need to brag about it?
Why do we need case studies?
Why do we need testimonials?
Why do we need all this stuff?
Like, they're just going to see that it's better than everything else, right?
And it's like, well, there needs to be a story there so that it actually, you
know, breaks
through the noise.
Otherwise, it's just all kind of features and benefits and lost in translation.
And not only that, then why did you hire me?
Right.
You're not even like at the end of the day, like, seriously, why did you hire
me?
If you're not going to listen to me and appreciate what I'm telling you, which
they do now,
obviously things always have to prove yourself.
There's always a point of that within a new organization.
But if these companies just want to stay doing what they're doing, okay, you
more power to
you, but you're bringing someone in to be a disruptor, then let me disrupt.
I love that.
Okay, let's get to the playbook.
This is 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 uncuttable budget items?
Email.
I think email has such a great ROI in terms of reach, in terms of click-through
s, in terms
of quick and easy and quick and dirty.
Emails to prospects, emails to customers.
I think that is completely something that we couldn't live without.
I think that there are a couple of events that I could not live without,
specifically
the one we were just at, where there was a whole community of engineers.
I think that's important.
I think social media is important as well because we're able to reach people we
haven't
been talking to.
Those are three pieces that I could not put out of my budget and that people
can disagree
with me, but I have found those to be the most effective.
Zoomed on the events piece, engineers, obviously, always a tricky group to sell
to.
Yeah, fun, actually.
I can't really tell how fun they could be.
Literally did not know because we all think of engineers as these geeky guys
that are
sitting behind their computers.
No, they are fun and crazy and I love them and I'm grateful for them.
It's like kindred spirits, actually.
I think that we all bring our work self to work and it's hard to bring the rest
of you
to work, but you can to an event.
You can let your hair down a little bit and it's super important to create
those watering
holes that they can do that.
If you're the one who provided the drinks, that's an advantageous place to be.
Sometimes it is that simple.
Just space for them to congregate and serve the food and drinks.
I had Darth Vader in the booth.
You had Darth Vader in the booth?
That's pretty good.
Where you got Darth Vader in the booth?
Here's the interesting thing over the years.
When you see stuff on paper and you're like, "Yeah, and we're going to have
these."
I mean, I can talk to you about this whole entire campaign we did for the Cisco
Live
event, but when it comes down to on paper, you're like, "Oh, and Darth Vader
will be
in the booth."
People are looking at you like, "You're crazy."
I'm like, "No, trust me.
This is going to work.
I'm going to have Darth Vader walk around the entire event space with a big
sign that
says, "Join Open Gear at ooh7712."
They're like, "I only said, what is this going to do for you?"
Well, if Darth Vader is standing in my booth and I know that 80% of the
attendees love
Darth Vader or love Star Wars or love any one of those sci-fi action films,
which people
in research will tell you they do, and he's standing in front of an Open Gear
sign while
I take a picture.
Do you know how far Open Gear is going to go?
You can't cut Open Gear out of the headshot because you'll be cutting Darth
Vader's head
off.
They're like, "So you intentionally put Darth Vader in front of an Open Gear
sign?"
I'm like, "Yes, people.
Yes, you do."
So it's being like, you just have to, for me, my whole entire life was being, "
I'm different.
I'm different."
And I own it and I love it and it's a fact.
And I can't do just plain.
If we're going to do something, let's try something new.
Let's do something exciting.
So I think that being disruptive and even if you make a mistake and you learn,
life is
a series of mistakes.
It's what and how we learn from them and what we do about them that make us
good humans.
So yeah, we're having Darth Vader in the books.
And it's the same thing back at IBM back in the early, early 90s.
When I sent an invitation by mail, I sent out, not in wait, hot pink.
Hot pink came in the mail for a product invitation, product launch, who had the
highest attendees.
Hot pink.
Hot pink.
Hot pinked it, right?
We just bend some things and try new things.
Guys, just don't be afraid.
I think that the Darth Vader pieces is really important.
And especially when you're working with companies, as many of us are at times,
where they've
been doing things the same way for a long time, or maybe they did something
years ago
that was cool.
And maybe there's, no, we've just been sort of trotting out the same old, same
old that
you know, creativity is free.
It's so important to brainstorm and to figure out those sort of things that are
going to
stand out.
You know, that's like people talk about swag, like swag always works.
If you have good swag, it always works.
Ask me what I did.
What'd you do?
Since Christmas, I had this design in my head with the back printing.
You know how the labels are doing that back printing on T-shirts now?
So I'm like, I'm doing one of those with engineers and open gear in the back.
