Dave Gerhardt - FINAL Draft: "The most important role inB2B marketing"

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Introduction and Host Intros

We are podcasts for product markets and B2B SaaS who feelmisunderstood of what they do. From someone who truly gets what you do.Basically help you feel less like a misfit to being unignorable in your role.

Track 1: Hey,everyone. Welcome to another episode of We're Not Marketers. We got a specialguest on the call here today, but before we do that, we'll do a quick intro.This is Zach Roberts your sales water boy, passing it over to Eric to kick itoff.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah, season two, and I'm still the Frankenmarketer of the group. Gab, go aheadand tell them who you're about.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:Yeah, the sales intern I just do sales deck until I die giving it back to Zach.

Special Guest Introduction: Dave Gerhart

Track 1: We got areally cool guests and fun fun facts. When we initially sent them the coldoutreach and got a response from my heart stopped for three seconds. So we'revery excited that. He decided to join us here. This is Dave Gerhart. If you'vealready seen him on LinkedIn, if you haven't, otherwise, he leads the exit fivecommunity, the largest B2B marketing community.

Track 1: I'll be [00:01:00] prior to that. He was the CMO from atDrift marketing advisor at several startups here.

Dave's Background and Podcasting Journey

Track 1: And what'sreally cool is hearing his story of how he. From starting from a marketingmanager out in the Boston scene, running with the podcast, my from startups to10 years leading from going into a CMO.

Track 1: And nowtoday from the exit five perspective here Dave, before we kick off theconversation here, what else have we been missing from that intro here?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:No,

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:it's

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I like going on a podcast when people have done their research and thank youfor that intro. If you know that story, I'm down to hang out. I don't like whenI go on somebody else's podcast and so Dave, what should we talk about today?I'm like, I don't know. You invited me on your podcast. And they're like, andso I noticed you were a CMO at Privy. Tell me a little bit more about them.Wait, so I appreciate that. Thank you for all that. One at once upon a time, Istill have some of them. I had a Jordan collection to rival Mr. Eric Holland'sJordan collection, but that. That was a different time in my life. Now I'm uphere. I live in Vermont. I run Exit Five and I enjoy hanging out [00:02:00] and talking marketing. So when you hit meup, you had a good play, which is I have seen you in and around LinkedIncomments. And I think that's the strategy, right? If somebody, if you want toget somebody on your podcast and this could be true for anything marketing ornot, like how can you never consume any of their stuff or do any outreach?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And I've had multiple side projects. This isn't me. Like I'm not on a soapboxtalking about pitching me right. As somebody starting my own podcast. Like backin the day, my first podcast, as you mentioned, 2014, the way that I got guestswas I proved that I actually really know who you are. I've been listening toyour stuff.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Hey, Debra, I've listened to this interview. You did, you said this thing. Ifyou can hit somebody with some kind of like obscure detail. Or you're alwaysengaging on their stuff. I think the chances go up of responding. And so I, Ihad definitely seen, at least Zach and a bunch of my comments.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And I was like, yeah, sure. I'm happy. I'm happy to come on and hang out. Pluswhen you host a podcast, it is fun to go on somebody else's and just get to sitback and hang out and not feel like you have to [00:03:00]ask questions.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Well, that's

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:I was gonna say, do you do any of the editing yourself, or do you pass thatoff?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Absolutely not. Those days are over for a couple of different reasons. Numberone is. I was never very good at it. And so I would just edit, I would, myfirst couple of podcasts, I edited on my own in garage band on my Mac, but Ididn't actually know anything about the proper way to. Get the levels right.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And so I would just edit in my headphones, but then I would go in the car andsomebody be like, I can't even hear this in the car or like the intro musicwould be so loud. And once I graduated to earn a little bit of income from thepodcast, a couple, maybe five, six years ago, the first thing I did was hiresomebody for 50 a month on Fiverr to just do that. And then now I work withthis company called hatch.fm. And we have an amazing system. Now we're like, Irecord the podcast. We throw it up on Trello. It comes back all post produceand everything, but I know I don't do it myself anymore.

Track 1: look, we cantell you a bit more about what we got behind the scenes [00:04:00] here. But like Dave, you said it earlier, you're like,Hey, this, what we've been doing is a lot of great marketing, but the name ofthe podcast is We're Not Marketers and there's a question we ask everyguest that comes on, we're going to pass it over to gab to kick it off here

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:Thank you, Zach.

The Importance of Product Marketing

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:So Dave, are product marketers actually marketers? Why or why not?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I would argue that so I can't speak to a particular product marketer, a soloproduct marketer. The challenge is product marketing is that it's different atevery company and is defined differently. And the goals are different. Just therole of product marketing, I would actually argue is the most important role inmarketing. How's that? Because I think that people get too in the weeds incompanies. We get bent around the axle and we get too obsessed over little tinyoptimizations or tweaks, or maybe we need to, maybe we have the wrong, maybe wehave the wrong sequence going out to these people. Maybe the ad targeting iswrong.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Maybe we need to [00:05:00] send another, youknow, do another exit. It always comes back to the tactics. And if you look atLinkedIn, it is so much tactic driven. If there was one, like 80 percent thingThat makes the difference in marketing. It is what prior product marketing shouldown, which is positioning and messaging. And I think positioning is the mostimportant part of great marketing. And typically that needs to be, that istypically owned by product marketing. So as a way of working backwards fromyour question, 100 percent product marketing is probably the most importantrole. In marketing, that's not to take anything away from the others.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I think you need people who are going to promote and distribute that messageand convert that message. But without them, the message is the thing that isthe biggest thing. And if I could bet all, I wrote about this recently, likethe number one thing that I would bet on is positioning and a unique point ofview and a differentiator.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And that all comes from product.