And the material is going to be soft enough for an engineer's wife or
girlfriend to wear
to bed.
Yes.
That was my goal when I, at one of my vendors, set me 15 different shirts.
And I'm like feeling all of them over Christmas.
And I have all the kids like blind tests, feeling all the fabric because it's
important.
The feel was just as important as the visual, which is just as important as how
you're giving
it, how it's going to live and breathe and what it's going to be doing once it
leaves
your booth.
Swag works.
I had networks need open gear on the front of it and lines out the door like
crazy.
It was awesome.
I mean, but that's not the create.
I've given away teddy bears with T-shirts that have been so, so successful.
You would never think at a CTO convention that they would line up for a teddy
bear.
Well, let me tell you people, they love the teddy bear.
It's either going to their wife, their grandkids or their dog.
But it's so funny because if you were to sit there and say, I'm going to cut my
, whatever,
meta ad spend or Google ads by X amount of dollars, we're going to buy teddy
bears with
that, people would think you're crazy.
Like your CFO is going to think you're crazy.
It's like, oh, the thing that we can track dollar to dollar, whether or not
that's going
to drive one point three five X incremental revenue, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah versus
you're buying teddy bears.
Like that is the marketers plate, right?
Is to try to convince them to like try to figure out a way to show them that
the teddy
bear that, hey, there's people lined up a hundred people deep to get these
stupid teddy
bears in our booth.
You know, how many people are they lining up to click on our ads?
No.
I have had so many conversations over my career with business people that it
finally got to
the point with me with then have they looked me in the eyes and go, I shouldn't
have doubted
you, right?
But it took a lot of battles and a lot of convincing to get to, you know, where
I am
today.
I mean, my boss, my president would probably freak out, but at the same time
and even through
even being on the ground with me through Cisco live this year, he goes, okay, I
'm starting
to board the honestly sick crazy train.
Good.
Welcome aboard, right?
Like welcome aboard.
But you know what, Gary, we got two times more leads this year than we did pre-
COVID.
Our email performed three time, thank you email performed three times better
than any
other email did.
Our click through rate was three times higher.
I mean, so you have to have crazy, but you got to be able to back it up was, I
guess,
the point I was trying to get to, right?
Like, it's not crazy, but different.
He does call it the crazy train and my husband before coming in here goes,
please don't tell
people you're crazy.
He was, he was just telling you, you know, you think outside of the box and
like, okay,
I think outside of the box.
But, you know, at the end of the day, you still have to prove, prove your worth
, prove
the value, prove the ROI.
Nothing goes on Chet.
You know, so just, just be mindful of that, right?
You know, the vast majority of innovation comes from, you know, somewhere out
of left
field, right?
And I think that with marketing, you are trying to zig one other zag.
You're trying to think of things that is not the status quo.
You're trying to do things where your competitors can't, you're trying to be
where they aren't,
but you're also trying to be where they are and be differentiated.
Like, that's a pretty tough remit.
So, you know, like, you know, what's the ad here to the crazy ones?
Yeah, please, let's drink to that.
I'm serious.
So, I'm curious, what, what is it about your emails that's working?
Is it, is it that you change the actual emails or is it that, you know, this h
alo effect
of the other things that you're doing is the halo effect in this instance,
right?
It was the halo effect of this campaign, culminating in three different social
media
influencers and their reach.
During social journalism on the ground video, professional video person, camera
video, all
of the social components, the LinkedIn posts and videos.
So it was, it was like the perfect storm.
And they were people that were generally interested.
And then we changed up the email format and I included video in it specifically
because
they open gear had a couple of years ago done an A/B testing on it and didn't
find it to
be of any value.
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're coming off of Cisco.
We're going to have all this great footage.
We're including that in this email and it literally was, was really effective.
So I don't think my next email I send out will have 30% open rate, but I hope
it does,
you know.
But that's what a campaign that's the value of a campaign.
That's, that's all the triggers that you pull that lead up to and create such
stronger
outcomes.
Yeah.
Do you feel like it's all just a bit more connected and cohesive than it had
been in
the past?
I think I always strive to be cohesive.
I mean, just say that is that's the nice way of putting it.
So, you know, even every header, every line, every character has to look and
feel the same.
Right.
So yeah.
Can I say I love the, you know, networks need open gear, I think is a, is a
great tagline.
But I love the subhead of first day, worst day, every day.
That's great.
That's such good copy.
Thank you.
Thank you.
My marketing director is phenomenal.
And he comes from an agency and he's, he's, he's awesome.
And I'm going to make it really, it's really copywriting.