Track 1: in in anearlier post, you mentioned You spoke about the first three marketing hiresthat you would have if you were building [00:06:00]on a marketing organization with that concept in mind amongst a promoter,designer, or a math person. Where does product marketing typically fit, Dave?

Challenges in Product Marketing

Track 1: Because onechallenge is that a lot of leaders typically misunderstand product marketingand the value of it.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I think in the early stages it's different. And so in that role, I would, thepromoter would also be responsible for product marketing because at that earlystage, like I'll give you an example. So I was the first full time marketingperson at Drift. And my job was really the promoter was to distribute. GetDrift on the map, grow awareness, right? I needed to start doing those things.But because I was the marketer distributing the message. What is the message?Wait what is the message? And so I worked really closely with David, the CEO oncoming up with the company narrative, coming up with the first slice ofhomepage copy.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And I think When we're talking early stage, if that's what we're talking aboutin those first couple of marketers, the very early stages, your productmarketing is not going to be [00:07:00] veryformal, right? It's going to be your product marketing. Your positioning mightstraight up be like the headline and the copy that you have on your homepage.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And you're just going to keep riffing on that and working or the initialversion of a sales deck. And so I would want somebody that somebody has to ownthe story. What is the narrative? And then in that example, I would also havethat person be the one that's responsible for starting to get that message outthere.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And it just makes sense, right? Hey we created this message. Where are we goingto distribute that? So we're going to work with somebody maybe on ads or sometype of funnel strategy. That's a great fit for product marketing.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:I like the way you're putting it and I think you did a really great way ofexplaining it and going in depth on your book for the brand that I'm seeing onthe right corner of your screen. The other part. Yeah.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I didn't, I can't

Track 1: It'ssomewhere on

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:can see over

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:there. Yeah. And the other setup, I had it like perfectly framed. I'm going tohave to put it somewhere. Yeah.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:Yeah.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I got a royalty check this month. I actually got $162 this month [00:08:00] from book

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:sales. no,

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:go.

Track 1: that's anincrease from what you mentioned in the past year, right? Because he said itwas, That's why you splurged on that

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:mic. That's why he splurged that 200 plus on that mic. He said, I got thatroyalty in.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I get a seven, I get about 7 a week from that baby.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Hey, let's

Track 1: Oh, hey,that passive income right there.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:That's mailbox money. Exactly. Yup.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Hey, so I like, I really like how you framed all that. And then it brought animmediate question that I thought, and we may have all experienced this, butthen why is. The messaging done by committee. Why is positioning messaging seemto be done by committee so often?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I think it's hard to do. I think that people don't understand that there is a,there's an art to this. So I'll give you an example. I was doing consulting fora little bit before I really went all in on exit five. And. I've worked at two [00:09:00] companies where I think we did a reallygood job of positioning and positioning was like a key part of our growth. Ididn't use a framework. I didn't use a system literally like it just hit me ona walk one day, or I was riffing on it in text message with the CEO. And we'relike, Oh, we got it. It's the one or two lines. And you've seen mad men, right?Did Don Draper have a system, like a framework? Like he's in his house, likelaying out paper.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:He's just, this is why I love product marketing and storytelling. This is,there's, there is a lot of science in marketing today, but there's also an artto this. And so some people have a way with words and a way of distillingthings down into a really simple message. And so I went out and I didconsulting and I work with a couple of companies and one, Company inparticular, they didn't like that.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I didn't have a framework. They wanted a framework for this. I'm like, hold on.I just rewrote your whole thing. I gave you a tagline and story. That's betterthan anything you had, but it never, they didn't buy in because they had aframework. And so what drives me nuts about the whole [00:10:00]storytelling thing is that we're more in love with finding the framework thanwe are.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:If the three of us can just riff on a call and like we go away and Zach textsyou later in the day, he's yo, I got the, I got it. We're going to talk aboutit. Like this. Why can't that be the positioning? Because then we go in acompany and we have to like, put it in a deck and present it to people.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And so I've just, I was been fortunate to work for two companies where the CEOgot marketing. The CEO also gave me a lot of freedom with the marketing. It waslike, Hey, you're pretty good at this storytelling and marketing. Communicationthing, go ahead do your thing and then get it to 90 percent and let's talkabout it. The reason that it gets done by a committee is because you might nothave that person inside the company and that's a very, people don't often likethat. People don't like the Hey, these two people right here, the CEO and thismart this bald marketing guy wrote the positioning for the company and then wetell you what it is.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:They don't like that. That they want to all be in. They want to all feel likethey were involved in the process. And this VP has a different opinion and this[00:11:00] VP is, but the CEOs that I workedwith knew that we're never going to make progress. We're never going to geteveryone to think this is awesome. Also. I've been a part of a building, abunch of different brands now. And I can tell you that at the beginning ofevery brand, almost everybody doesn't think the name is great. If you askedanybody, if I said, Hey, I'm going to call this thing, exit everybody, a bunchof people were like. I don't get it. What is that's not that good of a name.Can't you come up with something else? Two years later, everybody's Oh yeah, exitfive. That's a B2B marketing community. I had a podcast called Tech inBoston. My wife used to give me such a hard time. She's you're the worst atnaming things.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:You just say the literal name of them. She's like Tech in Boston. Whatkind of name is that? After two years of doing that podcast and 60 episodes,people are like, yes, I listen to tech and ball. I love tech. It becomes whatyou make it. And so I believe that so much of you can't sit around and wait forthe committee to bless this thing.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Like you need to be able to disagree and commit. You need one or two peopleinside of the company to work together and lead it. It doesn't mean you don'ttake in opinions from the other people. I was a strong partner to [00:12:00] sales, a strong partner to customersuccess, a strong partner to product. But they, especially at Drift, they werelike, no, we want you to, you're the word, you're the word, man, take this andrun with it. And that was the part of marketing that I love. It's it's the art,that was my I got to. I got to feel like Don Draper in that moment of coming upwith that story. And I had a really close relationship to CEO, which is reallyimportant in positioning because they're the ones who oftentimes that the founderCEO, right? That's the person who started this company. Like why? And that'sthe, why I wrote Founder Brand. That's the best marketing ingredientsyou can have. Like they didn't just start the company out of thin air. Theystarted the company because look at Eric Yuan, the guy who started Zoom. Hedidn't just one day wake up and decide to start a video platform.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:He like ran, I think it was WebEx or he ran some humongous video platformbefore that. There's always some core story. And so in my case at Drift, David,who is a CEO, was a visionary in the sales and marketing technology space. Hewas Chief Product Officer at HubSpot. He had a bunch of other companies in the [00:13:00] space already.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:So us leaning on each other to create that positioning, like there's no spacefor a committee there. Committees happen when you have like a bunch of like.Middle, middle of the road opinions. Like the great marketing happens whensomeone just says Nope, we're doing it this way and it's going to be thisway and you just have to take chances and go with it.

Track 1: Underneathyour explanation, Dave, it sounded like you built a really solid relationshipwith the CEO founder when you're at that early stage startup.

Building Trust and Influence in Early-Stage Startups

Track 1: Onechallenge for, especially for founding product marketers is building thatinfluence with their leadership to have that ownership and that trust.

Track 1: What chatterdo you see within your Exit 5 community or from your past experience on howlike a solo product marketer or can build that trust and leadership. So thatleader at the end could be like, take that, what you just said here, take thispositioning, run with it and enable it across our organization.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I think that, so when you're that solo or early marketer at a company, and thenthe example of [00:14:00] Drift, the way that Igot permission to be in that conversation with positioning was. For the firstsix months of that company. Like I just got so much shit done. I didn't careabout my title. I didn't care about who I didn't have a team.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I didn't have a good title. I didn't re I reported the CEO only because like wedidn't have a VP of marketing and he was just, I was the only person, we justneeded somebody to wrangle that. And I just got in and I just, I just dideverything. I got our blog up and running and we got our first couple ofarticles out and our website traffic went from like zero to 1500 visitors inthe first two weeks.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And I got to present that to the company and they're like, all right, this iscool. Like we got some attention now. And then we got our first couple ofemails, subscribe, like a hundred email subscribers. Then like I'm on theweekend and I'm thinking about I'm reading articles about. It was the first jobopportunity that I had where I got to do all the doing.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And so I could like make changes. And so they wanted, they want somebody whotakes ownership and autonomy and goes and just gets a bunch of things done. Andso before I became involved in the [00:15:00]positioning, like I put a ton of points on the board early on to then earn theright for the seat for, I got the right, the CEO then wanted me to bring,wanted to bring me into those, Conversations.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I'll give you an example. There's a guy on our team at Exit Five right now. Hisname is Matt and Matt's been with us for a month and a half. And Matt has justcome in. No. What can I like, boom, just gone. He's just done so much stuff ina month and a half. I find myself now like bringing him into more thingsbecause like he gets shit done and I want him to be involved.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And so there's an element of if you're the solo product marketer, I do thinkthis is a space where product marketers can get stuck product marketers oftendefault to like I got to do my research. I got to talk to customers. This isgoing to take some time. I need a framework. I need a brief. And it's like nowbeen, you've been at the company for six weeks and all we have is a Google doc.You can get there, but I'm just, especially at a startup, like you need to havea bias for action and let's [00:16:00] get abunch of stuff done. And so if you're the product market and you come in thiscompany and you want to get the sales deck. Decked on and perfect, but younotice that they don't even have a sales deck.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Like how about your first week project is to make a v1 of the deck. That's justbetter than what you have now. And it's five slides and you worked on itdirectly with the VP of marketing VP of sales, like straight out of her mouth,whatever you, okay, boom, that's V one. All right, cool. I think I like thisguy, Gab.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Like he's you need to put points on the board. You need to, you need people towant to bring you into those conversations, especially in a role like productmark product marketing, where you don't necessarily have all the keys you haveto be. You have to be brought in on all the things like you don't necessarilyown the website.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:You necessarily own sales. You don't necessarily own demand gen, but you needto be involved. The way that you do that is by putting points on the board andbeing like, being a great resource for people. This is just me, by the way,everybody might disagree this, but I have a huge bias for action. I move reallyfast.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I like people that do the same. And so I want to see somebody come in and Hey,we hired you because we need this role. We don't need you to. [00:17:00] Do six, six weeks worth of Googleslides. And here's what we could do. I want you to start making progress. Likeright now let's put some, let's put something on the board. And when I talkabout this and Exit Five and other people, some people are you can't reallyknow what changes to make until you talk to customers. I'm not saying don'ttalk to customers. I'm not saying change. Everything right out of the gate, butthere are small wins. Hey, I noticed there's no email.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:There's no email or this email that goes out. It's like pretty bad. I'm let's,can we change that? It's those little things early on that I think build upyour credibility and you get the right to have those conversations later.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:I really like that take, and I think it's like the snowball effect of let's doas much as possible, even if it's half baked, it's better than nothing or beingseen as, we got this guy or this gal six weeks ago and all they're doing is aGoogle Doc or trying to do research. So pushing stuff, showing your expertise,and then keeping in mind that this version is not necessarily the final one.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:You still need the data. You still need that research, but at least you can beseen as, hey. Zach is pretty good at what he [00:18:00]does. Why not bringing more projects and then tackling enablement strategy andall of those stuff.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And it's a good, it's a great point. And I think to add onto that, like thestage of the company matters a lot here. Is my advice, if you join the. Themarketing team of however many people at Salesforce can you just come in andbreak everything and fix everything right out of the gate?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:No, but in a scenario of being at Drift when there was just like nothing, likeI could just go write an article. I could just go make a landing page. Wechanged the website copy like three times a week for the first two years, twoyears of the company. I think the speed is your advantage and you need to getthe feedback loop going as fast as possible.