It is very, very, yes.
Yeah.
Well, and the thing I like about it, because I have to brag on it a little bit
because
we're here and we invited you on the show.
But so I love networks need open gear because it drives that, that sense of
value.
Um, what's up?
Value.
Yeah, the value and an urgency, which is, which is cool.
But then having first day, worst day, every day is something that it gives you
that, that
sort of, uh, into the mind of the engineer who thinks about day one, they
always think
about day one, they always think about the worst day.
Uh, you know, the catastrophic things.
And then that just day in and day out.
No, I mean, obviously it's a network resilience product.
So day in and day out, am I going to have that piece of mind?
Am I going to have that?
Well, not only day in and day out, you can use it for testing.
You can use it for, for other things.
It doesn't have to just sit there, right?
Right.
It's not just disaster recovery.
It's not just when your network goes down.
I mean, I mean, you're investing in a network, a separate network from the
production network.
Use it.
Right?
I mean, I could have hit him over the hat and go, Hey, don't let it sit there.
Just, you know, use it.
But yeah.
And then of course there's applications for agent stands, but I have a great
team and
what I really love about my team is enabling them to be bold and to be
different.
And even though my marketing director has the agency experience, he's always
saying to
me, um, I only so think we should do this, you know, so he is over here.
I'm over here and somewhere in, you know, in the middle is, is where we come to
So I think it's really important to have a team that's around you that, um,
enables
you and keeps you grounded at the same time.
Right?
So it's, it's all about the individuality and the strength of the team being
dynamic and
unique and not looking, feeling the same.
Like it's, it's, it's important for us to always make sure those teams are, are
different.
Yeah.
So it reminds me of our amazing sponsor qualified, um, but not that this is a
library that comes
later.
Um, but it reminds me when I first talked to the CEO of qualified, um, Craig,
who's amazing.
And he was talking about just like this simple positioning of, um, Hey, imagine
if the CEO
of your biggest prospect showed up on your website.
What would happen?
I'm like, I don't know.
Someone is not trying to buy or someone who is screaming out lead or someone
who is the
CEO, the biggest VIP ever, compare that to when you're, if that same CEO walked
into
the front door of your building, people would be like jumping up, they'd offer
her, you
know, a drink, they'd get all that sort of stuff.
And there's something so simple about sort of the like always on idea of, you
know, like
first time someone comes to your website, you know, the worst day for your
website, you
know, every day.
And anyways, it made me think of, of qualified.
Yeah.
Remember that conversation.
I just wrote an article on marketing being impacted by data outages, right?
So it impacts all of us.
It's not just the engineers.
But imagine we just did a study.
It's thousands of dollars for one minute, thousands and thousands of dollars
for one
minute of an outage.
Oh, I mean, I mean, if you're a D to C company, like, look out, I mean, yeah,
it's, it's
crazy. So it's, it's important that, you know, you, you do something about it.
Yeah.
What's one thing that you might not be investing in as much going forward?
No, it's a marketing person that.
How about my shoes?
Can I say that my shoes?
Yeah, you can tell.
I know where I want to spend more money.
Yeah.
Well, tell me that then.
Oh, well, I want to spend more money in partnerships.
So all of the activity associated with that, I want to spend more money with
the analysts.
I want to spend more money in creating more video, definitely more video
contents.
I want, I think I'm going to keep my Google spend where it is because I jacked
all of that
up this year, a good 20%.
And I want to spend more money in a couple more larger, you know, engineering
focused
events and what those are right now, I don't know.
But if we walked away from Cisco Live with double the amount of leads pre-COVID
and I've
had five demo requests since that, which has only been like four business days.
But ROI is pretty, pretty well set.
I think that I'd also do more, like to do more thought leadership.
Now, I know that the engineering guys are our predominant audience, but I think
that
we need to be talking up market.
We need to be bragging about having 75% of the Fortune 500 rate.
Oh, yeah.
It's that kind of stuff through those triggers I just said, I think will help.
And of course, we're going to keep doing what we're doing because it's been
successful with some tweaks.
But, you know, that's what I'd like to do.
Love it.
How do you view your website?
That's on the list.
That is one of my bigger spends over the next 18 months.
I think that the chat function needs to be improved.
I think some of the other components could use some spruzing up.
And I think that there's some technology gotches with the current platform that
need to be
addressed.
So that is definitely something on the list.
And then that over to mobile kind of funky for me.
So it's the big number one spend for the team over the next 18 months.
Cool.
Okay, let's get to our next segment.