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And that is such a key ingredient to product marketing.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:I love it. And I think it's, you said small organization, but we had someguests that worked for like enterprise. And I think it's also the same. It'sjust that the timeline will be longer. You're all working on making sure that.You hit those quick wins with all of the teams together. But yeah, I think it'sall about you need to show a value before [00:19:00]you say, let's take a step back and research.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:Otherwise, it's, it can be challenging, especially if you don't have theauthority to work on those projects.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah. And I think the internal piece matters a lot too. And so there are a lotof companies where the product organization. Product managers like might do alot of things that look like product marketing and other companies. And I'veseen this kind of play out a couple of times where it's like, Whoa, wait, wejust hired gab to do product marketing, but how is his role different thanMatt?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Who's our product manager. And I think you could either instantly clash or youcan be like. Hey, we're here to help the company win. What are the things thatyou do? And what are the things that I do? And let's put our superpowerstogether and find a way to be one plus one equals three verse. A lot of thisbreaks down when you're constantly at odds and you're smiling about this, causeyou must have had experience with this in the past.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:100%. Yeah.

Track 1: do you like,so a really quick question here, Dave,

Track 1: Oh, go.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:I got an asking for [00:20:00] a friendquestion. All right, so you've got, you've come in, you've got a pretty bigproduct that needs some repositioning. Cause the market has identified. Theyjust don't get it right. And Obviously it's a different take and similar to howwe've talked, right?

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:There's going to be a lot of people who feel very strongly about thatpositioning and hold it near and dear to their heart. Got any tips on on any ofour listeners who can actually get that across the finish line and prove valuein saying, let's put it up on the website, like you said, and testing orchanging it three times a week.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah, I think first. When you can lead with the data, lead with the data. Andso what you said to me is telling, it's like, Hey, this is not working. So wecan all have your opinions about like you liking this or not, but can we agreethat like our clothes, our win rate has gone down for the last [00:21:00] six months or it gets hard if you're notable to articulate that this is not working. And so I would lead with that. Andlet everybody marinate on that. Is this working? If it's working let's notchange anything. Or if it's working, my approach would be like, let's, how canwe make it a little bit better, but if it's not working, then hold on, this iscrazy. Why are we keep, why are we going to continue to do this?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Then I would try to find. You need to make the set, you need to make the salesside of this. You need to, whether it's the sales, the VP of sales, the salesleader, whoever need to make that your partner in crime, and you need to be ofservice of that sales function and be like. Let's go and do this together.Product marketing can battle with everybody except for sales. And I got a greatlesson from Dave Kellogg. I don't know if you know that it's on my podcast.Dave Kellogg is he's been a CEO. He's been a CMO. He runs one of the best B2BSaaS blogs out there. It's called Kelblog.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:He's like the master of SaaS. [00:22:00] And hesaid to me on the podcast, he said, if you're in the marketing seat, And theCEO tells you to go this way and the CRO tells you to go this way. Who shouldyou follow? And I was like, I think the CEO, he goes wrong. The CRO alwaysfollow the revenue. What the rest is going to fix itself.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And he's totally right. Which is like at the end of the day, it's sales. Causeto your, to this point Eric, if the company was. If the product was flying offthe shelves and you wouldn't have a positioning problem and the company wouldbe winning and nobody would care.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And so sales cures all. And so when I'm trying to figure out positioning, I gotto figure out how I get this right with the sales side of this. First, itdoesn't mean do exactly as they say, but how do I get them involved? How do Imake them feel heard? How do I create a V version of this? That sales isexcited about. Then you're going to have to bring in the CEO and then you'regoing to have to bring in product because sometimes you can get sales involvedand they're fired up, you pitch the positioning and product is like, [00:23:00] Yikes. This is, this check is a little bitbigger than we, this mouth is a little bit bigger than what we can cash rightnow.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And we can deliver on this, but not fully. And so you need to shop that aroundaccordingly, but I would start with sales, I would start with, Hey, is thisworking or is this not, how do I bring sales in? And then it also just dependson the CEO at some companies. The CEO is like, nope, don't want anything to dowith marketing.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I think at most companies, the CEO cares a lot about positioning. And sofiguring out what your relationship there is going to be like. I would also saysmaller, like you need to show your work along the way. The worst thing you cando is be like, Hey, we're doing a positioning project. You go away for fourweeks and you're like, all right, meeting all hands meeting.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I'm going to show you all the positioning work. That's that's asking to justget blown up. Even if it's great, people just don't, people don't like thatbecause they don't feel like they were brought in. And so even if you're notgoing to listen to the opinions of everybody, even if you're just gonna sit inthe meeting and smile, you need to bring everybody into the process.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And so you need to have a, Hey, here's a really early V1. I want to just [00:24:00] show you how we're thinking about thingslike open it up for feedback, but let people know that this is still veryearly. The more you can bring them in early and help them shape it. I thinkthat's a very important part.

Track 1: What doesbringing in early look like? Is that having an email update say, Hey, here thisis what it looks like.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:It can't. Yeah, it could be that I would even go all the way back to the stepat the beginning. Like people need to know that this is being worked, like weneed to make a change and we're going to work on it. And so ideally, if we'retalking about like an early stage startup or something, I would want the CEO tobe like, maybe Eric has the power to send that message, but if not, I would belike managing up to the CEO and be like, Hey, look, we're going to go do thispositioning thing.

Announcing the Positioning Project

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I think it'd be a good message from you to mention at like the management teammeeting that we're going to go work on it. And it's Hey, FYI, like we've seenour win rate go down over the last six months. I think it's time that we starttackling positioning. So Eric. Eric and I've asked Eric to lead that chargewith me.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Eric and I are going to start to work on this over the next couple of weeks. [00:25:00] I just want to give you a heads up. We'llhave more to share soon. We're going to bring in all your opinions. We want tofactor everything that you all have to say. We're going to get this going. Andthen like in two weeks, we're going to have a cross functional positioningsession where we're going to show you how we're thinking about it.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Let's have a brainstorm, like a working session together, something like that,where you let them know that it's being worked on. Bring them in early and thenhave a V one of something to show.

The Importance of Executing Positioning

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I also think it's really important to show, I think too. Oftentimes positioninggets just trapped in a Google doc forever.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And this is why my rant, this is related to my rant on frameworks earlier. Thepositioning doesn't mean anything unless you can execute on it. And so I thinkpeople need to see, and here's what the website, here's what the homepage isgoing to look like. Here's what the sales deck is going to look like.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:They need to see the, how this message is going to be distributed. It.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:All right. If I get no other golden nuggets out of this conversation, that waslike a whole bar for me. I appreciate that a lot.

Casual Conversation and Fun Facts

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Dave,

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And the Jordan one is, and will [00:26:00]always be the best Jordan. Just so you know,

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:a hundred percent agree. You can't see it all, but yeah, I got now I

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:can

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:all over. And fun fact for you, I won't wear anything other than 1s, 5s. I'vegot kinda chicken ankles, and everything above that just is not veryflattering,

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:because they cover up your ankles. That's why

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:But yeah, exactly they just, it's not good, right? A little bit too high.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:rates you get on this level though.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:ayyyy,

Track 1: Ayyyyyyyyy.Oh and are we rocking the same sandals?

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:that's what I'm talkin about.

Track 1: Oh okay,slightly Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha Ohhh, let's go!

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Let's go.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:All day.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Can you put that beat? Can you put that beat

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:on as we transition here? That would be great. Thank you.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:I, 100%, we're gonna put Zach, you hear that? mode. [00:27:00]Drake?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:the

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:intro.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah,

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:that's the intro. Yeah. we got to have that on.

Marketing Torture Chamber

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Dave, we like to have a little bit of fun on every show and it started offactually off with Anthony Pierri

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:we created a messaging torture chamber device where we put you in a veryuncomfortable position to pick two options, right? A or B they're good. They'resupposed to hurt your heart and make you essentially hate us. And then you'reforced to pick one of those options. No pleading the fifth is allowed.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:All right.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:So how do you feel about those rules?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Let's go.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:So you've got some money to spend. Are you going to spend it on brand orcontent? And you can only do one really.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Content. All day.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:All right. I like Yeah.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Content is brand.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Okay. Fair enough. All right. You got to hire someone to do ads or just dosocial

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Just do social. All day. And [00:28:00] that's.That's what I'm good at. That's like where I have strength.