The dust up, we talk about healthy tension, whether that's with your ward, your
sales
team, your competitor, or anyone else.
On a list, have you had a memorable dust up in your career?
When I think of dust up, I think of one of those aha moments, or those moments
you look
back on and you go and you I was right kind of thing.
So you know how we've been talking about when I come to the table and I'm
definitely
not, you know, I definitely approach things differently.
So back in the day when I was the product owner, you know, because I've had
products,
development, products, management experience, I was the owner of a brand new MV
&O.
We were producing a product to sell into the Hispanic market.
And I did tons of research, understood what I, the best I could the culture,
had Hispanic
people on my team, looked at all of the different triggers and did all of the
math on which
rate plan are we going to do?
A or B.
And I knew in my heart that B was the one we needed to do.
So I stood before CFO, you know, and all the other folks on the leadership team
at the
time and said, okay, these are our two choices.
Let me tell you a choice.
I think we should do, you know, and presented the presented B, explained why.
And those son of a guns chose A. Long story short, within 13 months, we were
closing the
doors.
Right.
So then fast forward, a few years later, we all get together for dinner.
And the CFO puts his arm around me and goes, I should have listened to you.
And I look at him, I'm like, Uncle Lou, oh my God, yes, you should have.
He goes, I should have listened to you.
And he goes, I hope you learn a valuable lesson.
I'm like, yeah, I'm always right.
And he's like, no, that's not it.
You know, he's, and he explained to me, you know, how to ensure that I'm always
bringing
the most data I can.
And the story behind it is you know, we were mentioning before we started
recording stories
are the best stories are what we learned from.
It was nice to hear him say I was right.
It was sad to hear him say I was right because I didn't want to see us bold.
But it was a big lesson for me.
And you know your rights, get the supporting data, which I thought I had all of
it and
really fight for it.
And so that was, that was a dust off a home moment for me and my career, one of
many,
but I figured I'd share that one.
Love it.
Okay, let's get to our final segment here.
Quick hits.
These are quick questions and quick answers, just like how quickly qualified.
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companies generate pipeline happen to your greatest essay, your website to
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Just like these questions, go to qualified.com to learn more.
They're our best friends in the whole world.
Go to qualified, check them out, do a demo, go check out the product pipeline
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Go to qualified.com on Elisa.
Quick hits.
Are you ready?
I think nobody's ever truly ready for quick hits.
Number one, what's a hidden talent or passion or skill that's not on your
resume?
I'm a Ricky master.
A what?
Yeah, I'm a Ricky master.
What is that?
You're going to have to Google that.
It's a hands on healing, breaking card, the IKE.
Do you imagine me putting that on my resume?
Come on.
Yeah, wait, are you sure it isn't on your resume?
It's not.
It should be though, right?
Energy healing technique.
All right.
You can go.
Yeah.
That is poster.
I learned something new today.
You're a fan.
A favorite book, podcast or TV show that you'd recommend.
Ted Lasso.
Love it.
Love, love, love.
Although I was so disappointed with the last season.
Don't know spoilers.
I'm not.
I'm not quite finished.
Okay.
Okay.
Call me when you were done.
Right.
That's right.
Yeah, it's great.
Do you have a favorite non-marketing hobby that maybe indirectly makes you a
better
marketer?
I love gardening.
Mm.
Yeah.
I love the garden.
I have, I think, like 53 house plants.
And then, you know, during spring, summer and fall, all the outdoor gardening.
I love gardening.
What advice would you give to a first time CMO who's trying to figure out their
marketing
strategy?
That'd be bold.
It'd be different.
And interestingly enough, you're not going to solve everything.
So we all walk in going, "We're going to solve, you know, world hunger."
You know, actually, you're not.
And I think that you also need to be a partner with the rest of the
organization.
So be a partner with the sales organization.
Be a partner with the product organization.
Be a partner with the engineering group.
You know, that will help you determine where best to set strategy.
I guess you will know everything, but it's also good to know what they know and
what
they're doing.
So partner with the rest of the organization.
Analisa, it's been absolutely wonderful having you on the show.
For our listeners, you can go to OpenGear.com to learn about them.
Go give your engineer a nudge.
If you're in that 25% of the Fortune 500 that don't use OpenGear, what are you
doing?
That's my question for you.
Fix yourselves and make sure your engineers are up on the latest OpenGear.
Greatest.
Analisa, any final thoughts?
Anything to plug?
I'm not going to know shameless plugging other than I hit a great time.
Thank you for everything.
And good luck to everybody out there.
And maybe we can do this again.
Indeed.
Thanks again and take care.
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