Debating Marketing Strategies

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And so I, I would, I believe that you can make a huge dent in a brand, likethrough to the reason I said content, the reason I said social organic, give mea LinkedIn page, a Twitter account or something, and I think you can make a tonof progress without spending a lot of money.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:agreed.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I just think we're in the era of like PR when I came up, companies would bespending 10 to 20 grand a month for a PR retainer. And now I'm like who are youeven pitching? There's no media outside of like big publications, like the NewYork times or wall street journal, which is very hard to get in. And. Gone arethe days of just like raising money would get you press. I would just throw allthat away. And you just see random people build massive audiences, like throughnewsletters and sub stacks. Like you can do that for your niche. And so I wouldjust start writing online is the simplest way that I would explain [00:29:00] that.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:I like that. Any of you guys agree with him?

Track 1: Look at

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:those kind of felt like trick questions.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:There's a lot of, there's a lot of people who would answer brand and then adscause they don't know the social media game, but if you do, then you need toplay the game,

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:yeah, I figured I knew which one you were going to answer here, but all right,you got this one, I'm very curious.

Event Marketing Insights

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:So you can go to events that are hosted by others or host your own events.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:go to events that are hosted by others, but do my own events at their event.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Ah, Aha! So instead of spending booth money, have your own event, huh?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah, exactly. Do a dinner do. We did a bunch of cool stuff when I was at Driftat Sasser one day, one, one year we invited 50 maybe 20, 20, 30 people. Weinvited them to, we rented out Barry's bootcamp for that morning and we invitedthem there. And that little thing created this amazing connection with like 20or 30 people that we wanted to sell to or existing customers. And I don't havea ROI [00:30:00] number on that. It didn'tlike, we don't know yes, three people. Purchase Drift after that, but therelationships and buzz we created and like brand affinity from doing that wasso worth it. I also went to Sastr one year, actually two years I went and Ibrought a zoom H4N podcast recorder, two XLR mics and a backpack. And I messageda bunch of people on LinkedIn, like on the flight there and said, Hey, I'mrecording a bunch of interviews on site while we're there. And I did 10, 10interviews. We got a ton of content, just like me carrying my backpack aroundby myself, microphone in people's faces face. And again, I don't, I can't tellyou, like we closed six customers from that.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I get that. That might be the better part of having a booth, but we didn'tspend 50 grand to go and do that. So the reason I gave that answer is becauseyou. It's just like the marketing one on one piece. Go to where everybody is.And if everybody's at Sastr and Dreamforce, that's at least narrowed down,like, where is everybody?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:That's one of the hardest questions in marketing is like, how do I get in frontof my customers? Where [00:31:00] are they?They're at this event during this time. Okay. So then what are you going to do?But

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Man, this is a level, this is a level up for us three today. All right, deal?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:all these answers though are actually the most simple answers.

Simplifying B2B Marketing

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Like we just get lost in the, like we've, we make B2B marketing or marketing.We get lost in the funnel and the metrics. And it is just the more you cansimplify it. That's where the answers are. And. I got this drilled into my headwhen I was at Drift from David, who was a CEO.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:He's stop obsessing over SaaS metrics. Stop obsessing over B2B marketing. Useyour brain. What music do you listen to? What shows do you watch? Whoinfluences how you buy? Like those same things apply. Just now figure that outfor this world. And that just rewired my brain to be how I think today.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:I feel like we're not taking into account the human part in B2B decisioncompared to B2C. Like sometimes we're like always focused on, we sell tobusinesses, we sell to businesses, but who owns [00:32:00]businesses, who work at businesses, people, humans, and all of that. So I thinkthere's a big, not disconnect, but I've been in that SaaS metrics and you getlike paralysis analysis. But it's all about what do I like to do with my freetime? What are my passion? Why do I like to do? And this is basically how wetry to steer the direction of the pod as well,

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah. Can you get attention from the people that you want to sell to is likewhat it all comes down to. If you can do that, then you earn the right to havethe next conversation. Doesn't mean that you can't win. If you don't have theright product, you don't have the right pitch. You're it's going to fall downeventually, but part one is at least getting in the door to have aconversation.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:100 percent. All right, so I got one more, one more question for you and we'llpull you out of this and get back to the regular conversation, but you're inBoston, so is it a Maine roll or a Connecticut roll for you?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I've never heard of either of those things. What's that

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:A lobster roll, huh?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:a main, I just call it a lobster roll.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Oh, so you didn't know there were two versions.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Alright, so the Maine one is the cold [00:33:00]one. And

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Maine is cold.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:is like hot with

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Oh, yeah, the cold one, but it's got to be proper It's got to be like fresh ifit's borderline I'm not eating a borderline lobster roll like it needs to belike at least $32 kind of lobster roll

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:And not coming from a grocery store.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah. Like I got a couple of, two years ago, I got LASIK, the like surgery, youcan get like surgery on re correct your vision for your eyes and it's a, it waslike a pretty expensive procedure and I was Googling it and I found thissubreddit and this guy was like, I've actually, I found a guy and he can do itfor 400 bucks and I'm like, I don't

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:want you're like, no,

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:like

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:the, whatever. to yourself.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:lasers they're putting in your eyes, re redraw your cornea for a couple ofhundred bucks. Like I'm good. You can have that one. So I want the prop thatthe lobster roll has to be proper.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:And I totally agree. Most of my family's in Connecticut. And yeah, no one'sgetting a gas station lobster roll and living through that.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah. Where exactly is Connecticut [00:34:00]now? I'm not

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:I'm actually, I'm in Pennsylvania

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:as I call

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:it, Dave. So we're a little close. I'm down in central Pennsylvania.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:live in Vermont now, so I'm up in the.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:What part?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Burlington.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Oh, okay. All right. I've got a I've got a big I'm a big fan of Mount Snow.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Nice. All

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Well, you'll see it. You'll see it when you're here in September. So

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:I was we're telling

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:the boys yesterday.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:What a better time of the year to get up to Vermont.

Track 1: forward toDave. Quick. Before I ask this question here, we done with the torture chamber.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:He's done and I and truthfully didn't make it as torturous as I normally wouldso he lucked out this time They're normally really painful questions.

Track 1: Dave, aquestion for you. So earlier in the conversation, you talked a little bit aboutlike marketing, be like befriending sales and really following the revenue.

The Role of Podcasts in B2B Marketing

Track 1: And Iremember you had a conversation on your podcast about podcasting and it feelslike this has been an emerging trend in like B2B to say [00:35:00] the least.

Track 1: I'm curiousto hear your take on it is that more B2B podcasts are coming out because theysee it as a channel. Of acquiring customers and getting revenue and followingsomeone like yourself, who's you've met, you've said this many times beforeHey, like this this podcast has been a huge, like acquisition channel for ourbusiness.

Track 1: And it seemslike it's conflicting with what you said before I said, Hey, like your goalhere is to like, put points to the board, help influence revenue. But one thingyou guys said in a conversation is that if you build a podcast. You're notgoing to start seeing results around like a year and a half here.

Track 1: So like forproduct marketers who are considering like tapping as a podcast, as a newchannel, What, like, how do you set those expectations with sales to say Hey,like we have this innovative idea. We're going to do this, but you're not goingto see results in probably a year. I'm curious, like, how, like, how do younavigate that?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I think this is part of this is part of the [00:36:00]job is you need to be able to do long term, you need to be able to do shortterm and long term stuff. And so in the example earlier, if I only came in andonly put points on the board and was always running around playing whack amole, putting out like the next urgent fire. That would only work to a point.And we would never build a foundation to grow over time. It's if you don'tinvest in, SEO earlier, early, it never has the chance to compound. And so Ithink the, what I would do in that scenario is I think you need to have a clearstory about why you're going to do a podcast. Where does this fit in theoverall brand and as a company, what purpose does it serve to your business?And because it's not going to point points on the board early, this is wheremarketers make a mistake. It can't be the only thing that the team sees youdoing. And so you're like, Hey, we're going to go do a podcast.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:It's not going to put any points in the board for a long time. And by the way,I'm also not going to have time to do anything else. That doesn't work, but if [00:37:00] you can start to build it in 20 or 30percent of your time I think you got to look at the split. I think 70 percentof your activities should be, this is roughly, 80, what, whether you want tocall it 80, 80, 20, 70, 30, 60, 40, whatever. Let's say 70, 30, 70 percent ofyour activities need to be focused on today. How do we. Hit the sale. How do wedrive sales today? 30 percent has to be in the future. And in that futurebucket is going to be a lot of things that are about building your brand. Andwhen I talk about building brand, I like to think of brand as your reputation,not your logos, not your colors, not brand marketing, but like, how do we builda reputation for this?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Company over time. Now, what if I said to you though, that one of the reasonsthat we want to start a podcast actually is because right now we need to createa lot of content about this topic. We have developed a unique, so back to,let's make this whole thing go for us. Full circle. We're great productmarketers.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:We've developed this absolutely killer positioning. We have a killer brandstory. We're going to use our podcast as a [00:38:00]way to help get this message out and create content at scale with a Becausewhat we're going to do is we're actually, we have a new, we have a whole newway of thinking about HR and how companies need to be doing HR today.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And so our CEO has deep experience in HR and she's actually going to be thehost of our podcast. And each week she's going to talk to somebody in theindustry, right? Your sales team is going to understand that. And they're gonnabe like, Oh, okay. So this is like a perception thing. So like the, our CEO isgoing to be seen with interesting people. We're going to be creating an hour'sworth of audio content with her every week. That's become sales enablement.There's a reason for people to go and reach out. And sent, send a podcastepisode. Now all of a sudden each podcast episode is becoming three clips forLinkedIn. And we're also going to be able to like ghost, write a couple ofposts for her each week.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:And so we're going to start to build up this content machine. See how I'mpitching you more on we're starting a podcast. No, I'm telling you how thisfits into the podcast as a piece of our like integrated content strategy. Andit's an anchor piece to that. Or Ian [00:39:00]does something different than I do.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I've done like interview shows, like focus on interviewing experts. But Iandoes something like. he does really deep like scripted fiction shows likemurder in HR, right? That's going to be a show that, you're trying to sell toHR people. We're creating this podcast. That's going to be a conversationstarter for the people that we want to sell to, right? And over time, you'llsee, you'll be able to see it. And when I was at Drift, David and I, the CEO,we had a podcast called seeking wisdom. We were a mark. We were a marketingtechnology company. We never talked about marketing technology on that podcast.We talked about, Books. We were reading workouts, lessons, and learnings, hisexperiences as an entrepreneur, me, like as an up and coming worker, what I'munderstanding that podcast grew so fast and became such a driver of pipelinefor our company.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:How does that make sense? We didn't ever sell our product because peoplestarted to get to know us and like us and trust us, and they'd listen to ourpodcasts and yeah, I really like what those guys are Drift are doing. I don'treally know what their product does yet, but I love listening to this podcast.Then when we [00:40:00] have a launch and we'reon everybody's radar and they're like, okay, you know what? I've been listeningto their podcasts. I really like these guys. I think I might be able to usethis thing for my business. Let me go and check it out. That's how buyinghappens. I think that can't be your entire marketing strategy from the get go,especially if you're in a short term sales crunch.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:If we need sales, if we need pipeline right now, then I'm not just going tosay, go do a podcast. I'm gonna be like, let's make a list of our. 20 best fitcustomers right now. And we need to get on the phone and get on email and getin front of them. But I think it's a key part of building the foundation forbuilding your brand longterm.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:It's all circling back to what you said at the beginning, the story, makingsure we're able to, what is the why instead of let's just start a podcastultimately,

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah, you gotta have, you gotta have a reason. And just because somebody, I seepeople like and I think Ian didn't agree with this, which is fine, but they'relike, don't do an interview show anymore. Don't do what Dave does. Don't justbring on experts and interview them. Maybe that might not work in your niche,but what if it does, what if you're a well, really [00:41:00]well connected founder and you actually have an amazing network of people andyou're interesting on the mic and you could interview them for every week andget interesting like then go and do it, or think about another, think about aninteresting, or what if you're just three, three people that met through workand have a common interest and you're going to start this podcast togetherwithout a goal, like. Why are you doing it? It comes back to the, why are westarting this? And then you can find a way how to sell it to the sales team.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:All right. No, this is fucking awesome. So Dave, thank you for coming on today.Another awesome

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Friday with the we're not marketers boys. I wanted to ask you, especially forour listeners who are interested in having. Already followed along and knowwhat you're doing. Where can you point them to?

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:And do you have any things coming up in the future that you want to tease?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:go to exit five. com seven day free trial dial 1 800 EXIT 5. One of our staffwill be happy to take your call. And I just sent, I sent the three of you. Ilooked you up. None of you is an exit five [00:42:00]member, but I just hooked you up free for life. I sent you an email. There's alink in your email. So go join exit five.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:Wow. That's

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:you better

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:be

Track 1: my gosh,David. Oh. That's all.

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Let's go

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:making my day.

Track 1: Yeah, that'sa similar feeling I'm feeling right now after when I sent you that cold inbailthat when I got yours. So this is a similar feeling right now. I'm

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah. So go in there. double for the trip in in Vermont. That's what's going tohappen for that

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:no. We're going to, we're going to, we'll have sponsors pay for it. The ticketsshould be affordable.

Track 1: looking

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:this

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:was cool. Yeah, I guess what? Find you on LinkedIn and exit five, right?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yeah. Yeah. You've yeah. Exit five. If you're in B2B marketing and you want togo a little bit deeper get some B2B marketing knowledge, sharpen your tool seta little bit, hop in there, join the we're not marketers boys in there. Andcheck out exit five. com and I'm on LinkedIn, Dave Gerhart. Thanks for lettingme hang out with you guys. These things are fun to do. Two weeks ago when wewere going to do it, I had the flu, like the real flu, like [00:43:00] 103 fever flu.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:So I'm glad

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:I was able to bring the better energy today and thanks for hanging out. Iappreciate you

Track 1: Certainly.And before we hop off here a little bit more about that event you mentionedhere at the start of our conversation, can you give us more details?

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Still working on it. September 11th and 12th. In Vermont, there's no websiteyet. We're working on it right now, but I've paid the money for it. It'shappening September 11th and 12th in Vermont. We're doing a small gathering forB2B marketers. Come join us. If you want to go do something different. Ifyou're tired of going to dreamforce, you're tired or go to the big events andyou want to come hang out with us in Vermont, we're going to do a little exitfive.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Get together for two days in September and I'll have more to share soon.

Track 1: And if youare a product marketer who doesn't identify as a marketer, we'll be there too.So

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:Yes.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:Maybe you guys can host, we want to do these little breakouts. Maybe you guyscan host one for the people who are not marketers, but came anyway.

gab_1_03-15-2024_134151:That would be awesome.

Track 1: [00:44:00] let's talk more. Let's talk more. We gotyou.

dave_1_03-15-2024_134152:All right. Sounds

eric-holland_1_03-15-2024_134152:All right. Thank you to everyone for coming to another episode of we're notmarketers.

Track 1: All right.Take care, everyone.

Thank you for listening to We're Not Marketers. If you likewhat you heard, please subscribe, review our podcast, and share this episodewith other PMMs. Thanks again and see you soon.

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